Anyway, I didn't hear anything about Baldur's Gate being real-time with pause because of Interplay wanting BioWare to make a Diablo clone. Rather, what I heard was that BioWare was creating "Battleground Infinity", which was going to be like an MMO, but when Interplay acquired the license for Dungeons & Dragons, BioWare ended up making the game singleplayer, adding the AD&D 2e rules to the combat, setting the game in the Forgotten Realms and changing its name to "Baldur's Gate".
I will look into the channel later, but what Bioware initially might/might have not intended is rather irrelevant - as it is not what they ended up doing. Ideas and goals in game development get changed and discarted all the time. Mass Effect1 would be a far different title if it was what was originally intended. When new devs tried to immitate unreasonable ambition of OG Mass Effect1 idea, the result was mediocare Andromeda. Baldur's Gates were made and had a big impact, gathered a fanbase, and left a legacy. One would hope if anyones has guts to made a sequel they would try to respect that legacy, even if it wouldn't in 100% fulfill fan's unreasonable expectations (like new Deus Ex games).
Larian has no interest in making a BG game. It's that simple. They already did their RPG, and it was successful and they continue to expand on that. One can point to many things that are different in BG3, and while one can find excuses, at the core it is this: Larian doesn't want to make a game like that and WotC don't want them to either. Luckily for me, BG3 has so little to do with BG1&2 I don't even see them as same series by that point. I am somewhat teriffied now of old characters like Minsc or Jaheira appearing. The less BG3 reminds me of the old games, the better.
