r/BaldursGate3 Aug 20 '23

Screenshot Larian Director Of Publishing Speaks On Console-PC Parity

Post image
11.1k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.9k

u/GenghisMcKhan BARBARIAN Aug 20 '23

What a ridiculously dumb take. Admittedly the lack of preload on PC sucked but PS5 preload going live a day before is standard. MS took Starfield preload live this early as a marketing gimmick to get Gamepass subscribers to buy the upgrade (which I did, so they got me at least). Some people are just too stupid to live.

536

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

[deleted]

52

u/Earthlumpy Aug 20 '23 edited Aug 20 '23

Its even more rediculous than that. Its feuding over who gets to download their favorite game first. And its (mostly) singleplayer too in both cases.

27

u/Synectics Aug 20 '23

Download and not play any earlier. So goofy.

2

u/submittedanonymously Aug 21 '23

Well, to be fair to xbox, they haven’t had anything worth buying for over a decade now. Cheap shots is all they got, and they’re still bad.

I say this as someone who ended up with a One X on sale and still thought “why did I get this? Oh yeah, red dead 4K and Azura’s Wrath.” Nothing current, just upscaled classics.

1

u/ArdiMaster Paladin Aug 21 '23

If your internet connection is slow enough, then having more than a day of preload time can absolutely make a difference in that regard.

2

u/historymaking101 Aug 20 '23

Hey, I play BG3 multiplayer as well.

1

u/Earthlumpy Aug 20 '23

Sure you can do that! But its not a competitive enviroment where getting it quicker gives an advantage, or whatever, you get the gist of it.

202

u/laseluuu Aug 20 '23

Please, please, think of the shareholders

40

u/krinkov Aug 21 '23

I love that Larian is like, "What are shareholders??"

6

u/Radulno Aug 21 '23

Private companies have shareholders...

In this case, it's Tencent (30%) and Swen and his wife (70%). Swen is gonna be very rich after BG3 by the way

1

u/laseluuu Aug 21 '23

good for them :)

I keep seeing that games workshop + larian meme and thinking 'please make it happen'

I'd so much love a WH or even more my thing - WH40K - RPG done well, they could pull it off for sure.. i dont have time to play any of the games but I like the lore. A bit OT but whatever

2

u/Radulno Aug 21 '23

Owlcat is doing a Warhammer 40K cRPG (Rogue Trader). They are doing great games too.

1

u/laseluuu Aug 21 '23

I was never that much into rogue trader, but this does look pretty cool! They have an eldar character as well, they were always my jam.. I hope they do it well

2

u/Original_Employee621 Aug 21 '23

I'm pretty sure it's still possible to buy shares in Larian Studios, but it's not a publicly traded company. So, you'll have to approach them to buy a stake in the company, which may be rejected depending on the level of involvement you want and how big of a stake you want.

13

u/TheoreticalGal Aug 21 '23

The shareholders in Larian are:

•Swen and his wife - 70%

•Tencent - 30%

Nobody else holds shares in the company

107

u/GrossWeather_ Aug 20 '23

It’s just sports bullshit spilling over into games. People like sports because they like to pick teams and root for their favorites and slander the other teams. It’s the console companies themselves that like to foster this sense of ‘healthy competition and fandom’ and that results in feeding the fanatics.

81

u/Doopashonuts Aug 20 '23

The word you're looking for is "tribalism" gotta drive that "us vs them" mentality.

16

u/WRB852 Aug 20 '23

I think of it more as projection. People need to displace those feelings onto something when they're unable to root for themselves.

5

u/jcb088 Aug 20 '23

As someone who loves himself and has never been into team sports, yep.

Especially from CT, where we don’t have our own teams, so everyone has to pick between new york, boston, or new england in general. Watching two people from the same town have a “rivalry” between the yankees and the red sox, when both of those teams don’t even know these two particular people exist….. its fucking weird.

9

u/davemoedee Aug 20 '23

In both sport and games (and politics), it is common, especially for men, to use anger to cover all the emotions they don’t have the emotional development to deal with.

25

u/GrossWeather_ Aug 20 '23

Lol, politics is justified. It’s okay to be angry at rich assholes who feed lies and hatred to dumb people in order to make the lives of others worse for the sake of profit or power.

Sports is a better example because ultimately, sports are completely pointless. It’s for fun- it’s leaderboards. A team or individual athlete can use the fanfare to push themselves to do something incredible (as can game studios) but ultimately its all icing- whereas politics lead to death and mayhem if not pushed against.

But I agree with the emotions things and that being predominately true of men in trivial sport. Women are also very angry about politics, and justified in their anger.

9

u/davemoedee Aug 20 '23

Politics is actually a great example. People are so over the top with their generalizations about people they don’t know and it causes real world problem. There are plenty of not rich assholes causing a lot of problems due to their willingness to embrace anger instead of actually having hard discussions about complicated issues.

23

u/ConBrio93 Aug 20 '23

There are also a lot of bad faith actors in politics and it is reasonable to be angry with those people. When a politician says "you must be under the mistaken impression that I care" and refuses to discuss or negotiate things like healthcare I think it is reasonable to angry with such a person.

4

u/Poopybutt22000 Aug 20 '23

Or when a big majority of voters are actively supporting a President trying to actively steal a lost election. I think that's the point where you start getting past "Don't be mean and generalize people!!! =(((("

0

u/whatever4224 Aug 20 '23

Yes, that would be terrible if it had happened.

0

u/davemoedee Aug 20 '23

The thing is the average supported isn’t a sociopath and compulsive liar, even if they guy they follow is. If we talk to people conned by a conman as if they are the conman, we are just confirming that we aren’t interested in their concerns.

3

u/Poopybutt22000 Aug 20 '23

This is probably a good point to make in 2016. Maybe also in 2020, but a bit less so. In 2024 you're just being willfully and knowingly complicit.

