How about a new Baldur's Gate game?...possibly.....

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:12 am

I think what Tilt is saying they could make a game using the same engine called "X" instead of BG3 where the story has nothing to do with the other games. I know that the marketing people will want to call it BG3 just because of the name appeal will sell more units.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:25 am

IceBear wrote:I think what Tilt is saying they could make a game using the same engine called "X" instead of BG3 where the story has nothing to do with the other games. I know that the marketing people will want to call it BG3 just because of the name appeal will sell more units.

Understood. But the fact that they called it BG3 simply to make it as profitable as possible would not prevent me from buying it (IF its the same caliber or better as the first two mind you). If the gameplay is there I will (and do) support either model - traditional retail, big dev houses, or small startups/has beens

on Kickstarter.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:35 am

Using BG3 title = marketing already built in

But the game would have to be good to make money. The BG console games were base hack-n-slash and were nothing like the PC games. Any new game would have to be more like the old PC games than the console games.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:55 pm

So... hypothetical question: If Icewind Dale was actually called "Baldur's Gate: Icewind Dale" and Planescape Torment was called "Baldur's Gate: Planescape", would you have been happy about it? If not, what is the difference to the proposed Baldur's Gate 3? They all used the same engine and similar gameplay, though Planescape: Torment diverged a bit, admittedly.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:09 pm

They should obviously go with Baldur's Gate: Origins.

I do not really care what it is called as long as the game is good. If the name recognition helps a good game get funded and made, then I'm okay with that. If the name signals to gamers that this will be an isometric-style RPG, then that also makes sense. However, if a hypothetical BG title has nothing to do with the original BG setting at all, then that would be rather weird.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:22 pm

I'm not sure using the Baldur's Gate 3 name is really all that productive, marketing wise. By re-releasing the first two games in enhanced versions and marketing the new game as "from the makers of Baldur's Gate" and pointing out that it's the same engine, that would be more than enough to garner interest. Just look at Tim Schafer and his Kickstarter campaign. He isn't using an established franchise, but he's still using name recognition. Same with Wasteland 2. I don't think fans of the original game are all that numerous in that Kickstarter, but there are probably tons who know that Fallout is closely related or who just know that this is their best chance to play a traditional turn-based RPG in years.

Unless they've got an exceedingly clever ace up their sleeves, calling this new game Baldur's Gate 3 is about as logical as having Christopher Nolan make a 4th Batman movie that is exclusively about Robin.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:46 pm

TiLT wrote:So... hypothetical question: If Icewind Dale was actually called "Baldur's Gate: Icewind Dale" and Planescape Torment was called "Baldur's Gate: Planescape", would you have been happy about it?

I can't say it would have made any difference to me at all. Most game names are invented jibber-jabber anyway, so I don't spend too much time trying to analyze them.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:01 pm

TiLT wrote:So... hypothetical question: If Icewind Dale was actually called "Baldur's Gate: Icewind Dale" and Planescape Torment was called "Baldur's Gate: Planescape", would you have been happy about it? If not, what is the difference to the proposed Baldur's Gate 3? They all used the same engine and similar gameplay, though Planescape: Torment diverged a bit, admittedly.

I think the Icewind Dale series could easily have used the BG title in their name. True, they are more linear but they were basically of the same design, same type world, same type bad guys (maybe not the ultimate bad guys) but all the minor bad guys.

Planescape Torment was different enough that it probably would have been a disappointment to many if they thought they were getting a BG style game. It played differently, had a different type world and different type people within that world.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:07 pm

TiLT wrote:I'm not sure using the Baldur's Gate 3 name is really all that productive, marketing wise. By re-releasing the first two games in enhanced versions and marketing the new game as "from the makers of Baldur's Gate" and pointing out that it's the same engine, that would be more than enough to garner interest. Just look at Tim Schafer and his Kickstarter campaign. He isn't using an established franchise, but he's still using name recognition. Same with Wasteland 2. I don't think fans of the original game are all that numerous in that Kickstarter, but there are probably tons who know that Fallout is closely related or who just know that this is their best chance to play a traditional turn-based RPG in years.

