This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Is Baldur's Gate 3 woke or parody of woke?
I am character creation screen - you can choose between body type 1,2,3,4 . After that you can choose between voice 1 and 2 , Your Identity can be Male / Female or Non Binary, then you can hide your clothes (at this point I decided that developers were actually trolling because nudity in D&D BG series was rare to nonexistent) and you can choose your genitals if the default doesn't suit you to Vulva A, Vulva B or Penis A-D ,
So you can make a decent futanari I guess.
Have you noticed that Man and Woman were nowhere to be mentioned and you can't choose your gender? That everything is deconstructed and presented in the most cold, indifferent, clinical way? I don't think that it shows welcoming or acceptance. More like indifference and very subtle contempt while not giving reasons for complaining - the video game equivalent of sliding benches that make impossible for homeless people to sleep on them.
I was thinking of putting this in the fun thread, but does anyone else think (wokeness aside) that Baldur's Gate 3...isn't that good?
I admit I'm a lifelong Dragon Age stan and will defend that franchise to the end (even for its many flaws), but I've played a huge number of 'classic' CRPGs (including both actual classics like Planescape and Arcanum and modern classic-style games like Pillars of Eternity, Shadowrun Returns, Tyranny and Wasteland 3) and enjoyed them all.
I really don't like the writing in Baldur's Gate 3. It feels like fanfiction written by fantasy nerds who have never actually read anything that wasn't genre fiction. The romances are really poor and designed to cater to tumblr horniness (yes, even by Bioware standards), characters shuttle between Marvel-humor and absurdly melodramatic 'deep' or 'sentimental' moments with nothing in between. Everything feels like an in-joke or reference. There's a sincerity there (unlike DOS2) , but it's an insincere sincerity, like the moment in a superhero movie before the final battle when everyone suddenly gets serious and someone mentions that their team is like a family.
I played Hogwarts Legacy earlier this year, and that really is a mediocre game (beautifully recreated castle aside) with very average writing and a dull main storyline. But one thing I really appreciate about it - at least now I've played Baldur's Gate 3 - is that it takes its world, ridiculous and weird and nonsensical and full of a billion plot holes though it is, seriously. People in Baldur's Gate 3 don't act the way humans (or humanoid races who are essentially humans on the inside) do in the situations that they're in.
The world feels very small, and very banal, and very modern, and choices are "moral dilemmas" as imagined by a DM who is very active on the D&D memes subreddit. Maybe this is what many players want, as it certainly provides the experience of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons when played with a dungeon master who collects funko pops and has the poster of every MCU movie in their bedroom, but it falls a little short of the best titles in the genre, which are written by people with wider tastes in fiction.
Playing Pentiment by Josh Sawyer/Obsidian, one gets the sense that this is a game written by a man with a genuine interest in the source material and with a broad literary taste. David Gaider, who wrote Dragon Age, stated that his primary influence in the script and tone was the 1968 movie The Lion of Winter, about Henry II's court in 1183, not high art but of which Roger Ebert said "One of the joys which movies provide too rarely is the opportunity to see a literate script handled intelligently. 'The Lion in Winter' triumphs at that difficult task; not since 'A Man for All Seasons' have we had such capable handling of a story about ideas. But 'The Lion in Winter' also functions at an emotional level, and is the better film, I think."
By contrast Baldur's Gate 3's writers appear YA-fictionbrained. The script lacks a trace of high culture or even midbrow influence. The lead writer was, like many writers in games, an ex-game journalist, one of modernity's more ignoble professions. The emphasis genuinely seems to be on recreating the average nerd DM's campaign in digital form, but the whole point of a professionally produced product is that actual writers should be able to do a better job than some software engineer who writes campaigns in his spare time, so this is little consolation.
