I would never base the profit projection of PSTEE on Torment's original sales figures. It was one of the most poorly marketed games ever, to the point where entirely too many people weren't even aware of its existence. That's certainly no longer the case, and with Torment: Tides of Numenera inbound, the original game's profile will only be raised. It may in fact be the best time for such a project.
PS:T seems the logical choice, with one caveat: no new content. They'd need to take the same approach as in IWD:EE - clean up the bugs, tweak the engine so it runs good and proper, and maybe restore the cut content you'd normally find in the Unfinished Business mod. And that's it. There's no room here for uneven or average-to-mediocre additions.
Agreed. Although I would like to mention that an possible PST:EE, in addition to no new story content, should also not include additional classes, kits or spells. One of PS:T's charm points were its unique Training/Class system where players could simply "switch" between Fighter, Thief and Mage. Adding BG/IWD classes such as Ranger, Paladin, Shaman, Bard, Monk or Sorcerer and their kits would only needlessly water down this game imho.
I would never base the profit projection of PSTEE on Torment's original sales figures. It was one of the most poorly marketed games ever, to the point where entirely too many people weren't even aware of its existence. That's certainly no longer the case, and with Torment: Tides of Numenera inbound, the original game's profile will only be raised. It may in fact be the best time for such a project.
See but that's the thing. My gut feeling is that the vast majority of potential buyers will simply go buy T:ToN and pass over a PS:T EE, especially one that provides no new content. My understanding is that the majority of sales of the EE's have been to people who never played the original games. My feeling is that for that vast swath of gamers, the tag "Baldur's Gate" has some resonance, "Icewind Dale" much less resonance, and "Planescape: Torment" virtually no resonance. We should always remind ourselves that only a very tiny fraction of EE game owners are even registered in these forums. We are a very small, unrepresentative group of IE game fanatics. Beamdog cannot subsist on just our custom.
PS:T seems the logical choice, with one caveat: no new content. They'd need to take the same approach as in IWD:EE - clean up the bugs, tweak the engine so it runs good and proper, and maybe restore the cut content you'd normally find in the Unfinished Business mod. And that's it. There's no room here for uneven or average-to-mediocre additions.
I'd really like to see NWN:EE, to be honest. I know it's not Infinity Engine, but I feel like it could definitely do with an updating. It's no longer compatible with some of the latest operating systems and I would gladly trust Beamdog with improving the content and whatnot.
I voted BG2 expansion, but what I really mean is an expansion to fill out ToB. It is infamously brief and linear as a conclusion to the series, following BG2 - although I'll admit I have never played too deep into it as I get bored with the rails fairly quickly.
There is an element of focus towards the end of the Saga that makes taking on other adventures hard to explain, so it is not an easy thing to get right, but some time out of the main plot experiencing the horror that the saga inflicts on the rest of Faerun while we are bickering over the fate of a dead god? Seeing what other plots and machinations are taking advantage of the distraction of a new god arising, and the beast of Watchers' Keep potentially set fire...
I am not interested in post-ToB content, but more content for a party of 6 (especially if rotating companions) to reach the xp cap would be nice.
I'd really like to see planescape on my iPad. I agree with the no new content sentiment with the caveat of a graphical revamp. Looking at the models they used for portraits rather than paintings like BG or IWD is... Hard on my eyes.
Isometric, party based, Forgotten Realms, 5th edition.
As much as I want to see it happen (and you've managed to capture exactly what I would like, this is why I voted), I think the next project actually is PSTEE.
Particularly because the "plans" for it as something after BG had been voiced several years ago, before BG2EE even was released.
Particularly because SoD was a completely new project and thus a lof of effort was put into creating new content. If they had ideas, they put them into SoD. I think some time has to pass before new ideas, for new content, start come to fruition. Also, they have to look at how SoD sells, what's the general reception of it in a years-time, when all the launch problems are away.
And particularly because later this year TToN will be released, which will create a wave of nostalgia for PST, and there won't be more ideal time for releasing PSTEE, to me.
I agree. This update 2.0 is really huge change for the IE. I see the strategy of Beamdog to generalize and rewrite the IE with modern code so that PST and IW2 would have reasonable transition. This wouldn't be possible with brute force method into old IE.
