-Much less political correctness.
-A much, much, much better pathfinding system than the previous games because theirs were terrible.
-Graphics that really, honestly take advantage of what computers can do today.
-More interesting NPC's (some of the ones from other games were boring, annoying, or otherwise just unappealing), including not only their personalities, voices, portraits and appearances, but also their histories/backgrounds.
-It should be entirely in 2E rules, not 3E; 3E sucks.
-When standing still, characters shouldn't be all hunched over because it looks dumb. I want my heroic knight in shining armour to stand with his head held high as a noble, fearless warrior of royal blood should.
-Characters should be able to run when you want, not just walk.
-They should also be able to swim, jump, climb, move stealthily (how effective they are at avoiding being seen should also be effected by their armour, size, stats, the environment including the floor's substance, and how they've been trained in stealthy movement) etc.
-Characters should be able to do absolutely everything possible in an actual game of D&D, regardless of what it is or how stupid it is.
-Characters should get strongholds depending on their individual classes (warriors get a fort, knights have either a shining white castle if they're good or a dark, evil, forboding Barad-Dur esque tower of doom if they're evil), but more customized (as mentioned, different forts for different classes depending not only on alignment but also their race, for example a dwarvish warrior's fortress would obviously be underground or carved out of the side of a mountain).
-All classes should be made so as to be definitely good, fun to play and a help both in and out of combat since in all the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games, the bard and druid were of but scant usefulness. As an example, the Druid should have really serious power over nature and animals. Similarly, the Bard's song should be very potent and actually do things that effect the course of a battle or other situation on a significant scale.
-There should be an utterly huge game world consisting of hundreds of different places/areas, some of them bigger than others (including some really huge ones) and no matter what, it should still all fit on ONE, and only one disc because one of the annoying parts of the first Baldur's Gate was that you often had to change discs when going into a new area which was quite annoying.
-There should be a vast number of creatures and monsters, all that are actually in D&D and any the writers or whatever can think up on the fly.
-They should definitely have Minsc. NO game with the name "Baldur's Gate" is really Baldur's Gate without him.
-They should settle for only the very best voice actors, and should not exclude, avoid or refuse Frank Welker under any circumstances, regardless of how much money he wants. HE'S FRANK ****ING WELKER.
-They should get a better guy than before to do the music. Beforehand, the music just wasn't that incredible. I know I've heard some truly awesome scores like the one for NWN at the title screen. IMO, the only infinity engine game that had very good music was IWD (although I've never played Planescape: Torment, so I don't know about that one.)
-There should be lots, and lots of (believable) character development meaning that not only do their abilities, skills, stats, attributes, etc. change over time but also their personalities and personality characteristics, meaning that the characters are honestly effected by what happens to them. For example, a heroic knight is in your party. His woman dies, is killed by an evil knight. Said heroic knight who was once cheerful, positive, and gallant, is now very grim and even bitter, and eventually goes from being a man who wants justice and what's right above all to someone who lusts for revenge as does a starving wolf lust for a wounded deer's flesh, and the knight will do anything to get it; even open a gateway into an ancient Hellish dimension where awaits a prehistoric (think Lovecraft) god of darkness and dread; in other words, the knight can even become the main villain over time. Now THAT's what I call character development. Yes, the development would have to be scripted, but nonetheless it would be great. Similarly, the development should not be predetermined; it should go differently each time you play the game, depending on how the game goes as it should have multiple endings and courses towards such endings, EG, you save the knight's wife in time and the main villain is somebody else. In other words, evil characters can become good, good ones can become evil, your character can become a god (without that being the main part or focus of the game, since that's what it was the last time which always annoyed me thoroughly), etc.
-As stated, there should be multiple endings, at least a few dozen possibilities and preferrably up to the thousands. You don't believe me? As I recall there was this game back on the original Playstation console called Star Ocean Story or something like that, and it had something like 30,000 different endings. That was on the Playstation, a vastly, vastly less advanced system than any PC, so don't tell me they can't do it.
-Characters should have very detailed personalities (they never did at all in the first Baldur's Gate game, but then again that was the better part of a decade ago so there wasn't much they could do, anyways), and conversations between characters should be detailed (which is also unlike the first game), and all characters should react towards each other in a reasonable manner (a heroic knight is not going to get along with a flesh-eating dark elf black sorcerer, rather obviously).
-They should definitely keep or bring back Jan Jansen, the funniest character in the whole history of the game series.
-Characters' alignments should actually be their reputation which would depend on their actions. In other words, your character becomes qualified as a good guy, and perhaps even a world-reknowned hero by doing goodly deeds, EG rescuing princesses, slaying village-roasting dragons, and saving the world would probably be the best example one could come up with. Naturally the NPCs who would join your party could only have their alignment changed by the previously mentioned character development as being able to change their alignments would ruin their, well, character, and even make their personalities seem out of place.
-All classes should have the same max/peak level.
-You character/s should start out at level one, and the peak/max level should always be somewhere over 20.
-Characters should be able to ascend to EPIC level, meaning like Beowulf (as strong as 30 men, can swim out to sea for five days and kill whales with a sword, rip MEGA demons' arms off, etc.), where warriors can slay foes of unimaginable power, mystical weapons are those of perhaps even a few gods, and wizards can blow up castles, mountains and cities. However, characters should only be able to get to that point very, very far into the game.
-The game should take many hundreds of hours to beat and should have very variable difficulty settings which range from infantile beginning novice to godlike lordly gaming master of the world. In other words, you can always find the difficulty setting that's just right for you, and you should be able to very thoroughly customize it to make certain things more and less difficult (nobody wants a dragon to die in one hit, but then again, not any character of decent power should need significant effort to fell just one measly goblin, either).
-There should be many different races to play (several dozen), not just five or six.
-Your character's character model should be highly customizable, meaning that unlike in the first Baldur's Gate game (there's that line again), not all male characters would look like the same guy with the same face but different hair; you should be able to choose from many different faces, hair styles, personal/customized hair colour (including streaks, greying temples, etc.), sets of clothing (including different articles of it, meaning boots and pants are two totally different things). You should be able to choose your characters height, build (fat, skinny, athletic, average, muscular, Conan-sized or a veritable mammoth, for example) which would coincide with your stats (a Conan-sized man would have have to have a strength of 18/00, easily, while a more athletic person would have lower strength but a very high DEX score), and you shoudl be able to customize him in all the other ways, too. There should be many more voice sets to choose from than before (all sorts of them, but at the minimum definitely including the archetypes such as the gallant knight, rough-hewn dwarvish warrior, the immasculine but noble elvish ranger, the wise old wizard, the Merlin-esque sorcerer (think of the Merlin from the early 1980's British movie, "Excalibur"), the unscrupulous thief, etc.)
-There should be many more portraits to choose from, none of them dorky, as a lot of the ones from previous BG and generally Infinity Engine games weren't that appealing.
-For knight-ish sorts, there should be game rules implemented from Pendragon meaning your guy gets chivalry points for being polite but may lose valour points which effect what the character is capable of. Similarly, defending a lady's honour or whatever by refusing the orders of the King would cause you to lose chivalry points (or whatever, you get the idea, since I don't have Pendragon and have never played it but I read about it and it looks like it's got some good ideas) but gain valour points.
-You should be able to meet all the famous NPC's, including having ones like Drizzt Do'Ourden (who would definitely NOT be made using a face, body type, appearance, etc. choosable by the player/you and would be built out of a totally diffferent, separate, personal model) as a member of your team. However, their should be no Elminster because he's a blatant Gandalf-ripoff.
-Every priest should be able to choose a particular god, which should be the sole determining factor for absolutely all of his spells. Priests must become or stay a certain alignment/reputation to choose or keep a specific god (one who chooses Thor cannot be evil, since in the Eddas, Thor was a heroic/goodly god who brought people a lot of luck and was the protector of Mankind against the fierce giants and other monsters of ancient Nordic legend). Similarly, all characters should be able to choose a god (but also can only choose or keep ones that don't conflict with their alignment/reputation) which would give them special bonuses and minuses.
-There should be many classes, not just the same old warrior, knight, wizard, thief and priest. They should all be very effective and fun to play so that you'll want to do the game over again many times to try them all out, and each comes with its own perks and flaws.
-You should be able to have a pet (a knight could have a falcon which would spy on enemies for him as he is not dishonest to sneak around, himself, for example), and also have a mount for both quicker travel (say that you can't be ambushed while on horseback), and also combat where you would get special bonuses. Said mounts should range from the ordinary (a horse, obviously), to the exceptionally exotic or unusual like a dragon, gryphon, unicorn, etc.

If I think of any other things, I'll let you folks know.

[ January 26, 2005, 21:27: Message edited by: Nogoodnamesleft ]

ouch that is so difficult to read!

I respectfully disagree that more endings = better and that more nonlinearity = better. In my opinion, the best RPG ever made was Final Fantasy IV (released as Final Fantasy II on the Super NES), even though it held your hand and led you through the storyline. (And even that had some choice - you could do the Sylph Cave, Mithril Town, and the Land of Summoned Monsters in any order or not at all). But it made you feel something. I cried when Tellah died. With tears seriously rolling down my cheeks. And I got an actual adrenaline rush when fighting Zeromus.

The point here is that I find that if games have too many choices involved, they can be just as un-enjoyable (is that a word?!) as if they have too few choices. Icewind Dale II for me handles the storyline very well, even if it's a little long-winded at times, but has very little in the way of character development and interaction. Plus I love the character creation system. (That's one area where I don't mind having lots of choices.) Baldur's Gate II has incredible characterization, but often I could hardly figure out what the hell was going on and where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do. For me the ideal PC role-playing adventure would have something of each of those two in it.

If you don't want choices, either play strictly on consoles or move to the adventure genre.

What makes crpgs "role-playing" games is the fact that you can play a role and make choices that will affect the storyline. I don't want my hand held for the entirety of a game. If I want to play out the specific role of a character, there's always Gordon Freeman in HL2.

-They should settle for only the very best voice actors, and should not exclude, avoid or refuse Frank Welker under any circumstances, regardless of how much money he wants. HE'S FRANK ****ING WELKER. Um, who is Frank Welker?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919798/

Graphics that really, honestly take advantage of what computers can do today.Agree and disagree...I'm all for beefing up the graphics, but I don't need everything in 3D. I personally love some of the static backgrounds in the IE games.

I actually found very little to disagree with in BG2. Its one of the few games where I got far more than my money's worth. Be that as it may:

1) Definitely 3.5e, which in my opinion is far than 2e.

2) Addition of prestige classes. Only NWN has taken the plunge thus far. But even then, they were a little skimpy imho. What I'd like to see is the prestige classes from the DMG, other Forgotten Realms books (like Faiths of Faerun), and possibly from other books like the Book of Exalted Deeds and the class specific books so long as they don't conflict with the Forgotten Realms setting.

