Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does BG3 deserve Best Community Support award?

Nominations for the Game Awards have been announced. Among the 8 nominations for BG3 is “Best Community Support”. My immediate reaction was surprise: In my view, Larian’s relationship to the community could be qualified as negligent, exploitative or adversarial – hardly award-worthy.

That being said, “best” is a relative term. Maybe it’s okay for Larian to have sold an incomplete Mac version under false advertising for at least month with no explanation or apology. Maybe it’s okay that the 17’000 endings do not in fact exist, or that the game launched with missing tech while Larian touted its feature-completeness.

I don’t know… On the one hand I feel like the Early Access process put me in a sour disposition towards Larian and I may be being unnecessarily harsh on them. On the other hand I feel my distrust of Larian stems directly from their poor community support. So let them have their victory lap; let them reap awards by the armful. But do they really deserve to win this one?

I'm strictly in the "they have my money, my attention, and my time. If they want gold stars like awards, well, they aren't there yet." (In my mind, it would be like recommending a movie to people knowing full-well all copies of the movie were corrupted for the last 1/3 of the film.)

I think it took about three or four days from reporting a show-stopper, which produced the generic "We know and it will be fixed in an upcoming patch", which... I'm not sure what else they were supposed to say, but they do seem remarkably casual about the game's major issues.

I guess I don't really pay enough attention to awards in any industry, because I never agree with the nominations in general. I would have thought a community support award would have been an acknowledgment of support by the community of players, like a fan award for best player base or something. As far as support for the community by Larian, I know that Larian support exists, and I've received two generic "we know and..." letters assuring me they know I exist. That seems like an acceptable baseline, but not really award-worthy.

Nope. I was not in EA, but I have more than a few words about the self-congratulating interviews that didn't actually pan out in the game, such as claiming that burning down Act 1 would 'completely change how the story goes' or 'it's up to the player the roles the various factions like the Zhent play' and 'not like other RPG romances' and other statements. Even now, getting a clear answer on how and when Minthara was fixed is like pulling teeth. People were left to speculate for months on what 'voice actors being called back to the studio' even meant for the game. No one knows if it was about the game at all, since there was a youtube series with the VAs a few weeks later and it took Patch 3 for hinting about epilogues?

Community Support is for honest transparency. This is not it.

I felt the same way with the 'technical advancement' award as well, given that out of the line up, BG3 was the buggiest and most unstable by FAAAAARRR with very few of its systems actually working as intended for months on end. It's a party based RPG with companions that have been bugged since release and patches since then bugging others. I played DOS1 and 2, environmental reactivity is almost a decade old. Even the multiplayer was broken more often than not.

I gave them my vote for this category but to be honnest I had the exact same thoughts the you, Flooter^^
Interraction with the community during EA was A SHAME. To summarize we had 2 to 3 panel from hell + patch per years and nothing more... Which basically mean 9 official communication (+hotfix) during 2 years and a half and something like 900 days of radio silence.

Even smaller studios take time to answer a few questions, post regular news, diary, show a bit of content,...
They clearly DON'T deserve the "best community support" award in my opinion if I try to b objective.

Thats said : take my money and grab all awards ! BG3 is an awesome game and the genre deserve it ! (I still think that many important things are bad to very bad in the game though)

If they don't deserve it, why give it? It's like giving a raise to the worker that underachieves, what reason do they have to do better if you tell them that was not only good enough, but worthy of awards over other workers?

When in doubt, No Man's Sky. The most beautiful redemption story in gaming history and it's wonderfully addicting with a lot of charm

This year though I was leaning into giving it to CDPR because Cyberpunk just like BG3 is one of my favorite games of all time and CDPR is really doing its best to perfect the game, but ultimately gave it to BG3 because;

• Community is nice and friendly (here on the forums at least)
• Fixing the bugs and in such a capacity each month is an admirable feat
• The game is Absolute-ly fantastic even in its clearly rushed state which is being rectified
• Larian's communication is utterly abysmal, but at least they are listening and implementing player feedback where & when they can
• No predatory corporate BS microtransactions and such

So based on the description of the category; Larian lacks on the communication front, but what they lack in communication they make up for in action.

I totally agree with this - for those reasons, I ultimately gave the point to Larian too.

I take the point, but the fact that these forums even still exist for us to hash it out here, or to grumble or sing thr praises, that should probably count for something right?

Keeping us going for 3 years and during a world ending plague without turning around and asking for another get all the time should also count for something.

Early Access was a rather different thing than I imagined it would be be, but even there, they still let watch over the shoulder and play around while they put stuff together, which I think also counts.

I heard just now that their Animation director passed away a couple days ago. I hope he got to feel some of the love from that Golden Joystick win, and just seeing it take off like it has. I'd have given this game the laurel for best Art direction in a heartbeat!

Watching that credit roll was something else too, I got a little choked up and let it play for like 20 minutes, like as if I was in a movie theater waiting till they turned the lights back on. Especially the little notes and that thank you they saved for the very last line, which was for us. Like everyone who's been kicking around since the EA.

