Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[AwesomeButton]

In case anyone didn't read the RPS interview:

The story itself will not be a direct continuation of events from the original game. “The story of the previous Baldur’s Gate was closed – it was actually closed, in a certain sense, in a tapletop campaign called Murder At Baldur’s Gate [where the murder of the original protagnoist triggers the action – ed], so that’s where it really came to its closure,” says Vincke.

What he can tell me is that “we are in the city of Baldur’s Gate, we’re in Forgotten Realms and stuff has happened in the world since [D&D’s] 3.5 edition. This game directly follows a new campaign called Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus, we worked very closely with them on that, and so our story continues right after that.” This makes talking about the game even more challenging, as Ascent Into Avernus isn’t out until September and Vincke doesn’t want to spoil how that story unfolds.

Some more fun quotes from that article. Emphasis mine.

“Baldur’s Gate added a few things to the state of the art back in 1998,” says Vincke. “The party became much more important, there were the relationships between the party – much more in Baldur’s Gate 2 than one.

Ohhh, BG3 will have deep companions. Can't wait! Maybe we can go deep too? hurmm...

And all this is true of Baldur’s Gate 3? “Yeah. The party’s going to be big, exploration’s going to be big, player agency is going to be big, decisions are going to be big, multiplayer is going to be big – and single player, obviously. The originals were also tough games, so challenges are going to be big.”

Decision? Big. Exploration? Big. Agency? HUGE! Multiplayer?

Spoiler

Man, sign me the fuck up!!

That shift to modern D&D rules is the biggest clue we get as to how the game will play. It means saying goodbye to the Infinity Engine, for starters. “Those were great games for their time, but next year is 2020 and you can’t do the same things you did back then. No one would want to play it. Well, people would want to play it, but it wouldn’t meet the expectations of a modern video game” says Vincke.

Heh, the type of game that no one wants to play is the type you released less than 2 years ago? Ohhhh, and modern video game expectations too huh? Wonder why I keep thinking this will be a TPP action rpg.

“The thing about player agency and making tough decisions is that if it goes badly it should go badly. We’re going to be following that recipe, yes.” And while you’ll still have to pick your character’s moral alignment, “In 5th edition [rules] the impact of alignment is a bit lesser than it used to be in 2nd edition. So that will be less.”

Same choice, less consequence. Nice.


This news is a wet fart. Has the codex not learned anything?

I've read only two previews, and I kept thinking of Sword Coast Legends. What was their sin? I would say:
1. Misdirecting expectations by constantly name-dropping Baldur's Gate
2. Releasing very little content - their budget was too limited for the expectations they set up
3. Insufficient hype, because the developers' nonexistent track record. The dev leads were virtually unknown to the RPG audience - they had been making console games up to that point if I'm not mistaken. Also, again marketing constraints.
4. The game felt very generic in its presentation and at the same time very primitive in its level of challenge, failed to keep anyone intereseted - neither the inexperienced nor the experienced RPG players.

Comparing this situation to the situation Larian finds themselves in, I'd say their BG3 has every prospect of being a Sword Coast Legends that will receive, contrary to the original Sword Coast Legends, perfect reception by the audience and critics, while being a shamelessly bad RPG. Pretty much like D:OS2 was.

 

[J_C]

Ladies and Gentlemen, what do YOU think? Will they retcon (for the third time) the whole Abdel Adrian/CHARNAME thing, tastefully ignore it, or sooner or later bite the bullet and just flat out state the facts?

Who is Abdel Adrian?

Where does it say "no misses"?

Read his interview on page 47 or 48 - "We tried to do 5th edition but failed, cuz it's not fun to miss"

Spoiler

The systems
Baldur’s Gate uses a the “real-time with pause” combat system — all the dice rolls are happening, and you can pause the action to do your next moves (or even adjust your settings to where it’s almost a turn-based RPG). Larian’s last two RPGs — the Divinity: Original Sin games — use turn-based combat.

I asked if Baldur’s Gate III would have turn-based or real-time-with-pause combat.

“This is one of those interviews where we’ll be saying ‘We’re not talking about that yet’ a lot,” Vincke said. “When it comes to the combat system, we prefer to show it to people rather than talk about it. That will hammer it home. But it will still be some time before we actually show it.”

The last game from the studio with real-time action was Divinty: Dragon Commander from 2013 … and that’s a real-time strategy affair. The earlier Divinity action-RPGs have real-time combat as well. Vincke laughed when I asked when was the last real-time game from Larian, recalling Dragon Commander.

