Baldur's Gate III News
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Zaxares
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There's one mod I use for Scratch called "Scratch and Shovel" and it basically beefs up/rebalances the special summons (Scratch, Shovel, Us and Boo) so they're more resilient and capable in combat, allowing them to be viable summons all the way till endgame.
It's not on the official mods list so far, and I'm not sure if the mod author intends to port it over, but it's something you might like to keep an eye out for.
Black Elk
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Checking back today I saw that there was one called Scratch Overhaul! hehe
I decided that Glinda Hamilton and Barnold were going to need that one for sure!
No F8 but what we make! lol
I'm also trying the Adjustable Party Limit and these...
Seems pretty cool so far! Visable shields might be hit or miss, I kinda wish I could just adjust that with the U key, but it's still alright.
The Faerun Colors dyes I found right away, and went Mask black, cause of course hehe.
I also chose the mod that removed the Helmets from the Animal companions and a few others that seemed intriguing for a Ranger run.
It's funny how the game just instantly feels way more like a Baldur's Gate game with additional party members.
I chose party of 6, we haven't gotten to Wyll yet so still just 5 for now, but as soon as Lae'zel showed up without having to send someone else back to camp I felt instantly at home.
I think the move is to toggle the passive in Common, bring everyone on board, and then you can turn the passive off so the spell icons won't take up too much real estate in the action hotbar. I was about to download the "Better UI" mod, but the 16:9 thing gave me pause, since my laptop is 16:10. It might have worked, but I didn't want to risk Judgement day if somehow it janked up the video settings. It's a little hard to get the specs on the mods, unlike Nexus the descriptions are much briefer and you kinda gotta go by the images provided. Still, feels more convenient than the other stuff I was trying earlier or back in EA. Hopefully more stuff gets added, but this seemed enough to get the ball rolling. I'm trying for honours with 6 just to see how it plays. Fingers crossed, but so far so good!
I decided that Glinda Hamilton and Barnold were going to need that one for sure!
No F8 but what we make! lol
I'm also trying the Adjustable Party Limit and these...
Seems pretty cool so far! Visable shields might be hit or miss, I kinda wish I could just adjust that with the U key, but it's still alright.
The Faerun Colors dyes I found right away, and went Mask black, cause of course hehe.
I also chose the mod that removed the Helmets from the Animal companions and a few others that seemed intriguing for a Ranger run.
It's funny how the game just instantly feels way more like a Baldur's Gate game with additional party members.
I chose party of 6, we haven't gotten to Wyll yet so still just 5 for now, but as soon as Lae'zel showed up without having to send someone else back to camp I felt instantly at home.
I think the move is to toggle the passive in Common, bring everyone on board, and then you can turn the passive off so the spell icons won't take up too much real estate in the action hotbar. I was about to download the "Better UI" mod, but the 16:9 thing gave me pause, since my laptop is 16:10. It might have worked, but I didn't want to risk Judgement day if somehow it janked up the video settings. It's a little hard to get the specs on the mods, unlike Nexus the descriptions are much briefer and you kinda gotta go by the images provided. Still, feels more convenient than the other stuff I was trying earlier or back in EA. Hopefully more stuff gets added, but this seemed enough to get the ball rolling. I'm trying for honours with 6 just to see how it plays. Fingers crossed, but so far so good!
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Black Elk
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I ended up going back and grabbing all the 'Better' such and such mods.
The Adjustable Party Limit mod has a feature to allow it to be installed/uninstalled to an existing save, but some of the other stuff like the ones that change the UI need a new save. I got them pretty much all to work (the mods that all have that same font with 'Better' in the titles) figuring that they'd play well together.
The only one that didn't quite carry was the Better sidebar extender for the portraits on the far left. For some reason that one would push the bottom group/group hide menu on the left to overlap with the Class circle on the hotbar at the bottomleft. Maybe cause my screen is 16:10 instead of 16:9/UW, or perhaps just cause that one allows for the larger party like 8 or something for the crowding without having to scroll. Not sure. I could still click the icons and the like, so it was functional, but I didn't like the look of a tangent/overlap clip there for the main hotbar, so I just disabled that one. Otherwise the Better UI stuff all seemed to work and looked pretty slick. The Better topbar one gives more information and the context menu/inventory one felt pretty intuitive. Better dying worked fine with the Faerun colors too, so I think all those mods work well. The extended containers one from my first attempt didn't seem to work, (never saw those containers in my inventory) so I ditched that one. I also wanted to try the Hidden Scrolls mod that I saw, but it seemed to get stuck on the update while I was trying to enable it, so I left that one aside as well. Kept with the visible shields for now. Got Scratch up in the mix and a Squirrel, to go with our old Crows. The Ring of changing into a Cat is convenient, I need to remember to buy that one again from Arron, since it allows us to explore those cracks and drainpipe type transitions hehe. Anyhow, you can see below how the ImpUI/Better hotbar compares to the vanilla vscreen in the post above. A fair bit more room...
