D&D General New Baldur's Gate III Teaser Trailer

Larian Studios posted a teaser trailer for Baldur's Gate III on Twitter, showing off both apparent cutscene and gameplay footage.

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The trailer ends with the statement "Join us on the road to Baldur's Gate Starting June 6" This date is the first date of the Guerrilla Collective Indie Game Showcase, taking place online from June 6-8. Larian Studios is a participant in the event and previously promised Baldur's Gate III news at the showcase. This statement lends further credence to industry speculation that the big announcement will be the date of early access, and it may hint that early access will start on June 6. But it looks like we still have another week before we know for sure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I agree that it's impractical to have people for 100hrs of gameplay, but in DOS2, you don't actually need that - it's drop-in, drop-out. They player just controls one or two of the people in your party (DOS1 wasn't like that). I think preemptively declaring it sucks on that basis is therefore a bit much.

"Dropping in" on an epic fantasy story is both technically possible and completely pointless. It's like reading 10 pages from the middle of Lord of the Rings. The story makes no sense. The characters make no sense. It sucks.

But anyway, I feel like I've said all I've got to say on this subject - my point is simple - including a whole-game MP element is what, I suggest, pushed the DOS games into truly stellar selling numbers, because they were selling so many extra copies to people that way - people who wanted to play a multiplayer CRPG (none were on the market, I think DOS1/2 remain the only really-MP ones that aren't ARPGs). BG3 should have crazy sales on the name alone, but if it also has DOS2-style MP, I think they'll be even crazier.

It sounds to me like you are incapable of accepting that that people like different things to you, and are trying to claim that actually no one liked it and the statistics are fraudulent. As Indiana Jones said "everyone is lost but me!"

I can't prove that you are wrong about multiplayer DOS2, other than to say I though it was an excellent D&D-with-the-numbers-filed-off single player CRPG, and to remind you that Baldur's Gate has always had a multiplayer option in exactly the same way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"Dropping in" on an epic fantasy story is both technically possible and completely pointless. It's like reading 10 pages from the middle of Lord of the Rings. The story makes no sense. The characters make no sense. It sucks.

Okay, I guess that's an opinion. But it's not one everyone shares, quite clearly, given the general popularity of drop-in/drop-out co-op in games. And whilst you may well be playing DOS2 as an "epic fantasy story", I think a lot of players are engaging with it in very different ways, and this is extremely evident if you watch videos of people playing it, or read people's reviews of it and so on. It seems like an awful lot of people thought the story was kind of "meh" or overblown, but that the gameplay and the interactions within the story were a lot of fun.

So what we've really got down to here is "Due to the way I, Paul, engage with DOS2, I would not enjoy the multiplayer!".

That's fine and reasonable. It does not, however, mean that in any broader sense the MP "sucks". Especially given how many people are essentially playing DOS2 like a really joke-y, silly and exploit-filled D&D campaign.

This is unfortunate given you then say:

It sounds to me like you are incapable of accepting that that people like different things to you, and are trying to claim that actually no one liked it and the statistics are fraudulent. As Indiana Jones said "everyone is lost but me!"

Hoo boy. You literally are saying a game's MP "sucks", because it's not suited to how you play the game, even though it's demonstrable that other people love it. You can't even argue otherwise, there's too much on YouTube, Twitch and other sites showing people enjoying the hell of out of the MP.

And yet I'm the one, apparently, who is "incapable of accepting people like different things". Wow, that's er kind of next level lol.

Re: fraudulent, er, nope. I'm saying the we don't have the figures. So how on earth can you take this as them being "fraudulent"? That doesn't make any sense. You see to think we do have the figures and I'm disagreeing with them, maybe? We don't. So you're simply incorrect to claim that I'm saying they're "fraudulent". We can put that on the big pile of things you've claimed that are objectively false in this conversation, right next to ME2 having MP, ME3's MP being PvP, and so on. It's kind of a big pile! Be nice if you admitted you were dead wrong about those things.

I can't prove that you are wrong about multiplayer DOS2, other than to say I though it was an excellent D&D-with-the-numbers-filed-off single player CRPG, and to remind you that Baldur's Gate has always had a multiplayer option in exactly the same way.

I'm not sure what you think you're saying re: BG, but that supports my point, logically (i.e. that MP increases sales but leaves a lot of people with low/no-hours played copies). Okay I guess?

