Baldur’s Gate 3 Devs Give Sphynx Cat Fur, Immediately Apologize

Baldur's Gate 3 cat His Majesty hisses at a player.

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Baldur’s Gate 3 kitty His Majesty was born a wrinkled Sphynx, but transformed into a Maine Coon on September 22, when developer Larian issued Patch 3 for the popular RPG. Fans couldn’t stand it, but Larian heard their cries—Hotfix 8, issued October 3, makes His Majesty naked and ugly again, and it provides a number of other small improvements.

“[His Majesty] being an angry loud scrotum was just perfect,” one fan said after the cat’s first patch. In role-playing game BG3, spoiled His Majesty rebukes players after they use the Speak With Animals ability.

“Hiss, I say, hiss!” he declares in a princely baritone voice. He curls his back in permanent disapproval, and encourages even a courteous player to get the hell away from him.

“Go! Quickly! HISS!” he says.

By patching His Majesty the first time, Larian intended to distinguish him from Steelclaw, another hairless cat NPC.

“His Majesty’s appearance now befits his name and nature,” Larian wrote about his newfound scraggly, long, sand-colored tufts of fur, which resembles a long-haired breed of cat like a Manx or a Ragamuffin. In reverting its decision, the Belgian studio altered Steelclaw’s eye color, instead, “so they are no longer identical twins,” it wrote in its hotfix notes.

Some other notable game fixes include:

  • Dismissed companions won’t transfer story items in their inventory to the player anymore
  • You won’t be able to eavesdrop while in any character creator, including a level up screen
  • The Weapon Master Feat should no longer appear as incomplete when a player is proficient with all weapons
  • BG3 should no longer crash when re-assigning characters in splitscreen
  • Multiplayer should no longer crash when hearing dialogue after an active roll
  • Raphael’s original hair color and horns are restored, and his portraits have been adjusted accordingly
  • Githyanki Females’ Splint Armor will no longer trigger “unnecessarily psychedelic visual effects”

What change are you most excited about? Are you happy that His Majesty has been restored to his naked state?

Payday 3 Devs Apologize Again For Missing Major Update

A Payday 3 heister uses a civilian as a shield.

Image: Starbreeze Studios

Payday 3 devs have extended their apology tour that began back in September, when Starbreeze Studios CEO had to apologize for the state in which the co-op heist game launched. The always-online bank robbery simulator suffered from major server and matchmaking issues that were fixed a little over a week after launch, but the game still needed another major patch to fix some of its remaining major issues (particularly quality-of-life stuff). The team is now apologizing for going radio silent in the absence of said update.

An October 25 post on the official Payday website attempts to “lift the curtains a little” and let players know why the major patch, which was initially promised to arrive in early October and bring with it over 200 improvements, isn’t yet here. “We’ve been quiet over the last few days, and for that we apologize,” it reads. “It’s not easy to communicate when we have not been able to offer any updates on the one big topic that’s on everyone’s mind right now: When are the patches coming to Payday 3?”

Read More: Payday 3 Devs Explain Terrible Matchmaking Issues

The post promises that the team is still working on the upcoming patch, before getting into the true cause of the delay: Starbreeze Studios’ update pipeline.

The reason it has taken so long to get this first patch is very long and complicated, but the short version is that we discovered critical errors with our update pipeline shortly after the game releases. There was a significant risk to player progression being wiped if we didn’t address this and ensure a solid test environment.

The issue is so prominent that the team can’t “consistently deliver patches” in the game’s current state, which means new content has to wait, as well—though the blog does promise that there will be “free content updates for the game before the end of the year.”

Though Payday 3 boasted an impressive 90,000 concurrent players on Steam shortly after its September 18 launch, those players were quickly inundated with the now-infamous double “matchmaking error” screen. Since the game requires players to have an internet connection even if they’re playing solo, the server issues rendered it unplayable for many.

As Kotaku reported on September 25, the cause of the matchmaking issues were twofold: “a technical issue made things bad right out of the gate” but “a faulty update on September 24 by a third-party online services partner broke things all over again.” It’s unclear what is the cause of the current flaw in Payday 3’s update pipeline.

Kotaku reached out to Starbreeze for comment.

 

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Looks Blog by Crimson Themes.