Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Hagashager]

Since I currently don't have the time nor the energy to do a 2nd playthrough of BG3 right out of the gate (Evil Durge run prefered this time around, might as well wait for some substantial Mithara patching, fingers crossed), I decided to tip my toes into Solasta for once for comparison. What can I expect, and which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

Solasta's combat is similar to BG3's, both being based on "D&D 5th edition" rules, but better, due in no small part to the functional AI. However, it's also very much a tactical RPG focused on combat, with barely a semblance of exploration. Travel between locations occurs via routes along an abstract map, and the individual locations are fairly small with exceptions. Similarly, relative to BG3, there isn't much C&C, few characters, and a paltry amount of dialogue. You might as well start with the original campaign; the Lost Valley campaign is definitely inferior, and the new one is higher level and therefore suitable for continuing with imported characters from the original campaign.

This sounds a lot like Icewind Dale.

 

[volklore]

To be a good writer in vidyagame industry, being good at writing is only 1 skill. You also need to be a master at deception/persuasion to convince producers and designers that their ideas to make this and that ''cooler'' doesn't actually work.
I think I remember a Kirkbride interview in which he says that the only way he found to convince Todd to keep his shit as is was to convince him that ''it's just like star wars/Dune''

That Todd was a moron has been obvious for decades

Are you so sure? How many new Codexers would read and find Caius Cosades without access to the internet and a walkthrough? If anything, Todd Howard anticipated this future and was a visionary.

That's easy. How about finding the telvani mage in that first Ranis Athrys mage guild quest, getting lost in the ashlands murdered by endless cliffracers.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Don't want to look through the thread but a poster made a comment justifying evil being half assed because good is standard for d&d. Unfortunately all the good companions are complete trash tier (and faggots/trannies) so the game's problem of trash companions kind of forces my hand into evil

 

[MerchantKing]

To be a good writer in vidyagame industry, being good at writing is only 1 skill. You also need to be a master at deception/persuasion to convince producers and designers that their ideas to make this and that ''cooler'' doesn't actually work.
I think I remember a Kirkbride interview in which he says that the only way he found to convince Todd to keep his shit as is was to convince him that ''it's just like star wars/Dune''

That Todd was a moron has been obvious for decades

Are you so sure? How many new Codexers would read and find Caius Cosades without access to the internet and a walkthrough? If anything, Todd Howard anticipated this future and was a visionary.

That's easy. How about finding the telvani mage in that first Ranis Athrys mage guild quest, getting lost in the ashlands murdered by endless cliffracers.

You just have to follow the road.

 

[VerSacrum]

To be a good writer in vidyagame industry, being good at writing is only 1 skill. You also need to be a master at deception/persuasion to convince producers and designers that their ideas to make this and that ''cooler'' doesn't actually work.
I think I remember a Kirkbride interview in which he says that the only way he found to convince Todd to keep his shit as is was to convince him that ''it's just like star wars/Dune''

That Todd was a moron has been obvious for decades

Are you so sure? How many new Codexers would read and find Caius Cosades without access to the internet and a walkthrough? If anything, Todd Howard anticipated this future and was a visionary.

That's easy. How about finding the telvani mage in that first Ranis Athrys mage guild quest, getting lost in the ashlands murdered by endless cliffracers.

Didn't help if you played the German version with some terribly translated texts that swapped west and east for some reason. It also had a notorious bug making all caves flooded with water. Good times.
The great filter is still the Dwemer Puzzle Box. It's really the antithesis of modern RPG quest design.

 

[volklore]

To be a good writer in vidyagame industry, being good at writing is only 1 skill. You also need to be a master at deception/persuasion to convince producers and designers that their ideas to make this and that ''cooler'' doesn't actually work.
I think I remember a Kirkbride interview in which he says that the only way he found to convince Todd to keep his shit as is was to convince him that ''it's just like star wars/Dune''

That Todd was a moron has been obvious for decades

Are you so sure? How many new Codexers would read and find Caius Cosades without access to the internet and a walkthrough? If anything, Todd Howard anticipated this future and was a visionary.

