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Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
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Jun 28, 2017
Messages
28,815
Urge isn't just a Bhaalspawn, he was made directly from Bhaal himself. (Making the idea of a "good" Urge or a non-Human one very stupid.)
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,791
Mintharra hating on you for breaking up with Bhaal is absurd. Bhaal is the Absolute, all that shit that she's bitching about non-stop happened while the brain was under control of the Dead Three. Now she's fine with selling out TDU's ass (and hers, and everyone else's in the world) to the same guy? To what end? Bhaal's endgame is a worldwide free-for-all, where the last living human climbs a mountain of corpses, looks to the sky and yells "I've won!", and this is is the future that Bhaal-controlled TDU will bring about.
Once again, the game would be considerably better if TDU was the Banespawn, not Bhaalspawn. In that case, Mintharra's logic would kind of make sense - at least Bane's ideal world is consistent with hers.
 

Rhobar121

Scholar
Joined
Sep 22, 2022
Messages
1,244
Mintharra hating on you for breaking up with Bhaal is absurd. Bhaal is the Absolute, all that shit that she's bitching about non-stop happened while the brain was under control of the Dead Three. Now she's fine with selling out TDU's ass (and hers, and everyone else's in the world) to the same guy? To what end? Bhaal's endgame is a worldwide free-for-all, where the last living human climbs a mountain of corpses, looks to the sky and yells "I've won!", and this is is the future that Bhaal-controlled TDU will bring about.
Once again, the game would be considerably better if TDU was the Banespawn, not Bhaalspawn. In that case, Mintharra's logic would kind of make sense - at least Bane's ideal world is consistent with hers.
I feel like the only reason Dead Three is even a thing in this game is so people don't cry that it's not a sequel
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
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Jun 28, 2017
Messages
28,815
Mintharra hating on you for breaking up with Bhaal is absurd. Bhaal is the Absolute, all that shit that she's bitching about non-stop happened while the brain was under control of the Dead Three. Now she's fine with selling out TDU's ass (and hers, and everyone else's in the world) to the same guy? To what end? Bhaal's endgame is a worldwide free-for-all, where the last living human climbs a mountain of corpses, looks to the sky and yells "I've won!", and this is is the future that Bhaal-controlled TDU will bring about.
Once again, the game would be considerably better if TDU was the Banespawn, not Bhaalspawn. In that case, Mintharra's logic would kind of make sense - at least Bane's ideal world is consistent with hers.
I feel like the only reason Dead Three is even a thing in this game is so people don't cry that it's not a sequel
Exactly
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,791
Until act 3, the brain was under total mind control and was powerless to make any decisions. So any of it and the cult's actions (such as capturing and mind controlling Mintharra) before that point are not it's own, but that of Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul. Mintharra is mad at the puppet, but seems to love the puppetmaster.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,302
Dark Urge doesn't need to be good to reject Bhaal. There is even a line says something like "from now on all of the murders are on you own, not Bhaal".

It's already proven not only by the first two games but also in this game that being baalspawn doesn't necessarily means you have to do what Bhaal wants. You can tell him to go fuck himself.

I'd argue that only a retard would choose to be Bhaal's little bitch, evil or not.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
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28,815
The entire plot was orchestrated by the Brain, this is explained right around the end of the game.
Unsurprising really since the Chosen are complete blithering idiots.
 

Stoned Ape

Savant
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
708
Location
The belly of the whale
Until act 3, the brain was under total mind control and was powerless to make any decisions. So any of it and the cult's actions (such as capturing and mind controlling Mintharra) before that point are not it's own, but that of Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul.
No, the Idiot 3's plan was flawed and the Brain was just pretending to be controlled to get them to do the work for it.

It also respected the Dark Urge for some reason (before he got a lobotomy from Orin) and considered him it's equal. After his fall it lost any respect for him and just wanted him as it's slave.
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
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Feb 16, 2021
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1,791
No, the Idiot 3's plan was flawed and the Brain was just pretending to be controlled to get them to do the work for it.
We explicitly know it isn't true, because the Brain's plan involved getting some of the Chosen killed (by an outside party, because it could not have done it itself) and getting the netherstones into its posession. It was a long con that paid off, but it very well could not have, and in the middle of the plan the brain was enslaved and vulnerable. There's a whole mini-game in the act 2 that reveals that its plan has been hijacked.
 

