I wrote here last before the Early Access came out. I don't unfortunately have a computer capable of running modern games at the moment, but I am intrigued whether the game is any good from an old school fans perspective. I have read a few early reviews, and they've been positive but naturally a bit mixed since it's a long ways from finished.

When I last posted, there were multiple issues that worried fans of the original games:

no day/night cycle
forced camping scenes
turn based combat
linear structure
overall feel of the game being too "larian"

How do you feel the game has tackled these issues? Does the lack of day/night cycle make it a distictly different experience? Does it retain the epic & freeform feel of the old games at all? Is the combat as fun as in the originals? Is the structure too linear, does it feel more like a japanese RPG than a semi-open world experience? Is it any good if you love the old games and expect something similar?

Thanks!

"from an old school fans perspective", eh? I wrote here last after the game had been announced for a short time, after making a bunch of posts expressing my hope and expectation as a diehard fan of the original games, and way before the EA came out. I haven't played the EA or watched any gameplay footage but from all the feedbacks I've read - both on here and on the GOG product page - I'm confident to say that this game is shaping up to be everything I did not want it to be - a DOS3 rather than anything that remotely resembles the old BG games.

That being said, before any DOS fan jumps in and starts attacking me with arguments like "if you're disappointed that this game is different then your opinion is wrong": I no longer have the inclination to engage in such an argument; I've done enough of that in the past. Also, though I'm disappointed because I had too much hope, that doesn't mean I'm hating this game. I can change my attitude and treat this as another DOS game and forget about the whole "this being a BG game" altogether; this is easy enough for me to do. I did enjoy my playthroughs of DOS and DOS2.

"Is it any good if you love the old games and expect something similar?"

If you "expect something similar", you will be sorely disappointed. But is it any good? It can still be.

day/night cycle: so far, doesn't seem likely
forced camping scenes: not sure what you mean
TB combat: yes
linear structure: as in linear story? Dunno
overall feel being too "Larian": most likely

"Does the lack of day/night cycle make it a distictly different experience?" - probably. It's not like we have two versions of the game one with day/night cycle and the other without so we can compare. But the lack of day/night cycle means it will miss out on many cool things associated with time of day, that's for sure.

"Does it retain the epic & freeform feel of the old games at all? Is the combat as fun as in the originals?" - one can only hope.

What does it even mean linear structure? O_o

I mean, so far we have at least 3 different ways to approach the main quest (removing tadpole >> ) ... with another 3 options that will become dead end, when done () ...
Every side quest as far as i know, can be done it at least two different ways ...
Most encounters can be either dealt with force, or avoided by stealth, or (if you are lucky) you can even talk your way out. O_o

What im trying to say is that there isnt even a single things i would call linear, so i dont even know where this worry was sourced. O_o

Hmm, perhaps linear was the wrong way to put it. I was mostly meaning open ended vs. chronologically advancing plot, like how much does the game push you forward from one area to the next, can you go back and forth, can you do quests in different order? BG 1&2 were kind of half-linear, meaning as the main plot advanced you'd open up new areas and sometimes lose access to others, but there was still high level quests hidden in areas you mostly spent time in the early game. Example of a linear game with possibly multiple solutions to quests would be most JRPG's, while a completely or mostly non-linear game would be Skyrim or some of the Fallout games.

Oh I see what you mean. Well the answer to that is we don't know. Within a single Act of the game you can go wherever you want. So In ACT I its a completely open world for what is available with a lot of optional stuff that you can get involved with/or not. You can travel around and back and forth to places. However, we don't think you can travel back to this area from Act 2 once you are finished with it. There is some discussion happening on making certain areas continually traversable after the fact - with Baldur's Gate itself being pointed to as an area that would be good to be able to always return to.

but again we don't know. Baldur's gate is supposedly Act 2, and there is a 3rd Act. It may be once you pass Act 2 you won't be able to return to Baldur's Gate OR Baldur's Gate gets attacked, or damaged somehow and so becomes a ruined city.

Oh, that much we dont know yet ... we still have practicaly one map only.
But i allready managed to screw few sidequests by doing the main one first.

Day / Night cycle has not been discussed by larian as far as I can see at this point which is something that may come up over time.

Forced camping scenes thats just a time progression path to the tadpole after x amount of time it does trigger different story interactions. / Use of the tadpole and sleep triggering effects / story progression and camping triggering effects. If your are fairly efficient with combat you can get about 4 combats in before you need to rest.

The turn based combat they have said is here to stay there was an interview done with larion where they stated it will be / stay turn based if there is a RTwp option based on the interview it would not be changed for the base game release. Would most likely be added down the road as dlc content if at all.

Structure isnt really to linear there are alternate paths to approaching things that do change the outcome mostly the good / evil path options the most obvious being siding with different factions within the game.

I personally dont really feel its too larian there are a bit too many explosive ways of dealing with things it does seem like they toned down some of that a little but it could be done a bit more. Some of the combat effects I would assume they are holding off correcting them till majority of content is added to make it easier to filter out things like spells specifically and wizards I would hope they plan to remove wizards being able to cast divine spells from scrolls. It just makes Wizards way to overpowered and not feel even remotely like dnd in that aspect. Swapping weapons needs a fix as well you should not be able to change weapons without using a bonus action. and back stab needs to require a target being flanked to be applicable. Outside that there is nothing super standoffish with combat that I dont think needs a major fix. Ranger also still needs more work with animal companions IMO since they planned to take that a different route which I think is a positive thing as the base game ranger does need an overhaul which even WoTC has stated its the weakest class. Scaling the animal companions is a good starting point for that.

Nothing new has been added since the druid. I wouldnt set my expectations to high on anything new coming in anytime soon.