BG3 brought me back out of the woodwork for sure. I haven't been this engaged with a new game coming out in like 20 years. Probably not since NWN first came out.

Just today I saw they're taking orders for a disk, like one that comes in an actual box, which can sit on the shelf and collect dust - and a map! Like proper game of legend hehe a commitment to physical media means a commitment to get it dialed. For that alone I will vote Yes! They deserve it. Whether deserve to win, who can say, but they deserve the nod at least.

What community support?
They don't speak with the community (do you really know what they are planning to do?) and even neglect their own forum so much that people have to look for any information elsewhere and Mac users got told on the day of the release that their version gets delays for an indeterminate amount of time. And not even on a official channel, but on a developers personal twitter account.

And don't forget the "explore the upper city" and "tadpoles will have consequences" statements during the marketing campaign that turned out to be false. Or their rather unbelievable claims that they didn't add endings because it made the game too long or that the only reason they moved the release date was because the game was in such a good shape...

How would a company like that deserve a award for community support? Because they are fixing bugs? Thats their job and also means they sold a bugged product in the first place, something they now should not be rewarded for.

...based on the description, at least half of the reasons why you gave this one to BG3 don't have anything to do with the award?

Community support is not about how nice the playerbase is, but how much support it gets from Larian. How good the game is has very little relevance to the community support. You admit the communication is abysmal. The game being released in a rushed state and being fixed is the bare minimum? I suppose you do not subscribe to 'launch broke, fix later' meta not being something that is good for the players? And it's especially ironic since Patch 4 legit made Act 3 near unplayable on PS5, so what action makes up for anything that deserves a reward over the other games?

If you want me to actually answer in the most technically boring way imaginable;

• They were transparent all the time during Early Access and even now. Panels From Hell which were showing exactly what they're working on, what to expect, when to expect it etc... on top of Early Access itself fully representing what the player is getting into. Plenty of stuff was also known to be arriving way before it arrived; such as Orcs, Paladins, Monks, Dragonborn etc. And they still pretty much are announcing stuff such as that they're calling back all voice actors, working on implementing requested features and addressing certain issues vocally.
• They were also responsive, because a lot of feedback was and is being implemented into the game. Reactions for example was a hot topic during Early Access and so was reworked to what it is today. Stealth attacks, stealth actions etc... Many other things also massively got reworked, improved or added. I could list a whole page of stuff that was added based on feedback from these forums.
• I have no idea what inclusive of social media means because I do not use social media, but I guess they're active and maybe refers to those cringey TikTok shorts they used to make on Youtube that everyone begged them to stop ^^
• They're also insanely patching, fixing and adding new content to the game which is also based on player feedback.

Basically half the stuff you see in the game today is because of feedback the community was giving during Early Access and after release.

• Wither's respec
• the Mirror
• Auto-sorting bags for food, materials and keys
• Unlocked customization (Yes, customization used to be locked for each race to maintain the lore)
• Removing multiplayer avatars
• Sponges finally cleaning dirt
• Inventory management
• Quality of life features
• Torch slot
• Not stopping when hovering over destructible items
• Dialogue prioritizing the main character
• Halsin as a companion
• Us as a familiar (freaking love that fella)
• More fleshed out endings
• Better scenes
• More scenes
• Reverting changes the players don't like
• So so so much stuff, as I said can go pages long with this.

To say that they're not supporting their community... hah! Other companies would not do 1% of the stuff that Larian does so quickly and FOR FREE, on top of fixing a thousand bugs every month. So are ya satisfied now or gonna question every person that votes for Larian in this thread? ^^

Early Access lasted for years and there were, what, 3 Panels from Hell in total? I personally am aware of the last one where both 'explore the Upper City' and 'More people should play evil! Durge is great!' statements came from. Having roadmaps and announcements are standard practice for beta/early access. If Larian didn't say anything for an EA that they charged near full price for access to, that would be abysmal by industry standards.

Agree to Disagree on EA representing what the player was getting to as there is a reason why people are easily able to call out Act 2 and Act 3 not being as polished or open as Act 1. The OP specifically said that EA is what soured them on giving Larian this reward, so I am confident in saying if asked, there are people that can list a page of stuff that was NOT added in. For example, I saw on the forums that the ability to roll dice for your stats like in DnD were promised and never showed up or how many of the broken combos like Tavern Brawler or Haste being a bonus full action was problematic for balance, was reported repeatedly and it launched as is.

And we also come back to...the game launched unfinished/rushed. Inventory management was legit the worst system I've seen in any game, ever. So making it less terrible is what deserves 'outstanding community support' from you? The endings are SHIT. So fixing that deserves accolades? Why? And no 'They can be even worse' is not an argument for giving rewards. And also, 1%, really? Hyperbole much? Either that, or you need to buy from/support better developers. Trust me, there are plenty out there that keep working on their game's issues without asking for money. CDPR literally dropped a 2.0 fiving CP2077 that was free. I don't see the benefit of pretending every game company not named Larian is literally Activision Blizzard. It just means that you watered down your own argument and make it hard to take seriously.

lol, so changing things in EA = "Best community support"? Come on, at least admit that you like BG3 therefore you want it to receive any and every award it can.

