Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Larian's communication : deleting information and editing what was said in the past ...

Well, just for context, in order to relativise things, you might remember that Larian also stealthily removed information from a Patch announcement. Namely, in the original text posted here, for Patch 8, there was some text about Spiritual Weapon. Which Larian stealthily deleted after a some people started asking about it.

Now, this is certainly not the same level of expertise and professionalism as 1984's Ministry Of Truth, since, in the Spiritual Weapon case, people can still see today what was originally written. It still rubs me the wrong way. I mean, a botched attempt at deleting information and editing what one said in the past is still an attempt at deleting information and editing what one said in the past.

In the case of the removal of the party lock, I think I saw it pop once or twice in some Reddit posts. I didn't particularly relay it here, as I wasn't sure how many people cared, aside from me. I'm kind of glad to see I'm not the only one.


Of course, one may think that, if Larian has definitively decided to ditch their original plan to force us to commit to a party after Act 1 ("just like in real life" ... for those to whom this speaks), this could have been news-worthy. A low-hanging cycle of goodwill and "see, Larian actually listens to us" was there to be picked.

I'm not overly fond of the idea, but I feel that this is still a better move than shady edits that don't really score points in the transparency department, and don't quite contribute to making me believe that maintaining a healthy relationship with the community is something Larian is truely interested in and strongly commited to.


But ... oh well. We all know that communication is not Larian's strong suit.

There is nothing shady here. Larian don’t owe you a PSA every time they change a feature.

If things have changed, I think it makes sense to ensure the FAQ is updated to reflect the latest information. The primary purpose of the FAQ is to accurately inform people of what the game is like now.

You can use the internet archive to look at the original versions of the FAQs if holding them to their word is your objective.


In terms of communications... I think they've been alright? They're not giving us a "client experience" like you'd expect from say, bespoke tailors, wedding planner, etc.

But that's sorta expected given we're consumers of a mass-market product.

Oh I completely, fully, and 100% agree with that. Precisely because the FAQ is an FAQ. But it's not the destination I disagree with, it's how it's reached.

As RagnarokCzD mentionned, Larian could have kept a note of what changed. Or even just struck out the out-of-date information.

I get what you're saying, but I still fear this is an overreaction. In cases of stuff like Spiritual Weapon it was probably a mistake and they have no obligation for clarification any more than they have to throw their hands up and spill the beans in detail because some dataminers found stuff.

Props for them for even keeping it updated, as most studios just leave it without a damn care. It's been 3 years since EA alone, so of course stuff changed. I think you're looking at this from a way more negative perspective than warranted and nothing removed or changed so far is 'shady' or worthy of elaborating on with any reasonable amount of context that wouldn't get anyway upon release.

I very much doubt spiritual weapon existing or not will move sales figures, for instance.

Keep FAQ acurate is good ...
Deleting parts of it without any notification, or comunication is not.

What are we supposed to do?
Read whole topic every two days to check if what we were promised still apply or if Larian just changed their minds?

I mean ...
I read the thing two years back ... and since then whem someone asked something that WAS answered there, and i remembered, i told people to go read this topic.
Now i wonder how many times i looked like complete idiot bcs information was no longer there ... thans a lot, Larian. -_-

I have serious doubt about this ...

Imagine ...
You make a product ... this product have its flaws ... people request some changes ... there is one HIGHLY requested change ...
Got it?
Now:
Scenario A) You decide to make this change ... why wouldnt you tell them?
What could possibly be the reason when said change affect only those who desired it? Bcs all you need to do if you want fix party is to simply not swap your companions.
Scenario B) AND FOR THE RECORD I ALLWAYS THOUGHT THIS ISNT LARIAN STYLE ... You actually changed nothing, you just removed controversial statement that made your product look bad, knowing that people who will buy it will not find out until after they spend enough time in, so they no longer can refund it.

I dont want to start any conspiration here ...
But cant say it dont smell fishy. :-/

---

Its odd bcs Larian uses the policy "what was said is set" ...
They used it a lot when people got scared about X-BOX ... sudently all their media was full of "we never actually said that".
Its good policy and i like it.
But what value it holds when anything you say can be removed at any time without any notification?

