Baldur's Gate 3?

[Hurlshort]

The only way Dragon Age goes TB is if they call it Dragon Age: Tactics and release it as a side project.

[injurai]

Another game that does verticality well is Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, who I have someone here to thank for introducing me to. (forget whom)

This could be a new trend, but I don't think that is a bad thing. Certainly ledge play in Total War and SC2 where rather important parts of those games.

What I hope is that environment is given the Deus Ex treatment, where you can enter an environment in varying ways that drastically changes what tactics are viable (without limiting you to the strategy of that path.) TF2 maps very much play with that idea as well, whether you enter the opponents base from above, below, front on, or through the back.

Think back to Pillars 1, Raedric's Hold was mostly sectioned off by floor. You didn't have the capability to split your party between floors either, and levels weren't designed that way. I think BG3 (for whatever it's eventually faults) is at least promising something new and potentially highly satisfying.

[E.RedMark]

Argh..

 

BG3 look like Divinity 3. 

 

There goes the boat...choo choo! 

 

I really never expected to hear ''A BG3 will be made one day'' . Why? Because the saga of the Bhaal Spawn ended with Throne of Bhaal. And yes, I cried and had my slow motion ''Noooo...too soon! I want Moar! There must be other vilains and half-brother-sister to find! Come on! One more prophecy!'' . 

Then came the mods, upon mods. Romances, Funs mods, Spells Mods, packs Mods. Kept the games alives for such a long time. 

Then came DragonSpear, and everyone **** on it. I liked it. 

And here come the rumours in the Tavern: ''Hic didcha hear? BG3 is being..*Hic*..made...by..*Hic*..Lariant no less?! got..*hic*..a turnip?'' .

And I thought ''Why? The Saga is over. We grieved, why dig up the skeleton?? Mah heart!''. And some stranger said ''Urgh! You don't even know what's gonna be like sheesh! Whale elsewhere and let me drink in peace!'' . 

I took a pint then another and I forgot about it. Till now....

 

It look like Divinity 3!!! 

Well I understand, the world of Fearun is big. There trillions of stories to tell, heroes to meet, dragons to slay, companions to ditch . 

But why does it look like Divinity 3? Now everyone is freaking out cose it's turn based. The other side is Happy cose it's more DnD. 

I'm looking at the beach where it start and I get flashback from DOS1 and 2 where they start too on a beach....we never really left, did we ? it was all a dream!!! By the Mindflayer! They crossed the realm !

Ahhh I don't know. If Pillar of Eternity was called BG3 when it came out, I would've cryed. (I did cry cose it looked so similar, it had the story, the vibes, the companions...and there were onions involved) . But this ? they have big shoes to fill, either they like it or not. Even if they go with the ''We aren't trying to make a sequel to BG2, its a WHOLE BRAND NEW GAME! that use DOS engine..so it look like DOS..but we filled with Dnd stuff..you like those right? RIGHT? YOU BETTER LIKE THOSE! LOOK THE DICE ROLLS AND YOU MISS ALOT!!!'' ....

 

Yeah...gonna wait and see for now. 

[Vaeliorin]

5E isn't I Go You Go, is it?  I read the core books several years ago but I don't remember them well enough to know if they actually did away with individual initiative. 

Also, did they do away with skill checks?  Because I can't see level 1 characters being able to leap about like that if they had to make skill checks (heck, even most level 20 characters wouldn't be willing to leap about like that in the middle of a fight, because there's a decent chance you'd fail and end up prone.)

[Judicator]

17 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

the best part of dos2 are the six premade main character also are companion idea

pretty clever

wonder why other developer doesn't do that more often

Probably because they were poorly written.

[Skarpen]

9 minutes ago, Judicator said:

Probably because they were poorly written.

Thank God that the first printed book wasn't poorly written because we would abandon printing following that logic.

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, injurai said:

Think back to Pillars 1, Raedric's Hold was mostly sectioned off by floor. You didn't have the capability to split your party between floors either, and levels weren't designed that way. I think BG3 (for whatever it's eventually faults) is at least promising something new and potentially highly satisfying.

