Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (previously known as the “Adventure Y” project)
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
This thread is for official facts ONLY.
New posts will be added with every news available. For discussion, go to http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/26673/all-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-adventure-y-the-unofficial-thread-for-this-project
1. This year, the eagerly anticipated Adventure Y will finally navigate the dark underground caverns of development and venture out into the Sword Coast. We’ve mentioned before that Adventure Y will be an addition to the Baldur’s Gate line using the Infinity engine, bridging the gap between Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Keep an eye on the Beamblog in late spring for announcements regarding the content and release date of Adventure Y. We have an exciting release planned for this game, something bigger than we’ve ever done before.
http://www.baldursgate.com/
The closest thing we have to a release date is (hopefully) sometime in the 2nd half of 2015.
2. The scope of the Adventure Y.
"Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition DLC Content, English: 396,359 words
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 573,247 words
Adventure Y will come in well above the BGII:EE DLC Content, and somewhere below IWD:EE."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/618298/#Comment_618298
An update from April, 21: "We were so close to beating out IWD in terms of game text. Oh well, I suppose we'll have to settle for almost 500,000 words."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/632898/#Comment_632898
3. Who will be the main character of this Adventure?
It is CHARNAME from the BG line.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm780aq
4. There will be NPCs in the Adventure Y. The ones we can take into a party.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm7810d
Adventure Y will have at least one new NPC whose name starts with "Gl". Also, there can be more: "There are a few characters in Adventure Y I'm just in love with. One in particular I plan to use as my next PC if I ever find time to get involved in a p&p game again" (Andrew Foley). Maybe in the future this or these NPC (s) will appear in BG2EE.
5. Will the Adventure Y be dubbed?
Yes, we are going to record English voices for the major characters. As for other languages, we'll have to wait and see and the costs are very high for the quality we demand.
We're going to use the BG1 method you reference as our model.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm79l8h
6. Will the Adventure Y be released as a standalone game?
We are still talking this through with everyone involved. So far we are still leaning in the expansion direction.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm77yin
7. The plot.
There’s an idea that the Adventure Y takes place after Sarevok's defeat and shreds some light on those “circumstances much darker than anyone would have thought” under which the Bhaalspawn left for Amn. So this adventure would probably take place between the two games and end with the Bhaalspawn getting captured by Irenicus.
It’s interesting to take into account that TrentOster - after looking (6 September 2013) at a feature request of an interlude chapter that narrates the happenings between Sarevok's ending and the capture of the Bhaalspawn by Irenicus - said “Sounds kind of adventurey. Could be a fun concept.” (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/350159/#Comment_350159)
One can interpret “adventurey” as “adventure y”.
8. The writers busy with the Adventure Y.
"Trent laid down the basis for the Adventure Y campaign. I (i.e. Phillip Daigle) am directing Adventure Y, and in doing so provide oversight for game plot and text. Andrew and Amber are the lead writers. Liam has done some writing for Adventure Y, but he's not a full time writer on the project and has other responsibilities.
Most of the development team has contributed to the game text in some way, and after release I'm sure they'll come by to tell you about all the easter eggs they hid in the game."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/614871/#Comment_614871
9. Importing and exporting of your BG saves and the Adventure Y.
"You'll import your BG:EE save, and then you can export from Adventure Y to BG2:EE."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/610307/#Comment_610307
10. Your XP and the Adventure Y.
"We had a lot of talks about how big is too big, how small is too small, and in the end I think people will be pleased with the direction we took.
Early on we had discussions about how we would make it work if you can gain a couple more levels than SoA expects. We've put in some work on that front and we're predicting it won't be an issue.
As for the size of the adventure, Adventure Y has shaped up to be larger than ToTSC but not quite the size of ToB.
From a chronological perspective it happens over a quite limited period of time, so it should fit in nicely with the other games."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/608099/#Comment_608099
11. There will be a shorty NPC or two in the Adventure Y.
"I wouldn't be surprised if CHARNAME encountered a shorty or two hanging around on their journey through Adventure Y."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/605034/#Comment_605034
12. Fan gets to name/design a character
Fan's character will not be a gnome and will be of a playable race (with the hope that someday he is made into an NPC mod).
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/594870/#Comment_594870
13. Its not BG3
14. New music by Sam Hulick
15. Jennifer Hale was talked to at one point about another project (Providing voicework for Dynaheir perhaps?)
16. VO work is being done in both Edmonton and LA.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598459/#Comment_598459
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598441/#Comment_598441
17. BG2EE related reveals.
-Rasaad mentions Jaheira and Khalid being separated at Bridgefort (a stronghold near Boareskyr Bridge)
-Neera mentions Khalid making her soup when they were in Bridgefort
-Neera's ToB quest refers to Charname as the Victor of the Dragonspear Crusade
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607695/#Comment_607695
18. Adventure Y will use the same ruleset as BG:EE and BGII:EE i.e. you can play all three parts with the same character.
- The Bhaalspawn left Baldur's Gate and travelled to the south. Why? Why did he have to leave?
- This will indeed be explained. One more thing, Bioware kept notes on what happened after BG1 and why the characters ended up where they appear at the start of BG2. Just saying, we're not exactly guessing here.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-adventure-y-interquel-set-between-bg1-and-bg2.96369/page-2#post-3684770
19. David Warner (Irenicus's voice) comes back.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/492571/#Comment_492571
20. Trent Oster talked again about the domain buying habit after an idea that the main quest in the Adventure Y will be the Siege of the Dragonspear Castle - the same thing happened with the IWDEE domain.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607695/#Comment_607695
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607871/#Comment_607871
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/608551/#Comment_608551
21. A hint that the Dynaheir's quest about the Bhaalspawn will be in the Adventure Y.
"You'll note that this doesn't preclude her from searching for Bhaalspawn other than the PC or Sarevok."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/599446/#Comment_599446
22. The period between BG1 and BG2: it's one year.
BG1 starts on the 1st of Mirtul, 1368. BG2 SoA starts on the 1st of Mirtul, 1369. This means that BG1 (and adventure Y) is supposed to take a year (according to the games chronology).
Given that the Bhaalspawn crisis is supposed to be over in 1369 I think if anything there is more leeway in terms of having a game set between the two games, compared to having it set between Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607846/#Comment_607846
23. The UI in Adventure Y will be previoosly unseen one, but will include all the enhancements Beamdog made to BGEE and IWDEE.
It comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/565436/#Comment_565436
24. There will be both absolutely new locations and remastered and repainted areas from BG1 in Adventure Y.
It again comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
25. There will be new abilities for characters (at least one that looks like a transformation into a goblin) and/or a goblin companion.
It again comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
26. Developers think that a price of 17 USD at least would be fair
buahahaha
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/579796/#Comment_579796
27. How about a SoA->ToB expansion?
If Adventure Y is a success I would like to do a SoA->ToB expansion. This isn't a guarantee or promise, but rather something I'd (Phillip Daigle) personally like to do.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598652/#Comment_598652
New posts will be added with every news available. For discussion, go to http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/26673/all-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-adventure-y-the-unofficial-thread-for-this-project
1. This year, the eagerly anticipated Adventure Y will finally navigate the dark underground caverns of development and venture out into the Sword Coast. We’ve mentioned before that Adventure Y will be an addition to the Baldur’s Gate line using the Infinity engine, bridging the gap between Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Keep an eye on the Beamblog in late spring for announcements regarding the content and release date of Adventure Y. We have an exciting release planned for this game, something bigger than we’ve ever done before.
http://www.baldursgate.com/
The closest thing we have to a release date is (hopefully) sometime in the 2nd half of 2015.
2. The scope of the Adventure Y.
"Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition DLC Content, English: 396,359 words
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 573,247 words
Adventure Y will come in well above the BGII:EE DLC Content, and somewhere below IWD:EE."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/618298/#Comment_618298
An update from April, 21: "We were so close to beating out IWD in terms of game text. Oh well, I suppose we'll have to settle for almost 500,000 words."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/632898/#Comment_632898
3. Who will be the main character of this Adventure?
It is CHARNAME from the BG line.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm780aq
4. There will be NPCs in the Adventure Y. The ones we can take into a party.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm7810d
Adventure Y will have at least one new NPC whose name starts with "Gl". Also, there can be more: "There are a few characters in Adventure Y I'm just in love with. One in particular I plan to use as my next PC if I ever find time to get involved in a p&p game again" (Andrew Foley). Maybe in the future this or these NPC (s) will appear in BG2EE.
5. Will the Adventure Y be dubbed?
Yes, we are going to record English voices for the major characters. As for other languages, we'll have to wait and see and the costs are very high for the quality we demand.
We're going to use the BG1 method you reference as our model.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm79l8h
6. Will the Adventure Y be released as a standalone game?
We are still talking this through with everyone involved. So far we are still leaning in the expansion direction.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm77yin
7. The plot.
There’s an idea that the Adventure Y takes place after Sarevok's defeat and shreds some light on those “circumstances much darker than anyone would have thought” under which the Bhaalspawn left for Amn. So this adventure would probably take place between the two games and end with the Bhaalspawn getting captured by Irenicus.
