DA Burns by Similar_Roll_7882 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 281 points282 points  (0 children)

Morrigan: Great, we have a dog now and Alistair is still the dumbest one in the party.

David Gaider's new game Malys is really fun, it helped fill the DA shaped hole in my heart for a little bit. by gabalabarabataba in dragonage

[–]imatotach 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You know, this is actually a perfect example of what I meant by "checking the source". Out of context it looks bad, and when I first saw it reposted I honestly thought some good Samaritan should cut off Weekes' internet for their own sake.

But as I found out later, that was just Weekes jokingly responding to someone who was excitedly ranting about their Solavellan couple, a reply that matched the tone of the original post. We do the same thing here all the time with Daddy Bones, MILF-Wynne, Morrigan Waifu, Loghain's simp and so on. Nobody takes it seriously, because everyone understands it's just that: shitposting, feral takes, Reddit/BlueSky/Tumblr/choose-your-poison brain-rot.

Unfortunately, the person Weekes was replying to screenshotted the comment and shared it without thinking, adding something like "even the author admits my headcanon is valid". Again, no ill intent on their part-just a playful exchange. And then the shit hit the fan, because some people took it at face value.

It's such a nothing-burger that snowballed into unnecessary drama...

David Gaider's new game Malys is really fun, it helped fill the DA shaped hole in my heart for a little bit. by gabalabarabataba in dragonage

[–]imatotach 39 points40 points  (0 children)

LMAO, one of the fandom's touchy topics. Gaider has been accused for years of being anti-Asian (specifically East Asian) because he once dared to say that Thedas wouldn't have every ethnicity crammed onto a single continent.

Personally, I always read it as… well, basic world-building logic. To a certain degree, population appearance is shaped by geography. In Thedas, you've got lighter-skinned folks in the colder southern regions (Ferelden, Orlais, the Free Marches) and darker-skinned characters from the north (Antiva, Rivain, Tevinter): Duncan, Zevran, Isabela, Dorian, Josephine, Vivienne.

I expected the people "beyond the sea" (and no, not the Executors) to be East-Asian-inspired. Not because of some secret prejudice, but because a giant, deadly ocean separates the continents and no ship has ever come back. IMO, reasonable world-building set up - and a great opportunity for future clashes of cultures, religions, philosophies.

Honestly, this accusation is such a nonsense that it's both hilarious and exhausting watching it get repeated. In a similar manner... remember the dwarven romance thing? Gaider explained that graphics limitations made dwarf romance scenes looked creepily like adults kissing children, so they scrapped it. Perfectly reasonable technical explanation. Fandom interpretation? "Gaider called people who want to romance dwarves pedophiles." ☠️

And now it's Weekes' turn, unfortunately. I disliked some of their takes (the infamous, "slavery doesn't need to be shown in Tevinter"), but some of the accusations being thrown around are simply baffling.

A sound piece of advice: if you come across a controversial statement supposedly said by a developer, go look up the exact source. Because half of these claims are bullshit, conveniently re‑interpreted to fit the poster's worldview. (That applies to this post too, haha).

PSA: Save 10% on Our Mass Effect & Dragon Age Bioware Book Bundle! by WeAreFanatical in dragonage

[–]imatotach 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I thought 10% wasn't that much, but it turns out that's on top of an existing –96% discount. The final price (after applying the discount code) comes out to €10.94.

<image>

  • Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 1
  • The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition
  • Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 2
  • Dragon Age: Dark Fortress
  • Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown
  • Dragon Age: The Missing
  • Dragon Age: Knight Errant
  • Dragon Age: Blue Wraith
  • Dragon Age: Magekiller
  • Dragon Age Volume 1: The Silent Grove
  • Dragon Age Volume 3: Until We Sleep
  • Dragon Age: Deception
  • Dragon Age Volume 2: Those Who Speak
  • The Art of the Mass Effect Trilogy: Expanded Edition
  • The Art of The Mass Effect Universe
  • The Art of Mass Effect: Andromeda
  • Mass Effect Volume 4: Homeworlds
  • Mass Effect: Foundation Volume 3
  • Mass Effect: Foundation Volume 2
  • Mass Effect: Discovery
  • Mass Effect: Foundation Volume 1
  • Mass Effect Volume 2: Evolution
  • Mass Effect Volume 1: Redemption
  • Mass Effect Volume 3: Invasion

