Great responses everyone. Not exactly where I had envisioned this conversation going, but that is why it ends up being really good feedback. Put the time and resources into making a really compelling game for the Custom character first and foremost. Give us more options for NPCs to join our party, but don’t waste the time and resources to make all of those NPCs Origin characters, since most people won’t play as them anyway. I liked the suggestion above of having Origin characters as an expansion rather than the core game.
In 20+ years of playing the Baldur’s Gate series of games, I never once used one of the prerolled characters that they had available. In DOS:2, I did play as an Origin character because the party size was limited to 4 and I wanted to learn all of their back stories. Also, the Custom character in that game missed out on a bunch of content and side quests. I am worried that it could be the same here if they do not spend more time on story elements that make a Custom character special. (Also, expanding party size to 5 would help in being able to experience more of the characters stories.)