I also find the gameplay disappointing. This is to some extent by default, since RtWP is a vastly superior mechanic for CRPGs than turn-based gameplay (because it allows one to fast-forward through trash encounters and to play at one's own pace). But even by the standards of good turn-based combat systems, Baldur's Gate 3 is poor. A big part of this is because of the direct translation of many 5e mechanics into a game, which is ridiculous since they were designed for abstraction to make tabletop play viable. The combat system has too many actions, too many redundant spells (ability systems in games where the DM can essentially decide what each use of each ability can do are completely different to rules-based video games) lifted directly from the source material. And too many abilities is a big problem, because the biggest difference between a CRPG and tabletop is that in a tabletop game, you play only one character. In a CPRG, you play 4-6, so the logic of combat complexity changes.
A second problem is the incessant on-screen dice rolls, which are ugly and immersion-breaking (the whole point of digital games, some would say, is that they can put this kind of thing behind-the-scenes). A third issue is that D&D itemization is fine for tabletop campaigns where you can carry a handful of items, your inventory is a box on a lined piece of paper and there are three combat encounters in a 4 hour session, but it works less well in a game where there are mountains of loot and players are used to more interesting itemization than +2 swords or things that provide a single-point increase in one stat. The game is also extremely easy, but that's a more common complaint.
There doesn't seem to me an inherent reason why games can't have good writing. After all, at least some mainstream movies have good dialogue and are written by well-read screenwriters, it's not impossible. I think it's something about expectations. Game designers, directors and fans are so used to only consuming genre/fantasy/scifi fiction that they don't even understand what's possible, what's out there.
I'd say it's good, but not genre-redefining. Half-Life, Far Cry 3, Team Fortress 2, even the new XCOM changed how to approach the genres they were in. Planescape: Torment and Disco Elysium showed what's possible, even though no one really dared to follow (other than the other Torment (meh) and Pentiment (nice)). BG3 is very obviously a spiritual successor of BG like DA:O and PoE and doesn't really try to innovate beyond allowing some Larianishness to seep through.
It's a bit of an rarity these days, being a full-price full-sized game with no season passes, mandatory multiplayer, mandatory DLC or gacha, so I welcome BG3 getting good reviews and good sales.
As for the writing specifically, I haven't gotten far enough into the game to judge. I've had just enough playtime to crash the nautiloid and get bored by a fight in front of some fort.
More options
Context Copy link
Funny you mention this, I feel like the bar for "story in games" by this standard, then, is the classic id Software games, seeing as how Doom (and probably also Daikatana, technically) was inspired by Carmack and Romero's D&D sessions, and we all probably know of Carmack's old stance on story in games.
More options
Context Copy link
God damn it rafa, get out of my head! I have actually been writing up a big 'did I just turn elderly? Because I don't see what everyone is jizzing over this game about' reply for your post in the fun thread, but there's no point in posting it now because you have nailed it here (complete with a wistful Josh Sawyer reference).
This increases my confidence in refunding the game though. History will vindicate us!
More options
Context Copy link
BG3 to me seems just.... more DOS2. Maybe because I'm not that invested in the story and lore of Forgotten Realms in general, and the underdark doesn't invoke the warm and fuzzy feeling that I should have from Neverwinter games back in the day.
Or maybe I wasted 15 minutes of my time yesterday ranting that the stupid end turn popup window in not minimizable while playing in coop and covers up a 4th character inventory so you have to "cancel end turn" and it was 3 years in early access, so why in the love of god............
EDIT: they rolled back a hotfix today so I lost 2 hours of gametime and the saves are not version compatible....
More options
Context Copy link
What does "good writing" look like to you? Some examples from video games would be helpful.
I find the writing of the vast majority of games to be completely forgettable to the point where I ignore it completely. I only bother engaging with the story for a few games that manage to interest me like Disco Elysium or Dragon Age or Mass Effect. I'd say the writing in BG3 is right up there with the DA or ME series if not slightly better. There are basically no complex moral choices since the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, but you could say the same about DA or ME. The good parts about BG3 are 1) each act has an element of mystery as you uncover what's going on between all the characters; 2) there's a wide range of player choices that the game reacts to both in the small details and even in the possibility of changing large plot points; 3) the 6 main companions have interesting backstories with personal growth that feels plausible; and 4) the world is just generally interesting to engage in with stuff like a sly wizard's "read thoughts" or a barbarian's big dumb "DO WHAT I WANT" skill checks never getting old.
