Planescape Enhanced Edition Announced

[Chiefcrowe]

http://planescape.com

 

[DaveSimmons]

A tiny bit detail here at Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-makes-an-all-time-1793725120

The original version was very good if you treated it as a novel with RPG elements.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I'm looking forward to this as I've never played the original game. Purchased it a few years ago on GOG and was thinking of installing it with the widescreen mod, fixes, etc. Think I'll just wait with the EE coming out in a few weeks.

 

[rivethead]

Interesting. I expected this might be Beamdog's next project.

"Enhanced Planescape: Chris Avellone, Lead Designer on Planescape Torment, has partnered with Beamdog to curate gameplay updates, bug fixes, and enhancements to best capture his original vision for the game."

And here I thought Avellone was working on InXile projects (Torment, etc.).

 

[DaveSimmons]

>> And here I thought Avellone was working on InXile projects (Torment, etc.).

It probably isn't going to take him much time to suggest a few wording changes or give approval on minor gameplay tweaks.

 

[rivethead]

>> And here I thought Avellone was working on InXile projects (Torment, etc.).

It probably isn't going to take him much time to suggest a few wording changes or give approval on minor gameplay tweaks.

True. But I know over on the InXile forums there are a lot of backers there that have been bitching about not yet getting backer rewards that he was associated with (Torment Novellas in particular).

 

[Craig234]

On sale on gog.com early purchase $13.99.

 

[BSim500]

Beamdog? Ugh. After Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear fail plus the "enhancements" to BG:EE ranging from inserting bi-polar new characters with laughably cheesy fan-fiction level "modern character writing" to ugly as hell cell-shading that looks like a comic book floating over the screen, crashes, save-game corruption and new bugs with each new post-release patch, etc. If you don't already own the original PT now, then it's probably worth keeping a GOG offline installer of the original + working mods backed up "just in case"... As for the technical side, presumably it's just Beamdog claiming credit for repacking years worth of other modders work again (Bigg's Widescreen + Ghostdog's UI mod + Ultimate Fixpack + Unfinished business, etc), then quintupling the price up from the usual $2.50 in GOG sales?

 

[shortylickens]

 

[ImpulsE69]

Beamdog? Ugh. After Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear fail plus the "enhancements" to BG:EE ranging from inserting bi-polar new characters with laughably cheesy fan-fiction level "modern character writing" to ugly as hell cell-shading that looks like a comic book floating over the screen, crashes, save-game corruption and new bugs with each new post-release patch, etc. If you don't already own the original PT now, then it's probably worth keeping a GOG offline installer of the original + working mods backed up "just in case"... As for the technical side, presumably it's just Beamdog claiming credit for repacking years worth of other modders work again (Bigg's Widescreen + Ghostdog's UI mod + Ultimate Fixpack + Unfinished business, etc), then quintupling the price up from the usual $2.50 in GOG sales?

This is what I expect. I have not much faith in 'remakes' or 'hd versions' these day. They tend to put the minimal effort into it. The old version with all the mods is fine.

 

[Borealis7]

looks good. maybe i can finally get into this game, but question is, do i play it before Tides of Numenara or after?...

also, i wonder if Beamdog could do remakes of the 3D games like NWN, i imagine that is exponentially more work than remastering an isometric view game.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Beamdog? Ugh. After Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear fail plus the "enhancements" to BG:EE ranging from inserting bi-polar new characters with laughably cheesy fan-fiction level "modern character writing" to ugly as hell cell-shading that looks like a comic book floating over the screen, crashes, save-game corruption and new bugs with each new post-release patch, etc. If you don't already own the original PT now, then it's probably worth keeping a GOG offline installer of the original + working mods backed up "just in case"... As for the technical side, presumably it's just Beamdog claiming credit for repacking years worth of other modders work again (Bigg's Widescreen + Ghostdog's UI mod + Ultimate Fixpack + Unfinished business, etc), then quintupling the price up from the usual $2.50 in GOG sales?

