Interesting thoughts.
Yes, good or game-changing... I didn't elaborate until now, but I do find the idea of game-changing interesting, even if we can argue forever on a definition. For me a game like Morrowind is innovative because it offers a large 3D open-world, with a culture, a coherency, a somewhat subtle way to introduce the quests and to guide the player in that large world. There was an effect of immersion I never felt before - ironically this was perhaps the last "AAA" game to achieve that too. There are a few others like GTA, Portal, MSFS2020, but the list may vary because not everyone played every game.
They made me think, "
oh, it's possible to do that now" or "
I wouldn't have thought of that, it's so fun", and they were well implemented. So I find it interesting because it's good to see that now and then, developers are able to take risks to bring us something fresh and to do it well, instead of simply improving existing ideas. With so many developers falling under a very few umbrellas, I fear that it's getting difficult for them not to keep to the main stream.
But I'm pleased when they "only" improve things too, of course.
The game expands about every single feature, not only MP coop, so I'd say it has all the chances to appeal to any RPG fan. The only problems I see for them is
the choice of the Baldur's Gate franchise, because they will be compared to fond memories that they can't beat, and I agree with you,
the choice of D&D 5E. Plus the fact they implemented rather loosely.
Innovation can be as elusive as the RPG genre in itself - and I sense we agree on that
It also comes down to when you experienced what particular feature, or - at least - at what point it registered with you.
If we discount the very early examples of "open world semi-3D" games like Lords of Midnight, then I'd say my own first experience with what might have set the stage for modern open world 3D RPGs was probably Ultima IX - Ascension.
As flawed as it was, I was absolutely spellbound by the immersion and sense of open world exploration. To me, that was incredibly innovative in the open world space.
As such, I was probably less taken with Morrowind than I would have been otherwise, and I found it a very flawed game in a variety of ways.
It was the same thing with Daggerfall - which was another arguably "first" when it comes to huge open world 3D games - though it doesn't quite qualify because of the overuse of sprites and non-3D stuff like that.
As for BG3, well - it honestly seems like a significant step back in an important way - which is the ruleset that I touched upon.
One thing I really loved about DOS2 was the freedom to create my own classes from scratch and mix a vast multitude of active abilities.
To me, the 5th Edition system is a giant step backwards in that particular way - but I can see that Larian is, at least, trying to implement a few more active abilities on weapons and what not.
I guess they're limited by what they can do with the ruleset - lest they move too far away from the license.
Apart from that, I haven't personally detected significant expansion of any feature from DOS2 - but that's probably because of my limited playtime.
I don't want to spoil it for myself - so I've only played for a few hours here and there to test new features.
DOS2 had its own share of significant flaws - so I don't really subscribe to the way it's considered a universally fantastic CRPG by so many.
Well, it IS a fantastic CRPG - but so are many other CRPGs.
It's also one of the very, very few traditional party-based CRPGs that have what seems like an AAA budget, which is always nice to see.
On that note, I don't like the way CRPG has come to mean "classic" RPG - so I use the term with its original intent, FYI
That's probably because I'm old enough to remember when we needed to distinguish between PnP and computer RPGs
