All you wanted to know about the next Beamdog's project
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
I think the time has come for a new "All you wanted to know about" thread.
Brus here suggested we should call it Project Fireball, X,Storm,Severance,Sanctuary,Hurricane,Realm Z,Ivory Plane,Sapphire, Soul Nexus etc. I agree because right now we still haven't heard an official word defining which particular project is in the works.
But a certain project is indeed in the works, there's no doubt about that.
In the end of 2015, there was a meeting between Beamdog and WotC, after which plans for the next years became known in-house.
In December 2015, the main site of Beamdog offered 3 new vacant jobs, with the description that "more original content is on the horizon."
David Gaider soon joined the team.
According to Andrew Foley, Beamdog are currently (as of April, 2016) further ahead on developing it than they were on SoD in January 2014.
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
It reads that they know already there will be both licensed and original IP projects.
Here're the main versions and evidence presented:
Version 1. PSTEE (Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition)
1.
It's a tweet by Trent Oster from March, 2012.
2. "I've been getting a lot of requests for a revisit of [Planescape:] Torment," Cameron Tofer told http://www.shacknews.com/. "We would love to have the opportunity to do it."
It's a news bit from March, 2012.
3. "Hmm. We have a Planescape.zip file here that seems to have a bunch of source codey stuff in it ;-)
-Trent"
It's a comment by Trent Oster from August, 2012.
4. The IP regarding Planescape: Torment is the property of Hasbro, and we all know Beamdog are good friends of Hasbro.
5. WotC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, "would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of their other great D&D IPs, if they were approached with a proposal".
It's a quote by WotC from 11/02/2013.
So, WotC sees Planescape Torment as one of their D&D IPs.
6. "I'm sure we could add some real value to a PS:T:EE if we were ever able to do it. Make it available on multiple platforms, for instance. It's my favorite game and I hope we get a chance to work on it some day."
It's a comment by Amber Scott from March, 2015.
7. 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".
8. 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.
9. Go to 1:19:30 from the most recent Arv interview with Trent Oster and Phillip Daigle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLfOSI5246w&t=4770
10. Buttercheese (Tari Toons) created a doodle based on that moment, which was retweeted by both by Trent Oster and Phillip Daigle:
11. Chris Avellone, a Lead Designer on PST and a Narrative Consultant for SoD, when answering several questions on http://www.rpgcodex.net/ once said:
"Beamdog and Torment possibility: I'd love to if the chance existed."
12. Later this year TToN will be released, which will create a wave of nostalgia for PST, and there probably won't be a better time to release PSTEE.
Version 2. A new game
1. "I don't think it's some big secret that we're interested in continuing work on original BG-style games in the future. We love the genre, we love playing the games, and we know how to build them.
If we were to make an expansion or DLC for an existing game like BG2EE or IWDEE it would retain the same ruleset as the base game.
Any new D&D games that get made would use 5th Edition."
It's a comment by Phillip Daigle from January, 2016.
2. "our plans for the future. We want to leave the IE-era games in an excellent state and then move on to something more modern eventually."
It's a comment by Phillip Daigle from February, 2016.
3. Andrew Foley in February, 2016, liked this comment:
"It (PSTEE) would be nice, but at the moment I would rather see new content such as icewind dale 3 , iwd2 ee with a new expansion or a brand new IE game."
4. The same quote from the recent interview to Kotaku as in the Version 1:
"Whereas D&D, I have all that knowledge and if I want some more knowledge I can just go on the internet or pop open a rule book. To me, that’s just the power that D&D has that crafting your own stuff from scratch just cannot have." - it could be just pointing to the fact a new game would be based on D&D, it shouldn't specifically be about PSTEE.
5. In April, 2016, David Gaider tweeted this:
And Phillip Daigle mentioned that document had something to do with Bhaal:
6. David Gaider is a Creative Director at Beamdog, so it basically means he has much more ideas than content for an EE.
Maybe two projects (an EE of an existing title and a new IP) are being worked on in the same time?
Like a new EE for now and a new IP for the more distant future, so that the situation about SoD sales etc could be more clear:
In the interview to to RPGamer in March, 2016 Phillip Daigle said: "We've got lots of ideas for spots in the Baldur's Gate series that could be filled in, but we're waiting to see what the reception to Siege of Dragonspear is like before we commit to anything major. First we need to see what the fans want, then we'll look at what we can deliver. We've also got an eye towards the future. The Infinity Engine was built almost 20 years ago and limits us in a lot of ways. We're actively exploring next-gen technology for some potential future games."
Version 3. Something else (IWD2EE anyone?)