The game has a huge potential but lot of things are going wrong especially in the mechanics and definitely, the game feels like an improved "classic Larian games" rather than, a whole new RPG experience.
Of course everyone may like the extravagant Larian style or not (story, WTF companions, visual effects,,...)

- The exploration is really interresting and I'm still finding new area after 300 hours (area that I didn't found in my playtrough but I heard about).
- The game is beautifull, no doubt.
- The story, the quests and the dialogs have interresting and/or unexpected pathes.

It's work in progress but I guess they'll succeed at creating, once again very new and very enjoyable mechanics related to the story, side quests, environnment, exploration and so on.

On the other hand the entire experience, the story you're writing doesn't always really feel coherent.

There's a lot of lore and the themes are mature... but the game throw at you silly things all the time (animations, visual effects, mechanics,...).
In french we say "il à son cul entre deux chaises", "it has it's ass between 2 chairs"... BG3 wants to be mature and silly/childish/cartoonish at the same time.

It worked in their custom world according to me but it doesn't at all in an established settings like DnD and the Forgotten Realms. Larian's definition of fun looks more "silly" than "mature" to me.
I hoped they'll change thisfor BG3 but it looks they won't. Looks like that's how they plan to design all their games.

- So when you're talking with NPCs it's serious.

- Most of the time when you're exploring it is serious even if the map design create a theme park feeling (a forest with 10 trees, a swamp smaller than my garden, tons of different creatures on a small area, the evil characters that cannot find the good ones that are litteraly 2 minutes further,....)
The "open world" feel frozen and everyone is waiting for you. The lack of day and night cycle completely increase this feeling and you cannot expect any variations visually AND mechanically (hiding better at night, bandits on the road at night, different NPC position at night or someone ever sleeping,...)

- Then combats start and you'll eat pigs head between 2 attacks, you'll jump like a super hero creating a shockwave when you land, a cow will climb a ladder, every dead character is gonna loose all the blood in it's body as soon as he's dead, poison surfaces will appear everywhere, your characters will move like chickens because of the chain mechanic, and so on.

About combats there are a lot of threads you may read but a lot of us don't find them satisfying.

There are a lot of classes but playing the game as intented makes them way less unique.
After a few hours you'll notice that there are good buttons and bad buttons. The game rewards you when you use some mechanics that everyone can use from level 1 to 4 and punish you, making the game harder if you don't.

It lacks a lot of tactical depth and your strategy will usually only rely on "killing before being killed".

Anyway great potential. Probably the potential to become the best cRPG of all time... But there's still a lot of things that makes BG3 more a hybrid of DoS/DnD rather than the followings of the legend.

I really mind your suggestions. It helps me improve my English

I am still going with as my 30 second pitch for BG3

DOS2 using the Forgotten Realms Lore.

Yes, it's not 100% DOS2 mechanics but it feels like they just reskinned / refavored DOS2 to make it sound like D&D instead of building 5e from the ground up.

All style over substance, looks pretty, less filling.

BG3 shaping up to be an OK game, not the game of a decade that I was hoping for.

My recommendation is wait for the definitive release that we'll get a few years after it goes gold and then only buy that during one of Steam's massive sales where you can get it at 1/2 price.

This was meant to be a joke, unfortunately, it is very close to reality.

No, that was not a joke, that is my current opinion / recommendation. BG3 is definitely not worth buying at release, it's a so-so game not worth the money or your time and I really do not expect it to improve much before release for me to change that opinion.

It depends what you want and what you expect.

It is a Larian RPG, in the similar way as Fallout3 was Bethesda's. If you had any experience with D:OS1&2 it should give you an idea if you will enjoy BG3 or not.

Personally, I think it misses what made Baldur's Gate enjoyable, but I think BG3 can be enjoyable in its own way. Overall, I enjoyed my time with BG3 more then D:OS2. My biggest concerns are tidium that comes from UI and control scheme, and changes that Larian makes to DnD systems.

Personally, I think Fallout 3 was actually fairly faithful in its transition to 3D Action RPG.

Most of the mechanics present derived from the originals such as how Skills and SPECIAL were handled. It made sure to call back to how combat acted in the original with the VATs system and making AP a core resource. It actually did its research on the lore and characters of the series, such as when they wanted the BoS to be a more hero like faction they did a great amount of justification by having the Outcasts exist and making the BoS still be very condescending about locals and wanting to secure technology. And it tied back to the original by making the main conflict about water, and even gave thought to the Super Mutants by giving them a goal because their supply of FEV is limited essentially leading them to the end you convinced the Master of, where as a race they are doomed to die out cause they can not effectively reproduce.
True there were some things that were not so well thought out, I don't remember any explanation of how Little Lamplight maintains its population (I would have to guess kidnapping...?) and the Enclave almost felt like they were entirely disconnected from the events of Fallout 2 when it would have been nice to feel it be more connected with more hard references to them having regrouped in the Capital as their last ditch effort or something. But overall, I felt Fallout 3 was a faithful adaptation in line with the series, unlike 4 which needed like a few more months to a year of development for its writing, especially since somehow Elder Maxson of all people just forgot the Codex existed and you have no opportunity to actually levy the Codex and there was none of the finagling of factions you could do in NV or 2, as well as a certain detachment from the series themes as a whole.

I mentioned it less to how it adapted systems into FPS, but how it is fundamentally different type of RPG then fallout 1&2 - in terms of appeal, structure, pacing, tone. Fallout3 was "Oblivion in Fallout universe" rather then "First Person Fallout game".

As a Larian, Baldur's Gate and D&D fan I'm sad to say the game is still a disappointment. Larian's design vision coupled with lackluster communication skills have turned me off on them a bit as well. Though I'm sure I would have enjoyed the game more if it wasn't attempting to portray itself as Baldur's Gate -- or D&D for that matter. It kind of fails in both regards for now.

