By Alec Meer on December 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 pm.
Yes, fantasy RPG sequels are inbound. It’s pretty much a dead cert that Bioware won’t be involved, as they’re busy being owned by EA these days, and Atari seem to have clung on the Dungeons & Dragons license without ‘em. Infogrames-in-disguise are definitely planning to revisit these two seminal roleplaying names however, though a developer’s not been announced. Neither has a release date. Maybe not next year, according to Atari’s Phil Harrison, but soon, and for the rest of your life. Or at least as long as Wizards of the Coast keep on letting ‘em make D&D games, anyway.
There being a third Neverwinter Nights wasn’t much of a shocker, given NWN2 expansions are still coming out in a slow, steady stream and, from what I gather, being fairly well-received. We’d also heard plenty of quiet rumours about a new Baldur’s Gate, but the question is what form will it take?
Will it really be akin to the BGs of yore – which original devs Bioware are aiming to revisit with their own Dragon Age – or will it be more like the hacky-slashy-Diablo-y Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance thingums that proved to be an agreeably mindless romp on the last generation of consoles? I’d actually lean more towards the latter, otherwise Atari risks having two fairly similar games – unless they’re planning on something like that Civilization IV/Colonization thing. Neverwinter Nights 3: Baldur’s Gate? Nah, seems far too obtuse. So right now, I’d bank on BG3 being something different from the cRPG norm.
So that’s Fallout and Baldur’s Gate both sequelised for the modern age. Pretty much leaves Planescape: Torment, then. That could get messy…
02/12/2008 at 23:27 Genki says:
Oh god… done right, a Torment sequel could cause the universe to implode from an awesomeness overload.
02/12/2008 at 23:29 Fumarole says:
Dragon Age is all the Baldur’s Gate 3 that I need. I have high hopes for this game. A consoled-down version like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance? Not so much.
02/12/2008 at 23:30 Pags says:
My hamster’s getting antsy. If we be adventurers, let us adventure!
02/12/2008 at 23:33 Jonas says:
But Torment 2 wouldn’t be done right.
I couldn’t be.
Planescape: Something Else, however, would be splendid. Make sure they put Avellone in charge, assuming he’s even interested in D&D after his first foray into custom IP with Alpha Protocol, and we have a winner.
02/12/2008 at 23:37 suibhne says:
Planescape: Anything won’t be done, because WotC has totally retired the Planescape setting. Sorry, kids.
That said, I dearly hope Obsidian is closely involved with the next BG incarnation, with Avellone/JE/etc. Avellone should be free after the goldenness of Alpha Protocol in the next handful of months, anyway.
02/12/2008 at 23:49 Larington says:
Never mind a Baldurs Gate, I just want more games similar to it, with a similar strong level of narrative/story-telling/what-have-you that is more Baldurs Gate than, err, that other one which was never quite as good.
I don’t even care if its not in 3D, I’d quite happily see a Baldurs Gate, but with a different story and in a roughly similar graphics engine (Updated to account for generally higher resolutions but not necessarily much more).
In fact, the Baldurs Gate should’ve kicked off a trend of story-strong games, so its a shame they didn’t.
02/12/2008 at 23:50 Duoae says:
I really don’t like the look of Dragon Age…. i don’t know what it is but it ‘feels’ nothing like a normal party-based cRPG and certainly doesn’t feel like it’s going to replace the greatness of the isometric crowd of the 90s. I think it’d be a shame if Baldur’s Gate 3 was more action-oriented.
What role did Black Isle have in the BG series creation? I know they’re credited as co-publisher with Interplay on wikipedia but they had developers there under the Black Isle flag so i’m assuming that they contributed towards the actual creation of those games… no? I just feel like since they and Bioware parted ways that Bioware have gone off on their own little path that has increasingly dropped towards the Bethesda side of RPGs…. or maybe that’s my imagination?
Saying that, I really liked NWN (I think one of the few) and it’s interface and gameplay design more than the story…. but it was no BG and certainly i didn’t think that NWN2 was better in quality or style/design.
02/12/2008 at 23:51 GibletHead2000 says:
Aww, does this mean that Bethesda won’t be making BG3 then? <ducks>
02/12/2008 at 23:55 J9 says:
At first, I wasn’t sure what to think about bioware not being the company to make the next Neverwinter Nights, but after some thought I’m convinced its the best thing that could have happened.
