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

[MRY]

As I said before,* Baldur's Gate 2 is Minsc. More than any other character, he defines the franchise for players. The whole goofy setting is built around him in a way. BG2 is fundamentally a slapstick comedy -- that is exactly the best way to understand the mage duels. If I could have an infinite budget and any actors to do a live-action recreation of a mage duel in BG2, I'd probably use Buster Keaton and Groucho Marx, a ton of physical humor, etc. That -- and romances -- is what BG2 was about. It's just that because many people engaged with the game as preteens, the slapstick was basically like breathing air to them, while the Very Dark and Serious aspects of the plot (my kid sister is back... with a scar!!) stand out as well.

Larian is the perfect company to make a true sequel to BG2. If what you want is a Revenge of the Sith reimagining of the original games, they're not the right company, but Larian will convey all of the zaniness very well.

*

Spoiler

That's a perfectly valid question for all game developers, but pretty sure Gavin is just an American with a weird last name.

Gavin is American (Californian) born and bred.

In terms of the prosper-face comment, Gavin wrote by far the most Baldur's Gate-style characters in Torment, like the alien sexologist or the Don Quixote guy. He's a well-regarded satirical comedy writer (got his start on Cracked.com), which always struck me as the core of the banter in Baldur's Gate -- kind of National Lampoon's LARP -- and I can imagine he'd have a lot of fun with Minsc, Viconia, Edwin/Edwina, Korgan Bloodaxe, Mazzy, Garrick ... really the whole gang. Obviously, if what you want is a Dark Knight Returns darker take on the original source material (like the Black Hound or whatever the never-made sequel was), he's not your man, but if you want to go back to pygmy giant space hamsters (the single thing people remember most about the franchise), literally no one is better.

---

EDIT

I forgot Quayle!

"I am so smart! S M R T! I—I mean S M A R T!" Simpsons allusion and a topical 1980s political jab.

Pretty sure this is a perfect playground for Gavin, and Larian is going to give free rein to recapture that spirit!

 

[Lacrymas]

If you mean that Baldur's Gate 2 is literally retarded, then sure. How can you (general you) even describe an RPG with one of the party members, I have never taken Minsc with me in BG2 (outside of the prologue obviously), so he doesn't feature in my conception of it at all. Same with BG1, I've never taken him, his first sentence was enough for me to go "yeah, no".

 

[Sacibengala]

If you mean that Baldur's Gate 2 is literally retarded, then sure. How can you (general you) even describe an RPG with one of the party members, I have never taken Minsc with me in BG2 (outside of the prologue obviously), so he doesn't feature in my conception of it at all. Same with BG1, I've never taken him, his first sentence was enough for me to go "yeah, no".

Yeah, me neither. In the first one I killed him but keep the girlfriend.

 

[Theldaran]

If you mean that Baldur's Gate 2 is literally retarded, then sure. How can you (general you) even describe an RPG with one of the party members, I have never taken Minsc with me in BG2 (outside of the prologue obviously), so he doesn't feature in my conception of it at all. Same with BG1, I've never taken him, his first sentence was enough for me to go "yeah, no".

That's because no, you can't. Minsc symbolizes the game but it's not everything there is there.

 

[MRY]

Because Minsc is a synecdoche for the game as a whole. Again, we are talking about a game with a character who is meant to be a joke off of Dan Quayle and whose tagline is a Simpson's joke. Imagine the lulz of a chaotic neutral gnome illusionist, my friends! Pair him with your over-the-top heroic halfling fighter! Almost all of the party is gonzo in one way or another (Edwina!), as are a good number of the scenarios in which you find yourself. It's very much a piece with FO2, only with more overt silliness in the main party and a bit less in the scenario.

 

[Lacrymas]

BG2 is indeed overwritten and has a tone problem, but I wouldn't really describe it the way you do ;d

 

[Theldaran]

I think Minsc is what has remained in the public's imagination, but doesn't mean he was the most important character. Quite many people can't really stand him.

Besides, as we all know, they'll ruin him... Who says that BG3 won't have Amber Scott-tier writing??

