Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[MerchantKing]

Evil gives you
- Less experience
- Fewer quests
- Broken/impossible questlines
- Fewer items
- Fewer vendors
- A shit ending
- Shit reactivity

And don't get me started on Durge, which also gives you nothing and all choices regarding indulging your urge are meaningless.

But you're supposed to side with the demon "refugees" instead of the evil goblins and help make Baldur's Gate more diverse.

Tieflings are not demons. In this game they’re wypipo. Scare quotes are inaccurate.

They have horns, a tail, and red skin. Of course they're demons.

 

[gurugeorge]

My cerebral palsy affects my life far more than my pronouns do, and I'd like to think my dead limb is a more compelling narrative ingredient for creating a character forced to fight their way through the lawless Sword Coast.

Man.. this is just wow

Give me a mid-game "coming out as queer" quest where those demons we wrestle with can be laid to rest with dice checks.

I mean.... if you are transsexual IRL, wouldn't you want to NOT be trans in the game? To just be straight up a woman or w/e?
If you are crippled in real life, wouldn't you want to NOT be crippled in your fantasy? At least in your dreams to be fully mobile?

I really don't get it. I don't dream of being myself, with all of my health issues and accumulated trauma. I dream of being godlike. Git gud at dreaming, noobs.

There are some explanation. For some people being trans is part of their identity and what they think makes them special. Compare them to religious nuts who want to play Paladin crusaders purging unbelievers in whatever games they're playing. Or Death Metal fans plaing as edgelord characters. Most of such people probably aren't trans and just needed something to make them feel unique. Also the reason why they/thems a.k.a enbies are so popular. You can be a part of LGBTQ without having to suck dick or wear dress. Best of both worlds.

Another explanation are radical leftists who don't really play games but want to make sure that all forms of media reflect their ideology.

Radical leftists aren't pro-Trans. A good number of them are quite Homophobic even. Radical Leftism is "Class-First", as in everything else, including identity politics, is second to the proletarian struggle against the Bourgeois.

If you think LGTQ is radical leftism you've never talked to a Leftist.

Ironically, on the one gaming Leftist board I sometimes lurk everyone there is bitching like you guys about check-box diversity and having no meaningful message.

But Gangrel's idea of the "radical Left" is what won an internal struggle in the Left in the 60s, particularly after the fall of the Wall.

I was a Leftist of the kind you're talking about in the 70s and up to about the mid 80s, and I remember critiques of cultural Marxism from the Left at the time. The other day I was reading a book that had quotes from an article in an East German newspaper as far back as the 60s where they were ripping Marcuse and the Frankfurt School a new one, precisely on the basis of the superiority of the traditional class-based analysis.

But it doesn't matter, because the "New Left" and Frankfurt School types of analysis (based on Gramsci's extension of concessions Marx made in terms of transmission of influence back from the superstructure to the base), won out.

In actual fact, what really happened, the tail that's wagging the dog in all of this, is that Jewish movers and shakers involved with the Left switched allegiance from the old version of the Left starting in the early 50s, when the USSR stopped supporting Israel. (You can see that particularly with the Trostkyites of the 60s who eventualy became Neocons. Khruschev's secret speech at the end of the 50s, revelatory of Stalin's crimes, provided even further impetus to those Jews who had been more humanistically-minded.) Once that happened, the big money stopped flowing to the old version of the Left, and started supporting the New Left, the Frankfurt School, Civil Rights legislation, etc., and the developments in academia re. intersectionality and all the rest of it.

Which make sense actually, in the long view, because the corrosive effects on Western society of big capitalism (alienation, atomization, etc.) dovetail with the corrosive effects on society of that new kind of Leftism. The main target of both is the "primary ties" (family, community, patriotism, religion, etc.) that used to be the pillars holding up Western culture and society, and the reduction of society to the individual - desired by the Left on the grounds of individual freedom (ultimately what the Left has always been all about, since its origins in liberalism - freeing the individual from all social constraints) and desired by capitalism on the grounds of those primary ties being the main bulwark against capitalist encroachment into every corner of life (because they provide alternative sources of allegiance to the cash/consumer nexus).

Neoliberalism is the apt term, because essentialy liberalism "came home" after a detour into the historical determinism and class-based analysis of Marx, and returned to its roots in the liberal idea of total freedom of the individual, which suits both the new Left and capitalism.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

check-box diversity

Which in turn actually make them less diversed because they choose to make everyone Bissexual and Poly.

 

[volklore]

check-box diversity

Which in turn actually make them less diversed because they choose to make everyone Bissexual and Poly.