But, at the same time, writers and designers are cooking something new. Just a hunch.
I would still like to see a BG3 or BG2 expansion, whichever you consider a continuation of the storyline.
I also think it could be interesting to play the game from the other side, not as the Bhaalspawn but as the force moving others towards his encounters, someone who directed Sarevok, Gorion or Irenicus down their paths.
Or maybe a prequel? Play as Bhaal in the time of troubles obviously we know how it would play out but it might be fun. With 23 Bhaalspawn known/implied from the games, it might risk becoming a joke on how many "romancable" companions you end up with but it could still be exiting even if you cant win the final fight against cyric.
Or also, as a thought, since Bhaal is back in 5th ed, why not have the character either A, be the one to release him, B, go confront him, or C if its way past the protagonists adventuring days, have his offspring lead the confrontation.
They need to do PST so I can actually play the damn game. I never played it when it first came out and playing the original now feels like a huge chore. No tab function and those horrible origami portraits, make me not want to touch the game.
I would love to play it and really need to play it because Torment: Tides of Numenera is gonna be out sometime soon and I want to play that too.
PS:T seems the logical choice, with one caveat: no new content. They'd need to take the same approach as in IWD:EE - clean up the bugs, tweak the engine so it runs good and proper, and maybe restore the cut content you'd normally find in the Unfinished Business mod. And that's it. There's no room here for uneven or average-to-mediocre additions.
Cool but how about replacing the original character portraits? Those things did not age well, early '90s 3D hurts my eyes.
PST. I've tried to mod the old one to higher resolution, but never got it to work. I'd love to play through that game again, but just cba playing the vanilla resolution. I have fond memories of this game, its world, its NPC's and its story.
Never played IWD2, so that's not so interresting for me, but another game in FR is always great. I actually don't care much for the main story of BG, so if I could choose I would like a much "smaller" and local storyline where the CHARNAME is less godlike and more like a common adventurer who does great things.
I'd prefer a game with the IE engine since I like that more than, ie the NVN games. For me, the engine and the ruleset are so connected they are almost one entity. It would therefore be very interresting to play an IE game with a 3E+ ruleset. I have no idea how that would be like and because of that I find it intrigueing.
I'd love to see a PST:EE with basically incorporating the great mods that enable us to play it now, polish up the UI (it feels clunky as hell), get everything running smoothly (still experienced crashes regularly) and try to upgrade the graphics. No new writing unless as @illathid suggested perhaps with Avellone at the helm.
I've found this quote by WotC from 11/02/2013: "We would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of our other great D&D IPs, if we were approached with a proposal".
So, WotC sees Planescape Torment as one of their D&D IPs.
And here is what Phillip Daigle said in an interview to RPGamer in March, 2016: "We'd like to continue working with Wizards of the Coast on Dungeons & Dragons titles. We love D&D and we love making D&D games. At the same time, however, we're also going to be developing our own projects and brands. For now I can't reveal anything, but going forward you'll see both great licensed and original IP projects from Beamdog."
To me it reads that they know already ther will be both licensed and original IP projects .
In a recent interview to Kotaku, Trent Oster admitted (on the possibility of going their own way, making their own universe fantasy universe) that he didn’t want to leave the past behind, not yet.
And if they're talking about licensing from WotC, it's likely about licensing Planescape.
In an AMA from 1 year ago, Trent Oster on the question about enhancing IWD2 or PST, mentioned only Planescape:Torment: Enhanced Edition: "besides from having too many colons in the title, is something we are interested in working on".
PST:EE, hands down. Nothing humble about my opinion, though!
But as everybody else has said, please don't make any additions to the storyline, new NPCs, quests, areas, or anything else unless it is comparable to the writing in the original game! Torment wasn't just a game; somebody described it as the best fantasy novel of the 90's which just happened to be released in the form of a computer game.
A quick comment on PSTEE: done right, this is a very close second for me, but I have huge concerns. The immersion into the game-world is even more important in PST than in the BG series, while the trend of the EE series seems to be towards more playable games, with the emphasis towards game rather than immersive experience.
