Hm. Lets imagine (just for a second) there was no DOS and DOS2. Would BG3 being a standalone project alter your perception? Would you see its story (the bits we know about now) as mediocre? When I was first playing BG3 I did find the story very engaging, I can't name a major flaw in the storytelling without inventing it and purposefully squeezing it out of myself
What do you mean by standalone project? No D:OS1&2? No BG1&2? No D&D?
For my response below I would assume D:OS1&2.Though it's a bit pointless argument. I didn't find chaining system as infuriating during my first playthrough of D:OS1, but after three games I can't bloody stand it. Shortcoming become aparent overtime, and repeating a shortcoming isn't equal to making it for a first time.
(...)
I just cut a long laundry list of issues I have, but I don't think I have to. There is one thing, that BG3 does abysmally bad, and that is the main issue I have with the game. Worldbuilding in BG3 is abysmal.
You can spend hours and hours thinking about the history and culture and mores of your imaginary land, and how people interact and the ways that different religious and ethnic groups collide. But if you don't make me feel the dirt under my fingernails, then you still haven't created a real place. If the reader doesn't get a little lightheaded from the stench of the polluted river, or transported by the beauty of the geometric flower gardens, then something is missing. Most of all, there should be a few spots — bars, taverns, crypts, spaceports — where the reader really feels "at home," as if you could imagine hanging out there for real. The purpose of worldbuilding isn't just to do a cool exercise, but to give a sense of place — and all of your thought experiments absolutely have to result in something vivid and alive.
—Charlie Jane Anders, "7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding," Io9, 2 August 2013
I don't buy into anything in BG3 - that tadpole is anything more then a convenient McGuffin that will do whatever game devs need it to do. That Grove is a place people would live in. That Goblins can't locate grove to which they have a paved straight row. The whole map feels like disjointed content. NPC seem to be unaware of what happened outside their little zones, and don't seem to have lives outside the lines they deliver. Our companions don't feel like well rounded characters, but they revolve around the little plot they have, with little texture around it. I don't buy into tedpole being a credible threat or temptation. Content and characters feel so artificial that it's difficult to care about anything. I generally have trouble slaughtering NPCs, and I felt nothing doing evil path and slaugthering tieflings and grove. No one in BG3 feels alive to begin with.
Would you see its story (the bits we know about now) as mediocre?
And to be clear mediocre would be very generous in my book. Just finished Cyberpunk and that was mediocre - generally coherent story with some bad pacing, but promising but underdeveloped characters but generally clear direction, motivation and logic. I wouldn't call BG1&2 amazing, but they were fine. BG3 narrative side is poor. There are definitely cRPGs I enjoyed playing less then BG3, but I would never ever recommend anyone to play BG3 for story.
Edit. This conversation is a bit of a mess as there are posters with different stances that get mixed up. I really don't have that much problem with BG3 starting as a prisoner on the ship - outside the fact that I don't think the sequence works well in either of games. What worries is not that BG3 seems to be like another game, it worries me that BG3 seems like another game that I thought was narratively poor. If I watch a movie and think "Ok, it reminds me a lot of Lord of the Rings" it doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing, but if I watch a movie and think "ok, it reminds me a lot of Mortal Engines" then it's probably not a good sign.
