Actually Alexa shows that tvtropes.org has gone down from ~2800 in the global website visitor ranking to ~3200 over the past 4 months, not sure why exactly but they have lost a number of monthly visitors recently. I would guess cord-cutters maybe? Big compared to beamdog.com at ~61000 global. Still though, it is fairly far down compared to ign.com which is at 380th global right now. That is a site where SoD could use some love.
It's a dying website that once was popular and covered everything that users could think of to cover. Now, it's a relic of the times when people didn't just get on Steam & discuss games in the Steam forums.
Wouldn't it be more honest to say "it's a website that I have no interest in and therefore is irrelevant to me"? The site is still frequented and read by a goodly number of people. Not you, sure, but that's not to say not anyone.
You misquoted, and no. It wouldn't be more accurate. Forums and sites like TVTropes are dying. It's a fact. Game forums like Beamdog being fairly active don't mean it isn't so. You can thank social media for that. Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing. Progress must happen, whether we like it or not.
Whether TVTropes is "dying" or not, based on whatever parameters you're using, is completely beside the point. The fact of the matter is that new games are still being analyzed, dissected and written up, and SoD's entries are sparse at best. That suggests a problem that has nothing at all to do with the site's popularity or lack thereof.
For Beamdog and the powers that be? What was their goal? Did they produce SoD with the goal of promoting regime change in Bhutan? In which case, yes it's been a big fat failure.
Or did they produce SoD with the sole purpose of making me happy? In which case the game was a big success!
Or maybe they had other priorities - maybe something to do with units sold, or doing something they wanted to, or as a springboard to something else, or to win a wager? In which case I have no idea.
Selfishly though, I've never been to Bhutan and I don't have shares in Beamdog. But I do like playing the BG series, and I did enjoy Siege of Dragonspear.
Siege of Dragonspear has showed that a BG game, even using a 15+ years engine, immediately gets a lot of attention. It has showed that people still care for BG, that people still play it and still discuss its characters.
While evaluating the success of SoD, I would look at official reviews and players' views expressed on the game's major forum, i.e. these boards.
The majority of official reviews say that SoD managed to capture the old BG feeling, that it feels like a BG game. I'm sure there can't be a better evaluation.
Also, official reviews mention that SoD party NPCs are well-written.
Players' views are diverse, but I dare say that most BG fans liked SoD as a BG game, liked an opportunity to play something new in a BG line.
And one more thing. SoD brought new modding tools, which reinvigorated the modding interest in BG. The work on the UI still continues, but it's already apparent that with the new tools people can create things previosly not available at all, like a portrait picker or a text adventure ala 1980-90th RPGs.
BG was always about mods. Mods kept BG community alive for all these years. And Beamdog's work on SoD (which was ported to BGEE and BG2EE) made possible new ways of modding BG overall. Thus, the BG community will live for another 10+ years. In my personal view, it makes SoD a success.
@SirBatince: My feelings exactly. The new UI has a sense of being something new just for the sake of it. Mind you, I don't dislike it, but when I try to list all the things that are significantly better than in 1.3, I come up with... nothing. Conversely, when I think of things that are significantly worse than in 1.3, the two obvious things are the journal and the black areas around the maps. Both are friggin' awful.
My personal sense is that SoD was a clear success: a very good adventure that kept me going until the end and didn't disappoint. But whether it was a success for the developers, I don't know (and would like to).
I think the problem is, that the target group for this game is tiny. SoD is a game for die-hard BG fans. It barely appeals to newcomers to the series and BG1 itself is really not beginner-friendly.
Well, aside from that, I noticed that over at Tumblr the BG fandom has "significantly" grown since SoD became a thing. (Read as: We are not just five people anymore, maybe like twenty active participants now and a lot of lurkers, from what I can tell.)
Siege of Dragonspear? Nothing. Bubkiss. Er, bubkis, though I get the impression there's more on the net about Bub Snikt getting a theoretical smooch than there is about the actual game of Siege of Dragonspear. DeviantArt's gotta have something, I'm sure.
I think the problem is, that the target group for this game is tiny.
It is worth noting that "tiny" here is defined as 500,000+ sales on Steam (last I'd heard), an unknown amount of sales on GOG, and an unknown amount of sales from Beamdog itself. Very few games with a "narrow target audience" accomplish such a feat. Just putting things into perspective.
I must admit that I was very surprised when Beamdog chose to release a new game (albeit an expansion) together with a new version of the game mechanics as one package. Risk analysis states quite clearly that the two should have been released separately because there will always be problems with a new game, just as there will always be problems with a new system. Rather, common business sense says; release one, fix the bugs, then release the other and fix those bugs - don't allow the shortfalls of one to tarnish the reputation of the other. I am by the way speaking as someone who worked for many years in New Product Development for a multi-national company.
