Wow that game looks great. If you want a top down RPG that looks similar to that, look up Path of Exile. But its a Diablo hack n slash / gear grinding clone.
Well @Mungri, don't take it bad but i have to say, you presume too much dude. I played the entire mass effect series, the witcher, dragon age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 (those are the ones quoted on my last post).
I also played Diablo II, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate serie (of course), Vampire: Bloodlines and Redemption (this last one had one of the most awersome histories that i saw in 3D), Assassin's Creed serie, GTA serie, Elder Scroll Oblivion and Skyrim, Dead Island, Heroes of Might and Magic, among a lot of other games.
I had played thousands of JRPGs also, so i will not bother in expose a list here of them.
So, when i make my statements, i don't take them from nowhere. Don't try to bellite my arguments by accusing me of speak without knowledge dude, you can disagree or reply with more class than that.
I'm not inherently opposed to 3D in concept. But what I find in practice is the more that computer graphics attempt to simulate reality, then, ironically, the more I notice their artificiality! I'm then all the more keenly aware that I'm inhabiting an artificially created computer generated world. Characters' physical movement just doesn't flow true to real life. Facial expressions seem robotic. I don't care for it.
I agree with what others here have said that BG's painted backgrounds and 2D isometric visual distance are somehow oddly more immersive. Although it obviously helps with immersion too that the story, characters, and game mechanics are so damn good.
But anyway, I just have never been able to get into 3D games in the same way as I do this one. I'd love to see the basic 2D style of the BG games rendered in HD. It's okay if it is stylized. But I would tend to stick with what has worked so well in Infinity and just make it better.
I don't want to see a single 3D model facial expression. To me this really is the most important single thing that is ruining the sense of immersion in 3D RPGs. Dumb facial reactions/expressions...
I prefer 3D over 2D (I'm a 3D generation go figure) but I wouldn't be against something like Temple of Elemental Evil (3D in 2D isometric). To be honest I'd actually like to see the entire BG and Icewind Dale series redone in a more updated, accessible game-engine (not merely remastered/enhanced but on a completely different engine, like the Dragon Age, Temple of Elemental Evil, or something to that effect). Of course my view isn't popular because it's not nostalgic, but it would certainly bring new fans to the series.
Mass Effect (except the original end of the ME3) is an good example. Elder Scroll Morrowind was heavly praised (but i didn't played this one), so the examples exist, but you're not here to argue, but to state your idea, so no matter how good or coherent the other guy argument is, you will always reject it... after all people full of themself always find their opinion the best and everyone else's opinion not worth of be taken in account.
If you're going to defend 3D, at least come up with just one single 3D CRPG that equals BG / PT / IWD.
No game equals another, for the simple reason that they're not the same game, the variables are different. A lot of people just keeping shouting the mantras "everything was better back in the day" and "3D games have no soul, 2D RPGs were a gift from God" (just go take a look at RPGCodex) etc, without realizing that the games were in 2D due to hardware limitations back in the day, not because every single human being on Earth for some strange reason gets a more fulfilling experience from watching sprites rather than 3D models made out of polygons on a monitor. 3D is more appealing to the average person because it is the "format" (in lack of a better word) in which we sense the universe around us every day. If all games started coming out in 2D as of now, I think the industry would experience quite a recession. 3D just immerses the player more than 2D ever could.
If you're going to defend 3D, at least come up with just one single 3D CRPG that equals BG / PT / IWD.
No game equals another, for the simple reason that they're not the same game, the variables are different. A lot of people just keeping shouting the mantras "everything was better back in the day" and "3D games have no soul, 2D RPGs were a gift from God" (just go take a look at RPGCodex) etc, without realizing that the games were in 2D due to hardware limitations back in the day, not because every single human being on Earth for some strange reason gets a more fulfilling experience from watching sprites rather than 3D models made out of polygons on a monitor. 3D is more appealing to the average person because it is the "format" (in lack of a better word) in which we sense the universe around us every day. If all games started coming out in 2D as of now, I think the industry would experience quite a recession. 3D just immerses the player more than 2D ever could.
