It is really hard to figure out what this thread is about, which is why everybody is talking about something else here.
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The thread title specifically mentions D&D5. No, the game could also have used D&D3. That would have been perfectly fine. In fact I might even have liked it even more overall; not sure. While D&D5 has many great ideas, in some ways its not as satisfying as D&D3. For example you only get very few feats to customize your character.
I dont think AD&D would have been a good idea to use. D&D versions before 3 have been needlessly complicated and are quite hard to implement on the computer.
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But one could also read the title as a question if BG3 would need D&D at all, and thats how some people here have interepreted the question.
The question if BG3 needed D&D makes no sense to me. Its literally in the title. Baldur's Gate is a city in the Forgotten Realms settting, the most important D&D setting. Making a game in the Forgotten Realms without D&D would be weird, to say the least.
Even more importantly: the owner of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, would not allow that.
So BG3 didnt "need" D&D; it was a requirement. You literally cant make a game with Baldur's Gate in the title that doesnt use D&D.
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Of course Larian could instead have made some other fantasy game not referencing any IP.
But even if Larian never makes another D&D game, ever, making BG3 has helped their brand gaining recognition.
For example personally I'm now definitely interested into what science fiction game they will be making.
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The poll is about something wholly different.
Games are not really "remembered for". Primarily they are remembered. Or not.
Then they are remembered for what they archieved. But so many games archieved something significant, possibly even doing something for the first time, but without getting remembered much.
But for what category they are in, games arent really remembered for that, nor is anything else, at least I wouldnt know an example for that.
We dont remember Albert Einstein because he was a jew.
We dont remember John Fitzgerald Kennedy because he was a catholic.
That BG3 is a D&D game is certainly not the reason why it was successful. There are plenty of D&D games that had less success than BG3 (or BG1 and BG2, for that matter).
So I would think BG3 will be most remembered for is its archievement, the depth of its gameplay; the fact you can play the game twice and have wildly different outcomes. The fact that your class changes so much how the game plays. This required a lot of extra work, but Larian was willing to make this investment.
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I dont think the marketing had much to do with the success of BG3. This very idea sounds completely riddiculous to me. Many less successful games had far more marketing work done on them.
Even worse the claim that sex sells. It definitely doesnt. Many studies have confirmed that. Sex sold in the 1960s in the west because back then it was taboo breaking. Ever since, the direct opposite is true. You get more people to dislike your product, then like it.
Purely from marketing, my expectations for BG3 have not been very high. Even more so when I found out that it would only a four people party. I did not realize that this is a lot more manageable with D&D5 than it was with previous versions of D&D.
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D&D has been crafted and recrafted for 50 years now (D&D was first published in 1974). While it always was primarily designed for tabletop, both D&D3 and D&D5 have been made easier to adapt to computer. Which also made the rulesets a lot more logical and self consistent, too. All this design work and time resulted in a system that offers extraordinary complexity and balance.
Thats why using D&D as a basis for computer games is a good idea. You automatically get complexity and depth, yet balance. Its well thought out, and contains a ton of ideas, and saw a lot of testing.
The core design of D&D for example is so good, there is a version of D&D3 which is merely the core, its called d20. I played one game based on that, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. And while the rulesystem was frankly primitive, it still worked a lot better than many other games with more complex rulesystems.
If you can come up with a good system of your own, why, have at it. But I've seen many games fail at that.
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So apparently Larian made some errors in regards to the FR lore. Big deal. Wizard of the Coast will find solutions to that. If not in the short term, then in the long term. Popular strategies include changing the original, ignoring the change, and ignoring the conflict as a whole.
Nothing but the perfectionism of some people will be hurt.
Larian has made quite a few games in the past, but none of them has been D&D. That not everyone at Larian is a total D&D geek isnt surprising.
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The question what motivates people to play a game is completely separate from the question what makes a game great, or remembered.
For example back in 2007 I decided I wanted to try a MMORPG and I was looking for some that looked good enough and would have a large gameworld to explore. I found Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and it was so great in so many other ways, too.
Not sure if Vanguard will be remembered, though. Reading the Wikipedia article will give you no idea whatsoever why Vanguard was so great. Or that it was great in the first place.
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I dont expect Larian to make more D&D games. The fact they limited themselves to maxlevel 12 seriously limits such prospects. They cant make make any followup to BG3, only a completely new story with new characters.
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