Game News Baldur's Gate 3 now available on Early Access

[Morality Games]

So, I just went and read the Ars Technica review, and I hate to say it because I usually hate the hipsters over there, but they are pretty much spot on the money with this one. The writing in BG3 reminds me of DOS2, which cleaved sharply away from DOS1. Not to say that DOS 1 was genius, it wasn't, but DOS2 loves to make every character you interact with an edgelord who hates you, and you're supposed to find this cool and refreshing. Which it could be if that was one character out of 100, but when every character you're supposed to care about and want to be around is like that, it just leaves you feeling, "Okay? Bye then." It's like if Imoen, Jaheira, and Khalid also acted like Xzar, only without Xzar's wacky charm.

Feels like an aimless try hard review to me. About 20-30% of the review consists of complaints that failing Saving Rolls in D&D has negative RP consequences, only valid to the extent that these kind of dice rolls didn't exist in the original Baldur's Gate dialog checks.

 

[Zeriel]

Some of it is retarded, but the writing aspect is correct.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm sure this was covered already here on codex...

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/202...-out-gamers-over-boring-bland-characters.html

D&D: Baldur’s Gate Dev Calls Out Gamers Over Boring, Bland Characters

In the most recent update, Baldur’s Gate 3 developers Larian Studios called out gamers for making the most basic character you could possibly imagine.

This past week has seen three different hotfixs release for Baldur’s Gate 3, addressing a number of gameplay issues–but the latest one included a bit of playful calling out from the dev team.

Apparently the vast majority of you out there creating new characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 have barely been taking any risks. To the point that Larian had to wonder if their analytics weren’t working when they took a look at what the “most picked” character creation options were. Take a look.

Before the fixes, let’s share something you’ve created yourselves (this is your own fault) through your choices in character creation.

We took the most popular choices in character creation, and recreated this. We thought our analytics system wasn’t working! We checked. It is.

Congratulations, you’ve basically made the default Vault Dweller. What the hell guys. We gave you demon eyes, horns, and even tails. We are sorely disappointed. Go crazy. We worked hard on this!

We’ve got a lot more analytics that run in the background. We’ll share more insights and data in the next Community Update, but for now, you should know that it’s not just bug reports that help us solve issues and improve the game, we have a system of anonymous analytics running in the background that show us a lot about how the game is played, and thus how we can improve it. Simply playing BG3 makes it better for you now, and everyone else in the future.

Larian’s admonition comes in light of a character creator that lets you make mauve skin, add devil horns, tattoos, magical marks, and even a little bit of a glow, with an audience that refuses to explore much further than the other Commander Shepard. Now that Larian’s thrown down the gauntlet, we’re looking forward to seeing what characters you’ll come up with.

Happy Adventuring!

 

[Excommunicator]

Tim Cain tried various different approaches in three different games (Fallout, Arcanum, ToEE) and they were all terrible. And the question of one-character versus full-party was answered right at the beginning:

I think you're making a rather large oversight - it's not a debate about being a solitary wanderer versus a party, it's about who you as a player are controlling directly.

In the hypothetical situation where the AI is flawless and allows companions to act as intelligent individuals, you would control just the one character and the game would sufficiently simulate being in a group of real personalities and this would deliver the purest RP experience.

Full party control is halfway between being a convenient compromise for poor AI autonomy of party members and a welcome addition of greater tactical dimension in combat for the player.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Might pick it once its 20 Zion bux and supporting DX 9 aka Superior Windows 7 OS... maybe.

 

[Matalarata]

If Gygax was really rolling 14 times for loyalty checks every time, he was crazy.

No, he probably did the sane thing and used mass morale rules. Or just rolled once every 5 or 7 henchmen. Point is, older D&D edition gave NPC followers galore to martial classes. They were a class feature, akin to what a Druid or Ranger animal companion would become. Hell iirc you had specific rules to replace them, if you used them (let them die) like the feature they were. With the same caveats about "do not abuse blah...blah..." which means you need at least to roleplay it a bit when you send your badger (or soldiers) to take hits on the frontline for you.