Nothing to do with that, it is extremely unlikely to be possible to recreate the BG gameplay experience in 3D.
BG was never meant to be a game for the average person. No 3D game has ever managed to immerse me as well as BG2 did.
Mass Effect (except the original end of the ME3) is an good example. Elder Scroll Morrowind was heavly praised (but i didn't played this one), so the examples exist,
Neither of those games = BG. I dont see how your arguments can be defined as coherent when you claim to have never played the games you mention (Morrowind and Witcher 2). Mass Effect is a terrible RPG compared to BG, its nowhere near the same, and shares far more in common with FPS games than it does with RPGs.
While these games are good 3D action RPGs, none of them are comparable to, and their 3D engines would be completely terrible for trying to recreate the same gameplay experience of BG.
Most fans of BG dont want BG3 to become a 3D hack and slash action combat based games. For those of you who want this, why do you continue to ignore the fact that its already been done?
While it appealed to a whole new generation of gamers, it didnt appeal to long term fans who wanted a new BG game with the exact same gameplay found in the original two games. 3D engines have never yet been able to recreate the same kind of RPG that BG1 + 2 were, and I have zero confidence that they ever will be able to.
Of course neither of the games are equal to BG, they have their own story, that's pretty good by the way. You're speaking only with nostalgia, so anything will be worst than BG. When you compare Mass Effect with FPS games just because it's has a shot interface of combat, you just show your lack of knowledge about the game and the surface evaluation that you made.
The only 3D games i never played where The Witcher 2 and Morrowind. So you want to dischard all my knowledge about 3D RPGs cos i didn't played those 2? Should i laught now?
While i agree that BG is awersome, that isn't based on the 2D graphic, but in the awersome history, say that "BG is great, therefore 2D graphics are better" is a childish fallacy.
No one that want a 3D here is saying to reclycle an previous 3D engine, you're just raising that point to have something to argue as your statements lack of coherence and justifies as the same happen with your concept of hacking and slash.
I will start to take your opinion (or statements) more serious when you stop of presume inexistent justifies and reasons. Until now all i can see on your statements are half worked syllogisms mixed with fallacies to justify something that you don't even know. 3D is evolution because it drag the games to our reality view of the world, it will be in constant evolution.
When i see comments like your i can't help but think in someone saying to Bill Gates that Micro Computers shouldn't be created because we have typewriter.
Actually, never mind that. Instead, it might be interesting to note what Trent Oster said in an interview on Sorcerer's Place a day or two ago on the question of what type of game engine they would use for BG3 if it was ever made:
"...With a game like Baldur's Gate, there is no other title with the same challenges and as such, no engine is optimized around those criteria. Our approach is going to be from the ground up, making an engine and tool chain which is 100% dedicated to making the best isometric party based role playing game possible..."
@kamuizin You have no clue, and your opinion on BG is a slap in the face to all the people who enjoy it for the gameplay, engine and strategic combat, not merely because it has a strory behind game. Every game out there has a story, even Crysis, Assassins Creed, and Prince of Persia have a strory to them. The story is not what defines an RPG or any genre, the gameplay is.
The developers here wouldn't want BG3 to be any different to the first two games. The vast majority of the fans wouldn't want that either, no one but you would enjoy BG3 being made into a mass effect clone.
You state that you aren't saying you want BG3 to use a currently recycled engine, yet throughout this thread all you do is praise current engines that would be a complete failure for a true BG successor. The closest that any 3D engine has gotten to BG was DAO, and even that had many many flaws due to the 3D engine, especially with zooming, panning and being extremely frustrating and migraine inducing to control a full group of players in a open 3D engine.
There is no one out there that can recreate the same gameplay experience of BG1 + 2 in a 3D engine. So many have already promised it, and failed time and time again. If you are so confident that it can be done, then feel free to take up video game programming, make such a game and prove me wrong.
Why do you assume that 2D engines can't be made with todays standards?
