Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Is BG3 bad for the genre?

We all have heard the controversy shortly before the release of BG3 when other game studios dissed BG3.
But now that I look at the game and the reactions to it, I fear they were in some way right, but for different reasons.

BG3 obviously has problems. Act 3 is a mess, its full of bugs and even the story and characters are not all that great. But nothing of that matters. Why? Because nearly everyone is talking about sex and are simping for the companions. So what does that tell other developers? That they just need to add sex and characters specifically made for sex appeal and "attractiveness", checking off various preferences on a list and they are good. No need to invest much resources in writing and storytelling.
This will sadly be the near future of RPGs. Sure there will still be PG13 RPGs without sex (although they too will likely create their NPCs in a way to allow for simping/thirsting) but the flagship AAA RPGs will probably all go into this direction.

There'll always be empty souls who produce by checklist, without passion or understanding.

It's the visionaries we hope for. The ones who understand that creativity is about more than quotas. The goal becomes one of inches, where the inspired creators lead the way, bit by bit, and perhaps, one day, we'll finally get there.

Not sure I agree totally with the sex part but certainly I agree with the companions and relationships part. Larian didn't start this but RPGs are on the slippery slope of dumbed-down, pap for the masses, lowest common denominator tripe. The direction the D&D rules are going in is part and parcel of this.

I have to be honest, by this point I have seen more people saying "EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT ALL THE SEX!!!" than I have actually seen people talking about the sex.

The problem is that the 'empty souls' are the ones who control what will or will not get produced.

I don't care about the sex. I choose Shadowheart as romance, because hers is the one with the least sex content, because it's not, what I want.
I'm in act 3 right now and don't see any bugs and enjoy it immensely. The only thing is that I had to start the fight over, because one of the opponents bugged out. That's it. I have more bugs in games, that are years released.

You said it perfectly, @Beechams. Couldn't agree with you more, other than that there are at least a few studios out there that I believe will continue to hold out against this tyranny of the lowest common denominator majority.

For studios like Obsidian and inXile, being part of Xbox Games is the best thing that could happen to them and to us *roleplaying* game fans. MS has been quite vocal in pointing out that they want small, niche games from their studios because they cannot have every game in GamePass be a huge blockbuster GOTY type game and NEED many smaller games to fill out GamePass to make it attractive to subscribers. So these studios can make those smaller games that are not meant to appeal to millions of the lowest common denominator. Per what the director of Obsidian said in a recent interview, that's exactly the choice they have made, to make smaller, single player only, story-focused, AA games and NOT huge AAA mass-appeal games. And I for one am extremely happy with this. Extremely.

I hope you are right, but we haven't seen much from either of the studios, and nothing RPG related since the acquisition. Obsidian choose to pursue different genres (survival & narrative adventure) and their bigger projects (Avowed, Outer Worlds2) are still unknowns. InXile has Clockwork rRevolution, but I also am not sure what it is - looks more Bioshocky to me, than RPG-y.

Isn't that what D&D always has been? It's an horrendous monster of Frankenstein stitched together from leftover bits of fantasy pulp. At least sex is something realistic, instead of humans mating with dragons and producing beings with human bodies and dragon heads, looking like low budget movie monsters from eighty years ago.

I can see little difference between D&D and the moronic Star Wars franchise, for example. Both are plainly catering for children, but are adopted by grownups that have enough time on hand to get in touch with their inner child. Nonetheless, it is all very nonsensical.

Being afraid that the genre will be dumbed down is an irrational fear, I think. There is not much deeper to sink, after bunny humans. Still, I am glad it is possible to make interesting computer games based on such inane foundations.

95% of everything is crap. This was true before BG3 and it will be true after BG3. Nothing to see here.

If I had to choose studio that I think will carry the torch of quality RPG games, I wouldn't name neither Obsidian nor Inxile. Obsidian haven't delivered anything truly amazing since FNV (except Pentiment, but this is something different) and Inxile disappointed me with both Wasteland 2 and 3. Their humour just don't click with me. I don't have big expectations towards Avowed, if anything I'm more curious of Clockwork Rwvolution (if it will be closer to Arcanum rather than BioShock).

What?

I don't intend to be dismissive of this post, but I firmly disagree with its logic.

Baldur's Gate 3 is not the first successful game, or RPG even, to have sexual elements. Almost every BioWare game since Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins have had these elements. I'll be posting the Fox News moral outrage segment for ME1 at the end of this post. People talked about BioWare's romances for years, "simping" for characters like Liara, Miranda, Garrus, Morrigan, Solas, etc. Yet there are very few RPGs with similar "obsession" on romance and sex, with the notable exception of BG3 and a few others. Obsidian went out of its way many times in the last ten years to avoid doing romances at all. Other CRPGs do not have cinematics to portray these dynamics. Bethesda has the technology, but prefers to allude to the interaction. We're not in 2005; we've had almost twenty years of sexual content in video games by this point. There is very little in these romances, sexual interactions, and characters that we have not seen already in the last decade of video games. Hell, Saints Row IV parodied the whole romance and sex dynamic in games back in 2013.

Further, we have a ceiling on sexual content in the form of transitioning the game from a rated M to a rated AO. GTA: San Andreas went through the hot coffee controversy, clearly establishing a limit on sexual content in a game by an advisory board, regardless of the size of the company. That's why we have Reddit posts saying, "For how horny this game is, the sex scenes are remarkably tame." They have to be tame for financial reasons (and also, I imagine, creative reasons).

Developers are not brainless sheep. They make games for a living and play a variety of games. For their creative visions, they are not going to look at "OMG SEX!!11!1!" and take it one-for-one to whatever project they are working on. That's not how project development works, and it's not how a creative process works. Someone might come in and say there is utility in some sex appeal, but this will be contextualized in the nature of the project in question. If anything, games have become less sexual in the last 10 years, but are certainly more sexual than they were 20 years ago. Developers are people, not mere bodies in motion.

Relevant Links:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame)

Go ahead, the sex scenes don't bother me at all, in fact, I'm one of those who think that Larian should recycle scenes to make montages to go to sleep with your partner at the camp and have a romantic scene with your partner before the final battle, I think they are details that would give immersion because they are realistic behaviors. Having said this, I am concerned about the behavior of the community in relation to this, especially because these companies have investments, shareholders... who do not care about the quality of the result, they want to sell with the minimum investment. If the message that we consumers give is: you can give me an incomplete game and I can't stop saying that the game is perfect, how wonderful, because you give me a few sex scenes... in the future we are going to eat a lot of shit from games full of soft porn. And for the record, I hope they fix Baldur's sooner rather than later and it becomes the epic game it deserves to be, but right now it is not and we cannot forget it because of some erotic scenes (which, by the way, they have made these scenes very elegant, nothing scandalous).

I add that other games have had romances but it is the first that has such explicit romances, and with so many possibilities. Damn, you can fuck an illithid

Its by definition impossible for anything to be bad for the genre simply because this genre was close to death for two decades straight.

The worst case scenario is therefore that things stay exactly the same as before.

P.s.: And so far I'm just avoiding the romances altogether.

I disagree.

Pretty much.
The other companies see that they can release unfinished games just fine. They just need to add waifus and soft porn to the game and everyone will only talk about that.

But I disagree that the BG3 sex is elegant. Larian came to the same conclusion described above which is why sex was such a central feature in the marketing. From constantly mentioning it ("we used intimacy coordinators!"), to of course showing it to rile people up (bear sex) and of course how central sex is to the interaction with the companions and much dialoge is about romance and sex and not much else. Which is also why they changed their plans, abandoned what they worked on and made Halsin/Minthara companions as they saw people were thirsting for them. So Halsin became a sex addict to fuel that.
And of course how easy it was to get sex already in act 1 (no, this was not a bug. This was intended so that EA players can have sex scenes)

Are we playing the same game? Sex was not at all central to interacting with the companions for me. The only one who propositioned me was Lae'Zel, and I put that down to her being a weird alien. The others flirted with me, but I rejected them. I romanced Shadowheart but tbh she seemed distracted for huge chunks of the time with her personal questt.

I swear I read what's being said in this thread and I feel like I'm seeing comments from another universe. Like, you guys are the *only ones* saying that "NOBODY IS PAYING ATTENTION TO THE BUGS BECAUSE SEX!!!" Meanwhile, there are complaints about the bugs in act 3 and other issues in *nearly every other forum here, in multiple threads.* Also seems bizarre to me that you're talking like this is a new thing. In fact it seems to me romances in games were MUCH more involved and in-depth than what BG3 offers 10-15 years ago, and yes this includes sex scenes. Somehow a bunch of other much more popular games included sex scenes and romancing companions without destroying the genre. I mean you DO know that Baldur's Gate 2 allowed you to romance companions, right? In a much more involved romance storyline than BG3 does? If I remember right I think one of the romance options even gets *pregnant*? It didn't have sex scenes, though. But DA:O, at the time considered the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, did.