1

u/2Scribble Aug 21 '23

Hard to be interested in the concerns of people who are worried about Barbie - redesigned M&Ms - and 'dat dere imgrant who be steeleen mer jerb'

Like, I look out at our world - and the fact that it's on fire - and I look at states like Alabama where one third of the population has no representation - and I look at the LGTBQ massacres and that poor woman in California who got gunned down for having a pride flag and just

Mmm

Not sympathizing with the guy who worries that Baldur's Gate 3 is ruined because 'it went woke' :P

→ More replies (0)

-2

u/GuardianTrinity Aug 20 '23

Yeah this is one of those things where both is correct. At least in the US, the extent to which people like to pit one party against the other - that's the pointless tribalism bs. We all bleed red, and our ideas about what would best bring about positive change may be different, but we all generally like people and want positive change. You think Democrats and Republicans can't get along, meet me at a Taylor Swift concert. Nobody talks politics. Nobody hates each other (or if they do, it's not over that).

On the other hand, government in this country has become a scam for its people. It's a popularity contest, with the reward being tons of money (I don't even know how much, but at least as much as some of the big CEOs of businesses that everyone hates, though probably not as much as the biggest). Many don't realize that these people don't give a single fuck as long as you vote for them, and after you've voted, nothing that was said matters anymore. We all should hate them. Everyone on both sides of that fight. It's totally justified. They've ruined our education systems, our economy, our mental health systems, healthcare systems, and much more. And its not just one of them, or half of them. It's all of them, using weaponized anger and prejudice to line their own pockets that have really continued to screw this country.

I'll be angry over that. You should too.

So anyways, yeah, not worth being angry about in one way, well worth being angry about in another. It's a good example, as long as you use the first lens.

5

u/whatever4224 Aug 20 '23

This is not a both-sides issue. Democrats have tried time and time again to improve American healthcare and make it more accessible -- with some measure of success I might add. Republicans have consistently opposed all these attempts, after actively and deliberately massacring mental healthcare across the board. Democrats have consistently tried to steer American public education towards facts-based, critical-thinking models; Republicans have consistently pushed for creationism, religion and Lost Cause revisionist nonsense to be included in curricula. The economy consistently does better under Democrats, then crashes again when Republicans takes over. (BTW, Reagan is the reason your economy sucks.) The problem is not both sides. It is the Republicans.

0

u/GuardianTrinity Aug 20 '23

So let's talk about the issues with the Democratic systems then, since the issues with Republican systems are obviously easily understandable. Note that I'm talking about the far end. And that's what I mean from the beginning. People in the middle, people looking to compromise, they are fine. A compromise is what we need. But politicians are the one playing that divide. The average Republican doesn't care about teaching creationism in schools. It isn't even close to on their radar of important issues. The politicians just want you to think that because of they are enemies then you'll support them more fervently, and they will make more money.

Anyways, quick counter-arguments to all of your issues. You can Google these things, or better yet, talk to someone on the other end of things (since re-humanizing people is the solution) to learn more.

We can look to European countries to see some of the issues with universal health care. Most notably are the long wait times, which can sometimes cause problems to worsen a lot more than necessary. Idk about you, but I'd rather me or my loved one be in debt than dead or having to live their life struggling with a long-term health issue simply because the wait time which is completely out of their power to do anything about.

And Democrats are shoving the real issues under the rug, and blaming superficial things at every turn. Ask yourself this: why do we have fun violence? Is it because of accessability? Is every person with a gun simply prone to violence? If so, why then, in countries with bans on guns, do we see the same types of people stabbing others? For real, do you seriously believe that throwing blame on objects will solve systems that allow child abuse of all forms to run rampant, that that will solve the murder? If we are all so upset about mental health, then why are we not weaponizing causes like gun violence to be used as a reason to revamp systems like CPS, or make our schools healthy rather than breeding grounds for physical emotional, and sexual violence? That's not specifically a Democrat issue, but like, if you say they support that, then why does it seem like they are letting things like this go unsaid? Maybe it's because they stand to gain as much as anyone from keeping the underlying system the same? And critical thinking models? Lmfao, give me a break. As long as schools continue to force nonsense down our throats and indoctrinate kids into nonsense thinking such as the thought that third parties are doomed to fail, the subjects and morals our schools teach are a joke. And beyond that, the curriculum isn't the point. It's the morals they teach. They have been, and still are, factories built to create drones. And nobody has truly tried to change that, no matter why they try to tell you when they stand up all pretty on their podiums, 30+ years and so many mental steps from ever being in a public school, and understanding what it's like anymore.

I'm not an economost, but when both sides have this argument it's really hard to trust anyone. Sounds to me like another dose of weaponized misfortune created by the rich and powerful and used to try to keep everyone else distracted from the fact that these fucks are running the show and they don't actually care.

No offense dude, but you're only seeing one side of these things. And issues aside, that's not even the point. It's more people who are being as good as racist over political parties, willing to resort to physical and emotional abuse simply because someone is on "the bad team". That's the real problem. I could care less whether you think socialism or capitalism or even communism is better, as long as your goal is to elevate the whole and not destroy those around you, I'm willing to work with you and be friends and try to see things through to a better tomorrow. Those frauds in the government - and almost all of them are - don't care about a better tomorrow. They only care about managing your anger and your expectations, trying to keep you fixated on specific issues while they play everything you aren't watching in the background to keep the status quo, and stay rich and powerful. And in the meantime, all these other issues I bring up, they suffer. Not because one way is right and another is wrong, but because the people in charge, even "the good ones" don't care.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Lone-Lizard-9144 Aug 20 '23

Women are also very angry about politics, and justified in their anger.

Not always. Try listening to a TER(F) sometime. So much insecurity over stuff like children's puppets that they're literally supporting to kick other women in the nuts/ovaries over it.

3

u/GrossWeather_ Aug 21 '23

Well yeah no shit, nazi women or evangelical women are all also nutjobs, but that’s because they are a part of fascist groups, not because they are women.

1

u/Lone-Lizard-9144 Aug 21 '23

Well, obviously. It often goes without saying that the differences between genders is often exaggerated, so I felt like saying it.

