Actually, there is some new information in there. For example, all the names of the former BioWare employees who are working or have worked on the project. Shame on me for not checking the BG2 manual as well when trying to figure them out! Marcia Tofer could've come to mind while perusing the BG1 manual as well, though =P
Well by the review many questions i had get an answer, one of them is that this EE will be most likely a huge official mod with a review of the entire game.
New quests, NPCs and items. Upgrade in user interface to adapt it to the actual screens (Biggs already did this in a mod...). rebuilt the rendering system for better graphics (let's hope that this really upgrade the graphic aspect of the game and not just clean the screen or make the old graphic look better. But they can't even use new skins from what i heard, so... no much hope here).
The huge problem is that for what Trent said in this interview they're going to keep the old voices... that's a problem cos or the new content will not be voiced or a huge discrepancy will exist betwen the old voiced content and the new voiced content.
I, at least, think they should remake the voice for the entire game, even if that risks some loss in the quality, it's a risk but also improve the game is.
Well i get a little disapointed now, as i really had hopes of an entire remake of the game but can't do nothing about it .
Hope at least they put more and better movie scenes on the game (the most, the better).
I don't think they should redo all the voices. I'm also not seeing why voices in the new content will cause a huge discrepancy with the old content when its very likely that the old characters simply won't have voiced lines in the new content.
@Tanthalas, when you make quests that belong to the original content you gonna hear the old minsc voicer for example, in quests added on the enhanced edition we will have no voice or worse, a different voice for minsc in the same gameplay. But it's my view only, a minority view that not much ppl share probally.
Well by the review many questions i had get an answer, one of them is that this EE will be most likely a huge official mod with a review of the entire game.
New quests, NPCs and items. Upgrade in user interface to adapt it to the actual screens (Biggs already did this in a mod...). rebuilt the rendering system for better graphics (let's hope that this really upgrade the graphic aspect of the game and not just clean the screen or make the old graphic look better. But they can't even use new skins from what i heard, so... no much hope here).
The huge problem is that for what Trent said in this interview they're going to keep the old voices... that's a problem cos or the new content will not be voiced or a huge discrepancy will exist betwen the old voiced content and the new voiced content.
I, at least, think they should remake the voice for the entire game, even if that risks some loss in the quality, it's a risk but also improve the game is.
Well i get a little disapointed now, as i really had hopes of an entire remake of the game but can't do nothing about it .
Hope at least they put more and better movie scenes on the game (the most, the better).
Honestly I feel like apart from the morning to evening movie in baldur's gate (the city) the movies are unimportant and add nothing to the game itself in my opinion.
They could make an unnoficial voice package, recorded by the new equip, as an opitional install covering the new and rewriting the old voices dialogues (even adding more voiced banters on the game). Not much hope in this, but who knows...
Because nothing says f*** you like rerecording your voice work.
This isn't a Baldur's Gate "reboot", kamuizin. It's a re-release with some much-needed enhancements.
Likely, any new characters in the new content will have their own voice actors as needed; the new NPC(s?) will have his(their?) own voice actor(s); if they can get some of the other voice actors to come back and reprise their roles, I'm sure they'll consider that as well. But the point of this "overhaul" is not to make the game again from scratch; it's to take the game that already exists, and make it better.
You wouldn't re-release Star Wars: A New Hope and recast Luke Skywalker, would you?
EDIT: It occurs to me that your concern is less about the voices, and more about the quality of the recording. I think we'll find that the sound quality will be just fine.
@Aosaw You touched on a good point there, one that I noticed too, the indication that there may be more than one joinable NPC character added. I was under the impression there was only going to be one, but more than one could be very interesting .
His insight into their potential plans for BG3 are also interesting.
As for @Kamuizin s problem, I got the impression from what they were saying ("But, a new expansion with even more Minsc? well, if the planets align and Jim Cummings is available we'd love to see it happen”) that they would voice lines for the new content if they are able, the impression I got is that they are aware they can’t add voiced lines to existing content but it MAY be possible to add them for the new quests/areas/NPC dialogue, but I’m not sure.
