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Sven_

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Sven_ last won the day on November 26 2022

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  1. I still don't get it. Why did these guys ever leave Bioware when they continue making Bioware games?
  2. Yeah, it's a bit weird. You can't actually plan for that. Sometimes stuff happens. Sure, D&D is comparably big itself now (still didn't keep the movie from underperforming). I still don't understand for instance why the first Dishonored was such a surprise (semi-) hit back then -- and then nothing much for Arkane but underperformances. I guess the animated first trailer helped, which really sold the pillars of the game (even though the visual style in the final game is a bit different). But still... (Arkane seem no different). It's the perfect wave, the release window included. I think there's stuff to learn though. They didn't actually sell the game hugely prominently as CRPG as such, which carries the "weight" of being associated with fairly complex and complicated games (wether actually true or not). They took D&Ds promise of being able to do and play (almost) anything you wanted and ran with that as their tagline for everything. Naturally, every product needs something to sell it on rather than being "another RPG/shooter/Game." There's competition. And it's fierce. But their communication seemed focused on that..... even that bear stuff going kinda viral wasn't just that bear. It was like: "You can do even this?" "Um, yeah." Being able to do almost anything is pretty big a promise, and an emotional one, for a game. And they had stuff to show off that suggested this wasn't just another typical sales ploy, but for realz. Naturally, by the time the ball was rolling, awards included, everybody and their mom was interested to find out what this "Baulders Gates" fuss is about anyways. I think that's also in parts where Obsidian went wrong with Pillars, at least when expecting a much bigger audience for Deadfire. Project Eternity was pitched largely on the promise of nostalgia. A new isometric party-based game by the makers from..... that's a strong emotional pitch. But how long can it last? Eventually, people may be saturated. Another game just bigger and better is just that. I'm not suggesting that the game needed to be completely changed but what's the hook? What should get me emotionally invested, considering that big, good games are plenty? Larian never pitched DOS purely on nostalgia. It pitched co-Op, it pitched world interactivity not hugely seen in the isometric RPG space since Ultima and turn-based combat was also something "fresh" again when nobody this side of XCom had much dared to touch it since Temple Of Elemental Evil. And with BG3 they never went purely nostalgia bait either. Owlcat meanwhile were doing the very first Pathfinder adaptations, based on popular Adventure paths too. Not sure how Rogue Trader is doing since, but here too, the very prospect of the first Warhammer 40K RPG proper is already a pitch that goes beyond.
  3. Baldur's Gate got released just 25 years ago today. Completing a hat-trick of PC releases unheard of until today: Grim Fandango, Thief, Baldur's Gate. Man, the end of 1998 was the gift that kept on giving. And yet, this almost never happened. Bioware originally intended to do more typical Bioware things: chasing market trends, rather than saving dying genres. It was Obsidian Entertainment's now CEO who pushed for a deal with history. It's easy to imagine a parallel universe in which Feargus Urquhart slipped in the shower, broke his ankle, called in sick. One in which people never got a taste of BG to begin with. What are they playing instead of BG3 these days over there? Beneath a Starless Sky: Pillars of Eternity and the Infinity Engine Era of RPGs | Shacknews Oh yeah. In the context of its time, BG1 was pretty easy on the eye too. The first major promotional material focused on all that for reason. As to cinematics: For as long as they aren't seen like the first movies, I think games haven't reached their full storytelling potential yet. Movies too initially borrowed from what was already there (stage play, theatre...), and look fairly dated and stilted now because of it. The crucial bit is: Movies are static mediums that borrowed from static mediums. Games are interactive and when going fully-on cinematic are borrowing from something static...
