Awesome this should give just enough time for a complete BG1 playthrough ready for import without rushing too much.. End of month cant come quick enough.
I would like to buy a hardcopy of the manuals at some point in the future. I think it would be nice if the store sold some of the items separately from the game/collectors edition. I'd pay extra plus shipping if need be. I just like paper to read rather than a digital version.
There are legal issues with us selling merchandise separate from the game, based on our various licensing agreements. It's something I'd like to do too but right now it's a nebulous "in the future."
With all this pre-order joy, we still have a stream with the developers today, I hope everyone is ready
Here're the questions for it (so far):
1. Am I right in understanding SoD will use a summon limit of 6, like IWDEE does? In BG2 and then BGEE and BG2EE it was a limit of 5 summons, but in IWDEE you can summon up to 6 creatures. And am I right that a new summoning limit will be transferred to BGEE and BG2EE with the SoD-related patches? I saw more than 5 summons during the first livestream. Also, in the recently released readme for the Tweaks Anthology, there's one component - "Remove Summoning Cap" with the following description: "this component will remove the artificial limit of six summoned creatures from the game (BGEE, BG2EE, IWDEE, EET). This is why I think SoD and patched versions of BGEE and BG2EE will have a limit of 6, not 5, ummoned creatures. Am I right?
2. Will we get release notes for the 1.4 patches for BG:EE and BG2:EE like it was the case with the BG2:EE 1.3 version?
3. Will the new patch of BG-EE an BG2-EE sync interface background color? Now BG-EE is blue, BG2-EE is brown, SoD is black.
I would like to buy a hardcopy of the manuals at some point in the future. I think it would be nice if the store sold some of the items separately from the game/collectors edition. I'd pay extra plus shipping if need be. I just like paper to read rather than a digital version.
There are legal issues with us selling merchandise separate from the game, based on our various licensing agreements. It's something I'd like to do too but right now it's a nebulous "in the future."
I do not use the words often, but..... That sucks!
I'd like to know if there will any Icewind Dale spells included in SoD, or any of the bard songs. As far as I'm aware that hasn't been answered yet. I haven't seen any in the twitch streams either, but that could be an older build or something. I did notice in the announcement video last year Jeheira had an extra second level spell that's normally cleric only, but it wasn't an IWD one (It MAY have been Draw Upon Holy Might).
If they are not including the Icewind Dale spells/songs, will they at least be included in the engine so they can be accessed by mods or EEKeeper?
I doubt they'd change how bard songs work, because BG's system is set up differently than IWD. Here you get varied bard songs by choosing different bard kits and by taking the improved bard song HLA, while IWD originally only had one type of bard with various songs.
Also, in the recently released readme for the Tweaks Anthology, there's one component - "Remove Summoning Cap" with the following description: "this component will remove the artificial limit of six summoned creatures from the game (BGEE, BG2EE, IWDEE, EET).
Place zero stock in the Tweaks readme--this is just me not remembering the summoning cap correctly.
First of all, a great thank you to Phillip and Amber!
A public beta will start soon for BG2! BG:EE and BGII:EE beta testers will be able to play with the Shaman class We’ve seen a new build of the game today The build you see is close to the final, but it’s still a demo build The website will be updated with more information about the Steam release soon If you bought BGEE at Steam, you can buy SoD at Beamdog and ask for a Steam key The box is cardboard, but it's nice cardboard. Made from the skins of the mightiest cards and boards. The Familiar magazine will have character sheets Bence Duncun will be one of SoD characters The items from the CE can’t be distributed other way than the CE the summoning cap wasn't changed for SoD but it has been externalized. Modders can set it to what they want. yes, 5 summons in SoD and the BGs If you buy CE you can gift a key for BGEE to another person An optional feature: hovering on NPCs – they are highlighted Human half-elf and half orc can be shamans Shaman can’t chaotic evil and lawful good When you have infravision, the characters will have a red highlight (tainted red). This feature will be imported to other games The choices in the dialogues are seen as they’re in the EEs, just white New map of the BG city! Now when you pause it looks like in the Time stop, but the grayscale during pause is optional. -What's with the black outlines on the characters? -Its an optional sprite outline as well There’re no kits, except for Priest of Tyr - SoD adds the Priest of Tyr kit, but not Priest of Tempus The NPC companions will have a goodbye dialogue after a prologue in SoD, if they’re not in SoD They show the difficulty differencies The difference IS HUGE between normal and insane. Their tactics is changing, their number is changing, the new clerics and mages among enemies appear You can change the difficulty in the battle, and additional creatures go away the difficulty level adjustments that we just showed are exclusive to SoD
You can see the new party AI screen in the stream. It is very customized! Alext_beamdog did a ton of the work around this screen Several wilderness areas in SoD, including random people there BGEE is getting a pretty big update, lots of the technical features are coming over UI enhancements and new abilities will be added to BGEE from SoD With the Legacy of Bhaal, rats in Candlekeep killed the main char - so, will the LoB mode add new enemies to the encounters in BGEe and BG2EE? - no. The difficulty setting adjustments are SoD only. Legacy of Bhaal will be available for BG:EE and BGII:EE but it will only boost the creatures' stats.
