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The amount of fan-made content available for NWN, NWN2 and the Bethesda games suggests that there are people out there that will put time into doing interesting things with BG3, given the chance.

All those games had decent toolsets ( for the time ), and made the data formats available for others to add more tools.

It didn't work for Sword Coast Legends because ( aside from problems with the game/engine ) the tools were too inflexible to really allow invention.

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Originally Posted by Sordak
I am a PnP player and i absoluteley dont.
The ammount of work to go into graphical representation of each session would be tremendous, meanwhile it limits my ability to worldbuild and to plan encounters.

Meanwhile i also love OS2. Also 3 out of 5 of my players do too. If were already talking anecdotal evidence.




I get that you don't like the idea, but.. not sure what you mean by the amount of work. Anybody today that uses say, fantasy grounds, or table top simulator, or role20, which is significantly more work that GM mode would be (assuming how DOS2 was) actually makes it easier to world build. And you don't have to make a "video game" in as much as interactive battle maps. It would be easier for players and gm alike actually.

I'm not trying to convince you to like the idea, I get it and don't really care, but I'm only addressing the idea that it would be such a tremendous task. It would actually be easier than the other systems now widely used.

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GM mode vs GMing in the game.

GM mode isnt a lot of work, but its also not a lot of payoff since youre realy just modifying the existing game.

If you want to run a full campaign in OS2 (or BG3) youll have to do Video game level design which is much more time consuming than drawing maps for roll 20.

at least if you want it to look good.
and then youre limited to what the game lets you do. Sure it looks cool and all.
but i dont think a video game will ever supplant the PnP expirience.
especialy the at-a-table expirience.
ive played quite a bit of roll 20 but at the end of the day, real DnD is the kind of DnD where you sit together, eat some unhealthy food, drink some cold beers and have a blast getting killed by morblorbs or whatever other bullshit im coming up with for this week

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I posted at reddit my 2 cents 3 month ago: sorry in advance as my English and general writing is kind of sloppy again as I just lazy style repost this. I hope you get the point of my thoughts

Originally Posted by me here at reddit
Although I really would love to see persistent worlds for BG3 i doubt they will be possible or if even possible they will created easily.

I loved playing persistent worlds on NWN. I was so excited about the development of NWN2 and finally got involved in modding and mapping for a LOTR persistent world for NWN2 which, although it had huge really top notch areas never reached open release (remained in beta). Team got tired and NWN2 engine had some issues. Less stable. Not so much easy databank support at that time (2007-2008). One reason we got tired was the immense work on areas as they got so detailed. Although you could build really detailed areas in NWN1 too by placing tons of placeables / objects, generally mapping was much more like straight forward playing lego rather than painting some huge detailed canvas.

DOS and its engine really got me back in getting interested in modding and mapping. I never really released something big but loved to tinker around with the editor and importing assets.

My RL didnt make me play 100+ hours of games. I have to admit till now i havent played through DOS 2 but i put lots of hours into the editor and tinkering with modding possibilities.

I have to say the divinity engine is really great and a big improvement over NWN2. But the learning curve and effort you have to put into making a world is much higher at least as NWN1. I ,lways wanted to have something like NWN but DnD turnbased. For a persistent world although it creates issues. Larian really designed DOS and its DM mode really for small groups as in PnP campaigns.

Also I guess the times changed. There is so much on the market for having some MMO experience. I really regret there is so few local server still overview able group size and foremost selfmade stuff like NWN1 (ok there is minecraft and so on but....)

I just dont see this happen so easily with BG3 which development has other focus. I could imagine something based on the same engine but really tailored for persistent worlds, which could be quite successful. Still it is a shame that DOS2 engine capacities didnt make more numbers on modding and DM mode. I really wonder why. Maybe Stadia (although not being a fan) could be interesting to attract more people.

sorry for my English and sloppy brainstorm style writing.. just my 2 cents



To sum it up:
i'd really hope for persistent worlds like once in NWN but before seen otherwise i doubt, the time is still the same, the engine is made for player more than 10 and the quality of levels and assets possible in this engine could be too time consuming.. still i'd appreciate a surprise..

