Siege of Dragonspear is going to have to prove that to people as well. Overhaul's reputation is on the line. Living up to such massive expectations built up over the course of 17 years has got to be the most daunting thing they've ever faced.
Many games out there claim to be like Baldur's Gate. Remember when Dragon Age got released? Spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate? While i did enjoy dragon age, the only thing that was remotely like Baldur's Gate were the NPC interaction and the dialogues they had.
I think Dragon Age was a special case. They weren't banking on nostalgia with that statement; they were explaining that what they were making wasn't Baldur's Gate, that they were striving for something new that could build on Baldur's Gate's successful elements.
That being said, yes, since then a lot of developers have tried to make the same comparison, to varying degrees of success. I think a lot of folks are still trying to nail down what it is about Baldur's Gate that made it so successful. Was it the isometric view? The hand-painted backgrounds? The deep and complicated mechanics? Real-Time With Pause? Romance NPCs? The Hero's Journey narrative?
Can you have a Baldur's Gate successor where the player doesn't create their own protagonist? Can you have one where the player doesn't have a party? Can you do it without branching dialogue? Without combat XP? Without character portraits? Without the Forgotten Realms?
How many parts of Baldur's Gate are you allowed to strip from it before it stops being recognizable as a spiritual successor?
Well PoE makes sense it's a shiny well written CRPG, it's not as good as BG2, but it's close enough in look and feel.
DA is a great series, but no game that can be played with a controller will ever have as much strategic complexity as BG. The writing was on par though so I'll give them that.
I thought cRPG developers have this harmonious relationship. That they are, most of the time, fans of other works, particulary those similar to their work. In the same manner as most of the time, BG fans are fans of other similar or BG-like games or other good cRPG for that matter. I initially had that feeling when PoE supported Planescape Tides of Numenera; in fact, I've seen such happen several times, espcially if they are under the same genre, i.e. that they try to support each other, in order to keep the genre alive and relevant among other reasons. Chris Avellone for one did put in a good word for SoD. I wonder which games does Trent refer to...must be the recent ones then?
Personally, I don't blame other cRPGs referring to BG for comparison or claiming to be similar to a certain extent. BG is a legend, a benchmark for past, present and future RPGs.
I honestly have doubts if anything will ever be able to replicate the original magic of BG and BG2. It's just SOMETHING about them. I don't know if it's their age or how they're designed or just the fact that for many people it was among the first complex story driven RPG's they'd played, along side PS:T.
I do think if anything comes close it will be Dragonspear as it uses the same engine, characters and voice actors as the original. Will it capture the same magic? I certainly hope so as I've become rather jaded with the obsession for shinier graphics and bigger explosions that seems to sneaking in these days. :P
Yeah... not sure Trent's the guy to be throwing stones here given what Beamdog's put out so far. Maybe wait and see how SoD is received before talking about other games meeting the standard?
I've got to say, Pillars of Eternity isn't fit to lick the boots of the Baldur's Gate series. At first, I was like "They've fixed all the annoying things about the infinity engine games!" The problem is, I felt the story and NPCs were just weakly done, and a there were some huge mistakes done with the combat mechanics.
I just felt like none of the NPCs had anything that interesting going on. Aloth's schizophrenia story was mildly interesting, but that was about it. Didn't care about Eider and his dead brother, the Greiving Mother, the bird lady and her stupid trade deal, or anyone else. There's also hardly any banter between them, and most of it not amusing. Closest I got to a chuckle was when Eider offered to buy Aloth's other personality a drink. There's also hardly any recruitable NPCs, not even one to represent each class, but there's also no evil options. The lack of evil doesn't matter, though, since none of the companions really reacts to you slaughtering innocents. At least BG had a rep system, so good or evil NPCs would leave if you did too much they didn't like. Say what you will about how bad and generic the rep system was, but at least it made people react, unlike PoE. Stats wise, none of the NPCs are actually good at anything. About all I could say is, Eider makes an OK meat shield. It also felt like race didn't matter, and none of them were that different.
PoE devs claim there are no bad builds, which is totally untrue. If you don't max your might stat, guess what? You have a bad build. Because they use the Might stat for all damage, whether from weapons, wands, magic, psionics or even healing, pretty much all builds have Might maxed plus one other stat. Playing a rogue, Max Might and Dex. Playing a mage or cipher, max Might and Int. At least if they had made Resolve the basis for damage for magic and psionics, there would have been some build variance. Might is actually the most important stat. It would be far easier playing a rogue with 18 Might and 10 Dex, or a mage with 18 Might and 10 Int, than if those stats were reversed. Sure, you don't technically have to build your character this way, but that brings me to the next point.
