Official Heart of Winter Chat in GameSpy Arcade
February 28, 2001 at 4:00 pm PST
Heart of Winter GameSpy Arcade Lobby (http://www.gamespyarcade.com)
Edited chat log prepared by Silverdawn of PlanetBaldursGate.
Chat log converted into Q&A format by Sir Kalthorine ut Wistan. This involved removing a lot of the (oft-times hilarious) inter-chat between the BIS people, and amalgamating their responses according to the question being asked. This means that the answers to each question are actually a number of DIFFERENT answers from different people just lumped together - hence they can read a little weird at times. Questions are collected according to rough categories, specifically:
- In-game non-technical questions
- Technical game-related questions
- Questions about interest in game-design features
- Other miscellaneous queries
A number of extraneous questions have also been removed for the sake of brevity - specifically those asked by individuals wanting advice on how to break into the gaming business! Thanks again to the BIS guys for volunteering their time to come and chat, and to Silverdawn, Cobby and Magedragon for moderating. Cheers guys!
Around 50 people were in attendance for the chat.
Black Isle Studios
BIS_Darren - Darren Monahan, Producerv
BIS_JESawyer - J. E. Sawyer, Designer
BIS_John - John Deiley, Designer
BIS_ScottEverts - Scott Everts, Technical Designer
BIS_Kevin - Kevin Osburn, Line Producer
BIS_WILLOW - Jake Devore, Scripter
BIS_Pete_M - Pete Meihuizen, Lead Artist and Animator
BIS_JasonManley - Jason Manley, Artist
BIS_French - Tom French, Programmer
BIS_Hector - Hector Espinoza, 3D Artist
BIS_Danien - Danien Chee, Programmer
Nameless{3} - Bernie Weir, Lead Programmer
BIS_DavePursley - Dave Pursley, Artist
Namless{4} - Steve Bokkes, Designer
Moderators
[GSI]Silverdawn
[Admin]Cobby
MageDragon
Transcript
In-game non-technical questions
Q: I have heard rumours that new items in Kuldahar stores will only be available if you have not yet entered the individual stores. Is this the case, and will people continuing an old IWD game lose a lot if they don't restart?
A: The stores are saved in your Saved Games. If you have opened a store, it will not change for you. So they're not re-loaded when it's loaded. However, you are only missing out on the following: +3 weapon of every type, some new spell scrolls, and some of the new containers. However, you can get the cool containers and scrolls in the expansion, in addition to cool new weapons. hmmm...Id restart...that is a lot of cool items. Yes, and no. They could continue on with their game and enter the expansion. Or they could restart and get the full benefits of the expanison such as higher resolutions, newer items, more spells, etc....
Q: I just bought HoW, and I'm wondering how different the original story is going to vary from how it was first laid out?
A: The original story is the same. The expansion offers a side story to explore. It is a separate plot.
Q: Personally, I think 20-30 hours of gameplay is pretty darned good in an expansion - I am more interested in what "typical" levels a normal group of 6 characters might reach, being thorough and playing through the whole of IWD+HoW as opposed to the original IWD on its own. Nothing specific, just some rough comparisons.
A: Most of us were in the neighborhood of 14-18 after finishing both. When you replay with Heart of Fury mode using that group, you can expect to get to 26-30th level based on the XP modifications. I'm going to guess that most people who do "everything" wind up around 15th or 16th level. That could be wrong, though. Well a party of 6, through both IWD and HOW, I think they got to about level 17-18. I played through everything on normal difficulty. I made it to around 19th level I think it was. However, I did every single thing I could think of to do. Definitely need to replay it in Heart of Fury mode. It makes it extremely difficult. The good thing about HoF mode too is that your strategies end up having to change, which makes the experience a lot different the second time around in terms of combat.
Q Did you all realize that these ppl were running around in the snow and there were no boots to be found or even able to be purchased...
A: That's because the people purchased them! All residents of Icewind Dale are Shurpas (sp?) Boots... must have slipped my mind :) probably Canadians :) Actually, there are plenty of boots scattered throughout the original release, and some in the expansion to boot. Ack, that was awful.
Q: Are there any "special features", easter eggs, etc that aren't publicized that you could mention here?
A: There's a cool combat that isn't part of the critical path. I don't know of any Easter eggs. Sure, here's a few things, play with the squirrel at the end of Icewind Dale, also the cheat code prefix was changed in HOW... If you'd like to "Get Your Cheat On", have at... :) There's a funny Easter egg in End Easthaven that I put in the expansion pack! Kill the Squirrel in Destroyed Easthaven at the end of IWD. Also, there's an amulet you can get in Gloomfrost if you have Dimension Door.
Q: The spell knock is in the game but I couldn't find ONE DOOR that it would work on. I imagine I just didn't use it at the right time... but it seemed pointless to have a spell designed to unlock/open doors and not have it work 95% of the time. What was the logic behind this?
