Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Shaki]

I'm a bit surprised at the grovelling tone of the update when they could have easily gone "LA LA LA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF OUR GUSHING WATERFALL OF MONEY". It's something, I guess.

They are aware they're in people's good graces now, so they're probably reviewing their PR releases ten times before clicking on Post. They don't want a CDPR happening to them.

There is no way they will get CDPR'd lol. The act 3 everyone is complaining about is million light years aways from cyberPoonk at launch lol.

Yup, all the game journos already gave them 10/10 after playing through act 1, it's not like they can now say "ok, we wrote the review after 20 hours and just lied, now we actually played act 3 and have to lower the review score", that ship has sailed, it's like Grauken who barely started act 2, but spends 5 hours daily since release, arguing on Codex why the game is perfect. After you invested so much into shilling based on 30% of the game, you won't want to admit you're a retard and walk it all back, the only way forward is to double down on shilling. Larian frontloading strat works wonders since DOS1.

 

[Rhobar121]

The funny thing is that even a worse act 3 game is still better than many AAA games that have come out in recent years.
I hope that sooner or later the gaming market will collapse again. Another reset would be nice.

The gaming crash of the early 80s was only an american problem and it only served to cement Nintendo's place as the continent's leading gaming company. The rest of the world didn't care.

But yeah, there's still plenty of meat in Act 3.

AAA game budgets have long since gotten out of hand. Sooner or later it has to hit the ground.
The sooner that happens, the better. The gaming industry could use a good reset.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Half of the content in third act actually conflicts what's in act 1 and 2(for example Raephal's deal makes no sense).

The third act bascially rushed everyone's story arc and no one gets a satisfied ending, but it's "planned".

All second chapter is a big context story without propers execution. There are few necessary points, but everting going very abruptly. Like this Kethric undead brother (?). Very funny scene, add bit to place, but quite pointless.

 

[Rhobar121]

I'm a bit surprised at the grovelling tone of the update when they could have easily gone "LA LA LA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF OUR GUSHING WATERFALL OF MONEY". It's something, I guess.

They are aware they're in people's good graces now, so they're probably reviewing their PR releases ten times before clicking on Post. They don't want a CDPR happening to them.

There is no way they will get CDPR'd lol. The act 3 everyone is complaining about is million light years aways from cyberPoonk at launch lol.

Yup, all the game journos already gave them 10/10 after playing through act 1, it's not like they can now say "ok, we wrote the review after 20 hours and just lied, now we actually played act 3 and have to lower the review score", that ship has sailed, it's like Grauken who barely started act 2, but spends 5 hours daily since release, arguing on Codex why the game is perfect. After you invested so much into shilling based on 30% of the game, you won't want to admit you're a retard and walk it all back, the only way forward is to double down on shilling. Larian frontloading strat works wonders since DOS1.

It's about standards. Take into account the condition of AAA games over the last 5 years. The level is so low at this point that any game that stands out positively automatically becomes a 10/10.
After all, it was the same with the Elden Ring and Zelda.
It will be like this until the entire AAA market doesn't hit the wall.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

We feel confident that there’s enough content in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the city itself, clocking in weeks-long playthroughs at a time. But that’s not to say Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t see cuts just as every game. It’s just important to know that what ultimately shipped was planned long ago, in function primarily of making Baldur’s Gate 3 fun to play, not for us to close development quickly.

"Cut" is an action. "Not fun" motivation. Separating these things is illogical.

Upper City wasn't cut because is Upper, but because it was not properly made. Just like other things.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The gaming crash of the early 80s was only an american problem and it only served to cement Nintendo's place as the continent's leading gaming company. The rest of the world didn't care.

The videogame crash of 1983 occurred in regard to consoles in the United States. This was the same year that Nintendo launched its Famicom console in Japan, but the general release of the NES in the United States didn't occur until 1986; before then, Nintendo was only known in the US as a maker of arcade games, such as Donkey Kong.

