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

[EvilWolf]

Baldur's Gate 3 is literally Star Citizen that didn't have a $300 initial buy in and actually had an achievable scope and storyline that could be iterated and released into Early Access in parts. That's the "secret sauce" of BG3 that "major devs" will have to deal with in the future. Come up with a broad idea that you think is markatable, cut away the useless parts, start development, release a small part of your game into "Early Access" make changes to appease your, perceived, customer base as you go, repeat incrementally until you're ready for a full release, and ride it out until completion. It's that simple. You don't have to deal with QA either since your initial and incremented audience is constantly providing QA as they play, you CHARGE people to do literal QA for you.

 

[MerchantKing]

For anyone who has trouble keeping up with this thread and maybe missed the "release teaser" that came out, this is for you. This is the people they are appealing to. This is enormous decline. If you purchase this, you are ok with it. In fact, you like it. This about who you are going to fuck. The choice and consequences lead back to one thing, who your sexual partner is and if they approve of your actions. This is crpg's going forward. And people are applauding it.

Yes, I know it's old but it needs to be seen by the people on the fence and as a reminder of the people defending this game. These people are in favour of this being the direction of crpg's.

I purchased it before any of this shit came out. I was intrigued by the fact the game had romances, when I saw Shadowheart and heard there was a romance with her my credit card had already exited my wallet for the purchase.

Why didn't you just torrent this instead of buying it? Or even better, just play ToEE again? I started up that game again lately and I've been farming the wilderness for random encounter experience of course to get an extra level or two before the temple. Of course, you shouldn't be suprised, but I've been running into a lot of bear encounters. It would be fine, but I'd prefer pirates and gnolls since at least they drop valuable coins and loot I can get some gold from. I think the pirate, bandit, and undead unions must be on strike in my game since I usually expect more of their encounters. I should check in with the local Turnip sellers union--they'll be making a killing if that's the case.

 

[The_Mask]

Baldur's Gate 3 is literally Star Citizen that didn't have a $300 initial buy in and actually had an achievable scope and storyline that could be iterated and released into Early Access in parts. That's the "secret sauce" of BG3 that "major devs" will have to deal with in the future. Come up with a broad idea that you think is marketable, cut away the useless parts, start development, release a small part of your game into "Early Access" make changes to appease your, perceived, customer base as you go, repeat incrementally until you're ready for a full release, and ride it out until completion. It's that simple. You don't have to deal with QA either since your initial and incremented audience is constantly providing QA as they play, you CHARGE people to do literal QA for you.

It depends on how you look at it, because there is another ~80% of the game that wasn't QA tested by EA participants. And the game has been in development for far less than "Scam Citizen".

Technically, what Larian has done is just make the game perfectly agreeable to journalists and the casual player. Grognards, hardcore gamers and the occasional new fan (meaning the top 10% that actually see the ending cinematic(s)) can be reasoned with afterwards with patches and whatnot. Hopefully.

 

[mondblut]

Why are we in 2023 and AAA games still have NPC's standing around waiting for you to interact with them? I thought we were past this horseshit when we went from Morrowind -> Oblivion.

That's the fucking point of NPCs. They're there to give out quests, services and rewards. They don't buy the game and aren't playing it. They're fucking FURNITURE.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I mean, this just reads like a lot of conflating different issues. The stereotypical ~bestiality enjoyer~ is some hick , not metropolitan homosexuals or, god forbid, trans kids.

Arguing based on a stereotype loses you the argument automatically.

I mean if you have some meaningful evidence that "bestiality is rampant"

If you doubt bestiality exists, you can look it up online. There's video evidence of it. Zoosadism, for example, often includes the violent rape, torture and execution of all sorts of animals.

I don't recommend you do that though. I recommend you just read this article:

https://archive.li/sHCFw

In two hours of testimony I learned of a hidden network of animal sex offenders who communicate in online chat rooms. According to HSUS, at any given time 900-1,000 bestiality networks are communicating, exchanging tips and trading animals. They call themselves “zoos” and one group has over one million members.
On April 15, 2015 Reuters reported on bestiality in Denmark and cited a 2011 Justice Ministry report that found 17% of veterinarians suspected a human had sex with an animal they treated. (sic)
An expert on animal sexual abuse, M. Jenny Edwards offers sobering data to consider.1
56% of male sex offenders, 55% of female sex offenders, 38% of child sex offenders, and 11% of rapists reports having sexually abused an animal.
29% of inmates arrested for pornography-related offenses collected animal porn as well as child porn. 25% of men who viewed adult pornography online also viewed animal porn.
6% of juvenile male offenders admitted to sexual contact with an animal.
35% of arrests for bestiality also involve child sexual abuse or exploitation. In addition, nearly 40% of offenders have prior criminal records for bestiality, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, battery, adult rape, substance abuse, trespass, public indecency, even murder.

