Dragon Age: The Dread Wolf rises - A woke disaster?

[Sinner's Sandwich]

The director John Epler is an sjw and tweeted these gems:

http://archive.fo/B3OxT

He claims ALL art is politics and of course the woke crowd (who are 0.01% of costumers) agree. Be prepared for a DA version of the orange man and more lgbtqiaxyz horrors.

Just look at his fucking twitter profile:

This game will bomb and "game journalists" will make all the intolerant Trump nazi hitler gamers responsible as usual.

This and Anthem may be final nail in the coffin for Bioware. At this point I can only say good riddance.

 

[Bad Times]

Dunno about the art statement but he's not entirely wrong about Dragon Age, Dragon age is about politics to some degree and I can see where he's coming from with the whole family thing. It's cause for concern, don't get me wrong but the people panicing and going "muh politics in games" are sperging harder than it's worth.

The real red flag is that the main writters from the good games are gone and bioware's last real game was a flop. That's why people probably shouldn't give a shit about Dragon Age.

 

[BlueArmedDevil]

This is going to be an amazing mobile game

 

[oldTireWater]

Who needs another cut-scene game. That shit's worse than shooters on rails. I haven't cared about a story line since Max Payne.

 

[The Shadow]

Dunno about the art statement but he's not entirely wrong about Dragon Age, Dragon age is about politics to some degree and I can see where he's coming from with the whole family thing. It's cause for concern, don't get me wrong but the people panicing and going "muh politics in games" are sperging harder than it's worth.

The real red flag is that the main writters from the good games are gone and bioware's last real game was a flop. That's why people probably shouldn't give a shit about Dragon Age.

It's about politics, but the original game at least was about fantasy kingdom politics and not "the current year thinly veiled as fantasy kingdom politics."

 

[Rand /pol/]

"the current year thinly veiled as X politics."

that is literally every game with politics in it though

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Dunno about the art statement but he's not entirely wrong about Dragon Age, Dragon age is about politics to some degree and I can see where he's coming from with the whole family thing. It's cause for concern, don't get me wrong but the people panicing and going "muh politics in games" are sperging harder than it's worth.

The real red flag is that the main writters from the good games are gone and bioware's last real game was a flop. That's why people probably shouldn't give a shit about Dragon Age.

Didn't the last Dragon Age have a gay Qunari lecturing you about pronouns instead of helping you close the holes that cthulhu is butt-fucking into your reality, or something like that?

 

[Cyber Bowling]

I think there's cause for concern just because when you look at the recent Bioware games, especially in the writing department, it hasn't been great.

It is worth noting he's the narrative director, not the head writer. It sounds pedantic and it can honestly vary from company to company so I can't speak specifically for Bioware, but it isn't uncommon for a narrative director to only do minimal writing themselves. With an RPG game especially, a role like that involves overseeing where the dialogue goes and managing plot points. Using Bioware games as an example, a narrative director might not write any of the companion camp dialogue, but they're the ones that decide how much of the dialogue gets thrown out at once and what story beats you have to hit to trigger said dialogue. During a quest, it could be something like having an NPC show up at set points to throw dialogue at you to avoid making an exposition dump at the end of the quest line, or deciding what information is worth voicing at all and what can be tossed into a journal entry or the like.

That being said, even if they aren't writing much of the script themselves, they're still pretty damn influential, and I can't imagine they'd appoint a head writer who had completely polarizing views and expect that to work.

I actually get the impression Bioware is focusing less on story and narrative in games and more on the sandbox lite gameplay elements. Dragon Age 3 was filled with giant game areas you were encouraged to fuck around in while occasionally doing some main plot stuff. I think for most players, the actual main plot story content made up a small percentage of their gameplay time. With a solid enough combat system and interesting enough areas, it could succeed even with cringey writing. The problem is when it fails at that and still has the terrible writing, which is why Dragon Age 2 is seen as such a massive failure. It reused the same five or six maps and enemy types and lacked any real cinematic fight moments.

 

[The Shadow]

Place your bets now on whether or not the Dread Wolf is a le Drumpf analogue.

EDIT: I also think it's a bit funny that it's called "Rise of the Dread Wolf". The Witcher's canceled console port was called "Rise of the White Wolf".

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

I just remembered how ugly the characters looked in DA Iqusition.
Great romance options, Bioware.

