Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Apexeon]

If you mess up your 3D render output you can fix it in photoshop .

 

[roshan]

Isometric games also have the problem of having limited kinds of rooms/areas they can realistically depict. For example, if there is a change of elevation, the slope has to increase from the bottom of the screen toward the top and not the other way around. Similarly, buildings and other points of interest have to face the south so they aren't hidden from the player's view.

There are obvious limitations of 2D isometric games and this may not be realistic but it is efficient from the player's point of view, they get everything that is critical or relevant presented to them at first glance, they don't need to waste huge amounts of time rotating, zooming and adjusting the angle of cameras to find it. This allows them to focus on gameplay and tactics as opposed to camera management, and they are free from obstacles like pillars, buildings, cliffs, arches etc. blocking their view. In almost all games I've played with 3D approximations of isometric perspective, more time has usually been spent adjusting the shitty cameras than doing any actual "playing".

And of course developers can probably save significant amounts of time and also make a better looking product because they don't need to worry about how it will look or play from each and every angle, and this time saved can be spent on improving gameplay instead.

 

[Abelian]

This allows them to focus on gameplay and tactics as opposed to camera management, and they are free from obstacles like pillars, buildings, cliffs, arches etc. blocking their view.

Preaching to the choir, my friend. I said I prefer isometric games personally and I was only adding another perspective, if you'll excuse the pun, to the discussion.

 

[haraw]

I've gone through the first game twice and never played the expansions. I'm too lazy to start anew party, so I was thinking how's the party creation when starting straight from the Heart of Winter. How much it affects the gameplay to begin the expansions without items and only 15k gold to buy stuff?

I'm not gonna get crushed by some shitty yan-ti ambushes straight away or am I?

 

[Revenant]

Wait until you encounter those drowned corpses on the island of the dead if you think yuan-ti ambushes were bad. So the answer is no, you're better off importing characters that have beaten the original campaign. Or, alternatively, go with the premade HoW characters, they have some pretty cool starting items.

 

[Xeon]

Can't you just use IWD Keeper or something to add items that you think would have gotten in the core game or money from the core game or something?

You can limit how much items or money to add as you see fit without going too excessive.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Wait until you encounter those drowned corpses on the island of the dead if you think yuan-ti ambushes were bad. So the answer is no, you're better off importing characters that have beaten the original campaign. Or, alternatively, go with the premade HoW characters, they have some pretty cool starting items.

The first time I played HoW I went with the pre-made party and they got their asses kicked. I recall making another attempt where I played IWD until I could import them straight over to HoW and it was only marginally more successful. The last time I played IWD I played the original campaign until I was right about to be sent back to Easthaven, then I went and did the HoW content. While the drowned corpses did put up a fight, it was a managable fight for me.

 

[haraw]

Yah, thanks.

I'm leaning to replaying the whole game again tho, maybe with some cheesing to get through the beginning without hassle.

 

[catfood]

Super quick question: Who are the artists who did the portraits for these games. I know one of them is Just Sweet, but who's the other one?

EDIT: I found out. It's Jason Manley.

 

[likaq]

The disease called the 3D engine is the source of decline

Now rpgcodex is officially on par with gamespot.

 

[MilesBeyond]

As King Crimson has necro'd this thread anyway, thought I'd ask: What are people's experiences with the IWD NPC Project? For those who don't know, it's a mod that fills your party up with five characters who have dialogue, banter, etc. I've never really tried it, and I'm wondering if the dialogue is good or garbage.

 

[octavius]

As King Crimson has necro'd this thread anyway, thought I'd ask: What are people's experiences with the IWD NPC Project? For those who don't know, it's a mod that fills your party up with five characters who have dialogue, banter, etc. I've never really tried it, and I'm wondering if the dialogue is good or garbage.

I wouldn't call it garbage, but it was definitely too feminine, juvenile and modern (like the use of the expression "word") for my taste. Voice acting is pretty bad, but then that's the one area in game design where amateurs are most at a disadvantage in my experience.
I ended up uninstalling it myself after the "word" incidident.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I wouldn't call it garbage, but it was definitely too feminine, juvenile and modern (like the use of the expression "word") for my taste. Voice acting is pretty bad, but then that's the one area in game design where amateurs are most at a disadvantage in my experience.
I ended up uninstalling it myself after the "word" incidident.

