Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Once again for your reading pleasure, another batch of developers' comments fromt the Black Isle Studios message boards.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

Kevin Martens, Lead Designer:

High level Turn Undead: There's nothing 'special' but it does kick ass. On a related note, did you know that evil clerics can turn paladins now?

David Gaider, Senior Designer:

Class specific quests: There isn't any room in the expansion for putting in quests that only 1/8th or less of the player base is going to see. Everything in the expansion has to be accessible to everyone...if it wasn't, it would seem quite short to the individual player even though there might be a lot of content in there.

Besides, at this point the plot revolves around the PC's status as a Child of Bhaal...and that is universal regardless of class.

Using custom items: There's no way for us to know what will happen to the game if you change anything or bring your own items in. We certainly don't account for those items when we design the game. You do so at your own risk, as with any kind of alteration.

The Wyvern in the Adventurers mart: The Wyvern in the Adventure Mart is just what she appears to be. Kevin put her in...maybe he had a character once who had a pet wyvern named Lucy or something (sounds like the beginning of a Jan story), but maybe not.

Sometimes we designers can be a bit perverse.

(Ummm...not to be confused with 'perverts'...)

Monsters opening doors: The problem with this is the way the engine is set up via object-recognition. Were we to start over and work on a new engine (like, say, Neverwinter Nights), we might take something like this into account...but currently in the Infinity engine there is no 'door' object that exists.

The doors, themselves, exist...but solely as graphical objects that have been laid down. I, as a scripter, can refer to a specific door (ie. "DoorO2" or "Door1240") but not to "a door".

Furthermore, a specific door only exists to a creature if they can see it (if it's not in fog-of-war). So in order to get a creature to use a door, I would have to give each room of creatures in an area its own scriplet, something like this:

IF
!See([GOODCUTOFF]) //if I don't see the party
See("Door02") //but I do see Door02
OpenState("Door02",FALSE) //and Door02 is closed
!Heard([ANYONE],151) //and no-one's in combat
THEN
RESPONSE #100
MoveToObject("Door02") //go to the door
OpenDoor("Door02") //open it
END

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I suspect this scriplet would probably work, but like I said...it would have to be tailored to each individual fight. That'd be a lot of fights to go back to in BG2...and a lot of testing to be done again to make sure nothing screwy happened (which it probably would...I've never used the above script except in cut-scenes so it's hard to say whether it would work as I think).

We know what you're talking about...and while in some cases it might seem cheesy, we also don't allow the players to exactly get behind a door and block it, cast Wizard Lock or barricade it some fashion, either...so, in a way, it's a trade-off that monsters can't use most doors, I think.

Something to chew on, I suppose.

On Monks: 1) Monks aren't supposed to be able to use any mage scrolls, no. Obviously a mistake. 2) Monks are supposed to be able to use the priest scrolls, according to James. (And since ALL of them are marked this way, this backs up his claim. 3) Yes, Monks can use the (Sensate) amulet.

The Abyssal Door: The alignment change is intentional via the Selfish path, but all changes are supposed to happen immediately upon doing the test (and the paladin SHOULD become Fallen if he becomes Neutral Evil)...if it happened later, I'm not so sure that the player would remember what happened or understand why.

Chaotic Neutral Alignment: I don't think CN characters need to be pigeon-holed as erratic and psychotic. There is lots of wiggle-room in any alignment for personal playing style, and I wouldn't let anyone tell me that an alignment is a particular way. I've seen LG played as both soft-spoken, righteous do-gooder and merciless inquisitor who sees evil everywhere...and both were valid.

To me, a Chaotic character is one who doesn't abide by law, structure or authority. Jan is a thief...and shows many times that he enjoys being disruptive and flouting authority. I couldn't imagine law and order having any impact on him whatsoever.

And Neutral is someone whose self-interest out-weighs their desire to do good, but not so much that they do out-right evil (although doing either isn't beyond them...it just wouldn't be for the same reasons as someone who is Good or Evil). It can also mean an interest in maintaining a balance (but I tend to mentally relegate that to True Neutral only...and if any alignment is hard to portray, it's that one). Jan may have some good tendencies, but he is still a thief...and he happily goes along with the party regardless of the acts they commit. He might not like out-right evil acts, but I imagine him rolling his eyes at overt acts of charity, too. Keep in mind that Jan talks numerous times about being a con-man...he just doesn't put it in those words.

So I think CN fits Jan just fine.