Great game. I like how conversations turned up being so much inmersive and appreciate the animations.
I don't trully enjoy other's company but Will and Gale, although I have seen other opinions which means
that it fits different tastes, which is good.
Character customization is on another level.
The camera can't go up/down, making vertical combat too difficult because you can't know if they canshoot
through a gap in the ceiling.
The story is promising, and cinematics great.
I have played sometime but not avdanced much so can't tell more.

I love everything apart from the cinematic dialogues...They just look corny and clunky. This will not age well...as I predicted.
Larian should of stayed with the more detailed writing/monologue with tons of dialogue options. . more similar to DOS2 or Baldurs gate 2.
Now 80% of conversation is 3 to 4 meeeh options in order to satisfy that "cinematic" experience.

Other issue for me is D&D...its just not that fun in a video game format. DOS2 style spells and combat is so much more fun/satisfying.

I played game for 8 hours and I'm not excited.

To be honest I was never a big fan of the previous Baldur's Gate Games because the combat system are to fast.
In the Neverwinter Night games it was better.

The presentation is good, especially the Dialogs and cutscenes.
But I don't like the combat system.
The combats need a very long time because every character hits nothing.
Furthermore I don't like it that I can only do one attack per turn.
The combat system of the Divinity Original Sin games make more fun that this.

The dice rolling during the dialoges became boring too.

At the moment I have no more interest in continue playing this game.
Maybe I try it again after the next big fix.

Regarding the camera, there is a demo of Solasta and the verticality of the game causes camera problems, but it's due to a new camera being used on an older game build, it will be sorted 9ut for the release.
Hopefully this will be true for BG3, considering this is Early Access.
Larian are quality devs, I can't imagine them letting this get released without this being addressed.

You can gain influence with party members in this game, too. And it shows in the corner of the screen when that happens. It's just that it is not that often. But you do to make some choices, and will get approval / disapproval from the party members. The weird part is that even those that are in camp and not present still get positive or negative influence from your actions. And this is rather weird. If the companion wasn't there to witness, how would they know how to react?

Ok. And it isn't fair for me to compare Dragon Age to BG, in some ways of looking at it. However, When talking with a companion in DA, you had options. Depending on what you said, more options or less. Influence would give you options. It's hard to explain unless you have played Dragon Age, but it wasn't always set on how far in the story. There were just ALLOT of talking you could do with every character that joined your party. 1234 doesn't even begin to describe it. I could sit and talk to one character for half an hour before exhausting current dialog (until something happened or influence added even more). And a significant portion was voice acted. They may be concentrating on other things, but seems like they may have spread the butter to thin and went for quantity of area and less on quality. Maybe. It's still in development.

So wait and see, but dialog seems extemely vanilla even taking DA's standard away.

The design of the game sort of invites comparisons with the original DA.

I'd go so far as to also describe it as embarrassingly trope-y.

It's almost Games Workshop over-the-top, except it seems like Larian is taking themselves seriously.

None of that is surprising for a fantasy roleplaying game. The only part that is surprising is that WotC made us wait so many years for a decidedly pedestrian effort.

In games like BG1 and NWN1, you start off as level 1 and they world build around a level 1 character. They viewed the story as a D&D campaign. In BG3, things begin in medias res, your level 1 companions think they're veterans, and the plot instantly reveals you to be the chosen ones on a quest of cosmic importance. It's pretty clear that they started with the animated sequence in the trailer, and then dreamed up a plot to explain it. More of a marketing ploy than a D&D campaign experience. The game has been designed more to scratch the itches of video game reviewers and high dollar Let's Players, in the short attention span you get there, than really sate the needs of roleplayers. No foreplay.

FTR Solasta dice rolls are fully customisable for every aspect of their mechanic, conversation, combat etc.

I played and finished all the Dragon Age games, world imported from a game to another and all that. Yes, you don't get to spend that much time with your party talking in BG3 as you do with, let's say, Morrigan in your camp in Dragon Age Origins. Dialogues don't last that long here. However, I think it's a Baldur's Gate thing. This series never had lenghty dialogue. It always had party banter, but not to some excesive length. The dialogue is all voice acted in BG3 too. There are also a few times when dialogue goes a little deeper, when you're at the camp and you get to have some talk time with your companions before calling it a day and going to bed.

