NWN WTF: Baldur's Gate recreated entirely in NWN2 engine

[gunman]

Balancing seems a bit strange at times. While most trash-mobs are no big deal, the occasional magic-using NPCs (like e.g. Silke in Beregost, or Nimbus in Nashkel) resulted in a lot of kills, game-over screens and reloading.
The problem is that even a full party of poorly-equiped lvl 1/2 heroes is not really a match for someone wielding a bunch of lvl3 spells, unless you get lucky.
Infinity BG had its own share of rage-inducing fights against mages, but I don't remember them happening quite so soon.

Looks like faithful reproduction to me. Silke casts lightning bolt, which kills a level 1 or 2 character outright, Nimbul and Tarnesh cast horror and high level magic missiles (5 missiles) which is equally lethal at that level, Neira casts hold and confusion, and so on. You either have to be lucky and disrupt their casting or abuse the game engine in some way in order to survive these encounters every time.

However, once you have several more levels under the belt, the mages in BG1 are a joke.

 

[Lhynn]

So, in a case of alcohol-induced nostalgia, I decided to finaly give it a try.
Not very far in, have only cleared out the Nashkel mines so far.

Balancing seems a bit strange at times. While most trash-mobs are no big deal, the occasional magic-using NPCs (like e.g. Silke in Beregost, or Nimbus in Nashkel) resulted in a lot of kills, game-over screens and reloading.
The problem is that even a full party of poorly-equiped lvl 1/2 heroes is not really a match for someone wielding a bunch of lvl3 spells, unless you get lucky.
Infinity BG had its own share of rage-inducing fights against mages, but I don't remember them happening quite so soon.

3rd edition low-mid level mages are stronger than AD&D mages.

 

[Arkeus]

Infinity BG had its own share of rage-inducing fights against mages, but I don't remember them happening quite so soon.

The mage bounty hunter in the friendly arm is basically a game over screen if you don't interrupt his first cast.

The cleric in...Nashkel i think is the same with hold person.

 

[Jaesun]

Baldur's Gate done in Glorious Turn Based Combat would be most excellent. I had pondered doing it in Dungeon Craft, but I would get sued off the Planet by EA's lawyers if I used any of the original artwork sadly.

 

[Gord]

Speaking of original artwork, BGR uses the original portraits, videos and voices. Wonder how they got permission for that, esp. considering BGEE (which came later, though, so they probably got it long before EE).

 

[Infinitron]

Speaking of original artwork, BGR uses the original portraits, videos and voices. Wonder how they got permission for that, esp. considering BGEE (which came later, though, so they probably got it long before EE).

They might not have gotten any permission. Notice that the mod was a complete surprise when it was released. It didn't have a website or much pre-release buildup.

It's now a fait accompli and it's too late for EA or Hasbro or Atari or whoever to take it down, even if they wanted to.

 

[Gord]

They might not have gotten any permission. Notice that the mod was a complete surprise when it was released. It didn't have a website or much pre-release buildup.

It's now a fait accompli and it's too late for EA or Hasbro or Atari or whoever to take it down, even if they wanted to.

I'm not sure, it was known they were working on it for several years. They had several forum threads and posted updates from time to time.
Didn't they even release a demo showing the Candlekeep tutorial/introduction?
Well, unless there was a second project that tried to redo BG in NWN2.

 

[Infinitron]

Didn't they even release a demo showing the Candlekeep tutorial/introduction?

So they did: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2ModulesEnglish.Detail&id=112

Wow, that was a long time ago. Still, it seems to have been very much under the radar.

 

[laclongquan]

I dunno. maybe this mod might just be the thing to play BG1 from start to finish. The original game is too boring.

 

[Gord]

I dunno. maybe this mod might just be the thing to play BG1 from start to finish. The original game is too boring.

Well, it's rather faithful to the original (some enemies got replaced, though).
3.5th edition aside, it doesn't play so differently, so chances are you will still get bored.

