Does Beamdog currently have any game projects besides AAO? Typically, studios work on more than one project at a time, so what's the story with Beamdog right now?
@JuliusBorisov , What about that crash bug Kate Walsch found where accessing inventory as an Avenger while in fire salamander form crashed the game and corrupted the save file?
What about that crash bug Kate Walsch found where accessing inventory as an Avenger while in fire salamander form crashed the game and corrupted the save file?
1) Have Beamdog ever considered making a savegame editor (like er editor and Leto) as a DLC for the console and mobile units? It would be very convenient.
2) Are the new updates going to give the same acces for modding the mobile games? The latest Update for IWD:ee made it impossible
What will be the most likely meshes candidates to be remodeled and enhanched *after* the work on the shader is finally completed?
Fingers crossed it's not yet another swords related weapon bundle. :P
Oster hopes to produce quality premium modules that lie somewhere between BioWare’s original idea and full expansion packs like Hordes of the Underdark. "That happy spot is a self-contained adventure with new art content," says Oster. "We will build new content going forward that will radically change the look of what is possible in Neverwinter Nights
Oster hopes to produce quality premium modules that lie somewhere between BioWare’s original idea and full expansion packs like Hordes of the Underdark. "That happy spot is a self-contained adventure with new art content," says Oster. "We will build new content going forward that will radically change the look of what is possible in Neverwinter Nights
The blog entry is still being cooked (it's like 1/2 done). We want it to be the most reflective of the updates that will come to NWN:EE.
Have just learned that the renderer article is still not ready as a few key figures are on vacation. We'll post a general update on the blog about what's happening in Beamdog, what to expect, etc, but the renderer article is moved. The blog post is expected to arrive early next week (Monday is a holiday in Canada).
We’ve spent a lot of our time as a studio working on adapting legacy codebases for modern systems. In those cases, we had access to the source code of the games, and we had people (involved in the development of the Enhanced Editions) that were members of the original development team, including our founders, Trent and Cameron.
Looking into the past has been an interesting journey for us, but Beamdog is starting to look forward. We’re interested in working on our own original products, so it’s likely that the next things you see from Beamdog will be original products, instead of more Enhanced Editions.
"Now when the Baldur's Gate name is making waves all over the industry" might be an additional reason not to produce new game content in the IE, from the legal to gaming aspects.
Nowhere in that statement does it say they will not be developing for the Infinity Engine. It only says they will not create any more enhanced editions of existing games, which a NEW game in the infinity engine WOULD NOT be. I've been reading these forums religiously since Siege of Dragonspear was released and this is the first time I've seen the direct statement that they would not be developing any new IE games, even though I asked that exact question back in February.
"Now when the Baldur's Gate name is making waves all over the industry" might be an additional reason not to produce new game content in the IE, from the legal to gaming aspects.
That's been a suspicion of mine, that's why I asked this earlier:
It's been stated a lot of times: 2.6 was ready, but something happened, about which everyone in the company is very sad and upset, and it wasn't shipped.
So, can you guys at Beamdog talk about what happened yet? [...] Did it have something to do with the upcoming BG3 announcement and/or release?
I know this is not confirmed, but if it turns out the patch delay was caused by Wizards taking the EE licences away from Beamdog because of BG3, then—needless to say—that would be a very sad state of affairs and it would reflect really poorly on WotC.
(Not that they have a stellar reputation to begin with.)
Nowhere in that statement does it say they will not be developing for the Infinity Engine. It only says they will not create any more enhanced editions of existing games, which a NEW game in the infinity engine WOULD NOT be. I've been reading these forums religiously since Siege of Dragonspear was released and this is the first time I've seen the direct statement that they would not be developing any new IE games, even though I asked that exact question back in February.
During livestreams Luke, Trent and even Phil (back when he was at Beamdog) mentioned it's not feasible to create content in the IE.
"Our own original products" can't be in the IE because that is all about D&D, which is not "our own".
"Now when the Baldur's Gate name is making waves all over the industry" might be an additional reason not to produce new game content in the IE, from the legal to gaming aspects.
That's been a suspicion of mine, that's why I asked this earlier:
It's been stated a lot of times: 2.6 was ready, but something happened, about which everyone in the company is very sad and upset, and it wasn't shipped.
So, can you guys at Beamdog talk about what happened yet? [...] Did it have something to do with the upcoming BG3 announcement and/or release?
I know this is not confirmed, but if it turns out the patch delay was caused by Wizards taking the EE licences away from Beamdog because of BG3, then—needless to say—that would be a very sad state of affairs and it would reflect really poorly on WotC.
(Not that they have a stellar reputation to begin with.)
The patch delay will be clarified - finally - in the blog entry next week.
The IE system is over 20 years old! While this has the advantage that it can run on really light systems such as tablets, it definitely is showing if you compare it to other Isometric RPGs that have been released lately.