3) I'm sick of Drizzt Cameos. It was fun the first time during the Menzoberranzan game that used the Mindscape engine, but its far too cliched by now. Nuke Drizzt out of this one.

4) Dragons that actually have a real chance of blasting your party into oblivion. The problems with BG2 dragons were considerable, cool powers but too little hit points to use them, lame scripting, etc. Hopefully the 3.5e rendition of dragons does justice to the aura they're supposed to convey in a fantasy setting.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

[ January 26, 2005, 18:40: Message edited by: Beren ]

Hmm, most excellent feedback, all. Some other ideas of mine:
-When you want your characters to sleep or leave an area, you should not have to "gather your party before venturing forth". In other words, when you have not all of your characters in an inn and you want them to sleep, you can choose either for only the ones in the inn to sleep, or for all of them to sleep in the inn even though they're not all in there.
-Same for when you want to leave an area. You should be able to leave an area without gathering all of your characters, meaning you can have different characters in different parts of the world, if desirable, and if only one character goes to the edge of an area screen to leave, you can still choose for only him to leave or for all of them to leave.
-You should be able to have up to ten guys in your party, not only six.
-I also enjoyed the static environments in the IE games, but it could stand to have more going on in the background.
-Actually, you're right. Drizzt Do'Ourden is over-used. In fact, in my opinion, he sucks balls and is an overly politically correct fag who comes from a society dominated by women (*whiplash noise*) who he was routinely beaten by. Not to mention that not only do Salvatore's characters suck, but quite a few of them are ripped off (Bruenor is a Gimli ripoff, Wulfgar is ripped off from The Mighty Thor, Regis is ripped off from several hobbits, especially since he's got a little magic item that controls people's minds and had a big quest about it, that stupid cat thing is, well, stupid, and Cattie-Brie is a strong woman, which is not even excusable), as are the situations he puts them in.

since it will be a prequel i don't want to see Misnc and Jan, though i must admit they are hilarious it just doesn't feel right to see them when they should not have been born yet. (Jan might actually be old enough but still)

I would rather see some known faces who could actually have been there in the prequel, such as the adventurers Ribald Barterman and Samuel thunderburp :) .
Maybe some young order-of-the-bleeding-hart guys who appear in BG2 as high members.
Or maybe an evil mage called Tolgerias who is very annoying but escapes your wrath in the end, that way it is more fun to whack that guy in BG2 ;) This list could go on for 5 pages but i think you see what i mean, just guys with a side role who are fun to see for veterans like us.

And it would be wonderful if the game had the same replayability as BG2, seeing as how much people still play that one, its time for another classic!

Hm, just as long as such guys are not too many and don't still the show. Even if prequel in plot, it should be a separate game with its own happenings and characters.

Hello everyone. My name is SCKnight. I've been a fan of the Baldur's Gate series since I got Baldur's Gate I and its expansion, Tales of the Sword Coast, for Christmas in 1999. Last year I bought Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal expansion pack. I'm glad that they're making a Baldur's Gate 3. I have to disagree with you, Nogoodnamesleft, but I have found that the 3.5 D&D rules are much easier to understand than are the 2nd AD&D rules. The one thing I didn't like about Baldur's Gate I and II was the fact that there was no turn-based combat. I've always preferred turn-based combat over real-time combat. If they do put turn-based combat in Baldur's Gate 3, I do hope it's very similar to the combat system used in the Temple of Elemental Evil (TOEE). Some things that I would like to see in the new Baldur's Gate game, would be:

1) Just like in TOEE, you can pick your character's height, weight, hair style and color. However, I would want us (the players) to be able to choose from many more different hair styles than there were in TOEE. Furthermore, they (the people making Baldur's Gate 3) should keep the option of choosing our characters' skin color. We should also be able to edit (type in the numbers) our characters' height and weight. I also hope they use better voice sets in the new Baldur's Gate game than in the previous Baldur's Gate games. I really like the Honest Fighter voice set from TOEE and the HW Male 2 voice set from IWD II. They better have those voice sets in BG 3.

2) They should increase the maximum number of party members you can have from six to seven.

3) It would be great if they used the character dolls from TOEE instead of the ones they been using in the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games. In my opinion, TOEE's character dolls are much better than the BG and IWD character dolls.

4) Just like in TOEE, the characters can buy clothing and other equipment that changes their character dolls' appearances (i.e. the Wizard's Robes, Farmer's Outfit, cloaks, gloves, boots, hats, helmets, etc.).

5) Romances! I really liked the Romance Quests from Baldur's Gate II. It would be a shame if BG 3 didn't have them.

6) The option to pick our characters' deity. That was a feature used in both TOEE and Neverwinter Nights. However, this option should be similar to how they did it in NWN, which was that they allowed you to type in whatever deity you wanted to give to your character.

That's basically all I would like to see in Baldur's Gate 3.

They should increase the maximum number of party members you can have from six to seven. Really? I find 6 too many as it is.

-First of all, not a prequel! IMHO, it should be a sequel set a few decades into the future. The taint of Bhaal got loose and corrupted a new batch of Bhaalspawn or the gods are waging a war between each other and the PC has to choose his/her side or something else.
-Please, no Drizzt!! I don't want to kill him over again!
-A bigger party.
-More character customisation.
-Romances.
-Old Minsc telling "madman" tales of his travels across the realms, fighting evil with a famous Bhaalspawn.
-A lot more NPCs.
-More areas to explore.
-Books of the Bhaalspawn war. It would be nice to read my history.
-Importable save, which affects the storyline, depending on the PCs actions in the previous games.
-3D engine, that allows both isometric and behind-me viewpoints.
-Shops for casual things, such as food, clothes, trinkets, etc.
-Subraces, i.e. elves and half-elves would be divided into drow, high and wood elves, etc.
-More dialogue with voice acting.
-Strongholds.
-Slight changes to the storyline with each playthrough. It gets tedious having to do the same quests with just different classes/races/NPCs.

Feel free to comment on any of my suggestions.

I hate that Bhaalspawn thing. It was stupid. It makes the game feel very pre-determined and to be blunt I don't like it. But what would be interesting for picking skin colour would be if the character's physical and facial features actually comply with it, EG a black guy actually looks like a black guy, not a white guy with just a white guy's skin colour. You should also be able to pick different shades of each skin type meaning a white guy could be average, an albino, a fair-skinned northman or a bronzed savage like Conan. And personally, I want this to be in Faerun but I want it to be based moreso in the areas similar to western and perhaps northern Europe meaning similar to the Sword Coast. To be blunt, I want this game to have the same very basic design concept as the original Baldur's Gate.

1. About gods -- it should be a drop-down list of deities, and it should affect the game in a real way instead of just saying: "I'm a worshipper of Navel," or anything as stupid. Furthermore, having an actual god could affect the game by:
-- granted abilities if the player strives to a path laid by that god;
-- more cleric professions;
-- more paladin professions;
2. It would be best that the game would not be associated with original BG/2 in any way. Nada. It should be set somewhere around Calimshan, Waterdeep or even Kara-Tur (to move as far away as possible from BG/2 region). Waterdeep preferred -- more city areas, which I really liked.
3. Do not go against the canon. Bhaal is dead. If his essence was dropped, it is gone forever. If charname ascended, there's no way it would corrupt. Time of Troubles happened once, and should not be repeated.
4. 4-6 people maximum in a party. This makes the choice much more difficult, and makes roleplaying a romance more real. "Sorry Jaheira, I love you, but since you suck in combat, I have to drop you from the party to make room for a more useful character, I'm sure you understand." The more difficult the choice, the better.
5. 3.5E rules! Complete with sub races, professions, prestige classes (please, include as many as possible!!!), and so on.
6. Modified Aurora Engine. I liked it, but the interface MUST be reworked to accomodate the needs of leading a party. Basically, it requires more flexible camera moving.
7. Casual shopping -- could be interesting, but PLEASE, do not make it like in Daggerfall, where there was one tailor's in a city who stocked only one type of clothing. There should be a hierarchical menu, with basic categories splitting to more detailed ones (male//female--trousers/shirts/shoes/...//dresses/shirts/skirts/...--etc.--...--...--colours) for those inclined to do so.
8. More dialogue. If that means conserving space, by all means skip voice acting. It is nice, but it always ends up as too little. One line at the start of a dialogue and nothing else later? On the other hand, some dialogues (in crucial moments) should be fully voiced. Skip romance voicing if you must (except for crucial moments in them, to know the tone -- a flunky job with Jaheira romance, I never felt the accusative/attacking tone in her lines), but if you voice, make sure that you voice the crucial dialogues entirely.
9. Shop for items other than personal:
-- mounts -- horses for larger folk, ponies for smaller ones, how about mythical ones, like pegasi or griffins (that's why I insist on smaller parties). If the characters have mounts, they should either mount them, or lead them. Just to add realism, add stables in front of taverns where the characters have to leave their mounts. Also -- no possibility of entering dungeons on/with mounts. They have to be left somewhere, with the risk of them running off (if left untied) or being slaughtered/eaten (if tied down).
-- food -- nothing fancy, but just the fact of having rations (which would come in different types) would add realism. There would no longer be a chance of resting in a dungeon as long and as often as the players wish to -- the food would either rot or end. Same goes for water. Enough water? They will live. No water? They will die. Poisoned water? A dillema. Being poisoned? Cure poison, but cause half the water to vanish from the body. In fact, they could make a system that would not substract hit points, but rather poison body water. 100% poison -- die.
-When you want your characters to sleep or leave an area, you should not have to "gather your party before venturing forth". In other words, when you have not all of your characters in an inn and you want them to sleep, you can choose either for only the ones in the inn to sleep, or for all of them to sleep in the inn even though they're not all in there.What if some character is in a dungeon somewhere? Maybe you should leave one character in an inn (to get good rest as often as needed, without interruption), and the rest in the dungeon? No. The party needs to stay in one place to rest there. It's only logical.
-Same for when you want to leave an area. You should be able to leave an area without gathering all of your characters, meaning you can have different characters in different parts of the world, if desirable, and if only one character goes to the edge of an area screen to leave, you can still choose for only him to leave or for all of them to leave.And the one behing that cell door that you're unable to budge should also move?
-You should be able to have up to ten guys in your party, not only six.I respectfully disagree. While they're at it, they could make you able to gather a thousandstrong army?
-I also enjoyed the static environments in the IE games, but it could stand to have more going on in the background.This I agree with. Especially on market squares -- people should pass, align in queues, talk to shopkeepers, then disappear through the gates, etc.
You're also right about Salvatore...

