I for one am outright infuriated, frustrated, and livid that BioWare jumped onto the multiplayer bandwagon. I'm sick and tired of just about everyone saying that for a game to considered good, it has to have multiplayer. Fallout doesn't, same thing with Dragon Age, although this will probably change, and yet they are great games. I don't care what form of multiplayer it will be, a full on combat style player, co-op, or whatever, Mass Effect was a great single player game and I see no valid reason for BioWare to abandon a pure single player game and incorporate multiplayer. The only thing that comes to mind is that they caved to peer pressure and jumped onto a wagon where they have to compete with games like Reach and Gears. This doesn't make sense to me and I doubt it ever will. Seriously, how many people bought Reach for the campaign?
Making a multiplayer aspect for a game is significantly harder than making a single player game and if I find that BioWare in any way comprised the single player aspect, or cut part of the campaign to accommodate multiplayer, or [shudder] forces us to play co-op to get the whole story, then I may seriously rethink about buying BioWare games in the future. A game doesn't have to incorporate multiplayer to be a great game, as single player games are great and really shows how much you can put into a game, IMO. Adding multiplayer in any form makes the game more complicated and forces you to compromise your single player aspect to incorporate it. Even if it completely independent of the campaign.
I personally think that BioWare has made a grave mistake and one that will come back to haunt them. I also personally think that if a game has been single player, then it switches to multiplayer all of a sudden, then something, usually the single player aspect, will get compromised, things will get cut, and players will not have the same experience if the game was just released as a single player element.
So this may have been a rant, but I'm getting sick and tired of seeing great series try and incorporate multiplayer and then botching it. Or series that rely on multiplayer to make or break their games. People, multiplayer doesn't have to be a part of your game. You can still see your game get high ratings without it. It's not a required element. I seriously think that BioWare is going to regret this decision and I think the only reason it was made was them bowing to the peer pressure from the rest of the industry. This is my opinion, so take it how you will.
As I posted this, I saw that we have co-op missions. I already made the statement above, but if we are forced to play them, i.e. no way to play them in single player, even if they aren't critical to the story, then I will be even more livid.
I again state that BioWare has made a mistake and is only bowing to peer pressure. With the new information, I firmly believe that the single player campaign has been/was compromised in some way to accommodate this and that is something that I cannot, and WILL NOT tolerate. The single player campaign is what Mass Effect is about, and every time I have seen single player games go to multiplayer in any form, then the single player aspect suffers. The only way that I can see BioWare salvaging this, IMO, is to make them playable on single player and if they are buggy, poorly constructed, or don't share the same detail as Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, and put the rest of the campaign into that one, then I will be severely disappointed and furious.