Haha what? Word? That's unbelievable. That seems like they're trying to be deliberately bad. I mean bad voice acting kinda comes with the territory - though I would prefer no voice acting and them just using standard selection sounds. But like you said - modders have an excuse for crappy voice acting. They do not have an excuse for crappy writing.

 

[Infinitron]

Josh Sawyer posted some Icewind Dale 1 & 2 stuff on Instagram:

original top down layout for the underdark level in icewind dale 2

drider level layout from icewind dale 2

concept sketch of revered brother poquelin from icewind dale

 

[Snufkin]

Now that Enchanced edition is avaible IWD might be interesting to revisit with all those new classes avaible and kits.

 

[octavius]

Josh Sawyer posted some Icewind Dale 1 & 2 stuff on Instagram:

Icewind Dale the Movie - starring Keanu Reeves as Poquelin.

 

[Courtier]

Ahahah oh man I forgot about battle square in II. 10 ranks with seperate prizes for 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 squares each. 250 battles total. I can't not do it. I need that sweet armour and club of disruption.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

There was a mod that lets you skip battlesquare while keeping the rewards/XP.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Ahahah oh man I forgot about battle square in II. 10 ranks with seperate prizes for 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 squares each. 250 battles total. I can't not do it. I need that sweet armour and club of disruption.

I didn't. Fuck that noise.

 

[Courtier]

It's like a rite of passage. Playing battle square for days until you collapse from exhaustion is how boys become men

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I only battled all the squares once, then I used the mod on replays.

 

[Snufkin]

Soloing IWD2 with deep gnome monk, or cleric or sorcerer is fun.

 

[laclongquan]

Battle square is a legitimate way to earn high level wizard scrolls for your human mage who might well have some empty spell slot. I know mine did.

My party got human mage to advance at normal level progression, but a deep gnome rogue fighter to depress the level average down in order to earn more xp. Full squad~ At battle square my human mage got two, three empty spell slots because loots and shops didnt have those high level scrolls.

 

[Waterd]

Hi, I want people that have experience win Icewind dale 2 to build a challenge for me to play like this one in KOTC. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-ultimate-challenge.41650/page-4#post-4090010

I only played icewind dale 2 in the past, and I dropped it in the ice temple, I dont know if its worth to play icewind dale 1 because everyone says 2 is so much better that it makes 1 look dull.
In any case. The idea is to create a fun challenge, not just a hard challenge. I liek to create a DISCRET set of rules in the RPGS i play, that make the game fun for me even if I try the best to beat the challenge

Here are some tips in what im looking for and my problems and comming up with them myself.

1. Party creation
I want to play max number of characters , and I dont want crazy restrictions on the creation, though i can accept some specific class or race ban/restrictions if you people think its too op.

2.Rest
The reason i find hard to play all bioware games is that is optimal to do the classic, Rest/Superbuff/Bombard/repeat, making most fights just an annoyance. I want in RPG all the "filler" fights meaningful and a good way to do that in RPG is to restrict Rest in some way. In KOTC I used the 1 use per campfire which worked awesome since by doing that there is enough limitation to rests that every fight that drains resources has a meaning, but is not so little that the game is impossible.
But I dont know the game well enough or know a discrete way to restrict rests in a way that is both challenging but not prohibitively impossible.
Also a potential problem is that there are a lot of healers that can provide you cure light wounds for minimal price, For some reason they also provide way less money efficient spells. But there is never a reason to pay for the other healing.
If htere is a restriction to resting, spamming cure light wounds is optimal, so one has to have in mind NPC healers when it comes to create the rest restriction rule.

3. Combat
I hate RTwP because it makes the fight more clumsy that Turn based, but a good way to solve a little that is to threat IWD a little more like like an RTS. So the idea is to disallow normal pausing, and only use the the autopauses (Which sadly are somewhat bugged) What would be the most balanced autopause configuration?

4. Prebuffing
I really dislike outofcombat advantage, so whatever set of rules, it has to super restrict or completly ban prebuffing. I dont like it because it either rewards game knowledge to much and is time consuming and boring.

5. I´m all up for mods so if any mode make anything more interesting, let me know

6. Im not super fan of the difficulty options in the game, since its just more HP/Damage, which tends to be biased towards shifting the power to some specific classes or strats. I prefer to make the game more difficult banning op spells, class or weapons etc, than just adding more stats to enemies, but I can be convinced that some other than normal difficulty is the most interesting difficulty to play on.

That´s it. Thanks for your help!

 

[Comte]

Just play Icewind Dale it's better then 2