It’s interesting to take into account that TrentOster - after looking (6 September 2013) at a feature request of an interlude chapter that narrates the happenings between Sarevok's ending and the capture of the Bhaalspawn by Irenicus - said “Sounds kind of adventurey. Could be a fun concept.” (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/350159/#Comment_350159)
One can interpret “adventurey” as “adventure y”.
8. The writers busy with the Adventure Y.
"Trent laid down the basis for the Adventure Y campaign. I (i.e. Phillip Daigle) am directing Adventure Y, and in doing so provide oversight for game plot and text. Andrew and Amber are the lead writers. Liam has done some writing for Adventure Y, but he's not a full time writer on the project and has other responsibilities.
Most of the development team has contributed to the game text in some way, and after release I'm sure they'll come by to tell you about all the easter eggs they hid in the game."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/614871/#Comment_614871
9. Importing and exporting of your BG saves and the Adventure Y.
"You'll import your BG:EE save, and then you can export from Adventure Y to BG2:EE."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/610307/#Comment_610307
10. Your XP and the Adventure Y.
"We had a lot of talks about how big is too big, how small is too small, and in the end I think people will be pleased with the direction we took.
Early on we had discussions about how we would make it work if you can gain a couple more levels than SoA expects. We've put in some work on that front and we're predicting it won't be an issue.
As for the size of the adventure, Adventure Y has shaped up to be larger than ToTSC but not quite the size of ToB.
From a chronological perspective it happens over a quite limited period of time, so it should fit in nicely with the other games."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/608099/#Comment_608099
11. There will be a shorty NPC or two in the Adventure Y.
"I wouldn't be surprised if CHARNAME encountered a shorty or two hanging around on their journey through Adventure Y."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/605034/#Comment_605034
12. Fan gets to name/design a character
Fan's character will not be a gnome and will be of a playable race (with the hope that someday he is made into an NPC mod).
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/594870/#Comment_594870
13. Its not BG3
14. New music by Sam Hulick
15. Jennifer Hale was talked to at one point about another project (Providing voicework for Dynaheir perhaps?)
16. VO work is being done in both Edmonton and LA.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598459/#Comment_598459
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598441/#Comment_598441
17. BG2EE related reveals.
-Rasaad mentions Jaheira and Khalid being separated at Bridgefort (a stronghold near Boareskyr Bridge)
-Neera mentions Khalid making her soup when they were in Bridgefort
-Neera's ToB quest refers to Charname as the Victor of the Dragonspear Crusade
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607695/#Comment_607695
18. Adventure Y will use the same ruleset as BG:EE and BGII:EE i.e. you can play all three parts with the same character.
- The Bhaalspawn left Baldur's Gate and travelled to the south. Why? Why did he have to leave?
- This will indeed be explained. One more thing, Bioware kept notes on what happened after BG1 and why the characters ended up where they appear at the start of BG2. Just saying, we're not exactly guessing here.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-adventure-y-interquel-set-between-bg1-and-bg2.96369/page-2#post-3684770
19. David Warner (Irenicus's voice) comes back.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/492571/#Comment_492571
20. Trent Oster talked again about the domain buying habit after an idea that the main quest in the Adventure Y will be the Siege of the Dragonspear Castle - the same thing happened with the IWDEE domain.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607695/#Comment_607695
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607871/#Comment_607871
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/608551/#Comment_608551
21. A hint that the Dynaheir's quest about the Bhaalspawn will be in the Adventure Y.
"You'll note that this doesn't preclude her from searching for Bhaalspawn other than the PC or Sarevok."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/599446/#Comment_599446
22. The period between BG1 and BG2: it's one year.
BG1 starts on the 1st of Mirtul, 1368. BG2 SoA starts on the 1st of Mirtul, 1369. This means that BG1 (and adventure Y) is supposed to take a year (according to the games chronology).
Given that the Bhaalspawn crisis is supposed to be over in 1369 I think if anything there is more leeway in terms of having a game set between the two games, compared to having it set between Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal."
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/607846/#Comment_607846
23. The UI in Adventure Y will be previoosly unseen one, but will include all the enhancements Beamdog made to BGEE and IWDEE.
It comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/565436/#Comment_565436
24. There will be both absolutely new locations and remastered and repainted areas from BG1 in Adventure Y.
It again comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
25. There will be new abilities for characters (at least one that looks like a transformation into a goblin) and/or a goblin companion.
It again comes from the leaked screenshots (now edited out)
26. Developers think that a price of 17 USD at least would be fair
buahahaha
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/579796/#Comment_579796
27. How about a SoA->ToB expansion?
If Adventure Y is a success I would like to do a SoA->ToB expansion. This isn't a guarantee or promise, but rather something I'd (Phillip Daigle) personally like to do.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/598652/#Comment_598652
Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
74
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Phillip Daigle said that as of April, 16, 2015, the Beamdog are "pretty close to being done" but they have put a cap on any official news or unofficial leaks until they're ready to announce.
For the "next few weeks" they will be busy with voice actors.
It's a gargantuan-sized aberration, psionic in nature. The description is a "slime-covered tentacled worm of dragonlike proportions. Four 25-foot-long tentacles sprout from its eyeless head, writhing around a lampreylike mouth of nightmarish size. A revolting mucus trail marks the wake of the horror."
It is described as "a rare result of the mind flayer reproductive cycle gone horribly wrong." It has an acid breath weapon, swallow whole, blindsight, and a pile of psionic abilities. CR 15, with 25 hit dice.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/633099/#Comment_633099
In an interview with Dave Gross Andrew Foley, one of the writers for Beamdog, confirmed that there will be romances in the Adventure Y:
"Amber’s done the majority of the heavy lifting on the romance front (and a multitude of others) in what I’m still only allowed to refer to as “Adventure Y.”
http://frabjousdave.com/creative-colleagues-andrew-foley/
There won't be a large grid of linked areas like there was in Baldur's Gate, but there will be a lot of free-form optional exploration throughout the game. (emphasis mine) You can miss a lot if you focus purely on the critical path.
The Adventure Y will have two world maps.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/637567/#Comment_637567
First of all, we were told that the "Adventure Y" is not how the game will be called, but it's a code name. It wasn't a surprise, at least taking into account the Black Pits were first called the Adventure X.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/639634/#Comment_639634
Among the voice over actors who have been definitely involved into the Adventure Y this week are:
- Jim Cummings (previously revealed by Trent Oster in the video interview)
- Jennifer Hale (previously only hints were available, now it's confirmed by numerous tweets of team members and Jennifer herself)
- Mark Meer (previosly unconfirmed but we couldn't imagine a new Baldur's Gate game without him, right?)
- Stephanie Wolfe (previosly unmentioned, but she was involved into BGEE, voicing Dorotea, Dark Moon Monk, Tavern Patron and Thespia)
The voice over work in Los Angeles (with Jim Cummings and Jennifer Hale) is done, but a lot of voice over work is still ahead.
Also, chickens are somehow involved into the Adventure Y.
There's an added evidence that by "the dark underground caverns" mentioned on the official site regarding the Adventure Y, the Underdark is meant.
All this information comes as a roundup of pages 67-71 of the discussion thread and lots of tweets this week.
They're close to the finish line on production, and then there will be a private beta ahead of the announcement of the game.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/642513/#Comment_642513
They got a character some of them didn't think they'd get recorded at first, and it is "a thing of very loud beauty", even louder than Minsc.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/642682/#Comment_642682
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/644605/#Comment_644605
This week included the recording of David Warner and Jacob Burgess voice over actors:
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/644186/#Comment_644186
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/644293/#Comment_644293
Earlier Elminster got the grand prize of the stream session and now we've learned about the character he's created for the game - Daran Highhammer, a neutral good dwarf fighter/thief. The concept of Daran is described in the post:
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/644400/#Comment_644400
This week started with the Beamdog newsletter stating that the final count of the number of English words in Adventure Y was around 500,000 and "they'll check back again in June with maybe even a big announcement!"
As for the exact figure, until the game is released, it's impossible to tell. At this stage, text additions, deletions, tweaks, and revisions are being minimized as much as humanly possible but they are still going to happen as part of the QA process--quite possibly up to the day the game is released, if previous experience is anything to judge by.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645596/#Comment_645596
With the VO work done, the focus moved to the Devs' posts on the board.
The most important thing revealed is the details of the importing system.
If you import your game from BG:EE, the party you had in that save will automatically be present at the start of the Adventure Y.
If you start a new game you're given a starting party based on your alignment, and there is an option that allows you to remove those party members before starting the game if you would prefer to go solo.
There is one caveat: While your party WILL be present at the start of Adventure Y, the availability of all BG:EE (emphasis mine) companions throughout Adventure Y isn't guaranteed.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645249/#Comment_645249
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645269/#Comment_645269
And regarding the evil alternative canon party idea, we were told that "there are more than 2 combos, not just a simple evil alternative."
