Sven_

Re: Blade (Arkane) In some ways, this is even more of a departure for Arkane than Redfall was. 3rd person, Martial Arts, likely also pretty cinematic action... (anything cinematic being the counter thesis to Immersive Simisms, which tries to create a Virtual Reality Space, not a Cinematic Game Space). Plus, it still clearly looks like a project that had never happened had Arkane's money men not been so unsure after the performance of Prey and Dishonored 2. But with Dana Nightingale in a key position, could turn out to be interesting. She's the (co-) founder of the Looking Glass community at ttlg.com, former Thief fan mission designer extraordinaire and now arguably best level designer in the entire business wholesale. Re: Exodus (Archetype) Imagine Baldur's Gate's lead designer leaving Bioware-- only to form a new studio doing what appears pretty much the exact same thing Bioware's been doing since. And inevitably also directly competing with it to boot... Despite BG hardly being a super hardcore RPG to begin with, there's been conflict at Bioware even way back, of course. About whether D&D and D&D-like systems would be too complex for a mass audience. Whether any kind of form of tactical combat would be too crunchy. Where table-top-style storytelling would still fit into this. After all, DA Origins was initially pitched as a "back to the roots" project... barely half a decade after the first copies of BG1 had been sold FFS. But yeah. Still, this this looks like Mass Effect 2.0 so far. Swen Vincke likes this.

Neither were the originals. At least, not much. Sitting next to likes of Mass Effect, BG may be considered a hardcore RPG. Compared to Darklands or Realms Of Arkania meanwhile, not so much. The doctors back then too tried to "hide" as much of the crunchiness as they could (and the super intuitive control scheme ripped straight out of RTS / Warcraft as well as quite action-ish combat by then genre standards contributed to that). BG was always meant to be an accessible game. With that said, is BG3 really this grand as Gamings Truly Last Action Hero, Arkane Studio's founder Raf Colantonio suggests? Or is it simply that after decades of further "streamlining" at all cost, we're gettingn a glimpse of how the genre, big budget too, could have evolved had it not done what it did? At least in terms of big budget RPGs, there's just no contest. And Colantonio is spot on with his suggested "many years of drought". We're living in an era in which the posts have been moved so far after constant "streamlining" even the likes of Horizon Forbidden West are being considered RPG-ish by the general public to begin with FFS.

JUst as a note, as it sticks out so much also in comparison to other games (RE: Combat). In like 40 hours or so, I've encountered multiple enemies that are just for that one encounter, and that encounter only. I've never seen them again. Like . This is so wasteful, they even blend the music in and out seamlessly whenever one of them starts , actually, singing -- yes, they actually recorded a singer singing for this. And yet, it's just that one encounter, never to be seen again. This fits the entire "quality over quantity" approach that is attempted, and I wish more developers would run with it. I mean, this isn't Broken Roads (fingers crossed that it will be good) -- but it is also highly unusual that even a barbarian semi-regularly has options to just intimidate foes to drop their weapons. On much lower budgets, Tactical Adventures tried similar with Solasta, though mostly in their encounter design/density. If you really think about it, most areas in BG2 are dungeon crawls in disguise, with enemies everywhere. And ToB is just trash mob after trash mob either way, outside of the bosses to kill, which is the entire main quest of the game anyway (man, what a disappointment that was, no less as Icewind Dale did this all so much better years before). Generally, combat feels too easy though (still playing on normal mind). And a few of that can be attributed to their home-brewn stuff, such as shove and the like being a bonus action, rather than an action. However, my warlocks upgraded Eldritch Blast acts as a "shove" anyway upon hitting, so if an enemy, boss included, stands on a ledge into a chasm: GG.

