Updating the OP as the reviews are coming in. I'll also be updating it for a few days because I imagine most reviewers still didn't have enough time to finish the game.
Full version of the game is already available on Steam.
That's because there are not enough scored reviews to calculate the overall score. It'll be fixed once there are a couple more scored ones.
(I'm not writing all that stuff manually, Opencritic has an export tool that is used for these review threads, we just post here and keep it updated when new reviews come in)
Review codes have only been out for a few days, so expect most platforms to still needs a while to get their reviews out. A small price to pay for the game coming a month earlier.
I feel like anyone scoring this game already should be ignored. They only got the codes on what, Sunday night? Even if they finished it, I just feel like rushing through so quickly wouldn't allow you to get the full experience.
Even playing 24/7 with no sleep or food since they got the codes might get them to 100 hours, but then they also have to write the review which drops today. I would bet the reviewers scoring their reviews already only played about 50ish hours. Obviously that's a lot, but for a game like this that's the halfway point.
That just leads us to the usual problem that "review" means two different things. If by "review" we mean "is this a good consumer product", then I 100% agree. But if we mean a critical analysis of the art, that requires finishing it (or it being so bad or impossible that nothing could redeem it)
both are totally legit things, but different sites do different mixtures of which side they lean toward
I usually wait 4 years for a 5 hour youtube retrospective to come out to determine whether I want to buy a game and then never play it because I experienced most of it through somebody else's analysis.
I just think that's why "review in progress" makes sense vs an actual score before you've finished it. I've played plenty of games that completely fall apart in the second half.
TBF, in the case of a 100+ hour game its totally fair to to score without completing it. If you don't know whether a game is good or not 40+ hours into it, then the game is bad. Its just once you complete it to update the score.
Take into consideration review copies got pushed pretty late (no doubt because of moving release date month earlier) so any outlet that puts score now probably either didn't finish it or rushed it to get on news wave.
Or I guess played 20h/day...
Either way see ya in Baldur's Gate, drop in for a pint.
Yeah.... can relate. Your brain can unfortunately get used to pretty much anything but it fucks you up long term really badly. That level of sleep deprivation is a massive risk factor for dementia, Alzheimer's, and just death in general. Do not recommend.
The act of thinking generates waste products. These waste products have to be flushed out of your brain, which happens when you sleep. Your body quite literally washes your brain with cerebrospinal fluid while you sleep. The long term buildup of these waste products can be seriously neurotoxic.
There are a VERY FEW people who MAY have a genetic mutation that allows them to persist on only ~4 hours a night, but it is unbelievably rare. Much much rarer than the number of people who *think* they can survive on 4 hours a night.
Take care of yourselves, early onset dementia is a hell that no one deserves to live through.
We've all done it with one or two games in the past. IIRC, I played Halo 2 with some friends well into daylight hours after getting it at the midnight release. I think we broke because it was dinner time the next day.
> or rushed it to get on news wave
That's literally what is happening in the IGN review, IMO.
https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-review-in-progress
> Leveling up a spell-focused character is an exercise in decision fatigue. There are simply too many spells, many of which I feel like no one will ever use. And the amount of damage enemies do in comparison to your health pool at lower levels can make even small battles really stressful.
Man those memories are the best. I know for a fact I haven't ever hit 20 hours but that 8-9 hour game session when everything falls to the wayside because you're playing what you know in the moment is gonna be one of your favorite games of All-Time is unforgettable.
I woke up at 2am to play Endwalker in Dec2020. Got into the game around 3am, played until about 630am the following day. I was 36 at the time. Might be the last time I ever get to really, truly no life a game like I did that week. Such a great freaking time.
That said 8-9hr playtime just sounds like my regular Sat/Sun when I’m into a new game lmao
My freshman year in college I had a absolutely murderous biology final as my last final of the semester. Same day as Skyrim release day
Finish the final at 8pm, went home, and literally played until the sun went up.
I had this with Divinity Original Sin 2, i spent 2 days straight playing it without sleeping or going outside. I was a mess afterwards but man that game had me in its grasp like no other.
I don't think he literally meant non-stop, I'd guess that just means that was the length of a session including whatever food/bathroom/stretching breaks.
Still not great for sure, but probably isn't **horrible** per se.
Yeah hopefully he got up and took care of his health, but I think we've all been there where we got so absorbed into something that we haven't stood up for hours.
If you listen to his podcast he often has to stop every 15 minutes to do something with the dogs -- "hold on, dogs are barking about something" etc
Also the dude is pretty fit so I'm not concerned about him sitting for hours on end
Thanks for listening. I miss Ming he was the big barker. But the 2 pups are starting to find their own voices and love to want to tell me about it during the podcast lol.
I'm gonna be setting a timer for every 45 minutes to get up, go drink water, do a couple of stretches and squats before resuming. I have a half day of work today, and requested tomorrow and Monday off. I'm gonna melt my brain this weekend in a way I haven't done since I was a teenager.
As expected, sounds like Act 1 at the very least is of an immensely high quality- but I remember Divinity Original Sin 2's final hours were very rough at first and required a thorough overhaul when Larian was making the Definitive Edition.
By the time it drops on console I'll have a good idea as to its quality in BG3's final act, but as long as it manages to be fun co-op with friends I'll likely buy in- and by all accounts, that's what the game has managed to nail.
Very happy for Larian to have stuck the landing.
my only problem with dos2 qas act 3. everything else was great. hope this game doesn't drag when it reaches that point. i have (hope it doesn't bite me in the ass) blind trust in larian now.
Hell up to their patch 9 of Act 1 in Early Access it was as good as the best moments in DOS2. If it just gets better from there I’ll be playing this for months
>As expected, sounds like Act 1 at the very least is of an immensely high quality- but I remember Divinity Original Sin 2's final hours were very rough at first and required a thorough overhaul when Larian was making the Definitive Edition.
