Hi CMF
Fast travel is a quality of life addition that many games use now because rewalking through dead space that has already been explored becomes tedious to the average gamer (some people like that, but good game design recycles as little content as possible in order to keep the player engaged. If content is recycled it has to be done with a purpose, otherwise you are synthetically lengthening the player experience and possibly causing tedium).
In fact, a lot games don't used it or used it in a better way. I'm not, personnaly, disturbed by the fast travel even if I totally agree with the artificial aspect it have in the games. I mean, with this much TP everywhere I can't imagine why goblins didn't used them.
So yeah, it's just an easy and light-minded way to fast the travel of the gamer.
Jumping, throwing and carrying heavy objects are "fun" mechanics introduced to make the world more interactable so it feels less static. Depending on your strict aderance to "reality" and "video game" you may be able to have a suspension of belief and just enjoy it, or you can be the guy in the movie theater going "THAT ISN"T REAL! No way do cars work that way, or guns can't shoot that much, or you can't get down a stairwell before a bomb goes off that fast!"
you would be right if it was for a complete new game but, and the more I think the more it occurs to me, it's the biggest mistake of Larian. They are not doign a whole new game. They are doing BG3, the fourth game of the series BG (not including ID) and they brag about it.
So it's only natural to have some expectations.
You said throwing and carrying heavy objects are "fun" and that's the problem. This "fun" you're talking about is a "fun" tagged "DOS fun", it's not "BG fun" and when I'm saying it this is not subjectivity, this is true.
BG3 is way more realistic and way less cartoon than DOS.
So when I play DOS I accept and I can even find "fun" the barrel's stuff. But, and I would really like to people to hear that, this is not DOS.
OK it's BG 3 and it can evolve, I hope so by the way ! But evolve doesn't mean direspect the essence of the game.
So yeah, if I go to the movie theater to watch... let's say "the silmarillion", yeah, HELL YEAH, I would be the guy who said "gosh, orcs didn't have any barrels and elves didn't used AK47 !"
And I would be right.
Basically, because video gaming in general has introduced too many new mechanics, it is adverse to your concept of how a game should be played.
We all agree with this statement. But, again, lot of peoples tend to forget this is BG3, not a generic game taking place in Faerun. This is a game following two legendary games. Of course, we all wish it to be better than his predecessor as we (the BG-fan) all wish it'll respect his "tradition" (lineage ?).
It's like kids playing tag, but now they are playing with light sensor guns and it is called lazer tag, but you are just sitting there thinking "that isn't tag, real tag you have to run up and touch the person, you can't just tag them out from a distance like that, it isn't fun and it isn't fair".
Actually I really love this example, cause it's a perfect example of what BG3 should be but not of what he is.
Let's redo it.
So we have a game "tag".
Respectfull Innovation "hey guys let's make it laser tag!" "hou yeah innovation!"
Larians innovation "hey guys let's move and shot each in turn!" "ho ye... WHAT ?"
That's a relevant example. And we can continue.
"but guys "each our turn" is great, we did it with chess it's so cool and strategic!" "ok guys... but.... it's not chess you know..." "yeah yeah sure but..." "no. Stop. It-is-not-chess." "...Right. Sry..." One year later..; "hey guys ! Why don't we played soccer but each in turn ?! it's so fun and strategic !" "Larian... leave please. go back to chess. "
I find it pretty relevant xD
I have actually seen feedback on here asking for the old user interface back because they thought it was easier to read and they liked the aesthetic. I feel like interfaces from back in the day were so bulky and hard to use, but some people learn to like a thing and they want to stick to it no matter what.
I didn't officialy complain about the interface but To be honest it's not the most pleasant inventory I had to used but meh, there is other major issues for me.
Random real life story. I had to hunt down computer equipment that was sent for destruction so that it could be removed from an inventory. Doing so, I had to go to an old government employee who had been in the military for 20+ years and then continued to work as a civilian for another 20+ years. This man had a whole room of filing cabinets dating back 10 years of all the inventory items that were sent for destruction. I asked if he had these logged on a softcopy database or spreadsheet or something that can be easily searched through.
He said that he didn't believe in computers because the data could be lost and the best way to keep files is with folders and drawers....so there I was, opening dusty old manila folders and reading hand written inventory stubs for a few weeks looking for this lost computer.
Is his way better? NO! But it was better for him, because he was too unfamiliar with technology that it would take too long for him to use any other system. He couldn't adapt to the current standards.
Ok... Listen... it's not cool to reduce people who disagree to a bunch of old fart unable to accept evolution. I hope you will have get that after reading my comment.
Cause seriously, I played a LOT of games, TB as RT games and I enjoyed a LOT of them.
As I tried to explain to you, here it's different from a whole new game.
It's BG "3" so it's normal to have expectations.
Maybe BG3 will be good, super good, massive success but if it doesn't answer the expectations we can be waiting from a "game+1", so it would have miss the point and even mislead a lot of gamers, no matter how good the game is.
They would have take advantage of the name without having be up to it.
