I didn't learn a thing.. other than they are spending manhours on Infinity Engine without a single thought to using it for another release of some kind.
Seems like such an unnatural thing to do, but if they insist it's not a precursor to something new then I can't really argue can I?
Ah well.. won't complain over more patches to the EE games.
As said in earlier posts, i can't fathom why they would but i still applaud the effort.
I agree. A perfect opportunity missed for @TrentOster to have given us loyal Beamdogers a special peek into what Beamdog is up to/has in the works, even if it were only the tiniest of peeks. Just a little something special and morale-boosting for the dedicated fans of Beamdog.
I thought that the main statement was very clear. There is enough profit in maintenance with a small team for 4 games on 3 operating systems and a potential 3 consoles later on. Maintenance equals good word of mouth equals more sales. Plus, the games are low threshold and get traction due to bg3 being alive, so people will try the originals as well.
Now the quote is puzzling me. Does it just mean that the infinity engine is in good hands? Or does it mean more, in if ever an expansion would be possible, we'll take the opportunity or are already taking it?
I think the timing for an expansion will be right after an successful launch of the 2.7 patch and BG3 has cast away its “new car smell”.
When everything is patched and all are happy (or as happy they actually can get) about the state of affairs, Beamdog can focus on an expansion.
The market for nostalgia games is quite good imho. Diablo 2 is getting a remake, and even Pokemon are dipping into the nostalgia with a remake of the 2006 games Diamond and Pearl. Perhaps the hipster nostalgia has finally hit mainstream for good.
When the BG3 buzz has died out a bit, perhaps WotC will be more open to new ideas - or old ideas. A compelling story with well scripted NPC’s (without any controversy), should be well received at WotC - when BG3 has had its initial 15 minutes in the spotlight.
I guess a lot of people would pay good money if a quality expansion would see the light of day.
From this article, note especially:
"As a result, the company’s reorganization will put a new focus on Wizards of the Coast’s assets. Hasbro’s new corporate structure will see it split into three departments, one of which, Wizards & Digital, is a new housing for Wizards’ properties. Its stated focus is to continue to expand Wizards’ existing games, create new ones, and oversee digital licensing, which also comes alongside a brand-new company logo for Wizards of the Coast."
"This includes two new, unnamed D&D video game projects. They’re planned to be headed up by Hidden Path Entertainment in Bellevue, Wash., makers of Defense Grid 2 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive, and OtherSide Entertainment in Boston and Austin, which is currently working on the horror-RPG System Shock 3."
"The two games join the forthcoming Dark Alliance, an action-RPG based on R.A. Salvatore’s long-running series of D&D fantasy novels, which was announced back in 2019 and is currently scheduled for release at some point later this year. Dark Alliance is currently being developed by Montreal’s Tuque Games, which Wizards of the Coast acquired outright in October 2019."
Surprised nobody's commented on the two unnamed D&D game projects. Personally, given OtherSide Entertainment's pedigree, I think that game may be a first-person gothic-horror game set in Ravenloft.
Here's a comment I guess: All seem 3d, no thanks.
I never finished fallout 3, nwn and similar games. I only managed to finish the Alice games though barely. Still busy with skyrim even...
Here's a comment I guess: All seem 3d, no thanks.
I never finished fallout 3, nwn and similar games. I only managed to finish the Alice games though barely. Still busy with skyrim even...
Birds eye view is my style.
Well, then I think you are going to struggle to find good-quality cRPGs to play in the future. I myself also love the iso perspective, but I think major studios are all going to be moving away from iso. Even worse, they are moving mainly towards the first-person perspective. Third-person may be the best alternative we can hope for.
Just as @lroumen I prefer the iso perspective over anything.
Maybe it's because I grew up with it, maybe because these old hand-drawn 2D backgrounds still look prettier than quite some 3D games today, I don't know.
There has been a resurrection of those games over the last years though @kanisatha.
Just think of Pillars of Eternity I & II, Tyranny, Torment: Tides of Numenera etc.
I don't know how much time you guys have to play games but that's enough to carry me through some years to come luckily.
I keep myself happy with the infinity engine series. There are some new games coming up that I will check out.
