Alright, let me just set this straight before people keep talking. Stop calling the setting Planescape: Torment. The setting is Planescape, Torment is the game. It's like Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate. We still call the game by it's full name (Planescape: Torment, or PS:T) but please just stop talking about PS:T like it's it's own setting (can you say that? it is it is?) (oh no, wait, it's right - first is a contraction and the other denotes ownership!). Regardless. Stop it. Or I will send ferrets to haunt your pants!
Really? I preferred the BG 1 style of freeform exploration over the hand-holding fantasy dating sim that is BG 2. Nevertheless, if Baldur's Gate being is the reference point for the Stardock RPG then I'm apathetic. There's nothing in the BG games that hasn't been done far better in other titles. If they took Fallout's C&C, Temple of Elemental Evil's combat, Planescape: Torment's story and Gothic's world design then I'd be excited - very excited. Though best of luck to Stardock for tackling a difficult market!
There are P'n'P Warhammer Fantasy/40k RPGs and (shudder) Warhammer Online with a (gag) 40k MMORPG in planning. Of course a MMORPG is only an RPG if one stretches the definition to breaking point before beating it senseless and rolling its shattered body into a ditch.
You missunderstood me. Read it again.
Not really -- look at the way quests in II were laid out. You weren't wandering over half the map trying to figure things out, and more importantly you didn't have to wander across half the map simply to find quests, they were easy to find.
Yes. I know exactly what you're talking about. It sucked.
Baldur's Gate > Baldur's Gate II, by a long shot - at least in that department. Bioware have been moving progressively away from "lots of stuff" and onto "more content". The issue with that is that as content gets more convoluted to produce, the actual value of it is diminished - and in time you're standing there with less stuff
and less content. Mass Effect is a great example. It's got a shitload of content, but very little actual stuff. There's no balance between
"stuff" and
"content". Does that make sense to anyone (but me, that is)?
One can argue that Baldur's Gate II is the better game, since the content that is there is of "higher" value. You have less NPCs, but you also have more banter - less stuff, more content. Things like that. I'd still argue that at it's time, Baldur's Gate was the better game, with Baldur's Gate II suffering from a lack of what made parts of Baldur's Gate so good. An intimate plot, not knowing exactly WHO that bad man was (you didn't even know the name of Sarevok until far into the game). Just the Oblivionesque plot that "Yeah, you know exactly what you need to do now, but first you need money. So go quest randomly" left me wanting. A lot. You basicly had two choices - random questing in random locales centered entirely around the city of Athkatla (Baldur's Gate, the city, didn't even come into play until quite far into the Baldur's Gate storyline and when you finally got there it was a pretty 'big thing'), railroading between that point and specific quest locations, or a completely railroaded storyline from the point where you leave Athkatla and onward (Spellhold, the Underdark, and so on).
if Baldur's Gate being is the reference point for the Stardock RPG then I'm apathetic.
Brad is known to be a big fan of Planescape.
I -like- the Planescape setting, but part of me still hopes that you'll miss out on this one (if you indeed are trying to aquire the Planescape license) and go with your own, Planescape-influenced setting.
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To date, only NWN2's Mask of the Betrayer came even remotely close to matching the story awesomeness of that game.
And that's still
extremely remotely. I'd still say Arcanum was better than MotB,
at the very least from a point of storytelling and setting potential.
