So is it possible a big part of what he is cooking up is a new kind of gameplay system for combat, something that tries to bridge the divide between the two systems and use elements from both to make a game that fans of both RTwP and TB can enjoy? A system that allows for tremendous tactical depth even while not being so strictly sequential in character actions that many of us find so utterly frustrating with TB systems? I am cautiously hopeful.
Well, that's potentially interesting, but when Square Enix tried to do things like that with Final Fantasy, they came up with some of the worst gameplay I've ever seen in any genre, so I kinda hope it's not, well that.
Square Enix also ruined Hitman's open ended stealth gameplay turning it into a linear action title with the title "Hitman Absolution". Which is now affectionately called "Hitman Abomination" by fans of the series. Square Enix is known for buying niche IP's and trying to turn them into mainstream abominations.
I agree that gameplay is the only reason why BG stands above all others and can't imagine someone trying to make a new version without matching it in every way. 6 person party, real time with pause. However, I wouldn't hold Larian to the Baldur's Gate standard if they simply went their own way with a title that is not Baldur's Gate. Since they have chosen Baldurs Gate 3 as their title, I definitely think they should deliver Baldur's Gate gameplay and make a true Baldur's Gate game. Here is to Hoping.
I think Larian has shown they can deliver in regards to gameplay in the OS games. I think there's valid criticisms of the combat systems in the games. However, the evolution on other aspects of questing or dungeon crawling / puzzles is far superior in OS than it was in SoD. They clearly took inspiration from BG and Ultima 7 and have progressed the genre.
Gameplay (outside of combat at least) is one of my lowest concerns. Larian has demonstrated, bare minimum, a strong competence there. And I actually think the DnD ruleset/lore will rein in some of my issues with Larian's loot/gear and combat.
I did a quick search and found a list of D&D video games released since BG2:
- pool of radiance
- dark alliance
- neverwinter nights
- dark alliance 2
- dungeons & dragons heroes
- temple of elemental evil
- demon stone
- neverwinter nights 2
- dungeons & dragons online
- daggerdale
- neverwinter
- sword coast legends
- heroes of neverwinter
For those who are saying "as long as BG3 is a new game in the Forgotten Realms setting with a good story, it'll be great!" ... we've already had a ton of chances for that. How did they turn out?
The difference is clear: those games all had D&D, they all had Forgotten Realms or equally liked settings. What they didn't have is BG2's excellent and tight gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay mechanics are THE paramount factor that is going to make or break BG3. The idea that people think it doesn't matter, boggles my mind.
Not to nitpick but TOEE was Grewhawk. IMHO it is far superior to every other game in the list but yeah I agree these don’t compare with the IE games.
I did a quick search and found a list of D&D video games released since BG2:
- pool of radiance
- dark alliance
- neverwinter nights
- dark alliance 2
- dungeons & dragons heroes
- temple of elemental evil
- demon stone
- neverwinter nights 2
- dungeons & dragons online
- daggerdale
- neverwinter
- sword coast legends
- heroes of neverwinter
For those who are saying "as long as BG3 is a new game in the Forgotten Realms setting with a good story, it'll be great!" ... we've already had a ton of chances for that. How did they turn out?
The difference is clear: those games all had D&D, they all had Forgotten Realms or equally liked settings. What they didn't have is BG2's excellent and tight gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay mechanics are THE paramount factor that is going to make or break BG3. The idea that people think it doesn't matter, boggles my mind.
Hmmm. I've played every single game on that list. The only complete dud was SCL and HoN.
-Pools of Radiance was just ok, somewhat forgettable in my opinion.
-Dark Alliance Games were just trying to work off the popularity of BG at the time and had their niche.
-Neverwinter is still going on today... so by all accounts a success
-Neverwinter 2 I LOVED when I played it, a lot. Different and good.
-D&D Online... lol. It was ok, tried cashing in on the MMO craze and had it's place for time, but was just ok.
I would but I have POE 2 to complete and I have a feeling Dying Light 2 will be out shortly so it probably won't happen. I'm a fan of Obsidian though and have heard good things about it.
TOEE was great, I agree! I hear Neverwinter nights 2 was pretty good but I never tried it cause I didn't like the original.
