Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General forums need a serious upgrade

Right now seems I'm more likely to get the 504 timeout when linking from the main page to the main directory, whereas if I just bookmark a thread directly seems to load more reliably.

The main reason I enjoy this spot compared to the aggregating platforms or the socials is that it's long form and primarily just about the one thing - BG3. TLDR dunk culture and too much sprawl is like the total bane for anything of this sort with me, which sucks cause that just seems to permeate most spots these days. I think if that's the sort of dynamic peeps enjoy most then there are other formats that make that sort of engagement more manageable, but a forum is primarily for reading, so having a place that feels more like a zine is what I like. I mean I know it's unavoidable these days to dodge some of that, but perhaps breaking it up a bit by medium might work here. So for example, might have like a shortform video friendly section where embeds are enabled or a gallery type section for smaller still images, but not necessarily across the board. For a zine vibe maybe having the option to do thumbnails could be fun, or you know like those old 8x6 or 4x3, 3x2 wallets, like a BG3 microfiche version. I mean right now I can do something like this with the bbcode, or that, or with the thumb from 3rd party host.


But then trying to say attach an image from the wiki using the full editor "insert image link" more likely to get something like this happen...


as opposed to this... which is the same image from the wiki just pinballed to ibb to have it formated with the initial url link that the boards seem to need.


I mean that's probably what the typical user is going to have happen right?

I've seen that thread more than a few time times, and then the edit with the user asking about why it's not working. I think it took me like a year just to puzzle out how to display an image here heheh

I don't know, but like if there was the Baldur's Mouth illustrated Sunday funnies and we could cut it up, even with smaller images, might be cool. Maybe a full screen would be good in the bug section though. Idea being to just have the images all way downscaled generally unless the user clicks through similar to what I did with spoiler tags. But just without the clickthrough going to a place that's awash in adds and other nonsense. Similar to the wiki, but I honestly don't know how that would be set up, just kinda imagining what might be cool for the illuminated manuscripts take.

Avatars I think it would be cool if that could key off more of the in-game stuff, just to make the experience of signing up and going through that whole process feel somewhat more gamefull. I enjoy the classic throwback smilies and such too, just trying to think of what else might be fun.