Black Isle Studios

[xane]

Regarding the news (yes, I _do_ read it) on Black Isle Studios R.I.P.

The IGN story mentions about work on Baldurs Gate 3 and the failure to secure a licence for the D&D aspects of it.

However, how does this all tie in with Neverwinter Nights ? I thought that NWN was developed as the next generation to the amazing engine that made up the Baldurs Gate series and so superceded it.

Additionally, NWN used the up-to-date D&D Edition 3 rules, rather than the previous editions used by Badurs Gate 1 & 2 (when it was called "Advanced D&D").

I was surprized to know that separate development of Baldurs Gate 3 was being done, why not just develop it as a module for NWN ? The NWN engine is the most advanced as you can get, it seems pointless to spend more work on development.

I'm not sure how the development teams for the Baldurs Gate series and Neverwinter Nights are connected, so if someone can clear this up I'd appreciate it.

 

[Sharma]

Heh i just started playing BG II again..

Scary how 4 hours manage to fly by like the did..

 

[whipped]

I'm going to try and spend the afternoon in work playing Galactic Civiliations. As for the BG3 development. I always thought that Black Isle and BioWare were completly seperate, meaning that Black Isle couldn't use the Neverwinter Nights engine, as it wasn't theirs.

 

[Jonaldo]

Haven't Black Isle studios recently been closed down or have split up or something?

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=45846

'Today marks the end of an era. Black Isle Studios is no more. In yet another sweeping layoff of employees, Interplay has officially let go the last of it's Black Isle employees (save two that I know of) and dissolved the division. Also, the non-announced title that the division was working on, Fallout 3, has been "shelved" to quote management.'

Bummer really, they did some good stuff.

 

[whipped]

Uh, I thought that was point of this post. The news story that said they'd closed down.

 

[dysfunction]

Originally posted by whipped
Uh, I thought that was point of this post. The news story that said they'd closed down.

Jonaldo reads his own posts only

 

[Louster]

The whole "Black Isle/BioWare" thing has always confused me.
On the BioWare info page it says:

BioWare also licenses its game engine technology which has powered a number of critically acclaimed role-playing games: Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, and Icewind Dale II - all developed by the publisher for the Baldur's Gate franchise, Black Isle Studios/Interplay.

Which I guess means BioWare made the engines and Black Isle just built on them. I'd not actually heard of a "Baldur's Gate 3" before this, just lots of random speculation, so I have no idea about that.

But in any case, I personally hate the NWN engine, and creating a new Baldur's Gate game using it would take away 90% of its pre-rendered charm.

 

[evilmonkeh]

Originally posted by Louster
But in any case, I personally hate the NWN engine, and creating a new Baldur's Gate game using it would take away 90% of its pre-rendered charm.

like in the commandos games having the background pre rendered makes it seem loads more detailed, and i dont think that balders gate would look anything as good in 3d

 

[Sar]

Same here Louster. I'm not a big fan of the NWN engine, and much prefer the old BG engine.

Setup:

Bioware provided the "wares", IE Engine, artwork etc

Black Isle provided the storylines etc.

I think.

But they split last year or the year before, and Bioware produced the lacking NWN as a result.

 

[Jonaldo]

Originally posted by whipped
Uh, I thought that was point of this post. The news story that said they'd closed down.

I read my own posts only.









But seriously, I somehow missed the R.I.P on the first line and didn't see any linkage to news stories or whatever so resupplied one that was posted a week ago.

 

[SilverHood]

Bioware did their own games.... with BiS overseeing the project as part of Interplay.

BlackIsle also used Bioware's engines to make IW and PlaneScape: Torment...

PS:T is without a doubt the greatest RPG achievement of all time.

And BiS was also working on Fallout3.....

*cries*

 

[xane]

The BG engine needed to be overhauled to bring it up to D&D Edition 3, which had already been done with NWN.

So what was the connection between BIS and Bioware for development of the NEN engine ? Any team members the same, I actually though it was the same people.

 

[Louster]

Oh, sure, I prefer the D&D stuff of NWN, kinda, it's just the graphical engine I really dislike.
Anyhow, the NWN engine was exclusively developed by BioWare, and they're different teams of people.

 

[Yaka]

guess al this means there wont be a game based around the planescape torment universe:/

 

[Testin da Cable]

NWN is ok though. Intarpleh si teh lame!!1

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Yaka
guess al this means there wont be a game based around the planescape torment universe:/

Planescape is AD&D Edition 2, there isn't really an equivilent with D&D Edition 3.

The whole raison d'etre of Planescape in Edition 2 was due to the removal of planar adventures that had become integrated with the original AD&D, unfortunately this included devils and demons and lots of pagan stuff that infuriated the christians, so they left it all out of Edition 2 and later added them all back in again under different politically correct names, that later became Planescape.

Personally I did not like Planescape as a pen and paper RPG, I played the older original AD&D planar stuff adapted to the Edition 2 rules.

The definitive guide is Manual of the Planes (Jeff Grubb) which has now been redone for D&D Edition 3, so any D&D engine using the Edition 3 rules wont really have Planescape.

 

[CptDoom]

http://www.atari.com/toee/news.php

Top game and story raped by a dodgy control system and a sea of bugs.

Based on 3rd edition hence me posting