I guess they will look even more hideous in the new game. Perhaps at least one character you can chose to date turns out to be a troon. That would be hilarious.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Bioware is dead. Anthem is a Destiny 2 clone from a majorly single player development house. Red Dead 2 is going to take a ton of online players once co-op story comes out. Division 2 might take more as well. Also nobody trusts Bioware anymore to build decent universes and stories anymore. Andromeda fucked Bioware's rep and even the most ardent lovers of the developer couldn't muster a defense after that. How it has any fans left mystifies me. How DA has fans after 2 and Inquisition (which The Witcher 3 raped with a greatsword) mystifies me as well.

Also remember, every single EA game is required to have a multiplayer component to it. CD Projekt Red pitched Witcher 3 to EA, but EA declined because it had no MP component. It's why they fucked up Dead Space 3. With every competent person on Anthem (Bioware cannot afford for it to fail, they'd be fucking idiotic to let any talent go to another project) this is either going to be an asset flip with a huge MP component ala Fallout 76 or mobile.

The cause for concern is that Bioware needs to 100% have all guns firing for Anthem or they're fucking dead. They don't have the time or talent to spare for another DA game. They've already destroyed Mass Effect and they don't care if they destroy DA with a mediocre product as long as it's a win or gives more money to Anthem development.

Also don't give me 'well maybe Anthem development is almost done'. No. Anthem development is not done until its last DLC is out. If Bioware is shifting talent now, they're dumb as fuck. Anthem is do or die for Bioware. EA has killed studios for far less fuck ups than what Bioware has done.

Make no mistake, if this is out before Anthem, it's a cash grab for money to put into Anthem. If it comes out AFTER Anthem, Bioware has lost faith and it's one last hurrah before EA puts them on the corpse pile. I don't really know how anyone who knows about Bioware's predicament can be remotely optimistic about the quality of this title.

 

[Zaryiu]

I'm in the minority that thought Dragon Age too was okay despite it's flaws and could be salvaged

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Make no mistake, if this is out before Anthem, it's a cash grab for money to put into Anthem. If it comes out AFTER Anthem, Bioware has lost faith and it's one last hurrah before EA puts them on the corpse pile. I don't really know how anyone who knows about Bioware's predicament can be remotely optimistic about the quality of this title.

I'm not optimistic, but if forced to extend myself I could see one way this might possibly work: outsourcing. Give all the DA:I toys to a developer who can actually write (by the standards of video game industry anyway) and tell them to go nuts. After all, New Vegas was a Fallout 3 kitbash, and it's the best game in the (new) series. (Is Spiders still around? A Dragon Age with HBO dialog might be good for a laugh.)

 

[Fuck Y'all]

Bioware is dead. Anthem is a Destiny 2 clone from a majorly single player development house. Red Dead 2 is going to take a ton of online players once co-op story comes out. Division 2 might take more as well. Also nobody trusts Bioware anymore to build decent universes and stories anymore. Andromeda fucked Bioware's rep and even the most ardent lovers of the developer couldn't muster a defense after that. How it has any fans left mystifies me. How DA has fans after 2 and Inquisition (which The Witcher 3 raped with a greatsword) mystifies me as well.

Also remember, every single EA game is required to have a multiplayer component to it. CD Projekt Red pitched Witcher 3 to EA, but EA declined because it had no MP component. It's why they fucked up Dead Space 3. With every competent person on Anthem (Bioware cannot afford for it to fail, they'd be fucking idiotic to let any talent go to another project) this is either going to be an asset flip with a huge MP component ala Fallout 76 or mobile.

The cause for concern is that Bioware needs to 100% have all guns firing for Anthem or they're fucking dead. They don't have the time or talent to spare for another DA game. They've already destroyed Mass Effect and they don't care if they destroy DA with a mediocre product as long as it's a win or gives more money to Anthem development.

Also don't give me 'well maybe Anthem development is almost done'. No. Anthem development is not done until its last DLC is out. If Bioware is shifting talent now, they're dumb as fuck. Anthem is do or die for Bioware. EA has killed studios for far less fuck ups than what Bioware has done.