That's easy. How about finding the telvani mage in that first Ranis Athrys mage guild quest, getting lost in the ashlands murdered by endless cliffracers.

You just have to follow the road.

Don't get me wrong, I hate markers as much as the next guy. Getting lost was always the best thing in morrowind.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

 

[Grauken]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

There's a difference between marking things yourself on a map or the game marking things for you. One is a net positive, the other is not

 

[Swen]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

There's a difference between marking things yourself on a map or the game marking things for you. One is a net positive, the other is not

It's to help the casuals. But yeah a toggle would be nice.

 

[MerchantKing]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

There's a difference between marking things yourself on a map or the game marking things for you. One is a net positive, the other is not

It's to help the casuals. But yeah a toggle would be nice.

Designing for casuals was always a mistake.

 

[BruceVC]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

I dont like specific mark markers because it makes you lazy and undermines the point of exploration. But a general area mark is fine like in Gothic games and ELEX

 

[VerSacrum]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

I dont like specific mark markers because it makes you lazy and undermines the point of exploration. But a general area mark is fine like in Gothic games and ELEX

I liked how in Gothic the map was an actual physical item that you had to buy/steal from the cartographer.
KC:D was also great in that, devs put enough information in the quest log so you could find the objective without quest markers (which were disabled in the hardcore mode).

 

[BruceVC]

Not having markers is stupid. If you're actually using maps and doing land nav, you're going to mark your map

I dont like specific mark markers because it makes you lazy and undermines the point of exploration. But a general area mark is fine like in Gothic games and ELEX

I liked how in Gothic the map was an actual physical item that you had to buy/steal from the cartographer.
KC:D was also great in that, devs put enough information in the quest log so you could find the objective without quest markers (which were disabled in the hardcore mode).

Agreed, I played G2 about 2 months ago and the implementation of the map was very well done. They gave you general directions like " north of Sekobs farm " and then you had to explore

It was difficult at times but very rewarding. And KC:D was also excellent and Inquisitor, the Czech RPG. They returned the art of exploration in RPG

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Man the companions really blow in this game. Even their banter with each other is very boring.

Another cringe/immersion breaking thing about making every companion player sexual. Basketball American Wyll is a horny bastard who constantly hits on Laezel and Shadowpussy, never hits on any male companion members yet he wants to fuck male MC why?

 

[Larianshill]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ba...rs-were-super-horny-due-to-a-bug-larian-admit

Baldur's Gate 3 is a relentlessly horny videogame, Alice B wrote back in August, and that certainly describes the shock I felt when noted Githyanki grouch Lae'zel abruptly informed me that she was down to clown, a whole three hours in. "Ms Lae'zel, I happen to be a graduate of BioWare Sex University," I told her sternly, adjusting my robe. "If I'm going to have a torrid liaison in an RPG it'll be 60 hours from now, just before the final battle, and let's face it, I'm more likely to get scared of alienating party members and end up friendzoning everybody."

Lae'zel proved persuasive, however - "I like the way you stink," was how I think she phrased it - and one risque fade-to-black later, we were triumphantly entwined in post-coital bliss. Well, at the risk of empirically demonstrating that romance is dead, it turns out all that might have been down to a technical problem. According to Larian CEO Sven Vincke, Baldur's Gate 3 characters were accidentally encoded to have very low standards at launch. Haha, I certainly can't relate!

"So... it was a bug," Vincke told TheGamer, during a chat at PAX West. "The approval thresholds were too low when we shipped. That's why they were so horny in the beginning. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We've fixed it since, at least for some of them. We're still fixing a few of them." Vincke didn't specify who exactly has been "fixed" and who remains due for desexification, but he did add that the bug affected smooth-talking wizard Gale in particular. "[He] wasn't supposed to be like, instantly there."

