Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Should have given this to Obsidian

Oh hello fellow planeswalker. I saw that alternate reality too. The game didn't sell as well as it did here.

Cinematic dialogues is what is dragging BG3 in this <mess>. 100%.
Even in 2021 IT DOES NOT WORK in a <<Strategic D&D RPG>> LOOKS BAD (unless your under 30 I guess...) So much more work, resources, bugs, RPG stuff that cant be implemented...no Day/night, low NPC count, no custom voices, portraits, no more story-line MODS by the community...how does the community create a MOD when ALL DIALOGUES are cinematics???
for what? Telltale type <immersive> dialogues that will never look good after a couple of months. Less interesting dialogue length, types and choices. The more cinematics you have, the more content gets cut. I say at least make CINEMATICS for JUST important storyline elements!

IF you want an immersive cinematic STORY set in Baldurs gate, just make a Telltale game. I think most Baldurs gate fans here want great gameplay/tons of D&D classes/tons of dialogues/kits /detailed atmosphere / deep gameplay systems / 6 party RPG etc...NOT cinematics to replace those GAMEPLAY elements. We are getting LESS STUFF that what was available in 1998?!

Owlcat (Pathfinder) got the dialogues right. So did Obsidian to some degree. Nice and long reads with detail, lots of variation in dialogue options.
And the BEST PROGRESSIVE RPG dialogue you could ever get? DISCO ELYSIUM : a huge step forward for what BG2 and Planescape Torment pioneered 25 years ago. Thats THE GAME to surpass right now.
There are PLENTY OF MODERN GAMES THAT WORK like BG2 use too, and improved on the systems.Why cant Larian do that? Take BG2 and move it UP a notch.
What we are getting is copy/paste DOS2 and add a half baked D&D story/system mixed with whats sells in 2020s, telltale cinematic stuff.

If Larian called this game Dragon age 4 or DOS3 : A D&D adventure in Faerun , absolutely NO ONE would be complaining.
Whats done is done. Very disappointing but I guess the only way you can make <AAA> level profits nowadays. Get an old GREAT IP back and start an EA. For sure prior fans will be on board in a heartbeat.

How well sold titles given by you?
Fully sounded, cinematic dialogue has been the standard for AAA titles for years and is sure to attract a lot of people.
Whether you like it or not, BG3 aims higher than those several hundred thousand fans of classic RPG.
None of this type of titles has outperformed DoS2 in the sales results.
According to steam spy, PoE1, which was one of the first games of this type, at best sold 2 million, not so long ago practically no game of this type even came close to this result (excluding DoS2).
For comparison, BG3 according to steam spy sold in the range of 2-5 million. When Larian releases the game on consoles, they will easily exceed 10 million.

This has nothing to do with how well the games sold. Larian wanted to make their own brand "new" Baldur s Gate game, so why bother taking the name "Baldur's Gate".
They made a Divinity game with dnd rules, BG skin, they ignored the style narrative and almost everything from the original games. That is why anybody else should have made the game, who would have respected the originals and not making something, that is a completely different thing.
Now there is no chance for a "real" sequel.

I am also sure a lot of people like "BG3" as it is, but they would have liked DOS3 with some Dnd elements just as much.

I wish that Larian had divided his games into two audiences:
1. The DOS series for those who like turn-based combat, with a lighter and more fun tone, who likes the way they use the inventory and party's movement.
2. A new series (BG) for those who like RTWP, with a more epic and realistic vibe. In this series they would try to make the gameplay more like the classic Infinity Engine. These two lines of games could even have different age groups, with BG being for a more adult audience.

The RTWP discussion has it's own thread and the topic serves as a red herring in other threads.

I'm entirely happy with turn based combat but not the terrible chaining system, cheesy interpretations of D&D rules, 4 person party and small number of NPCs.

Truly a mystery how someone can compare Early Access of BG3 unfavourably with BG1 and BG2.

I played the hell out of Baldur's Gate when it came out in 1998.
Bought BG2 on release day in September of 2000 and sunk many 100s of hours into it.
Throne of Bhall was no different.
I eventually used Gatekeeper and Shadowkeeper to change the rules of AD&D that I didn't like and had a blast.

However these games are almost unplayable today.
The horrific graphics, clunky interface and arbitrary limitations of AD&D just don't hold up.
There's a reason that less than 10% of folks who have paid for Enhanced additions of either BG1 and BG2 on Steam have actually finished the game.

Early Access of BG3 has great graphics, interesting NPCs and is hinting at a terrific story.
The turn base combat and nature of their systemic design makes this feel more like D&D than any game I've ever played.

I've already sunk over 480 hours into early access.
Larian, even at this early stage of development, has surpassed my expectations with this worthy installment in the BG franchise.

That is an opinion that I do not share. I find the originals quite playable today. I played BG1 start to finish as recently as last year. The one part I *sort* of agree with are the arbitrary limitations of 2nd Edition AD&D. I do like 5E better, but I don't think that we are actually going to get 5E from Larian, so that is rather a moot point.

I am playing DOS2 now, just because I wanted to refresh my memory and see if this game was a continuation. Honestly, I have to disagree. You can see some similarities due to it being the same engine, but the world building is different, the characters are more polished. I mean besides the barrel cheese, there really isn't much similar to the two. Not to mention, I am not a big fan of DOS2, I mean it is ok, but I have never finished it, it just doesn't keep my attention, and seems kind of grindy.

