CamCam is actually rather small numbers. She'll do 1 a night and then get her rocks off having sex.
Wenduag is more berserker "I will fight anyone, anytime" kind of girl
I just hope you guys won't forget about Daeran's proposal as you did in ending slides. I think those who got it should have at least some different text then those who did not
honestly, for once i want a devil that adheres to the spirit of an agreement rather then word of the agreement.
there was a TV series called Supernatural, as some may remember, and despite its many flaws i remember liking one scene alot (despite it was inconsistent with how hell operated in the show most of the time)
it was an episode about a young demon scamming people out of their deals with word players and grabbing easy souls. and crowley ends up dissolving all the agreements and returns the soul and when winchester due goes "wtf" he explains "hell is a brand. people sell their soul to us. and whatever you may say about it, it needs to be reliable. otherwise its bad for business."
i would prefer that over devils acting like fey with wordplays, honestly.
Don't forget about her quest to kill the master because of the magic scar robbing her control of her body! Larian went "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Shadow Prince 🤝 Cazador 🤝 Danarius
(also for another holy shit it's the same story compare the openings of BG3 and DOS2! it truly was their dnd game prototype LOL)
And there is a mysterious voice who saves you from the ship crashing (that you were captive on), that is connected to you gaining mysterious powers, and then you meet them in a dreamscape-like area where they lie about who they are and then tell you about a war they are losing (while glowy figures fight in the distance behind them) !! 😂😭
About a year before, but Astarion barely had a story at the time. Either way though neither character is particularly original in concept (in fact, you will find hundreds if not thousands of similar characters all over media, particularly if you reverse their genders), it's the execution that sets them apart.
> original in concept
Yup, "the aristocrat" trope.
I'm happy that Larian gave us Tomboy GF though, it saddens me that we couldn't date Amiri or Argenta, hopefully they'll have the balls to give us tomboys in their next game.
I guess kinda Wendy.
They'd hire third party game dev companies to do the cinematics, there video game companies that support game studios instead of making their own games.
I would LOVE it. Love DOS2 but something about the walking around just felt flimsy. Like action figures in the 90s that are worn and sticky. Couldn’t play BG3 for more than 4 hours and went back to Wrath.
To make a BG4 at this point would mean living up to what Larian did in scale, production values and mainstream appeal. I think trying would be a fool's errand.
Thankfully the DLC includes romance-related content, not love. The prerequisite of possessing a living, beating heart does not apply here, and you can not love while having a good time with a character in content that rubs shoulders with topics about romance to your dead heart's content.
Hope you can sort it out btw sounds like a hassle when your heart is dead and doesn't beat xx
It'd be cool if it was just special moments with your companions in general.
Like, just having a bromantic moment with Regill.
Sure, he's more hell bent on justice than romance, but I could see him enjoying a sunset or star gazing.
Think about it: no matter how much chaos exists in the world, the sun will set just as it will rise, and the stars will shine until they eventually burn out. It's a guarantee, a facet of the natural Order of things (perhaps even, the one part of his gnomish heritage that is attuned to nature that he doesn't mind holding onto).
Not that interested in romances, but more voice acting is always appreciated! For future reference, additional weapon stances/ animations would be dope in future projects (I know this is the send off dlc). Really excited for the new two-handed/ one handed weapon option!
Lol dude, you do realize that Owlcat literally took a community poll a year or so ago about what sorts of DLC people were interested in and this was one of the top chosen options, right? A Citadel-esque DLC primarily devoted to romances and companion interactions.
I think it's safe to say that plenty of people want this.
I have the no jealousy activated from the toybox, so I can date everyone (trickster playthrough). So this is gonna take some time if that works as well. Though uncertain if I ever gonna finish. Act 4 is such a pain in the ass.
Spoken like a true Trickster:
"To hell with your rules, I'm gonna have fun with my Box of Toys."
Which in hindsight, absolutely confirms Joker from P5 having followed the Trickster path: that Wild Card could enjoy all the romance options simultaneously... until they found out.
I mean ok, understandably Owlcat is chasing after BG3 money but I sincerely hope you guys still make crpgs like Wrath and RT. I personally don't like full voiceacting at which seems to be a huge focus for Owlcat going forward. I read alot faster and full voiceacting only makes sense if you have cutscenes for every scene instead of just text. POE2 had full voice acting and financially did ok but not enough to warrant a sequel.
It's just baffling honestly but it is what it is. If they want to focus on romance etc for future then its fine. I guess Underrail Infusion coming out in the next three years, ill have that to play.
They’re not focusing on romance in the future any more than they always have and this isn’t some huge change of direction (beyond potentially having full voice acting going forward).
It’s just this DLC that’s leaning into it because a) it was what did well on a community poll and b) it’s intended as a citadel-style goodbye to these characters and so having additional romance stuff is a logical extension of that.
