Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Collector's edition reactions

Hello,
I LOVE what Larian studios does with their games and I support them fully.

But for once I want to report that I'm very surprised with this collector edition :
- those who bought the early access are scammed as there is no planned way to upgrade to collector edition
- the key holder is a tadpole, so it's ugly, I could never show that in public.
- the offer comes nearly in middle of December, I already spent so much for christmas gifts, black friday, cyber monday, Avatar 2 movie 3D booking... now I have to pay again nearly 300$. It would have been better to give us like 2 months to save some money and do a teasing before.
- the bonus Magic card are nice... except that I stopped to play Magic 20+ years ago... I feel I'm taking something nice from people who would dream to have those cards. I would also not like to sell them as it's part of my costly collector box.
- the other things are super nice and interesting, except that I would have loved to have 2 times the stickers : one to keep as collection, one to use
- the price is BIG ! I love BG3 and would be willing to buy... If I did not spent 60€ to buy the full game.

I'm sorry Larian but I feel you should do maybe an intermediate additional collector edition because this one leaves me mixed, despite being a MAJOR fan of Baldur's Gate and Larian Studios.

Also, regarding the new trailer, I was super happy to see some new stuff, it's entertaining, exciting and motivating, but I feel it was mostly scenes, characters and places we already did so many times in the EA. Anyway that was cool to see.

Anyway good luck and best regards

here let me help you understand why they could put literal poop in a box with Baldur's Gate III and it would sell.

"I have the Baldur's gate I and II collector's edition, i HAVE to get the Baldur's Gate III one!"

+

"only 25000 copies available!!!"

FOMO and nostalgia are powerful psychological manipulators.

Yes, I would be a great client to fall into this purchase, but actually I'm reluctant to buy it.
Even the statue, yes it looks great and as a teenager I would have loved to display it, but as an old fan of Baldur 1 and 2, now I'm an adult and cannot put that in my living room or bedroom.
I think I would have prefered something smaller or one Bhaal symbol or limited edition personnalized wallpapers (they generate a model and put the name of my main character on it)... things like this that I can actually see without filling my appartement.

and yet you'll probably buy it, right now you're trying to convince yourself why it's worth it, and you'll succeed.

Ahah the temptation is strong, this is true. I'll follow the reactions this weekend to see if many people feel the same and make Larian think twice, before putting again my money and maybe seeing another collector edition coming from nowhere.

Why, exactly, does being an adult prevent you from putting that in your living room, let alone your bedroom? It's not like it's something lewd/violent/generally nsfw.

Express your interests! Enjoying fantasy and D&D and video games is nothing to be ashamed of!

(If your house has a certain ambience/design and the statue would clash with that mood, that's a different issue. But simply "being an adult" shouldn't mean you can't display a cool mind flayer statue.)

I know well over a dozen people in a different forum (non official forum) that are not going to buy the CE for just this reason.

It should have been relatively easy to incorporate it into the Lari Launcher. That is connected directly to your account and there is a pre-order button right on it.


Hopefully someone at Larin will realize the gaff and address it.

I'm an adult and have all my collectors edition unboxed in my living room.

That said, I agree that it's not kind AT ALL not to allow players that have alrrady bought EA to pay less and/or to have MORE - bonuses - goodies - or anything else.

I'm mostly sure EA owners will have something special but it will not worth the 2 copies of the game (1 will be useless) I had to buy both to play EA AND to have the collectors edition.

I'm an adult and have all my collectors edition unboxed in my living room.

That said, I agree that it's not kind AT ALL not to allow players that have alrrady bought EA to pay less and/or to have MORE - bonuses - goodies - or anything else.

I'm mostly sure EA owners will have something special but it will not worth the 2 copies of the game (1 will be useless) I had to buy both to play EA AND to have the collectors edition.[/quote]


You could always sell your second digital key to someone else. However, I don't know anyone who would play this that does not already have EA

Is there any reason the code for the digital download copy couldn't be given/sold to another player? If I wanted the CE, my plan would be to give the included copy of the game to my husband.

Ask your husband to buy it then you give him the money back ! 😁

Don't worry, you will be able to link the key to the steam account of your choice.

It would definitely be a good idea to have the upgrade option for those people that bought the game early on in Steam. As one of the many that wish to do that and as a supporter of the game and studio as a whole, the letdown will be quite big if this is not an option.

Create a forum account to see if the EA prices is being discounted and agree with this 100%. With the price tag the way it is already and with the 60$ I spend on EA, I'm not dishing out an additional 265$ for it. Give it to the EA supporters for 200$ and I'd think about it but otherwise it's BS.

