NWN Baldur's Gate 2: Reloaded - remake in NWN2 engine from creators of Baldur's Gate: Reloaded

[Gargaune]

Just out of curiosity - how much does it cost to actually do those hand-crafted, pre-rendered backgrounds a'la Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate etc.? People are paying thousands of dollars monthly for absolutely trashy porn games on Patreon, so I refuse to believe it would be this expensive.

Back in the day? Shitloads, given that BioWare staff would reportedly leave graphics workstation rendering overnight to get 'em done. In Black Isle's case, they'd then also touch them up by hand, which is part of the reason Icewind Dale is so much prettier than Baldur's Gate. It'd obviously be much quicker today, what with the better tools and hardware, but you've also got added bells and whistles to consider, like dynamic lights, parallax effects and fluid simulations in Deadfire.

You also have to factor in the significant impact on the development pipeline - a 3D scene is very easy to change, but with 2D backdrops you have a very rigid relationship between the level designer and the environment artist. Change one doorway and you've got to render the whole thing all over again, which would've been a bit of a pain in '99.

Bottom line, these days full 3D is much more cost effective, though proper 2D art will still piss on it running.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

Just out of curiosity - how much does it cost to actually do those hand-crafted, pre-rendered backgrounds a'la Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate etc.? People are paying thousands of dollars monthly for absolutely trashy porn games on Patreon, so I refuse to believe it would be this expensive.

Back in the day? Shitloads, given that BioWare staff would reportedly leave graphics workstation rendering overnight to get 'em done. In Black Isle's case, they'd then also touch them up by hand, which is part of the reason Icewind Dale is so much prettier than Baldur's Gate. It'd obviously be much quicker today, what with the better tools and hardware, but you've also got added bells and whistles to consider, like dynamic lights, parallax effects and fluid simulations in Deadfire.

You also have to factor in the significant impact on the development pipeline - a 3D scene is very easy to change, but with 2D backdrops you have a very rigid relationship between the level designer and the environment artist. Change one doorway and you've got to render the whole thing all over again, which would've been a bit of a pain in '99.

Bottom line, these days full 3D is much more cost effective, though proper 2D art will still piss on it running.

Whatever one may think of PoE II: Deadfire, it's basically the only current-gen game which successfully implements that art style.

 

[Nano]

The people who make/play these puzzle me. I know a lot of normies hate isometric games, but do they really hate them so much that they're willing to deal with the torture device that is the NWN2 engine?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

t it's all about getting the BG saga to use the 3.5E rule-set. T

IMO there has been a vast shift in game focus in 3E. The archetype has gone by the board, comic book-like feats are a feature, the whole purpose of play is set on killing things, and power gaming is encouraged. Long-term play is not facilitated by the new game. However, all that seems to be acceptable, as so many of the RPG players like it.

The main differences in the older works I did and 3E are style of writing, reliance on archetypes, limitatations on character advancement, availability of and creation of magic items, and general single-class play for human characters.

I find no soul in the new D&D game, no archetypes, just seek and destroy play and too much of the comic book superhero in characters.

 

[deuxhero]

What did he mean "archetypes"?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Those statements by Gygax are bizarre. In 2E, you rolled stats, chose a race, picked a class that was allowed, then picked an alignment that was permitted. That was the end of your limited character building choices. There weren't even really skills. The entire thing revolved around combat as prescribed by your narrowly defined class.

3E is so beloved because you could finally build just about any character you wanted. The rules system also became way more coherent. If that remark by Gygax is true, then it epitomizes sour grapes.

 

[Nano]

The rules system also became way more coherent.

I'm sorry, but using Wisdom to determine Will saving throws never made sense.

 

[oldmanpaco]

What did he mean "archetypes"?

I'm guessing the Warrior, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue. 3E blends it all together with the retarded multi-classing munchkinism and whatnot.

 

[deuxhero]

2E had plenty of random ass kits.

 

[Lagole Gon]

For some reason it reminded me this:

 

[laclongquan]

1. IWD2 stealth does work, to a point. But then it get nerfed. Now stealth is used to recon more than for backstab.

2. There is an entirely valid point to remake the BG series in another engine, aka NWN2. Because, you know, we Codexers are GRAPHICWHORE? Saying otherwise just mean either you lie, or you are in a tiny minority. NOTE that the group saying older pixelated game are better than post-Fallout games is a minority, which is proof for my point. Or counterpoint, the popularity of Witcher, Skyrim and DA series.