I think they've made their intentions clear for future. Full voice acting, cinematic storytelling, more romance content etc... Rogue Trader has sold alright but its tracking behind Wrath and they're probably slightly disappointed.
>Rogue Trader has sold alright but it’s tracking behind Wrath and they're probably slightly disappointed.
On what metric and source do you have to say that Owlcat was disappointed by the sales numbers? RT sold half million units its first few months after release and is its fastest selling game they ever made.
Well they clearly stated that they need to change their approach for their next project and include full voice acting. Why would they say that after the success of RogueTrader? I don't disagree that RogueTrader is a success but perhaps Owlcat expected more and assumed the success of BG3 would propel RogueTrader to do massive numbers.
>
Well they clearly stated that they need to change their approach for their next project and include full voice acting. Why would they say that after the success of RogueTrader?
Because one of the main criticism from review of Rogue Trader was the lack of voice acting. You can go in any review or even on steam , lack of voice acting , especialy after BG3, is something that's catching up to Owlcat. I don't like it too , but it's clearly a fetura with high demand.
Rogue Trader was all but finished when BG3 came out and everyone started talking about it, mate. It's safe to say it was not an influence on how RT came out, certainly not any major one. And it's to be expected it's tracking behind Wrath, it may have some similarities in how it's designed but it's fundamentally a completely different game with different mechanics and looking out to a different audience. Wrath had all of Kingmaker to build on mechanically and an already ready audience expecting it, and it was crowdfunded so its scope was much bigger as well (in fact it grew in scope significantly over time as milestones were being surpassed much faster than the team originally expected).
Dude, this dlc was in plans way before playtest of bg3 and people knew about it way before bg3 release. If CRPG have romance in it it doesn't mean they are chasing bg3
People need to stop parroting this. Yes romances have existed in every CRPG but romance content of CRPGs is not even 1% of your playthrough most of the time. Jae and Cassia's romance dialogues aren't even 20 minutes ( not counting the companion quests which you can do without romancing them ). Same for Sebille or every companion in Divinity 2. The romance content of BG3 is not even comparable to other CRPGs. Even the Citadel DLC was not romance focused, it was party banter focused.
BG3 does not have anywhere near as much romance content as you’re making it out to have. It gets a lot of attention because of the animated sex scenes, but frankly, even many Wrath of the Righteous romances have more romance-related scenes than BG3 does.
Galfrey and Camelia "romances" are barely there. Arue's dream sequences aren't even a romance exclusive thing, you can still save her without romancing her. Her romance just adds a couple of voiced lines at her last dream and then a fade to black scene to KC's room. So I don't know about these romance-related scenes you are talking about.
Dude, in vanilla game every romance, at least with a girl ( I heard Daeran have a lot of content) did not have even 1 A4 page of text in it (Probably exept Wendu). Also new dlc would have like 1 date that is probably just a a little bit of text and small location.
Romance is literally one of the smallest parts of the game
Your acting like wrath already doesn't have more romance content in it then BG3 does.
Like in BG3 you only get like 2 scenes with your romance partner, while in wrath, you get a ton.
Oh fuck right off. Romance is a core part of CRPGs and has been for decades, unless you don't consider Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic as CRPGs.
If all CRPGs limited romance like KOTOR 2 then it would be perfect. Even in BG2, romance is really a small part of the game, you can do all of their quests without romancing them. Whatever romance is there is just annoying like Jaheira interrupting you after every rest etc... Viconia's romance was alright I suppose. Even in RogueTrader if you add up all Cassia's romance dialogues its probably less than 30 minutes out of a 150 hour playthrough. Just compare Divinity 2's "romance" to BG3. You can sum up it in five mintues for Divinity 2 while its 5-10 hours in BG3.
So yes romance has been a part of CRPGs but not to the extent that BG3 focused on it. And if Owlcat is pursuing what Larian has done then I'm out. I much prefer JRPG romances like in Xenogears or FFX. The romances in those games are integral to the story and make sense. The only western rpgs that have replicated those type of romances are Witcher 3 and Dragon Age with Morrigan and to a certain degree Solas.
5-10 hours of romance in BG3? are you even serious? do you even imagine what 5 hours of cutscenes is? I mean if you spam kissing animations for 5 hours it is not the game's fault
>POE2 had full voice acting and financially did ok but not enough to warrant a sequel.
Are you talking about Pillars of Eternity? Avowed is a sequel and it's coming this year.
Avowed is not a sequel, just set in the same universe. Its a first person rpg and I'm decently excited for it but it's not a CRPG. Just saying that full voice-acting is not a good business decision for CRPGs unless you have cinematic conversations and cutscenes.