 

[Silly Germans]

Minsc, Edwin, Viconia, Anomen and Jan Jansen are exhilarating in one and the same party. The party banter is entertaining.
BG II hit a pretty good spot between severity and humor. Actually, the personal quest of Jan is rather serious and mature, which
surprised me. Similarly the quest of Anomen, Valygar and Keldorn. The quests might be filled with standard fantasy tropes but they
also touch real life matters and character development. All in all i find the mixture of serious business and innocent fun well balanced.

 

[Chippy]

Because Minsc is a synecdoche for the game as a whole. Again, we are talking about a game with a character who is meant to be a joke off of Dan Quayle and whose tagline is a Simpson's joke. Imagine the lulz of a chaotic neutral gnome illusionist, my friends! Pair him with your over-the-top heroic halfling fighter! Almost all of the party is gonzo in one way or another (Edwina!), as are a good number of the scenarios in which you find yourself. It's very much a piece with FO2, only with more overt silliness in the main party and a bit less in the scenario.

Minsc grew on me, but what you describe is not BG to me. It still amazes me (all these years later) that people with so many interpretations of what the saga was all found something uniquely great in what they percieved it to be. Including the developers. Whereas I was once just amazed that nobody seemed to use the keyboard + mouse.

I'm not confident that we'll get the same result from Larian.

 

[Delterius]

No baldurs gate is complete without the ability to murder minsc in cold blood and incredible satisfaction.

 

[Lacrymas]

To everybody who is butthurt that I called BG2 literally retarded, I meant that if MRY's opinion of it is that he can say Minsc "exemplifies" what BG2 is about, not that I think it's retarded.

 

[MRY]

"For someone who supposedly has her soul tainted by the evil of a dead god, you remind me considerably of a chipmunk with a sugar high and a death wish."

Note, that's Valygar, a theoretically serious character, talking to Imoen, a core character. As I said, Minsc is the keystone of the whole caper.

Auraculum No, I actually like it, in a goofy, theme-park sort of way. I actually think Larian will likely make the best possible sequel because no other company is likely to create as unconstrained magical duels and high-level insanity. It's just not an RPG with a serious story like AOD, PS:T, MOTB, etc.

Also, there are so few things I can troll the Codex with, I have to catch my pleasures where I can.

 

[Lhynn]

Silly humour has been at the core of the series since the start ffs. Minsc has nothing to do with that, just another clown in the circus, stop reading so much into shit.

 

[Shadenuat]

god save us from serious people arguing over size of whales to build cities on in fantasy as rpg writers.

Note, that's Valygar, a theoretically serious character

so serious character means he never makes jokes?

 

[Azarkon]

Baldur's Gate 2 : Planescape Torment :: Infinity War : The Dark Knight

It has about as much humor and fan service as your average Marvel film, but I wouldn't consider it slapstick comedy. The success of the series - and for that matter, of Bioware as a whole - is for similar reasons as Marvel - ie it takes itself seriously enough to not be classified as a joke, but not seriously enough to be considered "art."

 

[Shadenuat]

it behaves like casul pnp session where your friends occasionaly act retarded, while you try to follow the book adventure.
cause they always do.

 

[Onionguy]

"For someone who supposedly has her soul tainted by the evil of a dead god, you remind me considerably of a chipmunk with a sugar high and a death wish."

Note, that's Valygar, a theoretically serious character, talking to Imoen, a core character. As I said, Minsc is the keystone of the whole caper.

Auraculum No, I actually like it, in a goofy, theme-park sort of way. I actually think Larian will likely make the best possible sequel because no other company is likely to create as unconstrained magical duels and high-level insanity. It's just not an RPG with a serious story like AOD, PS:T, MOTB, etc.

Also, there are so few things I can troll the Codex with, I have to catch my pleasures where I can.

For real? You think that BG2 is comparable in its tone to the latest Divinity games? Am I jumping to conclusion here? Because, as far as I agree that it is a bit gonzo at times, it's never even close to the retardation presented by anything coming from Larian. Even P:Kingmaker, at least when we take its characters into account, sounds and feels far more corny then the most wacky parts in Baldurs Gate 2. Overall, the game does not take any radical steps with its writing. Instead, I thought, it elegantly spreads out its accents, hitting rhythmically both the dark and the more upbeat tunes. Whereas, Divinity games seem to be mostly written with Mountain Dew and Doritos aficionados in mind.