Oh yeah, and I agree that less political correctness should be present. If somebody has something against (e.g.) homosexuals, let them voice the opinion, and do so loudly and without any hesitation nor reservation. Ultimatum? By all means! And do not go the way that 'Chloe mod' author went. Chloe is more intelligent (true in stats) and wiser (not in stats, but her dialogue reflects INT=24 and WIS=24) than Keldorn, so she trounces him in every conversation. If you want politically_correct_characters make them believeable, as in -- how would a mediaeval community accept them -- and if you want them to have the upper hand in each conversation, give them INT 18, WIS 18 and CHA 18, not (in NO WAY!!!) just scripting their responses. And do not make them assume traditional roles (that INT/WIS/CHA 18 woman character, who is a lesbian and feminist MUST be a fighter, ranger, or barbarian, just to make a point, even though her STR/CON/DEX are all <6). Make each character believeable rather than say: 'believe in them because we scripted them so.'

A couple more things-
1. You should be able to summon unlimited monsters like in the 1st BG.

2. The game should come with two totally different setting available: real time (my favourite) and turn-based. The turn-based mode should actually have all the positive qualities of an actual turn-based system; it shouldn't simply be the game setting itself on pause.

Another thing: make stealth useful and easy to use. Not that you have to turn off AI, then choose to hide in shadows for every rogue or ranger, cast invisibility on those that cannot sneak, and so on. It should be easy and automated, like a global party button of sneaking -- mages cast invisibility on everyone, and finally themselves, thieves hide in shadows, and you're ready.
Make more than 50% certain encounters in the game NOT obligatory. Ie. no powerful magical items on that nondescript group of goblins, no quest items on them either.
Make it so that the players, when faced with a choice: "tank or sneak," choose to sneak from time to time. In PnP RPGs, you don't win every fight. In cRPGs, it seems, you have to fight your way through the game.
Oh, and more or less successfully sneaking should award the party some xp points -- as much as fighting, in some cases more (high level parties).

And don't make hiding in shadows make you invisible so you can go where you want, make it more realistic. Make so theives actually have to hide in shadows while they have their ability on, not just be able to walk in front of someone then attack them.

Nogoodnamesleft- summoning should rely on level. The more powerful the mage the more he should be able to summon, becaue in FR pathetic magelings can't summon hordes. But powerful mages should be rewarded with more summonings, and conjureres should get bonuses aswell.

as long as it isnt hack n slash:P

If there were BG3, I really would wish that it would include everything from previous parts not only because of continuity, but also to remake them better. 3D seems to be the standard of today, but I could content to 2D as long as it were at least as detailed as in BG2, but with more interaction and functionality. More party banters and function a lâ The Sims 2, of course, and a support for mod-making would be great too.

And, hopefully, a fresh start when BG3 actually begins: somehow a level 50 party does not sounds very interesting... Perhaps the children of the previous protagonist or something like that.

Ah, well; I seriously doubt that this game actually comes around and if it does: it's like one of those "The Sims 2" expansions with no real development.

[ February 05, 2005, 23:11: Message edited by: Wirhe ]

Wirhe, no worries, iirc BG3 will be a prequel to the saga, not a sequel.
Anyway, one thing that I really liked about IWD 2 was the way different races/classes/subclasses were integrated in the dialogs. Like for example several characters in targos - and afterwards - looking incredulously when you have a drow in the party, priests trying to spread the word, etc. Even small but nice things like being able to teach the half-elven girl in the barbarian village a trick or two if you are a sorcerer.
Aside from that, I join those going for less political correctness. Our society is far from perfect itself, and one based on feudal relationship is not likely to be much better. Discrimination from NPC's won't ruin the role-play, it may even improve it. Besides, why can't PCs themselves be chauvinists or racists?

To be completely honest i agree with most of the comments on this site made by the various heroic individuals :) but like one person sed (forgive me if someone already typed the reply and ive missed it) who is FRANK WELKER?

i agree 101% and wholeheartedly with 2E rules (ToB style, so its more 2.5E rules :happy: ) as 3E suxx big style - and b4 anyone mentions it i own the entire NWN set and IWD2 complete set and i dont like them no matter how hard ive tried to like them i dont. NWN nice gfx - crap ruleset - no party big suxor (was it made to port to consoles For crying out loud).

IWD2 nice party still sucky ruleset :grr:

Multiple endings? I liked the endings of BG2 and wouldnt want it changed - its probably cos ive seen them all now.......(yeah i know im sad)

Dunno bout Minsc (he partially annoys me) but Viconia has been in all BG's so she shud definately be in nxt one :love:

no in my opinion the only game ive played and completed over 12 times now (i think, at last count :roll: ) modded and Unmodded is BGII SoA + ToB. Full Stop. Period. No other considerations.

Oh BTW youve all gone and upset me now by mentioning a BG3 cos i know it will never happen which P****S ME OFF :flaming:


Rite already BORED of IWD2 AGAIN!!! im of to design my character AGAIN for another week of BG2....unyielding+5 & Crom hammer on berzerker dwarf hmmmmm (the tried and tested stuff always works, i wonder wot his kill count reaches this time :evil:

On frank welker: sarevok posted a link, this is the guy who in Baldur's Gate II voices Terminsel/Lord Cor Delryn/Avatar Of Amaunator/Ixilthetocal/Rakshasa/Kirinaldo; and in BG I he voices Elminster/Eltan/Korax/Necromancer/Xzar.
He has been in over 500 films/serials/games, from Fallout to the Jetsons (he voiced Orbitie when 17) and from SW: the clone wars to Sesame Street.

Frankly, this guy seems to be quite something.

Somehow, I seriously doubt it that Viconia will appear in BG III, despite popular demand. Given that in BG I she wasn't on the surface for long, and even in BG II is a bit unclear how things work out on the surface, expecting her to be "under the sun" in BG III, some 2 decades before BG I, is unlikely. Unless the producers can tolerate a big hole in the plot (for which I'd eat them with the clothes on, just to be sure - it's a series that had a terrific plot, after all) it's unlikely that many characters would appear again. What follows is just a personal conjecture on why, though.
The humans in BG I/II are relatively young (keldorn excluded), so they would be children at most in the time of troubles (possible exceptions - Keldorn, Edwin/Xzar maybe, if very young). Besides this:
Khalid met Jaheira relatively soon after his leaving his family, and I think he met her relatively soon before BG I (I'm not sure on that, but I think it was mentioned somewhere)
Jaheira herself... maybe, but since she became a harper soon after leaving the druid grove she was raised in, and her mentor Dermin was still around and active in BG II (and he had to have some experience to be her mentor, after all), I think it's not so likely to see her either. Mind you, it's not very clear-cut here.
Korgan/Kagain - possibly. Their age is undisclosed, and dwarves are long-lived. Yeslick, though, did not travel around until shortly before the iron crisis, I think there was something about a "friend" of his from the iron throne betraying him for something.
Montaron/Alora - maybe... alora seems immature at best and might be just a wee halflingling at the time, monty might be in though...
Kivan, Coran, Xan - possible; well, in Xan's case not that likely (his bio said something about a cloistered life or whatever). Aerie isn't that likely either - before being captured for the cicrus she didn't get around much.
Tiax/Quayle/Jan: any of the 3 could make a hilarious NPC. Especially Tiax (wonder what he'd be like before he got insane or how he got to that point).

Viconia had been long on the surface, since she must have escaped either some time before ToT, or shortly afterwards, as Lloth would have lost her power then, so she would be unable to seek her -- certainly not with a handmaiden and a yochlol.

Anyway, I would prefer it if she wasn't in the prequel (unless as still in the Drow city she was raised in -- Menzoberranzan?), but if she was, let's hope the PC is not charname's ancestor, or you'd be comitting incest with your own grandmother in BG2...

And that, folks, is the main reason for not including BG1/2 NPCs in BG3 -- you know too much about them. BG1 wasn't as revealing, so you could have got the NPCs and, after all, you were the same character. Playing with BG1/2 NPCs in BG3 would have meant prescience and precognition of them, which would be acceptable (or even expected) with the same charname, but not if BG3's PC is somebody entirely different.

I think they should bring another guy like Abazagal in (exept more powerful) and use him as the boss. They should also have an alternite ending (like BG2 Watchers Keep). :D :D :D

How was watchers keep an alternate ending?

I'd want a Time of Troubles them... something to do with Gorion & Elminster n' stuff.

If it was in the time of troubles, it might be really neat to meet any of the three who later became gods: Midnight, Cyric, or Kelemvor, by the way.

How about putting Taluntain in as one of the Flaming Fist? ;) :good:

2D vs 3D?
I would not at mind the same system as in BG2; 2D with some 3D, but it does very much look lite we will indeed se BG3 in totaly 3D. Ok, that is ok as long as gameplay wont suffer and they keep the top down perspective. I DO NOT want any first person wiev, nor any "over the shoulder" view. And I do really want to be able to move the screen without moving the characters, if you know what I mean.


Rules

I do not know about DnD 3.5 since I never played it, but what I have heard seems allright.


Appearence and voice

Some more ways to change your look, hairstyle, weight, etc. Also more sounds, that can't be to hard to fix? The protagonist only have like 20 different sounds...maybe less. And those are short anyway. In BG1 there was like three to chose from, and two of them was sounding totaly crazy so you had to go with the same voice every single time you played the game. BG2 was a little better.

NPCs

Very important. Put very much time on these, they have to feel alive. I do prefer 12 great NPCs over 30 not-so-great NPC:s. A LOT of interaction and dialogue between you and the NPCs, between the NPCs and between the world and the NPCs. Your actions should affect how the NPCs react to you, and you should be able to have atleast one romance per gender.

Do not recycle NPCs from the BG-series. One, or maybe to is OK and might even be intresting, but not more. I want some fresh new characters.

You should also be able to controll all NPC:s, and you should be able to have atleast four in the party at the same time. If there is some really large and important battle, you could be able to gather most of them to strike at the enemy, though you wont controll all of them...Like when you gathered the Drizzt party, the Shadow thieves and the paladins in the assault on Bodhi's lair.

Races and classes

Do not care so much really. The races that exist are sufficient, and I do not feel any great need for sub-races either. But I do think that your race should have a greater effect on your suroundings. Not only should some quests (or maybe even some NPC) only be available to some races, but general all day dialogue should also be somewhat different at times.

I do not feel the need of any more classes either, but It would be interesting with some prestige classes that should be hard to achieve. Maybe you discover some old temple in the mountains and after quests and hard training you could, if you are for example cleric and have achieved the right prerequesits (for example having the right alignment, whatever), have the choice to be trained to a special prestige class. And as with the races above, and even more so here, your class should have a greater effect in the game. And if you are a Paladin for example, you should be organized in a order and you must follow their rules. If discovered doing otherwise, you should be cast out and become a fallen paladin, and some people on the streets should know about it and say like "eh...you are that cast out paladin are'nt ya? Nah, I do not trust you".