D:OS2 engine and scale is amazing. I just wish they would do something more structured for BG3. I found D:OS2 to be too free-form - you can do anything, anywhere with vague objectives meaning I didn’t care or remember about anything I did. 

Apparently there are about 350 people working on BG3. It shows. In many ways that’s a kind of game I wished for Bioware to pursue - invest in systems and interactions, rather then presentation. What I didn’t wish was for it to be so multiplayer focused. 

[xzar_monty]

43 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

D:OS2 engine and scale is amazing.

In what way? This is a serious question, I am interested in your thoughts on this. How would you compare it to Deadfire's engine? For me, Deadfire wins hands down. PoE, too.

Edit: I mean the engine, specifically.

Edited February 29, 2020 by xzar_monty

[Judicator]

3 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Thank God that the first printed book wasn't poorly written because we would abandon printing following that logic.

You'd have a point if this was Larian's first game, not their eight. They just don't know how to write.

[bugarup]

Yeah, I don't care if it looks like Divinities or plays like Divinities, I had no problems with either. But since it will also read like Divinities, it's the "Wait until 60% discount at very least" purchase for me. And even then I'm not sure. I mean, I still can't force myself through Divinities because of their writing.

[Skarpen]

58 minutes ago, Judicator said:

You'd have a point if this was Larian's first game, not their eight. They just don't know how to write.

How's that relevant to the question of why other developers don't use the mechanic?

[Oner]

14 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

The only way Dragon Age goes TB is if they call it Dragon Age: Tactics and release it as a side project.

They did almost exactly that actually. There was a browser-based turn based tactics RPG tie-in for Origins.

[JerekKruger]

My main takeaways were:

• This isn't Baldur's Gate 3, but I didn't really expect it to be. It was never going to be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga because how would that even work after the events of ToB; and I didn't expect Larian to move away from turn-based when (a) that's what they've had success with with D:OS1/2 and (b) that's the easiest and arguably purest way to adapt D&D. I am a tiny bit annoyed that they insisted on calling this BG3 rather than simply announcing a new D&D CRPG franchise (and I'd expect they'd have received a lot less flak if they had) but I guess either they or Wizards wanted to use the hype of announcing a BG game
• The gameplay itself looked fine. Nothing massively remarkable, but nothing awful either. I prefer RTwP but I enjoy turn based too so I'm not that bothered by that decision. The environments looked nice enough, but I do hope for some variety: one of the things that put me off D:OS1/2 was there only really seemed to be one outdoor tileset. Character models look remarkably similar to DA:I, but so long as they avoid the absurdly oversized weapons of that game that's not really a bad thing. Not much to say about story yet.

Overall, as long as I treat this as Dungeons and Dragons: Original Sin rather than I Baldur's Gate game, I'm cautiously optimistic, which is what I was pre-stream, so not much change. Luckily early access will mean plenty of streamers I trust will almost certainly play it to death, and I'll get a better chance to judge it then. 

[melkathi]

If the money that is being poured into BG3 had been given to the Devs who did Stygian. The RPG we would have gotten would have been for the ages.

[injurai]

29 minutes ago, JerekKruger said:

• This isn't Baldur's Gate 3, but I didn't really expect it to be. It was never going to be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga because how would that even work after the events of ToB; and I didn't expect Larian to move away from turn-based when (a) that's what they've had success with with D:OS1/2 and (b) that's the easiest and arguably purest way to adapt D&D. I am a tiny bit annoyed that they insisted on calling this BG3 rather than simply announcing a new D&D CRPG franchise (and I'd expect they'd have received a lot less flak if they had) but I guess either they or Wizards wanted to use the hype of announcing a BG game

I had the same thought, that this should be a brand new D&D series.

However, BG3 get's them on people's radar. Hopefully they do a brand new series/setting as a follow up.

[Wormerine]

5 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

In what way? This is a serious question, I am interested in your thoughts on this. How would you compare it to Deadfire's engine? For me, Deadfire wins hands down. PoE, too.

I like the look of Deadfire, but performance and functionality is far behind... as is expected of 2nd focused engine modified from Unity for a game made, by what, 40 people?

