Bioware needs to stop with the open worlds.

Was the existing thread on this subject somehow inadequate?

Welcome to the BSN where one no not even two threads on the exact same topic are enough we need more!!! *end sarcasm*

So a game about exploring the unknown should not be big enough to explore? Huh... haha just teasing. Actually imo the issue is the timing. They fixed it a bit with the patch, but priority, loyalty and romance events are connected, making you forget about them if you spend hours doing side and fetch quests. I feel like the war table in DAI, maybe after a certain amount of time passes irl, you should get an email saying so-and-so needs help with something, reminding you it's time to leave and do something else.

They could have easily made open world work with the whole colonization story line. You reach a planet, explore it, find a suitable place for a colony, and start one. Then the quests you do tie directly into the growth of the colony, and the colony expands over the course of the game. When you come back, they're more building, the colony is growing its own food, walls instead of force fields, etc. Research has been done based off a previous quests, which opens up something new for the player or the colony.

Quests would have been more confined to particular worlds, thus having less system hopping, and you would get to see the fruits of your work, and they quests wouldn't feel like meaningless fetch quests.

Instead of seeing a viability %, you would see actual growth.

They could have had colonies contacting you on the vidcom giving you decisions to make, etc.

I dunno. I actually thought it was better this time around. 

I loved DA2, but that was in spite of its environments, which sucked. Mark of the Assassin and Legacy were better about this though. But I loved the entire ensemble and their various multi-stage personal questlines. 

Maybe it is enough if BW would make their open worlds "right"? Open world is not about a huge map where you can go everywhere (btw even limited for BW, as you need to progress quite a lot through the main story to have access to all locations), you need a breathing world that evolves around you. If you can't do that, do not waste your time and ressources on an open world.
(And rest assured, MEA have a gazillion of oppurtunities which could have made this "world" more livable and dynamic, BW wasted them all)



Since other "threads" with similar topic are not on the first 3 pages, at least I couldn't find one, I gues it is ok, as old thread make people write about old stuff rather the few new posts. And yes, I am aware of the fact forum admins and mods do not like this, though, I have no idea why.

How many thread there is on the subject already?

1. I do too, but objectively it was a misfire as a "true sequel to Origins", wouldn't you say? I wouldn't call the story an "achievement" but I would say the story is the bigger achievement compared to DA:O because it felt like DA2 had something real to say while DA:O was just a well-executed and perfectly functional story that was driven greatly by the systems and mechanics of the game itself.

2. You and everyone else but I frankly hate that this is the rep the game got. To me it felt more like 60% great and 30% disappointing and 10% "i can't believe how bad this is..."

The intro shares 5% of the horrendous qualities the ending has. The intro sets up the idea that some boy is important and the ending delivered it. I hated both things but at least I was strangely relieved to see that the ending made the arc the game had set up pay off in a weird way but neither thing served Mass Effect as themes and then the "Organics vs Synthetics" thing takes over and the entire trilogy just turned into an incoherent mess in just a few lines of dialogue that subverts the journey in the most insane way I have ever seen.

The fact that there are still a lot of saltiness left 5 years later from a lot of fans (arguably a lot of the MEA haters too) speaks to the fact that the ending was bad. I however just had many more gripes outside of that. ME3 was already lining up to be my biggest disappointment of all time before I saw the ending. I went through the entire game with a sense of disbelief over what a downgrade everything was both on the story front and the game-design front. I kept thinking "is this made by the same people?". I remember reading all the reviews dumbfounded over just how many perfects scores it was getting. My local Gamereactor magazine gave it 10/10 but then finally like a shining light they had also posted a "second opinion" editorial from a dissenting staff memeber who gave it a 6/10 and he really paid me lip service because he had the exact same complaints from the "empty platitudes" to "ME2 cast is out of character" to "where are my dialogue options?"

EA actually told IGN and several other outlets to play ME3 without save-import. Giant Bomb said this but then stated "we didn't care" and ironically they're one of the few sites that didn't sing high praises of the game. I just want ME3 to be known as the piece of shit it is. It ruined all my hype.

Then I'd say you've managed to live a pretty charmed life up to that point

I wasn't happy with the endings or bad choices they've made, but I don't know...after 5 years I've just kind of let it go. 

I think MEA makes the open world & story work a lot better than DAI ever did.
However i think the bubble/fad for open world may be finally starting to burst as people cotton on that there are compromises inherent in trying to combine the two.