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Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Pharad

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Joined
Feb 25, 2019
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24
I dont get why there's so much hype on the internet whenever some old franchise is resurected by a completely different dev. Its like saying there's a new Nirvana album coming out only its Muse who is making it.

I think the hype is about 'which' dev it is :D people loved DOS 2 so they trust Larian will do a good job
 
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news.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/4/20677851/dungeons-dragons-baldurs-gate-3-timeline-universe

Ask a simple question about the Dungeons & Dragons timeline, get a complicated answer
Mike Mearls, co-creator of D&D’s 5th edition, knows more than he’s letting on

One of the most delightful surprises of E3 2019 was the announcement of Baldur’s Gate 3. Die-hard fans of Dungeons & Dragons and computer role-playing games in general were ecstatic to learn that Larian Studios, creators of the excellent Divinity: Original Sin franchise, will be handling the project. Those same fans were notably confused, however, by the in-fiction timeline of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Many assumed Baldur’s Gate 3 would the sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, developed by BioWare and published in 2000 for Windows PC. It won’t be. Instead, it will be the sequel to an upcoming module for the modern D&D tabletop RPG. Called Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, that module takes place about 100 years before Baldur’s Gate 3 even begins.

Folks on social media and here in the comments at Polygon were understandably puzzled by this. So, I cornered Wizards of the Coast franchise creative director Mike Mearls — who also happens to be the co-creator of D&D’s 5th edition ruleset — in a Los Angeles hotel room and put the screws to him about the timeline.

As it turns out, you and I know a lot less than we think we do about the timeline of D&D’s Forgotten Realms. That lack of clarity is a feature, not a bug.

Screenshot_2019_06_10_12.01.57.png

A mind flayer emerges in Baldur’s Gate. Many more float in the sky behind them, along with a massive nautiloid.
Larian Studios

Swen Vincke, founder of Larian Studios and director of Baldur’s Gate 3, let the cat out of the bag.

“They have this little thing that they don’t publicize,” Vincke said, referring to D&D’s publishers at Wizards of the Coast. He immediately looked like he regretted bringing the subject up.

“It’s rather interesting,” Vincke continued, searching for the words least likely to send Mearls, seated next to him, into a frenzy. “They ... have a lot more detail about everything that’s happening in the world and, as we started discovering that existed...”

It’s at that point that Mearls jumped in to save him. “That’s the super secret stuff,” he said, side-eyeing Vincke.

There was a long, somewhat uncomfortable pause before Mearls turned to me. “Well... I guess I can tell you a little bit.”
THE STORY THAT EXISTS MAY NOT BE THE STORY YOU THINK IT IS
“One of the really fun things about my job is I get to look back over 45 years and say, ‘How does this all tie together?’” Mearls said.

Just about everything that his team at Wizards touches — official campaign modules, comic book adaptations, toys and miniatures, and especially video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 — takes place in the same fictional universe called the Forgotten Realms. But, much like the Marvel universe, the Forgotten Realms is a multiverse, a planet-sized world with many continents and, also, entirely different planes of reality. Much of Mearls’ day-to-day work entails directing traffic, so to speak, across that multiverse.

avernus.jpg

Cover art for D&D’s Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus campaign module.
Wizards of the Coast

Of course, there are powerful characters throughout the fiction of D&D. The most powerful ones — the gods, for instance — appear in just about every permutation of the game that exists. But they might not even know what they don’t know, as the structure of the world itself may help to create certain in-universe blindspots.

“If you take someone, a cosmic figure — I’ll just pick someone at random — like Orcus,” Mearls said, naming D&D’s demon lord of the undead. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his tone changed from stern to scholarly. “Orcus, in theory, appears in every setting. Except if he doesn’t. So then you have this interesting thing; Orcus is aware of all these worlds, except the ones he’s not aware of.

“But is he aware that he’s not aware of them? And if so, what does that mean? And if not, what does that mean? And then you start pulling everything together. And that’s where things get really interesting.