I don't But I do assume different camera perpectives is a standard when it comes to 'todays standards'. IMO.
Different camera perspectives is one of the main things that destroyed this genre. Fixed top down view and strategic combat is what most people want from BG3, not first / third person hack n slash action combat. And that has always been handled best in 2D isometric engines.
Also not one single game in 'todays standards' is anywhere near as good ad the standard set by BG. People are craving to get the same gameplay of the original series, not a 3D glorious graphics, yet rubbish action combat remake.
Different camera perspectives is one of the main things that destroyed this genre. Fixed top down view and strategic combat is what most people want from BG3, not first / third person hack n slash action combat. And that has always been handled best in 2D isometric engines.
To me, different camera perspectives is not an indicator for hack and slay. It's just camera perspective. Not gameplay. To me. I don't see why a camera perspective should keep a game from being pauseable and strategic...
Also not one single game in 'todays standards' is anywhere near as good ad the standard set by BG. People are craving to get the same gameplay of the original series, not a 3D glorious graphics, yet rubbish action combat remake.
May be I'm the only one in the world. I dunno. But I crave to get the same gameplay of the original series WITH a 3D glorious graphics.
The issue with different camera perspectives to me is two things:
1) In games like Sacred 2 with an auto panning camera spinning over a 3D landscape, I get headaches and dizziness.
2) In games like NWN and DAO with a fully customizable camera, you couldn't zoom out enough to see as much of the map as BG allowed. Increasing resolution didn't help to increase the viewable field because everything scaled. You also couldn't move the camera around to any position of the map, it had to be centred and locked around your currently selected character only. All these things make playing full strategic party based combat severely frustrating, and none of the 3D engines so far for top down gameplay have been suitable for the same party based pause and play strategic gameplay of BG. I have zero confidence that BGs gameplay can ever be replicated in a 3D engine, people can surely try to as many already have, but it will always remain inferior. If Bioware couldn't ever do it right, I don't see hoe anyone else can.
Call me an idealist... but just because nobody didn't manage to do it before... ? Actually, at the time being the game came out, i.e. Spellforce did a good job combining the two of them, imo. So yes, I think it's possible to get both worlds.
1° - Now you're showing your true nature, when my comment bothered you, you resorted to bad manner and offenses, no problem for me, continue that way, comment's like that only depreciate your own opinion !
2° - Again you presume too much, the devs, based on the interview granted in link here by @swnmcmlxi told the probable BG 3 would be isometric, not 2D.
3° - I never praised all 3D engine, i just pointed the obvious, that even a 6 year children could perceive: 3D is evolving at each passing time. ME serie engines by the way are very good, but in your fear of lose a counter-argument you gonna flame that awersome game, shame on you.
To resume:
You state that a 3D engines would spoil the game even before it creation. You have a nice farsight by the way dude!
You say that 2D is better because the gameplay is better on then... yet each time a good game in 3D engines is raised, you reject it. You despair in defend your point comes to a point that now you attack the quality of any 3D games raised as an argument here.
You even do wrost that that, you focus the discussion around some bad games in 3D engines and histories like DA2, or with some camera issues like DA:O, trying to resume the entire 3D experience to them ONLY to win a forum argument.
At every 2 posts, you repeat that a game in 3D would be a hack and slash game... from where you take this idea? NWN/NWN2, DA:O/2, The Witcher and many other games are 3D and not hack and slash games, no matter how bad the engine or history of those games are for you, that doesn't raise an inexistent fact in your favor.
Every time someone argue something you don't know well, you start to presume and add issues that weren't on that person post. You create from your mind flawed arguments that were not raised to have something to refute.
Want to know a nice title in isometric 3D? Dragon Quest 8. But you probally gonna dischard it because it's a JRPG, as if this fact take of the quality of the game.
To end:
Your arrogance mixed with your lack of reasons or coherence on arguments just make the issues that you raise laughable. The fact that you assign inexistent issues to other persons posts to have something to refute just reforce your lack of reason and piss people off more often.