 

[gurugeorge]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ba...rs-were-super-horny-due-to-a-bug-larian-admit

Baldur's Gate 3 is a relentlessly horny videogame, Alice B wrote back in August, and that certainly describes the shock I felt when noted Githyanki grouch Lae'zel abruptly informed me that she was down to clown, a whole three hours in. "Ms Lae'zel, I happen to be a graduate of BioWare Sex University," I told her sternly, adjusting my robe. "If I'm going to have a torrid liaison in an RPG it'll be 60 hours from now, just before the final battle, and let's face it, I'm more likely to get scared of alienating party members and end up friendzoning everybody."

Lae'zel proved persuasive, however - "I like the way you stink," was how I think she phrased it - and one risque fade-to-black later, we were triumphantly entwined in post-coital bliss. Well, at the risk of empirically demonstrating that romance is dead, it turns out all that might have been down to a technical problem. According to Larian CEO Sven Vincke, Baldur's Gate 3 characters were accidentally encoded to have very low standards at launch. Haha, I certainly can't relate!

"So... it was a bug," Vincke told TheGamer, during a chat at PAX West. "The approval thresholds were too low when we shipped. That's why they were so horny in the beginning. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We've fixed it since, at least for some of them. We're still fixing a few of them." Vincke didn't specify who exactly has been "fixed" and who remains due for desexification, but he did add that the bug affected smooth-talking wizard Gale in particular. "[He] wasn't supposed to be like, instantly there."

Ha, fuckin' likely story, something that salient can't possibly be the sort of thing you could make an error about on shipping a game - if Larian did, it would imply they're incompetent, and they're clearly far from incompetent.

I think they were in a feverish bubble pre-launch, over-estimated the size of the audience for that sort of thing and didn't anticipate the backlash.

 

[Shaki]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ba...rs-were-super-horny-due-to-a-bug-larian-admit

Baldur's Gate 3 is a relentlessly horny videogame, Alice B wrote back in August, and that certainly describes the shock I felt when noted Githyanki grouch Lae'zel abruptly informed me that she was down to clown, a whole three hours in. "Ms Lae'zel, I happen to be a graduate of BioWare Sex University," I told her sternly, adjusting my robe. "If I'm going to have a torrid liaison in an RPG it'll be 60 hours from now, just before the final battle, and let's face it, I'm more likely to get scared of alienating party members and end up friendzoning everybody."

Lae'zel proved persuasive, however - "I like the way you stink," was how I think she phrased it - and one risque fade-to-black later, we were triumphantly entwined in post-coital bliss. Well, at the risk of empirically demonstrating that romance is dead, it turns out all that might have been down to a technical problem. According to Larian CEO Sven Vincke, Baldur's Gate 3 characters were accidentally encoded to have very low standards at launch. Haha, I certainly can't relate!

"So... it was a bug," Vincke told TheGamer, during a chat at PAX West. "The approval thresholds were too low when we shipped. That's why they were so horny in the beginning. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We've fixed it since, at least for some of them. We're still fixing a few of them." Vincke didn't specify who exactly has been "fixed" and who remains due for desexification, but he did add that the bug affected smooth-talking wizard Gale in particular. "[He] wasn't supposed to be like, instantly there."

Ha, fuckin' likely story, something that salient can't possibly be the sort of thing you could make an error about on shipping a game - if Larian did, it would imply they're incompetent, and they're clearly far from incompetent.

I think they were in a feverish bubble pre-launch, over-estimated the size of the audience for that sort of thing and didn't anticipate the backlash.

Yeah, even ignoring bear sex, half or more of their trailer was focused purely on romances, clearly they bet on marketing toward coomers.

 

[Swen]

 

[Larianshill]

Starting to watch this video. Swen keeps talking about investing time and effort into things that 0.0% of people will see, and it just makes me laugh in the context of the evil playthrough that I talked about extensively.

