EPTI agree with this guy in the video:
Baldurs Gate 3 announced - Page 3
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Latham
9572 Posts
I agree with this guy in the video: | ||
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necrosexy
451 Posts
Oh frabjous day, callooh callay! | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
We can speculate all we want, and chances are things will still change, but I wonder if they would have been better off giving a different title altogether. Neverwinter nights wasn't named BG 3 for a reason, I guess. Edit: not to say it won't be a success anyway. Fallout 3 worked through the initial wtf, and the difference there between games was order of magnitudes bigger than the difference here. Maybe the difference being bigger actually helped ... somehow | ||
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DrunkenSCV
76 Posts
On March 01 2020 08:48 Sbrubbles wrote: We can speculate all we want, and chances are things will still change, but I wonder if they would have been better off giving a different title altogether. Neverwinter nights wasn't named BG 3 for a reason, I guess. Edit: not to say it won't be a success anyway. Fallout 3 worked through the initial wtf, and the difference there between games was order of magnitudes bigger than the difference here. Maybe the difference being bigger actually helped ... somehow It reminds me of Fallout 3 too. A foreign company makes the 3rd part of the series without even trying to make it somewhat relevant to the first two. If Larian wanted their next Divinity happen in DnD: Forgotten Realms setting, they could do that without using BG title. What they've shown us reminds of Baldur's Gate in no way at all. Even smaller details like sounds and interface elements remind of Divinity, not BG. I liked Divinity: OS 2. But it's nothing like BG, it's a quite different experience. It's like reading books vs watching cartoons. Imagine there is an old art house movie that you love very much. Then you get to know there is gonna be a sequel... you have mixed feelings: surprise, confusion, but also a bit of hope. Then they reveal the details: starring Dwayne Johnson and Vine Diesel, made by Disney. This is just sad. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3429 Posts
What I saw looks like D:OS meets D&D, but *feels* nothing like a Baldur's Gate game. Turn-based combat I'm fine with (even though I prefer rtwp), but the extremely gimmicky gameplay systems from D:OS clash very hard with my expectations. The music, the dialogues, itemization, the overall aesthetic and tone of the game is, to me, completely wrong. I'm sure Larian will make a decent RPG, as always, but that's beside the point; The game is called Baldur's Gate 3, after all, and certain expectations come with that title. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4408 Posts
I'm following black geyser and that's all right now. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
Something else I realized was that there probably aren't very many people who have been following everything going on with Baldur's Gate after the second game, and I mean everything, so I'll give some big-picture context. The story of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 is a contained thing, to me and I think a lot of people. It's separate from the Dark Alliance series and the tabletop games (for the most part). That story was finished in the second game and its expansion; it'll always be there, and is always going to be as great as it is for all time for the people who care about it. So whatever the story of any other games and how much it has to do with BG1/2 doesn't matter too much in my mind and, I think, to WotC and the team making BG3. I also think if they were to try and chase after some weird concept of "BG3 takes place after BG2 and everything is tied together" that the game would just be a mess and the writing would never be good because it would be trying to extend something that's been finished for a long time. That route doesn't make sense to me, even ignoring everything else that's happened since BG2. Now let's talk about D&D 5e and what that means for BG3 specifically. WotC started calling the new series of tabletop and computer RPGs "The Baldur's Gate Saga" with the creation of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (maybe earlier, idk). "The Baldur's Gate Saga" extends all the way back to 2013 with D&D Next (the testing phase for 5th Edition in which every adventure had rules for 3.5, 4e, and Next/5e). In order, this is the new saga they refer to: 2013 Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, 2014 Dreams of the Red Wizards: Scourge of the Sword Coast, 2014 Dreams of the Red Wizards: Dead in Thay, 2015 Murder in Baldur's Gate, 2017 Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, 2020/21 Baldur's Gate 3. The important ones, and the focus of the current story, are Descent into Avernus and Baldur's Gate 3, with Murder in Baldur's Gate being barely relevant (I think). From what I can tell, that's the current story they're continuing with for this new "saga." If you don't play tabletop RPGs, I think you should try them, and even if none of the TRPG adventures are closely tied to anything in BG3, they are pretty fun. Descent into Avernus involves going from Baldur's Gate to the first layer of Hell (Avernus) and playing a weird Mad Max meets Diablo kind of adventure with devil contracts and fallen angels and currency based on peoples' souls, and all that kind of craziness. Side note about Dark Alliance: + Show Spoiler + Since the "Dark Alliance" "reboot" was announced, it seems that Dark Alliance 3 and the follow-up to the teaser ending of Dark Alliance 2 is forever lost (read: