It may not be entirely in line with the topic, but whatever. I guess people don't know what really makes the game a successor to bg. Reading the topics closer to the premiere of EA, it was much more visible (some people have given up since then). I remember opinions (and not single ones) that the game cannot be bg if there is no rtwp fight or 2e rules. There would also be opinions that the game is not BG because it does not have the same heroes, 2d graphics (these are only single cases, at least), bad color palette or even voice acting. If you did a good search, you would certainly find more. Reading these topics, you could get the impression that the only thing that would satisfy the fans is a copy of BG2 (even such a Pathfinder would barely fit). However, many fans really disagreed with each other completely.
So what really makes a bg game? The problem is that it is different for each person. For some, rtwp combat may be what defined games and other things may not matter. Likewise, other people may care more about 2e or other things.
It may not be entirely in line with the topic, but whatever. I guess people don't know what really makes the game a successor to bg. Reading the topics closer to the premiere of EA, it was much more visible (some people have given up since then). I remember opinions (and not single ones) that the game cannot be bg if there is no rtwp fight or 2e rules. There would also be opinions that the game is not BG because it does not have the same heroes, 2d graphics (these are only single cases, at least), bad color palette or even voice acting. If you did a good search, you would certainly find more. Reading these topics, you could get the impression that the only thing that would satisfy the fans is a copy of BG2 (even such a Pathfinder would barely fit). However, many fans really disagreed with each other completely.
So what really makes a bg game? The problem is that it is different for each person. For some, rtwp combat may be what defined games and other things may not matter. Likewise, other people may care more about 2e or other things.
Which is why the ethically correct thing to have done would have been to NOT call the game BG3. Even BG:..... would've been okay. Just not BG3. The moment they made it BG3 they instantly ended up disappointing many fans of the original BG games because you are just not going to make them feel the same way about this game as they felt about those original BG games. It is also why I hate it when devs use the term "spiritual successor" to describe their new game. In my view, it is the one huge mistake Obsidian did in talking about PoE, and similarly what cost inXile so much support for their new T:ToN game. If some fans on their own want to thing of a game as a successor to some much loved older game, that's fine. Let them come to that conclusion. But a dev should stay away from trying to jump on the bandwagon of a much beloved older game.
...and whose voice very likely never gets heard within Larian's halls.
Oh, I'm sure they hear plenty of voices.
I don't see any evidence to support this.
My way of looking at this is very simple: (A) Are Larian's efforts todate making changes to the game aimed at convincing people who were a 'no' on the game when it went into EA to change to 'yes' (i.e. people like me)? Or (B) are they meant to make people who were already a 'yes' an even stronger 'yes' (i.e. people like you)? For me it is extremely clear without even the slightest doubt that Larian's efforts are all about (B) and not (A). And so then, as one of those people who's been a 'no', this is of course very bitterly disappointing to me.
...and whose voice very likely never gets heard within Larian's halls.
Oh, I'm sure they hear plenty of voices.
I don't see any evidence to support this.
My way of looking at this is very simple: (A) Are Larian's efforts todate making changes to the game aimed at convincing people who were a 'no' on the game when it went into EA to change to 'yes' (i.e. people like me)? Or (B) are they meant to make people who were already a 'yes' an even stronger 'yes' (i.e. people like you)? For me it is extremely clear without even the slightest doubt that Larian's efforts are all about (B) and not (A). And so then, as one of those people who's been a 'no', this is of course very bitterly disappointing to me.
What changes would you like to see to make it more like BG1/BG2? If you've already posted this somewhere just post a link. I've never played either of those games so don't know what is missing here.
...and whose voice very likely never gets heard within Larian's halls.
Oh, I'm sure they hear plenty of voices.
I don't see any evidence to support this.
My way of looking at this is very simple: (A) Are Larian's efforts todate making changes to the game aimed at convincing people who were a 'no' on the game when it went into EA to change to 'yes' (i.e. people like me)? Or (B) are they meant to make people who were already a 'yes' an even stronger 'yes' (i.e. people like you)? For me it is extremely clear without even the slightest doubt that Larian's efforts are all about (B) and not (A). And so then, as one of those people who's been a 'no', this is of course very bitterly disappointing to me.
