And Uncle Lester. I can't claim to personally know that many game developers, but I do know some. And every single one of them is nothing but a biologically growned up man-child. Hardworking, responsible, heavily passionate about their work. Hilarious to hang out with. But still. man-children, even the women. Man-children. And they become really grumpy if you criticize their work without a good reason. Except if you're the boss managing the paychecks. Well. they still get grumpy but at least they won't show it to his face.
Fair, I guess, haha. Perhaps I am an idealist. But still, "well you can play in the
other sandbox then!" is something I'd expect from an indie dev, maybe, not a studio of 250 people (350 with contractors) that has any pretense to professionalism.
But, on a more serious note, I think what Larian need is... I won't call it "reality check", but they need to take a step back and look at their project from another/wider perspective. I'm not an EA player, but I've followed the development quite closely (including most interviews) and looked at the feedback/current game state and my impression is that they do want to make it different from Divinity, but are just so used to it (one franchise dev, pretty much) and stuck in their ways that they don't see how it seeps into BG3. Certain tried-and-true solutions are just obvious to them and aren't challenged. They're looking at their game from the inside - and an artist needs to take a look at his canvas from afar from time to time.
One way for them to take this step back is to take a look at player feedback. We have this covered (how they react is up in the air). Another good way, imo, is to see how the game appears in the environment of its genre. Right now, Solasta is perhaps the best comparison. And the more different games in the (sub)genre to compare to, the better idea of the game one can have. So we can compare BG3 to BG1&2, to Divinity and to Dragon Age. And now to Solasta. I think, again, that the more points of reference, the clearer one can see how the (sub)niches work, what makes certain elements work in certain games, and how it all factors in when considering what will be best for the game in question.
So I think that it is VERY constructive and helpful to discuss at length how different features and mechanics vary between games and dissect those differences in detail to try to make sense of it. So something works better in game X than in game Y? What is different between the approaches?
Why does it work in game X? Would it really work in game Y, when we consider other differences between them? The more discussion is being had on this, the more likely we'll get to valuable conclusions and productive feedback. Sometimes an off-hand comment with someone's observation may be an eye-opener. "Hey, this guy actually pinpointed the problem without even giving it much thought. It never occured to me."
Of course, again, the keyword is "constructive". "You guys suck!" hardly helps.
(And yes, I'd humbly ask for my sushi roll.
)
