I'm going to do this in list form, and it may be disorganised because Im not good at this.

I am one of the people who is disappointed and thinks this is a DOS3. One of the things people ask is, "so what is BG to you then?" I had to think awhile to put it down, but there are just elements that make the game what it was that were not shown off. all they showed was combat, which i will come back to. So these are what was missing, or what i think better represent what BG is?

1) BG isn't just a FR setting. BG is *the* western cRPG that set the standards for every western cRPG that followed. In this way, BG is a cRPG, and as a cRPG what BG is is a RTwP party based RPG. That is its technical definition. This is not to judge RTwP or TB as better or worse, it just is what it is. Again, I will come back to combat later.

2) Narrated prologues and epilogues and dreams. Part of the magic of the BG formula was the feeling of being led through an adventure by a GM, filling in exposition as needed. These narrated segments are something Pillars of Eternity picked up on and did very well.

3) Isometric perspective. While 3D promises better environments, I find that 3D environments are actually just thinly hidden tracks with well rendered rails. Part of the formula of BG are the expansive - HAND PAINTED - 2d isometric landscapes. Again, Pillars shows that this can be updated beautifully like with Unity. It is the artistry of those landscapes that contribute to the formula of what BG is.

4) The music was flat and uninspired. For the last 20 years, the "bum ba bum da DUMMM ba ba dummm" of BG that is omnipresent while rolling your abilities is one of those sounds that is always in my head when idle thinking. That is what music with soul does. I don't even remember the music from the BG3 trailer.

5) 6 member parties. You know darn right that the 4 member party is to make combat quicker because of how slow TB games can be. But there is another point overlooked. The 6-member party gives you broader access to lore and companion side quests at once, allowing for a more congruent story. Never forget: D&D is a collaborative story telling game first, a table top strategy second.

6) The tone of the lighting and assets. People say "but it is pre-alpha!" but I ask, is this your first rodeo? How many games have you ever seen substantially change? Further - this is the product THEY CHOSE to demonstrate. This is the product THEY CHOSE to say "This is OUR baldur's gate" ... so if all of the assets would change, why make the announcement?

That brings us to combat. The live stream was a "gameplay reveal", and so I am willing to concede that all that is being shown is gameplay, so let us separate everything else from the table and talk about gameplay.

It took 28 minutes to kill the BG equivalent of rats in the store house. Let us have that sink in. What is going to happen when you are up against a boss with a small battallion of guards at his beck and call? take three days?

Okay, so you might say "but that is what D&D is like, it can take multiple sessions!" and I agree, but this is a computer game, not actual D&D, and I think you might not want "actual" D&D in a computer game. D&D has real life interaction and social fun of being with friends. And yes, online play is available (and hopefully we see more about the GM tools), but the experience of the computer games is the single player campaign. A single player doesn't need to take multiple sessions for one encounter, the ideal would be an evening of play, so to speak (that is, it make take days of trying and failing to learn something, but the actual encounter shouldn't be more than a sitting for a cRPG).

This is one of the things that RTwP innovated. And this begins my main defense of RTwP. As I see it, RTwP is actually the new technology still in its infancy. I agree that the first BG has massive pathing and AI issues. I agree that in games like IWD their solution was just bigger, Diablo-like trash encounters. I agree that combat was almost pointless in PST. I agree that melee is often relegated to auto swing robots (even though Pillars did alleviate this some with active abilities like knockdowns). But all of these things are design dependent and can improve with time and feedback.

RTwP brought the older TB mechanics of the SSI forward into the real time, dynamic capabilities of computer gaming. And for this, BG is a computer game first, a dnd game second, and forgotten realms game last of all. BG brought D&D to a new audience: computer gamers, the people playing Myst and Dune and Warcraft and Starcraft and DOOM - gamers who ostensibly play games in Real-Time.

I honestly think that BG is responsible for planting the seed that finally made D&D popular with 5e because it proved the style of gameplay could be appealing to more than just TTG purists. I honestly think it is the minority of TTG purists who have pushed the recent sentiment that all of a sudden RTwP games are bad games, as if to completely ignore the 20 year legacy of BG, the people who criticized back in 1998 that real time would never work. DOS3 is their ultimate revenge!

Some final small points that didn't need to have big text:
- there is nothing wrong with updating to 5e. the combat system underneath is largely irrelevant, but D&D is 5e right now, so lets play the new D&D.
- there is nothing wrong with TB, either - but the TB would need to still match the aesthetics of previous BG games, like the Shadowrun games by Hairbrained for example. I would even be really happy with a hex-based TB system with 60 degree camera incremental turns to survey the field.

