Beamdog Update, March 19, 2019
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
These are busy times at Beamdog. We thought we’d give you a quick update on what we're up to!
The upcoming Skybound Games booth at PAX East, a playable BG:EE demo for PS4 and Switch, Axis & Allies Online interviews and news, NWN:EE patch plans, and more!
The upcoming Skybound Games booth at PAX East, a playable BG:EE demo for PS4 and Switch, Axis & Allies Online interviews and news, NWN:EE patch plans, and more!
Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
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Other than that, I could find no other news in there that were relevant to my interests. Above all, I'm still waiting for a statement on Beamdog putting effort into fixing issues in the IE:EE UIs.
The UI issues were addressed in the previous update:
"We received a number of questions about UI for the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions games and our plans regarding it going forward. Now that the console releases are announced, we can share that we’ve been doing extensive updates to our UI system that could very possibly end up paying dividends for the PC versions into the future. For the time being, however, all of the UI work we’re doing is centered squarely around the console versions of the games, so any changes to the PC UI won’t happen for a while."
We received a number of questions about UI for the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions games = we hear all that loud and clear, and also did an analysis of all the public requests.
Well, it's certainly good to know that the requests are being heard, but as I said, I'm waiting for a statement that it's actually being worked on.
Not trying to be difficult, it's just that I know you guys have a lot of different projects to work on (not to mention countless areas of focus within each project), so I'll need a more concrete assurance to ease my mind. I'll be waiting (an occasionally complaining) until Beamdog is ready to provide that assurance.
The UI on PC does not need extensive updates, it needs bug fixes to the UI engine so we can mod it properly.
The UI bugs and pathfinding issues should be in a high priority as it directly affect modding and playing the game.
But I'll save myself from the trouble of preaching when clearly no one but the chorus is listening.
That would be a start, though I hope they'll eventually do more than that. The community certainly couldn't fix everything without a lot more externalizations.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense that they say the patch is still in development, while there is no indication that there is actual development going on the patch, with Catmull-Rom, UI and pathfinding fixes all being considered for the later versions.
Tying bug fixes to upcoming features is not particularly a good idea, but I understand the decision to offer something new and use it to promote the console ports from marketing perspective.
This is all just speculation from my side, and I can't find any other points of interest for me in the update to even speculate about. I wish at least the pathfinding fixes would be happening in the 2.6 version, but anyway. I keep myself content by thinking at least they're not abandoning IE.
The situation in which the characters are stacked after an area transition or in narrow corridors and can not be separated from each other.
At least only with a lot of clicks and patience.
I've noticed that it helps to tag the characters and activate the "Speak" action, setting them to a free standing character.
It will immediately release a character from the stack to perform the speech action.
One by one the stack dissolves with each new speak command.
The solution worked for me with the first click in 100% of cases.
I hope everyone else can benefit from it.
Nevertheless, I hope that Beamdog sets about fixing all these newly introduced and old bugs and, of course, closing the Soultaker Plothole … Soon™…
I have worked around it by giving each member of the stack a different direction. If there are 4 in the stack, only 1 of the NPC’s starts walking, making the stack 3 NPC’s high. Rinse lather repeat, and the stack is debundled.
Its clearly a bug and should and will be fixed eventually - but I have found it easy to work around (I play on a small iPhone 6s screen, so its not that I have that many options for clicking/tapping the screen with precision moves).
The method may not even work on all platforms, but it solves the problem easily for me. If we have to wait for the solution, we might as well share our work arounds.
Will you make videos available on youtube? showing the port for the consoles?
I've been using the Beamdog Client since the beginning of the EE era. I have heard that you can use previous patch versions on steam? If that is true, do I just need to contact Beamdog through the Beamdog store and request steam keys for the entire trilogy? I would love to go back to the previous patch. It had some minor annoyances with the pathfinding but no game breakers..... If the pathfinding isn't going to be fixed in 2.6 then the game is going to be unplayable for years if the patch process remains this slow. I don't know how they are porting the game to consoles when they have been working on the PC version for a decade and it's in an unplayable state. Things need to work first before you can move forward.
Also its frustrating as a PC user to see that the game took a graphical hit due to the cell phone port and now the pathfinding is taking a back seat to the console port. This was supposed to be an enhanced edition of a PC game not a watered down cell phone / console port.
I first mentioned it as a possibility in August 2017, so time line matches.
I also said we’d see Axis and Allies in 12-16 months back in January 2018.
Where the hell is my Clairvoyance badge already?