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645762/#Comment_645762
We've been assured that No bugs is their high priority, and their expanded QA team is busy with reporting on a daily basis.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645613/#Comment_645613
We've got the second (after the leaked screenshots a long time ago) confirmation of an improved UI in the Adventure Y. Also, Beamdog won't be at E3 2015 this summer, so the announcement will happen somewhere else.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/645136/#Comment_645136
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/647431/#Comment_647431
The trailer for the Adventure Y will be different from the "here's random cuts of gameplay, ok bye" style of previous EE trailers.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/648284/#Comment_648284
Beamdog are working with outside professionals to make their Adventure Y trailers (so there will be several of them) look great.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/648444/#Comment_648444
A new item called the "Bard Hat" was confirmed on the Beamblog:
This ostentatious peacock-blue hat is festooned with green and purple feathers. Once the possession of an unfailingly chipper bard, the hat was stolen when the bard couldn't resist showing off the hat in a seedy tavern and bragging about its magical powers. In truth the hat has only moderate enchantments on it, but its stylish appearance makes it a coveted choice for many bards.
- Immunity to silence and deafness
- Bard song effects linger on for 2 additional rounds after the bard stops singing
http://blog.beamdog.com/2015/06/spotlight-on-item-design.html
Another item was also confirmed:
It acts like a blackjack/sap causing non-lethal damage for a knockout.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/648990/#Comment_648990
Certain headgear items like Ioun Stones and hats/cowls/hoods no longer provide critical hit protection in the Adventure Y. That is now exclusive to proper helmets. An IWDEE behavior.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/649138/#Comment_649138
The Adventure Y adds new spells.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/650178/#Comment_650178
This means that if you're a BG fan, this is the time to be excited:
9 July, 21:00 (08:00 PM) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
UTC (GMT - 10 July, 02:00 AM)
Berlin - 10 July, 04:00 AM
Brasilia - 10 July, 11:00 AM
Buenos Aires - 10 July, 11:00 AM
Canberra - 10 July, 12:00 PM (Noon)
London - 10 July, 03:00 AM
Los Angeles - 09 July, 07:00 PM
Madrid - 10 July, 04:00 AM
Mexico City - 09 July, 07:00 PM
Moscow - 10 July, 05:00 AM
Ottawa - 09 July, 10:00 PM
Paris - 10 July, 04:00 AM
Rome - 10 July, 04:00 AM
Tokyo - 10 July, 11:00 AM
Washington - 09 July, 10:00 PM
Wellington - 10 July, 02:00 PM
There will be a FAQ about the Adventure Y, but some of the questions have been already answered.
-How can I import the final Adventure Y party into BG2EE? Will it affect the BG2 NPCs' locations?
-Export a character from Adventure Y in the same way you export from BG2. We might support importing saves as well as characters, but the outcome would be the same. The location of BG2 NPCs will not be changed.
- What items from the Adventure Y are transferrable to BG2EE?
- You'll have to wait and find out!
- Will there be any story for Gl... in BG2EE in the future?
- If the response to Adventure Y is overwhelmingly positive we are interested in exploring further IE content if the market is there for it.
- Will the Adventure Y UI enhancements, kits and spells, as well as other changes, including those new cool baldur.ini options, be ported back to BGEE and BG2EE as patches?
- Yes, our plan is to backport new features to the other EE games, though the timeline for this has not yet been defined. We'll be getting into that as soon as Adventure Y wraps up.
- I've very much liked the person X from the Adventure Y but he can't be recruited into the party. Is there a chance it will be changed in the future? Do you plan to make any additional content for the Adventure Y later?
- Again, if the response to Adventure Y is large enough that we can justify the expense of adding a new NPC to BG2EE, we are interested.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/650615/#Comment_650615
There will be a WASD camera control in the Adventure Y.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/651034/#Comment_651034
The difficulty slider in the Adventure Y will noticeably affect general AI, and some more in Adv Y, not just the incoming damage.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/651493/#Comment_651493
They unhardcoded the critical hit protection and it can now be set on a per item basis. For example, if someone wants a game where a full plate protects from critical hits and a helmet doesn't, they can make that now.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-adventure-y-interquel-set-between-bg1-and-bg2.96369/page-7#post-3982336
Infravision might not be such a bad thing to have in Adventure Y.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/651990/#Comment_651990
When the countdown was first published on the sites, if you pressed "F12" in the IE browser, you could see a code of the pages that included the following:
< img id="medallion" src="/countdown/assets/bg-blur.png" height="300" alt="Adventure Y">
In HTML, an "alt" atribute specifies an alternate text for an image.
The code of the pages also showed:
< !-- Preorder -->
< !-- /Preorder -->
Thus implying a pre-order for the Adventure Y is going to be revealed.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652255#Comment_652255
Later (after it had been reported about these things on the forum), the code of the pages was changed.
On June 23, 2015, Beamdog filed a trademark "Dragonspear" for the registration.
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/
According to the Devs, their goal for the Adventure Y was the following: An even mix of free-form BG1 style exploration and BG2 style focal points.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652603/#Comment_652603
There will be more tough, tactical battles in the Adventure Y.
Also, we were promised "new engine features". But althouth in the process of fixing and improving IE they've added a lot of cool stuff, but TobEX features are not confirmed.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652640/#Comment_652640
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652646/#Comment_652646
The battles will be not only tough and tactical, but also "strategic".
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652673/#Comment_652673
The battles in the Adventure Y can be very challenging, if you want them to be, but we leave that choice up to the player.
The opponent AI in the Adventure Y changes its behavior based on the game difficulty setting that is currently active. For example, enemies won't use their most powerful spells, items and abilities on Normal and Story Mode. They will also not use some of their more advanced tactics on those settings. However, if you increase the difficulty to "Core Rules" (or higher) you can be sure that opponents will fight to the best of their ability.
The number of enemies that you fight also varies depending on the difficulty settings (similar to IWD:EE) as does the actual composition of the battle encounters. Sometimes, a single creature that gets added on a higher difficulty setting can make a battle significantly harder due to its ability to heal or buff its allies.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/652729/#Comment_652729
Follow http://siegeofdragonspear.com to read about the next Baldur's Gate game, watch the trailer and see the screenshots.
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear has been announced!
- Siege of Dragonspear starts two weeks after the defeat of Sarevok, Charname is hailed as hero but suspected of a shared lineage with Sarevok.
- During this time, a holy crusade is rising in the north, besieging dragonspear castle for supplies. They're led by a woman named Caelar Argent (or 'the Shining Lady'), whose origin is shrouded in mystery but could possibly also be a bhaalspawn. The Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate ask you to end this crusade on their behalf, and you go north leading an army of mercenaries.
- 70 new areas, 25 voice actors with several returning from BG1/2, hundreds of new items, spells and abilities.
- Over 25 hours of new story and a bunch of side content. "Riddled with crannies" according to Phil Daigle.
- New class, shaman. Able to summon "an almost unlimited number of ghostly allies", but is rooted in place while summoning - a shaman NPC will be available.
- Meant to be more accessible than previous games without sacrificing tactical depth: new interface, journal pop-ups that deliver concise journal information (longer entries with more lore are still available); combat health bars (optional); inventory highlighting that suggests which characters to give items to.
- New difficulty modes: story mode (easy combat); "legacy of bhaal" difficulty, similar to heart of fury, for veteran players.
- Combines open-world exploration of BG1, iconic locations from BG2, art and combat from IWD.
From UI and character creation demos:
- Many parts of the UI can be modified drag/drop style from within the game.
- Colour slider options during character creation, increasing the number of available hair, skin and clothing colours.
From the Q/A:
- New level cap is 12, unclear if it's for all classes.
- No new Noober character.
- Will ship when ready.
- There will be multiplayer.
- Interface improvements will be ported to the other EE games.
- Pantaloons quest unchanged.
- Dorn, Neera and Rasaad will return.
- Starting party if you don't import, dependant on your alignment - three different canon starting parties. Can import your full party from BG:EE.
- Equipment you have in BG:EE carries over to SoD.
- Romances from BG:EE carry over.
- No multiclass shaman.
- No stronghold.
- BG2 will be updated so shaman characters can be imported.
- SoD NPCs can't be taken into BG2.
- Modding is supported.
- IE pathfinding has been improved.
- Will be supported for devices that support the EE games.
- BG2 start will be modified to a limited extent, such as SoD items possibly carrying over.
- Easier switching between ranged and 2H/dual weapons will be implemented.
- No Saemon Havarian in SoD.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/654911/#Comment_654911
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/42230/recap-of-sod-presentation-and-q-a-session#latest
The release date of SoD
1. The target is the end of the year, but the target will move if Beamdog isn't absolutely comfortable the game is ready. There are some bridges the company needs to rebuild; that process started with Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, it will continue with Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear and beyond.
There's no corporate drama in the background. And no pressure to release before the expansion is ready, which is a good thing.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655672/#Comment_655672
2. Q4 2015 is the target though ultimately it will only be released when its ready.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/660022/#Comment_660022
Will we need BGEE to play SoD?
1. - will a BG:EE patch be completely mandatory to play SoD? Will it be needed to import my saves? I'm just asking for the sake of mod compatibility.