My perception is that 3d has always tries too hard to look good such that renderings will start to look too perfect or too robotlike. It also does not age as well as birds eye view, because of the required detail.
I do enjoy a select few 3d games like horizon zero dawn, but then everything has to click immediately.
There has been a resurrection of those games over the last years though @kanisatha.
Just think of Pillars of Eternity I & II, Tyranny, Torment: Tides of Numenera etc.
Yes we did have that resurgence. And I have played almost all of those games. But my sense is that the resurgence has run its course, and from this point forward I don't see any major cRPG studio (i.e. Obsidian, inXile, CDPR, Bethesda, Bioware, etc.) doing iso. But small indie studios like Owlcat and Tactical Adventures may continue to stick with iso. Beamdog? Dunno.
On the discussion of newer isometric games, there's been a few really good entries.. but somehow they've all struggled a fair bit.
Kingmaker is.. well, once you get your barony the entire game turns on it's head and the great big quests are nearly all but gone. It's 3-4 minute caves and endless mindnumbing kingdom events and management..
Pillars 1 was a very, very good start.. a bit empty, in the way that non-critical npcs were mostly just shallow entries like guardsmen or Backer-entries which left the games streets very empty if you turned them off.
But my word was the main story gripping and many excellent npcs like Aloth and Eder.
Pillars 2 is a great game, it looks really nice too.. i adore the engine. But despite it's great reviews it didn't sell very well and Obisidian quite clearly said that the very low sales despite the great reviews left them puzzled and isometric was probably not gonna happen again.
And as we know, Avowed will be first person..
I for one think this whole thing with ships, pirates and the setting turned a lot of people off.. wasn't exactly my favorite setting either.
Tyranny was a strange one.. once it started to get really good, bam.. it was over. Very odd, but it had a lot of good things going for it.
Torment was just bad in terms of mechanics, dialogue etc.. and ridiculous amounts of expositions, big words and endless walls of text for very little content. It had great promise, but left it mostly unfulfilled.
We got a new Pathfinder game coming.. and i'm hoping it'll be great.
Besides that, the only titles i know of are all turn-based and not exactly isometric with rtwp - that genres resurrection seem to have failed along with the sales numbers for Pillars 2 - sadly.
If we're not getting a cost-effective adventure in the Infinity Engine, i don't think we're likely to see many more titles in this segment other than the new Pathfinder game.
Hope I'm wrong on that one, as isometric rtwp rpg is by far my favorite genre.
I haven't played Pillars of Eternity II yet but I second that the setting is not my favourite either.
A short off-topic: how do you turn off backer characters in Pillars of Eternity I @Khyron?
Personally some of these games make a really good impression (especially Pillars of Eternity) but non have ever come close to the IE games for me. Again, this is probably related to growing up with Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale but I always come back to my group of pixelated sprite heroes.
What I would love to have is Icewind Dale II in an enhanced version. I know the code is gone but I'd even go as far as to rebuilding the game with the assets from Icewind Dale I and adapting it for the ruleset as well.
I know there is a mod but I'm not too much into mods so I'd like a clean and polished version from Beamdog.
That's what I thought.. but they're sure trying to say otherwise, without specifically saying so.
I'm not convinced they're not making new IE content.
Fair enough. I am convinced of the exact opposite. No small indie studio concurrently works on creating new games using two different engines. And Beamdog is definitely working on a new game with a new (Unreal?) engine. So creating other new content using an older, pain-in-the-ass-to-work-with engine would be counterproductive.
Going back to what I posted here earlier, here's the recent reveal on the other of the two new D&D games I mentioned, this one from Hidden Path Entertainment:
I don't think isometric view games will stop being created.
One of the best games of 2020, which I also personally liked a lot, is Hades. Yes, it's not strategic combat in the same vein as BG has, but it's still very RPG-esque in terms of story, and looks beautiful.
One of the best games of 2019, which I'm looking forward to playing soon with the Final Cut, is Disco Elysium. This game is a writing masterpiece and looks beautiful.
Both of these games are recognized around the world as top games. They are isometric.
Pathfinder: WotR will be isometric. Considering the success P:K had and the Kickstarter results for P:WotR, I have no doubts the next game for that studio will be isometric as well.