Sorry @Aosaw but i just didn't get the point of your post.
My hopes where that more old banters get voiced, not rewrite. In the interview was said that the old voiced banters are going to stay with the old voice actors. Therefore, voice more original content from old NPCs will be a lot inviable.
That was my point so if you just don't agree that more of the older banters shoud be voiced, ok, you disagree with me, otherwise you just misundestanded my point.
Oh - I did misunderstand your point, yes. I thought you were suggesting that they should re-record the old voiced lines to use more modern recording equipment, which I couldn't disagree with more.
I would like to hear some of the old lines voiced that didn't have recordings before - although I can also appreciate how that would be a monolithic undertaking, and there are other elements of the game that would be a lot cheaper to execute, which are more important to me. But I do understand your point more clearly now.
I am so pissed by Bioware for losing the original artwork... how could they? A complete re-render of the game in higher resolution would have been possible, or even switching to a real-time 3D engine altogether!
Anyway, there is still some hope that the same didn't happen for ALL IE games...
Does they truly lost it? I have many theories about this but let's not flame someone without proof, but i find hard to believe that the artwork of a project which copyrights are spread among so many companies has been truly lost.
Well... just a fraction in my view of the facts that i wish to share.
@kamuizin - BioWare has nothing to gain from saying the source art assets were lost, and so does Beamdog. If Beamdog had said something like that without it being true, EA's legal department would have sued their arse big time. I'm afraid those assets are lost for real.
@kamuizin @AndreaColombo I just wonder how much investigating they did... I mean, did they call every ex-employee to see if they had anything backed up on cd? Not one person? Not saying they wouldn't think of such obvious things... but it still makes me itch that we can't have HD graphics. I'm guessing they don't want to redraw everything because it's in their business plan to move on to other projects and that wouldn't allow them to...
@caruga - Back when the loss was first announced, I emailed Beamdog about it and Cameron answered me that they had looked everywhere and couldn't locate those art assets. I think they're honest, as releasing BG:EE with HD graphics would have been in their interest. Re-drawing, re-modelling, re-animating and re-rendering everything from scratch would have taken more time (and more money) than they have, I'm afraid :-(
@caruga - Back when the loss was first announced, I emailed Beamdog about it and Cameron answered me that they had looked everywhere and couldn't locate those art assets. I think they're honest, as releasing BG:EE with HD graphics would have been in their interest. Re-drawing, re-modelling, re-animating and re-rendering everything from scratch would have taken more time (and more money) than they have, I'm afraid :-(
Ok, I imagined them sending a phone-call to bioware and got back a "No, we can't find it".
I will presume a lot (i really mean a lot) here so correct me if i'm wrong. I raised that distrust in Bioware cos:
Bioware part in this assignment of rights was only for the infinite engine. No contratual duty from Bio about the game as the rights of Baldur's Gate where in the possession of Atari. Without an obligation of repass those docs. Bioware, as already said, has nothing to gain, either by holding or giving the artworks, and a legal entity usually only make movments if can profit with them.
Baldur's Gate is a Mark, a reference of RPG games on PC plataform. Even today he's used (as in Dragon Age, when you can meet Edwina as a Barkeeper).
I have no idea of what kind of contract has been signed betwen all the involved, so i can't make an acurrated description of the possibilities, however by experience... i have my reservations.
But hey, it's true too that it's a 13 year game more or less, so it's not impossible to loose the artwork, just... unlikely.
Ps: my distrust here, if not misplaced, is entirely focused on Bioware and their reasons to cooperate or not with the project.
brix
Member Posts: 43
Comments
A good presentation of the project. Sadly no real new details
New quests, NPCs and items.
