News Items 0-489

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• Improved Abazigal: This mod is crazy-hard. Some fans were requesting a multiple-dragon battle, so here it is, complete with drakes and a psionics-using purple dragon. This mod is only for the hardcore...and should probably only be used by those possessing systems in the upper range of the specs. For installation and uninstallation instructions view the readme.
  
• Improved Balthazar: Balthazar is supposed to be the most powerful of the Five, yet many players were so high level when they reached him that they just turned on Greater Whirlwind and chopped him to pieces within seconds. This optional mod gives him some more speed and a couple of extra abilities...plus some students that share some of his powers...turning this into a much funner and more challenging fight. For installation and uninstallation instructions view the readme.
  
• Improved Bhaalspawn powers: These are some extra Bhaalspawn abilities that the player was originally going to develop as he played out the challenges in the pocket plane, but they were cut in favor of the high-level abilities for all classes. There is a different set for good and evil, although many players are going to
  find that they get a mix of them. Perhaps the only negative is that it may be difficult to figure out what a couple of the powers do, as there is no way to get descriptions for special abilities. For installation and uninstallation instructions view the readme.
  
• Improved Demogorgon: Prior to ship, the fight with Demogorgon was a lot harder. We figured, however, that even though this was an optional fight, there were going to be a lot of people who figured that they had to kill Demogorgon and would get frustrated because of how difficult he is. So he was toned down. At the request of some players on the BIS message board, the original difficulty was restored. For installation and uninstallation instructions view the readme.
  

Overall, "Throne of Bhaal" is a very in-depth add-on sure to give any gamer numerous hours of exploring and adventuring. Any "Baldur's Gate" fan should not go without this expansion. Even after you play through the whole expansion don't forget the new areas that have been added to "BG II" or the Wild Mage. Whether you play through "BG II" with the new areas and character or not is up to you -- I know I will. Damn you, BioWare! I thought I'd gotten my life back. Obviously not.

WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO MAKE BG, DID YOU SEE A GAP FOR A GROUND-BREAKING RPG IN THE MARKETPLACE?
Ray: I think we did think that there was a need for some more RPGs at the time we released Baldur's Gate - Greg and I have always been huge fans of RPGs and there hadn't been a lot of really strong ones in the period immediately prior to when we released BG (one exception to this that I can recall was Fallout).

Comprehensive descriptions of each of the areas in the games, including the NPCs, enemy types, traps and magic items in that area;

Strategies for fighting each of the major encounters;

Descriptions and locations of all of the magic items in the game, including Cespenar's recipes for the most powerful items;

Tons of additional information that'll be of interest to hardcore fans of the series -- curious about how the Wish spells work and the possible results you can obtain? How about the possible cards you can draw from the Deck of Many things? How do you operate Lum's Machine. All explained in the guide.

More serious problems are evident in the closing stages of your quest. The developers seem to have run out of steam near the conclusion, which is staged in a six-level dungeon. Exploration is meaningless here; all you need to do is buff up and proceed along the forced-path trail that leads you to the final confrontation with the Luremaster. Mindless combat is everywhere, and it's not even properly set up. Most of the time you'll simply be jumped by one group of enemies after another as soon as you pass a cell door. Few of these enemies are very interesting, either, unless you've really got a hankering to square off against a Minotaur or a Neo-Orog. It's plainly evident that these encounters are present just to stretch the game out.

You're all right - it's been really too long since we gave you a last update, and while we do have some good reasons for it (i.e. time), I can imagine that it must be frustrating. So therefore, without any further delay, here's a complete overview of what's currently going on at our studio, and more importantly, what's going on with the game.

By now, you've figured there's some delay on the game. Currently the official figure is that the game will come out in Q4, end of 2001. Internally we figure that we'll have the game ready by november, but as always, things can take more time than expected, or things can go wrong. In any case, I'm really glad that CDV gave us the extra time to complete the game, because we had been considering cutting in the game, and that would've been so sad. As it is, we're still doing some cuts, but I doubt anybody will ever notice it, as the plain truth is that this game is really incredibly big. To give you an example, there's this village called Aleroth where the game starts, and to this day, I'm still figuring out new things to do there. (If there is one thing for sure, then it's that I do know Aleroth ;-) ) And Aleroth together with the dungeons under it is maybe only 5% of the world.

The size of the world coupled with the non-linearity, the sheer amount of options a player gets, and the large amount of skills you can learn are the main reasons for the delays. We've got somewhat of an internal testing departement here (the real testing is done over at CDV), and it's really incredible to see the amount of different approaches people take when they play the game. That obviously was always the intention, but actually seeing it happening gives a rather satisfactory feeling. Unfortunately it also causes a lot of extra headaches, because we have to make sure that every approach really works, and that is really no trivial thing to do.

The funny thing is that we have a part of the team at the ready, or almost ready point, and then some poor sods (me included) who still have a huge tasklist. Naturally this created some frustration within our team, but if you think about it, it's only natural. Those who aren't ready yet are the ones involved in the content implementation, and a lot of that content could only be put in when all the things on which the content depended were ready.

I mentioned non-linearity as one of the main reasons for the delays, but it definitely deserves special credits ;-). You see, non-linearity makes testing a major pain in the butt, which in turn makes the bug-fixing incredibly hard. Programmer schedules have been completely overturned by writing function after function to tame that beast, leading to delays in different areas (e.g. skill implementations). Story implementations had to be redone and redone until every single case was covered. Our game-editors have been extended with extra capability after extra capability just to be able to cope with the complexity of it all and... Well, you get the picture.

Additionally, to make life even harder, because of its size and the amount of options the player has, Divinity contains hundreds of thousands of data fields which have to be filled in, checked, cross checked, balanced etc... While we had several systems in place to make that job easier, it turned out that we had to refine those systems over and over in order to make the data-entry process more manageable.

All of these things, together with a large reluctance against sacrificing quality, lead up the delay we are facing now. But honestly, we're really happy about it, as it means we can do the game almost the way it was intended. I say almost, because realistically we had to do some cuts.

Enough about the delays, let's talk about an event I'm really looking forward to, i.e. the intro. As some of you might now, the intro for Divinity is being created by a company called ex-machina. They are a team based in France with very high credentials, and the previews we got from them really rock. Normally, if everything goes right, we should have the final renders this week, and if I'm not mistaking, somewhere in the next couple of months parts of it are going to be made public. I think you won't be disappointed.

Onto marketing and PR then. You might have noticed already, but press awareness of Divinity is on the rise. Just last week there was a press tour in Germany where a preview copy was given to the following magazines : Computerbild Spiele,Gamestar,PC-Games,Pc-Action,Game On and Bravo Screenfun. This week we're going to be showing it to 4 leading UK magazines,4 leading french magazine and PC Gamer US. Press in the Benelux is slowly getting up to speed also, with several online previews, newspaper coverage and previews in this months magazines. This indeed means that the PR/Marketing for Divinity has finally kicked of, and for what it's worth, the tour in Germany seems to have made an impression on the journalists. You should see the results in the September issues of the magazines I mentioned. The additional time gained by the delay also gives the marketing and PR people extra time to prepare everybody for Divinity, which is a good thing in my eyes. Next two major things that I know of is that we'll be at ECTS, and that there is a public demo planned, somewhere in Q4, before the game gets released. Actually, I know the date, but I'm not going to tell you here, because I might fall flat on my face (as most of my date estimations in this forum ;-) )

The public demo is Aleroth, i.e. the beginning of the game, and you should be sweet with it for quite some time, as there's really a lot you can do in it. (Yes Risini, it's what you played, but then without the bugs ;-) ) The biggest problem we have with the public demo is getting its size small enough so that I can be distributed to everyone. I hope we'll be able to do an online version, but be prepared, it'll be big. (Right now we're trying to think on how to cram it on a CD ;-) )

There's also a trailer coming your way which will be prior to the public demo, and I think it might be around the time of ECTS, but that's not sure yet. Haven't seen it myself yet, but Sickboy keeps on telling me how cool it will be ;-).

From the game point of view, we're still heavily editing story and world, as you might have gathered from www.divinityswelt.de. On the engine implementation front we're adding all the main interface screens like character selection, startup etc... and there's still the little matter of the warrior skills which need to implemented. Other than that, it's basically ready, except of course for the plethora of bugs we're fixing. And, the roofs of course ;-) The extra time that's become available will allow us to put those in which is obviously way cool ;-)

All in all, it's coming along nicely, and for those who wonder, yes, I'm still in love with this game, and I'd happily keep on adding new features to it. I think that for now though, I'm finally satisfied with the amount of things we put in and it's time to finish it completely so that all of you can see what we've been talking about for so long.

Black Isle Studios' title, TORN, has been canceled. In conjunction with the cancellation, five of the 56 member Black Isle Studios staff were laid off. All of the remaining members of the TORN team are now working on other internal Black Isle Studios RPG products.

I hated to drop that point there down from 95, but the incredible difficulty encountered in the expansion is simply a bit much, and the need to constantly reload, wait for timestops, or other annoyances really adds to the frustration rating of the gameplay rather quickly. It's still fun simply because it's building on what is D&D, and all D&D games are fun, but I think it could have been toned down a bit here.

As for a preview version, we're actually touring next week in Germany with it, and handing it out to a select few. I hope that'll get rid of the Diablo thing once and for all.

And as far as a public demo is concerned - that one will be out before the game hits the stores.

As for other aspects, Tales of the Luremaster shows ample evidence of the team's experience with BioWare's workhorse Infinity engine. In particular, the game settings are every bit as detailed and as gorgeous as we've come to expect from Black Isle's talented art team. Combat can be challenging, with the difficulty said to scale with the level of the party. I only played with one party, but found that changing tactics often makes quite a difference. In terms of playing time, my usual methodical style produced about 17 hours of enjoyment, although those who don't explore every corner might well finish in 10 or so. Nonetheless, given the price, it would still seem to qualify as a tremendous bargain.

Toss in a day and night cycle, weather effects, a full journal, 3D positional audio, and 1024 by 768 3D accelerated graphics that do, at least in the screenshots, look impressive, and Divine Divinity has the potential to be, if not actually god-like, then at least angelic. Larian is even promising a highly developed AI for the monsters, where the baddies will communicate and use tactics when battling you-something games like Diablo certainly lack. We'll have to wait a month or two however to see if this will be the next great Belgian import, after beer and chocolates.

Throne of Bhaal is a solid expansion pack for Baldur's Gate II. Not as great as the original in terms of overall fun or value, but worth it for fans as the conclusion to the saga as well as a bridge until the "next big thing" in CRPGs hits: Neverwinter Nights.

So to that end, we're working on mixing the two styles... having the same power and "expanse" but hinting at something a bit more "foreign" than the typical quasi-European fantasy setting. This will affect our walla (voices one hears in an area) and ambient sound design, too... Torn's settlements should ring with the sounds of many languages and accents, Agathian northerners speaking with halfling locals, Third Kingdom dwarves bickering with Oedine elves. Ambient music - that played within the setting (e.g. the PC enters a tavern; what is the bard there playing?) - should reflect such, too... folk music of a sort, not clearly from any one real-world culture but similar to that of our own world, giving the player the sense of a "majestic, far-away land."

I wait and wait with anticipation each time I beat one of these Bioware RPGs; the promise of another installment always has me filled with eagerness. But now, the wait is over; I'm happy and grief-stricken at the same time that my epic adventure, up the Sword Coast and throughout Amn and beyond, is finally over. Along the way I've met with friend and foe alike, helped the helpless, defended the defenseless, and randomly killed a few peasants on occasion, just for good measure. It's been a journey wrought with glory, danger, deceit, love, and action, and I'm sorry it's over. Bioware has stated that Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal will be their last game that uses the Infinity Engine (though that doesn't mean Black Isle Studios won't still use it), which means we can expect future games of theirs to use more advanced graphics technology (such as Neverwinter Nights, a game that will probably shut us down due to loss of staff). Throne of Bhaal is, without a doubt, a near-perfect ending to a near-perfect series.

FROM DAMNED TO DIVINE

Divine Divinity sets new standards for artificial intelligence

Hunted and haunted at every twist and turn by dark and shadowy foes, Divine Divinity, the new game from CDV Software Entertainment, will test your role-playing skills to the uttermost limit. Its simple, easy-to-access interface masks a complex narrative which combines the traditional clash between good and evil with a intricate array of non-playing characters who can affect your every decision. The artificial intelligence developed by the game's creator Larian Studios sets new standards of sophistication and believability in this field.

In a land scarred by the upheavals in its past, including the Age Of The Damned and The Age Of Chaos, to your rightful destiny as the Divine One, your quest is marked with myriad sub-plots which together make for a uniquely open-ended game in which you control the pace and ultimately your destiny.

Game features

b>The vast world of Rovellon

The dark fantasy world of Rovellon spread across more than 20,000 screens, reveals its secrets slowly. As you progress through this mysterious, troubled land, permeated with a rich symbolism, your status changes subtly - from hunted, to hunter, and finally to saviour.

Unique interaction with 150 non-playing characters

You'll find you have to make use of every opportunity for character interaction - the 150 NPCs each have their own purpose and their own motivations, not all them benevolent. The standard RPG formula of 'retrieve item - receive award" doesn't always work quite so straightforwardly in Divine Divinity.

High resolution graphics

The overall atmosphere of foreboding is greatly augmented by the graphics, which, in resolutions up to 1024 x 768, show an unprecedented level of detail and clarity throughout the 20,000-plus screens that constitute the full playing area.

Revolutionary artificial intelligence

Developer Larian Studios has worked to create an artificial intelligence system in Divine Divinity that gives the game an entirely credible feel. For example, the non-playing characters, whether people or the 100-plus monsters, will all react differently to you, the player, according to your behaviour, actions, and level of development in the game. Non-playing characters will remember their previous encounters with you - so be careful how you treat them!

Choose your own gaming style

Divine Divinity gives you more scope for choosing the right way to play, at the right time, in the right place. At any point in the game, you can choose to act in either an action-oriented manner or go through the detailed quests and sub-quests in more traditional role-playing fashion.

Dynamic story telling system

As well as being able to choose your game-playing style throughout Divine Divinity, you have complete freedom of movement through the world of Rovellon, so that you will lose all sense of simply completing one quest in order to embark on the next.

Divine Divinity, developed by Larian Studios, will be published by CDV Software Entertainment in Autumn 2001 for PC CD-ROM. For more information on the game, visit its dedicated web site at http://www.divinedivinity.com.

.."We could fill pages and pages with fascinating info about Divinity ..(..) The "attitude system" (NPC\'s remember your behaviour), (..), the extraordinary interface, the clever use of the "field of view" for friend and enemy, the absence of loading screens, the -never before seen- interactivity with the environment.."(..)
Roleplayers of all countries: Divinity is THE game to look forward to!

Any BG/D&D fan, CRPGer, fantasy fan, or even those who enjoy a good story should definitely pick up ToB, and experience the journey through the epic vision Bioware/Black Isle created for the Forgotten Realms. ToB triumphantly and memorably ends the saga to a story that will stand with the Ultimas, Wizardry's, Bard's Tales, Gold Box D&D games etc. as one of the great CRPG experiences of all time.

The haunted castle setting in Trials of the Luremaster is great and if you take the time to read the various scrolls and tombs, you'll come across a wonderfully written history. This history adds to the spooky yet gloomy feeling of the castle, which Black Isle did such a good job of conveying to the player. The recommended party for Trials of the Luremaster is listed at level 11 to 18, yet I found a good number of the battles rather challenging for my party of mid-twenty level characters. You will be rewarded for your hard fought battles with a lot of cool new items, like the SkullFlail or the Wind of Heaven sword.

After thirty minutes, and four pixie-stix sours, another figure came over to my table -- like a suckled louse that had fallen into a vat of Velveeta-blaring like a hate and halitosis megaphone, damning me and TORN, at the speed of thirty "sucks" per second. He pointed to an early screenshot and called our team "the biggest failure since New Coke," and then went on to scrawl unflattering portraits of dogs with intestinal problems and drawing arrows with the word "you" pointing at the worst of it. I had enough and I stood up, grabbing the freak by his back shirt and pointing towards the back of the bar. Minutes later I returned to the table victorious, having thrashed the hobbit so badly at Street Fighter 2 that he ran for the exit and only came back to grab a handful of red licorice.

Throne of Bhaal opens after the end of Shadows of Amn, at the outbreak of a major Bhaalspawn war. The children of the dead Lord of Murder are waging a climactic war against each other, each trying to exterminate the others. Chief among them is a group known as the Five. The most powerful Bhaalspawn (not including you) have allied together to bring about the resurrection of Bhaal. Into this tumultuous war you are thrown, now a power to be reckoned with yourself.

The downsides were not many aside from the bug that frustrated me. One thing to mention here is you do need a copy of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn to play TOB. Also in my opinion you do need a lot more than the recommended system requirements that are stated by Bioware to play the game enjoyably.

All in all I give Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal an 8 out of a possible 10. It would have gotten a 9 but, the bug really hurt it. But as always Bioware is very good with patches and you can be sure any bugs that are found will be patched.

Even more irritating is the presence of absurdly powerful enemy mages and priests. After escaping Saradush, nearly every battle takes place against numerous enemy melee specialists and their magic-using backup who inevitably throw up all sorts of protection spells as soon as you hove into view. Each struggle has to be fought the same way, with your mages and priests working on taking down these protections while your warriors struggle to stay alive against the onslaught of enemy shock troops. So while you now have access to those powerful ninth level spells, you'll spend most of the time using dishwater dull stuff like Pierce Shield and Ruby Ray of Reversal. As combat is fairly prevalent in the game, Throne of Bhaal often becomes a tiresome crawl from one room to another. Where Baldur's Gate II wrapped me up so completely that I lost whole days in front of my computer, the expansion so frustrated and bored me that I was hardly able to play for three or four hours before requiring a break. Perhaps I'm just tired of this series, though I don't think that's the case, judging from the months I spent so eagerly anticipating the add-on's arrival.

Even though the Baldur's Gate serial is finally finished, Black Isle will continue to provide us with quality entertainment as they had for the past four years, with their new project the Neverwinter Nights, their first 3D D&D adventure. There is a rumor that they intend to give the notorious Infinity engine code to their fans, but that is still but a rumor. The end of Baldur's Gate is also a surprise, or should I say several surprises as there are several ways to finish the game :-).

Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster is Now Available!

First off, for our American friends, have a happy and safe July 4th from all of us here at Black Isle Studios.

We're pleased to announce today that Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster is now available for download! Special thanks to our friends at PlanetBaldursGate and FilePlanet for hosting its release. Trials of the Luremaster is a 72MB download and requires Heart of Winter to be installed. It includes new monsters, quests, items, areas and portraits and is available free of charge.

For our non-US/UK customers, the French, German, Spanish and Italian versions will be available shortly.

Happy Hunting!
Darren Monahan
Producer
Black Isle Studios

Is composing for games different from other work you've done, and is composing for a role-playing game different from other genres?



Every medium requires a different musical style to create the desired atmosphere. In film, the action on screen dictates second by second what music you're going to write. For computer games, the composer starts with a vision of what the developer wants to achieve and then translates this into music. There is a lot more room for creativity and imagination when writing for games. And, naturally, different game themes call for different musical styles. RPGs are usually story based, like epic films, and are often complimented by the intensity of a classical orchestra.

What you'll find inside is a new dungeon area, as well as new plot areas. To explore these, you can build a new character (which I did) or import from SOA. A feature of your demigod-level power is your ability to bring NPC's from earlier in your career to a "pocket plane" which is apparently your private residence. Think of it as "town." You can open a portal to town when you're not in combat, allowing you a safe place to rest and juggle your party members and inventory.



In addition, your characters attain special abilities at high levels. Level 9 spells are also yours with mage-type characters. Just reading some of those descriptions makes many familiar spells look like chicken feed. It doesn't take long for your characters to level up, as you face some pretty tough enemies with high levels and magic equipment of their own.

A new character kit, the Wild Mage, has also been added. This wizard subclass shapes wild magic to his will for extra benefit and possible harm. You'll even be able to create new magic items and artifacts by combining items together on your character's special "Pocket Plane" -- an area to which he can travel when he needs a rest from the hardships of the Forgotten Realms. Of course, all these minor new features and enhancements are merely icing on the cake for a series that continues to be one of the greatest computer role-playing experiences out there.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal is another great addition to the series. It's a little more geared towards the magic-lover, but anyone familiar with D&D knows that if you make it to level 20 and above, you're gonna find magic playing a huge part in your survival. So prepare your mental tome for the next installment of the greatest PC RPG from here to the Forgotten Realms.

Graphically, the more powerful spell effects are quite good. When you have a bunch of magic users on the screen all casting their most powerful spells at once, you really start to realize how far the series has come from the first game in terms of graphics. The backgrounds are just as detailed as in Shadows of Amn, and even more beautiful in some instances, while the soundtrack is just as good as it always has been and the spoken dialog is perfect.

Most importantly, Throne of Bhaal continues the excellence in gameplay that was started back in 1998 with the original Baldur's Gate. Not a stone has been left unturned in keeping the game as true to the rule set as possible.

Here goes the official announcement:

The much-anticipated release is approaching, and CDV Software Entertainment AG and Larian Studios are working full throttle on the divine role-playing game Divine Divinity. The Game is now in its alpha stage, and the first two maps are complete. First screenshots of the first playable version can be seen here:
More about it...

SysInfo is a handy application for use with BioWare Corp games. This file checks a computer system to see that all the requirements are met to be able to install and play Baldur´s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Secondly, it is able to save the information on system specs as well as details on BGII configuration into a text file (Info_TOB.txt). This text file can then be used for customer support purposes to facilitate bug reporting.

...The Throne of Bhaal game CD has the text ´The Final Chapter´ branded on it. Nowhere on it does it say ´expansion pack´, and it is in this perspective that the game can truly be judged for what it is-a grand and fulfilling conclusion to the saga, and truly an expansion that fans of the series should purchase without hesitation.

Here´s what you need to know:

*REMINDER: TORN IRC Chat TOMORROW at 6:00 p.m PST*

Black Isle Studios and the IGN Vault Network are pleased to present a chat with members of the TORN team TOMORROW Thursday, June 28, 2001. Here are the details:

WHO: You and members of the TORN team
WHAT: TORN IRC Chat
WHERE: RPG Vault Chat - http://rpgvault.ign.com/chat/
host17.webmaster.com in channel #ignvault for fans using IRC clients
WHEN: Thursday, June 28, 2001, at 6:00 p.m. PST
WHY: To get the latest information straight from members of the development team.

In the mythos of the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms, the Sea of Swords is bordered on its eastern side by a diverse region containing a wide assortment of terrain and ecologies ranging from mountains, forests, swamps and plains to communities of every size and description as well as castles, ruins, dungeons, caverns and more. Within this expanse is an area with the Cloud Peaks to the south, the Wood of Sharp Teeth to the east, the Sea of Swords to the west, and the prosperous, powerful city of Baldur's Gate to the north. This area provided the setting and this city provided the name for Baldur's Gate, the seminal 1998 title from developer BioWare and publisher Black Isle Studios that is widely credited for spurring the current massive resurgence of the entire CRPG genre.

Anyway, there are two controversies surrounding these two releases. (And no, I am not touching that whole "Diablo is not an RPG business." I'm not. Ok? Not.) One is that Diablo 2 got nerfed by a recent patch and t'other is that Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal lets you level up to 40, which is sort of Deities and Demigods territory in AD&D 1st Edition terms.

Here´s what else they have:

• 
  
• A written review. Final score: 8.7 (out of 10)
• 
  
• A few cheat codes
• 
  
• A FAQ + Walkthrough
• 
  

ToB: Beta Patch    Posted Wednesday - June 27 - 2001 by
A new BETA patch is out for Trone of Bhaal. It updates the ame to version 26464, weights in at 4MB and addresses the following issues:

BETA Patch version 26464
The following is a list of the major items fixed in the Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Patch version 26464:

• Fixes the NPC "X appears busy" bug associated with Win2K and WinXP
  
• Fixes the problem where WinDoctor or other registry checking/cleaning programs would erase the BG2: Throne of Bhaal registry entry
  
• Fixes the incorrect calculation of the assassin backstab modifier when importing an assassin character from Shadows of Amn to Throne of Bhaal
  
• Fixes the party-splitting bug where players would make the in-game transition from the end of Shadows of Amn directly into the start of Throne of Bhaal and have some characters left behind in Shadows of Amn
  
• Fixes the multiplayer bug where Sarevok keeps repeating his first line of dialogue after the player makes the in-game transition from Shadows of Amn to Throne of Bhaal

Not only is Throne of Bhaal an expansion for Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, but it is the final chapter to a story that many fans have been a part of for almost three years. BioWare set a standard for RPGs back in 1998 and now they are doing it again, but this time they bring that same excellence to the expansion pack. A musical score of motion picture quality, topnotch voice acting, between 30 to 50 hours of gameplay (longer than most full retail games), multiplayer support, beautiful environments, and the list goes on. In my book these are all characteristics of a great game, not things that are characteristic of an expansion, until now. BioWare has done it yet again and delivered, what I consider, after about 18 hours of gameplay, a great product and a fitting close to one of the greatest CRPG series ever.

DB-Forge: Is there anything major you wish could have been done differently in the BG series? If so, what?

Dave: I wish we had known right from the start how the romance tracks were going to be implemented. It would have saved us a lot of hassle and time…and maybe we could have squeezed out that extra romance for the female PC’s.
I also wish some of the really good plots didn’t have to be cut. The cutting phase we went through in the middle of the design process, where we realized we just had too damn much…that was really painful. There were days I was so upset and frustrated I cried, even though I knew it was all necessary. I guess it’s just that we all love gaming so much and poured everything we had into these games…you have so much invested in it by the end. I’m glad it turned out like it did, though…pleasantly surprised that somehow it all worked out.

Here´s an overview of what they covered:

-Dave's Background
-Day-to-day duties for TORN
-Other projects using the TORN world
-Backstory to TORN
-Different Races in TORN
-More on the Races
-Look of the game
-S.P.E.C.I.A.L System
-Perks
-LithTech 3.1
-3D vs. 2D
-Biggest Challenege making TORN
-Working on RPGs
-Multiplayer
-More on multiplayer
-Xbox thoughts
-What stage the game is at now
-Talk of a Demo?
-Release Date

WHO: You and members of the Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal team.

WHAT: Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal IRC Chat

WHERE: RPG Vault Chat click here
(fans using IRC clients can connect to host17.webmaster.com in channel
#ignvault)

WHEN: Wednesday, June 27, 2001, at 6:00 p.m. PST

WHY: To get the latest information straight from members of the development
team.

TFH Gaming: ToB promises a final resolution to the Child of Bhaal saga. Can players expect the NPCs to receive resolutions to their stories as well, even if they're not involved in the romantic subplots? (Does Minsc retire and start a quiet reflective monastery where fellow berserkers will discover peace in caring for their own pet hamsters?)

Alan Miranda: A pet hamster monastery?! Hehe.I wouldn't put it past Minsc. Of course it might be difficult for him when Jan Jansen steals Boo in ToB. But the answer to your question is yes. Since we were tying up what happens to you, the main character, we also felt it essential to disclose what happens to all of your companions. All NPCs receive resolutions to their stories and glimpses of what lies ahead for them. It's so emotional !

I hope Interplay never stops putting out quality manuals for their RPG's. Even if it means spending a few bucks more. While I wasn't expecting much for this add-on, I was surprised to find a 5 x 7 inch 48 page manual included. Detailed spell and table listings are included as well as a bit of the backstory.

Also included is a 5 x 7 inch Quad-Fold Quick Reference Card which will prove helpful as it includes the new spells included with the add-on.

The game comes on one CD and is in a plastic jewel case.

