They could turn the Xboxss into a streaming console, some games aren’t available on it but you can stream those games if you want for a cost of course.
It’s a big middle finger to people who bought the xboxss, but they are gonna need to get their cloud streaming numbers up to justify the expense at some point, and people are too addicted to the ms office subsidized gamepass service to switch to anything else, as long as it stays cheap.
This is like saying, “people need air to breathe.” The fact this is a revelation to gaming studios is deeply concerning.
I played some when it was in early access, and I’ve been absolutely loving BG3 now that it’s officially released. I haven’t felt like this about a game in a long time, and it’s probably because Larian studios treated this like Divinity Original Sin - a complete game with loving care. As I saw in another review, they didn’t make a D&D game, they just made D&D.
I feel like the revelation to gaming studios is not that people like a good product, it’s that Larian was allowed to make one without investors demanding it be the shittiest thing since shit sandwiches.
Absolutely. I genuinely worried a bit about my group, myself as DM included, being sucked into this game or having unrealistic tabletop expectations because of how well this game has been done lol
I also saw that there are a lot of things for players and DMs to learn from this game and how, although we can’t compete with the years long process of making such a complete game (done by many, many, minds and hands and through significant man hours), tabletop GMs can definitely be inspired by such a complete work. Asessing what they can implement from it in their own game designing and seeing how the two mediums of tabletop and video game can complement each other and how they differ will definitely lead to more interesting content on the table and respect for what GMs and story designers do.
I love the game, but I do miss some of the "fuck around" shenanigans you can get into with a DM who can improvise based on if someone comes up with some WAY out of left field idea of what they want to do. It's no replacement for the tabletop but there are definitely things both DMs and game designers can learn from each other here.
BG3 does have a few too many “the ceiling collapses and you all die” moments for my liking, but, for the most part, I do like it. It just came out, so it’s still going to probably get some balancing patches!
There are many spells and items in the game that would be pretty good in a TT game IMO
Agreed, I’m just astonished how they got the feeling of exploration/intrigue/investigation in the game down so well.
I’m taking notes on how best to bring that kind of suspense into my sessions. I’ve had players feel similarly suspenseful using Foundry Virtual Tabletop and a fog of war on a map I created, but it’s a little harder to accomplish that in person.
The improvisation is one thing and GMs definitely lend tabletop to be more creative in that way, but the suspense of not knowing what’s around the corner or behind the door is harder to relay with just description. I think the visual aspect is definitely helpful.
It’s certainly alarming and I hope they make a statement for it. The idea that any EAC game could have remote code exploit means anyone playing these games could be under risk of getting hacked.
This is a contributor post, not a Forbes official article.
I read here recently that the rich people who pay attention to Forbes for investment information avoid all Forbes contributor content and focus only official article from Forbes staff.
I don’t know how true that is, but if you believe it then until a forbes staffer writes about it in an official capacity, it hasn’t actually hit Forbes.
I read here recently that the rich people who pay attention to Forbes for investment information avoid all Forbes contributor content and focus only official article from Forbes staff.
I understand you, but they’re not the ones who matter here tbh; it’s other laymen. I don’t use Forbes, I just know what Forbes is. Looking at that page, I’d have no idea what you’re talking about. The url is Forbes, the author’s name is there, and is labelled as a senior contributor. For most of us: “we hit Forbes boys!”
It's likely a far cry from shutting down, but shutting down is inevitable. Most online only games you only lose access to when they die, but Destiny deletes stuff while it's still alive.
“Instead of getting more accepting of microtransactions these days because they’ve become so normalized, I’m moving the opposite direction. I genuinely resent Diablo 4 for sinking so, so much work into its $15-30 armor sets in the store when they could have been farmable in the game, and in-game sets are already starting to fall behind in the seasonal model.”
You clearly don’t resent it that much, considering you gave Diablo 4 a 9/10.
It's not a burn; it's a poorly constructed comment made out of context. The author's criticism on Diablo 4 is based within the context of Baldur's Gate 3's release. The review for D4 was written before BG3 was released.
Oh sorry I didn’t explain myself well enough. I mean if there’s a significant online component where a large part of the content is interactions with other players, it seems like there’s a shelf life to getting the best experience from the game. So maybe it’s worth having a legit copy instead of pirating some time down the road.
You’re not missing anything content-wise if you play it solo. In solo mode you control all 4 of your party members during their turns, and in the multiplayer mode you control some of your party and your friend(s) control the others. The game content is the same but the experience is very different since multiple players are generally less tactically coordinated than a single person and they can wander the map separately
It’s only 1 to 4 player co op, there is no major social element, don’t worry you can get buddies together to play BG3 years from now if you want co op I’m playing single player and its astounding so far, tho, so you’re fine either way
It’s not at all focused on multiplayer. Honestly, it’s probably super difficult to sink into the story if you’re playing with other people because there’s a ton of dialogue and that’s difficult if everyone’s not moving at the same pace. Multiplayer is probably intended for people who really want to invest a lot of time playing with a specific person. Single player is the primary way the game works.
Multiplayer makes fights more fun, but the game’s story is better experienced on single player.
When I first started playing I was mostly just using basic attacks against enemies like a regular rpg. When I played with friends with all sets of different builds I saw them dropping furniture to barricade doors, shoving enemies off of cliffs, triggering traps from a distance and all sorts of cool stuff I wasn’t even considering. But outside of fights everyone moved somewhere different and triggered different story elements that the others weren’t seeing at all.
