It's just so backwards isn't it? Like I can easily see how the idea of playing from the POV of a companion character would have made for an excellent "Expansion" to the core game later on. You know, during that interregnum period between BG3 and the BG4 sequel. That's when they could roll out this banner art at the top of the page that we've all been staring at for a year. I can picture the taglines and the promos there. It would have been a relatively simple sell under the "Tales of the Sword Coast" formula. Add 1 large continuous Dungeon ala Durlag's Tower, a new hub zone like Ulgarth's Beard, and then allow for a different mode of exploring the base game from the POV of a favorite companion. That would have worked, and if it came as a follow up, then maybe it would feel like it dovetails on what is supposed to be a Dungeons and Dragons game.
Also, I don't understand the rationale behind waiting and trying to build anticipation for this. Like if this is their plan, why not start testing it during EA? I have absolutely zero interest in playing the game as an Origin character, but for people who do have an interest, why draw it out like this? Wouldn't it be better for them to gather the feedback on what's busted on that score too?
The only possible reason to do this from a D&D perspective is as a hook for neophytes. People who are coming at it with no prior experience of D&D and find character creation confusing. I still think a Pre-Gen MC is the worst way to introduce D&D to somebody, but whatever I'm sure they've seen the response to the later Dragon Age entries, ME, The Witcher etc and thought well, this is what people want now. Maybe they don't want to be an active participant in the story, but a passive recipient of it, and it's easier to tell a good story if the author already knows who all the characters are. But that's just not D&D at all, and it really flies in the face of it, diminishes the best part of D&D.
I don't blame Larian so much as I blame the Wizard's for allowing this to happen in the first place. I still don't really see them as a Dungeons and Dragons company to be honest, even though they've held the reins for like 2 decades. In my mind they will always be the MTG trading card company, that bought in on the cheap when the property was distressed and then milked it for all it was worth. They swooped all the best art for their card game too and left D&D in the lurch, and now they keep trying to turn D&D into a card game collect the deck formula.
I see the origin concept as an extension of that. Like "hurry up and get your first Edition Gale, buy in now and you might get gold leaf Mystery character too if you're lucky!" I loath the MTG Baldur's Gate crossover stuff that I see occurring lately.
I miss that TSR logo with the badass Dragon amp too. Why is that literally nowhere in this game?
Where is the Forgotten Realms logo?
The Wizard's logo? Even though that one has always looked like complete trash by comparison hehe. So I can't help but direct the ire there as well. They don't seem to know what to do with the CRPGs and keep running off their ace studios, so they end up making their own IPs instead of building up D&D and the Realms. I know they're pulling the Monty Haul and have all the loot now and I guess it's making money so that must great, but damned if they didn't do us so dirty so many times in the past 20 years. I secretly wish for some techy Billionaire to swoop in and buy them outright, torch their Wizard's tower to the foundation and announce the return of the Red Dragon! Recover all the Orbs! heheh I know it'll never happen, but still, watching the direction things have gone is depressing. They took at thing which is supposed to be about creativity and imaginative play and morphed it into paint by numbers, at least with their management of the CRPGs. The table top materials are fine, but they don't seem to grasp how to use Computers as a hook for that, to support that, instead they'll make a big budget D&D movie or something ridiculous, like they didn't learn the lesson from the first TPK on that one lol.
Sorry to pile on the thread, I'm sure the OP was hoping for more of a comparative list, but the whole Origins concept rings so hollow, that it's no wonder so many people have such a powerful aversion to it on general principle. Alas