Verticality, size, easy inside/outside without transitions, supporting units being all over the map at the same time, interactions with the enviroment plus multiplayer support add to that moddability and adventure creator. Quite a bit like Witcher, its an engine built by studio for their specific needs and purposes, and it's and investment and commitment that pays off.

[xzar_monty]

I didn't think the interaction with the environment in D:OS2 benefited the game experience in any way. Being able to move stuff around was meaningless to me. Also, the fact that you couldn't highlight things with TAB was annoying in the extreme.

But thanks! I see where you're coming from. We just disagree.

[JerekKruger]

1 hour ago, injurai said:

I had the same thought, that this should be a brand new D&D series.

However, BG3 get's them on people's radar. Hopefully they do a brand new series/setting as a follow up.

I suspect they'll stick with the name Baldur's Gate because it would honestly be a bit weird to do otherwise when the D&D game you've just released is no more a Baldur's Gate game than the one you're proposing not to call Baldur's Gate. Instead I suspect BG will simply come to be a series of D&D CRPGs by Larian.

I do hope they're successful. Even if I end up not enjoying BG3, I think it's good for CRPGs as a whole to have as many successful dedicated CRPG developers around. Whether it be borrowing a cool new idea, or simply the confidence that CRPGs can be commercially viable, it's a good thing imo.

[HoonDing]

Imagine beating Irenicus by turning the puddle he's standing in into ice so that he slips and drops down the Tree of Life to his death.

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, melkathi said:

If the money that is being poured into BG3 had been given to the Devs who did Stygian. The RPG we would have gotten would have been for the ages.

I'm not sure is more money and resources always leads to the better game.  Getting a staff of a few hundred to deliver a focused vision is a tough task.

[ComradeYellow]

12 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

I'm not sure is more money and resources always leads to the better game.  Getting a staff of a few hundred to deliver a focused vision is a tough task.

It doesn't!  Bottom line: if someone fails to develop a game worthy of the "Baldur's Gate" name, you've been totally conned either way.

Which is why all this reviving of dead franchises sets off a Red Flags.

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

I'm not sure is more money and resources always leads to the better game.  Getting a staff of a few hundred to deliver a focused vision is a tough task.

Well, money allows devs to keep working on a game. If they had spend another 6 months on Stygian, they could have done more. And then there is the security of knowing you haven't run out of money. That does wonders for letting people concentrate on their project

[Judicator]

6 hours ago, Skarpen said:

How's that relevant to the question of why other developers don't use the mechanic?

I was speaking specifically about Larian. Other devs probably feel like most players wouldn't want to play as an NPC instead of a custom char.

[Wormerine]

15 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

It doesn't!  Bottom line: if someone fails to develop a game worthy of the "Baldur's Gate" name, you've been totally conned either way.

I will give Larian a pass. 

NWN2 has been one of my fav post IE games RPG. it wasn’t a successor to what NWN was, but it was what I wanted NWN to be. 

BG3 might not be a successor to BG1&2, and it might not be what I like the most... but as long as it’s good in what it aims to achieve, and doesn’t mess with the original... what’s the harm?

Edited March 1, 2020 by Wormerine

[Chilloutman]

ok my few takes.

 

It looks ok. I expected it to feel like Divinity 3 and I am ok with it. If anything Divinity done well it was interactive environment and combat system (before they ruined it with those stupid magic/physical shields). 

 

Lets get real here. BG1 have very little to do with city itself and name of second game was plain cash grab as you don't even visited it. So in that regard this is going to be more Baldurs gate game than BG2. We know that story from first games was done so I didn't expected any relation to it anyway.

 

Yeah some jumping around felt weird and I hope they implement some athletic or acrobatic checks for those actions but otherwise it looks like solid foundation for fun DnD game and I am looking to it.  Main issue which have to be yet to seen is how well they do writing/story and companions - that will be the real deal breaker here

 

sidenote - someone mention they didn't care about environment interactions and I must say those kind of actions is what today CRPgs missing from tabletop experience - I want more weird stuff like that!