Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Adding BG flavor

What things would add BG flavor for you in this game?

Familiar sounds (small things, like the sound when you open chest or shoot a bow or click on menu item), music, familiar chants for each spell school.
Familiar icons - especially for common things like leather armor, longsword, shortbow etc.
Familiar location design - in cinematic we can see inside of mindflayer ship and it looks very similar to what we saw in mind flayer dungeons.
A very clean inn...
A fair amount of flavor text in unique item description
You must gather your party before venturing forth.

For me its mostly about removing any form of DOS flavor, especially animations, writing and skill effects. BG inspired music and UI would be welcome as well of course. And more companions, that you get to discover in the world and can’t play yourself

Perhaps the most important thing though, is to remove the past tense dialogue options. That one is crucial.

When looking for spell scrolls pulling a random book off a shelf and having pages of Forgotten Realms lore contained within

Totally agree with this. For D:OS fans, if they agree that this is a D&D/BG game and NOT a D:OS game, then they should be perfectly fine with this game not looking and feeling like a D:OS game. And for those of us who are not D:OS fans, it immensely helps us appreciate this game for what it is if it does not remind us of a game we dislike. As such, this should be a point of agreement for everyone.

Is anybody disagreeing? I don't mean that as some clever-arse rhetorical question, just that I hadn't noticed, but I also don't necessarily pay attention. Speaking as a Divinity fan (I like the OS games but D2 is where it's at for me) I want to see BG. I would be much less interested if there was any suggestion that it's "Divinity with a BG theme". Although I can't speak for anyone but myself, I dare say (or would at least like to think) that others would have much the same point of view.

I agree with you that Divinity Original Sin monsters should really stay in Divinity Original Sin the same goes for Baldur's Gate 3 monsters

Returning unique item would be a nice wink to old fans (e.g. Helm of Balduran was in both games).

Next Week WotC's releasing "Divinity Original Sin 2 campaign Guide".

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fhk1u3/im_swen_vincke_creative_director_at_larian/fkbkrl2/

"There’s several reasons we’re doing it this way. Of course there are story reasons but it also allows you to get closer to your character; their thoughts, their feelings and moments of introspection allowing you to truly understand their motivations. We’ve experimented with several styles when starting development but this was the one that at the end of the day stood out and we’re actually quite excited by what we can do with it. It turned out to be an excellent way of allowing players to tell their own story and role-play their character on a deeper level. I think it’s a wonderful tool for role-playing and story telling and when you’re playing it’s like you’re narrating your own adventure."

It's a question of what looks/sounds better. Things from BG2 won't look familiar to most people who play this game, because they either never played BG2 or haven't returned to it since they played it. So long as quality isn't being sacrificed for familiarity, then sure, make things familiar.



What does this mean?

I’ve read all the AMA answers, and this one was easily the worst. It’s just gibberish. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Playing a story that constantly communicates to you that everything already happened removes a lot of engagement and immersion. If they stick with it, it might even be a deal breaker for me.

Interestingly enough this is an issue that to a large extent seem to unite old school BG fans and Larian fans over at Reddit.

Out of curiosity, are you a Larian employee Vometia, or a volunteer mod?

Volunteer. I'm much better at doing my own random thing with games modding and getting pwned than doing it for a living.

Edit: just for clarity, Larian employees generally have the Larian logo and/or "Larian Studios" under their name.

Cool thanks for clearing that up

I think the animations, sound and item icons would be the easiest way for me to be pulled in. In watching the demonstrations the things I did not see.
1. No spell casting incantations
2. No spell casting animations (unique spell type). See games like Solasta, Pathfinder Kingmaker, NWN or almost any other D&D game for inspiration
---- I would say Solasta is looking fantastic
3. The icons for items should be unique. Using the exact same assets as DOS pretty much feels like paying DOS. That's ok, but I would like it to feel it's like its own.
4. Movement, Jumping and combat animations are too DOS for me. BUT.. everything else looks great. I'm not complaining, I just would like to see those be less DOS.

>no spell casting incatations
so you didnt read the last 30 threads where people talked about sven confirming that this will be in.
>icons are froM DOS
they arent.
>Movement
other than the jumping also not true