About to roll up on the Blighted Village, just looking so hard right now lol
The black dyes are pretty boss!
ps. the more I poke around with it the more frustrated I am that Larian didn't adopt some of this stuff and incorporate it into the base game. For me just having the party of 6 makes for a superior D&D campaign in every single way. The pacing and gameflow just feels way better as a result. Every argument in EA about how adding more party members would somehow make the combats take longer, or that it would make the game too easy, or that it would be too much to manage, all instantly defeated by seeing how it actually plays with a larger party. Everything is just smoother, the economy feels tighter, the division of the kit, the sense of an actual party dynamic, all better with 6 characters. The only thing that undermines it is the arbitrary limit of 4 imposed on the long rest cutscenes, or those special area transitions that bork out if bringing more than 4. The mod prevents this by removing the "choose camp supplies" or transition options until characters have been dismissed back down to 4, but seems like that could easily have been a launch setting, along with split XP and other things that would be immediately familiar to returning BG players. The party comp advantage of having 5 or 6 characters over 4 is massive, even without increasing the total number of recruitable companions, although I'd love to have seen more of those too. The pathing and formations aren't great, but it sorta works. Like I care less if someone sets off a trap or whatever, when there are a couple more peeps in the group. Exploration is maybe slightly more tedious on account of that, but combat to me feels more enjoyable with the party up to bat more often. Having to dismiss companions to long rest, while also somewhat tedious, casually reinforces the idea of trying to push the long rest a bit. Similar to goodberries the sink is just sorta click tedium and delay of game, but it works without being too heavy handed. With 6 people in the party, it's just mechanically way easier to power through to the next encounter, as opposed to going in 4 all buffs and summons to the hilt with hella potions sleeping constantly, with 6 things are bit more spread out. Like obviously it should have been 6 right? BG game and all! hehe
Just the option to have a few more pets and such along for the ride is going a real long way for me right now. 'Twisting the knife' with that Alfira recruitment in the Dark Urge campaign seems pretty pointless though, like it's a complete tease. You get to bring her into the party and level her, but we can't leave camp and get into any trouble? I re-assigned all her skillpoints to max out "Survival" but to no avail lol. Just shatter my heart before we start why don't you! hehe
Shield riggings sometimes have a life of their own when worn on the back lol. Mostly it holds up pretty well, like I didn't notice too much. But the problem is that you don't get to see many shields models until pretty far along and some are just a bit large I think. I'm considering starting over to remove that one honestly. It's a little inconvenient in that it's one of those mods that can't be easily disabled once you start a new save, so I'd have to start over basically. Game really needs a mod to Hide Shield or Hide cape, or a toggle switch similar to the torch and then it'd probably be ok, but for now it just sorta obstructs too much of the avatar I think. Doesn't look too bad on the humans and elves, but on a Gnome not so much.
Ladders are still a chore same was with 4 really, but we usually go pretty light, with just a couple summons to explore. Maybe the Crow, instead of the whole animal army at once, and that helps a bit. Still has some issues on the jumps and the ladders, but overall fairly manageable with upside of more banter and smoother encounters. I prefer it this way for sure with 6 and the critters, feels faster and more exciting to me.
Anyhow, I just don't see why they wouldn't have leaned into it more with the extra companions. The vanilla hirelings system is so weak sauce. I'd have taken another Bard from the existing roster of characters any day of the week! Viconia and a couple Goblins to pad it out. Sign me up!
Also just the little cosmetic things like being able to choose outfit colors, or tweak our portraits - that stuff is so massive for me in a cRPG. Not that I would make Black on Black Dyes available immediately like this - I think it's too front loaded and removes the sense of aesthetic progression to have everything available right from the start. I probably would have restricted some of these cooler looking dyes to non-enchanted armors and then had the more expensive stuff come online later. Like they had everything in place for that, with the Facemakers in Act III, but that's the difference between leaving it for the Mods to kill and building the whole game around the idea. Still right now I'd say the FaerunColors Dyes are basically the same thing as Major/Minor colors in BG1, so I'll take it. But you know what I mean right? Like why not just do it that way from the getgo? Who could say I guess. Better late than never on some of this stuff, but even with a million people downloading mods over the weekend, it's hard to imagine the typical player going all ham with some of that stuff. At least not until they've played the regular game already for several hundred hours probably.
I think they could have gotten ahead of it a bit more, or starting the process a lot earlier, so the whole modding scene could have peaked a bit sooner. I'm pretty happy that it exists now, don't get me wrong, but I can just picture how it might really take off with more support. I guess I still just really want NWN 3 for some of this stuff. Go figure!
But yeah, Lae'zel looks fantastic in Mask black!
The Adjustable Party Limit mod has a feature to allow it to be installed/uninstalled to an existing save, but some of the other stuff like the ones that change the UI need a new save. I got them pretty much all to work (the mods that all have that same font with 'Better' in the titles) figuring that they'd play well together.
The only one that didn't quite carry was the Better sidebar extender for the portraits on the far left. For some reason that one would push the bottom group/group hide menu on the left to overlap with the Class circle on the hotbar at the bottomleft. Maybe cause my screen is 16:10 instead of 16:9/UW, or perhaps just cause that one allows for the larger party like 8 or something for the crowding without having to scroll. Not sure. I could still click the icons and the like, so it was functional, but I didn't like the look of a tangent/overlap clip there for the main hotbar, so I just disabled that one. Otherwise the Better UI stuff all seemed to work and looked pretty slick. The Better topbar one gives more information and the context menu/inventory one felt pretty intuitive. Better dying worked fine with the Faerun colors too, so I think all those mods work well. The extended containers one from my first attempt didn't seem to work, (never saw those containers in my inventory) so I ditched that one. I also wanted to try the Hidden Scrolls mod that I saw, but it seemed to get stuck on the update while I was trying to enable it, so I left that one aside as well. Kept with the visible shields for now. Got Scratch up in the mix and a Squirrel, to go with our old Crows. The Ring of changing into a Cat is convenient, I need to remember to buy that one again from Arron, since it allows us to explore those cracks and drainpipe type transitions hehe. Anyhow, you can see below how the ImpUI/Better hotbar compares to the vanilla vscreen in the post above. A fair bit more room...