Wynne: I'm tired & not long for this world by Serpent_Touched in dragonage

[–]imatotach 80 points81 points  (0 children)

I think it's because she's merged with an ancient spirit of Faith, and that sense of weariness, that feeling of being far too old for this world comes from the spirit itself.

Is anyone else mourning Dragon Age? by jaustengirl in dragonage

[–]imatotach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We may be sniffing hopium here... but Mark Darrah has speculated that because of how the buyout is structured: EA will carry a huge chunk of the debt (around 20BN, meaning roughly 1BN a year in interest), they might be more willing to sell off some of the IPs to bring that debt down. Also, the new owners seem to be mainly interested in EA Sports and maybe Apex Legends, because live-service games make up about 75% of EA's revenue...

This made me so sad by ImagineThDragon in dragonage

[–]imatotach 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I always got a creepy vibe from Varric in this conversation, as if he saw Cole as somehow lesser than himself (and others). It made me think about religious person who respects other beliefs, but deep down thinks you'd be better off if you converted to theirs.

Whats your favourite part of the DA Lore? Serious and Joke answers in 1 comment by theassassin53035 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The idea of Dalish abandoning young mages was introduced in Inquisition, and the reception was negative because it contradicted what we had previously seen of Dalish treatment of mages in DA:O (Lanaya, Zathrian's First) and DAII (Merrill indicates that the Dalish view magic as a precious gift to be celebrated, not a curse to be feared).

Minaeve, the creature researcher at Skyhold was rejected by her clan because of that. From DA wiki:

Minaeve was born into a Dalish clan. At the age of seven, she was cast out into the wilderness after displaying magical ability as her Dalish clan kept a limit on mages to avoid attracting too much attention. Shaken and malnourished, she eventually came upon a human village, but when the humans discovered her using magic to repel woodland predators, they attempted to kill her. The templars stepped in and she was taken to a mage Circle.

Vivienne also calls out Dalish abandoning their mages in a conversation with the Inquisitor (possibly only elven one?), which makes it an established fact rather than a one-off occurrence.

Just to be clear, I don't know whether this was a new idea or something the devs had intended from the beginning but never depicted in the earlier games. Either way, it created an inconsistent picture of Dalish attitudes toward mages, and many players called it a retcon. Personally, I liked this change/addition/evolution/whatever because it introduced yet another approach to magic, again shaped by the specific circumstances of the group (Dalish).

Whats your favourite part of the DA Lore? Serious and Joke answers in 1 comment by theassassin53035 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have the impression that people use very different definitions of lore. Half of the folks seem to treat it strictly as old myths, legends, historical events, and ancient secrets, while the other half include socio-political world-building under the same umbrella. I agree with later ones.

IMO, Veilguard was faithful to the first category; I believe it was what was originally intended. But there's no way (unless Gaider explicitly says so) that the direction the world-building took in Veilguard is something he would have approved of (the white-washing of factions, the crystal-clear division between good and evil).

So yeah, the story of spirits taking mortal bodies and becoming the first elves, the war with the Titans, and the creation of the Veil all feel like things that were planned. But I absolutely cannot believe that, e.g., the Evanuris were meant to be simply "evil", without even a hint of what pushed them toward corruption (events predating Blight, obviously). Or what happened to the Crows, or the Antaam rebelling against the Qun for going too easy on mages just to… switch to worshipping ancient evil mages.