 

[gurugeorge]

Thanks guys, see you in the Solaste thread.

Top tip, the mod "Unfinished Business" is enormous, pulls some of the classes somewhat more to RAW 5e, adds other classes and sub-classes, and has lots of neat little QOL things; it's also regularly updated and refined.

It uses the Unity mod manager, and everything (apart from some neutral fixes, IIRC) is off by default, so you can stick it on right from the start and inspect the options at your leisure while you start the game as the devs intended. Once you've gotten your head around all the options and figured out what you want, you can save that selection of features as a preset, and have any number of presets for different types of games (e.g. I've got a merely-QOL-modded setup for the base game and DLCs, and a heavily modded setup to play the user-made content, most of which can bear a more heavily modded preset, often requires a larger party anyway, and gives room for more experimentation).

If BG3 is like a sprawling canvas, Solasta is more like a nice miniature painting, and can be a lot of fun with our very own Artyoan's campaigns and some of the other user-made campaigns. But the main campaign is alright (obviously has VO, cutscenes and all that, which user-made content doesn't have), and the DLCs are a bit better (as TA seemed to get more of a handle on what they were doing encounter-wise, as they went on).

The potato-headed characters you can make are laughable, but I came to find the little conversations your party has, where it figures out how to proceed (in the main campaign and DLCs), quite charming, especially since you can actually shape your characters' personalities to some extent, and they interact with each other much as you'd expect given the personalities you give them. It starts to feel like a real little party. But really there are only like half a dozen actual male and female characters, limited by the voice actors' "tone" (there's the grumpy dwarf, the supercilious female wizard, the cagey cockerney halfling, etc.).

 

[gurugeorge]

Aww bless, he looks so happy lol. Professional victory is a sweet thing.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Starting to watch this video. Swen keeps talking about investing time and effort into things that 0.0% of people will see, and it just makes me laugh in the context of the evil playthrough that I talked about extensively.

Swen can talk the talk, unfortunately the execution with Larian is always bad on top of his obsession with multiplayer that plagues other genres too (paradox games). Worst part is it's working, normies get hooked by the multiplayer.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

There is not a single male companion in this game, who wouldn't be better received if he was a girl.

The real problem is that their writers are incompetent. Especially this faggot

Is he the one who wrote Shadowheart and Halsin, or the one who wrote Lae'zel? Because if he wrote Lae'zel, he's pretty competent, actually. Just like that racist indian guy who worked on Andromeda, his part of the game was stellar.

He wrote Lae'zel but he also wrote Wyll, so clearly he has good and bad days

Lae'zel comes from a cosmic culture and is spoken in an unusual way, which makes it easier for the writer to hide his incompetence. Besides, 60% of Lae'zel is her actress.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

I wouldn't call either version of Wyll too good. I think my biggest problem with Wyll as a character, aside from him being boring as fuck, is how pathetic he is. In the EA, when his party members fucked gods, Wyll's backstory was that his archnemesis was a goblin (GOBLIN!), and his patron was snatched by goblins (GOBLINS!) too, and needs his help to rescue her. In the release version, Wyll does not have that problem, but he's still utterly buck broken by Mizora, and even with the best possible scenario he never quite manages to come out on top. Also, female companions routinely disrespect him and call him bad at sex.

See this bit of promotional art? At no point, ever, Wyll in the game is even close to this.

What is the best in Wyll? Mizora. Never him. In this version or another.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

One interesting detail, he says he can't tell what kind of fiction other than D&D is he into because he would tell us what is his next game but he did say he read all sorts of fantasy and all sorts of science fiction. Seems to hint that BG3 was one-shot with D&D(I suspect there will be sequel DLC but that's just me), he also says that that he and the main team are now working on another project. Any professional stalker remembers if he ever mentioned some particular settings in the past? The science fiction mention has me thinking 40k, but honestly with the kind of success they've had with this I wouldn't be surprised if it was Star Wars at this point.