Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[dukeofwoodberry]

Re: integration-- every single American city is de facto segregated. Even some of the most census-diverse cities in the country are set up in ways so that people of different races almost never mix. The US developed an entirely alternate kind of transportation based on the personal car once trains and other forms of public transportation were integrated by law. The only places where you really see much racial diversity are in places that have been integrated by law. Even then, those institutions that are de jure integrated do everything that they can to work the system (e.g. hiring/admitting seven black women for every black man).

When a game does the United Colors of Benetton thing, they are trying to reflect the propaganda of the system rather than what that system actually produces.

Not my experience. Maybe I just live in a much more diverse area (I live in Texas, where no one etnicity is a majority), but I currently, and always have, had people of different ethnicities in all the neighborhoods I have lived in, schools I have gone to, and workplaces I have worked at. One major reason I always roll my eyes at all the "race war now!" type folks on the codex. Somehow the places I have lived my entire life have managed to withstand diversity without breaking out into violent racial conflict, and even managed to be some of the best places to live and work in the country with massive growth.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

While there are plenty of places where there isn't much diversity due to one ethnic group being a very strong majority, there are many places where that isn't true as well as I have visited other parts of the country that clearly had a fairly diverse group of people walking around and interacting. It is also a very big country, so I wouldn't assume whatever personal experience you have had (or read about) are the norm across the country.



I think the extreme diversity often seen in fantasy games just doesn't make a lot of sense though, unless there is a very specific reason for it. People generally can't travel as easily in fantasy settings as they can in modern days, so there just wouldn't be that much traveling around and settling down different places. An area on the boundary between two different cultures might have a fair amount of mixing/interaction between the two (although after a period of time there will be a merging of the two cultures), and same thing with would happen in an area that was recently invaded or conquered.

But half a dozen different cultures all co-existing in the same place? You better have a very good explanation for that.

There's literally a Harvard study that shows the more diverse a community, the less close people are. People stay in more and interact less. They want to interact less. But let's trust your gay little anecdotal evidence.

I was in the military and most of my time blacks hung together, at lunch together, went out to together. Yeah I was cool with some of them and we worked together fine but most people's closest friends were their own race

 

[Rhobar121]

When does Act 3 supposedly start dropping off? I'm pottering around it now and enjoying all the sidequests and haven't hit any major bugs that required reloading. Is it a matter of preference with regard to the city map vs. the mostly outdoor maps in the first 2 Acts?

Maybe you got lucky my playthrough of Act 3 was bugged to hell. The most annoying one was that the UI sometimes disappeared during combat and was instead stuck in dialogue mode.

This is a bug that occurred to me many times in 1 act

 

[copebot]

Houston neighborhoo

Re: integration-- every single American city is de facto segregated. Even some of the most census-diverse cities in the country are set up in ways so that people of different races almost never mix. The US developed an entirely alternate kind of transportation based on the personal car once trains and other forms of public transportation were integrated by law. The only places where you really see much racial diversity are in places that have been integrated by law. Even then, those institutions that are de jure integrated do everything that they can to work the system (e.g. hiring/admitting seven black women for every black man).

When a game does the United Colors of Benetton thing, they are trying to reflect the propaganda of the system rather than what that system actually produces.

Not my experience. Maybe I just live in a much more diverse area (I live in Texas, where no one etnicity is a majority), but I currently, and always have, had people of different ethnicities in all the neighborhoods I have lived in, schools I have gone to, and workplaces I have worked at. One major reason I always roll my eyes at all the "race war now!" type folks on the codex. Somehow the places I have lived my entire life have managed to withstand diversity without breaking out into violent racial conflict, and even managed to be some of the best places to live and work in the country with massive growth.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

While there are plenty of places where there isn't much diversity due to one ethnic group being a very strong majority, there are many places where that isn't true as well as I have visited other parts of the country that clearly had a fairly diverse group of people walking around and interacting. It is also a very big country, so I wouldn't assume whatever personal experience you have had (or read about) are the norm across the country.

I think the extreme diversity often seen in fantasy games just doesn't make a lot of sense though, unless there is a very specific reason for it. People generally can't travel as easily in fantasy settings as they can in modern days, so there just wouldn't be that much traveling around and settling down different places. An area on the boundary/interface between two different cultures might have a fair amount of mixing/interaction between the two (although after a period of time there will be a merging of the two into a hybrid culture), and same thing with would happen in an area that was recently invaded or conquered.

But half a dozen different cultures all co-existing in the same place? You better have a very good explanation for that.

