I liked the stream, thks. But, you will notice that the first comment is exactly about what i said before. It has an answer, is it correct? Siege will be a dlc for bgee? no problem but it sounds strange... The health bars above chars IMO are not better than the portrait filling with red. If we could have that option...
I noticed you didnt pause much in the stream. I'am not someone who plays the hardest mode but I think one of the things that made BG memorable was its fights, and pausing and knowing what spells to use. I'am sure it isnt req. in story mode etc...
SoD will be an expansion for BGEE. Expansion is a huge DLC if you want to call it like that. Technically anything you can download to add to a game is a DLC. But SoD will be very huge, and additions like that are usually called expansions.
The health bars are toggeble. We'll be able to switch them off and on.
They played the twitch on normal difficulty. So if you play on difficulty harder than than you'll have to pause a lot more often, I guess. Also, I think they were paying much more attention to actually communicating with us rather than playing the game during the twitch sessions.
Well I barely pause when playing normal. Mostly I have autopause when the group sees an enemy or trap. I manually pause when needed. If I notice the fight will be magic heavy, I may turn on autopause when spell is cast, but that's it...
Can we get some more combat focus in next stream? Like doing 1-2 more interesting fights first on Normal difficulty and then on Insane difficulty so you can showcase your new difficulty system?
@Cerevant According to AlexT, they played on Normal difficulty:
"We are playing on Normal difficulty during the twitch streams. Veteran players who want more challenging combat encounters should play on Core Rules or higher."
"as of SoD, we externalized a bunch of previously hardcoded engine features, like the THAC0 bonuses that elves and halflings get with certain weapons and racial infravision. Modders can now use these externalized parameters to adjust the racial bonuses to a greater degree. For SoD, we ensured that half-orcs correctly get racial infravision and that creatures that don't emit body heat (like skeletons) aren't affected by it. This matters because SoD actually checks for infravision in a couple of specific situations, so it's not quite as useless as it was before."
"Infravision has been slightly tweaked so that there's a gradual transition when a creature moves from a well-lit location to a dark location, rather than having creatures instantly turn bright red. At this time, we didn't make any further adjustments to the infravision system other than what I had mentioned previously.
However, a couple of our locations are fairly dark, and the monsters in those locations are easier to spot if your characters have infravision."
Q: "During the stream, Phillip and Amber said something about you being inspired by Starcraft 2 or something. Can you tell us more about that?" AlexT: "You would have to ask Phil about that, I don't play Starcraft. What I can tell you instead is that some of my contributions to SoD were inspired by Fallout 1, Gothic 1&2 and Risen 1.
As an example, I prefer hand-placed content to randomized content, especially with regards to powerful items and combat encounters."
"I designed the Shaman spells and tweaked the overall balance of the class to ensure that it's not overpowered.
The general concept of the Shaman and what its role should be was designed by Phil."
there was talk about feature consistency between games i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
@bob_veng depending on your level in bg2ee you meet groups of skeleton warriors or skeleton warriors + a lich in the umar hills quest, so i feel like they have that covered.
true, so i was mainly talking about bg:ee, which i don't think has level scaling and even if it does it's too subtle (it's also too subtle in bg2:ee, but the encounters there at least don't feel like they belong in an older, more primitive version of the game)
there was talk about feature consistency between games i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
That would require a lot of work. But I would like to see BG1 get this for some of the named encounters (like the adventuring groups you can fight or the bandit camp/mines).
there was talk about feature consistency between games i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
I think this is the kind of thing mods are for. I wouldn't want the original encounters altered in a significant way for the same reason I don't want SCS or BG1NPC included in the game by default: it messes with artistic intent.
I've watched the whole Nerdcast episode. It's excellent.
Amber revealed it was a Cameron Tofer's idea about releasing the Familiar magazine.
Also, Amber confessed she remembered how she first played Baldur's Gate, and "it was just an obsession". "Played morning to night, day after day for weeks".
And according to Phillip, Baldur's Gate was "Skyrim before Skyrim". "My hope is that people playing SoD will feel like they're fifteen again, or something, how they were when Baldur's Gate first came out".
They revealed how they contacted some of voice over actors. They tried to get back "every single actor" and asked the specialized studio with a person responsible for original voice casting back in 1998, to get as many as they can. "The voice actors do thousand voices a year, but they remember these guys, they remember these characters". Jim Meskimen (after reading 2 lines): "I remember this Edwin, I remember this jerk". Phillip: "SoD was like putting a big band together".
