and that aside, the primary story sucks, it's just good for the thousands of fan made modules, some of which are classic conversions of the classics like Caves of Chaos and Eye of the Serpent. That, and the multiplayer servers, and the roleplay ones are filled with forgotten realms modules.
We can save this ill-fated race
Who are lost in the ocean of space
Show them the way to reverse their decline
Guide them back on a river of time
Unless it's a LAN game with my roomie/best friend, I don't do mutiplayer for the most part, and even then, we're really picky about what we play together.
Though like you said, my first issue with it would be the ruleset used.
Pretty much anything beyond 2nd Ed. just doesn't exist to me.
Here's that promised forum post I was talking about, that got posted today as well following the new announcements.
[BG:EE] PLEASE READ - LIST OF THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED.
AndreaColombo
July 26 2:26PM
Since last March, when Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition was unveiled, the devs have been dropping several bits of information on the enhancements that can be expected. Be it via the official BG:EE website, their personal Twitter accounts, the official Beamdog forum, or these very boards, there have been more announcements than one would think.
The purpose of this thread is to gather and list all features, enhancements and new contents that have already been officially confirmed for BG:EE. Not only will this hopefully shed some light on the "enhancement" tag, especially in light of my recent post on the things that cannot be done, but it will also assist in directing feature requests toward things that haven't been already done.
I'll try to keep this post up-to-date, but by all means feel free to mention anything that may have been left out.
PLATFORM and DISTRIBUTION
• BG:EE will run on Windows based PCs, Apple Mac PCs, all generations of Apple iPad, and certain Android tablets, such as the Nexus 7.
System requirements will be slightly higher, mainly on the OS for OpenGL support, but any video card released from 2004 on should be able to run the game smoothly. Full support for, and good performance on, first generation iPad are confirmed.
• BG:EE will be available from Beamdog for Windows based PCs, Apple's App Store for MacOS and iOS, and Google Play for Android tablets.
The game will launch at $19.99 (pre-order for $17.99) for Windows and MacOS, and $9.99 for iOS and Android. The pricing differences between platforms come down to the PC/Mac getting all the DLC content for free and iOS/Android having it as ingame purchases.
Launch date is set to 18th September 2012 for the PC version. The MacOS, iOS and Android versions will also launch in September 2012, but a hard date can't be provided yet due to the different approval requirements of each platform.
• BG:EE will not require the Beamdog client to run.
The DRM will be a minimal system that does a quick check to start the download. After that, BG:EE can be played completely offline if desired. When launched, the updater will check for an update: if there is none, it will launch the game directly and shut down; if there is an update, a GUI will pop up asking if you want to update now or just play the version you have.
• BG:EE will be supported post-ship through several DLCs.
There are plans for both free and paid-for DLCs, though free DLCs will be the majority. The new NPC Rasaad, and the new adventure The Black Pits, will be free for all platforms.
• BG:EE will be multilingual form the get-go.
BG:EE will ship with all available languages in a single build, and it will be possible to select the language of the text and the language of the voice independently.
ENGINE ENHANCEMENTS
• Based on the Throne of Bhaal engine.
BG:EE is based on the latest Throne of Bhaal code, which means it includes all features from Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal, as well as all bug fixes from those titles and their relative patches.
• Rebuilt Threading Model.
The threading model has been cleaned up and fixed, thus eliminating the no-ops that characterized the original and improving performance. Several "Windows-95isms" were removed to make the engine run smoother and increase new-OSs-friendlyness.
• Rebuilt Renderer.
The renderer was also cleaned up, and ported entirely to OpenGL for better performance. The graphics are now 100% hardware accelerated.
• Fixed up multiplayer.
Baldur's Gate's buggy multiplayer support has been fixed up and improved, eliminating bugs and introducing cross-platform compatibility. It will be possible to play a multiplayer BG:EE game connecting a Windows based PC, an Apple Mac PC, an iPad and an Android tablet simultaneously.
• ToBEx engine fixes.
The Overhaul team is working with Ascension64, author of the mods Throne of Bhaal Extender (ToBEx) and Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT) to improve the engine and bring over all the major fixes from those packages.
