Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 at Summer Game Fest!

I dont necesarily believe that ...

I mean ... do you know Aberrant Mind Sorcerer?
Thats what i believe will happen to us ...
- good path result in tadpole removal, just to find out that our mind was alterned enough allready and we no lomger need tadpole to do what we did so far
- while evil path will probably satisfy with somehow making sure we cant transform anymore

As in conversation with Astarion ... controll it or get rid of it.

Nope. Not a chance. If it were over that quick and easy it would completely undermine Raphael’s speech, which is something Larian clearly spent a lot of time and resources on.

“Beg, borrow and steal. Exhaust every possibility until none are left, and when HOPE has been WHITTLED down to the very MARROW of despair- oh … what’s that? You removed the tadpole already? Well … I’ll just show myself out then.”

The threat of the tadpole is the device that Larian is using to drive your character to action regardless of their morality. If you are evil and don’t care about saving Baldur’s Gate or the Forgotten Realms, you’ll at least care about saving yourself.

There is old saying in czech:
How to recognize that politician lie? He moves his lips.

Im pretty sure that apply on Cambions aswell.

I think its important here to keep in mind that he wants something (our soul most likely) ... and so his speech is prepared in such way, so we easily get the expression that he is our only hope.
Just as Creche is, acording to Laezel ...
Just as Auntie Ethel is, acording to herself ...
Just as Halsin is, acording to Nettie ...
Its all just the same manipulation.

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You say "quick and easy" ...
I wonder where you get that expression. O_o

Whole Act 1 can take weeks, maybe even month of ingame time ... and we are in situation where we may think we have barely even hours!
If i remember wikki corectly, personality of tadpoled person is in standard ceremorphosis erased in 3 hours from insertion ... so fist Long Rest would be allready too late for us.
How is that "quick"?

Also you would need to get to Moonrise Towers ...
For what we know just from EA ... that would either mean deal with ancient curse that kills anything it touch ... or finding hidden path that is lost for generations ...
And either is only to get there ... you would still need to deal with whatever is there ... in MAIN CAMP of the cult!
How is that "easy"?

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And for the last point.

Everyone cares about realm ...
Good characters wants to help others.
Evil characters wants to abuse others.
And psychotic murderhobos would never let someone else to have all the fun.

Also if your character isnt motivated by self preservation to defend the universe in wich s/he live ... they shouldnt be motivated by tadpole either.
Since thats the same problem on like thousand times smaller scale.

It's more than a bit jarring how much Larian is focusing on presenting their game in a "cinematic way" through promotional material, given how consistently bad they are at it.
Poor camera work, stiff animations, character models that fall just a bit short in terms of detail if inspected up-close...
At least the voice acting seems to be of good quality, I guess.

The game itself looks good, admittedly at times even top of the line for an isometric CRPG (at least when not too many "cartoony" effects are in place in the scene, otherwise it slips behind something like Pillars of Eternity 2), but holy crap if it doesn't feel like they are leveraging its wrong angles and making almost an active effort in presenting it poorly, at times.

Absolutely. I think that a better advertising choice would have been to focus on the city way more. The city looks GORGEOUS and if the whole trailer had been focused on presenting it, showing off some of the stuff you can do in the city, maybe some cool people and places, I think that would have gotten general people way more excited to explore the city. Since he's a lord, you could even still feature Gortash. Instead of focusing the whole trailer around who he is, have him almost be a presenter of sorts maybe.

The game is CALLED Baldur's Gate, tell us why we should want to go there! Though frankly, Act 1 has entirely failed to sell Baldur's Gate as a place so I shouldn't be surprised their marketing does the same.

An alternative thing to focus on is the amount of choice present in the game. For all my issues with it as a roleplay experience, I'm not even going to pretend BG3 doesn't have a truly impressive amount of flexibility in what you can do. Showing some of that off would have set it apart from all the more linear games at the showcase.

well they still have PC gaming and the devs came to confirm this

Right on top of that a not to be underestimated part of the playerbase, who have to read the texts anyway because English is not their native language, don't give a damn about voice acting. The focus automatically shifts to other priorities that are much more important. One can only hope that Larian has the same focus...



It depends more on whether you can follow the principle "less is more" and not exaggerate, then an implementation can succeed well. Actually, I don't like steampunk in DnD either, but I like the Artificier class except for a few peculiarities.

