Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Desiderius]

Advent?

Isn't this a Separation violation? Madalyn Murray O'Hair rolling over in his grave.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Over 600 pages of obese boomer nerds malding over yet another game. A masterpiece, no less.

Touch grass; get sunlight. BG3 good.

I bet your arms are the size of toothpicks. Touch grass is such cringe nerd talk you twig arm faggot lol

 

[Fedora Master]

Over 600 pages of obese boomer nerds malding over yet another game. A masterpiece, no less.

Touch grass; get sunlight. BG3 good.

Joined Oct 22, 2018
Messages 86

Whose alt are you?

 

[MerchantKing]

Over 600 pages of obese boomer nerds malding over yet another game. A masterpiece, no less.

Touch grass; get sunlight. BG3 good.

Joined Oct 22, 2018
Messages 86

Whose alt are you?

Probably Swen's alt.

 

[Sonic Titan]

Over 600 pages of obese boomer nerds malding over yet another game. A masterpiece, no less.

Touch grass; get sunlight. BG3 good.

Joined Oct 22, 2018
Messages 86

Whose alt are you?

Yours

 

[Silverfish]

Over 600 pages of obese boomer nerds malding over yet another game. A masterpiece, no less.

Touch grass; get sunlight. BG3 good.

Joined Oct 22, 2018
Messages 86

Whose alt are you?

Probably Swen's alt.

I always assumed Swen's alt is one of the haters and he's playing both sides.

 

[Infinitron]

Swen

Even landing a well-known franchise may not be enough. Take Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, a turn-based RPG based on the popular tabletop miniature wargame and developed by the Cyprus-based studio Owlcat. Creative director Alexander Mishulin says expecting the same success as Baldur’s Gate 3 would be foolish — but he still hopes gamers will check out Rogue Trader once they're done with BG3.

“Almost no developer has the same resources,” Mishulin tells Inverse.

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/baldurs-gate-3-game-of-the-year

BALDUR’S GATE 3 IS THE BEST GAME OF THE YEAR​

And it could change the industry forever.

When Baldur’s Gate 3 was still in Early Access, back in 2020, the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game asked players to create two characters at the start of their adventures. The first was the protagonist. The second was the “Dream Lover,” who appears to the protagonist while they’re sleeping and exists somewhere within the game’s massive fantasy world. But as those early test players gave their feedback (all while paying full price), Belgian developer Larian Studios realized something wasn’t working.

“As time went on, we rolled out more and more dream encounters between this seductive version of the character and the player,” principal narrative designer Lawrence Schick tells Inverse. “It became clear that it just wasn’t connecting. It wasn’t conveying what we wanted it to convey. Players were just confused.”

“Players were just confused.”
LARIAN STUDIOS

In the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 (released for Windows in August 2023, followed by versions on PS5, Mac, and Xbox), the Dream Lover is replaced with a drastically different type of character.

“We changed it to what is now the Guardian,” Schick says, “which connects much more clearly to the story function and the mechanical function in the game of protecting you from being taken over by the Absolute. Some people were surprised. Some people missed the seductive character. But by and large, it told the story much more clearly and without emotionally muddying the waters of your relationship with that imaginary character.”

This transformation encapsulates exactly what fans love about Baldur’s Gate 3. Unlike most big-budget games, which arrive fully formed (at least, one would hope), Larian’s role-playing epic feels like a living document, reacting and responding to player feedback. This unusual development cycle gave BG3 an edge, and it could mark a major change in the way video games get made in the future.

AN INFINITE WORLD​

If you want a game that captures the joy of being newly born into a world, Baldur’s Gate 3 does that.
LARIAN STUDIOS

Long before Timothée Chalamet graced the Game Awards stage on Dec. 7 to crown Baldur’s Gate 3 as Game of the Year, everyone knew it was going to win. It was palpable. You could tell. When BG3 launched this summer, it quickly leapfrogged most people’s backlogs, soaking up their valuable playtime. It left Bethesda’s once-in-a-decade RPG Starfield in the dust among the stars. Developers who spoke to Inverse in interviews didn’t even plug their own games as game of the year, they willingly and humbly conceded to Larian and Baldur’s Gate 3.

