Enhanced Baldur's Gate Headed to iPad

[TheAmazingHobo]

But if you really cannot see past the words and take into context their broader reference, I'll explain: coming up with ideas for a video game shouldn't be hard for people who make a living in the industry. That their employer chose to waste their skill on a reskin and port, is a money grab and an act of extreme laziness. Though not easy to come up with an original idea, one would think they could "hash it out." I'm pretty sure we as a species have been doing it for, oh I don't know, a few thousand years.

More and more indie games become the only well left to pull up any sort of original thought. No one pays them a few grand to sit around their table and they manage it.

You misunderstood.
Though I guess I´m to blame for that or rather my previous brewity, so I´ll try to be a bit more verbose this time.

What I meant was, that the "idea"-part is meaningless.
Making a new game isn´t about an idea.
Every moron has ideas and every gaming moron has ideas for games.
It´s not about having ideas. It´s about having the skill-set required to do an entirely new game.

Do you know that there are concept artists who do nothing BUT produce artwork for entirely new games ?
There are also people who are specialized on creating artistic frameworks for how a new game (or rather any entertainment property. I admit that I know of none who do ONLY games) should look. And other who have extensive experience on working within an already given framework.
There are writers specialized on providing new scripts and other writers specialized on punching up scripts written by other people.
Programmers good at improving upon given code and programmers who start at a very low level, building upwards.

You talk about indie games. I guess is that this is were your misconception with regards to how game development works comes from.
Want to know why they tend to do the original ideas ?
Because indie games do NOT require many people with very specialized skill sets.
Developing huge games (such as a BGII remake and even more so a new, BGII-like game) does.

snip

Apologies, I realized afterwards that this was a much more dickish thing to do then I intended.
And your explanation is perfectly reasonable. As a German speaker myself, I can attest to what exposure to our language does to ones syntax.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

infinity engine is a perfect platform to get transformed into tablet controls

it was all mouse driven, the only keyboard shortcut I can think of is the button that made clickable things outlined, and that is easily done with an onscreen button

good for them, if this brings the magic of BG to a wider audience more power to them

that would be awesome if this started a turn based rpg revival, I would love me some pool of radiance and krynn series gold box games ported to tablets

 

[Strazdas]

"baldur gate is going to be enchanted while staying true to the old game"
"out first step is to bastardize the franchise and release screenshots that show no improvement whatsoever"
this sounds promising.

 

[Fai57]

SNIP

I think you're also forgetting that a lot of old game series have been polished and re-released to drum up interest for a new game in the series. This could very well be a precursor to a new Baldur's Gate game.

And, jumping off of TheAmazingHobo's point, it looks like Overhaul Games, the studio making the enhanced edition, are also making/made an HD update of another old game. They also seem to be a fairly new game developer. It's very likely that they're either aiming to specialize in updating games, or they're using updates, less intensive projects, to kick start their development team and gain experience. Either way, they probably couldn't just "make a new game and not be so lazy" (heavy paraphrase).

 

[mrhateful]

I (was) really excited now I know its going to be awful. PC games on an ipad, please excuse me while I laugh at mere notion. PC games are meant for the PC, putting it on the ipad is waste of time since the people who own an ipad wouldn't want to play a game as epic as Baldur's Gate but rather some casual thing like that bird game, something where not much is required of the player.

 

[lord.jeff]

I'm really hoping this sells well, not only could we see other classic games come back but it would prove there's a market for this type of game and we may get to see new RPGs with the classic stylings making a comeback, maybe even a Planescape sequel. Also for people taking shots at the game for not making any changes for the Enhanced Edition could you wait till we get more then a handful of screenshots till you jump to that conclusion.

I (was) really excited now I know its going to be awful. PC games on an ipad, please excuse me while I laugh at mere notion. PC games are meant for the PC, putting it on the ipad is waste of time since the people who own an ipad wouldn't want to play a game as epic as Baldur's Gate but rather some casual thing like that bird game, something where not much is required of the player.

Oh no it's not on the glorious PC it has no chance of being good, seriously the entire game was mouse controlled, there's not a single element of the game that wouldn't work with touch controls. As for Ipad owners only playing angry birds the jail breaks people have already made to play Boulder's gate say otherwise.

