The GameInformer article thread

I am, admittedly, but considering how so much of what has been confirmed to be in the game reminds me of DA:I on paper, plus that gameplay PS4 "Neo" demo really made it look like DA:I, both graphically (I know it's frostbite's look, but still) and in terms of animations, especially the way running and jetpacking looks compared to running and jumping in DA:I, and just the overall "building your organization" thing, plus Mac talked about how they were trying to find other ways to deliver conversations than "an inordinate amount of cutscenes" back on the stream in 2014 -- I mean, c'mon, the writing is on the wall already. It's not too much of a stretch to assume some of these things, plus Aaryn said way back that going forward DA:I would be the template for future BioWare titles and they would share work between games to build up good BioWare engines through frostbite.

He has since then told people because they started getting worried, that DA:I wouldn't be a template for Andromeda because they know people dislike the fetch-questing... but BioWare says so many things and then when their product arrives it turns out they were overpromising. I'm not counting on them yet. That villain in the trailer also reminds me of a crossbreed of Cory and The Didact from Halo 4. It's going to be some really barebones story where you have some onesided villain nobody cares about just so the remainder of the story can focus on "build your organization" meandering.

@element_Zero: We've already seen how scanning and possibly mining could work, plus they mentioned that wrist-device thing I talked about, which will probably be a mobile sort of ME2 probing. It's going to be a lot of "Hold Triangle for 3 seconds to mine/scan". I think they're 100% going for the same time-sink nonsense that plagued DA:I, and it's because as usual they listen to criticism... but they listen to it wrong.

It's easy to compare him to Saren given that it's Mass Effect and not Dragon Age, but the "now I know what makes you special" and then he grabs your neck reminded me so much of when Corypheus grabs Inquisitor and starts rambling. Of course, he'll be his own character. We can't really say anything, but I'm naturally afraid we'll get another Corybory, especially when half the writing team from DA:I (Mary Kirby, Luke Kristjanson, Ben Gesalias, probably more) persist to write this one.

Also, building the Inquisition via taking over keeps, aquiring factions and side-quests sounds exactly like colonizing humanity by establishing colonies and aquiring resources. It's a different context and we're not "building and organization" as much as we're "building FOR an organization" being the population on the Hyperion, but I mean, c'mon. It sounds exactly like the same design-framework as DA:I, and there was also some tidbit about how you can deploy troops to do certain things for you. In essence it's the same power-game where you're the leader of your organization and you have the responsibility of making everyone succeed, and when they say the core of the game is "exploration" just as with DA:I and all previous things I mentioned, there's no way in my head it's not going to feel similar.  We know it's not going to be as tight or "linear" as ME1. We can hope the critical path is great, which would remedy a lot, but already knowing that loyalty missions are meaningless to the endgame and no squaddies can die as result of the plot... I don't really have a lot of hype for it yet.

ME1 was tight only if you followed the main path. Otherwise you'll spend half the game riding on the Mako endlessly on vast empty areas.

ME1 had:  Gather X of each of 4 different types of minerals (numbers will vary) and all you'll have to show for it in the end is a "Collection Complete" notation in your Journal.  Then also collect X ID Tag, X Turian Emblems, and X Matriarch's Writings for the same sort of satisfying reward.

@upupaway: ME1 had those... but I never did them, ever because you got nothing from it and the game never created the illusion that you did because there was no cumulative score for every quest you did like ME3's EMS or DA:I's "Power".

A problem both ME1 and Witcher 3 have I find, which only some people really care for, is indeed that a lot of the side-content is almost out of character considering what the characters should be doing. I guess the DA:I concept could be done right, but I so much prefer the ME1/TW3 formula even though all sense of urgency can be broken. It's one of those things I gladly filter out in my head as I play even though it shouldn't make sense for Shepard to be arguing with dumb hanars on the Citadel when Saren is about to bring back the Reapers in a matter of maybe weeks.

