A direct sequel is impossible unless Bhaal is going to die again anytime soon... and he knows how well his Bhaalspawn plan went...
As long as the game acknowledges the consequences of the Bhaalspawn saga it's a sequel set in the same world. It's very common that books will have sequels written in periods hundreds of ears after the first facts.
Let's get Dune, for intance. The original five books cover over 10000 years of history, the main story is no longer about the Atreides in the end, although their existence still impacts the Galaxy millenia after the Death of Paul Atreides and his son the God-Emperor of Dune... By the last book neither the original Empire nor the Atreides Empire even exist anymore. So are the books in the Dune series not a sequel of each other?
It's very common that books will have sequels written in periods hundreds of ears after the first facts.
Let's get Dune, for intance. The original five books cover over 10000 years of history, the main story is no longer about the Atreides in the end, although their existence still impacts the Galagaxy millenia after the Death of Paul Atreides and his son the God-Emperor of Dune... By the last book neither the original Empire nor the Atreides Empire even exist anymore. So are the books in the Dune series not a sequel of each other?
I'm not familiar with the Dune series so I can't answer your question specifically, but if there's clear authorial intent behind the decision for the timeline jump and it serves artistic purpose, that's perfectly fine with me. However, if there's some contrived marketing reason behind the decision and it hinders storytelling instead of serving it, I'm out. More often than not, I've found that fantasy games that do timeline jumps have been falling into the latter category.
These are some poor reasons for timeline jumps:
The franchise changes writing staff and the new writers don't want to bother learning the setting
The writers have written themselves into a bind and they simply don't feel like untying the knots
The franchise owners want a clean slate but they also want to retain franchise name recognition
The franchise owners want to emulate a more successful franchise and they think that a timeline jump makes their obvious attempt at replacing their entire fantasy world with a different one less obvious (a.k.a. The Guild Wars Effect)
The franchise owners want to invent new artificial story progression in order to sell new campaign books
So are the books in the Dune series not a sequel of each other?
Depends. Are we talking about the Dune books written by Frank Herbert? Or the ones by Brian Herbert? 'Cause the latter ones are books that shall not be named!
If the game has an abundance of companions as both BG games have had up to this point, it wouldn't have been difficult to balance the game around 6 party members. Them changing it for the sake of changing it is arbitrary and does the game no favors in the "does this feel like a sequel?" test.
I don't think they changed the party size for "arbitrary" reasons at all. The combination of turn-based and a ruleset that means individual party members have more actions makes it logical to shrink the party size for the fun factor. Otherwise combat would need to balanced for six man groups, thus meaning more enemies, more combat rounds, and a slower combat pace. Shrinking the party size (just as Deadfire did) is perfectly acceptable and actually demonstrates a strong commitment to making *high-quality* game and not just a faithful sequel.
If the game has an abundance of companions as both BG games have had up to this point, it wouldn't have been difficult to balance the game around 6 party members. Them changing it for the sake of changing it is arbitrary and does the game no favors in the "does this feel like a sequel?" test.
I don't think they changed the party size for "arbitrary" reasons at all. The combination of turn-based and a ruleset that means individual party members have more actions makes it logical to shrink the party size for the fun factor. Otherwise combat would need to balanced for six man groups, thus meaning more enemies, more combat rounds, and a slower combat pace. Shrinking the party size (just as Deadfire did) is perfectly acceptable and actually demonstrates a strong commitment to making *high-quality* game and not just a faithful sequel.
I've addressed this exact line of reasoning in the post you quoted, in the very next paragraph:
Of course, it may have been changed based on a consideration of how slow the game plays in turn-based mode with a full 6-member party, but that just goes to show you that it's not just an artificial number and it does actually have real gameplay implications.
There's no doubt that changing real-time combat to turn-based combat has many ramifications and it can cause various domino chains, and the party size reduction could be a part of that. Which is why you can't change foundational aspects of gameplay if you're aiming to make a faithful Baldur's Gate sequel.
