Putting that 3 down just drives even more interest in the game. If the game doesn't live up to people's expectations they are going to hear about it plenty either way.
Well you agree with me on that at least - it's not really a sequel, just a cynical nostalgia play in a (fairly desperate) hope it will generate more cash. (Pro tip: making better games is what generates more cash.)
Get cranky all you want about how it's not being made PRECISELY how you want, but I think that's just counter-productive petulance.
Not wanting to play a game that you don't like or enjoy is "counter-productive" and "petulant?" Okay buddy. This demonstrates nicely how game devs fail to understand customers. Being trained to code, after all, does not train you to sell things.
Eh, some predictions and warnings have been made in this thread. The response (including from Beamdog employees) has been dismissive and almost kind of hostile. If this isn't really a giant rickroll, I would wager:
- Beamdog people have already seen the forthcoming game, maybe consulted on its development. (Recall Daigle's "burden is knowledge")
- Some of the comments here, therefore, read less like warnings or predictions, so much as criticism.
- Thus the defensive attitude, and arguments along the lines of "how can you criticize what you haven't seen??"
I'm going to buy any BG3 anyway. (Well, if it came from Beamdog I might.) So I have no stake here. I'm just going to make some popcorn and watch how it sll shakes out.
@subtledoctor, we are very much of like mind. I'm glad you've courageously come forward to say this. I too have found the extreme extent to which the blue background folks here have been going to spin a Larian BG3 in a positive light and yes, be hostile/dismissive of opposing povs to be shocking. Maybe all those posters on forums out there, including reddit and the like, are correct in their assessment that Larian making BG3 is surely better than Beamdog making BG3, because if the views of the Beamdog folks posting here is reflective of what a Beamdog BG3 would've looked like, it saddens me greatly to say that I would've hated that game.
I like Witcher 3, I like Dragon Age games, I like TES. I like 3D. It makes me feel as I'm there exploring the world.
I like DOS. I like tactical battles. I like SCS and can't imagine BG without it.
I always wanted to try a D&D game where I can zoom and look at everything in 3D. Imagine - you are looking at the Elfsong tavern as if you are standing in front of it. And I always wanted to get more tactics into Dragon Age.
DOS gave me a portion of it. It wasn't 3D fully and it wasn't D&D. But if this next game is a step above, that would literally be a dream coming true.
I like the Infinity Engine and I still play BG every week. 20 years later. But in no situation a new game should use such an old engine. It should set it's own rules and be a game of it's own, not aspire to 20-years old mechanics.
Also just listened to that music clip again and I swear that the background music at a couple of points sounds like the battle encounter music from BG 1.
Views posted here are my own, @kanisatha. And it's great to read you're jumping up to yet another conclusion, in this case directly involving not only the game you haven't seen but also your views on other people's views (which they haven't shared) on something that hasn't been developed even.
I hoped my views could be interesting to people here, or at least they could provide to a more balanced view on the subject, considering there're a lot of critics in this thread.
Wow! This is an amazing amount of emotion for something people know very little, or actually nothing, about. We can't even be 100% sure of anything we have heard on it. Passion... Making people act asinine since the beginning of time.
Wow! This is an amazing amount of emotion for something people know very little, or actually nothing, about. We can't even be 100% sure of anything we have heard on it. Passion... Making people act asinine since the beginning of time.
Well this is the internet, the land where people will criticize a drawing made by a 4 years old because it lacks artistic vision and is over simplistic and without depth. I should have saved a link to the Reddit post where I saw it. That post was an epic facepalm moment.
Particularly I have always had the opinion that I should wait to see the final product before I give an opinion. It is a shame demo versions are so rare nowadays as those could give you a feel on the full product.
The fact "everyone" hates a game doesn't mean "you" won't like it. I hate RPG games that gives too much importance to tactical battles. By his comments Julius loves them. Neither of us are wrong or are playing the games wrong. We just have different tastes.
So I'll just wait and see what comes up. I have exactly 0 facts that allow me to say If I'll like the game or not right now.
I am not a fan of them using the name of BG 3 either since it seems like a completed story, but it might well still be a very good D&D RPG. Let's see. Personally, I would preferred a fresher setting with a completely new story and I think this behind a lot of the resentment expressed here.
I mean, I loved the old Goldbox series to death. But I am still happy that we got Baldur's Gate instead of Pool of Radiance II, Return of Tyranthraxus or Pools of Whatever.
Also, a personal opinion: I do not particularly like the Baldur's Gate setting (i.e. city and surrounding). It feels like very generic medieval high fantasy. Amn with the focus on trade, corruption and oriental & byzantine influences was much more interesting to me. Just look at the gorgeous mosaic art.
