I really did not like IWD. No interesting characters, the plot was boring and transparent, and the level design was occasionally frustrating. I enjoyed BG 2 MUCH more.
DTG
2983
You could do that in Baldur’s Gate also. I played it to the end with my own hand-rolled party the first time. At the time I assumed that how I SHOULD play it. I didn’t start reading about all of the character stuff in the game until I was half-way through it. Then I played it again with the in-game characters.
I loved IWD. It’s Baldur’s Gate with the complex story striped away and leaving the core fighting. It’s got a basic but (in my opinion) satisfying plot that gives you a reason to just get to the next dungeon.
BG is great when that’s what you want, and IWD is great when you just want a dungeon crawl. It’s like a RTS game that you can pause during combat, assess the situation, and issue orders… and with fireballs and web spells.
Warren
2984
Icewind Dale is one of the handful of RPG’s I ever finished. In what would on the surface seem backwards, the emphasis on loot and combat over story somehow was a factor in allowing the “mustn’t miss anything collect EVERYTHING” mentality that, ironically, keeps me from completing RPG’s!
I forgot how painful IE games were without the running in Torment. Or maybe I am missing a key. . .
For Torment? Hold down <shift > and left-click.
edit - nevermind, misread
FWIW, I think running is allowed in BG II and IWD II.
Yeah, I know how to do it there. ;)
I do miss it in IWD. I had actually forgotten the IWD interface. I can’t seem to access save/load without 'o’options -> click save or load. Doh.
Yeah, I know how to do it there. ;)
I do miss it in IWD. I had actually forgotten the IWD interface. I can’t seem to access save/load without 'o’options -> click save or load. Doh.
Talorc
2989
I really enjoyed IWD as well. I am so tempted to get this on GoG for the digital fully patched easiness, despite the fact I can see the IWD 1 box sitting on the shelf within metres.
I thought IWD 2 was more than D&D 2.5 and was pretty much D&D 3.0?
Actually, yeah - it was a modified 3.0 model. Not as true to the ruleset as ToEE (which was actually 3.5) and so it often gets the “2.5” moniker that doesn’t really exist, but it was technically a 3.0 game.
Tyjenks
2991
Oooh, they need to get ToEE. I skipped it because of the troubles it had and then never got around to getting it once the patches and fan patches came out.
Agreed. I’ve got it on disk, but a digital copy would ease my mind and make it more likely to get some playing time (avoids the hassle of searching for the disk … yes, I’m that lazy).
I’ll say that the Circle of Eight (co8.org) patch/mod pack is quite refined at this point. I consider it nigh indispensible should you want to do a run-through in ToEE.
Memory might be failing here, but I am recalling Icewind dale 2 having a clear mix of mechanics from both rulesets. Most of Icewind Dale 2’s development occurred while 3e was still a work in progress itself. I remember that often things looked like what their 3e counter parts were going to look like (that’s especially true of feats/skills). But I seem to recall a number of clear 2e mechanics.
2.0 mechanics would be things like thac0, -ac, and weapon proficiencies (and armor proficiencies too I think). Along side feats and skills. Also, 3e didn’t launch with all the extra races and their level adjustments like asimaar (though it got those eventually, of course). I recall cure spells resembling their 2e counterparts.
At the very least, I’m sure we’ll be able to make a direct comparison later this fall (if someone doesn’t recall exact mechanics before then).
You know, I don’t have the slightest idea who owns ToEE now. It was published by Atari, though. GoG has a deal with Atari. and the recent deal with Hasbro is supposed to clear up the D&D licensing issue. So I like to think we’re going to see it at some point. But will they really just release all the IE/modern era D&D rpgs right in a row? Maybe not. shrugs
Dungeons and Dragons 3E came out in 2000 (don’t feel bad, I had to look it up).
Icewind Dale II came out in August of 2002.
What you might be mixing up is the release of D&D 3.5, which was in '03.
The weird thing is that I didn’t realize how recently Icewind Dale II actually came out. I’d always remembered it as a turn-of-the-decade game.
The beginning fights were brutal, but they were also the best part. That’s what I always loved about Icewind Dale: less talk, more fighting, and the very real chance that you’d get absolutely demolished by the next encounter. Also, for once it was an Infinity Engine game where the bard was actually a viable choice for a party member. Especially in TotL. I distinctly remember some of those higher-level songs coming in very handy.
Can’t wait for IWD2 to come up on the service, though. Haven’t been able to locate my disks in a while, and it’s definitely the better of the two experiences. Especially the opening town! Probably my favorite RPG opening from that era.
The climactic fight in the first IWD dungeon features something like 3 orc archers, 3-4 orc melee people, and an ogre. It’s very easy for the party to go “pop” there.
Huh, I was thinking Icewind Dale 2 was a turn of the decade game too. Clearly I was confused.
So then, IWD 2 definitely has the 3rd Edition D&D rules where universally higher numbers are better? Sweet. I never did play IWD 2 because we could never get together to play it in multiplayer.
Stop posting! IWD2 is coming up soon on my backlog, but I’d like to postpone it so I can give Dragon Age 2 as good of a chance as I can. I don’t want to get sick of Bioware. (I know Black Isle did it, but you get the idea.)
Dejin
2999
Me too. I think I got quite far in BG & BG2 (minor spoilers: in BG1 returned to Candlekeep and in BG2 stalled out in the underdark) but never finished either. But I did finish IWD.
I enjoyed it, it is much more hack & slash and less story driven than BG1 and 2, but I still had a lot of fun, and IMO it had more interesting involved story lines than something like Diablo.
Assuming you’re referring to the storytelling stuff, there’s no danger of that happening. Neither of the IWDs make any kind of attempt at being something more or other than tactical crawlers.
As for the tactical combat… The DA:O system is, well, it’s the pixie-book version of the systems the IWDs use. It facilitates maybe 1% of the tactical mayhem the A/D&D systems facilitate, and the IWDs use much more than 1% of the A/D&D systems. You should try not to compare them.
Incidentally, why is it the true-to-tabletop games seems to have died out? - I can’t be the only guy in the world who has noticed that even really bad tabletop systems are generally much better designed than equivalent video game systems. It is that our collective attention spans have shrivelled into something too withered & feeble to grasp the video game equivalent of 20-200 pages worth of rules?
I discussed this issue with my kid a few times, so take the following as anecdotal;
He owns the 4th Ed. books to D&D, which are much easier to access and make good use of miniatures (something that is not in short supply at my household). He has a few friends who like to play, but the lion’s share of their entertainment attention is still sharply focused on video games.
From our conversations and observing their behavior, it seems to be a shift in socialization. Small cliques are even formed around favored gaming genres (sports, FPS, strategy, MMOs, etc.). Whereas you and I likely enjoyed countless late nights eating pizza and finding creative ways to apply 1d4+1 points of damage with our friends, video games are more accessible to the general public and therefore create a wider bond with the school population and can transcend normal social boundaries.
