What kind of DLC do you have planned? Right now we're focusing on the already scheduled content. But we are committed to making sure that any DLC we release will be substantial enough to be worthwhile.
Do the new NPCs (Dorn, Neera, Rasaad) have their own quests in BG2 like they did in BG1? Yes. You'll have to wait to see what's in them, but they are substantial. The majority of the new content (see also, "350,000 words of new dialogue") is tied to their quests.
Will Planescape Torment also get an Extended Edition? (answered by @Cerevant) As has been previously noted, Overhaul Games has not acquired the rights to the Icewind Dale series or Planescape: Torment. All efforts are being focused on BGEE and BG2EE at this time.
What software development philosophies does the team use? Agile? Scrum? Lean? Waterfall? TDD? Kanban? Pair Programming? (answered by @Coriander) It most resembles Scrum. Most sprints are a week long and we don't really have formalized stand up meetings.
Is the Feature Requests section still relevant?? Do you take into consideration requests from there or you are too busy working on BG2:EE?? We do read the Feature Requests forum, and occasionally we see something that sparks an idea; unfortunately, that idea is usually unfeasible in the time we have with the resources that are available, so a lot of the time things don't get implemented even if we want them to be.
So if you're thinking about a feature request, the best way to approach it is to think about how that feature would affect other areas of the game in unexpected ways. For instance, subraces are a great idea--but as soon as you add a subrace to the game, you have to think about where that subrace appears, whether or not there needs to be new dialogue to account for it, will it unbalance encounters, does the subrace need an XP penalty, etc.
Those are just a few things to consider. But we do like seeing the requests that come in; even if we don't use an idea, it might spark another idea that's more feasible to implement.
Will Wisdom affect saving throws and spell failure as it is supposed to? No; the table in the manual has been updated, but Wisdom does not affect saving throws.
Are you able to use BG1 monsters in BG2? Yes, in the sense that we have all of the resources for them. You probably won't see Gibberlings running around in the Underdark, though.
Will you ever release a level editor or mod interface? If we do, it won't be for a while. The modding community has developed some great tools over the years, and we want to encourage those tools to be improved and expanded.
Any news on getting the latest patches to steam users? I realise it's currently in Atari's hands, but has there been any communication back from their side, and if not, have you tried contacting steam directly? Atari has total control over the build that makes it to Steam, and it would be...impolite, to say the least, to circumvent their part in the process. We certainly wish we could push updates directly to Steam, but if Atari's not on-board with that we have to respect their decision.
Once the patch is released will we start hearing news about BG2:EE? Difficult to say for certain, but this next patch is intended to be "the big one". When we're able to release information about BG2, it's going to be an exciting day.
Is the Dragon Disciple going to be fixed in the next patch, one way or another (making the abilities match the description or vice versa)? Yes. The description has been updated to match the kit's abilities. (To wit: It casts one fewer spell of each level per day, rather than learning one fewer spell per level.)
How will cloud saving work? We haven't started working on it yet, so it's difficult to say exactly how it would work. The "goal" is to allow people to save on one platform and load that same save on another, but whether it ends up working that way depends on feasibility.
Will the Externalization Requests be implemented? A great number of them have already been done. Once the patch is released we'll post an updated list.
Do the IWD art assets still exist, or were they lost as well? We don't know for certain, but if they were stored in the same way as the art for BG, it doesn't look especially promising.
Will future DLC affect the main game, or will it take the form of stand-alone adventures? We're exploring a number of possibilities, including both stand-alone adventures and in-game content.
Will there be a "Black Pits 2"? I can't say anything about what's involved, but you may have heard us say something about Baeloth not being a playable NPC during BG2 because he's "busy in that time".
What made you decide to make a lot of the content exclusive to NPCs? Trent made a post about this a while ago, let me see if I can find it. ... ... Here it is. NPC-related quests offer a different sort of storytelling opportunity that allow us to delve into a character's history and personality, as well as more directly addressing that character's goals. There were some quests like this in the original game, although for the most part they tended to be normal side quests that had some additional content if you had a particular character in your party. It's a bit of a paradigm shift, but one that we think can be worthwhile if done well.
What's stopping you from using Unfinished Business? A major obstacle in incorporating some of the more popular content mods is getting permissions from the original authors of those mods. For Unfinished Business, there have been so many co-authors over the years, and so many of them are no longer around in the modding community, that getting permission to use their content simply isn't feasible. If we can somehow find those authors sometime in the future we may take another look, but our energy is better spent creating new content and polishing existing content.