Story

A good story is VERY important, and even more important is that the story is being well told.
The main campaign should be large, many hours of game play. But there should also be very much quests and areas that are not connected to the main story at all, or atleast not much.

Generally well written story, characters, bad guy and dialogue are crucial. I want some nice twists to, (like in Kotor) even though their effect wont be as great in replay. Not to great twists though.

You should not fight the last boss before the last battle.


Music & Sound

Well, it has been great in all BG-games and maybe even greater in IWD. It should stay that way, a good score is very important. BG2 had quite a few great voice actors/actresses. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224637/fullcredits

General gameplay

You should start at level 1, and end maybe at lvl 20. You should not get any über +4 weapons right at the start. You should be very happy for your first +1 sword.

Around two cities not to much smaller than Baldur's Gate, and some towns. I also accually liked to walk around in somewhat empty mountains and forests as in BG1...I like the fact that you could wander around for hours, just killing some gnolls and maybe a party of bandits, maybe finding some minor quest...and than stumble across something more interesting. I would very much like to find some secret dungeon or some town just by walking around for a long time...Towns and dungeons that you would have no chanse to find if you had not chosen to go exploring in the wilderness. I like "hard-to-find secrets" in general...stuff that you might stumble across on pure coincedence. Areas that you have to do a long series of quests (that do not even need to be connected) to be able to travel to. Items in a room only reached by unlocking a door in some peasants cellar, with a key found on the other side of the world. Like that secret mindflayer place in the sewers, or the Twisted Rune secret room, or the pantaloon mystery. It should be awarding to be a hard core BG-gamer. :)

And if you save a town...it should have a greater affect on the people. Not just a mayor saying "thanks for saving our town!" and some peasants saying "it was good what you did", etc. And bad deeds should also have a greater effect, atleast then witnesses are present.

And EVERYTHING should not be centered on me. I can't solve every damn problem in the world. There have to be others! And I should not either be able to effect every great event in the world. There should be stuff that even I cant prevent, or even I are not aware of in time. Like if Iam in a town...and I decide to go out on a quest instead of sleeping in the inn. When I return the town has been raided by orges, or an army, whatever and everyone is dead, and I loose alot of potential quests (even the one I was out to solve...the guy who gave me the quest was hanged on the town square), etc. Though I might also gain one quest or two that would not have been possible if I should have slept at the Inn and thus being present at the invasion which I might have been able to stop.

And must problems should be able to solve without any battle at all. Instead of fighting your way through the castle to get to the throne room, you could if you are a thief, climb the walls, infiltrate the guards, pick the locks, etc. Or if you are a mage...cast dimension door. :)
And you should gain experience for completing a certain task, no matter if you do it by slaughtering all enemies or by sneaking around them, or posioning them to sleep.


Some large battle might be cool to...You can be like a general or something, in a seige. And the only outcomes should not be victory or your death...You should be able to loose without dying. You could be forced to retreat with your army (maybe bringing the seige to your castle, if you are beseiging an enemy castle), or be captured to be ransomed out, our forced to spill military secrets.

You should also be able to play the game with other characters than your main character, but only temporary. For example if your main character were captured in the battle, the rest of your party might try to save him. Or if they are dead or unable, your side might have some elite thief, or otherwise contact some thief-NPC that you never choose to have in your party, that you could play and save your main character with.

And if you walk around in plate mail all day, you should stink, get some wounds and get tired faster. When walking around in peacefull towns, the characters might put on som casual clothes, etc. And when visiting nicer place, like the royal palace the girls should have pink dresses! :)

And your clothes should reflect in dialogue.
"What a beautiful dress m'lady!", "Ouch! You stink! How can you walk around in that piece of junk all day?" Etc.

AI

Dumb orcs and animals might not realize that Iam taking them out one by one, but smart enemies should understand that they are under attack and come running after me if they see their companion being hit by arrows from the distance. And if I take out some guard while infiltrating a castle, the other guards might dubble the security and organize a search party, whatever. Real smart enemies should even be able to fool me...pretend that they've got "morale failure running" so I follow them and BOOM! Iam in an ambush. Or try to seperate my NPC's to take them out one by one. Etc. Tactics should matter...maybe even to that extent that if you stand on a platau you get advantages, and if the enemy is flanked they might panic, etc.

Spells

Do not feel any need for much more spells, but some would great.


Dialogue

You should have additional dialogue options if you have for example certain skills, like:

Persuade
Wisdom (if you have high wisdom, new dialogue might present itself, cause you understand stuff better)
Intelligens (same here)
Flirt (charisma)
Intimidate
[Skill] (if somebody is talking about potions, and you have a great skill in alchemy, you should be able to have a dialogue about it, or point out that he is a stupid idiot not realizing that you need the X-ingridient to make the Y-potions, etc.
And another example, if you have a great skill in knowing stuff about weapons, you should be able to know if that merchant is trying to fool you, etc.

And if you are very stupid, you should have a more clumsy dialogue and vice versa. In some games a really intelligent character can ask so plain stupid questions and really stupid characters can talk like if they were some prefessor in retorics.

And attributes like intelligens should have more uses...it is totally useless in BG if you aint a mage.


And you should be able to talk to more enemies...most start red and instantly attacks you. Most confrontations should be able to avoid in some way if you have the right talents, money, whatever. And even some fool hobgoblins should not be so stupid that they attack an über lvl 15 party that have allready slaughtered half the dungeon, they should rather say "**** the boss and his orders, Iam out of here!".

You might even find those "evil" bandits, or those ogres sympathetic and nice people, and that their cause is really just and fair. When you get to know them, most people have their nice sides. Even monsters.


Quests

Why does everybody trusts you and spill out all their secrets to you? And why do people give important quests to total strangers just because they look like adventures? And who really expects a random adventurer to go out to the forest and bring back some old magic boot for 50 gp...
And why do you do it?

I want good quest motivations!

And all quests does not have to be epic. Some might just be to sneak into the prison and free a prisoner without killing anyone.


Reputation and alignment

You should be able to play real evil, and the game should look real different if you do that. Not a slightly different end movie, but the entire game should be different in many aspects. You might even join with the end boss...or his organisation, whatever.

And if you are like a James Bond arch-nemesis you should be the one that everyone fears, and you should be the one that adventures seek to destroy.
You should even be able to start up some evil academy training evil soldiers to attack the goody goody town. This might be to much to ask though.

But reputation should matter...not just in the shops. And if you save a city because a little girl asked you so, you should be known and well liked...get new contacts with important people (unlocking new quests for you), and new enemies (locking quests from you).

And alignment should of cource change if you act in a specific way. Even if you choosed Lawful Good when you created your character, you should be able to move towards chaotic if you constantly shows disrespect to authorities and the law, for example.

Misc

More books! I loved reading the books! And more books that might have connections to the story. Maybe even some dude will write the story of your character (or some other character you have played in other Faerun-games). And there might be some book that mentions the last boss (why is he/she always evil? Can't their be a neutral boss? That is not evil, but just have another view on things?), or maybe some town, some weapon, etc. Maybe the book even gives a lead on a town...for example mentions a secret passage under the rug in a house in some town, leading to some ancient grave? Something that you could never find if you haven't read just that book.

Btw...where does everybody work? Most should work on farms, but those in the city...well, there is quite a lot merchants but I found few other work place...People can not walk around in the city all day, it is far more likely that they should work.
And when they are out in the town, they should not just stand still, but walk around and talk to people.

Organisations

More organisations! All kinds, not just bad and evil...Even political organisations. Maybe some underground anarchist-group that plans to hang the king, exile the nobles and give the power to the people, or something. :) All kinds of polital groups, some militant some not. And other groups as well, different mage groups, some evil organisations, some different churches, thieves, whatever. You might support the king, and rally the church to your cause and eliminate the anarchist threat, or help the anarchists mobilize the people and infiltrate the castle, whatever.

There should also be philosophers wanting to win the peoples mind, ambitions politicians stuggling for power within the senate, cults preaching mass suicide, half-orcs protesting against half-orc discrimination...Maybe even some Anti-racist action Half-Orcs that fights racist elfs. And some merchant organisations, fighting for free trade and against the king and the mercantile economics of the land. Etc.

[ February 21, 2005, 17:07: Message edited by: Turandil ]

To re-state something previously stated, but after reading Turandil's great list I had to add it again. Have more race-specific dialogues, quests etc. Make dwarfs be rude and angry towards elves and visa versa. Make races react realistically to each other, and quests be limited to certain races for example (except if you saved their town or something like that). Make certain races more trusting of their own kind and less trusting of others depending on which. And make shops give discounts depending on race or offer special items and such. Just make interacial interactions realistic and make a difference, and in that aspect also do the same for similar classes like paladins trusting fellow paladins (which will make a HUGE difference on replayibility).

Hehehehe, these seem enough recommendations for a fairly successful MMORPG already :)
Yeah, one more thing on evil and neutral play: make it alluring, and realistic. In BG II for the most part even without being particularly good - say, with actions perfectly befitting a TN alignment, you could get a reputation of 17+ by just not being an arshole. An evil party need not act in a way to be despised like rabid dogs, but should be able to earn fear and even some respect. Moreover, there should be a serious opportunity for neutral roleplaying - after all, those 3 alignments (CN.TN and LN) are there fore a reason! I like being a do-gooder as much as the next guy (depending on who the next guy is, maybe even more) but some variability is in order.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but some random encounters and, if possible low- to medium- power random loot can be fun. Not every +1 weapon need have a volume of history - after all, you will be making it famous, not the other way around.

@ Turandil: Damn... that'd be one awesome game...

@ The Shaman: Agreed, something along the lines of the "Virtue" system would be a good inclusion. After all, as BG1 demonstrates admirably, you can be respected and admired - even elected Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate - while being a devious, murdering, vicious, evil bastard (in every sense of the word, too). Your actions may have you well-regarded, but you may still possess all the morality of a sewer rat.

after all, you will be making it famousAn item that should be in BG3 is a missile weapon (probably a light crossbow) with a higher rate of fire, the history of which should include a previous owner's or the maker's comment of "I'll make you famous!" Would be a real comic moment for those who get the reference.

More subraces. Be a Drow or a Gray Dwarf.

Not necessarily more classes but more feats and skills that give the same effect as 'kits'.

More consequences from ability scores (e.g. high intelligence or dexterity in a fighter gives access to more complex fighting moves)

Strength enhancing items add +1 to strength rather than setting at a specific level.

More multiclassing options.

