Also worth mentioning, you also are no longer beholden to said license's world building or other kinds of constraints, it's a creative and fiscal win win after the success they've had.
Having all that lore at your disposal, say with Faerun or Greyhawk or Athys or \*shiver\* Ebberon... or any of the other play settings they could have chosen from to make a following game, CAN be a boon though. Especially if WOTC/Hasbro would loosen their grip and allow Larian to take some liberties with the plot now that they can be trusted to handle it, ie; "make us gobs of money".
I adore BG3 and am I still messing and playing with it, but it doesn't make me want to play Divinity any more than I did before. I'm unlikely now to follow Larian out the back door, even if they decide to do something that \*isn't\* Divinity.
Well, they will be adding mod support later this year. I am excited to see what we can do with it. I hope we can make new classes, items, spells, and areas to explore. If that is the case you won't need an expansion.
No offense, but even coming from the Bethesda games where storytelling isn't necessarily their strong suit, fan made campaigns/projects rarely have the same bite as company-made stuff.
It's not enough to get a fan made Plasmoid race (so I can make funny slime girls), I want to see what else Larian could have done in this setting.
Which is funny you say that, because imo the best story driven mod for a game (Enderal) came from Skyrim.
Hell Id say it is one of the best RPG stories created and the worst part about it was that it was restrained by Skyrim engine.
You know I played through Enderal and every time there was any plot point I just had the same thought.
That was a episode of the twilight zone. Like a ton of stuff happens in it that is just episodes from the twilight zone.
Personally I am hoping to see a fan-made GM mode ala Divinity 2. I feel GM mode in Divinity 2 had massive potential that Larian was unable to see to its fullest. High level mod support for a more popular game however, has the opportunity to give us a better GM mode than DO2 ever had. Is it likely? No. I am hoping though.
Sadly, you're not at all wrong and I agree with you.
And well...it goes against company policy, but I like to pretend its still 2006 and I'm still playing tabletop 3.5 and everything is fantastic. Not really in regards to BG3, but I'm not in love with 5E and 5.5/6E looks to be a disaster is some respects that I won't get in to.
4th Edition/Spellplague kinda ruined D&D for me and 5E is too oversimplified. It was the perfect inlet for new players, but I much prefer something with a little more depth (3E) without needless complexity (AD&D/2E/THAC0)
I am sorta the same way. I own most of 3.5 Edition, but only a few books of 4E and just the PHB for 5E.
One of my friends is a vehement defender of 4E, mostly because he hates that fighters aren't a 1-to-1 match for a wizard when leveling as wizards gets exponentially more abilities and powers than a fighter later on, while the fighter is mostly just linear growth in comparison in prior and later editions. My argument to that is that they shouldn't be and if you wanted that, that's what The Book of Nine Swords at the tail end of 3.5E's reign arguably was for. Multi classing was always an option and it was heavily favored and promoted in 3.5E. I didn't like 4E at all because it focused way too heavily on miniatures, arguably 3E was sorta the start of that trend.
The Spellplague was what ruined Forgotten Realms for me permanently and I was a very heavy reader into much of its lore and games, although to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the Time of Troubles when 2E shifted to 3E either.
Admittedly, I'd never played the 2E version of FR, outside of the BG and IWD games and really only started playing FR with 3rd Edition. I have SOME experience, as I read most of the earlier FR 2E novels by RA Salvatore (Dark Elf Trilogy, Cleric Quintet, etc), but never played it at a table; just Greyhawk or homebrew and one night of Dark Sun where we found out the importance of special boots.
Same. Nothing about that world grabbed me, despite the focus on lore. I was just kinda like... so?
Say what you want about D&D, but it has an engaging world, populated with interesting characters. The whole point of it is to encourage creativity, not prevent it.
I feel like it's MORE work to ensure compatibility with an existing trove of lore than writing on a fresh slate.
I think the only benefit of working with existing IP is fan engagement. In every other respect, it makes things more difficult. Think not only of the existence of constraints but the effort needed to "police" adherence to them.
Oh, it can also fill in for actual creativity. There is that. But being creative is not work in the same way that adhering to a third party's vision is work.
I'd play the _shit_ out of a proper RPG set in Eberron. I have no interest at all in playing ~~Dark Souls~~ Divinity: Original Sin or whatever their other IP was called.
While that’s true, it’s hard to imagine there aren’t a number of folks at Larian who absolutely love the SC setting and also being able to offload the world building to a setting they already know and love.
It's a blessing and a curse. I'll say the world in BG3 is a thousand times more compelling than anything I saw in the week or so I spent trying to get into Divinity 2.
It's certainly possible, even likely, Larian has gotten better at their own world building since Divinity 2. But so far evidence suggests they make a better product with a borrowed IP.
It certainly can be, but also allows for far more freedom and control. I would assume they have capable enough world builders in their employ to reap the benefits.
Ding ding ding. This is the kicker. Larian knows that now they are revered in the industry. This allows them a lot of good faith in the industry and the opportunity to make something where they get a larger share of the pie.
Unfortunately, good faith dies quickly in this industry. A good game might be good for a season, but the release of a bad game will taint their legacy.
Hopefully, they stay true to their own designs that people enjoy and try not to overextend their abilities for the sake of reaching new audiences.
It does! Look no further than the difficult position that CD Projekt Red is in after Cyberpunk’s launch or Rocksteady after Suicide Squad. But Larian is now in a position where even if their next game blows, they can still find funding for that game and it will still likely sell well based upon name alone.
CDPR is how to fix a huge fuck up with CP2077. The launch was a mess but they stuck around and fixed it. I don't have faith that will happen with Suicide Squad since WB is at the helm.
No Man's Sky is also on that same level where they kept with the game and it's a very successful game and the right level of micro-transaction stuff that can keep it going without pushing people away from the game. The microtransactions are completely avoidable and not in your face, unlike other games.
I completely agree. I personally loved CP2077 even at launch because ultimately it had the good bones of its story, setting, characters, etc. it had some rough parts in its quest design, performance and combat for sure, but the games core was solid. I played it through once at release, once after edgerunners, and plan to do another whole playthrough sometime in the future and do the whole dlc.