 

[copebot]

It's not bad that they cut a lot of Act 3. The whole thing should have been cut until it was worth releasing. As it is the art assets are nice but it does not gel together in any way or even make sense. Some of the issues should have been obvious on paper, like being able to continue stop the murderer quests of the various NPCs after you make a deal with Orin. It really just feels like clicking through a lot of art assets without much design thought to make it work.

 

[jf8350143]

Storywise the third act feels like a different game, it feels like you are at the beginning of a game instead of the thrid act.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Kingmaker is surprisingly un-woke for the most part. The orc cuck writer ended up as one the main character writers for WOTR though, he's a self proclaimed brony and did his college thesis on anime.

Oh wow... this explains so much.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There was clearly something that didn't work with their level cap plans and how they structured the first two acts.

Yes, and that something is "Act 2 is a patch".

 

[gurugeorge]

Must say, I'm very impressed with the Illithid colony, there are some nice fights there.

Another one of those occasions - which the game does have a few of - where it really feels like a BG game. The necrotic lab stuff/brains in jars thing is great flavour (I knew there must have been a reason to keep those things in my backpack ) - pretty horrific, but also very amusing stuff

Sadly though, while I've read that "Us" appears in the cage in the room with Chop, and if you free him you can get to summon him, he hasn't appeared in the cage for me. I am very disappoint by this, as he's got the most character of all the companions in the entire game

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Storywise the third act feels like a different game, it feels like you are at the beginning of a game instead of the thrid act.

Probably because you're visiting a normal town for the first time in the game.

And no, I don't mean because everything is so epic or whatever before this. I mean that this is the first time you're seeing a town with any significant number of humans in daylight.

 

[Larianshill]

New community update.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

This is such an amount of bullshit, lawyer speak and PR, this is honestly kind of impressive. The game was obviously rushed, but I suppose it paid off.

 

[Larianshill]

Probably because you're visiting a normal town for the first time in the game.

It's because after dealing with immortal generals and inquisitors of Vlaakith, you are going to the circus, looking for clown body parts, solving a murder mystery that it takes one cast of Speak with Dead to solve, saving hairdressers from an assassin and overall dealing with what feels like lesser threats than in act 2. The fact that humor and comic relief (that was entirely absent from act 2) suddenly makes a comeback is also a factor.
However, the more I think about it, it's not act 3 that feels like it's from a different game, but act 2.

 

[Rhobar121]

Probably because you're visiting a normal town for the first time in the game.

It's because after dealing with immortal generals and inquisitors of Vlaakith, you are going to the circus, looking for clown body parts, solving a murder mystery that it takes one cast of Speak with Dead to solve, saving hairdressers from an assassin and overall dealing with what feels like lesser threats than in act 2. The fact that humor and comic relief (that was entirely absent from act 2) suddenly makes a comeback is also a factor.
However, the more I think about it, it's not act 3 that feels like it's from a different game, but act 2.

Act 2 feels more like an endgame. It's not a big problem for me, it's just a weird design

 

[Rhobar121]

New community update.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

This is such an amount of bullshit, lawyer speak and PR, this is honestly kind of impressive. The game was obviously rushed, but I suppose it paid off.

To be fair it's hard to blame Swen for panicking and rushing the premiere a month early, honestly it was the only logical decision.
Even if Starfield turned out to be total shit, it would bury BG3 in the media.
It would be the same situation Sony did 2x with Horizon.

 

[Larianshill]

I think that Ketheric is one of the reasons act 2 feels like the endgame. Not only does he have infinitely more charisma than Gortash and Orin combined, the entire act 2 is purely about him, and the entire location is the consequence of his villainy. In act 3, killing the chosen is one of the many, many things you do, and their presence isn't felt nearly as much, even despite Gortash's fascismbots and Orin's tryhard pop-ins. The fact that they have to share the lower city doesn't help.

 

[Orud]

New community update.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.

If anyone of you ever works in gamedev and honestly thinks that trimming ending slides in a +100hr RPG 'because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long' is a legit concern, please pre-emptively slap yourself.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

New community update.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.

