Baldur's Gate 3's Larian proved players “are not stupid” and want more “deep-a** CRPGs” instead of AAA schlock, says beloved indie publisher
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Beloved indie publisher Dave Oshry believes that Baldur's Gate 3 proved players aren't stupid to major AAA publishers.
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1332d

Yes, Hasbro wants to make another Baldur’s Gate game that continues to “raise the bar” without Larian

Pfffffff… Hasbro has a great reputation for being greedy as fuck, and completely deaf blind and dumb to what fans love and enjoy about established IPs. So I’m sure whatever travesty they release will be just great 👍

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342d

When they say “raise the bar” they just want to make a hornier dating sim.

TheLowestStone
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282d

No, whether say “raise the bar” they mean “increase the price.”

Raltoid
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Jokes aside, what they literally mean is “make it on a budget expect a giant revenue since people want more”. And after it flops, they’ll moan and whine about how customers are ruining the industry by not knowing what they want and demanding something they wont buy.

katy ✨
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52d

they just want to make a hornier dating sim.

but we have two and a half studios for that

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72d

TBH that would sell well.

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12d

I’d probably buy it. I have no shame.

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02d

@[email protected] is right…I’d buy that!

Talaraine
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172d

The memes should be fun tho

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32d

Fair dues

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72d

Yeah Hasbro will just dumb it down and ruin it

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62d

“raise the bar” is big Amazon language. Maybe a bunch of ex Amazon folks in Hasbro now.

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22d

🤮

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52d

Optimus Prime skin on the Mother Brain.

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22d

I’ve tried to play baldur’s gate 3 a few times already and every time I felt like it was a fantastical game but I always ended up not playing it for long. After the last time I started wondering why that happened and reached the conclusion that it was the D&D universe that put me off. Not necessarily because it was bad but because I knew nothing about it and the game didn’t try to introduce me to it either.

So I read your comment on Hasbro as “want to make another great game but using only the bad parts of the last one”

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32d

Even though Larian did a great job modernizing pieces, D&D 5E is just really crunchy and outdated, imo. Larian’s own Divinity Original Sin 2 had a largely better combat, magic, and armor system, even if it is a slightly older title now.

Physical and magic armor, spell cooldowns (prevents spell spam and constant short and long rests), advanced elemental and cursed surfaces, and diversified healing and combat magic make characters more flexible.

5e’s rest system is good for taking care of (what was) useless food in inventory, moves the story along, and provides good places for more natural relationships. D&Ds lack of flexible healing and spell slots means a lot of annoying enemy encounters, however.

I’m on my second playthrough of both titles right now. BG3’s story is awesome. :)

katy ✨
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162d

hasbro: so more aaa schlock and treating our players as if they’re stupid it is then

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232d

Emphasis on the ass

MudMan
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Ah, so my first reaction is “what actual indie developer who knows what they’re talking about excludes BG3 from AAA”?

Turns out not this one, apparently, since the creative use of quotes seems intended to obscure that “AAA schlock” is not from the dev, it’s from the journalist rehashing a quote from an article about a quote from a podcast. Speaking of schlock.

Anyway, I’m on the fence about the core point. I agree on principle that “dumbed down” doesn’t make things mainstream. I agree that this is a lesson the industry insists on refusing to learn, even after The Sims doulbing as architecture software, WoW casual moms playing with a dozen UI mods, Fortnite core players building gothic cathedrals in five seconds and Roblox contianing entire gamedev teams made of unpaid children.

Whatever the mainstream wants, “simple” has nothing to do with it.

Do I think BG3 means somebody should fund Pillars 3? Yeeeeah, not so sure. BG3 works because it was the literal best time to be making D&D stuff, because it had two extremely beloved brands propping it up, because it’s a sequel to two extremely well received, accessible CRPGs that both did a lot better than Pillars to begin with, because they were both focused on multiplayer and free-form systems instead of straight-up literature. Nuance matters here.

And then somebody (a lot of somebodies) gave them two hundred million to make it, so it also looks at least as good as anything Bioware ever did during their heyday. That’s probably why BG3 has 140K players on Steam right now and Avowed has 1K and never peaked past 10K.

There are lessons from BG I’d love to see the industry learn. I want them to learn the right ones, though, because if they go ahead and invest another nine digits on the wrong thing then we WILL actually have to wait another 30 years for another game like that.

HobbitFoot
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If an indie studio can produce this, why not create a AA CRPG? Do you really need the third A?

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182d

Im sorry BG3 is triple A in quality they are indie since they published their own games not cause they are small or low quality. Indie just gets thrown around as most are solo devs. With digital distribution less indies have to sell out to work with big publishers to get on consoles. Honestly it’s why I think AAA publishers are dying they can no longer just buy the smaller fish.

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pretty sure we’re at AAAA now

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22d

The As represents how much the employees scream while making the game.

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Baldurs Gate 3 is a AA CRPG tho?

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12d

deleted by creator

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-31d

Isnt bg3 simplifing DND to bring it to a more mainstream audience? Players definitely do not want deepass crpgs. Crpgs go very deep.

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Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Witcher 3, Baldurs Gate 3.

We don’t care about the game, we want boobies and sex and romance.

Edit: y’all feeling called out for being thirsty

TheLowestStone
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222d

we want boobies and sex and romance.

Literally the parts I couldn’t care less about.

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62d

Dude, same. I finally got around to the Witcher 3 and as am adult now, the sex stuff is just so awkward.

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Yeah you’re like sitting in your game room alone watching cringe, only partially skippable, erotica. Nobody is watching me but damn if someone walked in…

Ben Hur Horse Race
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102d

I truly can’t tell if you can mean this. You play games to see the 3D polygonal breast

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I don’t think it’s just the visual for people. They go on these epic quests and gain emotional attachments to their party members. It’s basically interactive erotica with dragons and shit.

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42d

It’s called Mass Erect for a reason bud

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My four player game every one runs around naked it’s hilarious. The dicks twitch all over in the cutscenes. More of that yes. So funny.

marighost
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32d

Why can’t we have both?

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02d

You can, just pointing out games with sex appeal do well. The core gameplay has to be good too, but I don’t think that’s what propels a good game to the apex.

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The new Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Cyberpunk all had an average mixed to negative reviews.

rowdyrockets
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102d

You might want to check Cyberpunk again.

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