Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Tigranes]

You can get lucky or get unlucky, but your failure to notice a key member of your party is paralysed has nothing to do with the luck.

And that is my point. I'm not trying to say you're shit or you're great, that's not really important. But the point is that when a game is too easy, you can just win and win without ever noticing these things or learning how to deal with them. It's a good thing that you were beaten the first couple of times, because it encouraged you as a player to learn to use all the resources you have at your disposal and think more about what is happening.

And that's why everyone laughs at you when you reroll to win the game then preen at 'hur hur so much for tactical combat' - because the game was telling you to play more tactically, and it was you who avoided doing so at the time. Equally, it's great that you went back and won it. Of course that didn't require some tactical work of stable genius - IWD is not a tactical masterpiece or anything - but it meant learning a little more about how the system works and that's where the enjoyment lies.

 

[Tigranes]

re. IWD2, I suspect the Level One Jansens may not be possible with that one, but I'll probably play it in some way afterwards.

 

[ga♥]

Well I would really enjoy a IWDII LP in the codex playground if any of you guys plan to do it.
Even with retarded characters named after the witcher.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Hah, I didn't even remember that when not on Heart of Fury there's only 2 golems besides the boss. That stuff's for kids.
The HOF version is for real men.

 

[Sigourn]

Why you untermenschen don't set-up a Let's play IWDII insted.
I have problems with resolution, dxwrapper and shiaaat and can't play it atm (and I don't have time to tinker about it).

I've managed to set up all IE games to work properly at vanilla resolution, windowed mode, cursor locked inside window. The only negative is that you must play the game with only the desktop inside. Else graphical glitches will appear.

 

[ga♥]

Why you untermenschen don't set-up a Let's play IWDII insted.
I have problems with resolution, dxwrapper and shiaaat and can't play it atm (and I don't have time to tinker about it).

I've managed to set up all IE games to work properly at vanilla resolution, windowed mode, cursor locked inside window. The only negative is that you must play the game with only the desktop inside. Else graphical glitches will appear.

I started having problems after upgrading to win10. On win7 all the ddrawfix et similia worked like a charm.
The only IE game that still works with no issue on my crappy laptop is PS:T sadly.

I had to get the EE version of the others

 

[Tigranes]

Wouldn't the rational thing have been to downgrade your Windows?

 

[ga♥]

Wouldn't the rational thing have been to downgrade your Windows?

Depends. If all you do with your PC is playing IE games, the answer is a bold yes.
If you happen to be an adult, with a full time job (which means you sell your time to someone else in exchange of currency), and different uses for you computah then the answer is no.

 

[Tigranes]

I am four years old and have never heard of this "job". I have vaguely heard that some people who have these "jobs" also have a separate "work computer", but this must also have been fake news.

(IWD1 works fine on my Win10, so it seems to be a luck of the draw.)

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It is very much luck of the drawer. When I went to install IWD onto my Win7 PC it wouldn't even get through the install, even though I've installed it on that very PC many times over the years. Hence I had to load it onto my laptop, also Win7, which was fine.

 

[ga♥]

I am four years old and have never heard of this "job". I have vaguely heard that some people who have these "jobs" also have a separate "work computer", but this must also have been fake news.

Look it is simple. You start by taking your average pay per hour. Then you try to predict how many hours you would need to fix the issue (in a very optimistic scenario of, let's say, 100% success ratio).
Using those simple considerations, getting the EE was the cheaper option.
Even if IWD1EE is horribly unbalanced sadly.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Does anyone mind if I just quickly make a point about how dramatically IWD is better than BG2 in one very specific area?

Just taking those screenies earlier and I just so happen to be playing BG2 for the first time ever at the same time, and I'm absolutely flabberghasted at how much more beautiful IWD is compared to BG2, I never before knew the sheer extent of this before today.

Compare my screenies of the Iron Golems above to the ones in BG2:

(This one isn't my screeny, it's an internet one, I'm not getting my laptop out all over again)

But jeezus christ, there's not even any competition. IWD's are so finely detailed, one might even say intricate. Then I look at BG2, and I see an almost prosper blob in a vaguely humanoid shape. If the game didn't explicitly tell me it was an Iron Golem I'd assume it was some kind of spectre or something.

Also, I can't remember the sounds the BG2 ones make, but in IWD dale they creak around in a wonderfully visceral metallic stomp, like something out of terminator or robocop, but I have no recollection of that from BG2. Though on this last point maybe someone can correct me.

And BG2 came out after IWD, and likely with a much higher budget and more people working on it, borrowing a lot from the general Black Isle pool of assets. Yeah, I know IWD doesn't necessarily derserve the title of best IE game for various supposedly more important issues, but when it comes to overall art and sound design, crap, even some modern Witcher 3 type shit still doesn't hold a candle to IWD's prowess here.

