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

[Gangrelrumbler]

Even if PS:T wasn't hard to mod beamdog would never create their own companion for the game. While BG companions characters are all generic PC's each Torment's companion has his own unique sprite. Making a new one that wouldn't stand out like shit would take a lot of time and resources and would please absolutely nobody.

 

[Zeriel]

Even if PS:T wasn't hard to mod beamdog would never create their own companion for the game. While BG companions characters are all generic PC's each Torment's companion has his own unique sprite. Making a new one that wouldn't stand out like shit would take a lot of time and resources and would please absolutely nobody.

They could just use any number of monster/NPC sprites. It's not like they're not lazy.

CARA THE NUPPERIBO BARD

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

They could just use any number of monster/NPC sprites. It's not like they're not lazy.

CARA THE NUPPERIBO BARD

Monsters and generic NPC would stick-out like a sore thumb while unique NPCs wouldn't have matching voices.

 

[Dreaad]

^ That has never stopped them before, que ghey halfork asking pc for but sex.

If anything they will avoid Planscape Torment because it was nowhere near as popular as BG series. To this day, half the people who have claimed to play it are bullshitting you. Too much work for too little pay off.

 

[Western]

They could just use any number of monster/NPC sprites. It's not like they're not lazy.

CARA THE NUPPERIBO BARD

I've thought about this, since it's hard to mod the original, they could just use the BG2 engine to make a sequel to PST!

 

[GloomFrost]

^ That has never stopped them before, que ghey halfork asking pc for but sex.

If anything they will avoid Planscape Torment because it was nowhere near as popular as BG series. To this day, half the people who have claimed to play it are bullshitting you. Too much work for too little pay off.

What makes you think that? Kickstarter campaign for tides of numenera showed that planascape is a damn popular game.

 

[Athelas]

^ That has never stopped them before, que ghey halfork asking pc for but sex.

If anything they will avoid Planscape Torment because it was nowhere near as popular as BG series. To this day, half the people who have claimed to play it are bullshitting you. Too much work for too little pay off.

It's the best-selling game on GOG, outselling either BG game.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think they will add content to Torment other than the Unfinished Business cut content stuff available in Qwinn's mod. That's more than enough.

Remember, adding content isn't something they do for the lulz. Somebody needs to create that content. It costs money. If they can sell the game without spending that money, that's better for them.

 

[pippin]

That didn't stopped them from adding stuff to Baldur's Gate. However I don't think it would be a good idea to release a new version of the original Torment with Numenera guaranteed to be an economical success.

 

[Athelas]

Wouldn't that make it a better idea to release en enhanced edition of Torment, to benefit from all the hype and attention surrounding the new Torment?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I wonder if the original Torment artwork was kept or if it was also saved on "departmental drive and not a project drive" and lost like the BG art.

Lost BG art

3. The Lost Source Art

We had drafted the original deal in the context of a Baldur's Gate: HD. Our plan was simple: grab the original artwork, clean it up, re-render it at higher resolutions and with better materials, thus creating stunning versions of the areas everyone remembers. We planned to take the character models and re-render them with many more frames of animation and add new orientations to the movement to make the game smoother. We nailed down the core terms, got everyone on the same page and we got our first drop of the assets from BioWare.

A few days later we noticed a large hole where the source art should be -- stuff like 3DS Max files and texture images. "No problem," I said; I contacted Derek French over at BioWare and he dug further and sent us more data. We again dug through and failed to find the source art. I made arrangements to visit BioWare with a removable drive and work with Derek and the IS department to find the assets.

After two days of searching we came to the horrible realization that the source artwork was stored on a departmental drive and not a project drive, and as such was not frequently backed up. We dug through tape backups to no avail. The source art was lost.

At this point we brought the information back to Atari and the deal was dead in the water. Cameron and I spent a few weeks re-thinking the concept and we re-pitched Atari with an "Enhanced Edition" as opposed to an "HD" version. We discussed the implications of a non-HD version and we had to renegotiate royalty terms to get the deal back on track. We basically had to completely discard our plans and start anew after almost a year of negotiation.

 

[Infinitron]

I would suggest that a primary motive for adding additional content to Baldur's Gate was so it could be parceled off as in-app purchases in the mobile versions. Yes, you had to pay extra for all those new companions on iPad.

The fact that they didn't do anything like this for Icewind Dale would suggest that the in-app purchases weren't paying that well. Or maybe they just don't feel like they need to do that anymore.

Another reason for adding content may have been due to a misguided fear that players wouldn't buy the EEs if there wasn't something totally new in them. This was of course a silly fear, PC gamers will buy plenty of games again even if all they have is some tweaks and souped up graphics. And especially if it's those games' Steam debut!