Everyone has the right of be wrong, of make mistakes or not accurated statements, no one will comndem you on that unless you're arrogant or/and don't observe the basic of an argument, that is a base and logic/custom.
Ps: Gonna probably be flamed by this but i have to say. Dude, you're a walking syllogism mixed with fallacy.
Witcher 2, Elder Scrolls series, and Mass Effect are all action based hack n slash / shooting games.
I never said that all of these games are bad, but to me Mass Effect and DA2 were bad. The direction that Bioware took after BG2 was absolutely not the kind of games that I enjoy playing, other than DAO. The engines for these particular games however are not suited to top down ISO view and would not be true to the gameplay of BG1 + 2. I don't want BG3 to take the slightest bit of influence from any Bioware game released since NWN.
I have plenty of 3D RPGs to play already, I'm not interested in anymore, I don't need anymore. I want a new 2D ISO game that feels and plays identically to BG1 + 2.
As for your example of dragon quest 8, I wouldn't be interested in that because its not available on the PC, not because its a JRPG. I've played Final Fantasy 8 and Maple Story (Korean 2D mmo) because they are available on my PC. I do have a Nintendo 3DS, but again, the game you mentioned isn't on that platform, though Zelda OOT is amazing, its still not comparable to BG.
The only 3D RPGs on the PC that I have enjoyed playing were Morrowind and DAO. Yet neither were as good as BG2, and that's not based on nostalgia, its based on fact. My preference of BG1+2 is simply that they are hands down the best RPGs I have played, and I would throw my money at anything else that was the same gameplay as those if anyone still made games like that.
The fact i didn't played The Witcher 2 doesn't meant that i didn't read the reviews or criticize of the game, don't say it's a hack n' slash just because i didn't played the game cos it isn't, i saw a lot of gameplay on youtube about the game (to evaluate if it's worth to have or not) and it doesn't ring a hack n' slash.
About @Bhallspawn comment, congratz, you searched for the most stupid argument in this thread made by a low IQ troll too stupid to argue so he state in simple sentences.
Ps: I agree that Baldur's Gate is the Best RPG game, i'm not trying to compare other games with him, but to say that's solely because of the game engine is nothing more than fallacy. If i have to raise a strong point in Baldur's Gate PC serie that differ it from other games, that would be the high amount of recrutable NPCs in BG and the individual personality of BG2.
It would be too restrictive on the Beamdog artists if Full-3D was put into use instead of the pseudo 3d/2d look.
If I was a artist, I would love full freedom that Full-3D can't provide in a DND game which NWN and NWN2 already proven, what they did was mostly bland and copy-paste everywhere.
Now I'm not too familiar with computer art in general that was done with BG to Icewind Dale, but what you all can Isometric that was used to construct these games to me feels like the artist had alot of freedom to work with what they want to envision.
Comments
I also played Diablo II, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate serie (of course), Vampire: Bloodlines and Redemption (this last one had one of the most awersome histories that i saw in 3D), Assassin's Creed serie, GTA serie, Elder Scroll Oblivion and Skyrim, Dead Island, Heroes of Might and Magic, among a lot of other games.
I had played thousands of JRPGs also, so i will not bother in expose a list here of them.
So, when i make my statements, i don't take them from nowhere. Don't try to bellite my arguments by accusing me of speak without knowledge dude, you can disagree or reply with more class than that.
I agree with what others here have said that BG's painted backgrounds and 2D isometric visual distance are somehow oddly more immersive. Although it obviously helps with immersion too that the story, characters, and game mechanics are so damn good.
But anyway, I just have never been able to get into 3D games in the same way as I do this one. I'd love to see the basic 2D style of the BG games rendered in HD. It's okay if it is stylized. But I would tend to stick with what has worked so well in Infinity and just make it better.
I don't want to see a single 3D model facial expression. To me this really is the most important single thing that is ruining the sense of immersion in 3D RPGs. Dumb facial reactions/expressions...
http://kusogedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/i-want-to-be-a-dragon.jpg
NEVER!