Go to reddit, various fan forums, discords, ect.
Bugs are mentioned here, but in other places, places where the Devs pay much more attention to, its all about memes and thirsting. That is especially obvious in places with a voting feature.

And already in EA Larian created hype with their sexual content and put it into overdrive in their last PFH. That hype created good reviews, as magazines have no interest to go against the hype, and all of BG3s problems faded into the background. A template if what other publishers will do in the future.

And no (mainstream) game did what BG3 did. BG2 had a few romances with selected companions, but in BG3 you can have sex with everyone and quite early. Its also not fade to black but acted out.
Cyberpunk did beat BG3 with their genital selection (Not sure though how this looked in EA) and no game boasted having to use intimacy coordinators during their marketing or showed sex scenes, including sex with a bear, during a big, public marketing event.

I feel we had this discussion, word for word, after every Dragon Age game
that the 'adult' material would drive away youth and stop new fans, that the high AAA budget and style would prevent smaller games being viable, etc etc

and like, here we are decade later still having it and with way more CRPGs to play so, I think we're good

As long as you can disable nudity, which you can in BG3, and it is completely optional to do that I can't really see a problem with it. It would be good if there where som kind parental controls connected to steam or something.

I think evolving characters and relationships with your companions is pretty realistic and adds a lot of depth to game and that is something that is missing in a lot of similar games.

Personally I think it is educational rather harmful for teenagers playing the game that you are able to build relationships that eventually that develops into love and then maybe even consensual sex. Especially compared to all the pornography that exists on the internet. This is way better.

Yes theres some bugs in the game, some such bugs stopped me from being able to complete Act 3.

But it still has far less bugs on release than any other AAA game for a long time (lol Starfield).

I've put it aside for now and went back to replaying BG2.

As for the adult material, I never hear any complaints bout games or movie that are rated 18+ purely based on violence. Its the same old prudish nonsense from the same old people, and kids shouldn't be playing violent games in the first place.

The problem with BG3s overreliance on sex is not that it offends prude people, but the effects on the industry as sex (and designing characters as waifu/husbando) seems to be a easy and cheap way to create hype and hide problems.

The same was Mass Effect caused most RPGs to include romance after the same formula, the danger is that BG3 causes publisher to add the same shallow softcore experience to their games.

I think some here are misunderstanding the OP. The issue is not that the game has sex and nudity in it and that these things are upsetting to people with prudish sensibilities. The issue is that for many fans of the game, the sex and the nudity *are* the true selling points of the game. For possibly millions of the game's fans, the sex and the nudity are what they're here for, and not really for anything else about the game. And if this is true, yes it is a big 'if', then the lesson for other RPG developers for the future will be: put a whole bunch of gratuitous sex and graphic nudity in your game if you want to get big sales numbers whereby people won't care about bugs or plot holes or story inconsistencies, etc., in your game.

Well the issue is in all entertainment industries, sex sells. The game reaches a wider audience. People complaining about it generate more interest and free publicity, so even more people buy it.

E.G I wouldn't have ever have heard of Sam Smith if it wasn't for the barrage of videos hating him. I wouldn't have even bothered to click to listen to any of his songs otherwise. I didn't like any of the songs and just thought 'meh, its just a male Madonna, who cares'.

Likewise loads of people would have never heard of this game without the twitter bear sex scene controversy. It doesn't need to be in the game at all, but all the backlash generates more views = more sales.

Meh, I really, really doubt this is true. There is ubiquitous, free porn on the internet if that's what people are REALLY after.

Instead, I think what likely happens is that the sex gets the game more attention. Like remember when that "bear scene" got really popular and tons of people were laughing about it? I doubt that scene *alone* made people buy the game because "OH WOW I CAN HAVE SEX WITH A BEAR". Instead it probably got a lot of people thinking, "Oh hey what a funny looking game", and then they checked it out and bought it if it sounded good to them. Sex itself wasn't what they bought it *for*, but it was what got their attention.

I also don't think that this is necessarily going to inevitably lead to people only caring about the sex. Indeed, I think it is very likely by this point that Larian is suffering because of its bugs. I think by this point many people have gotten to Act 3 and been disappointed, and as a result will think twice about buying from Larian in the future, at least on release. Sex isn't this magical factor that glosses over all the flaws in a game; indeed if it was don't you think developers would have figured it out LONG before now and games would have already become nonstop softcore porn?

What worries me more about bg3 is that alot of people might try out dnd. Only to discover that half of the game follows Larians house rules and not the dnd rules set.

Getting more people in the hobby is great. But not like this. They would basicly be lured in with fake promises. False advertisement, if you will.

And the main problem is also because they changed SO MUCH. No single aspect of the game is free of changes. You couldnt pick up dnd from playing bg3 a few times. Because youd have to go back to square 1 on most things.

So yeah I do think bg3 might do damage but not in the way OP meant.

Ehhh....I mean I have complained LOUDLY about some of Larian's (ill considered) homebrew choices (HASTE SHOULD NOT WORK LIKE THAT IN PARTICULAR), but I think some of their OTHER homebrew choices have actually been good. Even though I am a wizard main who LOVES CC spells, I actually agree with some of their CC nerfs (although I would not have nerfed them down to 2 turns from 10, that seems a bit harsh, particularly with how easy they also made it to wake up sleeping characters...). And I think the different weapon actions are genuinely fun. (I think a ot of the problem is actually down to absurdly unbalanced gear that they give you, along with the tons of superpowered consumables). I definitely don't think BG3 is so alien that people would be completely unfamiliar with 5e if they tried it out.

Thought about this, too.

As a big fan of RPG culture, I think this game may draw some, lets say, vanilla people attention to our hobby, and this may bring a "toning down" of the more... intense aspects of what we love in TTRPGs and CRPGs*.

Also, imagine for a moment, Moneyvision-Blizztard trying their hand on a CRPG. This could turn things quite sour if the community doesn't clearly distance themselves from their business practices.

Edit:

* Just watching a stream from someone REALLY enjoying the game and I can't help but think "wow, mainstream will want to remove this and that and so much more from the game to make it more palatable for the normies". Urgh. Imagine a parlamentary discussion regarding "Dark Urge" or . We have been there, remember? We have been there with all those self-absorbed do-gooders trying to ruin FPS and I feel like I really need to protect TTRPGs / CRPGs from them. I really don't want the general "Barbie and Ken in cotton ball land"-mentality that is so pervasive in Karen-dominated mainstream culture creep into the hobby I love since Ultima VI (oh, and "Castle of the Winds", if anyone happens to know that) was released.

Nerd culture is mainstream culture.

Not the nerd culture I happen to know. ;-)

Meh.

I just disabled all that in the options and moved on.

And I dont think its much of a selling point.


I really loved romancing Aerie in BG2.

I tried romancing Viconia and it was very funny, but also required to keep reputation at 18 or below and that was too much of a PITA for me.


BG3, none of the romance options have much appeal to me. Maybe I'll try Karlach some day. But maybe not.

Disable what? Last time I checked there wasent an 'disable homebrew rules' option xD

No. What people THINK is nerd culture is mainstream culture.

Shows like 'the big bang theory' are mainstream and have such a 'hello fellow kids' vibe it makes my skin crawl.

No, I don't think so. I think outright nerd culture is mainstream culture, and I say this as someone who can remember playing 2nd edition when I was very young and well before it was mainstream. I played with a kid from a catholic school and if he had been found out, he would have been made an outcast there. I actually got to witness priests telling people that this dungeons and dragons stuff was satanic firsthand. Everything about nerd culture is far more mainstream than it used to be and the world is far better for it. I mean you give "The Big Bang Theory" as an example, as if it isn't entirely mainstream to make fun of that show in the first place. It is both mainstream to watch it and to make fun of it. Being "mainstream" isn't one monolithic thing. Being non-mainstream meant being actively ostracized in some way for what you enjoyed. And the vast majority of things that were once considered "nerdy" enough to be worthy of ostracism, in the vast majority of places, are now utterly normal and banal to enjoy.

The other day I saw a massive guy at my gym lifting weights in a D20 shirt and another guy with a 40K Chaos Star tattoo.

Nerd culture is mainstream culture.

You know, I would've said the same thing myself (about free porn on the Internet negating the attractiveness of sex in a video game). But the truth is there are a great many people (on reddit and other similar places, and a few even in this forum) who openly say they love this game for the sex (and also that the bear sex escapade is what they bought the game for), so I dunno. But even this makes no sense to me, because I very strongly believe that the sex stuff was way better done in Witcher 3 than here in BG3. So may be I just can't relate to the generations younger than me anymore. <shrug>

Nudity etc.