Yeah, like Bioware aka "The Romance Company" didn't market and showcase their games on their "mature" love scenes, companions, blood and boobies. What do you think Average Joe was more likely to pick Origins up for? The "heavy" duty of having to pick in between as many as three classes for his character or gushing over Morrigan's cleavage and heads a rollin'? Bioware had their own answer to that one. I mean, this is the most cringest trailer of all time, hilariously misplaced choice in music included. Obey and learn from the masters, Larian. Hey, the game IS a sequel to a Bioware game, after all. On that note: I've only recently really started playing this after playing around with the Early Access three years ago (the fun and creepy start into Act 2 currently reminds me in a painful way how it's been TWO decades since Bloodlines -- the last major gothic/horror RPG since, which is INSANE, but that's another matter). However, I was expecting and prepared for far more in that regard. There's only been one character that was hitting on me so far -- and apparently I didn't need to level her up nor provide her gifts to score with her, true and PROPER Bioware-style. Maybe something to do with playing a drow, though, who knows. Also, I don't have access to the actual numbers. My biggest gripes so far are typically Larian things. Controlling a group stuff, camera stuff, inventory stuff. Difficulty on normal seems also rather low. Oh and some patronizing handholding. There's a quest that asked me to find somebody BEING LOST IN THE UNDERDARK -- only for the in-game GPS aka mini-map guiding me right there immediately upon accepting that quest. So much for that guy being "lost". I mean, Larian-style maps are heavily compressed affairs anyway, it's not like they're huge sprawling landscapes all booted up at once. And Mazes they aren't either. If you don't find yer stuff, the stuff is gonna find you eventually. You just have to poke around a bit. Developers, pretty please: If you think your players would get lost in their own toilets without heavy guidance, just don't include quest like that. Thanks. Otherwise, I really like this so far, and I wasn't overly fond of DOS. It's also refreshing in that regard in that contrary to DOS (or even the originals), you don't run into mobs of enemies every two meters or so, even deep down in the Underdark (which really was just a dungeon crawl in BG2). There's a quality over quantity approach attempted -- and even then not every combat is mandatory, with skill, even character checks applied. My drow commands some respect out of goblins et all. who'd otherwise turn hostile ASAP. Recently I avoided a fight against an enemy able to disguise itself by having a companion succeeding in a skill check likewise. There's oft also numerous routes throughout the maps, including entry points, which alongside to sneaking can skip encounters entirelly (or entry quests in various ways). The 3 billion endings are certainly hyperbole right there, but the same area can play differently solely by all of that alone. If this game is gonna have an influence (big IF), it will be a better one than any influence Bioware had in like the last two decades. Mechanically, for 100000% sure either way. Also, in a sense, this looks like the anti-Fallout 3 so far. Both Fallout 3 and BG3 were made by a different developer than their respective original games, and attempted to make them more popular. Fallout 3 "streamlined" much of what made Fallout SPECIAL (Hah) in a bid to reach a more mainstream audience. By Fallout 4, the series was literally a completely different game, being turned from a series reknown for its complex quests with multiple solutions, unique experiences (and dialogue choice) depending on character builds and choice&consequence into a sandbox exploration action game where squat all matters (including that dialogue). BG3 is, at heart, still a party-based tactical CRPG. Generally, it's not a game afraid of its roots, but wears them proudly on its sleeve. If all it takes to inject some boobies and a popular license, I shall be expecting more AAA CRPGs of all kinds pretty damn soon. And the reign of the Canadish "Romance Company" and the Polish "Movie company" over the bigger budget space to be truly over once and for all.

