Dragon Age 4 - now The Veilguard

[pukunui]

Just as a bit of trivia I've heard that likely many of you already know, Thedas came about as the name because before they picked a name they were writing "the Dragon Age setting" which became "the DAS", and then they just went with it.

Nice. I like it when things come together like that.

 

[pukunui]

The house elf/city elf stuff almost all gone. Almost all racism gone

Nothing wrong with getting rid of the racism. Instead we got stuff like the revelation that the facial tattoos the Dalish elves wear as a mark of pride were originally slave markings denoting which of the elven "gods" owned you. I was playing as a female elf with a facial tattoo when Solas dropped that bombshell. (I still struggle to see how Mythal would have been OK with having slaves, but I can see how the rest of them would have been fine with that.)

Dragon Age games can still be dark without having to stoop to the level of gruesomeness that is the origin of darkspawn broodmothers.

As for talking demons, I may be misremembering, but I'm sure there were still some talking succubi / desire demons in DAI.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I dont think the city elves racism from DAO was removed, I think its that the brutality of the racism faced by city elves in Kirkwall and Orlais is a whole order of magnitude darker than in Ferelden and would probably be too gruesome to feature in a game...and city elf origin in DAO was pretry heavy stuff to start with.

 

[pukunui]

I dont think the city elves racism from DAO was removed, I think its that the brutality of the racism faced by city elves in Kirkwall and Orlais is a whole order of magnitude darker than in Ferelden and would probably be too gruesome to feature in a game...and city elf origin in DAO was pretry heavy stuff to start with.

Exactly. I don't think they've removed anything as such. They just have chosen to focus on other things, which is fine with me. I like that each game builds on what came before, but it's not just one blight after another. The gameplay is one thing, but it's really the extensive lore that keeps bringing me back to Dragon Age.

Since I don't think I'll ever convince anyone to play the TTRPG version (I've got the original three box sets but not the revised chunky rulebook), I keep dreaming of ways to riff off Dragon Age in my homebrew D&D worlds. Like one thing I like to do is include warforged as a D&D take on DA's golems, complete with origin story. I also like the idea of mainstream dwarven culture being agnostic/atheistic with god-like paragons and the Mother Earth-like entity they call the Stone instead.

I also love the revelations about the elven gods and the implication that some of them may have become the archdemons.

The idea that spirits can either be good/virtuous or evil/sinful is cool, too. Very similar to how spirits work in the Aang/Korra Avatar world.

 

[wicked cool]

Nothing wrong with getting rid of the racism. Instead we got stuff like the revelation that the facial tattoos the Dalish elves wear as a mark of pride were originally slave markings denoting which of the elven "gods" owned you. I was playing as a female elf with a facial tattoo when Solas dropped that bombshell. (I still struggle to see how Mythal would have been OK with having slaves, but I can see how the rest of them would have been fine with that.)

Dragon Age games can still be dark without having to stoop to the level of gruesomeness that is the origin of darkspawn broodmothers.

As for talking demons, I may be misremembering, but I'm sure there were still some talking succubi / desire demons in DAI.

There was 1 and they were pretty pathetic
Agree on tattoos
Brood mothers toned down plus creatures affected by taint
Dai was a much tamer game- part of the problem we didn’t see a lot of the evil deeds and way less interesting enemies

Examples
The sword coast -a hidden mage and a hidden cellar. Da2 and dai would have made it more intense

Bandits and low level enemies-dao had them in origins and throughout. Da2 had tons including varrics brother etc. dai is lacking it

Dai you recruit all these people for war table missions and most are uninteresting. You don’t even see these recruits like that scout whose lover died in the hinterlands. Da2 there’s merchants etc you save in act 1 or 2 and they show up in 3

Creating the army in dao was way more interesting in dao than dai. Having the dwarves show up or werewolves was way better

I got a lot more as I believe it or not love dragon age

 

[pukunui]

There was 1 and they were pretty pathetic
Agree on tattoos
Brood mothers toned down plus creatures affected by taint
Dai was a much tamer game- part of the problem we didn’t see a lot of the evil deeds and way less interesting enemies

Examples
The sword coast -a hidden mage and a hidden cellar. Da2 and dai would have made it more intense