What changes would you like to see to make it more like BG1/BG2? If you've already posted this somewhere just post a link. I've never played either of those games so don't know what is missing here.
Well I think a lot of other people have already posted on various things I would agree with. That the game is 5e is NOT an issue for me as I fully agree that D&D games should be made using the current ruleset. I have also come to accept that TB and not RTwP is how this game is going to be and that won't change. But I feel very strongly about such things as: a party of six; party movement mechanic similar to how it is in the IE games; your custom PC is at least as central to and plugged into the story and the world as any "origin" character, if not more so; enough party companion options to make any kind of party you want in terms of party member role distribution and alignment distribution (but NOT counting blank-slate mercenaries); no locked party and ability to switch out party members whenever you want; very strict adherence to established FR lore; a world/setting atmosphere that is reflective of the Realms, which is a high-magic setting where 'good' is the default of society; and maybe some other things.
But the main thing I want is what I treasure the most of the original games, specifically BG1. When you start out with your non-pregenerated custom character, you are a nobody with no power or skills or abilities whatsoever and can barely stand up to a wolf. That is what it means to be level 1. You are more capable than the average peasant, and certainly more knowledgeable, but that is it. And this same thing should be true for your level 1 companions.
But the main thing I want is what I treasure the most of the original games, specifically BG1. When you start out with your non-pregenerated custom character, you are a nobody with no power or skills or abilities whatsoever and can barely stand up to a wolf. That is what it means to be level 1. You are more capable than the average peasant, and certainly more knowledgeable, but that is it. And this same thing should be true for your level 1 companions.
Conversely, what BG3 has in common with originals?
Somewhat similar setting (although executed in a different way as exposed by OP), based on D&D ruleset (with vastly different game mechanics) and party-based story driven RPG (which even JRPGs are).
As far as I know, it could be a NWN game or any other game.
But the main thing I want is what I treasure the most of the original games, specifically BG1. When you start out with your non-pregenerated custom character, you are a nobody with no power or skills or abilities whatsoever and can barely stand up to a wolf. That is what it means to be level 1. You are more capable than the average peasant, and certainly more knowledgeable, but that is it. And this same thing should be true for your level 1 companions.
I like this idea.
And that is why in the end, being a level 9 Wizard conjuring Lightning Bolts and Cloudkills feels so good. Because you still remember being scared of wolves in the wilderness.
Larian are trying so hard to make you and your companions badass and amazing at level 1. Flying on a spaceship chased by dragon riders, killing Mind Flayers and Cambions in Hell. The baseline is so epic you're not going to feel any different at level 5, 10 or 15. No dynamics. Just more of the same with more abilities.
But the main thing I want is what I treasure the most of the original games, specifically BG1. When you start out with your non-pregenerated custom character, you are a nobody with no power or skills or abilities whatsoever and can barely stand up to a wolf. That is what it means to be level 1. You are more capable than the average peasant, and certainly more knowledgeable, but that is it. And this same thing should be true for your level 1 companions.
I like this idea.
And that is why in the end, being a level 9 Wizard conjuring Lightning Bolts and Cloudkills feels so good. Because you still remember being scared of wolves in the wilderness.
Larian are trying so hard to make you and your companions badass and amazing at level 1. Flying on a spaceship chased by dragon riders, killing Mind Flayers and Cambions in Hell. The baseline is so epic you're not going to feel any different at level 5, 10 or 15. No dynamics. Just more of the same with more abilities.
Precisely! Casting 9th level spells and defeating dragons and adamantine golems can feel special only if you begin the game as a nobody. I still remember how amazing it felt in BG1 when I won my very first +1 weapon. That's how a BG game should feel. At the rate BG3's prologue and Act 1 are going, I'm actually going to be bored to death with the game fairly early on because doing amazing and epic things will no longer feel amazing or epic to me.
