Baldur's Gate - Retrospective Interview @ RPS

Via GDC Europe, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a retrospective interview with BioDocs Greg and Ray on their breakthrough hit, Baldur's Gate:

Ray: We ended up sending out our first game Shattered Steel to ten publishers. Of those publishers, only one is still in business- EA. We originally called Baldur’s game Battleground Infinity; it was going to be an MMO [about a pantheon of different mythologies]
Greg – there really hadn’t been any kind of MMO then. Even then we were too ambitious. Looking back at the documentation, the cover art was done by the lead programmer. It would have been interesting because Bioware’s first game would have been an MMO.
Ray: Interplay had the Dungeons and Dragons license through TSR so what they provided was converting the engine to Dungeons and Dragons instead. We thought that would be a good license to develop in.
Greg: what we always wanted to make was the experience of that top-down experience. That top-down world exploration of Ultima was a really big inspiration for us. One thing that’s important to realise was we started it back in the mid-90s, and that was when RPGs were dead in North America. People would kind of scoff when you said you were making one.

More information.

Notice that on the end of the interview they talk about "game builder" game , like NWN. And that they are working on similar unannounced project

"Even then we were too ambitious."

What happened to that ambition, I wonder….

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
"Even then we were too ambitious."

What happened to that ambition, I wonder….

Wanting to sell 10 million copies…

There are different kinds of ambitions

Right you are

Yepp. There are bad ambitions, and there are my ambitions.

A surprising interview from these two in the fact that it actually has meat!

It is odd to hear someone refer to the mid-90's as the early days of development. I can't think of another dev in the mid-90's that would hire you if you could draw a robot on a table napkin. That must have actually happened. That sounds more like an early-80's event, so it must have been in an early day in the life of Bio.

They mention there were "no MMO's" - true if 1995 but not true if they were trying to make a clone of Ultima Online.

The best part of the interview was the admission of how successful BG was without focus groups. Since after the release of NWN all their products have relied on that marketing technique they helped to develop, to the detriment of features that players would like to see.