I just wish it would read: "We'll check back again at the end of the month with more news, content, and a release announcement."
But i like that they re-activated the newsletter, which has been dormant for a while. Though it was all just old news to us, one can hope for some tidbit in the future.
I just wish it would read: "We'll check back again at the end of the month with more news, content, and a release announcement."
Of course we're all awaiting it eagerly, but realistically we're not going to get a release schedule until after they reach feature-lock, because how much time will be needed to complete testing is highly unpredictable when they're still adding and tweaking features (which Trent Oster said, only a few days ago, that they're still doing).
They'll now be aiming for a 1Q16 release, but I doubt they'll announce a planned release date until around the end of the year. Even then, delays are obviously possible if testing discovers a non-trivial bug ... which often happens, because finding bugs is what testing is for. (But heck, I'd much rather have a delayed release than a buggy release!)
I was just playing bg2 and thought of how cool would it be if they added bromances to the game. And by bromances I don't mean no homo. More like developing friendships between two or more companions, maybe in the end one sacrifices oneself for the other or something like that. You know, make it more alive. Otherwise your party consists of up to 6 travelers, who at most can sleep with you or fight each other.
@Riderat - there are already (and always were) several relationships between NPCs in BG2 which develop as the game progresses. Not to the point of self-sacrifice (many players would object loudly to being deprived of a team member half-way through!), but with a definite change of tone as they get to know one another better, and specific dialogue indicating the growing friendship. Keldorn and Anomen, Keldorn and Korgan (!), Minsc and Aerie, Minsc and Nalia, Mazzy and Valygar, probably some other examples which haven't immediately occurred to me.
I don't think it's clear whether that's an official job title, or simply Chris's description of what he did for Beamdog by giving them a detailed commentary on the pre-release version. But I guess it doesn't matter either way, it sounds like a fair description of his contribution.
Did you know how the SoD emblem was made? Mad Bee explains:
"Originally the first sketch was a joke I doodled down on the corner of a painting, while the lore of Dragonspear castle was being explained to me.
(Daeros Dragonspear like to ride around on his dragon friend’s back and stab goblins… wow… what a jerk.)
Surprisingly, I was asked to turn the sketch into a floor mosaic, to be used in game on the castle Dragonspear floor.
My sketch was later suggested to be used for the emblem of that game, with some tweaking of course. The other Baldur’s Gate and IWDEE both use medallions/emblems, so sure why not.
Nat, our other 2d artist here at Beamdog, made a rough medallion painting using my sketch and some textures. I went back over it, painted it over and we ended up with neat brass color medallion with a red center. Sadly the brass color did not mesh well with the SOD UI I created for the game. The decision was then made to desaturate the metal looking parts and repaint certain aspects of the dragon and Daeros’ armor.
I added a few dents/scratches, repaired the armor and made a few minor corrections to the dragon’s wings and head. This is the version I consider the “clean version” and it’s used often on websites and for large printings. However in game, it still did not look right.
Alan Miranda, one of our Producers, suggested that I really dirty it up, add more cracks and dirt, because it’s been around (according to the lore) for a long time and should look like it’s been through a lot, and that’s where we get our final emblem design used in game. I didn’t want to go too overboard with dirtying it up because too many details can get lost.
These images are small and simply do not do any justice to the emblem, sorry about that. I also Included image of where else the emblem is being used, such as a dev. coin and on a giant mock up of a box product from the announcement party."
I realy like the first pass a lot. A bit more than the others, actually. The redish surface makes me think of dragon scales (and not so much brass), more than anything. Still, it makes sense that it first and foremost has to fit into the game. Thx for sharing!
@Riderat - there are already (and always were) several relationships between NPCs in BG2 which develop as the game progresses. Not to the point of self-sacrifice (many players would object loudly to being deprived of a team member half-way through!), but with a definite change of tone as they get to know one another better, and specific dialogue indicating the growing friendship. Keldorn and Anomen, Keldorn and Korgan (!), Minsc and Aerie, Minsc and Nalia, Mazzy and Valygar, probably some other examples which haven't immediately occurred to me.
Mmmmkay! I guess i just have the wrong party set up, because apart from affection to me and eventual disagreement between each other i have never seen npc's showing companionship or friendly advices or anything.
As for dying npc's - Yoshi does kill himself, people are still playing a ton of bg nonetheless. So players objecting to that is a rather invalid point.
