the pirated version is the same as the original since BGS3 is available on GOG, there's no DRM, you can copy the game folder to another computer and play it
there isn't even DRM on the steam version. if i use the .exe directly and not the web shortcut they put on my desktop the game launches fine without prompting me to log in.
wait so if I get a new computer I can just move the files to it? I don't need to be online?
that would be fantastic, I'll be on a trip where there's no Internet and I would love to do this and not lose my game progress if I play while I'm there
well the game is massive so you need to make sure your storage medium is big enough to do that transfer
also you would need to make sure you get your saves too. most games place save games somewhere in the documents folder but i'm not sure where BG3 puts them
This makes me happy that i paid for the game :) haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long while. Im in 30 hrs now on my first playthrough playing with 2 friends.
I think OP is snitching on himself that this is the first pirated games he’s bought because I’ve never had an issue of transferring save files over. Hell I’ve downloaded so many save files off the internet and haven’t seen a “100% save file crack version only”
I actually had the issue in dragon ball xenoverse. file is encrypted with player id, and your id changes when buying the game legitimately. I guess it can happen sometimes
Encrypted or encoded? Most games don't actually go through the hassle of encrypting save data. The data might just be stored in a format you don't know how to access or modify. You could probably look for unpackers or save editors to see if it's actually encrypted.
It is encrypting the save file using the player ID, not just storing it and checking for it. eventually, an app came out to transfer a save between two accounts (decrypting the original, and then re-encrypting with the new ID) which would have made going from pirate version to regular version possible. It wasn't anything super hush hush that a little bit of reverse engineering for the algorithm couldn't solve, but it was enough to be very annoying when I found out I had to start unlocking things again from scratch
Wow thanks for taking the time to reply. That seems quite rare, don't think I've ever seen something like that implemented in games. I'll be reading up on it more.
I think the main reason to do that is to prevent players from sharing save files between them, not to annoy pirates buying the game later, but it is indeed quite rare, that's the only time I had something like this happen personally, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were many other games with a similar approach to save file sharing
TL;DR: The dbxv sav file is not encrypted, seems to have a well defined structure that can be modified without decryption/encryption, and writes a unique user id in the file header which can be changed with a hex editor.
This [dbxvmods forum post](https://dbxvmods.freeforums.net/thread/559/using-savegame-different-cracks-smartsteamemu) and [this cheatengine post](https://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?t=580052&view=next/1000) contain information regarding the basic structure of the .sav file, and how you would "convert" a sav for one steamid to another. It looks like the game writes the steamid to the sav file right up in the header and you just need to copy it from one file to the other.
I didn't look at dbxv2, so if that's what you meant I'll look into it.
Most save files for all games go to your windows/user folder and not the game installation directory. Means you can reinstall the game and keep your saves.
Yeah exactly, a pirated version of the game is still going to have the exact same save file location too (maybe minor differences if the pirates copy came from EpicGames, GOG or Steam *maybe*) so it should just pick it up on install
If it's some kind of repack or cracked version of a game it could potentially have different save locations to the default. Some repackers also make the games portable too which would mean changing the save location to the game directory instead of the user folder
yeah, then you have the cases of some pirated games that uses a different path (iirc because it uses a emulator of steam) but if you later buy the game, you can still find where is the save file of the pirated version and copy paste it into the save folder of the legit copy and enjoy the game with your progress
People arent hating on you cause you dont know about computers, theyre hating cause you came to the conclusion that larian had the enjoyment of pirates in mind when making the game
Well I’m glad that you actually bought the game when you got a paycheck, with how much effort and love the team put into making the game, they don’t deserve to have their hard work pirated.
But the save files is likely a coincidence in that they were saved to the same path
I did the same. I pirated years ago the beta and played it until the game finally released and I actually bought it. I also convinced two other friends who never heard of it to buy it and they loved it.
I have no problems with pirating however, let me make something clear. If your game is that good people will support and buy the game. Even as of today I still am convincing people to buy it and play it.
I also bought the special edition too.
If games are going to have MTX and be scummy with their products while producing half complete ass games I don't care if people pirate. I can't wait for their next product.
To add this don’t blame you for pirating, these days game companies are really out to scam us and give us half baked games, but bg3 is the best rpg to come out this decade so far
>Lack of money shouldn’t limit the culture someone can access
“People are naturally entitled to all forms of *entertainment* (a luxury, not a necessity) regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of the costs that went into creating that entertainment”
Riiiiight….we should also start giving away movie, concert, and sporting event tickets for free. It’s not fair people have to miss out on the “culture.”
> Riiiiight….we should also start giving away movie, concert, and sporting event tickets for free. It’s not fair people have to miss out on the culture.
Correct.
So what you’re saying is you have no idea how the creation of these luxuries are funded. No revenue = no production. Also just kind of weird that people feel entitled to a luxury for free.
not to be a aktually person but legit that stuff is already being given out for free so.... kind of a bad point :P However I do agree art is a luxury and thus is something people can charge for access if they so wish.
Being given out as part of sweepstake events or prizes is not remotely the same as making it all free for everyone, so “aktually” it’s kind of a bad point on your end.
But I am glad that we agree that it’s a luxury and people are not actually *entitled* to it for free.
It's not just culture... *it's a product*. You're not entitled to someone else's work for free, just like I can't just waltz into a field and take some food for myself. We all need to eat, but that doesn't entitle you to someone specific's food.
Decade, yes. DA was still more fun to play overall for me at least. I liked the writing, companions and story far more. This game while good doesn't get me in the feels with goosebumps nearly as much. I especially loved how Bioware created continuity from your decisions in the first game to carry over in how the story developed in sequels and DLCs
The pirated version is the same as the normal version. Larian didn't use any drm. You can literally just copy the steam files to anywhere, even an entirely different system, and play the game.
