Baldur's Gate II review at Gamespot!
Posted Saturday, September 30, 2000 - 23:03 CET by Calis
That's right, the boys at Gamespot have their review up already! Not surprisingly, they liked the game a whole lot, giving it an end score of 9.2 out of 10.
Icewind Dale UK patch
Posted Saturday, September 30, 2000 - 23:00 CET by Calis
The official Icewind Dale site reports that some versions of Icewind Dale sold in the UK come with a defective CD 2. Only people who have trouble entering Lower Dorns Deep need to apply this patch.
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Mosters attacking while standing still
Posted Friday, September 29, 2000 - 13:01 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
There are a few circumstances in which the party may find themselves attacked while standing around. The first would happen fairly shortly after they stopped -- if a band of monsters has been pursuing the party in the area, eventually they will catch up with them. Another circumstance would be if the party was outside during nightfall -- undead may then spawn in and catch them standing around."
Jason Manley Interviewed at Ice Winds of Dale
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2000 - 20:00 CET by Sorcerer
AuraPsi of Ice Winds has interviewed Jason Manley, the artist who worked on most of the beautiful art you've seen throughout Icewind Dale.
The (new) interview focuses on the upcoming Icewind Dale expansion dubbed Heart of Winter and (of course), Jason's involvement in it:
Can you explain what your position is on this project? Can we expect any more portraits to be included?
I am doing the majority of the area and character concepts for the expansion. I work closely with the designers to make images of their ideas that not only show level layout and lighting but also set the mood for each of the areas. I try to unify the project visually before anything gets built, textured and lit. That helps us keep the look and feel cohesive. The other artists are doing a really good job improving my concepts in their final renders as well. I have had a great time with this project and will see if I can get some stuff to the web guys for you all to see.
I will be doing a bunch of portraits such as a cursed/undead fighter, Barbarian, and Barbarian Shaman/Priest. I want to make some more rougher looking characters that look like they lived their whole life in the harshness of the Dale.
Read the whole story here.
Baldur's Gate 2 feature at Gamespot UK
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2000 - 16:07 CET by Calis
Gamespot UK posted a feature on Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. It includes a variety of things, including an interview with Greg Zeschuk, joint CEO of Bioware.
More Heart of Winter
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2000 - 12:09 CET by Calis
Yep. Producer Darren Monahan updated the official site for Icewind Dale with a cool feature list and some other info, and both RPGVault and RPGPlanet scored interviews with designer J.E. Sawyer, who seems to be pretty popular these days.
Heart of Winter Features
Posted Monday, September 25, 2000 - 22:58 CET by Sorcerer
Yep, you heard right. After all the speculation regarding the Heart of Winter (title of the expansion) it has now been confirmed that Black Isle will be making another Icewind Dale adventure.
List of new features:
-New Town (Lonelywood)
-New Monsters (Barbarians, Remorhaz etc.)
-New Spells (Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, Blade Berrier etc.)
-New Items (gem bags, scroll cases etc.)
-Higher Resolution (800x600)
-Higher Experience Cap
You can read the whole press release here.
Baldur's Gate 2 impressions at Gamers.com
Posted Monday, September 25, 2000 - 22:32 CET by Calis
Gamers.com tossed up 16 pages of Baldur's Gate 2 impressions. Of course, I'm sure most of you are too busy playing the game to bother reading about other people's impressions...
Icewind Dale expansion officially announced
Posted Monday, September 25, 2000 - 22:30 CET by Calis
Interplay officially announced the upcoming expansion for Icewind Dale, titled Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter today. You can check out the press release at our parent site GA-RPG. In related news, Gamers.com scored a mini-interview with designer JE Sawyer concerning the expansion.
Baldur's Gate II Cheats at AVault
Posted Monday, September 25, 2000 - 15:36 CET by Calis
AVault posted some cheats for Bioware's cash cow, Baldur's Gate 2 (which is, by all reports, amazing).
Howard Drossin (BG2 composer) interview at RPGDot
Posted Sunday, September 24, 2000 - 13:02 CET by Calis
As a part of their feature on RPG music, RPGDot posted an interview with Howard Drossin, the man behind the music in Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn.
BG2 board news
Posted Saturday, September 23, 2000 - 20:26 CET by NightKin
Yup, Soon you can stop reading about this game and start playing it, but here is some more info to read until then.
From Derek French, Line Producer MDK2
On OpenGL:
BG2 does NOT use Direct3D for 3D, it uses OpenGL. It has been that way from the beginning.
No one from BioWare would have said that Direct3D is supported in BG2. It was always OpenGL for 3D and DirectDraw for 2D. If you could find where this was stated, please let me know and I will get that information changed ASAP because it is completely wrong.
Game manual:
I just finished talking to Dr. Ray about the manual and he thanks you for the kind words about his Dedication and Introduction. In his opinion (since he edited the entire manual and that it was written by our writing and design department) he thinks that the BG2 manual is superior to the BG1 manual (which he co-wrote). The content was exactly what they wanted to show without giving too much information away.
If you have any further comments about the manual he would love to hear them. Just e-mail bginfo@bioware.com and put ATTN: Dr. Ray in the subject line and they will get the message to him.
I forgot to point out that the screenshots are NOT from BG1, they are from BG2.