[snip] Whilst I can see how some went as far as calling BG3 a reskin, I still don't get it. The game has most of the DOS systems in place, yes. It also controls the same way, yes. But, for a start, I've just explored almost the entirety of the first map again, and didn'T fight once. Whereas in DOS, it's really just a thinly veiled combat parcours. There's also less alternative solutions, alternative routes, and everything. Exploration in DOS1+2 is completely linear anyway, as enemies just a few notches above your level are going to obliterate you (and all paths throughout the maps are gatekept and blocked by enemies. DOS1 in particular almost plays like a combat system demo in comparison. Whereas BG3 has evolved into an RPG "proper". It shares a lot of its ingridients and is built with the same tech. But it's a completely different recipe and meal -- and that goes even without anything D&D attached to it. As of the game's success that obviously exceeded expectations from the go: There's not gonna be a wealth of triple A CRPGS now simply alone by the fact that there's like not even a handful of studios able to deliver such, let alone interested in doing it... It's more about a game like this getting exposure and people realizing they enjoy this kind of game. Kinda like these. What and whether an impact BG3 had can only be judged in the longer run. If it has one, if you ask me it would be a better one than any major Bioware release post Neverwinter Nights. Mass Effect players blowing the **** out of enemies Gears Of War-style in between a bunch of cutscenes weren't massively encouraged to look for D&Dish type of games or similar. That sounds a bit sarcastic. But I'm not trying to talk about quality with all of this. Just the type of games being represented here. To this day, I'm really not much of a fan of Bioshock, which to me is pretty much "System Shock for dummys" and full of repetitive and average corridor shooter gameplay (despite everbody gushing over it). But there's not doubt that it played a role that Immersive Sims were revitalized a couple years later... at least for a while. With even Eidos doing two decent Deus Ex games... and a decent System Shock remake I'd just finished about two weeks ago. Speaking about which, gamings truly last action hero, Arkane's founder Raf Colantonio digs this. Doesn't surprise me.

Still Steam no. 1 bestseller plus being at the top of PS5 preorder charts. It's not going to be that bad.

The pre-release numbers for the console release additonally hint at something a bit more going on. The 800+K peak numbers on Steam are concurrent players, not total. That's a number only ever reached by PC gaming's biggest hits. Larian's management told their staff to expect ~100K concurrent players. And they knew their EA sales numbers. Larian's boss worried Baldur's Gate 3 had peaked in early access, so its massive 800K concurrent player launch was 'way, way beyond' expectations | PC Gamer Personally, I'm just glad an (AAA) RPG "proper" is rocking things out fairly decently anyway. It may of course never even hint at Skyrim-ish numbers or anything (neither did the original Dragon Age, arguably one of the last AAA RPGs harkening back to 1990s design ethos some). But in an (AAA) RPG world dominated by action-adventure-ish gameplay and shallow (character) systems, BG3's not the worst of things to ever happen. I don't think it will influence much though. No less as the entire AAA industry has moved into a different direction -- and this includes the staff that have been built (and/or left studios) throughout the years. Additionally, BG3 may have shipped at the perfect time. With D&D being at another peak (even though the fun movie flopped), too. Personally, without the digital distribution / indie / crowdfuding revolution of the early 2010s (of which Larian have been a part of, even if I didn't like DOS overly much), I may have stopped playing one of my fav genres altogether... it's just changed that much ever since the demise of Interplay, Origin, Looking Glass, Black Isle, Troika, Sir-Tech, New World Computing et all.. Immersive Sims meanwhile at least had Arkane Studios going strong (with both classic CRPGs and IMmersive Sims being influenced by the very same thing.... TT RPGS). Arkane even pulled off Prey, a game that in many ways is even MORE complex than the 1990s/early 2000s games it took inspiration from. Whereas Dragon Age:Origins is a simplified BG in almost every way. That said, BG3 also badly needs more UI/font size scaling options. Even indies are doing it as a standard feature these days...

PoE or PF are direct descendants off Infinity Engine games. The INfinity Engine was pretty static even back in the day. Basically, you couldn't touch anything besides loot, loot containers, NPCs and enemies. Else everything was a static, but beautiful backdrop to your questing. Larian jump straight off Ultima (at least, in terms of interactivity and systems). (Almost) anything can be picked up and messed around with in some form or other. One of the first things I did back in the EA was taking delight in taking a couple of corpses (about to raise as undead), throw them in a fireball trap nearby and watch the fireworks when they DID rise. Bliss. For anybody into systems driven games (also to be found in Immersive Sims, e.g. Deus Ex, Dishonored, Prey et all!), the difference is significant. DOes that in itself make the ONE difference? Unlikely. This has become such a huge hit that there are likely various contributing factors at work (one of which also being that there isn't much new BIG games around at the moment, at least until Starfield hits). However, Larian have argued previous that their audience has gone way beyond PF/PoE/BG fandom before. They attributed it to their systemic design (which is also hugely popular in the more recent Zelda games). And it's certainly one major design ethos that makes their games different from any Infinity Engine "follow-up". It also makes for fun Streamer's material...