Hand-drawn, mosaics, isometric - I personally agree they look beautiful. And many game designers think the same. So never lose hope of getting more similar games in the future.
I don't think isometric view games will stop being created.
One of the best games of 2020, which I also personally liked a lot, is Hades. Yes, it's not strategic combat in the same vein as BG has, but it's still very RPG-esque in terms of story, and looks beautiful.
One of the best games of 2012, which I'm looking forward to playing soon with the Final Cut, is Disco Elysium. This game is a writing masterpiece and looks beautiful.
Both of these games are recognized around the world as top games. They are isometric.
Pathfinder: WotR will be isometric. Considering the success P:K had and the Kickstarter results for P:WotR, I have no doubts the next game for that studio will be isometric well.
Hand-drown, mosaics, isometric - I personally agree they look beautiful. And many game designers think the same. So never lose hope of getting more similar games in the future.
I agree we are not going to see the isometric perspective go away any time soon. And as long as isometric view dos not automatically mean turn-based, then I will continue to love those games. But they will only come from the smaller indie studios and will not be AAA games.
As for Owlcat, I think their next game after WotR is going to be a Starfinder game.
But they will only come from the smaller indie studios and will not be AAA games.
But this is... not a problem at all? Games can be of any grade to become great. PST wasn't an AAA game but it stood the test of time. Hades and Disco Elysium are indie games and yet both of them are becoming genre-defining games. Millions of people play them and enjoy them. Future writers of AAA games will be looking at Disco Elysium.
And on a personal level, I don't care if the game is AAA or not. I just either have fun with it or not.
My concern with AAA games is that they are too long to finish playing. And then you can replay it with a different character reading again a 60+h to run through it.
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Seems like such an unnatural thing to do, but if they insist it's not a precursor to something new then I can't really argue can I?
Ah well.. won't complain over more patches to the EE games.
As said in earlier posts, i can't fathom why they would but i still applaud the effort.
Now the quote is puzzling me. Does it just mean that the infinity engine is in good hands? Or does it mean more, in if ever an expansion would be possible, we'll take the opportunity or are already taking it?
When everything is patched and all are happy (or as happy they actually can get) about the state of affairs, Beamdog can focus on an expansion.
The market for nostalgia games is quite good imho. Diablo 2 is getting a remake, and even Pokemon are dipping into the nostalgia with a remake of the 2006 games Diamond and Pearl. Perhaps the hipster nostalgia has finally hit mainstream for good.
When the BG3 buzz has died out a bit, perhaps WotC will be more open to new ideas - or old ideas. A compelling story with well scripted NPC’s (without any controversy), should be well received at WotC - when BG3 has had its initial 15 minutes in the spotlight.
I guess a lot of people would pay good money if a quality expansion would see the light of day.
I certainly would
And FYI, this is what Hasbro/WotC are currently up to. I don't see any new IE game project fitting into any of this (thankfully):
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/hasbro-reorganizes-support-big-growth-dungeons-dragons-magic-gathering/
From this article, note especially:
"As a result, the company’s reorganization will put a new focus on Wizards of the Coast’s assets. Hasbro’s new corporate structure will see it split into three departments, one of which, Wizards & Digital, is a new housing for Wizards’ properties. Its stated focus is to continue to expand Wizards’ existing games, create new ones, and oversee digital licensing, which also comes alongside a brand-new company logo for Wizards of the Coast."
"This includes two new, unnamed D&D video game projects. They’re planned to be headed up by Hidden Path Entertainment in Bellevue, Wash., makers of Defense Grid 2 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive, and OtherSide Entertainment in Boston and Austin, which is currently working on the horror-RPG System Shock 3."
"The two games join the forthcoming Dark Alliance, an action-RPG based on R.A. Salvatore’s long-running series of D&D fantasy novels, which was announced back in 2019 and is currently scheduled for release at some point later this year. Dark Alliance is currently being developed by Montreal’s Tuque Games, which Wizards of the Coast acquired outright in October 2019."
I never finished fallout 3, nwn and similar games. I only managed to finish the Alice games though barely. Still busy with skyrim even...
Birds eye view is my style.