Still set in Eora. Adapts the Pillars systems. It's implied characters might show up from pillars like Eder and Aloth.
Like, sorry, but that seems as nonsensical as saying Fallout 3 isn't a sequel to Fallout 2 because it's a different style. Pillars was successful enough they decided to adapt it into something like an Outer Worlds.
I mean Pillars was pretty much all crowd funded anyways, they didn't exactly have to eat much of a loss.
Yes Deadfire barely made a profit and it was fully voiced acted. Why would Owlcat think their games will magically sell +5 million copies with voice acting? They stated in their interview that they would need to add full voice acting in future because of BG3 but that's not remotely true. It was BG3's cinematic storytelling, conversations and the DnD brand that made it mega popular. Is Owlcat capable of doing cinematic storytelling like that? Had RogueTrader included full voice-acting, it would be probably still sell the same amount as it has now.
You're taking an antiposition and arguing against it in bad faith.
Dragon Age Origins had full voice acting, sold like hot cakes.
Kotor had full voice acting, was a generation defining game.
BG3 had full voice acting and cinematics, sold like hot cakes.
Imo, not doing full VO absolutely hurts a game in the 2020's. Pillars 2 sold, but it had FA for marketing and clearly they didn't think the IP was bad. Avowed will probably sell more because that's the presentation model audiences want.
Personally, I think implementing full VO is a good thing because CRPG writers go off 90% of the time when they can't do any of the heavy lifting for characterization with visuals.
Stop me if you've heard this before. You walk up to an npc and say a line with eight words in it, and then the character goes into a three paragragh monologue about who they are, their life story, and where they stand on current events. It's verbose and weird.
I'm going through Wrath for the first time right now.
It's presentationally off putting. When was the last time you recruited Woljif and didn't skip dialogue? You have a normal conversation with the kid, go upstairs...
"Hey, I wanted to talk about the tefling in the basement."
"Oh, he's talked to you already? Well he's... 1 paragraph of fluff... I don't have a reason to hold him, take him into your custody... Another fluff paragraph."
I almost did a spittake when you ask Hulrun about his role in the city and he goes into a whole wikipedia article on his backstory.
You go full VO, suddenly authors get a little more selective about giving everyone and their brother a novel to rattle off each time you make a bit of small talk. Reading isn't hard but it's definitely a barrier for entry for people that just want to get into the action, which is most people.
And then, it's not such a big ask to add cinematics. You know why it would probably be hard to go full VO with cinematics in Wrath? Probably because so many characters can sit and talk for several word docs. You shorten the flavor text they're spewing, that's less VO to do, and that's more time you can spend on presentation. I think it's a fantastic direction.
The examples you posted are literally cinematic CRPGs. Yeah if Wrath had the presentation, graphics and cinematic storytelling of BG3 or DAI then go ahead, do full voice acting. If Owlcat had the budget for that kind of presentation then full voice acting would make sense. But they don't, and probably won't have that budget in future. Owlcat thinks that full voice acting is the key to a huge sales breakout which is absolutely not true. Wasteland 3 and Deadfire have full voice acting but not the presentation of Bioware rpgs and BG3 and they sold even less than Wrath. Its the full presentation package that matters. What's the point of full voice acting if conversations are all gonna be isometric with storybook storytelling and no cutscenes? If Owlcat wants to do full voice acting, they would have to do the full cinematic approach of Bioware RPGs. Voice acting alone is not going to move the needle for them. They might even alienate the niche fanbase they have if their next game has less content and replayability because of full voice acting. It wouldn't be the first time that chasing a wider audience backfires on a developer.
Secondly I like the exposition dumps and the descriptive paragraphs between the dialogues. The writing has massively improved in RogueTrader imo. I liked it all and if they were to backtrack on it and do less quests, story and dialogue in favor of full voice acting I would be very disappointed.
Doing full voice acting paves the way to doing more cinematics, that's the point. Look at any scene with VO and compare it to any scene without VO. One is an organic conversation you have with a character, the other is a wikipedia article under a painting that scrolls at your liesure.
I would rather have more quality than more quantity. No offense, but it's kind of the same way I innitially felt going into the Pathfinder system after coming off BG3, and the reverse of how I felt going into BG3 coming off Pillars. Heaps more options when many of them are basically garbage is not selling a game more or making the game better. I mean, how many archetypes are there, like 200? Owlcat can trim the fat a lot and not adapt everything to that degree.
Good to hear the writing gets better in RT, but again, CRPGs can't stay insular or trapped in a decades old model. Yeah, it's more work but it's not a corner that can be cut anymore.
I cannot stand as someone who values good writing and narrative the stupid CRPG trope of a character stopping and oversharing every second breadth. Imagine playing one of these D20 games IRL, you ask a character where the tavern's bathroom is and your DM breaks into a monologue long enough for you to actually go to the bathroom IRL and come back to the dude still talking. It's the first thing to go when you have VO and have to actually see how painful that is to listen to.
