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Icewind Dale Beamdog's Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
CamDawg is pretty great, when I first played OBG1 Tutu I think and IWD1 he wrote a pretty good guide of installation I think for one of the games or both, was pretty good and even helped out in the forum IIRC when I first started modding IE games and didn't know how to install mods.

Edit:
IWD1 UB IIRC added a teleporting guy that kinda was a pain to search for, I hope they restrict his teleporting radius or something if they add him. I could be misremembering, Sorry if that's the case.
 
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Klarion

Arcane
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Oct 10, 2014
Messages
1,864,550
Location
Stonekeep
I think they are funny. Just don't take it too seriously. :)
what kind of mentality is this? "uh, it sucks, but it doesn't suck if you accept that it sucks."
it's either funny, or it's not funny.
I'm not gonna watch them, so I'll never know. but I can see from the stills that they're not funny.
How can you tell from the "stills" is the video funny or not? Can you also tell whether a TV show is funny or not just by looking at two or three screenshots? If so, then you are a genius?
Oh you meant to say the stills themselves are not funny... Wow... Why would the stills have to be funny?

Either way, that's one of the most retarded sentences I've heard in a while.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
I think they are funny. Just don't take it too seriously. :)
what kind of mentality is this? "uh, it sucks, but it doesn't suck if you accept that it sucks."
it's either funny, or it's not funny.
I'm not gonna watch them, so I'll never know. but I can see from the stills that they're not funny.
How can you tell from the "stills" is the video funny or not? Can you also tell whether a TV show is funny or not just by looking at two or three screenshots? If so, then you are a genius?
Oh you meant to say the stills themselves are not funny... Wow... Why would the stills have to be funny?

Either way, that's one of the most retarded sentences I've heard in a while.
I'm a comedy genius, yes, that's right.
I can see from his facial expressions and dressing up, in combination with the video topic, that it will not be funny.
 

Blackguard

Learned
Joined
Dec 22, 2012
Messages
165
So why can they restore cut content in IWD but not in BG1/2?

Basically the reason they gave was that it's impossible to reach all the people behind the BG1+2 UB mods. While IWD UB was mainly made by Pete "CamDawg" Camagna who actually works at Beamdog these days.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
IWD1 UB was also made in consultation with Josh Sawyer. I wonder if they talked to him about this game at all.
 

aVENGER

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
Messages
218
Some of us (not me personally) talk to Obsidian developers from time to time about various things. Mostly with Chris, Josh and Feargus.

They are an awesome bunch.
 

SwiftCrack

Arcane
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
1,836
So why can they restore cut content in IWD but not in BG1/2?

Basically the reason they gave was that it's impossible to reach all the people behind the BG1+2 UB mods. While IWD UB was mainly made by Pete "CamDawg" Camagna who actually works at Beamdog these days.

Wasn't there some line in the Baldur's Gate contract(s) that said 'you can't touch the original code'?
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
So why can they restore cut content in IWD but not in BG1/2?

Basically the reason they gave was that it's impossible to reach all the people behind the BG1+2 UB mods. While IWD UB was mainly made by Pete "CamDawg" Camagna who actually works at Beamdog these days.

Wasn't there some line in the Baldur's Gate contract(s) that said 'you can't touch the original code'?

Uh, they obviously DID touch the original code. There was something about not being able to alter existing content, only add new content.
 

Athelas

Arcane
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
4,502
It releases today? That means those video's will finally end.

Oh, and I guess it also means we can play it.
 

SwiftCrack

Arcane
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
1,836
Can't wait for the 1 hour late 'we will have to delay' e-mail.
 
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aVENGER

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
Messages
218
IWD:EE is now live on Beamdog (Windows and Mac), Steam (Windows, Mac and Linux) , GoG (Windows and Mac) and Google Play Store (Android).

Apple has received the retail build and we are awaiting their approval for the iOS build.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Trent Oster interview: http://www.pcgamesn.com/icewind-dal...le-enhanced-edition-and-the-future-of-dd-rpgs

Excerpt:
“Icewind Dale was kind of this left-turn where you just jumped out and it was all about the bashing and combat and winning the fight and wondering what was around the next corner, that was going to be as challenging or even more challenging than what you just fought,” said Oster.

“At BioWare at some points we tried to introduce puzzles that were different. Icewind Dale is like combat puzzles. And they’re just fun.”