@Riderat - there are already (and always were) several relationships between NPCs in BG2 which develop as the game progresses. Not to the point of self-sacrifice (many players would object loudly to being deprived of a team member half-way through!), but with a definite change of tone as they get to know one another better, and specific dialogue indicating the growing friendship. Keldorn and Anomen, Keldorn and Korgan (!), Minsc and Aerie, Minsc and Nalia, Mazzy and Valygar, probably some other examples which haven't immediately occurred to me.
Mmmmkay! I guess i just have the wrong party set up, because apart from affection to me and eventual disagreement between each other i have never seen npc's showing companionship or friendly advices or anything.
As for dying npc's - Yoshi does kill himself, people are still playing a ton of bg nonetheless. So players objecting to that is a rather invalid point.
In fairness you get access to Imoen basically immediately after Yoshimo betrays you and she covers three of the larger functions of a thief (trap removal, opening locks, and scouting) extremely well. So I think Gallowglass has a valid concern.
Even @elminster likes to munch on the humble rutabaga. So please. If you see him. Pass this mighty tasty morsel to his ensorcelled hands and speak well of me.
For the record @Anduin I'm still waiting on that Rutabaga (understand that for all my age I never forget root vegetable related offers). Thankfully now its in season. So I'll probably just go buy one from the grocery store.
I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but apparently Health bars are optional.
Yes, someone (I think it was @Amber_Scott) said in the announcement stream that the new floating health bars are optional ... but I suspect that not everyone here was paying close attention.
I was just playing bg2 and thought of how cool would it be if they added bromances to the game. And by bromances I don't mean no homo. More like developing friendships between two or more companions, maybe in the end one sacrifices oneself for the other or something like that. You know, make it more alive. Otherwise your party consists of up to 6 travelers, who at most can sleep with you or fight each other.
There are quite a few, actually, like Gallowglass said but I agree that I'd like more.
It would be particularly nice if Imoen got a few moments like that. I know her content got the shaft due to the plot change during the development of SoA, but I like the friendship mod she has and would love to see her get along with certain characters (I think she and Jan would have some potential, as well as with Minsc and Jaheira. Jaheira as a mentor to her would make a lot of sense. Also I can see a rivalry with Nalia)
It would be particularly nice if Imoen got a few moments like that. I know her content got the shaft due to the plot change during the development of SoA, but I like the friendship mod she has and would love to see her get along with certain characters (I think she and Jan would have some potential, as well as with Minsc and Jaheira. Jaheira as a mentor to her would make a lot of sense. Also I can see a rivalry with Nalia)
I agree that there'd be some potential for Imoen to have more interesting interaction with the other "usual suspects", but unfortunately it's not going to happen. That'd be changing original content, which we know Beamdog's contract with WotC doesn't allow; they're allowed to add new dialogue between original characters and the EE NPCs, but not between one original character and another.
I've always thought Anomen's personal quest plays out like a bromance if you're playing a male. You still go through the whole thing with his sister's murder, just like you do if you're playing a female and romancing him. I'm almost certain I remember some lines from him thanking me for my friendship after he passes his knight test.
It's been a long time though, and my memory is fuzzy. Don't you still get the deal with his finding out about Saerk and leaving the party, and you have to go stop him, even if you're not in a romance?
I think the main difference is that Bodhi won't turn him, but it still feels like a pretty close friendship, and he starts to develop one with Keldorn too.
EDIT: The NPC Project has a bromance you can play out between a male PC and Coran. There are pretty good friendship tracks for Ajantis and Xan, too.
It's been a long time though, and my memory is fuzzy. Don't you still get the deal with his finding out about Saerk and leaving the party, and you have to go stop him, even if you're not in a romance?
No. You only get that additional section if you're a female protagonist in a romance with Anomen.
Otherwise the story about his sister's murder ends when you either persuade him to leave Saerk to the authorities (and thereby succeed in his quest for knighthood) or take vigilante revenge against Saerk (and thereby fail in his quest for knighthood). (Interestingly, therefore, unlike most other quests in the game, this one doesn't revolve around a Good/Evil choice, but rather a Lawful/Chaotic choice.)
If you remember, the game has been in the works for a long time. And when the company felt they were ready, they began to prepare an announcement. For that event they invited a lot of people, from Edmonton and from other places. So, this procedure started in May, 2015, or something like that.
