@Arvia "Exactly, it all comes down to personal taste. If someone doesn't like that particular sense of humor (I like it), that doesn't mean it's a bad style or something wrong with Larian games, it just doesn't meet your taste. "
@Arvia "Exactly, it all comes down to personal taste. If someone doesn't like that particular sense of humor (I like it), that doesn't mean it's a bad style or something wrong with Larian games, it just doesn't meet your taste. "
In a vacuum, yeah.
Please explain? I don't know what you mean.
BG3 is not a standalone game, it is the supposed 3rd game in a series. So its tone needs to be in-line with the previous games.
@Arvia "Exactly, it all comes down to personal taste. If someone doesn't like that particular sense of humor (I like it), that doesn't mean it's a bad style or something wrong with Larian games, it just doesn't meet your taste. "
In a vacuum, yeah.
Please explain? I don't know what you mean.
BG3 is not a standalone game, it is the supposed 3rd game in a series. So its tone needs to be in-line with the previous games.
See above, I was referring to the D:OS games, because that's what the poster I quoted had commented on.
Besides, there's tons of silliness in the BG games. The Mellicamp situation? Albert and Rufie? Random wizards appearing out of nowhere experimenting? Meeting Galileo Galilei, kleptomanics, charlatans? Or ever clicked on the tombstones in Nashkel, read the silly inscriptions, had a dead mage appear to warn you, clicked again and he attacked you with an army of the exploding phoenix thingies?
Silly dialogue options also come to mind, like "I'M FOOLIO DISBLASIUS, DESTROYER OF THE SEVEN SUNS! RAAARRRGGGHHH!"
or the crazy stuff you can say to the mages you meet upstairs at the Sorcerous Sundries.
Uncle Lester and his cheap sweater in BG2?
And so on...
I think it's difficult to find a common ground on what is considered an acceptable vs inappropriate type or amount of humor.
And that leads me back to my original statement about it being a matter of personal taste, perhaps mixed with geographical/cultural background.
@Arvia "Exactly, it all comes down to personal taste. If someone doesn't like that particular sense of humor (I like it), that doesn't mean it's a bad style or something wrong with Larian games, it just doesn't meet your taste. "
In a vacuum, yeah.
Please explain? I don't know what you mean.
BG3 is not a standalone game, it is the supposed 3rd game in a series. So its tone needs to be in-line with the previous games.
See above, I was referring to the D:OS games, because that's what the poster I quoted had commented on.
Besides, there's tons of silliness in the BG games. The Mellicamp situation? Albert and Rufie? Random wizards appearing out of nowhere experimenting? Meeting Galileo Galilei, kleptomanics, charlatans? Or ever clicked on the tombstones in Nashkel, read the silly inscriptions, had a dead mage appear to warn you, clicked again and he attacked you with an army of the exploding phoenix thingies?
Silly dialogue options also come to mind, like "I'M FOOLIO DISBLASIUS, DESTROYER OF THE SEVEN SUNS! RAAARRRGGGHHH!"
or the crazy stuff you can say to the mages you meet upstairs at the Sorcerous Sundries.
Uncle Lester and his cheap sweater in BG2?
And so on...
I think it's difficult to find a common ground on what is considered an acceptable vs inappropriate type or amount of humor.
And that leads me back to my original statement about it being a matter of personal taste, perhaps mixed with geographical/cultural background.
Yep - there is silliness and I am not opposed to comedic relief in games - but for my taste, D - OS feels like being trapped in a never ending Monty Python continuum.
Eight years ago I was critical of BG:EE and my last posts on these forums are regarding the legal issues before BG2:EE. Back then I wasn't all that supportive of Beamdog and didn't like what they were doing. Today, I have a much different opinion. I'm glad they got their hands on the titles they did, and I'm sad Beamdog wasn't able to take a shot at BG3.
That being said, everything Larian is doing looks terrible, from the twitch integration to the over-the-top world building their studio is famous for. I'd say currently BG3 is not worth your money or time. Maybe my opinion will change in eight years. Probably not.
