Recap of SoD presentation and Q/A session

Shin

This info will likely go to the 'swords not words' thread when @bengoshi gets around to it, but for anyone wondering what happened while they slept, here are the main points (from this presentation, contains presentations from Trent Oster and Phil Daigle; gameplay demos with Amber Scott, Andrew Foley and Lorne Ledger/Cuv; Q/A session with Trent, Phil and Cameron Tofer; and Mark Meer creating a character):


- 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.

Jarrakul

Thanks for posting! Man, so much cool news. Not gonna lie, easier weapon switching is a huge selling point for me. Not that I need to be anymore sold on this.

famousringo

Thanks for transcribing all the juicy info. Since I see there's a cleric/thief NPC and with all the talk of UI improvements, I'm guessing this means thieving abilities for cleric/thieves no longer get buried away in the special ability menu.

It's a little disappointing that the new NPCs get kicked to the curb in BG2, but Beamdog would probably have a tough time getting paid for making an enhanced, enhanced edition of BG2.

Dragonspear

Shin said:

SNIP

- Easier switching between ranged and 2H/dual weapons will be implemented.

SNIP

HAMSTERS AND RANGERS EVERYWHERE, REJOICE!

Well and obviously Dragonspear's rejoicing about all sorts of things

deserk

Honestly, the only cool things I look forward to here are the return of old voice actors (really hope that's true), learning about the new companions and story (not necessarily bothering playing through it all) and new portraits to use for tabletop lol. Otherwise I'm kind of disappointed, I really wish they could dramatically upgrade this game already, in terms of graphics or gameplay, otherwise there isn't much to look forward to here. I know these guys know how to make a very good story, but what's the point of that when you have all that outdated bland gameplay in the way, which most of us have played through over and over again? I honestly don't feel like they've improved on the gameplay of these Enhanced Editions whatsoever, but maybe that's because I've been playing a melee character and they just suck by default.

2nd edition ruleset which they use is such a dreadfully terrible model for a video game, because it gives us very little opportunities to customise our characters as they level up, unlike 3rd edition. Absolutely none if you're a melee class.

So yeah not gonna pay as much attention to this as Sword Coast Legends, I'm afraid.

Mikey205

Ye Deserk some of us like 2e and it makes sense to use that edition so that you can carry your main character through original games and new content. For me gameplay changes of the nature you describe would ruin the games for me. I think many would agree.

I am very excited about this new release.

dvdbangsrud

I just hope that the health bar as seen in the screenshots can toggled on and off.
Furthermore, importing a level 12 character to BGII seems a bit off compared to the original level 7, but I'm eager to see how this turns out in terms of difficulty and balancing.

Fablewynd

dvdbangsrud said:

I just hope that the health bar as seen in the screenshots can toggled on and off.

They mentioned in the presentation that it will be optional.

Mikey205

Looks so good. Does anyone have a link to a video of it? Heard it would be on Twitch or something.

Grammarsalad

"From UI and character creation demos:

- Many parts of the UI can be modified drag/drop style from within the game.

... "
Does this mean what I think it means?

Is there a link to the presentation @Shin ?

moody_mage

Was there an estimate on how long this UI functionality would take to backport to the other EEs?

Shin

Grammarsalad said:

"From UI and character creation demos:

- Many parts of the UI can be modified drag/drop style from within the game.

... "
Does this mean what I think it means?

Is there a link to the presentation @Shin ?

Aye, here's the full stream, nearly three hours long.

SmilingSword

I'm so excited and thoroughly delighted that this is happening.
BG2 is gonna need a huge revamp difficulty wise if we can now start with a level 12 party. I mean if you duel a fighter at lvl9 you would have your levels back before the start of BG2 no matter what you dueled into and that's rather OP for the beginning of BG2.

Pibaro

Hi everybody!!

1) Meant to be more accessible than previous games without sacrificing tactical depth

Any idea about this?

and..

2) Is this going to be a stand alone game or you'll need to have BGEE installed and buy it as an upgrade?

Edit: I missed many things in the last few months.... but Chris Avellone????
Is he involved in SoD????

Jarrakul

True, although most of the major sidequests have at least a certain amount of level scaling anyway. Upon reflection, my main concern is the effect an extra million experience will have on the main plot, at all stages.

Shin

Pibaro said:

Hi everybody!!

