Excellent thread! I love reading the forum’s conclusive thoughts on the game. Still haven’t played it, but one of my favorite posters made great points about early access and I’d like to reply. (Thanks for the youtube link!)
They didn't change the game they are making, simply because some playerbase didn't like what they were going on, but they did address criticisms that they found valid. Early Access is a testing ground, not a design committee.
We’ve had the same basic argument over a year ago during the drought between patches 8 and 9. I said Larian should’ve tested more stuff during EA and you said then what you said here.
With more hindsight, we’re in a better position to interrogate that claim. We’ve seen the game evolve over fifteen odd patches: How closely does the initial vision match the final product? It’s not a rhetorical question, nor one for which I have all the information.
There are two comparisons to be made: Act 1 on day 1 of EA before time and feedback turned it into Act 1 on release; Act 1 on release compared to Act 3 on release (similar-ish amounts of time but no feedback for the latter).
From what I gather, time and feedback yield terrific results but time alone doesn’t do great. The value Larian got from EA goes way beyond QA testing. Over the course of 3 years, they found a
lot of our ideas valid, to the point where it’s become unclear to me what the initial vision was.
You’ve a different take on why Acts 1 and 3 are so different in quality:
Now, that there is sizable gap in quiality in IMO a concern in itself. It seems like Larian has tendency to overscope to start with, and is unable to keep up with the standard they set at the start of their titles.
It does make sense. Larian tend to make their games front to back, and we know they rescoped BG3 after its initial early access success.
I’d argue most of the initial design period is figuring out what the game wants to be, and I don’t see Larian navigating that without a passionate community. Act 1’s polish is a side effect of that process, which wasn’t as effective through later acts. That’s my first takeaway: Larian’s passion does show through the faults, which makes players fall in love and dream of improvements.
My second takeaway is that the business side matters. I came to early access to see the geniuses behind DoS:2 (according to sources I still trust) craft a sequel to a pair of masterpieces (according to me and same sources) but I saw passionate project managers leveraging ressources to make returns.
That’s possibly the harshest way to put it while still being mostly truthful. To be sure, they improved their returns by improving the game, but at some point you have to stop optimizing the inventory and ship it.
I’m glad Larian are switching projects. Please let their passion shine through a game that designs around their weaknesses. If you’re set up to build discrete set pieces, fold that into the world and lore; if you know you tend to change the plot, make it shorter; if your inventory isn’t working, find a way to do without.
Will you look at that, Larian still make me dream.