 

[Var]

PF:KM might only have a quarter to half as many copies sold as DOS:2 but they're not several leagues apart.
It's a commercial success, at least to Owlcat and did about as good as PoE II (Obsidian didn't think those numbers were a success, guess they made a bigger investment).

PF:KM is an old school game in many ways, in particular regarding how much of your time it wastes on just getting around or sitting around idly for the trivial chore that is the necessity of Kingdom management, or walking in between the same locations multiple times which can take ages even after you unlock teleportation. I didn't mind the walking back and forth in between older hubs and newer ones. The Kingdom management was the atrocious part, without a real challenge and only one way to go (the non real way being game over, fun. But to lose the game through mismanagement seemed to require active work towards failure to me.). Sitting around for week after week, babysitting someone so they can can rank up a level seemed pretty pointless.

Personally speaking I didn't like the split armor system thing DOS does combined with higher difficulty. The core idea was neat. The execution just lead to a party comp where everyone did one or another, everyone on physical or everyone on magic, not to mention how broken the summoner was (as usual).
PF:KM is about as bad with how certain things that wouldn't stack in Pathfinder 1 did. And how higher difficulty is just higher +to hit and multipliers on damage/HP. Not for forget about how pretty much all of the dangerous fights past 3rd act target touch AC. So basically everything that isn't an unhittable Dex Tank is worthless on higher difficulty levels on the front lines.
Or yet another RPG where summons break the game. Which is basically what always happens. Either the AI can't deal with them or they're too powerful with the right build.

PoE II has the same problem. Basically unhittable Tanks with more regeneration than expected incoming damage and enough AoE to solo large encounters.
I really don't like how both PF:KM and PoE acknowledge their game is broken to an extent that it's entirely possible and rewarded with an achievement to play it with a single character and several additional restrictions on top on highest "difficulty level".
I mean sure, if your system is broken and you know it, might as well give people free reign in absence of the DM who would usually be the guy in charge of handling that. Encouraging the abuse of game systems till they break is only bad design if it's supposedly an immersive RPG. For a combat simulator that's not a problem.
Keeps some people interested on how to build a Kineticist that can solo the last act or opens up the addition of a dungeon that lets you level to max, doing nothing but combat.

However I'd argue that you can do better. If you can manage a game to feel like a DM is present, create combat challenges luck and optimization can't beat and build a core system where AC70 + Mirror images isn't going to end the encounter or flat out not possible. At the same time there shouldn't be a single answer to each problem, you'd want some freedom as a player.

What I'd love to see from BG3/Solasta is a game that encourages, enables and rewards just to wing it. BG3 will apparently be built to be enable just playing blind, with passive triggers for ability checks for secret passages etc. From demo gameplay you'll still know you failed something, so if you prefer having a save every 5 minutes you can retry until you pass the check and discover the secret. But the game doesn't hinge on it, you won't have to find everything and opening up different things for each playthrough is going to add replayability - in theory.
None of DOS, PoE or PF:KM would really let you just play without incentive towards catering to alignment, faction or companion approval. You were inclined to redo your choice until the outcome was beneficial to the path you wanted to proceed on rather than each choice being standalone.
A big "problem" in PRGs is usually how you'll want to collect your best in slot gear to feel as awesome as possible. BG3 will have (at least partially) handplaced gear, so the usual treasure hunting for the best combination of items ensues. Would be a lot more fun if all the optional areas had (partially) random loot tables, so you never know which place holds which piece of gear for which playthrough. The stuff along the main story path should probably still be streamlined to ensure a basic power level boost across all classes.
That hinges on how level progression works as well, if you're supposed to skip whole areas, how does the missed XP impact that playthrough? Should there be milestones for each act to make sure you're not over or underleveled? Does your environment level with you (plsno, but eh)? How is difficulty gonna look for easy vs hard at the same location? I'm seriously hoping it's going to be some sort of CR related scaling rather than just buffing and nerfing HP/Damage. Ofc with adjustments from the devs to compensate for the faults of CR as a metric.