If you care about "lore accuracy" then maybe your opinion would change. I wouldn't know since I never bother getting too invested in the deeper lore of any fictional universe since that's almost always a road to plot holes and disappointment. Your other critiques like "people don't act like humans", or "Marvel-humor", or "YA-fictionbrained", etc are fairly generic criticisms that could apply to almost any work of fiction if you squint. They'd at least apply to stuff like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.
The combat of BG3 is not great but not terrible. It can be fun in the moment-to-moment in a way similar to XCOM 2, but DOS2's systems were just better designed. Way too much of the difficulty of BG3 is tied up in preparing for fights. Beginning the battle with a sneak attack and coming in with the proper spells prepared can turn fights from "impossible" to "trivial" very regularly. I've been abusing quicksaving and quickloading more than any game I've ever played in my life, but the alternative of playing it straight-up just isn't fun when my characters miss all their attacks due to low ground penalties and debuffs the enemy casted on the first turn.
In fairness, this has happened to just about every DM who's ever tried creating a hard encounter that wasn't just a straight-up curbstomp.
More options
Context Copy link
I've played DOS2 on the hardest difficulty and "100% Alpha Strike mechanics" is my main criticism, though. If you play correctly, you use the first turn to get the higher ground & incapitate the opponent, so the rest of the fight is just wrapping things up. I don't see how BG3 could possibly be worse.
It's kind of surprising how much of a common problem alpha striking is in turn-based games. It's an issue in the XCOM series as well. I can't think of a turn based game like this where alpha striking isn't an overly critical component. Damage is just scaled way too high, and status effects are too debilitating.
Arguably it's true even irl, so I guess it's a case of too much realism.
But yes, I think it's a symptom of wanting to keep fights short + games often being designed around casual players. If damage is scaled so that the fight is ~5 turns with a poorly optimized casual build, a well designed build will just OHKO everything, and increasing the difficulty will rarely adjust things appropriately but also often introduce other problems.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I agree, the writing seems significantly above average for a CRPG. Characterization is a bit weak for non-companions, and I do agree with the complaint that the world feels too small. But compared to most of the dreck you see nowadays, it's really quite good. (Still, when the "fate of the world" is at stake, I'm level 9, and Elminster dips into my camp to say hi then leaves, it feels a little silly.)
The big defining feature of Larian games is the way they try to simulate everything: you can throw a bottle of water to put out a fire, or throw somebody off a cliff to kill them, or pickpocket your enemies Big Sword before the fight. If anything, it's like Skyrim as a CRPG. There are pluses and minuses to that, and honestly, I would prefer an old-Bioware or Obsidian take on the gameplay, but it's still fun.
The most recent CRPG I'd played was Wrath of the Righteous, which I liked more, if only because it had a really defined identity of its own. That, and Pathfinder/3.5 is strictly superior to 5e.
Larian games don't quite feel like Skyrim to me, which has more of an open sandboxy vibe with less emphasis on story. It feels more like a CRPG version of New Vegas, where the plot is a critical aspect, but the player is given wide latitude on how to engage with it. The game does a good job reacting to specific player actions and the ultimate resolution can go in many different ways depending on the player's decisions.
I can't speak for rafa, but I would have said everything she did, so I'm answering too. New vegas is what I was going to bring up for 'better writing' - imo bg3 pales in comparison. Disco Elysium would also work, and I am confused that you are lumping them both in with mass effect and dragon age, which is the level I would put bg3 on, they are imo pop-rpgs.
