Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why no dwarf?

So what’s the likelihood of an expanded pool of henchmen?

Actually I always thought Korgan was interesting for how atypical he was. He's a chaotic evil dwarf berzerker, and yet he's wordy to the point of having a strange eloquence. He also has an unusual number of positive interactions with good characters, and even gets a crush on a lawful good character and writes poetry to her.

OMG! You, people are never happy or satisfied *rolls eyes* you want more and more and more.
Okay here's the part where I'm going to sound like an old man or a dad or whatever but you're lucky you know we would be lucky back in our day you know before the internet cutting edge graphics Etc. Hey, we were just happy to be able to name our character a different name but God you gamers nowadays are so flipping entitled it just it's never enough with you people.

You know instead of complaining about what you don't have you should appreciate what you do have. Queen as far as I'm concerned Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible game you know it is a masterpiece you know again you're lucky to have a game like this but again you're just not happy and you should be appreciative but you're not and you never will be.

However, one thing you will be until the end of time will be mutually entitled I went more and went more I mean complained day after day I don't know how Larry honestly does it I would hate to make a game this day and age cuz all people do is complain and complain and complain and complain and complain.


And you know you never think of a game company for what they achieved I mean this is a milestone when it comes to gaming and I know I've played every role-playing game out there imaginable and this game no pun intended changes the game as we know it but again you people are never going to be happy. And it's a shame honestly.



And again I know I'm going to sound like an old gamer cuz I am I miss the days when there was no internet no social networking you know because nobody could complain online, you didn't have to hear people whinge and honest to God I miss those days I do. Ladies and gentlemen boys and girls of all ages this is entitlement big time!

No, people care, if they didn't they wouldn't be here on the forums complaining. I've uninstalled a lot of games and never looked back, just recently was the new diablo game. Played it till story was over and uninstalled after looking at the battle pass, didn't say a word on the forums. Why? cause I don't give a crap about that game nor what they do with it.

Also the only games I remember back in the day that you could put your name on was after the game was over on the score board. Galaga, Joust, etc. but I am a early millennial.

The romance argument does seem to hold at least some merit, which is... boring? 8/10* companions are as content-heavy as their romance subplot as it is, because you barely get any interactions with them otherwise (the inability to just maintain a friendship with as much interesting content feels like a huge missed opportunity).

* - not counting a certain someone.

You already wrote that in your so called open letter. It is not entitlement to just point out things, people like. If you are such an old gamer, you should see, that it is strange that a fantasy setting has no one of the iconic small races. Dwarves are as integral to classical fantasy as elves.
If people weren't invested in this game, threads like this wouldn't exist. We love the game, but point out stuff, that is all. If Larian doesn't bring back Helia or any other small character, I still love the game and play it. And until you came along calling all people here entitled, this discussion was friendly and civil and just an appreciation thread for the smaller races. So let's keep it that way, ok?

Do you honestly think complaining on the Forums is going to change the game? Honestly, what good does it do in the end? That answer would be absolutely nothing.

Brutality: Larian already changed stuff based on feedback and Halsin and Minthara are just companions because of feedback.

Ok well we got this can of wyrms open now, so I'm kinda going to dig in a little, if people will indulge. Just like bit from the personal vault.

(sidebar) The strangest thing I think about this whole Early Access experience, and now that the game lives in Full (and on console, and just wait when the Mac drops too) that we've all been this captive audience for a hot minute here. Most of the time we don't get a whole lot of oversight or direction. There's a low key expectation that our feedback and telemetry is useful, and that our friends at Larian are sorta behind the big DM screen keeping tabs, but also keeping their heads down. Probably wisely ya know. Like maybe it's the same as having someone watch over your shoulder when you're trying to just finish sketching it out and sorta drafting, but also really wanting to knock it out the park. And they kinda are, so fuck yeah! Right? I mean right? I think so, and I really didn't know at a few points if I would. I had my doubts about an EA and a lot of strong feelings both on D&D and BG. So some definitely with some skin in the game.

