I'd rather see them make IWD3 first. Partly to see how good of a job they can do from a story standpoint and partly because I think an IWD game would allow for more creativity. I think with the black pit games Overhaul has shown itself to be pretty good at making combat difficult. Also their new NPCs have some interest (though not perfect) dialogue trees, so I think it would be interesting to see what they would do in a different setting. Plus it would be a chance to test out a new engine for a future BG3.
Hi I'm not a regular but I am a bg fanatic. In regards to the possible (hopefully) new bg3 I would like to see the following: Extended story line from bg 2 perhaps entwined with ice wind dale (keeping for development the main protagonist). A choice to remain immortal or return to the realms and sacrifice a proportion of the divine spark to right wrongs or pursue quests Return or choice of of key characters The ability to revisit days of yor... Eg to go back to bg1 sc or athaktla etc in quest 1 for nostalgia value and 2 as an immense power to lord over the struggles before. A home base as per soa but more in depth ie a town or city you can manage/develop etc build and defend with options of in city control of extra troops the weapons spells and armour equipped etc up to 40 and multiple battle to attack / defend against multiple enemies The ability to breed a dragon through story line eg protecting eggs Much much more RSI kicking in.....
Wel, first off there certainly not going to do it instead if IWD:EE. That's nearly finished. It's in beta! Secondly, of your not the bhallspwan it's not really another bg, is it? It's just another 2e infinity game, which for legal reasons and stuff is very unlikely, at best. Wizards of the coast doesn't like people useing anything that isn't up to date, and the IE is getting old. It would really have any right to the name Baldurs Gate. Also, I don't know that beamdog has enough resources to make a whole game... But they've surprised us in the past(hello, iwd:)
Bg had a fantastic story, iwd well did not. Its a great fun game but for those (and there are many) who enjoy the good story to charge through iwd is not the game to play.
Bg had a fantastic story, iwd well did not. Its a great fun game but for those (and there are many) who enjoy the good story to charge through iwd is not the game to play.
I mean how would you change the story? Joinables? Sidequests? I don't think beamdog's legally allowed to change the story, unless things have changed since bg. And it's not even out yet. We don't know what they've done. And that would make a lot of people very unhappy anyway. From what I've heard people think the story is great but there's little RPing and replayability. I haven't played though.
In 2003 Baldurs gate 3 the black hound was 60% complete until its cancellation. I say bring it back bemdog. Idk what the story was or anything, bring back bg3 the black hound, finish it. Iwdee is there current project then probably iwd 2. But after that? Come back with the game launch of the century, come back with BG3! Finish it, and make all of us who were kids waiting for bg3 release happy..
BG3 is like the developers' dream. Not that they can make a game (and probably it's engine) out of nowhere. I'd say they'll enhanced the old IE games before making their own, which seems wise to me.
This topic irks me for a few reasons: first, it's about as new as Stonehenge, two, it's full of lies about IWD having a terrible plot, and 3, you made the topic twice for no useful reason whatsoever... WHY?!
I just don't think it's possible to make any sort of continuation to Baldur's Gate. The story is over. It ended years ago. If there's going to be a BG3, it'll be in name only. It'd be like the connection between NWN1 and NWN2 - in short, basically nada. You say 'there could be potential if done right' but I could easily apply that to any game or apply just the opposite. In fact, my personal opinion is that a BG3 has a much greater chance of going completely and utterly wrong.
I also don't get your point when you criticize IWD's story for being lacking. Not all games should be Planescape. The IWD games do a lot of things just as well and even better than BG. I'd say the music, art and freedom of party creation give it a much greater depth of immersion compared to BG. That, in my opinion, makes the two games incomparable.
I have no doubt that BG3 will be made. It's a question of what type of demographic (i.e., what type of gamer) Wizards of the Sword Coast decides upon for it. And then who they contract to design it.
Without revealing toooo much the story goes like this...