About to roll up on the Blighted Village, just looking so hard right now lol
The black dyes are pretty boss!
ps. the more I poke around with it the more frustrated I am that Larian didn't adopt some of this stuff and incorporate it into the base game. For me just having the party of 6 makes for a superior D&D campaign in every single way. The pacing and gameflow just feels way better as a result. Every argument in EA about how adding more party members would somehow make the combats take longer, or that it would make the game too easy, or that it would be too much to manage, all instantly defeated by seeing how it actually plays with a larger party. Everything is just smoother, the economy feels tighter, the division of the kit, the sense of an actual party dynamic, all better with 6 characters. The only thing that undermines it is the arbitrary limit of 4 imposed on the long rest cutscenes, or those special area transitions that bork out if bringing more than 4. The mod prevents this by removing the "choose camp supplies" or transition options until characters have been dismissed back down to 4, but seems like that could easily have been a launch setting, along with split XP and other things that would be immediately familiar to returning BG players. The party comp advantage of having 5 or 6 characters over 4 is massive, even without increasing the total number of recruitable companions, although I'd love to have seen more of those too. The pathing and formations aren't great, but it sorta works. Like I care less if someone sets off a trap or whatever, when there are a couple more peeps in the group. Exploration is maybe slightly more tedious on account of that, but combat to me feels more enjoyable with the party up to bat more often. Having to dismiss companions to long rest, while also somewhat tedious, casually reinforces the idea of trying to push the long rest a bit. Similar to goodberries the sink is just sorta click tedium and delay of game, but it works without being too heavy handed. With 6 people in the party, it's just mechanically way easier to power through to the next encounter, as opposed to going in 4 all buffs and summons to the hilt with hella potions sleeping constantly, with 6 things are bit more spread out. Like obviously it should have been 6 right? BG game and all! hehe
Just the option to have a few more pets and such along for the ride is going a real long way for me right now. 'Twisting the knife' with that Alfira recruitment in the Dark Urge campaign seems pretty pointless though, like it's a complete tease. You get to bring her into the party and level her, but we can't leave camp and get into any trouble? I re-assigned all her skillpoints to max out "Survival" but to no avail lol. Just shatter my heart before we start why don't you! hehe
Shield riggings sometimes have a life of their own when worn on the back lol. Mostly it holds up pretty well, like I didn't notice too much. But the problem is that you don't get to see many shields models until pretty far along and some are just a bit large I think. I'm considering starting over to remove that one honestly. It's a little inconvenient in that it's one of those mods that can't be easily disabled once you start a new save, so I'd have to start over basically. Game really needs a mod to Hide Shield or Hide cape, or a toggle switch similar to the torch and then it'd probably be ok, but for now it just sorta obstructs too much of the avatar I think. Doesn't look too bad on the humans and elves, but on a Gnome not so much.
Ladders are still a chore same was with 4 really, but we usually go pretty light, with just a couple summons to explore. Maybe the Crow, instead of the whole animal army at once, and that helps a bit. Still has some issues on the jumps and the ladders, but overall fairly manageable with upside of more banter and smoother encounters. I prefer it this way for sure with 6 and the critters, feels faster and more exciting to me.
Anyhow, I just don't see why they wouldn't have leaned into it more with the extra companions. The vanilla hirelings system is so weak sauce. I'd have taken another Bard from the existing roster of characters any day of the week! Viconia and a couple Goblins to pad it out. Sign me up!
Also just the little cosmetic things like being able to choose outfit colors, or tweak our portraits - that stuff is so massive for me in a cRPG. Not that I would make Black on Black Dyes available immediately like this - I think it's too front loaded and removes the sense of aesthetic progression to have everything available right from the start. I probably would have restricted some of these cooler looking dyes to non-enchanted armors and then had the more expensive stuff come online later. Like they had everything in place for that, with the Facemakers in Act III, but that's the difference between leaving it for the Mods to kill and building the whole game around the idea. Still right now I'd say the FaerunColors Dyes are basically the same thing as Major/Minor colors in BG1, so I'll take it. But you know what I mean right? Like why not just do it that way from the getgo? Who could say I guess. Better late than never on some of this stuff, but even with a million people downloading mods over the weekend, it's hard to imagine the typical player going all ham with some of that stuff. At least not until they've played the regular game already for several hundred hours probably.
I think they could have gotten ahead of it a bit more, or starting the process a lot earlier, so the whole modding scene could have peaked a bit sooner. I'm pretty happy that it exists now, don't get me wrong, but I can just picture how it might really take off with more support. I guess I still just really want NWN 3 for some of this stuff. Go figure!
But yeah, Lae'zel looks fantastic in Mask black!
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"It's not 100% clear why Larian didn't include these features in the toolkit to begin with, but it may be a case of protecting certain copyrighted assets being scraped easily from the game, or from being altered in a way that is unpleasing to DnD's intellectual property overlords."
So maybe the question was not only about adding MTX to a future game, but even about modding.
This is massive though, for the whole longevity of BG3.
www.rockpapershotgun.com
So maybe the question was not only about adding MTX to a future game, but even about modding.
This is massive though, for the whole longevity of BG3.
Baldur's Gate 3 level editor is cracked open by modders, bringing homebrew campaigns one step closer
A modder has cracked open some disabled abilities in the official modding toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3, making it possible for modders to create new levels.