Of course, this is all under the pretense that this game was ever meant to be a Baldur's Gate game first and all the other game design decisions came later, which is clearly not the case.
So are the books in the Dune series not a sequel of each other?
Depends. Are we talking about the Dune books written by Frank Herbert? Or the ones by Brian Herbert? 'Cause the latter ones are books that shall not be named!
Well I never said sequels had to be good but officially they are sequels.
Of course, this is all under the pretense that this game was ever meant to be a Baldur's Gate game first and all the other game design decisions came later, which is clearly not the case.
I never really understood this logic though, especially given that no story continuation was ever in the works and the huge gap between the games, meaning tons of changes in overall philosophy of game design, player tastes, etc. Not to mention a radically different D&D ruleset. I'd rather a game be made prioritizing what's going to make it a good CRPG in 2020, rather than clinging to design decisions from the late 90s simply because you feel that's what you have to do.
It's not like BG is going to be the first game series or RPG series that radically shifted gameplay elements. Hell, the Ultima series did it several times, and some of those shifts produced the two more heralded titles in the series -- 4 and 7.
I wouldn't say it's guaranteed to succeed commercially. If it gets bad reviews from users and media on its release, it will sell, but maybe not enough to recoup its large budget and a decent profit.
How can it possibly get bad reviews? The gaming media has its lips firmly planted on Larian's ass right now, much like it did at one time for Bethesda and Bioware. Larian can literally create garbage and the media reviewers will fawn about how amazing it is.
Swen and other Larian folks have confirmed party size is 4. Two additional "followers" can also be in the party, where followers are NPCs over whom you have no control.
The party size reduction, much like even the TB combat system decision, is purely driven by multiplayer. Every game design decision in BG3 has been made for facilitating MP, because MP is what this game is entirely about, and how the game is supposed to be played. Yes one can play it SP if they wish, but the game's design and balance are for MP.
Party size reduction is for me yet another huge strike against the game. Especially if you go TB, then you have no excuse for reducing party size. Deadfire reduced party size specifically to make RTwP combat easier to handle. The only bright side to this issue is that this is one area in which we can definitely expect a mod to be made to increase party size back to its CORRECT number.
I'd rather a game be made prioritizing what's going to make it a good CRPG in 2020, rather than clinging to design decisions from the late 90s simply because you feel that's what you have to do.
And I'd rather the game not be called Baldur's Gate 3 and instead be in its own franchise (or even spinoff) if they never intended to make it a faithful Baldur's Gate sequel. The way they're using the franchise for marketing purposes hurts the legacy of the actual Baldur's Gate games.
I also reject the sentiment that you cannot make a good CRPG in 2020 by following the same design decisions games were also using in the 90s. If BG1 and BG2 came out today, I'd still consider them the best CRPGs on the market. They may not be as marketable today as they were 20 years ago, but that has no effect on quality.
I’d need some kind of evidence to accept that every single game design choice is based on MP. Do they want it to be possible to play in MP? Yeah. Defined by that experience - almost certainly not.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
I’d need some kind of evidence to accept that every single game design choice is based on MP. Do they want it to be possible to play in MP? Yeah. Defined by that experience - almost certainly not.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
I wrote this elsewhere, but one interesting observation is that the number of NPC banter pairs scales with the square of your NPCs. With 3 companions you get 3 pairs that can banter with each other, with 5 companions as in BG it is 10.
I wouldn't say it's guaranteed to succeed commercially. If it gets bad reviews from users and media on its release, it will sell, but maybe not enough to recoup its large budget and a decent profit.
How can it possibly get bad reviews? The gaming media has its lips firmly planted on Larian's ass right now, much like it did at one time for Bethesda and Bioware. Larian can literally create garbage and the media reviewers will fawn about how amazing it is.
It's always weird to me that people can post the most disrespectful, dismissive takes about certain kinds of people on these forums, so long as those people aren't on these forums.
