Beamdog - David Gaider Farewell

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Creative Director, David Gaider has left Beamdog according to the Beamblog.

Today, Beamdog bids farewell to our Creative Director, David Gaider.

Dave came to Beamdog during interesting times. Since then, he has been teacher, mentor, and friend to many on the team. We've seen Dave conjure new worlds we'd love to play in, and spin stories in places already close to our hearts. Someday we will share the fruits of his labour!

Most lasting, Dave has built a creative team that will shape the stories Beamdog tells in the years to come. He has freely shared his incredible wealth of storytelling and narrative design experience with the developers, designers, and artists around him. We've all learned a lot from Dave and we hope he picked up a trick or two from us as well.

As fans of Dragon Age, KoTOR, Baldur's Gate, and many of the other incredible worlds Dave has helped create, we're excited to find out what's next (come on, give us a clue Dave!) be it a new game, novel, or whatever else it is you choose to create.

We'll certainly miss your lunchtime stories. Best of luck Dave!
More information.
 
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Whaaaat?
I thought he was working on their new IP? I didn't see him leaving without a Beamdog release to his name.
This is very disappointing. :(
 
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he has been teacher, mentor, and friend to many on the team.

Really? I believe he was:

 
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Maybe Gaider got a better offer.

Edit: Or maybe like others said above, Gaider was promissed that he could lead a new D&D project, but Beamdog wanted to keep doing more EE-games rather than orginal ips.
 
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Good riddance.
 
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I thought Avellone was just a freelancer working for several companies like Larian.
 
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Hopefully this will be an improvement for Beamdog and they can get away from agenda driven games.
 
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Surely Beamdog is going to run out of classic cRPGs to enhance at some point. That can't be a model for long term growth. Perhaps M. Gaider sees that and wants to join a more innovative effort?
 
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Surely Beamdog is going to run out of classic cRPGs to enhance at some point. That can't be a model for long term growth. Perhaps M. Gaider sees that and wants to join a more innovative effort?

Well to inform you guys a bit since I (kind of) follow what they do. Besides the fact that plenty of other classic RPGs still need EEs (Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Arcanum; you can go on and on, really), Beamdog has full intentions of making their own, preferably 5th Edition, D&D RPG. They are currently fostering good relationships with WotC and working towards that goal, using the EEs as somewhat of a springboard. Their EEs as well as Siege of Dragonspear have also been successes for them and have helped them in that regard. They are already working a lot with Wizards of the Coast.

Next up for them is a lot of cool, new stuff for NWN, including up-res'd textures, more of their own content in the Aurora Engine (likely quite a bit more than just a single expansion/campaign because NWN is much easier to create content for) and (IIRC) at least a project or two they can't talk about yet. They already have Steam Workshop up and running for NWN:EE mods. So, good stuff on the horizon.

*Now cue the Beamdog Hate Reel. Roll that beautiful bean footage! :D Or don't. It would be awesome if that didn't happen. :)
 
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Well to inform you guys a bit since I (kind of) follow what they do. Besides the fact that plenty of other classic RPGs still need EEs (Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Arcanum; you can go on and on, really), Beamdog has full intentions of making their own, preferably 5th Edition, D&D RPG. They are currently fostering good relationships with WotC and working towards that goal, using the EEs as somewhat of a springboard. Their EEs as well as Siege of Dragonspear have also been successes for them and have helped them in that regard. They are already working a lot with Wizards of the Coast.

Next up for them is a lot of cool, new stuff for NWN, including up-res'd textures, more of their own content in the Aurora Engine (likely quite a bit more than just a single expansion/campaign because NWN is much easier to create content for) and (IIRC) at least a project or two they can't talk about yet. They already have Steam Workshop up and running for NWN:EE mods. So, good stuff on the horizon.

*Now cue the Beamdog Hate Reel. Roll that beautiful bean footage! :D Or don't. It would be awesome if that didn't happen. :)

That indeed was their plan (to make an original game), but that plan requires lots of money. Much more money and a bigger team than making an EE does. I have no doubt that Beamdog wants to do something like that. The question is if WoC or some other publisher is willing to fund that. It also could be that they initially gave funding, then pulled the plug. I read somewhere that around 40% of games publishers start to develop actually get finished. The other's are cancelled when the publishers don't think development is going well, or feel like the game no longer fits in their "portfolio."
 
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That indeed was their plan (to make an original game), but that plan requires lots of money. Much more money and a bigger team than making an EE does. I have no doubt that Beamdog wants to do something like that. The question is if WoC or some other publisher is willing to fund that. It also could be that they initially gave funding, then pulled the plug. I read somewhere that around 40% of games publishers start to develop actually get finished. The other's are cancelled when the publishers don't think development is going well, or feel like the game no longer fits in their "portfolio."

Well we can hope for the best, I guess. As I said they are already working with WotC closely and developing relationships with them. So while those things are generally true about game development, it helps when you make friends in high places :)

If I understand correctly the EEs are springboards to eventually making their own game, but it is going to take time to get there. They are currently showing and proving to Wizards, and they worked closely with them on the previous Enhanced Editions as well. They even staff a decent-sized team, comparable to devs like Piranha Bytes. I think Trent said they had at least 30 working at their peak on the previous EEs (if not more, I don't remember the exact number.) But it was actually a bit more than I thought, as I thought Beamdog were even smaller than that.

If NWN:EE is a big success for them then their own 5th Edition D&D RPG will probably come sooner than later. I also *think* (don't quote me) they have 2 other projects in the works they can't talk about yet, but we'll hear about "soon." Phil said that in a livestream.
 
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