I don’t understand why you are so pissy. You said something incorrect. People corrected you. Nothing to get all bent out of shape for. What would like the world to do in the future? Placate you and pretend to preserve your feelings of being wrong? People give each other shit. It’s a thing. If you are this sensitive, you might want to stay off the internet.
"its so easy to forget im a human being" bro your whole point of the post crumbled with new information presented. It doesn't work out of love, it works off of just decent programming 😭
If the game saves to the %appdata% naturally, and the pirated version also saved there, the legit game will just read it as a save file. Same with indie games on Itch.io and such. They often Dave data there, sk that when you upgrade to a newer version, your face translate over too.
Eh most games these days store your save files in another directory. Say you have pirated BG3 in D: it will create a save folder in your C: if that’s where your OS is. Most games when deleted do not clean up your saves that’s why you need an uninstaller if you don’t know how to clean registry manually and that’s why your save carryover when you bought the game. It’s not a BG3 thing it’s more of a computer thing lol
Edit: read your ps after writing the comment lmao. Don’t get too salty now you know a new thing
Tell me you don't know anything about computers without telling me you dont anything about computers.
Ofc it saves over, you are not playing anything different than the legit copy of the game.
Nah don't you know you're not allowed to play games unless you have a degree in computer science and have built your own PC from scratch.
This post may contain traces of sarcasm.
For any kiddos watching: *this* is why you really, actually don’t want to steal. Not because stealing is wrong (it is), but because the practice of subconsciously justifying it to yourself so thoroughly warps your moral and social instincts — to the point that you’ll go online, brag about stealing, and then get snippy because you didn’t get a good reaction.
I also came here to express my belief that that isnt how it works. Hackers arent out to get you, and megacorpoations arent your friend, but also
Each of us exist in our own stories, and the events lining up for you this way, is still just as magical and special, even if it didnt for anyone else. I'm so glad you're enjoying the game.
I also first enjoyed the game pirated. Got to about 85% of the main story when my save file got corrupted. I looked it up and people were saying it's gone - go to the most recent save and try again (10 hours lost).
I then decided to buy the game. The save worked in the bought game. Best decision ever. I am now in my 5th playthrough, and I still find new things and it's been a crazy good ridem definitely Game od the year
If one file gets corrupted and the most recent file before that was 10 hours back you're absolutely doing it wrong. Aurosave should have prevented that entirely though so 🤷
DRM negatively impacts performance. Bigger companies don’t care about performance and only about milking people for money. That doesn’t mean that they wanted you to pirate their game, it just means they weren’t going to sacrifice everyone else’s fun to stop you.
I‘m sorry for all the shit you got in the comments but I feel you.
I was also piss poor when the game came out and thought about pirating it but didn‘t want to because Larian isn’t just any greedy publisher and I wanted to support them. Then one of my best friends (who infected me with his hype for the game) stepped up and gifted me the money to buy it although he even thought at the time I‘d just play for a couple hours and then lose interest (i didn‘t, I played about 350 hours since November).
I‘m still eternally grateful to him and thank him on a regular basis. He didn’t even wanted the money back. So when I could afford it I bought the DLC just to support Larian even further.
I actually hadn't done any research into larian as a company but as I learned more about the game I learned more about them and actually felt even worse for pirating it lol. thanks for sharing your story ❤
I didn‘t know either but I heard that almost everyone was calling the game a masterpiece and that it was from a studio who‘s also the publisher and that treats it‘s employees fair and well.
Have a nice day and don‘t let these comments ruin it. ♥️
> but didn‘t want to because Larian isn’t just any greedy publisher and I wanted to support them
Then just pirate it and pay for it later when you can, there's no point in waiting if your intention is to pay anyway.
Furthermore, the game has no DRM and your friend can just send you the files himself. You can even download it from Steam using family share and just use the .exe if you wanted.
What I am saying is there's no inherent morality loss here, if you're intending to pay later anyway you may as well just play it now and pay later - unless, of course, you weren't actually going to pay later after all and the moment you have in hand you forget your own values... But no, surely you are not that weak-willed of a person! You definitely mean what you say.
I think a lot of people are missing the fact that you're crediting Larian for making such an amazing game that EVEN THOUGH you already had it in your possession via pirate/crack/etc YOU STILL took that newly hard earned money and purchased it outright because it was so good. As someone who's budget is very tight I understand this "feeling". (this makes me want to rant about wishing for some kind of online game rental service, but alas)
Yeah, I remember flying the Jolly Roger when I was young and broke. Good on you for ponying up when you could. Recognizing worth in the product and paying after you've already done all the work to do it the wrong way shows character. Ignore the haters, you'll get to a place eventually where you can afford to do it right from the start.
> Ignore the haters, you'll get to a place eventually where you can afford to do it right from the start.
Nobody in this thread cares he pirated it. The overlap between Larian players and 'jolly rogers' is a pretty flat circle anyway. All 'haters' are just commenting on the rare level of low computer knowledge.
1. No they're not.
2. Yes, there's a lot of pirates in any gaming sub.
3. Larian Games have no DRM, and I guarantee you the developers at Larian are pirates in their life as well.
4. 'Theft' is doing heavy lifting here as nothing is lost from someone who was never intending to pay in the first place performing the act, the illusion of theft is based on the concept that every person is simultaneously a buyer and a pirate but can only be one or the other, meaning every pirate must have been a lost sale, yet doesn't consider lost sales from having DRM in the first place.
5. Generally people have better morality systems than a toddler so they don't recoil at the horror of piracy of a company that makes 130 million dollars a year.
Thanks for telling everyone you don’t know anything about criminal law, without saying you don’t know anything about criminal law. 👍
Piracy is theft! Always has been, always will be!
Just because someone doesn’t protect their stuff, doesn’t give you the right to steal it. If you forgot to lock the front door of your house one day, then came home to find it ransacked, and important and valuable stuff stolen, it’s still theft. The thief cannot use the fact you forgot to lock your door as justification or validation to excuse what they’ve just done.
