Well, it's probably nothing but...

http://www.pczone.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=92289

[ June 18, 2003, 15:33: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

There has alredy been an official denial of the rumour that BG3 is currently in development. But then, of course, it came from a PR guy and PR people are in my experience the biggest and most incompetent idiots in every company. With a few exceptions that I know myself, of course. But really, very, very, few. And none at Atari.

Still, BG3 will happen, it's just a matter of time.

Isn't that project often refered to as "Project Jefferson" or am I really really lost?

Nope...there you are! :wave: That's correct. And "Van Buren" is Fallout 3. Fun fun.

How is it that this information comes to light anyway, I imagine security is pretty tight and development teams seem to be closely knit as a rule. I'm into paranormal stuff and I know that sometimes "secrets" tend to be made up for many reasons.

Maybe the story didn't leak out at all but someone on the internet thought he'd start a rumour and see how many people believed him... ;)

Still, we can all hope.

Ummm ... what's left to do? My character is a god. He shooks Bolts of Glory out his fingertips almost at will.

Epic levels where we take out other dieties?

Fighting yet another rival/Baal-spawn?

I loved the first 2 games and expansions ... but how can you call it Baldur's Gate without keeping at least some plot continuity???

Easy, new character, same location.
It would be insane to continue the child of Bhaal saga unless he loses all his power and starts at level 1. Even so, the idea is a little whacky.

I hope not, there is nothing else that can be done with the BG series short of screwing it up.

It is called "Baldur's Gate", right? So it must be in or near Baldur's Gate.

Now as for the character, it is the best, for the plot's sake, to create another character(not to continue with the Bhaalspawn), consequently there are more options for the plot of the game.

And now the Bhaalspawn is god/epic level, I think it goes too far to continue with the Bhaalspawn story and play at epic level.

That's all IMHO.

[ June 18, 2003, 09:18: Message edited by: Alexander the Great ]

Hmm... the general feeling here on the boards seems to be that continuing with the plot would be a grave mistake, as it would be impossible to do effectively; however, I'm sure the main thing people here are looking for is a game of the same quality and size (in single player mode) that was evident in the first two games in the BG series.

Let's assume they don't nerf your character down to level one. Let's assume that they would continue where ToB left off.

If the idea of the game is that you are now a god. You rose to your power only a few years ago, but you have learned quickly and have a powerful position amongst the other gods. Whatever the plot would be, I've no idea. But it could include some sort of god-level plot of some great coming catastrophe of god-wars or something suchlike, even Ao couldn't/wouldn't stop. Or then, make the plot something less "concerning-the-fate-of-all-the-universe", basically making you as the main character an immortal omnipower trying to affect some changes on the mortal realm of Faerun. Still, now it wouldn't be about your survival, but the survival of your previous companions for example, or an entire country, or Faerun entirely. For evil characters, this same path could be given with the pretense that in the end you would gain even greater power relative to other gods. Remember that the gods of Forgotten Realms are not omnipotent as the christian God in our world is supposed to be. They are extremely powerful, but quite mortal in their own ways. And they're all personalities, much like normal humans taken to new dimensions. This allows for equally much relationship-managing with your new god-character as with the mortal old one.

Making it Baldur's Gate 3 in the same fashion as BG1&2 is really impossible. But using a new engine to make it a sort of strategy:ish rpg where your role was to govern over a wider area than before, and grant your powers to some of your champions fighting your fights on the ground (previous friends), and even appear as your avatar from time to time to really make your enemies run, could be worth the idea. Or then someone could just force you to remain in your avatar, making you unable to return to your godly realm until you had found a way to circumvent their power.

Now I know what I'm saying is ludicrous. But done properly, an rpg of you being a god, could actually be very interesting. Especially since BG has the obviously needed background to offer (this type of a game is no longer about gaining new power, as much as it is of pure dialogue, memorisings, discovering new things about your old companions etc). Like I said, this would be a huge leap from what BG1&2 were, and could really be named completely differently from these two games. But I see no reason why BG wouldn't act as a good name for such a title. First part: you started your life, found out about your god-blood. Second part: you fought your life, ascended to your god-hood. Third part: you started your life as a god, and made your final home in your own realms.