 

[ga♥]

One thing I always wondered is related to assets. AFAIK Black Isle and Bioware exchanged assets a lot at the time. So I always wondered why they didn't borrow the Water elemental animation from IWD for BG2; it's basically the only "element" missing.

even some modern Witcher 3 type shit still doesn't hold a candle to IWD's prowess here.

 

[Sigourn]

IMO Icewind Dale nailed the Iron Golems. Aside from their obvious size, it is their bulk that makes them stand out for me. They remind me of these enemies from Dark Souls.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Aren't all golems in BG just recolors of the same model? That screenshot shows that at least the stone and iron are just that.

It's tough to beat IWD in art direction and quality.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

 

[Tigranes]

One thing I always wondered is related to assets. AFAIK Black Isle and Bioware exchanged assets a lot at the time. So I always wondered why they didn't borrow the Water elemental animation from IWD for BG2; it's basically the only "element" missing.

even some modern Witcher 3 type shit still doesn't hold a candle to IWD's prowess here.

IWD has style - the way it blends its colour palette into places like the Severed Hand, or even just the walls of caverns, is amazing.

That said, I don't think they could just have taken stuff from IWD like that; when you see some mods take IWD/2 spell icons, spell animations, etc. and put it in BG2, the results are quite jarring.

Aren't all golems in BG just recolors of the same model? That screenshot shows that at least the stone and iron are just that.

It's tough to beat IWD in art direction and quality.

The iron golems are entirely different, though - IWD's golems are much closer to Yaga-Shura and the fire giants.

 

[ga♥]

That said, I don't think they could just have taken stuff from IWD like that; when you see some mods take IWD/2 spell icons, spell animations, etc. and put it in BG2, the results are quite jarring.

I may be wrong... but the first thing that comes to my mind are the Salamanders. Aren't the Salamanders the same in IWD and BG2? Like they just reused them?

 

[Sigourn]

Tara Strong is so niiiiice, shit.

I replayed the boss fight once more, this time no summoned barbarians, no White Bishop, just me and my comrades. Won once more, all party alive, but most importantly: I didn't skip the dialogue before the fight. I didn't want my last memory of this battle being "1 1 1 1 1 ENTER ENTER ENTER ENTER ENTER 1 1 ENTER" and so on.

 

[Tigranes]

That said, I don't think they could just have taken stuff from IWD like that; when you see some mods take IWD/2 spell icons, spell animations, etc. and put it in BG2, the results are quite jarring.

I may be wrong... but the first thing that comes to my mind are the Salamanders. Aren't the Salamanders the same in IWD and BG2? Like they just reused them?

Oh, yes, of course there's plenty of asset sharing. What I was saying re. water elemental example is that they couldn't always do it.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The iron golems are entirely different, though

Where do you mean? In IWD?
I meant that in BG they're the same. I don't remember if ALL types use the same model, but that screenshot shows the same model for stone and iron.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The iron golems are entirely different, though

Where do you mean? In IWD?
I meant that in BG they're the same. I don't remember if ALL types use the same model, but that screenshot shows the same model for stone and iron.

There were Clay as well, so it's even worse, proving our point.

 

[Anthedon]

Inspired by all the recent activity in this thread I started another playthrough of IWD2. Looks like I got lucky since it seems to work right out of the box on Windows 10 (GoG version). Has anyone played with the fixpack (http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1085-almaterias-iwd2-fixpack/)?

Looks like only minor stuff and I don't think I ever used it in the past.

 

[Tigranes]

Anthedon I've never seen that one, but I typically use a simple loadout of G3's IWD2 Tweaks and Widescreen Mod. I suppose it can't hurt to, uh, fix the gender of Undead, even if you'll probably not notice 99% orf the fixes.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Conlan's Hammer & other weapons can help strike the Golems, but overall the Jansens' THAC0 aren't high enough to land more than one hit per round on average (from the entire party). And because not everyone shares Ludwig's AC, every round they spend swinging something is a round where they have a 50>% chance of instadeath. Hence my point on tedium: I could pause every milisecond moving them in and out of Golem range and striking, because I don't have enough Summon scrolls and everything I can summon dies in one hit anyway.

I have saves before & after, but it's likely that I'll move on. Let's say the Jansens managed to channel a bit of distant cousin Jan, and talk the Golems to an untimely demise.

It's come back into my memory that in IWD2, when I found I needed to slowly whittle down an Iron Golem without getting near one I used Slings and Bullets, and for some reason they were effective when arrows weren't, and were carried by my party members with the shittest thac0. I notice from your words you imply you just tried tried attacking them full-on, and from the picture there's a lot of Jansens carrying bows. Did you ever try bullets? I'm only guessing here, IWD2 might be completely different to 1 in this regard, I can't remember.