Baldur's Gate 3 - Pre-Patch Heads-Up

Originally Posted by Nereida
This sounds awful. I'm surprised there isn't a provider looking to change the rules of the game and become the most popular one just by removing the cap, as it happened in Europe quite some time ago. I remember when I lived in Belgium there was this same thing, and I thought it was plain extortion. And that was before games were 100GB big, indeed.

The cable internet business is pretty much a monopoly in all but name. The biggest provider is Comcast followed by other smaller ones. You basically have minimal choices.

Also Comcast loves to raise prices and charge for every little extra you need. The cap started at 250 GB and slowly got larger over the years, but it's still pure bullshit.

Last year we had no cap but they rolled out a 750 gb cap. I have four people constantly streaming games, movies and of course using torrents and site downloading.

Netflix and Steam/GOG eats the majority of the cap.

When you reach the cap and go over you get a warning, then you get charged for more data. If not your internet is cut and you have to beg to get turned back on.

They basically force you to pay more just to get unlimited usage with lame reasons. The only other option are two smaller providers with lower caps and speeds.

So yes this is a bigger problem then most think.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

You have three options.


1. Pack your bags and move somewhere. In Japan you already were, so would be nice to explore a different country now.

2. Don't buy all those RPGmaker shovelware and you'll save $100 extra.

3. Change nothing, continue complaining.


Yea, I know, 1 and 2 are impossible.

4. Stop watching so much porn.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

We have some of the fastest speeds available but bottle-necked by provider greed. Its the reason why I roll my eyes when an all digital future is mentioned.

I hear ya, I finally caved and pay the extra $50 for unlimited which has been $30 for a while due to Covid.

We have a 1.2 TB cap which might sound like a lot but we stream most of our tv watching and that will chew through 1.2 in no time. I also don’t live in the same state as my favorite sports teams so stream all the football, baseball, basketball and hockey also adds up. Add games and times that by 3 people and we use 3-4 TB/mo regularly.

I'm not aware of any cap here in The Netherlands, we do have bandwidth limits. The cheapest ones offer 50Mb/s. If you are on fiber, that can go up to a 1Gb/s, but they usually name that unlimited. This makes the cable and the fiber unlimited versions quite different.

We changed the rules about 10 years ago, so that "Unlimited" broadband couldn't contain hidden limits wrapped in a "fair-usage" policy. The only place I even see talk of limits these days is in mobile data packages - and there's unlimited options there, too.

TBH, I think a lot of folks in the US are getting absolutely shafted by their ISP monopolies.

Here are the offers I see now. As @Nereida said, Belgium is a strange case, even though it's a small country that should theoretically be easier to cable… I think we're also known for having very complicated offers with a multitude of options that include other services, and that vary all the time. Sometimes they even put tools on the web to select the optimal subscription depending on Internet, TV, mobile usage of the whole family. Maybe it's the same everywhere, I haven't checked.

100 GB per month at 27.50 EUR/m, bandwidth of 50 Mbps down, 4 up (they usually don't limit them though, it's mostly limited by what you can actually get, in my case it's about 40, a reasonably good bandwidth out of a city).

"unlimited" (in reality 3 TB) at 51 EUR/m, with 100 Mbps / 20 Mbps. It is written "unlimited", and from that small description you can subscribe. But if you download the fine prints, it says that from 3 TB, your bandwidth become "limited" - no details - until next month except if the customer subscribes to a 300-GB package. I would be surprised if that wasn't the same everywhere.

But 3 TB is comfortable atm.

Then there are the fiber offers at 1 Gbps, but that's more expensive And of course a lot of other different variations, but the above are the main home offers without considering TV and such. (the "TV and such" being usually more attractive)

Originally Posted by Redglyph
"unlimited" (in reality 3 TB) at 51 EUR/m, with 100 Mbps / 20 Mbps. It is written "unlimited", and from that small description you can subscribe. But if you download the fine prints, it says that from 3 TB, your bandwidth become "limited" - no details - until next month except if the customer subscribes to a 300-GB package. I would be surprised if that wasn't the same everywhere.

That fine print definitely got examined over here. Most of the big ISPs are explicit now that there are no hidden limits, no "traffic-management", and so on. At this point, they'd lose out to their competitors if they didn't.

Originally Posted by Ripper
That fine print definitely got examined over here. Most of the big ISPs are explicit now that there are no hidden limits, no "traffic-management", and so on. At this point, they'd lose out to their competitors if they didn't.

Consider me surprised then.

The somewhat hidden limit is getting higher and higher, but they have been there for years. And it's the same for the number of SMS and so on. Maybe it's another typical trait of our country. And maybe one day it'll vanish when operators work on several countries and get enough pressure to remain competitive.

Yeah, I think our telecoms are reasonably healthy in that way - the backbone is managed by a regulated company that must allow any ISP to operate on it. Wherever you live, there's dozens of ISPs competing for your contract.

In Croatia I have 140-200 mbit speed flat for 25$(limited to 1Tb after which speed falls to 15 megabits with no additional costs).

There is no limit of what you download so you can pirate whatever software you can find without fear. This is great as you can test any game before buying it instead of searching demo or watching YouTube videos on net. I never hit 1Tb and rarely get to 500Gb. Last month was 383,5 GB, that is maybe until kids grow up as I now do not have time for anything and they do not use too much internet (6,3,1yo).
And yes this is cheapest and slowest internet I can get at my address.

Developers trying to remain relevant..

Wow, I'm heavily surprised as well. In Poland I have 750 Mbit with unlimited bandwidth for 65 PLN (~20$). I could make it much faster for doubling the price, but it suits my needs perfectly - and besides of gaming I'm also streaming tv and making video conferences while working from home.

I have a cap on my mobile internet though, but it doesn't really bother me because wifi is almost everywhere.

And all of this interesting information has WHAT to do with BG3??

Originally Posted by Corwin
And all of this interesting information has WHAT to do with BG3??

The size of its patches being large…

We love to digress

Honestly, it is looking more like Baldurs Gate: Original Sin rather than BG3 every patch.

Dual wielding Salami? It's not even April 1st and they are actually serious. They decided to do this based on a twitch stream FFS.

I pray to god Sven never gets the Ultima License.

I love D:OS1&2 but I sure as hell don't want Baldurs gate to have that kind of humour and lore breaking antics.

Originally Posted by bjon045
Honestly, it is looking more like Baldurs Gate: Original Sin rather than BG3 every patch.

Did they leak screenshots?

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Did they leak screenshots?

I'm refering to the screenshot of the character dual wielding sticks of salami…

Originally Posted by bjon045
I'm refering to the screenshot of the character dual wielding sticks of salami…

Heh. They have a peculiar sense of humour, for sure.

They made an effort, it's not the same level as D:OS, thankfully. To be fair, the original BG series could be very cheesy at times too.