Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General To those who played BG2…

This is just how I feel about it. You can't have Sigil without establishing all the rules and tropes it subverts first. The commitment to authenticity, and use of fantasy's long canon is sorely lacking from all the world-building I see from the powers that be.
With that in mind though, I think that Larian can't really be authentic to the setting, because they're receiving a compromised work of art. Continuity has been rebooted twice, and currently doesn't really want make up its mind over what is still canon, with everything being made less precise (haphazardly, re:Errata!) to cater to the 'anything goes' mentality that should be implicit within the medium. For that reason, I think if I had been in Swen's position I wouldn't feel terribly bothered to conform to the setting either, in fact, I'd probably feel like another Baldur's Gate game would be a good opportunity to revise and correct a lot of the errors and mistakes of what I'd been given. Adaptations between mediums offer a great opportunity to clean up such messes.

Well said! Agreed

Well lol to infinitity then I win :p

Also, lol

😂[/quote]
I chuckled at this. Ignorance is bliss I guess?
You do realize that older 90s games were designed with CRT scanlines in mind? Not to mention the nearly zero input lag of these displays puts lcds to shame.
Modern displays are great for modern games, but look like shit for older games.
Most people who played BG2 here probably did so with the awful <<enhanced>> (compressed graphics, laggy, redesigned awful UI...) edition and on an LCD. That right away makes the game already pretty bad compared to what it looked like.

If you hate BioWare games, you might actually have a good time with BG3, as this game should be compared to D:OS 1 & 2, not BG 1 & 2.

It is a completely different kind of RPG, with different writing (both general story and dialogue), philosophy, world/character-building/design, combat, all-around vibe and just about everything else.

As a fan of the originals, that is my main gripe with the game: Larian made yet another D:OS-like RPG and just paid for the Forgotten Realms license and slapped a Baldur's Gate name on it. And yeah, added some characters from the originals as cheap fanservice, I guess... Might still end up being a decent RPG, but the whole "Baldur's Gate" thing is just a cashgrab. There are non-D&D games out there that are closer to being an actual sequel than BG3.

I think it's a generational thing. Those old enough to remember scanlines and the golden era of CRT before its gradual demise know about it. If you were born in the mid-90s you likely would have only limited memory of CRTs. Let's remember that people born in 1993 are 30 now. And the CRT began to be gradually phased out in the late 90s.

Yep, old games look better on older equipment. I have heard about how emulator stuff these days try to replicate those CRT effects, and for good reason. You see all the jaggies if you run it on modern equipment instead of the equipment it was designed to work with. (as the above comparison shows)

Anyways, yeah. Larian has a couple of plates spinning here at the same time. By their own admission they are chasing the name recognition and nostalgia that the association the original saga evokes, but that's from an era of the Forgotten Realms that neither 5e nor Larian, really seems to want to....if they even can....bring back (and WOTC seems to actively shun). Same with the gameplay. the Pathfinder games are much closer in style and prove that there's still life in the modern world for old-style isometric crpgs, but Larian very clearly wants to make DOS3, which admittedly they are doing an amazing job at. I love the DOS series but that's not necessarily the same thing I'm looking for in the Forgotten Realms, or indeed-in Baldur's Gate. How much of that translates into something I'll enjoy remains to be seen, but it does feel a lot like 'square pegd, round hole'.

The development hasn't been without hurdles either-and while this is true of the Original Saga too (the end of SoA and basically the entirety of ToB feel very rushed, railroady and generally unfinished IMO), there is a *lot* of jank in EA, weird little choices, odd narrative paths and design quirks. I honestly do not know how the game is going to turn out at this point.

The appallingly bad UI (particularly party movement - see the endless discussions of the BG3 "toilet chain" vs. BG1/2-style intuitive party selection/movement - but also inventory management), over-the-top cartoonish tone, claustrophobic/cramped map/game world design, and overall lack of immersion (no day/night cycle, ludicrously exploitable stealth "mechanics", etc.) make BG3 an extremely pale imitation of BG2 in my opinion. I'm sure I'll eventually play through it, but I'll be very (pleasantly) surprised if I find it to be anything other than slightly better than mediocre.

Since we’re on the subject of modernising old classics, I’d like to invite people to check out a true success story here: https://www.gameinformer.com/2023/0...-the-five-regions-of-diablo-4s-sanctuary

Diablo 4 from – yes – Blizzard Entertainment, of all companies.

Check out the videos there of each of the regions created by their bafflingly talented artists.

This is just exceptional stuff – I have never seen anything as good as the environments created here, and many of the shots, if paused, are beyond even greatest works of painterly art, in terms of the sheer god-damned passion they put into the work.

I paid for the ‘pre-order’ on the back of these videos – I don’t care if this ‘game’ even has gameplay: it’s completely irrelevant to me after seeing this. It’s the video game equivalent of an art gallery. I want to walk around in this amazing game, checking out the genius of the detail, just that and nothing else, thanks.