I still believe BG3 will be a flop. But my work's a bore at the moment so I decided to share that idea with you.

It is called "Baldur's Gate", right? So it must be in or near Baldur's Gate.Like BG2 and ToB, right? :rolleyes:

For the last time, BG3 WILL NOT BE A CONTINUATION OF THE BHAALSPAWN SAGA. The Bhaalspawn saga was FINISHED with ToB FOREVER. I've repeated this in every single BG3 topic thus far but people are still coming up with this ludicrous idea of the continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga. The developers of the BG series themselves said it is OVER. And that if any continuation was made it wouldn't have anything to do with the Bhaalspawn. Now please, remember this already for the next BG3 post! :rolleyes:

So...You're saying B3 won't be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga?

How about SoA 2: Gateway to Maztica? Or is it CHult? I can never remember. It would be fun to have some sea/ocean adventures.

For the last time, BG3 WILL NOT BE A CONTINUATION OF THE BHAALSPAWN SAGA. Sorry, I'm a bit thick headed sometimes ... just ask my wife.

Here's my point. I know that the Baldur's Gate name has good marketing value. But I have issue using the marketing of the BG name without any connection to the BG story.

IWD & IWD2 had no story in common, but shared the same pathos.

BG1, BG2 and BG3 ... what would be the connection? Not the Infinity Engine I'm sure. I know ... marketing wins over authenticity, but why not market it with "In the Spirit of Baldur's Gate, we bring you MATHETAIS GATE (or some new name). ;)

Tal, you misunderstood me
quote:
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It is called "Baldur's Gate", right? So it must be in or near Baldur's Gate.
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Like BG2 and ToB, right? I didn't mean that it might be in/near Baldur's Gate. I meant that it must be near/in Baldur's Gate(they have to for the title's sake)

@Alexander, errr :confused: BG2 and Tob were nowhere near Baldur's Gate, this is what Tal is saying. I really have no idea what you meant, except possibly that they must be 'near' as in near the style of the other games?

Slappy ... see what you did?? ;)

I'm sure he's giggling at us right now over at bioware's HQ or something ;) :lol:

LOL. Luckily Bonzo got my point. I was starting to worry.

Mat, the Baldur's Gate name has already been (ab)used for 2 (or is it 3, 4?) console hack & slash games that have nothing to do with the Bhaalspawn saga. So get used to the idea. The name sells, so it will be used. It's one of the most primary marketing strategies of the 20th/21st century. It's all about the name recognition. Actual content is secondary.

:yot:

:idea: Just think how well Torment would have sold (even with the same appalling advertising) if it had been called something along the lines of - "Baldur's Gate ™: Planescape: Torment" with (in very, very small writing) 'Not a Baldur's Gate ™ Game'.

You're talking about two different things here. A game with Baldur's Gate 3 as a title yet nothing in common with the Baldur's Gate saga is not Baldur's Gate 3 in my books. Even though the theories about how you might make a succesful BG3 are shallow to say the least (how could they not be), they are the only alternative. I would call what Tal just said there useless bickering, if he weren't so absolutely right. They do have the audacity to spoil any good name these days just for the little extra profit. Legalized crime, in my opinion.

No one knows if it would actually be called BG3... That's just short for the next BG game about which no one really knows anything content-wise.

The title could be Baldur's Gate: A New Beginning for all we know. (It was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on consoles.)

I'd like to point out that they are letting you pre order it, and have eve given a date. the 2/2/2004.
see for your selves

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/236461.asp

I'm excited!

There was no information at all (At least what I saw) on that site of the game at all.

Lazy Bonzo, what TOB and BG2 have to do with what I said? I meant that -unlike TOB and BG2- BG3 must be in/near the city of Baldur's Gate -like BG1. Was that too complicated to understand?