Unless they've got an exceedingly clever ace up their sleeves, calling this new game Baldur's Gate 3 is about as logical as having Christopher Nolan make a 4th Batman movie that is exclusively about Robin.

I love you man (plus you get a special pass because you're from awesome Norway), but you're over thinking this.

As others and myself have said, I could care less what they call it on the box, as long as it brings the goodness.

TiLT wrote:
So... hypothetical question: If Icewind Dale was actually called "Baldur's Gate: Icewind Dale" and Planescape Torment was called "Baldur's Gate: Planescape", would you have been happy about it?

I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would have had no problem with that. Weird, yes, but...what is your complaint again? World's gone crazy because no one uses logic?

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:14 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote:I love you man (plus you get a special pass because you're from awesome Norway), but you're over thinking this.

Speaking of which, when a Norwegian publication posted about Baldur's Gate 3, the first few forum posts attached to it all said the same thing as me. I guess we Norwegians don't like being taken for fools, or alternatively can respect that a story is finished.

The Baldur's Gate saga is one of the best and most epic fantasy stories that has been told in a computer game, and it's a complete story. I'm honestly flabbergasted that none of you care that a third game in the series can do nothing but taint the previous two games' stories, even if the third game is good. But then again, perhaps story is completely unimportant to you guys and all you care about is the game mechanics.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:47 pm

In this industry, numbered sequels being actual continuations of a single story line is rare to begin with.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:50 pm

Maybe. As I said earlier, it's entirely possible there are more stories to tell in the Baldur's Gate universe. Stories that were either cut as part of the original scope or new stories related in some way to what the main story was (is). I am fully on board with the raised eyebrow towards the Assassin's Creed franchise and I have no doubts it was a complete cash-in to release Brotherhood and Revelations. I've played them both and they absolutely further the main story and fill in a lot of blanks, so in that respect they're worth it. Assuming UBI wanted to release AC2 in a timely manner, they could have easily cut the material that was later developed into Brotherhood and Revelations. For a potential BG3, none of that matters.

Regardless, I do agree that if they tried to pick up a potential Baldur's Gate 3 right where the second game ended it wouldn't make sense. But I'm not going to dismiss it until I hear more about it.

Skeptic · Post by **Skeptic** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:19 pm

Off Topic:(@Zurai and Blackhawk) Was not ignoring your last replies. I have a reply all typed up and ready(perhaps I will start a new thread in the appropriate forum) but I do not want to draw the ire of persons wishing to discuss the topic proper.

Back on topic:

I myself, might buy this new version, depending on exactly how much and the caliber of, said 'new content'. Would be REALLY nice if they included a proper turn-based mode but I do not see that happening.

Skeptic · Post by **Skeptic** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:26 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Maybe. As I said earlier, it's entirely possible there are more stories to tell in the Baldur's Gate universe. Stories that were either cut as part of the original scope or new stories related in some way to what the main story was (is). I am fully on board with the raised eyebrow towards the Assassin's Creed franchise and I have no doubts it was a complete cash-in to release Brotherhood and Revelations. I've played them both and they absolutely further the main story and fill in a lot of blanks, so in that respect they're worth it. Assuming UBI wanted to release AC2 in a timely manner, they could have easily cut the material that was later developed into Brotherhood and Revelations. For a potential BG3, none of that matters.

Regardless, I do agree that if they tried to pick up a potential Baldur's Gate 3 right where the second game ended it wouldn't make sense. But I'm not going to dismiss it until I hear more about it.

They could always do the 'time travel' thing where someone(a mage) from the future or present, as it may be, decides to go back and kill Gorion's ward before he is born(?!), thus resulting in...just about any stupid plot you could imagine that fits with the continuity somehow.

But I would agree with those who've suggest 'different story(of equal importance but featuring different characters/heroes/villains), same setting'. No reason this cannot be done and without messing up the events of BG at all.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:32 am

After doing some research, I was amazed to discover that a Baldur's Gate 3 game was actually planned. Maybe I knew this and somehow forgot, but I was surprised to read it:

None of the characters from the previous Baldur's Gate games would have returned, the cast would have been completely original as well as the story, although characters from the Icewind Dale series would have returned. The reason for this is Icewind Dale was released after Interplay lost the initial D&D license. An original NPC would have been Stellaga Brightstar, a priestess in the Church of Lathander. The game would have revolved around the hunt for May Farrow, the evil cleric who killed a black hound. The Black Hound was the representation of the selfish acts of the game's main antagonist and would appear to the player through circumstance and remind him of his actions throughout the game.