Bottom line: BG is a computer game. the "game" part is the RTwP or the TB part. I like both. I think both are fun. I think that RTwP has a place and that it is still growing as a new technology. We need to embrace it as the change instead of stay mired in just TB ways of thinking. This is a computer game, not the TTG.

Thanks for letting me ramble a little.

Found some neat articles, sorry for bumping my own thread, i didn't know where else to put them.



https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116864/Analysis_TurnBased_Versus_RealTime.php
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JonShafer/20130107/184429/TurnBased_VS_RealTime.php



https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/21/18150363/baldurs-gate-bioware-1998-video-games

Xcom is turn based with 6 people in the party and it was best seller? Turn based is fine. 4 people in party not so much

They would go . Here

Can't say I agree. Many TB came before the BG1/2. The pendulum swung in the RTwP direction, but it has started to swing back toward TB (as DOS2 massive success proves).



DOS2 used narration. As much as BG games? Maybe not, but it's there



While DOS2 and BG3 might not be exactly Isometric, they aren't exactly 3D either. Even so, I don't think the isometric style of BG1/2 has any more or less of a place today than does the maze-like style of games like Wizardry or Might & Magic. It's just dated.



Music can take a little while to sink in, especially if it has substance. I don't remember the music from the demo either, but the music from DOS2 was stellar in my opinion. So, hopefully, they can do the same in BG3



Perhaps, but I am not so sure. At some point, too many party members would require that many more mobs and you end up with super long turns. Is 4 where the line must be drawn? I doubt it. Also, "D&D is a collaborative story telling game first, a table top strategy second" isn't necessarily true. Some people find it so, others find it equal, while still more find it the opposite.



This is just don't get. What you might call "dark" or "gritty" I just call crappy. Graphics have just gotten better. If part of that means the availability of a wider and deeper color selection, as exists in life, then good. If you think the world of BG is supposed to be dark and gloomy, I would again say no; it just looked that way because of the graphical limitations back then. Faerun isn't Hades.



Have you played DOS2? Battles don't take hours, even the biggest of them. Sure, they take longer than what is found in action games and RTwP games; but in my opinion, it just makes that much more meaningful.



BG's legacy might be 20 years old, but D&D's legacy is much older. BG isn't the benchmark you think it is. D&D is the benchmark. Since Baldur's Gate games are D&D games, it seems perfectly fine to me to go back to the roots of the game with TB.

With all that being said, thank you for the detailed post.

Decent post OP.

RTwP and TB are both fine, as long as implementation is fine.

visually, game looks good, but can be improved, not in terms of graphical fidelity or effect, but "feel". Work on UI and icons.

Aside from that, what I've seen so far from the companions leaves me cold.

Where do you get this notion that Baldur's gate 1 & 2 graphics where "hand painted"? They were mostly pre rendered 3D graphics that look very dated today with some copy pasted sprites added and touching up done in Photoshop.

3D allows for very dynamic environments that you can interact with. BG3 also takes advantage of verticality which adds an extra dimension to the combat.

I will try to find information. But the Infinity Engine of BG1/2 uses pre-rendered 2D backgrounds, which are painted with hand-drawn textures. For example, you can see repeating textures in grass, but those textures are hand-painted. You can see that the trees are hand painted 2d artwork that is then painted into the environment with a brush. Then, after the 2D environments are painted, another coder goes around and draws the collision maps which block out the base of trees (you can see this collision map in the "map overlay" think in the EE), or the depths of walls. Then, the "z axis" stuff is layered and opaqued above so that it fades out when you walk "beneath it".

Each "tile" of the map is about one screen size at medium zoom, they painted the maps one "tile" at a time, and every map is a large 2D planar environment with what is called "trompe l'oiel" or trick of the eye to make it seem 3d.

I've studied BG in art history class in university. I am from Edmonton, so I kind of had more direct access to old Bioware before they dissolved and became an E.A. cancer mill.

I could answer each point separately, but I think the main problem that no one that doesn't like Larian's spin on BG mentions when they talk about what they miss is that every person has a very different list... I really liked that companions started to talk to each other out of the blue, Irenicus, I really liked the character creator, I loved the music, and I really loved to issue orders to everyone at the same pause and then watch them work together to obliterate the enemy. I hated the mind flayers though...
The point is that like I said in a different thread, I'm pretty sure there is a perfect version of BG3 in your mind, but this is how you see the perfect BG3. There are people who will agree with you and other people who will think you got it all wrong.