Many people said that already, but still it's very important: 2D, NOT 3D and NOT "over the shoulder" view.

I have Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale on my computer table, and I never finished it. I never played it for more than 15 minutes, I couldn't stand it. I wasted my money on it.

I know many people like 3D rules, but as it is going to be Baldur's gate 3, not Neverwinter Nights 3, I'd like it to look familiar.

I don't want purely 'birds-eye-view' yes it gives a D&D feel and its good for parties, but I'd prefer to be able to alternate between the two. I find with with over the shoulder I can more fully emerse myself and play the roll of my character (most of the time is a halfling) who walks around a tavern looking up at everyone. I want it so you can switch from "a bird's-eye view" to "over the shoulder" to "first person" with each view having its options, and controls (ie the bird's eye view you can move the "camera" around to see what you want) and that way everyone's happy and as each view has its purpose, you can't lose :D

Wishlist for BG3
1. NO 3 or 3.5 edition rules. They'll ruin the game, totally I must add. The 3rd edition with "everyone has the chance to become a mage" already ruined the IWD series. I hate it when in the end all your characters are longsword wielding, plate armor wearing mage/clerics.
2. A greater game world with freedom to explore it. Cities of races other than human would be really nice to wisit.
3. No frozen wastelands (I started hating the Icewind Dale (not the game but the region) after NWN). Jungle or desert would be really nice. (And it would make more sense too, it's kinda dumb to see a panther (an animal that really likes hot weather regions, even by MM) in an ice cave.
4. More weapons. I mean there were weapon classes that were totally useless (clubs for instance). Everyone should have even chance to find a good weapon, not just fighters.
5. NO MORE DEMI-GODS. This should be a completely new plotline.
6. Spells that are not totally combat oriented (95% of the spells were meant to boost up your characters or damage oponent) - the spells are more than that. For instance, golem creation or magical weapon forging would be really nice.
7. NO MORE GOBLINS AND ORCS. I hate these races. Not because of what they are, but because if you see a fantasy RPG you'll be fighting goblins and orcs most of the time. Look at the MM there are so many more interesting sentinent and common monsters, why do goblinoids get all the glory? And no skeletons and zombies for the same reason.
8. More puzzles - the dialogue riddles were really nice, but they were too few.
9. More choices in quests (like when told to look into a slave uprising you could kill the slaves or the slavers) etc.
10. NO MORE RANGERS WITH HAMSTERS. It was an old joke in the second part already.
11. NPCs with normal stats. A rogue with low Dex or a mage with low Int isn't really what a player needs. And they weren't even plot characters, they were just waste of time.
12. Explenation and characterisation of every character or character type you meet in game, like it was in Planescape Torment.
13. More roleplaying in ways you can solve the quest (after all you are the one who gets it, your companions just help you to fulfill it). Basically in BG every character class had to do all the game in the fighter way.
14. NO 3d first person view. Cause every game made in it becomes a fantasy DOOM or a total hack'n'slash.

Based on that list, it sounds like you hate the Baldur's Gate series.

And once all these things are actually put into the game, you discover that you have to go out and buy a $7,000 computer just to run the bloody thing.

-There should be many different races to play (several dozen), not just five or six.So, the game should follow AD&D rules and allow the player to play races that the player cannot according to those rules. Am I missing something?

-You should be able to have up to ten guys in your party, not only six.Can you think of a good way to control this in a real-time, first-person environment because I sure can't? I also think that this number is way too high.

Cattie-Brie is a strong woman, which is not even excusableWhy? What the hell is unexcusable about strong women?

-Slight changes to the storyline with each playthrough. It gets tedious having to do the same quests with just different classes/races/NPCs.Creating random stories is not possible in any game that doesn't have a human storyteller.

-I also enjoyed the static environments in the IE games, but it could stand to have more going on in the background.That one I agree with as well.

Oh yeah, and I agree that less political correctness should be present. If somebody has something against (e.g.) homosexuals, let them voice the opinion, and do so loudly and without any hesitation nor reservation. Ultimatum? By all means! And do not go the way that 'Chloe mod' author went. Chloe is more intelligent (true in stats) and wiser (not in stats, but her dialogue reflects INT=24 and WIS=24) than Keldorn, so she trounces him in every conversation. If you want politically_correct_characters make them believeable, as in -- how would a mediaeval community accept them -- and if you want them to have the upper hand in each conversation, give them INT 18, WIS 18 and CHA 18, not (in NO WAY!!!) just scripting their responses. And do not make them assume traditional roles (that INT/WIS/CHA 18 woman character, who is a lesbian and feminist MUST be a fighter, ranger, or barbarian, just to make a point, even though her STR/CON/DEX are all <6). Make each character believeable rather than say: 'believe in them because we scripted them so.'Agreed.

1. You should be able to summon unlimited monsters like in the 1st BG.No, just because of the stupidly high system requirements that I mentioned earlier.


2. The game should come with two totally different setting available: real time (my favourite) and turn-based. The turn-based mode should actually have all the positive qualities of an actual turn-based system; it shouldn't simply be the game setting itself on pause.I can agree with that one. An NWN-like system works fine for me, though. I do not like the way Morrowind or Diablo handles combat.

Make more than 50% certain encounters in the game NOT obligatory. Ie. no powerful magical items on that nondescript group of goblins, no quest items on them either.I think that there should be a lot of nonmandatory encounters in the game, but I don't have a problem with goblins having quest/magic items ("Caravan robbed by goblins").


Nogoodnamesleft- summoning should rely on level. The more powerful the mage the more he should be able to summon, becaue in FR pathetic magelings can't summon hordes. But powerful mages should be rewarded with more summonings, and conjureres should get bonuses aswell.That's the way D&D does it. There has to be a limit though, do to limitations of hardware.

Anyway, one thing that I really liked about IWD 2 was the way different races/classes/subclasses were integrated in the dialogs. Like for example several characters in targos - and afterwards - looking incredulously when you have a drow in the party, priests trying to spread the word, etc. Even small but nice things like being able to teach the half-elven girl in the barbarian village a trick or two if you are a sorcerer.I'd like to see that as well. There has to be a somewhat limited number of race/class combinations for that to work, however.

Oh BTW youve all gone and upset me now by mentioning a BG3 cos i know it will never happen which P****S ME OFFIt's already in development.


You should not fight the last boss before the last battle. Why?

You should start at level 1, and end maybe at lvl 20. You should not get any über +4 weapons right at the start. You should be very happy for your first +1 sword.Agreed.

Around two cities not to much smaller than Baldur's Gate, and some towns. I also accually liked to walk around in somewhat empty mountains and forests as in BG1...I like the fact that you could wander around for hours, just killing some gnolls and maybe a party of bandits, maybe finding some minor quest...and than stumble across something more interesting. I would very much like to find some secret dungeon or some town just by walking around for a long time...Towns and dungeons that you would have no chanse to find if you had not chosen to go exploring in the wilderness. I like "hard-to-find secrets" in general...stuff that you might stumble across on pure coincedence. Areas that you have to do a long series of quests (that do not even need to be connected) to be able to travel to. Items in a room only reached by unlocking a door in some peasants cellar, with a key found on the other side of the world. Like that secret mindflayer place in the sewers, or the Twisted Rune secret room, or the pantaloon mystery. It should be awarding to be a hard core BG-gamer.Not sure I'd want the "hard to find" places taken to that extreme, but a couple of dungeons in out of the way places would be neat especially if nobody ever sends you there.

And EVERYTHING should not be centered on me. I can't solve every damn problem in the world. There have to be others! And I should not either be able to effect every great event in the world. There should be stuff that even I cant prevent, or even I are not aware of in time. Like if Iam in a town...and I decide to go out on a quest instead of sleeping in the inn. When I return the town has been raided by orges, or an army, whatever and everyone is dead, and I loose alot of potential quests (even the one I was out to solve...the guy who gave me the quest was hanged on the town square), etc. Though I might also gain one quest or two that would not have been possible if I should have slept at the Inn and thus being present at the invasion which I might have been able to stop. What about time limits to quests?

You should also be able to play the game with other characters than your main character, but only temporary. For example if your main character were captured in the battle, the rest of your party might try to save him. Or if they are dead or unable, your side might have some elite thief, or otherwise contact some thief-NPC that you never choose to have in your party, that you could play and save your main character with.
I disagree. It's an RPG, hence, you're the main character not the party.

If Baldur's Gate 3 is going to be a prequel, I only want 3 things:
1) better random number generation. My Rogue consistently averages 3 point of damage per die on sneak attacks. It should be 3.5 per die.
2) sneak attacks should be sneak attacks, NOT BACKSTAB. You should be able to pull it off if you and another party member are flanking an opponent.
3) For God's Sakes, please please please make sure that the spells do what they're supposed to do. Chain Lightning should affect at least 13 opponents when you're 12th level, not 1 opponent and maybe a second one if you happen to have some "left-over" damage.

I like the infinity engine, I don't like Neverwinter Nights. I also hope that they'll put the Arcane Trickster prestige class in. By the way, second edition sucks on things that I can't write about here. Stick with third edition.

Wishlist:

- More NPC's of different alignments/classes. I'd like to see at least 2-3 different (as in different characters) and viable (as in having spellcaster, healer, tank and lockpicker/trapfinder) party options for good and evil parties.
- NPC's/combinations should affect (some) quests.
- Race/gender specific quests, not unlike the strongholdquests.
- Change the reputation system. How would the city guards know if you murderd some old hermit or woodcutter? Maybe, like someone mentioned in an earlier post, evil parties could bully vendors into giving discounts. Evil vendors who won't sell items to good characters and vice versa?
- A more dynamic environment. Maybe a revolution occured while you were away and half the vendors/shopkeepers were killed or thrown in jail and new ones are in their place -> New items, quests, people... fun! :)
- Custom weapons, armour? If you use your +1 longsword long enough/kill enough monsters it will become more powerful or get special abilities -> +2 longsword, invisibility once/day. Choose if you want to search for "other peoples" equipment or if you want to (with time, effort and gold) create your own legendary sword. You could name it yourself, "Stickers Backsticker". :D

I like the idea of custom weapons, maybe it should go in the other direction, you need to do 50 attacks evertime you learn how to grasp its abilities, I dont want to bring the whole Diablo rule of being a certain level to use a weapon though cause thats just wrong...

I don't know if this has been said before since I don't have the time to read all of the pervious posts right now....
Since I am busy reading the Avatar series this idea came to me...
What if BG3 was set during the Time of Troubles?
That would make it a prequel and would still tie in with the main storyline.
We all know that Bhaal foresaw his death at the hands of Cyric and prepared for that event, so why not have BG3 set suring this time period.
I think most of the current npc's like Jaheria and Minsc should be scrapped. I love them as much as any BG fan but enough is enough.
Elminster would still be there since he is about 800 years old and Gorion would possibly be there.

