Well, I think the first responder got it right as this is exactly the kind of news that is getting Bioware flamed. The basic point seems to be that they are continueing the trend of dumbing things down, by removing even more variables from the game by letting you have less options to customize your squad through having less availible characters. Instead they are putting in more cartoons (ie cut scenes with dialogue selection options) and claiming that this makes for "deeper role-playing" when in reality this game isn't even an RPG anymore given that they have removed pretty much all the combat stats, and most of the itemization, really the only bit left that had any depth was squad selection due to their differant abillities and how having 11 to 13 choices gave you all kinds of options in terms of pairings, and now they are stripping that way too.
The guys who liked shooters with cartoons attached are of course going to find a lot to like here, for RPG fans, this is another bit of bad news, and another sign that Bioware has really ceased to be an RPG developer, and instead turned fully to making shooters with a lot of included cinematics.
We'll see what happens in the long run, but honestly I don't think this is good news in any way, shape, or form, no matter how they choose to spin it. Their biggest advantage going into this is that a lot of people are going to buy the game just to finish the story, which means that they have a solid base of guaranteed sales no matter what desician desicians they make.
Given the amount of flaming going on, and the reception they got to "Dragon Age 2" you'd think Bioware would be learning something, but instead they seem intent on living in their own little world and denying reality. Sort of like the whole situation with Hawke, where they asked the fans if they thought limiting character creation would be okay, to have a "fully voiced hero" they got an overwhelmingly negative reaction, but because how there were some people who supported it or merely gave a lukewarm "trust Bioware" response, they decided to try and say they received a positive response and just go ahead with what the decided they wanted to do anyway.
The way it looks to me is that Bioware is getting heavily into cutting corners to be honest. Producing cut scenes probably takes a lot more work that developing AI routines and combat abillities for usable companion characters, since the characters also have to be tested throughout all the maps and enviroments in the game. Throwing together some more video (since the additional companions would require it anyway for their RP moments) in comparison is easier for them to produce, especially seeing as less companions also generally means having to hire less voice actors. Getting the guys they have to read a few extra lines for the new video is probably a heck of a lot cheaper and easier than finding and hiring more talent to play the additional roles. Not to mention having to get all that cross-dialogue generated between actors.
I'm not quite to the point of talking about them selling their souls to the EA Devil, however this is a bad thing.
As a somewhat "positive" point for Bioware at least, I will say that I think part of the problem is them simply being so heavily involved in "Old Republic" which is where the big money their investors are putting in is. I have noticed a general trend that Bioware strips things away and tries to present it as an "enhancement" (similar to how companies "enhance" your benefits when they cut your medical as part of a propaganda process) when the timer for "Old Republic" goes up. Right now we're looking at a situation where insted of getting a release date announced in April (last month), EA's stock has taken a slight dive due to more delays, and the chatter that the game is being pushed up until next year AGAIN because it's not in a shape to release. Any way it goes, the lack of a release date of course means that the game is still in development to the point where they don't want to committ to anything, which means Bioware has more work on their table, and of course it also means that given the stock drops and pressure EA is facing their other projects are going to have to take cuts in order to focus on the important one....
To put things into perspective, a game is a game, a set of cut scenes and associated voice acting is much the same from one project to another. I wouldn't be surprised to learn at this point that the reason why Bioware is cutting down on the "Mass Effect" squad is to work on putting that work into more NPCs for "Old Republic Online" assuming it takes a similar amount of work (or more) it makes sense that if say they want 4 more characters for "Old Republic" due to the need for content to sustain it, that they might pull a similar number from "Mass Effect" and send the voice teams and cinematic directors/artists over to "Old Republic" to do the same basic job there.
This is a bit differant than the "soul selling" thing because despite the doublespeak being used, it's more a matter of them dealing with the realities of the main project they are working on, and committed to a long time ago, rather than any genuine change in attitude on their part.
Only time will tell what happens, however I don't think "Mass Effect" exists in a vaccuum, and while there is no way to view this as a good thing in any way shape or form (less characters and less content is by it's nature never going to be a good thing no matter what they say), I also don't think you can view this in isolation. Bioware is not the same company it was when it could focus on one project like a laser, it's working on multiple projects, and we've known for a long time now that "Old Republic" was their major focus, and where all the money was being invested, their other franchises that would have been their focus are now little more than "also ran" side projects, and we're seeing that reflected in the quality of games like "Dragon Age 2" which re-use enviroments, and how much "Mass Effect" gradually gets chopped down compared to what they had established in the first game. I don't think the shooter combat was entirely a matter of them selling out to the brain dead demographic (though that was probably a factor) but also because you can build shooters right out of a toolbox and that's easier than working with your own stat based engine. The reason why so many games are so similar to things like "Halo" or "Gears Of War" is because they are all developed using the same toolbox, with most of the work being tweaking, and adding sound and graphics as opposed to actually building an engine from the ground up.
