Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Multiplayer Discussion Why ingame chat is important

Hi everyone!

First I want to say that Baldur's Gate III is, for me, a dream of CRPG that became reality and I thank the wonderful people from Larian studios for that!
It takes the best part of many games I really loved over the year: it's a more than legitimate successor of Baldur's Gate I & II of course but also take the interactivity of the environment from the previous Larian games (Divinity Original Sin I & II) and the dialog cinematics that made the success of the Mass Effect trilogy.

That being said... I still one flaw in multiplayer mode:
I'm surprised there is no ingame chat, which is a bit surprising as the Baldur's Gate I & II had one.
Even the divinity original sin games had one if I recall correctly.

I know, I know, many will argue this is an outdated feature... But it's not! and I will give the reasons by answering the most common arguments opposed to it.

1) Why don't you use a third party platform (Discord, or any similar platform) to have voice chat instead ? It's more pratical after all...
Maybe it's true for a lot of people, but it's definitely not true for everyone.
- What about people who are mute ?
- What about people who don't have a microphone?
(you'd be surprised to know how many people just have a headset without a microphone nowadays... Just because you're surrounded by people having one give the feeling everyone has one, while it's far to be true)
- What about people who are just shy and just don't want to talk vocally?

2) Why don't you use a third party platform to chat in a written form then?
Because it's far from being practical if you don't have at least 2 screens (and again, not everyone has 2 screens). Having to alt tab each time one of your companions say something can become really tiresome very quickly and immersion breaking.

3) What about ingame roleplay?
Those who are familiar with ingame roleplay (especially in MMORPGs) know how most of the time when you roleplay your character in-game, you use the ingame chat. Not using a third party platform, and not a voice chat.

I really hope Larian devs will consider to add this to the game in the future, as it would make the game perfect.
Right now, I don't see any other flaw to the game.

There are already a few threads on the Steam forum and even on this forum on the topic, and I don't think this should be considered as isolated feedback:

Steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3808408328761130726/

Larian Forum:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=873657

Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/ykqvx3/multiplayer_chat/

DDO is the GREATEST example of voice.

2005's Dungeons & Dragons Online is STILL home to many old school RPG, MMO and tabletop D&D fans. It has built in voice and plays nice with Discord.

Without built in voice, and guilds, DDO would have died by 2009. ATARI GAVE UP BY THEN. But Warner Brothers and Turbine and Standing Stone Games brought he game to today.

Baldurs Gate 3 should focus on TWO ASPECTS, bring IN GAME VOICE and MULTIPLAYER. This very newly added section is a GREAT 1st Step.

Now they just need to add GREAT NEW CONTENT via expansions and mods.

Amazing game this is.

I just find it pretty ironic given that they have been shilling so much how Larian doesn't cut any corners and overdelivers but we don't have something Basic that should be staple of MP Games. This Game isn't finished for me. Maybe one Day when we can get Campaign Content to LvL 20 without rushed Acts/Content. This is still something with great Potential for the Modding Community. I'm just not angry with Larian because my expectations were Low since EA and because they aren't attacking the whole Modding Community ( Antagonizing your Fans and Customers is so Trendy nowadays with Genius Corpos ). Only the Gollum Game has managed to make me sigh that Bad.