Video games have long aimed to give players a sense of choice and agency, even if the playgrounds are man-made. They want you to load up a game and feel like you can go anywhere in the world, be anyone you want to be, take action and experience the consequences, whether good or bad. You can talk to the trash cans in Honkai Star Rail; they might shame you for doing so. You can pick up all the tissues and ballpoint pens you want in Starfield; they’re worth very little.

Still, in most games, you can reach out and feel the seams. You’ll swim too far and hit an invisible wall in the water (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom). In more than one instance, the literal ground underneath you could be missing, and your character might fall into oblivion (Mass Effect, Watchdogs: Legion, Starfield).

Baldur’s Gate 3 achieves a sense of total player agency on a scale that’s arguably larger than any other game in recent history. Other games tout hundreds of procedurally generated worlds. BG3 executes on a single one. You can zoom in to see the details on a glowing magic-negating flower, examine an enemy for weaknesses and extra dialogue options, or zoom out and strategically scout ahead for threats. At one absolutely horrifying moment, I Jedi mind-tricked a hyena-like Gnoll creature into eating itself. In my defense, the narrator prompted me by suggesting the Gnoll was willing: “She is still ravenous, her mind a hungry pit.” If you’re a dirty save scum player, you’ll notice that even each load of the same save file of a game plays out a little differently each time. Perhaps the companion standing behind you will make an unexpected quip, or a dice roll will win some welcomed prize.

“She is still ravenous, her mind a hungry pit.”
LARIAN STUDIOS

“Every stone will not be turned for years because so much of the game is a concatenation of unlikely variables,” Schick says. “There’s stuff that people will be discovering, including us, because of the way it was built, with synergies, and layers, and interacting reactivity. It astounds us, the stuff that comes up.”

Hundreds of Larian workers chipped in on the narrative, embroidering and embellishing general plot points brainstormed by upper management, Schick says.

If you want a game that captures the joy of being newly born into a world, delighted with mundane items and magical creatures alike, Baldur’s Gate 3 does that. There are flashes of whimsy to experience at every point in the game. I once allowed an ogre to taste my arm, in hopes of convincing a trio of ogres to stay and do my bidding. The ploy didn’t work, but it still made me laugh.

Lump The Enlightened tells the player he wants a taste.
LARIAN STUDIOS

To deliver on this vision, Larian had to relinquish control. The studio let players into Baldur’s Gate 3 early on and have been fine-tuning and tweaking the game’s experience based on feedback for years. Schick says that having hundreds of thousands of players gain early access was more effective than hiring loads of quality assurance testers to test bugs.

“We pay really close attention to them because we’re giving the story away,” Schick says. “And so they got to be happy with it. They don’t have to admire it as an elegant piece of slick storytelling. They need to inhabit it. They need to live in it.”

ADMIRABLE BUT RISKY​

“It’s a great strategy for Baldur’s Gate, but not everyone can do this.”
LARIAN STUDIOS

But even as we laud Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s important to keep in mind that the conditions under which it was created are hard to replicate. There’s a reason it’s the best role-playing game in a decade.

Before Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian spent decades working on its Divinity series, which started as an almost-clone of Diablo and other role-playing games with a top-down point of view. Eventually, Larian was able to scale up to something as massive as BG3 while staying independent in a landscape full of corporate mergers.

Other indie developers view Larian’s journey as aspirational — if not exactly within reach.

“Baldur’s Gate 3 was released in early access for three years at full price before coming out in as polished a state as it did. It’s a great strategy for Baldur’s Gate, but not everyone can do this,” Brandon Sheffield tells Inverse.

Sheffield is the director of indie developer Necrosoft Games, but he adds that even major studios like Electronic Arts or Bethesda likely wouldn’t allow a massive role-playing game like Dragon Age or Starfield to launch in an unfinished state in an environment they can’t control.

Necrosoft’s Demonschool is an RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3... with some differences.
NECROSOFT GAMES

Larger companies also have publicly announced release dates and investors they are beholden to and can’t easily delay a game indefinitely, even if it needs more polish.