I don't know, why would someone coming from 'mainstream' not sign up for darker themes. There are enough examples in pop culture, that dark/horror/ more difficult themes can work. I mean there are whole series with serial killers as protagonists and while Dexter might be the really nice guy, Hannibal is not. And I remember that years ago, when I worked at a bookstore, people were shocked by American Psycho, but nowadays it is considered a classic of its genre.
I mean, yes, there will always people complaining about not liking some things, but I think, that's normal to a degree. I don't feel threatened, if more people start to play crpgs. It doesn't have to be a dumb down.

But I agree, that some studios shouldn't try their hands on crpg. But it seems Hasbro themselves go into monetarisation with One DnD and the required platform.

I find the idea of a genre getting bad when introduced to the mainstream to carry a degree of arrogance to it. Game of Thrones was firmly mainstream and everyone liked it for its darkness and complexity and violence, and turned on the genre hard when that went away. I think people's idea of main stream is just a little too unkind for the most part. Im sure we'll probably see some crpgs come out geared to a more casual crowd, but I don't believe that equates to a loss of hard-core products. I even think that the hard-core audience will end up seeing a net growth (though probably not a huge one, in all likelihood) since inevitably there will be a percentage of people who want more of this kind of game and will branch out, with his as their introduction.

As for worries about games trying to include more sex for marketing, games have been doing that more and more for decades. Look at Dragon Age and Mass Effect. If its gonna be a problem, it's not BG3s fault.

Lol how is that proof of anything? 40K is still very obscure for most people. If they have heard of it at all chances are they will only know its 'that one grimdark setting'. Or heck it could be a player. 1 example doesent mean everyone knows about it. 40k as a whole is not widely known.

I will concede though that since critical role rose to popularity dnd has gotten alot more popular. But to play something you have to abide by the rules (either written or unwritten) tied to it. Groups can have house rules ofcourse. But each group that plays chess, will generally be playing chess. But nowadays hobby tourists (people who play something because its currently popular. Not really because they like it but for a fear of missing out) tend to want to play chess... but their way.

Same with dnd tbh. So many people saw critical role and suddenly wanted to play. But rather then play the actual game they think method acting is dnd. Uhm... no?

The cast of critical role are professional voice actors and like to rp their character alot. But they also tend to follow the rules. Thats also not the only 'correct' way.

Some people have little to no rp at all in their game and just want to kill monsters and take loot with their friends. Others have a mix. But a group that only RP's is generally very rare. Because you can do that without dnd. You dont need to play dnd to do that. But alot of people (mostly the ones who only saw critical role) will straight up tell you youre not playing dnd because you arent doing it like Mathew Mercer and co are doing it.

These people never picked up a rulebook or dmed anything want to tell me how dnd is played because they watched popular people play it. Gtfo with this nonesense.

Im looking forward to hearing how im playing dnd wrong because I dont do it like Larian.

After having slept about it...

My actual take is that I like that Larian Studios is really doing hardcore CRPGs, without any strings attached. D:OS2 was hardcore, BG3 is hardcore, it is wonderful dark fantasy with a lot of humour I really enjoy and depth.

Thats what I want to keep, I don't want toned down, dumbed down CRPGing, I want more great, hard to master, adventures like what I have now with those two most amazing games.

Thats my greatest wish.

I am honestly just a tourist here considering BG3 is the first non Japanese RPG I've played and really enjoyed. I tried out Divinity Original Sin 2 a few years back when a friend wanted to play but it wasn't my thing at all and I ended up dropping it after about 8 hours. The companions and NPC focused stories really are the driving factor in why I love BG3 so much and already have 40 hours invested in just two weeks.

So yeah, I completely understand the fears from dedicated fans of CRPGs or DND who want games to be more combat focused (at least that's the vibe I'm getting here?), but my hope is that both types of games can coexist because BG3 is, for me, legitimately the best RPGs I've ever played and I would want to see another game like it or at least have the game go through a few years of major updates + new content.

tbh this reminds me of the outcry from old school Fire Emblem fans once the modern era 3DS games with character focused + romance available stories started to take over. What ended up happening was other developers started to fill in that space and a lot of fresh takes on the genre started popping up. Even if the original space for these games starts to shift in tone, a new team will eventually come in to take over the space and maybe even bring in some new features the dedicated crowd likes.

Do yourself a huge favour and get this game for just a fiver. Best CRPG ever made:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/259680/Tales_of_MajEyal/

Well, its only £4.99 in the UK. I think it might be free on their website if I'm not mistaken, will check.

Oh yes, its free / open source on the games website https://te4.org

Its basically like BG2 with every class A drug mixed into it for good measure.

Your gatekeeping is tedious. More people playing D&D is a great thing. Nobody cares about how you play D&D.

Nerd culture is mainstream culture.

As an OLD school DnD and computer RPG fan I can tell you a deeper combat focus is not what makes a good RPG. A great story and fun NPC interaction can go a long way. Larian has done a solid job with BG3 and I feel have put the CRPG on solid footing.

There is a lot of hype around open world games but the truth is from an RPG point of view a real open world game is a MESS. A true open world game is MASSIVE, this means a ton of development cost and lets not get into all the work needed for the various NPCs and locations to feel alive. This means development cost and time is exponentially increased over a game like BG3. Proof of this is everywhere, go look at most open world games, they feel dead, the NPCs do not interact. Historically great RPGs that move to a more open world approach have failed, we see that especially with Mass Effect.

Larian has "rediscovered" the style that made such classics as Eye of the Beholder, Neverwinters Nights and many more. They have taken that formula, tweaked it, modernized it and we have BG3.

This approach also lends itself to episodic material. Imagine once or twice a year a "DLC" that is a new campaign. (Full level 1 to 12 again) This is POSSIBLE with the model we see with BG3. No new engine just create the content. They could break it down even further with an "Act" every 3 or 4 months until a new campaign is done and then move to the next.

That is not to say BG3 is perfect, it needs work. The game has a rushed feel to it with the way it ends and the whole "worm" system feels forced with no consequences for using it and no real reward for resisting it. (BTW by LORE for the Forgotten Realms this is how it would play out) Also the focus on Lore is a bit haphazard with them being willing to tweak the 5E system for computer play but not make the typical tweaks you would expect to make it fit easily into the existing game world lore.

In the end, yes I think BG3 is good for the genre. It shows there is a real demand for the old school CRPG solo play style (with some light coop). Hopefully this means we will see the CRPG game options just get better from here.

I never said more people playing is a bad thing. Id love it even. But theres the issue. If people say they play dnd I want them to be playing dnd. And not method acting and calling it dnd. If the fact that I want the thing that I love to remain the thing that I love makes me a gatekeeper; then im a proud gatekeeper.

Keep repeating your 'nerd culture is mainstream culture' mantra. Im sure it will be true some day.

BG3 is great for the genre! I hope its success means there will be more games like it in the future and that companies such as Bioware can pull it together to start making great rpgs again!

But this is quite subjective, though, isn't it? I too am very much old school, and am literally old(er), and what I value most of all in a cRPG is story and character development and world building. And it is in *precisely* these areas that I consider BG3 to be extremely weak/bad, even a disaster. For me, BG3 is a game heavy on pretty graphics and cinematics, gimmicky and/or cheesy gameplay, one-dimensional hipster companion characters leaning to the dark side, too much boring combat, and, yes, pointless excessive sex (which is not even in the slightest the same thing as romance). Now, I could hold my nose and tolerate all these things if I were also getting awesome story-telling, characters, and characters development, but since that's not in the cards in this game, the game is a 6/10 to me.

(Not speaking as a mod here. Just interested in culture)

Re: The Nerd Culture Meta

I don't think Nerd Culture is one thing. There are people who like all sorts of different things, and "nerd" encompasses so many different interests, approaches, and behaviors. Is a computer programmer who only cares about statistical min-maxing in games not a nerd? Is a method acting roleplayer not a nerd? Is someone who wants to sit around a table with the same friends for decades and roll dice to kill monsters not a nerd? Is someone who makes costumes of their favorite indie video game characters not a nerd? Is someone with a singular obsession for a particular anime not a nerd? Is someone who plays competitive online strategy games for hours not a nerd?

"Nerd Culture" is experiencing the same post-internet transformation as music culture. It used to be that you had set groups who had set interests and these groups socially congregated together around specific activities. Hip hop fans didn't mingle with rock fans who didn't mingle with country fans who didn't mingle with the indie scene. Nerds were ostracized and bullied incessantly for years for their perceived lesser interests. Now, people, especially young people, just do what they find fun. They add to their playlists or game time whatever they find enjoyable. Some of it is nerdy, some of it isn't. The old paradigm of Nerd-Normal is breaking down, though, and it's being replaced by more specific interests and ways to relate to things.