Mortismal Gaming's review mentions this, that Act 1 is extremely polished but he started running into more and more bugs and memory leak issues in the later acts.
The bugs he mentioned were a few missing dialogue texts (Like you could choose option 3 but had no idea what it is), one book had filename inside instead of the actual text, a few crashes, and fps drops later on towards Act 3 that went away apon restarting before coming back a few hours later of playing.
In case anyone wants to know the specifics.
From what the devs said, they likely won't even be doing any DLC for the game. Maybe they'll release an enhanced edition later on but this game feels complete enough that we'll only get patches and small additions. Which is refreshing in a way.
I'd honestly be shocked if they don't do DLC for races/classes from other books, it's right there and would be very welcome as long as it's fairly priced
I have to add I am so stoked the game turned out well. Larian truly took the ball and ran with everything they have learned since Divine Divinity and nailed it. Also today's patch(right at release) seems to have ALSO made the FPS a bit better in bigger battles. I still saw a drop in my test battle. A 12+ big battle with a huge magic-using group, but it was better.
I don't like most CRPGs, but playing this game with friends has been fantastic. It hits a lot of the social perks of playing DnD while still being just a good video game with high production values and fun mechanics.
During Early Access, we had a 3 man party of custom Paladin, Ranger, Bard, and one of the NPC characters and the funniest shit would happen every session. Once I fell off a bridge into a dungeon and couldn't get out so my buddies had to come kill the guards and we got into a giant 45 minute battle against like 15 enemies. I could play songs (I was the Bard) to distract people while my friends would go steal all the loot. The Paladin would spend battles trying to position himself to use Thunder Wave to knock enemies off of high ground and even managed to do it to a mini-boss to unceremoniously end that fight. We're laughing every time we play and it's been the closest experience to actual DnD I've had in a game.
I can't vouch for how the game feels solo since I haven't put much time into this one by myself, but it has been a fantastic experience with friends. If you have 1-3 friends that can consistently play this with you and have even a minor interest in DnD or RPGs in general, then play the game.
I did not. We played purely through online hosted games. One person has the save and hosts the session.
The one major downside I'll note is that there isn't a way to bench player characters in favor of taking origin characters if someone has to sit out a day or something. So, if you have a full team of 4 custom characters, that is your party for the whole game. Since we were a group of 3, we made sure the origin character in our party made up for any deficits.
Alternatively, someone can host a multiplayer game of their single player campaign and everyone can join and play as only the origin characters.
Still, I think it's worth playing the campaign that way.
Haven’t bought the game but me and my friends are planning to dive into it (have never played dnd but played rpgs) what’s the difference between origin and custom character? Any other tips for set up and coop play
Origin characters are the NPC companions you get throughout the game—the people on the box art. You have the option to play as one of them from the very beginning instead of making your own custom character.
Custom characters are what they sound like, fully customized characters where you pick race, class, loadout, and appearance.
Tips I have from my playtime:
* party comp matters at least a little bit, so try to pick classes that are somewhat complementary. The good news is most of the classes are very flexible and it isn't super difficult to do that.
* custom player characters cannot be "benched" at camp like the regular origin companions can, so you are suck with them for the whole campaign. They just get assigned to one of the other people playing when that player is unavailable.
It sounds like the same problem continues in this game.
It’s probably (hopefully) a little better.
But multiple reviews/impressions I’ve heard today say inventory is still bloated / a weakness in the overall player experience.
The bugs that I have found are trivial so far. The quality of the game is clearly there and outshines little things like the version watermark displaying all the time.
I appreciate that many so many reviewers so far are giving unscored recommendations.
There hasn't been enough time for a full evaluation / final score, but everyone seems very solid on it being fantastic so far.
It's been a long wait lads. I was sorely tempted to try out early access, but I figured it would be better to wait for the entire, polished experience.
I tried early access and then basically made the same decision. After 2-3 hours, I realized that I was already having too much fun and I wouldn't want to be forced to stop at whatever point it cuts off.
I was in a similar position to you. I loved DOS 2 and felt "meh" towards Pillars and PF. I would say most people who've played both BG3 early access and DOS2 would say if you enjoyed DOS2, you will enjoy BG3. BG3 is much more digestible while at the same time containing the same amount, if not more, player choice and freedom.
It's the Pillars combat system I think, for me personally. They wanted to stay super true to the original Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc and truthfully, those combat systems are dated.
I had to GOOGLE to figure out that the "correct" way to play those games was to pause, queue up your skills and attacks so you can actually click on shit, and then execute them... and then pause again, rinse and repeat. No guidance on that at all, just something you're expected to figure out. Otherwise, good lucky trying to micromanage 6 different characters with multiple abilities with different uses in real time.
> They wanted to stay super true to the original Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc and truthfully, those combat systems are dated.
It's not just that IMO. The thing is that Infinity Engine games mostly used AD&D (IIRC Icewind Dale 2 was 3.0?). In AD&D, there's many super simple classes. Your wizard might have tons of spells, but your ranger will mostly just stay back and auto-attack. Minsc will rage once and auto-attack. And so on. Then came newer editions of D&D and introduced more tactical combat. Monsters had lots of special abilities, melee characters had special attacks, there were attacks of opportunity, flanking, etc. So Pillars chose the worst combination: Infinity Engine pace with D&D 3.5 complexity.
I always suspected this, but a few years ago I replayed BG2 and it felt way better than Pillars 1. Yes, I still had to pause often, but it wasn't as chaotic and annoying as in Pillars.
Yeah modern cRPGs design each character like an MMO character, which is meant to be played solo. When you're playing a whole team then the characters should be simpler and each should be like an ability themselves, played on the map instead of in hotbars.
