veteran
Joined: Jun 2022
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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. I tried to, but it's complicated to answer as there are so many things to mention, explain and connect to, since I cannot just rip apart certain pieces of the game and story. It comes as a whole package because it's a coherent and cohesive immersive experience, not just bits and pieces. Simply not fitting for this thread. 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. Well that sucks and settles the whole quantity for me. A terrible decision. I actually love the idea of 8 companions (balanced between 4 males, 4 females) and it would have been awesome to have all of them in my camp and interacting with each one, as I absolutely love and treasure such moments in the game. So taking that away is quite a huge kick in the heart for me. I hated it in DOS2, I will hate it in BG3 too. Especially because through the entire ACT 1 there's so many camp conversations and connections to be made, so I just cannot imagine not having them in ACT 2. Absolutely terrible decision that contradicts the massive content in ACT 1. Why would Gale acknowledge the things we do outside of the camp, if they're just gonna kill him for not being an active party member. Why do I have an intimate weave moment with him, why do I talk to him if they will just take him away from me just because he's not in the party. Why do I have an option to warn Astarion about Gandrel and tell him that I will watch his back and make sure Cazador pays, just to kill him off later. Why do I get to know Wyll and his stories, just for him to die because party size is 4. What an absolute wargs**t decision if they do that. 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. 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. What I said is actually true of myself because you yourself asked me about a specific hypothetical situation where I buy games based on the way it's marketed; "So... if you purchased a game based on it being advertised as a particular type of product, and something you thought you might enjoy..."It simply does not happen. Which is why I said that marketing does not affect me, because I don't buy games based on marketing no matter what so it has no influence on my decision whatsoever. The only thing it does is makes me aware there's a game out there, just like commercials tell me there are sprays and shirts out there, but it generates absolutely no interest as its unreliable. That is why I only care about raw unedited gameplay from other unaffiliated sources, not the company's, to see if it might interest me, because then I can see both the intended positives and the unintended negatives in their truest form. So the point is to completely bypass the company's marketing. So if I'm interested, I'll go try it out. Only by trying out the game and liking it is what makes me ultimately buy it. An example of someone being influenced by marketing would be someone who saw the advertisements, descriptions, promises or whatever and got the game based on that. I personally never buy games like that as to me that source of info is unreliable. Sometimes it meets expectations, sometimes it doesn't. That is why I prefer to clearly see for myself what I am getting before I make my decision. That's not being influenced by marketing, that is being a smart consumer by knowing what I want. Hopefully that clears up what I meant. 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. 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. That's not what I mean. As I said before, this binary way of viewing personal opinions is not a good thing. If I say one thing, it does not mean I am automatically for or against another. Just because I say that I personally do not care about marketing and that it does not affect me in my decision to buy or enjoy games, does not automatically mean I am okay when marketing is used as a weapon against consumers in order to increase profits. Of course it's bad and it's not okay. I'm against anti-consumerism. But I have no control over anything else other than my own wallet. I know what I want and how to get it. How people spend their money and for what reasons and for what expectations, that is their business. I do not question it nor do I respond to it nor am I affected by it because ultimately at the end of the day, my opinion does not matter. Nor do I for that matter.
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