Gaming @beehaw.org Feydaikin @beehaw.org 11 mo. ago

(SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

As the title says. I severely dislike having to make accounts for every game publisher that wants to send me advertisements, collect data or whatever.

It's usually an instant dealbreaker for me at this point

Publishers needing their own launcher already puts them on shaky grounds with me.

But I really liked the original BG 1 & 2, so I'm willing to not just refund it immediately and actually ask around first for solutions.

83 comments

If you're using Steam (or any kind of shortcut I suppose), add --skip-launcher to the launch options. Here's how to do so with Steam:

Right-click the game in your library and select Properties.

Look for the Launch Options field at the bottom of the General tab.

Add "--skip-launcher" and close the properties window.

Launch the game as normal.
- Thank you for the step-by-step. Steam can be a bit of a maze when you don't fiddle with these things so often. :)
  
  Edit: Apparently it's " --skip-launcher" the extra dash matters XD
  
  In future, drop by the PC Gaming Wiki first - it's a great resource for exactly this kind of question.
  
  Skip Larian launcher on startup
- Thank you for the info on this, will be using it going forward.
  
  Not sure if you did this on purpose, or if something else did it as part of editing, but your bulleted steps included an en dash (–) instead of two short dashes (--).
  
  Have had issues in the past with that, generally with WYSIWYG type editors combining your -- into either – or —.
  
  Ugh word does this. I didn't realize until I wrote some documentation for a cli tool I made for a client and I wrote the documentation in word because they are fairly non technical so I wrote in the documentation sample arguments they can copy and paste and shipped it feeling good that it would work flawlessly because I tested the crap out of it. Or so I thought because they immediately hit back with it doesn't work. I spent hours recreating their environment and watching it work no matter what I tried to get it to not work. Then I hopped on a call and had the client step by step show me what they did and they opened the word doc and copied the example commands, changed the arguments to be correct and run it. I followed along on my own machine and then I fucking saw what had happened. Fucking Microsoft Word replaced my " " with “ ” (straight quotes for smart quotes for those who cant see the difference). A quick patch of the cli to properly parse those and things were working again.
  
  I typed them directly into my comment from an Android phone, and it continues to display as two hyphens/minuses for me. Are you it's not your client trying to be clever?
- Does it launch with directx or Vulcan when you do this?
  
  You can also make it launch the Vulkan version with skipping the launcher. Seehttps://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/
  
  directx is the default and you must apply another switch to start with vulkan https://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/
  
  You can start the exe you want directly from the directory, there's one for each renderer: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_3#Skip_Larian_launcher_on_startup
  
  For me it chose direct x so I had to use the launcher. Vulcan is much better for me (just be sure to not use triple buffer for nvidia cards). Just choose skip and check the box that says 'do not ask again' and the launcher is less aggravating.
Not to sound like a dick, but how does this have so many upvotes? There's a button to skip it and never ask again right there.
- It’s lemmy, we hate anything regarding accounts, privacy and the corpos man!!
  
  Yeaaah, also f*ck sync D:< /s
  
  Posted from Sync
- Apparently others also found the advice helpful.
  
  yeah thanks for posting this. super helpful to learn i can skip the launcher entirely.
- lemmy saw an opportunity to hate on something and started roaming at the mouth
Select the "continue without login" option
- I am an idiot. I didn't click to the next page after it suggested I make an account.
  
  I just close down the launcher immediately.
  
  nah, asking the question still gave us the 'skip launcher' instructions, so this is a win!
  
  I had the same issue. Feels a bit shady to make people click Get Started anyway, but at least the launcher is skippable entirely.
- i didn't see that option anywhere. Gimme a sec, I'll check again
Oh, are we starting the reddit tradition of making no effort at all and just immediately asking the community for help instead?

Great.
- I can certainly see we're keeping the reddit-tradition of being an angry little muppet at any given opportunity alive.
  
  Yes, I asked a public forum for help about something I didn't know. And they came through for me, more so than I would have expected.
  
  You can go back to being angry elsewhere now. Shoo...
  
  You could have just... LOOKED. I've got no problem when its a question with more nuance than a google search can answer easily, or if its an opinion based question, but all I ask is people just TRY before making a post somewhere when the answer is so simple.
  
  It literally says "Skip" right underneath the thing you're complaining about. If you'd taken the time to look at the screen, you'd have seen it itself.
- That button in the corner saying skip account is really hard, okay?!?
  
  Repeating other peoples sentiments two days later is really constructive, okay?!?
  
