Baldur's Gate 3 announced

[The Minsky Moment]

I was/am kickstarter backer for DOS2, I am obviously in for this BG3.

For those who need to play BG1 & BG2, Modern consoles versions are coming.

Both are already available on ipad.

[Syt]

There's also modernized versions on Steam, GOG, etc.

[Oexmelin]

...with really mediocre "updated" content.

[Zanza]

BG3 will be out as "Early Access" tomorrow. I will wait for the full game before making a decision.

[Razgovory]

I recently played through Baldur's gate on on anticipation of this game coming out.  The tone and voice acting is all over the place, but this was some of the early days for PC game voice acting.  I don't think they hired anyone specially for writing and the plot was written out by some of the programmers.

[fromtia]

I loved Baldurs Gate. Life changing. Icewind Dale was fun, Baldurs gate 2 was okay. Neverwinter Nights left me cold. Ive watched a bit of Baldurs 3, it looks impressive. I'll wait and see.

[Syt]

Unusually, the release date for this has been pulled forward to August 3rd. Following Larian's previous successes with Divinity: Original Sin 1&2 and an I guess positive Early Access period, this is getting a lot of positive pre-release buzz.

Meanwhile, after nearly 25 years I've finally beaten Baldur's Gate. Yes, the first one.

I bought the original (German release) at launch. The game came on 5 disks, and while you could define the size of the cache for the game's files, I had to swap disks because my HD at the time was only 1GB in size.



The screen for swapping disks.



(Looking up the original box contents I remember that there was a paper map of the city of BG itself which would have been useful in my playthrough.)

Anyways, at the time I got really into the game. I cleared out the entire map except Baldur's Gate itself. At the time I read that there'd be an expansion coming soon that would raise the level cap (that I was brushing up against). So I waited. For some reason the shops in my town took forever to get the expansion in, and by the time I bought it, I loaded up my old save and ... was entirely lost. The journal wasn't nearly as useful then as it is now in the enhanced edition. I made a few abortive attempts to start over but never even got near as far as my original playthrough.

I started a full play through of the game "recently." (I thought it was recently, but looking at my achievements in Steam, I did that in 2020 ... what even is time anymore? ) I had paused again at the entrance of Baldur's Gate, but these last couple of days I made the push to finally get through this. I enjoyed this final stretch more than I expected, though I ran into a few foibles of the game:

- House entrances on the "back" of the building (i.e. doors not on the visible parts of buildings in towns, so you have to mouse over the art to see if the cursor switches to an "enter building" symbol ... )
- Enhanced Edition is much better at tracking quests and its journal is improved a lot, but you can get so used to the automatic quest updates that if in one quest they don't show up you run around wondering what you missed before returning to the quest giver and realizing you were already done.
- Similarly, some quest steps can be done out of order, and generally the game is good about it and not getting confused. Still, in a few instances I had technically finished a quest, but still had to go through some previous steps to trigger the resolution.

On the plus side, pausing while in the inventory screen is a godsend (hated that about original release), and so are the gem pouch and the box for storing scrolls. The Tales of the Sword Coast expansion was fine. Durlag's Tower was fun, and I'm kinda happy to get through it without wakthrough, even though some mechanics/interactions are a bit opaque. ("Oh, there's a random item I can interact with to advance. Gotcha.") At first the Tower confused me. I went all the way up, and there was not much special. Then I realized there was a downstairs area. 

I didn't play the Dragonspear expansion, because I read it has some spoilers for BG2 which I still have to play.

So yeah, BG1 finally finished, almost a quarter century after I first launched the game.

Did I play it on Easy/Story Mode difficulty. Hell yeah.

Do I feel guilty about it?

[Syt]

Looking back, it seems I did one late game encounter quite differently from the "default." In Candlekeep library I'm meeting "Koveras" ( ) who normally would talk you into killing the Iron Throne leaders in the library (and you have all kinds of reason to) and then have you arrested for the deed.

