However, something that got removed from the interface is a key to highlight the interactive objects in the world. This was a very handy tool in the original game because Black Isle liked to put containers in unusual places, and the key was the easiest way to spot them. I have no idea why Beamdog removed the option. I probably missed a lot of good stuff by walking right past containers without noticing.
Why on earth would you remove it? That makes no sense at all!
However, something that got removed from the interface is a key to highlight the interactive objects in the world. This was a very handy tool in the original game because Black Isle liked to put containers in unusual places, and the key was the easiest way to spot them. I have no idea why Beamdog removed the option. I probably missed a lot of good stuff by walking right past containers without noticing.
Why on earth would you remove it? That makes no sense at all!
Because they didnt? Its the Tab Key. Silly Reviewers.
Isn't the idea behind starting a HoW game that you import your party from the end of the main quest? So it's not designed for a bunch of poorly equipped level 1s.
If you play HoW from inside the main quest, likewise you will have gained some levels before you get to the HoW content.
As far as I can remember, and I could be wrong, HoW was meant for level 9 characters at minimum. There are also two ways to start HoW - one is within the game itself. Sort of like how Shadows of Amn transitions over to ToB automatically. Or, you can also start a new HoW game, and your characters will be created at the appropriate level. Like ToB. I've never done this, I'm just assuming it. You finish HoW and Trials of the Luremaster, and then go back to the main IWD quest to finish the game.
Also, it seems that the default party for starting HoW has some magical items, whereas creating your own party results in no magical items being received. Which makes it significantly harder.
So, simple solution: assign the same selection of magic items to any player created party if HoW is started on it's own. Like ToB gives you a bunch of magical gear if you start a new game with it. Could be that the gear is selected based on each character class, or selected weapon proficiencies.
I'll test this tonight out of curiosity. I would like to see what level your characters are created at.
I didn't encounter any broken quests or graphical glitches or crash bugs during the 50+ hours I spent with the game.
Feels good to know that all the effort that the team put into polishing the game for our players was well worth it. And a big thank you goes to our beta testers, we couldn't have done it without you!
This is my first time playing IWD. I'm really enjoying it so far. One of the biggest bonuses for me is that Druids and Clerics seem a lot more viable because of all the extra spells. In my party they're not playing second-fiddle to the mages.
Also like the ambience. It's cool to be playing a winter-themed game with the cold settling in.
I was initially disappointed by the lack of NPCs, but I can now see the advantage of making your own party from scratch. It's hugely tactical and fun.
I hope that noob from twinfinite reviews it. The comments he received in his BG2 review were hilarious (which have all been deleted now, the coward)
U made me curious... I feel as though I lost some brain cells reading that. Honestly I went into the game with no prior knowledge a year or two before the EE and you know what I did? I consulted google and learned the rules! Then late in the game the forums started and I asked you guys! Some people are just lazy...
He was playing Tiny Tower while playing IWDEE, Ouch. That hurts. I think he might be not be our target player
@TrentOster, that's exactly why introducing the "Story Mode" in IWD:EE was a mistake. It is oriented to the wrong target players (i.e. people that don't really like these games) and so you can't really complain when those casual players misuse it like this.
so you can't really complain when those casual players misuse it like this.
Yeah but 'Those Casual Players' shouldn't be professional Game Reviewers.
or they could stick to casual games that aren't combat orientated at the very least. there are some casual gamers that need their casual reviewers, but one of those reviewers shouldn't be reviewing this game.
so you can't really complain when those casual players misuse it like this.
Yeah but 'Those Casual Players' shouldn't be professional Game Reviewers.
or they could stick to casual games that aren't combat orientated at the very least. there are some casual gamers that need their casual reviewers, but one of those reviewers shouldn't be reviewing this game.
Except that with the "Story Mode" on, this game IS a casual game.
You suggest that it was a mistake to add story mode in because it draws in casual players and then above suggest that with story mode the game becomes a game for casual players.
It would seem to me, by your own statements, that the decision to put in Story Mode just opened the door for a whole potload of players who never would have purchased or picked up the game to begin with.
You suggest that it was a mistake to add story mode in because it draws in casual players and then above suggest that with story mode the game becomes a game for casual players.
It would seem to me, by your own statements, that the decision to put in Story Mode just opened the door for a whole potload of players who never would have purchased or picked up the game to begin with.
Why do you consider this a problem / mistake?
@Illydth, first I'm pointing out the contradiction in @TrentOster words. He says about that reviewer "I think he might be not be our target player", but on the other hand they have introduced the "Story Mode" just to attract those kind of players (or more precisely their money).
Second, and more importantly, I don't really think that the "Story Mode" will bring more sales, or at lest not as much as to make a difference. To me is just a waste of resources that could have been better spent elsewhere, but that's just my opinion and of course I could be wrong.
