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Message: [QUOTE="Lena CE, post: 68858, member: 26523"] The exact mentality I expect online tbh. What's obvious about it? Its obvious that the internet has been full of people with a very specific lens or view of modern Bioware who were begging for this game to be bad upon release, but that's about it. When I talk to people who played it people seem pretty mixed on it, the only people who act like it was some sort of given that it was bad or that the game itself just so obviously bad are the people who have no real attachment to the subject or just wanna grift online. See this is why the talk about journalism feels pointless. Why are we even engaging with a dying medium if this is how we feel about it to begin with? For as long as I can remember this has been the primary way most people engage with reviews. "Oh its a game I dislike or feel biased against and it got a decent/high score, clearly I can't trust them because there is the potential for bias and I just don't trust them" or "Oh it's a game I think is brilliant and it didn't get a score as high as I think it deserved, clearly it's because this doesn't serve *insert agenda here*". And it's funny because we do have examples of outlets like Giant Bomb cropping up BECAUSE of paid controversies so it isn't like the potential for worry is unfounded, but I also have to wonder why people continue to care in any capacity as these outlets steadily lose their relevancy in the age of the influencer. You go to any discussion online about outlet reviews or even the comments section of the reviews themselves and no one seems happy to be there, nor does anyone seem to even be there in good faith. So why bother? Does it really matter that Veilguard got an 82 on metacritic? Is that score coupled with The Game Awards not including Veilguard in ANY categories aside from accessibility really proof of some kind of foul play? EA came out in the wake of the layoffs and poor sales by saying "clearly gamers want more live service mechanics in their games" so it's clear that the people at the top don't share an agenda with both the people who hate modern Bioware and the people who liked the game. People just happen to disagree on things, as wild as it sounds. It is so tiring that for as long as I've tried following games online it is just an endless sea of people indirectly admitting that they only really care about outlets when they confirm their bias, even if that bias is informed by not even playing the game yet. When confronted about their disdain it's just vague stuff like "you don't know what agenda the reviewer is trying to push". Like come on man, people tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves if they're approaching it from a place of malice either way. You can look at a video like Act Man's on Veilguard and witness someone who clearly just grifts and has little to no understanding for what he is playing and probably did not even get past the prologue judging from the gameplay clips he shows. He plays all the usual talking points and comes to the lamest, least interesting conclusion that is only useful to someone who wants to hate the game, not hear an actual opinion on it. Then look at someone like Skillup who was absolutely merciless when slagging the game, but at least clearly had a lot of passion and knowledge for what he was talking about. I can agree and disagree with various points to various degrees and actually have a discussion based around the opinions provided. After looking up some reviews from professional outlets (I don't follow any so until tonight I hadn't read any coverage) I honestly really enjoyed PCGamer and while I thought the IGN review was fairly reasonable, I much preferred the opinion piece from Matt Purslow for IGN that talked about how odd certain aspects of the storytelling and writing were and how it is clear that certain creative decisions were made with onboarding potential new fans and sanding down the edges (not outright removing, just toning down) of things like in-universe racism and inner-party conflict. If I had to cite a review I felt was a bit vapid or overly-positive I'd go with Eurogamer. It didn't feel disingenuous, but it also didn't feel like it was being written by someone who is looking for the same things in an RPG that fans of old Bioware or CRPGs in general are looking for. That's still a perspective worth hearing of course but it's certainly not a review I'd have read and gone "oh man clearly Bioware is fucking back baby" because my taste differs too much from the reviewer. All that to say that I fail to see some greater bias from sources that actually matter (no I do not count pure slop clickbait outlets like Gamerant as sacred). Both in how the game scored, how the game was received within the industry and how the game sold fail to really give me any indication there was some kind of foul play involved. Any insistence that there must be some agenda feels like tinfoil hat stuff at best. You can go into DA fan communities and see both brand new players and established fans talking about the game and debating if a lot of the supposed lore inconsistencies are even that big of a deal on top of if the game is good or not. There's genuine discussion to be had thanks to the time gap and new region being explored but instead of any of that we have people with minimal knowledge of the game just assuming it's all blasphemous through secondhand opinions of people who probably suffer from their own biases. Veilguard feels like a controversial and divisive game, not an outright good or bad one on some objective level. Even in my least charitable reading of the game though I struggle to see how anyone could justify rating it below a 6 or 7 when viewing it in a more objective lens. Part of that is why I view numbers as dumb as hell to begin with, but clearly the numbers are great for driving engagement because they get people who hate and distrust these outlets talking about them all the time. Ultimately I view it as good. Not great, but good. All this to say I do not understand why so many people are desperate to be angry over this kind of stuff. Even if I did hate Veilguard I just struggle to see any value in dancing on the ashes, especially if I didn't give much of a damn about the studio's output. Andromeda was mid, Anthem was a dope idea executed sloppily that didn't get the chance to redeem itself like Destiny did (though I still think Anthem is decent and plays like a dream, much like launch Destiny lol). The industry is constantly giving us so many villains to root against that rooting against creatives for daring to make a game we personally dislike feels weird to me, ultimately. Talk about the shit you dislike, be passionate! Just feels like we're making it weirdly personal due to some underlying agenda when we get as mean spirited as we tend to get over stuff like this. I'll end it here though, I've definitely yapped enough. Apologies for the derail Octopus, the article was dope. [/QUOTE]

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