Preview Baldur's Gate 3 Gameplay at D&D Live 2020

[AwesomeButton]

Given the negative reaction to the dour grimness of Pillars of Eternity, I'd say the whimsy of Baldur's Gate is an essential element

Generally inept writing combined with the fact that the game shipped with its first draft with no editing makes it a bad base for comparison. But more importantly - the general public complained about loredumps in PoE's writing, not about its tone.

 

[Zeriel]

On top of that, the original Baldur's Gate tone was not silliness, it was mostly serious with splashes of levity and silliness to break it up. It seems a constantly repeated mistake to take those exceptions as the rule.

Furthermore, those splashes of silliness are recognized in setting as being out of the ordinary. This is very different from many modern games that treat the silliness as ordinary to the characters and their perspective, or even invisible to them because they are themselves ridiculous.

 

[Fenix]

However, this faitfully imitated PnP comes with the drawback of its childish style, and the old-schoolers are now 20 years older. I'm not saying go full edgy TLOU2 mode, but those goblins reminded me of children's puppet theatre. So, it's like playing PnP in a session with children 20 years younger than me, if not 30.

Given the negative reaction to the dour grimness of Pillars of Eternity, I'd say the whimsy of Baldur's Gate is an essential element.

I even remember dialogue on that pic lol.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

It honestly does not look that bad, but I hate those jank animations. I know its Larian, and the art while not Divinity stupid its a little bit too much Dragon Agy.
But this is the best bet we get in 2020. We have been gatekeeping so long we forgot videogames kinda died, and we now realize we are the old people.

Hey I truly hope the best for them. Because fucking hell who would you want doing it? Danger hair neo Obsidian?

 

[Crescent Hawk]

Generally inept writing combined with the fact that the game shipped with its first draft with no editing makes it a bad base for comparison. But more importantly - the general public complained about loredumps in PoE's writing, not about its tone.

You are absolutely right, the setting despite some less stellar stuff like low effort black italians , was great. The war was interesting, the thirty years war feel was interesting. The soul stuff could have better used. Fuck how the sequel just fucked things up.

 

[Elex]

On top of that, the original Baldur's Gate tone was not silliness, it was mostly serious with splashes of levity and silliness to break it up. It seems a constantly repeated mistake to take those exceptions as the rule.

Furthermore, those splashes of silliness are recognized in setting as being out of the ordinary. This is very different from many modern games that treat the silliness as ordinary to the characters and their perspective, or even invisible to them because they are themselves ridiculous.

You forgot all the npc with retarded/edgy/dumb voiceline spammed 40 times each combat?



where is the “serius stuff” in BG?

killing monster bandit and evil stuff don’t really make something drammatic tone.

 

[cherry blossom]

Verticality is dandy, I love it but that 3D perspective camera jumping all over the place all the time, what a fucking nightmare. KILL IT!

 

[Gromlintroid]

It looks better than I was expecting TBH.


I'll no doubt buy it anyway

 

[Gyor]

Holy fuck, how many do you guys have to repeatedly whine that its not like BG1&2, I mean its been said a million times and at first I was sympathetic despite my own preferences, but after about the 100th complaint that it is taking BGs name in vain, even though the setting is the Forgotten Realms and the city of Baldur's Gate predates BG1 by by seven years (or decades if you could Ed Greenwood's home game), it just fucking annoying, we get it already. It's just repetitive at this point.

And you know what, I'm fucking glad BG3 is not like BG1&2 because it's already better in everyway!

Better graphics check, better rules edition (5e beats 2e rules any day of the week) check, better voice acting check, Goblins are way more interesting and compelling, it's a freah interesting plot, 5e made Baldur's Gate a way more interesting city, I like the companions in BG3 better already (I hated Jahiera), the only four good companions in BG were Imoen and Minsk and Viconia, and Tzax.

The Cambions performance was bone chilling good, I loved how Shadowheart taught the character about dealing with being gaslite by the Cambion, I enjoyed Gale's fire side discussion, these are the best damn Goblins I've ever seen in an RPG. I've heard that Larian is even more anal about FR canon then WotC.

And best of all I've been begging WotC for a really good 5e FR CRPG instead of the stupid shit they've produced since after NWN2, and I finally am getting my wish.

So I don't care about if it true to the original BGs because it's already surpassed them in every way possible.

And I don't care what they call it, it could be called Baldur's Gate: Dances with Goblins or BG: Orge Blowbangs III for all I can at this point, I care that its looking awesome and I win for once.

Rant over.

 

[Mastermind]

Baldur's Gate story is finished, so I don't really care if this isn't "really" BG3 (it isn't). As long as it's a good game I'll be more than happy to pirate it.

 

[Dexter]

The Codex descends to ever lower depths. BG2 is among my Top3 games and I've had zero interest in this.

Larian has never made a good game, the closest they've come was Divine Divinity and Dragon Commander. D:OS was so boring and the characters and story so bad I couldn't bother playing it more than 4 hours, not even Co-Op saved that game and this just seems more of the same. DA:O or NWN2 are more worthy successors to "Baldur's Gate" than this. I'm not sure how the graphics are great when stuff like Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2020 or even something like Fallout 76 exists to compare it with or how the level design is spectacular when that cave looks like it's from an Unity Tutorial and screams low-budget and "Indie".

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

The spiders look like trash.

Look at that phase spider. It's so cute and cuddly it may as well be a BEANIE BABY. Where's the terror? Where's the spine chilling horror? Some fucking arachnid you and your highly diverse team made there, Swen. Look at me. I'm an ugly and creepy fucker. That's what spiders should be, not these dopey little miscreants that get shot off their own web. Put some respect on a monster manual staple you goddamn maggot.

