Just a BioWare Fan

David Gaider announced that, after a decade of wringing fan’s tears from them, he’s leaving the Dragon Age team to write for the new BioWare IP. Whatever it is, I’m now dancing with delight that Gaider’s delicious brand of snarky evil will be a part of it.

Patrick Weekes, brought from Mass Effect to join the DA team a couple of years ago, will be taking over as head writer. As a fan of his novels and the characters he writes, I’m absolutely fine with that. He’s wrung his fair share of tears from his fans (Mordin’s death scene and the Solas romance spring immediately to mind) so the feels-crushing seems likely to continue unabated.

I do wonder, however, whether this means an announcement of the super-secret new universe they’re creating is imminent. They’ve hinted and mentioned it since before Mass Effect 3 came out but all details have been kept under wraps. Is Gaider’s move to their team a sign that the veil of secrecy is about to be lifted?

Naturally, any exploration of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s main story arc will require massive spoilers. Consider yourselves warned!

What follows is a synopsis of the main story quests and what I think is going on in the mind of the big bad. This whole post is a reaction to what feels like an almost nonsensical final quest after the epic build-up, particularly “From the Ashes” (that armor!) and “The Final Piece” (that surprise reveal!).

Dragon Age: Inquisition culminates not in a boss fight but in the last gasp of a boss you’ve been fighting the whole game. You weaken him with every side quest, every new agent, every closed rift and new recruit. By the time you face him directly for the last time he’s but a shadow of the threat he was at Haven and you handily put him in his place. It’s nothing like the end of Origins but it shouldn’t be, not if you’ve done your job.

I’ll preface this topic with the thing that always surprises me about conversations insisting that Anders was utterly changed to shoe-horn him into the Dragon Age 2 story line: I always assumed he was gay. The line about wishing for “a pretty girl on my arm” I presumed to be a figure of speech, a colloquialism rather than an actual expression of desire for female company.

Now, really, my Wardens were led to expect that everyone who knew her would adore a trip to her tent, so to speak. Morrigan was the sole exception and she didn’t like me anyway. Zev, Leliana, and Alistair were all but drooling on them. How could Anders possibly resist any of these amazing women unless he had no interest in female people?

Imagine my surprise at a male Warden’s complete inability to flirt with him, either. On top of that I find him eager to pursue a relationship with a LadyHawke in DA2. Apparently my Warden prowess had waned in Amaranthine. None of that has a blessed thing to do with Anders's personality. It’s mere sexuality.

If you really listen to Anders in Awakening you can hear the seeds of his bitterness, most clearly in his conversations with Justice. At the beginning he’s relieved at his reprieve from Templar pursuit and thrilled at his first tastes of freedom, certainly. For the first time in his life someone actively wants him to exercise his power to its full extent. Why wouldn’t he be a little giddy?

He’s still angry, however. He repeatedly expresses his frustration and guilt that the majority of mages are still subjected to the predation of the Templar Order under the Chantry’s rule. Combine his stated feelings with Justice’s single-mindedness et voila! You get Anders starting along that downward spiral. At the beginning of DA2 he’s still got his snark, he still shows sparks of fun, but he focuses less and less on himself and more on the injustice he perceives in the treatment of all mages in Thedas.

He tries to bury what he sees as his selfishness under a metric ton of sick and frightened refugees in Darktown but Justice sees right through that ploy. The real problem is not that Anders himself is free but that almost no other mage is. Once you talk to Karl—and Anders kills him—matters are only intensified.

Eventually the free clinic isn’t enough and he gets involved in the mage underground, smuggling people out of The Gallows. That assuages his guilt for a while but Justice gets harder and harder to control as the duo hear stories of what life is like in the Circle in Kirkwall. One step too far and he’s asked to butt out, essentially, thus removing an outlet for all that seething frustration. Is it any wonder he grows more and more withdrawn and defensive?

You can hear the resignation in his voice (and huge kudos to Adam Howden for the fantastic voice acting) when he finally settles on his ultimate plan and asks for help gathering the ingredients. It’s clear both in his animations and his words that he’s unhappy about deceiving you. I suspect Justice is no more thrilled with it than Anders, if you’ve taken the rivalry path and tried to keep their personalities separate. Neither can risk Hawke running to the Revered Mother, however.

