My first introduction to the Forgotten Realms was with the SSI Gold Box adventure games which I played in the early 1990s. So it was much before Baldur's Gate.
The Baldur's Gate series of games was in my opinion the peak of the AD&D CRPGs in terms of story and hours of content and playability. Neverwinter Nights tried to improve the genre with a proper 3d engine and graphics and while it was a great game, it never came close to BG2 in my mind at least. Bioware's attempts after that to make a compelling RPG have progressively gotten 'worse' starting with Dragon Age.
There is so much more to the lore and history of the Forgotten Realms than any one game can cover so it is always a process of discovery for me in any new game. The setting of the Baldur's Gate games as the aftermath of the Time of Troubles when the gods were stripped of their godhood and cast down onto the mortal plane is just a small part in the lore but its effects brought us a great game.
Currently, as I mentioned in my earlier post, there are plenty of opportunities to tell a new story with everything that is happening on Faerun. So I believe my enjoyment will remain even if we remain in the same universe. History is always being written by new heroes
Ahh yes the ssi gold boxes, I played the Dragonlance ones. I'd be happy enough with another Forgotten Realms title, but it's not exactly the only campaign setting out there. I do not see why the idea of giving another setting a shot is so abhorrent. It worked after all with Planescape: Torment. In fact going for something entirely new will free any new title of too many direct comparisons, especially if the tone and theme of the game is different.
I also wouldn't write off the Time of Troubles as some small part of the lore. It was after all the in-universe explanation for the switch from 1st Ed AD&D to 2nd. Assassin's are gone in 2nd as a class is precisely beause the god of murder is gone (quite clever that I thought!). In fact I'd say the Time of Troubles are Faerun's War of the Ring. It's the biggest most recognisable part of the lore.
I am not against The Forgotten Realms in any way, it is an awesome setting, and I think DDO missed a trick by not using it. I just happen to think it would be unwise to reject some of the other great settings out of hand either.
Don't get me wrong, I would love another setting as well if it was done well. I loved Planescape:Torment for its rich story and lore as well. The journey of discovery in that game beats any other game so far. Games which come close to it include The Longest Journey and the sequel but all these games play more like adventure games with RPG elements in them.
Even DDO currently has returned to the Forgotten Realms with their new Underdark expansion. If they do it well, I am pretty sure they are going to capture quite a few more subscribers with that. BG3 should focus on the Forgotten Realms as well.
As for the other settings, there is no reason why other games cannot be developed for them. Just don't use the Baldur's Gate name because it would tend to confuse customers who might not appreciate getting Eberron when they expected Forgotten Realms.
Absolutely, I think one of the reasons Baldur's Gate II was so good was the divergence and then convergence of the Icewind Dale and Planescape games. For me Icewind Dale went down the root of focusing on the action side of Baldur's Gate, and proved how the fundementals of the gameplay could support a game in and of itself (something Dragon Age I would say would struggle with). Planescape by comparison eschewed the combats more in favor of the story. In that I quite agree with you, but I think lessons learned from both diversions came back so you had a very happy middleground between the two with Baldur's Gate II.
Obviously a new franschise couldn't hold the Baldur's Gate name unless it was set in Forgotten Realms, but I really don't think it would hurt this style of game having a few more settings to choose from.
WotC has abandoned most of their older settings. The idea of using one isn't bad, it's just not feasible. Planesacape is for all intents and purposes a dead setting. The same goes for Ravenloft unfortunately. Eberron and Forgotten Realms are about all that's left. If WotC agrees to a new game they will almost certainly insist on one of those two settings.
Humph, I understand why WotC makes that sort of decision from a business standpoint, but at the same time I hope some of those decisions come back to bite them in the ass. I really don't care if a setting is dead or in a 'dated' edition of the game, if it's the basis of a game that's worth playing, then I want to play it.
Baldur's Gate is a city right? So the game is supposed to be about Faerun and the Sea of Swords for most part. So, something Epic around the Sword’s coast.
Here what I hope to find in BG3;
1. First, you are not an hero, you are not a God or a God's son, it must be a fresh start. 2. You may already be a wise mage, a great treasure hunter or a thief guild master but it’s doesn’t matter. You are recognised because you choose to stay and fight when other leave. (that what make you ‘so special’ (at first). 3. Maybe you stayed for selfish reasons (evil), maybe it’s was for morals reasons (good), here again it’s doesn’t matter, you was there that day, you fought and people love you or respect you for that. 4. Seeing/helping/being helped by a lot of canon characters can be great for the immersion. 5. It’s must be epic; a lot of vampires, werewolf, demons, dragon, etc. You have to travel in many different place.