Maybe it's because I grew up with it, maybe because these old hand-drawn 2D backgrounds still look prettier than quite some 3D games today, I don't know.
There has been a resurrection of those games over the last years though @kanisatha.
Just think of Pillars of Eternity I & II, Tyranny, Torment: Tides of Numenera etc.
I don't know how much time you guys have to play games but that's enough to carry me through some years to come luckily.
My perception is that 3d has always tries too hard to look good such that renderings will start to look too perfect or too robotlike. It also does not age as well as birds eye view, because of the required detail.
I do enjoy a select few 3d games like horizon zero dawn, but then everything has to click immediately.
Kingmaker is.. well, once you get your barony the entire game turns on it's head and the great big quests are nearly all but gone. It's 3-4 minute caves and endless mindnumbing kingdom events and management..
Pillars 1 was a very, very good start.. a bit empty, in the way that non-critical npcs were mostly just shallow entries like guardsmen or Backer-entries which left the games streets very empty if you turned them off.
But my word was the main story gripping and many excellent npcs like Aloth and Eder.
Pillars 2 is a great game, it looks really nice too.. i adore the engine. But despite it's great reviews it didn't sell very well and Obisidian quite clearly said that the very low sales despite the great reviews left them puzzled and isometric was probably not gonna happen again.
And as we know, Avowed will be first person..
I for one think this whole thing with ships, pirates and the setting turned a lot of people off.. wasn't exactly my favorite setting either.
Tyranny was a strange one.. once it started to get really good, bam.. it was over. Very odd, but it had a lot of good things going for it.
Torment was just bad in terms of mechanics, dialogue etc.. and ridiculous amounts of expositions, big words and endless walls of text for very little content. It had great promise, but left it mostly unfulfilled.
We got a new Pathfinder game coming.. and i'm hoping it'll be great.
Besides that, the only titles i know of are all turn-based and not exactly isometric with rtwp - that genres resurrection seem to have failed along with the sales numbers for Pillars 2 - sadly.
If we're not getting a cost-effective adventure in the Infinity Engine, i don't think we're likely to see many more titles in this segment other than the new Pathfinder game.
Hope I'm wrong on that one, as isometric rtwp rpg is by far my favorite genre.
https://www.gamepressure.com/games/pc/rpg/isometric-view/33
A short off-topic: how do you turn off backer characters in Pillars of Eternity I @Khyron?
Personally some of these games make a really good impression (especially Pillars of Eternity) but non have ever come close to the IE games for me. Again, this is probably related to growing up with Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale but I always come back to my group of pixelated sprite heroes.
What I would love to have is Icewind Dale II in an enhanced version. I know the code is gone but I'd even go as far as to rebuilding the game with the assets from Icewind Dale I and adapting it for the ruleset as well.
I know there is a mod but I'm not too much into mods so I'd like a clean and polished version from Beamdog.
I'm not convinced they're not making new IE content.
https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-a-big-budget-open-world-dungeons-and-dragons-game-in-development/
This really excites me! If third-person, then hopefully NOT turn-based. <fingers crossed>
Perhaps this should be moved to its own new thread.
One of the best games of 2020, which I also personally liked a lot, is Hades. Yes, it's not strategic combat in the same vein as BG has, but it's still very RPG-esque in terms of story, and looks beautiful.
One of the best games of 2019, which I'm looking forward to playing soon with the Final Cut, is Disco Elysium. This game is a writing masterpiece and looks beautiful.
Both of these games are recognized around the world as top games. They are isometric.
Pathfinder: WotR will be isometric. Considering the success P:K had and the Kickstarter results for P:WotR, I have no doubts the next game for that studio will be isometric as well.
Hand-drawn, mosaics, isometric - I personally agree they look beautiful. And many game designers think the same. So never lose hope of getting more similar games in the future.
As for Owlcat, I think their next game after WotR is going to be a Starfinder game.
But this is... not a problem at all? Games can be of any grade to become great. PST wasn't an AAA game but it stood the test of time. Hades and Disco Elysium are indie games and yet both of them are becoming genre-defining games. Millions of people play them and enjoy them. Future writers of AAA games will be looking at Disco Elysium.
And on a personal level, I don't care if the game is AAA or not. I just either have fun with it or not.