After ascending to God hood (or not) You are summoned by Ao to explain your lack of care for you portfolio of murder. He gives it to another God and your left to go back to the Bhaal pad and think things over. Turns out Bhaal had this other realm space bachelor pad going on, no wonder he spawned so much, but unfortunatley he did not own it, having rented it from some cheeky devils... Now, they aint been paid for a while, seeing as Bhaal had snuffed it an all. So they send some kickass baliffs to settle the bill and take your stuff... You end up thwacking them when they try and take the LCD crystal screen ball, and all hell breaks loose (literally devils everywhere...) This accidently intrigues some demons, who see there chance to thwack a few devils with there backs turned and WHAM! The denizens of the nine hells and hell itself are fighting in your kitchen. Whilst this is going on, your mom shows up to say how disappointed she is, and how your father would never have allowed things to get so out of hand, when this naked chick walks out the bathroom saying her name is Lolth. Well... Mom is now going mental, and does not believe a word you say, and storms off. Lolth (now dressed) offers you a job to get rid of some pain in the backside goody-goodies for her, in return for not devouring your Bhaals in a bad way... And bladda, bladda, chop, Aaaah, bladda, bladda, gruesome death, eeek, bladda, bladda... Then after a nervous wait to be re-interviewed by Ao, for what you believe is for destroying half the cosmos, you go in bricking it, only to find out Ao is so impressed with your murder spree, that included your resurrected father, he gives you back the portfolio of murder and a pay rise!
Instead of making an Icewind Dale enhanced edition Beamdog should focus on a Baldurs Gate three.
While I'd love to take a crack at Baldur's Gate 3, Beamdog focusing on it isn't a terribly productive thing to do unless and until Wizards of the Coast decides 1) they want to do a Baldur's Gate 3, and 2) they want that game to be done by Beamdog.
That's what I thought, whether Beamdog want to do it or not, it isn't their choice is it? There is licensing and copyright to consider. They can't just go 'Lets make BG3.'
Besides, I think I'd prefer all the previous IE games updated to run on modern spec machines first. Then take a crack at making a new game if your up to it. Even making an original IP probably wouldn't hurt. It doesn't HAVE to be a Forgotten Realms game. (Although we do love FR, it introduces a whole set of issues with the licensing and rule sets.)
Bg had a fantastic story, iwd well did not. Its a great fun game but for those (and there are many) who enjoy the good story to charge through iwd is not the game to play.
Icewind Dale has actually *more* story, if you care to read it. Unless you equate having many minor side quests and two choices to make (siding with Shadow Thieves or Vampires, and skipping Underdark or not) with story.
Baldur's Gate I&II simply give you a feeling of freedom, because there are much areas and quests more to discover beyond the good, but mostly also linear, main plot.
*Starts banging head on the desk* Not this thread again.
The Baldur's Gate Saga is over. End of story. Charname's story is over in an epic way.
Personally, it would be like asking for Lord of the Rings 4 without the Fellowship. Or for a new Matrix movie without Neo. Or for a Legend of Zelda game without Link. Or for a Tomb Raider game without Lara.
Baldur's Gate is Charname's story. Without him/her it's just in name only. Just like the Dark Alliance games have nothing to do with the original Saga and they're "Baldur's Gate" in name only.
Make a new Icewind Dale game. Make a new (A)DnD game in the style of Baldur's Gate.
The Icewind Dale games are basically unrelated (with a few references here and there to the first game in 2) except the setting, "Icewind Dale, Spine of the World, Ten Towns".
I want a game like BG, but I don't want it to be related and in name only. Pillars of Eternity is such a game and I would love a new IP from Beamdog but not milking the BG name.
Also we have a TON of cities, locations and settings they could use. Eberron, Greyhawk, Kara-Tur, Ravenloft etc. I would so love a BG-like game in Kara-Tur or Ravenloft.
Even better, a Pathfinder BG-like game in the world of Golarion. I would so pre-order that.
... Groans like a dying zombie ... not this hackneyed old thread again, please!
Oh well, since it's been started: a couple of iterations ago of this same topic (I can't find it on here now, probably archived somewhere), I did contribute a plot outline for a "real" BG3, which would directly continue the story yet remain in a FR setting. I'm not going to try to resurrect it all now, but in brief the concept was as follows.
