#datv stuff

[anneapocalypse]

I do actually think it's important to separate criticism of Bioware and EA's labor practices from speculative criticism of a game itself based on its promotional material. I think this because I believe the layoffs and insufficient compensation would still be morally wrong and worthy of criticism regardless of the game's quality. Dragon Age: The Veilguard could be the greatest video game ever made, a critical and commercial smash hit, and the layoffs would still be worthy of criticism and the workers entitled to fair compensation.

I don't think it's productive to conflate the two, or to suggest that the game will be bad because of unfair labor practices. You see the problem with that line of reasoning? If the game turns out to be great, then that whole argument is refuted. The quality of the game should have no bearing on our solidarity with workers.

So far as I am aware, the laid-off workers have not at this time called for an organized boycott. (Boycotts are one tool in the toolkit of labor activism, but not the only tool.) If you nonetheless believe you should not personally buy the game because of the layoffs, then I believe the quality of the game should not enter into that decision. If that's your conviction and you're sticking to it, I do respect that choice (with the caveat that playing a pirated copy and discussing it on social media is still a form of promotion of the game).

Given that a boycott has not been called for, I do think that it's valid to both plan to buy the game and expect to like it, and to voice criticism of the company's labor practices and express solidarity with the workers who made it.

If what you believe is that you won't enjoy the game when it comes out, and are making a decision not to buy it for that reason, that's also fine and a decision I respect. It's just a different decision than choosing not to buy the game as a form of labor protest.

If you believe that you will not enjoy the game, and you fully intend to buy it anyway, that's also a choice you're fully entitled to make, I just think it's a choice that you should own. Criticizing a product that you paid for is completely valid; we do it all the time in fandom. It's just not the same thing as labor activism. It's media criticism. These two things can have overlap, but they're fundamentally different activities driven by different motivations. I just think it's good to distinguish between them.

[reagan-the-saunders]

sooo I compiled some of the dialogue I got doing the blight eruption quest thingy this run <3

btw I'm playing a warden, romancing neve, with both neve and davrin in my party so there are lines here that require those conditions.

[sigillums]

veilguard is a fantastic game bc it made me like s*las as a character so much for the first time in my life. also bellara's character arc was such a wild ride. she went from an annoyingly adorkable disney princess to the most metal character in the whole game. being in love with bellara and enjoying s*las as a villain were NOT on my datv bingo list 😭

[anneapocalypse]

The thing is, even if Lucanis did hate mages generally (which as @dreadfutures says here, is probably not why he's called the Mage Killer), surely we can understand that that means something completely different in the north than it would in the south, right?

It's going to be really interesting to see how the fandom engages with Tevinter tbh. Like, back in DA2, a lot of people thought Fenris was pretty unreasonable about mages. It's easy to feel that way. Even I feel it sometimes and I love Fenris. But then you take a step back, and you remember that his entire life experience is mages having absolute power over him and using that power to cause endless suffering. Those people are still chasing him until Act III, making it difficult for him to shift his paradigm and see the situation in the south for what it is. And some players, even knowing that context, still had trouble seeing Fenris for anything more than a bigot. They couldn't see his context anymore than he could see Anders' or Merrill's.

And as players who have played and loved three games set in the south of Thedas, we are the ones who are going to have to shift our perspectives now. The power structures in the north are different. The way they operate and maintain their power is different. Sure, the base principles still apply, but the devil's in the details. Someone "hating mages" simply does not have the same connotations in the context of the north. If a character in Tevinter says something like, I don't know, "Something must be done about those mages," it doesn't in any way mean the same thing as it would when spoken in Orlais under the southern Chantry. And maybe I'm just stating the obvious, but Idk, I felt like it warranted saying, not just for Lucanis but for all the new characters we're going to be meeting in the north.

[reagan-the-saunders]

another tidbit of neve x rook stuff for yous <3

[anneapocalypse]

I realize I already haven't been posting a lot of DA stuff relative to how much FFXIV is on here these days, and that is probably going to be the case for the next couple months, until I've had time to play the new game at my own pace.