Zaxares
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There's even been early talk of modders unearthing data/files for planned areas like the Upper City section in Act 3, some areas that were cut from Act 2 etc. that could potentially be brought back into the game via large modding projects."It's not 100% clear why Larian didn't include these features in the toolkit to begin with, but it may be a case of protecting certain copyrighted assets being scraped easily from the game, or from being altered in a way that is unpleasing to DnD's intellectual property overlords."
So maybe the question was not only about adding MTX to a future game, but even about modding.
This is massive though, for the whole longevity of BG3.
Baldur's Gate 3 level editor is cracked open by modders, bringing homebrew campaigns one step closer
A modder has cracked open some disabled abilities in the official modding toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3, making it possible for modders to create new levels.
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So, how do we feel about BG3 being nominated for the 2024 GotY "Best Community"?
On the one hand, we're part of that community, so it's flattering, but on the other hand, if we give it an honest look, nominating a game from 2023 in 2024 is a bit weird considering in this case, there is no big expansion released or ever planned. Yes, there are mods, and the mod menu in the game, but that's about it I think for 2024? If it's a point about releasing regular updates post-release, then other games should be considered as well, BG3 is not the only one (just look at P:WotR support for example, or Cyberpunk 2077, or No Man's Sky). Or think about Skyrim, Sims 4, Minecraft--bigger games with even bigger modding possibilities.
On the one hand, we're part of that community, so it's flattering, but on the other hand, if we give it an honest look, nominating a game from 2023 in 2024 is a bit weird considering in this case, there is no big expansion released or ever planned. Yes, there are mods, and the mod menu in the game, but that's about it I think for 2024? If it's a point about releasing regular updates post-release, then other games should be considered as well, BG3 is not the only one (just look at P:WotR support for example, or Cyberpunk 2077, or No Man's Sky). Or think about Skyrim, Sims 4, Minecraft--bigger games with even bigger modding possibilities.
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We should really thought about discussing, why Dragon Age: Veilguard was nominated in only one category
Chronicler
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"Best Community" feels like a weird category to begin with. That's not really a quality of the game itself. It's more just saying "All the cool kids are playing this".
Black Elk
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It's a bit odd if they take this same award in back to back years, but then again, half the nominees are also the same as last year, so I guess that's the deal now. Nothing new to write home about, so just mailing off some old letters I suppose. I agree that 'Best Community' is a perplexing category, since it's pretty hard to quantify. That said it's also difficulty to see anyone else doing much in 2024. BG3 has this endless procession of bespoke merch and artwork, peeps on the Con circuit, newly minted streamers, a pair of wikis, animated shorts, all that sort of stuff. Even peeps who don't play games still know about the game owing to things like that, without the need for a feature film or a live action TV show to help prop it up, so I guess that counts for something. Looking around it's hard to see many other games having much impact on the culture or how people dressed up for Halloween.
Mods are OK. Gamewise I'd say the most annoying stuff is still the same as in EA though. Like basic controls and camera stuff, pathing, or climbing ladders especially. I was convinced this was only happening to me cause I'd been playing with a party of 6 lately, but I guess it's a more standard form of jank since patch 7, least with that last issue. Extra frustrating when I would switch to another character, like mid ladder-shuffle to try and speed up the process, but then the character who I initially selected would often just freeze in place. Similar to the bugs where Halsin (in bear form) would get caught lagging, or where summons like Scratch would get lost sniffing - Myrmidon takes a nap at the Basilisk gate etc, though still showing them grouped with the crew. I think I even had it happen to the Raven once or twice, which was like really dude? keep up! And then you wonder how much juice skynet takes from the cpu to keep track of the missing party member across area maps. The body block, and the 1 by 1 pathing stuff, it's all pretty rough for a single player game, but ladders make it worse. Also, the way the default group formation is set up, if you have a bunch of summons or additional party members in the active crew, combat will frequently start with everyone so tightly packed together that you have to shuffle people around like one of those empty tile puzzles. Either that or blow a bonus action to jump or misty step to open a lane for the basic movement. That's gotta be the most annoying way to enter initiative with 6, just body blocked on all sides by random memphits hehe. Ladders behind, banisters and doorways beyond, all the targeting weirdness. Instead of shoving them out of the way, the elkheart barbarian just refuses to move at all? lol Ladder woes, such a metaphor.
2024 will probably Abdirak harder than 2020 did, but with less new BG3 on the horizon to battle the sense of impending doom. Bottom rung honestly for the times, I wish there was more coming down the pike. Doorways have been busted for some time as well, where you'd have to bring the camera along to click through for targeting. It's simultaneously my favorite but also a strange sort of RPG, where stuff would just randomly change or break and then go unfixed for like months, but then fixed again, just before something else goes haywire hehe. To me those are more nuts and bolts things, as opposed to like narrative hiccups or incongruities with the character stories, like say with Minthara, or whoever really, but especially Minthara. I think I read in Gamer that it's basically got the same number of players now as when it kicked off. They should have done the expansion thing, since there's not much really to compete with it, and then it would all make much more sense. It'd be funny if instead of the ceo or game developers that the award was given to the actors, or like random twitch streamers or something. Like where they fly them all out to do some Best Community whatever party and peeps just dress up like it's the comic con Oscars. Like if they just seated that table with peeps in full costume or had someone in the bear suit on stage on more time hehe. I hope they win anyway. I never even picked up Dragon Age, it's an upside down universe for sure. Too many thoughts, doubtless...
