D&D 5E New Baldur's Gate 3 Video

[EzekielRaiden]

I must have missed the earlier post - that is good to hear.

Here's the link for the renders in question. As I said then, I actually find them quite handsome, and since I'm sure you know that I'm a dragonborn fanboy, I hope that carries at least a little weight, hah.

Someone who's been working on a customization-expander mod (which you have taught me the rather significant need for!) found them. They were fishing around inside the files for the most recent update ("patch 8" which came out in...July, I think?) We're due to get the next Early Access update sometime soon, as an official tweet from Dec 7 claimed that "patch 9" would be arriving Soon™.

The dialogue lines were discovered by someone who edited their save file so that, despite being graphically human, their character had the dragonborn (or half-orc) tag, activating voice lines from various NPCs. One was actually quite interesting, the aforementioned "blood of dragons flows in your veins" stuff, coming from the Githyanki party member discussing Vlaakith's red dragons gifted "from Tiamat herself." The overall "my queen has red dragon servants!" is a universal thing, but the NPC has different responses to a dragonborn who inquires--and even mentions that the githyanki might consider arranging a similarly rewarding exchange with the PC as the one they have with the red dragons. Between the two, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic, whereas I had been pretty bummed before at the total lack of info.

I mean, this is kind of true, but it's also kind of not true.

I think I may have spoken unclearly. The person I was speaking to had said the following.

But I really don't get Larian. As we've seen in other games, 5e is a straightforward system with mechanics that can translate well to video game format. So with the BG franchise bagged, why on earth have they made it into DOS2 with a D&D skin? Just build from scratch on the simple 5e mechanics with lots and lots of char choices, and spend the resources on a really long and involved story that can carry the BG heritage.

The specific argument being: Multiple other games have made direct (or as close as possible to direct) translations of 5e rules to video game mechanics, and have done so successfully both in terms of fidelity to the TTRPG rules and in terms of being a successful gaming product. As you can see from the other phrasing ("why on earth have they made it into DOS2 with a D&D skin?"), their argument is clearly painting this as a situation where multiple video games have been made by directly and simply implementing 5e's own rules as-is, such that it would be a major time and resource savings to just do things this way, and should be something Larian would already know well. Hence, their choice to not do this is strange, bordering on ridiculous, unless some ulterior motive applies.

My response is...none of the above is true. There's been one game that did this, and while it was a fair success it has its own wrinkles (and has a widely-panned story.) Further, that one game has plenty of issues that might have turned Larian off from following that pattern. Yet further, that game only started getting funding after BG3 was announced, not before, meaning Larian had no evidence that such an approach was worthwhile anyway. Hence I said there is no widespread precedent, as strongly implied by the original message. Larian made a smart choice for its resources and what products existed at the time, and did not suddenly change directions halfway through development simply because one single product did things a different way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wouldn't say that myself

I've played in tabletop games where the goliath charged into a cabin full of pirates, hefted the table they where sitting round onto his shoulders, and spun around, sending the pirates flying. I've also played in games where everything snaps to the grid and only actions specifically covered in the rules are permissible.

Both BG3 and Solasta do a good job in representing very different playstyles of real tabletop D&D.

More so than the original Baldur's Gate, with it's real time with pause mechanics, which can't work outside a computer.

Personally I take this as "We're going to wait until the game releases to drop the bomb that there will be no Dragonborn in the game, even as NPCs", but perhaps I am too cynical.

This sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything rational. Although I would add that the reason dragonborn are removed from the game is Larian based them on scans of the real lizard rulers of the world.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm done with BG3 until I can build my whole party without having to use pre-made companions.

But in actual D&D, you only create one character, not the whole party. In these types of game the computer isn't just trying to be the dungeon master, it's also trying to be the other players. Which can explain why the BG3 companions are so annoying! Pick up group simulator.

In the Icewind Dale games and Solasta you create the whole party, but that's not much like tabletop D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Which is almost unheard-of in actual CRPGs

Solasta doesn't have them, the Owlcat Pathfinder games don't have them, the DOS games don't have them, they where a disaster in Cyberpunk 2077. Really, I don't think it matters in a single player game. How much time do you spend looking at your character's face anyway? How much time do you spend looking at your own face?

