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

[frajaq]

I only dislike that this leaked while I asleep...

 

[Daidre]

I'm talking about protection from spells specifically, not stuff like immunity to weapons. The skeleton for these exist in the rules, it was just built upon in the IE-games.

And don't cite me for calling AD&D balanced on higher levels, please. Anyone who knows anything about me will know I think the exact opposite. Even so, it cannot compete with PF/3.5 in this regard, and the main reason is the vast increase in complexity.

I just tried to say that AD&D in general (that I know nothing about, I admit) and its Bioware's implementation in BG 2 are completely different animals.
So discussion AD&D vs D&D 3.5/Pathfinder where all arguments are fished from corresponding games is more a BG2 vs Kingmaker kind of argument? None of them is close enough to PnP for this to be a proper talk about PnP systems.

 

[Decado]

The first person narrative of the dialog is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a video game. Ever. It is horrible. This is what I mean about Larian and their goofy-ass approach to things. Why do they do this? What is the benefit of introducing such a horribly clunky narrative style? It is pure garbage, infuriating to read. Any half-decent writer in English would have told Sven this is a terrible fucking idea.

 

[Saerain]

I only dislike that this leaked while I asleep...

It's bound to happen with age.

 

[Lady_Error]

Imagine thinking we could have incline for a change.

Imagine thinking that taking the risk to create the first ever TURN-BASED and ISOMETRIC RPG on an AAA-budget is somehow "decline".

 

[Farewell into the night]

Console RPG

 

[Saerain]

The first person narrative of the dialog is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a video game. Ever. It is horrible. This is what I mean about Larian and their goofy-ass approach to things. Why do they do this? What is the benefit of introducing such a horribly clunky narrative style? It is pure garbage, infuriating to read. Any half-decent writer in English would have told Sven this is a terrible fucking idea.

If only it was present-tense like how people generally play D&D, they could at least use that reasoning.

 

[Daidre]

The first person narrative of the dialog is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a video game. Ever. It is horrible. This is what I mean about Larian and their goofy-ass approach to things. Why do they do this? What is the benefit of introducing such a horribly clunky narrative style? It is pure garbage, infuriating to read. Any half-decent writer in English would have told Sven this is a terrible fucking idea.

Only benefit I could see is saving fuckton of money on writing, C&C and voice overs.

I think that expectation is that players would happily eat this kind of "dialogues" and would ask for more.

 

[turkishronin]

Just seeing a few screenshots made me feel bored. Imagine this going on for like 40-50 hours :/

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The first person narrative of the dialog is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a video game. Ever. It is horrible. This is what I mean about Larian and their goofy-ass approach to things. Why do they do this? What is the benefit of introducing such a horribly clunky narrative style? It is pure garbage, infuriating to read. Any half-decent writer in English would have told Sven this is a terrible fucking idea.

I'm not strictly a fan of this approach, but in all honesty I also don't give a shit about it and I think for all intents and purposes it's practically inconsequential.
I'd be curious to read something *rational* about why do you people care so fucking much about trivial shit like this.

In practical terms the difference between a non-voiced
"Yes, I agree"
and a non-voiced
*I told him I agreed*
is entirely flavor. It doesn't change a fucking thing.

 

[LESS T_T]

With an AAA budget.

And that's an issue. AAA product requires AAA sales, and those imply as wide audience as possible, ergo a shallow game.

Like I said, I expect this to be Larian's swansong because a lengthy TB RPG is not AAA territory. I don't really see how they would manage to spread it as wide as possible with the other aspects. Graphics? Ok, but everything else? It doesn't seem like it's ripe for lowest common denominator.

This discussion reminded me of a 2018 interview with Larian's publishing director:

GC: It is always about the marketing. I’m a big fan of turn-based strategy games, especially XCOM – which your combat has something in common with, and I foolishly imagined it was going to be a big mainstream hit when they got it working so well on consoles. But of course it was a mild hit at best. But it seems with your games they should be much more successful than they are too, much better known…

MD: We’ve done a lot of data crunching, so we know what our market cap is on each console and PC. I think we’re about halfway through our market cap on PC, we can get another one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half million players I think on PC. But it’s true. And these kind of challenges, on how to communicate the game on many, many different levels, and dealing with the fact that people think it’s a CRPG when it’s really a co-op board game. All of these kind of things are a challenge.