Maybe something like that:
Your village and the 3-4 nearby are attacked by an overwhelming forces of enemies, they are everywhere, they want to crush you and they will take no prisoners. So here you are, helping people to evacuate, to fortify the area, to regroup those who can fight and send people outside for help. At the end, you are forced to charge the monstrous hordes of creatures that besieged you with a small group soldiers/guards/farmer/minuteman/etc. By some means you succeed in your attempt to delay them and the most part of the folks where able to escape and tell their story, you and your ‘unit’ are slaughtered in the process. Days later, reinforcement come and because you were the last to die (it’s was a slow and painful dead for you) the clerics were able to resurrect you, you are now a champion, an hero, something near a legend.
So I don’t know, maybe you stayed ‘a normal champion’ or maybe you become something greater because of X reasons in X circumstances and with the help of X characters.. etc.
Something like that, but I cannot pretend knowing the best epic story of all time so I will wait like everyone else for the game to come out. ^^
^Now that would be awesome if you were the only survivor a destroyed town. When you make it to the next town, you go to the authorities and have to meet the counsel about the impending threat. You are not believed, and it is considered an outlining incident of Orcs, thus they send a small patrol party to investigate.
When the party doesn't return after a week, something is suspected and then it happens, a large armor attacks the second town while you are there, much like IWD. This time it is just a minor size platoon of a 100 enemies, but they reek havoc and now the surrounding areas are taking things seriously. It is later found out through messenger that all the towns in the surrounding area were hit at once, some by a 100, others by several.
One thing I want to be a little different in BG 3 is to have you with choice to achieve rank as a good or evil commander. You can change the story based on Good/Bad/Neutral choices. This will make the world more lively, and put some of this I am a hero because I was forced to save the world to rest. There needs to be real world consequences, unless you are dungeon crawling like in IWD.
In a perfect world the next game would use the 3rd edition rules from IWD2 under the OGL with a brand new setting free of WotC control. Kurald Galain or anywhere in the Malazan empire would be the best existing IP as far as I'm concerned. But a brand new world would be fine if the writers were good.
I just hope a possible BG3 is kept in the same artistic style as the previous Infinity Engine games, so it definetly has to be isometric. Another thing I hope for is that encounters are just as challenging as the previous games (Baldur's Gate I-II, Icewind Dale I-II, Planescape Torment). Seems like RPG titles that went 3D ended up becoming too fast paced and too easy, such as NWN and Dragon Age, and I really didn't like that nor the 3D part.
In a perfect world the next game would use the 3rd edition rules from IWD2 under the OGL with a brand new setting free of WotC control. Kurald Galain or anywhere in the Malazan empire would be the best existing IP as far as I'm concerned. But a brand new world would be fine if the writers were good.
Unfortunately, D&D magic rules and Malazan magic system are incompatible.
The protagonist should be the offspring of CHARNAME and Aerie and have wings along with demonic powers that slowly develop over the course of the game, and the plot could be be based around remaining good and in control of those powers and eventually getting rid of them, or being evil and keeping them at the cost of rejection and exile by the Avarial.
Some kind of lame plot - CHARNAMEs offspring taken up by the Avarial due to CHARNAME and Aerie being involved in a terrible death, setting would be wherever the Avarial come from, and then the rest of the game has two subplots for the good and evil routes.
It feels like I'm in the minority here, but I don't want any (or extremely little) connection to Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. I want a new game with new characters, new story, and new location.
There have been enough games in the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter/northern part of Faerun. There is a big world out there, why can't we have a game set somewhere else?
Pointy. Hats. Nothing screams BAMF like a pointy hat.
On a more serious note... I'm not really sure I'd want to see the Bhaalspawn carry over into BG3. And while it could make for a great game, Aerie and Charname's kid would make it cannon that Charname was male and romanced her. That would make my chic bhaalspawns nerd rage and burn their bras in defiance. I wouldn't mind seeing a new protaganist with a connection to the previous games. But really as long as they keep with the looks and story and gameplay that made the rest of the series such a hit... I'll throw my money at them.
