LordRoyal said:
I dont think you completely understand what everyone's riled up about.
It's not so much the game is going to have more combat elements as much as everyone's worried the pacing is going to be completely skewed. A big part of the Mass Effect experience has been exploring worlds, talking to characters and then eventually engaging in some epic battles. But it was always paced nicely so that the game didn't feel entirely like you were only doing one thing over another.
Everyone's worried that the game is going to feature more of the combat then it is the "Space Opera" moments that the series was advertised has having originally. RPG itself is already a subjective term but what everyone is focused on is they are hoping it's not just going to be a third person shooter, with stats and dialogue trees.
I understand that, I suppose I'm just less afraid of change than some other people?
To sound less like a massive tool, we've already had two games of Shepard wandering around doing odd jobs, exploring planets, talking to people. This third game is supposed to bring the Reaper vs. Everyone Else war to an end. I suppose I've just been thinking that it would make sense for the pacing to be more focused on pushing out the action rather than saying "Oh, well, these universe-ending sentient space-ships are important and all, but they can wait until you finish Tali's loyalty mission for a third time and help out Wrex and Garrus again."
And, as far as I know, the game is still being made by at least the majority of people who worked on the first two. In my mind, it would take quite the catastrophe for them to actually mess it up because, despite what some people might say, Mass Effect 2 was
not the worst game ever created, the mechanics, while stripped down from Mass Effect, were
not worse than the first game, and the writing/pacing were still just as good, only marred by the fact that ME2 suffers from "Mid-quel" syndrome (see also: Half-Life 2: Episode 2).
Dragon Age II may have been a slip on Bioware as a whole, but it wasn't developed by the same exact team who's doing Mass Effect 3. Unless you vehemently despised Mass Effect 2 for whatever personal opinion you have, there's no reason to get so worried about Mass Effect 3.
Innovation for the sake of innovation is bad, but staying routine out of fear of changing is no better. Besides, my post was mostly aimed at the people who are romanticizing the idea and going "UGH MASS EFFECT 3 IS JUST GOING TO BE ANOTHER THIRD-PERSON SHOOTER LIKE GEARS OF WAR!!!!!" You can be legitimately concerned about how the combat or writing will turn out, but it just gets on my nerves whenever people jump to fantastic conclusions based off of promo material. Bugs me just as much whenever someone says something has been "dumbed down" or "simplified for console kiddies", or when PC Elitists cry "CONSOLE PORT!!!!" over every single game that ever gets released just because it was poorly optimized.
Example: The Witcher 2 was released with rather buggy menus and controls and, even though the Xbox 360 version hadn't even been confirmed at that point, every single PC Gamer who cared enough to shout their opinion on a forum complained that it was a crappy console port.
EDIT: Oh, also, see the "fan" response to everything that has been released about the new Devil May Cry, mostly concerned with Dante's
hair.