Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

First the Developer Profile, now from the Black Isle Studios message boards, here's more from Dave Gaider on Throne of Bhaal.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

David Gaider, Senior Designer:

Abyssal Stronghold: Hmmn. I'm not sure who it was who started calling in an abyssal stronghold. Probably someone on our side was trying to come up with some way to easily describe it.

It's not easily described...and nowhere in ToB is it actually referred to as an 'abyssal stronghold'. (I imagine someone on our side came up with that as a way to describe what it is/does).

The only problem with calling it that is that people are bound to mix it up with the strongholds from BG2 or as a place to live. It's got some similarities, for sure, but it's not quite the same sort of thing (but what would you expect from a personal pocket plane?).

It is pretty cool, but I would simply advise the same thing as with Sarevok and that is to keep your expectations in check because it's not your run-of-the-mill plot and the reader's digest explanation just doesn't do it justice.

Firearms in Baldur's Gate II?: If anyone remembers way way back when BG2 was first announced, we actually had included an Arquebus proficiency and had intended to have a few (but rare) primitive-type firearms (along with an Unarmed proficiency, Whips, and a few others).
But we quickly chalked it up as one of those morning-after-a-drunken-binge-what-the-heck-were-we-thinking kind of thingies.

Firearms are a cool thought, but only if you don't think about it too closely. They have a real potential to get out of hand, and the idea is to keep as much in the genre as possible (at least for us it is).

Using Tab to see what can be opened/picked up etc as in Heart of Winter: Done.

Creating Viconia's romance: Heh...actually, yeah, Viconia's romance is a blast. If you want evil, though, you should have seen John Gallagher's original treatment of the romance. There was this, um, conversation that revolved around a leather glove that, um...hmmm, might have to wait until the kiddies are asleep to tell that one. Let's just say that Viconia is very adept at suggestive analogies.

John's version of the story didn't make it to air, but I kept as much of it as I could and was inspired by it to write the rest of the romance as it remains, so I owe him my thanks. For one of my first work assignments when I joined Bio, that really rocked.

As far as Viconia's story in ToB goes...well, as someone put it above, the game IS about the PC. The chance of us being able to stick in a very extensive story that people might not see for any single NPC is not very likely...but the romance does culminate in a, ah, appropriate manner. (You'll see.)

Kensai and Cavaliers and thrown ranged weapons: Yes. The basic reason this was done was due to the number of weapons that can both be handled in melee AND thrown. Restricting them from thrown weapons would also restrict them from using those particular weapons.

So a Cavalier, say, can get his proficiency in Axes...and this allows him to use throwing axes as well. This satisfies both the technical hiccup regarding the thrown/melee combo items as well as gameplay.

But there will be no changes to the way proficiencies work for Cavaliers and Kensais. The ranged weapons are still not a feature of those classes. If there's some mind-boggling reason why this should be changed that hasn't been considered, then let me know...I can pass it on in that case.

On dual wielding a range weapon and a melee weapon: Well, such a thing could be put in as an item-based power (which would be kind of unwieldy), but I'm not so sure about tying it to the Abilities button. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's hard-coded.

But, regardless, what happens when someone is still dual-wielding when they turn their melee weapon into a ranged weapon? The game would crash, that's what. 'Kicking out' the offending off-hand melee weapon isn't an option.