How about this scenario (already part of Faerun's lore):
Faerun is under threat from the phaerimm. They were accidently released from their prison under the Anauroch Desert. They are immune to all forms of magic except shadow magic. Unfortunately shadow magic is only practised by the Netheril empire which itself was banished and trapped in the plane of Shadow. To combat the phaerimm, the Netheril empire needs to be freed. As it will turn out, the freeing of the phaerimm was actually a part in a conspiracy of Netheril to free themselves from their prison on the Shadow plane because their ultimate goal is to rule Faerun.
The player is thrown into the middle of all this, and has to stop both the phaerimm and the Netheril empire from achieving their goals. While all this is happening, Lolth is preparing a major assault from the Underdark.
@kunjal29 You're probably right about the magic systems being incompatible. But the exact principles are never laid out in the books so I could forgive a little fudging of that mechanic. Maybe use a Spellcraft skill check to make sure you can open your warren before casting a spell. Maybe even make a natural 1 on the check make you fall into the warren!
Man just follow the end of the book, he give up his God powers and start a new journey, so you can do anything from there. And for GOD´s sake, no new character, make possible import my character from end o BGEE, Just strip him off his God powers and set him lv1, or "lock" his class like some curse from give up Bhaal's blood and make he lvl up another class. But dont "make" a new hero, is like you kill me after the end of BGEE, i want to live, to continue, that is what we miss in the RPGs, they end, we dont want to end.
Well.... it's not true that BG III can not add anything to the Bhaalspawn saga. Let's play Daddy in the Disorder Time, and let's see the story from his point of view. So a sort of prequel sounds interesting for me.
Well.... it's not true that BG III can not add anything to the Bhaalspawn saga. Let's play Daddy in the Disorder Time, and let's see the story from his point of view. So a sort of prequel sounds interesting for me.
I think the Japanese have some games for people who are... into that kind of thing.
What do I want from the game? Well lots of things, but the most important is what every single developer in the world who has tried to capitalise on the success of the originals has strayed from: TOP DOWN ISOMETRIC VIEW CONTROLLING A FULL PARTY WITH SPACE TO PAUSE.
Simple really. All attempts to replicate have started out presumably like this, but then added 3d graphics, weird camara angles, wasd movement, more "exciting" realtime combat, and just smothered everything that was good about it in the first place.
@ajwz I totally agree. For years after finishing BG2 I wondered why no one duplicated that isometric view and action combo. I understand the industry wanted to evolve, but no one has come close to duplicating the satisfaction I got from playing the BG series.
@ajwz I totally agree. For years after finishing BG2 I wondered why no one duplicated that isometric view and action combo. I understand the industry wanted to evolve, but no one has come close to duplicating the satisfaction I got from playing the BG series.
I agree... Not even Bioware could emulate what they did with BG. The closest they got for me was KOTOR, and it wasn't isometric, but the BG feeling was there for me.
I want it to work. IWD 1 and 2 were really glitchy for me. If I remember correctly IWD2 and the last installment BG2 TOB had a bad habit of not letting you escape when you were getting the snot pounded out of you. That thinking needs to go. Mmm oh yeah, the final battle BG2 TOB Aerie has the spell wish if you didn't take her you were screwed. Unless it's plot critical your team should be fine with any leveled character.
Comments
I also wouldn't write off the Time of Troubles as some small part of the lore. It was after all the in-universe explanation for the switch from 1st Ed AD&D to 2nd. Assassin's are gone in 2nd as a class is precisely beause the god of murder is gone (quite clever that I thought!). In fact I'd say the Time of Troubles are Faerun's War of the Ring. It's the biggest most recognisable part of the lore.
I am not against The Forgotten Realms in any way, it is an awesome setting, and I think DDO missed a trick by not using it. I just happen to think it would be unwise to reject some of the other great settings out of hand either.
Don't get me wrong, I would love another setting as well if it was done well. I loved Planescape:Torment for its rich story and lore as well. The journey of discovery in that game beats any other game so far. Games which come close to it include The Longest Journey and the sequel but all these games play more like adventure games with RPG elements in them.
Even DDO currently has returned to the Forgotten Realms with their new Underdark expansion. If they do it well, I am pretty sure they are going to capture quite a few more subscribers with that. BG3 should focus on the Forgotten Realms as well.
