Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Swen On Fan Expectations For Baldur's Gate 3

From the way some of your earlier posts were phrased I was starting to suspect you worked for Larian. It fun to be right. As for the badge, I'm reading this on a smart phone so it's super tiny.

Anyways would you say any of my speculation has been unreasonable or unrealistic?

As for playthough length, that varies so much from person to person, but the average being +500 hours seems way to high. I just guessing from what Sven has said and others have said about DOS2 I'm expecting 100-200 hours, maybe 250 hours tops for slow pokes, although that seems like pushing it. I mean you'd have to really drag it out to get 500 hours in a single playthrough.

I think this is a good idea, a lot of folks read forums on their phones.

I was assuming it was common knowledge, or indicated by the username colour (and my email is public, if anyone checks my profile); I've added a custom title to be clearer.


Nice try but I couldn't give any hints even if i was closely following the development of BG3.

The aim for BG3 is to have a similar amount of content / gameplay time as D:OS 2.

Oh really? I beg to differ, especially when the interview is a half-baked attempt to raise awareness about your product without actually providing new information about it and then asking fans to "spread the words". I find it no coincidence that people like kanisatha feel they are being thrown under the bus. That is exactly how I felt when I was making this thread. You raise an interesting point though: if you are reluctant to reveal features about your game for fear of being accused of false advertising down the road, why even agree to answer questions about it? The odds of misspeaking are high if you are under a gag order or NDA. It's safe to assume that tons of individuals are on the prowl for new tidbits on BG3 and then when there's finally a new interview all they get is corporate speak for sorry can't give you the latest scoop on the game yet, also some fans are being ridiculous - don't forget to subscribe, k bye thx!.

Now that we've all accused each other of trolling, I will up the ante by saying Mr. Vincke is trolling fans in these interviews. I've bought some of Larian's products so I am inclined to forgive and forget. As Raze has pointed out, new information is coming soon so hopefully the next interview will not be a repeat of this one.



Didn't want to double post so I'll edit this in. I haven't seen any threads locked on here but perhaps you know of a few examples. In any case, it can't be memory-holed as I have already taken steps to archive it. Perhaps people on other boards would have different things to say on the interview and the posts on this thread, eh? Maybe they would appreciate this sort of discussion too.

I'm half tempted to lock the thread just for an hour or two just to troll everyone.

That won't help. You and I both know that what will happen is the goalposts will be shifted. No matter how much we get to know about the game, and obviously eventually we will know everything about the game, critics like us will be mob-attacked and told we are wrong, we don't know anything, our preferences don't matter, and we need to change our attitude and get with the conformity.

As far as I am concerned, if BG3 does not look and feel and play like the first two games, then it is a fake and a fraud and an insult to the fans of the original games. And I will keep on hammering this point no matter how many people in this forum try to shut me up.

Please don't take it upon yourself to speak for "fans of the original games". It's not appreciated by all other fans of the original games.
I am one, and I don't agree with your view about what the game has to be like to live up to my expectations of a Baldur's Gate game.

Damn, I thought my question was subtle enough that it would get past your defences, but you saw right through it, damn.

I would not call Larian Studios BG3 indie in the traditional sense, Stadia would not being using it as a centre piece in their advertizing if it was. Its AA at minium, maybe AAA even depempnding on who you ask.

You mean the interview by a Malaysian game site about the new branch studio in Malaysia, where they asked about that studio, the work process, release platforms, advice for indie developers, D:OS 2, Fallen Heroes / DOS: 3 and BG3?



If you can not accurately summarise what someone has said, or the interview in which it was said, nobody is going to take your speculation on motives seriously (even if it wasn't self evidently ridiculous).



You admitted that what he said about some of the highest expectations being unreasonable is literally true, so why are you still complaining about that?

As a general rule, games are announced without a lot of detail. While some games are announced late in the development process, sometimes it can be years with only an occasional bit of news or screenshots, etc. Then information starts being released leading up to the game's release (or sometimes there are delays, engine changes, studio/publisher issues, projects cancelled, etc).
Why are you acting like this is somehow unique to BG3?



I doubt very many gaming sites outside Malaysian will be particularly interested in doing an interview about the studio there (it may come up in questions about workflow, etc). If there is an interview specifically about BG3, there should be more information about it. Every interview anyone asks for about other things, where they bring up BG3, is not going to get new information about the game.





Have you considered the possibility that other people can have opinions different than yours, or that criticism of how you present a position in no way implies that you can not have a position?


Seriously? I guarantee it will not look like a 20 year old Infinity Engine game. I'm pretty sure there are a couple differences in 5e, as well.
Feelings are subjective, and everyone will judge for themselves how well it does in terms of the D&D / BG feel.