Same. Even Larian themselves calculated with up to 100,000 players concurrently (see Vincke's Twitter). The EA was a success, but there was a viable possibility that player's who'd bought the game had already bought it. That said, can you imagine the numbers hadn't they paired with D&D, but LOTR? Crazy. Maybe that's their next goal. Well, either that, or buying the rights to Ultima. For which they now must have money a plenty, given their independent status. How an obsession with Ultima 7 led to some of the PC's best RPGs | PC Gamer I liked the EA back in 2020 already though. And certainly far more than DOS. - The map was actually open, rather than pretending to be (no clearly level gating and zones, no clear gate keeping of every possible path either, making maps feel like thinly veiled linear compat parcours in DOS) - no DOS item system of every gear having a level, so that you'd need to replace it like five minutes after looting - constant looting and selling was a pain in the butt in DOS either way, and a time-sinking mini game on its own, also thanks to UI issues (honestly BG1 plays more user-friendly than this) - Also no copy&paste trash mobs, like the orcs in the second map of DOS, and generally more "quality over quantity", including more varied avenues of getting past foes I honestly think DOS would have worked better as a tactical combat game... with more ressources being spend on making scnearios unique, think Blackguards. BG3 is a fully-fledged RPG proper, including your low int Barbarian having the options to intimdate the **** (and combat urge) out of foes quite regularly.

Over 800K concurrent players on Steam (just slightly lower than the peak of Hogwarts Legacy, a casual action-RPG with one of the biggest brand names around behind it), high ranks in preorder charts for consoles... It's crazy going back to Matt Barton's interview with Vincke from pre-DOS times on Matt Chat. You'll see a frustrated guy talking about how he was rejected by publishers over and over, been driven to include MOAR action, as that's apparently what audiences want. Everybody told him that's not gonna work. And now he's shown them. Crazy. I'm likely going to stick with this, despite my ancient 1050ti. Got a bit tired with Pathfinder WOTR, as that is basically "Trash Mob Combat-The Game", to a degree even moreso than Kingmaker. Obviously, BG3, offering more options to direct combat (even back in 2020), no-combat solutions and more is going to be a much welcomed change in pace.

After sitting two years on my SSD unfinished, I'd just uninstalled this today to make some place for BG3. The main reason being that I very much agree with the Codex review's assassment. Owlcat are Combat And Trash Mob Central, basically. And WOTR even tops Kingmaker in that regard in quite a few ways -- unlike Kingmaker, it doesn't have that "detective work" bloom chapter freshing things up either. Last year I completed Solasta plus DLC (not smallest of games either) in like two or three weeks. But that game actually knows combat pacing, and has dedicated dungeon areas where you sometimes have but one or two major fights. Whereas Owlcat outside a few select unique encounters has you fighting mobs over and over and over... Both Icewind Dale's have nothing on their design ethos. It's as if an intern is allowed to go over all their maps at the last minute. Like: "Hey guys, I've spotted another couple empty spots on these maps." "So what's your proposed solution to this?" "I'll just paste&copy another couple mobs from the editor. I mean... these mobs are already plentiful, but more is more, right?" "Ok, shoot. Just as long as we deliver on the promise of offering an experience twice as long as BG1+2." It's always a tiring time sink after a while, wearing you down, like "Quantity Over Quality - THe CRPG". And the buffing routines naturally multiply the issue (which in Solasta, based on D&D 5e, naturally are a non-thing). Which is a shame, as else I quite like these things... so with Kingmaker I took one big break. With WOTR.... who knows. I mean, I want to. But, yeah. May depend on BG3, which in EA already had more options to direct combat than anything Owlcat. Plus, depending on the race you picked, otherwise hostile NPCs turned neutral. Unlike DOS, the map also didn't play out like a thinly veiled combat parcours either (with clearly leveled zones), and was actually fairly open to approach from the go. To quote a current player on the final release: "I'm surprised how little combat I faced so far even with a low int Barbarian (through means of intimidation". We'll see.