Yeah I was thinking of getting it too but there is really nothing in there that I would want or really need.
Its just not worth it.

I love art books and a cloth map would fit very nicely on our living room wall. And there is no such thing as too many dice - but 260 € is more than I can afford right now.
I wish there was a possibility to buy items separately, and long term, in a shop (I know, this is not the purpose of collector's editions, but it would be very nice).

One thing that I am most interested in is not included: I would really like to buy the full game soundtrack, I think it is one of the most beautiful video game scores, and definitely my favourite.
I hope we will be able to buy the OST on Steam, once the game is fully released.

I plan on putting aside 50 bucks a month...and hopefully there will still be some left unsold...and then I can snag one. But I doubt it. Hell...I will just buy the game and have tons of fun! Besides...I have to buy Diablo 4 and Starfield this Summer. I have never had so many great games all come out in the same year...this is a radical happening!

Sorry, when I said I'm an adult I cannot put the statue around, I did not mean adults cannot do that, it's just that my wife isn't in RPG or video game at all and she would not like to put a fantasy statue in the living room or else ;
So yes even if I buy, It would stay in the box. Though I would open the box once in a while and enjoy the craft, and keep the box around, as a nice memory.

Larian still did not mention anything about the early acces players that already bought the game?
I presume they need a lot of money to finish the game well and pay for an extended period of time so many teams of talented people, I understand that, but that does not seem fair to make us pay two times for the same video game (there is no advantage or special in game items or reserved area to discover for this collector edition).

That's the point of CE games, right? Nothing in there that you actually need. If you don't want this then you're probably not a collector.

Lot of strange reasoning. Of course it's christmas season, the best season to promote something you want to sell. Nobody really takes into account you already bought cinema tickets, cancel them if you want to buy something else?

Also like I said earlier - CE are ment for collectors. You don't have to use those things, they might just look cool on your shelf. Or resell what you don't like and keep what's precious to you. The only thing I can actually agree on is the fact most of us already own the game, so the bonus code is kind of...pointless, but still we can gift those or resell as well.

I dont mind the price, I like the contents apart from the stickers they should have been pins

Dont see why they made the 3 pack of magic cards limited to the first 15k let everyone should get it who has paid?


Im going to give my spare key to my girlfriend.

Im wonder how many copies of ce are left now

Had it comprised of 75mm resin figures of the EA release NPC's, say Shadow, Will and Laezel, I would have snapped one up. The rest of the stuff holds no interest for me. To me at least, it does not feel like a celebration of BG3 and its lore, rather a jumbled but probably well intentioned throw to please a wider audience. Makes financial sense but I would have preferred on top of the figures, items that celebrated moments in the game rather than the generalist merch included.

Just got mine. I have the 2 originals CE and couldn't pass on this.

Overall a good package, but would like more lore material, a case and the soundtrack included.

Did anyone get a confirmation that the booster packs are included on your order?

Yes that's pretty obvious than throwing out of the blue the collector's edition in the end of the second week of december is way too late for most people. Most have already spent their Christmas budget. The offer just came suddenly whereas we are still waiting for patch 9. It's obviously a very hard work to prepare all this package and they were probably working on it since the beginning. So it feels weird that suddenly they just throw that, with little explanations.
They usually elaborate very nicely, collect feedbacks, observe a lot most players reactions... Here it looks like they forced to rush the selling before Christmas, the FAQ is super small and the players advices were not sollicitated for once.

I was super reluctant to buy, but I'm too crazy about this game, I still did it.

However, when I ordred I noticed on the PDF a code like this :
Invoice #2022/12/CE00xxxx
so I presume that CE00xxxx match the number of orders already done.
Anyway 15K on 25K will get the cards so it's most of them, if you bought today you should be into it.

I was wondering if anyone knows if thre are also ingame digital goodies included in the CE? Bit weird if not, but I don't see any mentioning of it.

Edit: typos

Nope. Larian does not do the preorder or exclusive in-game stuff like majority of other companies do, which is one of the reasons why I love the studio. They keep their games pure.

I would love to see something in between the digital release and the costly collector edition. Maybe something with a steel case? Plenty of possibilities there!

Yup. It must be said, that Larian has been putting their games first. I hope they will continue being successful.

Well they do give one thing - Early Access for "pre-ordering". But that is more to help the game.

This is something Larian does that is awesome. Also, props to them for not leaning on expansions and DLC. I love that they release full games and so far in their history the only DLC they have released has been free and actually pretty good.

I'll also say that after they setup this whole D&D based engine (or customized their engine for it) I really hope they follow up BG3 with another D&D game as to cut down on development time and give us another big AAA RPG sooner (hopefully).