Copying the BG2 CDs:
You need one copy of BG2 for each computer you are playing BG2 on. If you are burning copies of one game to play on two computers you are breaking the license agreement and doing something illegal.
Not verging, but actually breaking the law if you use one copy on more than one machine.
Here comes the rant. You need one copy of BG2 for EACH machine to play multiplayer. This is not a "spawned" multiplayer game like StarCraft. Anything else is piracy.
BG2, too fast:
Have you adjusted the "Frame Rate" slider on the "Gameplay" tab of the BG2 config program? Or edited the line "Maximum Frame Rate=30" in the baldur.ini file? If you changed either one of these settings to greater than 30, that is the reason that the game is running that way.
On 3DFX cards:
Under what operating system are you seeing this? Have you turned on 16-bit textures in the config program? We did not see any problems with the Voodoo 2 and BG2.
You must turn off triple-buffering on the Voodoo 3 in order for it to display correctly.
2mb video cards:
The box and readme file list 4 Meg as the requirement. Unfortunately, Interplay lists 2 Meg on the BG2 web site, so were are trying to get that changed ASAP, but it won't be until Monday, I would guess.
A 4 Meg video card is required for BG2.
Basically, we just don't make any guarentees of BG2 running with a video card with less than 4 Meg of RAM. If it works for you, then that is great. If you have problems with the game and you don't have the required 4 Meg video card, we probably won't bother looking into it if the issue can be explained by the amount of video RAM.
Install size:
The following are the install sizes of BG2:
Compact: 620 Meg Recommended: 925 Meg Full: 2 Gig
All of these installs still require some room for caching files on the hard drive. This can range from 100 to 500 Meg more, depending.
Hope this helps.
System requirements:
The minimum system requirements (yanked right from the Readme.txt) are as follows:
Required:
Pentium II (or compatible) 233 MHz
32 MB RAM
Windows 95/98 with DirectX 7.0 or higher
800 MB of Hard Drive Space
4X or faster CD-ROM
DirectX Certified Video Card with at least 4 MB of video RAM
DirectX Certified Sound Card
Keyboard, Mouse
For 3D, you do need a video card with a full OpenGL driver. A full install of BG2 is 2 Gig.
Minimum - P2-233 Recommended - P2-400
But, I have played BG2 on a P200 and it does work. It just is slow. If you have less than the Minimum, you just have to turn all the effects off. It won't run fast, but it won't be painful.
From Mark Darrah, Lead Programmer
Importing characters from BG1:
You can import characters from either a save game or a .chr file the choice is yours.
Hp will not be maxed during importing.
Savage 4 issues:
S3 Savage 4: S3 is aware of the problem.
NOTE that this ONLY affects 3D NOT 2D you shouldn't have the problem in 2D.
Baldur's Gate 2 has started shipping
Posted Friday, September 22, 2000 - 14:25 CET by Calis
You read that right. The wait is almost over. According to this press release, BG2 started shipping yesterday (the 21st).
These BG2-related media were also posted on the web recently:
GA-RPG posted cleric spells and druid spells
A complete spell list at BGChronicles
New elements of the week at RPGVault
30 new weapons at RPGVault
Computer Games Online has done a quick take
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Info
Posted Friday, September 22, 2000 - 11:15 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
Are there any places to store extra equipment ala some kind of vault:
No. Myth Drannor is rampant with monsters and after a character leaves something on the ground and then leaves a level it will be gone. Sometimes Nottle the scavenger will have some of the lost items.
How many diff magic items will there be:
Tons.
How are familiars being handled or is it even IN PoR2:
Familiars were added to the 3rd Edition rules after we had closed the design portion of the game. It's something we would have liked to have done, but basically didn't have the time or resources to do it as well as we would have liked.
Are there going to be the same boring types of armor or are you going to add all the diff armor in the 3e players handbook:
There are different armor types, but not as many as they have in the PHB.
Any change of weather? Light rain? Fog? flash of lightning? Sound of thunder? A down pour:
It was after we had selected Myth Drannor as the setting that this question came up. After looking through the RoMD boxed set we found that the spell Mythal that surrounds Myth Drannor has a variety of powers... among which is maintaining a pleasant environment in the city. We have a night/day cycle in the game in which the undead are more active during the night.
Any magical energy weapons? And if so will you show the magical weapon's special feature on the sword/weapon:
Each weapon in the game has a description if you right-click on it (for magic items after you identify them). Some of the unique-powered weapons in the game have a very specific look (like the Mountain Fist).
Any plot twists or surprises? Or just a dull go in and kill all the monsters:
Lots of plot twists and surprises, making alliances and breaking them. Many of the quests don't need to be met to finish the game, and you can go back after finishing the game and complete the side-quests and find out new information from the NPCs...
Why no wizards? You just want to introduce the sorcerer class and thought people would get mixed up with a wizard? (I am a mage lover)
We liked wizards but the sorcerer's ability to choose spells similarly to Clerics we went with the flow. Also, having the Wizard as a separate class in addition to Sorcerers would have meant implementing memorization rules for only one class out of 10.
Any prestige classes:
At the time prestige classes were mentioned in drafts of the DMG we were already 16 months into development.
