Beamdog Interview with Chris Avellone

Buttercheese

Beamdog just published an interview with Chris Avellone on the Beamblog. (Attention, contains some massive spoilers for PST!)

One of the Questions/ Answers:

Beamdog: This is the second time you’ve worked Beamdog (Chris was a Narrative Consultant on Siege of Dragonspear). Would you be interested in collaborating with Beamdog again in the future?

Chris Avellone: Of course. And have! Secrets!

Mean. This is so mean. Teasing us like this.
What is this secret project???

taclane

Buttercheese said:

Mean. This is so mean. Teasing us like this.
What is this secret project???

Obviously, it is a Prog-rock cRPG set in outer space.

[I choose to harness the powers of the Planescape setting and let my beliefs shape reality.]

deltago

Does this mean that Avellone is part of the Beamdog team or is Beamdog just outsourcing?

Kamigoroshi

Planescape: Secret a.k.a PSS. A game shrouded in mysteries where everything is unknown, including INCOGNITO (the player's character). Not even its items will yield to the Indentify spell, making their description an eternal enigma.

Buttercheese

@deltago Well, Avellone has been freelancing a lot since he has left Obsidian, has he not?
I don't think he's gonna become a fixed member of any team any time soon.

Loox

What is the purpose of the secrecy? It's just a video game, not national security.

... that's not a rhetorical question, btw

Kenji

"If Icewind Dale is a brother or sister to the Baldur's Gate games in terms of code and gameplay differences, Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment are more like third cousins. You can see the lineage, but the changes are deep," - An old interview prior to the announcement of PST:EE

Since we're having PS:T EE, IWD2:EE doesn't seem so far fetched. My hopes and dreams are lit, again.

IWD2:EE could be next on the list!

Queegon

@Kenji Don't forget about the possibility of bringing back Arcanum from the same can. Or is that not a possibility?

Buttercheese

If they bother bringing in veteran writers of the scene I highly doubt they would just do so for some Enhanced Edition.
This one has the sweet smell of a fully fledged sequel/ all new IP all over it.

smeagolheart

Kenji said:

"If Icewind Dale is a brother or sister to the Baldur's Gate games in terms of code and gameplay differences, Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment are more like third cousins. You can see the lineage, but the changes are deep," - An old interview prior to the announcement of PST:EE

Since we're having PS:T EE, IWD2:EE doesn't seem so far fetched. My hopes and dreams are lit, again.

IWD2:EE could be next on the list!

might as well, they've got the rest of the games covered.

I've never played iwd2, I remember it being buggy and crashy and the 3E rules being poorly implemented. I loved 3E in NWN, but IWD2 just didn't work to me.

bob_veng

nice interview

what PS:TEE needs now are mods

1. avellone: "combat in PST was something of an afterthought"
- a version of SCS can completely revamp combat because it's foundations are ok (it's just way too easy)

2. avellone: "the Buried Village, ... we didn’t have time to flesh it out in as much detail as we wanted. "
- a mod can improve this area

3. avellone: "we would have loved to include more plane-travelling in general"
- yeah, that's what mods are for: literally anything can be created, the freedom is unlimited

4. avellone: The factions (forgive me) were one of the things I didn’t like about Planescape because none of them really seemed to “fit” me
- shouldn't be too hard to make more factions joinable (right?)

+ unfinished business can be updated

Kenji

smeagolheart said:

might as well, they've got the rest of the games covered.

I've never played iwd2, I remember it being buggy and crashy and the 3E rules being poorly implemented. I loved 3E in NWN, but IWD2 just didn't work to me.

Truthfully, Icewind Dale II was poorly optimized. The linear storyline and its hack n' slash gameplay as well as the narrative not centering on a certain protagonist can be reasons why some didn't (or did) find IWD2 appealing.

In its defense, Josh Sawyer, the lead director of IWD2, in an interview (and another) stated that the game only had a development period of 10 months. The poor implementation of the 3E rules is more unfinished than the devs intended it to be.

There existed terrible frame rate drops in multiple instances (Horde fortress underground and The Guardian in the jungle of Chult for example). I can't blame people for not putting up with bad/incomplete gaming experience. Even then, I still enjoyed a different IE engine where my mage can wield a sword, where dwarves can become mages, and where Aasimars can be evil sorcerers who denied their divine heritage and are hellbent on gaining nothing but power. The horizon for character creation was expanded! Not to mention the story IWD2 tells is more sympathetic towards villains and questions the fine line that supposedly divide good and evil.

I've always wanted to turn my back on the Ten Towns and join the Legion of Chimera on its conquest. It would have made one hell of a twist on plots. All heil Auril, the true Goddess of the North!

If IWD2:EE were to come out and we get a forum subsection for it, I'll be living in that forum for the remainder of my forum ninja life.

Queegon

I'd just ask them to re-paint or re-do the characters' animated avatars on the UI for the higher resolutions. (Yes, would mean from scratch since they don't have the source code). And make it toggleable so there are no butts hurt in the end.
Same goes for characters' mugshots on the stat screen. Everything looks so sharp and crisp except that one picture right there in the middle.

Here's hoping for a mod, if not

megamike15

number 3 is more more another game. really if we take into acount motb we only really seen like 4 areas of planescape.