Company News Beamdog working on a Baldur's Gate interquel set between BG1 and BG2, and some other stuff

[Roguey]

Looking forward to seeing the Saw-train demolish this.

 

[GreyViper]

I wouldn't mind another IE game. Guess, its wait and see time again.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Looking forward to seeing the Saw-train demolish this.

I think he's too busy polishing a turd to do much demolishing at the moment

 

[Roguey]

I think he's too busy polishing a turd to do much demolishing at the moment

Jouisseurs only, no grogs allowed.

 

[Zed]

Jouisseurs only, no grogs allowed.

can IE be good without the grog?

 

[tuluse]

How can they have gotten rights to make a new 2E game?

 

[mondblut]

Yeah, the thing I am wondering is, BioWare/EA own all the rights to the characters of Baldur's Gate (If I understand that correctly).

Unlikely. Most of these characters are also in Baldur's Gate novels, and TSR WOTC isn't likely to hand out assets they have used in their own property. Imagine them reprinting the novel trilogy to tie in with EEs, and getting sued by EA, oh irony.

 

[Infinitron]

How can they have gotten rights to make a new 2E game?

Probably managed to convince the right people that it's not actually a new game but rather an "expandalone".

 

[Lagole Gon]

There's already some screenshots.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Outlander]

Beamdog used to be talentless hacks, now they're 'not so bad' and criticizing their shit work is seen as OCD-level nitpicking:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/ie-enhanced-editions.96039/

 

[Western]

Wonderful news, looking forward to this with great interest and still eagerly awaiting PST enhanced edition.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

How can they have gotten rights to make a new 2E game?

I don't think they do have the rights to make a new IE game.

My understanding is that they don't have any right to make changes to the original content, but have the rights to add to it, hence them creating new content.

As a general comment, technically they aren't raping the originals, just inserting their poorer quality content around the original stuff, much like teenagers draw mustaches on models in women's magazines.

Edit: Again, as a general comment, it's also become clear at this point that once they got started with updating the IE, they quickly got in over their heads. FWIW, the engine and bugfixes have come a fair way, imo.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I thought the EEs were buggy pieces of shit with underwhelming extra content and shitty new characters? Where are these people making their money?

Here:

Approximately $10 of my money is going to help fund this project.

Steam is full of idiots who impulsively buy any- and everything while making shitty image macros of Gaben and posting at Reddit PC Master Race. I know three guys who bought the EE versions with the excuse that "I don't have time or interest in making them work on a modern PC".

 

[Dreaad]

BG : 1 1/2 : Dreams of Bahl Spawn

You get captured and tortured by Irenicus.... which unleashes your powers and sends you on an adventure in your mind/hell. At the end you meet Bahl, he wipes your memories, you wake up.... It is time for more experiments.

Except it will probably be even worse than this. From the original shit Beamdog have made in the past the best they could manage was smaller areas with less content than BG1 wilderness zones, seriously I'm not even being edgy. Oh and they added some (4) kits........... A miserable effort all around, asking for almost full game price.
This will just be Blackpits: H3ll, with PC trapped in his own mind. $69.

 

[Aeschylus]

Why not just post something to fanfiction.net and save us all a huge headache?

 

[Achiman]

I guess I'm interested. I replayed through the games last year *EE editions* I thought the Orc character was pretty decent, tbh though nothing that was new was better than what I played in the darkest day mod and that was free.

I cbf looking for a map, but there is a large amount of distance to be covered from Baldurs gate to Amn. So I could see some "questing" going on after killing Sarevok.
If they make something that is epically short then people will be pissed off, if they make something that breaks the start of BG2 because your character is too high a level then they are stuck too and there is no way that you can take away character import from BG1 to BG2.

Something to keep an eye on though, it's waaaaay down my list of shit I'm going to play this year (if it's out), with POE, Serpent in the Staglands, Underail, AOD and other games released last year that haven't got a look yet.

 

[set]

I'm supportive of beamdog. You can't screw up that bad forever. More IE games pls.