They should give the Golden statue to Lae'zel!
Mods are OK. Gamewise I'd say the most annoying stuff is still the same as in EA though. Like basic controls and camera stuff, pathing, or climbing ladders especially. I was convinced this was only happening to me cause I'd been playing with a party of 6 lately, but I guess it's a more standard form of jank since patch 7, least with that last issue. Extra frustrating when I would switch to another character, like mid ladder-shuffle to try and speed up the process, but then the character who I initially selected would often just freeze in place. Similar to the bugs where Halsin (in bear form) would get caught lagging, or where summons like Scratch would get lost sniffing - Myrmidon takes a nap at the Basilisk gate etc, though still showing them grouped with the crew. I think I even had it happen to the Raven once or twice, which was like really dude? keep up! And then you wonder how much juice skynet takes from the cpu to keep track of the missing party member across area maps. The body block, and the 1 by 1 pathing stuff, it's all pretty rough for a single player game, but ladders make it worse. Also, the way the default group formation is set up, if you have a bunch of summons or additional party members in the active crew, combat will frequently start with everyone so tightly packed together that you have to shuffle people around like one of those empty tile puzzles. Either that or blow a bonus action to jump or misty step to open a lane for the basic movement. That's gotta be the most annoying way to enter initiative with 6, just body blocked on all sides by random memphits hehe. Ladders behind, banisters and doorways beyond, all the targeting weirdness. Instead of shoving them out of the way, the elkheart barbarian just refuses to move at all? lol Ladder woes, such a metaphor.
2024 will probably Abdirak harder than 2020 did, but with less new BG3 on the horizon to battle the sense of impending doom. Bottom rung honestly for the times, I wish there was more coming down the pike. Doorways have been busted for some time as well, where you'd have to bring the camera along to click through for targeting. It's simultaneously my favorite but also a strange sort of RPG, where stuff would just randomly change or break and then go unfixed for like months, but then fixed again, just before something else goes haywire hehe. To me those are more nuts and bolts things, as opposed to like narrative hiccups or incongruities with the character stories, like say with Minthara, or whoever really, but especially Minthara. I think I read in Gamer that it's basically got the same number of players now as when it kicked off. They should have done the expansion thing, since there's not much really to compete with it, and then it would all make much more sense. It'd be funny if instead of the ceo or game developers that the award was given to the actors, or like random twitch streamers or something. Like where they fly them all out to do some Best Community whatever party and peeps just dress up like it's the comic con Oscars. Like if they just seated that table with peeps in full costume or had someone in the bear suit on stage on more time hehe. I hope they win anyway. I never even picked up Dragon Age, it's an upside down universe for sure. Too many thoughts, doubtless...
They should give the Golden statue to Lae'zel!
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Larian brought in €427 million ($446 million) in overall revenue last year, with the Irish Independent citing 15 million copies sold of Baldur's Gate 3—though Larian itself hasn't released precise sales numbers.
www.pcgamer.com
Compare that to Starfield numbers:
Bethesda’s Starfield has seen 15 million players since launching in September 2023.
www.ign.com
So 15 mln COPIES SOLD vs 15 mln players (considering the game is available on GamePass). That's some great success for Larian (especially since the numbers might be bigger).
One thing to note:
This is all in contrast with a pretty quiet year for Larian in 2022: The company reported €22.7 million ($24 million) in total revenue, with Larian actually operating at a €214,000 ($223,000) loss. It's a pretty stark reminder of how volatile the business of making games can be, with developers having to spend a great deal of money over a long period of time before (hopefully) making it all up and then some with a successful launch.
After losing money in 2022, Larian raked in a whopping $260 million profit of Baldur's bucks in 2023
€249 million, or $259,891,260 at the time of writing, to be precise.
Compare that to Starfield numbers:
Bethesda’s Starfield has seen 15 million players since launching in September 2023.
Starfield Hits 15 Million Players as Patch Adds Achievement-Friendly Creations, New Land Vehicle and Quest, and More - IGN
As Starfield hits 15 million players, Bethesda has released update 1.14.74. Check out the patch notes.
So 15 mln COPIES SOLD vs 15 mln players (considering the game is available on GamePass). That's some great success for Larian (especially since the numbers might be bigger).
One thing to note:
This is all in contrast with a pretty quiet year for Larian in 2022: The company reported €22.7 million ($24 million) in total revenue, with Larian actually operating at a €214,000 ($223,000) loss. It's a pretty stark reminder of how volatile the business of making games can be, with developers having to spend a great deal of money over a long period of time before (hopefully) making it all up and then some with a successful launch.