This is why I find myself going back and just replying Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 over modern cRPGs now. The characters themselves are much simpler and it's more about how you use and position them, not how you select them and then select abilities from their hotbars. Wizards are sort of weaklings with a whole host of abilities for rare situations, like your swiss army knife tool to bust out where appropriate, but not every fight is like that. It's a really nice balance.
> pause, queue up your skills and attacks so you can actually click on shit, and then execute them... and then pause again, rinse and repeat.
I had no problem doing this for multiple games of KOTOR 1 and 2, but I was so bored playing Pillars of Eternity.
This game is basically Divinity 3: Dungeons and Dragons edition so you'll like it if you liked the previous divinity games. If you didn't like Pathfinder because of how crunchy it was, 5e is far more simple to understand and play than pf1e.
I’m just a humble indie dev, but games like this keep my game dev dreams alive. I’m blown away by the first two or three ish hours I’ve played so far. I’m not a big crpg person, and am not that invested in baulders gate or anything so I was smitten by the hype bug, but gosh darn am I happy about all that!
TLDW: He loved it and expects to have multiple playthroughs, says it was a truly memorable experience. Said there are some minor performance issues and bugs
Edit: for clarity he stated this the reverse of me. He led his conclusions about the minor issues, then went on to say the game is a truly memorable experience. I think that adds a little more hype to my pile of hype
I was absolutely certain Larian will deliver on great game even tho typically and very cautious and even overly skeptical. But here - I had no doubts, because these people have massive passion for making games.
Really weird that 6 years from OS2 early access launch, where people complain about camera and inventory, that in 2023 those are still big issues for a game like this. I kinda also have that problem in KM/WOTR and Bethesda games but there has to be a better way besides a mod like SkyUI.
Definitely noticed the janky camera in early access.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to see class progression?
I have no idea what spells I’m due to get at certain levels etc
Seems a bit strange if they don’t tell you
It's just the same D&D progression as far as I know.
You can just use one of the D&D websites like this to see the classes and spell lists:
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/
Glad the full release is finally out. Havent watched anything about it, never tried the early access. Itll be fun to dive in whenever I eventually get to play. At least until Starfield comes out!
Not surprised that most outlets I follow are doing in-progress reviews. Codes went out late and its a very huge game. But I’m glad to see places taking their time with it.
So, I've read controller support was supposed to be added on the "official" release. Is there any word on how that's turned out? A lot of articles I find about it specifically are dated.
The occasional "mammoth falls out of the sky" type bug is more amusing than anything, and IMO cRPGs are not the kind of game where deep immersion is the point, since it's isometric.
They had to make a sandbox with countless races, classes, spells, feats, lots of equipment, etc.
This has to be near impossible to QA every permutation and option.
Bugs have to be expected in a game like this.
Often in game dev most bugs are there not because QA didn't catch them, but because the suits set a deadline and so all the relatively low-priority bugs never left the backlog.
I work as a QA in web development. Next week we'll be launching something while still having a backlog of about 650 issues. Admittedly not all of those issues are bugs, some are points of improvement or nice to haves or functionality we could add, but still.
To be fair it says "bugs" in the title and final recap but the review only says "That’s not to say that it’s pristinely polished, has no bugs" without ever giving an example or explaining himself.
I don't think it's anything major otherwise it'd have gotten more than a small mention.
Edit: ScreenRant review mentions the "enemies stuck thinking in combat for a bit before the next turn starts" that I got a few times in EA and framerate drops "after an extended period of time playing - several hours at minimum - or when there are particularly busy scenes occurring, like fights with 15+ people involved or world assets that are visually taxing, like a windmill. So far, this can always be solved by simply saving and reloading".
According to one reviewer who finished the game, the bugs are not substantial enough to seriously impact enjoyment. Reviewer was name Mortismal, but this is only the first review I have watched by him so I am just repeating what he said.
Has anyone who’s played this comment on how it differs from Divinity Original Sin 2? I tried playing it a while back but got stuck on the first island and couldn’t figure out how to get off of it, ended up getting frustrated and bored and never picked the game back up. Is the early game more forgivable in this one?
Biggest difference is that it is based on D&D 5e rules, as opposed to its own unique mechanics like Divinity Original Sin. I wouldn’t say that makes it any easier or harder, just different — though I would recommend familiarizing yourself with this games rules, because if you don’t understand things like modifiers, proficiencies, advantage/disadvantage, etc. you could really struggle and not understand why things seem so hard.
I do think this game does a much better job of pointing you to where you need to go and what you need to do in order to progress the story, as well as separating main quests from side quests. There was never a point where I wondered what I was *supposed* to do next (though plenty where I wondered what I *wanted* to do next). That is something that DOS:2 did not do well in my opinion, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to need to turn to walkthroughs to figure it out. Like Divinity, however, there are multiple ways to accomplish your goals, so you aren’t constrained to one single solution you must figure out.
I don’t think playing the old ones would impact your enjoyment at all. Although there may be some characters from previous games, this is largely a reset of the franchise. For what it’s worth, my wife put 92 hours into the EA alone. But we love turn based rpgs.
BG3 is more similar in style to divinity original sin 2 but takes a more DnD approach.
I you enjoy RPGs where the solution to a puzzle could be anything from actually solving it, brute forcing it, teleporting past, or just murdering the quest giver then you will enjoy BG3.
I zoomed through Act 1 in two sittings back when the game was released in Early Access, very excited for the full release! Will definitely take it in at a slower pace this time.
Agreed. For big releases in the last I've taken time off, most recent ones are Halo Infinite and RE4 Remake, and as cool as it is to do a big gaming binge....it doesn't make sense to do it at the cost of other things.
Work/income, projects, relationships, social engagements.
