Will There Be A D&D-Based Game Released In 2009?

Or, it's an IP more suited to CRPGs than to DIablo clones.

Dark Alliance II didn't  meet sales expectations. Nor did demon Stone.  The IP is probably dead for awhile.

Damn I feel old now too.  Thanks guys. :p

4th edition is an interesting ruleset.  I've not got to play it as much as  I'd like to, but to be honest ever since I  learned other systems I wasn't too interested in D&D.  Class based systems in general became too limiting in my mind.  4th edition has let me come back to class based gameplay and have some fun now and then so all in all a good system for a pen and paper game.

That's the key though. A PEN AND PAPER game.  What makes D&D and all other P&P games great is that interactivity between the players and gamemasters.  Heck just listen to the Penny Arcade, PvP, Will Wheadon(?!), game going on now.  It's friggin hilarious and shows how great P&P games can be.  http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20090218

That's the biggest problem though.  What's good in P&P isn't necissarily good in a video game.  While it can work, and has, I'm not so sure it's as needed as it once was.  Game companies can make thier own systems just fine now a days, and the fan base of a P&P system isn't neccissarily as big a sales draw as just a plain good system is. 

All in all I'd love to see a 4e game come out.  I'd also like to see a Warhammer 40K movie (since they did one on Mutant Cronicles after all) but I won't be holding my breath for either one. :)

Uh, no, D&D is very specific. Liek, there's books detailing every single aspect and stuff. Yeah, very specific.

And what are you getting worked up over? I didn't say they should use D&D. See my first comment in the thread.

"Um, no it's not, it's using Bioware's completely from-the-ground up battle system, and takes place in their own setting which has nothing to do with any existing D&D setting. Bioware call it a successor to BG simply implying it's going to be an epic scale old-school (ish) CRPG with an involving story and an engaging combat system. Not to basically say they're ripping off D&D without paying for it. HELLO?"

Um, no it's not, it's using Bioware's completely from-the-ground up battle system, and takes place in their own setting which has nothing to do with any existing D&D setting. Bioware call it a successor to BG simply implying it's going to be an epic scale old-school (ish) CRPG with an involving story and an engaging combat system. Not to basically say they're ripping off D&D without paying for it. HELLO?

Uh, HELLO?  Dragon Age: Origins is based on D&D, although it doesn't use the license.  That's close enough.

wierd

Actually, what I could really stand to see is a modern adaptation of Warhammer/40K. Like, of the tabletop, not an RTS.

An FPS would be cool too.

Well as much as I dislike 4th edition I still want to see more DnD games come out. If I had to guess I bet a Dark Alliance hack n' slash game will be the next one made. Seriously though: screw 4th edition and it's video gamey MMORPGness.

I'm with you AndrewB.  I'm on my 3rd time through Fallout3 playing the DLC.   I really liked Mass Effect too, but if I had to pick between the two, I would go with Fallout 3.  The main story/quest in Mass Effect was better than the Main Story in Fallout3, but the side quests (or sandbox content) in Fallout3 is far more enjoyable.   I really like bioware, but I think I prefer the last two Besthda RPG releases (Oblivion, Fallout3) a little better than the last two bioware releases (Jade Empire, Mass Effect).

@AndrooD2 I don't think WOTC owns it.  I'm fairly sure they don't.  I actually think the D&D computer game and the D&D tabletop properties are permanently separated.  And some company would need too purchase them both to bring them back together.  But I could be wrong.

@AndrewB
Hasbro owns WOTC, so they own D&D straight out, licensing it to Atari. D&D is really small potatos to them, so I don't think making another D&D video game is high on the list of things to do.

Doesn't Hasbro own the D&D license still, loaning out the license to Atari for the purpose of making video games?

And actually, I need to modify something I said before. The Infinity engine graphics don't just "hold up" these days, I think they're superior to anything a modern 3D engine has been able to capture thus far. The style of the artwork perfectly captures the fantasy setting.

Though I also have to say, people bashing games like Fallout 3 need to speak for themselves. If it were that bad, I wouldn't be nearing the end of my second full playthrough of it. Keep in mind the sheer size of that game, and how long it takes to finish everything, including all the side quests and hidden quests. I do still wish Van Buren had been made, because any license out of the hands of its creators feels more like an unoffical mod to me. That and such a game would have kept Interplay around to do more awesome stuff.

