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

[Russia is over. The end.]

Alright, I'll go start getting myself excited then.

 

[Mud']

Hey guys, this is a leak of some of the main characters used for the upcoming BG3 by Larian: also, you can see the art style they'll utilize.

Spoiler

I guess they are going to replace Pet Talk with Speak with Animals from the 5th Edition

 

[Spectacle]

So what's the general consensus for the best rulest for a BG3?

There's no consensus, codexers playing videogames are already rare. Those who play them AND play pnp are incredibly rare . So i'll give you my expert answer, ruleset doesn't matter much, all of them would be good except 4E, as long the story telling is great.

Why not 4E? It's got by far the best tactical combat of any D&D edition, it would be great for a CRPG.

 

[Mortmal]

So what's the general consensus for the best rulest for a BG3?

There's no consensus, codexers playing videogames are already rare. Those who play them AND play pnp are incredibly rare . So i'll give you my expert answer, ruleset doesn't matter much, all of them would be good except 4E, as long the story telling is great.

Why not 4E? It's got by far the best tactical combat of any D&D edition, it would be great for a CRPG.

Because 4E is too balanced and boring, balance is the worse that can happen to a fantasy game.We want fun ,unbalanced stuff, spend hours thinking out builds to break the system.

 

[Lacrymas]

"We" don't want this, some people who are obsessed with finding ways to make the game easy want this.

The problem is not balance, but how it is handled. When every class is designed to do everything and then balanced around doing similar damage or have similar tools (alla PoE), there's no point to either a class-based system nor a party-based game. The idea behind classes is they are different and can fulfill different roles, or fulfill them differently. When the classes aren't balanced in a symmetrical fashion, then the boredom and sameness quickly goes away.

 

[Azarkon]

Also:



:brofist:

The zeitgeist at the time, by his own admission, was multiplayer real-time strategy games played over LAN, yet Baldur's Gate succeeded more or less as a single-player game. So why, exactly, are we talking about battle royale games, whose basic game play is first person shooter? The combination of the two is just Skyrim, it isn't anything original. Maybe you can make an argument for survival CRPGs, but most survival games already incorporate CRPG elements, so it's redundant.

The contemporary zeitgeist also isn't battle royale games, but casual mobile games. And people have already tried bringing CRPGs to that medium, for years. Again, not much to say there.

The game industry is in a general state of decline, and there hasn't been a new "zeitgeist" for game play since, I'd argue, mine craft. But games about crafting are not nearly as popular as to be considered a zeitgeist today. This is why developers are turning to nostalgia - it's what always happens when a creative industry stagnates.

 

[Lacrymas]

He confuses the needs of the zeitgeist with what is popular, while that can't be further from the truth.

 

[DalekFlay]

Wait, this is going to be announced tomorrow at a Google Stadia event?!

Only thing that worries me here is some kind of limited time Stadia exclusivity, but hopefully not.

 

[LESS T_T]

Wait, this is going to be announced tomorrow at a Google Stadia event?!

Only thing that worries me here is some kind of limited time Stadia exclusivity, but hopefully not.

Well circumstances suggest it's unlikely. (Larian publishing director is not fond of exclusivity, Stadia top guy said they may not do third-party exclusives, the rumor suggest that PC version will be released at the same time.)

(But I imagine it could have some exclusive co-op related features using Stadia's infrastructure. Who knows.)

 

[The Decline]

Something's up!! Why would he be nervous and excited?

I'd be nervous going to San Francisco too. If it's not because of the piles of shit or being attacked by a homeless junkie it's the fear of being mobbed by a bunch of homosexuals.

 

[karoliner]

This gonna be turn based right?

 

[RapineDel]

Pretty sure they are using their original sin engine for this and combat will be turn based.

100% it will be turn based. They'll want this on consoles and if Google is announcing it there's no way this game will be developed with PC players primarily in mind.

It would be pretty comical if Google have any exclusivity over this though. Larian would find themselves in an even bigger PR hole then any developer who took an Epic deal.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Something's up!! Why would he be nervous and excited?

I'd be nervous going to San Francisco too. If it's not because of the piles of shit or being attacked by a homeless junkie it's the fear of being mobbed by a bunch of homosexuals.

Apart from navigating piles of human faeces in that crumbling city i heard SF is the place to be if you want to experience a medieval disease like the bubonic plague.

 

[Belegarsson]

Something's up!! Why would he be nervous and excited?

I'd be nervous going to San Francisco too. If it's not because of the piles of shit or being attacked by a homeless junkie it's the fear of being mobbed by a bunch of homosexuals.

Apart from navigating piles of human faeces in that crumbling city i heard SF is the place to be if you want to experience a medieval disease like the bubonic plague.