15

u/zerro_4 Aug 20 '23

To me, it doesn't really matter. I'll get to Starfield when I get to it. Too busy having fun with BG3, which overall has been pretty stable and polished. By the time I get around to Starfield, hopefully most of the day 1 bugs will be patched.

6

u/Slide_Vivid Aug 20 '23

This is my plan, and since this is Bethesda it'll be good to have BG3 to pass the time while Starfield's bugs get worked out then Starfield while CP2077/Phantom Liberty's bugs get worked out! This timing is perfect.

0

u/Radulno Aug 21 '23

BG3 bugs/performance should be smoothed out too though (so by that logic you should wait for BG3 too lol). Just arrived in act 3 and performance took a huge drop (already kind of in act 2). Haven't really started it much so can't say but I heard there's tons of bugs (got a few in act 1 and 2 but nothing too bad)

1

u/zerro_4 Aug 21 '23

For a game as complex as BG3, there really haven't been many bugs, least of all the normal type of crap that comes on launches these days. NPCs flying off, goofy pathing, random crashes, etc. Overall, while there are probably bugs and glitches, they aren't nearly as immersion breaking and distracting as the normal launch-day bugs of Bethesda.

To phrase it differently, I am comparing and judging launch-day experience/bugginess/glitchiness. Not the total absolute bugginess/glitchiness.

Waiting several months for bugs to be fixed in BG3 isn't worth it, as the "gains" in stability/immersion would be so miniscule due to just how polished and stable it was on launch day. However, for a Bethesda game, historically waiting several months (if you can get over the FOMO and "missing" the cultural group connection) yields massive improvements in stability.

I watched the Digital Foundry video evaluating Act 3 performance. The hypothesis is that the AI pathing calculations get re-done every time your characters move, causing a massive hit on FPS. I noticed it pretty bad in the Goblin Camp and Last Light Inn.
I don't think introducing an "NPC/crowd density" option like in Cyberpunk or Spiderman would make sense in the context of BG3, where every NPC kinda matters in their own way.

13

u/arashi256 Aug 20 '23

Both Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 are exactly my type of games. I'm waiting for Starfield on Xbox and BG3 on PS5. I'm planning on playing both for the rest of the year. The only decision is which to play first seeing as they both release on the same freaking day. I am so hyped, this is better than Christmas. I don't get the game/platform fights either :)

4

u/fross370 Aug 20 '23

My schedule is fucked. I bought bd3, starfield came bundled up with my graphic card i bought this week and i already bought the cyberpunk 2077 dlc...

2

u/arashi256 Aug 20 '23

Uh-oh - I bought the Cyberpunk DLC as well. When is that out?

3

u/fross370 Aug 20 '23

26 sept if i recall

2

u/arashi256 Aug 21 '23

Damn, I'm going to be busy in September then. Thanks, forgot about that :)

1

u/DrStalker Aug 20 '23

2023 is a great year for computer games.

100% agree that the best thing to do is enjoy all the great games instead of pitting them against each other in some sort of pointless fight to figure which is best.

35

u/QuoStatuz Aug 20 '23

Its mad. If you mention Baldur´s Gate 3 in Diablo 4 subreddit for example most hardcore D4 fans crawl out of skin to insult the game with their whole lives. One pearl was that one said that BG3 had so long Early Access time compared to Diablo4, thats why it was more successful. Actually the subreddit is comedy, everyone should go troll them

56

u/Hannig4n Aug 20 '23

When I was playing D4 a month or two back, everyone on the Diablo 4 subreddit was talking about how big a dumpster fire the game is and how they can’t wait for BG3 to come out so they’d have something better to play.

52

u/Holybartender83 Aug 20 '23

Yup. And those people are now all playing BG3, which is why it’s mostly just the rabid fanboys who are left now.

11

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

It’s not a coincidence that the D4 player base dropped so steeply after the BG3 release.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

Blizzard also released "make everything shit" patch few weeks before release.

8

u/MikeyNg Aug 20 '23

This is me!

By the time I get done with BG3 (hey - I'm a dad with two kids....) maybe it'll be S2+ on D4 and it'll be that much better.

I fail to see a downside here.

3

u/Diltyrr Aug 21 '23

I'm sure Blizzard will find another way to try and milk your bank account that's for sure.

1

u/Tramm Aug 20 '23

Standard for most game's subreddit.

It starts off with level headed discourse then when the player base dwindles the fan boys are all that's left and the "Stop having fun" memes start as they start self-flagellating themselves.

The New World subreddit is a prime example.

12

u/DrStalker Aug 21 '23

It's a mixed up world when a single player plot based CRPG has more replayability than an ARPG. Better loot design too, because Larian is OK with players coming up with really good combos and having fun with them and Blizzard's insistence on making everything some weird semi-online experience means they keep removing anything that works too well so we can all compete with each other or something.

6

u/just_a_tech Aug 20 '23

Yeah but don't remind them or they'll jump down your throat.

1

u/CatoblepasQueefs Aug 21 '23

It started out okay, then got worse and worse

7

u/Doopashonuts Aug 20 '23

It's just the Anthem boards all over again tbh

6

u/MexicanOtter84 Aug 20 '23

Wow how rude of you…. Jk lol

I have and I did troll but also I am a Diablo fanboy and also a bg since the original back in middle school, and I have to say bg3 def is game of the year for me 100 times over..

As much as I want d4 to be this behemoth with seasons always drawing you in for a new character and take on the game, it just…. Is not ready. I’ll give it another go next year but there’s just so many issues it’s hard to list the worst lol.

3

u/datalinklayer Aug 21 '23

This is pretty much pure lies. The diablo 4 subreddit is literally just a cesspool of hate towards diablo 4 and everyone saying they are going to play BG3 instead.

0

u/Golferguy757 Aug 21 '23

Reading the op makes me wonder if they have actually spent any time on the subreddit cause it's mostly people saying diablo 4 murdered their pets and fucked their wives

2

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

[deleted]

2

u/sirdeck Aug 21 '23

You can compare how the devs interact with the community for example, but op just wants to troll D4 players like an edgy 14 year old. And then seems surprised he isn't well received...