A glance through Redfall's credits reveals that 70-80% of the Arkane Austin level/OW design team consists of people who've never worked on an Arkane game before. The "fresh blood" were collected from all over the OW games industry, working on games such as Mafia, Saints Row, Watch Dogs, Far Cry, Destiny etc. before. OW lead designer Rachel Adams prior worked on ME Andromeda and (fittingly?) Anthem. There's at least one leading level designer in Kelly Mangerino who prior was but a junior on Mafia 3 and got promoted for this immediately. In some ways, this makes sense, since Arkane have been built from the ground-up as a highly specialized studio -- and cooperative looter shooter open world games wasn't what this specialization was about. The mirror men of Arkane | Polygon However, a bulk of the newbies according to their LinkedI were hired as late as early 2022. There's still veterans in key positions, such as Bare, Huso and Steve Powers, people that go way back all the way to Deus Ex. Still, Prey's system lead Seth Shain is at Bungie. Prey's lead level designer meanwhile at Archetype. Gaming journalists, this would likely make for an interesting post mortem, eventually. And that's even without considering that Arkane founder and Prey director Raf Colantonio has left Arkane alongside a couple of other Arkane guys to form WolfEye (their first game, Weird West, is actually pretty fun). Bets accepted that they will be joined by more Arkane staff for their second game, for which they've signed a deal with an investor and posted job offers. Despite my ancient 1050ti not being up to par, I'd finally just bought an oldschool boxed copy of Deathloop (from Arkane Lyon, with the fabulous Dana Nightingale, once hired from the Thief fan mission community and famous for D2's Clockwork Mansion, still there). That's all you can do as a consumer: Sending the right market signals. Rather than the wrong ones. Because wasting studios like this on projects like Redfall is the blockbusting gaming industry at its most immature -- and similar as if Hollywood were to waste its better talent on the most generic Marvel spin-offs and Assassin's Creed movie tie-ins for life.

There's a few articles on gamedeveloper.com etc. Psychology and Destiny's Loot System (gamedeveloper.com) Certainly more modern games feel different to me like some oldies. In a lot of games I grew up with, loot was simply the stuff whatever enemies / NPCs were carrying, plus maybe a few gold. Years later I got my first modem in 1999ish, but only visited RPG specific sites occasionally too look for news mostly, including the then BIS/Interplay product sites. It was interesting for me to find out much later that, as far back as BG1, IWD et all (even with its deliberately limited inventory+carry weight), players would pick up all they could and sell it, even though that naturally meant travelling to the next shop and back over and over (which was actually perceived as a "game flaw" despite the game clearly not being balanced to require yo to do such -- alongside the lack of supposedly "unique" loot in BG1). I'm sure there is plenty discussions on these boards regarding whether PoE1+2 would have enough of that too. CRPGs might still not be quite like Diablo. But they've taken a lot of cues since, including the fast-paced level ups, oft with 20 levels total (in Deadfire you're barely past tutorial island and have already leveled up a fistful of times). That's not a dig, I like Deadfire. Even if that doesn't come directly from Diablo, Diablo has influenced much since. As arguably did MMOs (cooldown effects, classes all being somewhat "balanced" and "equal" in their options even in party-based games, and so on). If somebody were to play Realms Of Arkania today, that may come as a bit of a shock. It's an entire trilogy of games. But by the end of it, your characters will be no more than level 8-9ish, you may aquire some of the best gear the game has on offer directly upon startup if you have the money as a lot of stuff is simply available from the next vendor -- and it's such a slow-burner compared to modern games in general. (Naturally, things weren't as evolved back then too, so maybe parts of that were a bit of an accident as well). It's probably still telling that the main designer calls BG a "light role-playing game".