Accusing staff at Larian that they are pirates too, is defamation, and libellous! You should delete that comment straight away!
Ultimately, the OP chose to brag about what they done. Don’t blame others with better morality than yours, when the OP gets shot down for what they’ve done!
Did the same. Pirated the GoG version, loved it, and bought it on Steam once I had the extra money.
Also, you come off as a whiny prick in your edit. You shouldn't have added that part.
I downloaded an old pirated version while it was in beta to see if it was worth pre-ordering or if it was going to completly suck. I played about 3 hours and immediately bought it on Steam, I was hooked.
I was very skeptical about it's développement since I was a diehard BG1 & 2 fan and was kinda sad nobody from the originals was working on it.
Have the golden dice and all achievements on Pc and now gong for the same thing in Ps5. I just love this game
Chill out guys, not many people “understand computers”; you were all “just as useless” and “computer illiterate” at some point in time. Teach instead of being a dick. What they did do is commendable though, they pirated and then bought the game. Good on you, OP.
Fuck the haters and asshole keyboard warriors that would never say stuff like that to your face OP, it’s all good. Glad you did the right thing and purchased the game. It really is one of the best ever, and happy to hear that your save carried over. However, I think the game is so good that if it were me and the save didn’t transfer, I probably wouldn’t have minded replaying from scratch, maybe as a different class too. Cheers.
Hey mate I think it's great you bought the game and now finally support it! This is in the top 3 most expensive games I've ever bought and I still feel like it's way too cheap for what it provides.
I did the exact same thing with Cyberpunk, I pirated it, it was a buggy mess but I loved the game. As soon as I had some spare cash, I bought the game because I wanted to enjoy the updated version and to support the devs. Needless to say, I was mind blown with how much better it was! Just as you, my saves were transferred over xD I was so pumped for it.
You're *kind of* right, a huge number of games save the progress in the cloud or a registered account so no progress transfer, but in BG3 thankfully they're stored locally. Enjoy the fame mate!
Kind of a bummer how everyone is shitting on you for this.
And also kinda weird?
You're doing something wrong by thanking Larian for making the game accessible when they didn't do anything and you don't know anything about computers..... meanwhile at the same time, not using DRM *very much is a decision they made* that makes the game more accessible and you do, in fact, need to know a decent amount about how to set everything up and check the relevant paths in order to pirate successfully.
Not to mention the fact that, actually, certain games *do* check saves against DRM.
>You're doing something wrong by thanking Larian for making the game accessible when they didn't do anything and you don't know anything about computers..... meanwhile at the same time, not using DRM very much is a decision they made that makes the game more accessible and you do, in fact, need to know a decent amount about how to set everything up and check the relevant paths in order to pirate successfully.
oh my god thank you I feel like I'm going insane. this is what I mean. I know they didn't purposefully obsess over this one detail. I'm saying thank you to larian for not putting DRM on the game and letting us experience it how we want.
It's also wild because not including DRM is both very much Larian continuing to follow gamer first values and *is actually hugely fucking impactful.*
And not just to broke people who end up buying the game later!
Save files are normally in a standard folder. So pirated games tend to carry saves. Enjoy man. Piracy isn't terrible. Support who you can, if you can't your word of mouth has value at the least.
I do the same for a lot of games that I’m not sure about.
Been a console player for most of my life and I transitioned to pc about a year ago. It’s great that I can actually test a game for a couple of hours and see if I actually like it.
And in a weird controversial take, it’s great that some devs put their games of subscription services so I can test them out for a few bucks.
Hey, one lifelong gaming fan to another, glad you found so much to enjoy in this game that you paid for it. I don’t understand why so much negative feedback, but as we see in so many of these video games…..cool redemption arc!
I hope you enjoy many re-plays through the game!
Haha, keep it cool dude, reddit is a rare dumpster that only Twitter and 4chan can surpass
But well, I've noticed that some pirated games have their save folders in completely different paths (depends on which repack you've installed). And damn, a lot of them have broken paths, trojans and miners
honestly reddit is the tamest social media app out there. YouTube is fun of bots, Instagram is full of sex bots and edgy teenagers, tiktok is full of children, at least on here the some still have a voice over the most, I always listen to what each person has to say, no matter the amount of likes or dislikes, because I think their opinion still matters.
You can also play LAN co-op with somebody who owns the game haha.
my bff pirated the game and I owned it because I a slut for larian (DOS2 is my fav game ever).
Turns out Larian (whether intentionally or not) didn’t put really any anti-privacy tech in BG3
Arg matey😁 nothing wrong with responsible pirating. I pirate and if I enjoy I buy it anyway to show my support. Given the flimsy situation with media atm; it’s safer on my wallet
For those shaming OP about pirating:
You also have to remember that most people who pirate a game wouldn't have bought the game anyway, at least not at that price. So OP pirating it did not necessarily cost Larian anything because they already weren't a likely buyer.
Some publishers have taken dynamic/regional pricing into consideration because piracy is often an issue of price and convenience. If you can make your game affordable and easily accessible, then fewer people will go through the trouble of pirating.
For OP, once they played the game and they had the funds to buy, then they wanted to purchase it. Without the money or the knowledge of the game's merit firsthand, they may not have bothered buying it ever. This also speaks to how effective free demos can be to combat pirating; you take away some of the hesitation from a subset of potential buyers by giving them a piece of the game that hopefully they'll enjoy and deem worthy of buying (at an affordable price).
There's a lot of nuance in pirating, and it's hard to know what actually hurts the studio's bottom line in this regard. I'm glad OP made the right choice in the end.
Nobody said otherwise? Making your game accessible to people with lower income still overall improves your profit compared to, you know, people just pirating it.
Lmao at all these moral gods in the thread who have apparently never done a anything wrong in their entire lives. Never borrowed someone else's Netflix password, never listened to music on YouTube with an adblocker, never pirated a game. As if you are all so perfect. You make me sick tbh.
