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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

#311

Post by theoriginaldog »

jncfhnb wrote: post #90
jsnell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. No, this is wildly beyond expectations. They sold 2.5M copies of BG3 in Early Access (>500k in July alone) which is already amazing, but one might have expected it to eat into their launch day numbers as most of the fans already bought in during EA. Instead it it looks like they probably sold ~10M more copies just in the 3 days after launch.

Hmm interesting. I guess consider me confused then too. I don’t get how a crpg has this much appeal. I’m not expecting this to be substantially better than divinity 2; which isn’t meant to be an insult any way.

Its the brand. DnD had a major grow in the last years. DnD live play shows are getting their own animated series produced by amazon prime video. It became huge. There is your divinity 2 delta.

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

#312

Post by caskstrength »

WithinReason wrote: post #306
caskstrength wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?). Yes, but naming the game "Baldur's Gate 3" instead of something like "Divinity: Dungeons & Dragons" is, unfortunately, a successful cash-grab. Which is to be expected considering that AFAIK _none_ of the original developers or writers worked o…

Is Minsc in it? If not, it's Baldur's Gate in name only :)

Unfortunately I heard he is in it via some terrible retcon.

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

#313

Post by theoriginaldog »

nottorp wrote: post #61
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…

Two things: 1. As it's been said before, if you go at it MBA style you'll end up with a crap soul less design by commitee game. 2. DnD has a lot of brand power? The only thing related to DnD that I did was play some computer RPGs. The Infinity Engine games could have had any other RPG system in the background and they'd have been as much fun. 3. Getting Early Access wrong too. It got popular in early access because s…

You missed a lot in the last 5 years, DnD has become huge. Not in the video game sector, but thats why the huge DnD fanbase is craving for a good video game and BG3 delivered. I think most buyers are actually driven by that and not BG nostalgia.

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

#314

Post by squeaky-clean »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #98
Eldt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a gate, it's recognition of your lack of knowledge

So in order to have an opinion, you must play every game that ever comes out, regardless of whether you enjoy the genre, the franchise, or even have the console required to play it? And you think that's not gatekeeping?

It just kind of puts everything else you said into question when you make a statement which is easily disproved by anyone vaguely familiar with the subject.

If you're wrong about the one sentence in your comment that I have knowledge of, what other bits are wrong? Why should I assume the one sentence I can relate to is wrong but the other sentences are not?

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

#315

Post by urthor »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #92
spacemadness wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Stardew Valley with microtransactions just ruined my day.

It's just Farmville.

Or, Stardew Valley is FarmVille+ love.

Maybe that's the secret.

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

#316

Post by squeaky-clean »

Shared404 wrote: post #210
flohofwoe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Haven't play BG3 yet, but my DM has been and noted a few tweaks that Larian made to 5e, especially around spell durations and moving shoving to a bonus action.

Potions being a bonus action is the biggest thing for me. I've house-ruled that forever. Glad Larian agrees.

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

#317

Post by worrycue »

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…

Well, I have no problems not buying this game. For one, I simply do not have the 150GB of SSD space it requires. LOL

> I try not to regret it as wasted time

I wish games had more transferable skills … most games unfortunately are at best a very ineffective use of time.

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

#318

Post by flohofwoe »

theoriginaldog wrote: post #309
flohofwoe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.

TBF, BG3 is still at its core a top-down "feels-like-an-isometric-camera" game, this is still the best solution for managing a whole party of characters, especially in combat (unlike Witcher3 for instance, which has a traditional 3rd-person camera - but has no party to manage).

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

#319

Post by flohofwoe »

jncfhnb wrote: post #35
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…

Divinity 2 did about 700k units in the first month. I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. I think Larian’s approach to multiplayer is the important bit. I would be curious about the stats of how people play it. I feel like once you have done a couple CRPGs you’ve kind of seen it all. I’ve done divinity and kingmaker. I can’t really be motivated to do tyranny or the other pathfinder game…

> Divinity 2 did about 700k units in the first month.

The new is about 700k concurrent players though (the next evening it was already over 800k), not 700k units sold, and that's just a few days into launch. Don't know how concurrent players translates into units sold on Steam after such a short time, but I think you can easily multiply by 5..10.

What surprised me the most is that the game's first act has been in early access for everybody to try since 2020 (so most hardcore fans most likely bought the game already in early access), and yet the launch exceeded the wildest expectations.

This means that Larian must have done an exceptionally great job of balancing the expections of their hardcore fanbase and the general RPG audience.

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

#320

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

theoriginaldog wrote: post #307
lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate I think you're trying to put too much of its success on "brand power". Social proof is a thing, but it's not powerful enough to overcome a bad game. Just look at what happened to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. I think it's doing so well because they nailed the execution. The graphics are great. The game hasn't had any opening week di…

>When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom just recently is hella fun to play. Elden Ring last year was also great. You make it sound the last fun AAA game is decades ago, but the truth is that most years have 1-2 really fun AAA games. But Baldurs Gate 3 is definitely the first fun AAA game for years in its genre. Pillars of Eternity was great, but lacked the AAA production values/

> You make it sound the last fun AAA game is decades ago

That wasn't my intention. My intention was to point to the fact that production of fun AAA games is much lower than it was a decade ago. As a result, the few big hits hit even bigger.

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