I can see where you are coming from, I disagree personally but I can see it.
But that does go into how BG3 really does need to nail BG instead of DOS in BG universe.

Even though that EA only has about 25 hours worth of content, I somehow managed to put in 270 hours into the game. So, i enjoy it, and it reminds me a-lot of Dragon Age origins.

"only about 25 hours" ...
I know games that dont even offer as much in full release.

This is the fairest and most complete summary of the game (at least as it is now) I have ever seen.

I think the most important part is the bottom line - although it will probably be a good game, I doubt it will be anything more than a nice game you get on sale from steam. Nowhere close to the legend people hoped for.

All I can say is that it’s not the spiritual successor to the previous games that I was expecting and hoping for. That is subjective of course.

Maybe naively I thought the feedback given would go some way to altering some of the more criticised aspects of the game but there appears to be some dissonace around how Larian interprets and address such feedback. At this point I can’t see them moving too drastically from their current vision for the game.

And most games, try to get you to pre-order at full price without offering anything. Or they cut a piece off from the game, and label it as a pre-order bonus.

That's a plus for sure. Doesn't make the game any better though

We don't really know because they're not communicating at all. Big changes take a lot of time. And patch 5 seems to take a really long time. So maybe they are trying some changes.

They seem really set in their ways though with the cheesy exploits in gameplay. I still hope they can respect the source material enough to include a RAW 5e game mode. Every major D&D CRPG has had a hard-core D&D difficulty setting so would be pretty outrageous not to include it, really. Many people love D&D but hate barrels and stealth cheese &Co.

I'd love to be proved otherwise, as per your suggestions, but as you said "they seem really set in their ways" and on that point I couldn't agree more.

Personally I get the feeling the reason things are taking so long is because they vastly underestimated the scope of this project, which might be alluded to by the expansions in workforce. The last patch took a while and all we got was the Druid and some mushrooms. Perhaps I am too pessimistic but I struggle to see myself playing this game again sadly.

I don't think I will ever understand why games attach such importance to hours of playtime, over quality of said hours.

the length also depends on your playstyle too.. there is plenty of stuff to see, even in just the act 1 EA version. Also note that I expect Act one to take a little longer, since the mountain pass and shadowlands areas are missing until full release. Although those seem to be seperate areas I guess. Unless it functions like the Underdark section of the game.

I don't know about you, but having an incredible 1 hour experience for $80 CAD vs a decent experience for 100 - x00 hours for $80 CAD is a no brainer. I'll take the 400 hours of entertainment any day. Now, if you're fortunate to not have to worry about money at all, then congrats! You're a whale (kidding)

Me neither ... who did that?
Speaking for myself ... both are important

I used to think like this. I choose quality over quantity since I began working.

That's of course exaguration, but the question would be: how good the 1 hours experience is. I am generally hesitant to pay full price, though it happens more then I would like to admit, but time investment is as much of a value to me, as my money account. I would take 20-40h RPG that is no-filler, all-killer experience, then a 100+h RPG that has 50-70hours of great content.

It could be that I find it rare these days to find a game that I wish was longer (I remember that wasn't the case in the past were more games were under 10h mark), but I played a lot of games in recent years that overstayed their welcome (be in unintentional or intentional [monatization of grind]).

It's just this werid thing in gaming that I dont' understand. I haven't seen people argue about value of one book over another, with how many pages each of them has. Sure there needs to be a certain amount of pages to be a book, but what in those pages in generally more important then how long it will take to read the book. If anything excessive length can be seen as negative.

EDIT. There is that certainly. I am definitely more fussy with how I spend my free time these days.

The greatest games I played have big shelf life. So the game might have 30 hours of gameplay in theory but you have many opportunities to replay it

Unless you want a book that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage instead of 1d4. That's why I avoid ereaders.

Ikr. There are times when all you need is a good, thick, heavy book, ideally hardcover, and the heaviest thing you got is your damn mobile phone.

That's totally a book being used as a monk weapon.

I want the option to use a book as a blunt weapon or thrown weapon if it's at least 5lbs, and you can also change its damage type to non-lethal.

Can’t you already throw anything in your inventory? I didn’t try it myself (why would I?) but the news outlets went crazy when Swen threw his boots at the enemy for some reason.

I didn't check books. But that's not really anything, looks like they considered some things being too light or too important to throw.

The outlets are drumming up clicks by going crazy over small things. Especially streamers seem to love silly legal exploits as a way to entertain their audiences with cheap laughs. They are playing in a way that I suspect differ significantly from your average gamer, and this kind of exposure has likely contributed to making Larian so set in their ways when it comes to "Larianisms".

I wonder what you consider to be a legendary game then.

Judging by your question, I'm gonna guess that you're not going to agree with him no matter what he says. You're also not about to let yourself be convinced anytime soon either. You either understand his sentiment, or you don't. And if you don't, chances are you never will.

When he says legendary game he is probably referring to the original BG trilogy. If so, I do agree that current BG3 does not hold up to it.

Well, the funny thing is that I would understand if he compared BG 3 to Witcher 3 for example. But BG 1 and 2 are grossly overestimated due to nostalgia. Especially BG 1 which was good in 1998, but is a very mediocre game today. BG 2 was nice, but saying that BG 3 doesn't hold up to it is nonsense. The world feels much more alive, there is more variety in social interactions, story is much more interesting, graphics are obviously better, etc.

Actually both the Witcher 3 and the BG series would qualify in my eyes as "legendary". I'm sure this topic is very subjective, but I think time will tell. You can think whatever you want about the BG series, but you can't deny the fact that many people still consider these games to be a big highlight for them and still play them to this day.

Just modding it for another playthrough.

