Adressing the 600 Pound Gorilla in the room

I could agree regarding ME3's gameplay, but never ME1 or 2. I feel those games got away with their clumsy shooter mechanics by offering a lot in other ways. I actually don't remember having all that much time to play games when I was 15. I have more time now that I don't have to do anything anyone wants me to do on the weekend, whereas I always had school projects and crap to do. In any case, I can't really agree that the length of the game dilutes the impact of the characters. The advantage Dragon Age generally had over any Mass Effect game was that there were multiple ways you could deal with them, and while it was certainly spotty at times when carried over (necro-Leliana), they made the latter feel shallow by comparison.


There is no denying the technical superiority though. Each game looks vastly better than their hack&slash counterparts and play better for the most part. Regardless of how people feel about MEA bringing back the open world thing, the fact that we can probably snipe the hell out of people from a distance and use a vehicle that is (presumably) better than a horse will at least ease that suffering.

But, I am not as concerned.  Why?  Because of BioWare's history.  

Frankly as long as BioWare doesn't have a lot of those pointless 6+ hour in real time War Table operations in ME:A, I would rather do 1000 silly fetch quests over waiting 6+ hours (and trying to get those damn thing set up so they could be ran overnight and in some cases that was next to impossible).


Those damn things in DA:I made me want to play the game less I probably spent more time watching 3 hour movies and binge watching TV shows than actually playing the game and then to top it off those damn things offered very little in rewards for example Send a Letter to the Warden operation was a waste of a day all you get is a letter from the Warden, a bit of dialogue from either Leliana or Morrigan, and a useless belt. Which felt like a huge waste of time.

BioWare could have the Warden send me the Starfang sword, the Blood Dragon Armor or at the very least schematics and the materials for a new Starfang weapon and the Blood Dragon Armor, or even a cutscene showing a dog running towards a fully armor clad human/elf/dwarf somewhere with a message, the Warden taking the message and writing a reply and sending the dog back with a letter and supplies. That would have at least made the operation feel like my time would have earned a real reward and might have some real value to some players.  

I wasn't against the ones that were like 30 minutes-2 hours because I could just wander around and talk to the various companions and/or NPCs in Haven and/or Skyhold, I could explore the various places and/or take care of quests and side-quests.