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

[Black]

Spoiler

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

So they gonna change everything, the tone, the mechanics. They hate RTwp, they hate Baldur's Gate. Everything ot attract more players, it's all about the bills.

The guy hasn't played BG in 20 years. What did you expect...

What? He says he likes more turn-based and think the RTwP is shit. He just hated the old game.

rtwp is garbage

Nonsense! Respect RTwP, do it for KotOR II at least you bastard!

Why, all good rtwp games were good despite of their rtwp/combat, not because of it, kotor 2 isn't an exception.
You could port it and PS:T to Ren'py and there'd be no difference.

 

[Dramart]

Spoiler

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

So they gonna change everything, the tone, the mechanics. They hate RTwp, they hate Baldur's Gate. Everything ot attract more players, it's all about the bills.

The guy hasn't played BG in 20 years. What did you expect...

What? He says he likes more turn-based and think the RTwP is shit. He just hated the old game.

rtwp is garbage

Nonsense! Respect RTwP, do it for KotOR II at least you bastard!

Why, all good rtwp games were good despite of their rtwp/combat, not because of it, kotor 2 isn't an exception.
You could port it and PS:T to Ren'py and there'd be no difference.

But that's the one most people like

 

[DJOGamer PT]

rtwp is garbage

Nonsense! Respect RTwP, do it for KotOR II at least you bastard!

RTwP is bad and you should feel bad.

 

[Jimmious]

I thought that everyone agreed that COMBAT in KOTOR 1&2 was complete shit...

 

[Black]

Spoiler

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

So they gonna change everything, the tone, the mechanics. They hate RTwp, they hate Baldur's Gate. Everything ot attract more players, it's all about the bills.

The guy hasn't played BG in 20 years. What did you expect...

What? He says he likes more turn-based and think the RTwP is shit. He just hated the old game.

rtwp is garbage

Nonsense! Respect RTwP, do it for KotOR II at least you bastard!

Why, all good rtwp games were good despite of their rtwp/combat, not because of it, kotor 2 isn't an exception.
You could port it and PS:T to Ren'py and there'd be no difference.

But that's the one most people like

BUT NOT BECAUSE OF ITS COMBAT, YOU ACCURSED ESL

 

[Dramart]

BUT NOT BECAUSE OF ITS COMBAT, YOU ACCURSED ESL

You have bad taste sir

 

[Ontopoly]

So, the executive producer for Larian's "Baldur's Gate 3" apparently couldn't think of a single way in which Larian's "BG3" is actually a sequel to the series:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-02-27-baldurs-gate-3-interview

So, I think that in spirit it's still the successor of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Because there are so many things that people who did play and like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 will still recognise in the new one. It's still about your party. It's still about big personalities clashing with each other and relationships. It's still a party-based game, you still need to do combat, you will recognise a lot of D&D rules - even if you haven't played D&D in 20 years. You will still recognise all the spells, et cetera. So, to me it's a true sequel, but we are bringing it into the 21st century by saying, "Look, it's glorious 3D."

So, Larian's "BG3" is a sequel because it's a party-based RPG with colourful character and with combat in it - and the combat uses a D&D ruleset. He didn't even dare add that Baldur's Gate has specifically RTwP combat - because, of course, Larian's "BG3" doesn't.

There are loads of games that fit Walgrave's description that aren't called Baldur's Gate series games, and there are thousands that fit the description if not counting the D&D ruleset qualifier. Walgrave's claim is the equivalent of saying that any first-person game where you play as a single character and use a variety of weapons to shoot at lots of things is a DOOM series game or a Half-Life series game. What Walgrave is saying is that there is no similarity between Larian's D&D game and the Baldur's Gate series and so he couldn't think of something that actually justifies calling Larian's "BG3" a Baldur's Gate series game.

Black Isle themselves didn't think it would be right to call their cancelled BG2 sequel Baldur's Gate 3, despite that it was to continue the same style of gameplay:

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1234228179906134016

it's been a long time since i worked on The Black Hound, but i want to make clear (again) that i never had any intention of that game being called Baldur's Gate III or Baldur's Gate (whatever). IPLY put that title on it after well over a year and a half of dev had been done.

they did it for contractual issues they had (they were only allowed to publish D&D games with baldur's gate or icewind dale in the title). i, and many others on the team, expressed concern over tacking the name onto a game that was made to be its own thing, not an IE/BG game.

the only connection it had was with IWD (maralie fiddlebender was a companion). it had no connection to BG at all. in the end it didn't really matter, but i think it's important to note that the team's intention was never to use the BG name.

