And yet I can’t help thinking that a lot of the extreme side character content could have been aided significantly by AI.
The main 80% of the voice acting is outstanding.
But particularly in Act 3 there’s something disconcerting about every other pedestrian you can talk to who spouts a quip using roughly the same voice with mediocre delivery.
It’s a perfect use case for the AI voice tech available today. The main parts and actual side characters should still have been bespoke acting and mocap, but the random pedestrian in the city might have been notably improved with using generated voices to broaden the variety.
BG3 has been very strong evidence to me that hybrid approaches integrating AI for filling in background content are going to be the standard by the end of the current console generation.
If you were okay with “man, after getting away from a life of crime, is immediately pulled back in by people who don’t have his best interests at heart and will use him to betray others before eventually getting betrayed themselves” for over two decades, I don’t think you need to worry. Took until RDR2 to break that mold.
Companies are terrified of AI making their work obsolete. To such a degree they are trying to do it first. Thankfully AI is so painfully bad that the companies that have tried this are failing hard.
Loving the game, do agree though that it starts to get a bit muddled and confusing - at times it feels like I’m not really sure which quests I’m doing, why I’m doing it or what I’m trying to achieve – very realistic to real life in that regard but it can feel a bit of a chore
I kind of stopped paying attention to side quests. In a lot of RPGs, I feel like they’re discrete, separate errands, and usually contained within the area where they’re given. BG3 side quests seem a lot more integrated, in the sense that I’ll often just happen along the next step in one as I pursue main quest. If not, then it may be because the next step is in the next Act. And some of them seem to be mutually exclusive.
Maybe because it’s my first play through, but I’m now in ‘if it happens, it happens’ mode, and I’m confident that there are enough opportunities for me to make different choices to have a substantially different experience next time.
Running on Windows 11 with a 6900XT and Vulkan and DX11 look effectively identical as far as I can tell but Vulkan runs a lot faster and doesn't stutter when loading a new area.
Unfortunately though it tends to crash on tab out which means I need to use DX11 because I play with friends.
Yes. It’s not really meant as a visual improvement but as an efficiency improvement. Sadly it does seem (for some, myself included) that the Vulkan build needs a bit of work. For me it crashes all the time, and Larian themselves mentioned that it isn’t quite as stable as the DX11 build.
The biggest problem to me is, that they will shutdown the previous game. I think its different enough to keep it, but probably not many people play it. What is the current Don’t kill videogames campaign called again?
I guess they don’t want to a) split the user base of similar games, b) force people into buying new stuff from new game, c) can’t or don’t want to maintain multiple live service games at the same time. These are guesses by me, not saying its the case here or always the case, just giving a few ideas why this could happen.
It does, however, become very finite solution in the scenario that the new game flops. It’s having two baskets, putting all your eggs in one and burning the other. So now their entire income is dependent on that one metaphorical basket carrying the weight.
I resolved to stop paying full price for anything Pitchford and his touch based on a number of factors. I did buy the latest BL game when it was on a big sale and thoroughly hated the main story and various plotholes (seemingly from cuts made by the company/directors rather than the writers). I bought Tiny Tina (again, on sale for over half off) and it was a game with all kinds of bugs that just never got fixed -- it's the first game I didn't immediately roll a new character to replay after beating it. At this point, I'm not sure I would buy anything else they put out.
I really wanted to like Wonderlands, but the intended demographic is apparently younger than me. The drop from M to T seems to have cut the writing down to kindergarten level.
Presequel is great, wonderlands is not. Tiny Tina’s dlc in 2 was absolutely perfect and MAYBE should’ve gotten a sequel dlc in 3, but there was never enough content for a stand alone title. Certainly not at a full game price point. I always look back to farcry 3 for the proper way to handle a stand alone dlc installment. Blood dragon was always a smaller spinoff and it worked well in that regards.
I don’t think Wonderlands had much replay value. Plus the DLCs were garbage, speed run dungeons and new items in the loot pool, no new story. I lost faith in gearbox after that.
I highly, highly recommend playing BL1 and BL2. They're fantastic games, and wonderfully written. Not all of the humor has aged really well (nothing offensive, just mostly very 2010's-specific humor), but the gameplay still holds up today, IMO. The DLCs for BL2 are particularly good, and among some of the best DLCs I've seen for any game.
Agreed! The quality and quantity of the content in that DLC are enough to qualify for a standalone game. Not to mention all the wild new mechanics that the DLC introduces, and work seamlessly with the rest of the game. TTAODK was probably the best piece of content Gearbox will ever produce.
Big random factor in the loot so you can go long stretches without any interesting upgrades if you’re unlucky.
There’s a lot of time wasting - go here, now go back there, now go to this place
Leveling is weird and is a big factor in damage. If you’re too low level you can’t do anything except die. If you’re too high level you can’t lose. Sometimes you do too many side quests or not enough
The games typically start slow. You go a long while before you unlock your cool powers, or even the ability to equip four guns.
The writing is meh except for Handsome Jack. He’s a great villain.
There was a mega bundle of all the games before 3 for like $5. Look for that kind of sale.
Play BL2. I didn’t really bother with 1. BL2 is such a great game, probably sunk more hours into it over the years than any other. Lots of replayability with different characters, TVHM and UVHM, DLCs etc.
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