IWD:EE Question

CoryNewb

So if overhaul was to work on IWD, what would you like to see? Black Pits has been received well by some, and poor by others, but in a game like IWD would something like black pits fit better? Would you like some sort of puzzle or challenge that tests your wits more than your battle prowess? Would you like to see more kits or loots? New quests?

Post it here, and get some good ideas rolling!

CoryNewb

Can somebody move this to general, where I thought I posted it?

Dee

CoryNewb said:

Can somebody move this to general, where I thought I posted it?

Absolutely not!

Well, alright.

CoryNewb

Dee said:

CoryNewb said:

Can somebody move this to general, where I thought I posted it?

Absolutely not!

Well, alright.

I also meant to say "please". Sorry about that, and thank you for the move!

Now that I have your attention @Dee , what would you like seeing in a theoretical IWD EE? Theoretically speaking of course.

Madhax

I'm not sure how much there is to enhance. Considering how linear IWD is compared to the BG games, it would be tricky to add new content without grossly imbalancing existing areas. Not to mention the fact that you don't recruit NPCs in the IWD games.

I suppose they COULD remove the character creation process for your party and instead make it an NPC-recruitment game like the BG series, but to me that fundamentally alters the game. I LIKE having the opportunity to build a party the way I want it.

Even as a huge fan of the IWD series,I would much rather see ongoing DLC content in the BG series, BG3, or PSTEE.

ShadowHunter

I think they could remove the existent bugs, add new kits and that's about it, I don't think there is much to enchance story- and gameplay based.

lunar

They went for a more puzzle based approach for IWD2. It did not work out too well, IMHO. The Ice Palace, Fell wood and that Time-loop caves of no exit were very fresh ideas. On paper. But many players found them too tedious. Infinity engine is best suited for strategic battles, not that kind of adventure-puzzles.

I would love to see new areas and small quests like Trials of the Lure Master, now that was a fun and challenging mission pack. Also new items! Iwd already has cool random treasures, so the more the merrier! Also, in HoF difficulty, those items should be upgraded like those in iwd2's HoF mode. IIRC iwd HoF mod items were same.

CoryNewb

What if new endgame options were added? What do you guys think about a black gates style mode, or a new challenge mode that draws from durlags tower? A dungeon mode where you get a random hero or party and have to find a way out, with multiple possibilities?

CoryNewb

What about the potential of adding to some of the lore of IWD. New conversations with new NPCs that add to some of the world of IWD? I know that overhaul has some of the most knowledgeable experts on the worlds of D&D and would be able to write interesting pieces for new content.

BelgarathMTH

The one "enhancement" I can think of that I would very much like to see for Icewind Dale, would be to play it in the IWD2 engine, with third edition rules. Of course, I'd also like to see that for the Baldur's Gate games. I believe several modders have tried it, with mixed results.

There are also a group of people who would like to have the reverse, and play IWD in the Baldur's Gate version of the engine.

CamDawg even has a mod released where he's trying to put the IWD magic system, bard song system, and weapons into BG.

The thing is, I would pay for an IWD:EE that used the third edition version of the engine. So, if any of the professional programmers or modders holding the license to work with it for pay ever wanted to make it, and could get all the permissions and everything, I will gladly fork over up to about $50.

The thing is, I believe that porting the different Infinity engine games from one version of the engine to another may be prohibitively difficult, to the point where it might require an almost total rewrite, and there might not be enough people who would pay enough money to make it worthwhile.

Other than that, I agree that there doesn't seem to be much they could do with IWD - I can only think of putting it in their version of widescreen, adding zoom, and maybe putting a bunch of NPC's with dialogues into the party creation selection as pre-made, optional, import files, using the same method that the IWD NPC Project used.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd probably pay about $20 just to get that, as long as the NPC's writing and voice-acting were well-done. They could also check and see if the original art assets are available, such that they might be able to do some HD graphics enhancements.

ogreb

They should make IWD and IWD 2.

Then they should be allowed to take all art assets ( from all IE games ) and make their own game. Hopefully they have someone talented enough to make new backgrounds to fill in the rough stuff.