• Extensive bug fixing.
BG:EE will feature a huge amount of bug fixes as suggested by the community, found by devs and beta testers, and found by modders throughout the years. Several bugs that currently require Baldurdash, Dudlyville, Tutufix, BG Fixpack or BG2 Fixpack - as well as a plethora of hardcoded bugs that require access to the source code to be fixed - will not exist in BG:EE.
VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS
• Native support for high resolutions.
BG:EE natively supports high resolutions in 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 format up to 2880x1800. The source area art will be filtered via hardware to scale it as required and enable the zoom in/out feature.
• Dynamic zoom in/out feature.
It will be possible to zoom in and out of the battlefield dynamically during gameplay by scrolling the mouse wheel up and down, within generous limits.
• New, high resolution cinematics.
The original, low resolution 3D cinematics will be replaced with new, never before seen high resolution 2D animations drawn by BG:EE's Art Director Nat Jones.
• New, high resolution GUI.
The Graphic User Interface (GUI) has been completely unhardcoded, thus making it possible to overcome its inherent limitations in terms of resolution. Beamdog / Overhaul Games are currently working on a brand new, high resolution GUI, which will be customizable / moddable to a generous extent (some limits still apply due to the original BG code's resilience to Cameron Tofer's attacks; hopefully, Cameron will manage to find a silver-coated machete with which to treat the old code post-ship, further expanding the GUI's customizability).
• Flipbook animation transparency and Alpha blending.
As per this thread, BG:EE will feature flipbook animation transparency and alpha blending for BAM files. In the longer run, a new version of BAM files with multiple-layer alpha blending is being considered.
• One Pixel Production (1PP)
Erephine has agreed to include the 1PP work into BG:EE. The devs are currently trying to make it play nice with the BG:EE setup. Share your opinion on which components would suit BG:EE better here!
AUDIO ENHANCEMENTS
• OpenAL based audio engine
The audio engine has been completely ported to OpenAL, thus ditching the now obsolete DirectSound API, thus bringing back environmental audio support for newer OSs.
• Original music by Michael Hoeing
Purists have nothing to fear, as the original soundtrack by Michael Hoeing will remain untouched in BG:EE.
• New music by Sam Hulick
Sam Hulick, the composer who scored the soundtrack to Mass Effect 3, will write new music to go with the new contents in BG:EE. He is an admittedly huge fan of Michael Hoeing's work, and is trying his best to remain faithful to its spirit and atmosphere.
• New voice sets for player characters.
A new collection of player character voice sets is bundled with BG:EE.
NEW CONTENT
• One new playable kit.
BG:EE will feature one new playable kit never before been seen in an IE game: the Blackguard.
• Three new joinable NPCs.
BG:EE will feature three new joinable NPCs: Rasaad, a human male Monk; Neera, a half-elven female Wild Mage; and Dorn, a half-orc male Blackguard. Their dialogues and interjetions will be written by fantasy novelist Dave Gross.
• One new adventure.
BG:EE will feature one new adventure with dedicated, newly developed area art and "nasty AI". The Black Pits (codename: Adventure X) is a standalone arena mini-campaign consisting of 15 fights and taking place in the Underdark. New and old NPCs will react to the new content with interjections.
Salvaging Baldur’s Gate: the “horror” of getting the original code in shape for the Enhanced Edition
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is the attempt of Overhaul Games to recreate and expand upon “the greatest roleplaying game of all time.” Trent Oster, the president and director of business development at Beamdog, has been working closely with Wizards of the Coast and Atari to bring this new, enhanced vision of Dungeons & Dragons to PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. We’ve talked with Oster about some of the business difficulties behind the updated game, and now it’s time to dig into another aspect of this project. The greatest RPG has a secret: it’s stuffed full of incredibly inefficient code.
“Does the word horror mean anything to you?” Oster asked the Penny Arcade Report. “I’ve been going through the user interface code a lot lately, and I’ve found just a ton of duplicates and references to the same pieces of art. So literally it’s the same piece of art that will appear 10, 15 times. And you’re not sure which version of it is being used by which file.”