A: many quests would be broken if you could bypass doors with the spell. That was one of the problems. We probably should have left that spell out. There aren't a lot of locked doors in the game, and most of those are critical path doors (like, go get the Red Key, man). You got us; there's not a lot of use for it. I don't think QA ever reported any problems with this. I tried it a few times and it seemed to work for me. We will look into it though. Maybe we can address this for the patch. That spell was actually meant to initiate knock-knock jokes but we forgot the jokes...
There weren't too many non-magical, locked doors in the expansion. However, there were quite a few locked chests that can be opened with the Knock spell. If a door is magically locked. I don't think Knock will open it. Perhaps it was useful for locked trunks? Probably more useful if you don't have a thief in your party.
Q: Is there a weapon that can be above a +5 or is that some lame DnD rule that they can't be higher than that?
A: Pale Justice is +7 vs. evil creatures. As a general guideline, it's "supposed" to stay in the +1 to +5 range. Pale Justice rocks!!
Technical game-related questions
Q: When will the new patch be out for HoW for the multiplayer concerns?
A: We're targeting some time in mid-March for a general patch. There is no set date yet. We are watching the Message Boards for Bugs, then trying to fix them for the users. Keep watching the website for an update. I definitely encourage people to post on our message board any problems they are experiencing, we draw feedback from these forums to investigate problems people are having. Please post on the Message Boards. We are reading them and responding to help people with their problems.
Q: I do have a tech question... during multiplay via cable/dsl we kept experiencing periods where we'd be "out of sync" we'd rest and my chrs would heal and hers wouldn't. It only happened on specific maps and I'd have to leave the game and reenter to "resync". Have you guys heard of this before and do you know what causes it?
A: The out of sync bug has been found. I don't know details, only our programmers do. I just heard them talking about it :) The size of your cache (located in the config) could help this problem. You might want to raise the size of your cache to about 300. We haven't seen that per se, but for the patch we've done quite a bit to help lag issues, particularly with a lot of monsters on the screen. If you note specific maps where this seems to happen most frequently, please send me a message after the chat or via our message boards. We'd definitely like to investigate that if you get it to happen.
Q: My cache was at 400MB. On another note, while playing the Burial Ground in the Expansion I experienced extreme slowness while the person I was playing with did not. I've heard of others having this problem, what's up?
A: Ambient sound can slow down the surface of the burial isle to a crawl. The area's really full of things happening. Hmmm, depending on your video card, you might want to turn off your ambient sounds. Part of it is the number of creatures pathing, ambient sounds tend to slow things down on that level also. I found that sound was the main trouble for me. I had slow downs till I turned it off. That area can get extremely complex AI wise. one thing that helps a bunch is to hide the interface using the 'H' key while you're walking around.
Q: I especially like the ALT button feature. That was very nice.
A: Yes the ALT button feature definitely came in handy :)
Questions About Interest in Game Design Features
Q: How detailed do you make the 3d figurines, considering how small a scale they will eventually appear on screen?
A: Our models are pretty detailed. The character, since they are prerendered, can be up tp 40 000 polys. Most are around 8000.
Q: Who made the pointy hats your mage can buy from Edion's Tower in Burial Island ? I always wanted a pointy hat. :)
A: I made them! Haha! Someone on the message board (matusz, I think) wanted hats and cowls for wizards and thieves, respectively. So, you get the Cyclocone and the Rogue's Cowl.
Q: First, thank you very very much for putting a Dragon in the game!! DRAGONS!! My question would be, did you make the animation from scratch, or did you modify a BioWare Dragon from BG2 ? Either way, wonderful job.
A: That's all Black Isle modeling and animation. we wanted Pete to make the dragon a lot larger than it is but it took up too much resources and slowed the game down too much. animated it. Aaron build it? I think. we did the dragon in house from scratch. That is, IF there IS a dragon in the game... uh hemm. i had made him about 10% bigger than he currently is but he killed memory and speed . Yeah, he couldn't be more than 511 pixels! Darn artists never listen!
Q: I imagine this isn't very important in the grand scheme of game development... but why doesn't IWD and/or its expansion have a lengthy "eye candy" movie at the beginning and/or end of the game? Other game manufactures seem to do it and it is a well-appreciated reward to complete the game and get a really awesome movie at the end. Thoughts on this?
A: I want to do them!!!!!! It consumes a LOT of art resources. Lots and lots and lots and lots. preferred to spend that art creation time on creating game content. Rendered movies are extremely time consuming to do. Time and money. It's really a resource question to be honest. It consumes a huge amount of art resources. but they're awesome. Takes a lot of resources and time. We decided on a simpler approach to get the game done in a reasonable amount of time. And movies aren't something you can really reuse for another project... creatures or a 2 minute move that people will watch once? not too tought of a choice really. I love them, but its either more content, or fancier movie. Trust me, I would've loved to script a lengthy cinematic intro. Most people would prefer more content if they were given a choice. I love eye candy myself but there has to be a line drawn somewhere...
Q: How much of the location artwork is just block assembly of ready-drawn parts, and how much pure drawing with the go/no-go info put in afterwards?
