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Baldur's Gate Beamdog's Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Editions

Merlkir

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Can we ask them not to make BG3?
 

Incantatar

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Everyone on Reddit kissing their ass. Who would have thought? It's no wonder they get all the AMAs, you get nothing except fantards munching on your ass.
 

MicoSelva

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EE's are just that - stolen modders stuff with a horrible new UI and camera blur to "improve" how it looks. The companions are mediocre to shit and the few "new" areas or quests are horrible.
That plus (shitty) new content and some (decent) engine improvements. Original IE always chokes one CPU core with ~100% usage, no matter what beast of a machine you have or what is happenning on the screen. EE works much better in this regard. Not that this matters much, but it is a thing.
 

GarfunkeL

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Huh, that's actually a good point. I always thought that it's the scripting system that chokes the engine, leading to slow-downs and crashes even with powerful modern machines, because the likelihood goes up the more mods you have.
 

aVENGER

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Original IE always chokes one CPU core with ~100% usage, no matter what beast of a machine you have or what is happenning on the screen. EE works much better in this regard. Not that this matters much, but it is a thing.

From the AmA:

BeamdogScott said:
It was built with several main threads that share the list of game objects, and properly locked before use, etc. The problem is that none of the original developers had multi core CPUs, and few had dual CPU machines, so only one thread was actually really running at a time.
Also, it was built to run on machines with 16 MB of ram. This means that you can never store anything in memory, you need to read it off disk all the time.

BeamdogTrent said:
The game was developed with the constraints of Windows 95 in mind. As none of those constraints exist today, many of the work-arounds implemented just don't make sense on modern computers. The 16 mb of Ram limit is a great example.

We're continuing the AmA today as well.
 

Perkel

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I am fully on board for new Infinity Engine game. And it needs to be D&D2 which means it never see light of day.
 
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Don't know if you read this on the AmA, Perkel, but for anyone who's interested, Trent posted this about 'Adventure Y':

Adventure Y is something we've been working on for quite a while now. As always, our plans have grown over time into something much larger than originally planned. We've also shifted the production timing around multiple times for a variety of reasons. The project is in full production and is going well. We're stretching the capabilities of the engine and adding new gameplay you just haven't seen before. We are really looking forward to shipping it out and seeing the reactions of our players.

Apparently 'Adventure Y' is shaping up to be an add-on/expansion. Last I heard mention of it, it was set between BG1 and BG2. Not quite a new IE game, but will be interesting to see if Beamdog are capable of bigger and better than the new content created thus far.
 

Xeon

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Yea, One of the questions was about something similar to BGT where it shows a little cut scenes of Mae'var I think ambushing you and taking you to Irenicus to start as a transition or something. They will probably connect the 2 kinda similar. That will be kinda cool. I hope its good. Pretty good IAMA.

Phil Daigle also answered one of the question and said that there will be more content DLC, probably different than the Adventure Y game.
 
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Yeah, pretty good AMA.

The detailed answers on just how much work has gone into updating these games were eye-opening. I'm feeling a bit more appreciative of their efforts now even though I still don't really like some of the new content.
 

agris

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I just wish the new areas had the same graphical fidelity as the original maps. It's jarring and screams NEW CONTENT to see lower resolution / blurrier textures when you're used to the vanilla maps. Have you guys been able to reproduce the original style better than in BG:EE aVENGER ?
 

Perkel

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IMO it is probably hard to recreate something without pipeline used for it. So they probably had to recreate what they thought it was used and so on.
 

Perkel

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IMO2. Best case scenario for BG game would be not to make sequel, prequel or shit like that. Simply create new game with new story based in the same time period. Make it rough and dirty and for most of game make it lvl 2-8 journey (in D&D2) focusing mostly on exploration of world and much less combat. Instead of common combat make every combat scenario properly designed without shit like here is a boss now but before you fight his whole band. Instead of story about gods and shit make it personal.
 

Blackguard

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Phil Daigle also answered one of the question and said that there will be more content DLC, probably different than the Adventure Y game.

I never understood the fascination with the gnoll fortress some people have. It seems like the most boring possible area to expand. Ok, Firewine would be even worse.

I just wish the new areas had the same graphical fidelity as the original maps. It's jarring and screams NEW CONTENT to see lower resolution / blurrier textures when you're used to the vanilla maps. Have you guys been able to reproduce the original style better than in BG:EE aVENGER ?

This so much. The zones Beamdog have made look like shit, compared to areas made fucking 15 YEARS AGO. It's actually pretty mindboggling how they managed to be that incompetent to be honest.
 

aVENGER

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Developer
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I just wish the new areas had the same graphical fidelity as the original maps. It's jarring and screams NEW CONTENT to see lower resolution / blurrier textures when you're used to the vanilla maps. Have you guys been able to reproduce the original style better than in BG:EE aVENGER ?

We are using a slightly different approach for area art now compared to what was used for BG:EE.

That said, making the art perfectly match the original game without having the original art assets and design notes is not an easy task, but we have improved the process.
 

Xeon

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Phil Daigle said "BG3 isn't in the works yet, if it were to ever happen it would likely be 5th Edition and largely removed from the first two games because 5th Edition Forgotten Realms takes place 130~ years after BG2."

