Rumor: Baldur's Gate 4 to be developed by DA: Veilguard game director Corinne Busch at WOTC's Skeleton Key Studio

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

They have developers from the OG company that made Baldurs Gate they don't need to contaminate the game with some Belgian garbage.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

They have developers from the OG company that made Baldurs Gate they don't need to contaminate the game with some Belgian garbage.

Like in Congo, so in California Belgian rule might be the least evil.

 

[scytheavatar]

Why should Larian license out their engine?

$$$$$

It's basically free cash given they have to maintain internal staff to manage/develop it for their own projects who could probably support external devs remotely given they'll already be doing it for Larian's studios spread across multiple continents, so if someone else wants to use it and pay for the privilege why not?

It's cash if people use your engine. No one will use your engine if you don't invest a lot into customer support and giving them the features they want. Which like I said means it only makes sense for Larian to license out their engine if they want to turn into Epic Games and hire 4K people.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Why should Larian license out their engine?

$$$$$

It's basically free cash given they have to maintain internal staff to manage/develop it for their own projects who could probably support external devs remotely given they'll already be doing it for Larian's studios spread across multiple continents, so if someone else wants to use it and pay for the privilege why not?

It's cash if people use your engine. No one will use your engine if you don't invest a lot into customer support and giving them the features they want. Which like I said means it only makes sense for Larian to license out their engine if they want to turn into Epic Games and hire 4K people.

Yeah. But I'll explain it from a perspective of a licensee (who receives the license).

Custom engines require good engineers. A friend of mine worked at CD Projekt Red as a programmer. He's seen a lot of engines, but he said their engine was the best, the most sophisticated, most elegant thing he's ever seen. And over time, CDPR lost their engineers and all they could hire were "ue4 monkeys" who couldn't work with it. They ended up having to ditch it for UE5.

UE monkeys wouldn't know what to do with Larian's engine even if they got it for free. Nobody's interested.

 

[Sibelius]

Lets see what our Swen has to say about this lol.

I don't think he gives a fuck at this point. He liked the opportunity to work on BG3 because he likes BG, but from everything he said he never wants to work with WotC again.

After they forced him to add the bear sex...

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

A friend of mine worked at CD Projekt Red as a programmer. He's seen a lot of engines, but he said their engine was the best, the most sophisticated, most elegant thing he's ever seen. And over time, CDPR lost their engineers and all they could hire were "ue4 monkeys" who couldn't work with it. They ended up having to ditch it for UE5.

Sounds like what I've been hearing about it.

 

[Roguey]

Why should Larian license out their engine?

$$$$$

It's basically free cash given they have to maintain internal staff to manage/develop it for their own projects who could probably support external devs remotely given they'll already be doing it for Larian's studios spread across multiple continents, so if someone else wants to use it and pay for the privilege why not?

It's cash if people use your engine. No one will use your engine if you don't invest a lot into customer support and giving them the features they want. Which like I said means it only makes sense for Larian to license out their engine if they want to turn into Epic Games and hire 4K people.

Bioware licensed out their engines to Black Isle, Obsidian, and CD Projekt. Bethesda did the same with Obsidian. It is really not such a big deal when you're making a sequel (and in CDP's case it was an original game).

 

[Ismaul]

Bioware licensed out their engines to Black Isle, Obsidian, and CD Projekt. Bethesda did the same with Obsidian. It is really not such a big deal when you're making a sequel (and in CDP's case it was an original game).

It might if the game they make with your engine competes with your own game in the engine.

Look at Bethesda's reaction to New Vegas. They clearly didn't like that someone else made a better game with their egine, and that people started comparing Fallout 3 to NV in a negative light. So what did they do? They stopped licensing their engine.

It's a bit different in the case of Bioware, because there must have been a mutually beneficial deal between Bioware and Interplay: Bioware would license its Infinity engine to Interplay and Interplay would share its D&D license. In the case of NWN's Aurora engine, I think they only licensed it to Obsidian and CD Projekt because they were done with it. By then they had updated it for KotOR and named it Odyssey.

So I'm not so sure Larian would license their prized engine.

 

[Roguey]

It might if the game they make with your engine competes with your own game in the engine.

Look at Bethesda's reaction to New Vegas. They clearly didn't like that someone else made a better game with their egine, and that people started comparing Fallout 3 to NV in a negative light. So what did they do? They stopped licensing their engine.

It's a bit different in the case of Bioware, because there must have been a mutually beneficial deal between Bioware and Interplay: Bioware would license its Infinity engine to Interplay and Interplay would share its D&D license. In the case of NWN's Aurora engine, I think they only licensed it to Obsidian and CD Projekt because they were done with it. By then they had updated it for KotOR and named it Odyssey.

So I'm not so sure Larian would license their prized engine.

For a while there they had Logic Artists doing that trpg Divinity 2 spin-off, but LA messed that up on their own by missing their milestones and having to meet other obligations instead.

 

[Ismaul]

For a while there they had Logic Artists doing that trpg Divinity 2 spin-off

True, forgot about it.

But I think in this case, the intent was to make a different type of game than Larian was making. Larian would do the real RPG, LA would focus on tactics. So the idea that you normally only license your engine for projects that don't directly compete with yours still holds.

 

[Sergio]

Why should Larian license out their engine?

$$$$$

It's basically free cash given they have to maintain internal staff to manage/develop it for their own projects who could probably support external devs remotely given they'll already be doing it for Larian's studios spread across multiple continents, so if someone else wants to use it and pay for the privilege why not?

It's cash if people use your engine. No one will use your engine if you don't invest a lot into customer support and giving them the features they want. Which like I said means it only makes sense for Larian to license out their engine if they want to turn into Epic Games and hire 4K people.

Yeah. But I'll explain it from a perspective of a licensee (who receives the license).

Custom engines require good engineers. A friend of mine worked at CD Projekt Red as a programmer. He's seen a lot of engines, but he said their engine was the best, the most sophisticated, most elegant thing he's ever seen. And over time, CDPR lost their engineers and all they could hire were "ue4 monkeys" who couldn't work with it. They ended up having to ditch it for UE5.

UE monkeys wouldn't know what to do with Larian's engine even if they got it for free. Nobody's interested.

CDPR has access to a near limitless amount of skilled engineers, who would love nothing more than work for them. I find it hard to believe all they could find on the job market were "ue4 monkeys". Unless, you know.. the hiring process included some other variables