Yes and yes. There are numerous reasons for this, not the least of which is the new Shaman class.
edit: Of course it is a bit more complicated. The new engine should be compatible with old BG:EE save games, but you will have to upgrade BG:EE to download and install SoD. Save games created in the new engine will not be backward compatible.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655212/#Comment_655212
2. It's an expansion. The version we had during the presentation was modified to jump directly into Siege, but the actual release of the game will be an expansion for BG:EE.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/662211/#Comment_662211
3. Siege of Dragonspear is an expansion, not a stand-alone game. So if you bought BG:EE from GOG, you'll probably want to pick up SoD there as well, when it finds its way there.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/660594/#Comment_660594
Translation of SoD into other languages
We’re currently waiting for word from some publishing partners regarding the possibility of translating Siege of Dragonspear into languages other than english. For news on that front, keep an eye on the forums. As soon as we have translation plans confirmed, we’ll let everyone know there.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655305/#Comment_655305
Will the events of the BGT mod be presented in SoD?
a mod (maybe BGT) has a cutscene that connects the two games were Mae'var is the one in charge of the operation. I don't know if it's official or not.
!It's not! That cutscene was created by the BGT mod author.
Bioware had their own notes on how this encounter played out. We're using that.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-23
UI in SoD
1. The UI is a work in progress.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/659768/#Comment_659768
2. A lot of the new UI elements are just about organizing the information better, to be honest.
There's a lot of rhetoric about "Making it more accessible for new players", and that's certainly true, but it's also about redesigning the framework with everything that we've learned after seventeen years of playing and three years of working with the code.
The Mage spells screen is a good example of this--if we can show you the spell icon, spell name, and spell description without forcing you to open an entirely new window, then that probably makes the most sense.
The Character Sheet screen is another example. The Record screen we had before had all the information you'd need, but it was all contained in a single enormous text box that required a lot of scrolling to find what you were looking for. The new setup allows us to show more information (such as "What exactly IS Lore, and why do I care about it?") and organize it in a way that lets any player--new or seasoned--find what they're looking for with greater ease.
I want to make it clear that the changes are not about "dumbing it down"; if anything, they're about making the UI smarter.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655139/#Comment_655139
3. It also brings it closer to how Icewind Dale 2 handled the character record page (compartmentalizing information). Which I think is really great. Along with its greatly improved modability I'm hoping to see people make some killer mods for it
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655152/#Comment_655152
4. We’ll be able to turn The Health Bar Feature off
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656554/#Comment_656554
5. You can toggle health bars on/off from the Options menu.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-15#post-4016610
6. The sprite outline smoothing is new to Siege of Dragonspear and affects all sprites in the game if it's turned on. That feature wasn't present in the previous EE games.
I don't think there were any changes to the player character sprites. However, a few individual monster sprites may have been adjusted.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-20#post-4020465
7. Why there’re no new sprites?
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/470726#Comment_470726
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/658815/#Comment_658815
AI in SoD
1. We re-designed AI from the scratch. Partly because it was rather blunt in vanilla games, partly because it simply could not handle the tasks we had set for it.
So, albeit it doesn't necessarily top SCS - which wasn't a goal, for various reasons, - it still offers a comparable amount of challenge on high difficulty settings, as well as introducing a couple brand new features. You might have glimpsed one during the large battle in a courtyard.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655356/#Comment_655356
2. The difficulty slider doesn’t just adjust damage inflicted by enemies (like BGEE/BG2EE), it also changes their behavior. So if you choose the higher difficulty settings you'll be challenged by more advanced enemy tactics.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655477/#Comment_655477
3. Core is the max for AI. If you move the difficulty slider higher, you'll get more/stronger enemies instead.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656268/#Comment_656268
The Shaman in SoD
1. The Shaman is a new class.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655324/#Comment_655324
2. The Shaman class is basically a divine sorcerer. All the rest is moddable.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655515/#Comment_655515
World maps in SoD
1. It's in the style of Thone of Bhaal, so there are two new world maps that you'll be traveling around in. You cannot backtrack to areas from BG:EE. You'll be able to freely explore certain sections of Baldur's Gate, though.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655287/#Comment_655287
2. While they are in Baldur's Gate, they are technically new areas.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/657704/#Comment_657704
Banters in SoD
There will be BG2 style banters.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655294/#Comment_655294
Updating BGEE and BG2EE with SoD features
1. yes, we'll be bringing the engine updates to BG:EE and BGII:EE. While I can't comment on timing, we understand how important it will be to folks to take their characters through the entire saga, so it is a high priority to keep these releases as close together as is feasible.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655178/#Comment_655178
2. BG:EE will receive a patch ahead of the release of Siege. Mods for BG:EE shouldn't break when you add Siege, and in fact you should be able to mod even more stuff after getting the patch. The new and hugely modifiable UI system is a good example of this.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655285/#Comment_655285
3. Yes. All of the rendering upgrades we've made to Dragonspear will be applied to BG:EE, since Dragonspear is an extension of the base game. The base artwork of BG:EE will not change, but how we render sprites is vastly improved.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655280/#Comment_655280
4. Even though SoD is an upgrade to BG:EE, we still need to "kick the tires" on the BG:EE content to make sure the engine changes do not affect that game as well.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/662548/#Comment_662548
Companions of SoD
1. I honestly don't know if we’ll be doing text pieces on Glint and M'Khiin similar to what Dave Gross wrote for Dorn, Neera and Rasaad. The idea's been tossed around a bit but it's one of many things that ended up on the Let's Seriously Discuss This and See If It's Feasible from a Resource Management Standpoint AFTER The Announcement list. If I had to lay odds, as it stands, I'd say we're 70/30 in favour of something along those lines happening, but it's not a lock.
Sorry I can't be more specific than that at this time, it's just really up in the air right now, but as I say, it definitely *is* in the air, not the garbage pail.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655184/#Comment_655184
2. I like that idea of character profiles for Glint, Schael, M'Khiin, Voghiln and the Shining Lady a lot. Obviously there's some stuff I can't talk about yet, but I think we'll be able to share that sort of content with you at some point leading up to the SoD release.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/660277/#Comment_660277
3. New characters won’t be DLC for IOS and Android (unlike Dorn Neera and Hexxat for BGEEs). They'll be part of the expansion (not DLC).
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/660520/#Comment_660520
4. New NPCs’ portraits weren't based on any of us, afaik, but in a weird coincidence the actress we hired to voice Corwin wound up looking a lot like her. FATE!
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656752/#Comment_656752
Kits for BG1 NPCs in SoD?
Making Safana a Swashbuckler, Montaron an Assassin or Branwen a Priest of Tempus? - I don't know, sorry. I personally would like to give Viconia and Branwen their proper kits.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656038/#Comment_656038
XP cap for SoD and balance for BG2EE
1. IE+ has an XP cap, not a level cap. So while level 12 is technically correct, it isn't very precise. Can't say more than this. * Many / Most of the encounters in BG2 already scale with party level.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655249/#Comment_655249
2. There is no level cap. We have an XP cap just like BG1 and BG2 did. Certain classes may be able to reach level 12 under that cap, others will end up lower than that. And this is provided that you do everything that's possible in the game.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-21#post-4025834
3. To clarify, there is no level cap. We have an XP cap, just like BG:EE and BGII:EE do.
For certain classes, this means that the maximum level your character can reach will be 12. For other classes, it might be lower than that.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655998/#Comment_655998
4. It means that thieves/bards won't be able to go over level 12.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656013/#Comment_656013
5. Unless something changes or there's something I am blissfully unaware of, there will be XP cap instead of the level cap. So you can get level 12th thieves, but not level 1th fighters.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656330/#Comment_656330
6. We'll make sure BG2:EE is balanced for people bringing characters over from Siege, and of course if it's still a concern we'll likely be introducing Legacy of Bhaal mode to BG2:EE as well so your overpowered characters are challenged again.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655284/#Comment_655284
7. - Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?
- We do care, and we're taking measures to ensure that the game will remain balanced for characters that are imported from Siege of Dragonspear. As Trent has already said, BGII:EE will be patched around the same time that Siege of Dragonspear is released to ensure a smooth transition. We had extensive design discussions about the XP cap for Siege of Dragonspear and I think the end result will reflect that.
Lastly, as a reminder, in Baldur's Gate 2 (and of course BGII:EE as well), most quests in Chapter 2 and later already scale to a certain extent in order to account for higher character levels. As an example, you get more trolls and also some tougher troll varieties in De'Arnise Hold if you go there with a character who is above a certain.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-14#post-4016397
8. What that means is: you need to work hard in order to reach the XP cap in Siege of Dragonspear. We do not hand out XP awards easily.
