The North Remembers
Varwulf
Member Posts: 564
I just want to start by saying that I support Beamdog as a company, and as a unit of people working toward the goal of making (or enhancing) great games. Even if the newly announced projects and news appeal to me with the most granular levels of excitement, I still love the company and am thankful for the time I've spent on this board, interacting with the lot of you, beta testing, sharing stories, etc. Even if I have been less active than I would otherwise like to be, but I digress.
That being said, I still cannot help but to feel the slightest bit stung by one piece of news in particular--and since some co-workers of mine finally managed to get me to watch the entirety of Game of Thrones in less than a month in preparation for Season 8 (I won a bet out of it, it was worth it, don't judge!), I felt it would be fitting to create a little, subtle image to characterize my feels in ways that words perhaps cannot. It's nothing special, just the one of the default Icewind Dale II backgrounds found all over the internet, but with the Great Oak icon from Icewind Dale 1 overlayed in the center with an obvious Game of Thrones reference tacked on as well.
By no means should this be taken as some kind of protest or whatever against Beamdog for moving on and away from my favorite of the Infinity Engine games, but I just want it to be known that...
"The North Remembers"
Or at least, one over emotional fan does.
Post edited by Varwulf on
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Thanks for the compliment. I'm sadly not much of an artist so I can only do so much
Beamdog announced recently that Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition is no longer going to happen, in fact, that no more Enhanced Editions will be happening. I was hoping for at a minimum, a complete Enhancement of all of the Infinity Engine games.
Despite the fact that only recently Trent said that it wasn't going to happen (for real) and the news for the last year or so was that they were looking for the source code.
I think that everybody are praying for a miracle and that the source code manifests it self. Beamdog has done theirs, and now have to be realistic - and tell the costumers the sad and ugly truth:
IWD2:ee will sadly never be
Yeah, for sure, I mean after so long the logical side of my brain knew that it was likely not going to happen, but the admission still feels like a bit of a stab to the back to me.
Surely, it is out there. Seems strange to me that IWD1's could be found just fine, but not IWD2's. Someone must have it.
Also, there were plenty of "negative" comments in the livestream about how the leads that did come up seemed "not very promising" which is honest and all, but it does feel like for a long while now Beamdog didn't seem that positive about it happening--again, makes sense, but it still stings, and I had to speak my mind about it.
Plus, I needed an excuse to make this graphic because it popped in my head and it was too good not to do. IMO.
but with that being said, perhaps this was your first IE game, and you are looking at it with nostalgia goggles or perhaps you just love the setting, or the music ( when there actually IS music, the IWDs are notoriously for just being silent, which kind of annoys me, they have some good music tracks, but they just dont like playing them that much ) or perhaps it could be that it uses "3rd edition rules" ( which in my opinion for a PC game are just a terrible ruleset, great for PnP, terrible for PC, just like how 2nd edition is great for PC but terrible for PnP )
but anyways i would be very interested in an IWD 3, if i had to choose between IWD 2 EE or IWD 3, there is no contest on the matter and i would go with IWD 3 even if IWD 3 was destined to be trash, at least it would have been fresh trash heh
I'm not accusing anyone of anything, I'm just trying to understand how this can happen.
Thanks in advance.
I think poor maintenance of storage and blunders with the archives of backups are to blame for this. From some of the stories I've heard the quality control behind it wasn't that good. Some got lost in fires, some probably just forgotten or misplaced during a companies bankruptcy or absorption into a bigger corporation.
There are probably a variety of reasons and I'm sure you'll get a better answer.
Also back in the days nobody imagine that there will be a need for hd remaster or console port. So they were not careful with the backups.
really? from what i can recall the role play options were mostly done in the town of targos, and basically after that, no one cared really all that much what your race was
but then again, at best over the 17 or so years this game has been out, i've only played it like 10-12 times at best, so i haven't really explored all the races to see what interactions you could have
The level of detail takes a serious drop-off after the Targos chapters. I replayed saving Targos many, many times with different parties but rarely took any of them much past the Aurilites. After surviving those epic battles in the town, foiling the planned destruction of a strategic bridge, and then chasing the goblin, bugbear and orc hordes back ro their fortress and defeating them in detail, it seemed rather anti-climatic afterwards.
I am playing IWD2 in these days. So far (I am in Chapter 5), my drow cleric is still recognized as drow and I get specific replies from characters. The game does offer all the roleplay possibilites mentioned by @ThacoBell and it is great
The first time I played when it was released, (this was before the internet and easy to find solutions and walkthroughs), I got totally stuck in one of the late game dungeons and couldn't finish the game. I found out later I had to do everything in a certain order and find a few MacGuffins that I hadn't found, and then I was to have been transported back in time where I would have had to do it all AGAIN. The whole solution I read, a year or two later, left me rolling my eyes and shaking my head.
I've had a bad taste in my mouth about IWD 2 ever since.
I gave it a second chance a couple of years ago, and ran into that ice dungeon frustration and tedium I was talking about. Puzzle dungeons are just not my thing. IWD2 is not a game for me because of that.
nah, chapter 5 is the worst BY FAR and can die in a fire, that garbage yuan-ti puzzle and then that crap weasel time warp thing, bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh
Running around in circles in Lonelywood was pretty boring too. Then top it off with the lamest dragon in all of IE and you have a whole stretch of the game that is as tedious as doing my taxes...
Lonelywood is a sure winner. I dont mind a good puzzle, and did the EOB3 forrest puzzle back in the days (which must have been the reference), but that darn forrest.
Didnt have internet at home back then, so I had to go to work on a saturday just to consult gamebanshees walktrough - including the travel time, it was 4 hours down the drain....
Otherwise a great game.
Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! I love the Ice Temple! Maybe I am the only one, but my love is enough!!!!!
even i don't think the ice temple is that bad
Do it - you will love it
Then come the puzzles, and the wandering around in circles. I'd really like IWD2 if it weren't for that.
It was also a great way of reflecting of getting lost in the woods. I can see the tediousness behind it, but I thought it was one of the clever things the game offered, second probably to getting a large XP bonus if you snuck passed the goblins instead of slaughtering them all.