If anyone of you ever works in gamedev and honestly thinks that trimming ending slides in a +100hr RPG 'because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long' is a legit concern, please pre-emptively slap yourself.

It's just a bullshit excuse for not having time to implement them on launch.

 

[Grauken]

New community update.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.

If anyone of you ever works in gamedev and honestly thinks that trimming ending slides in a +100hr RPG 'because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long' is a legit concern, please pre-emptively slap yourself.

It's just a bullshit excuse for not having time to implement them on launch.

I guess the main reason they aren't honest about it is that they still have the console launches ahead of them and it would be kind of awkward to admit you're putting out a somewhat unfinished product

 

[volklore]

I think that Ketheric is one of the reasons act 2 feels like the endgame. Not only does he have infinitely more charisma than Gortash and Orin combined, the entire act 2 is purely about him, and the entire location is the consequence of his villainy. In act 3, killing the chosen is one of the many, many things you do, and their presence isn't felt nearly as much, even despite Gortash's fascismbots and Orin's tryhard pop-ins. The fact that they have to share the lower city doesn't help.

Yeah that's my feeling. First thing that happened when I landed in rivington/lowercity is that I thought : how is this not a midgame act.
Pretty sure the shadowlands as it is, was a later addition to the overall design and moonrise towers was supposed to be concluding act 1 as an earlier level dungeon which would have plot points sending you to BG. Seems like a classic case where they decided to flesh it out and they kept piling content on top of it only for it to become its own act.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

They need to realize that the problem with the “cut content” is not that the game has a modest amount of remaining one as a result, as much as the fact that suddenly from a certain point entering Act 3 virtually no questline/subplot seems to lead to a satisfying conclusion.

Everything FEELS rushed and/or trounced no matter how many hours of it there are.

- the obvious hints to the existence of a whole coven of hags in Act 1 just lead to Ethel going “Surprise, motherfuckers, it’s me again” on the player in Act 3.
- the whole build-up of Cazador as a big baddie with friends in high places and the need to investigate how to bring him down is resolved so abruptly you can hardly believe it.
- the entire resolution of the Lorrokan stuff feels like they skipped in fast forward to the ending.
- most companions have literally no relevant content/story relevance in Act 3.

And so on.

 

[volklore]

They need to realize that the problem with the “cut content” is not that the game has a modest amount of remaining one as a result, as much as the fact that suddenly from a certain point entering Act 3 virtually no questline/subplot seems to lead to a satisfying conclusion.

Everything FEELS rushed and/or trounced no matter how many hours of it there are.

- the obvious hints to the existence of a whole coven of hags in Act 1 just lead to Ethel going “Surprise, motherfuckers, it’s me again” on the player in Act 3.
- the whole build-up of Cazador as a big baddie with friends in high places and the need to investigate how to bring him down is resolved so abruptly you can hardly believe it.
- the entire resolution of the Lorrokan stuff feels like they skipped in fast forward to the ending.
- most companions have literally no relevant content/story relevance in Act 3.

And so on.

Really is there a buildup to Lorroakan ?
Killed the guy two days ago after my party complained hard about me wanting to sell the nightsong to him.
And it seems to me cazador is only really mentionned by astarion?
Generally speaking game has a companion bloat issue. Halsin is completely irrelevant. Could be cut entirely from the game or made into some randomly generated druid that never joins your party and game woudn't be worse for it. Funnily enough Jaheira has more interesting content and she is a ''token returning character''. Wyll and karlach are also meh. Base party of Gale, frog, sheart, astarion and maybe token jaheira is more than enough.

 

[janior]

was there cut content with kagha? I really felt like she would play some major role later on the way they set it up, perhaps with some evil druidic snek cult, would be cool

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The implication is that Lorroakan is Edwin in disguise and under a new identity replacing the original one, but the game never openly acknowledges it, despise giving him a very similar characterization.

And yes, Cazador is MOSTLY mentioned by Astarion in Act 1, but that wasn’t the point.