Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Arulan]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

Disagree. It's a fun and memorable moment. Not everything has to be serious all the time, and it already fits well with Raphael. I've talked to a few people about this moment, and the common reaction seems to be: Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into, he's singing his own boss theme. It's exactly the type of thing I might expect as a highlight to someone's D&D campaign.

 

[Yosharian]

It's cringe.

 

[Justicar]

It's cringe.

disney tier trash.

 

[Fedora Master]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

Disagree. It's a fun and memorable moment. Not everything has to be serious all the time, and it already fits well with Raphael. I've talked to a few people about this moment, and the common reaction seems to be: Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into, he's singing his own boss theme. It's exactly the type of thing I might expect as a highlight to someone's D&D campaign.

But that's typical of Larian and their incongruous writing. Is the entire thing meant to be serious and disturbing or is it a Disney adventure?

And when they try to be serious they come up with shit like Netherbrain.

 

[HumanMech]

But that's typical of Larian and their incongruous writing. Is the entire thing meant to be serious and disturbing or is it a Disney adventure?

It's meant to be the writing of the year: Nebula Award for Game Writing

Nebula Award for Game Writing

• The Bread Must Rise, Stewart C Baker, James Beamon (Choice of Games)
• Alan Wake II, Sam Lake, Clay Murphy, Tyler Burton Smith, Sinikka Annala (Remedy Entertainment, Epic Games Publishing)
• Ninefox Gambit: Machineries of Empire Roleplaying Game, Yoon Ha Lee, Marie Brennan(Android)
• Dredge, Joel Mason (Black Salt Games, Team 17)
• Chants of Sennaar, Julien Moya, Thomas Panuel (Rundisc, Focus Entertainment)
• Baldur’s Gate 3, Adam Smith, Adrienne Law, Baudelaire Welch, Chrystal Ding, Ella McConnell, Ine Van Hamme, Jan Van Dosselaer, John Corcoran, Kevin VanOrd, Lawrence Schick, Martin Docherty, Rachel Quirke, Ruairí Moore, Sarah Baylus, Stephen Rooney, Swen Vincke (Larian Studios)

 

[Shaki]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

Disagree. It's a fun and memorable moment. Not everything has to be serious all the time, and it already fits well with Raphael. I've talked to a few people about this moment, and the common reaction seems to be: Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into, he's singing his own boss theme. It's exactly the type of thing I might expect as a highlight to someone's D&D campaign.

But that's typical of Larian and their incongruous writing. Is the entire thing meant to be serious and disturbing or is it a Disney adventure?

And when they try to be serious they come up with shit like Netherbrain.

You will listen to a faggot demon singing like a Disney princess, and you WILL enjoy it. Consoom the product, goy.

Afaik Redditors loved the Raphael fight and think the song is super cool, so expect more of that in the future.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

But that's typical of Larian and their incongruous writing.

It's consistent with Raphael's characterization, the penchant for dramatics and unwarranted self-importance blend and culminate in a song about how everything happening is Just As Planned™ and the player is totally doomed.

And when they try to be serious they come up with shit like Netherbrain.

Yes? The Illithid body horror hook is a total dud and the Dead Three plot immediately devolves into Shonen pulp nonsense once Ketheric dies, the more comedic Avernus/Devil antics are clearly where Larian's heart is at.

 

[Haba]

That is how a evil powerful enemy should be. Very hard to inflict ANY damage. Not a bullet sponge.

Every evil wizard boss fight should be some kind of simulacrum cheese where the fight's basically impossible, if you somehow win you still lose, and the wizard wasn't even physically there in the first place.

Having a wizard pew pew you in-person is just catering to players.

The more protected a casterfaggot is from conventional damage, the more likely is he to die an undignified death- like choking on food, explosives in the latrine that blow up bombs while he's dropping them, slipping on banana peels, getting friendzoned, etc. After all, you'll be incentivizing your opponents to play dirty.

Barbarian casts sword.

 

[Tyranicon]

Nebula Award for Game Writing

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/7353887524205115081

Hotfix #22 Now Live!
Version Number: 4.1.1.4905117

Hello everyone,

We’re rolling out another small hotfix on all platforms today that takes care of a couple of crashes and blockers, as well as a couple of bug fixes for Minthara, so hopefully now she’ll stop spilling the beans.

