Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update

Remove all ads!

(Originally posted by TBR)

OK folks, I know I've missed a day or so.. so here's a massive update. Tons of new info for your waiting ears..

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Why IWD2 isn't finished: If we wanted to release IWD2 as buggy as three day old road kill, nestled next to an ant hill. I find it amazing when individuals jump to conclusions that we have nothing better to do than horde a "finished" game just so we can piss off our fans. Well, I'm happy to disappoint you because it is very important to us at BIS to release a game that is clean, balanced, feature rich, provides many hours of interesting game play, fun, and as bug free as possible. If we rushed IWD2 out the door just so we can "beat" the competition to the shelves, then we just shoot ourselves in the foot for releasing a heap o' merd. Delaying IWD2 was not an evil conspiracy to irk you guys, it was to make sure IWD2 is released in the best possible condition - period. Releasing a quality product is more important to us than rushing it out the door just so we're on the shelf.

Battle squares Mini-quest: Battle Squares is a mini quest in Chapter 2. It's like tic-tac-toe, only more violent and you have to earn the square by beating the s@%t out of a nasty critter. You get pretty cool stuff for winning.

There is a limit to the neato items you can get, and XP is only dished out for completing the quest one of the Battle Square games is linked to. This gets rid of the cheesy-McCheese possability of endless XP. And yes, there is a difficulty setting for Battle Squares which gives nastier baddies - but the reward item is better.

Disintegrate and Flesh to stone: If one of your characters is on the receiving end of Disintegrate, they're vaporized - gone - finito - bye-bye. Portrait disappears. Reload.

Flesh to Stone, and destroy the stoney version of your PC, the same thing - bye-bye PC. This doesn't happen too often in the game at all, plus saving throws work better in 3E. I've yet to have one of my PC's fall victim to either spell, thanks to their saving throws.

Expansion: Would I like to do an expansion? If I had to, I wouldn't scoff at it - I'm not as bitter as the other BIS vets. But an expansion is not likely. However, if it were, I'd like to do it with a mix of the Underdark (under Icewind Dale, naturally) and the Abyssal plane; with heavy emphasis on the Blood War beginning to intrude on the prime material plane. I really like to create a lot of gray areas in alignments, and not make evil and good so cut-n-dry. I'm weird that way.

Weapon combos: You get 4 weapon setups you can arrange and cycle through, so the whole single weapon work-around bonus from BG2 is moot. You can still have your ranger have one setup for archer, slot 2 set up for a sword/shield combo, slot 3 with a dual wield combo, and slot 4 as a two-handed weapon (or whatever). It's just a matter of right clicking on your weapon icon in the main game screen, then selecting which weapon setup you want to use. No more swapping out weapons, if you choose.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Miscellaneous new interface information: To answer the question on what the bar is below the small portraits- that is the health bar. It is currently not working so all you see is a black bar. This will replace the red overlay on the portrait and should be a lot easier to see. You will still be able to turn on and off the hard numbers just like in the original IWD.

There seems to be a lot of comments on the large portrait in the inventory. When we decided to make 800x600 the default resolution that gave us a lot of extra space to work with. I started playing around with layouts for spell, inventory, and record screens and thought it would be cool to use a standard format with the character portrait on the left and all the info on the right. When you switched between each character data screen the portrait would stay on the left for a consistent look. It also made it really easy to remember what character you were working on. The main reason I came up with that was because of all the fan interest in the portraits. It seemed from all the posts and comments that players really liked them. They were so small in the original game that a lot of the detail was lost. The larger ones just looked much better. Also, since the avatars are so small I think people relate more to the portraits. So you can blame me if you don't like the larger size.

Character colors: You can't assign default palettes to custom portraits. You still have to pick them manually. There is an internal data file that keeps track of the default colors for the standard portraits. When you select a custom portrait it doesn't check that data file so there is no way to make it work.