1) Meant to be more accessible than previous games without sacrificing tactical depth

Any idea about this?

and..

2) Is this going to be a stand alone game or you'll need to have BGEE installed and buy it as an upgrade?

Edit: I missed many things in the last few months.... but Chris Avellone????
Is he involved in SoD????

1) This was exemplified in a few ways. The interface has been redesigned with journal pop-ups that recap the main purpose of quests you get (full journal entries still available), health bars in combat so you don't have to mouse-over enemies to see their health (can be disabled) and a loot system that shows what characters can equip a certain item and also suggests whom to give it to. The spellbook interface has also been made more informative, with less maneuvering needed to see what a spell does.

2) Can't confirm, though as SoD now has been labelled as an expansion to BGEE, I would think you need BGEE.

As for Chris Avellone, he wasn't on the team per se, but was given an opportunity to play SoD and provided feedback. You can read a little bit about it here.

Pibaro

Thank you @Shin for the link.

cmk24

Pibaro said:

2) Is this going to be a stand alone game or you'll need to have BGEE installed and buy it as an upgrade?

From http://www.siegeofdragonspear.com/

"Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear is an expansion to Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. You need to own Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition to purchase and play it. "

Faydark

@Pibaro In addition to Shin's answer above, they are also adding the Story Mode (and a Heart of Winter style) difficulty setting to SoD (and possibly to the existing EE games, it was unclear). Additionally, they appeared to indicate that the difficulty setting will affect the actual encounter mechanics as well (such as adjusting how many and which types of enemies you encounter).

Arcalian

I have an all EE NPC team sitting in BG1EE right now, they'll keep waiting until this is released. I'm not OMG Excited, no. But I *am* like, "Yeah, cool."

Flashburn

I wanted to know more about the "Legacy of Bhaal" difficulty setting. It's like Heart of Fury but does it improve the AI as well? That's what I thought they were getting at when they were discussing it.

elminster

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.

Jarrakul

That's awesome news, @elminster. Will there be an option to turn off the increased damage, then, like in IWDEE? I don't especially like the way the increased damage alters the balance, but I'd love to play with the smarter AI.

Shin

@elminster Does the AI max out at core rules or do you have to ramp it up all the way to get the full experience?

AntaraReis

Shin said:

- New level cap is 12, unclear if it's for all classes.

Well, Level 12 for thieves mean 440000 XP, whereas for paladins it's 1200000 XP, almost 3 times as much. I say, cap it at 1 million, which just happens to be level 12 for fighters.

Curmudgeon

AlexT confirms that:

"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."

http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655998/#Comment_655998

Gallowglass

AntaraReis said:

Well, Level 12 for thieves mean 440000 XP, whereas for paladins it's 1200000 XP, almost 3 times as much.

And Level 12 for Druids is only 300000 XP, so even that would meet the promise.

AntaraReis said:

I say, cap it at 1 million, which just happens to be level 12 for fighters.

No, far too high, that'd make a lot of BG2ee:SoA too trivial, unless they did a lot of work re-balancing it (which I'm sure they don't want to have to do).

Ardanis

Jarrakul said:

Will there be an option to turn off the increased damage, then, like in IWDEE? I don't especially like the way the increased damage alters the balance, but I'd love to play with the smarter AI.

It's on the list, but don't hold you breath... yet.

Shin said:

Does the AI max out at core rules or do you have to ramp it up all the way to get the full experience?

Core is the max for AI. If you move the difficulty slider higher, you'll get more/stronger enemies instead.

Mornmagor

Looks promising, i'm always up for a new story in Baldur's Gate world!

I wanted to ask the devs, how come you decided to create so many new areas which needs 3D modeling, but you decided to keep the pixelated nightmares aka character sprites? >.>

Is it that costly to the point it's not worth it at all? :<

Gallowglass

Ardanis said:

Shin said:

Does the AI max out at core rules or do you have to ramp it up all the way to get the full experience?

Core is the max for AI. If you move the difficulty slider higher, you'll get more/stronger enemies instead.

Good! That's the way it ought to be. "Core" should mean "the real game" working with all features enabled (such as full AI), but without extra difficulties.

Jalily

Mornmagor said:

I wanted to ask the devs, how come you decided to create so many new areas which needs 3D modeling, but you decided to keep the pixelated nightmares aka character sprites? >.>

Is it that costly to the point it's not worth it at all? :<</p>

Yes.