How about "this isn't Baldur's Gate" meaning that the story isn't a tale about a protagonist and the game isn't really designed to be a nice SP experience and the world is weird and dead and hyper-compressed and it seems to be made out of the nicest fisherprice plastic and time stands still everywhere and the game doesn't really give that nice D&D party exploration feel and frankly there is an argument to be made that the game isn't even designed for 5E.
We only see act 1. For all we know it will be focused on the player.
Also BG1 and BG2 werent about the protagonist per se either when you dig a little deeper.
In BG1 its more about your brother, who tries to kill you (and everyone else) in a bid to become the new lord of murder. In BG2 its the continuation of that the story is partly about you, and partly about Irenicus, Starting out you are captured and soon lose Imoen. While trying to recover Imoen you get (re)captured and lose your soul. Irenicus takes your soul to replace the one he lost so he can continue with his plans. Considering beeing without a soul is kind of a bad thing you obviously want it back. And Irencus achieving what he wants is pretty much death for a great deal of people, including yourself in the long run so you work to stop him, In ToB its about the location that you are (forget the name) where several children of Bhaal are trying to kill eachother, no matter who gets caught in the way as colletarol damage. The story is about Bhaal and the mantle of lord of murder. You are but a part of it but assuming you play it till the end ultimately you are the one who choices what becomes of the god's power. But the story is about so much more then just the protagonist.
BG3 isent made to be a SP experience? Where do you base that comment on? Considering I havent played a single minute of multiplayer in my hours of play im abit confused. Genuine question because apparently im missing something. How is the world weird and hyper compressed? Do you mean in the sense that there are so many things in 1 area? BG 1 and BG2 both have areas where the same applies. Dont know what you mean with fhisherprice plastic. You dont like the visuals I suppose?
Time standing still if the player isent around applies to 99.999999999999999999% of the games in excistance. It applies to both bg1 and bg2 as well. How does it make the game not a baldurs gate title?
The party exploration not feeling good is about the only thing you said there that id say is an actuall complaint that Larian could maybe do something with. What part about it feels off? What can be done to improve it? Why does it invalidate the game to be a baldurs gate title in your opinion?
We don't know where the Origin nonsense is going to go, but if it's anything like DOS2 then the game is literally designed to not reward the player for doing that D&D thing and rolling their own character. That's not very BG either, is it?
I dont think the origins are going anywhere. Dont like them? Dont play them. Noone is forcing you to play them if you dont want to. None of us currently have played any of them (because we cant, lol) but even in bg1 you could play with pre-generated characters that you could play in place of rolling one up. Aside from not having to roll up your own character it dident add anything though but not really a reason why the game isent a BG title.
And this is entirely before we get into the old classics of the toilet chain movement system, the small party size, the slow combat, and seemingly much fewer companions but of course every companion you run into is an origin character and thus probably more central to the story and more powerful and Mary Sue than the player character. What happened to running into a funny guy like Jan, who isn't central to anything but still a valuable companion?
Small party size....
DMG, page 83, section 'party size'
"The proceeding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers"
The guidelines were rules that a DM can use to make encounters. DND 5th ed in gemeral is written for campaigns of 3 to 5 players and while some generic guidelines are given in how to accomidate bigger (or smaller) parties the general rule is 3-5. 4-man parties sits nicely in the middle. Fact that bg 1 and 2 had a 6 man party is moot. BG3 is written with DND 5th ed rules in mind and all the rules, encounters, challenges etc. are written with this number in mind. They are following 5th ed in this.
The chain system I also dislike but doesent make it less baldurs gate. It allows you more or less control over how you move your party. If you want to micro you can control your party members individually or if youd like you can move them all at once. We can discuss implementation but its inclusion or lack doesent make it more or less baldurs gate.
Slow combat I assume you mean turn based? Thats dnd 5th ed for you.
fewer companions.... We only see act 1. In act 1 in bg1 you see: Imoen, Xan, Montaron and Khalid and Jaheira if you reach friendly arm inn. Reaching the friendly arm inn also triggers act 2 if im not mistaken. You can move from act 1 to act 2 in a matter of minutes. But even if you do the (unfair) comparison the number of companions is about equal. And the number of companions has 0 bearing on whatever or not this is a baldurs gate title.
Not sure what you mean with mary sue character? Regardless, its also a moot point. Some of the characters that you met in baldurs gate could be stronger or weaker then the main character. Power level of companions compared to PC is not something that defines a baldurs gate title. For all you know there will be fun characters like Jan. We only have act 1. Stop judging things you cant see yet...
Or if you want some fun, try and imagine what BG1 and 2 would've been like if the party members all had to follow the pattern in BG3. Jehaira isn't just a seasoned adventurer and occasional Harper, she's actually the top covert agent and spec ops badass of the Harpers on a secret mission to save the world and get divorced. Imoen isn't just your little sister, she's actually the secret apprentice and mistress of Elminster. Nalia isn't just some random daughter of some random noble, she's actually a princess hiding as a random noble because a cabal of devils and vampiric kobolds want to turn her into a lich!!
Yes, I'm slightly exaggerating just a tiny bit, but you get the drift.
This part I completly dont get but it might be me. Are you referring that the companions in bg1 and bg2 dident have impactfull (or impactfull enough) backgrounds?
Some of the characters you mention did have some rather major (in universe) power though. Nalia was the last surviving member of a noble house. You can free her home and run a mini kingdom, essentially. You can have 2 paladins in your party, 1 of which is a high ranking member of a paladin order and a noble of some respute. The PC and Imoen are Bhaalspawn. Cernd (I think? A druid you could meet in BG2) is an archdruid of a grove. Jaheira and Khalid are Harpers as you said. I could go on and while not ALL chracters have this....powerfull backgrounds, the majority of them do. Theyre pretty much all larger then life and honestly thats generally what adventruer's are in DND. 1st lvl characters aside, theres nothing normal about adventurers when you start to think about it. With point by a fighter can have STR20 by level 6 with alot of races. Nearly matching GIANTS in physical strength. When you think about it, dnd adventurers are pretty insane