The best writing in video games is also the hardest to access - it's like story and every other aspect of a game are negatively correlated. For the best of the best, basically it's if or bust. Nothing with graphics compares to anchorhead or the counterfeit monkey. Add some graphics but streamline the gameplay and you get visual novels - and once again I'd say no crpg can compare to umineko, or steins gate, or even something like raging loop. Basically I think you nailed it re larian's approach to games, they want to simulate everything, and so they put the story on the back burner. In my books bg3 is closer to dishonored or weird west than bg2, which didn't have the best story, but was light years ahead of bg3. PST is the king of that crowd, but even icewind dale had decent writing (when it came up). Then we had mask of the betrayer, which redeemed nwn2's story, and tyranny (which deserves more love). Pillars of eternity was overly convoluted, but it was better written too.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
With the partial exception of Dragon Age Inquisition (and maybe Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC), Whedonesque dialogue is largely absent from these games. I guess to some extent Morrigan might have aspects of a Whedonesque character, but in many ways she doesn’t. Most important, the first two Dragon Age and Mass Effect games take their settings very seriously in a way absent from almost all modern Marvel movies. That’s not to say they’re without cringe dialogue, of course. But it’s cringe in the way high schoolers writing fiction is cringe, in its overuse of tropes or over-sincerity about the scale of the characters’ difficulties, not because it’s trying to be serious AND make fun of itself at the same time, which is the biggest hallmark of bad modern writing.
I really hate BG3’s companions, they’re all zany, wacky eccentrics with a Deep Secret. There are usually a couple of companions in a BioWare game like this, but there are also plenty of more ‘normal’ people.
They're not so bad.
The magical fascist sky murder ape. Not zany, no apparent deep secret, kind of sad really. Very ugly, but that's what illusion spells are for.
Shadowheart isn't zany or wacky.
Astarion is a sleazy lecher but not zany or wacky, doesn't seem to have a deep secret.
Karlach is a little zany but honestly seems like a mostly what she appears to be, a cheerful yet essentially decent blood knight.
If you play a fighter/mage you don't need anyone else, no? And with the cloaking spell Laezal isn't disgusting to look at and realistically would probably be easily persuaded it's not good for her life expectancy or mission to look like one of those impossible murder assholes from beyond the sky who swoop around the multiverse on their red dragons and behave like special forces: ask questions first, torture if not answered execute later.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't really know what you mean by this. I tried looking up what Joss Whedon has worked on and there's not much of a clear pattern I can discern. From Toy Story to Firefly to The Avengers, he's worked on a wide range of things. I'm guessing by your earlier comment that the Avengers (or Marvel movies in general) would be the main thing here, but I'm still not quite sure what you mean by this.
I remember ME1 taking its setting very seriously since it was setting up this whole new universe. The other games from the ME and DA series still tried to stay within their settings... but so does BG3.
Again, I'm not sure where you think BG3 is doing this. Do you have some examples from act 1? Where is the game making fun of itself?
For me, these are parts of the characters are quite enjoyable since they add a degree of mystery at the beginning while connecting to the broader strokes of the story later on. After thinking about it, I would agree that the "I'm locked in a bad deal with an asshole god" trope is overused since it applies to half the cast, but there certainly companions without that. Lae'zel doesn't have this, nor do the alt companions like Minthara, Halsin, Jaheira, or Minsc.
It's his signature way of mixing comedy with drama. The plot is serious, but the characters keep cracking wise.
Is that all?
Well in that case, that gets pretty close to saying "don't have levity in serious works, period", which I'd strongly disagree with. Part of what made things like Breaking Bad and Disco Elysium great was that they dealt with really serious topics while also being fun and almost goofy at some points. The lighthearted moments were needed both for contrast and to not wear out the viewer. There's an art to doing this of course, as wisecracking during a serious moment can do a lot more harm than good, but the alternative of just being serious or negative all the time to the point of being hard-boiled and grimdark certainly isn't good either.
No, it's not that at all. It's closer to "please for the love of god, react to danger with literally anything other than a sarcastic quip".
More options
Context Copy link
It's not that it's bad per se, people loved Buffy, I personally liked Reaper, which is very much whedonesque in character. It's just that you can't have everyone in a movie be a smartass all the time. Things can get so bad that the straight man of the cast makes a bitter joke or the resident clown finally shuts up. Maybe someone is two different people at work and with friends and the change in his tone shows how the relationship between the characters changed. People complain that the MCU movies are tonally flat: everyone is equally snarky almost all the time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
writing in games is a bit harder to nail because it also has other expressions - it is heavily interwind with the worldbuilding and art direction.
