I know some folks have been playing the beta release for awhile now, but as an FYI, Larian is moving the game's full, official release to 08/3. As IGN points out, probably to beat Bethesda's big release coming later that month.

https://www.ign.com/articles/baldur...forward-a-month-avoiding-starfield-clash


Article at PC Gamer that goes through the main aspects of the Dungeons and Dragons 5e Ruleset that Larian used in BG3:

https://www.pcgamer.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-dandd5e-to-play-baldurs-gate-3/

Thanks, Trail! It's mindboggling how many top-notch games are being released so close together!

Cool. I stopped playing the beta a while ago, deciding to wait for the full version. This will be fun!

P.S. Good to see you here, Trail, even if only for a moment.

Thanks Hoping to be getting back into the swing of things sometime soon. Even started building a new gaming PC. Yippee!

Woohoo!

Double woohoo! Sounds like a plan, Trail!

And the official full release of BG 3 has happened today!

Oooo... please share the specs on your new build, Trail! I want to live vicariously through you!

Oy! Wish I could dive in. Soon.

OK, so I'm just starting the gaming build, but I can show off a couple of boxes I'm building/have built for business purposes, but having fun while doing it

I call this one the "Cheese Grater Creator" because it's me thumbing my nose at Apple for charging a small mortgage for their Pro level desktops. For context "cheese grater" is the nickname that folks give the Apple Mac Pro because, well it looks like a big cheese grater. I basically emulated that using a similar case and chose white to further the connection:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mgdn...rlkey=0xd6bp078nqq93xvls3qn48h2&dl=0

This one is using an ASUS ProArt z790 mainboard with an i7 13700KF CPU (water cooled), ASUS 3060 Ti OC graphics card and 128gb of 6000M/Ts DDR5 memory. It has two, 2 TB M.2 SSD drives mounted directly to the Motherboard. No platter drives or gen 1 SSD's because I'm just finishing up (over) building a NAS unit (Network Attached Storage) that's got a total of 37TB (Although 32 TB are really dedicated to the NAS storage) There's one other special addition, let's see who finds it..er...him, LOL.

Here's the NAS that's in process. I've nicknamed it Lil' Naz, cuz it's the evil sibling of the Cheese Grater Creator The cable management isn't as pretty on this one cuz I was still working with it in this pic, and that's a two decade old case I'm reusing, it was the only one I had that could support all the drives I wanted to throw into it. Before I get razzed for using a gaming MB (Gigabyte Aorus) for NAS, it's only because I got it for free (long story), so it is totally overbuilt considering you can use a Raspberry Pi board for NAS if you wanted. It also has a Thunderbolt 4 card and an LSI Broadcom SAS to SATA card that allows me to manage 8 more drives over what the motherboard would normally handle. Will be running Open Media Vault in Debian Linux VM with VirtualBox to manage the NAS (it's main platform is Win 11).

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g9gx...rlkey=vq63u91vb3j4sb0awcs58ynix&dl=0

To keep this posting on track ;), here's a video about how BD3 is upsetting the RPG gaming industry because the Devs at Larian actually did their job!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QNytX1VJ64

Giant post accomplished (I'm such a lousy mod)

Oh, be still my heart! I'm not gonna lie, as much as I love a sweet gaming rig, it's the Lil'Naz that is fascinating me! I saw the motherboard and was like... ummm... wow! I'm interested because my next NAS is going to be one I build. The one I have right now is an older Western Digital EX2 Ultra which works just fine for now. So far, I just ripped our hundreds of music CDs and sent to the NAS. Nice to listen to some of our music out on the pool deck with my Riva Arena speaker!

My case is in dire need of opening up for some upgrades. I want to replace my old SSD with a new Samsung EVO 4 TB M.2 SSD I scored during Prime Days. Going to hang in with my 4 year old ASUS GTX 2060 video card for now.

Found your little dude waving at me! Thank you for the giant post, you lousy mod, you!

Thanks for the details and for the links, TM!

Yeah, the NAS is a silly build, but really the only thing keeping it from being a gaming and / or editing rig is a decent GPU. Right now it's running off the same CPU that the cheese grater has, but the version with integrated graphics. I needed a NAS and that thing just sort of organically appeared .


So, any how. Interesting how some other game houses are calling Larian's success at releasing their wonderfully patched release, a fluke? It's somewhat disheartening how using customers as testers can be considered the norm by other dev houses after a full game release. I mean beta is one thing, everybody knows it's going to be glitchy, which is part of the fun. That's why BG3's was so long, they listened to their public, fixed big stuff and added cool stuff based on that input. I don't think it gets any better than that. Taking an honest approach to eliciting gamers' input is nice.

Speaking of more Baldur's gate 3, I find it hilarious that Larian actually sponsored this video: Life, but it's Baldur's Gate 3

Merging BG3 threads into one that we can use to talk about all things BG3.