Which is fine that we have different opinions. But the actual product that is Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 has technical definitions and elements and components that make it what it is.

If Michelangelo was paid for a mural on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel, but handed them a diorama instead, he would have been beheaded.

Larian has promised a mural (BG3) but is offering a diorama (DOS3). Off with their heads! (well no, not really, but you get my idea I hope!)

And again, we go back to the question of whether we are getting diorama or a mural. You didn't convince me, but I guess it's fine to agree to disagree.

Well, I mean, a mural is 2d and a diorama is 3d, so I am not sure much opinion is needed to see which is which in the analogy.

I agree that the textures for BG2 look hand-drawn. And for 1998, that's fine. But for a game in 2020? Really?

Well naturally technology improves over time. Have you ever seen an artist painting on one of those MS Studio screens? It is sublime! No reason why things can't be just as artful today.

They can be. But that doesn't mean they should be.

There is a lot of subjectivity afoot with the complaints against what we saw in BG3 demo. Art appreciation is about as subjective as you can get. If Larian presented a product that used... let's say an antique art style, I am confident the blowback would dwarf what is going on now.

Oh for sure, and I think I made it clear that is my my opinion on what it was that made "BG" so special. I am definitely interjecting my own expertise as an art critic as well, but trying not to be pedantic or "herp derp, i have a degree". We all have taste that differs. Everything I posted in the OP is my taste.

3d models and environments can be done very well, I think Pillars did a great job. But still, Pillars looks like BG ... BG3 does not. Pillars is 3d rendered in Unity, but even Obsidian talked about how they made hand painted and rendered objects for their game world. You can especially see it in the opening scene with the Adra machine right after Odema's camp is raided.

edit: some people call BG outdated, but I would argue that it is the hand painted beauty of the art that makes it ageless. It won't ever change, unlike early 3d games like the first Tomb Raider or the action RPG "Die By The Sword". BG has *never* aged, by those technical standards.

Your fondness for the game might not have aged; but the game itself has.

And sure, there is a lot of opinion going on. Nothing wrong there. I don't care for the look of PoE. It looks outdated. DOS to me looks substantially superior.

It's a bit of a tangent, so I'll just note that "superior" graphics are not a measure of quality.

Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made. It was filmed in 24 fps on a black and white strip transfer in 4:3 resolution which was then letterboxed.

Clash of the Titans is one of the worst films ever made. It was filmed in fully rendered digital 60fps 4K HDR, 16:10 anamorphic widescreen.

Yeah, I hear you. I go for movies with more substance than a lot of CGI nonsense. But you cannot dismiss the draw of quality. Some might think silent movies are where it's at; but it just wouldn't be realistic to expect any serious funding for a movie like that now (or box office success).

Right. And I think Pillars of Eternity is a prime example of how the quality of the artwork can be improved with modern technology while still maintaining a sense of veritas to the original inspiration.

And which game was more successful, DOS2 or PoE2?

How many backers to PoE1 ?
How many backers for DoS1 ?

19K for DoS1
74K for PoE1

If you are not a video game company, sucessfull is differents than unit sold.

Players still LOVE RTwP.

I like to call Deadfire "Dumpsterfire" rather than "Deadfire". Real talk for a minute: Dumpsterfire is one of the worst games to be released in the last 10 years, without question.

But what made it fail wasn't the combat system. In fact, RTwP or TB mod, people loved the combat. Dumpsterfire improved on just about every technical element of Pillars (not PoE to avoid Path of Exile confusion).

What happened to Dumpsterfire was twofold: first, Fergus Urqhart sold Obsidian to Microsoft and pissed off a bunch of the staff causing a fallout; then, to recover, they relied too heavily on fan/kickstarter content which is why you have the color-by-numbers romances and really bad Amber Scott level writing. The whole thing was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, from the development side of things.

But Pillars literally rejuvenated interest in the genre, and is regarded as one of the best games to come out in the last 10 years, and despite a few flaws (like the Endurance system, and how small the maps really are, and their reliance on trash encounters), is a masterpiece of narrative gaming.

I am hesitant to comment on sales numbers, because I do not count high sales as being indicative of quality - only consumption. And to that I caution: Trump, Twilight, the Kardashians, etc. ... I would not like to be in the company of popular culture. But still, this is me.