That said, AD&D 2nd ed (can't remember if it's the same for 1st and can't be arsed to look it up) proposed the concept of "character trees" in multiple instances. I'm 100% sure you had it as a chapter in the Dark Sun setting introduction but that's not the only time it appeared as a concept. The idea is to play multiple characters but only one at a time. The other characters are there to immediately provide a PC in case of a character's death and could be used in interaction or for long-time project, like the creation of magic items, erecting temples or other structures, etc. So that the group could keep adventuring. You could also swap PC between adventures to avoid getting bored or simply play with one that was more suited to the adventures to come. Was it commonly used? Hell, no. That's like a ton of extra book keeping for what gaming aspects it introduces and that is the true killer of campaigns. I've only seen it in play once, in a campaign I Gm'd and only to allow a player with a much higher degree of pnp experience than the rest of my group to have two PCs, a "proper" one and sort of a "joke" character (a dimension-hopping CN bard) which was still pretty functional from a mechanics perspective but allowed him to do batshit crazy things, dragged the rest of the group with him in multiple hilarious situation and gave me as the GM a number of plot hooks and ways to have the group "fail forward" when they where stuck.
The year was '97, I was only 17 and I think I owe about 66% of the tricks in my Gm toolbox to that particular Dark Sun campaign.

 

[Whisper]

Mehhh.. BG1 Wilderness areas were notorious for this.. but they still felt immersive in a way.. what's the chances of you finding something eye shocking amazing every 10 feet?
You'd sometimes just be occasionally attacked by a retardo gibberling or wolf.. Which made coming to a bandit attacked caravan or finding a wizard tower all the more interesting.

Also BG1 basically hid story hooks in the world. You could actually visit areas way beyond your level, or do things out of order if you knew where to look.

Call me a storyfag or immersionfag but having a wide open realm to explore felt good.

DOS2 feels so much more formulaic .. Your walking from Left Bottom corner to Top Right corner.. you can fork here and there.. but there's no sense of exploration.. you never really "miss" anything or feel out of your element like "Wow this forest is getting kinda shitty, better head back to Friendly Arm Inn"

I guess for a bunch of disgruntled veterans who can solo BG1 in a hour with a single character these experiences don't exist anymore.. but that was my initial feeling with BG1 and I was hoping for a turn based version of that.


(still better than PoE 1 though)

I remember exploration in BG.

Small maps, full of nothing. Big difference from big maps full of nothing in modern games.


Even Skyrim world felt so many times more rich in content, despite being much bigger.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maps of nothing... those sound just damdy.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

BG1's maps were "full of nothing"? If "nothing" means no encounter around every corner, no epic shit to find in every treehole, no quests every ten feet, and not every living being had the intention to kill me - then yes, it was "full of nothing". I still enjoyed it more than all the hundreds and thousands of RPGs which are crammed with all kind of stuff just to show me how they want to keep me entertained permanently and non-stop. The world felt more realistic the way BG1 presented it to me and allowed me for a better experience of immersion. It immediately gave me the powerful illusion that the world didn't revolve around me, a feeling I only know from very few games (Ultima VII and Doomdark's Revenge come to mind). And it allowed me to notice all the tiny details, the birds, the squirrels, the plethora of sounds and all the nature stuff. That's why I hate almost all modern RPGs: They don't give me time to breathe, to enjoy the scene and to simply be "there".

 

[Immortal]

I remember exploration in BG.
Small maps, full of nothing. Big difference from big maps full of nothing in modern games.
Even Skyrim world felt so many times more rich in content, despite being much bigger.

Spoiler

 

[Raghar]

Main conclusion from watching Twitch.tv streams.
Combat has flaws of Divinity OS2. Flaming surfaces everywhere, enemies jumping and teleporting around like crazy, and spells and skills are creating surfaces left and right. It looks like they didn't even bothered to do a pnp session. In PnP session level 1 characters are barely able to hit giant spider, and they are happy. There is the same flaw as was in Pathfinder Kingmaker. More enemies the better.
Adding skills to enemies that shouldn't have them more often than VERY uncommonly. (Do you remember how in pathfinder Kingmaker nearly every spellcaster used defensive combat? Typically only heroes are using that.)

Then there is story. I heard words after the bombastic intro, the game could go only downwards. And well, the area just after crash looks VERY disconnected to the main story. The start of the story should give it a sense of urgency, but then for some reason main characters acts as if danger completely passed, and nothing can happen.

Frankly, some companies should decide if they want game with STRONG narrative, or a game with large freedom. So far it looks Larian wants to have zoo. Black, goblins, white, people with tails, elven pirates, vampire, drows... What would be the next member of zoo we encounter? Werewolf.

Frankly tasty soup typically isn't soup where cook mixed 3x higher dosage of black pepper, with chilli peppers. Only to get some taste. Real soup also needs bit of smoked ham, noodles, eggs... People who doesn't understand this ends with massive diarrhea at night.

