Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Hush

Larian have been very good in supporting audience participation in games. Baldur's Gate is coded to support streamers. There are options for the crowd to express themselves when there is a choice to be made too.

Is there going to be support for a commentator?

The voice of the historian is very helpful later, and at the time it can greatly help connect the crowd with the game. In fact, crowd participation is a huge part of sport, and we can feel the loss in an empty football stadium these days. Talented commentators bring a game to life. You can see how dramatic it can be in the clips below, and I just wonder whether Larian might grow this role into the game. If Baldur's Gate III is going to become an esport, it will need something like this.

https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=56SSuXNnnJg

Baldur’s Gate 3 is not going to become an esport. It’s a turn based, story driven, co-op role play game. Not a single part of that sentence lends itself to a viable esport.

I see what you mean, Warlocke.

I spoke with a developer before on this same subject. They were also of the opinion that Turn Based games didn't lend themselves to esports. I still disagree. BGIII, if it were to be an esport, would be more like American Football, which has moments of activity followed by lulls in play, rather than football seen in Europe.

The breaks in play are where the commentary really comes in and keeps any audience engaged. A knowledgeable commentator can offer insight into what happened or explain what to look out for in the coming play. They might also be able to have a quick word with some of the team on the sidelines, even the manager or players.

Though the participants in multi-player BGIII will be co-operating to progress, they might not be co-operating unselfishly. (Perhaps people can remember the 4 player video game "Gauntlet", where the person playing the Elf would, to the chagrin and detriment of the others, just run and grab all the goodies for himself.) There might be some in-group competition in order to Level Up faster than the others. In the story, each player has their own agendum, and such play would be consistent with that. So, there could be competition seen to advance one agendum against the others. Larian wrote code to help resolve decisions when the group is split.

There is also out-group competition: the Party against the Monsters they encounter. Since the Monsters and environment are all story based, this is more like the sport of Mountaineering. Which face will they scale? How and when will they make their approach? If there is weather, how will they handle that? If you know your mountain (or know your Dungeon), it is enjoyable to see a different strategy used.

There is also competition between Parties. One Party might be able to accomplish a play-through in record time, or another with the most treasure or kills. Different Parties might attempt to rival each other in the same way teams challenge each other in cross-Atlantic sailing.

On top of all this, I hope that Larian will eventually open up the game into an open world system, perhaps in a subsequent release. Real players would inhabit the world and form Guilds, Clans, Watches, Gangs and these could compete against each other or form alliances. Dungeon Masters could try and rival each other with their Dungeons too, vying to create the most dangerous, popular or funny Dungeon.

BGIII doesn't look like an esports game, but I think it has that potential and that should be explored.

I am not sure if I will like BG3. What you describe would mean I would defeinitely not like BG3.

Esports take place over rounds or matches, which have defined lengths and objectives.

BG3 is a story based game where players can go long times without fighting at all.

What you are explaining would require a dedicated battle mode where players just engage in fights, stripped away from all of the accompanying story elements.

Larian has expressed no interest in adding this sort of gameplay to BG3, though they were producing a now scrapped DOS2 spin-off like this.

But even if they did make something like this for BG3, there is pretty much no chance it would gain popularity in the crowded esports arena. This isn’t what people look for.

And BG3 as some form of MMO is a pipe dream.

This isn’t the sort of game Larian is making. It’s not going to happen.

I think I have a feel for why you don't think BGIII esports is likely. It is like a book reading isn't likely to become an esport. Lets keep going with the idea though, as there might be life in it yet.

We have considered BGIII as a game of American Football, Mountaineering and Trans-Atlantic Sailing, so how about seeing it as Snooker?

Somehow Snooker is considered a sport. There are even snooker computer games. The commentary of snooker is a large part of the entertainment. (There isn't much going on on the table!) Snooker has huge TV audiences (perhaps because it is cheap television it gets made.) We could perhaps enjoy watching a multi-player game of BGIII with a Snooker commentator's voice. Something like that, or a Royal Wedding commentator or the words almost whispered as with David Attenborough and the gorillas. A wildlife documentary commentary might be very suited to the game. The party sneaking up on a monster could be just like a pride of lions preparing an ambush on a deer. The role of the commentator here might be similar to that of person who tracks the score and puts up the runs, overs and wickets at the pavillion in cricket. The players would be focusing on their game, the audience would be following the game, and the commentator would be doing the math, running the statistics and relating the progress to the audience.