“That’s the stuff that we don’t publish,” Mearls said, looking back a Vincke. “But it’s there.”

So there’s a secret lore bible — likely an actual, physical book — filled with answers to questions that few players or even game designers have ever thought to ask. The materials inside, curated by Mearls and his team, must necessarily go back more than four decades, each one sourced from some part of the D&D multiverse.

“There’s many times we’ve come up with these things that might, if you’re a really hardcore D&D fan in terms of the lore, it might be profound or maybe even shocking,” Mearls continued. “Hopefully, for the fans who have uncovered them, it’s exciting and interesting. But we may never tell people about them.”

That those secrets remain untold means that everyone playing D&D, in whatever format, has something to explore; some remarkable bit of knowledge that is just within reach, and yet may remain unobtainable.

Mearls seemed to realize how strange it all sounds. Here he is, the keeper of the deepest secrets of one of the most well-loved franchises in media history, and he’s hoarding all that knowledge to himself.

“It’s going to sound super — maybe this is not super pretentious, maybe it will just sound creepy,” Mearls said, his face breaking into a self-conscious half grin. “The way I think about [...] it is that we’re like, the masters of Dungeon Masters. Everyone’s running their campaign [at home], but there’s another layer that we’rein where we see how everything — very deeply — might connect. You may never see that connection surfaced, not ever. But, it’s influencing how we’re doing things. And maybe someday we will surface it. Maybe we won’t.”

And that’s partly why the timeline for D&D is a bit ... swimmy.

Screenshot_2015-09-01_16.44.46.0.png

Wizards of the Coast

“D&D is a fantasy property,” Mearls explained, “and fantasy — this might drive some people nuts — but fantasy is not about fact. It’s about truth. [...] Science fiction is all about measurable quantities: time, space, weight, mass, et cetera. There are laws of the universe and you obey them. Fantasy is about mythic truth. It’s about what we understand to be true. The facts of the story aren’t as important as the truths that they shed, that they inform us about the world. That’s a very highfalutin way to say, in terms of how we measure things, we don’t really think of things in terms of hard and fast dates.”

The story of the Forgotten Realms, Mearls said, isn’t being penciled into someone’s calendar. It’s instead being filtered through observers — people like you and I who play our campaigns at home, but also people like Vincke and his team at Larian Studios.

“I am very consciously trying to avoid putting very exact numbers and dates on things,” Mearls said, “because I don’t believe that, in a fantasy setting, that’s how the [value of the] inhabitants in that setting or the important benefits of those stories is really measured.”

But, he stressed, the sequencing itself is important. The events of Descent into Avernus must happen before the events of Baldur’s Gate 3, and maintaining that order is literally Mearls’ job.

That’s the only way to make sure that the overarching story of the Forgotten Realms, the behind-the-scenes details that will likely never see the light of day, can even begin to make sense to Mearls and his team. And, maybe, one day, to the rest of us as well.

If I'm reading the PR speech correctly, they're going for a full retcon? Even of "Murder in Baldur's Gate"? And what's this about "Descent into Avernus" taking place 100 years before "current day", while having the symbol of Bhaal on the cover? At that time Bhaal is still completely dead. What's more, of he didn't misspoke, at that time at least a handful of Bhaalspawn are still alive (and young): Viekang; CHARNAME; Imoen; Sarevok (possibly); the handful of survivors from Saradush...What the hell is going on? Now I'm actually confused.
it means lube up bitch, its coming hard
 
Last edited:
Joined
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They make a game that is called Baldurs Gate 3 that won't play like Baldurs Gate, won't look like Baldurs Gate and doesn't even continue the story of Baldurs Gate. - What?

So Baldurs Gate 3 is just a scheme to make people buy a 50$ book? Because you won't understand the story without it.
Baldur's Gate is a place.
the only place in the Forgotten Realms apparently
 

commie

The Last Marxist
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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Anyway do I understand Mearl's drivel correctly that they rewrote the Bhaalspawn story again.

