"Kiss your plot goodbye. Here's loyalty quests and non-important companions!" paraphrased: Mike Gamb

Uh... it sounds more like he's talking about Wrex's quest for his family armor than about anything like the showdown on Virmire.

Nothing to see here.

loyalty missions to get to know the people that Ryder will be around. So, would that include crewmembers having loyalty missions?

I wouldn't worry. Sure that is one interpretation of the quote but another is that any events like Wrex onVirmire BioWare woulfn't consider shining the spotlight on individusl characters to be that.

Love your pic. LONG LIVE THE KING OF THE NORTH!!!

You really are the king of hyperbolic misunderstanding.

I meant for a specific character mentioned in the Tempest article, which might be related to a scene in the trailer. 

He did say it's the only moment the squadmates will be alone in the spotlight, not that there won't be other moments they can shine.
I disagree on ME2. The spotlight was only in the recruitment and especially the loyalty quest. We'll still recruit most of the party and have a loyalty quest. As long as the have other moments on the spotlight, even if they won't be alone in it, I'll be satisfied.

Basically, I'm going to wait and see how they realized their vision in the game.

TC, I noticed your examples come exclusively from ME1. No mention of ME 2 or 3. One could argue ME:A is probably going to be more influenced by those more recent games than the first one. What did you think of the way ME 2 and 3 handled the squadmates? Doesn't Mac's quote sound like nothing too different from 2 and 3? By the way, wasn't it possible in ME1 to encounter Wrex's standoff even though you rejected him the whole game and focused on other squadmates, instead? Technically, he was "plot integral," but it's possible you didn't even really get to know him because you never brought him anywhere.

So I wouldn't read too much into what Mac said. In fact, you can virtually count on moments of high stakes that focus on your squadmates during the main plot. ME2 had the suicide mission. What to do about Grunt. What to do about Legion. ME3 had the Geth vs. Quarians moment. Mordin's big moment. Who to bring on the suicide run. Those are just a couple of quick examples. And there's no way Mac's going to spoil those moments for us in ME:A.

You didn't read this thread through. I just accounted for how companions were emphasised in all three games, where ME1 had standout moments with Wrex and Ash/Kaidan and Liara was vital (it's just Tali and Garrus that are sort of there after their recruitment), but ME2 was completely emphasising them as a main theme with both recruitment and loyalty missions counting as part of the critical path and full of expensive level design and action-heavy cutscenes and the entire endgame exclamates how much the story is about the companions uniting with Shepard. ME3 had great use of companions for the ME2 and ME1 default squaddies like Mordin and Ash/Kaidan as both get very heavy main plot agency.

And that's completely fine! I like that it's a choice, just as how I didn't get to see that amazing Mordin finale everyone were talking about until my second ME3 playthrough. What I'm disappointed with is the notion that after recruitment they've already confirmed that A) Their standout moment is their ME1-length (ish) "loyalty mission" as they call it for fan-favoritism and they can't die in the plot of ME:A.

The last one isn't all doom and gloom for me. I would've personally liked it considering both Wrex and Ash or Kaidan were added to raise the stakes of ME1. I thought all being killable in ME2 was insane but it worked because they felt somewhat disposable the whole time and it was more quantity.

The tradeoff would've hopefully been how ME:A's squaddies are really good characters that stand out in the plot and there's only 6 of them, but they just made it sound like their biggest story-moment happens in their companion quests... and that's lame.

I can get behind this. I think bottomline is that I'm just very apathetic towards what they're trying to hype up about the game (scanning, exploring planets, look at all these activities! But no story, lol!)

Honestly if they are going for a low key marketing approach what do you expect? If they market things like story they risk spoiling the story ala Cory= Elder One.  Point two BioWare is known for good stories, great characters, marketing such things may be considered redundant.  AND the marketing campain began two weeks ago.  

Link"Guess"ski  Actually, I was still in the middle of typing my response when you posted that.  You were just too fast.  Oh, well.