Time of Icewind Dale Content's Availability in the BG Campaign [SoD and IWD spoilers]

[Guest Ludwig]

I like GunnerBlack's idea. Though I think it would still require some artwork and effort to implement it. Maybe even the boat building could be simplified further. So, to build up on his idea and make it even simpler to do:

Once you get Shandalar's cloak, the portal could take you to Easthaven in an older time instead of back to Shandalar and then you would have to finish IWD1 to be able to go back to Ulgoth's Beard. Even Shandalar wouldn't know that this would happen. And it would be caused by the magical nature of the Ice Island, which is emphasised a lot already there. This would be immersive enough in my opinion.

[Lightbringer]

On 9/8/2019 at 1:00 PM, The_Rock said:

Yes, mate, that's exactly what I had in mind! Imagine a game with several main quest lines that can be begun by a low-level party. The more headway you make in one line the tougher things get while the experience gain has very little to show for it. In that case you choose the next one you'd like to tackle and switch quests over and over again until you have all the quest branches resolved with incremental returns as far as story elements and narration. There's potential to make terrific non-linear experiences with high replay value that way just like BG1 and Shadows of Amn.

Dude, that sounds like a lot of fun. I don't know how feasible it is to turn BG et al into that idea, but I'd sure play a new game like that.

[The_Rock]

27 minutes ago, Lightbringer said:

Dude, that sounds like a lot of fun. I don't know how feasible it is to turn BG et al into that idea, but I'd sure play a new game like that.

Well that's how I think of Chapter II of Shadows of Amn. You embark on a bunch of quests but some linger in your journal until just before Suldanessellar.

I take my time raising funds for Imoen's rescue. In fact, I have over 37 hours of gameplay logged in BG2 and tomorrow is the day that I finally set sail for Brynnlaw lol.

 

Edited September 9, 2019 by The_Rock

[Lightbringer]

19 hours ago, The_Rock said:

Well that's how I think of Chapter II of Shadows of Amn. You embark on a bunch of quests but some linger in your journal until just before Suldanessellar.

I take my time raising funds for Imoen's rescue. In fact, I have over 37 hours of gameplay logged in BG2 and tomorrow is the day that I finally set sail for Brynnlaw lol.

 

Ok I see what you mean. In my mind I do divide the major quests of Ch2 into tiers.

I hit up the circus and the slavers as tier 1 -- basic recovery of assets. Then explore the rest of the misc content in the city districts and sewers, D'arnise and Trademeet. That's tier 2.  Windspear, Umar, and the first level of Watcher's Keep is tier 3. By this point I have enough +3 weapons to tackle the demons in the Planar Prison and the Planar Sphere -- tier 4.

Sometime around tier 2 or 3 I remember to get the Thieves Guild -- it's not a priority, so I let it languish a bit. Around the same time I go for the Unseeing Eye cult. The beholders freak me out, even with the Shield of Balduran. Advanced stuff like the various liches and the Twisted Rune usually get left for post-Underdark. Now, I've yet to play a modded BG2, beyond simple things like Unfinished Business and a few NPC mods, so I assume that "progression" would be altered. My next run (with IWD!) will be a full mega-mod EET setup, with SCS. Completely different experience.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Lightbringer

[Guest Andrey]

I really like the idea of having one-directional portal somewhere, so you have to pass all the IWD content at once. It will take much less programming efforts and plot synchronizations as for other approaches. It can be done how GunnerBlack described or how it implemented in Never Ending Journey bg1 mod (a portal from Irenicus dungeon). I would prefer it to be optional and to have several options to leave IWD if content is too difficult (without returning back).

[Guest GunnerBlack]

I would say its necessary to do iwd 1 all at once, because its 100 years ago. It's just not feasible to go back and forth through time at will. I'm not very worried about people not remembering charname. It was a hundred years ago, that's a pretty forgivable plot hole considering K4thos is merging hames that were never intended to be merged. The bigger issue is the demon in SoD having been destroyed 100 years prior.

[Jarno Mikkola]

2 hours ago, Guest GunnerBlack said:

I would say its necessary to do iwd 1 all at once, because its 100 years ago. It's just not feasible to go back and forth through time at will. I'm not very worried about people not remembering charname. It was a hundred years ago, that's a pretty forgivable plot hole considering K4thos is merging hames that were never intended to be merged. The bigger issue is the demon in SoD having been destroyed 100 years prior.