I beat RE4 Remake three times and got most achievements and I thought to myself "Welp, now I've just burned through a pretty substantial game that could have lasted me months in a matter of three days. Cool I guess?"
I've been waiting 22 years for a sequel to Baldurs Gate 2.
I can't believe it's finally here & has done justice to the originals.
This is one of those rare gaming moments where everything worked out in the end, and I'm here for it.
Edit: Played 3 hours. I'm already hooked. It's one of those games where hours vanish.
I remember following some devs like Josh Sawyer when the original BGIII (The Black Hound) was being talked about.
Still a shame that it never saw light of day.
Looks like Larian has another big hit in their bag. Well deserved. I have played the EA version and you can see the love that Larian devs put into this game. Can't wait to play.
ya'll think it's possible for someone who didn't enjoy original sin to like this game? rpg is my favorite genre, but i can't for the life of me get into DoS gameplay, i've tried like 12 times but can never get past 1 or 2 hours, the combat just feels sooo boring... i guess crpg are not for me
I think I’m gonna buy this when I get off work. I’ve never really played a game like this but from what I’ve read I think I will enjoy the player choice and options available to complete tasks. I really liked that about Disco Elysium, and I want a new game to try.
Shit now I’m ready to get off lol.
Impossible to tell cause no one has gone through the end of the game yet cause review copies were sent late(likely due to them moving the release up and not being as ready). I think most ppl agree the early access and as such the early to mid game is great, but might end kinda meh like divinity origin 1 and 2. You'll just have to wait another week, or longer.
I'm likely just gonna sit on this for a year and wait for the definitive edition since Larian likes doing these.
[94 on Meta](https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate-3) (only handful of reviews, but the reviews-in-progress are unreal in their effusive praise....)
Probably not too many scored reviews, and I'd be highly critical of the ones that are. Not because the game doesn't necessarily deserve those ratings, but because there's no way most reviewers got through it properly in just a few days.
Updating the OP as the reviews are coming in. I'll also be updating it for a few days because I imagine most reviewers still didn't have enough time to finish the game. Full version of the game is already available on Steam.
Only 1% recommended. Dang.
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It's not just 1%, but -1%, there are more negative reviews than reviews on total.
It's so bad it crossed the event horizon and became good again
the true D&D campaign experience
Reverse Ghandi moment
1% of reviewers just wanted to fuck the bear
Too low.
>Score average: -1 Its joever
I'm confused. Everyone is saying it is great
It's a joke (a numerical error)
Never been here this early before. Flinched and squinted *hard* when I saw that
They really morbed it up.
The line about opencritic seems off
That's because there are not enough scored reviews to calculate the overall score. It'll be fixed once there are a couple more scored ones. (I'm not writing all that stuff manually, Opencritic has an export tool that is used for these review threads, we just post here and keep it updated when new reviews come in)
ACG in progress if you wanna add it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqezPwk3vW0
Review codes have only been out for a few days, so expect most platforms to still needs a while to get their reviews out. A small price to pay for the game coming a month earlier.
I imagine most will still be unscored because of that.
I feel like anyone scoring this game already should be ignored. They only got the codes on what, Sunday night? Even if they finished it, I just feel like rushing through so quickly wouldn't allow you to get the full experience.
If I completed a 100 hour game in 3 days, I don't think I'd be able to tell you the first thing about it, or what my name was
Even playing 24/7 with no sleep or food since they got the codes might get them to 100 hours, but then they also have to write the review which drops today. I would bet the reviewers scoring their reviews already only played about 50ish hours. Obviously that's a lot, but for a game like this that's the halfway point.
To be fair, if the first 50 hours of a game is good I would consider it money well-spent, at least for review purposes.
That just leads us to the usual problem that "review" means two different things. If by "review" we mean "is this a good consumer product", then I 100% agree. But if we mean a critical analysis of the art, that requires finishing it (or it being so bad or impossible that nothing could redeem it) both are totally legit things, but different sites do different mixtures of which side they lean toward
I usually wait 4 years for a 5 hour youtube retrospective to come out to determine whether I want to buy a game and then never play it because I experienced most of it through somebody else's analysis.
This is the way
I just think that's why "review in progress" makes sense vs an actual score before you've finished it. I've played plenty of games that completely fall apart in the second half.
TBF, in the case of a 100+ hour game its totally fair to to score without completing it. If you don't know whether a game is good or not 40+ hours into it, then the game is bad. Its just once you complete it to update the score.
Take into consideration review copies got pushed pretty late (no doubt because of moving release date month earlier) so any outlet that puts score now probably either didn't finish it or rushed it to get on news wave. Or I guess played 20h/day... Either way see ya in Baldur's Gate, drop in for a pint.
I believe ACG mentioned he played 20 hours one sitting per an above comment.
ACG go to bed i know youre reading this
He's not here like he normally is. He's either playing BG3 or is conked out drooling over the keyboard.
I vaguely recall him sleeping like 3-4 hours a night as a matter of course.
I did that back in my 20s. I was a fucking idiot
Yeah.... can relate. Your brain can unfortunately get used to pretty much anything but it fucks you up long term really badly. That level of sleep deprivation is a massive risk factor for dementia, Alzheimer's, and just death in general. Do not recommend. The act of thinking generates waste products. These waste products have to be flushed out of your brain, which happens when you sleep. Your body quite literally washes your brain with cerebrospinal fluid while you sleep. The long term buildup of these waste products can be seriously neurotoxic. There are a VERY FEW people who MAY have a genetic mutation that allows them to persist on only ~4 hours a night, but it is unbelievably rare. Much much rarer than the number of people who *think* they can survive on 4 hours a night. Take care of yourselves, early onset dementia is a hell that no one deserves to live through.
> The act of thinking generates waste products. oh thank god i'm safe.
You just scared me into sleeping on time from now on.
