Uh oh, don’t like the sound of that.

Sounds like EA are meddling and are pulling Mass Effect away from its unique brand of RPG.
If I want a shooter, I play Halo…NOT Mass Effect

Im losing faith in bioware, its more about multiport cashin now than the core of what made their games so great in the first place. Dragon age 2 indicates that ME 3 will be indeed the end of the trilogy ,, with its heart completely gutted and DLC up the ying yang to increase the already fat wallets at EA.

Sadly my friend, that is the case. Whenever you bring the obsession of money into art, it always ends up in a half-assed product

I’m not one to be all sunny predictions about games (quite the contrary, actually), but in a GENERAL sense, I don’t see a problem with a fusion of FPS and RPG. To me, it seems like a natural progression and is far more about the way in which players interact with the game world than about “dumbing things down.”

Now, admittedly, I haven’t played ME2, so I don’t know how far along the “shooter” continuum it is, and thus can’t predict where ME3 will go, but I’d figure as long as you can still pause mid-combat and assign activities/tasks to your characters, the game should be fine. If it still has plenty of conversation the way the first one did, why would the interface be a problem?

When you get down to it, RPG mechanics exist as abstractions to allow the player to manipulate the game world, and that’s all. I think much of the traditional approach to RPGS (IE: levels, having a character whose skills improve as you play) comes out of old tabletop games where such things were a necessity because you couldn’t visually represent things or allow a player to directly manipulate the game world. I see no reason (other than simple playstyle preference) to cling to those mechanics in the modern age of computer. In fact, given my druthers, I’d actually completely do away with the traditional RPG approaches to gaming in favor of a far more directly immersive environment.

Rather than gaining a level in your pistol ability, I’d leave that entirely to the player. If you have good aim, I don’t care what “level” you are — you can still blow a dude’s kneecap off and cripple him. Your “training” is your own ability to DIRECTLY manipulate the game world, rather than have a level of abstraction between you and the game world (IE: “You cannot equip this weapon. You are only level 6.”).

Instead of rewarding players with gradual increases in “levels” and “skills” (which, again, indicate indirect manipulation of the game world), you can reward players by allowing them to progress at their own pace and develop their own particular style for interacting with the game world. Some of this starts to require abstraction again when you get into things like “magic” (or biotics/tech abilities in the ME universe), but I think there can be a balance struck between allowing gradual progression and/or accumulation of abilities and allowing the player more direct control over the environment. If ME3 can do this while simultaneously retaining its storytelling abilities, I think it’ll be fine. Of course, the devil’s in the details, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see if that balance is effectively struck, but I won’t quail at the mere suggestion that the game will be “further along the FPS continuum than the previous two” without having a LOT more detailed info.