John French
Author and Musician
November 2024
Good to see you again
18/11/24 18:07
I bought a new monitor while playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I can tell you about it:
It's the same resolution as my old one (4K), but it's physically bigger so that I can see the stuff on it a little better without my glasses on (a few years ago, that wasn't an issue). It's a VA panel so it has more vibrant contrast than the IPS panel it replaces, but that contrast gets wonky when you look at pixels at steep angles. To fight this flaw it is curved so that all the pixels are more-or-less pointed at my face when I'm using it. It has a higher refresh rate too, which is nice for a sense of fluidity and let me enjoy a few more frames for every second of gameplay.
It made no difference to how much I enjoyed the game.
Veilguard invites you to be part of a story full of bombast and big ideas, all competently and extravagantly delivered on-screen. As a game it is easy to learn and smooth to play; as a world it is charming, if mildly tedious, to explore. The palette of villains (some old, some new) are enticing, and requisite-for-the-genre companions are broadly likable, each loaded with a unique variety of baggage and personalities all their own. It has been a decade since we last saw a new on-screen adventure set in Thedas and going back is a most welcome excursion.
Veilguard picks up several years after the concluding events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and while it includes quite a number of returning references and faces from that game's era, many are left behind for better or worse to make way for a new band of well-resourced misfits become their own region's heroes. Tonally it is a little brighter than previous adventures, but not so much as to be unrecognizable, and it does readily descend to grim depths as the plot demands.
Mechanically-speaking, Veilguard is focused and distinctive, giving you a straightforward but highly nuanced way to define your character's growth from disoriented and confused Level 1 Peasant to emotionally damaged and pissed-off Level 48 Demonshredder. I think it actually provides the most competent example of this RPG progression staple to come out under the BioWare name for a long, long time.
I'm not overly fond of Veilguard's Hobbit-esque aesthetic flavor; I think the tone of the game would have been better served by something more grounded. It didn't stop me enjoying the story, but I got the facial proportions 'wrong' (as in, out of line with the rest of the characters) in the character creator a few times. A word to the adventurous: exaggerate your eye, brow, eyebrow, nose, and cheek spacing/qualities at least a little bit. The rest will work out.
Without spoilers: I will both commend BioWare for braving new social territory in their role-playing games, and criticize them for their exploration being too anachronistic. The specifics felt forced in-situ and I am positive they could have found a way to explore the ideas which may have been a bit subtler, but more natural to the residents of Thedas. I hope they try again, and more cohesively, with their next project.
Now, back to the vibe: This is big, swashbuckle-y storytelling, not a subtle tale of intrigue and hard choices. While it is by far at its strongest with bombastic set-pieces, Veilguard does occasionally show an ability to cherish the quiet moments, and these remain my favorite parts of the game. It accomplishes the trademark BioWare feel, and is easily among the best-executed of the studio's catalog. It is, in the most fanciful sense, a role-playing game.
In the context of a computer/video game there are two versions of what the "role playing" part of the term means:
The first is primarily mechanical: You, the player, use complex, interlocking systems to map your imaginative will upon the game world. If you care to, you may maintain a fiction about your character in your head to ground the actions you take within the game world. This is, loosely, how I would categorize the likes of Skyrim or Baldur's Gate 3. Games in this model prize improvisation before everything else.
The second version is primarily imaginative. You, the player, put yourself into the head of a character in this world and use its characters, quests, narrative choices, and conversations to take part in a fantastical story. This is more how I would describe most BioWare games and titles from CD Projekt Red. Games in this model prize active, "on-screen" storytelling and narrative complexity above all else.
Veilguard fits in that second group almost gleefully, and that is, I think, going to remain a point of consternation for anybody comparing it to more improvisational games. As I've gotten older (and my eyesight slightly worse), I've increasingly hoped for games to add new layers of improvised responsiveness and flexibility, letting me poke and prod their worlds in hope that the game might notice and poke me back for once. Instead, much like this new monitor, this game is really just bigger, shinier, and modestly more polished (but not really any more nuanced) than what I've had before.