So anywhere here we are now, all of us, sorta stuck together. The unwitting party. Where you're really not sure how everyone's aligned or what their skills might be, or much of much, but you gotta push on right? I've seen since I've been here some pretty great feedback and some wild characters and a lot of surprises honestly. I'm talking about forums denizens. Sometimes a couple disappointments sure, like where you think, oh cool these people both got ideas, they'll probably get along. But then they totally don't and like decamp to different quarters intantly hehe. Someone castes invisibility or cone of silence. Someone else fireballs up pithy quip,. Some are caustic but endearing. Some are like way too into their gods, but like maybe still spin a good yarn, or dole out sage wisdom. You'd love for 'em all to work together somehow and make it happen, but who could say. It's just sorta how they set it up here for us. But everyone's coming at it from somewhere, and probably has a contribution, and reasons for their strong passions or aversions, on whatever it is. 
Over time the longer you kick around you get these flashes of people that will endear you, or maybe revolt you, but either way it's something, and the only real thing for sure that they've all got in common is BG3. But that's a surprisingly solid bind.

When I was little, I had a couple issues. They didn't really know what was up. Difficulty paying attention and something like an overactive imagination. Because this is the 1980s, and who knows right? But basically they're starting to figure it out these days. Way back when, Aristotle coined a term, phantasia, to describe a kind of sixth sense which you'd euphemistically translate in English as something like 'imagination.' Some humans have this thing where when their visual cortex is developing the works can get jostled a bit, and there are lot of what I guess you'd just politely term 'moods getting out of order. We can go with that. Might all be connected in some way to that stuff with how you visualize and perceive space and time, and there can be some markers associated for other stuff, though not in my case. But anyway, hyperphantasia is what they call it now.

It's where you get a lot of visuals knocking around that are hard to control, and it makes it hard to concentrate sometimes, and depending on how it goes you might have other senses leaning into it too, haptic stuff a lot of times, sound as well. For me it's almost mostly visual though I get a lot of the chain chain thoughts and the time warp daydreams. It's probably on a spectrum like everything else. Clearly it's why I have no capacity for brevity and can ramble ramble, sometimes precariously.

But I tripped out pretty hard when I read a saw a few weeks back that our game's Narrator Amelia - that incredible human who did so much heavy lifting for this thing her vox box - she has the mirror opposite condition.

Wait what? She dropped it casually in a podcast about BG3. Like 'oh yeah, this is a thing that exists.' Or this is a thing that I have that helps me do what I do for this work. Paraphrasing, she's way funnier than I am. But like that. On the far side of the spectrum.

Aphantasia. That's apparently where the visuals don't knock, or at least aren't knocking as hard, so other things come into play to sorta compensate. Like it's still mental imagery I guess, but has to form in a different way, that isn't an image like I get, but still an image of a sort or I don't know exactly. I guess I couldn't really, but it totally had me vibing. This is so fascinating to me, that such a thing would be the case, but then the podcaster kinda blew past it without lingering overmuch heheh.I mean probably cause that's a courtesy, like you don't want to be all wading too deep probably for fun videos about game narration. But anyway, really that was like a true 'holy shit, how rad is that' moment for me. And just a few weeks back. I'd have just never come across that ya know, or probably not anyway, were it not for BG3. 

None of that is super important here, just a little set up. So when I went to see the kid head shrinker so they could try to parse it out (unsuccessfully, cause it really wasn't known back then I don't think or the language was sorta inadequate at the time, just kinda lumped in with a general deficit of attention) but while I was there the lady had a literal sandbox, and you guess what the fuck was inside of it?
Pewter figures by Ral Partha!!! And can you guess which one I picked up? It was this dude!



Now I don't know, maybe he's not a dwarf, or maybe he was, but she let me hold onto it. Like a true gift, in the highest spirit of xenia. Then later my grandma would get me another one for my birthday from the hobby shop that was in the same strip mall. The guy with a boards head, and then later a Dragon! But his wing got bent in the move, like did tend to happen hehe. Not the Dwarf though. He had some kinda constitution I guess.

Anyhow I think that was the first in for me. Like the legit first hook. Before the artbooks, and the actual tomes, before Pools of Radiance or the floppy days, or Hobbit cartoons and later Ultima and BG and such. There was that dwarf with his battle axe lol. So, of course, you know I'm going to be on the look out for that callback. I mean if we can! How could I not?

