Ironworks Gaming Forum - OFFICIAL -- BG2 Expansion just announced!

Latest news on the BG2 Expansion from the Bioware message board:

<font color="red">More romances: It's certainly possible, given the time. I sure wouldn't mind writing a romance plot for Mazzy. I'm rather fond of her voice (and halflings in general). If I were you, I'd pester James and Kevin (the fellas who make this decision).

Thieves getting DW and magical items: By magical items I assume you mean scrolls? We're considering this one. As for DW, they can already use it...just not very well. Otherwise it won't be changed.

Including rapiers: You know, we could put in a rapier and just have it use regular long sword animation on the avatar...but after going all through BG1 and BG2 already without a rapier, suddenly it would appear in the BG2 expansion? Non-magical rapiers and low-magic rapiers would be out at this point, too...so suddenly you find a +4 rapier or something where you've never had one? I dunno. I like rapiers, too, but I'd rather have them right from the get-go in a project. At this point, including them doesn't seem very useful.

Reaching level 40: One thing I see a lot of in the posts is a repeat of 'what will I do at level 40?!'.

A couple of things:

1) Unless you specifically set out to get every last XP you can through both BG2 and the expansion (including taking advantage of wandering monsters), you probably will end up at significantly lower than level 40. Setting 8 million XP as the cap is basically tantamount to the XP cap's removal.

2) Even if you do make it to level 40, you will not spend much time at that lofty height (unless, of course, you cheat...but that's up to you).

While XP rewards are higher with higher-level opponents and so forth, we are talking an XP total 5 million higher than the one in BG2. That's a lot. Thinking about level 40, though, can be a bit deceptive, I know.

Finishing the story line in an expansion: Well, I'll say this.

The expansion may seem like a short time to wrap up the series, but keep in mind that we are not trying to tell an entire story within the time that we have. But the Bhaalchild story has been ongoing...it was prominent in your battle with Sarevok and continued in the context of your experience in Athkatla with Irenicus.

All we are doing in the expansion is bringing the player the climax of what has been building for quite some time.

As for side plots from previous games, there aren't that many that need to be resolved. You mention the drow vs. elves plot...what, exactly, needs to be resolved there? The drow assaulted the elves based on an agreement with Irenicus, so he would sack Suldanessalar and destroy the Tree of Life. Irenicus failed, end of story.

As for a reason why a whole sequel probably isn't necessary...there are few challenges that are appropriate for such a high-level party. Sure, there are things we could probably do to lengthen or harden the experience...but at this point there is a really epic, world-shaking event occurring. There is very little that is going to distract the PC at this point. How appropriate would it be for a god-like level 30+ character being approached, still, to rescue cats out of trees and steal into warehouses. Sure, there are more epic side-quests that could be undertaken...but these would be of serious length, and in the context of the story wouldn't make sense.

Anyway, without going into what the story is actually going to be, all I can ask is that you don't pre-judge it too quickly. True, it may be too short for your liking and you may never like it...but I would suggest that it's not impossible for us to bring a great, very epic story to you in the expansion without making it seem clipped. At the very least, we're going to try...we've been pouring our hearts into this one.

The Anomen romance: Anomen may not be for everyone, but I know a fair number of women who have changed their minds once it was over.

We had planned to have an additional romance for the female players (Haer'Dalis, in fact, with the Aerie romance triangle included) and just plain ran out of time.

In the end, I think I'm glad that we did at least include a romance for female players...it wasn't long ago that a company wouldn't have bothered. I do wish we could give them more options, though...with luck, we'll have enough time to add a romance in the expansion (maaayyyybe).

More Imoen dialogue in the old areas: I don't think we'll have time to write extra dialogue for BG2 itself...but Imoen does have a lot of dialogue and banter in the expansion. Imoen fans need not despair.
Kevin Martens (co-Lead Designer)
Dead and Wild magic: BTW - we are adding playing with Dead and Wild magic a bit in the expansion.

Difficulty of play: We're aware that a wide variety of people with varying tastes play our game. Some people think it's too easy, some think it's too hard, some think it's just right.

We're adding additional difficulty scripting to the new areas so that lower level people or people on easy mode will face less powerful foes (or a smaller number of foes) than high level parties. This is due to the fact that, as usual, the player gets to choose when he/she does a plot. We never know for sure when a player is going to enter the area.

We did some of this in BG2 as well but I'm taking it a bit further in Throne of Bhaal. If you found things to be a bit difficult then choose the easy setting and, in general, the areas will be a fair bit easier than the standard setting.
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http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/genwalk.gif Memnoch - Custodian of the Holy Flame http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/fire3.gif

[This message has been edited by Memnoch (edited 03-05-2001).]