And that's fine. I can find flaws with it or point to places where I'd hope for more nuance or depth, but I unreservedly enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with iterating on an idea as long as the execution is good, and Veilguard is rather good where it counts.
It's the same resolution as my old one (4K), but it's physically bigger so that I can see the stuff on it a little better without my glasses on (a few years ago, that wasn't an issue). It's a VA panel so it has more vibrant contrast than the IPS panel it replaces, but that contrast gets wonky when you look at pixels at steep angles. To fight this flaw it is curved so that all the pixels are more-or-less pointed at my face when I'm using it. It has a higher refresh rate too, which is nice for a sense of fluidity and let me enjoy a few more frames for every second of gameplay.
It made no difference to how much I enjoyed the game.
Veilguard invites you to be part of a story full of bombast and big ideas, all competently and extravagantly delivered on-screen. As a game it is easy to learn and smooth to play; as a world it is charming, if mildly tedious, to explore. The palette of villains (some old, some new) are enticing, and requisite-for-the-genre companions are broadly likable, each loaded with a unique variety of baggage and personalities all their own. It has been a decade since we last saw a new on-screen adventure set in Thedas and going back is a most welcome excursion.
Veilguard picks up several years after the concluding events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and while it includes quite a number of returning references and faces from that game's era, many are left behind for better or worse to make way for a new band of well-resourced misfits become their own region's heroes. Tonally it is a little brighter than previous adventures, but not so much as to be unrecognizable, and it does readily descend to grim depths as the plot demands.
Mechanically-speaking, Veilguard is focused and distinctive, giving you a straightforward but highly nuanced way to define your character's growth from disoriented and confused Level 1 Peasant to emotionally damaged and pissed-off Level 48 Demonshredder. I think it actually provides the most competent example of this RPG progression staple to come out under the BioWare name for a long, long time.
I'm not overly fond of Veilguard's Hobbit-esque aesthetic flavor; I think the tone of the game would have been better served by something more grounded. It didn't stop me enjoying the story, but I got the facial proportions 'wrong' (as in, out of line with the rest of the characters) in the character creator a few times. A word to the adventurous: exaggerate your eye, brow, eyebrow, nose, and cheek spacing/qualities at least a little bit. The rest will work out.
Without spoilers: I will both commend BioWare for braving new social territory in their role-playing games, and criticize them for their exploration being too anachronistic. The specifics felt forced in-situ and I am positive they could have found a way to explore the ideas which may have been a bit subtler, but more natural to the residents of Thedas. I hope they try again, and more cohesively, with their next project.
Now, back to the vibe: This is big, swashbuckle-y storytelling, not a subtle tale of intrigue and hard choices. While it is by far at its strongest with bombastic set-pieces, Veilguard does occasionally show an ability to cherish the quiet moments, and these remain my favorite parts of the game. It accomplishes the trademark BioWare feel, and is easily among the best-executed of the studio's catalog. It is, in the most fanciful sense, a role-playing game.
In the context of a computer/video game there are two versions of what the "role playing" part of the term means:
The first is primarily mechanical: You, the player, use complex, interlocking systems to map your imaginative will upon the game world. If you care to, you may maintain a fiction about your character in your head to ground the actions you take within the game world. This is, loosely, how I would categorize the likes of Skyrim or Baldur's Gate 3. Games in this model prize improvisation before everything else.
The second version is primarily imaginative. You, the player, put yourself into the head of a character in this world and use its characters, quests, narrative choices, and conversations to take part in a fantastical story. This is more how I would describe most BioWare games and titles from CD Projekt Red. Games in this model prize active, "on-screen" storytelling and narrative complexity above all else.
Veilguard fits in that second group almost gleefully, and that is, I think, going to remain a point of consternation for anybody comparing it to more improvisational games. As I've gotten older (and my eyesight slightly worse), I've increasingly hoped for games to add new layers of improvised responsiveness and flexibility, letting me poke and prod their worlds in hope that the game might notice and poke me back for once. Instead, much like this new monitor, this game is really just bigger, shinier, and modestly more polished (but not really any more nuanced) than what I've had before.
