Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

Fight · Feb 28, 2020

Initial impressions? They built DoS:3 and not Baldur's Gate: 3. Nothing about the game resembles the world or the feel from the first 2 games.

I have a feeling I am just going to have to bite my tongue and judge the final product, because right now my hype/anticipation level just plummeted.

a_skeleton_05 · Feb 28, 2020

Yeah, it didn't feel much like BG at all, just DoS3 set in Forgotten Realms. For fans of DoS that's probably fine, but the superfans of the BG games are likely to be disappointed on some level

goishen · Feb 28, 2020

Well, I mean, for it to have a BG2 feel, you'd have to be running it on BioWare's engine. And, on top of that, the old Infinity Engine. BG2 came out 20 years ago. In software development terms, about three or four lifetimes ago.

Meh, I'm starting to sound like I'm getting paid to hype for them.

a_skeleton_05 · Feb 28, 2020

goishen said:
Well, I mean, for it to have a BG2 feel, you'd have to be running it on BioWare's engine. And, on top of that, the old Infinity Engine. BG2 came out 20 years ago. In software development terms, about three or four lifetimes ago.

Meh, I'm starting to sound like I'm getting paid to hype for them.

Not so much. Pillars and Pathfinder are much closer to BG 'feel' than this. This has a very different visual style and camera approach.

I don't have an issue with it myself, but if you had a BG fan look at this in motion without knowing what it is, or that BG3 was even being made, they would never guess what it was without something in the characters/dialogue/environment giving it away.

It's not quite at Fallout 1 & 2 to Fallout 3 levels of difference, but it's not that far off either.

reavor · Feb 28, 2020

ronne said:
I am so fucking hard right now.

Fuck all the neckbeards whining about stupid fucking pause combat. That shit was a complete joke and every difficult fight in every game that uses it turns in to shitty psuedo turn based mode by mashing pause 50 times a battle because it was the only way the game functions. Baldur's Gate had this problem, so did Planescape, and Pillars of Eternity, literally every single one.

Absolutely nothing is gained by real-time+pause other chaos and a shittier, manual turn-based combat.

nah, it's far more fluent and individualized compared to the clunky turn-based system which was developed 100s of years ago to break fights down into un-realistic time-chunks that add up to a boring mind-numbing slog. it's a travesty that they did this to a series famous for its innovative combat mechanic.

TJT · Feb 28, 2020

IDK man. The RTWP and TB argument is 25 years old at this point and its all down to personal tastes.

TB makes combat flow much better.

To me, the worst part about RTWP is that it still did all the DND rolls and shit it just hid it from you so you had to sit there and go through logs to understand if your spell critically failed or some other shit. Which is just annoying. TB you get immediate feedback on that. Which is better for the complexity of the genre.

a_skeleton_05 · Feb 28, 2020

If anything bothers me it's the move to being fully 3d. There was something truly amazing about the map paintings in BG. I wish they had struck a balance between modern graphics and old school isometric approaches. The way pathfinder did theirs but with a baldurs gate art aesthetic, and huge scale would have been perfect for me.

TJT · Feb 28, 2020

Also if any of you fags were playing BGII, Torment, or any of them in the same way you'd of played Diablo or something..

You fags you were playing it 100% wrong.

TJT · Feb 28, 2020

Dom said:
If anything bothers me it's the move to being fully 3d. There was something truly amazing about the map paintings in BG. I wish they had struck a balance between modern graphics and old school isometric approaches. The way pathfinder did theirs but with a baldurs gate art aesthetic, and huge scale would have been perfect for me.

Yeah the painted art style of BGII is why it still looks good even today. I wouldn't have been displeased if they went that route.

reavor · Feb 28, 2020

aside from the annoyance of Larian cheaply making a dnd-based mod for divinity, I am happy to have climbing/flying and similar features in a DnD game. Also they seem to include a solid amount of races and classes and archetypes even at early-access. also, it seems they are including some spelljammer/planescape stuff into it, which could be very interesting.

Aaron · Feb 28, 2020

Dom said:
If anything bothers me it's the move to being fully 3d. There was something truly amazing about the map paintings in BG. I wish they had struck a balance between modern graphics and old school isometric approaches. The way pathfinder did theirs but with a baldurs gate art aesthetic, and huge scale would have been perfect for me.

This is something that resonates with me. I remember shortly before Beamdog made the EE versions I had hoped someone would do it, and then make new content based on the engine. Beamdog then went and did that, and sure, some of it is better, but when it came to the new content, Siege of Dragonspear... well, they went full SJW retardation and it killed the dream for me. But yeah, BG and BG2 when it comes to graphics is still an artwork masterpiece in my mind.

velk · Feb 28, 2020

TJT said:
Yeah the painted art style of BGII is why it still looks good even today. I wouldn't have been displeased if they went that route.

Yeah. I'll give them credit though - the scenery they've shown in the screenshots etc is very pretty too.

The intro video was also top notch.

