The timeline's pretty clearly laid out: Murder in Baldur's Gate pnp module --> Descent into Avernus pnp module --> BG3 video game. Adrian dies in the Murder in Baldur's Gate module time-frame, so unless it's his ghost he ain't showing up in this game.
So the nay-sayers are right, they shouldn't call it Baldur's Gate 3...
... They should call it Baldur's Gate 5!
Hehe. Yeah. But don't you go lumping all of us nays into one box.
@1varangian "If its a good game it doesn't really matter if it has a "suboptimal" name. "
Its not a "suboptimal" name, its straight up false marketing. Its a lie being fed to every single potential customer.
@Rodane So the games' canon is being intentional overrwritten by P&P modules and retcons. what is being marketed as its sequel. Why is this a good thing? How many people read the novels and like Abdel Adrian in any way?
@thacobell tell me what is the original canon for BG1 BG2. Also there is nothing false about the marketing. It is BG3 because WOTC who own the property says its BG3 in no way did they say the story will follow BG12 and BG2 story.
@thacobell tell me what is the original canon for BG1 BG2. Also there is nothing false about the marketing. It is BG3 because WOTC who own the property says its BG3 in no way did they say the story will follow BG12 and BG2 story.
I mean, did you play the games? That. That is what their canon is. The biggest difference though? Bhaal has come back according to WotC, which undoes EVERYTHING the games were about and set up. Gorion's Ward is now a male human named Abdel Adrian. Because we just HAD to have somethign from the novels here, is another big problem.
@1varangian "If its a good game it doesn't really matter if it has a "suboptimal" name. "
Its not a "suboptimal" name, its straight up false marketing. Its a lie being fed to every single potential customer.
Nonsense. Chill.
How is it nonsense? How is a game that is being titled as a continuation to the privous series, but ISN'T a continuation of the previous series not a big, fat, stinky lie?
It actually probably wouldn't be that difficult to tell a brand new story that is in some way set into motion by what Bhaal plotted through creation of the Bhaalspawn a century ago. If they want to hire me as a writer for that I'll betlieve I could do it. But seriously, should it really be that hard? I mean, yes, Abdel Adrian is canon, as is the campaign module Murder in Baldur's Gate in which he dies. But we have the whole aftermath of the Spellplague and Sundering upon the gods and in particular Bhaal who made it back as the lord of murder.
"yes, Abdel Adrian is canon, as is the campaign module Murder in Baldur's Gate in which he dies. But we have the whole aftermath of the Spellplague and Sundering upon the gods and in particular Bhaal who made it back as the lord of murder. "
These details are unforgiveable in the context of BG1 and 2. They completely undo everything the player fought for through the series. A big giant slap in the face to their stories.
These details are unforgiveable in the context of BG1 and 2. They completely undo everything the player fought for through the series. A big giant slap in the face to their stories.
They teach you the next step in life, that everything you achieved will be undone over time.
@ThacoBell Yes, I beat the games many times each time taking different paths...Which one is the canon story is what I am asking, My evil playthough, My good paladin playthrough, my blackguard that did only nice things, My Cleric of Oghma where I only did things to to gain knowledge.... Oh thats right Canon is what every WOTC says it is because they own the property. Everything that you think is canon is only in your head, not in the universe of forgotten realms... Good day you lose sir.
To devil's advocate it would certainly be possible to code the game to customize Gorion's Ward according to either a separate character creation for same at the start, or by importing the character file of CHARNAME from ToB. That would personalize BG III and connect it to BG1 and 2.
But WotC is selling tabletop campaigns, and in that aspect they are linking Descent into Avernus to this game as its direct prequel. Murder in Baldur's Gate is also tied to BG III as a prequel. I would imagine they want to encourage fans of the video game to buy lore related products like the FRCS as well, the Sundering series of novels, and so forth. FR is WotC's chosen setting now. The official canon for the Realms is Abdel Adrian, despite the terrible Phillip Athens novels.
@Rodane Easily solvable. Look at how Obsidian handled it for KotoR 2. Early on, an npc brings up the events and lead of the previous game. Which had multiple endings and character generation. The npc's dialogue will talk about one of the genders and ending of the previous game chosen at random. At this point, you get multiple dialogues that let you correct the npc, letting you set your character and actions as canon for your game. After that dialogue finishes, every mention of the events of the previous game lines up with what you set at the beginning, and its done organically, in story. No extra graphics or animations needed, just a few dialogue changes and some pronoun/noun switching.
Done, problem solved without needing to alter the existing story. It makes the player's game canon without infringing on the new story the devs want to tell. Good day, YOU lose, sir.