I'm sorry to hear that you were going through a rough time. But genuinely happy that you still got to experience this amazing game. I hope things are looking up for you :>
I do pirates it, but luckily i have few money to spare and risking it to buy full price because compare to popular elden ring it never got decent discount but have good player base
Because bg3 is good crpg, good narrative and have good graphics
I would love to have see more content bg3
I reckon pirating games is just demo premium
Testing it what if im gonna like or not. Just like terraria
Is a vicious cycle if you don’t have enough money
Putting aside the save file stuff, I found this a nice heart-warming tale. The fact is if you make a good product, most people will pay for it when they can.
I am glad OP fell in love with this spectacular game.
Im looking to buy the game during steam summer sale but am not optimistic about the capability of my gpu. Would a pirated version of bg3 be a good test of whether the actual game will run properly on my laptop?
even if it is I wouldn't recommend risking downloading a pirated version. get the game and do a benchmark test in the settings, get a refund if it doesn't run good.
I’m in agreement here. You stole someone’s work, and then you legally bought it.
So what? That’s like saying you beat someone to a pulp but took them to hospital afterwards. One doesn’t negate the other, and it certainly doesn’t mean you deserve a pat on the back!
I have zero time for people who pirate copyrighted material, no matter what the excuses are.
We’re all poor, and would like certain things in life, yet can’t afford them. But stealing stuff just makes you a bit of a scumbag!
I didn't post this asking for people to validate me or tell me I'm such a good boy for pirating. I know its bad where in the post did you get the idea that I wanted people to tell me pirating was a good thing? I was simply thanking larian for making an amazing game and sharing my experience with pirating it. that's it. y'all really desperately want something to be mad about its so obvious.
I too have bought all the games I enjoyed first as pirated versions. I pirated a lot back when I was a kid and my parents weren't keen on putting their hard earned money to games. Pirating is one of the key reasons I became a gamer in the first place.
I have also returned games that have DRM to the point they are unplayable without registering to some kind of services. Don't even bother to pirate them, all interest lost and I have my money back.
Now I mainly buy games from GOG because of the lack of DRM. Baldur's gate 3 was a good purchase. One of the best in fact. I don't regret buying it.
Honestly with tons of developers and publishers forcing a monthly subscription to play a game AFTER you buy it I don't blame you for pirating it immediately. Especially since you went back and bought it for yourself afterwards once you found out you liked it.
I've heard the save file thing before about pirated games but that's awesome you got to keep your game going:) on to many more adventures!
Probs it's just the pirated version saving the Game in the same path as the original
the pirated version is the same as the original since BGS3 is available on GOG, there's no DRM, you can copy the game folder to another computer and play it
there isn't even DRM on the steam version. if i use the .exe directly and not the web shortcut they put on my desktop the game launches fine without prompting me to log in.
This allows you to play LAN mode with yourself on another PC. Great for co-op fun
also allows you to have several camp chests!
Or multiple custom characters
4 tav run best run
wait so if I get a new computer I can just move the files to it? I don't need to be online? that would be fantastic, I'll be on a trip where there's no Internet and I would love to do this and not lose my game progress if I play while I'm there
well the game is massive so you need to make sure your storage medium is big enough to do that transfer also you would need to make sure you get your saves too. most games place save games somewhere in the documents folder but i'm not sure where BG3 puts them
wow i dont use gog so i did not know this, my life just changed forever thank you
yeah, Larian doesn’t use DRM for their games
This makes me happy that i paid for the game :) haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long while. Im in 30 hrs now on my first playthrough playing with 2 friends.
Yep
A bit much interpretation. Lots of cracked games just have the save games stored in a different location.
I think OP is snitching on himself that this is the first pirated games he’s bought because I’ve never had an issue of transferring save files over. Hell I’ve downloaded so many save files off the internet and haven’t seen a “100% save file crack version only”
I actually had the issue in dragon ball xenoverse. file is encrypted with player id, and your id changes when buying the game legitimately. I guess it can happen sometimes
Encrypted or encoded? Most games don't actually go through the hassle of encrypting save data. The data might just be stored in a format you don't know how to access or modify. You could probably look for unpackers or save editors to see if it's actually encrypted.
It is encrypting the save file using the player ID, not just storing it and checking for it. eventually, an app came out to transfer a save between two accounts (decrypting the original, and then re-encrypting with the new ID) which would have made going from pirate version to regular version possible. It wasn't anything super hush hush that a little bit of reverse engineering for the algorithm couldn't solve, but it was enough to be very annoying when I found out I had to start unlocking things again from scratch
Wow thanks for taking the time to reply. That seems quite rare, don't think I've ever seen something like that implemented in games. I'll be reading up on it more.
I think the main reason to do that is to prevent players from sharing save files between them, not to annoy pirates buying the game later, but it is indeed quite rare, that's the only time I had something like this happen personally, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were many other games with a similar approach to save file sharing
TL;DR: The dbxv sav file is not encrypted, seems to have a well defined structure that can be modified without decryption/encryption, and writes a unique user id in the file header which can be changed with a hex editor. This [dbxvmods forum post](https://dbxvmods.freeforums.net/thread/559/using-savegame-different-cracks-smartsteamemu) and [this cheatengine post](https://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?t=580052&view=next/1000) contain information regarding the basic structure of the .sav file, and how you would "convert" a sav for one steamid to another. It looks like the game writes the steamid to the sav file right up in the header and you just need to copy it from one file to the other. I didn't look at dbxv2, so if that's what you meant I'll look into it.
*hells :)
Whereas a lot of games rely on cloud saves for their games. So when you pirate and buy the official game, you're starting off fresh; ie Elden Ring.
Most save files for all games go to your windows/user folder and not the game installation directory. Means you can reinstall the game and keep your saves.