I went in for Early Access and I'm not going to ask for a refund. Unless they make significant improvements from it's current state, things that would make it less of a Divinity clone and that they aren't likely do, I highly doubt that it will be something that I'd replay. I'll likely play it through one time, at some point, and I will enjoy some aspects of it, but (in it's current state) it won't be something that I'd do multiple run throughs.
In general, you don't want to judge an early access on its bugs or wonkiness, since its not a complete game and those things will (hopefully) be fixed.
*nods* I'm sure that I'll come back to it, at least, when it is fully released and all expansions and such are finished and polished. I'm also sure that I'll play through it entirely and enjoy most of it, likely spending over a hundred hours in it. $0.50, or less, for each hour of entertainment doesn't seem like a bad investment to me. I'm hopeful, too, that they might release a decent toolset for modders. Considering that it's Early Access and no official tools have been released, there is already a pretty impressive amount of custom content available at the Nexus.
Is it worth it? Sure, but at this point I’m more invested in Solasta and Pathfinder: WotR. The closer games are to tabletop, the more I like them. BG3 is okay, but I got tired of the Divinity-esque mechanics pretty quickly. If you like Larian, you’ll like this game, but it’ll be collecting dust in my library for a while.
I'm not buying a game in early access. In general, I'm opposed to preorders and anything like them, though I will say EA has its benefits, like getting feedback; that said, Larian have made it pretty clear they aren't interested in my kind of feedback anyway. I might play the game eventually, though. A friend of mine loves it.
I'd say its worth it. That said, at this stage it does have its issues (which I will be further sharing with Larian and making a video about).
You have an association with Larian?
There is a Submit Feedback button on their website, as with any decent early access dev. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Elminster knows someone on the inside.
Also there are countless Twitch streams with BG3 gameplay ou there. I wouldn't be surprised if devs took advantage to get feedback from those streams. I sometimes watch WolfheartFPS streams and a good part of his feedback turned out to be taken into consideration in the latest patch.
I think the scope of the question may be overly broad. Worth it in what sense?
It is shaping up to be a decent RPG and is very likely worth a buy (depending both on your time to play games and budget of course).
Was it worth it using the Baldur's Gate title on it? Not really for me, the game feels quite different than the original games. And the Realms is so big a place, that I would have preferred a slightly different setting. But I went into that before in other threads.
Was it worth it defining it as the big AAA-title for 5th edition D&D? I don't think so either - some adaptations need to be done in transferring P&P to the computer screen of course, but I think the Larian homebrew makes combat worse and a lot of the game is about combat. Of course this is a thing that has and will change a lot during the development process and I have not played the latest update.
I'd say its worth it. That said, at this stage it does have its issues (which I will be further sharing with Larian and making a video about).
You have an association with Larian?
There is a Submit Feedback button on their website, as with any decent early access dev. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Elminster knows someone on the inside.
Nope. I'll be sharing the same way everyone else is.
I must be getting old, but I find it surprising that a number of folk get... shall we say... their pants in a knot over...a videogame...
Or am I missing something?
I must be getting old, but I find it surprising that a number of folk get... shall we say... their pants in a knot over...a videogame...
Or am I missing something?
people don't like change.
i have gotten over the game being called bg3. i just consider it like never winter nights 2 now. another dnd based game set in the same general area.
I must be getting old, but I find it surprising that a number of folk get... shall we say... their pants in a knot over...a videogame...
Or am I missing something?
people don't like change.
i have gotten over the game being called bg3. i just consider it like never winter nights 2 now. another dnd based game set in the same general area.
Yeah, this is a huge part of it. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved an Infinity Engine BG3, made like SoD but longer and more polished. But the video game market is a tough place and, on top of that, there are multiple interested parties controlling this title. DnD owners don't want a game using outdated rules for example.
So while I'm sort of sympathetic to folks who were angry about the many changes, I also think there was a lot of unrealistic expectations out there. It does seem that tempers have cooled though, and most of the heavily disappointed have moved on. That's a good thing.
In my ideal world, many of the drastic changes also would not have happened. But, I'm still very excited about the game. Part of that may be that I never started with the expectation that it would be super close in gameplay mechanics to its predecessors -- that rarely happens with game sequels this many years apart!
