Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Elthosian]

So I reached Level 5, I expect the game to turn into a cakewalk now or I will be deeply disappointed. Also that fire in the inn was a cool diversion, never had something like this in an RPG.

Oh boy, and I thought I was behind with playing.

I’m level 4, had to go back to real life responsibilities so I might as well wait for Patch 1.

 

[Frozen]

Lae'zel's arc: If you do everything she wants, she's sort of, kind of, nice to you. After 60 hours of threatening to murder you and being a grade-A bitch. After you drag her kicking and screaming through each of her idiotic reveals about how brainwashing is bad. After the worst callback to Dak'kon I've ever seen out of fanfiction.

Internet:

And the other companions are so bad that numerous codexers prefer this frog instead.

"Le writing's okay."

I feel like I'm on crazy pills.

It's a changed demographics. Wizards of the Woke same as BioWhores since DA2 that started this trend have gone for totally new audience.

Now its soccer moms, fat housewives, 40yo virgins, basement dwellers and kids raised in woke west that know no better.

I truly believe people who play this game think it's the best written thing ever. Because it's their intellectual level.

If you are not an idiot, you should have move on from turn-based games set in this setting long ago, you should outgrow it.

Even while it was not woke, its was childish. Now it's just cringe porn fantasy for sad people.

 

[Elthosian]

You kidding? I'm gonna shill the shit out of Space Skyrim, if only to make y'all butthurt when it becomes GOTY instead of BG3

Can't wait to see all the tears when Colony Ship takes the crown.

The one and true rpgcodex GOTY.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I find it weird to care about racial demographics in a setting like The Forgotten Realms. This isn't middle-earth where a world leading philologist is carefully tracking genealogies and cultural and linguistic development. It's a setting full of random tropes vomited everywhere so that you can feasibly create any kind of fantasy campaign you want with no restrictions.

Many people commenting on BG3 and the Forgotten Realms generally seem to be under the misapprehension that the Forgotten Realms was ever a serious attempt at creating a fantasy version of pseudo-medieval Europe, as opposed to a RenFair LARPfest version of contemporary America/Canada, in which there is a vast "Heartland" area that is an American/Canadian monoculture with American/Canadian norms. TSR not only sanitized Ed Greenwood's original setting but also made some attempt at altering and expanding it to be a bit more realistic and historically-grounded, but it was inevitable that WotC would revert to the setting to its origins in both respects. The demographics of Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms setting at its inception in the 1970s would naturally have been much different from the demographics of BG3, but it's consistent for the setting to reflect changing demographics in America/Canada. Similarly, the sexual fetishes on display in BG3 are not identical to Ed Greenwood's personal list of sexual fetishes established in the 1970s, but to complain about it being different is missing the point.

Grognards should have been astute enough to recognize even TSR's version of the Forgotten Realms as the worst D&D/AD&D campaign setting and rejected it at the time. With the advantage of hindsight, anyone should recognize that a CRPG would be better off with Greyhawk if it needed a generic setting, or with Dragonlance if it needed a Tolkienesque setting, or with the Known World / Mystara setting of non-advanced D&D if it needed a pulp fantasy setting, or with Kara-Tur if it needed a setting based on eastern Asia, or with al-Qadim if it needed a setting based on the Middle East, or with Spelljammer if it needed a gonzo space setting, or with Ravenloft if it needed a gothic horror setting, or with Dark Sun if it needed a post-apocalyptic setting, or with Planescape if it needed a bizarre planar setting, or even with Birthright if it needed a setting where the player-characters could be rulers at low-level.

The Forgotten Realms was a mistake and has always been decline.

 

[Mojobeard]

Lae'zel is great. She's a well built fighter with a good VA.
She's a pissy cardboard cutout that doesn't want you showing weakness, but doesn't otherwise much care how you accomplish your goals.
Her way of showing approval is complaining less, and letting you be the leader. Less what's written, more what's not written. Some would call it subtlety. This happens fairly fast, not a million hours in. And eventually she's even pleading to you, because she looks up to you.
She wants you to do her plot just like every party member in every videogame, shocking.

Feel free to be butthurt and construct additional strawmen.

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

As for the claim that Larian 'put GD in the game', that's just cheap sophistry on your part.

A cheap sage is still a sage and I'll happily accept the label of sophistes, this is a forum for people to argue in after all.

Ultimately every piece of media is embedded within the broader social environment under which it was produced (whether we're talking about the devs supposedly having a propagandistic aim with their work or just the work itself inevitably carrying various ideological underpinnings through cultural osmosis), so what counts or doesn't count as GD boils down to whether one's particular ideological sensibilities were offended by it deeply enough as to warrant such tangential discussions.

What does as any of this have to do with the discussion of the game being a reflection of the game itself? This is not restricted to the political at all, just like GD isn't. In his much too positive retrospective on Baldur's Gate 2 the now gone Codexer Ed123 pointed out how much the "romances" in BG2 were much like porn, and how polarizing and divisive any such content must be by nature.



