D&D 5E (2024) Wizards of the Coast promises to release more “CRPGs that are going to be as serious as BG3” without Larian

[Morrus]

It probably doesn't bother you if non-white people are portrayed as inferior to white men, innately-evil savages, or mooches and criminals who get slaughtered for your edgelord boner. Or if women in any position of power or authority aren't constantly portrayed as evil, stupid bitches. Or if an entire storyline is about writing queer men as predators, groomers, and rapists. These sorts of tropes probably don't bother you, but you don't care about anyone at the table other than people like yourself anyway.

Anyway, Baldur's Gate 3 is a game that was as serious about its own plot and premise as its white-male CEO was when he said that Karlach would be given a satisfying ending to her storyline. But again, that's what "serious" is in the world of video games: treating people who aren't written as straight white men like Gale and Halsin like total naughty word.

This is your second warning for general namecalling and insulting others. Knock it off, or leave. Up to you, but one of those two options will be happening.

Narrator: Minutes later, one of those two things happened.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, @Ruin Explorer already hit the nail on the head in post #35. One circle of that venn diagram is white dudes who like fantasy, action, and boobies. The other circle is women and queer folk who like fantasy, romance, and boobies. The overlap includes people who like fantasy, and people who like boobies. Also, there’s a not insignificant portion of folks like me who started out in one of those circles and moved to the other.

And talking of the dating/sim RPG crossover, one of the most fun games for me, for like a month, at least, maybe two was The Sims Medieval, which was very much "What if the Sims 3 was fused with Quest For Glory" (i.e. not quite a proper RPG, but on the way there). It was a very far from perfect game, but it's funny, I feel like if they made basically the same game now, and just marketed it better (it was astonishingly badly marketed), it would have done big, big numbers.

 

[Parmandur]

Moat extreme example of yhat I can think of is Fire Emblem: a straight up miniatures wargame, not even an RPG really, but with dating Sim elements and permanent for the characters you are trying to get together. A heady combination.

 

[wicked cool]

If not them then who? Seriously there isn’t much competition out there

Pathfinder-nope not enough in budget
Solasta 2- looks good but they even admit just not enough resources

It’s funny how people rant about big companies but yet this stuff is expensive!!

 

[AlViking]

If not them then who? Seriously there isn’t much competition out there

Pathfinder-nope not enough in budget
Solasta 2- looks good but they even admit just not enough resources

It’s funny how people rant about big companies but yet this stuff is expensive!!

Depends on the level of polish you want. I enjoyed Solasta even if it is primarily a dungeon crawl with bad voice acting. But I agree, you need deep pockets to fund AAA games nowadays.

 

[Zardnaar]

Depends on the level of polish you want. I enjoyed Solasta even if it is primarily a dungeon crawl with bad voice acting. But I agree, you need deep pockets to fund AAA games nowadays.

Apparently Claire Obscur expedition 33 was reasonably cheap.

Still tens of million though.

 

[TwoSix]

Depends on the level of polish you want. I enjoyed Solasta even if it is primarily a dungeon crawl with bad voice acting. But I agree, you need deep pockets to fund AAA games nowadays.

If I need a high level of Polish, I play the Witcher games.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Moat extreme example of yhat I can think of is Fire Emblem: a straight up miniatures wargame, not even an RPG really, but with dating Sim elements and permanent for the characters you are trying to get together. A heady combination.

I have to say I found the dating sim elements in Three Houses so absolutely goddamn tedious and pixel-hunt-y that they dragged down the game significantly.

I felt much the same about similar elements in Midnight Suns, which also had them. In both cases it was because those elements were not, in fact, primarily about interacting with the characters in terms of time and effort - which would have been, and indeed was, for the most part, very fun. They were primarily about tediously running around a giant-ass boring-ass building and its boring-ass grounds, picking up random junk (little of which made much sense relative to where it was found and so on) and doing really tedious tasks for people. You got to talk to people for like 5 minutes for about every hour of piss-around bollocks you did (I may exaggerate, but not by much!).

I love dating sim elements when it's like talking to characters, doing missions with/for characters, talking to other characters about characters and so on, but "run around this giant building and grounds between every single mission or be punished by missing out on stuff" can absolutely DIAF for my money. I'd like to replay both games for the story and gameplay but the idea of going through that again? Just an absolute hard no.

 

[Parmandur]

I have to say I found the dating sim elements in Three Houses so absolutely goddamn tedious and pixel-hunt-y that they dragged down the game significantly.

I felt much the same about similar elements in Midnight Suns, which also had them. In both cases it was because those elements were not, in fact, primarily about interacting with the characters in terms of time and effort - which would have been, and indeed was, for the most part, very fun. They were primarily about tediously running around a giant-ass boring-ass building and its boring-ass grounds, picking up random junk (little of which made much sense relative to where it was found and so on) and doing really tedious tasks for people. You got to talk to people for like 5 minutes for about every hour of piss-around bollocks you did (I may exaggerate, but not by much!).

I love dating sim elements when it's like talking to characters, doing missions with/for characters, talking to other characters about characters and so on, but "run around this giant building and grounds between every single mission or be punished by missing out on stuff" can absolutely DIAF for my money. I'd like to replay both games for the story and gameplay but the idea of going through that again? Just an absolute hard no.

I get that, even though I did two playthroughs of Three Houses and watched a family member do another one.

 

[TwoSix]

I get that, even though I did two playthroughs of Three Houses and watched a family member do another one.

Team Edelgard!