Black Elk
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Damn, a quarter billion eh? That's pretty wild. Especially coming hot on the heels of a world wide plague and during a period when just about everyone was feeling kinda broke probably, to still pull down those sorts of numbers? That's no mean feat. It's encouraging to see that a game like this could still be profitable, since it's not really a multiplayer thing. I mean technically I suppose it is, but not the sort of MP game where that's the main driver in the afterlife. It probably could have been a billion dollar game with an expansion that focused more on that. Still I guess that's enough to keep the ship afloat for whatever comes next hehe. I think BG3 was probably the only game I bought at full price that year, which was actually worth buying, or where I felt like I was getting more than I paid for initially. They also seem to have staked out a space for themselves that was particularly anti-corpo greed, like refusing to price gauge or nickel and dime. Or like jilting hasbro on the red carpet honeymoon basically lol. They raised the bar pretty high, which compared to the limbo stick was sort of endearing to see, but I bet they could have raked in twice as much if they'd kept it going. The last time they took my money was in 2020, but I bought the Deluxe thing again anyway when that came out, just cause I wanted a box (even if the PC one didn't have a disk). The collector's edition was priced a bit high for me, like that thing was approaching the cost of a PS5 console. I think pre-order was close to 300 bucks. I'd have swooped the artbook, but didn't really need a giant Emperor statue. I mean if it was Lae'zel maybe they'd have got me on that, who can say, but pretty steep there. They're probably reselling for like a grand by now though, which is probably good for collectors. Still, something more salt of the earth, with a sword coast expansion? I'd definitely have dropped another 60 bucks if there were new adventures and more recruitable NPCs. Extending the lvl cap via Mods is kinda cool, but a legit campaign to hit lvl 20 would have been fun! Even if they had to kneecap it with Wish on a D100 or something hehe
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I thought they were supposed to move on...
BG3 will receive cross-play support, a photo mode, and 12 new subclasses next year.
store.steampowered.com
BG3 will receive cross-play support, a photo mode, and 12 new subclasses next year.
Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #30 Photo Mode, Cross-Play, and 12 Subclasses Coming Next Year - Steam News
Like an aged mentor in an inspiring 1980s film montage, we’re filled with pride seeing all the mods you've been crafting and using since the release of our official mod tools in September. In just under three months, you've uploaded more than 3,000 mods, downloaded over 70 million, and created a...
Black Elk
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Saw that just now as well!
I think having a dozen new subclasses is pretty cool, because that will definitely extend the re-play. It's easy to imagine doing another run as a Hexblade or a Glamour Bard for example. I'm much more likely to play as a Subclass that's included as part of the base game than to download mods for Custom Sub-Classes or Races. There are a bunch available, but they haven't really grabbed me. I'd also rather play as any of the in-game NPCs we encounter along the way, with characters that are already established in the world, as opposed to like another hot Elf or Tiefling with random head models ported over from other RPGs. I think custom models are cool for the custom characters, but you also run into that issue where, if there's a glut of options, then the 'everything' overwhelm sets in. Or just gets too same-y same-y, or where it's too hard to rein in a standard custom spread, so peeps go back to vanilla, cause it's comfortable. I think it's just much better when the developers stake out that territory for us in advance and establish what makes the grade there, so I like that they're doing a full dirty dozen on that.
Cross-play is also nice. Things that have an effect on the actual gameplay. I wish they would add more achievements, especially class or sub-class based achievements. Just like the Jack of All Trades thing, but you know, where each Class or Race or Archetype is highlighted. Achievement attached to the specific characters too, stuff like that.
For Photo Mode I'm much more ambivalent, I guess just because it's taken forever, even though I do enjoy a good BG3 screenshot, clearly. From what they're showing so far it looks ok right now. Very reminiscent of Cyberpunk's Photo mode, but that's not really all I wanted from this game.
I'd prefer a way to export/import a Character, which we still can't do, or to control the camera (say pitch) while actually playing the game. Being able to do a jump shot or stage a fist pump complete with borders and emojis is a bit meh for me. I'm sure it will get used a lot, but probably in the same way people use the Cyberpunk photo mode, like to take goofy snapshots of their characters all contorted into compromising positions. It's entertaining initially, but then wears sorta thin. I think there's something a bit different about capturing a cool still as it happens vs trying to make it happen, if that makes sense. I'd rather have a Portrait Suite to make a headshots for use in-game hehe. I think I'd get a lot of mileage out of that. Maybe Durge selfie stick is a necessary step though, to get to the sort of gestural emotive stuff I'm after on the fly. I'm also hoping that for the cutscenes they might have a way to adjust the angle on some of those shot/counter shots, like to avoid my new problem of over the shoulder wing clipping during dialogue delivery hehe.
Still, way better than nothing I guess! I'll take it!
ps. Looking over the camera part of the news again just now...
"Now you’re ready for your close-up! Or, if you’re feeling creative, set the scene for a full-on Faerûn musical - choose a set facial expression, plus a range of over 40 static and animated poses, each with multiple variations to help give you the perfect layout."
Trying to parse some of the text tabs in the gifs but couldn't quite read what's there. "40 static and animated poses" sounds good though. I'm interested in that mention of facial expressions. If the facial expressions cover a good range then maybe someone could figure out how to just use that for the headshot portraits like an in-scene snap. That would be a fun place to start with the combat stances and the weapons. It's amusing to see like ballet with the weapons on the back, but I'm kinda into it lol. Game could still use some scabbards and belts, but it's more in the xmas stocking than I thought we'd get for sure! Something to look forward to
I think having a dozen new subclasses is pretty cool, because that will definitely extend the re-play. It's easy to imagine doing another run as a Hexblade or a Glamour Bard for example. I'm much more likely to play as a Subclass that's included as part of the base game than to download mods for Custom Sub-Classes or Races. There are a bunch available, but they haven't really grabbed me. I'd also rather play as any of the in-game NPCs we encounter along the way, with characters that are already established in the world, as opposed to like another hot Elf or Tiefling with random head models ported over from other RPGs. I think custom models are cool for the custom characters, but you also run into that issue where, if there's a glut of options, then the 'everything' overwhelm sets in. Or just gets too same-y same-y, or where it's too hard to rein in a standard custom spread, so peeps go back to vanilla, cause it's comfortable. I think it's just much better when the developers stake out that territory for us in advance and establish what makes the grade there, so I like that they're doing a full dirty dozen on that.
