I guess I won’t be working for an hour…
1 Like
D:OS with a Forgotten Realms paintjob. Might be decent enough and will likely have a better ruleset dan D:OS2, but calling it Baldur’s Gate 3 is just a blatant nostalgia cash grab.
I reserve judgement.
Tech moves on, i dont think they could realistically launch an infinity engine game in 2020. If the story is strong (which was always the BG series strong point) then it doesn’t matter whether it is the Divinity Sin series engine with a paint-job IMHO.
It’s not about tech, it’s about using the pedigree of a classic to make a game that has absolutely nothing, except for the general setting, in common with said game. (and given the changes in the Forgotten Realms since then, that’s up for debate as well)
I expected such a cash grab eventually, not all publishers have the money, and common sense, of Valve in that respect (and yes, I refer to Half Life (2, Episode) 3 here). However, I’m sorely disappointed that it was Larian that decided to go along with it.
If they’d have called it Baldur’s Gate: SomethingNew, then that’d have been fine and set expectations accordingly. It is a city, after all. However, they decided there was more money to be made by implying a continuation of the series, which it blatantly isn’t (and hardly can be since, if I’m not very mistaken, canonically the Bhaalspawn is dead)
Might it turn out decent? It might, D:OS was mostly held back by it’s ruleset being … not the greatest, so using something established might be a good thing for Larian.
However, do not forget that Baldur’s Gate 2 somehow managed to take existing things, and make an extremely good cocktail out of it. The game didn’t do anything particularly new, but it blended everything perfectly (insofar there is such a thing), which is why it is so lauded.
And clearly, not even the people that created the originals understood what made the game so great as they’ve failed to recreate that magic on multiple occasions now. The only game that even came anywhere near would have been the first Dragon Age (which also proved that RTwP could be made to work in a more modern game), but instead of perfecting that formula BioWare went full derp.
EDITS: how many typos can I make in one post? Geez.
Well as per the article it is set in the same game world a hundred years later in a scenario where the god of murder did have a significant impact on various locations…
Of course its a cash grab to some extent - games cost money to make. Especially today - they cost a lot more to make than games did back when BG1/BG2 were released. But i think there’s a genuine desire among the community for a next generation game in the series. Will Larian be able to live up to the name? Who knows. I’ve heard good things; although despite owning D:OS and D:OS2 i just didn’t get hooked by the story in either of them yet. To be fair i haven’t been playing much other than Witcher 3 lately though so my time has been limited… But i hear others really enjoyed them.
So like i said, i reserve judgement. Maybe BG3 will be more accessible to me because it is set in the same game world i am familiar with.
I think you’ll find that a lot of the original team who worked on BG/BG2 aren’t with Bioware any more. Hell, Bioware isn’t Bioware any more… and even if they were, as above the economics of game development, and getting funding for a AAA title today are very different from the late 90s when BG1/BG2 were developed.
I also agree with your sentiments regarding DA:O being the best in the series.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m prepared to give it a shot and not going to write it off purely because its a “cash grab”. 
Will it be different from the original series? Sure. Doesn’t mean it won’t be good.
If you want the same thing as the original series… re play the originals 
I was not referring to BioWare either…and as I said, the mechanical changes don’t bother me (though I do take offense with the statement of RTwP being outdated, that nobody has managed to do it properly since DA:O doesn’t make it bad).
Given that you keep going on about the technological differences it does seems to me as if you never played the originals so you are not getting what I’m saying, or I’m just doing a bad job at explaining, so let me try again.
The best comparison I can come up with right now is that Baldur’s Gate games are like the Star Wars films (strong narrative connection, story about Skywalker) while most other game series are more like the Star Trek films (same universe, references to other stories, but no strong connection, may or may not have similar characters).
What Larian is doing now is taking Rogue One and calling it Episode VI. Does that make it necessarily a bad film? Nope. Does it make sense as Episode VI? Nope. Would people be annoyed if they went to the theatre for Episode VI and got Rogue One instead, and found out the story they were expecting to be continued wasn’t? Most likely.
Or alternatively, it’s like if Valve had called Half Life: Alyx Half Life 3 instead.
It literally has nothing to do with the game being “different”. Hell, Fallout 3 had it’s issues, but Fallout: NV proved that you can make a perfectly fine Fallout game in Bethesda’s engine, but Fallout falls under the “Star Trek” category when narrative continuity is concerned.
Mate… i spent hundreds/>1000 hours on the originals. I own original boxed copies of both plus multiple electronic copies on various platforms.
I’m going on about the tech differences because if you are a company trying to get investment for a AAA game in this decade you won’t be able to re-create the originals.
As to whether or not the story is continuous… it’s irrelevant (to me).
The game is set in the Baldur’s Gate area and has some links (however tenuous) to the prior game’s world.
However: whatever the game is called is irrelevant to me. I only care if it is a good game. I don’t think the name has any bearing on that.
Hence personally I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If any developer is likely to put out something decent, Larian are one of those likely to do so.
Getting hung up on whether or not it is “worthy of the name” or whatever is something you can either deal with or you can’t. Personally, i think the fact that it is in the Forgotten Realms setting, in that area, with references to the history of the previous games in the game world is enough to justify the use of the name. YMMV.
edit:
if we want to bitch about use of the Baldurs Gate name and cash grabs… see the playstation version of “Baldurs Gate”
current playthrough on the enhanced edition (not installed on this machine i’m currently using)
My apologies, while we clearly won’t be agreeing I do hope my explanation at least made it clear where I’m coming from.
Which would be a daft thing to do. Though I do wish someone™ would pick up where Dragon Age: Origins (imho the spiritual Baldur’s Gate 3) left off.
This is where we disagree, and clearly will just have to agree to disagree.
With an external ruleset they might be able to put out a decent game.
The change to pure turn based is disappointing though, as you know, Baldur’s Gate 1/2 were basically turn based under the hood, and could be made pretty much turn based with all the pause settings.
Then again, they didn’t quite get turn based down with Original Sin, so maybe best they don’t try their had at RTwP.
It’s mostly a matter of setting expectations. Releasing Half Life 3 sets rather different expectations than releasing Half Life: Alyx. It is the same in this case.
If VAG puts out what is basically a Skoda but with a Lamborghini badge they can explain it’s actually a Skoda all they want but people will still judge it as if it were a Lamborghini. Not quite sure why we’re suddenly treating software differently.
Yes, and, per my point, it’s not called Baldur’s Gate 3 
I made the mistake of trying to play through Baldur’s Gate 1 first (to try that new expansion), so I didn’t get particularly far. While BG2 has aged pretty well, BG1 hasn’t been quite so lucky (also low level AD&D…)
Yes.
BG3 is looking excellent.
As an aside, if you like those games, I would suggest Wasteland 2 and Pathfinder Kingmaker as well. Very excellent.
1 Like
Sadly, I don’t even know how to start this game. I start it all the time trying to get into it but I can’t even damage enemies and get completely wiped in the first encounter.
Either I’m missing something or the difficulty is insane.
I almost bought this today – What’s this I hear about a timer? Some people are saying you can’t do side quests because “you’ll lose the game”?
YES
So excited for turn-based play
1 Like
There is a tutorial mission and you must explore the beginning base heavily before going out or you will die pretty quick.
The game has a world timer similar to fallout but it’s pretty long. I haven’t beaten this yet, it’s very difficult and I don’t have a lot of time for games these days, but it’s a joy for me to just hop in and play real Pathfinder rules with a BG style game.
2 Likes