“Investors do not care whether the game is done, they care whether it is out in fiscal 2023,” Sheffield says. “They care whether it can help bump up Q2 numbers, which are flagging for whatever reason. Because of this, games — triple-A games especially, because of the large amount of money involved — often have to release before the people working on them would like to release them.”

Larian may be an independent studio unbeholden to corporate overlords, but it also had the benefit of working on a beloved franchise like Baldur’s Gate (along with the Dungeons & Dragons IP that inspired it). That makes it a lot easier to convince players to pay $60 for what was essentially a work in progress.

Even landing a well-known franchise may not be enough. Take Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, a turn-based RPG based on the popular tabletop miniature wargame and developed by the Cyprus-based studio Owlcat. Creative director Alexander Mishulin says expecting the same success as Baldur’s Gate 3 would be foolish — but he still hopes gamers will check out Rogue Trader once they're done with BG3.

“Almost no developer has the same resources,” Mishulin tells Inverse.

DOING AWAY WITH A CULTURE OF SECRECY​

“Can we create that rabid fan base while we’re maybe a little uglier than we anticipated, as we build?”
LARIAN STUDIOS

Some other developers are already following in the footsteps of Baldur’s Gate 3 by cultivating direct relationships with players and being explicit about how the sausage gets made in a radical show of transparency. Some are even live-streaming prototypes of half-built games or launching Kickstarters with daily updates on what gamers’ dollars are going toward. That includes the team at Frost Giant, a game studio founded by Blizzard veteran Tim Morten.

“The way we used to build games when we were at Blizzard was a lot more siloed,” Morten tells Inverse. “A lot of development would happen before players got a peek at what was being built. In those circumstances, you’ve tried to make the best decisions that you can, but they don’t really get validated until late in the process. A lot of newer companies — Frost Giant being one of them — are trying to develop with a tighter feedback loop with the community.”

Frost Giant has raised $1.5 million on Kickstarter (and $35 million in venture capital) in exchange for special features in its upcoming real-time strategy game Stormgate.

Unleashed Games, a studio helmed by former World of Warcraft and Diablo developers, has similar plans for its in-development cooperative fantasy role-playing game codenamed Project: Haven.

“The community wants to be part of the development and feel like they’re there from day one,” Unleashed CEO Irena Pereira tells Inverse, adding that she and her co-workers regularly livestream their partially built world to show players updates like crafting and character models. “Can we create that rabid fan base while we’re maybe a little uglier than we anticipated, as we build?”

If studios like Larian, Frost Giant, and Unleashed have their way, then the days of video game secrecy may be over. Keeping concept art and new features locked under nondisclosure-agreement-enforced lock and key might have worked in the past, but these days, getting live feedback is far more valuable.

Baldur’s Gate 3 just might be the start of something new.

Or, as Pereira puts it: “There’s something magical about a grassroots community that grows up with a title.”

 

[RoBoBOBR]

Perfect mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5321

 

[DJOGamer PT]

There is nothing BG3 does that is remotely extraordinary

The environmental reactivity isn't really rivalled by any other RPG, it almost feels like an isometric immersive sims in some areas. The sheer number of non-combat applications for magic in this game is extraordinary, as is the mechanical freedom you're offered in combat.

Want to shrink yourself so your Barbarian can throw you at an enemy? Want to create a wall of fire then use Turn Undead to force everyone into it? Want to use Gust of Wind to just blow half the enemy force into a chasm? You can!!

The goblin camp is what really sold me on the game in my first playthrough. In most other RPGs it would have been a case of just killing everyone or just speech checking everyone, but in BG3 I broke into their store room by going through a crack in the wall that only a shrunk version of myself could fit in, stole their supply of smokepowder barrels, hid them behind the throne of the bad guy, then split the party into two, having three of us travel outside and one (Astarion) stay inside and climb up to the rafters.

Astarion hurled a fireball at the barrels and the bad guy was blasted to death, then Astarion passed sneak checks to creep out across the rafters while the base went alert below. The rest of the team knocked out a couple of the guards on the outside in order to smash down a weak wall which gave an opening onto the rafters where Astarion was hiding, letting him rejoin the rest of us and flee before the goblin guards could find us.

