Finished the game yesterday and gotta say what a ride man , worth the wait and money well spent But now comes the question for the future ''Now what?''
My guess for the next coming months it will be patches and maybe minor DLCs , thou what sorts ? Anyone can guess I suggest either bringing back some of the cut quest content and free LC's that didnt see the final cut due to time constraints or other issues or even add some new quests in some of the areas that felt a bit sparse (crafting for example) Also as much as i like armor sets bringing and outfit glamour station would be great as well , i miss some of the older tier armors because they looked great but alas i could not keep them equiped due to their lack of stats
As for the expansions ? what could they be ? Well I think most could already theorize we have 2 great expansion settings
1. Avernus - I would call it ''Heart of Avernus'' were we going around the hells fighting zariels forces and trying to fix karlachs heart or better yet get her original heart back , we would use house of hope as base of operations were we collect new and old allies and wage our war against the archdevil , this would also be a good start to introduce next level cap beying lvl 12 since we would need those godtier spells and powers to fight the forces of hells
2. Astral Realms - ''Fall of the Lich Queen'' finally after hitting lvl 20 from Avernus we go and tie up loose ends with Vlakith (since no way her level of ego would let us off the hook that easely after all trouble we made for her) and help children of Gith in their revolution against the false queen , maybe introduce a new talent tree for divine powers since we are gonna be fighting a god .....or at least someone who pretends to be one heh but yea these are my ideas and suggestions , what are yours ? feel free to add them
Larian doesnt do DLCs. At best there will be a definitive edition which, hopefully, fixes act 3, but thats it.
Time to chance the company policy !!
They would make so many people (Larian FANS) happy, they would fortify their good reputation (as company AND for the game itself) AND: They would make a lot of money!
I don't think there's a lot of room for "continuing adventures of this particular party". I mean, there could be, but Larian's devs are right: even though 5E is better at this than previous editions, it gets difficult to balance and make fun at high levels, and I think really needs a human DM rather than a game engine. Therefore, I'd rather see expansions or whatever that are new stories. Maybe a series that goes from level 3 (the 5E DMG suggests starting experienced players there!) to 14.
The game engine is all there... it seems a shame to not take advantage of that to deliver more adventure.
THAT said, really would like to see Act 3 get more development. I don't think I haven't gotten value -- in fact, I totally have, but it's disappointing to see things like
the almost entirely empty gigantic vampire house
. I might be in a weird minority, but I'd be happy to pay for an "extra hard mode" which fills in some of the act 3 unfinished-feeling areas (and maybe also adds some more enemies with interesting tactics to some of the act 1 and act 2 fights?)
I've said it before; I would like to see some more old friends return. Aerie is most obvious. Minsc should be with his witch, she's not very old, and very easy to justify showing up anywhere; just generally wanting to help and protect people from abuse like she suffered, stand by who she's realized are her real family (Jaheira & Minsc), or just having a bit of an explore and wander as her religion pretty much commands her to. And if you need to make her cooler - even though Minsc and I think she's pretty cool already - then sure - give her back her freaking wings (I would make them magic wings that can appear and disappear since she doesn't really consider herself Avariel by this point), or the ability to summon Rocket Raccoon - sorry; Chiktikka Fastpaws. And then maybe a descendant of another character, or another elf from BG1. I was trying to think of an evil character but most of them will have aged more and are a bit harder to justify.
If its too much to add them to the main game at this point, maybe have a seperate little campaign where Jaheira sends a bunch of old characters on another mission, with Aerie going along as their carer.
I think the reason why they don't put out DLC is because of certain technical limitations. From the few patches they've done, it seems that a lot of issues, such as character dialogue, have been fixed and reappeared over and over again, may be there are some limit with their in-house developed editor,so no DLC may be wise.
I would rather see a new campaign instead of DLC. Imagine a whole new campaign with level 1 characters again. They could reuse the same engine and maybe even a lot of the art. The majority of the work would be the story and voice acting. You just create a whole new scenario and let the players go at it. This would be not so much as DLC or expansion. They would need to charge a fair price, $30 sounds about right. The turn around time would be quicker than developing another game for the new campaign.
While BG3 is likely to be supported it seems that Larian is already moving forward on the next project. For example recent inverview on D&D channels, gives me strong vibes that Sven has moved on.
For reference check 11:38 and 43:45.
At a same time, recent Larian memeber did hint they might do something more BG3 related. We will see what they will do. But considering they don't seem to have anything in production, I wouldn't expect anything anytime soon.
I would rather see a new campaign instead of DLC. Imagine a whole new campaign with level 1 characters again. They could reuse the same engine and maybe even a lot of the art. The majority of the work would be the story and voice acting. You just create a whole new scenario and let the players go at it. This would be not so much as DLC or expansion. They would need to charge a fair price, $30 sounds about right. The turn around time would be quicker than developing another game for the new campaign.
I don't expect anything beyond fixing and rounding-out the game, because that's what Larian usually do to create a definitive edition. There will be plenty of mods from other sources, however.
