D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 will now be releasing August 3rd on PC and September 6th on PS5, increased level cap, race & class details and more

[Henadic Theologian]

Orin the Red gets her own trailer, including talking with her actress, who appears to be a Changeling?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Orin the Red gets her own trailer, including talking with her actress, who appears to be a Changeling?

I think she's some kind of serious magical shapeshifter rather than merely a changeling, but I guess we shall see.

I could it influencing other major European game companies like Paradox.

I don't think Paradox could afford to be influenced by it. They're struggling hard to get Bloodlines 2 out the door, and had a revenue of under $200m p/a in 2022 despite a large number of revenue streams. They also don't have a studio with experience making this kind of game on this kind of scale. The closest they have is Harebrained Schemes, who have made CRPGs and turn-based tactical games (and are indeed releasing The Lamplighter's League later this year), who are cool, but distinctly an AA studio, and would need to grow a lot to become an AAA studio.

Also the main lesson that I think only Larian even could have learned, because most American, British and even Japanese companies are too arrogant in this regard is: HIRE GOOD WRITERS. KEEP HIRING MORE.

Larian got repeatedly hit in the face with a lot of feedback that, despite making good games, they didn't have good writers. And rightly so. DOS1 is basically like a teenage boy with a poor sense of humour trying to emulate Pratchett, and writing in a foreign language before even more of the humour is lost in translation. DOS2 was like that boy a few years later, trying to emulate Joe Abercrombie or someone instead, but with essentially the same issues. But something very interesting happened after/during DOS2, which is that Larian actually took some of this criticism on board, rather than merely getting defensive about its precious writers (as again almost any American, British or Japanese studio would), and frantically started hiring the best English-language writers it could find, and setting up studios in English-language countries where they could work (principally Dublin in Ireland and Guildford in the UK).

I was very surprised by this, because I assumed Swen et al would react the same way as others to criticism of the writing, but they didn't. Instead they hired good people, and kept hiring them. And now we have a game which, at this point at least, looks to have peak-Bioware level companion and plot writing (and hopefully major NPC writing - the minor NPCs are not quite up to peak Bioware standards imho).

It also illustrate a fundamentally different mindset to most companies, where writers are seen as either:

A) Block of specific individuals who are "special" and only to be added to extremely grudgingly (this notably also tends to mean they are mostly white, male, and aging, which narrows the potential perspectives).

or

B) A bunch of disposable hacks, most of whom are to be fired as soon as the main writing on a game is done. This even can happen to pretty famous writers and then of course games often need later-on re-writes but they fired most/all of the writing team...

You could contrast Larian strongly with, for example, Bethesda, who have basically the same dire writing team for decades, showing no signs of improvement or positive change over that time - in fact on the contrary, lore, the one place where they were once very strong, seems to be weakening, with the only faint hope for Starfield being that Will Shen, who wrote the least-worst (but still pretty mid) content for Fallout 4 (Far Harbour) being the main quest guy. He's been at Bethesda since 2009, though, and has been involved in every badly-written game they've put out since. As have the others. Particularly worrying is that Emil Pagliarulo is game director, a man who has never been involved with anything that couldn't be summarized accurately as "hack", storyline-wise, despite decades in the industry and tons of credits. And that's by the very low standards of videogames.

(Anyone who disagrees that FO3 is badly written/plotted - and by extension FO4, which has essentially just a trope-ier, even more manipulative and lazier version of the same exact plot - should probably watch Hbomberguy's wonderful video on FO3 here, and the constrasting video on FO:NV here.)

 

[Ondath]

Also the main lesson that I think only Larian even could have learned, because most American, British and even Japanese companies are too arrogant in this regard is: HIRE GOOD WRITERS. KEEP HIRING MORE.

Larian got repeatedly hit in the face with a lot of feedback that, despite making good games, they didn't have good writers. And rightly so. DOS1 is basically like a teenage boy with a poor sense of humour trying to emulate Pratchett, and writing in a foreign language before even more of the humour is lost in translation. DOS2 was like that boy a few years later, trying to emulate Joe Abercrombie or someone instead, but with essentially the same issues. But something very interesting happened after/during DOS2, which is that Larian actually took some of this criticism on board, rather than merely getting defensive about its precious writers (as again almost any American, British or Japanese studio would), and frantically started hiring the best English-language writers it could find, and setting up studios in English-language countries where they could work (principally Dublin in Ireland and Guildford in the UK).

