Havent played it yet, but its on my wishlist - a youtubers perspective the gaming industry and games recently. Video comments are pretty interesting too.
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I work in the film industry. I understand this guys premise āgame industries are using this mentality to be slackā and on that level Iād agree itās crappy.
But, as an independent (TRULY) filmmaker, if I make a fantasy film, I am not going to be able to come within this solar system of Game of Thrones or Dune or Rings of Power in terms of so many variables (scope, production design, scheduling, production resources, etc, etc). And the reason that is problematic is something Iāve faced all my life in the arts. If youāre not part of the 1%, many, MANY people think your stuff is crap because itās doesnāt measure up to the aforementioned productions.
In the world of art something that makes it into the pop culture zeitgeist literally is an anomaly because 99.8% will never get seen. Some of it because itās genuinely bad. But a lot of it is because so many people set expectations on what they last saw that had a bazillion dollar budget.
EHG is actually a pretty great example of that as well because theyāre a small house. I wonāt ever expect them to crank out the type of āqualityā that something like Elden Rings or BG3 has. In fact, Iām wiling to bet some of the reasons why this is still IN beta after 6? 7? years is because they keep upping their scope. And they listen for the most part. So they want to give us the best they can. But we all need to realize if we slavish hold them to some standard that is literally impossible to reach, itāll break, which would be said because LE is a great game.
TLDR: Personally, I think the reason isnāt just the big corps slacking. I thinks itās also the unrealistic expectations of the consumer that everything must match the last big thing as well. So I agree for the most part with both premisses in the video.
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But nobody in their right mind expects a small company to make a large thing. I wouldnāt expect the guy who made Chronicon to be able to ship D4 or PoE.
But if a company the size of Blizz decided that even with all their resources, spending 5-10 years developing an arpg, selling it for top dollar & itās the scope and quality of Chronicon? Then Iād be pissed (& I like Chronicon because it was made by a single person).
I watched the video & mostly agree with it. Those comments do feel like theyāre people who have the resources to develop large projects but donāt want to be held to a higher standard because itās difficult and expensive. IMO.
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Played it for 50 hours and havent watched that video on it
Itsā¦just Divinity 3
Good story though. NOWHERE near as hype as its getting. Baldurs Gate 3 has amazing visuals ie ācut scenesā and story scenes exactly like the Witcher 3
Honestly BG3 isnt much more advanced than Mass Effect seriesā¦made by Bioware who made Baldurs Gate 1/2 who also made Dragon Age. these developers are cut from a different cloth compared to say Bethesda who make massive games with smaller scope stories but much more involving game play ie leveling up skills like Alchemy and crafting, stealing. You cant do any of this barely in BG3 you level up from flat XP and your characters have traits
BG3 game world is decent size buts its confined to a small area in the world, you arent exploing Faerun just a packed few areas that sprawl out with lots of content, its a hugely story driven game which is why I dont really care as much as others, I value things like in Skyrim leveling up skills to 100 etc which you dont get in BG3, you also lock yourself out of content with decisions you make and are forced to do 4-6 playthroughs to see it all
Creating a character is its own game, I spent probably 1.5 hours picking race/class and then making her as horrendous as possible. Would recommend.
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I donāt think I could disagree with you any more if I put the entire essence of my being into it.
As far as Iām concerned, there isnāt a single accurate thing in your entire post except that Bioware used to make amazing games.
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I think one problem with this, that the video didnāt really touch on is, that there are some genres of video games where the scope of the game cannot even realisticly reach that of a Title like Elden Ring or BD3, simply because in some games a huge open world with thousands of choices and characters and hundreds of interconnected story branches wouldnāt make any sense. I am talking about some shooters, strategy games or other non-rpg focused titles.
I agree however that the quality & polish of a lot games coming out these days is atrocious and a lot of devs donāt really have good excuses for that. (Espeically when its coming from those big boy studios)
Thatās being sad, BD3 also has a lot of (small) bugs and weird things like robotic animations, unexpected behaviour (not in the RPG good sense, but some things just simply donāt work like you would like them to do).
But the sheer scope and size of the game with all those interconnected story branches completely overshadows that, because there is nothing really game breaking, only some minor annoyances.
