#Can't wait for dragon age dreadwolf to come out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

felassan · 1 year

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Quick compilation of interesting comments/comment exchanges from Mark Darrah and folks commenting on his most recent YouTube video, "Mark Darrah back on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?!" (under a cut due to length) -

[I've loosely organized these into related clumps of comments.]

General thoughts and feelings about the game & its development

Comment: "Well this is a relief. Glad to have a DA veteran looking at this project." MD: "There are lots of veterans on the team"

MD: "I'm helping. The team is very strong" / "There is a strong team there." / "There are lots of strong devs on the team" / "I have great faith in the team" / "I have confidence in the team" / "I have confidence in this team"

MD: "Excited to see how things are progressing" / "Excited to see what the team has been up to." / "Excited to see what the team has cooked up." / "Excited to see how it is coming along" / "Excited to see how things are going"

Comment: "please save DA" MD: "I don't think it needs saving" / "I’m an amplifier not a saviour" / "I'm not worried about Dreadwolf" / "I have every confidence in the state of the game." / "I have high hopes"

Comment: "Please fix that game" MD: "I wouldn't say that its broken..."

Comment: "Can’t wait to see what this game becomes." MD: "You and me both!"

Comment: "This is an interesting development, can't wait to see the final product." MD: "You and me both"

Comment: "Is this a good of bad news? :D" MD: "Good I hope"

Comment: "It must've felt good when they approached you for help! It's definitely a positive sign as well." MD: "I think so too!"

More details on his role, what it will entail and where the game is currently at

MD: "As I mentioned in a previous video, I do consulting now. I did reach out to BioWare first" / "I reached out a while ago to offer my services. I don't expect I will ever be a 'face' for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf."

Comment: "Does this mean that the current bioware lead execs can overlook your advice as consultant?" MD: "Anyone can ignore anyone's advice. See: https://youtu.be/yWPaiWAotwo"

MD: "Game can be played start to back. Still lots to do."

Comment: "Wishing you the best of luck in steering the ship on the game." MD: "My hands aren't directly on the wheel."

Comment: "Hope you will or are happy about what you see that the team has worked on." MD: "I'll see a lot pretty soon."

Comment: "Isn’t it a little too late for that? I mean, if the conclusion is that the game isn’t respectful, will BioWare change huge chunks of the story?" MD: "They are very focused on quality"

Comment: "From your words it seems like Dreadwolf somehow doesn't quite feel like a Dragon Age game and you're coming in to make it feel like one. It should be a great game in it's alpha state, with new ideas etc but somehow people who played it feel like it's at least slightly disconnected from the franchise as a whole. Am I correct? I understand if you don't want to reply since confirmation of that could open the door to negative rumours about the game." MD: "That would be overstating... But its been a long time so it both needs to change and stay the same"

Comment: "I'd love to know what specifically you can do at this point in development, since I assume the game is largely content locked at this point (this might make a good video?)." MD: "Not content lock yet. Firm not locked"

Comment: "Not sure if you can answer this but considering how far along the development of Dreadwolf supposedly is, assumably there isn't going be like major changes to the game's systems and such. So are you consulting them more about lore aspects and whatnot?" MD: "Lore and landing"

Comment: "Has the dragon age team ever done something like this in the past? MD: "We have brought back people late stage before"

Comment: "so essentially.. they had no idea what they were doing and where like 'should we call mark? lets just call mark' 'urgh.. yeah lets. might as well' XD" MD: "Nothing so dramatic as that"

Comment: "I honestly assumed that you were already censoring yourself in regards to Dreadwolf out of respect for your former coworkers." MD: "To some degree I expect this is true."

Comment: "So glad that some deal about collaboration between you and BW has been struck. And I hope the game will benefit from your input, though I do admit I am on the fence about what the leaks have shown, did not look much like any RPG people liking BW content are used to (I hope I am wrong about that)" MD: "Hopefully they can convince you"

Soon™ and after

Comment: "I have real concerns of what is being shared about the gameplay style. Hopefully we get some clarification in upcoming bioware show and tells for expos and trailers" MD: "I expect more to be shared soonish"

Comment: "I hope to see some decent trailers this year. We haven't seen those since 2020!" MD: "We shall see"

Comment: "Can't wait to see more (when you are allowed to talk about it!)" MD: "I'll share what I can"