In fairness, they really did basically rewrite the engine from the ground up. I remember reading some technical details on how the Infinity Engine used to work, and how their engine works - it is quite different.

They have also got Chris Avellone involved because PS:T is a sacred cow that they don't want to mess with. This is why there is no new content - no new quests, or companions, or areas or anything like that.

As for the rest of your criticism of Beamdog, yeah unfortunately I mostly agree. For some reason, whenever they release a patch, or a new game, they break as much stuff as they fix. I mean, if they just introduced bugs into their own content, that would be one thing, but instead they introduce bugs into old content, which is just really dumb. In this day and age of software engineering, are you telling me it is impossible to find a technological solution that unit tests your quest triggers? I don't know, as a software engineer I find it difficult to believe that they haven't invested into tools to improve their software quality. Its quite lousy.

As for the new content they introduce.... meh. Let me give you an example.

The assassin was a class kit introduced into Baldurs Gate 2 years ago. It has a special ability, called Poison Weapon, which is extremely powerful. It adds poison damage to each attack for 5 rounds, with no save. The thing is, the assassin kit itself is just not that powerful without it. Good if you use it properly by hiding in shadows and all that, but no powerhouse.

But then they introduced the Blackguard, which is an unbalanced evil paladin. It has pretty much all of the best characteristics of other paladins, with the only caveat being it must be evil. They added poison weapon to it.

Now when you add a powerful ability that was formerly only used by a relatively normal kit, to a kit of unbalanced and unparalleled power, the result is going to be sheer cheese. Plus, their Baldurs Gate enhanced edition allowed you to use kits that were not possible in original BG, so they had poison weapon right from level 1, where it is pretty godlike.

The end result of this is that they decided to nerf poison weapon because it is too powerful in the blackguard's hands. Yes, you read that right. They added an existing ability to a new kit, realized the new ability was too powerful in the hands of that kit, so they nerfed the ability, making the assassin a lot weaker. That is the kind of logic they use when balancing stuff.

 

[BSim500]

also, i wonder if Beamdog could do remakes of the 3D games like NWN, i imagine that is exponentially more work than remastering an isometric view game.

Please God no... NWN1 really doesn't need remaking. Despite being only a few years younger than BG2, the semi-transparent minimalist yet super-flexible UI was way more advanced and still looks good even today (takes up <5% of the screen vs BG's 20% sidebars and everything can be individually toggled on/off). NWN1 itself has had full native widescreen, +60fps and HD support right from launch (it's one of those forward thinking games that took the time to poll the OS for supported GPU resolutions rather than rely on a shortlist of "resolutions of the day"). A lot of "post-BG irritation removal requests" have been in the base game from the start (eg, a larger fog of war that looks natural at 1080p vs designed for 800x600 15" CRT monitors), a better movement system (click a short distance and you walk, click halfway across the map and you run), 36x spell / feat / skill hotkeys (great for mages), far better spell book interface, etc).

Unlike BG, the enduring popularity / fanbase of NWN itself rides significantly more on both the raw moddability of the Aurora Engine and sheer size of modding community (NWN Vault) rather than the Original Campaign. Many of these modules use CEP (Community Expansion Pack) assets which is both still being updated and also well out of Beamdog's hands to "repackage" as a resalable asset via licensing. In short, NWN1 is and has always been a "modders game" and unlike BG, ID & PT, there's almost nothing like widescreen / 1080p support or "UI deuglification" to add to Diamond Edition v1.69 that can justify a magical quadrupling in price in anywhere near the same way...

The end result of this is that they decided to nerf poison weapon because it is too powerful in the blackguard's hands. Yes, you read that right. They added an existing ability to a new kit, realized the new ability was too powerful in the hands of that kit, so they nerfed the ability, making the assassin a lot weaker. That is the kind of logic they use when balancing stuff.

