Should Neverwinter Nights 2 not been called what it's called? It's story really has nothing to do with the first game. Even the city is completely different. The gameplay between the two games, including how you control your party and the UI, are very different. .
Except that both are based on D&D. The PS2 games with Baldu's Gate name has no respect with DnD ruleset.
The greatest problem of NWN2 IMO is that they nerfed a lot of classes and spells compared to pnp. Warlock is unplayable without an mod to fix the class.
@JuliusBorisov Yeah no. BG 1 and 2 were about Gorion's Ward. Not about the city, and certainly not about Bhaal. Bhaal was just a faceless antagonist and wasn't even a character. With the game being marketed as "BG3", that carries the expectation of continuing the story. Except the BG story is already finished.
You seem to be essentially saying that a BG3 is impossible then. What gives with this kind of outlook?
It's not one that's going to facilitate making the kinds of games people on this forum want to see. So what if a BG3 departs from Gorion's Ward or even Bhaal?
There's nothing wrong, imo, with a small studio like Larian using the BG name in order to simply make a different Forgotten Realms set game. I understand people like to cynically talk about "cash grab" or whatever in this context but that's short-sighted. Yes, using the BG name will guarantee more sales than simply launching a DnD title. But so what? That's how good RPG's get the funding necessary to actually create a quality product.
@kanisatha Pretty sure the huge chasm is because the game is a buggy mess with pretty big camera issues. Either way I don't think many people were against it being called Neverwinter Nights 2 for the reason that it changes the series to do stuff like controlling your party (or any like gameplay stuff that makes it different).
Should Neverwinter Nights 2 not been called what it's called? It's story really has nothing to do with the first game. Even the city is completely different. The gameplay between the two games, including how you control your party and the UI, are very different. .
Except that both are based on D&D. The PS2 games with Baldu's Gate name has no respect with DnD ruleset.
The greatest problem of NWN2 IMO is that they nerfed a lot of classes and spells compared to pnp. Warlock is unplayable without an mod to fix the class.
The whole ruleset of DnD is based around turn based combat. Baldur's Gate took a lot of liberties when it comes to how things worked in pen and paper compared to it (spells, classes, kits, etc). So to oppose a game based on the ruleset is walking a fine line. I've seen plenty of people on the forums here over the years arguing that Baldur's Gate should have been more like PnP and also should have been turn based. Is adherance to the ruleset really what's important or is it if the gameplay is fun, the writing is good, the music is good, etc?
What you've outlined are not (at least in my view) the greatest problems with Neverwinter Nights 2.
I'm apparently one of the few who enjoyed NWN2. The sheer amount of character class options is even more than BG2. The 40 level and 4 class cap made it very intruiging. Storm of Zehir even allowed for party creation which was awesome!
I'm apparently one of the few who enjoyed NWN2. The sheer amount of character class options is even more than BG2. The 40 level and 4 class cap made it very intruiging. Storm of Zehir even allowed for party creation which was awesome!
Ditto. I personally found NwN2 to be a far greater singleplayer experience than NwN1. Which, to be perfectly honest, felt more akin to a tech demo for its multiplayer functionality.
But I digress. Am I the only one who sees the chances of BG3 having native Linux support on day one to be rather slim? That one twitter post mentioned Stadia and PC master race for one. Not to mention the only previous title of Larian that did offer native Linux support was D:OS: EE. I still have no clue as to why Linux support was dropped hard for its sequel...
@JuliusBorisov Yeah no. BG 1 and 2 were about Gorion's Ward. Not about the city, and certainly not about Bhaal. Bhaal was just a faceless antagonist and wasn't even a character. With the game being marketed as "BG3", that carries the expectation of continuing the story. Except the BG story is already finished.
You seem to be essentially saying that a BG3 is impossible then. What gives with this kind of outlook?
It's not one that's going to facilitate making the kinds of games people on this forum want to see. So what if a BG3 departs from Gorion's Ward or even Bhaal?
