Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldur's Gate 3 - NEW TRAILER - GAME AWARDS!

In casual use people aren't even going to bother whether Fallout is Fallout anymore ( https://external-preview.redd.it/8S...5c049f146fd52f24a5e7fe103413f547c21cb7cf) , or whether the next Bethsoft open world sandbox is an RPG or not. All they care about is that they're having fun whilst slashing monsters and exploring, and companies such as Bethesda/Bioware et all know that, which is fine. Even Steam does -- as sorting their roster of games by RPG brings up all kinds of stuff these days. All of these games are either way completely detached from what was trying to be achieved by Western RPG developers on computers during the 1980s/1990s, most of which flat out died during the turn of the century, be it Origin, SSI, Sir-Tech, Interplay/BIS, Troika, that list is as tragic as the state of AAA RPGs.

Does such a semantic debate matter? Probably not. However, in the party-based, (tactical) combat isometric/top-todwn RPG space harkening back to the likes of Ultima, Arcanum, Temple Of Elemantal Evil, Baldur's Gate and the like, DOS2 certainly was the most commercially successful. And most of all, hadn't it been for that void existing for like a decade plus back then -- DOS1 wouldn't even have been a crowd funding success expanding the scope of the game, the entire Original Sin franchise probably not even have existed in the first place.

Here's a neat interview with Swen talking how difficult it was to get games like these made in a market dominated by Skyrim et all, essentially being forced to go down the more "action" route prior.

Wouldn't worry about the <sequels> and <genre> lingo nowdays...everything is pretty much a reboot. Including movies. Some are great, the majority are trash.
The IP is used to for marketing and buzz; Easter eggs here and there. Thats all. Originality is rare.
Genres have been rebooted to include everything basically. There is no more specific distinction. This specificity probably hampers sales.

Ya. Much the same would have applied for BIS' "The Black Hound" in the early 2000s too. The game would have told a completely new story with new characters also. Realistically, there's no actual "sequel" in here. There never was. I never much liked "Throne Of Bhaal", both in gameplay and structure (this should have really been a third game of a trilogy proper, as opposed to a linear hack&slash expansion pack, in particular if you consider that Shadows Of Amn as the main game was actually a "diversion" from the main plot, the Bhaal spawn prophecy and its fulfilment). But the very ending wrapped it all up fairly nicely and forever.

The trailer is disjointed AF, isn’t it? From ‘why have you come here’ to ‘you may just be the godsend we’ve been praying for’ in just a couple of seconds. Did whoever pick these dialogue snippets even think – does this make any sequential sense? She goes from not knowing why you’re there to being certain you’re the saviour of the whole thing – with no hints in between to suggest why there’s the big U-turn.

Beyond the disjointedness, it’s not evocative. Not mysterious. The exposition about the parasites and the Absolute cult – the two most boring pieces of EA – suggest this is actually the main thrust of the core narrative.
Compare that to the BG2 opening exposition: ‘one such deity foresaw his own death and walked the land before…he left a score of mortal offspring intended to be the fuel for his rebirth…that god was Bhaal and you are one of his children’.

One is written by a pre-schooler who thinks alien parasites are ‘cool’ and therefore everyone’s gonna just love the pitch. And by the way, we’ve an evil cult who’s out to get you! The other is written by an adult who sets a dankly intriguing tone setting you up as a child of the devil, in a sense.

Both involve parasites – Bhaal wants you to be a host, but he already has acres more characterisation than the Absolute in the same amount of lines: at least you know he’s cunning enough to have foresaw a major setback, and to have devised a plan to counteract it. Being called out as the unwilling demon-spawn of this character also gives the MC substance from the get-go.

The BG3 trailer doesn’t set up its own parasite or evil god as anything other than unpleasant – they’re literally just bad parasites in your brain and the god is boss of a bad cult.

The gameplay, I’m sure, will be as decent as it always is. But the Patch 9 graphics are still quite wretched. I realise, now, that the older darker shadows not just made the game a hundred times more atmospheric – but they also covered up the flaws of the bland Larian engine. I tried the gamma slider, and almost got it back to the way to the way it was – unfortunately dialling back the lightness also obscures the UI.

Back to the narrative – I feel it’s very self-conscious and completely out of touch with the source material.

The main issue is that Larian writers are more suited to DOS-style goofy nonsense. They’re fish out of water with this story. They should have just hired a different set of writers and let the current set work away on DOS3.
The rest of the trailer is just pseudo-Hollywood style spectacle – generic tentacle crashes through some bricks, here’s a random city shot, and here’s some monsters prowling about.

For what it’s worth, Minsc appearing out of a mimic wasn’t a bad idea – but they’ll probably just stick to this OTT shtick for the entire character. I was reading some lines from BG2 Minsc today – they’re actually really well-done. Natural and funny and builds up a good banter with the fairy-wizard girl. It organically develops the relationship between the two and is a hundred miles from the over-workshopped dialogue of BG3 that’s like listening to the most boring person in the pub tell you about how they just painted their whole house magnolia.

Lastly, the Matt Mercer as Minsc VA said so much about the Snowflake Council at Larian who are clearly influencing too much of the art direction. I heard the guy doing the Minsc impression – he doesn’t pull it off even remotely. Why did they not hire the original actor? It’s because the Snowflake Council pried into his private life and discovered he’s just a human who isn’t perfect, so he can’t be hired again.
Maybe don’t pry into people’s private lives? It’s pathetic.

PS: To the dude who previously (weeks back) kept seizing on every little thing I write – my codemonkey script to remove you is still working like a charm and I cannot see anything you post or even if someone quoted you, as I’ve deliberately automated search and remove of the nodes for both scenarios. Just trying to do you a favour there bud, because you’d be wasting be wasting your time.

