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Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition - Sorcerer's Place Interview

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by Taluntain, Nov 14, 2012.

  1. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Remove all ads!
    [​IMG]Our intrepid new Editor, Marceror, has put together a series of questions for Trent Oster, the Beamdog mastermind behind the upcoming enhanced edition of the game that is the reason why Sorcerer's Place exists - Baldur's Gate. The interview is quite extensive, so here's a short bit to whet your appetite:

    6. SP: Modding by the fans has been the lifeblood of this series for the past decade. Will the process of modding the game change much for modders in the Enhanced Edition?

    Oster: We made an agreement very early within our team to go as far as possible to support the modding community. We enlisted a number of prolific modders from the community to help us not only keep modding as similar and as easy as possible, but to add in additional modding support where we can. In a few cases, this advisory group caught us going down a track and helped us re-direct to a better solution. I think the modders who aren't in the beta are going to be quite happy.

    7. SP: How much fan created material made it into BG:EE?

    Oster: Good question. There is a fair bit of fan content that is included into BG:EE, but I think very little went in untouched. In almost every case we worked closely with the modders involved to improve or revise the content to better fit the game and the average user. In some cases the modders went above and beyond their previous efforts and delivered something awesome with the additional support we were able to offer on the code side.​

    Dig into the rest of the interview here!
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2015
    Taluntain, Nov 14, 2012
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  2. Topken

    Topken Elven-dragon wizard

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    That should be common sense in cases like this where you are dealing with legacy code and trying to optimize it for the here and now and possibility the future. (I know I used the wrong form of that word but I can not think of what the right one is.)
     
    Topken, Nov 14, 2012
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  3. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Nice interview.
    Mr. Oster was more talkative than usual.
    Great work, O intrepid Marceror!!!:D
     
    Darion, Nov 14, 2012
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  4. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Thanks. I was pretty happy with the amount of information received. I had worried that some of the BG3 related questions wouldn't get answered, but they did. Trent was very gracious. :)

    I'm looking forward to doing BG enhanced style later this month. I've been itching for a BG runthrough for months, but have been holding out for EE.
     
    Marceror, Nov 15, 2012
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  5. Rawgrim Gems: 21/31
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    Slightly off topic: But does anyone know if they have improved the interactions and such for the original NPC`s? Would be abit wierd if only the new ones actually start up a conversation etc.
     
    Rawgrim, Nov 15, 2012
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  6. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    IIRC they haven't touched the old dialogues.
     
    Taluntain, Nov 15, 2012
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  7. Rawgrim Gems: 21/31
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    They hardly had any in BG1. I was thinking of if they added convos with NPC`s or between them, like BG2 had. If they haven`t, it would seem that only the new ones will be doing stuff like that. Making the old ones feel "lesser" in a way.
     
    Rawgrim, Nov 15, 2012
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  8. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    The article mentions Fan-Created-Content.

    Any idea what this content might be??
    I don't remember reading anywhere about this before.
     
    Darion, Nov 16, 2012
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  9. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I'm assuming that most of it is bug fixes -- probably the majority of the 400+ bug fixes that are advertised with the game. There's likely also a few convenience tweaks that are popular with the community. I doubt they would include much more than that.
     
    Marceror, Nov 16, 2012
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  10. Rawgrim Gems: 21/31
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    Just had a chat with Dave Gross on facebook. The old npcs will indeed have new dialogue and such. Added stuff here and there. Not as much as they do in BG2, but more than they have in the original BG game.
     
    Rawgrim, Nov 16, 2012
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  11. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    How will that work out in terms of voice audio (or the lack thereof)?
     
    Gaear, Nov 16, 2012
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  12. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    There will be no new voice acting for the original companions.
     
    Marceror, Nov 16, 2012
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  13. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    Ouch. I think that's a bad idea then, unless your goal is to announce "these are the new dialogues!" ;)

    Usually, half-voiced NPCs are the domain of mods.
     
    Gaear, Nov 16, 2012
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  14. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Ah, I see. Thanx for the info Marce.

    I wasn't thinking about the tweaks and patches the community did. I assumed actual mods.
     
    Darion, Nov 16, 2012
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  15. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I believe that I read that the new NPCs wouldn't have special dialogues with the old ones, so I'm not so sure it will work out the way you suggest. It very well may, however. Time will tell.
     
    Marceror, Nov 17, 2012
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  16. Rawgrim Gems: 21/31
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    The new stuff will be text based. Gross said the older companions will have interactions with other NPCs. Brand new interactions. But not as much interaction as they had in BG2.
     
    Rawgrim, Nov 17, 2012
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  17. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I don't mean to be Debbie Downer with this, it's just that an NPC who says one thing out loud and then the next silently appears kind of half-baked. I'm a bit surprised they're proceeding that way, honestly, though I'm hopeful they've got something up their sleeve to lessen the effect. :) I do understand that dragging the original voice actors back into the studio fourteen years later is probably unrealistic.
     
    Gaear, Nov 17, 2012
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  18. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Well, if it's a conversation between, say, Imoen and Neera, I'd prefer that the whole thing be text only, vs. Neera having VO and Imoen not.
     
    Marceror, Nov 17, 2012
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  19. Montresor

    Montresor Mostly Harmless Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder

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    Perish the thought! :mommy:

    Incidentally, maybe they should have written a few interactions for Imoen. She had none or very few in the original game - IIRC because she was a late addition to the Vanilla game and therefore lacked a lot of development.
     
    Montresor, Nov 17, 2012
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  20. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    ^ Yeah.
    As someone who plays with the Imoen Friendship-Mod and has gotten used to her plently witty banter this will be a setback....
     
    Darion, Nov 17, 2012
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