Honest opinion, I don't like the idea of SoD
Reiborn
Member Posts: 156
I'll be honest with you gents.
I owned BG saga on physical copies, then on digital ones and then I decided to purchase the EE edition for ease of use as they were combining all the features I wanted from modes with some tune up for modern OS and nice extra features.
I also supported Beamdog as it was assumed that beamdog will create a new BG game of sort (BG3 or something in the general atmosphere\universe).
But,
As this is a paid expansion to the original BG game I find it rather disapointing. I actually am worried that now we will get in EA style way "Appearnace packs" and more "quests DLCs" and such miniscule packs for micro transactions instead of proper new game.
If beamdog would have made a proper new game and created dlcs, and expansions for that one I would have been alright with that but creating a paid expansion for BG1? that's smell of hypocracy.
my 2 cents, no insults meant just honest opinion.
I owned BG saga on physical copies, then on digital ones and then I decided to purchase the EE edition for ease of use as they were combining all the features I wanted from modes with some tune up for modern OS and nice extra features.
I also supported Beamdog as it was assumed that beamdog will create a new BG game of sort (BG3 or something in the general atmosphere\universe).
But,
As this is a paid expansion to the original BG game I find it rather disapointing. I actually am worried that now we will get in EA style way "Appearnace packs" and more "quests DLCs" and such miniscule packs for micro transactions instead of proper new game.
If beamdog would have made a proper new game and created dlcs, and expansions for that one I would have been alright with that but creating a paid expansion for BG1? that's smell of hypocracy.
my 2 cents, no insults meant just honest opinion.
5
Comments
I'm excited for the expansion, however, simply because it's more Baldur's Gate. If Beamdog keeps its DLC model the same as used for BG1&2 then I don't really have any issue.
In regards to the EE's: for $20 you get BG:EE + all the new content for it, or BG2:EE and all the new content for it. You get ongoing patches, some with new content. I can't honestly complain about what Beamdog gave me for those prices. I have no qualms about paying for an expansion to BG:EE. I too would like a whole new game in the series, but that's a big risky undertaking for an independent developer these days. I'd rather have Beamdog around in the future still working on BG/BG2/IWD/PST etc than have them go bust and close shop because they invested in a new game that didn't sell.
Personally, I'd be fine with them releasing a couple smaller DLC's that introduced new items, quests, areas, classes etc. I get more than my money's worth out of their work so far.
Three years is a long time. How much DLC have they put out since then? None. Since then, the UI has been further enhanced/refined and we've got new kits and a new NPC. All bundled with patches, for free.
This new expansion is supposed to be big (both in terms of new content and further enhancements to the engine/UI). Even bigger than Tales of the Sword Coast. And it's going to be preceded by yet another big patch, which is going to implement some of the new stuff, for free. So even if you're not willing to shell out any cash, you're still getting something.
It seems to me that if they wanted to go the way you're describing, they could release the whole thing little by little, in small packages. Want the new class? $3.99. Want the new NPCs? $5.99. Want only the new module? That's $8.99. And so on.
Hell, they'd probably make more money that way.
However, I have no problem with the expansion. There is a gap storywise between BG 1 and 2. I am still a bit skeptical about the effect on the extra levels and stuff on BG 2, but we will see about that.
The Beamdog team know the ins and outs of the BG engine and "how the game feels" now better than anybody in the world. They put so much work into it. So they're the only people who can bring to the players the official Bioware version of what was supposed to happen between BG1 and BG2.
All these years I've been always wondering about the events between BG1 and BG2. "What dark circumstances?" "Why Imoen is a mage?" "How was nearly a whole year spent?"
So this is why y honest opinion is I like the idea of SoD for Beamdog now more than the idea of a completely new game right off, especially if we're taking about something that can be described as BGNext.
It's based on a "rule of thumb" for mobile games. There's no guaranteed way to sell on mobile, but there are a bunch of things you can do that definitely help.
Yes, I guess it does set a precedent that they can do DLC.. but at the same time, they've only done it on platforms where it's almost "demanded".. after all, free to download with IAP is how most of the money is made in mobile usually, and thankfully Beamdog didn't go down that route. =D
the fact that it comes in the form of an expansion pack is not that important. maybe you can look at the substance, not the package:
- it will have a new campaign (with new locations) with a distinct storyline
- it will have new joinable npcs and old ones will have new voiced dialogue
- it will have a slightly different look, graphically (a bit different UI, more modern area art...) and also, there will be technical upgrades (such as improved pathfinding)
it could have been a separate game but the choice to make an interquel instead of a sequel to the saga precluded that. what would you call it if it were a separate game, baldur's gate 1.5?
Maybe they had a power-outage that day?
but for me, I don't think I will be buying this expansion just based on the fact that importing a character into bg2 with 1 000 000 starting XP is really going to unbalance the game, bg2 was set to have characters starting with 89000-161000 XP and scales quite fine with that, I once imported a black pits team into bg2 and with 500 000 XP I was mopping up the floor with baddies, people say that the game gives you bigger and tougher baddies as you grow in experience but its not good enough, I can predict that with the huge XP raise bg2 is going to be way less of a challenge, but then you might say; oh but there's nightmare mode, just use that. Use it for what? x3+50 HP and a little better to hit with a little better AC doesn't make the game harder, it makes it unnecessarily longer and boring I find, when I would play heart of fury mode in IWD, my usual reaction is; "sigh" this is taking way to long to kill this trivial enemies in this trivial battle, but then you could say; Sarevok57 you silly bones, why not just install so mods like SCS and all that good jazz, and my answer to that is; nay, I don't like modifying my game, it's perfect the way it is, the fun is still intact and modification in my opinion just takes more of the game away and makes it a completely different game altogether
my prediction is, the more jazz that they add to these games, the more I'm going to want to go back to my old vanilla CD games, I miss their old school graphics and gameplay, especially the path finding, oh the path finding was wonderful in the old games ( don't know how it become awful in the EEs) but with that being said, if the EEs are basically the final product of what we are going to get, then I might stick with them, but I feel as the more that is added to the games, the more unbaldur's gate like they become, and if too much gets added I think I will just revert back to my vanilla games
As for the start of BG2, Phillip Daigle said they gave thoughts to that, so maybe we'll see something more than the existing scaling system of locations, so that it will be "good enough".
if it was stand alone expansion which didn't require the original game... that's more conceivable.
if someone's already played BG1 before, and isn't interested in playing it again (this time in a new, enhanced edition), but wants to play SoD, then it's not an ideal situation for him, but the number of such people must be very very low.