All the important NPCs have unique faces.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Solasta doesn't have them, the Owlcat Pathfinder games don't have them, the DOS games don't have them, they where a disaster in Cyberpunk 2077. Really, I don't think it matters in a single player game. How much time do you spend looking at your character's face anyway? How much time do you spend looking at your own face?

All the important NPCs have unique faces.

Seriously. That's a part of these CRPGs that I always blaze right past. Create the way you look? You never even see yourself in most games. Even if you did, what does it matter? Just tell me how I look so I can report for duty that much more quickly.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Here's the link for the renders in question. As I said then, I actually find them quite handsome, and since I'm sure you know that I'm a dragonborn fanboy, I hope that carries at least a little weight, hah.

Someone who's been working on a customization-expander mod (which you have taught me the rather significant need for!) found them. They were fishing around inside the files for the most recent update ("patch 8" which came out in...July, I think?) We're due to get the next Early Access update sometime soon, as an official tweet from Dec 7 claimed that "patch 9" would be arriving Soon™.

The dialogue lines were discovered by someone who edited their save file so that, despite being graphically human, their character had the dragonborn (or half-orc) tag, activating voice lines from various NPCs. One was actually quite interesting, the aforementioned "blood of dragons flows in your veins" stuff, coming from the Githyanki party member discussing Vlaakith's red dragons gifted "from Tiamat herself." The overall "my queen has red dragon servants!" is a universal thing, but the NPC has different responses to a dragonborn who inquires--and even mentions that the githyanki might consider arranging a similarly rewarding exchange with the PC as the one they have with the red dragons. Between the two, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic, whereas I had been pretty bummed before at the total lack of info.


I think I may have spoken unclearly. The person I was speaking to had said the following.

The specific argument being: Multiple other games have made direct (or as close as possible to direct) translations of 5e rules to video game mechanics, and have done so successfully both in terms of fidelity to the TTRPG rules and in terms of being a successful gaming product. As you can see from the other phrasing ("why on earth have they made it into DOS2 with a D&D skin?"), their argument is clearly painting this as a situation where multiple video games have been made by directly and simply implementing 5e's own rules as-is, such that it would be a major time and resource savings to just do things this way, and should be something Larian would already know well. Hence, their choice to not do this is strange, bordering on ridiculous, unless some ulterior motive applies.

My response is...none of the above is true. There's been one game that did this, and while it was a fair success it has its own wrinkles (and has a widely-panned story.) Further, that one game has plenty of issues that might have turned Larian off from following that pattern. Yet further, that game only started getting funding after BG3 was announced, not before, meaning Larian had no evidence that such an approach was worthwhile anyway. Hence I said there is no widespread precedent, as strongly implied by the original message. Larian made a smart choice for its resources and what products existed at the time, and did not suddenly change directions halfway through development simply because one single product did things a different way.

Yes, since you find that my plural s is worth so many letters and semantic nitpicking to contradict, you are right, there is one game. With BG3 on the horizon I guess not many studios found it worth to take the market fight.

But as you seem to have trouble extracting my point, I'll try to be more clear. A studio managed to create a game with faithful 5e mechanics on a coffee budget (and for those who have a problem with interpretive reading and similes, that is a metaphor for a small budget). And Larian choose to make BG3 with too many DOS2 mechanics in my personal opinion, which for me means that it doesn't feel like a Baldurs Gate game.

As I wrote: will I get the game? Yes, probably, if it ever get out of development. Will it be fun, massive in size, with a great story and meaningful choices? I'm certain of it. Will it be a worthy successor of Baldurs Gate 1 and 2? No, not for me.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How much time do you spend looking at your character's face anyway? How much time do you spend looking at your own face?

In BG3? An absolute ton, because of the way they've done the camerawork in a lot of the conversations, and because the camera is naturally closer-in than before! It's not an accident and I'm not "being random" or something lol.