In June, 2015, Chris Avellone left Obsidian. It was a surprise for many, and not many knew what to expect in the future. Trent Oster and Co managed to contact Chris, they negotiated and it was decided that he would be a "Narrative Consultant" - no matter how the position was called, it was about an analysis of the SoD storyline and giving a feedback.
The event of the SoD announcement was planned before that, so it continued without chages, and happened in July, 2015. The words by Chris Avellone were included to the brand new site, but it's obvious that Chris, being an experienced pro, gave Beamdog a lot more that those quoted words. I expect there was a huge document with Chris's analysis of SoD, it's story, dialogues and choices. I expect there was a lot of critique (not criticism, but critique) as well.
The Beamdog team, still remembering the fans' feedback on the EE content, wants the SoD content to be the best it could ever be.
And ever since then the team began to work on that feedback by Chris Avellone. Beamdog, as a modern company, made several deadlines for their writers and other workes in order to create documents about the needed changes, additions and so on.
The responsible people introduced their views and options in the context of additions to SoD. I imagine it was in the form of business meetings, with demonstrations, reports and such.
This is why I think Trent said they were still adding to the game. After getting a very useful feedback from Chris Avellone, they put additional hours into SoD.
Add to this the not ending work of the QA department.
The fact that Chris Avellone became available not long before the supposed date of an announcement influenced the process greatly. I even think that the feedback he provided came after the announcement date because it was a work as well and it needed time.
To me, this is the reason why the game is still in the development, even while the announcement happened 4 months ago. And it's only to the good.
From my experience (and absolute fandom, praise be the Avellone), mr. Avellone tends to go very psychological in both his characters and stories. He gives his stories little extra cutting edge that others don't have. Particularly visible in his two written characters in Pillars of Eternity.
Given the complexity of the Shining Lady, he might have been interested in adding more back story to her. I still am incredibly in the dark when it comes to her, or the story in general, so my guess is as good as anyone's.
Either way, as the obvious developing spoilsports, I am positively 100% sure Beamdog won't tell us *what* they added/changed or tinkered. And honestly, part the fun is figuring it out, isn't it?
I think just the same, but also hope that they working on translations as well.
Of course it's natural that fans whose native language is non-English will hope for early translations, but I suspect that the logical sequence in development is to get it finished first and then translate afterwards. While the text is still subject to change, it's probably wasting resources to start translating, because anything which changed would have to be translated again.
While I can't speak for most other languages, I would be highly surprised if it didn't ship with a French translation already done. Beamdog is a Canadian company.
(Not 100% certain, but I've heard most things in Canada have to be shown in English and French out in the world itself. I don't know if that's restricted to the Quebec/Montreal province. But it would possibly mean that at least a couple on their small staff are fluent in both.)
Comments
"Work continues on the new Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition expansion, Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear."
"We'll check back again at the end of the month with more news, content, and sale announcements."
But i like that they re-activated the newsletter, which has been dormant for a while. Though it was all just old news to us, one can hope for some tidbit in the future.
They'll now be aiming for a 1Q16 release, but I doubt they'll announce a planned release date until around the end of the year. Even then, delays are obviously possible if testing discovers a non-trivial bug ... which often happens, because finding bugs is what testing is for. (But heck, I'd much rather have a delayed release than a buggy release!)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisavellone
Did you know how the SoD emblem was made? Mad Bee explains:
"Originally the first sketch was a joke I doodled down on the corner of a painting, while the lore of Dragonspear castle was being explained to me.
(Daeros Dragonspear like to ride around on his dragon friend’s back and stab goblins… wow… what a jerk.)
Surprisingly, I was asked to turn the sketch into a floor mosaic, to be used in game on the castle Dragonspear floor.
My sketch was later suggested to be used for the emblem of that game, with some tweaking of course. The other Baldur’s Gate and IWDEE both use medallions/emblems, so sure why not.
Nat, our other 2d artist here at Beamdog, made a rough medallion painting using my sketch and some textures. I went back over it, painted it over and we ended up with neat brass color medallion with a red center. Sadly the brass color did not mesh well with the SOD UI I created for the game. The decision was then made to desaturate the metal looking parts and repaint certain aspects of the dragon and Daeros’ armor.
I added a few dents/scratches, repaired the armor and made a few minor corrections to the dragon’s wings and head. This is the version I consider the “clean version” and it’s used often on websites and for large printings. However in game, it still did not look right.