 

[Whisper]

BG1's maps were "full of nothing"? If "nothing" means no encounter around every corner, no epic shit to find in every treehole, no quests every ten feet, and not every living being had the intention to kill me - then yes, it was "full of nothing". I still enjoyed it more than all the hundreds and thousands of RPGs which are crammed with all kind of stuff just to show me how they want to keep me entertained permanently and non-stop. The world felt more realistic the way BG1 presented it to me and allowed me for a better experience of immersion. It immediately gave me the powerful illusion that the world didn't revolve around me, a feeling I only know from very few games (Ultima VII and Doomdark's Revenge come to mind). And it allowed me to notice all the tiny details, the birds, the squirrels, the plethora of sounds and all the nature stuff. That's why I hate almost all modern RPGs: They don't give me time to breathe, to enjoy the scene and to simply be "there".

You cant really "explore" small maps. There is just no space to explore.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

BG1's maps were "full of nothing"? If "nothing" means no encounter around every corner, no epic shit to find in every treehole, no quests every ten feet, and not every living being had the intention to kill me - then yes, it was "full of nothing". I still enjoyed it more than all the hundreds and thousands of RPGs which are crammed with all kind of stuff just to show me how they want to keep me entertained permanently and non-stop. The world felt more realistic the way BG1 presented it to me and allowed me for a better experience of immersion. It immediately gave me the powerful illusion that the world didn't revolve around me, a feeling I only know from very few games (Ultima VII and Doomdark's Revenge come to mind). And it allowed me to notice all the tiny details, the birds, the squirrels, the plethora of sounds and all the nature stuff. That's why I hate almost all modern RPGs: They don't give me time to breathe, to enjoy the scene and to simply be "there".

You cant really "explore" small maps. There is just no space to explore.

It's a question of definition I guess. Yes, it's not "open world" like Ultima VII I compared it to. But all these small maps build one big, continuous map. The multiple maps and their borders strangely never bothered me and never took away the strong feeling of being in a realistic world open to be explored for me. The game is more than just the sum of its small maps. Every single part fits to the next and the overall impression is that of a coherent and logical world (as much as I like BG2, that's the one thing they didn't continue in BG2, where you basically jump from one location to another, all full of stuff to do and see, but without any transitional areas to connect them in a realistic way).

 

[Prime Junta]

I hate you. You made me do it. I bought this EA thing. Now I don't think I even like RPGs anymore.

 

[Dr Schultz]

I hate you. You made me do it. I bought this EA thing. Now I don't think I even like RPGs anymore.

Care to elaborate? I'll wait for the final release but I'd love to hear your opinion about the E.A. (for real, I'm not being sarcastic).

 

[Prime Junta]

I hate you. You made me do it. I bought this EA thing. Now I don't think I even like RPGs anymore.

Care to elaborate? I'll wait for the final release but I'd love to hear your opinion about the E.A. (for real, I'm not being sarcastic).

I'm not deep enough in it to have more than a bit of a first impression but for what it's worth

Likes: Graphics are very good, mechanics are meat-and-potatoes DnD in both good and bad, combat is D:OS meets DnD, in both good and bad, it works well enough for EA, this isn't anything like an Obsidian clusterfuck for example.
Dislikes: Writing is incredibly hackneyed, voice actors are hamming it up like no tomorrow, at least the first characters I've met are all sizzle, no steak, and I don't like the camera.
Neutral: This doesn't feel like it has anything to do with Baldur's Gate, if you care at all about franchises (personally I don't give a shit). Moment to moment gameplay is all D:OS, writing is all D:OS. Although looked at another way I salute Swen & co for having the steel balls to take a franchise like BG and use it to do entirely their own thing.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be exactly what it says on the package, and I've played so many of these I honestly don't know if I can handle yet another zero-to-hero spreadsheet cRPG where I beat incredible odds, bang exotic companions while sorting out their daddy issues, slay a dragon, and save the world. 'Cuz I'm pretty damn certain that's exactly what this is, and it does make me feel like I'm burned out on the entire genre. Wherefore the "I don't think I even like RPGs anymore" cry of anguish.

 

[Dr Schultz]

You

I hate you. You made me do it. I bought this EA thing. Now I don't think I even like RPGs anymore.

Care to elaborate? I'll wait for the final release but I'd love to hear your opinion about the E.A. (for real, I'm not being sarcastic).