Will the manuals be updated to include the new kits? BG2:EE will have its own manuals, much like BG1:EE did. They will include descriptions of the new kits, as well as updated descriptions for all (or almost all) of the game's spells.
Will the Cleric/Ranger's spell list be fixed? This is an engine limitation, which makes it a fair bit more complicated to fix. Since a great many people like the existence of this exploit, we'll probably leave it the way it is.
Will there be any of the old adventure modules implemented in the game? (Tomb of Horrors, etc.) (Answer provided by @Coriander) Personally I would love to add some old modules. Some of the stuff would be kind of weird or hard to implement, i.e. steamroller elephants and warping floors. I don't think there's any plans to implement one in the near future but if an elite squad of modders were to make it they would have my undying love.
Why are some mods still incompatible with BGEE? Weren't you trying to make the game more mod-friendly? Speaking from my perspective as a modder, there's not a lot Beamdog can do about BGEE: because most BG1 mods are for BGT or TuTu, they use BGT and TuTu's necessarily differentiated file names and are coded to deal with the quirks thereof. BGEE is a much more clean port of BG1 content, with original filenames. As a result, the biggest change modders have to make is change resource references. To be clear, cross-platform compatibility with BGEE is no harder than making a mod compatible with both BGT and TuTu. It's just that nobody wants to spend the time to make their mod cross-platform-compatible; unfortunately, there's not a lot Beamdog can do there.
As for BG2EE, the filenames are all the same, so compatibility is much less of an issue. There's still some work to be done, but we've tried to ensure an absolute minimum of work on the part of modders, and I'll be writing a quick guide on ensuring mods are compatible post-release.
How easy will the new NPCs in BG2:EE be to find and recruit? They won't be sitting in bird cages waiting for you to let them out (wink), but I can say with reasonable confidence that you'll be able to find them more simply than, say, Valygar.
Will the new NPCs' romances from BG1EE carry through and affect their romances in BG2EE? The short answer is no; the engine doesn't support importing variables, which is what would be needed for those flirtations to carry over.
Are Cloud Saves still on the list? Yes, although right now we're focusing on stability and bug fixing, so it might be a while before we can start looking at the possibilities there.
Can multi-class mages use a more dynamic animation that lets them wear robes and have them show up on the animation? It would be a much more involved change to make the animations dynamic like this, so I wouldn't expect to see this implemented any time soon, if ever. If you want to change your character's animation, though, you can use EE Keeper; it's fairly straight-forward to change the avatar that's used.
Do Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma have any in-game effects on things like saving throws? Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma do not grant any bonuses beyond those listed in the (newly revised) manuals. For full clarity:
Intelligence grants a bonus to Lore, and also affects the probability that you'll succeed when learning a new spell.
Wisdom grants a bonus to Lore, and (for clerics and druids only) also grants bonus spells per day.
Charisma grants a bonus to Reaction rolls when dealing with NPCs and shopkeepers.
Can the new NPCs be influenced in terms of their alignments? You'll have to wait and see. We did our best to make the new NPCs believable (at least as much as is possible for a half-orc blackguard and a half-elf wild mage), so their personalities may evolve through the course of the game. Beyond that, I can't give much more information.
Comments
Right now we're focusing on the already scheduled content. But we are committed to making sure that any DLC we release will be substantial enough to be worthwhile.
Yes. You'll have to wait to see what's in them, but they are substantial. The majority of the new content (see also, "350,000 words of new dialogue") is tied to their quests.
As has been previously noted, Overhaul Games has not acquired the rights to the Icewind Dale series or Planescape: Torment. All efforts are being focused on BGEE and BG2EE at this time.
It most resembles Scrum. Most sprints are a week long and we don't really have formalized stand up meetings.
We do read the Feature Requests forum, and occasionally we see something that sparks an idea; unfortunately, that idea is usually unfeasible in the time we have with the resources that are available, so a lot of the time things don't get implemented even if we want them to be.
So if you're thinking about a feature request, the best way to approach it is to think about how that feature would affect other areas of the game in unexpected ways. For instance, subraces are a great idea--but as soon as you add a subrace to the game, you have to think about where that subrace appears, whether or not there needs to be new dialogue to account for it, will it unbalance encounters, does the subrace need an XP penalty, etc.
Those are just a few things to consider. But we do like seeing the requests that come in; even if we don't use an idea, it might spark another idea that's more feasible to implement.
No; the table in the manual has been updated, but Wisdom does not affect saving throws.
Yes, in the sense that we have all of the resources for them. You probably won't see Gibberlings running around in the Underdark, though.