I'm satisfied with it. I don't mind the turn based-it's closer to the tabletop it's adapting, and while there are some clear rule breaks and it's different, Baldur's Gate was my first exposure to dnd so it still feels 'different' to me anyway, if that makes sense. Besides, Baldur's Gate too a lot of liberties with how accurate it was with regards to it's source material (such as having real time combat in the first place!)
The writing is good, the attention to details are good (tell astarian not to eat anything you can have a conversation with as a druid with 'talk to animals' active, for example!) and the only thing that's got me nervous is how the previously standoffish Shadowheart seems quite a bit more friendly and the communications blackout that seems to be in effect; logically, I know they're busy actually working instead of chatting with the forum/community but the total silence isn't reassuring.

It's too early to tell but I'm hoping the game doesn't drag in Baldur's Gate I and II any more than it has to-there's a trend in media to do a sequel to something beloved just so they can rip the old thing down, and thankfully Larian is seemingly avoiding that beyond a book going "Yes, Baldur's Gate I and 2 happened". The game is apparently shaping up to be a sequel in tone/theme of "How much will you give up for power" that the previous series had, which is what I would vastly prefer. There is levity and silliness in some bits of the game, however Baldur's Gate had it's fair share of silly moments too so I'm really bothered by that, I think the balance is good.

Dragon Age: Origins
Witcher 3
Fallout 1 & 2
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
Fallout New Vegas
Disco Elysium
Planescape Torrent
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2

Yes, many of these are ancient but for their time, completely amazing and defined excellence for their era.

Honestly, BG3 is making me think of another overhyped game, Cyberpunk 2077, which also is not living up to what people were hoping to get.

With all the criticism I may have toward BG3 I'm fairly confident I will end up liking it more than Dragon Age Origins.
But that's because I never thought that highly of DAO to begin with.

I would certainly add:
- Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
- Mass Effect 1, 2, 3
- Metal Gear Solid
- Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain

I honestly wonder why?

Because it wasn't that good?
- The "videogame-friendly" ruleset they came up with was incredibly dull and approximative. We are talking stuff that makes D&D 5th edition appear complex and nuanced in comparison.
- The variety of enemies was more nominal than practical, given that no matter how many different models they had in the game, the same exact combinations of abilities worked on EVERYONE of them without much of an issue.
- if people complain about "HP bloat" in BG3 they would have cried their eyes out realizing what HP sponges some enemies were in DAO, especially at the hardest difficulty settings.
- Entire stretches of the game were a complete slog to go through (the Fade and the Deep Roads are almost infamous for that).

I played it, I finished it, I somewhat liked it, it was also a dark age where "party-based CRPGs" seemed pretty much on their way to complete extinction, so I appreciated that it was a thing at all... But I never particularly loved it and I don't think it compares too favorably to most f the others listed.

That is what i wanted to know.
Thank you for answering.

... I must ask - and please do not take this the wrong way but...

Why are people so very fond of DA:O, but PoE is hardly ever mentioned as the absolutely amazing game that at least I thought it was? :x PoE made it to my favorite game of *all time* - I simply adored pretty much everything; from combat, to (most of the) story, to characters, to setting to... Everything(?) About it and I don't even have any nostalgia tied to it as I played it during winter 2020-2021. :'D PoE2 was pretty good too, but not as good imo.


I am just genuinely curious, what about PoE makes it not quite reach games like DA:O amongst the community?

When I first played POE, I found that it has a bad habit of dumping TONS of exposition on you at various points of the game, instead of the 'show, don't tell' approach that DAO utilizes in comparison. The party members are nowhere near as charismatic as DAO's companions too, which is probably a huge but rarely talked about factor in DAO's popularity.

The pacing is also kinda weird. The game really kicks your ass at the start and doesn't really explain its systems very well. I actually almost missed Eder by the tree too, the start became a lot easier once I had him around to tank things. I liked the game for what it was, but it was pretty easy for me to see why it left people rather disappointed.

I like POE 2 more than POE 1, actually.
Once again, more on the mechanical side than in terms of story and characters because in that sense... I just didn't care that much for either of the two.

In its time there was no game with that much scope and complexity as BG. It was revolutionary, and I can see that having played it only after the CRPG revival during the 2010s, since I was a small kid in the late 90s from a non-english speaking country, so there was no way I'd understand how it worked. Therefore I speak with no nostalgia lenses whatsoever.

BG3 however is not revolutionary in the slightest, just a mishmash of DOS2 with some D&D and most work being put into graphics. Its trendy, and I actually think the comparison with Witcher 3 valid, both games invested heavily in spectacle leaving gameplay as an afterthought. For this same reason I don't like Witcher 3 as much as other RPGs because of its horrendous gameplay, in my opinion the worst thing a 100 hour game can have.

Simply because PoE is not an AAA game. But it was a hit considering its budget and sold well over 1 million copies.

Hear hear!

I am a big PoEs fan, and they are my personal favourite of the recent RPG resurgance, but personally I find both games too flawed to be put together with best of the best. I actually, rate both games on more or less the same level - but they succeeed and fail in different aspects.

I really enjoyed PoE up until the "big reveal" that wasn't that big of a reveal, then i just stopped caring. Then the second game doubled down on the God nonsense and I really stopped caring. The mechanics/gameplay were very enjoyable. DA:O was special for it's time, sort of a fantasy version of Mass Effect. Having a massive company backing you automatically gives you more popularity.

I'm not shy about it either.
If you have any question feel free to ask.

Hmm, I never felt that way about the exposition dumping. Nor did I really feel like DA:O made a particularly good example of "show, don't tell."

One of the many reasons that I liked PoE was because the characters felt like they weren't around just to... Follow me around (*ahem* Alistair...). I do not remember getting my butt kicked in the beginning either - which is VERY ironic considering I spent the first 3-5 hours in DA:O being absolutely smashed by both the tutorial and the first set of bandits in the very first area... ... ... Yeah, I don't know either. My brother was just as clueless about wtf happened there.