We’ve also fixed an issue where a legacy dialogue flow had been enabled unintentionally while carrying out fixes for Minthara, which meant that some players had been able to view dialogue where Minthara would seemingly end a relationship with Dark Urge players if they had resisted their urges and made a certain choice in Act III.

There’s good news for Xbox players, too! Today’s hotfix also brings both Hotfixes #20 and #21 to your platform, which means issues with cross-saves should now be resolved. Thank you again for your patience while we worked to fix the issue, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused you (and your saves!).

If you’re experiencing any issues after installing this latest hotfix, please check whether the issue still persists with all mods uninstalled. If you continue to experience this issue after uninstalling mods, please contact our support team and submit a full report to help us solve your issue.

We continue to work on further fixes and patches, but in the meantime, thank you for playing Baldur’s Gate 3!

CRASHES AND BLOCKERS

• Fixed a crash caused by the game trying to access the duration of a condition on a character with no conditions set.
• Fixed conditions sometimes trying to get their duration from the source entity instead of the target entity.
• Fixed some potential internal crashes on Xbox when suspending the game (e.g. when suspending the console or loading another game), causing it to reboot when you went back to it.

UI

• Improved the messaging for syncing and cross-saving by indicating when a cross-save sync has failed and adding an option to try again. Also prevented the saving and cross-saving messages from appearing for secondary local players.
• Voice chat will no longer overlap the minimap on split-screen.
• Fixed the 'Another Player Is Joining' pop-up not triggering while the host has a panel open on Xbox, potentially preventing the client from joining.

SCRIPTING

• Fixed an issue where legacy dialogue had been enabled unintentionally as part of another line of fixes, in which Minthara would seemingly end a relationship with
  
  .
• Made Minthara promise to stop repeating her thoughts about Gale in Act III.
• Fixed a bug causing you to get perpetually stuck in a dangerous area if you triggered hostilities in the Emerald Grove and then left while it was still a dangerous area.
• Fixed a rare issue where dialogues would end suddenly when you went to kiss your romantic partner.
• Fixed a bug causing you to get stuck in combat with the enemies on top of Moonrise Towers if you found a way to sneak into the

 

[Larianshill]

We’ve also fixed an issue where a legacy dialogue flow had been enabled unintentionally while carrying out fixes for Minthara, which meant that some players had been able to view dialogue where Minthara would seemingly end a relationship with Dark Urge players if they had resisted their urges and made a certain choice in Act III.

I see.

 

[Yosharian]

We’ve also fixed an issue where a legacy dialogue flow had been enabled unintentionally while carrying out fixes for Minthara, which meant that some players had been able to view dialogue where Minthara would seemingly end a relationship with Dark Urge players if they had resisted their urges and made a certain choice in Act III.

I see.

Well that clears that up then

 

[La vie sexuelle]

I started playing Baldur's Gate again, this time as sexy drow Dark Urge. I see that a lot has been improved, although the Minthara path and everything that is "bad" still requires a lot of corrections.

I entered the Harper camp. At the entrance, I was greeted by Jaheira, who was trying to argue. Of course, I started fighting. Unfortunately, Larian probably didn't expect that someone would really want to do it, because the other Harpers had no dialogue, only "you are not welcome in this area". Likewise Isobell :D I killed her and then the devil took her body (?). However, no one cared it because I had to kill some wooden monsters. Then my companions were a little angry, but they forgot about it.

However, nothing beats the scene with Alfira, who came to my camp DESPITE THAT I KILLED ALL THE TIEFLINGS IN THE GROVE AND BREAKED HER LUTE. As true Dark Urge, I killed her at night and was so happy about it that I didn't even hide the body. When I told everyone straight that I am a serial killer, even Shadowheart, the supposedly nicest one (Gale and Karlach were dead) only told me "Keep it to yourself." And no one has ever had a problem with it. Not even sympathy gauge change :D

 

[Ryzer]

Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.