The main faction in the game would have been the Archenriders, who are also the first faction encountered by the player, the Church of Lathander would have been a faction at the same importance. The Red Wizards of Thay, the Sembian Silver Ravens, the Malarite People of Black Blood and the Elves of Deepingdale would have been other major factions in the game that the player would have been allowed to side with. The characters from Icewind Dale that would have come would have been the gnome, Maralie Fiddlebender and the Druid, Iselore who would have appeared in a cameo. The Harpers and the Zhentarim would have also appeared. The Zhentarim would have been seen for part of the game as the Black Network.

However, it is important to note:

The game would not have been a sequel to Baldur's Gate II in terms of story but rather gameplay, however, it did continue part of story of Icewind Dale II through joinable NPC's, specifically Maralie Fiddlebender, who would have been an adult in the story.

Fitzy · Post by **Fitzy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:45 pm

And the iPad version.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:01 pm

Fitzy wrote:And the iPad version.

The URL says "iPad 3" but I wonder if it will also run fine on the iPad 2.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:03 pm

Fitzy wrote:And the iPad version.

Ohhhhhh MY.

As down as I am on PC to console game ports in general...I could definitely see potential here, except when you are flicking and scrolling and whatnot, that damn finger often blocks part of the screen where important stuff is happening. And as hectic as some battles can get, I imagine that could be a big deal.

OOPS! As I was moving my thief to the back of the room, my big fat finger was blocking the nasty wizard gearing up to toast my whole party with a ginormous fireball! WHOOSH.

Still....consider me interested (unless it's been cut down in any way of course).

Nightwish · Post by **Nightwish** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:08 pm

I love that you can select Portuguese on that page and it does nothing.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:21 pm

Nightwish wrote:I love that you can select Portuguese on that page and it does nothing.

Ooh! Job opportunity! Maybe they haven't hired their Portuguese translator yet.

Fitzy · Post by **Fitzy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:18 pm

Freezer-TPF- wrote:
Fitzy wrote:And the iPad version.
The URL says "iPad 3" but I wonder if it will also run fine on the iPad 2.

Their twitter claims 1,2 and new. I'm curious how this will work. Wasn't bg1 ~2gb? That's huge for an iPad game.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:08 pm

Improved compression? Download by chapter?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:43 pm

More general info from the Twitter feed:

"There will be two games. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition "
"...Beamdog exclusive. As for other platforms, tune is same time next week"
"We take mods seriously. (I led NWN after all) mods both current and future are important. More announcements to come"
"We're using the 2nd Edition D&D rules"
"Infinity Enhanced is based off the latest Throne of Bhall codebase"
"We're 2D isometric all the way"
"We're going to stay with the BG model of only voicing some of the content. We feel it allows for more in-depth writing."
"we are trying hard not to break mods"
In answer to comparing the look against BG + Widescreen mod: "it will be better. We've got the code to rework the UI and rendering"

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:08 pm

Their twitter claims 1,2 and new. I'm curious how this will work. Wasn't bg1 ~2gb? That's huge for an iPad game.

Batman: Arkham City is 1.1GB. Games are starting to get huge now, which is one of the primary reasons I went with a 64gb model.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:04 pm

According to Kotaku's phone interview with someone at Beamdog today, the game won't cost more than $10 and will support multiplayer. INSANE.

"Baldurs Gate is a pretty big game and we're not cutting it down to size," Tofer said. "There's a boatload of content there, 80+ hours. But past ten dollars doesn't make sense."

They're going to publish a full article tomorrow.

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:30 pm

Well, BG and BG2 both supported multiplayer, so that part's no surprise. Wouldn't be a real update if they didn't.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:08 pm

Yeah, BG is not a great multiplayer experience, but it was always an option.

