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

[BrotherFrank]

 

[Tyranicon]

Can't fix the writing

There's no accounting for taste.

Do I really care how reactive a game is, or how many activities there are, when it's written by a braindead ChatGPT aping toddler-level British humor?

Life is too short to waste on drivel.

 

[Pizzashoes]

That guy will spend five hundred hours talking about simple mechanics. I bet he took it down to reupload with more time.

 

[Steezus]

Is being able to respect companions really such a problem? It's not like you have to do that.
If they didn't give that option people would still do it with mods or not.

It's not. Same people who clutch their pearls at the sight of respeccing companions are the same that would download respec mods on repeat playthroughs the fine tune classes.

 

[ArchAngel]

I just watched the most informative 40 minute video about a guy that comments on the full version of the game and it was mind-blowing how brilliant this game is going to be. I cant find the same video I watched but I will post it later. He mentions lots but what I remember is

• 600 spells
• real and logical differences on difficulty level
• very deep character customization
• the vastness of the city of BG and all the activities
• real C&C and its impact
• small but noticeable features like talking to animals and a displacer beast
• many of the NPCS you can interact with
• the starting region has 30% more content than what you experienced in early access

I am now even more excited about BG3

..550 are about throwing fire barrels at enemies
..red or blue enemies
..all 1000 genders implemented
..you can fuck or kill anything, some even want you to do both
..3some with displacer beasts
..to ask them if they want to get killed or sell you their pets for fucking
..30% more degenerate content

 

[Yosharian]

So apparently Larian has added the option to go full on 'every race can be anything they want', as in Halflings can choose to put their +2 in STR instead of being limited to putting it in DEX.

The min-maxer in my revels at the new possibilities, while the grognard in me laments the loss of racial identity.

 

[Yosharian]

I just watched the most informative 40 minute video about a guy that comments on the full version of the game and it was mind-blowing how brilliant this game is going to be. I cant find the same video I watched but I will post it later. He mentions lots but what I remember is

• 600 spells
• real and logical differences on difficulty level
• very deep character customization
• the vastness of the city of BG and all the activities
• real C&C and its impact
• small but noticeable features like talking to animals and a displacer beast
• many of the NPCS you can interact with
• the starting region has 30% more content than what you experienced in early access

I am now even more excited about BG3

 

[BruceVC]

T

I just watched the most informative 40 minute video about a guy that comments on the full version of the game and it was mind-blowing how brilliant this game is going to be. I cant find the same video I watched but I will post it later. He mentions lots but what I remember is

• 600 spells
• real and logical differences on difficulty level
• very deep character customization
• the vastness of the city of BG and all the activities
• real C&C and its impact
• small but noticeable features like talking to animals and a displacer beast
• many of the NPCS you can interact with
• the starting region has 30% more content than what you experienced in early access

I am now even more excited about BG3

Thanks, I see he also mentions how Youtube cut his Romance section so that is probably why he took this video initially offline

 

[Pizzashoes]

What's next? Gnome barbarians? Female PCs with 18 strength?

 

[Tyranicon]

So apparently Larian has added the option to go full on 'every race can be anything they want', as in Halflings can choose to put their +2 in STR instead of being limited to putting it in DEX.

The min-maxer in my revels at the new possibilities, while the grognard in me laments the loss of racial identity.

This at least you can't blame entirely on Larian. WotC has been pushing this for years. Races are just for uwu RP purposes now.

Which is fine. I'll just play a variant human that can fly and breath underwater, and identifies as a CR 100 dragon god.

 

[Kiste]

..30% more degenerate content

You say that like it was a bad thing?

 

[Takamori]

Variant Human not in

 

[Yosharian]

So apparently Larian has added the option to go full on 'every race can be anything they want', as in Halflings can choose to put their +2 in STR instead of being limited to putting it in DEX.

The min-maxer in my revels at the new possibilities, while the grognard in me laments the loss of racial identity.

This at least you can't blame entirely on Larian. WotC has been pushing this for years. Races are just for uwu RP purposes now.

Which is fine. I'll just play a variant human that can fly and breath underwater, and identifies as a CR 100 dragon god.

I'm not really blaming Larian but I do think its

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I suggest everyone to offer some custom steam tags.

Doing that wouldn't even be considered a tag trolling. Think of all the innocent gamers whom you're going to save from riding the bull.

Honestly, it's a bit childish. It won't hurt the game's sales in any way (I think this might boost sales even more) and just shows some players as a bunch of hysterics.

But it is literally true.

 

[Thorgeim]

Can't fix the writing

There's no accounting for taste.

Do I really care how reactive a game is, or how many activities there are, when it's written by a braindead ChatGPT aping toddler-level British humor?

Life is too short to waste on drivel.

I honestly cant believe so many people are OK with this. I mean, its not surprising and I actually dont care much, its just odd to me.

I wont destroy my memories of BG1 and 2 with this, every dialogue and cutscene seems so cringey. (bg games had their moments ofcourse, but the writing was mostly pretty good to awesome)

Plus 5E is major decline

 

[Late Bloomer]

I honestly cant believe so many people are OK with this.

And reveling in it. I had no idea this place has so many people into bestiality, homosexuality, pegging, and femdom. I knew people were footfags and cucks though, so that isn't much of a surprise.

