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- Jan 28, 2011
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Tags: Baldur's Gate 3; Larian Studios
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987
Since launching last month, a lot of tweaks and updates can already be seen in Baldur's Gate 3. Over the past few weeks we've chased down bugs, polished up some cinematics, and used your feedback to help organize our thoughts and inform our plans going forward. The first major patch just launched, solving over 1000 bugs to hopefully make Baldur’s Gate 3 an even better experience. But it was still a patch designed primarily to squash bugs.
We want to go further than that. We now find ourselves at a time where we’re able to properly sit down and consider how to parse feedback beyond bug fixing and UX tweaks. Patch 2 is just around the corner, and while it does include bug fixes, it also includes substantial performance improvements for the first time since launch. Perhaps more notably, we’re adding better closure to the story’s final act in the form of a more fleshed-out ending for Karlach - something many of you have been asking for.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a moment to focus on a conversation some of you have been having in the background. Many of the points that come out of this conversation are being funneled into the umbrella term of ‘cut content’, so we thought it would be helpful to give you some clarity about that as we think about the future of Baldur’s Gate 3.
We went through many different threads and reviews with our community teams, and we think we’ve managed to truncate the discussion about cut content and Act 3 into three topics: Performance, Bugs, and User Experience.
User Experience. UX covers a lot of things: from how it feels to play the game, to how you feel when you’re playing it. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game 3 years in Early Access and 6 years in the making. Many of the ‘building blocks’ or ideas, tests, or however you want to refer to the junk data that falls outside of what we shipped with, can and is being datamined. That’s okay, but it’s important to understand that not every building block in the giant box of Lego is needed to create the experience we ultimately envisioned and intended over years of iteration.
We’ve seen three types of complaints that are being referred to as cut content:
The first references content that actually doesn’t properly trigger because of a bug, for instance some of Minthara’s reactivity. We’ve located what’s causing that and are working on it - expect a fix for this soon.
The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.
We’ve started expanding the epilogues and you’ll see the first results of that in Patch 2 with the addition of a new optional ending with Karlach. It’s fiery, poignant, and gives her the ending she deserves.
The third is about the things we actually didn’t plan for, and those we once considered but ultimately didn’t do.
It was always our intention for the Upper City to be an epic, cinematic epilogue bringing the story of Baldur’s Gate 3 to a close. But we didn’t talk about that in advance because it would have been a major spoiler.
We feel confident that there’s enough content in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the city itself, clocking in weeks-long playthroughs at a time. But that’s not to say Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t see cuts just as every game. It’s just important to know that what ultimately shipped was planned long ago, in function primarily of making Baldur’s Gate 3 fun to play, not for us to close development quickly.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game with many release dates, and despite us moving its launch up by around a month, it’s still a couple years late. It was late because we grew teams, ambition, and ideas in function of it being the best game it could possibly be. Thankfully, not every idea makes it into the final launch. It wouldn’t be the game you enjoy if they did.
We’re happy that Baldur’s Gate 3 has resonated with a great many of you, but we’ll never take that for granted. We’re committed to tying up loose ends, fixing the remaining bugs, and improving things where we see they could - and should - be improved.
We want to go further than that. We now find ourselves at a time where we’re able to properly sit down and consider how to parse feedback beyond bug fixing and UX tweaks. Patch 2 is just around the corner, and while it does include bug fixes, it also includes substantial performance improvements for the first time since launch. Perhaps more notably, we’re adding better closure to the story’s final act in the form of a more fleshed-out ending for Karlach - something many of you have been asking for.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a moment to focus on a conversation some of you have been having in the background. Many of the points that come out of this conversation are being funneled into the umbrella term of ‘cut content’, so we thought it would be helpful to give you some clarity about that as we think about the future of Baldur’s Gate 3.
We went through many different threads and reviews with our community teams, and we think we’ve managed to truncate the discussion about cut content and Act 3 into three topics: Performance, Bugs, and User Experience.
User Experience. UX covers a lot of things: from how it feels to play the game, to how you feel when you’re playing it. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game 3 years in Early Access and 6 years in the making. Many of the ‘building blocks’ or ideas, tests, or however you want to refer to the junk data that falls outside of what we shipped with, can and is being datamined. That’s okay, but it’s important to understand that not every building block in the giant box of Lego is needed to create the experience we ultimately envisioned and intended over years of iteration.
We’ve seen three types of complaints that are being referred to as cut content:
The first references content that actually doesn’t properly trigger because of a bug, for instance some of Minthara’s reactivity. We’ve located what’s causing that and are working on it - expect a fix for this soon.
The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.
We’ve started expanding the epilogues and you’ll see the first results of that in Patch 2 with the addition of a new optional ending with Karlach. It’s fiery, poignant, and gives her the ending she deserves.
The third is about the things we actually didn’t plan for, and those we once considered but ultimately didn’t do.
It was always our intention for the Upper City to be an epic, cinematic epilogue bringing the story of Baldur’s Gate 3 to a close. But we didn’t talk about that in advance because it would have been a major spoiler.
We feel confident that there’s enough content in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the city itself, clocking in weeks-long playthroughs at a time. But that’s not to say Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t see cuts just as every game. It’s just important to know that what ultimately shipped was planned long ago, in function primarily of making Baldur’s Gate 3 fun to play, not for us to close development quickly.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game with many release dates, and despite us moving its launch up by around a month, it’s still a couple years late. It was late because we grew teams, ambition, and ideas in function of it being the best game it could possibly be. Thankfully, not every idea makes it into the final launch. It wouldn’t be the game you enjoy if they did.
We’re happy that Baldur’s Gate 3 has resonated with a great many of you, but we’ll never take that for granted. We’re committed to tying up loose ends, fixing the remaining bugs, and improving things where we see they could - and should - be improved.
"The game lasts for 100+ hours, but we thought that extra 5 minutes was pushing it too far". Even Godd Todd would tell you that this is lame PR.