 

[Scars Unseen]

LOL, Comedy gold.

"You cant add gamepad support to Baulders Gate... thats stupid, that would be horrible to control, No one would play that and you would have to rewrite the entire game and build two separate games to make it work clunky at best."

But its going to the Ipad....

"OMG OMG OMG~!!!! This is so awesome, and touch screen controls will be such a great "enhancement! This should be a cinch for them to add and its going to be so seamless and fluid! "

That after having to deal with all sorts of nonsense from the prior article that was similar in tone about the BG enhanced thread and the immediate denunciation of gamepad support.

So.. Ill say it! Blasphemy.. You cant add touch screen controls to balders gate.. they are trying to enhance the game, and you cannot ask them to bog down production just for your irrational desires of a minority of people who are that wrong to want something like that and on the apple store. (not that I believe it... but just throwing it back out there.)

Just thought I'd address this for a moment. I can't speak for others, but I don't see gamepad adaptation as being a particularly useful addition to this game series, not because it isn't possible, but because it would require a fundamental alteration to the game's UI in order to function smoothly. You might not agree with that assessment and that's fine. This does not, however, make me a hypocrite(I know, you didn't use that word, but I sense that's what you're getting at) for believing that an iPad port is perfectly feasible(despite the fact that I do not now, nor ever will own an iPad).

Touch screen controls work quite well to utilize a click and drag UI, where gamepads never could. While some programming would be needed to implement touch control, no actual UI redesign is needed. The current one works as is(GemRB is a testament to that). If I had any complaint, it would be that no Android port has been announced, but then, I'm used to being shafted by game publishers on that front, and I still have my PC, so all is well.

 

[viranimus]

Just thought I'd address this for a moment. I can't speak for others, but I don't see gamepad adaptation as being a particularly useful addition to this game series, not because it isn't possible, but because it would require a fundamental alteration to the game's UI in order to function smoothly. You might not agree with that assessment and that's fine. This does not, however, make me a hypocrite(I know, you didn't use that word, but I sense that's what you're getting at) for believing that an iPad port is perfectly feasible(despite the fact that I do not now, nor ever will own an iPad).

Touch screen controls work quite well to utilize a click and drag UI, where gamepads never could. While some programming would be needed to implement touch control, no actual UI redesign is needed. The current one works as is(GemRB is a testament to that). If I had any complaint, it would be that no Android port has been announced, but then, I'm used to being shafted by game publishers on that front, and I still have my PC, so all is well.

Well, no, not exactly. See Im not looking at not adding gamepad support as being hypocritical. Its a PC thing. I do get that. Honestly I dont care if they add it or not because I have xpad. However the hypocrisy comes in when the developers go out of their way to say they are NOT going to add gamepad support, and then rebuild the mac version to accommodate touch screen support which DID have to be tweaked to accommodate gesturing, OSK, etc. Or when fanboys rail adding gamepad support is a waste of developer time when The developer themselves had already invested time in modifying a control mechanism.

The PC elitists who railed on this, Yes, hypocritical but only in retrospect. The developers, not at all had they NOT gone out of their way to point out they would not be including it.

I really do not see what exactly the problem is supposed to be with adding gamepad support that is supposed to be so difficult. Left stick for movement, Right stick for mouse control, Left trigger for Mouse 1 Right trigger for Mouse 2, Dpad up and down for mouse scroll wheel, and then fill in the blanks of anything else you might need And add a simple slide bar for "mouse sensitivity" so players can find their sweetspot on controlling the mouse via analog stick, which really is JUST as effective as a mouse control once you find an appropriate speed for it.

Anyway, dont really care if it doesnt get added.. Just a dick thing to do to go out of your way to say NO!, when you basically already did the same thing elsewhere and to have the master race back you up on it like it was some Hereculean task.

So Yeah, guess I AM saying hypocrites. Pretty much calling a spade a spade. Sorry. Anyway, congratulations Ipad users, This must be awesome for you.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Just the iPad? What about Android support? It would be a good incentive to go out and buy one of these tablets. I would never buy iPad though.

 

[ThatGuy]

Cool. Let's get Fallout 1 and 2 on the iPad, too!