One last ado re: BG1 vs BG2 (and player feedback). Had the likes of Ultima 7 ever went through focus group testing or anything like that, it would have never existed. Whereas modern games are carefully tested to have an "addicting" reward loop (at least 20 levels to level up into, plenty loot, every map being a carefully crafted combat parcours to entertain the player), Origin didn't give a ****. As a result, during your first major travel say from the starting town Trinsic to the capital, all you may face in U7 may be a wolf or two. Characters carry on their own "life" rather than being vehicles that give the player his/her next quest. And nobody at Origin thought much about implementing an addicting "loot system" either -- as if picking up stuff were a slot machine to tune. (The game too, actually has crafting -- but in a more natural way, as opposed to a Crafting System, Capital C, Capital S: You can pick up stuff and logically combine it. Actually, NPCs do so to. The city's baker dumps flour on the table, swishes it around, adds water and uses a rolling pin. Voila, a bread is born). In Ultima 7, the world alone was to be plenty enough. U7 is basically a world simulation at least as much as an RPG. That's why games such as U7, despite their clunky combat and dated controls, still stick in the memory to this day. As said, KCD was the last game that reminded me both of BG1 as well as U7 -- even though BG1 never went that far. In the making of video of Kingdom Come Deliverance, the devs actually acknowledged that risk. That for plenty players the idea of traveling "pretty forests" but "nothing happening" for a big chunk of the game's playing time might be deemed "boring". And as we know by now: Much of that in BG1 wasn't actually intentional. Beneath a Starless Sky: Pillars of Eternity and the Infinity Engine Era of RPGs | Shacknews Bioware simply didn't have time anymore to cram more stuff onto their maps (or like in Owlcat's case: Place another enemy mob wherever there may still be an empty spot). On topic: Once I'm finished with SOlasta's Lost Valley DLC, I'm finally back to WOTR. I still have at least a Drezen to conquer, btw.

I wish (what a kickass 1990s box art -- just 155 bucks on ebay though).

Speaking trailers, Larian have released a new teaser in time for the upcoming Game Awards. It shows a few familiar faces. Isn't it slightly humorous that a character who originally existed but on Cameron Tofer's pen&papers eventually not merely went to be a popular RPG character. But also got incoroporated into Forgotten Realms loredom? Gotta love 1990s approach to game making/writing. I'd love to see a game based on his adventures in Barovia battling Dracula, er Strahd. Getting a little sick and tired of elves and dwarves tbh. Not because they're elves and dwarves. But even with your favorite meal, if you're getting it served 24/7/365 -- eventually you're going to feel stuffed. Go for the fangs Boo, GO FOR THE FANGS!

The DA:O is so 2000s, it's hilarious. How do you get a (primarily young male) audience to finally care about tactical combat fantasy RPGs? By showing boobs, violence and blood alongside to a randomly licensed Marylin Manson track. It's basically what Tim Schafer had discovered for Full Throttle when he found that placing explosions on the box of his point&click was of benefit for sales in 1995ish. Except taken to a whole different level of cringe. It made for some great mockery too though, admittedly.

It's the new ****.

