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

[rusty_shackleford]

If anything BG1 & 2 were considered low-budget back then.

By who?

Their own developers/publishers to my recollection. I remember Fargo or one of the other big-wigs saying it was relatively small scale from the bird's eye view.

Your ass isn't a source

 

[Zeriel]

If anything BG1 & 2 were considered low-budget back then.

By who?

Their own developers/publishers to my recollection. I remember Fargo or one of the other big-wigs saying it was relatively small scale from the bird's eye view.

Your ass isn't a source

"My ass" is my memory of having posted here since 2002 and read tons of news articles back in the dead era of RPGs in the 00's. No, I'm not going to provide you a citation for stuff that was common knowledge 10 years ago just because you're too stupid to know better. Go research it yourself if you want. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If anything BG1 & 2 were considered low-budget back then.

By who?

Their own developers/publishers to my recollection. I remember Fargo or one of the other big-wigs saying it was relatively small scale from the bird's eye view.

Your ass isn't a source

"My ass" is my memory of having posted here since 2002 and read tons of news articles back in the dead era of RPGs in the 00's. No, I'm not going to provide you a citation for stuff that was common knowledge 10 years ago just because you're too stupid to know better. Go research it yourself if you want. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me.

Your ass still isn't a source.

 

[Heinrich]

And some, I assume, are good people.

 

[d1r]

Well, one could think that BG1 had a low budget because of how bad a lot of the areas in BG1 were looking, with copy pasted woods, and coffee beans streets. Paper dolls, spell art, and items were fine, but man, those areas. Durlag's Tower really was an exception compared to most other areas in the game.

 

[The_Mask]

If anything BG1 & 2 were considered low-budget back then. What you got for low budget was just different.

The difference was also in perception. D&D was for the nerds at home. It was a great hobby for the intellectuals-to-be. It had a limited budget with passionate people working on it.

Now, we have mainstream dickery that mentions troll cocks every 10 minutes, with people struggling to satisfy as many types of people as possible, while trying to incorporate multi-player as much as possible.

 

[LJ40]

Your ass isn't a source

Closest I could find: https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/baldurs-gate-3-development

“We didn’t have huge budgets, so if you made a game that rated well, people were going to make money and that was really all you were doing.”

 

[Zeriel]

Well, one could think that BG1 had a low budget because of how bad a lot of the areas in BG1 were looking, with copy pasted woods, and coffee beans streets. Paper dolls, spell art, and items were fine, but man, those areas. Durlag's Tower really was an exception compared to most other areas in the game.

My understanding is that the major cost back then was not so much development as the production extras, like cinematics, voice-overs, etc. For Fallout the talking heads/VOs were a disproportionate sum of the budget. A related thread from back in the day: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/rpg-development-budgets.76910/

I could have sworn there were interviews with Fargo or Urquhart about this stuff, but I can't be bothered to dig too much.

And yeah, to put this all in context... with BG1 or BG2 assumed to be in the 4m range, the ur counter example is FF7, a game released around the same time that had a budget of 80-140m~ or 200+m if accounting for inflation.

Interplay was not in the glitzy big-budget space, but even by Interplay standards BG was not some big splash-out.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And yeah, to put this all in context... with BG1 or BG2 assumed to be in the 4m range, the ur counter example is FF7, a game released around the same time that had a budget of 80-140m~ or 200+m if accounting for inflation.

This is like saying that if a game doesn't have the same budget as cyberpunk then it's low-budget.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

More than 100 millions for FF7 in 1997 sounds almost bullshit, frankly.
And if it's true it may be the worst use of a budget I've ever witnessed.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

More than 100 millions for FF7 in 1997 sounds almost bullshit, frankly.
And if it's true it may be the worst use of a budget I've ever witnessed.

massive majority of it went towards marketing and advertisement iirc
still sounds like bullshit tho

 

[LJ40]

More than 100 millions for FF7 in 1997 sounds almost bullshit, frankly.
And if it's true it may be the worst use of a budget I've ever witnessed.