Even if the game wasn't heavily loaded with American regime propaganda which users would feel inclined to either defend or attack due to an increasingly multi-polar world where people don't share core values or are in general agreement of what is and isn't appropriate this alone would be a topic of much discussion. The game's marketing has made the game famous as that one video game featuring bear bestiality, the first thing that meets the new player is a character creation screen where you select your genitals separately from your body, both of which are also separated from your pronouns. Whereas previously there was simply male and female and Codex threads were devoid of discussion of this part of the games this is something that is now a rallying cry for the faithful few of a certain ideology and an attack on people that don't conform to it. And this is tangential? Perhaps it is to you, to others it isn't.

If you don't care about the game in itself as an entertainment product

You cannot put this thinking into practice at all, do you suppose you can restrict and isolate what entertainment is anymore than you can restrict the political or the more general cringe? There are people with poor taste that would be interested in this game if it wasn't so Netflix shaped, or if featured less homosexuals. There are people who very loudly and often proclaim to love this game for similar reasons. All this relates to it as an entertainment product.

This is all irrelevant to what I said however, threads about other RPGs are not like this, where people don't have some ideological stake in a release, or feel the need to defend a game for political reasons. The RPG Codex has always been a place where you find out that something you like sucks, this time it sucks because people suffer from nigger fatigue, or because they got raped by a homo in-game, etc. If not for the political aspects people would still shit on it for how Bioware it is. For some strange mysterious reason that I'm sure are not tied to the games at all there are threads with good information and a cozy atmosphere free from this thing you're complaining about.

It's the game, stupid.

 

[Parabalus]

If you pick up the Act 2 big bad's journal from his bedroom, where he reveals what the Absolute is, and his plans are...nothing happens.

 

[Konjad]

https://www.ign.com/articles/if-bal...-be-more-forgiving-dragon-age-co-creator-says

This tweet, viewed 1.6 million times, prompted a response from Twitter user BlackSalander, who said if Lae'zel was a male character, players “would be swooning about him being so edgy and such a bad boy”.

“Oh wait I forgot, that's Astarion,” BlackSalander said, referencing Baldur’s Gate 3’s cruel, pompous, manipulative, male vampire companion.

This tweet then prompted a response from David Gaider, lead writer and co-creator of BioWare’s Dragon Age franchise, which Baldur’s Gate 3 is often compared to.

“Can confirm,” Gaider said. “The Dragon Age fandom consistently gave WAY more latitude and forgiveness to male characters as opposed to female characters, in every game. It is very much a Thing.”

Of course, Gaider, of course you need to seethe.

How's your new game selling, you know, the one released this month? Damn, I even forgot its name to post here The visual novel trash.

I imagine not well, huh?

 

[Sunri]

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

If you pick up the Act 2 big bad's journal from his bedroom, where he reveals what the Absolute is, and his plans are...nothing happens.

You can also find enough about it out just by sticking your arm through a crack in the wall, which lets you contact the Elder Brain and (potentially) gets you pulled into the mind flayer colony below.

It really doesn't matter if you know his plans or what the Absolute is at that point. You already realize that he's invincible, and dealing with that invincibility is the issue you need to tackle.

 

[VerSacrum]

I find it weird to care about racial demographics in a setting like The Forgotten Realms. This isn't middle-earth where a world leading philologist is carefully tracking genealogies and cultural and linguistic development. It's a setting full of random tropes vomited everywhere so that you can feasibly create any kind of fantasy campaign you want with no restrictions.

I can see this argument working with its humans, but has American fantasy worldbuilding really sunk so low that fucking Wood Elves and Mountain Dwarves need to reflect the demographics of a Californian slum?

 

[Kiste]

With the advantage of hindsight, anyone should recognize that a CRPG would be better off with Greyhawk if it needed a generic setting, or with Dragonlance if it needed a Tolkienesque setting

Dragonlance can barely even considered to be a setting. It's a War of the Lance one-trick pony and the world, which is not particularly fleshed out, only exists as a backdrop to that central conflict.

 

[Maxie]

The best companion in the entire Baldur's Gate series:

memeshit for children. adult & mature gamers like me only enjoy the company of PTSD-ridden army veterans with war crimes under their belt who come off as gruff and vaguely confrontational 90% of the time
like Ifan ben-Mezd, but WHITE

 

[Konjad]

The best companion in the entire Baldur's Gate series:

memeshit for children. adult & mature gamers like me only enjoy the company of PTSD-ridden army veterans with war crimes under their belt who come off as gruff and vaguely confrontational 90% of the time
like Ifan ben-Mezd, but WHITE

drows are not white

 

[turkishronin]

I find it weird to care about racial demographics in a setting like The Forgotten Realms. This isn't middle-earth where a world leading philologist is carefully tracking genealogies and cultural and linguistic development. It's a setting full of random tropes vomited everywhere so that you can feasibly create any kind of fantasy campaign you want with no restrictions.