Mistaking my words heavily here, considering i even said to vote for No Man's Sky if in doubt and that I was leaning heavily into giving the vote to CDPR, but whatever... not surprising, though ultimately I do not care about these types of pointless back and forths. They add nothing to the topic.

I actually came back to BG3 precisely because of how broken Cyberpunk 2.0 is that it stopped me in the middle of my 65 hour playthrough due to numerous gamebreaking bugs it has. It is equally buggy now as it was on release because three years later I am now actually spending far more time documenting bugs, extensively testing bugs and sending bug reports to CDPR than I am playing the game. I am currently going back and forth with over 15 open tickets with their Support to fix most of the more severe bugs which I personally extensively test and then submit so they don't have to waste time.

1.6 was wonderfully stable and great, but since 2.0 the game is in a terrible state with a ton of awful design decisions and issues, so I am waiting for 2.03 before continuing it. Do they deserve a vote then by your logic? You decide for yourself.

In the end who I give my vote to and for what reason is not something that needs questioning nor analyzing, least of all further discussing. I am not here to convince you to change your vote, nor do I care who votes for who for whatever reason. Topic's purpose is clear, I merely offered my thoughts and mentioned who I voted for because why not.


You mean, such as in my inital post? ^^

"This year though I was leaning into giving it to CDPR because Cyberpunk just like BG3 is one of my favorite games of all time and CDPR is really doing its best to perfect the game"

You people are hilarious, truly. But no, I actually gave best narrative vote to Phantom Liberty. If Cherami Leigh was nominated I would have given her a vote in an instant because she's the reason why I play Cyberpunk religiously. Wonderful talent. So guess I'm not a blind Larian fanboy just spam-voting anything BG3 related.

CDPR and Cyberpunk was mentioned as a well known example of how your '1% of companies' seemed extremely exaggerated. Nothing else. So for as far as who is mistaking whose words, saying CP2077 still has bugs has very little relevance to the topic of companies still working on the game for free. I never asked for nor wanted proof of something completely superfluous and whether or not you mentioned CP2077 as another contender also has nothing to do with anything I posted. So who is 'you people?'

The topic is 'Does it deserve Best Community Support'. Not 'Did you vote for Best Community Support for BG3.' You'd have a point about adding nothing to the topic if it was the latter, but it is not. You are certainly capable of giving your vote, but this is also a public forum. If you do not want comments on your decisions, posting it was a decision that is quite counterproductive.

Yes.

Larian, CDPR and Hello Games deserve the award as all three stand by their community so far and try to make their games the best they possibly can be for the people playing them. Can't comment on other two nominees as I never played those games.

Whichever of the three wins is a great thing. Hello Games wins this almost every year and Cyberpunk won this last year if I am not mistaken for 1.6 and Edgerunners, therefore I hope Larian wins it this year.

Yes.

Because while it is not perfect in any sense, it is by far better, especially compared to standard practice of mainstream games developer/ment.

Larian deserve to win, unless you think they're not feel free to vote for others.

The EA part of it is simply not true to be honnest.
Panels shows patch content and nothing more... and things that were known arriving haven't been confirmed or mentionned at all before they arrived.
We NEVER knew what features they were working on and what class/race/anything else would come next.
Some poeple (not me) even doubt during EA we'll finally have all PHB content despite what they said in the AMA before it even start.

Sven's recent tweet about "if someone has a solution about inventory management" just show how BAD they were as they were tons of great suggestions to improve that during EA.

Maybe we had a very different experience with the EA though.


Because I haven't been in love with a game as much as I am with BG3 for 20 years. EA has been very frustrating to me and probably one of the worst I've ever played in terms of communication but I don't care at all about other nominated company while I love BG3.

I thought the EA feedback was glitz and glamour - PFH - with long periods of silence, and very little engagement with major topics on this (their forum). Look at the larger and megathreads - there are many things that EA community picked up as problematic that were never addressed, and more frustrating, never acknowledged. Instead, the EA feedback was mostly via fancy PFH extravaganzas - which were clearly playing to an audience that is easily bedazzled - look! Edgy Durge, bear sex etc etc. probably the most important thing that came from EA feedback - I assume - is that reactions were *eventually* properly implemented (and actually not quite - there are still things that are called reactions which are not...). A core game systems feature from 5e...which should have been in from the get go. I think their community engagement was poor - compare this to Solasta that *actively* engaged with their community, took advice, implemented what they could, *explained* why they couldn't do certain things etc. Yes, its a small studio, but that was worthy of an award. The EA I experienced for BG3 was disappoint - but obviously, ymmv and for people who don't care about more fundamental game issues. I suspect that that's who the PFH 'report backs' were aimed at.