But if you do manage to complete every single quest and kill every single opponent, you should feel a bit more powerful at the start of BGII:EE.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdogs-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-interquel.96369/page-14#post-4016410
9. Wouldn't leveling down at the start of BG2 be the same (or nearly so) as just importing from BG?
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/658592/#Comment_658592
Teams based on alignment in SoD
1. Neutral team: Khalid, Dorn, Jaheira, Safana, Neera
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656010/#Comment_656010
As for canon Good and Evil parties, there’re only guesses: Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana and Dorn, Edwin, Baeloth, Viconia, Safana respectively
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/42408/evidence-for-removed-npcs-in-sod/p1
Items in SoD
1. There are lots of goodies in SoD. I'm sure you'll find something to your liking
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/661360/#Comment_661360
2. - Tomes or other boons that permamently increase Charname stats?
No.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/657992/#Comment_657992
3. There’s even more new items in Siege than there were in either of the original expansions.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/17/baldurs-gate-3/
4. The Golden Pantaloons thing won’t be touched.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/661174/#Comment_661174
Modding in SoD
1. There will be a “developer mode" where you can move the elements around interactively.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655399/#Comment_655399
2. Development Tools
Beamdog are hoping that, after Siege of Dragonspear is released, some players might try modding it themselves. Their plan is to make some of the development tools they’ve been using available for everyone else to tinker with.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/17/baldurs-gate-3/
3. Weidu/dltcep/nearinfinity are all used on a day to day basis as part of Siege development. There's some changes to DLTCEP and a little bit of NearInfinity fixes. They should be updated pretty close to release I'd expect.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655230/#Comment_655230
4. Actions/opcodes, including the 'NextTriggerObject' trigger, will be in SoD
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655781/#Comment_655781
5. increasing the party limit above 6 would be a very large undertaking, and we have no current plans to do this.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655317/#Comment_655317
6. The opcodes (and actions, etc) will surely be rolled over, without question. We have a single big rolling avalanche of an engine.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/658588/#Comment_658588
New companions for BG2EE after SoD
1. No new companions in BG2:EE
...Yet.
Which isn't to say there are plans to bring Corwin, Glint, and M'Khiin over to BGII:EE--to the best of my knowledge there aren't. But as Trent's presentation last night made clear (well, maybe not that clear with th echo thing, but if you were in the room it was clear), Beamdog embraces and listens to the fans. If the characters are seen to be popular, using whatever metrics the higher-ups do to measure that sort of thing, it's possible roles could be expanded into BGII:EE.
I don't want to set up any unrealistic expectations here: as it stands at this moment, 7:27am Edmonton time July 10,, there are no plans to carry the characters over.
But if after playing Siege of Dragonspear you *wanted* them to be carried over, make some noise, let people know. Stranger things have happened and I think I could be quite happy writing Glint and M'Khiin for the rest of my life.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655131/#Comment_655131
The team behind SoD
1. Chris Avellone:)
Chris' feedback was taken very seriously.
For reference, he wasn't only provided with a build of the game. He also had access to all relevant design documents.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdog-announce-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-with-chris-avellone-onboard.101204/page-8#post-4020705
2. Chris Avellone was interviewed on Shane Plays, a radio show/podcast. In the 45 minute interview, Chris talks about the games that he's made, from his early work with Star Trek back at Interplay, all the way up to Torment: Tides of Numenera and in particular, Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, which he has a lot of good things to say about.
Chris praises Beamdog's effort in making the transition from the original game to the expansion believable, with a prologue chapter focused around the political situation in Baldur's Gate following the protagonist's defeat of Sarevok. He's impressed by how their writers have given the original game's companion NPCs character development that explains how they arrived at where they are in the sequel, yet without the loss of stylistic consistency. He's also impressed by the expansion's antagonist, the Shining Lady, who he says is not really a villain, and even comes across as more heroic than the protagonist at times.
Also, Chris Avellone agreed to reshoot the first half of his Matt Chat interview, another interview that was given not long ago.
This part of the interview is entirely about BG: SoD. Chris has good things to say about SoD's hardcore optional encounters, about M’Khiin Grubdoubler, and about its technical and user interface improvements.
Chris also reveals the name of the Shining Lady, SoD's antagonist, Caelar Argent.
3. The QA team for SoD outnumbers the original development team (engine & scripting & QA) for BG:EE. Beamdog has raised the bar for QA on every patch and product, and I think it shows.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/656077/#Comment_656077
4. - How much of Beamdog is old IE modders now?
More than 5 less than a dozen. The majority work as Technical Designers.
- I'm (i.e. AlexT) the Project Manager on Siege of Dragonspear but I also do a bit of technical design in my spare time. Mostly AI scripting, item design and combat balance.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/beamdog-announce-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-with-chris-avellone-onboard.101204/page-6#post-4017466
5. Some of those actors are out of the industry now. To get those people together and to have them jump back into their characters was hard.
Luckily, we had Ginny McSwain, the voice director for the original Baldur’s Gate, and she ended up pulling these incredible performances out of them.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/17/baldurs-gate-3/
6. There are 36 people (in total) working on SoD
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/658894/#Comment_658894
Analysis of SoD screenshots:
By @shawne , @Adul , @Nonnahswriter , @rorikon and @miker60
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/42223/dragonspear-screenshot-analysis/p1
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/657117/#Comment_657117
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/657652/#Comment_657652
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/659107/#Comment_659107
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/42346/npcs-in-sod-what-we-know-so-far/p1
Text from SoD screenshots:
By @kcwise
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655802/#Comment_655802
Adventure Z update
1. The Adventure X, Y, Z designation was an in-office term used primarily as a way to keep projects in order. After BGEE, BG2EE was Adventure X, the Siege of Dragonspear expansion was Adventure Y, and then there was Adventure Z, which was completely unrelated to the Forgotten Realms. The idea was to push into Free To Play, but a few months back it became clear that space was already pretty full and the decision was made to focus on the Beamdog's core strengths, which is RPGs, with the obvious immediate focus being on the Forgotten Realms and Siege.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655153/#Comment_655153
2. *Trap was shelved
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655165/#Comment_655165
3. Sharktrap wasn't a D&D related game, it was more of a 3D action puzzler.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655235/#Comment_655235
BGEE Trilogy
Yes, we would love to do that. Right now there are certain technical limitations for iOS and Android that don't allow for such a colossal game, but eventually that will change. If all else fails it could come exclusively to desktop.
We don't have a specific time frame to do build that, but it's something we've held in mind as a long-term goal since 2012. If it makes sense and we can do it, we will.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655298/#Comment_655298
As it turned out, http://www.gamestar.de/ interviewed Trent Oster and luckly published the results of this interview: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-siege-of-dragonspear/artikel/siege_of_dragonspear,51968,3233354.html.
Although the article is in German, with the help of translators we can read about actually a lot of new SoD facts:
1. It spreads the light on those voice over actors, who haven't been officially confirmed yet (Only Jim Cummings was confirmed officially).
So, we'll hear new voice lines by:
Jennifer Hale - Dynaheir
Jim Meskimen - Edwin (and Khalid as well)
Melissa Disney - Imoen
David Warner - Irenicus
Kevin Michael Richardson - Narrator and Sarevok
2. Also Jacob Burgess, of whom we were told when the voice over recording took place, will voice over Glint Gardnersonson. It's confirmed by http://www.makewordshappen.com/#!credits/c13dn.
So, we now know at least 11 from announced 25 voice-over actors who have been involved in SoD:
David Warner
Jim Cummings
Kevin Michael Richardson
Jennifer Hale
Jim Meskimen
Melissa Disney
Mark Meer (Rasaad and Baeloth)
Gord Marriot (Dorn)
Nicola Elbro (Neera)
Jacob Burgess (Glint Gardnersonson)
Stephanie Wolfe (Dorotea, Dark Moon Monk, Tavern Patron and Thespia) - Corwin?
People say they've heard Jaheira's new lines while wathing the twitch session, so who knows, maybe Heidi Shannon is back as well
3. The gamestar article reveals the price of SoD will be around $20. This answers a long question of how much it will cost.
Phillip Daigle says that the price of $19.98 would actually be hilarious (because it salutes the 1998 year - the year BG1 was released)
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/665623/#Comment_665623
4. There will be 7 chapters in SoD.
5. There will be no Dragonspear Pits (so, no Black Pits 1.5).
6. There indeed will be not only tactical, but strategic battles in SoD, - for example, the one when our choices before the battle will determine the course of the fight itself.
7. In the story of SoD, we'll meet those characters we know, like Minsc and EE characters, including Baeloth.
Also, there will be 4 new NPCs, one of whom has a shaman class and three offer romances.
The last part caused a discussion on this forum on whether Corwin, Glint, and Voghiln will be romanceable in SoD (adding to the EE NPCs trio), or the article messed with this question completely and in fact it will be Neera, Dorn and Rasaad who only offer romances in SoD.
During the Twitch chat, the Devs said some of new NPCs may have "romance-like things".
http://www.playerattack.com/news/2015/07/10/baldurs-gate-gets-new-expansion-siege-of-dragonspear/ says that the team explains the following: "We're also very happy to confirm that those romance options from Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will also be continued in the new expansion."
Jessica Greenlee from http://www.fangirlnation.com/ while covering the announcement of SoD, said:
"The player will find many familiar companions as well as four new faces. These include three new romance options, although continuing romances from Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition will also be an option."