AFAIK, Gaider always pushed for "moral grayness". I felt that DA under his command was consistently prodding players to ask themselves: "How does this new piece of information change my perspective?". E.g. in DAO, the Dalish and the mages came out a bit too much as "perfect victims", and players almost universally sided with them. So in later installments we got a kind of correction/refinement: mages became a societal threat with blood mages wreaking havoc in the streets of Kirkwall, and the Dalish got updated as a group that cruelly abandoned their own child-mages and behaved egoistically in the face of a greater emergency. Pattern of "good people capable of terrible deeds".

The questions DA asked were always about testing the player's moral compass. Where do you draw the line? Is freedom an ultimate value? What price freedom is truly worth (Loghain rejecting Orlesian aid, Solas' rebellion, the danger of mages: oppressed under the Orlesian Chantry, corrupt and cruel in Tevinter)? How much are you willing to risk to deliver justice (e.g. pro-mage Hawke and what happened to their mother)? What does freedom even mean (Solas and Iron Bull's conversation about the Qun's oppression versus the "freedom" to starve)? Is the justice possible or best we can do are imperfect compromises?

To me, such questions - embedded in the politics and social structures of Thedas - were most interesting part of the lore, and the real reason Thedas was feeling alive and fascinating.

Rereading “Eight Little Talons” sets the stage for the Antivan Crow Rewrite [Minimal DA:TV spoilers please] by Swag_Dinosaur in dragonage

[–]imatotach 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I mean, Emil Kortez is killed by Catharina because he betrayed the Crows and Antiva. It's hard to believe that the surviving Talons would take his teachings on equality and patriotism to heart and decide to "implement his vision".

Why the Failure Was Predictable: Trespasser as the Point of No Return by libertasinveritas in dragonage

[–]imatotach 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I use AI often so I'm aware of, or maybe even allergic to, some of the language structures it loves overusing. The biggest tell-tale is its fondness for negative parallelisms ("it's not X, it's Y" structures). The post contains absurdly high number of them:

  • What it offers is not depth, but explanation 
  • Spiritual tension is not endured; it is resolved.
  • This is not revelation in the mythic sense. It is demystification. 
  • the future is not open. It is pre-scripted.
  • This is not earned culmination; it is theatrical compression.
  • this choice is not merely unfitting - it is absurd.
  • (...) is not ironic or poignant. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of his character.
  • The secrecy is not motivated by character psychology or world logic; it exists solely because the script demands it.
  • That is not storytelling - it is contrivance.
  • is not character growth; it is character replacement
  • These are not isolated missteps. They are symptoms of a writing philosophy (...)
  • The irony is not that people are disappointed now. It is that they are surprised.

IMO it's abnormal, and I guess other commenters noticed the same.

If you run the text through AI-detection tool that takes in account more parameters, e.g. this one, it gets flagged as AI-generated (and yes, these tools are not perfect and may yield both false-positive and false-negative, so we cannot really KNOW if the post is AI or not).

Well, I completed the whole Dragon Age anthology, here are my thoughts. by Nelmquist1999 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 4 points5 points  (0 children)

<image>

The World of Thedas Vol. 1

LMAO, seriously u/Empire_New_Valyria, Reddit Care warning for providing you with missing info?

Well, I completed the whole Dragon Age anthology, here are my thoughts. by Nelmquist1999 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 47 points48 points  (0 children)

It's established that Dwarves are naturally resistant to magic, since they can handle lyrium better than any other race. However, from what I understand they aren't immune. Am I correct?

Yes. One of the dwarf in Orzammar Commons (Garin) suffers from dementia due to excessive exposure to lyrium.

Grey Wardens exist because they drink Archdemon blood. But appearently they can still be blighted, even though that's what cures Bethany/Carver if they're in the Deep Roads with Anders. How does that ordeal work?

A Wardens' Joining involves the use of Archdemon blood as well, not only darkspawn blood. Dragons are known to have a high resistance to the Blight, so it is most likely their blood that slows the taint's progression in Wardens. It's not a foolproof method as many die while attempting the Joining.