The armor system pretty much requires you to max out Might as well as use big 2 handed weapons. The only character that can get away with light weapons, is a back stabbing rogue. Otherwise, you can't even scratch most enemies, and in fact a lot of them will gain back endurance faster than you can take it away. Ciphers abilties were cool and interesting, then they nerfed them, instead of fixing mages and giving them some better powers. The engagement system had a lot of potential, but lacked enough options for movement and disengagement because of it.
OK story wise, I can ignore all the stupid backer characters in the game that have backgrounds that read like bad fan fic. I actually did like the tombstones, since those are kind of traditional. It started off interesting enough, but peters out fairly quickly. The major city felt much less complete than Baldur's Gate or Athkatla when it came to stuff to do and find. The stronghold did not matter at all, and the dungeon crawl under it was just tedious.
So the whole gods not being real thing... I have no attachment or investment in these gods, this being the first game. You tell me the gods of Faerun aren't real, and you've got my attention. This sort of plot line might've worked for a third part in a series, after you've done a good job establishing the gods as a part of the world and their lore, and had at least some level of interaction with different gods and their priests, asides from Mr. my goddess is a dirty whore. The whole harvesting souls thing seemed a bit over the top for a first game, too. Interesting ideas there, but probably should have established the lore more before going there.
So I'm way more excited for SoD and Torment now. PoE promised to be the spiritual successor for Baldurs Gate and was such a letdown for me. SoD will be able to use the established mechanics, flawed as they were, they did work and were fun, which is more than I can say about PoE's.
PoE has been ok so far. I'm not loving it, but I'm not hating. It's kinda what I expected. My main problem is the "no bad builds" if there's no bad builds, then there's no good builds. It seems kinda pointless. If I can't do it wrong, why am I doing it? That's same thing also means everyone is the same. It just feels bland for it. I would really like to see proficencies as well. The companions are not bad, but I'm not actually interested in any of them either. Everything seems to revove around animancy, and while they did pretty good for creating all their own lore, it seems like only two things ever happens. The one big war with the god peasant diddly, and the native tribes getting pissed about their adra kick knacks.
That's just it, it's just OK. If you claim you're making the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, it better be great. Those are some big shoes to fill. I expected a company like Obsidian to actually live up to the promise, too, since so much that they've done before was fantastic. It just doesn't even stand up to their own work like NWN2, KOTOR2, or Fallout: New Vegas.
That's just it, it's just OK. If you claim you're making the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, it better be great. Those are some big shoes to fill. I expected a company like Obsidian to actually live up to the promise, too, since so much that they've done before was fantastic. It just doesn't even stand up to their own work like NWN2, KOTOR2, or Fallout: New Vegas.
Well to each their own. No one person gets to speak for all of BG fandom. I too have been playing BG since it first came out and am a huge fan. I think PoE does live up to its claim to be the spiritual successor to the IE games and that it is an incredible, fantastic game.
Some of the team on Pillars of Eternity were also working for Black Isle during the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape Torment time.
Josh Sawyer Feargus Urquhart Darren Monahan Chris Jones Chris Avellone
I'm sure there are a few other people I can't find that have been working on both. My point with all of this is that the people who did Pillars of Eternity were actually the same people who did many of the Black Isle titles. If these people feel that it's a spiritual successor, it most likely is.
Oh, I know who was involved in making the game, and I just don't think it compares to the original. That's what made it such a huge let down for me. All my favorite names were working on it, so I had big expectations. I'm not saying it's not worth a playthrough. But I just can't get through another one, where I can still pick up the BG games and have a good time. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though. I do want to see obsidian succeed, but I don't think I'll be willing to drop money on the expansion packs. Maybe when there's a full sequel they'll fix the mechanics, which a lot of people on the obsidian forums have complained about, and I'll have a look at it again. In the mean time, I've got SoD and the Director's Cut of Wasteland 2 coming up.
PoE is not up to BG2's standards, but it is definitely better than BG1 and having weak "story and characters" is an opinion that, though shared by many, is also not shared by many. I thoroughly enjoyed what I played, though I haven't finished it (which doesn't say much because I rarely finish a BG playthrough either).
That's just it, it's just OK. If you claim you're making the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, it better be great. Those are some big shoes to fill. I expected a company like Obsidian to actually live up to the promise, too, since so much that they've done before was fantastic. It just doesn't even stand up to their own work like NWN2, KOTOR2, or Fallout: New Vegas.