I’d need some kind of evidence to accept that every single game design choice is based on MP. Do they want it to be possible to play in MP? Yeah. Defined by that experience - almost certainly not.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
I wrote this elsewhere, but one interesting observation is that the number of NPC banter pairs scales with the square of your NPCs. With 3 companions you get 3 pairs that can banter with each other, with 5 companions as in BG it is 10.
I remember seeing that - and I agree with you wholecloth. That said - I don’t think it means 6 is the magic number. If I only have 4 party members, but they are all better written with more content, I would take that hands down.
BG 1 had a ton of companions, but they didn’t have a lot to say or do.
Edit - not suggesting you’re arguing one way or another on that, just taking my thoughts further after considering your point.
I’d need some kind of evidence to accept that every single game design choice is based on MP. Do they want it to be possible to play in MP? Yeah. Defined by that experience - almost certainly not.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
You can go look up the various interviews of Larian devs in recent days. That's where I got my information, though I have no interest in going back through all those interviews to find the exact quotes.
In one interview a Larian dev says to the question about changing combat system that, there is nothing about D&D 5e that cannot be done in RTwP, though some elements may be more challenging to do, but they chose TB because it is much better for co-op play and because most of the devs personally preferred it.
Similarly, a Larian dev said when asked about party size being reduced to four that, it was decided to go with four because co-op play may be too messy and complicated with a larger party size. He then went on to add that with today's technology, however, it may be possible to make a larger party size work in co-op play, so that decision could be revisited.
The last interview specifically mentions that the world is shaped taking into account how the bhaalspawn saga impacted the world. They are incorporating that into the story, and there will be familiar faces and places.
Sounds like a good basis for a sequel with a new protagonist to me, but those disclosures seem to be discarded so fast by certain posters; I am amazed at the zeal of some of you (positively and negatively).
The last interview specifically mentions that the world is shaped taking into account how the bhaalspawn saga impacted the world. They are incorporating that into the story, and there will be familiar faces and places.
Sounds like a good basis for a sequel with a new protagonist to me, but those disclosures seem to be discarded so fast by certain posters; I am amazed at the zeal of some of you (positively and negatively).
Yeah, when I saw that I thought the concern was answered. Apparently not. I'll admit I'm still on the fence about buying it, but I'm leaning toward getting it knowing that it actually is connected now. I'm not sure what more you'd want when the Bhaalspawn's story is done anyway. I respect if the turn-based, D:OS style gameplay isn't your thing; but that's a matter of taste not a matter of disrespecting the franchise and it's players. To me that'd be tantamount to saying only Zelda games with a top-down view are truly Zelda games.
I’d need some kind of evidence to accept that every single game design choice is based on MP. Do they want it to be possible to play in MP? Yeah. Defined by that experience - almost certainly not.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
You can go look up the various interviews of Larian devs in recent days. That's where I got my information, though I have no interest in going back through all those interviews to find the exact quotes.
In one interview a Larian dev says to the question about changing combat system that, there is nothing about D&D 5e that cannot be done in RTwP, though some elements may be more challenging to do, but they chose TB because it is much better for co-op play and because most of the devs personally preferred it.
Similarly, a Larian dev said when asked about party size being reduced to four that, it was decided to go with four because co-op play may be too messy and complicated with a larger party size. He then went on to add that with today's technology, however, it may be possible to make a larger party size work in co-op play, so that decision could be revisited.
See. Your last post said the game was "entirely about MP", and implied that every aspect of the game designed around being MP first and SP secondarily. That's what you cannot cite evidence to confirm. Were systems designed so that MP was an option? Sure. Just like in D:OS - but that game was not designed as a MP experience first and a SP experience second.
Edit - there is at most perhaps a lack of primacy to either mode, but I think it's rather telling that Sven played the game SP and not MP during his gameplay reveal.
I have too many games to finish so I will not buy within a year anyhow but I am keeping an open mind to it. The more interviews the more intrigued I am as to how they interweave present and past.
I wonder if number 3 is a success, how many Baldur's Gate games will we end up with?