Now that I think of BG1, the difference between a level 1 PC fleeing Candlekeep and a level 9 PC about to confront Sarevok in the hidden underground temple is immense. You feel you've come a long way. Power-wise, but also emotionally. You've survived assassination attempts, learned the truth, made friends, and no fight ever came easy by just pushing someone into a pit or spamming surprise void bulbs and AoE's. Every step of the way, the story has been personal for you. You are in the center of it all, not your amazing cast of companions.
The difference between a level 1 party cheesing Cambions on a spaceship in Hell, and a level 4 party clubbing an Adamantine Golem to death.. no difference. And won't be any different killing an Elder Brain at level 9 or whatever god avatars we will be shoving from platforms by then. Probably your companions will steal the show and you'll play the role of silent witness to their awesomeness.
I really hope Larian can take some pointers in building a more dynamic and immersive world. Or maybe it's the theme park maps. Probably a combination of everything. I don't even know anymore. I'm just not immersed in BG3 and it sucks because I need that D&D fix.
I really hope Larian can take some pointers in building a more dynamic and immersive world. Or maybe it's the theme park maps. Probably a combination of everything. I don't even know anymore. I'm just not immersed in BG3 and it sucks because I need that D&D fix.
I hear you, I was desperate for this game to sate that hunger. I think fundamentally they don't have a handle on making a coherent D&D game, it's just not in their DNA. For all their protestations about how much they loved the original games I can't see much that has been done to honour the legacy of those games.
For me, they have just dispensed with too many familiar things from BG1 & 2 and implemented a bunch of things that I don't like.
But the main thing I want is what I treasure the most of the original games, specifically BG1. When you start out with your non-pregenerated custom character, you are a nobody with no power or skills or abilities whatsoever and can barely stand up to a wolf. That is what it means to be level 1. You are more capable than the average peasant, and certainly more knowledgeable, but that is it. And this same thing should be true for your level 1 companions.
Funny thing about this "level one peasant" narrative is that game had a hidden cheat build in that protected level 1 characters from one-hit kills, and yet most players wouldn't notice. And it is not a cheat that, to my extent of knowledge, you could even turn off.
I've had a lot of fun figuring out how to commit mass murder in Candlekeep prologue and get away with it. I've also had fun with roleplaying playthrough, placing certain limitations on my characters. I guess the difference is in the audience, because BG1 could be easily beaten as a level 1 character just by spamming all the wands the developers placed everywhere, and yet this wasn't much of an issue.
One thing that doesn't get mentioned much comparing BG1 and BG2 to BG3, is how quickly 3d animation tends to become very dated in the look. Unless a game is heavily stylized in the overall art direction, it's virtually guaranteed to look pretty awful in the very near future. Given BG3's heavy reliance on 3d cinematics and animation to carry the overall experience, I really wonder how well it will hold up in the long term? I mean for a game that aims for 'realism' in the aesthetic, some of it already looks kinda old, and I think the best one can hope for is maybe 5 or 6 years before the 3d modelling becomes so notably behind the times that it's hard to even watch/play anymore. Just like 'realistic' CGI in films, there's a real limit there to the staying power before it just starts looking like Lawn Mower Man or something right?
Of course right now for BG3 everyone is still very much in awe of the visual appeal, and it probably seems wildly cutting edge. But then I think back to BG1/2 and how the cutscene animated movies in those games are now absolutely abysmal. At the time that stuff seemed amazing, and perhaps had everyone wishing "why can't the rest of the game look more like this?" but it ends up being the worst looking part of the game a short while later, and the one part of it that can't really be salvaged. By contrast the 2d sprites of BG1/2 that constitute the actual gameplay there still hold up quite well. All the paper dolls and avatars and environments, the in-game cutscenes which utilize those assets rather than outside animation too, they're still pretty decent. They were necessarily heavily abstracted using the avatars available, so they still look pretty good in relative terms. They're still serviceable, and have an internal aesthetic continuity despite being pretty ancient. Not so for the animated cinematic stuff.