I have problems to understand the Alchemist as a subclass of an Artificer. I would rather see it with a Druid or Wizard, or as an entirely separate class.

The Steel Defender from the Battlesmith is more like a Golem than a Construct and looks really good too: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M8kCf8mUHGH4y2tx5i4 So I hope these Steel Watchers from Gortash are not Golems, because they just don't look like them. They really look like Constructs of an Artificer. I couldn't even imagine an Iron Golem like that. You can tell I'm too BG 2 biased.

The Artillerist subclass is probably the most controversial one, but I would like to see it, but, as I mentioned at the beginning, in a toned down form according to the principle less is more. I don't need cannons, although I'm wondering how ships are equipped in the BG Universe. A mini-ballista as a combat drone would be perfectly sufficient for me: https://www.etsy.com/de/listing/130...-12&sts=1&organic_search_click=1 It is also about aesthetics and authenticity.

I mostly agree on that feeling. Cinematic trailers aren't bad, especially in a show like the SGS where it is the norm. What baffles me it that it leaves people who never played BG3 completely dumbfounded and that is the overwhelming majority of the million and a half people who watched it live. I am sure a good trailer can showcase both the city of Baldur and an antagonist, while still being enticing for someone who never played the game. Previous trailer was ok in that regard since it presented a variety of situations, this one drops everyone in the middle of a campaign they never participated in.

I have vague notions of Alchemist - or was it Potione(e)r? - being a sub-class of Mage in 1st or 2nd editions.
But my memory can be playing tricks on me again.

Ha!
Rolled a 20 on "Datamining" skill!
http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2020/02/class-struggles-alchemist.html

I think it's a mistake to for them to get into the weeds of the story in their trailers, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention it probably means next to nothing to them.
Oh no! Gortash knows Ketheric Thorm! Who? And again, Who?

They should be harping on the spectacle of the city, maybe with some nostalgia beats, and showing off the classes and encounters more. The Nautiloid sequence and the tadpole are enough of a hook. Maybe this is a result of such an extended EA process they're afraid of repeating things.

"It doesn't matter who. Enjoy this up-close of Thorm's remarkably plastic-looking beard".

You very much miss my point. Of course Raphael is lying, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. I said Larian would not have bothered creating that scene at all if we could simply remove the tadpole in Act 1. They spent a lot of work on that part of the game, and you can’t even accept Raphael’s offer yet. That plot point is far from resolved and won’t be resolved so quickly and easily.

And by quick and easy I’m not referring to the time and effort your character spends in universe. Im referring to the time and effort you as a player are spending playing the game. Act 1 is too quick and too easy to resolve this issue.

As to your last point- also nope. A selfish character, after removing the tadpole, would simply leave and let others deal with whatever else is going on. By the end of act 1 we aren’t going to know what the full threat is yet, so even if an evil character would save the world out of self preservation, that wouldn’t come into play because that evil character would never have progressed in the story far enough to learn there was a larger threat. The tadpole and it’s existential threat is the narrative device that demands the character stay involved in the story and continue to investigate their way through the plot regardless of their moral intuitions. It won’t be removed until much later, if not the very end of the story. The role it serves is too important.

But we don’t need to keep debating the issue. We’ll find out in a few months when the games exists EA.

Nice finding, the look of it has really some similarities with this steelwatcher !

As for who raised Gortash, I am tempted to answer Tymphal, the only archdevil known to be a mech genius and master smith & constructs

Ok, i am perplexed and bothered as well by something, and one other person on this forum had the same reaction, so at least it's not just me.

We are almost 2 months from release. They have shown several trailers so far, the last one yesterday. Again, in Baldur's gate, inside the city, so a great deal after the beginning of the game. We still see the same armors, or rather, the starting equipment for players. Is this the only thing they have to show? We had some dataminers dig up some armors back in the day, but nothing official except some mods, and still, not full sets, so we don't know how all the set would look on us. Are these the only things we can expect in the final release? Or are you going to show something more? When? When the game releases?

In the last trailer, we see again the flaming fist guy wearing flaming fist armor and the boots and gloves from the starting area(metallic gloves and boots). Again, they don't align at all with the armor. We saw mods showing plate armors, again not aligning at all with glove-boot models. I have to ask, 2 months before release, since i have NEVER seen this in any kind of RPG out there. What is happening? Are you guys going to show us anything? Or it just doesn't exist? I mean, Gortash is fine and all, and his voice actor is superb, but what about us? What about the player characters and the options they have? What about customization, different armors, properly aligned armors, looking cool and finding loot in a fantasy RPG, having options?

