What I'd like to see in Baldur's Gate 3.

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Wishlist:

- More NPC's of different alignments/classes. I'd like to see at least 2-3 different (as in different characters) and viable (as in having spellcaster, healer, tank and lockpicker/trapfinder) party options for good and evil parties.
- NPC's/combinations should affect (some) quests.
- Race/gender specific quests, not unlike the strongholdquests.
- Change the reputation system. How would the city guards know if you murderd some old hermit or woodcutter? Maybe, like someone mentioned in an earlier post, evil parties could bully vendors into giving discounts. Evil vendors who won't sell items to good characters and vice versa?
- A more dynamic environment. Maybe a revolution occured while you were away and half the vendors/shopkeepers were killed or thrown in jail and new ones are in their place -> New items, quests, people... fun!
- Custom weapons, armour? If you use your +1 longsword long enough/kill enough monsters it will become more powerful or get special abilities -> +2 longsword, invisibility once/day. Choose if you want to search for "other peoples" equipment or if you want to (with time, effort and gold) create your own legendary sword. You could name it yourself, "Stickers Backsticker".

 

I like the idea of custom weapons, maybe it should go in the other direction, you need to do 50 attacks evertime you learn how to grasp its abilities, I dont want to bring the whole Diablo rule of being a certain level to use a weapon though cause thats just wrong...

 

I don't know if this has been said before since I don't have the time to read all of the pervious posts right now....
Since I am busy reading the Avatar series this idea came to me...
What if BG3 was set during the Time of Troubles?
That would make it a prequel and would still tie in with the main storyline.
We all know that Bhaal foresaw his death at the hands of Cyric and prepared for that event, so why not have BG3 set suring this time period.
I think most of the current npc's like Jaheria and Minsc should be scrapped. I love them as much as any BG fan but enough is enough.
Elminster would still be there since he is about 800 years old and Gorion would possibly be there.

If they did that is would be REALLY interesting.
I'd also love to play a PC FR game that where you could visit Waterdeep...

 

I thought i'd put my thoughts down,

There should be no BG 3 - That is, the Spawn story line. I'd like a brand new game based on the BG 2 engine etc.

This needs to be a low level start i.e 1 - 3. The story needs to be based around the old D & D concept of someone wanting to be a adventurer. not some demi god character. (as much as i like having loads of power, its not quite true to RPG concepts)

With that said there are some components that could make it really work.

some very different storylining for good evil and even that hardly ever played neutral bunch. all given equal measure, this gives you 3 games essentially in one.

I'd like to see storylines based on class, pehaps you start out as a guild apprentice till you achieve a certain level and are released. this could each class of character a fighting chance at the beginning as the "quests would be taylored" these intial activities could be limited also to guild member NPC i.e. if you a mage you can only use other guild mages in your party to start out. Then once you are free of guild restrictions you can select some more apropriate companions for your travels and quests. NPCs need to be more interchangable, particullarly in the early stages would that thought, "but i just got this guy to 10th level and the new NPC is only 6th" we all know that those levels count for alot in the early days.

I'd also like to see bigger citys, baldurs gate was small but has some nice hidden features, Athkatla was hugh but we could only explore small parts. A truly large city with hidden features buildings that house normal shops as well as those specialist ones. hid outs and public buildings.

The other thing i'd like to see is the non linear map like BG 1, places you can have a bit of a wander in not quite knowing what is there.

I think Waterdeep would be a great city to base this one on, i think many old D&D maps might need to be consulted to get that right.

The last think that i have really though about is a proper war situation perhaps at the end or the game, your party are now in an army (good and evil would be on opposite sides) this a proper sized army on screen facing each other then you fight & fight & fight, Your party would slash through the ememy being like 30 levels higher than the general grunt but numbers can take there toll, only problem is we would all need top end PC's to run that much on screen at the same time.
Perhaps it could be broken into smaller sections with continuously spooling enemy and friendly soldiers.

I've just thought that a militarry career could be an option, as part of the later stages of the game, general of the kings armies. leading them into battle? just a thought.

I'm sure if i kept think there would be more

cheers

 

If the developers of the game want to go with a sequel, beginning from a few months after the end of ToB, wherein after things like Aarie and PC went to Feanya-Dail, Anomen became a leader etc, the PC somehow had a pull to explore the Shoonach Empire (from the book "Lands of Intrigue"), and must defeat the lich and free the elf!