And that's fine. I can find flaws with it or point to places where I'd hope for more nuance or depth, but I unreservedly enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with iterating on an idea as long as the execution is good, and Veilguard is rather good where it counts.
Regulations
14/11/24 22:51
ARS TECHNICA: EU fines Meta €800 million for breaking law with Marketplace
The commentariat's reaction to articles about EU-issed corporate fines on Ars Technica is interesting. Usually these articles elicit an extremely vocal response from people who struggle with the premise of lives being of greater importance than livelihoods. This is always a little bit surprising to me. To my way of thinking, civilization exists to attain higher levels of capability, as to better indulge in culture, comforts, pursuits of passion and family. Making money is a vehicle to those goals, not an end-goal by itself.
To this way of thinking, businesses are self-interested distractions from anything that really matters. This does not make them useless; having a self-interested collection of motivated people working together can be extremely useful. The question, however, is useful to whom; to a business, its people are useful for making money, and any wider good or bad that comes of that is a byproduct. A business would happily be left to its own money-making devices. Some governments view the money-making as a carrot, their regulatory tools as a stick, and the good that comes from business' products and services as the desired goal. By and large this sentiment has taken root in the last hundred years as American-style capitalism. European-style capitalism bears a resemblance, but has just enough of a different flavor to baffle those not used to seeing it.
The fallacy of unchecked capitalistic drive is that corporations will constantly attempt to grow at the expense of all competitors. In the 'mid game' stage this can definitely be desirable as it encourages innovative progress from a field of direct competitors; when previously-luxurious standards become the new table stakes in a given domain, the status quo is better for everyone. The problem comes in during the late-game stage, where competitors have either merged or been killed off leaving a few fat players (or just one) with a stable dynamic that rarely grows forward. Occasionally you get a late-game stage where the fat players are so fat that a successful and lucky upstart can upset the whole table - see SpaceX. More often the fat players just remain fat indefinitely - see every major ISP in the US.
Good regulation seeks to prevent any one market from staying in the late-game too long before being pushed back into the mid-game. This can be done by prioritizing either the small competitor (equitable support of smaller business' selfish priorities) or by prioritizing the consumer (equal support of no business' selfish priorities). The EU seems content to use both methods. It would do the US some good to take notes.
The commentariat's reaction to articles about EU-issed corporate fines on Ars Technica is interesting. Usually these articles elicit an extremely vocal response from people who struggle with the premise of lives being of greater importance than livelihoods. This is always a little bit surprising to me. To my way of thinking, civilization exists to attain higher levels of capability, as to better indulge in culture, comforts, pursuits of passion and family. Making money is a vehicle to those goals, not an end-goal by itself.
To this way of thinking, businesses are self-interested distractions from anything that really matters. This does not make them useless; having a self-interested collection of motivated people working together can be extremely useful. The question, however, is useful to whom; to a business, its people are useful for making money, and any wider good or bad that comes of that is a byproduct. A business would happily be left to its own money-making devices. Some governments view the money-making as a carrot, their regulatory tools as a stick, and the good that comes from business' products and services as the desired goal. By and large this sentiment has taken root in the last hundred years as American-style capitalism. European-style capitalism bears a resemblance, but has just enough of a different flavor to baffle those not used to seeing it.
The fallacy of unchecked capitalistic drive is that corporations will constantly attempt to grow at the expense of all competitors. In the 'mid game' stage this can definitely be desirable as it encourages innovative progress from a field of direct competitors; when previously-luxurious standards become the new table stakes in a given domain, the status quo is better for everyone. The problem comes in during the late-game stage, where competitors have either merged or been killed off leaving a few fat players (or just one) with a stable dynamic that rarely grows forward. Occasionally you get a late-game stage where the fat players are so fat that a successful and lucky upstart can upset the whole table - see SpaceX. More often the fat players just remain fat indefinitely - see every major ISP in the US.
Good regulation seeks to prevent any one market from staying in the late-game too long before being pushed back into the mid-game. This can be done by prioritizing either the small competitor (equitable support of smaller business' selfish priorities) or by prioritizing the consumer (equal support of no business' selfish priorities). The EU seems content to use both methods. It would do the US some good to take notes.
