For those interested in the quote in context, here's a transcription from the segment of the video (it's about 46 minutes in) where it's mentioned:
The very first versions of Original Sin or Eyes of a Child [a WIP title for the game that eventually became Original Sin 1], I don't remember which it was, the level design was way too big, so the world was huge and so we couldn't fill it because we had this design principle: every single screen you need to have things to do that are interesting and never the same - so they have to be diverse.
So we had to tone it down. Then we changed the combat system and then we realised turn-based combat takes a long time, especially if you involve the environment. It takes a really long time, so that means that we had to reduce the amount of combats, which means that either we redesign all of the levels or we have to come up with all kinds of narrative beats to give players something to do. Which then led to some organic situations, which were cool, but if you were sitting at the place where you were doing the level design you were going crazy because the changes kept on coming in as we changed systems.
Then it was like, at some point I slowed it down. I said "we're going to half the walk speed." Everybody hated me. I said that if the walk speed is too high people don't notice all the details that we put in there and they're not going to explore and then they're never going to find all the content that is there which is going to give them a sense of actually having achieved something by exploring.
And it worked, right? They still hate me for slowing down the walk speed, but I still stand by that decision so I'm not gonna change it and you just have to mid it if you don't like it.
While I can understand his reasoning I'm not sure if I can agree with it. To me it seems like a case of the players and developers misunderstanding each other's intentions and interests.
In my opinion it makes sense for players to explore new uncharted locations in real time in order to fully take in the area and its contents. However, the problem arises when you look at the situations that make people request a way to speed up the pace of travelling. Most players who dislike the default walking speed are talking from the perspective of someone who's in the process of backtracking through an area they've already visited numerous times, meaning they've (most likely) already experienced the unique aspects and content of that location. They already know where the different merchants, houses and NPCs in a major city are located, but since their current quest or task requires them to travel to the opposite site of the map they just want to get there as fast as possible, preferably without having to trod through the area they've already traverse many times before.
Even to this day the option to increase the speed up walking and combat animations (which I suppose is a similar issue) remain some of the most requested features and/or common complaints about the DOS1 and DOS2 games and I think it's a shame that Larian seemingly doesn't seem to take account for this. I'm well aware that speed modifiers tend to be some of the first mods that get developed by players once the games come out, but while I personally never used either, I'm not fond of the notion of people having to use fixes or modifications made by third parties in order to enjoy the game.