How heavy are you play testing? How are you handling the balancing issue:
Very heavily with as many testers as we can get. We want the game to play easily from the beginning on and provide a lot of fun for anyone who plays. We're also getting into the thick of it with testing the random dungeons. Yippee!
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Questions..
Posted Wednesday, September 20, 2000 - 12:12 CET by Nazgul
Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
Here's a few answers as to how PoR:RoMD fits the bill:
1. Character development
In PoRII the player is in control of how the character grows through class selection, use of skills and so on. Personalities are completely left up to the player to decide(which is another reason why we're supporting voice chat).
2. Actions must alter the world in noticeable ways
Every decision the characters/player commit to is tracked in the game and has consequences that they have to live with. Talk rudely to Nottle before trading? He'll charge you more. Tell a warring faction of orcs that you'll help destroy their enemy (and then tell their enemy the same thing) then they may fight each other while the party watches... unless the orcs have smarter orogs with them... then they're harder to bluff...
3. Your role should impact on the world
NPC's are important because they bridge the gap between character and world. Each NPC in the game has a deep background that extends beyond the game presented in PoR. Through their actions and deeds, even how they speak, the player can glean information about the ruins and the dangers (and hopes!) that still run rampant.
Will the death's door rule will be implemented in POR2:
Yes. We support the "up to -10" rule, and during that time consider the character to be bleeding to death. Any other player with the heal skill can stabilize the wounded character and bring them up to zero HP... alive, but not dying.
What's the status or estimated release of the Demo?
We're focused on the game right now, and I can't lock down a particular date at this time.
A problem I've had with many games is that when it's night out, even though the game provided means of producing light, it was not necessary since you could still see around you. Will this be the same in PoR or will it actually be dark out? If not, will there be penalties suffered if there is no light source for races that have no darkvision or low-light vision? Also, very early in the year it was stated that it would be possibly to douse the light source so not to attract too much attention. Is this still possible? If not, will light sources still attract attention?
It will actually be dark and unless the characters have a light spell on them or torches nearby, it will be hard to see. Selecting characters while it is dark is not a problem, nor is moving them about. The light-source attracting attention is no-longer supported, but enemies do have a spotting radius.
Is the fate of this great game now at stake? Man, 3 times now we've (the public) been faced with the fear of PoR2 being cancelled:
The fact of the matter is that Mattel Interactive has been up for sale since March. The good news is that PoR is one of the top of many titles that the enterainment division has.
Are the 16/16 level characters final:
The whole thing about 16/16 in my mind that that it gives players who want to spend a lot of time playing the game something to look forward to and have fun achieving.... especially in Multiplayer mode with the random dungeons, speicalized class weapons, and algorythmically harder monsters.
From what I have read of all the rangers abilities being stripped from him in the game (tracking, two-weapon style), what is the point of having a ranger class:
The ranger is a class that we've supported from the beginning of the project when it was a 2nd Edition game. We wanted to support dual-weapons, but found too late that we couldn't with the time allowed.
So is the algorithm for difficulty only for multiplayer:
Too easy? heh heh heh... we've just been looking at the AI and easy is definately not in it's vocabulary . We're play balancing the game and it's our goal to make sure that its challenging and fun on all levels...
Could a patch be made to add difficulty options (whether in game or .cfg / .ini):
Possibly. Right now a patch is the furthest thing from our minds, for obvious reasons.
Baldur's Gate 2 Dev TV
Posted Wednesday, September 20, 2000 - 11:57 CET by Calis
Just noticed on RPGVault that a new issue of Dev TV was posted on Interplaygames.com, an official Interplay site. This time Greg Zeschuk, Bioware joint CEO, gives his thoughts on the most important gameplay improvements in Baldur's Gate 2.
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn NPCs Detailed
Posted Monday, September 18, 2000 - 17:10 CET by Chris
Over at GA-RPG you can find an interesting write-up that details all the NPCs that can join your party in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn to the end of chapter three. Don't go there if you don't want to see any spoiler info, however it is pretty minor.
DIABLO II: Expansion Set
Posted Monday, September 18, 2000 - 15:37 CET by Nazgul
Who likes to leave a job incomplete? Diablo, the Lord of Terror, apparently wasn't yet down for the count when we dispatched him at the end of the original 1996 game. So we waited four years for Blizzard North to release a sequel and then pursued the horned devil through four new environments in order to more conclusively smite the Prime Evil. But even though we eventually accomplished that task, we let one of Diablo's companions, Baal, escape our righteous wrath. The upcoming Diablo II expansion pack will finally let us remedy that omission and complete our purge of the demonic upstarts by sending us back to the world of Sanctuary for one final adventure.
The expansion pack will add one final act to Diablo II's storyline as well as a couple of new character classes and dozens of new items. A lot more thought has gone into the creation of this expansion pack than the one published for the original Diablo game. Defunct development house Synergistic Software produced the expansion pack for the original Diablo; as a result, the additional areas and creatures didn't integrate well with those in the original game. That won't be a problem this time around, as Blizzard is internally developing the add-on for the sequel. While some expansion packs are hastily assembled to capitalize on the commercial success of a title, Blizzard contemporaneously plotted the expansion pack while developing Diablo II and always intended to use the add-on to complete the tale.