Imagine 2027 x Baldur's Gate IX - Return to Amn
Much more likely, and probably already in the works imo, is a bunch of D&D games using the engine. As I've said before, the best way to get some D&D titles in some unusual locations is for them to make a monster hit in the well-tread settings.
IMO, even if you're somehow upset by the particulars of this title, it could be a very promising thing for a new generation of D&D CRPG's. It's been awhile since there's been a good one.
I'd rather a game be made prioritizing what's going to make it a good CRPG in 2020, rather than clinging to design decisions from the late 90s simply because you feel that's what you have to do.
And I'd rather the game not be called Baldur's Gate 3 and instead be in its own franchise (or even spinoff) if they never intended to make it a faithful Baldur's Gate sequel. The way they're using the franchise for marketing purposes hurts the legacy of the actual Baldur's Gate games.
I also reject the sentiment that you cannot make a good CRPG in 2020 by following the same design decisions games were also using in the 90s. If BG1 and BG2 came out today, I'd still consider them the best CRPGs on the market. They may not be as marketable today as they were 20 years ago, but that has no effect on quality.
Hmm... I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly. To cite one example, the BG series (and IE games as a whole) give pretty poor combat feedback on some things that are kind of essential. And can only be figured out via the manual or looking things up online. Damage type resistances, whether it's the + level of weapons or blunt/pierce/slash isn't ever reported to the player. You just do no damage and that's it. The extra confusing part is that you get the same vague feedback against wizards with spell protections, even ones like stoneskin, where your hits are actually doing something. There's an in game book that hints at some of these things, but it barely covers the wide variety of resistant monsters you'll face. Veteran players overlook this, but it's a huge hurdle to entry for players. And the game hasn't actually attracted much of a new generation of players in a long time -- which shows it's not actually competing with modern CRPG's.
And there's countless little examples like this that would add up to a deeply flawed modern game. The inventory system! The nature of traps is a pretty crude system, especially contrasted against what Larian accomplished in that specific mechanic in the OS games.
To cite one example, the BG series (and IE games as a whole) give pretty poor combat feedback on some things that are kind of essential. And can only be figured out via the manual or looking things up online.
Or, and I know this is going to be a big retro throwback, by paying attention and experimenting.
A lot of older games—and even some newer ones—don't give you full on solutions to every task you need to accomplish to progress, sometimes they try to engage you to an extent that goes beyond giving you simple instructions to follow and actually requires some level of problem solving to figure out. I don't fault games for challenging players in this way, in fact I massively prefer that they do.
Hell, I figured them out without the internet, and I'm certainly no genius.
And the game hasn't actually attracted much of a new generation of players in a long time -- which shows it's not actually competing with modern CRPG's.
Your expectations are wrong if you expect a 20 year old game to compete for attention with recent releases that are designed to appeal to modern audiences and spend more than their production budgets on marketing.
The nature of traps is a pretty crude system, especially contrasted against what Larian accomplished in that specific mechanic in the OS games.
The trap system in D:OS is certainly neat, but I wouldn't expect (or want) every CRPG to include trap-disarming emulation minigames going forward. It's a good gimmick to shake things up, but it's not what RPGs are about. The convention of RPGs is to simplify complex systems and let your character's skills determine the outcomes instead of you having to micromanage trivial actions like trap disarming.
In conclusion, it sounds like you and I have different tastes. How shocking!
Agreed, I think the BG 2 inventory system is still very decent. And one underestimated element where it still wins over 90% of modern games is the great icon design. In many games, even spiritual successors items are simply too small and too similar to each other.
The last interview specifically mentions that the world is shaped taking into account how the bhaalspawn saga impacted the world. They are incorporating that into the story, and there will be familiar faces and places.
Sounds like a good basis for a sequel with a new protagonist to me, but those disclosures seem to be discarded so fast by certain posters; I am amazed at the zeal of some of you (positively and negatively).
Show me, don’t tell me.
Also Devs are backtracking.
It was a direct sequel to the D&D Module Decent into Avernus. Now it’s a direct sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2. Which is it?
