The Industry, the fury, the frustration

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I sit and read about the plans for BG3:

"Though BG3 won't be a direct sequel to the storyline of the first two BG games, Atari intends for the game to have similarly epic scope and feature a large gaming world populated by memorable characters.

It will feature cutting-edge 3D graphics, although the gamemakes haven't decided whether to license an existing engine or develop a new one. Atari ambitious design goal is to make a visually stunning RPG that both lives up to BG's great heritage and evolves the genre.

When asked if the follow-up would stick with isometric perspective, John Hight, Atari Executive Producer, indicated that Atari wasn't "afraid to move the camera for cinematic effect. [Your viewpoint] will be immersive then the traditional isometric perspective and bring you closer to the action. You want to see the fear in the orc's eye as you blast him with a fireball, don't you?"

BG3 will use the DnD 3.5 rules for an authentic roleplaying experience.

While there'll naturally be a lot of combat, Atari plans to include a wide variety of quests and incorporate non-combat-oriented skills to give bloodless solutions to some quests

Hight's bottom-line promise: "It will be epic""

(who else wants to strangle this man, go for the eyes boo)

This is a sales pitch. I am about to puke. The highlights in effect explain that we can look forward to a lovely graphics engine requiring a new video card and more ram. They have also stated that they are polling fans about what classes/npc's they would like to see in the sequel.

This is what happens when no artists are left to design games. This is what happens when the corporation takes over. They ask you for what you want and give you what you ask. And this may seem like a good thing but you must understand what it implies. A real artist, a real designer does not ask his audience how he should shape his sculpture, he shapes it to his mind and imagination, he does what he pleases with it, hoping to communicate with you(the audience) in the manner he hopes to.

Polls designed to gauge what the "player" supposedly wants will only result in stupid vacuous elements that contribute little or nothing to the gaming experience, alas such is the world we are in at this point. "Hmmm, it would seem that they like the kensai from the last game, so lets throw it in this one, and the sorcerer too of course, and everyone loves minsc and his hamster, so lets put his ancestor in there too! (not made up, it was hinted at in several articles/press releases).

I consider a good video game, regardless of its genre to be a work of art, it engages you in many stimulating and interesting ways, it allows you to escape sometimes, to learn about yourself sometimes, to express beauty, hate, suffering, justice, whatever you want. It is a work of art when properly made.

Look where we are headed, sequels, sequels, sequels. And even the non-sequels are sequels. Games that reconstitute elements from previous games and sell it in a new graphics engine with a new name and a new image and the consumer can't tell the difference. What is World of Warcraft? But a bunch of Warcraft 3 icons and characters and races mixed together in a massive pay me by the month take your social life away monstrosity?

And now, the last bastion of hope, the refuge true CRPG gamers came to, the BG saga, fallout, torment, it is all being sullied and ruined by brainless marketing moguls interested in making money by selling us what they think we want to see and hear. This is the wrong process, this is not how it works, this is not how magic is made. This is not going to create anything good, they are making a frankenstein, creating life where it should never exist, and you are all witness to it.

yes you will say that its just a video game, life goes on. Indeed it is just a game, and as such it will be released, likely get good reviews despite the fact that its ***, and be bought despite the fact that its not really any good, and players will be remeniscent of the old days when they were passing through baldur's gate invisible trying to avoid flaiming fist mercenaries under sarevok's control. And you'll see a reference to minsc and it won't be original or funny and you'll laugh about it anyway.

None of this may seem important, but the fact is that what is important is how industries and corporations are turning a previously creative and innovative field into a mega corporation only capable of evil and stupidity. It's dying, new ideas are sparce and barely ever make their way to the forefront, and when people actually DO try to make a decent game with good character interaction etc.. the corporation forces them to release it asap to make as much cash as possible and they remove half of the games damn content for an expansion or sequel so they can make you pay twice for a game you should have gotten in one shot in the first place( ahemm....kotor 2...kotor 2...).

Regardless, I hope Dragon Age will be good, but whatever monstrosity these corporation goons are turning my lovely BG saga into, I will just turn away with revulsion and flipper babies, experiments gone horribly, horribly wrong.

 

Nice passionate analysis, except for:

They're hardly "evil".

