BG3 petition to Atari

[Daveron]

its not that I dont like 3d its just that if baldurs gate 3 is a 3d game it would not be baldurs gate 3. Also its not only the graphics im concerned about its the whole interface of the game. What if these "3d" graphics caused the game to become a spin of bg2 darkalliance now that would really SUCK.

[Nightmare]

What if they don't? Simply put, we don't know anything about the game to even begin to debate the merits of whatever engine they use.

Why won't it be BG3 if its 3D? The FF series had this change, the Legend of Zelda series had this change.

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by Nightmare

<snip>
Why won't it be BG3 if its 3D? <snip>

I can only agree with this question. Why wouldn't it be BG3 if it is in 3D?

It wouldn't be BG3 if it were in first person view and real time and running around solo or with henchmen.
It would still be BG3 if done if the virtues of the ealier games were kept and it was now in 3D.

The graphics engine (2D or 3D) has nothing much to do with gamequality.

[me0w]

Originally Posted by Nightmare

Why won't it be BG3 if its 3D? The FF series had this change, the Legend of Zelda series had this change.

Ok, somehow FF pulled it off, but 3D ruined Zelda, it changed the whole game.

It was no longer Zelda, the incredibly difficult (the gameboy last level was near impossible) puzzle game, with a hint of fighting. It became some user friendly pretty peice of crap where you just went around slashing things.

The perspectives changed the whole way the puzzles worked, in short the series was ruined.

"Now I can say without hesitation that this game does not need any changing in the views or the landscape, because quite frankly, it's like your walking through a masterpiece when you play this game."

Crownhead just said it best.

You serverely risk ruining the game, and over what, small possible graphical inhancements.

"How about a more intelligent petition, like one for story or combat? They're trying to choose between Turn-based and Real-time, why isn't anyone arguing that? How about a petition to ask the inclusion of people who know what they're doing, like makers of PS:T or the original BG games? The game is, after all, for the players. How about a petition asking for a different name"

Well do it then, I think it would be great, and would sign all (apart from the good story one, thats just stupid, its like sending a petition saying "make the game great"... its worthless) If they make it turnbased it will be stupid, it will ruin the game, BG combat needs to be realtime with pause option.

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by me0w

Well do it then, I think it would be great, and would sign all (apart from the good story one, thats just stupid, its like sending a petition saying "make the game great"... its worthless) If they make it turnbased it will be stupid, it will ruin the game, BG combat needs to be realtime with pause option.

Isn't normal D&D turnbased, though? BG2 combat was turnbased, it just made it look like realtime. Maybe I'm wrong though, and misinterpreted what they meant in the article in PC Gamer...

And maybe its just me, but I enjoyed the 3D Zelda games for N64. The 3D enviroments still had many challenging puzzles...to this day I still have problems with some dungeons. 3D allowed for multi-level puzzles, as well, that can span the whole dungeon (like the central pillar in Snowhead from Majora's Mask).

[Xandax]

As far as I know - the D&D rules are turnbased at their core - however, from playing the game I would say that BG combat was "simultanious turn-based", meaning that everybody made their actions in the same turn.

If it had been true turn-based, each character would have reacted "alone", at their given turn, and characters would have acted in sequence. (Look to Fallout 1+2 for turnbased combat and you can see the difference).
You could pause the game and set all your mages (for instance) to cast spells. And given same casting time, they would all have cast their spells at the same time. Thus it can't be true turn-based.
However - it isn't real time either no, because then you for instance could cast more spells per turn if you had a faster casting time, which I don't belive was the case (could remember wrong) - I seem to recall that one character using the Venca(sp?) robes could cast as many spells per turn as somebody without - only his spells was cast ealier per round.

[Nightmare]

I'm just slightly worried about what they mean by "realtime". BG combat...or Diablo combat?

[me0w]

Originally Posted by Nightmare

And maybe its just me, but I enjoyed the 3D Zelda games for N64. The 3D enviroments still had many challenging puzzles...to this day I still have problems with some dungeons. 3D allowed for multi-level puzzles, as well, that can span the whole dungeon (like the central pillar in Snowhead from Majora's Mask).

There were dungeon spanning puzzles before Zelda went 3D, most importantly the final 8 story dungeon in Zelda, where you fight the giant bird, it was the most impressive and difficult puzzle I've ever encountered in a game, the puzzle went along every floor. Thing is what I'm complaining about probably doesn't really have anything to do with it being 3D, its just that the makers needed to fit the market of the N64, which was much younger, thus demanded easier (and much worse) puzzles, more flashy graphics more general ease. However BG doesn't need to be 3d, call me old fashioned but BG was, and still is a perfect game. I wish the artists and story line people would band together and use BG1 or 2 and just create a mod (a real one, with a new story, but exactly the same everything... except new maps.)

Who would'nt be happy.. no, ecstatic with that?

[CrownHead]

(Ahem) I agree. Accept for the animations of the characters and the spells, I completely agree.

As for the subject of graphics effecting how good The Ocarina of Time was, I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole.

[Romco]

I do not mind 3D graphics at all. TOEE, for example, had excellent graphics, though other parts of the game were lacking. What I do mind is a radical change in camera perspective from the current isomteric-like view. If they simply tweak the camera that is fine, but if they make it over-the-shoulder that would change the feel of the game so drastically that I would not really call it Baldur's Gate any more.

[Opalescence]

Originally Posted by Xandax

It wouldn't be BG3 if it were in first person view and real time and running around solo or with henchmen.

Ye just described Neverwinter Nights y'know Xandy . Well, except for the FPS view, that is. I agree, there's absolutely nothing wrong with 3d, but there ARE "3d" things that, if they do it, could seriously ruin the game.
Thing #1: making it look like a FPS - this isn't Doom.
Thing #2: not using the latest in 3d technology - this is BG3! If they slack off and use outmoded tech for the 3d than that's really depressing. They could be excused for using outmoded stuff if they were doing 2d but since they want to go "modern" and use 3d they had BETTER do it right.

About the storyline, I think they know about the pressure on them to make the storyline good. Unlike some other developers (like the ones who made Spellforce, I just can't get over how much money I wasted on that piece of ... nevermind) they are following a legacy. It's like the makers of Doom 3 saying, "Oh, this game's too violent, let's make it like Myst!". They know that half of any BG game is its storyline, just like the makers of Doom know half of Doom is its violence. I'm sure the devs won't let us down (then again, who can trust them thar greedy devs). I actually see no problem having an option for an over-the-shoulder view, but for goodness sakes put in the pseudo-isometric view as an option too. As for henchmen, come on we all know that a good portion of what we loved in the series is the interaction among henchmen. They know what happened to NWN, let's just hope they're smart enough not to make that mistake ...

[ensaro dai]

Well, when I first read that a BG III release might be coming, I was enthousiastic as a little kid, als the BG series are simply the best games on earth .

Remeber Suladnessar, what 3D engine could transform that 2D beautifulness into 3D? None...

I say -> 2D backgrounds combined with 3D NPC's/Monsters/Spell effects, might be worth it, they should give it a try.

If that's a absolutely no go -> I say yes to 2D, BG IS 2D!

[TRODTROD]

Baldurs Gate is 2D, i simply wont buy BGIII if it is 3D, not a chance

TROD.

[Vicsun]

does the petition no longer exist?

[BhaalsMistake]

I think the 2D graphics are great, but if they can do 3D without ruining the feel of BG, so be it? Does it really matter? Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on good quests, a nonlinear story and maybe some monsters who know to get out of a cloudkill? The graphics are secondary. Nuff said.