Logan Westbrook said:
Rumor: Australian Magazine Confirms Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer
BioWare is building a résumé of not exactly understanding the differences between single- and multi-player experiences. They excel at single-player. And they think just going that same stuff, but including a way for another player to plug in is enough to make multi-player.
The result, when these worlds collide, is multiplayer that is basically just "several single-players occupying the same screen." It's just parallel individual games, rather than an integrated multiplayer experience. This doesn't work for
Mass Effect, in which your character
is the entire point of the game. Additionally, your companions are part of your "character"--Shepard does not exist in a vacuum (metaphorically speaking).
You can see this problem in
The Old Republic, as well. How will it look for a handful of people to group up and
all of them have the same wookiee companion, with the same name and everything?
BioWare: You make great single-player experiences. You excel at giving your players control over an ensemble of characters and letting them shape a story arc. You do not excel at crafting multiplayer experiences. It throws off all of the meticulous balancing you've done within the ensemble... or it just forces awkward, artificial situations like "too many wookiees."