Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New Larian interview (PC Gamer, March 2022)

My go-to comparison to highlight this is saying how when I bought BG2 it came on multiple (3 or 4 ?) DVD's in a period when graphics/audio files were ridiculously smaller than today, at the same time the game offered more hours of gameplay than many of today's games which might be a lot larger in terms of data while in terms of actual content I would even say they became a lot smaller.

Also Larian, please BEWARE OF THE CYBERPUNK CURSE. That game made extremely similar claims of being one of the most reactive living open world RPG blahblahblah, obviously the bugs and underperformance on consoles were important issues, to me the ultimate fail of this game was how weak the actual consequences and choices in the game were (merely different cinematics or one extra dialogue detour towards the same conclusion). As a somewhat older, def. more of a PC-untermensch than masterrace kinda gamer, I totally blame this on the insane resources wasted on having those 'nice' cinematics (which -ironically - will look outdated inevitably in x-years) instead of focusing on 'the game' itself. I really don't understand how people can be so idiotic as to repeat the same mistake again and again. What makes any 'creative' product a classic, cult, genre-defining is not the fucking surface level niceness or polish, it's the fucking basics that need to be extremely well done. To me it's like all those bands/musicians who started in the underground and became super big thanks to their first albums and then start doing stupid over-produced bland productions, thinking that that's what people want while that's actually an afterthought which - most importantly- can not fix the initial product not being genuine, authentic, or soul-less. People don't listen to the rolling stones because of their latest album, collectors don't pay excessive money for the latest single either, no they re-listen to the OG albums and singles because that's when the band was still authentic and had the fucking courage to represent what they want to on stage instead of being driven by an army of marketeers and suits. So yeah, Larian, please don't be that guy, everybody loves you because of that, not because you try to live up to the expectation of what you think most people desire from someone like you.


Also do the fucking day/night please, i'm sure a lot of people would prefer having nights. If you're scarce on resources I'm sure you can cancel some expensive talking bird cinematic and redirect them towards the D/N team without anyone noticing. No one will notice if there would be less animals or even corpses to talk to. Who even wastes equipment/spell slots on speak with dead, or is willing to go trough the multiple click loops of (un-)equipping/learning this anyway? Like, the animal can talk and the corpse too, whatever, right ? If it were important enought to better not be missed the game will tell me anyway, right ? Or am I seriously missing something consequential disregarding what the animals and corpses have to say?

Ok. end of rant. Have a nice day everyone

"I never expected us to be 400 people to make BG3"

I just happen to have my old Shadows of Amn manual right here! Let's look at the end where the credits are listed ... hmmm, I see about 43 voice actors, about 44 people in the QA groups, 21 people on audio stuff, tons of art, animation, and programmer people, etc. I am not going to count them all, and the list is several pages long. So I guess my question for Larian would be, then how many people did you expect to make BG III?

***

"let's not spend time thinking ahead at the beginning, we'll just do a quick-and-dirty first draft now, implement it, and later we'll iterate over and over until we've got something good"

I think that is the basic philosophy of "Agile" software development ... ever hear the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby?

Sheesh everyone is so doom and gloom. For all we know, they’ve implemented all classes, races, day/night cycle, and reactions but they haven’t publicly released them yet because they aren’t polished, still need testing, or they’re simply holding things back for final release. We really have no idea the state of the game. Early Access is meant to give us a taste of the final game. It doesn’t reflect where they are in development.

Looks like we’re getting gnomes at least:
https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1506981445016948743?s=21

You always say it so well, @Niara! 1000% agree with you here.

And furthermore, the artcile itself was completely empty of any meaningful information. It was a pure fluff-piece where Vincke gets to pat himself and his team on the back about how awesome they are. Shame on PC Gamer for allowing themselves to be used for Larian PR.

If Vincke/Larian wants to have a real and meaningful discussion about BG3, they should agree to an interview with someone who has significant misgivings about the game. Several posters right here in this forum would be excellent such interviewers.

Whenever they are "over their heads" will depend on how 1.0 will turn out. It can turn out to be a cautionary tale just as well as a success story.

Which I don't think is the problem - the very point of releasing pre-alpha build is to get feedback while the game is in development. And I stand behind $60 price point, as Larian was very transparent with what EA is, and there was no incentive to buy into it if you are not interested in participating in this feedback gathering excercise. The more finished the release would be the less potential to steer the direction based on feedback/data.

"The benchmark incarnation of 5th Edition in a videogame," not "the most faithful adaptation of 5e". It is rather clear by now that Larian doesn't believe D&D to be very good, or at least not a good fit for a PC release. That of course leads to some questions: why work on IP that you seem to hate everything about, and "because D&D is popular" is a poor answer for a company "that is not about the money".

At the same time current cinematics still lack in quality. So which path should Larian follow? Focus on polishing "smaller" amount of content to provide a passable "cinematic" experience, so they can try to stand amongside Mass Effect and Witcher3, or try to cram as many choices for the player as possible, aiming to create janky cult classic? I expect the final result to be somewhere in the middle - not terribly good cinematics with still impressive amount of choices but doesn't quite succeed in covering choices player's might expect or want. Again: Dragon Age = not a terribly good RPG, not a terribly good cinematic experience, but scratches somewhat both itches.

