Baldur's Gate 3 and Neverwinter Nights 2 all-but-confirmed by Atari!

[Lela]

I find myself with Dark Jezter on this one (nicely laid out by the way). BG's story was epic and engaging. It drew you in, gave you options for almost evey character (including most NPCs), and was filled with surprises.

I find that I don't care if they use the BG name. If it's a good game, I'll play it and enjoy it. If it's not, I won't. Pretty simple. And if it's a great game, I think I'll even be happy that they called it BG because I likely wouldn't have found it otherwise.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I didn't, I asked a question.

This comes across as nothing but an attempt to cash in on a the name of a popular series, which is something I have a problem with.

Very well, in answer to your question: No, every Forgotten Realms/D&D game shouldn't be named Baldur's Gate. However, if the game features similar gameplay and other elements to BG1 and BG2, then I see no problem with naming it Baldur's Gate III. Icewind Dale 2 does not continue the story of Icewind Dale 1 (it takes place decades later and only makes passing mention of the events of IWD1), but I don't see anybody complaining about Icewind Dale 2 being promoted as a sequel.

 

[Express]

So every FR based game should be named Baldur's Gate? How about every D&D game? Just because Square and Id are stupid doesn't mean everyone else should be.

Im sure its to keep the brand name. While people may or may not know DnD, Baldurs Gate has become a video game franchise. And for good or bad, the powers that be will use it./shrug. Im actually surprised FR Demonstone isnt using it after it was used in 2 hack n slash BG console games that bore no resemblance to the PC games.

A big wish for me is that BG3 does mirror Knights of the Old Republic in giving you a party and party dynamics. I didnt like that NWN was basically a solo game, regardless of how many cohorts they eventually gave you in the expansions. It was a slight difference, but big to me.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I didnt like that NWN was basically a solo game, regardless of how many cohorts they eventually gave you in the expansions. It was a slight difference, but big to me.

Nor I.

We've spent a LOT of time putting a party control interface into NWN. It's been a very difficult task. It's like a kidney transplant: the patient rejects the tissue at every turn.

That said, NWN was conceived of at a time when QII and UT were king. The expectation was that RPGers would take to multiplayer NWN with the DM client and would not be terribly interested in SP games.

About 70% of NWN's players have never even tried multiplayer and don't want to. KotOR was SP and sold better than NWN and won GotY from almost everybody.

BioWare got the message - DragonAge is a party based pause 'n play game game with single hero control in multiplayer. This is the way NWN should always have been.

By the way - to the poster above. NWN can be a gorgeous 3d game. BioWare was contractually bound to deliver a title that would run on a PII400 on a TNT216 card. Aurora is a capable of a LOT more than that. Any doubt on this - have a look at our home page. Even then - NWN is a high res 512x512 game. Dungeon Siege was pure ugly 256.

The villain? The .plt system and TNT216 compatibility. It reduced the color pallette WAY more than Aura was actually designed to do. NWN can look like this if you want it to click here

The whole news of Atari and BG3 and NWN2 has me partly excited and partly spooked.

In a very real sense, this is good news for gamers. There is precisely ONE Triple A developer developing CRPGs for the PC platform only, and that's BioWare. Due to piracy issues, consoles are simply far more lucrative and MMORPGs have drawn off CRPG devs for piracy reasons as well (though that market is oversaturated by far and a LOT of devs are about to lose their shirts).

But for the same reason, I am very concerned that BG3 and NWN2 may end up being PC/Xbox2 hybrids. This would effect gameplay design *seriously* and would be a move towards substantially dumbing down gameplay.

Lastly, while Atari deserves a lot of blame for Temple of Elemental Evil, Troika does too. Savage Atari by all means - but don't let those devs off the hook please.

What happened with ToEE was this: Troika signed a deal with a hard deadline date. It was a contractual nightmare to sign - they should NEVER have done it but they did anyways. They didn't make ship date (small surprise - no game dev does) .

Atari refused to budge on delivery date and refused to make any more milestone payments. Troika turned over the code unfinished and Atari released it.

Shame on them both.

It was a steaming pile of crap. The writing was terrible. The bugs were legion.

The much delayed patch fixed a lot of the bugs, but the writing was STILL crap.

Atari deserves a lot of blame for ToEE, but never has a developer got off the hook as easily as has Troika with ToEE. I won't buy another one of their games. There is a price to be paid for poor game design - and by any measurement, they had a poor design.

 

[Dark Jezter]

But for the same reason, I am very concerned that BG3 and NWN2 may end up being PC/Xbox2 hybrids. This would effect gameplay design *seriously* and would be a move towards substantially dumbing down gameplay.

Explain to me exactly how making the games for both XBox and PC would dumb-down the gameplay. I've played some PC/XBox hybrid titles (KotOR, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six 3) that were absolutely wonderful, and could hardly be described as dumbed-down.

Atari deserves a lot of blame for ToEE, but never has a developer got off the hook as easily as has Troika with ToEE. I won't buy another one of their games. There is a price to be paid for poor game design - and by any measurement, they had a poor design.

My thoughts exactly. I constantly see people blaming ToEE's problems solely on Atari, but Troika is at least as much to blame as Atari is.