Baldur’s Gate also didn’t really have any consequences with the Bhaalspawn Saga. As Gorion’s Ward moved south, so too did the destruction their presence caused. I don’t see how a potential war over an iron shortage that is now long passed is going to shape the strory more now than say Spell Plague or are they just going to ignore the 100 years of Forgotten Realm lore to shoehorn in the connection?
The last interview specifically mentions that the world is shaped taking into account how the bhaalspawn saga impacted the world. They are incorporating that into the story, and there will be familiar faces and places.
Sounds like a good basis for a sequel with a new protagonist to me, but those disclosures seem to be discarded so fast by certain posters; I am amazed at the zeal of some of you (positively and negatively).
Show me, don’t tell me.
Also Devs are backtracking.
It was a direct sequel to the D&D Module Decent into Avernus. Now it’s a direct sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2. Which is it?
Baldur’s Gate also didn’t really have any consequences with the Bhaalspawn Saga. As Gorion’s Ward moved south, so too did the destruction their presence caused. I don’t see how a potential war over an iron shortage that is now long passed is going to shape the strory more now than say Spell Plague or are they just going to ignore the 100 years of Forgotten Realm lore to shoehorn in the connection?
But in FR canon Gorion's ward moved back to Baldur's Gate and became a Duke there. Bhaal's resurrection took place in Baldur's Gate. There's also a significant cult of the Dead Three in the city. So the connection is not shoehorned in by Larian.
(I personally don't really like newer FR realm lore and think they are putting in more drastic and epic changes to the setting in a short time that is healthy for a setting, especially as many of them had a retcon feel. But that is a separate discussion).
OK, that latest interview does indeed hint that the events of the Bhaalspawn saga will have more of an impact in BG3 than we first suspected. While that's definitely good news, that also raises another potential worry. Namely, will we get a chance to shape WHO Gorion's Ward was for the timeline of BG3 and what they did (i.e. were they good or evil? Did they embrace their divinity or shun it? Can we specify who were their companions? Obviously, elven companions like Aerie or Viconia would still very much be alive during the time of BG3, but how are these companions going to react if asked about Gorion's Ward?), or Gods forbid, Larian is going with the "Abdel Adrian is Gorion's Ward" canonical approach. I'm fine with him being the Ward in the wider FR canon (SOMEBODY has to be the Ward, and WotC obviously can't make ALL of us happy), but I REALLY want to be able to specify what it was that my character did in the previous two games.
If... IF Larian can do that, and pull it off convincingly... I will retract my earlier statement and consider BG3 to be a true sequel.
Comments
As long as the game acknowledges the consequences of the Bhaalspawn saga it's a sequel set in the same world. It's very common that books will have sequels written in periods hundreds of ears after the first facts.
Let's get Dune, for intance. The original five books cover over 10000 years of history, the main story is no longer about the Atreides in the end, although their existence still impacts the Galaxy millenia after the Death of Paul Atreides and his son the God-Emperor of Dune... By the last book neither the original Empire nor the Atreides Empire even exist anymore. So are the books in the Dune series not a sequel of each other?
I'm not familiar with the Dune series so I can't answer your question specifically, but if there's clear authorial intent behind the decision for the timeline jump and it serves artistic purpose, that's perfectly fine with me. However, if there's some contrived marketing reason behind the decision and it hinders storytelling instead of serving it, I'm out. More often than not, I've found that fantasy games that do timeline jumps have been falling into the latter category.
These are some poor reasons for timeline jumps:
I don't think they changed the party size for "arbitrary" reasons at all. The combination of turn-based and a ruleset that means individual party members have more actions makes it logical to shrink the party size for the fun factor. Otherwise combat would need to balanced for six man groups, thus meaning more enemies, more combat rounds, and a slower combat pace. Shrinking the party size (just as Deadfire did) is perfectly acceptable and actually demonstrates a strong commitment to making *high-quality* game and not just a faithful sequel.