I also asked if Baldur’s Gate III would be a faithful adaptation of the 5th edition rules, as the series’ other games are for 2nd Edition (and Neverwinter Nights is for 3rd Edition). 2015’s Sword Coast Legends (the most recent single-player D&D PC game) replaced spell slots, feats, and other abilities with skill trees, and it suffered for it.

“We started with a very rigorous port of the ruleset. Then we started looking at what worked and what didn’t work. Because obviously, it’s a video game, so not everything translates very well. We modified where it made sense to start modifying,” Vincke said.

One of the modifications: Misses from dice rolls. “The very obvious one would be that you tend to miss a lot when you roll the dice, which is fine when you’re playing on the tabletop, but it’s not so cool when you’re playing a video game,” Vincke said. “We had to have solutions for that.”

He wouldn’t comment if it would come with a game master mode, as Divinity: Original Sin II does.
One of the best features of the Original Sin games is how different elements and terrain interact in combat. If water’s on the ground, you can cast an electricity spell to create an area-of-effect damaging effect on the puddle. Vincke said Larian is trying to do this.

“I have an example I use for this. When you play a tabletop game, often at some point the Dungeon Master is going to [ask] you, ‘What do you do?’ Video games in general are limited in what you can do. Our ambition is to make it as broad as possible, what you can do. This is literally one of the very big focuses of making the game,” Vincke said. “When it comes to combat, when you’re playing tabletop, you’ll look around you, see what’s in the environment, and try to use it. We’re putting a heavy focus on that.”

Baldur’s Gate III will not use the same game engine as the Original Sin series. “We’ve been in development on this game for several years already. It’s not the same engine as those two, but it is our own engine. It’s built on the technology that we already have,” Vincke said.

That....doesn't mean there will be no missses, you know that, right?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Ladies and Gentlemen, what do YOU think? Will they retcon (for the third time) the whole Abdel Adrian/CHARNAME thing, tastefully ignore it, or sooner or later bite the bullet and just flat out state the facts?

Who is Abdel Adrian?

The name of the Bhaalspawn in the Baldur's Gate book.

 

[J_C]

Ladies and Gentlemen, what do YOU think? Will they retcon (for the third time) the whole Abdel Adrian/CHARNAME thing, tastefully ignore it, or sooner or later bite the bullet and just flat out state the facts?

Who is Abdel Adrian?

The name of the Bhaalspawn in the Baldur's Gate book.

Oh. Eh, who the fuck cares then? I doubt they will even acknowledge it, I think to most gamers the game's story is what matters, and we know the fate of CHARNAME there.

 

[boobio]

Lol this thing is a writer for larian.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Lol this thing is a writer for larian.

Who did what and how should we feel about it?

 

[Saerain]

To be optimistic, maybe they're just writing a Malkavian. Wait, where am I?

 

[Saerain]

Sure. Maybe you're typing "club" instead of "cub"?

He's a hoot. Love the twisted Antifa shit. But at least there's this caveat emptor:

 

[Yosharian]

The Lord of Murder is woke, y'all.

 

[Yosharian]

I posted this earlier, but a typo disrupted the whole affair. In any case, it was 1988. Die Hard, Beetlejuice, Big, A Fish Called Wanda, The Accused, Working Girl, The Last Temptation Of Christ, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Beaches, My Neighbor Totoro, Willow, Bull Durham...

...Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Land Before Time, Heathers, The Accidental Tourist, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Hairspray, Midnight Run. Rain Man won best picture that year, which, whatever.

What's wrong with Rain Man? I loved that movie...

So 1988 was a year for memorable movies, and I don't know that I could pick one. Oh, and there was Mystic Pizza. Also, I have a soft spot for Alien Nation. All the same year. Incredible.

Ah yes, Mystic Pizza.

This guy is 47 years old btw.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Who did what and how should we feel about it?

I don't know what exactly but I expect dumb shit

 

[Edija]

Here is how it will look.
Larian never wanted to make good games. They just were looking for bunch of idiots to fuck out of money selling them lies. After they were cash strapped after failure to get that AAA cashcow crowd they went and they sold you dreams. Like whore who presented itself for cheap to 30 year old incel. They recovered and now they are looking again for that AAA lowest denominator crowd. The moment cash will really start flowing they will drop everything you liked about them and will fully transform themselves into Bioware you know now.