Another thing we added was racial colorsets for skin and hair. For example, if you pick a drow you'll only get color choices for drow skin and hair shades. The default portrait color button does override this. So lets say you pick a red headed, light skinned portrait and made it a drow. Your skin & hair color choices would be limited to a drow but if you pressed the default color button it would snap back to red hair and white skin.

Danien Chee, Programmer

Weapon combo analysis: Here's how the weapon combos work: - Instead of 4 quick weapon slots and 1 shield slot, you now have 4 pairs of weapon slots for a total of 8 weapon slots. Weapon slots behave as in previous IE games - you move a weapon from an inventory slot into a weapon slot. However, these weapon slots are paired. I like to call them weapon sets although some might call them couplets, buckets, holes, etc. Each weapon set has an activation button beside them to allow you to quickly select which set you want active. These can be mapped to hot keys. Only 1 weapon set is active at any time. If you modify a weapon slot that is active (i.e. primary or offhand slot of the currently active set), the changes take effect immediately. You can modify non-active weapon sets without affecting your currently equipped weapons. I really disliked how you had to keep removing stuff temporarily in the previous IE games (in particular with bows and two handed weapons) just to put something else on and how dropping a weapon into another weapon slot changed your currently equipped weapon.

- For each weapon set, there is a primary slot (sword background icon) and an offhand slot (shield background icon). You can place single handed (1H) weapons in either primary or offhand slots. Two handed (2H) weapons go in the primary slot as do launchers such as bows, crossbows, slings, etc. Shields go into the offhand slots.

- A 1H weapon in a primary slot with nothing in the offhand slot means you are using a single weapon for combat. Same goes for placing a 1H weapon in an offhand slot with nothing in the primary slot - no penalties.

- A shield in the offhand slot with nothing in the primary slot means you are using a Fist with a shield for combat.

- 1H weapons in both the primary and offhand slots means dual wielding, with necessary modifiers.

- Selecting a weapon set with nothing in both primary and offhand slots will make a Fist appear in the primary slot, indicating you will be using a Fist during combat. Useful for monks to keep one empty set handy.

This makes it much easier to prepare weapon sets in anticipation of different battle situations. e.g. Sword and shield combo in set 1 for general fighting, dual wield axes in set 2 for when you activate Power Attack, bow in set 3 for ranged attacks, Two handed Sword + 1000 with Fireball ability in set 3 against Frost Salamandars, etc.

Although it would be nice to have some way to sharing a single item across multiple sets, this would probably be a lot more confusing to use. For example, if you have a shield across a few sets, should removing it from one set also cause it to be removed across all other sets? What if you drop it into a ground slot to discard it? Also, it would be complicated for the player to maintain weapon sets.

As Wolf mentioned, you can also switch between weapon sets from the main game interface by right clicking on either weapon. This brings up the 4 weapon sets and you can click on any set to make that the active one. You shift-left click on a launcher weapon to bring up a list of usable ammo types. By the way, shields now show up in the main game interface. All this might sound kind of complicated but I believe it will be quite intuitive when you get your hands on it.

I think it is open to debate as to which slot (primary or offhand) would be swapped out by players more often. Someone brought up a good example of keeping the same shield but swapping out different primary weapons. Also, one thing that we aim for is consistency in the interface as much as possible. While right-clicking to customize is consistent with our new interface system, a player might expect right-clicking on the primary slot to also swap the primary weapon out instead of bringing up the 4 weapon sets.

With the 4 possible weapon sets (and thus, 4 primary and 4 offhand weapons), the system you are proposing would be somewhat of a rotating weapon system. This was brought up initially during design although we had it rotate sets instead of just one weapon. It made it cumbersome as you had to "search" for the correct weapon. Bringing up the sets appeared to be much faster and smoother. I guess one method would be to bring up the 4 offhand weapons when you right-click on the offhand slot.

This was in the interface design which I was handed. I believe part of the decision was to try to balance an increase in the number of weapon slots over the previous games (more weapons, ease of switching, dual wielding, etc) with maintaining an uncluttered look. While some may disagree with the latter, I think the 8 weapon slots and new row of inventory slots have proved pretty useful so far.

