It's already optimized pretty well; 108GB for a game of this magnitude is better than I would have expected. Making a cut-down version requires investment in time, money, and complexity that they wouldn't be able to justify. All games could theoretically be made to run on worse hardware with enough work, but to be rational, developers have to set the baseline somewhere. Historically, the majority of game sales go to people with newer hardware. If you can't or won't upgrade, there are still RPG developers who cater to low-end systems (yo Spiderweb Software).

For how long do you think high end PC-gamer systems got a SSD available?
1 year?
5 years?
10 years?
15 years?

Whats the golden answer? It is nearly 15 years already, with the start of the Win 7 OS!

What is the year my first PC was build using a SSD?

Well, i am gonna tell you: It was a OCZ Vertex 3, the OS had 120 TB and the game drive hat 240 GB of it. At this time it was considered "the bloody edge" of any drives available. The OS was a Windows 7, which was able to support a SSD for nearly 15 years already. It means to support TRIM (wear level management) which was critical for a SSD. However, nowadays most SSDs even got a own "firmware-level" wear level management and they may even work on a prehistoric PC without issues as they may be able to make this management without the help of a OS. So, basically, a modern SSD can be used on just as many systems such as any HDD, there is no limitations.

Obviously, the OCZ Vertex 3 is not sold anymore and its legendary name in the year of around 2011-2012, which is over 10 years ago, is now over. Nowadays there is even more capable competition with quite a bunch of "good offers". The first PCIE drive i got is installed on my "now dated and defective" PC (most likely MB issue), a first gen Samsung 950 PRO (release 2015-2016), is now about 8 years of age. Although this PC failed to work at around 7 years of age. I have to remember: This PC was excessively used, it was not a "weekend-PC" or alike... nothing casual... a hardcore PC with a 980 TI... used almost every day. So you can not expect it to live 10 or even more years, unless you are lucky. 5+ years is what i am aiming for... every additional year is a bonus.

Just to tell you a bit from this world a enthusiast got who might be fascinated when it comes to new (and unfortunately often immature) new technology. Although, i never had the issue that a hardware and firmware was that immature that it is slowly destroying a CPU... this was my worst immature-experience i ever had, so this year was the "truly failed year" of maturity.

So, anyway, a PC unable to use any SSD in my mind, nowadays... is not even worth the price of the most expensive game available on GoG anymore. And which game is the most expensive if we take ANY content into account? Probably "Trails into Reverie" because i know no game that was even more expensive than this... it feels like a new record (not the most enjoyable though). Guess nowadays is the days of high greed and yet... even high lack of maturity. I hope it gets better soon...

Yet, to me, owning a PC with a lesser value than the most expensive game... it sounds to me like "buying a car for 1000 coins" and then having to repair it for 2000 coins (in the first year) in order to make it run and then paying 2000 coins a year for the gasoline... and 1000 for the insurance, 500 for the taxes... and so on. Finally we have the car at the price of 1000 but i will need another 5500 for all the "other costs", else it will not run for a year with all the stuff i need. I mean... i know there are people like this... but i will never be able to understand. I would buy a car for 3000 if that one is way better and most likely lesser "other costs" involved... almost same for a sufficient PC system. Having a game library of maybe 1000 games at the cost of maybe 10 000 coins but owning a 500 coin PC... it just makes no sense. It would make sense if you only play 2-3 games a year but those customers are the ones perfectly fit for a PS5 in my mind; a PC is not great doing so, unless you ONLY play old games (but BG3 is NOT old, it is made for sufficient hardware in mind... totally understandable... time is moving).

What i want to say... your stuff, if unable to handle a SSD, is really pretty dated and a PS5 could be another option at a low price (considering the total cost of a capable system; and yes BG3 will get a PS5 release soon).

My view and my world... other people surely got another view and another world.

I am simply a geek in some way... so to me, old and new... everything got its place and can be considered useful to me.

ANY new computer the past 2 years (including Notebooks), with the intention for gaming in mind (even the lowest end) was delivered with a SSD, so there is no need for a upgrade or "breaking the seal". The SSD is probably pretty small but still usually at least 1 TB, which is no issue even for the newest game.

Besides, if you buy a already assembled tower PC, you can still turn it in for a upgrade, but in this case you can not do it yourself. Obviously, customers buying it this way are not capable or interested into handling it themself.

Nowadays, the new gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox SX) are pretty much "driving" the new size of games. Because they use a 100 GB BD disc, so, many oft the devs are trying to tune a game according to this new possibilities, including SSD-performance which is available on the new gen consoles as well. PCs simply are now "dragged" toward this new level of hardware and it surely gives new possibilities to the devs not possible in the old days.

Sure, a game can be optimized and "shrinked" near endless, however, there is at some point a certain level of optimization that simply can barely be improved even more and a certain size that can barely be shrinked even more, if you do not want to lose a visible and noticeable level of quality. Usually devs do not enjoy doing it... as they want their work at the "best quality possible"; understandable. Games are already compressed... this technology is nowadays pretty much standard... so they can actually only reduce a lot of size by decreasing the quality, so it comes at some trade off. Playing Witcher 3 is possible on Switch, sure... but it is surely not my prefered version.

I still have this 'complete' edition for Baldur's Gate lying around. Sword Coast expansion included. The game is delivered on 5 cd's. Baldurs Gate II, Shadows on Amn, 4 cd's. By comparison. Star Wolves, Shogun Total War and Warzone 2100 :p all came on 2 cd's.
Mass Effect 3 - 2 DVD's. CnC 4 - 1 dvd.