There's nothing wrong, imo, with a small studio like Larian using the BG name in order to simply make a different Forgotten Realms set game. I understand people like to cynically talk about "cash grab" or whatever in this context but that's short-sighted. Yes, using the BG name will guarantee more sales than simply launching a DnD title. But so what? That's how good RPG's get the funding necessary to actually create a quality product.
I've outlined my reasons in my previous post. Whatever "BG3" is, its not going to be a true BG3. The story can't really be continued as is, and putting the big "3" in the title is literally saying that this game is supposed to be a direct continuation of the last 2. Remove the 3, and name "Baldur's Gate: Insert subtitle here", and like 90% of my anger over this will just go away.
I mean seriously, can you imagine seeing, "The Lord of the Rings 2" announced?
Not really my kind of game, and they obviously were really ARPG's, but they got decent reviews at the time. So I don't think its that big of a deal that another game use the title. Even if it has a 3 at the end.
@elminster
Honestly, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only or very few on the forum who will say they did enjoy dark alliance. I never played the second one, my only real annoyance was the fact o had to be a freaking elf to be the magic user -_-
Not really my kind of game, and they obviously were really ARPG's, but they got decent reviews at the time. So I don't think its that big of a deal that another game use the title. Even if it has a 3 at the end.
And how do you think it would have gone over if they called Dark Alliance "BG3?"
Wasn't there suppose to be a dark alliance 3, I remember hearing something about it being cancelled.
But that's just not how the BG sequels work. They (SoD, SoA, TOB) are direct continuations of the story and mechanics. There is already a sequence there, if you will. If they add a new entry to the sequence but it doesn't follow the established pattern, people will say it doesn't belong in the sequence.
Ehh. People are going to complain if you just call it "Baldur's Gate" and say it isn't a true "Baldur's Gate" game if they feel it doesn't live up to their expectations. I'm not really seeing why a company taking the risks of even putting that name "Baldur's Gate" down on a full fledged game wouldn't call it Baldur's Gate 3. Especially if its more in line with how the BG series (excluding the Dark Alliance games) has handled things. You are already taking the risks. Putting that 3 down just drives even more interest in the game. If the game doesn't live up to people's expectations they are going to hear about it plenty either way.
I've outlined my reasons in my previous post. Whatever "BG3" is, its not going to be a true BG3. The story can't really be continued as is, and putting the big "3" in the title is literally saying that this game is supposed to be a direct continuation of the last 2. Remove the 3, and name "Baldur's Gate: Insert subtitle here", and like 90% of my anger over this will just go away.
I mean seriously, can you imagine seeing, "The Lord of the Rings 2" announced?
I still think this is focusing entirely on things that don't truly matter.
First off, there's a bunch of creative ways to make the plot tied to the original series without making it a tightly adherent sequel. In fact, if I had to guess, this is the fine line Larian is likely compelled to walk when drafting the sequel.
Again, this is important. In the REAL world, where you have to pay talented people decent wages to do all the labor that's required to make games, it's best to have a title that a studio can project will sell. Get cranky all you want about how it's not being made PRECISELY how you want, but I think that's just counter-productive petulance. The better a title is projected to sell, generally speaking, the more a studio can invest in it. And this is not EA or some obnoxious AAA studio doing this.
Dark Alliance 1 & 2 were the exact same games as Champions of Norrath and Lord of the Rings: War in the North. They were co-op console hack n' slash, and when I say hack n' slash, I don't mean of the Diablo variety, but the Gauntlet, arcade variety. I suppose they are technically RPGs, but only by the most slim margins imaginable. They are one step from being Turtles in Time or Final Fight.
Which brings us to this rumored issue of this being THE flagship game for Google's streaming game service. If this is even remotely true, I won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Since the moment Epic started locking up exclusives for a year, I have been slowly re-purchasing and transferring all my gaming to GOG exclusively. If they pull an Outer Worlds with this thing, you'll see 25% of the audience abandon ship on principle alone.
