D&D General Should BG4 be a new story or continue on from BG3's story?

[Reynard]

Or offered either a licence deal or offered to licence their game engine. I think that Solasta has proved that there is a market in the low budget end of D&D and to licence the engine and play for a bunch of different writers and production teams to hire some voice talent and produce a bunch of games in different D&D worlds.

I only recently started playing it, and while it is ugly as sin and terribly written so far, with pretty bad VO to boot, I have zero complaints about its implementation of 5E. I won't necessarily say it is "better" than BG3 in this regard, but it is more faithful, while maintaining verticality in a similar way to BG3.

 

[Reynard]

A lot of the issues that where changed during the beta was to tone down the excessively Larianesque surface effects. And the engine, cobbled together from DOS2, is a mess. You could easily reproduce all the good elements of BG3 gameplay, without having to remove a bunch of silliness.

The “look” of the game belongs entirely to WotC.

Then WotC should have no problems making a BG3 killer.

I won't hold my breath tho.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I only recently started playing it, and while it is ugly as sin and terribly written so far, with pretty bad VO to boot, I have zero complaints about its implementation of 5E. I won't necessarily say it is "better" than BG3 in this regard, but it is more faithful, while maintaining verticality in a similar way to BG3.

I do not think I have ever claimed it is better, but I have had fun with it. I think it works best as a multiplayer dungeon crawler. I just wished it supported a fifth player.

 

[AlViking]

I do not think I have ever claimed it is better, but I have had fun with it. I think it works best as a multiplayer dungeon crawler. I just wished it supported a fifth player.

BG 3 is far superior for story, visuals and voice acting. Solasta for me was a better dungeon crawler and not as cheesy when it came to the overwhelming amount of magic, OP buffs and exploits.

 

[Blue]

It should continue the story in the way BG3 continued the story of BG2. It should not focus around these NPCs at all.

That said, I'd rather see another Iceland Dale or just something fresh, I was a bit done with Bhaalspawn back in BG2.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

BG 3 is far superior for story, visuals and voice acting. Solasta for me was a better dungeon crawler and not as cheesy when it came to the overwhelming amount of magic, OP buffs and exploits.

And barrels.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They may have toned things down but surface effects are still a bigger part of the game than D&D. They also made some other tweaks. As far as the "look" there's a lot more to that than setting and species.

Everything about the look belongs to WotC. For example, the look of the city is based on WotC artwork. From a legal perspective, everything about the appearance of BG3 belongs to WotC.

 

[Burnside]

Everything about the look belongs to WotC. For example, the look of the city is based on WotC artwork. From a legal perspective, everything about the appearance of BG3 belongs to WotC.

I mean there are graphics assets for inventory items in BG3 - food, tools, weapons, torches, etc - that are literally re-used from Divinity: Original Sin 2. So no, not everything.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean there are graphics assets for inventory items in BG3 - food, tools, weapons, torches, etc - that are literally re-used from Divinity: Original Sin 2. So no, not everything.

I think you will find that even those assets are no longer exclusive Larian property. If I use an art asset I created at home in a worksheet I create for work, then the school now owns the rights to that asset.

Not that it wouldn’t be easier to create new assets in a new engine.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I think you will find that even those assets are no longer exclusive Larian property. If I use an art asset I created at home in a worksheet I create for work, then the school now owns the rights to that asset.

Not that it wouldn’t be easier to create new assets in a new engine.

Larian didn't work for WotC though. I doubt that WotC gained any automatic rights to all the IP in BG3, game engines are far too valuable for that. Any IP transfer in the license contract was probably restricted to characters and lore.