+1 , at this point I fear the best we can hope for is that they simply add some forgotten realms everyday life 'mundane, pastoralist, rural'-ordinariness to the current map. Suggestions I already made elsewhere which I think could somehow lessen the feelings described by OP and many others: add 'roaming' NPC of various kinds (e.g. merchant caravans, bandits, wildlife), add the necessities of life to make the world believable (e.g. an actual tavern, a farm - where do the people on the map grow their food?, some basic shops for clothes - see waukeens promenade in BG2 which had a lot of these, add some houses or other kinds of habitation structures - right now I simply wonder where all the grove NPC's are supposed to sleep, on the floor? - obviously atm there is no night so they don't "sleep",... etc etc etc. I agree that a lot of this would amount to 'filler' and perhaps some players are more in favour of a really lean and stripped game where everything has a purpose but I hope they find some middleground and add some elements that suggest the game world is an actual world were people work, sleep, live their lives, etc. An example to me would be the starting area(s) of Icewind Dale. IMO they did it better than BG1 in terms of starting areas that catapult you in a game world which is believable because of all the things that suggests what people do for a living and their 'way of life', e.g. fishing and fur trading, living in shacks with their kids, the alcoholic fisherman, villagers complaining in the tavern about the traderoute being blocked by harsh winter,etc. If you compare this to BG3, for me, the BG3 world is super constructed, artificial, extremely meta-gamey, static, and overal giving the impression of a table-top dungeon or quest map instead of a 3d rendered fantasy world in which we as players can partake and explore but in which things also happen unrelated to our/the party's existence (everything has a quest related purpose, no 'flavour only' NPC's or structures: e.g. no farms, no housing, no tavern, no normal shops or markets, no travelers, no wildlife, no habitation outside of map 'hubs',...)
This is a very grounded and astute idea and highlights exactly what is missing from this game. It is all flash, no substance. I don't think the game actually has any structures where normal people are living? Every single house, village or barn has been ravaged, burnt, or is inhabited by enemies or vagabonds. There is no "breathing room" for life in such a setting. Adding any of these would make a huge difference.
Originally Posted by Soul-Scar
I made a post like the OP almost one year ago to the day,.
A 200 year old level 1 rouge, "but he was a slave" the defenders cry. If he gained 150xp per year from killing rats, bugs and reading books he would still be level 8.
A magical progeny so gifted and powerful the godess of magic gave him a free sample. Cough....level 1? But the orb thingy made him do it. Then how can he cast spells at all if it ate all his magic and knowledge?
A warrior trained from birth in every combat style and is required to bring back an illithid head for bragging rights gets caught by 2 teefling noobs and a gobbo cage.
They send a level 1 cleric of Shar and team into the Githyanki astral plane to obtain a mystery box guarded by a legion of Kith'rak. So a legion of CR 20+ dragon riders got fooled by the breakfast club. Gotcha!
Wyll, a legend with many heroic exploits and a demonic patron....Righhhhht
And Tav, the player character, the only true NPC in game without a voice over......lol
What I got 1 year ago was "but the tadpole did it, it makes perfect sense".
I mean you need acrobatics of the imagination to make ^^^^^ that make sense.
You cannot build a world based on a strict set of rules and 50 years of established lore and plonk a bunch of stuff on a static map and call it BG3. I like the Guardians of the galaxy comparison it is quite apt. Take your character in Bg1, you just left school and jumped out of the frying pan. Even a wolf proved challenging. From the moment you start anyone with a scrap of D&D knowledge is left scratching their heads.
Yes, you get it. A lot of this is simply bad writing and misunderstanding the source material. Your last sentence hits the nail on the head. Sure, D&D has changed over the years and 5th edition brings in a lot of new content but this is still a Baldur's Gate game. Most importantly it should stay true to Baldur's Gate and it most certainly does not.