It is the Game Awards, a place where you are competing with dozens of other games and Baldur's Gate has been largely forgotten by newer generations. You have to introduce and hook your entire plot in a very short time frame, while also showing "pseudo-Hollywood style spectacle" and new content to generate interest among the rest. Not an easy task to say the least if you ask me. Following DoS2 "goofy nonsense" and hiring the face of DnD for your everyday person is the logical step so that people can establish a connection with things they like. I have seen quite a lot of people interested in playing the new Larian/DnD game instead of the the new Baldur game.

Nobody cares about your script. The forum has a built-in function to ignore users.
Hiding behind that and using it to provoke others is not acceptable behaviour.

Finally someone says it how it is.
Probably the best take on that new trailer and the state of things.

As a BALDURS GATE D&D GAME : I have been patient with the game. But it has now officially turned into a goofy mess for me. After over 2 years of patient waiting & watching basically nothing as changed since day 1 EA for the general tone/atmosphere of the game. IT IS DOS3 with some D&D and BG toppings/flavor. Which is fine because...

As a LARIAN DOS TYPE GAME : Its pretty fantastic. Can't wait to play the final version. If you completely ignore that your are in Faerun and that it is called Baldurs Gate...And Imagine you are in some sort of pocket crossed dimension between D&D and Rivellon...the game is quite great actually

This essentially sums it all.

The main issue of BG3 is Larian's vision. They just don't realize that immersion, verisimilitude and writing are equally important as gameplay.

It is impressive that they didn't need to change that much from DOS2 to do a proper BG3 (as opposed it would be from Elder Scrolls to Fallout), but they simply did a copy and paste.

Why they implemented speaking to animals/dead is completely beyond me.

So much waste of resources.

I disagree that implementing those things is a waste since both are available spells. Speak with animals is even a first level spell, plus druids can shapeshift. Hell, speak with plants is a third level spell like speak with the dead. It's a lot, but I do think that stuff like that is what helps really make the game stand out, and I don't think it's the same problem that the rest of the game's writing has. I think there's space for something with the breadth of Larian's approach to those 'speak with' spells, but that's also less overall bombastic. I think allowing for the silliness those spells can provide is only a positive.

Lol’ing that I was able to log back in – apparently I’m a pariah now?

Ok.

Anyway, there was always ‘silliness’ in Baldur’s Gate – great silliness, like Minsc and Edwin. There was ‘silliness’ in Ulysses too, the greatest novel ever written – in fact, the whole thing can be read as comedy.

But you need a bit of brain mixed in there too. Like Seinfeld or Ricky Gervais – great comedy is indeed ‘silly’ but knowingly so.

We don’t get that with Larian writers – it’s naïve silly. It has no real comedic depth, no bite to it – it’s always harmless, always tepid. The quotes are meme-material on BG3 reddit, but for me a yawn-fest. There’s just no substance to what they deliver.

This is a shame because while the original BG series weren’t Hemmingway, they were far better than this ‘Absolute’ dross that we’re getting here – essentially a rehash of DOS2. Don’t be surprised if Bracus Rex (Larian’s Bhaal) turns up randomly as the final boss, with no build up whatsoever…

The one good thing that BG3 had was the beautiful black-laden graphics of Patch 7 – simply stunning. I think part of the brilliance of the colour black is how mysterious it is – and how the brain always works to ‘fill in’ a mystery, to try and decode it. It fires up your imagination. Black is such an extraordinarily powerful colour, used by all the old masters to great effect…

Now even that’s gone – Patch 8 and 9 are so stunningly, vapidly illuminated. Everywhere the eye looks, the game says ‘look at this, we hide nothing because our art team is so great!’

This game won’t be a disaster – it’ll be average. I miss the BG2 era. But I see the same spark in indie companies – Hollow Knight, Silksong, Death Thrash, etc. Larian is just too big now to deliver an interesting experience – it’s become the Marvel of video games. Here’s your blockbuster version of Baldur’s Gate – enjoy!

No thanks…

And you know what? They do have the gameplay design talent. They do have the art talent.

They simply hired the wrong writerly talent, and it has completely ruined the whole lot of it. They should’ve just hired one of the Polish – like Diablo 4 did. Yeah seriously, they hired one of CD Projekt Red’s writers – it kind of shows in the grit of their new cinematic: the menacing archangel (brilliant) but the somewhat underwhelming Lilith (looks like Maleficent now but was incredible in the first video: redly transparent, glistening and haughty – fantastic design!

Where does it all go wrong, eh?

Video games do employ some of the best artistic geniuses going – they also, sadly are under the whip of some extremely incompetent Hollywood-wannabes like Larian-nouveau.

Roll on Hollow Knight Silksong and Death Thrash to save the day…

Writing in all the Divinity Original Sin + BG3 has been lacking. They really should focus on improving this part of their games or maybe Swen & co. are vetoing the good ideas.

Too late dude. And IMO Sven is very ‘loyal’ to the old guard who were there from the beginning – ie, the lead writer on DOS is the lead on BG3…

It’s a huge a mistake. I don’t like pissing on game-writers – but Sven seems to think the sun shines out of this guy’s orifice.

It’s unfortunate. BG1 wasn’t stellar – but BG2 was a masterpiece. It was extremely well-done (writing) for a fantasy game.

Anyway, it is what it is.

Maybe if we get to ‘romance’ Viconia again it might make up for it. That is, if it’s the same sexy voice actress – I think there’s some *cough* ‘issues’ with hiring the original voice actors, even though they’re still alive… Who knows what Viconia’s original voice actress has been up to in the last few years and if her antics will even wash in 2023.

She probably just got married and had kids – but let’s be frank, is even that kosher these days? Married? Kids?

Cancelled.

/saracasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)