Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General Please post impressions.

i haven't played BD yet as it's not yet available in my country. but judging from what i've read, it has its flaws. well, let's just be glad that larian listens to its market. it's a sign of a good company. think of two good gaming companies, blizzard and bioware; the reason they're both very successful is they are very much attuned to their own respective gaming communities.

i couldn't say the same for black isle/interplay though, makers (or publishers???) can't recall anymore, of the hugely popular baldur's gate & icewind dale series. i once was an active member of the interplay forums as i was playing icewind dale II then. imho, it was a good game, but it was notoriously difficult, even on easy mode. a lot of the people in the forums complained on a lot of things about IWD2, from the difficulty to the poor pathfinding, to the scenarios where you have no choice but to pray as after the loading screen finishes, your party is thrust into a battle. sort of being force-fed into a lion (think of the early christians in rome).

the worst part was, there were some poster fanboys/fangirls claiming that, no the game is very much beatable/easy. well, yes of course it was easy, if you've been playing the game for the hundredth time! you already know what type of opponent/monster you will come across in the map, you already know what spells you can ready for your sorcerers/wizards, etc. etc. etc. but what about those of us who just played the game for the first time or don't have all the time & patience in the world to load and reload everytime the party dies? so a developer has to make the game as appealing as possible to a wide spectrum of the market, from the newbies to the hardcore gamers, in order to generate more sales. and let's face it, from a practical standpoint, it is sales that will bring profits for a company, and it is profits that will enable the company to produce better games.

what did interplay do despite all the complaints about IWD2? nothing. well, actually they did something:released another sub-par game in lionheart. look at where interplay is now. they couldn't pay rent on their offices, titles have disappeared from their site (goodbye baldur's gate III?), and their stock price has plunged to $0.075. truly sad.

bottomline is, don't neglect the people who complain about so & so flaws in the game. they are the market, anyway. and the companies, not only the gaming ones, who knows and listens to their market well, are often the most successful ones.