Really, you're either arguing disingenuously or else are extremely sheltered to not at least suspect this is a major problem.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Why are we in 2023 and AAA games still have NPC's standing around waiting for you to interact with them? I thought we were past this horseshit when we went from Morrowind -> Oblivion.

That's the fucking point of NPCs. They're there to give out quests, services and rewards. They don't buy the game and aren't playing it. They're fucking FURNITURE.

He doesn't want them to be. He wants an entirely different game, one where he can pretend they're real people because they have a schedule and piss themselves if they don't make it to the toilet on time.

 

[Bara]

Might have been brought up earlier but in terms of actual game related stuff apparently they've changed the racial AI's to be a free assign of +2 and +1 now instead of bonuses to set stats.
Even humans will just be getting +2 and +1 but no real features to compensate apparently other than some random proficiency in some weapons and armor so every other race is pretty much a better option now.

The entirety of Early access has ben the old 2014 racial ASI's and now they're changing it for release and didn't let people play with free assign at all beforhand at least not the general purchasers.

But back to making jokes about the bear situation

Are we here now?

 

[Theodora]

Arguing based on a stereotype loses you the argument automatically.

The whole point was that tying stuff to one group based on personal impressions of a demographic is silly, not claiming that rural, uneducated people abuse animals. -_-;

Yeah, that Danish MoJ report is pretty messed up (although hard to intrinsically extrapolate beyond one country, and questionable how a government ministry would manage to provoke such honesty from people); but it seems that the common element is dickheads, creeps, and people who would abuse power over others in any context. Tying it to gay people was my objection, as though it was simply a further extension of same-sex attracted people wanting to be treated legally the same as others. Humans can consent, animals can't.

Really, you're either arguing disingenuously or else are extremely sheltered to not at least suspect this is a major problem.

By that logic most people are extremely sheltered as this isn't a remotely mainstream subject in any country I've lived in (and fwiw, anyone who knows me tends to bemoan the exact opposite). Really though, I just wish you'd approach these things from a slightly less loaded angle.

As far as the game is concerned, what's depicted (or implied, even) still comes across as pretty far from animal abuse for a bunch of different reasons.

 

[scytheavatar]

Baldur's Gate 3 is literally Star Citizen that didn't have a $300 initial buy in and actually had an achievable scope and storyline that could be iterated and released into Early Access in parts. That's the "secret sauce" of BG3 that "major devs" will have to deal with in the future. Come up with a broad idea that you think is markatable, cut away the useless parts, start development, release a small part of your game into "Early Access" make changes to appease your, perceived, customer base as you go, repeat incrementally until you're ready for a full release, and ride it out until completion. It's that simple. You don't have to deal with QA either since your initial and incremented audience is constantly providing QA as they play, you CHARGE people to do literal QA for you.

It takes way more effort to release a game in early access than you seem to think. Say what you want about Larian but they do have a good track record when it comes to listening to their audiences and adapting their games to keep them happy. The skill to cut away the useless noise and only listen to the useful feedback is a much harder skill to master than people realize.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Might have been brought up earlier but in terms of actual game related stuff apparently they've changed the racial AI's to be a free assign of +2 and +1 now instead of bonuses to set stats.
Even humans will just be getting +2 and +1 but no real features to compensate apparently other than some random proficiency in some weapons and armor so every other race is pretty much a better option now.

The entirety of Early access has ben the old 2014 racial ASI's and now they're changing it for release and didn't let people play with free assign at all beforhand at least not the general purchasers.

Early Access was always just a demo, and one they probably didn't have the time or inclination to update with all the bells and whistles of the full game. Especially since people kept datamining it to find out about characters like Karlach and Minsc.

The race change was probably WotC's idea. They've wanted to make races just cosmetic for a while, I think. They asked there to be no alignment system in the game, which doesn't bode well for future D&D versions.

 

[Axioms]

Siding with a different faction

*bzzzzt* Wrong. You failed at reading. Again, there are stat checks in and out of dialog, multiple paths to take, tracking of influence. It's not just factions and it's not just dialog.

You can say other games have done it before, but other games have done everything before. Procedural tech is 20 years old too.

The sum is greater than all the parts, and the parts are more numerous than in any RPG in the past decade at least.

If you want a game with a living, near-sentient AI, well, your expectations are just silly. If you want a game where you can larp as if whatever simulation were real, you already had that with Oblvion like Captain Reddit over there said.

