Icewind Dale II Interview

Part 2

RPGDot: What is your favorite area in the game? And what makes it so kewl?

Dave: Well, I'll automatically discount all my areas, loathing everything that I make as I do.

I'd still have to say the entire opening. I'm sure people will disagree - different tastes, and all - but I feel that the first chunk of the game - Targos and all that goes on there, from leaping onto the docks all the way to driving the last of the goblins off the palisade - is the best opening of any Infinity Engine game. It's a nice mix of action, role-playing, humor, and tutorial - good stuff.

RPGDot: You probably went through the game (or parts of it) a few times. What does your preferred party look like? And why is it such a good party?

Dave: Well, since the game has pre-made parties available for the PC's immediate use, many of the designers use one continuously to test and tweak them as thoroughly as possible. I used a party called The Lady's Lament for the vast majority of my play:

Sheris Lyricist
A human female bard and 'leader' of the party anywhere there aren't monsters prowling about. She makes great back-up everywhere else. I like bards. Yes sir, I do.

Geldin and Khatja
A half-orc fighter and barbarian couple. These two kick are the party's chief Kickers of All Arse; I still have yet to decide which of the two is the most useful. While at certain points of the game different earned feats or abilities temporarily (but clearly) placed one over the other, it really comes down to the individual battles. In the end I'd have to give the coveted Bloody Chainsaw Award to Geldin simply because he was somewhat more flexible, though there are certain jobs he could never get done as well as his raging, damage-resisting honey-bunny Khatja.

Laeris
A human male cleric of Ilmater. This guy was poop at first until we tweaked him a bit. He's a valuable defensive caster, now. Still, he's like a spell repository in two legs; good enough in a fight not to get killed off, but that's about it.

Vraedna
A female drow sorcerer. About half the time I play I start leveling her as a wizard right away. She seems slightly more effective as a wizard, but I have more fun playing her as a sorceress - blasting off spells left and right, never having to flee and switch memorized incantations about and rest to 'prepare for a fight,' and so on.

Kylie
The ubiquitous lightfoot halfling rogue. He's pretty much everything you'd expect from that sort of character - reliable but none too exciting. I sort of regard him more as a tool than a proper character sometimes - automated gun (arrow) turret, trap disarmer, lock picker, and occasional scout and backstabber. With both a bard and a sorceress in the party, though, I find that scouting was often better done by making the entire party magically invisible. I imagine this makes Kylie all pouty and resentful until the party encounters some more traps to disarm and whatnot.

When I'm not using the Lady's Lament, I'm usually stomping about with my goof-off party of a paladin and his medieval fantasy cheer squad: four female and one vaguely effeminate male bard. Once the cheer squad lasses (and lad) get that Lingering Song feat and can start trading off between singing, firing arrows, casting spells, and musically boosting the heck out of that paladin, it's a real hoot.

RPGDot: Would it be possible to finish the game by using only the same class?

Dave: It won't always be easy, but it's certainly possible. Fighters, clerics, druids, certainly... as for wizards and sorcerers? Whew. I honestly couldn't say. Bard and rogues are on the cusp, too. But I've been wanted to make it through the game with a band of thieves for some time... perhaps after we ship.

RPGDot: And could you finish it with a single character? And if so what class/race should it be?

Dave: It's a bit tougher to do than it was to do it IWD. OK, a lot tougher. I don't want to say that anything's impossible, but... that'd have to be one very patient player. And with a good knowledge of the rules and cheese tactics, to boot. I don't think it's been done here yet, but as far as I know no one's made a truly concerted effort.

RPGDot: When does the Heart of Fury mode kick in and what extra's are in it?

Dave: After the player beats the game the first time. The key difference - aside from more, tougher monsters - are in the unique items. They all have their Heart of Fury counterparts, some of which are insanely powerful.

RPGDot: A lot of effort has gone into the new interface. Why was a complete redesign of the interface required?

Dave: Like any change in a sequel, I'm not certain as it was so much 'required' as it was a great opportunity for improvement. There has been some grousing about our Infinity Engine interfaces around here for some time; we've been muttering about how we could or should improve it since Torment and IWD, really. And I feel we've done that, too... improve it, I mean. Not just grouse. But we did grouse. A lot.

It also gave us the opportunity to try out some concepts we intend to apply to future projects... the quick weapon set system, for instance, and customizable interface buttons.

RPGDot: What is the single best feature in Icewind Dale II for you?

Dave: I like the new interface, the customizable interface in particular. Being able to set each character's buttons to whatever I want made the game easier to play (and thus more fun) for me - less digging around in sub-menus for the skills, spells, or items I use a lot.

RPGDot: And which feature that hasn't made it into Icewind Dale II will you miss most?

Dave: I'm almost afraid to say this... but... I wish we could have done new avatars. And/or anything more to increase character customization; I think that's a big, fun part of the game. Since helmets don't do much in 3E, I thought it would be cool if we could make the avatar's entire head a 'helmet' of sorts; that way a player could have PC's with one of a number of hair styles (including bald), bearded or clean-shaven, scarred or with an eye-patch ("YAR, MATEY!"), whatever, and switch it up on the fly. Goofy but admittedly fun.

RPGDot: The developers at BIS have always been active at the boards. Would Icewind Dale II have been a different game if there wasn't this degree of interaction? And if so, could you give an example?

Dave: I would be hard-pressed to say, really. Perhaps, though. There are a lot of people with good ideas out there; the message boards certainly help us communicate with those folks, and they can spark all sorts of great ideas and tweaks to the game. I'm not sure if I've ever seen some sort of vast change enacted due to message board interaction, but it's still nice to have. So different game? No, probably not. But better game? I'd like the think so, yeah.

However, it's worth keeping in mind that there are plenty of really, really bad ideas and nasty (or simply uniformed) people out there as well, so... well... it's no wonder that the great majority of us aren't on there.

It's nice that being on those boards isn't a required part of the job, though at times I wish we did have some sort of full-time on-line customer service representative and information source person. I just want to chat with the gamers, see how different players tick, what they like and don't like, more abstract discussion of design and gaming in general - that's what I enjoy about the boards. Unfortunately, I'm hardly ever able to do that - most of my time seems to be consumed by suggestions (from perfectly reasonable to hopelessly far-fetched), callous demands (often coupled with silly threats), loaded questions, and niggling rules queries than anything else. Ah, well... but like I said, it's still nice to always have those lines of communication open.

RPGDot: What work is still being done on Icewind Dale II at the moment?

Dave: Bug-fixing, and that's it. Really! We just want to get it as clean as possible. We weren't very happy about the state IWD went out in, so...

RPGDot: Is there something you would like to add?

Dave: Not really, no. Just my thanks, I suppose, for giving me this opportunity to talk about the game and all... and my thanks to everyone who's read this far, and for those who've shown us support in the past. We hope Icewind Dale 2 lives up to all your expectations.

Thanks for answering the questions.

My pleasure.

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