killed off by whoever decided that giving this new ARPG-thing the same name was a good idea). R.i.p. Dark Alliance. On a personal note, whatever happens to BG3, it's guaranteed to be magnitudes better than what is happening to DA (so far). Side note about Icewind Dale: + Show Spoiler + After Icewind Dale 2, like with Baldur's Gate 2, there was nothing major for a long time until the 2015 release of Legacy of the Crystal Shard for D&D Next. Sadly, there's hasn't been anything else tied to Icewind Dale since then. Where the story of BG3 goes in the long run isn't out there yet, but there's some stuff you can get from the cinematic. An evil mind flayer from the Far Realm (eldritch horror dimension) aboard a Spelljammer vessel (fantasy spaceship) is attacking cities including Baldur's Gate and being fought by githyanki (arch-enemies of mind flayers) and red dragons from the Astral Plane (weird dream sea that is connected to all other planes/dimensions in the world, including Realmspace/space-space which you fly through to reach other worlds using fantasy spaceships), and the characters have been infested with mind flayer tadpoles which are going to eat their brains, kill them, and morph them into new mind flayers. What does this have to do with BG1/2? I don't think much besides the fact that Baldur's Gate is a core location, and I think that's fine. It's new territory for a D&D game, and even in TRPGs hasn't been touched on in a while, and the lore they're pulling from is awesome and promising imo. So, yeah. BG3 is a new game, with a new story, and a different direction. The tabletop RPG Descent into Avernus happens before Baldur's Gate 3, but might only be connected in the grand history of Baldur's Gate in terms of what WotC considers canon. The old CRPGs, the old ARPGs, the newer TRPGs, and Baldur's Gate 3 are probably all meant to be four, separate, contained stories, tied together by the setting and its long history, and possibly a few key characters and villains sprinkled throughout. + Show Spoiler + Maybe the next TRPG adventure will be about Spelljammer and fighting mind flayers in the Astral Plane and travelling between settings. There have been a few other nods to Spelljammer in 5e books, so if it isn't a TRPG adventure in the next year it could very well be a place for BG3 or even 4 to dive into, using the IP to explore new things instead of trying to retread old, established ground. Maybe that context will change where peoples' heads are at with this, idk. /shrug Rambling continues, might delete later: + Show Spoiler + The idea that BG3 would ever be a "true continuation of the story and gameplay" by hardcore fans seems a little ridiculous to me. Vocal people either want it to have no impact on their precious BG1/2 story, or they want it to be 1,000% faithful to the original in every conceivable way from graphics to gameplay to writing but also be new and modern (somehow). The former is actually possible, even if it requires ignoring BG3 to maintain your own head-canon (which requires no effort on your part), but the latter is impossible and completely ridiculous. It's like hating the new Star Wars trilogy to me. Who cares. Why waste your breath on this. It isn't for you, move on. It's probably going to be a good game, and if you don't like it then go back to playing BG1/2 over and over or find something else to do. The negativity for this, especially after that awesome cinematic of an illithid spelljammer fighting red dragon-riding githyanki, seems silly, and more so when looking at the big picture. /rant | ||
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DrunkenSCV
76 Posts
On March 02 2020 14:41 blunderfulguy wrote: Rambling continues, might delete later: + Show Spoiler + The idea that BG3 would ever be a "true continuation of the story and gameplay" by hardcore fans seems a little ridiculous to me. Vocal people either want it to have no impact on their precious BG1/2 story, or they want it to be 1,000% faithful to the original in every conceivable way from graphics to gameplay to writing but also be new and modern (somehow). The former is actually possible, even if it requires ignoring BG3 to maintain your own head-canon (which requires no effort on your part), but the latter is impossible and completely ridiculous. It's like hating the new Star Wars trilogy to me. Who cares. Why waste your breath on this. It isn't for you, move on. It's probably going to be a good game, and if you don't like it then go back to playing BG1/2 over and over or find something else to do. The negativity for this, especially after that awesome cinematic of an illithid spelljammer fighting red dragon-riding githyanki, seems silly, and more so when looking at the big picture. /rant Yeah, the awesome cinematic makes all negativity about the actual game silly, a fair point that is. Very few people want (I've seen none, actually) BG3 to be a "true continuation of the story", what you claim there is not true. The story is concluded, pretty much everyone agrees with that. There are modern games like PoE and PK: KM that are true spiritual heirs of the classical CRPGs. So saying that people wanting the gameplay and graphics be modern yet faithful to BG1/2 is ridiculous and impossible is ridiculous and impossible. There are reasons why isometric camera view is so important. It gives you context as beautifully pictured locations while leaving details to your imagination. I still remember the Elven city with its airy architecture and that city with the fancy mosaic in the town square. I still remember meeting Khalid and Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia. As if those are my personal memories. I played DOS2 something like 1.5 years ago and I've already almost