Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Barbarian]

What saves this game is actually the reactivity. Nevermind that quests and characters are retarded, that they react to the player and can be solved in several ways is very entertaining.

Also the game reacting to the effects of spells and abilities was something never actually implemented before I think.

Spoiler

Such as when the goblin priestess tries to daterape you - if you are in on the happenings and cast silence on her before attacking, she can't call the guards.

You can also actually use the charm/friends/thaumathurgy and other such spells in dialogue - something which every single D&D game before ignored even though that is how the spells are used in the tabletop game.

 

[Lagole Gon]

About ULTRA EPICNESS LEVEL ONE meme - BG3 writing is indeed shit, but it seems to me most rpgs from the last 20 years or so suffer from some level of this.

Specially on the "main character is an epic pure and unique snowflake", which isn't necessarily bad. Both KOTOR games and Torment suffer from this, for instance.

Then there are the ones like the recent pathfinder games, where you begin as a level one chump but end the game literally as an immortal and invincible godlike figure.

ITT, these are just rpg tropes that are cemented on the genre. Larian's writing is bad out of its own merit, not because it embraces said tropes.

I don't think anybody here thinks "main character is special" is always bad.
Torment gives you an immortal guy with an amnesia and past personalities:
- It spends the entire game exploring this idea. And it's some good stuff.
- You deal with shit left by past incarnations. People you met, stuff you left behind, even traps you left for yourself.
- You learn more and more about yourself, the amnesia aspect is an integral part of the story, not some cheap hook.

What exactly BG3 does with "you have a tadpole in your brain" hook?
- Does it explore some kind of "race against the clock"? Nope. They removed it in rewrites.
- Absorbing illithid tadpoles gives you powers (for some reason). Does it have any consequences in the story? Nope, they removed it in the rewrites.
- Does it explore some kind of "would you deal with the devil to solve this problem" scenario. Nope. They removed it in rewrites.
- Do they explore the alien horror of illithids in the same way Torment explores immortality and past incarnations? Nope, BG3 does everything to undermine it. It has fookin' illithid shirtless seduction in it, FFS. The player has an option to become a good illithid and everything about it is half-arsed. Your love interest will note even voice an opinion when you consider becoming a squid.
On the top of that, you can have a second half-arsed "your special" story, if one is not enough.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

All capeshit is necessarily bad because the overwhelming message of those movies and books is that Hubris is Good, Actually, and Humans Deserve To Be Like Gods.

We must have seen different movies, all I see is people in spandex kicking the shit out of each other. Back in the day, it was Hercules or Siegfried or any other hero. Capes are just modern variants of that

Totally different from today's slop. People should play TOEE and read Fjodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski after coming back from 12-hour-shift at the assembly line.

Lets not assume every codexer has a job or a life, some of them are fully dedicated to deep thinking all day long

That's just how elite works. We plebs slave away for the jewish overlords while the monocled academics here slog through BG3 to dissect it's bad writing. I'm thankful.

 

[Smashing Axe]

What saves this game is actually the reactivity. Nevermind that quests and characters are retarded, that they react to the player and can be solved in several ways is very entertaining.

Also the game reacting to the effects of spells and abilities was something never actually implemented before I think.

Spoiler

Such as when the goblin priestess tries to daterape you - if you are in on the happenings and cast silence on her before attacking, she can't call the guards.

You can also actually use the charm/friends/thaumathurgy and other such spells in dialogue - something which every single D&D game before ignored even though that is how the spells are used in the tabletop game.

Other games have flirted with spells being used in dialog before but never to the same degree. Neverwinter Nights expansion Shadows of Undrentide had a few meager charm person dialog options. Arcanum had speak with dead.

 

[Lagole Gon]

You can also actually use the charm/friends/thaumathurgy and other such spells in dialogue - something which every single D&D game before ignored even though that is how the spells are used in the tabletop game.

BG1 has charm dialogues.

 

[copebot]

About ULTRA EPICNESS LEVEL ONE meme - BG3 writing is indeed shit, but it seems to me most rpgs from the last 20 years or so suffer from some level of this.

Specially on the "main character is an epic pure and unique snowflake", which isn't necessarily bad. Both KOTOR games and Torment suffer from this, for instance.