DISCLAIMER: I actually think it's fair to call PoE a successor to baldurs gate. I know that sound contradictory to my last post but those where just the problems I had with PoE. People get their panties in a bunch cause PoE 1 without an expansion does not immediately live up to BG2+expansion. I think that's apples to oranges. As many things I would change with PoE, given BG1 without ToSC, I would probably change MORE. In bg1, the companions are quite, it was buggy, the level cap was low, it was very challenging weather you like it or not, and I have some MAJOR issues with D&D. Combat and lore. I think if the PoE universe and mechanics are given as much time as D&D has had now, it will be a shiny new Porsche to D&D's original VW beetle. D&D is a good solid place to start, but it ain't exactly going 0-60 in under 3 seconds... Or 10, for that matter.
@meagloth So far my only issue with PoE is teh classes. Paladin doesn't seem to fit what I view as my conventional paladin, and the chanter isn't the melee blade like bard I enjoy, and from everything I hear, rangers really suck. So next time I get into it, I'll prolly have to go rogue or wizard. Not sure about the whole monk and wounds thing. =/
I'm gonna hold my judgment until SoD hits, but given the quality of writing for Hexxat and Dorn, I'm not expecting much.
In all honesty, I hope Beamdog can put out a great and worthy interlude expansion.
If they don't, then BG3 is probably never getting made.
I have to point to the fact that Liam Esler who's been the Scripting Team Lead for Dorn and Hexxat (http://www.liamesler.com/projects/baldurs-gate-ii-enhanced-edition) now is busy in another role, an Associate Producer, and as I understand it from what we've been told, the authors for SoD texts are different, Andrew Foley and Amber Scott among them. So, to me, the writing for new NPCs will be different.
I would say everyone working on this is well aware of what is riding on it, not to mention how protective we fans are of the Baldur's Gate titles. I do hope they can live up to those that went before.
@meagloth So far my only issue with PoE is teh classes. Paladin doesn't seem to fit what I view as my conventional paladin, and the chanter isn't the melee blade like bard I enjoy, and from everything I hear, rangers really suck. So next time I get into it, I'll prolly have to go rogue or wizard. Not sure about the whole monk and wounds thing. =/
Not true, my ranger is awesome and does the most damage in the party.
I have to point to the fact that Liam Esler who's been the Scripting Team Lead for Dorn and Hexxat (http://www.liamesler.com/projects/baldurs-gate-ii-enhanced-edition) now is busy in another role, an Associate Producer, and as I understand it from what we've been told, the authors for SoD texts are different, Andrew Foley and Amber Scott among them. So, to me, the writing for new NPCs will be different.
Foley wrote the dialogue for Hexxat, which has certainly been a source of some contention (particularly in terms of her romance and endgame content).
JuliusBorisov
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http://www.pcgamesn.com/sword-coast-legends/inside-sword-coast-legends-back-to-baldurs-gate-with-the-director-of-dragon-age-origins
PoE's official page reads: Miss classic cRPGs like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment? So do we!
http://eternity.obsidian.net/
IGN once declared Divinity: Original Sin Feet like a modern Baldur's Gate
http://me.ign.com/en/pc/77585/feature/divinity-original-sin-feels-like-a-modern-baldurs
That being said, yes, since then a lot of developers have tried to make the same comparison, to varying degrees of success. I think a lot of folks are still trying to nail down what it is about Baldur's Gate that made it so successful. Was it the isometric view? The hand-painted backgrounds? The deep and complicated mechanics? Real-Time With Pause? Romance NPCs? The Hero's Journey narrative?
Can you have a Baldur's Gate successor where the player doesn't create their own protagonist? Can you have one where the player doesn't have a party? Can you do it without branching dialogue? Without combat XP? Without character portraits? Without the Forgotten Realms?
How many parts of Baldur's Gate are you allowed to strip from it before it stops being recognizable as a spiritual successor?
DA is a great series, but no game that can be played with a controller will ever have as much strategic complexity as BG. The writing was on par though so I'll give them that.
Divinity: Oringinal Sin, don't make me laugh.
Personally, I don't blame other cRPGs referring to BG for comparison or claiming to be similar to a certain extent. BG is a legend, a benchmark for past, present and future RPGs.