And we’re growing, we’re successful, we’re not desperate. So working these things out with this kind of safe level of iteration, and growing as a publishing team and growing as a developer, it’s really a privileged place to be in. Because we’re not scrambling, we’re just listening and we’re watching and sort of growing. So I completely agree.

An interesting point about XCOM compared to CRPGs is we actually have more people who are XCOM players than we do that are Pillars Of Eternity players. So those parallels are really there, the data shows us that those parallels are there. But the most difficult thing, and I’ll tell you this, is trying to explain to publishing people why the game is such a success. It’s not the players.

The players, if you put it in their hands they have a great time, but people who look at this and go, ‘Well, why is this a success?’ They can’t work it out, and they don’t realise that it’s closer to a game like XCOM than it is Pillars and all of these kinds of things. So these are the greatest challenges. It’s more on the business side than it is on the community side.

The community really have our back. It’s really, really fun to work with everyone on that.

So they thought their market cap for this kind of game on PC is 3 to 4 million copies.

 

[Curratum]

I'm suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance, where I both strongly like and dislike what I see on the screenshots and it's making me feel uneasy.

 

[Decado]

The first person narrative of the dialog is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a video game. Ever. It is horrible. This is what I mean about Larian and their goofy-ass approach to things. Why do they do this? What is the benefit of introducing such a horribly clunky narrative style? It is pure garbage, infuriating to read. Any half-decent writer in English would have told Sven this is a terrible fucking idea.

I'm not strictly a fan of this approach, but in all honesty I also don't give a shit about it and I think for all intents and purposes it's practically inconsequential.
I'd be curious to read something *rational* about hwy do you people care so fucking much about trivial shit like this.

How about because it is bad writing? Like, bad on a third-grade level. High school creative writing students write better than this. It is so completely ridiculous it makes me wonder why they're doing it. It's like putting ketchup on pancakes. What the fuck is the chef thinking?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Imagine thinking we could have incline for a change.

Imagine thinking that taking the risk to create the first ever TURN-BASED and ISOMETRIC RPG on an AAA-budget is somehow "decline".

Muh turn based combat.

If this was Divinity 3 you'd probably wouldn't be giving much of a shit.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

How about because it is bad writing? Like, bad on a third-grade level.

How about you stop making fucking dumb claims as if they were a matter of fact and try a bit harder on the "rational" part of your justification?

 

[Lacrymas]

This discussion reminded me of a 2018 interview with Larian's publishing director:

GC: It is always about the marketing. I’m a big fan of turn-based strategy games, especially XCOM – which your combat has something in common with, and I foolishly imagined it was going to be a big mainstream hit when they got it working so well on consoles. But of course it was a mild hit at best. But it seems with your games they should be much more successful than they are too, much better known…

MD: We’ve done a lot of data crunching, so we know what our market cap is on each console and PC. I think we’re about halfway through our market cap on PC, we can get another one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half million players I think on PC. But it’s true. And these kind of challenges, on how to communicate the game on many, many different levels, and dealing with the fact that people think it’s a CRPG when it’s really a co-op board game. All of these kind of things are a challenge.

And we’re growing, we’re successful, we’re not desperate. So working these things out with this kind of safe level of iteration, and growing as a publishing team and growing as a developer, it’s really a privileged place to be in. Because we’re not scrambling, we’re just listening and we’re watching and sort of growing. So I completely agree.

An interesting point about XCOM compared to CRPGs is we actually have more people who are XCOM players than we do that are Pillars Of Eternity players. So those parallels are really there, the data shows us that those parallels are there. But the most difficult thing, and I’ll tell you this, is trying to explain to publishing people why the game is such a success. It’s not the players.

The players, if you put it in their hands they have a great time, but people who look at this and go, ‘Well, why is this a success?’ They can’t work it out, and they don’t realise that it’s closer to a game like XCOM than it is Pillars and all of these kinds of things. So these are the greatest challenges. It’s more on the business side than it is on the community side.

