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

EthanSental · Jun 8, 2019

Another YouTube video by Larian studios went live today, not much game talk but just a fun skit with Swen meeting with Nathan and Mike at WoTC.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 8, 2019

gyor said:
www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-will-combine-the-best-of-divinity-and-dandd-5th-edition/ "Party plannerTo save Baldur's Gate you'll need a party of heroes, and like a typical D&D party they're all the protagonists of their own stories, each with their own motivations and ambitions. When you make a character, you'll be filling in your character sheet, essentially, not just with abilities and skills, but backgrounds, personality traits and ideals. If you make a Mage, you'll be able to look at the last pages of your Players Handbook and find, for the most, exactly same spells. You'll have all the pieces you need to make a D&D adventurer.While he's not ready to confirm that it will feature in Baldur's Gate 3, Vincke's also interested in taking another crack at Original Sin 2's origin system, which gives players premade characters with unique backgrounds, quests and talents. They're better defined than their custom counterparts, and more connected to the world. "I thought the origin stories were a really good addition to the RPG genre, like we did them, and it would be strange if we went back on that," he says. "The ambitions for the origin stories in Original Sin 2 were actually higher than what we managed to do, though we did it well if you think about all that we fit in there, but there's so much more that can be done with it. I'd certainly be interested in exploring it." It sounds like unlike BG 1&2 and NWN1&2 there isn't a singlar protagonist, but rather the whole party is and that the background isn't singularly predetermined, but more like 5e backgrounds. Remember that they have 27 writers alone, with a dev staff of 200 and over 100 external devs. I think the 27 writers BG3 are more staff then most D&D games have in there entire company for employees. That is more writers then many TV shows! The old limitations of previous games do not apply. Do you think Obsidian had a staff that big, or Black Isle Studios, or Owlcat, FOW Studios, Harebrain, ect...

I would be very disappointed if they didn't take the path of "central character plus well rounded pre-generated companions". All the CRPGs that actually have engaging plots take that approach. And writing is where Larian concerns me. The gameplay in DoS2 is excellent, but the writing is twee and cheesy, far inferior to anything written by PreEA-Bioware, Obsidian/Black Isle, or even Beamdog. And writing is one occupation where more doesn't equal better.

Emirikol_Prime · Jun 8, 2019

DM Howard said:
I'm optimistic, but I think they should have just called it something else.

It's set in Baldur's Gate. The name is perfect.

Valetudo · Jun 8, 2019

Finally a good developer takes a shot at a modern dnd game. These guys know how to make a good RP videogame. Have a good sized staff to cover the workload and a real passion for dnd. Im looking forward to this one hopefully we hear a little more at E3.

Retreater · Jun 8, 2019

I come from a background of almost exclusively console RPGs - Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, etc. As a kid, I didn't have access to a PC powerful enough to run a game like Baldur's Gate.So I downloaded Divinity: Original Sin after reading glowing reviews. I literally could not find my way out of the first town. Everywhere I turned was a dead end, and I needed to find online walkthroughs to lead me through the confusing steps (that I would've never guessed on my own). [To be fair, I had similar issues with Torment: Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity. Though I did okay with Shadowrun.]I guess I'm just not good at reading the minds of game programmers who can't be as flexible as real life Dungeon Masters. I really wish I could get into these games, though.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 8, 2019

To be fair, that didn't happen in Baldur's Gate - you would be shot full of arrows in a random encounter with bandit archers long before you got stuck.

Mercador · Jun 8, 2019

gyor said:
QC= Quebec City?

Yeah, QC for Quebec

I guess it's more QA than anything but maybe small bits are made in here. There's a lot of game devs in Montreal but more and more are coming to Quebec City too (cheaper).

gyor · Jun 8, 2019

Valetudo said:
Finally a good developer takes a shot at a modern dnd game. These guys know how to make a good RP videogame. Have a good sized staff to cover the workload and a real passion for dnd. Im looking forward to this one hopefully we hear a little more at E3.

By D&D video game standards it's not good sized staff, it's absolutely huge. Their writing staff alone (27 writers) is bigger then the entire staffs for most D&D video games. For example if Neverwinter Online is any example, assuming a writer staff equal to Star Trek Online, it would be a writing staff of one, one full time writer, with none writing staff doing some of the writing as well.

300 Devs, 200 internal and around 100 external. That ia massive, shockingly massive by D&D standards.

To compare this is the staff size of Baldur's Gate 1.

Lead Design:

James Ohlen

Design:

Rob Bartel, Ross Gardner, Scott Greig, Matt Horvath, Lukas Kristjanson, Raymond Muzyka, James Ohlen

Lead Programming:

Scott Greig

Programming:

Daniel Morris

Additional Programming:

Mark Brockington, Mark Darrah, David Falkner, Debbie Greig, Gautam Karnik, Stan K. Melax, James Ohlen, Justin Smith, Cameron Tofer, Don Yakielashek

Graphics / 3D Programming:

Gilles Beauparlant

Music / Sound Programming:

John Winski

AI Programming:

Mark Darrah

Libraries / Utilities:

Don Yakielashek

Producer:

Raymond Muzyka

Lukas Kristjanson did most of the writing until Throne of Bhaal.

The entire staff of Devs on BG1 & 2 is smaller then the writing staff alone of BG3. Just to put things in perspective. This is why we shouldn't set our expectations based on what previous D&D games did or could do or their limits. It's why I think its at least possible that every playable 5e race up to now and every class and subclass will be in.

And I wouldn't even be surprised if out there stuff like flying and mounts and Vechiles and playable Spelljammers and Infernal War Machines will be in.

Even spells like Magificant Mansion, Mighty Fortress and Temple of the Gods might be in.

With a staff that size it hard to guess what makes it in.

Mercador · Jun 8, 2019

Retreater said:
I come from a background of almost exclusively console RPGs - Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, etc. As a kid, I didn't have access to a PC powerful enough to run a game like Baldur's Gate.So I downloaded Divinity: Original Sin after reading glowing reviews. I literally could not find my way out of the first town. Everywhere I turned was a dead end, and I needed to find online walkthroughs to lead me through the confusing steps (that I would've never guessed on my own). [To be fair, I had similar issues with Torment: Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity. Though I did okay with Shadowrun.]I guess I'm just not good at reading the minds of game programmers who can't be as flexible as real life Dungeon Masters. I really wish I could get into these games, though.

CRPG are more difficult than a JRPG (generally). I had some difficulties with the difficult start of D:OS1 myself (I was trying to min/maxing too much) but the second is way better start if you want to try it. Also, maybe those kind of games weren't for you, that's totally ok. As far as I liked CRPG back in the days, I don't have enough free time anymore to try a battle for 3-4 times.

Mercador · Jun 8, 2019

gyor said:
By D&D video game standards it's not good sized staff, it's absolutely huge. Their writing staff alone (27 writers) is bigger then the entire staffs for most D&D video games. For example if Neverwinter Online is any example, assuming a writer staff equal to Star Trek Online, it would be a writing staff of one, one full time writer, with none writing staff doing some of the writing as well.

300 Devs, 200 internal and around 100 external. That ia massive, shockingly massive by D&D standards.

I don't think all the studios are working on ONE game though. There's a semi RTS with D:OS 2 characters coming later this year called Fallen Heroes. And obviously, they are probably working on a D:OS3 as well.

If BG3 is coming this year, it will be a D:OS2 DnD 5E skin in my opinion, unless they are working from the ground up for this game (that means it's been years in development without any leaks). Who knows