Walgrave also said that Larian didn't want to take any risks with their game and so stuck to the DOS formula - but that it was Larian's choice to do so:

The choices that we made are ours. Why did we go for turn-based instead of real-time with pause? Because D&D to us is a turn-based game and we're really good - or we have become really good - with turn-based combat. So that, I think, is one of our strengths, and trying out real-time with pause for now, just because the originals were that? It's a big risk. Because the team would have to think completely differently, our combat would be completely different. And we didn't really feel good about that. Normally we do try out a lot. Normally we try out a lot before we make a decision, but with real-time with pause and turn-based we didn't, we just said "Okay it's just gonna be turn-based."

Larian's Swen also said they are using the Baldur's Gate name to promote their DOS formula and grow the popularity of their DOS games because their DOS formula will sell more if labelled as Baldur's Gate than it would if labelled under the Divinity brand, at At 3:34 in this video:

https://youtu.be/kGnGOnzlC4s?t=214

... so, the chance to do that, and to bring what basically is our RPG identity to Baldur's Gate as a franchise was an opportunity too good to resist. And so, what it will do for us... uh, what we think it will do for us is it's going to show a larger segment of people, because I think Baldur's Gate 3 will reach more people than Divinity will have done... it will show a larger segment of the population what our RPGs feel like and hopefully bring them to play our other games also.

See, I was right. These are the words of a sell out with no passion. Did it just for the money, he has no intention of making a BG sequel. Make our own game using someone else's reputation. Can't even describe what Baldur's Gate is. It has combat, you talk to people, you walk sometimes, people even sometimes talk to each other.

 

[Black]

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

The way this guy talks about tb is worrying. Modernize? Simplify? Are those the two words you connect with turn-based, especially in contrast to rtwp?
I didn't have the delusions that this game would be trying to be as close to D&D as ToEE but they at least could pretend.

 

[Desiderius]

We have to modernize, we have to simplify

The essence of modern design philosophy.

More like misosophy

 

[RangerOne]

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

Spoiler

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

So they gonna change everything, the tone, the mechanics. They hate RTwp, they hate Baldur's Gate. Everything ot attract more players, it's all about the bills.

The guy hasn't played BG in 20 years. What did you expect...

What? He says he likes more turn-based and think the RTwP is shit. He just hated the old game.

Why have Baldur's Gate fans on the design team of a direct sequel, when you plan to make something completely else?

 

[Delterius]

sell out

tfw turn based is selling out lmao

the simulation is getting weirder every day

 

[Dwarvophile]

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

We have to modernize, we have to simplify.

I hope they'll go easy on the simplification protocol (just to use a Scifi term).

 

[Ontopoly]

https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualit...-imbert-senior-designer-combats-baldur-gate-3
Edouard Imbert, senior designer and main combat designer :

How do you reconcile the nostalgia of Baldur's Gate fans with the need to modernise the formula?
First of all, you have the basic question: do we do real time with a pause or do we go round by round? I'm a critic of real time with pause because I remember my Baldur's Gate games and I look at what they did recently with Pillars of Eternity: it's a mess, pause, you give three orders, you stop the pause, it's a mess. I don't like that at all. I'm convinced it's something that's playing against us, that's preventing us from attracting new players. What I like about the turn-by-turn is that the "it's yours, it's mine, it's yours" side of it, everyone understands that.

What I want to do, apart from the mechanics, is to have references to the old Baldur's Gate, so that "it rhymes" as Georges Lucas said. Nevertheless, you still have to realize that it has aged. The tone has aged, the mechanics have aged. We have to modernize, we have to simplify. Anyway, we follow the rules of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still much more accessible I think. So, how do you modernize with that in mind? I think we can make references to the scenario, we can go through known places, maybe find characters, but I think that this will happen mostly at the level of the universe and the scenario as well as at the level of the tone more than in the mechanics, which, for their part, need to be modernized.

The way this guy talks about tb is worrying. Modernize? Simplify? Are those the two words you connect with turn-based, especially in contrast to rtwp?
I didn't have the delusions that this game would be trying to be as close to D&D as ToEE but they at least could pretend.

What a surprise. Games that appeal to idiots who can't handle multiple things moving at once also appeal to idiots that need their hands held through every little step through simplifying the fun out of it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

sell out

tfw turn based is selling out lmao

the simulation is getting weirder every day

moving closer to the source material makes you a sellout ok
before you know it, BG3 won't let druid/fighters wear plate armor.

 

[NJClaw]

sell out

tfw turn based is selling out lmao

the simulation is getting weirder every day

So RTwP was the superior system all along, who would have thought

 

[NJClaw]

What a surprise. Games that appeal to idiots who can't handle multiple things moving at once also appeal to idiots that need their hands held through every little step through simplifying the fun out of it.

"can't handle multiple things moving at once"

So you can't handle a single unit moving at any given time?

 

[FeelTheRads]

So you can't handle a single unit moving at any given time?