The first Baldur's Gate sold 1.5 million unites in 2 years. This was unheard of for video games - if you "counted for inflation" today, you'd be looking at numbers in the tens of millions. Pillars of Eternity sold about 1.5 million units before the expansions were released.

At the very least, this shows a consistent audience hungry for that style of game.

No one is going to argue that Wizards chose Larian because they wanted wider sales. That's exactly why I say they sold out.

I know popular doesn't necessarily mean better (fast food?). But, sometimes, it does.

If you know for sure that the people at WotC thought a format like Pillars would have been a better match for what they envision a D&D game to be, but decided to go with Larian anyway, then sure, you can say they sold out. But it just as easily can be the case that they saw how what Larian did resonates so well with what D&D is and thought it was a win win for them (better product, better sales).

Wizards is yet another element of the debate. In its very DNA, Wizards is a turn based company, their brainchild being Magic the Gathering. It is under Wizard that D&D has been gradually simplified ... sorry, "streamlined" ... to widen the audience. This is a mixed bag. I am so happy to see D&D popular, but I am also sad to see it being played like a simple board game, which is precisely what Gygax and Arneson never wanted.

Wizards has the ownership, so they can do what they want, but there is no doubt in my mind that they chose Larian because of the simplified presentation of combat in their TB systems.

BG3 has to be a popular game in addition of good sales.

Turning the legendary series into a DoS_like is obviously not popular.
Taking the same old receipe as PoE probably won't lead to great sold.

They still have LOTS of work to convince lots of old fans .
Of course, players that just don't care about the "3" are happy... As nearly everyone would have if this game was called differently.

Again, like I say in my OP, I like both RTwP and TB. I think that if it is going to be TB, it should be a bit closer to Shadowrun games in looks, meaning I would like to see the combat grid like I do on table top. I do not really like the "theater" style maps that Larian makes (meaning each map is just a stage with fixed props)

That remains to be seen. I expect it to be massively popular.

I expect it to "sell well".

Do you really ever saw such citicism/attack after the first gameplay preview?
I don't. Lots of us are waiting for 20 years, that will not be forgotten in 1 month.

Don't forget the other part of the message. This is just about the name.
Of course this new game looks great. That's not the question.
Everyone is happy to see a new D&D video game but if it stay more DoS than BG while being named BG3, I hope the worst because they'll definitely ruined my old dreams.

When I was seven, I didn't want to take a shower. I protested and protested. My mom yelled at me and made me get in the bathroom. So I went in the bathroom, turned the shower on, and stood by the sink. Figured that would show her. But after a while, I figured, I was standing there, might as well be in the shower. After 30 minutes of splashing around and having fun, she's banging on the door yelling at me to get out.

I suspect you and your gang of upset buddies will be doing lots of splashing around in BG3.

What does that have to do with whether we think it is actually BG3 or DOS3 though?

No one is saying it won't be a good game.

Seems you've exposed your real self with this patronizing BS. Thanks for that.

With all the complaints, and a seeming desire to see it fail (see the bold text), I expect you'll be enjoying the game anyway, just like so many of us probably did when BG1 came out and saw the RTwP stuff.

It's a true story from my childhood. What you wrote genuinely reminded me of it.

The game you wanted isn't coming right now. If there is such a demand for it as you claim, WotC will get it made eventually. Yeah, maybe it won't be named BG3, but whatever man. Hang in there.

Let's not start fighting please. I like to think I am introducing a unique perspective with good information, I do not want this derailed.

This is hilarious

okay, thank you.

What is Baldur's Gate?

Above all, I think BG was the best visual representation of what the world of AD&D was like at the time in the imagination of the players. And we could evolve in it with the real rules of AD&D!

Like many other AD&D players, I already knew about classes, races, monsters, spells, magic items, artifacts and even the Forgotten Realms.
With this game, I was offered the opportunity to live a video-game adventure in a universe that was already very familiar and that I loved. It was just amazing!
Baldur's Gate is inseparable from D&D.

The popularity of Baldur's Gate is obviously due to the combined talents of Bioware, TSR and Black Isles (and also Interplay, which we often forget) but it is also a story of context and period which largely contributed to its fame .
All these talents could be found in the right place at the right time and quite simply gave birth to a historical reference in the history of video games and to THE REFERENCE in the history of cRPG.