As for the other settings, there is no reason why other games cannot be developed for them. Just don't use the Baldur's Gate name because it would tend to confuse customers who might not appreciate getting Eberron when they expected Forgotten Realms.
Obviously a new franschise couldn't hold the Baldur's Gate name unless it was set in Forgotten Realms, but I really don't think it would hurt this style of game having a few more settings to choose from.
Here what I hope to find in BG3;
1. First, you are not an hero, you are not a God or a God's son, it must be a fresh start.
2. You may already be a wise mage, a great treasure hunter or a thief guild master but it’s doesn’t matter. You are recognised because you choose to stay and fight when other leave. (that what make you ‘so special’ (at first).
3. Maybe you stayed for selfish reasons (evil), maybe it’s was for morals reasons (good), here again it’s doesn’t matter, you was there that day, you fought and people love you or respect you for that.
4. Seeing/helping/being helped by a lot of canon characters can be great for the immersion.
5. It’s must be epic; a lot of vampires, werewolf, demons, dragon, etc. You have to travel in many different place.
Maybe something like that:
Your village and the 3-4 nearby are attacked by an overwhelming forces of enemies, they are everywhere, they want to crush you and they will take no prisoners. So here you are, helping people to evacuate, to fortify the area, to regroup those who can fight and send people outside for help. At the end, you are forced to charge the monstrous hordes of creatures that besieged you with a small group soldiers/guards/farmer/minuteman/etc. By some means you succeed in your attempt to delay them and the most part of the folks where able to escape and tell their story, you and your ‘unit’ are slaughtered in the process. Days later, reinforcement come and because you were the last to die (it’s was a slow and painful dead for you) the clerics were able to resurrect you, you are now a champion, an hero, something near a legend.
So I don’t know, maybe you stayed ‘a normal champion’ or maybe you become something greater because of X reasons in X circumstances and with the help of X characters.. etc.
Something like that, but I cannot pretend knowing the best epic story of all time so I will wait like everyone else for the game to come out. ^^
When the party doesn't return after a week, something is suspected and then it happens, a large armor attacks the second town while you are there, much like IWD. This time it is just a minor size platoon of a 100 enemies, but they reek havoc and now the surrounding areas are taking things seriously. It is later found out through messenger that all the towns in the surrounding area were hit at once, some by a 100, others by several.
One thing I want to be a little different in BG 3 is to have you with choice to achieve rank as a good or evil commander. You can change the story based on Good/Bad/Neutral choices. This will make the world more lively, and put some of this I am a hero because I was forced to save the world to rest. There needs to be real world consequences, unless you are dungeon crawling like in IWD.
Some kind of lame plot - CHARNAMEs offspring taken up by the Avarial due to CHARNAME and Aerie being involved in a terrible death, setting would be wherever the Avarial come from, and then the rest of the game has two subplots for the good and evil routes.
There have been enough games in the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter/northern part of Faerun. There is a big world out there, why can't we have a game set somewhere else?
On a more serious note... I'm not really sure I'd want to see the Bhaalspawn carry over into BG3. And while it could make for a great game, Aerie and Charname's kid would make it cannon that Charname was male and romanced her. That would make my chic bhaalspawns nerd rage and burn their bras in defiance. I wouldn't mind seeing a new protaganist with a connection to the previous games. But really as long as they keep with the looks and story and gameplay that made the rest of the series such a hit... I'll throw my money at them.
Faerun is under threat from the phaerimm. They were accidently released from their prison under the Anauroch Desert. They are immune to all forms of magic except shadow magic. Unfortunately shadow magic is only practised by the Netheril empire which itself was banished and trapped in the plane of Shadow. To combat the phaerimm, the Netheril empire needs to be freed. As it will turn out, the freeing of the phaerimm was actually a part in a conspiracy of Netheril to free themselves from their prison on the Shadow plane because their ultimate goal is to rule Faerun.
The player is thrown into the middle of all this, and has to stop both the phaerimm and the Netheril empire from achieving their goals. While all this is happening, Lolth is preparing a major assault from the Underdark.
TOP DOWN ISOMETRIC VIEW CONTROLLING A FULL PARTY WITH SPACE TO PAUSE.
Simple really. All attempts to replicate have started out presumably like this, but then added 3d graphics, weird camara angles, wasd movement, more "exciting" realtime combat, and just smothered everything that was good about it in the first place.