@ ThacoBell That is not canon or what canon is hell even KOTOR and KOTOR 2 have Canon playthroughs... Just because you can pick what happens in the last game in the series does not mean its Canon... Canon is whatever the company that has the rights to the game/ series say it is so they can move the story of series forward.... What you are talking about is call a feature many games do it... Bioware being a company that does it very often but even they have Canon endings for games. How does it feel to be wrong about something thacobell. Because I do not know.
@Rodane , I'm disturbed by both your harsh demeanor and your failure to use the quote: "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
@BillyYank meh demeanor over the interwebs means nothing...Also I can't use that quote because there are 2 types of canon for a game... Normal Canon meaning what the property owners want to be the story going forward, and what Thacobell thinks is canon which is Head canon meaning what goes on in your playthrough which can but more often then not does not match with Normal canon... So he knows what it means but not the right type of canon... I know that does not make sense but take of it what you will.
Things is, Stadia is stupid. Start with the limitations of crappy console controllers, add the limitations of crappy streaming, add lag from mixing the two? Just no. So hopefully this will run on a mid-range 2018 laptop with Intel Iris graphics.
Man, I wish I had a mid-range 2018 laptop! I can already tell you that I will not be able to play this game at all on any PC I have.
How is it nonsense? How is a game that is being titled as a continuation to the privous series, but ISN'T a continuation of the previous series not a big, fat, stinky lie?
Because they are not marketing it as a continuation of the original story in any way. They are marketing it as a sequel to Baldur's Gate 2, which does NOT mean a continuation of the story. A Sequel just means that the story is in the same world and timeline sometime after the previous installment.
Assuming a Sequel to a game will continue the story is the problem here, not false advertising.
How is it nonsense? How is a game that is being titled as a continuation to the privous series, but ISN'T a continuation of the previous series not a big, fat, stinky lie?
Because they are not marketing it as a continuation of the original story in any way. They are marketing it as a sequel to Baldur's Gate 2, which does NOT mean a continuation of the story. A Sequel just means that the story is in the same world and timeline sometime after the previous installment.
Assuming a Sequel to a game will continue the story is the problem here, not false advertising.
I do not care too much either way, but you are oversimplifying. There is precedent, both for Baldur's Gate and other games set in the Forgotten Realms how series tie together. If a series was tied together by some defining elements and then someone who is not the original author picks it up and changes those defining elements, there will always be doubts and questions.
Most specifically, in Baldur's Gate it was the rule set, the time period and the protagonist. Not the geographical location.
In the Gold Box FR series, it was the geographical location & the protagonists. Also all the antagonists where tired to Bane in some way.
In EoTB it was mostly the protagonists and the Waterdeep connection.
For NWN it was the setting, the rule set and the idea behind the game (i.e. the module creation part).
IWD it was the setting and the story of IWD 2 was handling fall-out from IWD 1.
With the exception of NWN there was also team continuity behind it and with the exception of IWD the D&D edition also tended to stay the same (not counting 3.0 to 3.5 here).
It is valid feeling that BG 3 the BG series will not have the same coherence as the other FR series. New rule set, new protagonist, new story, new time era. Ok, the geographical setting is reused, but both BG 2 and ToB already demonstrated that the BG series not tied to BG, the city.
Even if it were, it is not the same BG due to the sweeping changes to the setting. Even worse the same changes to the setting invalidate the choices you make in the first two parts, by bringing Bhaal back. Those parts are obviously outside of the responsibility of Larian, but for the naming it still matters.
To make an analogy, it is a bit like Christopher Tolkien giving LotR rights to Guy Gavriel Kay (best case scenario) who then writes LotR 4 in which Sauron has returned from the dead, is in possession of the One Ring and where Minas Tirith is now the Gotham of Middle Earth, with slums, rampant crime and a focus on class conflict.
@Ammar First and foremost people need to understand that Baldur's Gate is in the forgotten realms setting and under stand that when a god (or any being) gets killed/ wiped from existing. There is always a chance it will come back, a spell or other means (keeping it around through praying to it as a god comes to mind. Which was set up in d&d 3.0 one of the modules had you hunt down a sect of Bhaal worshipers that were in hiding about 3 years after ToB ... and you find a piece of torn paper talking about ways to being him back. Also people need to put their head canon aside it has no validation to the story. I like the fact you do not care because you probably understand this and are more then happy to see BG continue ( I am assuming btw). Also as I stated in another post games can follow one story route for many games then flip it on its head as I stated with Might & Magic going from 5-6.
They can be mad it does not follow the story of BG1 BG2. That's fine, but saying that its false marketing calling it BG3 is dumb.
How is it nonsense? How is a game that is being titled as a continuation to the privous series, but ISN'T a continuation of the previous series not a big, fat, stinky lie?
Because they are not marketing it as a continuation of the original story in any way. They are marketing it as a sequel to Baldur's Gate 2, which does NOT mean a continuation of the story. A Sequel just means that the story is in the same world and timeline sometime after the previous installment.