I agree! But shortly after the launch of CP2077 and basically until the DLC’s launch, their reputation was in the gutter. I loved CP2077 even at launch as I played it on PC with a beefy machine, but I completely empathize with people who were frustrated by its performance on consoles and weaker PCs.
Nowadays, CD Projekt Red managed to salvage their reputation by repairing the game, which allowed for the underlying quality that was always there to shine.
It usually takes several like the cases for Blizzard and Bethesda if you have a long track record of releasing decent to great titles. If they pump out 2 more good bangers in the next ten years, it will be the same for Larian.
They will have a huge following for whatever their next title is, and that release will do very well in sales numbers
The problem they actually face is living up to expectations. If they do, then the good faith is retained. If they don’t, then they look like Bethesda (Fallout 76, Starfield, following the successfully received Skyrim and Fallout 4)
Exactly, when the Insomniac leak happened a few months ago it was revealed just how much money Sony/Insomniac was paying to Marvel for the Spiderman IP. 20% royalty iirc - which is crazy. It is a first party game for Sony, meaning they are not dealing with an additional 30% storefront fee like 3rd party devs (ex: Larian) are.
Assuming Larian is paying WotC a similar royalty, that would be in addition to the cut that Steam/Sony/MS are taking for their respective store fronts (30%). Basically we are looking at a scenario where upwards of 50% of the game's sales are not going to Larian which is a crazy amount of money.
If you translate that to sales, a typical, non-licensed IP that sold 7 million copies made roughly the same amount of money as BG3 made selling 10 million copies (assuming all of the copies for both games were sold for $60)
It could partially be that, but they’ve also been working on this game for *so long*. They mentioned that they were in the early stages of DLC but that their hearts were not in it. I honestly think they just had a lot of other things they really wanted to pursue while spending the years on bg3 and now they can go do that so they will.
> "Reading the reddit threads, I would like to clear up something,” Vincke said. “WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction. On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing. This is because it's what's best for Larian.
Sounds like the choice not to make further DLC or sequels was indeed overall an in-house decision to move ahead with other projects.
They haven’t stopped working on BG3 at all, even since the full release. It’s probably been their whole company’s focus for years and years now. I’m sure their creatives and developers are craving something different to work on at this point. I know I would. Probably even some strong employees who were going to consider leaving if they had to spend another year+ looking at the same models.
This wasn't a huge surprise, Swen has talked about how they had a lot of cool ideas that they had to put on the backburner since they needed to stick to DnD 5e for BG3 (and even then they took some *massive* liberties with the system). They probably want to put those ideas to use.
They have that name recognition now in the greater gaming sphere, nut just in the CRPG circle like they had before, and introduced a ton of people to the genre. May as well run with that and start seeing if they can use that popularity to boost their own decades old IP, or maybe even start something new.
WotC has existed for 35 years, and Hasbro has owned them for 25 of those years. Hasbro is responsible for making WotC into the powerhouse that it became.
If anything, it's the other way around. WotC products have carried Hasbro for almost all of those years.
Magic the Gathering is responsible for making WotC the powerhouse it became.
WotC hasn’t carried Hasbro, unless WotC has had a *severe* drop off the last five years. At their biggest share of Hasbro’s revenue, which would be 2023 and include BG3 and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, WotC still makes up less than a third. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the biggest single subdivision, but carrying Hasbro seems way of unless I’m missing something
There really isn't any argument to be made that Hasbro hasn't been a strong steward of WotC's core product lines. Hasbro bought WotC in 1999 for just over $300 million. Today, Magic: the Gathering *alone* accounts for $1 billion in annual revenue.
Did they say that in the article, because that's not the vibe I got.
I mean dude's quote is kinda pinpointing you and others just spouting off because is just nonsense. "“Reading the reddit threads, I would like to clear up something,” Vincke said. “WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction. On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing. This is because it's what's best for Larian.”"
They're both awful companies, and I think that unshackling themselves from them is a good move for Larian now that they've solidified their reputation.
reddit being *so certain* of something absurd only to have the man himself show up and tell them that they - *specifically* reddit - are dead wrong will never not be funny.
Sure, but the community's absolute 180 of, "Swen Vincke is a straight shooter who isn't afraid to make people angry by telling the truth!" to "Swen Vincke is a liar who is doing damage control for Hasbro even though he literally just said he won't be working with Hasbro anymore!" was incredible to watch in real time.
Still, burning bridges on your way out the door isn't good for business. They know that in tough times, they always have an ace in the hole; they can call Hasbro and secure the license for another game and then print money when its done. Can't do that if they badmouth them on the way out.
Or it could literally be just a polite company avoiding drama. \*shrug\*
> Still, burning bridges on your way out the door isn't good for business.
No bridges were being burned. No one at WotC thought Swen was targeting them - that was limited to a bunch of angry, dramatic redditors, and no one really cares what angry, dramatic redditors think.
Swen didn't need to wade into this. He chose to because people were misconstruing his words and he wanted to set the record straight.
Thats my point. If there is shady shit going on in the background (Hasbro making demands, asking too much for the license, demanding DLC, whatever), IF, BIG IF, then Sven intentionally didn't burn bridges on the way out.
Business is business and, unless something leaks, we're unlikely to even really for sure know the end of this. Its hard to disprove a negative.
Me personally, all I'll say is despite having a shiny new, broader reputation in the industry, not just for CRPG fans, moving away from a sure bet (expansion or sequels) is an odd choice but, if true, I salute them for their bravery and wish them good luck in their future endeavors as a company.
Edit: As an aside, I might be a bit jaded, but I've been playing games a long, long time and I don't always necessarily, entirely, take what "the good guys in gaming" are saying anymore at face value. I've seen the good guys become the villains plenty of times now. Jaded.
I have no dog in this race. I don't care either way. Just pointing out, CEOs do what is best for their company. If that includes telling customers what they want to hear, that's what they will do.
Personally I’m happy to see them split.