Bah! I have no place to do any gaming! No desk, no bar stools for my counter, no nothing. Wishing I could dive in and play.

You need to make that a priority, hagatha!

That's right, I think I saw that you moved recently, right? Bummer, I hope it all comes together soon! Not to gloat, but I'm seriously enjoying this now, they really refined the appearance. Mechanics took me a bit to get back into, I'm so used to WASD for movement. Now that I've got the hang of the camera it's much easier.

Oh, if you're like me and have lousy eyes and a high-resolution monitor, I found out that BG3 is receptive to Windows scaling and cursor size adjustments. I had to go into Windows Display Settings and kick my scaling up to 350% and then to mouse settings to increase my cursor size to 6 times the usual. It makes it odd prior to starting the game, but once the game starts you end up with a much larger cursor and easer to view interface. I use a large screen 4k TV for a monitor, which I guess is part of my issue. The cursor was ridiculously diminutive when I first started playing, much more comfortable playing now with the aforementioned adjustments.

My desk doesn't arrive until early October and the bar stools won't be here until mid=September.

I think I'll have to put my laptop on the dining room table. Maybe I'll download the game tonight.

What character are you playing, Trail?

I like to mix up my characters attributes for fun. My first character is a Zariel Tiefling Warlock. While the Zariel line is suited for a warrior class, I thought it would fit well for a Warlock since they have limited spell slots, especially in the beginning. Plus I just wanted to see which direction I need to go to make that a successful build. I'm really excited about this playthrough (Yes, I am a geek), because earlier D&D based games gave Tieflings around a -1 deficit for Charisma, which made being a Warlock difficult since Charisma determines their spell casting ability. Now that they aren't doing that in the newer systems I can finally have a character with an Infernal background as a Warlock. It makes perfect sense, since Warlocks are known to have Infernal patrons. Not sure why they didn't promote that in earlier games. Oh, and awwww man do I love all the character appearance choices! Lots of fun building a character that looks kicka**

I think I missed a lot about the character creation since my character is pretty standard looking and I didn't see a lot of choices. I found it a bit confusing. Still, it's not the end of the world. Plays the same.

I made a bard, since there apparently isn't one in the game as a companion. So far she's been pretty useful. I haven't seen much difference from the beta version except that the Prologue is much shorter and that I really appreciated.

Bards rock, literally

Just checked over at the Nexus and modders have already been hard at work on BG3. That is awesome, shows that folks are enjoying the game and it's potential. I'm guessing they are based off the earlier release, so probably better to wait a few months before loading any mods. Definitely going to keep my eyes open for cool, new mods.


EDIT: Just came across a cool Twitch Stream. Felicia Day is hosting a Co-op BG3 play through with three other streamers. They're using that optional Twitch extension you can activate when first setting up the game. Twitch has set up an interactive menu system so those watching in chat can check out the player's character stats and can vote for which dialogue choices the players make.

I have to say, I'm finding the combat to be so difficult that it's not enjoyable. It's mostly to do with the camera angles. I can't target enemies that I should be able to, but the camera won't swing around to where I need to look, especially when fighting from above. Also, my party is bloody useless. Half the time the spells I need are greyed out; I've checked everyone's equipment and nobody is wearing anything they shouldn't. Shadowheart can't cast healing in combat for some reason. All very annoying. I guess I'll go off wandering for a while and leave the goblin Temple alone for the time being.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but BG3 is holding pretty religiously to the 5th Edition D&D rule set. So you may have things like an enemy in partial cover that impacts your ability to target or they may just be out of range for the attack. That's also impacted by high versus low ground in combination with certain stats. I believe the camera is intentionally limited in some cases to accommodate the aforementioned. I also found that reversing the "Q" and "E" key binding for the camera helped me greatly. I tend to use those the most and the "A" and "D" camera strafing control the least, until I need to center a bit more. I'll use the "W" key to bring it in a bit and the mouse wheel to bring it in or back more.

As for the spells being greyed out, that may be due to your party needing some type of rest. Some spells have limited use and at the early levels, the party members may only have a couple of spell slots. That means they'll only be able to use the spell once or twice in combat and then you end up relying on cantrips and melee or range weapon attacks. Some of the spells will not come back after combat and may require a short or long rest in order to regain their use.

-----------------------

In case anyone is interested, there's a thread going on at Reddit's BG3 forum on the differences between the D&D 5e Rule set and the additions Larian put in place with them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...he_rule_differences_between_bg3_and_dnd/

Thanks for the quick tutorial. That makes sense about the spells, though I'm surprised that the Bard song falls into this category.

I think I'll blast off to other places that might be easier to win instead of repeatedly losing battles in the Goblin Temple. I rescued the Druid and Sazza but that last Goblin Boss is a terror.

Yeah, I got the party killed by the first set of Intellect Devourers that we came across after the Nautiloid crash. Had flashbacks to the killer caterpillar from Morrowind