Lately EA has made it onto my list of shit companies that make even worse of games (Right up there with Micro$oft games). The list being publishers of games that I’m not sure I’d want to play if I was being paid. So I really don’t trust anything sold under the aegis of EA, even if it weren’t infected with draconian spy-ware (which I’m sure is part of the EA guarantee now).
And then onto the fact that I may not be in the majority but the only RPG from Bioware I’ve *really* enjoyed a lot was the first Neverwinter Nights and even then the original SP campaign was the worst of the entire series but the game itself + the mods I played on were just so fantastic I spent almost as much time as I did on my WoW addiction later. Their other RPGs including NWN2 just impressed me far less.
So in the end I think its probably in everyone’s best interest that EA isn’t getting their claws on any yet another great series that they can wring cash out of until its dead. And that Bioware, who in my opinion was getting to the point of making remarkably similar RPGs, the best thing that could happen is to give the series to a new company and hope for something fresh and wonderful.
03/12/2008 at 00:32 Jochen Scheisse says:
The game will be done by Epic, and it will be about Hack&Slay and Chainmail Bikinis, according to Atari’s Phil Harrison, who went on and told fans of the franchise: “Up yours! You gonna buy it anyway, bitches.”
03/12/2008 at 00:51 Ceremony says:
Slightly off-topic, but somebody recently beat BG2 in 46 minutes.
http://dl.speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?BaldursGate2_4131
03/12/2008 at 01:04 Funky Badger says:
BG & BGII were great, Neverwinter Nights was meh but the second expansion was good fun. NWN2 was an atrocious pile of awfulness on release and still wasn’t fixed a year or two later when I tried to play it again. So thanks for that, Atari. (Nevermind the awful characterisation and storytelling therein…)
03/12/2008 at 01:06 qrter says:
Will it also be exclusively coloured in greys and browns and never, EVERRR come out on the PC?
Also, the introduction of a booming, disembodied voice saying phrases like “HEADSHOT!”, “MULTIKILL!!” and ofcourse.. “M-M-M-MONSTERKILL!!!!” at the appropriate moments.
03/12/2008 at 01:32 MeestaNob! says:
I’m frankly horrified to think of the mess they’ll make of Baldur’s Gate.
To be honest, it’s one of those (hnnnggg) IP’s that I wished companies would forget they own, purely so they don’t fuck up my joy of the originals.
If they can promise on the holiest of bibles that a Baldur’s Gate III would be 2D on painted backgrounds, full nerd-o-rama D&D ruleset, requiring at least 2 keyboards worth of shortcut keys and the formers quasi-realtime gameplay I would be interested.
But it wont be. And Black Isle/Bioware would have nothing to do with it, sadly. If Bioware took up the reigns of development, then there are possibilities.
We all know none of this will go well, Atari. Just Dont. Please.
03/12/2008 at 02:09 Mattress says:
I dunno… Has anyone noticed how dodgy a company Infogrames has become since it changed it’s name to Atari?
Alright, they’ve released Neverwinter Nights and the old Unreal Tournaments – but they were games from major studios that Atari just published and marketed.
If you look at the games Atari has commissioned or had a larger intrerest in (Terminator 3, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Boiling Point) and things start to seem a little funny.
In fact the merit of the company grows increasingly dubious when when you take into account that several times in the past, Atari/Infogrames survival was predicated by the the success of a single blockbuster release (see Enter the Matrix, Driv3r, Alone in the Dark & plethora of Dragon Ball Z games) e.g.: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6182469.html? … also see the selling off of Shiny (though after those two mega Matrix flops that probably was good business…)
Basically, what I mean to say is that Atari appears to be a company that’s hamstrung financially, which often causes it to force their developers to release sub-standard games in time for deadlines (again see Matrix through Driver3 to Alone in the Dark).
If I was to guess, I’d say they’d keep NwN as a traditional PC RPG as that seems to have an existing market, Baldurs Gate 3 though is a bit of dormant franchise (which brand successfully transferred over to consoles a few years ago), thus I could see them trying to reinvent it for consoles the same way Bethesda has successfully done by making Fallout 3 a major blockbuster.
Still though, if they pick the right developers and don’t force them to compromise on quality – then the possibility of two good games remains.
Though you have to wonder, if Bioware or Obsidian aren’t going to tackle them, then who?
-Bethesda? Eww…
-Those Polish dudes who did The Witcher? Yeshkameshk?
-John Romero & David Braben’s new studio???
03/12/2008 at 02:34 vinraith says:
Who cares about Torment (sorry, all the great plots and well drawn characters in the world can’t compensate for crap gameplay). Give me an Icewind Dale sequel, which being a simpler creature is far less likely to get destroyed in the remaking anyway.