Nah, you see, slamming the spacebar like a retard is deep, complex gameplay. Not everyone can handle that.

 

[jackofshadows]

before you know it, BG3 won't let druid/fighters wear plate armor.

Maybe, but it will let us to throw boots, anime jumping and dipping stuff instead. Closeness degree to the source material remains to be seen.

 

[Curratum]

I don't understand where this feeling of superiority comes from with turn-based. It's demonstrably, very obviously much easier to calculate action economy, plan ahead and generally control the flow of a battle in turn-based.

While it allows for more of "muh tactix", it's also much dumber, far less realistic and much easier to handle overall compared to rtwp.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I don't understand where this feeling of superiority comes from with turn-based. It's demonstrably, very obviously much easier to calculate action economy, plan ahead and generally control the flow of a battle in turn-based.

While it allows for more of "muh tactix", it's also much dumber,

DURRR WHY U PPL WITH UR STUPID COBAT SYSTEM SAY MY COMBAT SYSTEM IS STUPID

Because you're stupid. And it's demonstrably very obvious that stupid people are more likely to prefer RTwP.

 

[Dwarvophile]

To put it in a modernized, more simple way, I'd say :

TB vs RTwP = Chess vs Pinball

 

[Ontopoly]

So you can't handle a single unit moving at any given time?

I'm not the one complaining that a system is too Chaotic and hard to keep track of like swen in that interview is.

 

[FranticDistortion]

RTwP games are all the same, I don't see a point of having more than one active franchise for the combat system that looks and plays absolutely the same way since it's incarnation.

With TB you can have completely different gameplay styles, from SMT, Xcom to Shogun tactics, Underrail etc.

 

[Curratum]

TB vs RTwP = Chess vs Pinball

More like TB vs RTWP is chess vs warhammer 40k, both trying to act as simulations of army combat. One is intellectual and refined, but the other looks an awful lot more like actual army combat and not a supreme abstraction of it.

 

[anvi]

If this turns out to be a dud and unplayable, ok, but self-sabotage is not my MO. We are hurting the RPG cause by anathemizing basically a miracle. This is not equivalent to Skyrim, Witcher 3 or that cringe-inducing FF7 remake, this is a pure-blood party-based RPG, being AAA in of itself is not an indictment and it's not about mindlessly consuming AAA garbage.

Combatfaggotry at its finest.

What a counter-argument, truly got him there.

Lacrymas

I don't think devs have any say in the matter. The problem is that a cutting edge game in the 90s could be made with a team of 12 sweaty nerds paid in dr pepper and cheesy puffs, but today it needs 300 people working full time for 3+ years, some A list voice actors, and an orchestra. With those sorts of budgets it is the money guys calling the shots, not the devs themselves. The devs themselves only care about making great games that they and us like, but they have proven that they can't be trusted to make that profitable. That's why every good dev got bought out by EA and dismantled. And that's why Larian's recent games required crowdfunding on kickstarter, instead of getting published like a grown ups company. With this game they buy the rights to an old franchise and it acts as a huge bunch of good value marketing because everyone is talking about the return of Baldurs Gate, so they can be sure a lot of people will at least try it. That's why there are so many remakes and reboots these days, in gaming and in movies. Just pray that Divinity Gate: Baldur's Sin is better than Lady Ghostbusters.

Really we are lucky that this is being made by someone who can let you build characters and use spells and whatnot because it quite easily could have been a single character action game made by Zenimax or some other shitlords. I'd rather it be made by the KOTC guy or something but then it wouldn't have any budget and that's why KOTC2 looks like it is made out of paper with glitter and glue. tl;dr It isn't gonna be the BG3 people hoped for but at least it is a new RPG that is probably gonna be fun for a month or so and that's about as much you can hope for these days.

There's plenty of small studios still making great games. Maybe not 11 but 30 or 40.

Yeah but not huge AAA ones like this. Buying the rights to BG will have cost them a lot, but it will pay off with a bigger audience than DoS had. But it also requires that they hire far more staff, spend a lot more time on animations and graphics and music and voice overs and all that lame AAA shit. But without all that, there would be no BG3. I'd rather get this game with AD&D combat instead of DoS3 with the same dumb exploding barrels combat I've already seen twice before.

It's already blatantly apparent from the pre-alpha gameplay that they have toned down the whole exploding barrels combat from DoS 2 to fit more in line with DnD combat. It's impossible to take you guys seriously when you are determined to hate the game, it doesn't matter what's true or not.

Thoughtful criticism like pointing out that you can't change from team-based initiative, assuming it will be that way on the final build, I can understand. That system makes a lot of sense in co-op to spare people from waiting for each other to make their move but is not ideal for single player sessions.

Take a deep breath and read my post again.