Possible. DnD as a whole is kinda held back majorly by all the licensing bullshit imo. Hasbro is missing out a lot due to their tight grip on it. Same with Magic.
I think they said a while ago that it won't be getting that unfortunately. It's a shame because the engine really would be perfect for full blown custom campaigns and whatnot, or even non linear open world modules.
Not really, I'm just long enough around to have seen the whole gaming industry going to shits. Because of people like you who enable all the bullshit and apparently lack basic reading comprehension.
Diablo 4 is garbage and so is "Blizzard".
Last Epoch is a completely different vibe.
Grim Dawn is a completely different vibe, boring, and doesn't have an archer class.
Path of Exile is boring and a completely different vibe.
Sad but not a surprise. Had it on my wishlist for a long time, hoping they could get their shit together. Kinda was the only hack'n slay that gave me the same vibes that Diablo gave me in regards to the whole worldbuilding and atmosphere. I guess the genre is just dead. Oh well.
I checked the reviews & forum posts every now and then but from what I could gather it was buggy as shit. I think they also severely dumbed down the game's progression at some point during the alpha / beta phases.
No idea. Never played it, no idea when it came out, never cared for it. I don't think it was necessarily a straight cut from one to the other but a gradual transition through various changes with the game and the company. I'd hazard a guess that this transition began before Story Mode though, even if it wasn't as apparent at the time, as it is today.
And I have "played" it multiple times for a short while over the years myself. Anyone saying it is perfectly playable in its current state is a liar and part of the cult. It's a glorified half broken tech demo.
And yes, it is vaporware, because there's so much feature creep that it will never see the light of day. They constantly completely re-write systems, often times systems that have been already re-written a couple of times. A lot of newer systems don't fit in well with previous systems or other aspects that are now very much outdated, which means they have to redo them too (like various ships). It's a constant redoing of things that have been done already. All while the major tech needed for what they claim to aim at is still not really there. And all of this comes on top of them adding completely new features instead of focusing on fixing & finishing what's already there.