Make no mistake, if this is out before Anthem, it's a cash grab for money to put into Anthem. If it comes out AFTER Anthem, Bioware has lost faith and it's one last hurrah before EA puts them on the corpse pile. I don't really know how anyone who knows about Bioware's predicament can be remotely optimistic about the quality of this title.

IMHO it's also do or die for EA; since BFV are ending as PR nightmare their other products are:

• spawts
• more spawts
• even more spawts
• and remasters

 

[Slap47]

Not only is Bioware dead but it was never good.

 

[SpessCaptain]

Ugh, I absolutely have a love/hate Dragon Age relationship. Dragon Age: Origins and the actual Tabletop RPG is definitely my favourite (fuck the fade though), DA2 was eh and I didn't even finish Dragon Age Inquisition, the amount of hamfisted characters all seemed to be there to appeal to an audience who want to appear sanctimonious and PROGRESSIVE. Methinks and the amount of comtemporary and modern ethics are getting into the gray morality of Dragon Age. Krem was a fucking horrible example of the attitude that is slowly taking Bioware down.

There's something in storytelling that's called "show but don't tell" and, once again, going back to Krem as the PERFECT EXAMPLE. I'd accept that in culture sometimes individuals take the opposite genders roles, it happens in a lot of societies and sometimes goes to further extremes, and I love a good Joan D'arc/Mulan subtype -- but Iron Bull literally pulling up aside you and saying "Oh treat him like any other man" and then going on about trans politics in Qunari culture should have been done better another way.

These sort of reviews should be done naturally, of course a transperson is going to attempt to hide the fact they are trans, especially in a medieval setting, where people are picked on simply by ear shape. If people around you just assumed Krem was male and perhaps in journals it was brought to topic I would of been okay with it. Krem should of had a non-hamfisted conversation where someone learns of it and mentions it quietly in a conversation you can pick up, react or not. Also I laugh at how out of character the Qun views Transgenders. It has me questioning things, this wasn't something the Qunari were fond of (they believe that everyone is born into a particular role) but they had to hand wave it out so that the most oppressive society which is ran like North Korea had to be less meany-poo and more of a foriegn misunderstood culture.

As for Bioware, they are appealing to one political side because of pressure by fans and separating their market by a huge margin. I love to dabble in both political sides but then I avoid anything extremist or borderlining it.

Anyway, bit of some random trivia, I was at a games night and I was playing DnD with two newcomers who were boyfriend and girlfriend, both had the insignia of the Hawke tattooed on their hands household so I was trying to start a conversation about the games. They were like obnoxiously fascinated with only Dragon Age 2 and kept calling themselves petnames relating to the games (Hawkie, Fen-fen, etc.) Yeah, I know exactly what kind of people are their major fanbase tbh.

Also as a suggestion, if you really want to play a non-PC Dragon Age, just play the Tabletop Game, chances are your GM will not force down SJWisms.

 

[Bad Times]

Didn't the last Dragon Age have a gay Qunari lecturing you about pronouns instead of helping you close the holes that cthulhu is butt-fucking into your reality, or something like that?

Iron Bull? He's got the "I don't care what I fuck" attitude. I don't recall anything with pronouns but I could very easily be wrong.

 

[Alfons Schmitler]

Make no mistake, if this is out before Anthem, it's a cash grab for money to put into Anthem. If it comes out AFTER Anthem, Bioware has lost faith and it's one last hurrah before EA puts them on the corpse pile. I don't really know how anyone who knows about Bioware's predicament can be remotely optimistic about the quality of this title.

Anthem comes out in 2 months my man. If it flops then EA is gonna take Bioware to the mass graves.

IMHO it's also do or die for EA; since BFV are ending as PR nightmare their other products are:

• spawts
• more spawts
• even more spawts
• and remasters

Not really to be honest. EA can survive on Sports + Sims + Mobile games alone. I think you have no idea what absurd amounts of profits they pull with that shit.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Not really to be honest. EA can survive on Sports + Sims + Mobile games alone. I think you have no idea what absurd amounts of profits they pull with that shit.

The only way to drag EA to a coffin would be if they lost their sports licenses, especially Football.
But any division of theirs, such as Bullfrog, Origins Systems, etc. is on a hair trigger and will be sacrificed at the blink of an eye.

 

[BALLZ-BROKEN]

Bethesda games are just buggy, while Bioware games will give you the bug (and by bug I mean HIV)