The interview with Swen linked earlier in the thread ( assuming it's the one I think it is ) mentions that they are already starting their next project, which may be Sci-Fi from the wording he used. Swen also addressed the idea of levels 13-20 by saying that would be a completely different game, not something that could easily be incorporated in BG3, but gave no indication that they intend to produce such a game.
I think the only reason Larian would do anything beyond a BG3 Definitive Edition is because WotC provide them a compelling reason, which may happen if enough money is made by BG3, but I wouldn't bet your hat on it.
It's just the acronym and the association with micro-transactions, since people feel burned from the nickel and dime over the years. I have no issues myself with that model for like D&D adventure packs or self contained campaigns, which I'd prefer to things like subscriptions or any sort of MMO where you have to pay as you go. I'm firmly in the camp that would rather see one large package for a sensible price, all up front, than a ton of micro DLCs which is what that conjures up to me.
I fully expect a sequel or some kind of expansion. No other company could have pulled this off!
This is a minor miracle what we're witnessing. So for them not to swing for the fences here would be rough. I mean they put in 6 years already, what's 4 more at this point? lol
They have all the principles still in place, they have momentum and a lot of good will. They could probably also learn much from the experience of the EA itself, making the next one even better. You know with some new boards and more community engagement for that, like just little things every few weeks to help guide the discourse and make the most of that.
What I really would love is for them to focus on Character Creation, and something which I won't call a full DM mode but more like an advanced BG3 "DM Screen" where players can feed in more inputs there to determine what sort of experience it would be. For example they might separate Story choice/difficulty from Tactical difficulty, and provide more for stuff there like recommended XP/treasure scale. I want mostly QoL and Char Creation assets. I think that's where they should put the zots. The templet here is great! I'd love to see another corner of the Forgotten Realms done up to the nines like this.
The longer they wait to move on it, the more people will expect from such a thing, but honestly they have so much going pretty strong right now, that if they did a pre-Order for BG4 EA tomorrow they could probably rack up another couple million pretty quickly that way. I would do it again. Even if EA was minor torture sometimes, it still produced the best game I've played in years. I was skeptical at many points, but they delivered for me. Somehow they did it! Sure there are some critiques, but on the whole, they did right by the legacy as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to see em keep it going!
I don't expect anything beyond fixing and rounding-out the game, because that's what Larian usually do to create a definitive edition. There will be plenty of mods from other sources, however.
The interview with Swen linked earlier in the thread ( assuming it's the one I think it is ) mentions that they are already starting their next project, which may be Sci-Fi from the wording he used. Swen also addressed the idea of levels 13-20 by saying that would be a completely different game, not something that could easily be incorporated in BG3, but gave no indication that they intend to produce such a game.
I think the only reason Larian would do anything beyond a BG3 Definitive Edition is because WotC provide them a compelling reason, which may happen if enough money is made by BG3, but I wouldn't bet your hat on it.
It would also help if instead of making memes and daydreaming about the companions people would instead more loudly complain about the unfinished state of act 3 and bad story/ending which would force Larian to do something to save their reputation. But as long as there are people who constantly shout down any criticism of BG3 and instead flood channels with their Astarion fanfics nothing will happen.
Larian don't do DLCs typically but they've not ruled it out recently, an interview by digital trends with Swen at Pax West asked him about it and his response was
" We, as a team, peaked toward this release. So we’re gonna take a break. That actually is it. We’re tired. It’s been a long, long, long journey. It’s been six years of us only thinking about his game. So we need to refresh ourselves. And then we’ll see. "
Maybe they will, maybe they won't, time will tell, personally I believe they should DLC gets bad vibes because of horse armours and the crap EA/Activision Blizzard/Ubisoft have done over the years which has ultimately effected people's opinions about it, DLC/Expansions done right is beneficial to both the company and players, look at TW3 who honestly thought heart of stone and blood and wine were bad? Blood and Wine was longer than some games and for me it was worth every penny spent on it.
If they decide to do DLC/Expansions then I hope they can find a way to give Alfira as a companion, she definitely deserves to be one and that's a hill I'll gladly die on.
It would also help if instead of making memes and daydreaming about the companions people would instead more loudly complain about the unfinished state of act 3 and bad story/ending which would force Larian to do something to save their reputation. But as long as there are people who constantly shout down any criticism of BG3 and instead flood channels with their Astarion fanfics nothing will happen.
Don't think thats true actually. From what I've seen plenty of people are complaining quite vociferously about the unfinished state of the ending, the lack of anything which shows how our decisions affected the world (Larion need to reinstate the 6 month after party maybe) and the lack of proper companion endings. Larion did more for Karlach due to Karlach fans kicking up a storm but the other companions are treated just as badly. Asterion fans are complaining about it just as much as anyone else given his ending can be completely bugged unless you kill another well liked character and even then can be pretty awful due to a sick joke, and the other companions aren't much better being cut so short as to be almost unnoticeable. But I certainly have noticed plenty of threads complaining about both issues - maybe one of the moderators on the forum needs to amalgamate these threads a bit but that would be a difficult task to undertake.