Anyway, I look forward to playing BG3. :)

@ Alex

You had said above "I meant that it must be near/in Baldur's Gate(they have to for the title's sake)." What Tal and Bonzo are saying is that isn't necessarily true. BG2 and ToB didn't happen anywhere near Baldur's Gate and it still worked. So there's no reason to think it HAS to happen in Baldur's Gate itself, because as Tal pointed out - it's the name that's going to sell the game, whether it takes place in Baldur's Gate or Afganistan or wherever. Though I agree that logically it SHOULD take place there, for name's sake, it very well may not.

Get it? :confused: Just a misunderstanding all around.

(It was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on consoles.) That was a very good game, too. Little disappointing near the end, but it occupied and amused me for about 3 months. (Course now I can finish it in about 2 days) And it had almost nothing to do with Baldur's Gate, 'cept for the fact that that was the place you started out.

Anyway, now for getting back on topic... :p

Exactly, Death Rabbit. You got the point. :thumb:

Dimensionally Transcendental One, EB Games is what started those BG3 rumours, and was later discredited as made up.

No, actually, that's wrong. Rumours of BG3 have been around since the release of BG2. EB just heated them up a bit now after they got cold. EB knows very well that another BG game will be made at some point in the future, so they can start collecting pre-orders for it and keep pushing the release date ahead for the next few years. In the end they just profit from it by having a large base of pre-orders. The problematic side effect is that everyone else then gets the wrong idea about when the next BG is coming.

I'd like to see a BG3 story that happens at around the same time as the first two, but involves different characters doing different things -- different goals, plot, etc. Every once in a while you could have a town crier shouting things like "Hidden Mine destroyed in the Cloakwood", "Local Iron Throne Leader discredited and killed", "Saradush Overrun and destroyed" etc.

A plot dealing with Cyric, for instance, with a PC (not a child of Bhaal) who has to stop Cyric from doing something weird to the Bhaalspawn -- that would be cool.

This is also way :yot: , but I don't remember ever seeing an ad for Torment outside of a magazine. Was there a TV ad, or did you just think the magazine ad was terrible?

@Soul, I never saw any ads at all, I only discovered Torment because a friend of mine bought it, and we spent the whole day playing it. I bought it about 2 days later. The shop from which we, both, bought it was absolutely huge, the sort that stocks about 20 copies on shelf of each game (and a million more in reserve - ok exgageration but you get the point). They had no more than 3 copies of Torment, and this was less than a month after release date IIRC. Smaller shops that we tried first hadn't even heard of it, though they were still selling loads of copies of BG.

[edit] apoligies tal

[ June 21, 2003, 17:39: Message edited by: Lazy Bonzo ]

There have been topics on the bad/non-existent advertising of Torment in the Torment forum, so please post there if you mean to carry on this off-topic debate.

No no no no and no .... Those plots are butchering Faerun!They have to find a VERY good one if they want to overrun Bhaalspawn Saga's success.
I don't hope BG3 to be in Baldur's Gate or Amn. I know every place including all secret locations in those areas from previous games.It would be pointless to make a game here, and It would be boring.I am waiting for a better location such as Waterdeep or Calimport. But whatever It can take place even in Mulhorand or Maztica and use the names Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale but I'm sure that it won't be Pool of Radiance. Why? Baldur's Gate is really a name, a mark in RPG history, so it would be wise for publishers to make people think that the new game will be connected to Baldur's Gate and suddenly players find themselves suddenly in the middle of The Chult.
It's all about naming and marketing strategies - which I don't know - . Baldur's Gate sells , PoR doesn't and they are suspecting that the new game won't sell as Baldur's Gate, so they are making it Baldur's Gate 3.
[EDIT: What about a Warcraft like game where you are the god and grant powers to your armies... Yeah I suck]


(takes a deep breath)

Maybe another thing similar to the time of troubles where you have to re-establish your worth or something?

...okay, that sucks. But still.

Maybe you have to play Bhall when he voluntarily became mortal to spread his progeny :p
Which would conclude a very sick and twisted game :lol:

I don't think there would be any point to BG3 - as mentioned before. But they may say:

<Insert Game name here>
The next Baldurs' Gate

or something like that to help sell it. I think they should re-sell PS:T and perhaps add more areas and put a tag line - better than BG, but we didn't say so before.