Muh diversity is a front for global assimilation? Nooo way!

 

[Desiderius]

Evil gives you
- Less experience
- Fewer quests
- Broken/impossible questlines
- Fewer items
- Fewer vendors
- A shit ending
- Shit reactivity

And don't get me started on Durge, which also gives you nothing and all choices regarding indulging your urge are meaningless.

But you're supposed to side with the demon "refugees" instead of the evil goblins and help make Baldur's Gate more diverse.

Tieflings are not demons. In this game they’re wypipo. Scare quotes are inaccurate.

They have horns, a tail, and red skin. Of course they're demons.

Isn't Hell Devils?

Larian's version aren't very Lawful, so there's that. Making Mol a girl is peak Californication.

 

[Desiderius]

The other thing to keep in mind for the latest version of clueless Ranger-hate is that 5E/BG3 Rangers (and Paladins) are not longer the slow spell progression class. That's EK/AT. Ranger gets up to lvl 3 for upcasting/utility and has some unique spells that play well to its strengths.

 

[Fedora Master]

The other thing to keep in mind for the latest version of clueless Ranger-hate is that 5E/BG3 Rangers (and Paladins) are not longer the slow spell progression class. That's EK/AT. Ranger gets up to lvl 3 for upcasting/utility and has some unique spells that play well to its strengths.

None of which you would know about.

 

[Desiderius]

The other thing to keep in mind for the latest version of clueless Ranger-hate is that 5E/BG3 Rangers (and Paladins) are not longer the slow spell progression class. That's EK/AT. Ranger gets up to lvl 3 for upcasting/utility and has some unique spells that play well to its strengths.

None of which you would know about.

Reading, how does it work?

I know about the second-level spells and upcasting first hand already. Third-level spells are publicly available info. What specifically am I missing? I forgot, you find lowering yourself to the merely specific too painful.

I’ll get there and post pics like I always do. You don’t have to choose suicide by autist. Life’s not that bad.

 

[Fedora Master]

The other thing to keep in mind for the latest version of clueless Ranger-hate is that 5E/BG3 Rangers (and Paladins) are not longer the slow spell progression class. That's EK/AT. Ranger gets up to lvl 3 for upcasting/utility and has some unique spells that play well to its strengths.

None of which you would know about.

Reading, how does it work?

I know about the second-level spells and upcasting first hand already. Third-level spells are publicly available info. What specifically am I missing? I forgot, you find lowering yourself to the merely specific too painful.

I’ll get there and post pics like I always do. You don’t have to choose suicide by autist. Life’s not that bad.

I'm simply not lowering myself to your standards. You've shown plenty of times to be incapable of admitted you're wrong.

 

[Desiderius]

The other thing to keep in mind for the latest version of clueless Ranger-hate is that 5E/BG3 Rangers (and Paladins) are not longer the slow spell progression class. That's EK/AT. Ranger gets up to lvl 3 for upcasting/utility and has some unique spells that play well to its strengths.

None of which you would know about.

Reading, how does it work?

I know about the second-level spells and upcasting first hand already. Third-level spells are publicly available info. What specifically am I missing? I forgot, you find lowering yourself to the merely specific too painful.

I’ll get there and post pics like I always do. You don’t have to choose suicide by autist. Life’s not that bad.

I'm simply not lowering myself to your standards. You've shown plenty of times to be incapable of admitted you're wrong.

Admitting? You haven’t even made a case to admit to, just the usual half-assed content-free whining. I’m simply describing what I’m seeing. I’d already been planning to move into melee.

I *had* the exact same thought that you’re having then realized I was wrong since I want to move into melee and Difficult Terrain Immunity is one reason why. Both Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer support that shift.

Yes I know there are Boots. I want that slot free for something else. As with PF I roll my own Difficult Terrain.

 

[Raghar]

In EA there was this one goblin priestess that offered to mark with you the brand of her new god. It let you influence other marked characters and certain items were only fully functional if the wearer had the mark.
Obviously most people didn't get the brand because carrying the mark of the beast surely would have some consequences down the line. It didn't in EA but it was only act 1 and early in development.
So I just went searching what are the negative consequences in the whole game for getting a magical goblin tramp stamp.
It's nothing.
Nothing bad happens.

Same with putting more tadpoles into your brain because a nice illithid asked you to.

It feels like they planned consequences initially and then abandoned the idea altogether after testing.

Frankly it feels like they wrote one story, then they remade the game with another story in the middle of development. That's why it's unfinished in some areas...