The 4e rules aren't all THAT different from the 3.5e rules, I doubt point number two is very prohibitive.

@ PJ

I don't like 4.0 to be honest. It made the game too much like a pen and paper version of WoW.

Yikes... I look forward to Age of Decadence more than any Bio-thesda game :S
And there are things called opinions, disliking or not understanding stuff others like doesn't make them retarded :S

Seriously, CRPGs are dead. And I dont really understand why ppl would like to go back to the NWN type games after games like Oblivion, Mass Effect, KOTOR and Fallout 3. If i would make a top 5 RPGs of all time then those four would be in it.
BioWare is the greatest RPG developer out there bar non. Bethesda is great to but lets be honest, their games aren't exactly deep when it comes to story and are buggy as hell other then that they are brilliant. But BioWare blend amazing storys whit impressive visuals(Putting Fallout 3 and Mass Effect side by side, F3 looks like a PSone game.), the greates characters ever created(HK-47 is the best party member ever) and a relativly problem free games when you concider the scope of the games.
Also, mentioning Obsidian in the same sentence as BioWare and Bethesda is kind of insulting concidering its the BioWare B-Team, if even that. NWN2 wasn't all that compared to the origional and KOTOR2, though still an awesome game somehow managed to be worse in every possible way then KOTOR. I mean if you use the same engine as the older game then how do you make it look worse and have a f up frame rate. Though KOTORs frame rate was bad KOTOR2's was a dissaster.
Also Alpha Protocol looks really interresting though what I saw of it in GTTV it seemed to have horrible voice acting and a predictable story. Still playing it though.
The Old Republic was a kick to the balls for everyone that liked KOTOR sice they wanted KOTOR3 and not an MMO. Though to BW credit they are trying to make the game less of an MMO and more of a single player RPG whit an online community built in. And something that no other MMO in the history has had. A story worth mentioning. Still NOT playing it though since im not paying $15/month for a game since thats just retarded. I hope it flops so that everyone sees that its useless to try an make an MMO as long as WoW is around, If a STAR WARS game by BIOWARE doesn't work then nothing will, untill World Of Starcraft. MMOs are the worst thing to ever happen the games industry, if they wouln't exsist then ppl would be buying real and better games and not a grinder in a shiny suit. 

Dragon age is this years game to look out for and next year its Mass Effect 2. And who are making both of them? Yeah, thats right.

atari has stated baldurs gate is going to get a sequel after 2009

What made D&D licensed games successful in the past was not the rules set, but the worlds and the stories. I think developers have the whole fantasy setting thing down pat and know that they can come up with fantasy worlds just as interestng as anything cooked up at WOTC.
Forgotten Realms is played out, and Eberron didn't really take off as the next bankable campaign setting for them. So, unless WOTC is going to dig deep and try to license out Spelljammer, I don't think we'll see a new D&D branded video game until Hasbro decides to develop one themselves.

As far as Forgotten Realms go, my thinking is that 4th edition ruined it to a degree. Plot developments that are so thin and poorly thought out, its kinda annoying. And as for 4th edition itself, I am not much of a fan of it.

"@papercut

Engineers love making points. Just ask The Beast."

I'll take my 2nd or 3rd Edition, story-heavy adventurous D&D RPG a la Planescape: Torment over your dumbed-down combat heavy 4th Ed Hack n Slash (or Oblivion clone, if Bethesda does it) any day.

5. They don't want to go up against Dragon Age and have their new PnP/universal ruleset game destroyed by Bioware's bespoke crpg ruleset game.

6. Storm of Zehir presumably sold about 4 copies (because they totally missed the point of the NWN franchise).

I think they'll let Bioware keep advertising Baldur's Gate for them ("Spiritual Successor to BG2!" tm) and then once Dragon Age is out of the way, BAM! Atari announces BG 3 ("Actual Successor to BG2!" tm).

Edit:  Whatever happened to that Mysteries of Westgate (?) pack that was supposed to be coming out about the same time the Berlin Wall came down?

I remember reading from a while ago, Baldur's gate 3 has been re-bought and was being worked on.
So having searched it out from wiki:

"Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound (code named Jefferson and FR6) was mentioned in early 2001 as a new game in the Baldur's Gate series to be made by Black Isle Studios using a completely new 3D engine.