To be fair, BG2 looks like a case of overreaction straight accross the board. Rather than populating some of that wilderness more, they tossed it out entirelly. Speaking overcorrection, I'm sure that "not enough unique loot and magics" was a fairly vocal leveled criticism towards BG1 also, 1999 or not... 1999 was year 3 after Diablo had hit, after all. The lesson though is: You cannot and will not please everyone. One thing I've always been hesistant about regarding Kickstarter and crowdfunding is thus, and it's true: Players often demand what they THINK they want rather than what they actually want for a host of reasons... One of which being, as a simple excerise: Think of some of your favourite games. I'm sure that a lot of those had features that you either didn't know existed before or didn't think you'd enjoy until you actually played the game... Even the IE games themselves, they iterated a lot, with Torment being the most obvious standout example (a game largely based on character study as opposed to stats crunching and dungeon crawling? WTF.) But far from the only one. Both BGs are very different games, as we'd found out too. If you counted "Throne Of Bhaal" as a thirdish sort of entry into that, that's a hugely different experience from both of them too (never liked it, admittedly). Crowdfunding is nice and has lead to a few neat games that otherwise would have never existed. But occasionally then the problem suddenly ain't the publisher with specific demands, it's the crowd. Thus, even if say legacy heroes such as Jon van Caneghem and D.W. Bradley would join forces to collect money for their new dream project (one CAN dream, can one not?), I'd rather back them based on a hopefully promising general vision, as opposed to a new "Legend of Might & Wizardry" or something. If they'd promised to deliver a game just like in the old days, they're naturally going to be judged by that. Tim Schafer had found this out the harder way also, less so Ron Gilbert when he had actually delivered a pixel style adventure game, verbs included, in Thimbleweed Park. With Schafer everybody was thinking DOTT, Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. What everybody got was something a tad differently.

It's one of the reasons I have played BG1 multiple times, and BG2 once: The entire middle act of BG2 is a linear set of dungeon crawls, aka Icewind Dale:The Underdark anyway (a thing that the original Icewind Dale did better too even without any Underdark, if that makes sense). Plus, BG1 is still a bit like Ultima of old. It's not near as interactive and indepth in terms of simulation (NPC schedules, everything being pickupable and interactive in some way.) The Infinity Engine couldN't do that. But BG1 still simulates the Sword Coast as a place somewhat proper. And like Ultima, traveling from one place to the next, well in Ultima 7 if you're (un)lucky, you may see a wolf or two. It's designed like a place, not as a playground for the player to amass xg and fatloot and never possibly get bored. BG2 meanwhile would demonstrate were Bioware were heading later on: Not simulating worlds, rather D&D theme parks/movie set pieces for all their tightly scripted romances, drama and quests to unfold. No location ever is for you to discover, you hear about it from quest givers (and travel there via a click of the mouse). Every location equally serves a purpose to that quest. Gone are the forests that would exist because they're... forests. Gone too are the huts in that forest that would equally exist, because they're huts in the forest. If there was a hut in BG2, you knew beforehand there was soemthing going to be inside. BG2 unfortunately has influenced much since. It wasn't until Kingdom Come Deliverance came along that an RPGish game reminded me of BG1 again (or in some respect, Ultima, for that matter.) That magic stuff was still rare in BG1 too, similar that it could take you hours to even get gear that doesn't break due to the game's lore actually being incorporated into the gameplay, as opposed to a readme.text or cutscene, contributed equally to making it my favourite of the two to this day. Stuff is so plentiful in BG2, it feels cheap. It's the kind of thing that previously only ever existed in Diablo action RPGs, where the entire core loop is rewarding the player as much as can, so that ideally he doesn't even consider turning the damn computer off to take a break. Like a slot machine where you put the coin into, and eventually you know there's gonna be some reward. The entire thing reminds me of the Realms Of Arkania series, actually. The first two games had a travel system that was quite elaborate and micro-intensive. Characters needed clothes (shoes would go even go bust after a while), food, could get sick so you needed somebody who could cure and find herbs -- and the resting system of assigning jobs to party members was actually a big inspiration for the Expedition series (Vikings et all) and Kingmaker/WOTR alike. Owlcat have publicly stated as much. But as back then there was (expectedly) a vocal portion of the playerbase who deamt it all "boring" and "time-consuming", they took it mostly out for the third game, "Shadows Over Riva". Nowadays the main designer admits it was a mistake. As what they were doing may not have been to everbody's taste -- no surprises, as even the slower paced RPGs at that time were mostly about nonstop questing and combat and no "downtimes" in between. But it was something special that nobody did. And it still influences, unless countless other games released at the same time. Such as Owlcat. Their resting system alongside having a travel is one of the reasons why I picked up Kingmaker back then.