Planescape Torment, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 1&2, God of war (2018), Portal, (Portal 2 was also brilliant in parts - mostly the old world), Kotor, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodline, Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 (defiance was shit, blood omen 2 was strange), Dragon Age: Origins, Silent Hill, Red Dead Redemption, Witchers, Batman Arkham Assylum and City, Riddick: Escape from butcher's bay (the final act was a bit weaker though) and many more. I would also throw Saints Row IV and Leisure Suit Larry love for sail in the mix. Any quests of old.
I think for any piece of writing, the big things for me are: characters that are well rounded and have a stake in the outcome, a universe that acts like the rules of the universe are sensible and doesn’t have specific things that only heroes can do without explanations that make sense, world building that’s fairly consistent and thought out, a plot that moves on its own logic without too many coincidences or people doing things ‘just because’, and consequences both for character (or player) choices or world events.
But really most movies and TV shows cannot do this, so it doesn’t shock me that game writing sucks as well. I feel like the general writing ability of professional screen writers and game writers has fallen off lately.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hmm, I'm looking right now at the introduction scene for ME2 Jack and then again for BG3 Karlach.
Neither is really outstanding but my perception is that Karlach is sort-of-YA adjacent, maybe it's the funny fuck word that I did not expect while I was sort of surprised that it takes a while for Jack to swear. Need to think about it more, seems like Jack and Karlach is a interesting pair to compare.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's interesting and sad. I can't argue with any of the things that you've said. The game is woke in some weird and unnecessary ways. The romances are awkward and don't really land. And the morality is downright stifling.
The last one is especially odd to me as within traditional D&D there was always a lot of complaining about the alignment system and how good and evil aren't so clear cut, but at least you had the lawful and chaotic axis to shade the decision making. Maybe the lawful good Paladin supports the right of the Druids to exile the Tieflings as their lands have been intruded on and trains the tieflings in arms so they can become a law unto themselves? But in this world, no. Immigrants unmitigated good. Druids fascist. Tiefling child who attempted to steal a powerful magical artificated is an underserved minority and the druids are outright wrong for punishing her.
And so on and so forth.
Yet all that said, it's still the best game I've played in a long time. It's a DM who is pleasant and has his shit together even if his ideas are pretty stupid, it's still fun to sit down at the table and play "yes, and".
There are a few places like this which really stuck out to me. At the beginning of Act III, some refugees are squatting in a merchants house, and you come across him asking his guards to clear out the house. The situation is presented as a moral dilemma, which is immediately undermined when you read the merchants mind and find out he's smuggling terrorist bombs into the city, okaying your inevitable slaughter of the guards and the man.
Seems to shirk away from any actual dilemma: if an apparent conflict between the players incentives (XP + GOLD) and morality arises, there's always an out so you can satisfy your desire to be good and still get the cash.
As I've come to learn later this is even more true of the original Emerald Grove story than I knew as if you take certain acts you learn that the Kagha is actually a... SHADOW DRUID.
So not even a mere nationalist concerned that her sacred grove has been overrun by helpless refugees recalcitrant to contribute, but actually some sort of evil insurgent. There is no situation presented where well-meaning people could be on opposite sides of a dilemma. It's all very fucking gay.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I haven't played a lot of D&D in person but I've always understood the alignment system as reactive rather than prescriptive. Like yeah, I guess if you have a moral code or society has a moral code, and you sum up all the major things you've done in your life, good and bad, you could put yourself into some position on the alignment chart. I don't necessarily think that would be a valuable exercise, but you could.
The problem is when it becomes prescriptive - here's the lawful good choice, here's the chaotic evil choice. Then it feels ridiculous and unrealistic.