I'm not even sure what "Mainstream Culture" is anymore. In the 1960s-1990s, there was a clear culture defined by a set of (controlled) mass media companies, a unified sociopolitical narrative, and local communities conversing with each other. Against this mainstream culture emerged the counterculture. In 1960s America, this was marked by the Beats like Kerouac and Ginsberg, hippies, and the early formal LGBTQ community. In the Soviet sphere, you had Czes?aw Mi?osz's concept of "Ketman" and double discourse, by which citizens under the authoritarian system would have one set of outward behaviors in favor of the mainstream culture, and another set of inward beliefs and behaviors which were directly against it. Now, mainstream narratives are optional. Don't like one news channel? Turn it off and go to another. Don't like any news channels? Choose to believe podcast hosts or forum posters. Don't like those either? Social media connects you with like-minded people. The day-to-day culture of young people is dominated by algorithms which reinforce preexisting interests rather than unifying local narratives. Want to roll dice to kill monsters? There's a group for that. Want to roleplay characters with a ruleset? There's a group for that. Want to discuss the intricacies of lore of fantastical worlds? There's a group for that.

"Nerd" Culture has become decidedly iridescent. Everyone is coming at it from different angles now, and are drawn to it for completely different reasons, seeing completely different definitions based on their angle of observation. Its "unity" borders on nonexistence. Further, as life becomes increasingly sedentary, isolated, and digital, peoples who would not have been nerds 30 years ago are born nerds now. Outside of religion, writing, and academia, there were hardly "nerds" several centuries ago. Nerd culture was a transient product of a post-industrial society that had ample leisure time, mass literacy, a sedentary lifestyle, and mass-produced leisure materials. The Internet and changes in human connectivity/connective behaviors has simply changed the calculus.

You are correct that nerd cultire has evolved quite abit over the years. And it helps if we all use words that we understand have the same meaning.

A quik google shows me this. Mainstream: what's viewed by most people in a society as "normal". And its also how I know the term to be used.

And pardon me, but no dnd is nog evem remotely widely known enough to be mainstream. It is popular, yes. But not so popular that the majority of the population is a fan or plays it.

Let me reitterate what my (potential) problem is with bg 3 beeing a huge succes. Anything thats very popular tends to draw a large number of new fans.

Game of thrones is a very easy example of this. Prior to the series beeing aired it was about as niche as it gets. But once it came on television and became popular suddenly everyone was a fan. (Probably because of the large amounts of violence and nudity, but why it became popular is irrrlevant)

And that in itself is fine. More fans for something isent bad. But the old fans tend to want the television adaptation to stay true to the books. The stories written as they are were the reasons why they were fans in the first place. The new fans dont give a shit about the books because most havent even read them (and alot never will). They will however shut down arguments of people asking for the series to stay true to the books. For whatever reason.

And one of the results of it suddenly brcoming so popular is the dreaded season 8. Now everylne ive ever talked to hated it. But it derailed so heavily because it got so popular and the series caught up to writer and they decided to wing it, not wanting to slow down given its popularity.

And over time the new fans also tend to push out the older fans with stories of 'its not made for you' or 'we like it more this way' or 'find your own series' dispite the older fan beeing a fan before they were.

And I see that in more hobbies that I have by the day. I see tourist invading my hobby space, ruining it before moving on to the next thing like a swarm of locusts.

And dnd already has that thanks to critical role. But il explain it differently, maybe that way people understand my point.

You are a fan of football. And come across a group of people who also say they like football. They invite you to come join them. Great! You go there and everyone picks up the ball. Dribbles with the ball and dunks the ball in a net. 'Hey hold on! This isent football!' You say. Because it isent. This is basketball. 'Well some guy on youtube says this is football and we are fans. If you play football differently YOU are doing it wrong!' And those people than harass you for playing football like you are meant to while telling everyone how football needs to change to their vision of it.

Hyperbole ofcourse. But point is simply that dnd has rules involved with it. And while some things are open to interpretation (how much roleplay, what is the main focus of the campaign, etc) alot of the rules arent. Dm's can houserule things but houserules are still exceptions to the rule. They still base that exception on the rules of dnd.

Once people say they play dnd but the rules they use bare so little resembling the rules of dnd theyre effectively playing something else and calling it dnd.

My fear is that bg3 will draw in a massive group of new people. Who then come into contact with the older playerbase. They discover dnd isent what they saw in bg3 in alot of cases and will start to make a push to change dnd to their needs so it resembles bg3 more then it does dnd.

More people playing dnd is great. But if they say they want to play dnd, they should play dnd. And not turn dnd into something else.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that BG3 is bad for RPGs.

Do you know what BG3 reminds me of? The chain stores from the movie Idiocracy which because of the ever lower average IQ started to sexualize their names more and more to attract customers.
Carl’s Jr. Extra Big-Ass Fries
Starbucks Exotic Coffee for Men

Thats basically what BG3 is, living from hype, graphics and sexual wish fulfillment, the Twilight of video games.
Its story is pretty bland, not better and imo worse than the ones in other Rpgs, its mechanics are not well thought out like exchanging companions or handling of quest items.
And I even go so far and say that the companions are some of the blandes and most boring rpg companions in recent times.
That is, if you look at them from a RPG point of view. But compare them to the usual cast of harem visual novels and you will see a lot of similarities.
The primary design factor for the companions in BG3 seems to have been to cover all the usual romantic and sexual fantasies a harem cast does. The shy girl, the Tsundere, the vulnerable (twilight vampire) you can fix, the romantic, ect. Larian even added bestiality to cover more ground.

Imo Laruan was fully aware and counting on that their main target group are people who not necessarily conform to the age rating of the game and whos first action is to remove all camp clothes because "Hehe, tiddies"

And the amount of success they had is very bad, both from a general philosophical point of view about the sorry state of human nature and because this will now be the template other RPGs will follow. Dumb it down and add more sex.

I am very happy for you.

Unfortunately the truth of it is, if everyone had your experience, the large patches with bug fixes would not be necessary. The eurogamer reviewer's Act 3 literally fell apart including a save file corruption breaking her game that she had to reach out to Larian for to fix. I also ran into that bug. She understandably gave the game a 4/5 and was attacked for it.

I have seen no one praise the actual technical aspects of the game. Such as the UI, camera, pathfinding, system implementation like stealth/stealing being well done or that tying camp events to long rests worked well and didn't mean different playstyles could miss more or less things. How interesting the companions are is subjective. How they are implemented to have limited platonic interactions, the 'spokes on a wheel' approach where they are hyper focused on the player and the game will just assume relationships with others without showing it or how interactions dead end are not subjective. The story is a mess. Choice and consequence were marketing hyperboles.

It is indeed possible for a game to be very loveable while also having major flaws. This is not a case of a game that just does everything well instead of innovating either, because it does quite a few things poorly, a lot is mediocre and nearly everything it does do well at the start degrades in quality the further along you get. Either by phasing it out to the bare minimum, or by what feels a lot like just ticking a box to say it's there. We are left with VA, presentation and environment interactivity as the highlights.

Those are some grim highlights for a game that supposedly is genre defining.

There are games on the list of 'greatest/highest rated of all time' that you did not or will not enjoy. If you don't like hack and slash ARPGS, Diablo 2 is just not your thing no matter what. Just like there are 6/10, 7/10 or 8/10 games that you love to death for what it does or tries to accomplish. Every Gothic/Risen fan knows about that one. That does not mean the scores should be the other way around.

What I am seeing is the community telling the industry that as long as you are perceived to be the underdog, gamers don't actually care about the overall quality of your product. Most won't even finish the game, but they'll defend the first sweet lie on your plate viciously and if you pick a niche genre, most won't know any better and aren't interested in knowing any better too.

BG3 is an experience. It is also a very weak CRPG.

I think we've well-established various complaints about sex and target audiences in the game based on how many times we've gone around in circles on the same points. There must be other points to make, surely. Otherwise, this is starting to look like little more than a venting thread.

I did not mention either.

Story and characters aren ‘that great’?

What games this guy playing?

I do agree that the story and character are at best mediocre.
In current times, the stories and character are superb, but over the history of RPG games in general? I would say again -- mediocre.
I grew up on Mass Effect and Dragon Age, so I may be looking through nostalgia, but the story, characters, and relationships of those series felt deeper and had such lasting impact.
One such relationship mechanic I loved was the "tempering" or "hardening". Like DA's Alistair.