Having bought this when the EA was released and, 2 years later, still waiting for anything other than Chapter 1, I definitely don't think i'll ever buy a game in EA again. I heard the horror stories but man, these practices are just abusive to the consumer at this point lol.
in larian's defense if not for the lockdowns and their studio getting flooded twice bg 3 would have been out by now.
Lockdowns are the laziest excuse ever for slow software development. You quite literally don't need physical offices anymore. Virtual office spaces are far more efficient. If anything they should have gotten MORE done on lockdown. The truth is though they made a lot of excuses and sat around playing video games instead of working. I mean they already got paid, so not like they are in a hurry.
Having bought this when the EA was released and, 2 years later, still waiting for anything other than Chapter 1, I definitely don't think i'll ever buy a game in EA again. I heard the horror stories but man, these practices are just abusive to the consumer at this point lol.
Yeah I learned that lesson years ago. Just looking at my steam library nearly every game I bought on EA between 2014 and 2018 is still in EA. It's just a scam.
I mean why go through the trouble of making a complete game when you can sell a demo for $60.
I secured a copy for myself after watching videos and reading reviews about it. I give credit to the creators for their effort and as someone who never had any experience with DnD or similar genre, I am very much into it now! I'm still very new but I'm excited for the release
It looks quite worth it to me!! AND, though I still don't know the technicalities of it, I think they're giving away free Deluxe editions to people who pre-buy the game and have early access??
I still say the same thing, it’s not impossible to let the characters from the previous game appear. Just let them to come out and talk. It’s the wrong way to make them involved with any fight.
In Baldur's Gate, there was also a plot where the legendary character Elminster appeared. In BG2, Drizzt also appeared. Even in Throne of Bhaal expansion pack, Elminster also appeared again.
But again, it’s just a chat, there is no fight with the players. As for the situation where Drizzt appeared on BG1, the player can beat him by deliberately challenging him because of the power of the monster summoning wand(with full charged It can be used 50 times) to win by quantity of violence. Does BG3 have such an OverPower artifact?
Drizzt appeared in BG2. Since the player character's level has already caught up with him in the game, if the player's party challenges him again, he/she will naturally be able to fight with his/her party's own power. There is nothing to say about this.
When I saw Larian made Sarevok reappeared in the game, I knew they didn't do their homework.
In the previous game, Sarevok followed the protagonist and his party to defeat the highest priestess of Bhaal, Amelyssan. That woman's power is almost like a demigod(she devoured almost all Bhaal's divine essence).... At that time, the whole team was at the legendary level. Your BG3 entire party is not enough for him(Sarevok) to kill alone. This plot is obviously unreasonable.
More Important, did they read the ending of Throne of Bhaal? How could he re-appear in BG3 and slap BioWare's face?
He has gone to Kara-Tur in the ending of previous game and never return, how can you find him in BG3 area?
And judging from the ending of the previous game, unless the official ending is for the protagonist to inherit the throne of Bhaal, the position of the God of Murder will always be vacant.
Another problem about the game, it has too many cheating enemy creatures in almost every fight!
In my opinion, Larian designed the game like "X-COM", but ignored too many D&D rules to made the game harder!
For example, they put phase spider queen into the game but set it's level only 5?? You can to check it's origin data(the monster) on Google(DND 5E). And you can see the monster still has full power(level 15) in it's level 5.
That is not the most cheating point, Larian designed all phase spider can spit poison bolts in almost every round in the battle! Those monster have no the ability in origin 5E rules!
If you played BG1 and BG2, you will shocked by seeing a gnoll hunter shot your character 3 times in almost every round(every hit for 8 damage by normal bow and arrows) in the game and then their level only 4.
We all knew BioWare also gave some monsters and enemy NPC something cheating ability, but this is too much in the game.
But that's true for BG1 and 2, too. For example, you have to choose between two evil guilds to find Imoen.
And how many people who like to play relatively good characters still steal everything and break into houses, because otherwise you don't get those amazing items?
How many people choose the evil options in Hell because of the rewards?