Don't get me wrong, there have been fundamentally good reasons for all such changes, but on balance I would have rather not seen many of those changes (and luckily we can disable /some/ of them). I think that is a more significant problem in the nature of the world of Torment.
There is definitely potential to upgrade the existing engine and make it more immersive, such interesting ways to display large reams of text (especially in the inventory pages), but that is a much more difficult problem when you try to create a portable engine and delivery system across such a diverse range of hardware targets and operating systems.
One example of the immersion I think would be very hard to retain is the way that the opening animation pulls back, until the UI is added and you are dropped directly into the game. It really was a clever way of seducing you into the game world, and sets you up perfectly for the experience to follow. without re-rendering the opening animation in an appropriate resolution for each architecture, or allowing it to play very grainily before sharpening the screen up as the game UI takes over (and I doubt that they would be happy with the old grainy video) I am not sure how this could be done. Luckily, I am not a game designer so it is not my problems to solve - but is just another example how, right from the start of the game, there are bigger immersion challenges in PST than almost any other game I know.
BG2 expansion for sure since it would take forever before PST:EE would have anything interesting. At best PST:EE would have more a few more companions and sidequests related to them and BG2 has more potential for expansions anyway thanks to much better combat and class system. To do anything really new with PST:EE they would have to make a whole expansions to it therefore I think it be better if they try PST:EE after making expansions to BG2/ToB:EE when they will have more assets for monsters and locations and BG3 requires a new better engine.
it seems to me that BG + SOD + SOA + TOB is pretty complete as it stands and we probably don't really need anything more to complete the story. Additional content (new party members in BG2 for example) would be quite welcome.
BG2 is far from complete we don't know who Umbral Accord are or what's up with Dennaton's master and Baeloth. A Terrasque was mentioned yet we couldn't fight it. They need a Terrasque monster asset for PST:EE too.
BG2 is far from complete we don't know who Umbral Accord are or what's up with Dennaton's master and Baeloth. A Terrasque was mentioned yet we couldn't fight it. They need a Terrasque monster asset for PST:EE too.
Stories can finish without tying up every single loose end. Just how important are those things, really?
BG2 is far from complete we don't know who Umbral Accord are or what's up with Dennaton's master and Baeloth. A Terrasque was mentioned yet we couldn't fight it. They need a Terrasque monster asset for PST:EE too.
Stories can finish without tying up every single loose end. Just how important are those things, really?
Very important. There was no point in putting them in unless they plan BG2 expansion.
BG2 is far from complete we don't know who Umbral Accord are or what's up with Dennaton's master and Baeloth. A Terrasque was mentioned yet we couldn't fight it. They need a Terrasque monster asset for PST:EE too.
Actually, the subplot with Dennaton's master is resolved in Neera's ToB content.
Comments
After that, IWD2EE is a must!
There is an element of focus towards the end of the Saga that makes taking on other adventures hard to explain, so it is not an easy thing to get right, but some time out of the main plot experiencing the horror that the saga inflicts on the rest of Faerun while we are bickering over the fate of a dead god? Seeing what other plots and machinations are taking advantage of the distraction of a new god arising, and the beast of Watchers' Keep potentially set fire...
I am not interested in post-ToB content, but more content for a party of 6 (especially if rotating companions) to reach the xp cap would be nice.
And please no more 2es for future games
Particularly because the "plans" for it as something after BG had been voiced several years ago, before BG2EE even was released.
Particularly because SoD was a completely new project and thus a lof of effort was put into creating new content. If they had ideas, they put them into SoD. I think some time has to pass before new ideas, for new content, start come to fruition. Also, they have to look at how SoD sells, what's the general reception of it in a years-time, when all the launch problems are away.
And particularly because later this year TToN will be released, which will create a wave of nostalgia for PST, and there won't be more ideal time for releasing PSTEE, to me.
This wouldn't be possible with brute force method into old IE.
But, at the same time, writers and designers are cooking something new. Just a hunch.
I also think it could be interesting to play the game from the other side, not as the Bhaalspawn but as the force moving others towards his encounters, someone who directed Sarevok, Gorion or Irenicus down their paths.