Should Neverwinter Nights 2 not been called what it's called? It's story really has nothing to do with the first game. Even the city is completely different. The gameplay between the two games, including how you control your party and the UI, are very different. .
Except that both are based on D&D. The PS2 games with Baldu's Gate name has no respect with DnD ruleset.
The greatest problem of NWN2 IMO is that they nerfed a lot of classes and spells compared to pnp. Warlock is unplayable without an mod to fix the class.
The whole ruleset of DnD is based around turn based combat. Baldur's Gate took a lot of liberties when it comes to how things worked in pen and paper compared to it (spells, classes, kits, etc). So to oppose a game based on the ruleset is walking a fine line. I've seen plenty of people on the forums here over the years arguing that Baldur's Gate should have been more like PnP and also should have been turn based. Is adherance to the ruleset really what's important or is it if the gameplay is fun, the writing is good, the music is good, etc?
What you've outlined are not (at least in my view) the greatest problems with Neverwinter Nights 2.
This "liberties" acutally make the game worse. An example? See warlock on NWN2. Is unplayable without modding to fix the game and make the warlock more like on PnP. I understand that you can't have spells that allow the party to teleport into the plane of fire, due budget limitations and that some spells are almost impossible to be implemented like raise island, but the game should be close to PnP as possible.
NWN2 still offers ways to mod and use custom modules like NWN1, both are based on 3e(3.5/3.0e), etc; NWN2 is much closer to NWN1 than Baldur's Gate DArk Alliance is to Baldur's Gate.
The Hobbit "trilogy" was Lord of the Rings 2. And it turned what would have been a wonderful 120 minute movie into a nearly unwatchable orgy of special effects and fan-fiction. I realize it was a prequel, but man alive. Those movies are so bad they make the original trilogy look worse just by being associated with them.
The Hobbit "trilogy" was Lord of the Rings 2. And it turned what would have been a wonderful 120 minute movie into a nearly unwatchable orgy of special effects and fan-fiction. I realize it was a prequel, but man alive. Those movies are so bad they make the original trilogy look worse just by being associated with them.
I'm not sure if this is a joke post and you're trolling or being serious.
@the_sextein Thanks for your good words, but rest assured: everyone in the company (in past and present) support that decision. Trent said Larian proved they could deliver, Phil can't hold his excitement:
@deltago That sounds like a very harsh criticism, and I personally didn't got the impression you got when I played DOS 1. There was a long way since they had created DOS 1, and DOS 2 is critically acclaimed, so I trust them.
Well, at least you guys have the professionalism to keep up a positive public face. I guess being in bed with WOTSC and selling console versions of the originals during the hype train for the new game could help with that. Still....the overarching goal of Beamdog was to make this title and whatever you guys were working on was scrapped so I can guarantee nobody is happy or excited about it. I doubt Phil left Beamdog because he was excited about this. Personally I just hope they don't turn this western RPG into a 1990's JRPG with turned based combat. If it's going to be an AAA title then it's going to need to appeal to a large enough fan base to make the insane amount of development costs back. That tells me it's going to be built from the ground up for watered down console hardware and console players who like small parties and slow gameplay.
I think I'll take 6X longer the next time I take an IQ test and see how that effects the results. DURR! Of course I'm cynical. After two decades of seeing this happen over and over again, you can't really blame me. Anyway, good luck with all that. I'll keep an eye out for news in the future. I don't have high expectations for this game if it is in fact, being developed but I won't close my mind from it. I'll continue to watch it's progress as details get released and hope for the best. That's all I can do at this point.
There's nothing wrong, imo, with a small studio like Larian using the BG name in order to simply make a different Forgotten Realms set game. I understand people like to cynically talk about "cash grab" or whatever in this context but that's short-sighted. Yes, using the BG name will guarantee more sales than simply launching a DnD title. But so what? That's how good RPG's get the funding necessary to actually create a quality product.