^ Yeah, that's another reason why no NWN fan wants Beamdog to touch it with a bargepole. They will inevitably screw up people's multi-class builds / existing popular class-specific community modules, in their endless pursuit of trying too hard to make everything "technically equal" whilst failing to realize people liked the option of playing an "unbalanced" weaker class (eg, Harper Scout or Pale Master) vs an "overpowered" buffed to the hilt Cleric precisely for the increased challenge.

 

[Ancalagon44]

^ Yeah, that's another reason why no NWN fan wants Beamdog to touch it with a bargepole. They will inevitably screw up people's multi-class builds / existing popular class-specific community modules, in their endless pursuit of trying too hard to make everything "technically equal" whilst failing to realize people liked the option of playing an "unbalanced" weaker class (eg, Harper Scout or Pale Master) vs an "overpowered" buffed to the hilt Cleric precisely for the increased challenge.

I think part of the problem is thinking that they know better than the original designers. Some classes are just weaker in combat and some are stronger. But, they all have their uses and their flavour. People will often choose a barbarian not because they like the damage resistance but because they like the ethos of the character class.

So, when they rebalance a specific skill like Poison Weapon, it stands out a lot more because they haven't done anything to rebalance other skills that are even more overpowered. Chain Contingency, or TimeStop, or the Inquisitor's Dispel Magic for instance.

I think the question they should first ask is, should we rebalancing original content, and in 99% of cases, I'd say the answer is no. Now, perhaps the only exception would be some skills that were originally never available at level 1. I would understand if they wanted to change the level progression for something like Poison Weapon, because it was never designed to be used in BG1. Fair enough. But rebalancing beyond that is just... dumb. Its unnecessary. Who cares if something is more powerful or less powerful? This isn't World of Warcraft.

I own BG:EE, BG2:EE and IWD:EE, and I enjoy them because they do modernize the games. I don't really care for any of their new content or content changes. I will never buy BG:SOD. I might buy PS:T, not sure. And I would buy IWD2:EE if they ever made it, although I'd worry what "balance" changes they would make to the game. I love how abusable the game systems of IWD2 are!

 

[Red Storm]

Please God no... NWN1 really doesn't need remaking. Despite being only a few years younger than BG2, the semi-transparent minimalist yet super-flexible UI was way more advanced and still looks good even today (takes up <5% of the screen vs BG's 20% sidebars and everything can be individually toggled on/off). NWN1 itself has had full native widescreen, +60fps and HD support right from launch (it's one of those forward thinking games that took the time to poll the OS for supported GPU resolutions rather than rely on a shortlist of "resolutions of the day"). A lot of "post-BG irritation removal requests" have been in the base game from the start (eg, a larger fog of war that looks natural at 1080p vs designed for 800x600 15" CRT monitors), a better movement system (click a short distance and you walk, click halfway across the map and you run), 36x spell / feat / skill hotkeys (great for mages), far better spell book interface, etc).

Unlike BG, the enduring popularity / fanbase of NWN itself rides significantly more on both the raw moddability of the Aurora Engine and sheer size of modding community (NWN Vault) rather than the Original Campaign. Many of these modules use CEP (Community Expansion Pack) assets which is both still being updated and also well out of Beamdog's hands to "repackage" as a resalable asset via licensing. In short, NWN1 is and has always been a "modders game" and unlike BG, ID & PT, there's almost nothing like widescreen / 1080p support or "UI deuglification" to add to Diamond Edition v1.69 that can justify a magical quadrupling in price in anywhere near the same way...


^ Yeah, that's another reason why no NWN fan wants Beamdog to touch it with a bargepole. They will inevitably screw up people's multi-class builds / existing popular class-specific community modules, in their endless pursuit of trying too hard to make everything "technically equal" whilst failing to realize people liked the option of playing an "unbalanced" weaker class (eg, Harper Scout or Pale Master) vs an "overpowered" buffed to the hilt Cleric precisely for the increased challenge.

Damn, now you have me itching to play NWN1 again!

I spent so many hours playing fan made custom modules, it was awesome. I never did try the persistent worlds though, I was always more of a single player guy who wanted a good story.