I thought it was supposed to prescriptive, the idea being you are playing a role, and part off the fun is playing a character who's personality is not necessarily like yours. It gets even more prescriptive when you're playing a cleric or paladin, and have to stay in your god's favor.
If you want to cast yourself in a fantasy setting, you just pick the appropriate alignment (which is always chaotic good for some reason).
This is one of the classic debates in RPGs. I mean, it's probably a subset of the gamist/narrativist/simulationist schema, which continues to confuse people who are expecting different things from their games.
That guy might or might not be trash, but he understands RPGs.
More options
Context Copy link
I suppose, I'm not saying I just put myself into the fantasy setting, but when I create characters for RPGs their personalities tend to be more complex than alignment wheel, it's more of a web of different traits and ideas about the world than it is about their morality, since I don't think most decisions are made after consulting a moral compass.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why have encounters that involve no real decision-making? At that point just cut those ones and have interesting encounters give better rewards. I get maybe having one or two an act just to embrace a power fantasy, but a system being better for grinding isn't much of an endorsement when you can just design the game without grinding.
Now, can be a completely separate issue that the encounters are poorly designed, but then it makes more sense to me to spend more time tuning the encounters rather than slapping in a fast forward button.
I feel the overall complaint is correct, but much of the issue of too many actions are a result of it NOT being a direct translation of 5e. Bonus action shoving, dipping as a thing at all, bonus action throwing things and all the short-rest weapon abilities etc were added on by Larian to basically give martials more stuff to do.
The inventory management is absolutely trash, especially given separate inventories between characters and the extra steps to swap characters in and out to access their inventories.
That said, I'd say Larian did an OK job tackling half of this complaint (the loot in BG3 is generally a lot more interesting than base 5e), but made the other half far worse- the absolute deluge of magic items you run into is not standard 5e, it much more resembles Pathfinder. Looking at the table from the DMG for starting at higher levels makes it clear how absolutely loaded down with loot you are in BG3, before considering that without attunement slots you're also not only collecting but using a lot more.
This also makes the above issue with too many abilities worse, as many of the more interesting magic items are more interesting because they bestow yet more abilities.
This ought not to be taken as a defense of 5e, more showing that it can be hard to parse out issues with 5e, issues with Larian games in general (obsession with barrels, bottles and surfaces) and issues with BG3 as a result of Larian trying to fix issues with 5e.
More options
Context Copy link
I like the writing! The Marvel-humor can get pretty bad, but I'll assert that there actually is plenty of writing between that and the absurdly melodramatic moments (many of which are also pretty bad, yeah). The latter, though, I've basically come to expect from videogame writing in general. All characters need to have deep dark shocking secrets or else they're two-dimensional, or so writers seem to think nowadays. So in that they simply didn't depart from what was already the norm.
For one, the characters actually seem to grow, rather than just eternally playing stereotypes of themselves. Shadowheart is given genuine reasons for her beliefs, but also seems to be inching towards a realization that those beliefs are nevertheless wrong. Same with Lae'zell. Wyll is given a little sidequest where you convince him he was duped by his former masters into pursuing innocent people; its conclusion was very cool. I assume there's much more along those lines, but I've been focusing more on the NPCs whose writing I already knew would be far superior.
More important is the writing in between. Yes, your companion characters generally give either terrible side-quips (when prompted during your conversation with other characters) or immensely melodramatic personal details. But all the other characters are written much better. The tieflings in the druid's grove have an immediately compelling situation where they need help evacuating before the druids seal the grove. They ask, but don't beg, for help, and a lot of attention in-game is given to the fact that they're training children with swords. This is done explicitly not so that the children can fight off any marauding goblins during their evacuation, but so that their skills can hopefully buy time; just a second or two might make the difference between life or death. That's my jam. Rational people in interesting, emotionally stirring situations, doing what they can to improve their situation but still in need of aid. Another good example is a child you talk to at one point who proudly shows off her (IIRC) "magic", nothing more than a crude sleight of hand. While her display distracts you, though, you catch her friend attempting to pickpocket you. They're stealing to try and raise money for the group's evacuation. Just a great little scene IMO. There are plenty of others along those lines--just interesting windows into a world that feels somewhat real and not too scripted.
