Posts From the New Official Boards

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(Originally posted by NightKin)

And now to the info on the new message boards, which is really the place to go if you want to get info from the people that make the games you love.
Right ho, lets start with the BG2 board, mmkay?

The Baldur's Gate II board

From David Gaider, BG2 Designer

On giving info to the press and not the people on the boards:

Oh, please. We've told you guys so many things for so long... all we've got left is the story and the stuff we are holding out to create pre-release hype. Magazines are publicity and hype... they get the scoops, period. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

As for the few NPCs mentioned, I'll flesh out the info for you:

Nalia: human, dueled thief/mage (yes, there is a reason for the T/M thing, not to worry)
Yoshimo: human, bounty hunter
Korgan: dwarf, battlerager (this is the only dwarven NPC, so no good dwarven NPCs, sorry. Korgan is a blast, though.)
Haer'Dalis: tiefling, blade (this is the tiefling I've mentioned a few times... y'all were wondering about his name).

So there... that should hold you all off for a minute or two.

There are some things we're not supposed to say and lots of things we don't want to say. At least not yet. We've gotten our noses nipped more than once from a large group of people jumping all at once to conclusions based on limited information. Yikes! LOL!

Trust me... most of this stuff you're going to *want* to just see for yourself.

Time update:

Pretty well... no-one's head has exploded spectacularly just yet, and I understand that's a good sign. You guys have no idea just how hard it is to make the MONUMENTAL amount of stuff that's already in the game work properly. Aarrgh! (I know, I know... cry me a river, poor Davey has the wunderjob and there he is complaining...)

You don't know what a head-ache is until you've stared at a monitor for six hours straight hunting down some elusive bug only to find out that it was your own stupid fault for spelling DestroySelf() as DetroySelf() and it was right in front of you the whole time.

Underdark:

The characters are not actually polymorphed. They are covered with an illusion that is very difficult to pierce. They get no other drow abilities... part of the difficulty of being in the drow city is that you must beware any kind of direct scrutiny (especially from the Handmaidens of Lolth) that might reveal your presence. You must also act like drow, if you can, or others will become suspicious.

You do not have to take the infiltration path if you do not want to. The quest is on the critical path, but there is certainly a much more bloody and violent route to take as an option, should you wish.

A little info on in game romance:

the male romance meshes according to the type of female PC that is being played. His romance plot branches wildly... it's the largest romance plot both in length and by way of the fact that it ends up being more than one plot, essentially.

You'll see. I hope it doesn't disappoint. I would have liked to add in another romance plot, but at that point we were discovering just how huge and incredibly complex the romance plots were to script and mesh in with the overall game that we knew we just wouldn't have time.

Hats off to John Winski and Mike Geist, though, for managing to get the four romances to work as they do. It's good stuff.

No, no. In all the cases with romance, it only looks to see if you are eligible (of the appropriate sex and race)... it does not look at alignment or class or anything else. A romance only develops based on how you treat the character and on whether or not they approve of decisions you make. We'll leave the alignment conflict (if any) to your own role-playing.

From Kevin Martens, co-Lead Designer

And more on in game romance:

The male romantic lead meshes with a wider variety of alignments.

And on the Icewind Dale board.

From J. E. Sawyer, IWD Designer

More on resting:

By default, when you rest, you're "Resting Until Healed." This means that you're casting spells, resting, casting all healing spells, and re-memorizing your old spells. So, that's where you get 16 hours. However, as someone pointed out, there isn't any time limit in the game.

From Richard Finegan, IWD Programmer

Decastave spell:

It won't state in the log window that your character has been healed, but if you carefully watch your character's hp, you'll notice that s/he is being healed on successful strikes.