Anyway, if you don't like what they produce, don't buy it. If you think you can do better, then make your own game. If it's any good, it'll be bought by all the other people who care about that sort of quality. If nobody buys it, then that'll show that hardly anyone really wanted such a product.

My comments above notwithstanding, I do agree with the general sentiment you express.

 

Theres always a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Why did it have to be atari :-( (I haven't been keeping up on my BG3 news so this is the first I've heard of BG3 connected with atari). The only two atari games I've got have both taken good things and turned them into utter rubbish [enter the matrix :vomit: and RCTycoon 3 (turning it 3D and screwing the menus and ooo coaster cam yay, riding a roller coaster is a feeling, a sensation not simulatable with just visual stimulia dammmit!!!!)] so I guess this looks to be where BG3 will be going to.

 

Time will tell.

You have to admit that we would all be pleasantly surprised and happy to admit that we were wrong to doubt them if the game is great.

Of course the "We told you so" outcome is also a good chance as well.

We'll just have to wait and hope that they learn from their mistakes (or Troika's as the case may be.)

Gotta agree with many of the gripes though,

 

I am going on record as fully agreeing with AmericanIdle. But it won't much matter to me as I simply cannot afford to buy a new PC every two years just to be able to play games.

 

I will not play this game. That fact has to do with my dying eMAC and lack of income to support my expensive CRPGing habit the way I should like. I probably would play the game otherwise. I would play it because they called it Baldur's Gate. I would assume that it had to be somewhat like Baldur's Gate. I have a feeling it will be a sort of Diablo 2 thing. Regardless of whether you like the Diablo frnchise or not the fact was that Diablo 2 was massively seperate from Diablo. Had elements and a minor story tie to make it a Diablo, but that couldn't hide how insanely different the games were while at the same time being similar.

In this fashion I believe Baldur's Gate 3 will do well by taking a game that people played, making a supposed sequel so that the kids who are getting into gaming and never got around to playing the game it came from, but still hear great things about, will want to play it and a completely seperate fanbase will be created, with the odd person who saw past the industy BS and found the seperate merits of the games to become a fan of both.

Whether or not it can withstand the chages to acctually have merit to a large enough fanbase to justify the mangling death of a most beloved franchise remains to be seen.

 

I imagine it will be shallow like Heroes of Might and Magic 4', but I hope I am wrong.

 

I'm going to wait and see - I'm really looking forward to it, because it's either going to be a refreshing surprise (fingers crossed), or a turkey, in which case there'll be much to make fun of!

 

You wouldn't happen to be TheInquisitorOfDoom would you? Only, I saw a post identical to the one that you just made on the Bioware boards.

 

It's got to be, or synchonicity's gone insane!

 

Is that a yes?

Personally, I'm gonna do what I always do. I'll wait. When I see it reviewed, THEN I'll buy it. The one time I didn't wait, I bought Pariah.

Whoops.

 

Yes im the inquisitor of doom

i dont play many video games lately although ill keep my eye out when BG 3 hits the shelves.

Sadly (or perhaps not) i have suddenly found myself in the midst of a rather active social life and job and dont have time to play much, sad but true, all of you while you can shirk your responsibilities!! play like mad, believe me once you hid your early 20's things get messy.

Peace

 

This can't be true, you forgot mass psychosis and the spontaneous generation of massive murderous mobs of CRPG players (MMMCRPGP). Try saying that one .
On a more serious note, I nearly destroyed my computer when I found out Atari had taken over. I hope they have learned from ToEE, but I doubt it. As has been said before, only time will tell.
Of course, the graphics comments aren't terribly hopeful, either. Only a VERY few games/movies/TV shows that advertise their graphics/special effects/etc. have come out well.

 

Let us be hopefull.
Let us give them the benefit of doubt and hope(human sacrafice) that they have learned from ToEE.(was not that bad, only to close to the rules, yes and buggy)
Let us be thankful to have something to talk about and not be forced to play(the horror)fps and rts games.
let us hope that the places we live in are full wih willing pretty elven priestesses

 

Just be thankful its not EA in charge. The successor to Tiberian Sun is coming out and I'm not excited in the least, all beacuse of those cursed two letters.

 

yep

 

Doubtful. I'm sure Fel knows that all licensees are required to use the most recent ruleset. He's likely known that BG3 will be 3.5 since 3.5 came out.