And I feel the entire Forgotten Realms setting has suffered recently. Not a fan of bringing back the Dead Three. It cheapens the impact of the so many of the old storylines (including Baldur's Gate, but also the original Avatar Trilogy).
I read BG is now supposed to be the Gotham of FR, but I am not a fan of that either. There are too many Grimdark settings around and the music suggests that this is what they are going for.
I like the Infinity Engine and I still play BG every week. 20 years later. But in no situation a new game should use such an old engine. It should set it's own rules and be a game of it's own, not aspire to 20-years old mechanics.
I'll tell you this, I am more excited to play in whole those games, than anything the AAA industry makes these days.
Of course I'll take a new engine that's intent on being a lot like the Infinity engine too, really the literal use of an old engine is semantics, it can be cool for authenticity in designing games with retro sensibilities, but the main point is to consider aesthetics, economics, and validity of design approaches from the past. I've seen very little benefit and a whole lot of crap come out of the modern industry, I abhor most of where its going, and its not even nostalgia I see when a games developer consciously chooses to embrace a real path forward. As far as I'm concerned, the FPS genre was in stasis when Half Life released and is now only coming back to conciousness with the release of Dusk, the real successor of Quake.
That probably seems like an extreme position to some people but its the conclusion I've drawn and I'll defend it as a valid stance. And it can apply to other genres, for the CRPG genre in particular -
The thrust of some posts I've seen here is something like:
I hope any developer of a putative BG3 recognize that what made the first two games great is not just the story, or the graphics, or the branching dialogue 3 layers deep (feh), but the particular magic of the gameplay. Contrast PS:T, which uses the same engine but somehow has horrible gameplay. The BG series has hit on a delicate alchemy that makes the games a joy to play, even decades after their introduction. If a putative sequel doesn't get that right, it will be poorly received by fans.
And the responses have been along the lines of:
Turn based is FINE! It's great!
What makes BG great has nothing to do with the engine!
It’s funny how many people on here seem to think that they’re the only ones that have a valid opinion. Basically this game is gonna be awful and anyone else who dares to think otherwise doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about seems to be the general consensus of a few people.
And don’t get me wrong I appreciate that they are very much entitled to their point of view but it’s the ‘I’m gonna force it down your throat and keep on repeating myself’ attitude that makes me laugh.
Ok I get it. You have no hope for this project and that’s fine but I’m gonna continue to be positive and hope that this is gonna be awesome ?
Using Neverwinter Nights to juxtapose with Baldur's Gate in regards to the importance of continuity isn't really useful. Even the first game's own expansions basically abandoned the original campaign in favor of a do-over from level 1.
@hybridial While I see the attractiveness of a nostalgia engine, that is more for an indie game. If you want, Siege of Dragonspear was an indie game. But, man, BG3 should not be an indie game. It should be right there - among top RPGs of all times, if not the top one. And for that, you'd want everything "best" in the category. Best storytelling, best cinematics, best characters, best music, best gameplay, best everything. You can't be the best if you use something from 20 years ago. If BG1 tried to use something from 20 years - ok, even from 5 years - before it was released...
This game should define the genre, not trail at the end of it. This game should impress, it should blow your mind. It should blow minds of millions of gamers. It's impossible to do with an old engine, it's impossible to do with an approach of "this is our spiritual successor to the classics" only.
Come on, people. Lots of gamers didn't try BG1 or BG2. There are many more gamers nowadays than there were 20 years ago. And I hope all you would agree that the more people learn D&D and become charmed by its magic, the better. That is the aim the company behind such a game should take, IMHO.
If you're not interested in the Dragon Age - type (and here I mention it only from the popularity, only from the genre-defining standpoint) - it's your choice. But how many people will be inspired and absolutely captured by something as incredible as BG1, but for today's world. For today's gaming world. When you see such games as Death Stranding going out in the same (or nearly the same) year, you want to provide quality, you want to impress, you want to be beautiful.
I don't want Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 look like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, I want it to look modern and to be cool - while staying modern. There's nothing bad in being from today's world, living in the past is not the only way.
I don't want BG3 look like BG1. I don't want it look like PoE. I don't want it look like DOS. I don't want it look like DAO. I want more, and I have every right to demand more from such an iconic title.
Using Neverwinter Nights to juxtapose with Baldur's Gate in regards to the importance of continuity isn't really useful. Even the first game's own expansions basically abandoned the original campaign in favor of a do-over from level 1.
well the first expansion had the excuse of being made by different people. hordes does tie into the original game in alot of ways through characters showing up again.
Using Neverwinter Nights to juxtapose with Baldur's Gate in regards to the importance of continuity isn't really useful. Even the first game's own expansions basically abandoned the original campaign in favor of a do-over from level 1.
