Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Here's more from the BIS message boards. Looks like Dave's been a busy guy.

David Gaider, Senior Designer:

Importing your character into NWN: Your BG character doesn't tranfer wholesale into NWN. You basically start over at Level 1, and whatever other adjustments that would need to be made to change to a 3rd edition character would need to be done then.

I don't think the exact process has been worked out, yet, though.

3rd edition has its own methods for 'rewarding' players as they level up. Personally I really like the various feats and the uses of skills...more things to look forward to and they aren't outlandish, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, even 3rd edition is about to put out their 'High Level' supplement, which is undoubtedly when things will get wacky once again. I haven't seen it, myself, though, so I guess I really can't comment.

Demogorgon: Well, I'll say a couple of things...

a) Facing Demogorgon at home in the Abyss is a lot different than facing Demogorgon on the Prime after he's been captive for years.

b) We don't want to make any battle impossible for the average player. Rather too easy than too hard, sucky as that might seem to the advanced gamer.

c) I sent a couple of files to Kevin Dorner which he is putting up on Baldurdash this weekend which makes the Demogorgon fight a bit harder (before we had toned it down)...this is only for those who deliberately want to make their Demogorgon fight harder, though, it's nothing official. he has some more allies (a marilith, 2 glabrezus, a balor and a cambion mage) and also pulls off quite the doozy right off the bat: Time Stop plus Dragon's Breath and Storm of Vengeance. His AI is changed only a little, though.

d) 3rd edition stats for Demogorgon weren't available to us...we were actually trying to go off the 1st edition Monster's Manual, believe it or not. It wouldn't be too hard to go in and change Demogorgon's .CRE file if you wanted...there's plenty of 3rd-party stuff out there to do that...and see if that makes a difference. 1300 HP? Ouch!

NPCs: It actually doesn't matter what we do, my friend. We could include one NPC of every character class and multiclass and there would still be people saying they didn't like THAT particular fighter...or whatever.

One particular idea that I liked (should we ever do another game like this, that is) is to allow the player to generate the NPC upon the NPC joining the group. Let's say you pick up Keldorn in the sewers, right? All that's set about him is that he's a paladin...otherwise it would allow you to assign his stats, proficiencies, etc. I suppose a system could also exist where you assigned the class and/or kit, as well, but then there's no way to give that NPC their own personality (something that a few players might prefer, I suppose...but I wouldn't want to make a game like that)...and I know there's no way to 'assign' a personality from, say, a list without going to a ridiculous amount of effort (it ain't gonna happen).

But that might resolve some of the dissatisfaction that people keep bringing up. Not that they wouldn't still complain, mind you.

Regardless, you can get through the game just fine with the NPC's provided, and that's their primary purpose anyway.

Balance and AI: No, you're very much right. I think AI is going to get better as technology does, but scalable AI represents an exponential extra amount of work. It can be done, I imagine, but I find it hard to imagine the percentage of resources that would have to be dedicated to such a task. Most often you get to a point in development where you have to say, "it's good enough" and move on to other just-as-important issues.

I'd hazard an educated guess and say that, in the future, AI considerations are going to have to become a fundamental part of making an engine in the first place if we're going to see marked improvement. I agree that that would be a good thing, too...there's lots of places where I wish we could have done better with the AI (scalable or not) in BG2.

As for K., no I'm not going to get into an argument with you. You are correct, obviously, in saying that balance in BG2 is far from perfect. I didn't say that it was. We do what we think is best, often for reasons of balance or whatever you want to call it...we don't seek to achieve what we see as balance without reason. The hardcore D&D'er might not appreciate some of those decisions, just like the casual gamers might not appreciate others, but the balance we're trying to strike is between that audience and for the betterment of the game as a whole. A lot of your opinions have merit, I agree, but there are lots of different opinions even here at Bioware over what makes a good game never mind a good D&D game. Call the opinions that don't agree with yours wrong, idiotic, misguided or whatever...that's your choice. I'm sure if you made the game with your vision, it would be quite different, without question. Better? Hard to say. BG2 and ToB turned out pretty well, even if they had design decisions that not every player agrees with...and when will a game come out when that occurs, do you think?

Anyhow, no matter how dumb or self-possessed you think we are, the feedback is always welcome.

Tough battles: We would rather have a fight too easy than too hard. For every player who found Demogorgon simple, there are ten others who get frustrated trying to beat him. Double for Draconis and Mellisan. We don't want the expansion to be completable only by the 'professional' gamer, after all.

The fights are designed to be winnable within a few tries at most...hard enough to be a challenge, but not so hard that the average player gets stuck and tosses aside the game. That means, of course, that there's always going to be people saying that a battle was 'too easy'...but the original poster said he had to try it a few times and that sounds about right.

For those who are interested, however, the original (harder) script for Demogorgon is going up at the Baldurdash site really soon if you want a little more challenge out of him.

Music from ToB: Hi, the music will most likely be available on a soundtrack CD soon. Get it from www.interplaystore.com.

Indeed, Inon and Howard worked their butts off, leaving them and me with little sleep in order to get it all done in time for the release. They had a big task ahead of them trying to live up to the fans' expectations set by the previous music of BG1 and BG2, but in the end they succeeded.

You guys will also love the music in "Torn", done by a newcomer to the gaming world who is super talented.