There's everything wrong with it. I cannot possibly disagree more with this view.
I'm apparently one of the few who enjoyed NWN2. The sheer amount of character class options is even more than BG2. The 40 level and 4 class cap made it very intruiging. Storm of Zehir even allowed for party creation which was awesome!
No, I'm totally with you. NwN2 was the good game. NwN1 was crap.
Thank God they were such completely different games. But that also means NwN2 is a "Neverwinter Nights" game in name only.
Again, this is important. In the REAL world, where you have to pay talented people decent wages to do all the labor that's required to make games, it's best to have a title that a studio can project will sell. Get cranky all you want about how it's not being made PRECISELY how you want, but I think that's just counter-productive petulance. The better a title is projected to sell, generally speaking, the more a studio can invest in it. And this is not EA or some obnoxious AAA studio doing this.
So long as it's made PRECISELY how you want it, right? Yeah, sure.
Larian's obnoxiousness is yet to be determined. They may have proven themselves to you, but they are yet to prove themselves to me.
I reply honestly to comments when I can't agree with them. Don't know where you saw hostility, though.
When people discuss DOS games I can't be "dismissive " - I offer my view on the matter. These games are already there and I'm not the person to gather feedback to them - I, however, can provide my own feedback.
When people discuss the merits of TB combat I can also provide my own view.
And when people discuss a possible BG3 from that company I can share my excitement and reasons for that. If this opinion doesn't match another opinion, I don't "dismiss it", I just continue showing disagreement.
I think its possible Larian might make a good BG3, but that really entails making an entirely different game from Original Sin 2. Original Sin 2 is not a good game in my opinion. When people discuss turn based vs rtwp in this context, they kind of ignore the fact that OS and OS2 execute a turn based system that isn't very good. It worked better in the first game than the second, because in the first game environmental surfaces mattered more and encounters were designed better, but OS2 just becomes spamming the same skills every single battle, only changing tactics for the obnoxious, gimmicky boss fights. I really don't like the way the skill system works.
Then there's the story and the questing and the environment design. I dislike the 3D world, I dislike the use of massive open world areas. I dislike the tone of these games which is conflicted between having this upbeat presentation and being (again, more in the second game) extremely dark at times in story events. The story itself is unfocused and meandering and lacks much of a consistent driving force to engage with. The interactivity with other party members was really surprisingly to me, extremely basic and weak. I thought with the idea of the origin characters (something I do think was a really cool idea) that it would be a strength of the game but its really not. Quests are nice in terms of how interactive they can be, but... for every one that is fun, there's three that are just kind of silly and feel like you're just messing around. Overall, I felt there was a lack of focus and a lack of cohesive vision to the experience of playing through the game, and a lack of fun combat.
The online aspect was done well and thats honestly the best thing I'd say the game accomplished, but for all the critical acclaim OS2 got, it was seriously disappointing, and nothing about it suggests Larian have any business making a BG game when everything about their games is pretty much the opposite of BG. But hey, maybe they're actually using the infinity engine, which would be mad but I'd be behind 100%. As a gesture it would mean a hell of a lot.
@subtledoctor - it REALLY seems like you're projecting. The comments from Trent and Phil don't appear negative to me at all. Trent is expressing excitement, and Phil's "Burden" reads to me like he knows Larian is making the game but can't officially say anything, rather than knowing the game is bad.
Do I think Beamdog wishes they were making this title? Sure. That said - they're also clearly gigantic BG fans and are probably happy someone they can respect is making it.
Also - totally disagree that calling it BG3 is a cynical cash grab. I think it's 100 percent fine for them to use the name without the Bhaalspawn as the main character. Rather than waiting To see literally anything about the game, you're imputing your bias into their motivations.
Comments
Except that both are based on D&D. The PS2 games with Baldu's Gate name has no respect with DnD ruleset.
The greatest problem of NWN2 IMO is that they nerfed a lot of classes and spells compared to pnp. Warlock is unplayable without an mod to fix the class.
