This is a non sequitur post for two reasons: My machine can’t run the game; when you’ve got a brand, run with it.
Looking back through the community updates, I believe this is the second time that Larian have directly responded to player feedback. The first was late ‘22 when they stated they wouldn’t annouce a release date for BG3 until they had met their own standards.
More of this, please. More responses, more interaction, more insight into Larian’s plans and thought process.
The way I understand Larian’s communication strategy, they value action more than words. They would rather implement real changes than post on hypotheticals. That’s understandable and, in my book, praiseworthy.
But words fucking matter. (See what I did there, mods?) I know Larian know this, or they wouldn’t have spent so much effort bringing millions of words to life. So, while most community updates have been about how Larian are truly doing a great job, it’s actually nice to see a post saying “here’s how we’re interpreting feedback; here’s our planned response”. This is good. I’m praising Larian.
This was what I was hoping for from early access. That ship has sailed, but a new one may dock yet. And that ship may need a more weathered captain:
We’ll also be working throughout September to improve performance in Act 3 further with new technology that’s been taking a bit longer to release than we expected.
It’s just important to know that what ultimately shipped was planned long ago, in function primarily of making Baldur’s Gate 3 fun to play, not for us to close development quickly.
I don’t know who writes or approves of these posts, but direct contradictions like this aren’t a good look.
The point here is that practice makes perfect. Larian are known for extensive rewrites to their scripts, which can’t happen in reactive communication with the community. What can happen is making this kind of post more often to get better at making them over time.
Larian could make that an integral part of their next early access. Imagine if we didn’t have to wait for Swen Vincke’s Game Design Conference speech to find out why hide was turned into an action after 3 years of dead silence on the matter.
I hope future Larian fans will get more insight into the games they love. I strongly believe that maintaining the level of communication of this update will benefit both Larian and their community in the long run.