Comment: "You're still going to be careful about what you tell us, for a while. Totally understandable" MD: "Definitely won't become the all "Dragon Age: Dreadwolf" channel"

Comment: "I realize there's always going to be some things you can't speak about, but I hope that after the game is out and your involvement is completed, you can speak about some of your experiences coming back to work as a consultant vs. executive producer and how/if it shapes your thought and approach towards your contributions to the game and team." MD: "i hope to do this. after"

Questions, feedback and things to pass on to the team

Comment: "I know a lot of the fandom is wondering if there will be more BIPOC and body-type representation in character generation. It would ease a lot of concern if there was an indication that the game does indeed include that representation." MD: "I'll pass this along"

Comment: "Will Dragon Age Keep be supported going forward? Also will we get any recaps of important events from previous games at the start of this one? Also will this be more actioney or more strategic than Inquisition? Dragon Age: Origins is still my favourite for combat and general gameplay, but I appreciate if y'all are going more actioney these days like Final Fantasy, if it's the actioney route though I wonder if you guys could do some gameplay like the old THIEF games for some Rogue quests, that would be hella cool." MD: "I'll pass these along"

Comment: "If you’ll be passing along something to BioWare, I’d be interested to know if the Orlesian Warden-Commander exists as a character in the world. We hear about the The HoF, but nothing from the Warden-Commander. And not being able to port your save into DA: Awakening with a dead HoF, makes me question how canon they actually are. Along with not being able to define them in the Keep." MD: "I'll pass along the question"

Comment: "Now that you have the ear of the project leads I have a small suggestion: It would be great if in DA:D when you hover over a dialogue choice the game would tell you what you are about to say (at least the first sentence) in form of a "subtitle". Deus Ex: Mankind Divided does this for example. Other than that I wish you and the team the best!" MD: "Nice idea"

Comment: "Is Mike Laidlaw going throw two cents as well" MD: "He's too busy"

Comment: "I hope Gaider will come back too." MD: "That seems unlikely"

Comment: "It's a BIOWARE game. Characters and story comes first."" MD: "CHARACTERS CHARACTERS CHARACTERS"

Anthem

Comment: "I hope it's not the same situation as Anthem. :/" MD: "Definitely not"

Comment: "Game has been in the oven for what?, a decade now. I hope it turns out great, but I feel like it will be kinda a mesh with all the iterations and people involved." MD: "Depends on how you count the reboot to pull people to Anthem"

On a possible/requested DA:O remaster

Comment: "you should suggest that it would be a smart move to remaster Dragon Age trilogy like ME Legendary edition" MD: "I don’t think the people that would green light a remaster are listening to be"

Comment: "Get them to remaster DAO ....please. :)" MD: "I'll try"

Comment: " Please consider making a DA remake. I literally pray for this everyday. I hope this reaches you Bioware." MD: "Here's hoping"

Other

Comment: "I don't know how much you can answer this, but I've always been curious: How did you guys manage to come up with the Solas plot twist when making Inquisition? Heck, how'd you guys come up with the character of Solas, period? Whose idea was it, how did you develop it into the absolute masterpiece that culminated in Trespasser?" MD: "I don't actually KNOW the answer to that"

Comment: "It's not about DA:D per se, but please let the team know we still love Dragon Age: The Last Court and hope it can live on in some way MD: "err. I think there are some legal issues in Europe with that..."

[source]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #im a dad news scrap collector #yt comment sections can be dark and full of terrors as well so. here u go #anthem #long post #longpost #saveserault #mass effect #solas

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rainwolfheart · 1 year

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thoughts on absolution

it's got a similar vibe to the comics and i prefer that medium, but i like these intrigue stories they've been going for since inquisition

that said, i feel like they were borrowing a bit much from the comics. maybe a coincidence, i know shows like this take a long time to develop, but there's a lot of beats and themes that reminded me of blue wraith and dark fortress.

so many macguffins lately. there's gonna be so many items to track down in dreadwolf.

that ending tho.... her voice is so iconic. i hate her so much. i can't wait.

i fucking love that the most comic relief character of the show is a lady. we never get that. and "maker's titties" indeed. ashly burch i love you.

i also enjoyed the broody rogue protagonist being a lady. we have a few more of those but it's always nice to see more balance in that department.

