Baldur's Gate Renewal

[Aasz]

Hello!

 

I'm starting a new mod: the idea is to remake the Baldur's Gate Trilogy with a new engine and to improve the gameplay with better AI, spells, items and some minor graphical stuff.

I have a very limited demo and I seek a few people to test if the basics are working correctly on others computers.

So if you are interested and have nothing to do, it's here^^: baldursgaterenew.byethost32.com

 

thx!

[subtledoctor]

That's crazeballs. You're rewriting the whole engine? And trying to reproduce the game? That'll take you ten years.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's the good kind of crazy, and I heartily wish you luck. But, any reason you wouldn't just help out with GemRB (which is, like you say, a version of the infinity engine built new from the ground up)? Or, save the effort of the engine-building by converting the existing games into more modern, existing engines? (There's a version of BG1 out there on the NWN2 engine, and I think someone is porting BG2 to the Dragon Age engine.)

 

I ask these things not to challenge you, but out of actual curiosity and to get a better sense of your goals. As I say, I do wish you luck regardless.

[Bill Bisco]

I agree with subtle. That's really cool, but I wonder how far a one person team can go. Wouldn't it be easier to just use GemRB and help develop that? Unless you really think your own custom engine would be all that much better.

[Aasz]

Plz, to centralize stuff post your questions on the project's forum^^

 

It's a good question and I will answer there later

[Bill Bisco]

A more important question is why don't you just mod the mods? If you just want BGT, ascension, etc. To be better, wouldn't it be infinitely easier to just make a mod to modify those files to your interests?

[Jarno Mikkola]

A more important question is why don't you just mod the mods? If you just want BGT, ascension, etc. To be better, wouldn't it be infinitely easier to just make a mod to modify those files to your interests?

Nope.

[Bill Bisco]

 

A more important question is why don't you just mod the mods? If you just want BGT, ascension, etc. To be better, wouldn't it be infinitely easier to just make a mod to modify those files to your interests?

Nope.

Why not?

[subtledoctor]

why don't you just mod the mods? If you just want BGT, ascension, etc. To be better, wouldn't it be infinitely easier to just make a mod to modify those files to your interests?

A reason to go further than that is to extend what is possible with mods. How many times have you seen modding discussions that go, "we should do X!" "Sorry, not possible, engine limitation/hardcoded."

 

Of course, embarking on a project like this, you better have a darn clear idea of specifically *which* engine limitations you want to overcome. You can make a new engine (hello, GemRB) but any engine, even a new one, will necessarily have its own limitations and modders will end hitting the same "sorry, engine limitations" response (hello, GemRB).

 

So yeah, I'm just a bit fuzzy on precisely what the goal is here.

 

I'm also a bit fuzzy on whether, once the engine is set up, the OP is intending to incorporate and distribute the copyright-protected mods mentioned above as part of it...

 

As for discussing it over there... well, here's some constructive criticism:

 

1) It's reasonable to advertise this here at G3, where there is a community obviously interested in such things. But, there's no sense trying to stop discussion of it here. Personally, I'm registered at G3, PPG, SHS, and Beamdog.com. I honestly don't feel like registering at a whole new forums site just to discuss this.

 

2) If you have a demo you might want to put some pics and videos up on the web. No offense, but I'm not about to download and run some random executable from a site and author I've never heard of before, without a better sense of precisely what it is.

[lynx]

Lifting engine limitations is mostly about changes to design, which in some cases takes plenty of time, especially with complex engines like IE. A lot of times we just have to guess and use trial-and-error, since nobody in the community tested or figured out a specific detail.

 

GemRB has been in development for over 10 years and still isn't finished. Sure, we aren't working on it 8-16, five days a week, but nobody* could sustain such a pace for a hobby for a long time. And about a hundred people helped so far, so some models suggest it was worth about 42 man-years of effort. Not using it as a base would be complete folly — you want to write 100kloc (so more like 1000kloc to get there) on a whim?

 

Aasz, most of what you want to achieve is about game data, so why not start with outlining what you actually want to do? Without that, you won't even know what engine changes you may need.

[Aasz]

Looks like nobody likes my forum :'/

Ok then, let's do this here.

 

Thanks for the advices, I still think it's better to do my own engine but if it takes too much time I will see what I can do with GemRB. Can summoned creatures move between areas in GemRB? If an ennemy mage cast a spell on me and I change area, will the spell follow me there^^? That an example of changes I want.

 

I will not take a single line of code of the mods I mention, it's just to give an idea of the modifications I want to do to the original game. If I want to reuse stuff I will politely ask the author.

 

To come back to the original subject:

 

you can download the demo here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/382o7b48mvp7l88/bgr.zip

to make tests easiers all the resources are included (actually too much resources, sorry for the file size xD), just unzip and lunch the exe

 

it should look like this:

http://baldursgaterenew.byethost32.com/ss.jpg
http://baldursgaterenew.byethost32.com/ss2.jpg

 

There should be audio stuff: an ambient sound, footsteps and some voices when you move.

 

You can move your character with left or right click, no pathfinding yet so she will only move in straight line. You can move the screen witch the arrows keys.

You can just walk around Candlekeep, no inn, no npc, nothing to do, like I said it's just to test the basics.

 

Plz tell me if it works, your fps, your operating system and your graphic card.

 

Thx for testing!

[lynx]

Spells don't disappear on area move even in the original. Well, unless you travel far and their effects expire in the meanwhile. Giving summons the ability to move between areas is simple, but afaik only possible in gemrb.

 

Nice start though, how did you get footsteps to work (if they work nicely)? Where's the code?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Giving summons the ability to move between areas is simple, but afaik only possible in gemrb.

The BG2 kinda has this feature too... if you set it to the area scripts, and you probably want to do that to only a few creatures to not cause a huge lag spikes. Adding to the familiar, the genie, the mule, the wolf and the Beholder, you might be stretching it a bit. And it's not likely that you need a 12th party member, or do you ?

 

Plz tell me if it works, your fps, your operating system and your graphic card.

Windows 7, it hang around 3500 fps on a normal screen, the fountains in the middle of Candlekeep dropped the rate to about 1500 fps at lowest peek, and there was a dark area where it rocketed to around 6300 fps, and the movement made no discernible difference in any of that, and it wasn't tied to to fps which is a good thing, as it seemed to be steady/unified. My card is a GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and I use a 1920x1200 monitor, so the game window is not nearly large enough. So yes, it works kinda well for a demo, from what I understand. And the sounds and so forth work as well.

[Aasz]

Spells don't disappear on area move even in the original. Well, unless you travel far and their effects expire in the meanwhile.

 

Nice start though, how did you get footsteps to work (if they work nicely)? Where's the code?

 

I mean, when you change area before the spell catch you.

 

It's not open source for now. I did nothing special for footstep sounds... what problem do you have?

 

 

Thx for the help Jarno!

[lynx]

That's just cheese. Could avoided with mods, but it's really hard to run out of cheesy mechanisms anyway.

 

Our problem is that they don't sound as good as in the original.