Graphics/narrative bros are subhuman, no more cognizant of semantics than the static AIs they lust after. Hopefully no more of our Codex colleagues fall under the corruption that has infested NEG.

 

[Axioms]

Might have been brought up earlier but in terms of actual game related stuff apparently they've changed the racial AI's to be a free assign of +2 and +1 now instead of bonuses to set stats.
Even humans will just be getting +2 and +1 but no real features to compensate apparently other than some random proficiency in some weapons and armor so every other race is pretty much a better option now.

The entirety of Early access has ben the old 2014 racial ASI's and now they're changing it for release and didn't let people play with free assign at all beforhand at least not the general purchasers.

Early Access was always just a demo, and one they probably didn't have the time or inclination to update with all the bells and whistles of the full game. Especially since people kept datamining it to find out about characters like Karlach and Minsc.

The race change was probably WotC's idea. They've wanted to make races just cosmetic for a while, I think. They asked there to be no alignment system in the game, which doesn't bode well for future D&D versions.

BG3 uses DnD 5e so that's just how the system works now. Races are cosmetic and halfs don't exist and there's no alignments.

 

[Theodora]

Graphics/narrative bros are subhuman, no more cognizant of semantics than the static AIs they lust after. Hopefully no more of our Codex colleagues fall under the corruption that has infested NEG.

I know you're autistic, dude, but you could really be less in people's faces about it.

 

[Axioms]

Plus that doesn't count that they don't sim characters except in the specific area you are in anyways.

You didn't play Oblivion. NPC's have actual schedules. Some NPC's do actually travel from one city to the next. You can find them on the road. Sometimes they can die even if you are not near them. Please, either play Oblivion and learn from your own experience, or read about Oblivion then comment. Otherwise you look a fool.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Traveling_People

I did play Oblivion but it was a long time ago and none of that shit was super noticeable.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The whole point was that tying stuff to one group based on personal impressions of a demographic is silly, not claiming that rural, uneducated people abuse animals.

When did I do that in this argument? I said this "joke" is disgusting, and faggots are also disgusting. I didn't say "all faggots secretly want to fuck a bear".

Though maybe I should, since degenerates almost universally support one another, since ultimately it's about defeating their mutual enemies and not what particular perversion they subscribe to.

This is why LGBTQIA+ keeps growing as an acronym. It's why the "Pride" flag keeps getting new colors.

Yeah, that Danish MoJ report is pretty messed up (although hard to intrinsically extrapolate beyond one country, and questionable how a government ministry would manage to provoke such honesty from people); but it seems that the common element is dickheads, creeps, and people who would abuse power over others in any context. Tying it to gay people was my objection, as though it was simply a further extension of same-sex attracted people wanting to be treated legally the same as others. Humans can consent, animals can't.

Your objection was that I didn't have any evidence that bestiality was running rampant the way other sex crimes were. I provided that evidence.

By that logic most people are extremely sheltered as this isn't a remotely mainstream subject in any country I've lived in (and fwiw, anyone who knows me tends to bemoan the exact opposite). Really though, I just wish you'd approach these things from a slightly less loaded angle.

The Internet is international. Codex alone should have told you there are freaks out there that are into this sort of thing. We even had a guy that went around spamming bestiality videos on people's walls here for a while.

And I could care less how loaded you think my angles are. Degenerates always try to minimize every shift of the Overton Window, and then celebrate it brazenly once the change is locked-in enough.

As far as the game is concerned, what's depicted (or implied, even) still comes across as pretty far from animal abuse for a bunch of different reasons.

"It's not a child! It's a 3000yo dragon girl!"

It's bestiality, which is animal abuse in the real world.

 

[Drakortha]

He doesn't want them to be. He wants an entirely different game, one where he can pretend they're real people because they have a schedule and piss themselves if they don't make it to the toilet on time.

You're a retarded idiot with these kind of takes.

I am responding directly to people who keep claiming that it's impossible for dev's to do better, or that we don't have the computer processing power to do living world RPG's by now.

We already had RPG games with sim-like attributes over 20 fucking years ago and it was an interesting prospect for the future of cRPG's, yet you Larian faggots keep on conveniently ignoring it while extrapolating everything I say by making these stupid comments about sims pissing themselves or needing to go to the toilet. You are completely missing the point and you're doing it on purpose, because you're a retarded monkey that's more concerned with freaky monkey sex in their games.

You're right about one thing though; I do want an entirely different game from this lazy millenial/zoomer gutter trash game.

