Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Eisenheinrich]

BG3 should get an anime, will bring in all the japs. Then they'd learn what an actual rpg is.

Muh queen. She won't fuck me first night, won't fuck me second night.

She truly holy.

 

[gongal]

Do you get less coomer content by keeping your charisma low or is it not related at all?

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I hate DOS2 and I really like this game, but the exploration and fundamental structural design is 1:1 DOS

See?

 

[Reinhardt]

reached lvl 4 with monkeh. instead of roaring things into submission i just kill. looks like more exp this way. no rests yet too.

nigga wyll is not at training grounds. maybe because i recruited red thing first.

 

[Reinhardt]

so far karlach is absolutely worst character. she's offensively bad.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the exploration and fundamental structural design

Those things are both touching on Larian's pipeline for generating the game's areas, so it would be too costly to change. How do you imagine it, if not in this D:OS style?

 

[Grunker]

so far karlach is absolutely worst character. she's offensively bad.

she's the only outright bad character

 

[Grunker]

the exploration and fundamental structural design

Those things are both touching on Larian's pipeline for generating the game's areas, so it would be too costly to change. How do you imagine it, if not in this D:OS style?

You misunderstood me, I think. I had no inkling it would be different. I was just correcting Eisenheinrich. I also enjoyed Cyseal, by the way, so I knew I could enjoy the style.

 

[Herumor]

People talking about what D&D setting Larian might tackle next - did you see the news that WotC will be releasing a new set of Planescape books sometime this year? I expect them to try and rope in Larian to make a new game for Planescape at one point.

As much as I like BG3 and would like Larian to make IWD3 and BG4, giving them Planescape would be a disaster. They wouldn't be able to write any serious stuff even if their survival depended on it.

There was talk in the early access thread for BG3 about what Larian might have been like if Swen got into Dark Sun when he was younger, but as things are right now, yeah, Larian seems to struggle to write more serious tones in their story for longer than just the occasional conversation.

 

[Grauken]

Biotards were always a bunch of deviants. The evolution from BG2 romances to "riding the bull" in Dragon Age was likely very natural for those misfits.

This was marketed to anyone who has heard of dwarves and elves man, the Bioware old farts with loosened sphincters are a peanuts segment of the target audience here.

I think it was targeted toward the Critical Role fanbase which through the cartoons and whatnot they do is far bigger than just role-players inspired by CR

 

[ColonelMace]

Bizarre statement. I hate DOS2 and I really like this game, but the exploration and fundamental structural design is 1:1 DOS. It has copied so many mechanics directly

Pretty much the same.
I believe the change in tone and setting simply makes much more than we realise.
If anything, the transition from DOS to BGIII should be studied as a brilliant case of how much style can matter.
I still can't really put my finger on what exactly makes me interested in most npcs interactions in BGIII when it was the total opposite in DOSII, where I couldn't help skipping most of the cutscenes.

I already felt the same with POE>POE2, where the latter, despite an objectively worst narrative state overall, just felt more immersive thanks to (imo) the artstyle, tone and universal voice acting.

 

[Grunker]

Bizarre statement. I hate DOS2 and I really like this game, but the exploration and fundamental structural design is 1:1 DOS. It has copied so many mechanics directly

I believe the change in tone and setting simply makes much more than we realise.

For me it's a combination of tone (which does make a massive difference) but also combat and character systems. The latter two are simply light years better than anything in DoS1 and certainly DoS2. It really makes the game so much more enjoyable for me.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the exploration and fundamental structural design

Those things are both touching on Larian's pipeline for generating the game's areas, so it would be too costly to change. How do you imagine it, if not in this D:OS style?

You misunderstood me, I think. I had no inkling it would be different. I was just correcting Eisenheinrich. I also enjoyed Cyseal, by the way, so I knew I could enjoy the style.

I was left with the impression that you'd rather it was different, not that you expected it to be different.

I can't determine if the IE style of presenting areas or Larian's style is closer to PnP. I guess both are similar to different styles of representing overland travel. Larian's style doesn't seem to benefit much from moment-to-moment exploration. The time spent travellnig between significant set-piece sections could have been represented by area transitions, instead of your party actually running through the map, I guess. In the IE games I think it was opposite, but there the scale of an "area" was larger because it could be represented by numerous maps ("areas" in the Inifinity Engine terminology).

The same effect is visible once you enter the temple of Selune in BG3 - the temple being represented by multiple areas helps evoke the sense of "this place is huge" in the player's mind. The ability to "get lost", explore and explore, without reaching the end*. I think it may have been better for the first big map to have been split into multiple maps, corresponding to the fast travel markers, and with some travelling mechanics and random encounters possible between them.