But you're conflating continuity in story with continuity in gameplay systems. My point about the NwN games was about gameplay systems, because that's also what I'm talking about with this discussion on BG3. NwN1 and all its expansions did not have story continuity but they did have systems continuity. But across NwN1 and 2 you not only did not have story continuity but also did not have systems continuity.
The 3 denotes more than "just another game in and around the same fictional locale." It denotes a continuation of the first two. Tonthe extent that ends up being false, it will generate bad will and be seen as callously cashing in on something people have hoped for, but which is not this.
Call it "Baldur's Gate: Return of Bhaal." Call it whatever makes sense. "3" does not really make sense.
Ad hominem means I'm attacking you rather than he substance of your argument. The quote above demonstrates that you have argued that using the BG3 name "will be seen as callously cashing in"
Essentially - I see your point as saying calling it BG3 is bad faith for the purpose of cashing in. Without know literally anything about the game, we can't know if it's in bad faith or not.
@hybridial While I see the attractiveness of a nostalgia engine, that is more an indie game. If you want, Siege of Dragonspear was an indie game. But, man, BG3 should not be an indie game.
I think cinematics are completely worthless. I think resources poured to that end not only damages everything else but gets away from the point. Hollywood is already making enough bloated overproduced brain-killing cinema, the games industry doesn't need to add to the pile.
I could rant a lot more on this but I'll just say, I think BG3 would be better off as an indie game, because all of these AAA games with their fancy cinematics and their open worlds have been empty to me, and game design's only been devolving to try and court a wide as possible an audience. That's often the position I find most ridiculous, "game design has moved forward". No it hasn't. Doom from 1993 still has more sophisticated mechanics than most games released this year. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne was the high point of the JRPG genre in terms of gameplay complexity, and so on.
Honestly when I took a look in the mirror, as a fan of videogames, and realised, I don't care about mainstream games, they've gone to shit, but that there's still a lot out there in terms of smaller developers, of the indie market and of games from the past being kept alive by their communities, there's still a lot of fun to be had and I feel free in the realisation of it.
And if Larian are making BG3 with any intent at all to bring back the original fanbase, well, I am aware Larian are grass roots in this genre, not really been into their games over the years but I know they're not inexperienced in this, but well imagine you found out a sequel to a series you still love has been shopped to a company that made one of the most legitimately disappointing games you ever played, that's my position. Forgive me for being a bit cynical about it.
Using Neverwinter Nights to juxtapose with Baldur's Gate in regards to the importance of continuity isn't really useful. Even the first game's own expansions basically abandoned the original campaign in favor of a do-over from level 1.
But you're conflating continuity in story with continuity in gameplay systems. My point about the NwN games was about gameplay systems, because that's also what I'm talking about with this discussion on BG3. NwN1 and all its expansions did not have story continuity but they did have systems continuity. But across NwN1 and 2 you not only did not have story continuity but also did not have systems continuity.
sou and hordes are about the same character.
nwn 2 shows that the city is still rebuilding after the events of the oc of 1.
and motb is a continuation of the oc of 2 with the same character.
while it may not be like baldurs gate where it's the same character the whole series it's still there to a smaller degree. the only hero that out right stops showing up is the one from the first game's oc.
I don't want BG3 look like BG1. I don't want it look like PoE. I don't want it look like DOS. I don't want it look like DAO. I want more, and I have every right to demand more from such an iconic title.
This I agree with wholeheartedly. I have a long history in these forums of saying enough with the Infinity Engine already. I also want modern graphics, would be ok with 3D rendering, and any and all other forms of modernity. And updating the rules to a newer edition is also perfectly appropriate.
But for any new game in the BG franchise to have the "feel" of a BG game, it must be: single-player focused (it can also have multiplayer but should be designed for single-player play), party-based, isometric, and RTwP.
Using Neverwinter Nights to juxtapose with Baldur's Gate in regards to the importance of continuity isn't really useful. Even the first game's own expansions basically abandoned the original campaign in favor of a do-over from level 1.
But you're conflating continuity in story with continuity in gameplay systems. My point about the NwN games was about gameplay systems, because that's also what I'm talking about with this discussion on BG3. NwN1 and all its expansions did not have story continuity but they did have systems continuity. But across NwN1 and 2 you not only did not have story continuity but also did not have systems continuity.
sou and hordes are about the same character.
nwn 2 shows that the city is still rebuilding after the events of the oc of 1.
and motb is a continuation of the oc of 2 with the same character.
while it may not be like baldurs gate where it's the same character the whole series it's still there to a smaller degree. the only hero that out right stops showing up is the one from the first game's oc.
