Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3, DOS and the D&D rule-set

Dark Alliance is called dark alliance because its a different genre.
its not a CRPG, its not the same kind of storytelling

its an Action RPG where you play a single character, its a spinoff.
This isnt.

Dark Alliance has its own series name because it is a separate series - just like Larian's upcoming game is a separate series from Baldur's Gate. There is not a single shared style between Baldur's Gate and Larian's upcoming game. And Larian's upcoming game is officially the sequel to Descent Into Avernus, which means it is literally a different series than Baldur's Gate.

You may not like to face the fact that your favourite developer is selling-out and doing a cash-grab, but that's exactly what Larian are doing by calling this non Baldur's Gate series game "Baldur's Gate 3". It's being called that exclusively to hype up the fanbase of the Baldur's Gate series and to exploit those fans for sales, while not delivering anything that is known to be Baldur's Gate.

D:OS2 fans are happy because Larian is mostly cut-and-pasting D:OS2 with minor changes into the Forgotten Realms setting, effectively creating D&D D:OS2. But people who actually care about the Baldur's Gate series and want to play a new game from that series are betrayed by Larian's cash-grab sell-out move.

Shadow of Amn in called "Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadow of Amn".
He is the 2 and he take everything of the core of the Baldur's Gate franchise, that's why no one discuss about you're not playing in the city.

Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance is another type of game using the name of the franchise.
That's also why no one discuss about you're not playing in the city, AND you're not playing a RTwP RPG game.

That's exactly what they should have done to respect fans... Call it whatever they want except using the 3

The 3 is the only reason why many many old fans complain.
No one has to judge our reasons are good or not, this is just what lots of us think.

Like Adgaroth, you mean to say series, not franchise. The franchise that the Baldur's Gate series is a part of would probably include all the video games under the D&D or Forgotten Realms brands.

Those franchises contain many series, of which Baldur's Gate is one.


In the PC RPG RTwP Baldur's Gate series:

Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword
Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn
Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal


In the console ARPG / hack-n-slash Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series:

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2


In the Descent Into Avernus series:

Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
Larian's D&D D:OS2 clone, which is currently inappropriately titled "Baldur's Gate 3"

That's the way I see it too. The Final Fantasy franchise changes a lot from game to game. Not just in setting, but in playstyle, mechanics etc.

Forgive me but it is a simplistic reasoning and certainly not an argument.

For a company, there is nothing innocent in the fact of releasing a cRPG bearing the name Baldur's Gate. Above all, it means wanting to take advantage of the fame of previous games that have had the same name and have become legends in the history of video games.

The name of a game, the rules it uses and where it takes place are far from sufficient to make it seem legitimate in the eyes of many players to associate it with a license.

As I said in a previous comment on this topic, the name Baldur's Gate has, in a way, become the property of the players; and it is the players who will decide if this BG3 really deserves its name.
This name doesn't stop where it happens and the rules. It signifies an atmosphere, a history, strong emotions and an indescribable magic which made games which carried this name of the legends.

The only thing WotC and Larian can do is not just trying to make a good game with beautiful graphics, D&D rules and that it happens around Baldur's Gate. Because clearly, it will not be enough and they will be demolished for daring to call it Baldur's Gate.

And if neither WotC nor Larian really understand what the name Baldur's Gate now means in the minds and hearts of the players, as you yourself seem to be unable to do, then the use of this name will be felt as a betrayal and a vulgar marketing and commercial calculation.

To tell you the truth, it's not even the clean new setting or lack of RTwP that has people worked up but big companies pretending that the fans who have played, reviewed, made mods for and spread the word about this glorious series over the past two decades are wholly irrelevant and should not even be addressed explicitly. Sure, we don't speak for everyone but it doesn't seem like the people in charge of development even want to know who's in favor or opposed to the current vision. Sucks to be us I guess.

I honestly don't get why you are still complaining the game is going to be out next year and it will more or less be what we have seen. Larian doesn't care what the old-school fans want because they are an insignificant minority DOS2 success showed them that A game which old-school fans hated but everyone else called it the best RPG ever and yet it sold better than all the Pathfinder, POE, Underrails combined.