Comparing BG1 to 3d games like NWN1, NWN2, Dragon Age etc, the 2d BG1 game still has a lot of aesthetic charm, whereas those 3d games all look pretty horrid now. It makes me wonder, even if BG3 could match the replay and the hundreds of hours of content that we saw in BG1/2, even if they got it all right in terms of the lvl1 feel, would I even be able to return to it every couple years and still enjoy it the way I did with those earlier BG entries? Or will it just look so whack compared to other 3d games floating around by then, that I can't even play it without a remaster? How many years out before the opening movie in BG3 looks as bad to modern eyes as this one does to us now...?
BG1 opening movie cinematic
I love it, doubtless, but you know what I mean hehe.
And now it's not just a little 2 minute intro cinematic anymore, or a brief 30 second thing when we first get to the Friendly Arm Inn like it was in 1998. Now it's like half the entire experience of the game done in cinema. Obviously the horse has already left the barn on this one, but I think BG3 is way over-reliant on this stuff to set up what the game actually is. When I think back to BG1/2 it's not the cutscenes that I remember, but in BG3 they're basically the entire thing, the whole story is delivered that way now. I just can't imagine it ever achieving the same kind of longevity, where even big budget Hollywood films that rely heavily on realistic cgi animation from a few years ago already look campy by current standards.
I think they should really try to stake out a look that recalls not live action but rather cartooning in it's essence. BG3 already has a bit of this going on, particularly with the Goblins, but as they continue to refine it, I think they might be better off going a direction like that rather than towards the ultra real. The way they are now dropping roto-animated stuff on Netflix daily that looks like Unreal cinema, I think stuff like BG3 is just not going to seem all that impressive pretty soon, whereas if they can make it look a bit more like a classic cartoon perhaps it would retain a bit of the charm in a different sort of way? I'm not terribly happy with how much the game just feels like watching a movie, and I wish they could get away from that somehow. BG1/2 felt more like a kind of puppet show or shadow theater play that sort leaned into that sensibility, whereas BG3 is much more like a box office live action film. It just gives me pause, cause I don't think it will have the same kind of shelf life and impact going totally that direction.
BG 2's intro movie holds up a bit better, because of the way it's composed in montage, but still pretty rough.
ToB did something pretty similar... Though nothing inside the gameplay actually looked like these intros.
Clearly BG3 looks pretty badass stacked next to those... it's the whole reason I bought the game early if I'm honest, but I wonder how it will age?
Opening Chase Promo
ps. Full + Hell just since it was mentioned in the OP. It's pretty masterful. Didn't notice that the other promo one ended with the dragon flame. Although admittedly a clutch cut, I definitely liked the full flick in hellscape with the Imps flying around that monolithic III at the end. The opener did feel pretty BG to me, certainly set the bar hella high! hehe
Now that I think of BG1, the difference between a level 1 PC fleeing Candlekeep and a level 9 PC about to confront Sarevok in the hidden underground temple is immense. You feel you've come a long way. Power-wise, but also emotionally. You've survived assassination attempts, learned the truth, made friends, and no fight ever came easy by just pushing someone into a pit or spamming surprise void bulbs and AoE's. Every step of the way, the story has been personal for you. You are in the center of it all, not your amazing cast of companions.
The difference between a level 1 party cheesing Cambions on a spaceship in Hell, and a level 4 party clubbing an Adamantine Golem to death.. no difference. And won't be any different killing an Elder Brain at level 9 or whatever god avatars we will be shoving from platforms by then. Probably your companions will steal the show and you'll play the role of silent witness to their awesomeness.
I really hope Larian can take some pointers in building a more dynamic and immersive world. Or maybe it's the theme park maps. Probably a combination of everything. I don't even know anymore. I'm just not immersed in BG3 and it sucks because I need that D&D fix.
I personally like the initial setting of the game, with the battle between the mindflayers and githyanki. I could certainly skip the prologue on the nautiloid in hell, even though I love the opening cinematic. The mysterious saving from the Nautiloid currently seems very contrived and should probably be cut from the game.
