Calling it simply Baldur's Gate, as many reboots do these days, would be a lot better than adding '3' and suggesting a continuation.

 

It's a continuation of the world the previous games took place in. It's not a reboot. It's set a few hundred years after.

This seems like a needless nitpick. It's set in the same world, the same city, and an advanced version of the ruleset.

It's like saying Neverwinter Nights 2 shouldn't have had a "2" on it because you have a protagonist greatly separated from the first one. Or Dragon Age 3 should've just been called Dragon Age or what not.

 

This is a bad example, as Dragon Age 3 wasn't called Dragon Age 3. It was called Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is exactly what Celestin is arguing for.

 

Fine. Then Let's go with Dragon Age 2 then. Or Final Fantasy whatever it is now. Or Dragon Quest. Or Persona.

It's a dumb thing to be nitpicking over. If you thought BG3 was going to continue the bhaalspawn's story, you weren't doing your research oreven understanding of t he end of BG2.

 

Difference is that both DA and FF started doing different things from their first sequel, establishing different expectations. And that's what it is about. Expectations. If BG1 and BG2 were about something then you expect BG3 to be connected. If FFI and FFII were about different things then you expect FFIII to be different. And when they actually wanted to have a sequel they called it FFX/FFX-2 and FFXIII/FFXIII-2.

Basically, the creators are intentionally misleading players using their expectations to win them over their nostalgic feelings about the original games. Which is not even necessary since recent presentation suggests it's going to be a good game on its own.

 

This assumes, incorrectly, that Larian had a game then slapped BG3 on it to gain nolstagia. As opposed, what actually happened, Larian was given the BG3 license because t hey lobbied for it. They contacted WOTC and basically begged for it. Were turned down. Then contacted awhile later asking if they were still interested.

This isn't exploitation or nolstagia. It's people who genuinely loved BG and wanted to create an epic game set in that city.

 

They lobbied for BG license or BG3 license? Because that's where the difference is. If they lobbied for BG and where given it specifically as BG3 title then it's WOTC that intentionally played the nostalgia. If they lobbied specifically for BG3 then I'm rather surprised they created something that has almost nothing to do with 1&2.

 

Slightly different topic,

Baldur's Gate 3 will be multiplayer
https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3-co-op

 

Was to be expected tbh. With all the systems all ready in-engine and co-op being one of the big selling points with Divinity. Although the splitscreen option is new. isn't it?

 

We just don't know how the game will tie in with BG1 and 2 yet. I think the Bhaalspawn stuff will come up in various ways. No, it probably won't be the focus of the new story, but it will be amply referenced, as confirmed by Larian in various interviews.

For me, that's enough continuity for this to be a sequel. And to tell you the truth, if they tried to make a direct continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga, I would be mighty pissed off. That story was done by the end of Throne of Bhaal. I don't want some other studio to come along two decades later and try to forcefully add another chapter onto the end of it. It wouldn't work and it would suck. It would also be incongruent with the official 5E setting, which takes place over a hundred years after the Bhaalspawn events. BG3 is set shortly after the events of Descent into Avernus.

 

I bet you guys are all the life of the party.

 

Larian Gazette Info on BG3

Spoiler

Though this journey began now years ago when we visited Wizards of the Coast for the first time in 2017, these past few weeks have been momentous and emotional, since this was the first time we were able to share Baldur’s Gate 3 with all of you, the people for whom the game is being made.

​

We will soon embark on an epic adventure as Baldur’s Gate 3 enters Early Access, and we couldn’t possibly venture forth without first gathering you, our party. One thousand of you gathered with us as we streamed the game live for the first time at PAX East in an auditorium filled to the brim, and an extra thousand of you were sadly turned away because there was no more space. Hundreds of thousands of you gathered online which - we’re told in confidence - broke some records. Thousands of you each waited three hours to gather with us at our PAX East booth, to see what would have happened if the dice rolls weren’t against us. It has been humbling and exciting to gather together as we start this new journey, venturing forth, going the way of the dice.