You have to save Imoen and there are only 2 ways that are working, to pay thieves or vampires to help you reach her. If you choose to pay the thieves they don't ask you to become part of their guild, to steal, kill innocents or kidnap, the most evil thing you have to do is to protect a shipment, but also there you will fight against evil vampires. if we are talking of RP good and not necessarily LG I would say that to protect an illegal shipment, that probably would had happened even it you refuse the task, is acceptable as it is the only way to reach and rescue Imoen.
About stealing and breaking into houses it is perfectly possible to get most of the important items without stealing from regular merchants as you can sell and then steal from the fences to get the money you need and again if we are talking of G and not LG probably there is nothing wrong to steal from a thief or a fence. You have to break into some houses, but in BG2 the 3 that host important items are actually the strongholds of a slavers guild and of a demilich, you don't have to break into common people houses and steal from them if not to get some very minor and not important items.
About the evil options in Hell there is no RP reason for a good oriented player to take them, I never do it (even if I argue about some of them being evil, if you can fight most of the dragons and be good why you can't fight that gold dragon, I ignore his alignment but if he is evil why not? Also fighting Sarevok that is now a wraith is not evil in iself, he is surely evil and in the rest of the game it is perfectly acceptable to slaughter evil foe and wraiths being good). I never do it as I don't like to have my alignment changed if I am playing good or neutral and I never play evil, but I can perfectly live with the good rewards, they are different from the evil ones, but good rewards.
You can find my opinion ridiculous, I can live with that. But if I play a paladin in BG1 or 2 without breaking into any locked house, without taking anything from containers unless in enemy dungeons, without looting tombs (that also means not taking the Tome from the Candlekeep crypt, for example), without sacrificing an animal on an evil altar in the Underdark to summon the demon knights that drop the belt you need for Crom Faeyr, if I don't do the quest to get the Ring of Gaxx because he's behind a locked door, then I don't get the same rewards as someone who does all that. And for the record, that *is* the way I usually play these games.
And I still find it a satisfying experience. But I don't blame the game designers that there's no reward for that.
I have gone on that route, as far as don't loot anything from Nalia's father castle, I am there to help, not to steal from the ones I am helping, loosing the chance to craft the FoA, that I rate the best weapon in BG2.
But I don't see as evil to sacrifice an animal on that altar ( in RL I would never do it, I am vegetarian and against killing animals even to sacrifice them to the altar of my own stomach, but I don't see as evil all the people around me that are not vegetarian). You perform that sacrifice with the purpose to summon and then kill evil foe, not to become a follower of that demon prince, and about the poor animal it is not more evil then to summon it as an helper in an other battle and use it as cannon fodder.
I would say that to play in a strictly lawful way a pally is not possible to progress past SoA chap.2 at all as you can not side with any of the 2 guilds, but playing just in a more relaxed way a good oriented toon, relaxed enough to let you side with the ST, without becoming one of them and mostly helping them vs evil and not natural vampires, it is possible to play the whole SoA and ToB without missing anything that really matters power wise if not Blackrazor and the Big Metal Unit.
About using some evil items like RoV I personally don't see any problem for a good toon as every weapon is evil, has been made to kill people, it is possible to play in a pacifist way avoiding to kill anyone if not the very few people that have to be killed to progress the game, it has been done by few players and IMHO is the epitome of playing good, but as long as we kill foe and use weapons I don't see any problem if a good toon use the RoV or the ring of Gaxx as I don't see problems about an evil FT with UAI using the pally only sword, items are items, tools and what you do with the tool, not the tool in itself is what matter unless it is clearly stated in the game that using a certain tool corrupts your soul, is cursed.
Obviously every person has his own way to RP and this is my take about RP good, I don't pretend that it is better then yours @Arvia , I only want to share it and to say that I don't feel that BG2 penalizes me for never playing evil.
Comments
Please explain? I don't know what you mean.
BG3 is not a standalone game, it is the supposed 3rd game in a series. So its tone needs to be in-line with the previous games.
On a side note, the tone of BG3 is different.
See above, I was referring to the D:OS games, because that's what the poster I quoted had commented on.