 

[Lagole Gon]

In EA there was this one goblin priestess that offered to mark with you the brand of her new god. It let you influence other marked characters and certain items were only fully functional if the wearer had the mark.
Obviously most people didn't get the brand because carrying the mark of the beast surely would have some consequences down the line. It didn't in EA but it was only act 1 and early in development.
So I just went searching what are the negative consequences in the whole game for getting a magical goblin tramp stamp.
It's nothing.
Nothing bad happens.

Same with putting more tadpoles into your brain because a nice illithid asked you to.

It feels like they planned consequences initially and then abandoned the idea altogether after testing.

1. Larian makes obviously stupid choices possible.
2. They discover, to their great surprise, that most people don't do obviously stupid things.
3. Larian somehow needed early access and test players to discover that fact.
4. They remove penalty for doing stupid things.

I keep telling this, but Codexers don't believe me - there is something really fuckin' ALIEN about Larian. I think Swen might be an AI.

 

[Black]

Tieflings are not demons.

Then why does smite evil work on them?

 

[Barbarian]

BG3 is so popular it is even producing boomer tier memes

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Frankly it feels like they write one story, then they remade the game with another story in the middle of development. That's why it's unfinished in some areas...

Which ties back to what I said several times of the past: Larian often is struggling to solve self-inflicted problems and talks about them as some super-complex design challenge, when "not doing the idiotic thing to begin with" would have been enough in most cases.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

At this point western RPG parties are getting more weird than JRPG ones. Most of these feature a party of good natured teenagers with some issued and also some magic animals. Here, everyone is fucked in one way or another. Shadowhart is an evil priestess, Astarion is a gay vampire, Gale is a walking atom bomb, Lae'zel is a space nazi, Wyll sold his soul to Satan, Karlach is a cyberdemon. Halsin is possibly evil, corrupted, insane, damaged as well but I wouldn't know I didn't talk to him. WOTR was also like that. What's going on with these games?

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

At this point western RPG parties are getting more weird than JRPG ones. Most of these feature a party of good natured teenagers with some issued and also some magic animals. Here, everyone is fucked in one way or another. Shadowhart is an evil priestess, Astarion is a gay vampire, Gale is a walking atom bomb, Lae'zel is a space nazi, Wyll sold his soul to Satan, Karlach is a cyberdemon. Halsin is possibly evil, corrupted, insane, damaged as well but I wouldn't know I didn't talk to him. WOTR was also like that. What's going on with these games?

Halsin's distinctive trait comes from being quite possibly the most inept, underqualified and irresponsible "archdruid" in existence.
But that aside, even if I read similar complains a lot on the official forum, I genuinely don't think the "excessive uniqueness" of BG3's companions is their major problem... After all Planescape Torment was entirely built around the idea of a cast of extremely peculiar companions and they've been generally well-liked for years.
I think they mostly fall short in the development of their personal relationship with the player and with each other.

Larian simply decided to go "all in" on the thirstiest portion of the fanbase and "kinda forgot" (cit) to give companions any humanity and characterization past their unquenchable desire to fuck.
Aside from how annoyingly pushy they are in their efforts to flirt with the player, there's also the fact that once you reject them there isn't really that much more you can interact and have conversations on.

 

[Fedora Master]

"Romances" are front and center because of Journo appeal. It's not a mistake.

 

[Darkwind]

Me (22f) and my boyfriend (24m) of 4 years, recently got into playing BG3 co-op! And so far it's been a lot of fun! We've been super invested into the story... (big REDDIT snip)

Please, tell me this is not just you having fun and there's an actual source for this gem.

Do you even have to ask? It literally SCREAMS Reddit from its every word and sentence. This chick's picture would be next to the dictionary definition of "Redditor". It does appear to be a carefully crafted piss take of how a Redditor would write, so I give an 8/10 shitpost attempt if that is the case.

 

[Black]

In EA there was this one goblin priestess that offered to mark with you the brand of her new god. It let you influence other marked characters and certain items were only fully functional if the wearer had the mark.
Obviously most people didn't get the brand because carrying the mark of the beast surely would have some consequences down the line. It didn't in EA but it was only act 1 and early in development.
So I just went searching what are the negative consequences in the whole game for getting a magical goblin tramp stamp.
It's nothing.
Nothing bad happens.

Same with putting more tadpoles into your brain because a nice illithid asked you to.

It feels like they planned consequences initially and then abandoned the idea altogether after testing.

Frankly it feels like they write one story, then they remade the game with another story in the middle of development. That's why it's unfinished in some areas...

