Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Starfield is lame - Bg3 is going to win GOTY - Taking bets.

I too dont care about GOTY, and neither do I care about the Oscars.

Literally the only thing I know about recent Oscars is that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock will full force.

All zero score reviews are essentially protest reviews. I think Steam reviews are more useful as they are 1) Binary and 2) you have to own the game - they ask you whether you would recommend the game - not for some 1-10 arbitrary number. It solves an important problem with reviews in general.

What no one complains about is that Bethesda can go out and buy 100 different 10/10 reviews from pay for review publications and claim they are an amazing game based on bullshit marketing. Professional reviews have no standard to be held to except their readership - which is why IGN (USA), Eurogamer, NPR, PC Gamer and a handful of others were the only reviews that were honest.

Anyone that gave that game a 100 didn't even play it and just took the cash - looking at you PC World and Destructoid.

Oh, but that's ok.

Okay, but then we have to ask how skewed BG3's scores were. They had less cash, but not WAY less, so they could "buy" reviews if they wanted (though I doubt 'buying' reviews is what's going on here.) And BG3 has received a lot of glowing reviews that we have to, by now, assume were not completely honest, or were based off totally incomplete information - nobody can go through BG3's final act, especially the way it was on release, and honestly claim the game deserves a perfect score. Do I think they *paid* for reviews, and that's why these reviewers handed out undeserved perfect scores? No, but I think there's a lot of hype that's skewing BG3's score way higher than it fairly ought to be. And some of that is down to outright bullshit marketing, too. (Remember the '17000 endings' claim?)

Don't forget that when Larian moved the release date up, it gave outlets roughly 4 days to play through the game, write up a review for it and have the embargo for reviews lifted on the day of release. There is really no good reason why IGN can claim to have played through the whole game, but still have to put out an article days after release about bugs and the unfinished Act 3.

While the endings thing is whatever, the choice and consequence was absolutely marketing hyperbole. Act 1 is replayable. The entire game get's very samey real quick and you can savescum the last hour to literally see all the endings.

Yes, BG3 is way overhyped. In the things that matter most for an RPG, story, writing, mechanics, BG3 is at best average and often times below that.

The only things that it really has is graphics, simping and the name it is in no way worthy off.

Also, testing sites rarely really try to test objectively. Because when they rate something against the hype they will be attacked by fanboys as you could see with Eurogamer. So when there is hype they just slap on a big number and move on. That also helps to get more advertisment from the publishers.
That Larian withold test samples until the last minute so that it was impossible to test correctly made this the only option anyway.
Quite scummy from Larian, really.

Now we sadly have a through and through average game with lots of bad mechanics and a focus on simping to be held up as a master piece instead of being correctly identified as a average 8/10 game. Basically Twilight was being crowned the best movie ever....

I'm fed up with reading BG 3's non-(multilingual dubbed) dice rolling dialogues and I'm now moving on. Probably I'm also pre-damaged by the annoying EA , because I'm still in Act 1 and yes it's booooring and frustrating (faceing reportet bugs again and again).... So now I've treated myself to Starfield to make the universe unsafe like Djin Darin. At least with this game I can start and play my Spotify or YT music playlist. In BG 3, it feels like you're constantly stuck in long-winded dialogues and one can't save oneself by all the "Noobers" haunting you.

I think you just like to say things to say things :P

1) Larian had 1/4 the budget of Starfield
2) The only way you "buy" user scores is by making a game people like. Bg3 had Excellent User and Official review scores. Starfield has ok review Scores and REALLY bad User scores.

I can't defend the unfinished state of Act 3 - but I also think you are reacting to incomplete information and you are misdirecting your anger. I think, given what I have seen and know, that Larian chose the best of a series of bad options. You want to think about the relationships that Larian has and how that affects decisions they had to make.

So not to put too fine a point on it, I don't blame Larian, I blame WOTC/Hasbro.

Every commercial enterprise Hasbro has engaged in over the last 3 years has failed - except this one. The D&D movie may have broken even, investor calls indicate that it didn't bring in the increased player base they hoped. The other D&D game hasbro did was a total buggy mess and flopped (Dark Alliance).