According to Wikipedia, its around $80 million (40 for the game, 40 for marketing).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII

 

[Gargaune]

'Budget concerns'. i have no doubt bG3 has a way, way, way bigger budget than BG1 and even BG2 had when they came out. LMAO

People need to stop acting like Larian are some plucky indie studio trying to make it big with their little Baldur's Gate That Could. They're a large, experienced developer, with a couple of hits under their belt, multiple offices internationally, working with a valuable license and charging €60 a pop as of EA launch. BG3 isn't AA or "AA+" (FFS), this thing isn't running on a PFKM or PoE2 budget or even a KCD one, it's comfortably AAA and there's nothing unreasonable about expecting all the trimmings on it.

 

[Volourn]

"By who?"

You really think Interplay gave BIO a huge AAA budget after they had made one game previous? GET THE FUKK OUT OF HERE.

Espicially, up to that point, Interplay's D&D games - despite having exclusivity rights - were either plain awful or couldn't sell shit.

Meanwhile, in modern times, Larian is a decades old company that does a lot of it sown publishing, has multiple hits, and a lot of power.

Poor little Larian. Have it hard. Can't compete with an actual little indy studio from the fukkin' 90s. LMFAO


"Like the old BG 1 and 2 already proved in several circumstances and like plenty of other games did after them.
Well, actually even before, since I think it's Ultima that introduced it first."

Just the way BG2 handled vampires shows how it can work. And, that was really simple. can encounter vamps outside at night, during the day they obviously ain't showing. HOLY SHITZNUTZ. Again, so simple, but actually adds depth and logic to the way world works making it more believable.

 

[Zeriel]

More than 100 millions for FF7 in 1997 sounds almost bullshit, frankly.
And if it's true it may be the worst use of a budget I've ever witnessed.

According to Wikipedia, its around $80 million (40 for the game, 40 for marketing).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII

I was going off of the figures cited here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

In any case, "big budget" games of the time for dev budgets all seem to clock in around the 20-40m area in the late 90s.

That being said, and something I think a lot of people here forget, is that PC games across the board were low budget back then. It was only in the 00's when the Xbox era started and killed off the PC exclusive space and merged budgets of all markets into one that that changed. Before then PC was its own niche space with very small budgets, increasing up until the early 00's when it basically ceased to exist as its own space.

The most famous examples of that are the stories of the big names of the late 90's getting their start in the 80's and early 90's having to do their own marketing by hand, writing their own manuals, even hand-delivering and mailing their own games sometimes. Van Caneghem talked about this, Sid Meier did the same, etc.

So, back to my point, which is that when you look at big budget games in the 90s, they are all console games.

 

[LJ40]

I was going off of the figures cited here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

OK, but the high numbers (45 million for game and 100 million for marketing) are cited to an article by some guy on Eurogamer.net.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-02-final-fantasy-7-retrospective

The lower numbers (40 and 40) are cited to Squaresoft execs.
https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7

edit - maybe the higher numbers are counting other releases of it too?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Reminder: The Faery Tale Adventure had a day/night cycle, with semi-realistic darkness, and that was developed in 1986 by one person in seven months on a new type of computer released late the previous year.

 

[Volourn]

Instead of claiming 'budget issues', I wish companies would be honest and just state the facts:"They don't want to do it. Just own it, and stop making excuses. If you don't want your game to have day/night cycles just own it. Don't pretend it can't be done or 'can't add to the game'. Plenty of evidence to prove otherwise. Stop being bullshitters. We all know games can't have everything. But, if you epxect me to feel sorry for you over 'budget issues', FUKK OFF.

 

[Ruchy]

BG1-2 stealth ability was called hide in shadows meaning effectively hiding would be more easily achieved during day time where shadows are far more common and far more pronounced.