03/12/2008 at 02:34 Saul says:
Planescape: Anything won’t be done, because WotC has totally retired the Planescape setting. Sorry, kids.
Not necessarily– they are planning to revisit old settings as expansions for the 4th edition line, and Planescape is rumored to be among them. It may be a somewhat different place, given the new cosmology, but the idea is still somewhat exciting.
03/12/2008 at 02:58 malkav11 says:
Planescape’s a neat setting, but at least it’s been done relatively recently. I’d like to see a Dark Sun or Ravenloft game appear in modern times. (The SSI Gold Box ones are fun, but sooooo primitive.)
03/12/2008 at 03:05 Pags says:
One thing I would like to see done with Planescape: Torment is have it ported to the DS.
Perhaps this is blasphemy, but it would make train journeys a whole lot more awesome.
03/12/2008 at 03:09 Larington says:
I’d prefer to see a new developer at least try to reach the heights of Baldurs Gate 1/2. I regard IceWind Dale as being a contributor to the decline of the genre, since it fell well short of what the BG games achieved.
03/12/2008 at 03:30 Adam Bloom says:
You’d go blind. :P
03/12/2008 at 03:33 M.P. says:
Boo must get his exercise, lest he bite us all in hard-to-reach places!
03/12/2008 at 06:29 SwiftRanger says:
It’s gonna be a lot more difficult to justify a move to a first person RPG for this than with Fallout 3. BG = mini-RTS with pause party dungeon crawling with loads of interesting quests.
Bioware has destroyed a lot of the BG legacy in their post BGII works (simply put: not as much quality or interesting characters) but Dragon Age seems like a return to form.
03/12/2008 at 06:35 dragon says:
If said sequel will be to Baldur’s Gate 2 what Fallout 3 is to Fallout 2 — which is likely — then I really don’t give a shit.
03/12/2008 at 06:55 Psychopomp says:
Planescape-
There have already been mentions of places that were retired in 3rd Edition in 4th Edition material. Sigil has already been brought up in the Manual of the Planes.
If Obsidian came back and did a Planescape:whatever, I would be able to die happy.
AND PLEEEEEEEEEEASE don’t let Bethesda take over BG, or any other franchises for that matter. Then I’m going to have to fight with consoletards who think BG3 is better, because VA-er, a nu-uuuuking spell makes up for horrible writing, animation, and plot.
03/12/2008 at 06:58 JulianP says:
Bioware has destroyed a lot of the BG legacy in their post BGII works (simply put: not as much quality or interesting characters) but Dragon Age seems like a return to form.
I’m beginning to think that the whole “BG legacy” was totally thanks to Black Isle. I read just recently that Interplay constantly kept rejecting BioWare’s story ideas for Baldur’s Gate, so they put their own (read: Black Isle’s) writers on the job.
03/12/2008 at 07:04 Anthony Damiani says:
I really miss this chain of games, once a proud icon of the PC platform.
Malkav 11– I’d love another Dark Sun game, but Planescape “relatively recently”? It was nine years ago.
That’s an age of the world, in game time.
03/12/2008 at 07:29 Kalain says:
I hope they do bring them back in the same vein as the originals, because they were fantastic games. But, there is a niggling little gremlin in the back of my head thats yelling ‘Consolised…. Consolised’.
03/12/2008 at 07:55 dragon says:
Kalain: I agree, and it’s evident in the CRPGs that have been released the last few years, and even on a game like L4D. It’s the worst thing about PC gaming at the moment–even worse than DRM, IMO.
03/12/2008 at 08:13 Meat Circus says:
Them’s gonna balls it up.
03/12/2008 at 08:15 maerd says:
No one touches Torment. Masterpieces don’t need sequels.
03/12/2008 at 08:34 Bhlaab says:
Let’s wait and see if they will actually be rpgs
03/12/2008 at 08:34 Manwe says:
BG3…say it ain’t so! I should start saving up holiday now. In order of time spent on games, I think it goes BG2, Diablo 2, X2, for me. With hundreds and hundreds of hours on BG2.
Please let them just do an updated infinity engine, with high res & widescreen, and then focus on interesting chars, quests and places. We don’t need no stinkin’ fancy 3d shenanigans.
03/12/2008 at 09:09 Blaxploitation Man says:
Please let them just do an updated infinity engine, with high res & widescreen, and then focus on interesting chars, quests and places. We don’t need no stinkin’ fancy 3d shenanigans.
