The Black Pit ("Standalone"?)

Valmont

Just a question about this new content. Clearly it says you can create a custom party for it and is called standalone, so thats pretty self-explanatory.

But does that mean you cant do it with your in-game party as well? It would have been more fun if I had been able to try this challenge with a group gathered while exploring the sword coast, I think. Will that be an option?

Sallparadise

I'm not sure. It just seems to be some sort of "Arena" bonus feature that's being put into RPG's now a days.
I believe that you can do both. Just like in the original TOTSC where you can get the mission pack to play Durlags Tower and Ulguths Beard

Sceptenar

I remember an interview with Trent Oster where he said that The Black Pits will not be accessible from within the standard game simply because it gives you so much experience that it would unbalance the rest of it. Therefore you can only do it with a custom party.

EDIT: This interview, talk about Black Pits starts at 14:55
http://www.racketboy.com/podcast/racketboy-podcast-42-trent-oster

Valmont

Unfortunate. Oh well, still got the next areas from the new companions.

Communard

You can do it with your sword coast party since I think it is confirmed you can import them, but it won't fit into the story.

Risingsun

So my question is this: Will The Black Pits be something you select from the main menu and act like its own mode/ game with its own saves?

Djimmy

Valmont said:

Unfortunate. Oh well, still got the next areas from the new companions.

Really unfortunate, It would be nice if The Black Pits were like The Watcher's Keep.

Bjjorick

ehhh maybe just me but if the pits don't connect to the game in some way, what's the point? i mean even if you port your chars in, does that mean you can't port them back out? it might be awesome but ehhh, would be nice to tie in to the main story somehow.

drawnacrol

You would come out way to overpowered if this was included in the game.

Ulfgar_Torunn

You aren't alone @Bjjorick: some in game reward would be nice after all of the effort of completing 15 tactical challenges. Perhaps the party can be imported into BG 2: EE? On the other hand, the challenges are their own reward I suppose, and the storyline should be interesting enough to keep us entertained between battles.

But atleast we can import our Sword Coast party members and saves, even if they can't return to Baldur's Gate.

Valmont

I guess one option is: complete everything Bgee has to offer, including Durlags tower... at that point, youre clearly xp-capped... then export to this dungeon, do it... export out, and then use that save to play BG2ee...

Only problem with this approach is that; Black Pit content might be trivial when you get to it, and of course, no rewards for going through that trouble...

mercyfulfate1988

I really don't understand why they even made stand alone content in the first place. I would rather have something I can do with my in game party that has half the play time than a stand alone adventure.

moody_mage

mercyfulfate1988 said:

I really don't understand why they even made stand alone content in the first place. I would rather have something I can do with my in game party that has half the play time than a stand alone adventure.

I'm fairly sure it was purely a contractual obligation - that they were unable to add directly accessible new areas.

If you think about it I'm sure linking the new area to the game map and creating a transition is probably a fairly minor amount of work, work I'm sure would have been done without any second thoughts if they were actually allowed to do it.

Blame the IP rights holders rather than Beamdog. They are trying their best to work within the confines of their obligations whilst also trying to deliver the game we all want to play.

Excalibur_2102

@decado no no no, they are able to add new areas to the main game, as they have already done so with the new areas for the NPCs, and, hopefully they will do it again. There is meant to be another adventure that is linked to the main story to be announced. However this may happen after the release date.

LadyRhian

Is this going to be something like "Dave's Challenge" from the original Gold Box games?

James

I imagine one of the existing, or soon to be modders is thinking hmmm how can integrate this into the main plot as we speak

GaelicVigil

decado said:

mercyfulfate1988 said:

I really don't understand why they even made stand alone content in the first place. I would rather have something I can do with my in game party that has half the play time than a stand alone adventure.

I'm fairly sure it was purely a contractual obligation - that they were unable to add directly accessible new areas.

If you think about it I'm sure linking the new area to the game map and creating a transition is probably a fairly minor amount of work, work I'm sure would have been done without any second thoughts if they were actually allowed to do it.

Blame the IP rights holders rather than Beamdog. They are trying their best to work within the confines of their obligations whilst also trying to deliver the game we all want to play.

How can this be true if Beamdog is adding in at least three new areas (that we know of) that are connected to the main game world for the three new joinable characters (blackguard, monk, and wildmage)? Not to mention, they've been planning to sprinkle in new items to the game to balance the new classes and kits. They certainly had the right to add these items and areas to the existing game world, why not the Black Pits?

Here is my theory: Beamdog will announce that they are going to use the Black Pits as a multiplayer PVP arena as well. It makes sense to setup a PVP arena outside the main game structure since you can lock down the code to prevent cheating or other hacks, and you would be able to import parties but could not export them. If this is the case, I think this would be awesome.

On the other hand, If this is merely a PVE arena (as advertized so far), I'm going to be pretty dissapointed in it. This has the smell of cheap DLC that only the most fervent fans would care to add to the game.

wariisop

It would be nice to at least unlock equipment for use in BG2 by completing The Black Pits.

mlnevese

I believe it´s a proof of concept to them. If the Black Pits becomes popular, they´ll know there is a market for DLCs with independent adventures , i.e. not directly related to the Bhaalspawn saga, using BG engine. If so they can develop theses adventures, free of contractual limitations as they won´t be changing original content and have one more source of revenue in BG EE and BG 2 EE.