 

[Express]

Explain to me exactly how making the games for both XBox and PC would dumb-down the gameplay. I've played some PC/XBox hybrid titles (KotOR, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six 3) that were absolutely wonderful, and could hardly be described as dumbed-down.



My thoughts exactly. I constantly see people blaming ToEE's problems solely on Atari, but Troika is at least as much to blame as Atari is.

My unsolicited opinion on this is that some games (a recent example may be Dues Ex 2) get dumbed down or features homogonized for a dual PC/console release. In those cases the game is ported to the PC from the console, or so it seems.

And I never understood the praise for Troika, Arcanum was ok IMHO but not as good as the BG series.

 

[KenM]

I played both the PC and Xbox version of Rainbow6 3. The gameplay and interface is almost totally different from one another. I'm not saying the Xbox version was dumbed down, but totally different.

 

[Terraism]

BioWare got the message - DragonAge is a party based pause 'n play game game with single hero control in multiplayer. This is the way NWN should always have been.

I'd not heard anything about your project - probably because I made it through the NWN single player campaign, played with the toolset, decided there was no way to have a party, and and promptly shelved my copy. That was two years ago, and I haven't looked at it since. This looks very, very interesting. What's the requirements for this (projected, anyway?) Will expansions be needed?

Lastly, while Atari deserves a lot of blame for Temple of Elemental Evil, Troika does too. Savage Atari by all means - but don't let those devs off the hook please.

I'll grant you this - Troika did drop the ball, significantly. That said, they have put time and effort into the patch - unpaid - which moves me back from the "never again" into the "we'll see" camp as far as purchasing from them. I think they deserve at least some credit there.

It was a steaming pile of crap. The writing was terrible. The bugs were legion.

The much delayed patch fixed a lot of the bugs, but the writing was STILL crap.

This point, I'm going to argue. The writing was crap because Atari imposed a maximum word count onto the game. Why? Because they didn't want to have Q&A do all the work of checking the dialogue. So Troika was forced to remove a lot of the dialogue (most notably, item descriptions,) and squeeze down on the rest. That's Atari's fault, not Troika's.

Explain to me exactly how making the games for both XBox and PC would dumb-down the gameplay. I've played some PC/XBox hybrid titles (KotOR, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six 3) that were absolutely wonderful, and could hardly be described as dumbed-down.

I'll second Express on this one - games developed for both, especially those with a previous PC-only incarnation (such as Deus Ex,) do seem to be getting dumbed-down. Deus Ex 2 may've been a great game (I had a lot of bug problems towards the end - the commandos all seemed to have invisible walls around their heads - but ignoring that,) but it was nothing on the original. Not because of the story, which was quite good, but because of the lack of skills. Why were the skills removed? Because they felt that they complicated how it would work on the Xbox.

 

[Pants]

By the way - to the poster above. NWN can be a gorgeous 3d game. BioWare was contractually bound to deliver a title that would run on a PII400 on a TNT216 card. Aurora is a capable of a LOT more than that. Any doubt on this - have a look at our home page. Even then - NWN is a high res 512x512 game. Dungeon Siege was pure ugly 256.

The villain? The .plt system and TNT216 compatibility. It reduced the color pallette WAY more than Aura was actually designed to do. NWN can look like this if you want it to click here

The spell effects were wonderful, but the models and the color palettes (as you said) were terribly dreadful and woefully outdated.

 

[Welverin]

Very well, in answer to your question: No, every Forgotten Realms/D&D game shouldn't be named Baldur's Gate. However, if the game features similar gameplay and other elements to BG1 and BG2, then I see no problem with naming it Baldur's Gate III. Icewind Dale 2 does not continue the story of Icewind Dale 1 (it takes place decades later and only makes passing mention of the events of IWD1), but I don't see anybody complaining about Icewind Dale 2 being promoted as a sequel.

But ID2 was still based in Icewind Dale. Baldur's Gate isn't some generic phrase, neither is Icewind Dale. Any new game is unlikely to have any story connection to the previous games as well as not be based in BG and what you say you like about the games aren't unique to the series, so under the circumstances to me naming a new game BG3 is nothing but an attempt to sucker people into buying the game rather than selling it on it's own merits.

Im sure its to keep the brand name. While people may or may not know DnD, Baldurs Gate has become a video game franchise. And for good or bad, the powers that be will use it./shrug. Im actually surprised FR Demonstone isnt using it after it was used in 2 hack n slash BG console games that bore no resemblance to the PC games.

NWN wasn't hurt in sales by not being called BG, the old gold box games weren't hurt by not sharing a name either. If they want attention all they need to do is plop the D&D and FR names on the box and that will accomplish what they're trying to do by calling it BG3.

Explain to me exactly how making the games for both XBox and PC would dumb-down the gameplay. I've played some PC/XBox hybrid titles (KotOR, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six 3) that were absolutely wonderful, and could hardly be described as dumbed-down.

It's not an inherent aspect of development it's a mentality. PC and console gamers want different things (in general), in an attempt to satisfy both aspects that PC gamers expect often get left out to provide the type of game you’re typical console gamer would want, which is viewed as dumbing the game down.

RPG’s are a good example of the differing tastes, a lot of the complexity and micro management you find in PC rpg’s just wouldn’t fly in a console rpg.