It's not pessimism, it's realism. You're smoking crack if you think a game from EA and modern Bioware has any chance of being good.
Mass Effect 3 was good. Yes, even if the ending was disappointing. 95% of a game is great, but the ending falls flat =/= worst game ever. But that is the kind of tantrum you saw thrown all over the map.
But like I said, some of you ARE too pessimistic.
DA2 did not have enough development time. It's been around 3 years since the last dragon age game, they extended the development a year specifically to avoid the same time constraint issues that occurred last time. We all know what those issues were. Identical dungeons with paths blocked off. NON epic sprawling story. DA2 was essentially days of our lives in kirkwall and like 1 wilderness area. There was nothing epic about it. If you sneezed you might miss the deep roads because you spent almost no time there. The visuals were improved, but still lacking (dragon age inquisition looks significantly better in frostbite 3, anyone who denies this is just flat out lying to themselves and everyone else.)
DA2 took away the tactical overhead view (this was absolutely infuriating) so the pathetic consoles could deal with the mechanics, enemies ported on top of you in waves. Increasing difficulty was nothing more than more health/resistances and more waves, not a harder to deal with AI to fight. The mages were depicted as psychopaths, even the so called good mages were so bat shit insane as soon as one of them got a splinter they let a demon possess them to "defend" themselves. And if you happened to enjoy playing a mage, your attacks hit like a wet noodle, because we had to pretend that people swinging metal sticks wield the same power as a demi god who hurls cosmic energies from their fingertips. That was their balance to bring mages in line compared to their DA:O power levels. The spell combo effects from origins became nothing more than damage modifiers, which was the ONLY way to inflict real damage, and what if you did not prefer to tee all your attacks in those VERY specific ways? @#$% you, do it that way or spend a half hour taking down a boss.
The most exciting/depressing moment in that entire game was saving a couple of wardens near the end of the game, only to have them tell you they were on an important mission and had to be on their way. I screamed inside my head for them to TAKE ME WITH YOU !!!!!!!!!!! Get me out of this boring, uninspired soap opera of a game in the SAME location over and over and over.
Almost everything mentioned above has been fixed and improved. Not sure how combat will work with no heals, like I Said earlier, we will have to see how the combat shakes out, but this can't possibly be worse than dragon age 2 based on what we know so far.
I could be mistaken, but chances are I am correct in my assessment that this is a return to form. And regarding EA, you all need to stop with the EA bashing. DA2 was not terrible because EA published it, it was terrible because of what I listed above and more. Perhaps EA was responsible for those issues, but they could just as easily be responsible for allowing bioware to fix them. I don't think anyone who worked on that game was truly satisfied with the results, people can and do want to do better, to right their wrongs, and hope springs eternal, that is exactly what dragon age inquisition is striving to do.