Your Bhaalspawn chose to ascend at the end of ToB a few years ago, and is now a new god, and therefore has a new church promoting the new faith, which is active in the BG area but as yet little-known elsewhere. You now play as a young follower (starting at level 1) of the Bhaalspawn, on a difficult and desperate mission from the church to support the faithful, in the face of both open opposition and underhand plots by some of the other gods (perhaps especially Cyric, whom we know doesn't like the Bhaalspawn) and their churches, who are jealously seeking to destroy the new faith and stamp out its followers. Followers of the Bhaalspawn come from many backgrounds, but are fairly few in number, so the struggling new Temple of the Bhaalspawn in BG can spare no-one but one young follower, who might be of any character-class and have an alignment loosely tied (one step) to your Bhaalspawn's alignment. Neither the Bhaalspawn nor the opposing gods can act openly on the material plane, because Ao has forbidden open warfare among the gods, but your saved end-of-ToB Bhaalspawn character can make cameo appearances to advise and assist your mission. The mission itself could be essentially a journey from BG to Waterdeep, on a map which is well-established in FR lore and has several interesting and adventure-prone locations to explore, with the objective of saving a besieged company of the Bhaalspawn's followers who are trying to establish a new community of the faithful near to the City of Splendours, but are under severe overt and covert attack. Obviously there can be a whole series of obstacles to overcome on the journey, and further difficulties when you reach Waterdeep, and you could recruit various companions as you proceed. (As an example, Cyric's predictably-mad priests may be trying to open a new hellgate in the basement of Dragonspear Castle, to unleash a demonic horde against the Bhaalspawn's followers, so we might want to stop them. Of course, there's an old Underdark entrance in there as well, although the Cyricists didn't seem to know about that ...) As traditional in BG games, the allegiance and motives of various opponents would be a gradually-unfolding mystery, until eventually all is clarified (by which time you'd have spent a long time on the road and have reached a fairly high level) in a manner which I reckon could perhaps tie in rather neatly with the ending of a particular NPC-quest in ToB ...
This concept is a sort of "Baldur's Gate: the Next Generation", and of course there must be countless other ways of doing it. But wouldn't something vaguely like this fit the bill? Exploring the consequences of the Bhaalspawn's ascension for people back home on Faerun is a way to continue the existing saga without going off on a god-level planar excursion, it could even include a few re-appearing characters (now a few years older), and it's still in the familiar region and still clearly "Baldur's Gate" that we'd be playing, yet the "next generation" shift allows us to create a new hero starting again at low level.
So yes, I assert that meaningful direct continuation is possible, in a way which would still justify using the name "Baldur's Gate" for the new game, and which would be perfectly do-able within the existing game engine and ruleset.
As I said the last few times this topic appeared in the forum, if a BG 3 is ever released it should deal with the consequences of what Charname did in BG1/2.... let's say a century in the future after TOB, making sure the NPCs that could still be alive, such as the elves and younger dwarf NPCs, show up and are part of the story once more.
As I said the last few times this topic appeared in the forum, if a BG 3 is ever released it should deal with the consequences of what Charname did in BG1/2.... let's say a century in the future after TOB, making sure the NPCs that could still be alive, such as the elves and younger dwarf NPCs, show up and are part of the story once more.
Well okay, I was thinking a few years (say 10-20), you're thinking a century, but I think we're on roughly the same wavelength.
This topic irks me for a few reasons: first, it's about as new as Stonehenge, two, it's full of lies about IWD having a terrible plot, and 3, you made the topic twice for no useful reason whatsoever... WHY?!
I think the "terrible plot" is arguable. I personally liked it, but in comparison to BG, some might call it terrible. But then some might think Shakespeare is terrible. Who knows?
I am on the fence on a whole BG3. I would LOVE a new game. I think there are a lot of things that could happen BEFORE it, but I'd be OK with finishing up IWD and then going there.
As for the story, I think there is a fair amount of potential. Obviously you wouldn't want to do the Bhaalspawn that Gorion took under his wing as that story is already told. However, how about a Different Bhaalspawn from a different area? In ToB, we find there were bunches of them. Who is to say that, if the planets aligned differently, a different one wouldn't have come to ascendancy? Just one idea.
Another that I quite like would be that Charname from the first two games ultimately gets defeated and sent back to the Prime plane as a mortal with all of his memories and gifts stripped. Enter a whole new level 1 character. As time progresses, he finds out about his true past and decides either to do it all over again, or pick a different path.
There could also be 'Son of Bhaalspawn' going on. Have Jennifer Tilly join the cast as Mom.
With a creative mind (and there are loads more creative than mine) I think they could craft a story to rival the original.
Dollars to donuts it'll be set in the current Realms at time of release. It will have to do with the *legacy* of the Bhaalspawn saga of Abdel Adrian. And probably Bhaal reappearing. And in accordance with the events of the Sundering. But that content is really a blank page to fill.
Arghh, you've instantly put me right off the whole idea, @Lemernis. If they're going to do something like that, especially the imposition of Abdel Adrian, then I think I'd rather be left to imagine what BG3 might have been than be subjected to an unwelcome reality.
Comments
Extended story line from bg 2 perhaps entwined with ice wind dale (keeping for development the main protagonist).