Have you read any D&D novels... demons won't die, ever, as they can't. As they happen to manifest, rather than get evoked into the realms. So they get banished, not killed. That's the whole point of the speach of the IWD games intro. As he happens to be looking back.

But I would still contend that time travel is not the approach I would take. 

[Lightbringer]

I just finished SoD for the first time, fully experiencing what we've all been talking about. Guys, there's ZERO reason for the end boss of SoD to be the same guy as the one in IWD1. It's effectively an Easter egg. The name Belhifet appears a bare handful of times.  I think Hephernaan might speak it in audio once. We are twisting in the wind and coming up with time travel schemes and limited wishes and all kinds of other stuff for no reason.

Change his name. Seriously. Make it a near homophone (sounds-alike) like Gelhifet or Pelhifet. It will appear in floating text as Hephernaan speaks it that one time. The player is in the middle of preparing for a tough fight -- the discrepancy between the audio and the text will be minor and not really relevant. No need to alter audio files.

Additionally, it implies that the two arch-fiends could be related.  They could be executing a two-pronged attack on Faerun -- from the North and the Sword Coast.

We don't need to conjure all these contrivances. All we need to do is change a single character in a name probably less than a dozen times. In IWD-in-EET, the antagonists in IWD1 and in SoD need not be the same individual.

[subtledoctor]

Agree. I also just finished SoD for the first time. There is also a mention of the Crenshinibon (or whatever) by the fiend at the end who lets you onto the elevator. Pretty minor stuff though. 

OTOH k4thos is determined to include both IWD1 and IWD2 (which IMHO is unfortunate... this probably would have been playable long ago, and wouldn’t require engine hacks that exclude certain platforms, if it was limited to IWD1). And IWD1 + IWD2 together does need some kind of time-travel nonsense... 

[Lightbringer]

Crenshinibon is a reference to the Icewind Dale series of novels, and unconnected to the video game, iirc.

You bring up good points about IWD1&2 needing reconciliation. The more I think about it, the more I see that they can actually sit together in the same timeline, in the same worldspace. No need for time travel or other shenanigans.

First, let's get out of the way the fact that this is not perfect, nor canon, nor anything like that. Then again, neither is the whole concept of IWD-in-EET. It isn't really about seamless lore, but about getting to play through IWD with our BG-EET party. Also, I have played fairly little of IWD2 -- only up to the doors of the Ice Temple. Much of what I can speak to about it is from the experiences of others and web resources.

SoD, IWD1, and IWD2 are all about one thing -- a fiendish (in fact, infernal) invasion of the Realms. I believe the antagonists of IWD2 are supposed to be half-fiend scions of Belhifet or something? Regardless, you have 3 different antagonist sets each leading a separate incursion into the Realms. This actually sets up a pretty cool idea of a coordinated three-pronged attack that the Bhaalspawn thwarts. 

Change the Name of IWD1 or SoD's antagonist as I already mentioned.

I believe the main issue with IWD2 is that you revisit some areas of IWD1 -- namely Kuldahar, Dragon's Eye, and the Shattered Hand. Every other part of the game occurs elsewhere. You can actually have IWD2 occur alongside IWD1 if you do one thing -- prevent moving into the final 2 chapters of IWD2 until after you go through the Shattered Hand in IWD1.

I took a look at the sequence -- the conflicting areas in IWD 2 all occur at the very end of that plot. Even if you're doing the events Up North in parallel to each other, enough time elapses in IWD1's plot between Kuldahar and the Shattered Hand that by the time you need to return to Kuldahar in IWD2's plot, the changes are justifiable -- a week or more.

Of all the maps, IWD2's version of Kuldahar Pass is the most changed -- namely it's no longer snow covered. Okay, well that's due to the big tree starting to wake up. How could it happen so fast? Good question, ask Sylvanus next time you see him. "A Druid Did It". Not perfect, but if that's the worst case we're in good shape.

The rest -- Dragon's Eye, and the Shattered Hand --  could all be that the Infernal Twins' forces moved in to occupy the areas you cleared out for them a couple weeks ago. Easy.

Even references to taking revenge for some action by a party of adventurers a century ago could be referring to the original portal that Jerrod closed.