A: I give my ideas to an artist and they make them a reality. all from scratch :) A lot of the artwork is pure geometry, texture, and lighting, with a healthy amount of 2D touchup. We make it all from scratch. just like mom used to make
Other Miscellaneous Queries
Q: Will there be another IW expansion?
A: Well, 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 :) I'm not 100% sure if anyone is going to do any Infinity "engine" games after we're done. There are no current plans to make any more games with the Infinity Engine.
Q: If you could make any game you wanted, what would it be, speaking for yourselves as individuals?
A: Well...that could be on the horizon so i really can't mention that right now. I can't talk about the game I want to make! If I tell you all, someone will surly rip my idea off! I would like to work on an idea I've had floating around for a while called Warp World. It's a pretty odd setting -- a little too odd to go into right now -- but it's been floating around for a while. It would be an RPG. I love working on DND stuff and would like to continue
Q: With the hardware and software development so rapid these days, where do you draw the line between developing the game and developing the engine?
A: Good question. We ask that every day of every year. BIS has the idea that we're not really in the Engine game. We'd rather make games than technology for the most part. You'll notice a lot of game companies are buying engines now. I think that's a good idea as that allows more time to develop the actual game. It takes a lot of time to develop an engine. The producer has to wade in kicking some butt once in a while to make that decision. i think it would be more cost effective to license an engine and let someone else worry about the trubs of creating the darn thing and focus more on making the game more fun. Designers develop the game, and the programmers help the engine do whatever it needs to do to support the design and art. In a lot of cases, we start with an engine already. For instance, in Lithtech 2, the renderer and whatnot is already built. I would agree with Scott. We can spend more time on the quality of the design that way. Why re-invent the wheel for each game. As a follow up to John's response, using a newer version of a pre-built engine also allows us to know our limitations up front, which allows designers to take their ideas and mold them with what is available. Willow is right. Even with a good engine, programmers seem to loathe messing around in other authors' code. It still requires a lot of work. Torment had a lot of modifications done by programmers. It's because programmers are stubborn and generally hate adapting to other coding styles/conventions. Either way you gotta merge code and wade through coworker code. The new hardware makes a lot of teams bite the bullet and decide to build a new renderer to increase the poly count, particularly on 3D games. The PS2 and X-Box will require a lot of new development pushes, as will the new video cards on the PC.
Q: With the advent of the PS2 and X-Box, what do you guys in the business feel about the future of our humble PC as a games vehicle?
A: I like PCs. The keyboard and mouse alone provide enough reason to continue developing party-based RPGs for PC. The PC will rule the world if Nvidia keeps things going... I don't think the PC will go away. Some people (scoot) just don't like consoles. think the PC monster will continue to crush. I think with the X-Box being closer to developing for the PC, I see them kinda starting to come together in some ways! I like both, but I'm told that I'm weird. I think the PC is an excellent game platform and will NOT be going away anytime in the near future. Console games are for a different market. With more powerful consoles coming out, some people feel that PC's will fade away. But that is not the case, PC sales have been moving up over the years. it's nice to kick back on the couch with a beverage playing Tony Hawk 2 or GT2. a PC game is always an option but best on what it was made for. There are some things you just can't do with a gamepad. I think consoles are going to be refined further until ANYone can use them while the PC will soon become the platform for hardcore gamers. I'd really like to do the a good control scheme for one of our games to make it play great on a console! PSX2 BG is a lot different game than the PC game.
Q: Have you found its more fun developing games than playing them?
A: Both are enjoyable, but playing games often frustrates me, and designing games often disappoints me. I like making games, I like playing games. I have trouble playing games I make. They lose some of the excitement for me :) It's like a double-edged sword. It is fun to make them, but also very hard work. But it is always fun to play games :) It probably depends on the game company. Black Isle is a hoot to work at. We do a lot of things that are fun when the games are being made, and have a good 'corporate culture' here. A lot more fun than databases, I can tell you. I like putting stuff in games that i want to exist but don't exist on the shelf yet. I think i do prefer making games. i find that there are so few games that really captivate me. Making a game and putting your heart into it, and seeing the final product you come up with to me is extremely rewarding.
Q: Where do you see the "next generation" of RPG going?
A: I want the first/third person thing to come into realization. I see a couple of the future BIS RPGs becoming some of the most important games ever created. Everything seems to be going online... I hope that is not the case. I prefer to be the hero in a single player game. I don't know. I think that we're going to see a lot of experiments with game play, multiplayer aspects, and massive multiplayer games. A lot more interaction. Maybe one day, we'll get to literally talk to NPCs. Environments will feature more in games (not just RPGs). I agree French, BIS is going to set some new standards for RPG's. I think they'll become less like playing and more interactive, pulling the player in deeper.
Q: You all asked for people to email you played game prior to the release of HOW .. What did you do with them?
A: We tested them to make sure they worked ok with the expansion. We loaded up several of them and ran around to see if there were any problems with imported characters. It's a good thing too, it helped find a couple of strange problems. They were very helpful -- Some of them were *extremely* entertaining as well :) We played a lot of them to test for compatibility between HOW and IWD
Q: How many were hacked?
A: Tons. Hahah, a lot of them :)
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