The community really have our back. It’s really, really fun to work with everyone on that.

So they thought their market cap for this kind of game on PC is 3 to 4 million copies.

Mmm, just like with PoE, putting all of your eggs in the "we have potential customers" basket is not wise. Can they differentiate between sales, how much the players actually liked the game, and whether they played it at all or it's just sitting in their library due to an impulse purchase? Obsidian weren't smart about PoE2 because they didn't heed the abysmal sales of White March, D:OS2 didn't have DLC (which was a mistake from the point of view of statistic collection), so they are going in even more blind. Marketing "specialists" are routinely wrong about these things. I'm not saying I can do a better job than them, I'm just saying there are historical cases and precedents, quite recently in fact.

 

[Terenty]

At least it will be better than Outer Worlds

I retract my statement

 

[Strange Fellow]

Imagine thinking we could have incline for a change.

Imagine thinking that taking the risk to create the first ever TURN-BASED and ISOMETRIC RPG on an AAA-budget is somehow "decline".

Muh turn based combat.

If this was Divinity 3 you'd probably wouldn't be giving much of a shit.

If this were Divinity 3 it would be a third-person action RPG.

If this were Divinity: Original Sin 3 it wouldn't be using the D&D ruleset. That's a major difference right there.

 

[frajaq]

NOOOOOOO YOU CANT MAKE A TB GAME BASED ON A TB RPG RULESET AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

 

[Frusciante]

Well it could have been way way worse.

This is DOS 3, but with a better ruleset, way more interesting setting and slightly better art style. So all in all it has very good potential to be an enjoyable RPG. In a best case scenario this will further establish the idea that AAA isometric TB rpgs can also have commercial succes.

That being said, art style and dialogue style could have been way better.

 

[Lady_Error]

Imagine thinking we could have incline for a change.

Imagine thinking that taking the risk to create the first ever TURN-BASED and ISOMETRIC RPG on an AAA-budget is somehow "decline".

Muh turn based combat.

If this was Divinity 3 you'd probably wouldn't be giving much of a shit.

Dude, we know your black piller shtick. "Everything is getting worse because muh Kali Yuga". It's making you miserable and yet you continue with this self-defeating belief.

I liked D:OS a lot, so why should I dislike D:OS in the Forgotten Realms setting?

 

[Decado]

How about because it is bad writing? Like, bad on a third-grade level.

How about you stop making fucking dumb claims as if they were a matter of fact and try a bit harder on the "rational" part of your justification?

If you're asking me why the screen-shotted dialog is bad writing, I'm going to assume English isn't your first language. If English is your first language, and you still don't see a problem with that horribly clunky shit, you have no taste or you can't fucking read.

ETA: Forget about all of the rules it is violating -- show don't tell, heavy use of filtering, etc. If you even know what those things are. You probably don't.

ETA2:

In practical terms the difference between a non-voiced
"Yes, I agree"
and a non-voiced
*I told him I agreed*
is entirely flavor. It doesn't change a fucking thing.

Lol it is not FLAVOR you idiot. It is definition of filtering, the hallmark of classically bad writing in fiction. You don't know what you're talking about, at all.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Imagine thinking we could have incline for a change.

Imagine thinking that taking the risk to create the first ever TURN-BASED and ISOMETRIC RPG on an AAA-budget is somehow "decline".

Muh turn based combat.

If this was Divinity 3 you'd probably wouldn't be giving much of a shit.

If this were Divinity 3 it would be a third-person action RPG.

If this were Divinity: Original Sin 3 it wouldn't be using the D&D ruleset. That's a major difference right there.

Stop being autistic obviously i meant Original Sin 3.

Not sure why the ruleset makes any difference. The fact of the matter is that the game isn't a must buy or something to get your pants in a twist about just because it is turn based.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Repost from the leak thread...

Those ?DIALOGS? had me all ?WHAT? at first.

Then it came to me, it might be some form of character/player creation/backstory thing...

Thoughts?

Zep--

 

[Jimmious]

OK I'm gonna come back to see more precious butthurt after the actual gameplay