I'm not deep enough in it to have more than a bit of a first impression but for what it's worth

Likes: Graphics are very good, mechanics are meat-and-potatoes DnD in both good and bad, combat is D:OS meets DnD, in both good and bad, it works well enough for EA, this isn't anything like an Obsidian clusterfuck for example.
Dislikes: Writing is incredibly hackneyed, voice actors are hamming it up like no tomorrow, at least the first characters I've met are all sizzle, no steak, and I don't like the camera.
Neutral: This doesn't feel like it has anything to do with Baldur's Gate, if you care at all about franchises (personally I don't give a shit). Moment to moment gameplay is all D:OS, writing is all D:OS. Although looked at another way I salute Swen & co for having the steel balls to take a franchise like BG and use it to do entirely their own thing.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be exactly what it says on the package, and I've played so many of these I honestly don't know if I can handle yet another zero-to-hero spreadsheet cRPG where I beat incredible odds, bang exotic companions while sorting out their daddy issues, slay a dragon, and save the world. 'Cuz I'm pretty damn certain that's exactly what this is, and it does make me feel like I'm burned out on the entire genre. Wherefore the "I don't think I even like RPGs anymore" cry of anguish.

You pretty much reinforced my impressions with both the pros and cons. I gotta be honest: I've an hard time imagining a videogame settled in the Forgotten Realms which is not a hero's journey. I take it for granted. What I hope for is a competent hero's journey in the final game. Aside for that, I'm on board with basically any change they've made to the core gameplay, at least in theory.

PS: not surprised at all by the good state of the Alpha. D:OS I and II EA were a smooth experience since day one.

 

[Jaedar]

Shut ya yap-holes and watch our master play!!!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/767058602

Wow, this was boring as fuck.

I will never understand people who spend two hours just tweaking how their character looks.

 

[Immortal]

Shut ya yap-holes and watch our master play!!!

Wow, this was boring as fuck.

I will never understand people who spend two hours just tweaking how their character looks.

Ehhh.. he's viewing the character creation through the lens of a game creator / designer.

Most of what I saw was him looking at the different armor sets / hair styles and giving feedback on the texture work, what he likes / doesn't like, talking about the UI and the different processes they go through for building out these assets, the styles wotc allowed and didn't allow for NWN2 / 3.5E vs now, for example I found it interesting Wizards was so pedantic about A-symmetrical armour designs in 3.5E.

You could argue it's excessive / boring but I watch this in the same light as MCA taking 10 years to finish his convo with Virgil and fight a wolf in Arcanum.

They aren't consuming the game as players - juxtapose this with some sweaty twitch gamer who moonlights at Mcdonalds and dead-air silently spends a 2 hour stream picking a shade of purple for his Drow waifu with the occasional wheeze or chortle, I sympathize with the complaint for sure - I didn't mind it as much here.

 

[V_K]

I wonder if this will cause more or less butthurt in the end than Fallout 3.

 

[Voids]

I wonder if this will cause more or less butthurt in the end than Fallout 3.

When Fallout 3 came out a greater percentage of the player population were the older school guys who thought it was all horseshit. Now that population is a much smaller percentage of the rest of the player population, so I think the anger over Fallout 3 will go down as being larger. Most people following BG3 are DOS fans, and people have sort of accepted that their dreams and childhood are going to be raped over and over again anyways.

 

[aleam iacis]

This game is essentially Divinity Original Sin 2 in Faerun.
The graphics are slightly better on a technical level.. but the world / area design is a carbon copy of DOS2 ..

Wide open area that you explode from bottom left to top right.. There doesn't appear to be any world map or region wide exploration.
Waypoints let you zip about ala braccus statues. Ect..

I was sorta hoping to See Larians spin on a Baldurs Gate styled game (minus the RTWP) and explore sprawling villages or hoof it in wide open fields.
Also large parts of the map feel just empty.

Still more fun than PoE 1.

Good thing, considering that "exploring" in the I. E. games essentially mean clearing the black spots of small (and occasionally beautiful) 2d paintings. Not exactly thrilling gameplay...

Mehhh.. BG1 Wilderness areas were notorious for this.. but they still felt immersive in a way.. what's the chances of you finding something eye shocking amazing every 10 feet?
You'd sometimes just be occasionally attacked by a retardo gibberling or wolf.. Which made coming to a bandit attacked caravan or finding a wizard tower all the more interesting.

Also BG1 basically hid story hooks in the world. You could actually visit areas way beyond your level, or do things out of order if you knew where to look.

Call me a storyfag or immersionfag but having a wide open realm to explore felt good.

DOS2 feels so much more formulaic .. Your walking from Left Bottom corner to Top Right corner.. you can fork here and there.. but there's no sense of exploration.. you never really "miss" anything or feel out of your element like "Wow this forest is getting kinda shitty, better head back to Friendly Arm Inn"

I guess for a bunch of disgruntled veterans who can solo BG1 in a hour with a single character these experiences don't exist anymore.. but that was my initial feeling with BG1 and I was hoping for a turn based version of that.