But then you would end up with something much like Pathfinder, which I'm also not sure I like very much. I wouldn't like random encounters popping up when I'm eager to progress a quest. That's a sphere of DM-ing where that the live DM can take into account factors which the game really can't - the player's desire for the campaign to progress in a specific way.

In PnP how do you represent overland travel - either skip it completely, and the players teleport with some time passed, or you go down to calculating distances and time, and supplies, etc. Do you have random encounters on the way or no?

* probably the best example of this kind of feeling I can think of in a 3d RPG is the Andraste Ashes quest in DA:O. Remarkable quest.

 

[MerchantKing]

so far karlach is absolutely worst character. she's offensively bad.

she's the only outright bad character

Along with the gay vampire, the gay wizard, the gay hammite, the frog demon, the drow, bear boy, the guy who still owes me a hamster, the single granny, and the mongrel.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'm finding the game extremely good in general. Even exceptionally good in spurs, but man if there aren't areas where the flaws are absolutely puzzling.
The inventory system, for instance, is an absolute mess and it lacks some of the most basic QoL features you'd expect... Or implements them in the most ham-fisted and ineffective form I've ever seen.

Also, for all the condescending reassurances we got during EA ffrom some people that "player-sexual companions is the fairest thing there is to give anyone what they want" (something I never really agreed even in general, I find it another coward case of "convenience over commitment" in modern game design) I think Larian may very well have the WORST implementation I've seen so far.
It's a thing to have all companions ready to tenderly buttfuck you at the first chance, as it's often the case even in past Obsidian and Bioware games, but in this one is dialed up to 11, with every single companion not only "willing to" but also incredibly pushy and whiny about rejection.
Which I try my best to ignore and dismiss as much as possible, but holy fucking Christ if it doesn't border into what's basically sexual harassment at times.
And you are rarely offered options to shut them down politely, too. It's either "Please, rearrange my anus" or "I'd rather cut a limb that interact with you".

Not to mention I think something must be bugged, because at some point for instance I had Gale (which I never had any flirty interaction whatsoever, not even the notorious "magic lesson" others talked about) coming out of nowhere with what was basically a "Stop two-timing. It's time for you to decide: it's going to be me or Shadowheart??" to which I wish I had the option to answer "WHAT IN THE FLYING FUCK?", but I was offered just two options to keep him around and something like "It's over between us".

 

[Grunker]

the exploration and fundamental structural design

Those things are both touching on Larian's pipeline for generating the game's areas, so it would be too costly to change. How do you imagine it, if not in this D:OS style?

You misunderstood me, I think. I had no inkling it would be different. I was just correcting Eisenheinrich. I also enjoyed Cyseal, by the way, so I knew I could enjoy the style.

I was left with the impression that you'd rather it was different, not that you expected it to be different.

I would *definitely* prefer the map design to be different, with more retreading and quest givers and "city exploration" as well as feeling you had some connectedness to a central hub. This, I think, would not have been impossible within this engine - after all, Cyseal is a prototype for a fantastic fucking core game city.

 

[Jermu]

Seems like they made a tranny look like a tranny (had to google since voice was suspicious)

 

[Lemming42]

Isn't he just meant to be a drag queen? I assumed it was some minor celeb doing the mocap and voice.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Seems like they made a tranny look like a tranny (had to google since voice was suspicious)

another example of europeans not holding back

 

[Grunker]

every single companion not only "willing to" but also incredibly pushy and whiny about rejected.

Yeah it's lulzy Larian placed so much emphasis on saying they wanted relationships to feel natural. Apparantly that means that if you say something nice to someone a single time, the next time you speak to them they'll profess you're the most important person in their world.

I find the rapid development of ~*real feelings*~ they express much more grating than their instant horniness. 'Cause who the fuck isn't horny

 

[Grunker]

Isn't he just meant to be a drag queen? I assumed it was some minor celeb doing the mocap and voice.

If it's a drag queen and not a tranny I'm gonna lol so hard at the culture war fags' outrage

 

[Reinhardt]

so far karlach is absolutely worst character. she's offensively bad.

she's the only outright bad character

Along with the gay vampire, the gay wizard, the gay hammite, the frog demon, the drow, bear boy, the guy who still owes me a hamster, the single granny, and the mongrel.

still better than one turnip pony.

 

[Jermu]

Isn't he just meant to be a drag queen?

synonyms

 

[MerchantKing]

so far karlach is absolutely worst character. she's offensively bad.

she's the only outright bad character

Along with the gay vampire, the gay wizard, the gay hammite, the frog demon, the drow, bear boy, the guy who still owes me a hamster, the single granny, and the mongrel.

still better than one turnip pony.

Cool it with the antinanatic remarks.

 

[Jermu]

Seems like they made a tranny look like a tranny (had to google since voice was suspicious)

another example of europeans not holding back

its a nice touch they made it appear in circus where it belongs