Kotaku reporter has some extra bad news

Much of the "open world" content bored me a lot too. Is my least favorite part of the game, especially when you have to backtrack between different worlds. At least this time we must give them credit for trying to give more background to secondary quests. And this time there are no maps that are totally "skippable" because they are disjointed from the main story. In inquisition you could not visit half of the areas if you didn't feel like that. This time the side content seemed to be a little less "sided" and you find most of it along the main road. 

I wonder if skippable maps might be a good thing. My first time through DAI I blew off the Emerald Graves, Emprise du Lion, and maybe the Hissing Wastes altogether, did the Fallow Mire only after wrapping the main plot up, and only did a little of the Exalted Plains. I didn't see this as a problem.

Problem is that for as much as I 'disliked' Dragon Age Origins there needs to be some connection to the main plot in each area you go to to make the whole thing feel connected, otherwise what would be the point of going there?  Though BioWare did try and do a little connectivity between the zones, but...it just did not work for me.  And as I have always said, DA I is a tale of two different games as a result.  A tier 3 game with solid gameplay, combat, and questing, and an amazing Tier 1 cinematic character driven main story with rich lore and content. 

Well since I'm sure the mods would prefer I not start my own thread on this. I'll just add my thoughts here...

Whatever else you might say, in the end BioWare let us down

I understand it's easy for people to yell and scream about "haters" and the like but it's important to understand why so many fans are feeling frustrated. Whether you like to admit it or not, BioWare failed many of us.

Without a doubt Mass Effect: Andromeda was horribly mismanaged, many people at the top just completely dropped the ball and failed to do their jobs as directors of the project. This resulted in a game that just didn't live up to expectations. No, it's not a bad game, it's a mediocre game. Sure it sold well enough, but that was due far more to the Mass Effect brand then the game itself.

People shouldn't feel the need to make excuses for the game, or have to explain why they enjoy it. If the game could stand on its own merits, none of this would be needed. The fact is Andromeda simply isn't as good as it should have been, and the Anthem reveal proves it. This is why people are angry about it. It's fine if you don't agree with that hate, but it's good to understand where it's coming from.

The problem wasn't just the animations, though that clearly didn't help matters. The biggest problem was that BioWare never prioritized what people care about, they didn't put enough effort into the biggest reason why people play BioWare games. Story and Character Interactions. Andromeda is left lacking in this regard. This can be seen both in major problems with the game, such as a much weaker story and characterizations due to limited writing time, to small details like character banter being continuously interrupted.

Many of Andromeda's technical problems would have been less of an issue if they had prioritized accordingly. Dragonage 2 is a perfect example. Despite all the major issues that game had, what it never lacked was amazing characters, story, and interactions. Despite being far inferior from a technical perspective, I far and away enjoyed Dragonage 2 more then Andromeda and even Inquisition. At least that game didn't have so many things taking away from those core story elements. And more notably, the DLC for that game directly addressed all of the issues and concerns people had for that game.

Adding to all this, it's become clear that Anthem was BioWare's true priority. They simply never bothered to put enough care and emphasis on their Mass Effect title during it's development. Though they had the option to delay it further, they choose to release it in its broken state, despite early and vocal concerns that their animations and faces were every bit as bad as they turned out. They did this because according to their internal reviews they expected the game to get fairly average reviews for a AAA title with a well known brand.

Think about what that means; they were fine with releasing an unfinished, unpolished game because they expected the game to be received about average. They didn't care enough to make a great game, they were happy enough to make an average game, which is exactly what they did.

This all shows a profound lack of respect for the franchise and their fans.

Even if this wasn't the case, it doesn't make any difference because that is exactly the perception their actions have created. As the idiom goes, "Actions speak louder then words". And the actions of BioWare, especially after they sacked their Montreal studio and diverted even more resources to Anthem, just fuels the impression a lot of people are feeling that they just don't really care that much. So no matter if you agree with it or not, people's anger are justified in this regard.

Personally I fully admit that this really bothers me. I've always been a huge fan of all BioWare games. I was playing them almost constantly from the days of Baulder's Gate and Neverwinter. Those were the games that made me want to become a game developer, so I could one day be able to tell such amazing stories and create such amazing characters through this medium. In fact the original Mass Effect trilogy remains by far my favorite gaming franchise of all time. And that's despite how much I absolutely hated the ending beyond imagining.

Where once I played these games almost religiously, I now find myself losing interest in both Mass Effect and Dragonage franchises. Where once I imagined working at BioWare would be my dream job, now I know to avoid it as much as possible given how management abused their great talent that still managed to make a decent game despite their own failures. I'm not even saying that I hate them, I just don't really care anymore. And THAT is what bothers me more then anything else; that BioWare could fall so far that I would lose all interest in the future of my once favorite game worlds.

As for Anthem, sure it looks very pretty. Might be a great game when it comes out. I might even end up playing it if it really ends up being everything they promised. But to me it's not a BioWare game, merely another Destiny clone made by EA. Time will tell if they can prove differently. But unless BioWare can address the fans who feel so let down by all of this, Anthem will maintain the stigma of the game that they killed Mass Effect for.

... not when people are already starting to pick apart an IP based on a short trailer... and they already have started that here.  Blame doesn't matter in the long run... Time will tell.

Another problem besides animations is that it released with Zelda and Horizon, both games that were praised for their open environments while MEA showed that Bioware still struggles with open settings.

Remember, DAI released in a bad gaming year while 2017 is shapping up to be one of the best gaming years in a long while.

I just have the sneaking feeling that a lack of consequences and connection is what people like about OW. Works for Bethesda, after all.

The mechanism here isn't obvious. ME:A and Anthem had separate budgets and deadlines. It's not clear how no Anthem means more headcount or time for ME:A. (It might have meant more competent headcount for ME:A, perhaps. ) Internal reviews would have told them the same thing, Anthem or no.

But since we apparently are going to have to put up with these big open worlds for the foreseeable future, the question is how to integrate those with the strong story, etc. I like the concept of integration, but that's more or less a restatement of me not really liking the OW concept in the first place.

Why would you think I'm expecting anyone to apologize?... I'm not.  I fully expect denial by everyone... because that's what people tend to do regardless of whether they're at fault or not... and I just said blame ultimately is irrelevant.  If the internet tears Anthem apart before release the same way it did ME:A, then it doesn't have much of a chance of "wow'ing" anyone.  Expectations get tainted by all the pre-release negativity.  Time will tell.

Well, you can't really say "blame doesn't matter" after posting something like this:
"I don't think, given the attitude of the internet, that it will ever be possible to Bioware to produce an ME game that "wows." It think whatever they try that's even remotely similar to any of the ME games and even any of the DA games will just get pulled apart by an internet "gang" that's determined to pull apart whatever Bioware does. It may not even possible for them to "wow" in a different genre, given that people have already started to pull apart the new IP just based on a very short intro vid. By the time their game will get even close to release, the attitude on the internet will probably already be so negative towards it that it will just snowball into another feeding frenzy."

I say, at least in the case of ME:A, there was no "Internet gang" that maliciously tried to "pull apart whatever BW does". People saw the stuff taking shape and had concerns. And I have yet to see a serious pre-release (or post-release) concern that got wide-spread attention and that turned out not to be justified. Some were exaggerated but all of them had some basis in ME:A's material.

Were there a few trolls on boards like this one? Sure but I don't see anything especially malevolent or unfair of how BW or ME:A was treated when compared to any other AAA production over all.