BG was never meant to be a game for the average person. No 3D game has ever managed to immerse me as well as BG2 did.
While these games are good 3D action RPGs, none of them are comparable to, and their 3D engines would be completely terrible for trying to recreate the same gameplay experience of BG.
Most fans of BG dont want BG3 to become a 3D hack and slash action combat based games. For those of you who want this, why do you continue to ignore the fact that its already been done?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate:_Dark_Alliance
While it appealed to a whole new generation of gamers, it didnt appeal to long term fans who wanted a new BG game with the exact same gameplay found in the original two games. 3D engines have never yet been able to recreate the same kind of RPG that BG1 + 2 were, and I have zero confidence that they ever will be able to.
The only 3D games i never played where The Witcher 2 and Morrowind. So you want to dischard all my knowledge about 3D RPGs cos i didn't played those 2? Should i laught now?
While i agree that BG is awersome, that isn't based on the 2D graphic, but in the awersome history, say that "BG is great, therefore 2D graphics are better" is a childish fallacy.
No one that want a 3D here is saying to reclycle an previous 3D engine, you're just raising that point to have something to argue as your statements lack of coherence and justifies as the same happen with your concept of hacking and slash.
I will start to take your opinion (or statements) more serious when you stop of presume inexistent justifies and reasons. Until now all i can see on your statements are half worked syllogisms mixed with fallacies to justify something that you don't even know. 3D is evolution because it drag the games to our reality view of the world, it will be in constant evolution.
When i see comments like your i can't help but think in someone saying to Bill Gates that Micro Computers shouldn't be created because we have typewriter.
Actually, never mind that. Instead, it might be interesting to note what Trent Oster said in an interview on Sorcerer's Place a day or two ago on the question of what type of game engine they would use for BG3 if it was ever made:
"...With a game like Baldur's Gate, there is no other title with the same challenges and as such, no engine is optimized around those criteria. Our approach is going to be from the ground up, making an engine and tool chain which is 100% dedicated to making the best isometric party based role playing game possible..."
http://www.sorcerers.net/Main/Articles/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-interview.php
Edit: Just realised that this is old news, but the interview is worth reading anyway.
The developers here wouldn't want BG3 to be any different to the first two games. The vast majority of the fans wouldn't want that either, no one but you would enjoy BG3 being made into a mass effect clone.
You state that you aren't saying you want BG3 to use a currently recycled engine, yet throughout this thread all you do is praise current engines that would be a complete failure for a true BG successor. The closest that any 3D engine has gotten to BG was DAO, and even that had many many flaws due to the 3D engine, especially with zooming, panning and being extremely frustrating and migraine inducing to control a full group of players in a open 3D engine.
There is no one out there that can recreate the same gameplay experience of BG1 + 2 in a 3D engine. So many have already promised it, and failed time and time again. If you are so confident that it can be done, then feel free to take up video game programming, make such a game and prove me wrong.
Also not one single game in 'todays standards' is anywhere near as good ad the standard set by BG. People are craving to get the same gameplay of the original series, not a 3D glorious graphics, yet rubbish action combat remake.
Gameplay > Graphics.
1) In games like Sacred 2 with an auto panning camera spinning over a 3D landscape, I get headaches and dizziness.
2) In games like NWN and DAO with a fully customizable camera, you couldn't zoom out enough to see as much of the map as BG allowed. Increasing resolution didn't help to increase the viewable field because everything scaled. You also couldn't move the camera around to any position of the map, it had to be centred and locked around your currently selected character only. All these things make playing full strategic party based combat severely frustrating, and none of the 3D engines so far for top down gameplay have been suitable for the same party based pause and play strategic gameplay of BG. I have zero confidence that BGs gameplay can ever be replicated in a 3D engine, people can surely try to as many already have, but it will always remain inferior. If Bioware couldn't ever do it right, I don't see hoe anyone else can.
So yes, I think it's possible to get both worlds.