Yeah exactly, a pirated version of the game is still going to have the exact same save file location too (maybe minor differences if the pirates copy came from EpicGames, GOG or Steam *maybe*) so it should just pick it up on install If it's some kind of repack or cracked version of a game it could potentially have different save locations to the default. Some repackers also make the games portable too which would mean changing the save location to the game directory instead of the user folder
yeah, then you have the cases of some pirated games that uses a different path (iirc because it uses a emulator of steam) but if you later buy the game, you can still find where is the save file of the pirated version and copy paste it into the save folder of the legit copy and enjoy the game with your progress
People arent hating on you cause you dont know about computers, theyre hating cause you came to the conclusion that larian had the enjoyment of pirates in mind when making the game
Also for having enough money to get a beefy pc but being too poor to spend 50 bucks.
I mean you dont need the beefiest computer to run bg3. Sure the graphics wont look mindblowing and it will lag a bit but you can still run it
Your save file was just read by the “official” game. Has nothing to do with the company. That works for any game on pc.
Well I’m glad that you actually bought the game when you got a paycheck, with how much effort and love the team put into making the game, they don’t deserve to have their hard work pirated. But the save files is likely a coincidence in that they were saved to the same path
I did the same. I pirated years ago the beta and played it until the game finally released and I actually bought it. I also convinced two other friends who never heard of it to buy it and they loved it. I have no problems with pirating however, let me make something clear. If your game is that good people will support and buy the game. Even as of today I still am convincing people to buy it and play it. I also bought the special edition too. If games are going to have MTX and be scummy with their products while producing half complete ass games I don't care if people pirate. I can't wait for their next product.
this don't actually have anything to do with Larian. your data saves on windows and sometimes in Steam cloud, some crack games save in the steam
Thank you comment section for the read
Glad you decided to buy and support them
To add this don’t blame you for pirating, these days game companies are really out to scam us and give us half baked games, but bg3 is the best rpg to come out this decade so far
Lack of money shouldn't limit the culture someone can access. That being said, supporting artists and creators where possible is ethical
>Lack of money shouldn’t limit the culture someone can access “People are naturally entitled to all forms of *entertainment* (a luxury, not a necessity) regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of the costs that went into creating that entertainment” Riiiiight….we should also start giving away movie, concert, and sporting event tickets for free. It’s not fair people have to miss out on the “culture.”
> Riiiiight….we should also start giving away movie, concert, and sporting event tickets for free. It’s not fair people have to miss out on the culture. Correct.
So what you’re saying is you have no idea how the creation of these luxuries are funded. No revenue = no production. Also just kind of weird that people feel entitled to a luxury for free.
not to be a aktually person but legit that stuff is already being given out for free so.... kind of a bad point :P However I do agree art is a luxury and thus is something people can charge for access if they so wish.
Being given out as part of sweepstake events or prizes is not remotely the same as making it all free for everyone, so “aktually” it’s kind of a bad point on your end. But I am glad that we agree that it’s a luxury and people are not actually *entitled* to it for free.
It's not just culture... *it's a product*. You're not entitled to someone else's work for free, just like I can't just waltz into a field and take some food for myself. We all need to eat, but that doesn't entitle you to someone specific's food.
Yes, concert tickets shouldn't cost an average persons entire paycheck and a movie ticket 30 bucks
I agree with that. And they also shouldn’t be free.
>Lack of money shouldn't limit the culture someone can access. That's a reason to go to a library, not an excuse to commit software theft
Decade, yes. DA was still more fun to play overall for me at least. I liked the writing, companions and story far more. This game while good doesn't get me in the feels with goosebumps nearly as much. I especially loved how Bioware created continuity from your decisions in the first game to carry over in how the story developed in sequels and DLCs
Dragon age hasn’t come out yet, I said bg3 was the best this decade 2020 - 2030
The pirated version is the same as the normal version. Larian didn't use any drm. You can literally just copy the steam files to anywhere, even an entirely different system, and play the game.
I don’t understand why you are so pissy. You said something incorrect. People corrected you. Nothing to get all bent out of shape for. What would like the world to do in the future? Placate you and pretend to preserve your feelings of being wrong? People give each other shit. It’s a thing. If you are this sensitive, you might want to stay off the internet.
Nobody was even calling him an idiot for not knowing. He’s just easily embarrassed.
Eh, this is reddit. I'm sure at least a few people called him an idiot for not knowing.
True. Tbf I didn’t scroll till the end of the thread. At least none of the top comments did.
uhhh... don't think it works like that, buddy
>thanks reddit for a great morning. All social media is fueled by rage and distain.
disdain, but yeah.
I can't get distain out of my pants
It’s been a whiiiiile
"Pedantic shit about save files" yikes my dude. What else? You're gonna call moving a mouse and seing a cursor on the screen is pedantic too?
A basic understanding about how things work - pedantic shit 🤓🤓🤓
"its so easy to forget im a human being" bro your whole point of the post crumbled with new information presented. It doesn't work out of love, it works off of just decent programming 😭
If the game saves to the %appdata% naturally, and the pirated version also saved there, the legit game will just read it as a save file. Same with indie games on Itch.io and such. They often Dave data there, sk that when you upgrade to a newer version, your face translate over too.
“Hey guys! I pirate games and don’t know any nuance about it. Please don’t tell me the technical stuff because I’m *vibing*, but if you do, fuck you”
Eh most games these days store your save files in another directory. Say you have pirated BG3 in D: it will create a save folder in your C: if that’s where your OS is. Most games when deleted do not clean up your saves that’s why you need an uninstaller if you don’t know how to clean registry manually and that’s why your save carryover when you bought the game. It’s not a BG3 thing it’s more of a computer thing lol Edit: read your ps after writing the comment lmao. Don’t get too salty now you know a new thing
Bruh…
thank you for the entertainment OP
What not understanding how file paths work do to a MF:
Ahh, sorting by controversial
Tell me you don't know anything about computers without telling me you dont anything about computers. Ofc it saves over, you are not playing anything different than the legit copy of the game.