While I have found the barrage of promo material a bit overwhelming and have mostly chosen for myself not to worry about keeping up with it all, I'm not especially worried about spoilers ruining the game for me. For one thing, spoilers don't ruin a story for me, and for another, Bioware loves to do fake-outs in promo material where they show you something out of context that look like a massive spoiler and in some sense is but they don't give the context and it usually turns out to be something very different than the impression it gave us (showing In Hushed Whispers Leliana without revealing the time travel thing, for example, or showing Shepard's death like it was a potential ending for ME2 and not the prologue to the game). So like, whatever wild shit they've already shown or will get talked about after previewers get to play a scant few hours of the game, I'm pretty confident that there's going to be plenty of big moments and story context that very deliberately will not be shown before release. I'm going to beef up my blacklist, but I'm also not worried about it, personally.

Mostly, I am probably just not going to be engaging in a lot of meta discussion for a bit, because this just isn't my favorite time to be doing that. I was around for the hype train for DAI and also for the game's initial reception and I'll just say it was not the most pleasant time to be in DA fandom. And please don't misunderstand me--I'm not saying that none of the criticism was warranted or that nobody should complain when they play a new game and don't like something.

I'm just saying that a big new story with lots of new characters and lore and locations and details takes time to absorb. It takes more than a couple of weeks to fully process and analyze a complex story sometimes. And in my experience, the meta and lore discussions get better and more nuanced and interesting with a bit of distance from the initial release. And personally, that's where I start to really enjoy it. I had a lot more fun talking with people about DAI--its strengths and its faults--once the initial hype and backlash had died down. I expect it will probably be that way with DATV too. Again, I want to stress that I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing and discussing first impressions, including negative ones, just that I will probably enjoy the discussions more once things settle a bit.

So if I'm not talking about Dragon Age much here for a while, it's not from lack of interest, I just might chill for a bit and enjoy it on my own before jumping back in.

[anneapocalypse]

Well, I think I've officially decided I'm changing my world state for my first playthrough of Veilguard!

I decided against using Rogues Gallery, for two reasons:

I still haven't finished Calla Cadash's playthrough. I know, I'm terrible to this girl. I swear I will eventually but I don't want to have to rush through it.

Solas... hates Calla. lmao. I'll be shocked if she even gets the redeem option in Trespasser, with how low his approval is. And I think that's interesting and I'll really enjoy playing with it for a future playthrough... but for my first, I really do want to play with an Inquisitor who wants to save him. Doesn't need to be romanced; I just want to play a worldstate where the Inquisitor thinks there's hope for him, an option I love with Solas friendship (I actually prefer the friendship redemption dialogue in Trespasser to the romance dialogue).

That makes Eleanor Trevelyan the perfect Inquisitor. She was also the first Inquisitor I actually finished! And honestly I love her world state, and I think I'll really enjoy building on it. She romanced Sera, disbanded the Inquisition and all other things being equal would really rather settle down with her wife--except that she swore to show her friend Solas that this world is worth saving, and she hasn't forgotten that promise. I think that however big or small the Inquisitor's presence in the actual game, I can make it work for her.

I will probably have to play a little loose with the theme of that world state to make it work, because previously it was romancing city elves (Zevran, Fenris, and Sera) and aside from the fact I don't want to pick a romance ahead of time, I don't think we even have a city elf romance option (Davrin and Bellara both seem to be of Dalish origin). The option I see is to simply play a city elf Rook. With Rook's origins focusing on factions, and not culture of origins, that should work. So it's looking like my first Rook will be an elf!

In that world state, Ilana Tabris is a rogue, while Alessandra Hawke and Eleanor Trevelyan are both mages. I think their Rook will probably also be a rogue. As for origin, I've been leaning toward Lord of Fortune as they just sound fun. But we'll see if anything else catches my eye. Still not making any major decisions about personality or backstory until I have the character creator in hand! I haven't even picked a gender; I do usually play a female character first, but I might not this time; we'll see.

[sigillums]

you know if nobody died (max factions rep) during the 'bad' ending, it'd literally be my favorite ending. no kidding, it's so perfect and gay dramatic 😭😍