Crimson,

First off, I'm a bit sad that you elected to ignore the main point where I was reaching out to you for understanding; since you expressed that you feel the PC in BG3 doesn't suffer in the same way that the custom PC in D:OS2 did... I really do want to understand what differences you're seeing, and how the experience has differed for you in that regard, because I cannot see it myself; I'd like to.

The rest aside, I mainly commented at first because it felt as though you were saying, specifically, that having a smaller list of companions was necessary for close and personal story links – that you supported Larian in making such a restricted companion list for that reason, and wanted them to keep it that way, because it was some objective truth that one necessarily entailed and required the other... I was saying that having a smaller party does not intrinsically mean a more intimate and personal story, nor a larger one, less so; That's false. It's factually incorrect, and the two should not be equivocated, because doing so is misleading.

With more clarity, I can see that it wasn't your intention to say that; you were speaking purely subjectively, about what was necessary for you, and you alone; perhaps my fault for misinterpreting your words in the first place. I was overly reactionary, and I apologise.

It does sound, however, as though they could still make a larger character companion roster, and it wouldn't detriment your experience at all, because you could simply choose the ~6 that you liked the feel of the most and wanted to engage with for the story, and so your personal experience would be just as satisfying... unless just having the knowledge that there were other potential companions you weren't focusing on would detract from the experience for you? ...I honestly shouldn't think that it would, given the way you describe your compartmentalising of games and isolating their experiences from one another.

On that note, unfortunately... Larian have suggested in interviews that they do, indeed, intend to do the same thing again, as they did with D:OS2, and forcefully remove the companions you don't specifically choose to have with you, at the end of the first act. There's been wide-spread and almost unanimous resistance to this, but they've not released any further comment.

(Way Off-Topic, On Marketing)


I'll preface by saying that I think we are operating on different definitions of what we mean by 'marketing'; I'm not sure what your definition is, but I'm using the general one – everything by which information about the game is pushed, shared or presented with the goal of generating interest that could potentially lead to sales, is advertising and marketing. I feel as though you are using the word 'just' to refer to the extreme end of sensationalist splash media? That may be our disconnect.

At any rate... It's a nice and fluffy-sounding ideal, to say that you are unaffected by marketing.... but it's false. It's unequivocally false, and if you believe otherwise then you are deceiving yourself. You do not buy games with your eyes closed, picking them up blindly and at random off shelves; however you inform your decision, it is through the game's extended advertising and marketing that you do so. Otherwise you do not know that it exists at all.

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I looked at it and went; "Wow, this game looks amazing. I want to play it".

Congratulations, you were affected by advertising and marketing. That is the very definition of being so.

How do you come by the gameplay footage that you review before deciding whether to play a game or not? How do you decide which games to check or view gameplay footage of in the first place? Doesn't matter what your answer is – it's a result of marketing and advertisement of the product.

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The more problematic question that this led me to, and I apologise for going as far off track as I am right now... is this:

Is it the case that, because you use a very specific narrow lens to base your decisions upon (direct gameplay footage), you literally do not care if developers and companies use the breadth of their other advertising tools (which you personally do not look at) to claim that their product is or will be a number of things which it ultimately is not, and in some cases never intended to be? Are you saying that you don't care, would still support the company if they made a game you found fun, and would think that that behaviour is completely acceptable, just because it didn't happen to affect you – that is, because they didn't lie to your lens of decision-making.

What about if they advertise 'raw gameplay footage' that grabs your attention and you like the way it looks, and so buy the game... but when you get it home and start it up, it's actually nothing like that at all, and the 'gameplay footage' they showed you before isn't even in the game... this has happened in a couple of large cases not too long ago, in fact. Lots of folks were very unhappy, to say the least. Such a circumstance would put you in with the other folks who look at more than one metric when deciding whether to buy a game; would you still think that fair and acceptable? Would you still be happy and content with the game, if they lied to your lens of decision-making, as well as the ones others use to inform themselves?

It comes across, the way you worded much of what you said, as though you feel that it's perfectly okay for developers to misrepresent, mislead, deceive or over-exaggerate what they are producing and selling, to other people's lenses of decision-making... as long as they don't do it with yours.

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I do not look at Baldur's Gate 3 and go; "Oh... Baldur's Gate cRPG. Well that must mean 20 companions, no chain system, no surface attacks, every choice matters, grim serious atmosphere, no talking squirrels, real time with pause, day/night cycle, unlimited party size, proper reactions, proper DnD systems, math calculations, no origin characters and so on whatever is promised or not promised.".

Nor do I, but:

When they say: “We're making the a game using the 5e D&D rules” - I expect them to make a game using the 5e D&D rules.

When they say: “This is going to be the definitive example of 5e D&D in a video game!” - I expect them to make a game that uses the 5e D&D rules to a reasonable level of fidelity and faithfulness, without large scale or excessive deviations to the core system, and I expect that system to be as feature complete as is reasonable.

I'm a simple woman: when I hear a game developer tell me what sort of game they are making, and what will be in it, I have a tendency to take them at their word and assume that they are not deliberately lying or misleading me – that they intend to do as they say. I grow dissatisfied and unhappy when they don't, because I do not appreciate being lied to or misled, especially when it results in a product that I might not have chosen to spend money on, had they spoken more honestly.