I'm sure your experience is exceptional, but even neighborhoods in Houston are de facto segregated https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-houston-tx/.

Dallas is segregated https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-dallas-tx/

San Antonio is segregated in blocs https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-san-antonio-tx/

Even megalib Austin is segregated with a hilarious demographic pattern https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-austin-tx/

Schools, public streets, other public accomodations like retail shops/restaurants, and workplaces are integrated by law, so of course you will see diversity there.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

If you don't integrate, you are subject to very expensive lawsuits-- the threat of force. Which doesn't generally exist in these imaginary fantasy settings. If even Austin cannot get people of different races who are really not that different from one another to live cheek to cheek in the same neighborhoods, it doesn't really make sense for a fantasy universe with different species to be blended together as if they are.

 

[Shaki]

The Codex has a habit of people acting much more hostile towards games than they actually are and focusing on criticizing things about them rather than praising them.

But the reason people are able to criticize it is because they bought it and played it, usually through most of the game if not completing it. And someone who played through 40 hours of something definitely didn't hate it to the very core of their being, and were probably actually quite enjoying themselves most of that time.

You are going to see the same thing here shortly with Starfield. Bethesda being one of the studios you are supposed to ritually hate on the codex, despite playing most of their games.

That isn't a defense against the criticisms of the game in this thread though. Most of the criticisms I have seen in this thread I agree with and think are pretty valid.

Yes, if you genuinely hate the game and everything about it, there is no reason to spend a lot of time criticizing and arguing about it, you just call it dogshit and move on. Most fierce discussions happen around popular games that have both good and bad parts, and overall provide enough fun for even haters to be able to play through them.

Games like this are always polarizing, because you always have people who are like


"I like this game, but it could be so much better, I better focus on shitting on everything bad about it, so hopefully the next RPG produced has less of the bad stuff and more of the good"

vs

"I like this game, it could be so much better, but I better simp for it completely, or the devs might be discouraged and we will only get more CoD n shit in the future instead of RPGs like this"

Once these two groups clash and the flamewar starts, you also have trolls and shitposters join both sides for fun, even people who didn't actually play the game feel the need to add their "opinion" because they want to be a part of the popular thing™, and the thread quickly devolves into a beautiful shitshow like this one.

 

[darkpatriot]

Re: integration-- every single American city is de facto segregated. Even some of the most census-diverse cities in the country are set up in ways so that people of different races almost never mix. The US developed an entirely alternate kind of transportation based on the personal car once trains and other forms of public transportation were integrated by law. The only places where you really see much racial diversity are in places that have been integrated by law. Even then, those institutions that are de jure integrated do everything that they can to work the system (e.g. hiring/admitting seven black women for every black man).

When a game does the United Colors of Benetton thing, they are trying to reflect the propaganda of the system rather than what that system actually produces.

Not my experience. Maybe I just live in a much more diverse area (I live in Texas, where no one etnicity is a majority), but I currently, and always have, had people of different ethnicities in all the neighborhoods I have lived in, schools I have gone to, and workplaces I have worked at. One major reason I always roll my eyes at all the "race war now!" type folks on the codex. Somehow the places I have lived my entire life have managed to withstand diversity without breaking out into violent racial conflict, and even managed to be some of the best places to live and work in the country with massive growth.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

While there are plenty of places where there isn't much diversity due to one ethnic group being a very strong majority, there are many places where that isn't true as well as I have visited other parts of the country that clearly had a fairly diverse group of people walking around and interacting. It is also a very big country, so I wouldn't assume whatever personal experience you have had (or read about) are the norm across the country.



I think the extreme diversity often seen in fantasy games just doesn't make a lot of sense though, unless there is a very specific reason for it. People generally can't travel as easily in fantasy settings as they can in modern days, so there just wouldn't be that much traveling around and settling down different places. An area on the boundary between two different cultures might have a fair amount of mixing/interaction between the two (although after a period of time there will be a merging of the two cultures), and same thing with would happen in an area that was recently invaded or conquered.

But half a dozen different cultures all co-existing in the same place? You better have a very good explanation for that.

There's literally a Harvard study that shows the more diverse a community, the less close people are. People stay in more and interact less. They want to interact less. But let's trust your gay little anecdotal evidence.

