Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interviews

Re: the plan to use streaming to easily invite others to join the game... one of the things WotC can hopefully make peace with is that in real life, for non-D&D tabletop PnP players, setting side the time to regularly join gaming CRPG sessions is... a risky venture at best. People are just too damn busy irl in general, and have too many excellent choices about what to engage with via streaming. The beauty of a single player game is precisely that you can take your own sweet time, proceed at your own pace. Set the game aside for a month if you have to and come back to it later.

The game engine gives you computer generated companions that would be your friends playing characters at a tabletop game. And the game engine acts as the DM. In a way, that's awesome. Maybe not as great as a real life tabletop game. But still amazing when you think about it.

If WotC/Larian believes that they will make a more popular game than BG1 and 2 by trying to funnel consumers into trying multiplayer, I think they are most likely sorely mistaken. As mentioned, it's really hard to keep a multiplayer game going, and there are so many great choices for people to spend their leisure time on. Don't get me wrong: It's great that multiplayer will be an option! But the reason BG1 and 2 were so successful is because it translated D&D into a deeply engaging CRPG experience that could be experienced as a single player.

Ironically, as a SP game the BG series did create a sense of community, and shared experience. Devoted players to this day go to forums and talk strategy, share ideas atfor creative playthroughs, their love of certain NPCs, the lore of the setting, favorite classes/kits, the story, etc. The shared experience that the game brings is through discussion on forums. New players show up all the time at the Beamdog forums and reddit subs. This goes all the way back to the old PlanetBaldursGate and Ironworks forums that sprouted in the late 90s.

Now if that single player experience works best as a turn based game for 5E, that's cool with me. If it allows me to appreciate the mechanics of D&D better that's kind of neat. Myself, I think I'll be okay with a TB game. And if BG3 offers a multiplayer mode via streaming that serves as a gateway with easier access than ever to tabletop D&D then great. That’s all good imo.

But imho the bottom line is that this game better totally F-ing rock as a SP game.