I disagree with you here. Your companions don't act like "veterans". Adventurers are a little more... extraordinaire... than commoners. Even at level 1. Let's say you start a level 1 D&D campaign. What would you do? You'd probably fight some low level monsters for some quest taken from a village. This still makes you more entitled to boasting than a commoner from that village. For all the villagers in that village you are of a "veteran" sort. Adventurers are always a little above the common ground. And the NPCs in this game behave just like that. The mage calls himself a scholar. The cleric doesn't even mention about her powers. The fighter is arrogant, but it's her personality as a Githyanki, who treats everyone else from other races like their not worthy of her attention. It's a trait of her blood, so to speak. I just met another companion, he is actually learning children to fight. He calls himself the Blade of Frontiers. But by the time I get to meet him I'm level 3, and I suppose he is the same. Then again, "frontiers" I think is used is as another term for "outskirts". Which is not something that epic if you think about it.

About the plot revealing you as the chosing ones on a quest of cosmic importance... you really got it wrong here. You were *chosen* by mind flayers to stick their toadpool in your head. It's the way they perpetuate their species. You're on a vital quest to save your life, nothing else. You are just one of others on the Nautiloid who share the same fate as you do. Your main concern (for some of your companions, the only concern) is to get the parasite out of your head. This is the main quest so far. It's very personal and has nothing to do with the rest of the world.

I feel like the pacing is a little bit off. I have played about 15 hours so far and still haven't come across a city or village. My party has been fighting constantly pretty much the whole time. It's a pretty intense start to the campaign.

Haven't heard anything about it, but if it is, I would expect it at later date and after the full game comes out, due to how the VA industry is a bit blocked due to the coof.

But I would not really expect it, the game has a crapton of voiced content even in this first act, I think it is a small miracle it is fully voiced even in English in first place.
Presumably, someone in the camp talked about it.

I'll grant you that the confidence with some of the companions could just be arrogance.

But as for the plot progression, I don't want to drop spoilers, but you missed some things in your playthrough...

Yes, my advance into the game is rather slow. I just clocked 20 hours and only just now I encountered Raphael in the camp. And I just arrived at the goblin camp. So, yes. I agree that there may be things that I missed or that I didn't get to them yet. It is rather weird however that so many powerful forces and groups from the Realms gathered some kind of interest about what happens to this particular group of adventurers. It does give you the feeling there are greater forces at work around you that you can't just grasp yet.

However, that was also the case for Baldur's Gate II. You were a spawn of Bhaal. So was Imoen. Big guilds, such as the Shadow Thieves and a guild of undead were rather interested about you. Not to mention the Harpers. Even the Order of the Most Radiant Heart. There were quite a few influential groups that took notice of you in that game too. Not to say of the Cawled Wizards. So... yeah. Many powerful groups. What started as a personal revenge quest / rescue mission turned out to be something much, much more than that. I think it's the same case here too.

The only friendly settlement I encountered with a the bare minimum of services (at least a trader to sell your stuff to) is the druid grove. You should find it not from the place you start. I encountered a few other locations (not many), but they weren't exactly friendly.

I've been replaying the first two rooms in the nautiloid for a few hours, relearning and remapping keystrokes (eg: "C" for character sheet, 'o' for overhead camera), agonizing over the lack of a manual (I'm unfamiliar with 5e rules), wondering whether Int affects skill learning, whether dual classing is allowed (and if it is, how do I up my Dex to 17 so I can switch to Rogue; you can't assign more than 16 to an attribute as a human)?

I'm not a big fan of 'designing' my character; I'd much rather simply pick a portrait and get on with the important stuff (attributes, skills, class, etc)

Yes, the graphics I've seen so far are very good, but again...they get in the way of gameplay. The characters just seem to blend in with the background/foreground. In one of my playthroughs, it took me about 5 minutes to find the intellect devourer. Using the overhead camera doesn't help much even when the characters are highlighted (ok, I'm "very" old and my eyesight is definitely on the down slope)