Yes, things said can change ... they even maybe SHOULD change if that is so often requested ... but then as a person who allready payd for the product, i would like to know about that change.

I must admit that when I've bought a product in early access specifically advertised as liable to (in fact intended to) undergo significant change, I'm relaxed about this. I expect things to change and I don't expect to be kept up-to-date of everything Larian are changing their mind about (or considering changing their mind about) in the course of it. And on something like the party lock, I'm happy for them to make an announcement (if there is one) at whatever time they want.

I'd certainly be interested in their changing thought processes and clearly there's a risk that if someone has read something in the FAQ in the past they'll keep repeating it believing it is true not realising things have changed. But then they might miss an announcement and a tracked changes version of the FAQ could get messy. And explaining every change and rethink could get really onerous, especially if you're still not sure exactly what the final decision will be, so I will happily wait for a "making of" deep-dive into the development process .

Of course if things changed to the extent that BG3 became a totally different game than what we'd been told it was when we started EA, tthen I'd take a different view. In that case then I absolutely would expect to be told (and the opportunity to get my money back)! But I don't think we're anywhere near the ballpark for that.

Everything Larian releases says that the game is a work in progress and everything about it is subject to change. They don’t need to tell you whenever they change something. They are changing things all the time.

Whether you can change out your party after act 1 will be known before the game releases. That’s what review builds are for. Larian isn’t trying to hide anything.

Maybe they just didn’t know whether or not we will be able to change out our party after Act 1. Swen addressed this issue in something. He said he heard the feedback on it but it would take a lot of work to change it because of how companions interact with quests. So it could be on the list of things Larian would like to do but is contingent on budget and time, as all things in video game development are. In that case, promising that the party lock is gone is irresponsible, but saying that it is there is potentially inaccurate. So just deleting that part of the FAQ is acceptable.

Its their FAQ, they can update if/ when/ how they choose too. They stated the game would change during EA, and it has.

But i am keen on reading a thorough "patch notes" when the game is released.

Hmm, I'll admit it never even occurred to me that we'd get detailed patch notes setting out changes between patch 9 and the full release and I wouldn't expect them. I did for the different EA patches, and I will again for patches and fixes for the full game, but I guess I see release of the full game as scrubbing the slate clean and starting again.

Though I do hope Larian will tell us at least informally about some of the changes they've made in the course of early access and how the feedback they got from us changed their thinking and approach, though I don't need that up front. Once they've safely got the game out will be fine .

We all expect this game to change ...
Hells we even WANT it to change! That is entire reason we are here, writing our suggestion, offering our insight.

So ... duh. :-/

Change itself therefore logically isnt the point here.

If i miss an announcement, its purely my fault ...
If there is none to begin with, i dont understand how can anyone wonder that i blame Larian.

Depends on how much they change secretly ...
The more announced and confirmed decision get changed, the more messy it can get ... but then also the more some kind of backtracking would be required.

If you are talking about format, rather than content ...
Marking text with strike is exactly same amount of work as deleting it ...
And whwn there would be too much of it, so it start looking bad ... its nothing easier to add another post (its in read only section, so it cant dissapear in coments) labeled as ACTUALIZED FAQ.

I agree ...
But as far as i know no explanations were ever requested ... just some way to check what changed ... with offering specific suggestions on how to achieve it.

Me neither, thats why im not refunding ...
Also im not sure i can with 900+ hours spend. :-/

But just bcs things are not catastrophic yet, doesnt mean they are good.
As they say on every therapy, first step is admiting the problem ... and there is no shame in accepting help to find it.

PFH is getting close ... i call that great opourtunity to set things straight.

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What is point of this statement?
Its somehow bothering you that some people would like to know? O_o
And if so ... why?

One would asume ...
But how can you *know* ?

Maybe ...
Presuming reviewer will receive his copy in advance enough to get in Act II. ... wich as we know (funily enough from FAQ) qoulsn be possible with regular game until final release date.
Presuming s/he will try it.
AND presuming s/he will mention it in that preview.