Anothre interesting point the video didnāt really touch on, that I think is really interesting.
Baldurs Gate didnāt innovate anything.
They literally did what they already done (mostly with Divinity: Original Sin 1 + 2) and what other games have done before, but turned the knob up to 11.
I actually never see any criticque that BD3 is ājust something we already had, but biggerā.
A lot of other video games always try to do new things and innovate and blow people minds with some crazy new stuff.
But I think what BD3 did, shows that you can take something that was already done before and simply by increasing the scope and giving it a good amount of polish and quality, people will like it.
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But the guy who made chronicon was honest and delivered a quality product. No matter who you are if you put yourself out there and say āI make a hack and slash game to this and that extend with this options and endgame!ā you better keep true to your word.
My latest steam buy is āGoobiesā the devs never overpromised/overannounced and underdelivered and that is what I want from a game, get stuff that was promised because in the second the devs donāt hold true to their vision anymore because it takes to much time or whatever they underdeliver. Yes! Who ever is asking this in the near future: LE is underdelivering to what was announced back at the day.
As for the sad sad indie studios who say they canāt keep up with such productsā¦ noone is saying you should but you should deliver what you promised and not half assed bs with the excuse od being a small little studio.
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While BG3 is a great game, it seems like people are praising Larian Studios a bit too much!
They did manage to deliver a good game in the end but remember, the game raised 2 million from kickstarter and they delivered absolute garbage when it comes to EA launch so it took them 3 years to hit 1.0 and built from player feedback
A company that actually deserves a lot of praise would be from software. Its the same sized studio as Larian
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Not sure how many here are tabletop gamers, but BG3 was pumped hard for being the first D&D 5e game (at least from them). That alone is enough of a reason for it to be so big. That is the reason I bought the game. I ended up not playing it much because it was so slow (fights take a very long time).
I would say the biggest part that money makes a difference in is marketing. Games can be garbage, but if they have the name recognition, people will buy and play anyway just because others are, even if very few actually enjoy it. Something about people being sheep is appropriate I think.
I think movies may be shifting a bit. There is a strong desire for movies that just have a good story/script and acting. People are getting real tired of bad CGI (DC Iām looking at you). People are getting tired of progressive preachy tropes (Disney!).
Games and Movies can be great with smallish budgets and staff. The advertising and word of mouth just needs to get out. People are going nuts over The Last Flame (steam game) and it was done by a single dev who started the project as something to put in his portfolio.
This has nothing to do with Larian or BG3. Thatās how D&D 5E works, and the game is D&D 5E.
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thatās what I said. But in my experience most fans arenāt in their āright mindsā about this stuff and many often do expect one guy with 16-bit to be as good as AAA+. Not all, individual certainly can look at it objectively but fandom as a collective are notoriously fast food junkies.
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Which, to be fair, is what happens in games that use an AD&D ruleset (NWN1&2, KOTOR1&2, etc).
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I find all of this a little weird because a lot of the reason people like Baldurās Gate 3 is because it excels in areas in which itās actually really easy for a studio to succeed: Make your character models / customization options look good, make your game have enough places to go and things to do to fill 60-100 hours of play time, and have the correct Reddit-approved current-year opinions in your story so that social media takes off either loving or hating it. All of these things can be accomplished with time or money; they arenāt strictly creativity or innovation. Every game could theoretically replicate what was done with Baldurās Gate 3 if the people making it had enough funding or work ethic.
While Iām impressed with the gameās quality, Iām actually only excited for it in terms of keeping full priced games without microtransactions alive in the marketplace and forcing other studios to live by whatās possible with the current technology. Iām actually not really interested in the content itself IE this particular take on this kind of game / story. And even I think itās pretty hilarious that other studios are trying to find a way to play the ethics / morality card to try not to have to compete with it. This is especially funny considering a lot of their parent companies only pump out high budget games that could be every bit as content rich and polished as BG3 if they cared and really wanted them to be. Iām not sure how theyāre going to whistle their way past the graveyard if Larian and others keep making games like this.