Third, and even more importantly, the fact the they have even considered a good idea introducing the "Story Mode", means that Beamdog is willing, at least on some extent, to move away from the old school nature of these games and transition to more recent paradigms more suited to this era of casual gaming, like the necessity to handhold the (casual) players at every step of the way. The nerfing of the spawning rates in BG:EE is IMO another aspect of this tendency. So IMO the "Story Mode" is not wrong per se, but because it signals Beamdog willingness to embrace this new gaming philosophy (that of course I don't approve because I'm rather attached to the old school nature of the infinity engine games).
My only question is: Do the environment, npcs, monsters and/or quests react in any way to the new classes? In the original game it was advantageous to play a bard or paladin in certain situations or quests. Event though it was very seldom the npc's reactions to different classes or races were a part of this Game. I wonder if at least this role-playing feature was enhanced as well.
My only question is: Do the environment, npcs, monsters and/or quests react in any way to the new classes? In the original game it was advantageous to play a bard or paladin in certain situations or quests. Event though it was very seldom the npc's reactions to different classes or races were a part of this Game. I wonder if at least this role-playing feature was enhanced as well.
There is extra/alternate dialogue for barbarians and some of the new kits.
I think that story mode isn't really intended to be left turned on through the whole game. Rather, it is a way to bypass encounters that were so hard for you, you couldn't get past them, and would have quit the game.
See Malcanter's Tenth Rule for Avoiding a Horrible Death in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. "Give up."
@BelgarathMTH: That said, there was testing done on playing the whole game on Story Mode just to see how it would play and how it felt. I found much of the story mode testing I did favorable and even fun in many way. It's definitely different but more than just something to use to get past encounters. While I appreciate the "lower the difficulty to get past a hard / frustrating encounter" method of using the difficulty slider, I would guess it's not normally needed to go past the 'easy' mode to get past an encounter. Story mode does indeed offer a completely different way of "playing" IWD:EE...allowing an exploratory/dialog/story based play-through that removes the deep technical aspects of the game system rules, deep strategic thinking, and much of the standard RPG Annoyances (Inventory management, equipment hunting, gold hunting, etc.)
There's several that are going to read that last statement and say "but that's what the game is all about", and you'd be right in saying that too...but it doesn't HAVE to be, and that's what's important about Story Mode. It excels in allowing new players to ease their way into the game, it excels as being the "first" difficulty in a play-through toward Heart of Fury, and it excels in allowing someone to see the game before investing the time and effort into playing it.
As such, I disagree with your assessment that it's not meant to be turned on and left on. As with Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane, it's meant as another way to tune the game toward your interests at the moment...if it takes someone a play through on Story Mode before they look at the game and say "Yea, actually, that was REALLY COOL, maybe I should try on another mode!" i'm all for it.
You and I both love these games (it's obvious from your post to me at least). We both seem to love the richness of the environment and the difficulty of the encounter. We like the fact that, unlike many games produced today, these games are unapologetic and uncompromising when it comes to the encounters. IWD specifically can be just brutal in places and we both like the fact that this is the case.
There's a reason, though, that these games are considered "Niche" games...reasons beyond the fact they are reproductions of games made in the 90's. A hard hitting unapologetic tactical combat game is not for everyone...as found by Origin, Blizzard, Bethsheda, and every other major AAA game production company in the world. Players, these days, need their hands held. Not because they are somewhat less gamers than you or I, but because to recoup cost on AAA game production, you need as broad an "audience" as you can get...catering to everyone, not just the guy that likes to be challenged.
I grew up with games, at 40 I still play them as my major passtime and hobby. I'm used to save/reload sequences and I get enjoyment from figuring out how to beat the 3 spell casters and 5 hasted undead coming at my fairly unequipped party.
My boss, another 40 something, also plays games. Generally he watches professional and college sports, goes to baseball games, and spends most of his free time watching TV or doing family things. Periodically, though, he hops on his PC at home and loads up World of Warcraft or Skyrim or Mass Effect for a bit of different entertainment.
I'd love to recommend BG and BG2 to him, as I know he'd enjoy the entertainment of the story of the games. But I don't recommend them to him...I talk about them to him, but i've never recommended he pick one up. Why? He has neither the time nor the patience for the complexity of the rules system, tactical game play, or the often frustrating save/reload process that it takes to get through some of the encounters.
I did recommend, however, that he pick up IWD and give it a play through on Story Mode at some point. My hope is that he'll get in, play the game, enjoy the story, enjoy the aspects of the game that are still present on story mode and be interested, maybe, in learning more...experiencing more than just the story. Maybe that will also open his horizons to BG and BG2 as well.
