WotC Baldur's Gate III Announced; Powered by D&D 5E

Dire Bare · Jun 11, 2019

Mercador said:
I don't expect seeing gameplay until next E3 now..

Release is currently scheduled for November 2019, this year!

It has been announced that BG3 will be available when Google Stadia launches, which is where I'm getting the November date from.

Mercador · Jun 11, 2019

Dire Bare said:
Release is currently scheduled for November 2019, this year!

It has been announced that BG3 will be available when Google Stadia launches, which is where I'm getting the November date from.

Yeah, that was I heard also but after the PC conference yesterday, it became clear that it won't be the case.

Azzy · Jun 11, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
I wonder if there are two kinds of people, with the difference illustrated by the announcement of a new game:

1) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and conclude that it's probably going to be terrible.

2) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and hope that it's going to be great.

I think there are more types of people:

3) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and then proceed to ignore them and have extreme, if no unrealistic, expectations.

4) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and are cautiously optimistic.

gyor · Jun 12, 2019

Azzy said:
I think there are more types of people:

3) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and then proceed to ignore them and have extreme, if no unrealistic, expectations.

4) Those who will look at the available evidence and precedents and are cautiously optimistic.

This really has no precedents, people keep comparing it other games, but the technology, Stadia,
the sheer number of developers, and combination of the FR 5e setting with a Larian has nothing comparable to it, not BG 1&2, not Pillars of Eternity 1&2, not Owlcat's Pathfinder: Kingmaker, not Planescape: Torment, not NWN1&2, not Tides of Torment: Numenera, not Swordcoast Legends, heck not even Larian's own Divinty: Original Sin 2, is comparable, because none had the kind of resources this game does, in fact COMBINED they would likely have less resources then what is being devoted to BG3. There is no precedence for a D&D CRPG with the kind of budget and resources that a top AAA game like the Witcher 3 or 2077 Cyberpunk gets, nothing like this before, all bets are off.

gyor · Jun 12, 2019

https://youtu.be/VJ-B4KF0H_w

They say they want it to feel like you have the PHB with you when you play.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 12, 2019

gyor said:
Your jumping to conclusions about the people Larian hired, you don't know if they are also rans or top teir new recruits or poached industry veterans yet.

Given that there are only about 30 top-tier game designers on the planet, it's quite easy to draw conclusions about the quality of the others...

You can also draw conclusions by looking at other games with big development teams. Putting quality aside, the main feature is a flat £50 price tag is not sufficient to pay for a large team. Such games are heavily dependent on microtransactions in order to pay for all those graduates. The other feature common to such games is a short development cycle - they are going to want to push that game out as quickly as possible in order to keep costs down. What it definitely isn't is the sign of a completionist approach.

I would feel far more confident that this game won't suck if I was told it had a small development team.

Azzy · Jun 12, 2019

gyor said:
This really has no precedents, people keep comparing it other games, but the technology, Stadia,
the sheer number of developers, and combination of the FR 5e setting with a Larian has nothing comparable to it, not BG 1&2, not Pillars of Eternity 1&2, not Owlcat's Pathfinder: Kingmaker, not Planescape: Torment, not NWN1&2, not Tides of Torment: Numenera, not Swordcoast Legends, heck not even Larian's own Divinty: Original Sin 2, is comparable, because none had the kind of resources this game does, in fact COMBINED they would likely have less resources then what is being devoted to BG3. There is no precedence for a D&D CRPG with the kind of budget and resources that a top AAA game like the Witcher 3 or 2077 Cyberpunk gets, nothing like this before, all bets are off.

None of that means that the game is going to be loaded with every single feature that you seem to think it will. Even if this were an AAA, it would still not likely have as much. That just too fantasical.

gyor · Jun 12, 2019

Azzy said:
None of that means that the game is going to be loaded with every single feature that you seem to think it will. Even if this were an AAA, it would still not likely have as much. That just too fantasical.

It might not have every feature I want, but I do think at minium it will have the PHB stuff.

I don't EXPECT everything in 5e to be in the game, I just know any of it a possibility.

The only thing I expect is all the PHB sub/races and sub/classes although some might be modified from P&P.

Honestly having all the Gods that are AL legal is more important to me then having every sub/class/sub/race from everybook in the game.

I do hope that at least some none PHB Player material is in the game at release, but if not there is always DLCs.

gyor · Jun 12, 2019

Azzy said:
None of that means that the game is going to be loaded with every single feature that you seem to think it will. Even if this were an AAA, it would still not likely have as much. That just too fantasical.

Paul Farquhar said:
Given that there are only about 30 top-tier game designers on the planet, it's quite easy to draw conclusions about the quality of the others...

You can also draw conclusions by looking at other games with big development teams. Putting quality aside, the main feature is a flat £50 price tag is not sufficient to pay for a large team. Such games are heavily dependent on microtransactions in order to pay for all those graduates. The other feature common to such games is a short development cycle - they are going to want to push that game out as quickly as possible in order to keep costs down. What it definitely isn't is the sign of a completionist approach.

I would feel far more confident that this game won't suck if I was told it had a small development team.

I guess we will see, although we know they are not forcing it out early.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 12, 2019

gyor said:
It might not have every feature I want, but I do think at minium it will have the PHB stuff.

They have already said they won't have everything from the PHB - you quoted it yourself.

Honestly having all the Gods that are AL legal is more important to me then having every sub/class/sub/race from everybook in the game.

The original Baldur's Gate didn't have any gods as part of character creation. NWN2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker are the only games I know to feature deity selection as part of character creation.