For the complete story you can read it at the Gamespot webpage, here.
Sylvus Does It Again
Posted Saturday, September 16, 2000 - 21:23 CET by Sorcerer
Sylvus, our very own Exclusive Solutions Scribe has prepared another excellent guide. This time he focuses on soon-to-be-released Baldur's Gate II, more accurately on Amn (where most of the game takes place), it's long and interesting history, it's capitol Athkatla and much more.
Read his Introduction to The Baldur's Gate II Solution and become sucked into the fascinating details.
The Solution will be updated on a regular basis so check back often!
Baldur's Gate II Items
Posted Saturday, September 16, 2000 - 20:07 CET by Chris
Over on GA-RPG you can find several of the items you are going to be finding in BioWares' Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. They have broken the sections up into armor, weapons, and finally a magic item listing (things like rings, amulets, etc.).
New Baldur's Gate 2 goodies!
Posted Saturday, September 16, 2000 - 14:19 CET by Calis
Multiplayer.it posted a whole slew of new Baldur's Gate 2 media, including the intro movie! Speaking of which, Outer Edge has posted a preview of Baldur's Gate 2. They also have a preview of Neverwinter Nights, Bioware's multiplayer-oriented RPG.
Thanks VE for the news.
Baldur's Gate II Preview at Gamedata (French)
Posted Saturday, September 16, 2000 - 12:32 CET by Sorcerer
Gamedata recently posted a preview of Baldur's Gate II (in French), complete with some screenshots.
Baldur's Gate II has gone gold two days ago and should be available in stores by the end of the month.
Sorcerer's Way Through Baldur's Gate II, Part Three
Posted Friday, September 15, 2000 - 0:02 CET by Sorcerer
Hail my trusty apprentices!
It is time yet again for me to post another entry in my Baldur's Gate II journal. In this final installment of the journal I have posted a short preview of the game.
There are also 18 new screenshots for you to feast your eyes upon, so do not tarry any longer, take a closer look at Part Three of the journal now.
P.S.
The screenshots are of that major magic battle I've been writing about in the last part of the journal.
News from the board for the game that has just gone GOLD!!
Posted Thursday, September 14, 2000 - 21:03 CET by NightKin
Hehe, had to say that :) Anyway, here is some board news. I can't belive that we will acutally be playing this game soon.
From Derek French, Line Producer - MDK2
Video Card issues:
The TNT2 is an excellent choice for Baldur's Gate 2 as well as most other games due to its strong DirectX and OpenGL drivers. I use a TNT2Ultra at home and am very happy with it.
Windows Millenium support:
For the most part, Windows ME didn't show any significant issues with BG2. There will be a section of the BG2 readme file that comment on operating system support.
3DFX and 32 bit support:
The Voodoo 1, 2, 3, and Banshee do not support 32 bit color in 3D. In BG2, you just have to turn off 32 bit textures in the game to make the card work properly.
All of the 3dfx cards worked just find in BG2 in both 2D and 3D modes.
I would like to clarify the statement further. BG2 will work in 2D mode with any video card that has DirectX drivers. Off hand, I cannot think of any video card that doesn't have DirectX drivers. For 3D, you must have a video card that has a full OpenGL driver. There are many video cards out there that do not have proper OpenGL drivers, or have drivers that have bugs. You will have to consult the readme file to find out about the results of compatibility testing. For example, the SiS video cards do not have OpenGL drivers.
From David Gaider, BG2 Designer
On hit points:
No, you don't re-roll the HP of imported characters.
As for Max HP's, there's probably going to be an option so that you always get the maximum HP roll on lower difficulty settings. At least it's in right now... it should make the final version.
Portraits: Mike has gone through all of the BG1 portraits and played with the colors to make them a bit more compatible with the new pics.
Jaheira in 3rd Edition AD&D rules:
OK, here's one of the NPCs thrown your way, one of the ones we made up in 3rd edition D&D. Keep two things in mind, here:
1) Some of us at Bioware did these as we were learning the 3rd edition rules way back and playing with the character generator... no reflection, here, on Bioware projects, themselves (other than the fact that some of us had to learn 3rd edition D&D for NWN purposes).
2) The characters were done as if they were created for BG2 using 3rd edition... in other words, we made them as we would have made them if BG2 had been 3rd ed. Imoen, for instance, is a Rogue/Sorceror rather than a Thief/Mage.
My first pick, here, is Jaheira... both because she's a fave of mine and because so many people seem to dislike her for no good reason other than that some of her few spoken lines in BG1 were annoying (really all you had to base likes/dislikes on anyone, disregarding stats). Agree with me or not, one of my own private pleasures will be seeing posts (not long from now) proudly announcing how they slaughtered Jaheira immediately and never once took her into their party... and I will laugh and laugh and laugh... and maybe snicker a bit.
