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

[Lacrymas]

Speaking of team initiative, can we tell Larian not to hardcore the turn order this time around so we can mod in proper initiative?

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Troika was much more competent than Larian.

Larian: 1996-
Troika: 1998-2005

Yes... mediocre shit sells, because the world is made up of mongoloids and hoople-heads that dont understand art.

PS: Bethesda 1986-

Troika went under because they didn't master the art of slamdunk. You should never make 1 game in one engine. Unless you are Richard Gariott or something.
There is one rule to survival in the harsh cRPG environment: once you make a game that someone sorta likes, milk it dry.
Goldbox: 14 different games if I counted correctly
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne: the game itself had 2 re-releases and the combat system along with demon models were used in: Digital Devil Saga, Digital Devil Saga 2, Persona 3 (re-released twice), Persona 4 (re-released once)
Infinity Engine: Baldur's Gate, Tales from the Sword Coast expansion, Baldur's Gate 2, Throne of Bhaal expansion, Icewind Dale, Trial of the Luremaster expansion, Icewind Datel 2, Planescape Torment.
That's how you do it. Someone like Arcanum so I don't understand why there was no straight-sequel like a year later. I don't know if it was Troika's fault or just Sierra being stupid but someone didn't think things through.

I hope both Larian and Owlcat will milk their engines for at least 2 more games.

 

[Lacrymas]

There's nothing to milk from Unity. Larian's engine is pretty good and they've been tweaking it for a while now, so I don't see them abandoning it.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

There's nothing to milk from Unity. Larian's engine is pretty good and they've been tweaking it for a while now, so I don't see them abandoning it.

I mean the entire game-system as a whole. Owlcat can probably adapt 2 more Adventure Paths and then make a Starfinder game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, sure. But Pathfinder doesn't have *actually* good adventure paths afaik. Maybe they could try writing one of their own. One set in Geb maybe.

 

[Jedi Exile]

If Larian managed to stay afloat longer than Troika, this just means that Sven is more competent at running the company than Tim and Tim always admitted that he is not good at it and prefers to make games. This doesn't mean that games made by Larian are superior to the games Troika made. They were very different and aimed at different audiences.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Yeah, sure. But Pathfinder doesn't have *actually* good adventure paths afaik. Maybe they could try writing one of their own. One set in Geb maybe.

Sure, hell if WoTR is successful they could make their own D20 ripoff and bypass Paizio completely. I'm still angry for them for being against romancable halfling girls.

 

[Spectacle]

Yeah, sure. But Pathfinder doesn't have *actually* good adventure paths afaik. Maybe they could try writing one of their own. One set in Geb maybe.

Paizo's entire business was built around the popularity of their adventure paths. There's a lot of fans out there who really like the adventures.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I love giving options to the player BUT PF WotR will have Turn Based, PoE 2 received a turn based after his release. A mod managed to put turn based for PFKM, why Larian doesn't give the option of RtWP?

Hint: Check out "Arcanum".

Spoiler

Because they are not abject morons and don't want to double or triple their workload implementing wonky feature not matching the source mechanics that no sane player will ever use.

True. Troika was much more competent than Larian. If they can't do it, it's best Larian doesn't even attempt it. Good thing owlcat isn't completely inept. Lots of bugs but they aren't full useless degenerates

If Troika was so good, how come it's dead?

Larian survived because Sven cannot be killed. They made DD which almost killed them, then Beyond Divinity which was horrible, cheap cash-in with poor reception so obviously it saved the company. Then for 4 years they made shitty educational games to stay afloat to release Dvinity 2. Divinity 2 had mild reviews which didn't stop Larian from making an expansion pack for it and re-releasing it a couple more times for good measure.
Troika on the other hand released 3 games, all using different engines, rulesets and genres. No expansion packs, no follow-up sequels, no nothing. I don't know if it was publisher's interference that didn't let them do that but perhaps if they made 2 expansion packs for Arcanum and Arcanum II in the same engine a year or two later they would survive a bit longer.

Source engine killed troika

 

[DraQ]

A lot of alphas are saying that the AI is much better on the second game.

But you guys are right. Is better for a game to focus on RtWP or TB.

Larian could include a option to skip animations and put enemies in concurrent turns. Since there is a team initiative, it will work better than ToEE.

RT(WP) and phase-based can be done together essentially for free with certain implementations of phase-based, other than making RTWP the twitchy EZ mode.

RTWP + TB is essentially trying to make two games at once, albeit sharing assets and content.