Give me something to be excited about man, i like armors, i like my knights, i like all the things you don't show, and when you show them they look just wrong(unaligned, with gaps, like the pieces don't belong to the same set).

You are supposed to be promoting this. What are you promoting exactly? Villains we know nothing about, and bad armor customization? How do i know i will have more options in the final release of the game when the characters look the same as EA.

Give us something, and please, please, allocate funds to character and gear customization/variety. Let us not find ourselves with 1-2 models of heavy armor again that looks nothing like armor. And this is why i'm ranting. It's 2 months from release, and you show this. Starting outfits. Things we already saw through mods. Is this the only thing to expect from the final game as well?

I am at a loss for words.

I see no logic behind this ...
Sory.

Scene serves its purpose ... no matter if what is discussed in it is there just to set mood, or to offer actual questline.

You cant accept it when he talks to you ...
Im talking about END of Act 1 ... thats like 8 levels, several weeks in game time, or maybe whole days in real time, later.

In fact, we dont even know if we will be able to accept his offer any time ...
And just to be completely honest, we dont even know if we will be able to REFUSE his offer either.

Plot? Most certainly not! ( )
But tadpole? Sure, it can be done.

(It either just sounds that in my head, bcs im really bad in reading english, or i can start rap. xD)

I mean, its nothing uncommon in stories ...
You set a goal, and when your characters reach it, they find out that it was meerely a mid-step rather than actual end.
Frodo also thought that bringing The One Ring to Elves will be finish ... and only there he find out it needs to go to its source ...

Thats same story ...

How long does it take to you to finish Early Acess, if you dont speedrun?
To me its like ... 2-3 days ... when i play around 6-8h ...
And we know (Sven told us like (half-?)year ago in PFH) that this isnt even half of Act 1!

Thats a very odd character concept ...
Being concerned by having a worm in his head, bcs s/he is affraid of their life ... and yet dont care about universe that is about to end, wich (quite logicaly) would include his demise. O_o

I mean, sure ... nothing stops you from playing a mad character who have no logic at all ...
But is it suitable argument? :-/ Dont feel like one to me.

And you know this ... how exactly?

Hint: You dont.
Bcs if you would test play by Larian and know some story from later parts of the game (wich is the only way to know right now) ... you wouldnt be allowed to speak about it ...

Yes ... and as this threat gets removed, it will be replaced by another one.
That is how storytelling works.

You know, like "you shouldnt be here, bcs Nasghouls are coming after the ring" was replaced by "evil master is going to destroy whole world".

I agree, we don't need to touch on the narrative or story really much at all. It's not going to make any sense unless you are really closely following it anyway - which is a very small percentage of people who are mainly already on this forum. WE don't need marketed to.

Show people Baldur's Gate, maybe some familiar vistas from the original that have been lovingly re-created in this engine. As dirty as it is - nostalgia works and people who played the original will be hooked on the idea of seeing the updated version of the city. Maybe highlight some aspects of the city that are not tied to the main story, but just exist.

Or how about a glimpse at some totally other aspects that haven't been highlighted yet. Waukeen's return, her experiences and future plans. The Dead Three should also have more than a bone to pick with Cyric. How does the Raven Queen react to Shar, and and and...

I don’t think people complain that they didn’t see enough, but they question if it was a right trailer to show for a major showcase like the Game Fest.

Edit. I don’t want to harp on trailer quality too much. Trailers take time, and perhaps capturing some in-game cutscenes and stitching them together might have been the quick and presentable thing to do. I am sure the cinematics team have their hands full finishing the actual game.

Name “golem” refers to a specific folklore so it’s understandable to have preconceptions.

I hope you are right. Golems are meant to be magical in nature, and Steel Watchers seem like mechanical inventions. Could it mean, that Artificer class could be a thing in BG3?

I would very much welcome the Artificer class in revised form. Battle Smith and especially the Artillerist.

I already had the suspicion then: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=833958&page=2 that it is a that this one marionette (at 1:32 min.) is a hybrid of an Artificier Necro. After we see Ketheric and Gortash in dialogue at the end of the new trailer, I can imagine them as "collaborative creations of a Necro & Artificier", the more.