wtf was fairbanks' deal though. why did they choose him of all characters to bring back for a tv show?? this had nothing to do with his plotline as far as i can tell and really doesn't make sense with his whole thing where he's about protecting orlesian refugees? he's not a thief. idk man if they really had to kill off a random inquisition agent there was probably a better choice

but i do like that he kinda looks like matt mercer. that's just matt mercer y'all.

i still don't get why the scene where fairbanks turns on hira plays out like he's the one betraying her. like yes for the drama but logically it doesn't seem to really hold up.

did hira teleport at the end there or am i missing something??? is that just a thing she can do????? on top of the tenser's floating disk trick. bioware don't go introducing new types of magic without explanation i need the lore

i am definitely a roland/lacklon enjoyer but tbh i think the buildup was a bit too subtle. if i wasn't gay and picking up on the Vibes that kiss would have come out of nowhere.

i spent way too much time looking at screenshots of the dragons from inquisition to see if the one in the show matches a known species. it doesn't. as far as i can tell its a close but not identical match to the one from dark fortress

i really hope a good chunk of season 2 takes place in kirkwall tbh. i miss that terrible city. give me a merrill cameo you cowards.

i find the writing a liiiitle lackluster in general. the dialogue is pretty predictable, but not in a fun comforting way.

as mentioned the shaky cam is really off-putting. did not like that.

i didn't find it quite as newbie-friendly as, say, legend of vox machina. idk if i'd recommend it to folks who aren't already into dragon age, there's a lot of lore to understand that they don't really explain. and yet they make matt mercer give a hokey exposition speech in episode 1 lmao.

liked it in general though! solid b+

#dragon age #dragon age: absolution #dragon age: absolution spoilers #absolution spoilers #da absolution #da absolution spoilers

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felassan · 1 year

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Snippets/speculation etc of interest from Mark Darrah part 1 (in parts due to Tumblr character limits. Part 2 link), from his co-stream of The Game Awards, under a cut due to length:

The new cinematic that came out on December 4th was more than he had expected to see on Dragon Age Day (were there to be something at TGA that is). "The fact that the teaser for DA:D was as big as it was at DA Day would be an indication, that would be evidence that they wouldn't be at TGA." If they were planning to be there, he would have expected to see less on DA Day. That teaser wasn't enough for TGA and they wouldn't release something like screenshots of DA:D at TGA. "If that's all they have I could see them doing that on DA Day and having nothing at TGA"

A possible reason for BioWare/Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to not be at TGA this year would be that they don't want to put a date on the DA:D release yet, to give themselves the flexibility to move it (and due to not wanting to put a trailer without a "call to action" in it out). A date in a trailer is a form of call to action, and without a date there isn't really a call to action as you can't open pre-orders in Europe without that. "If they're wanting to keep their date open, then they might not be [there]". They were unlikely to date at TGA, "even if they [had] a trailer. The only reason to date this early would be to open up pre-orders"

There has been a move towards shorter PR and marketing cycles and a move towards this as a new policy in the video game industry recently, which in the case of DA:D could be an argument for appearing at E3 next year. So another possible reason that DA:D wouldn't be at TGA is "we're just going to shorter and shorter marketing campaigns. That would be a reason not to be there"

It's also possible that EA doesn't want DA:D marketing to undermine marketing for Jedi: Survivor, which comes out in March. "You could definitely make an argument that you want Jedi: Survivor to be here at TGA, and so you're not starting the DA marketing campaign up again until Jedi: Survivor launches"

When asked in chat "is it necessarily *bad* for BioWare if Dreadwolf doesn't feature tonight?" he said "no. If they're not here it's because they're waiting til E3 to give themselves more flexibility next year"

When asked in chat "considering Dragon Age is not at Game Awards, do you think EA is using the same marketing strategy they used for NFS Unbound? That game was sent to die and it's so cool! It barely had any marketing" he said "No. They've literally moved to shorter marketing campaigns, so no, I don't think so"

He thought them not being explicit about not being there ("closing out the year" seemed like specifically-chosen language) was weird, as they have been explicit about not being there in the past

He would have been very surprised if Mass Effect was there, even if DA:D wasn't there. The Next Mass Effect appearing last year was more about providing confidence that they were still working on it and that it existed - the same reason why they kept sneaking Dragon Age into things then, to prove that it was existing. A lot of things they did with Dragon Age then was to make it real enough so that EA wouldn't be willing to cancel it: "we were really afraid at certain times that it, it was gonna get - EA doesn't really cancel things - starved to death, shall we say". 'Starving out' would have involved tightening the financial reins until it withered away

When asked in chat "how much of the past Dragon Age teasers was just to allay vocal fan fears that DA:D was going to be cancelled?" he said that it was partially to make fans confident that it still existed, but it was actually also like, to hold EA hostage, because once something's announced, it's a lot harder to cancel. Like, it can be, but.