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TL.DR: BG3 is a good game that delivered what was promised and they published the game in a finished state were only minor hotfixes are needed to keep the game on track. other pusblishers should be ashamed by the Schmutz they publish while they think the Zeitgeist is to make half assed games to print a lot of money (throwing in some german buzzwords just because). I would be happy if developers stick to their promises and deliver working games that donāt melt hardware or simply turns from OK to bad after you finished the tutorial.
EA was the first act iirc from your logic the following acts have to be a trash experienceā¦ well they are not. To me it looks like they went into EA because they needed money. Larian made a lot of awesome games in the past and stood true to their development philsophy so much they went nearly bankrupt twice because they want to produce quality products.
I canāt see nothing wrong with their aproach or game itās one of the better turn based tactics games out on the market while the whole combat system is somehow rigged in a terrible way.
After getting feedback that BG3 is D&D5e almost 1:1 I know why I never wanted to touch D&D 5e such a mess of a system and all those changes that make it worseā¦ thx but no thx after BG3 D&D is dead to me. Lucky methere is still Pathfinder out there.
People are getting tired about a lot of stuff when they should got their butts up and do something about the stuff that is tiering them.
And rightfully so. The game is awesome for the genre and itās a greate addition to the whole gaming market. A quality product that keeps what was promised and delivered. This is a more common practice for small studios and indie games. When I look at the Slormancer for example awesome game that delivered well as many others did. As I said no matter who you are as long as you deliver quality stuff you are save if you not overpromise.
I do. Iām not that big of a graphics hog and if the game is awesome I can play 2D games for example like itās the newest shit. Sure most people arenāt in their right mind but if someone says they make a game of genre X that incorperates ABC while the endgame is a mix out of GKL you better deliver no matter how little of a studio you are because you put yourself out there.
I know a traditional family bakery that closed their doors because their products went down the drain because they were simply completely overworked and unable to keep up with the pressure of todays cent bakerys in supermarkets. Good choice! Same goes for everything frok my point of view. if you are unable to deliver or canāt stand the pressure donāt go out there and pretend you could.
Do we play different games? i know itās a fantasy game but those models reasamble nothing Iāve seen out in the wild. The posture and movements are terrible and they saved a lot of money there for sure. Look at the many mods that (try to) make the game look better.
Diablo 4 struggled to make a complete story line that is half as longā¦ just to beat a dead hore by calling out D4ā¦ Wastelands 3 for example had a lot less stuff to do. On top of it we donāt talk about fetch quests or killquests but about stuff that is filled with riddles and options and secrets you can look for if you want to.
Then again you can complete the game in 20h if you want toā¦ give or take.
Why is there so little of this out in the gaming market then? Additional free content that needs a brain to do while it is fun to explore is much needed in many games. I could call out Diablo 4 again but I get to another example and say that LE is bad in this department as well. Even Mass Effect for example (what I realy like) or Deus Ex (what I realy like as well) offer almost nothing on substential things to do and sidecontent that filles the games with life.
I played BG3 on and offf for a couple of days untill I took a wrong turn an skipped a whole lot of story to get to a point where everything is forseeable and Iām a bit demotivated to play on right now. On top of it the combat system is rigged what is another unfun thing to do in my eyes. I got a mod to test stuff like how the chances of a puny goblin with a +2 attack roll are to hit a toon with 40 ACā¦ seems like enemys roll D40s instead of D20s while I had a good laugh when the game showed a 100% hit chane and my toon had the audacity to miss.
From my point of view itās easy to say that Larian published a finished product and they kept what they have promised. Thatās something outstanding by itās own these days. On top of it we have a quality product that comes along with less gamebreaking bugs or GPU melting problems then AAA+ games. BG3 just showes everything that is wrong with the gaming market as soon as you sell out for cash instead of making games to be proud about best shown by Blizzard.
BG3 is somehting developrs should strife for in terms of finished game quality even when I leave all the content out. Look at them pumping out hotfixes and what little things they have to fix. BTW nothing theyāve fixed happened to me looks like I once took an approach that wasnāt destroying the game ^^.
On the other hand I ask myself if i ever finish BG3 because sometimes it feels like the game punched me in the head and I rather turn it off then be overwhelmed by stuff. How many times did I run through zones thinking āThat hatch wasnāt there the first time!ā when it was and I simply overlooked it.