I was very surprised by this, because I assumed Swen et al would react the same way as others to criticism of the writing, but they didn't. Instead they hired good people, and kept hiring them. And now we have a game which, at this point at least, looks to have peak-Bioware level companion and plot writing (and hopefully major NPC writing - the minor NPCs are not quite up to peak Bioware standards imho).

This is a really good point, and one thing that surprised me in one of the last Panels from Hell is that one of the writers who spoke during the B-rolls is Lawrence Schick - this is the guy who was the head of design and development in TSR and created the White bloody Plume Mountain! The fact that such a senior D&D person is working as a writer for BG3 gives me confidence that the game will feel like a D&D world.

 

[vecna00]

I think she's some kind of serious magical shapeshifter rather than merely a changeling, but I guess we shall see.

I don't think Paradox could afford to be influenced by it. They're struggling hard to get Bloodlines 2 out the door, and had a revenue of under $200m p/a in 2022 despite a large number of revenue streams. They also don't have a studio with experience making this kind of game on this kind of scale. The closest they have is Harebrained Schemes, who have made CRPGs and turn-based tactical games (and are indeed releasing The Lamplighter's League later this year), who are cool, but distinctly an AA studio, and would need to grow a lot to become an AAA studio.

Also the main lesson that I think only Larian even could have learned, because most American, British and even Japanese companies are too arrogant in this regard is: HIRE GOOD WRITERS. KEEP HIRING MORE.

Larian got repeatedly hit in the face with a lot of feedback that, despite making good games, they didn't have good writers. And rightly so. DOS1 is basically like a teenage boy with a poor sense of humour trying to emulate Pratchett, and writing in a foreign language before even more of the humour is lost in translation. DOS2 was like that boy a few years later, trying to emulate Joe Abercrombie or someone instead, but with essentially the same issues. But something very interesting happened after/during DOS2, which is that Larian actually took some of this criticism on board, rather than merely getting defensive about its precious writers (as again almost any American, British or Japanese studio would), and frantically started hiring the best English-language writers it could find, and setting up studios in English-language countries where they could work (principally Dublin in Ireland and Guildford in the UK).

I was very surprised by this, because I assumed Swen et al would react the same way as others to criticism of the writing, but they didn't. Instead they hired good people, and kept hiring them. And now we have a game which, at this point at least, looks to have peak-Bioware level companion and plot writing (and hopefully major NPC writing - the minor NPCs are not quite up to peak Bioware standards imho).

It also illustrate a fundamentally different mindset to most companies, where writers are seen as either:

A) Block of specific individuals who are "special" and only to be added to extremely grudgingly (this notably also tends to mean they are mostly white, male, and aging, which narrows the potential perspectives).

or

B) A bunch of disposable hacks, most of whom are to be fired as soon as the main writing on a game is done. This even can happen to pretty famous writers and then of course games often need later-on re-writes but they fired most/all of the writing team...

You could contrast Larian strongly with, for example, Bethesda, who have basically the same dire writing team for decades, showing no signs of improvement or positive change over that time - in fact on the contrary, lore, the one place where they were once very strong, seems to be weakening, with the only faint hope for Starfield being that Will Shen, who wrote the least-worst (but still pretty mid) content for Fallout 4 (Far Harbour) being the main quest guy. He's been at Bethesda since 2009, though, and has been involved in every badly-written game they've put out since. As have the others. Particularly worrying is that Emil Pagliarulo is game director, a man who has never been involved with anything that couldn't be summarized accurately as "hack", storyline-wise, despite decades in the industry and tons of credits. And that's by the very low standards of videogames.

(Anyone who disagrees that FO3 is badly written/plotted - and by extension FO4, which has essentially just a trope-ier, even more manipulative and lazier version of the same exact plot - should probably watch Hbomberguy's wonderful video on FO3 here, and the constrasting video on FO:NV here.)

As a complete aside, I read this whole post in the notification email I received and the next email was from GOG about Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Somehow, my mind put Yakuza and Starfield together for a moment...and I really would love to see what Starfield would look like with the writing of the Yakuza series.

I made myself a little sad that this does not exist.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A new villain? That b**** with blades is crazy! When will she appear in Rule34?

The software can be improved, fixed or changed, but a good story is necessary to hook you.

* Could Larian be allowed or licenced to produced a Dark Sun "for young adults"?

* How would be an D&D "otome" videogame based in Birthright? (Or a D&D Dating Sim game).