First thought:
As many have mentioned, it was a somewhat unfortunate decision to call this game "Baldur's Gate III". At the end of BG2, it is mentioned that this adventure is over, but others will follow, so it would have been possible to continue somehow. The Maincharacter is having a romance, a child is born, bla bla bla. The story could have been continued considering Baldur's Gate: Descent in Avernus.
The only common ground to the predecessors is the setting in the Forgotten Realms in and around the city of Baldur´s Gate. Unfortunaly nothing from the predecessors will be continued but what the title "III" implies.
Since the outcry was predictable, I wonder why it was done anyway. Maybe Swen/Larian Studios had no choice. It is no accident that WotC released a new campaign for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game: Baldur's Gate: Descent in Avernus last year when Baldur´s Gate III was announced. It tells what's happened since Baldur's Gate II and plays 100 years after Baldur´s Gate II. It could be that the title "Baldurs Gate 3" was certainly a mandatory requirement for the game from WotC. No Baldur´s Gate 3, no licence. In this case Swen had no chance to name the game "Baldur´s Gate: NamedItWhateverYouLike". Maybe it was just a strategic sales decision. We don´t know and maybe will never find out due to contractual regulations.

Second thought:
But to be honest, we know almost nothing about the story except the outer frame. How often history has changed in BG1, SoD or BG2 and pushed us in another direction. How many times have we been surprised? Swen is definitely not going to reveal what the whole story looks like. All information is currently based on a few interviews, a demo and a bit of gameplay. The information available is also interpreted differently.
We know almost nothing at all and therefore nobody can not really judge at this point whether Baldur's Gate 3 deserves the name or not.

I personally believe that Baldur´s Gate III will not be a D:OS clone and that a lot of the presentation was just placeholders, borrwed by D:OS. I think we will see and hear a completely different and independent Baldurs Gate UI, spells and sounds. Larian Studios will definitely create an own Baldur's Gate atmosphere.

I think Swen is well aware that the Damocles sword hovers over him and Larian Stuidos.

Finally, it should also be noted that we can make our own story with our imagination, like in a pen&paper game. My character will be a half elf because it is the son of my main character from BG1 + 2 and Jaheira. For me, the story continues anyway...

I don't know how this can be fixed, since BG is deeply associated with the 2D Infinity engine, thus no new game will ever really LOOK like Baldurs Gate.

About the only thing I can think off is using BG2 style UI design and icons.

Everyone arguing about turn-based mode as if it were the biggest problem in this game.
The biggest problem for me is that this game is a Divinity recycling
Divinity colorful graphics, Divinity combat, Divinity animations, Divinity interactive objects etc...
This game doesn't even have classic elements from the original game (Spellcasting Sounds is an example)
Looks nothing like Baldur's Gate

As an avid D&D player (3.5e though) and a huge fan of the classic BG games (and also think D:OS is one of my GOATs) my impression is this:

Baldurs Gate 3 is Baldurs Gate in name only. People are absolutly correct when they say it looks identical to D:OS2 and if you didnt know there was D&D 5.0e rules behind the scenes you would think this is Divinity: Original Sin 3. And that is my main problem.

1) Overhaul of the UI is essential. You have to make it feel like a Baldurs Gate game. These are simple things to fix if you alot resources to it.
2) Grandious and flashy animations for simple actions like stabbing a guy. (note: hyperbole). Baldurs Gate is high fantasy with plenty of magic, but if something is deemed not a magic effect then why does it display as if it were magic? Counter-arguement to this is that melee combat looks boring without it. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I guess it boils to preference. Why am I "casting a spell" when I activate Dash? I thought that was a physical ability.
3) Fog of War. Now this is one of those things that breaks immersion. You learn to live with it but it makes the game incredibly gamey.
4) WIll my full plate 8 DEX dwarf be able to leap like a tiger 2 meters above him, or are there restrictions to the Jump skill? Another thing that breaks immersion. Counter-arguement: "Omg you care about realism in a game about mindflayers!". It depends. If the rules of the world is that anyone can leap like a olympian regardless of encumberance or ability then I guess its fine. Its stupid, but fine. The jumps showcased in the preview is something I assume high dex characters with light armor could pull off. So to be fair, this IS a question because Sven used a rogue to jump with.

Quoted for truth

This is a so limited way to understand the situation.
Old fans of the Baldur's gate series are fans and customers of video games for about 20 years. Check FB, Youtube, Reddit, Steam forums, this forums and every video game sites where players can talk about the game...
This is NOT a minority, this is about 1 players on 3 interrested in this new game at the time... And in those that are happy, the huge majority just don't care about the name of the game.
I'm pretty sure it could be possible to have hundreds of signature on a petition asking them just to forget the 3...

Some of those complaining loved D:OS, some don't. Personnal preferences.

