Why don't they then stop the bloody pretence and just make another BG. The masses love those.

Oh wait, they did ...

I'm not talking about the specific setting. I'm talking about "bland high fanstasy setting RPG with real time paused combat". Which is essentially what BG was. I can understand that people want this. People are also buying a new CoD each year. But why do we need Obsidian for this? You don't ask Aston Martin to make a hunchback. We got Bioware et al. for those. Obsidian is one of the best game devs around. And from what I'm reading so far, they are throwing that all away to please the mass market.

Im not sure i understand... SimonG how do you want the game to be then?

A future setting eg. would be nice. Or maybe something contemporary. Or how about the industrialisation. Renaissance. Maybe ancient Mesopotamia?

Everything but not the same old high fantasy Tolkien ripoff over and over again.

From what I can see here, Obsidian is wasting its talent.

For me the setting is not as much of a problem. I have no problem with high or low fantasy or even if its generic stuff. Its all about how they build it together in the world. I have one main problem and that is that they dont use something like ToEE's combat. But its not the end of the world for me.

But they are going to have a QA on lore stuff and so on soon so maybe you will read something that you will like there... Or maybe you will hate the game more.

So the thing about high fantasy is, it's ripping off Tolkien. All of it. I think a lot of people don't understand how much. You have elves? Before Tolkien, elves stole babies and kidnapped people who walked around churches the wrong way. Elves being all noble creatures of the woods and shit, that's Tolkien. Dwarfs? Tolkien again. Dwarves and elves, but they're totally original so you're not stealing from Tolkien? Still stealing from Tolkien, unless you want to claim that you were reading Irish folklore and the Norse Eddas and came up with the idea of using elves and dwarfs totally on your own. If you don't like saying they're making Baldur's Gate 3, fine; they're making a high-fantasy Tolkien rip-off that only resembles Baldur's Gate because Baldur's gate is also a high-fantasy Tolkien rip-off.

Maybe it will be a good and enjoyable rip-off! I'm not saying it couldn't be, I haven't cancelled my pledge. I was hoping for something different.

Have you played the Age of Decadence demo? That has quite the unique setting.

And why do you mention Tolkien? Have you even read any of his novels? Tolkien's middle-earth is more like a historical fantasy, there's no "magic" in the D&D sense, in the LOTR there's only like three Wizards left in the world, magic is essentially dead, and even in the mythical "First Age" you never saw Elves throwing lightning bolts at each other, they still used swords and shields to fight.

And who's to say PE won't have an original take on the fantasy setting, I mean we practically no nothing about the game yet, and what we do know so far is it has early gunpowder arms and psychic magic, none of which is particularly high fantasy.

Who is this guy?

edit: too slow. Whatever. It just seemed inappropriate to complain about everything being a Tolkien ripoff and therefore boring when you are misspelling his name.

I know, I know... I'd hoped I'd edited it before anyone could reveal my terrible shame.

When the project started, I was giving Obsidian the benefit of the doubt. (They did wonders with the Star Wars setting in Kotor II). But the more I look at the Kickstarter, the more it shifts towards generic and bland.

Call me old fashioned, but I like artist more that say "f#ck you, I'm doing what I want". It might be hit or miss, but when it hits, it hits hard. Obsidian is currently just saying "what do you want more, master?" to the masses.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they do pull of the masterpiece I'm hoping for. But for now, I can not justify a pledge the size I gave to Wasteland 2 eg.

I think they're honestly incapable of making something as bland as Baldur's Gate. I have faith.

Cancelling my preorder of The Hobbit because Tolkien ripped off Dwarves and Elves from the ancient Norse pagans.

What a hack.

No game is a Tolkien rip-off. D&D lifted from so many sources that Tolkien's influence is negligible.

Exactly. And until we get more details, this debate is pretty much pointless, from where I'm standing.