Please Trent & Co: do Enhanced Editions of ALL the Infinity Engine games!

phillon1982

Please Beamdog and Overhaul games, I am begging you: do enhanced editions of all the Infinity Engine games, not just the BG series! I mean...to have Torment and the Icewind Dale games touched up and redone with correct interface scaling as well as hardware acceleration (especially for Torment and Icewind Dale 2) would be a dream come true! Not only that, but doing an enhanced edition of Torment, you could consult with Chris Avellone about finishing up some quests and content that they never got around to (I am certain he would be thrilled by this)...man that would be a dream come true for me and I imagine for so many other fans of this cult classic. The same for Icewind Dale series, I am sure Josh and crew would be more than happy to give a little time to assist in polishing these gems for an enhanced edition (I love the Icewind Dale series). I will keep spamming these boards every month or so in the hopes that Trent or someone else from BD/OG sees this (going to mail Beamdog/Overhaul games about it as well)! This project to release enhanced editions of the Infinity Engine games is like a dream come true to me, please do all of them for they are all masterpieces to me! And also: thank you so much for making this happen Trent & Co.

One final thing: please do consider releasing these enhanced editions on GOG as well; they are such awesome guys and many gamers (especially the old school ones) that dislike intrusive DRM aspects will greatly appreciate such a gesture. Again, thank you for what you are doing.

Regards,
phillon

HauntingSiren

I personally would love if they did the Icewind Dale games. They were my go to games if I had nothing else! Even after playing BG, I would go to IWD and just love my party there. But in all honesty the amount of times I've played IWD. I am thoroughly looking forward to playing BG with my soon to be amazing Fighter/Cleric!

ginger_hammer

I think it comes down to licensing from the relevant parties, but I totally agree with your sentiment.

bigdogchris

ginger_hammer said:

I think it comes down to licensing from the relevant parties, but I totally agree with your sentiment.

It's not just that, they also look at how well they expect the game to sell and how much work is involved, because profit is the goal and without profit you don't have a business. BG is the most popular of the Infinity engine games, so BG:EE should sell well, as BD expects to make a return on it. IWD:EE could happen because it's very similar to BG (could use BG:EE engine). I would say it's likely to happen, by either BD or modders. Torment:EE on the other hand is probably near 0% likeliness to happen, and IDW2:EE I would say is 0% likely to happen.

Torment, more specifically IWD 2, are quite different than BG1,2, and IWD1. These two would require a lot of work to make happen, possibly as much work as BG:EE has taken (18 months). You then estimate how many copies would sell, and since it was originally questionable as to whether BG:EE would even sell well, I think it's safe to say IWD2 or Torment will not happen, as neither were anywhere close to popularity as BG.

From the start of BG:EE to the finish for BG2:EE, plus finishing all promised post-ship features, you're looking at 3-4 years. I don't think they are going to want to start another overhaul project and will instead want to focus on a totally new game, BG3!

salieri

I believe I read somewhere that their intention WAS to tackle Torment at some stage.

Aedan

Don't forget The Temple of Elemental Evil. An enhanced edition would make justice to this nice game.

DJKajuru

Well, you can always have modders out there to help...

stygga

I never could get into IWD... Not having named NPCs displayed when I scrolled over them was a killer. I didn't know where half the major npcs were.. I got tired of talking to every single "commoner" by the time I got to the area with the big tree..

Kaxon

No thanks. I would much much rather see them work on BG3 than updating IWD.

triclops41

I think I would like to see Overhaul move to BG3 after BG2, and have another dev team working on IWD/PST updates. It's a pipe dream, but t'would be awesome.

BelgarathMTH

I think that BG3 would be the "holy grail", an enormously daunting ultimate effort.

I, myself, would rather see all of the currently existing IE games be "enhanced", and to see clear market success for such "golden age" rpg's being sold, before there is any attempt to produce a "BG3".

If the sufficient market for "enhanced" IE games is not existent, then there is no market for new "golden age", "turn-based", "difficult/challenging" rpg's, and true rpg's are indeed dead.

We need to support any and all efforts to "reproduce" any "golden age" rpg whatsoever, if we ever want there to be a "platinum" age of rpg's that sees the light of day.

Eudaemonium

I'll love to see an update to PS:T, because it's probably my favourite game of all time. I believe I read here that they atually have the original assets for that one (unlike BG/2), so a true HD remake is possible. If possible, I'd also like them to re-jig the engine to have a party of 8: the party of six seemed so stupid when there were only 8 characters total.

I intend to support any new IE updates Overhaul produce, though. Hence why I'm buying BG:EE twice.

shawne

bigdogchris said:

Torment, more specifically IWD 2, are quite different than BG1,2, and IWD1. These two would require a lot of work to make happen, possibly as much work as BG:EE has taken (18 months).

Not necessarily - don't forget that the original assets for BG were lost, hence the lengthy development process. Meanwhile, Trent Oster hinted a while back that Beamdog has already acquired some or all of PS:T's source code, which could certainly speed things up a bit.

bigdogchris said:

You then estimate how many copies would sell, and since it was originally questionable as to whether BG:EE would even sell well, I think it's safe to say IWD2 or Torment will not happen, as neither were anywhere close to popularity as BG.

Oh my, I disagree here. PS:T's reputation is on par with, if not greater than, BG's - any "Best RPGs" list that includes the latter tends to include the former in close proximity, it's the sixth-bestselling game at GOG (just under BG), and practically every gaming website and magazine has devoted the occasional retrospective to it. Purely in terms of name recognition, enhancing PS:T after BG2 would probably be the best marketing strategy (Icewind Dale just doesn't have the same iconic status).

phillon1982

Well, I emailed Beamdog yesterday mostly what I wrote in this forum post and asked them to forward the email to Trent. To my surprise I actually got a reply back from mister Trent himself saying that they are definitely interested in doing IWD and Torment (and yes Trent did mention a while ago that they do have access to the source of Torment), but that they just need to convince all other parties involved. So here is to hoping (and thanks for replying to me directly Trent)!

Torment is simply a masterpiece (nothing more needs to be said) begging for a nice enhanced edition. IWD, many people dislike because of no companions, but I find it refreshing and actually love using my imagination for my parties personas (which is more akin to true roleplaying imho anyway). And I love being able to create my own party from scratch, not having to be forced to take certain companions just because of their stats/roles. At the same time though I love BG/BG2 for the exact opposite. In short: IWD series and BG series complement each other perfectly. BG focuses more on companions and story with medium level combat whereas IWD is really a paradise of min/max awesomeness focusing on adventuring/combat and it does a damn good job at it. For me, IWD also has the most beautiful and exotic locations/areas in any IE game. The atmosphere in IWD games is also exceptionally well done in my opinion.

I also think that sales for Torment and IWD will be decent given the amount of exposure these games have received over the years (especially on places like GOG) and also due to the BG series (people pick up BG and ask "are there other games like this" and go searching...to find IWD and Torment and potentially becoming fans of all IE games, not just BG).

Either way, here is to hoping we get both BG3 and all infinity engine games as enhanced editions! With that and PE on the way...well let's just say I think I would be in heaven.

Regards,
Phillon

bigdogchris

If it's true the Torments original art is still available then that may give them a greater incentive to Enhance it, as they would want to see what they can do with it, because they missed out with BG.

Having access to the source is crucial, they have BG source, just not the art.

mlnevese

I will buy any EE that comes out, even if I never liked IWD that much.