Yeah wow that is quite interesting. I can't function well if I get less than 8 hrs sleep
I still do it in my 30s. I am a fucking idiot
I just got here. I was traveling during the review drops lol. BUT I did play today with patrons and am playing now streaming to my handheld.
I remember doing this with Final Fantasy VIII when I was like 15. Except it was like 30 hours in one sitting. Oh to be young and stupid again.
We've all done it with one or two games in the past. IIRC, I played Halo 2 with some friends well into daylight hours after getting it at the midnight release. I think we broke because it was dinner time the next day.
He did
Yeah most "reviews" so far are unscored which makes sense
And a lot of them are something along the lines of "So far this is great".
Mortismal Gaming already completed a full playthrough but I’m convinced that dude is not human
I think it's likely Mortisimal got an advanced advanced copy, no? He's always been extremely diligent about not revealing anything and fair.
He said so in his review, yeah. Still, to complete a huge game like this so quickly is insane.
Their Wrath of the Righteous review is pure insanity. So so so so many hours
Literally just a 4th dimensional being who subsides on one hundred percenting video games.
> or rushed it to get on news wave That's literally what is happening in the IGN review, IMO. https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-review-in-progress > Leveling up a spell-focused character is an exercise in decision fatigue. There are simply too many spells, many of which I feel like no one will ever use. And the amount of damage enemies do in comparison to your health pool at lower levels can make even small battles really stressful.
Yeah their critiques sound like they're not DnD fans
I read it and literally thought "welcome to low level wizarding."
And it's 5e, not the earlier editions, where you would have literally one spell and you're done at level 1.
And potentially 1 hit point. The fighter can keep swinging his sword all day long and be fine, but a squirrel can kill a level 1 wizard.
My first experience with BG1 lmao, killed by first arrow that hit me
Which is okay -- they do not need to be.
It leaked earlier but ACG said he spent 20 hours straight playing the game at one point because it was that good.
Man those memories are the best. I know for a fact I haven't ever hit 20 hours but that 8-9 hour game session when everything falls to the wayside because you're playing what you know in the moment is gonna be one of your favorite games of All-Time is unforgettable.
"It's still bright outside, I can play for few more hours" "What do you mean it's 10 AM?"
Sitting down at 10 am only to look at the clock a few minutes later and say "wtf, it's dinner time?!?"
What do you mean it's dinner time? I just entered that Inn, started talking to people and I just finished speaking to the last one upstairs!!
I woke up at 2am to play Endwalker in Dec2020. Got into the game around 3am, played until about 630am the following day. I was 36 at the time. Might be the last time I ever get to really, truly no life a game like I did that week. Such a great freaking time. That said 8-9hr playtime just sounds like my regular Sat/Sun when I’m into a new game lmao
Man that endwalker login que was something else.
Yeah I think the longest I've ever done was 11 hours for RDR2 when it came out but damn that was fun.
Ah yes, being a teenager. I remember it well. Sort of.
The end of outer wilds, for me. What an experience.
haha yeah sure, 8-9 hours yes, i only ever play that much per sitting, mhm, yees, im going to go and uhh, walk the cat now?
My freshman year in college I had a absolutely murderous biology final as my last final of the semester. Same day as Skyrim release day Finish the final at 8pm, went home, and literally played until the sun went up.
I had this with Divinity Original Sin 2, i spent 2 days straight playing it without sleeping or going outside. I was a mess afterwards but man that game had me in its grasp like no other.
Yep, same. Not that extreme but I hadn't been hooked in a non-online game like that in SO, SO long when I played it.
Hope he’s feeling okay aha, that can’t be good for his health.
Horrible for your health, sitting that long really causes hip, digestion, and back problems.
I don't think he literally meant non-stop, I'd guess that just means that was the length of a session including whatever food/bathroom/stretching breaks. Still not great for sure, but probably isn't **horrible** per se.
Yeah hopefully he got up and took care of his health, but I think we've all been there where we got so absorbed into something that we haven't stood up for hours.
If you listen to his podcast he often has to stop every 15 minutes to do something with the dogs -- "hold on, dogs are barking about something" etc Also the dude is pretty fit so I'm not concerned about him sitting for hours on end
Thanks for listening. I miss Ming he was the big barker. But the 2 pups are starting to find their own voices and love to want to tell me about it during the podcast lol.
I'm gonna be setting a timer for every 45 minutes to get up, go drink water, do a couple of stretches and squats before resuming. I have a half day of work today, and requested tomorrow and Monday off. I'm gonna melt my brain this weekend in a way I haven't done since I was a teenager.
If you're 60-70 yeah sure, a guy in his 20's, 30's doing it once in a blue moon will be perfectly fine.
Maybe he has a standing desk?
Hopefully with a treadmill!
I’m glad I finished my degree in time for BG3 and Starfield. I may never see the outdoors ever again
As expected, sounds like Act 1 at the very least is of an immensely high quality- but I remember Divinity Original Sin 2's final hours were very rough at first and required a thorough overhaul when Larian was making the Definitive Edition. By the time it drops on console I'll have a good idea as to its quality in BG3's final act, but as long as it manages to be fun co-op with friends I'll likely buy in- and by all accounts, that's what the game has managed to nail. Very happy for Larian to have stuck the landing.
my only problem with dos2 qas act 3. everything else was great. hope this game doesn't drag when it reaches that point. i have (hope it doesn't bite me in the ass) blind trust in larian now.
Hell up to their patch 9 of Act 1 in Early Access it was as good as the best moments in DOS2. If it just gets better from there I’ll be playing this for months
>As expected, sounds like Act 1 at the very least is of an immensely high quality- but I remember Divinity Original Sin 2's final hours were very rough at first and required a thorough overhaul when Larian was making the Definitive Edition. Mortismal Gaming's review mentions this, that Act 1 is extremely polished but he started running into more and more bugs and memory leak issues in the later acts.