Baldur's Gate as a series always belonged to the larger sized games i guess

Also, it must have been since 2017 i think that 100+ GB's downloads for games have been around. At that time most certainly a novelty but these days? I would think it weird if games that manage to offer a lot of content and exceptional visuals would stay under a 100 gb's. Those are the novelty atm ,right? Not offering ray traced content, or real life skin features......

Ugh... Playing this game is something of a chore. Where are all the GOOD characters at? It's like everyone dislikes you for being a good guy. You want to help ANYONE and 2/3rds of your party disapproves and I'm like "Why the fuck y'all following me around, then?" Where are charcters that people will remember like Minsc and Jaheira? That was key to the BG experience, characters you could get involved in and fall in love with (not necessarily your character) and really find yourself interested in their story. There's a reason pop culture has hgad references of "miniature-giant space hamster" and "Go for the eyes, Boo!" I can't even remember these losers' names and they all hate each other and anything I want to do. The game is fundamentally fun, but difficult to justify putting effort into because it's overall not enjoyable. But hey, you can sleep with the companions if you want to compromise your beliefs enough to impress them by not doing the things you'd do because they disapprove of literally everything.

The lack of alignment means I have no idea if a companion is a good fit for the party until everyone disapproves of me inviting them in, or until they disapprove of me being me. Like the Gityanki fighter at the beginning. She was rude, but nothing said she was a poor fit for my party until I read spoilers to find out that she's considered evil (a paladin con usually detect that, you know) and that's a real disappointment. Like this person I'd have no interest in adventuring with seems ok, but I have no way to tell she's not until after I've already committed to using her in the party. WHY?

Still really early in the game.Tell me there's awesome companions that are actual fun to play with and don't hate a paladin doing paladin things later?

I'm sorry, the what now?

No alignments? In a D&D game? How does that even...

Ok, I never liked alignments to be honest, but they are (or at least used to be as long as I remember) central to D&D, both rules and lore, and pretty much iconic of the whole game. Is getting rid of it just a BG3 idea, or did the tabletop game drop alignments too in the last edition (it's been a loooong time since I played)?

Mate, paladins are intended to be models of religious purity and conservatism and they can't put too many characters like that in there, can they? It's not surprising you can't find many friends ... you might have to just solo it ;-)

And yes, it's a bit disappointing to hear there is no alignment system - was that taken out in 5th ed?

Edit: no, I just checked online and it seems 5th ed should have the full range of alignments. Not including it in a D&D game would be a very bizarre choice, imo.

D&D got rid of it because people kept getting offended due to making real-life paralels with some races being locked into some alignments or their traits. And Wizards of the Coast, as a diverse and inclusive company of course, decided to start gutting their lore to fit the "wider audience" and "modern sensibilities".

https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/races-alignments-lore-removed

The way that reads, it seems like they removed 'racial alignments' (i.e. racial defaults), not the alignment system itself.

Another point: there have been spells in D&D for decades that are woven into the alignment system, e.g. protection from good/evil, detect good/evil; other spells that affect good/evil characters differently (holy smite?). I suppose those spells aren't present in BG3 either?

True, but it lost a lot of its impact.

All good, merely pointed out that the feature supposedly is using both RAM and VRAM.


Seems to be doing rather well sales-wise here too. Probably already climbed the ranks during the In Dev period at a steady pace but likely got a huge push with the proper release, currently sitting in the 233rd spot (out of 8186) on page 5 of the all-time bestsellers list.

Enjoyed watching a couple of streams while on the road too.
One of somebody attempting a solo run with a character exclusively throwing things not necessarily meant for that purpose (barrels, crates, kitchen utensils, rotten vegetables, quills, corpses, etc.) at opponents during combat was particularly standing out.

Many of the skills add "radiant damage" instead of holy damage. Apparently, there are NO characters who fit the Lawful good alignment in the game. Not one paladin, only one cleric I've found so far (Neutral Good or True Neutral so far as I can tell), a rogue (Neutral Evil to Chaotic Neutral), and a Warlock (Neutral Good to Chaotic Good). None of them are great fits for my party. And all of them are immediately forgettable. This game is not for anyone who liked the original BG games.

This is strongly the impression I'm getting and I think I'm going to steer well clear of it.

The lack of an alignment system, heavy focus on elemental surfaces in combat ... honestly it all seems to be validating what many were saying about the game being more like D:OS 3 with a D&D skin on top. It doesn't seem to be designed for those who enjoyed the original BG games.

So, isn't there a lawful good temple somewhere in Baldur's Gate? There certainly should be, if they had any intention of being consistent with the originals. I mean, come on, there are several deities in the Forgotten Realms setting that are specifically of lawful good alignment - have those been written out/ignored?

Taking out racial alignments strikes me as being really stupid as well. In particular, the Drow in Forgotten Realms are specifically supposed to be the most evil, sadistic race imaginable. 99% of Drow characters should have an evil alignment, or are the Drow now considered to have an equivalent alignment to the overground forest elves?

Illithids? Half of those are supposed to be 'good' or 'neutral' now, in the interests of 'alignment equality'? Rofl! XD

I hear 4e reduced the set of alignments so that only good characters could be lawful, and only evil characters could be chaotic. Thing is, my favorite alignments to roleplay (if I were to do that) would probably be chaotic good and chaotic neutral, yet those alignments were absent in 4e.

(Side note: I personally think that WotC should have called 4e something other than D&D, and continued to develop it in parallel with 3.5e or what we now know as 5e. That edition does have some interesting ideas, but is very different from other editions on a rather fundamental level.)

Having mechanics tied to alignment can be rather constraining to DMs who find the alignment system to be constraining, or have a problem with such effects possibly spoiling plot twists.
Interesting that the game allows that; I would not have expected that.

I've heard this a few times the last couple of days.