120 replies to this topic

[pantherv]

who needs a shrink with news like this!! bad week just became a great week.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Hansi, on 29 March 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

Ahh in the US yes, but A) in the UK beers generally are four together instead of 6 and B) they weren't the same. Some pints at a pub, different ones and then a can at home.

How can anyone be satisfied by a 4-pack? Oh well, in Denmark we mostly buy cases of 30 at a time.

[Hansi]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 30 March 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

How can anyone be satisfied by a 4-pack? Oh well, in Denmark we mostly buy cases of 30 at a time.

Buy 2 or more?

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Hansi, on 30 March 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

Buy 2 or more?

Not that easy to carry 6 of those around..

[Hansi]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 30 March 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

Not that easy to carry 6 of those around..

Well if you want a case then you can buy a case of 15 or 30. I meant compare to buying a six pack.

[Janichsan]

Kilvain, on 29 March 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

Mac version announced!  

Great! In combination with this I guess that means we will also finally have Planescape: Torment natively for Macs. Good days for RPG buffs.

[Kilvain]

Janichsan, on 30 March 2012 - 01:31 AM, said:

Great! In combination with this I guess that means we will also finally have Planescape: Torment natively for Macs. Good days for RPG buffs.

That is awesome. Icewind Dale has been mentioned too, so we might see a Mac version of Icewind Dale 2 finally.

In other happy news:

Quote

We will play with the BG1 level cap, but not too high. The BG encounters do not scale for crazy high level.

Yes, there will be new areas in #bgee. I've modeled over half a dozen and we've added two level artists from the original team

[morback]

Is there a place to send them suggestions? I would love to see better AI scripts. In the last few days of my PC years, I had found these awesome AI scripts that made the game so much more enjoyable to me. I didn't have to do anything during fights, it was like watching a movie. Fantastic. So happy BG/BG2 is coming back. Love the engine, would love to see more games based on it. Looks like this summer has potential!

[Thain Esh Kelch]

morback, on 04 April 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

Is there a place to send them suggestions? I would love to see better AI scripts. In the last few days of my PC years, I had found these awesome AI scripts that made the game so much more enjoyable to me. I didn't have to do anything during fights, it was like watching a movie. Fantastic. So happy BG/BG2 is coming back. Love the engine, would love to see more games based on it. Looks like this summer has potential!

Trent Oster is very active on Twitter, and is answering questions all the time.

[Hansi]

morback, on 04 April 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

Is there a place to send them suggestions? I would love to see better AI scripts. In the last few days of my PC years, I had found these awesome AI scripts that made the game so much more enjoyable to me. I didn't have to do anything during fights, it was like watching a movie. Fantastic. So happy BG/BG2 is coming back. Love the engine, would love to see more games based on it. Looks like this summer has potential!

Wait, so you didn't have to do anything during combat? Isn't that one of the biggest parts of the game?

Anyway that should constitude as a mod and they said they'd try to support community mods that already existed. Most likely won't work for iPad though.

[Janichsan]

A couple of details about the upcoming Baldur's Gate EE: the graphics and interface are going to be optimised for resolutions up to 2048x1536, the iPad version will probably be around 1 GB (thanks to generous use of compression techniques) and cost $10.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Wow. 10$ is an instabuy for both Mac and iPad!

[Tacohead]

Janichsan, on 25 April 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

A couple of details about the upcoming Baldur's Gate EE: the graphics and interface are going to be optimised for resolutions up to 2048x1536, the iPad version will probably be around 1 GB (thanks to generous use of compression techniques) and cost $10.

I saw that as well and was going to post about it but you beat me to it! This whole project just keeps getting better and better. It's almost too good to be true. I can't wait!

-PN

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Link to part of an interview with Trent Oster about the localization of BG:EE. I especially like this part:

Quote

Trent Oster:

I’m not sure the exact number of lines, but if I remember correctly, I think there’s close to a million words of dialog.

PCG: Wow, a million? I ask because the other day the Dishonored guys were talking about the number of dialog lines in their game. I thought it was an interesting statistic, because we don’t always think of it in that sense—that these are novel sized or bigger works.

TO: Yeah, the most hilarious example I can think of is when we [BioWare] signed Neverwinter with the Atari guys. So they sent us their localization form and it had three boxes on the form, and it said: “Number of words of dialog: Less than 100; 100 to 1,000; 1,000-plus.”

I made a fourth box on there, checked it off, and wrote “1.2 million words.” I sent the e-mail back to them, and got a call the next morning from the translator saying, “You’re kidding, right?”

And I’m like, “No, I’m dead serious. There’s 1.2 million words of dialog in Neverwinter Nights.”

And they’re like, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

And they hung up on me and I didn’t hear from them for a week. Apparently they had a big meltdown in their localization department as they realized the volume of what they committed to.

[Sargiel]

Great find Thain Esh Kelch Looking forward to the rest of that interview (and release itself)!

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Houston, BGEE has gone LIVE on the iOS App store!

[Janichsan]

Wait a second... the new characters are only available as in-app-purchase? Did they say this before and I missed it?

[Cougar]

Janichsan, on 07 December 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

Wait a second... the new characters are only available as in-app-purchase? Did they say this before and I missed it?

Yes. They did this to make the barrier for entry on iOS lower ($10).

For Mac/PC, it's $20, but you get all the extra content. It ends up being the same.

[Janichsan]

Cougar, on 07 December 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

Yes. They did this to make the barrier for entry on iOS lower ($10).

For Mac/PC, it's $20, but you get all the extra content. It ends up being the same.

Ah, okay.

[rampancy]

Cougar, on 07 December 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

For Mac/PC, it's $20, but you get all the extra content. It ends up being the same.

...and that's a deal killer for me. There's no reason why I should get the EE for BG (or BG2, or IWD, or PST if/when the come out) when I can get the game from GOG.com, install it in Wineskin or CrossOver, patch it with mods (with a greater reach of bug fixes and gameplay enhancements than Beamdog's changes), and enjoy an excellent game for half the price and 15-20 minutes of extra effort.

I was really hoping for more out of the EE than mere bug fixes and some widescreen support, but given what Oster mentioned earlier about the original BG art assets being lost to time, I really wasn't holding out for much. If they were somehow able to significantly update and upgrade the graphics, I'd be more on board with the current pricing, but such as it is, I'm not liking it.

A review of the Windows version on GameBanshee also highlights other issues with the game:

Quote

...However, the lack of real advancement in terms of interface and controls, as well as the crippling number of glitches, simply makes it impossible to recommend this new version of Baldur's Gate over the original. The sad and ironic thing is that this version of the game, which boasts hundreds of bug fixes (mostly taken from the years-old work of modders), better performance and new features, ultimately looks like it will require multiple patches and mods to even reach parity with the modded-up original version. Unless you are desperate for the new content, I cannot in good conscience recommend Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, considering the original is still available, has hundreds of mods and bug fix packs, costs $10 USD less, and is just as great as it's ever been.