Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Varnaan]

I like how people bash the singing of this game where you have games with stuff like this and nobody complains.

The Slavic retard gang won't let you get away with this.

 

[copebot]

I suspect that BG1 also benefited massively from the preceding pen-and-paper campaign ran by James Ohlen. A lot of concepts and characters were fleshed out and tested before the game entered production, which is why the game just works. Characters such as Minsc and Edwin are memorable despite having only a handful of lines. Now compare this to the absolutely stupid 24h time limit Sawyer was given to develop the first story draft for IWD2. And didn't something similar happen with Pillars 1 too, which is why the souls angle was the best thing they could come up with?

POE1 has an overwhelming number of words and characters. Most of those characters do nothing, make no memorable decisions, sacrifice nothing, have no meaningful relationships, and just dump disconnected bits of world history on you in the form of dialogue. This is not a good way of doing worldbuilding. There are many good academic books that give people a good background in a historical period from a specific angle in 15 pages or less, so 10-30 minutes of reading depending on how fast you read. POE1 is constantly doing context-free lore dumping on you so that you are sure to get an education on the history of the world from fragmented perspectives, out of order, to reveal stuff that isn't that relevant to the game itself and is just likely to be confusing. It is like that 15 page textbook chapter spliced into dialogue across dozens of NPCs and in-game books that are, again, disorganized and confusing. Then they make understanding the plot incumbent on you also understanding all the background world building. And there is in fact a textbook written by the designers that was a kickstarter reward that should have sufficed for loredumping.

On the other hand, people tend to praise White March because it doesn't really do this. The world building is generally focused on the central location where the action happens. The characters that are defined are all related to the actual events that are simulated on the screen. The sad tale of the dwarven fortress is relevant because you are exploring said fortress. The goal is relevant to the still-living townspeople and the choices you make at the end have meaningful narrative and mechanical consequences for your party. There is a satisfying narrative arc there. The story is also inherently anchored in a location, the factions all have clearly defined motivations, and the player isn't strictly bound to see the story through -- the hook is a mixture of curiosity and greed rather than "you have AIDS and the only antiretrovrials are at the bottom of this dungeon." It's not rocket science: it's just average workaday commercial writing, and it works. Notice that it's a bit of a similar structure to New Vegas, which also has a satisfying narrative that centers around the Hoover Dam and Vegas itself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

POE-like loredumps should be expected the moment world designers/professional writers began to be hired. They spend countless hours coming up with some backstory for the world and why their spoons are actually called spúnóg, do you think they're going to let that go to waste instead of shoving it down your throat?

 

[Nano]

BG1 is a testament to the effectiveness of minimalism because people will project all kinds of stuff onto what is a simple adaptation of pen and paper content ported into a completely unsuitable kludge of an engine that was retrofitted from a late-90s RTS project. There is barely any dialogue compared to any modern narrative game. There is probably more spoken and written dialogue in a two or three Greek islands of Assassin's Creed Odyssey than in all of BG1 put together, and certainly fewer plot branches. This light framework actually makes the game better and more re-playable. People also tend to misremember BG1 as having a lot more narrative content than it actually does. If you load up Beregost right now, you will really have to hunt to find any dialogue at all from any of the NPCs, and the few quests that exist are mostly less complex than a typical snoozer World Quest from modern World of Warcraft. Probably the only consequential quest content is being able to make armor out of Ankheg shells, and even that is almost like a secret more than it is narrative content.

Imagination fills in the gaps when most of the storytelling is environmental or naturally emerges from the gameplay.

TL;DR BG1 is a content-starved snoozefest that people mostly only remember fondly because of nostalgia.

 

[Varnaan]

TL;DR BG1 is a content-starved snoozefest that people mostly only remember fondly because of nostalgia.

Ah yes a game can't be well written if it doesn't take cues from Michael Bay.
We need epic and explosions and we need it now.

 

[Nano]

Ah yes a game can't be well written if it doesn't take cues from Michael Bay.
We need epic and explosions and we need it now.

Bro, the writing is barely even there in BG1.