It does. You can drill holes in your brain with countless alien worms and nothing bad happens.
Despite the game shouting urgency at you, at least in the beginning, nothing happens if you spam long rest, it's just more tedious and slower than in IE games or NWNs.
And if you let Volo, the famous schizo, poke your eye out? You get free permanent Detect Invisibility.

But god forbid you don't simp for tieflings.

Swen keeps saying that nothing was cut but he's a lying fuck.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

At this point western RPG parties are getting more weird than JRPG ones...What's going on with these games?

You can blame the lasting influence of the Codex's #1 Game of All Time.

 

[Alienman]

At this point western RPG parties are getting more weird than JRPG ones. Most of these feature a party of good natured teenagers with some issued and also some magic animals. Here, everyone is fucked in one way or another. Shadowhart is an evil priestess, Astarion is a gay vampire, Gale is a walking atom bomb, Lae'zel is a space nazi, Wyll sold his soul to Satan, Karlach is a cyberdemon. Halsin is possibly evil, corrupted, insane, damaged as well but I wouldn't know I didn't talk to him. WOTR was also like that. What's going on with these games?

Autism.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

At this point western RPG parties are getting more weird than JRPG ones...What's going on with these games?

You can blame the lasting influence of the Codex's #1 Game of All Time.

But that aside, even if I read similar complains a lot on the official forum, I genuinely don't think the "excessive uniqueness" of BG3's companions is their major problem... After all Planescape Torment was entire built around the idea of a cast of extremely peculiar companions and they've been generally well-liked for years.

Yeah, but that was Torment. Everyone was supposed to have issues in that game. Seeing the same kind of characters in world-saving adventure feels kinda jarring. On the other hand this explanation makes sense. Torment is considered the best RPG out there, so why not ape it whenever possible?

 

[Fedora Master]

In EA there was this one goblin priestess that offered to mark with you the brand of her new god. It let you influence other marked characters and certain items were only fully functional if the wearer had the mark.
Obviously most people didn't get the brand because carrying the mark of the beast surely would have some consequences down the line. It didn't in EA but it was only act 1 and early in development.
So I just went searching what are the negative consequences in the whole game for getting a magical goblin tramp stamp.
It's nothing.
Nothing bad happens.

Same with putting more tadpoles into your brain because a nice illithid asked you to.

It feels like they planned consequences initially and then abandoned the idea altogether after testing.

Frankly it feels like they write one story, then they remade the game with another story in the middle of development. That's why it's unfinished in some areas...

It does. You can drill holes in your brain with countless alien worms and nothing bad happens.
Despite the game shouting urgency at you, at least in the beginning, nothing happens if you spam long rest, it's just more tedious and slower than in IE games or NWNs.
And if you let Volo, the famous schizo, poke your eye out? You get free permanent Detect Invisibility.

But god forbid you don't simp for tieflings.

Swen keeps saying that nothing was cut but he's a lying fuck.

Imagine if Larian had pushed something like the Hunger mechanic from MotB on their audience.

 

[Raghar]

In EA there was this one goblin priestess that offered to mark with you the brand of her new god. It let you influence other marked characters and certain items were only fully functional if the wearer had the mark.
Obviously most people didn't get the brand because carrying the mark of the beast surely would have some consequences down the line. It didn't in EA but it was only act 1 and early in development.
So I just went searching what are the negative consequences in the whole game for getting a magical goblin tramp stamp.
It's nothing.
Nothing bad happens.

Same with putting more tadpoles into your brain because a nice illithid asked you to.

It feels like they planned consequences initially and then abandoned the idea altogether after testing.

Frankly it feels like they write one story, then they remade the game with another story in the middle of development. That's why it's unfinished in some areas...

It does. You can drill holes in your brain with countless alien worms and nothing bad happens.
Despite the game shouting urgency at you, at least in the beginning, nothing happens if you spam long rest, it's just more tedious and slower than in IE games or NWNs.
And if you let Volo, the famous schizo, poke your eye out? You get free permanent Detect Invisibility.

But god forbid you don't simp for tieflings.

Swen keeps saying that nothing was cut but he's a lying fuck.

I think you don't get to do critical hits anymore if you get artificial eye.
At least we got funny scene when Volo lost his nerves and replaced sterile tool by a mining tool.

The question is why were these tieflings even allowed into the grove. Druid grove is serious mater, and random town near coast might work as well, if locals would allow immigrants. (Which they shouldn't.) Then again perhaps they would want to sell them to pirate slave traders, or to druagar. You know these coastal towns and their councilors.

Frankly it nearly looks like Larian got Merkel's "refugees good" brain bug. When Larian started to develop BG3? Was it during the pro-refugee German propaganda era or after?