One, not every thing needs to be a whole franchise universe.
Two, the game had a lot of decisions players could make. Collapsing that into a single canon is going to be unsatisfying. It was annoying enough that bg3 made some big decisions about choices from bg2.
Related, if they ever make another game in the franchise this show will probably be canon, so it’s not entirely ignorable.
Three, it’s not even that interesting a setting. It’s pretty Standard Fantasy.
Somewhat. It’s story is mostly independent, but it does take place after 2 and therefore has canonized several of the decisions you could make in 2, as well as a few returning characters.
Yeah, not sure who was in which games, but Minsc and Jaheira were grouped with one of the protagonists, and at least one of the games had another Bhal spawn.
Minsc and Jaheira were in both BG1&2, the big bad of BG1 was a Bhaal spawn as was one of the protagonist’s friends. There’s more characters from the older games, such as
Not sure, the only game I played before BG3 was Dark Alliance 2 on PS2 around 20 years ago. Well that and homebrew 3.5e/5e tabletop, but that obviously was unrelated story-wise.
Other than Jaheira, almost all of the connective tissue is found in Act 3, but that makes sense, because it takes place in the titular city. There are at least two characters in Act 3 that are not in your party that return from previous games.
spoiler
One is in the Shar temple, and one is in the Bhaal temple.
Viconia is a recruitable party member in bg1 and 2. You can even make her not evil at the end. I was bummed that they decided that she just stays evil.
And for the main plot in act 3, with a certain bhaalspawn.
spoiler
You can also redeem sarevok, but they just decided that he’s evil.
Annoying, but I get why they didn’t do like a save import from an ancient game.
We’ve had a pretty good hit rate with video game adaptations lately. Fallout and Arcane are both among my favorite TV shows. I think we finally got far enough along that show runners are gamers themselves and aware of what makes these things good and what needs to change to be a good show.
To each their own, but I thought they completely nailed the tone, respectfully incorporated the established fiction, and even wrote some great new characters.
What made new Vegas interesting was that it’s not just another kitschy wasteland romp. It’s post-post-apocalypse, and it asks who rebuilds after.
My limited understanding is the TV show nuked the NCR so they could do more wasteland theme park, and not continue that train of thought. But also didn’t just set it somewhere else.
But admittedly I haven’t actually watched it.
But also, again, trying to make a TV show intersect with a video game with multiple endings is a foolish idea. You won’t make everyone happy, and it’s an entirely avoidable problem. They could’ve just set the show in a different part of the world that hasn’t had a game.
Video games sequeling other choice-based video games run into the same issue, and you quickly forget once you’re in it that maybe you treated Shady Sands differently than the canonized decision about it. As it takes place further in the future than any of the games, it acknowledges what happened in their past, creates new events that happened since we last saw them, and also steers them in new directions, because people change, and the old leaders would have long since been replaced by new ones. That’s all just part of continuing a story. The only way to avoid having to pick a canon is to never continue it ever, but I’m happy we got this show at all.
Bg1 and 2, Dragon age, and mass effect famously had save imports, so “the only way” doesn’t check out.
The dark souls games are so far removed in time that the previous game is legend, so that’s an option.
For the tv show they also could have, as I said, just set it somewhere and somewhen else. They can have rumors about what’s happening in Vegas, but it’s 20 years ago and you’re in Chicago, so who knows what’s true.
So, yeah, they could’ve done something else and still made a TV show.
BG2 only takes a few things from the previous game and throws out the rest. I haven’t played Dragon Age, but Mass Effect and Telltale infamously had “the choice diamond” where they respect your choices up until it has to eventually lead somewhere, so they all end up funneling back into only a few options. These are just different ways to dress up the same problem. Fallout the TV show does exactly the same thing as Fallout 2 did to Fallout 1, which is the same as your Dark Souls example: it’s set far enough in the future that you’re unlikely to run into anything contradictory.
We don’t get many high budget fantasy shows. I’m all for it. Larian is already moving away from bg anyways, I think wizards of the coast upped their licensing price by quite a bit.
HBO has a good track record period. I’m guessing you mean GoT but that series is a gem until the last season. Even in the last season, the zombie fight lasted a whole episode and a half and was peak tv. House of the dragon was pretty good as well.
That was an annoying thing, every Larian game that was released in EA had an EA price. BG3 didn’t, it was full price from the start. And a highly inflated price than what Larian titles had been going for once released.
Related, if they ever make another game in the franchise this show will probably be canon, so it’s not entirely ignorable.
Technically I don’t have to watch it. I don’t have to play any more games in the franchise either. But if I do want to play more games in the franchise, I’ll probably have to deal with the show.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Can we just not do this?
One, not every thing needs to be a whole franchise universe.
Two, the game had a lot of decisions players could make. Collapsing that into a single canon is going to be unsatisfying. It was annoying enough that bg3 made some big decisions about choices from bg2.
Related, if they ever make another game in the franchise this show will probably be canon, so it’s not entirely ignorable.
Three, it’s not even that interesting a setting. It’s pretty Standard Fantasy.
wait. bg3 is influenced by the bg2 story?
