Yeah same here. But for a more paranoid reason. I’m afraid I would get fully invested in a play, then they would release a launch day version that invalidates old saves,
That’s exactly what they’re going to do. It’s already been confirmed.
No, they are definitely doing that. This is from the store page in Steam:
WHAT THE DEVELOPERS HAVE TO SAY:
Why Early Access?
Release is right around the corner, so as a thank you to everyone who supports the game prior to launch, you’ll be getting the Digital Deluxe Edition content for free.
Savegames made prior to launch will not be compatible on or after launch, so we only now recommend buying the Early Access version as a pre-order including the DDE content, and not to play through the current Early Access content.
wolfman rolls for wisdom check… Success! 
I have been avoiding everything for fear of spoilers
Does it seem like they will be going hard into the “there’s fire/water/poison (etc.) on the ground” type of gameplay from Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2? It was very cool at first, but I got kind of tired of that after a while, frankly (especially in D:OS 2 where they also had corrupted versions of fire/water/poison).
So, I played when the EA first came out, and at the time, the answer was a hard yes. Every cantrip created these surfaces, so you’d cast a fire cantrip for 1d4 damage or w/e but then set the guy on fire dealing 1d6 damage per round for who knows how many rounds. And potentially set his buddies on fire too.
People HATED this with such a passion that they apparently nerfed this hard. I’m not sure exactly what changed as I haven’t played since my first run, but I have been keeping an eye on the subreddit, and whereas there were always 2-3 posts complaining about the surface balance at any time during that first patch’s lifecycle, I haven’t seen anything like that since.
I guess this is the kind of thing you get to do when your game is early access.
I haven’t played many games like this but my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed co-op play in Divinity: Original Sin II. If this game has that too, we’re definitely getting it. Especially since our current go-to to play together is the deeply flawed IMO Fallout 76.
We didn’t quite finish Divinity. We’re not very good and were starting to have to redo a lot of fights and resort to what felt like cheesing the mechanics. Maybe we just need to turn down the difficulty to complete it. Definitely has replay potential with the other named characters. But that may wait until we give BG a go.
She played the original. I tried it a few years ago and let’s just say it gave me an appreciation for more modern game interfaces.
I’m really looking forward to this one. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Divinity Original Sins, so I was a bit apprehensive when I heard Larian was doing BG3. I’m very impressed by what I’ve heard of the game, though.
Bards look like a lot of fun in 5e, so I’m thinking of going full Lore Bard. They have a lot of variety and powerful set of abilities, and can do a lot of different skills well. From what I’ve heard, many conversations force your main character to be the one doing skill checks in dialogue, so there’s some benefit to that.
Playing an Origin character might be interesting, but there’s no choice for a Bard, so might try that on another playthrough.
Actually it seems there is now. They just announced a little while ago that the full game will have a fully customizable Origin character called the Dark Urge.
I heard it is kind of a murder hobo character though.
Hidden for potential plot spoilers related to BG1 and 2 based on forum and reddit speculation:
I think that the Dark Urge may have something to do with the Bhaalspawn from the prior games
Yeah, as per Babale’s mild spoiler/background I would assume (and hope) it is deeper than that. I’m sure it can be, but if it is indeed fully customizable in terms of alignment there must be mechanics/storyline about resisting temptation as well.
My impression based on what little I’ve heard is that you can sometimes resist the dark urges, and sometimes you’ll just be forced to choose evil or violent options. So a “good” or resisting the dark urge playthrough would be more about dealing with the consequences of having to commit evil when you don’t want to. That could be interesting, but not necessarily something I’d choose for a first playthrough.
BG3 definitely has co-op play. I have not tried it so cannot say how well it works but it is there (and I would guess it is well done).
I was originally a “pass” for now just because I never got into BG1 or 2 and has Solasta for my “CRPG using 5e mechanics” fix (which I believe, from what I’ve heard, is still more mechanically faithful than BG3 but definitely lacking in aspects like graphics, story, etc). But with the hype on this being very positive and since I only spent $6 on the Steam Summer Sale, I might just go for it.
The character and class customization options sold me.
Are there any recommendations for a good wiki site that describes the game in detail? I’m looking for something that explains the game mechanics well enough that I can plan out my character’s level development. Or, will the game come with documentation, either in-game or a pdf?
Also, anyone know how moddable the game itself will be?
If you google Baldur’s Gate 3 Wiki you’ll get a very very scummy Fextralife wiki as the first result (they abuse SEO to get the top result for every game in this genre, with crappy wikis that autoplay Twitch streams to inflatw their viewer count).
Or you can go to BG3.wiki (Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki) which is a fantastic resource that Google refuses to show no matter what you search for.
I believe they’ve confirmed mod support, which is fantastic news.
I wonder what sorts of mods we will see. The obvious is more races and classes, and I’m sure we will get those (though I doubt we will see anything as ludicrous as the PF or NWN class mods simply because 5e doesn’t have as many classes to pull from!). I guess there are quite a few subclasses that can be added to 5e though.