 

[Azrael the cat]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Watched the trailer...
First reaction: What a waste of time.
Second reaction: Who plays NWN2 using the 3rd person over the shoulder perspective? The engine is far too ugly for it. Looks like some third rate Russian shovelware RPG this way. I'm not just talking about strictly technical stuff like polygon count and texture quality. Judging by this and other efforts, it seems to be sheer impossible to create an aesthetically pleasing and coherent word in this engine. Everything looks like the Disney-inspired fantasy of a 7 year old. Playing from a top down IE-style perspective is the only way to make NWN2's engine somewhat bearable.

 

[CSM]

It looks like shit.

 

[Rake]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

Me too. I would be willing to buy the MotB port.

 

[Bizarro Jimmy Olsen]

Baldur's Gate done in Glorious Turn Based Combat would be most excellent.

I had a dream last night that someone made Mask of the Betrayer for FRUA. Every time I fire up MOTB for a 2nd playthrough, that shit NWN2 engine has me contemplating suicide.

 

[Jaesun]

Baldur's Gate done in Glorious Turn Based Combat would be most excellent.

I had a dream last night that someone made Mask of the Betrayer for FRUA.

That was actually my very first idea (to do in Dungeon Craft once it is finally released, FRUA is so fucking retardedly limited... it is truly sad). But then there is the scary art issue.... so I won't touch it.

THOUGH..... If I recall correctly, Wizards of the Coast is actually pretty lenient of use of their D&D artwork for non commercial uses (like hobby video game developers), provided it is a tastefully done™ game and is set in the D&D setting. Though I'm not certain if WotC/HASBRO now own Mask of the Betrayer. That lawsuit that was settled is still a bit confusing.

 

[Gord]

Hm, Dynaheir is a sorceror now, that screws up my intended party composition a bit, since I wanted a mage for more flexibility.
(Xan seemed too squishi, I don't want to buff him all th time and I wanted to keep Minsk for now.)

 

[Ramireza]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

THIS!

The Electron Engine is terrible, i tried to play NWN2 about 5 times, i couldnt stand the terrible graphics and this awefull camera longer then 10 hours. Further the NWN2 walking/running animations also have this FUCKING skating look like in the WL2 prison demo. ISO2D > ISO3D (ok, wich 3D Engine was able to render the same/more level of detail then the good looking 2D Iso Games?)

 

[Gord]

Meh, Infinity isn't that great either...

Porting it into ToEE or Project Eternity's engine on the other hand...

 

[Lhynn]

Meh, Infinity isn't that great either...

Porting it into ToEE or Project Eternity's engine on the other hand...

I would literally wet my pants if any of the good AD&D games was ported to ToEE

 

[DalekFlay]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

Yes. Similar to my fantasy of Fallout: New Vegas being ported back into the Fallout engine.

 

[Lady_Error]

Yes, yes, to all of it.

 

[deuxhero]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

Yes. Similar to my fantasy of Fallout: New Vegas being ported back into the Fallout engine.

Made into a turn based isometric game sure, but fuck the Fallout Engine, it's a piece of shit. It's designed for only a single resolution without fan mods, the inventory only shows a handful of items at a time, you can't remap keys (and spreads the default keys all over the keyboard instead of keeping them near the left hand), selecting smaller objects can get pretty annoying, there some unskippable animations like opening/ending combat that I can only presume were to mask loading times which are no longer relevant, even at the fastest settings a lot of combat animations are slow, and you can to watch characters who aren't actually involved in combat walk back and forth.

 

[slowdive]

Or port to Iceblink Engine, wink wink
Or just make something new (says the guy who has done his share of ports)

 

[Somberlain]

You know, if someone actually ported NWN2 - heck, even NWN:OC (MotB goes without saying) to the infinity engine, I'd be excited as fuck.

I'd be more exited if I could play BG trilogy with 3.5 rules, classes and prestige classes, in IE or any isometric engine with full party control.