From that point to the end it’s obvious how much his decision weighs on him. I imagine that, were the romance dialogue there, things would have gone downhill in the bedroom as well. All of his considerable energy has turned inward toward driving through his conscience to the ultimate goal: forcing the battle he deeply believes is the only way mages will ever truly gain freedom from Chantry rule.

Whether you agree with that conclusion or not (and goodness knows I’ve had Hawkes that fully bought into it and others that couldn’t have disagreed more) he’s utterly convinced of it. If anyone in Thedas might say it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees, it’s the Justice-Anders he’s become by the end of DA2. Little as he likes it, he does what has to be done in his (their?) eyes.

From the first conversation you’re shown that Anders is a passionate, exuberant man. While Justice and Kirkwall strip his veneer of good cheer away under their combined, relentless assault he’s still the same person. When you romance him or go down the friendship path with him you get flashes of his humor late into the second act.

It surprises me that so many people confuse character development with a retcon. If you explore all of his dialogues you can follow his progress through DA: Awakening and DA2. It may not be what I would have wanted for his character but it made sense in the context of the story the writer’s wanted to tell.

As yet another “BioWare should market to women” thread has been locked at ye olde BSN, I thought I’d condense my thoughts here. The topic has been bashed to death and will continue to be beaten like a dead horse, but there was much of interest in that thread.

The contention that irritated me most claimed that marketing should focus on the biggest of a game’s existing demographic, to the exclusion of all else. This, proponents declared, is the most efficient use of each marketing dollar. This, I say, is short-sighted.

If women comprise a growing share of the gaming market why wouldn’t you target that demographic as well? According to BioWare devs, the Dragon Age consumer base is already 30% female. While a large percentage of those women love the company and their games because of their strong female protagonists, and thus will purchase new BioWare games by preference, not all women loved Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2 and may abandon both franchises unless shown that DA: Inquisition will be different and more to their tastes.

What company can afford to ignore nearly a third of their current customer base? And what company wouldn’t like to grow their market share across more than one demographic? This question leads to the most pertinent one: what should BioWare do to make the most of each penny it spends marketing DA:I?

For this, I have a vision. Picture, if you will, a screen shot of the character creator. The invisible player selects a human male warrior. Bam! You see a cut scene of him catching a massive blow on his shield. Then back to CC and switch to a female dwarf berserker. Pow! She’s dropping a flying cleave with her two-handed axe on the head of some demon. Back to CC and a male elf. Thwack! A searing arrow of death hammers into a Red Templar. Then a female Tal-Vashoth, then her flinging a fireball into a group of whatever.

You get the idea: showcase the classes, their unique abilities, and the fact that you can customize your character all at once. The strengths of the Dragon Age games lie not in one gender or character but in their choices. These begin at the very start with the selection of appearance options. BioWare offers dozens of ways to play epic heroes and those options will appeal to the largest number of people. Why limit potential customers to those who want to play stubbly, lantern-jawed white boys when that’s not the only way to play?

Of all the genres out there, particularly on consoles, I’d argue that role-playing games in general and the fantasy types in particular, are most likely to appeal to women. In part I base that on my own preferences and in part I consider the stereotypes that most women are raised beneath to influence those choices.

Women are raised to love fairy tales and believe science and math are, if not beyond them, at least too hard for them to master to be worth the effort. Don’t believe me? See one or fifty of the thousands of articles, blog posts, and videos about bringing women into STEM fields. They’re also told that they’re too delicate physically and emotionally to handle a battlefield, leading to the current struggle to convince men that women willing and wishing to put their lives on the line as soldiers should be included there.

By extension, this discourages women from reading, writing, and playing science fiction. Certainly, you can name dozens of exceptions to this rule, women who have followed their passions and excelled. In general, however, women tend to be more comfortable with magic and dragons than space ships and gunplay. It’s more socially acceptable for them to enjoy fantasy than to criticize the accuracy of a sci-fi universe to real-world physics.