Bandits and low level enemies-dao had them in origins and throughout. Da2 had tons including varrics brother etc. dai is lacking it

Dai you recruit all these people for war table missions and most are uninteresting. You don’t even see these recruits like that scout whose lover died in the hinterlands. Da2 there’s merchants etc you save in act 1 or 2 and they show up in 3

Creating the army in dao was way more interesting in dao than dai. Having the dwarves show up or werewolves was way better

I got a lot more as I believe it or not love dragon age

I love Dragon Age, too, and frankly, I was glad that DAI wasn't just a repeat of DAO. As I said before, I love that these games build on each other. There's so much more to the world of Thedas than what we got in DAO.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nothing wrong with getting rid of the racism. Instead we got stuff like the revelation that the facial tattoos the Dalish elves wear as a mark of pride were originally slave markings denoting which of the elven "gods" owned you. I was playing as a female elf with a facial tattoo when Solas dropped that bombshell. (I still struggle to see how Mythal would have been OK with having slaves, but I can see how the rest of them would have been fine with that.)

That's Solas' (biased) interpretation. What he thinks of as slaves could be "followers" or "children" to other gods.

 

[pukunui]

That's Solas' (biased) interpretation. What he thinks of as slaves could be "followers" or "children" to other gods.

Nah, it's established through various bits of in-game lore outside of what Solas says. For instance, there's an ancient tablet within the Temple of Mythal that reads "During the time of Elvhenan, the rebel god Fen'Harel, who was opposed to the practice of slavery, called fleeing elven slaves to him and lifted their vallaslin with magic, to break the bonds of the Evanuris who oppressed them."

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Can one of you give me the brief on the revelation about elven gods in spoiler tags? I did not watch the DLCs but IIRC there was something like

Spoiler: Eleven gods

the gods of Elvenhan being just immortal tyrant mages linked to the old magister/gods of Tevinter? Or something like this?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well I’ll disagree

Dao/da2 and what’s missing from dai and it appears da4

Dai 99% of interesting npcs are gone including shopkeepers etc.the fetch quests didn’t have interesting npcs.
The house elf/city elf stuff almost all gone. Almost all racism gone
Fade demons were different . Appearance wise they were the same but some of them talked in dao
The finishing moves from dao are gone
Darkspawn had much more personality in dao.
Rogues could do a lot more etc
Items gone

Its vastly different

I mean, that's not really disagreeing lol, that's just stating an opinion that is kind of counter-factual.

The "99% of interesting NPCs" is just obviously not true. The idea that the shopkeepers in DAO were the only interesting NPCs is truly wild and out there.

The elf racism stuff was specific certain regions and origins, and obviously isn't going to be a major deal everywhere, and especially when the player can't even play an elf as (per DA2).

"Finishing moves" were an extremely minor and forgettable visual flourish which had no real mechanics attached (indeed the minor mechanics which were supposed to be attached literally didn't work!). You might as well complain that in DA2/DAI when you got covered in blood you no longer had blood on your teeth!

Rogues could do more is just a lie - it's not a reasonable opinion or position - it's simply not true. Rogues are, in DAO, by far the weakest class, it's not even close. In DA2 and DAI Rogues are drastically more capable and dangerous.

"Items gone" is vague nonsense and has absolutely nothing to do with the tone.

Your position was that the tone changed - it didn't - and it's weird that you've gone with random-ass mechanics changes instead of actual tonal ones, because it doesn't support your argument.

The biggest mechanical change from DAO to DA2/DAI is one you didn't mention - Mages - in DAO, Mages are ludicrously, joke levels of overpowered. It's not even hard to solo the entire game as a Mage, and if you have 2 or more Mages in the party, the game is an absolute push-over, even on higher difficulty settings. Rogues and Warriors are jokes compared to them in DAO. Some people like that, but it made the game feel absolutely terrible if you didn't pick Mage (esp. if you'd played a Mage), so probably should have forced a Mage PC if they wanted to stick with it being OP. DA2 and DAI didn't go that way - instead Warrior and Rogue are brought up to be as dangerous and effective as Mages (by and large) in actual gameplay. I never heard anyone, not a single person, claim "Rogues could do more in DAO", because they couldn't.