Baldur's Gate 3 Dream Begins to Fade - UPDATED

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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RhombusHatesYou said:
Andy Chalk said:
There are ways to make it happen while still staying true to the original, and a new D&D RPG in the BG style is something I'd be very excited about.
That could be problematic as WotC are loathe to licence games that don't use their current rulesets... and I'd rather pick my nose with a mining drill than suffer through BG3 in D&D4e.

Of course if the wanted to try their hand at BG style RPG using a GOOD fantasy rule set I'd be willing to take a look at it.

Or, you know, they could grab some other good IP... Zombies are still selling, maybe they could licence All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Or, if they've been taking a lot of drugs, Pokethulu or the Geezers setting for Risus... hell, I'll even help browbeating S John Ross to get either of those deals done.
You wouldn't have to play BG3 with the 4E ruleset because WotC is already playtesting 5E, which is looking to be much closer to 2E than it is to 4E conceptually. Maybe a mix of 3E and 2E with a few of 4E's better ideas and some new tricks to play around with. I wouldn't say that it's fully baked yet, but I'd still play the current playtest over 4E.

Chaosritter said:
There might be no Baldur's Gate III?

WHAT IS HAPPENING?! HOW CAN THAT BE?!

Seriously, it was pretty much obvious a decade ago that BG III will never happen. And even if someone is insane enough to try, the result would most likely be an insult to the originals.

To be honest, I wouldn't even want one made by Bioware. Unless they somehow manage it got gather the original BG II team and flip the bird to EA.
Trent Oster was a Bioware co-founder and lead programmer during BG2, and the guy they got to write the new content, Dave Gross, has some experience writing Forgotten Realms fiction(though I confess I have not read his novels). Given the rut that Bioware has been digging since KOTOR, I'd rather have the current Beamdog team handle it. At least they're passionate about such things (where as Bioware itself to EA).

Carnagath said:
I find that rather positive. Those devs can't even do a remake properly, you can get the same "remake" they did by modding the original game, and with much less problems as well. I can't imagine a full new Baldur's Gate from them would be anything other than catastrophic.
The same contractual bullshit that is causing problems now has hamstrung the Beamdog's options in overhauling the game, but let's be clear: BGEE was never meant to be a "remake." Indeed, a true remake would likely be met with cries of "you're ruining my childhood" and other similar complaints. And you can't get BGEE with mods, because a lot of the effort that went into BGEE is behind the curtain coding that isn't obvious from the outside except in that it runs faster and on more platforms than the original. It also supposedly is more open to modding, but as I am not a modder myself, I can't really verify that.

Mr.K. said:
Yeah I honestly am not saddened by this because BG: EE was really not good in the added content department, and those were just small snippets of their work, if they went onto a full game those shortcoming would be the entire game... that is just not a good formula.

Look if you have what it takes then just make a new IP, we still want to play those style of games and you won't piss us off by borking up Baldur's Gate, also no legal issues.
While I wasn't a fan of the Black Pits, that was mostly due to it taking place outside the normal course of playing the game. The other content(i.e. the new characters and their related quests) were fine, and I was very interested in "adventure y," which was supposed to fill the time gap between BG and BG2.

Now all of that said, I really hope that this bullshit clears out. I've been championing BGEE for a while, but if this turns into a dead end, BGEE will become pretty worthless without a BG2EE to transition to. So regardless of the possibilities or lack thereof for a BG3, let's hope that either Atari gets its head out of its ass or that the new owners of the BG games are willing to honor a similar arrangement.
 