Then there are the ones like the recent pathfinder games, where you begin as a level one chump but end the game literally as an immortal and invincible godlike figure.

ITT, these are just rpg tropes that are cemented on the genre. Larian's writing is bad out of its own merit, not because it embraces said tropes.

I don't think anybody here thinks "main character is special" is always bad.
Torment gives you an immortal guy with an amnesia and past personalities:
- It spends the entire game exploring this idea. And it's some good stuff.
- You deal with shit left by past incarnations. People you met, stuff you left behind, even traps you left for yourself.
- You learn more and more about yourself, the amnesia aspect is an integral part of the story, not some cheap hook.

What exactly BG3 does with "you have a tadpole in your brain" hook?
- Does it explore some kind of "race against the clock"? Nope. They removed it in rewrites.
- Absorbing illithid tadpoles gives you powers (for some reason). Does it have any consequences in the story? Nope, they removed it in the rewrites.
- Does it explore some kind of "would you deal with the devil to solve this problem" scenario. Nope. They removed it in rewrites.
- Do they explore the alien horror of illithids in the same way Torment explores immortality and past incarnations? Nope, BG3 does everything to undermine it. It has fookin' illithid shirtless seduction in it, FFS. The player has an option to become a good illithid and everything about it is half-arsed. Your love interest will note even voice an opinion when you consider becoming a squid.
On the top of that, you can have a second half-arsed "your special" story, if one is not enough.

Right, in Torment, the enemy is... yourself, and it's about overcoming or accepting your situation. That's another game with lots of Special Snowflake supporting characters, but every one of them ties in to the main conflict of the story in some way without outshining the main character. In BG3, every supporting character has a stronger (if dumber) plot than the main character (perhaps owing to the Larian structure in which the supporting characters can be main characters if the player decides they should be).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Like what? I've been trying to get people to name some to have a try if they're really THAT good and not retarded capeshit

Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns".

 

[Barbarian]

You can also actually use the charm/friends/thaumathurgy and other such spells in dialogue - something which every single D&D game before ignored even though that is how the spells are used in the tabletop game.

BG1 has charm dialogues.

I sincerely don't remember ever getting them. BG2 and TOB don't have them I assume.

Barely any dialogue even acknowledged your class, race or attributes. Barely any checks as well. Games were very barebones in that department.

I remember Torment having some uses for "friends" spell but was indirect(to pass some charisma checks - you cast it before conversation).

 

[Orud]

I've heard this plight of "I wish we weren't the chosen one for once" too many times already. While it sounds like an attractive proposition, my experiences have learned me that it's the opposite.

An 'attractive' proposition like that will be used, more often than not, to dump absolute trash on you. "But at least it's different" is used as an excuse and somehow is supposed to make up for its lack of quality.

I'll take good written pulp over the absolute trash some people expect you to like "because it's different". Merits, not promises.

 

[Barbarian]

The whole ilithid plot is retarded. Really wish they had gone for something else.

The "absolute" and "dead 3" could have made for a good center plot for instance and would have tied nicely to the original games. Instead it is some retarded and convoluted shit which makes no sense.

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

Spoiler

for Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane to go along with some tadpole spreading cult devised by freaking mindflayers. Like lul guys - giving in to an elder brain and everybody becoming a squid sounds like a great idea for 3 former deities trying to regain divinity!

 

[Sunri]

The whole ilithid plot is retarded. Really wish they had gone for something else.

The "absolute" and "dead 3" could have made for a good center plot for instance and would have tied nicely to the original games. Instead it is some retarded and convoluted shit which makes no sense.

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

Spoiler

for Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane to go along with some tadpole spreading cult devised by freaking mindflayers. Like lul guys - giving in to an elder brain and everybody becoming a squid sounds like a great idea for 3 former deities trying to regain divinity!

What is so hard to understand?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Pulp is literally slop

decline started with the pulps.

Fucking Pulp

 

[Grauken]

Poor Grym Guardian can't defend against my cheese

 

[Desiderius]

Silence is (oddly) a Ritual so it can be used extensively outside combat. Use it on crumbling wall above temple entrance to avoid waking passed out gobs etc.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Poor Grym Guardian can't defend against my cheese

...

You are Freddie Mercury?

 

[Barbarian]

The whole ilithid plot is retarded. Really wish they had gone for something else.