It would also prove that an eventual BG3 with no direct connection to the BG saga would have a receptive market.

GaelicVigil

mlnevese said:

I believe it´s a proof of concept to them. If the Black Pits becomes popular, they´ll know there is a market for DLCs with independent adventures

Kind of difficult to determine if something is "popular" when it's sold alongside the base game isn't it? "Wow, we've sold lots of units of BGEE, therefore we know that The Black Pits is super popular!"

immagikman

Is it me or are some people perpetually stuck in "Negative Nellie" mode? Not only is the present all doom and gloom but predictions of the future are even doomier and even gloomier based solely on a persons worst fears?

GaelicVigil

Is it just me or does immagikman troll a lot of threads without adding anything to the conversation?

immagikman

GaelicVigil said:

Is it just me or does immagikman troll a lot of threads without adding anything to the conversation?

Im not sure but I defintely have FAR more "Likes" "Agrees" and "Insightfuls" than you do.....but that being said...who SAID I was talking about *you*?

reedmilfam

I wasn't (and still am not) even remotely interested in The Black Pit. Some people may be, and it'll be great for them, but making a bunch of characters to run through it sounds more like IWD and less like BG to me. I want expansion of The Sword Coast and outlying areas, as that's where my charry 'lives', so to speak. Mass Effect added something like this and I never got that DLC.

If it later adds PvP, I'll be just as disinterested, though I'll understand it better. Just because I'm not interested in PvP, I do realize that many people are. Therefore, it gives another option to enjoy the game to those who wanted such an element (especially since game engine exploits won't work as well against human opponents and whatnot).

immagikman

I'll be sad to see PvP brought to BG....Leave that crap to the WoW/MMO kiddies.

GaelicVigil

I find these two screenshots interesting because it depicts the party going up against another party of adventurers. Why not show the party fighting a beast or some other nasty creature? Is it just a coincidence, or are they hinting that the Black Pits will include party vs party multiplayer PVP?

http://baldursgate.com/images/blackpits/screenshot02.jpg
http://baldursgate.com/images/blackpits/screenshot03.jpg

I sure hope so...pvp would just be awesome if it could be done. Pitting my party against my friend's in a duel to the death would be pretty epic.

immagikman

Im not sure those are all PC's I seem to recall a similar pit fight in the original game and it was my party vs a similar AI group. Would be eaiser to tell if the UI were shown.

mlnevese

GaelicVigil said:

mlnevese said:

I believe it´s a proof of concept to them. If the Black Pits becomes popular, they´ll know there is a market for DLCs with independent adventures

Kind of difficult to determine if something is "popular" when it's sold alongside the base game isn't it? "Wow, we've sold lots of units of BGEE, therefore we know that The Black Pits is super popular!"

Not really... reaction to it in the forums will be easy to gauge...

mlnevese

GaelicVigil said:

mlnevese said:

I believe it´s a proof of concept to them. If the Black Pits becomes popular, they´ll know there is a market for DLCs with independent adventures

Kind of difficult to determine if something is "popular" when it's sold alongside the base game isn't it? "Wow, we've sold lots of units of BGEE, therefore we know that The Black Pits is super popular!"

Not really. In this kind of situation, you gauge the reaction in forums, social networks and reviews. Trust me there are ways to know if a certain feature is popular or not. Sales has nothing to do with it, it only show if the game as a product is popular, not feature A or B.

Other ways for those who don't want to run the necessary, and often expensive, social analytic process on the web is a simple survey a few weeks after the game is release, gauging the reaction of the registered users about the features of the game, although most companies prefer the silent social analytic path.

You´d be surprised how much useful data hides in social networks and forums when you want to target a product to a certain public...

GaelicVigil

Forums and social networks? Are you serious? If that were true, nobody would make games anymore. Forums are about the worst place you can go to find out what the community thinks of a product when only the most fervent, hardcore (and rudest) fans ever visit them. Not to mention you get only a tiny fraction of community opinion.

The bottom line on an accounting sheet is where interest in a particular product is most reliably found. Lumping The Black Pit with the base BGEE game will not indicate anything for whether it's popular or not for Overhaul and Beamdog.

That's why this move is a little bewildering to me. Unless they're holding out, and this ends up being a multiplayer/pvp arena as well, I don't see why you spend time, effort and money building something that looks, smells, and quacks like a DLC micro-expansion into your flagship product. Not that this will stop me from buying the game, as the enhancements alone are worth it, I just question the direction a little bit with this.

mlnevese

As I said it requires a complex analytic process. The often vitriolic comments are almost always ignored. You study the board/social networks, identify who the trend definers are, etc.

Other tool is to analyze those who come in defense of the product. Web trend analysis is complex AND expensive. If it required just reading a board anyone could do it.

This is not the place to explain how it works though. Just let me tell it works and is often used by industry, and not only games industry.

I've seen it used to gauge how a company is perceived by a certain consumer group and then direct the marketing effort to promote their product to that group of interest.

I won't go on how web trending and social analytics work as we have gone wildly off topic already