Overall, it looks like Beamdog is a very fun company to work at. If, for example, Amber has a creative idea, she can work into the Trent's office and say "Hey, Trent, this is a great idea..." There're no barriers.
there was talk about feature consistency between games i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
I think this is the kind of thing mods are for. I wouldn't want the original encounters altered in a significant way for the same reason I don't want SCS or BG1NPC included in the game by default: it messes with artistic intent.
it's just small changes on higher difficulty levels to make the difficulty work like it does in SoD. definitely doesn't mess with artistic intent.
there was talk about feature consistency between games i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
I think this is the kind of thing mods are for. I wouldn't want the original encounters altered in a significant way for the same reason I don't want SCS or BG1NPC included in the game by default: it messes with artistic intent.
it's just small changes on higher difficulty levels to make the difficulty work like it does in SoD. definitely doesn't mess with artistic intent.
I should wait and see how it actually works in SoD before I'd determine whether it does or doesn't. But to err on the side of safety I would consider this mod material, regardless.
I've watched the whole Nerdcast episode. It's excellent.
Amber revealed it was a Cameron Tofer's idea about releasing the Familiar magazine.
Also, Amber confessed she remembered how she first played Baldur's Gate, and "it was just an obsession". "Played morning to night, day after day for weeks".
And according to Phillip, Baldur's Gate was "Skyrim before Skyrim". "My hope is that people playing SoD will feel like they're fifteen again, or something, how they were when Baldur's Gate first came out".
They revealed how they contacted some of voice over actors. They tried to get back "every single actor" and asked the specialized studio with a person responsible for original voice casting back in 1998, to get as many as they can. "The voice actors do thousand voices a year, but they remember these guys, they remember these characters". Jim Meskimen (after reading 2 lines): "I remember this Edwin, I remember this jerk". Phillip: "SoD was like putting a big band together".
Overall, it looks like Beamdog is a very fun company to work at. If, for example, Amber has a creative idea, she can work into the Trent's office and say "Hey, Trent, this is a great idea..." There're no barriers.
Nice talk it was. There will be some easter eggs in SoD and some battles will have over a 100 combatants. I hope CPU can handle this battles. Also, there was a brief tech blackout, probably because of Boo:
That podcast was a great listen! It was cool hearing them talk about Mark Meer as well and getting him involved but he was kind of a returning voice to baldurs gate as well wasnt he? Im pretty sure he provided a lot of voices in Throne of Bhaal? I can remember definitely thinking it was him who voiced Viconias brother Valas and also Cyric. Possibly even Cespenar.
Also its so awesome hearing how Edwins VA recognized him by him being a complete jerk haha.
I cant praise beamdog (and the VO folks they got) enough for trying to get everyone back as their respective characters. It really has got me hyped and like Amber & Phill said in the podcast (and Chris Avelone has said it as well) its just like going back to when the game was new.
Im just crossing all my fingers and thumbs that we can eventually get some more content from beamdog for BGII as well, whether its for SoA or (if its even possible) expanding ToB out a bit more.
I have got two questions that I did't find answer here. 1) Will the SoD XP cap be also a BGEE cap after relese or the 161.000 will stay and next levels will be only avelible in SoD? 2) If I dual Imoen in BGEE will BGEE2 remember level that I chose (and thief stats), or will Imoen stay the same (level 7 thief).
1) It should be, since it is an AddOn. ToB did also raise the cap of "basic" BG2 so I can't imagine that they would go an extra mile to somehow implement a xp barrier before the final battle of BG1...
2)I'm pretty sure it won't.. First, iirc they said that they wouldn't change any of the characters in BG2, secondly, it could potentially force you to take one of the non-good thieves, since BG2-Imoen dualed exact at the spot where she can unlock&disarm (nearly) everything..
DISCLAIMER: I'm just making educated guesses, since I'm not part of Beamdog...
Are the spells from IWD being added in, partially or totally? Will the Druid get any new spells and if so are they ones that the Shaman will get or are they unique to the Druid? Do Cleric and Arcane Magic users get any new spells?
Has the Bard Song been changed? Is it now the same as IWD or is it similar to IWD or is it something fully original?
Are the spells from IWD being added in, partially or totally? Will the Druid get any new spells and if so are they ones that the Shaman will get or are they unique to the Druid? Do Cleric and Arcane Magic users get any new spells?
Has the Bard Song been changed? Is it now the same as IWD or is it similar to IWD or is it something fully original?
I believe that it is stated somewhere that Druid's do get a couple of new spells, but not spells from IWD if I recall correctly. Some new spells will be added to the game though, not just for the Shaman if I'm not mistaken.