But just as with previous point, you dont *know* that.

Also let me ask counterquestion:
What is FAQ for? Especially FAQ where any given answer can be deleted at any time without a note, mention, log, or any other tool to backtrack if said aswer was just removed, or never existed in the first place?

This may be just language block ...
But making things dissapear, while not making any efort to mention they were removed ... that is litterally deffinitipn of hiding in my vocabulary. :-/

IF that is the case ...
I cant imagine anything easier than simply say so.

[sarcasm]
If only there was some tool for us to explain things as they are ... i dunno ... something like language, or communication.
[/sarcasm]

Seriously tho ... let me try it ok?

[example]
Announcement about party lock.
Another announcement that still apply.

DISCLAIMER: Answers that are striked out no longer apply, we took them under reconcideration and trying to figure out if or how to change them ... we will bring you more info as final decision will be made.
Thank you for your patience, Larian.
[/example]

Well what would you say ... i made it!
Yes its this easy.

Larian already has one of the most exhaustive patch notes and communication in the industry. If someone get offended by them changing a vague statement they made 3 years ago, I would like to see the reaction to any other game announcements. To be fair I am not really sure why this got hinted at in the first place, it was silly to include such spoilery and controversial feature this early in development and I can understand why they would want to quietly hide it under the rug.

Also I feel like you could tldr those multi quoted posts.

I concidered that original post from different topic Drath Malorn quoted at the beginning to be my tldr.
But i can see that being confusing. :-/

My pardon, hope this statement clears it.

I agree with Ragnarok on principle. The point of documentation for this kind of product is to let consumers know what they’re getting. It’s all well and good to keep these documents up to date, but doing so without telling anyone defeats the purpose of maintaining an informed customer base.

However, in practice, it feels like Larian treat “good” and “bad” news very differently. In this case, Larian removed a reviled feature from DOS2. My guess is they felt that would be a pleasant surprise on release and had no obligation to tell anyone. When Larian increased the minimum required specs, they made a big deal of it because they knew it would screw over a chunk of their players.

I’m ok with that. I want to be told the bad news upfront. If Larian want to obfuscate the good news… that’s a marketting strategy, I guess.

The point is disagreeing with your premise. Disagreement does not require me being bothered.


Reviewers will be given time to complete the entire game. There will be dozens of reviews. It is inconceivable that none will mention this feature if it exists.


Providing information about the game.


Doing nothing is easier than saying so.

What is the reason for this thread's existence? Is it to gather the people displeased with the topic in one place on the forum and discuss it in isolation? Is it to draw in the opposing views and argue? Or is it to somehow try and make Larian alert of the problem (would be weird because the OP themselves said Larian are not good at that sort of communication)? It'd be great if the OP clarified what exactly he wants this thread to focus on. Because it has potential of branching into the eternal argument nobody needs, imo.

Respectively : kind of, neither yes or no, yes somewhat (just because I think their communication is poor doesn't mean I think it can't improve, and drawing attention to what doesn't work is probably more useful than not flagging issues). Mostly, as I was about to post, I realised that my post would be sending the original thread of topic, and I don't like sending people's threads off-topic. So I opened a new thread, so that if N posts were to follow my opening one, that'd be N posts that won't be off-topic in the original thread (hence my "kind of" answer to gather/isolate).


A little aside. Some people took issue with the word "shady". Maybe that's not the best English word for this. Replace it by "dubious". Or "uncomfortably grey". Or "questionable". And "poor form".

Imagine you are president of an association, and the treasurer has been using the association's debit card for personal purchases. Maybe the treasurer made sure to transfer money each month from their own account to the association's account to balance things out, and was only using the association's card because it's easier to carry only one debit card, and this one had higher spending limits. Maybe an audit found that no money was embezzled, only a series of breaches of internal good conduct regulations.

Imagine that you run a state's intelligence agency, and one of your spies just sent their latest report to a colleague and friend, from a public wifi abroad, via Facebook or WeChat, instead of whatever secure channel they were supposed to use. Maybe a detailed analysis of the report showed it contained no valuable data. Maybe crystal ball technology showed the data was not intercepted anyway. And maybe zone of truth technology certified that your spy was not trying to leak information.