A choice to remain immortal or return to the realms and sacrifice a proportion of the divine spark to right wrongs or pursue quests
Return or choice of of key characters
The ability to revisit days of yor... Eg to go back to bg1 sc or athaktla etc in quest 1 for nostalgia value and 2 as an immense power to lord over the struggles before.
A home base as per soa but more in depth ie a town or city you can manage/develop etc build and defend with options of in city control of extra troops the weapons spells and armour equipped etc up to 40 and multiple battle to attack / defend against multiple enemies
The ability to breed a dragon through story line eg protecting eggs
Much much more RSI kicking in.....
Views
Secondly, of your not the bhallspwan it's not really another bg, is it? It's just another 2e infinity game, which for legal reasons and stuff is very unlikely, at best. Wizards of the coast doesn't like people useing anything that isn't up to date, and the IE is getting old. It would really have any right to the name Baldurs Gate. Also, I don't know that beamdog has enough resources to make a whole game... But they've surprised us in the past(hello, iwd:)
And that would make a lot of people very unhappy anyway. From what I've heard people think the story is great but there's little RPing and replayability. I haven't played though.
WHY?!
I also don't get your point when you criticize IWD's story for being lacking. Not all games should be Planescape. The IWD games do a lot of things just as well and even better than BG. I'd say the music, art and freedom of party creation give it a much greater depth of immersion compared to BG. That, in my opinion, makes the two games incomparable.
Personally I'd rather see a game set somewhere else in the forgotten realms. Around the Moonsea for instance.
Without revealing toooo much the story goes like this...
After ascending to God hood (or not) You are summoned by Ao to explain your lack of care for you portfolio of murder. He gives it to another God and your left to go back to the Bhaal pad and think things over. Turns out Bhaal had this other realm space bachelor pad going on, no wonder he spawned so much, but unfortunatley he did not own it, having rented it from some cheeky devils... Now, they aint been paid for a while, seeing as Bhaal had snuffed it an all. So they send some kickass baliffs to settle the bill and take your stuff... You end up thwacking them when they try and take the LCD crystal screen ball, and all hell breaks loose (literally devils everywhere...) This accidently intrigues some demons, who see there chance to thwack a few devils with there backs turned and WHAM! The denizens of the nine hells and hell itself are fighting in your kitchen. Whilst this is going on, your mom shows up to say how disappointed she is, and how your father would never have allowed things to get so out of hand, when this naked chick walks out the bathroom saying her name is Lolth. Well... Mom is now going mental, and does not believe a word you say, and storms off. Lolth (now dressed) offers you a job to get rid of some pain in the backside goody-goodies for her, in return for not devouring your Bhaals in a bad way... And bladda, bladda, chop, Aaaah, bladda, bladda, gruesome death, eeek, bladda, bladda... Then after a nervous wait to be re-interviewed by Ao, for what you believe is for destroying half the cosmos, you go in bricking it, only to find out Ao is so impressed with your murder spree, that included your resurrected father, he gives you back the portfolio of murder and a pay rise!
Its the feel good game of the century!
Personally I can't wait...
Besides, I think I'd prefer all the previous IE games updated to run on modern spec machines first. Then take a crack at making a new game if your up to it. Even making an original IP probably wouldn't hurt. It doesn't HAVE to be a Forgotten Realms game. (Although we do love FR, it introduces a whole set of issues with the licensing and rule sets.)
Baldur's Gate I&II simply give you a feeling of freedom, because there are much areas and quests more to discover beyond the good, but mostly also linear, main plot.
The Baldur's Gate Saga is over. End of story. Charname's story is over in an epic way.
Personally, it would be like asking for Lord of the Rings 4 without the Fellowship.
Or for a new Matrix movie without Neo.
Or for a Legend of Zelda game without Link.
Or for a Tomb Raider game without Lara.
Baldur's Gate is Charname's story. Without him/her it's just in name only.
Just like the Dark Alliance games have nothing to do with the original Saga and they're "Baldur's Gate" in name only.
Make a new Icewind Dale game. Make a new (A)DnD game in the style of Baldur's Gate.
The Icewind Dale games are basically unrelated (with a few references here and there to the first game in 2) except the setting, "Icewind Dale, Spine of the World, Ten Towns".
I want a game like BG, but I don't want it to be related and in name only. Pillars of Eternity is such a game and I would love a new IP from Beamdog but not milking the BG name.
Also we have a TON of cities, locations and settings they could use. Eberron, Greyhawk, Kara-Tur, Ravenloft etc.