Since then, Hasbro/WOTC has cancelled 5 planned video games. FIVE. They realized that making a successful video game is not an easy thing to do. You can't just hire a random studio to make a successful game in a market this big.

Up to this point Hasbro had been suffering from the problem of not being able to get out of their own way. However, they seem to finally be waking up to how valuable Larian studios is and that they need to do whatever they can to keep Larian engaged with them - just based on recent comments they have made.

Anyway, Larian should have more leverage now and we should see that pay dividends.

Which comments did they make? I hope they wanna sponsor next DND game with Larian

They said recently that the future of the game is digital and they kept referencing Bg3 and Larian. These were recent comments made by Chris Cocks who heads Hasbro.

It's important to understand that up to this point they had been cancelling digital projects and even terminating employees associated with them. With Bg3 staring down Goty and getting rave reviews they are starting to understand that having a talented group of people that can realize these things for them is the most valuable asset they can have.

So now Larian has massive leverage, and hopefully they can use it to get what they need.

Here, I couldn't find the original Video I watched but this is an article that sums up what Hasbro is dealing with. They sold their Film and TV unit at a 3.5 billion dollar loss and profits are down 37% overall - BUT BG3 is slated to earn them more money than all the film products they have been involved in for the last 10 years!!!

https://www.wargamer.com/baldurs-gate-3/hasbro-earnings

So Swen Vincke saying they want to maybe go back to making DOS3 is not something they want to happen.

Hasbro only has to do 3 things here.

1) Give Larian complete creative control as well as freedom to create extensive mod tools for their players and let players create content without being subject to the OTC
2) Negotiate a fair licensing agreement
3) Sit back and cash the checks.

C’mon Planescape: Torment 2

Mostly I would like Larian to grow so they can take on more than just one project at a time.

Wouldn't Starfield having only OK review scores go against your "they bought reviews" point, then? If they were buying reviews, why would they buy merely 'ok' ones? And you absolutely CAN 'buy' and manipulate user review scores (in fact, it's probably quite a bit easier to do that than it is to manipulate 'official' review scores by critics.)

The thing is, there is no reason to believe this is WOTC/Hasbro's fault. This is exactly the way Larian's other games have been when WOTC/Hasbro have not been involved. Far more likely than WoTC/Hasbro forcing them into anything is the simple, repeated, demonstrable fact that Larian simply *does not make well-finished games.* And really, the double-standard on this point, and others, is truly absurd. It's not merely that act 3 has game-breaking bugs, combat degenerates, and the story totally unravels. There are some pretty fundamental bugs in other parts of the game as well - including bugs on consoles that make *basic functionality* difficult. Never in a *thousand years* would Bethesda be forgiven for this sort of thing, and yet here you are trying to say that it's not really Larian's fault.

I'm sorry, but this game is absolutely overhyped, and it's overhyped because people *want* it to mean something, they want it to be a symbol they can rally around opposed to the tactics of larger, corporate game publishers. If you want it to be that, fine, but you need to be honest about what the game actually is.

Take, for example, the praise BG3 is getting for not having microtransactions. Sure, that's nice.

But remember how BG3 was in early access for *years*? Full-price early access? How they had people paying *full price* for a game that would not come out for years so they could use them to debug their product? This was, at one time, considered as toxic and outrageous a practice as microtransactions are; a fact that seems to be conveniently forgotten now. Made even more outrageous by the fact that the moment you *leave* the area covered by EA, it's not long before quality begins to decline. Is this *really* the model you want games in general to follow? Is this *really* what you want to rally around?

Because I can't help but think that such full-priced, massive, successful EAs...actually rely a lot on *name recognition.* I doubt Larian's EA would have been nearly as successful if it did not have the "Baldur's Gate" name on it. But if such a funding mechanism is so reliant on the name recognition of established franchises, isn't that *just as conservative, if not more so*, than companies funding projects internally? The factor that many people lament as being behind creative stagnation in large corporations?