BG3 has quite a lot of plot issues. And save for ShadowHeart and LaeZel (and even still, it's mediocre at best), character development is quite abysmal.
One glaring example I cannot stand is:

Also, I don't fully agree that this gaming is all about sex -- but sex sells. It certainly doesn't hinder it being the now highest grossing crpg of all time, correct me if I'm wrong.
Alas, any day would I take fully realized relationships (both platonic and romantic) over nudity and sex scenes.

This one.
I think this is a case of needing to play more games? Current times still includes other CRPGs like Disco Elysium. If not masterpieces, even normal RPGs like Fallen Order, God of War 1, A Plague Tale have competent stories. So even in comparison to 'current times' it's still very mid as it actively contradicts itself with ass pulls constantly and doesn't stick the landing at all.

Regarding the whole softcore fantasy porn aspect - it'd be one thing were it done well, but it's extremely... tame and half-assed?

Bodies devoid of physics (genitals frozen in stasis, breasts that defy gravity...) with models that warp in ugly ways during certain animations, scenes that seem cut short (Lae'zel's, Minthara's alternate one from EA which is removed entirely) are either non-existent (while implied) or pointlessly "artsy" (like the drow twins), characters sharing the same body type (Gale/Wyll/Astarion, Minthara/Shadowheart)... To bank on it so heavily during advertisement and fall behind not just Witcher/Cyberpunk, but Andromeda of all things is a hell of an, erm, achievement - and this is coming from someone who's gotten fed up with romances in games thanks to Bioware and whose interest in the subject is mostly morbid curiosity as to how far they were willing to push the envelope (apparently, you can run around naked which nobody react to is how far. Yay).

Speaking of Bioware, I am replaying NWN 1 now, and, honestly, Larian aren't even all that new regarding the intensity of your character being hit on. Playing as a high charisma male/female character results in women/men offering one-night stands (which don't happen for plot reasons, but the... mood is still there). Meanwhile BG1 had a sireen who could murder-kiss you (regardless of gender), and BG2 had that one drow lady during the Underdark chapter. So they are treading the well-walked roads here but are doing it worse, making the game disappoint in ways one wouldn't think it could.

And as for the game itself - while I was genuinely impressed by the area design and the exploration, I would argue that the rest is a step backwards from Larian's previous two titles. Combat, despite the supposedly huge array of spells and powers, feels very limiting, the writing is hit or miss and this time it doesn't have the benefit of being in a non-serious setting (not to mention all the plot holes and the narrator being a nuisance more than a needed storytelling tool), and it feels like there is very little to do save for the main story unless it's companion content, which I have gated myself out of the most of by refusing to have anyone past the 4-man party limit around (due to how awkward it feels to swap people and how nonsensical the interactions and comments become).

All the 10/10s are most certainly unwarranted, especially with the currently blatantly unfinished state that the game is in. I know the game journalists are basically the epitome of incompetence, but the degree to which they'll praise something with obvious glaring issues without so much of an ounce of objective criticism is baffling, honestly. It's definitely not a bland show of mediocrity that Starfield is, far from it, and has the potential of becoming Larian's finest title, but definitely not in this state. The foundation is there, but the woodwork is shoddy. And given gow AAA/AA RPGs are a genre that's dead for almost a decade now, I don't think it'd really affect much. More hardcore players are turned off by the lack of difficulty and how choices can be meaningless, the more casual ones complain the game's too hard, the more close-minded fans of the originals are long gone by now, and the less close-minded ones are upset by what the game could have been but ended up not being.

I guess all who remain are indeed the bothered redditors and the like, who'll probably switch over to Dreadwolf when it comes out some day if it turns out to have more "desirable" romance options. Unfortunate.

Quite fair and also very possible! I've only gotten back into gaming after RL taking me out of it for the past years, so God of War has been sitting in my library for some time. Though admittedly, I'm very picky when it comes to games. In fact, I purely stick to BG3-type RPGs. Which is perhaps why I haven't played it and Star Wars yet. But if what you've said is true, then indeed BG3 is meh even now (and I need to play Disco!).

Ah, it's really killing the vibe of my third playthrough. I should take a break and try those out honestly.

Just play the two finder games (which are closer to BG2 than BG3 is anyway). And I think that nearly all of the companions in those games are better then the BG3 compa ions except maybe Sosiel or Harrim. Even secondary companions like Aivu are better than half the BG3 cast combined.

Fortunately we have all sorts of RPGs to play, all with their different pros and cons, and catering to different preferences. Personally, I liked the Pathfinder games, especially WotR, but like the BG3 characters, writing, story and very definitely combat and gameplay far more (I found the combat such a bore in Kingmaker that I gave up, and while I finished WotR there were times when I found it an absolute grind, which I never have with BG3). Disco Elysium is in my view a masterpiece, and its writing is far superior to most other games, and certainly to that of any RPG I’ve ever played. But then that’s its focus and in it we don’t have nearly the scope or freedom that BG3 gives us. And there are plenty of other RPGs, eg the PoE and D:OS games, that are definitely worth a go and have some fantastic elements. And I’m sure the ones I’ve not even got round to playing, such as Tyranny and embarrassingly Skyrim, have things to enjoy and that other games can learn from.

But for all I’d agree there are plenty of individual things that other games do better than BG3, and that BG3 still has too many bugs, the epilogue is an anti-climax and the plot coherence leaves something to be desired, it’s still my favourite of the bunch right now. And the fact it does lots of things really well in my view and so many things engagingly if not brilliantly, for me make it a winner over games that are more limited in scope or ambition.

But I think its success can only be good for the genre, bringing in more players and investment as well as providing an exemplar of what can be done, mainly well and sometimes badly. Sure, some unimaginative studios and developers might just try to copy the BG3 “formula” but if so then I’d doubt they had the passion to make a great game anyway. I’d hope that Larian and other studios that do have the passion and vision will capitalise on BG3’s success to bring us yet more fun and varied RPGs.

Yes, seconded.

It is precisely in story, characters (especially the companions), writing, dialogue options, and choices and consequences that BG3 is a huge failure for me.

The Finder games, ehhhhh...I like Kingmaker a lot more than WoTR. I do agree that in terms of main story arc they handily outdo BG3. Companions, though? I dunno, I really didn't like almost ANY of the companions in WoTR (a major way that game fell flat for me.) I'd say BG3 is on par with or exceeds the finder games when it comes to how likable the companions are. BG3 also outdoes (at least early on) the finder games with race-specific or class-specific reactivity.

You can please some people, some of the time.

Humans are strange little creatures, and that’s our greatest flaw.

Isn’t that right @rahaya

Gonna refer back to the start of this thread. BG3 has created an interest and discussion around CRPGs and this is ALWAYS good for the genre. The specifics of how good or bad you think BG3 is much less relevant than the fact the mainstream world of gaming has a lot more interest in the CRPG worlds.

Very much this. How often do we see any AAA CRPGs? Dragon Age after Origins always seemed embarrassed by its CRPG origins and moved further and further away from them. The next one is apparently going to be a full action RPG.

AAA CRPGs don’t really exist at all these days, so for one to come by and be so unrepentant about what it is is a triumph.

Perhaps.
I would argue against it being always good for the genre.

A hobby, topic or franchise going 'mainstream' does not usually mean an increase in depth or complexity. Quite the opposite. There is also the consideration of what is considered 'necessary' in bringing this niche thing up to 'par' with modern audiences which is often reflected in current modern adaptions or sequels where something being true to the originals is noteworthy.

There is also the simple fact of the matter is that BG3 is a Larian game. They have their own way of doing things that doesn't necessarily mean there is a crossover. If someone likes the Pathfinder games, I can be reasonably sure they have at least tried the Pillars games, Icewind Dale, BG 1 and 2, etc. If someone liked Divinity Original Sin 2, I am much less certain and would have a harder time recommending another game that isn't Divinity Original Sin 1.

An audience that has its attention turned to CRPGs by BG3, sure, some of them might go on to enjoy other CRPGs and get into that genre. Many won't. Because there is too much reading. Because the systems are too complex or obscure. Because the studios already in the sphere don't have the budget for cinematic gameplay. Full voice acting for Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire was directly cited as a detriment to the game by it's makers. There is no space for pure dungeon crawlers like Solasta. I keep seeing 'scope' or 'ambition' in relation to this, but it either never comes with any specifics in support of the position or it actually means 'budget for presentation of normal CRPG things.' Saying Larian had the ambition that Obsidian didn't, or made a game with more scope that Owlcat didn't, is honestly frustrating. Neither is true. It's just money. That's it. There is still going to be a large chasm of funds between those currently in the CRPG space and those that want to make a game for this new audience.