(still better than PoE 1 though)

BG2 had great level & encounter design. Yes it was 'unrealistically' chock full of events, items, etc but it's super boring to go through a large map with nothing interesting to do or see, just popamole enemies and garbage items... Like in the D:OS games, PoE, and lots of games with crap design. A lot of the maps in BG1 were empty, to be fair but that's one of the reasons BG2 was better.

Also whosoever thinks "verticality" is a good idea in a top down turn based or RTwP RPG map.... is an idiot. It CAN be great in strategy games like X-Com although it's not even slightly used in a majority of strategy games like CK2, Civilization, Kings Bounty and only slightly used in games like Starcraft or Red Alert (oh you are on top of a hill or a flying unit above a ground unit) and it's fine in shooters. But have you noticed in BG3: OS, YOU CAN'T LOOK UP? You can barely adjust your perspective and you want me to treat this as a jumping simulator? Take a long walk off a short pier.

 

[Dr Schultz]

This game is essentially Divinity Original Sin 2 in Faerun.
The graphics are slightly better on a technical level.. but the world / area design is a carbon copy of DOS2 ..

Wide open area that you explode from bottom left to top right.. There doesn't appear to be any world map or region wide exploration.
Waypoints let you zip about ala braccus statues. Ect..

I was sorta hoping to See Larians spin on a Baldurs Gate styled game (minus the RTWP) and explore sprawling villages or hoof it in wide open fields.
Also large parts of the map feel just empty.

Still more fun than PoE 1.

Good thing, considering that "exploring" in the I. E. games essentially mean clearing the black spots of small (and occasionally beautiful) 2d paintings. Not exactly thrilling gameplay...

Mehhh.. BG1 Wilderness areas were notorious for this.. but they still felt immersive in a way.. what's the chances of you finding something eye shocking amazing every 10 feet?
You'd sometimes just be occasionally attacked by a retardo gibberling or wolf.. Which made coming to a bandit attacked caravan or finding a wizard tower all the more interesting.

Also BG1 basically hid story hooks in the world. You could actually visit areas way beyond your level, or do things out of order if you knew where to look.

Call me a storyfag or immersionfag but having a wide open realm to explore felt good.

DOS2 feels so much more formulaic .. Your walking from Left Bottom corner to Top Right corner.. you can fork here and there.. but there's no sense of exploration.. you never really "miss" anything or feel out of your element like "Wow this forest is getting kinda shitty, better head back to Friendly Arm Inn"

I guess for a bunch of disgruntled veterans who can solo BG1 in a hour with a single character these experiences don't exist anymore.. but that was my initial feeling with BG1 and I was hoping for a turn based version of that.


(still better than PoE 1 though)

BG2 had great level & encounter design. Yes it was 'unrealistically' chock full of events, items, etc but it's super boring to go through a large map with nothing interesting to do or see, just popamole enemies and garbage items... Like in the D:OS games, PoE, and lots of games with crap design. A lot of the maps in BG1 were empty, to be fair but that's one of the reasons BG2 was better.

Also whosoever thinks "verticality" is a good idea in a top down turn based or RTwP RPG map.... is an idiot. It CAN be great in strategy games like X-Com although it's not even slightly used in a majority of strategy games like CK2, Civilization, Kings Bounty and only slightly used in games like Starcraft or Red Alert (oh you are on top of a hill or a flying unit above a ground unit) and it's fine in shooters. But have you noticed in BG3: OS, YOU CAN'T LOOK UP? You can barely adjust your perspective and you want me to treat this as a jumping simulator? Take a long walk off a short pier.

Any time a codexian ventures outside his confort zone a post full of idiocy is bound to happen. It's like the only real immutable law of History .

I won't even waste my time reasoning this time.

Short and incomplete list of isometric/top down games which are not turn based squad tactics and nonetheless make use (or will make use once published) of verticality in order to enhance the exploration.

Shadow Tactics (hell, the whole tactical stealth genre for that matter):
https://youtu.be/Wlp8m8_5xsg

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJlLXv8w54o

Monument Valley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gczXIu7-5n8

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8zQxSWaotc

Hob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGlNHJioCuk

Divinity Orginal Sin 2 (linked here because is quite evident that you haven't played it if you really believe its maps are empty. Probably their problem is the opposite, being too packed with stuff):is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTWTFX8qzPI

The Last Campfire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VmQGaE9yoY

Tunic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zi5RhDPPvI

Baldo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8WgU-HXtmk

Solasta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ag_7USBEi8


Stopped here because I grew bored of searching for trailers on Youtube. The list can continue for pages, however...

 

[Delterius]

wait things can't go up and down when you're above them what the fuck

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I tend to agree that the camera perspective is clunky at best, but it hardly makes the game unplayable. And hopefully they'll tweak it before the full release.