Baldurs Gate 3 & Game Dev recently

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As an artist, I do not. As I said, I liked it. I liked the washed out shadows and a color palette that looks more like what you’d find in nature. And where a color might be used to great effect to be more saturated, like say the color of a cardinal against the winter trees, it looks that much better. I do NOT at all like things that look like somebody answered the question, “How much color do you want?” with “All of it.” I don’t like the oversaturated color palettes of a lot of contemporary movies, and I especially don’t like the fads of orange/blue or green/grey that is awash over so much. Watched a TV show the other day (can’t remember what it was) that everything was so green the reflection on the black actors head was like watching everything through a plague filter and the the lips on the white actors made them all look like they had jaundice.

The artwork for LE, while it has come a long way, is still one of my biggest beefs because the characters look like ‘cartoons’ ESPECIALLY on the log in screen. Not a deal breaker for me because it’s clearly the art direction they wish to move in but as I’ve said, my saturation for the game is not set to 70% and it’s way more aesthetic pleasing to my eye and not so in-your-face. For me it’s way too reminiscent of d3’s look but even more ‘animated’ feeling.

I will say that because I have not played d4 this is all based on seeing dozens of screen captures or youtube game play. So I don’t actually know what it looks like “LIVE” per se.

It is what it is. I don’t have any desire to play d4 (and actually as it turns out, can’t because it won’t run on a Mac in Bootcamp.) Besides game play wise it sounds like a bullet dodged so I’d hate to start playing it, love the aesthetic and it turn out to be a crap game.

For me, color palette wise and aesthetic wise my favorite game I’ve ever played was Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. d4’s ‘look’ reminded me a lot of that (obviously minus the super, super high rez motion capture)

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I think it’d be hard to argue they were creating something you’d find in nature. If so, they picked a really boring part of nature. You can do something like that in an underwater setting and it turn out really interesting - Think Finding Nemo - but if that’s what they were going for with this, I’d really want to see their reference material and find out what on Earth they were trying to make this look like.

Over-saturation was a little bit of an issue in a few areas of D3, but I feel like they were using it for something, for the most part. It was conveying the intense radiation of the Archives of Zoltun Kulle, or the oppressive over-glow of the Diamond Gates. In other words, they were using it to create environments and a world that we can’t see in real life. It’s fantasy.

This actually brings up an interesting thought that I had forgotten about modern game designs though, that I think Baldur’s Gate 3 probably runs afoul of somewhat: People’s ability to suspend disbelief does seem to be getting weaker and weaker the more intense things like social media overuse and technology addiction are becoming.

There’s something about the way we’re using computers and cellphones that is lowering our attention spans. And I believe suspension of disbelief requires you to focus on the thing in question and try to abstract out the meaning as though it were real even though it isn’t. This means people with shorter attention spans aren’t able to do that for as long. As a consequence they don’t enjoy trying to because they find it frustrating. So all the games and fiction they consume have to look plain and muted in order for them to focus on them for long periods of time. Think of all the super hero movies coming out recently, or the bleak washed out environments in all the first person shooter games. These are designed to keep people from having to suspend disbelief.

You could also argue in the other direction that the more cartoony and goofy something looks, the less you would need to suspend disbelief while looking at it also, because you never start taking it seriously to begin with. So there’s this valley in between extreme realism and total cartoon wackiness that modern people seem not to be able to pay attention to. And it happens to be in that valley where all the interesting art and fiction lives, at least to me.

I actually have some evidence of this in my own life. I have an acquaintance that complained that he couldn’t pay attention to Astartes because the video was rendered in 24 fps. Somehow, to him, that made it impossible for him to pay attention to. It’s actually shocking how hard of a time this person has with suspending disbelief.

But part of the backlash with Baldur’s Gate 3 from the other studios probably has to do with the fact that they don’t want to put in the effort and take the risk of creating something that their audiences have to suspend disbelief in order to understand. Kind of interesting to think about. I think that’s very likely to be the case.

I have not played Hellblade yet, but I do own it. I will check it out at your recommendation. (Someday when my life permits me to, haha.) For the record, I feel the same way about Odin Sphere. That game has a picture book quality to it that rubs my imagination in all the right ways. To play that game and listen to the Ogre Battle 64 soundtrack at the same time is paradise to me. I wish I had time to do it more often. Definitely worth checking both of those out if you’re not familiar with them.