Ah finally, Throne of Bhaal on my desk, delivered by the child of Bhaal himself (don't take this serious :P), At last I could continue my adventure with Simon, child of Bhaal and dreaded sorceror. After doing the full install (860meg) I was ready to pick up my spellbook and do battle once again. (Sorcerers don't have spell books..mhh.. how bout staff?)

The intro tells u of 5 powerful Bhaalspawns, leading there armies across the sword coast and slaying everybody in a wave of massive destruction. In reaction to this, those suspected of being children of Bhaal are cast out and revived.

Even in Suldenesselar unease grows into fear at your presence. That is why the Elven Queen asked you to visit an ancient grove, where the ancients may shed light upon your dark fate.

After importing my old BG2 party I packed my stuff and set foot to the
ancient grove. After seeing the fourth 'loading' screen I finally arrived and immediately asked the ancients for help (doing what the game told me). A VERY deep voice told me about the prophecy of Alaundo the Wise, and how I was the chosen one. (I've heard that before..) Suddenly he stopped and told me somebody was coming, and no..it wasn't a friendly forest bear.

Specifics. We're defining the specifics right now.
That's where phrases like this (said sometime last year):
"Hey, uh, let's make some Legendary Monsters. You know, like big freaky mythical beast sort of things, like chimeras and hydras and stuff, but specific to the world of Torn. Most aren't even tied directly to the plot; they're just these huge, you know, stompy things that everyone's scared of. And they somehow amass a lot of swag to loot, if someone's got the stones to off them. So peasants will be all like, 'whoah man, don't go in that swamp, the uh, Turtle-Headed Hell-Snake... Flying... Jooblie... er... Monster lives in there.'"

Having only played part of the way through, and with my playing time having included repeating some portions with different characters or strategies, I'm not in a position to reveal much more of the story even if I wanted to. What I can say is that to this point, Throne of Bhall embodies all the positive qualities fans have come to expect from Bioware and the Baldur's Gate titles. The game art is as gorgeous and as detailed as ever, and a number of tweaks have been made to the interface such as allowing movement to continue while on the map screen, and highlighting treasure and doors with the Tab key. There are lots of new weapons, other items and spells. As for interesting new opponents, those revealed to date include Solars, Planetars, Purple Dragons, Magic Golems, Blue Dragons, Hive Mothers, Red Abishai, Fire Giants and Demogorgon, Prince of Demons. If that wasn't enough, there are new high-level abilities and spells that, in the words of Lead Designer Kevin Martens, can turn any character class into a killing machine.

If Black Isle were a separate company from Interplay, how would the way you make games change?

They probably wouldn't change much at all. We get to make the games that we think we should make. I purposefully did not say that we always get to make the game we want to make. Again, we have to be realistic about what consumers want, and make games that will appeal to enough of them

With TORN, Black Isle is building a completely original world, called Torn, instead of using the D&D license of their last few games. The game is built around a modified S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, the rules set they devised for Fallout (it is an acronym for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, the seven primary abilities). There are no classes so your character is determined by the skills and traits they choose. Up to three of the skills can be tagged so that the character will always be the best at them, and they will improve faster than the others. As you increase in level, skill points will be awarded for you to distribute as you desire.

Josh Sawyer on spell resist:
Proficiency in magic is represented by the level a character has in one of the four magic skills. They are bought like other skills. The four skills are Order, Chaos, Alchemy, and Summoning. The higher a skill is, the more effective your character is with spells of that type. Many spells have level prerequisites and other spell prerequisites.

There are not dozens upon dozens of spells for each skill type and level. There are a few for each skill type/level, typically between 2 and 4. Those spells have very specific purposes. Spell durations and ranges are set according to very specific categories (Instant, Short, Moderate, Long / Caster, Melee, Immediate, Near, Far) that increase relative to the caster's level (this may become relative to the caster's magic skill).

Most of the higher level offensive spells have greater damage potential, but decreased range, increased AP cost, and, of course, greater MP cost. We're trying to make lower level spells useful at higher levels by imposing these sorts of trade-offs.

Spells are resisted according to reasonbly simple formulae. In addition to physical damage resistances (as seen in Fallout), characters have derived spell resistances that fall into three categories. Resist Assault is checked when the creature is attacked by a physical threat that can be dodged or otherwise avoided by fancy footwork (if it helps, you can think of it as being similar to the Reflex Save in D&D 3E). Resist Corruption is checked when the creature is attacked by disease, poison, or other "I kill your body" types of magic. Resist Mental is checked when the creature's mind is attacked/dominated/charmed, etc. Using SPECIAL, they are currently derived in this fashion:

* Resist Assault: Character Level x3 + Perception x2 + Agility x2 + Luck
* Resist Corruption: Character Level x3 + Strength x2 + Endurance x2 + Luck
* Resist Mental: Character Level x3 + Intelligence x2 + Charisma x2 + Luck

When a caster attempts to affect a target, his or her casting skill must overcome the creature's resistance. The caster's skill is subtracted from the creature's resistance. The difference is subtracted from 50 to determine the % chance of the spell taking affect.

e.g.: Frank the Smarty is attacking Chaz the Tough. Frank decides to cast Blood Harvest (Resist Corruption) on Chaz. Frank's Chaos skill is 62%, all modifiers considered. Chaz is 8th level and has 7 Strength, 6 Endurance, 3 Luck. His Resist Corruption score is 24 (8x3) + 14 (7x2) + 12 (6x2) + 3 = 53.

Chaz's RC, 53, minus Frank's skill, 62, is -9. -9 subtracted from 50 is 59. Frank's spell has a 59% chance of success.

A successful Resist always results in a fail for that effect -- no "half damage" or anything like that.

Each school will have spells that require Resist Corruption, Resist Assault, and Resist Mental.

People think of magic as a versatile tool. You can blow people up, fly around, open up locked doors, teleport, turn people to stone -- all sorts of stuff. That's part of what makes it magic: you can do a lot of stuff with it.

I've always perceived the "balance" to magic in weapons as their straightforward nature. I haven't seen much on the proposed combat perks and the complexities of weapon combat, but I will guess that it probably is not extremely complicated. I believe characters will be able to take their traditional SPECIAL-style called shots with variants and will be able to perform special combat maneuvers with the acquisition of perks, but I don't know if it will be as fancified and varied as magic.

I'm just pulling this off of the top of my head, but do you believe allowing special attacks with specific effects would help this situation? For instance, let's pretend that Chaz has the "Armor Piercer" (made up) perk. When used, it allows him to more easily penetrate enemy armor at the cost of lower overall damage and a lower chance of scoring a critical hit. Is that the sort of variation you think is lacking for weapon dudes?

Spell disruption is currently in the rules, but I believe that it is a contested check rather than an absolute condition (i.e., you get hit and your spell is automatically ruined).

I don't know about a perk, but there is an alchemical forumula, Konn-Macha's Beast Sight, that allows you to learn a creature's bestiary information. Perks that emulate school specialization may allow characters to more easily overcome enemy resistances.

Dave Maldanado on companions being doomed:
As is the story would dictate that yes, at some point, the protagonist's curse would fall upon companions that remained with him or her too long (just as misfortune would strike wherever he or she remains for too long). Hmmm... I sure hope that the storyline includes some manner of resolving that rather glaring problem!

*secret, special hint just for you:* it does.

Brian Mitsoda on the world of TORN
1."First about cities. Will there be a lot of them? Will they have their own 'character' and will the people and citisens have their own specific looks that vary from every city?"

There will be a lot of cities, but in Orislane, the biggest ones are human cities. That's not to say you won't meet other races within them, just that the main population of Orislane is reflected in its capitol and larger towns. There are some towns for some of the other races, and these will seem entirely different from the human cities. Just like L.A. and Chicago are different beasts, so are the human cities.

2."Continuing Intrigues, wars, and evolving history during the game not only involving the course of actions undertaken by the human character also gives a game a stronger sense of a more lively and real world."

War is always going on somewhere in Torn, especially in regions where there are humans. As for consistency in characters and plots revealed in the first game, yes, we do plan on carrying some of these threads into a sequel (though I won't say how). We do not plan on throwing out established history and starting over again like Final Fantasy.

3."Third. Feeling, affection and predjudice. All these three things are mostly important. To give mixing of this to citisens of diffrent cities will give each city it's own atmosphere and character."

Living in a fantasy world, I suppose one comes across ogres and halflings and the rest of them often enough that it is not an earth-shattering event when it happens. Are there stereotypes for every race? Yes. Are they openly hostile towards each other? No, and it wouldn't be much fun if your character was picked on or discriminated against everywhere they went, though some individuals might be prejudice. To cite an example, the sidhe that live in sidhe cities are primarily isolationists and are very intolerant of outsiders, though in Orislane, most of the sidhe that the player will run into are "lost" sidhe, sidhe that have lived outside their own people's cities and therefore have become unlike the sidhe in their native culture (a better description of these types of sidhe should be up on the website soon).

4. "To have a well written history for the world of TORN wich can learned and read about under the game will give an even stronger passion and homefeeling for the world of TORN. And why not put in some small news, history and rumors from the rest of the world of TORN."

We have already put up information on the website and will continue to do so. You, the players, haven't even learned much about Orislane yet, but I assure you you will hear about the rest of the world sometimes. And as I've said, we are trying to create a believable world, so of course some characters will have concerns or information about other parts of TORN.

5."One or several Arc-enemy(ies) / Special NPCs. This is something that I during none-computer role playing found to give the game an extra level and a more exiting play."

Without giving away plot or spoiling any story arcs, yes, there should be some folks like this in the game.

Here´s what you need to know:

WHO: You and members of the TORN team
WHAT: TORN IRC Chat
WHERE: RPG Vault Chat - http://rpgvault.ign.com/chat/
WHEN: Thursday, June 28, 2001, at 6:00 p.m. PST
WHY: To get the latest information straight from members of the development team.

RPGDot: I am always wondering how the making of movie or game music takes place in terms of fitting into the scene. Do you see the scene in advance and compose the track acc to it or is it vice versa and you shorten or lenghten the track afterwards?

Howard Drossin: This varies from project to project. We almost always begin with some discussion followed by documention specifying the mood, pace, and length of the music needed. This is usually enough information for me to proceed; however, sometimes I may get a video tape of the game, some screen shots, or go to the developer's office to view a version of the game in progress.
With regard to the movie sequences, I do see them in advance and compose directly to picture.

Romances are very scripting and writing intensive and require extensive design and QA time. For example, Jaheira’s romance is 1,250 lines of scripting and nearly 20,000 words of dialogue. BG2 had nearly 1.2 million words of text and Throne of Bhaal has 200,000 more. We have to prioritize: Throne of Bhaal ends the trilogy and, as such, has a ton of story to get across in the Add-On section (the continuation of the BG storyline). Players typically see one romance when they play the game and if we were to add an additional romance to Throne of Bhaal we would have had to cut some of the main story which 100% of the players would see to add something that only 20% of the players would see. We also felt that is was important to continue all of the existing romances to their appropriate conclusions. We could not justify cutting these to add a brand new one.

Torn, though it is set in a swords and sorcery kind of world, is the next evolution in Black Isle RPGs. Fallout Tactics introduced real-time combat, Torn will go with real-time 3D combat. The game is in good hands--it's being made by a team with people who also worked on Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale, although this game will not use the Dungeons and Dragons license. It will be an entirely new fantasy world.

RPGDot: What were your feelings on composing the soundtrack of TOB? Any track, you especially like or any memorable scene while composing them?

Inon Zur: Composing for TOB was a serious challenge for me, working on a game that is already known and much expected, since it was preceded by 2 successful previous versions, with a strong musical content. I like the Melissan music and The Pocket Plane cue best of all.

RPGDot: Michael Hoenig did the music on BG 1 & 2 - did his work inspire you or was it more of a burden? Did you use some of the original BG tunes in the TOB themes?

Inon Zur: I did not use any of the previous tunes from BG 1 & 2, although I tried to stay as close as I could to the style Michael Hoenig used in order to keep the homogeneity of the game music.

Agathe's green does now yield the blossom crimson,
Sewn by the steel from the western coast;
Portentous masks resound the dreadful vision,
Of their insatiable god, Barabos.
--Geisfel, Seer of Thöten

The team's artists are building architecture for areas about to be worked on (creatures placed, dialogs linked, etc.) and textures for areas to be built in the coming months. Fairly soon, spell design will be "finished," although around here that word means about as much and carries the same weight as other nonsense words such as "gloobrax," "noftoz," or "politics." Still, most of us still can't resist saying that something is "finished" or "almost finished" -- I guess it just makes us feel all warm inside. Anyhow, so spell design is nearly at the point where management says, "No more spells, you maddening bastards," meaning that the artists ought to begin work on those soon, too. This is quite important, because as we all know one of the very best parts of CRPG development is when all the spells get implemented and everyone gets to cram into the Lead Artist's office and watch him run pell-mell around the town blasting innocent citizenry with conjured hell-fire. If we're lucky, the scripting is in and the townies emit shrill screams of terror and flee like mad as their pets, neighbors, and shopkeepers are vaporized. Then we all feel a bit guilty (well... some of us do) and get on with the game.

It's been awhile since our last web update regarding the Downloadable Dungeon set, so we wanted to let you know about a couple of things. After some debating, we have finally come up with a name for our Downloadable Dungeon Set, Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster. Also, we want to remind everyone that to play Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster, you must have Heart of Winter installed. We are putting the finishing touches on it right now, and everything is looking great. It looks like it will be in QA later this week, so you can look for it this month. For now here are some new screenshots for you to check out.

You can also expect more interactions between the members of your party. They may even form romantic entanglements, which have their own ways of complicating a campaign. Just remember to take out the trash before you go into battle with a loved one. When you're surrounded by an army of troglodytes, a lover's squabble is definitely not gonna help the situation.

You'll also find the monsters a tad powerful, even if you do have the characters to cope. Let's just say your first real opponents are fully-fledged vampires and that it only gets harder. As you might imagine, this requires some seriously good control over your party in combat. Proper use of scripting and a healthy knowledge of spells are more like a pre-requisite than an advantage. Completion of BG2 isn't essential, though -ToB introduces both a stand-alone mission (which you can play after BG2) and a six-story dungeon for high-level characters called 'Watcher's Keep' that you can play during the course of the game.

As I played Super Mario Advanced (in hopes that Miyamoto-san soon would be there), I distanced myself for a brief second from the thought of having to layout entire working towns and countless NPCs with interrelated quests and multiple paths of accomplishing their tasks. At what point could game designers no longer get away with monsters whose main defense is spitting eggs, and heroes whose abilities differed as much as "he can jump longer than anyone!" Not that it's a terrible thing to be as complex and realistic as games have become (it can sometimes be very satisfying), but when I replayed modern versions of childhood classics, a bit of nostalgia washed over me, and this designer was inspired for a moment to remember that games are played not merely for distraction but for fun and escape as well, and it is something to remember when trying to finish a large chunk of material in the silly hours of the morning. It serves as a call for extra caution in not merely making an adequate game, but a memorable and fun one.

RPGVault: In terms of the story that you mentioned, what's the basic premise or concept? Where does it take place? How many locations are involved and what different types?

Steve Bokkes: The setup is accomplished through a newly arrived stranger in the Whistling Gallows Inn of Lonelywood. This stranger, a gnarled, old halfling by the name of Hobart Stubbletoes, spins a tale about a lost artifact hidden away somewhere within the haunted ruins of a distant castle. Once the diminutive fellow has captured the interest of the adventurers, he'll offer to show them the way to this castle, in exchange for a fair share of the loot, of course. And thus, the adventure begins.

The majority of the action takes place within the walls of the haunted castle itself. So, it's not surprising that we spent a lot of time and effort coming up with an original concept for the ruins. I wanted to steer clear of the classic haunted castle setting-you know, the stereotypically gothic castle, perched high upon the stormy cliffs of a dark and dreary landscape. So, instead, we opted to place our ruined fortress smack dab in the middle of the vast Anauroch Desert. As a result, all of the exterior locations, from the castle's abandoned-though certainly not unoccupied-courtyard, to the crumbling parapets of the outer walls, they all have this eerie bleakness to them.

While, ostensibly, BGII: ToB has been designed as an end to the story, it appears to me that this expansion really adds a bunch more hack-n-slash to an already combat heavy game. You’ll meet more and smarter dragons – dragon AI has been modified to defeat many of the already proven dragon-killing tactics. Also you’ll get to fight some super bad monsters like Demigorgon.

Seeing as one of my many envious tasks is organizing the bug list, I see the progress of the game from nearly all departments simultaneously. Even though we are nearly content complete I still see the comment and suggestion exchanges between QA (ours and Interplay's), and the design team and it shouldn't surprise me that there are always new tweaks that keep showing up on the list. I remember what it was like dealing with Shadows of Amn. The team's dedication to perfection really shows through when I see that the list turn over is quicker than in BG2. Apparently they don't realize just how efficient they are and that they're squashing the bugs faster than they can be found.

Like all of Bioware's Infinity Engine AD&D games, there's nothing new in terms of the interface and how one navigates around the snow-filled caverns of the Dale. However, as mentioned in my preamble, the storyline in HoW is unique, in it that the premise is no more than the tragic tale of vengeance, with a remote link to the original IWD. What about it is so unique then? Well, I've never seen such a plot applied to a game before. Since I'm not going to spoil it for you, let's just say that that this premise, although a little short, was somewhat more gripping than IWD's original story of two pompous enemies using the Dale as their battleground.

It has only been a couple of months since I saw BIS: TORN, and the team has done a commendable job of keeping fans informed since then, especially via the game's message boards and Dave's series of Designer Diaries here on RPG Vault. As a result, I wasn't expecting any huge revelations at E3. Instead, I was interested to see how the game has progressed and evolved during this time frame. Based on the demonstration and on what we heard during subsequent conversations with a couple of other team members, there is certainly good reason to watch BIS: TORN even more closely during the months ahead.

RPG related movies to be found inside: Neverwinter Nights trailer, TORN trailer, Baldur´s Gate: Throne of Bhaal (PC) and Baldur´s Gate: Dark Alliance (Playstation 2) trailers.


E3 Roundup    Posted Wednesday - May 23 - 2001 by
Gamesfirst features a special dealing with Interplay´s appearance at this year´s E3 which was held from May 17-19.

Here´s the RPG coverage:

1) Baldur´s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
2) TORN

On the current dynamic lighting status:
We’re working on the lighting.
Virtually none of TORN’s combat complexity and dynamics (the Special Attack and Defense system, a hit-based vs. miss-based combat system, etc.) has been entered into the game yet. In other words, the current stuff is in just so that we can say “hey, here’s what some monsters boppin’ around a dungeon would look like, watch, I’ll kill some.” We’re waiting to get the very basics of moving around and fighting stuff - path-finding, physics, object collision and so on - down before we pile on anything more.

On wearing heavy armor:
Heavy armor will likely work to cancel out one's natural Agility-based Armor Class bonus. In other words, a character that's fast on his or her feet won't be able to leap and dodge about so well in heavy armor.
The heavier the armor, the greater the stealth penalty.
The heavier the armor, the greater the Strength required to wear it. This is sort of a weird backwards penalty, in that many "mage types" - who likely won't have a very high Strength - won't be able to wear some of the heaviest armor types.
There are currently no spell-casting penalties and I'd love to not have to include any. I won't go into it in detail, but suffice to say that heavily-armored figures casting wacky spells looks cool. ^_^

On the topic of having no interface in any screenshot:
The next batch o' screenshots ought to contain some interface picky-pics.

Just as we've tried to include all sorts of little "makes players happy" things in the game, so we've done with the interface and various non-game/meta-game aspects of the game - inventory management, auto-save controls, and so on.

The main GUI consists of two bars and a Help Line, all of which can be minimized via mouse-click (likely via hot key, too). The first is the Interface Bar that contains all the game controls and character portraits, similar to the way that the Infinity Engine games handle things. It's a bit more compact and efficient, though (well, we'd like to think so). The second is the Quick Slot bar - twelve slots keyed to the twelve function keys. Our intent is that a player can drag anything that he or she likes into these - a potion there might be used, a sword or shield there might be equipped (and the current melee weapon or shield swapped out to the Quick Slot, if needed), spells or special abilities there would be cast or used, special attacks or defenses there would be readied, and so on. The Help Line is sort of like a constant smart Tool Tip that gives context-sensitive help regarding whatever the cursor is over. It's a translucent line at the top of the screen that doesn't obscure anything.

The LMB activates the default action for whatever the cursor is over (e.g. neutral creature = talk, closed door = open), but a la Fallout the player may hold down the LMB to get a full list of valid actions for that target (e.g. neutral creature = talk, attack, steal, examine, use item on, etc.). The player can also "pre-select" these actions from the Interface Bar or PAM (see below) and *then* select the target.

There is also a Player Action Menu/PAM brought up via the RMB that duplicates the functionality of the Interface Bar, for those players that want to get rid of the always-on-screen GUI and use a more "pop-up" GUI.

On a command system for companions:
We're working on a Command System for the Companions that we're *very* excited about - we haven't really seen anything like it in a CRPG before. I can't take the time to expound upon all its features now (we'll release all the info soon enough, I imagine), but as a summary made from snippets of the Design Document:
---
Companions will follow commands to the best of their ability and/but according to their personality - for example, a berserker-type Companion told to attack aggressively would charge forward into melee, while an assassin type would attempt to hide and then creep about backstabbing or blackjacking foes. A meek priestess-type might support the protagonist by casting beneficial spells on and healing him or her, while a paladin-type would give support by attacking the protagonist's target, then healing the protagonist after the battle or if he or she came close to dying. Part of the fun and strategy behind Companions is learning how each one reacts in different situations and using that knowledge to create the ideal team or "party" of adventurers - one in which the members function in the way the player would like, without the player having to control them individually.

The core idea behind this system is the construction of a number of simple behaviors that may be combined to create complex behavior patterns (ah, that elusive emergent complexity). As a result of this system, players can easily understand the commands they give Companions (and those with any sense of logic can determine what the various combinations will entail), the interface will be relatively simple, and the programmers won't have to kill themselves creating all sorts of fancy pseudo-AI.

I'll spare everyone the fancy examples for now, but there are many - the potential results are quite promising. Well, OK, just one: command a rogue-type to Aggressively Attack (meaning that he'll sneak about stealthily and attempt to backstab enemies), then command a warrior-type to Passively Support the rogue (meaning he'll that stay very close to the rogue and defend him against all attackers); monsters will see the warrior - but not the rogue, who's hidden via his Stealth skill - and so run to attack the warrior, then get backstabbed by the rogue, then smashed by the warrior, all without the player having to do anything - that's just how they'll work together.

The three keys to commanding any Companion, then, are (1) the Orders, (2) the Manners, (3) the Object (who the object of the Order is, i.e. the protagonist, the party, or another Companion), (4) Usage (how a Companion uses Mana Points and consumable items), and (5) Assist Mode (whether a Companion will help the protagonist with non-combat tasks, e.g. picking a lock). A final factor is the Companion him- or herself - i.e. how he or she interprets the various Order and Manner combinations.

There are three Orders - Attack, Support, and Defend, and three "quasi-Orders," Follow, Remain Behind, and As You Were. The default Order is Support.

There are two manners that a Companion may be told to carry out an Order with: Aggressive and Passive. These generally have significantly different effects upon the method in which the Companion follows an Order out, usually based on the individual Companion and his or her capabilities.

The default Manner is Passive.

(Usage:)
This portion of Companion control determines how a Companion will use Mana Points and Consumable items: potions, enchanted ammunition, traps, and food & drink. The primary purpose of these controls is to allow the player to force the Companions to "save a little something" for nasty fights without having to physically withhold items from them. Depending upon the setting and Companion in question, it also influences general behavior to a degree - for example, whether a rogue-type Companion will set traps or attempt to backstab enemies.

(Assist Mode:)
This toggles Assist Mode on a Companion - the default is On. Each time the player issues a skill-based action request (e.g. picking a lock or disarming a trap) the game will check the Skills of all available characters with Assist Mode on. Whichever character has the greatest chance of success will perform the action. If Assist Mode is off, a Companion will never try to help the protagonist.

On hitpoints being skill based:
A character’s initial Hit Points are based upon Strength and Endurance (a la Fallout), Race, and any relevant Traits. As time goes on, a character’s Hit Points increase as a function of Level (to represent general survivability and “wiliness” gained via experience ^_^), relevant Perks, and especially the Fortitude skill. If a character plans on toe-to-toeing with Big Nasty Monsters, he or she will likely need to be raising that skill on a regular basis.

On combat being skill based:
Despite the current lack of a web site update, the Combat skill set has changed slightly - the change was made in time for E3, so if there are any videos of the character creation screen it’ll be in there. ^_^ Anyhow, there’s now a Defense skill that the character may increase to increase his or her... well... defensive skills. ^_^ This’d include AC, of course, though we intend to tie it into other things such as Block Chance, Dodge Chance, Damage Resistance (twisting to take a blow where it’ll hurt one less), Counterattack Chance, and so on

On AC in the SPECIAL system:
This is one of the areas in which S.P.E.C.I.A.L. was modified slightly for Torn. Agility still helps Armor Class, as does Race and a number of relevant Perks or Traits. The Defense skill is probably the biggest part of AC, along with results of spells or any enchanted equipment. There are no “free Action Points” as the real-time system doesn’t have any “slop” at the end of a turn where free AP generally came from (besides, one AP = 1% less of a chance to be hit wasn’t exactly worthwhile).

Mundane armor generally does a number of things: provides an increase to Damage Resistance and Damage Threshold, possibly lowers one’s Stealth skill, possibly slightly lowers one’s Armor Class (by removing all or part of one’s Agility-based Armor Class bonus).

Shields will raise one’s Armor Class, as will off-hand weapons used for parrying. Polearms can raise one’s AC, too, to represent the distance a character may keep between him or herself and a foe - not necessarily 100% realistic, but a simple and fun distinction to have between them and other weapon types, which is important to us to have.

On attack and defend combat styles:
The current system simplifies the above and actually uses both at once, assuming that the combatant switches between the two styles whenever applicable without the player having to do anything. In other words, a dual-wielding combatant gets additional attacks (though each weapon attacks more slowly than if wielded singly, and with a to-hit penalty to boot), *and* gets a defensive bonus based on the off-hand weapon (generally not as good as a shield's, but still nice). Various off-hand weapons provide lesser or greater defensive bonuses, e.g. a typical dagger vs. a parrying dagger with a wide basket hilt (or something).

I won't go into all the balancing between dual-wielding, "single-wielding," shields and whatnot here... suffice to say that we're doing our very best to make them all "different but equal" in the final product. ^_^

Regarding reach, we didn't want to go down the super-realism/complex route there... basically, small weapons do less damage but attack more quickly, and exceptionally long weapons (e.g. polearms) give an Armor Class bonus to represent the combatant keeping opponents at bay. As a side note, other melee weapons noted for their "defensiveness" can give AC bonuses, too (e.g. a sort of sword designed to foil an opponent's attacks).

A character's maximum experience point cap has also been increased to 8 million, which allows characters to achieve up to the 40th level depending on the class or multi-class. This increase is quite substantial. For instance, borrowing a page from the 3rd Edition rules, characters now have abilities similar to the feat abilities of the new rules.