Overhaul tried to retain as much code as they could, at least initially. That proved to be a headache, and Oster opted for more drastic measures. “I’ve been taking the kind of nuclear weapon approach to it, which is if you kill them all, then whatever’s left, that’s the one you deal with,” he said.
Cameron Tofer, co-founder of Beamdog, said he was just glad they found anything left from the original code. “Baldur’s Gate is a big project, and when you think about what we’re actually doing is crazy. We’re taking Baldur’s Gate, throwing it into a different engine, and moving it to four new platforms on code that’s fifteen years old. It’s no small task.”
Don’t worry, there’s only a couple hundred thousand lines of code to fix
“At a time when other games were throwing around a couple hundred assets, Baldur’s Gate was throwing around hundreds of thousands of separate assets. It was really kind of its advantage. The disadvantage is that this was done in the timeline of Windows 3.1, Windows 95, so their approach was very colored by that era,” Oster explained.
The biggest “trick” up Baldur’s Gate‘s sleeve, Oster explained, was palletization, a process that maps pixels to a palette containing only specified colors. This was how Baldur’s Gate handled things like character customization and color swaps on re-used assets. “Palettized stuff pretty much died out in like 2000, and I thank God for that, because it is horrible stuff. But with Baldur’s Gate we have to go back and literally fight our way through that swamp all over again,” Oster told the Penny Arcade Report.
The game will run at 2048 by 1536 on the iPad 3, with most of the UI elements re-created from scratch
It’s an arduous task to be sure, but Oster and his team have help. Dedicated players and fans of Baldur’s Gate have already contributed to Overhaul’s progress by pointing out previously-discovered bugs, and more recently, contributing translations during the localization process. “Every guy who’s who in the Baldur’s Gate community, who’s ever made a mod or who’s ever made a name for himself, he’s on our beta team, and he’s working with us right now to make this awesome,” Tofer said.
Oster was quick to agree. “It’s like a giant reunion on our forums, it’s just like everybody who’s anybody is in there,” he said. The team sees the fanbase not just as emotional support, but technical as well. “We’re treating these guys essentially as members of the dev team… the goal going long-term is we stay engaged with these people. When they find problems or they find ideas on how to make the game even better, we continue to work with these guys. These guys know Baldur’s Gate better than anybody on the planet. I think even the original dev team don’t know Baldur’s Gate as thoroughly as some of these guys.”
In terms of sheer numbers, language may be the biggest obstacle Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition has to overcome. Tofer told the Penny Arcade Report that the team had fixed more around 1,000 bugs and errors, many of which were simple typos.
“Here’s a small example: There’s an item, you read the description, it gives you +3 to whatever, but it actually doesn’t. It actually gives you a +2,” Tofer said. “So there’s little things like that, that from like a grand perspective we’re making little fixes, but our job as far as enhancing the greatest roleplaying game of all time is gonna be appreciated. And when we talk about fifteen years from now, this game is gonna be like… polished. It’s gonna be like, holy cow.”
You can’t beat the feel of a good dose of nostalgia
Code isn’t the only thing that’s changed since the original release of Baldur’s Gate, though. In an age of digital distribution services like Steam–although Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition will be a Beamdog exclusive on the PC–the art of the video game manual and physical presence of gaming has diminished. Oster and Tofer both agreed they didn’t want that for their work. When asked if it was important anymore for games to have a physical space occupied in a store, Tofer said, “It’s only important to this product.”
“I think Baldur’s Gate for us is a lot about nostalgia,” Oster said. “I remember cracking open the Ultima 3 box, and it had this fake leather-bound spellbook and manual and map. This is the stuff that you remember 10 years, 15 years down the road after playing the game.” Overhaul is working on plans to release a physical collector’s edition of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, though neither Oster nor Tofer could offer any details as to what would be packaged inside. Whatever they choose, they want it to have a “real Dungeons & Dragons feel to it,” and their close collaboration with Wizards of the Coast will dictate how that plays out. Recent Twitter updates have hinted at the struggle of releasing a physical product, unfortunately.
