Since the first EE game was announced I've been hoping for Planescape. It is my all time favorite game - the sheer depth and storytelling, the characters and the setting is just amazing. There is a reason why Torment: Tides of Numenera was such a hit on Kickstarter.
Clean it up, polish it, bugfix it and restore lost content. That's it! Give it the love it deserves!
- Why is the nameless one from Planescape: Torment coloured blue in every promotional cover for the game? It's been driving me nuts, is it a marketing thing?
- (CA): I have no idea. I think the point of the cover was to "jump out" at a consumer, and be as weird as Planescape was. Personally, I would have preferred a marketing take that was more in line or had hints of the BG style (say, incorporating the Torment symbol instead) since they were sharing the same engine.
So, we can now ask him questions on his reddit account.
- Why is the nameless one from Planescape: Torment coloured blue in every promotional cover for the game? It's been driving me nuts, is it a marketing thing?
I interpreted that as being an issue of Sigil's lighting. There's no sun in Sigil, the air is polluted and weird things are the norm. Portals might also take on a blue color and the Nameless One could be standing close to one, like standing in front of a big blue light bulb basically.
I too would really like to see PsT EE. As much as I'm a huge IE games fan, I've never played PsT. I bought the game a few years ago and gave it a try and just couldn't get past the ancient, clunky UI, general user-unfriendliness, and problems running it on a new machine. And although there may be great mods out there for it, I'm at that point in my life where I don't want to have to go find mods to 'fix' my games. I want someone to give me the 'fixed' game all in one nice package, and I'm more than happy to shell out $20+ for that.
I think an EE version of IwD2 would be good too, but yes it would necessarily need to be updated to 3.5 edition. But I think it would also equally need to come with a new, full-sized expansion to make it worthwhile given that it never got an expansion like BG1, BG2 and IwD1 all did.
I think if Wizards of the Coast has in mind some future projects; licence for Enhanced edition won't be a problem as Numenera is promising game.
C. Avellone could also join writing team to write cut content of Planescape and EE could have all new expansion as SoD. This would be really interesting to see.
This I'd like to see too. Probably another licensing nightmare, but shut up and take my money!
I think at this point, WoTC/Hasbro holds the rights to the game. So, the issues are more technical and economical.
So far, Beamdog has done EEs for the three games that use or had been converted to use the BG2 version of the Infinity Engine: BG2, BG1 (Tutu), and IWD-in-BG2. Aside from some small differences, Beamdog has got all the EEs running on a common engine, which keeps code maintenance costs down.
Planescape Torment uses a modified version of the BG1 engine. Those PST modifications would need to be ported to the Infinity+ engine. I don't doubt that it's possible to do, the question is whether or not it is economically feasible (i.e., sales vs. cost of person-hours to port PST to Infinity+).
It's the same question for IWD2:EE. Are the potential sales enough to justify the cost of porting the 3E-ish features of IWD2 to the Infinity+ engine?
I'd love to experience PS:T with an upgraded UI and other nifty fixes. Even with all the mods available I still had a fair share of crashes. It started to tear down a little bit the great experience that playing the game was.
Icewind Dale II: EE with a new expansion or DLC dungeon like Trials of the Luremaster. Cleaning up the engine, implementing more 3E stuff and Prestige Classes.
Planescape: Torment - EE. Needs a new UI desperately and a new engine. Then bring Chris Avellone to write new/deleted stuff and why not, a new companion.
I cannot imagine an Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment without Chris Avellone. The two are basically linked together. Same with the new Torment.
I cannot imagine an Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment without Chris Avellone. The two are basically linked together. Same with the new Torment.
I can imagine PST:EE without a new content, just like IWD:EE.
I can imagine it too, although new NPC is precisely the new content that would fit to PST:EE.
I don't know. I became kinda nay-sayer about the new content in EEs. It doesn't quite work well for me, it just sticks out and I can't accept it as vanilla in my mind. But if it is what it takes to get PST:EE (just as it was - a huge selling point for BGEEs), then what the hell...
I cannot imagine an Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment without Chris Avellone. The two are basically linked together. Same with the new Torment.