Another title we were shown is Divine Divinity, a game that looks a lot like Diablo. It has the same isometric view, and the controls are almost identical. However, it departs from Diablo in a few areas. For one, the graphics are a little cleaner than Diablo II. There is also a huge item interaction feature, where potions can be combined or even concocted if you have the right items. There are plenty of seemingly useless items that may have uses later or with other items, but this is not a King's Quest style of game. The environment also affects game play. I was showed a house in the woods where a thief crept inside and extinguished candles, making it easy for him to hide from enemies. All in all the game looks interesting, if Diablo-esque

Just what sort of enhancements can you expect to see in the expansion? First of all, there's a whole new mage kit called the Wild Mage. Secondly, certain classes have had their previous abilities altered, such as the Wizard Slayer now being able to obtain 84% of base magic resistance. Additionally, all classes can now obtain either special abilities or quest spells as they reach some of the higher levels. The expansion also adds entirely new monsters, some being enhanced versions of previous monsters, while others are completely new. And what's an expansion without adding more spells and equipment (which ToB does generously)? Now add the fact that the experience point cap has been increased to eight million experience points (allowing most classes to reach level 40) and you have all the enhancements you need to bring your Baldur's Gate II gaming to a whole new level.

BioWare has listened carefully to its fans and has made sure to include more of what players want. For instance, fans of Baldur's Gate II's player strongholds can use Throne of Bhaal's improved version: the "pocket plane"--a small fold in the fabric of reality tended by an ancient imp with a talent for smithing magical weapons. And fans who enjoyed solving Baldur's Gate II's countless side quests and puzzles should also enjoy tinkering with the Machine of Lum the Mad, a legendary artifact with a series of buttons and levers that can produce all sorts of random magical effects that may bestow protective magical resistance on your favorite character or blast that same character to smithereens. And like the previous games, Throne of Bhaal will feature cameo appearances by famous characters like the sage Elminster and the mischievous wizard Volo as well as the fearsome Demogorgon--one of the most infamous, dangerous, and evil monsters in the history of Dungeons & Dragons.

Throne of Bhaal will conclude the Bhaal Saga, and is played in two parts. The first is the add-in part, which will be tacked onto the main Baldur's Gate II game with a new dungeon and a few new monsters and toys, including the Machine of Lum the Mad. From what we saw, this part seems to be pretty much complete and locked down.

Although the build we saw didn't have bump-mapping and environment-mapping running, it did have real-time shadows and lighting, and it's a significant visual improvement over the previous Black Isle role-playing games. The developer is also trying to integrate a number of popular features from the previous games, such as random treasure and enormous monsters. After fighting off hordes of little slime creatures, we were treated to the somewhat distasteful sight of a slime generator, a huge undulating pile of slime full of tentacles and orifices that only exist to produce more slime creatures. After putting the disgusting creature out of its misery, we continued on to see yet another vile sight, this time a towering she-demon with some sort of gyrating limb protruding from her enormous belly.

To briefly summarize TORN is a difficult thing, as so much of its Proposed Goodness is bound up in the game's innumerable intricacies and small details. I've come to realize that our E3 demo set-up and run-through smacks suspiciously of an action-RPG ("look, it's character creation, look, it's a town, look, it's our Real-Time Dialog system, look, here's a dungeon and a GIANT SLIME SPEWING MONSTER, KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!"). Yikes! Certainly not the impression we wanted to make, and most definitely not what TORN is all about. Some of what we feel are the most important elements of the game - character customization, player freedom, an interesting story and cool dialogs with plenty of opportunity to role-play one's character (the RP in CRPG, I guess), and so on - simply aren't apparent in screenshots and five-minute demonstrations.

There are 12 areas on the new map (Tethyr) which contain 80 areas (towns, dungeons, countryside, buildings, etc.), 100 new magic items and weapons, 43 new abilities, several new thief traps, and many high level spells added bringing the total up to 325 spells. With the new experience cap of 8 million, it is now possible to reach level 40. New spells include: Storm of Vengeance, Bigby's Crushing Hand and Globe of Blades (not for the weak of heart, little bits of orc flying in every direction isn't a pretty sight, at least not for the orcs ;). New monsters: Solars, Planetars, Magic Golems, Hive Mothers, Red Abishai, Fire Giants, Blue Dragons, and Purple Dragons. I am sure there will also be several unique creatures to fight, since the main story has to do with 5 of your brothers and sisters (Bhaal spawn) raging across the countryside. One of the special items that can be found in the game is Lum the Mad's Machine, which is packed with surprises (some fun, some deadly). One of the new areas is a castle under siege, where the walls are lined with archers who are keeping invading forces out and you will want to keep your eyes open for the flaming pitch being lobbed into the castle. To make the final part of Balder's Gate special and challenging, one of the toughest creatures to be found in D&D has been added to the game: Demogorgon. During the presentation, when party of 30th level characters attacked Demogorgon, they were all slaughtered in seconds, most of them not even making it into melee range.

Dave Maldonado on human statistics and gender differences:
1. Humans. As we continue to tweak TORN's racial statistics, humans may well end up with stuff other races don't have. Whether this is humans "getting stuff" or other races losing things that are considered "base line" is all a matter of perception, I suppose. Right now the "human advantage" is looking to continue along the lines of flexibility and fast growth, though whether that translates to more Skill Points, an extra Tag Skill, etc. remains to be seen.

2. Gender differences. Because of the way TORN's character generation currently works, only minimums and maximums would be important in terms of gender differences. In other words, if a human male's base statistics were, for example, S6 and E5 and a human female's were, for example, S5 and E6, a player creating a character of either gender could always simply remove the point from the "six" statistic and boost another.

Anyhow, the minimum and maximum starting statistic values for humans (of either gender) are one and ten, just as in Fallout. So, are most men in Torn physically stronger than most women in Torn? It's likely, yes, but a player is by no means obligated to make a character bound by the statistical averages of our little fantasy world, just the limits (again, those wacky minimums and maximums). If someone wants that rare female who's the strongest that any human can be, so be it! ^_^

And to what kind of existing game Torn will resemble:
TORN - in terms of combat vs. plot - is probably going to be closer to Fallout than anything else. We want to create an exciting game, but that certainly doesn't mean "constantly fighting things." There's always sneaking around and avoiding enemies or getting what one needs without raising a ruckus, running back and forth convincing others to do one's dirty work with a glib tongue, etc. Our ultimate goal is to provide a game that caters to a variety of play styles, so... there you are. ^_^ Hopefully, the coming demo will make things clearer than anyone's words ever could...

On sheathing weapons in non-combat situations:
Currently, a character may switch between a number of combat modes with a single mouse-click or key press. One mode is Unarmed, meaning that a player can have a character stow his or her weapons (and shield, if applicable) and whip them out again on command without having to diddle about in Inventory.
It remains to be seen whether or not NPC's will react to such.

On mage robes actually being visible in this game:
Robes are visible when worn, yes. Such ceremonial garb is normally considered poor travelin' and adventurin' gear, but if one wants a character in big elaborate Mr. Fancy Robes robes, so be it. ^_^

On customizable portraits and voices:
There are currently character portraits, and we plan on having 'em fully customizable.
We intend to have customizable voices too, yes.
Chances are our default voice set will be a "cool-sounding" voice for each race and gender combo, ideally without a terrible amount of "forced personality" (in other words, we won't have them say things that strongly indicate personality, unlike Companion VO). For example, "Attack!" instead of "YERAAAUGH! ATTAAACK!!!" because the latter implies a certain amount of, well, berserker frothiness on the part of the speaker. ^_^

Jonric: Do you still play a lot of games? Which ones have you played and enjoyed recently? And which ones are you currently looking forward to playing?

Tony de Waal: Being that I work for a game developer, there is a large opportunity to play video games here. You could say it is almost a requirement for the job. I tend to like the online games a lot more these days, so games like EverQuest and Quake 3 are the two games I play the most right now. I was a big fan of WarCraft II, and I highly look forward to WarCraft III. Anarchy Online is shaping up to be the next big MMRPG. Neverwinter Nights, even though we are making it, is really looking to be the best RPG experience you can get on a computer today. :)

Good, evil, and indifferent, intelligent and dim-witted, young and old, serious and carefree, truthful and deceptive, weak and powerful: these are the primary color traits that are swirled together to make a character's personality, and their speech should be weighed properly to accentuate these traits. It should also get the point across or move the plot forward, not waste lines unless it is necessary to establish character or add color, allow role-playing if the character says enough to provoke responses from the player, and the quality should, if possible, not suck (strangely enough, there is no "suck" checker in MS Word). Listed below is concentrated personality, the definitions of these traits before they are combined into three-dimensional characters.

The Larian website is embedded in the CDV site so there´s not too much new stuff to be found. However, there is an announcement regarding E3. CDV will be presenting a playable demo of Divinity at the world´s largest gaming fair later this week.
Then there´s a special banner offer. In case you got a game related website up and running you can fill out an application form, copy the banner source code to your site and maybe you´ll be one of the 50 lucky winners of a free Divinity copy when the game ships in fall. Divinity is currently under heavy final development and scheduled for release September 14, 2001.



HoW: Review at Gamerspulse    Posted Monday - May 14 - 2001 by
Gamerspulse has a review of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter online. The overall impression they had was very positive:

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter does what an expansion set should do in my book: it increases the playability of a very good game and adds enough new things to make it almost an entirely new experience. For anyone who enjoyed the original game, this is a definite must have.

Final rating is 90/100


IwD: Review    Posted Friday - May 11 - 2001 by
No, not Heart of Winter, but Icewind Dale itself! Haven't seen these in a while, but Gamezilla has reviewed it and it has scored 81%:

If you are a fan of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and you enjoyed RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, you will like Icewind Dale. Overall, the game has all the elements of a classic fantasy and mystery story, with surprising plot twists and unexpected turns. It should leave the most seasoned adventurer hungering for more. The hack-and-slash battles and the progressive storyline should keep the most demanding RPGer happy. Unfortunately, the game's linear plot does have a tendency to lead players around by the nose. The varied character classes and the outstanding finale only add to the game's replayability.

BLACK ISLE Studios sent the Adrenaline Vault these screenshots from its upcoming free downloadable add-on for customers of their Icewind Dale expansion. The download will be close to 75MB in size and will plug into the retail expansion. This expansion will add several new monsters to Icewind Dale, up to 40 new magic items, and a brand new adventure in a castle and dungeon setting. It is planned to be available no later than the first part of June 2001 and will target gamers with level 11-18 characters. Once the add-on is installed, a new character will appear within the game who is searching for a group of heroes to go on a new quest. Should the user accept, he or she will be transported to a distant place filled with new puzzles and traps. The add-on will also upgrade Icewind Dale to version 1.42 with additional program fixes.

What is the plot behind 'The Darkest Day'?

Well the main plot I can't give away but i'll give a hint that it starts after irenicus. This is where everything you do is mainly based on one thing and that is the darkest day chapter but from the very start we've done a lot of quests. Some of those are totally of topic like umar and windspear and others are more realated to the master plot and give hint to what has happened and what you can await when you meet the dilema.

Where does it take place?

It takes place in amn and the surrounding lands. I have made the map larger so about 2.5 times more land is now playable and we use this. The map goes south the the forrest of tethyr, north to nashkel and east to the troll mountains and Eshputra. These are used in sub plots and the main plots no doubt.

What new stuff has been added?

Well it has taken time but the new stuff that will apear includes 75 kits, 120+ spells, 100+ items, special set items like the balduran set of equiptment, and when all on 1 person grants bonuses, new spell animations and icons, new areas, new npc's andd 25+ new creatures.

Who did what on the project?

Well the project has been on for a long time now and many have come and gone realising that the load and requirements were a wee bit too much so the bulk of the work has been done by myself (Minto) along with the other main creator Potencius who compiles the expansion. Then we get some graphics from Kazz. These are the main people to mention but there are other members such as Guildrunner for the wedsite he has provided, Uril, Mat, Fzoul, Testy, Peter, Gyzer and Ric that had some input in the past and deserve credit for their past input.

How long did it take?

Well personally the items, spells, Kits, icons and creatures I wanted to do before I started making the quests so things were there ready to put in. This took me about 3/3.5 months to do. The work that now takes place is the tough stuff like puting the quests together that Potancius and I do. I would say that when we finished the whole thing will have taken about 7 months.

How big is it?

Size wise it's gonna be pretty big indeed. Of course it can't be as big as a bioware effort but it will certainly justify downloading it. If anyone played Heart of Winter then it should be quitea bit larger than that and also changes the old game somewhat.

What gave you the idea for 'TDD'?

Well I joined the team at the start when 2 no longer preasant members thought it up. At the time they just wanted to make a small mod that added some npc's and a few items but as things started rolling ideas and ambitions got larger and larger. Before long the thing turned in to something that was expected to be the size as an offical expansion and we are trying quite hard to get that done.

What did you use to make 'TDD'?

Well we used a few utilities from Ken Bakers site "TeamBG". These utilities were made from Gustov Montessi and Cat and Ken and these utils have saved the team alot of time so thanks to those guys. the rest has just been via various hex and text editors and the main help is from the infinity engine file format hacking project site that provide info on the games structures. Also I think our graphics man uses 3D studio max and I used an adobe photo shop here and there

Are there continuations of the romances or are there new ones?

If there are then they will be done later and I doubt we will touch old ones. We may indeed add a few new ones as well as some female ones as we have had several requests for these but this will be up to Potencius as he's a better scriptor than I.

When is it due out?

I can't really say and more to the point would rather not as we would get crucified for failing the date. I guess july to august is a good estimate for us to work for but we just work on it in our spare time so we can't be all that accurate with these estimates. All I can say is that when it comes out I hope people Download is despite the large size because I kinda put a real massive effort in to this and I know it will be worth the effort and is well worth having rather than not.

Has the expansion been given a name? If so, what is it?

Ah, the name. It was only recently decided that the project would have an official title. I guess we just got tired of calling it the "Heart of Winter Downloadable Dungeon Set." So, for the past week or so, I've been compiling a list of potential titles that will be passed around to the team. Whichever one gets the most votes will blockquotei>Read more about it here.


Site Update    Posted Wednesday - May 9 - 2001 by
Heart of Winter
I've updated the items section of Icewind Dale with the changes and additions that are made to them with the Heart of Winter expansion pack. Check out the index file for an overview of all the chages that have been made.

And yes the spells part has not been done yet. Expect it to follow soon.


ToB: Trailer    Posted Wednesday - May 9 - 2001 by
GameSpot has uploaded a new trailer of the Baldur´s Gate 2 expansion pack Throne of Bhaal. The clip is supposed to contain 50 seconds of cinematic footage. GameSpot offers it as a downloadable MPEG (8.9 MB) or ZIP (8 MB) or in streaming format for both Windows Media Player and Real Player.


HoW: International Patch    Posted Wednesday - May 9 - 2001 by
Interplay has updated the official Icewind Dale website with an announcement concerning the availability of a patch for the Icewind Dale expansion pack Heart of Winter. The file will update all non-English versions (German, Italian, French, Spanish) of the game to version 1.41. Go to Interplay´s download page and choose the correct file for your language version. File size ranges from 5.86 MB to 5.97 MB.


HoW: A review    Posted Sunday - May 6 - 2001 by
A new review of the Icewind Dale expansion can be found at PC Strategy Games. The review is very positive with the game, offering it a 80% score:

HoW is an excellent expansion pack in every sense, fundamentally altering game mechanics by incorporating many of the advances seen in BGII. It also provides a decent extra campaign for you to get your teeth into. If you've played and enjoyed Icewind Dale, you'll need little encouragement to pick this one up. If you've not yet succumbed to the games old school charms, now you've got no excuse.

Torn Designer Diary    Posted Sunday - May 6 - 2001 by
RPGVault features chapter 2 of their TORN Designer Diary, written by Dave Maldonado, TORN´s Lead Designer. Dave doesn´t cover a single subject. He talks about Black Isle, TORN and game design in general.


BG2: Anatomy of a Sequel    Posted Friday - May 4 - 2001 by
Dr. Ray Mazuka, joint CEO of BioWare, talks about Baldur's Gate II and how it came to be what it is now. You can read about it on Gamasutra.

Building an excellent sequel is not nearly as easy as it may sound. In making BG2 we knew everyone would be looking very carefully at the result. Facing comparisons with multiple great games using our BioWare Infinity Engine like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment (the two latter games both developed by our publisher's Black Isle Studios after they licensed the BioWare Infinity Engine for this purpose), our work was cut out for us.

In developing a sequel, you must start with the right philosophy: the goal must be to make the game better, and not just to make the same game over again. You also need a mechanism to quantify your previous mistakes and learn from them. If you don't make a point of figuring out what you did wrong last time, you're not likely to fix it the second time around.

ToB: Item of the Week    Posted Friday - May 4 - 2001 by
PC.IGN have added their weekly item from Throne of Bhaal up. This time it's the Storm Star.

This magical weapon is of ancient design, which scholars have linked to Netheril itself. Though such electrum plated maces as Storm Star are usually found in the North, there are whispered rumors of this particularly powerful specimen being lost in the Southern reaches of the Realms.

Storm Star’s already formidable abilities have been further enhanced by the addition of the otherworldly Starfall Ore. This strange material comes from the core of a meteorite, which fell from the heavens. The malleable ore is surprisingly strong, and radiates an inner heat. Any item forged from the alien matter would undoubtedly possess mysterious and unearthly properties.

Despite its massive size, Storm Star is surprisingly light, making it particularly easy to wield in combat. It crackles with spectacular, though harmless, arcs of lightning when wielded – a visible manifestation of the powerful electrical enchantments infused within the weapon’s head.

ToB: Developer Profile    Posted Friday - May 4 - 2001 by
RPGVault has lined up another Throne of Bhall developer profile. This time it features art director Matt Goldman.

Jonric: Now that you're a game developer, do you still have the opportunity play a lot of games? Have you played any recently that you've really enjoyed? Which games are you currently looking forward to playing?

Matt Goldman: Games are the next highest form of entertainment after movies, for me at least. I haven't had cable for many years. I hope that eventually we'll be able to create an interactive, entertainment experience that has the intensity of a great film, but with the interactivity only gaming can provide. As for games I really like, I can say, without an ounce of irony, that Baldur's Gate II and MDK2 are two of the most fun and best turned out games I've ever played. Aside from future BioWare games, I think that Black Isle's Torment, Relic's Homeworld and Shiny's Sacrifice are games that represent the finest blend of story, game play and great art that have yet made it onto the PC.

ToB: Developer Diary #3    Posted Thursday - May 3 - 2001 by
Gamespy has posted the third part of their Throne of Bhaal Diary today. In case you are a recently resurrected Assyrian priest and do not know what we are talking about: ToB is the addon for Baldur's Gate 2.


ToB: Box Image    Posted Wednesday - May 2 - 2001 by
An image of the Throne of Bhaal box can be found at Gibme.


ToB: Interview with Lisa Bucek    Posted Wednesday - May 2 - 2001 by
Gaming Unlimited had the opportunity to rip out some answers from Lisa Bucek about Throne of Bhaal.

3. GU: Gamespot said that Romance will be extended, will other dialouges be extended as well (Like Jan Janson and his stories, or Edwin.

LB: Romances will indeed be extended and NPC dialogues will also continue. Since you have the power to summon the NPCs you could adventure with from BGII, then it was only natural that their interaction continued and grew throughout the new adventure.

HoW: About the free expansion pack    Posted Wednesday - May 2 - 2001 by
Interplay has sent out the official press release for the Icewind Dale/Heart of Winter expansion pack. The announcement is fairly lengthy, so here goes:

The Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Web Expansion is a free downloadable expansion pack for Black Isle Studios' Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter role playing game.

In response to some players wanting more game experience from Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter, Black Isle Studios has begun development on a free, downloadable dungeon pack add-on for customers of Heart of Winter. The pack is tentatively sized at 75MB, and will plug directly into the game, provided Heart of Winter is installed. This web expansion set will include several new monsters to Icewind Dale, as well as a brand new adventure in a castle/dungeon setting. It is tentatively planned to be available for free at the end of May/very early June 2001 on Interplay's official web site.

Brief Story Introduction

After the web expansion is installed, a mysterious halfling introduces himself in the Whistling Gallows Inn in Lonelywood. He seeks a party of stalwart heroes for a quest to a place of great wonder, with treasures beyond the imagination. Should the party accept, they will be transported to a new place, far from the icy terrain of the Dalelands, finding themselves within the walls of a ruined castle in an unfamiliar land...

The story is currently being held under wraps because the adventure is meant to surprise the character, and its story is conveyed throughout the various puzzles/combats.

Expansion Details

The web expansion will require an installed copy of both Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter. It is currently planned as a 75MB (100MB maximum) download from Interplay's official web site.

New Stuff - The web expansion will tentatively offer the following to our Heart of Winter customers:

2 main new areas to explore with a variety of sub levels

20-40 new magic items, 5-10 of which will be taken from our customer's submissions via our web boards at http://www.blackislestudios.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

1 original new monster, and 4 creatures animations from Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate II.

Playable from Lonelywood in the Whistling Gallows Inn.

The new areas feature a separate story, independent from the Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter storylines.

Targeted for players from 11th - 18th level, and will also be adjusted for higher level parties via Heart of Winter's "Heart of Fury" mode.

Many new puzzles, traps, and more.

Introduces version 1.42, with some additional program fixes.

ToB: Interview    Posted Monday - April 30 - 2001 by
GameBanshee has whipped up an interview with Bioware´s James Ohlsen, covering the Baldur´s Gate 2 expansion pack, Throne of Bhaal.

GameBanshee: Two quick unrelated questions about minor game details… Is there a reason why a character can’t equip two bows at the same time in his quick-weapon slots? Why was Dimension Door not implemented in BG2 (at least not for PCs, the Cowled Wizards and Irenicus still use it), even though it was available in Baldur’s Gate I and Icewind Dale?

James: Dimension door wasn’t implemented in BG2 as it had the potential to break sub-plots. In order to properly test dimension door (and modify quests that the spell has the potential of breaking) we might have had to delay the game by upwards of two weeks. The spell simply wasn’t worth the time we would have to invest into it. There were technical reasons behind why we didn’t allow a character to have two bows equipped to his quick slots.

Torn Site update    Posted Sunday - April 29 - 2001 by
Black Isle Studios has updated the official TORN website by adding new musician character art to the perks page. Well, *character art* may be the wrong term. I hope the real TORN characters won´t look like this ;)



HoW: Add-on update    Posted Sunday - April 29 - 2001 by
Missed this one before, but the official Icewind Dale website holds a progress report update of the free add-ons for Icewind Dale and its expansion pack Heart of Winter.Here´s a tidbit:

We´re including more new magic items, some of which are coming from those of you in the gaming community! Log on to our message boards to submit yours!
New monsters coming too!
We´re doing our best to keep the overall download size at a respectable level, but expect it to be within the 75-100MB range, and it will be localized in French, German, Spanish, and Italian as well.

ToB: Screens    Posted Saturday - April 28 - 2001 by
Four of 'em at Planet Baldur's Gate.


Torn Developer Diary    Posted Saturday - April 28 - 2001 by
gamespy have their first developer diary on TORN up. In it Scott Warner, a designer who loves the process of creating something out of nothing, Chad Nicholas, the wanna-be programmer and Brian Mitsoda who is full of caffeine, tell us all the dirty secrets of TORN.
Well as this is an intro, maybe they will next time :).


Torn Screens    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
GameSpot U.K. has jacked up a series of new screenshots from Black Isle Studios:TORN


Site update    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
I've removed the bloody page counters that were on these pages. They slowed down the performance considerably. Especially because the server of one of the counters seems to be down. When it is up again I'll restore the counter again (if it's not to slow :).


ToB: Item of the Week    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
A new item of the week from Throne of Bhaal is up at IGN.PC. This time it's the Quiver of Plenty.

The history of this magical quiver has been long forgotten, though it likely had something to do with the inexplicable but well documented shortage of competent fletchers during the Time of Troubles.

One often repeated, though never substantiated, legend holds that the quiver was once given as a gift to Duke Orin Gastlecate. Orin cared little for politics and the day to day duties of his fiefdom, and would often vanish for weeks at a time into the thick forests that covered much of his land where he would live the life of a solitary hunter.

But try as he might, Orin was never able to learn the fine art of fletching and eventually he would be forced to return to his castle when his arrows ran out. And each time he returned, he would be inundated with the various nobles and merchants and their petty problems which demanded his attention.

If the stories can be believed, Orin was eventually approached by an unscrupulous merchant who offered him a gift in exchange for the title to all the lands Orin ruled over – a quiver that would produce an infinite amount of magical arrows. Orin quickly agreed to the deal, figuring his problems were forever solved.

Of course the merchant quickly established himself as a cruel and insufferable tyrant, and within a month Orin’s subjects had deposed their new ruler, dragged Orin from his beloved forest and imprisoned him in his own castle – forcing him to be their lord once more. To insure he never escaped to the woods again Orin’s precious quiver was forever hidden away, and mere mention of it became an offense punishable by death.

Torn Video Interview    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
First Look has a video interview with David Maldonado, covering Black Isle´s upcoming TORN.


ToB: Developer Profile    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
RPGVault has a profile up on Nathan Plewes, Line Producer on Throne of Bhaal.

Jonric: In view of the number of hours developers tend to put in, do you still have time to play many games? Which have you enjoyed recently, and what are you looking forward to playing?

Nathan Plewes: Haha.. not as many as I'd like. I have a few games that I turn to regularly - Half-Life, Call To Power, StarCraft. I like to mix the genres to keep things interesting. I suppose the one game that I'm looking forward to the most would be Neverwinter Nights if only for the fact that I can watch as my friends run screaming from the monsters that I get to throw at them. I'm also looking forward to some of the MMPOGs that are expected this coming year. I have yet to see a game AI that can compete with a human player.

BG2: Interview on D&D relationship    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
The LATimes.com interviewed Kevin Martens about the relation between D&D and the Baldurs Gate series.

Q: Compared with previous role-playing games, "Baldur's Gate" was a technical marvel. Why had no one achieved such a feat before?
Ohlen: The reason that "Baldur's Gate" was successful was because it appealed to the strategy/action gamer. Many of the role-playing games that came out before it were slow-paced games, often involving a turn-based combat system. "Baldur's Gate" re-created the "Dungeons and Dragons" experience and made it fast-paced without diluting the rules or strategy.

Divinity: What's in a Character    Posted Friday - April 27 - 2001 by
Belgian developer Larian Studios has just uploaded the 3rd special Divinity feature. After "What´s in a screen...?" and "What´s in a quest...?" they now grant us some insight on "What´s in a character...?". In it we see a female assassin animated in several different ways. But before that it explains the statistics of a character.


HoW: Sybex Updates    Posted Thursday - April 26 - 2001 by
Did you buy the Heart of Winter Official Strategies & Secrets from Sybex? If so then you are pleased to know that two updates are available now for download from their site.

1) An update for Icewind Dale featuring new updates and tables.

2)Our second online update for Heart of Winter covers topics such as Conjurer specialists, Lathander's Shield Combo, multiplayer cooperation, and cheat codes. It also gives you information on the patch for version 1.41 as well as a 3rd-party character editing utility called Dale Keeper.

Source: Planet Baldurs Gate


ToB: Monster of the Week    Posted Tuesday - April 24 - 2001 by
Ever met a Fire Giant? No? Then Daily Radar have one for you to look at. It's the latest monster in thir weekly gallery of Throne of Bhaal critters.

A dozen feet tall and half a dozen feet across at the shoulders, Fire Giants are among the strongest of their kind. When they hit, it hurts! As if their great strength and size didn’t already make them formidable enough foes, fire giants have been known to use magical weapons, armor and potions to augment their ability to inflict mayhem and carnage upon their enemies.

HoW: Review at MPOG    Posted Monday - April 23 - 2001 by
MPOG has posted their review of Icewind Dale - Heart of Winter, the expansion CD for last years summer hit. Also this expansion did impress them, as they rated it 4.5/5 stars...

