Baldur's Gate II Remake for NwN2 Announcement!

Archaos

OH MY GOD. These are the best news of the week for me.

Remember the Baldur's Gate: Reloaded project? The fan remake of Baldur's Gate for Neverwinter Nights 2?

The maker, Drew Rechner, basically announced with this short video that they're planning to remake BG2 for NwN2 as well.

They haven't begun yet but even if they're going to try, is absolutely amazing for me.

The remake for Dragon Age Origins has been halted apparently because they haven't announced anything in six months. But who knows, maybe we'll get two remakes.

See the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC8a6sVMTp8

comebackhome

Fantastic. Enjoyed the first BG reloaded - aside from the horrible NWN 2 camera modes/settings. Looking forward to the next one

Archaos

comebackhome said:

Fantastic. Enjoyed the first BG reloaded - aside from the horrible NWN 2 camera modes/settings. Looking forward to the next one

In all honesty, the Strategy Mode is the closest to the BG games and saves many headaches.
After all that time, I got used to the camera so it's not that bad with a few settings.

Dee

The NWN2 mod was mentioned on Cracked yesterday, actually (look at number 2 in the list): http://www.cracked.com/article_20987_6-awesome-hacks-that-did-mind-blowing-things-with-old-games.html

SapphireIce101

To be honest, I wasn't really a fan of BGR. Don't get me wrong, I love Baldur's Gate, and I like Neverwinter Nights 2. However, I just didn't really like BGR. I couldn't really tell you why.

This is good news for those that liked BGR though.

Archaos

@Dee Yup, I read the article. I've been following the project since 2007-2008 I think on the old Bioware forums.

The most awesome part is that if BG2R is made, we would be able to take our characters from BGR to BG2R like in the original.

And since the level cap is 30 in NwN2 and around 30-35 depending on the classes in ToB, it really fits like a glove.

FinneousPJ

Sounds cool, but it's a massive project. How long did they take with BGR?

Archaos

@FinneousPJ
It took them seven years.

BUT, back then NwN2 had just come out (2006-2007) and it was just Drew figuring out the toolset and later gathering people.

After so long, he now has the experience, confidence, fame and support of the nwn2 community as well as the main scripter, Shallina by his side and "hiring" new people that want to contribute.

Also BG2 is shorter with much less but more detailed areas and less NPCs to make.

I believe that it would take half the time to remake BG2 because of these factors.

FinneousPJ

I don't think it's shorter if they plan to implement everything. Yeah, BG2 may have less areas, but as you say, they're more detailed. The plots and quests are more elaborate as well. This will require much more scripting and debugging work. I believe if everything goes well, your half the time is quite a good guess. That's 3 ½ years, though. Plus, in amateur project such as this, life happens.

Archaos

Nothing is absolute.
Quests and plots involve simply importing the dialogue from the game with an existing tool. (Infinity Engine Dialogue Converter/Importer or something like that).

Whereas, making every single area from scratch is really time-consuming and they need to be detailed too, with the correct height etc.

The scripting is the big obstacle here but they know their craft now.

Thankfully, many of BG2's creatures already exist. Fire Giants, Beholders, Illithids, Vampires, Liches, Balors, Pit Fiends, Drow, Githyanki, Solars, Planetars, Tieflings, Dragons, Golems, etc.

Rakhsasa could theoretically be made by using a human body and putting a leopard head on them. It has been done with dragonkin.



That would make their life much, much easier.

FinneousPJ

As an aside, do you play online?

Archaos

On NwN2, yes. On Dalelands mostly as well as the more popular RP servers out there.
Though let's not derail the thread too much. Heh.