Somewhat. It’s story is mostly independent, but it does take place after 2 and therefore has canonized several of the decisions you could make in 2, as well as a few returning characters.
interesting. I had not played 2 and 3 seemed like such a contained story I did not think there was any crossover.
Yeah, not sure who was in which games, but Minsc and Jaheira were grouped with one of the protagonists, and at least one of the games had another Bhal spawn.
Minsc and Jaheira were in both BG1&2, the big bad of BG1 was a Bhaal spawn as was one of the protagonist’s friends. There’s more characters from the older games, such as
Spoiler
Shadowheart’s mistress/boss/whatever
minsc has been in a lot of games though yeah? I think he was in the neverwinter mmo.
Not sure, the only game I played before BG3 was Dark Alliance 2 on PS2 around 20 years ago. Well that and homebrew 3.5e/5e tabletop, but that obviously was unrelated story-wise.
Other than Jaheira, almost all of the connective tissue is found in Act 3, but that makes sense, because it takes place in the titular city. There are at least two characters in Act 3 that are not in your party that return from previous games.
spoiler
One is in the Shar temple, and one is in the Bhaal temple.
Spoiler for Shadowheart’s story
spoiler
Viconia is a recruitable party member in bg1 and 2. You can even make her not evil at the end. I was bummed that they decided that she just stays evil.
And for the main plot in act 3, with a certain bhaalspawn.
spoiler
You can also redeem sarevok, but they just decided that he’s evil.
Annoying, but I get why they didn’t do like a save import from an ancient game.
We’ve had a pretty good hit rate with video game adaptations lately. Fallout and Arcane are both among my favorite TV shows. I think we finally got far enough along that show runners are gamers themselves and aware of what makes these things good and what needs to change to be a good show.
I kind of refuse to watch Fallout. Partly because I read they fucked up the NCR. But also Amazon sucks , and Bethesda is kind of creatively bankrupt.
To each their own, but I thought they completely nailed the tone, respectfully incorporated the established fiction, and even wrote some great new characters.
What made new Vegas interesting was that it’s not just another kitschy wasteland romp. It’s post-post-apocalypse, and it asks who rebuilds after.
My limited understanding is the TV show nuked the NCR so they could do more wasteland theme park, and not continue that train of thought. But also didn’t just set it somewhere else.
But admittedly I haven’t actually watched it.
But also, again, trying to make a TV show intersect with a video game with multiple endings is a foolish idea. You won’t make everyone happy, and it’s an entirely avoidable problem. They could’ve just set the show in a different part of the world that hasn’t had a game.
Video games sequeling other choice-based video games run into the same issue, and you quickly forget once you’re in it that maybe you treated Shady Sands differently than the canonized decision about it. As it takes place further in the future than any of the games, it acknowledges what happened in their past, creates new events that happened since we last saw them, and also steers them in new directions, because people change, and the old leaders would have long since been replaced by new ones. That’s all just part of continuing a story. The only way to avoid having to pick a canon is to never continue it ever, but I’m happy we got this show at all.
Bg1 and 2, Dragon age, and mass effect famously had save imports, so “the only way” doesn’t check out.
The dark souls games are so far removed in time that the previous game is legend, so that’s an option.
For the tv show they also could have, as I said, just set it somewhere and somewhen else. They can have rumors about what’s happening in Vegas, but it’s 20 years ago and you’re in Chicago, so who knows what’s true.
So, yeah, they could’ve done something else and still made a TV show.
BG2 only takes a few things from the previous game and throws out the rest. I haven’t played Dragon Age, but Mass Effect and Telltale infamously had “the choice diamond” where they respect your choices up until it has to eventually lead somewhere, so they all end up funneling back into only a few options. These are just different ways to dress up the same problem. Fallout the TV show does exactly the same thing as Fallout 2 did to Fallout 1, which is the same as your Dark Souls example: it’s set far enough in the future that you’re unlikely to run into anything contradictory.
We don’t get many high budget fantasy shows. I’m all for it. Larian is already moving away from bg anyways, I think wizards of the coast upped their licensing price by quite a bit.
Because HBO has a good track record for fantasy shows?
HBO has a good track record period. I’m guessing you mean GoT but that series is a gem until the last season. Even in the last season, the zombie fight lasted a whole episode and a half and was peak tv. House of the dragon was pretty good as well.
That was an annoying thing, every Larian game that was released in EA had an EA price. BG3 didn’t, it was full price from the start. And a highly inflated price than what Larian titles had been going for once released.
It’s almost as if they factored the cost of licensing a third-party IP into the price.
Bruh, DnD already is one.
You know you don’t have to watch it.
Technically I don’t have to watch it. I don’t have to play any more games in the franchise either. But if I do want to play more games in the franchise, I’ll probably have to deal with the show.
That’s such an exaggeration. Do you know how many people played BG3 without ever even knowing 1 or 2 existed, let alone played them?
Or hell, how many people played Witcher 3 without ever reading the books or playing the first two games.
Yeah but they’ll mess with the canon and then we’ll all have to deal with it.