The game is also coming to Android platforms, and Oster thinks that the game has the opportunity to show that a good game with a dedicated fan base can find success on that platform. “If it’s a good game, hopefully people buy it. I view it as a chance for the Android market to gain visibility as a positive place to be.” He stated that this release could show that the piracy debate is “background noise,” and Baldur’s Gate 2 could also come to Android if the first game finds an audience. If not? “At that point, we’re just going to have to make the appropriate call, I guess.”
When asked if there would be a need for an enhanced Enhanced Edition 15 years from now, Tofer joked with the Penny Arcade Report, “They won’t even bother, it’ll be perfect.” There are even bigger plans as well, with the possibility of a Baldur’s Gate 3. “Long term, there’s a goal to make a Baldur’s Gate 3 on our side, and I know there’s interest on the other side, it’s just a matter of seeing how successful Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is and seeing if we can work out deal terms on what it would take it to make it happen.”
Looks like we're getting new voice & portrait packs as well.
TrentOster
10:31AM
We are adding at least three new male and three new female player voice sets to the game. The cast is pretty skilled voice actors, so we have high expectations.
• New portraits for player characters. A portrait pack drawn by former Black Isle Studios portrait artist Jason Manley is being added for free to PC/Mac, and as paid DLC to iOS/Android.
Jason Manley is Creating Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Portraits While Reminiscing About It
It's unclear if he'll be contributing to Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition as well, but it's definitely worth noting an update to Jason Manley's Facebook page that brings the good news that the former Black Isle Studios portrait artist (and former Massive Black CEO) has been recruited by Overhaul Games to work on "a big batch" of new portraits for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Hearing him reminisce about the good times at BIS makes me even more excited that so many of the original members are involved in this latest endeavor:
On break from painting up a big batch of portraits for Baldurs Gate. Nostalgic memory floods from my early days at Black Isle. Feargus Urquhart giving me open proxy access to get onto playboy's website for reference hunting (and the confused looks of other co-workers as I searched away), Joshua Eric Sawyer writing descriptions for me when he was the BIS super webmaster, Stephen Bokkes brainstorming levels with me, Pete Meihuizen's drum and bass and lunch at the gyspy den, Justin Sweet's invaluable lessons for puddnhead and I, Darren Monahan and that plastic bat ritualistically carried during the collection of morning updates, Malavon lunchbreaks and QUAKE 3, Puddnhead hanging a massive nude oil painting (with bush) in his office regardless of what corporate thought, Andrew Jones turning down ILM to join us in the pursuit of art, Chris Parker moving me out of painting dirt and into concept art, Vance Kovacs talks about color theory and teaching me to texture 3D dirt in lightwave, and tons of other thoughts about the Black Isle gurus who have kicked so much ass in the industry since my career began. I am officially in the time warp of nerdy delicious awesome ...and it has me painting again. Thanks to Andrew and Puddnhead for encouraging me to do this. It is nice to see that I can, in fact, still paint a head....though I am breaking my promise to never paint elves or dwarves again. I forgot how fun this was. Forever a games geek at heart...and full of fond memories from the past. Thanks to Trent Oster for the opportunity to relive some of the old days.
If you have any questions for the dev team, this would be your chance!
We'll be doing an AMAA on Reddit this Wednesday, August 29th starting around 1:30-2pm MST (GMT -6)!
Nathan
August 27 in General
Hey all,
we've had a few people express to us that they were interested in having a Q&A session with the BG:EE team! So, we decided the best place to do this Q&A would be on reddit this upcoming Wednesday!
For those not familiar, a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a kind of open-forum interview. You can see an example of what it's all about here: http://www.reddit.com/r/iama
We'll be available from the start time until the end of our work day, so, probably at least 4+ hours.
Taking part will be everyone present in the office - myself, Trent Oster, our designers, our artists, our writers and our programmers. We'll make a formal introduction on the day of for you to read and find out exactly who we all are.