Next release should be the “demon” game featured on their website. They’re out of EEs and Trent’s childhood (unless we get a weightlifting VR game). Won’t be announced for another year and half though. But they don’t even know what they are working on so, I could be completely wrong on that wishful thinking.
Someone beat you to it in August 2016. https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/60913/trent-oster-has-registered-domains-for-axis-amp-allies-games
I see that and raise you:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/940062/#Comment_940062
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/940210/#Comment_940210
Knowing the game might be being developed and knowing the game is being developed and how far they are from actually announcing it without any inside knowledge is two very completely different things.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/930275/#Comment_930275
Come now, we also know it won't bring back Catmull-Rom Bicubic or EAX
About that ^ the update mentions that they would like to include Ascension as an official DLC but they would need permission from the creator and they are not in a position to contact him. David Gaider is the one who created Ascension so that is pretty much saying he burnt some bridges before he left. Otherwise, how hard would it be to drop him an e-mail or tweat him on twitter? Either he doesn't want to be contacted or they know he won't allow them to sell his mod as DLC. Either way I think it gives some insight into how things stand between Gaider and Beamdog. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it?
If Gaider gave them permission for a percentage of the profit he could make a little cash for doing nothing. Heck, I'd buy it if it meant official support and a bug free version of Ascension for the EE's. It's great to have the scaling that the EE provides and personally I enjoy the sprite outlines but the backdrops and sound could clearly be improved and instead they were actually downgraded. It would be great to at least have the same Bicubic rendering and EAX audio as the original game had. Game mods for old EAX enabled games like the original STALKER from 2007 have full 7.1 surround sound with the reverb properly working thanks to OpenAL-Soft which is available for free to any mod team or developer. This would allow all of the EAX magic to work on any system regardless of weather or not they have a Creative sound card. There is no reason not to upgrade it if you ask me.
I believe that the part you mention was an answer to my question to BD in januar. I asked if BD would consider famous mods (Ascension, CD tweaks, SCS and such) becomming DLC’s on platforms that either cant be modded (consoles) or hard to mod/have difficulties accessing the console (mobile devices).
So I believe that BD is just stating, that they might consider “importing” mods and that ascension would be a obvious choice. I think a bug free ascension mod would be a great boon to us all - esoecially for us on iOS and the consoles (when they come).
Just today Enuhal dropped Acsension from his mod list for his no-reload run and Semiticgod reported 2 gamebreaking bugs in his no-reload run. Acsension is an epic mod and deserves a better fate than its present state, so I hope it will come to be.
I have asked if BD needs some help getting permissions, and the answer to tjat question will be reveiled when the questions from march is answered (according to Julius).
So hopefully we will know more in April, and speculations at present might be premature.
I really do hope the best for Beamdog and Baldur's Gate but it's hard not to be frustrated at this point. It's really having a negative effect on the modding community as well. These patches have held up mod teams to the point where they have stopped communicating with their fans. All has gone quiet other than SCS. Hopefully SCS v32 will work with whatever patch fixes the pathfinding in the future. I have doubts that EET will ever progress at this rate.
The intent was not a mandatory Ascension, but a DLC for iOS and consoles, so players could choose to include Ascension - if they wanted and paid for it on the platforms mentioned.
As I see it, it would be easy to develop and promote - and enhance the game even further for those who are restricted in their modding opportunities.
I agree, but Beamdog can't make even a bug free Siege of Dragonspear. I don't play Ascension because I was never able to make the thing work properly and it kind of made a mental block to even try installing it in EE.
But for all that I've read about Ascension towards plot it should be canon. As for frustrated casual players, there's always Story Mode.
Story mode isn't fun for everyone. If you increase the difficulty to the point where someone gets knocked from normal to story mode, because of a single fight, thats a bad decision. Reasonable challenge is not the same thing as "turn on godmode"
Gaider probably said no when he was working at Beamdog about making it an official add-in, especially if he built it off the clock when he was working at BioWare.
Another wrinkle is that he might have been working it on the clock during his BioWare days and BioWare owns part of it because of that work and may not give permission for another studio to make money off of it.
That’s not going to stop people from asking for it nonstop though, so they still have to give a generic answer regarding it.
No sweat. I also read the post from Luke as a definite yay to the idea. I just dont think they have the time right now to ask around or doing work on that project. That was why I proposed enlisting the community for help in asking and stuff. But we will see.
I havent given up on BD and the IE. I might be naive, but I do believe that the bugs will be eraticated and that we will see more content in the BG series in the future (please note that I didnt say near future