I was in the military and most of my time blacks hung together, at lunch together, went out to together. Yeah I was cool with some of them and we worked together fine but most people's closest friends were their own race

I was also in the military, one of those diverse workplaces I worked at. That was also where I learned that my experience, growing up around lots of people with different ethnicities, was not the same experience everyone had. In basic one of the Drill Sergeants specifically had people who had grown up never seeing a person of another race until they got to basic raise their hands, and there were several. That was the point he was trying to show us. That we were going to have to learn to interact very closely with people who came from different backgrounds and had very different experiences that we did.

And your inability to make friends with people besides your own race sounds like more of a personal problem. There are certainly people that aren't that comfortable making close friends with people outside their background (and whose background is very ethnic specific) but you are, like most people, viewing things through the lens of your own beliefs and background.

But it is very easy for someone who has a dim view of diversity and other races to focus on and see cases where there is conflict and separation, while it is easier for someone like me (where a pretty diverse environment was always the norm) to see where people are not having issues with that.

Black people do tend to be a bit more like this and cliquish, and that is mostly to the way black people are taught while growing up that other ethnicities, specifically white people, are out to get them or are going to otherwise oppress them or take advantage of them, so they have to stick together. It isn't true and it creates somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy as it actually causes black people to tend to be more racist on average than the average American. But that also just demonstrates it is very much a learned behavior.

Despite what racist people do like to claim, people forming in-group/out-group preferences based primarily on ethnicity is not the natural way of things. You see it commonly in history, but studies have shown that economic class and interests are actually much significant motivators for in-group/out-group preferences.

 

[darkpatriot]

Houston neighborhoo

Re: integration-- every single American city is de facto segregated. Even some of the most census-diverse cities in the country are set up in ways so that people of different races almost never mix. The US developed an entirely alternate kind of transportation based on the personal car once trains and other forms of public transportation were integrated by law. The only places where you really see much racial diversity are in places that have been integrated by law. Even then, those institutions that are de jure integrated do everything that they can to work the system (e.g. hiring/admitting seven black women for every black man).

When a game does the United Colors of Benetton thing, they are trying to reflect the propaganda of the system rather than what that system actually produces.

Not my experience. Maybe I just live in a much more diverse area (I live in Texas, where no one etnicity is a majority), but I currently, and always have, had people of different ethnicities in all the neighborhoods I have lived in, schools I have gone to, and workplaces I have worked at. One major reason I always roll my eyes at all the "race war now!" type folks on the codex. Somehow the places I have lived my entire life have managed to withstand diversity without breaking out into violent racial conflict, and even managed to be some of the best places to live and work in the country with massive growth.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

While there are plenty of places where there isn't much diversity due to one ethnic group being a very strong majority, there are many places where that isn't true as well as I have visited other parts of the country that clearly had a fairly diverse group of people walking around and interacting. It is also a very big country, so I wouldn't assume whatever personal experience you have had (or read about) are the norm across the country.

I think the extreme diversity often seen in fantasy games just doesn't make a lot of sense though, unless there is a very specific reason for it. People generally can't travel as easily in fantasy settings as they can in modern days, so there just wouldn't be that much traveling around and settling down different places. An area on the boundary/interface between two different cultures might have a fair amount of mixing/interaction between the two (although after a period of time there will be a merging of the two into a hybrid culture), and same thing with would happen in an area that was recently invaded or conquered.

But half a dozen different cultures all co-existing in the same place? You better have a very good explanation for that.

I'm sure your experience is exceptional, but even neighborhoods in Houston are de facto segregated https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-houston-tx/.

Dallas is segregated https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-dallas-tx/

San Antonio is segregated in blocs https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-san-antonio-tx/

Even megalib Austin is segregated with a hilarious demographic pattern https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-austin-tx/

Schools, public streets, other public accomodations like retail shops/restaurants, and workplaces are integrated by law, so of course you will see diversity there.

And it certainly isn't because it is forced.

If you don't integrate, you are subject to very expensive lawsuits-- the threat of force. Which doesn't generally exist in these imaginary fantasy settings. If even Austin cannot get people of different races who are really not that different from one another to live cheek to cheek in the same neighborhoods, it doesn't really make sense for a fantasy universe with different species to be blended together as if they are.

Are you retarded? Segregated does not mean that at least 51% of the people in one area are of the same ethnicity, which is what your maps show. Segregation is almost complete separation, and a community that is 70% one ethnicity, 20% another, and 10% yet another is pretty diverse.


And no all those places you list are not integrated by law. There are certainly many misguided anti-discrimination laws that produce quota like effects (primarily in employment due to the disparate impact doctrine, but that doesn't apply in many areas outside of employment) despite straight up quotas being illegal. But most of those places you list (streets? lol) have no specific legal or forceful integration. Integration just happens when people live near each other. Unless you are trying to classify not letting people discriminate based on race as forced legal integration, lol.