In conclusion, if you're a die-hard Icewind Dale fan, don't hesitate to pick up Heart of Winter. It offers more than enough extras to satisfy the most ardent of dungeon-crawlers; however, Heart of Winter provides only about 20 to 30 total hours of extra fun. Needless to say, the game undoubtedly would've received a higher rating had it been longer. Nevertheless, if monster-slaying with cool, new fancy magical weapons along with a barrage of offensive spells in lush new environments appeals to you, then Heart of Winter should be a perfect match for you.

Torn site update    Posted Sunday - April 22 - 2001 by
Black Isle has updated the official TORN website by adding four new magic stories (Order, Chaos, Alchemy and Summoning). They have also uploaded an all new FAQ covering a wide variety of TORN questions.


BG2: Review    Posted Sunday - April 22 - 2001 by
You're never too late, so MoreGaming have upped their review on Shadows of Amn and rate it with a 90% score.

I could go on all day about his game. Since it took so long to finish there's a lot to talk about. But let me summarize by stating this game is a marathon. If you don't play this one, you don't deserve to call yourself a hardcore gamer. Not to mention you're cheating yourself out of one of the best game experiences ever.

Read more about it right here.


Divinity Screens    Posted Sunday - April 22 - 2001 by
4Players has posted 6 new screenshots from Divine Divinity...


ToB: Screens    Posted Saturday - April 21 - 2001 by
Four screens on Throne of Bhaal can be found right here at PC.IGN.


Torn Developers Diary    Posted Saturday - April 21 - 2001 by
RPGVault have a new designer diary series featuring Torn in which Dave Maldonado shares with us some details on the development process of the game.

Those who've read the various TORN previews, interviews, and/or perused the message boards likely know that the idea behind it is to create a whole new world (conveniently named "Torn," so that no one has to grasp for the name when stammering on about the game in a drunken stupor), driven by a variant of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, the rules set behind Fallout I & II and a fancy acronym. The local Powers That Be decreed that "High-Fantasy, 3D, Multiplayer Capability, and Real-Time Are Good" (I agree with those points - not that I'd ever argue, though, what with all the lightning and fire and pink slips and so on)... and so high-fantasy, 3D, multiplayer-capable and real-time it is. As a side note, the LithTech engine is helping us out on the 3D and multiplayer capability end, while a few tweaky-tweakies to the rules got S.P.E.C.I.A.L. chugging along nicely in real-time.

Read more about it right here.


Divinity: Concept art    Posted Friday - April 20 - 2001 by
German publisher CDV has posted new Divinity concept art. One of the sketches shows an orc and the other one a human warrior.
Divinity is a fantasy RPG, currently under development at Belgian Larian Studios and slated for release September 14, 2001. Some info for all German fans: CDV announced they´ll release their Divinity website (Larian has one in English already) in the very near future. There will also be German message boards for the game at Larian very soon


ToB: Developer Profile    Posted Friday - April 20 - 2001 by
RPGVault have added another profile on a Throne of Bhaal developer. This time it's David Gaider, senior designer on the expansion pack to BGII.

Jonric: What would you rate as being the best and worst parts of your job? And what do you consider the biggest challenges?

David Gaider: Best part: getting up in the morning every day and looking forward to coming to work... then working all day and actually forgetting what time it is and end up going home late without meaning to and still looking forward to the next day. Biggest challenge: as I said before, being 'on' all the time. You pour all of your heart into a project and you want it to be perfect, but there's never enough time to do everything you want and not every part is going to be the result of absolute brilliance... and no matter how hard you try, you can't please everyone.

ToB: Item of the Week    Posted Friday - April 20 - 2001 by
PC.IGN have upped the next of the Throne of Bhaal items. This time they feature the Club of Detonation

Amnish fable tells the tale of Nysrogh, a powerful denizen of the lower planes unleashed upon Amn by a careless sorceress named Unileth.

Completely immune to any and all weapons used against him, Nysrogh rampaged throughout Amn, and Unileth took it upon herself to end the threat she had unleashed. Using her knowledge of the demon’s weaknesses, she constructed a great club to defeat Nysrogh, and gave it to a brave but anonymous knight to be her champion.

Unileth’s champion issued a challenge to Nysrogh, which the demon readily accepted, confident it could not be harmed by any weaponry known to the Realms. On the field of battle they met and beneath the fierce gaze of Nysrogh, Unileth’s champion promptly dropped his weapon and fled in terror.

Nysrogh reached out to claim the champion’s discarded club as a symbol of his victory. But as the demon’s clawed hand touched the surface of the club he unleashed a spell of imprisonment, for which he was completely unprepared. Unileth’s trap had worked, and the demon that could not be harmed by any weapon was forever trapped inside the magic club.

The crude wooden club still burns with the raging spirit of the demon forever trapped within by the powerful enchantments placed on the weapon. Occasionally, however, the demon's wrath manages to escape in a fiery blast.

Jeremy Soule interview    Posted Thursday - April 19 - 2001 by
At RPGVault there is an interview with Jeremy soule, the composer on Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter.

Jonric: What do you find to be are the most enjoyable aspects of writing game music? And on the other hand, what's the most difficult?

Jeremy Soule: I love it when the developer tells me I did a good job and the game is a hit! The hardest part, though, is when the project is complete and I start to experience a bit of "empty nest" syndrome. Music is my life and if I'm not composing or recording, I'm not a happy puppy.

Read more about it here


ToB: Monster of the Week    Posted Tuesday - April 17 - 2001 by
Daily Radar feature the Magic Golem from Throne of Bhaal.

Golems... We all know the drill. Big, dumb and slow. Magic isn’t much use against them, so just keep your mages safe at the back and beat those constructs down with a few buffed up warriors. But when your mages suddenly get blasted from across the room with deadly beams of pure energy, you realize this particular golem might be a whole new challenge.

ToB: Item of the Week    Posted Saturday - April 14 - 2001 by
PC.IGN have a new item from Throne of Bhaal up. This time it's a regenerating spear named Ixil's Spike.

Shortly after the Time of Troubles began the nomadic bandit tribes of the Calimshan desert were united under a single leader; a cruel and brutal giant of a man, the warlord Ixil Xaxsha. From their outposts in the forbidding desert waste, the nomads raided merchant caravans and terrorized travelers who dared journey over the road from Calimport to Myratma.

HoW: Patch V1.41    Posted Saturday - April 14 - 2001 by
Interplay has released patch version 1.41 of Heart of Winter. You can download it right here. Check out the readme file to see what things have changed in the Icewind Dale section here


Divinity: Interview with Lynn    Posted Friday - April 13 - 2001 by
Soulflyer from Neville´s Little Place on the Web has conducted an interview in dutch with Lynn Vanbesien, PR and Marketing Manager, from Belgian developer Larian Studios.
For those of you who skipped their lessons in Dutch I've translated it. You can find the english one right here.

Soulflyer: And then something I've been wondering for a long time, are you the only female member of Larian Studios? And is that not difficult with all that amount of testosterone around?

Lynn: Well I was so 5 minutes ago, lemme check…. Yep I still am! I can handle these men. Sometimes I really freak out over some of them, especially one of them, "the dwarf", but I'm not going into that ;)

Torn Preview    Posted Friday - April 13 - 2001 by
IGN PC has posted up a preview of TORN.

You'll journey through the continent of Agathe looking for a way to release yourself from this morbid curse, exploring the shorelines of Orislane, over the mountains of Stormcrown, and finally onto the edge of war farther over the Orislanian coast. You'll explore a city that devours its own inhabitants when night falls, you'll fight off an invasion of beats, and ultimately you'll take part in a battle between an aging king and an age-old nemesis.

Check out the entire thing right here.



ToB: Chat Log    Posted Friday - April 13 - 2001 by
Planet Baldurs Gate has posted an edited chat log of the Throne of Bhaal developer chat that went on earlier today. If you happened to miss it, you can check it out right here.


ToB: Developer Profile    Posted Friday - April 13 - 2001 by
Kevin Martens, the Lead Designer on the expansion to Baldurs Gate II, has his developer profile up at RPGVault today. Heres a quick bit from the interview:

My background is a whole lot of years as a Dungeon Master and a writer. I've made several games at home with a few friends. I got into the gaming industry as a Writer/Designer at BioWare in 1998, to work on Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast. Making games has proved to be a fun and challenging job. I've recently completed Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn as the Co-Lead Designer.

Check out the entire thing right here.


HoW: Review at PC Zone    Posted Thursday - April 12 - 2001 by
PC Zone reviewed Heart of Winter and gave it a 72% score.

New lands include a barbarian encampment and a burial ground protected by some horrific undead such as drowned dead, barrow wights, ghost shamans and wailing virgins. Among the 60 new spells are the cleric's highly effective combat spell, Blade Barrier, and the mage's protection spell, known as Seven Eyes. Powerful new weapons are also added, including a surprisingly meaty +5 club, powerful swords and new armour and shields.

Torny screens    Posted Thursday - April 12 - 2001 by
PC Strategy Games has lined up a few new screens on Torn.


ToB: preview at PC Gamer Web    Posted Wednesday - April 11 - 2001 by
PC GamerWeb has previewed Throne of Bhaal, the expansion pack for Baldur's Gate II and the last part of the Baldur's Gate series.

Picking up where BGII left off, Throne of Bhaal continues and eventually concludes the child of Bhaal saga. As you would expect, you can opt to bring your party of adventurers from BGII, or you can scrap everyone and simply start anew with two million experience points, which is the equivalent to about 14th or 15th level for most character classes.

New Biofiles    Posted Tuesday - April 10 - 2001 by
After the demise of GA-RPG, the new BioFiles have submerged at euniverse Games. James Ohlen talks again, and this time it's about the different chapters in Baldur's Gate II (well the first three that is).

Chapter 3 brought the player back to the critical path of the story. It took place in all of the same areas as chapter 2, so in some ways it could have been classified as the critical path section of that chapter. Chapter 3’s big feature was that it had two very distinct paths. Players could chose the evil path and work for the vampire Bodhi, or players could chose the non-evil path where they worked for Aran Linvail.

ToB: Developer Diary #2    Posted Sunday - April 8 - 2001 by
Today, Gamespy has published the second Baldur's Gate II : Throne of Bhaal developer diary by artist Mathew Goldman. It reveals the "three priorities" of Throne of Bhaal's challenging development....

Development of Throne of Bhaal began immediately after BG2 was complete. One short week off and it was off to the races! Quandary: How to make a rich and satisfying world more quickly than ever before? We had a distinct advantage in a very stable and well known technology that we could push to the limit. Also, a pool of talented and resourceful people certainly helps! The success of the endeavor hinged on speeding production in anyway possible, so an immediate retrospective on BG2 was in order.

ToB: Item of the Week    Posted Saturday - April 7 - 2001 by
This newsbit was earlier spotted by the one and only Darien :)). So here it goes: PC.IGN feature their item of the week. This time it's Foebane, the vampiric bastard sword.

The Archmage Demron crafted this magical bastard sword for the Elven hero Fflar, Captain of Myth Drannor. The most powerful of six such enchanted blades Demron fashioned, Foebane can drain the very essence of life from its opponents with every blow, and bestow that life energy on the wielder. There are those who believe soul stealing capability has cursed the blade, for though fashioned as a weapon of right and justice, Foebane’s dark history is one of murder and death.

How: Review    Posted Saturday - April 7 - 2001 by
Electric Games have reviewed the Icewind Dale expansion pack, Heart of Winter. They award it four and a half out of five stars.
Their conclusion:

...Bottom Line: New content, new level caps, spells, skills, and more. The entire interface gets a facelift and looks much like Baldur´s Gate II. Those who finished Icewind Dale and enjoyed it will appreciate the new story content. Those who are just purchasing the original game will get much more out of it, as the entire graphics interface has been improved...

Divinity: Second Feature    Posted Friday - April 6 - 2001 by
Larian Studio's added the second special feature on Divine Divinity. This time it focusses on how the characters interact and how this interaction furthers the storyline. Curious? Go here to check it out.


ToB: Diary #2    Posted Friday - April 6 - 2001 by
RPGPlanet have the second edition up on their Throne of Bhaal diary. Scott Langevin, Lead QA for Throne of Bhaal talks about the length of the game and what they have tested upto now.

With the vast majority of content in the game, it seems as though the Designers, Artists, and Programmers of BG products can't resist making huge, intense, and complicated games for us to work with. Last week one of our senior testers played through the game to discover that we have about 45 hours of game play on our hands. For an expansion pack, that's a lot of game. I've played whole titles that have only lasted 30 hours and felt content. I think the BG fans out there are really going to feel like they're getting a decent bang for their buck.

ToB: Developer Profile    Posted Friday - April 6 - 2001 by
RPGVault has recently conducted an interview with the Assistant Producer at Bioware, Alan Miranda. This interview is the first of a series of developer profiles that will be posted up there. Heres a quick little bit:

Jonric: With respect to your current position, what are the best and worst parts of your job? And what are the biggest challenges?

Alan Miranda: The best part of my job is to help a vision materialize by helping to direct people's creativity into a finished product. As Col. John "Hannibal" Smith would have said, "I love it when a plan comes together!" Having a hand in designing all aspects of a project is something I find very enjoyable since I have an interest in design, art, and programming. What do I like the least? Well... maintaining schedules isn't the most exciting thing ;^). I think the biggest challenge as a producer is to balance your time between the organizational aspects and the creative aspects of the game. You want to spend time on both because they are equally important to realizing a hit game.

The interview can be found right here.


Torn: Preview    Posted Friday - April 6 - 2001 by
Gamespot UK have made a preview on Torn, got a chance to talk a bit to Dave Maldonado and added some screens to the mixture.

From what we've seen, Torn certainly has all the hallmarks of being another Black Isle classic and with the new version of the Lithtech engine powering its game world it also certainly looks the part. We'll be keeping a close eye on the game as it goes through the development process and we'd expect to see Torn making it's debut sometime before the end of this year.

ToB: Interview with Kevin Martens    Posted Thursday - April 5 - 2001 by
RPGVault has posted an interview with Kevin Martens, the Lead Designer of the expansion. Here is a little bit from the interview:

Wild magic is a new type of magic that is characterized by powerful and dangerous surges or unpredictable energies. Generally considered to be an unfortunate byproduct of the Time of Troubles, wild magic has recently begun to attract the attention or many a curious or scholarly wizard.

The interview talks about many things, including all the big changes to the gameplay, the new type of magic in the game, and also about mass combat. Read the rest right here.


Torn Interview    Posted Thursday - April 5 - 2001 by
Russian site Freelancer had an iterview with Dave Maldonado about Torn.

[Yurg]: On what development stage the TORN is now?

[David]: Well, we're look to be out by year's end and while it'll be tough, it's certainly possible! We've gotten much of our technology working and are starting into serious content design.

HoW: Review by AVault    Posted Thursday - April 5 - 2001 by
The Adrenaline Vault reviewed Heart of Winter and give it 4 out of 5 stars.

There's no denying that Icewind Dale was a fantastic offering; the question is, can Heart of Winter match that excellence? Arguably, the answer is yes, though some clarification is perhaps necessary. As a stand-alone addition, it's fairly bare-bones, offering about 10 hours of additional gameplay, which makes its nearly full-blown price tag seem rather excessive. However, when you take into account the host of changes to Icewind Dale's core gameplay, the expansion begins to show its true colors. Being able to go back and play through the original with an increased resolution, new spells and additional items is truly fantastic, as is the number of tweaks done to the various class abilities. The "interactive item" hotkey is truly a necessity, as it simplifies some of the trickier elements that plagued the original. All in all, Heart of Winter is one of those rare titles that not only builds upon its predecessor's success, but also manages to enrich it tenfold. It's a must-have for those who loved Icewind Dale, and definitely worth a look for those who found themselves turned off by its few flaws.

HoW: A magazine preview    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
Belgium/Dutch magazine PC Gameplay reviewed Heart of Winter and gave it a score of 83%. Ofcourse they mentioned it was short, but they thought there was still a lot of good about the expansion.
If you want to more, you have to know ducth to be able to read it :).


ToB: Interview with Ray Muzyka    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
PCGameplay have had the opportunity to interview Bioware´s CEO (i.e. boss) Ray Muzyka about what we can expect from the Baldur´s Gate 2 expansion pack, Throne Of Bhaal, and what the future holds for the Forgotten Realms franchise. Exclusive screenshots from Throne of Bhaal can also be found right next to the article.


ToB: Developers Diary    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
A fresh new developers diary was spotted on Gamespy. In it producer Alan Miranda, explains how the BG2 expansion pack will bring the series to its dramatic conclusion.

The title of the expansion originates partially from the name "Throne of Blood." In actuality, this term doesn't refer to some massive, gilded throne inset with skulls (however impressive it might sound), but to Bhaal's own realm (quite a horrific place). In order to impart finality to the title, we related it more directly to the story's greater antagonist, the Lord of Murder himself, and came up with "Throne of Bhaal."

HoW: Two more reviews    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
This can not go on forever, but there are two more Heart of Winter reviews.
New Zealand Infotech thought it was great add-on:

Heart of Winter is a great add-on to Icewind Dale. The new areas don't take terribly long to play through (around 10-20 hours going at a slowish pace), but by playing through the whole of Icewind Dale again, Heart of Winter really makes it seem like a whole new game.

And BubbleDream gave it only a 6.

For gamers wondering whether or not to plunk down their hard earned cash for this expansion, wonder no more: it is not worth the money. Given its 'shortness' on gameplay hours and poor level/monster design, it is not recommended to buy and play just the expansion. For gamers who have not played IWD before, they would do best to wait for the inevitable IWD and HOW bundle pack, only then would the money spent be justified.

Source: Sorcerer's Place


ToB: Concept Art    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
The official Polish BGII site has some Throne of Bhaal Concept Art.


More Torn Info    Posted Tuesday - April 3 - 2001 by
The Russian site Freelancer has collected some extra information on Torn.


How: A positive review    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
Gaming Unlimited reviewed Heart of Winter. Finally someone who can see beyond the length (or shortness) of the game. The reviewer rated it with 92%.

I think of Interplay RPGs as the pinnacle of their genre. You know what I’m talking about: Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Fallout 2, etc. Each of those games has set a high-water mark when they were released. When an expansion pack is released for one of them (check out “Tales of the Sword Coast” for Baldur’s Gate, and the upcoming “Throne of Bhaal” for Baldur’s Gate II), you’re virtually guaranteed a new, intense adventure that has the same level of quality as its base title. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is a worthy addition to an already spectacular game. Though a bit on the short side, Heart of Winter comes with enough of the same tried-and-true gameplay of the original, as well as heaps of enhancements, to make it an Editor’s Choice title here at Gaming-Unlimited. Good luck to you, as you venture out into the cold, barren, unforgiving Heart of Winter.

ToB News    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
Several more things on Throne of Bhaal have come to the surface.
IGN PC has previewed Throne of Bhaal.

With Throne of Bhaal, Bioware is looking to provide the average player with 30 to 40 hours of additional gameplay, although the adventurous voyager will find plenty more explore in the game is he or she so wishes. Everything is looking tight at this point, but of course that's what we have come to expect from Bioware. Look for Throne of Bhaal to be unleashed sometime this spring

GameSpot have a short preview of Throne of Bhaal.

Throne of Bhaal will feature around 50 new high-level spells for clerics and magic-users, powerful new skills for melee classes, as well as a new character kit, the wild mage, whose spells have a chance of generating unforeseen, chaotic surges of magic. The content in the game will be split between a high-level dungeon and the main narrative path, and you'll be able to move between these as you like.

And RPGPlanet feature a Throne of Bhaal Designer Diary.

We are currently in the tweaking and balancing phase of the project. Both sections of the expansion (The Massive Dungeon of the Watcher's Keep and the culmination of the Child of Bhaal storyline) are technically finished. We can play through them from beginning to end but a fair bit of tweaking, both major and minor, remains to be done. Big buglists hit our desks everyday and everyday the form of the game becomes clearer. We continue to prune the treant without getting swallowed.

BGII: Things that went wrong    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
GameSpot has a lengthy article on things that went wrong (and right) with BGII and also adds some history.

In retrospect, it would have been very helpful to have this finished set of guidelines at the start of the project, rather than at the end. A number of decisions that were made very early in the development of Baldur's Gate II did not follow the guidelines and could not be undone. Most noteworthy was Chapter 2 of the game--it included a story segment that was similar to those in other chapters, but in Chapter 2 the player could also access all of the class-specific subquests. This led to Chapter 2 potentially dwarfing all other chapters in length because players could spend 60-100 hours doing just subquests. We needed to put the subquests at a point where all players could access them equally, but the end result was that it bloated an early section of the game. In the end, there was nothing we could do to fix the chapter disparity, so we simply worked around it.

Somehow I've heard of this topic before.


Torn: Interview    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
Jonric once again asked Dave Maldonado a lot of questions on Torn. Go check RPGVault for all the details.

Jonric: Just before we begin, thanks very much for agreeing to answer even more questions. Since we covered quite a bit last week, let's jump into some specific game elements. For starters, how important will weapons be in BIS: TORN? Will there be many different types for players to find and acquire in the game?

Dave Maldonado: It depends on how much fighting the character intends to do! But seriously, we've provided a good variety for the more bloody-minded. There are all sorts of weapon categories: bare knuckles (yes, there's unarmed combat, which is especially delightful with ogres), fist weapons like iron knuckles and clawed gauntlets, daggers, one- and two-handed swords, axes, and maces, throwing weapons, bows, crossbows, polearms, chain weapons, the works. All have different effects and requirements that serve to make them quite different from one another, mostly to better allow players to customize their character's combat style. For instance, bows and swords are faster but less powerful than crossbows and axes, daggers do less damage than swords but are better for backstabbing enemies and may be hurled, chain weapons are easy to hit with (hard to parry!) but have a wider range of damage than swords (meaning they can and often do less harm), polearms increase an attacker's defense to represent a character's ability to attack while out of harm's way, and so on. The goal is to make a basic set of weapons that aren't necessarily better or worse than one other in all ways, but rather simply different.

ToB: Preview at Daily Radar    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
A preview on the Throne of Bhaal expansion has been made by Daily Radar. Not much new information in it for those who followed the news on it. Anyway, here is a small bit:Surprises? Servok is coming back -- at least, you've got the chance to raise his dead ass and have him join the party. Did we mention that you'd get this option from your fortress on the Abyssal Plane? Hello! You are the child of Bhaal. High-level spells that will blow your mind are also going to be in full effect -- Dragon's Breath conjures up the head of a Red Dragon and rolls out 20d10 worth of damage. The proper response for that spell is -- HOLY CRAP. Globe of Blades will conjure a, er, globe of razor sharp blades; just walk into your enemies and it's Cuisinart time. Be sure not to get too close to your friends though; razor blades don't discriminate.
ToB: New website    Posted Friday - March 30 - 2001 by
INterplay has opened an official Throne of Bhaal website.


ToB: Screeens    Posted Wednesday - March 28 - 2001 by
At GameOver they have a collection of Throne of Bhaal screens. Not all of them new and of the rest I'm not sure, but if you want to check out for yourself pay them a visit.


HoW: Preview at Neoseeker    Posted Tuesday - March 27 - 2001 by
Yes another review on Heart of winter. Let me spoil the fun for you all, they think it's too short :-).
Anyway, here is the link and here is a piece.

Now for the bad news. I have to say that the statement on the box about “five huge new areas that add directly into the original IWD” is somewhat misleading. I was under the impression that those were all areas for our characters to roam around and cause havoc in. Unfortunately two of those areas were basically small towns to visit (being Lonelywood and a barbarian camp to the east). While it is true some fighting does occur in the barbarian camp, it can hardly be called “huge.” The other areas, which I won’t reveal in order to prevent spoiling the game for you, consist of one medium sized area (about two maps) and two “larger” areas to explore (which are a series of smaller linked maps) which were strung together by a story that was at least consistent with the Icewind Dale universe.

Torn: Video interview    Posted Tuesday - March 27 - 2001 by
Gamespot had the chance to take their video camera and aim it at Dave Maldonado for a video interview.


Interview With Josh Sawyer    Posted Tuesday - March 27 - 2001 by
Computer Games Online interviewed Josh Sawyer about himself.

If you were not involved in games, what would you be doing with your life?

I'd be designing web pages for a small ISP in southern Wisconsin, explaining to my friends how all of the designers at Black Isle must not know what they're doing. I used to do that all the time. It was funny then, but until you actually work in the industry, you have no idea what's really involved.

Gaming Globes 2001    Posted Tuesday - March 27 - 2001 by
First there are Oscars and now there are Eurogamers Gaming Globes. The results are in and BGII and IWD took the following prices:
Best Game: Baldur's Gate II.
Male Supporting character: Minsc for Baldur's Gate.
Art Direction: Baldur's Gate II.
Original Music: Icewind Dale.
Adapted storyline: Baldur's Gate II.

Read all about it right here.


How: Review at XGR    Posted Saturday - March 24 - 2001 by
Extreme Gaming Radio reviewed Heart of Winter. We have seen many reviews pass on this one and the review of XGR is not different with their comments on the size of it.

HOW amounts to basically a side quest if you play it during IWD. If you play it after, HOW extends the life of your IWD install by about 15 hours, since it really doesn't contain many side quests of its own. If I know Interplay, they will eventually release a combined box containing the original IWD and also this addon. For those of you who haven't played IWD, that would be my suggestion.

ToB: Screenies    Posted Saturday - March 24 - 2001 by
There are 4 new screenshots from the Baldur's Gate II expansion set Throne of Bhaal over at Russian site Gameport.


Divinity: A screen explained    Posted Friday - March 23 - 2001 by
Larian Studios updated their Divinity site with a new feature. This feature deals with an explanation of the contents in a screenshot. Now we finally know what all the new buttons mean :-).


Torn: Interview at RPGVault    Posted Thursday - March 22 - 2001 by
RPGVault is one of the first presenting us an interview on the new game Black Isle Studios:Torn. Let's just call it Torn, I say :-).
Anyway you can read their interview here.

Jonric: Since BIS: TORN has just been unveiled, let's start with a simple introduction. Please give our readers a summary of the game and its basic features.

Dave Maldonado: TORN is a high-fantasy, single- or multi-player 3D real-time CRPG set in Black Isle Studios' original world of the same name. The story takes place in a relatively small portion of Torn... the border kingdom of Orislane, a peninsula on the western coast of a continent known as Agathe. The game uses a 3/4 perspective similar to that of Planescape: Torment or Icewind Dale, a rules set based on Fallout I & II's SPECIAL system (skill-based character development, Perks and Traits, etc.), and revolves around a single antagonist - the player's character - and any companions that he or she manages to pick up while traveling. These companions are similar to those of the Fallout series in that they are largely computer-controlled, though the player will do a lot of interacting with them and can modify their behavior. Learning to work well with one's companions - seeing how they interact with one another and different character types - should be a lot of fun.

Oh, and when playing a multiplayer game, the host controls the protagonist while the clients each use their own unique character. This means that instead of having to control the host's companion(s), everyone uses their own "customized just-for-them" adventurer - if players like, they may even bring over equipment, skills, and so on garnered in their own single-player games. There's a six-character limit in a party or adventurers, which means that up to six people may play together. Any computer-controlled companions of the protagonist can always take up any slots not filled by other human players.

BIS announces TORN    Posted Thursday - March 22 - 2001 by
Black Isle Studios have announced the game they were working on for some time now already. It's name is Black Isle Studios: Torn. Followers of BIS already knew of this one, using the SPECIAL system of Fallout and the LithTech 3.0 engine. Here is a part of the press release (without the legal stuff).

IRVINE, Calif., March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Black Isle Studios, the award winning role-playing game division of Interplay Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: IPLY - news), announced today the development of their next epic, Black Isle Studios(TM): TORN(TM). Set in an original high-fantasy world created exclusively by Black Isle Studios, TORN includes many of the popular gameplay elements found in the award-winning Fallout(TM) series and adds unique new features that will heighten the player's experience. This exciting, real-time 3D saga, which takes place in the ancient kingdom of Orislane in western Agathe, will be available for Windows® 95/98/00/ME-based computers in Q4, 2001.
``With TORN, we've taken the best elements from Fallout, a completely original fantasy world, and combined it with real-time combat,'' stated Feargus Urquhart, Black Isle Studios Division Director. ``It's pretty much everything our fans have been asking for since we produced the original Fallout series.''

