I was going to make a thread just like this one, so I'll share in this one instead my own hopes. I'll start by saying that I share the same hopes as OP.
I'm 34 years old. I played role playing games since I was 14. Started when my mom bought my first AD&D manual, and I wanted it because I had played Baldur's Gate 1 like crazy, when my uncle gifted the game to me when he came from USA to visit us. Not many people in Chile had played that game, at that point. I felt like an evangelizer or something, because I got into ADnD and got all my friends into it. Became a DM and started a campaign that endured for 5 years, and it was full of ideas I took from Baldur's Gate. Including Boo. One of my friends played a barbarian in that campaign, and I wanted a "boo" of sorts in the story, so without him knowing I gave him the chance to raise an "orcish pig" from a very small cute piggy, to a gargantuan-talking pig which he would mount into combat and enter into frenzy with, at epic levels. It was glorious. He was called Willy, and he was so funny. It really felt like he was the giant space pig I dreamed of when boo appeared in BG. Right now I even have a guinea pig (4 in fact), which is like a giant hamster, but smarter.
Of course in between I played BG 2 and it's expansion, Icewind Dale 1-2, NWN 1-2 and all of Bioware games. Then when Pillars of Eternity and Divinity came, I was so hyped! Same with Pathfinder Kingmaker. The Divinity games at first, I didn't get into them much, but since BG3 was announced, I started again a campaign in DOS 2, and now I have like 150 hours of play invested JUST in Fort Joy ahhahah. I love it!! I'm very happy Larian Studios are the ones developing BG3 and I'm confident it willl be good, but I still want them to know how I feel. My hopes for this game are so much that I feel like a kid all over again. To know that (maybe) it'll come out in August just makes this unbearably amazing. Please Larian, think of BG2 at all times, all the while you add that DOS 2 flavor. Let the music be as epic, let the NPCs be as special, and the main char as unique to every different player as possible. Let there be romance, and mistery. Let there be masterful combat, and difficulty plenty. To me, Baldur's Gate 2 will probably always be THE best game there was, and you have a chance to overcome it, like it overcame BG1. You have the chance to do so much with BG3... I just want you know: with this game, now you are in a different league, you have the chance to swim in gaming history and be the CHAMPS. I want you to succeed with all my heart.
I send you guys all my hopes and dreams, and a big hug. This won't be easy, but it could very well be the RPG of a decade, or even more. Give 'em hell guys.
I'M SO HYPED!!!!!
