I really don't understand why "origin companions" seems so popular...
Is that because we can play them as a main character ? Because that's the only thing "origins" characters are... A great background story/quest is not related to Larian's concept to me.
Players really enjoy playing a character created by someone else for another reasons than their background story ?
Can someone enlighten me about it ?
You more or less hit the nail on the head.
The origin characters are companions in the same sense as the recruitable characters/companions you'd find in any other CRPG. The difference here is just that rather than just picking them up somewhere along the road and having them as one of your party members you're able to play
as one of them, thus experiencing the game and its story from their point of view. For example in their previous game, Original Sin 2, some events would play out differently depending on whether you were playing as certain characters or if they just were one of your party members. When playing as the character in question you'd usually be given multiple special options to handle various situations that'd unfold in the dialogue.
Thanks for the answer.
If I'm not wrong (correct me if I am), it looks like every specific situation in BG3 is going to be related to race and/or classes and/or the "personnality" of the companions.
I don't think we saw i.e dialogs options specific to "Lae'zel", but we saw specific dialogs to "ghityanki".
If that's the point, what's the interrests playing an origin character ?
Does players like having those little variations in the story (or in the side companions quests) more than playing (another) custom character with another team ? (and with other side quests).
Maybe it's great in multiplayer ?
I read that the problem of DoS2 was that custom character was less interresting to play than origin's because they had no background. In BG3 it looks they're trying to lead custom character to a higher level.
So what's left for origin characters exept that you can experience a character that was created by someone else and give you a few different options during the whole game ?
I'll be optimistic and assume the lack of character-specific dialogue options are due to the game still being under development. If I were you I wouldn't expect character-specific choices for every NPC interaction, but I'm almost certainly they'll be there in one way or another.
And yes, you're correct about DOS2's custom characters being criticised for feeling lackluster in comparison to the origin character which all had their own unique interactions, personal quests etc.
As you already said it seems like Larian took these complaints to heart and are trying to put a greater emphasis on custom characters (likely through extensive use of choices unique to your race/class/background and so on) so I'm under the impression the origin characters mostly are there for two purposes
a) To act as an option to play 'as' a companion NPC for those interested in that
b) To act as a sort of 'premade character' template for indecisive people, players not necessarily familiar with 5'e character building and so on.
At the end of the day the origin character system was a DOS2 implementation meant to be a creative spin on traditional RPG companions. I'm assuming they liked the results or the reception since the system is getting reused for BG3. Since they seem to be cautious about not leaving custom playermade characters in the shade I think the origin characters mostly just are playable characters for the reasons I listed. Personally I'll be using a custom character for my first playthrough.
