From my perspective as a conceptual game designer of some vintage, it's been my observation that the more successful and larger a game design studio becomes, the more they tend to lean towards things designed towards "pleasing the masses", like teleportational travel options whenever you wish, which tend to break immersion/realism in an rpg.
In smaller studios, I think that the game designers are more prone to stick to the purer vision of their game. They are more inclined to take chances, to assume the person buying the game is smarter rather than dumber, that the buyer wants harder tactical/strategic options and is willing to think/be patient/and really use their heads to overcome obstacles. The richer a studio becomes, the more the game design final decisions fall those controlling the bottom line- often people with absolutely no idea at all about what game design is about.
The richer and larger the studio, the more lawyers and bean-counters the company has that they tend to listen to, which eventually waters down rpgs into mindless corridors with lots of carrots on sticks and not too much thinking. Bethesda's whole existence perfectly follow this path of "trying to please the common gamer", which results in pretty, but tawdry boring gameplay which is all icing and little real interesting exploration or feel of challenging, realistic roleplay. Daggerfall and Morrowwind were marvelous from the perspective of freedoms to do almost anything you could think of, and create most any sort of character you wanted, and it's been downhill with each prettier, newer incarnation of their Elder Scroll games. Their entries have become lovely shells which require simpering idiots to play and succeed in.
Only the more ancient of PC gamers probably remember Daggerfall. With it, Bethesda's young designers, less impeded by fiscal success, reached for the stars to try and bring a game that offered every possible rpg freedom to the player. They didn't just push the envelope of what they could try and bring to a computer game of that time, they knocked down doors that really have never been surpassed today in the depth and breadth of role playing opportunities. The game stretched the limits of the top computers of it's day, but more than that, it stretched the imagination of anyone who played it.
It's been redone in Unity, and with some lovely new mods by players, it remains quite playable all these years later and is quite worth playing, if you can handle the graphics and limitations of those days.
Larian's games, to me anyway, have offered much higher amounts of intellectual challenge than most any rpg in recent memory- so far. It would be good if their kept their eye on the ball though, because it's easy to get lost in a golden vision of profits by starting off down the boring highway of accommodating the least intellectually gifted gamer for the sake of an extra 60$ a pop.
In DOS II you could teleport from statue to statue at various points in the game, but no camp teleporting when you wanted to save your ass if you were deep in a lair. You needed to travel to the nearest statue, which added some feel of immersion that the landscape mattered.
What Larian (I hope) intends- and should do- is make BG III more D&D like and allow overnight camping "in place" in any relatively safe location, (away from immediate threats). This would be a third option, keeping short rests and the big camp as well, for crafting/cooking/character major interactions. Characters would need the classic tinderbox, bedrolls, firewood. An option to set a guard who does not rest would keep the camp from being surprised by a "chance encounter". These would vary according to where you camp. You might wake up to find gobbos in the goblin camp stealing wares, or, perhaps wake up with a dead party member stripped of goods in the morning if you didn't set a guard. In the Underdark, most anything might show up.
This would be much, much more immersive and fun than the whole teleporting back to camp for a full rest nonsense.
In my opinion, it's these seemingly minor dumbing down-issues aimed at selling extra copies of a game to very casual players that want simplicity and little thinking that leads to catastrophic decline in quality gaming companies. The lawyers and stock holders push for this sort of thing against the wishes of actual designers. It's up to us, the core players to push for a more realistic experience, when this sort of thing happens.
Also, as a rule, these tendencies to move towards less complex, and more generic game experiences are almost always a one way ride. Once a company starts down the path of simplifying and making things easier, there is seldom any return to deeper, richer game play.
Hopefully, Larian already realizes all this, and the in-place camping in the wilderness is simply not implemented yet.
