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From the forum:About testing
Doug Avery: We have around twenty Q.A. analysts that go over every aspect of the game. They test every item, every spell, every dialogue option, etc. They also play through the game about 800,000 times and try to break stuff. Currently we have one team dedicated to multi-player testing. We have two more dedicated to single-player testing. We also have two BIS testers and their job is to focus on the end game. Everyone is working at least twelve hour days and really doing a great job to make certain the game is as bug free as humanly possible.
Tex Yang: Just a little something to add to Wolf's post above.. the type of testing usually depends on the specific tasks that are assigned. Some teams will go down lists of stuff to check, some will look at an area only (something along the lines of, "Ok [Insert Tester name/team here] you get to go through Targos for the next 2 weeks"), while some others actually go from a "players perspective" and do the playthrough of the game, start to finish.
Oh, and about that Orrick bug, yep, this is going to sound like a bit of an excuse, but ever had to look at a thing for something like a gazillion hours, time after time, and after a while, you got so used to looking at it a certain way such that you just completely miss something that was painfully obvious? Yup, that's what those are. That's why we try to vary things around and get fresh eyes on something as often as we can. It's amazing how we have all the testers go through the first few areas of the game, for example, for several months now, and 'lo and behold, you get someone that's never played the game before, and they point out something that everyone just simply missed. I remember after going through this particular chest in the beginning of the game for several months, and 3 days after a few guys jumped on the project, they noticed that the little artwork for it was that of something else that definitely was not a chest (I don't remember what it is off the top of my head, but I sure remember thinking "Geez how did I not see that??". Yup, you feel stupid and think "Holy smokes HOW THE HECK did I miss that???"), but truth is, you can't catch absolutely everything, even some of the perfectionistic, hey-this-table-is-one-pixel-off-center, nit-picky, guys here.
Josh SawyerSpell Scrolls
There are loads and loads of mage spell scrolls throughout the game. At various points, we "re-supply" low-level mage spells in case people multiclass. There are also duplicates of almost every spell.
You can buy them and find them
Dragon's Eye
Dragon's Eye is not the final area of the game, but it is in the second half of the game.
Undead
For good and neutral clerics, it's not too hard to destroy undead. For evil clerics, it's good either way. If you get the equivalent of a "destroy" result, you can control the undead and have them energy drain things. If you get a "turn" result, you rebuke them. They get -2 to AC, no Dex bonus for AC, and are stunned for ten rounds.
Inventory
The inventory has been in this state since before E3 -- except that the paper doll hadn't been removed. I felt the need to post an inventory shot even without the avatar included just to dispel the prevailing belief that the inventory screen had somehow been overtaken by terrorists and zerglings.
Tex Yang (Bloodlust)Iron Rations
Irons rations are like healing potions. They heal 3 hit points per use, it's just a cheap "I don't have too much money but need the healing" type of deal..
Doung Avery (Wolf)Weapon Combos
Just to clarify, the weapon combos can also be accessed from the main game interface. You right click on the weapon combo buttons and you can select a new combo right from there. You no longer have to go into your inventory screen to switch out weapons. You do still have to go there to equip armor, set up your weapon combos and quick items and, of course, manage your inventory.
Collector's Edition
Here is a brief description of what happened with the whole CE thing. I thought you guys deserved answers to your repeated questions about it. Sorry it is so late in coming, but I had to verify a few things before I posted.
Initially we came up with the idea to offer a collector's edition for Icewind Dale II. We were only able to offer it directly off of our website due to distribution conflicts. When EBworld.com stated they were going to be selling it, we contacted them and told them that we couldn't offer it to them because of contractual obligations. Cut to the beginning of June. All parties involved have reached a consensus and EBworld.com will be selling it on their website, but the copies are coming directly from our company store to fill their orders. This is a good thing for everyone involved. You get EBworld.com's larger distribution range and we get to reach a broader audience. This is the reason that we have removed the exclusive tags from our advertisements. Also, our company store is still offering it directly as well, so nothing has changed on that front. I hope that explains things more clearly than they have been in the past. As always, thank you.
Scott EvertsThe interface
To answer the question on what the bar is below the small portraits- that is the health bar. It is currently not working so all you see is a black bar. This will replace the red overlay on the portrait and should be alot easier to see. You will still be able to turn on and off the hard numbers just like in the original IWD.
There seems to be alot of comments on the large portrait in the inventory. When we decided to make 800x600 the default resolution that gave us alot of extra space to work with. I started playing around with layouts for spell, inventory, and record screens and thought it would be cool to use a standard format with the character portrait on the left and all the info on the right. When you switched between each character data screen the portrait would stay on the left for a consistant look. It also made it really easy to remember what character you were working on. The main reason I came up with that was because of all the fan interest in the portraits. It seemed from all the posts and comments that players really liked them. They were so small in the original game that alot of the detail was lost. The larger ones just looked much better. Also, since the avatars are so small I think people relate more to the portraits. So you can blame me if you don't like the larger size.
As for operation, it is pretty much functionally identical to the original game. Except for the weapon combo slots of course. The 4 colors are for skin, hair, major cloth color, & minor cloth color. Originally you had to go to a subscreen to change the skin and hair. That seemed silly so we moved them to the main screen. Also, there is now a default button in the color selection panel. It returns the selected color to the original portait default. Each portrait has a default colorset so now you have an easy way to return the colors to the original setting if you changed them to something wacky by mistake. |
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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