The "absolute" and "dead 3" could have made for a good center plot for instance and would have tied nicely to the original games. Instead it is some retarded and convoluted shit which makes no sense.

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

Spoiler

for Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane to go along with some tadpole spreading cult devised by freaking mindflayers. Like lul guys - giving in to an elder brain and everybody becoming a squid sounds like a great idea for 3 former deities trying to regain divinity!

What is so hard to understand?

That epilogue isn't in the game.

 

[Sunri]

The whole ilithid plot is retarded. Really wish they had gone for something else.

The "absolute" and "dead 3" could have made for a good center plot for instance and would have tied nicely to the original games. Instead it is some retarded and convoluted shit which makes no sense.

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

Spoiler

for Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane to go along with some tadpole spreading cult devised by freaking mindflayers. Like lul guys - giving in to an elder brain and everybody becoming a squid sounds like a great idea for 3 former deities trying to regain divinity!

What is so hard to understand?

That epilogue isn't in the game.

It is i got it in the game lmao

 

[Larianshill]

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

The way I understand it is,

Spoiler

The cult of the Absolute wasn't thought up by the mind flayers, it was invented by the chosen of the Dead Three. The purpose of the tadpoles is to mostly control key figures in various societies (shamans of goblin tribes, gnoll warleaders, duke Ravengard) to control as much people as possible, the rest of the true souls were cannon fodder for the coming wars of conquest. The mind flayers and the true souls are still being controlled by the Absolute, but the Absolute is enslaved by the Dead Three. I don't think the Dead Three ever intended to go through with the Grand Design, the mindflayers were just the means to an end.
In the end, the elder brain manages to break free and rerail everything back to the original goal - the Grand Design.

 

[Black]

Why are you overthinking this shit?

He doesn't understand fun

BG2 is a game I haven't played in like 15 years, but if I recall wasn't it a similar hodpodge of every DnD trope out there? From illithids, to beholders, drow, githyanki and the planes?

Yes but not in the first 5 minutes.

Don't you literally meet a djinn in BG2's tutorial dungeon?

Yeah, a djinn in the sequel, when you already start out as a seasoned adventurer.
BG3 starts with a naughty loid in hell. And then drops to regular goblins.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

The way I understand it is,

Spoiler

The cult of the Absolute wasn't thought up by the mind flayers, it was invented by the chosen of the Dead Three. The purpose of the tadpoles is to mostly control key figures in various societies (shamans of goblin tribes, gnoll warleaders, duke Ravengard) to control as much people as possible, the rest of the true souls were cannon fodder for the coming wars of conquest. The mind flayers and the true souls are still being controlled by the Absolute, but the Absolute is enslaved by the Dead Three. I don't think the Dead Three ever intended to go through with the Grand Design, the mindflayers were just the means to an end.
In the end, the elder brain manages to break free and rerail everything back to the original goal - the Grand Design.

"Velociraptors would make for fantastic military assets".

 

[Desiderius]

About the party:

Even gheys aren't this cringe. Autism seems to express itself in sexual relations as obliviousness to sexual polarity. So incel dorks endlessly strike out trying to act like the wives/gfs they're seeking (unwittingly turning off the women they're trying to pursue by doing so). This is familiar enough to everyone but the dorks, the women who despise them, the parents who encourage them to do this, and whoever made it a societal norm.

What is less obvious is how this plays out on the female side (cough, Karlack, cough). She acts like the sexy carefree (fuck yeah!) bastard she's seeking signaling to men that she's a cheap lay but a poor long-term investment, so they "let" her have "her" (it makes most women acting like this miserable to achieve that which they've been taught to seek) way with them and don't bother with anything but cheesy pick-up lines because that's all it takes to get what they want, and more to the point don't (long-term attachment to a slut). The male characters (outside Astarion) aren't gay, you're playing a slut* simulator.

It's the gheymergate journo dream cum to fruition. Female lead writers were a mistake.

* - This is where Gale's fuck or kill option they had to modify comes from. Marry was always off the table.

 

[Barbarian]

The whole ilithid plot is retarded. Really wish they had gone for something else.

The "absolute" and "dead 3" could have made for a good center plot for instance and would have tied nicely to the original games. Instead it is some retarded and convoluted shit which makes no sense.