It's an absolutely great experience and one of the closest I've ever seen a cRPG come to the "let's try this shitty fucking idea" approach of TTRPGs. This, more than anything, is what people are buzzing about, I think.

It is funny that Lacrymas spent the last few days, going on about the mediocrity of BG3 and replying to every single response...
Except this one

 

[Lacrymas]

I said the verisimilitude amounts to cheesing the game or filling your inventory with pots and pans.

 

[Darkwind]

The second was the “Dream Lover,” who appears to the protagonist while they’re sleeping and exists somewhere within the game’s massive fantasy world.

“As time went on, we rolled out more and more dream encounters between this seductive version of the character and the player,” principal narrative designer Lawrence Schick tells Inverse. “It became clear that it just wasn’t connecting. It wasn’t conveying what we wanted it to convey. Players were just confused.”

“We changed it to what is now the Guardian,” Schick says, “which connects much more clearly to the story function and the mechanical function in the game of protecting you from being taken over by the Absolute. Some people were surprised. Some people missed the seductive character. But by and large, it told the story much more clearly and without emotionally muddying the waters of your relationship with that imaginary character.”

This transformation encapsulates exactly what fans love about Baldur’s Gate 3.

Infinitron left a paragraph out:

"We cleared up the confusion because we realized that fans wanted a non-emotional relationship that allowed them to be dirty hentai loving squid fuckers that could be tentacle raped by their waifu who was actually the worst TRAP of all time. Not only was she not a hot elven waifu as you initially thought and designed her to be, she was actually a HE (more properly an it) and had four extra tentacles for that hot cephalopod on human action, no orifice would be spared. We threw in a little bear fucking on the side too in case you wanted more interspecies sex.

This made the transformation to absolute current day clown world degeneracy complete, which is what fans love about Baldur's Gate 3. We really feel like we have pushed the RPG paradigm forward so developers now realize what fans of the genre really want in their CRPG entertainment."

 

[Lemming42]

The stuff about bringing players into the process of creating the game sounds like a very, very double-edged sword. For every issue that early access players will rightfully flag up and demand fixed, there'll be tons of requests for utterly stupid shit that a lot of devs won't have the wits to disregard.

Also I don't really want to be involved in the creation of a videogame, I just want to play it. Imagine if the movie industry starts doing it, you end up with the script of a summer blockbuster four years in advance and the director, actors and writers all ask you if you can make it better mid-filming, then by the time it actually releases, you've already seen ten different versions of it before they settled on the final one. It's kind of a weird idea.

 

[Reyvik]

The stuff about bringing players into the process of creating the game sounds like a very, very double-edged sword. For every issue that early access players will rightfully flag up and demand fixed, there'll be tons of requests for utterly stupid shit that a lot of devs won't have the wits to disregard.

Also I don't really want to be involved in the creation of a videogame, I just want to play it. Imagine if the movie industry starts doing it, you end up with the script of a summer blockbuster four years in advance and the director, actors and writers all ask you if you can make it better mid-filming, then by the time it actually releases, you've already seen ten different versions of it before they settled on the final one. It's kind of a weird idea.

Under the guise of including fans in the process of creation hide two things:
- you save money on beta testers and get massive feedback from lots of people
- you are paying for gamers' time and patience by submitting to their shitty tastes and stupid requests. Your game is essentially a product of hundreds and thousands of shitty ideas, implemented haphazardly by so many different individuals that you can't really say what this game is about.
Bg3 is very bland when it comes to worldbuilding. It is based on one of the most expansive universes but world is so unrealistic and feels like amusement park. Npc are indeed written like fanfic characters. They are merry band of outcasts, laughing and fucking eachother like some high school students. Not to mention that every npc, no matter from which social class - has strong opinions about anything, like they are all modern people, watching tv and being indoctrinated by politicians. Where are simple and stupid villagers from nashkel or beregost?

 

[processdaemon]

Bringing players in works when it comes to QoL suggestions and in this case it also worked to keep Larian's more 'creative' approach in check when they were adapting the system; it's not a perfect 5e recreation but supposedly they originally didn't want reactions and wanted to incorporate more DOSesque ground effects, and it was largely the community nagging them that made them change it. It's mostly a problem when you allow player feedback to dictate the story since people what people think they want isn't going to necessarily fit into the story you want to tell and you'll end up either compromising on your vision for something safer or wasting time on stuff that doesn't add to the narrative (see: Halsin).

