Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General "It's going to be massive"

Unrealism isn't desired, basically?

"Realism" is always a difficult topic in the fantasy & science-fiction genres. Obviously there is not much "reality" in having an elf wizard levitating on a flying carpet on her way to the local apothecary to pick up some beetle elbows to later be used in brewing a potion of freedom. But where "realism" does come into play is how the otherwise fantastic characters react to situations according to their personalities, experience, and beliefs. In BG1, a lot of the peasant homes would politely greet the player character and then ask them to move along. If you were in the same situation, and had an armed party of wizards and sword-wielders suddenly enter your home, what would you do? There is actually quite a range of creative writing that could be applied to humorous effect in the village homes, some of which could even require use of some of the party's skills. Not all encounters require combat! For example, there could be an old grandmother who is hard of hearing but loves an audience to listen to her stories (which might give a clue to a quest), or a working mom with a sick child who needs healing, or group of university students renting a haunted house, etc.

When you're working with a larger-than-life protagonist-centered fantasy, there's more freedom compared to, say, "Medieval Sociology Simulator".

I've heard three acts. As for the level cap, the game's cap has changed throughout the EA, recently Swen mentioned that level 5 for the EA was on the table.

I'm not sure the question of scale and realism really operate on the same level. I'm not sure what you guys are arguing, now.

Handling larceny, and other crime is less about realism than about development cost. Handling crime well is quite costly, so many games have a fairly simple system.

In BG1 you might hear "I am the flaming fist", or in BG2 "For the glory of Amn", and you immediaely know that there is going to be no depth to the ensuing interaction.

If BG3 were specifically about crime, I would want it handled with some detail, but as thief skills are almost an afterthought in modern D&D, I don't really expect much complexity to be introduced.

Just random discussion of preferences, I think

As to size/scale/level, the general assumption seems to be 3 acts, although I don't remember see/hearing that being confirmed ( many of Swen's statements contain a degree of uncertainty ).

Actual buildings in EA seem to be at the scale of the actors ( compared with, say, NWN1/2 where outdoor maps had unreasonably small buildings ). If Baldur's Gate is modelled anything like reality it would require a map many times larger than the EA map.

Level cap will be purely down to which mechanics they are willing to introduce, since there is already enough content in EA to exceed level 8, so I can't imagine reaching, say, level 13 would be an issue. Even with the brain-damaged 5e rules ( compared to 3.5e ), introducing a high level cap greatly increases the development cost, so I wouldn't expect them to go anywhere near level 20 ( even though I would like them to ).

This is less to do with realism and more of a matter of mind numbingly boring (PC can wander around and do whatever they want and the world exists only for them to do this) or being actually interesting (having consequences for actions and npc reactivity.) There is obviously going to be unrealistic stuff in a fantasy game.

Is there any precedent for the design of BG city from large settlements in previous Larian games? Regardless, I'm not a huge fan of Larian's world/map design in BG3 so don't hold too much hope.

Also unless they implement the much requested day/night cycle, it will be patently ridiculous to only experience the city in permanent midday sun. Having certain areas at nighttime would be a half arsed effort if they decide to go down that route.

The city wasent fully mapped in bg1 either. So expecting that now is abit much. Specially given how big metropolitan maps would be.

I expect something like the iteration in bg1. Several different maps that focus on highlights in the city. A market square. Sewers. The gate to the city. The harbor, etc.

Still gives them alot of room to put details in there. When you move from 1 section of the city to another it allows for different scenery from parts of the city compared to others and still gives you an idea of just how big the city is.

Looking forward to see what they do with it

if 3 acts that's disappointment for me. that probably means EA now already accounted for 1/3 of the game. i was hoping to see something around 4 acts. if all of the content it's just 20% of the game then it's still acceptable for me. also.. i hope they get it right with the game pace and leveling.

Act sizes don't have to be uniform, consider Baldur's Gate II, it had "chapters" but its first act was much bigger than any other segment of the game. What three acts might mean though is that most of the story wont go very far from Baldur's Gate.

That. For exemple, in D:OS2, the first act was big on content, but the 2nd act was huge. They don't have to be all the same size.

And of course, don't forget that we have yet to see all of Act 1. I don't think we have seen 1/3 of the game so far.

It's worth reminding folks that there was an explanation from another Larian employee at some stage that what Swen means by "3 acts" is not the same thing that the rest of us mean by "3 Acts". The example given was that Swen still refers to and thinks of D;OS2 as a "3 Act" game. Apparently he uses the term to refer to the story flow, not the actual in-game break up of regions - so when he says "3 Acts" he mainly only means that the game will have a beginning, a middle and a climax, and is not *actually* making any comment on how many distinct world-regions there will be.

"Game had three act story structure"
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