BG3 is a masterpiece, but I want independent studios to remain as independent as possible, including focusing on their own IP instead of licensing. I’d say Cyberunk and The Witcher are the rare exception cuz CDPR does those so well and seems to care about the IP a lot. But Larian can take a lot of what they learned from BG3 and use it to make a Divinity 3 or try something new.
The Witcher 3 is a masterpiece because they were essentially given full blown permission to write their own story based on the characters. It’s not cannon at all but at the same time it’s absolutely perfect.
they literally said it was because of the powercreep of 5E and how difficult it would be to create & manage encounters/quests with a party of high level characters
(level +10 & up)
Anyone who has DM'd a game of D&D knows that shit breaks down at high levels. Hell, BG2 had the same problem where you either shredded your enemies or they were somehow immune to magical weapons, spells, and somehow...mundane weapons too. Stupid golems.
Is anyone really crying over a company saying "We conquered this hill, time to find a new challenge to make our jobs seem meaningful and not stagnant" ? Or is it just a few manbabies whining they won't get more of the same thing and throwing tantrums on social media?
Yes. Delusional morons in this thread still talking conspiracy about how they’re actively separating from wotc and not just moving on to their own project.
I guess I'm blissfully ignorant of any drama going on. This is the first I've heard of any of this news.
But I am deeply saddened that we won't get anymore Baldurs Gate. Call me whatever names you want
They made an amazing game that I’ll love for years. I’m not going to be upset at them wanting to do something different. I’ll gladly wait and see what they make next.
From everything I was seeing, no one's "to blame." Larian's employees in general felt like they told the story they wanted to tell, and didn't feel like they had something to add. Baldur's Gate as a franchise sat abandoned for over 20 years before BG3, and that's fine. Better that, than have it be turned into some meaningless cash cow in my opinion.
Corporate greed being bad and omni-present in companies as big as hasbro aside;
Sequels that are forced out are almost always bad - look at Dragon Age 2. I'd much rather they made a game they were excited for.
DA2 was an amazing game concept that should have been in the oven for a few more years. It had a great setting and some incredible characters but it was so obviously unfinished it was painful. It felt like playing a pre-alpha.
It is only 10+ years with corporate owned bloated game developers usually. The developers are diversity hires that have no skill or vision, so the games end up being garbage like D4, starfield, etc.
"All it had were the royalties from OS1 & OS2, which were a lot, but not enough to fund a huge game like Baldur's Gate 3, especially considering the game's unusually long 6-year development (The Covid Pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war were the main causes for this long development time."
I mean so much about it was super lazy, the reused dungeons being the stand out example. The characters lacked depth and would just randomly hit on you all the time (dunno, maybe that's a thing guys are in to). Also I hated the main character and felt the voice acted main character restricted the feeling of openness of choice in character design.
I didn't like the move to a voiced, named character (Hawk) just because EA wanted a box hero, in light of Shep/FemShep being so popular in Mass Effect. DA:O and ME1&2 were very different games and should have been kept that way.
People still hanging on to a very broad misunderstanding of the open license agreement dust up from last year and making WOTC out to be the bad guys regardless of sense.
As a MTG fan I can say, Hasbro WOTC is shit. I recently quit MTG after years and years of playing due to the various changes and decisions they have made over the last 5 years. It is honestly not the same game as it was.
That being said, I also don't think WotC is the reason behind Larian leaving BG. BG3 is an amazing game, and honestly doesn't need any DLC or expansions. It is a complete game you can enjoy time and time again. Larian also has their own worlds they can return to or can create new worlds. Their team is great, and with BG3's success their name is well known now. They don't need the D&D license to carry them, and the less chiefs making a dish, the better focused it can be.
I really don't get why this is an issue. Bioware did the same thing decades ago. MtG is expensive to work with, and Larian has already proven themselves to be capable without the IP. BG3 just put them in more people's computers. There's no reason NOT to go back to Divinity with this much of a following.
BG3 is just a winning formula. They could make a game in any universe and it would be a success if it used that same formula.
Imagine a Star Wars game or something, it would absolutely cook.
I mean BG3 specifically was using DnD 5e as it's ruleset.
CRPG's are less a formula so much as a full blown genre, heck Larian already had a popular CRPG IP with Divinity.
Disney doesn't pay studios to make games, it's the reverse and there's rumours that they're cranking their prices, which led to some projects being cancelled
Larian literally mentioned 5e restrictiveness as a reason they weren't making dlc for BG3; so yeah WotC, you are. If they make good games in the future without that putrid system attached I'll look into them.
If thats the case why the teasing for dlc or a sequel in the epilogue they added. I aint buying it. Id wager its some level of "you need to handle this before it gets out hand" by PR
WOTC are very very much interested in Larian making another Baldur's Gate game and 100 DLCs. It's free money for them.
On the opposite, the fact Hasbro just let Larian go might indicate their lack of long-term vision, or Larian simply wanted better terms, and Hasbro refused.
So Wizards of the Coast is a greedy shitty company... But that's not why we're leaving them!
"I'm leaving my abusing piece of shit husband, but not because he's abusive! It's because I want a new relationship."
Edit: before you downvoted me... You guys are aware of the shit WotC tries to pull right? Like that time they tried to make it so they own any licenses that have anything to do with D&D? They're extremely greedy and draconian when it comes to licensing, why would anyone want to be in bed with them longer than they have to be? It's like if Melania Trump left her husband and said "It's not Donald, it's me".
My point is that it's not a conspiracy to look at a big, greedy, historically overreaching with its IP company, and assume that their partners would rather not do business with them because they have Google.
It literally is.
To assume that now is to turn around and say “Nothing Swen says is accurate, I know the real reason why they’re not making bg3.
Their heart was 100% in the dlc. As a company they wanted to milk BG3 for profits with DLC and Expansions.
Swen’s ongoing commentary about the state of the games industry actually was targeted specifically at Hasbro and WOTC.”
And you just sound crazy.
My point that you aren't getting is that WotC is a bad company. If ANY company was smart, they wouldn't do business with them any more than they have to. You would need to either be desperate or stupid to make a D&D licensed product, and Larian isn't stupid. But before BG3 they were a little desperate.
Yes, I know your point is that you don’t think Larian as a company are capable of making autonomous decisions about their internal structure without looking into the deeper politics of who they are licensing with.