I can imagine PST:EE without a new content, just like IWD:EE.
I can imagine it too, although new NPC is precisely the new content that would fit to PST:EE.
I don't know. I became kinda nay-sayer about the new content in EEs. It doesn't quite work well for me, it just sticks out and I can't accept it as vanilla in my mind. But if it is what it takes to get PST:EE (just as it was - a huge selling point for BGEEs), then what the hell...
Maybe because EE content was written by different writers than vanilla one (not saying less skilled, but their style differs). That's why we all dream that Chris Avellone is the one who'll write PST:EE content. This way, it won't stick out from vanilla and it will be top notch.
Is it possible to use already made textures and all animation files in Planescape and import it in Unity engine ? They've said they are moving to the new engine so I was wondering will it be Unity as in Pillars of Eternity?
From the Beamdog's last AMA: "I had reached out to Obsidian to discuss licensing the Pillars tech, but given both our busy schedules, a discussion hasn't happened yet. I think it would be a funny reversal as Icewind Dale was built upon the Infinity Engine, which was Licensed from Bioware when I was a Project Director there. We're still talking through our future technology options as there are many paths we could take."
Is it possible to use already made textures and all animation files in Planescape and import it in Unity engine ? They've said they are moving to the new engine so I was wondering will it be Unity as in Pillars of Eternity?
About the only thing you could import would be the backgrounds (i.e., the areas), and if they don't have the source art, I doubt it would look good. IIRC, Pillars uses 3D models for character animations while Infinity Engine games use sprites (for which the source art is lost). High-res 3D characters on a lower-res background would not look good.
Icewind Dale II: EE with a new expansion or DLC dungeon like Trials of the Luremaster. Cleaning up the engine, implementing more 3E stuff and Prestige Classes.
Planescape: Torment - EE. Needs a new UI desperately and a new engine.
I completely agree with that thought.
The new anticipated Torment:TON and Pillars are quite different in many aspects and doesn't fit too much in comparing with the classics.
I believe many old players (probably thousands) "crave" to replay the old classics Torment and ID2 as they ment to be: bugless, with the updated technical ease of use and gimmicks of EE and possibly OPTIONAL content to refresh replayability.
Both games would be a success in my opinion but it's more a combination of legal stuff, licencing agreements and projected shedule work/profit rates etc. But these things were also a big pain when they started with the first BGEE. Beamdog could even throw a kickstarter campaign to see how the fan base would react anyway.
PS and ID2 are definetely far apart from the upgraded Infinity Plus engine that BG-BG2-ID EE share and beamdog have surely going a great way of progressing it, but both games can surely be enhanced as well by a team that has meddle with these games and already finishing a brand new expansion for BG.
They have managed to cope up to now by updating and enhancing the old Infinity engine classics, so they should stick to that even if the projects are nightmare.
JMR: What would a company need to offer you, so that would you join them? Creative control over project? Something else?
MCA: [thinks for a while] So... a number of companies have offered me a great deal to do my own project. The issue is that I really can't do it right now. And the problems are... there's a lot of stuff going on with family and also I can't work anywhere full-time until all that stuff is resolved. So that's kind of a challenge.
JMR: You said during the conference that you're working on an unannounced project to be announced later this year. Is it an RPG?
MCA: Oh... I can't even say anything about it beyond that it's coming. [laughs] I think if I gave any details that actually would be too much, but shouldn't be too much longer. [laughs]
JMR: Aw... I was actually going to ask if it's a new IP or not, or are you working with a company you worked with previously or not, but you won't answer I guess...
MCA: Yeah. Unfortunately I couldn't say anything. I'd love to, I'm happy to talk about it after it's announced but...
Comments
There is a reason why Torment: Tides of Numenera was such a hit on Kickstarter.
Clean it up, polish it, bugfix it and restore lost content. That's it!
Give it the love it deserves!
"Beamdog and Torment possibility: I'd love to if the chance existed."
