Baldur's Gate III - Non Spoiler Edition

I finished the game! Amazing experience overall, even though the last areas and ending were extremely buggy for me. I ended up having to turn the game down onto Easy for the last boss battle, which mitigated the engine's tendency to just give up when there were too many entities involved in the fight. Definitely hoping they've patched it a bit by the time I get there for a second time.

Now I just need to decide which of my other characters to devote myself to first. On the one hand, I really want to do the Astarion romance so that inclines me to the Tiefling Sorcerer, but on the other hand, I'm very curious to see how the rest of the Dark Urge story unfolds with my Dragonborn Monk.

(Why not play the Dark Urge AND romance Astarion, I hear you ask? Uh, well, let's just say that Astarion will not be appearing in the rest of my Dark Urge's game ... Besides which, a Shadow Monk doesn't have a lot of use for a Rogue in the party.)

I have a question for the dnd lore experts. The last dnd based game I played before this one was NWN2. A lot has been changed since then with the lore and rules. My question is this can Elves or half-Elves be big and muscular? Or are they always smaller and lithe? The reason I ask is for two things: 1 I was thinking of eventually in the future playing a half-elf Paladin. 2 Halsin is either an elf or half-elf but he is huge compared to other elves. So can a elf or half-elf be big and bulky?

Ha ha that's funny.

Ehhhhhh. I certainly see the appeal with many Dark Urges, but he really wasn't getting along with mine. Dusk a very earnest monk and always picks the choice to selflessly help people, the better to play up the Jekyll-and-Hyde situation he's got going on. Between that and him being mechanically redundant I didn't really want to keep Astarion in the party so it made sense to me to have that particular PC

So far he's getting along great with my Tiefling Sorcerer, though, who is a hilarious jerk at every opportunity! Astarion loves that.

Larian Studios @larianstudios
Patch 2 is around the corner. It features major performance improvements, many new tweaks & changes, and begins our journey incorporating feedback into Origin Character epilogues, among other major things. Details coming soon.

2nd PT, 2nd PT, 2nd PT!

Everyone does a 2nd PT! You might not finish it (I technically only did the 1st act on my 2nd and 3rd PT), but if you don't want the game to end that's the easiest option.

Community Update #24: Looking To The Future
store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3669924544104905987

Patch 2 is just around the corner, and while it does include bug fixes, it also includes substantial performance improvements for the first time since launch. Perhaps more notably, we’re adding better closure to the story’s final act in the form of a more fleshed-out ending for Karlach - something many of you have been asking for.

We know that Act 3’s performance isn’t as good as the first two acts, but the good news is that Patch 2 is bringing major performance improvements to the entire game, but more specifically to Act 3 where you’ll feel it the most. We’ll also be working throughout September to improve performance in Act 3 further with new technology that’s been taking a bit longer to release than we expected.

Patch 2 looks to further eliminate some of the more major issues, including those found in Act 3. Some things that are currently being associated with ‘cut content’ are actually things like companion reactions to events in the world that didn’t trigger. These are being solved. Where there seem to be loose ends, we’re tying them up.

The second is about the epilogue. What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good - if it isn’t fun to play - it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.

We’ve started expanding the epilogues and you’ll see the first results of that in Patch 2 with the addition of a new optional ending with Karlach. It’s fiery, poignant, and gives her the ending she deserves.

We’re also working on the ability to change your characters’ look once you’ve started a campaign, though we don’t have a release date for that yet. There will be more and you can expect us to come with modding support at some point too.

Hmm, I'm not very far into act 3, maybe I'll wait until patch 2 before continuing... but also I want to play right now, time to start my drow cleic/rogue!

No, sorry, it's not an invented scandal.

I looked into it and saw the trend before it became "a trend".

Yeah, there was that one indie studio guy, fine (although I don't even agree with his assertions). The rest were AAA devs, not only that, but Evolve PR which handles review codes and media outreach for most game studios was putting out statements about how it's unfair to expect BG3's quality from other games, coupled with some really blatant lies (like claiming Dungeons & Dragons paid for development–no they didn't, in fact you have to pay WotC for the license–and that anything D&D branded is a guaranteed success–okay, tell that to the A-list actor and writer D&D film that just flopped).

N.b. I'm a journalist myself who's worked with Evolve lol.

David Gaider @davidgaider
Not surprised to hear of the amount of stuff apparently cut from BG3. BG2 had a mountain of stuff cut over its development, some early and some even after lots of work had gone into it… almost every game does. Every DA game did. Heck, even Stray Gods had some considerable cuts.

The things to remember when discussing game cuts:

1. If it was cut late, it probably wasn’t working - technically or conceptually or both.
2. A lot of cuts were early enough it was never “real” to start with.
3. Most cuts can’t be resurrected. It’d be easier to start over, tbh.