You can't teach old dog new tricks.

This is the story of post Divine Divinity Larian, nothing new.

 

[Perkel]

Bloodlines 2 is being made. Baldurs Gate 3 is being made. Even Torment 2 was made.

Then Beamdog tries to make another Planescape and fails miserably. Omg, Beamdog haha, its so sad but at the same time is so funny.

Wait till you realize they made best game out of those.

 

[Yosharian]

Looks like he's a games journalist turned developer. In one of his tweets he's talking about when he used to be a critic.

 

[Tacgnol]

Looks like he's a games journalist turned developer. In one of his tweets he's talking about when he used to be a critic.

The games journalism containment protocol has completely failed.

 

[LESS T_T]

I vaguely remember him appreciating the Codex review of D:OS 2 as a valid criticism. Wonder that tweet was lost.

 

[Thalion]

If WotC wanted a 3rd person Baldur’s Gate they wouldn’t have asked Larian. They’d have turned to CD Projekt Red or Square Enix or whoever makes those kind of games nowadays.

Just because D:OS2 was successful I don't think that means all of Larian's games are going to be clones of it from here on out.

 

[Rahdulan]

Matt always asks the right questions.

Have any journos asked this? It's actually kinda important considering this is Larian and Baldur's Gate we're talking about.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Yea, but they're not ready to reveal that yet.

 

[LESS T_T]

CEO of WotC himself, also refers this a AAA RPG: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6542433903997792256/

Take a sneak peak at the next chapter in the legendary Baldur's Gate saga, Baldur's Gate III! So psyched to be partnering with Larian Studios, the developers and publishers of BG3. All of us at Wizards are big fans of their games and craft. They are the perfect team to bring a AAA RPG like Baldur's Gate to life.

 

[Jimmious]

Somehow I feel they might make it turn-based after all. The notion that RTwP is not compatible with new gamers might just mean that according to their experience, TB is. They grew because of TB games after all.
I highly doubt they'd go third person, after all they have to be given some credit for staying true to some basic cRPG principles - they are not bringers of decline like Bethesda

 

[FeelTheRads]

SO PSYCHED!!!
Can't be just excited, you have to be PSYCHED!

Of course it's a AAA game. It was already mentioned there are like 300 people working on it. What would that be if not AAA? Community developed?
Just wait, after the "developed for modern sensibilities" reveal I'm now expecting the "cinematic experience" one.

 

[Thal]

I'm playing BG1 right now, and I'm 100% sure that Larian won't be able to capture the feel of the game, that sense of down-to-earth adventure. It probably won't be able to capture the feel of BG2 either. However, they won't even try. Much has changed in the past 20 years, and nowadays these games are made for a completely different audience. Also, the reason why people have talked about BG3 all these years is because they think these epic sagas should be trilogies. But the fact is, the story ended with BG2, just like Terminator 2 is the real ending. For better or worse, Throne of Bhaal IS BG3.

That being said, the fact that the Bhaalspawn saga is over is only a good thing. The name is just a marketing trick. What we actually have here, is that Larian is making a big budget CRPG set in Forgotten Realms, a game that is contractually bound to use DnD rules. As far as I can tell, there is no better studio to that. Larian knows how to make content, they know how to make challenging encounters, and they know better than to include a quest compass. It won't be Oblivion with Illithids, and it can't be a Fallout 3 either. Fallout was an original IP that was primarily based on two CRPGs. Forgotten Realms in much bigger than that, and therefore there is less to rape. Baldur's Gate existed before BG1 and exists after BG2. There is no reason not to make game that is set there. If the game will be disappointing, it's because its AAA shit, not because Larian made it.

 

[Curratum]

Larian making the game as an extension of Descent into Avernus official WotC material probably means there is no way the new stuff will be low-key. I'm not sure you can even grind from level 1 to being able to fight powerful illithids within the span of the same game.

 

[hexer]

SO PSYCHED!!!
Can't be just excited, you have to be PSYCHED!

Of course it's a AAA game. It was already mentioned there are like 300 people working on it. What would that be if not AAA? Community developed?
Just wait, after the "developed for modern sensibilities" reveal I'm not expecting the "cinematic experience" one.

Hellblade was a small AAA game made by 20 devs.
I think AC Unity was a AAA game made by 300 devs.
We can expect loooooots of content.