forgotten everything. For me when camera is behind character, it's like witnessing the story, while isometric camera make me feel more like I am part of it. Besides that, the game can be dark and even brutal at times without looking grotesque. Like, remember Dragon Age? All your characters are soaking with blood all time. The final dungeon is visually repulsive. As it's supposed to be, but I think text and visual hints work better in such cases. On the combat system now. I've seen many times this point: "What is the idea of RTwP when you pause all time anyway?". Can't say for others, but I don't pause all time. This is the point of thinking over character generation and progression, figuring mechanics out and learning how things work. If I feel tired of some dungeon I can spend some extra resources like potions and scrolls to speed up the dynamics. RTwP allows bigger party. So I find it overall more strategic and less tactical than turn based. I don't hate turn based combats, I just want to point out that there are some cons and pros. There are many more things I'd like to say, but I've already said much. Just don't think of those who didn't like how the demo looks as some weird fools with duck syndrome. I suggest reading baldur's gate subreddit if you want to know why some people are upset about BG3. I think there are many good and fair points. | ||
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insitelol
845 Posts
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Bacillus
Finland2035 Posts
I guess the starting motivations for the story are mostly the parasites and abduction/crash aftermath. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
On March 02 2020 18:05 DrunkenSCV wrote: Yeah, the awesome cinematic makes all negativity about the actual game silly, a fair point that is. Very few people want (I've seen none, actually) BG3 to be a "true continuation of the story", what you claim there is not true. The story is concluded, pretty much everyone agrees with that. There are modern games like PoE and PK: KM that are true spiritual heirs of the classical CRPGs. So saying that people wanting the gameplay and graphics be modern yet faithful to BG1/2 is ridiculous and impossible is ridiculous and impossible. There are reasons why isometric camera view is so important. It gives you context as beautifully pictured locations while leaving details to your imagination. I still remember the Elven city with its airy architecture and that city with the fancy mosaic in the town square. I still remember meeting Khalid and Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia. As if those are my personal memories. I played DOS2 something like 1.5 years ago and I've already almost forgotten everything. For me when camera is behind character, it's like witnessing the story, while isometric camera make me feel more like I am part of it. Besides that, the game can be dark and even brutal at times without looking grotesque. Like, remember Dragon Age? All your characters are soaking with blood all time. The final dungeon is visually repulsive. As it's supposed to be, but I think text and visual hints work better in such cases. On the combat system now. I've seen many times this point: "What is the idea of RTwP when you pause all time anyway?". Can't say for others, but I don't pause all time. This is the point of thinking over character generation and progression, figuring mechanics out and learning how things work. If I feel tired of some dungeon I can spend some extra resources like potions and scrolls to speed up the dynamics. RTwP allows bigger party. So I find it overall more strategic and less tactical than turn based. I don't hate turn based combats, I just want to point out that there are some cons and pros. There are many more things I'd like to say, but I've already said much. Just don't think of those who didn't like how the demo looks as some weird fools with duck syndrome. I suggest reading baldur's gate subreddit if you want to know why some people are upset about BG3. I think there are many good and fair points. Why do people keep saying the camera angle is locked to third-person? Did I miss something? I wouldn't be surprised, I just honestly didn't think that was true the couple of times I saw it pop up. In the PAX demo Swen uses a near-isometric view half the time (at least I thought so), moving the camera around and zooming in and out. Maybe the camera zoom depends on the particular area, but the way it looks now it definitely isn't locked to third-person. That aside, if you feel that a distant isometric view helps you feel like a part of the story, most players will actually disagree with you; a third-person view, especially when combined with light cutscenes, tends to give a feeling of being closer to characters and story more than an isometric view does, so I think you're in the minority there. An adjustable view that goes from a locked third-person to a zoomed-out isometric view is the best when it's appropriate. We didn't see any brief cutscenes showing off the larger area (yet), but overall it seemed like an adjustable view with light cutscenes was the case in the gameplay showcase demo thing. If you remembered a game from twenty years ago better than some other newer game, that doesn't mean an isometric view is better or even that the game was better, it just means you liked it more. What is more likely with fans of original BG or [insert very old game here] is that it was one of the early games they played in that genre that they loved and have thick nostalgia goggles about when it comes to minor things, and/or they formed some bias against anything like a newer game that they happened to not enjoy or remember for any myriad of reasons that