You have pictures and visions of the 3 leaders from the goblins. In the ruined town and in the goblin fortress. They are hints for gortash and orin in various other places too.
There are hints of the cult of Bhaal and Gortash taking over all over acts 1 and 2. I just found a note in act 1 in the entry to the zent basement talking about Gortash. The goblins talk about their 3 leaders, and you quickly understand that they’re not the goblin, the drow and the hobgoblin.
Ketheric was merely the first step, and saving the duke comes in act 3. There are many pathes to save him or not. Really that’s not railroad that’s happening, that’s vilains having more in their bag that you’d hope for.
These are good vilains, and it is a good story. Far better than a story that doesn’t move forward and has its vilains protected by scenarium.
There is a difference between misjudging the success and betting on the failure.
Did you read the paper? BG3 was assessed far below just dance or let’s sing ABBA! It was at the very bottom of the list!
I bought the game blind a year before release. Not to test it but because I knew were I was going. Of course I had big fears about it because many games pretended to be BG successors and I didn’t want to get my expectations too high. But I didn’t know anything about it because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
The information was there. I don’t know why journalists to whatever didn’t saw it coming but I was prepared for it being a big thing for me. It is litteraly their job to assess whether a game will work or not. They bet on failure. They couldn’t be more wrong, and I don’t think there was any sign of failure.
The degree of success couldn’t be predicted, sure. But larian is not a new studio, BG is a big ip, DOS2 was a big success, the witcher 3 was a tremendous success, and the game was in early access for 3 years so you could very easily gauge how it was going.
If a decider can’t see that coming at least as a significant possibility, they’re all clowns who don’t deserve more than the lowest wages.
This is very true. And it’s ironic because when I saw BG3 I thought that bioware paved the way for it. They had everything to make a BG3 since kotor and nwn2, they successfully kick-started their own IP with ME and DAO, but they went on the path of ME3 and DAI instead.
They mistakenly thought the kotor and neverwinter nights ways were different. And then they failed at adapting to the openworld era.
It depends. There’s a fine line between managing logistic and soreadsheet grade chores. Managing logistic can be interesting and it can bring a lot to the game. But if it is merely checking boxes and numbers on a spreadsheet it’s a chore that’s better left out of the game.
It depends on the kind of tabletop rpg. In old school ones you may have a cart and hireling to carry this stuff, so you would definitely take those cheese wheels to sell them or for food to your group that’s not so small anymore. Logistic was part of the game. But a part that’s easily lost depending on how you play.
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).