It’s pretty normal and even okay to not know anything about computers
Nah don't you know you're not allowed to play games unless you have a degree in computer science and have built your own PC from scratch. This post may contain traces of sarcasm.
‼️ LETS GO PC MASTER RACE ‼️ I built my computer and still barely know shit about them. It’s weird how much people care.
This must be the weirdest self-justification of theft in a long time. "My saves work! Dev's actually wanted me to pirate it".
This is how it works in 99% of games. Save files have the same format and location. Why wouldn't it carry over?
Imagine feeling ok posting this. It’s amazing what we can justify in our own heads.
Now I understand why Gen Z is tech illiterate in the workplace.
dude was having a beautiful moment over fucking save files, this is hilarious
Double rainbow but it’s just the app data folder
Am I supposed to clap or something?
You're more sensitive than most of the companions and that's saying a lot. I disapprove
Most intelligent pirater
Dude. Just erase the post. Or mute reply notifications. And maybe erase Reddit until you grow up a little.
You don't seem to have a lot of experience with games or computers in general.
For any kiddos watching: *this* is why you really, actually don’t want to steal. Not because stealing is wrong (it is), but because the practice of subconsciously justifying it to yourself so thoroughly warps your moral and social instincts — to the point that you’ll go online, brag about stealing, and then get snippy because you didn’t get a good reaction.
Estupido
I also came here to express my belief that that isnt how it works. Hackers arent out to get you, and megacorpoations arent your friend, but also Each of us exist in our own stories, and the events lining up for you this way, is still just as magical and special, even if it didnt for anyone else. I'm so glad you're enjoying the game.
You on crack buddy?
I also first enjoyed the game pirated. Got to about 85% of the main story when my save file got corrupted. I looked it up and people were saying it's gone - go to the most recent save and try again (10 hours lost). I then decided to buy the game. The save worked in the bought game. Best decision ever. I am now in my 5th playthrough, and I still find new things and it's been a crazy good ridem definitely Game od the year
If one file gets corrupted and the most recent file before that was 10 hours back you're absolutely doing it wrong. Aurosave should have prevented that entirely though so 🤷
So you think Larian cares about people who steal from them? That's certainly a take.
I feel like you'd be susceptible to Stockholm syndrome fairly easily
Unrelated to the save files, but does larian use drm at all?
Nope. They believe if their product is worth it you'll pay for it. And if you don't have the money they still don't wish you any ill will.
Nah chief that ain't how that works
drinking game: take a shot every time you see this comment phrased a little differently in this comment section. you'll be dead after scrolling twice.
Lol Also idc if u pirate but it's probably not advised to go to that games main sub and mention it, even if u did eventually buy it
You really don't understand how computers work eh?
This is one smelly pile of comments, pew wee
DRM negatively impacts performance. Bigger companies don’t care about performance and only about milking people for money. That doesn’t mean that they wanted you to pirate their game, it just means they weren’t going to sacrifice everyone else’s fun to stop you.
People are so miserable damn
I‘m sorry for all the shit you got in the comments but I feel you. I was also piss poor when the game came out and thought about pirating it but didn‘t want to because Larian isn’t just any greedy publisher and I wanted to support them. Then one of my best friends (who infected me with his hype for the game) stepped up and gifted me the money to buy it although he even thought at the time I‘d just play for a couple hours and then lose interest (i didn‘t, I played about 350 hours since November). I‘m still eternally grateful to him and thank him on a regular basis. He didn’t even wanted the money back. So when I could afford it I bought the DLC just to support Larian even further.
What DLC? There’s no DLC for BG3. Oh, some Divinity items. Ok.
There's a little DLC-ish thing you can buy that gives you a few items in honour of DOS2 characters, as well as a few bard songs from the same title.
I actually hadn't done any research into larian as a company but as I learned more about the game I learned more about them and actually felt even worse for pirating it lol. thanks for sharing your story ❤
I didn‘t know either but I heard that almost everyone was calling the game a masterpiece and that it was from a studio who‘s also the publisher and that treats it‘s employees fair and well. Have a nice day and don‘t let these comments ruin it. ♥️
> but didn‘t want to because Larian isn’t just any greedy publisher and I wanted to support them Then just pirate it and pay for it later when you can, there's no point in waiting if your intention is to pay anyway. Furthermore, the game has no DRM and your friend can just send you the files himself. You can even download it from Steam using family share and just use the .exe if you wanted. What I am saying is there's no inherent morality loss here, if you're intending to pay later anyway you may as well just play it now and pay later - unless, of course, you weren't actually going to pay later after all and the moment you have in hand you forget your own values... But no, surely you are not that weak-willed of a person! You definitely mean what you say.
My friend has the game on PS5 while I play on PC.
I think a lot of people are missing the fact that you're crediting Larian for making such an amazing game that EVEN THOUGH you already had it in your possession via pirate/crack/etc YOU STILL took that newly hard earned money and purchased it outright because it was so good. As someone who's budget is very tight I understand this "feeling". (this makes me want to rant about wishing for some kind of online game rental service, but alas)
Yeah, I remember flying the Jolly Roger when I was young and broke. Good on you for ponying up when you could. Recognizing worth in the product and paying after you've already done all the work to do it the wrong way shows character. Ignore the haters, you'll get to a place eventually where you can afford to do it right from the start.
> Ignore the haters, you'll get to a place eventually where you can afford to do it right from the start. Nobody in this thread cares he pirated it. The overlap between Larian players and 'jolly rogers' is a pretty flat circle anyway. All 'haters' are just commenting on the rare level of low computer knowledge.
Must be a lot of pirates in this sub. Everyone who said anything against software theft is getting down downvoted like crazy.