probably have nothing to do with stuff like a game's camera angle (unless you just absolutely hate certain established camera angles)... As for turn-based vs real-time combat, the vast majority of players play CRPGs in turned-based modes or with heavy pause usage (a lot of RTS players actually pause a lot or play on slower settings). And since this game uses 5th Edition D&D, that's another reason for it to be turn-based (D&D is turn-based). One gameplay complaint I've seen that I agree with is that group initiative (enemies take all their turns then your party takes all its turns) is not what a lot of people want, and I can see that changing later on after the team gets more of that feedback from players if they aren't already working on it (I didn't hear that question during the Q&A bit and was a little surprised it didn't come up). Again, the best thing for everyone is to have a ton of options and settings to change, but that's different for every game, engine, and studio, and sometimes making a decision about things like camera angles can make for a better game (designing for X instead of X, Y, and Z tends to make development smoother and games better as a result). On March 02 2020 20:04 Bacillus wrote: I have to say the opening cinematic didn't really help out the things for me. At the start I'm looking for something to anchor me down, give me ideas about the spirit and mentality of the game and so on. And here I am, presented a high stakes conflict between two supernatural races that I vaguely know. It's a cool cinematic, but I couldn't help to feel pretty indifferent considering how epic the proportions are and hoped it had established something more relatable in the runtime of whopping 5 minutes. There are some clues with the dead mind flayers and abducted gihtyanki of course, but even those are pretty far removed from the business of mere mortals. I guess the starting motivations for the story are mostly the parasites and abduction/crash aftermath. The point about being grounded is totally valid. I guess I assume that dragons and weird bits of D&D lore I've loved for almost twenty years counterbalances that, along with the actual gameplay after the opening. We haven't seen the tutorial (afaik), and that might be the kicker for some. A good tutorial purely from a mechanics standpoint can make a game, and a bad one break it, but the story during tutorials for any story-driven game can as well. But I also think that when it comes to long RPGs (including TRPGs and CRPGs), the beginning is not quite so important aside from setting up a quick hook/pull. What's really important is the full story, the actual adventure. In my experience running and playing D&D, players will put a lot of stock in the opening adventure hook while myself and a few DMs and writers I know or follow put a lot less emphasis on that and a lot more on the later aspects. So I am biased for games that give a great hook and dump you into the world like this does. That kind of... "You have dreams of being sealed away in a sarcophagus and visions of scientists trying to open it, then you wake up and demons attack while you're still chained inside your coffin!" Or, "You're a prisoner in a mind flayer ship and the alien pilot infests you with a parasite, then other aliens riding dragons attack and the ship crashes!" It's a certain style of hook, for sure. But how is that compared to the style of hooks in other CRPGs? Eh, question for another time. The idea that people don't get excited about seeing dragons fighting mind flayers, or at least get excited for other people who do, doesn't exactly compute for my ten year old self, or my current self for that matter. But, ah well. Some people just don't like chocolate and peanut butter. And again, I wonder how the tutorial section and first little section right after will be for the different characters or the custom player character, and if that has something to ease/pull people in who aren't already raring to go after the cinematic. Now that I think about it, having a dedicated tutorial section in a CRPG doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Rather, it seems like a better decision for players to teach them without a tutorial but more like a puzzle game (introducing new mechanics over time while also engaging in story moments). But from a development side, a dedicated tutorial is probably easiest to do. We'll have to wait and see how that looks and how/if it changes, I'm really curious now. | ||
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-Archangel-
Croatia7457 Posts
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Yurie
12079 Posts
On March 02 2020 23:15 blunderfulguy wrote: Now that I think about it, having a dedicated tutorial section in a CRPG doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Rather, it seems like a better decision for players to teach them without a tutorial but more like a puzzle game (introducing new mechanics over time while also engaging in story moments). But from a development side, a dedicated tutorial is probably easiest to do. We'll have to wait and see how that looks and how/if it changes, I'm really curious now. It makes tons of sense. The biggest advantage is that you can make it skippable. A large part of the charm (for some people) of games like this is trying it with different groups and on different difficulties, even with mods. So having a tutorial that is played once and then not touched again makes it much easier to play multiple times. Even BG2 had a mod to skip the entire starting dungeon since it was an on rails experience to slowly introduce you to a lot of stuff. Not a tutorial per say but close to one. | ||
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Bacillus