I would so love a BG-like game in Kara-Tur or Ravenloft.
Even better, a Pathfinder BG-like game in the world of Golarion. I would so pre-order that.
Why, THAT WOULD BE A GAME ABOUT ZELDA HOW AWFUL! *cough*
Oh well, since it's been started: a couple of iterations ago of this same topic (I can't find it on here now, probably archived somewhere), I did contribute a plot outline for a "real" BG3, which would directly continue the story yet remain in a FR setting. I'm not going to try to resurrect it all now, but in brief the concept was as follows.
Your Bhaalspawn chose to ascend at the end of ToB a few years ago, and is now a new god, and therefore has a new church promoting the new faith, which is active in the BG area but as yet little-known elsewhere. You now play as a young follower (starting at level 1) of the Bhaalspawn, on a difficult and desperate mission from the church to support the faithful, in the face of both open opposition and underhand plots by some of the other gods (perhaps especially Cyric, whom we know doesn't like the Bhaalspawn) and their churches, who are jealously seeking to destroy the new faith and stamp out its followers. Followers of the Bhaalspawn come from many backgrounds, but are fairly few in number, so the struggling new Temple of the Bhaalspawn in BG can spare no-one but one young follower, who might be of any character-class and have an alignment loosely tied (one step) to your Bhaalspawn's alignment. Neither the Bhaalspawn nor the opposing gods can act openly on the material plane, because Ao has forbidden open warfare among the gods, but your saved end-of-ToB Bhaalspawn character can make cameo appearances to advise and assist your mission. The mission itself could be essentially a journey from BG to Waterdeep, on a map which is well-established in FR lore and has several interesting and adventure-prone locations to explore, with the objective of saving a besieged company of the Bhaalspawn's followers who are trying to establish a new community of the faithful near to the City of Splendours, but are under severe overt and covert attack. Obviously there can be a whole series of obstacles to overcome on the journey, and further difficulties when you reach Waterdeep, and you could recruit various companions as you proceed. (As an example, Cyric's predictably-mad priests may be trying to open a new hellgate in the basement of Dragonspear Castle, to unleash a demonic horde against the Bhaalspawn's followers, so we might want to stop them. Of course, there's an old Underdark entrance in there as well, although the Cyricists didn't seem to know about that ...) As traditional in BG games, the allegiance and motives of various opponents would be a gradually-unfolding mystery, until eventually all is clarified (by which time you'd have spent a long time on the road and have reached a fairly high level) in a manner which I reckon could perhaps tie in rather neatly with the ending of a particular NPC-quest in ToB ...
This concept is a sort of "Baldur's Gate: the Next Generation", and of course there must be countless other ways of doing it. But wouldn't something vaguely like this fit the bill? Exploring the consequences of the Bhaalspawn's ascension for people back home on Faerun is a way to continue the existing saga without going off on a god-level planar excursion, it could even include a few re-appearing characters (now a few years older), and it's still in the familiar region and still clearly "Baldur's Gate" that we'd be playing, yet the "next generation" shift allows us to create a new hero starting again at low level.
So yes, I assert that meaningful direct continuation is possible, in a way which would still justify using the name "Baldur's Gate" for the new game, and which would be perfectly do-able within the existing game engine and ruleset.
Just the elves and younger Dwarves eh?
Do you know Gnomes live on average for 500 years and 800 is not unheard of?
Although Gnomes show age, they barely are effected by it compared to the other races...
But you know that. Every one knows that.
You sir.
Are.
GNOMOPHOBIC ! ! !
And personally, I'm disappointed.
I am on the fence on a whole BG3. I would LOVE a new game. I think there are a lot of things that could happen BEFORE it, but I'd be OK with finishing up IWD and then going there.
As for the story, I think there is a fair amount of potential. Obviously you wouldn't want to do the Bhaalspawn that Gorion took under his wing as that story is already told. However, how about a Different Bhaalspawn from a different area? In ToB, we find there were bunches of them. Who is to say that, if the planets aligned differently, a different one wouldn't have come to ascendancy? Just one idea.
Another that I quite like would be that Charname from the first two games ultimately gets defeated and sent back to the Prime plane as a mortal with all of his memories and gifts stripped. Enter a whole new level 1 character. As time progresses, he finds out about his true past and decides either to do it all over again, or pick a different path.
There could also be 'Son of Bhaalspawn' going on. Have Jennifer Tilly join the cast as Mom.
With a creative mind (and there are loads more creative than mine) I think they could craft a story to rival the original.