Unfinished: Baldur's Gate 3 (10/13/2020)

This game is so good! can't wait until the full game is released.

awesome!! I was hoping y'all would check this out

"Who plays a Bard"

Didn't expect to get called out by Brad today, but I guess this is where we are. :(

I understand Rorie's complaints, they should allow you to play however, but I also understand them not wanting to give you the ability to game the system. It makes sense that you can't move guys around in all situations before combat.

Baldur's Gate is in Forgotten Realms (Faerun). Neverwinter and Planescape also take place in Forgotten Realms, though Planescape is technically its own setting.

Ravenloft is in Greyhawk, which is like Forgotten Realms but more forgotten.

All the good books happen in Dragonlance.

Steampunk weirdos hang out in Eberron.

This has been your guide to DND campaign settings.

Yeah no, there are certain games I would value Giant Bomb's opinion on, this is not one of them. I need people more up on their knowledge for games like this. If other people enjoy this video that's great, but I won't be clicking play.

I trust Larian so I purchased this for support as it definitely needs another year or two in the oven.

@garr123: And don't forget Spelljammer which is DnD in SPAAAAAAAACE!

Note for Rorie, during dialogue scenes you can switch characters from one of the icons at the bottom left, so like in the Original Sins, you can have one character distracting someone in dialogue while your other characters move around to pickpocket or ready an ambush for them. It's still a lot of fiddling, but it's not as strict as Wasteland 3 was about it.

I'm shocked that Dragonlance hasn't seen any representation in 5e. It seems stuck in this weird 80's-early 90's bubble - I think the last game that even referenced Krynn was Baldur's Gate 2?

I think the most recent Dragonlance media we've gotten is a crappy animated movie and a Russian musical.

Wtf, you can slip on grease and instantly lose a turn? That is brutal!

Wish I wouldn't have clicked on reading this remarkably pointless comment. What is the point of clicking through to this page just to leave this comment? What 'knowledge' are they supposedly not up on?

Excited to get a Divinity that doesn't repulse me with the aesthetics, because if it wasn't for the art design of Original Sin 1+2 they might've been my favorite RPGs, ever. I also had no desire to finish them for largely the same reason.

... and people say fighting games are impenetrable, this looks like a solid brick wall to me! the inventory screen, the million UI elements, the DnD knowledge, and on top of that it's a hard game! Don't sell me too hard on it!

Real talk im so happy for the hardcore people looking for this experience, it is SO awesome when you get exactly what you want without modern compromises and easy mode for people like me :)

I'm not sure if I missed it in this video, but I'm really hoping you can't do too much moving of barrels/boxes like the divinity games have. Otherwise it leads to a lot of the issues in combat encounters that the divinity games has as well. They take a lot of time, the first turn is super important, and preparing the battlefield is recommended. It was especially frustrating in divinity original sin 2, where a lot of the combat arena's were interesting but the way to get past too many of them was to pile up boxes, place/throw barrels that can explode etc, prior to even knowing there is a combat encounter or after reloading.

I know the difficulty setting helps with these kind of things in the divinity games, but I'm hoping I'll be able to adjust it throughout the game or the balance will be a little better than the divinity games.

It's the writing that puts me off Divinity, not the art. Seems like they're not going with a similar tone in BG3, thankfully.

I haven't watched the video yet, but barrels and surfaces are 100% still there. The combat is very much like divinity: original sin 2. Also, someone earlier in the comments said that you can't move guys around before combat to game the system. That's not true. You can definitely move characters around, even when other characters are engaged in dialogue. Talking to NPCs to hold them still while you backstab and pickpocket them? Still in there. High ground is still as overpowered as ever. All the ways that you can break the game in divinity: original sin are still in the game. I'm glad they are, because exploiting game mechanics to the point of being unfair is one of my favorite parts of Larian games.

This game looks really nice, but I find myself wishing they hadn't hewed so closely to the Divinity-style combat. It's what made me drop off those games hard. As much as I appreciate the level of interactivity the system gives you, I just find it makes the combat feel super-tedious. Even small encounters feel like they take an eternity.

Yeah it was the whole aesthetic package, really. Didn't get far into OS 1, but I heard the writing was really overly "cheeky" in that one.

down down down down down down down by the riveeeeeer

Glad Rorie mentioned it... the stuff Wizards of the Coast is doing with Magic is heinous, greedy, and destructive, lol. Here's hoping Larian polishes the shit out of this over this year, because it looks awesome

Been that way for all Divinity games since Divine Divinity in 2002. I'd call it a signum for Larian's output, much like referential humour was to early iterations of WoW, and Monty Python jokes were to the first two Fallout games.