There's a huge rivalry out there these days between "real gamers" and "fake gamers". I've read the articles, I've read the reviews that say the term "gamer" is dead...that it means everyone that plays a game from candy crush to Grand Theft Auto V and everything in between. I've also read the backlash at this concept, the vitriolic hatred by "gamers" toward those who don't play games the same way they do.
Games, like movies, are produced for different kinds of audiences. These games cater to the CRPG players. There is a certain set of elements in these games that appeal to those of us who like them. Without these elements (and that includes the tactical combat and the difficulty and the lack of hand holding) these games wouldn't be the hits they are.
For the guy who took the risk to put together his own development company to reproduce a 15 year old game and re-release it to a gamer public in this day and age without updated graphics took either a hell of a lot of guts or a hell of a lot of intelligence...probably a bit of both. I doubt that this same guy who understood a gamer public well enough to understand that these games still had life in them, even today, would NOT understand what it is about these games that drew the gamer public to them in the first place.
Story mode was not a step back to hand hold the casual player. Easy Mode already did that well enough. Story Mode was a fairly ingenious idea enabling those players that it would be pretty obvious would NOT enjoy this game otherwise to still get some enjoyment out of the game.
In my not so humble and entirely free (and worth every penny you paid for it) opinion, I see story mode as the exact opposite of what you see it as. I see story mode as the way Overhaul didn't HAVE to cater to the handholding that the game industry provides these days in it's AAA titles. I see Story Mode as the answer to your fear of Overhaul dumbing down it's games for my Boss's style of playing games.
They don't have to dumb down the game anymore...just play it on story mode to learn what you need to do, THEN do it for real on other difficulties.
Story mode is a sandbox, allowing players to explore the game without worrying about "doing it right" or "doing it wrong."
Good: good and long story, can't just rush through battles
Bad: extremely hard for newcomers *Really?:)
"This Story Mode allows you to enjoy the game’s story without having to go through the hassle of re-loading 20 times to win 1 difficult battle, so it’s definitely a plus to help out new players once in a while! Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is a game that will appeal to many veteran players. It has all the goodies it used to have and adds even more. Now you can even share the fun online with friends! The game is extremely long (maybe too long?) and has big replay value, so people who love the game might kill more hours on it than they’re comfortable with."
Comments
Because they didnt? Its the Tab Key. Silly Reviewers.
If you play HoW from inside the main quest, likewise you will have gained some levels before you get to the HoW content.
How could I be so blind...? Ahh I must be snowblind by now. Well, thanks for pointing it out @elminster ...
Also, it seems that the default party for starting HoW has some magical items, whereas creating your own party results in no magical items being received. Which makes it significantly harder.
So, simple solution: assign the same selection of magic items to any player created party if HoW is started on it's own. Like ToB gives you a bunch of magical gear if you start a new game with it. Could be that the gear is selected based on each character class, or selected weapon proficiencies.
I'll test this tonight out of curiosity. I would like to see what level your characters are created at.
Also like the ambience. It's cool to be playing a winter-themed game with the cold settling in.
I was initially disappointed by the lack of NPCs, but I can now see the advantage of making your own party from scratch. It's hugely tactical and fun.
You suggest that it was a mistake to add story mode in because it draws in casual players and then above suggest that with story mode the game becomes a game for casual players.
It would seem to me, by your own statements, that the decision to put in Story Mode just opened the door for a whole potload of players who never would have purchased or picked up the game to begin with.
Why do you consider this a problem / mistake?
Second, and more importantly, I don't really think that the "Story Mode" will bring more sales, or at lest not as much as to make a difference. To me is just a waste of resources that could have been better spent elsewhere, but that's just my opinion and of course I could be wrong.
Third, and even more importantly, the fact the they have even considered a good idea introducing the "Story Mode", means that Beamdog is willing, at least on some extent, to move away from the old school nature of these games and transition to more recent paradigms more suited to this era of casual gaming, like the necessity to handhold the (casual) players at every step of the way. The nerfing of the spawning rates in BG:EE is IMO another aspect of this tendency. So IMO the "Story Mode" is not wrong per se, but because it signals Beamdog willingness to embrace this new gaming philosophy (that of course I don't approve because I'm rather attached to the old school nature of the infinity engine games).
See Malcanter's Tenth Rule for Avoiding a Horrible Death in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. "Give up."
There's several that are going to read that last statement and say "but that's what the game is all about", and you'd be right in saying that too...but it doesn't HAVE to be, and that's what's important about Story Mode. It excels in allowing new players to ease their way into the game, it excels as being the "first" difficulty in a play-through toward Heart of Fury, and it excels in allowing someone to see the game before investing the time and effort into playing it.