* Hasbro shouldn't bet for online multiplayer videogames, because today it is too risky and better studios have failed, but collabs with preset titles are a different thing.

* Birthright should be the best option for strategy or city-building. And Witchlight for a family-friendly farming simulation, with cute haflings, gnomes and even springans if you want your PC dating a "bad guy".

* If Battlezoo by "Roll for Combat" was a mon (collecting and taming monster) videogame, you may guess Hasbro CEOs' faces.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is a really good point, and one thing that surprised me in one of the last Panels from Hell is that one of the writers who spoke during the B-rolls is Lawrence Schick - this is the guy who was the head of design and development in TSR and created the White bloody Plume Mountain! The fact that such a senior D&D person is working as a writer for BG3 gives me confidence that the game will feel like a D&D world.

Oh my god that's who that was! That is amazing.

(Bloody Mythic Quest has rotted my brain so much that I immediately thought of him as "C.W. Longbottom" and thus erased his actual name from my mind!)

As a complete aside, I read this whole post in the notification email I received and the next email was from GOG about Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Somehow, my mind put Yakuza and Starfield together for a moment...and I really would love to see what Starfield would look like with the writing of the Yakuza series.

IF ONLY!

History is going to judge Bethesda pretty harshly I think, putting out these incredibly expensive and expansive games with just zero good writing.

(Totally pre-judging Starfield here, but like, everything they've shown dialogue/story-wise, which ain't a lot I admit, has been hackneyed, cliche-ridden, and just overwhelmingly bland. They did put out three hand-animated little "world-story" videos recently which were less dire, but it wouldn't be the first time a company did good with those then they bore no real relation to the actual game.)

(Or a D&D Dating Sim game)

A lot of people would say that's what BG3 is.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A new villain? That b**** with blades is crazy! When will she appear in Rule34?

The software can be improved, fixed or changed, but a good story is necessary to hook you.

* Could Larian be allowed or licenced to produced a Dark Sun "for young adults"?

* How would be an D&D "otome" videogame based in Birthright? (Or a D&D Dating Sim game).


* Hasbro shouldn't bet for online multiplayer videogames, because today it is too risky and better studios have failed, but collabs with preset titles are a different thing.

* Birthright should be the best option for strategy or city-building. And Witchlight for a family-friendly farming simulation, with cute haflings, gnomes and even springans if you want your PC dating a "bad guy".

* If Battlezoo by "Roll for Combat" was a mon (collecting and taming monster) videogame, you may guess Hasbro CEOs' faces.

She's shapeshifter, any rule 34 art or audio or video could be her in disguise!!!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A new villain? That b**** with blades is crazy! When will she appear in Rule34?

The software can be improved, fixed or changed, but a good story is necessary to hook you.

* Could Larian be allowed or licenced to produced a Dark Sun "for young adults"?

* How would be an D&D "otome" videogame based in Birthright? (Or a D&D Dating Sim game).


* Hasbro shouldn't bet for online multiplayer videogames, because today it is too risky and better studios have failed, but collabs with preset titles are a different thing.

* Birthright should be the best option for strategy or city-building. And Witchlight for a family-friendly farming simulation, with cute haflings, gnomes and even springans if you want your PC dating a "bad guy".

* If Battlezoo by "Roll for Combat" was a mon (collecting and taming monster) videogame, you may guess Hasbro CEOs' faces.

What does a feywild circus have to do with farming?

Maybe build your own Domain of Delight game, with Witchlight being neutral ground where you can make deals with other Domains and the Fey Courts and other forces.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Witchlight would be the name of the setting, in the same way Ravenloft is the name of the setting of the demiplane of dread, but there are other domains besides Barovia. My opinion is that adventure was like a "pilot episode" to introduce the setting the "domains of delight".

* If my memory doesn't fail the trait "shapechanguer" by changelings can't alter clothing or equipment. And it has to be in the true and original shape.

* Yes, we could say BG3 has got a lot of dating sim.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Witchlight would be the name of the setting, in the same way Ravenloft is the name of the setting of the demiplane of dread, but there are other domains besides Barovia. My opinion is that adventure was like a "pilot episode" to introduce the setting the "domains of delight".

* If my memory doesn't fail the trait "shapechanguer" by changelings can't alter clothing or equipment. And it has to be in the true and original shape.

* Yes, we could say BG3 has got a lot of dating sim.

Look closer at her clothes, they are made of flesh, perhaps from another Changeling or a Doppelganger, likely enchanted to shapeshift with her.