Why aren't there more RPGs with infinity engine?

[ds]

Not wanting to go into the merits of particular engines like unity or even the Infinite Engine, from the viewpoint of companies it is just that generic engines like Unity end up being useful for them. A company that was going to use infinite engine for a new project today would probably need to put any new workers on learning duty before they can start doing useful work. [...] Furthermore, you lack any resources that you might get from unity directly such as using it for mod support or getting assets made specifically for it.

Sure, I fully acknowledge that Unity (or Unreal) will let you produce a game you will be able to sell quicker and cheaper than other options. Those two haven't completely overtaken the industry for no reason. I just don't think this leads to better games. Unity isn't certainly isn't without disadvantages compared to IE or other bespoke engines.

I also would not recommend using IE specifically unless you really want to make I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-BG. But IE and Unity are not the only options. While a custom competitive 3D engine that can do modern graphics will not be financially viable for anyone but the biggest studios, the same is not true for making your own IE-like. That should be something at least a medium-sized studio with competent programmers should be able to manage - after all, game studios back then did and making a 2D engine should only have gotten easier.

If you aren't using AD&D 2e rules, you will need to make changes to the source that will probably reflect into changes on how the other files are used as well, so even if then new hire is a BG modder, he would need to go through that.

You will also need to implement those same rules with Unity.

Also, since no one is maintaining IE, you would need to support any system incompatibilities all by yourself.

You might disagree with their enhancements but Beamdog at least think they have been maintaining IE. Can't speak for their mobile versions but at least the Linux port is solid.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Let's go back to Goldbox engine (or maybe Dungeoncraft. I'd say Wizard's Crown/Eternal Dagger engine but i guess no one wants that.

So uh... this is the full list?

Pages in category "Infinity Engine games"​

The following 12 pages are in this category, out of 12 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.

B​

• Baldur's Gate (video game)
• Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
• Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
• Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast

I​

• Icewind Dale
• Icewind Dale II
• Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
• Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter

P​

• Planescape: Torment

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I prefer the Ulima 7 engine.

 

[jaekl]

I don't know anything about game engines. What I do know is that when I start an rpg on ps5 and the Unity logo pops up, there's about a 99.99995% chance that it will have loading screens every 5 minutes and then half way through the game it will start crashing all the time and corrupting saves. So yes! Please! More Infinity Engine games! Anything but Unity!

At this point I'd rather have developers chisel the code onto bricks and throw them through my window than to try and sell me something developed on the unity engine.

 

[ItsChon]

No clue why to be honest. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment are all amazing RPGs (I didn't like BG2 and haven't played IWD2), and I definitely would have enjoyed two more Infinity Engine based games set in different settings with improvements based off of what we learned from previous titles. Damn shame we never got it.

 

[Lord_Potato]

No clue why to be honest. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment are all amazing RPGs (I didn't like BG2 and haven't played IWD2), and I definitely would have enjoyed two more Infinity Engine based games set in different settings with improvements based off of what we learned from previous titles. Damn shame we never got it.

Baldur's Gate series sold several million copies in its first several years (approx 5 million units for BG1, 2 and addons until 2009).
http://web.archive.org/web/20080409131841/http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/about/

Icewind Dale series sold in hundreds of thousands, not millions. As of 2006, the lifetime domestic sales of Icewind Dale had reached 270,000 copies ($9.5 million), while the Icewind Dale franchise together had sold 580,000 units domestically, even if global market trippled its number of sold copies (doubtful) it was much less profitable feanchise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icewind_Dale

Planescape: Torment was even less popular. In 2017, Brian Fargo estimated the game's lifetime retail sales as roughly 400,000 units

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_Torment

It seems profits from these games were diminishing with each title. The technology seemed more and more archaic compared to 3d games that were on the rise. Interplay moved to 3d (BG Alliancs, Fallout BoS, project Van Buren) and then went bankrupt. Bioware decided to jump on the 3d bandwagon with Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR and Dragon Age, enjoyed some success and got purchased by EA. So who was supposed to work with the Infinity Engine?

