Icewind Dale II Interview at The Armchair Empire

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(Originally posted by Mollusken)

Darren Monahan (Icewind Dale II Producer) from Black Isle has answered a few questions about the game.

There’s been mention that more puzzle solving and interaction with NPCs will be included in IWD2 to break up the combat somewhat. One could argue that what set IWD apart for the Baldur’s Gate series and Planescape: Torment was that it was far more battle-oriented, distinguishing itself as an action-packed hack n’ slash RPG compared to its Infinity Engine brethren. How will these puzzles and conversational aspects be implemented so to not alienate those who were drawn to the original game for its capacity to allow players to run around, laying waste to legions of monsters, picking up some really slick items along the way?

Many of the puzzles and quests still revolve ultimately around combat. I suppose the same could be said about the other games in some cases, but we’ve kept to the original goal of keeping the game more fast-paced and hack n’ slash-centric. I believe that we’re still keeping true to our “dungeon hack” roots certainly, providing a linear storyline that puts you into the throws of massive amounts of creatures to destroy and items to find, no doubt. The Baldur’s Gate series put the player into epic, overland adventures, focusing on exploration, questing, and nonlinear game play. Chapter 2 could have been a game all in its own. J Planescape: Torment had an incredibly deep storyline, one that focused less on combat and a lot more on character development and interaction. Icewind Dale II still holds true to being the hack n’ slash sibling to these more arguably elegant brothers. But this sibling has grown up some and has learned a few things along the way. We’re still designing the game much like the way we did on Icewind Dale I (with many of the original people), but from feedback from our fans enjoying the Trials of the Luremaster free web expansion, we found that players enjoyed the puzzles as part of the game. I think you’ll find many of the new puzzles in Icewind Dale 2 still involve pulling your sword or casting that Haste spell.

What purpose will this new randomizing function on items dropped by fallen enemies serve. Are we looking at the inclusion of rare and unique items in IWD2, or will it be that instead of picking up 97 hand axes after clearing a goblin horde, being weighed down, then selling them at the shop for next to nothing, we’ll be picking up 23 short swords, 31 daggers, 12 axes, 20 quarter staffs, and 11 long swords, being weighed down, and selling them at the shop for next to nothing?

The purpose of the randomization system is to provide more variety in loot from the monsters you fight throughout the game. There are many rare and unique items in Icewind Dale 2, some that can be found if the player is lucky enough during normal fights, to others that can be found after slaying a “boss.” Each random drop has some percentage change of dropping something nicer (and on the flip-side, worse) than what you’d normally expect on a monster. Instead of always finding “Arrows” on archers, why not occasionally find some higher quality arrows, or, some lower quality arrows that do less damage? We’ve upped the number of inventory slots you have on your character by an additional row, so it can accommodate more variety. There’s a lot of generic items, but there are a lot of rare and unique items to found as well.

Head over to The Armchair Empire for the rest of the interview.