But because I wanted to explore still, I brushed him off right away before talking anything substantial. I thought I could talk to him later, but he walks off.

I run into the Iron Throne leaders, and I have Yeslick with me.
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Yeslick_Orothiar

There is an additional dialog between Yeslick and Rieltar Anchev if Yeslick is taken to Candlekeep in Chapter Six. Rieltar does not recognize Yeslick and the latter's justified desire for vengeance, the player can prevent Yeslick from taking violent vengeance or go along with his rage and slay Rieltar and his fellow Iron Throne leaders.

So I talked him down, letting them live (for now), and kept going upstairs. Where I run into a guard who tells me that Rieltar and the others were killed and I'm under arrest.

To be honest, I felt really blindsided by this (I didn't know the endgame content at all), but also felt rightfully indignant, considering I knew I hadn't killed them. (If I had, it would have been a different feeling of having been duped, I assume.) Rather nicely done by the game.

[Sophie Scholl]

I just started Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition for my first playthrough of any of the games. It was that or Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. So far BG1EE is... ok? Is it worth playing other than for nostalgia which I lack? Should I skip to 2? NWN? I made a half-orc full cleric of Tyr because... it seemed like a good idea at the time? 

[Syt]

BG2 is a direct continuation of the story as far as I know. I think if you engage the game's narrative and (aging) mechanics, make it to, say, Friendly Arm Inn or Beregost and decide you're not enjoying it, I would bail. The game's main fun is IMHO not so much following the main story but exploring the world and its side content. Its huge, massive piles of side content. I think there's few games with as many little stories (often with multiple ways to resolve them) as BG1. (Haven't played BG2 yet)

Oh also, the combat can be quite hard.

[Josquius]

I've been meaning to play through BG 1 and 2 Enhanced Editions some time.
I did finish the  first one though have never seen the expansions.
The second...my typical game of getting lost trying to do EVERYTHING. Several times over the years.

[Valmy]

I just started Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition for my first playthrough of any of the games. It was that or Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. So far BG1EE is... ok? Is it worth playing other than for nostalgia which I lack? Should I skip to 2? NWN? I made a half-orc full cleric of Tyr because... it seemed like a good idea at the time? 

Sophie!

For some reason I thought you left us.

BG1EE is a little unbalanced from using the the BG2 engine but otherwise still really great IMO. If you want the experience of exploring a world with a team of adventurers and don't mind not finding anything of interest a large amount of the time. And low level adventures have a certain charm BG2 doesn't have IMO.

But I also LOVED BG1 when it came out. I won it six times the first year I had it 

BG2 is a quite different than BG1 as there is less focus on exploration and just on lots of action all the time. Plus if there is a monster you like in Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition it shows up in BG2 or BG2:ToB someplace. Even obscure Dark Sun and Planescape stuff.

My main annoyance with BG1 to BG2 is that BG2 just assumes you had a certain party of adventurers with you in BG1 and does weird things with the other BG1 companions.

[Syt]

BG1 is definitely "check each map for any weird stuff you run into." And there's plenty weird stuff and small encounters/quests all over - but also plenty "empty" bits of map - but the maps still look very pretty IMHO.

[crazy canuck]

BG1 is definitely "check each map for any weird stuff you run into." And there's plenty weird stuff and small encounters/quests all over - but also plenty "empty" bits of map - but the maps still look very pretty IMHO.

I remember the sinking feeling I had when I realized I had missed out on a large part of the game by failing to poke about.

[Sophie Scholl]

Sophie!

For some reason I thought you left us.

I took some time off and will be limiting where and how often I engage, but the Gaming HQ is a (relatively) friendly and safe spot. So... we'll see how things go!

I appreciate all of the answers to my question, too! I'll probably play a bit more and see how it feels. I don't mind the graphics, but ooof the slooooow movement is a bit rough. Especially with a lot of back and forth. And this was just in Candledeep! 

I've also got a ton of new content in WoW to work through, LotRO, and Diablo IV, so we'll see which game I end up playing and latching onto for the next while.