TORN contains a skill-based character system that allows for innumerable approaches to any problem in the game, whether through combat, guile, or diplomacy. Utilizing items of the player's own creation, four different realms of magic, and enough specializations and abilities to make every character unique, TORN will take the player through a twisting, epic tale of noble allies, vile treachery, vengeful tyrants and maddened gods that will set the precedent for fantasy and adventure games to come.

Utilizing the LithTech(TM) Development System Version 3.0, TORN operates on a real-time version of the rule system behind the Fallout series and allows players to pause the game at anytime to issue commands and control companions. Pre-generated characters will be provided for those who do not wish to indulge in the detailed character creation process. TORN will include new Perks (Pyromancer: the character's effectiveness with explosive fire-based magic is increased) Traits (Lone Wolf: the character gains bonuses when working without companions), skills (Fortitude: increases a character's Hit Points), and even new races such as the sidhe and ogres in addition to humans, dwarves, halflings, and elves. The non-linear features of the game such as customized character creation, multiple story arcs and NPC reactivity greatly enhance replayability. TORN can be played as either a single-player or multiplayer game, supporting up to six separate players.

Black Isle Studios has redefined the role-playing genre and has dominated the PC Game charts having received the RPG of the Year award from Computer Gaming World and Computer Games Magazine for the last four years running. More comprehensive information about Black Isle Studios and TORN can be found on the official web site, located at http://www.blackisle.com.

HoW: Another review    Posted Thursday - March 22 - 2001 by
This time Electric Playground reviewed Heart of Winter. They rated it with 7.5 out of 10.

The expansion is very linear, as the player is lead from one area to the next. Other than the main story, which is a good one, there is little else to do, as there are no additional sidequests. Like IWD, most of the game is spent in crawling through icy dungeons hacking your way through hoards of monsters. More variety in enemies would have been appreciated, as each area only boasts a handful of new monsters. Play balancing of the fights is also a bit off, with the most difficult fights coming in one of the first major areas the player explores. Conversely, the end battle was way too easy to win, though it boasted an incredible-looking final foe. In fact I took her down on the first try. All in all, the new areas will take about 15-20 hours to complete the first time through in normal mode.

ToB: No more savegames    Posted Wednesday - March 21 - 2001 by
Bioware does no longer require save games to test the Throne of Bhaal expansion. The mailbox at Bioware was quickly filled up with over 500 save games from all over the world. They have more than enough now, so they call it a day and thank everyone for their effort.



ToB: Screenies    Posted Wednesday - March 21 - 2001 by
Four screens on the Throne of Bhaal expansion the BGII can be found at Adrenaline Vault.


How: Reviews    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
Two reviews this time and none of them positive. The first is at GameRaiders, rating it with 69 points.

The highly anticipated expansion pack to one of last year's best RPG games, Icewind Dale, is finally upon us. Heart of Winter features an enhanced engine, new story, higher character levels, new monsters, new items, and new spells. If it wasn't for the fact that you'll only get a few hours of gameplay out of it, it'd be an excellent expansion.

The second comed from GamesMania rating it slightly better with 75%.

While it might be a little short for the price, it is one hell of a terrific ride while it lasts.

Divinity: X-Surprise    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
PlanetXbox reports that Larian Studios´ Divinity will be released for Microsoft´s X-Box as well as for PC.
I was not able to find any news on that at Larian or their publisher CDV. So this might be a rumor.
In the past Larian Studios have repeatedly stated that they had no plans to transport Divinity to any console.


Divinity: Translated interview    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
Moriendor did it again. He translated the interview Bronthion did yesterday to English. It can be read at his site.

5. Bro: The FAQ says:" There’s btw no need to keep on clicking like a madman once you clicked on your enemy, just once is enough." Does that mean you have eventually decided to kick the Diablo combat style in favor of the Baldur´s Gate style ?

Lar: Our latest tests lead to the conclusion that Divinity contains so many options and ways to play that you don´t need the extra Adrenaline you get from permanent clicking like in Diablo.
Once you come across a big monster horde you´ll be clicking like a madman anyways,...out of panic ;)
That´s why we decided that it doesn´t really matter if you click on an enemy once or multiple times or if you just hold the mouse button down permanently. All three styles work out fine in the end.

HoW: DevTV    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
Another question at Interplays DevTV. Josh Sawyer answers a question on the new and powerful spells in Heart of Winter.


ToB: Preview at RPGPlanet    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
RPGPlanet previewed Throne of Bhaal, the expansion of Baldur's Gate II.

They aren't skimping on levels this time allowing characters to rise to 40th level (eight million experience points), much higher than 23rd level maximum in Baldur's Gate II. Mages will be able to cast ninth level spells and all characters will receive special abilities that can be chosen when achieving a new level. About thirty special abilities and spells have been added. For instance, fighters can choose Whirlwind Attack and Greater Whirlwind Attack, that makes them into "freaking killing machines, proverbial Ginsus" as Doug Avery, Associate Producer put it. Thieves can make special traps, while clerics will be able to summon good or evil celestial beings like Solars. They are one of the new monsters in the expansion; seven novel monster models have been added like the demon at the bottom of Watcher's Keep. Also appearing will be Fire Giants, Water Weird, Baatezu, and new Dragons.

ToB: A question a day    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
GameBanshee has a question a day for Doug Avery, producer of BGII and Throne of Bhaal. Here is the question:

Heart of Winter brought Icewind Dale a variety of enhancements, such as higher resolution settings, more details during combat (amount of damage resisted, etc), and the Heart of Fury mode. Aside from new equipment, spells, and monsters, what enhancements can we expect to see to the original Baldur’s Gate II after installing Throne of Bhaal? Will some of these enhancements only be available to those who play BG2 from the beginning again (such as new equipment at NPC merchants)?

Check out the answer here.


ToB: BGII save games    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
Bioware is requesting you to send one of your savegames from Baldurs' Gate II: Shadows of Amn. This to help the development of the Throne of Bhaal expansion. If you want to give them a hand, here's a quick rundown on how to deliver what they are looking for:
1) Browse to your save game folder (on BGII it's usually "C:\Program Files\BlackIsle\BGII - SoA\save")
2) The folders you see (inside "save") are your saved games - choose one
3) Make a .zip file of the folder you want to submit to BioWare (do not send the "save" folder)
4) Create an email message to: [email protected]
5) Attach the .zip file to the message.
6) Send the email, with the .zip file attached.

You can do this for the next two weeks, asfter that it's not possible anymore.


Divinity: Interview with Lar    Posted Tuesday - March 20 - 2001 by
Bronthion, webmaster of Divinityswelt, a German fanpage dedicated to Larian Studios upcoming epic fantasy RPG Divinity, has made a long distance call to Belgium and interviewed Swen "Lar" Vincke, Larian Studios´ CEO and Divinity´s project leader by phone.
The questions cover a variety of issues but most of it is derived from the recently updated Divinity FAQ. The new revelations are very interesting and will be translated soon to English.


ToB: Screenies    Posted Saturday - March 17 - 2001 by
16 new Screenshots from the BG2 expansion Throne of Bhaal can be found at GameOver.


Site update    Posted Friday - March 16 - 2001 by
Divinity
Oops, I added the wrong skills description file. It was an old version. The one that is up now is more accurate.


HoW: Contest    Posted Friday - March 16 - 2001 by
Sybex Games is hosting a contest on Heart of Winter, the expansion pack for Icewind Dale. The winner gets both the games, the Icewind Dale music CD and both Sybex books on the games. And you only need to enter your name and have to live in the USA.


Divinity: New screens    Posted Friday - March 16 - 2001 by
CDV the publisher of Larian Studios´ upcoming fantasy RPG Divinity, have redone their preview site of the game and replaced a few older screenshots with new ones. CDV´s site still doesn´t contain too much info on the game. There´s a lot more to be found at Larian´s Divinity pages.


How: Preview at Gamesfirst    Posted Thursday - March 15 - 2001 by
Gamesfirst has posted their preview of Icewind Dale - Heart of Winter. The final score is but only 3/5 stars, and this is why:

Where Tales of the Sword Coast added an insanely difficult dungeon crawl to a game that lacked exactly that, Heart of Winter adds a not-so-tough dungeon crawl to . a dungeon crawl. While high-level characters are nice, what's the point if those levels aren't concomitant with the magic and challenge that ought to go with them? If Heart of Winter came with a lower price tag, I'd recommend it, but since it rides around thirty dollars, I'm forced to say wait until it hits the bargain bin. Heart of Winter is fun but not fun enough.

Divinity screens    Posted Thursday - March 15 - 2001 by
Germany based publisher CDV has added two more screenshots to the Divinity preview page (the top most 2 screenies).

The first one shows one of the male warrior type characters in a furious battle with borcs. Borcs are an orc sub-class who wear a spiked helmet which they can thrust into the charcter´s tummy. As your hero is still airborne they´ll swiftly equip their crossbow and start firing away loads of lethal bolts. It will take some brains and strategy to stand a chance against these guys.
The second shot shows the hero standing in a market square trying to figure out what to buy for his upcoming journeys.

HoW: Question of the week    Posted Tuesday - March 13 - 2001 by
GameBanshee asked Darren Monahan the second question of the week on Heart of Winter.

GameBanshee: Will the downloadable dungeon pack feature any new items, spells, or monsters? If so, can you give us a general idea of how many of each will be added? If not, what can we expect to see in the pack (how many dungeon levels, game hours, etc)?

Gaming Globe 2001 nominees     Posted Tuesday - March 13 - 2001 by
EuroGamer has announced the nominees for their 2001 Gaming globes. There are several categories with a lot of RPG's in them. I selected the following:

Baldurs Gate II is nominated for Best Game, Minsc as Male Supporting Character, Art Direction and Adapted storyline.

Icewind Dale is nominated for Original Music.

So head over there and vote!


Site update    Posted Monday - March 12 - 2001 by
Divinity
Added information on the skill system, which is used in Divinity, to the 'Game Info' section.
The information in it is incomplete and might even be incorrect. I tried to include only the info of which I was reasonably sure. But then again, one never knows :-).


Divinity: New website    Posted Monday - March 12 - 2001 by
Larian Studios have launched a new design of their website. Including ofcourse a new design of the Divinity section.
Among other things there are new screenshots and a completely redone FAQ, which has tons of information about the game.


How: Review at Intelligamer    Posted Monday - March 12 - 2001 by
Intelligamer reviewed Heart of Winter, rating it with 3 and a half star.

If you liked Icewind Dale then you are likely to enjoy this expansion. It fits in well to the game, essentially as an optional side quest to the main story line, and expands the possibilities of the original game as well with new items, new spells and higher level limits. Overall it's a worthwhile addition despite the steep price tag and somewhat limited new areas added.

ToB: Biofile    Posted Monday - March 12 - 2001 by
GA-RPG has a new biofile up. This time it's Drew Karpyshyn, talking about the novel on Throne of Bhaal.

I feel I’m something of an expert on the relationship between CRPGs and novels, since I have been lucky enough to work as a designer for BioWare on the up coming Throne of Bhaal expansion pack for Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn and I have also had the privilege of writing the Throne of Bhaal novel for Wizards of the Coast. This dual experience has given me a rather unique perspective on both projects - a perspective I’d like to share with you.

Read more about it here


HoW: Review at GamePower    Posted Monday - March 12 - 2001 by
Another review of 'Heart of Winter' hits the net. This time it's done by GamePower. They think it's very good even if it is a bit short.

Heart Of Winter is a fine example of an expansion pack improving upon and adding to an original game in all the right ways. The pack doesn't just add more gameplay time, but improves the old game's visuals and gameplay. While Heart Of Winter will prove to be a bit on the short side for most role-players, for fans of Icewind Dale, this is an excellent upgrade.

Site update    Posted Sunday - March 11 - 2001 by
Divinity
Added the Patrick Gieser interview from RPGDot. Do not think that this means everybody is allowed to copy it. The Locus Inn is kind of syndicated with RPGDot, so that's why :-).

Icewind Dale
Converted the Icewind Dale section to the new layout. This has not been a trivial task, believe me. Some things will also work slightly different, but everything is there.
There is even more than before. I noticed I forgot to add the last chapter to the walkthrough :-(, so I added it now.
Also added a download section from which it is possible to download all the screenshots and the area maps, so have fun with it.

For Netscape users navigation is somewhat more troublesome then for Explorer users, but it should be possible to reach all the pages. I also noticed that some of the screenshots (using a long name convention) are not always handled correctly by Netscape. As this is a lot of work to change I'll wait until there are enough requests for changing this.



HoW: Review at Outer Edge    Posted Sunday - March 11 - 2001 by
A favourable review has been done by Outer Edge. They rate the game with a 91% score.

All in all, this is a great expansion. With either more length or a lower price, it could have gotten a better rating from me. However, I would still buy it in an instant as it is. The upgraded technical features, new spells, new items, new monsters, new areas and balanced classes, just make the game that much more fun and challenging and offer more to love. Any fan of Icewind Dale should pick this one up and any player looking for a good RPG should try it out. I even hear Black Isle is working on a downloadable add on for HoW, even more reason to keep playing, because who knows what creature we could face next.

ToB: Info bits    Posted Sunday - March 11 - 2001 by
RPGVault have gathered A LOT of info on the Baldur´s Gate 2 add-on Throne of Baal from the Interplay boards and posted it to their main page (scroll down).


How: Review at GamesDomain    Posted Friday - March 9 - 2001 by
GamesDomain did their own review of Heart of Winter. They were not so happy with it apparently.

First and foremost, Heart of Winter is short. Veterans of the Infinity Engine titles should be able to whip through their new excursions around the chilly northlands in no more than 15 hours. Some will undoubtedly be able to finish the game in much less time than that. One expeditious friend, who shall remain nameless, tore through the entire adventure in not much more than a Sunday of, uh, dedicated play. All of which isn't acceptable for $30, especially considering that just 10 bucks more bought you the original game's 100+ hours of gameplay. For better or for worse, role-playing gamers want epics that they can lose themselves in for weeks at a time; and this just doesn't fit the bill.

Divinity: Screenshots    Posted Thursday - March 8 - 2001 by
Two new screenshots of Divinity can be seen at Adrenaline Vault.


HoW: Review by ActionTrip    Posted Thursday - March 8 - 2001 by
ActionTrip reviewed Heart of Winter. They rated it with 72%.

Icewind Dale had much more action than adventure in it, and the sequel pushes that balance one step further. You will frequently have fights with more than ten characters at a time, and at times, you will run into really epic battles like the one between two barbarian clans. The enemy AI has been enhanced, and you won't be able to lure a single enemy into an ambush anymore. In case you are spotted, the enemy will alert any other creature in the vicinity, and they will all rush towards you. This makes the game more difficult, but also more dynamic and challenging. The developers introduced bags for jewels, potions and scrolls, which should make meddling with the inventory easier. The trade system has been improved too, so that you won't have to by a single arrow at a time anymore.

ToB: Screenies    Posted Thursday - March 8 - 2001 by
Three magically enhanced screenshots can be admired at Gamespy.


HoW: Interview with Darren Monahan    Posted Wednesday - March 7 - 2001 by
Games Mania had an interview with Darren Monahan and Josh Sawyer, respectively producer and designer of the Heart of Winter expansion.

GM: Spell it out for us guys. In your own words, why does Heart of Winter kick ass?

Darren Monahan: We put a lot of effort into rounding out how we thought Icewind Dale should have been, from adding a lot of the great features from BG2, to the new spells, items, the ability to reach level 30, class changes, Heart of Fury mode and much more. Heart of Winter really defines what we had envisioned for the original Icewind Dale, and hey, we think it's fun too :)

ToB: Preview at Gamespot    Posted Tuesday - March 6 - 2001 by
Gamespot lined up a preview of the Baldur's Gate II expansion Throne of Bhaal. They have a lot to tell in their 5 pages of info on the game.

For all its new content, Throne of Bhaal isn't making many technical changes to Baldur's Gate II, which itself contained many refinements over its predecessor. However, it's important to note that the Infinity engine used in the Baldur's Gate games and other recent D&D games from Black Isle Studios is being further optimized for Throne of Bhaal. Some of you found that the intense combat sequences in Baldur's Gate II--in which multiple spells were being unleashed simultaneously--had a tendency to make your computer's performance slow down substantially. Hopefully, the optimizations in Throne of Bhaal will allow for such battles to play out without compromise. Also, some of the scripting for computer-controlled characters is being enhanced. You'll witness more complex behavior from your foes and from nonaggressive characters, who won't simply rush to attack you or just stand about in town.

HoW: Question of the day    Posted Tuesday - March 6 - 2001 by
GameBanshee have started with their question of the day about Heart of Winter. The question for monday (they posted it when we slept) is:

According to a chat conducted during a GameSpy Arcade session, several of the Icewind Dale development team are working on a new free downloadable dungeon pack for Heart of Winter. What can we expect with this new dungeon pack? Will it tie into the Heart of Winter storyline or be a separate entity?

Go read the answer here


How: Review by FiringSquad    Posted Monday - March 5 - 2001 by
Firing Squad fired away in their review of Heart of Winter, the expansion pack to Icewind Dale. This one was definitely not done by a fan of the original game, which not only reflects in the 65% score but also in several of the comments spread out through the review.

Shoulda been, coulda been, woulda been - like ashes in the wind. If Black Isle spent half as much time making the game as they did improving the graphics and music, we might have had a contender on our hands. As it is, however, all we have is a beautiful disappointment. Heart of Winter might crash and burn, but it does it in style!

One thing, which is not in the review, I must admit about Interplay is that they perform realy bad when it comes to releasing these games in Europe. They take forever to do that :(.


How: Test your knowledge    Posted Monday - March 5 - 2001 by
Test your knowledge of Heart of Winter with RPG Test number 18 at RPGPlanet.


Divinity: Interview with Patrick Grieser    Posted Saturday - March 3 - 2001 by
RPGDot had an interview with Patrick Gieser, quest programmer and story editor for Divinity. Check it out here.

Q 10: Many gamers complain about repetitive quests in RPGs. The overwhelming majority of the quests is the standard “search & retrieve” type. Are there any plans to deviate from that in Divinity ? Could you give us an example ?

In Divinity you’ll find a lot of moral quests, where the player has to make grave decisions. He can solve quests in different ways and this will affect the behavior of other NPCs.

Example: A terrible plague has befallen one of the major towns and the player can try to find a solution to the problem. Later on in the game he gets the means to cure a certain amount of sick people in the poor area. He won’t be capable of healing all NPCs and thus he’ll have to do a moral decision. When the player chooses not to heal a member of a rich family, the family will get very angry and hire an assassin to kill the player.

ToB: Screenshots    Posted Saturday - March 3 - 2001 by
There are 5 screenshots of the Throne of Bhaal expansion at Gamestar.de. They show some magic in action.


How: Reviews    Posted Saturday - March 3 - 2001 by
Two reviews this time. The first by Gamespot, giving it only a 6.1 (due to the low added value they see in it).

Should you invest in Heart of Winter? It really depends on what sort of gamer you are. Firstly, if you haven't played Icewind Dale at all and fancy making use of the improved graphics, extra spells and levels, then yes, it's probably worth getting the expansion.

Secondly, if, like me, you're fanatical about this style of game, have already played Icewind Dale but want to play through the whole thing again, then it's also worth getting Heart of Winter. For anyone who just wants to play the expansion, think carefully. There's not a lot to it - a weekend's work at best - and the levels are generally not as entertaining as those in Icewind Dale itself. The presentation is terrific, but the substance is not as satisfying as it could have been.

The second by PC.IGN is a lot more positive, rating it with a 8.6

Playing through Heart of Winter reminded me just how enjoyable the original Icewind Dale was and I’m actually tempted to go through the entire series again from the beginning of Icewind Dale through the end of the expansion if I can ever find the time. Heart of Winter achieved the goal that I believe every expansion pack should. It added even more life to an already great game, and I cannot find too much to complain about except the level of difficulty. The expansion is designed for characters who have been built up quite a bit, but there are always ways to get powerful characters.

ToB: Interview with Alan Miranda    Posted Saturday - March 3 - 2001 by
Daily Radar had an interview with Alan Miranda the producer of the Baldur;s Gate II expansion: Throne of Bhaal.

Daily Radar: Will this be similar to Tales of the Sword Coast expansion, in that it won't introduce an entirely new ending to BG II?
Alan Miranda: Well, it will and it won't be.Throne of Bhaal will have two sections to it: an add in section, which is similar to Tales of the Sword Coast that inserted new areas in the old BG I map, plus, an add in section of a dungeon called "Watcher's Keep" that will be inserted into BG II. It's a very large dungeon, larger than "Durlag's Tower."

That will be close to half the expansion pack right there. The other half of it will be an add-on section with lots of new areas. And that will continue the story after the events in BGII to wrap up the Bhaal saga.

Bg2: Ramblings    Posted Saturday - March 3 - 2001 by
Desslock's Ramblings deal with the infinity engine as it was used in 4 games and 3 add-ons (including Throne of Baal).

But the engine will likely be retired now, after the BG 2 expansion is released, at least according to previous statements made by representatives from Black Isle (and BioWare). Since the release of the original Baldur's Gate, BioWare has suggested that it intended its "Son of Bhaal" D&D games to be a trilogy (BioWare also did not want to retain the Baldur's Gate name for each one, and would have preferred the second game in the series to just be called "Shadows of Amn").

How: Review at Reviewscan    Posted Friday - March 2 - 2001 by
ReviewScan reviewed Heart of Winter.

If you were a fan of Icewind Dale, then you will almost certainly want to buy Heart of Winter. Though there perhaps isn't enough of it, the new material is of the highest quality and was a lot of fun to play through. The new items and enhancements might even make you want to go back and play through the original again.

Site update    Posted Thursday - March 1 - 2001 by
Divinity
Corrected some errors in the download links. Also corrected some errors that only occur to Netscape users.

Added the Development Diary that was on RPGDot a few days ago.


ToB: First looks    Posted Thursday - March 1 - 2001 by
Computer Games Online have already a preview on what Throne of Baal will look like and what it has to offer. For one thing it's not the end of the Baldur's Gate series.

"When we started Baldur's Gate back in '96, we always had in mind a trilogy for the core storyline—the "child of Bhaal" story," Producer Alan Miranda explains. "In Baldur's Gate you learned your origins and found out what your past heritage was, and you ended up fighting Saravok and defeating him, and you learned a bit more through that. In Baldur's Gate II you explored your destiny a little bit more. You became much more powerful, you reached level 17 to 20... or even higher, depending on your class. This expansion pack wraps up the storyline of the child of Bhaal saga. It's certainly not going to be the end of the Baldur's Gate series, but this will wrap things up for people who played Baldur's Gate, or who have played Baldur's Gate II—some or all of it."

Bg2: Official expansion announcement    Posted Thursday - March 1 - 2001 by
We all know it already, but Interplay now finally announced thatBioware will be making an expansion to Baldur's gate II, named Throne of Baal.

Black Isle Studios, the role-playing game division of Interplay Entertainment Corp. and BioWare Corp. announced today plans to develop an expansion product to the award-winning role-playing game Baldur's Gate(TM) II: Shadows of Amn(TM). Entitled Baldur's Gate(TM) II: Throne of Bhaal(TM), the add-on product expands and enriches the gameplay experience by adding several new locations, high-level spells and powerful new characters to the Baldur's Gate game. Set in the Forgotten Realms® campaign world of the Dungeons & Dragons game, Throne of Bhaal is the ultimate conclusion of the Baldur's Gate legend as gamers fulfill their destiny as the child of Bhaal

How: Edited chat log    Posted Thursday - March 1 - 2001 by
Planet Baldur's gate has posted the edited chat log of the chat with the Heart of Winter design team. Most remarkable comment for me was the following:

BIS_DarrenWell, that comes down to something I'd like to talk about :) Several of us on the IWD are working on a new free downloadable dungeon pack for Heart of Winter. I can't give away any details about it at the moment, but it will be free for Heart of Winter owners :)

HoW: Review by Computer Games Online    Posted Thursday - March 1 - 2001 by
Computer Games Online reviewed Heart of Winter, rating it with 4 stars out of a maximum of 5.

Even though it's a bit short, almost everything in the expansion is "new." A couple monsters return, but the vast majority of the battles are against new enemies, or at least good variations on old ones. If you enjoyed Icewind Dale, then you'll likely enjoy Heart of Winter as well. New areas await exploration and more battles are in line to be fought. The Gloomfrost area and the sight of the end boss are practically worth the price of admission alone. This add-on won't win over any new converts, but it will keep the old ones happy. That is what expansions are really all about.

Site update    Posted Wednesday - February 28 - 2001 by
BG2
I've moved the BG2 page. So if you were bookmarking any of the BG2 pages then this will no longer work. Use the BG2 link from the home page. All the pages are still there so there should be no problem. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but it was needed for some internal reasons.

Divinity
I've added the Divinity section. It took a while to get all the PHP scripts to work correctly for downloading the files and displaying images.
I've also listed the recent interviews that were translated from Divinity's Welt And added a preview as it was presented on the bulletin board of Larian Studios.
I have a lot of game info that I choose not to put up. The simple reason for this is that recently Lar (from Larian Studios) made some comments on the info Bronthion has on his fansite (divinity's Welt). He stated that some of it was outdated. As I do not know what is outdated of the info I have and what not, I decided to wait on the release of the new site of Larian Studios, which should happen shortly.

So for the moment this is it, you will have to come back soon to see the rest of the info.


How: Patch is coming    Posted Wednesday - February 28 - 2001 by
Darren Monahan, producer of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, posted an announcement about an upcoming patch on the official Heart of Winter message boards.

Source: Computer Games Online


BG2: Throne of Baal ad    Posted Tuesday - February 27 - 2001 by
Check out the Throne of Baal ad, that Planet Baldurs Gate has scanned from a magazine. In case you don't know it yet, Throne of Baal is the expansion to Baldurs Gate II.


Divinity: Development Diary    Posted Tuesday - February 27 - 2001 by
RPGDot have started with a new series of development diaries of Divinity. This time Dante, story editor of Divinity, explains how the Divinity story is being constructed.


HoW: Review at Gamespy    Posted Tuesday - February 27 - 2001 by
gamespy reviewed the Heart of Winter expansion to Icewind Dale, giving it a score of 82.

If you have Icewind Dale, absolutely. The expansion pack is worth every penny. If you don't have Icewind Dale, what are you waiting for? Get it! Then refer back to the opening sentence. Anyone who enjoyed Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment or Baldur's Gate 2 wants Icewind Dale and its expansion, Heart of Winter.

BG2: Things they did wrong, part 4    Posted Monday - February 26 - 2001 by
On with the story of things that have gone wrong in Baldurs gate II. The fourth edition already can be read at GA-RPG. This time it's a bout linear obstacles and how to pace them.

When most people who have played Baldur’s Gate 2 try to describe it with a single word, I don’t think the word ‘linear’ would be one that would come to mind. There are a massive amount of quests in Baldur’s Gate 2, and you can do them in any order. The problem of linearity comes into play when you’re on one those quests. In each of our dungeon quests we have obstacles that the player must overcome if he wants to continue further into the dungeon. Some of these obstacles are monsters, others are special locked gates, or locked doors that can’t be opened using the pick lock skill. One problem is that there is usually only one option to bypass the obstacle. The other problem is that in most cases the obstacle blocks the only path to continue through the dungeon.