On romance -- I've been playing a dark and brooding edgelord. I keep getting close enough to each different companion to initiate the romance dialogue (well, I hate to call it that, because really it's just a heartfelt conversation at that point, but I guess in rainbow-land all close relationships are romantic), intentionally ask probing questions about my companions' lives, and then storm off as soon as they ask me anything about my own. Their shocked expressions always crack me up. I figured the actual romance would be poorly written, and also for other reasons didn't want to take things farther (I am highly uninterested in pretending to have a relationship with a videogame character), but up to that point the dialogue felt pretty well-written. Everyone talks about their dark and mysterious pasts, of course, but does so in a pretty cool way. For example, Astarion discusses being given the option of becoming a vampire brood in exchange for having his life saved, and says something along the lines of "I thought an eternity of servitude would be better than death. I didn't realize how long eternity could be." Yes, it's melodramatic, but I still liked it.
I certainly have plenty of complaints but overall have greatly enjoyed the story so far. And I usually hate videogame writing.
Writing isn't that good. Halfway to competent.
I mean, it suffers from being very modern minded.
How many families with 6 children can you count? Is it realistic that a warrior priest would go mad with grief after his wife's death?
Tieflings in old ADD games were nutty if good scoundrels, weird, as you'd expect from such parentage.
Tieflings in BG3 are written as if the entirety of the demonic heritage is biological, and whatever souls they have are entirely human. (I only got to chapter 2 so far).
I don't disagree with the thesis, but a man in grief from losing his wife and daughter taking foolish actions is not some modern affectation... Maybe I'd complain if he was a priest of some dark god, but Selune isn't presented that way.
More options
Context Copy link
The comparisons with Boone from New Vegas make themselves.
Boone didn't really do anything notable or crazy compared to this guy.
Besides people were going through wives due to disease, childbirth risks fairly frequently.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sure, not going to argue it's amazing writing, but I'm enjoying it.
I generally give videogames a pass on this since again, that's just what all modern media does. Agreed that it would make things better though.
The main thing that I think hurts writing is simple denial of reality. Sometimes I'll watch a movie or play a game and just think "man, whoever wrote this just has no idea about how anything really works." I recently watched Birdbox: Barcelona and the main character in it, a tallish, able-bodied, well-fed man, first loses a fight to three malnourished and quite elderly blind women, then later has an intense fight/wrestle with a woman about a foot shorter than him. She pretty easily gets the upper hand, and the only way he wins is by pushing her off the platform they're fighting on. It was a great movie to watch because of how terrible it was, but scenes like that were utterly hilarious. Really felt like the writers had just given up on reality entirely. Like maybe if that woman had also been black or lesbian she could have just picked him up with one hand and tossed him casually into the mountains in the distance.
Anyway, BG3 doesn't do that. Its departures from reality are annoying, but they don't quite break my suspension of disbelief entirely, which is all I ask for at this point. Maybe my standards are too low haha.
Re: women fighters with a score of 18..
I've been giving ADD games a pass on this because, hey, it's a setting with magic and dragons. Pretty clear that in that world it isn't just biomechanics like in this one.
I'm also extremely pleased Underrail: Infusion, a Serbian RPG game I'm looking forward more than any other game has decided to directly tie player model to size and strength characteristic. IIRC, almost a first in games, no ?
Finally, some game acknowledging biomechanics. Pretty much every other RPG game allows a willowy female with a 19 strength score. Hey, at least BG3 has strong & tall female models.
I'm hating the odd bit of marvel speak but the game isn't too insulting or boring. It's no BG2 though :(.
EDIT: apart from DPI scaling related CTDs (I had dozens) and too many quicksave CTDs I chiefly hate how long-winded combat is. The game is engrossing.. if not as great as BG2.
In Dragon's Dogma your appearance (at least height and weight) influences for how long you can run, how much you can carry, if you can enter certain secret holes, etc..
