Where do I begin?

[Guest Aura]

Hey ya'll, I'm a really big fan of the old school Infinity Engine games, ya know, BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, etc... I've probably beaten all of them several times over. I've always found them to be a massive amount of fun, and I've always wanted to create my own game of the same type, ya know, with the same rules, engine, mechanics, and all that. Of course I want to make my own world though you know, custom maps, storyline, characters, etc. I believe I can do all this, even though I know it will be a massive amount of work. I'll create everything myself if I have to, you know, I'll paint my own areas, design custom characters, make custom sounds, etc. Considering I'm basically a one man development team, I understand this will take quite some time. But I'm willing to take on the project. I'll complete it little by little if I have to, even if it takes years. I just really want to create an Icewind Dale 2 style game of my own! Even if I never make a dime, I just want to because I absolutely love these games and the overall feel of them is so nostalgic to me, that my life won't be 100% complete until I make one, lol. But, man, like, I don't even know where to begin with this... I've looked into Gemrb and stuff but I'm still pretty lost. Can anyone tell me where I should start? I've messed around a lot with the Aurora Toolset for Neverwinter Nights, and created a game with it actually, called Shadows of Vaalundroth. I love the Aurora Toolset but the mechanics of it aren't really all that great, ya know? Cause instead of it being a strategy game like BG or IWD, your party members have AI and they just kinda do their own thing. I'd rather create a game where you can strategically give your party members orders, instead of seeing a fireball fly in on a single goblin AFTER it's dead. Lol. So, I just really wanna know where the best place to start would be, as far as designing a game like this. I apologize if this isn't the most appropriate place for this thread, or if the answers have been right here or under my nose the whole time. Idk man, I just really need some info! Ya'll can delete this thread if ya want. But give me some good clues first! Lol. Thanks, -Aura.

[lynx]

Sorry, I somehow overlooked this thread. The tooling for creating assets can be quite a PITA for these games. Anyway, you want to do something similar to iwd2, so just focus on the content, it'd be a large mod or total conversion like any other. So I suggest you read up on modding on the infinity engine before complicating matters with engine changes.