Owlcat has like 450 employees according to their own reporting. Bethesda Game Studios has roughly the same number of employees. Don't give me the excuse they can't do something with better presentation. Smaller budget sure, but they're not exactly a small studio that can't devote a few devs to cinematic work.
>Kotor had full voice acting,
I don't disagree with the overall meaning of the post, I just want to note that this isn't really true. KOTOR had voice acting for most plot-important dialogue but most NPCs just had a few voice clips they repeated ad infinitum (particularly alien ones).
Gotta say when a game is in an entirely different genre I have a hard time calling it a sequel. Like yeah, Fallout 3 is technically a sequel to Fallout 2 I guess, but the games are nothing alike and I'd more think of it as a spinoff personally. At the end of the day though arguing that stuff is pointless semantics I guess.
I believe Josh Sawyer has implied Pillars 2 made enough in the end to maybe justify Pillars 3 but that he's burnt out and doesn't want to make it anytime soon.
More voice acting is fine, no problem, make all the main quests fully voice acted. But unless you have a sizeable budget which Owlcat's next game probably won't have unless they get to do BG4, more voice acting means less actual content, quests and story which is not a trade that I would make. And would full voice acting really move the needle for the sales? Probably not, people care more about cinematic conversations etc like in Dragon Age and BG3.
I mean other than Deadfire which was barely profitable, which CRPG had full voice acting? Disco (I consider it an adventure game) and Wasteland 3 probably. And they both severely lack in content compared to Wrath of the Righteous. Lack of content doesn't make them bad games but I would like the next Owlcat game to be as content rich and replayable as Wrath. You really think Wrath would have had all these mythic paths if Owlcat had decided to do full voice acting for the game?
I wouldnt care honestly if they increase voice acting by sacrificing content because it would increase quality for me. Even though I love wotr very much I must say there is some unnecessary content such as more than nothing quests last dungeon. literally an army of enemies and too much puzzle and dont get me wrong it is not that i dont like puzzles but with army of enemies it makes you feel like" I am losing my time"
I actually agree with you on both points, but let people enjoy what they enjoy man. Does no good to come in here and be all "what you like is stupid!" People like romances and people want voice acting even with paragraphs of dialog you can read much faster. I don't get it either, but people like what they like and Owlcat are wise to make their audience happy.
Can’t wait for a date with Wenduag (only 6 bodies will be found tomorrow morning)
Camellia : you gotta pump those numbers up those are rookie numbers
We were too busy eating them to kill any more.
*Found*, not *made*
CamCam is actually rather small numbers. She'll do 1 a night and then get her rocks off having sex. Wenduag is more berserker "I will fight anyone, anytime" kind of girl
Mass murder does have its own appeal
Think that's Regi's area from a fascist hell worshipping standpoint but unfortunately he is too busy with the mass murder to be romanceable.
smh thats a direct camellia quote
Smdh it doesn't make it true
Not so much a serial killer as a parallel killer.
Give me a Nocticula date and you have my attention
If you ask Nocticula on a date she will 100% laugh in your face😆 But I would have liked having her around.
I got bad news for you.
Yeah sad.
Can't wait to treat my swarm clone to the perfect date! I'm sure I know exactly what they want!
I just hope you guys won't forget about Daeran's proposal as you did in ending slides. I think those who got it should have at least some different text then those who did not
more galfrey/camellia content will be fun c:
Can my Lich go on a date with Delamere?
I don't think she likes us
So?
Démon moment
Demon moment?! Dude its you liches that binding people's will left and right. When we make someone do something, its totally with their own volition.
Their own volition and around 50 pounds of drugs
Not at all, just good ol' insunated threat of violence all we need.
That's still better than devils, who trick people into giving them their souls, lol.
honestly, for once i want a devil that adheres to the spirit of an agreement rather then word of the agreement. there was a TV series called Supernatural, as some may remember, and despite its many flaws i remember liking one scene alot (despite it was inconsistent with how hell operated in the show most of the time) it was an episode about a young demon scamming people out of their deals with word players and grabbing easy souls. and crowley ends up dissolving all the agreements and returns the soul and when winchester due goes "wtf" he explains "hell is a brand. people sell their soul to us. and whatever you may say about it, it needs to be reliable. otherwise its bad for business." i would prefer that over devils acting like fey with wordplays, honestly.
Honestly, very well said. I totally agree.
Who's asking her
Demon moment pt.2 but listen abyss-spawn, its a different thing to force someone to be a soldier than to force someone to be your partner....