I've just been reading that part of the Lands of Intrigue book right this past hour, and it seems like a really good adventure! (But I'm not a DM at all, so some video game developer has to do this for me! )

Perhaps a major fight with the Twisted Rune, or a major fight with both the Twisted Rune AND the Shoonach Empire!

 

Hmm, seems as though a few people want BG3 to be more PnP type than a computer game. You want to eat food and have actions determine alignment. It's good, but when I play CRPGs, I don't want to drop from exhaustion because I forgot to eat that morning. I can do that in the DnD campaigns I play irl.

I've also heard rumors of a prequel. I kind of hope they do something other than Bhaalspawn, although finding out about the PC's mother and Gorion is interesting. Most of the gripes I agree with 100%; ie: no Drizzt, no Elminster. Maybe something along the lines of IWD where you play a premade party - the Mirrorshades leap to mind.

As for what I want, here's the list:

1) Either 2e or 3.5e rules, definitely not 3e.
2) Turn-base would be nice, (like ToEE) but RTS is okay as long as I can use the pause button.
3) More variety in the NPC classes. I'm sick of having only 2 choices of cleric, 2 druids and 1 paladin. I typically played good-aligned, which limits my choices even further.

That's all on this point. Thanks for listening, erm reading.

 

I want:

1) a continuous world;
2) said world to be interactive to Ultima 7's level;
3) said world to have full complement of travel methods (horses, carts for party, ships, quite possibly a magic carpet...)
4) NPC schedules
5) party members who have personalities - after playing PS:T, nothing less well-written will cut it for me
6) a mature world which doesn't patronise me - good\evil are not always black and white, very few things are *ever* clear-cut
7) an interesting enemy - Irenicus was good, but the best IMO are TTO (from PS:T) and Batlin (U7)
8) going back to said world - complete freedom in the world. I don't want to be restricted because of some deeply 'constructed' plot-device. Let me explore the world, where I want and when I want!

Basically, I'm hoping for a fusion of PS:T and U7. Perhaps that's what BG3 will prove to be.

Yeah, right.

 

You know what? I like the idea of a Time of Troubles-era game. However, if you're going to do that RIGHT, you're going to need 1st edition rules.

That's right. 1st edition. We can have subraces; there are rules for a wide variety of them in the Unearthed Arcana. We can also have Monks, Barbarians, Thief-Acrobats, Illusionists, rangers who will really kick butt, double-specialization, and the only usable psionics system to date for a Dungeons and Dragons game to date.

The best part of this is that the complexity of 1st edition would be fairly transparent, because most of it will be behind the scenes.

 

You ask for all these changes to be made, but let's all not forget, the baldur's gate games became popular for what they are. When baldur's gate 2 was made, they could have used decent graphics but decided not to because they felt it would take the game away from the 2d look which pretty much MAKES baldur's gate, baldur's gate.
Personally, i'm not to bothered about graphics or too many changes on BG3, they just better give it one hell of a story line that would keep my hooked as the previous games did and not make you feel lost or have team members with no personalities like IWD (which i thought sucked.. your characters just didnt have a background) Now i know creating characters and their own back grounds is a part of DnD true roleplaying, but on single player it's kind of pointless.

What i'm trying to get is i hope bioware or obsidian (or whoever else is making the damn game) spends more time on the story line, than graphics or whatever else they should stick in it. The NWN single player sucked because of that.

 

I didn't mind so much that IWD PCs didn't have much personality, because the gme had a good story... it was worth playing the game. Heck IWD2 was fun, partially because your different party combinations could result in a slightly different game. Got someone with Snake Blood? Then the yuan-ti section will go a bit differently. A tiefling female will make the game a little bit different. Drow or duergar or monks or druids change the game in little ways, and the story, itself, was neat and compelling. I didn't mind that my party wasn't talking to me, because the rest of the game WAS.

 

yeah i admit that was good. especially the way some npc's replied to drow differently hehe. I'm not to fond of the story though. It doesn't give you a sense of belonging or attachment as baldur's gate story does. With baldur's gate the storyline was so intense and attaching that you simply can't stop playing. I thought icewind dale 1 was better than number 2. I could play that all the way though, but the first time icewind dale 2 got very boring for me, and i had to stop playing.