We could venture to define BG according to technical criteria (isometric, rtwp fights, 6 playable characters, D&D rules) and artistic criteria (story of the Bhaalspawns, representation of the Forgotten Realms, scenario and dialogues, music) but I don't think that would be enough.
It would be like wanting to analyze music that we love without ever being able to define the essential: real magic. The one that gives birth to unforgettable emotions and experiences.
Because yes, for me, Baldur's Gate is a masterpiece of its kind and has gone beyond the simple framework of a video game.

I guess behind the initial question of this topic that another question is hidden: now that you have said what Baldur's Gate was, how can a game deserve the name of Baldur's Gate 3?
 
The first obvious ingredients are:
- D&D rules
- the Forgotten Realms
- a story which has a relation with the previous BG if not why the 3?

In the useful ingredients to strengthen the identity of BG, I would put:
- rtwp fights (much more dynamic and demanding than TB)
- 6 characters
- numerous references to the previous saga

In the ingredients that have nothing to do in the BG franchise:
- a universe and a gameplay too marked by another license (big problem of identity!)
- a story that has absolutely nothing in common with previous games
- half-respected D&D rules (with ignored, neglected and other invented rules)
- designers and developers who have neither a real desire to respect the BG franchise nor the talent necessary to succeed in making a quality game, well written and with a BG identity.

I am consistently confused as to how people expect a continuation of the same story, when the story definitively ended at the Throne of Bhaal. The Bhaalspawn arc is over, and the Lord of Murder is very much alive and part of the pantheon. BG leaned on the Time of Troubles, and the Time of Troubles is over, long over.

I think ultimately what is conflating the issue is that you have a segment of the fans, perhaps a large segment of the fans, whose connection to tabletop DND is sketchy at best, and nonexistent at worst, as such, they seem to treat Baldur's Gate as divorced from the setting it takes place in, the pantheon, which is apart of that setting, the history of that setting, the linear progression of said history, and so on so forth.

What also is a bit baffling to me is that Larian even mentioned that the dead three: Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul play a prominent role in this game, and that the illithids invasion, while concurrent with rumors of a cult, and the involvement of the dead three, are possibly just there to provide the initial backdrop, perhaps as a sort of 'iron crisis'.

Since we are all talking about the diverse differences of what constitutes a game being called Baldur's Gate, I'll just add mine, because why not:

1) A strong storyline, well defined characters, likable and unlikable companions that provide flavor while adventuring, an assortment of city/regional/and world saving adventures as well as a lot of mini-quests that provide context to the motivations of the main character, his or her companions, and the larger nature of the events happening within a city or region.

2) A good power curve, being able to go from missing wolves 9 out of every 10 rounds, to basically demigod status over the course of a lengthy saga. Whether this is done in the context of one game with a lot of hours worth of content or spanned across several titles obviously remains to be seen, but a power curve is critical in DND as per the 'tiers of play'.

3) A contemporary attempt to port the tabletop experience to a video game format. Now obviously this is where a lot of the opinions begin to unravel. Bioware was unable to faithfully adapt turn based combat to ADND, so they settled for RTWP. If you don't believe me, look up the old interviews. Yes, you read that correctly, the entirety of RTWP was a workaround. An innovative, genre defining workaround, but a workaround none the less that obviously has its own interpretation in the present day given that we have the capability of having a robust tabletop turn-based inspired gameplay experience that attempts to faithfully implement the tabletop experience into a video game environment.

4) An attempt to faithfully represent the setting in a video game, and this is where I begin to have my own issues as I hope Larian does not level-lock areas and other gameified decisions that do come from D:OS2, and while I was fine with it in that game, DND is not about MMO level-locked mechanics, you should be able to stumble into the crypt of a lich in an Inn just as easily as encountering a herd of gibberlings or a pack of orcs as easily as you would a few slimes in some underground sewers, just next to a secret door with a hidden illithid lair. This variation, and the thought of 'well, I will need to come back later rather than just bounce from level locked area to level locked area, was very smart and really gave a strong DND flavor to the older games.

There are more, but this is already too long, so I'll simply say, you don't see RTWP in there, you don't see Bhaalspawn in there, you don't see the naming convention of Baldur's Gate being conflated with a game name rather than a city in a setting of which the first one was based on. I saw this debate in Deus Ex with the new games, and I can simply point to NWN 1 and 2 being completely different games that were completely unrelated both citing the name of a city, also the original Neverwinter Nights was actually an AOL pseudo-MMO that had nothing to do with either but I didn't see people complaining about it at the time.