 

[jackofshadows]

The number of options is still impressive. I wouldn't criticize classics as Arcanum for that for instance and BG3 has much more of it. Subj has more pressing/grating flaws to beat over for.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Durge had a lot of missed opportunities, but adding reactivity for everything is a bit difficult. The same for Astarion's vampirism if you play him as an origin. Would have been great to have a mystery as to who killed what character, but we didn't get that. Jaheira v Durge is the closest we get. Revealing to her that my character was the one that killed all the harpers was a fun moment though.

The fact is, most people don't play the evil path in games. They cuck out. And the devs knew this. All the content focus is on the good path, right up to the end.

Good characters get epilogues for all the NPCs. But evil characters just get get a scene where their brainwashed friends are all clapping and cheering silently using the same poorly mimed animation.

 

[HumanMech]

Spoiler

You can't even return astarion to his vampy-daddy. Even if you strike a deal with him beforehand. Game forces you to save that faggot.

Much options, much C&C, much wow.

 

[Larianshill]

I started playing Baldur's Gate again, this time as sexy drow Dark Urge. I see that a lot has been improved, although the Minthara path and everything that is "bad" still requires a lot of corrections.

I entered the Harper camp. At the entrance, I was greeted by Jaheira, who was trying to argue. Of course, I started fighting. Unfortunately, Larian probably didn't expect that someone would really want to do it, because the other Harpers had no dialogue, only "you are not welcome in this area". Likewise Isobell :D I killed her and then the devil took her body (?). However, no one cared it because I had to kill some wooden monsters. Then my companions were a little angry, but they forgot about it.

However, nothing beats the scene with Alfira, who came to my camp DESPITE THAT I KILLED ALL THE TIEFLINGS IN THE GROVE AND BREAKED HER LUTE. As true Dark Urge, I killed her at night and was so happy about it that I didn't even hide the body. When I told everyone straight that I am a serial killer, even Shadowheart, the supposedly nicest one (Gale and Karlach were dead) only told me "Keep it to yourself." And no one has ever had a problem with it. Not even sympathy gauge change :D

Swen talked very big game about the evil route, and how "much love has been put into it", and how they wanted to get it right, because no game ever does. Then his team proceeded to utterly half-ass it, and even the ideas that were made are utterly fucking terrible. It's not even about minute details (but it's about that too), but the larger premise.
The fantasy of a good character in BG3 is a very appealing one. You do right, honorable things, you save people, you fight bad guys and you get rewarded for it. Every time, without failure. Help a little pixie, who are specifically noted by the game to be tricksy and unreliable? She helps you down the line. Save a little girl? She turns out to be an incredibly powerful sorcerer and helps you down the line. Decide that you won't be making a deal with the devil, but instead you're gonna invade his domain and fight him, so that everyone gets a happy ending? Works out 100% for everyone involved. BG3 expects you to be the most heroic hero that ever lived, and every time you do something heroic, it rewards you to further encourage that behaviour.
What's tha fantasy of the evil character in BG3? Murder. The game allows you to murder pretty much anyone, and a lot of the times has special cutscenes and a lot of razzle-dazzle around it, there's a whole quest around butchering a group of tieflings for no reason whatsoever. It also thinks that murder itself is the reward - so you don't get jack shit for it. The ultimate evil ending of the game is submitting to Bhaal and handing him over the control of the mindflayer army, so he can murder everyone. But for the majority of people, the appeal of evil isn't just killing random people, it's power and getting away with shit without consequences. There's a reason why there's so much evil in our world, and why every corporation's upper echelons are staffed 100% by sociopaths. Evil is easy, and it's rewarding as fuck.

If I was in charge of writing the game, I'd not make anything even close to the Dark Urge storyline. And instead of the evil Moonrise Towers plot being about obedienty following orders of people who want you dead (and then getting exposed like a chump), you'd subvert the organization from within to serve your evil ends - you and Mintharra would foster a goblin rebellion, so that you can take down Ketheric. Would that require rewrites around some of the plot's key concepts? Yes, but I don't think these concepts were great to begin with.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Look at what you worthless faggots have done!!!



DROWN IN LAKE OF BLOODY AIDS PISS COCKSUCKERS. You have ruined everything sacred by praising this fucking abomination!