Well yes, sure. I know all of this. But none of this goes to my point, which is that NwN1 was a solo-play (i.e. no party - the henchmen do not count) game meant to be played multiplayer. NwN2 was a single-player focused and party-based game. For me, and I emphasize, for me, these differences make the two games fundamentally different.
@hybridial While I see the attractiveness of a nostalgia engine, that is more an indie game. If you want, Siege of Dragonspear was an indie game. But, man, BG3 should not be an indie game.
I think cinematics are completely worthless. I think resources poured to that end not only damages everything else but gets away from the point. Hollywood is already making enough bloated overproduced brain-killing cinema, the games industry doesn't need to add to the pile.
I could rant a lot more on this but I'll just say, I think BG3 would be better off as an indie game, because all of these AAA games with their fancy cinematics and their open worlds have been empty to me, and game design's only been devolving to try and court a wide as possible an audience. That's often the position I find most ridiculous, "game design has moved forward". No it hasn't. Doom from 1993 still has more sophisticated mechanics than most games released this year. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne was the high point of the JRPG genre in terms of gameplay complexity, and so on.
Honestly when I took a look in the mirror, as a fan of videogames, and realised, I don't care about mainstream games, they've gone to shit, but that there's still a lot out there in terms of smaller developers, of the indie market and of games from the past being kept alive by their communities, there's still a lot of fun to be had and I feel free in the realisation of it.
And if Larian are making BG3 with any intent at all to bring back the original fanbase, well, I am aware Larian are grass roots in this genre, not really been into their games over the years but I know they're not inexperienced in this, but well imagine you found out a sequel to a series you still love has been shopped to a company that made one of the most legitimately disappointing games you ever played, that's my position. Forgive me for being a bit cynical about it.
I agree with some of what you're saying, Hollywood has been out of ideas for a long time. All the big budget movies have had so much cash dumped into them, that they become too big to fail, so what you wind up with is something trying to please as wide an audience as possible and not take any risks. What this winds up producing is just bland and derivative crap. The same is true for most AAA games for me.
That being said, the games industry has a couple things the film industry doesn't have. A distribution model that allows smaller companies to get their games in front of enough of people to have a sustainable business model. They also have smaller word of mouth communities, like this one to spread info on games from smaller studios. Larian's not a big studio, by any stretch, and the D:OS games are by no measure AAA or mainstream. CRPGs are niche products, these days, maybe they always were.
Game design has moved forward. While it has it's own flaws, the unity engine has allowed a lot of great games to get cranked out easier, and very small teams have managed to deliver great games with it. The toolsets they have today make development much easier, and devs no longer have to write damn near all of the games functions themselves. Game engines aren't just about what snazzy features they put in front of the players, they're just as much about the toolset that allows devs to deliver those games to the players. Obsidian's shown you can deliver that 2d hand painted look with the engine, and IMHO Pathfinder: Kingmaker captures a lot of the magic that the BG games had, but does it in an updated engine.
I adored cinematics in DAO when I first saw them. I liked Witcher 3 cinematics. They help tell the story, they give more emotion. No text can compare with that.
A "big" game is not bad by default. Bad games happen on all stages, from indie to AAA. But also - good games happen.
Comparing games from different genres is not correct here. I don't know about shooters much, so can't describe Doom and how it compares to modern shooters. But I know RPGs, at least. At least, I played them. And a lot of things which were done in 1998 and 2000 in RPGs is not what - and how - should be done in 2019.
Hell, even with Witcher 3 TES 5 (which was released not in 1998, but in 2011) feels outdated. And Morrowind feels outdated after Witcher 3. This is normal. Everything keeps developing.
I actually don't like Pathfinder Kingmaker, and I think part of it is I just don't like the 3D engine or how it makes stuff look, but just part of it, the rest is definitely problems with the games content, the writing is not that great, the characters are not all that interesting and the pacing of the plot being so tied in with the kingdom management stuff is quite tiresome. I'll give it though that it did try new things.
And whilst you make a good point about game design tools, it wasn't the tools I was criticising but the actual design work done by people, there will always be a difference. Dusk was made on Unity, but Dusk isn't great because of that, it just means people can't really blame their tools when they fail these days.
I actually don't like Pathfinder Kingmaker, and I think part of it is I just don't like the 3D engine or how it makes stuff look, but just part of it, the rest is definitely problems with the games content, the writing is not that great, the characters are not all that interesting and the pacing of the plot being so tied in with the kingdom management stuff is quite tiresome. I'll give it though that it did try new things.
And whilst you make a good point about game design tools, it wasn't the tools I was criticising but the actual design work done by people, there will always be a difference. Dusk was made on Unity, but Dusk isn't great because of that, it just means people can't really blame their tools when they fail these days.