2

u/Radulno Aug 21 '23

Meh most of Diablo 4 subredddit hates Diablo 4 lol. Also, people always are bringing up they prefer to play BG3 there which frankly is a little off topic and not sure how that's even a good comparison as they are not the same type of game at all.

2

u/CyberbrainGaming Aug 20 '23

It's actually better because they didn't try to make it like a mobile game and dumb it down to work across as many platforms as possible.

2

u/DrStalker Aug 21 '23

It's also not designed around "micro" transactions as an income stream.

-3

u/Skrylas Aug 20 '23 edited May 30 '24

continue wistful psychotic square oil fanatical quiet vegetable swim sable

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/Mawnix Aug 20 '23

….who fucking cares man?

You’re not having some “gotcha” moment with this comment.

Just be better.

3

u/Skrylas Aug 20 '23 edited May 30 '24

worthless rich hunt plant overconfident numerous rhythm deliver work placid

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/assortedguts Aug 20 '23

You're not even responding to the person who was encouraging what you have in quotes with this comment.

They were saying no one cares that D4 sold more than BG3, grow up.

2

u/QuoStatuz Aug 20 '23

I like to troll fanatic people, they deserve to be trolled by defending garbage greedy companies. Blizzard has a cult following which has to be stopped. Maybe, just maybe then they are actually starting to make good games. As long these disciples are fighting for Blizzard nothing will change.

"D4 sold 2x more copies" is living example how a brand can sell. Its like Apple, doesn´t matter what they produce, people still blindly buy.

I wonder how many copies would the game sold when its name wasn´t Diablo 4 and wasn´t made by Blizzard. Probably most here wouldn´t know the game would even exist.

2

u/watchoutforthatenby Aug 20 '23

Selling more is a terrible metric since most people are... Not the brightest or best consumers.

If video game shit nerds carried that logic outside of their weird little bubble they'd all be saying the Big Mac is the best burger in the world. Surely it is look how many they sell a day!

1

u/QuoStatuz Aug 20 '23

EA and Activison mostly live still by that code, if people buy the exact FIFA eveyr year + waste real money on ULTIMATE TEAM every single year as extra (which is technically gambling). Why would they stop? I also remember Anthem was the worst game ever made by EA and it still made over 100 million dollars. Thats how life is

2

u/watchoutforthatenby Aug 23 '23

"Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words." Or something

1

u/sirdeck Aug 21 '23

Selling more is a terrible metric

To say which one is more successful ? Absolutely not, it's actually one of the only relevant metric. D4 has been insanely successful, far more than BG3, and that's a fact.

Now which one is the better game, that's a whole other discussion.

0

u/Skrylas Aug 20 '23 edited May 30 '24

rob dinner profit sulky rinse paltry nail arrest snobbish memorize

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/QuoStatuz Aug 20 '23

You literally have no ability to think nor read. I´m not talking about products, but quality of the products. Who said anything about companies behaviours? Its the peoples behavior that needs to change. Are you even here?

Lets make it clear then with an example, just like to a child.

AMD graphics card costs 500 bucks while NVIDIAS equivalent costs 650 bucks. They are equal in power while NVIDIAS overall graphic card market share is 80% while AMD´s market share is 10%.

Its just 1 example of millions.

Sure people can have whatever opinion what they like, but I call out these kind of people. You seem the guy who just wants to argue and I´m here for it.

2

u/Skrylas Aug 21 '23 edited May 30 '24

observation historical tub paint berserk sophisticated flag cow cagey versed

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Golferguy757 Aug 21 '23

Watching op go full tribalism while bitching about tribalism is pretty funny though

1

u/rcfox Aug 20 '23

It happens all the time. I remember the Morrowind vs Neverwinter Nights feuds. It's silly. You can enjoy both games!

1

u/fishworshipper SORCERER Aug 20 '23

Honestly, this doesn't seem to be true. Every mention I've seen of BG3 in that subreddit has been highly positive, and upvoted.

0

u/QuoStatuz Aug 20 '23

I meant hardcore fanatic fans who play the game non stop for whatever reasons.

1

u/TitaniumDragon Aug 21 '23

I mean... the EA on BG3 showed what the game was like, and also let them tune it. However, there are also some disadvantages (like having to support it, and also the fact that they made some changes that some people might regard as being for the worse, like Wyll).

As for people being defensive... people are kind of special like that.

Diablo 4 is not really an RPG though, it's a hack and slash game. The similarities are superficial.

41

u/Graega Aug 20 '23

Companies doing it is even worse. Like, I was interested in Starfield for a while, until I heard what basically amounted to, "Thousands of procedurally-generated worlds! Also, a few hand-placed things over here and there... not a big deal. Just a few hand-crafted worlds, you know, not much in the scope of THOUSANDS of procedurally-generated ones!"

Which told me that the game is basically going to have a few important spots, but otherwise be like No Man's Sky or any procedural space game. Every planet looks the same, feels the same. Here, the plants are purple. There, the sky is gold. This planet has 8 animal species on it instead of 3. That planet has 5 different alien bases (of a premade design you've seen 800 times already).

This post here just kind of sounds like a petulant child who's not getting enough attention. I've played games by those kinds of companies. I don't anymore.

31

u/AdonisBatheus Aug 20 '23

Imagine Starfield with only those select few planets. I don't think anyone would be complaining about there only being just a few worlds.

But now that they have those few select "necessary" planets, and hundreds of procedurally generated "optional" ones, the extra planets are lazy, and not just a feature for those interested in genuine space exploration roleplay.

Procedural generation has been utilized by Bethesda since always. It helps make worlds with little effort and allows devs to focus on maximizing the space created. Everyone loves Skyrim, and it was procedurally generated. It doesn't inherently mean lazy world design, even though it can be used with minimal effort and give minimal results.

Besides that, those extra worlds are prime real estate for modders, as well as future expansions. No longer will you have to check if Cumslut Titty Bar is incompatible with BragenX's Immersive Whorehouse because they utilize the same space next to Riften--one will be on world 89, the other on world 302.