Not great in the respect that it can really be fun to campaign with the right people, but there's a lot of reading (and the game pauses for everyone while clicking through dialogue), and it's not a good choice for casual hack'n'slash monster slaying.

If they can upgrade the multiplayer so that it functions easily on Windows operating systems post XP though, kudos to them, because dang do people ever want to play it that way.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:13 pm

Yeah, I guess I was just surprised because the current version of Baldur's Gate on GoG doesn't have MP support at all.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:26 pm

It's not mentioned on the store page, but they'd have to have changed the interface completely to take it out, and there are lots of questions on their forums about how to get multiplayer to work, without a hint of anyone saying it's actually unsupported. More like unsupportable?

Try starting it in windowed mode is a good one.

Angnomander · Post by **Angnomander** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:39 am

WTH is Beamdog? Exclusive to some company I've never heard of?

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:56 am

Actually, it is being made by Overhaul Games, which is a division of Beamdog. Beamdog is actually the distribution platform. According to "Beamdog was founded by Trent Oster, Bioware co-founder and Cameron Tofer, former Bioware lead programmer."

So far they seem to be focusing on HD remakes of popular older games.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:13 am

As promised, here's the article on Kotaku, with choice quotes:

Both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II will ship with new interfaces, unreleased content, and completely new characters, quests, and kits (classes).

"Baldur's Gate is all about story," Tofer said. "There's a real depth to it all. So we've created not just a character kit, but a character, with a history and story and items... with that you get an adventure. There are new items, new areas to play in." "Baldur's Gate is all about story. There's a real depth to it all."

Both games will come with their respective expansion packs, Tales of the Sword Coast and Throne of Baal. They'll both have multiplayer and each will sell for less than $10. They won't be released simultaneously, though—Baldur's Gate II will be out "shortly" after its predecessor launches this summer.

...

The desktop versions of both games won't be changed much, Tofer says. They'll have higher resolutions and full-screen modes, as well as "working" multi-player, but they won't look too different from their original incarnations in 1998 and 2000.

On the other hand, Tofer says the iPad version will be a "radical departure from the interface." The text will be bigger. You'll be able to pinch the screen to zoom in and out. You'll be able to gesture between screens instead of clicking the tab. The whole game might be zoomed in a little more.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:39 pm

Blackhawk wrote:So far they seem to be focusing on HD remakes of popular older games.

Bless them.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:07 pm

This has to be a first -- new DLC - that you'll pay for when you re-purchase a 14 year old game.

We plan to support the game after release with DLC.
...
We'll be doing free feature improvements and existing content improvements as we go, but we are also planning some paid DLC.

Sabin Stargem · Post by **Sabin Stargem** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 5:18 pm

Blegh. Looks like I am going to have to wait for the platinum-dragon edition a couple years from now.

DOS=HIGH · Post by **DOS=HIGH** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:22 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote:
Fitzy wrote:And the iPad version.
Ohhhhhh MY.

As down as I am on PC to console game ports in general...I could definitely see potential here, except when you are flicking and scrolling and whatnot, that damn finger often blocks part of the screen where important stuff is happening. And as hectic as some battles can get, I imagine that could be a big deal.

OOPS! As I was moving my thief to the back of the room, my big fat finger was blocking the nasty wizard gearing up to toast my whole party with a ginormous fireball! WHOOSH.

Still....consider me interested (unless it's been cut down in any way of course).

Saw these on Kickstarter recently, could have some potential.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:16 pm

Coming 9/18 for $20, $10 for iPad (but with less content, DLC optional). Seems a bit...pricey.

I'd love to find a bullet-point list of the additions/changes, but instead you get to surf through the site and figure it out yourself.

Looks like 3 new characters and a new area promising ~6 hours of game play.

Baroquen · Post by **Baroquen** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:58 pm

I was thinking the same thing about the price. And as I wasn't as big of a fan of BG as others, I think I'm on the fence with this one. I'll see what people think of it once it's out I guess.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:30 pm

I probably missed it, but have they said what ruleset they are using? Are they using the same system from the original BG?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:35 pm

All of the additions and improvements from Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn have been brought to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Now you can use class kits, new subraces and classes that were previously unavailable.