 

[Larianshill]

This is a bug that occurred to me many times in 1 act

For me, it occurs only to Lae'zel specifically, and seems to be tied to lockpicking.

 

[Ryzer]

 

[Maxie]

how is it an honour kevin you dumb faggot
i know you're reading this so reply to me how is being called a cuck anything you should be proud of

 

[Zeltak]

The Codex has a habit of people acting much more hostile towards games than they actually are and focusing on criticizing things about them rather than praising them.

But the reason people are able to criticize it is because they bought it and played it, usually through most of the game if not completing it. And someone who played through 40 hours of something definitely didn't hate it to the very core of their being, and were probably actually quite enjoying themselves most of that time.

You are going to see the same thing here shortly with Starfield. Bethesda being one of the studios you are supposed to ritually hate on the codex, despite playing most of their games.

That isn't a defense against the criticisms of the game in this thread though. Most of the criticisms I have seen in this thread I agree with and think are pretty valid.

Yes, if you genuinely hate the game and everything about it, there is no reason to spend a lot of time criticizing and arguing about it, you just call it dogshit and move on. Most fierce discussions happen around popular games that have both good and bad parts, and overall provide enough fun for even haters to be able to play through them.

Games like this are always polarizing, because you always have people who are like


"I like this game, but it could be so much better, I better focus on shitting on everything bad about it, so hopefully the next RPG produced has less of the bad stuff and more of the good"

vs

"I like this game, it could be so much better, but I better simp for it completely, or the devs might be discouraged and we will only get more CoD n shit in the future instead of RPGs like this"

Once these two groups clash and the flamewar starts, you also have trolls and shitposters join both sides for fun, even people who didn't actually play the game feel the need to add their "opinion" because they want to be a part of the popular thing™, and the thread quickly devolves into a beautiful shitshow like this one.

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

 

[Ashen_Shugar]

I feel like you are coping lol!

With what?

Well you know maybe people like this game because is actually good despite what naysayers say.

It's a 8/10 game with 3/10 writing.

Which is honestly the best case scenario since people who like the game can say it's great and fun, and people who hate the game can say it's overrated trash.

Could you imagine if the game was an unimpeachable 10/10?

Codex would melt down.

To be honest, writing in crpg games is usually shit.
I doubt I can name more than a few rpg that came out in the last 20 years that had good writing.

For me the only game that resonated with exceptional writing is Betrayal at Krondor (Halford & Cutter were masters at their craft). Deus Ex & The Witcher 1 & 3 could also be noted for excellent writing/story. IMHO P: KM also had passable writing/story and Pillars of Eternity whilst being a ho hum game at least resonated with story/writing that i can still remember today (shrouded woman arc, Durance etc). Can't say the same for a plethora of other CRPG's whose story i struggle to recall years later.

Without intending to derail the BG3 thread any suggestions for any other western CRPG's with truly great writing and/or a memorable story? (Noting that i have not played Underrail yet, and whilst i enjoyed Wasteland 2 & 3 would not consider the story/writing to be excellent, good at best).

 

[processdaemon]

-

-

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

Someone did just post a tweet showing that Larian read the codex enough to know they're being called cucks, the only issue is that they seem to like it. The detractors need to adjust their insults to more specifically offend Larian writers to get through to them (maybe accuse them of being in monogamous long term relationships).

 

[Fedora Master]

Completely accurate description, too.

 

[Riddler]

All very good points that would go a long way to adress many of my major concerns, beyond act 3 being kind of unfinished and buggy.

The things that are kind of mediocre or bad would still be so but this is such low hanging fruit that it boggles the mind that they weren't in the original release.

 

[Zeltak]

All very good points that would go a long way to adress most of my major concerns, beyond act 3 being kind of unfinished and buggy.

The things that are kind of mediocre or bad would still be so but this is such low hanging fruit that it boggles the mind that they weren't in the original release.

You know shit is bad when even youtubers are complaining about the difficulty.

 

[darkpatriot]

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

Someone did just post a tweet showing that Larian read the codex enough to know they're being called cucks, the only issue is that they seem to like it. The detractors need to adjust their insults to more specifically offend Larian writers to get through to them (maybe accuse them of being in monogamous long term relationships).

Of course a cuck would enjoy being called a cuck. The feeling of humiliation is the whole point.