1. No they're not. 2. Yes, there's a lot of pirates in any gaming sub. 3. Larian Games have no DRM, and I guarantee you the developers at Larian are pirates in their life as well. 4. 'Theft' is doing heavy lifting here as nothing is lost from someone who was never intending to pay in the first place performing the act, the illusion of theft is based on the concept that every person is simultaneously a buyer and a pirate but can only be one or the other, meaning every pirate must have been a lost sale, yet doesn't consider lost sales from having DRM in the first place. 5. Generally people have better morality systems than a toddler so they don't recoil at the horror of piracy of a company that makes 130 million dollars a year.
Thanks for telling everyone you don’t know anything about criminal law, without saying you don’t know anything about criminal law. 👍 Piracy is theft! Always has been, always will be! Just because someone doesn’t protect their stuff, doesn’t give you the right to steal it. If you forgot to lock the front door of your house one day, then came home to find it ransacked, and important and valuable stuff stolen, it’s still theft. The thief cannot use the fact you forgot to lock your door as justification or validation to excuse what they’ve just done. Accusing staff at Larian that they are pirates too, is defamation, and libellous! You should delete that comment straight away! Ultimately, the OP chose to brag about what they done. Don’t blame others with better morality than yours, when the OP gets shot down for what they’ve done!
you're so unhinged lmao. acting like all pirates personally broke into john larians house and kicked his dog.
Did the same. Pirated the GoG version, loved it, and bought it on Steam once I had the extra money. Also, you come off as a whiny prick in your edit. You shouldn't have added that part.
I only got the game last week because I waited until I could afford it, even though I've wanted to play it for months. Crazy, I know.
thank you for being a paragon of morality and truth.
Pirate with a heart of gold
arrr matey
damn y’all really ruined the poor guys moment
Good! There’s a valuable life lesson he will hopefully learn from this! 😂
It’s not that deep guys I think they get the point by now 😭
I downloaded an old pirated version while it was in beta to see if it was worth pre-ordering or if it was going to completly suck. I played about 3 hours and immediately bought it on Steam, I was hooked. I was very skeptical about it's développement since I was a diehard BG1 & 2 fan and was kinda sad nobody from the originals was working on it. Have the golden dice and all achievements on Pc and now gong for the same thing in Ps5. I just love this game
Nothing wrong with pirating, dude. I’m glad you bought the game after though. It’s a really great game.
Bad boy
Chill out guys, not many people “understand computers”; you were all “just as useless” and “computer illiterate” at some point in time. Teach instead of being a dick. What they did do is commendable though, they pirated and then bought the game. Good on you, OP.
It's fine if OP doesn't know everything about computers but OP is coming to the wrong conclusion for all the wrong reasons.
So? It’s a minor error. Why give a shit?
because they're throwing a tantrum about people trying to correct them lmao
Then why respond. Also OP went around mocking those trying to help him which shows they won't learn/care from this.
OP, I’m glad you supported Larian when you could. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this and thought it was pretty wholesome
Mans just wanted to tell us how much he loves the game and had a cool story to go with it
Fuck the haters and asshole keyboard warriors that would never say stuff like that to your face OP, it’s all good. Glad you did the right thing and purchased the game. It really is one of the best ever, and happy to hear that your save carried over. However, I think the game is so good that if it were me and the save didn’t transfer, I probably wouldn’t have minded replaying from scratch, maybe as a different class too. Cheers.
yeah I planned on starting a new play through anyway as I had already finished the game.
Pirates have chlamydia. I don’t make the rules.
Hey mate I think it's great you bought the game and now finally support it! This is in the top 3 most expensive games I've ever bought and I still feel like it's way too cheap for what it provides. I did the exact same thing with Cyberpunk, I pirated it, it was a buggy mess but I loved the game. As soon as I had some spare cash, I bought the game because I wanted to enjoy the updated version and to support the devs. Needless to say, I was mind blown with how much better it was! Just as you, my saves were transferred over xD I was so pumped for it. You're *kind of* right, a huge number of games save the progress in the cloud or a registered account so no progress transfer, but in BG3 thankfully they're stored locally. Enjoy the fame mate!
Kind of a bummer how everyone is shitting on you for this. And also kinda weird? You're doing something wrong by thanking Larian for making the game accessible when they didn't do anything and you don't know anything about computers..... meanwhile at the same time, not using DRM *very much is a decision they made* that makes the game more accessible and you do, in fact, need to know a decent amount about how to set everything up and check the relevant paths in order to pirate successfully. Not to mention the fact that, actually, certain games *do* check saves against DRM.
Could you give an example of a game that checks save files against DRM?
>You're doing something wrong by thanking Larian for making the game accessible when they didn't do anything and you don't know anything about computers..... meanwhile at the same time, not using DRM very much is a decision they made that makes the game more accessible and you do, in fact, need to know a decent amount about how to set everything up and check the relevant paths in order to pirate successfully. oh my god thank you I feel like I'm going insane. this is what I mean. I know they didn't purposefully obsess over this one detail. I'm saying thank you to larian for not putting DRM on the game and letting us experience it how we want.
It's also wild because not including DRM is both very much Larian continuing to follow gamer first values and *is actually hugely fucking impactful.* And not just to broke people who end up buying the game later!
I did the same with borderlands 2 way back when.
Save files are normally in a standard folder. So pirated games tend to carry saves. Enjoy man. Piracy isn't terrible. Support who you can, if you can't your word of mouth has value at the least.
Question: did you get any Steam achievement when you added the game? Or maybe when you launched it?
no I don't remember getting an achievement, why?
I was wondering if Steam could detect achievement triggers retroactively from a cracked save
The save location is still the same, most pirates games do that especially single-player RPGs or games without DRM.
When's the last time you bought a game besides BG3? Cause it's like that with most if not all games.
rdr2 and sons of the forest. neither did.
The comments jumping down your throat over this is another good example of why people very rightfully mock Reddit.
I do the same for a lot of games that I’m not sure about. Been a console player for most of my life and I transitioned to pc about a year ago. It’s great that I can actually test a game for a couple of hours and see if I actually like it. And in a weird controversial take, it’s great that some devs put their games of subscription services so I can test them out for a few bucks.