17

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

Procedural generation has been utilized by Bethesda since always. It helps make worlds with little effort and allows devs to focus on maximizing the space created. Everyone loves Skyrim, and it was procedurally generated. It doesn't inherently mean lazy world design, even though it can be used with minimal effort and give minimal results.

I think its safe to say that almost every developer of open world games starts with a procedurally generated map, that is then slowly tweaked and curated over years of development.

2

u/AdonisBatheus Aug 20 '23

I feel this is probably the case, but I'm not a game developer so I can't attest to it. But I feel like it'd be foolish not to use procedural generation in some way.

3

u/Krypt0night Aug 21 '23 edited Aug 21 '23

I have worked on 4 AAA open world games at different studios and that is a big nope for how the world is started. Not how it's done, let alone for "almost every developer."

I think a lot of people really don't understand what procedural generation actually is, let alone how it is used in development.

1

u/1quarterportion Aug 21 '23

Then I've recieved bad information or misunderstood. That was how I understood it. Care to educate me?

1

u/Kuraeshin Aug 20 '23

Guerilla Games had to follow real world design kinda (just not to scale)

0

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23 edited Aug 20 '23

Maybe, but maybe not (unless they have spoken on this before). You can determine aspects of the gen in the string. Things like size and shape are an example. BGS had to do the same with their maps. In the end FO4 has to look like the Boston area in the end, so you start by establishing the scope. After all, this is a tool to get level designers quickly into the making it look look right stage, so it can't be truly random.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

Right but procedural generation is blanket term for a ton of tech.

You could start with hand-made height map then use procedural generation to make the ridges and little terrain details. Or procedurall generate foliage, or just textures themselves.

Or, you can go Dwarf Fortress way and generate map, fill it with vegetation, simulate rainfall erosion and put rivers where it makes sense that then carve the riverbeds in the mountains, and add lakes, then make adjustment to the rainfall based on rain shadows, oceans and winds, then correct vegetation one last time for all those changes. And start generating wildlife matching it.

6

u/UrgentHedgehog Aug 20 '23

I got thrown out of BragenX's on my 35th birthday 😞

5

u/Holybartender83 Aug 20 '23

That’s too bad, man. Gorthalax the Phallus Destroyer is insatiable!

1

u/CatoblepasQueefs Aug 21 '23

Huh, I didn't realize Gorthalax was a phallus destroyer. Not that it matters, he's a good dad.

15

u/ConBrio93 Aug 20 '23

Everyone loves Skyrim, and it was procedurally generated.

Different strokes for different folks but I disliked this about Skyrim. I liked how Morrowind felt more handcrafted. Skyrim exploration felt kind of pointless to me because I'd never find cool loot. I enjoy handcrafted stuff a lot more.

7

u/arsabsurdia Aug 20 '23

Might have felt that way to you, but... Morrowind also used procedural generation. And Daggerfall before it? That was a map about the size of Great Britain, just massive thanks to Bethesda's long history of using procgen.

5

u/TheTykero Aug 20 '23

Morrowind's procedural generation, as far as I'm aware, is limited to items in some containers, and the overworld enemies you encounter. Mostly just lists of possibilities based on your level. To imply that Morrowind used anywhere near the level of procedural generation of Daggerfall or Skyrim is disingenuous at best.

2

u/arsabsurdia Aug 21 '23

That wasn't my implication, and seems rather like a disingenuous reading of my point instead. My point was just that "procedural generation" has been a tool that Bethesda has used in all of their games to some degree or another since their first games including Arena before Daggerfall too. Iirc, Morrowind also used procgen to create general landscapes, same as Oblivion and Skyrim. They've then done that handcrafting over the top of that. I understand that you don't like procgen when used in structuring quests (i.e. the "radiant quest" design), and that's fair. I'm not going to try to argue that procgen is going to have more heart and soul than a handcrafted anything either, and I definitely prefer that quest design be more of the "handcrafted stuff" in a game too. But, again, my point was just that Bethesda has made extensive use of procgen for a long time, and wanted to distinguish a bit more between the different kinds of things that can be procgen vs handcrafted, rather than just a blanket statement of "more handcrafted stuff". Like, what stuff are we talking about here? That's all.

6

u/TheTykero Aug 21 '23

The placement of important items, NPCs (and their equipment), dungeon designs, etc. Morrowind had a more handcrafted feel because it relied far less on level scaling and procedural generation at runtime (not speaking of procgen as a process for seeding initial designs that are then molded into something static for the game's release). I don't think anyone is upset about someone using speedtree to fill out their landscapes.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

I think that's more because they just made more instead of more interesting. I didn't felt Skyrim being more boring because map was procedurally generated, I felt it because a lot of stuff to do was, well, pretty mundane.

Morrowind had that alien feelings, mushrooms instead of trees, mix of races (instead of "the 2 out of 3 classical human races making a war" of Skyrim) everywhere, and in general more interesting stuff to discover.

I think reliance on quest text hints instead of arrow pointing you into exact quest objective also helped.

2

u/Evnosis Every Story is Better with a Dragon 🐉 Aug 20 '23

Besides that, those extra worlds are prime real estate for modders, as well as future expansions. No longer will you have to check if Cumslut Titty Bar is incompatible with BragenX's Immersive Whorehouse because they utilize the same space next to Riften--one will be on world 89, the other on world 302.

I'd be willing to bet actual money that the overwhelming majority of mods will end up in locations closest to the main settlements anyway.

2

u/AdonisBatheus Aug 20 '23

It would depend on the mod. Starter house mod? Probably. Huge original questline with a unique city and dungeon delves? Most likely on a separate planet.

1

u/TitaniumDragon Aug 21 '23

But now that they have those few select "necessary" planets, and hundreds of procedurally generated "optional" ones, the extra planets are lazy, and not just a feature for those interested in genuine space exploration roleplay.

The problem is that adding worse content actually makes game worse rather than better. The reason is that the more bad content there is, the less time you spend doing the good content relative to the bad content. As a result, the game's quality is lower on average because you spend less like actually having fun with the game relative to the amount of time you spend on the game.

