Beamdog - David Gaider joins as Creative Director

[Sacred_Path]

Ah - he's a gay that's written romances at Bioware. Now I get it.

That's actually a good way to sum up his credentials.

 

[joxer]

For all I know Gaider didn't write all romances in Bioware.
Also for all I know Gaider wrote plenty of stuff that isn't romances.
Finally dunno if he's gay - that's IMO not a job, but okay we're in 2016. so maybe it's now something needed for CV and I'm too old to know fresh trends.

 

[Ripper]

Yes, I don't really understand it. I don't like tapioca, but I don't get mad at the restaurant and the chef if I see it on the menu.

 

[azarhal]

So, my "no.1 concern" for both BG: SoD and BG3 has not been technical expertise but rather how much creative talent the team had available to do justice to both the saga and the legacy of interesting characters. Minsc & Boo 4evah!

BG: SoD had Chris Avellon. I'm not sure what he did on it, but all that talk about reactive plot and stuff makes me think he pushed his ideas quite a bit…he is still in contact with Beamdog too.

Also, there is no BG3, people need to take that out of their heads. The BG saga ended with Throne of Bhaal + Ascension Mod. Gaider less or more said that in the official Beamdog forum yesterday. He clearly didn't move there to make BG3.

Since it's known which characters he has written, that should be enough. It's not really about one specific line, as far as I'm concerned. It's the focus on romance which for me isn't a part of high fantasy adventuring but should be confined to dating simulators.

The fact that you have to be inclusive and write a romance option for every physically possible combination of genitalia just compounds the absurdity, his homosexuality isn't a red flag for me in itself.

He wrote romance stuff in BG2 (Anomen, Viconia and Aerie…he apologized for Anomen), NWN (Valen in HoTU) and KoTOR (Carth and he co-wrote Bastila with Drew). After KoTOR, he wrote Alistair, Morrigan, Fenris, Zevran, Cassandra (re-wrote after her original writer left) and Dorian. All his romance where straighter than straight outside of Zevran, Fenris and Dorian (and even racist in the older D&D games).

He didn't work at all on Jade Empire and the Mass Effect series which is really what made BioWare known for romances and LGBT stuff.

edit:
He wrote a bit of Aribeth in NWN too. He did made a list of all he has written in the past (pre-DAI).

 

[Sacred_Path]

Yes, I don't really understand it. I don't like tapioca, but I don't get mad at the restaurant and the chef if I see it on the menu.

But you probably get all excited about the prospect of them hiring a new chef who's sort of famous, even though you've been at his restaurants before and the food tasted sort of bland. It just seems to feel good to give in to the hype.

 

[Ripper]

But you probably get all excited about the prospect of them hiring a new chef who's sort of famous, even though you've been at his restaurants before and the food tasted sort of bland. It just seems to feel good to give in to the hype.

Well, let's not torture the metaphor too far.

If people dislike him because he's written gay romances for RPGs, I can at least comprehend their complaint. But, my point is that if we ignore the elements of his work that don't appeal to us (and we have the option to do so), is there any reason to think the rest of his writing is bland, and reject all of it? I'm not interested in celebrity, but if he was a big player in BG2 and KOTOR, I would say there's reason to think he could bring something good to the table.

 

[Pessimeister]

BG: SoD had Chris Avellon. I'm not sure what he did on it, but all that talk about reactive plot and stuff makes me think he pushed his ideas quite a bit…he is still in contact with Beamdog too.

Yes indeed. Chris Avellone provided narrative advice to Beamdog with feedback on all of the various new game-play, characters and story elements. More information on the subject is in the Matt Chat interview with Chris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mZsJN37xo

I have to admire David's professional choice to join Beamdog in this capacity as similar to Chris; he has abandoned a position in a well-established AAA company to pursue smaller and perhaps more personally fulfilling projects in the long term. All the best to him on the journey.