As for what players found annoying with the old interface, when I was given the task to implement the weapon combos, I remembered that I hated how the previous IE games would swap out my currently equipped weapon whenever I dropped a new weapon into a quick weapon slot with the intention of preparing it, not using it immediately. I asked QA and the designers what they thought about implementing a simple system to allow weapon slot changes without affecting the currently equipped weapons and everyone agreed this would be a nice feature to have. On a similar vein, a lot of the old 2nd edition rules had to go, such as Monks not being able to use two handed weapons, etc. Another annoying thing was having to temporarily remove certain items just so you can prepare something in another slot, then having to put that first item back. This seemed to happen a lot with ranged and two handed weapons. Of course, as with all programming tasks, feasiblity within time constraints is always a big consideration. More so with an aging licensed engine. The trick is finding a good balance.

While we might have solicited more suggestions from the message boards, this was a case of timing. This system was implemented a little late so we tried to implement this as best we could within a given time frame. I think most people would also agree that interface design can be quite subjective. What one person might find completely intuitive and functional might be completely convoluted for another.

Dave Maldonado, Designer

Difference between a programmer and a designer: Gross simplification:

A designer might say something like "I would like multiclassing to work like so. Here are the necessary charts and tables."

A programmer then mutters "Filthy bastard..." and sets to working on it.

A designer might say something like "I need a cut scene to occur here when such-and such happens. Here are all the necessary details."

A scripter then mutters "Filthy bastard..." and sets to working on it.

Many kinds of projects don't require separate programmers and designers/level-builders. RPG's, though, often have so many areas, dialogs, items, creatures and so on that it's a great boon to have people solely dedicated to conceiving of, managing, and testing those things while the super-hero programmers and scripters go about their business of making stuff actually happen.

This is merely how it works at Black Isle Studios. It may well be very different at other places.

We have area design templates and so on that allow us to communicate info consistently, and they are often filled out with pseudo-scripting language kind of stuff when it comes down to movement patterns, attack scripts and so on.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Release date issues: I've already explained this multiple times in multiple threads, explicitly.

Why aren't we done? The game is very buggy. We fix bugs and more bugs arise. 3E implementation and testing took longer than we expected it to -- much, much longer. This, in turn, also affects area testing. Does it frustrate you? Boy oh boy, it certainly frustrates me.

Why is there no new release date from Black Isle or Interplay? Black Isle and Interplay are not in control of when the game is released. Vivendi Universal is. They will distribute the game sometime after the game is final. Exactly when that date is -- that's still unknown. When Feargus tells people that he's trying to get a date, that's really what he's doing. He's not sitting around trying to magically craft one out of the ether. He's trying to find out when our distributor plans to ship the game.

BTW -- FC1 is scheduled to be submitted on Thursday. Hopefully that gives you an idea of where the game is from a development standpoint.

FC1 = Final Candidate 1. It's the first version of the game where we say, "We believe this may be ready for release. Hammer it." QA then smashes through the game. As the FCs get rejected, we refine the priority of our bug fixing. We start by leaving D-priority bugs alone. We then leave C-priority bugs alone. Then, B, and finally, only A-priority bugs can prevent the game from shipping. When there are no A bugs, QA typically signs off on the game, and it is ready for duplication. On IWD, I believe FC5 was the winner.

I am not a programmer. I am the lead designer. I ask for things that I believe will make the game a better product. The programmers are not under any obligation (or even any implicit "threat") to do anything I ask. I will always ask for changes that I believe will make the game better. When programmers tell me that something cannot be done, I ask for reasons. Often, they explain the situation and that's that. However, when I'm told that all changes can be done in a given amount of time, I typically accept that just as easily.

However, please do not revise history. I never said that these changes would be easy.