Don't get me wrong, a game can have sparse writing and still those sparse bits be good, e.g. Icewind Dale. But BG1 isn't one of those games.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Ah yes a game can't be well written if it doesn't take cues from Michael Bay.
We need epic and explosions and we need it now.

Bro, the writing is barely even there in BG1.

Don't get me wrong, a game can have sparse writing and still those sparse bits be good, e.g. Icewind Dale. But BG1 isn't one of those games.

Sadly, their nostalgia goggles are cursed and can't be removed.

 

[Varnaan]

Ah yes a game can't be well written if it doesn't take cues from Michael Bay.
We need epic and explosions and we need it now.

Bro, the writing is barely even there in BG1.

Don't get me wrong, a game can have sparse writing and still those sparse bits be good, e.g. Icewind Dale. But BG1 isn't one of those games.

I explained my viewpoint over the last 2/3 pages of this thread so I won't go over it again but I totally disagree with you.
I think BG is the best written D&D CRPG, not because of the intrinsic quality of the writing but because of its pacing and contextualization.
As I said Icewind Dale is my favorite IE game, and probably one of my favorite games of all times, and I agree that the writing in essence is far superior to BG however, BG does a better job at transcribing a low level D&D adventure into a game than Icewind Dale that just uses D&D as a setting.

 

[Butter]

IWD is much closer to a D&D module than BG, low level or otherwise, because it starts with a party of adventurers at a tavern and isn't about how one of them is the child of a god.

 

[Varnaan]

IWD is much closer to a D&D module than BG, low level or otherwise, because it starts with a party of adventurers at a tavern and isn't about how one of them is the child of a god.

That's extremely silly because in IWD, unless you play MP, in which case BG MP should also be accounted for, the characters are all created by the player, which removes party dynamics outside of combat from the equation.

 

[hell bovine]

They've changed the narrative a bit in patch 4. Now the murder happy druid in the grove tells you that these tadpoles aren't developing like a normal tadpole would, so you won't grow tentacles overnight.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They've changed the narrative a bit in patch 4. Now the murder happy druid in the grove tells you that these tadpoles aren't developing like a normal tadpole would, so you won't grow tentacles overnight.

yea, it was in the livestream
it was hard to not get her to kill you which contrasted really hard with her personality

 

[hell bovine]

yea, it was in the livestream
it was hard to not get her to kill you which contrasted really hard with her personality

Was it though? She keeps a dead body in her room. They could have at least buried the guy after they've finished dissecting him.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

yea, it was in the livestream
it was hard to not get her to kill you which contrasted really hard with her personality

Was it though? She keeps a dead body in her room. They could have at least buried the guy after they've finished dissecting him.

she likely didn't know what to do after halsin's disappearance

 

[DeepOcean]

IWD is much closer to a D&D module than BG, low level or otherwise, because it starts with a party of adventurers at a tavern and isn't about how one of them is the child of a god.

BG feels more similar to a sandbox pnp campaign, if the combat encounters werent so terrible shit, almost as bad as PoE 1 combat encounters, it would be a great non linear campaign. Unfortunately, Bioware kinda declined that design on BG 2 where only Athkatla really is non linear.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

TL;DR BG1 is a content-starved snoozefest that people mostly only remember fondly because of nostalgia.

>Shit games from the 1990s are just shit
>Good games from the 1990s are shit too, because of nostalgia
>Sole exception being Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game, because of nostalgia
>Everything is just shit, except for Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

q.e.d.

Spoiler

 

[Varnaan]

TL;DR BG1 is a content-starved snoozefest that people mostly only remember fondly because of nostalgia.

>Shit games from the 1990s are just shit
>Good games from the 1990s are shit too, because of nostalgia
>Sole exception being Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game, because of nostalgia
>Everything is just shit, except for Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

q.e.d.

Spoiler

If someone made this argument in earnest I would be able to accept it because objectively it makes sense.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

It's a pretty effective filter, people with 0 imagination outing themselves by trashing BG1.

 

[Cryomancer]

In FR, mages are technically a kind of cleric really.