And yeah LE is getting there. I like some of the new designs. Hopefully there’s a lot more coming in terms of overhauling the maps and ambience also.

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100% completely disagree about this. Liking the look or color or aesthetic of something has absolutely nothing to do with suspension of disbelief. This sounds a little elite-est to me. You like coffee with cream and lots of sugar. I like coffee black. One is not ‘better’ than the other nor does it require me to suspend my disbelief to ‘enjoy’ coffee with lots of sugar and cream.

I can very readily watch Looney Tune’s cartoon and laugh myself silly. I can play LE and enjoy myself immensely even if the aesthetic of the game is too cartoonish for my tastes. Too flip this around, why can you not suspend your disbelief of a grittier-looking game to see that that aspect is presented for whatever reason they designers may have chosen.

If you like, let’s say Picasso and I like Rembrandt, I don’t think my suspension of disbelief is any better or worse than yours.

To come all the way back to some of my other examples about look. Avatar is gorgeous to look at. No amount of me suspending my disbelief on how lovely it is is going to make me enjoy that stupid, pedantic and derivative lazy plot of a movie though.

:crazy_face:

Be curious to hear your reaction to the very muted and realistic looking fantastical elements in Hellblade. There’s color in it. Lots of it. But the bright stuff stands out really well when used selectively. Gives it more weight in my opinion.

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Well I’m very certain about that point. Suspension of disbelief absolutely has to do with the plausibility of the thing you’re watching. The more you have to focus on accepting the nature and context of the thing you’re paying attention to, the more effortful it is. Maybe you and I have a high tolerance for fiction so we don’t notice it as often, but bad CGI or weird sequences and colors take people out of things like movies and games at times because it clashes with what they’ve already come to accept earlier in the experience. People have been complaining about it pretty much since the technology was invented and it’s no wonder why. This is a very real thing that does happen and it’s a good argument, actually, for graphical fidelity being part of a video game’s game play. I guess if the point is for something to simulate real life or to be plausible, then the graphics do play a role in that. Hadn’t considered that until just now. That could be the case with Hellblade, for instance.

But I definitely disagree about Avatar as far as how it looks; that movie hurts my eyes. That is all the rubbery glowing modern CGI visual-vomit that I can’t stand about high-budget anything these days. Maybe they look realistic as objects, but the intense bloom effects and the misty hazy environments are annoying. And there’s something about the at-times-neon blueberry skin tone of the characters that I find intensely off-putting and unnatural. I mean, I guess it doesn’t help that the message of the story is propaganda and I’m already averse to it. But I haven’t seen one scene or shot from that movie I thought looked genuinely cool, except maybe something from space or with spaceships, because I’m a nerd like that. The characters and the planet itself, I really don’t care for.

But you’re right: Using that stuff as a crutch to impress (or distract) audiences instead of telling a good story is unacceptable. That’s something I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about because I find it so frustrating. People must notice there’s nothing memorable about the narratives of these films, and yet they keep going to them. It’s disturbing to me in a bleak dystopian future kind of way. Avatar seems like the kind of movie they would keep releasing over and over again in the world of Blade Runner or Fahrenheit 451. Michael Bay’s Transformers falls into that category as well, except that everybody knows those movies are bad, and they go to them anyway! Really baffling.

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It’s popcorn fare. Nothing at all wrong with that. That’s exactly how it has such mass appeal because it caters to the most common thing in all of us. It’s like sugar. Or corn syrup. It is what it is. I don’t mind a good pop corn movie every now and then, just like I don’t mind eating a piece of pie or a cookie (I’m not a big sweets person.) But I tire of it pretty quickly. I think video games for me are like that. I’m not too picky when it comes to them because I’m not really a connoisseur and just want to relax and have fun. I’m brutal when it comes to film though and I’m less willing to waste my time on a bad movie. If I’m having fun in a video game I’ll blindly just pedal onwards, oblivious to my crack addiction and how many hours I’m wasting. :joy:

Lots of people, however, do love it. Shakespeare was a ‘pop’ icon in the late 1500s, early 1600s. Appealed to the elites and the huddled masses alike (didn’t hurt that Elizabeth liked the comedies and James I was really into the supernatural.) Who knows, 200 years from now James Cameron may be spoke about in the same breath as Shakespeare. (He’s in the Hall of Fame because Terminator 1 - Aliens - The Abyss - Terminator 2 is a streak that puts him above and beyond, even if everything after that has been a big decline.