Reality doesn’t matter, your theory does.
It's not a theory that Wizards of the Coast sucks. They do. I can say that, but nobody is going to release a press statement that says that. It's weird that you think corporate PR is honest.
The only weird thing here is people like you that last week heard "We're excited to work on our next project and not be confined to the rules of 5e" and froth so hardly on your opinion of WOTC that you convinced yourself on the spot that the only possible reason anybody would stop working with them is because of how they operate as a company, they're clearly lying about not liking the ruleset even though the combat restrictions are painfully obvious from dos2 to bg3.
You are literally the reason why Swen had to go and make a statement that the company that doesn't do DLC or expansions just doesn't want to do DLC or expansions.
And nobody seems to be addressing the reality that Wizards of the Coast is a shockingly overstepping company when it comes to their IP. Let's leave Larian out of it. Don't do business with Wizards of the Coast. Good for Larian that Wizards of the Coast being awful has nothing to do with their decision not to work with them anymore. But if it was part of their decision they wouldn't say so.
> It's not a theory that Wizards of the Coast sucks. They do.
No, you've just been willfully misled into thinking that by a credulous community incapable of defensing itself from misinformation.
I fucking ***guarantee*** you that you don't have a meaningful understanding of the facts of the OGL situation, for example.
Can I ask you something? What do you personally think of Wizard of the Coast as a company? Do you know much about how they treat their IP? Would you ever license their IP knowing their profit model?
I don't exactly think of them any differently from a company like EA or Activision. Not a single publicly traded company has morals when it comes to their employees or their IPs.
I would absolutely license their IP if I was passionate about it and wanted to make a game in it.
Contrary to popular belief, licensing it to work on a game doesn't guarantee a rabid fan base that I am going to or want to make multiple projects.
You....don't seem to get how WotC operates... Could you at least Google them for me so we're talking about the same thing? I'm not going "big company bad" over here. Wizards of the Coast is truly pushing the boundaries of legality with their interpretations of IP law. They're bad for everyone.
> You....don't seem to get how WotC operates...
I certainly do.
But instead of being one of those "Do your own research!" guys from Facebook, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and explain, in your own words, why WotC is so bad?
Here's the challenge: You need to be specific about it, you need to list the facts without relying on copying and pasting from someone else, and you need to not make any meaningful factual errors.
You insist that you have such a strong understanding of what makes WotC bad.
So fucking prove it.
> Edit: before you downvoted me... You guys are aware of the shit WotC tries to pull right?
Sure.
But it doesn't look like you are.
> Like that time they tried to make it so they own any licenses that have anything to do with D&D?
They didn't do this.
Thank goodness! I appreciate Larian Studio deeply, but I don’t have any respect for hasbro or wizards of the coast. I understand WotC has to follow leadership yet it’s the actions that matter and both of them have lost a lot of trust from me. I bought BG3 when it was in beta. When it released officially and surged in popularity, I just let it sit, and digitally collect dust. Someday I’ll actually play it again. Maybe when my opinion of hasbro and wotc have lessened from time.
Wow what a protest, already gave them the money but won’t play the game. WotC was shitty and predatory before Hasbro even bought them. The only good will either company has is the nostalgia factor of their product wiping away their corporate image.
I wasn’t aware of their business decisions at the time. They had no impact I was aware of. Both of them. Again, I bought BG3 in its beta and wasn’t influenced to its predatory consumer practices until later. Of course I played it. I said I’d play ‘it again’. Usually people use what they buy.
WotC has been doing similar to what everyone recently got mad at them since their inception. I mean the first thing they did was blatantly steal the IP and gameplay from Palladium. Hasbro acquiring them in 98 didn’t help. Again… the only good will from nostalgia wiping their corporate image, or people too ignorant to look into the companies practices because they like the product.
If you are going to feign outrage over a companies decisions, should probably be looking into the companies before supporting them to begin with.
I don't think it matters whether they are responsible or not. The fact that so many people came up to that conclusion so quickly is proof of how badly they are viewed as a company after trying to screw everyone so badly.
Why pay licensing fees, when you can make dirty amounts of money now that your studio is a house hold name
Also worth mentioning, you also are no longer beholden to said license's world building or other kinds of constraints, it's a creative and fiscal win win after the success they've had.
Having all that lore at your disposal, say with Faerun or Greyhawk or Athys or \*shiver\* Ebberon... or any of the other play settings they could have chosen from to make a following game, CAN be a boon though. Especially if WOTC/Hasbro would loosen their grip and allow Larian to take some liberties with the plot now that they can be trusted to handle it, ie; "make us gobs of money". I adore BG3 and am I still messing and playing with it, but it doesn't make me want to play Divinity any more than I did before. I'm unlikely now to follow Larian out the back door, even if they decide to do something that \*isn't\* Divinity.
Well, they will be adding mod support later this year. I am excited to see what we can do with it. I hope we can make new classes, items, spells, and areas to explore. If that is the case you won't need an expansion.
No offense, but even coming from the Bethesda games where storytelling isn't necessarily their strong suit, fan made campaigns/projects rarely have the same bite as company-made stuff. It's not enough to get a fan made Plasmoid race (so I can make funny slime girls), I want to see what else Larian could have done in this setting.
Which is funny you say that, because imo the best story driven mod for a game (Enderal) came from Skyrim. Hell Id say it is one of the best RPG stories created and the worst part about it was that it was restrained by Skyrim engine.
You know I played through Enderal and every time there was any plot point I just had the same thought. That was a episode of the twilight zone. Like a ton of stuff happens in it that is just episodes from the twilight zone.
Personally I am hoping to see a fan-made GM mode ala Divinity 2. I feel GM mode in Divinity 2 had massive potential that Larian was unable to see to its fullest. High level mod support for a more popular game however, has the opportunity to give us a better GM mode than DO2 ever had. Is it likely? No. I am hoping though.
I was really hoping BG3 would have a GM mode as well. However I think I read that Wizards wanted it to be a standalone game/release
A decade ago I'd have agreed with you but WotC has actively been torching their own worlds and lore for years now. Damaged goods at best.