Upgrade in user interface to adapt it to the actual screens (Biggs already did this in a mod...).
rebuilt the rendering system for better graphics (let's hope that this really upgrade the graphic aspect of the game and not just clean the screen or make the old graphic look better. But they can't even use new skins from what i heard, so... no much hope here).
The huge problem is that for what Trent said in this interview they're going to keep the old voices... that's a problem cos or the new content will not be voiced or a huge discrepancy will exist betwen the old voiced content and the new voiced content.
I, at least, think they should remake the voice for the entire game, even if that risks some loss in the quality, it's a risk but also improve the game is.
Well i get a little disapointed now, as i really had hopes of an entire remake of the game but can't do nothing about it
Hope at least they put more and better movie scenes on the game (the most, the better).
But that's the thing, they most likely won't have new voices.
They could make an unnoficial voice package, recorded by the new equip, as an opitional install covering the new and rewriting the old voices dialogues (even adding more voiced banters on the game). Not much hope in this, but who knows...
This isn't a Baldur's Gate "reboot", kamuizin. It's a re-release with some much-needed enhancements.
Likely, any new characters in the new content will have their own voice actors as needed; the new NPC(s?) will have his(their?) own voice actor(s); if they can get some of the other voice actors to come back and reprise their roles, I'm sure they'll consider that as well. But the point of this "overhaul" is not to make the game again from scratch; it's to take the game that already exists, and make it better.
You wouldn't re-release Star Wars: A New Hope and recast Luke Skywalker, would you?
EDIT: It occurs to me that your concern is less about the voices, and more about the quality of the recording. I think we'll find that the sound quality will be just fine.
His insight into their potential plans for BG3 are also interesting.
As for @Kamuizin s problem, I got the impression from what they were saying ("But, a new expansion with even more Minsc? well, if the planets align and Jim Cummings is available we'd love to see it happen”) that they would voice lines for the new content if they are able, the impression I got is that they are aware they can’t add voiced lines to existing content but it MAY be possible to add them for the new quests/areas/NPC dialogue, but I’m not sure.
Thanks for posting this, mate!
My hopes where that more old banters get voiced, not rewrite.
In the interview was said that the old voiced banters are going to stay with the old voice actors. Therefore, voice more original content from old NPCs will be a lot inviable.
That was my point so if you just don't agree that more of the older banters shoud be voiced, ok, you disagree with me, otherwise you just misundestanded my point.
I would like to hear some of the old lines voiced that didn't have recordings before - although I can also appreciate how that would be a monolithic undertaking, and there are other elements of the game that would be a lot cheaper to execute, which are more important to me. But I do understand your point more clearly now.
Anyway, there is still some hope that the same didn't happen for ALL IE games...
Well... just a fraction in my view of the facts that i wish to share.
@AndreaColombo
I just wonder how much investigating they did... I mean, did they call every ex-employee to see if they had anything backed up on cd? Not one person? Not saying they wouldn't think of such obvious things... but it still makes me itch that we can't have HD graphics. I'm guessing they don't want to redraw everything because it's in their business plan to move on to other projects and that wouldn't allow them to...
We're talking about 10+ year old PCs.
Bioware part in this assignment of rights was only for the infinite engine. No contratual duty from Bio about the game as the rights of Baldur's Gate where in the possession of Atari.
Without an obligation of repass those docs. Bioware, as already said, has nothing to gain, either by holding or giving the artworks, and a legal entity usually only make movments if can profit with them.
Baldur's Gate is a Mark, a reference of RPG games on PC plataform. Even today he's used (as in Dragon Age, when you can meet Edwina as a Barkeeper).
I have no idea of what kind of contract has been signed betwen all the involved, so i can't make an acurrated description of the possibilities, however by experience... i have my reservations.
But hey, it's true too that it's a 13 year game more or less, so it's not impossible to loose the artwork, just... unlikely.
Ps: my distrust here, if not misplaced, is entirely focused on Bioware and their reasons to cooperate or not with the project.