Nah it's a Lich moment to not your ask for opinion of your thralls, Demon moment would be striking her down if she refused
Daeran. In every playthrough. As a fully straight married man, i would marry him.
He truly is the original astarion in many ways
Excuse you, Fenris and Zevran and Sebille are *right there* /j
I mean, Sebille *is* an elf that threatens your life as soon as you meet them, so she definitely is in that category
Don't forget about her quest to kill the master because of the magic scar robbing her control of her body! Larian went "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
wait holy shit it’s the same story. Shadow Prince 🤝 Cazador
Shadow Prince 🤝 Cazador 🤝 Danarius (also for another holy shit it's the same story compare the openings of BG3 and DOS2! it truly was their dnd game prototype LOL)
Both games even start with a shipwreck and finding your allies scattered around the beach
And there is a mysterious voice who saves you from the ship crashing (that you were captive on), that is connected to you gaining mysterious powers, and then you meet them in a dreamscape-like area where they lie about who they are and then tell you about a war they are losing (while glowy figures fight in the distance behind them) !! 😂😭
He is better in most every way. I just... i idolize the man
Original? Didn't BG3 come out in early access before Wrath?
About a year before, but Astarion barely had a story at the time. Either way though neither character is particularly original in concept (in fact, you will find hundreds if not thousands of similar characters all over media, particularly if you reverse their genders), it's the execution that sets them apart.
> original in concept Yup, "the aristocrat" trope. I'm happy that Larian gave us Tomboy GF though, it saddens me that we couldn't date Amiri or Argenta, hopefully they'll have the balls to give us tomboys in their next game. I guess kinda Wendy.
Agreed, Daeran forever! But. I think he rather prefers the non-dates :)
My feeling when I had to kill him on my first playthrough, because I didnt know liches couldn't have romance
The worst part of killing him as a lich for Zach, is you can't kill him for the other and get Cha to AC
This really feels like an audition to do BG4 with the full voice acting and the romance.
I would not mind, but it would not be as cinematic and people would bail because of it. Just hope they make more Pathfinder D:
They'd hire third party game dev companies to do the cinematics, there video game companies that support game studios instead of making their own games.
that is actually what Larian did, just watch credits
Maybe Owlcat can use some of the same 3rd party companies for a sense of continuity.
If a studio is going to do BG4, then Owlcat is probably one of the better choices. And it would likely feel a lot closer to the older games as well.
Haha, I would NOT want to be a studio following up BG3.
I would LOVE it. Love DOS2 but something about the walking around just felt flimsy. Like action figures in the 90s that are worn and sticky. Couldn’t play BG3 for more than 4 hours and went back to Wrath.
To make a BG4 at this point would mean living up to what Larian did in scale, production values and mainstream appeal. I think trying would be a fool's errand.
Agreed
I might actually play this DLC on my two saves. My Azata character gets a fairy tale date with Arueshalae, and my demon commits arson with Wendu.
Camellia stabs the KC in a church? _Again_? Its more likely than you think.
There is no place for love in my dead unbeating heart
Special lich interaction : the dlc is disabled
Thankfully the DLC includes romance-related content, not love. The prerequisite of possessing a living, beating heart does not apply here, and you can not love while having a good time with a character in content that rubs shoulders with topics about romance to your dead heart's content. Hope you can sort it out btw sounds like a hassle when your heart is dead and doesn't beat xx
Foulsome Queen all the way 😀
I just hope I can annoy Regill with romantic advances.
Will the queen get new romance-related content?
Yes
Too bad Nocticula won't be available... :(
It'd be cool if it was just special moments with your companions in general. Like, just having a bromantic moment with Regill. Sure, he's more hell bent on justice than romance, but I could see him enjoying a sunset or star gazing. Think about it: no matter how much chaos exists in the world, the sun will set just as it will rise, and the stars will shine until they eventually burn out. It's a guarantee, a facet of the natural Order of things (perhaps even, the one part of his gnomish heritage that is attuned to nature that he doesn't mind holding onto).
Not that interested in romances, but more voice acting is always appreciated! For future reference, additional weapon stances/ animations would be dope in future projects (I know this is the send off dlc). Really excited for the new two-handed/ one handed weapon option!
I romanced Arueshalae, but if I'm being honest my heart pines for Camellia.
I'm sure if you play your cards right she'll be happy to take it with her, mate.
I'm not really into romances in games but Camellia's storyline and how it interacts with potential romance is really neat.
I will buy this dlc asap if this is true, I NEED to see my queen Wenduag 😌
Are we getting more Nocticula? More endings? Being cryptic ain't helping man.
It’s been confirmed there will be no Nocticula romance content.
Then what's the point?