I kinda don't understand why they want to call it BG3 if it doesn't have any relation to the prequels. Even BG2 kinda doesn't make sense since Baldur's Gate kinda have nothing to do in BG2, you never visit it as far I can tell so why not call it Athkatla or based on the PC or something. Now even with BG3 the PC of BG1 and BG2 will probably won't have anything to do with it.

Edit:
Alyssa Duguay said:
All of the original models from our games have been lost in the ether, so many of our new areas are completely created from scratch to mimic the look and feel of Baldur's Gate. In a few cases we actually had a few concepts from the original games to work from, which was awesome.  

Matching up with the existing existing style has its own set of challenges, and there are always technical limitations with using an older engine.
 

GarfunkeL

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And surprise surprise, BGT has already done that - there is a cutscene transition between BG1 and SOA, where Mae'Var ambushes the party and then you wake up in the dungeon beneath the Promenade. But I'm sure they hired the modder as a freelancer or something so it's allright to once again steal their work.

Of course they want to keep the name - so many customers are retarded idiots and will buy the game, no matter how shitty Beamdog makes it, just because of the name.
 

Blackguard

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Phil Daigle said "BG3 isn't in the works yet, if it were to ever happen it would likely be 5th Edition and largely removed from the first two games because 5th Edition Forgotten Realms takes place 130~ years after BG2."

I kinda don't understand why they want to call it BG3 if it doesn't have any relation to the prequels. Even BG2 kinda doesn't make sense since Baldur's Gate kinda have nothing to do in BG2, you never visit it as far I can tell so why not call it Athkatla or based on the PC or something. Now even with BG3 the PC of BG1 and BG2 will probably won't have anything to do with it.

That's really simple thing to answer. It would sell better if your game was named Baldur's Gate 3, instead of eg. Westgate.

I completely agree with you though the story of BG was finished with ToB. Milking the name would be nothing but a shameless money grab.
 
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Perkel

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5th edition Infinity Engine game. Think about it and scream in fear to your pillow.
 

Blackguard

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And surprise surprise, BGT has already done that - there is a cutscene transition between BG1 and SOA, where Mae'Var ambushes the party and then you wake up in the dungeon beneath the Promenade. But I'm sure they hired the modder as a freelancer or something so it's allright to once again steal their work.

Of course they want to keep the name - so many customers are retarded idiots and will buy the game, no matter how shitty Beamdog makes it, just because of the name.

That's fucking stupid thing to say. So because someone has made a cutscene of something that was always part of the official story Beamdog shouldn't make their own version of the same event?
 

GarfunkeL

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It means that just like with their Enhanced Editions, you moron, there is nothing original to add. All of their "original additions" make the game worse (blur filter, cliche companions, shitty areas like the Pits) and all of their improvements are just stolen directly from the modders. Yet there are morons like you and Xeon who want to keep giving them money:
Yea, One of the questions was about something similar to BGT where it shows a little cut scenes of Mae'var I think ambushing you and taking you to Irenicus to start as a transition or something. They will probably connect the 2 kinda similar. That will be kinda cool. I hope its good. Pretty good IAMA.
OH HO, it'll be so COOL! Except it's already been done and once more they are stealing stuff from modders. But sure, keep handing your money over to these hacks.

Because they definitely improved Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale! Can't wait for their "vision" of BG3 with 5th edition D&D rules aimed at tablets. That's the kind of banal shit you idiots are funding.
 

Abelian

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Nov 17, 2013
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Even BG2 kinda doesn't make sense since Baldur's Gate kinda have nothing to do in BG2, you never visit it as far I can tell so why not call it Athkatla or based on the PC or something.
This is extreme nitpicking, but the tutorial level takes place in Baldur's Gate. Bio probably reused the title for brand recognition. The Pink Panther's first sequel was A Shot in the Dark, but many people probably didn't know that because it doesn't have "Pink Panther" in the title, so all the other sequels included it, even if the plot didn't involve the titular Pink Panther diamond. Another analogy is when someone who played in a band goes solo: only serious fans will initially know them by name initially.
 

Xeon

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Apr 9, 2013
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Pete Camanga said:
Dovetailing on what Phil said--as a modder, and EE dev, my personal pet peeve is when I see the claim that the EEs don't do anything that mods can't do. Even if you set aside the additional platforms (iOS, Android, Linux) and the new UI features (quick loot, zoom, etc.), you're still left with a ton of engine features and fixes simply not available anywhere else.

I am not sure about all the fixes but I really like the quality of life[?] stuff they added in like the quick loot and spells memorization green tent or something. I think I said this before but I am not sure if its worth the full money but really great for a sale or something.

Also I kinda thought 5th edition is good? IIRC Josh and some other Obsidian devs I think praised it and also a lot of people seem to like it in the Baldur's Gate forum and Reddit sub. Never played a table top game in my life so I kinda don't know what the difference between versions.

About the transition stuff, I kinda think they want to make a quest line or something instead of a cut scene that will probably connect the two.

Edit:
Sorry, Abelian. I wasn't really nitpicking. Since they did release Neverwinter and Icewind Dale, I was just kinda wondering why they stick to BG but I get your point. Thanks.
 
Last edited:

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Beamdog should have finished gemrb. Then I'd have respect for them.
 

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