I'll come straight out and say it. I am an old gamer.
I spent many many hours on the Sword Coast in Baldur's Gate and its sequel.
As I see demos and discussion of DAI I can see much that reminds me of Baldur's Gate:
If you played Baldur's Gate 16 years ago do you recognise the 'parentage' in what what we now see with DAI
and does it do justice to its heritage?
I'll have to see DA:I in action with a mouse and keyboard first to really tell, felt slow and clunky when they showed it with a controller at E3.
They will have to improve writing if they ever want to reach Baldur's Gate quality.
Tactical combat and open world are not the only reasons why Baldur's Gate is that damn good.
Well that screenshot does make them look similar, and they clearly do share some of the same concepts like the tactical combat as you said. But overall I think the games are going to be drastically different, I'm thinking more along the lines of KOTOR (Still a great game) mixed with generic hack and slash than Baldurs Gate in both storytelling and gameplay. You've got to remember that the Bioware that made Baldurs Gate has been dead a long time now, and while some of the ideas that made the early games great have stuck around it seems that Bioware is eager to move away from that whole style. Not that i'm against that mind seeing as there is still plenty of more traditional CRPGs out there (Pillars of eternity, i'm looking at you)
As for the large open world, soooo many games have been doing it lately that its lost its meaning. It honestly just feels like a fad at this point.
I don`t see it at all. Da:I is an action\rpg. That is very far from the BG games spirit.
That being said: It is perfectly possible that I might end up liking DA:I as much as I like the BG games. For different reasons, sure. But still. Hoping for a very good game with tons of replayability.
For the "large open world" it looks to me more similar to how the old Might and Magic games were, a handful of large self contained maps with their own individual themes.
When compared to the BG series though, the underlying philosophy as to what a game should be or play like is completely different. It's being created to appeal to the console generation (as well they should, if they want to continue to employ people). I don't expect them to be at all similar, other than the usual thematic (heroicwestern in a generic fantasy setting) things that pretty much all games in the genre have in common.
As for the writing, I get the feeling while playing though their recent games that the "problem" stems from a lack of diversity/sphere of experience in the writing team, rather than a lack of talent. It's a bunch of Western woman and a gay dude, which is fine, from what I can tell from the forums, women and gay dudes love the writing. I've been "meh" on it though, in general, I do get a chuckle out of it now and then.
I have of course, not played the game though.
I don`t see it at all. Da:I is an action\rpg. That is very far from the BG games spirit.
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Something I would hope they brought over from Baulders Gate (but is something people don't really talk about) is the romance system.
In a lot of the more recent Bioware games, you can "win" a romance by simply picking the nicest responses and never doing anything to upset that companion.
In BG2, sometimes being super nice would drive your potential romance away. It wasn't the "correct" method, it was less a "nice points always gets me sex" kind of method and I liked it better.
So I'm hoping for DAI, since we have a cast of companions who are all seemingly very headstrong and all have strong opinions about at least some things, and that as an Inquisitor, sticking to our guns and having a consistent attitude or moral compass will be possible without completely driving certain companions away, romance or not.
It doesn't matter who is making the game. The standard still exists.You've got to remember that the Bioware that made Baldurs Gate has been dead a long time now, and while some of the ideas that made the early games great have stuck around it seems that Bioware is eager to move away from that whole style.
"In what way is DAI the fitting grandchild of Baldur's Gate?"
Honestly, DAI is something to BG more like a very distant cousin on Bioware family tree if that makes some sense. Pillars of Eternity on other hand....is something what I would call more closely to Baldur's Gate. Pillars of Eternity is for me the grandchild. Baldur's Gate is an echo which you hear and feel in Bioware games now but it is not there and will never ever be again. BG for me is more than tactical combat/multi person squad. It is some kind of special spirit and for me last tiny piece of that spirit was in DA:Origins 
.
I know PoE is Obsidian game but I often hear that more of people from old Bioware is there than in actual Bioware nowadays so I see it as a next "Baldur's Gate" and you can really feel it from screenshots. Well atleast I do. I don't trying to find BG anymore in Bioware games. Bioware also started to copy others more (see Witcher,Skyrim,Dragon Dogma) and be less of themselves what they used to be when they were making old Infinity Games...(i guess cos of EA)
It doesn't matter who is making the game. The standard still exists.
I judge all games by the same standard. That way I can directly compare Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect 2, or Ultima IV, or Civilization. And I will assess the quality of Inquisition similarly.
I wasn't talking so much about the quality of the game, but rather how having a different group of devs will mean that it has a very different style than previous games because ya know, they're newish devs they want to do their own thing not just mimic what came before them.
hmm this is an interesting question, particularly for me because I don't have the reverence for Baldur's Gate that many RPG fans have.
This could be because I didn't play it until much later, so the older style user interface and camera were both a sources of constant irritation to me.
BG had humour, interesting characters, fun environments and a good story, but it also had a clunky user interface, a leveling system that I couldn't make heads or tails of (I eventually had to look it up) and camera that never seemed to show me what I wanted.