I don't actually expect that games where Larian gets "greater leverage" will actually be any different from BG3, or DOS2, or DOS1. I think they'll follow the same pattern Larian games have followed regardless of the creative environment: Fun first half, hard dropoff in second half. Larian deserves praise for what it did well in BG3, but *scathing* criticism for what it did poorly - especially because it's a failure mode that they've fallen into *multiple times at this point.* I think some of the rhetoric surrounding the game's accomplishments is truly obnoxious. I have no doubt that employees at Larian were "passionate", but I also have no doubt that employees at Bethesda were "passionate." The problem is that "passion" alone cannot make a "great" game. And as far as I'm concerned, BG3 is *not* a "great" game. It's very fun in spots. But it clearly needs some real polish, polish that I am unsure it will ever get, and even if it gets it I am unsure it will elevate it so much that it would deserve to be called a "great" game. If people *really* think BG3 is so grand that something about it is worth emulating, they need to figure out exactly what that is.

It's a functional entry level CRPG in a space unused to CRPGs with pretty graphics and voice acting and an audience that is unlikely to actually finish the game, which explains public and critical acclaim.

Because as I've observed elsewhere, getting details on what the game actually does well as a videogame is like pulling teeth. The mechanical fine tuning is lacking. AI, camera, party/inventory management, systems implementation like long rests, vendor attitudes or stealing, combat balance, performance, bugs, etc. It is stellar in absolutely NONE of that. But you can grease up a statue to move it without the strength check so 10/10 I guess? I can't even give it 5e translation because Solasta exists, but good job on putting it in a framework of a broader game.

Then you move onto CRPG features. The story is only amazing if you either didn't actually finish the game or weren't paying any attention. The story broke both of it's legs and uses the Narrator as a crutch.

Music? Outside of ONE song, it's crickets on the score.

Reactivity? Drops off. Companion interactivity? Drops off. Different ways to complete objectives? Drops off hard. You will fight and you will like it. Because actually doing anything but the DM approved way breaks your fucking game. You can STILL break Act 3 by killing Gortash too early.

Character writing? Sketchy. That's if the character has a finished storyline or isn't bugged in the first place :V You can like Shart's questline, but don't tell me the Warlock responses are anything but random AF junk about how I like making pacts with eldritch entities.

The oft marketed choice and consequence? The second half of that phrase is no where to be found. It's telling that if you ask about that, the answers are 90% going to be about Act 1. The EA for three years part of the game. Endings? Epilogues?

BG3, especially at launch, was absolutely that meme with the horse drawing getting more incomplete each Act.

The 'no microtransactions' thing really gives it away that this is what is happening. I can't think of a CRPG in the past 20 years that has had microtransactions. That only matters if you were using a CRPG to bash normal RPGs in an apples to oranges comparison. A full priced EA and you can still pay more for those premium edition goodies for BG3 today as well.

And not to put too fine a point on it, don't forget moving the date up a month for financial reasons, which just so happened to leave review outfits in the lurch with around 4 days to review it, write up a review and have the embargo lifted the DAY OF release.

I think when you have nothing good to say about something people love and is getting rave reviews then the problem isn't the game. I think some people elevate their own disappointment - at even minor things - to hyperbolic levels and then lose all objectivity.

And it's unfortunate, because objective responses are valuable, it allows you to focus on the issue. When the issue is "everything", also vague and "despite the evidence to the contrary" then those responses have no value.

Being objective, overcoming your own bias is a skillset, some people have it but the vast majority don't seem to. I can't imagine what it must be like, horrifying I suppose, of being captive to your own emotions.

For example: There are things I actually like about Starfield - the ship design system, while a tad buggy and needing better labels on modules, is absolutely groundbreaking and a lot of fun. Designing ships and then walking through them was the most fun I had with the game.

Also the combat itself is not terrible - that IS something mods can improve on because the bone structure of THAT system is good. The rest of the game is quite bad, and it's a bone structure problem. Unfixable. When the universe isn't real but just set-dressing you are basically building on sand.

Comparatively, the bone structure of almost all of Bg3 is good, and so I know the majority of things that need improvement can be improved over time -

With the exception of multiplayer which I am not sure about. It may not be possible to EVER add GM mode to multiplayer and the ability to build additional modules- which is unfortunate because that was a huge draw of the game for me. I mean I started a multiplayer guild and put untold hours into that - now I may as well abandon it. It's sad but Bg3 is still a great single player game and a brilliant game overall.

