muladhara | (no subject)

Have some Dragon Age mumblings, because I am a predictable pile of me:

~ I've been playing Inquisition for the first time since we got the new TV, and I still think the banter's fucked (though I'm new gaming, and still only have Varric, Cassandra and Solas, so IDK??) but I seem to be getting a higher incidence of background music. Also thanks to the speakers on said new TV, I can actually hear the songs in the pubs! \o/

~ I googled "fuck you bioware" this morning, because I was feeling like that, and the top result was a NeoGAF thread where people were complaining that Bioware were shit now (and had been since anything after Baldur's Gate 2!) and essentially they said that the company was pandering to SJWs, without actually mentioning the term.

I don't even know.

(Also I don't understand people who complain about a thing, and then keep getting that thing, but they keep complaining. I suppose it's that they're hoping it will improve, but you might think after this long that it's not going to improve in the way they want).

~ Aw shit, there's a job op at Bioware for a writer BUT. It's got ten thousand notes, and the spec includes a few things I can't do like make a thing in Twine or work in Canada (I mean, I could, legally and all that shit, but I can't because I have commitments here *sighs*).

(At least the writing job's still going, for now, unlike that time I saw a voice acting job. Though I don't trust my acting skills and, again, I wouldn't be able to drop everything and fuck off to Canada).

~ I now have decent references of all my inquisitors! I'm eventually going to do the same for my Hawkes (although Merrick is easy because he has no hair). YAY DRAWING REFERENCES. (newest Lavellan appears to be one of my Hawkes in Elven form. I don't even).

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Yeah Bioware shit the bed a long time ago. Despite the complaints I still greatly enjoy Mass Effect and even though it wasn't the greatest ending of all time (and from what I read, apparently there was shady shit going on behind the scenes in Bioware offices that changed the writing to the ending anyway so draaaaammmaaa) I still accepted the ending of 3 for what it was. =/ I mean. yeah, I felt pretty incomplete with what we got rather than satisfied with the story-telling, but meh. Games are like that I guess. I'm actually more angry knowing they're doing a 4th. IMO, it shouldn't be made. I guess we'll see what they come up with because who knows, maybe they'll somehow make it good?

I also quite despise the people who complain constantly and yet play the game anyway. What's the point? You aren't enjoying yourself, you should stop.

Well, I don't know that I agree with that, but my only experience of the company is Mass Effect and Dragon Age, so I can't really say whether they've gone downhill or not).

I didn't know about the ending of ME being changed though (I knew they swapped storylines halfway through and, imho, they should've stuck with the dark energy thing. Or is that what you're talking about?) I liked the ending we got anyway, but I don't like that really not a lot changes even for radically different choices (though this is true of DAII, anyway, because nothing changes at all).

I don't get the point of Andromeda, tbh. I was sort of interested at first, but then they was like, "well all the aliens are the same, and your PC will be a human". OK, but I really don't want to play as a human, and why are all the races the same for an entirely different galaxy? It doesn't make sense. But I'll probably play it once I have an Xbone and it's out, just to see what it's like. I presume it's being done for money, though. Though I don't know, because I don't know all the details.

Yeah. Like, there are plenty of games/other media that I don't like (but I don't whine about it constantly) and, OK, some I didn't like to begin with that I stuck with and ended up liking but honestly? If you're not enjoying a thing, STOP. Put it down. Go do another thing instead!

|D;; It's all a perception thing when it comes to whether the company's done good or bad, so no worries there. But yeah, I'm pretty sure Andromeda is all for the money because whooo, successful franchise = milk it for what its worth until the fans move onto the next big thing. I think that's more what bothers me nowadays about Bioware than anything else is that whole money-grubbing thing (though tbf no game company is a saint for that one *coughEAcough*) as well as what happened with ME3 and DAII where your choices may change something but you still essentially get the same ending. As said, I accept the endings for what they are but I totally get the idea behind "we should have gotten more" from the fans. I can't recall if the dark energy deal was part of that ME3 ending drama, but I know I read awhile ago that they had some radically different endings but there were times where some of the writers were apparently literally locked out of the office during writing meetings (like what?) because something to do with the producers or some shit wanting something different because "instead of writing the story, we need to give people what they want" IE: happy ending no matter what kind of crap.

Hilariously enough, Johnathan showed me the Dodgeball movie last night as I'd never seen it before and I thought the ending was SUPER weird and over-played. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the movie or not, but the comedy is so smooth and well-written up until the end where it just gets sickeningly ridiculous and the underdog team of 'heroes' wins--he then told me after and showed me the exact point in the movie where ORIGINALLY, the movie had ended. The ending was the heroes didn't win! They lost, that's it. But the 'big guys' in the office demanded a re-write of the ending to better fit a happier ending which just made it so crappy I found. Random story to share with this but I figured it kinda ties in a smidge XD; that's what happens when you get outer interference with a good story, I guess.

I didn't get notified for this. Which is annoying but beside the point.

Yeah, I hate companies milking something to death (as much as I squee about Halo these days, I think that's fast approaching/has approached that point; on an entirely different tack, I feel the same about Disney). I do agree with wanting more than what we got out of ME3/DAII, esp since I've replayed ME3 recently, so it's fresh in my mind how...not different it is no matter what you do.

They locked writers out of writing meetings? That's fucking shitty behaviour (and ha, maybe it's a good job there are reasons I can't apply for that job with them). Also they should know better than to cow to what people want rather than doing the story as originally planned.

Ohhh, that's really interesting about Dodgeball! I don't know the film at all, so didn't know this. Also that the execs argued/forced a happier ending doesn't really surprise me - that kind of shit happens a lot (or so I hear). There's the original version of Blade Runner, for example with (the worst ever) voice over, plus, you guessed it, a happy ending. I prefer the director's cut, to be honest (which ditches both things I just mentioned).