Congrats, it is a good CE.

I was thinking the same thing re: serials, but Larian explicitly said it would be stated on the confirmation email. Mine was on the 6000ks, so it is selling fast.

Somebody in reddit contacted support and got a response that they had a change of plan regarding the mtg card confirmation emails and they don't send those out. If the number in the receipt i.e. CEXXXXX is below 15000, it's safe to say you are getting them.

Original CE ? You mean the collector of the enhanced edition, right ?

If no, could you please share a picture of the original Baldur's Gate collectors edition ? I even didn't know there were one and I cannot find any informations on the internet.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pandemonium/4371954673

It was much simpler back then, but still cool given collector's edition were rare then.

First post! Hi!

And now down to business. I've been following the BG3 news for some time now, and I saw yesterday that CEs have been announced! When I tried to order one though, I noticed that there's no option for Asian buyers (Oceania only lists Australia and New Zealand). Does that mean that we Asian fans are out of luck when it comes to buying a CE? Say it ain't so!

Thanks a lot
Very much simpler yes but you are lucky to have it.
That said it is mostly the same than the regular original box I have so it's ok, I won't HAVE to find and buy it

I already pre-ordered the CE as it´s my first BG game i think i´ll play entirely, not because the first ones arguments are bad in any way, but they aged pooly even for the EE, so when i tried to play them now i just couldn´t continue until the end.

My question is, if i´m not going to use the Magic Cards, do you think people would be interested in buying them? It would be a waste just to leave them laying around.

I have the CE's of all previous BG games, but I won't get this one. There's not enough in it I am interested in too justify 250€ for me. The stickers are ok, the cloth map is great and the art book is 'ok', though I have been burned there with a better art book being released separately. Don't care about the Diorama or a keyring. There's isn't even a lore based manual written from an in-game perspective.

Examples of good CE's for me include Oblivion (with the pocket guide), all the old Ultima games, Baldur's Gate 2 and even Siege of Dragonspear (whatever else you think about those). Those were all cheaper too, by at least 50%. Not saying it is a scam, for all I know the Diorama and the Art Book is driving the cost, but I really couldn't be interested any less in a Diorama.

Give me a 100€ version with the cloth map, a trinket and a nice manual and I'd be on-board. But even then springing this after paying for EA feels really bad.

It's a pretty good CE compared to other games recently. That said I was surprised that there is nothing "sweetening" the deal for existing EA owners.

The collector's edition looks really threatening --- but as someone who was thirst-trapped into 500+ hours of Early Access, the only two things that I want is the art book, an in-depth writer's journals with all the process and lore behind the origin characters, and multiple layers of game commentary on release for being such a great Early Access guinea pig (by Swen and the devs, by the writers, by BORIS SLAVOV, THE LOVE OF OUR UNLIVES, and by the voice actors).

Hi folks!

Well, for what it's worth, my two copper pieces' worth.

When I saw that they had announced a "collector's edition", I was initially curious, then somewhere between angry and annoyed that there was no Upgrade Option for the people who'd already purchased Early Access. That, to me, just seems like a cheap ploy to extract more money out of their fanbase. I've enjoyed early access, and goddamn it, there should have been some kind of a price break for the faithful fans who ponied up two years ago for the promise and premise of the game.

And my other reactions after seeing the 'collectibles' were.... meh.

I suppose the statue is okay, and I always like maps. As for the rest, I don't play Money ... I mean, Magic: the Gathering anymore. The character sheets do nothing for me. The key fob is just *UGLY*. And the final killer for me is the cost. $270 U.S. becomes $366 Cdn. And that's just too much, period.

What I *REALLY* want is the artbook - keep the rest of the stuff.

And I also wanted a Soundtrack option for purchase, dammit.

Anyhow, your mileage may vary. That's just my thoughts.

SKP

I believe the artbook and soundtrack will be digital, same as Divinity Original Sin 2 has the extra digital goodies available for purchase.

My guess why they didn't include a soundtrack CD with the collectors edition is because music might not be fully done yet for the game, as we're being introduced new compositions each patch. So that may most likely come later ^^

The CE artbook is hardcover, I believe. And that was the only reason I got the Diablo III collector edition: I wanted the artbook in my hands.

SKP

Yep! A 160-page hardcover beauty of an artbook

Is only something for collectors anyway, but for the sake of my curiosity: In which languages is it available? Probably, as so often, in English only?