Please, can we avoid the absurdity of endlessly accusing each other of lacking objectivity, and the insufferable smugness of such commentary as "Oh goodness, I cannot imagine what it is like, being captive to your own emotions!"

Grant the assumption that everyone is trying to evaluate the game as best they can, or no conversation can be had - after all, what's to stop me from pointing out that people who LIKE the game might be captive to their own emotions? It's not exactly unheard of to get swept up in the hype. It is childish (and self-motivated) to think that the opinions you hold are a sign of some personal fortitude and mental discipline that you hold over others that disagree with you.

People are not saying that "everything" is the issue. Rahaya is pointing out that there's an oddity: Despite all the acclaim, it is hard to point to *any one thing* in which BG3 really excels at. That's not necessarily an analysis I think is meaningful: Video games are art, to some degree, and they are greater than the sum of their parts. They can be average, or even subpar, in many measures, but the whole product can come together to be something that exceeds even those that technically outdo it in some respects. Although I would say that one curious thing is: If we're talking about some ineffable "Larian-ness" that their games achieve, that is hard to parse by any single measure, which makes their games fun - then I actually think DOS2 outdoes BG3 in that respect, in the first two acts.

The thing is, if they kept that "Larian-ness" throughout their entire game, we wouldn't need to pick apart what it was. When I played the first 2 acts of DOS2, I was *aware* of the game's shortcomings in many ways. I knew the companions were definitely not the best-written. I knew the story wasn't the greatest. (Although I will assert that their writing in DOS2 was actually better than it was in BG3). I knew they had some questionable decisions in their combat system (the armor system in that game is BAD.) The music didn't stand out to me. The villains didn't stand out to me. I hated their stupid origin character system.

But I didn't care about any of that, really, because in the first two acts the game was really fun.

The problem is that whatever makes Larian games really fun, they aren't able to keep it up for the whole game. Whatever ineffable quality they achieve, that I would say they have in the first 2 acts of DOS2 and the first act of BG3, they somehow lose partway through the game. They've *never* been able to keep it all the way through a single game! If they were able to keep it, the game could be flawed in a billion different ways and I wouldn't care.

But because they *do* lose it, people are left to pick apart the game and try to figure out - what was it that actually MADE the game so fun? And the reality is, it's frustratingly hard to say - because when you pick them apart, even during their GOOD parts, so many of the individual elements of a Larian game just...aren't great. I think the problem is that this is sort of like trying to evaluate artwork by looking at the quality of the brush strokes and the paints; or trying to evaluate a sandwich by looking at how good its pickles and bread were. Individual elements matter some, yes, but in art (as well as in sandwiches) how they are combined can be much more important.

But we want to replicate it, so we have to try SOMETHING. Or at least - I want Larian to replicate it. I want, for the love of god PLEASE, just ONE GAME, Larian, one game where you keep that quality throughout! Because when they LOSE that quality, Larian loses it HARD. DOS2 has the distinction of being the single game I've played most that I've never finished. I found the first two acts of that game so fun, and the final act so unbearable, that despite playing it for hundreds and hundreds of hours I have never *once* finished it. And the sad fact is I think that in BG3 I'll find myself in a similar boat. I pushed my way through the final act on my first run, but I think if I replay it in the future that, barring massive changes, I'll likely never push my way through it again. Perhaps with mods.

And the reality is....that's kind of not a whole lot, compared to other games, for me to have spent 60 bucks on. It's actualy significantly less than I got out of DOS2. That's the thing; at first glance I said that BG3, despite my disappointments, was Larian's best gameplay and writing yet. But actually, upon further consideration, and going back to DOS2 for a bit....I don't actually know that that's true. I think DOS2 might just outright be better in the gameplay and writing departments. So it's just another way in which all the praise for this highly flawed game starts to seem stranger to me.

Oh, spare me.

You are going to say the criticisms are vague when examples are given but your only rebuttal is...'nuh uh?'

I'd love to see your evidence to the contrary. As a direct request. You were also confronted about the double standard of trying to blame Larian's "last act-itis" on WOTC and chose not to respond to it. Start with that before you go around talking about objectivity.

Are there good things about the game? Sure.