As such, I disagree with your assessment that it's not meant to be turned on and left on. As with Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane, it's meant as another way to tune the game toward your interests at the moment...if it takes someone a play through on Story Mode before they look at the game and say "Yea, actually, that was REALLY COOL, maybe I should try on another mode!" i'm all for it.
@Erg:
You and I both love these games (it's obvious from your post to me at least). We both seem to love the richness of the environment and the difficulty of the encounter. We like the fact that, unlike many games produced today, these games are unapologetic and uncompromising when it comes to the encounters. IWD specifically can be just brutal in places and we both like the fact that this is the case.
There's a reason, though, that these games are considered "Niche" games...reasons beyond the fact they are reproductions of games made in the 90's. A hard hitting unapologetic tactical combat game is not for everyone...as found by Origin, Blizzard, Bethsheda, and every other major AAA game production company in the world. Players, these days, need their hands held. Not because they are somewhat less gamers than you or I, but because to recoup cost on AAA game production, you need as broad an "audience" as you can get...catering to everyone, not just the guy that likes to be challenged.
I grew up with games, at 40 I still play them as my major passtime and hobby. I'm used to save/reload sequences and I get enjoyment from figuring out how to beat the 3 spell casters and 5 hasted undead coming at my fairly unequipped party.
My boss, another 40 something, also plays games. Generally he watches professional and college sports, goes to baseball games, and spends most of his free time watching TV or doing family things. Periodically, though, he hops on his PC at home and loads up World of Warcraft or Skyrim or Mass Effect for a bit of different entertainment.
I'd love to recommend BG and BG2 to him, as I know he'd enjoy the entertainment of the story of the games. But I don't recommend them to him...I talk about them to him, but i've never recommended he pick one up. Why? He has neither the time nor the patience for the complexity of the rules system, tactical game play, or the often frustrating save/reload process that it takes to get through some of the encounters.
I did recommend, however, that he pick up IWD and give it a play through on Story Mode at some point. My hope is that he'll get in, play the game, enjoy the story, enjoy the aspects of the game that are still present on story mode and be interested, maybe, in learning more...experiencing more than just the story. Maybe that will also open his horizons to BG and BG2 as well.
There's a huge rivalry out there these days between "real gamers" and "fake gamers". I've read the articles, I've read the reviews that say the term "gamer" is dead...that it means everyone that plays a game from candy crush to Grand Theft Auto V and everything in between. I've also read the backlash at this concept, the vitriolic hatred by "gamers" toward those who don't play games the same way they do.
Games, like movies, are produced for different kinds of audiences. These games cater to the CRPG players. There is a certain set of elements in these games that appeal to those of us who like them. Without these elements (and that includes the tactical combat and the difficulty and the lack of hand holding) these games wouldn't be the hits they are.
For the guy who took the risk to put together his own development company to reproduce a 15 year old game and re-release it to a gamer public in this day and age without updated graphics took either a hell of a lot of guts or a hell of a lot of intelligence...probably a bit of both. I doubt that this same guy who understood a gamer public well enough to understand that these games still had life in them, even today, would NOT understand what it is about these games that drew the gamer public to them in the first place.
Story mode was not a step back to hand hold the casual player. Easy Mode already did that well enough. Story Mode was a fairly ingenious idea enabling those players that it would be pretty obvious would NOT enjoy this game otherwise to still get some enjoyment out of the game.
In my not so humble and entirely free (and worth every penny you paid for it) opinion, I see story mode as the exact opposite of what you see it as. I see story mode as the way Overhaul didn't HAVE to cater to the handholding that the game industry provides these days in it's AAA titles. I see Story Mode as the answer to your fear of Overhaul dumbing down it's games for my Boss's style of playing games.
They don't have to dumb down the game anymore...just play it on story mode to learn what you need to do, THEN do it for real on other difficulties.
Story mode is a sandbox, allowing players to explore the game without worrying about "doing it right" or "doing it wrong."
http://www.meristation.com/pc/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition/analisis-juego/2018726
http://it.ign.com/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-pc/87907/review/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition
8.5 from Greece:
http://www.ragequit.gr/reviews/item/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-pc-review
And finally a new review in English:
http://3rd-strike.com/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-review/ - 8.7
Good: good and long story, can't just rush through battles
Bad: extremely hard for newcomers *Really?:)
"This Story Mode allows you to enjoy the game’s story without having to go through the hassle of re-loading 20 times to win 1 difficult battle, so it’s definitely a plus to help out new players once in a while! Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is a game that will appeal to many veteran players. It has all the goodies it used to have and adds even more. Now you can even share the fun online with friends! The game is extremely long (maybe too long?) and has big replay value, so people who love the game might kill more hours on it than they’re comfortable with."