Troika went under because they didn't master the art of slamdunk. You should never make 1 game in one engine.

You haven't mentioned NetImmerse/Gamebryo/Creation Engine.

And say what you want about Bethesda but at least the have been systematically innovating for most of their history (true that these days Bethesda is not exactly the same Bethesda) and even now they are still capable of learning and some clever tricks (the ways they managed content creation for locations in Skyrim and Morrowind is a good example of intelligently solving problems in game design).

In the end I don't know of a single competent cRPG company in existence:

• Bethesda does one step forward, three steps back and stumble over the railing followed by wilhelm scream routine most of the time. At best they blunder their way towards something cool while trampling good stuff as collateral damage, at worst it's just collateral damage.
  
• Larian regularly has clever ideas and good overall concepts marred a bit by pulling their punches and much more their adherence to mindobgglingly moronic game design concepts - stat inflation!, item fever!, item treadmill!, epic items in every crate (maybe)!
  
  And no, not their writing, shut the fuck up about the writing and humour already, you senile fucks, DOS1 was their only game that was cringe inducing in that regard and where their humour went mostly shitty, it worked perfectly fine in games before and DOS2 after is by far their most serious game to date, and no mater what your faulty memory tells you, only one of the IE games was Planescape: Torment and its writing, while by videogame standards still isn't as impressive as it seemed to your easily impressed teen ass.
• Interplay/BI/Troika/Obsidian can't hold their shit together in regards to business and commited their fair share of massive fuckups over time.
• Owlcat - I admit to not having played PF:K (I might or not play the next game) but it looks like they were trying really hard to suck BG fans' discks in hope of being paid (so at least they have some business sense) and judging from threads they don't exactly seem to grasp the difference between having and not having a DM and its impact on gameplay and game design, so I'm not exactly holding my breath once the trickle of BG landwhale cum dries out. Let's hope I'm completely and utterly wrong.
  
• And BW was never good to begin with even when they weren't shambling corpse of its former self reanimated by foul EAmancers. They just managed to release Oblivion of their times as a fluke and general public was already tasteless enough to swallow it.

 

[Swen]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

 

[Cryomancer]

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

Well, technically Larian owns a licence, D&D and other things still IP of WoTC. I an perfectly fine with Turn Based. I just wish that Larian will not butcher the classes and spells, will follow the 5e rules and put a option for concurrent turns and a option to speed up animations. ToEE had concurrent turns, and Dark Sun : Shattered Lands which is the best low level D&D game that i have played allow you to skip animations(i only used on final battle which is insanely long and required many tries).

And my guess is that people will mod the game to make more P&P like even if Larian decides to destroy certain classes. See the Spell Fixes for NWN2 which fixes arcane casters.

 

[Harthwain]

where did all the discussion about mana and non-mana systems even come from? Gone back almost 10 pages and can't find it.

I think it sprung from discussion about cooldowns being illogical.

That's correct.

And no, not their writing, shut the fuck up about the writing and humour already, you senile fucks, DOS1 was their only game that was cringe inducing in that regard and where their humour went mostly shitty, it worked perfectly fine in games before and DOS2 after is by far their most serious game to date, and no mater what your faulty memory tells you, only one of the IE games was Planescape: Torment and its writing, while by videogame standards still isn't as impressive as it seemed to your easily impressed teen ass.

The problem isn't the writing itself, it's the attempt at humor. And not just the attempt at humor, but the quantity of it. I'd compare it to games where devil/death themes are supposed to be overly humoristic and constantly thrown in your face. It's over the top caricature that gets drawn out to the point of not really being fun. The worst part is not that it isn't fun, but that it ends up being tiring instead, because you're constantly bombarded with the supposed "humor". At least that's my impression.

 

[Swen]

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

Well, technically Larian owns a licence, D&D and other things still IP of WoTC. I an perfectly fine with Turn Based. I just wish that Larian will not butcher the classes and spells, will follow the 5e rules and put a option for concurrent turns and a option to speed up animations. ToEE had concurrent turns, and Dark Sun : Shattered Lands which is the best low level D&D game that i have played allow you to skip animations(i only used on final battle which is insanely long and required many tries)

Well, why not give Larian a chance? Could be much better than you guys think it will be.

And there's a big chance BGIII will become a success so expect that the franchise will be in Larian's hands for a long time.

 

[Cryomancer]

Well, why not give Larian a chance? Could be much better than you guys think it will be.