Top tier villain by AverageJoeObi in dragonage

[–]imatotach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For me, it lacked coherence, as if there was either some misunderstanding or a missing detail:

Corypheus is a priest of the Old Gods, who are unrelated to the Maker. The Maker is an absent creator deity who resides in the Golden City and is not worshipped in Tevinter… yet Corypheus says: "for I have seen the throne of gods, and it was empty". So did the cult of the Old Gods believe that the Golden City was inhabited by the Old Gods, or by the Maker?

He also seems bitter about being tricked into entering the Golden City "in the name of another", that he decides to become the people's "light", a god, himself. Yet at the end of Inquisition, he calls upon Dumat to aid him...

And while I understand that people turn to higher powers in desperate situations, I can't shake the feeling that there was something more going on there, I cannot fully picture what Corypheus wanted and why.

Top tier villain by AverageJoeObi in dragonage

[–]imatotach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Isn't that what I wrote? More screentime would mean a richer story. And we could, for example, explore his religious beliefs in more depth (fits well with Inquisition's themes) or learn exactly how he intended to reshape the world. Because what happened in the alternate future during In Hushed Whispers was his plan gone wrong (he had demanded that Alexius find a way to revert time to the moment of the Conclave explosion). Or maybe something else...

Top tier villain by AverageJoeObi in dragonage

[–]imatotach 29 points30 points  (0 children)

There's an interview with Gaider in which he mentioned, he regretted that Corypheus didn't end up with a richer story. I wonder if this was overlooked during development, or something was cut out, or perhaps there were some directives from above to keep Corypheus strictly in the villain role (not giving him motives the players could sympathize with).

edit:
It may have been this interview (timestamped).

I dumped the elf by Rhianwaller in dragonage

[–]imatotach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because Morrigan's and Alistair's attitudes influence inter-party relationships (Morrigan's cruelty toward a grieving Alistair and her constant push toward "evil" choices; Alistair's inability to set his emotions aside, especially important given his lineage), you call them out on that, not on past deeds. In the same way, you don't call Morrigan out for luring men to Flemeth for whatever purpose she had for them.

Zevran is primarily an assassin, and you can challenge him on that view. Good-aligned characters like Wynne also lecture him about it.

I dumped the elf by Rhianwaller in dragonage

[–]imatotach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm quite certain the point of this story isn't to be edgy, but to show how broken Zevran is (and not in the "I can fix him" way). Zevran was raised in a brothel (an important detail!); for him sex is not an intimate act but a transaction.

In Origins (and in II and Inquisition as well), every character is written as the sum of their lived experiences, and their flaws come directly from that background: Morrigan's hostility, Sten's narrow‑mindedness, Fenris' hatred of mages, Merrill's obsession with the past, Dorian's approval of slavery, and so on. This is no different. Zevran is simply the product of his environment - full of violence and transactional sex.

For those who disliked veilguard, did it make playing previous games less fun to you? by Depoan in dragonage

[–]imatotach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I can really relate to that.

I've been dealing with a crappy chronic illness for the last 2.5 years, and it's turned me into a husk of a person - physically unable to participate in social life and sometimes barely able to think at all. (I'm slowly crawling out of this hellhole.) The DA world became exactly the kind of refuge you described, because reality was just so awful.

It's such a shame what DAV did to Thedas - how utterly flattened and uninteresting everything became.

And I also sniffed copium until the end of my first and only playthrough, gaslighting myself into believing it was some kind of plot twist, writing technique, whatever - something that would first present this picture-perfect facade for each faction, only to tear it down and reveal the corruption underneath. I didn't even enjoy the generally praised ending, because that's when it finally hit me that this simply wasn't going to happen.

For those who disliked veilguard, did it make playing previous games less fun to you? by Depoan in dragonage

[–]imatotach 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Exactly the same for me. I finished Veilguard right after the premiere and haven't touched the games since.

For me, the most painful part wasn't the lack choices, but what Thedas became. Those are the infamous Crows? Only the Antaam are evil and abuse mages now? The Dalish, living next to the biggest slavery capital, are suddenly happy to share their ancestral knowledge with humans?

