I agree, Elk. Except I don't understand why Wizards (and Larian) would decide to take this path, because as far as I know the numbers simply do not support the claim that co-op RPGs will actually keep up steam for all that long. Once a game stops being the hot new thing, the MP people tend to move on. And if the single player aspect was left utterly mediocre (since all design considerations were focused on multiplayer) then the SP crowd will abandon it too, and then the game is just stone dead. And dead games don't sell, dead games don't attract positive attention, dead games don't constitute a strong communication channel to existing players, dead games do not build customer loyalty.
On top of that, sacrificing one of the strongest single player franchises to push a co-op title that is barely trying to be even a spiritual successor to the old titles, I don't see how that really works out to be a long term win. Does anyone really want a co-op Baldur's Gate all that much? The brand pulls in all the old timers that loved the original, but do they want to constantly bang their heads against design nonsense purely and exclusively centered around some modern co-op bullshit? I don't know about anyone else, but I sure don't. Is the current market for co-op RPGs really that big? Are DOS and DOS2 currently pulling in big player counts in co-op? If not then where's the long term win here?