I have got two questions that I did't find answer here. 1) Will the SoD XP cap be also a BGEE cap after relese or the 161.000 will stay and next levels will be only avelible in SoD? 2) If I dual Imoen in BGEE will BGEE2 remember level that I chose (and thief stats), or will Imoen stay the same (level 7 thief).
I am not a Beamdawg Houndsman but I can get off some likely righteous yaps on that.
I bet Imoen will NOT change at all. She will bet the same level and class no matter if you do SOD or do nothing but buy BG2 Enhanced and start a brand new character. I assssume this is because you BeamDogs would have to patch BG 2 Enhanced to effect those changes and they will not do that.
On the other hand I bet if you saved a Final save in SOD and then imported that saved party into a imported multiplayer game then of course she you and the rest of your characters would all have their gear and level 13 exp. Which would be funny as you owuld then encounter a level 8 or 9? Minsc and a 8/7 or 9/8? level Imoen. Not sure if your level 12/13 Imoen would bully the little Imoen who frees you though. Maybe so as BG has a history of killing evil clones of yourself.
I bet if you import a level 13 character into BG 2 Enhanced as a single player game you keep ur level 13 stats. That is not a big deal as you have to go out of your way and sleep/kill x 500 = max level in TOB anyway.
Ummmm, Beamdog have already confirmed they ARE going to patch BG2:EE though, since they'll need to add an import option for the Shaman at the very least, and they've also said they'll allow some new items to be imported. That doesn't mean they'll change Imoens level or stats, just that it won't be because of the lack of a BG2 patch.
I'd rather they account for when Imoen was dualed also, as well as all the other npcs proficiencies/skills/spells. Unfortunately I doubt they will. They may even have her disappear near the beginning of SoD to do her 'mage training' or whatever, then turn up later on in expansion already dualed from a level 7 thief...
I hope they can do. Its quite a mechanistic thing (similar to adjusting existing NPC proficiencies in BGEE for thr BG2 system or moving item import locations around) and they've clearly been allowed to write new content for existing characters so perhaps this restriction has been relaxed a little.
Well theyve added item imports so that makes me think they are looking at some of this stuff. This is a change I think everyone wants especially since story continuity is also going to be improved with SoD which is after all a bridge between the two games.
Well theyve item imports makes me think they are looking at some of this stuff. This is a change I think everyone wants especially since story continuity is also going to be improved with SoD which is after all a bridge between the two games.
Apples to oranges.
Yes. Everyone wants it. Everyone also wants different starting NPCs in Irencius' dungeon relating to their finishing party in BG. Doesnt mean that it can be done or will be done.
Contractually they are unable to make changes to NPCs unless it is fixing an issue like Quayle having Necromancy spells.
If you are looking for something like this, it is best to inoffically fan mod it in.
Comments
After all, it's a secret NPC. We can't find out other than searching in the game ourselves, right?
The health bars are toggeble. We'll be able to switch them off and on.
They played the twitch on normal difficulty. So if you play on difficulty harder than than you'll have to pause a lot more often, I guess. Also, I think they were paying much more attention to actually communicating with us rather than playing the game during the twitch sessions. I'm afraid there were no news on that.
"We are playing on Normal difficulty during the twitch streams. Veteran players who want more challenging combat encounters should play on Core Rules or higher."
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-45#post-4390089
More from AlexT:
"as of SoD, we externalized a bunch of previously hardcoded engine features, like the THAC0 bonuses that elves and halflings get with certain weapons and racial infravision. Modders can now use these externalized parameters to adjust the racial bonuses to a greater degree. For SoD, we ensured that half-orcs correctly get racial infravision and that creatures that don't emit body heat (like skeletons) aren't affected by it. This matters because SoD actually checks for infravision in a couple of specific situations, so it's not quite as useless as it was before."
"Infravision has been slightly tweaked so that there's a gradual transition when a creature moves from a well-lit location to a dark location, rather than having creatures instantly turn bright red. At this time, we didn't make any further adjustments to the infravision system other than what I had mentioned previously.
However, a couple of our locations are fairly dark, and the monsters in those locations are easier to spot if your characters have infravision."
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-47#post-4393823
Q: "During the stream, Phillip and Amber said something about you being inspired by Starcraft 2 or something. Can you tell us more about that?"
AlexT: "You would have to ask Phil about that, I don't play Starcraft. What I can tell you instead is that some of my contributions to SoD were inspired by Fallout 1, Gothic 1&2 and Risen 1.
As an example, I prefer hand-placed content to randomized content, especially with regards to powerful items and combat encounters."
"I designed the Shaman spells and tweaked the overall balance of the class to ensure that it's not overpowered.