Carnagath

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Scars Unseen said:
Carnagath said:
I find that rather positive. Those devs can't even do a remake properly, you can get the same "remake" they did by modding the original game, and with much less problems as well. I can't imagine a full new Baldur's Gate from them would be anything other than catastrophic.
The same contractual bullshit that is causing problems now has hamstrung the Beamdog's options in overhauling the game, but let's be clear: BGEE was never meant to be a "remake." Indeed, a true remake would likely be met with cries of "you're ruining my childhood" and other similar complaints. And you can't get BGEE with mods, because a lot of the effort that went into BGEE is behind the curtain coding that isn't obvious from the outside except in that it runs faster and on more platforms than the original. It also supposedly is more open to modding, but as I am not a modder myself, I can't really verify that.
Remake, revamp, whatever. The point is, they fucked it up, and that's inexcusable. Their revamp was so broken that it wasn't even funny. Silent Hill HD was a marvel compared to it. When you undetake a revamp of an old game, and you then have to release 7 patches that try to fix multiple crashes, bugs and disappearing NPC's, it's rather self-explanatory that you did a terrible job. And the game's still buggy, it needed even more improvement, which unfortunately it's now probably not going to get and it's gonna be up to the modders yet again to fix it further. Same thing happened with the Age of Empires 2 revamp, which was amazingly broken. Different devs, I know, but same point. It ran at like 20 fps on my PC, then a couple of months later they released a patch that improved performance on fast machines by... FIVE HUNDRED percent. Allow me to not be filled with confidence about a dev pulling off Baldur's Gate 3, when all they have shown up until that point is complete incompetence.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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Carnagath said:
Scars Unseen said:
Carnagath said:
I find that rather positive. Those devs can't even do a remake properly, you can get the same "remake" they did by modding the original game, and with much less problems as well. I can't imagine a full new Baldur's Gate from them would be anything other than catastrophic.
The same contractual bullshit that is causing problems now has hamstrung the Beamdog's options in overhauling the game, but let's be clear: BGEE was never meant to be a "remake." Indeed, a true remake would likely be met with cries of "you're ruining my childhood" and other similar complaints. And you can't get BGEE with mods, because a lot of the effort that went into BGEE is behind the curtain coding that isn't obvious from the outside except in that it runs faster and on more platforms than the original. It also supposedly is more open to modding, but as I am not a modder myself, I can't really verify that.
Remake, revamp, whatever. The point is, they fucked it up, and that's inexcusable. Their revamp was so broken that it wasn't even funny. Silent Hill HD was a marvel compared to it. When you undetake a revamp of an old game, and you then have to release 7 patches that try to fix multiple crashes, bugs and disappearing NPC's, it's rather self-explanatory that you did a terrible job. And the game's still buggy, it needed even more improvement, which unfortunately it's now probably not going to get and it's gonna be up to the modders yet again to fix it further. Same thing happened with the Age of Empires 2 revamp, which was amazingly broken. Different devs, I know, but same point. It ran at like 20 fps on my PC, then a couple of months later they released a patch that improved performance on fast machines by... FIVE HUNDRED percent. Allow me to not be filled with confidence about a dev pulling off Baldur's Gate 3, when all they have shown up until that point is complete incompetence.
First off, you are overstating BGEE's problems dramatically. Most people that are posting at all aren't having anywhere near the kind of difficulty playing the game as you are indicating, and many are having no problems at all. If you are having problems, that is unfortunate, but that is what post release support is for, and Beamdog is(or was until this mess) doing that. This isn't like Alpha Protocol where the game just got released, and fuck you if you have problems because you aren't getting a patch ever.

Second, despite the fact that many of the problems people are having are a hardware driver issue(it isn't Beamdog's fault that Intel refuses to support OpenGL), they wrote an entirely new renderer just for the Intel Graphics users, which was to be released in the next patch(and hopefully still will be).

Beamdog has done a very good job with what they were allowed to do, and their post release communication and support has been admirable. If this contract bullshit gets cleared away, I fully expect them to continue that support all the way to BG2EE and beyond.
 

CardinalPiggles

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It was Atari's plan all along! With the possibility of never being able to get BG:EE again people on the fence will make the final jump.

Doesn't matter, I have BG1 and 2 with their expansions right next to me.
 

Joos

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Baldurs Gate was the story of how Bhaal planned to trick and overcome his demise and his progenies rise to power. That story is indeed very well concluded and it would be foolish to try and milk this franchise any further.

Project Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera seems to be our best hope for spiritual sequels.
 

sXeth

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Yeah, why bother digging up a definitively ended IP? Can you not put your talents into something equally interesting without having to clutch desperately at brand recognition?. Even in the D&D/Forgotten Realms license, you've got a ton of other possibilities.

Even if you kept the story somehow, good luck getting a license for a story thas desperately locked into 2nd Edition FR when they're on 4(or 4.5 or something) edition now.
 

Starke

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Scars Unseen said:
This isn't like Alpha Protocol where the game just got released, and fuck you if you have problems because you aren't getting a patch ever.
Or... you know, almost exactly like Alpha Protocol, because the devs were working on a patch and then the publisher/IP holder stepped in and belted out, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
 

VanBasten

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Andy Chalk said:
and Atari's Baldur's Gate page is gone too.
It's still there:

http://www.atari.com/buy-games/rpg/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-0

There's even a link to it on the front page.
 

kingthrall

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1. People are moaning about additional content added to BGEE remember the price is 20 dollars. In the retail stores they sell it for around 5-10 dollars for a damaged box. Also remember that there was a myriad of compatibility issues for vista, windows 8 and the like due to its age. It was the coding that made this game a great buy, and the scripts, journal and bugs all fixed up.