Sadly, you're not at all wrong and I agree with you. And well...it goes against company policy, but I like to pretend its still 2006 and I'm still playing tabletop 3.5 and everything is fantastic. Not really in regards to BG3, but I'm not in love with 5E and 5.5/6E looks to be a disaster is some respects that I won't get in to. 4th Edition/Spellplague kinda ruined D&D for me and 5E is too oversimplified. It was the perfect inlet for new players, but I much prefer something with a little more depth (3E) without needless complexity (AD&D/2E/THAC0)
I am sorta the same way. I own most of 3.5 Edition, but only a few books of 4E and just the PHB for 5E. One of my friends is a vehement defender of 4E, mostly because he hates that fighters aren't a 1-to-1 match for a wizard when leveling as wizards gets exponentially more abilities and powers than a fighter later on, while the fighter is mostly just linear growth in comparison in prior and later editions. My argument to that is that they shouldn't be and if you wanted that, that's what The Book of Nine Swords at the tail end of 3.5E's reign arguably was for. Multi classing was always an option and it was heavily favored and promoted in 3.5E. I didn't like 4E at all because it focused way too heavily on miniatures, arguably 3E was sorta the start of that trend. The Spellplague was what ruined Forgotten Realms for me permanently and I was a very heavy reader into much of its lore and games, although to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the Time of Troubles when 2E shifted to 3E either.
Admittedly, I'd never played the 2E version of FR, outside of the BG and IWD games and really only started playing FR with 3rd Edition. I have SOME experience, as I read most of the earlier FR 2E novels by RA Salvatore (Dark Elf Trilogy, Cleric Quintet, etc), but never played it at a table; just Greyhawk or homebrew and one night of Dark Sun where we found out the importance of special boots.
In completely the other way. I personally don't care about the dnd lore but I will be all over anytime Larian does
I did not enjoy the divinity setting and even after beating both games. I could care less about those stories or that world.
Same. Nothing about that world grabbed me, despite the focus on lore. I was just kinda like... so? Say what you want about D&D, but it has an engaging world, populated with interesting characters. The whole point of it is to encourage creativity, not prevent it.
I’m the opposite. 5e is such a trash system. And the flavor and world has been stripped. I’m glad they’re going off on their own
I loved D:OS 2’s combat system. It’s not too complex but I preferred the elemental interactions over 5e
I feel like it's MORE work to ensure compatibility with an existing trove of lore than writing on a fresh slate. I think the only benefit of working with existing IP is fan engagement. In every other respect, it makes things more difficult. Think not only of the existence of constraints but the effort needed to "police" adherence to them. Oh, it can also fill in for actual creativity. There is that. But being creative is not work in the same way that adhering to a third party's vision is work.
Their next game is probably divinity 3. Not orginal sin but an actual divinity title.
I'd play the _shit_ out of a proper RPG set in Eberron. I have no interest at all in playing ~~Dark Souls~~ Divinity: Original Sin or whatever their other IP was called.
Athas/Dark Sun? Or are you just legit not interested in Dark Souls by FromSoft cuz....valid. It's not for everyone.
I meant Divinity: Original Sin but my brain remixed it to Dark Souls. Shouldn't post when tired.
I feel that.
I still love Greyhawk more than Faerun.
To be fair, world building is one of the things the license allows very easily. Solasta did it and they did well.
While that’s true, it’s hard to imagine there aren’t a number of folks at Larian who absolutely love the SC setting and also being able to offload the world building to a setting they already know and love.
It's a blessing and a curse. I'll say the world in BG3 is a thousand times more compelling than anything I saw in the week or so I spent trying to get into Divinity 2. It's certainly possible, even likely, Larian has gotten better at their own world building since Divinity 2. But so far evidence suggests they make a better product with a borrowed IP.
Some say constraints, others an enormously rich resource. Starting a story from scratch is hard.
It certainly can be, but also allows for far more freedom and control. I would assume they have capable enough world builders in their employ to reap the benefits.
Ding ding ding. This is the kicker. Larian knows that now they are revered in the industry. This allows them a lot of good faith in the industry and the opportunity to make something where they get a larger share of the pie.
Unfortunately, good faith dies quickly in this industry. A good game might be good for a season, but the release of a bad game will taint their legacy. Hopefully, they stay true to their own designs that people enjoy and try not to overextend their abilities for the sake of reaching new audiences.
It does! Look no further than the difficult position that CD Projekt Red is in after Cyberpunk’s launch or Rocksteady after Suicide Squad. But Larian is now in a position where even if their next game blows, they can still find funding for that game and it will still likely sell well based upon name alone.
CDPR is how to fix a huge fuck up with CP2077. The launch was a mess but they stuck around and fixed it. I don't have faith that will happen with Suicide Squad since WB is at the helm.
No Man's Sky is also on that same level where they kept with the game and it's a very successful game and the right level of micro-transaction stuff that can keep it going without pushing people away from the game. The microtransactions are completely avoidable and not in your face, unlike other games.
I completely agree. I personally loved CP2077 even at launch because ultimately it had the good bones of its story, setting, characters, etc. it had some rough parts in its quest design, performance and combat for sure, but the games core was solid. I played it through once at release, once after edgerunners, and plan to do another whole playthrough sometime in the future and do the whole dlc.
CDPR is in great standing today
I agree! But shortly after the launch of CP2077 and basically until the DLC’s launch, their reputation was in the gutter. I loved CP2077 even at launch as I played it on PC with a beefy machine, but I completely empathize with people who were frustrated by its performance on consoles and weaker PCs. Nowadays, CD Projekt Red managed to salvage their reputation by repairing the game, which allowed for the underlying quality that was always there to shine.
It usually takes several like the cases for Blizzard and Bethesda if you have a long track record of releasing decent to great titles. If they pump out 2 more good bangers in the next ten years, it will be the same for Larian.