Should that change? Hell, yes. Is it? Yes to that, too. But remember that I’m refuting the argument that BioWare should exclusively target straight white males with their marketing of Dragon Age: Inquisition. That’s foolish. As it becomes more and more common for women to start gaming or try new platforms, the marketing of new games should find ways to include them in the target audiences.

The guys in the so-called target demographic already know that the games will have plenty to appeal to them. If anything, BioWare and the gaming industry in general should limit the stoic, manly, white protagonist of old and start promoting PCs of color, female leads, and LGBT relationships in games. Consider the size of this largely-untapped pool of players, people who don’t know yet how much they love Dragon Age. Tell me again why no one should market games to them, please.

All of this ignores one key element in the advertising of DA:I. We don’t know who has the final say over the marketing purse strings. If BioWare gets to direct the campaign over the next several months before release I have a great deal more faith that they’ll be willing to take a chance and expand their focus. If EA picks what will be shown, however, I fear that the “safe” route will stay the only one they see. Time will tell.

As the beginning of a fascinating discussion about lyrium, both red and blue, on the BSN recently the idea was posited that the special stone is not, in fact, mere mineral but actually a living entity. The concept immediately captured my imagination and I’ve been pondering the implications since.

The short version runs thus: dwarves literally go back to the stone when they die. The bodies as well as the spirits of their dead are absorbed by the veins of lyrium that run through the entirety of Thedas (and, one presumes, the planet on which that continent is located but that’s a much different set of speculations). Lyrium sings, as is clearly demonstrated, and it does so with the voices of dwarven ancestors.

Now, I can’t say that I’m sold on the idea that lyrium eats the dead bodily. I’ve got this awful vision of dwarven tombs empty but for a tendril of ravenous, glowing blue stone waiting for its next helping. However, the concept of its both creating and reclaiming the spirits of the dwarves does make a certain amount of sense in the Dragon Age universe. But what about that dangerous red lyrium?

It suddenly dawned on me why BioWare shoved the ME2 love interests out the air lock, as it were. They couldn’t explain, otherwise, why they waited 95% of the entire timeline to leap back into bed with the Commander. I haven’t played my lone Garrus-mancer yet and I never romanced Tali so I don’t know how they handle that but if Thane, Jacob, or Miranda were part of the crew why on earth would they be anywhere but sharing Shepard’s cabin? Damn, I’m going to have to do some research on this.

It’s only been six months since any of the second game’s love interests saw the last of the Commander. Why wouldn’t Tali or Garrus be right back into it, especially if they were on the mission that landed Shep in jail in the first place? All of the “three years apart, you worked for Cerberus and I’m a loyal Alliance soldier” trust angst that Kaidan and Ashley have for (completely believable) excuses fail in the face of anyone that accompanied Shepard on the ME2 journey.

So they get Jacob a new woman, which is okay because it always seemed like a fling rather than a romance to me. They give Miranda massive family issues (and then massive internal injuries) that keep her away from the Normandy. And Thane? Thane they kill,

I’ve read from a few of the developers on BioWare’s boards that the Frostbite engine can produce realistic skin tones in the darker spectrum and that they intend to make use of that capability. First, let me say that I can’t wait. I like to make my PCs in a variety of colors but the old engine generally went from “glass of milk” to “badly jaundiced”.

[Sidebar: I adore that SWTOR lets me not only go from grey-white to ebony black but all the primary colors and combinations thereof. I have sky blue, deep green, blood red, and chalk white as well as my humans. It’s agonizing to pick for new characters, but an agony that I enjoy to the hilt.]

Dragon Age 2 did a little better but anything darker than a light tan tended to look odd. However, there’s been a lengthy and intermittently interesting debate about the inclusion of cultural elements from outside medieval Europe which has somehow devolved into a discussion of Africa, genetic phenotypes, and how Isabela can be black.

When I first came to BioWare, it was via Dragon Age: Origins. Thus it was through those boards that I began seeing how BioWare interacts with its customers. It turns out, though, that the Dragon Age team has a unique relationship with fans of the game, even among the company’s own employees.

If you spend time on the DA boards, whether DA:O, DA2, or the brand-new Dragon Age: Inquisition subforum, you’ll see writers, QA guys, and various other devs wander in—sometimes to stay a while—and discuss the game and its lore with people. They respond to threads, they talk about other games and their preferences, they drop teasers and generally are well-liked members of the community.