Assuming a Sequel to a game will continue the story is the problem here, not false advertising.
Yeah, because when "BG3" was announced, people didn't get excited for a followup to BG2. That definitely didn't happen. THat's also why every single interview with Larian constantly talks about this game as a successor to BG2. That's why Larian talks about the previous games. That's why Larian recently posted about re-playing BG. No wait, they HAVE been talking like this is the next game in the series. Whoops.
Comments
Hehe. Yeah. But don't you go lumping all of us nays into one box.
Its not a "suboptimal" name, its straight up false marketing. Its a lie being fed to every single potential customer.
@Rodane So the games' canon is being intentional overrwritten by P&P modules and retcons. what is being marketed as its sequel. Why is this a good thing? How many people read the novels and like Abdel Adrian in any way?
@JuliusBorisov See subtledoctor's answer above
It will be hard to do without editorializing (I know I probably would end up doing that), but yeah, go for it!
I mean, did you play the games? That. That is what their canon is. The biggest difference though? Bhaal has come back according to WotC, which undoes EVERYTHING the games were about and set up. Gorion's Ward is now a male human named Abdel Adrian. Because we just HAD to have somethign from the novels here, is another big problem.
How is it nonsense? How is a game that is being titled as a continuation to the privous series, but ISN'T a continuation of the previous series not a big, fat, stinky lie?
These details are unforgiveable in the context of BG1 and 2. They completely undo everything the player fought for through the series. A big giant slap in the face to their stories.
They teach you the next step in life, that everything you achieved will be undone over time.
Even the memories of it will go away.
But WotC is selling tabletop campaigns, and in that aspect they are linking Descent into Avernus to this game as its direct prequel. Murder in Baldur's Gate is also tied to BG III as a prequel. I would imagine they want to encourage fans of the video game to buy lore related products like the FRCS as well, the Sundering series of novels, and so forth. FR is WotC's chosen setting now. The official canon for the Realms is Abdel Adrian, despite the terrible Phillip Athens novels.
Done, problem solved without needing to alter the existing story. It makes the player's game canon without infringing on the new story the devs want to tell. Good day, YOU lose, sir.
So disappointed.
Man, I wish I had a mid-range 2018 laptop! I can already tell you that I will not be able to play this game at all on any PC I have.
Because they are not marketing it as a continuation of the original story in any way. They are marketing it as a sequel to Baldur's Gate 2, which does NOT mean a continuation of the story. A Sequel just means that the story is in the same world and timeline sometime after the previous installment.
Assuming a Sequel to a game will continue the story is the problem here, not false advertising.
I do not care too much either way, but you are oversimplifying. There is precedent, both for Baldur's Gate and other games set in the Forgotten Realms how series tie together. If a series was tied together by some defining elements and then someone who is not the original author picks it up and changes those defining elements, there will always be doubts and questions.
Most specifically, in Baldur's Gate it was the rule set, the time period and the protagonist. Not the geographical location.
In the Gold Box FR series, it was the geographical location & the protagonists. Also all the antagonists where tired to Bane in some way.
In EoTB it was mostly the protagonists and the Waterdeep connection.
For NWN it was the setting, the rule set and the idea behind the game (i.e. the module creation part).
IWD it was the setting and the story of IWD 2 was handling fall-out from IWD 1.
With the exception of NWN there was also team continuity behind it and with the exception of IWD the D&D edition also tended to stay the same (not counting 3.0 to 3.5 here).
It is valid feeling that BG 3 the BG series will not have the same coherence as the other FR series. New rule set, new protagonist, new story, new time era. Ok, the geographical setting is reused, but both BG 2 and ToB already demonstrated that the BG series not tied to BG, the city.
Even if it were, it is not the same BG due to the sweeping changes to the setting. Even worse the same changes to the setting invalidate the choices you make in the first two parts, by bringing Bhaal back. Those parts are obviously outside of the responsibility of Larian, but for the naming it still matters.
To make an analogy, it is a bit like Christopher Tolkien giving LotR rights to Guy Gavriel Kay (best case scenario) who then writes LotR 4 in which Sauron has returned from the dead, is in possession of the One Ring and where Minas Tirith is now the Gotham of Middle Earth, with slums, rampant crime and a focus on class conflict.
They can be mad it does not follow the story of BG1 BG2. That's fine, but saying that its false marketing calling it BG3 is dumb.
Yeah, because when "BG3" was announced, people didn't get excited for a followup to BG2. That definitely didn't happen. THat's also why every single interview with Larian constantly talks about this game as a successor to BG2. That's why Larian talks about the previous games. That's why Larian recently posted about re-playing BG. No wait, they HAVE been talking like this is the next game in the series. Whoops.