Daytime 1 - Night time 0

 

[Butter]

BG1-2 stealth ability was called hide in shadows meaning effectively hiding would be more easily achieved during day time where shadows are far more common and far more pronounced.

Daytime 1 - Night time 0

Nighttime is a big shadow.

 

[jackofshadows]

That being said, I don't think a day/night cycle would benefit the game in any way at all.

Are you serious? Imagine the city, the actual fucking Baldur's Gate at night and how would be cool to re-explore it (just for one - got extra advantage out of infra-vision they did implement it after all). They could make some scripted night quests of course but that's not the same. Larian also implementing some advanced stealth system - imagine all the possibilities where you have different shadows depending on the day time.

 

[Drakortha]

Fuck it, it's 2021. We should have fucking seasons by now. I was thinking about this last night. Imagine exploring the wilderness in the summertime. Green grass, summer days. And the usual run-ins with bandits or the various wild beasts that are common that time of year.

Then you have winter. The days are shorter and the nights longer. The wilderness is more treacherous. In a forest area where you ran into simple goblins the previous summer, is now stalked by ice golems and other more dangerous creatures.

What gaming could have been if it actually evolved a bit, eh?

 

[Lacrymas]

What gaming could have been if it actually evolved a bit, eh?

More expensive to produce and gimmicky I guess.

 

[Zeriel]

Fuck it, it's 2021. We should have fucking seasons by now. I was thinking about this last night. Imagine exploring the wilderness in the summertime. Green grass, summer days. And the usual run-ins with bandits or the various wild beasts that are common that time of year.

Then you have winter. The days are shorter and the nights longer. The wilderness is more treacherous. In a forest area where you ran into simple goblins the previous summer, is now stalked by ice golems and other more dangerous creatures.

What gaming could have been if it actually evolved a bit, eh?

Kingmaker actually does have that aesthetically... its snowy in winter, and of course day/night visual stuff.

Actual mechanics for seasons though, you probably want to build a game around that. Like a strategy/King of Dragon Pass style game. There's a point where it becomes overkill if that's not the focus of the game.

 

[Shrimp]

Fuck it, it's 2021. We should have fucking seasons by now. I was thinking about this last night. Imagine exploring the wilderness in the summertime. Green grass, summer days. And the usual run-ins with bandits or the various wild beasts that are common that time of year.

Then you have winter. The days are shorter and the nights longer. The wilderness is more treacherous. In a forest area where you ran into simple goblins the previous summer, is now stalked by ice golems and other more dangerous creatures.

What gaming could have been if it actually evolved a bit, eh?

Sounds cool, but how would you actually go about implementing it?
If the game has different seasons that alter battle maps, monster spawns etc. then the game should ideally also make use of it, preferably in a way that feels like it makes sense and actually affects the gameplay rather than being a purely visual change.
If you let the game stretch over several years in order to cycle through multiple seasons then the game's story should also reflect that it's a very long campaign rather than something that only stretches over a couple of weeks at most.
Then you'll have to consider how long those seasons should last in game time. Either you make them switch very fast after a few hours of game time, and at that point the seasons basically just becomes a weather system instead. Not to mention you then open up another can of worms in the form of character aging, something that usually is swept under the rug for a reason.
Alternatively you will make the seasons last for a very long time and at that point you might no longer make full use of it over the course of the game. Also, in those cases chances are that due to the natural amount of time you take playing through the game you will likely end up in the same areas/story progress during the same seasons as in your previous/future playthroughs. If that happens then it's no different from just having each sub-map tied to a specific weather or season type which is what most games currently do anyway.

I feel like it only really works in games that naturally are supposed to stretch over a long amount of time like city builders, campaign simulators such as Mount and Blade, Battle Brothers etc.
I won't deny the possibility that I'm just not creative enough to think of a feasible way to implement it, but right now I'm just not entirely convinced that it's what CRPGs need right now.