David Gaider pops in to dismiss nasty rumors or start them. He’s sardonically funny and very opinionated, but he’s clear on his vision and sternly corrects people providing disinformation or making wild assumptions. He’ll stay and argue his point, as well.

A spin through the Mass Effect boards used to be similar, with devs and writers answering questions and giving insight to their fans. That changed a great deal with the frankly abusive behavior of some folks on the BioWare Social Network surrounding Mass Effect 3 and, to be honest, I haven’t spent much time there since. The atmosphere became poisoned and too much of the fun went out of the conversations.

And then we come to SWTOR. The Star Wars: The Old Republic forum is kept completely separate from the BSN, which I suppose I understand to a point, but to me it really hurts the former. The people who have fun at the BSN don’t frequent the SWTOR boards and Star Wars fans don’t see what kind of community BioWare fosters around their other games.

The folks on the SWTOR team, however, work for BioWare and must know folks on the other teams. Were they willing to put in a little time dropping teasers and discussing what’s already been released the complainers who point out—quite truthfully—that no one from the company posts would be silenced. I don’t think one post a week saying, essentially, “You’ll love it, just wait, but we’re not going to tell you anything,” counts.

Thus my suggestion to whoever leads BioWare now: get some of the SWTOR team into the game’s site to talk about the game as it exists. Let them answer questions about class stories and companions. Have someone finally explain why we have clickable escape pods that don’t do anything. Give them a little room to show their passion.

As an example, I just finished Chapter 1 of the Jedi Knight story. I found the final three missions exciting (and that burning planet was gorgeous!) but I never thought of going to the boards to thank the writers or the art team. Had it been DA or even ME I would have found a thread doing so already and added my kudos, fairly sure that it would be seen by at least one person who could feel the love and may have already posted there thanking people.

Then once staff has had a chance to play a little, link the two sites. Nowhere on the BSN could I find anything about SWTOR nor vice versa. Had I not been introduced to the game via the original BioWare site I wouldn’t have known it existed. People bashing BioWare in general, rather than just the SWTOR team, for never communicating with their customers might get a real eye opener if they clicked over to the BSN and saw how staff on the DA team operates.

My hope is that a thriving group like Dragon Age’s fans can show the SWTOR folks that’s there’s more than enough room for fun and civil debate even in the face of no real information from devs. Sure, there’s criticism and (to me) ridiculous amounts of hyperbole in describing the failings of older games. Trolls troll, haters hate, the world is round, a community works a lot better when the devs are willing to show their digital faces and act like they give a hang.

That’s what missing from the SWTOR community: proof that the people making the game care about it. The vitriol and the absence of an “official word” on pretty much anything drives away anyone looking for a fun place to discuss the game outside of general chat.

Paid PR people, enthusiastic though they might come across, don’t count, in this endeavor. All of the negativity and hysterical posts, with that little BioWare tag showing up almost nowhere but the sticky posts, gives a strong message that staff don’t care. Whether that’s accurate or not I have no way of knowing because they don’t tell me any different.

Get them posting, BioWare. Have SWTOR writers or designers post at least in the Story and Lore or Classes subfora. Let them talk about their favorite story moment or explain how the team decided that a smuggler would be willing to work exclusively for the Republic for a good long while. (Note: “Han Solo did” is not a useful response.)

If the Star Wars: The Old Republic writers and other devs have any passion for the game, the community has not been allowed to see it. There will always be whining, complaining, the not-infrequent rage-quit, and even some constructive criticism. As it stands the most-passionate community members, the ones who are willing to wade through the cesspool of fury that is the SWTOR boards, would benefit from seeing that some of BioWare’s employees care at least as much about the game as they do.

In a perfect world, the devs would change from faceless pencil pushers working as EA’s lackeys to talented, invested people that the community welcomes with open arms. In this one, well, that will still happen to an extent. The transition may be ugly but, with a lot of moderation on the boards and a committed effort to engage their fans, the forums on SWTOR’s site can turn into a place for players to turn rather than one they avoid like the rakghoul plague.

