Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Grauken]

I really don't care enough to argue the point, I'm just confused as to why you are arguing and why you are upset by this.

2d waifus are an important topic for some people

 

[Grauken]

BG3: We made a game where all the women are ugly.

Codex:

What?

He's just sad nobody cares about his porn game and instead we have pages over pages on discussion on waifus and sex in a game where that's just a secondary gameplay element

 

[Sunri]

It all could've been worse. Guess they didn't want to roll with the "loud and obnoxious black women stereotype":

Sheeeiiiit, now everything about her writing finally makes sense

she was a negro 2? good change Swen

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Btw the art book is pretty good on itself.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yeah, but presumably it's the soul of the tadpole and not of the host that undergoes ceremorphosis.

Paging loremaster Zed Duke of Banville to enlighten us.

Prior to the publication of The Illithiad in 1998, the year following the demise of TSR, mind flayers reproduced by spawning tadpoles that swum around for years until growing up into adult illithid form. This lore was retconned by Bruce Cordell, with the concept of ceremorphosis, in which a mind flayer tadpole is implanted into the brain of an appropriate humanoid. The tadpole quickly takes control over the body, which is more gradually transformed into an illithid:

"Once tadpole implantation occurs, the victim is doomed. A tadpole requires only three rounds to burrow into its victim's brain, after which it immediately subsumes the creature's personality, replacing it with its own awakening intellect. Generally speaking, the point of no return (in the case of the victim) occurs one hour after implantation. Any time after this, it is impossible to restore the victim; his or her spirit seeks its fate in the Outer Planes. Ceremorphosis continues normally for the emerging illithid, during which time it remains helpless. The transformation from humanoid to illithid tissue concludes in seven days."

 

[Tyranicon]

BG3: We made a game where all the women are ugly.

Codex:

BG3: That one character in BG2 that you used beat your meat to and was based on a pron star or whatever? We made her ugly too.

Codex:

All the women aren't ugly tho, there is a shitload of random NPCs that look like supermodels, it's just companions and Viconia who are uggos

I haven't met any or maybe they're just not memorable. I think it's mostly the general art style. If I really scratched my head, maybe Shadowheart with V2 haircut and Mizora would be considered conventionally attractive. But Mizora is mostly sexy cause she has the whole devil thing going on, not because she is actually good looking.

 

[Rhobar121]

BG3: We made a game where all the women are ugly.

Codex:

BG3: That one character in BG2 that you used beat your meat to and was based on a pron star or whatever? We made her ugly too.

Codex:

All the women aren't ugly tho, there is a shitload of random NPCs that look like supermodels, it's just companions and Viconia who are uggos

I haven't met any or maybe they're just not memorable. I think it's mostly the general art style. If I really scratched my head, maybe Shadowheart with V2 haircut and Mizora would be considered conventionally attractive. But Mizora is mostly sexy cause she has the whole devil thing going on, not because she is actually good looking.

Literally first random npc you meet on your way to the goblins.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

This is getting tiresome not for you let me clarify but the whole argument.

Nigger, you could spend much less time just citing things properly and save us both some time. I don't want to read a long ass paragraph from you on your theories.

She slept with many men.

Which she says she did before ever undergoing her rite of passage into adulthood.

Viconia had the time to become an acolyte and a priestess had the time to see her dinasty fall

Really, how hard is it to spellcheck, Meb? "Dinasty"? "Elvea"? Come on.

Also take in consideration that the power a cleric have from their God is something personal between the devoted and the divinity itself. Is no more like that in fifth edition so eventually before becoming a cleric she had to convince Shar to give her powers and that dosnt happen in a blink of an eye expecially for Shar that is often villified and secrecy is part of her whole being.

Eh. Aren't there circumstances even in 2E where this happens fairly quickly? For example, traveling to a different plane where the cleric's god isn't worshiped?

Even so, I think we're well within the 70-year timeframe between the fall of her house and BG1.

I looked it up and the base age for a Drow is 80, not 100. She said she served an age and a half. We can't know what this means, but we can assume it was her entire childhood and adolescence, plus a few years after - long enough to piss everyone off on her first baby sacrifice.

So, let's assume she was taken for service at 40, became an adult at 80 and fled at 100, since she didn't actually flee after hesitating on sacrificing the infant.

Then, it was 70 years until BG1, making her 170 at the time.

BG3 takes place 124 years later, making her 294.

So, add a 100 years or take away 20, it won't really matter. She still wasn't old by D&D 5E standards, which max elves out around 750. Middle-aged at best. I think 3E did similar, but I forget.

However, 2E said that Drow enter old age at 190 and venerable at 225+. And yet the game was written as 2.5E. A tricky situation, but since we are in 5E, we should probably use the 5E timescale.

And if we used the 2E timescale (edit: as Eisenheinrich suggests, I see), the book I am referencing ("The Complete Book of Elves") still rebukes your argument:

Elves do not feel the effects of age as humans know them. After an elf has grown to maturity, her features cease to change or, at least, change very slowly. There is very little difference between the way a 100-year-old elf and a 400-year-old elf appear. The only way to tell between young and old is the degree of exuberance, spontaneity, and enthusiasm each exhibit. Only at venerable age do elves begin to show their years, yet they still appear younger than most humans do at age 50.

I know some people can age poorly by 50, but Viconia looks like she's in her mid to late 60s or 70s in BG3, and she wouldn't have been that far into venerability, for an elf.

Ultimately though, this is all an exercise in autism. As I said before, they could have written off a good-looking Viconia or Jaheira with magical alteration and the game admits this.

It's just a different game made by people with a MUCH different philosophy, market and goal - and maybe a fairly large axe to grind.