Cross-play is also nice. Things that have an effect on the actual gameplay. I wish they would add more achievements, especially class or sub-class based achievements. Just like the Jack of All Trades thing, but you know, where each Class or Race or Archetype is highlighted. Achievement attached to the specific characters too, stuff like that.
For Photo Mode I'm much more ambivalent, I guess just because it's taken forever, even though I do enjoy a good BG3 screenshot, clearly. From what they're showing so far it looks ok right now. Very reminiscent of Cyberpunk's Photo mode, but that's not really all I wanted from this game.
I'd prefer a way to export/import a Character, which we still can't do, or to control the camera (say pitch) while actually playing the game. Being able to do a jump shot or stage a fist pump complete with borders and emojis is a bit meh for me. I'm sure it will get used a lot, but probably in the same way people use the Cyberpunk photo mode, like to take goofy snapshots of their characters all contorted into compromising positions. It's entertaining initially, but then wears sorta thin. I think there's something a bit different about capturing a cool still as it happens vs trying to make it happen, if that makes sense. I'd rather have a Portrait Suite to make a headshots for use in-game hehe. I think I'd get a lot of mileage out of that. Maybe Durge selfie stick is a necessary step though, to get to the sort of gestural emotive stuff I'm after on the fly. I'm also hoping that for the cutscenes they might have a way to adjust the angle on some of those shot/counter shots, like to avoid my new problem of over the shoulder wing clipping during dialogue delivery hehe.
Still, way better than nothing I guess! I'll take it!
ps. Looking over the camera part of the news again just now...
"Now you’re ready for your close-up! Or, if you’re feeling creative, set the scene for a full-on Faerûn musical - choose a set facial expression, plus a range of over 40 static and animated poses, each with multiple variations to help give you the perfect layout."
Trying to parse some of the text tabs in the gifs but couldn't quite read what's there. "40 static and animated poses" sounds good though. I'm interested in that mention of facial expressions. If the facial expressions cover a good range then maybe someone could figure out how to just use that for the headshot portraits like an in-scene snap. That would be a fun place to start with the combat stances and the weapons. It's amusing to see like ballet with the weapons on the back, but I'm kinda into it lol. Game could still use some scabbards and belts, but it's more in the xmas stocking than I thought we'd get for sure! Something to look forward to
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Chronicler
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Interesting!I thought they were supposed to move on...
BG3 will receive cross-play support, a photo mode, and 12 new subclasses next year.
Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #30 Photo Mode, Cross-Play, and 12 Subclasses Coming Next Year - Steam News
Like an aged mentor in an inspiring 1980s film montage, we’re filled with pride seeing all the mods you've been crafting and using since the release of our official mod tools in September. In just under three months, you've uploaded more than 3,000 mods, downloaded over 70 million, and created a...
I'd heard that apparently the way that Hasbro tried to monetize BG3 was so scuzzy that Larian refused to work with them again.
But I guess not. Don't know what Hasbro did that was so terrible but it sounds like they're both running a business here and things can be mutually profitable for a bit longer.
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I honestly think Larian does hold BG3 deeply in their hearts and want to leave it in the best possible state (feature wise). Plus, the concurrent number of players is still higher than for new DA4, so it's an incentive for them to flesh it out as much as possible.
I wouldn't be surprised if some devs that are particularly fond of working on BG3 asked Swen, if they could tinker on it a while longer than he planned.
Black Elk
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My first thought (or maybe second or third thought) after they announced Larian would be moving on from BG3, was something along the lines of... 'But can't they just find a couple dozen people on payroll to keep this thing going somehow???'
It's hard to believe that their devs were all equally burnt out on it. Especially since they'd just hired a bunch of peeps, who probably signed on thinking BG3 had legs still.
Of course now that we got Mr. AI's X Men floating the idea of buying Hasbro outright, I get pretty nervous. I can see that going just terribly. I don't want D&D's fortunes tied to Doge or whatever. Reinventing Monopoly for the monopolists? Or like where I can't even play Axid & Allies anymore unless I have an X account? I thought that was a joke when I read it yesterday, but then it was like 'oh my goodness, what if that actually happens?' Gave me the knee jerk there, cause crazier things have transpired.
I mean unless I somehow won the lottery, for total power over the ultimate portrait design suite, like with the unlimited budget for all the technical artists. Then maybe I'd change tune, but that's like a real prisoner's dilemma sort of thing, cause Ai of it is so antithetical to the ars. Maybe if they had a union, but instead of calling it that, they just called it a Guild, so maybe it flies more under the radar.
Least BG3 is somewhat self contained, and has the anit totalitarian vibes built into it from the storyline. I'm immediately skeptical of spiritual successors hehe. I just want the real deal
It's hard to believe that their devs were all equally burnt out on it. Especially since they'd just hired a bunch of peeps, who probably signed on thinking BG3 had legs still.
Of course now that we got Mr. AI's X Men floating the idea of buying Hasbro outright, I get pretty nervous. I can see that going just terribly. I don't want D&D's fortunes tied to Doge or whatever. Reinventing Monopoly for the monopolists? Or like where I can't even play Axid & Allies anymore unless I have an X account? I thought that was a joke when I read it yesterday, but then it was like 'oh my goodness, what if that actually happens?' Gave me the knee jerk there, cause crazier things have transpired.