Rumors are leaked that BIS is developing IWD2, and that it's on a four month development cycle. You know what? That wasn't far from the truth. We didn't have the chance to begin the implementation of 3E rules until after the impossibility of a sub-six month dev cycle was made painfully clear. In the meantime, we get slammed for using dated technology to make a quick, cheap, rip-off game.

So, we finally get a more reasonable dev cycle. We decide that the quick, cheap road isn't acceptable. We make the game as 3E compliant as we can. We revise the entire interface graphically and functionally. We design and re-design areas in an effort to avoid all of the things people disliked about IWD while enforcing everything they seemed to enjoy. The game's length winds up being twice the original estimate.

New interface inventory screen: You are referring to the inventory interface. All of the art for the interface has been done and in the game since before E3. Really. However, the old paperdolls were still in the inventory interface, and for some reason this required a monumental effort to fully remove and replace with avatars.

Want to see the inventory?

WOW! It's really not that exciting. It has an extra row of slots, weapon combos, and that's about it. It's been that way since before E3. An internet news site was going to run a big special about how the revised IWD2 interfaces worked, but I guess that evaporated. There it is. Not particularly stunning or mystical.

The inventory has been in this state since before E3 -- except that the paper doll hadn't been removed. I felt the need to post an inventory shot even without the avatar included just to dispel the prevailing belief that the inventory screen had somehow been overtaken by terrorists and zerglings.

Multiple mage spells scrolls in the game: There are loads and loads of mage spell scrolls throughout the game. At various points, we "re-supply" low-level mage spells in case people multiclass. There are also duplicates of almost every spell.

Dragon’s eye: Dragon's Eye is not the final area of the game, but it is in the second half of the game.

Turn undead: For good and neutral clerics, it's not too hard to destroy undead. For evil clerics, it's good either way. If you get the equivalent of a "destroy" result, you can control the undead and have them energy drain things. If you get a "turn" result, you rebuke them. They get -2 to AC, no Dex bonus for AC, and are stunned for ten rounds.

Iron rations: Iron rations keep you alive in the first area of the game. They are quite useful.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

Collector’s edition: Here is a brief description of what happened with the whole CE thing. I thought you guys deserved answers to your repeated questions about it. Sorry it is so late in coming, but I had to verify a few things before I posted.

Initially we came up with the idea to offer a collector's edition for Icewind Dale II. We were only able to offer it directly off of our website due to distribution conflicts. When EBworld.com stated they were going to be selling it, we contacted them and told them that we couldn't offer it to them because of contractual obligations. Cut to the beginning of June. All parties involved have reached a consensus and EBworld.com will be selling it on their website, but the copies are coming directly from our company store to fill their orders. This is a good thing for everyone involved. You get EBworld.com's larger distribution range and we get to reach a broader audience. This is the reason that we have removed the exclusive tags from our advertisements. Also, our company store is still offering it directly as well, so nothing has changed on that front. I hope that explains things more clearly than they have been in the past. As always, thank you.

From everything I have heard, you can only get the Collector's Edition from Interplay.com or EBworld.com, no retail stores will be stocking it.

Bug list numbers and killing them: 9414 bugs is not that uncommon for a title of this scope. If I remember correctly, on BG2 we had over 16000 by the time all was said and done. Our Q.A. dept. is very busy hunting these things down and they do a fantastic job of it.

We have around twenty Q.A. analysts that go over every aspect of the game. They test every item, every spell, every dialogue option, etc. They also play through the game about 800,000 times and try to break stuff. Currently we have one team dedicated to multi-player testing. We have two more dedicated to single-player testing. We also have two BIS testers and their job is to focus on the end game. Everyone is working at least twelve-hour days and really doing a great job to make certain the game is as bug free as humanly possible.

New interface inventory screen: Just to clarify, the weapon combos can also be accessed from the main game interface. You right click on the weapon combo buttons and you can select a new combo right from there. You no longer have to go into your inventory screen to switch out weapons. You do still have to go there to equip armor, set up your weapon combos and quick items and, of course, manage your inventory.