You can't help stupid. If someone buys EA and doesn't know what that entails, then that's on them. That being said, however much the game might change between 9/30/2020 and release, I doubt it will be so substantially different so as to make someone do a 180 (or even a '90').
DOS2 changed pretty radically in some ways. It had the benefit of a pretty unified community, though - BG3 is working with the 5e system, and marketing to D&D and BG fans directly as well, now.
Larian will make no more or less of a profit this way. And I don't see how EA diminishes their use of time, money, etc. Seems like a win-win to me.
You're right, profit's not quite the right word. Money up front, though, is.
Not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that there is no good reason to think that our feedback in EA is going to have any real impact on the end result?
Somewhat tied into the first quote I responded to. Nothing about the EA going out to players for playtesting as a purchased 'open' EA makes it any more likely to end up meeting one individual's expectations. Not inherently, you could make an argument that discussion/dialogue on things could change the community's mind on a subject.
I hope I cleared that last thing up, I'm not totally satisfied with how I worded it. I'm notoriously bad at conversing