I want Beamdog to keep on the tight and narrow...do the HD upgrade, add a few NPCs and fix bugs and finish or fix quests that were axed.

That's it.

I don't want to buy someones mod.

Night_Watch

Add class kits, more races/sub races, smarter, tougher a.i. More brawls and fewer puzzles (I just want to hit things XD)! And maybe some npcs (I know there's a mod but still), basically implement the bg2 character system to IWD. I always felt it made more sense there since you can have so much variety creating 6 pcs with kits (and dual wielding!)

Thrasymachus

Some additional 'side quests' distributed throughout IWD would be cool, in order to make the campaign (slightly) less linear. Sure, the party would still need to do X, Y, and Z, but there would be optional side quests throughout.

If there was an option to add BG2-style party members (with backgrounds, chats, etc.) that would be great as well. Players could decide, at the start, whether to create their own party, or use some set of the NPCs.

Thrasymachus

belgarathmth said:

The one "enhancement" I can think of that I would very much like to see for Icewind Dale, would be to play it in the IWD2 engine, with third edition rules. Of course, I'd also like to see that for the Baldur's Gate games. I believe several modders have tried it, with mixed results.

I could not disagree more strongly! PLEASE stick with the AD&D rules. The 'old school' ethos is 50% of the charm of BG1, 2, and IWD (IMO).

CamDawg

belgarathmth said:

The one "enhancement" I can think of that I would very much like to see for Icewind Dale, would be to play it in the IWD2 engine, with third edition rules. Of course, I'd also like to see that for the Baldur's Gate games. I believe several modders have tried it, with mixed results.

Over here, for anyone interested. Or poke @FredSRichardson. Weimer also tried to port BG2 itself to IWD2.

belgarathmth said:

CamDawg even has a mod released where he's trying to put the IWD magic system, bard song system, and weapons into BG.

Heh! That was based out of a slightly larger project with @DavidW.

CoryNewb

Well @CamDawg, since you are very familiar with IWD, what possibilities do you envision? Can you talk about it?

agris

Essentially, what the IWD-in-BG2 and IWDification mods have done. Including

-- Combined item pool from BG1/2 and IWD
-- Combined spell pool of BG1/2 and IWD
-- Combined races / classes / kits from BG1/2 and IWD
-- Combined monster sprites from BG1/2 and IWD (to add variety).
-- Combined PC voice sets from them all
-- New dungeons, should be relatively 'plug and play' given the hub quest design in the original IWD

Btw, since BlackIsle developed IWD, where would the game assets be? With Interplay? I sure hope not.. but I doubt the guys at Obsidian took those with them, and even if they did, not legally.

CamDawg

CoryNewb said:

Well @CamDawg, since you are very familiar with IWD, what possibilities do you envision? Can you talk about it?

I can't speak about OverBeam's plans, primarily because I don't know what they are. I'm hoping we get an IWDEE just like everyone else.

Night_Watch

@CamDawg you're a dream come true XD thanks for the links d(^_^)b

CutlassJack

I'd have to agree with others that the main thing I'd like to see is the game converted to IWD2's 3E ruleset. But then I'd have liked that in BGEE too.

alnair

belgarathmth said:

Other than that, I agree that there doesn't seem to be much they could do with IWD - I can only think of putting it in their version of widescreen, adding zoom, and maybe putting a bunch of NPC's with dialogues into the party creation selection as pre-made, optional, import files, using the same method that the IWD NPC Project used.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd probably pay about $20 just to get that, as long as the NPC's writing and voice-acting were well-done. They could also check and see if the original art assets are available, such that they might be able to do some HD graphics enhancements.

This.
Actually, for me personally, even just being able to play IWD+HoW+TotLM without any added content on OS X using the EE engine would probably be worth $10-$15 (and I already own the boxed "platinum edition").

Edit: oh, and on Linux too, of course... one day.

Permidion_Stark

I don't know what you could do to IWD to enhance it. I thought the visuals were stunning, I thought the character portraits were superb and I thought the soundtrack compared with the best movie scores out there. But the game itself is a monotonous, linear dungeon crawl. And I can't see a way to fix that.