Wow, I feel like we played completely different games. It was a bit cartoony, so I can get it if that's not you're thing why you wouldn't like it, but it was toned down a lot from PnP. I really enjoyed the content and thought the companions, writing and reactivity were great, most of the time. I dug the kingdom management, because it's like what NWN2's OC and the strongholds from BG2 were only playing at. I do play a lot of civilization, so that might be why the kingdom management is my bag, though.
My main point about tools, is that it allows less people to do more in less time. Sure, someone will churn out crap, no matter how great the tools are, but doing more with less is great. Part of the point is, doing things on an old engine can require a lot more resources. I mean beamdog pretty much had to completely rewrite the infinity engine, and that took years.
Hell, even with Witcher 3 TES 5 (which was released not in 1998, but in 2011) feels outdated. And Morrowind feels outdated after Witcher 3. This is normal. Everything keeps developing.
I actually think Skyrim was better than The Witcher 3. The Witcher 3's design was incredibly conflicted, it was a linear RPG with a bolted on open world that is checklist filler. Skyrim might have tonnes of problems but I do think its overall design approach to encourage players to explore and live in the world worked. Also neither of them were very good in terms of the combat or more tactile elements of the gameplay. From what I've played of The Witcher 3, I have no idea where all of its critical acclaim came from, because the story was about the best part of it and it wasn't anything special.
Maybe in fairness a "big game" should not be considered bad by default, but I'm just so absolutely disillusioned with the excess of it all, I'm not interested in being forced by them to buy new hardware when they fail to enthrall me because I just see past their hollow attempts to impress me with their tech.
I know these sentiments are very jaded, but thats just how it is for me now. I can't even get excited for Cyberpunk 2077, which is a premise that interests me 10x more than The Witcher ever did.
My main point about tools, is that it allows less people to do more in less time. Sure, someone will churn out crap, no matter how great the tools are, but doing more with less is great. Part of the point is, doing things on an old engine can require a lot more resources. I mean beamdog pretty much had to completely rewrite the infinity engine, and that took years.
I'd probably be open to trying Pathfinder again sometime, but after 50 hours I know I really dislike Original Sin 2. To be more clear I don't really mind what engine they use, but I would like basically the end result to be like Pillars of Eternity, a game which I did like. 2D backgrounds, 3D models, maybe do the optimisation a little better, but that would be ideal for me. I just don't really want it to be a fully 3D game as I think that would genuinely remove it too far from what it should be.
You might like or not like the game, but TW3 was genre-defining. So while a player can still find Skyrim better/more interesting than TW3, the game changed something in the genre forever.
I loved:
- all the infinity engine games
- all the Dragon Age games
- all the Mass Effect games
- SWTOR and KOTOR
And so far I'm loving Kingmaker.
There are lots of different sorts of games. Tactically really demanding isometric games are cool; Bioware cinematic storytelling is also cool. With modern tools (especially for level design) 2D isometrics offers an opportunity to design cool games at comparatively affordable prices, but I'd be sorry to lose big expensive cinematic 3D games too.
Hell, even with Witcher 3 TES 5 (which was released not in 1998, but in 2011) feels outdated. And Morrowind feels outdated after Witcher 3. This is normal. Everything keeps developing.
I actually think Skyrim was better than The Witcher 3. The Witcher 3's design was incredibly conflicted, it was a linear RPG with a bolted on open world that is checklist filler. Skyrim might have tonnes of problems but I do think its overall design approach to encourage players to explore and live in the world worked. Also neither of them were very good in terms of the combat or more tactile elements of the gameplay. From what I've played of The Witcher 3, I have no idea where all of its critical acclaim came from, because the story was about the best part of it and it wasn't anything special.
Maybe in fairness a "big game" should not be considered bad by default, but I'm just so absolutely disillusioned with the excess of it all, I'm not interested in being forced by them to buy new hardware when they fail to enthrall me because I just see past their hollow attempts to impress me with their tech.
I know these sentiments are very jaded, but thats just how it is for me now. I can't even get excited for Cyberpunk 2077, which is a premise that interests me 10x more than The Witcher ever did.
My main point about tools, is that it allows less people to do more in less time. Sure, someone will churn out crap, no matter how great the tools are, but doing more with less is great. Part of the point is, doing things on an old engine can require a lot more resources. I mean beamdog pretty much had to completely rewrite the infinity engine, and that took years.
I'd probably be open to trying Pathfinder again sometime, but after 50 hours I know I really dislike Original Sin 2. To be more clear I don't really mind what engine they use, but I would like basically the end result to be like Pillars of Eternity, a game which I did like. 2D backgrounds, 3D models, maybe do the optimisation a little better, but that would be ideal for me. I just don't really want it to be a fully 3D game as I think that would genuinely remove it too far from what it should be.
