So as someone who is an avid fan of Bg1 and bg2, but having never played divinity games because of kinda lack of interest, is bg3 worthy or not? I don’t want to get disappointed.
I had played some post-bg rpgs like dragon age: origins, but it felt like meh and I did not complete it.
I can’t do much to answer your original question but you could always try it and refund it within the 2 hour period steam allows.
Sure, you won’t be able to get the full experience but in that time you should be able to get a basic feel for the game and some characters which could let you form your own opinion.
Steam can be pretty loose with the period too within reason. I only returned a game once, it was the Outer Worlds and I put like 4 hours into it. I explained to them that at that point it was clear that choices didn't have the big impact I thought they would and I felt deceived.
It’s a great game by all measures, but it really feels more like a sequel to the last two Divinity games rather than the Baldur’s Gate series. The only thing it really has in common with the old games is the setting, a few recurring characters, and the fact that it’s based on D&D. Otherwise, they are about as different as CRPGs can get.
If you want a spiritual successor to the old infinity engine games, look at the two Pillars of Eternity games and the two Pathfinder games.
I have had one of the pathfinders games gifted to me, but not tried yet. I guess I should give it a go after I finish up with (totally unrelated) Monster Train.
Pillars of eternity was fucking incredible. They absolutely nailed that old bioware vibe, something I’m certain the cranial leakage Larian employs is incapable of.
I never played BG1 or BG2 or any of the Divinity games. I have played DND a lot. This feels like medieval fantasy Fallout 1 & 2 with AAA flourishes. I really like it. It’s very unforgiving. There are a lot of creative ways to finish quests. You can miss entire bits of the game based on choices. There’s a character you literally cannot recruit based on your morality choices, and with them entire subplots. The game is DEEP
Baldur’s Gate 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, and I was extremely worried and sceptical that BG3 could live up to the hype and the name of the franchise.
To the first point, it definitely has. The game is fantastic, deep, fun and absorbing, with gorgeous environments, interesting nooks, crannies and dungeons to explore and lots of fun making custom multiclass combos for your character.
It does a good job of creating a facsimile of playing Pen-and-Paper D&D with an abundance of skill checks and visible Dice Rolls, and if you decide to roll with your failures instead of save-scumming it has lots of different permutations for events and decisions can have serious consequences.
When it comes to how it relates to the previous games, I’m at the end of Act 2 and have yet to discover a real reason for this game to be called “Baldur’s Gate 3”. So far it has been entirely standalone, narratively. There might still be connections further down the road, however.
The real difference is in the writing. If what you love about the old Baldur’s Gates were the characters and the writing and you want and expect more of that then you will be disappointed. First of all, this game takes place 100 years after BG2 so expect very few familiar faces. The one returning character I’ve encountered so far has not felt particularly recognisable, either. It’s a damn good game, but it definitely feels like an unmistakably Larian game, and not a Baldur’s Gate game, writing wise. It particularly comes through in the companions.
As someone who adores the old games, I still recommend trying it as I’m having a lot of fun with it, but you might want to pretend it’s called “Divinity: Faerun” and not Baldur’s Gate 3 to enjoy it fully.
I love BG series since I’m young (started playing bg1 when I was 14, and I was still playing this year). While BG3 is different in many respect, it is honourable to the franchise IMO.
The game is different obviously, because 20 years have passed. Beamdog made a remaster is what you want is the original game. And BG3 shares a lot with divinity original sin, mostly because it’s the same engine running it. It’s not real time with pause, you have far more interactions with the environment, far more possibilities while exploring the world, and the world is far more reactive to what you’re doing.
IMO BG3 is better than bg2 in almost every respect.
The companions relationships are deeper, and they still have their own personalities, they’re not just following you like in almost all bioware games post BG. There can be very dramatic moment with them.
The rest of the game has a lot to do with what made BG good games. And there was a lot to it.
An important part was the dnd fantasy world and rules. They are updated to 5e, and it’s still dnd, no other game than a dnd franchise would have that.
Most other aspect were already there in Dos2 though: exploration, character and group building, itemization, open world and big side adventures. All that is there and it is the quality of BG. The freedom to do anything the way you like is also there and better than with BG, because the engine allows so much more.
