Game News Larian is making Baldur's Gate 3

[Harry Easter]

I'll buy the game if it allows you to kill Elminster.

Stop teasing, you monster.

 

[abnaxus]

How is that old pervert even still alive. Not even all of the Seven Sluts are dead.

 

[Harry Easter]

How is that old pervert even still alive. Not even all of the Seven Sluts are dead.

That's his real gift: staying alive, while the rest dies like flies and heroes and still looking like the true hero. Clever bastard.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Harry Easter]

larian always made sure that you can kill everyone and still not be blocked

That's an excellent point, though ... huh.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Magellan]

The real horrifying thing to contemplate is the ruleset. 2E is out of course, and 3E or 3.5E might be out too. If it's 4E or later we are really fucked, which is sad because older D&D rulesets are about as good as it's gonna get for a PC game. Its crazy to think how much the world has changed, if Larian was making a D&D game in 2005 I'd be so excited, but at this point there are so many ways this could go wrong.

It'll be 5E. In general, why wouldn't they use the latest ruleset? This is especially true since the last few years with 5E have been the highest selling years in D&D's 4-decade history.

 

[hexer]

How is that old pervert even still alive. Not even all of the Seven Sluts are dead.

Haven't been following the timeline since 4E. So Khelben is no more?

 

[Erebus]

I thought 5E had resurrected pretty much everyone killed in earlier editions ?

 

[Mordru]

This will be using 5ed ruleset and be released 3 months after the tabletop version releases 6th ed.

 

[Fairfax]

This is especially true since the last few years with 5E have been the highest selling years in D&D's 4-decade history.

Not true. It's the best-selling WotC edition.

 

[Magellan]

This is especially true since the last few years with 5E have been the highest selling years in D&D's 4-decade history.

Not true. It's the best-selling WotC edition.

Okay, PROBABLY the best selling edition ever, but absolutely positively the best selling edition in the 20+ years of WotC's ownership.


"In 2016 Mike Mearls of WotC tweeted: “5e lifetime PHB sales > 3, 3.5, 4 lifetime,” meaning that the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook had by then outsold each of the previous versions (not including AD&D 1 & 2, for which WotC did not have exact figures). This was particularly impressive because at the time of the Mearls tweet 5th Edition had only been in print for two years. Previous editions had print runs of three years (3ed), five years (3.5ed) and six years (4ed) respectively.

But how does this compare to the glory days of the early 1980s? According to WotC, 2017 was the best D&D sales year in the company’s history. TSR kept poor records, but WotC is confident the 2017 figures are also higher than any from the TSR era (1974-’97).

Inflation and pricing are factors, though. One 1982 dollar, for example, is worth $2.57 in 2017 dollars. And 5th Edition books are priced higher than those of earlier versions. So it’s possible that in sheer unit sales 5th Edition has outsold versions 3, 3,5, and 4, but not AD&D 1 and 2, or any of the beginner boxed sets.

That’s less likely when you take into account the enormous growth since that 2016 Mearls tweet. According to WotC, in 2017 the D&D brand had a 44 percent sales growth over 2016. “Brand” encompasses everything D&D-related, from rulebooks to minis to revenues from t-shirts and other licensed products. But 44 percent isn’t a jump, it’s a leap.

None of this gives us a perfect picture of actual books in the hands of players, but it’s not a stretch to say that there are more D&D players than ever before. And that’s exactly what WotC has asserted: according to the company’s estimates in 2017 there were 12-15 million people playing D&D in North America alone, making D&D more popular now than at any other time in its history."

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Eye of the Beholder for Game Boy Advance has turn based combat. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Indeed I did. I was going to say the same in response to this post:

Strange FellowMagister

Today at 6:53 AMReportStatsIgnoring
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Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor - RTwP

Also, recent? Most of these games are old enough to drink. In fact they're a lot closer to Gold Box/Eye of the Beholder, which were all turn based, than to 2019. All you're proving is that WoTC knew how to capitalise on the Infinity Engine craze.

Because the blobbers are NOT turn-based. Just sit there and see if ANY of the mobs in the EOB series wait for you to have a turn.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

You only kill clones. Its star wars prequels all over but within the REALMS. The game will be first person shooter or like these anime adventure dating sims.

Spoiler

oh my Elminister's love sausage is at least this big.... and i mean girth!

 

[Country_Gravy]

If it's TBwP, I might pass. Got burnt with Pillars of Eternity. Feel the same would happen here.

Once the newness of RTwP got old, all games that followed BG and Icewind Dale seemed shitty. Even Sawyer's balance and MCA chipping in couldn't save that game.

 

[Ranarama]

Haven't been following the timeline since 4E. So Khelben is no more?

I advise you to remain ignorant. 4E was a wave of retardation on the setting that 5E did not fix.