HoW: Skullport walkthrough    Posted Monday - February 26 - 2001 by
Good ol' Sylvus has put together a walkthrough on Heart of winter. This brings us hope that one day he might even finish the BG2 walkthrough he has been brewing on for such a long time and we came to admire at Sorcerers Place. He kept us waiting there for such a long time for the completion of that walkthrough, so maybe we now can live to see the end of it :-).


HoW: Walkthrough    Posted Monday - February 26 - 2001 by
I don't even have the game yet, as it's not on in the stores yet, but GameBanshee has. They wrapped up a walktrhough for you just in case you get stuck in the game. Although walkthrough might be a bit much said as it lists the maps and some short notes about things you should not miss. In most cases this is probably enough.


HoW: Impressions at RPGPlanet    Posted Sunday - February 25 - 2001 by
RPGPlanet share their impressions with us. A positive one this time.

All in all, Heart of Winter appears to be an impressive expansion, adding everything you'd expect: new items, more gorgeous scenery, more intense combat, and also giving you the improvements enjoyed by Baldur's Gate II, the drop-away interface, resolution boost, and containers, as well as improved 3D support. More of the same has never been a better thing than in Heart of Winter, for those of us who loved Icewind Dale and couldn't get enough.

HoW: Review at GamezNet    Posted Sunday - February 25 - 2001 by
GamezNet have put some time in a review of Heart of Winter. Although they rate it only with a 6.9.

The bottom line for me in this short review is that Heart of Winter simply doesn't warrant the asking price. It is a solid effort as we've come to expect from Black Isle. It does not offer anything new to the genre and I found the adventure to be tedious rather than enjoyable. While the storyline was acceptable it was a far cry from the wonderful storylines or plot of Planescape: Torment or Baldur's Gate 2. One day this title will be bundled with the original game for a reasonable price and will be an excellent buy for anyone who hasn't played through it. I personally can't recommend forking over $30 for it however. The price tag and the relatively short scenario heavily influenced the score below.

BG2: European Collectors Edition    Posted Saturday - February 24 - 2001 by
Eurogamer has some more info on the European Collectors Edition of BG2. Originally planned to be realesed together with the D&D movie, but is now luckily detached from that and is going to be released together with the DVD version of BG2 on Friday march 16.

When the collector's edition was first announced we were told that "Interplay is keeping the exact contents close to its chest for now", but we are happy to report that we now know what's going to be in the box. The game itself will come with "an additional in-game shop", while players will be able to show their true colours by wearing a Baldur's Gate t-shirt, sticking a Baldur's Gate poster on their wall, and sending Baldur's Gate postcards to their friends. There will also be a pack of trading cards based around the game, and a bonus CD-Rom with the extra shop on it, along with the game's soundtrack and a range of Baldur's Gate artwork and MP3s. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but keep an eye open for it appearing on shelves across Europe three weeks from now.

How: The second MP3    Posted Friday - February 23 - 2001 by
At RPGDot you can find the second MP3 they received from Interplay.
This one is played on the island, where you find Icasaracht. Get it here.


HoW: PCGameplay review    Posted Friday - February 23 - 2001 by
The English PC Gameplay magazine, reviewed Heart of Winter. The full review will be in their magazine but a short, positive, snippet from it can be read at their site.

Although we haven't managed to play through the whole of what's on offer in Heart Of Winter yet, our first impressions are definitely favourable. Anybody who loved Icewind Dale will go absolutely mad for Heart Of Winter when it hits the shelves, and when an expansion pack contains as much gaming goodness as this does, who can blame them? Snow and Sorcery has never been so much fun.

HoW: The first music file    Posted Thursday - February 22 - 2001 by
RPGDot lines up the first of two MP3 files from the Heart of Winter expansion. This one is played on the burial isle and you can get it here.


Divinity: Interview with Lar    Posted Thursday - February 22 - 2001 by
Bronthion has again had the fortune to do an interview with Larian Studio's. This time it was with the project leader Swen Vincke, also known as Lar. The interview can be read in German at Bronthion's fansite Divinity's Welt.
This time our own RPGDot member Moriendor, was a lot faster than me in providing the translation :-). So check out his upcoming fansite for the english version of the interview.

2) Bro: Are the starting values of the basic stats any different for the different paths that a character can pursue ?

Lar: Yes. Warriors are awarded a bonus for Strength, Wizards for Intellect and Survivors for Dexterity.
Remark: There is 3 paths in Divinity. Way of the Warrior, Way of the Wizard and Way of the Survivor

3) Bro: Do the basic stats improve on level-up ?

Lar: Yes. At the time being the player obtains 5 points for free distribution to the basic stats. There may be more points if balancing requires that move.

HoW: Reviews    Posted Thursday - February 22 - 2001 by
Three reviews we have lined up for you.

Number 1: A positive review at RPGVault.

Icewind Dale demonstrated that a linear storyline combined with fast-paced action, frequent combat, rapid character advancement and lots of cool items could be a very effective formula for fun, critical approval and sales success. Heart of Winter offers more of the same feeling while also adding a number of significant features and plenty of new gameplay elements, all wrapped up in a highly entertaining quest. Exploring every corner, I completed it in about 28 hours of playing time, and enjoyed myself the entire time. Heart of Winter is everything a top-notch expansion pack should be. It will provide lots more fun to anyone who played and enjoyed the original game while offering even more reason to play it to those who have not.

Number 2: A not so positive review at GameSpot.

The fundamental problem isn't that Heart of Winter is a poor game, because it's not. Its battles, its plot, and its impressive production values are all more or less in line with the high standards set by Icewind Dale. But its numerous ancillary improvements actually amount to very little value, considering you can finish the expansion in just a couple of casual play sessions. If you're used to marathon sessions with Baldur's Gate II, or with any Black Isle role-playing game for that matter, then you'll be disappointed by how much shorter Heart of Winter is by comparison. It's true that some players will probably like the inflated challenge of the heart of fury mode after they've finished the expansion quest, particularly because it lets you play through both the expansion and the original Icewind Dale with increased difficulty and proportionally augmented experience rewards. But the mode will be too difficult for a lot of players, while most everyone else won't find it very interesting, since the battles in the game are still scripted. In fact, even the heart of fury mode seems like an afterthought, since you can only toggle it on and off from an external configuration utility, not from within the actual game. In the end, it's not that Heart of Winter isn't worth your time, because it really doesn't take much--the problem is it just isn't worth your money.

Number 3: Again a positive review by Daily Radar.

Heart of Winter is a fine product. Unfortunately, the new areas add only about 15 hours of gameplay. While short for a full game, it is a tolerable length for an expansion. Players tempted to play through all of Icewind Dale again to experience the full impact of the improvements will especially find Heart of Winter worth the cost. Some especially brave souls will decide to play the entire game on Heart of Fury mode starting with new characters and no initial magic items. Those who complete such a game will know they have a place among the masters.

As I live in Europe, I will have to wait until Heart of Winter hits the shelfs here :(.


HoW: Weapons Gallery    Posted Thursday - February 22 - 2001 by
RPGVault has lined up some (22) magical weapons of the Heart of Winter expansion pack. They are screenshots taken from the game.


Heart of Winter ships today    Posted Tuesday - February 20 - 2001 by

According to a press release from Interplay, the extension pack for Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter, ships today.

Ready to rush the shops ?

Since I leave in France, I'll propably have to wait one or two more months, gush !

Heart of Winter first impressions    Posted Monday - February 19 - 2001 by
Gaming Age give us its first impressions of Icewind Dale's expanion pack : Heart of Winter...

We are only midway through the second month of 2001 and Interplay and Black Isle have already released what may end up being the best expansion pack of 2001. Sure, Diablo II’s expansion is coming out soon, but what Heart of Winter does for Icewind Dale seems to go beyond new monsters, areas, and items.

Spotted at RPGDot.

BG2: Things they did wrong    Posted Monday - February 19 - 2001 by
James Ohlen presents the third part on what he feels was not done so great in Baldur's Gate 2. This part deals with the strongholds. Read about it in the Biofiles at GA-RPG.

Strongholds are the class specific base of operations given to a player as a reward for finishing his class specific sub-quest. Out of all the features that made it into Baldur’s Gate 2, the strongholds were the closest to being cut. There was so much more that we could have done with strongholds, but time considerations didn’t allow for this. The main faults that people found with the strongholds are listed below:

1. 
   
2. The strongholds weren’t connected to the main story line.
   
3. The strongholds weren’t integral to gameplay; there was very little reason to return to a stronghold.
   
4. Travelling back to a stronghold was a pain in the ass.

All of these points connected to one major mistake made in the initial game design: the decision to have a stronghold for each class, instead of consolidating the strongholds into four, two or even one single stronghold.

HoW: Developer Diary #6    Posted Saturday - February 17 - 2001 by
GameSpy has the sixth and latest edition of the developer diary from Josh Sawyer.

I'm glad the testers found out that you could break all of those quests by attacking from invisibility. At first I was all like, "Aw, c'mon!" and then they were all like, "Seriously, man." so then I was all like, "Yeah, that's a good point." So it all worked out and everything. And we had to tweak "Heart of Fury Mode" about fifteen times before it was appropriately challenging, but I think those guys finally got used to it. I don't think my message board is going to be able to handle all of the traffic once the game comes out. At least I won't have to answer any questions related to 800x600 resolution anymore. Where's Fin? I think it's time to go to lunch. Man, I'm glad the game went gold.

Site update    Posted Friday - February 16 - 2001 by
I've converted the Baldur's Gate II section to the new layout. It took some time to get the navigation script to work correctly (Hedek thanks for the help). And it never ever worked properly for Netscape. So I've decided to make a different kind of navigation for Netscape users. They find some links on the top of each BG2 page.
Explorer users can use the nifty exploding/collapsing menu in the left navigation bar.

The converted section conatins the same info (well actually a tiny bit more) than the original section.

Also note that RPGFool is running a contest in which you can win a copy of Heart of Winter. So head over there to get one, by clicking here


Divinity: Interview with Marian    Posted Thursday - February 15 - 2001 by
We have translated the interview that Bronthion of Divinitys Welt had a short while ago with Marian. One of the graphic artists working on Divinity:The Sword of Lies.

With the amount of RPG's being released in 2001/2002, how will Divinity stand out? What do you personally like about the game?

Quality I hope. Divinity has no simple ordinary story, no level load times and it looks like the simulation of a fantasy world. Lar's AI is brilliant and has not been achieved before in the RPG world. Besides that we tried to combine all the technical, graphical and gameplay we liked so much in other games into Divinity. What I like the best, is a bit more difficult to answer. As one of the creators it is difficult to change your focus from the individual graphic bugs and the things one would like to see corrected, to be able to see the actual game. But I think it's the "screensaver" effect. You let the hero walk for a few meters into a forest or onto a field and enjoy the many things around you…just looking at the animals on your screen. My personal favorite of all the creatures I've done, is the blue Succubus.

Read the whole story here.


HoW: Win a copy of the game    Posted Thursday - February 15 - 2001 by
RPGFool is running a contest in which you can win a copy of Heart of Winter. Click the link to enter it.


HoW: Movie    Posted Thursday - February 15 - 2001 by
Interplay has got a new movie of Heart of Winter for us to see. Download the 12.68 MB movie from their server here.


BG2: An unfinished game    Posted Thursday - February 15 - 2001 by
The Mushroom has reviewed Baldur's Gate II.

I have to say right up front that I didn't finish Baldur's Gate 2. I probably never will. That doesn't mean I didn't love the game, or enjoy the time I put into it. In fact, I think it's probably the best RPG ever made. Some may consider the primary flaw of Baldur's Gate 2 to be just how immense the world is. One thing's for certain though. The first time I popped this game in, it had me hooked. I was lucky enough to have four days off from work, and they all went by in a blur. Four days, no moving, no eating, no talking, just playing. It was a pathetic sight. If my girlfriend came in the room, she would just get a glare. I'm very surprised she's still with me. It was only when the game reminded me to eat that I would take a break to grab some grub. Four straight days. I haven't done that since Final Fantasy 7, which single-handedly ruined my freshman year at college.

HoW: Screenshots    Posted Wednesday - February 14 - 2001 by
Some 14 screenshots can be viewed at RPG Vault.

Yesterday, Black Isle announced that the Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter expansion pack has gone gold. Expected to offer fans some 20 to 30 additional hours of gameplay, the add-on comprises a new mini-campaign that can be played either as a huge side quest within the original game or as a follow-up adventure for parties that have completed the initial release. Play begins in the town of Lonelywood, which can be seen in our Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Lonelywood Gallery. The next large area is the barbarians' Burial Isle. In celebration of yesterday's happy news, we offer a look ahead to this location in the 14 never before seen screenshots that make up this new Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Burial Isle Gallery.

BG2: Valentines romances    Posted Wednesday - February 14 - 2001 by
On this valentine day, Planet Baldurs Gate has a set of scripts that modifies the behaviours of the NPCs. They have a Readme file explaining it all.

How: Site update    Posted Wednesday - February 14 - 2001 by
The Heart of Winter site updated with the "gone gold" news.

Hey everyone, After many days of long hours and 150 miles of driving pleasure, I am pleased to announce that the US version of Heart of Winter has gone gold and should be in stores shortly. French, German, Spanish and Italian versions are finishing up as we speak, so expect them soon as well!

Thanks to all of you who participated in our save game-a-thon, and we hope you like the game!

HoW: Designer Diary, part 8    Posted Tuesday - February 13 - 2001 by
Josh Sawyer updated his designer diary at RpgVault with chapter 8.

So, we're done with the game. It's gold, and being mass-produced as we speak. Final candidate 9 was the winner this time. We initially believed that FC4 was going to turn gold, but a number of bizarre multiplayer bugs continued to pop up with each passing rev. Of course, many of the bug fixes yielded new bugs in a cycle of Sisyphusian hilarity. For the designers and artists, it was a sleepy end to the dev cycle. We mostly just sat around and periodically asked Darren if he had any bugs for us. The answer was usually "no."

Heart of Winter goes gold    Posted Tuesday - February 13 - 2001 by
Interplay released the information that Heart of Winter, the expansion pack to Icewind Dale, has gone gold. There is no official date when it hits the shelfs but it is expected to be within two weeks.
Here is the official press release from Heather Greer, Public Relations at Interplay:

Black Isle Studios, the role-playing game division of Interplay Entertainment Corp., announced today that the highly anticipated expansion, Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, has GONE GOLD! Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter will be available at retail stores nationwide soon!
This expansion pack for the popular role-playing game Icewind Dale, was developed internally at Black Isle Studios and will offer more classic dungeon crawl using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition rules under license from Wizards of the Coast, including new monsters, spells, and areas to explore within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter will also offer many new technological and gameplay enhancements to the original game including higher resolution support, larger monsters and new interface configuration options.

The Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter expansion will require an installed copy of the original Icewind Dale in order to run.

Back Again    Posted Tuesday - February 13 - 2001 by
We're back again. You might have noticed that you could not access the site the last two days. As explained before this was caused because RPGSites, our host, is moving to a new server.
So count on us again to give you the latest news.

BG2: Review by Ken Levine    Posted Sunday - February 11 - 2001 by
Irrational Games' Ken Levine, the creative force behind the upcoming superhero tactical romp, Freedom Force, puts his hand to a capsule review of Bioware's Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Levine’s respect for the title’s deep design and rich content shines in this write-up.

Now, I’m a game developer. I’ve got a pretty fair sense of how much time it takes to build a certain feature, or set of features. If one of my team came to me and pitched a game -- albeit with existing technology -- that would support 10+ totally unique character classes, with unique dialogue and quests depending on which class you chose, and 150+ hours of well-written, well-laid out and tactically interesting and balanced gameplay, I’d tell them to go get a job somewhere else.

They’d probably end up at Bioware. The magazine reviewers have done a fair job of laying laurels around Baldur’s Gate II’s neck, so I won’t belabor the point. Suffice it to say, from one developer to another, that you guys have crafted something special, something that shows you’re not merely committed to making money, you’re also committed to making games.

We're moving    Posted Saturday - February 10 - 2001 by
Yes we will be moving again. This time it's to another server. It's still the RPGsites server. It's just another server. So I will be moving it the next couple of days. If you see some glitches, then you know why :-).
Ofcourse the address of The locus Inn won't change because of it.

HoW: A preview    Posted Saturday - February 10 - 2001 by
Our honoured staffmember Hedek has made his own preview of Heart of Winter. He is also interested to know what you think of it, my small remarks are in the interview itself :-). So send him an .

Ok. For those who never heard about Icewind Dale before, it's time to throw in a little reminder. Icewind Dale didn't really seduce the gaming community, although it was commercially acceptable. Indeed, creating a story in parallel of the first Baldur's Gate, set in the frozen and sophisticated world of North Forgotten Realms was an interesting idea... But limiting an RPG to some 50 hours of uninterrupted hack'n'slash, the whole coming along with junk items as powerful as magical sword Datkutsol +25, or even spells like Thermo-Nuclear-Fire-Balls, wasn't of blatant interest. For addition, many other glitches, like the in-game time management, were numerous enough to turn a scenario, at first sight rich, into something completely lame, wobbly. To come back to the in-game time management problem of Icewind Dale, you should know that it took me approximately 3700 days to finish the game or something like 10 years...

BG2: Game FAQ    Posted Saturday - February 10 - 2001 by

Dan Simpson has updated his huge and extensive Baldur's Gate II FAQ hosted at Gamespy

.
BG2/IWD: RPG of the year    Posted Thursday - February 8 - 2001 by
Baldur's Gate II and Icewind dale were nominated as RPG of the year at Gamecenter. Baldur's Gate II was the Winner.

It says a lot when, in a year full of really superb role-playing games such as Deus Ex and Icewind Dale, the award goes to Baldur's Gate II in a unanimous decision by the Gamecenter editors. Baldur's Gate II was epic role playing, and it was one of the most engrossing RPGs we've ever played. This game made the Forgotten Realms spring to life in a startling way, whether you were exploring the city of Athkatla or skulking about the Underdark where the Drow Elves live.

Both games were also nominated for Best RPG at Electric play and additionally, Icewind Dale also for best sound. Here Baldur's Gate II was elected best RPG again.

If they gave you a PC in your prison cell, it would almost be worth doing a stretch of hard time because you'd just about be able to finish BGII before your sentence was up. Bioware sent us this gift from Canada's semi-frozen semi-north, a sequel that is in every way bigger, bolder and better than its esteemed pappy.

Divinity: Interview with Marian    Posted Thursday - February 8 - 2001 by
Divinity's Welt has conducted an interview with Marian, one of the graphics designers of Divinity. It is however in german :-).

Divinity: Development details    Posted Tuesday - February 6 - 2001 by
The Adrenaline Vault has some details on Divinity, given to them by Swen Vincke.

The way the system is set up really allows you to play Divinity either as a hack 'n slash game or as a true RPG. The high number of skills makes a lot of combinations possible, all of which are a lot of fun to play. For instance, the necroshifting thief is currently one of my favorites. Necroshifting is a skill that allows you to possess the body of a dead creature and walk around in it. It's quite handy for a thief with a good knife. He hides himself in a dark spot, waits for an unwitting guard to pass by, kills the guard, slips into the guard's body, and happily walks past the other guards. The hiding is, of course, hard to do in a well-lit area, but by picking a skill from the Way of the Wizard, the thief can access the telekinesis spell, which he can then use to extinguish light sources from a distance. This is a potent combination of skills.

HoW: JE Sawyer interview    Posted Tuesday - February 6 - 2001 by
I spotted over at RPG Dot that Riderznews has interviewed J.E. Sawyer (senior designer on Heart of Winter)...

Can you give us a brief summary of the story of the game for the fans that haven't caught on yet?
Basically, a barbarian shaman in the tundra north of Lonelywood believes that his tribe is gathering for war under false pretences. In a vision, he sees your party of adventurers in Kuldahar, and believes that you can help him discover what, exactly, is going on with the risen chieftain, Wylfdene. He brings you to Lonelywood and the antics commence.

Everyone always has questions about creatures in the game. Are there going to be dragons in the game, if so what types? Are there vorpal bunnies? Machete Wielding Penguins?

Let's just say that there are very strong reasons that we have a white dragon featured prominently in our logo and ads. No vorpal bunnies, nor machete-wielding penguins. There are, however, ghosts of sacrificed virgins floating around trying to kill you. Does that help?

Go read the interview.

BG2: Things they did wrong    Posted Monday - February 5 - 2001 by
Another week another biofile on GA-RPG. This time it deals on the things James Ohlen would have liked to do differently for Baldur's Gate II

Don’t be mislead by the title of this column. Although we felt some things could have been done better in Baldur’s Gate 2, we still felt that our final product was a success, and so far this assumption has been supported by the current reviews and sales of the game. In this week’s column I’m going to focus on the design elements in Baldur’s Gate 2 that we felt were not implemented as well as they could have been. The issues that I will be talking about are things that we want to improve in our future projects (Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars).

A new design    Posted Sunday - February 4 - 2001 by
As promised before, The Locus Inn has a new design. And it's the design you're looking at now.

We've decided to change the look and layout of The Locus Inn to accommodate the user more. As you can see there is a navigation bar on the left that will lead you faster to where you want to be then before.
Unfortunately time was not on our side so the Games section (by far the largest section) has not been transferred yet, but will be in the coming weeks. Until then you will be directed to the old pages.

As you can see Divinity has been added to the navigation bar but is not active yet. This section will also come online in the next weeks.

There are some more new things such as the scroller window in the top left, always giving you the latest updates on the site and there is the random image in the right top which will be different everytime you pay a visit. There is also picture of the moment which shows an ingame screenshot of one of the supported games.

We've also enriched our community section with direct links to the forums and to a chat room, which is hosted by Sorcerers Place and can be accessed from our site.

I hope you will be having fun with the new layout :-).

BG2: readers' choice at Gamespot    Posted Sunday - February 4 - 2001 by
The annual Gamespot's Readers Choice Awards has come to an end. In the RPG category it's BG2: Shadows of Amn that has been rewarded. Diablo II is second, Deux Ex third and Icewind Dale fourth...

"The plot, teamed with great graphics, incredible voice acting, and fantastic music, will surely draw you into the world of Baldur's Gate II, where you will willingly stay. Believe it or not, in the game there is even a hint that reminds you to take your meals, just in case you get so engrossed in the RPG that you forget to eat. It is that good."

Find more here.
And here.

Icewind Dale Music Interview    Posted Sunday - February 4 - 2001 by
Gamespy [aka the big the huge the enormous] has interviewed some (prodigious) artists who composed Icewind Dale's many times rewarded music...

GameSpy: Any favorite projects?

Jeremy: Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is in a store near you! LOL Actually, we're both happy with how Heart of Winter turned out. HoW was an opportunity to expand on an already large idea. There are new themes in this game that still haunt me--in a good way of course.

Go read it.

Divinity: Anticipated RPG    Posted Saturday - February 3 - 2001 by
Divinity: The Sword of Lies (unless the name changes, the publisher is talking about 'Divine Divinity') is one of RPGPlanet's most anticipated RPGs of 2001...

Enter a fantasy world, filled with dark magic, and an intriguing plot. Divinity takes place in a world where the long-standing peace between elves, dwarves, and mankind alike is diminishing. You play the role of a young apprentice of the mage Zandalor, sent off to find an old friend of the mage at Stormfist castle. There, you find that the Duke has been murdered, and you decide to play detective and find out what happened. Choose from one of four character types as you prepare for the long, magical journey ahead of you. A large, fully populated, interactive game world featuring an isometric perspective similar to Baldur's Gate or Diablo, will make most role-playing gamers feel at home.

You can also vote for the RPG you are anticipating the most.

BG2: Reviewed by WomenGamers    Posted Saturday - February 3 - 2001 by
I spotted over at RPG Vault that WomenGamers reviewed Baldur's Gate, giving it -as usual- a great score. I'd like to say "better late than never". Anyway, there's a particulary interesting paragraph about the people who performed the voices...

I also very much enjoyed the voice acting for many of the NPCs. David Warner's performance as Jon Irenicus is coolly arrogant and very effective, while Jennifer Hale's interpretation of Mazzy Fentan is worthy of mention. Some gamers may recognize her as the voice of Fall-From-Grace in Planescape: Torment, others may know her from her work on the Powerpuff Girls animated series. She does a fine job of portraying a character who has honor and noble ideals without being annoyingly pompous. The depth of the NPC characterizations adds a considerable amount of plot to the game and produces some rather poignant moments: I thought the result of Mazzy's quest for her missing comrades was especially well-acted.

Go read it.

HoW: From the unofficial board    Posted Saturday - February 3 - 2001 by
J.E. Sawyer (Senior Designer of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter) answers a question about the core of BG2: Shadows of Amn and Heart of Winter...

At a certain point, the code base for IWD and BG2 began to diverge significantly. On the surface, they appear to be the same engine. During development, each team made changes to the engine for a number of reasons. Because the code base mutates more and more over time, it becomes harder and harder to simply drop a chunk of code in without doing excessive re-writing. The overhaul that BioWare did to support new kits/classes was significant.

Read the full thread.

There has been another interesting thread where JE Sawyer is talking about the good ideas that have been implemented in BG2: Shadows of Amn...

I like the way that BG2 implemented armor-changing and pausing. You can pause the game, but if you try to change armor, it will read, "You cannot change armor in combat." Nice. Maybe we can do that.
I'll ask Darren about the "Pause when enemy sighted" thing.

Read the full thread.

Gamecenter RPG Awards    Posted Saturday - February 3 - 2001 by

I don't know if this has aleady been said, anyway, I'd like to remind you that Gamecenter named BG2: Shadows of Amn and Icewind Dale for the 1st and 3rd place of 200's best RPGs.

Find more here.

BG2: Expansion pack not announced    Posted Friday - February 2 - 2001 by
IGN PC posted some lines about the rumor, here's an excerpt:

Although the folks at Interplay gave us a big "no comment" we're reasonably sure that an expansion is coming. Look for the official announcement soon. And thanks to all the attentive readers who pointed this out to us. We're sending you each a monkey.

They also linked to EB World who (already) started accepting preordering for the expansion... let's wait for the "next episode".

BG2: Expansion pack    Posted Wednesday - January 31 - 2001 by
Rumour has it that there will be an expansion for Baldur's gate II, named 'The throne of Baal'. It was mentioned on a french site named GameData. Apparently the news was released too soon as this is what the site states now:

Sorry guys, apparently Interplay US was not happy of Interplay France when they have learned that some infos about upcoming BGII expansion, Throne Of Baal have been given on an official press release. Therefore, Interplay France has asked us to delete all details about it. BTW my english is better than your french, so spare me :p

How: Icebreak game    Posted Wednesday - January 31 - 2001 by
Just to kill the time will you are waiting here is a small breakout game based on Icewind Dale. Download it here

BG2: A French review    Posted Wednesday - January 31 - 2001 by
French sites has been providing some quite interesting content on BG2. Among them, GameData, a huge french gaming site, has overviewed the commerical succss of "the most successful RPG ever", and I have translated some lines (warning: the original is quite different, I have been forced to arrange some phrases because they were too specific to the French market)

Even though it recently disappeared from the Top-10 of sells in the USA, our little "chouchou" (and our favorite game of 2000), BG2 has finally reached one million of boxes sold in the world. A big success, even in France, where the game has been sold at 30,000 copies in 4 weeks. It seems few but it's enormous...

BG2 is nothing but the sequel of the "best 1999 RPG". Considered like one of the biggest success in terms of number of copies sold of the whole gaming industry, BG1 sold more than 1,000,000 copies and BG2 seems to have started well enough to go past that number.

As soon as it was released, November 10th 2000 [in France], BG2has immediately reached position 1 of sells and became in 10 days the best sell of the month. It represented 2.3% of the market at the end of november, which should be compared to the 1.7% and 1.5% of Fifa 2001 and Tomb Raider 5 at the same moment.