That will never happen, and anyone who believes doing that will improve the other aspects of the game are obviously the types who know more about (and spend more time) playing games then designing them.
Tighten up those graphics on level 2 guys, but not too much, you’ll make the story and gameplay worse!
03/12/2008 at 09:28 James G says:
On the subject of ‘consolisation’ of RPGs, did anyone else see that the Witcher is apparently heading to consoles.
03/12/2008 at 09:35 Dreamhacker says:
Atari have shown their like of one genre: hack’n'slash. But Baldur’s Gate is more than that! Leave it alone!
03/12/2008 at 09:36 Duouk2000 says:
Until I see it, I’ll assume another Baldurs Gate game will be in the same vain of Dark Alliance. It’s easier that way :/
03/12/2008 at 09:41 Bobsy says:
I would campaign vigorously against a new Baldur’s Gate game, Dark Alliance pap aside because it was merely trading on the name and I wouldn’t play it anyway.
BG came to an incredibly satisfying conclusion and resurrecting it would serve only to water down what was the defining western RPG of the last ten years.
Extra D&D Forgotten Realmsy stuff? Yes, sure, whatever. Extra Baldur’s Gate? NO, NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO.
03/12/2008 at 09:42 Heliocentric says:
Yes, and apparently “BETTER THAN EVER” by that I assume they mean either simple or that it i’ll bare the fruits of extended work that we’ll likely get in a patch/expansion. In a post fable 2 landscape the witchiest could do well.
03/12/2008 at 10:15 Voidman says:
New Dark Sun gets my vote as well.
Sadly if those new games are to conform to the new D&D 4th Ed rules (and they will if WoC is to give it their trademark blessing), it won’t be much different then Diablo. Why can’t they just use a different ip – there are so many fleshed-out rpg settings out there ripe for the picking. How bout something tapping into renaissance period p’haps (like Lionheart – but done better for instance), White Wolf’s Dark Ages, Conan, Warhammer or some other more original fantasy world – Jorune anyone? This could work just like Arcanum worked.
03/12/2008 at 10:29 Stense says:
I think I’ll take this opportunity to say hooray.
Hooray.
I always welcome the chance to slay Orcs and get barbequed by Dragons.
03/12/2008 at 10:52 Tei says:
I think what make these games great is the writting. People still buy these games on the long term, because the quality.
So.. why not make games with that quality? you don’t even need to call it Baldurs Gate, or be about D&D. It could be about anything else.
Make another game, make so the quest are intringuing, and the hechmen have interesting lines, and interesting side quest. That is what RPG is about: literature.
03/12/2008 at 10:59 Rob K-L says:
I loved BG 1&2. (Despite never finishing the latter. I still have it installed, with high res/widescreen patches.)
When I played through Titan Quest I was constantly wishing for two things. The first was that someone released a BG game that pretty. The second was that I could actually rotate the viewpoint.
A modern BG game could and should never be 2D again, but the beauty of its landscapes could be retained as demonstrated by Titan Quest, which is not exactly a spring chicken nowadays and still looks great. A Titan Quest style viewpoint could also retain the tactical overview that was required for the semi-realtime combat. I found NWN 1&2 much less handy for that. Especially NWN2, which seemed to box the camera in to show of the graphics but resulted in not being able to see what was going on properly, particularly indoors. And the graphics certainly did not justify the compromise.
But Titan Quest lacked the facility to move the camera angle (it did not need it). I suspect a BG style game would benefit from such a feature.
Another thing I would like to see retained from the original BG games which seems strangely abscent from more recent games is the sense of the world and your character maturing in it. BG had this kind of pastoral innocence in there to temper any darkness. It all seems to have been replaced by dour grittyness and dark nights flashed by lightining and fire. Bring back my sunshine lit wanders through the wilderness. (Titan Quest managed that very well.)
Having written that I realise that one of the things I loved most about BG was the aesthetics. (Not the technical detail, but the feeling that they evoked.) Happy days.
03/12/2008 at 11:01 danielcardigan says:
“On the subject of ‘consolisation’ of RPGs, did anyone else see that the Witcher is apparently heading to consoles.”
To be honest it was probably designed with consoles in mind, given the simplified combat. I don’t have a problem with that.
I’d still play a 2D Baldurs Gate. I think the graphical detail in BG, IW and PS:T pees all over anything NWN-ish. That’s not even touching the story and ease of development.
