The impression I got playing Solasta and continuing further into Dungeon of the Mad Mage tabletop campaign was that there would be immense opportunity in a game that was literally just a DnD tabletop module in a very detailed multiplayer video game format. The structure of Dungeon of the Mad Mage especially seems like it'd be very conducive to such a thing. Basically, Roll20 converted into a video game engine. From what little research I've done, the Neverwinter Nights 2 modding/multiplayer scene operates off of a similar concept, and it has endured for that reason.
Like there are arguments to be made in that BG3's single player aspects is being held back by its multiplayer focused design, both narratively and mechanically. But perhaps the same could be true of the other way around. One can easily argue that the entirety of Solasta should have been a multiplayer game from the beginning too, with its focus on a custom party and the combat mechanics.
No doubt! That one also has a great cover too! I love the idea, or the general idea of it.
Another thought I had earlier tonight, was how there is probably pressure for a campaign to capture all the sort of traditional environments one would expect (with an expansion in the same, but + snow lol) but I'd almost rather they pick something tight, like the said Dungeon of the Mad Mage, but then just really tried to give it a world physics within that space. Perhaps with a more action oriented non combat movement and exploration aspect, but where encounters or combats prompt the familiar TB scheme. I think there are ways they could perhaps hybridize the gameplay too for the video game format, taking part of what games like Breath of the Wild do in terms of making the player feel like they can interact and move within the environment in really nuanced ways, but then still find ways to occasion the use of the various specials and magic, that then bends the physics in satisfying ways. Like to really make it really like even the low level magic or spells are fucking awesome.
I often come back to simple things, like just wanting the character to be able to crouch, jump, climb up a tree maybe? Use a rope to repel down a cliff or swing off something like tarzan, drive and swim. Maybe shoot an arrow or a magic missile or chromatic orb in a more FPS style. Or hookshot whips or whatever novelties they might use there, when in non combat exploration. Do all that aspect a bit more like Zelda in the non com, but then when encounters or combat are entered its all streamlined to the core rules. Sort of like gameplay vignettes, where you'd get the free form exploration or environmental interactivity run ups as like the interludes between the various campaign encounters. I'd almost rather they just pick one place, like a dungeon or forest but do it up to the nth degree that way. Like such that every cantrip and lvl1 spell, and every feat feels like totally badass within the game system. I wish someone could pull that off. I don't really mind hovering at super low levels like 1-4, if all the gaps are filled in and it really behaves like an imaginary world. Larian talked a big game in the early videos about wanting to go that direction, and they have some cool reactivity and environmental stuff going on, but still not quite on the level of what I'd wish. I think the godmode iso view necessitates the pull away view, but I think I could picture something with a more realistic pov out of the fps genre rather than the rts. I think that's maybe the bigger divide. It's sort of like the difference between eyes closed picture it in your head, or wanting to see it drawn out on a map. In D&D its like always both for me, I want both, but in the games we usually have to choose one or the other. I was kind of excited to see BG3 attempting to do a compromise, but its clearly more geared from the top iso view and not really the driving one, but who knows, maybe they'll circle back to it eventually.
For a char creator I think the basic threshold has to be, can the player use the tools available to recreate a reasonable facsimile of their own face? Like usually the way it's done is a series of presets, say 30 and you try to get as close as you can from those limited options. But if it truly could do any face or hairstyle that a human might have, then that is going to go a long long way. I think you'd need closer to 300 presets to really cover the basic facial types that exist in the world. Then they just need a clean way to display the stuff in larger preview groups, of say 10, 20 or 30 models at a time. Instead of cycling through a big list 1 by 1, they should map the faces out into a series like Mombi's cabinet or a hollywood squares type view, so that the player can quickly find exactly what they want.
Same deal with the hairstyles. Do it like those magazines they have at barber shops or salons, where all the styles are shown in boxes next to one another. The different races could just key off the main 'human' headsets, that way you don't have to reduplicate everything. You just give the Elf, or Half Elf, Half Orc version etc. But by doing them in a snapshot preview, then they could actually display the options in a way that allows for having hundreds or possibly thousands of presets. You know, instead of just a few dozen since anything more an its too much cycling. They don't need sliders for everything if the presets are doing the heavy lifting, but it would be nice to have them for the main features.
Slap a basic outfit designer on top of that, and you're pretty money for a Roll20 convert type thing. I think it could work so well, but I haven't seen it yet for D&D proper. Pathfinder is doing some stuff right, other stuff still off the mark for me, but it is curious to see how now three different D&D cprgs are handling things differently at the same moment in game history. Instead of falling completely for one or the other, I keep thinking of ways they might be synthesized or done differently to be more fun. WotR is definitely giving me some of what I want, though I'd rather have what you described. Like ports of the classics, or even just the newer ones, but done that way. With a convert takes some of the pressure off to be novel with everything, since players already know what to expect, but then that's where the engine and systems can come into their own. By trying to get the game world as close as it can be to the real one, just with the imagination in overdrive. I think for the future they could also take a tip from things like minecraft, or some of the fallout builder type stuff, like to give the world a more lego style atomic sense to it.
Just as a random aside, I always thought a cool spell to see in action would the water ones. Like I appreciate that it exists here as a way to "put out" the environment hehe. But there are so many ways the concept might be treated beyond insta rain puddle. Like maybe diverting a river, the way Thales was supposed to have done? Or doing it Last Unicorn crashing waves style, or like Arwen in FotR parting the river and then sending it crashing. Or maybe the idea of making a sphere or water and suspending it. I mean there's just a lot of places one can go in their head that the game can't. But part of that is maybe because the avatar is so scaled down, like a figurine on the table, rather than being the imagined character in an imaginary (but real) world. I still think Breath of the Wild was onto something. A similar idea but adapted to more to a classical sword and sorcery vibe and D&D rules and would be really cool to see. I'm surprised more fantasy RPG games haven't really tried to copy what that zelda game did, but adapt it to an mp or party type thing. Perhaps choice of class or background or skills and the like could be fleshed out more to include things like mountaineering or forestry or sailing, but where the game actually provided settings for them to be fully exploited. Steering a raft down a rapid? but like actually do it, instead of just having that be a cutscene. Use the rope to repel? heheh. Someday they'll get there