 

[Suicidal]

I watched someone stream BG 1 on Twitch today. It was their first time playing and I'm sure 90% of the people in chat were seeing it for the first time as well. A lot of the comments in chat were along the lines of "Is this the bear fucking game?", "When are you gonna fuck the bear?" and other bear-related jokes. This is what the BG series will be known for from now on. Thanks, Larian

 

[Takamori]

Probably an option to sever his feet as dark urges. I can't wait for it.

 

[copebot]

Rule of Cool is not necessarily ahistorical when it comes to personal weapons and (as a visit to a big museum with a relevant exhibit like the Met in NYC) also applied to both ceremonial and battle armor for nobles.

In war, standing in formations, yes. After a certain point in time those became dominant. The situation we players are in is usually not on a battlefield though.

There's little point debating it because the D&D concept of an "adventurer" is entirely ahistorical in and of itself, the closest analogue would be a small time bandit. The medieval and ancient worlds did have a notion of the "adventurer", but it might've referred to the likes of Alexander the Great, Crusader princes or Norman mercenary lords stealing parts of Italy for themselves - i.e. warlords with their own personal armies plundering far-off lands and establishing fiefdoms for themselves, not a couple of jerkoffs who go spelunking in full plate. The seminal image of the solitary itinerant knight, roaming the realm and doing chivalrous deeds, is merely a romanticisation of the freelancer who'd join in such "adventuring" armies.

The reason I bring it up is because much of the weapons and armour we see in D&D is inspired by medieval warfare equipment, the sort designed for fighting large unit engagements, and would be entirely unsuitable for the aforementioned couple of jerkoffs. Medieval armies marched with a baggage train and an extensive support contingent of non-combatants, they weren't post-Marian Roman legions. As much as I love full plate armour, it was incredibly expensive, required extensive maintenance, help and time to equip, it was a burden to carry etc., and the fantasy of the small-time D&D adventurer looting ancient tombs while decked in a Maximilian harness is just that - a fantasy.

I feel the dark urge rising.

Don't do it, The Dark Urge is still an origin character, you're just playing into Swen's hands! Do the right thing, murder all the companions and roll your own custom henchmen - no backtalk, no "funny", just point and cli... Oh wait, poor choice of words.

The closest analogue is the knight errant (think Don Quixote), the caravan guard, the pirate, religious renegades, and the free company. Free companies in particular didn't have much separating them from bandits or actual rather than metaphorical robber-barons. Before the liberal revolution lead by the British and completed by the Americans, overland and oceanic trade was dominated by tariff barriers. This was what made the spice trade, for example, very expensive, probably more so than the security costs. Since galleys were the main form of sea transport until fairly late in history, ocean-going trade was not necessarily a great way around tariff and other trade barriers because galleys must stop frequently for rest and resupply.

More so than the arms, magic, monsters, and armor, I think the thing that is probably most anachronistic is just the widespread use of money in a medieval setting. Until the later parts of the 15th and 16th centuries, money and markets just did not exist to the extent that they seem to in most D&D and D&D-like settings. This also helps to explain feudalism as a system of accounting in the absence of reliable specie. Relationships had to be handled in kind and in terms of labor rendered to someone personally known because precise and sophisticated tax systems were impossible. It also helps to explain the popularity of slavery. If you can't shake down peasants for more than their harvest and movable animals, they are way more valuable as slaves. The few who did have access to money used it to raise armies etc.

What I don't think is inaccurate is the idea of small geographic horizons, difficult travel, and lots of small and large scale political rivalries. The whole way of thinking engendered by maps is also characteristically early-modern. Antiquity did not even have maps. I think that the genre became popular though because of the romantic aesthetic of the knight in shining armor, the mysterious wizard, and the battle-priest, which has undeniable appeal. A lot of the things that have become shoehorned into the fiction were just things that make it easier to run a tabletop game. Non-Anachronistic KCD for example would mean that you could only barter your goods on market days and you might have to use an agent because town and craft guild regulations would forbid you from being a supplier for your "found" goods without running through hoops or bribing people. And as you mention you would need a squire to put on your gear.

 

[Gargaune]

copebot, my point is that we're not going the get very far discussing the merits of a D&D adventurer's panoply because it is, as you say, subject to the Rule of Cool and only loosely inspired by historical practice. I do like it when individual items try to adhere to their historical sources - e.g. real, historical armour looks much cooler than BG3's "fantasy armour" - but we have to make some affordances for the stereotypical adventurer wearing full plate when hunting cave trolls, or we just wouldn't get to have full plate in the games. Same with coinage, now that you mention it, inventory management would become a right pain if we had to get our healing potions in trade for live chickens.

 

[Yoomazir]

Sooo, other than novellas tier romances and naked butts, what about the rest of the game? You know, the BALDUR'S GATE part.
Anything new on that front?

 

[MerchantKing]

Sooo, other than novellas tier romances and naked butts, what about the rest of the game? You know, the BALDUR'S GATE part.
Anything new on that front?

It's all downhill from here.

 

[Elttharion]

My monk five seconds after I meet the faggy bear

Spoiler

To the people who played EA, how viable is it to play completely solo, with no companions?

 

[Ibn Sina]

It is a shame about the bear scene. Halsin is a cool character in EA.. I would rather execute the gay sassy elf.

 

[gongal]

I wonder what the completion rates of this game will be. I have a feeling 99% of the people brought in by the hype won't be finishing this game or even the first act.

99% of their new target audience will "finish" the game by watching cohhcarnage or other weirdo streaming it on twitch.