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I hate the inventory management and gameplay but love the writing and sheer number of choices and consequences. I'm still seeing decisions I made 150 hours ago impact my current story. Minor, barely noticeable decisions in side-quests early on in chapter 1 still matter late in chapter 3.
I am once more reminded of that one Bioware lady who wanted a "skip gameplay" button.
You've played 150 hours already? I'm in awe at your free time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Honestly I think the gameplay issue is that the engine works a lot more interestingly with the logic of Divinity than it does with DND 5e translation. Stuff like the armor/crowd control/floor systems in DOS2 just worked better, IMO.
The lack of a free/cheap teleportation ability really hurts it - 75% of the fun of DOS2 was from having that thing ready to go at all times. You get telekinesis as a level 5 spell, but that's obscenely expensive to move some crates around, and dimension door only teleports one person. It's a bit painful.
More options
Context Copy link
Surfaces , the gorgeous if a bit kitschy graphics, ability to destroy stuff and the elemental / environmental effects are the only thing better than BG2.
Still, it's a fairly good if flawed game, I hated Dragon Age, but BG3 is like a prettier and more annoying stupid sister of BG2.
Maybe I should wait for mods.
Same here, I was really disappointed with it and one of my first ever long form pieces of writing was a lengthy review I did about how disappointed I was with a game that I'd been told would have been a successor to BG2. I still don't understand why it has such a good reputation, or why the developers thought that the Fade was an area worth including at all.
I didn't hate the lore or story- the little I saw of it seemed okay, potentially good, but the simplistic combat made me quit.
Dragon fights in BG2 were a treat, usually over in seconds for good or ill. Dragon Age fight that made me quit was my mage spamming minor health potions whittling down a dragon sitting elsewhere...
BG3s most impressive feature apart from the athletic elf maidens are the combat encounters. I'm playing it on the hard difficulty and ..I think it took me like 30 times to beat the hand grenade throwing fatso.
Partly because the transition between combat/ non combat is retarded- I kept losing haste due to some chars being 'outside' combat..and partly because once you kill the bastard and he throws his 'nades all around him and you think, nice, he will clear his mob for you, his minions will pick them up and throw them at you.
So you have to kill him and have someone missile or fireball the 'nades.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thank you for your review. I was already leaning heavily against playing it, but this beat whatever residual curiosity I had leftbout of me.
Is there anyone who wants to argue the other side?
There already are games with good writing, so that's even less of an excuse.
That might be a part of it, but even that is probably more of a symptom than a cause. Also, I could easily see a more "well read" writer come up with some galaxy-brained "deconstruction".
Honestly, I think our society is running out of creative juices. We've been mostly doing remakes, adaptions, and looting other cultures for material for quite a while now. Mainstream artists aren't allowed to explore anything interesting, hopefully something comes out of some janly indie scene.
Try it for yourself, maybe sail the seven seas if you don't want to give the possibly woke people money? I'm fairly conservative and am enjoying the game a lot.
Although if you don't want to sail the high seas, larian and valve didn't even blink at refunding my game despite already sinking 20+ hours into it (I just reached act 2 when I decided to get the refund.)
More options
Context Copy link
The criticism doesn't seem to be that the writing is woke, but that it's bad. Not giving woke people money is part of my concern, but not sponsoring bland corporate schlock is another. I'll keep reading others' reviews, maybe someone convinces me.
Honestly, it might be worth just keeping a lookout for whenever the inevitable Definitive Edition drops. Even as someone who liked the game and story overall, much like D:OS2 it's clear the back third got less attention than the first third and I'm guessing that much like D:OS2 many of those issues will get cleaned up later down the road.
More options
Context Copy link
I thought the writing was quite good actually (8/10). A bit predictable at times but very pleasantly deep at others. Both in terms of consequences for actions and in terms of ethical questions. I had a very serious 20minute long discussion with my sister regarding one particular issue in act 3: is it morally correct to kill a predator who has done nothing but help you in a MAJOR way and insists that he will continue to do so?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link