Besides, there's tons of silliness in the BG games. The Mellicamp situation? Albert and Rufie? Random wizards appearing out of nowhere experimenting? Meeting Galileo Galilei, kleptomanics, charlatans? Or ever clicked on the tombstones in Nashkel, read the silly inscriptions, had a dead mage appear to warn you, clicked again and he attacked you with an army of the exploding phoenix thingies?
Silly dialogue options also come to mind, like "I'M FOOLIO DISBLASIUS, DESTROYER OF THE SEVEN SUNS! RAAARRRGGGHHH!"
or the crazy stuff you can say to the mages you meet upstairs at the Sorcerous Sundries.
Uncle Lester and his cheap sweater in BG2?
And so on...
I think it's difficult to find a common ground on what is considered an acceptable vs inappropriate type or amount of humor.
And that leads me back to my original statement about it being a matter of personal taste, perhaps mixed with geographical/cultural background.
Yep - there is silliness and I am not opposed to comedic relief in games - but for my taste, D - OS feels like being trapped in a never ending Monty Python continuum.
This is a bit too much for me.
The impression I've been getting from posters is that the tone doesn't match the original games.
That being said, everything Larian is doing looks terrible, from the twitch integration to the over-the-top world building their studio is famous for. I'd say currently BG3 is not worth your money or time. Maybe my opinion will change in eight years. Probably not.
There is a Submit Feedback button on their website, as with any decent early access dev. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Elminster knows someone on the inside.
It is shaping up to be a decent RPG and is very likely worth a buy (depending both on your time to play games and budget of course).
Was it worth it using the Baldur's Gate title on it? Not really for me, the game feels quite different than the original games. And the Realms is so big a place, that I would have preferred a slightly different setting. But I went into that before in other threads.
Was it worth it defining it as the big AAA-title for 5th edition D&D? I don't think so either - some adaptations need to be done in transferring P&P to the computer screen of course, but I think the Larian homebrew makes combat worse and a lot of the game is about combat. Of course this is a thing that has and will change a lot during the development process and I have not played the latest update.
Nope. I'll be sharing the same way everyone else is.
Or am I missing something?
people don't like change.
i have gotten over the game being called bg3. i just consider it like never winter nights 2 now. another dnd based game set in the same general area.
Yeah, this is a huge part of it. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved an Infinity Engine BG3, made like SoD but longer and more polished. But the video game market is a tough place and, on top of that, there are multiple interested parties controlling this title. DnD owners don't want a game using outdated rules for example.
So while I'm sort of sympathetic to folks who were angry about the many changes, I also think there was a lot of unrealistic expectations out there. It does seem that tempers have cooled though, and most of the heavily disappointed have moved on. That's a good thing.
In my ideal world, many of the drastic changes also would not have happened. But, I'm still very excited about the game. Part of that may be that I never started with the expectation that it would be super close in gameplay mechanics to its predecessors -- that rarely happens with game sequels this many years apart!
Lockdowns are the laziest excuse ever for slow software development. You quite literally don't need physical offices anymore. Virtual office spaces are far more efficient. If anything they should have gotten MORE done on lockdown. The truth is though they made a lot of excuses and sat around playing video games instead of working. I mean they already got paid, so not like they are in a hurry.
Yeah I learned that lesson years ago. Just looking at my steam library nearly every game I bought on EA between 2014 and 2018 is still in EA. It's just a scam.
I mean why go through the trouble of making a complete game when you can sell a demo for $60.
In Baldur's Gate, there was also a plot where the legendary character Elminster appeared. In BG2, Drizzt also appeared. Even in Throne of Bhaal expansion pack, Elminster also appeared again.
But again, it’s just a chat, there is no fight with the players. As for the situation where Drizzt appeared on BG1, the player can beat him by deliberately challenging him because of the power of the monster summoning wand(with full charged It can be used 50 times) to win by quantity of violence. Does BG3 have such an OverPower artifact?
Drizzt appeared in BG2. Since the player character's level has already caught up with him in the game, if the player's party challenges him again, he/she will naturally be able to fight with his/her party's own power. There is nothing to say about this.
When I saw Larian made Sarevok reappeared in the game, I knew they didn't do their homework.