You seem to be essentially saying that a BG3 is impossible then. What gives with this kind of outlook?
It's not one that's going to facilitate making the kinds of games people on this forum want to see. So what if a BG3 departs from Gorion's Ward or even Bhaal?
There's nothing wrong, imo, with a small studio like Larian using the BG name in order to simply make a different Forgotten Realms set game. I understand people like to cynically talk about "cash grab" or whatever in this context but that's short-sighted. Yes, using the BG name will guarantee more sales than simply launching a DnD title. But so what? That's how good RPG's get the funding necessary to actually create a quality product.
The whole ruleset of DnD is based around turn based combat. Baldur's Gate took a lot of liberties when it comes to how things worked in pen and paper compared to it (spells, classes, kits, etc). So to oppose a game based on the ruleset is walking a fine line. I've seen plenty of people on the forums here over the years arguing that Baldur's Gate should have been more like PnP and also should have been turn based. Is adherance to the ruleset really what's important or is it if the gameplay is fun, the writing is good, the music is good, etc?
What you've outlined are not (at least in my view) the greatest problems with Neverwinter Nights 2.
But I digress. Am I the only one who sees the chances of BG3 having native Linux support on day one to be rather slim? That one twitter post mentioned Stadia and PC master race for one. Not to mention the only previous title of Larian that did offer native Linux support was D:OS: EE. I still have no clue as to why Linux support was dropped hard for its sequel...
That's a bad example then. The idea is to have one good game, and one bad game.
I've outlined my reasons in my previous post. Whatever "BG3" is, its not going to be a true BG3. The story can't really be continued as is, and putting the big "3" in the title is literally saying that this game is supposed to be a direct continuation of the last 2. Remove the 3, and name "Baldur's Gate: Insert subtitle here", and like 90% of my anger over this will just go away.
I mean seriously, can you imagine seeing, "The Lord of the Rings 2" announced?
@elminster
Honestly, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only or very few on the forum who will say they did enjoy dark alliance. I never played the second one, my only real annoyance was the fact o had to be a freaking elf to be the magic user -_-
Wasn't there suppose to be a dark alliance 3, I remember hearing something about it being cancelled.
Ehh. People are going to complain if you just call it "Baldur's Gate" and say it isn't a true "Baldur's Gate" game if they feel it doesn't live up to their expectations. I'm not really seeing why a company taking the risks of even putting that name "Baldur's Gate" down on a full fledged game wouldn't call it Baldur's Gate 3. Especially if its more in line with how the BG series (excluding the Dark Alliance games) has handled things. You are already taking the risks. Putting that 3 down just drives even more interest in the game. If the game doesn't live up to people's expectations they are going to hear about it plenty either way.
I still think this is focusing entirely on things that don't truly matter.
First off, there's a bunch of creative ways to make the plot tied to the original series without making it a tightly adherent sequel. In fact, if I had to guess, this is the fine line Larian is likely compelled to walk when drafting the sequel.
Again, this is important. In the REAL world, where you have to pay talented people decent wages to do all the labor that's required to make games, it's best to have a title that a studio can project will sell. Get cranky all you want about how it's not being made PRECISELY how you want, but I think that's just counter-productive petulance. The better a title is projected to sell, generally speaking, the more a studio can invest in it. And this is not EA or some obnoxious AAA studio doing this.
Which brings us to this rumored issue of this being THE flagship game for Google's streaming game service. If this is even remotely true, I won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Since the moment Epic started locking up exclusives for a year, I have been slowly re-purchasing and transferring all my gaming to GOG exclusively. If they pull an Outer Worlds with this thing, you'll see 25% of the audience abandon ship on principle alone.
Fun fact this was actually at one point considered by Tolkien.
http://tolkienblog.com/books/lord-of-the-rings-sequel/
This "liberties" acutally make the game worse. An example? See warlock on NWN2. Is unplayable without modding to fix the game and make the warlock more like on PnP. I understand that you can't have spells that allow the party to teleport into the plane of fire, due budget limitations and that some spells are almost impossible to be implemented like raise island, but the game should be close to PnP as possible.