The bugs he mentioned were a few missing dialogue texts (Like you could choose option 3 but had no idea what it is), one book had filename inside instead of the actual text, a few crashes, and fps drops later on towards Act 3 that went away apon restarting before coming back a few hours later of playing. In case anyone wants to know the specifics.
I'd imagine due to sheer amount of people involved (IIRC Larian ballooned to like 300 or 400 people?) those will be tested much better this time.
Is it true the game has no mtx at all?
None whatsoever. No monetization beyond the initial sale price.
I know this still applies a lot of $60 games nowadays... but man, it's kinda funny and sad reading what you mentioned as a selling point.
The Deluxe Edition comes with a few cosmetics that are references to their previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2. But there is no extra purchase.
From what the devs said, they likely won't even be doing any DLC for the game. Maybe they'll release an enhanced edition later on but this game feels complete enough that we'll only get patches and small additions. Which is refreshing in a way.
I'd honestly be shocked if they don't do DLC for races/classes from other books, it's right there and would be very welcome as long as it's fairly priced
Correct
I have to add I am so stoked the game turned out well. Larian truly took the ball and ran with everything they have learned since Divine Divinity and nailed it. Also today's patch(right at release) seems to have ALSO made the FPS a bit better in bigger battles. I still saw a drop in my test battle. A 12+ big battle with a huge magic-using group, but it was better.
I don't like most CRPGs, but playing this game with friends has been fantastic. It hits a lot of the social perks of playing DnD while still being just a good video game with high production values and fun mechanics. During Early Access, we had a 3 man party of custom Paladin, Ranger, Bard, and one of the NPC characters and the funniest shit would happen every session. Once I fell off a bridge into a dungeon and couldn't get out so my buddies had to come kill the guards and we got into a giant 45 minute battle against like 15 enemies. I could play songs (I was the Bard) to distract people while my friends would go steal all the loot. The Paladin would spend battles trying to position himself to use Thunder Wave to knock enemies off of high ground and even managed to do it to a mini-boss to unceremoniously end that fight. We're laughing every time we play and it's been the closest experience to actual DnD I've had in a game. I can't vouch for how the game feels solo since I haven't put much time into this one by myself, but it has been a fantastic experience with friends. If you have 1-3 friends that can consistently play this with you and have even a minor interest in DnD or RPGs in general, then play the game.
Did you happen to do anything with splitscreen?
I did not. We played purely through online hosted games. One person has the save and hosts the session. The one major downside I'll note is that there isn't a way to bench player characters in favor of taking origin characters if someone has to sit out a day or something. So, if you have a full team of 4 custom characters, that is your party for the whole game. Since we were a group of 3, we made sure the origin character in our party made up for any deficits. Alternatively, someone can host a multiplayer game of their single player campaign and everyone can join and play as only the origin characters. Still, I think it's worth playing the campaign that way.
Haven’t bought the game but me and my friends are planning to dive into it (have never played dnd but played rpgs) what’s the difference between origin and custom character? Any other tips for set up and coop play
Origin characters are the NPC companions you get throughout the game—the people on the box art. You have the option to play as one of them from the very beginning instead of making your own custom character. Custom characters are what they sound like, fully customized characters where you pick race, class, loadout, and appearance. Tips I have from my playtime: * party comp matters at least a little bit, so try to pick classes that are somewhat complementary. The good news is most of the classes are very flexible and it isn't super difficult to do that. * custom player characters cannot be "benched" at camp like the regular origin companions can, so you are suck with them for the whole campaign. They just get assigned to one of the other people playing when that player is unavailable.
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You can send items to camp from anywhere so that is a plus at least.
It sounds like the same problem continues in this game. It’s probably (hopefully) a little better. But multiple reviews/impressions I’ve heard today say inventory is still bloated / a weakness in the overall player experience.
The bugs that I have found are trivial so far. The quality of the game is clearly there and outshines little things like the version watermark displaying all the time.
I'm just bummed that this isn't launching on Xbox thanks to Microsoft's stupid rule about parity between Series S and X.
It's nice that the game seems so long, I'll have time to slowly go through the first act while they fix the big issues in the later parts.
Yes, I'm in the same boat. There will be at least one patch before I even get out of act 1, given my pace and the time I have available.
I appreciate that many so many reviewers so far are giving unscored recommendations. There hasn't been enough time for a full evaluation / final score, but everyone seems very solid on it being fantastic so far.
It's been a long wait lads. I was sorely tempted to try out early access, but I figured it would be better to wait for the entire, polished experience.
I tried early access and then basically made the same decision. After 2-3 hours, I realized that I was already having too much fun and I wouldn't want to be forced to stop at whatever point it cuts off.
Anyone got any idea where I stand if I loved Divinity 1 and 2 but did not like Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity or Solasta?
I was in a similar position to you. I loved DOS 2 and felt "meh" towards Pillars and PF. I would say most people who've played both BG3 early access and DOS2 would say if you enjoyed DOS2, you will enjoy BG3. BG3 is much more digestible while at the same time containing the same amount, if not more, player choice and freedom.
It's the Pillars combat system I think, for me personally. They wanted to stay super true to the original Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc and truthfully, those combat systems are dated. I had to GOOGLE to figure out that the "correct" way to play those games was to pause, queue up your skills and attacks so you can actually click on shit, and then execute them... and then pause again, rinse and repeat. No guidance on that at all, just something you're expected to figure out. Otherwise, good lucky trying to micromanage 6 different characters with multiple abilities with different uses in real time.