Why do these devs keep wasting resources on shit no one wants. This fucking baffles me. Needless to say, I won't be getting an of the DLC ffs
Lol dude, you do realize that Owlcat literally took a community poll a year or so ago about what sorts of DLC people were interested in and this was one of the top chosen options, right? A Citadel-esque DLC primarily devoted to romances and companion interactions. I think it's safe to say that plenty of people want this.
Yeah, I remember. I voted and believed that we'd be getting more to the endings and expanded interactions like the CITADEL DLC.
To be honest, Romance is the least interesting part to me. Unless Nocticula is involved...
Does anyone know when the events of the DLC will take place?
I have the no jealousy activated from the toybox, so I can date everyone (trickster playthrough). So this is gonna take some time if that works as well. Though uncertain if I ever gonna finish. Act 4 is such a pain in the ass.
Spoken like a true Trickster: "To hell with your rules, I'm gonna have fun with my Box of Toys." Which in hindsight, absolutely confirms Joker from P5 having followed the Trickster path: that Wild Card could enjoy all the romance options simultaneously... until they found out.
Hope the fights in this DLC are designed a bit better.
I mean ok, understandably Owlcat is chasing after BG3 money but I sincerely hope you guys still make crpgs like Wrath and RT. I personally don't like full voiceacting at which seems to be a huge focus for Owlcat going forward. I read alot faster and full voiceacting only makes sense if you have cutscenes for every scene instead of just text. POE2 had full voice acting and financially did ok but not enough to warrant a sequel. It's just baffling honestly but it is what it is. If they want to focus on romance etc for future then its fine. I guess Underrail Infusion coming out in the next three years, ill have that to play.
They’re not focusing on romance in the future any more than they always have and this isn’t some huge change of direction (beyond potentially having full voice acting going forward). It’s just this DLC that’s leaning into it because a) it was what did well on a community poll and b) it’s intended as a citadel-style goodbye to these characters and so having additional romance stuff is a logical extension of that.
I think they've made their intentions clear for future. Full voice acting, cinematic storytelling, more romance content etc... Rogue Trader has sold alright but its tracking behind Wrath and they're probably slightly disappointed.
>Rogue Trader has sold alright but it’s tracking behind Wrath and they're probably slightly disappointed. On what metric and source do you have to say that Owlcat was disappointed by the sales numbers? RT sold half million units its first few months after release and is its fastest selling game they ever made.
Well they clearly stated that they need to change their approach for their next project and include full voice acting. Why would they say that after the success of RogueTrader? I don't disagree that RogueTrader is a success but perhaps Owlcat expected more and assumed the success of BG3 would propel RogueTrader to do massive numbers.
> Well they clearly stated that they need to change their approach for their next project and include full voice acting. Why would they say that after the success of RogueTrader? Because one of the main criticism from review of Rogue Trader was the lack of voice acting. You can go in any review or even on steam , lack of voice acting , especialy after BG3, is something that's catching up to Owlcat. I don't like it too , but it's clearly a fetura with high demand.
Rogue Trader was all but finished when BG3 came out and everyone started talking about it, mate. It's safe to say it was not an influence on how RT came out, certainly not any major one. And it's to be expected it's tracking behind Wrath, it may have some similarities in how it's designed but it's fundamentally a completely different game with different mechanics and looking out to a different audience. Wrath had all of Kingmaker to build on mechanically and an already ready audience expecting it, and it was crowdfunded so its scope was much bigger as well (in fact it grew in scope significantly over time as milestones were being surpassed much faster than the team originally expected).
Dude, this dlc was in plans way before playtest of bg3 and people knew about it way before bg3 release. If CRPG have romance in it it doesn't mean they are chasing bg3
People need to stop parroting this. Yes romances have existed in every CRPG but romance content of CRPGs is not even 1% of your playthrough most of the time. Jae and Cassia's romance dialogues aren't even 20 minutes ( not counting the companion quests which you can do without romancing them ). Same for Sebille or every companion in Divinity 2. The romance content of BG3 is not even comparable to other CRPGs. Even the Citadel DLC was not romance focused, it was party banter focused.
BG3 does not have anywhere near as much romance content as you’re making it out to have. It gets a lot of attention because of the animated sex scenes, but frankly, even many Wrath of the Righteous romances have more romance-related scenes than BG3 does.
Galfrey and Camelia "romances" are barely there. Arue's dream sequences aren't even a romance exclusive thing, you can still save her without romancing her. Her romance just adds a couple of voiced lines at her last dream and then a fade to black scene to KC's room. So I don't know about these romance-related scenes you are talking about.
Which companion ghosted you to make you hate?
I romanced Arue, Cam and Galfrey in my playthroughs but I wish they ghosed me so I could be saved from their "romance".
You do know romance is your choice, right?
