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

It's a really, really good game. I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause, though I know that's a somewhat controversial decision (what isn't?). The game itself is beautiful, the music is immersive, the writing is (so far) intriguing, and it runs on Linux with only minor tweaks. The game does wonders to capture the feel of playing a well-DMed campaign.

It's no surprise to me that it's getting a lot more sales than they expected, and I'm glad to see devs get rewarded for making a quality product.

As someone who mostly dislikes real time with pause I am glad they didn’t go that route. I just like the see the full results of my action such as to see a spell go off completely. Real time with pause also often messes up the art that went into the sound design and animation choreography.

Relatedly, it’s so satisfying the way the care they took with sound and how impactful your combat actions are as a result. So many game designers ignore sound design; I think this is a huge factor in the success of Blizzard games. People can argue Diablo IV is a poorly designed game, but the sound design is excellent and greatly contributes to the weight of actions and ultimately the dopamine hit factor. I think it’s been their secret weapon as people don’t often realize the effect it has on them. Larian took the same care here and it’s awesome.

> I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause

Nothing else will ever give me the satisfaction of pausing the game, fully assessing the situation, giving a string of commands to all my characters, then unpausing and watching the whole thing play out perfectly (or fail spectacularly).

EDIT: also, the shock of first time seeing Time Stop.

Absolutely agree.

I love the idea behind CRPGs, but have found that I have a difficult time committing to them. I.E. I own Divinity 2, but have struggled to get past the first few hours of the story as the first area makes it so open-ended it's tough to know how to move forward. Additionally, turn-based games often get quickly boring for me as they are often so challenging it doesn't feel worth it (I'm aware I definitely fall under the "casual" category in this realm).

After playing BG3 for over ten hours, I'm hooked. It seems they have struck such a great balance for me (on the "Balanced" difficulty) at making combat engaging, difficult and interesting -- but not so difficult I get bored/hate it. As a casual CRPG gamer, BG3 seems to have struck a near-perfect balance for me.

One of my favorite moments so far: get into a fight with a group of around 10 goblins with my 3-member group. I'm outnumbered so I fall back to a somewhat narrow bridge, to serve as a bottleneck. Once I have all 3 members of my group on the bridge (none of the goblins have made it yet), I throw a grease bottle at the beginning of the bridge to slow down my enemies. Sure enough, it slowed down my enemies enough that when they got to the bridge, I took them out with my two archer party members.

Amazing game.

Agree about sound design, both in this game and its importance in general. That's something I failed to mention. The sound of combat and just environmental sound is great and adds even more to immersion.

If you're a fan of sound in games, check out the original Dead Space. Master class in using sound to create atmosphere.

I’ve played Dead Space the original and the remake and agree completely. Most of the time, if the sound design is spot on, the team behind the game knows what they’re doing and has passion for designing games and what makes them great.

Should you try frozen synapse if you've never played that, extremely satisfying planning based combat

>It's a really, really good game. I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause, though I know that's a somewhat controversial decision (what isn't?).

Yes, but naming the game "Baldur's Gate 3" instead of something like "Divinity: Dungeons & Dragons" is, unfortunately, a successful cash-grab. Which is to be expected considering that AFAIK _none_ of the original developers or writers worked on it.

The difficulty ramps a fair bit at least in my experience I have just started act 3.

There are also zones later in the acts where they disable resting - this really impacts spell casters. You have to really ration your ability usage (rely on consumables for healing etc), somewhat annoyingly you have no real way of knowing how far through the no-rest zones you are (could be 4 or 5 fights in a row you need to get through or only 1 or 2). I'd often end these zones with big spells still in reserve cleric in particular with turn undead would have helped immensely in one area but I thought there would be another fight still to come so I saved it. This is somewhat true to tabletop D&D but left me feeling a little frustrated I think on repeated playthroughs these areas will be much less frustrating.

Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and watch a couple walkthroughs and character build videos to get into a game from someone who has mastered it; just to get over that hump.

This is why I always bounce hard off RPGs yet love immersive sims with RPG-elements. Traditional CRPGs feel so hostile to players new to the genre, or those without a lot of free time. I would think difficulty sliders could help, though not sure if that's seen as sacrilegious or something.

What are the characteristics of a "Baldur's Gate" title beyond being a CRPG following DnD rules set in the areas around the city? Because that's all that seems to unite the other titles and BG3 meets it.

who knows.

given that the whole dark alliance branch exists and essentially turned the game into something totally different it's not like the precedent for radical change hasn't already been set.

also phrasing 'cash grab' in association to any 'Wizards of the Coast' IP as if it were any kind of surprise seems to be missing their whole business tactic for the past 20+ years.

See: the new Neverwinter Nights branches and the cadre of expansion packs/add-ons/dlcs/campaigns/skins/whatever.

if anything BG3 exhibits less cash-grab behaviors than the entire rest of the portfolio of WotC at the moment.

BG3 does have difficulty levels but even the lowest can be deadly. The game intends for you to save very often, even in combat. F5 is your friend!

> What are the characteristics of a "Baldur's Gate" title beyond being a CRPG following DnD rules set in the areas around the city?

I wouldn't call it a defining characteristic since neither SoA nor ToB is happening in Baldur's Gate on nearby areas. But "top-down view cRPG heavy on RTwP D&D tactical combat with 6 character party" would be more or less correct, if imprecise, definition. Minsc unfortunately also seems to have become the distinctive characteristic of the series, but what can you do...

> given that the whole dark alliance branch exists and essentially turned the game into something totally different it's not like the precedent for radical change hasn't already been set.

But that was my point - they didn't dare to name it "Baldur's Gate _3_ Dark Alliance". It would rub people the wrong way much less if they named the new game "Baldur's Gate: Divinity" I assume.

> also phrasing 'cash grab' in association to any 'Wizards of the Coast' IP as if it were any kind of surprise seems to be missing their whole business tactic for the past 20+ years.

Cash grab from Larian. Obviously I don't expect WotC to have any ethics or integrity.

> if anything BG3 exhibits less cash-grab behaviors than the entire rest of the portfolio of WotC at the moment.

I kinda agree, but I never claimed that BG3 is somehow most blatant cash grab from the long list of WotC cash grabs over the years. I'm just disappointed that they have succeeded with it :)

Is Minsc in it? If not, it's Baldur's Gate in name only :)

Unfortunately I heard he is in it via some terrible retcon.

Agreed. A hate this trend of making supposed sequels that thake significant liberties with what kind of game they are making compared to the original. At least this one wasn't a Kickstarter.

I know what area you're talking about - I had my party sneak around that area and come in through the side. I had made some dialog choices earlier where the rest of the goblin area wasn't hostile to my party.

Also, I forgot about plain old jumping for the first ~15 hours of play. I was so stumped about a route I was supposed to take until I put on my glasses and _really_ scrutinized the action bar.

I gave my rogue an amulet that lets him use Misty Step; it's been an absolute game changer for my rogue stealth archer.

> also, the shock of first time seeing Time Stop.

Speak with Dead is also awesome.