The Sundering has launched...

[Derren]

Of course it's WotC's IP. Maybe the actual game code isn't, but the content is.

No, not even the content. That was 100% Atari too. What WotC owned where a few names in the game. The little D&D/WotC logo in the corner of the box.
When a new Baldurs Gate was announced, people thought "Yay, another Baldurs Gate game by Atari", not "Yay, another WotC licensed game using the Forgotten Realms".

You keep saying that like it's a bad thing. It's a good thing. Using your own IP is what you're supposed to do with it. It's like complaining that I'm using my own car.

It is a bad thing when your core franchise needs a popularity boost from some 15 year old video games sharing which shared only some names with your setting.
What is the reason for now using so much stuff from the Video games 15 years after they were released? And while it is possible I am pretty convinced that the Sundering will not even use the Story from Baldurs Gate. They just took the symbols and put it into their product because they couldn't come up with anything more eye catching than referencing a 15 year old popular video game.

 

[Morrus]

No, not even the content. That was 100% Atari too. What WotC owned where a few names in the game. The little D&D/WotC logo in the corner of the box.

Do you have a cite on that?

It is a bad thing when your core franchise needs a popularity boost from some 15 year old video games sharing which shared only some names with your setting.

OK, we're just repeating ourselves now.

 

[Morrus]

[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION], it's impossible to keep up with this conversation when you keep repeatedly editing extra stuff into all of your posts after I've replied to them. If you have something further to add once somebody has replied, please put that in a new post.

 

[Derren]

Do you have a cite on that?

Lead Producer: Ray Muzyka
Lead Designer (And Director of Writing): James Ohlen
Lead Writer: Lukas Kristjanson

And as far as I know none of them worked for TSR as did anyone else involved in the production of the Baldurs Gate series, especially the story, at a higher level. I couldn't even any mention of TSR in the credits except at the very end that they owned the D&D license.

 

[Morrus]

Lead Producer: Ray Muzyka
Lead Designer (And Director of Writing): James Ohlen
Lead Writer: Lukas Kristjanson

And as far as I know none of them worked for TSR as did anyone else involved in the production of the Baldurs Gate series, especially the story, at a higher level. I couldn't even any mention of TSR in the credits except at the very end that they owned the D&D license.

That is not evidence of IP ownership. What might be is the copyright and trademark info in the booklet. But at this point you now appear to be accusing WotC of IP violation. Mainly because you don't much like the Sundering trailer, as far as I can tell.

Derrin, it's OK to not like stuff. Your tastes are your tastes. But things not being to your taste (man, I read an article about this today - weird coincidence) does not equal wrongdoing, mismanagement, desperation, or IP violation.

 

[Derren]

That is not evidence of IP ownership. What might be is the copyright and trademark info in the booklet. But at this point you now appear to be accusing WotC of IP violation. Mainly because you don't much like the Sundering trailer, as far as I can tell.

If you want to strictly talk about the IP, the Forgotten Realms/D&D brand of course belonged to TSR at that time, but the point is that the Baldurs Gate IP belonged to Black Island/Bioware and, more importantly, no customer associated the Baldurs Gate games with WotC/TSR. They saw the logo at startup and that was it.
WotC/TSR had no influence on the games, apart from getting paid so Black Island could use some names from D&D and TSR/WotC also received no recognition from the customer. It was always just Black Islands/Biowares product in the eyes for them.
Thats why it feels wrong for WotC to now use Baldurs Gate references so heavily to promote 5E and it looks to me that WotC doesn't believe that D&D/FR alone is enough to attract customers and the only thing they could come up with was using references to a 15 year old game. All this years the events of the video games were hardly referenced at all in PnP products. One or two sentences about Bhaalspawn and that was it. But now, suddenly, the Bhaal symbol is everywhere and linked to Baldurs Gate (Just look at the map on the Sundering website).

What remains to be seen is if the story of the Sundering will indeed be linked to the Baldurs Gate games, or if they just put in the symbol and name to leech of the fame of Baldurs Gate and the events of the Sundering will have no connection to the game at all.

 

[Morrus]

Bhaal was created by Ed Greenwood and appeared in Dragon around about 1980 or so, and various novels and products since, of which Baldur's Gate was one.

Baldur's Gate is a city in the Forgotten Realms which appeared in the 1990 Forgotten Realms Adventures by Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood.

Baldur's Gate was later a 1990 video game which used vast amounts of WotC IP - both fluff and crunch (it uses the D&D 2E rule set) under license. This included both Bhaal and the city, Baldur's Gate.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Once you ignore the races, classes, locations, names, stats, spells, deities, religions, organizations and history -- it is all obviously Bioware/Black Isle IP.

 

[Morrus]

And @Derren you're still editing in additional content to your posts after my replies. I won't be searching your old posts for new content, I'm afraid, so those items will go overlooked. Please put new content in new posts, as I asked above. Thanks.

 

[mach1.9pants]

"Side product?" Dude, there's probably more people out there who have played those games than have ever or will ever chuck a d20. It's the vanguard, the first volley, the opening salvo.

Very true this.

Although this made me laugh "reshaped once again—for the last time." So DnDNext is the last edition of DnD then, for the last time YEAH RIGHT.