I could currently care less for the Absolute storyline and most of the origin characters. I am not a fan of how the tadpoles are implemented. The tadpole powers seem kind of dumb and contrived. There isn't a good explanation for the suppression of ceromorphosis, so that also feels contrived.
The writing and dialogue is very similar to DOS 2. I feel like this hasn't been a strength for Larian and they should shake up the writing team. Hiring someone that was a lead writer for BG2 or D&D might help?
Larian's changes to the D&D mechanics have unbalanced the game and made it less realistic and resulted in a significant power creep relative to RAW 5E. While I like the tiered construction of their maps, the jumping/shoving mechanics seem very cheezy and unrealistic. The attack modifiers for changes in elevation are also quite cheezy. I feel like this should be a gritty, dark fantasy setting and the cheezy physics detract from that.
I personally like the initial setting of the game, with the battle between the mindflayers and githyanki. I could certainly skip the prologue on the nautiloid in hell, even though I love the opening cinematic. The mysterious saving from the Nautiloid currently seems very contrived and should probably be cut from the game.
I could currently care less for the Absolute storyline and most of the origin characters. I am not a fan of how the tadpoles are implemented. The tadpole powers seem kind of dumb and contrived. There isn't a good explanation for the suppression of ceromorphosis, so that also feels contrived.
The writing and dialogue is very similar to DOS 2. I feel like this hasn't been a strength for Larian and they should shake up the writing team. Hiring someone that was a lead writer for BG2 or D&D might help?
Larian's changes to the D&D mechanics have unbalanced the game and made it less realistic and resulted in a significant power creep relative to RAW 5E. While I like the tiered construction of their maps, the jumping/shoving mechanics seem very cheezy and unrealistic. The attack modifiers for changes in elevation are also quite cheezy. I feel like this should be a gritty, dark fantasy setting and the cheezy physics detract from that.
You must be some kind of purist that hates everyone elses enjoyment of the game
(I'm being snarky, because I agree with everything you said above.)
One thing that doesn't get mentioned much comparing BG1 and BG2 to BG3, is how quickly 3d animation tends to become very dated in the look.
I definitely thought that in 2000s move to 3d for RPGs was a mistake - those games didn't take advantage of the 3d space, while looking much worse then it's precedessors. Now they look just horrible.
I don't think using 3d is a mistake, especially if you make a use out of a 3d enviroment - 2d background does come with limitations. I think games like Warcraft3 still look pretty decent to this day. And I think there are older 3d games that still look great after years passed. I had no issues reptro playing Max Payne, Thief1&2, Systemshock in spite of their age.
I do think cinematic approach is an issue. To do it half well takes a lot of resources. I don't expect BG3 cinematics to look great on launch, not to mention years after release. Dragon Age: Origins is a good reference point - I thought it was awkward when it released - now it's just offputting. It would be a problem, if like BG1&2, the game didn't try to look like a movie. *shrug* I don't expect BG3 to have that much staying power anyway. It will make a splash, and it will age. Poorly.
I could currently care less for the Absolute storyline and most of the origin characters. I am not a fan of how the tadpoles are implemented. The tadpole powers seem kind of dumb and contrived. There isn't a good explanation for the suppression of ceromorphosis, so that also feels contrived.
The writing and dialogue is very similar to DOS 2. I feel like this hasn't been a strength for Larian and they should shake up the writing team. Hiring someone that was a lead writer for BG2 or D&D might help?.
Exactly, Swen repeatedly admitted that Larian never had good writing.
Surprises me that they felt confident and didn't try to up their game for BG3, especially considering how well they improved the other departments.
There isn't a good explanation for the suppression of ceromorphosis, so that also feels contrived.
That's kinda part of the mystery. I don't think we're supposed to have an explanation yet. It's like, I don't think I'd call Agatha Christie a bad writer for not revealing the mysterious affair at Styles earlier.
Personally, I'm loving the story, and I'm absolutely impressed with the writers on Larian's staff. Sorry to hear that you don't. I guess the game's not for everyone.
