FedericoV wrote...
So, the question is simple: if BG is still so popular for devs and players alike, more than 10 years after ToB, why no one in the business make a true spiritual successor of it? Why pass from the DA:O format (wich at least was closer to BG2) to the DA2 format?
1. Ten years is a long time. Look at what communications, computing, and gaming technologies we've gotten in the last 10 years: always on internet, mass adoption of broadband, social media, online consoles, social gaming, mobile gaming, ubiquitous cell phones, mass texting, Twitter, Facebook, digital distribution, DLC, videogames going mainstream, photorealistic graphics, fully voiced PC, digital acting, motion capture, cinematic gaming. You're not going to get the same kinds of gaming experience these days as you got then because the context in which those games were created are no longer the same.
2. Nostalgia is unrealiable as a gauge of what people like. You look at BG and BG2 and you "remember" how good they were. Well, those feelings and that game experience is based on your experiences up to
that point, based on who you
were at the time, and based on what other experiences were available. At the time, BG and BG2 were some of the most epic stories and game experiences around. Today, everyone who played, remembered and loved BG have played 10 years' worth of other games, have experienced 10 years' worth of life and gaming experiences, and the further away they get from their BG days, the more they'll remember only the good feelings and ignore the intervening time. Look at the Transformers cartoon. I loved the show as a kid, but when I watched it on DVD, I was screaming obscenities at the hackneyed stories and overly simplistic character motivations!
3. "Spiritual successor" means different things to different people. When we used that phrase to market DAO, we got a lot of flak from people who interpreted the phrase differently than others did. For some, the "spirit" of BG was Dungeons & Dragons. For some, it was the wide open world. For others, it was the difficulty level. For others, the strength of antagonists like Jon Irenicus and Sarevok. For still others, extensive character buildilng or story pacing. Or any combination thereof. There is no way you can make a "spiritual successor" to anything and please everyone.
4. Game developers have to keep trying new things in order to succeed, keep attracting new players, and keeping up with new technologies and trends. As much as people will scream for experiences like BG or DAO even today, making games that are carbon copies of previous games isn't seen as very creative. Look at the negative perception that EA Sports games have. Even in this community, those games are seen as "cheap cash grabs," games that can't or won't innovate because they come out annually. the implication here is that people want something new, not just something rehashed from last year. So why, then, do RPG players seem to want the exact same thing that came out not last year, but
ten years ago?
5. Competition. There is so much out there now that competes for people's attention. This is related to #1 and #4.
Those are some big concepts, I know, but the question comes up frequently and people seem to forget that there is an entire universe out there that has advanced and changed over time. The videogame industry is not a zero-sum system, nor can it be easily defined with a binary choice (love BG vs. don't love BG, success vs. failure).
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