Today, two months after its release, BG2 is still among the top 5 of CD-ROMs in France and has already exceeded the 1,000,000 copies sold in the world.

With a budget for the marketing of US$250,000 [just in France or in the world?] Virgin Interactive has organized a huge advertizing campaign in all fields of the paper magazines. The ad that appeared in them was no less than 4 double pages. Virgin had also prepared special versions of the game with many gifts (ie. the world map, cards representing some elements of the game, real AD&D action figures, set of cards Magic, the paper game guide and a Bonus CD, etc).

Other magazines that has nothing to do with video games have also talked about BG2 with quotes such as "Baldur's so long, so good..." or "The music and the scenery are sumptuous..." or even "It's fascinating and magnificient..." and finally "Dont's miss it!".

The Biofiles column    Posted Tuesday - January 30 - 2001 by
GA-RPG hosts a new column, named the . Biofiles.

GA-RPG is proud to present yet another column from one of the leading design houses of computer role-playing games at this time, BioWare. The column will be known as The BioFiles, and it is going to be written primarily by James Ohlen on a weekly basis intially. James is the director of BioWare’s writing and design department. He also just so happens to be the lead designer for BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars RPG. This column will focus on design philosophies, game ideas, and behind the scenes stories from the Baldur’s Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars and any future projects.

BG2: Quebec loves its language    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
Living in France, I asked my brother to bring me an english version of BG2 from Washington DC because translated version are always awful, at the opposit, the folks over at Quebec seem happy to know they'll have the *chance* to find a French version of BG2 in their country. I sincerly don't understand them, anyway, their local magazines seem very excited about the arrival of a spoiled version of the RPG of the year, look:

Vous connaissez ce jeu? Vous l'attendiez avec impatience depuis très longtemps et enfin il est parmi nous!

Translation: "You know this game? You were waiting for it for a very long time and finally it is among us!"

Site update    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
As you know, we are currently working on a new design for The Locus Inn. We are very comfortable with what we have upto now. The work itself is progressing slowly. I stated that we would relaunch this month. Well that is wednesday and prospects are not hopefull. But what I do want to accomplish is that next week monday, you will be reading the news from a different set of pages. Here is what is planned:

• When we relaunch all pages not directly related to the games will have been ported to the new design, this includes the homepage ofcourse.
• 
  
• The Planescape, Icewind Dale and BG2 pages will be converted shortly after that. Untill the entire game is converted you will access these pages from the current design.
• 
  
• The new game Divinty will be added in parallel with the conversion of the games pages.
• 
  
• When Heart of Winter hits the street I will drop everything and start playing that and add any info on it in the new design.

Divinity: Artists wanted    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
Larian Studios is looking to expand their working force:

We're in need of a few good extra artists. If you're interested in working on Divinity, mail your resumes to .

More portraits    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
Oh goodie, more portraits for your pleasure over at Havak's . Some of them look realy cool :-).

HoW: Preview at XGR    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
Also X-Treme Gaming Radio enriches us with a preview on Heart of Winter.

HOW has good dialogue, as I've come to expect from Black Isle. Some people don't enjoy a lot of talk in their games; they're probably not reading this review anyway. I look at it like this: if you're going to put it in your game, make sure it's worthwhile. That is, fairly complicated trees, where branches are closed off by your responses, and a real range of choices. If all I ever get are two responses to choose from, then I start to wonder what kind of fool my character really is.

Rest assured that the IWD gameplay you loved is back, with some little interface enhancements and loads of new items and spells. HOW is combat-heavy, like IWD, and I haven't had any FedEx quests yet (i.e. take this shoe over to that guy). So far, HOW's story is about preventing a war.

Gamespy takes a look at Black Isle    Posted Monday - January 29 - 2001 by
Gamespy has written a detailed article on our favorite gaming company(publisher of BG1/2 and developer of PsT / IWD).

"Black Isle has created a cohesive team of talented individuals who work very well together, Deiley said. "It sounds kind of cliché, but we really are a family who shares in the responsibilities of creating great titles. We often do not limit ourselves to a single project, but instead provide support and advice where it is needed. Game wise, I think our greatest accomplishment is Planescape: Torment. It was a revolutionary idea rather than just more of the same high fantasy. It had beauty, scope, and story. It was a wonderful project to work on and help bring to life. It was "art."

Find more here.

HoW: Happy Puppy preview    Posted Friday - January 26 - 2001 by
Happy Puppy has posted a preview which is almost a review by now (the release date is approaching!), anyway here's the intro...

Black Isle Studios took everything we loved about Baldur's Gate and streamlined the action, made the story linear, and set the level cap as high as possible in the space of a single adventure. The result was Icewind Dale, an epic action RPG that had you create six wimpy level-one adventurers and watch them grow into bona fide superheroes. It was a truly fantastic adventure perhaps overshadowed by a release date that coincided with another action RPG you may have heard of called Diablo II. Black Isle is about to release Heart of Winter, an expansion pack to Icewind Dale that continues your adventure in the "spine of the world," and ups the ante on the devastating magic items and horrible beasties D&D fans crave.

Go read it.

HoW: Art and Sound    Posted Friday - January 26 - 2001 by
Some art and music have been added to the official Heart of Winter site.

Listen to some of the music of lonelywood and download . this file.

Check out the white dragon and the new Icewind Dale poster.

HoW: Send in your save games    Posted Friday - January 26 - 2001 by
The heart of winter team wants to have your save games from Icewind Dale to test them out with the heart of winter expansion. If you live in the 'right' country then you might even win a price.

We're close to going gold on Heart of Winter, and we'd like to do some "real world" testing on your save games and character files. If you'd like to participate in our QA's event of the year, here are instructions for sending them in:

1) Open Windows Explorer and locate the game's directory on your machine. If you did not change the directory during installation, this path is C:\Program Files\Black Isle\Icewind Dale.

2) Using your favorite ZIP utility (like WinZip or WinRAR), compress your "Characters" directory and/or your "MPSAVE" directory into a new .ZIP file.

3) E-mail the .ZIP file(s) to .

NOTE: This e-mail address will only be available through January 29th, 2001, so don't delay, mail them today!

We're giving away 10 copies of the Icewind Dale Soundtrack. Send your saved games in today, and we'll pick the lucky winners on February 2, 2001. (Open only to residents of the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France).

BG2: Wallpapers    Posted Thursday - January 25 - 2001 by
Game wallpapers, the place for all your wallpapers, have added several Baldur's Gate II wallpapers. Of which one is displayed below.



Most promising RPG's    Posted Thursday - January 25 - 2001 by
Gamesdomain have made a list of what they think are the 10 most promising RPG's of 2001. One of them is Heart of Winter.

More of an add-on pack than anything else, Heart of Winter still looks set to be a must-buy for fans of the popular Icewind Dale. The pack adds about 30 hours of gameplay to the original and has quests specifically designed for high-level characters. It also features many of the modifications made to the interface of Baldur's Gate that should make the action much clearer and intuitive.

Spotted at RPGDot

HoW: Preview at Gamesdomain    Posted Wednesday - January 24 - 2001 by
The list grows longer with the addition of the preview Gamesdomain did on Heart of Winter.

All in all, Heart of Winter adds around an extra thirty hours of gameplay to the original Icewind Dale. It's due for release by February this year, and there's no reason to doubt that it will comfortably make this date. Heart of Winter looks set to be an essential purchase for all fans of the Infinity engine, although with the release of Baldur's Gate 2, there's a good chance that many people will have had more than their fill of role-playing for the time being, and with NeverWinter Nights due for release this year, it might not be wise to stuff yourself before the crème de la crème comes along. On the other hand, that doesn't stop Heart of Winter from being life-absorbing stuff, either.

HoW: Preview at RB Mag    Posted Tuesday - January 23 - 2001 by
Review Board Magazine have enriched us with their preview of Heart of Winter.

The game itself is amazing, using the bioware infinity engine, we see some pretty impressive graphical wonderment. The audio is absolutely amazing, as you walk through the towns exploring different places, and talk to different people. It has a very "Braveheart" feel to it.

Portraits and sounds at Havak's    Posted Tuesday - January 23 - 2001 by
Havak has updated his site with some more portraits and sounds. Most of them covering Icewind Dale. He also has some additional plans:

What else do I have planned...bet you're just waiting in suspense. Well I plan to create a new section for Fantasy Art. It will have art from some great professional artists, like Michael Whelan, Luis Royo, Larry Elmore, Chris Archilleos, and many others. It will have many images that I did not use as portraits, for one reason or another, and the images I did create portraits out of. That will be a while from now.

Great, these are some of my favourites :-)

HoW: Developer Diary 5    Posted Monday - January 22 - 2001 by
Josh Sawyer also updated his developer diary on Gamespy.

Thankfully, we have a bit of breathing room for fine-tuning and adding a few extra things here and there along the way. Multiplayer testing has been underway for roughly two weeks now. No matter how well our single-player testing goes, we always run into plenty of problems when multiplayer comes around. The most commonly encountered bugs have to do with the networking code not handling new spells and game effects properly. People wind up with cloaks of fear that never disappear, invisible monsters following everyone around -- stuff like that. The programmers are also working on latency issues. Every once in a while, multiplayer games get so out of synch that two characters appear in totally different locations on the maps. We believe that eliminating those problems will greatly enhance players' co-op experiences.

Long load time    Posted Monday - January 22 - 2001 by
The last couple of hours loading this page took very long. It is caused by the gameslist counter that we recently have on the site. Apparently they are switching to a new server and that causes the problems. Until that problem is solved, the counter has been removed to speed up the loading process.

HoW: Designer Diary, 7    Posted Monday - January 22 - 2001 by
Josh Sawyer has made his seven and last edition of the designer diary.

This is the end, my friend...

Pretty much.

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is extremely close to being finished. It's so close to being finished that a lot of us are waiting idly for the off chance that a random bug will float our way. Steve Bokkes (aka "Stevey-Steve Bok-Bok") has been getting in some good Matrix-watching while he waits for new builds. John Deiley's still tweaking away and I, thankfully, have been able to work more on my new project now that the Burial Isle and Barrows are reasonably balanced.

It's interesting to see the flood of new and "magical" bugs that appear in the last few weeks before a game goes gold. Just when you believe you've made an area screw-up-proof, some smarty tester comes along and pulls the Ace of Spades out from the bottom of the card house. Boy, they really did a number on the Burial Isle. They figured out the exact circumstances under which you could covertly slaughter a number of characters and prevent the game from progressing forward. It's always fun to find those clever little loopholes.

HoW: Screenshots    Posted Monday - January 22 - 2001 by

X-Treme Gaming Radio has some screenshots of the Heart of Winter expansion of Icewind Dale. There are 3 exclusive ones and a bunch they made themselves when playing the preview version.

BG2: GameCenter's 10 most wanted    Posted Saturday - January 20 - 2001 by
In a recent editorial called "Top 10 Game Predictions for 2001", Gamecenter wrote some lines about Baldur's Gate II naming it "Last year's RPG pick" and explaining that...

This game was one of the safest bets we made last year, and Interplay and BioWare did nothing to disappoint us when they released this magnificent sequel last September. Unlike so many RPG sequels that force you to start from scratch and develop a character all over again (Final Fantasy, anyone?), Baldur's Gate II let you import your old character from Baldur's Gate and continue your epic journey through the story-rich world of the Forgotten Realms. Along the way, we met new friends and made new enemies, and learned quite a bit more about ourselves as well. However, judging from the ominous ending, it's a safe bet that there's even more to be revealed about characters in a future game. We can hardly wait.

Read the full story.

HoW: IGN PC preview    Posted Friday - January 19 - 2001 by
IGN PC has posted a nice preview inspired from impressions they had from playing the game, yes, they did...

Just as with Baldur's Gate before it, Icewind Dale is getting an expansion. If you're reading this, you've probably already read our preview for Heart of Winter, so what we decided to do was go in and brave the harsher environments of the expansion to provide you with the latest hands on impressions of the game before it ships.

Go read it.

HoW: PC Strategy Games preview    Posted Friday - January 19 - 2001 by
PC Strategy Games has written a 2 pages long IWD: Heart of Winter preview...

Icewind Dale was one of the more curious members of Black Isle's much-vaunted RPG line up. The Black Isle team had been involved in a steady, if hardly meteoric progression, which saw its AD&D inspired titles -- i.e. Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II and Planescape Torment -- improving gradually in terms of content, narrative and general playability. They also tended to become substantially darker in tone and, particularly in the case of Planescape Torment, distinctly more adult-oriented.

Go read it.

HoW: Preview at BG Haven    Posted Thursday - January 18 - 2001 by
Baldur's Gate Haven has added a preview also to the list of Heart of Winter previews. They call it a "first look" :-).

Getting a second shot on one of my favorite games of all time is truly a dream come true. The journey in the icey regions of the Spine of the world mountains continues with this Heart of Winter expansion pack. After installing the game (which installs itself in your Icewind Dale directory) I was ready to pick up my sword and prepare myself once again for battle.

After starting the game I saw a nicely done intro movie that told me of a Barbarian shaman named Hjollder, This man saw visions of war and a party of heroes that would restore balance in the northern region of Faerun (Fay-ROON)

After that, I found my entire party on the shore of a tiny community called Lonelywood, A barbarian approached me which happened to be Hjollder himself. He told me of the upcoming war between the Barbarians and the people of the Ten towns, The visions he saw told him that a party of heroes would prevent this, This party happened to be mine:).

HoW: DailyRadar UK preview    Posted Wednesday - January 17 - 2001 by
After GameSpot UK, another british site has previewed Heart of Winter: DailyRadar UK. Well, they call it a preview, that's rather an "interview with noone"...

Can't get enough of Black Isle's old-school RPG mayhem? Us neither. Good job the frosty adventuring just keeps on coming.

Go *read* it.

The Locus Inn redesign    Posted Wednesday - January 17 - 2001 by

Currently I'm working on a redesign of The Locus Inn. The result of it will be that you are able to navigate a lot easier through the inn to find what you need. And it looks better also :-).
Together with this redesign the Divinity section will be launched also.
And when will all of this be done? Well, I'm planning on getting this completed before the end of the month. So stay tuned for it!

Update by Hedek: does that mean I'll have to post more news? Ok, hopefully these reorganizations won't affect content. Don't forget to give our forums a little visit if you have a suggestion regarding the redesign...

BG2: Multiplayer event    Posted Wednesday - January 17 - 2001 by

Gamespy is organizing a multiplayer event through its online gaming software called GS Arcade.
It will take place [Wednesday afternoon - 4:00PM Pacific time, 7:00 PM East Coast - Download GS Arcade]

HoW: Josh Sawyer interview    Posted Wednesday - January 17 - 2001 by
Josh Sawyer, designer of the HEart of Winter expansion has been interviewed by X-Treme Gaming Radio. Here is a snippet

Paligap: Will H.O.W.(Heart Of Winter) feature the same interface exchanges as BG2? (removable panels, etc.)

Josh: With Heart of Winter installed, players will be able to enjoy 800x600 resolution and drop away interface panels in all Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter areas. Heart of Winter will also feature a hotkey (alt) that allows players to highlight doors, containers, and treasure for easy location.

Will 3D acceleration be officially supported by H.O.W.?

Yes. Several programmers have worked on Heart of Winter's 3D acceleration. It can help a great deal in battles with a large number of monsters or many spell effects going off at once.

Will this story integrate with the IWD story as in TOSC or will it be separate?

The Heart of Winter story grows out of a small side quest in the original game. It is not directly tied into the central plot of Icewind Dale, but it touches upon the core storyline at several points. The expansion consists of one separate mini-plot.

Spotted at RPGDot.


HoW: Gamespot UK preview    Posted Tuesday - January 16 - 2001 by
Gamespot UK has written a 3 pages long preview of IWD: Heart of Winter. It contains some pretty screenshots and nice idea of what will the extension -we're all waiting for- look like, nothing really new though...

Heart of Winter is almost finished, minus some gameplay balancing and bug fixing, and should be in the shops in February. Anyone wanting a nice, chilly fix of roleplaying would be advised to check it out.

Go read it.

HoW: Preview at Actiontrip    Posted Tuesday - January 16 - 2001 by
Action Trip adds their own preview to the long list of Heart of Winter previews.

The HoW should support 800x600 (and unofficially even higher resolutions). It will use the redesigned Boware's Infinity engine, which we had an opportunity to see in Baldur's Gate II, wrapped up in even better artwork from Black Isle's artists. Pre-rendered backgrounds will use 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit palette. There will also be support for 3D acceleration, which should make the new flashy spells look much better. Another interesting feature is the possibility to hide all the toolbars and panel (by pressing "H"). The new locations like the Burial Island and some strange dungeons look much darker than most locations in the original game. This will present a nice contrast to the bright areas like the Lonelywood camp and frosty caves…

Spotted at RPGDot.

BG2/PST: Best Games    Posted Monday - January 15 - 2001 by
Baldur's Gate was on Firingsquad's list for best RPG of 2000 with a 93% score.

We're happy to say that Baldur's Gate II is a great exception. The game improved in almost every single respect. Graphics are updated with the addition of higher resolutions (official and otherwise) as well as better background and character art. Sounds are mostly stock BG but still don't let us down. The gameplay is improved through the addition of several new rules and options. BioWare also gave us 3 new character classes, 3 kits per class (excluding the new classes) and a new race.

Also Planescape:Torment made it to the list with a 93% score.

The game is an intricate tale of one powerful being in a land full of them. Unique even by Planescape standards, the Nameless One goes through the game and learns or, rather, re-learns about himself. For one, it quickly becomes obvious that he's been, at various times in his life, a wizard, a thief and a warrior of some renown. Also, he soon discovers that in his last life he was very, very powerful. The suspense is thickened by the addition of the knowledge that the more dramatic a death that Nameless dies, the more likely he'll lose some memories or skills. Whatever killed him last time did some major damage.

Divinity: Name change    Posted Sunday - January 14 - 2001 by

The publisher of "Divinity: Sword of Lies" wants to change the name to Devine Divinity. Fans of the game, like this webmaster, that do not like the name have presented their views on the RPGSites forum and the Divinity forum. Go there and give your opinion as well.

HoW: Animated monsters    Posted Sunday - January 14 - 2001 by
The official Heart of Winter has been updated with some new animated monsters.

We're back from the Holidays and fixing the last of the bugs. We've been spending quite some time recently balancing the new levels to make sure they are adequately tough, as well as retrofitting some of the original fights in the later half of the original Icewind Dale. We've also made the difficulty levels more meaningful - the higher the difficulty, not only do the baddies hit harder, there are typically a lot more of them to fight. We're doing what we can to ensure that players of all skill levels find the game challenging, so the difficulty levels will really make a difference in the expansion.

BioWare: developer of the year    Posted Sunday - January 14 - 2001 by
Bioware (=Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 as well as the Enfinity engine that has been used in Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Fallout 1 and 2) is the developer of the year according to DailyRadar...

Bioware gets our nod for developer of the year because it has released two fantastic and wildly different games, made steady progress on Neverwinter Nights, and started the ball rolling on a Star Wars game all in one year. It seems pretty clear to us, the Force is strong with these guys.

Find more here.

The Art of Gaming    Posted Saturday - January 13 - 2001 by

Gamespy wrote an interesting editorial called "The Art of Gaming" which is a kind of interview with the artists from different developers. This week, Gamespy focused on Bioware's Marc Holmes who is currently working on Neverwinter Nights. There are also some (pretty) piece of arts and finally, an art gallery.

Your eyes want a gift?

HoW: Spell galery    Posted Friday - January 12 - 2001 by

RPGVault has a selection of 14 screenshots with different spells. It's just a bit unclear which spells they are :-).

Dvinity: Publisher info    Posted Friday - January 12 - 2001 by

Larian Studios has come to an agreement with CDV to publish Divinity.

Links page    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by

Recently, we updated the links page, adding a great site: Baldur's Gate Legacy and renaming the "Dragon's Breath Tavern" to the "Dragon's Breath Forge".

BG2: Wallpapers    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by

Some great looking wallpapers can be found at The Treasures of Baldur's Gate

Spotted at Planet Baldur's Gate

BG2/IWD: More awards    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by
Baldurs gate II was a runner up in Arstechnica's games of the year award.
The games was voted as the best game in the Gamepen RPG game awards for 2000. Icewind Dale was runner up.

Dan Clarke on Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn: This was a tough choice. Personally I liked Icewind Dale better, but like the electoral college, I was outvoted. Don't get me wrong, BG 2 is a very good game. You really can't go wrong with either game.

HoW: Another preview    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by
Computer Games Online added their preview to the list of previews.

You can expect the game to take an estimated 20-30 hours to play. Combined with the Heart of Fury setting, this is a lot of gameplay for an RPG expansion. After a party has finished the game, it's possible to start over and battle enhanced monsters. "You can restart with your buff party, and take on the buffed out level 15 equivalent goblins in EastHaven," Monahan explains. Furthermore, the experience cap was expanded to a whopping level 30, well beyond even the offerings of BGII.

HoW: Screenshots    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by
Baldurs Gate Haven has added 12 screenshots of Heart of Winter.


BIS: Jason Manley teaches graphics    Posted Thursday - January 11 - 2001 by
Jason Manley, one of the graphics artists of Black Isle Studios, gives some insight on how he created his art heroes and picture making in general. If you want to learn a bit from him, then head over to 3D Palette.

Once I have a general impression or idea in my head of what I want to create I will usually hunt around for resource that might help me (swords, armor, or any inspirational images and paintings that help to inspire me). I spend some time looking at what I have found and try to picture what I want in my head. It is usually at this time that I get an idea on what kinds of colors will be in the piece, what mood, what lighting and light direction, and what type of character or area. Once have an impression or impulse of what I want to make based on what I need to make for the job at hand, I am ready to paint.

BG2/PST: Gamerspulse Awards    Posted Wednesday - January 10 - 2001 by
Gamers Pulse has annouced it's awards for 2000.

Baldur's Gate II won not only the award for best RPG but also the overall game of the year award
It’s rare for a sequel to be good let alone better than the original but Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (BG2) has done just that. Luring us back into the Forgotten Realms with the promise of increased experience, new monsters, new spells, new areas to explore and a story to tease and envelope us. If losing yourself in a game for a few hours is the mark of a true classic then the 100’s of hours fans have spent in BG2 is surly a sign of greatness. BG2 did exactly what it was supposed to - entertain, challenge and excite us. Best of all it has left us wanting more. For the story, the intrigue, the gameplay and the fun we had playing, we present Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn our Game Of the Year award.

Planescape Torment, although released in 1999, still was awarded 3th place as RPG of the year.
An early 2000 release, Planescape: Torment has never been far from our hearts and minds. Boasting some of the finest voice acting to come along in years, and a memorable story populated with unique, interesting, and sometimes hilarious NPCs, Planescape never failed to keep us interested. Planescape gave us a look at a world we are all eager to reenter - ‘Ahem,’ Bioware, you listening?

Spotted at Planet Baldur's Gate

Icewind Dale was among the titles that made 2000 a fine year for the RPG genre. It showed that a focused, fast-paced, fun adventure with lots of combat and rapid character advancement could win the same type of critical and fan approval as games with much more epic scope. Heart of Winter looks set to do what any good expansion pack will do by expanding the original game and returning players to the type of feeling they had previously. It also looks like it might do what only a few exceptional expansion packs do by also incorporating new features and gameplay elements that noticeably improve upon the original playing experience. We most certainly look forward to its imminent release.

Larian Studios is hiring. If you want to be a level editor for Divinity:Sword of Lies then head over to their site and send them an e-mail.

Soon The Locus Inn will start with a section on the upcomming game Divinity:Sword of Lies, which is being created by Larian Studios.
If you share any interest in this game and would like to become a member and contribute in giving this game a prominent spot in the inn, then send me an .
You can alse send me a mail if you would like to do something for any of the other games we support.

If you live in North America and watched the Black Scorpion on january 5th, it's not to late to enter the contest on Gamezone to win a copy of BG2.
If you don't live there, like me, than you're out of luck as usual, but then again I already have a copy :-).

Much like Baldur's Gate: Tales Of The Sword Coast, the expansion pack for Baldur's Gate, the Heart Of Winter expands on the original Icewind Dale not so much with technical advances, but simply by adding more of what made the original game so great. Heart Of Winter installs right into its parent game, and you can start over from the beginning, making for a huge cohesive and expansive single game, or just start your characters off only where Heart Of Winter begins.

Thomas French has been putting in his typically excessive amount of hours to get as many scripts working in the game as he can. It's a grueling process, involving typically at least three or four e-mail messages and fixes between designer and scriptor before one problem is solved. Despite this, Thomas has gone beyond what is required, suggesting that we retrofit older areas from the core game with new scripts. These new scripts spawn in additional monsters if your difficulty is set to a certain level or if you have beaten the expansion. The boss encounters now feature backup critters and sidekicks that help out if the difficulty is high enough. He also asked me to write up some player scripts for the expansion. After I wrote up about ten, he gleefully went to work.

Fights are numerous and well placed, though your computer might buckle somewhat under the strain of showing a few spellcasters and about 20 characters fighting each other. A good addition to the information displayed during battle is the TYPE of damage you do to your foes, and how much of it they resist. Good for improving tactics of veterans and novices alike, especially when faced with foes that respond rather merrily to the attacks who do little damage to them.

BG II features a plot which has depth, and which is cleverly integrated with gameplay, particularly when compared to the skeletal plot of its predecessor. Other RPGs such as last year's best RPG, Planescape Torment, have featured even better plots, but few previous games of the genre have offered such a compelling combination of features. BG II has both tremendous replayability and, surprisingly, accessibility. A lot of fans of the genre criticized the original Baldur's Gate for largely requiring players to play virtuous characters in order to advance the plot of the game; BG II provides more varied gameplay and additional opportunities to role-play more sinister characters, although both the Fallout games and Planescape Torment, still remain the champs of the genre in that aspect. But BG II is more accessible than those titles and has broader appeal: its interface has been refined, its multiplayer mode has been polished, its graphics have been significantly improved from its predecessor and players are given plenty of opportunities (perhaps too many) to complete simple quests early in the game, abetting their soon to be irresistible addiction to this title.

Icewind Dale has got the "Best Music" and "Most Surprising" awards.

Find more here.

Interplay has sent 5 new screenshots of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter to Gaming Age...





Go admire them.

Spotted at RPG Dot.

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is not as beautiful or artful as Planescape: Torment. It’s not as revolutionary to the genre as the original Baldur’s Gate. Though, truly revolutionary titles are so rarely polished and well groomed that I can count the few that come to mind on a single hand, and artful, well-written games aren’t always as fun or long. In many ways, Baldur's Gate II is the culmination of the powerful RPG renaissance that’s been driving the genre over the last several years– a rebirth that originally started with its predecessor, Baldur’s Gate. It redefines attention to detail, game balance, longevity, and spit and polish. It’s not overbearing in its creativity, and it’s not paper thin. In the end, it’s simply a superb role-playing experience--one of the best. There’s not much you can compare it to. Baldur's Gate II has no peers. It commands your attention and will command your life for months.

* * * * * * * *

Once in a while, a game comes along that completely takes over your life. StarCraft, Baldur’s Gate, and EverQuest were all like that, and now Icewind Dale arrives to flush productivity right down the toilet. Despite the somewhat cookie-cutter story, the game will have you playing long into the night the whole time saying to yourself, “Just one more dungeon, just one more dungeon!” It’s an exciting dungeon crawl that I recommend to any true RPG fan that is looking for a meaty quest to hold them over until the epic Baldur’s Gate II is released.

Find more here.

