Engine
Shadows of Amn will use a greatly enhanced version of the Infinity Engine from Baldur's Gate. The new engine supports 800x600 resolution, although you can play in 640x480 if you choose. Unofficially, the game will be able to go as high in resolution as you video card will allow (2048 x 1568 with 32 MB of RAM), but the GUIs will be not scaled correctly and that may affect the enjoyment of the game itself. To increase game speed and for nicer looks, some 3D effects will be added for spells and the fog of war. The optional 3D card support will provide these effects using translucency, transparency and alpha-blending offered by OpenGL. For those without a 3D card, 2D versions of the spell effects will be used.
Area transition loading times have been decreased and all characters will move 1.5x faster than they did in Baldur's Gate (there is no seperate option to run for game balance reasons). Greater interaction will be permitted with the environment so there will be more quests featuring puzzles and interesting traps. Monsters will be able to follow you to different maps.
Animations have been made smoother by doubling the number for each character. The avatars have been redone and the paperdolls from the inventory screen have been replaced. The pathfinding has been significantly improved and characters will now walk past each other using a "pinball" mechanism, instead of trying to find the long way as before. There will also be increased animation of the backgrounds to make it feel more alive.
Combat will use the same pausable real-time system and autopausing options as in Baldur's Gate. A new auto-pause feature has been added: pause on finding a trap. You will now be able to turn on or off the centering on auto-pause at the end of the round.
When you cast a spell that creates a weapon, it takes over the first position of the quick weapons. This means that whatever weapon you already had there will be hidden temporarily by the magically created one. The magically created weapon is also un-movable so it will stay in that position, but the second weapon is up to you. Thus, you can have both a magically created weapon and a common weapon in use at the same time. One further note, if you cast a spell that creates another weapon, the first one created will be overwritten by the second one. It will not show up in the off-hand slot.
You will still be able to write your own scripts. The action and trigger lists have been greatly expanded and there were a few changes to the syntax, such as the inclusion of the OR command. The scripting language has been improved. You can now turn undead, do bard songs, and have better control over the thief abilities.
The support for EAX sound is being improved, while Aureal support is being added. Windows2000 will not be officially supported. The wheel on many mice will now allow you to scroll menus in the game.
Although the game is about twice bigger in content, new compression technology should allow it to all fit on 4 CD-ROMs.
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