For me, I think the biggest problem created by the DA:I framework was the completely bonkered narrative structure. It's mostly in the writing though or perhaps the creative design; You could always win, and you would always win, even when the narrative should've had downturns or just something that thickened the plot or created more tension. The first act has a few writing/pacing issues, but otherwise it was excellent and I felt involved because the threat of the Breach was easy to get behind, but then you close it, you get a bigger base after an admittedly great moment in the story (the best even) and you become the leader... and this already sounds like what ME:A is doing. You start aboard Hyperion (Haven) as an underling of the leader, your dad (Cassandra), but something happens making the Hyperion (Haven) crash and burn probably due to the interference of EVIL, stuff happens to daddy and you become the Pathfinder (Inquisitor) and get the Tempest (Skyhold)

For better or worse there are comparisons to draw. You can already see the potential for improvement in a few areas. Losing daddy in some way (not that he necessarily dies) creates a better turning point than losing Haven, even if we also lose Hyperion temporarily - instead of closing the Breach and removing the stakes, and then losing haven, we stumble across the big threat which is Hyperion and Dad's death or betrayal, and then once you become the Pathfinder the plot starts to focus on some sort of threat. I guess it could work, but I still hope the big threat isn't as transparent and forgettable as Corypheus. "Mind control" bad guys is something BioWare has proven to be fans of multiple times and it's just as disappointing each time. Given that Mac is writing after Schlerf's departure I'm not convinced he can write a better bad guy than ME3 TIM or Harbinger (yes, he wrote both - Drew said he never wrote a single line for Harby).

He said in an interview that the "tone is lighter" yet there were still going to be huge stakes as humanity's survival depends on us. I can get behind that, but despite how the peace in Orlais and Ferelden being at stake in Inquisition to an all-powerful demigod's threat of destroying the world, it can really go anywhere within the spectrum of great vs horrible storytelling depending on its execution :/

I don't really mind respawns, as long as they're not broken like, I remember I was trying to set up camp in DA:I when a pack of wolves and then a bear showed up in the Hinterlands, and then... they kept spawning within 5 seconds of dying so I had no chance because the respawning flags were broken or something. In general there's a lot of bad programming i've noticed and hardcoded stuff, like dialogue wheels in particular. I've turned on the "hide tone icons" but they still appear in some dialogue wheels (and I know the difference between normal choice and "opinion" choice in DA:I) and it just reveals that too often the game's code is bad as it doesn't draw every instance of a mechanic from a system, but rather some of it is implemented directly into certain contexts, which would explain why the game has some loading trouble.

This is where we can't comapare ME:A to anything yet. I have no idea how well Montreal does at programming, except there were some things in Omega DLC that were impressive compared to the main game, but also some things that were completely unpolished, like Aria's speech and my custom Shepard's eyeballs were fully revealed due to some fog-effect the game couldn't process properly.

Was it the Omega DLC where Shepard has to solo a section after getting cut off from the others by a door? I have fond memories of not realizing that my powers not working was a bug, lol. I kept running out of ammo and thought "Man, this is really hard". I believe the only power that worked was Throw. I was an Adept... Somehow I managed to get through it with spamming Throw and some melee slapping. You only realize how weak Throw is when it takes you ten of them to kill one single enemy. I've never seen Cerberus agents get up again so many times. It was hilarious.

This loosely relates to the Gameinformer article - but why all of a sudden is GI skipping days? Why are they doing it every other day now instead of every day, as they promised??

Yeah, I know that one. But as of late, they've started skipping weekdays too.

The next update is on the 23rd, not the 22nd, which is why I asked why. 

I can see how this game is totally not like Iquisition. It's clearly very different. You'll be scanning for shards yourself. No crystal skulls needed!

New article is up www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2016/11/24/22-random-tidbits-about-mass-effect-andromeda.aspx

17. During sequences that might have just been non-interactive cinematics before, players now have a degree of control – like steering a character falling through the sky, or examining objects in a shuttle as a conversation is going on.

Aaaaand say hello to non-cinematic conversations. Yay