I've addressed this exact line of reasoning in the post you quoted, in the very next paragraph:
There's no doubt that changing real-time combat to turn-based combat has many ramifications and it can cause various domino chains, and the party size reduction could be a part of that. Which is why you can't change foundational aspects of gameplay if you're aiming to make a faithful Baldur's Gate sequel.
Of course, this is all under the pretense that this game was ever meant to be a Baldur's Gate game first and all the other game design decisions came later, which is clearly not the case.
Well I never said sequels had to be good but officially they are sequels.
I never really understood this logic though, especially given that no story continuation was ever in the works and the huge gap between the games, meaning tons of changes in overall philosophy of game design, player tastes, etc. Not to mention a radically different D&D ruleset. I'd rather a game be made prioritizing what's going to make it a good CRPG in 2020, rather than clinging to design decisions from the late 90s simply because you feel that's what you have to do.
It's not like BG is going to be the first game series or RPG series that radically shifted gameplay elements. Hell, the Ultima series did it several times, and some of those shifts produced the two more heralded titles in the series -- 4 and 7.
The party size reduction, much like even the TB combat system decision, is purely driven by multiplayer. Every game design decision in BG3 has been made for facilitating MP, because MP is what this game is entirely about, and how the game is supposed to be played. Yes one can play it SP if they wish, but the game's design and balance are for MP.
Party size reduction is for me yet another huge strike against the game. Especially if you go TB, then you have no excuse for reducing party size. Deadfire reduced party size specifically to make RTwP combat easier to handle. The only bright side to this issue is that this is one area in which we can definitely expect a mod to be made to increase party size back to its CORRECT number.
And I'd rather the game not be called Baldur's Gate 3 and instead be in its own franchise (or even spinoff) if they never intended to make it a faithful Baldur's Gate sequel. The way they're using the franchise for marketing purposes hurts the legacy of the actual Baldur's Gate games.
I also reject the sentiment that you cannot make a good CRPG in 2020 by following the same design decisions games were also using in the 90s. If BG1 and BG2 came out today, I'd still consider them the best CRPGs on the market. They may not be as marketable today as they were 20 years ago, but that has no effect on quality.
Also - just a total rejection that 6 members is the correct amount. It is one amount of many. I also don’t think the point that going from 6 to 5 is a sea change of a difference. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the game or the way it is played.
I wrote this elsewhere, but one interesting observation is that the number of NPC banter pairs scales with the square of your NPCs. With 3 companions you get 3 pairs that can banter with each other, with 5 companions as in BG it is 10.
It's always weird to me that people can post the most disrespectful, dismissive takes about certain kinds of people on these forums, so long as those people aren't on these forums.
I remember seeing that - and I agree with you wholecloth. That said - I don’t think it means 6 is the magic number. If I only have 4 party members, but they are all better written with more content, I would take that hands down.
BG 1 had a ton of companions, but they didn’t have a lot to say or do.
Edit - not suggesting you’re arguing one way or another on that, just taking my thoughts further after considering your point.
In one interview a Larian dev says to the question about changing combat system that, there is nothing about D&D 5e that cannot be done in RTwP, though some elements may be more challenging to do, but they chose TB because it is much better for co-op play and because most of the devs personally preferred it.
Similarly, a Larian dev said when asked about party size being reduced to four that, it was decided to go with four because co-op play may be too messy and complicated with a larger party size. He then went on to add that with today's technology, however, it may be possible to make a larger party size work in co-op play, so that decision could be revisited.
Sounds like a good basis for a sequel with a new protagonist to me, but those disclosures seem to be discarded so fast by certain posters; I am amazed at the zeal of some of you (positively and negatively).
Yeah, when I saw that I thought the concern was answered. Apparently not. I'll admit I'm still on the fence about buying it, but I'm leaning toward getting it knowing that it actually is connected now. I'm not sure what more you'd want when the Bhaalspawn's story is done anyway. I respect if the turn-based, D:OS style gameplay isn't your thing; but that's a matter of taste not a matter of disrespecting the franchise and it's players. To me that'd be tantamount to saying only Zelda games with a top-down view are truly Zelda games.