I mean unless I somehow won the lottery, for total power over the ultimate portrait design suite, like with the unlimited budget for all the technical artists. Then maybe I'd change tune, but that's like a real prisoner's dilemma sort of thing, cause Ai of it is so antithetical to the ars. Maybe if they had a union, but instead of calling it that, they just called it a Guild, so maybe it flies more under the radar.
Least BG3 is somewhat self contained, and has the anit totalitarian vibes built into it from the storyline. I'm immediately skeptical of spiritual successors hehe. I just want the real deal
Black Elk
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I thought this interview article was interesting for some of the behind the scenes...
www.gamesradar.com
Makes the whole thing seem even more epic somehow. Also like some of the motivations for doing it in the first place and the challenges along the way. Some things I suspected, others a bit of a surprise. That bit about Jaheira rang true for me, doubtless hehe
The Making of Baldur's Gate 3: "We really wanted to make it so that even if you don't know D&D or Baldur's Gate, you would still have exciting choices as a player"
Feature | Edge Magazine: Larian fought with cinematics, embassies and the expectations of BioWare fans to make the RPG of the decade
Makes the whole thing seem even more epic somehow. Also like some of the motivations for doing it in the first place and the challenges along the way. Some things I suspected, others a bit of a surprise. That bit about Jaheira rang true for me, doubtless hehe
Black Elk
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Also not news really, but just a feeling I still have... That part of what made the game so successful as a 'Community' thing, is that while the game doesn't require any sort of D&D background to get into, for the minutia D&D pedantics create this nice web where people feel motivated to teach others how to play. So instead of a bunch of "get good" nonsense, instead you'll have like full on Wikis to explain every spell and every item, hour long tutorial videos or experimental twitch streams or whatever, where peeps can just go off the deep end into minutia. Even the single player game has that aspect, like you could be spectating or getting taken back to school. Maybe learn a new trick or puzzle something out from the D&D knowledge, but mainly because that part of the game also exists outside of BG3. So for example, someone wants to know why Shadowheart is always igmissing everything with her firebolt cantrip, but then someone else points out it's because the Firebolt cantrip comes from her High Elf background and uses INT. So instead of that +3 from Wisdom, she won't get the bonus for attacks. So in that case Firebolt is like just for lighting fuses or environmental torches and such. Typical player probably wouldn't ever be able to figure that out from the tooltips or positioning on the hotbar, but it then it sorta seeps out into the aether, whether by osmosis or principles of recursion or who knows, but like the Squid word gets out, and the game has that extra layer of meta. It's the sort of thing that reminds me of Dungeon mags or Nintendo Power, like something cultivated alongside the game instead of within it. I feel like because it's BG/D&D it gets that bonus on top, which would probably be harder to pull off if introducing a brand new IP with totally self contained systems, like a built in encyclopedia, or an approach which tries to more explicitly teach players how to play the game.
Initially I had hoped for the triple Trifecta, where BG3 leads inexorably to IWD3 and ultimated to NWN3, all sorta interconnected or maybe using the same engine or same theme/over-all look and read. Like I expected the 3s to hit right in a row. Not with an interegnum or studio change, but just like I guess the heir to the throne of 90s bioware. But that's like such a tall order that I kinda get it. I mean damn, talk about pressure cookers. Still I think for the ultimate dream of NWN3, that it would be really cool if the game went into Nth degree detail for it's toolset and module maker. Giving the player extra vocabulary and ways to describe the little nuances, inside say Character Creation menus or NPC/Monster builders, but also where all the tools for that feel like little games unto themselves. The BG3 Char creator has definite charm and the promise of cinematic emotive stuff from theater carried over. But I mean I guess what I'm saying is Gortash with Total Power, like over the whole stage and wardrobe, but with an Elminster-esque tool tip for the mouse over details. I just want a Neverwinter caliber toolset, with a BG caliber main campaign, and an IWD caliber dungeon crawler for replay or MP. But I don't know, I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be D&D. Could probably be Ultima or MM or anything like that with long enough legs to fill in the gaps. I still find myself super excited for Excalibur, whatever it means! But yeah, just clinging to all the threads for now. It'll be hard to top near term
Initially I had hoped for the triple Trifecta, where BG3 leads inexorably to IWD3 and ultimated to NWN3, all sorta interconnected or maybe using the same engine or same theme/over-all look and read. Like I expected the 3s to hit right in a row. Not with an interegnum or studio change, but just like I guess the heir to the throne of 90s bioware. But that's like such a tall order that I kinda get it. I mean damn, talk about pressure cookers. Still I think for the ultimate dream of NWN3, that it would be really cool if the game went into Nth degree detail for it's toolset and module maker. Giving the player extra vocabulary and ways to describe the little nuances, inside say Character Creation menus or NPC/Monster builders, but also where all the tools for that feel like little games unto themselves. The BG3 Char creator has definite charm and the promise of cinematic emotive stuff from theater carried over. But I mean I guess what I'm saying is Gortash with Total Power, like over the whole stage and wardrobe, but with an Elminster-esque tool tip for the mouse over details. I just want a Neverwinter caliber toolset, with a BG caliber main campaign, and an IWD caliber dungeon crawler for replay or MP. But I don't know, I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be D&D. Could probably be Ultima or MM or anything like that with long enough legs to fill in the gaps. I still find myself super excited for Excalibur, whatever it means! But yeah, just clinging to all the threads for now. It'll be hard to top near term
Chronicler
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The player character in BG3 is a bhaalspawn?
Christ, can you imagine all the discourse that would've been avoided if they'd included that in the marketing and not made it a plot twist?