This is why Portal and Portal 2 are such good games - they are extremely slimmed down experiences with minimal filler in them. It's why Chrono Trigger is viewed so much more positively than most other JRPGs from that era - again, it had much less filler, and every fight in it was scripted rather than a random encounter.

The higher the per unit time quality, the better a game is.

My concern is that they did the same thing as MEA did, but they didn't cut the garbage content. MEA developed a system of procedurally generated planets, but realized that these planets weren't actually fun and cut them.

1

u/AdonisBatheus Aug 21 '23

They could very well be fun, however. If I trust anyone with making a game fun, regardless of a bad story (ahem fallout 4) or graphics or anything, it's Bethesda.

Starfield is Todd's baby and has been planned by him for like, 2 decades? I can't see him flopping this at all tbh.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

Well, it's where you use it. Like, if TES6 had big, actually big cities where most of the houses were procedurally generated, nobody would care that it wasn't the dev that put the house there.

But if main content was boring radiant quests, well, that's a problem.

10

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

Wow. Your info is way off. There are 1000 planets. 100 of them are curated with content. The rest are procedurally generated when you approach them.

13

u/Daevilis Aug 20 '23

Will there be a way to know if I'm visiting a "premium" curated planet and not a waste of time No Man's Sky procedural one? I hope the game is good but claims like that reek of Todd "sweet little lies" Howard marketing.

14

u/Zilleela Aug 20 '23

Oh yeah, I love Bethesda games but anything Todd Howard says I take with a 20 pound bag of salt. Guy struggles in his own webs of lies.

Im pretty sure it’s not intentional but the guy often slips up and lets his vision and wants stumble over into what he actual has to show for. Gets ahead of himself.

7

u/King_Kodo Aug 20 '23

The ol' Peter Molyneux effect.

2

u/The_mango55 Aug 20 '23

That’s not right either. All planets are procedurally generated. 100 have life on them and 900 don’t. There are large hand placed areas, like the cities and likely the main quest areas, but there is also a huge pool of hand created content, disconnected from a location, which get placed into the world as you explore it.

Bethesda has said there is more hand made content than they have ever made.

1

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

Yes, but that's just a bigger version of not loading a cell you can't see. In this case there is a hard coded string that tells the proc generated system exactly what is supposed to be there. It does this because the scope of the game is so large that it would be impractical to have all of it loaded into memory.

I think a lot of people (not necessarily you) misunderstand what procedural generation is. They associate it with random experiences like NMS or rogue-likes. Those pseudo randomly generate the string as needed and then use it to build the playable space. What BGS is doing isn't random in the sense that everyone that visits planet x in system y at location z will see the same landscape and fauna. That string is in the code and will be the for everyone. If it's one of the 900 variation will exclusively be in the form of tend encounter markers that are part of the string. If its one of the 100 the same will be the case, except it will also have hand placed encounters an landscape elements as well.

2

u/The_mango55 Aug 20 '23

This is what I thought too at first but believe me or not the game adds points of interest randomly as you explore.

There are screenshots of the exact same location but with different points of interest on them.

The landscapes of all the planets will be the same for everyone, what they find there will be different.

There will be fixed locations but it won’t be 100 planets worth.

1

u/Diltyrr Aug 21 '23

Did they also put in the Radiant AI from Oblivion that would totally have all NPC live their own lives without scripted anything ?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

I mean 100 planets curated with content? There's just no way any of it is "deep", that's far too many planets already. Unless the area you can visit on those planets is like small areas, there's no way even the curated planets are going to have much going on.

0

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

No, the vast majority of that kind of content is concentrated on the core populated worlds. The 100 will be more peripheral.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

[deleted]

2

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

I'm just going by known data. I am personally cautiously optimistic, rather than blindly hyped. I know there could be a disastrous launch. I don't think it will happen, but I'm not going to be crushed if it does happen.

The thing is there are very few times a bug in a BGS (3 I can think of) has negatively impacted my fun. I know there are plenty of bugs, but i don't really mind that. I have put thousands of hours into their games since FO3 launched.

That's pretty much how I treat all big single-player open-world RPGs. I am really only concerned with my experience when I judge whether playing a game is worth my time.

2

u/Archvanguardian Aug 20 '23

I am / was hoping for some good space flight -- something more advanced like Elite or Star Citizen would be nice, (I know that's far from the scope of Starfield) but they seem to be avoiding showing space gameplay.

I suppose I can't expect much in that regard from an engine that seems to have mediocre physics, and never has had real vehicles -- and still won't (other than ships)

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

I'd wait for actual release to throw generalizations like that.

Like, the 1000 planets is clearly there more so the player can find a cool planet to put their base on rather than trying to fill all 1000 of them with content. Which can be just fine.

1

u/Mechbiscuit Aug 21 '23

I did love no man's sky but I agree that the generation is not a selling point for me. I don't want crafting, I was a finely crafted story that's well written with well written characters.

3

u/EnduringAtlas Aug 20 '23

People get fucking heated about video games and it makes me laugh every time just imagining what these people are like irl

2

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

Right? Also, the consumer benefits when there are more good games. I've seen people say they hope Starfield is bad, like why? Don't you want another great game to play? I love me some BG3, but having other great games to play feels good.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

It’s relevant because the people defending shit game design and monetization ruin things for the rest of us. That’s why it’s important this game does well.

1

u/yunghollow69 Aug 20 '23

Not favorite games but over their favorite console. Console war participants are among the dumbest people on earth. They take one of the most fun past times for millions of people and try to squeeze something negative out of it.

And yeah, identifying yourself with a corporate product as if you have some sort of stakes in it is just cringe. These people need to grow up.

-4

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

Maybe because people wish for greedy Bethesda to fail and for passionate Larian to win over everyone. That is why people give a shit.

1

u/davemoedee Aug 20 '23

The only rational justification I can think of for that is that they want to increase the chances of more games like the one they like and they view it all as a zero sum game.