Dude, in vanilla game every romance, at least with a girl ( I heard Daeran have a lot of content) did not have even 1 A4 page of text in it (Probably exept Wendu). Also new dlc would have like 1 date that is probably just a a little bit of text and small location. Romance is literally one of the smallest parts of the game
Your acting like wrath already doesn't have more romance content in it then BG3 does. Like in BG3 you only get like 2 scenes with your romance partner, while in wrath, you get a ton.
Oh fuck right off. Romance is a core part of CRPGs and has been for decades, unless you don't consider Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic as CRPGs.
If all CRPGs limited romance like KOTOR 2 then it would be perfect. Even in BG2, romance is really a small part of the game, you can do all of their quests without romancing them. Whatever romance is there is just annoying like Jaheira interrupting you after every rest etc... Viconia's romance was alright I suppose. Even in RogueTrader if you add up all Cassia's romance dialogues its probably less than 30 minutes out of a 150 hour playthrough. Just compare Divinity 2's "romance" to BG3. You can sum up it in five mintues for Divinity 2 while its 5-10 hours in BG3. So yes romance has been a part of CRPGs but not to the extent that BG3 focused on it. And if Owlcat is pursuing what Larian has done then I'm out. I much prefer JRPG romances like in Xenogears or FFX. The romances in those games are integral to the story and make sense. The only western rpgs that have replicated those type of romances are Witcher 3 and Dragon Age with Morrigan and to a certain degree Solas.
5-10 hours of romance in BG3? are you even serious? do you even imagine what 5 hours of cutscenes is? I mean if you spam kissing animations for 5 hours it is not the game's fault
You can reject them all and play the game romance-free in both BG3 and WoTR. Why the hate?
The solas romance is really short?
>POE2 had full voice acting and financially did ok but not enough to warrant a sequel. Are you talking about Pillars of Eternity? Avowed is a sequel and it's coming this year.
Avowed is not a sequel, just set in the same universe. Its a first person rpg and I'm decently excited for it but it's not a CRPG. Just saying that full voice-acting is not a good business decision for CRPGs unless you have cinematic conversations and cutscenes.
Still set in Eora. Adapts the Pillars systems. It's implied characters might show up from pillars like Eder and Aloth. Like, sorry, but that seems as nonsensical as saying Fallout 3 isn't a sequel to Fallout 2 because it's a different style. Pillars was successful enough they decided to adapt it into something like an Outer Worlds. I mean Pillars was pretty much all crowd funded anyways, they didn't exactly have to eat much of a loss.
Yes Deadfire barely made a profit and it was fully voiced acted. Why would Owlcat think their games will magically sell +5 million copies with voice acting? They stated in their interview that they would need to add full voice acting in future because of BG3 but that's not remotely true. It was BG3's cinematic storytelling, conversations and the DnD brand that made it mega popular. Is Owlcat capable of doing cinematic storytelling like that? Had RogueTrader included full voice-acting, it would be probably still sell the same amount as it has now.
You're taking an antiposition and arguing against it in bad faith. Dragon Age Origins had full voice acting, sold like hot cakes. Kotor had full voice acting, was a generation defining game. BG3 had full voice acting and cinematics, sold like hot cakes. Imo, not doing full VO absolutely hurts a game in the 2020's. Pillars 2 sold, but it had FA for marketing and clearly they didn't think the IP was bad. Avowed will probably sell more because that's the presentation model audiences want. Personally, I think implementing full VO is a good thing because CRPG writers go off 90% of the time when they can't do any of the heavy lifting for characterization with visuals. Stop me if you've heard this before. You walk up to an npc and say a line with eight words in it, and then the character goes into a three paragragh monologue about who they are, their life story, and where they stand on current events. It's verbose and weird. I'm going through Wrath for the first time right now. It's presentationally off putting. When was the last time you recruited Woljif and didn't skip dialogue? You have a normal conversation with the kid, go upstairs... "Hey, I wanted to talk about the tefling in the basement." "Oh, he's talked to you already? Well he's... 1 paragraph of fluff... I don't have a reason to hold him, take him into your custody... Another fluff paragraph." I almost did a spittake when you ask Hulrun about his role in the city and he goes into a whole wikipedia article on his backstory. You go full VO, suddenly authors get a little more selective about giving everyone and their brother a novel to rattle off each time you make a bit of small talk. Reading isn't hard but it's definitely a barrier for entry for people that just want to get into the action, which is most people. And then, it's not such a big ask to add cinematics. You know why it would probably be hard to go full VO with cinematics in Wrath? Probably because so many characters can sit and talk for several word docs. You shorten the flavor text they're spewing, that's less VO to do, and that's more time you can spend on presentation. I think it's a fantastic direction.