BG3 was originally going to be a departure from the high-powered epic of the Bhaalspawn saga to a low-key, roleplaying plot. With protagonists progressing to around level four at the end of BIS' typically enormous campaign and a hard cap at level eight, gameplay was refocussed to a flat and wide adventure emphasizing quests over combat. In fact, the game was only titled "Baldur's Gate" due to Interplay having lost the general D&D license to Atari, but still retaining the right to make Baldur's Gate branded D&D games (the same reason as for BGDA's title.)

The game appeared to be canceled in 2003, just before its engine was re-purposed for Black Isle's ill-fated Van BurenFallout 3 project. The Black Hound is currently under development as a module for Neverwinter Nights 2, being developed by Josh Sawyer, one of the designers of the canceled game.

However, in April of 2004IGN released information that a Baldur's Gate III is in the works. Any other information has, for now, not been released. There is no solid evidence as to whether or not the game is actually in development, although it will likely go ahead due to its commercial potential.

In the January 2008 issue of PC Gamer UK, the editor claims that he knows that Baldur's Gate III is indeed being worked on - this has further been reiterated in the January 2009 edition, though, again, any more information is unlikely to surface until later this year, possibly even 2010.

CRPG...?

Doesn't Atari still own the Dungeons and Dragons license? That would be why Bioware isn't making any D&D games, since they're now wholly owned by EA and I'm sure EA would rather have them working on original IP then shelling out parts of the profit to both another publisher and Wizards.

I've heard rumors that Obsidian is working on a 4e game, maybe even the next Baldur's Gate that Interplay is supposedly trying to bankroll, but even if they're true it seems far enough away that it wouldn't come out this year.

Wait...Isn't Dragon Age basically Baldur's Gate? And doesn't Baldur's Gate share the D&D ruleset? And realm?

4th Ed would be perfect for a game. Super-simplified, combat heavy...yeah, that'd work. The Dark Alliance games were cool, but they never really were good representations of D&D 3.5. A ame based on 4th Ed could hit the mark.

In many ways, when 4th edition was released, I thought it was an improvement over 3rd edition. Don't get me wrong, there are flaws. Rituals are my biggest issue, but also the way Wizards are pumping out new classes, races and items, some of which is seemingly superior to the classes in the PHB. But it did a good job of spelling out most of the rules and everyone have something to do on their turn, a Wizard isn't useless in combat at 1st level and Fighter actually have more options than "I hit him with my sword" and Clerics do more than just casting healing spells and buffs. The focus of 4th edition is on combat.

This would make it ideal for video game adaptation. D&D is still by far the best known tabletop RPG game, it has several settings with rich stories, and 4th edition is much, much more balanced than 3rd edition was.

I'm pretty sure it's still ATARI.

4th edition was sort of failure on the tabletop side, but that is partial due too their moving away from their open game license, effectively splitting their player base in two camps (between people who use the open 3rd edition system and the closed 4th edition system).

Still as snide stated, the new system should be more compatible to CRPGs since it borrows so much from MMOs.  You'd think they would have a game lined up within a year of 4th edition's release.

I would like to see another game set in the planescape setting.  Actually, that setting is ideal for a MMO with the infinite portals to other planes. 

Does anyone know who actually owns the compter game license?  I'm fairly sure Wizards doesn't own it.

@AndrewB: Hooray for the Infinity Engine love!  You're right, hand-painted 2-D or rotoscoped animation aren't an anathema.

Screw Wizards of the Coast. Singlehandedly ruined Dragonlance by driving away Weis and Hickman. We'll never see Dragons of the Hourglass Mage because of management there. I hope their company sinks into some malaria-infested bog.

@AndrewB

It has to do with the license holders being douches. Why do you think Bioware moved away from the D&D ruleset? It's apparently prohibitively expensive and limiting. I guess they now feel it's worth the time and effort into building their own universe over being told exactly when and how they will be allowed to use certain pieces of the already established D&D campaign settings.

And there aren't *that* many infinity engine games to resurrect. The Icewind Dale series is done. Over. Played out. Replaced with countless generic action RPGs that will never come close to being as good. It's almost a crime that Planescape: Torment never got a sequel, although I suppose it's good they never got around to dragging that name through the mud by making too many. We all know the on again, off again rumors about Baldur's Gate 3; but as much as I feel BG2 was easily the best RPG ever made, there is absolutely no reason to continue that storyline.

