Hi, I am probably late to the party, but I wanted to forward/discuss some ideas that I had while playing Baldur's Gate over the years, and a few questions regarding the game play video.
1) One of my favorite things about BG2:ToB was the idea behind the Longer Road, Ascension and Redemption mods, that made it possible to convince Bodhi and/or Irenicus to join my party in the final battle. There is something intriguing about fighting side by side with an old enemy. (Savarok is a good proof of this).
I would love to experience something similar in BG3.
I would also love to be able to summon an old foe, (for instance using the Wish spell), that I could use in combat. It shouldn't always appear, but perhaps appear one in 20 times when you use the wish spell. In BG2 you could see what the most powerful monster/person was, that a character had defeated in combat. Let's say Korgan's most powerful defeated enemy was a Doom Knight. If I was lucky then using the wish spell, I would be able to summon the Doom Knight and use it myself for a short duration. I always wanted to see how a former summoned foe, would fare against kangaxx, demogorgon or the foes in the dreaded twisted rune building in the bridge district.
To add to the point. For me one of the elements that made the original Doom such a masterpiece, and still makes it awesome, was exactly to see monsters battle each other, and pit them against each other. Any game that makes it possible to pit monsters against each other makes for great entertainment. In Dungeon Keeper 2, I would make a huge combat pit, and make Monks fights against Bile Demons, Vampires against mistresses and so forth. I loved watching them unleash their spells and attacks against each other, and I missed this element of seeing who would win in a battle in BG2. Don't overdo it though. Perhaps once, a few times or if you are incredible fortunate it could occur. Personally I've used the wish spell once or twice in all of my games throughout the decades, so I don't intend for it to be like summoning a golem.
2) One of my favorite things about BG2 was the manual. I would carry it everywhere and re-read it again and again. I love the dialog between Elminster and Volo, the detailed descriptions about spells and the small hints about what dangers and mythical weapons and creatures can be found in the forgotten realm, so I really hope that it will be possible to get a PC version, with a physical manual.
3) Are we going to see micro-transactions, frustrating DLC and "season passes"?
I personally utterly despise this new trend (for me it's still new). I'd take an expensive expansion pack any day of the week instead of that nonsense. I really loved a lot about Dragon Age: Origins but DLC ruined the game. There were so many issues with getting it to load. Items wouldn't carry over in save-games or to larger DLCs (DA: Awakening) , and the DLC DRM system was a pain in the ass. And then there was this abomination:
https://scottjen.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/dragonagedlcnpc.jpg Also, if you purchased DA:O without DLC, you only got 90% of the game. Many important and powerful items were only availabe in DLC, which is ridiculous.
4) In the game-play video we see Asterion say "water...better not push my luck" or something along those lines. Is it possible to venture into water with him and take damage/get crippled until a healer can be found, or is there an invisible border in the game that simply prevents him from taking damage from water?
I really hope the latter isn't the case. I like to learn from my own mistakes and if I walk into water and die, take damage or even lose a limb that has to be healed by a cleric at some point, then that just makes the game more immersive.
5) Is the atmosphere fixed and set in stone? The game looks beautiful but it doesn't seem that frightening, and have the serious tone of Baldur's Gate. It's a development that can quickly ruin a game. Take Diablo 1, that game was scary. Every time you decided to head back into that endless Cathedral, you were scared. Genuinely scared. The music was haunting, the game was dark, the atmosphere sinister and playing it in pitch black during the night gave me goosebumps.
Diablo 2 was still atmospheric but the darkness of the game was toned down a lot, and the frightening areas were few in between.
Finally Diablo 3 was a Disney adventure created by a company that basically had none of the original developers left. The game lacked soul and it is a travesty that it shares the Diablo name with two classics.
The same occurred with other games. Quake 1, Dungeon Keeper 1, Carmageddon 1, Blood 1 and many other games, were more dark, gritty and serious than the following games, and atmosphere was sucked out of the games. The reason that I'm writing this, is that the music in the Baldur's Gate 3 game play video, didn't really strike me as being Baldur's Gate music. The colors are vivid too and it seems like a great HDR experience, but at the expense of the overall atmosphere. Perhaps I am just anxious here and worried about the final result but I really hope that we will see more dark tones in the game.
I am writing all of this while being very tired and English isn't my mother language, so I hope it's not too unreadable. Thanks if you made it this far too 😊