So I will simply end with, perhaps we should give them more than the pre- pre- pre-alpha to showcase whether or not they are willing to check the boxes for us, or perhaps you need to understand that their patron, WOTC, in this case, also has their own vision, likely a bit more in line with my 4 points than a nostalgia-fest and the divorcing of a game series from the world, setting, system, and history that actually had to have been created for them to even be realized at all.

I am just curious where in any of what I wrote that you concluded I was asking for a continuation of the story line?

The post above mine. And in many others scattered across this forum.

Oh, I see now.

No, I don't think a continuation of the story line is necessary, or even desirable. I like what Adam Smith had to say about how the events of the Bhaalspawn saga will shape the history and politics of Faerun. In this, I can understand to a degree that this game is a sequel, just not in the traditional sense. I can relate to the people saying "what about renaming it to BG: Something Something?" I think that is a good solution for two reasons: 1) it makes everyone happy for not a ton of money in the grand scheme, 2) it leaves the door open for a proper, traditional sequel with an RTwP style - either way, it marks this new game as something new and unique, which I think we all can agree that it is.

Fine. But the inclusion of the second can satisfy the third to a certain degree.



The third is the stongest of the three, the second very unnecessary, and the first one ...well, sure more like the originals, but less like D&D, as has been discussed elsewhere.



Agreed. Good thing none of that will apply with BG3, since it is based on the universe, gameplay and license of D&D



Agreed (but redundant). Again, though, it can be connected simply for being in the same environment (an environment shaped by the events of the first stories)



Agreed, but it's tough to define. The whole 'house rules' thing leaves a lot of room for variety.



Agreed, which is why I am glad that Larian, a team with both the requisite desire, respect, and ability, is making the game.

Oh okay... For you it's not about passion but childish complaints.
Thanks to show you just don't understand what this topic (and many others) is talking about.

Quit sniping, guys.

I'm sorry if we've been sniping. I did ask them to stop fighting on the last page.

This doesn't make any sense.

And as for what you quoted, it was a real experience from my childhood I was reminded of when you said:



But, maybe you didn't mean to say you hope the worst (presumably for the success and development of the game) because you don't like how they're developing it. If you did, do you not realize how that sounds? And to say they "ruined [your] old dreams" is a bit melodramatic.

In any event, sorry if I insulted you.

You just don't have the same experience/feelings about Baldur's Gate than everyone (and I'm not saying mye though is universal).
If it stays like this and is still named BG3 yes, I hope the worst because they took nothing from BG and just use the name (and numbers) for THE DREAM it represents. Please stop being patronizing, dream is the word.
I can't agree with that if we're talking of THE BG3.

That's enough for me here, as they said this is not constructive.

Neverwinter nights 2 was not a continuation of whatever NWN was about, exactly the same circumstance than with BG3 now. Yet I enjoyed NWN 2 (well, the expansions really) a lot more than NWN because the game design was more aimed at people like myself, a fan of IE and other RPG games from that era. I don't care if they'd called NWN2 BG3 when the game was enjoyable, no matter its differences to the original game(s).

Dude you need to play other games, youre being possessive.

Who is more possessive? The one who already has a thing and is saying "hey, don't do that to my thing" or the one doing the thing to the thing and saying "no, it's mine now"?

No one is saying the new game is bad or shouldn't be made, but it is not "BG3" in spirit, it is only BG3 in name.

I don't really think the distinction is important unless you're a raging fanboy and raging fanboys can rarely be pleased, so since Larian just can't win you guys over it's only logical they shouldn't even try. I did like that story about childhood shower time, it was a pretty spot on allegory to you guys, hah.

Ok so if distinction is not important. Why don't they call it "Baldur's Gate : ..." ?

Raging fanboys as you call them (us) wouldn't rage if it was not BG"3".
But the only thing you're going to answer is "D&D rules + Forgotten Realms" again... While we explains why it is not a "3" according to us.

Everyone could be happy with Larian doing a new D&D game but the "3" is not important for lots of you.
That's the only reasons players are talking about "it's more.DoS than BG", "it's not enough BG" and.discuss about nearly everything.

With another name players finding this game looks cool would just talk about it.

You.don't have to understand why lots of fans are unhappy, you just have to admit it...