Regarding companions, I thought the individual companions you had in PoE was definitely the best bunch I've ever had and loved each and every one of them for their own oddities. <3 I loved Aloth's ... Condition? And his overall subtle snarky attitude :'] I loved the genuine sense of Edér. I loved Kana Rua and his rather unusual commentary. I absolutely adored Durance and I was devastated I couldn't ask whatever happened about him in PoE2. I loved the story quest of Sagani with it's ... Grim plot twist at the end. I thought grieving mother made for a fantastic character, despite severely disliking many of her personality attributes. Hiravias was easily one of my favorites through-out the entire game! Pallegina had me stunned with her unique beauty features (feathers = Dez approves), and although I found her personality rather... Erm, yeah (especially in PoE2...), I absolutely felt like it made sense for her character (... At least in PoE1). In short - I loved all of them and I played all of their stories! <3

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE MUUUUSIC <3 Oh man, I still listen to everything from the combat to inn music almost daily from PoE.



Hmm... Fair. I loved the mechanical part of PoE2 because I tried Arcane Archer for the first time in my entire life, and now I am kind of devastated that BG3 won't have it... q _ q *ree*



:[ I think it was an amazing masterpiece, the first game that is. The second game was also pretty solid (one of my favorites for sure!) but I encountered a lot of issues there that I did not experience in the first game.

Alas, I am sad that PoE2 did not sell as well as they hoped so that the team got kinda bummed out. :[ Hoping that Avowed will turn out well so that they perhaps get motivated to give PoE3 a go. c: (BUT NOT AS AN FPS GAME PLEASE q _ q )

I think it's because for a lot of people Dragonage was their first 'proper' rpg game (god I feel old saying that) and was made by Bioware. PoE had good names in it, but it was a 'new' studio, so it was fairly obscure?
I think broadly there's the 'older' generation like myself that grew up playing Baldur's Gate I and II and a 'newer' generation that grew up on Dragonage and/or perhaps KOTOR, so they have different standards, hopes and expecations for the game.

Haha, no, I was just agreeing with you. I have a special, personal dislike towards Dragon Age: Origins. My first earned money spent, big disappointment and first introduction to day1 DLC. I thought the game was just ok, but I really, really, really don't like it

Ask a tank enthusiast about legendary tanks and they will mention some WW2 era tanks. Even though they are practically useless today. Same with cars, etc.

If a game gets a sequel after 20 years and creates hype, you know it is not an ordinary game. (Though I realize some of the hype comes from Larian itself, but I don't think people would be hyped if Larian made a sequel to Icewind Dale)

Most of what makes BG2 an "outdated game" today comes from its technical limitations (low resolution, extremely low refresh rate, etc).

If we could get the same exact game with current tech, its core design would hold up incredibly well. And its UI as well, surprisingly enough.

There is also a reason why Isometric RPGs never truly faded away, even with many franchises going to other things like First person or dying, new franchises have risen like POE or even returned (kinda) with how Wasteland 2 and 3 came out. Mechanically, the genre is considered very sound and couple that with good writing and players tend to get hooked. Heck, people still play Fallout 1 and 2 A LOT.
And to that, BG1+2, even considered old, never really faded from gaming culture as far as I can tell. And have stayed relevant enough to get Enhanced Editions with active updates years later, and even other DND games like Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale have gotten console ports.
Also I don't have Nostalgia for BG1 or 2, compared to many here I have only played them recently and despite knowing of them I did not grow up with them because I didn't have them. Same for Fallout 1 and 2 (though I did play some of Tactics when I was younger). I and I assume others talk well about these games not because Nostalgia clouds vision (though for some it perhaps does), but because they are very good games that have aged very well and still play well even by modern standards.

BG3's world more alive than in BG1/2 ? Really ?
I can't deny that BG3 is way more beautifull but the world doesn't feel (more) alive at all lol.

It's always sunny. Everyone is waiting for you. The map is divided in area pasted together. The goblins are living so much that they cannot find the grove. Nothing special or unexpected ever happen (Random encounter or new creatures/characters after a while), there's a forest full of nothing alive, surfaces never dissapear,...

The world is completely frozen... What gives (some of) you the feeling that it's alive ??? I'd really like to understand.

I know right? Most people saying that never even played BG2. It feels so much more alive and DYNAMIC compared to BG3. Really Ironic.
For example events/quests happening only at night, weather; rain/wind/thunder, amazing background sound effects depending on your area, party banters tied to game environments; or banters triggered by just commoner dialogues, interaction/dialogues with in-game items (caged mute bird, genie bottle, young lady trapped in a magical scroll, talking sword....). Even Dragon Age feels half baked.

I agree with you, but also realize that we haven't been to any urban area yet, we could be judging BG:3 based on what amounts to the walk from Candlekeep to the Friendly Arm Inn. (I mostly bring this up because all your screenshots look like they're from Amn)

As for party banter, I'd like to believe that most of that hasn't "come online" yet. And will become more extensive as we narratively become more of a team.

The sound design BG 1 2 and Icewind Dale (and Sigil!) was boss, BG:3 needs to really step up there to compete.

Dynamic? Yes. Alive? Only if you use your imagination. In BG2 NPCs literally just stand doing nothing, they go away at night, and return to their spot to just stand there in one place and that's it. There are no animations or sophisticated routines in BG2, it's literally just about placing NPCs in 2 different spots for 2 different time periods. At most they can walk, but they never can work or do anything complex. BG3 world for me is much more alive, because of how NPCs behave, even if they feel frozen in one day.

Day/Night cycle is really important for true open world RPGs like Elder Scroll series, but for linear story-heavy RPGs like BGs it is, ofcourse, nice, but doesnt matter that much.