 

[Infinitron]

Unsurprising that he doesn't actually quite remember it: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/l...-90s-because-i-dont-want-to-spoil-the-memory/

Larian CEO Swen Vincke extols the 'incredible achievement' of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Ultima 7, but confesses he hasn't played since the '90s 'because I don't want to spoil the memory'​

Larian CEO Swen Vincke is obsessed with Ultima 7. You can find its DNA—the many weird systems, the possibilities for emergent gameplay, and the beautifully stackable crates—across Larian's entire catalogue, and especially in Baldur's Gate 3. Vincke says he's "been chasing [it] ever since" it came out back in the '90s, and yet he hasn't been back and played the game in just as long.

In a chat with PC Gamer at this year's GDC, Vincke said he's loath to return to classics like Ultima 7 "because I've played old games before that I thought I was still going to love… I don't want to do it again, because I'm pretty sure it will have not aged very well.

"I don't want to destroy that feeling, my memory of it is very fond," added Vincke, before dispensing with the nostalgia and confessing "It had a shit combat system. It was really bad".

Which isn't an unfair criticism. Like many RPGs of yore, Ultima 7's combat was a dense and awkward thing that's only got harder to handle as game design has progressed. As an incorrigible lover of the Planescapes, Alpha Protocols, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines(es) of the world, I can empathise with Vincke's affection for a classic game that can feel like a chore to play in the year of our Lord 2024.

Besides, Vincke tries to preserve all the best parts of Ultima 7 in Larian's own games. "It had such a good sense of exploration, and a sense of wealth and freedom, and that's the bit I've been chasing ever since.

"It was so great, in that sense. You could fly, you could make your own air balloon. You could make a raft. There's a whole bunch of things that for a long time you couldn't see in other games all put together in there… To my mind it's still an incredible achievement from a development point of view."

But achievement or not, it's a tough one to play these days. Not just in terms of its design, either: Vincke mentioned to PCG that "your best bet" of running the game these days is to "actually buy an old computer". So as golden as Vincke's memories are, "I don't play it again, because I don't want to spoil the memory."

 

[Fedora Master]

Ultima 7 had a fairly intelligent story and characters.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Ultima 7 had a fairly intelligent story and characters.

Probably less homosexuals, too.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

The number of options is still impressive. I wouldn't criticize classics as Arcanum for that for instance and BG3 has much more of it. Subj has more pressing/grating flaws to beat over for.

I do not doubt. BG3 is a great achievement in this respect... and at the same time it is a game where developers overestimated their time and resources.

I started playing Baldur's Gate again, this time as sexy drow Dark Urge. I see that a lot has been improved, although the Minthara path and everything that is "bad" still requires a lot of corrections.

I entered the Harper camp. At the entrance, I was greeted by Jaheira, who was trying to argue. Of course, I started fighting. Unfortunately, Larian probably didn't expect that someone would really want to do it, because the other Harpers had no dialogue, only "you are not welcome in this area". Likewise Isobell :D I killed her and then the devil took her body (?). However, no one cared it because I had to kill some wooden monsters. Then my companions were a little angry, but they forgot about it.

However, nothing beats the scene with Alfira, who came to my camp DESPITE THAT I KILLED ALL THE TIEFLINGS IN THE GROVE AND BREAKED HER LUTE. As true Dark Urge, I killed her at night and was so happy about it that I didn't even hide the body. When I told everyone straight that I am a serial killer, even Shadowheart, the supposedly nicest one (Gale and Karlach were dead) only told me "Keep it to yourself." And no one has ever had a problem with it. Not even sympathy gauge change :D

