Art by Mat Heldwein
As some of you may already know, today marked the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Baldur's Gate:
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-anniversary/
Baldur's Gate: The Sword Coast Chronicles (BG:TSCC) was created 10 years after Baldur's Gate's release, in 2008, and was in so many ways an homage to this game (and the games that came after it, including the Icewind Dale series and Baldur's Gate II). It remains an homage today, with many familiar maps, dungeons, and non-player characters from the 1998 game making appearances on our server.
BG:TSCC went from alpha into open beta around the start of 2009 -- and 2019 will be the year we celebrate 10 years of mainstream NWN2 success, as that was the year we opened to the general public and really started to attract people to the server. From alpha, to a very long open beta, to today, BG:TSCC has tried to both honor the game on which it is based (e.g., it's the reason Candlekeep's colors are blue instead of the canon-lore-based mauve), as well as to allow the world to shift away from that game -- and the canon timeline -- in response to player actions (in true D&D fashion).
But whatever our version of the Sword Coast looks like by the time Sarevok is hatching his master plans, one thing remains certain, and that is that we owe a great deal of our inspiration as a server to this 1998 masterpiece. As such, I felt it appropriate to briefly acknowledge its anniversary today. I won't overstate its impact on gaming, or RPGs, or D&D, or anything else; the articles out about it do that for me already. But there is no denying the huge role it played in creating our little slice of Faerûn here at BG:TSCC!