Yep it seems that he was using a lot of weaseling with that bit about truth and not dates etc. So it means so long as he places general events in the correct order then there's no problem with having bhallspawn alive at the same time of something else or what have you when they should be dead. He specifically mentions that the events that are played out are from the characters' perspectives (the old unreliable narrator shtick I guess he means) and so the 'objective reality' is 'different' and more 'complete' than what games and modules have shown.
 

Dodo1610

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I have a question though, been trying to get into Planescape Torment recently and having quite a hard time because of how old the game is. Should I try to get in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, before the 3rd one comes out?

Don't make the mistake of the first skipping Baldurs Gate, as I did 10 years ago. Lots of people on the internet claim that it isn't good because it is a lot more combat focused and has fewer dialogues than other Bioware RPGs. Yet still, it is a beautiful game with great combat and near unmatched sense of freedom and exploration.
 

commie

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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2

LJ40

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BG3 or Starfield - which one will be released first?

Pillars of Eternity 3

the only place in the Forgotten Realms apparently

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Cities
  • Waterdeep
  • Neverwinter
  • Baldur's Gate
  • Luskan
  • City of Brass
  • Athkatla
  • Everlund
  • Port Nyanzaru
  • Zhentil Keep

I looked at that...and no Phlan? Really?

:what:

What retardation is this?
It's listed under "large town" instead of city.
 

smaug

Secular Koranism with Israeli Characteristics
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Insert Title Here
I have a question though, been trying to get into Planescape Torment recently and having quite a hard time because of how old the game is. Should I try to get in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, before the 3rd one comes out?

Don't make the mistake of the first skipping Baldurs Gate, as I did 10 years ago. Lots of people on the internet claim that it isn't good because it is a lot more combat focused and has fewer dialogues than other Bioware RPGs. Yet still, it is a beautiful game with great combat and near unmatched sense of freedom and exploration.
Fuck no. Play BG2, don’t play BG1.
:x
 

Vrab

Learned
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Messages
99
Got to give it to that WotC guy, he sure conjured up some impressive technobabble to say "we'll do whatever we feel like and won't let consistency of lore get into the way of business plans". Instead it was about multiverse, secret knowledge, questions of if someone is aware that he's not aware of that which he is unaware of. Primordial things, things that we don't know, we probably won't ever know, but that still are, out there, waiting to be grasped by some lone seeker of hidden knowledge, even if it never happens until the end of time.
 

commie

The Last Marxist
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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
BG3 or Starfield - which one will be released first?

Pillars of Eternity 3

the only place in the Forgotten Realms apparently

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Cities
  • Waterdeep
  • Neverwinter
  • Baldur's Gate
  • Luskan
  • City of Brass
  • Athkatla
  • Everlund
  • Port Nyanzaru
  • Zhentil Keep

I looked at that...and no Phlan? Really?

:what:

What retardation is this?
It's listed under "large town" instead of city.

But its population is larger than many of these 'cities' and it has a much bigger claim to relevance based on its use in media compared to 90%+ of these bullshit places. Gay....
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
I have a question though, been trying to get into Planescape Torment recently and having quite a hard time because of how old the game is. Should I try to get in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, before the 3rd one comes out?

Try it. Planescape Torment can be confusing for people who never played a DnD game as well as people who never played Infinity Engine games. Baldur's Gate is a great introduction to both DnD PC adaptations and IE in general. For example a big problem when starting PS:T is distributing stats since you have a small pool and stats matter a lot in the game. You also have to allocate stat points at level up. In Baldur's Gate you can just keep re-rolling your stats until you get 18 in everything that matters for your class and never have to worry about that again.
holes recommending skipping the first game since
 

LJ40

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But its population is larger than many of these 'cities' and it has a much bigger claim to relevance based on its use in media compared to 90%+ of these bullshit places. Gay....

3,198 in 1372 DR
20,000 in 1480 DR

Looks like they just haven't reclassified it yet? We complain about WotC not keeping shit straight, but that's nothing compared to the feeble minds at fandom.com
 

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