 

[gurugeorge]

Minthara has some good angles, but yeah. Kind of a man-face. Sad. And she has that 100 pack of cigarettes a day voice.

Shadowheart is probably the best looking female in the game and has a scar on her face and a 5/10 haircut no matter what hairstyle she picks. Plus, she's some crazy cult cunt who fucked a tranny.

The cutest-looking female in the game is without a doubt the sister of the pair of True Souls that you find quite early outside the Druid enclave with the dead guy, who go to the owlbear cave with you. Quartermaster Talli at Last Lgiht Inn is also a sweetheart.

They can do it, they just choose not to.

 

[gurugeorge]

Btw why does Isobel look like like Ciri? Is there some in-joke there that I'm not aware of?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yes, there are random semi-attractive women with almost no involvement in the game, e.g. one of the Umberlee priestesses, or one of the vampire-spawn (if not for the vampiric glowing eyes and white hair), or some random woman in a house:

Spoiler

It was a conscious decision on the part of Larian to model the female companions the way they did, whereas the male companions were made relatively more attractive for the intended romance audience of heterosexual women and homosexual men.

 

[perfectslumbers]

I think Patch 1 has introduced a new massive bug in act 3. A few of my friends told me that they killed Raphael and then left the House of Hope and when they next long rested all the loot they got from Raphael disappeared from their inventory and their companions started talking about the contract they made with Raphael.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

This looks like the stock female elf face, which btw is the only good female elf face and the one with freckles I think is a slightly modified reskin.

 

[Alienman]

Minthara has some good angles, but yeah. Kind of a man-face. Sad. And she has that 100 pack of cigarettes a day voice.

Shadowheart is probably the best looking female in the game and has a scar on her face and a 5/10 haircut no matter what hairstyle she picks. Plus, she's some crazy cult cunt who fucked a tranny.

The cutest-looking female in the game is without a doubt the sister of the pair of True Souls that you find quite early outside the Druid enclave with the dead guy, who go to the owlbear cave with you. Quartermaster Talli at Last Lgiht Inn is also a sweetheart.

They can do it, they just choose not to.

I took that face for my champion. Unfortunately, she turned into a creepy mind-flyer. Much like real life when I think about it.

Anyway. I have a feeling the face generation for common NPCs is totally random.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

speaking of umberlee, has her cult been goodified? her followers certainly aren't behaving like the ones from bg1.

 

[Larianshill]

It all could've been worse. Guess they didn't want to roll with the "loud and obnoxious black women stereotype":

Unsurprising, because this is what Karlach looked like in the beginning of the EA. Pretty sure she had a different (black) voice actress too.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

A lot fo models for relevant npcs changed over time

early minthata looked like a twink though

 

[Barbarian]

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

, because this is what Karlach looked like in the beginning of the EA. Pretty sure she had a different (black) voice actress too.

Yeah, this is indeed the first version of Karlach you could meet in EA, BUT she's never been what Karlach was supposed to look like, since:

- it's just a generic selectable Tiefling face in the game and a placeholder
- it did NOT match the description NPCs made of her even at the time (one-horned, big and muscular like "she could rip you apart with her hands", etc).
- THIS is what the first datamined model of her looked like:

And especially the one with the best lighting here:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https://preview.redd.it/evolution-of-karlach-dommy-mommy-of-avernus-v0-welo2ilape9b1.png?width=1573&format=png&auto=webp&s=548d97b15018d239b683a9243230006019a4ed4d

Please note that in ALL these versions details have been added by modders since the original datamined model was incomplete (no hair, horns, etc).

 

[Zariusz]

This game has such a weak armor design, there is some decent looking stuff but most of the available items ranges from garbage to meh and that fucking false loot system(many times game doesnt allow you to loot armour worn by NPCs, instead it gives you different basic armour even if NPC item is implemented in the game. For example, in Act 1 Flaming Fist mercs have generic ringmail, chainmail and scale armour in their loot but you can get their basic half plate from Marcus in Act 2 and it has the same stats as normal half plate, there is no reason not to use it there yet its missing, same with other Flaming Fist armour variants that are instuffed in random places).
It really says much that one of the best looking armours has dwarven ass engraved on it.

But tbh its still an improvement from garbage that were DOS 2 armours.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

This game has such s weak armor design, there is some decent looking stuff but most of available items ranges from garbage to meh

While I agree that it's decidedly a mixed bag, tt's also true that this seems to apply to 95% of the RPGs out there for some fucking reason.
And there's also this weird tendency in gaming of making low tier armors somewhat cool and the the late-game "uber ones" progressively more and more tacky and embarrassing to wear.

P.S. I found the one in your screenshot tacky as hell, for instance.

and that fucking false loot system(many times game doesnt allow you to loot armour worn by NPCs, instead it gives you different basic armour even if NPC item is implemented in the game.

This on the other hand it's a bullshit problem and people should get over it.
"What you see is what you get" for all equipment doesn't work for every game.
And even wanting to appeal to "realism" the idea that by killing ten men in a fight you'd get ten usable armors out of their corpses is definitely misguided.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

you'll find plenty of good items in the game, pretty much for every class, including full sets for monk, barb, etc. So you'll have that covered.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

...That wasn't what was being discussed, though.

 

[Orud]

Armor in this game looks great, although maybe a bit more variety would be welcome. First game in decades where the chain-mail armor actually looks fucking great.

Most games have ridiculous WoW style armor, instead of actual real to life armor (like in this game).

 

[Hagashager]

Agreed.

The armor looks good for once. Very rarely did I see any armor that looked like a toy. Really, Shadowheart's default was the only one that looked overtly artificial.