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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

#231

Post by javajosh »

yownie wrote: post #146

The title of this article is essentially meaningless. BG3 is single player offline game, mainly distributed globally through Steam (and GOG) which runs it's own CDN for games. There is a multiplayer mode but that is co-ordinated via p2p for the most part. The "IT team" at Larian doesn't get hit with those downloads as they only send a single copy up to Steam's CDN which handles the traffic (perhaps some backend user…

>The title of this article is essentially meaningless.

It's worse than that, it's creepy. What is a single-player offline game phoning home anyway? On every play? It's crazy how much software companies get away with these days.

The frog is well and truly boiled.

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

#232

Post by starttoaster »

Cornbilly wrote: post #192
starttoaster wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had fond memories of Dark Alliance. You maybe didn’t like it, and coming out for a console with no PC release was an odd choice for the series, but there was fun gameplay and story there. At least, 13 year old me playing co-op with my Dad through Dark Alliance 1 and 2 on my PS2 is a fond memory I have that maybe nobody else got. Anyway, I was just surprised because I guess I never looked up a review of the Dark All…

They may be referring to the version of Dark Alliance that was released a couple of years ago. It was pretty much a dud.

Ah, probably my mistake then. Wasn't even aware that Wizards of the Coast decided to make a brand new game with a name collision there.

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

#233

Post by lamontcg »

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…

> DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years.

I'd say you're understating this and it is actually strengthening a lot.

For example google trends shows "dnd" taking off:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22dnd%2...

It is actively trendy right now.

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

#234

Post by jamesgreenleaf »

meristohm wrote: post #133
jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #69

I don't believe that no one predicted the overwhelming success of a long-anticipated sequel to one of the most legendary and deeply-loved games of all time. Maybe I've played BG2 too many times, but for me this was a no-brainer. You could read the steam reviews from early access as well, and the prediction should have been pretty easy. People were already impressed with the early campaign. Personally I'm putting off…

Same here; I won't buy it anytime soon (possibly ever; depends on if there's still a place for games in my life after going without for a year), though the fact that I'm reading and commenting this thread says that gaming is still important to me, if not just out of nostalgia but also that I recognize the importance of games in our collective experience, and I know something about them after three+ decades of playing…

> I like to read the negative reviews on Steam to help talk myself out of purchases.

Hah, I do the same thing. On other sites too - the well-written negative reviews have a lot of value. Although, on some of the best games on steam, I've seen a few top negative reviews that say something like: "Why are you looking at the negative reviews? You know this game is great."

I think you're right though. Games have their place and are culturally important, but the trend has veered more toward optimizing for engagement (addiction) and dark patterns like overcharging for cosmetics and such.

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

#236

Post by lacy_tinpot »

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…

Wasteland 3 seems to be always left out. It's an incredible rpg that deserves more attention imo.

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

#237

Post by PurpleRamen »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #52
jncfhnb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom, Resident evil 4, Street Fighter 6

Interest in Tears of the Kingdom dropped off pretty quickly. Is that all? edit: I didn't play the other two games. One's a remake of a game I never played (I never owned playstations) and I don't really play fighting games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ edit2: this is getting ridiculous.

Zelda was a massive hit in sales and social media-reception for months. Interest did not dropped quickly, it was just at instant peak from the beginning, and now everyone is done with it. Which is more a proof of how much fun people had with it.

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

#238

Post by etra0 »

javajosh wrote: post #231
yownie wrote: post #146

The title of this article is essentially meaningless. BG3 is single player offline game, mainly distributed globally through Steam (and GOG) which runs it's own CDN for games. There is a multiplayer mode but that is co-ordinated via p2p for the most part. The "IT team" at Larian doesn't get hit with those downloads as they only send a single copy up to Steam's CDN which handles the traffic (perhaps some backend user…

>The title of this article is essentially meaningless. It's worse than that, it's creepy. What is a single-player offline game phoning home anyway? On every play? It's crazy how much software companies get away with these days. The frog is well and truly boiled.

It's a DRM free game. I cannot say if the game pings home or not because I don't own it but this statistic is collected by Steam, not Larian.

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

#239

Post by koof »

offtwit wrote: post #46

Is this game mostly an inventory management game like Divinity Original Sin 2? I tried playing it but I was just clicking around menus 80% of the time.

There are a few notable inventory improvements, but the most important is that BG3 is much less gear/stat dependent than DOS2. You don't have to sweat trading stats for each slot and character building is simpler (no skillbook type of progression beyond wizard spell scrolls, and that's optional). You'll still get engaging, difficult, beatable combat. The inventory is kludgy and there are a lot of items but it's much less important to focus on than DOS.

No lone-wolf mode made me wonder if the game would be too fiddly for me, but there are other ways to streamline combat. Champion fighters, berserker barbarians, non-arcane trickster rogues are mechanically simple subclasses that are fun to play. 5e is forgiving for party composition in a way DOS2 isn't.

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

#240

Post by RHSeeger »

deng wrote: post #198
RHSeeger wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The low score is not completely unwarranted, though. The game itself is pretty wonderful. But the balancing and QOL decisions made by the developers has been; abysmal, and getting worse with each patch. It sounds like 1.1.1 is going to help a bit, but every the game started with serious issues, and each patch since release has made it worse. Add to the fact that many of the issues have been know since before release,…

I don't play Diablo IV (I just don't have the time), so I cannot judge if these scores are warranted. Seeing that it currently sits between Lego Drive 2K and Gollum, I'd go out on a limb here and say that this score seems a tiny bit harsh to me. Games get review-bombed for the silliest reasons nowadays. Often times, a fundamentalist minority of gamers feels overly protective about "their" franchise, reacting to even…

I'm not a fan of review bombing, and I think it's current player score (2.2 / 1-) is an unfair result of that; the over the top backlash to the changes. That being said, I certainly wouldn't say the 86 / 100 critics view isn't reasonable either. It had issues at release, and it's gotten worse since then. My recommendation would be to give it a few seasons to get into a better shape before picking it up.

It's worth noting that Diablo 3 went through similar pains upon release; though with less "read the room" type issues like they're having now.

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