If they did that is would be REALLY interesting.
I'd also love to play a PC FR game that where you could visit Waterdeep...

I thought i'd put my thoughts down,

There should be no BG 3 - That is, the Spawn story line. I'd like a brand new game based on the BG 2 engine etc.

This needs to be a low level start i.e 1 - 3. The story needs to be based around the old D & D concept of someone wanting to be a adventurer. not some demi god character. (as much as i like having loads of power, its not quite true to RPG concepts)

With that said there are some components that could make it really work.

some very different storylining for good evil and even that hardly ever played neutral bunch. all given equal measure, this gives you 3 games essentially in one.

I'd like to see storylines based on class, pehaps you start out as a guild apprentice till you achieve a certain level and are released. this could each class of character a fighting chance at the beginning as the "quests would be taylored" these intial activities could be limited also to guild member NPC i.e. if you a mage you can only use other guild mages in your party to start out. Then once you are free of guild restrictions you can select some more apropriate companions for your travels and quests. NPCs need to be more interchangable, particullarly in the early stages would that thought, "but i just got this guy to 10th level and the new NPC is only 6th" we all know that those levels count for alot in the early days.

I'd also like to see bigger citys, baldurs gate was small but has some nice hidden features, Athkatla was hugh but we could only explore small parts. A truly large city with hidden features buildings that house normal shops as well as those specialist ones. hid outs and public buildings.

The other thing i'd like to see is the non linear map like BG 1, places you can have a bit of a wander in not quite knowing what is there.

I think Waterdeep would be a great city to base this one on, i think many old D&D maps might need to be consulted to get that right.

The last think that i have really though about is a proper war situation perhaps at the end or the game, your party are now in an army (good and evil would be on opposite sides) this a proper sized army on screen facing each other then you fight & fight & fight, Your party would slash through the ememy being like 30 levels higher than the general grunt but numbers can take there toll, only problem is we would all need top end PC's to run that much on screen at the same time.
Perhaps it could be broken into smaller sections with continuously spooling enemy and friendly soldiers.

I've just thought that a militarry career could be an option, as part of the later stages of the game, general of the kings armies. leading them into battle? just a thought.

I'm sure if i kept think there would be more

cheers

If the developers of the game want to go with a sequel, beginning from a few months after the end of ToB, wherein after things like Aarie and PC went to Feanya-Dail, Anomen became a leader etc, the PC somehow had a pull to explore the Shoonach Empire (from the book "Lands of Intrigue"), and must defeat the lich and free the elf!

I've just been reading that part of the Lands of Intrigue book right this past hour, and it seems like a really good adventure! (But I'm not a DM at all, so some video game developer has to do this for me! :D )

Perhaps a major fight with the Twisted Rune, or a major fight with both the Twisted Rune AND the Shoonach Empire! :eek:

Hmm, seems as though a few people want BG3 to be more PnP type than a computer game. You want to eat food and have actions determine alignment. It's good, but when I play CRPGs, I don't want to drop from exhaustion because I forgot to eat that morning. I can do that in the DnD campaigns I play irl.

I've also heard rumors of a prequel. I kind of hope they do something other than Bhaalspawn, although finding out about the PC's mother and Gorion is interesting. Most of the gripes I agree with 100%; ie: no Drizzt, no Elminster. Maybe something along the lines of IWD where you play a premade party - the Mirrorshades leap to mind.

As for what I want, here's the list:

1) Either 2e or 3.5e rules, definitely not 3e.
2) Turn-base would be nice, (like ToEE) but RTS is okay as long as I can use the pause button.
3) More variety in the NPC classes. I'm sick of having only 2 choices of cleric, 2 druids and 1 paladin. I typically played good-aligned, which limits my choices even further.

That's all on this point. Thanks for listening, erm reading. :)

I want:

1) a continuous world;
2) said world to be interactive to Ultima 7's level;
3) said world to have full complement of travel methods (horses, carts for party, ships, quite possibly a magic carpet...)
4) NPC schedules
5) party members who have personalities - after playing PS:T, nothing less well-written will cut it for me
6) a mature world which doesn't patronise me - good\evil are not always black and white, very few things are *ever* clear-cut
7) an interesting enemy - Irenicus was good, but the best IMO are TTO (from PS:T) and Batlin (U7)
8) going back to said world - complete freedom in the world. I don't want to be restricted because of some deeply 'constructed' plot-device. Let me explore the world, where I want and when I want!

Basically, I'm hoping for a fusion of PS:T and U7. Perhaps that's what BG3 will prove to be.

Yeah, right.

You know what? I like the idea of a Time of Troubles-era game. However, if you're going to do that RIGHT, you're going to need 1st edition rules.

That's right. 1st edition. We can have subraces; there are rules for a wide variety of them in the Unearthed Arcana. We can also have Monks, Barbarians, Thief-Acrobats, Illusionists, rangers who will really kick butt, double-specialization, and the only usable psionics system to date for a Dungeons and Dragons game to date.

The best part of this is that the complexity of 1st edition would be fairly transparent, because most of it will be behind the scenes.

You ask for all these changes to be made, but let's all not forget, the baldur's gate games became popular for what they are. When baldur's gate 2 was made, they could have used decent graphics but decided not to because they felt it would take the game away from the 2d look which pretty much MAKES baldur's gate, baldur's gate.
Personally, i'm not to bothered about graphics or too many changes on BG3, they just better give it one hell of a story line that would keep my hooked as the previous games did and not make you feel lost or have team members with no personalities like IWD (which i thought sucked.. your characters just didnt have a background) Now i know creating characters and their own back grounds is a part of DnD true roleplaying, but on single player it's kind of pointless.

What i'm trying to get is i hope bioware or obsidian (or whoever else is making the damn game) spends more time on the story line, than graphics or whatever else they should stick in it. The NWN single player sucked because of that.

I didn't mind so much that IWD PCs didn't have much personality, because the gme had a good story... it was worth playing the game. Heck IWD2 was fun, partially because your different party combinations could result in a slightly different game. Got someone with Snake Blood? Then the yuan-ti section will go a bit differently. A tiefling female will make the game a little bit different. Drow or duergar or monks or druids change the game in little ways, and the story, itself, was neat and compelling. I didn't mind that my party wasn't talking to me, because the rest of the game WAS.

yeah i admit that was good. especially the way some npc's replied to drow differently hehe. I'm not to fond of the story though. It doesn't give you a sense of belonging or attachment as baldur's gate story does. With baldur's gate the storyline was so intense and attaching that you simply can't stop playing. I thought icewind dale 1 was better than number 2. I could play that all the way though, but the first time icewind dale 2 got very boring for me, and i had to stop playing.

My wife loved Baldur's Gate because "It's a story all about ME." I can sympathize with that; its fun to be the center of attention.

I think what was missing in IWD 1&2 was any reason for the characters to be there. You're adventurers from the south, come to save the Ten Towns; far better, IMO, to give you the option of being semi-local and involved. Maybe my druid is from another town, and is heading towards Kuldahar when I stop in Easthaven. Maybe someone can be from Lonelywood, or Easthaven, or Targos... even someone from Calimsham could've added a bit of flavor to the game; give us the option of where we're from, and have that affect a little bit about our characters and how the story plays out.

i see your point. But i personally agree with your wife. It's good that you have one character to think about in the bg series. Baldur's gate is indeed about the main character and his exploits in the world and thats what makes the story amazing. So what if it's not a true RPG; it still is an rpg but built for single play. Think of the final fantasy games (the newer ones: 7,8 and 10) where the story revolves around the main character. Sure the other characters play a part, but you feel more involved in the game if it's centered around you. The problem with games like IWD is when you craft a 6 person party and the story is centered around them, rather than one person. A good story/novel/plot-line is always more difficult to write when writing evenly over a group of characters, which i believe is the reason for biowares "lets just let the players write the biographies for the characters.. less work for us. let them use their imaginations".
This does indeed allow us to use our imaginations for the characters (making their own backgrounds up etc) but takes a big chunk out of the plot line to.

True. There is a compromise position, however, because I was deeply disatisfied with the BG storyline on a very basic level (namely, the elven and gnomish PCs were all 20 years old... babies, barely out of swaddling.)

Have several roles which can be filled for your party... say 10 of them. And you can pick which one you want your character to fill. It's not as rigid as PS:T's pre-generated character or BG's predefined background, nor as amorphous as IWDs absolving the game from responsibility for your background, but it incorporates your background into the game, without dictating it to you (and make one of those background choices be "points beyond", giving you the choice to be somewhat uninvolved in the story).

now if they did THAT in bg3, that would be a game. Keep the great storyline, but added with icewind dales character customization.

And as for the dwarven elven thing, i did read somewhere a bioware explaination for the subject.. it said something like:

---

Well the thing about aging between elves dwarves and humans is this: All of the races reach adolescance and mahood at the same rate. its only when they reach this stage that each race, depending on the race, the growth rate drops dramatically. Now in baldurs gate, an elven or dwarven character would be fully developed in terms of growth, and considering the elven/dwarven characrer grew up in a human enviroment, there's no reason why he cannot act as mature as a human would at the same age. It's only when a dwarf or elf grow up in their own enviroments with their own people, they are treated younger because of their age.

---

Something like that anyway..

Yes, but, unfortunately, its completely wrong from a D&D standpoint. Elves take a lot longer to reach physical maturity than humans do, according to the 2nd edition canon.

It was just something that really annoyed me.

Just a Side Note on the graphics...I am all for killer graphics..However I cant even play NWN on my PC because of my graphics card..

Also If Atari is putting this out, I really hope they use some common sense and NOT put the serial code on the maual but somewhere in the CD..My hubby lost the NWN manual, After telling their customer sevice dept off about 100x, they told us we had to buy a new game just to play it..

I know it's been said a couple of times now, but i agree that it would be really cool if BG3 would be in the era of Time of Troubles or shortly afterwards. And some whole new and fresh NPC chars with much more personality that in the previous games, with at lot more of NPC dialouge, and not you have to wait for the NPCs to talk too you, but you being able to engange in conversation with them when ever you'd like, even if just for chit chatting.

And a question : Can't remember who, but someone in this thread said that BG3 was already in development, but who is developing it?? Atari, Bioware, Obsidian, who?

It was only announced that it's being developed a year ago, and Atari is (of course) the publisher. No information has been released on it since, so it's quite likely that the development of it was halted or stopped completely.

Thank god obsidian isn't making it.. Can't stand what they did to kotor 2. Bioware all the way in my opinion, but i'de settle for atari.
As for the graphics, is it only me who truly prefers the old 2d style of the first bg games? they gave it more of an edge, but then again i guess if you have nwn type graphics, you could zoom far out to bg proportions.. ah well.. we all know that uber graphics will steal away our beloved bg games..