Anyway, here goes:
--------------------------------------
NAME: Jaheira CLASS: Druid 6 / Fighter 4
Race: half-elf Age: 34 Gender: female
Height: 5'8" Weight: 145 lbs Size: M
AC: 18 REF: 6 FORT: 12 WILL: 9 INIT: 7
STRENGTH: 15 (17 with gauntlets)
DEXTERITY: 17
CONSTITUTION: 17
INTELLIGENCE: 10
WISDOM: 16
CHARISMA: 15
ATTACKS: Melee 2 (+10/+5), Ranged 2 (+11/+6)
FLAMING STAFF (+12, dmg (1-6)+3+spec, x2)
SCIMITAR +2 (+12, dmg (1-6)+5, 18-20x2)
SLING +1 (+12, dmg (1-4)+1, x2)
FEATS: Craft Wondrous Item, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw
SKILLS: Animal Empathy 4 (+6), Climb 4 (+3), Diplomacy 4 (+6), Heal 6 (+9), Inuit Direction 2 (+5), Jump 2 (+1), Knowledge - Nature 6 (+6), Knowledge - Geography 2 (+2), Sense Motive 2 (+5), Spellcraft 2 (+2), Swim 2 (-3), Wilderness Lore 4 (+7)
RACIAL TRAITS: Immunity to magical sleep, +2 Save vs. enchantment, low-light vision, +1 to Listen checks, +1 to Search checks, +1 to Spot checks, elven blood
LANGUAGES: Common, Druidic, Elven
CLASS FEATURES: simple weapon prof., martial weapon prof.:all, light/med/heavy armor prof., shield prof., nature sense, woodland stride, trackless step, resist nature's lure, wild shape (2x per day), restricted to druidic weapons & armor
EQUIPMENT: Hide armor, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, Ring of Animal Friendship, Ring of Protection +2, Scimitar +2, Sling +1, Flaming Staff
Progress report: Frankly, at this point it's all test test test test test test. We got Multiplayer games, Multiplayer games over the Internet with Interplay, Win 95 games, Win 98 games, min-spec games, critical path games, subplot-testing games, yadda yadda yadda. And then someone will find a bug and there's a big hubbub over in the Command Center for, like, half an hour.
(sigh) It's exhausting and we're tired and excited and eagerly looking forward to delivering the game into all your eager little hands as soon as humanly possible. But it's GOT to be polished.
How's that?
Volo's Guide:
Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II is not a hint book of any sort, nor is it intended to be. It is a guide to areas of Amn and Athkatla not covered in the in the course of the game, as I understand it... to expand on the area in general for those who are interested.
Baldur's Gate 2 goes gold!
Posted Thursday, September 14, 2000 - 15:56 CET by Calis
Yep, you read that right! It was just announced on the official BG2 site that Baldur's Gate 2 has gone gold (meaning it has been sent off for duplication and should be in the stores soon)! Damn, I can't wait for this baby...
Also, BGChronicles has a log of last night's chat.
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Collector's Edition
Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2000 - 15:33 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
Concerning a Collector's Edition version:
We're working on putting together a Collector's Edition right now. Current goodies include the Attack on Myth Drannor D&D module (which is *very* different from the game), the PoR:RoMD novel, and other possibles like a miniature, dice, dicebag, t-shirt, music cd, and so on...
Baldur's Gate 2 chat
Posted Monday, September 11, 2000 - 23:42 CET by Calis
The official Baldur's Gate 2 page was updated with the announcement that there will be a chat with the developers on wednesday. The details:
Wednesday, September 13 at 6:00 pm PST.
It will be in room #baldursgate on the irc.gamesnet.net server, port 6667.
An IRC client like mIRC is required. Incidentally, if you ever need to talk to me, I'm usually idling in that chat room :)
Pool of Radiance: Exclusive Interview at the Wizards of the Coast
Posted Monday, September 11, 2000 - 14:46 CET by Nazgul
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor associate producer Chuck Yager joins us this month from S.S.I. for the next in our series of exclusive interviews. Chuck gives us an idea of some of the ties between Pool of Radiance and the Dungeon Master's Guide, including a couple of unique new magic items . And then there's the horde of halfling barbarians….
Wizards of the Coast: This month marks the release of the new edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Does Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor take advantage of any of the variant rules featured in the DMG, or is it strictly "according to Hoyle"?
Chuck Yager: Pool of Radiance will indeed be taking advantage of the point-based character generation system offered in the DMG. We wanted to give players the utmost flexibility when creating their band of adventurers, and therefore opted to go with spending points to build your ability scores rather than having to reroll numerous times to achieve the scores you wanted. All in all, we feel it has worked out great through our internal play testing thus far.
You can find the rest of the interview here.
GameBanshee Opening
Posted Sunday, September 10, 2000 - 8:41 CET by Sorcerer
A new gaming site has been launched recently and since it is customary for sites that have been around for a while to offer a helping hand to the newcomers, I'll post a short presentation of it.
Currently, the site features release dates, game reviews, and general
gaming news from around the web. In addition, they have posted up seven areas, each devoted to certain games that they have special interest in or knowledge about. These areas are designed to provide detailed information about their respective game, such as equipment and spell listings, screenshots of interesting areas of the game or encounters, and other pertinent information crucial to the specific game. Currently, Icewind Dale, Shadowbane, and the original Baldur's Gate are thoroughly covered.
A majority of the games currently featured at GameBanshee are
role-playing, but they intend to "flesh out" the site by providing information on other genres as well. For example, Tribes 2 and Warcraft III are two games they intend to cover and the basics for these games are already online.