Finland2035 Posts
On March 02 2020 23:46 -Archangel- wrote: This game is not being made for 30+ year old Baldur's Gate fans. It is being made for 15+ year old Divinity Original Sin fans and those that loved Dragon Age series. Any BG fans that also play it and love it are welcome but not a target That's probably the case here, but they're weirdly not hitting the easy nostalgia buttons either. Right now they probably could market it as Divinity Something and get a better response. I guess it gives them access to DnD stuff if that's purely what they want. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26531 Posts
Do I play them in order ideally or are they both relatively self-contained? Slightly off topic so apologies for that, just figured I’d ask here. Hopefully it goes better than my attempts to play Pillars of Eternity purely in real time anyway :p | ||
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Bacillus
Finland2035 Posts
That being said, I don't think BG1 is that deep on the story. So, if you get totally burned by BG1's lvl 1 weakling main character or 1998 mechanics, BG2 can probably work as a standalone too. BG1 has Tales of the Sword coast expansion that doesn't really add to the main story and BG1 Enchanced Edition has the Siege of Dragonspear storyline that brigdes BG1 and BG2. I wouldn't consider either necessary for the full experience. --- For me personally, I think the whole BG1 into BG2 into ToB is the only way to go. One of my favourite things about the long saga is how naturally you shift from this green rookie saving for some basic armor into a past-epic level adventurer with insane gear and abilities. There's less level scaling and such involved than in modern games, so the game really lets you grow in strength rather than just scaling the world difficulty as you go. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3429 Posts
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
On March 03 2020 02:10 Wombat_NI wrote: I shamefully haven’t played either BG 1 or 2 yet, although I do own them. Going through a lot of CRPGs lately and will start soon. Do I play them in order ideally or are they both relatively self-contained? Slightly off topic so apologies for that, just figured I’d ask here. Hopefully it goes better than my attempts to play Pillars of Eternity purely in real time anyway :p TBH, I don't think BG1 has aged nearly as well as BG2, so if you think your patience is gonna be thin, just play BG2. Both are self-contained for the most part. | ||
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plated.rawr
Norway1676 Posts
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Theoren
Canada810 Posts
On March 02 2020 18:05 DrunkenSCV wrote: Yeah, the awesome cinematic makes all negativity about the actual game silly, a fair point that is. Very few people want (I've seen none, actually) BG3 to be a "true continuation of the story", what you claim there is not true. The story is concluded, pretty much everyone agrees with that. There are modern games like PoE and PK: KM that are true spiritual heirs of the classical CRPGs. So saying that people wanting the gameplay and graphics be modern yet faithful to BG1/2 is ridiculous and impossible is ridiculous and impossible. There are reasons why isometric camera view is so important. It gives you context as beautifully pictured locations while leaving details to your imagination. I still remember the Elven city with its airy architecture and that city with the fancy mosaic in the town square. I still remember meeting Khalid and Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia. As if those are my personal memories. I played DOS2 something like 1.5 years ago and I've already almost forgotten everything. For me when camera is behind character, it's like witnessing the story, while isometric camera make me feel more like I am part of it. Besides that, the game can be dark and even brutal at times without looking grotesque. Like, remember Dragon Age? All your characters are soaking with blood all time. The final dungeon is visually repulsive. As it's supposed to be, but I think text and visual hints work better in such cases. On the combat system now. I've seen many times this point: "What is the idea of RTwP when you pause all time anyway?". Can't say for others, but I don't pause all time. This is the point of thinking over character generation and progression, figuring mechanics out and learning how things work. If I feel tired of some dungeon I can spend some extra resources like potions and scrolls to speed up the dynamics. RTwP allows bigger party. So I find it overall more strategic and less tactical than turn based. I don't hate turn based combats, I just want to point out that there are some cons and pros. There are many more things I'd like to say, but I've already said much. Just don't think of those who didn't like how the demo looks as some weird fools with duck syndrome. I suggest reading baldur's gate subreddit if you want to know why some people are upset about BG3. I think there are many good and fair points. Baldur's gate fans can be upset all they want, but this is about selling video games and RTWP and Old School Graphics don't sell. DOS:2 sold more than twice the amount of POE, POE2, and Pathfinder sales combined. Oh and POE2 and Pathfinder both implemented turn based modes cause of popular demand. So while you and some other hardcore BG fans might have wanted something different, the general public has spoken with their wallets in the past. No company that isn't kickstarted is going to deliberately make a game that isn't going to sell and that's exactly what would happen if they went the way you wanted them to. | ||
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