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As i said before, I think they were aiming for D2 rather than D3 which, if you remember, was pilloried for looking “too cartoony”. Personally I didn’t mind it, nor do I mind D4.

True, they’re both objectively wrong/bad because they’re not tea with plenty of cow juice (& my colleagues who prefer their tea chewable/industrial run-off orange are also wrong).

People have been complaining about bad-anything. Bad CGI is no different to bad practical effects (wobbly sets on 1980s BBC shows), bad writing (D3 & loads more), bad acting, etc. I agree, bad CGI can be jarring.

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That’s honestly why I prefer my game graphics on the more cartoonish side – WoW, Torchlight, etc. That way it’s not to easy to be jarred by a poor animation or whatnot, because I’m not expecting realism. It’s also why I have no issues playing the 8-bit games like Slormancer and Chronicon, outside of the nostalgia-feel they have. I am more concerned with the meat and potatoes of the games I play.

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Don’t make me come across the pond.

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I said I like things that generally reflect more of what color and the world looks like. I have no idea if they actually did this by intention or not. If i misrepresented that it wasn’t my intention.

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Yeah, more stylised graphical styles tend to age better as well.

Yeah, that’s what I assumed they were going for.

To misquote Emperor Palpatine, do it, let the hatred flow through you!

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Incorrect. The early access was excellent.

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One aspect I have seen picked up is BG 3 already has most of the balancing done. 5e already has most of the ruleset in place so BG 3 just had to copy the design into the game and they have a huge foundation to build from.

BG3/Larian has a lot of things that other studios don’t. They have 20 yrs of making RPGs. They got a licence for the foundational RPG. They had 3 yrs of EA.

All that being said, there is no reason for big studios (Blizzard, Bioware, etc.) to not have these things. They have the ability to reduce their attrition rate that splits up studios letting them get 20yr teams. They have their own established IPs. At one point these studios had the kind of trust that would have allowed them to do 3 yrs of EA if they needed. The only thing stopping companies of comparable size from meeting BG 3 on their terms is themselves.

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Big money IPs are their own worst enemy. Hell, just look at Blizzard and Disney. They had guaranteed “print your own money” brand names (Let’s take Diablo and Star Wars, for example). Then they let the balance books take over the decision making. And suddenly, they began to alienate their long-term fanbase. They began to look at the project(s) simply as cash cows, instead of staying true to what got those IPs there, in the first place. And (not so much restricted to big money IPs), they started caring too much about making everyone happy, instead of their initial vision(s).

All this is what inevitably happens when shareholders and investors get in the picture. Because you are no longer just answering to your audience, your team and your vision, but you also have to explain why the ROI is taking longer than, or not as large as, anticipated. That’s why fans of games like POE and LE get their feathers so ruffled when they see investment companies, like TenCent get involved in the process.

I guess what it boils down to, is once money becomes the primary driving factor, and you have to start answering to people loaning it to you, then short-cuts get made. And smart investments, like obtaining rights to licenses, get pushed aside in the name of cost-savings.

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With the same team in place? Really? I’d have thought it’d be like most companies where you have a core of “old guard” & the rest are of varying levels of new-ness.

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To be fair, if you have billion dollar IPs & don’t pay attention to the financials sooner or later you run out of cash & everything has to be sold off.

Unless you have obscene gobs of cash, there will always be “shareholders and investors” & if you don’t have huge gobs of cash ('cause you’re a small company), you still have to report back periodically to the people that gave you the cash that you’re using to pay your staff 'cause you don’t have a nice steady income that allows you to pay everybody & chill out and do the thing you enjoy most.

If you ask the senior people (owner, whatever) of a small company what they worry about most, paying the bills is probably going to be in the top few responses. It’s not as simple as “big company bad, small company good”.

It’s always the primary driving factor because apparently non-rich people need it to deal with these trivial irrelevances called rent/mortgage, food, etc. And you will always be beholden to the people that gave/loaned it to you regardless of your size or imagined importance.

