Larian is one of the only studio that creates worlds in their RPG that doesn't feel alive AT ALL (completely frozen) if the player is not involved.
It doesnt have to be very complex. As an exemple the NPCs routine in BG1 and 2 are not very complex... for most of them they just have 2 positions (1 for day, 1 for night).
Things are obviously different on true open world.
Immersion in the world (the FR here) is as important to me and when I was talking about characters, I included NPCs.
Yes, Larian takes simplifying some things to often hideous extremes. But the immersion is mostly broken for players like me, even if they implement the D/N cycle, since immersion would require a (overly) complex game world. Still, since lack of D/N cycle seems to bother lots of people, I hope Larian implements it.
For me the level of complexity in the original BG-series is just not enough. One of the things that didn't really immerse me into the original BG-series was precisely the fact that the NPCs had very little in the way of a daily routine, unlike in the ultima 7(parts 1-2), that was my first contact with the cRPG genre. Apart from doing away with the exploration/'open world' aspect of Ultima 7, In BG1 and BG2 you had day and night which pretty much just amounted to differing rng encounters, some thieving opportunities and NPCs alternating between their nightly and daily positions. Which I guess would have been immersive, if the world in this physical sense, hadn't felt so unimmersive and a downgrade into a 'theater set', even in comparison to the much older Ultima 7: serpent isle, where the NPCs at least had a semblance of daily routines.
I'm really sad because I never played Ultima so I cannot talk about it in this very interresting discussion.
But I'm not sure to understand, and I'd really like to.
Are you only refering to the NPCs routine or where there something else ? You're talking about the "world in this physical sense", what does that mean ?
According to me the original Baldur's Gate series, which was my first contact with the cRPG genre did a very good job.
The day and night cycle was a simple transition through a cutscene but time was a part of the world.
Time / sun / moon is one of the most basic rule of any worlds or universes and whatever how it was done, it was there.
The lack of any sense of time as we have in BG3 is a big deal to me because without such a basic thing the world you're playing in shout "video game" at any time.
It's the same about NPCs routine. I don't really care that they're having a very interresting or "realistic" routine. I'm playing my own adventure and never follow them for hours. What I notice is that life is different at different time of the day which is also a basic of every universe.
Sure, night in BG1/2 is mostly about other "rng creatures" (not only, especially in towns but whatever) but it created a feeling that the night was less of a "confortable" time than day... which is often true in the Forgotten Realms.
I have plenty other exemples of, according to me, immersion breaking things in BG3.
- We already talked about arrows trajectory (not sure it's the good word in EN)
- The VFX when you're using "basic" actions (earthquake/shockwave when you jump/shove/dash)
- Potions that give you their positive effects even if you don't drink them (walking on the "surface liquid")
- It's also true with pure gameplay mechanic like shove that, as a bonus action occur way too often for it to look "natural".
- The fast travel system with runes that shout "teleporting" in a world in which teleportation is not something everyone is doing everywhere at everytime.
- The main camp that is absolutely nowhere on the map and that is safe despite being "somewhere" in a supposed "living" and "dangerous" area.
- The sneaking mechanic that doesn't make sense at all (they even can't ever hear you)
- The surfaces effects that I really find interresting but unimmersive as is (the sand will burn but the wooden cart on it will not)
And so on.
I cannot deny that there are also good things in the game for immersion like the tons of details or items everywhere. I can obviously live with compromises that serves the gameplay but in my opinion, the world created by Larian lacks basic features that make a universe come alive as well as the main basic rules that govern the Forgotten Realms.