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What I want in Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 Enhanced Edition (EE)

rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
So I just finished Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal EE and I have to say, it was an amazing journey. Why? Well, for me at least, it was an incredible adventure because of the story, the RPG posibilities but more importantly, because of the companions. So many different companions, so many stories, so much adventure with them an SO much flavor. Companions are what really made the journey memorable and what makes you go back again to try other adventures with different ones.

So I was thinking about the chance of getting an Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 EE and I remembered why I never finished any of those, back in the day. Yeah, you guessed right. Complete lack of companions. And yes, the fact that you could create your whole party was neat, but it was a SILENT party and that made the journey (the little that I travelled), incredibly dull. So when the day of enhancing decisions draws near, PLEASE Beamdog, add recrutable companions to those games. 5, 10 of them... doesn't really matter, as long as they are as good as Dorn, Neera, Rasaad or Hexxat. What matters is that they must be alive, react to the player, his decisions, their relationships, the story...but you know that already.

Now, some people will say that IDale is about party creation. Ok, just ignore the new characters then. Be my guest. But (and I would love to think I am not alone in this) a lot of us love flavor. I will get flavor over powergaming any day and I hope Beamdog think about us, flavor lovers, when the time comes.

Thanks! (And please, add your own suggestions too!)
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Comments

  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    No I agree with that! I got through both of them a couple of times but it was lacking that life that Baldur's Gate gets from being alive with companions. Even if some of them are shallow and badly implemented. It was the fact that you didn't spend hours travelling the land and fighting the baddies in total silence. Everyone just goes along with everything that happens and has no comments what so ever about anything anywhere.

    It's been a long time since I've touched the Icewind Dale series because for me, on Win8 it has a lot of serious issues that are horrid to fix and it will often run with amazingly bad lag.

    I don't think there are any plans to upgrade any of the other games at the moment but who knows what the future holds? I never thought there would be anymore Star Wars movies, even if they are made by Disney and directed by bloody J.J. Abrams.
    And for 15 years there, I never thought the BG series would ever be touched again.

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  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    edited June 2014
    Sergio said:

    You should download Kulyok's npcs for IWD. Then start playing.

    Funny, I was just trying that mod. Is great so far (minus some of the dubbing) but that's not the point. If Beamdog is going the EE approach I am sure they can come up with their own set of companions and as much as I love Teri or Severn, I can only get excited with the prospect of more companions from the writters of Dorn, Neera or Rasaad. I think the more options we have the better, right?

  • kcwisekcwise Member Posts: 2,287
    I think this would be a likely possibility if Beamdog did get the opportunity to work on IWD, since they could more easily draw in the BGEE and BG2EE players. Purists are unlikely to appreciate the idea, particularly if new areas and content are tied to the new NPCs. I think a lot of them would prefer that Beamdog expand the game's world with new areas to explore rather than expend so much effort on NPCs.

    And, that's a consideration too. Would 5 to 10 NPCs be feasible for Beamdog? Dorn, Neera, Rasaad & Hexxat required a lot of work. Creating enough unique and enjoyable characters to populate a full party and give them their own unique quests and input on the major events of the game might be as much work as creating an entirely new game.

    I'm not against the idea. I think it would be fun to travel the frozen north with a band of misfits and mercenaries. I just don't know how much effort would be involved in comparision to adding only new areas, new items, and new monsters to the existing game.
  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    edited June 2014
    kcwise said:

    I think this would be a likely possibility if Beamdog did get the opportunity to work on IWD, since they could more easily draw in the BGEE and BG2EE players. Purists are unlikely to appreciate the idea, particularly if new areas and content are tied to the new NPCs. I think a lot of them would prefer that Beamdog expand the game's world with new areas to explore rather than expend so much effort on NPCs.

    And, that's a consideration too. Would 5 to 10 NPCs be feasible for Beamdog? Dorn, Neera, Rasaad & Hexxat required a lot of work. Creating enough unique and enjoyable characters to populate a full party and give them their own unique quests and input on the major events of the game might be as much work as creating an entirely new game.

    I'm not against the idea. I think it would be fun to travel the frozen north with a band of misfits and mercenaries. I just don't know how much effort would be involved in comparision to adding only new areas, new items, and new monsters to the existing game.

    It would certainly be a lot of work (I assume) but I think is "less" work than creating Dorn, Neera, Rasaad & Hexxat simply because ID and ID2 are very linear and if they are only creating 5 companions, then it's 5 + custom PJ, so it's not like writing lines for Dorn, Neera, etc plus your actual team plus the rest of the 12 companions you could have in Bg2. That's a lot of writting and a lot of variables.

    So even if introducing 5 companions is a lot of work, I think is still much less than what they did for BG and BG2, but who knows, I am just assuming stuff here. In any case, for a lot of players there will be no reason to buy ID and ID2 EE if they don't have new companions. What would be the point?, I just can reinstall the vanilla ID for a vanilla experience at that point.

    Regarding the purists...well, I think for people I assume have beaten the game quite a few times, it would be well worth it to have the opportunity to play with a non silent well written party plus new sections and quests plus all the improved visuals, right? At least once. If they still prefer creating their own party, they can go back to that too. I think a good compromise will be 5 recrutable companions with their quests and sections for the flavor lovers and an extra Durlag style dungeon that can be played both with the new companions and with a fully player created party. That way, both purists and flavor lovers get new goodies.

