Cole: Your clothes look like the Fade, Dorian.
Dorian: The stuff of dreams? An explosion of color and sensation wrapped in an enigma?
Cole: It’s shiny.
If you follow me on twitter or tumblr, then you know I am epically obsessed with Dragon Age. It’s BioWare’s fantasy baby and was a HUGE part of my life last year when I didn’t really have anything. I dove in without knowing anything about the series and fell, as my friend Ardy put it, “heart first.”
And I really did. I’ve clocked an alarming amount of hours on Dragon Age: Inquisition between my current FIVE playthroughs and I’ve beaten the first two in the series multiple times as well. The lore is rich, the characters well developed and interesting and complex, and everything is pretty with lots of magic. I like magic. It was instrumental in getting me back into gaming and has broaden my horizons considerably in terms of the media I enjoy. Long had I thought my love of fantasy was dead when the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy ended, but I’m back to being fantasy loving trash. And I mean that in the most sincere way possible. It’s a great genre and is endless in its possibilities. So thanks for that.
One of the first things I do when I fall in love with something is scour the internet to buy things to show how much I love it. So finding official and fan made Dragon Age merchandise was my number one goal for a good few weeks. I initially got my hands on the Cullen tank and Tevinter hoodie and more stickers of the characters than I care to admit, and that was fabulous. And then rumors started spreading that BioWare and ThinkGeek were creating some new items. Eventually these were revealed at a fashion show at PAX Prime to much delight and squeals and much of the internet opening their wallets. Everything looked amazing, and better yet, it looked unique. These weren’t just the run-of-the-mill t-shirts with the logo on them, no, these pieces were actually conceptualized and reflected the characters. And they were interesting pieces in terms of their construction as well. I was immediately impressed and the more I learned about what BioWare and ThinkGeek were working on, the more jazzed I got.
The Dragon Age Fall Collection dropped today at the Bio Ware store and immediately my timeline exploded. And it’s not had to see why. The stuff looks stellar. These were all created in conjunction with ThinkGeek Solutions, and it’s a partnership I never want to see die.
Let’s also take a moment to really commend Bio Ware for catering to us ladies. Women are the majority of gamers, despite what G4merG4te wackos preach, and it’s nice to see that recognized in terms of merchandise.
But what’s even more important it supporting this, because the more merch women gamers buy, the more that will be generated. It’s a win-win for us really because we get more stuff and thus they will continue to make more for us. Bio Ware is really great at listening to its fan base, especially in comparison to other studios. Players have always had the option of playing as a man or woman and they’ve been including more homosexual, bisexual, and transgender characters, story lines, and romances in recent games.
And these characters have become very popular; case and point with Dorian Pavus getting his own hoodie! That sort of representation in terms of merchandise is still very rare today, so it’s great to see. Not to mention, I know the vast majority of my timeline is gunning for that hoodie because of their love of Dorian. That’s telling.
It’s important to support studios who do this, so make your voices heard and wear cute things as well!
You can pre-order the fall collection goodies at the BioWare store.
Very Nerdy Curly 