Yes, i will purchase BG3. And play. Turn Based games are great. BG1/2 is RtWP by a lot of decisions involving the belief that TB is a thing from the past and RTS experience. I loved Divine Divinity, found Divinity II: Developer's Cut good and only din't liked dos1/2. Mainly because i don't like most modern RPG "tropes". Chances are, BG3 will have no cooldown and a 5e itemization, it by itself is enough reason to give a chance.

 

[Swen]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Btw, in what fcking world is Larian equal to Bethesda when it comes to fucking over consumers? Your blind, obsessive Larian hates knows no bounds.

 

[Ontopoly]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

This guy is such a blind cultist that he named himself after swen. Or he's just an attention whore. Either way he resembles swen from Larian; absolute dog shit. What a degenerate. A degenerate with a gimmick account is the worst kind of degenerate.

 

[Ontopoly]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Btw, in what fcking world is Larian equal to Bethesda when it comes to fucking over consumers? Your blind, obsessive Larian hates knows no bounds.

The ranking wasn't in terms of fucking over consumers. It was just a general who sucks the most ranking.

 

[Thac0]

Its not that hard to nail a good game on the 5e systems, they are very simple. Its not rocket science. I for one am optimistic Larian cant fuck this up, and maybe they will even improve their autistic writing a bit.

 

[Swen]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

This guy is such a blind cultist that he named himself after swen. Or he's just an attention whore. Either way he resembles swen from Larian; absolute dog shit. What a degenerate. A degenerate with a gimmick account is the worst kind of degenerate.

Or maybe your opinion and taste are dog shit? Oh and Troika is crap compared to Larian, thankfully they're gone. Meanwhile Larina rules the CRPG genre and there's nothing you can do about it except crying like a bitch.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

This guy is such a blind cultist that he named himself after swen. Or he's just an attention whore. Either way he resembles swen from Larian; absolute dog shit. What a degenerate. A degenerate with a gimmick account is the worst kind of degenerate.

Or maybe your opinion and taste are dog shit? Oh and Troika is crap compared to Larian, thankfully they're gone. Meanwhile Larina rules the CRPG genre and there's nothing you can do about it except crying like a bitch.

The difference between Troika and Larian is that the former made an actual legendary game, with a large cult following that's strong to this day (doesn't it sound it just like Baldur's Gate?). Larian has yet to make one - and we'll see if they ever manage this feat.

 

[Cryomancer]

Well, i don't agree with all hate towards Larian BUT Larian ruling the mainstream CRPG market after BioWare got EAzed, BUGthesda dumbed down, Obsidian sold their soul to M$ and tons of other companies failed, is not that a big deal. Despite not liking DOS2, compared to Dragon Age Inquisition and Fallout 4, DOS2 is a near perfect game. DOS2 is a incline compared to most modern games but still a decline if compared to any 90s/00s game.

Maybe BG3 will be good and use more old school mechanics that makes more sense, maybe Larian will butcher the rules. Who knows?

 

[NJClaw]

Troika was too passionate and pure for a world filled with larians and Bethesdas. We didn't deserve them and they provided for us anyways. We should be grateful that we got anything at all.

One interesting tidbit is how the divinity original sin 2 steam page has Larian as the creator of baldur's gate 3, even though it's not released. Prestige.

Shameless cunts.

Das right boy, Baldur's Gate is Larian's now and you can't do anything about it. Keep on crying here with the rest of the RTWP, Larian hating neckbeards that's all you can do.

This guy is such a blind cultist that he named himself after swen. Or he's just an attention whore. Either way he resembles swen from Larian; absolute dog shit. What a degenerate. A degenerate with a gimmick account is the worst kind of degenerate.

Is this an incredible attempt at self-deprecating humor or are you actually so blind that you can't see you are the epitome of gimmick accounts?

 

[Shadenuat]

Troika made rpg art, not games. They made three wonderful pieces adhering to what roleplaying should be and to pnp tradition and died. And for that, I love them.

 

[Cryomancer]

Troika games was so amazing that if you are a necromancer on Arcanum, you can even speak with the dead to solve quests in a different way. The modern standard of fully voice acting kinda makes it impossible to exist on modern mainstream RPG's. Still can exist on AA and indie RPG's, but...

I prefer CRPG in turns BUT if Larian decides to make a sequel to a 2 decade old franchise, of course fans of that franchise would like to experience something like that franchise. The unique downside of BG3 at this moment is IMO comments from Swen about missing and spell slots AND the lv cap = 10 which is not a big problem since most 5e modules are low level modules. Is not like pathfinder where most modules end up around lv 15~17 and there are some modules which end on mythic levels.