03/12/2008 at 11:02 manintheshack says:
I’ll tell you what; what they’ve always needed in BG is some more swordplay and less characterisation. The one thing that was always lacking from these games was the ability to watch someone’s head slide off in slow motion every time you poked them. It would really add something to the experience. Oh and make it first person! And add some half-arsed Hollywood talent to increase sales! There’s no way they can’t become the most celebrated developer of our time.
03/12/2008 at 11:02 Garrett says:
Don’t sharpen your pitchforks and light your torches just yet. It’s far too early to start worrying about how a new developer is going to somehow “ruin” Baldur’s Gate III when such a game may not even exist yet. Phil Harrison’s comment is so vague it could mean almost anything.
While it could mean developers like CD Projekt RED are working on “true next-gen sequels” to much-loved games, this may just be leading up to the revelation that inevitable sequels like Dark Alliance III and Neverwinter Nights 3 are currently in development (no surprises there).
As for what developer would “ruin” it the least, that’s not the real issue. All future D&D games will be based on the upcoming 4th Edition, which has been accused of trying to turn the game into a sort of tabletop MMO. No matter which developer gets the job they will have to use the 4th Edition as a base.
03/12/2008 at 11:29 Thirith says:
For me the only reason why Baldur’s Gate III doesn’t make sense is the plot: Throne of Bhaal completed the story. Other games in the same universe? Why not. But there’s no reason – other than brand recognition – to make it Baldur’s Gate.
As far as Neverwinter Nights is concerned: the games (minus the expansions) are mainly toolkits, not single player experiences. As such they seem to be pretty okay. As long as Atari keeps this in mind – NWN for the toolkit and multiplayer experience, BG for the single-player story – they have a chance of pulling this off without becoming their own competition.
03/12/2008 at 11:33 Funky Badger says:
Forgotten Realms is a farily rubbish vanilla setting though – the real highpoints of (A)D&D computer games have existed in other settings (Torment and Champions of Krynn) – any of the other settings (bar possible Greyhawk) would be more interesting.
This is ignoring the whole 4th Ed = P&P WoW elephantine equation though…
03/12/2008 at 11:34 Funky Badger says:
Damn you Garrett… ;-)
03/12/2008 at 12:03 Larington says:
I really don’t think that reviving Baldurs Gate in terms of revisiting its story as being a good idea, a return to that kind of strong story telling and that gameplay, sure, but as others have said, theres not much to be gained by trading on the baldurs gate name. Theres also the risk you’d be started with another uber-powered character as part of this continuation when theres much more satisfaction to be had by starting with a new character.
Perhaps it would also be a good idea to head-hunt down the core writers for the original BGs, but just tell them to start crafting a new story from scratch.
03/12/2008 at 12:07 Thirith says:
I guess it could be a sequel in the way that Knights of the Old Republic 2 was a sequel to its predecessor – i.e. have it take place in the same world, which has been strongly affected by the events of the earlier game.
As long as they don’t sell it as that greatest of all fantasy clichés, “the final chapter in the epic trilogy!”
03/12/2008 at 12:21 Funky Badger says:
Actually, thinking about the occurance of 4th Ed, I wonder if developers could use the Open Gaming License portions of 3rd Ed as rule set – although this would probably preclude using any of the settings owned by Hasbro – shame that Wiess & Hickman sold Dragonlance back to them, really…
03/12/2008 at 12:24 Bobsy says:
I think as generic fantasy settings go, Forgotten Realms is a pretty okay one. The sheer weight of source material is enough to keep it relatively sweet-smelling, if not exactly fresh.
03/12/2008 at 12:37 phil says:
@Larington, I seem to remember the writer and producer of the Throne of Bhaal saying much the same thing – That the story was ended, the characters too powerful to do anything exciting with without breaking the world and that they were well, tired.
That said BG was always about the location, not necessarily the protagonist. BG II had about the best realised virtual city, outside a MMO, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
03/12/2008 at 13:03 clovus says:
I’ve played quite a few D&D based CRPGs, and Neverwinter Nights 2 was the last one. I don’t think I can take another one. Am I alone in not liking the D&D ruleset being used in a CRPG? I just find it annoying that my computer is just rolling dice for me. Can’t a better, original RPG system be created?
Unfortunately, I’m also completely burnt out by the standard fantasy setting. Early in Torment you meet an old lady who tries to send you on a fantasy game fetch quest for a msytical sword. She pretty much parodies the plot to every fantasy RPG in existence. I’m tired of going to defect the Evil Wizard of Yzlentizy to recover the Saber of Yorz or whatever. How about a new setting, and an interesting RPG system that takes advantage of my CPU.