1. In an interview with http://www.pcgamer.com Trent Oster mentioned:
"Icewind Dale II implemented the 3rd Edition rules and has a completely different UI scheme. We're really not sure how deep those changes run," Oster explained. "The move to 3rd Edition rules would invalidate all the character classes and require a pretty thorough rework of the entire game to bring in the features from our Infinity Plus Engine. At minimum, nightmares abound."
2. In an interview with http://venturebeat.com Trent Oster answered this question: "You talked about “nightmares” about the idea of working on enhanced editions for Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment. Is this still the case, or have you made any progress on Icewind Dale II at this point?"
Trent Oster: "We’ve yet to really dig into them. Torment is probably the easier of the two as the rules are at least similar. Icewind Dale II had a large deviation due to the move to 3rd Edition D&D rules. We’re still working on Infinity as we wrap up the 1.3 update for BGII. After the holidays, we’ll have more time to dig into the possibilities."
3. In the latest AMA an answer on PSTEE or IWD2EE was the same:
"We don't announce projects in development, but we do love the Infinity Engine and Forgotten Realms and would like to do more work on these games in the future."
"We usually don't comment about games in development, but we have said that we've been building up the capabilities of our team and we love the Forgotten Realms. We'd have to get a concept and bring people on board, but it's something we would love to do in the future."
Brus here suggested we should call it Project Fireball, X,Storm,Severance,Sanctuary,Hurricane,Realm Z,Ivory Plane,Sapphire, Soul Nexus etc. I agree because right now we still haven't heard an official word defining which particular project is in the works.
But a certain project is indeed in the works, there's no doubt about that.
In the end of 2015, there was a meeting between Beamdog and WotC, after which plans for the next years became known in-house.
In December 2015, the main site of Beamdog offered 3 new vacant jobs, with the description that "more original content is on the horizon."
David Gaider soon joined the team.
According to Andrew Foley, Beamdog are currently (as of April, 2016) further ahead on developing it than they were on SoD in January 2014.
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
It reads that they know already there will be both licensed and original IP projects.
Here're the main versions and evidence presented:
Version 1. PSTEE (Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition)
1.
It's a tweet by Trent Oster from March, 2012.
2. "I've been getting a lot of requests for a revisit of [Planescape:] Torment," Cameron Tofer told http://www.shacknews.com/. "We would love to have the opportunity to do it."
It's a news bit from March, 2012.
3. "Hmm. We have a Planescape.zip file here that seems to have a bunch of source codey stuff in it ;-)
-Trent"
It's a comment by Trent Oster from August, 2012.
4. The IP regarding Planescape: Torment is the property of Hasbro, and we all know Beamdog are good friends of Hasbro.
5. WotC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, "would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of their other great D&D IPs, if they were approached with a proposal".
It's a quote by WotC from 11/02/2013.
So, WotC sees Planescape Torment as one of their D&D IPs.
6. "I'm sure we could add some real value to a PS:T:EE if we were ever able to do it. Make it available on multiple platforms, for instance. It's my favorite game and I hope we get a chance to work on it some day."
It's a comment by Amber Scott from March, 2015.
7. 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".
8. 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.
9. Go to 1:19:30 from the most recent Arv interview with Trent Oster and Phillip Daigle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLfOSI5246w&t=477010. Buttercheese (Tari Toons) created a doodle based on that moment, which was retweeted by both by Trent Oster and Phillip Daigle:
11. Chris Avellone, a Lead Designer on PST and a Narrative Consultant for SoD, when answering several questions on http://www.rpgcodex.net/ once said:
"Beamdog and Torment possibility: I'd love to if the chance existed."
12. Later this year TToN will be released, which will create a wave of nostalgia for PST, and there probably won't be a better time to release PSTEE.
Version 2. A new game
1. "I don't think it's some big secret that we're interested in continuing work on original BG-style games in the future. We love the genre, we love playing the games, and we know how to build them.
If we were to make an expansion or DLC for an existing game like BG2EE or IWDEE it would retain the same ruleset as the base game.
Any new D&D games that get made would use 5th Edition."
It's a comment by Phillip Daigle from January, 2016.
2. "our plans for the future. We want to leave the IE-era games in an excellent state and then move on to something more modern eventually."
It's a comment by Phillip Daigle from February, 2016.
3. Andrew Foley in February, 2016, liked this comment:
"It (PSTEE) would be nice, but at the moment I would rather see new content such as icewind dale 3 , iwd2 ee with a new expansion or a brand new IE game."
4. The same quote from the recent interview to Kotaku as in the Version 1:
"Whereas D&D, I have all that knowledge and if I want some more knowledge I can just go on the internet or pop open a rule book. To me, that’s just the power that D&D has that crafting your own stuff from scratch just cannot have." - it could be just pointing to the fact a new game would be based on D&D, it shouldn't specifically be about PSTEE.