  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    CaloNord said:

    I'm actually wondering if it's linear nature may work against it in many respects?

    Think about it, IWD and IWD 2 are pretty much on rails as far as places you can visit. You don't want your companions introduced to late or they miss all the roleplaying and the levels and that annoys people.
    So to have companions in IWD2 you really need to have 15 people standing around in Targos doing nothing much at all. You're going to need enough companions to cater to various CHARNAMES and various classes and alignments and peoples varied play styles.
    It's very nature and design may well be WHY they were never implimented by the team to begin with.

    I don't think so. To begin with, they are not gonna write 15 companions. That's insane. They writing will be too spread and no one want shallow companions. At least I don't. 5 is fine. Some of them can be slightly evilish, most of them neutral and some straight good old comanions. They can be implemented via import in the main creation screen as the ID NPC mod does, that way, those characters won't be just in town doing nothing. In the rare case they create more than 5 companions, let's say 10, and you get tired of some and want to try the others in town even if you are let's say level 7, they can just level up with you Throne of Bhaal style.

    Again, you don't need 15 companions to cater all the possible CHARNAMES, you just need to write characters that are flexible, no matter if they are good, evil or neutral, you only need good writting. Dorn, Neera, Rasaad and Hexxat are the living proof of that. My CHARNAME was good and I had all of them in my party with no problems because even if Dorn is evil, he WANTS to travel with you because you are powerful. And the same is true the other way around. Even if you are good, you can travel with Dorn just for convenience, to try to redeem him, you name it. Again, you only need good writting. Given their experience with the BG saga I think it's certainly possible to implement recrutable companions, so we'll see.
  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    edited June 2014
    CaloNord said:

    You know there are 42 companions in BG:EE and BG2:EE?

    Yeah, but nowadays, characters that literally say two lines in the whole adventure can barely be understood as real companions.

    Let's be more specific. There are 25 "companions" in BG1. Four more if counting the EE companions. Now, from that list, I would only consider Neera, Rasaad and Dorn as real well developed companions. Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid, while charismatic they lack a lot of depth in BG1. The same is true for Montaron, Xzar or Edwin if you are evil. Only Imoen gets slightly more love. And that is way any playthrough with Rasaad+Neera+Dorn in BG1 is esentially much more alive than an adventure without them.

    Let's be clear, what I really meant as 5 companions was in the line as they are understood and treated in BG2, meaning, very talkative and alive. Counting Sarevok and the EE companions, BG2 has 21 companions if i am not mistaken. And with a few exceptions, all of them are very interesting and have some saying in the party, events, locations.

    Now, that's a lot of variables. That is huge work. Crazy work. And if somehow, Beamdog goes nuts and write 21 amazing characters for ID EE, I would be the first one to throw my money at the screen a couple of times at least. But I wouldn't throw it for BG1 style companions, that's too shallow. I want BG2 companions. They know that, they wrote Neera, Dorn, etc...

    What I mean is, I would rather have only 5 very talkative and highly interactive companions than 21 two liners ones. I don't even need more than a few dubbed sentences in the whole game for them. Give me more text any day. But being realistic, I think 5 or 10 juicy and meaty companions is perfect. I don't think Beamdog can afford 21 meaty companions budget wise, but hell, if they prove me wrong, as I said, I would be happy to throw money non stop to my screen. (Still, I am happy with 5-10 and I still would throw money for that content for sure).

  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    edited June 2014
    Buttercheese said:

    There do have to be enough NPCs to make sure that every protagonist can have a party that fits them. Flexibility is one thing but if you are a Paladin you wouldn't want a Vampire or a Blackguard in your party out of principle.

    Fair enough. I never play as a Paladin but you are right. Still, I feel like 10 is a solid number. Enough for good and evil parties. More than that and you risk shallow companions I think.

    I love your ideas, specially the first and the second one. Well, all of them are nice in fact. We'll see what happens if they manage to EE the ID saga.


  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    @rockwand‌:
    Hey, thanks :D Yeah, it would be really hard to find a balance between quality and quantity.
  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    Haha, we demand a secret character in the ID EE too xd. Hint: Starts with a "Y" and ends with "-ETI"
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    I'd rather have a sassyquatch.
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Oh good god. :P Hahaha
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    Oh. Yeah. Make a new game, that would be amazing. But 3/3.5 rules like IWD2 please :I
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Don't they stop licensing the old rules when new ones come out?
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Sorry! I'll get back under my rock. ;) 4th edition. Would be awful.
  • rockwandrockwand Member Posts: 39
    edited July 2014
    Don't worry guys, by the time Beamdog gets their hands in a new game they will most certainly be using 5th edition. Now, I have no idea how "improved" is the 5th edition. :S
    Post edited by rockwand on
  • CaloNordCaloNord Member Posts: 1,809
    Oh god. I'm scared of 5th. I don't mind if they keep making more but they really should let us use the 2nd and 3.5 editions. :)
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    bengoshi said:

    I'm surprised I haven't seen here the general

    IWD3!!!!!

    by @elminster‌ yet.

    IWD3!
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