Baldur's Gate 3 announced

[Syt]

Well, PC Gamer, who in general tends to be not overly inflationary with their scores compared to others gives the game 97%:
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-review/

After spending 160 hours unravelling conspiracies, setting fire to monsters and finding increasingly fancy hats for my Bard, I can now confidently say that Baldur's Gate 3 is the greatest RPG I've ever played. If I wasn't writing this review, I'd be rolling a brand new character and jumping in for another hundred hours. I've got it bad.

It's my dream game: the best parts of Ultima, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Divinity: Original Sin. But it also does so much more than tap into the RPG Greatest Hits, finding a way to unite disparate philosophies like cinematic storytelling, unhinged sandbox mayhem and tabletop-style roleplaying. Yes, it says, you can have your cake and eat it too.

And boy is it absolutely massive, as deep as it is wide. Each of the three acts could be their own epic RPG, jam-packed with elaborate dungeons, strikingly memorable quests and unique stakes, supported by systems that offer a truly intimidating amount of player freedom. It is a game overflowing with crossroads, with every step conjuring up yet more paths trying to seduce you off the beaten track.

Meanwhile, the game had 850,000 concurrent players on Steam on its second weekend (it actually went up compared to launch day weekend).

[Tamas]

I am over 70 hours in, now in early/mid stages of Act 3, but talking to a friend of mine, I realised I didn't even clear Act 1, even though I thought I did! I am 100% certain I did not clear Act 2.

Actually, without spoilering too much, the start of Act 3 was my first disappointment, the so far excellent pacing seem to be going off the rocks with entering the usual problem of "I must save the city/region/world but first let me do this menial quest most people wouldn't bother with even if they were not in an emergency". However, that was a fairly brief thing and now things are back to a state where it feels justified to take your time from a main story point of view.

I can't really stress enough how rare it is that I persevere with this kind of a game for this long, and actually having fun throughout the way not just grudging on due to a sense of pride. I am already planning out my next run once I complete the main story in this one.

[crazy canuck]

There are manny areas in earlish Chapter 1 that I did not find on the first character.

I didn't understand what to look for until I had a few hours under my belt.  Paying attention to the environment turns out to be important, I had spent too much time with Diablo where it's really just pretty art work.

[Legbiter]

I'm having a blast. Just started chapter 2.

[Valmy]

BG3 DM voice outtakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YG0Fd63_70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAjwwubCygo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g5VvEPFucE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGcHyn6PycI

[HVC]

Don't normally enjoy games in this genre, but everyone keeps saying how good it is so I gave it a go. Enjoyable so far.  My lack of DnD knowledge means my build is going to be less than ideal. Let's see how that goes.

[crazy canuck]

What are you playing?

And don't worry, the game seems designed to be more enjoyable if you don't min/max just  like the table top version actually 

[Valmy]

Don't normally enjoy games in this genre, but everyone keeps saying how good it is so I gave it a go. Enjoyable so far.  My lack of DnD knowledge means my build is going to be less than ideal. Let's see how that goes.

You can play DnD for years and still not know what the good builds are. You have to sit down and get crunchy to determine that and only a certain sort of player does that.

[HVC]

What are you playing?

And don't worry, the game seems designed to be more enjoyable if you don't min/max just  like the table top version actually 

Playing a human wizard with evocation because I want to blow stuff up from a distance

[Solmyr]

What are you playing?

And don't worry, the game seems designed to be more enjoyable if you don't min/max just  like the table top version actually 

Playing a human wizard with evocation because I want to blow stuff up from a distance

Evocation is certainly quite powerful, especially once you get into the higher-level damage spells.

[crazy canuck]

What are you playing?

And don't worry, the game seems designed to be more enjoyable if you don't min/max just  like the table top version actually 

Playing a human wizard with evocation because I want to blow stuff up from a distance

You will have fun for sure. 

You can have Gale in your party from the beginning after you leave the ship.  As you probably already discovered.

So you might want to select him as your PC from the start so you can see his story.

[HVC]

Yup I found him. Went to the ruins with two wizards, a cleric, and a rouge. Probably would have been easier if I found laezal first

[crazy canuck]

Yup I found him. Went to the ruins with two wizards, a cleric, and a rouge. Probably would have been easier if I found laezal first

My PC is a sorcerer, and I have Gale, the rogue and cleric.  I like that mix.  Two spell casters add a lot of firepower. 

The thing for you to think about is who will best do your dialogue for the persuasion checks. 

If you want to stay with two casters in the party, think of going with the Sorcerer or Wyll the Warlock (or roll your own Warlock).

No need to have a dedicated front line melee character if you don't want one.

[The Minsky Moment]

All the BG3 classes seem pretty solid and the recommended stat blocs should work fine for most purposes. The min/maxing seems to involve exploiting the ridiculous multiclassing system but you can just ignore it.  Some of the feats are unbalanced compared to others but you have to play to level 4 before getting access to them.

[Tamas]

Bit miffed, painted myself into a corner with an optional but pretty important quest, which I only realised after fighting through all its mobs and bosses. I think getting stuck here makes sense from a plot perspective, it also makes sense that I am not told explicitly that I have left myself no way to complete it, but still frustrating that I had to Google it. Gonna' go back about an hour worth of play to remedy it.