  4. Close to the end, but I'm actually considering whether downloading a 30GB just for the epilogue is worth it (you need a whopping 150GB or so of free SSD space also). Fun game, but seeing as it's got a reception as if it were a contender for THE greatest game of all time (regardless of platform, era or genre), I also think it's a bit oversold. You know why? Because mainstream audiences haven't actually gotten a taste in some case ever of a truly RPG. If you're coming from semi-interactive Hollywood action movies a la the Witcher with barely any choice (dialogue, character) and super linear quests that literally solve themselves (witcher senses...) -- this is an altogether new world opening up for you. I mean, the big studios in like the past two decades have tried anything to aggressively hide they're actually in the business of making RPGs either way. "Hi we're id Soft and from now on we're not in the business of making these boring shooters anymore. We're attempting something more modern for the modern sophisticated gaming audience, try it!" Absolutely ridiculous. There's an astonishing amount of work put into cinematics not breaking, and also a lot of interactivity -- as an example, I once disguised my char via a spell and got a completely different dialogue and quest progression when doing so... they also naturally needed to cover that players would finish the game entirelly solo and still cinematics still working out. Speaking of which, I actually this is a bit of a dead end, but more on that in the spoiler tag. Still, this doesn't feel like THE BIG RPG TO RULE THEM ALL. It actually feels like a game that picks up from the early 2000s had they never happened. Rather than the the crap that's actually happened (until crowdfunding, digital distrubtion et all) saved the day, that is. At least on the lower budget front. The only excuse I make for bigger studios is that they saw almost the entire RPG industry collapsing before: Origin, SSI, New World Computing, Sir-Tech, Troika, Interplay, Looking Glass, Bethesda pior to Morrowind almost too... Still with Bioware I'm wondering whether they would actually have made anything much RPG by their own choice, considering that it was Interplay to sign them for their engine -- and encouraging them to do a D&D game with it, being the license holder then. Considering that they did a Mech game before, later MDK 2 and by all accounts something more RTS-/MMORPG-like until Interplay came along, I can easily see a parallel universe where they never did anything remotedly resembling Ultima/GoldBox era games etc. at all. In other words: Chasing market trends from day 1, rather than being credited for revitalizing a struggling genre. There's no excuses from now on either way, as far as I'm concerned. And yes, I'm kinda grumpy, sorry. Not expecting anybody to do a wave of isometric D&D-likes or anything. But at least something resembling a RPG, rather than aggressively trying to hide it. Also not going into semantics. But there's fully reason contemporary audiences consider games such as Assassin's Creed or Red Dead Redemption as RPGs. At this pace, Doom 2043 is gonna belong to the family just as well. And nobody's gonna object to it, except the chosen few getting tired of big budget games playing increasingly alike. So, about cinematics being a dead end.
  5. Crazy studio by the way. At this pace, in 48 months from now they're gonna be finished with Starfinder 2 and Ravenloft 3 (heh, I wish). 2018 Kingmaker 2021 Wrath 2023 Rogue Trader Plus multiple DLC, Enhanceds and of course fixes in between. In that same time, Electronic Arts have held two major emergency meetings. Topic: What should we be doing with EA RPG (aka Bioware) next exactly.
  6. Gonna get this anyway, but: What's the encounter design like? Combat in BG3 appears on the easy side at the time of me writing. But the prospect of fighting Owlcat mobs seems a bit daunting after a game that is this wasteful, it has many types of enemy appearing just for one fight. And then never again. Even Solasta on a modest budget tried to go with a quality over quantity approach, which so far hasn't been Owlcat's forte, to put it that way. What could be more daunting than fighting the same mob for the second and third and fourth time on a map? Fighting the same mob for the second and third and fourth time in turn-based combat (and that's nothing against TB combat, mind). So?