What you will eventually play has been in the planning at Larian and closely with Wizards of the Coast for over 4 years now, with their key creative people colliding with our key creative people in ways that we will eventually talk about in greater length. Our task is to create the ultimate Dungeons & Dragons game; a loving and modern sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2. Oozing with 5e D&D greatness, set in the world that you know and love. You will explore Baldur’s Gate 100 years after Baldur’s Gate 2. The Bhaalspawn saga has ended, and a new threat is converging on the city of Baldur's Gate. But the gods do not forget, and the shadows and scars of the past will not stay silent. You will meet and get to know many new characters, and encounter some of the legendary characters you know and love.


Most importantly, you’ll learn how their stories have evolved. And as you play, you will heavily influence their fate. Over the course of the past 3 weeks, the final missing ingredient has been added into our new development pipeline: you.

Let’s look at how we’ve evolved since the release of Divinity: Original Sin 2 in 2017. Firstly, we finished Divinity: Original Sin 2 with 120 people. DOS2 was shipped on the second version of the Divinity engine (we still haven’t found a cool name for it yet), and our Producer David Walgrave said recently in an interview with TechRaptor that in BG3 "there’s about 20-30% of the Original Sin engine left and we rewrote so many systems and so many things." We’ve been colloquially calling this 4.0 engine the “Baldur’s Gate Engine”, and it’s designed from the ground up for Baldur’s Gate.


But how does this happen? Between 2017 and the announcement of BG3 we’ve grown to 250 people + we have over 100 outsourcers working on this. Still independent. Funded entirely by yourselves who dived so eagerly into Divinity: Original Sin 2. We were quiet since the announcement just before E3 of the previous year. But internally, kinetic energy has propelled us forward with new systems, pipelines, and people who when not playing D&D were all helping us to put together what you saw at PAX East, 2020. There’s quite the adventure ahead.

​

We’ve built an engine that allows all 250 people at Larian collaborate to become the ultimate DM. Allowing for near-limitless reactivity, responsiveness, and a memory that never forgets who you are, or what you’ve done. No matter who you roll, dice-rolls, modifiers, and physical simulation have all been designed to simulate a D&D experience that feels as though it’s straight from the imagination, where no matter the dice roll the story will continue. It’s also a game that is intended to span the entire range of human emotion. It is in equal parts a dark and a light game. “We always want to make failure as interesting as it possibly can,” said Senior Writer Adam Smith. “We don’t put everything that’s cool and interesting behind success.”

​

“Light and dark are really good sources of advantage,” noted Swen in a recent GameSpot interview. The philosophies that define the rules in D&D 5e also define the narrative, where you’ll often make difficult decisions through initiative or through the roll of the dice. The Baldur’s Gate games were dark - sometimes darker than many people remember. Baldur’s Gate 3 is no exception, though in 2020 we’re able to take the gamut of emotion and experience and stretch it further due to systems, simulation, and of course also our cinematics team. Unfortunately we did not make it to the end of our PAX East 2020 live demo due to a feature (see: bug), but those in the hall witnessed a scene where Astarion’s hunger got the better of him, and through a series of dice rolls (and often audience choice), Astarion sank his teeth into Shadowheart to varying degrees of mortality. Astarion was happy (systemically), but Shadowheart often ended up dead (also without irony, systemically).


Baldur’s Gate 3 is on course to be a ‘Mature’ game, which is publishing language for “if you go any further the ratings board is going to be extremely annoying”. We want to push the limits of every theme within the game, which should allow you to play exactly how you’d like to play. Astarion may be a Vampire Spawn, but that doesn’t mean he has to be evil - if hungry. Though you saw one path at PAX East, there were many possibilities for good, and evil -- note also, everything in between. It has always been Larian’s plan to create games that allow you to play however you wish. This larger team, and this new engine, allow us to push this further than ever before. Much further than Divinity: Original Sin 2.

​

As you delve into an epic adventure that subverts the binary morality found in many RPGs, and explore Baldur’s Gate with new and existing characters, 100 years after the story of the first two games, dice roll by dice roll, we hope that together we can reignite that great sense of discovery you felt as you dived for the first time into Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, bringing the experience of an open-ended D&D game to photo-realistic realisation, albeit with 5e rules in place of 2nd edition rules. Things have come a long way in 20 years, but what’s important to us is that you’re along for the ride.