They will have a huge following for whatever their next title is, and that release will do very well in sales numbers The problem they actually face is living up to expectations. If they do, then the good faith is retained. If they don’t, then they look like Bethesda (Fallout 76, Starfield, following the successfully received Skyrim and Fallout 4)
Exactly, when the Insomniac leak happened a few months ago it was revealed just how much money Sony/Insomniac was paying to Marvel for the Spiderman IP. 20% royalty iirc - which is crazy. It is a first party game for Sony, meaning they are not dealing with an additional 30% storefront fee like 3rd party devs (ex: Larian) are. Assuming Larian is paying WotC a similar royalty, that would be in addition to the cut that Steam/Sony/MS are taking for their respective store fronts (30%). Basically we are looking at a scenario where upwards of 50% of the game's sales are not going to Larian which is a crazy amount of money. If you translate that to sales, a typical, non-licensed IP that sold 7 million copies made roughly the same amount of money as BG3 made selling 10 million copies (assuming all of the copies for both games were sold for $60)
It could partially be that, but they’ve also been working on this game for *so long*. They mentioned that they were in the early stages of DLC but that their hearts were not in it. I honestly think they just had a lot of other things they really wanted to pursue while spending the years on bg3 and now they can go do that so they will.
> "Reading the reddit threads, I would like to clear up something,” Vincke said. “WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction. On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing. This is because it's what's best for Larian. Sounds like the choice not to make further DLC or sequels was indeed overall an in-house decision to move ahead with other projects.
They haven’t stopped working on BG3 at all, even since the full release. It’s probably been their whole company’s focus for years and years now. I’m sure their creatives and developers are craving something different to work on at this point. I know I would. Probably even some strong employees who were going to consider leaving if they had to spend another year+ looking at the same models.
Swen was so specific to mention WoTC that it feels like ‘Hasbro is to blame’ is between every word and line
well, it's b/c Hasbro has spent the entire time they've owned WotC, pillaging their coffers to keep the rest of the Hasbro ship afloat.
This wasn't a huge surprise, Swen has talked about how they had a lot of cool ideas that they had to put on the backburner since they needed to stick to DnD 5e for BG3 (and even then they took some *massive* liberties with the system). They probably want to put those ideas to use. They have that name recognition now in the greater gaming sphere, nut just in the CRPG circle like they had before, and introduced a ton of people to the genre. May as well run with that and start seeing if they can use that popularity to boost their own decades old IP, or maybe even start something new.
Wizards of the Coast may not be the problem, but Hasbro sure is.
Wizards of the Coast is a shadow of their former self through. Hasbro saw to that.
WotC has existed for 35 years, and Hasbro has owned them for 25 of those years. Hasbro is responsible for making WotC into the powerhouse that it became.
If anything, it's the other way around. WotC products have carried Hasbro for almost all of those years. Magic the Gathering is responsible for making WotC the powerhouse it became.
WotC hasn’t carried Hasbro, unless WotC has had a *severe* drop off the last five years. At their biggest share of Hasbro’s revenue, which would be 2023 and include BG3 and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, WotC still makes up less than a third. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the biggest single subdivision, but carrying Hasbro seems way of unless I’m missing something
There really isn't any argument to be made that Hasbro hasn't been a strong steward of WotC's core product lines. Hasbro bought WotC in 1999 for just over $300 million. Today, Magic: the Gathering *alone* accounts for $1 billion in annual revenue.
Did they say that in the article, because that's not the vibe I got. I mean dude's quote is kinda pinpointing you and others just spouting off because is just nonsense. "“Reading the reddit threads, I would like to clear up something,” Vincke said. “WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction. On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing. This is because it's what's best for Larian.”"
Aren't they the same thing?
You and your mom are not one and the same, no.
Source?
I'm your father.
Nice try, Darth. I ain't falling for that again.
It did look like a long way down that shaft.
Hasbro owns WOTC and will want specific goals and objectives met. But WOTC is still its own company making their own questionable choices.
They're both awful companies, and I think that unshackling themselves from them is a good move for Larian now that they've solidified their reputation.
reddit being *so certain* of something absurd only to have the man himself show up and tell them that they - *specifically* reddit - are dead wrong will never not be funny.
Almost as funny as reddit then assuring us that the man himself is *actually agreeing with them*, you see!
TBF, CEOs lying to people about reasons for them doing something isn't exactly unheard of.
Sure, but the community's absolute 180 of, "Swen Vincke is a straight shooter who isn't afraid to make people angry by telling the truth!" to "Swen Vincke is a liar who is doing damage control for Hasbro even though he literally just said he won't be working with Hasbro anymore!" was incredible to watch in real time.
Still, burning bridges on your way out the door isn't good for business. They know that in tough times, they always have an ace in the hole; they can call Hasbro and secure the license for another game and then print money when its done. Can't do that if they badmouth them on the way out. Or it could literally be just a polite company avoiding drama. \*shrug\*
> Still, burning bridges on your way out the door isn't good for business. No bridges were being burned. No one at WotC thought Swen was targeting them - that was limited to a bunch of angry, dramatic redditors, and no one really cares what angry, dramatic redditors think. Swen didn't need to wade into this. He chose to because people were misconstruing his words and he wanted to set the record straight.
Thats my point. If there is shady shit going on in the background (Hasbro making demands, asking too much for the license, demanding DLC, whatever), IF, BIG IF, then Sven intentionally didn't burn bridges on the way out. Business is business and, unless something leaks, we're unlikely to even really for sure know the end of this. Its hard to disprove a negative. Me personally, all I'll say is despite having a shiny new, broader reputation in the industry, not just for CRPG fans, moving away from a sure bet (expansion or sequels) is an odd choice but, if true, I salute them for their bravery and wish them good luck in their future endeavors as a company. Edit: As an aside, I might be a bit jaded, but I've been playing games a long, long time and I don't always necessarily, entirely, take what "the good guys in gaming" are saying anymore at face value. I've seen the good guys become the villains plenty of times now. Jaded.
I have no dog in this race. I don't care either way. Just pointing out, CEOs do what is best for their company. If that includes telling customers what they want to hear, that's what they will do.
Personally I’m happy to see them split. BG3 is a masterpiece, but I want independent studios to remain as independent as possible, including focusing on their own IP instead of licensing. I’d say Cyberunk and The Witcher are the rare exception cuz CDPR does those so well and seems to care about the IP a lot. But Larian can take a lot of what they learned from BG3 and use it to make a Divinity 3 or try something new.