 

[Viata]

I'm supportive of beamdog. You can't screw up that bad forever. More IE games pls.

Are you implying Bioware will become good again?

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I still can't believe this industry has been so obtuse to neglect a franchise like Baldur's Gate to the point of letting a no-name and no-talent developer like Beamdog the chance to acquire the rights for it.
Just to put things in perspective, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were multi-million sellers when selling a single million was goddamn big deal even for a lot of big budget projects.

What's even more discouraging is how Beamdog's work remastering these classics was some half-assed, underwhelming effort and their added content was fanfiction-tier stuff.
On top of that, their wording about this new one makes it sound like they aren't even planning to update the tech or anything, just to recycle once again 14 years old assets.

Saying I'm not expecting much would be a massive understatement.

 

[purpleblob]

I'm supportive of beamdog. You can't screw up that bad forever. More IE games pls.

That's the mindset helping out scums like Bioware/EA. I know it, because I threw down some money to EA, playing DA:I....

Well, if Beamdog screw up, I hope they will disappear forever. I really don't like them milking every bit off IE/BG games.... And I certainly don't want any BG3 developed from them.

I reckon you will be traveling with Beamdog's new NPCs in this Gen Y crap, since they don't have access to voice actors/actresses with Bioware NPC new dialogues.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

You can't screw up that bad forever.

The worrying thing is that Dorn's arc in BG:EE was fine, but there were a few steps back in his arc in BG2:EE (some awkward dialogue, the retarded-ness of his arc and a part of his quest was poorly designed where invisibility had to be dispelled on a demon).

Neera's arc in BG:EE was anti-climactic and the humor fell flat. Her arc in BG2:EE was a slight improvement, but it should have improved more to demonstrate that they were really learning from what they were doing.

 

[Zeriel]

It's no big deal, they said, they're only updating the old games they said. They won't rape your youthful memories.

Nope, they did. I look forward to the Planescape sequel starring Neera.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Their hearts are definitely in the right place, so I can't bring myself to hate on them. They're just not at tuff level required for a professional release, let alone a major franchise. It's like if a random bunch of codexers decided to make a new fallout - they'd have great intentions, but the game would be shitty mod quality at best. Actually the fan made fallout project is a great comparison, where modders with good intentions found out that making an actual game is utterly beyond their resources, capabilites and expectations of what game development takes. Except beaming got a golden property (no mystery why they made money - so many different subgroups of copy fan from completely different gaming communities unite in holding bg2 as an all time classic, that its nearly impossible to be a fan of any modern RPG, Broward action /romancer, Bethesda walking simulator, action RPG or monocle gaming community without knowing of it, and of course there's going to be masses who leapt at the chance to play any modern remake, neither knowing or caring how little was improved - even those who knew the added content would be shit probably wouldn't care, as they aren't comparing to the original and figured they could just skip through that stuff).

But it sheets home how neglected the genre has been. It will never make mega bucks, but it shouldn't have to - the global economy has been awash with credit for decades now, and there's no excuse for a, large company like bioware even pre ea to not be making mainstream megahits and true party based crpgs (whether rtwp or tb) simultaneously and selling them to d different markets. I can only hope that bioware are looking at beamdog, seeing how even a bunch of modders hopelessly over their heads can make money with a bg game without even 'modernising' the gameplay, and realise that they are throwing away easy money.

Of course, if the da follow up is anything to go by, they'll decide that it sold because fans want medieval settings with a choice of fucking the evil bondage Elf or the virtuous paedo-bate elf, and their next game will be bg3 in third person, no party, real time da2 combat where every quest reward is being told how sexy you are by an elf designed to correlate with a variety of sexual fetishes.

 

[Nihiliste]

Why the fuck would incompetent hacks like beamdog be in charge of a project like this. What a shame.

 

[Xeon]

I hope they get Obsidian to help out with the story or something. I think Obsidian sometimes get help from some of the devs of Beamdogs so Beamdogs really need some help with the story and writing.

Their writing for the additional content was not that good, didn't play all of them so might be wrong.