Imagine you run a taxi company, and one of your drivers was the subject of a customer complaint. The driver had shown up for a ride, drunk, underslept, drove in a jerky fashion, without seat belt, in a neighbourhood filled with residences and schools. Maybe you operate in a country with no regulation against drunk driving, maybe no speed limit was breached during that ride, and maybe no accident occured.

In all 3 cases, your employee may argue that they were not ill-intentioned and that no harm was done. Still, they engaged in behaviour that, to me, is very dubious, inapropriate, and poor form. And the outcome could easily go from a very strong formal warning to immediate sacking.

Anyway.



Coming back to the topic of Larian's stealthy edits, I've been following the EA for over 2.5 years. Over that time, my opinion of Larian's communication has slowly but steadily converged to "my oh my, they're really not good at this". And when it comes to maintaining a healty relationship with their community, I feel that it's either something Larian just doesn't really care much about, or something they are particularly bad at it.

So when I realised that, now, they engage in edits of past posts on the FAQ too, I couldn't help rolling my eyes and thinking that this is the kind of transparency in communication that can generate lots of goodwill and help foster a healty relationship with the players.



Also, and I'll largely reiterate a point that RagnarokCzD and Flooter have already made, if you update a source of information like the FAQ, and don't notify the people interested in said information that the FAQ was updated, then they won't know that the information has changed. So you don't quite achieve the goal of keeping players up-to-date. (And one may wonder, then, why bother ?)

I just want to look at this in more detail.

There is a group of prospective players, who may well have heard of BG3 during the recent game shows, and are considering buying the game on release. They may be searching for info about the game. (Some of them might have heard that there is a better deal if you purchase before release, might ask about about it on Reddit, and might have come across a user that tends to redirect them toward the official FAQ.) For those prospective players, who will first come across the FAQ in June, July or August 2023, the up-to-date FAQ is good, since it means they get accurate information.

There is a group of players, who have had the (EA version of the) game for years, who have hung around in the community for years, who may have already read the FAQ. Due to the stealty nature of the FAQ update, those players don't get the updated information. If Larian's reasoning is that those players have purchased the game already, so Larian doesn't need to give a fig about them, I'd like to state that I disagree with that approach.

Somewhere in-between, there are players who have known about BG3 and who have been on the fence for years, perhaps due to a couple of features that are deal breakers for them. Since Larian did not inform anyone of the changes to the FAQ, those fence-sitters may not know that a potential deal breaker to them is no more a planned feature of the game. Sure, they might learn about this 2 weeks after release. They'll probably not thank Larian for not keeping the community properly up-to-date. They might also feel that they would have liked the Digital Deluxe edition ... but know that there was a good deal before release, and might feel bad about paying full price for it now. Maybe they'll decide that they'll purchase the Digital Deluxe 2 years later, when it can be bought for half price on a sale. From the product manufacturer's point of view, making only a 30 EUR sale when minimum effort could have yielded a 60 EUR is not that big of deal I suppose.

I didn't read the whole thread, but I don't have an issue with Larian editing their FAQ - I see "Frequently Asked Questions" as place where people can go to search for answers for frequently asked questions - as such they should contain the most up to date information, not what was true or thought to be true at some point of another. Since it released FAQ have been updated multiple times - as it should be. I don't think it would be beneficial for the purpose of a FAQ to keep a record of all changes to it.

I also don't think the change is substantial enough to warrant a clarification, or even I would be weary of assuming that removal of the information means that they change the direction.

Reading through FAQ it seems far more official than it used to be. The old one seemed to be mostly a compilation to some of the questions that people asked during early AMA. This one looks very.... techincal - important questions about the game as a product, but not much specifics about the game itself.

I suspect this may not be a universally known faux pas.

Then again, very few things are universally liked or universally disliked.

I think these stealthy modifications were really not a good choice, from a communication style point of view. Some players agree, some disagree, and some don't care.