 

[Foamhead]

Huh.

oh well, as long as we dont get SJW lesbian ogre trannies and feminist knightettes.

Why not? Afraid you'll be too turned on to focus on the game?

 

[SionIV]

As much as I would enjoy if the game was turn-based, I don't understand where people are getting this notion from other than wishful thinking. Baldur's Gate I & II weren't turn-based, neither were any of the other Infinity Engine games. Taking into consideration the direction which the gaming market is moving towards (which I don't agree with), it's moving AWAY from turn-based games and has been doing so for more than a decade. Why would Larian take one of the flagship RTwP from 1998 - 2000 and turn it into a turn-based game, during a period where turn-based games aren't very popular?

 

[Nortar]

Why would Larian take one of the flagship RTwP from 1998 - 2000 and turn it into a turn-based game, during a period where turn-based games aren't very popular?

Larian's Divine Divinity was not even RTwP, it was just real-time. And yet D:OS is TB.
And right now, why would Larian disregard their amassed expirience in making TB games?

 

[Strange Fellow]

Eye of the Beholder for Game Boy Advance has turn based combat. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Indeed I did. I was going to say the same in response to this post:

Strange FellowMagister

Today at 6:53 AMReportStatsIgnoring
+ QuoteReply
New
↑
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor - RTwP

Also, recent? Most of these games are old enough to drink. In fact they're a lot closer to Gold Box/Eye of the Beholder, which were all turn based, than to 2019. All you're proving is that WoTC knew how to capitalise on the Infinity Engine craze.

Because the blobbers are NOT turn-based. Just sit there and see if ANY of the mobs in the EOB series wait for you to have a turn.

I am dumb, just as dumb as the dumb I was complaining about. The world is in balance.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Why would Larian take one of the flagship RTwP from 1998 - 2000 and turn it into a turn-based game, during a period where turn-based games aren't very popular?

Because D:OS 2 was the most successful of the Kickstarter AA titles and Larian has no experience with RTwP gameplay... I'm rooting for RTwP, but Larian's recent success and track record don't leave me hopeful.

 

[SionIV]

Why would Larian take one of the flagship RTwP from 1998 - 2000 and turn it into a turn-based game, during a period where turn-based games aren't very popular?

Larian's Divine Divinity was not even RTwP, it was just real-time. And yet D:OS is TB.
And right now, why would Larian disregard their amassed expirience in making TB games?

We're comparing Divine Divinity to Baldur's Gate. Even taking into consideration D:OS and D:OS 2, they pale in comparison to the popularity and fame that Baldur's Gate received. It would be financial suicide for Larian to release Baldur's Gate III as a turn-based RPG in 2019-2022 (or whenever the release date will be). As much as it pains me to say, the casual gamer does not want a turn-based game, and they're not going to market Baldur's Gate III towards the more hardcore gamers.

It would have been like taking Red Alert II and turning it into a TBS after the fame and acclaim that Red Alert received.

 

[The Bishop]

If it's TBwP, I might pass. Got burnt with Pillars of Eternity. Feel the same would happen here.

Once the newness of RTwP got old, all games that followed BG and Icewind Dale seemed shitty. Even Sawyer's balance and MCA chipping in couldn't save that game.

Pillars is a special case or being particularly bad for RTwP. Most of things Sawyer introduced in attempt to fix IE only ended up causing more problems.

It seemed sensible to go away from rounds in a real time system. It also seemed fine to balance INT as duration modifier. The end result however is that all the buffs, debuffs, and status effects have completely unpredictable durations virtually impossible to keep track of in RT. Also modified by grazes and crits.

Giving all classes a lot of active abilities seemed like a reasonable solution to bridge the gap between more and less useful classes. But in the end every battle is just a flashing ball of ability activations. Also with completely unpredictable effect durations.

Tying characters up with engagements appeared like a good way to stop everyone just running past and through defense lines. But in conjunction with bad pathfinding it only made already super fiddly RTwP positioning outright frustrating. Now you have to babysit every character if you want to get anywhere on the battlefield, or else they're just going to randomly go sideways and be stuck engaged in a peripheral ball of enemies.

It's almost like Obsidian set up to showcase the worst possible case of RTwP in a cRPG.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Even taking into consideration D:OS and D:OS 2, they pale in comparison to the popularity and fame that Baldur's Gate received

Take those blinders off

 

[hexer]

Even taking into consideration D:OS and D:OS 2, they pale in comparison to the popularity and fame that Baldur's Gate received

Take those blinders off

He's right. Baldur's Gate sold 2.2 million copies by 2003.
Internally, BioWare's worldwide sales goal was 200.000 copies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate#Sales

Also, Baldur's Gate was voted as the favorite game in a poll of 1000 game developers in 2011.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-08-game-devs-favourite-is-baldurs-gate