"Features:
- Four new joinable companions with three new romance options
- Continued romance options from Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition"
http://www.fangirlnation.com/2015/07/09/beamdog-announces-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear/
The romance discussion started after this post: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/662907/#Comment_662907
8. When NPCs join party, their XP is adjusted to (roughly) match the player.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/664867/#Comment_664867
9. All characters in SoD, both hostile and friendly, will use new AI. Some of the improvements are:
Intelligent team work - NPCs will cooperate to locate and destroy opponents
Intelligent target selection - NPCs will avoid hurting allies with abilities like Fireball, and won’t waste debilitating spells on already disabled opponents
Intelligent difficulty - The difficulty slider doesn’t just adjust damage inflicted by enemies, it also changes their behavior. On Easy and Normal enemies will hold back, on Core and higher they will fight to the best of their ability.
SoD vs SCS - as an avid fan of the latter myself, I have faith it won't be as much of a requirement to play the game for more seasoned combat-oriented players as it was the case with BG & BG2.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/665127#Comment_665127
1. The Beamdog twitch channel no longer offers a chance to see a SoD gameplay video from the announcement day.
Anyone can re-watch it again here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zdbqm
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zdf1n_siege-of-dragonspear-demo-part-2_videogames
2. Pax Prime didn't bring any news about SoD.
3. One more time about the voice acting.
Diane Pershing (Safana) is likely to come back.
- I heard some lines from Safana that didn't exist before. Sounds like the original voice actress to me.
- new voiced lines for Safana, agreed. Same actress, not so sure.
- She didn't even age
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/658104/#Comment_658104
4. There will be new player soundsets in SoD.
http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/09/baldurs-gate-is-getting-siege-of-dragonspear-expansion-nearly-17-years-after-games-original-1998-release/
5. The SoD emblem.
"The emblem (of SoD) is actually the emblem that’s on the floor of the (titular) castle,” Madolin “Mad” Bee said, and depicts castle founder Daeros Dragonspear atop his dragon, Halatathlaer - the dragon featured in the Screenshot 15 on the official site.
http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/20150711/SAG0801/307119982/0/sag
6. The Shaman class details.
The shaman is about the same as a rogue or druid. You can use it as a spellcaster or as a second liner. I wouldn't really use it as a tank. No multiclass possible even with Keeper.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/671288/#Comment_671288
Enemies will get plenty of opportunity to check out your cool dance skills. No need to stand too close though.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/671305/#Comment_671305
Druids and shamans have nothing in common but most of their spells and item usabilies. A totemic druid is pretty close to a shaman.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/670409/#Comment_670409
There will be possibilities to make Shaman kits in mods.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/668073/#Comment_668073
7. Voghlin and Baeloth.
You will learn what Baeloth did between his Black Pit enterprises. And how Voghiln was called before he became the Vast. Also, possibly, how Baeloth got to know Voghiln.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/671937/#Comment_671937
8. Another hint that there will be strategic decisions in SoD.
In SoD's case, there are multiple ways of solving some hindrances. Some are more peaceful than the other.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/669324/#Comment_669324
9. The request to move any of the canon NPCs from the positions they're already in BG2 will never see the light of day in any official capacity.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/668652/#Comment_668652
10. You won't be able to import a SoD game to vanilla BG.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/671583/#Comment_671583
Making Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear is like a trip of “back … to the future” for the artists, writers, and designers at Beamdog Games.
Sure, they’ve been working on the enhanced versions of Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale for some years now, even creating some new characters for the beloved D&D-based role-playing games. Siege of Dragonspear, however, is an original creation.
One that’s more than 100 years behind the current Forgotten Realms timeline.
“It was a challenge — I can say that for sure,” Beamdog writer Amber Scott said. “You feel a bit like a time traveler, going through these 2nd-edition modules and rulebooks to determine what exactly what has happening in the Realms around the time of the Bhaalspawn saga. It was in the forefront of our minds that as we wrote the story, we had to make something that would fit in that time frame and work with all the events that were going on in the Realms at the time.”
And it’s happening in a timeline that publisher Wizards of the Coast has retconned as well.
AD&D rules debuted in 1989, and the setting’s first campaign book for those rules appeared in 1990. Looking back today, the source material is ancient — and outdated.
“Back then it was a bit of a Wild West scenario. A lot of information doesn’t jive with other parts of the lore,” Daigle said. “Digging up all these cool hooks in that era of D&D, we’d often have discussions with Wizards where they’d say, ‘That’s great, but we’ve changed the history in later editions, so you’ll need to change that to fit with our modern timeline.’ There was some back-and-forth, a lot of research, a lot of discussions with Wizards to make sure we were in line with their current lore and not stepping on any old lore they established 20 years ago.”
While Dragonspear Castle does have a module with its name on it, this was for the large-scale combat system that D&D once had. The site itself had a great deal missing — an enticing prospect for Beamdog’s writing staff.
“The most fun, especially as a writer, was when we found holes in the lore, or parts of Dragonspear’s history that were not explicitly laid out,” said Scott, who had never adventured near the famed site. “For example, in the module where you get to go to Dragonspear Castle, there’s a section that just says, there are tunnels underneath the castle. It’s up to the DM to decide what they look like. When you find something like that, it’s exciting as a writer. You get to create part of the history of the Realms, in a way.”
And what was the most interesting thing that Beamdog added?
“There’s quite a bit to choose from here. I’d say that for me, the representation of Boareskyr Bridge, the site where Bhaal died before the game begins, is kinda cool. It’s never been seen in a game before,” Daigle said. “We got to define what it looks like, what the nearby settlement looks like, and how this place flowed. The bridge was mentioned in novels and publications and stuff, but it was never visually represented. Now we get to put a face to this iconic location where a god was killed.”
And of course, the water runs black downstream from where the God of Murder met his fate. “We’re big lore nerds, so we made sure we didn’t mess that up,” Daigle said.
For the enhanced editions of Baldur’s Gate, Beamdog stuck with the second edition rules of the time. This includes the character classes and monsters that the design team has added. But the studio has dipped into other editions, like with player kits (the Blackguard prestige class from third edition, for example).
Monsters are a special subject. Some have changed over the years in power and scope. But unless Wizards has retconned a creature into the past, Beamdog sticks with the 2E incarnation of the monster. So the Cyclops that’s in the first set of screenshots that the studio released doesn’t have any of the fae-like powers Wizards gave the monsters in subsequent editions.
“For the most part, we always favor second edition, except when Wizards steps in and says, actually we’d like to retroactively change that, because in our more modern editions things are different, and we want to be consistent,” Daigle said. “For some monsters, they didn’t really want to update them from second edition, but for certain ones they did. I can’t say which ones specifically, but in the case of the Cyclops we stuck with the second edition representation.”
Beamdog also faces a technical limitation: Making new monsters is resource-intensive.
“To create a new monster with new animations and everything is a very costly process for the Infinity engine. I will say that we have added some new monsters to Baldur’s Gate in Dragonspear, monsters you’ve never seen before. This monster actually, I believe, came from third edition. But for the most part, we stick with second edition monsters that were available in BG 1 and BG2 and Icewind Dale.
Dragonspear Castle is notorious. It didn’t start out as a place for evil, but over the centuries, it became infested time and again by evil humanoids and devils. Tunnels underneath the keep connect to the Underdark and a lost dwarven city.
It’s an ideal adventure spot.
“Dragonspear Castle has always had this interesting history of stuff going on, a lot of neat story hooks we liked. The proximity of Dragonspear as a major location to Baldur’s Gate made it a no-brainer,” lead designer Philip Daigle said. ” This is a cool location. … It’s not full of really important characters. There are similar dungeons nearby, but they have big-name characters from D&D there, and we didn’t want to mess with them. Dragonspear was the right combination of features and proximity for a good adventure.”
A warrior known as the Shining Lady leads a crusade in the north (the Sword Coast, where many Forgotten Realms games are set). Rumors point to her being the child of a god — like your character, who is the issue of the dead Lord of Murder, Bhaal.
Beamdog isn’t ready to confirm whether the Shining Lady is in fact a fellow Bhaalspawn, as the player is in the other two BG games.
“I don’t think we ever said that [she’s a Bhaalspawn], did we?” asks Amber Scott, a writer on Siege of Dragonspear.
“Yeah, I don’t think we confirmed that,” Daigle volleys back before providing more context. “There are little hooks in our story, rumors, intrigues that the player is going to get in and learn about for themselves. Yes, there are rumors that the bad guy of this module is a Bhaalspawn, but for now, we’ll just leave those as rumors.”
The Dragonspear setting and tiptoeing around her status as a Bhaalspawn makes the Shining Lady’s background even more intriguing; the castle has long hosted a small shrine to the God of War, Tempus. Are we dealing with someone who’s been blessed by another god?
“The antagonist of Dragonspear — they ostensibly have the favor of the good gods,” Daigle said. “That’s definitely how they present themselves. As you play through the adventure, you’ll discover for yourself how things turn out. That’s one element we want to hold back until players get a chance to play it.”