1° - Now you're showing your true nature, when my comment bothered you, you resorted to bad manner and offenses, no problem for me, continue that way, comment's like that only depreciate your own opinion
2° - Again you presume too much, the devs, based on the interview granted in link here by @swnmcmlxi told the probable BG 3 would be isometric, not 2D.
3° - I never praised all 3D engine, i just pointed the obvious, that even a 6 year children could perceive:
3D is evolving at each passing time. ME serie engines by the way are very good, but in your fear of lose a counter-argument you gonna flame that awersome game, shame on you.
To resume:
You state that a 3D engines would spoil the game even before it creation. You have a nice farsight by the way dude!
You say that 2D is better because the gameplay is better on then... yet each time a good game in 3D engines is raised, you reject it. You despair in defend your point comes to a point that now you attack the quality of any 3D games raised as an argument here.
You even do wrost that that, you focus the discussion around some bad games in 3D engines and histories like DA2, or with some camera issues like DA:O, trying to resume the entire 3D experience to them ONLY to win a forum argument.
At every 2 posts, you repeat that a game in 3D would be a hack and slash game... from where you take this idea? NWN/NWN2, DA:O/2, The Witcher and many other games are 3D and not hack and slash games, no matter how bad the engine or history of those games are for you, that doesn't raise an inexistent fact in your favor.
Every time someone argue something you don't know well, you start to presume and add issues that weren't on that person post. You create from your mind flawed arguments that were not raised to have something to refute.
Want to know a nice title in isometric 3D? Dragon Quest 8. But you probally gonna dischard it because it's a JRPG, as if this fact take of the quality of the game.
To end:
Your arrogance mixed with your lack of reasons or coherence on arguments just make the issues that you raise laughable. The fact that you assign inexistent issues to other persons posts to have something to refute just reforce your lack of reason and piss people off more often.
Everyone has the right of be wrong, of make mistakes or not accurated statements, no one will comndem you on that unless you're arrogant or/and don't observe the basic of an argument, that is a base and logic/custom.
Ps: Gonna probably be flamed by this but i have to say. Dude, you're a walking syllogism mixed with fallacy.
I never said that all of these games are bad, but to me Mass Effect and DA2 were bad. The direction that Bioware took after BG2 was absolutely not the kind of games that I enjoy playing, other than DAO. The engines for these particular games however are not suited to top down ISO view and would not be true to the gameplay of BG1 + 2. I don't want BG3 to take the slightest bit of influence from any Bioware game released since NWN.
I have plenty of 3D RPGs to play already, I'm not interested in anymore, I don't need anymore. I want a new 2D ISO game that feels and plays identically to BG1 + 2.
As for your example of dragon quest 8, I wouldn't be interested in that because its not available on the PC, not because its a JRPG. I've played Final Fantasy 8 and Maple Story (Korean 2D mmo) because they are available on my PC. I do have a Nintendo 3DS, but again, the game you mentioned isn't on that platform, though Zelda OOT is amazing, its still not comparable to BG.
The only 3D RPGs on the PC that I have enjoyed playing were Morrowind and DAO. Yet neither were as good as BG2, and that's not based on nostalgia, its based on fact. My preference of BG1+2 is simply that they are hands down the best RPGs I have played, and I would throw my money at anything else that was the same gameplay as those if anyone still made games like that.
About @Bhallspawn comment, congratz, you searched for the most stupid argument in this thread made by a low IQ troll too stupid to argue so he state in simple sentences.
Ps: I agree that Baldur's Gate is the Best RPG game, i'm not trying to compare other games with him, but to say that's solely because of the game engine is nothing more than fallacy. If i have to raise a strong point in Baldur's Gate PC serie that differ it from other games, that would be the high amount of recrutable NPCs in BG and the individual personality of BG2.
If I was a artist, I would love full freedom that Full-3D can't provide in a DND game which NWN and NWN2 already proven, what they did was mostly bland and copy-paste everywhere.
Now I'm not too familiar with computer art in general that was done with BG to Icewind Dale, but what you all can Isometric that was used to construct these games to me feels like the artist had alot of freedom to work with what they want to envision.