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/questions-for-chris-avellone-radio-interview-now-updated-with-additional-answers-from-mca.101510/page-5#post-4046737
Also, Chris Avellone has created a reddit account (https://www.reddit.com/user/Chris_Avellone) where he answered some questions on the podcast thread https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg_gamers/comments/3e7g1w/questions_comments_for_chris_avellone_radio/.
- Why is the nameless one from Planescape: Torment coloured blue in every promotional cover for the game? It's been driving me nuts, is it a marketing thing?
- (CA): I have no idea. I think the point of the cover was to "jump out" at a consumer, and be as weird as Planescape was. Personally, I would have preferred a marketing take that was more in line or had hints of the BG style (say, incorporating the Torment symbol instead) since they were sharing the same engine.
So, we can now ask him questions on his reddit account.
Portals might also take on a blue color and the Nameless One could be standing close to one, like standing in front of a big blue light bulb basically.
I think an EE version of IwD2 would be good too, but yes it would necessarily need to be updated to 3.5 edition. But I think it would also equally need to come with a new, full-sized expansion to make it worthwhile given that it never got an expansion like BG1, BG2 and IwD1 all did.
Now where's that copy of mine...
C. Avellone could also join writing team to write cut content of Planescape and EE could have all new expansion as SoD. This would be really interesting to see.
So far, Beamdog has done EEs for the three games that use or had been converted to use the BG2 version of the Infinity Engine: BG2, BG1 (Tutu), and IWD-in-BG2. Aside from some small differences, Beamdog has got all the EEs running on a common engine, which keeps code maintenance costs down.
Planescape Torment uses a modified version of the BG1 engine. Those PST modifications would need to be ported to the Infinity+ engine. I don't doubt that it's possible to do, the question is whether or not it is economically feasible (i.e., sales vs. cost of person-hours to port PST to Infinity+).
It's the same question for IWD2:EE. Are the potential sales enough to justify the cost of porting the 3E-ish features of IWD2 to the Infinity+ engine?
You up for it doc? You're good at general bg modding, is PS:T modding something you'd have a go at?
Cleaning up the engine, implementing more 3E stuff and Prestige Classes.
Planescape: Torment - EE. Needs a new UI desperately and a new engine.
Then bring Chris Avellone to write new/deleted stuff and why not, a new companion.
I cannot imagine an Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment without Chris Avellone.
The two are basically linked together. Same with the new Torment.
They've said they are moving to the new engine so I was wondering will it be Unity as in Pillars of Eternity?
From the Beamdog's last AMA: "I had reached out to Obsidian to discuss licensing the Pillars tech, but given both our busy schedules, a discussion hasn't happened yet. I think it would be a funny reversal as Icewind Dale was built upon the Infinity Engine, which was Licensed from Bioware when I was a Project Director there. We're still talking through our future technology options as there are many paths we could take."
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm77b6o
A year has passed since then, I'm sure they have already discussed licensing the Unity engine. For what project, though, is another question.
The new anticipated Torment:TON and Pillars are quite different in many aspects and doesn't fit too much in comparing with the classics.
I believe many old players (probably thousands) "crave" to replay the old classics Torment and ID2 as they ment to be: bugless, with the updated technical ease of use and gimmicks of EE and possibly OPTIONAL content to refresh replayability.
Both games would be a success in my opinion but it's more a combination of legal stuff, licencing agreements and projected shedule work/profit rates etc. But these things were also a big pain when they started with the first BGEE.
Beamdog could even throw a kickstarter campaign to see how the fan base would react anyway.
PS and ID2 are definetely far apart from the upgraded Infinity Plus engine that BG-BG2-ID EE share and beamdog have surely going a great way of progressing it, but both games can surely be enhanced as well by a team that has meddle with these games and already finishing a brand new expansion for BG.
They have managed to cope up to now by updating and enhancing the old Infinity engine classics, so they should stick to that even if the projects are nightmare.
Keep up the good work!
Will it be
- left the same?
- overhauled in INF+/BG2 EE way but adapted?
- created in some other way with new UI system ?
Also, what will happen with cut content ?Probably a possibility if Beamdog develops an original idea, but not for any EE.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10319