Personally, I like the direction that Bioware has taken with DA:I. They are keeping to their formula of humour, interesting characters, fun environments and a good story while trying new things.
I hope Bioware keeps to their game formula. They can do whatever they want but I want a good character creator. I literally can't play Witcher because it is so close to Bioware games, sans character creator.
I wasn't talking so much about the quality of the game, but rather how having a different group of devs will mean that it has a very different style than previous games because ya know, they're newish devs they want to do their own thing not just mimic what came before them.
I wasn't talking about quality so much as the characteristics I enjoy. Some games have them. Some games don't. I don't care who is making the games; a game that lacks relevant gameplay isn't a game I'll enjoy. Games that resemble Baldur's Gate, in many respects, suit me.
I can still judge Inquisition's resemblance to BG, even if BioWare isn't trying to make Inquisition resemble BG.
Baldur's Gate was an excellent RPG for MANY reasons.
Great writing, atmosphere, character development, D&D ruleset, isometric, etc. It's too early to tell if DA:I will stack up in any of those areas, and with their recent releases I'm not very hopeful to be honest.
If you want an RPG like that you will probably have a better comparison with Pillars of Eternity, Original Sin, or Tides of Numeria.
Guest_Morrigan_*
It's unreasonable to expect Bioware to make a 100% clone of their earliest games.
Companies like Obsidian and inXile are able to create old-school RPG's a la Planescape because they operate as small businesses, cater to a niche crowd (of which I am a part), and make use of crowd funding (a relatively new phenomenon).
Edit:
@Travie I haven't played the Mass Effect series (not a scifi fan), so I can't comment on that, but I enjoyed DA II. There were a good mix of characters from diverse backgrounds, some genuinley touching moments in the game (e.g. Hawke's mother dying, his fireside chat with Leandra at the end of Legacy, etc.), and I enjoyed playing a more personal story for once.
I even thought SWTOR had it's moments. The end game wasn't there, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing through the different character classes and seeing the world-arch unfold.
Every game doesn't need to be an isometric RPG based on the D&D ruleset, nor would I want them to be.
One major difference is the world of Dragon Age is 100% Bioware versus Baulders Gate you had the stories and lore already setup from the books and whatnot. I would say DA:O has more in common with BG then anything Bioware has done recently. BG was way more of an RPG then either DA2 or DA:I it seems which do tell stories but have less of an impact on your companions and the way the story is told.
Without seeing the story for DA:I hard to say, but so far DA:O was the closest out of the da games.
But in the end your comparing a fish to a bird.
I wasn't talking about quality so much as the characteristics I enjoy. Some games have them. Some games don't. I don't care who is making the games; a game that lacks relevant gameplay isn't a game I'll enjoy. Games that resemble Baldur's Gate, in many respects, suit me.
I can still judge Inquisition's resemblance to BG, even if BioWare isn't trying to make Inquisition resemble BG.
Ah I get you now, fair enough.
They will have to improve writing if they ever want to reach Baldur's Gate quality.
Tactical combat and open world are not the only reasons why Baldur's Gate is that damn good.
"BAHAHA I'm an evil shadow druid and you have walked into my forest!"
"Dobbelgangers did it."
They will have to improve writing if they ever want to reach Baldur's Gate quality.
Tactical combat and open world are not the only reasons why Baldur's Gate is that damn good.
The story is better then BG already. Seriously, bg is just an adventure story. What made it great was where you going and what you were doing. You never asked why you were doing it or the value of the action you were taken that bw stories of today get the player to awnser. It was always black and white. what made bg great really was the gameplay.
Well that screenshot does make them look similar, and they clearly do share some of the same concepts like the tactical combat as you said. But overall I think the games are going to be drastically different, I'm thinking more along the lines of KOTOR (Still a great game) mixed with generic hack and slash than Baldurs Gate in both storytelling and gameplay. You've got to remember that the Bioware that made Baldurs Gate has been dead a long time now, and while some of the ideas that made the early games great have stuck around it seems that Bioware is eager to move away from that whole style. Not that i'm against that mind seeing as there is still plenty of more traditional CRPGs out there (Pillars of eternity, i'm looking at you)
As for the large open world, soooo many games have been doing it lately that its lost its meaning. It honestly just feels like a fad at this point.
Oh, bs. The people that worked on the game are still part of the company for goodness sake.
Oh, bs. The people that worked on the game are still part of the company for goodness sake.
Yes some of them may still be there, but they are completely different people now. The mentality they had when working on BG is going to at least be pretty different to their mentality now. It would be like comparing 2006 Escape the fate with the 2014 Falling in reverse, sure some of the members are the same but they are completely different despite being the same genre. Not that change is a bad thing mind, it just means that DAI is going to be drastically different experience than what BG was. Which in my opinion is a good thing, as fun as BG was I don't really want that same experience released with a slightly different plot over and over again just for the sake of nostalgia.
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