 

My wife loved Baldur's Gate because "It's a story all about ME." I can sympathize with that; its fun to be the center of attention.

I think what was missing in IWD 1&2 was any reason for the characters to be there. You're adventurers from the south, come to save the Ten Towns; far better, IMO, to give you the option of being semi-local and involved. Maybe my druid is from another town, and is heading towards Kuldahar when I stop in Easthaven. Maybe someone can be from Lonelywood, or Easthaven, or Targos... even someone from Calimsham could've added a bit of flavor to the game; give us the option of where we're from, and have that affect a little bit about our characters and how the story plays out.

 

i see your point. But i personally agree with your wife. It's good that you have one character to think about in the bg series. Baldur's gate is indeed about the main character and his exploits in the world and thats what makes the story amazing. So what if it's not a true RPG; it still is an rpg but built for single play. Think of the final fantasy games (the newer ones: 7,8 and 10) where the story revolves around the main character. Sure the other characters play a part, but you feel more involved in the game if it's centered around you. The problem with games like IWD is when you craft a 6 person party and the story is centered around them, rather than one person. A good story/novel/plot-line is always more difficult to write when writing evenly over a group of characters, which i believe is the reason for biowares "lets just let the players write the biographies for the characters.. less work for us. let them use their imaginations".
This does indeed allow us to use our imaginations for the characters (making their own backgrounds up etc) but takes a big chunk out of the plot line to.

 

True. There is a compromise position, however, because I was deeply disatisfied with the BG storyline on a very basic level (namely, the elven and gnomish PCs were all 20 years old... babies, barely out of swaddling.)

Have several roles which can be filled for your party... say 10 of them. And you can pick which one you want your character to fill. It's not as rigid as PS:T's pre-generated character or BG's predefined background, nor as amorphous as IWDs absolving the game from responsibility for your background, but it incorporates your background into the game, without dictating it to you (and make one of those background choices be "points beyond", giving you the choice to be somewhat uninvolved in the story).

 

now if they did THAT in bg3, that would be a game. Keep the great storyline, but added with icewind dales character customization.

And as for the dwarven elven thing, i did read somewhere a bioware explaination for the subject.. it said something like:

---

Well the thing about aging between elves dwarves and humans is this: All of the races reach adolescance and mahood at the same rate. its only when they reach this stage that each race, depending on the race, the growth rate drops dramatically. Now in baldurs gate, an elven or dwarven character would be fully developed in terms of growth, and considering the elven/dwarven characrer grew up in a human enviroment, there's no reason why he cannot act as mature as a human would at the same age. It's only when a dwarf or elf grow up in their own enviroments with their own people, they are treated younger because of their age.

---

Something like that anyway..

 

Yes, but, unfortunately, its completely wrong from a D&D standpoint. Elves take a lot longer to reach physical maturity than humans do, according to the 2nd edition canon.

It was just something that really annoyed me.

 

Just a Side Note on the graphics...I am all for killer graphics..However I cant even play NWN on my PC because of my graphics card..

Also If Atari is putting this out, I really hope they use some common sense and NOT put the serial code on the maual but somewhere in the CD..My hubby lost the NWN manual, After telling their customer sevice dept off about 100x, they told us we had to buy a new game just to play it..

 

I know it's been said a couple of times now, but i agree that it would be really cool if BG3 would be in the era of Time of Troubles or shortly afterwards. And some whole new and fresh NPC chars with much more personality that in the previous games, with at lot more of NPC dialouge, and not you have to wait for the NPCs to talk too you, but you being able to engange in conversation with them when ever you'd like, even if just for chit chatting.

And a question : Can't remember who, but someone in this thread said that BG3 was already in development, but who is developing it?? Atari, Bioware, Obsidian, who?

 

Thank god obsidian isn't making it.. Can't stand what they did to kotor 2. Bioware all the way in my opinion, but i'de settle for atari.
As for the graphics, is it only me who truly prefers the old 2d style of the first bg games? they gave it more of an edge, but then again i guess if you have nwn type graphics, you could zoom far out to bg proportions.. ah well.. we all know that uber graphics will steal away our beloved bg games..