They invite each and every one of you to take a look at their site, located at www.gamebanshee.com.
New Baldur's Gate 2 screenshots at Gamer's Pulse
Posted Saturday, September 9, 2000 - 19:30 CET by Calis
The headline sums it up nicely... a site called Gamer's Pulse posted 20 new screenshots of Baldur's Gate 2.
Planescape: Torment Desktop Theme
Posted Saturday, September 9, 2000 - 12:55 CET by Sorcerer
I was informed today that Mridalmn's Planar Intersection (now hosted at BGC) has made another desktop theme available for download.
This one features Annah, everyone's favorite thiefling, plus a bunch of other stuff to customize the look of your computer.
You can find the site here.
More news from the BG2 board
Posted Saturday, September 9, 2000 - 12:36 CET by NightKin
Hey everyone, here comes another load of news from the Baldur's Gate II board. Hope you enjoy it.
From David Gaider, BG2 Designer
Diversity in portraits:
My only comment on this is the insinuation that we at Bioware or Interplay 'refuse' to respond to this line of questioning. There is no problem talking about this, and we've done it before on the old boards.
As far as design goes, we're not here to accurately reflect North American demographics or ensure our political correctness or anything of the like. We did take the comments on having non-white characters into account... we wanted strong female characters as well as characters that weren't necessarily white. Why not? It was interesting and we wanted to do it, as well as acknowledge that the Forgotten Realms is not solely populated by fantasy archetypes.
You say that Valygar, Yoshimo and Cernd aren't enough? Or weren't what you wanted? What amount, then, would be? 25%? 50%? What criteria besides what we find interesting and creative do you think should be most important when we create a character?
Or is the problem that the portrait selection, itself, is not racially diverse? If that's the case, then you do have a point. If we had the ability and time to include a lot more portraits, we could take the time to put some more variation in the human portraits (because keep in mind that we have to deal with the fantasy races and classes, here, as well). Without time constraints, we have mostly in both BG's ended up doing primarily portraits for the NPC's only. Add that to the fact that you can grab a portrait for your PC from a huge selection on the internet and it doesn't seem as big a deal.
However... none of this is meant to imply that your opinions are invalid. Like I said, if we had more portraits to offer, perhaps this wouldn't even be an issue. We've attempted to address as many of our fans' issues as we can.
I'll pass on the comments, here, to the rest of the team and we'll try to keep it in mind. I would also suggest to others who have said this topic is irrelevant to think for a moment. Many of you who say that it doesn't matter if there is some racial representation would probably agree that the depiction of women in fantasy as trollops who expose their breasts even when in armor, etc., is a bad thing, right? Why, then, would it be so difficult to put yourself in someone else's shoes and want to see, say, a black or asian hero (or heroine) in a fantasy game that you like a lot? Something you could identify with?
BG2 is obviously not going to make everyone happy (nor could it)... I just hope this shows that, as far as this issue goes, anyway, we have taken it into consideration and are not devoid of some selection.
Always room for improvement, though, right? :)
Players not being able to use NPC portraits:
That was the plan, and in a perfect world that's what we would have ended up doing. I think the art department had wanted to do an additional male & female portrait for each race. It just didn't happen, though (not enough time) which is unfortunate. The fact is, though, that most people seem to prefer finding their own portraits for their PCs, anyway. I suppose we still would have liked to do them, but compare that to the other jobs the art department still had to do and it just had to be weighed in. This will just have to do, at least for now. Like I said earlier, can't be perfect. I think we'd like to get it out the door, too. ;)
From Nathan Plewes, BG2 Line Producer
Release date:
While we were at E3 there was a marketing release stating that lovely BG2 would be on the shelves by Sept.1 Thing is that we (BioWare) hadn't even told ANYONE a date, and since we're the ones that make the game someone pulled that date out of their butt.
On his job:
Lol.. me? a writer? teehee. No I'm the line producer for BG2. Don't ask what that means because I really couldn't tell you. I'm the lucky fellow that keeps the bug list flowing between Interplay and the departments at BioWare. It's not a glorious job but someone has to do it ;) I am also responsible for keeping the troops fed. After only a few short months I have them responding to the beep of the overhead page. Plewes' Dogs I suppose you could say..hehe. It also falls under my title to answer the emails relating to BG.
Derek French, MDK2 Line Producer
More on release dates:
The simple fact is that retail stores do NOT know the release date. Period. End of story. I worked software retail, and the only dates that we got came from our distributors. They, in turn, got their dates from the publishers. Retailers only know what their distributors tell them. From there, the retail stores can decide what release date they want to publish.
If any retail store contacted BioWare directly and asked for a release date, we would tell them to contact Interplay. We would never comment on release dates to any retailer directly; that is up to the fine folks at Black Isle and Interplay.
From my experience with MDK2, going gold was an interesting experience. We would submit a build that we thought was gold to Interplay. QA teams from Interplay and BioWare would test the build and get back to us. If they found something, we would go back and work on it. Then submit again. And fix something else. This process continues until both parties agree that its gold. Then its off to duplication. From this process, you can see why pinning down a release date is a murky process.
3D:
"Does anyone know how BG2 is going to handle the 3D part of it. Incidentally, I have a SiS 6326 8 MB video card that came as part of the motherboard when I built my system."