No, you're not the only one who prefers 2d, there's me and another zillion of us. (and i think nwn graphics are bad)

Yeah, I prefer the 2d as well. The NWN style of things is much better on consoles (see Jade Empire) than on the computor. Also, my computor struggles with NWN...

What is the config? Mine isn't very good but manages to do a decent job. Of course, with 6 characters performing feats, casting spells and whatever in a fight with 20+ goblins, I suppose some care should be taken to optimize the engine and keep you from viewing screenshots.
Actually, entropy, I rather liked KotOR 2... one of the best plots I've seen in quite a well. What bugs you so much about it?

my list....

-stat checks. those of you who have played Planescape Torment will know what i mean: hundreds and hundreds of dialogue options that only appear if you have high enough INT, or high enough CHA, DEX,.....

-6 party members is good, but more potential npc's: baldur's gate 1 had tons, baldur's gate 2 had very little.

-a huge part of Faerûn accessible, with all areas completely authentic, including the npc's and stuff. I know this is impossible and will never happen, but a man can dream, right? if they would actually manage this i'd mant to marry them

-a very interactive storyline. Can't have to many options here

-Romances. tons and tons and tons of romances. Also some sort of 'trust' with not-romancing npc's. For example; if you're at -2 hitpoints an npc with low trust would rather run, whereas an npc with high trust would instantly heal you.

-AI that matches the character; no matter what script you set someone to, each character should always have individual AI. in the same case as before, a paladin would stop whatever he's doing and instantly heal someone who needs it

-romances not only between you and an npc, but also between npcs, and theses should be random. Say Minsc fell in love with....eh.....Nalia, then you wouldnt want to kick her out because that would mean losing Minsc as well...I think this belongs to npc interaction, but meh.

Well, that's it....i think

I aggre with you man. Torment had the best dialog i have ever seen in any game in history ever by 10 fold! You do realize that build in scripts for charactes will piss a LOT of people off becuase the NPC wont do what you want him to, you want a paladin to attack and he'll start casting heal light wounds on you're mage and yea that mage is dead... and so is your paladin. Customizable scripts are MUCH better. But the scripts aren't that good.. at all, infact from my point of view they are haphazardly made crap. Always some problems with the scripts. Romances are also complicated, and a lot of them would be very complicated. But when you spend as much time on dialog as they did on torment, then I am sure they will make a lot of romances, but I'd base them on 2 things, attribues like chrasima and alignment, or how you presonally react to them.

yes, but for the real roleplayers here, a paladin who would ignore a fallen comrade for even an instant and who would still retain his paladin status would be.....well...blasphemy. but on-topic now, what i REALLY want is for the developers to read our ideas :D

Not necessarily, Arianyr; while it would be very difficult for the Paladin to do, if he has a choice between continuing to attack the bad guy (who may, for example, be getting ready to heal himself) and letting his friend die, there are times where letting his friend die is the best choice... even if you hate it. After all, if you break off attacking the BBEG, and he escapes to do more evil things, then you're somewhat responsible... you could have stopped him, but you chose not to.

This becomes even more important in a world where various forms of Ressurection are possible. Killing the BBEG is actually more important than saving someone's life, because their life can be saved after they're dead.

Please, please, please stop the stupid romance plots. I coudl hardly stand it when the stupid elf girl offered to "show me her body." Gag. It is like they were marketing it at horny teenage boys or something.

Given the demographics of the gaming industry, St. James, they largely were.

romaces are optional, so you could just skip them, whatever. also, NOT the time of troubles! During that period, spellcasters had a certain chance of each spell failing, and that, well, sucks.....bad

Actually, I think that would be a wonderful way of balancing the game... while spellcasters have obscene amounts of power, if they go overboard, they're liable to screw up.

well that's what i fear; if they follow the ad&d rules, every class is as good as another. so if they will play the time of troubles, they will have to change things which will result in 'fake' ad&d, or as i call it: 'blasphemy'

-A choice of Cinematic and Classic Infinity Engine Camera Angles.
-Absolutely needs Romances.
-No cartoony-stlye graphics like Neverwinter Nights.
-I want to hear my bard play music.
-More spell-casting sounds.
-An Editor.

Every class is not as good as another, Arianyr. AD&D liked to claim that, but the game wasn't balanced at all.

At low levels (1-4), fighter-types pretty well ruled... they had the HP, AC, and hitting power to trash their enemies. Clerics were ok, but stuck healing most of the time. Wizards stank; too few spells, too weak when the spells are gone.

At mid levels (5-9), it was a cleric's game... a lot of their spells started to come into their own, the party had enough other resources that they didn't need to exclusively cast healing spells, and their fighting power started to catch up. Fighters are still good, but they're starting to fall behind... their AC is starting to cap out, their attacks aren't as impressive, and their HP is still the best, but almost everyone has enough to see them through a couple tough encounters, so its less crucial. Wizards at this point start to come into their own; their better spells become available, and with the right items, they can rain down a lot of death... but they're still severely limited by spells per day, and a lot of their no-save spells are yet to come.

At high levels (9+), wizards rule. At this point, they start making the items they want, and have spells which will wipe the floor with most other classes. A well-prepared cleric can stand up to them, but a fighter is almost completely outclassed; wizards are incredibly potent, able to resist a lot of damage, and have enough summons to make sure that there's someone else around as a meat shield for their fragile selves.

TSR tried to pass this off as balance... since everyone had their levels at which they shone, everyone was equal. That's a bad argument; its not balanced, but rather dynamically unbalanced. There is no point where everyone is approximately equal without rigid DM control of the availability of items and spells.

***

To your first point, Harbinger, I don't know if that's feasible; a first person or over the shoulder view choice (like Morrowind has) doesn't seem too hard... the views are basically the same. Those two, which are fairly different, would require them to render everything in 3D (so they could change perspectives), or create everything twice. That just makes the game bigger, not necessarily better.

they are balanced, believe me, even at every level; at lower levels, a wizard with spellcraft would be able to identify items 80% of the time. if not, use a spell: this saves time and gold. the cleric would most likey have herbalism and healing, thus making a nice healer between fights, ...... all classes ARE equal, but you have to know how to play them; every class is also unique, thus it may seem that one is more powerful than the other, etc... oh, and a lvl 9 wizard creating magical items? not unless he's really stupid! a wizard could cast a +1 enchantment, but it would cost him a point of constitution

Somehow I don't think BGIII will allow players to really make "permanent" magic items on par with some of the unique ones you're getting. Then again, if accompanied with the necessary feats, and made sufficiently challenging (not just a couple of casts and/or few clicks of dialogue, followed by a 2-min. rest), why not? It'd make things a lot cooler, especially in a long campaign.
Another thing that'd be nicer off the top of my head... Clerics and paladins depending on their deity's favor to cast their spells - keeping their alignment, etc. I don't think that's in the rules - at least not literally - but I can't see a priest of Mask resurrecting a paladin, for example. Maybe the wild mage system of adding/subtracting levels could work, or the "sphere" system of BG II could be implemented - a priestess more favored by her god could choose from a wider spell selection per level. Similar with rangers and druids - if they don't act in tune with their duties, their magical skills will decrease. This is why theirs is divine magic, after all - it's not them doing something, it's a divine (or at least animistic) entity doing it on their behalf. The level system is a bit underdeveloped in that field - higher levels needn't imply more devotion. Also, it'd be much more, well, engaging if there were extra feats etc. that you couldn't get just by leveling - for example special bard ballads you can only get through quests (like the various ballads you could choose from in IWD II), specific fighter skills only a particular trainer could teach, etc.

@Mr.Nexx

Actually, I was thinking like having the original 2D view, with the cinematic camera like Neverwinter Nights'.

You must have been playing under a nice DM, Arianyr... spellcraft allows you, at half your usual check, to identify magic items and magically imbued constructs for what they are. Leaving aside my DM only allowed that as a poor-mans detect magic, to do it at half your usual check 80% of the time means that either your DM wasn't paying attention to the rules as written, or you'd sunk enough slots into spellcraft that you had a 32 proficiency check. Healing and Herbalism were not a nice heal between fights, unless the fights took place a week apart... using them only added a point to your natural 1hp/day healing rate.

And wizards at 9th level can start making magic items of great use... scrolls, wands, potions, and similar charged magic tems. Maybe not quite as nice as a +1 weapon, or something of that ilk, but definitely very useful, as my wand of fireballs can demonstrate.

That was a joke about the marketing demografics. :)

The romances may have been optional, but you still had too respond to the dialogues -- and if you stayed in character as a good person you ended up having lots of them.

I would like to be able to play more races -- but then that is what I always want in a game.

@mrNexx: in 2E, spellcraft is rolled at INT-2, and the dm decides, depending on which item it is, how hard it is...besides, im playing a party of 3 and there's a druid and he's owning everything and everyone

Yes, Arianyr, but read the description of the proficiency, where it says that the determination is made at half the usual score. That's the rules as written.

i know, but that will still allow you to identify almost every item. you usually dont find +3 weapons, you know?

Depends on your level and DM. We didn't often, but he also didn't let us use a proficiency to replace a class feature (of bards, who get a 5% chance per level to know a little) or a 1st level spell costing 100gp per casting.

I realize that the opening comments were made ages ago though I think there's quite a flaw in the requests which tip the game towards a sort of sims/diablo/NWN game.

It's easier I suppose to build on what I disagree with then, which is nearly everything said.

"-Graphics that really, honestly take advantage of what computers can do today."

What's great about BG and BG2 is that they do *NOT* need a computer the price of a mercedes to run them. A good game such as BG does not need flashy graphics to make it worthy of play, on the contrary, making it look something like Dark Alliance would completely ruin the game.
What it does need is more detail.

"-More interesting NPC's ..."

I cannot see how the NPC's in BG can be found to be uninteresting. All have background stories and I personally found them very likeable.

"-It should be entirely in 2E rules, not 3E; 3E sucks.

-Characters should be able to run when you want, not just walk.
-They should also be able to swim, jump, climb, move stealthily...
-Characters should be able to do absolutely everything possible in an actual game of D&D..."

Notice that the opening statement rules out the continuation. 3e rules can bring a game to a much more interesting level with skills and so forth. 2e is far to limiting compared to 3e and a lot less realistic (from a logical point of view).
After playing IWD2 I realized that 3e is definetly the way to go.

"-There should be an utterly huge game world consisting of hundreds of different places/areas, some of them bigger than others (including some really huge ones) and no matter what, it should still all fit on ONE, and only one disc because one of the annoying parts of the first Baldur's Gate was that you often had to change discs when going into a new area which was quite annoying."