Swen talked very big game about the evil route, and how "much love has been put into it", and how they wanted to get it right, because no game ever does. Then his team proceeded to utterly half-ass it, and even the ideas that were made are utterly fucking terrible. It's not even about minute details (but it's about that too), but the larger premise.
The fantasy of a good character in BG3 is a very appealing one. You do right, honorable things, you save people, you fight bad guys and you get rewarded for it. Every time, without failure. Help a little pixie, who are specifically noted by the game to be tricksy and unreliable? She helps you down the line. Save a little girl? She turns out to be an incredibly powerful sorcerer and helps you down the line. Decide that you won't be making a deal with the devil, but instead you're gonna invade his domain and fight him, so that everyone gets a happy ending? Works out 100% for everyone involved. BG3 expects you to be the most heroic hero that ever lived, and every time you do something heroic, it rewards you to further encourage that behaviour.
What's tha fantasy of the evil character in BG3? Murder. The game allows you to murder pretty much anyone, and a lot of the times has special cutscenes and a lot of razzle-dazzle around it, there's a whole quest around butchering a group of tieflings for no reason whatsoever. It also thinks that murder itself is the reward - so you don't get jack shit for it. The ultimate evil ending of the game is submitting to Bhaal and handing him over the control of the mindflayer army, so he can murder everyone. But for the majority of people, the appeal of evil isn't just killing random people, it's power and getting away with shit without consequences. There's a reason why there's so much evil in our world, and why every corporation's upper echelons are staffed 100% by sociopaths. Evil is easy, and it's rewarding as fuck.

If I was in charge of writing the game, I'd not make anything even close to the Dark Urge storyline. And instead of the evil Moonrise Towers plot being about obedienty following orders of people who want you dead (and then getting exposed like a chump), you'd subvert the organization from within to serve your evil ends - you and Mintharra would foster a goblin rebellion, so that you can take down Ketheric. Would that require rewrites around some of the plot's key concepts? Yes, but I don't think these concepts were great to begin with.

I think there was a collision between what Swen really wanted and the development team supported by marketing. Dark Urge was a truly artistic choice, tempered because most people who play games don't like to be challenged (via Reddit). Unfortunately, this had a huge impact on the quality of the production and the fact that the second act is so unfinished.
I wonder what would have happened if Swen had put his foot down and cut something else in place of the correctly developed Dark Urge. Now they are trying to patch it after the premiere, but no one in their right mind would spend as much money on patches, so we will never see what Baldur would have been if they had worked intensively on it for a year or two longer.

Unsurprising that he doesn't actually quite remember it: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/l...-90s-because-i-dont-want-to-spoil-the-memory/

Larian CEO Swen Vincke extols the 'incredible achievement' of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Ultima 7, but confesses he hasn't played since the '90s 'because I don't want to spoil the memory'​

Larian CEO Swen Vincke is obsessed with Ultima 7. You can find its DNA—the many weird systems, the possibilities for emergent gameplay, and the beautifully stackable crates—across Larian's entire catalogue, and especially in Baldur's Gate 3. Vincke says he's "been chasing [it] ever since" it came out back in the '90s, and yet he hasn't been back and played the game in just as long.

In a chat with PC Gamer at this year's GDC, Vincke said he's loath to return to classics like Ultima 7 "because I've played old games before that I thought I was still going to love… I don't want to do it again, because I'm pretty sure it will have not aged very well.

"I don't want to destroy that feeling, my memory of it is very fond," added Vincke, before dispensing with the nostalgia and confessing "It had a shit combat system. It was really bad".

Which isn't an unfair criticism. Like many RPGs of yore, Ultima 7's combat was a dense and awkward thing that's only got harder to handle as game design has progressed. As an incorrigible lover of the Planescapes, Alpha Protocols, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines(es) of the world, I can empathise with Vincke's affection for a classic game that can feel like a chore to play in the year of our Lord 2024.

Besides, Vincke tries to preserve all the best parts of Ultima 7 in Larian's own games. "It had such a good sense of exploration, and a sense of wealth and freedom, and that's the bit I've been chasing ever since.

"It was so great, in that sense. You could fly, you could make your own air balloon. You could make a raft. There's a whole bunch of things that for a long time you couldn't see in other games all put together in there… To my mind it's still an incredible achievement from a development point of view."

But achievement or not, it's a tough one to play these days. Not just in terms of its design, either: Vincke mentioned to PCG that "your best bet" of running the game these days is to "actually buy an old computer". So as golden as Vincke's memories are, "I don't play it again, because I don't want to spoil the memory."

BG1 had a much worse combat system than Ultima.

 

[Old Hans]

BG1 had a much worse combat system than Ultima.

ultima 7 had the most ass combat even by 1992 standards. Anyone who says otherwise is a SILLY BILLY

 

[Swen]

Well well and another GOTY won that actually matters.