Nobody has tried to shut you up. If you're determined not to be shut up, though, maybe you could answer some of the questions asked earlier that you avoided?

How a game looks and feels and plays has nothing to do with technology per se. It is an obvious and superficial thing to say that technology has advanced in 20 years. Yes we all know this. We all also know that D&D editions have changed since the original BG games. These are trite observations.

The characteristics of the original BG games that govern how a game labeled "Baldur's Gate" looks and feels and plays are such things as: party-based; party size of six; isometric perspective; RTwP combat; single-player focused; a certain art style that is NOT cartoonish and garish; a certain writing style that is serious and somber and somewhat dark; a deep and rich main story, and this story is what the game is about and NOT combat; staying very faithful to D&D rules; staying very faithful to established canon Forgotten Realms lore; etc.

There is a certain very easily and objectively identifiable formula that makes the original BG games what they are, and as such if BG3 significantly deviates from that formula then logically it is not a BG game.

The trouble with sticking to a formula is that it can become formulaic. It's impossible to please everyone: whether it's a video game, a band doing a new album, a sequel to a film, TV series or anything else there will be lots of people complaining that it's variously "not being true to what made it great" and "being too samey and resting on its laurels".

I've previously used Obsidian being touted as an example of the people who produced the "true" Fallout games and New Vegas was an ARPG simply because Bethsoft foisted it on them. It didn't ring true at the time and lo and behold, their new offering plays pretty much exactly like NV. And then the Divinity series, which has variously been real-time isometric, third-person, strategy, TB isometric: people both inside and outside of Larian have their own preferences but overall they're still Divinity games. Which is really the point, or at least it is for me: if I like what a particular concept has to offer I'll take it in whichever form it's presented. Yeah, I have my particular preferences too, and I'll grumble if they're not met (I'm not a fan of isometric TB, for instance) but unless it's executed in a particularly disagreeable manner then it's not really a priority for me.

Edit: shouldn't write when I'm half-asleep.

i sitll dont understand wehre baldurs gate is "somber".
It zigzaggs around a lot.

i want to point this out because i dont realy understand why baldurs gates story gets brought up so much. I think it sticks out from the games of its time, but its not exactly hamlet.

I'm still betting on something that returns to the third-person style of Dragon Knight Saga, with some party management in the style of DA:I. To me, the Stadia tie-in/investment is a big factor, and in practice the Stadia box is a console. I suspect we'll see a style of game that is friendly for a 10-foot interface, and I'd bet against turn-based, too.

The Technology, Edition, and even timeline have advanced a great deal, to shrug that off as trite observation is disingenuous. The interplay of those three points, makes for a very different game.

You can not start with a bunch of subjective opinions and end up with an objective formula.
Not everyone has the same opinions about what the core elements of BG 1 and 2 are, or their relative importance.

Seems you've misunderstood. I wasn't shrugging them off. I was saying those are things everyone knows and agrees on so there is nothing to debate there. Yes, those things will be different in a game being made today.

I actually agree with much of what you say here. That's what brings us right back to where all of this discussion started: the name of the game. To restate my point, if you're going to make a new game that significantly deviates from earlier games in a franchise, you should give it a new name, exactly like what Obsidian did by calling their game Fallout: New Vegas, and exactly how Larian itself did with its own franchise by calling their new game Divinity: Original Sin rather than Divinity 3. To have called Divinity: Original Sin Divinity 3 would have been false advertising, in my view.

How is saying the Baldur's Gate games are isometric subjective opinion? It is an observable fact. In forum after forum, when fans of the BG games are asked to list the core characteristics of those games, there is remarkable consensus and consistency on what are those characteristics. The formula of the BG games is very much an observable fact. It is people's reactions to that formula that subjectively vary from person to person, including which characteristics might matter more to them than others and including that people's subjective preferences can change over time.

Not everyone knows and agrees on a single thing in the entire world. So you can't unfortunately speak on behalf of all other fans on anything. You have full valid rights to your own though.




I agree. Games should feel and relate to its predecessors in how it feels to play. The details of that is ambiguous and it'd be wrong to say 'everyone thinks this', because I'm in no position to say such a thing. But it's certainly a fair expectation or hope to have, that BG3 won't stray so far away from earlier games that it becomes unrecognizable.

There is one problem with this though. We simply don't know yet. For me, it feels like a waste to pre-emptively get upset about something that isn't something to have opinions yet. How can we to any extent argue and discuss how Baldur's Gate 3 fit in or not in what ever ambiguous details one would focus on, when we don't know what Baldur's Gate 3 looks like gameplay wise yet? That seems a bit unreasonable towards the game's prospect, doesn't it?