If there are 4 people in a multi-player stream, then this sort of commentary would need an extra "player". The commentator would be the one actually doing the streaming, and it would help if they were able to easily switch between the desktop/game view of each of the other players, and if possible the monster's too.

Which part specifically wouldn't you like, Wormerine? What is off-putting about it?

Aside from the issue of BG3 as an esport (never going to happen), it is quite probably that a DM mode will be added in the future, so that would sufficiently allow a 5th player to be the one streaming and providing a lot of the “commentary.”

That is great news, Warlocke! It would be very satisfactory, but I fear the DM would be highly busy, so a 6th "player" would be needed.

There is some precedent for sport in D&D already, as you will recall: Hill Giants. They love hurling boulders and competing against each other in this way. Perhaps you or some of the others here can remember some more activities that would form part of a monstrous Olympics.

Don't know about Wormarine, but for me, just about everything is off-putting. I play video games largely to NOT experience other human interaction, so much so, that I don't even care about MP or co-op modes in games.

When I want to experience human interaction, I have usually found it most satisfying through direct communication rather than vicarious shared experiences.

It’s not really news, per say. I don’t think that Larian has confirmed it, but I’m pretty sure that it has been directly mentioned that Larian knows some people want this and it’s on their minds.

BG3 is a turn based game, so nobody is under the pressure of time to provide commentary. Any co-op streams will likely involve lots of banter, and that is what the likely audience will be tuning in for, not a play by play breakdown.

And again, BG3 as an esport is so unlikely to happen it is functionally an impossibility. It doesn’t have any of the immediate, visceral excitement of major esports, and it isn’t designed to facilitate that kind of following.

Could a small, dedicated community of competitive players emerge? Sure, but that isn’t an esport.

I don’t see any way that the existence of competition within the lore of FR at all lends BG3 to esports. That’s like saying because there is fencing in the Princess Bride, watching that movie could be an esport.

I also greatly like the lack of human interaction in single player games. It is relaxing. Multi-Player is a different feel, more like a party, hence LAN-party, and I enjoy those if I am co-operating with a team which is competing against another team.

The commentary aspect of the game, if it is introduced, could be a solo experience too. It would be akin to watching TV. (Many people are turning away from TV these days, for many reasons.) Streaming is popular enough for Larian to build support for it into the game. I think that commentary needs to be included with that.

Think about why some people would point their browser at a BGIII stream. It is "the same story", so why would they repeatedly watch BGIII streams? What would the audience be getting from it? How would the views help BGIII itself?

All of it. The enjoyment of a computer roleplaying game is having a computer generated world interact, immerse, and adventure with. Trying to make it into spectacle runs counter to what I look for in an RPG.

Beside that I don't think BG3 will be suited for anything esport-like. Game would need to be far too balanced for that.

Clearly nowadays streamers are a great way of advertising your game, and Larian is clearly catering to that crowd - will full VO and twitch support. Good for them. Ideas you have go far, far beyond that. I just don't think BG3 systems and structure would lend itself to anything that you suggest.

It wouldn't help IMHO. I have watched twitch ruin 5e campaigns because players stop having fun and try to script for the audience.

It must have been very disappointing to see that happen. It is a good reason to have the "6th player", the "Commentator", who could leave the players to focus on their game play. If the commentator had the ability to intermittently hide their audio from the players, that could be useful.

I'm sure you and many others enjoy competitive MP, twitch, streaming, e-sports and other convergent forms of entertainment. Good for you. But as I have already said that I have no interest in any of these, haven't watched any TV-like content in 20 years, and very rarely watch films, I am not exactly qualified to consider what someone else might enjoy in this space. You would undoubtedly be better placed to answer your own open-ended questions than me.

So long as BG3 has an enjoyable, workable PvE single-player mode, I will consider it a good game for my purposes. If BG3 is also able to satisfy a range of other experiences without detracting from the only experience I am interested in, then why not. But there is a danger when trying to satisfy too many different use cases, that the quality of everything suffers.