Icewind Dale 2

[ravagon]

Something for rpg fans
Courtesy www.planetbaldursgate.com


Icewind Dale 2 Announced
Monday, February 4, 2002, 08:09 | MageDragon
Today, Icewind Dale 2 has been announced:
IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 4 -- Black Isle Studios, the role-playing game division of Interplay Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: IPLY - news), announced today that a sequel to the award-winning computer role-playing game Icewind Dale(TM) is currently in development and will be distributed by Vivendi Universal Games in North America. Icewind Dale(TM) II is scheduled to ship to retail on May 28, 2002.

Icewind Dale II is being created internally at Black Isle Studios and offers more of the classic dungeon crawl experience, using the Dungeons & Dragons® license from Wizards of the Coast. Based in part on the series of books by New York Times best-selling author R.A. Salvatore, Icewind Dale II will amaze players with new monsters, spells, and areas to explore within the popular FORGOTTEN REALMS® campaign setting.

Icewind Dale II expands upon gameplay elements found in Icewind Dale, offering players the ability to hone their combat skills and achieve even more powerful possessions, spells, and experience. Icewind Dale II hosts a large variety of new weapons, armor and magical items and features all the spells from Icewind Dale and its expansion Icewind Dale(TM): Heart of Winter(TM). Additionally, Icewind Dale II includes over 50 new spells such as Executioner's Eyes and Aegis, bringing the total to over 300 spells.

In addition, over 100 new special items can be found in Icewind Dale II's elevated ``Heart of Fury'' mode, first introduced in Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. This challenging mode enhances the game's replayability by allowing players to face intensely difficult and strategic battles with their high level, battle-hardened characters.

A generation after the events in Icewind Dale, a grave new threat has arisen in the North; a threat that seeks to cut off the Ten-Towns from the rest of Faerun in a bitter power struggle. A vicious horde of goblins, orcs, and bugbears have gathered beneath the mysterious banner of the Chimera and are attacking the port town of Targos. The town of Bremen has fallen, goblin raiders ride the plains, and a stream of refugees are fleeing southwards to Bryn Shander and beyond. Fearing that they will be overrun, Targos has sent out a call for all able-bodied adventurers, soldiers, and mercenaries to sail north to stand with the town's defenders against the encroaching horde, and it's up to the players' small band of adventurers to save Targos from destruction. Yet nothing is as it appears and as the shadow of the horde falls on Targos, the players find themselves drawn into an escalating conflict that plunges the region of Icewind Dale once again, into war.

Icewind Dale II makes use of a heavily modified version of the award- winning BioWare(TM) Infinity Engine, originally developed for the Baldur's Gate(TM) series. Modifications to the engine include a variety of features originally developed for Baldur's Gate(TM) II: Shadows of Amn(TM), including dual-wielding, class kits, new classes such as the Sorcerer and Monk as well as 3D technology developed by BioWare. Icewind Dale II introduces new class kits like the Mercenary, Giant Killer and the Dreadmaster of Bane among others, plus new sub-races including the Drow and Tiefling.

Black Isle Studios, the creators of the Fallout(TM) series, Planescape®: Torment(TM) and the Icewind Dale saga, is proud to bring Icewind Dale II to Windows® 95/98/ME/2000/XP-based computers. More information on Icewind Dale II can be found at http://icewind2.blackisle.com/ .

[yin26]

That one's worth keeping an eye on.

[August Borms]

Cool! I thought they weren't going to make any Infinity-engine rpg's anymore.

I just hope it'll be a bit larger than the original IWD though...

[ravagon]

I think the license prevented Bioware from developing any new rpgs. Expansions to those already produced were permissable and I guess IWD2 falls into that category ... sorta.

And I'm hoping it'll be a bit more like BG/2 than the original IWD - ie: less linear and more of an rpg rather than the hack'n'slash IWD is supposed to be.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Assur
Cool! I thought they weren't going to make any Infinity-engine rpg's anymore.

I just hope it'll be a bit larger than the original IWD though...

Supposed to be same size: 30-40 hours.

[Grumbold]

The IWD experience was intended as true hack'n'slash and I doubt they will bother to change that strategy since it sold well. I'm just disappointed its going to continue to be bastardised 2nd edition. If NWN is successful hopefully I won't have to even consider purchasing it to get my AD&D fix this year.

[August Borms]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Supposed to be same size: 30-40 hours.

Argh, well I hope the expansion will be a bit longer

[DaShi]

Originally posted by ravagon
I think the license prevented Bioware from developing any new rpgs. Expansions to those already produced were permissable and I guess IWD2 falls into that category ... sorta.

And I'm hoping it'll be a bit more like BG/2 than the original IWD - ie: less linear and more of an rpg rather than the hack'n'slash IWD is supposed to be.

Infogrames has a D&D license so Bioware can still make rpgs using that system (hence NWN). However, D&D or not, they can still make their own style of rpgs. But this game is still through Interplay so it doesn't matter. IWD2 was probably one of the issues in the settlement, which is why we are hearing about it now.

[General Ludd]

Remember guys, Bioware didn't make Icewind Dale, and isn't doing the second. It's Black Island, which is a part of the Interplay company, that does Icewind Dale. (with the infinity engine created by bioware)


The names sound really similiar though, and it's easy to get confused.

[August Borms]

You mean Black Isle Studios?

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Osweld
Remember guys, Bioware didn't make Icewind Dale, and isn't doing the second. It's Black Island, which is a part of the Interplay company, that does Icewind Dale. (with the infinity engine created by bioware)


The names sound really similiar though, and it's easy to get confused.

Well, that makes more sense then.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Grumbold
The IWD experience was intended as true hack'n'slash and I doubt they will bother to change that strategy since it sold well. I'm just disappointed its going to continue to be bastardised 2nd edition. If NWN is successful hopefully I won't have to even consider purchasing it to get my AD&D fix this year.

Isn't NWN primarily intended for multiplayer? I'm not interested if it is. I've had enough of 12-16 year olds (or those who act like it) ruining my games on-line.

[Moral Hazard]

Actually Never Winter Nights is suppose to have a 80 hr single player game in it as well; basically it's suppose to be the end all be all of RPG's; think Diablo, Baldur's Gate, and a construction kit all in one box. That's why there's all the hype.

Concerning ICWD 2 I couldn't care (hack N Slash) and wish Black Isle would get down to making a good non AD&D rpg, won't happen tho.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Moral Hazard
Actually Never Winter Nights is suppose to have a 80 hr single player game in it as well; basically it's suppose to be the end all be all of RPG's; think Diablo, Baldur's Gate, and a construction kit all in one box. That's why there's all the hype.

Don't think Diablo or Baldur's Gate, think Pen and Paper - that's the atmosphere they are going for. But it will probably fall a bit short though, simply because a computer game has to have a certain amount of limitations.

[Grumbold]

NWN began with a vision of online multiplayer dungeons with even the referee "Dungeon Master" being a player making changes to the game environment on the fly. All the tools exist for players to create an seemingly endless set of modules to share over the net too, for playing without necessarily having an active DM running each session.

During the development process it was decided that there was an obvious advantage to catering to the single player market too. The game will now ship with a built in soloable adventure of considerable size although there is support for a team to play through it. I'm just interested to see how successfully they manage to convert the DnD turn based system into no-pausing realtime combat. Personally I think it will lose some of the tactical strengths of DnD and lead to parties adopting the 'first strike' approach rather than more subtle or complex strategies that require good timing and manoeuvering.