u/The-Story-So-Far_DND

Okay, so personally, I think that the cobbled-together frankenstein of a game that is Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a hot mess. There's definitely some likeable things going on here, but to me, there is just sooo much about the game we got that drives me up a wall. I'm talking the mechanics, dialogue writing, story, and world-building all just generally grind my gears, which makes the parts I do like all the more intriguing. The basic premise of the story--a ragtag remnant/renegades of the Inquisition join up with a group of companions to explore northern Thedas on the hunt for Solas and end up facing down the evil of the Evanuris--is very good. I'm not sure how much of it came from Project: Joplin, but from what we know about Joplin, it seems close.

Regardless, Joplin was canned along with any actual code that had begun to be written for it, and we know that the majority of the final build of DA:V was, at least mechanically, mostly from Project: Morrison. Project: Morrison was an MMO, and a lot of what I dislike about DA:V is the ways in which it feels like a rushed MMO. If you've played a lot of fantasy MMO's before--like the really cheap ones!--I think you'll know what I mean. The factions, the world-building, the quests are all reminiscent of poorly made online multiplayer games. But here's the thing: not all online multiplayer games are poorly made.

After playing DA:I and bouncing off my first playthrough of DA:V, I tried the Throne and Liberty MMO. I loved it and still continue to play it semi-regularly even after the new has worn off. This made me realize something. I really, honestly, truly think that if a Dragon Age MMO had been wholeheartedly committed to--a classic fantasy MMO set in the World of Thedas using the mechanics of DA:I--it would have been fine, maybe even good! Think about BioWare's own past with MMO's (not including Anthem). SW:TOR and Neverwinter Nights were both long running, mostly successful MMO's that did a lot to bring life to the worlds they were written for (Star Wars and the Forgotten Realms). SW:TOR still received support from BioWare until 2023! Modders still make content for Neverwinter Nights 24 years later! Beyond BioWare, think about WoW, ESO, Neverwinter, and Throne and Liberty! The best MMO's keep playerbases a live for decades! If they had committed to make the best World of Thedas MMO possible, I can imagine it being great to play, especially with the base classes/species and mechanics of Inquisition. The framing device could have been working as an agent of the Inquisition, but allowed you to join any factions you wanted to. PC's could own castles, run dungeons, maybe even do PvP! Idk, that shit just doesn't sound half bad to me. Am I crazy?

Hi, so this is something I think about everytime I go back and play Inquisition and I thought I'd share it here: I think the #1 biggest change I would have made to the 3rd and 4th games in DA would be to make Hawke the Inquisitor. I honestly think the entire story would have just been better if Hawke had been the one to intervene at the Conclave, stolen the Orb from Corypheus, then learned how to close rifts with it from Solas. Drop the whole "Herald of Andraste" thing and focus on the role of the Inquisitor itself from the beginning, having the conflict of who gets the role between Hawke, Leliana, and Cassandra mean a lot more by the time you get to Act 2. Ik how unpopular this idea might be, especially with the Solvellans, but I think that it would have just been a better transition from DA2 and removed a lot of the more convoluted aspects of Inquisition's plot besides. I'd also continue the retcon into Veilguard and make Hawke the protag of that game as well.

Hawke was just that kind of protagonist who I feel could have really carried the spirit of the franshise across all its iterations. Ik that being not being able to play as other species was a big complaint going from DA:O to DA2, but imo, I think that move was a definitive one in the franchise. Even in DA:I and DA:V, playing as other species just doesn't really impact the experience as much as it did in DA:O. The only real exception to that was playing as a fem elf because of the Solas romance, which ugh I get it, is good, but, at least imo, isn't as good as a better post-DA2 franchise could have been with a more consistent roleplay experience a la Mass Effect/Shepherd. To me, that just seemed to be BioWare's sweet spot at the time and I wished they'd leaned into it as much with DA as they had with ME, because of all the things people complain about in ME, Shepherd ain't one of them and I think the same can be said for Hawke with only 1/3 the amount of character development compared to Shepherd.

I understand romances and companions in DAI would have been much different, but personally, I wouldn't make many changes to the cast. If Hawke had a dedicated romance with anyone from the DA2 cast that didn't show back up, then it'd have been easy enough to reference them in a wartable mission. It makes sense for them to be absent. Anders is either on the run or dead, Fenris is hunting mages in Tevinter, Sebastian's ruling Starkhaven, Merrill is helping the elves in Kirkwall's alienage, and Isabella is... Isabella. Having Carver, Bethany, or even Anders be the Warden who helps in Inquisition would have been a SICK call-back and made the choice in "Here lies the Abyss," a lot different, but I think also a lot more meaningful, especially if the choice had been between one of the aforementioned DA2 wardens and a DA1 warden like Alistair, Loghain, or Nathaniel, all of whom might have had different philosophies about the order and thus impacts on the future of the order going into Veilguard. Of course, that'd be nice if Veilguard had chosen to include the outcome of this mission at all, which it didn't -_-

As for Veilguard, I think the cast was mostly fine with a couple of exceptions. 1) Merrill would have been much better as a returning character filling the same role and even having a very similar narrative as Bellara (kind of weird how similar they already are are, tbh.); 2) make the mage-hunter Fenris! Like seriously. If we must have a Crow companion, I'd have really liked Zevran more than a new character, but as long as we drop the abomination angle, Lucanis was fine. Honestly, everyone else was pretty good. I even think a lot of Taash's rougher edges would have been made much more interesting to engage with just by virtue of the protag being Hawke, what with all his experiences with the Qun (in this timeline, including Iron Bull AND Trespasser). Finally, everything with Varric in Veilguard would have been sooo much more gut-punching playing as Hawke. The end. Rant over. Proceed with my public execution.

EDIT: Honorable mention to switching Harding out for Dagna! As much as I like Harding, that whole story just works sooo much better for Dagna