  7. Re: Blade (Arkane) In some ways, this is even more of a departure for Arkane than Redfall was. 3rd person, Martial Arts, likely also pretty cinematic action... (anything cinematic being the counter thesis to Immersive Simisms, which tries to create a Virtual Reality Space, not a Cinematic Game Space). Plus, it still clearly looks like a project that had never happened had Arkane's money men not been so unsure after the performance of Prey and Dishonored 2. But with Dana Nightingale in a key position, could turn out to be interesting. She's the (co-) founder of the Looking Glass community at ttlg.com, former Thief fan mission designer extraordinaire and now arguably best level designer in the entire business wholesale. Re: Exodus (Archetype) Imagine Baldur's Gate's lead designer leaving Bioware-- only to form a new studio doing what appears pretty much the exact same thing Bioware's been doing since. And inevitably also directly competing with it to boot... Despite BG hardly being a super hardcore RPG to begin with, there's been conflict at Bioware even way back, of course. About whether D&D and D&D-like systems would be too complex for a mass audience. Whether any kind of form of tactical combat would be too crunchy. Where table-top-style storytelling would still fit into this. After all, DA Origins was initially pitched as a "back to the roots" project... barely half a decade after the first copies of BG1 had been sold FFS. But yeah. Still, this this looks like Mass Effect 2.0 so far. Swen Vincke likes this.
  8. Neither were the originals. At least, not much. Sitting next to likes of Mass Effect, BG may be considered a hardcore RPG. Compared to Darklands or Realms Of Arkania meanwhile, not so much. The doctors back then too tried to "hide" as much of the crunchiness as they could (and the super intuitive control scheme ripped straight out of RTS / Warcraft as well as quite action-ish combat by then genre standards contributed to that). BG was always meant to be an accessible game. With that said, is BG3 really this grand as Gamings Truly Last Action Hero, Arkane Studio's founder Raf Colantonio suggests? Or is it simply that after decades of further "streamlining" at all cost, we're gettingn a glimpse of how the genre, big budget too, could have evolved had it not done what it did? At least in terms of big budget RPGs, there's just no contest. And Colantonio is spot on with his suggested "many years of drought". We're living in an era in which the posts have been moved so far after constant "streamlining" even the likes of Horizon Forbidden West are being considered RPG-ish by the general public to begin with FFS.
  9. JUst as a note, as it sticks out so much also in comparison to other games (RE: Combat). In like 40 hours or so, I've encountered multiple enemies that are just for that one encounter, and that encounter only. I've never seen them again. Like . This is so wasteful, they even blend the music in and out seamlessly whenever one of them starts , actually, singing -- yes, they actually recorded a singer singing for this. And yet, it's just that one encounter, never to be seen again. This fits the entire "quality over quantity" approach that is attempted, and I wish more developers would run with it. I mean, this isn't Broken Roads (fingers crossed that it will be good) -- but it is also highly unusual that even a barbarian semi-regularly has options to just intimidate foes to drop their weapons. On much lower budgets, Tactical Adventures tried similar with Solasta, though mostly in their encounter design/density. If you really think about it, most areas in BG2 are dungeon crawls in disguise, with enemies everywhere. And ToB is just trash mob after trash mob either way, outside of the bosses to kill, which is the entire main quest of the game anyway (man, what a disappointment that was, no less as Icewind Dale did this all so much better years before). Generally, combat feels too easy though (still playing on normal mind). And a few of that can be attributed to their home-brewn stuff, such as shove and the like being a bonus action, rather than an action. However, my warlocks upgraded Eldritch Blast acts as a "shove" anyway upon hitting, so if an enemy, boss included, stands on a ledge into a chasm: GG.