With this, you have two versions of the revisited maps -- one for IWD1's plot, and one for IWD2's plot. Once you move into the final chapters of IWD2's plot, the maps get swapped.

Am I missing anything? Could easily be -- my memory of the two games is thin or even missing in parts. I still think it could be done with a little creativity.

[subtledoctor]

16 hours ago, Lightbringer said:

Crenshinibon is a reference to the Icewind Dale series of novels, and unconnected to the video game, iirc.

I never read any Icewind Dale novels, and the word is obviously familiar to me, so it must have something to do with the video game. It's been a while since I played IWD - Beamdog screwed up the 2.5 patch and prevented iOS players from modding their games - but I recall at the end, you transport form Lower Dorn's Deep back to Easthaven for the end-game, there is some kind of crystal that is important to the plot.  You fight the multiple-man Pomab over it?  Isn't it how Belhifet opened the Gate?  Or, how you teleport to the Gate to stop him?  Something like that.

16 hours ago, Lightbringer said:

Am I missing anything? Could easily be -- my memory of the two games is thin or even missing in parts. I still think it could be done with a little creativity.

You are only missing that K4thos is doing this as he sees fit, period, end of story.  So all this discussion is moot... sorry

[Lightbringer]

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I never read any Icewind Dale novels, and the word is obviously familiar to me, so it must have something to do with the video game. It's been a while since I played IWD - Beamdog screwed up the 2.5 patch and prevented iOS players from modding their games - but I recall at the end, you transport form Lower Dorn's Deep back to Easthaven for the end-game, there is some kind of crystal that is important to the plot.  You fight the multiple-man Pomab over it?  Isn't it how Belhifet opened the Gate?  Or, how you teleport to the Gate to stop him?  Something like that.

Ah, could be. Been a long time since I played through IWD1. Probably wouldn't affect the simultaneous plotting idea, regardless.

 

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

You are only missing that K4thos is doing this as he sees fit, period, end of story.  So all this discussion is moot... sorry

Nah, I never forget that -- it's a given. Last thing we heard from him was that he hadn't settled on a solution after opening it up for ideas. I just thought I'd revise my contributions to the discussion.  I'm a novelist by profession and I recognized that we had the design equivalent of writer's block. When all your available options seem to conflict and contradict each other, often you need to backtrack and challenge the assumptions that lead you to the present problem.

One of the underlying assumptions was that IWD, IWD2, and SoD couldn't all exist in the same time and space together. By challenging that I was able to devise a potential solution that avoids much of the messiness we had encountered with time travel, wishes, matrix simulations, etc.

It's always up to K4thos to do what he will or won't with our ideas. I just wanted to present one that may work, in case he still hasn't found a solution.

[subtledoctor]

I still maintain that the base IWD-in-EET should simply add the IWD games as campaigns, the way Black Pits is in BGEE. (Specifically, one component to add the three IWD1 campaigns for those who can’t use .exe hacks, and obe component to add the IWD2 campaign for those who can.)  And then have separate components and/or separate mods for actually tying those campaigns to the main adventure. Plenty of opportunity for people to make it work however they think would make sense.

But! I don’t think it’s going to go in that direction. 

[Lightbringer]

4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I still maintain that the base IWD-in-EET should simply add the IWD games as campaigns, the way Black Pits is in BGEE. (Specifically, one component to add the three IWD1 campaigns for those who can’t use .exe hacks, and obe component to add the IWD2 campaign for those who can.)  And then have separate components and/or separate mods for actually tying those campaigns to the main adventure. Plenty of opportunity for people to make it work however they think would make sense.

But! I don’t think it’s going to go in that direction. 

Yeah, probably not. Though right now, your idea seems pretty good, now, and the most modular. Everyone can receive (or make) the version they most like.

Reviewing past posts, K4thos seemed pretty convinced that making them all simultaneous would require too much story rework and was not an option, either.

Well, you and I can dream, can't we?

Edited April 7, 2020 by Lightbringer

[Guest GunnerBlack]

I'd still like to suggest that the island quest for shandalars cloak is pointless on its it's own, puts the player in the right geographical area, and is extremely compatible with a time travel scenario. The only incompatibility is people bot not remembering you as the hero of ice wind dale, which to me is both extremely minor and explainable by the passage of time.