Hey, I am a big fan of the original Baldur's Gate games and I'm really looking forward to BG3, which looks like it will be coming out soon. I'm playing Divinity: Original Sin 1 at the moment and really enjoying it. I'm very excited at the prospect of a new BG/D&D game with Larian's fantastic engine; a newer version of the D&D ruleset; and turn-based combat. However, I am a little concerned about a couple of things and just wondering what other people are thinking.

First, D:OS 1 is a great game, but imo some of the writing seems to be not as strong as in the original BG games. They also seem to have a rather strange sense of humor, that I'm not such a big fan of. For example, there seem to be quite a lot of silly/annoying characters and cheap gags that I find a bit grating.

Has there been any sign that they will adopt a more serious writing style for BG3 and cut out some of the sillier characters? Does anyone know if they have taken on any writers that were involved with the original BG games, or other D&D material?

Secondly, I am hearing rumors of the size of the game being immense, to the point that I am getting a little intimidated! D:OS 1 seems pretty freaking huge - I must have put in a good 40-50 hours already and I guess I'm maybe about 1/2 - 2/3 of the way through. D:OS 2 (which I haven't played yet) is reportedly even larger and I'm hearing BG3 is going to be even bigger than that. I mean, I know for RPGs bigger is usually(?) better, but I have young kids and so don't find a lot of time for games these days. So, if it's too big I'm a bit concerned that if I start it, will I ever finish it?

Has anyone heard anything about the size or how it will be structured? Is it safe to assume it will be broken into chapters, like the originals?

These questions have probably been asked before, but any thoughts? I'm sure it will be a great game in any case.

About the humor, I know what you are talking about. The best way to look into this would be to watch the game play videos that they've put out.

if they give us good combat, then i'm ok. it's not like bioware writing is good or memorable.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a look and see if I can find some recent ones. I thought it was pretty good myself. Better than D:OS at least. Which CRPGs would you say have better writing?

I haven't played D:OS (yet) but are you saying the weird humour is more frequent or just more annoying than say Noober, or Larry, Daryl and Daryl, or other such gags in BG1?

From what I've seen so far, the writing in BG3 looks pretty good and the tone is about right (intial videos had some concerns but they've listened to fan feedback and improved the atmosphere a lot).

It's been a few years since I played BG1 tbh, so I don't remember those characters too clearly. Although, the impression I have is that the weird humor in D:OS is both more frequent and more annoying than what I recall from BG1/2. To the extent that some characters seem almost as if they were designed to be as annoying as possible. I had to kill one (supposedly) innocent character, because they were simply too annoying to be allowed to live. An example of the cheap gags that sticks in my mind is that there is an undead pirate in one area you have to fight, who they have called 'Pontius Pirate'.

Although, it sounds like I am slamming the game, but I am actually really enjoying it, as it's amazing except for the silliness. The game engine and turn-based combat are awesome and there is some good roleplaying in there (imo). The engine has a similar level of interactivity with the environment as Ultima VII and also has quite a deep crafting system. You can craft literally just about any item in the game (although that has a trade-off with inventory management overhead).

Anyway, I'm glad to hear reports they are listening to feedback and giving some attention to setting the right tone. It sounds encouraging!

+1

Larian listens to the feedback. As this gentleperson mentioned, the initial gameplay videos were a little bit... off. they were amazing but looked too Divinity, shiny, etc and didn't quite give the BG feeling. They listened and the new gameplay videos are simply AMAZING. I was amazed how quickly they were able to change the tone of the entire game.

About the writing, I am absolutely sure that THERE WILL BE cheese Larian jokes. That's practically their trademark. Have you watched this?. I love Swen, he is an awesome guy and he "loves" his cheesy jokes. I personally have no problem with them. I loved them in Original Sin. And also in the classic Divinity games. As long as they balance it out, I am perfectly fine with it.

I'm fine with a few jokes - so long as it doesn't overtake the overall tone.
BG (1+2) had a few jokey characters (name/dialogue/stereotype) and the odd silly quest, but nothing that spoiled the game.

I'll get around to playing D:OS (1+2) at some point, though perhaps not before I play BG3 as I've too little time(+money) for the moment.

Mostly anything non Bioware. Writing is never stellar in crpgs, so I don't usually care. But Bioware always falls into those cringeworthy slash fanfiction stuff, especially with the romances.

Larian is just ok. I don't mind humor. I'm puzzled as to why so many people hate Larian, do they hate fun?

It's obviously a matter of personal taste. I find Larian's writing (based on D:OS 1) to be more 'cringeworthy' than Bioware's. Well, everyone has a different idea of what is fun, don't they? Personally, I highly value immersion in an RPG - I want to believe I'm actually there, exploring a real, believable fantasy world. For me, that is fun. So, if humor is overdone, it can break that immersion.

It's not that I mind humor in RPGs. I very much liked the humor in the original Fallout games, which was a bit dark and perhaps a bit more 'intelligent'. Some of Larian's humor I find a bit too characature-like and over-the-top. Also, some of their characters seem like they have been designed to be purposefully annoying. I wouldn't even class that as humor - it's just annoying.

Again, I think OS 1 is a great game and I can look past the humor not being to my taste. But, I can understand some people, who perhaps were looking for a more serious tone, being put off by it.

Btw, I saw this BG3 gameplay video that was posted about a week ago. It looks fricking amazing with the summoned creatures you can then fully control and talking to the dead. Some very atmospheric-looking cutscenes too. The tone looks good to me so far!

Have they said anything about what region of Faerun it will be set in? Probably just Baldur's Gate itself and the surrounding Sword Coast?

I've got three major issues with Baldur's Gate III.

1. Turn-based over RTwP. I get that it's the direction WRPGs are going in these days, but if you're pretending to at the very least be a spiritual successor on a franchise your cashing in the name of, why not keep it true to its roots?

2. Fifth Edition. They probably didn't have a lot of control over this since WotC has been pushing 5E like an aggressive gym membership since the travesty of 4E. But the lore damage is still already done, and the Forgotten Realms, while recovering with the current edition are still a gigantic mess from 4E's retardation. They really should've stepped back to 2E or 3E for this title.

3. The above two gripes I can live with. This third one genuinely bugs me. This game has no reason to be called Baldur's Gate III. The Baldur's Gate saga was entirely and just about the Bhaalspawn. If they wanted an RPG set in Baldur's Gate, they could've done what Dark Alliance did and just changed the title a little. "Baldur's Gate: Original Sin" But naming it BG3 implies that it is in some function a continuation of BG1 and BG2 and it's not. It's a shameless cashgrab for the nostalgia of the series. This is the kind of shady business practice I'd expect from the scumbags over at Beamdog, not from a respectable studio like Larian.

Matter of taste. I like TB. But on the other hand, the ruleset they chose promotes micromanagement. Combat went pretty quickly in the demos, but I won't be able to match Sven's mastery. I guess they aren't really connected because with RTWP using a MMey ruleset just means you pause as quickly as your thumb can hit the spacebar every second or so. Not much difference except your thumb gets a crazy workout on RTWP.

I'm an extreme old-timer so my comfort level goes back even further than yours. Even so, the demo looks learnable and fun.

Where are you getting this info from? Was there an announcement I missed? Larian has been pretty cagey about the path of the story, in the media that I've seen.

You wouldn't have gotten a true prequel even back in 2003 when Black Isle was working on BG III. It was set in Faerûn but none of the characters of I/II would have been in III nor would Baldur's Gate. It is the same with Bard's Tale IV where it is set in the same realm but hasn't got anything in common with I-III and the cancelled IV the original developer team was working on way back when. Here is a little history of Black Isle's take on BG III for your consideration.

As opposed to games such as Overlord III and many other by name only games just trying to cash in on past successful titles in a franchise by adding a III/IV/V or call it Prey, where the game got nothing to do and is actually worse than anything that's come before, Larian doesn't with BG III. You may argue that they could have chosen a different name for it, Divinity III set in the FR. Else they seem to do a great job capturing the spirit of BG adding their own signature.

Best thing to do in the case is look past the name and enjoy the game once it's been released and bugs have been ironed out.

Right. Do we even know enough about the plot of BG3 at this point to say for sure that it doesn't tie in to the Bhaalspawn saga in some way?