Finished Act II. Received some astounding revelations. Failed an important WIS check and now my entire character concept is in question.

Lots of food for thought for future playthroughs now that I have some future knowledge. Looking forward to riding it out to the end.

After I finished Act II, I got an achievement for making it this far into the game. According to Steam, only 36% of players have this achievement.

I thought I was taking the slow path, but only a third of players have finished the first two thirds of the game. So maybe I'm not doing that badly. (I know that some amount of that are people who didn't enjoy it and stopped playing altogether; but still.)

I failed to save the Tieflings. I'm not even sure what I did wrong. The quest just failed.

I honestly feel pretty bad about it. But I don't know how old of a save I'd need to load to fix it.

So...they're just gone in this playthrough, I guess.

My next playthrough was going to be a dark urge playthrough; but now I think it might be a Save The Tieflings run.

Added Halsin to the party.

Spent some time leveling him up from 1 to 8.

Spent more time getting him some gear from my camp chest.

Went to hit F5 to save.

Hit F8 to load instead.

I'm...going to go do something else now.

I thought I might both start and finish Act II over this long weekend; but I spent just a little too much time dodging traps in the Gauntlet of Shar and now I'm just overly annoyed with the game.

I think I need a break.

Possibly until next weekend; possibly longer.

This game is a stunning and towering achievement. But the trap mechanic is just hateful.

I don't like traps in real D&D. I don't like traps in this, either.

Traps are just the game designer's way of shoving your finger into the Random Punishment Box over and over and that is not what I am here for.

There's a fight in Act II where you have to save someone and, as far as I can tell, it is just completely impossible.

To add insult to injury, there's a loooooong cut scene that plays between when you can save before the fight and the actual fight.

I might have to go respec all of my characters (or, certainly, my main since I can't swap her out of the party) to build a party just for this fight.

I shouldn't have spent all my gold on shiny swords, I guess.

Maybe I need a Paladin in this fight. Hmmm...

Better go talk to Withers.

That's a wrap on Act I.

I still think there's so much I've been missing, though.

I'm going to have to do another playthrough with a guide, aren't I?

I'm nearing the end of Act I: the only big thing left to do is the Underdark bit which I've just started exploring.

Oh, what optimism.

"The Underdark" bit is big enough to be its own damn game.

Also, I discovered that I've missed at least one major quest topside in Act I. I thought it was actually leading me into Act II, but I've learned that there's just a major location I haven't found yet.

So...it might be a couple more weekends before I leave ~the Hinterlands~ Act I.

I am just about to cross the 60 hour mark, too. So...multiply by 3, add 10% for safety...

This is shaping up to be a 200 hour game where literally every minute is engaging.

This game is $60. What an absolute bargain this game is. That shakes up to about $0.01 every ten minutes.

I can't even talk about the dollar-per-minute value! I'd have to get into mills like I was assessing real estate taxes.

Even though I've found that the experience doesn't truly match the hype...it's still an amazing experience. What a thing.

Spent another day playing BG3 like it's my job. Except I usually try to stop working after 8 hours in a day.

I'm nearing the end of Act I: the only big thing left to do is the Underdark bit which I've just started exploring.

Among other things, I did the Auntie Ethel bit today and I found it pretty frustrating. With all of the spells and abilities and things, you have so many tools at your disposal...but Ethel's lair really just allowed for one or two solutions. Everything else was just an expensive no-op.

I definitely think I'm starting to see the seams where it's no longer an amazing world full of possibility and is actually a C++ program (at least, I assume there's some C++ in there).

It's still a good game! But...the bloom has definitely started to fall off the rose.

Or maybe I just need to get out of Act I.

Is Act I the Hinterlands of BG3?

I'm curious to find out. I should definitely move on tomorrow unless the Underdark portion becomes terrible.

Pretty much spent all day today playing BG3.

Finally (finally) cleared the Goblin camp. I have well and truly cleared it.

Far more than I wanted to, tbh. I didn't want t be a murder-hobo. But I'm honestly not sure how to get rid of one of the objectives without getting everyone mad at you.

So I just had to get mad at them first.

Still glad to be past that part. I spent so long in the Goblin Camp that I forgot why I was there to begin with. When I finally finished it and the guy was like "Meet me back at the place", I was confused for a second until I remembered what was actually going on.

I'd definitely gotten into a loop where it felt like the entire game was that stupid camp.

There's just so much camp there. So much to do.

Anyway, I progressed at a far more reasonable pace today. I met Karlach and...fully understand the memes about her. She's wonderful.

I progressed the stories of several of my companions and killed some gnolls and then killed some more and respec'd Shadowheart too.

Still lots of map that I haven't seen yet.

Definitely getting my money's worth for this one.

I'm starting to move a little bit faster today. I did two major fights! Two!

I think I'm getting a little less timid and a little more willing to actually do a fight (instead of spending hours trying to find a non-initiative way out of a situation).

I'm also starting to see BG3 (and, by extension, D&D) as more of a resource management game: there are just lots of resources (HP, spell slots, sorcerer points, arcane recovery charges, channel divinity charges, etc.).

This is not novel in any way, of course. But as someone who tends to finish games with 99 of every item because I hate to use them, it's a big step for me to realize that it's okay to spend a couple spell slots to get through this battle.

I'm also learning the systems a little bit better. I had two minor instances today where I was able to lure some folks off by themselves to quietly murder! It was neat!

In other news, I'm not sure if NPCs will stumble across the bodies of their brethren and raise an alarm or not. So I've started a small Goblin Corpse Collection in a burlap sack that's a little bit off the beaten path.

This game is starting to feel just a tad like a serial killer simulator. I'm not sure if that's what Larian was going for or not, but here we are.

