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!

 

[Gladius Legis]

Guess I'll wait for RTwP to be in vogue again.

I guarantee you that's never going to happen.

 

[SkidAce]

I guarantee you that's never going to happen.

I feel like I have seen that pendulum swing back and forth a few times.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I feel like I have seen that pendulum swing back and forth a few times.

Actually Baldur's gate was no real real time. It was round based. There were no cooldowns ticking down. It was just 6? second rounds and you could just miss out attacks. You could not dodge by making movements. It just looked like real time, but it was not.

 

[MockingBird]

I guarantee you that's never going to happen.

At the time Obsidian broke crowd funding records with PoE and it happens to be RTWP. BG1 & 2 is on every platform now not to mention the other titles in that family of games. Theres been a lot of very popular and successful games that are RTWP (Mass Effect, KotOR, Jade Empire, Dragon Age games etc). To say they were never popular and will never be popular is a fallacy.

 

[Gladius Legis]

At the time Obsidian broke crowd funding records with PoE and it happens to be RTWP.

PoE 1 took five months to top 500,000 sales, and after a year was at 700,000. Divinity OS2, on the other hand, broke 700,000 in a month after release and was over a million in 2 months. Meanwhile, PoE 2 straight flopped.

At best, RTwP is niche these days. We're far from the KOTOR and Dragon Age: Origins heydays of RTwP RPGs. And at least in KOTOR's case, the combat system was considered the weakest aspect of that game even back in its heyday. DA:O did it right, mostly because it was never obligated to follow and adapt a turn-based ruleset to begin with, but even that series shifted away from RTwP for its sequels. PoE 2 and Kingmaker didn't add turn-based modes fairly recently just for the hell of it.

BG1 & 2 is on every platform now not to mention the other titles in that family of games. Theres been a lot of very popular and successful games that are RTWP (Mass Effect, KotOR, Jade Empire, Dragon Age games etc). To say they were never popular and will never be popular is a fallacy.

Where did I say they were "never popular"? The fallacy is yours.

 

[MNblockhead]

I bought Baldur's Gate on the Stadia. Some initial reactions:

• Playing with game controllers is still a bit sketchy. It is the first Stadia game where I've experienced significant drift with some of the controls. It was really annoying with character creation, but in actually play didn't seem to be an issue.
  
  
• It would be nice to have a tutorial on how to use the controls. My sons and I were stuck in the first scene for far longer than we should have been because couldn't figure out that we could jump or how to do it. The first combat was also annoying because we had to just experiment to figure out what does what. When I go back to play, I'm going to watch some videos and read some online tutorials to make sure I'm not missing any features. I'm used to most modern games having learning-by-playing tutorials that lead you through all the features.
  
  
• I love the turn-based combat, but one of my sons hated it. Shows that the debate over turn-based gameplay can even divide families. I think he'll come around though. He's just not used to it.
  
  
• I had thought that I read that there was same-device multiplayer, but as far as I can figure there is not. For local or online multiplayer, each player would need a stadia, stadia account, and their own copy of the game. I was hoping this could be a family game where at least two people could control one or more characters in the same party. I'm not going to buy multiple devices and multiple licenses of the game, so this is for all practical purposes a single player game for us.
  
  
• So far I like the graphics, story, and feel of the game but I've only played a single short session, much of it spent on character creation. Hopefully, it'll keep my attention.
  
  
• I like how you do not need to know how to play D&D 5e to play the game, but that if you do, there is sense of recognition and comfort. I feels like D&D.

 

[ssvegeta555]

Actually Baldur's gate was no real real time. It was round based. There were no cooldowns ticking down. It was just 6? second rounds and you could just miss out attacks. You could not dodge by making movements. It just looked like real time, but it was not.

I don't think movement was tied to the 6 round system, at least it didn't feel like it. I replayed BG 1, IWD 1 and 2 earlier this year and you can move out of range of an attack. I remember kiting around a stone golem, wait for him to raise his arm up for a slam attack then move away causing him to end the attack and continue pursuit. You can micromanage movement, cheesing enemies in this way.

Spells were harder because the animation fired off so quickly and it was hard to gauge the area of effect but I've dodged fireballs before. It's just very hard to do.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

This is what I don't get. I like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn. But that doesn't mean I can only like games like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn (neither of which are much like BG1 and 2). I can like other kinds of game as well. And to complain about turn based games being too slow, then go and play a turn based game on a tabletop where it plays even slower just seems contrarian.

 

[ssvegeta555]

This is what I don't get. I like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn. But that doesn't mean I can only like games like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn (neither of which are much like BG1 and 2). I can like other kinds of game as well. And to complain about turn based games being too slow, then go and play a turn based game on a tabletop where it plays even slower just seems contrarian.

I don't turn my nose up with all turn based games, otherwise I wouldn't play D&D. I too can like different games and play styles. But when it comes to strategy or RPG video games, I much prefer real time gameplay. It's what enjoy the most, so... shrugs

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't turn my nose up with all turn based games, otherwise I wouldn't play D&D. I too can like different games and play styles. But when it comes to strategy or RPG video games, I much prefer real time gameplay. It's what enjoy the most, so... shrugs

Titan Quest and Grim Dawn are action games, they don't have strategy.