​

You have many questions, and we have answers. We’ll be hosting a Reddit AMA where you can ask Swen (Creative Director), David (Producer), Adam (Senior Writer), Nick (Lead Systems Designer), and Jiji (Writing Director) your questions. 11:00 PT on March 12, over on Reddit!


See you all in Early Access.

 

FF7 Remake demo is amazeballs.

Aside from the jaw dropping visuals, the combat is super fucking satisfying. It's basically hack and slash but with 3 controllable swappable chars, and with on the fly slowmo tactical mode where you can cycle through your action/spell/item menus.

As you hack and slash, you grow your ATB charge bars. You spend your ATB charges on big spells/attacks from tactical mode. Each char's hack and slash playstyle is completely different. Playing as Barrett vs playing as Cloud is like night and day, and they've designed it so you want to be juggling between them to execute each char's skills at the right moment.

I am so goddamn hyped. They've managed to blend turn-based strategy into an action game pretty seamlessly.

Also of note, the music is dialed to 11 with a full blazing orchestra and it is glorious. To replace the victory fanfare at the end of a battle scene, you will occasionally catch Cloud humming it. I fucking love it.

 

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord early access releases this month
March 31st

https://store.steampowered.com/app/261550/Mount__Blade_II_Bannerlord/

 

@Celestin https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...and-2-leads-to-what-happens-in-baldurs-gate-3

"We really don't want to spoil anything but we wouldn't call it Baldur's Gate 3 if there wouldn't be a link. Let me just say that we touch upon the story of BG 1 & 2 in meaningful ways, there are returning characters and what happened in BG 1/2/tob leads to what happens into BG3. You won't necessarily see that at the start of the adventure but you will quickly understand once you get further into the game."

 

Minsc and Boo better be in the game then, or there'll be a revolt.

 

Last Saturday, in the absence of football or F1, I had a proper go at setting a competitive qualification time in Daily Race C (the “endurance” race, which lasts around 20 minutes) on GT Sport.

The combination was one that should suit me – Spa, a track I love, and the Super Formula car, which I also love (but which, sadly, doesn’t come up very often).

In the end, it must’ve taken me roughly three hours of hot laps to get the attempt in that I was happy with, but it was worth it. I set the 14th fastest time in Germany, placed 197th in my region and 319th in the world. All of which should be records for me.

I actually discovered a lot about my own driving style and how to be smoother/more consistent in my approach to cornering.

I suppose it helps that I don’t ever get bored of slinging that car through Eau Rouge Raidillon.

I also had two races on my alt account, mainly because I was curious to see how the car behaved with more fuel & worn tyres. One race culminated in a last-lap overtake for the win after about three laps’ worth of biding my time, the other I was essentially in control of from start to finish. (Bar one MASSIVE tankslapper through Pouhon as I was pushing too hard, which I saved, barely.) In the interest of full transparency, my Driver Rating isn’t quite as high on that account, so I raced against competition that was a bit slower than me, particularly in the second race.

 

Shops are closing in 2(?) days in Germany due to Coronavirus which somehow translated to Doom being released early...? Plenty of streams on Twitch and YT in any case. Lots of stuff I like but there's some weird elements, too (weapons sound toy-like, there's those flaming chains moving in circles that are straight out of Mario, more platforming than I expected).

Levels seem to be bigger than 2016, which is pretty sweet. It looks great and runs buttery smooth on PS4, which means the performance should be as good as the previous one, which was amazing.

 

Started on my game backlog thanks to covid. Tales of Bersaria is soooooooo bad.
--- Post automerged ---
AssCreed Odyssey is on sale for 13 bucks via Playstation, and you can play it for free this weekend. Any other games having a covid19 sale?

 

Really? I got it for Christmas a few years back and gave it a playthrough. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but I didn't think there was anything especially bad about it.

For me, I'm just kinda fucking about a bit until Persona 5: Royal drops at the end of the month. And then onto the Final Fantasy VII Remake once I'm done with that.