The tactical aspect is also there. The only difference, as I said, is turn based instead of real time with pause. If you’re OK with that, I cannot see how you wouldn’t be happy with BG3, except for some nostalgia that would prevent you from liking anything new. IMO BG3 is factually a better bg2.
Lastly, the story. I’m not that far, and I haven’t seen many connections with bg1 and 2 stories yet. There are references. And the story happens around and in Baldur’s gate (unlike Baldur’s gate 2 btw).
I loved BG2 and it was one of my favourite games ever for a very long time. Though when I read the old BG sub on Reddit it seems people there disliked everything I loved and hyperfocused on things I just considered part of the vehicle to deliver an amazing story that allowed so much freedom and depth that made you feel emotional and connected. I had tried to replay BG2 but the mechanics are so, so outdated now and distracting.
BG3 over delivers on the choice depth, story and connection but does so with an updated, fun and much better engine with much more mechanics.
"Aaron Keller gets that (people are upset). "That announcement was about an ambitious project that we ultimately couldn't deliver."
On one end, he could be lying, after all it's not like they didn't have working prototypes and cinematic for the new game mode that wasn't deliverable
Or.
He is telling the truth. Then making people return to the office impacted blizzard's bottom line more then they thought and was a stupid decision that they should end ASAP.
Holy fuck, this looks incredible. For context, Fat Shark have been working very hard to address the criticisms of the game at launch, and they’ve really, really listened to the community in a big way. Many concerns have been addressed already, and the two big ones left were the lack of missions (which is slowly improving, but mapmaking takes time, so I can’t be too salty on that one) and the lack of class variety. This looks like it completely addresses that last issue.
Back when the game launched I wrote a review on steam that basically said “Despite all its flaws I enjoy this game a lot and will continue to play it, but I can’t in good conscience recommend it.” Every now and I go back and ask myself if it’s time to go back and finally flip that review to a “Recommended”. Every time so far the answer has been no, not yet. This might finally be the thing that pushes it over into a yes.
I haven’t played much since launch. I liked the game, but it felt like there was still a lot missing so I figured I’d put it down and play something else. Now I’m busy with bg3 but it may be time to jump back into darktide soon.
For me the games I have enjoyed the most are Ratchet and Clank games. I’m so lucky there has been many releases with most of them being good. Longer development cycles and the mindset of releasing when ready would be better for these games too.
I haven’t played the last 3 games but I know that one very appealing idea for them that keeps players around is the newer fluid mechanics and lack of bugs on launch. This series is like the bread and butter of Sony games, you’re never feeling like it’s just a reskin of the previous game.
For me it wasn't the fire that kept drawing comparisons to Divinity. It was the writing. The opening is beat for beat Divinity tropes and it was off-putting. It took hours more gameplay and character development for that edge to wear down, though it has probably permanently shaded my first playthrough. Perhaps that opening was one of the first things written, and thus the most akin to its predecessor.
Once the game settles in, things feel less Divinity and more Faerun. The fire metaphor is apt though. Things do creep in from time to time to remind you who built this adventure. It's like a signature. I don't always like it, seeing the hand in this case is more jarring because of how sensitive I am towards the setting and gameplay. But the craft is so thoughtful otherwise, it's broken through those barriers for me.
I agree, and it comes through in the companions, too. And despite them singling out Jaheira in the article I have a hard time recognising much of her, except for the appearance. Maybe the hundred years passing is the excuse but I wish her bossy, sarcastic, witty personality was more present and recognisable.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and it has been monopolizing my attention but it’s still not beating the Divinity 3 allegations (though I’m only at the end of Act 2, still).
As a casual viewer of LTT this is surprising. The show seemed relatively wholesome and helpful, but obviously I missed moments to the contrary that people are pointing out now. Being an infrequent watcher, seeing threads suddenly popup that call for Linus to step back/step down are like whaaaaaat. Internet is a fast moving place.
The obsession with the fact that GN didn’t reach out for lmg’s response to the story is extremely rich given that ltt didn’t give billet labs that exact same courtesy
I mean Billet sent them a unit for review. That implies they’re expecting to be reported upon. Now, LTT half-assed the reporting and then accidentally put the prototype into their auction system, but I’d say “damning reporting” is an expected possible outcome of sending something to a reviewing org to be reviewed that doesn’t require special notice.
