D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

Baldur's Gate III is now available for early access on Steam and on Stadia.

I couldn't get the Steam version working on my Mac, but the Stadia version works just fine. The opening tutorial level is pretty gruesome (at one point I had to squish somebody's brain) and the mind flayer airship you're trying to escape from beings to mind the movie Aliens a lot.

Character creation is quick and easy, although options in the early access are limited. The gameplay is like Divinity Original Sin 2 with the 5E rules layered over it. I've only played an hour or so of the game, and as an early access game, it is occasionally a bit buggy, but nothing showstopping (yet).

This isn't a review (I haven't played enough of it to do that, and I don't think it's fair to review an early access version anyway); it's mainly just an alert to the few people who don't already know it's available. If any such person exists!

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think the post they did was just appearance. Life Domain Cleric of Selune is just the class that pops up when you enter the character creator

From what Larian said ("We took the most popular choices in character creation, and recreated this"), it sounds (to me) like all choices in character creation. I imagine that any skew in the data towards the default would be because some people eager to play the game just changed the appearance and didn't bother with changing anything else before diving in.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the post they did was just appearance. Life Domain Cleric of Selune is just the class that pops up when you enter the character creator

I suspect some people just want to get into the game as quickly as possible so don't spend time in the character creator - just choose the first thing that pops up.

Once they get the feel of the game they might go back and create a character they want to play long-term.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

It isn't.

Can you prove it, please?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can you prove it, please?

MSc Multimedia Computing? Neither is particularly challenging. The hard to code stuff involves things like handling conversations in multiplayer.

It's easier (i.e. possible) to follow 5e rules in turn based. 5e has lots of things (e.g. bonus actions) that simply can't be done in RTwP.

 

[Aldarc]

It's easy enough to google the answer as to why they decided to make the game turn based. It's basically because D&D is turn based and they thought the implementation of the rules that way made the most sense. No laziness involved, they simply thought it would work best with the base game assumptions.

From what I recall them saying as well, Larian believes that a lot of the RTwP CRPGs of the late '90s and early '00s were mostly chasing trends by imitating the hottest RPGs on the market at that time: Diablo ('97) and Diablo 2 ('00).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

From what I recall them saying as well, Larian believes that a lot of the RTwP CRPGs of the late '90s and early '00s were mostly chasing trends by imitating the hottest RPGs on the market at that time: Diablo ('97) and Diablo 2 ('00).

If you are familiar with 2e rules, you will also be aware that many classes have nothing to do in combat apart from make an basic attack. Which makes for a pretty dull turn based game.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

MSc Multimedia Computing? Neither is particularly challenging. The hard to code stuff involves things like handling conversations in multiplayer.

It's easier (i.e. possible) to follow 5e rules in turn based. 5e has lots of things (e.g. bonus actions) that simply can't be done in RTwP.

I ask you to prove because I was suspecting that you equivocated around my meaning of "incidental".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I ask you to prove because I was suspecting that you equivocated around my meaning of "incidental".

I didn't use the word "incidental".

 

[ssvegeta555]

From what I recall them saying as well, Larian believes that a lot of the RTwP CRPGs of the late '90s and early '00s were mostly chasing trends by imitating the hottest RPGs on the market at that time: Diablo ('97) and Diablo 2 ('00).

Interesting. That would explain my preference for RTwP. My favorite genre is ARPGs with standouts like Diablo series and later on Titan Quest and Grim Dawn. I also to a lesser extent like RTS games. So playing CRPGs with RTwP is ideal for me. Yet, I find turn based games too slow and plodding for me personally. Never could get into Divinity Original Sin for example.

So, goes without saying that I'm a bit bummed that Baldur's Gate 3 is turn based. But the current trend is definitely turn based right now. Regardless, I already made my peace when Larian announced they'd be making it. Guess I'll wait for RTwP to be in vogue again.

 

[Aldarc]

If you are familiar with 2e rules, you will also be aware that many classes have nothing to do in combat apart from make an basic attack. Which makes for a pretty dull turn based game.

This is nevertheless what Larian Studios has said when discussing the trend of RTwP that was prevalent in around the turn of the millennium. Larian Studios have been making CRPGs since 1996, so I don't think that they are clueless about the industry.