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

Spoiler

for Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane to go along with some tadpole spreading cult devised by freaking mindflayers. Like lul guys - giving in to an elder brain and everybody becoming a squid sounds like a great idea for 3 former deities trying to regain divinity!

What is so hard to understand?

That epilogue isn't in the game.

It is i got it in the game lmao

Epilogue literally isn't in the game. It is one of the most frequent complains everywhere. Unless they shadow implemented it in the last patch and few are award of it.

 

[Desiderius]

I still actually don't understand what was the motivation

The way I understand it is,

Spoiler

The cult of the Absolute wasn't thought up by the mind flayers, it was invented by the chosen of the Dead Three. The purpose of the tadpoles is to mostly control key figures in various societies (shamans of goblin tribes, gnoll warleaders, duke Ravengard) to control as much people as possible, the rest of the true souls were cannon fodder for the coming wars of conquest. The mind flayers and the true souls are still being controlled by the Absolute, but the Absolute is enslaved by the Dead Three. I don't think the Dead Three ever intended to go through with the Grand Design, the mindflayers were just the means to an end.
In the end, the elder brain manages to break free and rerail everything back to the original goal - the Grand Design.

Egregore ontology probably a little on the ambitious side for a lvl 1-12 adventure with a lead writer stuck on her 7th grade personal hang-ups.

 

[PapaPetro]

Karlach is not a demon/devil but tiefling (they were completely gutted in 5e or 4e)

Now you mention it, there's tieflings everywhere in the game; I think they outnumber humans.
Did Baldur's Gate become Sigil or something after the Second Sundering?

This is related to the Decent into Avernus module where Eltruel was dragged to Avernus by Zariel (this was a level 1-13 adventure).
Most of the tieflings you encounter in the game are the result of this event. They were then driven out of the city.
BG3 starts a few weeks after the end of the module.

Did Baldur's Gate become Sigil or something after the Second Sundering?

It's just that setting of BG3. It happens pretty much right after the Descent into Avernus module, which saw the capital of Elturel, a city with a large tiefling population, dragged into hell. Some shit happened, the city came back into the material plane, and Tieflings either fled Elturel in order to not be dragged into hell with it, or were cast out by the non-Tiefling population who blamed the Tieflings for what happened once it returned. Either way, they're basically trying to make their way to Baldur's Gate in the hopes of starting fresh, and it's the reason why basically none of them are warriors or fighters either. The one with actual combat skills would've fought in Avernus.

I guess I'll have to take a look at Descent into Avernus for some extra context.
I enjoyed Out of the Abyss.

Here for you my friend...


Got you covered!

The plot seems real similar to A Paladin in Hell from the 1998;
with the town that gets sucked into Hell that you have to free, and infernal machines/Demonwing for travel...

I like how I just casually post how to stash/share pdfs as gifs in imgur and you guys completely just miss it multiple times.
This is an Easter Egg btw.
I've hid many of these throughout history...

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Why are you overthinking this shit?

He doesn't understand fun

BG2 is a game I haven't played in like 15 years, but if I recall wasn't it a similar hodpodge of every DnD trope out there? From illithids, to beholders, drow, githyanki and the planes?

Yes but not in the first 5 minutes.

Don't you literally meet a djinn in BG2's tutorial dungeon?

Yeah, a djinn in the sequel, when you already start out as a seasoned adventurer.
BG3 starts with a naughty loid in hell. And then drops to regular goblins.

What you guys not understand is this: Game is BG3. It's the third entry to a series that is known for its epicness in scale. Yes, here you start at level 1 but D&D 5e is different to fucking AD&D and tackles things differently. Look at the 5e modules, you go against dragons as soon as the starter set begins.
Also nobody would care as much for BG3 if the game would send you rat killing again. Or god forbid, do the NWN2 slogfest again. This game starts with a bang. To catch the audience. To show them, what's in store.

After that you pretty much deal with gobbos, worgs, gnolls and skellies in the wilderness. Pretty basic low level shit huh? Do you guys even know the concept of fun? Like, no wonder that all these "prestigious" games people wank each others cocks around here are only played by hundreds of people instead of millions.
Because they are fucking boring. All these arguments fall apart once you strip them of the sophism. Touch some grass, I beg you.