Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Originally Posted by vometia
[quote=IrenicusBG3]The 2000s RPGs are dumbed down considering how good writing was in late 90s both in BG2 and Planescape Torment as well as better RPG mechanics and attention to detail. And these 2 titles had beatiful art. To this date the still remain as a gold-standard. Fallout 3, DAO are very shallow compared to this game.

There are exceptions such Disco Elysium and Witcher 3 that are really new masterpieces, but in general RPGs have been dumbed down.

IMHO, "dumbed down" is one of those phrases that's best avoided. In saying so I'm speaking as a gamer, not a moderator, there are no rules against it, but I think there's a risk of alienating the very people who might enjoy exploring stuff that has more complexity to it. I speak as someone whose belated introduction to RPGs (by which I mean I've been playing video games on and off since the 1970s... the "off" tended to happen as I'd repeatedly missed the genre that really appeals to me) was by way of the much-denigrated Oblivion. Which felt overwhelming at the time, bearing in mind I was someone for whom Half Life 2 was pretty in-depth, but soon got the hang of it, and not much later understood the criticism, and then understood modding and that other people had fixed it and with the FCOM meta-mega-mod and a bunch of my own stuff it became a game absolutely worthy of the title RPG. And by that point a lot of the still ongoing comments about it being "dumbed down" were looking conspicuous by their absence of detail, originality or any solution to the problem.

Which sounds like more of a criticism of your post than I'd intended; which is not what I'd meant, just that the message may have more impact by focusing on constructive criticism. I learnt much more from the people who fixed the problems than the ones who made a passionate but rather non-specific argument.


There was a shift in game industry when 3D became widespread. In general, games lost complexity because complex games in 3D would take significant more development.

BG2 was extremely complex at its time: 200h of gameplay, extensive meta-bibliography (where you could read full novels in game, not the 1 page notes you find in RPGs from today), day night cycle with time-specific quests, dozens of NPC party members with individual quests and some with romance, class-specific quests and strongholds, individual items skechts with its individual story. The scope and attention to detail was surreal (and it still is). I remember playing Morrowind afterwards and feeling it was a joke in comparison.

All of that paired with excellent writing and artful backgrounds.

I can say that now we are finally reaching a point where 3D is "mastered" and we are starting to see very complex games such as CP 2077 and I hope BG3 becomes part of this as well.

Originally Posted by VincentNZ
You are not. The original game was good as well as succesful, when it released in 2015. A year into it the game sold 700k copies, which is around the same as the original BG sold in 8 months. It was also almost universally well-received by the players and the critics. The first game was simply excellent and right on par with BG2.
PoE2 however flopped hard. Gameplay-wise it improved in the right spots, the general consensus was, and the story was still well-received as well. However it only sold 110k copies around 5 months after release. Why that happened is anyone's guess. I'd assume that the "new and fresh" setting in the world being a pirate and hopping islands probably came a few years too late to be of much appeal. Hence it did divert from the BG formula too much.


Games nowadays sell much more that in late 90s, the industry grew significantly.

PoE failed because it did not bring any innovation to the genre and instead chose to copy a game from the past.

Last edited by IrenicusBG3; 24/10/20 05:21 PM.