Yeah, but Larian wants all the cakes and eat them too. It is a game with robust multiplayer support but also dedicated singleplayer content. A top down, highly customisable adventure, but with pre-made, directed cinematics. It is adaptation of nerdy D&D property that triest to satisfy D&D, D:OS2 and non RPG players. In other words Larian tries to cram many conflicting goals into one game, and to their credit trying to do justice to all. It's one thing to create a product with wide appeal - it is another to create product that will try to be various different products at the same time.

EDIT:
That's gaming media in the nutshell, no? Then again, as Niara point out, it is difficult to talk about what the game will be before it is finished. Anything said until the game is close to release is nothing more then selling hopes and dreams of what may one day be.

We kinda already knew that, I think. The question is when. In the EA? At release?

The issue with “cult-classics” is that they don’t sell well, and aren’t widely appreciated until much later after their release.

What you miss in “cyberpunk curse” is that cyberpunk made a lot of monies. And yes, while graphic age and date the game the more they are the focus of the title, the also sell the game. Hype sells games, and you won’t build hype with sparkly visuals. While investing in presentation might result in worse game, it also make the game more likely to do well.

I am sure Sven didn’t mean contract work, like actors. About 400 is what they have within their studios, which is a massive amount. Not sure if it is a good thing - I remember someone saying that “just bring more people in” is publishers way of solving problems and is not always beneficial - more people for example, won’t result in better designed systems, or better written story and they require training that takes time away from the project. That said, considering that Larian titles seem to lack focus and clear artistic direction and tend to be a tangled mess of conflicting tones, designs and ideas maybe it is their way of just jamming as much stuff into BG3 as possible.

Was that rhetoric question ... or do you ask for my opinion?
Personaly i dont need cinematic dialogues ... im quite used from games that NPCs are just standing there and from time to time they nod their head a little so they seem like they are speaking.

So ...
My vote goes for 10.000% to "implement as much choices as possible" path.

Sadly i dont think that would be their decision.

They desire the sexiness of the D&D IP and the Baldur's Gate legacy (for marketing); gotta pimp the company name, after all. But...as for a faithful implementation of either?

^ Jump to 3:30.


I am really not interested in a new(er) studio trying to push their identity through a beloved established series. Sadly, this only confirms my initial suspicions of BG3. The game could still be decent on its own merits, sure, but it won't be Baldur's Gate.

Perhaps it's the ecstasy I've been slipping into the morning cereal but I'm happier with this interview than many others and I see some signs that Larian is listening to critics:


That's good news. I mean BG1 was all about just walking into random houses and getting quests. I've never measured hours completionist run takes me about 2 weeks. We'll see if this is what we actually get but the goal is the right one.

And while I share everyone's skepticism on this statement:


I'm happy that we are no longer getting "we made a 5e game, it wasn't very much fun so we decided . . ." Of course I have I share the skepticism that this is what we're going to get but at least the goal is clearer now. If they want to Larianize the game with optional, skippable lightning themed items I'm okay with that as long you don't need those to complete a quest or defeat a boss.

Happy spring everyone.

Sure, but I have doubts if some things Larian upscaled itself for are worth pursuing. Maybe Larian is having some aces up their sleeve, but between their previous titles and what we have seen in EA I feel it is pretty obvious where they are going with this title - and at least for me, it is not a terribly exciting vision.

Any "Larianization" is too much; that is time and effort that could have been spent making a proper Baldur's Gate 3.

Bioware made one game, a mech sim, before making BG. You never know with these things.

Oh leave Icelyn alone you big grump. We have enough Debbie downers on this forum as it is (including me). They're a splash of positivity in an otherwise all too serious forum.

throw some confetti, you might enjoy it

Come now...I too can be positive; in fact, I am positive that this game - in its present state - is far too muddled.

Adding more people to the project is a fallacy that has been known for decades as Brooks's law, usually summed up as "nine women can't make a baby in one month".

It is possible that Larian has avoided, or tried to avoid, this pitfall. For example, it usually doesn't apply when you add people early on in the process. Another important aspect to consider is where they added these people to? QA, for example, is relatively easy to scale up with more people; working on their engine's core, not so much.

If anything that Swen said about the development process has any connection to reality, they should have been hiring DevOps engineers, so they would be able to automate more, and leave actual humans to do the creative stuff, be it engine redesign or dialogue's writing. Although I can imagine the horror in their eyes when they realise that, instead of using industry-standard tools, they have to deal with a smorgasbord of clunky inhouse-built crap. They have a single position on their Careers page that looks like a DevOps engineer, but it's just a single one, and I don't know how long it has been there.

If you want to be the benchmark implementation of 5E, you would have to actually implement the 5E rules as they are written. BG3 isn't even close to that. It's a homebrew with major mechanical changes to the game.