Players love the Baldur’s Gate games in part because of all of the Forgotten Realms lore that BioWare and then Beamdog has packed into the series. But I’ve always wondered … couldn’t someone write some allusions to future events: the return of Nethril, hints of the Spellplague — you know, that wonderful insider knowledge that, to a game’s characters, would come off as hints of future disasters.
That’s not happening in Siege of Dragonspear.
“As much as we wanted to create new stuff and put our mark on the Realms, we were conscious that we want players to feel comfortable playing this game and knowing it’s a second-edition Forgotten Realms game. It fits with the Enhanced Editions,” Daigle said. “We didn’t want to put in a lot of nods and winks to later editions and more modern material. It’s going to be fresh and nostalgic at the same time.”
So, don’t expect any crazy cat ladies predicting the death of Mystra.
“That’s a great idea, though,” Scott said.
“That’s going to be in the next game,” Daigle said.
The developers are still alive, but they're currently very busy polishing everything off.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/675705/#Comment_675705
Whether SoD will be released in 2015:
On Steam, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition now have 3 achievements:
Dragon Slayer- Awoke and defeated the green dragon
Dark Places - Entered the caverns beneath Dragonspear Castle
And another one with a hidden name and description.
http://achievementstats.com/index.php?action=games&gameId=228280
You can listen to SoD music here.
First and foremost, Beamdog has strict agreements with WotC for certain assets, such as screenshots, art, and other in-game material, that have to go through an approval process. This is why screenshots, VO lines, and other similar things have to be approved by WotC before Beamdog can release them.
Beamdog doesn't have any fresh approved assets to share right away, and Amber Scott doesn't know if she can get any this month (like Beamdog, WotC has a lot of Christmas crunch going on and people being away for holidays so December is a difficult time to get anything approved).
WotC has a digital magazine about D&D - the Dragon+ magazine (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dragonplus). It's a free application, available from both AppStore and GooglePlay. In the next Dragon+ Issue (number 5), releasing in December, they'll feature an article about Siege of Dragonspear.
Among other things, this article will include an original short story by @AndrewFoley that centers on the character Glint Gardnersonson, a gnome from SoD.
Andrew Foley, Phillip Daigle and Amber Scott got together and brainstormed some ideas. They decided they'd write one piece each for the four new NPCs in SoD.
Andrew Foley took Glint as the first character to write about.
So there will be more stories coming in the future!
They tossed around story ideas until they had a good idea of what Glint's tale would be about. Andrew Foley then wrote a one-page outline to submit to WotC for feedback. They had a few suggestions on things to change or refine to make sure the piece fit in with Forgotten Realms lore and flavour.
Then Andrew Foley wrote the piece, which came out to just under 4,000 words. Beamdog loved it and sent it to WotC for a final approval. They also loved it and wanted it for the December's issue of Dragon+.
Some original Glint art done in-house (by the Beamdog's awesome artist, Thea) will accompany the story.
This "Thea" is Lorey AKA Thea Kent, http://loreydoor.deviantart.com/, https://picarto.tv/loreydoor, https://www.behance.net/theakent, http://loreydoor.tumblr.com/, who is a 2D concept artist and illustrator at Beamdog.
So, while screenshots, art, and other in-game material are hard to be shared now, Amber Scott now gives insights into SoD she can give, in https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/44941/advent-calendar-with-sod-screenshots-yes-please-3#latest
"I think chickens are hilarious. Melicamp the Chicken's quest from the original BG killed me. The dialogue was awesome, and...I mean...a polymorphed chicken! Yes, this is how highbrow my humor gets. Maybe it's my childhood love of the Muppets, I don't know.
When we designed the subquests for SoD (which was a time consuming process, there are over 75 subquests in SoD, which doesn't count all the main "critical path" quests) I managed to get permission to design a very tiny, very out of the way subquest that involves a chicken. I also convinced one of the artists to put chickens in a particular dungeon level (where it made sense, I don't want areas of the game to look ridiculous for the sake of tickling my funny bone). So there are at least two chicken-related incidents in SoD that you can look for when you play."
"We designed almost entirely new areas for SoD, as you know. Besides the city of BG itself, I think all the zones are new. Many of them had already been designed when I joined the company, but I did get to work on one with artist Mad and it was a really cool process.
The area involved some tunnels/caverns where monstrous humanoids live. When you design dungeons, especially if you've been doing it a long time, you run the risk of them all looking the same. You know: rough stone walls, firepits, bedrolls, maybe some bones. We wanted something different. Mad and I tossed some ideas around about texture and lighting, when I mentioned I loved The 13th Warrior/Eaters of the Dead. Mad was like, "I LOVE EATERS OF THE DEAD!" So we decided to base the lair on the wendol from the movie.
Obviously we looked at the movie itself, but we also brainstormed elements we could add that would create a similar atmosphere as the wendol cave. We researched different kinds of cave drawings and were really inspired by the hand paintings at Cueva de las Manos. Instead of bedrolls, Mad designed some hide lean-tos and draped animal skins around. Her final drawings were fantastic and we were both giddy over them.
Playing through the level will probably be "another underground dungeon" for a lot of people, but I hope some of the little touches Mad put in there and the atmosphere we created will feel unique and exciting to players. Once we're able to get another round of screenshots through approvals I'll try to get a shot for this thread (may be a while on that, though!)"
The official list of voice over actors!
Mark Meer
Monica Maddaford
Gord Marriott
Jennifer Hale
Jim Meskamin
Melissa Disney
Anne McGrath
Jacob Burgess
Jim Cummings
Nicola Elbro
Stephanie Wolfe
William Mitchell
Cissy Jones
Minister Faust
David Warner
Kevin M. Richardson
Jeff Haslam
Belinda Cornish
Clinton Carew
Matt Kloster
Chris Austman
Rachel Bowron
Kendra Connor
Dan Shinnan
Andrew Foley
So, now we know all the 25 announced voice over actors involved in SoD. From actors busy in the vanilla games, Jim Cummings, Jennifer Hale, Jim Meskimen, Melissa Disney, Kevin Michael Richardson and David Warner come back.
Now it's confirmed that no other vanilla voice over actors come back. So, new voice lines (if there're any) for Jaheira, Viconia and Safana are voiced by new actors, not Heidi Shannon, Grey DeLisle or Diane Pershing.
All voice over actors for EE NPCs are here.
Also, it's interesting to see that a writer, @AndrewFoley, now is also a voice over actor.
Plus:
Over 100 new magic items—almost double the number of new items in all other enhanced editions combined (before we were only told that there will be "hundreds of new items, spells and abilities")
Four new player soundsets (before we were only told that there "will be new player soundsets in SoD")
Four new joinable companions with three new romance options (it officially answers the question about the romances with Corwin, Glint, and Voghiln, thus confirming http://www.fangirlnation.com/2015/07/09/beamdog-announces-baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear/)
http://press.siegeofdragonspear.com/
There will be a small tribute to Terry Pratchett somewhere in the game.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/692170/#Comment_692170
Feel free to read the interview, along with a short story about Glint, in the latest issue of Dragon+!
We'll have a chance to see some new areas, to hear character voices, to find out behind-the-scenes stories, to get some prizes and to ask some questions.
http://blog.beamdog.com/2016/01/dragonspear-live-stream.html
If you miss the live stream, it'll be later available at https://www.youtube.com/user/BeamdogInc).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-familiar-magazine/id1069491414?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.overhaulgames.thefamiliarmagazine
"The next issue of the Familiar is scheduled to release in late March with cover-to-cover Siege of Dragonspear info."
Tune in to on February 19, 2016, at 11 AM MST (10 AM PST, 6 PM GMT). There will be prizes as well.
The date of the release is set internally, they’ll announce it later through the Beamblog/other media.
About the list of voice over actors that is written in this thread, Phillip Daigle said that it was not entirely right. For example, during the latest twitch session it was confirmed Grey DeLisle would be coming back, voicing Viconia and Skie in SoD. In the same time, it was confirmed Heidi Shannon wouldn't be there, while the new voice actor for Safana was Stephanie Wolfe.
Question: "Will SoD updates and changes be retroactive to BGEE, BGIIEE, ToB & IWDEE?"
Answer by Phillip Daigle: "Yes. It's our intent to continually update all of the IE games and keep them at feature parity where relevant."
Question: "can I bring my gold from BG:EE to SoD? I've already collect 330000 in my playthrough and still didn't do Durlags and Werewolfs island. I'm just courius is it worth to keep that amount of money."
Answer by Phillip Daigle: "You sure can. But you might want to spend it beforehand."
Question: "Will Siege of Dragonspear be released in other languages except English?"
Answer by Amber Scott: "Not initially. We do intend to translate it after release, but I don't know yet what languages or timeframe we're looking at. Cam and Trent are still deciding what they want to do."
Two-handed/off-hand weapon switching.
If you have a weapon/shield in your off hand, it will be disabled if you arm a primary 2-handed weapon.
When you switch from Bow or staff to hammer (main hand), it defaults to dual wield.