03/12/2008 at 13:26 Thirith says:
I don’t mind the dice-rolling. What I mind is the stereotypes, badly drawn characters and boring stories. Put somewhat bluntly, I hated Neverwinter Nights 2. I loved Mask of the Betrayer. Same sort of source material and game system/engine, worlds apart in terms of writing, art design and overall quality.
03/12/2008 at 13:43 Klaus says:
I’m not interested in more Bhallspawn stuff. If there was a Baldur’s Gate 3 how about it take place in or near Baldur’s Gate. Neverwinter Nights 3? I’m fairly sure the city was blown up, or some such by the Spellplague. Unless, of course, it takes place in the past.
@Clovus
The wizard is your half-brother and the sword is your birthright.
03/12/2008 at 14:03 Bobsy says:
@phil:
Actually, not really. Originally I think it was based around the setting, hence the name and the way in which the city itself was given more attention despite only turning up relatively late in the game. But in the end it was all about the people, even though Bioware didn’t manage to express it as cogently as they did in BG2.
03/12/2008 at 14:25 Psychopomp says:
“As for what developer would “ruin” it the least, that’s not the real issue. All future D&D games will be based on the upcoming 4th Edition, which has been accused of trying to turn the game into a sort of tabletop MMO.”
*cough*
As someone who’ DM’d 4th edition since release, I can safely say those people are fucking stupid, and can’t seem to get past the lack of fluff in the rules books, and the lack of rules in the fluff books(Which, along with Challenge Ratings/HORRENDOUSBALANCEISSUEScausedbymulticlassing, is one of the things that annoyed me most about 3rd edition.)
As someone on the Wizards board said, “P&P Games don’t fail to roleplay, players do.”
03/12/2008 at 14:47 Klaus says:
I liked all the fluff, admittedly I’m not PnP player so I just stock up on lore and the like. The lack of it bothers me. I also liked Lathander, ah well.
The thing about the rules, is that if you (and this a generic ‘you’) don’t like them, then don’t follow them. I’ve been doing this in games since I was a child, with the accordance of the other players of course.
This can create a fun/frustrating version of communist Monopoly.
03/12/2008 at 14:49 Funky Badger says:
Psycho: thanks for the compliment.
4th Ed is clearly after the WoW market – and no bad thing in and of itself, but it ain’t a refinement of D&D 3(.5) as the name would suggest, but a new system built up from scratch.
Biggest problem with it I hear at the moment is lack of quality modules – most of the stuff run at GenCon was straight dungeon-crawling – which should improve given time.
Maybe a Pathfinder tie-in could work…
03/12/2008 at 14:58 suibhne says:
Forgotten Realms is a meh setting, yes, but it still has plenty of potential for impressive stories – as proven by Obsidian’s Mask of the Betrayer, the best D&D game since Torment. No surprise that they shared some writers.
Where D&D games go wrong is in assuming that they should be primarily about combat. Sure, Icewind Dale was fun (if shallow) and IWD2 even had some shiny moments, but the very best D&D games have always been about story and characterization rather than wargame-ish fighting. With MotB, Obsidian has shown that it understands this and can work with it.
As for the BG setting itself…when BG3 was in development at Interplay, it had *nothing* to do with BG1 and 2 aside from using the “Baldur’s Gate” name/brand. Characters were totally different, and the game was even to take place in a different part of the FR world than the Sword Coast and Amn. At this point in the market, I think BG as a brand stands for a certain type of gameplay in the overall FR setting, not for anything directly related to Baldur’s Gate itself.
03/12/2008 at 15:03 clovus says:
@Klaus: Arrrgh! Thanks for the spoiler alert! You’ve just ruined whatever fantasy RPG I play next.
03/12/2008 at 15:06 cyrenic says:
@MeestaNob!
I think you may be on to something here!
03/12/2008 at 15:17 Thirith says:
It’s silly to have a Baldur’s Gate III if it’s only connection to the brand is the name. Then it would make more sense to call it Something Something: A Baldur’s Gate Adventure. After all, it’d be silly to call the Hobbit movie Lord of the Rings 4…
03/12/2008 at 15:19 Hmm-hmm. says:
I’m beginning to think that the whole “BG legacy” was totally thanks to Black Isle. I read just recently that Interplay constantly kept rejecting BioWare’s story ideas for Baldur’s Gate, so they put their own (read: Black Isle’s) writers on the job.