And to make sure they make back the investment, it's going to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Is there a reason why a new CPRG being pitched to a publisher in the post BG3 space isn't going to be pressured into maximum returns in order to get the deal?

BG3's success is not a win for 'CRPGs.' It's like saying Starcraft 2 was a win for RTS or WoW for MMOs. It's a win for Larian, for sure. That doesn't automatically translate into a good thing for the genre.

It moved away from it for the same reason Mass Effect became more action shooter than RPG.

Mainstream appeal.

BG3 is not unrepentant about being a CRPG. It uses 5e, which was already designed to be more mainstream and "streamlined" to begin with, and branching quest outcomes has been a thing in RPGs forever. The Witcher 3 is not a CRPG and arguably has more choice and consequence regarding its ending than BG3 does. What is the CRPG only feature here? Party members? Turn Based Combat?

Just by reading the title, my eyes rolled up inside my skull. How can a critically acclaimed game, both by the public and the critics, be bad for a genre? What is the problem? That people will want deeper and better interactions with NPCs? That there are some very rare and optional romantic scenes? That it is pleasing for somebody who isn't a jaded old gamer who keep complaining at anything that doesn't exactly look like what they played 30 years ago? I feel like some people only see the rare negative points about the game and chose to ignore anything that makes it an alien in the current gaming landscape. BG3 is a dream come true for the CRPG genre. A game that reminds everyone that the genre not only exists, but that it can produce the greatest games of its respective generation.

Mass Effect exists.

And greatest is highly debatable. Especially when those proclaiming it such just conveniently forget about other games doing the thing they just praised better.

The answer to your question is: Tedious gatekeeping.

Well, I don't know about that (though I find the arguments of a lot of people in here myopic.)

On the one hand, you could say that for a genre that has wandered the wilderness as long as cRPGs have, anything with the success of BG3 is great. It will inspire others to make similar games; even if you don't like all of them, you are certain to like some.

On the other hand....

What made BG3 actually good? What made it so successful, where other cRPGs are not?

I've been thinking about this a lot. Because in a lot of ways, compared to other cRPGs....BG3 is actually pretty mediocre. The setting is generic fantasy, not particularly interesting. The story is...I hate to say it, but the story of this game really is not very good, imo. I'd say it's "below average." The combat system copies from 5e and for a window of a few levels it's pretty fun....but it quickly becomes unbalanced, making combat tedious (because it's far too easy), and the ways in which it becomes unbalanced are usually due to very unwise homebrew rules Larian implemented. Background lore is kind of lacking (and a lot of things in the timeline leading up to the game don't seem to make sense.) Romances are...okay, but definitely not anything special. Same goes for the actual character writing.

So in what ways did BG3 excel? Encounter design, at least early on. They give a lot of options for dealing with a problem. It's also just fun to explore the world. The environments look crisp, great, beautiful (most of the time.) VAs and seeing the characters emote breathes a lot of life into the characters. The character writing itself isn't great, but the VAs and just seeing them move and visibly *seeing* their emotions makes the characters so much more expressive and likable. I've said before that, just going purely by his writing, I'd probably hate Gale's guts. But his VA makes him an actual likable character.

The thing is, anyone who makes cRPGs is going to try to learn from the experience of BG3. They're going to ask themselves: "What did BG3 do right? How can we better reallocate our limited resources so we can recreate the success of BG3?" And I think it's not an entirely unfounded worry that, looking at BG3, some people may conclude "You know, background lore, writing, a fine-tuned combat system? These things seem to be less important than hiring celebrity voice actors and having mocap."

And that's not even to say that what Larian was doing was superficial. I think making the characters more expressive exposed a GIGANTIC weakness and blind spot that other cRPGs have struggled with. Static portraits and paper dolls really are just not that good for connecting with characters. But I would actually be pretty sad if other creators of cRPGs focused on that, and saw their writing deteriorate to Larian's level, just because that's what seemed successful.

That's why I hope people don't overinterpret BG3's success. I think the game is terribly overhyped; that a lot of the praise for it comes from people projecting their hopes onto it, as some sort of symbol to rally around, against what they see as the shortcomings of other, larger game developers. I think in the end things will be okay, because the simple success of BG3 will just inspire tons of other cRPGs, and I think it's a clear signal that there's a large market for game developers to be a little experimental, a little less conservative with their offerings. I hope those things happen. What I hope doesn't happen is that people see Larian as a studio to emulate too closely. Because imo, they make highly flawed games.

^ This.

There is also the fact of the matter that on the production side of things, giving it acclaim means any and everyone can dismiss complaints about overpromising or the 'release it now, fix it later' meta. Because the double standards on that front is now blatant as hell. I dock points from every game for releasing buggy, but I have to point out again, the Eurogamer review actually hit a game breaking bug that prevented her from finishing the game. She was ATTACKED for lowering her score because of it.

The discourse around the game borders on nonsensical. It's not a polished, bug-free game. 'No microtransactions' means...what? Didn't we already go through this with Fallen Order being a single player RPG without extras? Something CRPGs don't have as a genre to begin with? A game of this scope...what scope? 80+ hours for a playthrough is normal for CRPGs. 'What passion can do for a game' - okay, bullshit. All the passion in the world doesn't conjure up millions of dollars to make a CRPG and secondly the AAA space still has plenty of good games. Why is any of this being said?

Why is getting an explanation of what BG3 does really well as a game, not 'at first', not 'occasionally', WELL like pulling teeth?

In terms of what BG3 does the most successfully that no other game does: co-operative narrative gameplay.

Here is an example from my game.

Me and three friends, all table top gamers. I’ve played extensively but my friends are going in blind. Thus, I try not to meta play too much and let my friends figure out what’s going on.

We were infiltrating the wizard tower in the underdark. Everyone was low on resources, so this was the last thing we would do before a long rest.

I’m playing a wizard. I had my familiar guide the rogue up to the front door, but he took too much damage along the way and got stuck inside the first level.

But with the turrets swiveled away, I was able to move my wizard to the back of the outer courtyard and then use feather fall to wizard my way to the backdoor. I cast knock to get inside and power down the defenses.

My friends all begin independently scrambling over the tower looting everything. One friend goes right for the top floor and triggers the fight. We were in no position to win that engagement, so I ran up and cast feather fall on my friends (the barbarian had also run up to try and assist only to get immediately brought down to 1 HP).

What ensued was a madcap dash down the tower as we were pursued by constructs, everybody taking a different route to try and avoid getting killed. We barely got out but finally did manage to evade our pursuers.

This was some of the most fun I’ve had in any online game, ever. The joy of chaos and somebody fucking up and then everyone needing to deal with it is very true to D&D. All of us had a fantastic time, even though we achieved nothing. It was great.

This isn’t the only thing I love about the game, but this is one area where nobody is even attempting what Larian is doing. I think a lot of people don’t appreciate how much inconspicuous design work is being demonstrated getting a game like this to work with 4 players. I have a lot of friends who work in AAA gaming, and BG3 is all they can talk about. They all wish they could work on a project like this.

This anecdote is also a great example of non-linear decision making. Most games give you linear decisions. If you play a Dragon Age title, the game asks you to make decisions- pick destinations, pick a class, pick a dialogue option, but in between those decisions the experience of playing the game is relatively straightforward.

In BG3 I was able to sneak up behind a major boss character with my monk, bypass the initial cutscene and stunning strike the boss, then just pound on him with everybody until he ignominiously died like a chump.

The game didn’t ask me to do this. There was no prompt. I just did it spontaneously. This is a major reason why BG3 has been such a success. This level of fidelity and production values is usually antithetical to BG3’s level of freedom. It ain’t perfect, but most people playing the game are enjoying the experience.

I mean....being able to initiate combat with enemies on your own terms isn't exactly new. This isn't really an innovation in the genre, so I have a hard time thinking that it's the reason for Larian's success.
But you do point out something else: Multiplayer. Most cRPGs are designed as single player experiences. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but everything is more fun with friends (and it's likely more challenging, too.)

I wonder what the stats are for how many people are playing multiplayer. Becuase this sort of goes back to what I said before, about the allocation of resources. If other designers conclude that multiplayer is the route to take, and the single-player experience suffers as a result, I'd be pretty sad about that.

Cool, thank you. No it does not have to be perfect, just well. That is something BG3 does well, but I do have to point out that such things is Larian's niche. DoS 1 and 2 are the same way, all the way down to the cutscene cheese with the difference being that it is not an isometric small sprite game. I have already filed that under Larian's engine/environmental interactivity but I can delineate it further for co-op specifically though I doubt that has factored much into scoring in the broad sense.

