" I have no doubt Earth will be but a small mission portion of this game.  Just a focus point for the trailer. "

I don't think Earth will be the central focus, in the trailer the sniper says something about Shepard bringing help. Maybe Shepard's mission is to find this help, some new race that have avoided extinction and possess even more advanced technology than Reapers. Maybe Shepard's story will lead us to the andromeda or some other galaxy.

Dude, lay off the Hatorade. Mass Effect 3 is going to blow all of our minds, and there's no way we can make any type of judgment off one teaser trailer. E3 maybe, but not a 60 second teaser.

" @Mrnitropb said:

" @xyzygy said:

" I just hope it's not another massive fetch quest again. The trailer says the contrary though... "

Well it is an RPG.... "

Yeah, but Mass Effect 2 was even more so a massive fetch quest. Usually in RPGs you run into party members along the way and recruiting them isn't the sole purpose of the game. That wasn't the case with ME2. "

Mass Effect 3 is basically setting the stage for ME4: The MMORPG experience and EA's attempt to try and compete against the ageing WoW! :P 
 
In all seriousness though I'm more worried ME3 will focus more on combat action and less on character interaction. If Earth's being invaded I doubt there's time to go dancing and drinking in clubs or spend time interrogating people for information when the planet is being torn apart.

What they haven't said, is that saving the Earth is actually a 20 hour long side quest.

Whoa, wait a second, guys ... the video has some unnamed soldier on Earth, with Shepard most pointedly not on Earth, but watching from orbit. There's no reason to think that the gameplay is centered on Earth, just that the attack on Earth is the first step from the now-arrived Reapers. There's always the possibility that the game is Earth-centric, but assuming that from this footage is a bit premature. It's just as likely that Shepard sees what's going on and takes off for points unknown to raise an army. In fact, that's what the guy in the video says: he'd better bring help. Which seems to indicate that most of the game will be happening elsewhere. Right?

The human home world isn't worth saving? Come on. The Collectors were "swayed" to gather information on humans. It's only natural that the Reapers then proceed to put that information in taking 'us' out. Taking out Earth is like punching our species in the nads.

" As long as we don't have to waste an entire game gathering a posse and solving their daddy issues while playing a third person cover based shooter, I don't care. "

To the people that think I'm deriving too much from the trailer (and I can understand why), I'm actually getting it from both the trailer and the ME3 store detail posted a few days ago.  
 
Here is what the description is for ME2: 
 
 Two years after Commander Shepard repelled invading Reapers bent on the destruction of organic life, a mysterious new enemy has emerged. On the fringes of known space, something is silently abducting entire human colonies. Now Shepard must work with Cerberus, a ruthless organization devoted to human survival at any cost, to stop the most terrifying threat mankind has ever faced. 

To even attempt this perilous mission, Shepard must assemble the galaxy’s most elite team and command the most powerful ship ever built. Even then, they say it would be suicide. 

Commander Shepard intends to prove them wrong. 

The second chapter in the Mass Effect trilogy takes you to the darkest reaches of space, where you must uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of humans across many worlds. Prepare yourself for a suicide mission to save mankind. Travel the galaxy to assemble a team of soldiers and combat specialists, and launch an all-out assault on the heart of enemy territory.  

 
 Which is a fairly apt description.   
 
The other day, the ME3 description showed: 
  
Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, your only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth.      
 
 
Given the ME2 description, I'm inclined to believe that the ME3 description is accurate too. To me it says that the main battle will be on Earth. You will "rally" the civilizations around the galaxy to save Earth, but that doesn't really change the fact that the fight will take place on Earth I think. Shepard going around the galaxy to save one planet out of thousands seems to be the implication to me, which is what I was saying in OP. Sorry if it wasn't clear.  
 
This further leads me to believe that if Earth is so important, there must be some gimmicky space artifact in the end that just kills/deactivates all the Reapers, since Shepard is clearly ignoring the rest of the galaxy. Even if Shepard saves another planet or two along the way, it still shouldn't make a dent in the Reaper invasion. 

Earth is home of the humans, the reapers will destroy the most powerful race in the galaxy first, that being the humans. Then when the rest of the galaxy is wiped clean, the cycle will begin again. I personnally cannot wait to see the ME3 version of the Big Ben, or the Statue of liberty, or the great pyramids, or the crazy earth buildings. (If any of those things are still around.)

" @Tennmuerti said:

" As long as we don't have to waste an entire game gathering a posse and solving their daddy issues while playing a third person cover based shooter, I don't care. "

Fucking word, bro. "

Well I'm assuming Earth is still the centre of humanity in ME so wouldn't it make sense for Shep to try to defend it. Perhaps they are developing a weapon that will be able to take on the Reapers on Earth. Anyway it is way to early to be making assumptions about what ME3 is going to be about so stop complaining.