2. Atari have waited this long to attack beamdogs work. It seems more like desperation for a quick buck for a drowning corporation and wants to take down everyone else with it. Its utterly pathetic to the point of being a bad joke. You would think Beamdog would never have started to make a first Enhanced edition if they never got permission in the first place. Why did it take this long in the first place? The only reason Atari has taken an interest is the sales and profit that Beamdog have made from the nostalgia that Atari have missed out on because they coudnt be bothered funding and sourcing people for a EE themselves.

3. I was one of the first people to download and have small issues with the EE when it came out. I had a blue flickering screen and was resolved in 3 days time. Unlike Empire total war naval invasions bug where it took 3 months to get it fixed and another two years for a multiplayer campaign where every player had moved on to Napoleon total war.

4. It is possible they should of made a new game with new story, but in the end they would of had to go through wizards of the coast and even more political law suits to even get permission to use characters like Elminster and drizzt. W.O.T.C would of made beamdog jump through hoops for everything that they wanted in their perfect game and not given artistic control for beamdog to properly impliment the D&D they envisaged. Proof of this is that nobody has touched D&D with a 6ft pole for yeas other than the company themselves earning big bucks from magic the gathering to sustain their income.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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As has been suggested, a Part 3 is very tricky. I don't know how high level 2nd ed rules let us go, but by the time I reached the end of ToB, the only enemies that presented a challenge to my pure Mage were boss types. Further, the story did reach a natural end (Mass Effect 3 could've learned a lot from it) although in fairness it's not too hard to imagine a way around that little niggle, particularly as one of the two endings makes it very easy to explain.

How can the journey of the Bhaalspawn continue after that titanic final battle? I want it to, very, very much...to adventure with Minsc, Jaheira and my beloved Viconia again would be great, but I think it will remain relegated to a day dream.

Would like this business sorted out though, I'd like a BGII enhanced to go with the first. Though for anyone unsure about the EEs, missed them now they're (hopefully temporarily) unavailable or whatever, getting the original two games and BG TuTu [http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/] is very good way to go. It seamlessly integrates the two games and their expansions (seriously, I didn't even realise 1 ended until 2 started), upgrades BG1 to use the same engine as BG2 (including the UI, meaning it's the same UI for the entire epic adventure) and enhances a lot of things in its own way (bugs, better journal, etc).

Any details about the "contractual" difficulties involved here?
 
Apr 5, 2008
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I will add though, that a *new* game, set in and around Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Athkatla or the like would be fantastic. Isometric, party based, 3.5ed rules (or 2nd), maybe have some companions from the original two games as well.

I would also pay money for an expansion pack that adds to the existing adventure, even if it's mostly fleshing out characters, conversations, NPCs and romances. Maybe another "Watcher's Keep" style massive dungeon.

I would pay big bucks for anyone who can convert the games to have enemy scaling throughout. Adding that to BG 1 & 2, NWN 1 & 2 would for me make them utterly replayable and more enjoyable.
 

Kahani

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Why would anyone want a Baldur's Gate 3? The story was finished. Plenty of people might want similar sort of D&D games in similar settings. And you know what? We're getting them. And we're getting them made by people who actually know what they're doing, rather than people who decided to replicate a bunch of existing free mods and charge for them. Although somehow it doesn't surprise me that the people who did that just want to try to jam things on the end of a finished series rather than actually make something original.
 

Steve Dark

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VanBasten said:
Steve Dark said:
What. But I've been "just about to buy" BG: Enhanced Ed for the past howeverlong it's been out. Why is it now unavailable!? Sort it out, right THIS SECOND.
You can still buy it on Steam and directly from Atari.

It has only been pulled from Beamdog and Apple store.
Doom972 said:
Why does Baldur's Gate need a sequel? Either they'll pull a Samus Aran, or make a completely unrelated story and just call it Baldur's Gate 3. The story is done and there's no reason to ruin it.

Steve Dark said:
What. But I've been "just about to buy" BG: Enhanced Ed for the past howeverlong it's been out. Why is it now unavailable!? Sort it out, right THIS SECOND.
Ta da:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/228280/
The two of you have my thanks, was genuinely despairing! Can finally buy this now. :D

Well, probably will do it tomorrow.

...Or maybe after I next get paid...