Either way I'm looking forward to the news this weekend.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(Obsidian didn't think those numbers were a success, guess they made a bigger investment)

I think it wasn't so much a bigger investment as a big opportunity cost. They also had a much bigger backing via Fig than PF had via KS. And it they had a lot of the best people in the studio, be they writers, artists, gameplay designers, working very hard on POE2. Yet its sales were fairly unremarkable. And it's not because it's not a good game. The worst flaws it can be accused of are found in other CRPGs to a far greater degree. It's beautiful (far better-looking than PF:KM, like not even close, though PF does take good screenshots, it's repetitive and bland as a whole massive game), it has good writing and a lot of great ideas, and the gameplay is, I would suggest, pretty good, though I do feel like RtwP was something of a problem. It didn't even have many bugs (unlike some previous Obsidian games). Josh Sawyer has done a lot of sort of autopsy work on it and identified a number of issues, but I think the biggest one was simply that a lot of people who bought POE1, didn't buy POE2, and I suspect the main reason is simply that they didn't enjoy POE1, which did far better than could be expected with such a niche design, and weren't aware that most of the less-enjoyable elements of POE1 were fixed in POE2.

Anyway, re: opportunity cost, point is, they could have spent all that time/effort on a more commercial game, and made a lot more money. That said, they got bought by Microsoft in part as a result, and whilst that meant the end of an extremely long career of independent games, I suspect it's lead to a lot more job security for everyone there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

PF:KM is far superior to POE2. I'm certainly glad Obsidian aren't making BG3. The Outer Worlds was also a dull disapointment.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I'm certainly glad Obsidian aren't making BG3. The Outer Worlds was also a dull disapointment.

It was still better than the execrable trash that are the Bethesda Fallout games.

(But yeah, current Obsidian is missing some of the talent that made New Vegas so great.)

 

[Var]

I think it wasn't so much a bigger investment as a big opportunity cost. They also had a much bigger backing via Fig than PF had via KS. And it they had a lot of the best people in the studio, be they writers, artists, gameplay designers, working very hard on POE2. Yet its sales were fairly unremarkable. And it's not because it's not a good game. The worst flaws it can be accused of are found in other CRPGs to a far greater degree. It's beautiful (far better-looking than PF:KM, like not even close, though PF does take good screenshots, it's repetitive and bland as a whole massive game), it has good writing and a lot of great ideas, and the gameplay is, I would suggest, pretty good, though I do feel like RtwP was something of a problem. It didn't even have many bugs (unlike some previous Obsidian games). Josh Sawyer has done a lot of sort of autopsy work on it and identified a number of issues, but I think the biggest one was simply that a lot of people who bought POE1, didn't buy POE2, and I suspect the main reason is simply that they didn't enjoy POE1, which did far better than could be expected with such a niche design, and weren't aware that most of the less-enjoyable elements of POE1 were fixed in POE2.

Anyway, re: opportunity cost, point is, they could have spent all that time/effort on a more commercial game, and made a lot more money. That said, they got bought by Microsoft in part as a result, and whilst that meant the end of an extremely long career of independent games, I suspect it's lead to a lot more job security for everyone there.

Don't think we agree on much there. Doesn't match with what I can remember from coverage either.
POE2 went full yeet on the pirate setting. Which some people definitely liked, but more people found very jarring coming from PoE1. PoE1 was a successor to similar gameplay and theme of the older CRPGs. PoE2's whole thing about pirating around would have been restricted to a wacky optional side quest chain in any CRPG.
The vast majority of players who love the genre simply prefer swords and castles with dark dungeons over lush jungles, gunpowder and skullflags. Gameplay is arguably better than in PoE1 (as broken and imbalanced as the systems are), yet it's not more of the same since it's all of a sudden conquistadors instead of knights.

RTWP was more or less dead in fantasy RPGs till DOS. The old hallmarks of BG, Icewind Dale, NWN had all been RTWP so a successor was assumed to continue that tradition till one game could prove otherwise.
PF:KM hat an atrocious launch. The game was honestly barely playable with the loading times involved, and high end hardware couldn't fix it. Not to mention broken quests and game ending bugs at launch. Never touched it until last year, it improved a massive amount over launch, still a pretty boring prebuff fest on the combat side. Nothing you can do about that with 3.5 rules and the way the game is set up.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The pirate setting was the least of POE2's problems. It was the lousy (and short) main story, devoid of player agency (or anything regarding logic), and the ill-defined and constantly shifting ruleset that sank POE2.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe August this year, al least a preview.

* Do you think we could see a new videogame adaptation of Dragonlance? I suggest to give a Disney visual style to the characters.

 

[Gladius Legis]

2:41 in the video, it looks like group initiative has been done away with and it's now individual. You see a monster's turn queued up in between what look like the characters in the party.

Obviously a very welcome change if that's true, as it was one of my actual concerns about BG3.