BG2 uses DirectX in 2D and OpenGL in 3D. There is no OpenGL driver for a SiS 6326 video chipset. You will only be able to use 2D.
"As far as I know, BG2 uses the Direct3D API not OpenGL, so you should be fine as long as you have a recent enough version of DirectX, which is available from Microsoft's site if you need to update."
BG2 uses OpenGL for 3D, not Direct3D.
More on 3D:
There is no such thing as a "gforce" engine in terms of rendering APIs. There is OpenGL, Direct3D/DirectDraw, and Glide (3Dfx only). There are full OpenGL drivers for all 3Dfx video cards. I am pretty sure that IWD uses OpenGL, so there really isn't any type of card-favouring that you can do. Kinda. Sorta. I guess. =]
Dr. Ray Muzyka interviewed at Gamespot UK
Posted Saturday, September 9, 2000 - 3:27 CET by Calis
The boys at Gamespot UK scored an interview with Dr. Ray Muzyka, CEO of Bioware. They talk about the game we're all seeing visions of in our sleep, Baldur's Gate 2.
Baldur's Gate 2 Preview at RPGVault
Posted Saturday, September 9, 2000 - 0:33 CET by Calis
Yep, another one. I'm sure you've all seen enough of these by now, but in case you haven't, check out this one.
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Auto Save
Posted Friday, September 8, 2000 - 14:54 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
An autosave will activate when the characters move from one level to another. For example, from the House of Gems level 1 to level 2, or from Castle Cormanthor to the Southeast Marshes.
The autosave just happens and we're testing the time that it takes. It's only once, when you first enter the area...
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Double weapons
Posted Thursday, September 7, 2000 - 12:25 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
Yes, we do have double-edged weapons in the game. In fact, the large 2-handed battleaxe is double-bladed and looks great with my half-orc barbarian Gnash.
Quote from Chuck, "1. There will be multiple attacks in the game but it is based on level and class more than a specific weapon. While we are supporting the quarterstaff, for example, we are not supporting multiple attacks based on suing the double weapon rules."
I'm assuming that means a QS only deal 1d6 not 1d6 / 1d6 as a double weapon:
Right. No double-weapon ability
Nine More Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Screenshots At GA-RPG
Posted Thursday, September 7, 2000 - 8:04 CET by Chris
GA-RPG has just been updated with nine more screenshots for BioWare's upcoming sequel Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. The screenshots feature action from late in the beta preview.
Sorcerer's Way Through Baldur's Gate II, Part Two
Posted Wednesday, September 6, 2000 - 23:19 CET by Sorcerer
Hail my trusty apprentices!
It is time yet again for me to post another entry in my Baldur's Gate II journal.
This time around I take a closer look at how playing the Sorcerer class looks like and reveal some of the features.
There are also 21 new screenshots for you to feast your eyes upon, so do not tarry any longer, take a closer look at Part Two of the journal now.
NWN interview at Crossroads.
Posted Wednesday, September 6, 2000 - 16:20 CET by Calis
Crossroads posted an interview with a few of the guys at Bioware. They discuss Bioware's upcoming third edition D&D game, Neverwinter Nights. Some interesting stuff there...
Pool of Radiance:RoMD Difficulty setting
Posted Wednesday, September 6, 2000 - 14:44 CET by Nazgul
From Jon Kromrey, Producer, SSI/Mattel Interactive
A difficulty slider is not something we're looking to put into the game at this point, sorry. What we do have, on the other hand, is algorythmically generated difficulties of enemies while in multiplayer, all based off of the character party's experience. So if players want to have an easier time playing the game, they can do so with low-level characters...
AVault previews Baldur's Gate 2
Posted Monday, September 4, 2000 - 16:18 CET by Calis
The Adrenaline Vault has posted a preview of the game we're all waiting for, Baldur's Gate 2... Lots of info, but I suspect most of you won't find anything new in this preview.
Neverwinter Nights Preview At BarrysWorld
Posted Monday, September 4, 2000 - 15:44 CET by Chris
BarrysWorld has posted their impressions of BioWares' Neverwinter Nights based on a demonstration. Here's a sample of the article:Perhaps the most dazzling aspect of NWN were the graphics - they were truly amazing. At one point, Trent was leading his captive audience of drooling spectators through an immense foresty area within the game. Light filtered through the forest canopy overhead, making dappled patterns on the leaf-strewn floor. Strong, dark shadows (all processed real-time) of the lofty trees criss-crossed the dusty pathway and fell clearly and realistically across our heroine as she progressed towards a misty canyon, plunging dramatically into some dark, lost depths. The light from the sun and the shadows of the trees were reflected in the shiny areas on the suit of armour worn by our character. The spells cast by the character were rendered in breath-taking, full-colour 3D - a spell to cure light wounds swirled around the character in a blue mist and another spell summoned a Fire Elemental which strode around the forest with flames blazing from every limb.
Baldur's Gate 2 Board news
Posted Monday, September 4, 2000 - 15:37 CET by NightKin
From Brent Knowles, BG2 Designer
A little info on Neverwinter Nights:
Actually Neverwinter is going to be a complete game. So far it looks awesome. You will be able to play it in a single-player mode (much like BG and BG2, I imagine) but its greatest feature is its multiplayer component.
