@EgoMania wrote:
One of the best (or worst) examples of this is Guild Wars 2. I was a big fan of Guild Wars 1 and played it for thousands of hours over many years. After they decided to make a second installment of the game, the hype was big and players were looking forward to it. But as time progressed the developer team completely changed and a lot of stuff that was originally planned was abandoned. Other than the names of areas, classes and races the second game has absolutely nothing to do with the first and was turned into some childish "festive" event driven game with grind as endgame.
Now compared to that, ME:A is doing better. I have to say it. But you do have a point, people have expectations because of the previous ME installments and these expectations were not planned to be met. I suppose the idea was that we would be blown away by new stuff in such a way that we'd be too excited to mourn the loss of the Shepard saga, but I think they underestimated the fans or overestimate themselves in this. Or both.
It is a game set in the ME universe. There is no doubt about that. But beyond that, it really is a completely different game. Everything else has been changed either a lot or completely. Now I am not even arguing what's worse or better, but it's very different. Not in the least the story which is new, with completely new players and so we have to get used to a lot of things again. There simply isn't enough of an overlap to give you that warm fuzzy at home feeling that we got in ME2 and ME3 because it was similar enough.
It's a brave new world and as much as it's set in the ME universe, it's about as far apart from it as they could've made it, without completely disbelieving it's ME. Sadly, the Ryder story ends with ME: Andromeda. So it's not a continuation and so I fear that I will not get attached to game as I was with ME1-3. I have the merchandise to show it at home. The whole black and red N7 thing just speaks a lot more to me than the AI blue and whites ever will. It's corporate and per definition less personal. N7 is the military angle in a wartime and the brotherhood of comrades is felt. Ryder is on a brave adventure for sure with a loose band of characters but is ultimately working for something that feels corporate. I hope Meridian will be better in future installments as a home than the Nexus.
You know, for all their splendor the planets we visit certainly don't feel like home. And really, that fits with the story very well, but it doesn't warm me up to them. At the end of the story I still feel like we're far away from home and the outposts are for the people and not for me. And oddly enough, as much as "Kettification" may be even scarier than what the Reapers represented, they certainly don't feel scarier. I am hopeful that even though Ryder's story may not continue in future installments that we do get to continue the story of Heleus or Meridian. This approach really wasn't done that well in DA, where the last installment failed to pull me in a for even a second playthrough and there we see that ME:A does in fact manage that quite well. Because nearing the end of my third playthrough, I know there will be more.
Just need that patch with the extended character creation options they were talking about.
LOL thank goodness I have never played the guildwar series... From what you have described that's going to be frustrating. When I was much younger, I used to play table top dungeons and dragons, so when Planscape torment came out it was the game for me at that time, absolutely loved it. They recently launched planescape tides of numenera. I played it recently before MEA came out... I couldnt even finish the game. I was bored... I dont know if it's me, perhaps I am many years older... It just didnt have the same feel for me.
Before MEA came out, I watched a bunch of interviews, bioware brass and project folks talking about the game, saying they are giving the fans what they want, the exploration, having ryder start off as a rookie and not a hero like shep. Hey I bought into all of it and I agreed. Lets embrace the new... And they weren't lying, the ticks are all there in the checkbox. Exploration check. Rookie status check. But in my opinion the spirit is not... out of the 100 planets they have out there, there aren't any random encounters. I liked ME2, when you scan a planet, sometimes you find a pirate base, some eclipse merc... now you can 100 planets, if you are lucky some have a mountain. some have a river that gives you 270 exp. out of which you have 6 planets(and 1 rock) that can be explored... My expectation of a rookie is Shepard at level 1. Still a man's man but just unproven. Ryder's too much of a pushover for me to want to be him. If you give me a choice, who do I want to play, Alec Ryder or Scott, I will pick Alec Ryder any day.
One question though, you mentioned that the Ryder story may not continue? Is that speculation or did bioware mention something about this?
But: In a game like Andromeda they SHOULD have "basic possibilitys" like this. Also that you can't equip your people, that you can't name your savegames a bit, somehow .... a lot of little stepbacks or NO progress. 
Sorry. *shame* 