I was thinking the same thing. I was never that into NWN, whereas I love the BG games to death (and, say, Fallout).
We’ll see what they’re capable of.. well, beyond what they’ve shown us already, that is.
03/12/2008 at 15:42 jonfitt says:
My desire for swords and sorcery games has been pretty much permanently satiated since the BG 1 & 2 days.
Combine that with the fact that it won’t be something that is designed to recreate BG 1 & 2, it’ll be something that takes the name/”IP” and sells it with modern ideals and you have a big ol’ meh from me.
On a side note: I’m all for modern remakes. Just don’t forget what people liked about them.
03/12/2008 at 16:40 SwiftRanger says:
“If said sequel will be to Baldur’s Gate 2 what Fallout 3 is to Fallout 2 — which is likely — then I really don’t give a shit.”
It would only work if they kept the controlled party setup and even then optional isometric view would be a must, even Bioware understands that for their spiritual successor to BG.
“I’m beginning to think that the whole “BG legacy” was totally thanks to Black Isle. I read just recently that Interplay constantly kept rejecting BioWare’s story ideas for Baldur’s Gate, so they put their own (read: Black Isle’s) writers on the job.”
I don’t know where you read that but David Gaider and co never worked at Black Isle, which served as nothing more than Interplay’s publishing label for the Baldur’s Gate PC games. Icewind Dale, Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment were pure Black Isle games yes and especially the latter game showed BI could write even better things than Bioware.
NWN wasn’t even meant to have a singleplayer campaign and other newer Bioware titles got that console taint on them. DA is their chance to get some street cred back on PC if you ask me.
03/12/2008 at 16:50 YogSo says:
@Thirith:
Of course it would be silly… they’ll call it Lord Of The Rings 0: The Hobbit ;)
03/12/2008 at 17:34 dragon says:
I don’t think Black Isle had that much to do with Baldur’s Gate, except maybe sound/voice work.
03/12/2008 at 19:14 The Enemy says:
Well, like it or not, D&D is a combat wargame. Sure, you can engage in amateur dramatics or run a lucasarts point and click adventure game on the side but the rules and content are all “turn based tactical wargame” heavy. If D&D combat isn’t going to feature then maybe they shouldn’t be making a D&D game at all; unless it’s some brand name based bait and switch operation. At least some people will be annoyed that they are not getting what they expect.
There should be Kobolds as well. Lots of Kobolds with silly voices.
03/12/2008 at 19:15 Nick says:
BG series had a proper conclusion, they should just drop the name and call it something else.. like “Rubbish Forgotten Realms Action RPG NOW IN SPANGLY 3D!”
03/12/2008 at 20:06 Psychopomp says:
@Klaus
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy fluff as well. But in 3rd Edition books were damn near 50% fluff, 20% rules, than 30% rules amidst a paragraph of fluff. It got annoying, fast.
I like what they’re doing with 4th edition, If the FR Campaign Guide is any indication. Fluff books are, well, what they should be. A fluff book contains lore and the like for the group to draw upon, with some monsters and magic items to go along with it; whilst rule books are rules with some explanatory fluff.
Also, can anyone tell me who thought it was a good idea to make a Complete Mage, Complete Arcane, AND Unearthed Arcana? I’ve been flipping through them, all my copies missing indexes, trying to find the Wu Jen, whom I want to homebrew over to 4th edition.
03/12/2008 at 21:35 Dean says:
If you strip out the story and focus on the combat circa BG/IWD, then the likes of Dawn of War 2 are far closer to them than Neverwinter Nights or Mass Effect…
Top down small squad strategy. I’d love a game along the lines of Commandos, DOW2, the new CoH expansion, etc. but where you can also ‘talk to the monsters’, and am surprised there isn’t one in development by now.
03/12/2008 at 23:35 malkav11 says:
A couple of things – I keep seeing people talk about how they “haven’t been impressed with any of Bioware’s other games including NWN2″. NWN2, like KOTOR2, is not a Bioware game. Both of them were made by Obsidian. (And frankly, I think Obsidian blows the pants off Bioware in every respect except QA, although I enjoy both developers’ games.)
Secondly – Torment may be pretty old these days, but it’s a spring chicken next to the Dark Sun and Ravenloft games.