I just wish some developer out there would look and see what made Baldur's Gate so awesome in the first place, and rather than trying to continue what they started and finished there, make a game in the same vein, with a new, epic plotline that is actually interesting. Have you played Neverwinter Nights? Even Neverwinter Nights 2? Sure, the storylines were meant to be epic, but it was that contrived epic-ness where they try to force the story down your throat. They try to make you care what is going on, and when you don't, it falls flat on its face; the only redeeming factor being its use of the D&D system for combat.

The way to re-capture that old time, single player RPG narrative is to stop focusing on the multiplayer and user created content side of things. Also, 3D graphics aren't everything. I think the beautiful, hand painted quality graphics of the Infinity engine hold up even to this day. Just get a resolution hacker and make it widescreen.

@papercut

Most of the sounds are from Fallout, the development team released the video without any sound (over a year ago mind you) and a fan made this conversion to show people how sounds can enhance the feel, since some disliked it a lot initially. Good ear.

You should check out their website and forum and journals, etc. They take their old school favorites to heart when making this, ie it's all about choices with what that used to mean, not the new trendy adver-word used by every new high profile RPG-lite coming out.

"Should there be one every year? Shouldn't RPGs actually take up some GOOD systems instead anyway? They always have to do changes too.

I'm more excited to see what Bioware do with Dragon Age knowing it DOESN'T use a licenced system. Of course they may do things even worse, but at least they have a chance to do better, which is needed.

Age of Decadence should also be fucking awesome :)

  

Oh and Bethesda didn't really bring back a classic RPG with Fallout 3."

I dunno how many people have actually tried the new rules out, but they seem cribbed a bit from the online world just to maybe make the game more palatable to the new generation of players.  It's already sorta connected to the video game world in that way, but it also would connect to people fond of tactical games like FF Tactics.  I mean, I don't get a whole lot out of the non-battle side of Fourth Edition, but the combat might be fun as long as they do a better job figuring out how things interact than they did with the first rulebook. 

I had no idea it was actually a twenty-year streak.  Stop makin' me feel old!

I thought at least in the paper side of things DnD wasn't making stellar business, but at least it's respectable, so I'm not sure about that idea.

You know what, maybe many of the traditional houses already cut their teeth on other systems and now have a better feel for what works and what doesn't, so they're already keen on making systems that fit the game they're making and don't require one whit of licensing fees.  At the same time, anyone interested in taking up 4E will have to work out how to integrate it into the game they're making while still honoring it and justifying any fees they have to pay. 

What's going out may not be the CRPG itself, but more companies who are willing to rely on the pen-and-paper world for their inspiration.  Before there wasn't a whole lot of reliably salable RPG stuff out there except for DnD, now there's been, as you said, more than 20 years of CRPG history to look back on and improve, so they don't really need to have their hand held anymore.

Here's hoping whatever comes out will be good, thass all I'm sayin'!

Obsidian's Mask of the Betrayer was pretty gosh darn awesome. If a new D&D happens, I want them on the job.

Here's my pitch: Atari, having succesfully completed work on Starbreeze's The Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, will hire the company to produce a First Person D&D game where you play as a monk and punch dragons.
That sounds like a good game to me! Dice Rolls be Damned!

THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL 2 ANNOUNCED EXCLUSIVELY ON GIANTBOMB.COM

Should there be one every year? Shouldn't RPGs actually take up some GOOD systems instead anyway? They always have to do changes too.

I'm more excited to see what Bioware do with Dragon Age knowing it DOESN'T use a licenced system. Of course they may do things even worse, but at least they have a chance to do better, which is needed.

Age of Decadence should also be fucking awesome :)

Dave sure loves making points

Maybe I'm missing something, maybe it's just that I need more coffee this morning, but are there any games in production for the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition ruleset? You know, the one that simplified the tedium of the game supposedly to not only make the pen and paper version easier to play but also to make it more friendly for video games to be based on it. After doing some quick research I couldn't come up with anything of interest. Doesn't that seem odd to anyone? With BioWare and Obsidian moving to in-house IP for their announced RPGs (Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol respectively) is there actually a possibility that we won't see a D&D-based game come out this year? If so, that would end a 20-year streak between 1988's Pool of Radiance and last year's Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion Storm of Zehir where we saw at least one D&D game in stores annually.