Ah, the perfect setting for a BG game then.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Also:



:brofist:

The zeitgeist at the time, by his own admission, was multiplayer real-time strategy games played over LAN, yet Baldur's Gate succeeded more or less as a single-player game. So why, exactly, are we talking about battle royale games, whose basic game play is first person shooter? The combination of the two is just Skyrim, it isn't anything original. Maybe you can make an argument for survival CRPGs, but most survival games already incorporate CRPG elements, so it's redundant.

The contemporary zeitgeist also isn't battle royale games, but casual mobile games. And people have already tried bringing CRPGs to that medium, for years. Again, not much to say there.

The game industry is in a general state of decline, and there hasn't been a new "zeitgeist" for game play since, I'd argue, mine craft. But games about crafting are not nearly as popular as to be considered a zeitgeist today. This is why developers are turning to nostalgia - it's what always happens when a creative industry stagnates.

Felipe's analysis makes a lot of sense, but it feels more like a game journalists narrative rather than what actually was the concrete reality at the time. We make sense of the world through narratives, but this fact doesn't make the narratives factually true. Felipepe makes a rather broad interpretation here that is pretty much impossible to verify factually.

I personally was ecstatic when the Kickstarter Revolution promised to bring us the first games that were purely catering to Infinite Engine nostalgia. However, like Felipepe said, most of them felt like soulless cover bands. It seems to be very hard to deliver a contemporary product that would capture the essence of old classics in a satisfactory fashion. Larian has to pull off a miracle to be able to satisfy fans of the originals.

 

[Mightmagic]

Pretty sure they are using their original sin engine for this and combat will be turn based.

100% it will be turn based.
.

Google offer a streaming service not a console.

Turn base is not necessary for game available in google stadia. PAd is possible for RTWP game.

They'll want this on consoles and if Google is announcing it there's no way this game will be developed with PC players primarily in mind.

DOS 1 and 2 are released in console and no problem with pc version.

I don't think that Larian will make a game not develloped for pc players.

 

[J_C]

It would be pretty comical if Google have any exclusivity over this though. Larian would find themselves in an even bigger PR hole then any developer who took an Epic deal.

And that's why this is not gonna happen.

 

[Haba]

He confuses the needs of the zeitgeist with what is popular, while that can't be further from the truth.

Things become popular because of zeitgeist.

X-Com and X-Files.

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

The thing is, the creators themselves do not understand it. Die Weltseele is carrying them, yet they cannot see it or feel it.

And then they make the mistake of thinking that they succeeded just because their own ideas are so great.

 

[J_C]

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

What's the connection between those 2 I wonder?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

What's the connection between those 2 I wonder?

Long black coats.

 

[hexer]

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

What's the connection between those 2 I wonder?

JC being the chosen one to merge with the AI?
Also , there's some X-files influence in Deus Ex too with the aliens, Area 51, etc.

 

[J_C]

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

What's the connection between those 2 I wonder?

JC being the chosen one to merge with the AI?
Also , there's some X-files influence in Deus Ex too with the aliens, Area 51, etc.

The X-file connection I get, but I still don't see the Matrix one. The chosen one merging with the AI happened in the 3rd Matrix movie, when Deus Ex was already released for a few years.

 

[Haba]

 

[hexer]

The X-file connection I get, but I still don't see the Matrix one. The chosen one merging with the AI happened in the 3rd Matrix movie, when Deus Ex was already released for a few years.

Yeah, you're right!
Then it's just aesthetics as Haba pointed out.

 

[Shaewaroz]

He confuses the needs of the zeitgeist with what is popular, while that can't be further from the truth.

Things become popular because of zeitgeist.

X-Com and X-Files.

The Matrix and Deus Ex.

The thing is, the creators themselves do not understand it. Die Weltseele is carrying them, yet they cannot see it or feel it.

And then they make the mistake of thinking that they succeeded just because their own ideas are so great.

One could argue that in the current era of internet and social media, we have multiple zeitgeists influencing the Western societies simultaneously. In the past, like during the early 20th century, intellectuals and media personel could have significant influence on the overall views of an entire nation. Nowadays, this kind of influencing is much more difficult. People get their information and entertainment from vastly different news outlets and media sources. I personally have no clue what kind of videos are popular in general on Youtube or Facebook, because I only consume the type of media that interests me personally. There are other people that share my information consumption habits and we create a collective that has it's own zeitgeist. I'm not sure we can define a single set of defining features that would define the gaming zeitgeist of the contemporary West. The only defining factors would be very broad, like greater focus on Achievements and other shared/communal features and the tendency to streamline the gameplay experience. But, again, those things have absolutely no meaning at all to a wast amount of gamers, such as myself. The landscape is much more fractured - or postmodern, to use the overused bullshit term.