I don’t think that it failed. Not at all. I do think that there were some choices made that have contributed to it getting off to a somewhat slower start with fans than it might have.
I think that hitting the established player base with so many drastic changes, all at the same time, along with some unfortunate comments made in an interview, didn't help with the initial acceptance of the expansion. But in the end, I think that all the work that they put into it will pay off.
Once the dust settles and the game is fully patched, I think the expansion will receive more positive attention and appreciation.
I don't have any numbers but I don't see how the GG controversy couldn't have hurt. I couldn't disagree more with @Ravenslight that this was the result of unfortunate comments during an interview. I saw nothing wrong with comments themselves and if you weren't looking to be offended you weren't. Also, bullies bear full responsibility for their actions.
After that the controversy became the thing to talk about and the talk about the game itself was lost.
I do agree that Beamdog should have avoided changing the engine while added new content. ( I just want content dammit! ) And I maintain that Beamdog would have been better to stand up to the bully than to make concessions.
The good news that Greenwood is back in the saddle at WOTC and he is anything but transphobic so knowing that the reactionaries hated the game probably *helped* Beamdog secure the rights to future games.
I disagree that GG and the terrible transphobic attitudes that some people hold were the only contributing factors in the storm that ensued.
Unfortunately, whenever I have seen someone try to bring up the fact that they were personally put off for reasons not connected to those things, they are immediately flooded by a wave of “it was all the fault of the GG and transphobic people.” Any other point that they were trying to make just gets lost in another storm.
The barbaric attitudes of some GG members and transphobic individuals certainly fueled the storm, but they were not the only reasons people were upset.
I disagree that GG and the terrible transphobic attitudes that some people hold were the only contributing factors in the storm that ensued.
And I disagree with your disagreement, since there was absolutely no reaction to any interviews when they first were made - it was only once there was controversy that retroactively the interviews became hot topics (often with a clear ignorance as to when they were made, and who was in charge of what).
But this discussion is very much irrelevant to this thread.
In a relevant point to this thread, it's hard to gauge how niche SoD is and thus what really constituted "success", but the sheer age of the BG games and the fact a significant portion of the BG fanbase didn't embrace the EEs and instead stuck with the old versions would lead me to guess it's pretty niche indeed.
I would note that you have shifted from the criticizing the comments made in an interview to criticizing the game. Which is fine but it's a different point.
Of course there are things to criticize about the game -- heck, I'll repeat what I've said before. 1. The game is overly linear 2. You had information -- such as the conversation between the hooded man and hephernan (sp?) that had no impact upon future dialogues 3. It was mistake to bundle the engine changes with new content. 4. The UI is fugly.
But those things have nothing to do with the statements in the interview. I'll paraphrase those: Jaheria and Safana got personality upgrades (true) and BG1 Jaheria was sexist stereotype (duh). I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize the game, neither am I suggesting your attitudes are anything but enlightened only that by placing blame (in part) on the interview statements you blame the victim.
Separate your critique of the game from your critique of the interview I suspect we will agree entirely @Ravenslight.
@Ayiekie I think that they brought more attention to the interview than it might have otherwise gotten. I’m not sure how many were even aware of it before that. I know that in my case, it was only after the storm was going strong that I tried to find out what in the world everyone was so upset about. I was not aware of it before that point.
None the less, my point is that there were people upset about some statements that had nothing to do with the barbaric attitudes of the haters.
@killerrabbit I’m not sure what your referring to. Nothing in my last statement criticized the game itself. Not that I don’t have some criticisms, I am for instance not happy with the current UI, but I said nothing of the kind in my last post.
@killerrabbit said: I'll paraphrase those: Jaheria and Safana got personality upgrades (true) and BG1 Jaheria was sexist stereotype (duh).
As far as the contents of the interview, you have every right to agree with all the statements that it contained. But it is not fair to expect everyone to feel the same. The fact is that there were people who disagreed with those statements, and were upset by them.
Another thread could be started where it could be endlessly argued whether those statements were true, but that has nothing to do with the point that I was trying to make.
In answer to the question of whether or not SoD failed, I was stating that I do not believe that it did. Only that there were factors that I personally believe contributed to it not being immediately as well received as it might have been.
