Originally Posted by Firesong
I have a different impression here.

I brought up that "heavy metal scene" example already a few days ago. When, in late 90s, more and more metal bands started to introduce keyboards to their lineups (even extreme metal bands did that), there was a similar outcry, because "purity" and "it's is not teh metalz aNyMoRe!!11".

Similar situation here, it's like a deja vu.

I would wholeheartedly agree with the D&D people if something was taken away from them, but it clearly is not. All that BG3 does over BG2 is to make it BETTER an experience, offer more options, offer more player agency and make it a more cinematic experience.

For me this whole discussion is far too reminiscent of "who is TRVE METAL" and "whimps and losers, leave the hall" (to reference Manowar).
Surely you're not going to argue that there's no difference between Edguy and Sepultura. And if someone expected Sepultura but instead got Edguy then that might not be entirely satisfying. Both are music, obviously, but they just don't really sound the same. That doesn't make one better than the other and thinking in those terms is hardly the point. What is the point is that if you expect something on the deathy side of thrash and what you get is happy disco metal, it feels a bit like buying a chocolate bar and getting a banana.

And while it really doesn't matter much if a band is metal or not in terms of whether a band is worth listening to, I reckon that at least vaguely having a feel for the difference between what is typical rock and what is typical metal doesn't hurt. I don't mind Rammstein or AC-DC, but I do get a little miffed if I express a fondness of old heavy metal and someone says "Oh, you like Nickelback too?!?"...

Getting this back on track, you could argue that BG3 does everything BG2 does but better, but that's like arguing that St Anger does everything the old albums did better because the sound quality was better. And it may be, but I still miss guitar solos and drums that don't sound like plastic buckets. Also, I seem to recall a fair bit of repetition in the composition that eventually got a bit frustrating, didn't it? Some of the ideas weren't bad and the songs could have ended up pretty decent, possibly, but what they released just wasn't the Metallica people expected.

So really getting back on track, in order to understand why some of us old people aren't really feeling it, I think we have to look a bit deeper and look at how certain things were used in the old games before deciding that BG3 is actually just BG2 with added awesome. And that then takes us all the way back to the starting point of this topic, there just aren't enough people playing the game at the moment that the pool of old timers willing to provide feedback despite the grief they'll get for it is going to be all that high.

I'm sure Metallica played St Anger for their friends and the record company, and I'm sure they all said "oh yeah, this is awesome, especially the plastic buckets!". That's the risk of not getting a wide enough audience for feedback.