This reminds me of when Bethesda was hyping up how their NPCs would operate using dynamic behavioral routines....so life like...

And what is it in BG3 ? They just don't move at all except a very very few of them "patrolling".

Remember, you're trying to explain how great BG2 is to someone who concludes that the game is "grossly overestimated due to nostalgia", and that saying BG3 doesn't hold up to BG2 is nonsense, and "the world feels much more alive, there is more variety in social interactions, story is much more interesting" - all that after playing the *early access* of *only the first act* of BG3. Your chances of success are about the same as when someone tries to convince me that I'm grossly overestimating BG2 due to nostalgia.

I thought the whole point of playing RPGs was to use our imagination.

I wonder how "incredibly great iconic masterpiece" was BG 1&2 more than year before release ...

My money would go for: Not much.

I suppose it depends on what you rate in games. For me graphics aren't a boon in themselves. BG1&2 don't NEED better graphics - they pulled off all they attempted to pull off. Throughout the years I easily got new players hooked on BG2 - it's a superb game and a classic. The fact that games are dated, don't diminish their value. Thief, Thief2 and Systemshock2 are still best games in business - and that I can say without nostalgia googles, as I played both of them not too long ago for the first time. There is adjustment period, and they are dated, but they are still really really good. Same Deus Ex1. And I am confident I would fall in love with BG2 in the same way, would I play it today, as I did in mid 2000s. I am not allergic to retro play - as I didn't grew up with access to shiny new hardware I am well accustommed to digging for classic gems then gushing at the newest, shiniest toy. And unfortunately, new shiny toys tend to loose their appeal once they are not new anymore. Good games stay good forever.

Do we need to start a thread about how much better the prequels are than the original trilogy?

THIS. Exactly THIS is the reason I replay the game until this day. 20 years has passed and for some reason really few studios understood why BG2 was so good. Ironically the small studios do a better job than the big ones at this. Maybe because it's easier to keep it consistent when you're a small company? Idk. RISEN 2 for instance was insane from this aspect Like the game was super small in the end and you didnd't have multiple companions to choose from. But the girl following you around was reacting to your actions and what was going around in her own way. She had her own goals and that's what motivated her words. It's a simple concept.

BG3 characters in comparison are inconsistent AF. In BG2 you could relatively easily have a team full of evil and good characters without anyone leaving despite hating each other. They would explain why they are still here. And it made sense.
The evil characters in BG3 feel sassy like hell for some reason. Maybe it's because they talk mostly in camp and not when the events happen. Probably because of it btw. Eh. Idk. I just hope they somehow magically fix it and all of a sudden we will have the same level of interaction with our team as we did in BG2. It's not that hard. You don't need a cinematic everytime Astarion tells you why he's not a fan of your actions. Just make him speak goddamit.

If it takes magic to fix it...

It literally would take magic to get "the same level of interaction with our team as we did in BG2" from RPGs nowadays. It's a fantasy.

Remember the beggars around the Slum District in BG2? If you talk to them, sometimes one of your party members would butt in with a remark. After playing BG2 on and off for 10+ years I discovered a rather amusing exchange between Nalia and Valygar that is only triggered when you have both of them in the party and when you talk to one of those beggars.

Remember in BG1 and 2 sometimes a pair of companions who hate each other would argue randomly and eventually become unselectable and fight each other until one is dead? Well, there was this one time when Dynaheir and Edwin decided it was time to settle it once and for all, I watched them throw spells they had available at each other, and in the end, their last spells killed each other at the same time - Edwin using Magic Missile and Dynaheir using Melf's Acid Arrow. I thought this was such a perfect ending. And there was this fight in BG2 between Viconia and Keldorn that broke out right after the Asylum maze. Of course Keldorn was too strong for Viconia. He almost killed her, but then Viconia freaked out and ran away. The funny thing was, they were fighting next to the exit point of that area, and her "panic AI" made her go through this area transition point and escape to the next area. This broke their combat state and neither of them ever talked about it again afterward. Fun times.

I can never forget those moments and up to this day I have yet to find moments equally funny and amusing from any other game.

Exactly. I know it's a bit harder to do it " properly " in case of BG3, it's much more centered around COOP. From singleplayer perspective/Duo of players this wouldn't be a problem, but what if you have a party of 4? Does one of them suddenly loose control over his character ?

I would say yes, absolutely. If you made the wrong choices and your character ended up having a stroke and is now about to kill another guy from your group you accept that this is where your decisions led to.
And start playing another character.

The thing is ... I think Larian is against it at it's core. " Play the game the way you want". If the character you play made a decision you disagree with....well...it wasn't your character. See what I mean?
Same with the "No clock thing".

Nalia's castle is under siege and no she won't wait a month or two until you're done at Umar Hills. In BG3 everything waits for you. Every single person in the whole universe is making extra sure there's a red carpet waitingdd(your enemy, the goblins, INCLUDED). BG2 had very little " Timed events" and usually if a character left your party to deal with something he was waiting for you where you were supossed to do the quest. But once again, it just made so much sense for them to at least pretend they had a tight schedule.

It's hard to catch why BG2 was so good especially now that it's 20 years old. But I do think it's about characters. Those we have in BG3 ( in current form, EA obviously) are nowhere close to what Bioware did back then.


"It literally would take magic to get "the same level of interaction with our team as we did in BG2" from RPGs nowadays. It's a fantasy." -==> I don't think it is. Larian already has the same elements we had in BG2 tbh when it comes to character interaction. But it's not highligthed at all for now. I hope that's part of the " work in progress". If the entire party ends up soulless it would take so much away from that game.