Just as BioWare and their publishing counterparts at Black Isle were getting to grips with the possibilities of their engine, so too were their players. They salivated at the chance to spend two hours in character creation - building an entire six-person party from the ‘gender’ button onwards, rolling and re-rolling their stats as they went.

“I think that’s where a lot of the satisfaction of Icewind Dale comes from,” said Oster. “By knowing the rules and by being able to build great combination characters and play them how they’re intended, you can do some amazing things that you wouldn’t think are possible with a party.”

By the turn of the millenium, BioWare had learned to play their henchmen off against each other to produce their juiciest dialogue. But Black Isle’s Icewind Dale, with its player-made party members, didn’t have that. Nor did it have the conversation-filled city hubs that punctuate play in Baldur’s Gate. What it had in great, snowy dollops was something Black Isle had learned on Fallout: atmosphere.

“Those guys were good,” recalled Oster. “To me Black Isle was always about really, really strong artwork, and it still looks phenomenal. It’s just haunting.

“Initially we were pretty intimidated by it, but once we started working with the content we were like, ‘Man, this stuff is so beautiful, it holds up so well’.”

When Black Isle did allow themselves to unsheath their quills, Oster reckons they often outdid BioWare - whose plots were more “convoluted”.

“I always found Black Isle’s writing to be a lot more direct, a lot shorter,” he said. “At BioWare I think we tended to get a little novelistic. Whereas Chris’ stuff was more colloquial, and more accessible.”
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
What do you know, there's a review already, by our friend the Carter: http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/114679-icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-review/all-pages.html

Bugs

One of the downsides to primarily writing walkthroughs these days is that I don't play as many games as I used to, and I still haven't gotten around to playing the enhanced editions of either of the Baldur's Gate games. But from my understanding, those games were released with a lot of bugs that all but negated the improvements Beamdog added.

My experience with the Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is completely different. I didn't encounter any broken quests or graphical glitches or crash bugs during the 50+ hours I spent with the game. The closest I came to a bug was in Trials of the Luremaster when my party fought a djinni who cast the Whirlwind spell -- and the whirlwind effect never disappeared. I had to leave the tower room I was in and then re-enter it to get the spell to go away.

So if you heard bad things about the first two enhanced editions and decided to stay away, that might have been the case then, but it's not the case now. The Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition worked great for me.

Conclusion

It's interesting going back and playing an old game. Icewind Dale isn't wildly old, but even so it came from a time when developers didn't cater their games to the masses. Just sitting down and playing a game didn't give you any sort of guarantee that you'd be able to finish it. Many parts of Icewind Dale are extremely difficult -- even without the Heart of Fury mode, where monsters are smarter and more powerful -- and that's just not something you see any more. So going back and playing Icewind Dale was a treat, even if sometimes I wanted to throw my mouse at somebody.

So if you haven't played Icewind Dale yet, then you should definitely give the Enhanced Edition a try. The Infinity Engine games make up one of the cornerstones of CRPG history, and they're all worth playing. But if you already own Icewind Dale, then the answer is a little more difficult because most of the enhancements are available for free from mods. As I was playing the EE, I was sort of wondering why anybody with bother with it when they could just play a modded version of the original game, but then just like with my recent review forXenonauts, I went back and tried playing the original game again, and I figured out the answer: the interface.

If you look at the screenshots for the EE, then its interface looks like it's exactly the same as the one for the original Icewind Dale, but it's not. There are myriad improvements, some of which I've listed in this review, and combined they make playing the EE much more enjoyable than playing the original game, and without the need of installing mods and trying to get them to work together. This makes it easy for me to recommend the Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition whether you own the original game or not.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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Copenhagen
Wait... why is he saying that IWDEE and IWD are the same? Isn't IWDEE run inthe BG2 Engine? Is he parroting the criticism of the original EEs without realizing the difference between IWD rules and the BG2 engine?

Or did I misunderstand something?
 
Joined
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Messages
1,387
Location
Australia
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
...its interface looks like it's exactly the same as the one for the original Icewind Dale, but it's not. There are myriad improvements, some of which I've listed in this review, and combined they make playing the EE much more enjoyable than playing the original game

The good, in a nutshell. I've had a quick go of it, and it's nice being able to take in more of the map. Of all the IE games this one needed it the most, imo.
 
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