What do you think DA4's live service will entail?

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EA wants to see all the game metrics generated by each player so that they can tell their investors "players played zillion of hours with DA4".

In Baldur's Gate and NeverWinter Nights, your co-op buddies would create their own characters, if I recall correctly. You didn't take the place of an existing party member.

The most important issue is that one day, Bioware/EA will turn off the servers and DA4 will cease to exist. This is the biggest issue I have with the live service games. EA can disappear tomorrow and I would still be able to play DAO, KOTOR or Mass Effect. Basically we are just renting or subscribing to Bioware games going forward.

Fuck that.

I hate Bioware.

Given that DA:4 is almost certainly going to be a multiplayer-only game with no single player campaign at all, I'm expecting these 'live services' to take the form of loot boxes, that have a chance to drop a powerful weapon or armor piece if you buy enough of them. There will also likely be a large Cash Shop button on the interface which allows you to buy gear upgrades, shipments of in-game currency, level and stat boosts etc. for players who prefer to leapfrog over the competition by using real money.

Over and above that, expect a crap-tonne of skins, skins and more skins.

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Yeah and people and new people are still playing it, even though I rate some of the mechanics in it bad, the playability is much better than in me3mp.

I dunno about MTX, but I would have some words to say what to do for the next MP part. I also liked you could see your MP characters in the courtyard. Before knowing that I was wondering who are these people here

I was able to play it with some friends, and put several hundred hours in. It was definitely a flawed multiplayer mode, but it had its bright spots here and there.

Part of me wonders if Dragon Age Multiplayer would be better served if it went the Halo 4 Warzone route. There, you had linear missions you would undertake, and it would be accompanied by a cinematic that delivers plot points that are tangentially related to the main story. It would better convey why your doing said activity, while also justifying the dungeon crawler-esque nature of the mode.

I'm not a fan of the loot box system either. I'd much rather play, gather materials, and - eventually - build the items I want.

Given that Squadrons, which has a huge multiplayer component, is allegedly microtransactions-free, I do think DA4 will follow the same path. 

I think EA is looking for other ways to monetize right now, for they have been scaling back on microtransactions and I doubt it has anything to do with the pressure of the few places that have made laws about them, but the fact players are buying less of them.  Jedi Fallen Order and Need for Speed: Heat both were released without any microtransactions.  Command and Conquer: Remastered didn't have any additional monetization attached to the game and they released the files so people can make mods for the game.  According to the conversations there aren't any plans for microtransactions in Star Wars: Squadrons either.  Which brings me to why I think its player demand driving this because it sounds like they still have their collectible card trading game for Madden and FIFA with The Ultimate Team.

At the same time you have Activision adding microtransactions for Crash Bandicoot being announced by the Microsoft store, but at least they aren't repeating what they got less heat then EA dose when they added microtransactions to the Crash Bandicoot Racing post release.  Not to mention RockStar adding their monetization to Red Dead Redemption 2 post release as well since that is when they added the online aspect to the game.