Yeah those games likely don't play very nice anymore, interface and controls included. What I'm missing is that they're offering scenarios that have since almost completely disappeared from RPGs and crawlers. Makes me sad. And it's kinda puzzling as well -- it's not as if horror-themed settings ever have went out of style elsewhere. There's a few Ravenloft user campaigns for NWN 2 though.

Finished with the main campaign of Solasta -- immediately bought the "Lost Valley" campaign DLC. It seems good for another ~30 hours or so of Solasta which is fine with me. Getting into that D&Dish vibe whilst playing, I went through the catalogue of D&D games released so far. Solasta was influenced by SSI's Gold Box games anyway. But one thing I wish was still arround was the kind of thing the Ravenloft games were going for. Hadn't actually played them -- still remember reading a Stone Prophet review in PC gaming mag over and over. But gothic/horror proved to be a decent fit in the Evira games already (though they're arguably more adventure games than RPG). Maybe I'm going to pick them up. All the D&D classics were released on Steam a while ago anyway. Plus they've even seen a QOL update recently.

Actually, at least campaign-wise, that is what I like as well. This goes back to BG2 too, but the rampant rise from poor boy to God-like has grown a little tired. Nowadays everbody is doing it, and BG3 had initially received flame for not going as far (IIRC they decided to make their campaign go a little higher level after that). To be fair, the level progression is just as quick, as the campaign isn't that long. Still, at least in D&D 5e you don't get all that many new abilities from one level to the next. But in PoE, you've barely shipped past Tutorial Island™ and have already leveld up a fistful of times -- new abilites included. It's all fine mimicing P&P-like mechanics. But those pen&paper campaigns can go over weeks, months or even longer. In computer adaptations you're barely getting used to all your new stuff and then it's another level-up. Compared to BG1 (or the Realms Of Arkania trilogy based on The Dark Eye most popular German P&P system), you barely gain a few levels. Actually at the end of the entire RoA trilogy your party is maybe level 7 or 8 (starting out at level 1 in the first game). Sometimes this rampant leveling (combined with lots of magic loot) feels a tad cheap and instant-gratificationish . Like a slot machine where you put in the coin, and soon enough you'lll get another reward. Back in the 1990s, this was the action RPG Diablo kind of gameplay loop. It's influnced many more games since.

Yes, it's not a narrative game, just as EoB. There's no dialogue (options) to speak of too. The game has nice ambience, a great theme music, a premise in the form of a render intro, a pretty cohesive world for a dungeon crawl -- all setting the mood nicely. And then it's largely a Game Of Dungeons. Er, and Puzzles, actually. Real ones, unlike the focus group tested to auto-solve stuff in Skyrim et all. There is a narrative framework, and it works pretty well. Your party in Grimrock 2 is for some yet unknown reason ship-wrecking on an island -- and there's seems a purpose for that which is up to you to discover (a lot is told through documents/letters you find). Also, the atmosphere is excellent throughout with day/night-cycles, good ambience sound (some of those shuffling sounds of creepy crawlies in the dungeons made my skin crawl), and a big variety of different locales (swamps, crypts, forests, overland, castles,..) Here's a bit of early gameplay. Oh, and let me add another bonus point for Solasta. Making the light (you can also cast) influence fights against vampirish characters is just awesome -- e.g. they get -10 hp on each turn if they are in the light. Even though they can be lured out of the dark and into the sun during daytime a bit too easily. Thinking about it, that mechanic could make an awesome vampire / ghoul themed CRPG in an on itself.