NWN1 and 2 are completely different games. GoG has a big summer sale right now, including D&D titles. I'd recommend trying NWN2 out.
I second this, @the_sextein. They are very different games. NwN1 was made for multiplayer play and not party-based. NwN2 had single-player in mind from the ground up and is party-based.
Maybe if I have some down time in the future where no games that look interesting are coming out. Thanks for the suggestion though. I had read that it was different but at the time of it's release I didn't even pay attention to it because it used the Neverwinter nights IP. I think half of the sales for the original game were from people like me who bought it because of Baldur's Gate. I just couldn't get into it.
For those who are saying "as long as BG3 is a new game in the Forgotten Realms setting with a good story, it'll be great!" ... we've already had a ton of chances for that. How did they turn out?
The difference is clear: those games all had D&D, they all had Forgotten Realms or equally liked settings. What they didn't have is BG2's excellent and tight gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay mechanics are THE paramount factor that is going to make or break BG3. The idea that people think it doesn't matter, boggles my mind.
You can't be serious. If there's one thing where NWN2 beats BG2 by a landslide it's exactly in the mechanics department. And then in characters too, while MotB also adds narrative to the list.
What NWN2 doesn't have is an open world city like Atkatla where you can mind your own business dealing with its population. A very big hub from where you can travel to very big dungeons.
welll it's kinda hard to have a big city hub in the nwn 2 engine just due to how hard it is to use. nwn 1 had better cities in user modules then most of 2's.
One (admittedly random) thing that annoyed me personally about Neverwinter Nights 2 is how Neverwinter is structured completely different from the first game. Like even if walls were damaged after the first game realistically at least some of them probably would have been rebuilt where they were and not moved. So the organization of the city should at least somewhat have some consistency with what it looked like earlier.
Fortunately, where everything is is more set out with the case of Baldur's Gate (although the PnP city and the game have never been organized exactly the same). So this probably won't be as much of an issue.
i kinda prefer the way it's deigned in 2. the way it was made in 1 really just showed the oc is an after thought. as alll the areas are just mish mashes and don't feel at all connected.
1) Disagree very much about NWN2. I played it only recently, and I loved it, even the main campaign that most people disparage as too vanilla. I really kind of love the game, and the implementation of D&D. I posted lots about my playthrough and impressions in the off-topic forum, long story short, it is as close as I've seen a game come to capturing the magic of BG2 gameplay. BUT, it's still not as tight as BG2. The camera is annoying, the sprites are slightly too big and the effective battlefields slightly too small, and controlling party members' actions feels a bit like swimming against the tide. The result is gameplay that's a bit looser, more chaotic, and more frustrating than BG2. Not to the point of stupidity like PS:T... but juuuust ever so slightly in that direction.
Oh, I absolutely agree with that, NWN2 controls are quite a mess. But you post was rather specific about gameplay mechanics, so
What they didn't have is BG2's excellent and tight gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay mechanics are THE paramount factor that is going to make or break BG3. The idea that people think it doesn't matter, boggles my mind.
I disagree. Imo, the saga was such a hit because:
a) back then you got hours of playing out of it, thanks to the "open map" approach and the freedom to explore it gave you;
b) it is a "from a zero to hero" epic story, which manages to keep the right pace through the first two installments (ToB is too rushed, though).
Combat-wise, BG1&2 is still top notch thanks to mods like SCS and Ascension. But after recently playing through Pathfinder Kingmaker, I'd really like another game to focus on those gameplay mechanics that make a cRPG fun outside of combat. Skill & stat checks, a working alignment system - all the things BG is missing.
But a is a gameplay factor, just not a combat one. And b is a gameplay factor for the essential part, which is good pacing.
No one to hero stories are not exactly rare. I.e. both NWNs had them, but the pacing (gameplay factor) felt off, at least to me.
Agree that non combat interactions can be improved, but what BG had was that all systems it had a focus on were excellent. Innovative dialogue systems were not a part of that.
What I found interesting in the Larian videos is that they say they want to keep the decision freedom and player agency of the originals, as I never felt that was a strength of the originals. Sure, you could choose side quests and some exploration but the main story was linear and did not offer much player agency at all.