If we do, it won't be for a while. The modding community has developed some great tools over the years, and we want to encourage those tools to be improved and expanded.
I realise it's currently in Atari's hands, but has there been any communication back from their side, and if not, have you tried contacting steam directly?
Atari has total control over the build that makes it to Steam, and it would be...impolite, to say the least, to circumvent their part in the process. We certainly wish we could push updates directly to Steam, but if Atari's not on-board with that we have to respect their decision.
Difficult to say for certain, but this next patch is intended to be "the big one". When we're able to release information about BG2, it's going to be an exciting day.
Yes.
Yes, like the sorcerer it will use the Mage's stronghold.
Yes. The description has been updated to match the kit's abilities. (To wit: It casts one fewer spell of each level per day, rather than learning one fewer spell per level.)
We haven't started working on it yet, so it's difficult to say exactly how it would work. The "goal" is to allow people to save on one platform and load that same save on another, but whether it ends up working that way depends on feasibility.
A great number of them have already been done. Once the patch is released we'll post an updated list.
We don't know for certain, but if they were stored in the same way as the art for BG, it doesn't look especially promising.
We're exploring a number of possibilities, including both stand-alone adventures and in-game content.
I can't say anything about what's involved, but you may have heard us say something about Baeloth not being a playable NPC during BG2 because he's "busy in that time".
Trent made a post about this a while ago, let me see if I can find it.
...
...
Here it is.
NPC-related quests offer a different sort of storytelling opportunity that allow us to delve into a character's history and personality, as well as more directly addressing that character's goals. There were some quests like this in the original game, although for the most part they tended to be normal side quests that had some additional content if you had a particular character in your party. It's a bit of a paradigm shift, but one that we think can be worthwhile if done well.
A major obstacle in incorporating some of the more popular content mods is getting permissions from the original authors of those mods. For Unfinished Business, there have been so many co-authors over the years, and so many of them are no longer around in the modding community, that getting permission to use their content simply isn't feasible. If we can somehow find those authors sometime in the future we may take another look, but our energy is better spent creating new content and polishing existing content.
BG2:EE will have its own manuals, much like BG1:EE did. They will include descriptions of the new kits, as well as updated descriptions for all (or almost all) of the game's spells.
This is an engine limitation, which makes it a fair bit more complicated to fix. Since a great many people like the existence of this exploit, we'll probably leave it the way it is.
Personally I would love to add some old modules. Some of the stuff would be kind of weird or hard to implement, i.e. steamroller elephants and warping floors. I don't think there's any plans to implement one in the near future but if an elite squad of modders were to make it they would have my undying love.
Speaking from my perspective as a modder, there's not a lot Beamdog can do about BGEE: because most BG1 mods are for BGT or TuTu, they use BGT and TuTu's necessarily differentiated file names and are coded to deal with the quirks thereof. BGEE is a much more clean port of BG1 content, with original filenames. As a result, the biggest change modders have to make is change resource references. To be clear, cross-platform compatibility with BGEE is no harder than making a mod compatible with both BGT and TuTu. It's just that nobody wants to spend the time to make their mod cross-platform-compatible; unfortunately, there's not a lot Beamdog can do there.
As for BG2EE, the filenames are all the same, so compatibility is much less of an issue. There's still some work to be done, but we've tried to ensure an absolute minimum of work on the part of modders, and I'll be writing a quick guide on ensuring mods are compatible post-release.
They won't be sitting in bird cages waiting for you to let them out (wink), but I can say with reasonable confidence that you'll be able to find them more simply than, say, Valygar.
The short answer is no; the engine doesn't support importing variables, which is what would be needed for those flirtations to carry over.
Yes, although right now we're focusing on stability and bug fixing, so it might be a while before we can start looking at the possibilities there.
It would be a much more involved change to make the animations dynamic like this, so I wouldn't expect to see this implemented any time soon, if ever. If you want to change your character's animation, though, you can use EE Keeper; it's fairly straight-forward to change the avatar that's used.
Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma do not grant any bonuses beyond those listed in the (newly revised) manuals. For full clarity:
Intelligence grants a bonus to Lore, and also affects the probability that you'll succeed when learning a new spell.
Wisdom grants a bonus to Lore, and (for clerics and druids only) also grants bonus spells per day.
Charisma grants a bonus to Reaction rolls when dealing with NPCs and shopkeepers.
You'll have to wait and see. We did our best to make the new NPCs believable (at least as much as is possible for a half-orc blackguard and a half-elf wild mage), so their personalities may evolve through the course of the game. Beyond that, I can't give much more information.