Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Interview`s important tip for character building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5__muccL1c&feature=youtu.be&t=1481

More news in this interview with Sven and the streamers JP, Cohh, and Zeke. There were good things like the extended level cap or the talk about sneaking, environment interaction or followers but there´s also this:

After one of the questions about languages in BG3 Sven answered
"We chose for everybody to speak common, to keep our sanity, to be honest"


Personal opinions aside, now we know some features based on languages: race languages (especially the half-elves that have extra), backgrounds and feats("linguist" came to mind for their extra languages and the ability to create your own) would have to be tweaked or simply eliminated because different languages would not be used in BG3.

I wonder what they would do to offset this, if they would remove them entirely or simply erase the part of the feats/races/backgrounds that adds more languages.

In that case there´ll be feats/backgrounds/races that offer less than others (because in the original game they allow you to learn new languages) or they will add some abilities to those that add something to those feats/races/backgrounds.
I hope it´s the latter =)

Questions, questions...

I expect Larian will tinker with DND systems quite a bit, to make them fit their game.

"Personal opinions aside, now we know some features based on languages: race languages (especially the half-elves that have extra), backgrounds and feats("linguist" came to mind for their extra languages and the ability to create your own) would have to be tweaked or simply eliminated because different languages would not be used in BG3.
"

I agree, but which game implemented detailed languages?

The unique CRPG which I saw incorporating language is believe or not, Gothic 2 - RETURNING. To be able to read powerful grimoires which are all written on demonic language(abyssal in D&D therms), you need to convince with the righ dialog lines Kreole to teach it to you. Most tablets found in jharkendar are written in ancient language and you need to learn it to read then from Water Mages. Orc language is required to do many quests and a isolated orc and a book in Xardas old tower can teach it to you.

A lot of orcs doesn't speak "common".

Other good thing about gothic 1/2(vanilla, no modding required) is that you start as a nobody. Wanna learn magic? Find someone able and willing to teach you. Martial attacks, your stance and animations also chance when you pay for someone to teach you.

It´s understandable not to use different languages in a videogame, for practical and economy reasons.

What worries me is not that there are no languages, is what they´re going to do with backgrounds and feats that add languages to the game. Are they going to use half the feat/ background, turning them into comparatively less useful features, they will simply remove them from the game or they will add new features to spice up those character creation options like they did with the ranger?

I hope it´s the latter. You can find some cool substitutes for the extra languages of the half-elves, or some backgrounds that adds more languages. An enthralling/annoying song, distracting sounds, mimic voices?...

i actually think the languags work better in a game, but in a fully voice acted game i get why you wouldnt go there.

But tis a feature i enjoyed in older games like Everquest

I can totally understand why they did not use different languages.
In PnP you can have as many as you want. The DM tells you that you find a draconic text and the players look if they can read it, like their char knows the language or they have the right spell. I do not expect that DM or players actually speak draconic then.

In a computer game with voice acting this is not enough, you need somebody to speak those lines.
If a char can learn different languages the voice actor had to speak every text of every language because the devs do not know what language a player will give to which char.
As far as I know there is not an official DnD dictionary for every DnD language, so the devs have to invent this language first.
And then many players complain that the devs idea of orcish or demonic is not what they expected.

Final Fantasy X had the Al Bed language. At the moment I do not remember another game that had voice acting and at least one language that not all players would understand.
World of warcraft had different languages but no voice acting. Players who know this language could read what the other player writes but for everyone else it was nonsense. Like pandas saying "om nom nom" all the time. I have not played it since ages so maybe things changed.
Its also ages since I played Gothic. I think orcs did not have full dialogue in orcish, just some barks when you are near or they attack you ( not 100% sure )

PS:
At the beginning of the interview they say the voice actor of the narrator is quite famous.
I do not know her and automatic subtitles of vidoes are often wrong.
Who is she and what did she do before?