Was the narrative you were playing through coherent and compelling? Was the combat challenging but balanced for all 4 of you playing together? How was the UI for playing in co-op? How was the stability/bugs/performance? Did the game explain itself well when you made characters or did you have to rely on prior knowledge/googling? The question is not whether or not the game is enjoyable. It certainly is. But as I pointed out in my first posts, you can enjoy the everliving fuck out of a 7/10 game because DnD with friends in videogame form is your shit, but that is giving awards based on what it is, rather than how well it's made. It's the equivalent of giving Forza 5 a 10/10 because it is definitely a racing game. If it was the first racing game on the planet, does it automatically get an advantage on review scores rather than it being a reason the reviewer recommends the game if you are a fan of Fast and Furious?

It is already suffering in BG3. The party/inventory system is the way it is because that is Larian's design philosophy for co-op play.

I'd argue with the points made above that the writing can be quite good when it doesn't:

- overexplain things to the player (via the much-too-overused narrator);
- trip over itself (like how you can learn what the Absolute is from some documents in the Moonrise only to be "surprised" an hour or so later);
- feel like it's stitched together in a hurry (the epilogue... oh, the epilogue. And the Emperor);
- become Reddit meme level of text quality ("hot githyanki girlfriend" had me do a double take. It's ME3/Inquisition all over again...);

For example, the Reythwin area is rather well-done prior to the Moonrise. The creche has its moments before you're railroaded towards the resolution. The murder investigation in Act 3 feels like an investigation, for once.

Sadly, the main story does become a regurgitated mess which is delivered so heavy-handedly for how simple the intrigue is, and the OOC moments are so jarring, that it becomes somewhat difficult to... care at all? At the very least, I suppose I am grateful I got the exact ending I had in mind for my character:


...but I am afraid it's a veeeeeery specific and fringe example mostly existing because it justifies having the githyanki as a playable race, with most other endings being a lot less defined.

As for the companions overall, the main issue with them, again, is how little of them you experience outside of romances. Halsin in particular feels like he was added purely because the certain parts of the community kept begging for him to be added for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile Minthara, who was seemingly planned as a companion from the start (based on how she'd respond to being looted in EA, and outright carrying camping supplies on her when those were introduced), instead got hit with the scissors so hard that even after the supposed "bug fixing" (uhuh) she still barely has the fraction of the wealth of content associated with her.

I can't help but be somewhat... curious:

The point isn’t being able to intimate combat on your own terms. The point is non-linear decision making. If an encounter starts a big cutscene or dialogue, very few games provided you the tools for unprompted, player driven decision making to say, “fuck it, I’m going to backstab this fool / build a box ladder and drop an owlbear druid / set up a bunch of grenades and firebolt them / pick up the boss and throw him off a ledge / whatever.” And it isn’t just encounters. Just moving around the map, you have so many tools to decide how you approach a barrier. This is very true to table top gaming. It is something games like Dragon Age games don’t even attempt and it is a big part of this game’s positive reception.

This game is very Larian, and I’m okay with that, because Larian are trying to move the genre forward and bring the video gaming experience closer to the table top experience, which was the thesis statement of the original Baldur’s Gate game in the first place.

I’ve had other games attempt to just recreate the experience of Baldur’s Gate with Pillars of Eternity, the little I’ve played of the Owlcat games, and a few others, and I didn’t enjoy these. I found them rote and stagnant.

Was the narrative you were playing through coherent and compelling?

Yes. There was nothing exceptionally incoherent about the narrative. My only experience of incoherence was when I did two quests out of order, but the only reason I knew about the second quest (that I did first) was because I read about it online, so I give Larian a pass on that.

As for compelling, yes. I became remarkably attached to these characters and their plights. When I reached Baldur’s Gate, I thoroughly enjoyed the various parties trying to politically maneuver me to their favor, even though the entire time I knew it was a foregone conclusion that I would murder hobo them all. This is very much in the spirit of table top gaming.

And don’t even get me started on my multiplayer game. I’m playing the Dark Urge (as a necromancer) while the rest of my party doesn’t even know the DUrge is a thing. The chaos it’s creating is delicious. This has become one of my singular favorite experiences in all my decades of gaming.

Was the combat challenging but balanced for all 4 of you playing together?

No, but honestly, almost no SRPGs are ever challenging for me. I play chess at a 1450 ELO, which isn’t crazy spectacular or anything, but it’s high enough that the process of getting here means I know enough about tactics, priority, reading a battlefield, and deducing the correct course of action. I play the fuck out of Fire Emblem games too, and those games provide no challenge. I learned to enjoy the experience of them bereft of challenge. While that doesn’t accuse Larian for getting the balance wrong

How was the UI for playing in co-op?

Great. Functional and none of my friends who have no prior experience with Larian games have had any issues.

How was the stability/bugs/performance?

I’ve had almost no bugs at all. Some stability issues in act 3, but I’m expecting those will get ironed out via patches, and I don’t mind this. Nothing I can’t deal with.

Did the game explain itself well when you made characters or did you have to rely on prior knowledge/googling?

Probably not, but I’m a DM so I don’t need 5E explained to me. I imagine it would’ve be much harder for a new player.

The question is not whether or not the game is enjoyable. It certainly is.

Haha, for some people on this forum that definitely is the question. They post here ever say about how this game is terrible. That’s okay. Their decisions.

But as I pointed out in my first posts, you can enjoy the everliving fuck out of a 7/10 game because DnD with friends in videogame form is your shit, but that is giving awards based on what it is, rather than how well it's made. It's the equivalent of giving Forza 5 a 10/10 because it is definitely a racing game. If it was the first racing game on the planet, does it automatically get an advantage on review scores rather than it being a reason the reviewer recommends the game if you are a fan of Fast and Furious?

I personally think scores of 10 are inherently dumb and never rate anything on that scale. I only rate things on a scale of five:

1 - I hated it
2 - I disliked
3 - mixed or no impressions
4 - I liked it
5 - I loved it

For me, BG3 is a 5/5, and I’m not interested in trying to award it an objective score. Nobody is paying me to do that so why bother? I understand why other woolen don’t enjoy it or enjoyed it less, that’s fine. But I’m not going to feign objectivity. I don’t need to convince anybody to charge their minds about the game so their objections similarly don’t matter to me.

^agreed.

Initiating combat isn't something new, but giving reactivity to it, is.

One of my favourite thing in Wasteland 3 happens in the very beginning of the game. One of your friend held hostage, you have two options within the dialogue: a) save your friend but allowing their captor flee (who right after will set up an ambush), b) Try to kill the captor, but ensuring your friend got executed, but no ambush later ------ however there is 3rd options and the game doesn't tell you but logical mechanic within the world: You can snipe the captor from afar, making these choices moot, and you get *the best* result, or at least, the result you want.

DAO-DAI did nothing like this (one can argue DA franchise is more like a theatrical storytelling not RPG storytelling).
Infinity Engines games allows you to "initiate" the combat first (meaning you probably sneaking up to them for sneak attack, quest usually borked if you kill quest giver).

In Larian games? It's standard procedure. We are so used to it we demand more options atop of already wide selection of options which most games doesn't even give you.

But wide options making it less focused, story can easily feel incoherent, some feels like disjointed.

I believe Larian can make more narrative/storytelling focus game, akin to DAO, but it requires to sacrifice the RPG aspect of the game, it's an exchange, I personally wouldn't want them to take.

I've never cared much about being able to do this in games since I value the narrative and such more that mechanically being able to do stuff but I do feel like Larian could get the story to be a bit more narratively focused and satisfying if they made a few minor changes. Hell, I could see them diverging in a couple different ways to reach that goal.

For one thing, tailoring the story more to their strengths would help a great deal. The level of choice and shenanigans and randomn nonsense they want to put into their games would be better suited to a game that's definitely more personal and honed in on the story of the player. With BG3 they tried to tell this epic story that necessitates a lot of twists and factions and conflicts going on around us that drive plot and Larian really wasn't willing to commit to all of that in the way they needed to. If they narrowed the nature of the story more, hey probably wouldn't have as many problems on the narrative front. I think this would be where I would want them to go for their future games, it's a direction I suspect they would really flourish in since it plays to the strength of their character writing as well, which I think of consistently quite good. It's when that writing intersects with a plot that tries to be more grandiose than they seem capable of that things go wrong.

The second approach they could take, and would have improved BG3s story a great deal, is committing to letting players screw their story. I've made a whole thread about how the lack of story-essential side characters is a big part of why I think the game story doesn't ever come together well, and falls apart in act 3. I think if Larian were willing to give us those plot vital npcs to allow for the fleshed out story they need to be trying to tell, then they would be better off. And relating to that, I think those plot important npcs should still be killable, and killing them should majorly impact things. Yes, you should entirely miss out on questlines, yes, there should be situations where if you kill an important NPC then you get a game over. I think this would have let them integrate some side plots that really should not have been side plots and instead parts of the main plot.