So the plot of BG3 involves Illithid invasion. Weren't there refereces to Illithids being up to something in various places in BG2 (most notably Alhoon in the sewers)? I wonder if that's connected.
Just chiming in a second on the real-time-with-pause versus turn-based combat control. There are other brilliant games that use turn-based combat, like Banner Saga or XCOM or Final Fantasy Tactics or Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong, and I don't think there's any reason to be put off by a turn-based combat system. That might be my personal bias, because I love turn-based combat and I wish the Baldur's Gate series had happened on a grid with initiative order displayed.
I can enjoy RTwP of course, as I love the BG saga and Pillars of Eternity.
Let us just say, turn-based combat is not the end of the world if it did happen (and at this point we cannot prove anything for certain).
Iirc (long time since I played them), ToEE and Pool were very very turn-based. To me personally, that made it feel VERY different from BG, since I usually played that on "auto-pilot", until something would happen I'd want to direct more personally. Turn-based combat is slower paced, but arguably less chaotic. This might attract some, but very much turn off others.
And while ToEE in addition felt quite unlike Forgotten Realms, I enjoyed both those games. They are different, not necessarily less fun.
Imho, for BG3 to feel like a BG game they'd have to use at least a few recognizable elements from the previous games. If/what that is, we'll see. I am open it.
So the plot of BG3 involves Illithid invasion. Weren't there refereces to Illithids being up to something in various places in BG2 (most notably Alhoon in the sewers)? I wonder if that's connected.
If Larian is at all smart, they will make the connection.
Comments
Well, that's potentially interesting, but when Square Enix tried to do things like that with Final Fantasy, they came up with some of the worst gameplay I've ever seen in any genre, so I kinda hope it's not, well that.
star ocean for example actually got worse when square and enix merged.
Gameplay (outside of combat at least) is one of my lowest concerns. Larian has demonstrated, bare minimum, a strong competence there. And I actually think the DnD ruleset/lore will rein in some of my issues with Larian's loot/gear and combat.
Not to nitpick but TOEE was Grewhawk. IMHO it is far superior to every other game in the list but yeah I agree these don’t compare with the IE games.
Hmmm. I've played every single game on that list. The only complete dud was SCL and HoN.
-Pools of Radiance was just ok, somewhat forgettable in my opinion.
-Dark Alliance Games were just trying to work off the popularity of BG at the time and had their niche.
-Neverwinter is still going on today... so by all accounts a success
-Neverwinter 2 I LOVED when I played it, a lot. Different and good.
-D&D Online... lol. It was ok, tried cashing in on the MMO craze and had it's place for time, but was just ok.
NWN1 and 2 are completely different games. GoG has a big summer sale right now, including D&D titles. I'd recommend trying NWN2 out.
I second this, @the_sextein. They are very different games. NwN1 was made for multiplayer play and not party-based. NwN2 had single-player in mind from the ground up and is party-based.
What NWN2 doesn't have is an open world city like Atkatla where you can mind your own business dealing with its population. A very big hub from where you can travel to very big dungeons.
Fortunately, where everything is is more set out with the case of Baldur's Gate (although the PnP city and the game have never been organized exactly the same). So this probably won't be as much of an issue.
But a is a gameplay factor, just not a combat one. And b is a gameplay factor for the essential part, which is good pacing.
No one to hero stories are not exactly rare. I.e. both NWNs had them, but the pacing (gameplay factor) felt off, at least to me.
Agree that non combat interactions can be improved, but what BG had was that all systems it had a focus on were excellent. Innovative dialogue systems were not a part of that.
What I found interesting in the Larian videos is that they say they want to keep the decision freedom and player agency of the originals, as I never felt that was a strength of the originals. Sure, you could choose side quests and some exploration but the main story was linear and did not offer much player agency at all.
I can enjoy RTwP of course, as I love the BG saga and Pillars of Eternity.
Let us just say, turn-based combat is not the end of the world if it did happen (and at this point we cannot prove anything for certain).
And while ToEE in addition felt quite unlike Forgotten Realms, I enjoyed both those games. They are different, not necessarily less fun.
Imho, for BG3 to feel like a BG game they'd have to use at least a few recognizable elements from the previous games. If/what that is, we'll see. I am open it.
If Larian is at all smart, they will make the connection.