NWN2 still offers ways to mod and use custom modules like NWN1, both are based on 3e(3.5/3.0e), etc; NWN2 is much closer to NWN1 than Baldur's Gate DArk Alliance is to Baldur's Gate.
I'm not sure if this is a joke post and you're trolling or being serious.
The mood is kind of horror mystery, not light or goofy at all. I can't pick up any hints from it but I like the more serious tone of it.
Well, at least you guys have the professionalism to keep up a positive public face. I guess being in bed with WOTSC and selling console versions of the originals during the hype train for the new game could help with that. Still....the overarching goal of Beamdog was to make this title and whatever you guys were working on was scrapped so I can guarantee nobody is happy or excited about it. I doubt Phil left Beamdog because he was excited about this. Personally I just hope they don't turn this western RPG into a 1990's JRPG with turned based combat. If it's going to be an AAA title then it's going to need to appeal to a large enough fan base to make the insane amount of development costs back. That tells me it's going to be built from the ground up for watered down console hardware and console players who like small parties and slow gameplay.
I think I'll take 6X longer the next time I take an IQ test and see how that effects the results. DURR! Of course I'm cynical. After two decades of seeing this happen over and over again, you can't really blame me. Anyway, good luck with all that. I'll keep an eye out for news in the future. I don't have high expectations for this game if it is in fact, being developed but I won't close my mind from it. I'll continue to watch it's progress as details get released and hope for the best. That's all I can do at this point.
There's everything wrong with it. I cannot possibly disagree more with this view.
No, I'm totally with you. NwN2 was the good game. NwN1 was crap.
Thank God they were such completely different games. But that also means NwN2 is a "Neverwinter Nights" game in name only.
So long as it's made PRECISELY how you want it, right? Yeah, sure.
Larian's obnoxiousness is yet to be determined. They may have proven themselves to you, but they are yet to prove themselves to me.
When people discuss DOS games I can't be "dismissive " - I offer my view on the matter. These games are already there and I'm not the person to gather feedback to them - I, however, can provide my own feedback.
When people discuss the merits of TB combat I can also provide my own view.
And when people discuss a possible BG3 from that company I can share my excitement and reasons for that. If this opinion doesn't match another opinion, I don't "dismiss it", I just continue showing disagreement.
Then there's the story and the questing and the environment design. I dislike the 3D world, I dislike the use of massive open world areas. I dislike the tone of these games which is conflicted between having this upbeat presentation and being (again, more in the second game) extremely dark at times in story events. The story itself is unfocused and meandering and lacks much of a consistent driving force to engage with. The interactivity with other party members was really surprisingly to me, extremely basic and weak. I thought with the idea of the origin characters (something I do think was a really cool idea) that it would be a strength of the game but its really not. Quests are nice in terms of how interactive they can be, but... for every one that is fun, there's three that are just kind of silly and feel like you're just messing around. Overall, I felt there was a lack of focus and a lack of cohesive vision to the experience of playing through the game, and a lack of fun combat.
The online aspect was done well and thats honestly the best thing I'd say the game accomplished, but for all the critical acclaim OS2 got, it was seriously disappointing, and nothing about it suggests Larian have any business making a BG game when everything about their games is pretty much the opposite of BG. But hey, maybe they're actually using the infinity engine, which would be mad but I'd be behind 100%. As a gesture it would mean a hell of a lot.
Do I think Beamdog wishes they were making this title? Sure. That said - they're also clearly gigantic BG fans and are probably happy someone they can respect is making it.
Also - totally disagree that calling it BG3 is a cynical cash grab. I think it's 100 percent fine for them to use the name without the Bhaalspawn as the main character. Rather than waiting To see literally anything about the game, you're imputing your bias into their motivations.