I think that was intended for figure out ways to beat some of the time sensitive quest, where the trigger might be you talk to someone, enter an area, etc. If you long rest then the NPC might be dead and change the subplot. With multiplayer I don’t know how they handle long rest(like can one player go long rest while others don’t? or a voting system? etc.) Anyway, I do single player, and I think multiplayer could be fun as well.
There’s a multiplayer component like in Larian’s previous Divintiy: Original Sin games where your friends can join your party, but otherwise you can play it pretty much single-player.
Fwiw, I apparently paid for it like 3 years ago when it was in Early Access on Steam and forgot about it until I went to try and buy it again recently, but it’s absolutely worth the $60 if you wanna play it now bs later.
Honestly mate? Buy it. This isn’t a AAA game; this is a AA game made completely independently, without microtransactions or lootboxes or any of the many bullshit practices of modern gaming. The studio deserves your support.
It does have a multiplayer component, but it’s co-op. The game can be played in its entirety either way, and indeed, the single player experience is fantastic. So’s the multiplayer experience. The former is similar to Dragon Age Origins, and the latter is literally Dungeons and Dragons. Both are fantastic, and both are worth playing.
Don’t skip it. This is a deeply special game, and if you’re sick of the AAA bullshit, a great way to show the greater industry is by supporting it. Vote with your wallet.
FWIW, AAA is not typically defined by budget, but instead by the presence of a publisher and methods of release. If you go by standard definitions, as a completely independent developer who crowdfunded the game at the start, Larian’s actually indie.
There is no consistent definition for AA or AAA. It's just an implied level of production value. This game's got the equivalent modern day production value of a AAA game from 15 years ago, but the production value of AAA games like Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption these days has soared to levels unattainable to most.
Sure you could. The Witcher 3 has better production value by a meaningful amount with tons of scenes to shoot and permutations of those scenes. People said you couldn't meaningfully do better than the likes of the Kickstarter CRPGs ten years ago because of how much work would go into voice acting and animating all of those scenes, but BG3 is the better production value version of that.
Frankly I think that's laughable. The Witcher 3 is fine production quality wise, but it's not even sort of competitive with BG3. The main quest line vs BG3 side quests, maybe, but there's a huge step down to the animation quality of anything else.
I'm still working my way through BG2, but even watching main story quests in BG3 in the footage that's coming out around launch, the thought frequently enters my mind that the Witcher 3 looks better, like it got better touch-ups beyond what the engine automates for them.
A lot of the storytelling is through 2D scenes giving the illusion of being animated by moving pieces around (which does the job perfectly fine), and a lot of the side quest stuff is just plopping one character without any impressive animation in one spot just dropped in the world.
In BG3, there are a bunch of minor side quests where there are several characters interacting with each other in the 3D world, and your decision making branches branch harder. Just the sheer number of otherwise "minor" interactions with fully animated, voiced, and narrated actions is crazy.
well yeah, but that’s only because the slow death of “generations” will be complete by then. We already have a large swath of casual and/or younger gamers that are still gaming on PS4 because PS5 is too expensive and all the games work fine on PS4. Bump that forward by a generation, and what would you expect to happen? I don’t think it’s all that wild to expect that for the majority of the PS6’s lifespan, 100% of games will also come out on PS5. Hell, I’d bet even low-budget and indies continue to come out on PS4! It’ll be like phones - the PS6 is there for the people that want to pay out the nose for the bleeding edge, and the PS5 and Pro will still be there for everyone else that wants a console gaming experience. And all those kids playing fortnite and minecraft? They’ll still be playing that on their childhood PS4.
Thank fuck tho, it will keep electric waste down, and I feel we are starting to figure out you don’t need to spec your game to the newest graphics card for it to be fun.
From my understanding users of the beta can then invite others to join as well, Valve isn’t necessarily directly choosing who has access. So if Valve didn’t send the invite themselves they wouldn’t know to specifically put someone under a more strict NDA or whatnot because they’re a journalist. Could they have done more to restrict all users from sharing information? Yes, since apparently you just have to hit escape to bypass the agreement pop up, and there’s no other sort of NDA or contract or w/e in place upon joining.
I’m just speculating, but I think they chose not to do that so people could openly get their friends playing with them instead of going through waves of sign ups and hoping to get in together, or otherwise risk people losing interest when they can only play with randos. I could also see a line of thinking where you assume people want to talk about the game, so let them bring others in to play with them and that gives them someone to talk to about it too instead of just spilling the beans for randos on the internet.
Valve fucked up but the Verge still broke the social contract regardless of whether they’re legally in the clear or not.
Doing something just because “it’s legal” doesn’t make it a moral justification. My wife and I have a joint bank account. It is legal for me to take money from it and gamble it all away, the gate is “open” but that doesn’t make it morally justifiable.
Meh, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with what he did. What he did wasn’t just legal, it’s literally his job. The only issue is that Valve is now angry at him for their own failing.
To continue the same analogy, they didn’t just leave the gate open, they literally invited a bunch of people and told them to invite other people. I’m not sure what they expected if not this exact situation.
Valve isn’t really angry as far as I can tell, or have heard. They’re about as angry as any other person which goes and posts this stuff online: revoking access. If Valve wanted to expand their testing userbase without people leaking it online, they would have sought NDAs and other legally-binding agreements with testers and - by extension - journalists who can test the game.
forbes.com
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