See. Your last post said the game was "entirely about MP", and implied that every aspect of the game designed around being MP first and SP secondarily. That's what you cannot cite evidence to confirm. Were systems designed so that MP was an option? Sure. Just like in D:OS - but that game was not designed as a MP experience first and a SP experience second.
Edit - there is at most perhaps a lack of primacy to either mode, but I think it's rather telling that Sven played the game SP and not MP during his gameplay reveal.
Imagine 2027 x Baldur's Gate IX - Return to Amn
Much more likely, and probably already in the works imo, is a bunch of D&D games using the engine. As I've said before, the best way to get some D&D titles in some unusual locations is for them to make a monster hit in the well-tread settings.
IMO, even if you're somehow upset by the particulars of this title, it could be a very promising thing for a new generation of D&D CRPG's. It's been awhile since there's been a good one.
Hmm... I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly. To cite one example, the BG series (and IE games as a whole) give pretty poor combat feedback on some things that are kind of essential. And can only be figured out via the manual or looking things up online. Damage type resistances, whether it's the + level of weapons or blunt/pierce/slash isn't ever reported to the player. You just do no damage and that's it. The extra confusing part is that you get the same vague feedback against wizards with spell protections, even ones like stoneskin, where your hits are actually doing something. There's an in game book that hints at some of these things, but it barely covers the wide variety of resistant monsters you'll face. Veteran players overlook this, but it's a huge hurdle to entry for players. And the game hasn't actually attracted much of a new generation of players in a long time -- which shows it's not actually competing with modern CRPG's.
And there's countless little examples like this that would add up to a deeply flawed modern game. The inventory system! The nature of traps is a pretty crude system, especially contrasted against what Larian accomplished in that specific mechanic in the OS games.
Or, and I know this is going to be a big retro throwback, by paying attention and experimenting.
A lot of older games—and even some newer ones—don't give you full on solutions to every task you need to accomplish to progress, sometimes they try to engage you to an extent that goes beyond giving you simple instructions to follow and actually requires some level of problem solving to figure out. I don't fault games for challenging players in this way, in fact I massively prefer that they do.
Hell, I figured them out without the internet, and I'm certainly no genius.
Your expectations are wrong if you expect a 20 year old game to compete for attention with recent releases that are designed to appeal to modern audiences and spend more than their production budgets on marketing.
What's wrong with it? Is resource management also a game design sin these days?
The trap system in D:OS is certainly neat, but I wouldn't expect (or want) every CRPG to include trap-disarming emulation minigames going forward. It's a good gimmick to shake things up, but it's not what RPGs are about. The convention of RPGs is to simplify complex systems and let your character's skills determine the outcomes instead of you having to micromanage trivial actions like trap disarming.
In conclusion, it sounds like you and I have different tastes. How shocking!
Show me, don’t tell me.
Also Devs are backtracking.
It was a direct sequel to the D&D Module Decent into Avernus. Now it’s a direct sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2. Which is it?
Baldur’s Gate also didn’t really have any consequences with the Bhaalspawn Saga. As Gorion’s Ward moved south, so too did the destruction their presence caused. I don’t see how a potential war over an iron shortage that is now long passed is going to shape the strory more now than say Spell Plague or are they just going to ignore the 100 years of Forgotten Realm lore to shoehorn in the connection?
But in FR canon Gorion's ward moved back to Baldur's Gate and became a Duke there. Bhaal's resurrection took place in Baldur's Gate. There's also a significant cult of the Dead Three in the city. So the connection is not shoehorned in by Larian.
(I personally don't really like newer FR realm lore and think they are putting in more drastic and epic changes to the setting in a short time that is healthy for a setting, especially as many of them had a retcon feel. But that is a separate discussion).
If... IF Larian can do that, and pull it off convincingly... I will retract my earlier statement and consider BG3 to be a true sequel.