For necessary reasons it has to be an "AMAA" - Ask [us] ALMOST Anything - as even though we're willing to answer pretty much anything there will be some contractual-related questions we may not be able to answer depending on what people want to know.
If you have questions for the team, now's your chance to be heard and answered as best we can. =)
Help us get the word out - chances are the time will be too tight for us to do another session like this before the game is released. We're looking forward to hearing from you! =)
So, it looks like they're going to continue with the AMAA tomorrow.
Okay, so, here's the deal. We got totally Obama'd. It's cool though - we are seriously going to write his administration and demand a case of White House beer as reparation for his faux pas.
The AMA is going to be ongoing for tomorrow - if you have questions, post it in the AMA. TrentOster is still answering, and so will I from home this evening as late as we can. In addition, once we're all in tomorrow we'll keep answering so long as we get questions.
Thank you so much, all of you, for your support of us and for your interest. We really want to do right for the community who loves this game, and for who this game is sacrosanct. You guys rule.
OverhaulNathan:
New content! we're adding 3 new NPC's, a new class kit, and two new adventures - one of which has been announced, the Black Pits, a stand-alone sort of arena adventure and another which Trent has referred to as Adventure Y. More info to come later on that. New voice acting and music to go along with the new areas.
We got approvals for 11 more screenshots today. Here's one.
The clock in the lower left is being worked on as we speak, with fancy new animated graphics. Look for more screenshots soon, perhaps somewhere on the internet.
Some new portraits came out of the approval system. Here's one by Jason Manley, artist to the stars.
As mentioned earlier, all of the new Jason Manley portraits will be available for free in the BG:EE for PC and Mac, and will be a DLC item for iPad and Android to make up for the lower price.
Firewind [forum info]
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How many Kurt Cobains does it take to paint a room?
Gutbuster Brigade!
Posts: 21019
Godlings, I have come to give you an important message: The realm of www.baldursgate.com has been updated to include a section known as The Candlekeep Library, which will be where major public announcements are made. Not unlike the official blog of yore.
Today it opens with an extra fancy treat: 9 new screenshots from Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Later this week some other cool things will appear, such as a series of vignettes written by our very own Dave Gross. And perhaps something for your earballs.
This may actually be awesome since Trent gives his blessings on it.
I usually play a Thief too, so double score!
They should be sending out pre-load links soon too, with only 5 more days until it goes live!
TrentOster Wrote
Just heard the rough thief voice set. The actor totally hit the role. I think I have my new favorite voice set.
I'm a sad panda.
But I guess it might be even more awesome now.
TrentOster Wrote
Dear Friends of Baldur’s Gate,
When we first announced Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, You set fire to our servers and we were overwhelmed by the huge wave of support from the fans of the original game.
Once the fires had subsided, thousands of you posted suggestions and requests on our forums. Dozens of volunteers from all over the world helped us improve game play, squash bugs, and generally fine-tune the game. Even more came to help work on translations from English to more than 16 other languages.
Executing on our plan to make the best Baldur’s Gate possible and responding to that overwhelming feedback, we’ve added new characters, areas, and story, creating many new hours of game play. Yet the suggestions, fixes, and translations continue, and more volunteers keep joining.
After recently reviewing the game and then consulting with our partners, we've decided to ensure that Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is the best possible product on launch. Thus, we have pushed back the release date of the game. Our release date is now November 30th, 2012.
To all who have pre-ordered, we ask for your patience as we move toward our final release date -- and we will be working on something a little extra for you. To all who have volunteered, we thank you for your dedication and support.
Hi friends. Despite the disappointing news of the release pushback, we have some neat stuff for you. Our talented Dave Gross has written the first chapter in a series of vignettes about our new characters, and it's now available.
In addition, there's a sample of Mark Meer as Rasaad yn Bashir after the story. Enjoy!
Hi folks. Our latest addition to the Candlekeep Library is an a story by Dave Gross (With some input from me, as he keeps claiming) about Neera the Wild Mage, along with a sample of her voice acting by actress Nicola Elbro.
I wish we could show more of the hell hounds conversation, because it's pretty hilarious.
TrentOster
