They definitely do exist in BG2 - just stroll along the western alley at the Slums District in Athkatla and you'll find one or two.
So I'm wondering why we have to *walk* a day or two to get to where we want to go when we could just saddle up... [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

maybe amn is difficult terrain?
but proably cause you can't take them in dungeons

imagine the guys there who have slow computers, what will happen if you add more effects. the bottom line is ... ofcourse they use horses, but not in athkala. they probablyse it to travel to trademeet, or to other places outside athkala.

Logistics.

Aside from all the art assets, how would you handle this in the Infinity Engine? Its just design nightmare upon design nightmare.

Well, I was thinking that it could be handled the way Fallout 2 handled the car. Meaning that on the map, the horses would be a stationary object (you dismount to explore the area). But when you leave the map to travel overland to another destination, the game would ask you if you wanted to mount the horses and go there by hoof.
Horses can't get into dungeons, but all dungeons have an entrance at ground level.
Town/village inns could have a stable for you to 'park' your horses (for a small fee).
If you leave your horse on a map and travel by foot to another location (say from Druid Grove to Windspear Hills) you would lose your horse (they wandered off on their own, or were eaten by wolves, or were stolen by a party of bandits or adventurers).
but of course all this is wishful thinking. But think of all the loot you could carry if you used them like pack mules... :D

but if you parked your horse, something would steal or eat it

lol...a horse skeleton with your junk sprawled ALL over the corpse... [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

Just think about the various stinks imping horses into the game would cause... Once we got horses, we needs think about horse thieves, wolves, big cats, etc. etc... Griffons, too. They just love horses. Then, of course, some jackass like myself is going to want draft horses to carry more sh... uh, stuff, and war horses with barding, and a handy dandy lance to impale a few Bhaalspawn upon. And lets not forget magical horseshoes, saddle and tack. Must accesorize the accessories, of course. Then we needs add programming to Cespenar, because the horses need shiny ones, too. And can we take them into our pocket plane, too? A human mind might be able to cope with an extra-planar experience if properly prepared, but a dumb beast? I can smell the runny horse poop already. And there's terrain modifiers to be thought of... Horses traditionally do lousy in deserts, so once we get into ToB, we're going to need to start thinking of camels, as well.

In the meantime, walking is simple.

Three simple words. Frames per second.

There is a very simple reason why horses aren't implimented...
The Cowled Stable-Boys!! Think about it, there are Cowled wizards who stop you from casting spells without a lisence, so you pay em off and go cast spells. You could do the same with horses, except they ran out of time to put in a seperate area for the stable. So since there are no stables in Amn, where would the Cowled Stable-Boys live/work?

Either that or its been too long since my last Psych evaluation... excuse me.
*walks away mumbling about space worms*

[ 11-07-2002, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: White Lancer ]