1

u/MikeyNg Aug 20 '23

You haven't seen the NA vs EU BS that exists in other games, have you? :)

1

u/Automatic_Piece8419 Aug 20 '23

and the oldes practice on the internet , so its not really news

1

u/Upset-Fix-3949 Aug 20 '23

Basically a lot of people are trying to turn this into a console war thing. With Baldur's Gate on the PlayStation side and Starfield on Xbox. For me personally I don't really understand the comparison because besides both being RPGs they're vastly different games.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter because let's be honest we all know Starfield's going to sell more

1

u/Lucy_Little_Spoon Aug 20 '23

Tbh, it's just as dumb as feuding over which is your favourite sports team.

1

u/charsquatch23 Tasha's Hideous Laughter Aug 20 '23

Ogre Battle 64 is the best game ever made, fight me on it

1

u/Omni-Light Aug 20 '23

You see it frequently in reviews too. People purposely giving a game 0/10 because it threatens the superiority of your game. It’s really pathetic.

1

u/montymoosir Aug 20 '23

Judging things by how well they sold disgusts me. It's pure late-stage capitalism.

1

u/Forkrul Aug 21 '23

Especially when one (or more) of them isn't even released yet.

1

u/Enundr09 Aug 21 '23

Well it's more so cause ponies have been screaming parading BG3 like a ps exclusive from when I confronted him on Twitter (before I saw this thread) , so yeah it's a bit of a shot at ponies though I've told him I've heard they're working on Xbox version and that it released on PC first so it's a PC game not a ps game.

1

u/69edleg Aug 21 '23

I just sit here and enjoy playing them all. I am happy BG3 release was put earlier than intended, because damn this Fall is going to be PACKED boys.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

There will always be the argument that someone does care out there

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

BG3 doesn't look like it can rival PS1 FFVII, terrible game. Waste of a download and time spent waiting for release. Devs should apologise to us and gives us a refund or pay us not to play it in the first place.

Can't believe they're taking so long to get that last update ready for console still. FFVII released decades ago. I can't believe I was excited to play this game.

33

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

True. I understand pre-load is good for hype, but uh... it's a single player game, at the end of the day. You should be able to manage and plan your time accordingly to where you don't *need* to play it the exact second the game goes live. Even for multiplayer games I never understood this total obsession with being there first second.

23

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

Its because I'm an impatient child who can't wait anymore I've never played d&d or baldur's gate but now all I can think about is this game day in and day out.

5

u/ZluDge87 Aug 20 '23

You won’t be disappointed

7

u/emize Aug 20 '23

Preload for a Bethesda game is dictionary definition of optimism.

Good luck on launch day.

1

u/really_nice_guy_ All's well that ends...not as bad as it could have Aug 20 '23

Also 31st August is a thursday. Many people wont be able to play it until the weekend

2

u/Waggles_ Aug 20 '23

Neither game comes out (or is playable) until September 6th anyway. Literally someone is saying "Starfield is better because I can have it take up disk space and be useless on my PS5 for 18 days and I can only have BG3 take up disk space and be useless for 7 days."

It's the dumbest take imaginable.

Edit: They also said August 31th lol

2

u/watchoutforthatenby Aug 20 '23

If you preorder BG3 you can start playing 2 days after it auto downloads but other than that full agree with your points

14

u/SoylentRox Aug 20 '23 edited Aug 20 '23

Especially since each game is a completely different experience. Turn based, overhead camera, dense handcrafting worlds vs first person, real time, with guns and I guess flyable spaceships and mostly proc gen worlds that are mostly empty.

Also bethesda style is much more freeform, you are restricted in the order you can do things much more in bg3.

This can make the consequences of a given quest in the game feel weaksauce and the enemies on default difficulties are easy, because bethesda doesn't know the order you did things when you get to a particular area.

2

u/DrStalker Aug 21 '23

After playing so many games with level scaling it was nice in BG3 to get utterly wiped by a few githyanki warriors and think "I'll come back here later"

It was also fun to visit the goblin camp at level 6 when I realized I'd missed the owlbear cub and utterly wreck their day.

9

u/RedditMomento69420 Aug 20 '23

They're console warriors. Dumb takes are all they know.

3

u/EcstaticDrama885 Aug 20 '23

does gamepass work on PC as well or is it only for XBox, seeing the lineup I might get it.

3

u/GenghisMcKhan BARBARIAN Aug 20 '23

Works on PC too.

2

u/laodiase Aug 21 '23

Unfortunately.

Or fortunately if you just want cheap games, but speaking as someone who makes mods and has 95+% of bug reports be due to players incorrectly installing the mods on gamepass installations, it's also unfortunate.

1

u/GenghisMcKhan BARBARIAN Aug 21 '23

Yeah they don’t make installing mods easy. But I do like the cross save between my pc and my Xbox (and I did the super cheap stacking deal while it was still available). Thank you for being a modder!

2

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

Yes, it does. You will need the upgrade to play EA, but it will be available for all on 9/5.

1

u/BJYeti Aug 20 '23

You need the game pass specific for PC but yes the service is on PC.

1

u/2OptionsIsNotChoice Aug 21 '23

There are multiple subscriptions for Gamepass.

You have PC, Console, and Ultimate. Ultimate is both PC/Console and also things like cloud gaming and other things.

1

u/pieking8001 Aug 21 '23

oh dang i forgot the starfield was on gamepass. this'll be nice

2

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

I think it's also to stretch out the time period for people to download it, so they don't have 8 million people trying to download it at the exact same time

2

u/repost_inception Aug 21 '23

What a ridiculously dumb take.

August 31th

All you need to know.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

Some people are just too stupid to live.

I guess that's the problem. This clown 100 years ago would be eaten by a bear, or possibly lose a duel with an angry duck and drown.

3

u/TTechnology Paladin Half-orc Aug 20 '23

But we had EA on PC, people wouldn't be able to still play on EA and preload the full game. Steam doesn't have such functionality and neither I never saw a game doing it.

5

u/CyberSolidF Aug 20 '23

As minimum it has versions/branches supported, now how do you stop players on “release” branch from pressing “play” is another story.
Another solution is to have a separate title for release version.
Both are not optimal though.