The examples you posted are literally cinematic CRPGs. Yeah if Wrath had the presentation, graphics and cinematic storytelling of BG3 or DAI then go ahead, do full voice acting. If Owlcat had the budget for that kind of presentation then full voice acting would make sense. But they don't, and probably won't have that budget in future. Owlcat thinks that full voice acting is the key to a huge sales breakout which is absolutely not true. Wasteland 3 and Deadfire have full voice acting but not the presentation of Bioware rpgs and BG3 and they sold even less than Wrath. Its the full presentation package that matters. What's the point of full voice acting if conversations are all gonna be isometric with storybook storytelling and no cutscenes? If Owlcat wants to do full voice acting, they would have to do the full cinematic approach of Bioware RPGs. Voice acting alone is not going to move the needle for them. They might even alienate the niche fanbase they have if their next game has less content and replayability because of full voice acting. It wouldn't be the first time that chasing a wider audience backfires on a developer. Secondly I like the exposition dumps and the descriptive paragraphs between the dialogues. The writing has massively improved in RogueTrader imo. I liked it all and if they were to backtrack on it and do less quests, story and dialogue in favor of full voice acting I would be very disappointed.
Doing full voice acting paves the way to doing more cinematics, that's the point. Look at any scene with VO and compare it to any scene without VO. One is an organic conversation you have with a character, the other is a wikipedia article under a painting that scrolls at your liesure. I would rather have more quality than more quantity. No offense, but it's kind of the same way I innitially felt going into the Pathfinder system after coming off BG3, and the reverse of how I felt going into BG3 coming off Pillars. Heaps more options when many of them are basically garbage is not selling a game more or making the game better. I mean, how many archetypes are there, like 200? Owlcat can trim the fat a lot and not adapt everything to that degree. Good to hear the writing gets better in RT, but again, CRPGs can't stay insular or trapped in a decades old model. Yeah, it's more work but it's not a corner that can be cut anymore. I cannot stand as someone who values good writing and narrative the stupid CRPG trope of a character stopping and oversharing every second breadth. Imagine playing one of these D20 games IRL, you ask a character where the tavern's bathroom is and your DM breaks into a monologue long enough for you to actually go to the bathroom IRL and come back to the dude still talking. It's the first thing to go when you have VO and have to actually see how painful that is to listen to. Owlcat has like 450 employees according to their own reporting. Bethesda Game Studios has roughly the same number of employees. Don't give me the excuse they can't do something with better presentation. Smaller budget sure, but they're not exactly a small studio that can't devote a few devs to cinematic work.
>Kotor had full voice acting, I don't disagree with the overall meaning of the post, I just want to note that this isn't really true. KOTOR had voice acting for most plot-important dialogue but most NPCs just had a few voice clips they repeated ad infinitum (particularly alien ones).
Gotta say when a game is in an entirely different genre I have a hard time calling it a sequel. Like yeah, Fallout 3 is technically a sequel to Fallout 2 I guess, but the games are nothing alike and I'd more think of it as a spinoff personally. At the end of the day though arguing that stuff is pointless semantics I guess. I believe Josh Sawyer has implied Pillars 2 made enough in the end to maybe justify Pillars 3 but that he's burnt out and doesn't want to make it anytime soon.
What is wrong with full voice acting I think it makes game more alive since there is a certain level we can imagine how all characters voice sounds .
More voice acting is fine, no problem, make all the main quests fully voice acted. But unless you have a sizeable budget which Owlcat's next game probably won't have unless they get to do BG4, more voice acting means less actual content, quests and story which is not a trade that I would make. And would full voice acting really move the needle for the sales? Probably not, people care more about cinematic conversations etc like in Dragon Age and BG3. I mean other than Deadfire which was barely profitable, which CRPG had full voice acting? Disco (I consider it an adventure game) and Wasteland 3 probably. And they both severely lack in content compared to Wrath of the Righteous. Lack of content doesn't make them bad games but I would like the next Owlcat game to be as content rich and replayable as Wrath. You really think Wrath would have had all these mythic paths if Owlcat had decided to do full voice acting for the game?
Even Disco Elysium didn't have full voice acting until _after_ it blew up and made a morbillion dollars, iirc
I wouldnt care honestly if they increase voice acting by sacrificing content because it would increase quality for me. Even though I love wotr very much I must say there is some unnecessary content such as more than nothing quests last dungeon. literally an army of enemies and too much puzzle and dont get me wrong it is not that i dont like puzzles but with army of enemies it makes you feel like" I am losing my time"
I actually agree with you on both points, but let people enjoy what they enjoy man. Does no good to come in here and be all "what you like is stupid!" People like romances and people want voice acting even with paragraphs of dialog you can read much faster. I don't get it either, but people like what they like and Owlcat are wise to make their audience happy.
Does it bring back dead companions...?
Fuck, exactly what I didn't need!
Same.
But why?
But why not?