The general concept of the Shaman and what its role should be was designed by Phil."
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-46#post-4392566
i take that "qualitative" difficulty increases (more enemies, different scripts...) instead of number pumping is a new feature, so will bg:ee and bg2:ee get the same difficulty overhaul, all with slightly tweaked encounters and some new scripts? or is that a feature that stays exclusive to SoD?
i'd consider putting out a patch like that, if anything just for bg:ee, because the encounters there have become pretty dated since it got all the new kits and other things from the more advanced sequel... just simple stuff - more ogres, more archers, more tough animals and copy some of those smart scripts from SoD
Amber revealed it was a Cameron Tofer's idea about releasing the Familiar magazine.
Also, Amber confessed she remembered how she first played Baldur's Gate, and "it was just an obsession". "Played morning to night, day after day for weeks".
And according to Phillip, Baldur's Gate was "Skyrim before Skyrim". "My hope is that people playing SoD will feel like they're fifteen again, or something, how they were when Baldur's Gate first came out".
They revealed how they contacted some of voice over actors. They tried to get back "every single actor" and asked the specialized studio with a person responsible for original voice casting back in 1998, to get as many as they can. "The voice actors do thousand voices a year, but they remember these guys, they remember these characters". Jim Meskimen (after reading 2 lines): "I remember this Edwin, I remember this jerk". Phillip: "SoD was like putting a big band together".
Overall, it looks like Beamdog is a very fun company to work at. If, for example, Amber has a creative idea, she can work into the Trent's office and say "Hey, Trent, this is a great idea..." There're no barriers.
I hope CPU can handle this battles.
Also, there was a brief tech blackout, probably because of Boo:
Also its so awesome hearing how Edwins VA recognized him by him being a complete jerk haha.
I cant praise beamdog (and the VO folks they got) enough for trying to get everyone back as their respective characters. It really has got me hyped and like Amber & Phill said in the podcast (and Chris Avelone has said it as well) its just like going back to when the game was new.
Im just crossing all my fingers and thumbs that we can eventually get some more content from beamdog for BGII as well, whether its for SoA or (if its even possible) expanding ToB out a bit more.
1) Will the SoD XP cap be also a BGEE cap after relese or the 161.000 will stay and next levels will be only avelible in SoD?
2) If I dual Imoen in BGEE will BGEE2 remember level that I chose (and thief stats), or will Imoen stay the same (level 7 thief).
would go an extra mile to somehow implement a xp barrier before the final battle of BG1...
2)I'm pretty sure it won't.. First, iirc they said that they wouldn't change any of the characters in BG2,
secondly, it could potentially force you to take one of the non-good thieves, since BG2-Imoen dualed
exact at the spot where she can unlock&disarm (nearly) everything..
DISCLAIMER: I'm just making educated guesses, since I'm not part of Beamdog...
Has the Bard Song been changed? Is it now the same as IWD or is it similar to IWD or is it something fully original?
I bet Imoen will NOT change at all. She will bet the same level and class no matter if you do SOD or do nothing but buy BG2 Enhanced and start a brand new character. I assssume this is because you BeamDogs would have to patch BG 2 Enhanced to effect those changes and they will not do that.
On the other hand I bet if you saved a Final save in SOD and then imported that saved party into a imported multiplayer game then of course she you and the rest of your characters would all have their gear and level 13 exp. Which would be funny as you owuld then encounter a level 8 or 9? Minsc and a 8/7 or 9/8? level Imoen. Not sure if your level 12/13 Imoen would bully the little Imoen who frees you though. Maybe so as BG has a history of killing evil clones of yourself.
I bet if you import a level 13 character into BG 2 Enhanced as a single player game you keep ur level 13 stats. That is not a big deal as you have to go out of your way and sleep/kill x 500 = max level in TOB anyway.
I'd rather they account for when Imoen was dualed also, as well as all the other npcs proficiencies/skills/spells. Unfortunately I doubt they will. They may even have her disappear near the beginning of SoD to do her 'mage training' or whatever, then turn up later on in expansion already dualed from a level 7 thief...
They can explain how she becomes 8/7 mage/thief. And they will probably do that by removing her completely from the party for the duration of SoD.
No characters apart from the PC are imported into BG2 - changing that would be a fundemental change to BG2 that has nothing to do with SoD.
Yes. Everyone wants it. Everyone also wants different starting NPCs in Irencius' dungeon relating to their finishing party in BG. Doesnt mean that it can be done or will be done.
Contractually they are unable to make changes to NPCs unless it is fixing an issue like Quayle having Necromancy spells.
If you are looking for something like this, it is best to inoffically fan mod it in.