I do think if anything comes close it will be Dragonspear as it uses the same engine, characters and voice actors as the original. Will it capture the same magic? I certainly hope so as I've become rather jaded with the obsession for shinier graphics and bigger explosions that seems to sneaking in these days. :P
I just felt like none of the NPCs had anything that interesting going on. Aloth's schizophrenia story was mildly interesting, but that was about it. Didn't care about Eider and his dead brother, the Greiving Mother, the bird lady and her stupid trade deal, or anyone else. There's also hardly any banter between them, and most of it not amusing. Closest I got to a chuckle was when Eider offered to buy Aloth's other personality a drink. There's also hardly any recruitable NPCs, not even one to represent each class, but there's also no evil options. The lack of evil doesn't matter, though, since none of the companions really reacts to you slaughtering innocents. At least BG had a rep system, so good or evil NPCs would leave if you did too much they didn't like. Say what you will about how bad and generic the rep system was, but at least it made people react, unlike PoE. Stats wise, none of the NPCs are actually good at anything. About all I could say is, Eider makes an OK meat shield. It also felt like race didn't matter, and none of them were that different.
PoE devs claim there are no bad builds, which is totally untrue. If you don't max your might stat, guess what? You have a bad build. Because they use the Might stat for all damage, whether from weapons, wands, magic, psionics or even healing, pretty much all builds have Might maxed plus one other stat. Playing a rogue, Max Might and Dex. Playing a mage or cipher, max Might and Int. At least if they had made Resolve the basis for damage for magic and psionics, there would have been some build variance. Might is actually the most important stat. It would be far easier playing a rogue with 18 Might and 10 Dex, or a mage with 18 Might and 10 Int, than if those stats were reversed. Sure, you don't technically have to build your character this way, but that brings me to the next point.
The armor system pretty much requires you to max out Might as well as use big 2 handed weapons. The only character that can get away with light weapons, is a back stabbing rogue. Otherwise, you can't even scratch most enemies, and in fact a lot of them will gain back endurance faster than you can take it away. Ciphers abilties were cool and interesting, then they nerfed them, instead of fixing mages and giving them some better powers. The engagement system had a lot of potential, but lacked enough options for movement and disengagement because of it.
OK story wise, I can ignore all the stupid backer characters in the game that have backgrounds that read like bad fan fic. I actually did like the tombstones, since those are kind of traditional. It started off interesting enough, but peters out fairly quickly. The major city felt much less complete than Baldur's Gate or Athkatla when it came to stuff to do and find. The stronghold did not matter at all, and the dungeon crawl under it was just tedious.
So I'm way more excited for SoD and Torment now. PoE promised to be the spiritual successor for Baldurs Gate and was such a letdown for me. SoD will be able to use the established mechanics, flawed as they were, they did work and were fun, which is more than I can say about PoE's.
That's same thing also means everyone is the same. It just feels bland for it. I would really like to see proficencies as well.
The companions are not bad, but I'm not actually interested in any of them either. Everything seems to revove around animancy, and while they did pretty good for creating all their own lore, it seems like only two things ever happens. The one big war with the god peasant diddly, and the native tribes getting pissed about their adra kick knacks.
Josh Sawyer
Feargus Urquhart
Darren Monahan
Chris Jones
Chris Avellone
I'm sure there are a few other people I can't find that have been working on both. My point with all of this is that the people who did Pillars of Eternity were actually the same people who did many of the Black Isle titles. If these people feel that it's a spiritual successor, it most likely is.
I actually think it's fair to call PoE a successor to baldurs gate. I know that sound contradictory to my last post but those where just the problems I had with PoE. People get their panties in a bunch cause PoE 1 without an expansion does not immediately live up to BG2+expansion. I think that's apples to oranges. As many things I would change with PoE, given BG1 without ToSC, I would probably change MORE.
In bg1, the companions are quite, it was buggy, the level cap was low, it was very challenging weather you like it or not, and I have some MAJOR issues with D&D. Combat and lore. I think if the PoE universe and mechanics are given as much time as D&D has had now, it will be a shiny new Porsche to D&D's original VW beetle. D&D is a good solid place to start, but it ain't exactly going 0-60 in under 3 seconds... Or 10, for that matter.
In all honesty, I hope Beamdog can put out a great and worthy interlude expansion.
If they don't, then BG3 is probably never getting made.
So far my only issue with PoE is teh classes. Paladin doesn't seem to fit what I view as my conventional paladin, and the chanter isn't the melee blade like bard I enjoy, and from everything I hear, rangers really suck. So next time I get into it, I'll prolly have to go rogue or wizard. Not sure about the whole monk and wounds thing. =/
I believe they can do it.