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

There is nothing BG3 does that is remotely extraordinary

The environmental reactivity isn't really rivalled by any other RPG, it almost feels like an isometric immersive sims in some areas. The sheer number of non-combat applications for magic in this game is extraordinary, as is the mechanical freedom you're offered in combat.

Want to shrink yourself so your Barbarian can throw you at an enemy? Want to create a wall of fire then use Turn Undead to force everyone into it? Want to use Gust of Wind to just blow half the enemy force into a chasm? You can!!

The goblin camp is what really sold me on the game in my first playthrough. In most other RPGs it would have been a case of just killing everyone or just speech checking everyone, but in BG3 I broke into their store room by going through a crack in the wall that only a shrunk version of myself could fit in, stole their supply of smokepowder barrels, hid them behind the throne of the bad guy, then split the party into two, having three of us travel outside and one (Astarion) stay inside and climb up to the rafters.

Astarion hurled a fireball at the barrels and the bad guy was blasted to death, then Astarion passed sneak checks to creep out across the rafters while the base went alert below. The rest of the team knocked out a couple of the guards on the outside in order to smash down a weak wall which gave an opening onto the rafters where Astarion was hiding, letting him rejoin the rest of us and flee before the goblin guards could find us.

It's an absolutely great experience and one of the closest I've ever seen a cRPG come to the "let's try this shitty fucking idea" approach of TTRPGs. This, more than anything, is what people are buzzing about, I think.

It is funny that Lacrymas spent the last few days, going on about the mediocrity of BG3 and replying to every single response...
Except this one

Barrelmancy is OP? You don't say...

I mean some of that stuff is pretty cool, which is the highlight of the game. The cracks in the wall/rock stuff got pretty tiresome. It sounds way cooler than it is. They pop up everywhere.

There really aren't as many cool, creative things you can do with spells as you might think. I tried to play around with it a fair bit. There was one section in the moonrise tower prisons where I tried to help the gnomes escape by locking the guards in their room with the spell but they kept escaping somehow.

Vast majority of encounters comes down to speech checks or combat. Combat could have been really cool but stuff like haste/double fireball or haste/9 attacks in a turn breaks the game. Plus hold person/hold monster. You really have to play a sort of challenge run if you want to try and incorporate other spells and the environment because it's sub optimal.

That being said I will agree with you those are strong points. But there are also weak points like the atrocious story and shitty companions. And of course the massive faggotry.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

NO MEANS FUCKING NO!!!!

 

[whydoibother]

The christmas story on BG3's website. Very Larian. A return to Divinity tier circus writing.

In the taverns and halls where gossip’s most prevalent Is where tales are whispered of a creature malevolent Who appears once a year on the feast of midwinter To take from the revelers knee-caps, noses, and fingers.

“She loathes Christmas joy, the mirth and the cheer,” or so says your nan, her eyes widened with fear. “Never go to ‘er dwellings in the caves ‘cross the river, Else the Gremishka will get ya and she’ll make you her dinner.”

And you with pure heart, so full of kindness So sure despite differences Christmas can bind us Smile back at her broadly, and with a nod of the head Tune out all her warnings, and dream of Gremishkas instead.

"They know not its heart, this “creature infernal” You say to yourself via dialogue, internal I’ll teach it friendship with a yuletide gift! The true meaning of Christmas is sure to mend our rift!”

Through the snowy paths in winter’s hold you trudge ahead, determined. Up to Gremishka’s cavern home where, in the end, you’re certain Her heart will swell three times its size, you’re under no illusion When she receives her Christmas gift, not due to vascular occlusion.

“My dear Gremishka” you bellow loud as you reach her lonely cave “I’ve hiked this path through snow and ice, but not to prove I’m brave. I come here with a gift in tow, a show of Christmas cheer Please let this be a time of peace, we need not live in fear!”

Step by step you hear her as her feet break fresh-laid snow Step by step by step it seems those numbers start to grow A hundred steps surround you in an invisible swarm That closes in with cold embrace like a freezing winter storm.