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

One thing I like about the IE games is they are playable and fun. When I sit down at my computer and decide if I want to play Kangmaker or Solesta often what will end up putting me off is that every modern game feels like it has to have endless fucking 'crafting' systems which means you have to have these enormous inventories of junk you carry around, and every encounter means you have to then sort through piles of shit-- balls of yarn, wet leaves, mold, pebbles, ripped pieces of cloth and a bunch of 'recipes' and crap. It is both tedious and also makes it so that you can often just make the best weapons and magic items in the game destroying any sense of searching and accomplishment in finding rare wondrous items and replacing it with mashing together hordes of junk you have collected and cobbled together like a fucking hobo.

Its a totally different feeling and makes playing some of the modern games feel like a job, where the older games felt more like a true adventure and so often I jsut decide not to play them. People talk shit about the IE games, but they did a lot of things right.

This. BG-style "crafting" of bringing the artifact piece you found to a master smith was perfectly fine for me. To add insult to injury, the time wasted on implementing the constant garbage collection would be so much better spent on something else.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Let's go back to Goldbox engine (or maybe Dungeoncraft. I'd say Wizard's Crown/Eternal Dagger engine but i guess no one wants that.

So uh... this is the full list?

Pages in category "Infinity Engine games"​

The following 12 pages are in this category, out of 12 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.

B​

• Baldur's Gate (video game)
• Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
• Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
• Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast

I​

• Icewind Dale
• Icewind Dale II
• Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
• Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter

P​

• Planescape: Torment

Konung and Prince of Qin? or were those never confirmed

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Dunno.

 

[agris]

Let's go back to Goldbox engine (or maybe Dungeoncraft. I'd say Wizard's Crown/Eternal Dagger engine but i guess no one wants that.

So uh... this is the full list?

Pages in category "Infinity Engine games"​

The following 12 pages are in this category, out of 12 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.

B​

• Baldur's Gate (video game)
• Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
• Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
• Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast

I​

• Icewind Dale
• Icewind Dale II
• Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
• Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter

P​

• Planescape: Torment

Konung and Prince of Qin? or were those never confirmed

they're only visually similar, the IE was never licensed to any studio other than Interplay. I guess technically you can put Beam D*g in there, too.

 

[MerchantKing]

There are better engines. Unity can do everything IE did plus a lot more, and more programmers know how to use it.

Before Unity can doing everything IE does, it'll take 3+ years of solo programming.

I would like a unity game that I can tell my part to go to one square and they all scatter and pathfind their way around the map in nonsensical directions just like in the IE games!

 

[Cat Dude]

Because it is already old, archaic and unappealing even to those who are familiar with it.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

There are better engines. Unity can do everything IE did plus a lot more, and more programmers know how to use it.

Before Unity can doing everything IE does, it'll take 3+ years of solo programming.

I would like a unity game that I can tell my part to go to one square and they all scatter and pathfind their way around the map in nonsensical directions just like in the IE games!

I keep hearing this nonsense about pathfinding issues for years, but I never experienced them. I never had to select a the entire party unit by unit and lead them separately somehow. It never happened.
All you have to do is click multiple times with a couple seconds delay. Literally the easiest problem to solve.
As such, there is no problem.

I did experience pathfinding nonsense with pillars though, where units would step into other units and become entangled with each other, and it's is a unity game, since it matters so much to you. I reported many pathfinding bugs during the beta. I also worked with Unity and its pathfinding simply can't account for other units movement. So if a unit is walking through a tight corridor, the corridor is considered blocked forever as far as other units are concerned. In IE games, units were unwilling at first, but eventually conceded to walking through a narrow passage forming a line.

But also, who the fuck cares about one subsystem out of a hundred subsystems? IE is a game ready engine. Unity is a glorified renderer. There is no comparison.

 

[Vic]

I keep hearing this nonsense about pathfinding issues for years, but I never experienced them. I never had to select a the entire party unit by unit and lead them separately somehow. It never happened.

nigger go play Ulcaster Dungeon in BG1

 

[anvi]

Why aren't there more everything?! 8 billion people on the planet and yet there's only really 2 active MOBAs? Most of the games I love have been crying out for a sequel for decades and it never happens. There is only 1 flight sim these days. Space Games are fucked too. RTSs were much loved but died out, where are all the new RTSs?! There should be hundreds of RTSs, some ripping off the old classics, and some trying new things. And same with FPS, RPG, everything. But making games is clearly beyond human capability now.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Why aren't there more dunjonquest games? More Apshai (gateway & temple) More Questron? More Sword of Kadash? More Xyphus? More Dungeons of Magdarr for godsake by Aardvark sofware? More ACS Where the fuck is more....