By the way, SWEN, your hair is losing the war. Hah. Got 'em.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Larian has never made a good game

This.

 

[luj1]

They made LED Wars

 

[AwesomeButton]

No one can say in good faith that he played D:OS beyond Cyseal and found it worth playing, no stat bloat, no trash combat. Same applies to D:OS2 after the first couple of quests in Reaper's Coast.

The only argument I hear in defence of Larian is "They can't mess it up as much because they are using a licensed setting and ruleset". Just wait and see, I trust them to find a way to mess it up just fine.

I'm not saying it won't be a great game for goofing around with friends in coop mode. I expect it will be just good enough for that and then some, like D:OS/2. But an adventure and world to immerse yourself in, singleplayer mode, and play for hours on end until you are hungry and want to go to the toilet, but you want to get to that next area...? No chance.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[AwesomeButton]

The first hub you hit is Fort Joy. I actually thought to limit the good part of D:OS2 to just Fort Joy, but then I decided to be more generous.

 

[Thac0]

The first hub you hit is Fort Joy. I actually thought to limit the good part of D:OS2 to just Fort Joy, but then I decided to be more generous.

Limit all you want, quality dropped significantly after Fort Joy.

The only argument I hear in defence of Larian is "They can't mess it up as much because they are using a licensed setting and ruleset".

As one of these people I think that the ruleset and setting they adapt complemnt their strengths and failings very well. Larian has a few things going for them, they didnt become that famous over nothing.

no stat bloat, no trash combat -> is very easy to avoid when you steal one of DnDs better rulesets.

 

[Dr Schultz]

No one can say in good faith that he played D:OS beyond Cyseal and found it worth playing, no stat bloat, no trash combat. Same applies to D:OS2 after the first couple of quests in Reaper's Coast.

Finished 2 times, vanilla and enached, with two different friends. It was worth my time in both cases. On the other hand, I've beaten D:0S 2 only once. Too big for its own good. I forced myself into the final chapter.

Same issue with Baldur's Gate 2. Never beaten actually. Got bored in the underdark all 3 times I've tried to finished it.

Anyhow, the argument that you don't want to ear is: Larian is ALREADY the best developers around in adapting tabletop RPG mechanics. Now they are doing it with a solid ruleset and a setting that many people enjoy (personaly I'm not among them, but whatever). The game is basically sold on these two premises

 

[agris]

Comments time:

With third person exploration, Swen really needs to consider adding wasd controls for movement. Watching him click to move in that mode looked obnoxious.

Sound effects and combat animations sill looking incredibly D:OS. He could consider changing that to make it feel more Baldur's Gate.

Having to choose whether to dash or walk normally seems like it might be a pain, hopefully there's a convenient hot key for it.

Putting the text in the world itself makes it difficult to read at times. Really needs some kind of background, even Dragon Commander had this.

Everyone has Dragon Age: Origins hands; huge so they look right in isometric mode, but absurd in the cinematic dialogues.

Pandering to foot fetishists, tsk. Yeah "a funny joke," sure.

Characters moving around in the background of cinematic dialogues where your character remains deadly still looks silly. Consider having some kind of breathing motion there if possible.

I do like how the sneaking animations aren't a crouch-walk, going against the grain.

Deus Ex-esque box stacking to get to higher places is welcome.

The animation attached to the call for help script is also neat.

Anyway, I liked what I saw, criticisms notwithstanding.

I agree with your pluses and minuses, and I'll add:

The UI looks very cheap and generic, especially the icons. They look like NWN1 icons; I would hope that a game claiming the BG3 moniker would carry the banner of skeuomorphic UI, but that's fabulously optimistic. The least they do is have some aesthetic sense with the placement of UI elements and the design of icons. Maybe those are all temp, but I doubt it.

The per-action visual effects need a lot of work. There's too many of them, they're too flashy, and lack weight. Why would a character shoot purple particles out of every pore in their skin when selecting a sprint action? It looks very cheap, and reduces the impact of spell vfx. To that point, the spell vfx are also quite cheap looking. I would hope for something more like baldur's gate, but again, :fabulouslyoptimistic:.

Finally, I couldn't help but notice that the tactical / isometric view isn't used by Swen. Don't expect this view to be useful when the head designer doesn't care about it. I expect it to be a concession to the brand, not an actual element of gameplay or design. This game is being designed for the way Swen wants to play: a 3rd person perspective action game, but with D&D ruleset and MMO vfx.

 

[Roguey]

No one can say in good faith that he played D:OS beyond Cyseal and found it worth playing, no stat bloat, no trash combat.

I liked D:OS all the way through, but I did gimp myself by only spending points in attributes as I needed them up until the point of no return at the endgame.

 

[Murk]

However, this faitfully imitated PnP comes with the drawback of its childish style, and the old-schoolers are now 20 years older. I'm not saying go full edgy TLOU2 mode, but those goblins reminded me of children's puppet theatre. So, it's like playing PnP in a session with children 20 years younger than me, if not 30.

Given the negative reaction to the dour grimness of Pillars of Eternity, I'd say the whimsy of Baldur's Gate is an essential element.

Don't forget the single most important NPC in the whole game: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_of_the_North

>peter of the north
>uses polearm weapon
>in a cave
>surrounded by wyverns (noted for their tails that shoot goo)
>claims to be a woodsman who understands all about subterranean wood

etc.

edit: lol didn't know this one yet

 

[cherry blossom]

Why is this game called Baldur's Gate 3 again? Why not any other made up name and still take place in FR?

 

[Farewell into the night]

Money, conceit, arrogance and hate

 

[NJClaw]

Why is this game called Baldur's Gate 3 again? Why not any other made up name and still take place in FR?

Would "any other made up name that still takes place in FR" start a 600 pages thread on the Codex?