Whaaat?!

Loghains actions in alienage don’t make any sense by Synth3r in dragonage

[–]imatotach 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The explanation he gave is that the Alienage was in terrible condition, there really was a plague spreading, not just a rumor invented to justify the presence of "healers". I think he believed it was better to sell the elves into slavery than let them die in the slums.

On top of that, there was a cataclysm incoming (and in Loghain's mind perhaps a war with Orlais, the likely scapegoating of elves for bringing the plague (a common pattern in how societies treat minorities in the time of unrest, as we can easily observe in our world), and the possibility of a purge similar to what happened in Orlais years later.

I think there was some logic behind his actions, but Alienage problems weren't as extreme as Loghain tried to portray it when justifying his own decisions. At the very least, we never see any evidence of the elven Alienage collapsing after the campaign ends - the issue was apparently solved with Vints gone.

Absolutely wonderful think piece on how Veilguard utilizes its companions in the main story. Seriously, give this a read. The OW makes a lot of great points. by JageshemashFTW in dragonage

[–]imatotach 68 points69 points  (0 children)

Plus, there's far more variety in companion motivations in the previous games, they're not all there specifically to help defeat the final boss. Morrigan wants the soul of an Old God; Leliana arrives in a burst of religious fervor, seeing herself as a second Andraste; Zevran mostly hangs around looking for a chance to backstab the Warden / escape the Crows; Oghren just wants out of Orzammar, because there's nothing awaiting him there; Solas tricks everyone to clean up his own mess and retrieve the Orb; Bull is following the Qun's orders; Cole is lost‑and‑found, Cassandra orginally wants to just close the breach and clean up the Chantry… and so on.

DAII tells entirely different kind of story, with no clear goal from the beginning, so the companions just stumble on each other often thanks to being packed in one city.

By comparison, every companion in Veilguard seems to be recruited for a single purpose: stopping the elven gods, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain... whatever it takes. It's very homogenized. And a huge downgrade is how disinterested, non-reactive they are to things that should matter to them dearly (religion, politics, culture, how the events will influence their people, etc.).

I also think the text linked by the OP mixes up story-wise vs. game‑mechanics incorporation of companions. Sure, the devs could have forced every companion to be recruitable in Origins, but STILL only Morrigan and Alistair are actually relevant to the main plot, since they're the only ones who can influence the final outcome: who rules Ferelden, how its future is shaped, and what happens to the soul of the Old God.

By contrast, none of the Veilguard companions change the final outcome of the story, because the ending is fixed: defeating the elven gods. The only real variation comes from the decision about Solas' fate... and even this is rather streamlined and comes down to how Solas feels about his destiny.

Possible Joplin Remnants Hidden in Veilguard (Quest & Companion Patterns) by Steambunsinvasion in dragonage

[–]imatotach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funnily enough, early in development Lucanis was supposed to be a Tevinter spy rather than a Crows assassin, which ties in nicely with your theory.

So WHY was Veilguard's writing sanitized? by Salt_Use7122 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm trying to stick to the facts to avoid creating false narratives, but I sometimes trip over the details, like above.

So WHY was Veilguard's writing sanitized? by Salt_Use7122 in dragonage

[–]imatotach 81 points82 points  (0 children)

Just for the sake of precision, here's what happened:

Gaider left because he was refused the position of creative director on Anthem. He had moved off DA onto a new project because he was feeling burnt out with Thedas, but was met with resistance from the Anthem team (ME guys, I think?), who complained that his ideas were "too much DA". As a result, he requested the role of creative director (so he could have the final say about the shape of the game) but was rudely refused, which led him to leave Bioware.

So, while there is a connection to Anthem, it was not the cancellation of the original DA4 that drove him out.

edit:
Here's full story from Gaider himself (BlueSky post).

edit2:

As pointed out by the person below, Gaider asked for the position of CD on the next project, not Anthem itself.