Then suddenly you see them, with their eyes all glinting red, A thousand teeth between them, and a two deformed ears per head They clamber to you each by each, then explode like a blister Their flesh and bones all fusing in the shape of Orin the Shapeshifter.

She traces her hand gently ‘cross the middle of your throat “Hello dear adventurer, shall I bleed you like a goat?” Then with the quiet grin of one with secrets hidden well She pushes you with mighty force and from her cliff you fell.

Orin thanks you for her present: “Merry Christmas to you too!” She yells down to your broken body, “Godsbless and adieu!” Then opening the present’s lid with just one last forceful shove She peeks inside and finds it empty. “The gift,” you croak, “was love.”

It’s been some time since you were heard from, been some time since you were seen But on cold nights, your Nan does say, that she thinks she hears you scream For help up far out in the mountains, and far past the river too, Down by the cave she warned you of, all broken bones and torn tissue.

But townsfolk have stopped listening to her cries and to her plight Ever since the Gremishka came down one cold Midwinter night And with her brought a festive feast, a complete Christmas spread Of yams, and corn, and cranberries - and one large, succulent sweetbread.

“Eat up, sweet townsfolk of Baldur’s Gate, and share this yuletide treat A friendly gesture from Gremishka, don’t forget to try the meat You’ve taught me much about the joys of giving back and doing right So merry Christmas to you all, and to you all a good night!”

Also upon solving the various memory block puzzles, you get given .mp3 files to download:

 

[Lacrymas]

Larian's writing should be considered a war crime and enough justification to invade Belgium.

 

[whydoibother]

Larian's writing should be considered a war crime and enough justification to invade Belgium.

>She traces her hand gently ‘cross the middle of your throat
>"Hello dear adventurer, shall I bleed you like a goat?"
This is poetry and I shan't hear otherwise!

 

[processdaemon]

My favourite line was 'Her heart will swell three times its size, you’re under no illusion, When she receives her Christmas gift, not due to vascular occlusion'.

It's interesting how Larian have preserved their particular writing style for better or for worse despite growing so much; most studios end up diluting their voice with new additions but with each expansion Larian have leaned more and more into their idiosyncrasies. My favourite Larian game prior to BG3 was Ego Draconis and if you'd given me BG3 and I had no other knowledge of Larian and their games other than ED I still could have easily told you it was made by the same people despite one being an aRPG and one a cRPG.

 

[whydoibother]

My favourite Larian game prior to BG3 was Ego Draconis and if you'd given me BG3 and I had no other knowledge of Larian and their games other than ED I still could have easily told you it was made by the same people

BG would've been well served with you collecting limbs to have someone build you an undead zombie NPC companion from them. Build-a-ghoul was awesome.
Also should've had an HQ, like the necromancer tower, or the Divinity ship. I thought the Nautiloid would serve such a purpose. Although I guess Larian might've cut that because everyone kept saying BG3 is just Divinity Original Sin 3.

 

[Swen]

 

[Sharpedge]

Personally, I have been disappointed by BG3 and haven't even been able to convince myself to finish it yet. I reached A3 twice and just lost interest. The problem that I have with BG3 is that it is designed so that pretty much anything works, which means that, well, anything works. You don't need to spend time trying to figure out how to progress, because make no mistake, the game makes sure that it will find a way to progress no matter what. Combat is piss easy on any difficulty, and "attack the NPCs" is apparently an acceptable solution to every problem.

In my opinion, Larian spent so much time trying to make sure that everything works that the game ended up in a place where everything feels tepid. If they had spent less time trying to provide a diverse array of choices that don't fucking matter and instead focused on trying to provide a few choices, but all of them were well done, the game would have been substantially better. The nicest thing I can say about the game is that it looks pretty and is relatively bugless, at least compared to most releases, but that isn't why I play RPGs. Otherwise, it has been a totally forgettable experience.

 

[Cryomancer]

There is any hint about what canonically happened to Aerie in Baizuo's gate 3?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

There is any hint about what canonically happened to Aerie in Baizuo's gate 3?

probably complaining about her wings while she receives alimony from charname