  10. Yeah, like Bioware aka "The Romance Company" didn't market and showcase their games on their "mature" love scenes, companions, blood and boobies. What do you think Average Joe was more likely to pick Origins up for? The "heavy" duty of having to pick in between as many as three classes for his character or gushing over Morrigan's cleavage and heads a rollin'? Bioware had their own answer to that one. I mean, this is the most cringest trailer of all time, hilariously misplaced choice in music included. Obey and learn from the masters, Larian. Hey, the game IS a sequel to a Bioware game, after all. On that note: I've only recently really started playing this after playing around with the Early Access three years ago (the fun and creepy start into Act 2 currently reminds me in a painful way how it's been TWO decades since Bloodlines -- the last major gothic/horror RPG since, which is INSANE, but that's another matter). However, I was expecting and prepared for far more in that regard. There's only been one character that was hitting on me so far -- and apparently I didn't need to level her up nor provide her gifts to score with her, true and PROPER Bioware-style. Maybe something to do with playing a drow, though, who knows. Also, I don't have access to the actual numbers. My biggest gripes so far are typically Larian things. Controlling a group stuff, camera stuff, inventory stuff. Difficulty on normal seems also rather low. Oh and some patronizing handholding. There's a quest that asked me to find somebody BEING LOST IN THE UNDERDARK -- only for the in-game GPS aka mini-map guiding me right there immediately upon accepting that quest. So much for that guy being "lost". I mean, Larian-style maps are heavily compressed affairs anyway, it's not like they're huge sprawling landscapes all booted up at once. And Mazes they aren't either. If you don't find yer stuff, the stuff is gonna find you eventually. You just have to poke around a bit. Developers, pretty please: If you think your players would get lost in their own toilets without heavy guidance, just don't include quest like that. Thanks. Otherwise, I really like this so far, and I wasn't overly fond of DOS. It's also refreshing in that regard in that contrary to DOS (or even the originals), you don't run into mobs of enemies every two meters or so, even deep down in the Underdark (which really was just a dungeon crawl in BG2). There's a quality over quantity approach attempted -- and even then not every combat is mandatory, with skill, even character checks applied. My drow commands some respect out of goblins et all. who'd otherwise turn hostile ASAP. Recently I avoided a fight against an enemy able to disguise itself by having a companion succeeding in a skill check likewise. There's oft also numerous routes throughout the maps, including entry points, which alongside to sneaking can skip encounters entirelly (or entry quests in various ways). The 3 billion endings are certainly hyperbole right there, but the same area can play differently solely by all of that alone. If this game is gonna have an influence (big IF), it will be a better one than any influence Bioware had in like the last two decades. Mechanically, for 100000% sure either way. Also, in a sense, this looks like the anti-Fallout 3 so far. Both Fallout 3 and BG3 were made by a different developer than their respective original games, and attempted to make them more popular. Fallout 3 "streamlined" much of what made Fallout SPECIAL (Hah) in a bid to reach a more mainstream audience. By Fallout 4, the series was literally a completely different game, being turned from a series reknown for its complex quests with multiple solutions, unique experiences (and dialogue choice) depending on character builds and choice&consequence into a sandbox exploration action game where squat all matters (including that dialogue). BG3 is, at heart, still a party-based tactical CRPG. Generally, it's not a game afraid of its roots, but wears them proudly on its sleeve. If all it takes to inject some boobies and a popular license, I shall be expecting more AAA CRPGs of all kinds pretty damn soon. And the reign of the Canadish "Romance Company" and the Polish "Movie company" over the bigger budget space to be truly over once and for all.
  11. [snip] Whilst I can see how some went as far as calling BG3 a reskin, I still don't get it. The game has most of the DOS systems in place, yes. It also controls the same way, yes. But, for a start, I've just explored almost the entirety of the first map again, and didn'T fight once. Whereas in DOS, it's really just a thinly veiled combat parcours. There's also less alternative solutions, alternative routes, and everything. Exploration in DOS1+2 is completely linear anyway, as enemies just a few notches above your level are going to obliterate you (and all paths throughout the maps are gatekept and blocked by enemies. DOS1 in particular almost plays like a combat system demo in comparison. Whereas BG3 has evolved into an RPG "proper". It shares a lot of its ingridients and is built with the same tech. But it's a completely different recipe and meal -- and that goes even without anything D&D attached to it. As of the game's success that obviously exceeded expectations from the go: There's not gonna be a wealth of triple A CRPGS now simply alone by the fact that there's like not even a handful of studios able to deliver such, let alone interested in doing it... It's more about a game like this getting exposure and people realizing they enjoy this kind of game. Kinda like these. What and whether an impact BG3 had can only be judged in the longer run. If it has one, if you ask me it would be a better one than any major Bioware release post Neverwinter Nights. Mass Effect players blowing the **** out of enemies Gears Of War-style in between a bunch of cutscenes weren't massively encouraged to look for D&Dish type of games or similar. That sounds a bit sarcastic. But I'm not trying to talk about quality with all of this. Just the type of games being represented here. To this day, I'm really not much of a fan of Bioshock, which to me is pretty much "System Shock for dummys" and full of repetitive and average corridor shooter gameplay (despite everbody gushing over it). But there's not doubt that it played a role that Immersive Sims were revitalized a couple years later... at least for a while. With even Eidos doing two decent Deus Ex games... and a decent System Shock remake I'd just finished about two weeks ago. Speaking about which, gamings truly last action hero, Arkane's founder Raf Colantonio digs this. Doesn't surprise me.