3. Baldur's Gate Reloaded is providing a much different experience than original BG1. Whatever you say, this point can not be argued. Anyone play BGR can say it's so. You like BG1 original is one thing, but BGR is NOT exactly BG1. Ruleset 3.5, better graphic, much different pacing.

So yeah, BG2R is going to be a different game altogether than BG2 original. ESPECIALLY because you play BG2 seven times that you are going to play BG2R.

 

[octavius]

All things being equal I'd take better graphics (as long as it doesn't affect performance).
But things are not equal.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

I'd play Baldur's Gate ported, with all assets, to the Pillars of Eternity II version of Unity.

 

[laclongquan]

All things being equal I'd take better graphics (as long as it doesn't affect performance).
But things are not equal.

I am entirely not sure graphic performance is unaffected.

We are talking a party of 5-6 figures plus around 10 or more enemies for each battle. In 3D graphics. It's going to slog quite a bit compared to 2D scenes of original BG2.

Certainly, hardware these days are better than ten years ago, so maaaaaaybe it's not going to slog as much as we fear. For reference, you can run modded NWN2 Crossroad Keep final battles quite well.

 

[Ontopoly]

So the BG series still runs perfectly on modern systems. There's mods to get them to run well. There's even Beamdog's official re-releases which run out of the box. They're available for rather cheap on Steam and GoG.

Why on earth would anyone want to play them in an inferior engine then??

I would actually prefer if someone put never winter nights 2 into the infinity engine. That's something I would support

 

[Kazuki]

Can't wait they remake BG3 into NWN 2 Engine ie Baldurs Gate 3 Reloaded.

 

[deama]

I think they should have waited for the BG3 toolset to release and used those to remake BG2, a 5th edition ruleset + turn based combat would have certainly been a good hook to try it, especially since I believe the graphics would have looked better, or at least allowed them to make them better.

 

[Gargaune]

Can't wait they remake BG3 into NWN 2 Engine ie Baldurs Gate 3 Reloaded.

Oh, so a BG3 with better controls and RTwP, sweet.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I think they should have waited for the BG3 toolset to release and used those to remake BG2, a 5th edition ruleset + turn based combat would have certainly been a good hook to try it, especially since I believe the graphics would have looked better, or at least allowed them to make them better.

Nah they are porting the game to superior system (3.5) while keeping superior combat system (rtwp).

 

[Citizen]

Let's remake a pretty-ish looking functional game in an ugly-ass junkpile of an engine, yeah! What even motivates these people?

 

[Lyric Suite]

3E is so beloved because you could finally build just about any character you wanted.

It was only beloved by retards who wanted to make their lawful good drow dwarven defender with 4 levels of dragon disciple thrown in or whatever the fuck. No archetype, all lore gets thrown out the window, everything revolves around "breaking the rules". 3E is essentially subversive in character. It's made for people who wanted to be halfling paladins or half-orc wizards 'cause, hey, what if the half-orc was raised by human magic users? Mmmh? Also, when the half-orc was a teenager he was trained in oriental martial arts hence why he has 4 levels as a monk!

Gygax is 100% correct and he is also right that fantasy is basically just another form of capeshit now.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Still better than "pick a class, and do nearly nothing when you level up unless you are spellcaster" of AD&D

 

[Kazuki]

Let's remake a pretty-ish looking functional game in an ugly-ass junkpile of an engine, yeah! What even motivates these people?

A passion project and maybe a few of them is going make these as part of their portfolio when they try to find a job in game industry or as experience when they have enough experience to develop a game on their own.

 

[purupuru]

you could finally build just about any character you wanted

Which is not always a good thing (not for roleplaying, at least) if the character in question is some powergaming abomination that just grabs one level of whatever when it's convenient.
I'd say a rule with 2e multiclassing and 3e feats and skills would be nice, which is probably why I like Deadfire's character creation.

 

[Ninjerk]

I cannot into roleplaying unless my character sheet tells me how