Granted the argument is pure pathos, but I want a Dwarf! You can't wrong there haha
 
Also I totally agree, Korgan had has he own thing going on. It was just amusing to me cause their names were so similar, and if you didn't know better you might have even mistook him for a returning character, like 'oh no?! did they recast Kagain? But then realize you don't care cause the new one still does the trick. So yeah, I think they could do that again more or less, and it'd be enough of a nod for me. Here's pulling for any kind of shorty. You gotta have an anchor and touchstone.

You speak as if it all came by itself. As if the Eru the Iluvatar gave us games, the Internet, graphics, etc.
Many people are involved in the process, in the game, in the production of mods, in fan fiction - and there are also people who play this game, but are developers of other games.
If I was in the Larian team, it would be very important for me to know what the players' assessment of the work I did.
There is a difference between "this is a bad game" and "this game is not bad, but it could be better, and I'll tell you what to do for this"

If there is no feedback, the developers' mistakes will be repeated from time to time. Games that no one fixes are doomed to be unpopular.

By the way, a modern game is a constructor, like lego. It consists of an engine (everything is fine with it) and individual elements, which are not as difficult to edit as it might seem. You can take a different 3d model or a different texture, reassign the link - and the game will pick up the change without difficulty. Adding a new character is not so difficult. If there is already a plot for it, then the longest and most difficult is the animation of cut scenes. It may take several days. Larian showed that they have enough good specialists to produce cinematics. Therefore, adding one companion is two weeks of unhurried work, maximum. Based on the adaptation of the model, textures for a unique character, writing a grid of dialogues, introducing a number of characters for an individual quest, etc.
It would have been difficult in 1996. It would be difficult for an indie developer. It would be difficult if many new locations and hundreds of characters were required (DLC). One companion is not difficult.

Do you have any idea how much b.s. happends in the secondary media to, say, Star Wars ?

Its not canon and thus ignored by canon material.



For the record, personally I'm perfectly happy with the current state of the game in regards to followers.

But There is just not origin.

I don't think anyone takes the premade hirelings seriously (those backstories... At times things in the game feel like parody or Larian taking the piss, because some writing ("hot githyanki girlfriend" or moments feel REALLY off) or likes them as a concept.

They are especially annoying if they happen to share the voice with your custom character, as if having the same barks (that we can't customize our PC's "personality" and making anyone, from a gith to a half-orc, has the same array of generic adventurer voicelines, is a huge missed opportunity) wasn't enough already.

Ral Partha! They exuded that magic, those little fellers, didn't they? I remember staring at the figures in the display case in the local game store, 40-some years ago. They sure got the hyperphantasia going...


That's what so fascinating about Korgan. Obviously a deeply damaged soul, but with some insights and ability to connect to even the Good NPCs. One of the few evil companions I could ever stomach, but this dynamic makes it worth it. There are long discussions regarding whether he was really written as Neutral Evil, rather than CE. In contrast, there was that Evil dwarven monk in NWN1, I could never take him. Stone cold. What's with evil dwarves in CRPGs anyway?




I order one dwarf cleric, good-aligned, male. With a big hammer. And a big beard. If nothing else, as a counter to all the sex bots.

How dare you to say Beast was not sexy ! :P

I mean I really would only want him just-good-enough that he could still team up with Minthara hehe

Want to see something funny? (But like funny in the saddest, but also great kinda way?)

This was the name of my family joint that we lost to the plague times...


Praise the Absolute!!! I mean what are the odds? hehe

Well actually not that bad probably, if it's the 1980s, and you're trying to be all up in the front of the phonebook lol. Anyhow, I got love for the game. But I'd have even more love with a clutch Dwarven companion! With a hammer! And basically good-ish, sure!

Can I get an "It Shall Be" ?

oh oh oh! here we go - 3 wishes in a bottle!

Ready!?

1. Gravel in the voice! Something that says he's probably pushed that cart up some rocky pathways in his day

2. A running commentary on all the meals! They've provided us with such a spread here, why not, break bread and brew with some sort of ale horn.

3. A Belt - so he can hang his ale horn from it! Along with the various hammers of different sizes - from sledge to tuning! Ready with the sides!

heheh

You still do not have to;

1) Stay off forums and reddit
2) Stay off social media
3) Stay off discord

You do not have to listen to people complain and can ignore others easily on the internet. You must not miss the old days very bad because you're here complaining about complaining.

Shadowheart isn't sexy, though.

There we go, a character that practically writes itself!