Dungeon masters will be able to run campaigns just like in PnP but over the Internet. Each player will play a character while the Dungeon Master will 'run' the world. Neverwinter will ship with a toolset allowing people to make their own modules. It is a very exciting project and I think it could potentially change the way people play games.
From Derek French, Line Producer on MDK2
Number of CDs:
BG2 will ship with 4 CDs in a standard 4-CD jewel case in all editions.
On video cards:
You should be OK with a TNT1, depending on whether its the 8 Meg or 16 Meg one. Obviously, more is better.
All cards will work perfectly fine in 2D and the cards with good, solid OpenGL drivers will work well in 3D.
System requirements:
I tested out BG2 on a P-Pro 200 with a Rendition V1000 and a 3dfx Voodoo 1 video cards. BG2 will play, you just have to turn down the details and effects. Do not expect the 3D option to work that well on a minimum spec machine as there is a great deal of work that must be done to render the scene in 3D. The more RAM the better. I loved the performance increase when my home machine went from 64 to 128 Meg.
The BG2 team is at work for the entire weekend. No rest for the wicked.
From David Gaider, BG2 Designer
Rangers and familiars:
Rangers don't get anything like familiars at all. The closest that they come is the Beastmaster's ability to summon animals to aid him and the figurines of wondrous power. The idea of an 'animal companion' as a familiar-type for the ranger was once booted around, but that is not in BG2.
Avengers and their spells:
They are included in his spell book and are available to be chosen along with his regular spells. He does not cast or use them as special abilities.
On screenshots being posted:
I'm not angry at Ironworks, nor do I think they were being irresponsible. My caution to everyone, here, was based on the fact that any information (even the small amount given out at Ironworks) seems to do nothing but fuel speculation... which can be almost as bad as actual plot revelations.
I do wish that anything to do with Imoen hadn't been let out of the bag, but I suppose that was inevitable.
Ironworks apologized and offered to put up the spoiler warnings on their site (which they apparently did) and I don't think Bio has anything to @#$%! about, here. We sent them the preview and said they can post whatever they like... they only have the first couple of chapters (if I'm not mistaken) and any apprehension I might have over the plot of the game being revealed is only my opinion (knowing what's coming) and I don't think reflects the judgment of the site at all.
After all... they're trying to provide you guys with great screenshots and are doing US a service by getting you guys interested in the game. If they happen to make a mistake or something, I'm sure they can be forgiven... my caution to you guys was just that: a caution, for your own benefit.
Number of weapon slots for clerics and thieves:
Two, same as the mage/thief.
In game romance:
I said that there were racial restrictions but no alignment restrictions. Whether or not a potential love interest will begin a romance plot with, say, a halfling depends on whether or not that character either is a halfling or would be inclined to romance with a halfling. Not every character would, but then again not every character wouldn't.
Preordering:
Now, I don't have much of an opinion on this, but I figure if Interplay wants to put forward a bit of an incentive so people order the game directly from them OR offer a similar incentive to stores so people order from them... what's the big deal?
It's not like the extra stuff is being taken away or was even considered part of the game at any point in time, so you're missing nothing. And should you want the extra items, the codes will be released within a week (or less, probably) after release.
So don't sweat it. Shoot, if I see some ad saying 'buy this TV from us and we'll give you free bucket seats!', it's my choice whether or not to get it from them or go down to the store and get it on my own. I consider that par for the course.
Of course, I don't have to pay for the game, myself, so make of my opinion what you will.
New BG2 screenies at Gamespot UK
Posted Monday, September 4, 2000 - 12:06 CET by Calis
Hello there people.
My name is Roel "Calis" Arts, and I'll be posting a bit of news from now on. You might know me as a content monkey (yes, that's an official job description :P) at GA-RPG, or as the guy who runs The Pit and Terra Arcanum, and now I have an impressive title to add to that list: news poster at Sorcerer's Place. Since I already dig up D&D CRPG-related news on a daily basis, I might as well post it here, too :-)
Well, enough spamming, let's get on with the news!
Gamespot UK posted these new screenshots of the game we're all waiting for, Baldur's Gate 2.
Neverwinter Nights Screenshots
Posted Sunday, September 3, 2000 - 6:22 CET by Chris
The GameSpy Network has several new screenshots for BioWares' Neverwinter Nights on their main site and also on their RPG Planet site. Hey if you want to get in on the discussion with people about Neverwinter Nights, visit the Boards O' Magick and post your thoughts.
BGII Impressions & Screenshots At GA-RPG
Posted Saturday, September 2, 2000 - 18:22 CET by Chris
I've just updated GA-RPG with our impressions of the press preview version of BioWares' Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn here.
Sorcerer's Way Through Baldur's Gate II
Posted Friday, September 1, 2000 - 1:14 CET by Sorcerer
Hello fellow adventurers.
Today we have something VERY special for you to feast your eyes upon. We have 15 fresh screenshots from Baldur's Gate II, along with some info about the game, all neatly packed in a chunk of text that could be called my first impressions.
I will be updating the article regularly, so there'll be plenty of new content to return to.
At the moment you can check out the first part, but bookmark the address for there is more to come shortly.