Then they loaded the latest build In the latest build the shaman uses animal spirits and not the spirits of the dead
You can see a lot of party formations with the right click Including follow the leader mode The new map screen zooms out
SoD is slightly smaller than ToB in the Phillip’s words A revised journal system
All the UI and feature enhancements will go to the Black pits. They will go to IWDEE, if they make sense there. “ ALL of the Infinity Engine games” in words by Phillip Will there be any cool high level crazy summons for the shaman late game? - yes A spell spell, like stinking cloud with ice damage - the spell that you're seeing right now is Writhing Fog. It's exclusive to Shamans
There’re 40 people in Beamdog, including a composer etc Beamdog is about a half of the team who worked on ToB in the size
Trent Oster: “We love the idea of doing something 5Ed. We are always discussing what games come next with the Wizards of the Coast. I am a huge Dragonlance and Dark Sun fan. Waterdeep sounds like an amazing place to set something”
Trent Oster: “We provide Steam Keys to those who request them - Do those keys make the money you get less? - IF we do the sale, we get the money. Steam keys just take us customer support time” Planescape: Torment was an Infinity Engine Game. Black Isle took a drop of the code long before BG shipped, they deviated quite a bit.
There will be branching dialogues - “We call too many branching dialogues as combinatorial hell”
There will be more Stream events (one or two, probably one)
[spoiler=spoilery facts from the twitch]
Sarevok's sword plays an important role A small quest about Sarevok’s legacy at the start of SoD The changes to the BG areas in SoD are specific, new areas; the original areas in the BG campaign (non-SoD) are unchanged. For the most part. A quest from the SS merchant A meeting with Garrick in the city Zaviak in the city An item to see extraplanar creatures An encounter with Coran and Safana (you can take her into the party from the Elfsong tavern) The refugees are everywhere, in the city, in the Iron Throne building Rasaad is in the IT building They visited the W, S and SE areas of BG, fully repainted. Then at the Flaming First quarters they stopped and loaded another save
A mimic is in the SoD, as are beetles from IWD
Something is added to the console – a list of areas, a button to expore map, to give money, etc etc, a “cheat screen”
Not Noober but Nuber - Even death can’t stop him New creatures, Displacer Beasts notice that they are using the actual Displacement ability They visited the N area of BG, an in the tavern there found Dynaheir and Minsc
Some people in BG will be arrested and you;ll find them in the prison in the FF building A cast of Trap the Soul as a consequence of a bad behavior with the refugees
Anyone else notice the soundracks included in the Digital Deluxe and Collector's Editions include all BG1, BG:EE, and SoD music, but not the BG2 or BG2:EE music? I'm thinking that might be a hint to the next project, maybe one that could possibly include the BG2 and BG2:EE soundtracks. Might be a long shot, but I'll hold onto that fantasy anyway, thank you very much!
Yeah Id really love to see them add some more meat to BGII. I know during the early part there is the "go out and make money" objective but really from the start of SoA to the end of ToB it really feels on rails. One of the two clear cut areas I felt BGII failed where BGI excelled is in exploration and also the art style. The old style BGII paperdolls still give me nigthmares and some of the item illustrations gave me a headache. Weird spiky twisted sword hilts and bizzare shield shapes etc.
I know during the early part there is the "go out and make money" objective but really from the start of SoA to the end of ToB it really feels on rails.
I think this is a fair criticism, but I also think it has less to do with the number of wilderness areas and more to do with the fact that, for 50% of the main plot, you're stuck in the Spellhold->(Sahuagin City)->Underdark line of areas. You can't, say, leave Spellhold and then go do Firekraag's dungeon before tackling the Underdark. That's not to say I wouldn't enjoy seeing new wilderness areas, especially if they each had a few interesting things in them (as the wilderness areas in BG1 do), but I don't think that'd fix the problem.