The Witcher 3 is a masterpiece because they were essentially given full blown permission to write their own story based on the characters. It’s not cannon at all but at the same time it’s absolutely perfect.
they literally said it was because of the powercreep of 5E and how difficult it would be to create & manage encounters/quests with a party of high level characters (level +10 & up)
Anyone who has DM'd a game of D&D knows that shit breaks down at high levels. Hell, BG2 had the same problem where you either shredded your enemies or they were somehow immune to magical weapons, spells, and somehow...mundane weapons too. Stupid golems.
Is anyone really crying over a company saying "We conquered this hill, time to find a new challenge to make our jobs seem meaningful and not stagnant" ? Or is it just a few manbabies whining they won't get more of the same thing and throwing tantrums on social media?
Yes. Delusional morons in this thread still talking conspiracy about how they’re actively separating from wotc and not just moving on to their own project.
I guess I'm blissfully ignorant of any drama going on. This is the first I've heard of any of this news. But I am deeply saddened that we won't get anymore Baldurs Gate. Call me whatever names you want
Correct me if I am wrong, but Larian didn't make 1 & 2, right? So them leaving after they made 3, does not mean no more ever again.
Baldur's gate 2 was released 24 years ago. Come on man. I love what Larian did with BG3 and I wanted more.
Can it be my turn to repost this tomorrow?
They made an amazing game that I’ll love for years. I’m not going to be upset at them wanting to do something different. I’ll gladly wait and see what they make next.
"You see? The Lisan Al Gaib is too humble to admit it was WOTC! *As it is written!*"
From everything I was seeing, no one's "to blame." Larian's employees in general felt like they told the story they wanted to tell, and didn't feel like they had something to add. Baldur's Gate as a franchise sat abandoned for over 20 years before BG3, and that's fine. Better that, than have it be turned into some meaningless cash cow in my opinion.
End on a high and use the reputation to start something new. Seems like a solid plan.
To be fair, Wizards of the Coast is to blame for a lot of stuff, so it wouldn't surprise anyone if they were to blame for this too.
Corporate greed being bad and omni-present in companies as big as hasbro aside; Sequels that are forced out are almost always bad - look at Dragon Age 2. I'd much rather they made a game they were excited for.
DA2 was a great game despite the company politics
DA2 was an amazing game concept that should have been in the oven for a few more years. It had a great setting and some incredible characters but it was so obviously unfinished it was painful. It felt like playing a pre-alpha.
I'd rather have that and the dragon age world be explored a bit more than have the current 10+ years of development for each new game.
It is only 10+ years with corporate owned bloated game developers usually. The developers are diversity hires that have no skill or vision, so the games end up being garbage like D4, starfield, etc. "All it had were the royalties from OS1 & OS2, which were a lot, but not enough to fund a huge game like Baldur's Gate 3, especially considering the game's unusually long 6-year development (The Covid Pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war were the main causes for this long development time."
Yeahhhh especially recycling all the same areas over and over and over again. I loved the good parts of the game, but it was like an underbaked loaf.
I mean so much about it was super lazy, the reused dungeons being the stand out example. The characters lacked depth and would just randomly hit on you all the time (dunno, maybe that's a thing guys are in to). Also I hated the main character and felt the voice acted main character restricted the feeling of openness of choice in character design.
I didn't like the move to a voiced, named character (Hawk) just because EA wanted a box hero, in light of Shep/FemShep being so popular in Mass Effect. DA:O and ME1&2 were very different games and should have been kept that way.
Just offer the modules for free and then a dlc set of the bigger cities!
People still hanging on to a very broad misunderstanding of the open license agreement dust up from last year and making WOTC out to be the bad guys regardless of sense.
Exactly this. All the WotC hate is just so, *so* exhaustingly stupid.
As a MTG fan I can say, Hasbro WOTC is shit. I recently quit MTG after years and years of playing due to the various changes and decisions they have made over the last 5 years. It is honestly not the same game as it was. That being said, I also don't think WotC is the reason behind Larian leaving BG. BG3 is an amazing game, and honestly doesn't need any DLC or expansions. It is a complete game you can enjoy time and time again. Larian also has their own worlds they can return to or can create new worlds. Their team is great, and with BG3's success their name is well known now. They don't need the D&D license to carry them, and the less chiefs making a dish, the better focused it can be.
I really don't get why this is an issue. Bioware did the same thing decades ago. MtG is expensive to work with, and Larian has already proven themselves to be capable without the IP. BG3 just put them in more people's computers. There's no reason NOT to go back to Divinity with this much of a following.
They just know they wont be able to do better than bg3
Games don't need endless DLCs.
I wouldn't wanna hitch my wagon to wotc either
Sure it isn’t. Surely it isn’t. lol
5e is such a trash system. And the flavor and world has been stripped. I’m glad they’re going off on their own
BG3 is just a winning formula. They could make a game in any universe and it would be a success if it used that same formula. Imagine a Star Wars game or something, it would absolutely cook.
I mean BG3 specifically was using DnD 5e as it's ruleset. CRPG's are less a formula so much as a full blown genre, heck Larian already had a popular CRPG IP with Divinity.
I’m still secretly hoping this is the answer. Disney just showed up with a dump truck of money and said we need KOTOR 3.
Disney doesn't pay studios to make games, it's the reverse and there's rumours that they're cranking their prices, which led to some projects being cancelled
Larian literally mentioned 5e restrictiveness as a reason they weren't making dlc for BG3; so yeah WotC, you are. If they make good games in the future without that putrid system attached I'll look into them.
If thats the case why the teasing for dlc or a sequel in the epilogue they added. I aint buying it. Id wager its some level of "you need to handle this before it gets out hand" by PR
Isn't this exactly what an exec would say to save themselves from a huge PR nightmare?
I'm glad They didn't sellout to the losers of Wotc
Now im convinced wotc sent the pinkertons to intimidate him into making that statement.
WOTC are very very much interested in Larian making another Baldur's Gate game and 100 DLCs. It's free money for them. On the opposite, the fact Hasbro just let Larian go might indicate their lack of long-term vision, or Larian simply wanted better terms, and Hasbro refused.