 

[The_Mask]

Graphics/narrative bros are subhuman, no more cognizant of semantics than the static AIs they lust after. Hopefully no more of our Codex colleagues fall under the corruption that has infested NEG.

Your *mechanics* are mere spreadsheets (haha) without our imagination.

 

[Axioms]

Graphics/narrative bros are subhuman, no more cognizant of semantics than the static AIs they lust after. Hopefully no more of our Codex colleagues fall under the corruption that has infested NEG.

Your *mechanics* are mere spreadsheets (haha) without our imagination.

Yeah but you guys are getting the proportion wrong. I dunno man, ya'll need to read some books. Cheaper, more effective narrative, less time wasting.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

BG3 uses DnD 5e so that's just how the system works now. Races are cosmetic and halfs don't exist and there's no alignments.

I thought the same, but according to the wiki, they have half-orcs in BG3. Maybe this is different in-game.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

BG3 uses DnD 5e so that's just how the system works now. Races are cosmetic and halfs don't exist and there's no alignments.

I thought the same, but according to the wiki, they call them half-orcs. Maybe this is different in-game.

Wotc attempted to remove half races because deemed racist. There was a huge backlash about it so it is possible they did a step back on that.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

BG3 uses DnD 5e so that's just how the system works now. Races are cosmetic and halfs don't exist and there's no alignments.

I thought the same, but according to the wiki, they call them half-orcs. Maybe this is different in-game.

Wotc attempted to remove half races because deemed racist. There was a huge backlash about it so it is possible they did a step back on that.

Yeah, and there are half-elves in BG3 too, I forgot. It's in the EA.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

BG3 uses DnD 5e so that's just how the system works now. Races are cosmetic and halfs don't exist and there's no alignments.

I thought the same, but according to the wiki, they call them half-orcs. Maybe this is different in-game.

Wotc attempted to remove half races because deemed racist. There was a huge backlash about it so it is possible they did a step back on that.

Yeah, and there are half-elves in BG3 too, I forgot. It's in the EA.

According with the race chart the panel of hell all the half races as there. Is not the first time wotc attempt something dumb gets an heavy backlash and backtracks.

They are often very forceful in pushing their agenda and force it.

Is also the reason why i think Larian had to include stuff in the character creation. Solasta had to do that as well.

 

[Theodora]

This is why LGBTQIA+ keeps growing as an acronym. It's why the "Pride" flag keeps getting new colors.

I'm only answering this bit because I think it encapsulates how off point I think your initial complaint is. The ~growing acronym~, while goofy, isn't growing to encapsulate groups that (even) you would think of as especially "degenerate" (I would hope). Queer is a catch all for the previous letters; Intersex is a state people are born as, not an attraction or sexual interest; and Asexual/Ace stuff, for whatever one thinks about it, can hardly be seen as some degenerate fetish.

(Same thing with the technicolour flag, it's just meant to be an explicit recognition of people already technically included under said labels.)

tl;dr I find the expansion of those to be shallow, but it has nothing to do with horse/dog/bear-fucking.

Codex alone should have told you there are freaks out there that are into this sort of thing. We even had a guy that went around spamming bestiality videos on people's walls here for a while.

First I've heard of it. These days 99% of my time on codex these days is in games threads, and the only person who'd drag me into the weirder threads has seemingly left. I'd rather stick to the games stuff and not be dragged into the damage that pervades the other half of the site tbh.

 

[Theodora]

Wotc attempted to remove half races because deemed racist. There was a huge backlash about it so it is possible they did a step back on that.

Afaik, this was poorly communicated and misunderstood from the start (though also due to people wilfully propagating that misunderstanding). It was in part a change in terminology because of the irl implications in calling someone half-X (i.e. suggesting one ethnicity is baseline/"normal"), not actually removing the concept entirely. But it also was weird for RP reasons, because it really only focused on one half of people's lineage. This change also opened up more options.

5e SRD: Ancestry and Culture: An Alternative to Races

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Wotc attempted to remove half races because deemed racist. There was a huge backlash about it so it is possible they did a step back on that.

Afaik, this was poorly communicated and misunderstood from the start (though also due to people wilfully propagating that misunderstanding). It was in part a change in terminology because of the irl implications in calling someone half-X (i.e. suggesting one ethnicity is baseline/"normal"), not actually removing the concept entirely. But it also was weird for RP reasons, because it really only focused on one half of people's lineage. This change also opened up more options.

5e SRD: Ancestry and Culture: An Alternative to Races

So what they wanted to do is what pathfinder did with the 2e basically regroup races in ancestry.
Reading it still i dont understand why the concept of race is deemed problematic.