 

[Shadenuat]

amount of talking animals in bg1: 1 chicken

dos2: (voice actors credits roll)

 

[MRY]

(A) Fake news. At a minimum, cows and bears also talk. Bears not only talk, but make a pop-culture reference ("Hey, Boo-Boo. That's a nice pickinick basket."), which -- no surprise, since Minsc is the keystone of the series -- includes the name "Boo." (NB: It's obviously a reference to Yogie Bear.) Incidentally, it's not one chicken, it's every chicken, though the most talkative of them has an entire questline in which you need to use the Anti-Chickenator spell to win: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Melicamp_the_Chicken_(quest) Will Larian make Anti-Chickenator a common spell? Maybe, but it's canon.

(B) Lulzy talking animals are a boolean, not a counter. Note that FO2 also has talking animals. We don't need to count past Pinkie and the Brain to realize the game is a farce.

(C) I think Larian is probably a bit sillier than BG2, but, as Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy goes, once you put an ounce of Minsc in a game, the game is Minsc, no matter what you started with. D:OS2 may have more Minsc than wine relative to BG2, but it makes no meaningful difference. There's a reason why, if you ask people to quote a line from BG2, the only one they can remember is "Go for the eyes, Boo!" and if you ask them to name a companion, they name Minsc. Obviously, you need some non-Minsc-level content in BG3 so that the talking animals and stupid jokes contrast against other material, but the trailer makes clear that the background mood is going to be serious Mindflayer apocalypse, but then you're going to have gender-bender mages, pygmy giant hamsters, chaotic neutral gnomes, halfling barbarians, etc. as the foreground. That's Baldur's Gate.

 

[vortex]

I find Jansen and Joshimo far more amusing/interesting characters than Minsc.

 

[Lhynn]

There's a reason why, if you ask people to quote a line from BG2, the only one they can remember is "Go for the eyes, Boo!" "You must gather your party before venturing forth"

and if you ask them to name a companion, they name Minsc

He is memorable, but its because of how much he stands out, he does not represent the games, he is just a part of the sillier bits, the one that stands out the most because of how everpresent he is if you take him with you.

Obviously, you need some non-Minsc-level content in BG3 so that the talking animals and stupid jokes contrast against other material

Silliness to cover up the darker tones is a what DnD is about, else itd be dark and grim and itd be shit, you need levity. Minsc isnt relevant to the plot of either game, nor a companion any more important than any other. Nothing is about him, directly or indirectly.

 

[Storyfag]

Incidentally, it's not one chicken, it's every chicken, though the most talkative of them has an entire questline in which you need to use the Anti-Chickenator spell to win: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Melicamp_the_Chicken_(quest)

I'm sorry, but at this point I have serious doubts you have even played the game. It is not the party who uses the Anti-Chickenator.

 

[thesheeep]

I find Jansen and Joshimo far more amusing/interesting characters than Minsc.

Personally, I didn't like Jan's recipes. They lack zest.

 

[Ismaul]

To everybody who is butthurt that I called BG2 literally retarded, I meant that if MRY's opinion of it is that he can say Minsc "exemplifies" what BG2 is about, not that I think it's retarded.

I agree with MRY that Minsc's silliness "exemplifies" what BG2 is about, and that BG2 is retarded because of it. Yay for coherence!

 

[Shadenuat]

Once you put Morte into game, game is Morte. Hitting on the undead chicks and red haired tiefling babes with scottish accents.

Funny enough it reminds me of actual quotes from BG2.
In that Jaheira quest where harper asks you your favorite color, and whatever you choose green: envy red: blood yellow: sickness while Jaha says that green is also trees and blue is sky.

Minsc ofc is a retard. and his quote is memorable but mostly because you get him as your first fighter. but he also is a retard because he suffered a wound while traveling with Dyna, loses Dyna, and then swears Aerie he will protect her, and people treat him like a child, he has some serious anger issues where other calm, noble warriors like Keldorn help him to overcome it. is he lulzy? yeah. but does that make him a joke game is about? not really, and he has human element in him as well. if he was only a joke, players wouldn't remember him as much. What truly sold BG2 characters to crowd was interparty interactions, which made players feel like they travel with friends.