Stoned Ape

Savant
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
708
Location
The belly of the whale
No, the Idiot 3's plan was flawed and the Brain was just pretending to be controlled to get them to do the work for it.
We explicitly know it isn't true, because the Brain's plan involved getting some of the Chosen killed (by an outside party, because it could not have done it itself) and getting the netherstones into its posession. It was a long con that paid off, but it very well could not have, and in the middle of the plan the brain was enslaved and vulnerable. There's a whole mini-game in the act 2 that reveals that its plan has been hijacked.
This is probably the most comprehensive thread about the terrible plot problems in BG3. Everything which is not in italics is compiled from information given in game (either from cut scene, dialogue, or in game texts), the stuff which is in italics is speculation based on that information.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=898808&page=1

Now, with the Dead Three united, they can place the Crown atop the Elder Brain beneath Moonrise. Specifically, Durge places the Crown atop the Brain, which will quickly become important... One unknown factor to Gortash and Ketheric was that the Brain itself - likely thanks to the netherese infusion - could have easily broken free if it so wished, but it began revering Durge and calling him it's master willingly. The Brain claims it is because Durge gave it "everything" and that his plan was devious, his cruelty unparalleled.
 

KeAShizuku

Novice
Joined
Dec 11, 2023
Messages
90
Black Isle wrote a fairly simple story for BG1 and 2 and told it well.

Larian went of the deep end and worse: they bit off more than they could chew.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,302
Anything revolves around emperor makes no sense and full of plot holes, another reason why act 3 is so awful.

It's pretty obvious they shoehorned him into the story last minute and didn't put much thought into it. The writers probably think themsleves pretty clever and proud of this character since they decided you need to work with him or go fuck yourself.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
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Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,995
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Belgrade, Removekebabland
Anything revolves around emperor makes no sense and full of plot holes, another reason why act 3 is so awful.

Maybe I was just too much of an idiot to pick up on clues and foreshadowing, if there were any, but
the Emperor actually being Balduran
was by far the dumbest and most cringeworthy thing about him, because it just came out of nowhere and didn't really serve any narrative purpose other than being a "shocking" revelation just for the sake of being a "shocking" revelation.
 

Itoh

Literate
Joined
Jan 6, 2024
Messages
26
The revelation changed very little about
the emperor himself, but it did add context to the dragon sidequest and provided an adequate pretext for why there is a zombie dragon and why you have to kill him
so despite that, I can't be too mad at it
 

Jeskis

Brother
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Oct 30, 2023
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178
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  1. The writers probably think themsleves pretty clever and proud of this character since they decided you need to work with him or go fuck yourself.
Aye, it’s one of those fake alternatives this game seemingly offers, but if you choose the wrong one it’s just nah man it’s scripted gameover kek.
Black Isle wrote a fairly simple story for BG1 and 2 and told it well.

Larian went of the deep end and worse: they bit off more than they could chew.
I agree, their story is all over nuanced and branched with lots of backstory yet somehow lame.
That's probably my biggest issue with it. You'd think that learning something like that should be a really big deal instead of being brushed aside and never brought up again (AFAIK) after the Quest is done.
Yep. The game’s world overall exists separately from the narrative you experience. This was very nicely handled in BG1 where the most of the story was concealed from the naked eye and the world lived without knowing all the action. It only experienced the top of the iceberg which were iron crisis, Amn threat and the bandits and it reacted properly to the major events while being justifiably oblivious to the underlying shenanigans.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,599
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
Basically it's a villain soup, which makes it unfocused and all over the place. You could have had either Thorm or the 3 or the Brain or the Emperor or Raphael as major antagonists, maybe at the most two (an earlier big bad leading to a later big bad pulling the strings of the first), but all of them together is just a complete mess.

I do think it's fairly innocent, it was just Larian being nervous of not making the game "epic" enough to honour the legacy, leading to them feeling they had to throw in the kitchen sink, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. But some restraint would have been better - for us and for them, so they could have had an even more polished game with less stress. It's not like the villain overload actually added to the kudos the game has received - that was all gotten from the impressive density and immersive-sim-like quality of Act I, which is fairly simple and straightforward plot-wise (although even there, it still has evidence of lots of reworking).
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,791
All of this reminds me of Divinity 2, where we have the Voidwoken and the God-King, and Dallis, and bishop Alexander, and Lucian out of nowhere (and Lucian is not even the finall boss, a different surprise villain is). And as a result not a lot of these storylines get developed. Like, bishop Alexander gets established as an immortal villain early-on, sort of like Ketheric. His immortality is specifically noted to be weird and out of there, and you'd think they'd do something with it, or at least explain it, but they don't.
I agree with the fact that that absolutely nothing about the Emperor is good, and the game would be better without him and his sexual harassment.
 

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