Absolutely. I also thought that BG2 was better for it, as BG1 just wasn't systemic enough to result in anything interesting. I see it as Bioware trying to create TT adventure simulator in BG1, then looked at worked and what didn't and created a better sequel. There are of course those lovely small touches in BG1 that I missed in the sequel, but overall the trade off was well worth it. Success of BG2 also shaped the company going forward, with exceptiong of NWN1 which approached TT simulator from a different angle. That's pretty much why playing WItcher3 game me vibes of playing BG2 for the first time in early 2000s, more so then any actual BG-wanna-be.
CD Projekt were hugely influenced by Bioware in general, in particular their subsequent even more "cinematic" games, so that makes total sense. (They also see games as sort of movie-like, which personally I've come to grow tired of in more recent years, as it's become such a "lazy" trend, at least from my perception. I think games can do a whole lotta more than aping merely movies -- the industry isn't merely aping movies, it's aping Hollywood blockbuster movies to boot, which narrows things down even more.).
(Mechanically, there still is very little in Witcher (3) that compares to any of the BGs, naturally. With its barebones character system, progression and the like, It's pretty much RPG-light, if any, but then that's probably as much a deliberate design decision as much as a a commercial one dictated by huge budgets: You can't afford to merely cater to core RPG fans anymore if you go that huge -- which naturally has also been the story of Bethesda et all for like, I don't know how long). As a consequence, whilst I can see why it's that popular, I found my time with Witcher to be pretty underwhelming for both of those reasons (the combat I didn't like to boot very much, and the quests sorta played themselves outside of combat -- a thing that was subsequently "streamlined" from the very first game also, apparently).
The RPG genre in particular to me is pretty much lacking games in between the larger than life blockbusters (which aim to go even bigger with every new release/sequel) and the Kickstarters in general outside a few exceptions, but that's probably because of its history, considering how many former publishers / developers died around the 2000s. That may change though in the coming years, who knows.
So long I'm glad that Kickstarter and the like revived it all for me.