Vinny forgot to mention (at least at the start of the video) that Baldur's Gate 3 is also on Stadia, and it does have cross-play and cross-save / cross-progression between Stadia and Steam.

i wonder how original BG fans reacted to this being changed from an arpg to a turn based strategy rpg? imagine if xcom became an action game, and no i'm not talking about the bureau.

One of the things I don’t like about this game is that it’s basically Original Sin reskinned Bulders Gate. Not that I am expert, but this game feels like huge departure from Bulders Gate 1 and 2

An original BG fan would be annoyed at you for calling them action RPGs. They were very much tactical combat games, but with a pausable real time rather than turn based system.

I downloaded it the night of release and it was so buggy I couldn't get through the character creator, wouldn't let me proceed. Gave it about 3 or 4 days before I tried again, seen it had patched a few times in that span of days and I can say, I can play it now. Testing the waters is fine for now but this thing is SUPER EARLY! The devs have a good track record with fans so that's a positive but I think we have all been spoiled with the Hades Early access pipeline and regularity and consistency in updates and new content being added. I think it's naive to expect the same here. As a D&D 5e lover and a long time CRPG fan, I really hope the devs can pull it off and make something great!

I'm currently playing through D:OS2 with my brother, and we backed the Divinity board game Kickstarter. So I'm pretty into what Larian does.

I've been mostly digging this game so far, although I maintain that strict adherence to D&D rules makes video games less fun. Having to rest to replenish spells always makes video games less fun and drags the flow of the game down. I'm personally a fan of skills and spells either being on cooldown, or being limited by encounter.

I'm playing as a githyanki, which I wasn't previously familiar with due to playing Pathfinder. PF has a lot of overlap with D&D, but beholders, mind flayers, and githyanki are all D&D-specific. I've decided to really lean into it from a roleplaying perspective. I'm used to having special dialogue options based on race or class come up in these games, but playing as a gith, it feels like that is super common. It feels like every second or third conversation has an option based on being githyanki.

Considering this part of the game is only 20 hours or so, I'm hoping to play through a couple times with different choices.

Been waiting for this! Hell yeah!

It's already been said, but: YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY MOVE BEFORE COMBAT!!!

If anyone is curious how Larian is treating early access, the game has been hotfixed multiple times since the start of early access and the first big patch has already been released.

I'm a huge fan of Larian, not so much DnD, and I'm really enjoying the game so far.

I've seen this misconception happen a few times. I was talking to someone at work and it took me a little while to convince him that they aren't Diablo-like at all. I suppose at first glance they might look that way, but after two seconds of actually playing their combat anyone should quickly realize these games are not action-y.

Still, it seems like there's been at least some discussion over this change to a true turn-based system over the original game's hybrid stuff. Larian's turn-based battles can take a very long time to get through, and on average seem to take longer than any other RPG I've ever seen. Meanwhile, BG1 and 2's combat encounters don't really take long at all. I prefer the actual turn-based stuff and these long fights don't bother me, but there's a lot to be said for Baldur's Gate's quicker fights.

Anyway, I've played some of this game and I, personally, think it's great. I've already had a lot of fun with it, I think the writing is great, I think it looks amazing, and I'm really hoping they implement a proper third person camera. They're ninety percent of the way to a Dragon Age Origins-esque "flip between isometric and third person" thing. All of that said... if you get it now, get it just to sample the game for a little while, see what they're doing with this franchise, and then wait for some more content to be added, or for 1.0. I'm probably going to mess around with it some more, but I really can't wait to see what the finished product looks like.

I don't know about Original Sin 1/2 but I do know the older Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games that Beamdog did Enhanced Editions of all have a wide range of difficulty modes so if you just want to mess with dialogue and not the combat you can.

That thumbnail really had me thinking I was looking at another Shadow of Mordor game

good point ! I'll have to see how that goes, I'm okay with hard games - I actually like them, but when the complexity gets too high I lose my place :) ADHD kid I suppose..

I have to be honest as its been a recent trend with Vinny in quick looks, His is way over explaining things, I have never had trouble watching and judging things for myself, and the fact he comes across so flustered because he is pressuring himself to cover everything correctly is a little odd.

