Did I set my expectations too high? Should Mass Effect inspire a sense of wonder?

For me it inspired a sense of wonder, more so in the 2nd PT.

They were supposedly planning to have enviroment effects like duststorm and such, also readable from the datamining of the files and missions, which were unreleased into the main game. Also the smaller ME1 UNC like areas to deploy Nomad were to be included but were culled from the final builds..

I think that part's of mass effect charm IS the sense of wonder it provides.

There were a few moments which shone with MEA but not as many as in the OT.

The game itself did inspire a sense of wonder in me that easily equaled ME1.  What killed it was the overkill fan reaction online with ridiculous memes, etc.  Since I started playing a couple of months after release, I went into it feeling like it was a game I should not like because no one else seemed to like it.  Fortunately, I'm not a sheep who just follows the crowd and it was quite evident early on to me that the game was not nearly as bad as the internet was making it out to be.  Once I got a taste of real combat (i.e. after finishing all the tutorial), it didn't take me long to realize that I was genuinely having great fun playing the game regardless of anything any of the naysayers online were going on about.  People will never experience a sense of wonder if they don't want to let themselves experience it.  It's not a case of expectations being set too high, but of expectations being dashed by others continually going on about how bad something is when it really isn't  So many were just set on not liking the game even long before it released that they killed any possibility to enjoy the game long before they even started to play it... for themselves first and then for others.  It's a "mass opinion effect."  Their loss... my gain for just not listening to them.

Yes, people who see a franchise moving in directions they personally don't want to see them go can tend to resent people who do like those changes they don't.  Basically, they view those people as "encouraging" the franchise to move in those new directions.

Just pointing out that I don't let prevailing winds determine whether I like a game or not.

And yes, The draw with Shepard was the beautiful landscapes.  Shepard wasn't "exploring", save what he/she was seeing for the first time personally.  Shepard WAS playing catchup, that was the entire plot behind ME1! 


But Ryder was a Pathfinder, and was supposed to be "pathfindng" as Addison put it.  Exploring, discovering, Landing on worlds never explored by anyone from the Milky Way, or anyone at all, for that matter! 

... and that's what Ryder did.

I'm sorry.

Seriously.

Never seen the Grand Canyon? Never watched Old Faithful burst on time? Never seen an enormous Caribou that could easily kill you in seconds, 10 feet away from you, fart and keep moving? Never seen your niece and somehow saw your Grandma?

Wonder is everywhere man. Eat a mushroom and stare at some trees for a day. Your status on this subject will change mightily.

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I felt wonder the first time I realized I was Revan. Blew my mind.

I felt wonder landing on my first planet in ME1, landing in a Mako on a strange landscape, definitely not on Earth.

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No book you ever read gave you pause?

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You did say in your life. If it's just video game inspired wonder you haven't had, I can accept that. Otherwise, it seems like something said in haste that was disingenuous.

It could be that I simply don't remember. It could be that depression is affecting my perception of past events. It could be that a disorder I've been diagnosed with means I experience emotions differently than other people.

If anything comes to me, I'll let you know.

How could it have felt like Ryder was finding them? Ryder can't very well be the first MW person to set foot in a krogan colony, or an exile-controlled former angaran settlement. Unless the "them" there just refers to different places which would have been designed instead of designing Kadara and New Tuchanka.