The EE for Pathfinder is supposed to come out late this week, so that'd be a great time to give it a shot again. Part of the reason I also mentioned the 2d maps Obsidian made earlier was because I liked their aesthetic more than pathfinder and thought they had a look more like the old BG games, but liked the game play, world and mechanics of pathfinder a lot more than the PoE games. So it's possible to recreate that aesthetic with unity.
I'm actually really looking forward to Cyberpunk, too, and I never played The Witcher 3. I didn't care for the second game and was just sick of Geralt and the world by that point, so didn't see any reason to bother with another Witcher game.
Comments
@subtledoctor, we are very much of like mind. I'm glad you've courageously come forward to say this. I too have found the extreme extent to which the blue background folks here have been going to spin a Larian BG3 in a positive light and yes, be hostile/dismissive of opposing povs to be shocking. Maybe all those posters on forums out there, including reddit and the like, are correct in their assessment that Larian making BG3 is surely better than Beamdog making BG3, because if the views of the Beamdog folks posting here is reflective of what a Beamdog BG3 would've looked like, it saddens me greatly to say that I would've hated that game.
I like DOS. I like tactical battles. I like SCS and can't imagine BG without it.
I always wanted to try a D&D game where I can zoom and look at everything in 3D. Imagine - you are looking at the Elfsong tavern as if you are standing in front of it. And I always wanted to get more tactics into Dragon Age.
DOS gave me a portion of it. It wasn't 3D fully and it wasn't D&D. But if this next game is a step above, that would literally be a dream coming true.
I like the Infinity Engine and I still play BG every week. 20 years later. But in no situation a new game should use such an old engine. It should set it's own rules and be a game of it's own, not aspire to 20-years old mechanics.
I tried the Baldur’s Gate mod for Neverwinter nights 2 but found it way to unstable unfortunately
I hoped my views could be interesting to people here, or at least they could provide to a more balanced view on the subject, considering there're a lot of critics in this thread.
Well this is the internet, the land where people will criticize a drawing made by a 4 years old because it lacks artistic vision and is over simplistic and without depth. I should have saved a link to the Reddit post where I saw it. That post was an epic facepalm moment.
Particularly I have always had the opinion that I should wait to see the final product before I give an opinion. It is a shame demo versions are so rare nowadays as those could give you a feel on the full product.
The fact "everyone" hates a game doesn't mean "you" won't like it. I hate RPG games that gives too much importance to tactical battles. By his comments Julius loves them. Neither of us are wrong or are playing the games wrong. We just have different tastes.
So I'll just wait and see what comes up. I have exactly 0 facts that allow me to say If I'll like the game or not right now.
I mean, I loved the old Goldbox series to death. But I am still happy that we got Baldur's Gate instead of Pool of Radiance II, Return of Tyranthraxus or Pools of Whatever.
Also, a personal opinion: I do not particularly like the Baldur's Gate setting (i.e. city and surrounding). It feels like very generic medieval high fantasy. Amn with the focus on trade, corruption and oriental & byzantine influences was much more interesting to me. Just look at the gorgeous mosaic art.
And I feel the entire Forgotten Realms setting has suffered recently. Not a fan of bringing back the Dead Three. It cheapens the impact of the so many of the old storylines (including Baldur's Gate, but also the original Avatar Trilogy).
I read BG is now supposed to be the Gotham of FR, but I am not a fan of that either. There are too many Grimdark settings around and the music suggests that this is what they are going for.
Oh I dunno, seems like it might work out for
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000410/WRATH_Aeon_of_Ruin/
and
https://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Maiden/
I'll tell you this, I am more excited to play in whole those games, than anything the AAA industry makes these days.
Of course I'll take a new engine that's intent on being a lot like the Infinity engine too, really the literal use of an old engine is semantics, it can be cool for authenticity in designing games with retro sensibilities, but the main point is to consider aesthetics, economics, and validity of design approaches from the past. I've seen very little benefit and a whole lot of crap come out of the modern industry, I abhor most of where its going, and its not even nostalgia I see when a games developer consciously chooses to embrace a real path forward. As far as I'm concerned, the FPS genre was in stasis when Half Life released and is now only coming back to conciousness with the release of Dusk, the real successor of Quake.
That probably seems like an extreme position to some people but its the conclusion I've drawn and I'll defend it as a valid stance. And it can apply to other genres, for the CRPG genre in particular -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/762550/Realms_Beyond_Ashes_of_the_Fallen/
I want a BG3 more like that and not anything like Dragon Age or Original Sin, or I am out, I'm not interested in anything else.
Hehe. Nice!
And don’t get me wrong I appreciate that they are very much entitled to their point of view but it’s the ‘I’m gonna force it down your throat and keep on repeating myself’ attitude that makes me laugh.
