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‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

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Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#21

Post by jakebasile »

mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn.

Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#22

Post by ivanbakel »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #17
PicassoCTs wrote: post #8

So, the whole middle management caste, that pushed for simplified, broader appeal consumer friendly games while naying any attempt to revive old games, is currently packing its cardboard boxes and lining up for the exit?

I dunno, go look at the top selling games of 2022. Largely old games/franchises, many over 20 years old. I'd argue video gaming is pretty stale because game companies play it safe and mostly recycle old games. Bless Elden Ring, one of the only big new games that wasn't a sequel last year. Madden - 34 years old Pokemon - 26 years old FIFA - 29 years old Mario Kart - 30 years old Call of Duty 20 years old this year! (2…

>Bless Elden Ring, one of the only big new games that wasn't a sequel last year.

Elden Ring may not be a narrative sequel, but it is definitely a mechanical sequel in the line of From Software games stretching back to Demon Souls in 2009, which makes the series 14 years old. It's innovative in its series, but I wouldn't praise it for a wealth of conceptual originality.

There's also an inherent bias with looking at the Top Sellers - for a game to be bought by lots of people, it has to be known about by lots of people. Brand recognition makes that easier, so even if studios are innovating all the time, you would still expect existing series to show up much more than new IPs. It would take an exceptionally strong game, with good marketing, to break into that list.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#23

Post by jakebasile »

It's a really, really good game. I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause, though I know that's a somewhat controversial decision (what isn't?). The game itself is beautiful, the music is immersive, the writing is (so far) intriguing, and it runs on Linux with only minor tweaks. The game does wonders to capture the feel of playing a well-DMed campaign.

It's no surprise to me that it's getting a lot more sales than they expected, and I'm glad to see devs get rewarded for making a quality product.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#24

Post by flohofwoe »

mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

> big cohort of millennials...

I feel slightly offended being thrown into the same pot as those weird millenials ;)

Absolutely everybody who owned a PC for gaming in the late 90's played BG1 and BG2, no matter the age. Video games are not just for teenagers you know.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#25

Post by flohofwoe »

jakebasile wrote: post #21
mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn. Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2).

PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#26

Post by jakebasile »

flohofwoe wrote: post #25
jakebasile wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn. Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2). PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how muc…

The closest game that BG3 "feels like" to me is Dragon Age: Origins, which is great since I loved that game and the sequels just never did it for me.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#27

Post by handmadeta »

mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

I don't want to attack you personally but I think your post illustrates an common error in thinking that caused gaming to stagnate for the past decade. I can just hear the army of MBAs making spreadsheets and checklist reflecting exactly this "paint by the numbers" style of thinking. This in turn means that the next ten AAA titles starting production are going to check all these boxes and then ... will still fail. In reality there is no formular for making a hit game. You need people who care and know what they are doing and let them do what they love.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#28

Post by renewiltord »

mastax wrote: post #9
rcoveson wrote: post #6

It's not obligate-multiplayer, but seeing as it's a Dungeons and Dragons implementation with lots of best-in-class multiplayer features it seems libelous to call it "single player".

I love how the party can split up and go do completely different things. That's often difficult to do even in a traditional tabletop setting.

They do that very well in Divinity : Original Sin (by the same devs).

This class of couch co-op game is becoming rare but I buy them each time they come out. I hope there's enough of us to provide a market.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#29

Post by neom »

I'm not a gamer but I randomly stumbled across someone playing this on twitch couple days ago, gotta say my mind was pretty blown at how far video game graphics have come (granted the last thing I played was Quake/UT/HL back in the day). Some of the cut scenes are basically just amazing movies, but even the in game graphics are fantastic. Does anyone happen to know what game is considered the gold standard for gfx in vidya games is these days?

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#30

Post by jdright »

cube2222 wrote: post #15
leshenka wrote: post #3

Oh it's okay, it's a single-player game, it's not that you need any server capacity for that. Other than download servers but it's Steam's problem, not publisher's. ...right?

You wrote your comment as though it's not ok, while you can play it offline in single player just fine. But there's optional Cross-Platform save sync (independent of the steam one) and multiplayer. Anyway, as a person who bounced off of the previous entries of this genre I'm really enjoying this one, and I'm very happy for the success the studio is having - they deserve it!

You all forget about all the telemetry, which most decent games from the last 5 years have. It is fact of life that they collect all kinds of data to understand better their user base and game usage for future improvements.
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