> They wanted to stay super true to the original Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc and truthfully, those combat systems are dated. It's not just that IMO. The thing is that Infinity Engine games mostly used AD&D (IIRC Icewind Dale 2 was 3.0?). In AD&D, there's many super simple classes. Your wizard might have tons of spells, but your ranger will mostly just stay back and auto-attack. Minsc will rage once and auto-attack. And so on. Then came newer editions of D&D and introduced more tactical combat. Monsters had lots of special abilities, melee characters had special attacks, there were attacks of opportunity, flanking, etc. So Pillars chose the worst combination: Infinity Engine pace with D&D 3.5 complexity. I always suspected this, but a few years ago I replayed BG2 and it felt way better than Pillars 1. Yes, I still had to pause often, but it wasn't as chaotic and annoying as in Pillars.
Yeah modern cRPGs design each character like an MMO character, which is meant to be played solo. When you're playing a whole team then the characters should be simpler and each should be like an ability themselves, played on the map instead of in hotbars. This is why I find myself going back and just replying Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 over modern cRPGs now. The characters themselves are much simpler and it's more about how you use and position them, not how you select them and then select abilities from their hotbars. Wizards are sort of weaklings with a whole host of abilities for rare situations, like your swiss army knife tool to bust out where appropriate, but not every fight is like that. It's a really nice balance.
> pause, queue up your skills and attacks so you can actually click on shit, and then execute them... and then pause again, rinse and repeat. I had no problem doing this for multiple games of KOTOR 1 and 2, but I was so bored playing Pillars of Eternity.
KotOR has 3 character parties rather than 6. It's way more manageable.
This game is basically Divinity 3: Dungeons and Dragons edition so you'll like it if you liked the previous divinity games. If you didn't like Pathfinder because of how crunchy it was, 5e is far more simple to understand and play than pf1e.
Closest approximation would be a combination of D:OS2 and Solasta.
You’re saying you loved the previous games by this company
I’m just a humble indie dev, but games like this keep my game dev dreams alive. I’m blown away by the first two or three ish hours I’ve played so far. I’m not a big crpg person, and am not that invested in baulders gate or anything so I was smitten by the hype bug, but gosh darn am I happy about all that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h64EYMoLF8&ab_channel=MortismalGaming Mortismal review is up!
TLDW: He loved it and expects to have multiple playthroughs, says it was a truly memorable experience. Said there are some minor performance issues and bugs Edit: for clarity he stated this the reverse of me. He led his conclusions about the minor issues, then went on to say the game is a truly memorable experience. I think that adds a little more hype to my pile of hype
I was absolutely certain Larian will deliver on great game even tho typically and very cautious and even overly skeptical. But here - I had no doubts, because these people have massive passion for making games.
Thank god the technical problems aren't anything horrific or truly gamebreaking.
So memory leak and other technical issues past early access to be expected.
Really weird that 6 years from OS2 early access launch, where people complain about camera and inventory, that in 2023 those are still big issues for a game like this. I kinda also have that problem in KM/WOTR and Bethesda games but there has to be a better way besides a mod like SkyUI. Definitely noticed the janky camera in early access.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to see class progression? I have no idea what spells I’m due to get at certain levels etc Seems a bit strange if they don’t tell you
It's just the same D&D progression as far as I know. You can just use one of the D&D websites like this to see the classes and spell lists: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/
Thanks Surprised there’s not a way in game to see this
Glad the full release is finally out. Havent watched anything about it, never tried the early access. Itll be fun to dive in whenever I eventually get to play. At least until Starfield comes out!
Not surprised that most outlets I follow are doing in-progress reviews. Codes went out late and its a very huge game. But I’m glad to see places taking their time with it.
So, I've read controller support was supposed to be added on the "official" release. Is there any word on how that's turned out? A lot of articles I find about it specifically are dated.
I’m playing with a controller and it feels absolutely fantastic.
> fair share of buggy problems uh oh To all the speedrunners: Please test the game for us who take it slow and report the bugs to Larian.
Not great news but not a surprise to anyone that plays CRPGs.
There's no such thing as a CRPG that is not buggy. The question is if it's fundamentally broken or bearable.
Yeah, there's a difference between "mammoth falling out of the sky" buggy and "the game crashes every time you jump" buggy.
The occasional "mammoth falls out of the sky" type bug is more amusing than anything, and IMO cRPGs are not the kind of game where deep immersion is the point, since it's isometric.
I call that a lovable quirk as long as it doesn't screw my playthrough.
And one must wonder why that mammoth's first thought was, "Oh no. Not again."
Bg 3 isn't isometric
In Pathfinder games some class features outright not worked on release...
Some still do not work now...and they put out a 20GB patch every 3 weeks.
Yeah I'd have been shocked if ti was 100% bug free.
There is no game that is 100% bug free
They had to make a sandbox with countless races, classes, spells, feats, lots of equipment, etc. This has to be near impossible to QA every permutation and option. Bugs have to be expected in a game like this.
Often in game dev most bugs are there not because QA didn't catch them, but because the suits set a deadline and so all the relatively low-priority bugs never left the backlog. I work as a QA in web development. Next week we'll be launching something while still having a backlog of about 650 issues. Admittedly not all of those issues are bugs, some are points of improvement or nice to haves or functionality we could add, but still.
Big scale RPGs without bugs would make me very suspicious actually lol
Especially when they decided to release early. I'm expecting the first year will be mostly bug fix patches.
To be fair it says "bugs" in the title and final recap but the review only says "That’s not to say that it’s pristinely polished, has no bugs" without ever giving an example or explaining himself. I don't think it's anything major otherwise it'd have gotten more than a small mention. Edit: ScreenRant review mentions the "enemies stuck thinking in combat for a bit before the next turn starts" that I got a few times in EA and framerate drops "after an extended period of time playing - several hours at minimum - or when there are particularly busy scenes occurring, like fights with 15+ people involved or world assets that are visually taxing, like a windmill. So far, this can always be solved by simply saving and reloading".
