Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Do devs even read forums or listen to feedback left here?

I think they must, but also the more I kick around here on these boards the more it's kinda clear why they're not too keen on bumping their gums, and have instead sorta offloaded the conversation to other platforms. It's probably because, if they started to actively poke around here and reply to stuff with regularity, it would mean that these forums then become the place to go, and I don't know these boards could handle that sorta influx. I'm sure they don't want to control the discourse around their own game either, which is why it feels like sort of a ghost town here compared to other places where BG3 is being discussed. The devs would probably never get any work done otherwise, and there are probably NDAs that would make it precarious. Also like what's it going to look like right, a dev shows up in the 100+ pg EA Party Size thread to suddenly explain why it's 4 instead of 6? I mean how's that one go over? lol Just seems like a tall order. I don't think they anticipated how big a deal this game would be for so many people, or the sorts of plaudits and accolades it would garner. At each step along the way it seems like they were kinda shocked that a game called Baldur's Gate III have legs like this. Frankly I'm pretty shocked myself, and it was really affirming and validating to see BG go so big time again.

For 20 years when I'd tell people my all time favorite game is Baldur's Gate, mostly I'd just get blank stares hehe. It hit super hard in it's era, but it didn't make these sorts of waves. I mean it's not like they were kickstarting on this one so I wouldn't expect that sorta vibe anymore, but still, when EA launched in 2020 those initial sales are what helped financed the game's development I'd imagine. They hired a lot of people off that one, I'm sure. There was just that much love for Baldur's Gate still floating around somehow in the aether I guess! That said, when the EA launched, this is where EA players were directed to participate and provide feedback independent of platform. Like if you clicked the link in the BG3 launcher, this is where you end up right? So there's that. I think they could do a bit more to make this place feel different than the various socials or mega-platforms.

There are advantages to having some people who are good at say being in front of a camera or taking interviews or who know how to handle fans, or not putting that one on the devs per say. It's a completely different skillset, doubtless, to go from developing something, to then talking about that thing, or fielding questions and critiques of it. I think Swen probably gave peeps some cover by doing what a Lead Dev is supposed to do with those silly panels, drawing the focus a bit and acting as a sort of lightning rod for the hype/crit in the run-up, basically as a way to insulate the rest of the crew. Since release the Actors have being doing a lot of heavy lifting too for informal engagement, but again not here so much. I mean maybe if there was section all about Performance and Acting and Role Play that was somehow more curated towards that, but it's hard to see that taking off without a lot of mods to keep it friendly. Or a workshop section organized around different themes perhaps, I don't know say one about writing maybe or another about animation, and they just do some little showcases shorter but more frequent? Like doing that sort of thing instead of the big panels from hell, I think that might have been refreshing.

Problem is you get these big peaks and valleys here, flurries of heavy activity followed by longer periods of sleepy quiet, and it sorta gives us whiplash. EA was similar, like first few patches dropped very quickly and a lot of excitement about the pace of development, but then much longer waits between each subsequent patch, and that can get exhausting in the endurance match. Like I wish they could have just had an update/hotfix schedule for like every 6 weeks, so people could sorta plan around that and pace their enthusiasm and engagement accordingly.

It'd also have made it a lot easier to tinker around with the stuff on Nexus, which I do shy away from now, because it's hard to know when a hotfix is going to drop and it's not super convenient to turn all that off in steam. For me the way I find out that a hotfix has been delivered is that the game will crash, usually at like 2 am, and then I'll spend the next hour deciding whether it's worth it to reload mods, or restart a new campaign and just try for achievements etc. If it was a more reliable patch/hotfix sched on the first of the month or something, they could time their passive engagement stuff like Panels or interviews to coincide with the lulls in general activity. Then curate the feedback with things like polls and prompts, basically someone casting guidance for all that I guess, on the regular. Keeps everyone in higher spirits that way probably.

I'd also just really like to see some boards that are totally D&D/FR/BG3 themed. I know this company has made other games and has a long reach there blasting from the past, but I'm here for the Dungeons & Dragons. I think they could do a lot with the avatars and functionality of their home boards, so that it's all a bit more connected to that. I had many criticisms of the game in EA, but I also love BG3! Like I ended up just genuinely loving it! I think they did something quite unique here, and it's tough to articulate what that is precisely, but in short I think what they pulled off was setting a basic Grammar or Vocabulary for how to build out a memorable Character trope in this kind of D&D/BG cinemascope context.

They were able to achieve this for their Origin Companion Characters and NPCs, but fell somewhat short of doing that for the Custom Character. The Custom Tav, basically. So they gave us say a dozen fully realized characters to be exemplars for an introduction Campaign, but now they need to give that x3, so that the Custom Character feels sufficiently custom. Currently I don't have any of my D&D characters in BG3. What I have instead are a bunch of Tavs. Sort of my hambone attempt to meet the game where it's at. To get at a true Custom Character we need more of what went into creating these origin characters, but it needs to parsed out with the kind of typology and modularity that would allow us to deconstruct an Astarion or a Shadowheart or a Lae'zel, so we can rearrange the jigsaw on that. Stuff like Gesture and Tone, all the idles and the aesthetics etc. That all needs to be built out with the idea of teaching the player how to design a Character from the tropic building blocks.

Like I don't know what kind of PHD in theater would be required to find all the modularity there, but that's what it needs. It needs what those actors brought to the table, but translated into the Custom Tav.

Basically teaching the player how to use those tools, to slip into their role - find their persona - get a mask with the right fit on it.

I think it will super challenging and will requiring a full expansion, but also very rewarding if they did it right, since no one has ever pulled that off. Still, this is as close as I've seen anyone come to date.