The voice acting was excellent, the terrain system seemed fun - bashing the rogue off the box and over the edge of the walkway was hilarious.

It doesn't look like bg2 did, true, but it's kind of hard to go from this to something modern looking and still seem the same.

a_skeleton_05 · Feb 28, 2020

It doesn't look like bg2 did, true, but it's kind of hard to go from this to something modern looking and still seem the same.

View attachment 251536

I don't agree with this. As I mentioned earlier, Pathfinder did it well:

ss_8b9434f5f18e02dc78280e8327106ae270084ff2.1920x1080.jpg

It's 3D but still keeps the CRPG style via an isometric angle. Whereas with BG3 they're going full 3D with full camera control and isn't far off from something like Dragon Age: Inq. To me, the isometric approach feels like a P&P RPG, while the full 3d approach feels like an action game, if that makes sense.

It's obvious why they're going the way they're going as they can just build off what they did with DoS's engine, but this approach will alienate a number of BG fans, and fairly so.

Caliane · Feb 28, 2020

deleted. literally same post as dom.

Pyros · Feb 28, 2020

Pillars looked even closer I think.

They probably could have called the game Baldur's Gate, no number, just like a reboot kind of thing, since it doesn't really follow the previous ones, but from what Larian said when they originally announced it, they didn't look to make BG3, it's Wizards that approached them, probably after seeing D:OS2 success. They could have changed everything they were used to to make it more faithful but I think it wouldn't have been worth it for them over just make D:OS3 instead.

And if people want RTwP gameplay, there's been a ton of CRPGs with it so not sure why the crying about it. Pillars, Tyranny, Tides of Numera and Pathfinder are there already.

Hekotat · Feb 28, 2020

Nola said:
Never played Divinity Original Sin before. Guess Imma have to get it off steam to see if I like it before I invest money in BG3. Is this game really that good?

Beat 1 and it was really good (Especially with friends). I think we finished at 64 hours played.
Working through 2 now and it's even better. We are at about 40 hours in I think and not even close to halfway.

Utnayan · Feb 28, 2020

Baldur's Gate III Devs Open Up About Stadia Exclusivity, Suggest Game Wouldn't Run On PS4/Xbox One

Across two different interviews, design producer David Walgrave has suggested that Baldur's Gate III is Stadia/PC exclusive for very good reason, and they're aware of audience reactions to the system.

www.gamespot.com

There isn’t a roll eye emoticon large enough for what Larian states in this article. Wonder how much google paid them to make these ridiculous statements.

Ps: Fuck stadia and fuck google.

TJT · Feb 28, 2020

Considering their port of DOS2 to Switch was VERY well received this is just the google bux talking.

Caliane · Feb 28, 2020

Pyros said:
Pillars looked even closer I think.

They probably could have called the game Baldur's Gate, no number, just like a reboot kind of thing, since it doesn't really follow the previous ones, but from what Larian said when they originally announced it, they didn't look to make BG3, it's Wizards that approached them, probably after seeing D:OS2 success. They could have changed everything they were used to to make it more faithful but I think it wouldn't have been worth it for them over just make D:OS3 instead.

And if people want RTwP gameplay, there's been a ton of CRPGs with it so not sure why the crying about it. Pillars, Tyranny, Tides of Numera and Pathfinder are there already.

yeah, the "3" is what bothers me. I think they could and should have gone with "Baldur's Gate", and anything else. Legends of Baldurs gate. Return to Baldurs gate. Baldurs gate: Prime.

Fight · Feb 28, 2020

The Bad:
1. Art Style: The characters have that "pretty boy" Japan-Final-Fantasy look to them. I fucking hate that shit. Their BG3 world is bright & beautiful, whereas the Baldur's Gate world I know is dark & dingy.
2. Music: I didn't hear anything that resembled the mood setting, powerful tracks of BG1 or BG2. This might be an even bigger miss to me than the art-style choice.
3. Turn-Based Combat: I kind of expected this, but I was hoping for a modern take on real-time D&D combat. I understand that there are pro's and con's to both, but at the end of the day turn-based is just slow as fuck. It adds 20+ hours to a game that is already going to exceed 100+ hours. Ain't got time for that shit.

The Good:
1. Graphics & Animations: While I don't like the art-style, you would have to be a total hater to not admit the graphics and animations look amazing.
2. Voice-Acting: The voices match the characters and the animations perfectly. Very impressed.
3. Story & Dialogue: I like the mind-flayer story and the dialogue choices are varied & well written. Larian is one of the best in the business right now at this stuff.
4. Cut Scenes: Very impressive. As good as any 'AAA' studio stuff out there.

Search

Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

a_skeleton_05

goishen

Macho Ma'am

a_skeleton_05

reavor

I'm With HER ♀

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole

a_skeleton_05

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole

reavor

I'm With HER ♀

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer

velk

Trakanon Raider

a_skeleton_05

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer

Pyros

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3

Baldur's Gate III Devs Open Up About Stadia Exclusivity, Suggest Game Wouldn't Run On PS4/Xbox One

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider