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‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

(www.forbes.com)
400 points redbell | 14 comments | 06 Aug 23 15:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.351s | source | bottom
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mastax ◴[06 Aug 23 16:47 UTC] No.37023856[source]▶
I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though.

- Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs.

- DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years.

- There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games (if not time to play them).

- The Early Access release for this game was wildly popular beyond the developer's expectations, and maintained interest for years.

I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate because they aren't very important to me, personally. But also there have been a load of really good CRPGs in recent years and there seemed to be a pretty low ceiling to how much interest they could get. Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and a few others were amazing and beloved CRPG games but were lucky to have a tenth of the success of BG3. But those games were generally less accessible, mostly not multiplayer, and again lacked the brand power.

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1. jakebasile ◴[06 Aug 23 16:53 UTC] No.37023935[source]▶
I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn.

Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

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2. flohofwoe ◴[06 Aug 23 16:59 UTC] No.37024019[source]▶
TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2).

PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.

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3. jakebasile ◴[06 Aug 23 17:03 UTC] No.37024083[source]▶
The closest game that BG3 "feels like" to me is Dragon Age: Origins, which is great since I loved that game and the sequels just never did it for me.
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4. oblio ◴[06 Aug 23 17:21 UTC] No.37024337{3}[source]▶
The sequels just turned it into action games for the sake of 10% extra sales and for console ports.
5. ReptileMan ◴[06 Aug 23 17:29 UTC] No.37024446[source]▶
Properly drawn isometric is timeless ...
6. D13Fd ◴[06 Aug 23 19:06 UTC] No.37025414[source]▶
The screenshots definitely look like DOS2.
7. imbnwa ◴[06 Aug 23 19:28 UTC] No.37025645[source]▶
>Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

Yeah, it was hard for me to get into Path of Exile over D3 and D4, despite being a technically 'deeper' game

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8. Shared404 ◴[06 Aug 23 20:12 UTC] No.37026113[source]▶
Haven't play BG3 yet, but my DM has been and noted a few tweaks that Larian made to 5e, especially around spell durations and moving shoving to a bonus action.
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9. antisthenes ◴[07 Aug 23 02:24 UTC] No.37029295[source]▶
> Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.

That's entirely on D&D 5e rules. Combat with chars under lvl 5 is essentially 1 mechanic per class, and really boring.

Tabletop suffers from exactly the same issue, even if you use all the extra/optional subclasses and backstories. So does Solasta (the other 5e PC game)

10. mark38848 ◴[07 Aug 23 05:16 UTC] No.37030423[source]▶
Graphics might be good in BG3 but the art style is non-existent. Generic clear skies or scorching red purgatory fantasy setting. People flying around on dragons fighting Cthulhu's aunt. Man I'd love being able to love that.
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11. jakebasile ◴[07 Aug 23 05:27 UTC] No.37030491{3}[source]▶
Speak for yourself, I've found the world art assets in BG3 both high quality and well made. The detail on the characters and their arms and armor is intricate, too.
12. theoriginaldog ◴[07 Aug 23 09:55 UTC] No.37032373[source]▶
And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.
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13. squeaky-clean ◴[07 Aug 23 10:20 UTC] No.37032553{3}[source]▶
Potions being a bonus action is the biggest thing for me. I've house-ruled that forever. Glad Larian agrees.
14. flohofwoe ◴[07 Aug 23 10:51 UTC] No.37032767{3}[source]▶
TBF, BG3 is still at its core a top-down "feels-like-an-isometric-camera" game, this is still the best solution for managing a whole party of characters, especially in combat (unlike Witcher3 for instance, which has a traditional 3rd-person camera - but has no party to manage).