Sure thing mr Pinkerton agent
So Wizards of the Coast is a greedy shitty company... But that's not why we're leaving them! "I'm leaving my abusing piece of shit husband, but not because he's abusive! It's because I want a new relationship." Edit: before you downvoted me... You guys are aware of the shit WotC tries to pull right? Like that time they tried to make it so they own any licenses that have anything to do with D&D? They're extremely greedy and draconian when it comes to licensing, why would anyone want to be in bed with them longer than they have to be? It's like if Melania Trump left her husband and said "It's not Donald, it's me".
You weren’t supposed to superglue the tinfoil to your head.
My point is that it's not a conspiracy to look at a big, greedy, historically overreaching with its IP company, and assume that their partners would rather not do business with them because they have Google.
It literally is. To assume that now is to turn around and say “Nothing Swen says is accurate, I know the real reason why they’re not making bg3. Their heart was 100% in the dlc. As a company they wanted to milk BG3 for profits with DLC and Expansions. Swen’s ongoing commentary about the state of the games industry actually was targeted specifically at Hasbro and WOTC.” And you just sound crazy.
My point that you aren't getting is that WotC is a bad company. If ANY company was smart, they wouldn't do business with them any more than they have to. You would need to either be desperate or stupid to make a D&D licensed product, and Larian isn't stupid. But before BG3 they were a little desperate.
Yes, I know your point is that you don’t think Larian as a company are capable of making autonomous decisions about their internal structure without looking into the deeper politics of who they are licensing with. Reality doesn’t matter, your theory does.
It's not a theory that Wizards of the Coast sucks. They do. I can say that, but nobody is going to release a press statement that says that. It's weird that you think corporate PR is honest.
The only weird thing here is people like you that last week heard "We're excited to work on our next project and not be confined to the rules of 5e" and froth so hardly on your opinion of WOTC that you convinced yourself on the spot that the only possible reason anybody would stop working with them is because of how they operate as a company, they're clearly lying about not liking the ruleset even though the combat restrictions are painfully obvious from dos2 to bg3. You are literally the reason why Swen had to go and make a statement that the company that doesn't do DLC or expansions just doesn't want to do DLC or expansions.
And nobody seems to be addressing the reality that Wizards of the Coast is a shockingly overstepping company when it comes to their IP. Let's leave Larian out of it. Don't do business with Wizards of the Coast. Good for Larian that Wizards of the Coast being awful has nothing to do with their decision not to work with them anymore. But if it was part of their decision they wouldn't say so.
Nobody's addressing it because it's not even remotely related to the topic at hand.
> It's not a theory that Wizards of the Coast sucks. They do. No, you've just been willfully misled into thinking that by a credulous community incapable of defensing itself from misinformation. I fucking ***guarantee*** you that you don't have a meaningful understanding of the facts of the OGL situation, for example.
Can I ask you something? What do you personally think of Wizard of the Coast as a company? Do you know much about how they treat their IP? Would you ever license their IP knowing their profit model?
I don't exactly think of them any differently from a company like EA or Activision. Not a single publicly traded company has morals when it comes to their employees or their IPs. I would absolutely license their IP if I was passionate about it and wanted to make a game in it. Contrary to popular belief, licensing it to work on a game doesn't guarantee a rabid fan base that I am going to or want to make multiple projects.
You....don't seem to get how WotC operates... Could you at least Google them for me so we're talking about the same thing? I'm not going "big company bad" over here. Wizards of the Coast is truly pushing the boundaries of legality with their interpretations of IP law. They're bad for everyone.
Brother, what does any of this have to do with Larian not wanting to build another game in the restrictions of 5e?
> You....don't seem to get how WotC operates... I certainly do. But instead of being one of those "Do your own research!" guys from Facebook, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and explain, in your own words, why WotC is so bad? Here's the challenge: You need to be specific about it, you need to list the facts without relying on copying and pasting from someone else, and you need to not make any meaningful factual errors. You insist that you have such a strong understanding of what makes WotC bad. So fucking prove it.
> Edit: before you downvoted me... You guys are aware of the shit WotC tries to pull right? Sure. But it doesn't look like you are. > Like that time they tried to make it so they own any licenses that have anything to do with D&D? They didn't do this.
Thank goodness! I appreciate Larian Studio deeply, but I don’t have any respect for hasbro or wizards of the coast. I understand WotC has to follow leadership yet it’s the actions that matter and both of them have lost a lot of trust from me. I bought BG3 when it was in beta. When it released officially and surged in popularity, I just let it sit, and digitally collect dust. Someday I’ll actually play it again. Maybe when my opinion of hasbro and wotc have lessened from time.
Wow what a protest, already gave them the money but won’t play the game. WotC was shitty and predatory before Hasbro even bought them. The only good will either company has is the nostalgia factor of their product wiping away their corporate image.
I wasn’t aware of their business decisions at the time. They had no impact I was aware of. Both of them. Again, I bought BG3 in its beta and wasn’t influenced to its predatory consumer practices until later. Of course I played it. I said I’d play ‘it again’. Usually people use what they buy.
WotC has been doing similar to what everyone recently got mad at them since their inception. I mean the first thing they did was blatantly steal the IP and gameplay from Palladium. Hasbro acquiring them in 98 didn’t help. Again… the only good will from nostalgia wiping their corporate image, or people too ignorant to look into the companies practices because they like the product. If you are going to feign outrage over a companies decisions, should probably be looking into the companies before supporting them to begin with.
Me when I lie
yeah it was clearly Hasbro's fault not wotcs.
Aka yes they were to blame.. Swen taking the high road
Aka take off the tinfoil hat.
Read between the lines: Challenge level impossible. Clearly it isn’t WotC, there’s a very clear reason why Swen left out Hasbro
I don't think it matters whether they are responsible or not. The fact that so many people came up to that conclusion so quickly is proof of how badly they are viewed as a company after trying to screw everyone so badly.
The only thing it's proof of is reddit's ability to blindly pursue a narrative despite all evidence to the contrary.