For me playing IWD is just like playing Baldur's Gate but with all the fun taken out.

mch202

belgarathmth said:

....

and maybe putting a bunch of NPC's with dialogues into the party creation selection as pre-made, optional, import files, using the same method that the IWD NPC Project used.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd probably pay about $20 just to get that, as long as the NPC's writing and voice-acting were well-done. They could also check and see if the original art assets are available, such that they might be able to do some HD graphics enhancements.

Where is the 'This' button?? anyway..... THIS^

Plus as some already mentioned - new sides quests and new areas like Trials Of The Luremaster to break a bit the linearity of the game..

Xzar

I'd like BG-fication of IWD, i.e. introducing party NPCs with backstories, banters and interjections. But then again, i'm not sure how it fits with this franchise's tradition and its fanbase. Those few hardcore IWD fans I knew were liking this game more than BG precisely because of its greater combat focus.

dhansen5

One of the things I enjoyed with IWD & IWD2 was multi-player. Unfortunately, this was painful and buggy with the original, or at least that was our experience.

Multi-player allows you to add internal role-playing aspects, especially if money was by player and not by party. It would be nice if IWD-EE could enhance multi-player functionality and/or capabilities. Just a thought...

Eliminating bugs, upgrading to BG2EE engine, with kits, upgrade of UI, adding an SCS like component to IWD, and making multi-player simple and easy and possibly enhanced; yeah, that's worth $20 to me.

CamDawg

Xzar said:

I'd like BG-fication of IWD, i.e. introducing party NPCs with backstories, banters and interjections. But then again, i'm not sure how it fits with this franchise's tradition and its fanbase. Those few hardcore IWD fans I knew were liking this game more than BG precisely because of its greater combat focus.

Here's the thing though--you're already getting a tactical expansion by the inclusion of kits and BG2 spells. If you throw in some NPCs, you've still got a dungeon crawler at heart with a lot more party interaction. Just like BG/BG2 you could still create your entire party via the multiplayer interface.

FredSRichardson

I don't know if you guys covered this ground already, but there is a project that got pretty far along to port the IWD games to the BG2 engine. I think this is what you guys mean by IWDEE.

I thought the IWD2 engine was pretty cool and I spent a lot of time trying to get a conversion mod to work. The problem ultimately is that too much had to be done by hand. Especially when it came to determining the build and AI of enemy wizards and such.

Also, things never worked quite right. IWD1 relies heavily on the "fog-of-war" keeping you from reaching the next batch of enemies. IWD2 works differently. The enemies are aware of you when your near by.

alnair

Permidion_Stark said:

But the game itself is a monotonous, linear dungeon crawl. And I can't see a way to fix that. For me playing IWD is just like playing Baldur's Gate but with all the fun taken out.

I guess I'm used to like different things in different IE games, i.e. PST's story, BG1's free-to-roam world, BG2's party interaction and IWD's tactical dungeon crawling... although:

CamDawg said:

If you throw in some NPCs, you've still got a dungeon crawler at heart with a lot more party interaction.

...nobody would complain, I'd wager, if someone were to improve one or two of the more lacking aspects of each game

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pl1982

Icewind Dale 1 & 2 are awesome games. I actually find their linearity and lack of NPCs refreshing. It strikes a perfect balance for all the IE games; IWD = brilliant dungeon crawler with tactical depth; BG = balance between dungeon crawling & social/RP elements; PST = mostly focused around social/RP elements. A nice trilogy. To be honest, I am not always in the mood to do involved questing and worry about companions, sometimes I just want to go on dungeon crawling adventures without having to do puzzles, lots of talking, etc. IWD is perfect for that. The fact that the games are beautiful and capture that D&D "vibe" perfectly doesn't hurt either. So yeah, EE of IWD & IWD2 would be amazing (as would an EE of PST). All IE games must be enhanced! I would buy them all!

ajwz

They should convert IWD1 to the IWD2 ruleset and engine
Then they should improbe the IWD2 engine to match the BG:EE engine
Then they should update the IWD2 ruleset to 3.5 rules rather than 3.0

Then they should add 10-15 recuitable npc's to the game with fully voiced dialogue, etc, which you can *choose* to recuit
Add all the classes and specialisations from 3.5 rules.
Add new areas, monsters and content.