  Get out of here, Sleepy.
  
  I had no skip button.
  
  It's not as clear cut as you might think.
Just hit skip, dumbass
- Permanently Deleted
  
  Agreed. If you have a point, make it. No need to be rude about it.
- Don't gotta be rude. Let's be better than that
Are you blind?
- No. Are you just here to be an ass?
  
  Yes
You can also go to the installation folder and find the bin folder and create a direct shortcut to bg3_dx11.exe to skip the launcher entirely.
- I'll never understand why publishers really need to add a launcher after launcher
  
  I think they probably need you to use their account in order to allow cross-play coop.
  
  Yo dawg...
  
  At the very least it gives them a way to potentislly contact you with offers. Corporate people probably also think it makes you more likely to get another title from the same publisher, though depending on the launcher I think it's actually the reverse.
- Thank you so much. I'll do that.
- I've also seen folks mention adding a --skip-launcher option to your launch options to achieve the same
But do you really wanna miss out on those sweet Twitch drops? /s
- Also it's tied to their cross save functionality.
  
  Cross save would be great if we didn't have to pay again to play on different platforms. Until then, cross-save is a "feature" that looks good on paper but it effectively worthless in practice.
- then id first need to make a twitch account
I know people don't like to create accounts, but Larian seems to be doing fine when I created the vault account(for their prior kickstarter redeem etc.) It doesn't work with launcher and I contact support to then know they have a new system so they can link steam/twitch/gog for their game specific feature(cross save and twitch integration). So if you ever want to do a session in the future using the twitch integration, you would have to register account to be able to link and use that. It lets viewer check character build/inventory and quest logs, so you can have like 3 viewer like your buddy playing together while you control the choice, your buddy can vote for decision making or direct their character's combat choice. At worst you can be the only viewer to your stream and just use it as a 2nd screen to have over view of character build or inventory.

example screenshot of twitch integration
- Indeed. But I have no intention of linking anything up with Twitch, or any other streaming service for that matter.
  
  I just want the games I buy to launch when I press play. No sign-ups, no extra launchers popping up. Just the game I bought, that's all. :)
- OP is concerned about their privacy, rightfully so. Them requiring you to make an online account after you have purchased the game is entirely unjustified. They could already tie information to the account with which you purchased a licence.
  
  Connecting Twitch and whatnot would work against your privacy: even if Larian does not do anything bad, they will share data with these connected accounts.
  
  Yep I understand those and just saying the obvious reason why one might want to create account, and you can skip or disable launcher entirely as mentioned in this thread.
  
  Cross save( especially between consoles<->PC ) requires linking accounts, Larian disabled it now because of a hotfix bug since PS5 version is not released yet and causing PC player issues.
  
  And I honestly don't know what kind of threat Twitch has over your privacy on a fresh Larian account. See here is a brief breakdown what they can see:
  
  Larian: they now know I have a twitch account, potentially my twitch account's email address.
  
  Twitch: they now know I have BG3, on top of Rocket League and some games I used too stream with a friend. And I am on that garbage tier cause the account is a burner(to sign up stuff that might get spam mails), I never spent a dime on twitch, my user experience data is probably worst since I only go straight to the channel I want to get drops with and never "browse the recommendation". BG3 I had to go to the game's page and click on the drop enabled one then afk for 2 hours then I just close it.
  
  So unless there is some secret tech I am not aware of, please do let me know why and what else might be shared that have threat to my personal info/privacy.
- Just to let you know, while you are adding to the conversation in some ways, in many ways you are distracting from it. I know you likely have good intentions, but you have pivoted completely away from the original ask and are muddying the waters of the conversation a little with the additional input in the complete opposite direction.
  
  The twitch integration may have nice features but the OP, myself, and likely many others don't care and just want to play our game in peace without constant studio specific launchers and accounts and etc. Bringing twitch integration up makes now us focus on that as the discussion point rather than the clearly user antagonistic features such as lack of a button to skip creating an account.
  
  I only created this after so many post of "I don't know why Larian would need to put up a launcher and ask for an account". It's to show what it actually do and why they needed it. And of course the user can just go with other higher voted comment thread. I think it is a legit reason and usage to ask you to create account and using the feature they provided, and it's also totally fine that you don't. (I didn't created an account when I was checking back and forth with Larian support about the vault account I used to use for their website. I just skip and play EA as always until like 4~5 days later a guy explained this new account situation. I created account like 1 day before launch since I want to get the twitch drop.)

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