I remain where I was, though I have accomplished a little bit (I've eliminated one additional Goblin since last time).

This is a good game. It's an amazing game.

But you cannot turn your brain off for a second while playing it. And there is so much freedom that the paralysis of choice is a real problem.

This might be something I play for the rest of my life. Eventually I'm bound to get out of Act I, right?

But it's hard to make any headway because all I really want to do is go play a much simpler and straightforward game instead.

I just have no idea where to even start. Everything I've tried has ended up with a a very large encounter that I just have no chance against.

This remains true.

I felt pretty clever. I used a Minor Illusion to pull a bunch of Goblins off to the edge of a pit and then I Thunderwaved a bunch of them off into spider-town. I was then able to pretty effectively Magic Missile everyone else, including one of those bosses.

It burned a lot of spell slots, but I'd taken care of 25% of the objective!

But I guess I was too noisy and even though I killed everyone in this room, the rest of the camp noticed me and they are pretty upset.

This is not a viable strategy.

I might need more sleep (both in real life and via a fictional long-rest) before I figure this one out.

I spent several hours this morning just sort of messing around:

• figuring out the best way to push a Goblin off a cliff without getting murdered by hundreds of his friends (somehow, it involved an etheral kitten. I was surprised too.)
• figuring out the best way to avoid traps without spending a disarm kit (it looked a lot like hopscotch; I hope Astarion had fun.)
• trying to figure out a way to kill some sleeping ogres without then getting murdered by those same hundreds of friends (I never cracked this one; the ogres remain blissfully asleep an unharmed).

Didn't make much progress with the plot, but a good time was had by all. Especially Astarion, that dexterous jumpy boy.

I spent several hours this morning completely failing to make any real headway with the plot. I did manage to clear out a low level room and make something of a safe space for myself; but then I was tasked with taking out four bosses and I just have no idea where to even start.

Everything I've tried has ended up with a a very large encounter that I just have no chance against.

I can't even casually set things up for success because cut scenes keep triggering which eventually leads to a messy death.

The game is full of opportunity and wonder, but it pulls no punches.

As noted, I am taking the slow path through BG3. I am still in the starting area and only really learning the ropes.

[MILD SPOILERS BELOW]

Today, I discovered a cave just chock full of spiders. You don't necessarily realize the full number of spiders until you make one mad. Then you find out about all of the other spiders that are just kind of hanging around.

Also, they're magic spiders and are able to ignore things like "distance". Pretty fierce creatures, honestly.

By save scumming like it's going out of style, I tried multiple strategies to deal with the spiders. The best strategy I I found involved using a Flaming Sphere to destroy a whole bunch of spider eggs...only to discover that there were even more spider eggs that the spiders had decided not to bother waking up in any of my previous encounters.

I eventually gave up and decided that this battle was just beyond me. It was a bummer because the spiders were guarding an item I needed for a quest.

So I left down a new path and found that I could have Astarion creep around a corner while the spider was distracted, cast Fog Cloud on top of the thing I needed so the spider watching it couldn't see anything, and fumble around until he picked up the item.

Having mostly played games where the only path forward is "Kill the things. Get the loot.", it was amazing. Combining all the different ways I was able to try to defeat the spiders in combat and culminating in the non-combat sneaky-sneaky strategy for success was really special.

I know I am late to the party, but I have finally had a transcendent Baldur's Gate 3 moment of my very own. And I know that this is the sort of thing other people have been talking about for weeks and there's no real surprise here. But this one was my own and it felt wonderful.

This is such an incredible game.

Saturday is for gaming. Which is why it was so disappointing that this game kept crashing on my gaming PC every few minutes.

I don't really blame the game. There's long been some sort of instability with my system. But it's too sporadic for me to diagnose.

As far as I know, I bought high-end components so I would expect it to work as well as could be expected; but it just isn't so.

I'd say "I'll be more careful next time" but I honestly don't know that I can be more careful. I was already really careful the last time!

I had originally planned to build a new computer this year but decided to get a Razer laptop instead. And so I've moved my Baldur's Gate playing to that laptop. It was rock solid today, so that's something. I eventually stopped noticing the smaller screen*.

Anyway, sorting out how to actually make it run took longer than expected today so I really only got to spend around two and a half hours with it today. That's...er...not a good pace. I am still very much in the intro area (I now have an angry druid and some goblins to deal with).

That said, it's still a fantastic game. I wonder how far I'll actually be able to get into it.

I have very little experience with the style of games that I tend to think of as "crunchy CRPGs". I played a few hours of Neverwinter Nights back in college and then slightly more hours of Pillars of Eternity more recently. I also enjoyed the opening bits of Pathfinder: Kingmaker up until they stuck a timer on the screen.

So definitely under 15 hours total†.

I wasn't even sure I wanted to play BG3 but I couldn't escape hearing about it so I decided to jump in.

I'm not very far into the game yet; but even so, it is obviously quite good and really special.

It is, however, also extremely tiring. There's so much to keep track of and so many options to choose from that it requires quite a bit of mental effort to really do anything at all. Couple that with the way that every single button click can lead to horrific consequences (or just a straight up TPK) (including combat, traps, dialog options, or just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time) and every click is stressful.

So every moment of playing this game is simultaneously using up mental energy and replacing it with stress. Somehow, this is actually still fun.

But it's also a sometimes-food. I think I might have 1-2 hours a week available in my psychic inventory for this game. Which essentially means that I will never ever finish it.

I'm hoping to make it past Act 1, I guess.

† I am not counting anything that Bioware did starting with Knights of the Old Republic; with KOTOR, they started filing the mechanical game systems down to be far more straightforward as the juiced the cinematic narrative side of their games. It was a tradeoff that worked really well for me, but clearly leads to different kinds of games.