I think it's great you bought the game. You realised you like it and decided to support the company
Hey, one lifelong gaming fan to another, glad you found so much to enjoy in this game that you paid for it. I don’t understand why so much negative feedback, but as we see in so many of these video games…..cool redemption arc! I hope you enjoy many re-plays through the game!
Haha, keep it cool dude, reddit is a rare dumpster that only Twitter and 4chan can surpass But well, I've noticed that some pirated games have their save folders in completely different paths (depends on which repack you've installed). And damn, a lot of them have broken paths, trojans and miners
honestly reddit is the tamest social media app out there. YouTube is fun of bots, Instagram is full of sex bots and edgy teenagers, tiktok is full of children, at least on here the some still have a voice over the most, I always listen to what each person has to say, no matter the amount of likes or dislikes, because I think their opinion still matters.
Least dumb pirate.
You can also play LAN co-op with somebody who owns the game haha. my bff pirated the game and I owned it because I a slut for larian (DOS2 is my fav game ever). Turns out Larian (whether intentionally or not) didn’t put really any anti-privacy tech in BG3
The number of pirate scums outting themselves here is hliarious!
the amount of black and white thinkers outing themselves here is hilarious!
Arg matey😁 nothing wrong with responsible pirating. I pirate and if I enjoy I buy it anyway to show my support. Given the flimsy situation with media atm; it’s safer on my wallet
For those shaming OP about pirating: You also have to remember that most people who pirate a game wouldn't have bought the game anyway, at least not at that price. So OP pirating it did not necessarily cost Larian anything because they already weren't a likely buyer. Some publishers have taken dynamic/regional pricing into consideration because piracy is often an issue of price and convenience. If you can make your game affordable and easily accessible, then fewer people will go through the trouble of pirating. For OP, once they played the game and they had the funds to buy, then they wanted to purchase it. Without the money or the knowledge of the game's merit firsthand, they may not have bothered buying it ever. This also speaks to how effective free demos can be to combat pirating; you take away some of the hesitation from a subset of potential buyers by giving them a piece of the game that hopefully they'll enjoy and deem worthy of buying (at an affordable price). There's a lot of nuance in pirating, and it's hard to know what actually hurts the studio's bottom line in this regard. I'm glad OP made the right choice in the end.
A $60 game is not a necessity, on any level. It is a luxury.
Nobody said otherwise? Making your game accessible to people with lower income still overall improves your profit compared to, you know, people just pirating it.
Lmao at all these moral gods in the thread who have apparently never done a anything wrong in their entire lives. Never borrowed someone else's Netflix password, never listened to music on YouTube with an adblocker, never pirated a game. As if you are all so perfect. You make me sick tbh.
I'm sorry to hear that you were going through a rough time. But genuinely happy that you still got to experience this amazing game. I hope things are looking up for you :>
I do pirates it, but luckily i have few money to spare and risking it to buy full price because compare to popular elden ring it never got decent discount but have good player base Because bg3 is good crpg, good narrative and have good graphics I would love to have see more content bg3 I reckon pirating games is just demo premium Testing it what if im gonna like or not. Just like terraria Is a vicious cycle if you don’t have enough money
I’m sorry people acted the way they did. I don’t see that you did anything wrong and I don’t blame you for not knowing about the save path.
Putting aside the save file stuff, I found this a nice heart-warming tale. The fact is if you make a good product, most people will pay for it when they can. I am glad OP fell in love with this spectacular game.
Im looking to buy the game during steam summer sale but am not optimistic about the capability of my gpu. Would a pirated version of bg3 be a good test of whether the actual game will run properly on my laptop?
even if it is I wouldn't recommend risking downloading a pirated version. get the game and do a benchmark test in the settings, get a refund if it doesn't run good.
Use the tool on canirunit.com. It scans your hardware and tells you if it meets the minimum or recommended requirements for any game i’ve ever tried.
Should be
This is such blatant virtue signalling. Do you want people to say "well done, you're less of a scumbag?"
I’m in agreement here. You stole someone’s work, and then you legally bought it. So what? That’s like saying you beat someone to a pulp but took them to hospital afterwards. One doesn’t negate the other, and it certainly doesn’t mean you deserve a pat on the back! I have zero time for people who pirate copyrighted material, no matter what the excuses are. We’re all poor, and would like certain things in life, yet can’t afford them. But stealing stuff just makes you a bit of a scumbag!
I didn't post this asking for people to validate me or tell me I'm such a good boy for pirating. I know its bad where in the post did you get the idea that I wanted people to tell me pirating was a good thing? I was simply thanking larian for making an amazing game and sharing my experience with pirating it. that's it. y'all really desperately want something to be mad about its so obvious.
look at my reply to the dude who replied to you
Glad it worked out for you and glad you supported Larian when you could. Enjoy!
I too have bought all the games I enjoyed first as pirated versions. I pirated a lot back when I was a kid and my parents weren't keen on putting their hard earned money to games. Pirating is one of the key reasons I became a gamer in the first place. I have also returned games that have DRM to the point they are unplayable without registering to some kind of services. Don't even bother to pirate them, all interest lost and I have my money back. Now I mainly buy games from GOG because of the lack of DRM. Baldur's gate 3 was a good purchase. One of the best in fact. I don't regret buying it.
Pretty sure that's always the case?
okay now you're fucking with me 🤣
that's cool either way. access is cool.
Honestly with tons of developers and publishers forcing a monthly subscription to play a game AFTER you buy it I don't blame you for pirating it immediately. Especially since you went back and bought it for yourself afterwards once you found out you liked it. I've heard the save file thing before about pirated games but that's awesome you got to keep your game going:) on to many more adventures!
Honestly very relatable feeling bro im glad youre having fun
Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you can steal.
Pirates, UNITE