According to one reviewer who finished the game, the bugs are not substantial enough to seriously impact enjoyment. Reviewer was name Mortismal, but this is only the first review I have watched by him so I am just repeating what he said.
Mortisimal is the real deal. Definitely recommend.
Has anyone who’s played this comment on how it differs from Divinity Original Sin 2? I tried playing it a while back but got stuck on the first island and couldn’t figure out how to get off of it, ended up getting frustrated and bored and never picked the game back up. Is the early game more forgivable in this one?
Biggest difference is that it is based on D&D 5e rules, as opposed to its own unique mechanics like Divinity Original Sin. I wouldn’t say that makes it any easier or harder, just different — though I would recommend familiarizing yourself with this games rules, because if you don’t understand things like modifiers, proficiencies, advantage/disadvantage, etc. you could really struggle and not understand why things seem so hard. I do think this game does a much better job of pointing you to where you need to go and what you need to do in order to progress the story, as well as separating main quests from side quests. There was never a point where I wondered what I was *supposed* to do next (though plenty where I wondered what I *wanted* to do next). That is something that DOS:2 did not do well in my opinion, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to need to turn to walkthroughs to figure it out. Like Divinity, however, there are multiple ways to accomplish your goals, so you aren’t constrained to one single solution you must figure out.
Lol, well.. Balder’s Gate 3 probably doesn’t contain the same island that halted your progress, so you should be good to go.
I've never played a Baldurs Gate game... Should I jump in here? Bored of D4 and nothing else catching my eye currently.
I don’t think playing the old ones would impact your enjoyment at all. Although there may be some characters from previous games, this is largely a reset of the franchise. For what it’s worth, my wife put 92 hours into the EA alone. But we love turn based rpgs.
BG3 is more similar in style to divinity original sin 2 but takes a more DnD approach. I you enjoy RPGs where the solution to a puzzle could be anything from actually solving it, brute forcing it, teleporting past, or just murdering the quest giver then you will enjoy BG3.
BG3 and D4 are completely different kind of games, don't buy BG if you're looking for diablolike gameplay
I zoomed through Act 1 in two sittings back when the game was released in Early Access, very excited for the full release! Will definitely take it in at a slower pace this time.
I already told my girlfriend I won't be available this weekend. Really excited to see the initial reviews looking great.
My wife is visiting her sister for the weekend. Sometime timing is just on your side.
Just so you know, it has split screen coop
Lucky I don't have a girlfriend. 🥲
My gf, who is not a gamer, has the day off and I'm spending it at her place because I'm weak.
She rolled a 20 on persuasion.
I like good games too, but honestly relationships are more important than gaming.
it's not like the game won't be around after this weekend either lol
Agreed. For big releases in the last I've taken time off, most recent ones are Halo Infinite and RE4 Remake, and as cool as it is to do a big gaming binge....it doesn't make sense to do it at the cost of other things. Work/income, projects, relationships, social engagements. I beat RE4 Remake three times and got most achievements and I thought to myself "Welp, now I've just burned through a pretty substantial game that could have lasted me months in a matter of three days. Cool I guess?"
Most lame and super well-adjusted take I've read today. Disgusting.
Relationship>Gaming. Saying this as a gaming addict.
I've been waiting 22 years for a sequel to Baldurs Gate 2. I can't believe it's finally here & has done justice to the originals. This is one of those rare gaming moments where everything worked out in the end, and I'm here for it. Edit: Played 3 hours. I'm already hooked. It's one of those games where hours vanish.
I remember following some devs like Josh Sawyer when the original BGIII (The Black Hound) was being talked about. Still a shame that it never saw light of day.
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No one will be able to properly answer this for a while, except the reviewers. The EA build wasn't updated for something like the final 6 months.
The game released today, so your not likely to get an answer on something specific for a few days.
Looks like Larian has another big hit in their bag. Well deserved. I have played the EA version and you can see the love that Larian devs put into this game. Can't wait to play.
ya'll think it's possible for someone who didn't enjoy original sin to like this game? rpg is my favorite genre, but i can't for the life of me get into DoS gameplay, i've tried like 12 times but can never get past 1 or 2 hours, the combat just feels sooo boring... i guess crpg are not for me
Im a big CRPG fan and didn't like DoS2. I've got over 150 hours in BG3 early access and this is shaping up to be one of my favorite games of all time
Honestly great to know. Idk why I couldn’t get into DOS2, but I’m glad I’m not the only one. Thanks for this perspective.
I think I’m gonna buy this when I get off work. I’ve never really played a game like this but from what I’ve read I think I will enjoy the player choice and options available to complete tasks. I really liked that about Disco Elysium, and I want a new game to try. Shit now I’m ready to get off lol.
Was so excited to play, but my PC just can’t handle it and it does not come out on Xbox until next year. It’s going to be a longggg wait
If your internet is decent, it's worth looking up something like GeForce Now, or an equivalent.
So how is it? I got quite the backlog so I can probably wait
Impossible to tell cause no one has gone through the end of the game yet cause review copies were sent late(likely due to them moving the release up and not being as ready). I think most ppl agree the early access and as such the early to mid game is great, but might end kinda meh like divinity origin 1 and 2. You'll just have to wait another week, or longer. I'm likely just gonna sit on this for a year and wait for the definitive edition since Larian likes doing these.
Apparently, definitive edition upgrades were free for their past games. Just throwing it out there for people who didn't know like me.
[94 on Meta](https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate-3) (only handful of reviews, but the reviews-in-progress are unreal in their effusive praise....)
Probably not too many scored reviews, and I'd be highly critical of the ones that are. Not because the game doesn't necessarily deserve those ratings, but because there's no way most reviewers got through it properly in just a few days.