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100% agree with this.
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On point one, I did say āgoodā, not āgreat.ā I happen to agree with you. I think in many respects, this game isnāt what itās being cracked up to be. I didnāt want to lay it on thick with that opinion because I wasnāt sure people would take kindly to it. That and, who really cares what I think. People seem to be enjoying it. At least it deserves it more than D4. Iām an artist and Iām not entirely impressed, but they look better than they do in some games that have come out recently. And theyāre not selling them piecemeal, so they get points for that also.
Second point, totally agree. Nothing to add there.
Third point, the reason thereās so little of it is because certain studios have had it too good for too long. (That or the really good ones have mostly been bought out by soulless corporations, but thatās a separate issue.) Iād say quality games are actually being bottlenecked by the number of IPās that are viable in a now-contracting online economy. Weāve been in an inflation spiral for about 10 or 12 years, and people with sure-fire IPās that they can risk 2, 3, 4 million dollars on and guarantee a return on investment are exceedingly scarce. Creating a new one and putting significant effort or money behind it is very risky. Weāre practically in an environment now that doesnāt reward anything except large brand sequels or tiny indie games.
Thatās another thing about Baldurās Gate 3; just as a title, it was bound to make money either way, so Iām kind of happy they put in some effort to preserve it as a brand, considering how beloved the series has been thus far. But Iām not at all surprised either. It seems like it was in their best interests to do so.
What Iām most annoyed about is that it is yet another D&D style RPG that wonāt let you level to 20 in the main campaign unmodded. I dunno why the obsession with that particular limitation, but I am in no way impressed they kept it around. Can I just get one game like this where I can level all the way up and have my fun? >:/ Grr.
Itās a terrible video. Apart from his diction being incredibly distracting, there isnāt a lot of logic being applied more so than someone trying to emulate what logic looks like without entirely understanding the concept.
Donāt waste your time watching it.
Thats great and I couldnt care less. BG3 does absolutely nothing new at all and just improved versions of games we already have, and comes topped off with its own problems
You are just one of those automatic agreeable type that cant admit it has its flaws and it isnt really anything but an exceptional version of pre-existing games (when you dont get game breaking bugs)
I dont know about D&D or what 5E is, I remember in Fallout 2 getting experience for actions such as stealing and even leveling up from passing Speech checks and even fixing broken computers using Science. Fallout 2 came out in 1998 btw and was able to be played fully solo or with a party and had shit like stealing, sneak, lockpicking, barter, speech. Hell in Fallout if you had 1 Intelligence you spoke as a caveman which is ultra realistic, in BG3 my character has the same options in dialogue no matter what
I dont even know the rules of D&D but it appears BG3 is D&D for casuals not for purists of the genre. The game is not that difficult when even not knowing what you are doing, and becomes downright easy when you have some idea and an absolute joke when you exploit the game (one shotting the Hag on Tactician for example is possible)
The rumblings from the players/developers is apparently developers need to lift their game which I dont agree with. Not even sure what they wantā¦ hours of dialogue in all games? no thanks. cut scenese? not in some games. The game came out at the perfect moment where everyone is sick of early access, MTX purchases, always online and finally a game comes out and is just what its supposed to be, similair reason people went crazy over Elden Ringā¦which virtually no one plays anymore except the dedicated souls players
And yet it was still a massive improvement over D3ās f###ing abysmal story with utterly dire writing. Iām not sure whether I thought D3ās or BL3ās was worse. So IMO, compared to D3, I thought D4ās story was relatively good with decent writing and some nice characters.
Yeah, if thatās what you want from a campaign/story, I donāt think any arpg is ever going to make you happy.
Critical failure?
@Rasgueado so you feel that the games industry/āAAAā companies should continue to shovel out buggy shitshows of minimum viable products for full price then have the gall to want to charge us through the nose for mtx/battlepasses/etc as though all they care about us customers is the size of our wallets and how easy it is to access them? If thatās their viewpoint then they can most definitely go fuck themselves, and I say that as a soulless corporate accountant who is fully aware of a companyās fiduciary duty.