"One thing I can say is EA really, really wants Dreadwolf to be good, which is a definite sea change compared to the attitudes towards BioWare games in the past" ("sea change" is an expression denoting a substantial change in perspective)

When asked in chat "do you think [EA really wanting DA:D to be good] is to do with the recent success we've seen in the singeplayer realm with EA's Jedi: Fallen Order and games like God of War?" he said "Absolutely. Jedi: Fallen Order and Anthem together made a big impression on EA for sure"

He still thinks DA:D is coming out probably late next year (2023), or early 2024. "I don't think it's gonna be 2024. If it's 2024 it'll be January, February or March. I think it'll be 2023". "They would definitely want it to be end of 2023, but as I said I think they are focused quality-first so whether or not they'll hold to that will be dependent on quality". They would push it beyond 2023 if they had to, but they wouldn't want to. "They are definitely gonna wanna be in fiscal 24, which means before March of 2024, and Q4 sucks so they're gonna want Q3. But if they're not here at TGA it's because they're wanting to keep their options open for slipping into 2024"

When asked in chat "does the show Dragon Age: Absolution coming out without a lot of game marketing around it feel worrying to you at all?" he said no, that he doesn't think so and it's more just the way that marketing works these days. He said they're maybe a bit worried that Absolution might not hit super well. ("It does nicely continue the pattern of all of the subtitles starting with vowels til Dreadwolf" though.) There has been a lot of marketing for Dragon Age: Absolution, albeit mainly on social media, but it isn't integrated with DA:D, as it's too early to integrate it with DA:D. For that to be useful they would have to date the game, and he thinks they are waiting to date the game (see above)

Also regarding Absolution, he said that there is an argument to be made "that all the content, that Absolution is a beat, so you don't want everything stepping on itself, I think that's very true. They haven't built it to build upon itself"

They do try to tie the outside stuff into the game so "I would expect some of the characters in Absolution, not the major ones, but some of the other ones, to be relevant" in DA:D. Absolution will "probably be canon, we'll see, yeah". "They'll bring in old characters, they'll introduce characters that will appear in DA:D, probably"

"The lead time for Absolution was really long, so they were trying to be close to DA:D's release [with Absolution's release], then things just moved, with Anthem and other stuff. They just missed. I mean it's close, ish"

When asked in chat if Dreadwolf was already the name of the game when he was still at BioWare, he said they had not yet actually landed on Dreadwolf at that point, but it was on the list. When he was leaving the game was way pre-Alpha, it had not yet entered proper production (but was just about to). "There's an early production phase after pre-production, it was in that phase"

If they ever remastered Dragon Age II he doubts that they would put scrapped quests back in, but he personally would rename it "Dragon Age: Exodus"

It sounded like he was agreeing with chat that the EA Play 2020 teaser was from the early-production phase, and agreeing that the reason for showing a cinematic from the game rather than an actual trailer on DA Day was because of the aforementioned move to shorter marketing cycles

When asked in chat about the accuracy of leakers and insiders like Jeff Grubb, he said "the answer to how accurate the leaks are, it really depends on who his contact is, because often the person thinks they're telling the truth and they might be wrong. That's what often, when the leaks are wrong, it's not because they didn't have a contact, it's because their contact was wrong". Also on Grubb and DA:D, he said "He's probably right. He's usually right"

He specifically didn't ask his former colleagues if there would be a DA:D trailer at TGA, just so he could speculate. He could have found out but didn't

The goal with the loot system in DAMP was to try to fix the 'spend $300 to get everything' problem with ME3 MP, but the end result was that it just destroyed progression, it was "all a mistake there. There were better answers to that than what DAMP did"

[source, part 2]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #longpost #long post #mass effect #next mass effect #anthem #dragon age: absolution

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