I already posted this in the "Convince me" thread, but I didn't feel like redoing it for this one, so here it is again! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
BD is too linear. The very fact its broken into acts makes it linear. I still remember the first time I took a look at the journal in DD and opened the map: "Holy [nocando]!!! This game is freakin' huge!! And I can go anywhere MY path takes me?"
The designation of acts is purely an arbitrary one, and something that most RPG development teams I'm aware of (and I know people in several, and used to belong to one) do. Hell, even DD had three acts: the Diabloesque opening city, the extremely large and non-linear world, and the (sadly) empty desert. It's just a convention. It's what you do within any act, and how you join 'em together, I think, that gives that sense of non-linearity.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> is linear and claustrophobic in Act I; and I think that act goes on too long without enough variety of color and incident. I'm reminded of the first dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2, where there was far more to discover in a smaller dungeon--and then, you were out, in the middle of an incredibly colorful and varied community. Bioware designed the contrast beautifully.
That said, Act II is considerably less linear. Each act is unique, and feels different.
