Baldur's Gate 3 - Multiplayer & Cinematics

This.

a pibbur who (probably) would play coop with friends if he had friends to play coop with,

I suspect you would have no difficulty finding some friends on the Watch to play co-op with, if you fancy it. :)
 
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Adding multiplayer must be worth it financially because game companies keep doing it. One can argue that they could have spent more time on the single-player content, but then the revenue stream wouldn't be as solid. I.e. the multi-player content probably pays for itself, rather than detracting from the single-player content.
 
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This.

a pibbur who (probably) would play coop with friends if he had friends to play coop with,

Never too late to start a group yourself. There's a variety of resources online to help you find people interested in the same hobbies.

This website for instance. :D
 
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While you always hear about how the MP work may pull from SP resources or otherwise reduce what is done in SP, there is also a chance some benefits are achieved via shared resources and assets.

Admittedly this is the first time a game made me feel truly old or out of sync with the gaming generation. Not because of MP, which I totally get and understand, but because of the whole streaming twitch thing.

I simply can't get my head around the enjoyment of watching someone else play a game. I have friends who kill time watching streamers and one who wants to be one. But I simply don't get it. I feel very out of touch with things in that regard. It has no appeal (to me) and I don't even understand the appeal (to others).

Ah well it does seem innovative even if designing part of the game around "… as an audience in a stream…" totally escapes me.

I guess a lot of people simply enjoy a more passive experience. For me, if I want to be passive, I read a book. I know they are adding some ways for the viewers to interact or weigh in but even before that it seems very passive.
 
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From my experience watching Twitch audiences interact, I don't think the appeal (such as it is) lies in watching someone play a game. They're drawn to two things, primarily. The first is to tell someone else how to play a game. Even on Youtube Let's Play videos, there are endless "you should have done this and never do that" comments, often expressed with exasperation or head-patting condescension. The chance to display their wisdom live is too much for some to pass up.

The other thing I think people get out of it is acknowledgment. Streamers like the instant feedback from an audience, and their audience likes to have that feedback mentioned by the streamer. Even with relatively small streamers, they're treated like celebrities in the sense that people get a charge out of feeling like the streamer "sees" them. Why do people write "first" on every video like it's a major accomplishment? I feel like it's related. People want attention.

I'm sure some people watch streams to see the game, but I think it's a minority. If you want to seriously watch a film, you don't watch a riffed track of it while people throw popcorn at your face.
 
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Well lesson learned seems when you share your opinion online be ready for someone to disagree with you. Its guaranteed. Anyway enjoy your day everyone. MP sucks.:p

Codex Larian Hate Poll: Has your opinion about Larian Studios changed?

For the record, I value your opinions and I don't mind disagreeing with you. ;)

My previous post may have come as harsh by someone that doesn't know that I was being sarcastic and performing a somewhat exaggerated representation (though not always so) of the vibe some anti-co-op people give. "Co-op will drain resources from SP, and destroy the whole franchise, I hate Larian for ruining my 20-year-long dream!!!" which is, in my opinion, both a fallacy and a selfish approach to think that because SP might be slightly worse due to MP, people who love co-op aren't allowed to have it.

In any case, a lot of people here are fine with co-op recognising that while they won't use it, it won't affect their single player experience in any tangible way, and I think that's the sensible way to go about it, rather than wholly censoring Larian and wishing them to burn in hell for diverting some resources towards making a DnD game available as a DnD experience.

As always, I hope the game is good enough for both single player fans and co-op fans to enjoy it fully. If that's the case, lucky me, being fan of both things!
 
Four vote options for dislike, one option for like. Yep, it's the Codex alright.
Yep had to liven this thread up with some comedy.:lol:

Edit: Also Lesson #2 - it's better to just ignore certain posters.
 
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I just wander, where this "knowledge", whether MP part can affect quality of SP part of the game comes from? I suppose Larian must have answered such questions in past, but is someone expecting that developer of a product would talk about it in any other, then positive way?

I will play BG3 in SP as I need to play these games in my own pace to enjoy them and I dont care whether the game has also MP option or not. I just hope it will be good.

Another thing that baffles me is weird feeling of entitlement coming from some people. That game should be able to cater everyones (but especially theirs) taste. If the game aligns with my taste I will play it, if not I will skip it. Should there be anything more to this?

Anyway, it is my opinion, that whenever developers try to create game for everybody, they put themself in danger they will end-up with game for nobody.
 
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I just wander, where this "knowledge", whether MP part can affect quality of SP part of the game comes from? I suppose Larian must have answered such questions in past, but is someone expecting that developer of a product would talk about it in any other, then positive way?

I don't think there's much question that making a game MP rather than SP can have some impact on the SP experience. In general, it's more complicated to develop a game for MP - it can affect the choices you make, things have to be coded differently, and it introduces a whole new layer of optimisation and potential problems. So, I'd say there's no doubt that it increases the work and skills required, which, with a finite budget, must have some impact.

But, the good thing with this style of game is that it doesn't really impact the game design, because there's no tension between the SP and the MP - in a turn based party RPG, it makes little difference whether the party is controlled by several players each moving their character, or by one player making all the moves. With other types of games, concessions have to be made to make multiplayer work.

Taking a broader view, and although MP is not my thing, I think this could be a good move for them. There's been a big resurgence of DnD among the younglings, and they're also very fond of multiplayer games, spectating on Twitch, and so on. If Larian can capture that Critical Role audience, and become known for the go-to platform for DnD cRPG groups, I think they could do very well. And a big success would mean more of these RPGs, with better budgets, and so on.

With regard to watching others play, it's not my bag, but I don't find it that hard to understand. Years ago I had a girlfriend that didn't play games, but loved watching my friends and me gaming - all the shenanigans and banter. I can definitely imagine that there's lots of people who seek that enjoyment online, and the spectating feature seems like a nice idea, to me.
 
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One thing to keep in mind is that Larian has hired a lot of extra staff compared to when they made Divinity games. That's a lot of extra brain mass that's there to add to production without taking anything from it. Whether it'll turn out great or not is still in the air, but Larian isn't cutting resources from single player to accommodate co-op, they are just adding the co-op on top of what was already there, by being a company double the size than it was a few years ago.

I also don't care about Twitch viewers/choices etc, but likewise, I don't think hiring an extra couple people to work on the twitch integration takes anything from any other aspect of the game. It would have more cause to worry if Larian was still the size it was 8 years ago and they were tackling on this gargantuan version of BG3, because then yes, resources and dev time would be quite limited, and that's what holds many indie studios from turning a good game into something great and memorable, but that's certainly not the case with Larian at this point in time.
 
Since we can't embed tweets on the forum this will look a little rough.

Screenshot_2020-09-13 GOG COM on Twitter.jpg

Click the image to make it larger.:)
 
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Well, I for one welcome the co-op. There's only so many games with co-op done right that I can enjoy with my wife, so I am looking forward to it.

And besides, these games are based on tabletop RPGs, isn't the whole point of those to enjoy and share an adventure together with friends? Co-op makes perfect sense for a DnD game, imho.
 
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Hey whatever floats you boat is my motto. Still I prefer table-top for DnD games with friends not PC RPGs. I agree with Andrew23 when you try to please everyone you fail.
 
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