I want to see gameplay and have them add in some witty remarks and banter not try to turn a quick look into a tutorial.

I did see a comment saying this is useful so if that's what the audience wants so be it, but I cant think of any game I would need my held held to the extent he is trying to do in this and the star wars QL

V-BOMB CLIMB MOSS IN 4K

When you're already familiar with the game, it can be even more difficult to watch because they're (sometimes incorrectly) explaining things you already know, when you're just here because you like the personalities. I don't mind it that much, though. Vinny's just being professional. People want to know what the game is like, and those people come first. I've already bought the game, so I don't need convincing. Just throw the odd joke in there and I'm happy.

Very true about the errors but I try to just ignore that at this point.

The thing is I am and I would assume most people visiting the site are familiar with games in general, (I also think people exaggerate a bit on how complex most games are, even something like Crusader Kings 3, which I am currently playing you just need some patience and the ability to read the UI). the only thing I can think of that I needed outside resources to figure out is DCS and that is not really even a game.

I guess it is just a disconnect with people that only play a limited type of games and people that have played a wide variety and older games.

Out of personal curiosity which parts of this did you feel were overexplained? If you could give me examples that would be great and maybe help me in the future if I wanted to avoid it.

Tactical turn-based RPG? Hard pass.

@vinny: I went back and looked at bits and pieces, there are specific things like explaining the save system or general CRPG/D&D tropes and character creator, but in saying that when I went back to try and put my figure on it, till about the 20 min mark you seemed a bit flustered (I got that at the start of the Star Wars QL also) trying to hit some points you had that you wanted to hit before starting after that, you seemed to relax into the game and get into a better groove.

Regardless thanks for what you do (you do a way better job then what I could ever do), If people want more info dump stuff then that's cool, I think I just want to listen to you having fun while playing games.

Edit: I just saw you addressed this in the forum post "I get nervous and anxious when trying to show off games that either have long histories" maybe I am just picking up on this and what you say in that post, I just come down on the other side where you could have skipped the first 20 minutes and just played the game and that would have been to my personal preference.

I really wish they had removed some of the defining parts of the Divinity Original Sin combat. I hated the surface-focused combat. It was super cool at first, but eventually combat became such a shit show of explosions, electrified water, slippery surfaces, etc. And carrying around barrels to throw at people just isn't for me.

In BG3, it seems to screw with some of the balancing. You have cantrips that are setting off explosions and turning the battlefield into a fiery inferno, and it's just weird.

EDIT: Also, I think it would be super fun to have another Giantbomb D&D campaign run by Rorie. I loved the previous ones he ran for the site.

I think I said this in a forum thread somewhere already, but as a fan of the Infinity Engine games, I don't necessarily have a problem with the switch to turn based. However, if you're going to use the Larian system with a D&D 5e overlay, you obviously can't set up combat encounters the same way they were done in those RTwP games. Forcing players to wade through a bunch of random encounters with this combat system would be insane. Hopefully they're aware of this, and go with fewer but more meaningful fights.

They have a defined number of fights in this early access version, 80 to be exact, and my understanding is that there are no random encounters. They're all defined, specific, meaningful encounters, which is exactly how D:OS 2 did it. As evidenced by this thread, opinions on that approach vary, but as evidenced by Larian's sales numbers and praise, enough people enjoy it for this and D:OS to be very successful.

@madmatt213: yeah and it’s also working great on GeForce now which no one mentions, which is weird because it’s almost the same as Stadia BUT with a lot of steam games. Been playing this on my 2008 iMac and it works perfect :D

Thanks, appreciate the feedback. In the end I try to use my experience (read: gut) to sift the information I'd like to know or the questions I might have going into games like these. Thanks again.

@mistercoke:

True! GeForce NOW is a good service, though it has enough annoyances for me that I stay on the free tier. I suspect no one (at least on GB) mentions GFN because developers/publishers never really mention GFN, since it's more of a virtual machine of sorts, without an actual storefront. At most (I suspect), a publisher authorizes GFN to put their games on the service. Since there's no games on GFN that you buy access to, it's not a true platform/storefront that a game publisher can advertise about. It's basically just hosting you a Windows instance and cutting out the laborious process of installing and patching the games you already bought on either Steam, Epic, or Uplay (plus some random free-to-play games that might not be on those three PC storefronts).

I am very excited about cloud-based gaming, as I've been hoping and waiting for decades for the bring-your-own-device / thin client / dumb terminals we've been promised.