Interview BioWare Talks About Unreal Engine

[Volourn]

"i'd say a BG3 would be done in a year or so"

Of cours,e if that's a paln, they better announce it soon so the advertising blitz can begin espicially consideirng BIO's history of hyping games years in advance... then again, BG3 is getting a lot of hype despite barely being announced... LOL


"I'm personally hoping that it's a sort of sequel to Shattered Steel."

Bnetter not be. I haven't played the original nor do I plan to. besdies, they have staed quite clearly that the game theya re making with URE is an RPG; and SS is not a RPG...

 

[Sol Invictus]

A sequel to SS could be an RPG, Volourn. Heck, MechWarrior started as one, and games like Heavy Gear -are- RPGs. The board game, by the way - not the mech sim.

 

[Volourn]

So, they would take an old game of theirs that from what I've heard was a pretty good action shooter type game that met with limited success (about 200k copies accoridng to BIO's site) and transform it into a RPG? There. Is. No. logic. There.


Besdies, does BIO have the license for it or does Interplay own it?

 

[DemonKing]

No. If you read the interview he disclosed what all 5 teams are. God, I suppose this is how baseless speculation happens, isn't it? The man hath sayeth the following teams are in existence to work on the following:
1) Dragon Age
2) Jade Empires
3) TAG team - engines
4) Undisclosed game with UE3
5) Undisclosed game with Eclipse

I don't any mention of a "Direct Download" team.

Sorry but this doesn't seem clear at all to me, from my reading the teams are:

1. DA
2. JE
3. New title with Unreal 3 Engine
4. Tech (inc. Eclipse engine)
5. Something else we'll announce soon

Now granted that the Live Team/DD isn't mentioned directly but they have been harping on about their DD project for months while claiming they aren't working on a BG title "at this time". Plus he only says they are developing the Eclipse tech - not that they are developing a game using it at this time.

Now of course this is supposition on my part, so I could be wrong.

I don't see why it's so difficult to fathom that they could devote two full time teams to work on two additional full-blown titles as opposed to some dinky free game add-on. Something like Witch's Wake would probably not require too much manpower, and it should also be taken into consideration that Bioware does in fact outsource development of such projects to smaller studios.

It is my understanding that the Bio Live Team handles quite a number of tasks:

1. Development of DD service/products.
2. Customer Support
3. Development/patching of previous Bio titles (eg NWN 1.64 update)
4. Web Site development

So no - it's probably not that dinky given the above responsibilities. Not as big as a full new product team, but subtantial never the less.

BTW What engines are JE/DA supposed to be using, or are they just "the JE engine" at this time?

 

[Volourn]

BIO is unimaginateive for those engines. They're named after the games. LOL

 

[MrBrown]

Last time I saw a BIO dev talk about BG/DnD, it was Georg Zoeller saying quite simply that they aren't working on a DnD game at the moment. This was a week or so ago.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well Demon, if you read the interview really well, you can find a part where Greg mentions that one of the teams is working on their UE3 game while the other is working on their Eclipse game.

 

[Volourn]

"Georg Zoeller"

As a low man on the totem pole; what he says on the issue is irrelavnt. He doesn't call the shots. BIO *is* working on D&D games. Why? Last i checked, NWN and NWN2 are D&D games. Game over.

 

[Monte Carlo]

Developers claiming that a project ain't in development, especially at Bioware, isn't worth jack shit.

BG3 is too tempting a prize. BG was the crucible of Bioware, and giving away the prize when you could so easily clean up profits-wise and do it justice technically seems too outrageous.

Bioware also clearly has the sweetest relationship with WotC/ Hasbro.

It's a deal: it's a steal: it's the SALE OF THE FUCKING CENTURY.

(Lock, Stock quote of the day)

Cheers
MC

 

[DemonKing]

Well Demon, if you read the interview really well, you can find a part where Greg mentions that one of the teams is working on their UE3 game while the other is working on their Eclipse game.

Well my reading says that they are only working on the engine at the moment, not any game specifically connected with it:

"It’s important to note that we’re still developing our own engine technology for our other titles present and future (Jade Empire, Dragon Age, etc) – and we have some very impressive next-gen technology of our own in development right now as well – the BioWare Eclipse Engine. We have some very talented people working hard on that engine as well as advanced technology for our other announced titles – Jade Empire (a martial arts RPG for Xbox, to be published by Microsoft) and Dragon Age (a fantasy PC RPG – no publisher has yet been announced on Dragon Age)."

&

"Licensing the Unreal Engine 3 really allows one of our internal development teams to focus on creating a highly cinematic and immersive RPG in a relatively short amount of time, while our other teams continue work in parallel on future projects and on the next-generation BioWare Eclipse Engine."

However, no point picking hairs - I'm sure one day we'll see a Bio title using the Eclipse engine!

:wink:

 

[Anonymous]

BIO is unimaginateive for those engines. They're named after the games. LOL

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!