Only if you don’t have enough cash to obtain said rights (&/or capacity to utilise them effectively because you can’t afford the payroll/equipment/etc).

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You’ve gone out of your way to explain why money drives decisions in (larger) companies, but just glossed over the primary point… that when it becomes THE deciding factor, quality of the finished product usually suffers. Money is always a factor, I don’t think anyone would debate that.

However, it doesn’t have to be the primary deciding factor. And you can tell when it is, and when it isn’t.

When I build something out of wood, of course I pay attention to the costs involved. But if ALL I care about is the cost, then I would make everything out of particle board. But, if I want to balance cost with quality, I’ll build with good quality plywood and hardwoods. If cost is of no concern, I’ll drop a cool 2000$ at my lumber supply store for materials for a dresser. The first option will look like shit, and last about a year or 2. The second, significantly longer, but might not have the ‘finished quality’ I am looking for. And the 3rd would be a piece of furniture that will still be around, and used, 100+ years from now. THAT is the difference.

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Having to follow D&D rulesets is a double-edged blade.
Yes, it gives them foundations to build on, things that would be long and hard to create from scratch (classes, spells, skills, etc…).
But it also means they are stuck with a very heavy, very user un-friendly system of combat and character progression.
I simply don’t know if the overall balance is positive or negative. Doesn’t matter, it is what it is, they couldn’t get the licensing without accepting the rulesets.

The most important advantage they have regarding balance is not the rulesets, it is the fact that balance is almost entirely irrelevant. Interactions (be it with NPCs or environment) are far more important than combat.
Sure, some streamers and web publications are trying to sell us the “best build”, poor guys have to make a living, but, who cares? Noone is going to make a massive fuss because one class does 0.01% more damage than another. All that matter is that they are fun.
It is a different category of game, compared to Diablo or LE.

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Id argue this is simply not true.

People have 100% heard of them. Especially that example because the arpg sphere is very small. The biggest titles in the genre yes even diablo, id argue are not really mainstream among everyday gamers.

its an issue of gamers have really weird specifications about what they will play.

A perfect example is Maplestory, maplestory as far as MMO’s go is actually probably one of the best MMOs on the market. Especially when they dropped reboot server which is a server that just deletes pay to win, and changes the game to be focused on progression earning by play rather then cash.

But you wouldnt be able to get any MMO nerd to play Maplestory “thats a baby game where u just hold one button” because they dont know anything about it, they just see chibi styled anime graphics and immediately shove it out of being a potential game to play.

Gamers are actually so insanely superficial to the point its annoying. “Gosh I sure do wish there was a grindy progression based mmo out there”

But they refuse to play one of the best simply because it has cartoon graphics.

Its one of the most annoying things about being part of the gaming world is watching titles you know are so friggin good go under funded and underplayed because gaming has become too normal and so the mass of consumers just have no desire to play anything off the beaten path.

Like ill be honest, slormancer is a fucking gem that game is so disgustingly good and I am almost as hyped for its next update as I am PoE or LE or what have you. Its a shame no one plays it.

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The balance is terrible for what it’s worth, but like you say it’s not the rulesets casuing that, it’s the actual envioromental design and the core of the design philosophy being on choice. The game can be broken extremely easily, by exploiting mechanics that have been implemented in a way that effectively just went ‘balance doesnt matter, its upt ot he player if they want to do the thing that breaks the game’.

This only really causes a problem with stealth and combat breaking ai, which is less a balance issues, and more an ai issue. (From what I can gather the ai just simply doesn’t have anything telling it what to do if the only thing that attacked it, is now hidden, out of range of where sight would be, and on elevation. It’s an oversight that creates a lack of balance, as it renders stealth archer op, in yet another rpg)

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I fucking love Slormancer… that, and Chronicon. Such enjoyable games that don’t suffer from the same balance micromanagement like big name titles do. They allow players to get obscenely powerful because, that’s the what players enjoy. I still don’t know why more games haven’t adopted the crafting systems they have. Just up the crafting costs, and throw in rarer material drop rates, and they could fit into any *RPG on the market. But no, the purists would cry about it just being an item editor, so it’s never even considered :\

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