This I strongly disagree. I mean, psionics are completely different. Borys on Dark Sun setting is a terrifying enemy cuz he can use both. Defier magic and psionics. Both powers are extremely different on 2e. However, none are akin to clerics power. Mages depends on the weave to perform magic, but they don't need to worship Mystra. Just like someone who depends on the air to breath doesn't need to worship a nature God.

Magic on D&D is far more dependent on the environment since is a manipulation of the environment. For example, necromancer spells in realms of dread in 2e are far more powerful however, far more risky to everyone, including the caster. Here is an example from the domains of dread book

BTW, power check can corrupt your player till he becomes a Dark Lord enslaved on his own domain of dread... Magic since is the manipulation of outsider forces, is heavily influencied by the place where you are casting. Magic in Athas, in the realms of dread and in Faerun are different. However, psionics are always the same because they are manipulation of internal energies.

Disintegrate as a spell and as a psionic power on 2e works completely different. I an reading "The psionics handbook". HEre is how disintegrate works as a psionic ability

Now as an spell "When this spell is cast at another creature, a thin green ray is shot out. Upon contact with the ray, the creature must make a Saving Throw vs. Spell or be transformed into dust. This transformation is instantaneous and irreversible. There is also a good chance that this will destroy some if not all of the items that the creature is carrying" https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Disintegrate

IWD is much closer to a D&D module than BG, low level or otherwise, because it starts with a party of adventurers at a tavern and isn't about how one of them is the child of a god.

And has more "local" problems to solve.

-------------------------------------------------

One thing that I don't understand is that balancefags who hate the Tome of Battle book. Saying that is the The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic, at the same time that compalin about the caster/non caster imbalance of 3.5e. Or you downgrade casters to "i attack and have nothing more interesting" fighter tier or you give cool stuff to martial classes. And in a high fantasy world, just like people would try to use the might power of magic to enhance his physical combat capabilities.

That said, most powers that I saw in the Tome of Battle, was stances or melee range powers and STANCES. So, you will not have barbarians trowing DBZ style beans that much. Despite all flaws that this approach has, is IMO much better than just making everyone boring.

 

[Larianshill]

The distaste for Tome of Battle does not come from a rational place. Some martial types feel like ToB, with all their options and gimmicky abilities, invalidate their fighter, failing to understand that their fighter fully deserves to be invalidated. Other feel like a martial should be only capable of what's possible in real life, and that anything else is "anime". And there are, of course, caster players who feel insulted at the very notion of someone other than them having options and utility.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, somehow I managed to get a two weeks ban from the Larian forum.
For being "too abrasive" or something, despise not really breaking any specific rule.

As far as I can tell I'm mostly "guilty" of calling out bullshit of a couple of specific users who were relentlessly dedicated to dismiss any criticism of the current build as "fanaticism by D&D purists.

The real issue is that they turned into mod this Sadurian guy, a latecomer on the forum, and that he's absolutely overbearing with his attempts at tone policing. The tosser keeps warning people to "tone it down" for anything that comes off as more aggressive than smiling and nodding at each other.

 

[NJClaw]

Well, somehow I managed to get a two weeks ban from the Larian forum.

Please refrain from participating in other videogames communities. The last time I did that I had to argue for two entire days with a guy who kept telling me that Horizon Zero Dawn is a masterpiece with a deep and gripping story.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Please refrain from participating in other videogames communities. The last time I did that I had to argue for two entire days with a guy who kept telling me that Horizon Zero Dawn is a masterpiece with a deep and gripping story.

Oh yeah, what's up with that fucking game getting the reputation of some modern classic... And then it turns out that it plays exactly like any other bland Ubisoft-like shitty open world?

 

[BarbequeMasta]

I wonder which one is worse, the BG3 subreddit or the forum. I don't have the bravery or the sanity to check either of those shitholes again though.

 

[NJClaw]

Well, shooting robot dinosaurs with arrows and tripping them with tripwires is admittedly more fun than whatever kind of combat you can get in your standard Ubisoft-like open-world game. But I guess its popularity is mostly due to a very aggressive and successful marketing campaign that managed to make the unjustified hype survive the release of an otherwise underwhelming game.