 

[Gradenmayer]

-

-

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

Someone did just post a tweet showing that Larian read the codex enough to know they're being called cucks, the only issue is that they seem to like it. The detractors need to adjust their insults to more specifically offend Larian writers to get through to them (maybe accuse them of being in monogamous long term relationships).

It’s Belgians. They enjoy when people are mean to them. Troll blood in their veins and all.

 

[Shaki]

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

It probably has *some* bearing, it just depends on the subject. Devs read Codex, just as they read Reddit and Resetera, and generally as a dev you want to cater to as many people as possible. Sure, no one will remove trannies from the game and piss off a milion redditors just to satisfy some small niche, culture war topics are mostly pointless to discuss, but if you're a dev and see thousands autists on an RPG forums complain about some issue like the tactician being too easy, you might as well throw them some uber-tactician difficulty setting in the next game, since it doesn't cost you much and doesn't piss anyone, etc. Also even if the effect on AAA RPGs is small, majority of RPGs still come from the indie scene, and these games are often heavily impacted by what devs read on some niche internet forum, so any discussion might have an effect on the scene as a whole. If you don't like trannies in BG3, it's probably worth saying it, just so other smaller devs know that there is still a niche interested in non-trannyfied games.

 

[Grauken]

If you don't like trannies in BG3, it's probably worth saying it, just so other smaller devs know that there is still a niche interested in non-trannyfied games.

Since there are no trannies, only a crossdresser in the circus in act 3, they just think you're crazy and dismiss your entire feedback

 

[mastroego]

So apparently I passed too close to Waukeen's Rest before actually going inside the area, some timer started and now everyone's dead.
Backtracking here is out of the question as I've been seeing the edges of the building on the map for quite sometime, I'd probably have to lose hours and hours of play to go back to a point where the timer hadn't started yet.

Apparently this means losing quests and items.

This is fucked.
It's killing my resolve to go on with this game.

 

[Shaki]

If you don't like trannies in BG3, it's probably worth saying it, just so other smaller devs know that there is still a niche interested in non-trannyfied games.

Since there are no trannies, only a crossdresser in the circus in act 3, they just think you're crazy and dismiss your entire feedback

There are trannies, and you again talk about the whole game, despite still being in act 1 like you admitted yesterday.

 

[Rhobar121]

Ok, let's not delude ourselves thinking anything we say here has any bearing on the development of a future RPG with the budget and scope of BG3. Anyone who decides to participate here is autistically screeching into the void one way or another. With that said I'm still gonna be shitting on the writing because that's my opinion and go fuck yourself.

It probably has *some* bearing, it just depends on the subject. Devs read Codex, just as they read Reddit and Resetera, and generally as a dev you want to cater to as many people as possible. Sure, no one will remove trannies from the game and piss off a milion redditors just to satisfy some small niche, culture war topics are mostly pointless to discuss, but if you're a dev and see thousands autists on an RPG forums complain about some issue like the tactician being too easy, you might as well throw them some uber-tactician difficulty setting in the next game, since it doesn't cost you much and doesn't piss anyone, etc. Also even if the effect on AAA RPGs is small, majority of RPGs still come from the indie scene, and these games are often heavily impacted by what devs read on some niche internet forum, so any discussion might have an effect on the scene as a whole. If you don't like trannies in BG3, it's probably worth saying it, just so other smaller devs know that there is still a niche interested in non-trannyfied games.

Just don't exaggerate because then you can come to the conclusion that the gameplay, storyline, UI don't matter and Codex will love everything that doesn't include tranny.

 

[Grauken]

If you don't like trannies in BG3, it's probably worth saying it, just so other smaller devs know that there is still a niche interested in non-trannyfied games.

Since there are no trannies, only a crossdresser in the circus in act 3, they just think you're crazy and dismiss your entire feedback

There are trannies, and you again talk about the whole game, despite still being in act 1 like you admitted yesterday.

Just because I'm still in act 1 doesn't mean I can't read up about other acts. So, what trannies are there?

 

[Maxie]

what is this redguard doing in baldur's gate
fuckin dynaheir all over again

 

[Rhobar121]

So apparently I passed too close to Waukeen's Rest before actually going inside the area, some timer started and now everyone's dead.
Backtracking here is out of the question as I've been seeing the edges of the building on the map for quite sometime, I'd probably have to lose hours and hours of play to go back to a point where the timer hadn't started yet.

Apparently this means losing quests and items.

This is fucked.
It's killing my resolve to go on with this game.

The building is on fire and the trapped people are trying to get out of the flames.
Let them wait what bad can happen #suprised pikachu