If your reaction to 'this is not the greatest thing since sliced bread' is 'you're just nitpicking/hyperbole/hater' because they aren't worshipping it, that says far more about you than the original commenter.

VAs did a good job. The 5e implementation is not the best, but it is functional as a full campaign design and while I do have quibbles about their use of Bonus Actions, that is all they are quibbles. I can't complain about the visual design, I would readily admit the game is pretty. I played DOS 1 and 2, so forgive me for not being wow'd by the interactivity, but it is a step up. I played DoS 1 and 2, so I'm not going to pretend Larian's writing is not their weak point. Some lessons were learned from Fort Joy making Act 1 a truly great part of the game with class and race interactivity and a truly divergent set of options in the main story. World design was done best in Act 1 as well.

The problem is that the game doesn't meet the expectations it sets for itself and to go further, some of the ways in which it fails, it does so by a *large* amount. A 10/10 Act 1 that drops to a 'above average' Act 3, when the latter is a large part of the game means that maybe ending in the middle with a 8/10 is the reasonable take.

I do not care about rave reviews when it means this is the 4th game Larian has released unfinished in a row (and Dragon Commander is still scuffed). You might be okay with the 'release it now, fix it later' meta, but that means everyone of similar mind has just waived their right to complain about performance, bugs or unfinished games from any other developer for *hypocrisy.*

I do not care about it being something people love. This is not a zero sum game. Something can have really high highs AND really low lows. It can be fun and flawed. The developers can create a great experience while also making crippling mistakes.

It can be loved and be overhyped.

To be fair, a 'more than the sum of its parts' can absolutely be part of the analysis. For example, the interactivity. On it's own, you can make a point of how the AI can't keep up or the transition between Turn Based and real time can have clunk that makes Lae'zel walk into your poison cloud, etc. But that's not the point, as even if the individual pieces can be jank, what it allows you to do is a charm and feature of its own. It is like how Skyrim is commonly called as wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle and while true, the point of the game is that ocean width and you can easily see how someone can enjoy it a lot and is something communicable. Or the whackiness of Saint's Row that distinguishes it from GTA or getting immersed in a story or setting even if the gameplay is meh (Planescape: Torment) or buggy as hell (Bloodline: Masquerades).

Just so, you had fun with DoS2 while being aware of its flaws. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Key words: While being aware of its flaws.

Getting flaws acknowledged with BG3 is an uphill battle. DoS2 was getting 10/10 scores from critics saying it would 'revolutionize modern RPGs' (Windows Central) or it was a game with 'little to no flaws' (WCCFTECH) with Arx released the way it was. We've shifted away from just being able to enjoy 'cult classics' to insisting that everything is the best thing since the last best thing.

There ya go, nice work.

A few minor points:


Are you asking me to summarize and extrapolate on the data I have already provided? I can do that if you ask.


This is absolutism. To pretend that there is no point between abject worship and hate is disingenuous and you know it. I literally am trying to (and succeeded) in pulling you into a point between where I think most rational people actually sit. Where you can honestly criticize something and also appreciate it and without getting overly emotional about it. (still working on this bit)

You are the one who made the broad claim that there was evidence to the contrary. It's on you to provide the evidence of whatever point you were trying to make.

It's absolutism you began. Your response to me giving criticism was to make a 'woe is me' post about how some people had *nothing good to say* about the game. That's on you. As I pointed out, did you ask before jumping to that?

Nope.

Still waiting for acknowledgment of your double standards. Quite the thing to leave out when talking about rationality.

EDIT: Also, why? This is the BG3 GOTY thread and I am pushing back. You didn't pull me to any point. Whether or not you get my 'appreciation' is completely immaterial to everything. My criticism in the second post is the same thing as the first post with less detail. If you are dismissing critique because I didn't say enough good things, again, that's a you problem.

I provided what I thought was the relevant data that you can infer from. The problem is that I sometimes take for granted that you may not be aware of some things that are obvious to me. If you like I can walk you through some of that information.

Lets starts with the basics:

Chris Cocks is the CEO of Hasbro/WOTC.

Questions:
1. How long has he been in that role?
2. What is Hasbro's Fiscal year, start/end?