Or maybe a prequel? Play as Bhaal in the time of troubles obviously we know how it would play out but it might be fun. With 23 Bhaalspawn known/implied from the games, it might risk becoming a joke on how many "romancable" companions you end up with but it could still be exiting even if you cant win the final fight against cyric.
Or also, as a thought, since Bhaal is back in 5th ed, why not have the character either A, be the one to release him, B, go confront him, or C if its way past the protagonists adventuring days, have his offspring lead the confrontation.
I would love to play it and really need to play it because Torment: Tides of Numenera is gonna be out sometime soon and I want to play that too.
Never played IWD2, so that's not so interresting for me, but another game in FR is always great. I actually don't care much for the main story of BG, so if I could choose I would like a much "smaller" and local storyline where the CHARNAME is less godlike and more like a common adventurer who does great things.
I'd prefer a game with the IE engine since I like that more than, ie the NVN games. For me, the engine and the ruleset are so connected they are almost one entity. It would therefore be very interresting to play an IE game with a 3E+ ruleset. I have no idea how that would be like and because of that I find it intrigueing.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-11-wizards-of-the-coast-declares-that-it-is-open-to-licensing-planescape
So, WotC sees Planescape Torment as one of their D&D IPs.
And here is what Phillip Daigle said in an interview to RPGamer in March, 2016: "We'd like to continue working with Wizards of the Coast on Dungeons & Dragons titles. We love D&D and we love making D&D games. At the same time, however, we're also going to be developing our own projects and brands. For now I can't reveal anything, but going forward you'll see both great licensed and original IP projects from Beamdog."
http://www.rpgamer.com/games/dnd/bgenh/bgenhsodint.html
To me it reads that they know already ther will be both licensed and original IP projects .
In a recent interview to Kotaku, Trent Oster admitted (on the possibility of going their own way, making their own universe fantasy universe) that he didn’t want to leave the past behind, not yet.
http://kotaku.com/the-struggle-to-bring-back-baldur-s-gate-after-17-years-1768303595
And if they're talking about licensing from WotC, it's likely about licensing Planescape.
In an AMA from 1 year ago, Trent Oster on the question about enhancing IWD2 or PST, mentioned only Planescape:Torment: Enhanced Edition: "besides from having too many colons in the title, is something we are interested in working on".
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm77d9q
Add to that all another evidence (https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/752381/#Comment_752381) and the most recent Arv interview with Trent and Phillip (and btw, @Buttercheese 's doodle about it was retweeted by both of them).
Icewind Dale 2 would also be nice. I prefer 2ed rules, but IWD 2 is a diamond in the rough, it just needs some more polish to really shine.
Oh, wait...
But as everybody else has said, please don't make any additions to the storyline, new NPCs, quests, areas, or anything else unless it is comparable to the writing in the original game! Torment wasn't just a game; somebody described it as the best fantasy novel of the 90's which just happened to be released in the form of a computer game.
No doubt about it.
Don't get me wrong, there have been fundamentally good reasons for all such changes, but on balance I would have rather not seen many of those changes (and luckily we can disable /some/ of them). I think that is a more significant problem in the nature of the world of Torment.
There is definitely potential to upgrade the existing engine and make it more immersive, such interesting ways to display large reams of text (especially in the inventory pages), but that is a much more difficult problem when you try to create a portable engine and delivery system across such a diverse range of hardware targets and operating systems.
One example of the immersion I think would be very hard to retain is the way that the opening animation pulls back, until the UI is added and you are dropped directly into the game. It really was a clever way of seducing you into the game world, and sets you up perfectly for the experience to follow. without re-rendering the opening animation in an appropriate resolution for each architecture, or allowing it to play very grainily before sharpening the screen up as the game UI takes over (and I doubt that they would be happy with the old grainy video) I am not sure how this could be done. Luckily, I am not a game designer so it is not my problems to solve - but is just another example how, right from the start of the game, there are bigger immersion challenges in PST than almost any other game I know.
To do anything really new with PST:EE they would have to make a whole expansions to it therefore I think it be better if they try PST:EE after making expansions to BG2/ToB:EE when they will have more assets for monsters and locations and BG3 requires a new better engine.