03/12/2008 at 23:48 caesarbear says:
A NWN3 shipping “soon” would be a disaster, imo. NWN2 was already a rush job as is, and the series needs substantial engine changes. It’s clear that the toolkit suffered from neglect. Neverwinters are supposed to focus on the toolkit and multiplayer experiences. NWN1 took 3 or 4 years to reach it’s peek output of Modules and Persistent Worlds. The content scene for NWN2 has been slowed by a difficult and buggy editor, and is only just starting to gain momentum. A quick NWN3 would either ignore the toolset entirely and effectively kill the point of the series, or frustrate the building community with yet another half-hearted toolset.
04/12/2008 at 00:22 Jambamagamba says:
If i wait 3 years only to get a Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3, someone’s getting a kick in the nuts.
Atari, if your gonna spill action in my RPG, then just make it God of War style, but let me play as Minsc. Jobs a Good ‘un.
24/12/2008 at 23:53 Stromko says:
I’ve played a lot of AD&D 2nd ed and 3.0 – 3.5 CRPGs, and played six sessions of D&D 4th ed. tabletop over the course of about eight weeks. Long story short, I don’t like it one bit.
I think D&D 4th ed ignores all the best ideas from tabletop and card games, with the intent of being a tabletop MMO — an utterly pointless concept. Half my gaming group already plays WoW together, strangely they’re the same contingent that happily plays 4th ed together. Personally, I just do, not, understand it. It’s like they’re making cosmopolitan icecream, all the flavors I love, but instead of being wonderful in their own special ways they’re all mixed together by a machine into a black mound with a nasty flavor.
While I used to disregard card games as a money-sucking maw in the earth, removed from its capitalist ways it’s really a hell of a lot of fun — Cryptic Comet’s Armageddon Empires is my basis for loving the concept of card games. The wealth of options available in deck building, combined with the random factor of when those options will come into your hand, and the shifting situation on the game board, combines into an incredibly deep, interesting formula.
D&D 4th edition, however, gives you 9 powers to choose from for your class, only about 3 of the options being worthwhile, and lets you pick 3 to 5 of them. The choices are obvious — but you get more choices if you shell out 35$ for a class manual. Once you’ve made your choices, they’re always right out there in front of you. You’ve got At-Wills which will be your basic attacks (because there’s no reason to ever, ever use anything else), the Encounter powers that are 75% stronger, and Daily powers that are 125% stronger.
The anemic feat system (you have about .75 valid choices per alotted feat) are rigorously level and class-locked, just like the magical items, to ensure that every character is their own identical snowflake, exactly as good or bad as every other, and that their choices are next to meaningless in light of that. They’re different blends of DPS, area effect, mez, or heal, but all so blended together that it doesn’t frankly matter, and there’s no effective difference between two characters of the same class and level.
As a roleplaying system, you absolutely must have a book to play as every power (which is the core of the game) has its own special rules you must refer to until you’ve got it memorized. It lacks the universality of concept, everything is a “special case” with varying flanking, advantage, ‘procs’ rules, that makes it a f**king bear to learn, but once you do learn, you’re far more limited in choice than you’ve ever been with earlier or especially the recent models of D&D. Everyone is balanced, everyone is equal, and yet they all require their own special rules you need either the player guide or the class book to begin to understand.
It can’t completely fail as a tabletop game because good players and a good DM can still tell a great story with it, but the system just gets in the way. It has too many kooky-ass powers for most people to comprehend so every round is a lot of pushing figures around and consulting the manual, you’re less able to roleplay combat since every attack must be an abstracted yet specific power.
For a PC game, its many abstractions and profound lack of combat choices would be a chore. Everybody is a Warlock, you can stack weird effects onto your attack but it’s still just the same power shot through a different lens. Even having multiple spellcasting classes in 3.5 is less of a pain in the ass than managing six party members with wildly differing powers — and ultimately pointless since once you DO understand, they all play the same. I would bet it’s simpler to run, all the math’s already been done for you and you no longer have to rein in powergamers since there’s nothing to game or power about it, but you’d better tell a damned good story because it’s all the same slog to play.
That’s just my opinion, but to me, D&D for electronic RPGs is dead because the people holding the license are now intent on pushing out another edition of the books, and therefore no new 3.5 CRPGs can be made, despite the rules being inferior to everything else on the market. I’d rather play a Shadowrun CRPG (any edition) or RIFTs or World of Darkness (new or old) or HeavyGear/Silhouette, or just… damn near anything. They’re all superior systems in their own right, and the setting of 4th ed D&D has been jiggered enough that it no longer has any meaning to me, so why should I bother? Even most MMORPGs have better guts.