Ok I get it. You have no hope for this project and that’s fine but I’m gonna continue to be positive and hope that this is gonna be awesome ?
This game should define the genre, not trail at the end of it. This game should impress, it should blow your mind. It should blow minds of millions of gamers. It's impossible to do with an old engine, it's impossible to do with an approach of "this is our spiritual successor to the classics" only.
Come on, people. Lots of gamers didn't try BG1 or BG2. There are many more gamers nowadays than there were 20 years ago. And I hope all you would agree that the more people learn D&D and become charmed by its magic, the better. That is the aim the company behind such a game should take, IMHO.
If you're not interested in the Dragon Age - type (and here I mention it only from the popularity, only from the genre-defining standpoint) - it's your choice. But how many people will be inspired and absolutely captured by something as incredible as BG1, but for today's world. For today's gaming world. When you see such games as Death Stranding going out in the same (or nearly the same) year, you want to provide quality, you want to impress, you want to be beautiful.
I don't want Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 look like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, I want it to look modern and to be cool - while staying modern. There's nothing bad in being from today's world, living in the past is not the only way.
I don't want BG3 look like BG1. I don't want it look like PoE. I don't want it look like DOS. I don't want it look like DAO. I want more, and I have every right to demand more from such an iconic title.
well the first expansion had the excuse of being made by different people. hordes does tie into the original game in alot of ways through characters showing up again.
But you're conflating continuity in story with continuity in gameplay systems. My point about the NwN games was about gameplay systems, because that's also what I'm talking about with this discussion on BG3. NwN1 and all its expansions did not have story continuity but they did have systems continuity. But across NwN1 and 2 you not only did not have story continuity but also did not have systems continuity.
Ad hominem means I'm attacking you rather than he substance of your argument. The quote above demonstrates that you have argued that using the BG3 name "will be seen as callously cashing in"
Essentially - I see your point as saying calling it BG3 is bad faith for the purpose of cashing in. Without know literally anything about the game, we can't know if it's in bad faith or not.
I think cinematics are completely worthless. I think resources poured to that end not only damages everything else but gets away from the point. Hollywood is already making enough bloated overproduced brain-killing cinema, the games industry doesn't need to add to the pile.
I could rant a lot more on this but I'll just say, I think BG3 would be better off as an indie game, because all of these AAA games with their fancy cinematics and their open worlds have been empty to me, and game design's only been devolving to try and court a wide as possible an audience. That's often the position I find most ridiculous, "game design has moved forward". No it hasn't. Doom from 1993 still has more sophisticated mechanics than most games released this year. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne was the high point of the JRPG genre in terms of gameplay complexity, and so on.
Honestly when I took a look in the mirror, as a fan of videogames, and realised, I don't care about mainstream games, they've gone to shit, but that there's still a lot out there in terms of smaller developers, of the indie market and of games from the past being kept alive by their communities, there's still a lot of fun to be had and I feel free in the realisation of it.
And if Larian are making BG3 with any intent at all to bring back the original fanbase, well, I am aware Larian are grass roots in this genre, not really been into their games over the years but I know they're not inexperienced in this, but well imagine you found out a sequel to a series you still love has been shopped to a company that made one of the most legitimately disappointing games you ever played, that's my position. Forgive me for being a bit cynical about it.
sou and hordes are about the same character.
nwn 2 shows that the city is still rebuilding after the events of the oc of 1.
and motb is a continuation of the oc of 2 with the same character.
while it may not be like baldurs gate where it's the same character the whole series it's still there to a smaller degree. the only hero that out right stops showing up is the one from the first game's oc.
This I agree with wholeheartedly. I have a long history in these forums of saying enough with the Infinity Engine already. I also want modern graphics, would be ok with 3D rendering, and any and all other forms of modernity. And updating the rules to a newer edition is also perfectly appropriate.
But for any new game in the BG franchise to have the "feel" of a BG game, it must be: single-player focused (it can also have multiplayer but should be designed for single-player play), party-based, isometric, and RTwP.
Well yes, sure. I know all of this. But none of this goes to my point, which is that NwN1 was a solo-play (i.e. no party - the henchmen do not count) game meant to be played multiplayer. NwN2 was a single-player focused and party-based game. For me, and I emphasize, for me, these differences make the two games fundamentally different.
I agree with some of what you're saying, Hollywood has been out of ideas for a long time. All the big budget movies have had so much cash dumped into them, that they become too big to fail, so what you wind up with is something trying to please as wide an audience as possible and not take any risks. What this winds up producing is just bland and derivative crap. The same is true for most AAA games for me.