The issues with the story has been addressed, and everything has cooled down after that incident, but I believe the reason why Baldur's Gate SOD failed is because of the lack of purchasing choices, and due to the amount of bugs which is currently being worked on. I'm going to be honest. I was not happy you could not get SoD through Amazon or through physical stores here in the USA. Maybe I'm a dying breed, and I need to make way for the Digital Sorcerers that cloudkill anybody that dares question their immortality called Digital (When I know digital copies can go away in a blink of a eye if GoG or Steam were to disappear one day). Add insult to injury that the discs I got does not even have patch support. I feel like I'm being punished for wanting the disc versions. The only nice thing about those physicals are I got..were the posters I guess. I know I've been rambling on about it in couple of related threads, I just feel like I got burnt for it. I really don't like these contractors that BeamDog is working with. They caused more damage than I ever seen with a company. ====================================================================
I was not happy you could not get SoD through Amazon or through physical stores here in the USA. Maybe I'm a dying breed, and I need to make way for the Digital Sorcerers that cloudkill anybody that dares question their immortality called Digital (When I know digital copies can go away in a blink of a eye if GoG or Steam were to disappear one day).
If you're worried about permanence, you could buy it DRM-free directly from Beamdog and put it on a DVD.
Story-wise, Beamdog's goal was to bridge the gap between BG1 and BG2, which they did. Business-wise, Beamdog's goal was to persuade Wizards of the Coast to greenlight a new game in the BG universe, which they appear to have done. SoD may not have topped best-seller charts or dominated Internet debate since its release, but it does seem to me that SoD worked as intended and accomplished what Beamdog set out to do.
I think it did well. In my future playthroughs (BGEE + BG2EE), I will import my chars into SoD and play it, even though I could have easily skipped it.
I had fun with the game and it exceeded my expectations, especially considering some of the bad reviews and the fact that I didn't care much for the additional content in the EE games.
That said, yes, the controversy definitely overshadowed everything else in the game. The game has been out for a couple months and you can't even find basic things like exp/thac0 tables for the shaman.
I had fun with the game and it exceeded my expectations, especially considering some of the bad reviews and the fact that I didn't care much for the additional content in the EE games.
That said, yes, the controversy definitely overshadowed everything else in the game. The game has been out for a couple months and you can't even find basic things like exp/thac0 tables for the shaman.
BG2 is 15 years older, and has about twice as long tvtropes page. If you measure success or failure in tvtropes content, then i wouldn't say it is a failure.
you really should not use tv tropes as a measure if something is sucessful or not. sod just did not have that much to add to it's page. and saying tv tropes is dead is silly as there is so much e3 stuff being added that it's amazing. if anything it's the forum thats dead and no one uses that.
Wow, I haven't seen a discussion this pointless in a long while. You guys realize that the definition of "success" is entirely subjective right?
Success can mean that the game made it's money back. Success can mean that the fans are happy with the result. Success can mean that the devs are happy with the result. Success can mean that the game opened new doors for the devs. Success can mean that "everyone" is talking about the game.
Feel free to endlessly continue that list.
Depending on how you look at it, SoD is both a success and a faillure. Or neither.
For me it's a success because I had - and will have - tons of fun with it and it breathed some much needed live into this dusty old fandom and because we know that Beamdog are going to continue making games.
Comments
tvtropes does have an SoD page as well.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BaldursGateSiegeOfDragonspear
For Beamdog and the powers that be? What was their goal? Did they produce SoD with the goal of promoting regime change in Bhutan? In which case, yes it's been a big fat failure.
Or did they produce SoD with the sole purpose of making me happy? In which case the game was a big success!
Or maybe they had other priorities - maybe something to do with units sold, or doing something they wanted to, or as a springboard to something else, or to win a wager? In which case I have no idea.
Selfishly though, I've never been to Bhutan and I don't have shares in Beamdog. But I do like playing the BG series, and I did enjoy Siege of Dragonspear.
So my personal answer. No
While evaluating the success of SoD, I would look at official reviews and players' views expressed on the game's major forum, i.e. these boards.
The majority of official reviews say that SoD managed to capture the old BG feeling, that it feels like a BG game. I'm sure there can't be a better evaluation.
Also, official reviews mention that SoD party NPCs are well-written.
Players' views are diverse, but I dare say that most BG fans liked SoD as a BG game, liked an opportunity to play something new in a BG line.
And one more thing. SoD brought new modding tools, which reinvigorated the modding interest in BG. The work on the UI still continues, but it's already apparent that with the new tools people can create things previosly not available at all, like a portrait picker or a text adventure ala 1980-90th RPGs.
BG was always about mods. Mods kept BG community alive for all these years. And Beamdog's work on SoD (which was ported to BGEE and BG2EE) made possible new ways of modding BG overall. Thus, the BG community will live for another 10+ years. In my personal view, it makes SoD a success.
all the drama though? Could care less. I'm here for videogames.
My personal sense is that SoD was a clear success: a very good adventure that kept me going until the end and didn't disappoint. But whether it was a success for the developers, I don't know (and would like to).
SoD is a game for die-hard BG fans. It barely appeals to newcomers to the series and BG1 itself is really not beginner-friendly.