I agree, but I also incredibly enjoy the Brynnlaw-Spellhold-SahuaginCity-Underdark part of the game from the storytelling aspect to just overall presentation. I think it's one of the best parts of the game and I get why they did it the way it's done, and I wouldn't want it changed even though I'd like to see more exploration in BG2. In a nutshell, what I'm saying is I want to have my cake and eat it too.
SoD looks absolutely great though, what we've seen so far in those livestreams really bolstered my confidence that Beamdog can craft a good game from scratch, and before they move on from the IE it would be nice to see them apply that extra care to BG2 as well.
I think this is a fair criticism, but I also think it has less to do with the number of wilderness areas and more to do with the fact that, for 50% of the main plot, you're stuck in the Spellhold->(Sahuagin City)->Underdark line of areas.
Oh dont get me wrong I wouldnt change the post spellhold->underdark progression for anything, it definitely works well. I think that while there isnt much room for any deep exploration during its course its still a thrilling second half of the story. Id liken it to an much more in depth Candlekeep->the undercity from BG1. In fact i am of the view that unrealated exploration during this sort of time can be detrimental to a plot. For example I always played the Totsc segments BEFORE returning to Candlekeep as due to its aftermath and the importance to the main character galivanting off on extended sea journeys and dungeon crawls just seems out of place given the stakes.
Bottom line is though in BG1 I really felt like I was exploring a good chunk of the sword coast while on an epic main quest whereas in BG2 I felt like I was on an even more epic main quest but just with some (incredible for sure) smaller side stories.
I know this is not going to happen. but i wish in the sod patch they could update the baldur's gate city map in ee. even replaying the game a few months ago i still find it the worst world map design in the game. just make like bg2 and say what each district is as it is shown in sod.
Comments
I've been itching for another BG 1 play through so I get to start that this weekend.
...Or this news is at least
Here're the questions for it (so far):
1. Am I right in understanding SoD will use a summon limit of 6, like IWDEE does? In BG2 and then BGEE and BG2EE it was a limit of 5 summons, but in IWDEE you can summon up to 6 creatures. And am I right that a new summoning limit will be transferred to BGEE and BG2EE with the SoD-related patches?
I saw more than 5 summons during the first livestream. Also, in the recently released readme for the Tweaks Anthology, there's one component - "Remove Summoning Cap" with the following description: "this component will remove the artificial limit of six summoned creatures from the game (BGEE, BG2EE, IWDEE, EET). This is why I think SoD and patched versions of BGEE and BG2EE will have a limit of 6, not 5, ummoned creatures.
Am I right?
2. Will we get release notes for the 1.4 patches for BG:EE and BG2:EE like it was the case with the BG2:EE 1.3 version?
3. Will the new patch of BG-EE an BG2-EE sync interface background color? Now BG-EE is blue, BG2-EE is brown, SoD is black.
Thanks for the clarification
If they are not including the Icewind Dale spells/songs, will they at least be included in the engine so they can be accessed by mods or EEKeeper?
A couple of IWD level 2 druid spells could be put in without destroying too much balance though, no?
First of all, a great thank you to Phillip and Amber!
A public beta will start soon for BG2! BG:EE and BGII:EE beta testers will be able to play with the Shaman class
We’ve seen a new build of the game today
The build you see is close to the final, but it’s still a demo build
The website will be updated with more information about the Steam release soon
If you bought BGEE at Steam, you can buy SoD at Beamdog and ask for a Steam key
The box is cardboard, but it's nice cardboard.
Made from the skins of the mightiest cards and boards.
The Familiar magazine will have character sheets
Bence Duncun will be one of SoD characters
The items from the CE can’t be distributed other way than the CE
the summoning cap wasn't changed for SoD but it has been externalized. Modders can set it to what they want.
yes, 5 summons in SoD and the BGs
If you buy CE you can gift a key for BGEE to another person
An optional feature: hovering on NPCs – they are highlighted
Human half-elf and half orc can be shamans
Shaman can’t chaotic evil and lawful good
When you have infravision, the characters will have a red highlight (tainted red). This feature will be imported to other games
The choices in the dialogues are seen as they’re in the EEs, just white
New map of the BG city!
Now when you pause it looks like in the Time stop, but the grayscale during pause is optional.