That being said, the games industry has a couple things the film industry doesn't have. A distribution model that allows smaller companies to get their games in front of enough of people to have a sustainable business model. They also have smaller word of mouth communities, like this one to spread info on games from smaller studios. Larian's not a big studio, by any stretch, and the D:OS games are by no measure AAA or mainstream. CRPGs are niche products, these days, maybe they always were.
Game design has moved forward. While it has it's own flaws, the unity engine has allowed a lot of great games to get cranked out easier, and very small teams have managed to deliver great games with it. The toolsets they have today make development much easier, and devs no longer have to write damn near all of the games functions themselves. Game engines aren't just about what snazzy features they put in front of the players, they're just as much about the toolset that allows devs to deliver those games to the players. Obsidian's shown you can deliver that 2d hand painted look with the engine, and IMHO Pathfinder: Kingmaker captures a lot of the magic that the BG games had, but does it in an updated engine.
A "big" game is not bad by default. Bad games happen on all stages, from indie to AAA. But also - good games happen.
Comparing games from different genres is not correct here. I don't know about shooters much, so can't describe Doom and how it compares to modern shooters. But I know RPGs, at least. At least, I played them. And a lot of things which were done in 1998 and 2000 in RPGs is not what - and how - should be done in 2019.
Hell, even with Witcher 3 TES 5 (which was released not in 1998, but in 2011) feels outdated. And Morrowind feels outdated after Witcher 3. This is normal. Everything keeps developing.
And whilst you make a good point about game design tools, it wasn't the tools I was criticising but the actual design work done by people, there will always be a difference. Dusk was made on Unity, but Dusk isn't great because of that, it just means people can't really blame their tools when they fail these days.
Wow, I feel like we played completely different games. It was a bit cartoony, so I can get it if that's not you're thing why you wouldn't like it, but it was toned down a lot from PnP. I really enjoyed the content and thought the companions, writing and reactivity were great, most of the time. I dug the kingdom management, because it's like what NWN2's OC and the strongholds from BG2 were only playing at. I do play a lot of civilization, so that might be why the kingdom management is my bag, though.
My main point about tools, is that it allows less people to do more in less time. Sure, someone will churn out crap, no matter how great the tools are, but doing more with less is great. Part of the point is, doing things on an old engine can require a lot more resources. I mean beamdog pretty much had to completely rewrite the infinity engine, and that took years.
I actually think Skyrim was better than The Witcher 3. The Witcher 3's design was incredibly conflicted, it was a linear RPG with a bolted on open world that is checklist filler. Skyrim might have tonnes of problems but I do think its overall design approach to encourage players to explore and live in the world worked. Also neither of them were very good in terms of the combat or more tactile elements of the gameplay. From what I've played of The Witcher 3, I have no idea where all of its critical acclaim came from, because the story was about the best part of it and it wasn't anything special.
Maybe in fairness a "big game" should not be considered bad by default, but I'm just so absolutely disillusioned with the excess of it all, I'm not interested in being forced by them to buy new hardware when they fail to enthrall me because I just see past their hollow attempts to impress me with their tech.
I know these sentiments are very jaded, but thats just how it is for me now. I can't even get excited for Cyberpunk 2077, which is a premise that interests me 10x more than The Witcher ever did.
I'd probably be open to trying Pathfinder again sometime, but after 50 hours I know I really dislike Original Sin 2. To be more clear I don't really mind what engine they use, but I would like basically the end result to be like Pillars of Eternity, a game which I did like. 2D backgrounds, 3D models, maybe do the optimisation a little better, but that would be ideal for me. I just don't really want it to be a fully 3D game as I think that would genuinely remove it too far from what it should be.
https://kotaku.com/how-the-witcher-3s-developers-ensured-their-open-world-1735034176
https://www.gamereactor.eu/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-open-world-narrative-evolved/
- all the infinity engine games
- all the Dragon Age games
- all the Mass Effect games
- SWTOR and KOTOR
And so far I'm loving Kingmaker.
There are lots of different sorts of games. Tactically really demanding isometric games are cool; Bioware cinematic storytelling is also cool. With modern tools (especially for level design) 2D isometrics offers an opportunity to design cool games at comparatively affordable prices, but I'd be sorry to lose big expensive cinematic 3D games too.
The EE for Pathfinder is supposed to come out late this week, so that'd be a great time to give it a shot again. Part of the reason I also mentioned the 2d maps Obsidian made earlier was because I liked their aesthetic more than pathfinder and thought they had a look more like the old BG games, but liked the game play, world and mechanics of pathfinder a lot more than the PoE games. So it's possible to recreate that aesthetic with unity.
I'm actually really looking forward to Cyberpunk, too, and I never played The Witcher 3. I didn't care for the second game and was just sick of Geralt and the world by that point, so didn't see any reason to bother with another Witcher game.