Easy, new character, same location.
It would be insane to continue the child of Bhaal saga unless he loses all his power and starts at level 1. Even so, the idea is a little whacky. There's no reason why he should be stripped of experience. In fact it's impossible without erasing his memories of events. But as Bhaalspawn saga is supposed to be over... Perhaps some other character. Maybe a son? But then the son would be... oh, wouldn't be Bhaalspawn if his father dropped his powers, oh wait - that's it! The kid could have been conceived before charname gave Bhaal powers away!

MATHETAIS GATEDoes this mean epic adventures of a weird cleric roaming all over the Sword Coast? :lol: :shake: ;)

I have reason to suspect that the Jefferson Project will be BG3.

I forget where (I'm sure there's an SP news link somewhere) but there is a website where a spokesperson for the developers provides quite a bit of info on the Jefferson Project. The Jefferson Project is going to be a D&D game set around Cormyr. It's all about you living and playing it out as a single alter ego, as in only one level-1 newbie character that you can create. You then recruit pre-made NPCs with their own personalities and agendas into your party.

Ergo, I believe that is the basis for calling it Baldur's Gate 3. It's not set around Baldur's Gate. It's not going to continue the TofB plot. How can it? But it is going to be the same style of game as BG1 and BG2. Create your alter ego, go forth into the world, and recruit pre-made NPCS into your party.

If you want to be picky, yes, the connection is a tenuous one. But if Jefferson Project/BG3 delivers the same outstanding quality as its predecessors, who am I to complain?

Jefferson has been canned until further notice. There was a separate topic about it in this forum not long ago.

Hehe, the son idea is not so bad, but imagine something like this: You got in BIG trouble and suddenly father comes along with, say, Imoen and Sarevok and eliminates all the foes in a couple of rounds. :D :D :D

I think that there are many opportunities for a new BG game. The direct continuation wouldn't be any good, but maybe a game with characters known from the Saga...
There could be a story in the Time of troubles, when Gorion found the main character of BG. This story tells that how did Gorion find the Bhaalspawn and why did he search her.
Or there could be a game after ToB with a character who has connections with the original games.

IMO - Bhaalspawn Saga is OVER! No more Time of Trobles and bhaalspawns.
New game will only carry the name of BG3 and it will be a completely different story.

YES!! Please listen to Khelben, although Tal's said it a couple of times too :D

Yes, I could not agree more. It will turn out like BG DA on playstation. A completly different story.

Khelben: Actually the second story opportunity that I mentioned can be the same what you say - a different story with different characters but with loose connections to the previous games. :)

Mmmmmm.....

I like this idea of loose connections to the original serie. If you played IWD2 and had Ribald in it you could see plenty of weapons from BGII. And the right description... for equalizer for instance:
"This blade is from the city of Baldur's Gate retreived and assembled by aa certain Bhaalspawn in his rise to power. Different eyewitnesses say that it was only a marginal utility at the time. Aparently it was not usefull enough as it could not cope with ever-increasing power ofthe bhaalspawn. It was sold to Ribald who took it with him to the nine towns in Icewind dale, Targos."


Dont go and criticise me if i didnt rewrite it as i was there. It's just an example of how two entirely different games can be connected together.
And it makes you feel very good if oyu played previous BG games. :D

I say YAY! :rolleyes:

Hmm this could work, for weapons like Carsomyr or Celestial Fury maybe.....

I´ve read somewhere that Bg2 ToB would be the last we would ever see of the BG series on a PC. And I think that that is true.

Sad, I know, cuz this is a serie you could keep making new games to forever without any changes to anything, just make new areas, equipment and quests.

If however there will come a BG3 I would pay any sum to get it :D

Now I´m waiting for BG DA2 for PS2 :)

Saw something about Fallout 3 earlier in this thread.
That I also hope for, but there has been quite a few years since Fallout 2 so I dont even have a glimse of hope for a #3.