I do not know if it counts but the SWKotor games had a lot of alien languages and they´re dubbed, (Twilek, jawa, bodan, droid, etc) but your avatar seem to know a lot of them and/or you have a translator droid (best diplomatic translator droid ever HK-42)

It seemed to me more like saving money on VO - Full VO without having to record full VO. You reuse same lines and subtitle different stuff. Quite a bit like Supergiant's delightful Pyre are "voiced".

Experimenting with "languages" in an RPG could be interesting thing to play with - though I won't hold it against Larian for not tackling it. I don't think this is the most cost-effective reactivity one could spend money and time on.

It doesn't count, no. Were they actual languages, or just the same sound clips being played over and over again no matter what the translation of the words was? I'm pretty sure it was the same sound clips per race. That cut down on VO budget but had no gameplay impact.

Different languages in D&D do have a gameplay impact, and implementing that impact properly would be a lot of time and resources.

Is it necessary to fully voice acted things like that ?
Isn't a popup saying "you don't understand his language" when you click a NPC ok ? Or a few different sentences for player to understand it won't be possible to talk with someone ?

And if you understand, just tell it in the common real language...
Languages can leads to many cool feature and situations in a game. It's absolutely not necessary to have a great game but it add more depth and mecanics and I really don't think it's an impossible mission...

It's not impossible. It's just that Larian was interesting in doing other reactivity then languages. Would limiting PC access to NPCs based on languages be interesting? Would having to switch companions to talk to different people be interesting? On another RPG maybe? In BG3 maybe not?

It could always be interresting, especially for replay value, lore and races immersion/depth and to fit their "many different.possibilities to solve situations" things.
Switch companions is.not interresting, but also not necessary... Anyway as.I said it could leads to interresting feature, events and situations but that's not something I especially expect or I will alk about during EA.
I personally never thought about it before hearing the question but I think it's an interresting subject.

I can definitely see how languages would add to the already complex nature of the different interactions and paths you can take. I'm already impressed with their ability to provide the variety of branching yet dependent paths that they do. It would add to the experience, I admit, but I suspect there would be a tradeoff and this is the more beneficial route in the long run.

If you can't talk to certain people because of a language barrier, that means that you can't accept any quests from those people. That means game balance will need to take into account the amount of XP available for any combination of languages known. That seems like an impossible task.

Yes, this. We already know that some content will get locked out because of actions you take. This is good design. To preemptively lock out content based on your character build seems arbitrary. Plus, how many languages would they actually include? 6 at most? You could easily cover all of that between your 4 character party, rendering the entire system superfluous.

It would definitely take some work, but I think implementing languages could be done if conversations were done as a party. For example, if you have one or more people in your party composition that speaks the language, then you as the player will also be treated as if you understand the language. Even if "everyone" speaks Common, you could probably implement languages by having books/scrolls that could only be read if you have the language. For example, I could see a scenario where the PCs kill an evil drow wizard, but unless someone speaks Elven, the wizard cannot copy spells from the spellbook. I could also see puzzles (like the door to Moria in Lord of the Rings) where you have to know the language to succeed or continue.

The point is, even if everyone "speaks" common, Larian Studios can still implement languages in written texts and in other ways.

Yes if you only focus your party on language... Which is probably never what players are doing...
And everyone you'll met is not supposed to only talk his race language.
This could leads us to many bonuses situations, side paths or give us informations but I guess my imagination is too big...

Nah, your imagination is just fine.

Just the logistics of executing such a massive language options in a video game that already has so many choices are a bit much to expect for Larian though.

Yes, maybe, or probably ..
As I said before it's not something I find absolutely necessary in a game as a Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 fan... but it looks like the players I was answering to have a very limited Imagination about what "simple" situations it could leads to

Talk with beasts is an invocation that Warlocks can pick, allowing them to cast it at will, and since Warlocks are often the 'face' of a party I know who my first custom character will be. The lack of languages does disincentivise me a bit to play other races as the appeal of playing other races is the extra language you pick up. Having your Tiefling talk Infernal to a devil, your druid talking sylvan with Fey or Dragonborn with a dragon really makes you feel like a part of the setting. Thankfully common is a universal language here and I will happily talk with everyone and everything (that my Lawful Evil Warlock will be able to manage in a specific playthrough).