Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear Pre-Release Thread

[Blackguard]

Someone has found achievement list for BG2EE. I know some people here hate achievements, and everything else, but for me hunting those achievements will be a nice excuse to replay BG2 for nth time. Not that you can even get all those in a single playthrough.

 

[aVENGER]

Someone has found achievement list for BG2EE. I know some people here hate achievements, and everything else, but for me hunting those achievements will be a nice excuse to replay BG2 for nth time. Not that you can even get all those in a single playthrough.

The Steam achievements are being tested internally at this time, so they will not work in-game until the next patch is released. We mentioned this on our blog to clarify their sudden appearance.

And yes, certain achievements are mutually exclusive.

 

[pippin]

Finish the game with a full party of dead allies.

Some people will let their companions die just to get the cheevo.

 

[Delterius]

Just pretend they are all Aerie and Minsc. Or that the others attempted to stop you from murdering Aerie.

 

[pippin]

Just pretend they are all Aerie

let everything burn already

 

[imweasel]

Brent Knowles!

Welcome back, bro.

David Gaider.

Many Codexers will agree that he did some really good design work on BG2, but for the love of god, please don't let him write anything. There is a reason why his developer mug looks as it does.



EDIT:

And please don't hire Laidlaw once he gets fired. Thank you.

 

[Fairfax]

MCA is next.

Mark my words.

BG3 could be the undisclosed project MCA is working on, but moving to Canada? I really doubt it. He said personal issues prevent him from taking a full-time job.

 

[throwaway]

Actually, was there any speculation when MCA took small work for Beamdog of a possible MCA endorsed PSTEE?

I know it's more technically challenging and there are potentially larger licensing issues but there's some stuff Unfinished Business couldn't really salvage (what the hell was that Egyptian sarcophagus room about?) and having the lead could have enormous revisiting potential.

Additionally with TTON possibly reviewing better than PoE they probable need to already be in the process for any hope of recuperating the release hype.

 

[Tigranes]

I don't think anyone wants PST messed with without Avellone, and Avellone is unlikely to want to revisit the project - his comments over the years suggest that he wouldn't feel it's a particularly great idea personally.

I bash on Beamdog, but I've consistently refused to say that Dragonspear will be shit, only that it's difficult to say because there wasn't a lot of original content in the EEs. The EEs I dislike for reasons I've said many times, but that's not the same thing. It's stupid to think Dragonspear will be cool just because of who's on the team or who joined the team at the last minute, and it's equally stupid to say it'll be shit. I certainly do hope it's good enough to force me to buy EE and hate myself.

The reason why I think it's hard to say is because what we have been shown is mixed (e.g. great environments, atrocious UI), while it's really tough to assess combat / encounter design / player power progression / loot / etc from such streams, and that to be me is going to be critical.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well environments looked awesome in that stream so I think they finally learned to make them good.

 

[Jarpie]

It's going to be hilarious if Siege of Dragonspear will be better than PoE.

 

[ArchAngel]

It's going to be hilarious if Siege of Dragonspear will be better than PoE.

It will be much shorter so it will be filled with less pointless combat. Also it has a head start with using a superior engine, character levels are in best D&D zone (between 5-12) and is filled with familiar and loved characters (by the world outside of the 'Dex at least). They would have to fail hard to not at least compete with PoE on equal terms.
PoE has graphics over them which is what brought in newer players. Those same might not want to play a game with older graphics.

 

[CptMace]

It's going to be hilarious if Siege of Dragonspear will be better than PoE.

Don't worry, it's pretty certain now that even if SoD sucks hard balls, people gonna "still better than poe m8". The "better than poe m8" was already a codex meme a week after poe's release anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm sure plenty of people on the Codex will find justifications for why their favorite flavor of trash combat is better than other flavors of trash combat.

Personally I'm more interested in seeing how well SoD will sell. Unfortunately, Steamspy doesn't track DLCs so we won't have numbers. It may remain a mystery for some time.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm sure plenty of people on the Codex will find justifications for why their favorite flavor of trash combat is better than other flavors of trash combat.

Exactly! Why, I have never read so much apologist bullshit as I read for PoE! I mean, FFS, the game was supposed to have no trash combat, but when it did that was a good thing because trash combat is an RPG staple!

That's what you meant, right?

 

[Irenaeus III]

There is no way this could be better than PoE. But if it is, I'll be most pleasantly surprised.

Just don't let that bald faggot touch anything before release.

 

[ArchAngel]

There is no way this could be better than PoE. But if it is, I'll be most pleasantly surprised.

Just don't let that bald faggot touch anything before release.

PoE #1 White Knight to the rescue...

 

[Irenaeus III]

There is no way this could be better than PoE. But if it is, I'll be most pleasantly surprised.

Just don't let that bald faggot touch anything before release.

PoE #1 White Knight to the rescue...

Kill yourself immediately

 

[Delterius]

There is no way this could be better than PoE. But if it is, I'll be most pleasantly surprised.

Just don't let that bald faggot touch anything before release.

PoE #1 White Knight to the rescue...

Kill yourself immediately

But you are the PoE First Knight of the Whites.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Instead of making lame jokes, help me put him out of his misery.

 

[Roguey]

the game was supposed to have no trash combat,

Josh never said that. He said filler combat was bad, but trash and filler aren't the same.

If no trash combat was a goal, it would have been designed Divinity: Original Sin style with the expectation that you enter each fight with full health and all spells/abilities available.

 

[Delterius]

the game was supposed to have no trash combat,

Josh never said that. He said filler combat was bad, but trash and filler aren't the same.

Yes we had this discussion a while back over PoE's trash combat. The issue was the problem of attrition and camping supplies. In theory, trash combat may still demand per rest resources (such as Health) and, therefore, its important in the long run. However, our conclusion was that the abundance of per-encounter abilities basically reduced trash combat into the same level as filler. Most encounters in PoE don't demand per-rest resources and are on the same levels as most encounters with ghouls and xvarts in the IE games, which don't force you to use items and spells either.

In the end though I think they wised up, the newest patch is cutting the number of encounters in the later areas and making the remaining ones more demanding. That's a good decision.

 

[Roguey]

In theory, trash combat in the BGs may still demand per rest resources and, therefore, it's important in the long run, however you can rest or backtrack to rest at any time.

As I've said before, most RPGs just give you an illusion of strategic gameplay.

 

[Delterius]

In theory, trash combat in the BGs may still demand per rest resources and, therefore, it's important in the long run, however you can rest or backtrack to rest at any time.

You might be under the impression that I'm badmouthing PoE to say good things about BG, this is not the case.

I'm not really addressing the illusion of attrition in itself (which can be very much real in either game if the player is willing), rather, the illusion that trash combat is significant in anyway.

In Pillars of Eternity, for every encounter in the game minus about 7, you'll be spamming per-encounters powers left and right. That's not much more significant than just auto-attacking enemies to death with bows in the Infinity Engine. Meaning that most of the trash in PoE is just filler content, something that the devs are wising up to in the coming patch.

 

[Roguey]

You might be under the impression that I'm badmouthing PoE to say good things about BG, this is not the case.

I'm not really addressing the illusion of attrition in itself (which can be very much real in either game if the player is willing), rather, the illusion that trash combat is significant in anyway.

In Pillars of Eternity, for every encounter in the game minus about 7, you'll be spamming per-encounters powers left and right. That's not much more significant than just auto-attacking enemies to death with bows in the Infinity Engine. Meaning that most of the trash in PoE is just filler content, something that the devs are wising up to in the coming patch.

Much like BG, you can use per-rest resources in these fights to end them sooner. It's encouraging the opposite behavior of what BG wanted to encourage.