I’ve been playing SWTOR for a year, now. I’ve got four characters at level fifty (the current max) and six more anywhere from baby eleven through thirty. I haven’t yet finished most of the class stories (waiting for that level cap increase) so the end is nowhere in sight for me.

With the conversion to free-to-play for the game, I took a hard look at how I play and how much I would spend on frills and unlocks that BioWare has included in the price of a subscription. Then I considered how the restrictions would affect me.

I came to the conclusions that, with so many alts in mid-story, being restricted to only two would drive me bonkers. Some days I want light sabers. Some days the pew-pew-pew is the only way to go. Hubby and I play some characters together and others are strictly solo and PUGs.

While many Mass Effect and BioWare fans feel betrayed, abandoned, and otherwise shunned by their formerly beloved game company, you may have noticed that I feel different. It seems I have different in-game desires than many.

When it comes to the recently announced Dragon Age 3: Inquisition, my excitement stems not from blind love of whatever BioWare does, though they’ve not utterly let me down even with ME3, it comes from having found something to love in each game, no matter the flaws.

In particular, the Dragon Age series has captured my heart. There isn’t a particular character or love interest that I feel the need to continue, as much as I’d love to see what happens with my Wardens. The characters and setting in general have, instead, drawn me into that world.

I already gave an overall review of BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic and mentioned that I’d been sucked into buying the game. For the most part I run my characters solo through this MMO but there are times when you must have a group. This will be my take on how groups have worked for me in SWTOR.

Let’s be clear: I’m shy and I’m self-conscious about being a noob. I won’t go around asking people to be in a group because, great heavens, what if they say no?! But I want to see all the juicy Star Wars universe BioWare has created and that means working within their multi-player system.

Thus I rely on what are called, in MMO-speak, pick-up groups or PUGs. I’ve done half a dozen and my experiences have been universally positive. For all the bemoaning on the SWTOR forums about people spamming the chat window with LFG (or looking-for-group) requests all I’ve ever had to do was be near the start of one of the instances and I’ve been invited to join a group.

Some of the darlings at the BioWare Social Network have persuaded me to give in to the Dark Side and purchase my very first MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. They promise to play nicely and forgive me my newbie ways. The first month is included in the price of the game so if I really hate it I can find out without paying extra for the privilege.

For you, my readers, that means at least two more reviews of SWTOR. Once I’ve actually managed to perform group combat I’ll tell you all about, including whatever utter humiliations ensue from wandering off or clicking the wrong thing. My ego can take the honesty.

And I’ll offer an opinion of the story arcs, as well. I’ll start two separate characters: one for the group and a new smuggler to run solo and see how pick-up groups work for me once I know how to be in one. You know I’ve got to roll at least one Dark Side character to see how that goes.

So stay tuned: there’s a lot more Star Wars to come. I can’t promise any fanfiction, though Bioware does seem to inspire it, but I’ll definitely give you my RPG impressions as I go. At worst it will give me something to do while I’m waiting for Mass Effect 3 to arrive!

Release Date: December 20 ,2011
Price: $59.95 ($379 if you want the Collector's Bundle)
Monthly Subscription: $15

I'm a complete and utter MMO noob (that'd be an inexperienced Massively Multi-Player On-Line game player, for those even less in the know than I). I decided nonetheless to take Bioware up on their invitation to beta test Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR as it's commonly known.

I love Bioware and I love Star Wars so what could possibly go wrong, except for the part where I had no idea what I was doing? So there I was, waiting for the SWTOR to start, waiting to review this brand new game, but still undecided: Jedi Knight? Imperial trooper? Smuggler? Bounty Hunter?

Half an hour before the game started I was reading through the SWTOR forum for some hints. I thoroughly intimidated myself by reading posts from people who had been playing MMOs for years, confused myself by wondering if I was supposed to be in a guild, and generally got so nervous I decided to stop reading.

This will be a long review so let’s be clear from the beginning: I leapt into the Star Wars universe as interpreted by the talented Bioware writers and the great voice actors with both feet. I played the game for three days, until five minutes before the test ended, trying to see and do as much as I could. Star Wars: The Old Republic offers expansive worlds and vast story lines that intertwine and split in interesting ways.