IntelGamer opened a poll called "Game Of The Year" (no need to explain), BG2: Shadows of Amn is in the list and Deux Ex is for the moment first, you can make the difference!

Dear Minsc,
I don ’t know what to get my partner-in-love for Christmas. Can you help? Signed,Not A Theresa
Dear Not a Theresa,
Hmm...does he already own a hamster? Hamsters make wonderful gifts,and hamster-related accessories are excellent as a followup.The little wheel is especially fun; I have heard nothing but good things about the little wheel.

This game is awesome, it has to be one of my top 5 games of the year for sure. I didn't think i would get into the game as much as i have because im generally not accustomed to RPGs, but now im hooked.
This game is literally huge. The game world, the dialog, the install size (max install is the only way i will play a game) and the hours of game play. This is a long game, but that's what makes it so great. You can play it for hours and still find something new, its just that vast.
If your into RPGs get this game. If you have never played one, get this game. You'll be glad you did.
Now I'm heading back for some ale and recreational dwarf tossing.

Baldur's Gate II was second as game of the year and achiefment in writing, right after Deus Ex. It won the achiefment in graphics award however.
Icewind Dale won the achiefment in music award with Baldur's gate II following closely.
Black Isle Studios was awarded as developer/publisher of the year.

If you are any sort of fan of role-playing games, you should know about these people. They are ... well ... how to put this in an appropriately dramatic way. They are to role-playing games at the dawn of the new millennium what Lord British and the folks at Origin were in the eighties. This is the highest compliment I can bestow. We don't often sufficiently appreciate our geniuses while they are around. Van Gogh. Tesla. Looking Glass Studios. Benny Hill. Only after death is their true brilliance clear to us.
But, fortunately, the people at Black Isle are properly appreciated while they are still at the peak of their game (or, dare I dream, still ascending to the peak). So I want to give them a big, sloppy, wet kiss and spend a few columns trying to deconstruct what makes their games so cool. This is for the benefit of those poor aspirant designers who have to put out games in their wake.

In Heart of Winter, the heroes while in tree-nestled Kuldahar are summoned to Lonelywood, the northernmost of the Ten Towns in the frigid Icewind Dale, by a shaman who begs them for aid. He claims they are the heroes foreseen in a vision, and that only they can help his barbarian tribe. However, rumours abound of a barbarian horde just outside Lonelywood, which has the town's citizens justifiably concerned. The Ten Towns have clashed more than once with the fiercely independent, nomadic barbarian tribes. A change in the barbarian mindset has brought this about, and certainly not a good one, for there's a sinister force at work in Icewind Dale. It's up to the player and his party to discover why the barbarians of the Dale have suddenly begun forming an army. The shaman's desperate plea, and the likelihood of the barbarians attacking the Ten Towns when they mass will propel your party into the barbarian camp, to their burial isle, and far into the northernmost regions of Icewind Dale in search of answers. You can bet there'll be a great deal of dungeon crawling involved in the process.

Go read the rest.

Check it out here.

Strap on your beard and collect your fags - there's a row going on down near Slough. 'Near Slough,' in this case, being Amn, the part of the Forgotten Realms where BG2 takes place. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but for those of you who take your role-playing really seriously, but not seriously enough to take part in a proper pen, paper and dice game, Baldur's Gate 2 will take over your life with its epic scope and sheer depth.

Who's number one?

Baldur's Gate, from Black Isle Studios, was almost single-handedly responsible for revitalising the RPG genre when it was released in 1999. While Shadows of Amn, perhaps inevitably, didn't have quite the same impact, it certainly excelled as all the best sequels do: by offering the same fundamental gameplay experience, but adding more than enough extras to satisfy even the most hardened Baldur's addict.

Shadows' game engine was tweaked to make the scenery more varied and impressive and it made exploring the new world of Amn, a province to the south of the Sword Coast, a positive pleasure. In terms of gameplay, Shadows added substantial portions of hearty RPG fare including more NPC interaction, an excellent storyline, a ton of new sub-quests, expanded races and even more character classes. Cal Jones, our resident roleplaying expert and someone who has played nearly every single RPG over the past ten years described Baldur's Gate II as, "Quite simply the best roleplaying game ever." High praise indeed.

Our final entry for the Roleplaying Game of the Year is the third Infinity-engined outing from the creators of the Baldur's Gate series, which highlights Black Isle Studios' enduring position at the top of the RPG tree.

Another party-based outing for up to six adventurers, Icewind Dale wasn't just a filler while fans awaited Shadows of Amn, but an outstanding RPG in its own right that won plaudits for its high degree of originality, fast pacing and innovative plotting. Once again we were invited into an AD&D universe but Dale's focus on fighting dangerous monsters, finding powerful artefacts and exploring interesting environments meant it was far more action-orientated than previous outings from the same studio. Dale certainly had considerable depth and longevity, but its fast pace ensured there was rarely a dull moment and in spite of occasional problems, it is a more-than-worthy contender for this year's RPG crown.

One of the first releases of the new millennium that immediately caught RPG addicts' eyes was Planescape Torment, which sneaked onto the radar early this year. Successfully blending the anarchic aspects of Interplay's Fallout with Baldur's Gate's Infinity engine and then wrapping them all up in the Advanced D&D game universe, the end product was the kind of complex, interactive adventure that roleplaying game fans often dream about but rarely get the chance to enjoy.

You began Torment as the Nameless One, awaking on a mortuary slab with a severe case of amnesia and some cryptic clues carved into your flesh, in conversation with a disembodied, floating skull called Morte. Perhaps not the most auspicious of starts, but eventually you discovered that you were in Sigil, a kind of universal crossroad that intersected many different planes of existence. It was up to you not only to discover how you came to be here, but also your ultimate purpose in life.

Gorgeous graphics courtesy of the Bioware Infinity engine, a huge variety of quests and sub-quests to explore, constant plot twists and sophisticated character interaction - Torment had them all in abundance and rightly earned its epithet as one of the most pleasurable and involving roleplaying experiences of the year.

Though there were a number of outstanding role-playing games released this year (including Interplay's own Icewind Dale), GameSpot has chosen Baldur's Gate II to be its Role-Playing Game of the Year 2000 because of its epic story, involved quests, and the quality, depth, and breadth of its gameplay.

Clearly, a tremendous amount of effort went into the creation of Icewind Dale's dynamic orchestral score - the CD actually contains 41 distinct pieces of music that were written exclusively for the game. Whether you're walking into new areas of wilderness or foreboding structures or meeting new characters, Icewind Dale's music effectively draws you closer to the environment, the story, and the characters. It's also an incredibly effective composition in its own right and is something you might easily find yourself listening to or thinking about even when you're finished playing the game.

After Gamespy and GA RPG it's VoodooExtreme's turn.

They organized their Best RPG of 2000 Awards and once again, no surprises, the same games are in the top 3: Icewind Dale, Deux Ex and BG2: Shadows of Amn.

Find more here.

Interplay finally released patches for the multiplayer mode under DirectX 7 and 8.

More info here.

Spotted at Gamespy.

VoodooExtreme has got 18 new screenshots of Icewind Dalte: Heart of Winter from Interplay. It seems like this extension will be technically as good as BG2!


My favorite one
Go admire them.

Spotted at RPG Dot.

Not only does this game live up to its extraordinary predecessor, it surpasses it in many ways. The storyline drives on, keeping with the plot of the original, but with enough new twists to keep it engaging. Though they are still using essentially the same engine, the improvements they have made are enough to keep this game tromping remorselessly over its competition. No roleplaying gamer should miss out on this one and many other gamers might be surprised at how addicting this masterfully created world can be.

Alignment is central to a D&D character’s personality. D&D uses two measures to determine a specific character’s ethical and moral attitudes and behavior.

The moral axis has three positions: good, neutral and evil. Good characters generally care about the welfare of others. Neutral people generally care about their own welfare. Evil people generally seek to harm the others’ welfare.

The ethical axis has three positions as well: lawful, neutral, and chaotic. Lawful people generally follow the social rules as they understand them. Neutral people follow those rules find convenient or obviously necessary. And chaotic people seek to upset the social order and either institute change, or simply create anarchy.

Added Wyrm's Tooth to the IWD section. The area maps, walkthrough, creature list and quest list have been updated.

It is clear that the development team had the insight to borrow and improve on the best ideas from the top roleplaying games of the past to create the ultimate roleplaying game. Features such as these combined with the attention to detail shown by the development team are the qualities that will easily make Balder’s Gate 2 the roleplaying game of the year.

After Gamespy, GA-RPG organized the (now) traditional game of the year award. IwD got position 3 and BG2 was second. For your information, the number 1 was Deus Ex, a fair result, imho, event if it's arguable: it's very hard to say which one is better between BG2 and Deux Ex, they're both so good... and so different!

Find more here.

It is clear that the development team had the insight to borrow and improve on the best ideas from the top roleplaying games of the past to create the ultimate roleplaying game. Features such as these combined with the attention to detail shown by the development team are the qualities that will easily make Balder’s Gate 2 the roleplaying game of the year.

Go read it.

Hear ye, hear ye, times aren't good, as you may already know, the Lady of Pain is very angry and thus she organized a... "little quiz", those who succeed... survives... the other ones win the right to be mazzed for the rest of their life...

Ok, back to reality, RPG Planet set up a quiz so that you test how good you are at Planescape: Torment.
Quite funny... and hard... I got 17...

Myrthos: Lol, I had only 15.

Go try it.

Over the course of the past couple of months, Designer J.E. Sawyer of Black Isle has been providing us with a series of insider looks at various aspects of the development process. This week, he talks about sound design, specifically the process involved in writing dialogue and creating the voice acting tracks...

Go read it.

We've played the game for about 5 hours so far, and it's really great! The artwork is totally mind blowing as well (Even better than that in Baldurs Gate II) and for those that didn't like the static cut-scenes-you'll be happy to know their is an awesome opening cut-scene, with more possible in the game. (As we delve deeper into the game, we'll update this).

This year was clearly a good year for RPGs. The first-person, futuristic Deus Ex, the D&D titles Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate II, the long-awaited Diablo II, the action-oriented Nox, and the novel Vampire provided lots of variety as well. This doesn't even include the continued strong massively multiplayer games like Asheron's Call and EverQuest.

With the brief glance we were able to get into the storyline, the maps and the other new graphics for Heart, the quality of the game is in line with its predecessor. The storyline holds a great deal of promise. The map of the new main town is very pretty. Several new high-quality player images have been added, and each continues to convey the diffuse, soft colors and mood of the original Icewind Dale character art. Black Isle has consistently produced fantastic games that receive rave reviews from most critics. It is too early to tell if Heart of Winter will compare favorably with its heritage, but based on our quick glimpse, the prognosis looks good.

Only a few forgivable problems mar the surface. While battles are now larger, set-piece affairs that are much weightier than anything encountered in the original, they are also often artificial. Each quest features at least one, if not two or three, of these showdowns. Enemies are either perfectly positioned for combat as soon as you enter the room, or the surrounding terrain or furniture conspires to make things much more difficult than they should have been. It seems like you're constantly walking into ambushes. This eventually forces you to cheat, as many of these battles simply cannot be won during your first run-through. You'll need to die once to determine where the foes are, twice to experiment with different tactics, and sometimes thrice to experiment with different “buff” spells before entering the room with the baddies. This means that you'll eventually be prepping your characters prior to battles that they shouldn't know about. That's poor game design.

Hey everyone,

We wanted to give you guys an update on how Heart of Winter is going before the Holiday weekend. The game has been coming together very well, and is pretty much complete with the exception of level balancing and bug fixing. We're still on track for release early next quarter (Q1 2001).

I recently got back from Press Tour, which involves Heather, Icewind's Public Relations manager, and myself flying out to see members of the web community and print mags to show them the expansion, and give them the 411 on what's planned to be in the final game. Here are a couple links from sites that have done previews based off the tour...

Go visit it.

There are a whole host of new character classes and a few new races to choose from as well as a massive amount of spells to play with, and probably the best bit is that when you start from scratch your characters are generally speaking pretty hard guys. Gone are the days when that rat in the basement was a severe challenge for my mage who had already used all her spells, and my poor ranger pitifully trying to hide behind a tree in the middle of the night was still getting spotted by anyone and everyone who walked past.

In one of the stranger tie-ups we've witnessed in recent years, Baldur's Gate II has been named the Official Game of Dungeons and Dragons, the movie.

Actually it's not that strange a turn of events; BG2 is, after all, rooted in the world of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and it's going to make the most of its new-found celebrity with a special D&D-themed Collector's Edition, released on 9 February 2001, the same day as the film's released over here.

As for the film itself, it's coming in for a bit of a pasting over in the States. Expect lots of cheese with a side order of extra-hammy ham, but wait for our definitive review over in the Showbiz section in but a few weeks.

In today's new Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Lonelywood Gallery, we present a dozen new screenshots showing the art team's work on various parts of the town plus an overall view of the town area.

Topping the list is Interplay and BioWare's epic Baldur's Gate II, the sequel to last year's RPG of the Year. The game lets you take a party of six intrepid adventurers through a deep and complex adventure, gaining experience, wealth, and powerful items along the way. The story is rich, the artwork is fantastic, and the game is deeply satisfying.

Go read it.

Interplay have announced a deal with New Line Cinema which sees the excellent "Baldur's Gate II : Shadows of Amn" becoming the official "game of the movie" for their lavish live-action "Dungeons & Dragons" film, which is due in cinemas in the UK on February 9th. To tie in with the movie's release, Interplay (through their European distributor Virgin Interactive) will be releasing an exclusive new Baldur's Gate II "Collector's Pack", which will only be available here in Europe! The pack will be "movie themed" and include "some wonderful gifts", although there are no exact details on its contents yet.

Much like Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter should satisfy your thirst for blood with massive new adversaries, and your greed by offering up a wondrous assortment of new magical items. The addition of the features discussed above, a few secret ‘unannounced’ ones, and Black Isle Studios past track record… you can rest assured that Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter has all the potential to be another great game.

It's new, it's hot, it is the game to get in the year 2000. It is the Dungeon and Dragons universe brought to your computer, along with an excellent storyline and multiplayer for up to 6 players. Spanning four CDs, this game will take over 250 hours to complete while doing over 100 different quests. After you are done, you will want to replay it because quests can be handled in different ways. There are over 300 spells you can learn and cast. You can select from over 30 different classes of characters and seven different races. No role-playing game has ever been released with as much depth as this game. Just a word of warning, say good-bye to your loved ones once you start playing.

Added Upper Dorn's Deep to the IWD section. The area maps, walkthrough, creature list and quest list have been updated.
In order to speed things up in delivering the info, I dropped the detailed item info from the walkthrough and maps

For those who wonder, I just wanted to remind you that the IWD expension pack is planned for release on January 15... isn't this date the "heart of the winter"? I'm sure it's not a coincidence!

There is a new Heart of Winter wallpaper available from Interplay. Go get it here.

Added the Severed Hand to the IWD section. The area maps, walkthrough, creature list and quest list have been updated.

If you missed the last IRC chat (like me) with BG2's team don't worry, Ultimate SpeedZone published an cleaned up version of the chat log.

Go read it.

After IGN PC, it's Games Domain. And guess what, Icewind Dale is not in the list this time, only BG2...

Go read it.

RPG Vault has put up a nice poll asking "Which of these is your favorite style of CRPG or hybrid?", follow the link to know what "these" designates.

We are glad to inform you that we our lonely Locus Inn forum has been joined by two new boards: Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale. Planescape: Torment, being older will stay in the first forum.

Guess what I just found? A holiday buying guide! And guess what's in it? Our beloved Icewind Dale and BG2: Shadows of Amn! Okaaay... that's not very surprising since these two games are among the best RPGs ever. Anyhow, it may be interesting to read what are their arguments to incite you in buying them (BG2 and IWD... not IGN).

Also in their list: Diablo II - Deux Ex - EverQuest

Go read it.

This set was done on a lark. I developed the sounds with a swashbuckler in mind, but she will do for most any bold, irreverent female character. Irlan is cocky, fearless, and laughs in the face of...well...almost everything. Her soundset borrows a few choice phrases from Coran's old BGI soundset, and she certainly borrows some of the attitude as well. Perfect for thieves, fighters, and just about any female character who makes a specialty out of cheating death six times before breakfast.

Heart of Winter effectively extends the original game with an all-new quest designed for high-level characters, which your characters certainly will be by the conclusion of Icewind Dale. Yet, you'll be able to start the Heart of Winter quest from almost any point during Icewind Dale, provided you feel that your characters are powerful enough - which means that they are at or past the ninth experience level - to face the challenges; and this is quite powerful indeed by D&D standards. You'll also have the option to simply start the expansion quest from scratch by importing your high-level characters straight into the new scenario.

Ah, to be evil and to live without the trappings of such frivolous things as morals, truth, and justice. To rob people blind and never get caught, to do nothing except for reward, and to answer rudeness with violence. That's the easy life, right? Well, no, actually. In Baldur's Gate II, it's actually much harder to finish the game as an evil party. You'll miss out on a lot of experience from the "feel good" quests such as freeing slaves with little monetary reward (if you stick to the evil path anyway, no cheating!). You'll also have to be careful about who you rob and getting caught doing unlawful things. But, at least you can DO unlawful things! Being evil is being free. Being evil is never having to say you're sorry. Being evil is being alive! Moohahahahahah!

Computer role-playing games seem to echo the disdain for two-handed weapons. Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate 2, and just about every other CRPG that comes to mind, make it extremely silly to use them. This usually comes in the form of lack of a shield or second weapon, which is a big disadvantage when magic weapons or shields are available. So why were these weapons even used in medieval times and why is it de riguer to include them in role-playing games? Aside from the cool-factor of these weapons, their power does not seem to equal that loss of another weapon or the defensive advantages of a shield.

The best RPGs of the year were SYSTEM SHOCK 2 and PLANESCAPE TORMENT, two novel games that delivered original gameplay experiences. SYSTEM SHOCK 2 featured first-person shooter gameplay supplemented by a complex character development system and some incredibly immersive, chilling environments. Interplay's PLANESCAPE TORMENT was a D&D game that used the core BALDUR'S GATE engine, but featured gameplay closer in style to Interplay's FALLOUT series.

If you're like me, you find it just doesn't pay to be the good guy sometimes. You miss out on all the easy ways to get rich like stealing, mugging, killing other good guys, and worst, Viconia! Well, it's not all weeping for love lost as a good guy. A party of heroes has the easiest time with a game of BG2, gets the most experience, and gets to reap the rewards of a high reputation. Plus, they are comprised of stronger characters like Anomen, Keldornn, and Aerie.

The crucial thing to realize in playing BG2 is that when presented with a conflict, the game gives options that are tantamount to “kill or solve.” One can kill the “antagonist” outright, or possibly talk to them to understand more about the situation and find a different way to resolve the situation. In many cases, either mode resolves the conflict, but the negotiation route is always the more rewarding one in terms of treasure and experience points for the character. Resolving the same situation in different ways allows one to see this- almost invariably the “wipe everything out immediately” solution rewards less richly. However, violence was “necessary” at some point. Indeed my character had to use violence eventually to clear the ruined temple, but talking was the first option and proved successful in other situations.

It takes a bit of guts for a PC gaming company to come out with a sprite-based, single player RPG. Why play a 2-D, sprite based game when you can play a 3D MMORPG like Everquest or Asheron's Call? How can Bioware think that Baldur's Gate has a prayer against dynamite looking (and playing) 3D MMORPGs, or even 3D Real Time Strategy games like Sacrifice? Read more to find out why Baldur's Gate 2 is a serious contender for Game of the Year Honors.

Modified this home page a bit to accomodate the news and the headlines better.
The links to the games are now in the navigation bar on the left and I also added a link to search the web for your convenience :).

Did you ever want to use the voice of Jon Irenicus for your character. Gamers Allegiance, has a soundset for him that you can download.

Ultimate Speedzone is hosting a chat with the Baldur's Gate II design team. This is your chance the ask them the questions you were always dying to ask :)

Go over to Gamespy to vote for the best games of the year. The best Role Playing Game can be chosen here at RPGPlanet. Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale are both eligible for the award so make your choice.

Access Magazine has also nominated Baldur's Gate II as the best RPG of the year. Check it out here.

Right after RPG Vault, Gamespy posted its "own" designer diary from the "same" person: J.E. Sawyer.

Go read it.

I just found this Heart of Winter Designer Diary from J.E. Sawyer at RPG Vault.

Contains some interesting info...

Though Heart of Winter is an expansion of Icewind Dale, the game has benefited from its immediate predecessor, Baldur's Gate II. New user interface improvements, 800-by-600-pixel resolution and the ability to hide the interface and see the game in full screen are just some of the gameplay upgrades; and gamers who install Heart of Winter will be able to play the original Icewind Dale with these new features as well.

To start off, the opening movie for Heart of Winter gets your attention quickly. If your video card has the capabilities, I recommend one of the higher resolutions when playing the game-it's great!! New characters and new places give the player a new change of pace. Again the scenery is just awesome. Remember buying arrows one stack at a time? No more-you can now double-click on the item and buy as much as you need. Buying has just gotten easier. All the scroll cases, gem and potion bags are great additions. Remember lugging all those gems and taking up valuable inventory space? Don't even worry about it. Now about the spells-AWESOME!!! If you never play a magic user, you're missing out. The effects and animations are one of the biggest reasons that a player will want a mage or cleric in their party. New monsters that are difficult to beat are everywhere but don't fear; newer magical weapons have been implemented to help you defeat these foul creatures. I know I'm going on and on about Heart of Winter but one last thing, the new bard songs alone are giving this class something to rave about. As you gain levels, you get to sing songs that help your party with bonuses, protection, healing, etc. Bards rock!!!

Find more here.

rpgvault has done an in depth look on Baldur's Gate II, together with Co-Lead Designer Kevin Martens of BioWare. It's a great story so go check it out.

Spotted at RPG Dot

This is not really news, I'd just like to remind you that Gamespot has some great guides, one on Planescape: Torment, another one on Icewind Dale and finally, one on Baldur's Gate 2.

Seems like this is becoming a tradion: during this periode big sites write a holiday gift guide where they present the games that really deserve being bought to offer. In the RPG selection of Gamespot, there's, and this is not surprising, Baldur's Gate 2.

Check out what they have to say about it.

Wondering what romances there are in Baldur's Gate II. Then wonder no longer and go to our romances page in the hints and tips section.

Baldur's Gate II has been named 'Game of the Year' by MSNBC. Read all about it here.

Baldur's Gate Haven has a new background to download featuring all NPC's in one image. It comes in 4 different sizes from 800x600 upto 1600x1200.

Icewind Dale fans, you lucky fellows! Two new previous has been written on Heart of Winter (or "HoW" to go faster), the official extension pack of the game you (should) all like.

In case you don't feel like reading them, it explains that

• You'll have to be at least level 9 to go through the first maps
  
• HoW will implement many of BG2's new features (resolution from 640x480 to 2048x1536 and auto-pausing)
  
• The XP cap went from 1,800,000 to 2,900,000
  
• Enemies will be using the same new spells that are given to the players
  
• BlackIsle (HoW's developer) claims to have tremendously improved the I.A. of the foes (both creatures and enemy characters)
  
• The expansion is about 1/3 the size of the original game
  
• It can be played separately or as a continuation of the original
  
• HoW offers five major new areas
  
• And much more...

Here's the one posted at Dailyradar
And this one is from IGN PC

Spotted at RPG Dot

Added the available cheats in BGII to the Playing Tips

Game FAQs posted some new walkthroughs and hints for Baldur's Gate 2.

Go read them.

Spotted at Gamespy.com

Today, Dec 5 2000 is a special day for the Locus Inn, head at the forums to know why. To celebrate this, we will now try to provide you with an even larger coverage of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment news, and I'll be here to help achieving this... But don't expect too much from me ;-) I don't even have Baldur's Gate 2 (!) (for some reasons that has nothing to do with the game itself).

When I say "news" this includes reports from the official forums, links to other sites (such has Gamespy, IGN, Gamespot, etc... if they have exclusive screenshots, a new interview, etc...) and some other stuffs, etc... Instead of being forced to visit tons of sites to find what's going on around your favourite game, you'll need to bookmark just one address: the Locus Inn!

Oh, last thing, these are some codes I'll use in my posts:
- BG1 for Baldur's Gate, BG2 for... huh
- IwD for Icewind Dale
- HoW for Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter
- PsT for Planescape: Torment
- OF for Official Forum

Just saw over at Planet Baldur's Gate that they now host a new scripting site, for scriting the infinity engine games. It generates the script via a web interface, so you don't have to remember all those commands yourself :-).

Interested in how good multiplayer is in BGII. Then go over to the review that intelligamer did. They thought it was ok and gave it a 98% score.

If you want to have a closer look at the ad that is currently running in magazines for Heart of Winter, go to 3D palette and download the images. They have them in two formats, a decent 1024x768 and a big whopping 2000x1400 version.

Have been working on the behaviour of the site when Netscape 4.x browsers are used. For most pages the behaviour is now corrected. They should behave in the same way as Explorer does and should also display the add banner correctly now.
Note that at the moment searching does not work yet with Netscape 4.x.

Don't know if it has been active long but the link to teamBG is working again. In case you never heard of them, they have made their own add-on to Baldur's Gate, named 'Dark Side of the Sword Coast'. They also have a nice set of tools that you can use to tweak the used engine.

a href="http://www.baldursgatehaven.com">Baldur's Gate Haven has 5 new screenshots of Heart of winter. go check em out by clicking here.

Christmas is almost here, and so is the expansion pack. Its coming along great, and having integrated a ton of cool features from Bioware's BG2 code as well as some new stuff, I think you guys will really enjoy it."

Well maybe this means that you can get HOW for christmas. This is if you live in North America. If not then it will probably be januari :(.

They also have some links to some developer diaries overthere in case you are interested.

The Ironworks have completed their walkthrough of Icewind Dale. Go here to have a look at it.

If you want to get the added items from the Bonus CD's then you can get the area overrides from Baldur's gate II Dungeon.This makes Daihira end up being in the Adventures Mart, and Julov in the Copper Cornet, both are shopkeepers.
Also added the CD info to the items in the item list.

a href="http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/">The Ironworks have finished their walkthrough of Baldur's gate II. If you are stuck pay them a visit, here.

Alternatively you can also check out other walkthroughs as listed on our walkthrough page of BGII.

The official patch for Baldur's gate II has been released by Interplay. Our info pages have the link to the patch and the list of patch fixes.

Added some extra creatures to the Icewind Dale section and also added The Dragon's Eye, both to the walkthrough and the map sections. The final level of The Dragon's Eye is missing now but will be added in a day or two.

Added the Baldur's gate II section to the Inn.
This section contains a full items and spells list and an introduction about character creation by Michael C.

In the future the rest will be filled also :).

Added some critters to the Character section in Icewind Dale. It now has some spiders and lizards added.

For those who are interested in some background information of Icewind Dale and it's location, I've added the extra info on it, including some area maps. To find out more about where Icewind Dale is located in the Forgotten Realms go here. For more detailed info on Icewind Dale, visit the Game Info section.

Replaced the old search script (which was running on Atomz) with a new one (running locally). The previous script was limited to 500 pages and the Locus Inn is larger than 500 pages, so not all pages could be searched.
Because it is running locally and not on an other server it should run faster also :-).

Added some inside information on Icewind Dale in the Game Info section.

Added a link to the Locus Inn forum on RPGSites.
You can use the forum to discuss with the innkeeper, Myrhtos and others about anything you want. Be it the Inn, or the supported games, or RPG's in specific or anything else.
The innkeeper is also a busy man and has some trouble finding the time to fill the inn with all the required information. If you think you can contribute in any way, get in contact with him via the forum or mail.

And while you are there, also check out the other forums on RPGSites for more RPG information.
See you there!