In BG3 we see NPCs interacting with surroundings (blacksmith hammering, workers using their tools, people near tables and chests interacting with them) as a part of their routine, there are more animations and voice over for idle NPC routine in BG3 act one than whole BG2, even the text for idle NPCs is very limited, used mostly for town criers and quest NPCs trying to get your attention, usually you have to actually talk to them to see their dialogues with other NPCs.

You remember the rock-paper-scissor mini game in DOS, through which you and your other custom character try to settle a difference in opinion? If you want to go with option A then LOSE the rock-paper-scissor game, your characters would go with option B, and you'd feel like tearing your hair out. This is literally "the character you play made a decision you disagree with".

I'd also like to point out that "play the game the way you want" is not the same thing as "everything works out the way you want". It is understandable if we want to avoid unpleasant consequences that result from NPC autonomy. However, there are times when that makes sense and adds life to the game. For example, the idea that two party members suddenly becoming unselectable and trying to kill each other off. I understand that this could cause inconveniences, and many players can't see the amusing side of it and to them this idea is just bad. Personally, I find this amusing and wouldn't mind either reloading the game or just moving on. I also understand that this is actually a consequence of my choice, which is "forcing people who hate each other to travel together".

I guess many players can't stand NPC autonomy when it's something unpleasant, especially when the situation stems from inconspicuous, seemingly "innocent" choices (meaning they can't anticipate that a certain decision they've made is going to lead to something unpleasant). Things like party members suddenly leaving you to do their own things, becoming unselectable, trying to kill other party members, hating your actions to the point that they immediately turn hostile, disappearing from the game for good because you don't help them in time, etc. The old BG games weren't afraid of creating such situations and putting you in a rough spot, and I respect them for it.

So we're just talking about two different kinds of "being alive" here. You're talking about the animations, voice-overs, and idle interaction between NPCs and world objects. While these are nice and they make the game feel exciting and animated, they are just cosmetic, on-the-surface things that you can see, and rarely have real consequences. Let's take the blacksmith hammering for example. So what if he's interacting with his anvil? Does that mean anything? If not, then he's no different from an NPC standing still doing nothing - the only thing the blacksmith has that a static NPC doesn't is the animation. Now, however, if you can take his anvil away, and he actually realizes that his anvil is gone, and reacts to that in some manner (maybe go out and buy a new anvil, post a notice about his anvil being stolen, etc.), then that would make him more "alive".

While "NPCs looking lively" does add to the feeling that the world is alive, the kind of "being alive" that the other guys and I are talking about is beyond that. It has to do with the personality of NPCs, the things that they say, the stories that they tell, their history, their reaction to world events, and the way world events happen. These are the things you don't immediately perceive like all the cool animations. They involve more writing. It takes good writing, and it takes reading and playing time to see and appreciate. Voice-overs certainly help add personality to a character, but it takes more than that for the character to feel alive.

I agree, writing is the most important part here, but writing alone is enough only for some people. Many people, including me, never read popular plays, but we love going to theaters to watch professional actors act in those plays, because the way those actors present their characters is what makes these characters "alive" for us.

Those plays are only fun to watch because the characters are doing something interesting.

Let's take Chekhov for example. His plays are legendary because of the subtext, the concealed emotions and thoughts that are manifested not in the text itself, but the way that text is presented by actors with pauses, intonations, inflections, etc. being more important then the words they speak. The "doing something interesting" part of his plays is not what the characters do, but how and why.

You know it's not a question of one thing is more important than the other. Like..it is for me but I see what you mean. Yes, standards changed. Still, if they decided to voice over every single dialogue and add a cutscene to it and that's the reason to loose all those things mentioned on the last 2 pages of this discussion than what's the point? I hope they manage to mix both. I love what they did so far to some extent, of course graphics and animations from Larian are just sweet. But you can't trade graphics over dialogue in Baldur's Gate just like that.

Best example I can give is the first encounter with Astarion. The guy literally jumps on you with a knife. During this time the rest of the party is 100% silent and just looks at you. I guess it will be changed over time cause EA but ....will it?

Will Astarion at some point decide he had enought of Shadowheart's bs and just leave to live in peace? Or at least mention he has problems with her other than " Astarion disaproves " every single time " Shadowheart approves"? Or will it be too expensive to get yet another dialogue and it will be cut off from the game?

Yes, interrupting the game every single time at random moments when one of them has something to say in multiplayer might feel akward and they did the camp only discussions exactly because of it. But at least show a dialogue box to let us know they are talking while our camera is on the other side of the world making us unable to hear them?

Shadowheart at some point due to one of my decisions started screaming at me, saying she had enought and at that point she's ready to die to the tadpole rather than spending one more minute here. That was perfect! Of course I wanted to know that. I need to know it. Why did it happen in the camp? Like if she felt like this she decided to keep it for herself and not let me know during the whole day? Oh I also made a " shadowheart approves" decision that day so just after that dialogue she started a new one. A dialogue where she was " so thankfull to be in this group". Like that made her feel bipolar, dangerous and at most 14 years old.

Eh I could go on like that for hours. Maybe weeks. On one hand they want to show more of the characters, show their emotions in cinematics and close ups. Have a more" alive" dialogue. And precisely for this reason they " cut off the balls" of every single one character in our party.

BG2 had the same problem so they voiced over the first dialogue + the most important parts. Worked well for Viconia. You kinda knew what she felt when being nearly burned alive+ she had time to say a bit more than that. In BG3 they have voice over for all dialogues so...less dialogues. Less of everything. 20 years later. Just mix both. Cinematics and dialogues. Simple ones. It won't interrupt for long if shadowhearts says something, you answer her and she just answers with one line. No cinematic. Just a quick exchange.

If shakespear was voiced by Baldur's Gate actors then the first sentence + " To be or not to be" would be said by an actor and the rest would be text.

We know this considering a stage play of Romeo and Juliet is in the game :p Or was it Othello?