However they sent a 3090 GPU and a prototype cooler for that specific board, which they mounted on a 4090 board which has a potentially different layout and was not tested.
Imagine they were a small company , whose first product was the LTT screwdriver, and they had sent an early prototype to a YouTuber who complained that none of the bits he had laying around worked on that screwdriver, so no one should buy the LTT screwdriver because it just doesn’t work. When people complain that they weren’t doing the product justice by testing it with the wrong things they replied “I’m not spending money retesting a screwdriver that no one should buy because it’s useless”. Then turned around and sold the prototype at an auction. Then when people complained they said “we didn’t sell it, we auctioned it for charity, and have already sent money to replace it” having sent the email agreeing to pay seconds before saying that stupid excuse.
They did a LOT of wrong things there, a bad review is the least of the problems. For all I know the product is in fact shit, but because of their methodology, plus all that they did afterwards, I can’t trust that they would ever produce an honest review of the product. And this is a house of cards, as soon as one review can’t be trusted, no review can be trusted. Can you assure that they used proper protocol when testing other things if they can’t even use the GPU that was sent together with the cooler? And that when people point this instead of retesting they just dig themselves deeper into “we’re right”… Plus you should watch the GN video, they point a LOT of inconsistencies and errors in other videos, showing that the cooler is NOT an isolated thing.
For all I know the product is in fact shit, but because of their methodology, plus all that they did afterwards, I can’t trust that they would ever produce an honest review of the product.
I mean yeah I’m not arguing that point. Maybe calling that “half-assed” is an understatement when they were clearly showing their whole asses on that effort, but still:
Billet sent a unit to get reviewed, and the reviewers made a review. A grossly incompetent review, but a review. I don’t see why that would be worthy of special notification. Losing/selling the prototype was just a further demonstration of that incompetence.
Whereas if you’re going to do a long-form report on a group’s involvement in an event, it’s considered good form to reach out for comment.
Either way, imho the Billet story has kind of been eclipsed by the Xeets by their ex-employee about the toxic workplace.
Basically, Linus’ company is a complete trainwreck and he has no credibility on fixing it since it seems like the disastrous culture is his own fault. Sitting and saying “this is fine, I’m taking care of it” to every disaster while pushing for more and more content to the point that quality slips to legally actionable levels is piss-poor leadership.
I understand that point but my counter is that if someone sends you a product/video in private to review you have more reson to contact them about what you will say before you do than if the product/video is publicly available.
Do you think LTT should contact the companies that they do secret shopping before releasing the video? Any comments that they might have won’t change what happened on their experience, and any promises of improvement won’t prevent them from publishing the video so it’s kind of pointless.
Even if GN had contacted and they had explained what they already explained, the GN video would be the exact same with an added part for LTT’s response, which LTT is perfectly capable of doing themselves, and would do regardless of GN’s video.
I’m glad GN didn’t reach out. Linus emailed Billet Labs 2 hours after the GN video with an offer to reimburse them for the prototype, so that he could claim that GN got their facts wrong. But we have the receipts!
That was the nail in the coffin, for me. Making mistakes is fine, even big ones. I understand that Youtube is the devil, and it’s easy to fall into a trap of shoveling nonsense out onto the platform. I’m honestly sympathetic to that. If Linus said “You’re right, quality has suffered cuz we’ve been going too fast. We need to take another look at this.” I’d be completely happy.
But to lie – not just by words, but by actions – in order to cast doubt on the people who are trying to give you a reality check and get your work back on track… That’s really bad.
Did you watch the response video? It explains that. Colton responded…but had forgotten to add the billet dudes email to it. So it was a bone head mistake that is compounded by bad processes and bad decisions.
It’s not as nefarious as people are making it seem.
I did watch the response video before commenting. Did you read the forum post? He said it’s all settled, it’s just gotta go through the bean counters now. But the fact that he emailed them immediately before posting proves that he knew it was not all settled.
What if they replied “Actually, you can’t just reimburse us for that. The manufacturing process that produced it is being overhauled and we won’t be able to replace it for at least 6 months and we’ve got conferences to demo at between then and now. We need you to get it back.”
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