Given the ME2 description, I'm inclined to believe that the ME3 description is accurate too. To me it says that the main battle will be on Earth. You will "rally" the civilizations around the galaxy to save Earth, but that doesn't really change the fact that the fight will take place on Earth I think.

This is, in my opinion, the best way to end the story. Now that the Reapers have begun their invasion with Earth, everyone is now aware of their existence. Shepard must unify the factions of the galaxy to not only save humanity, but to save all sentient life from annihilation. This most likely means we're going to see the Turian and Asari homeworlds, aswell (I betcha, to gain the support of the two largest military forces in the galaxy). And its already obvious that we'll also going to see (depending on actions in ME1 and 2) involvement of the Geth and Rachni in the conflict.  And its all going to come down to a large battle between the unified races of the galaxy versus a monolithic fleet of sentient war machines that have not successfully ruined everyone's shit for millions of years.
 
How is this not exciting? :O
 
I know there will be some sort of plot device that will change the course of everything going downhill at some point, but I trust that Bioware know how to implement it, and how to not be cheap.

" apparently people already forgot the fact that the reapers are planning on using humans (not asari, turian, salarian or krogan) as the next step in reaper "evolution."  why wouldn't they hit earth the hardest?    

the title is funny because ME 3 isn't even released yet. it's a year to ahead. how do you know you won't like it? you don't have any clue on the whole game information. trailer is just trailer. nothing else. I don't like someone who just judges game easily it is not even out yet. it is obviously all your speculation.   

I'm sure BioWare has got something up their sleeve. No one has said that it's only going to take place on earth. Who says we aren't going to be travelling through the universe before we end up on Earth? In either case, BioWare haven't let me down this far, and I'm fairly confident that they won't do it this time either.

" the title is funny because ME 3 isn't even released yet. it's a year to ahead. how do you know you won't like it? "

You won't spend the entire game on Earth. EA spilled some information untintentionally, either that or somebody was forced at gunpoint to write detailed information on the game listing online at their store.
 
Shepard will be visiting many planets that are facing their own problems, likely some of those problems will be because there are humans there in a large population attracting the reapers. The last stand humanity will make will be the place where it all started.

At the end of mass effect 2 Harbinger say that human "have the attention of those infinitely greater".
 
 Where He say it
     

" Lol, "Ass Effect". Accidental cropping ftw. "

The reapers are attacking Earth because it's the human home planet, and Shepard has been giving them problems.

I agreed with you at first about the scale of it all, but when I thought back to the first game, the Reaper you converse with says that they elevate a species and then wipe them out entirely. What better place to strike than the species homeworld? Assuming of course that they haven't spread too thin with colonization, but even then it shouldn't be too much of a task for the Reapers.

Shepard will be the savior because he unites the races, who otherwise would be weakened from fighting each other, and form a fighting force of epic proportions (that's right, I said epic).
He's a leader who, with a handful of expert squad members, can pretty much do anything as long as he has the trust and support of his men and women around him. He even came back from the dead. If not even death can stop him, what more motivation does the galaxy need?

" Shepard will be the savior because he unites the races, who otherwise would be weakened from fighting each other, and form a fighting force of epic proportions (that's right, I said epic). He's a leader who with a handful, of expert squad members, can pretty much do anything as long as he has the trust and support of his men and women around him. He even came back from the dead. If not even death can stop him, what more motivation does the galaxy need? "

It would be nice if for once humans weren't miraculously the saviours of the entirely galaxy. 
Why can't those weird jelly fish dudes be the most important? Do designers think the only way to make people give a damn about the events of a game is to always have humanity under threat with a human avatar? Or is it easier from a design perspective?

You will probably have a point in that game where you have to decide between saving humans (probably what the illusive man would want to do) or thinking about the universe at large and all the other species/aliens.

I think people get out of it what they put in to it. My friend hates mass effect 2 since its nothing like mass effect 1. He missed a lot of the loyalty missons because he did the reaper IFF too soon. I think he missed legion's and Tali's missons, so i feel sorry for him. I think to really enjoy a game you need to have prior knowledge; to get the best experiences out of it. I mean hell think of the best games you ever played. Did they walk you thorough the game no. I think of the first zelda, Half Life 1 and 2; they just drop you in the world. I think playing a game wrong is someones own fault unless the game is broken or made badly. It also has to toe the line between giving the player the info they need and letting them find it out. Bioshock 1 did a great job of this.