More seriously, I've been trying to find out how many lines of dialogue were in Baldur's Gate II, how many voiced lines were in The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 and what rpg has the most voiced lines (the mmorpg The Old Republic)

I haven't had much luck googling it but...

For Baldur's Gate II the best I could find was something about the word count being 1060k and 57k lines of dialogue, though I couldn't find a source for this. That same source put Planescape at 75k lines of dialogue
Baldur's Gate EE said that it added 350k words. in that same thread someone said BG:I had 24k lines and BG:I EE had 34k.

Fallout New Vegas had 65k lines of dialogue to Fallout 3's 40k these were the games with a silent protagonist as well, Fallout 4 claims to have 111k lines of dialogue though they also say that the main characters recorded 13k lines of dialogue, I'm not sure what that means or indeed if those 13,000 lines are between them or if together they voiced 26k.

the Witcher according to The Witcher by the Numbers said something about 30k lines of dialogue

Least pertinent, The Old Republic has the Guinness World Record for most voiced lines of dialogue in a video game at over 200,000, at launch. that's between 8 classes and two genders for the main character.

confusing things a little, there's a number of instances conflating word count with lines of dialogue. Word count being an easier thing to determine. Average word count per line of dialogue being what I would consider more telling than anything else. Fallout might hold records for voiced lines, but if every exchange is monosyllabic and linear it doesn't really amount to a more interesting game.

compare this to the EA of Baldur's Gate 3 which according to this pcgamer article has 45,980 English lines of dialogue.

Text based games still have the most freedom with their dialogue, but games like New Vegas (mostly voiced), The Witcher and even the Old Republic, we shouldn't take for granted that depth is exchanged for voiced lines.

If anyone has more information on this, I'd love to know more, I'm fascinated by this.

Sozz, check Disco Elysium.

New Vegas actually had issues with how many voiced lines there were cause they had to cut a companion who was taking too much space on the disk cause he had way too much dialogue because he was to be the singular companion who'd be sympathetic to the legion. And I( read that they actually had a limit on how much voiced dialogue they could have in the DLC so they had to plan it out and make the best of it, leading to tightly written DLCs (and them actually conserving lines enough to blow their load so to speak in old world blues with so much dialogue).
Though this is what I read and could be wrong. I do remember New Vegas having a lot of well written dialogue, especially in the DLC.

Abso-fucking-lutely, I just replayed the Final Cut, which made me even more anxious for the sequel from ZA/UM. I should have added that in to my sum up for why voiced dialogue shouldn't be a bugbear to RPG design.

At a million words of dialogue the next contender is likely dwarfed.



I'll have to look into this, I think this says more about how long ago New Vegas was made that this was a concern, I don't think disc space will ever be a concern in PC gaming anymore at least. Did NV launch on the X-Box or something? And people wonder why we can't have nice things. I actually haven't played the Outer Worlds, it seemed like a holding maneuver for Obsidian to make some business, but I'm keeping my eye on the sequel.

Copied from the wiki so grain of salt and all that:


I think the Disk size concern was for PC and Consoles at the time, it was still an issue in 2011 where cinematics and such could take too much of a disk, and I think I remember a few PC games still releasing with multiple disks roughly within a few years of New Vegas, like Final Fantasy 13 has three disks I think for Xbox and PC? Nowadays not as much of a concern at all.

Just because Astarion disaproves your actions that other characters aprove doesn't mean he hates them. Shadowheart and Laezel hate each other. Astarion isn't hating Shadowheart just because they seem to aprove different course of actions, Astarion is more likely to just dislike everyone else simply because he is a self-absorbed sociopath with 0 empathy. Actually he is probably more ready to work with people that he dislikes than other party member exactly for that reason, he is using you and others because you are resourceful and he is trying to manipulate the PC all the time.


Companions can talk to you during dialogues with other characters, during the day when something happened that they want to discuss with you immediately and in the camp when they have time to process and decide how they feel about you based on your actions, which makes total sense, because often people tell you their opinion about your actions after some time.

Also let's compare that to BG2. Lot's of dialogue in BG2 didn't make companions alive or have complex interactions with them. There is no approval system in BG2, relations with companions are based on 3 things: having a romance with them, doing their personal quest and you reputation. They will leave you only due to certain actions (like attacking Aerie's surrogate father) or if your reputation reaches certain levels. For example, you can't become just friends with Viconia and change her aligment, you can only do that if you romance her. On the other hand in BG3 you can be doing good deeds that irritate Astarion, but if you are nice to him (by letting him drink your blood, getting approval from personal dialogues) he will be okay with you and only occasionaly make remarks about his dislike of your heroic actions.

If each entry in the dialog table is a line, then the first BG with TotSC has just above 24k lines and 529k words. BG2 with ToB has around 74k lines and 1270k words, and about 62k lines and 1080k words without. Bear in mind, however, that there are a lot of empty and unused lines.

I have heard different fun fact (even tho im not quite sure if that was fact) about Kotor ...
They decided to start voice acting before rest of the game was done, so they "save time" ... sadly, there was changes in script a little later, so almost 40% of voice acting was scrapped ... and creating it all again, would be too expensive. Studio was suposedly even concidering cancelatin of whole project. Luckily for them, someone had bright idea to replace voice acting for changed sentences by "alien speech", and keep in only subtitled ...
So litteraly every alien you meet in Kotor, that is not talking english was added afterwards.

Wa molay rah? warengi muchu puku sculpa!

All the aliens couldn't have been added later, it wouldn't be Star Wars without some, but I can totally see them spackling the gaps in with extra Huttese.

And on a unrelated note, there's been a recent reluctance on the part of Lucasfilm to have characters speak alien languages, and I think the universe is poorer for it. That would have gone for Kotor too.