Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Managing Expectations

I realise we are 8 months away from launch and that development decisions on what will be in the shipped content may be yet to be made. However, given the extensive fan base for the IP and the issues other games have had on the hype not reflecting the launched product it would be really great to get somthing from Larian around the key features available at launch. I'm not talking spoilers or minutiae just the principal elements of a D&D game where players may want to insert a version of a pre-existing D&D Forgotten Realms character.

We know all PHB races and classes are in. Would be good to get clarity on stuff like:

- Deities List available for selection?
- Faerun selectable Regional Backgrounds?
- Racial Armor models (beyond Drow and Githyanki)
- Weapons List Available in game
- Crafting or enchanting or dyeing

Again not looking for specifics, just a simple:

It's in, or
we hope to dev time permitting, or
no plans to include

I am hoping for a panel from hell sometime betweeen new and release. I would love to at least see the final game once before august.

probably no panel from hell anymore. but trailers that include more later parts of the game? I think that can be expected cuz their game award trailer only shows bg city that is beyond act 1. the rest we see are still act 1 content.

A Q&A would be nice at some point, im also curious which subclasses will be in (has some worries that not all PHB will make it), will there be crafting, further features to combat (ready action, dodge), how many origin/companion chars there will be etc.

I imagine we will get some devblogs/community videos leading up to release where they also confirm these.

I feel like there's gonna be one last panel from hell close to launch. There's no rule saying you can only have them with a patch. I do agree that it would be great to get confirmation on a couple other things before release.

I feel we will see something at PAX East 2023 in March and maybe some other showcases.

Do we? As far as I know Larian only ever made one statement about that way back that they want to include all PHB classes.

- Wanting is not promising, so that statement is meaningless
- No word about races.

Generally do not expect anything more than what is in the EA or what has been directly said will be in the game in the last 6 months.

At this point we had many hints that it will happen. New dragonborn content got added and datamined not so long ago. Half-orc is in the latest trailer. Larian would expose themselves to a riot of unprecedented magnitude if all PHB races wouldn't make the cut.

"Hints" are meaningless. Most of the time they are wishful thinking and even if it was planned to add them, such unannounced features are the first to get cut when Larian runs out of time.

That is some very high level of pessimism but whatever floats your boat.

Thats 30 years of video game experience.

Rule 1 of managing expectations: Only expect what has actually been announced.

I've been managing my expectations pretty well. I didn't run out and buy 5e source materials so that I could sit back and nitpick everything that I think should have been included, or deride things that I felt shouldn't be. I deliberately limited my time in game, and on the forums, so as to not burn myself out, and so that I wouldn't have my perceptions of what's released colored by either overhyped or over negative posts. While I haven't set the "bar" at the floor, my expectations are sort of set around the same place here they are for every game I buy or think I may want to buy; will I have fun playing it? If I am, then presto, my expectations have been met. This leaves me plenty of room for "Well, that's broken" or "Hey, that's great" too.

^This. Anything else is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.

I'd add multi-classing to your list. The only "official" statement on it I can find is over 2 years old. I agree with Matt22 a streamed AMA would be really nice.

Regarding multiclassing, I noticed that the Larian twitter replied to someone asking some days ago: "Multiclassing is not available during Early Access, but players will be able to enjoy the feature at Launch in August! :)"

If this is true (not whether your words are true but if Larian's words are true), this is something even I will agree is a meaningful improvement of the game.