 

[Sacred_Path]

But, my point is that if we ignore the elements of his work that don't appeal to us (and we have the option to do so), is there any reason to think the rest of his writing is bland, and reject all of it? I'm not interested in celebrity, but if he was a big player in BG2 and KOTOR, I would say there's reason to think he could bring something good to the table.

Which is why I said Beamdog is the ideal place for him. Either he brings some quality design/ writing to Dragonspear (quality Beamdog certainly needs), or else, nothing of value will be lost. Personally I don't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog after their EE's, but if they surprise us, all the better. I just don't see a reason to get excited yet.

 

[JDR13]

Personally I don't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog after their EE's, but if they surprise us, all the better. I just don't see a reason to get excited yet.

What was wrong with the EE's that you think we shouldn't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog?

 

[Archangel]

Which is why I said Beamdog is the ideal place for him. Either he brings some quality design/ writing to Dragonspear (quality Beamdog certainly needs), or else, nothing of value will be lost. Personally I don't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog after their EE's, but if they surprise us, all the better. I just don't see a reason to get excited yet.

Dragonspear is already done and finished, he will not be bringing anything to that.

His influence will be seen and felt in Beamdog's next game.

 

[screeg]

I could imagine that, if I were a fantasy writer, and I'd been writing copy for corporate marketing campaigns for years

You're not wrong about that, the key phrase being "if I were a fantasy writer". Gaider had the opportunity to write and have published his own fantasy novel (or were there two?). I don't think he could've gotten published without corporate backing.

 

[screeg]

What was wrong with the EE's that you think we shouldn't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog?

There's a little (a lot) more to creating a new game than porting a 15 year old engine with a built-in rabid-for-nostalgia audience. I think it's fair to say 'wait and see'.

 

[Archangel]

There's a little (a lot) more to creating a new game than porting a 15 year old engine with a built-in rabid-for-nostalgia audience. I think it's fair to say 'wait and see'.

Did you watch the recent stream with gameplay from the expansions?

I think we don't need to wait and see, what they showed there was at least Bg1 quality.
Also they said game will now offer conversation options based on your stats (even stat like Strength) and on official forums I even read that there are checks if characters have Infravision ability in the game.

Also Avenger said on Codex that the difficulty settings are improved to work more like PoE in a way that raising difficulty from Core to Hard or Insane will not just raise enemy damage (which can be separately turned off) but change numbers and quality of enemies in many encounters in the game.

 

[screeg]

I didn't watch that, but good for them!

Still, they didn't build the game engine.

 

[Archangel]

Why is that important who made the engine?

 

[screeg]

Because building a game engine is a large part of creating a game, possibly as much as fifty percent of the total work, and if the engine is buggy or doesn't work properly all the other work isn't going to matter much. What they've done so far is tweak a game engine and create new assets.

 

[purpleblob]

I don't know but I think EEs were quite bug ridden. For my hubby, random characters were spawning everywhere all the time.

 

[JDR13]

Because building a game engine is a large part of creating a game, possibly as much as fifty percent of the total work, and if the engine is buggy or doesn't work properly all the other work isn't going to matter much. What they've done so far is tweak a game engine and create new assets.

I'm pretty sure the majority of games nowadays are made with engines created by a company other than the game developer.

 

[Sacred_Path]

What was wrong with the EE's that you think we shouldn't expect anything worthwhile from Beamdog?

Taking modders' work, then introducing new bugs was bad enough. But seeing how they mangled balance in IWD by shoe-horning in kits was what really made me think this doesn't bode well should they ever make their own game.

 

[JDR13]

Taking modders' work, then introducing new bugs was bad enough. But seeing how they mangled balance in IWD by shoe-horning in kits was what really made me think this doesn't bode well should they ever make their own game.

I can't speak for IWD EE since I've yet to play it, but I thought they did a great job with BG. They listened to fan feedback and released patches on a regular basis, which is more than what most companies seem to do nowadays.