Alan Miranda, one of our Producers, suggested that I really dirty it up, add more cracks and dirt, because it’s been around (according to the lore) for a long time and should look like it’s been through a lot, and that’s where we get our final emblem design used in game. I didn’t want to go too overboard with dirtying it up because too many details can get lost.
These images are small and simply do not do any justice to the emblem, sorry about that. I also Included image of where else the emblem is being used, such as a dev. coin and on a giant mock up of a box product from the announcement party."
http://heterochromiaturian.tumblr.com/post/123750511954/originally-the-first-sketch-was-a-joke-i-doodled
As for dying npc's - Yoshi does kill himself, people are still playing a ton of bg nonetheless. So players objecting to that is a rather invalid point.
It would be particularly nice if Imoen got a few moments like that. I know her content got the shaft due to the plot change during the development of SoA, but I like the friendship mod she has and would love to see her get along with certain characters (I think she and Jan would have some potential, as well as with Minsc and Jaheira. Jaheira as a mentor to her would make a lot of sense. Also I can see a rivalry with Nalia)
It's been a long time though, and my memory is fuzzy. Don't you still get the deal with his finding out about Saerk and leaving the party, and you have to go stop him, even if you're not in a romance?
I think the main difference is that Bodhi won't turn him, but it still feels like a pretty close friendship, and he starts to develop one with Keldorn too.
EDIT: The NPC Project has a bromance you can play out between a male PC and Coran. There are pretty good friendship tracks for Ajantis and Xan, too.
Otherwise the story about his sister's murder ends when you either persuade him to leave Saerk to the authorities (and thereby succeed in his quest for knighthood) or take vigilante revenge against Saerk (and thereby fail in his quest for knighthood). (Interestingly, therefore, unlike most other quests in the game, this one doesn't revolve around a Good/Evil choice, but rather a Lawful/Chaotic choice.)
If you remember, the game has been in the works for a long time. And when the company felt they were ready, they began to prepare an announcement. For that event they invited a lot of people, from Edmonton and from other places. So, this procedure started in May, 2015, or something like that.
In June, 2015, Chris Avellone left Obsidian. It was a surprise for many, and not many knew what to expect in the future. Trent Oster and Co managed to contact Chris, they negotiated and it was decided that he would be a "Narrative Consultant" - no matter how the position was called, it was about an analysis of the SoD storyline and giving a feedback.
The event of the SoD announcement was planned before that, so it continued without chages, and happened in July, 2015. The words by Chris Avellone were included to the brand new site, but it's obvious that Chris, being an experienced pro, gave Beamdog a lot more that those quoted words. I expect there was a huge document with Chris's analysis of SoD, it's story, dialogues and choices. I expect there was a lot of critique (not criticism, but critique) as well.
The Beamdog team, still remembering the fans' feedback on the EE content, wants the SoD content to be the best it could ever be.
And ever since then the team began to work on that feedback by Chris Avellone. Beamdog, as a modern company, made several deadlines for their writers and other workes in order to create documents about the needed changes, additions and so on.
This is why posts like this came:
The responsible people introduced their views and options in the context of additions to SoD. I imagine it was in the form of business meetings, with demonstrations, reports and such.
This is why I think Trent said they were still adding to the game. After getting a very useful feedback from Chris Avellone, they put additional hours into SoD.
Add to this the not ending work of the QA department.
The fact that Chris Avellone became available not long before the supposed date of an announcement influenced the process greatly. I even think that the feedback he provided came after the announcement date because it was a work as well and it needed time.
To me, this is the reason why the game is still in the development, even while the announcement happened 4 months ago. And it's only to the good.
Given the complexity of the Shining Lady, he might have been interested in adding more back story to her. I still am incredibly in the dark when it comes to her, or the story in general, so my guess is as good as anyone's.
Either way, as the obvious developing spoilsports, I am positively 100% sure Beamdog won't tell us *what* they added/changed or tinkered. And honestly, part the fun is figuring it out, isn't it?
While I can't speak for most other languages, I would be highly surprised if it didn't ship with a French translation already done. Beamdog is a Canadian company.
(Not 100% certain, but I've heard most things in Canada have to be shown in English and French out in the world itself. I don't know if that's restricted to the Quebec/Montreal province. But it would possibly mean that at least a couple on their small staff are fluent in both.)