More than any other modern CRPG I can think of, except maybe Bioware, but I think it's actually more than any Dragon Age game. This is incredibly easy to see just playing through the start of the demo, even, and it continues throughout available act 1. There are a huge number of close-up reaction shots on the PC particularly, which is not something commonly seen in this kind of game, I think because it's easy to get wrong - and BG3 absolutely gets it wrong with terrible mime-like expressions be slapped on the PC's face at times.

This frequent showing of the PC and reaction shots and so on is a design decision on Larian's part.

And all the other games you list, they don't do that.

Solasta - an appalling zero-style visual mess, and being cheap is no excuse, plenty of cheap games have tons of style - this is a game so profoundly visually bad even the basic colour choices are bad (the UI isn't too awful though). But you don't even have a central character, you have a party, who are amazingly badly written and say terrible clunky things, and everyone looks absolutely awful in every, sadly-frequent cutscene. It's just a disaster. Bringing that up to defend this is er... not helpful to your case lol.

Owlcat's games use 2D artwork for conversations, instead of 3D art. You can supply your own. So yes it makes sense there. What's funny is, they have more options than Larian does! But the models aren't as high-poly for sure.

Neither DOS game does the frequent showing of the PC thing. Their conversations take a similar approach to Owlcat's games, where you just see a fixed portrait for the character talking and stays zoomed out in a fixed position. It doesn't zoom in and use the 3D world like a Bioware game in a lot of them, whereas BG3 does.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person game (including in most or all cutscenes) and you can literally only see yourself in special mirrors (not even normal reflective surfaces, not even with ray-tracing reflections on), zoomed out whilst driving a vehicle (optionally) or in photo mode. Also your "they where a disaster in Cyberpunk 2077" comment is pretty strange. That's not some well-agreed opinion like "2077 was extremely buggy on release" would be. Of all the critiques of 2077, I've never heard that one before, and it doesn't make any sense to me, having played 2077 extensively. But the main issue is, you don't really see your character much at all, because the game is very dedicated to being first-person.

So none of those make sense as comparison points. The comparison points that are actually are similar in presentation are Bioware's games, which do, imho, a considerably better job (for their era) with this.

 

[Scribe]

So it was bugging me, and I want a game to play over the holiday so reinstalled it and ran through the options.

Looking at the males, its not as bad as I thought. I do wish Elves looked different, but its actually decent.

Humans - Human.
High Elf - This, just looks Human, with Ears. A more "Chad" jawline?
Tiefling - Not Human
Gith - Not Human
Dwarf - OK, Dwarf Male works.
Half-Elf - Honestly, looks more 'Elf' than the Elf...
Halfling - Variously looks likes my father-in-law, or EITHER of my neighbors. I dont know why but I find that funny...
Gnome - Works.
Drow? I mean..

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Yes, since you find that my plural s is worth so many letters and semantic nitpicking to contradict, you are right, there is one game. With BG3 on the horizon I guess not many studios found it worth to take the market fight.

A studio managed to create a game with faithful 5e mechanics on a coffee budget (and for those who have a problem with interpretive reading and similes, that is a metaphor for a small budget).

Except the game, as true to 5E as the combat is, has zero depth. Not evenly remotely comparable to any of the Infinity Engine games. That's what a coffee budget buys you... you get what you pay for (to reference a point I made to you earlier). Maybe effort spent on a creative director, writers, etc. is where the BG3 time and money budget is going? Do you think that might be the difference between a Solasta and a BG3?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

you have a party, who are amazingly badly written and say terrible clunky things

What I want to know is how they know what donkey piss tastes like?

Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person game (including in most or all cutscenes) and you can literally only see yourself in special mirrors (not even normal reflective surfaces, not even with ray-tracing reflections on), zoomed out whilst driving a vehicle (optionally) or in photo mode.

Plus cut scenes, there are plenty of them on the main quest path.

2077 was extremely buggy on release

And some of those bugs were to do with the character customisation sliders. Like genitals clipping through clothing.

How many games can you name that are actually better because you can adjust your character's nose length? And how often is it just something else to waste time debugging?