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So basically what some people are saying here is a game which was made in 2002, had a DM mode, all the tools to create persistent worlds and shipped with a big campaign on its own is something we can't possibly do again in 2020?

It's kind of depressing, really. Have devs become less efficient, less talented and lazier over the years or something?

Maybe Bioware set the bar too high 18 years ago.

Last edited by Nyanko; 24/06/20 01:13 AM.
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As someone who has previously hosted NWN2 servers, I would be extremely supportive of this game having PW capability.

I would personally be willing to pay additional money for a "DLC" addon as such, that incorporated the toolset, DM client, server hosting infrastructure etc, if it were required to provide the funding and incentive to develop this.

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i dont think anyone is saying we cannot do that in 2020.

I think Peresistant Worlds have largley been forgotten so Developers dont THINK about them anymore.
The closest we got is survival games like Conan exiles and Minecraft servers.
but those dont realy do the same thing.

hence why im so adamant about raising the issue.

the issue i guess is that we dont know how "fixed" the 4 player thing is in Larians engine

Last edited by Sordak; 24/06/20 02:00 AM.
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Functionally, it is all perfectly possible and Larian are definitely capable of enabling fan-created content and PW, if they think there is a call for it.

Possible issues?

1- NWN/NWN2 were built from the ground up as tools to build adventures, BG3 is being built as a one-shot MP-oriented adventure. Larian talk of the engine as a collection of interlocking systems, which sounds good, but may not be ideal for scripting other adventures.

2- Unknown whether middleware is used and whether licence would cover anything other than base game ( NWN2 had an issue with RAD Game Tools "Granny" animation system; there was a licence argument ).

3- Unknown how difficult building additional content would be for this engine, and therefore what the take-up would be.


But, there are teams of people, small and large, that have poured astonishing amounts of time into building their own visions when given the tools to do so, even if their output has limited audience, or none at all.

Of particular note, most infinity engine games have been re-authored using the NWN2 toolset, and both Morrowind and Oblivion re-authored in the Skyrim toolset. But, there are thousands of less ambitious projects producing smaller or larger amounts of content, not just the mega-projects.

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Well NWN was built as a tool for adventures, but then again larian also hyped up the DM mode for a while.

Id wager that when they made NWN1 they didnt expect peresistatn worlds, they expected people DMing for their friends and making custom modules like Bastard of Kosigan.

>interlocking system and scripting
In an ideal world that would mean that modders dont have to code stuff like buildings on fire themselves.
How that shapes up to reality who knows.
But im generaly a fan of system beeing in place rather than hard coding. Leads to more emergent gameplay.

>Middleware
but wouldnt that argument extend to modding as a whole, not just peresistant worlds?

>3
Graphically the challenge is much bigge.r Making custom modules in NWN1 is incredibly easy since the world is essentialy built from tiles.
You need a lot more skill in map making for this one.
but when i look at the mapping scene for other multiplayer games i dont worry.

Its somewhat of a lost art. But even largley unknown games like Savage 2 had a huge modding community that made some amazing looking maps.

I know a lot of people werent happy with OS2s Editor, Larian keeps promising that theyll make it more accesible but it doesnt look like that has happened so far

>Infinity engine games
Not just that. Also plenty of Goldbox games and generaly other DnD games like Pool of radience were remade in NWN2 with varying degrees of success.
Baldurs Gate 1 has been ported to NWN2, but i dont know if it looks any good.

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Maybe we should start a topic requesting persistent worlds and see how it fares and if we get an answer. Don't look at me though, I have the ability of a six years old when it comes to selling a compelling idea.

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Originally Posted by Goldberry
Maybe we should start a topic requesting persistent worlds and see how it fares and if we get an answer. Don't look at me though, I have the ability of a six years old when it comes to selling a compelling idea.

So, you have the big begging eyes, the innocent look and the irresistable attitude while asking for stuff? I can't see anything why this shouldn't help wink

Do never underestimate childs, when they want something dearly!

The last interview I saw, Swen was indifferent about GM mode. The game is huge and they have to get loads of things done right, before they think about something like this in detail. A persistant world is even more work. Let's talk about this in ... maybe a year?

Though I would buy the DLC too^^

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