The "Max HP on Level Up" option will be in the in-game Options menu for SoD. There are no plans for an "Average HP on Level Up" option, though; if you want that, it's easy enough to modify the appropriate 2da files.
There will be a manual going out with the game, where an information about areas and forces will be.
The game is VERY reactive to your choices in dialogues and banters.
The hilarious bug - when Remove Fear worked backwards, actually causing Fear in your characters.
There're some bugs that will stay - we have to find them, they're not bugs, but features.
The request of making a key for Quick loot bar has been heard.
The banters will be for every NPC in your party, no matter whom you take.
If you have a quest to get an item you can pickpocket it and complete the quest.
Game difficulty affects many more aspects of combat in SoD than it did in the original BG1 and BG2.
For example, opponents will not use their most powerful spells and items on Normal and will not use advanced combat tactics.
However, on Core Rules, enemies will fight to the best of their ability.
On difficulty settings higher than Core Rules you will encounter more enemies and more enemy variety.
For example, an encounter that has only melee attackers on Normal might have a few archers and a healer on Hard.
Glint is a cleric/thief and the thieving button is still in the special abilities.
Glint has a new portrait, if compared to the official site. The Glint's hair is blue now.
Corwin is a ranger! Not a fighter. An archer kit.
You can turn the health bars on/off in the options menu
The water looks great!
500,000 words and 8000 or so lines being voiced.
The engine supports concentration checks now.
Yes, there are race and class checks in dialogue.
Skill checks as well as well as infravision checks.
All party members have their own personalized combat scripts now.
For example, Edwin is very fond of fireballs a slightly more reckless with them than say Dynaheir
Party AI has been completely revised.
There are buttons that toggle various combat settings now.
For example, there are buttons labeled "Attack Enemies", "Prefer ranged weapons", "Prefer Melee Weapons", "Use Offensive Spells", "Use Items" etc.
Using these buttons, you determine how your character will behave in combat
However, no matter what settings you've chosen, the new script will never override the player's commands
So even if you've set "Attack Enemies" to ON if you order your character to retreat, he/she will obey that order and won't continue attacking.
The firefly effect was brought over from IWD:EE.
Pharases by NPCs when you pick them are a mix of new and old ones.
Your items from BGEE will transfer to SoD, and there will be more staff importable to BG2EE.
they have over a 100 new items in SoD
improved weapon switching works for dual wielding as well
Elminster’s character (the one he designed) - Daran Highhammer will be voiced
About all portraits, sounds and etc unified from all games– there’re some license issues, they’ll try to get it real
When a shaman is summoning she should stay and can’t move. As soon as she moves, a spirit goes away
you can still use the old AI scripts if you so prefer
Will Baeloth make an appearance? If we have him in are party in BG1EE will he carry over to SoDS?
Daigledopple: yep You run at Baeloth and M’Khin at the same time, no quest for him, but banters
Q: "If i have Baeloth with me when i defeat Sarevok. Does the plot with him and Goblin still happen?"
A: "Yes it will."
Neera has her own quest, Rasaad and Dorn don’t – Dorn has a small, small quest
Shamans cast spells in a similar way to sorcerers. However, they pick their known spells from the druid spell pool.
In addition, Shamans get a number of unique spells which are not available to anyone else.
The text on the water is easier to see
most of the SoD items have unique effects that were not possible in the original games
we added a lot of code functionality to support the new items
we also have items that grant specific bonuses to certain classes, races or kits
there’re multiple kinds of fog in the game, including a blue one
There will be dwarven clothes, bathrooms, shower caps
a shaman wields an axe in the video
Pre-set parties based on alignment and improted parties
We can create custom parties in the SINGLE PLAYER mode!
Safana’s voice is beautiful! Thanks, Stephanie Wolfe
So does that mean in the end of SoD, you MUST have Jaheria, Khaleid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and Imoen in your party?
No, you don't have to have them
Daigledopple: But you'lls ee how it works out
There will be riddles
Dreams will give information to the player, cutscenes about the story – like in BG2
They will explain some abilities for your characters
New videos, cinematics, music
The production took 2 years, while the idea of SoD was in the work for 4 years
There is at least one tiefling and one aasimar you can meet on your journey, but that's all I'll say to avoid spoilers.
Historically the Baldur's Gate games used bitmaps of each font that's used in-game, which among other things led to issues with special characters. The engine now has the ability to pull all of the characters in a particular font, which means that 1) fonts can appear much cleaner in-game than they have previously, and 2) fonts are much easier to swap out, both on our side, and on yours.
You can change both major and minor clothing colors. Clicking that palette square on the Inventory screen opens a window that lets you change your Hair and Skin (for player-created characters) and Major/Minor Clothing (for all characters) colors. The reason for this is that we've greatly expanded the available color options for each of those categories, and we needed a new screen to fit them all in.
The journal popups can be toggled on/off from the Options menu, same as the healthbars.
As of patch 1 for IWD:EE, there is an option to turn off the damage adjustments on higher / lower difficulty settings as well as the XP bonus. So if people want to fight 3 ogres in the first Easthaven cave (instead of one) but don't want them to deal double damage and grant double XP, they can do that now.
Furthermore, in SoD, difficulty settings affect a larger variety of things than just enemy damage. Some examples include enemy combat tactics (how intelligently they pick their targets), enemy numbers (3 enemies on Normal, 5 on Core Rules and 6 on Hard, 7 on Insane), enemy group composition (3 melee opponents on Normal, 2 additional archers on Core Rules, an extra healer on Hard and an opponent with special abilities on Insane) as well as enemy spell / item use (enemies won't use their most powerful spells and items below Core Rules).
There's a setting in the Options menu that allows you to turn off the difficulty-based damage adjustments.
AlexT: "I was responsible for creating the AI for the Black Pits 2 battles and most of the combat in Neera's areas. Nowadays, I don't do as much AI scripting as before because of my management responsibilities, but I did set up the guidelines that our scripters use. I'm still personally writing certain portions of SoD AI, mostly boss battles and the new party AI scripts."
Note that SoD (like BG1 and BG2) doesn't have XP adjustments based on difficulty, those were always exclusive to IWD.
There is no XP scaling in SoD. If you play on harder difficulty settings, you fight more monsters and get the XP that those monsters are worth.
As an example, lest's say that on Normal you would fight two ogres, each worth 270 XP so you'd get a total of 540 XP from that encounter. On Core Rules, you would fight 3 ogres for a total of 810 XP from the same encounter.
Q: Any new spells for Druids (especially low level ones)?
A:There are some new spells in SoD, but not the kind that low level druids can use. We are aware of the issue though, and we may address it at some point.
[spoiler=more spoilery information]
there are new bardic instruments in SoD, yes
-Are there going to be any Dragons like Firekragg to give us a noob trap then come back later to beat his arse into the ground and have a how far we've come moment?
-Yes. You can't have a game called Dragonspear and NOT have dragons
there are items that you can forge, yes
A bag of holding is there
Some decisions in BGEE will affect SoD, some not.
Shamans have less spells, like sorcerers do if compared to mages
Shamans summon spirits by performing a shamanic dance
There will be a quest concentrating on druids and bringing good items for Druids.
New creatures - wild boars, dark treants and water elements, cyclops
There are more dreams, but they will not be shown during this demo because that would spoil the plot
The pairs of NPCs cannot be devided in dialogue way
You still have to manage reputation if you keep both good and evil NPCs
Glint and the shaman will have big quests, Corwin will have a small one. And the bard's one has been cut
One quest that has a timer.
They used a lot of books for this project, about a history of D&D
-Question: Are there any Fey characters/enemies?
-there are fey opponents, yes
Some content is temporarily disabled for this demo in order not to spoil the main plot
They added a fog system. Enemies can put a fog on areas
Fogs pretty cool. You can colour it and change some of its characteristics.
A hat +1 CHA (+2 CHA to bards)
A battle tanker – an item - can give immunity to fatigue
M'khin stats were shown in the twitch 10-16-15-14-17-12
Baeloth and Viconia will speak in the Drow language – so you need a translator
There will be new books! Like “Mortal to Lich”
Shamans have new druid spells like “Spirit World” “Spirit Clarity” – removes mental effects – they share the majority spells with druids with additional spells
“Sword of Troll Decapitation +1” inspired by a sword of ogre decapitation
The Iron Crisis is over, no breaking weapons
If people in your party (not the main char) have good INT, it can be used in dialogues
Reading in-game books can be rewarding for quests
There will be a lich, with many options, including siding with him. There will be ways for evil character
there will be Umberhulks
some returning companion's from BG1 have updated stats to make them more functional. In the stream Phil and Amber talk about how Safana is more useful due to some tweaks in her stats (she has pick locks now).
[/spoiler]
The full sessions:
Tune in to www.twitch.tv on March 4, 2016, at 11 AM MST (10 AM PST, 6 PM GMT). There will be awesome prizes as usual.
The Pre-order of the game is available at https://www.beamdog.com/products/baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear
The standard price is 19.99 USD, but there're also Digital Deluxe and Collector's Edition.