These comments utterly bewilder me. BG1 has to be by FAR the game with the LARGEST amount of playable area I've ever seen. The second part of this remark is truly maddening. You want the game to have more areas than BG1, be with much better graphics, and yet fit onto one cd? Come now! Who do you think you're fooling? You could have easily bought the DVD version of BG1 though.

"-There should be a vast number of creatures and monsters, all that are actually in D&D and any the writers or whatever can think up on the fly."

BG is a D&D game, not Diablo or Warcraft.

"-They should get a better guy than before to do the music..."

Maddening once again, the music is a flawless compilation fitting the game perfectly. The only improvement needed is to lengthen the tracks so that they don't loop too often.

"-As stated, there should be multiple endings..."

Just because it's possible on a PS, doesn't mean it should be done on a PC. Isn't BG3 meant to be a Prelude to BG1? How then could it have more than 1 ending?

"-Characters should have very detailed personalities..."

Exists in BG2..

"-Characters' alignments should actually be their reputation..."

Once again exists in BG2..
Decisions in Hell for instance.

"-All classes should have the same max/peak level."

Makes the classes different and interesting as you wanted? no. IWD2 showed us how well the 3e system works when calculating race class modifiers.

"-...start out at level one, and the peak/max ... over 20."

BG? Know it?

"-Characters should be able to ascend to EPIC level..."

With 2e rules? Get real.
With 3e rules though this is the real way to improve the game. There should be a wide rage of prestige classes and also options for a Mage to become a Lich, another to have Golem limbs attached by a fellow Mage, and so forth. The wider the range of 3e epic class options, the better.

-The game should take many hundreds of hours to beat....levels of difficulty"

Having different levels ruins a game. So does a long drawn out game.
BG1 mastered this problem. You can go only to the needed areas, or you can go to every area, taking about 10 times the playing time. What is needed is a wide range of SIDE QUESTS. The lack of them made IWD a boring game.

"-There should be many different races to play (several dozen), not just five or six."

IWD2? 3e?

"-Your character's character model should be highly customizable...not all male characters would look like the same guy"

This isn't sims...But there is a point to be made here. Perhaps you should have a roll on height and weight and in some way age.

"-There should be many more portraits to choose from.."

True for BG, not for IWD. Just bring over some of the guys who made those portraits and you're sorted.

"-You should be able to meet all the famous NPC's, including having ones like Drizzt Do'Ourden...However, their should be no Elminster because he's a blatant Gandalf-ripoff."

Oh so having Drizzt in your party is ok but Elminister can't be in the game? Elminister is Elminister and LOTR is something else. Does LOTR have to be the source of everything?

"-Every priest should be able to choose a particular god, which should be the sole determining factor for absolutely all of his spells."

This was done in IWD2...3e :)
But true maybe it should give completely different spells for each domain.

"-There should be many classes..."

Says the fan of 2e...

-You should be able to have a pet...

Familiar?

Please play the games before assuming they don't have certain things.
I fear that some of these changes proposed such as graphics may be changed...I personally would be devastated if BG3 looked like NWN. I say keep it like the original from the view point, improve detail and sound quality.
Then just expand into epic terms of 3e, adding more planar travel and planar encounters, epic prestige classes, epic spells, while keeping the entire range of levels at D&D 3e and not a 2-3e variant.

To sum up, this is BG3, not NWN2 or some other game, so it has to be kept as close as possible to the original from and interface and feel point of view, otherwise it just be another RPG game.

Three Cheers for Father Ted!

@Chump: ( :hahaerr: )
Hip, hip ... *crickets chirping*

@fatherted:
Ease up a little. People are only saying what they want to be in BG3. They're not saying that these things had not been in other games. Some of these wishes are for things that weren't in the previous games, but most are for things they've seen implemented successfully, and want to see again. You can only play those other games 50 or so times before they become a little repetitive.

Now, that being said, I agree with your statement that it should look like Baldur's Gate, and not something else, and I whole-heartedly agree with your 'mercedes' crack. I think people just want more story, and want to see the best parts of all these various games put together to form a sort of "supergame". It may not be possible, but hey, we can dream, can't we? :D

I agree that BG3 should be like Baldur's Gate, but maybe improve on the graphics. I'm not saying that the graphics were horrible, but they seem dated now. It's just in my opinion, the paper dolls, and the real character in game play could look better. {By the way, what is with those horrible paper dolls from BG2?} It wouldn't be much work, just a little tweaking here and there to the characters. The magic effects could be better too. But what do I know? I've only played the series like 5 times, AND I'm only 13! :D
edit: It would be better if there were WAY more classes and races. I really enjoyed playing through IWD2 as an aasimar and a drow. The priests should be able to choose their god, and maybe the spells be completely different. I think it might be cool for rogues/thieves to be able to choose their 'style'. Like maybe Luskan thieving, or Shadow Thief, etc.

To father ted, a response.

(In reference to being able to do things like run, swim, sneak, climb, etc.)

Notice that the opening statement rules out the continuation. 3e rules can bring a game to a much more interesting level with skills and so forth. 2e is far to limiting compared to 3e and a lot less realistic (from a logical point of view).Actually, Ted, all of these things were possible in 2e, as well. A non-thief could climb walls, someone without the proficiency could swim, etc. They were just more difficult, and less able than people who took the proficiency.


"-As stated, there should be multiple endings..."
Just because it's possible on a PS, doesn't mean it should be done on a PC. Isn't BG3 meant to be a Prelude to BG1? How then could it have more than 1 ending?This is somewhat amusing to me, because I quickly read the statement at first, and translated the first clause as "Just because it was possible in Planescape...".

Yeah, Planescape had alternate endings. You could absorb TTO, kill yourself, fail in your quest, or what have you. I especially liked the ending where you became the Silent King, though it meant that you failed.


"-Characters' alignments should actually be their reputation..."Once again exists in BG2..
Decisions in Hell for instance.And your decisions in PS:T affected your alignment directly, even changing what was listed on your sheet.


Makes the classes different and interesting as you wanted? no. IWD2 showed us how well the 3e system works when calculating race class modifiers.I disagree. IWD2 is, in part, a flawed implementation of 3e... and even then, 3e is not the bees knees, as it were. It is very easy to powergame your character in IWD2... check out advice to players where its suggested that people take a couple levels of class X just to get the abilities, because those levels won't matter in the end. 2e multiclassing was flawed, I'll admit, because you wound up more powerful than a person of equal experience, but when you made a choice of a 2e multiclass, you had to take the good with the bad far more than you do with 3e.


"-Characters should be able to ascend to EPIC level..."With 2e rules? Get real.
With 3e rules though this is the real way to improve the game. There should be a wide rage of prestige classes and also options for a Mage to become a Lich, another to have Golem limbs attached by a fellow Mage, and so forth. The wider the range of 3e epic class options, the better.Actually, BG2 did do the 2nd edition "Epic" levels. A lot of the special abilities from BG2 are direct from DMO: High Level Campaigns.

Having different levels (of difficulty) ruins a game. So does a long drawn out game.I disagree with you about Levels of difficulty ruining a game. However, I dislike how they implemented it in IWD1, where you could fight things on normal, memorize spells on Easy, and collect quest experience on Insane.

I will agree, however, with an unnecessarily long game. PoR:RoMD suffered from this, as did BG1, to an extent... to much pointlessly open space. At least BG1 tended to have a subquest or two per area.

The lack of them made IWD a boring game.I disagree. First of all, most of the side-quests (things not strictly necessary to beat the game) in IWD were placed directly in your path, making them seem less like side quests. However, I think that IWD's lack of non-plot sidequests helped to make it more focussed and move the story along, not boring.

"-There should be many different races to play (several dozen), not just five or six."IWD2? 3e?Once again, however, this was present in 2e. Aasimar and tieflings both come from Planescape. All of the other races and subraces (except the Ghostwise Halflings) have been PCs since 1st edition's Unearthed Arcana. Even Ghostwise halfings were nominally present; they were called "Tallfellows", and they weren't silent and telepathic, but they were a third subrace of halfling. And 2nd edition had rules in the DMG for playing "monster" characters, as well as the Complete Book of Humanoids (and skills and powers), which provided more detail.


This isn't sims...But there is a point to be made here. Perhaps you should have a roll on height and weight and in some way age.Personally, I would like to select my height and weight, rather than roll it, but that's just me.


"-Every priest should be able to choose a particular god, which should be the sole determining factor for absolutely all of his spells."This was done in IWD2...3e [Smile]
But true maybe it should give completely different spells for each domain.Not quite. IWD2 changed a few spells based on your clerical allegiance. In 2nd edition, it was possible for two clerics/priests to have completely different spells based on their choice of patron deity... this one might have Animal, Plant, Healing, and Time, while this one would have Numbers, Law, Necromancy and All. The two priests would have very few spells in common. Whereas a cleric with the Fire and Air domains will have 95% of his spells identical to the one with the Earth and Water domains... the difference will be those two spells per level.

"-There should be many classes..."Says the fan of 2e...2nd edition did have a large number of classes. The only ones in the 3e PH which are not in the 2nd edition PH are Barbarians, Monks and Sorcerers... and there was a complete Barbarian's Handbook for 2e, as well as several different versions of the Monk. Of course, 2e also had kits, which made for an exponential increase in the number of "classes", as a kit usually made fundamental changes into the nature of your character's abilties.

Really, Fatherted, you're showing a shocking ignorance of 2e beyond what you can glean from the IE games. If you're going to bash 2nd edition, at least do it on its own merits, not what the game designers decided to implement.

As a response to the responder...
I was not bashing 2e. I'm not a fanatic fan of 3e...I was just pointing out that ruling out 3e is a mistake.
About the "Epic" stuff in BG2...it was quite annoying how lvl 40 was worthless and only meant a few whirlwinds (for a fighter for instance). The variant edition used in BG2 didn't work that well in that manner, I realize whirlwinds and so forth are epic feats, but they were far too easy to attain and replaced any other improvements for those levels.

Also I didn't say BG2 changed all cleric spells...If you look you'll see I said that it would be nice to have the domain change all of them.

All in all...I'm not saying anything against 2e...I'm not saying I know more than anyone else about D&D rules, all i'm saying is that it's silly to disregard the 3e rules because I find them very useful, and a lot more logical. After all, they were developed through feedback, and should fill in all the gaps in the 2e rules.

If you want to quote me again, add some positive input. I'm not bashing anything except what you think you just bashed...Ignorance towards a rule set.

But if the domain changes all of them, that's not 3e; that's a variant that's fairly at-odds with 3e.

As for your "I'm not saying anything against 2e, I just don't want 3e dismissed o