5. In April, 2016, David Gaider tweeted this:
And Phillip Daigle mentioned that document had something to do with Bhaal:
6. David Gaider is a Creative Director at Beamdog, so it basically means he has much more ideas than content for an EE.
Maybe two projects (an EE of an existing title and a new IP) are being worked on in the same time?
Like a new EE for now and a new IP for the more distant future, so that the situation about SoD sales etc could be more clear:
In the interview to to RPGamer in March, 2016 Phillip Daigle said: "We've got lots of ideas for spots in the Baldur's Gate series that could be filled in, but we're waiting to see what the reception to Siege of Dragonspear is like before we commit to anything major. First we need to see what the fans want, then we'll look at what we can deliver. We've also got an eye towards the future. The Infinity Engine was built almost 20 years ago and limits us in a lot of ways. We're actively exploring next-gen technology for some potential future games."
Version 3. Something else (IWD2EE anyone?)
1. In an interview with http://www.pcgamer.com Trent Oster mentioned:
"Icewind Dale II implemented the 3rd Edition rules and has a completely different UI scheme. We're really not sure how deep those changes run," Oster explained. "The move to 3rd Edition rules would invalidate all the character classes and require a pretty thorough rework of the entire game to bring in the features from our Infinity Plus Engine. At minimum, nightmares abound."
2. In an interview with http://venturebeat.com Trent Oster answered this question: "You talked about “nightmares” about the idea of working on enhanced editions for Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment. Is this still the case, or have you made any progress on Icewind Dale II at this point?"
Trent Oster: "We’ve yet to really dig into them. Torment is probably the easier of the two as the rules are at least similar. Icewind Dale II had a large deviation due to the move to 3rd Edition D&D rules. We’re still working on Infinity as we wrap up the 1.3 update for BGII. After the holidays, we’ll have more time to dig into the possibilities."
3. In the latest AMA an answer on PSTEE or IWD2EE was the same:
"We don't announce projects in development, but we do love the Infinity Engine and Forgotten Realms and would like to do more work on these games in the future."
"We usually don't comment about games in development, but we have said that we've been building up the capabilities of our team and we love the Forgotten Realms. We'd have to get a concept and bring people on board, but it's something we would love to do in the future."
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Comments
How in the world do you keep track of all of this? I think perhaps your organizational skills deserve a mention in the supper powers thread.
A "new IP" would be something that does not currently exist anywhere in any form which Beamdog creates from scratch, like what Obsidian did in creating Pillars of Eternity.
"A new IP", in general, may mean either a new D&D game (but not an EE of any existing game), or a new game with completely new rules.
Of course, the latter would mean some freedom from WotC, but in the same time it would mean a need to create this new world and new rules ("crafting your own stuff from scratch").
But even the former would be "a new IP" in terms of not using PST, IWD, BG or any other existing intellectual property.
As for an EE game, I've never actually played NWN or PST <_<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
I can't decide if I want to see them do a new 5e D&D separate from BG/IWD/Torment more than a BG III, it's a real close call because I've absolutely love to see both...but if they were making their original IP in the Planescape or Eberron universe rather than FR I think I'd want it more than BG III.
Eberron would be okay though I would prefer Dragonlance or Greyhawk or perhaps even Mystara/Blackmoor. Dragonlance is interesting because gods there actively work to create cataclysms and life harder for inhabitants.
Though Eberron was updated to 5e and still supported WoTC while Dragonlance is probably third most developed after Forgotten Realms and Eberron.
But that doesn't mean a D&D game without the BG name on it is going to sell poorly. On the contrary, I think milking the BG name any point past a part three might be a bit iffy in terms of sales to be quite honest.
That said, while I also don't agree with other posters I see arguing that there's no point in making a BG III, I do see their point about it not being the "Baldur's Gate" saga past any linkage to Bhaal and the region near Baldur's Gate. I think it's possible to cap the series with an epic 3rd act but beyond that I'd expect them to focus on their own gamelines, or work on an IWD3 or a Torment sequel set in Planescape instead of Numenera, etc, etc. ToB is a fitting denouement to the saga of Gorion's Ward, but I think there's room to add a tale of consequences and further dangers beyond Gorion's Ward's lifetime as a capstone and sendoff to the BG series (or, if they're a divine power now, beyond their mortal existence's lifetime anyway).
We can visit more in next games/expansions but they in place that hypothetical new game in Sigil since there is barely any information abour after 2e edition. Though I don't have anything against visting Sigil again but not as the main part of the game.
Frankly I just want to see them build games based on the second edition rule set of AD&D. I don't like later editions nearly as much