The big question is, is Beamdog planning on creating more Isometric RPGs?
When will BeamDog hire a competent programmer, sysadmin or anyone with a professional work ethic?
Programmers?
Every single update over the past 2 years has broken more than it fixed, with updates fewer and farther in between, the most recent one leaving large portions of several games unplayable. You have access to a built version of a game but without source code? Icewind Dale 2 (IWD2). Extracting resources is simplistic. Data mining tools. Trivial. Reverse engineering the binaries to understand the Infinity Engine (IE) modifications as compared to a similarly reverse engineered version of BG2? A little more complex but doable. IDA Soft's HexRays. Use it. Decompile to source. Get a competent programmer - just one, versus the team of nitwits you have there now. Get a version out there. Alternately, just rewrite the missing pieces of functionality. Get it done. "We give up?" Bunch of losers. Beamdog is run by losers with a loser mindset. Sell the game rights to a competent development house.
System Administrators?
BeamDog is unable to even get their web server HTTPS certificate configured properly. Their OCSP is not properly stapled and thus is vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attacks. The ignorant fools who fraudulently call themselves system administrators can not even figure out how to do a basic intern level procedure of setting up a secure website certificate to handle their online shopping cart. So that any responsibly written web browser like Chrome or Firefox is completely unable to connect to the shopping server via https and thus can buy nothing. This is criminal negligence and incompetence and any resulting identity theft can easily be demonstrated and hold BeamDog legally liable for damages. Idiotic CEOs/CFOs/COOs have no clue how to manage much less right this sinking ship.
Professional Work Ethic?
Game servers are down. No emplyee responds on the BeamDog forum. Nor the Steam forum. We have to go to the Reddit forum and find some buried post somewhere which paraphrasing, states that it is Canada Day so nobody is working and maybe someone will be in tomorrow to look at it. WRONG EXPLETIVE ANSWER! I've worked as a system admin. When you have a contract (legal or social) to keep your servers running for paying customers, then you set up server monitoring 24/7 and you get notified via mobile within 1 minute of any outage. It does not matter if it is a holiday or Christmas of an apocalypse. You log on. You notify customers if an outage on your site where they are likely to look first. You log in and try to get it going. It does not matter if it is 3am and you are hung over. You walk or stumble to the curb, get a ride to the office, and you do not leave until the system is restored. If it is a DDoS, you manage it swiftly on the router side. If it is an intemediary ASN that is inexplicably dropping routes, you reweight your routes so a functional one will be chosen. Ideally you paid enough for multiple (3 or more) redundant network providers. If it is a power outage, you had a 72 hr backup contingency, right? Battery backup, redundant power grids, generators, whatever it takes. Should have outsourced your servers to a server provider that has all this infrastructure handled and priced competitively. You did not have any budget for any fancy equipment to keep your services running or even afford proper virtual servers? Because you failed to develop softwarwe that people obviously wanted to buy, because you like to rely upon lame excuses for your incompetence? You are all frauds at BeamDog, without any of the core competencies required of even the most basic of internet or software or game development companies. You really need to stop embarassing yourselves and giving the industry a bad name by your continued failed existence, surrender all your licenses to a company able to do the damned job.
Just chiming in to confirm that I’d gladly enter a monthly-payment deal if that meant the Infinity Engine games kept getting patched for a longer time (hopefully on shorter patching cycles.)
Of course the viability of this model would depend on how many people would be interested in subscribing, so it might as well not be feasible.
@Beamdog This is a legitimate, sincere question: Based on the information presented in his comment, would you consider hiring @warp_9 if he were to apply for employment. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.
Comments
Thanks. An interesting read. I was not asking for specifics or details. Only whether there were any unannounced projects in the works.
Did you mean stability improvements instead? Because a crash is not a performance problem
Did she submit save file ?
That would be only way to find crash solution.
TR
1) Have Beamdog ever considered making a savegame editor (like er editor and Leto) as a DLC for the console and mobile units? It would be very convenient.
2) Are the new updates going to give the same acces for modding the mobile games? The latest Update for IWD:ee made it impossible
What will be the most likely meshes candidates to be remodeled and enhanched *after* the work on the shader is finally completed?
Fingers crossed it's not yet another swords related weapon bundle. :P
TR
The article is quite big, and includes many quotes from many people. What views do you mean exactly?
TR
Yes, this still holds.
There're no plans to produce new game content in the IE.
Have just learned that the renderer article is still not ready as a few key figures are on vacation. We'll post a general update on the blog about what's happening in Beamdog, what to expect, etc, but the renderer article is moved. The blog post is expected to arrive early next week (Monday is a holiday in Canada).
TR
We’ve spent a lot of our time as a studio working on adapting legacy codebases for modern systems. In those cases, we had access to the source code of the games, and we had people (involved in the development of the Enhanced Editions) that were members of the original development team, including our founders, Trent and Cameron.