Well, aside from that, I noticed that over at Tumblr the BG fandom has "significantly" grown since SoD became a thing. (Read as: We are not just five people anymore, maybe like twenty active participants now and a lot of lurkers, from what I can tell.)
[spoiler] Is that a challenge, or ...?[/spoiler]
I am by the way speaking as someone who worked for many years in New Product Development for a multi-national company.
I think that hitting the established player base with so many drastic changes, all at the same time, along with some unfortunate comments made in an interview, didn't help with the initial acceptance of the expansion. But in the end, I think that all the work that they put into it will pay off.
Once the dust settles and the game is fully patched, I think the expansion will receive more positive attention and appreciation.
After that the controversy became the thing to talk about and the talk about the game itself was lost.
I do agree that Beamdog should have avoided changing the engine while added new content. ( I just want content dammit! ) And I maintain that Beamdog would have been better to stand up to the bully than to make concessions.
The good news that Greenwood is back in the saddle at WOTC and he is anything but transphobic so knowing that the reactionaries hated the game probably *helped* Beamdog secure the rights to future games.
Unfortunately, whenever I have seen someone try to bring up the fact that they were personally put off for reasons not connected to those things, they are immediately flooded by a wave of “it was all the fault of the GG and transphobic people.” Any other point that they were trying to make just gets lost in another storm.
The barbaric attitudes of some GG members and transphobic individuals certainly fueled the storm, but they were not the only reasons people were upset.
But this discussion is very much irrelevant to this thread.
In a relevant point to this thread, it's hard to gauge how niche SoD is and thus what really constituted "success", but the sheer age of the BG games and the fact a significant portion of the BG fanbase didn't embrace the EEs and instead stuck with the old versions would lead me to guess it's pretty niche indeed.
Of course there are things to criticize about the game -- heck, I'll repeat what I've said before. 1. The game is overly linear 2. You had information -- such as the conversation between the hooded man and hephernan (sp?) that had no impact upon future dialogues 3. It was mistake to bundle the engine changes with new content. 4. The UI is fugly.
But those things have nothing to do with the statements in the interview. I'll paraphrase those: Jaheria and Safana got personality upgrades (true) and BG1 Jaheria was sexist stereotype (duh). I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize the game, neither am I suggesting your attitudes are anything but enlightened only that by placing blame (in part) on the interview statements you blame the victim.
Separate your critique of the game from your critique of the interview I suspect we will agree entirely @Ravenslight.
I think that they brought more attention to the interview than it might have otherwise gotten. I’m not sure how many were even aware of it before that. I know that in my case, it was only after the storm was going strong that I tried to find out what in the world everyone was so upset about. I was not aware of it before that point.
None the less, my point is that there were people upset about some statements that had nothing to do with the barbaric attitudes of the haters.
@killerrabbit
I’m not sure what your referring to. Nothing in my last statement criticized the game itself. Not that I don’t have some criticisms, I am for instance not happy with the current UI, but I said nothing of the kind in my last post.
@killerrabbit said:
I'll paraphrase those: Jaheria and Safana got personality upgrades (true) and BG1 Jaheria was sexist stereotype (duh).
As far as the contents of the interview, you have every right to agree with all the statements that it contained. But it is not fair to expect everyone to feel the same. The fact is that there were people who disagreed with those statements, and were upset by them.
Another thread could be started where it could be endlessly argued whether those statements were true, but that has nothing to do with the point that I was trying to make.
In answer to the question of whether or not SoD failed, I was stating that I do not believe that it did. Only that there were factors that I personally believe contributed to it not being immediately as well received as it might have been.
====================================================================
The game has been out less than 3 months. I see no reason to think that it has 'failed'.
Remember Cyric? Anything goes "Ha I expected you to say as such". Boring.
Felt the same in sod
That said, yes, the controversy definitely overshadowed everything else in the game. The game has been out for a couple months and you can't even find basic things like exp/thac0 tables for the shaman.
You guys realize that the definition of "success" is entirely subjective right?
Success can mean that the game made it's money back.
Success can mean that the fans are happy with the result.
Success can mean that the devs are happy with the result.
Success can mean that the game opened new doors for the devs.
Success can mean that "everyone" is talking about the game.
Feel free to endlessly continue that list.
Depending on how you look at it, SoD is both a success and a faillure. Or neither.
For me it's a success because I had - and will have - tons of fun with it and it breathed some much needed live into this dusty old fandom and because we know that Beamdog are going to continue making games.
And that is all I ever asked for.
BGEE: 522,751 ± 17,797 owners
BG2EE: 329,899 ± 14,142 owners
IWDEE: 86,966 ± 7,264 owners
those don't include Beamdog, GOG, Mac App Store, Google Play, and iTunes App Store sales.