In the previous game, Sarevok followed the protagonist and his party to defeat the highest priestess of Bhaal, Amelyssan. That woman's power is almost like a demigod(she devoured almost all Bhaal's divine essence).... At that time, the whole team was at the legendary level. Your BG3 entire party is not enough for him(Sarevok) to kill alone. This plot is obviously unreasonable.
More Important, did they read the ending of Throne of Bhaal? How could he re-appear in BG3 and slap BioWare's face?
He has gone to Kara-Tur in the ending of previous game and never return, how can you find him in BG3 area?
And judging from the ending of the previous game, unless the official ending is for the protagonist to inherit the throne of Bhaal, the position of the God of Murder will always be vacant.
In my opinion, Larian designed the game like "X-COM", but ignored too many D&D rules to made the game harder!
For example, they put phase spider queen into the game but set it's level only 5?? You can to check it's origin data(the monster) on Google(DND 5E). And you can see the monster still has full power(level 15) in it's level 5.
That is not the most cheating point, Larian designed all phase spider can spit poison bolts in almost every round in the battle! Those monster have no the ability in origin 5E rules!
If you played BG1 and BG2, you will shocked by seeing a gnoll hunter shot your character 3 times in almost every round(every hit for 8 damage by normal bow and arrows) in the game and then their level only 4.
We all knew BioWare also gave some monsters and enemy NPC something cheating ability, but this is too much in the game.
About stealing and breaking into houses it is perfectly possible to get most of the important items without stealing from regular merchants as you can sell and then steal from the fences to get the money you need and again if we are talking of G and not LG probably there is nothing wrong to steal from a thief or a fence. You have to break into some houses, but in BG2 the 3 that host important items are actually the strongholds of a slavers guild and of a demilich, you don't have to break into common people houses and steal from them if not to get some very minor and not important items.
About the evil options in Hell there is no RP reason for a good oriented player to take them, I never do it (even if I argue about some of them being evil, if you can fight most of the dragons and be good why you can't fight that gold dragon, I ignore his alignment but if he is evil why not? Also fighting Sarevok that is now a wraith is not evil in iself, he is surely evil and in the rest of the game it is perfectly acceptable to slaughter evil foe and wraiths being good). I never do it as I don't like to have my alignment changed if I am playing good or neutral and I never play evil, but I can perfectly live with the good rewards, they are different from the evil ones, but good rewards.
I have gone on that route, as far as don't loot anything from Nalia's father castle, I am there to help, not to steal from the ones I am helping, loosing the chance to craft the FoA, that I rate the best weapon in BG2.
But I don't see as evil to sacrifice an animal on that altar ( in RL I would never do it, I am vegetarian and against killing animals even to sacrifice them to the altar of my own stomach, but I don't see as evil all the people around me that are not vegetarian). You perform that sacrifice with the purpose to summon and then kill evil foe, not to become a follower of that demon prince, and about the poor animal it is not more evil then to summon it as an helper in an other battle and use it as cannon fodder.
I would say that to play in a strictly lawful way a pally is not possible to progress past SoA chap.2 at all as you can not side with any of the 2 guilds, but playing just in a more relaxed way a good oriented toon, relaxed enough to let you side with the ST, without becoming one of them and mostly helping them vs evil and not natural vampires, it is possible to play the whole SoA and ToB without missing anything that really matters power wise if not Blackrazor and the Big Metal Unit.
About using some evil items like RoV I personally don't see any problem for a good toon as every weapon is evil, has been made to kill people, it is possible to play in a pacifist way avoiding to kill anyone if not the very few people that have to be killed to progress the game, it has been done by few players and IMHO is the epitome of playing good, but as long as we kill foe and use weapons I don't see any problem if a good toon use the RoV or the ring of Gaxx as I don't see problems about an evil FT with UAI using the pally only sword, items are items, tools and what you do with the tool, not the tool in itself is what matter unless it is clearly stated in the game that using a certain tool corrupts your soul, is cursed.
Obviously every person has his own way to RP and this is my take about RP good, I don't pretend that it is better then yours @Arvia , I only want to share it and to say that I don't feel that BG2 penalizes me for never playing evil.