Marketing reasons. I'm fine with that and I suppose most people are. It's just a minor but apparently very vocal group who have apparently elevated Baldur's Gate into an abstract concept that when messed with will bring their wrath upon message boards all over the internet, hah.

If the game is bad, you don't have to play it. I haven't read the Dune books written after Daddy Herbert's death, but they take nothing away from my enjoyment of the originals. I just pretend they don't exist. Then again I enjoyed Fallout New Vegas and NWN2 despite both being sequels with fairly little in common with their predecessors.

Then again I'm not a self proclaimed GAMER nor a fanboy, so maybe my mature view of these things is unfathomable to you.

What's finee for you is not always for the others.

On a recent poll on the biggest french video game website...
23% said they are hyped.
29% said they are interrested but waited to see more
18% said they don't like what they see
30% said something like they don't care about the game

If you consider only players interrested in BG3, it looks like nearly 1/4 is not satisfy and nearly 1/2 is not convince atm.
But you can stay in your own reality

That's such a dumb way to poll LOL I mean, why even include the latest option? if you're not interested you're not gonna answer!

They did it because it's a poll on their community general forum after the big cover they did.
On the specific forum of BG3, it's 30% that says they are unhappy by Larian's direction for BG.

Anyway, you still have the stats if you convert the % excluded last answer.

But without detail that could be anything from TB vs RTwP, Party Size, Art, UI, Game Engine, Music... blah blah blah. That means that by changing one thing you could make 18% into 5% or only from 18 to 17%. The number by itself says nothing. The positive aspect is slightly more helpful and the 29% are the most interesting because they could go either way depending on what changes happen between now and release.

no, 18 percent said that they are unhappy with what Larian has put up. 30% said they don't care about the game, no reason given.

Still more blablabla because you faces reality.

The 29% could also become "don't like".

Of course it's a poll of what we see atm and it will change.
This is what players waiting for BG3 atm thinks atm (After the gameplay présentation).

This is the poll of the general community forum.
On the specific BG3 forum it's 30%

Yes, 18% didn't like presentation, 52% were either hyped or interested to see more and 30% didn't care about the game to begin with (so probably didn't watch the presentation). So, mostly people are pleased and interested and only a minority are not pleased. I don't really feel like calculating the percentiles if you remove the 30% who don't care to begin with, you can do that yourself since its your source.

Hey yea... Read the stats as you wish... I won't answer you anymore because you always want to say you're right, even while you read objective statistics...

Fine by me!

This point is, in my opinion, very important. Not so much to respect the BG "spirit" but much more to represent the fights in this kind of game.

TB follows D&D rules much more than RTWP. It's a fact. On the other hand, and undeniably, RTWP makes it possible to visually represent the fights in a much more dynamic and alive way.

Beyond that, if it were humanly possible to manage D&D fights as the RTWP allows them to be managed, we would all do it. But we are not machines and that would put a happy mess in the fights.

So, what is valid around a table is not necessarily valid in a video game and vice versa.
And RTWP is, in my opinion, the best choice for a BGlike.

TB/RTwP discussion is this way ---> linky

Yes, I know some people think I'm labouring the point but we'd have dozens of topics about the subject and very little else if I hadn't pinned it, so please discuss it there.

Would you be so kind as to provide a link?

As someone who worked in Questionaires and polling for a living at one point I am genuinely interested and it's why I wrote what I wrote further up. The poll is alas a pretty poor indicator of anything other than for those who are hyped and those with no interest. The % in between tells you nothing buecause it has zero granularity (at least on face value).

You could put a poll up on here and say, "do you like the current Art style" with similar answer options and you would get a wide gambit of responses because people like or dislike different things. Those you love it all are likely D:OS players, those who are interested but want to see more are those who recognise the good and bad aspects of melding D:OS with BG series and the dislke answer tells you that some aspects people dislike so much not to select the 2nd option, but it doesn't tell anyone what.

The PC Gamer Poll on RTwP vs TB was much more interesting because it was precise with it's question and available answers.

I have no stakes in a weird poll that I have no real source from (and no actual numbers) but I did the math anyways and it looks like this:

Without the 30% that don't care (Numbers are slightly rounded with ~0.4 taken from interested and divided between the two others)

33% said they are hyped.
41% said they are interrested but waited to see more
26% said they don't like what they see

Hypothetically, if you had received the game of your dreams, but the title was something other than BG3 (e.g. Baldur's Gate: Return to Faerun), would you be just as upset?

Closed at request of OP.