I can see this argument working with its humans, but has American fantasy worldbuilding really sunk so low that fucking Wood Elves and Mountain Dwarves need to reflect the demographics of a Californian slum?

Obama made imagination illegal in 2010

 

[turkishronin]

The best companion in the entire Baldur's Gate series:

memeshit for children. adult & mature gamers like me only enjoy the company of PTSD-ridden army veterans with war crimes under their belt who come off as gruff and vaguely confrontational 90% of the time
like Ifan ben-Mezd, but WHITE

drows are not white

Underdark= hood

 

[Sunri]

At least Jaheira is not black in bg 3

 

[Maxie]

The best companion in the entire Baldur's Gate series:

memeshit for children. adult & mature gamers like me only enjoy the company of PTSD-ridden army veterans with war crimes under their belt who come off as gruff and vaguely confrontational 90% of the time
like Ifan ben-Mezd, but WHITE

drows are not white

elves don't qualify as anything else than monster manual entries. whoever uses them for party members, will be purged.

 

[turkishronin]

Seeing Laezel's voice actress makes me wish they had a second female companion npc voiced by her, then it could have been modelled after her

>intimacy coordinators to make sure we feel comfortable

How about doing your job? Imagine working on an oil rig or a construction site and having someone specifically there to wipe your ass and see if baby need a bottle.

Gosh, should I do the thing I was hired to do? Wow, let me think.

It was made a thing because some boomers in Hollywood couldn't behave.

 

[Kiste]

The best companion in the entire Baldur's Gate series:

Behold the Philosemite.

 

[The_Mask]

After the worst callback to Dak'kon I've ever seen out of fanfiction.

99% of the people playing this game have no fucking clue who Dak'kon is, and what you're referring to.

 

[Reinhardt]

After the worst callback to Dak'kon I've ever seen out of fanfiction.

99% of the people playing this game have no fucking clue who Dak'kon is, and what you're referring to.

i know him. he's that guy who gives lots of free shit for solving some shitty puzzle.

 

[Nikanuur]

Does anyone know how to edit companions (hirelings at best) or how to play with custom characters?
Maybe some mod or something? I can't seem to find it.
I mean some *other* way than the one with running 4 instances of the game.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Many people commenting on BG3 and the Forgotten Realms generally seem to be under the misapprehension that the Forgotten Realms was ever a serious attempt at creating a fantasy version of pseudo-medieval Europe

Eh. Yes, FR had a bunch of different settings crammed into one world, but the general expectation of medieval fantasy, particularly along a pseudo-European geography like this part of the SC, is that there's going to be a kingdom there and that kingdom, if it has traditional knights and such, is probably going to be European. Not even necessarily pasty white men, but something vaguely like Europe, since you're borrowing so much of the culture, and since other areas are home to races that are specifically black or Arab, implying that the areas that aren't are probably different.

And if you want to make a different race there, even though this is specifically a sequel to Baldur's Gate, a game that showed at least a sizable amount of white people there in typical Medieval dress, go ahead. But there's going to be some distinct group of people there, or groups, and they're going to have distinctive characteristics, since travel isn't that easy. They're not going to be a mix of random races slapped together so much so that you can't tell who the locals are at all. At least if you want an ounce of believability.

This isn't something I'm saying Wizards or TSR did on purpose, or wanted to have. This is an assumption players are going to naturally have, since the setting isn't suited to creating abject melting pots. Sure, you're going to have lots of races in a specifically mercantile city - merchants, refugees, what have you. But it's not going to have zero distinctive demographics for the local humans, which lore-wise are supposed to be a majority.

But BG3 takes it a step further. Not only is there no distinctive human culture, but humanity itself looks to be a minority. This just makes the setting feel preposterous. It's a city less cohesive or homogeneous than any large modern city. And in a modern city, travel is so easy that you can go from the other end of the world to LA in a day.

You're correct that Forgotten Realms had its problems and that there are better settings, but even with those problems, BG1 was at least playable without wandering around slapping your forehead in amazement at how the worldbuilding couldn't be more trash if they tried. Not that I'm praising BG1's simplistic world specifically, just saying that it was tolerable. But then, I doubt there was anyone looking over their shoulder at the time, making sure they added enough Diversity.

Also, hat's off to the Murder In Baldur's Gate authors for naming the negro duke "Ravengard". He's black and he was a guard. Real subtle.

 

[Kiste]

After the worst callback to Dak'kon I've ever seen out of fanfiction.

99% of the people playing this game have no fucking clue who Dak'kon is, and what you're referring to.

i know him. he's that guy who gives lots of free shit for solving some shitty puzzle.

He's not as much a character as he is a lore dispenser.