Could not have said it better myself. At a minimum they should allow Early Access purchasers to apply the $60 they paid toward the $269 price tag so that it would be a $209 "upgrade," but the contents are not especially attractive either. Also, $269 is a really aggressive price point for a physical collector's edition, for most games it's $120-$150, maybe $199 tops. Clearly Larian did some marketing research and figured that a solid "base" of hardcore collectors would be willing to pay any price point, and that an offensively high price wouldn't affect these people (apparently their data shows there are about 25,000 such individuals).

The contents are meh. The diorama is sort of cool, but not really attractive looking, unless your decor is full of fantasy creatures and stuff it would stick out like a sore thumb. The tadpole keychain is really ugly. If used as an actual keychain the surface abrasion of keys and other objects would probably buff off the edges, turning the ugly tadpole into a strangely non-descript silver phallic object. Magic cards, 20 kids stickers, D&D sheets, the obligatory art book, all meh. Does not justify the $269 price.

But I guess the people who think like us are not the real target, we are not part of the 25,000 "will pay any price" collectors cult.

Actually, CE's are getting more expensive. Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader is being sold for $299 and Final Fantasy XVI CE is being sold for $350. Yikes. I guess it all boils down to how bad you want it. I played the original BG in 1998 when I was 17 and loved it, and BG2 was even better -- like the greatest CRPG I had ever played at that point in my life. So of course, I have the CEs of both of those games. I'm also a lifelong DnD player. So, for me, the CE of BG3 is worth it... even after having already purchased EA.

Yes sure PubisDeciusMons, Larian made us used to better!

I see your point but I feel like half of the CE was especially well crafted (at least, I presume because we don't see much of the artwork book or the sides of the Diorama, by example)

Again, it feels like a great project rushed in the middle and thrown away in the air.
The CE is still not out of stock after one week, that's a surprise, or maybe not so, it totally proves my point when I opened the topic.

Anyway, I don't want to "spit" on Larian, I'm still greatly happy of the game and all their many efforts.

I would prefer a full set of dice with BG3 color scheme gold/dark brown, an art-work book full of lore exposition, D&D miniatures for tabletop, an extra map for BG city itself.

Something more interactive with the lore.

Its incredibly lack buster for over 250 but on par with what everyone offers nowadays. So that makes it OK I guess?
I would of offered more world building/lore stuff; something Larian seems to despise like Day/Night (lol):

A detailed monster/characters manual.
World guides.
Maybe a cool detailed item with some history (from a set of 12 of those!)
All kinds of maps...
A beautifully produced gold coated audio HQCD with killer art. That retro touch bringing us back to the 90s

Instead we get anime stickers (???????At that point I am guessing the creative director/writer is a Anime & cosplay fan), ugly pink/purple statue and keychain to match, a pointless non useful dice...WOTC / Hasbro would be proud.
Huray for the cloth map and art book! Thats all I want from that 250. On the other hand...I could pre-order an Analogue Pocket for 220...

As kids love to proudly point out these days...Don't like it, don't buy it! I most definitely won't.

To be fair, pretty much no device has a CD reader nowadays. I would take an USB key containing the songs or a free download of the OST online over a deprecated media.

Note sure what you mean. Nearly all my friends have a CD player/Amp setup at home. Young or old. Hardly deprecated media. Yea on the go or for quick listening digital files are great! At home, kicking back, plenty of people still enjoy CDs, Vinyl etc...

Its incredibly ironic that you would say no need for physical CDs while accepting this <PHYSICAL> collectors edition package as great.
Many special edition stuff also include music CDs.

On that same note then, why even have an Art book?? How about just the PDF file then??
Or a TIFF file of that statue to display in a monitor or VR set.

I think people who buy these tend to like physical stuff? Or maybe I am mistaken. Its just for GenZ show and boasting on youtube?

The collecters edition looks really nice, but still i feel i let down by Lorian studios.
I bought the game as a early adopter, and i dont have the option to buy the collectors edition without the steam BG3 product key.
The community who early adopted the game helped Lorian to develop the game in to the direction of what most gamers like as well they pointed out bugs and other problems with the game so why isnt there a version of the collectors editions for early adopters who dont need the extra steam product key?

My last three computers did not come with an optical (CD/DVD) drive. My last physical media purchased was a blu-ray and I needed to purchase an external device to read it.

Optical drives aren't very common in new pcs and many music aficionados have gone back to vinyl.

yeah you're mistaken all the industry has changed , you have old habits , all pc case come without cd case , and most of the music is sold in streaming.

I think both a physical Art Book and a PDF format can exist, just that everyone would use them for their own purposes.

Locking necroed thread.

Sometimes it’s okay to resurrect an old discussion when there’s something new to say on the same topic, but at that point it’s a matter of starting a new discussion. Replying to posts that are two years old, when there’s a high probability the original participants have moved on, is unlikely to be constructive.