Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Check out the latest comments from the game developers on the Black Isle Studios message boards.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

David Gaider, Senior Designer

Death Bow: Death Blow isn't useless. Not every enemy you encounter is over 12 HD, and some with less HD can have some extremely annoying powers (illithids, beholders and elementals come to mind). Perhaps you might want to keep in mind that Death Blow can be acquired, now, in the main BG2 game as well.

I've used it, and in the right cases it works just fine. Like all things, it is more or less useful to someone based on the tactics you use. Of course, if you want to go ahead and grump at how useless something is just because you'd never use it yourself, than go ahead.

The end boss: Topics like this are funny because everyone will claim that they knew who the endboss was, anyway.

"Oh, yeah, gosh, it was SO obvious. How could you not know?"

Heh. Relax, fellas.

I mean, do you really want to sit around and piece together the whole game and ending before you even play it?

Yoshimo in ToB: I said this once before, elsewhere, but here it is again:

Yoshimo does not return. He is dead.

Derek French, Assistant Producer – Neverwinter Nights:

Infinity Engine: Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal will be the last BioWare game using the Infinity engine.

For BioWare, BG2:ToB is the last Infinity Engine game. I cannot speak for Black Isle, though. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will be using a brand new 3D, thrid person view engine.

Rumors of ToB incompletion: Completely untrue. It is still in QA right now. All the guys are working hard getting rid of these last bugs. So far, we have said it will be done "soon" for about a week now, but that is about as accurate as we can be now.

Status update: ToB is still in QA. We are working on the last bugs in the game and the game should be done soon. There was a fairly significant bug found Friday. It is fixed and the game is back in QA.

We don't have a release date for the game and any dates that you read from retailers are pure speculation on there part. Once the game is gold, we will be posting it here.

Becoming a play tester: Play Testers (or Quality Assurance as we like to call them) are hired like any other employee at BioWare. For QA, we are looking for people that have an eye for details and problem solving. A background knowledge of computer hardware and programming is an asset, but it is not required. Most of our QA guys come from a wide variety of backgrounds. It pretty much comes down to the interview for us.

To apply:

By mail:
BioWare Corp.
#302 10508 82 Ave
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6E 6H2

For e-mail, use jobs@bioware.com

For more BioWare job info:

http://www.bioware.com/info/jobs.html

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter:

Steve Bokkes, Designer:

New stores in Trials of the Luremaster: There are a couple of NPC's that buy and sell. However, you will be somewhere in the middle of the Anauroch. So don't expect them to be Aurora's outlets or anything. Make sure you stock up on scrolls and potions before departing Lonelywood. If not, you'll probably find yourself memorizing alot of curative spells.