As to the question at the heart of this thread, I think the answer is: absolutely not. I think the game has a lot of fundamental problems and it's massively overpraised, but bad for crpgs as a whole? Nah. People have made some fair observations as to why it might be, but I think there's a bit too much doomsaying and hand wringing going on. Maybe it will lead to an increase in rpgs that are more streamlined, more tilted towards mass appeal, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. We've been in a golden age of crpgs for a while now, and I don't see that niche going away. There's still an obvious hunger for the old style of these games and people will keep making them alongside the shinnier, newer variety for people who enjoy those.

And just to give my 2 cents about the romance and sex aspect of this discussion, I think that too is wildly overblown. It's there, yes. It's always been there, at least as far back as I can recall, which is admittedly only around Dragon Age Origins. There has always been a contingent I'd fantom for these games that has a lot of enthusiasm for the romances. I see it as an extension of enthusiasm for the characters, since romance is a way to get a deeper view of a character, which will only help someone enjoy them. Further, people like romance, and people like sex scenes. I don't for a moment think it's actually meaningfully more prevalent in this game than any other crpg in the past several years.

I'm in Act 3 and all the "romance" I had was drinking some wine with Shadowheart and a bloody fist fight with Laezel.

Where sex ?

Oh right. Of course! BG3 cheerleading is legit. But BG3 criticism is gatekeeping.

Well let me proudly engage in some "gatekeeping" by declaring that all claims to BG3 being a cRPG are bullshit. BG3 is the worst form of AAA game, a game carried entirely by cinematics and sex and a big fat zero on everything that makes an RPG meaningful.

I don't know. Some of this stuff is fun, sure. But some of it seems very immersion-breaking to me. It's fun to stack explosive barrels all around the goblin camp and set them off in a chain explosion. But...really, some of the people in that camp should be asking you "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I'm all for creative solutions, but I like when they make sense (like distracting and poisoning the goblins.) Building a giant box ladder to drop an owlbear on an enemy might be fun, but honestly it just highlights the fact that these are AI creatures with limited interactivity.

Then why are you wasting your precious time to talk about it? Seriously, I don't want to spark another argument, but this is beyond me. And you haven't even played the damn game. The fact it's the worst AAA game is profoundly misleading. It may be the worst AAA game to *you*, but not to millions of others. I passionately hate From Software games, seriously, even more that you hate BG3, but I would never dare to call any of their games the worst game of all. I simply don't like this art and narrative style.

What does exceptionally incoherent mean? The main narrative has a lot of plot holes and with all due respect, this is a video game that marketed itself as a sequel to Baldur's Gate. I should hope Larian with years and multiple writers does better than your DM that has five minutes to come up with a new plotline after the players got (un)lucky exploding the goblin camp. You can handwave it, but just so you are aware that you are excusing something subpar.

You can still enjoy it and that's honestly great for you, unfortunately the thread is about the critical reception, including scoring and how it might affect the genre moving forward. I am certainly not going to tell anyone they can't like BG3 or that they are wrong for liking it. Where I draw the line is 'Game of the Decade' or it being 'deserving of GOTY' because of a 'message' to the industry or it being 'genre defining' or what have you as it usually comes in three flavors: Praising BG3 for what it actually isn't, general ignorance of CRPGs or shitting on other games to prop it up. My examples include some very toxic positivity and the wrong lessons readily available for learning.

No, criticism is perfectly fine. Better than fine, it’s necessary. But saying when something is made for mainstream audiences with mass appeal in mind (including sex in the game) is inherently bad is tedious gatekeeping.

There is literally only one other AAA CRPG series in existence, and it’s horny as fuck. Dragon Age was doing sex way before BG3, so suggesting that all of the sudden BG3 is now ruining the genre by encouraging the inclusion of sex is utter nonsense.

And yeah, this is the official BG3 forum, there are going to be cheerleaders. Those are called fans, and we will naturally congregate here, and we are going to get tired of the same people talking about how much they hate the game in almost ever single thread. I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about the OP of this thread and a small handful of others.

There are a literal crapton of rpgmaker rpgs on steam, for anybody who likes rpgs but doesn't obsess over graphics (ie. me). BG3 will have absolutely no effect on that market. Unity shenanigans might, but the success of BG3 won't harm the indy market for rpg at all. It might even help a bit, since there will possibly be some new fans willing to tentatively fork over dollars for turn based rpg after they play BG3.

I'm sure BG3 will cause changes in the AAA space, but that's because all the AAA producers try to copy anything that succeeds. 95% of everything is crap, so most of the AAA "copies" will be crap, but maybe there will be a good one two.

In any case, it looks like some AAA games are doing themselves in without help from BG3. For instance... what the hell happened with Diablo 4?

I will absolutely concede it’s immersion breaking. It’s utterly nonsensical, but since the game never actively encourages it and it’s only up to the player to pursue, I can’t really be up in arms about it. The people who enjoy it can do so, and those who don’t want to break their immersion never need to deal with it.

You don’t get to tell me what is subpar. I think Dragon Age and Mass Effect are complete garbage, but that’s just my subjective opinion, and the millions of fans of those series aren’t wrong because I think those games are subpar.

And toxic positivity? This forum has been a swamp of people shitting on the game since the forum went live. Toxic positivity is not this place’s issue.

Also, you might want to read the OP, because this:

is about the critical reception, including scoring and how it might affect the genre moving forward.

Is not what the thread is made about.

I do, actually, because subjectivity of 'Do I like this' is different from objective quality and I specifically pointed out why it was subpar, eg plotholes and not whether or not I find the stakes silly or don't like the characters or didn't find it personally compelling. Those are subjective reasons. Whether or not the story contradicts itself is not subjective. Millions of people enjoy McDonald's food. They are not wrong for enjoying it. Enjoying it does not make it fine dining. There will be dishes of 'fine dining' that you will not like. That doesn't retroactively degrade the quality of the ingredients.

I also included my example of toxic positivity. The Eurogamer reviewer. I was not talking about these forums in specific and it is not my issue if you are not keeping my posts in context with my other posts.

I agree, but this is only true for Dragon Age: Origins. Granted, I haven't played DA2, but I did play Inquisition, just before BG3 and the only romance I've got was the chivalrous kind, without nudity or kinky scenes. It's like Bioware was afraid to go too far with sex scenes.

My experience with BG3 sex scenes is that... what the hell is this all fuzz about? I'm romancing Shadowheart and there was just one sex scene so far (I'm way past the middle of act 3) and it was really romantic. Apart from that I have triggered sex scene with Karlach (because those romance triggers were bugged in previous builds, so everyone was suddenly horny in my camp) and honestly it wasn't more hardcore than anything I saw in DAO all those years ago. I've also seen a sex scene with Mizora and if anything, it was unique, not kinky. So yeah, I totally don't agree this game is all about sex. Nothing like that at all.

Hmm, I don't really think this is true. These forums have attracted both people praising the game and people complaining about the game. And there's nothing wrong with liking a game that has some subpar elements. I'm a huge fan of BG1, for example, but *Good god* it could be obtuse, brutally so, for someone just starting out the game. BG2 also had its criticisms, even of the *story*, which many agree is one of its strengths (I remember a common one at the time was that it became significantly more edgy than the first game, which to be fair, the way the game starts out? Kind of true.) Spell organization was absurd (God forbid you would try to quickly select spells to use as a cleric/mage.) Even *great* games deserve criticism for the areas in which they fall short.

My memory is hazy about the DA series. (Loved DAO, hated the genre change in 2 but eventually came to like the background lore the game introduced, and DAI really just fell completely flat for me.) But I thought DAI had some pretty racy sex scenes? Maybe it was 2 that they were absent from? I don't know.

But yeah, none of the sex scenes I've seen in BG3 have seemed all that shocking (granted I've only seen Lae'Zel and SH) and, like...this was done a long time ago. I think maybe what people are annoyed at, more than the sex scenes, is how everyone (well, ALMOST everyone) is playersexual and, because the game is actually narratively pretty short, they start their flirting ASAP - which can lead to feeling bombarded by flirtatious comments for a while, until you reject everyone and settle on someone.

Yeah, I think this was a bug. Ever since Larian patched it, this kind of behaviour stopped for me. I would need to see in the new game to be sure, though, because it's possible, that I simply closed all the angles for other companions to flirting. But this horny companion behaviour was so unnatural, that I had a feeling this was a bug all along.

DAI was a bad game from a gameplay, UI and camera point of view, but it still had this Bioware magic when it comes to storytelling and companions. And of course lore, they really know how to introduce lore to the game (unlike Obsidian in PoE).