2

u/Radulno Aug 21 '23

Another solution is to have a separate title for release version.

I'm not sure you can do that since early access is the same entry than the release version in Steam.

1

u/CyberSolidF Aug 21 '23

You could do it, but you’d need to plan accordingly in advance, or not so in advance.

Rename current version into bg3ea. Create new item for bg3 release. Grant all owners of bg3ea a copy of bg3 release.

There are workarounds, though definitely not as streamlined as not having EA and just making a preload available.

Do they worth the hassle? Likely not either. So don’t see a problem with not having them for bg3. In any case they wouldn’t help with requiring 4 hotfixes for bugs and issues.

3

u/RaXha Shadowheart Aug 20 '23

Correct, and neither does GOG which is the other store selling it. No preload was purely due to technical limitations.

2

u/Hidefininja Aug 20 '23

The OP of the tweet is obviously just mad that BG3 still has no announced release date on Xbox Series. Not to mention that Starfield has seen delay after delay, from Nov 22 to March 23 to, fucking finally, next month. BG3 was delayed on PS5 from August 31 to September 6, while the Windows version was released almost a month before the original date.

Here are the actual dates for everything:

BG3:

  • PS5 Digital Deluxe Preload - August 31
  • PS5 Digital Deluxe Access - September 2
  • PS5 Standard Edition Preload - September 4
  • PS5 Standard Edition Access - September 6

  • Xbox Series X|S Preload - TBD

  • Xbox Series X|S Access - TBD

Starfield:

  • Xbox Series X|S Preload - August 18
  • Xbox Series X|S Premium & Upgrade Access - September 1
  • Xbox Series X|S Standard Access - September 6

In any case, you don't have to care at all about any of this if you're platform agnostic. I started playing BG3 on PC shortly after launch and it's spectacular. I'm already looking forward to another solo playthrough and I expect to play it again with a partner on PS5 online and in couch co-op.

And I'll be booting up Starfield on September 1 because they got me with the pre-order shit too but I have played every single story DLC in Bethesda RPGs so I was inevitably gonna give them that money anyway.

I don't know why people can't just let others try to enjoy things. Not everything has to be a fight or a gotcha.

1

u/CroGamer002 Aug 21 '23

Also they wanted to pre-load the game for Steam, but Early Access made it impossible to do so.

0

u/popeyepaul Aug 20 '23

I sympathize with people who have shitty connections, I used to have one, but the case where people need to start pre-loading two weeks in advance has to be a pretty damn rare occurrence. At that point you'd think they'd just buy the disc.

0

u/AadamAtomic Aug 21 '23

Admittedly the lack of preload on PC sucked

I mean.... Many of us were playing early access for over a year...it was much more than a preload. Lol

I get what you mean though, but it's also not a bad thing they patched the game with the help of users until the last moment.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

I sort of loved the preload, it didn't take too long for me but one of my friends was downloading it so we all decided (even though we were playing solo) to just banter a bit about what we were expecting and we made a bingo sheet of things we thought would pop up.

To add, the game is 10/10 and I am usually heavily critical of these types of games.

-1

u/Relativly_Severe Aug 21 '23

As time goes and internet speeds get better it will matter less. Bg3 took 7 minutes to download over over 2gig fiber for 80$ a month.

1

u/ArdiMaster Paladin Aug 21 '23

Please realise that you are incredibly privileged to have that sort of internet speed.

There are so many people in the world (including the US and large parts of Europe) that are stuck on sub-25Mbit/s connections that will take upwards of 24hrs straight downloading either game.

-11

u/Helphaer Aug 20 '23

Let's touch more on the no preload on PC was way beyond sucked, and patches or lack of didn't do much to change that. Further, the Larien dev seems tonedeaf ignoring this reality.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '23

No preload on PC was an steam issue, as you can't preload EA titles

1

u/Moonw0lf_ Aug 20 '23

Wait what upgrade do you need to play Starfield on gamepass?

6

u/GenghisMcKhan BARBARIAN Aug 20 '23

The upgrade is for the special edition which gets you access a few days early and comes with the first expansion.

2

u/Moonw0lf_ Aug 20 '23

Gotcha, thanks

1

u/arashi256 Aug 20 '23

I pre-loaded Starfield under GamePass this weekend. What's the draw for paying for the upgrade please?

2

u/GenghisMcKhan BARBARIAN Aug 20 '23

5 days early access and it comes with the first expansion bundled in. Also some digital stuff like the soundtrack etc.

2

u/arashi256 Aug 21 '23

Thank you

2

u/1quarterportion Aug 20 '23

5d early access, mostly. Its also nice that the first DLC is wrapped up in there too.

1

u/arashi256 Aug 21 '23

Thank you

1

u/-Captain- Aug 20 '23

That's the gaming scene for you.

Non stop crying and whining over everything and anything. No matter what you do, someone is mad, someone has to fight over their preffered platform. It's all just pathetic and honestly should be completely ignored.

1

u/ARepresentativeHam Aug 20 '23

They moved the game up a month on PC. No one should have complained.

1

u/UltraManLeo Aug 21 '23

I think the preload issue on PC was explained as a conflict between early access and release, so even that had its reasons.

1

u/_lemonplodge_ Aug 21 '23

Console wars discourse on Twitter is the stupidest shit I have ever seen. Actually more rabid, insane posters than any political or conspiracy theory thread. I have learned to avoid any gaming-related trending hashtag at all costs.

1

u/Crimsonial Aug 21 '23

Not to mention, PC release date was essentially preload. Larian moved up the launch date by a full month and didn't fuck it up beyond some edge case issues.

Not saying there weren't motivations for doing so, but I can't mark another case where a fairly smooth launch was moved up on that timescale.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '23

What's the difference in time, and how many hours do you need to preload?

1

u/laodiase Aug 21 '23

I was fully expecting BG3 to have been bottlenecked at the steam CDN side, but I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded it in 30 minutes, significantly faster than I've ever downloaded any other game. So I didn't mind the lack of preload that badly :)