  12. Sven_

    BG3

    Still Steam no. 1 bestseller plus being at the top of PS5 preorder charts. It's not going to be that bad.
  13. Sven_

    BG3

    The pre-release numbers for the console release additonally hint at something a bit more going on. The 800+K peak numbers on Steam are concurrent players, not total. That's a number only ever reached by PC gaming's biggest hits. Larian's management told their staff to expect ~100K concurrent players. And they knew their EA sales numbers. Larian's boss worried Baldur's Gate 3 had peaked in early access, so its massive 800K concurrent player launch was 'way, way beyond' expectations | PC Gamer Personally, I'm just glad an (AAA) RPG "proper" is rocking things out fairly decently anyway. It may of course never even hint at Skyrim-ish numbers or anything (neither did the original Dragon Age, arguably one of the last AAA RPGs harkening back to 1990s design ethos some). But in an (AAA) RPG world dominated by action-adventure-ish gameplay and shallow (character) systems, BG3's not the worst of things to ever happen. I don't think it will influence much though. No less as the entire AAA industry has moved into a different direction -- and this includes the staff that have been built (and/or left studios) throughout the years. Additionally, BG3 may have shipped at the perfect time. With D&D being at another peak (even though the fun movie flopped), too. Personally, without the digital distribution / indie / crowdfuding revolution of the early 2010s (of which Larian have been a part of, even if I didn't like DOS overly much), I may have stopped playing one of my fav genres altogether... it's just changed that much ever since the demise of Interplay, Origin, Looking Glass, Black Isle, Troika, Sir-Tech, New World Computing et all.. Immersive Sims meanwhile at least had Arkane Studios going strong (with both classic CRPGs and IMmersive Sims being influenced by the very same thing.... TT RPGS). Arkane even pulled off Prey, a game that in many ways is even MORE complex than the 1990s/early 2000s games it took inspiration from. Whereas Dragon Age:Origins is a simplified BG in almost every way. That said, BG3 also badly needs more UI/font size scaling options. Even indies are doing it as a standard feature these days...
  14. Sven_

    BG3

    PoE or PF are direct descendants off Infinity Engine games. The INfinity Engine was pretty static even back in the day. Basically, you couldn't touch anything besides loot, loot containers, NPCs and enemies. Else everything was a static, but beautiful backdrop to your questing. Larian jump straight off Ultima (at least, in terms of interactivity and systems). (Almost) anything can be picked up and messed around with in some form or other. One of the first things I did back in the EA was taking delight in taking a couple of corpses (about to raise as undead), throw them in a fireball trap nearby and watch the fireworks when they DID rise. Bliss. For anybody into systems driven games (also to be found in Immersive Sims, e.g. Deus Ex, Dishonored, Prey et all!), the difference is significant. DOes that in itself make the ONE difference? Unlikely. This has become such a huge hit that there are likely various contributing factors at work (one of which also being that there isn't much new BIG games around at the moment, at least until Starfield hits). However, Larian have argued previous that their audience has gone way beyond PF/PoE/BG fandom before. They attributed it to their systemic design (which is also hugely popular in the more recent Zelda games). And it's certainly one major design ethos that makes their games different from any Infinity Engine "follow-up". It also makes for fun Streamer's material...
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