-What's with the black outlines on the characters?
-Its an optional sprite outline as well
There’re no kits, except for Priest of Tyr - SoD adds the Priest of Tyr kit, but not Priest of Tempus
The NPC companions will have a goodbye dialogue after a prologue in SoD, if they’re not in SoD
They show the difficulty differencies
The difference IS HUGE between normal and insane. Their tactics is changing, their number is changing, the new clerics and mages among enemies appear
You can change the difficulty in the battle, and additional creatures go away
the difficulty level adjustments that we just showed are exclusive to SoD
You can see the new party AI screen in the stream. It is very customized! Alext_beamdog did a ton of the work around this screen
Several wilderness areas in SoD, including random people there
BGEE is getting a pretty big update, lots of the technical features are coming over
UI enhancements and new abilities will be added to BGEE from SoD
With the Legacy of Bhaal, rats in Candlekeep killed the main char
- so, will the LoB mode add new enemies to the encounters in BGEe and BG2EE?
- no. The difficulty setting adjustments are SoD only.
Legacy of Bhaal will be available for BG:EE and BGII:EE but it will only boost the creatures' stats.
Then they loaded the latest build
In the latest build the shaman uses animal spirits and not the spirits of the dead
You can see a lot of party formations with the right click
Including follow the leader mode
The new map screen zooms out
SoD is slightly smaller than ToB in the Phillip’s words
A revised journal system
All the UI and feature enhancements will go to the Black pits.
They will go to IWDEE, if they make sense there. “ ALL of the Infinity Engine games” in words by Phillip
Will there be any cool high level crazy summons for the shaman late game? - yes
A spell spell, like stinking cloud with ice damage - the spell that you're seeing right now is Writhing Fog. It's exclusive to Shamans
There’re 40 people in Beamdog, including a composer etc Beamdog is about a half of the team who worked on ToB in the size
Trent Oster: “We love the idea of doing something 5Ed. We are always discussing what games come next with the Wizards of the Coast. I am a huge Dragonlance and Dark Sun fan. Waterdeep sounds like an amazing place to set something”
Trent Oster: “We provide Steam Keys to those who request them - Do those keys make the money you get less? - IF we do the sale, we get the money. Steam keys just take us customer support time”
Planescape: Torment was an Infinity Engine Game. Black Isle took a drop of the code long before BG shipped, they deviated quite a bit.
There will be branching dialogues - “We call too many branching dialogues as combinatorial hell”
There will be more Stream events (one or two, probably one)
[spoiler=spoilery facts from the twitch]
Sarevok's sword plays an important role
A small quest about Sarevok’s legacy at the start of SoD
The changes to the BG areas in SoD are specific, new areas; the original areas in the BG campaign (non-SoD) are unchanged. For the most part.
A quest from the SS merchant
A meeting with Garrick in the city
Zaviak in the city
An item to see extraplanar creatures
An encounter with Coran and Safana (you can take her into the party from the Elfsong tavern)
The refugees are everywhere, in the city, in the Iron Throne building
Rasaad is in the IT building
They visited the W, S and SE areas of BG, fully repainted. Then at the Flaming First quarters they stopped and loaded another save
A mimic is in the SoD, as are beetles from IWD
Something is added to the console – a list of areas, a button to expore map, to give money, etc etc, a “cheat screen”
Not Noober but Nuber - Even death can’t stop him
New creatures, Displacer Beasts notice that they are using the actual Displacement ability
They visited the N area of BG, an in the tavern there found Dynaheir and Minsc
Some people in BG will be arrested and you;ll find them in the prison in the FF building
A cast of Trap the Soul as a consequence of a bad behavior with the refugees
[/spoiler]
If a character is without an Infravision:
If a character has an Infravision:
An optional hovering over a character:
Thanks again to all involved in the stream. Additional thanks to @AlexT for answering a lot of question!
A readme.txt with the content: Check back here for your content once the game goes live.
SoD looks absolutely great though, what we've seen so far in those livestreams really bolstered my confidence that Beamdog can craft a good game from scratch, and before they move on from the IE it would be nice to see them apply that extra care to BG2 as well.
My only sadness is I didn't get to buy it for $19.98.
Bottom line is though in BG1 I really felt like I was exploring a good chunk of the sword coast while on an epic main quest whereas in BG2 I felt like I was on an even more epic main quest but just with some (incredible for sure) smaller side stories.
I'm not saying it was a conspiracy, but it was a conspiracy