Ghym

PCGamer.com has an article that the Baldur's Gate page has a countdown going. Should hit zero today around 12pm pacific. I just went to the site, and it's down to 3:45:00 to go. I guess we'll find out what its about pretty soon.

superdeluxe

Hoping for Isometric, likely going to be first person shooter/rpg

RocShemp

Or a FaceBook game a'la Dragon Age Legends.

JasonF

One rumor I've heard is an iOS port (that would be OK with me).

Tracer Bullet

Apparently the countdown was to the site going down.

RocShemp

Are you serious?

kgrogers1979

Its still down.

You know, if you are going to count down to a supposedly big announcement, you should be well prepared beforehand for any potential bandwidth overloads...

kgrogers1979

This just showed up on Joystiq.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/15/ba...s-this-summer/

There already is an HD mod that plays the original game in HD graphics, so I hope this is more than just an HD facelift.

RocShemp

Wow. If all that was for a simple facelift, that was a whole lot of nothing.

Ghym

Well, according to this article, it's more than a re-package.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/15/ba...g-this-summer/

Following an enigmatic, tedious countdown timer (that broke the website upon expiring for 40 minutes and counting), Overhaul Games has announced Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.

BG and BG2 have been available on GOG.com for awhile, so what’ll this contribute? According to the developer, original game content. Overhaul Games told Joystiq: “This is the Enhanced Edition, it’s not a repackage. We have the original source code and are doing a significant update.” I’ve separately reached out to the developer for more information.

Right now, the game’s announcement page is still busted, so I’m not sure whether to tell you to keep F5ing or not. I’ll update with any additional information as we receive it.

kgrogers1979

It sounds to me like they are just updating the old Infinity Engine rather than doing an actual remake. I wonder just how much they can actually update it that hasn't already been done in mods. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of BG mods out there that significantly improve the original game. Like I said before, there is even a mod that lets you play the original game in HD and widescreen resolutions, so even that is nothing new.

So far this whole thing seems VERY underwhelming. Unless it turns out to be an actual remake with a new engine, it seems like a huge waste of time.

kgrogers1979

The site is finally working now. Only 3 hours late.

http://www.baldursgate.com/news/2012...anced-edition/

So there will be both a BG1 and BG2 enhanced editions. It also looks like I was right. Its just an enhancement of the old Infinity Engine and not a real remake. I was hoping for a 3D isometric engine similar to Diablo 3. Just reusing the old engine is major disappointment.

Ghym

Considering I just bought both BG 1+2 off of GOG.com, I'll probably just stick to playing those, unless this new game has some really cool new features.

kgrogers1979

I wonder if it will use 4th edition rules? I really can't imagine Wizards of the Coast would ever go back to 2nd edition.

That's probably what the "modern enhancement" is. Just a change in the rule set and everything else remains the same.

Setzer

Depending on what sort of enhancements they have planned and what new content will be added to the game, I might pick it up. I was hoping for Baldur's Gate III using an enhanced version of the Infinity Engine....but I guess that ain't happening anytime soon. I've already re-played the first game using the TuTu mod and if that's all this enhanced version is then I'll pass.

Setzer

No, it will retain the same rule set from the original games.

RocShemp

I've never played D&D but have heard many people ramble on about 2nd edition rules versus 4th edition rules. Why is this such a big issue?

kgrogers1979

There are a lot of differences going from one edition to the next, but most of the complaints are just older people not being able to accept anything new. A lot of people didn't accept 3E either.

1E came out in the 1970s. I never played it. 2E came out in the late 1980s, and I was about 10 years old at the time and that's when I first started playing. I don't know if there were complaints from older gamers about all the changes back then as I was too young to care about such things.

Then in the late 1990s the TSR company was going bankrupt and Wizards of the Coast bought them and the D&D franchise. WotC then immediately created a new 3E which was a radical departure from 2E, and I know there were lots and lots of complaints about 3E being "dumbed down for newbies." While some of that was true, other things in 3E were more complex than 2E.

Baldur's Gate 2 ended up being the last 2E computer D&D game. The next D&D game, Neverwinter Nights was 3E.

4E was released a few years ago, and I haven't really paid much attention to it since I don't play pen and paper anymore and no computer D&D game has yet used 4E. From what little I know about 4E, most of the complaints are that it is dumbed down yet again and is made more for the MMORPG crowd than the old school pen and paper gamers. I don't really know how much of that is true or not.

Ghym

There is an article up on Gamespy, with more info. They say that BG3 is their long-term goal.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/baldurs-gat...1220929p1.html

kgrogers1979

I just don't see how Baldur's Gate 3 could ever really work in anything but name only.

The Bhaalspawn story was concluded with the Throne of Bhaal expansion. There's really no way they could continue that story. So any potential BG3 would have to be a completely new story that is only tangentially related to BG1 and 2.

Also consider the changes in rules with 4E now. BG3 will never be a 2E game like BG1 and 2 were. Wizards of the Coast would never allow that. They may allow an "enhanced edition" of BG1 and 2 to keep the 2E rules, but a brand new game like BG3 would most definitely be 4E.

So any BG3 at this point would be Baldur's Gate in name only... kind of like the Dark Alliance console games...

Trevor

I loved the console BG: Dark Alliance games, mainly as a two person co-op experience.

Always meant to play the original BG games, and have the old things in a box somewhere, but at this point maybe I'll wait to see how this enhancement comes off.

kgrogers1979

The site has been updated. The enhanced editions are coming to iPad. No word on a PC release, so I wonder if these are iPad exclusives...

I have never used an iPad before, but I am surprised these are coming because I thought the file size would be too large. Is there no limit to the size of apps? BG1 and 2 both are several GB in size.

http://www.baldursgate.com/news/2012...on-for-ipad-3/

Trevor

The original was only 300 mb.

I'm not sure if there is a limit, but I hear some apps are well over a gig, so this shouldn't be a problem at all.

I'm in, need some old school gaming on my new iPad (after Lent).

kgrogers1979

You mean the original BG? It was well over 300 MB.

It originally was five CD-ROMs with Tales of the Sword Coast on a sixth disc if you had the expansion. Sure a multi-disc game like that has some data redundancy, but Bioware later re-released it with better data compression and it was still three discs.

I don't have the games installed currently, but I know BG1 was over 2 GB in size and BG2 was close to 3 GB. So the whole thing would be close to 5 GB, which is a hefty chunk if you only have a 16 GB iPad.

Edit: Well, now I recall old games like this having an option to do a partial install or a full install. Since hard drives back then were so small, many people only did partial installs and ran the game off the disc. With much larger hard drives today, games are fully installed and run completely off the hard drive. Its possible the partial install of BG1 was only 300 MB, but the iPad will require a full install since there is no way to play it off a disc.

Trevor

I made the mistake of going by wiki.

I guess they could do something like free DLC that you download as you get to new areas?