This is not a reason to be angry with many of them just about a "3" or to divide the new community appearing around the new Larian game.

Of course a game with modern mecanics have today more fans than a gameplay that has (nearly) not evolved since 1998...
This is not an argument, this is obvious.

That's an important point for me personally. 20+ years is a long time in gaming and the late '90s was a bit of a personal nadir for me. Conversely, my formative years comprised the 8-bit era of the early '80s which I still remember fondly and tend to be very nostalgic about... but would I want to play them now? I put that to the test and bought a reconditioned but otherwise vintage early '80s home micro with a virtual HDD pre-loaded with lots of stuff, and beyond some initial curiosity I never played anything.

I'm not saying it's quite that extreme but from my point of view I like to see actual innovation that's in keeping with the times. That doesn't mean that I think what made a game great should be torn up and thrown away, just that things evolve. I don't always like the outcome but in general I feel happier with new taken on things than I would be if time somehow stood still.

As for the specific "is this Divinity or BG?" concern, I would like to think that any Divinity-isms are just a case of placeholders being used until everything is done. Though my background is Divinity and I've never played any BG game, what I want to see is BG, not Divinity with a BG flavour.

People can have different takes on stuff though. Several parallels have been drawn with "The New Fallouts". As someone who'd just immersed themselves in Oblivion, FO3 being "Oblivion with guns" was actually quite a positive thing at the time... and as descriptions go it was certainly a contentious one, but it had some merits, which was a positive and a negative. I'm not sure I'd want to repeat the experience again though. But my observation is that it showed just how fickle the fanbase can be when the virtually identical New Vegas was praised to the heavens while FO3 remained the worst indiscretion gaming has ever seen, which just left me thinking, hmm. Whatever point was being made must've gone right over my head. I don't care, I enjoyed Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3 and FNV pretty much equally.

With that in mind, I hope I enjoy BG3 in whatever form it takes. It will be more satisfying for me if it's proper Baldur's Gate, but that's the gnarly question: who will be the arbiter of what counts as "proper BG"?

Well, remember this is pre-alpha...
I think there are two ways they'll change their route to be more appealing to BG fans. Three actually:
1. They are aware of the criticism and just wanted to show the combat and some mechanics, but world look is not final and they were going to make it look more like BG from the start.
2. They'll respond to fan feedback, as they did with DOS.
3. WotC, their employers, will demand that they make changes.


This refers to the world ambience, not combat. I imagine them making the option to play RTwP, but their focus will be TB.

As you said, you don't want to play an old gameplay in 2020.
This is not the problem. TB game had evolved thanks to Larian, but the core gameplay of Baldur's Gate nearly didn't except a few try.

This said, I also hope I'll enjoy BG3 because I really like Larian, I really like TB games and I really like D&D and The Forgotten Realms... But I'll never forget that the only Baldur's Gate 3 that will exist for all times and we're waiting for about 20 years (with hopes, deceptions,...) has nothing in common with the Baldur's Gate series.

Bioware created the original games but if this name is still alive in video games after 20 years, it's only because of us (players, modders, public of the EE, dreamers,...).
We pay tribute to this name for about 20 years. I really think Larian and WoTC should have done the same or at least consider us in return wathever the direction they took for this new game.

You should definitely forget the 3.

Right!

Claims that somehow TB represents "evolution" and RTwP is something 20 years old is nonsense. TB existed 20 years ago too. In fact, it predates RTwP combat. Those of us who want RTwP are not saying we want RTwP exactly like it was in the original games. So the "it's been 20 years" line is a total strawman.

As for the point that this is just D:OS made to look like D&D, yes that is ultimately the main strike against this game. Even the professional reviewers, virtually every single one of them, are saying the same thing, that the game looks and feels and plays like D:OS2. But of course for them, because they are very pro D:OS, this is a good thing and they think they are complimenting the game by saying that it looks and feels and plays like D:OS2. Many fans however disagree that this is a good thing. And saying that the game uses D&D rules so this cannot be true is (maybe deliberately) missing the point. The underlying rules maybe D&D, but how a game looks on your screen and how it feels to play it are what really matter. Nobody is questioning that the rules are D&D, so that's yet another strawman.

Again more strawmen. How does "not looking like a game from 20 years ago" equal "must look like D:OS2"? Nobody is saying the game should look like what the original games looked like. The question is why does it look like D:OS?

As for the critics being "silly" or "children," well, lots of Larian sycophants and fanboys here. See how easy it is? Insults can go both ways.