To each their own I guess. I think a lot of the issue is, that people that loved BG 1&2 are looking back with rose colored glasses, and just really wouldn't accept any type of new continuation of it. Whether it was made by BW (which is no where near the company it used to be, I think it would have been a worse game), CDPR (they have enough on their plate fixing CP2077), Owlcat (Well Kingmaker doesn't have the greatest reviews either. A lot of people despise it for being overly difficult. I just bought it so I am going to compare it to BG3 and make my own decision).

In this genre of games, basically D&D players are very territorial of their rulesets, and how the game should be played. But Larian is going for a broader base, that is obvious. I even saw a reviewer basically say the same thing. He said if your new to D&D start with BG 3 then when you are ready play Solasta. I also think this was all planned by WoTC, using their license with Larian to bring in more casuals to their universe, and then their license to Solasta to bring in the more hardcore. It is a win win situation for them.

I couldn't agree with this post more.

Firstly Obsidian already worked with WotC to produce NWN2, which is a bland chosen one story with a mish mash of 3.5 rules. It didn't sell that much either, although it's expansion is a classic in my book. It hardly sold as well though. It did its job so poorly that more people were making modules and playing on persistent worlds for NWN1 than 2 even at its peak. Add to this they felt so constrained by the requirements of Wizards it was one of the inciting reasons for establishing their own property. They're not even independent anymore, Microsoft owns them! It's likely that Microsoft bought them in large part for the IP of Pillars' world.

This thread is very weird and full of incredibly unrealistic people.

BG3 will sell more than both BG1 and 2 combined. There's pretty much no doubt about it, given it's also going on console eventually. The figures on steam show that BG1 and 2 are owned more than played by a factor of about 9. And something like 1% of players actually complete it. As far as the mass market goes, it's very much a product of its time.

It's full of people with absolutely no idea of the games market extrapolating their own personal likes and dislikes to the population at large. It doesn't work like that.

This is a business decision pure and simple, one that's practically guaranteed to pay off, both in terms of money and interest in their core product. Add to that, I'm pretty sure this game will walk away with a hell of a lot of Game of the Year awards to boot.

Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to believe you would enjoy it more if it was more catered to your tastes, even to come on to the forums and create (multiple) threads rehashing those arguments. But honestly, recognise that these are your personal tastes, not something everyone agrees with you. Certainly statistics place you very much in the minority.

Well... Considering that those games were released in 2000 when a very limited numbers of familly had a computer/console at home... That's pretty obvious.

The video game market was also absolutely not the same. How could you compare ?

Most people don't finish their games.

Look up the completion rates for Doom Eternal. That's a comical metric.

This game has a weaker story, weaker characters, abysmal implementation of rules, and controls worse than games 20 years it's senior.

Thankfully it's an Alpha test, most of that can be fixed!

Um, it was re-released on various formats about 6 years ago. I was quoting the steam figures if you noticed. Also I ended the paragraph with this: As far as the mass market goes, it's very much a product of its time. Which is basically what you said.

I'm not sure what your point is. I'm not the one comparing games. I think such comparisons aren't useful. I love both games. I'm specifically saying the market has changed and what worked back then doesn't have mass appeal now.

If you want to know who is making the comparisons, check out the post below yours.

Lmao CDPR is literally the last company to give this game to after what happened with cyberpunk 2077 wich turned out to be complete disaster with full of lies and 90% of the things they promised to be in the game was never added into the game and how they lied about impactful choices and lifepaaths affecting your story significantly was all a lie and dont get me started on physics and AI even games from 2000 year have better and superior physics and AI so no CDPR would fail miserably with this game

Honestly my only concern is Larian made it clear this is a one off...
Yet nearly every DnD game ive ever played was better off with big story DLC... neverwinter nights and baldurs gate really benefited from dlc but Larian has said its going to be one and done...

Id be cool with that *IF* they were going to make BG4 once they were done with postlaunch patch frenzy of BG3.

Lmao at this nonsense.

Yeah I agree with your sentiment, I think it has become a right of passage for edgelords just to hate on CP2077. Yeah it had it's issues, but overall I enjoyed my playthroughs. They are also still working on fixing it, which is more than I can say for BW, who couldn't even finish fixing Anthem. Besides the crashes, and a couple other bugs, I found the content, the sub stories etc freaking awesome in that game, I mean it is no Witcher 3, but that is a seriously high bar to hurdle in its own right. Personally, I could care less for console players. As far as I am concerned CDPR could have saved themselves a lot of hate if they just told old gen users screw you, if you want to play this game you need a nextgen console.

I agree. The best part of all the hating is that people have gone on social media to complain, COMPLAIN!!, that when they demanded a refund they had to give back the game, because what they actually wanted was to get their money back but to also keep the game because the game is so awesome. Go figure.

The ONLY reason I have not yet bought this game is because I am very leery of anything first-person. But if any game can possibly entice me to overcome my fear of first-person games and get me to give it a try, it is CP2077, because everything I have seen and read about it looks just incredible.

It is a very good game that could have been much better.

I don't think that CDPR lied about what they *wanted* to produce, but the 2018 reveal clearly did not represent the actual state of the game engine, and many aspects from that reveal were not reflected properly in the released game.

Like most CDPR games the story aspects are strong, but the CP2077 open world doesn't really know or care that you exist. It is beautiful to travel through, but really doesn't allow any interaction.

I think you would probably enjoy the quality of the story-telling, and FP is *probably* the best choice for what they were trying to do with immersing you in-character. If you are reluctant due to being anti-FP, I would recommend waiting until they have finished fixing the game to see how well criticisms have been addressed.

Eh, don't go into it with too high expectations would be my advise. I spent the first day playing through the 3 backstories like a madman, telling all my friends what a great game it was, and then i started playing the actual game and got absolutely floored. The story segments and the characters are phenomenal, but the world is as dead as dead can be.