Heart of Winter - No going back?
Necroscope86
Member Posts: 79
Unless I'm being daft.. once you've completed HoW, can you not return to Lonelywood?
After the last part, it did say "World map updated" which I thought meant I could go back and forth.
After the last part, it did say "World map updated" which I thought meant I could go back and forth.
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The same thing happens if you complete the main game before beginning HoW-- you never get a chance to talk to Hjollder and travel to HoW naturally, so you have to import your party into it and play it as a standalone. Importing causes you to lose your gold and, due to engine limitations, any containers you might have had, (bag of holding, scroll case, etc.)
The ideal order, then, would be:
1) Complete the main game up until the point of no return at the end.
2) Go to Heart of Winter.
3) Complete Heart of Winter up until the point of no return at the end.
4) Go to Trials of the Luremaster.
5) Complete Trials of the Luremaster.
6) Complete Heart of Winter.
7) Complete the main game.
Once you complete Heart of Winter, there is no returning to the Heart of Winter portion of the game. Instead, you are automatically deposited back into the main campaign. (Since TotL is accessed through the Heart of Winter portion of the game, this necessarily locks you out of TotL for this run, as well.)
As long as you complete the three elements in that order, (TotL > HoW > Main Campaign), you can do all three in a single playthrough without having to import your party into a new game, (losing all of your gold and containers in the process).
If you screw up the order, it's not a huge deal. Just start a new Heart of Winter game, import your party, and play on through. The developers of IWD built it specifically to accommodate multiple playthroughs, anyway. Indeed, more than accommodating, most of the design decisions, (an unreachable XP cap, the random loot tables, the flat HP bonus on HoF mode, the lack of tradeoff-free stat boosts like BG1's infamous Tomes), actually incentivize and encourage multiple runs.
For some reason I never finished this, and then lost my saves.
I honestly don't know what happened to them. I've kept my files relatively intact from 1994 until now, and I still have like 99% of everything I've ever had, but one of the things I don't have is the Icewind Dale saves. I lost them ages ago, around 2002-2004 or so? I was playing a few hours a month on average and they didn't make the transition to a new computer.
and I've never played HoW so it's a new experience. But This is also my first time through Trials of the Luremaster, and I despise it from my bottom of my heart. Good thing I'm nearly done.
There. I just wanted to state that for the record. This thread seemed an appropriate place to do so.