WHERE?!?!!!!

 

[cretin]

The lack of commercial games on the IE is not surprising to me, as Lord_Potato pointed out, IE games were a 2D engine in a era that was rapidly broaching 3D as the hot ticket.

Rather what is surprising to me is how little legs it had in community efforts. We have incredible games like Ashes 2063 built on the doom engine, but nobody ever attempted to make new adventures for the IE games, despite their diehard fan bases. I suppose that speaks to how hard it is to work with, or maybe the kind of person who is an IE fan isn't given to creative endeavors. I don't know.

 

[Orud]

Because creating the 2D non-map assets is a huge pain in the ass according to several interviews I've read. This includes several Beamdog interviews concerning redoing the existing assets in HD themselves, creating new creatures in SoD. etc... .

It's easier to go down the path that ToEE and PoE took, 3D models walking over a 2D background.

 

[Fargus]

Both making maps and character or monster sprites for it was a bitch. I never seen a modmaker actually making a new 2d location for these games from scratch they all just reused and repurposed the existing ones. There was no shortage of fun quest and companions mods though.

 

[Lady Error]

ToEE has the superior engine anyway.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

One thing I like about the IE games is they are playable and fun. When I sit down at my computer and decide if I want to play Kangmaker or Solesta often what will end up putting me off is that every modern game feels like it has to have endless fucking 'crafting' systems which means you have to have these enormous inventories of junk you carry around, and every encounter means you have to then sort through piles of shit-- balls of yarn, wet leaves, mold, pebbles, ripped pieces of cloth and a bunch of 'recipes' and crap. It is both tedious and also makes it so that you can often just make the best weapons and magic items in the game destroying any sense of searching and accomplishment in finding rare wondrous items and replacing it with mashing together hordes of junk you have collected and cobbled together like a fucking hobo.

Its a totally different feeling and makes playing some of the modern games feel like a job, where the older games felt more like a true adventure and so often I jsut decide not to play them. People talk shit about the IE games, but they did a lot of things right.

This. BG-style "crafting" of bringing the artifact piece you found to a master smith was perfectly fine for me. To add insult to injury, the time wasted on implementing the constant garbage collection would be so much better spent on something else.

the baldurs gate type crafting is fine and cool, because its like one or two special things that involves very hard to do fights and creates cool items..the hoover vacuum up of every piece of shit laying around and not nailed down in the game world is tedious and depressing.

 

[scytheavatar]

The lack of commercial games on the IE is not surprising to me, as Lord_Potato pointed out, IE games were a 2D engine in a era that was rapidly broaching 3D as the hot ticket.

Rather what is surprising to me is how little legs it had in community efforts. We have incredible games like Ashes 2063 built on the doom engine, but nobody ever attempted to make new adventures for the IE games, despite their diehard fan bases. I suppose that speaks to how hard it is to work with, or maybe the kind of person who is an IE fan isn't given to creative endeavors. I don't know.

IE games created fans like Owlcat Games who made their own games in Unity. There simply isn't an incentive in making a full CRPG in IE. Remember that making a CRPG requires far more time and effort than making a Doom clone.

 

[Chippy]

The Unity engine proved to laymen like me that professional games programmers do not/cannot evolve their games in a linear fashion. While the IE games showed me that they could.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I keep hearing this nonsense about pathfinding issues for years, but I never experienced them. I never had to select a the entire party unit by unit and lead them separately somehow. It never happened.

nigger go play Ulcaster Dungeon in BG1

was that the one with the spiders? that was hell with the awful pathfinding. At least in bg2 units can move aside as they collide when they walk.

 

[Vic]

I keep hearing this nonsense about pathfinding issues for years, but I never experienced them. I never had to select a the entire party unit by unit and lead them separately somehow. It never happened.

nigger go play Ulcaster Dungeon in BG1

was that the one with the spiders? that was hell with the awful pathfinding. At least in bg2 units can move aside as they collide when they walk.

you pretty much have to select and command your units one by one in this dungeon to make it through the narrow corridors. huge waste of time