The brilliance of it is in how restrained the whole thing is. The visuals are so perfectly ‘reigned in’: they’ve really nailed the raw, dusty, crumbling aesthetic. I’ve personally never seen any video game look as good as this.

I’ve huge respect for them. It looks better than D1 and D2, which were both arresting in their gothic, gritty grounded-ness.

I think this is going to be the best game released in 2023. You can feel the powerful underdog energy of the effort – they want to go against expectations, they want to surprise people who’ve written them off as evil corporate Blizzard, cynics and sleaze-balls. I can see it a million miles away that this will shock people.

I’ve a very high respect for visual artists who put in the work. Even the nudity is tastefully done, retrained and beautiful and surprising, if you look at the videos on the main site: https://diablo4.blizzard.com/en-us/

Blizzard, of all places, has the right attitude. Who would have ever thought this possible? There’s a fearlessness going on here that’s the sign of high art at work – these people want to make a mark, and they’re not out to impress: they’re dialling back the pyrotechnics, they’re keeping it chill and subtle.

Larian, I feel, is insecure by comparison. Instead of ‘being themselves’ and putting their own mark on the BG franchise, they are looking toward Marvel and pop culture and ‘trends’ for guidance.

They should take a few notes from modern Blizzard, and grow some balls.

Out of all the companies out there I wouldn't really say Blizzard is a point of reference for anything.
They murdered poor overwatch. I'm not even sure how they managed to do that considering how popular the 1st one was(Millions of copies sold ). The amount of bullshit going on inside that company must be insane.

Yeah, exactly. There is no way you’d expect this level of talent from a company that has gotten such a bad rep.

Watch the videos in the article I linked though.

Whatever about anything else, their artists are true gods of their craft. It’s an amazing looking piece of art – you couldn’t not see this (especially the 5th video with those steaming pools). Brilliant.

Honestly I'd like a mod that remakes all of BG2 in the BG3 engine. Not sure how that would work legally, but you could just take all the voice files and transfer them and do stuff like this:

To get full voice-acting for all characters. Add cinematics and animations. Keep the same combat encounters but make them turn-based. Make Athkatla one big walkable zone with enterable buildings rather than several separate zones. I know it would never happen, but it sounds fun. Keep the spirit of the original game while cutting out a lot of the chore-like micromanagement. I would argue that the game has aged well outside of traversal and combat. And even then, traversal and combat aren't THAT bad.

I don't really get this, Blizzard has always been known for their art high standards, the only time I remember that it was put in doubt was in Diablo 3, but it looked really good anyway.

Now, Diablo depends on art and gameplay, everything else is pretty bad, I could give a pass for the story but so far only Diablo 2 had a somewhat solid story, in Diablo 1 is almost non existent and 3 is kinda bad.

If your game depends in two aspect, you better knock one out of the park.


Why this should be important to Larian? I don't think anyone that likes games like BG3 gives such high regard to graphics... The strengths of this games are other:

• thousands dialogue lines we get to choose and enjoy. Just in Early Access we probably have more than all diablo games combined.
• Choices, the things we choose change the story and give us a lot of possiblities.
• Diversity in the approach we get to play, we have a party, each member can have it's own build and synergize with others. Diablo is a game with multiplayer that has all characters just doing damage, no synergy whatsoever.

You could go on listing differences that amount to crazy numbers in man hours, but it just doesn't make senses because those two games have almost nothing in common.


And, what is wrong with you that you assume they take inspiration in Marvel and other trends? If they did, they would be making action games, like God of War, Diablo, Overwatch...

Also, wtf. You haven't even played Diablo 4....

BG4 opening: dragons, demons, fantasy-aliens, crumbling cities, massive alien ship blasting said cities, portals to hell, dragons again, demons. Then you’re on a ship with dragons, demons, imps, aliens, flame-swords…

The OTT nature of it is Marvel to me.

LOL at ‘wtf you never even plated D4’ – eh, never said I did. I linked I video praising the artists for their exceptional work.

You don’t need to play the game to use your eyes skip.

THEY PUT DRAGONS IN MY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS VIDEOGAME ARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!

Stop paying so much attention to a fucking cinematic. It's a bit over the top? Yes, but it's a minute and it's all, you play the game.

Literaly you want Larian to be Larian, and in D:OS2 you played someone that could syphon the gods and became basically all powerful.


Go congratulate the art team in the Diablo 4 forum for their amazing art. What the fuck does it has to do with BG3?

Dude, it's literally a konmehn alt. He's just trolling. So was:
-Konmehn
-HydraulicHydra
-Phoenix376
-jeshep
-thorhammer
-shazamshaza

It's getting a little sad now.

Oh damnit, sorry everyone.

Just because it's you ZeruGod, i feel like:

That's interesting, and probably a reason why I remember so many games looking much better than they do now.