Multiplayer? Not in my RPGs!

So hey, Dragon Age 3 might be getting multiplayer.

...

NO.

I do not want multiplayer in my RPGs. I do not want multiplayer in my previously single-player series. I do not want multiplayer in my Dragon Age. Or Mass Effect. Or anything

I don't care how good it will be. It's not what the series started out as and I do not want this.

I'm fed up of single-player series suddenly shifting to make way for multiplayer that I will never play and only takes away from the single-player aspect. Call of Juarez, Crackdown, FEAR, Lost Planet, Mass Effect, (arguably) Assassin's Creed, and now Dragon Age.

DO NOT WANT.

If you have to have multiplayer, make it a spin-off title. Something that can be enjoyed on its own, but fans of the ongoing saga who don't want to play it aren't forced into to continue the story. Don't shoehorn it into an established series - all that'll do is upset fans and detract from the experience.

Now I know what a lot of people are going to say. 'But Baldur's Gate had multiplayer and it was awesome!' Well y'know what? That was an entirely different situation. You can't compare the first game in a series, in this case Baldur's Gate, to the third game in a ongoing series, Dragon Age 3, not the fact that there's 15 years difference between the two. I don't think it's hypocritical to say that the situations are completely different.

If you're making a new game (as Baldur's Gate was), there's no real pressure, except from your investors, so you can take as much time as you like and really focus on both single-player and multi-player, if that's what you want. There's no expectations from fans either, so you can make the game how you want to make it.

For the third game in a series, fans have come to expect things from it. I've no real problem with innovation, but taking what has been a massive single-player series and whacking multiplayer into it just seems like a cheap attempt to grab new fans into an established franchise, despite the fact that they'll know nothing about the plot and get bored since it's not Modern Warfare or whatever.

Also: they're already putting multiplayer into Mass Effect 3 (also for no reason). So why do they have to do it with Dragon Age as well? Could they not look at the other franchises that have tried to shift to having multiplayer and seen how it's not gone down that well?

Don't get me wrong, I love Bioware for their SINGLE-PLAYER RPGs. Few other companies make them as well or have anywhere near as much depth. I just don't think adding multiplayer to their games will make them any more epic. I think it'll detract from what they do best. And I really don't want that.

Multiplayer does not make everything better. It just forces the development team to focus more on the new multiplayer aspect then on the single-player campaign, and it falls short. And since Dragon Age 2 already did that, I don't think the franchise can take another half-baked game.

If Bioware can focus on making Dragon Age 3 a great single-player experience (and come up with a better name that just 'Dragon Age 3', that'd be nice too), then that's really all people want. And that's what Bioware should give.