Looking into the past has been an interesting journey for us, but Beamdog is starting to look forward. We’re interested in working on our own original products, so it’s likely that the next things you see from Beamdog will be original products, instead of more Enhanced Editions.
"Now when the Baldur's Gate name is making waves all over the industry" might be an additional reason not to produce new game content in the IE, from the legal to gaming aspects.
That's been a suspicion of mine, that's why I asked this earlier:
I know this is not confirmed, but if it turns out the patch delay was caused by Wizards taking the EE licences away from Beamdog because of BG3, then—needless to say—that would be a very sad state of affairs and it would reflect really poorly on WotC.
(Not that they have a stellar reputation to begin with.)
During livestreams Luke, Trent and even Phil (back when he was at Beamdog) mentioned it's not feasible to create content in the IE.
"Our own original products" can't be in the IE because that is all about D&D, which is not "our own".
The patch delay will be clarified - finally - in the blog entry next week.
The big question is, is Beamdog planning on creating more Isometric RPGs?
This will be addressed in the next Wild Surge magazine. Out soonish.
When will BeamDog hire a competent programmer, sysadmin or anyone with a professional work ethic?
Programmers?
Every single update over the past 2 years has broken more than it fixed, with updates fewer and farther in between, the most recent one leaving large portions of several games unplayable. You have access to a built version of a game but without source code? Icewind Dale 2 (IWD2). Extracting resources is simplistic. Data mining tools. Trivial. Reverse engineering the binaries to understand the Infinity Engine (IE) modifications as compared to a similarly reverse engineered version of BG2? A little more complex but doable. IDA Soft's HexRays. Use it. Decompile to source. Get a competent programmer - just one, versus the team of nitwits you have there now. Get a version out there. Alternately, just rewrite the missing pieces of functionality. Get it done. "We give up?" Bunch of losers. Beamdog is run by losers with a loser mindset. Sell the game rights to a competent development house.
System Administrators?
BeamDog is unable to even get their web server HTTPS certificate configured properly. Their OCSP is not properly stapled and thus is vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attacks. The ignorant fools who fraudulently call themselves system administrators can not even figure out how to do a basic intern level procedure of setting up a secure website certificate to handle their online shopping cart. So that any responsibly written web browser like Chrome or Firefox is completely unable to connect to the shopping server via https and thus can buy nothing. This is criminal negligence and incompetence and any resulting identity theft can easily be demonstrated and hold BeamDog legally liable for damages. Idiotic CEOs/CFOs/COOs have no clue how to manage much less right this sinking ship.
Professional Work Ethic?
Game servers are down. No emplyee responds on the BeamDog forum. Nor the Steam forum. We have to go to the Reddit forum and find some buried post somewhere which paraphrasing, states that it is Canada Day so nobody is working and maybe someone will be in tomorrow to look at it. WRONG EXPLETIVE ANSWER! I've worked as a system admin. When you have a contract (legal or social) to keep your servers running for paying customers, then you set up server monitoring 24/7 and you get notified via mobile within 1 minute of any outage. It does not matter if it is a holiday or Christmas of an apocalypse. You log on. You notify customers if an outage on your site where they are likely to look first. You log in and try to get it going. It does not matter if it is 3am and you are hung over. You walk or stumble to the curb, get a ride to the office, and you do not leave until the system is restored. If it is a DDoS, you manage it swiftly on the router side. If it is an intemediary ASN that is inexplicably dropping routes, you reweight your routes so a functional one will be chosen. Ideally you paid enough for multiple (3 or more) redundant network providers. If it is a power outage, you had a 72 hr backup contingency, right? Battery backup, redundant power grids, generators, whatever it takes. Should have outsourced your servers to a server provider that has all this infrastructure handled and priced competitively. You did not have any budget for any fancy equipment to keep your services running or even afford proper virtual servers? Because you failed to develop softwarwe that people obviously wanted to buy, because you like to rely upon lame excuses for your incompetence? You are all frauds at BeamDog, without any of the core competencies required of even the most basic of internet or software or game development companies. You really need to stop embarassing yourselves and giving the industry a bad name by your continued failed existence, surrender all your licenses to a company able to do the damned job.
Canada Day - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Day - so yes, it wasn't a working day yesterday
And yet, the communication was here:
Twitter replies -
Facebook reply -
Reddit reply - https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/c7mj3o/servers_available/
Steam reply - https://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/0/1471967615861671351/#c1640915206465480323
Discord reply -
Forum reply - this was the first question about the issue on the forum. This is why previously on this forum I didn't respond here.
Additionally, are there any plans for yearly subscription models giving certain advantages?
I would love to support Beamdog for keeping up a steady stream of updates to all PC games.
Of course the viability of this model would depend on how many people would be interested in subscribing, so it might as well not be feasible.