On the matter of ambition: when the initial BG3 controversy broke out, I was one of the people saying that ambition ought to be encouraged, and that bigger dreams make for better games. I still believe this. What I am noting is that the ambition is spent “horizontally” i.e. across many different visions and ways to accomplish the game, rather than “vertically” I.e. providing depth and consequence to a smaller number of features or ways of playing. Ambition, in my opinion, is always good, but there are different ways to apply it that come with their own unique trade-offs.
I can absolutely see where you are coming from, and why some other players might decide that some of those trade-offs weren't justified. And if I felt Larian had totally dropped the ball on the elements I prioritise most - ie cinematic, party-based, character-driven RPG with lots of interesting story to uncover - then I might feel they were unjustified myself. But while I do think that the elements I most appreciate could have been even better if Larian had focused on them more, I still think they're up there with my favourite games. And I do not think I'd like the game as a whole more, and suspect I'd like it less, if it focused on those to the exclusion of other things it has that might not be so high priority for me, but which I still appreciate and I think make the game better than it would be without them.
I am not, for example, a fan of immersive sims or sandboxes. But the elements of immersive sim/sandbox in BG3 for me are a major source of fun, and enrich my ability to roleplay my character outside of dialogue in a way that I've never managed (and in fact it hadn't even really occurred to me to try) with other cRPGs. By adding these elements, BG3 has somehow totally changed how I think about roleplaying in cRPGs in a way that I now apply in other games, including BG1 & BG2 and has increased my enjoyment of those as well. Perhaps I was just slow on the uptake, but I still really appreciate it.
And while I still never have played BG3 multiplayer, it's perhaps the first game where I think perhaps, one day, I might. I have thought what I've seen of the multiplayer game looks fun, and a clever use of many of the same mechanics and tools to provide quite a different experience. Sure, there might be some compromises to make the game work in both modes, but to me that seems a small price to pay for a game that works as well as it does for both, compared to what would be involved in making two separate games. Which might not get made at all due to the smaller potential audience. And while the mechanics of multiplayer might have some cost, it also brings benefits to the singleplayer experience in terms of investment in the game to begin with and also replayability and longevity that will hopefully also increase the effort that Larian are willing to put into continuing to develop and improve the game.
Of course, that's just my call based on my own priorities and preferences, and my own imperfect understanding of the possibilities and limitations of game development. But personally, it's the very breadth of Larian's ambition that I find most impressive, and I'm willing to cut them a fair bit of slack for the fact that not everything has come off perfectly as a result. Particularly if they keep fixing, patching and enhancing what they've given us!
