Icewind Dale Criticisms

While playing Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter, a few things struck me:

I feel that having no NPCs in the entire game really makes the storyline look bad. This means that you have to create your own party in the beginning, something I didn't find very good as I was tempted to give my fighters 18/00 strength and my mages 18 intelligence - which I felt uneasy about doing as it seemed unrealistic. The story itself also seemed a bit unreal. Having to go around so many places just to find the source of evil threatening Kuldahar is pretty lame. The sound and graphics improved with the installation of Heart of Winter, something I was pleased about as it was starting to depress me.

I felt a little frustrated that I lost motivation about halfway through the game, but then I thought "I can't be the only one having this problem.... "

It might just be because I'm used to the Baldur's Gate trilogy that Icewind Dale/Heart of Winter seemed like such a let down. Is there anything you find annoying about this game? Or am I alone in my opinions? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Jonni Voodoo]

It's a let down because you are expecting a Baldur's Gate or PST. Icewind Dale has always been marketed as pure Hack 'n slash, dungeon crawling, actiony-goodness. Play it for what it is, not what you want it to be and are annoyed that it is not, and you will enjoy it a lot more.

[ 01-12-2002: Message edited by: Jonni Voodoo ]

[Lord of Alcohol]

Its a fun game as a dungeon-crawl! Want tedium? Play Pool of Radiance! Anyway IWD is different from BG, but fun all the same

[Durwyn]

Oh god Pool of Raidance? Please that game is worse than any D&D RPG I've yet to see! But I agree with Jonni, Icewind Dale is not Baldurs Gate, if you find it annoying, well dont play it [img]smile.gif[/img] . Icewind Dale is a tough dungeon crawl that involves a lot of puzzles and hard thinking. Its not BG, far from it. Yet its similar in many aspects of course. But I can agree with one thing, it *does* appear to get annoying in 'some' places, like in Trials of Luremaster ugh, it just becomes annoying at a lot of times, same thing with Dragons Eye in IWD hehe, it does get a little annoying, but after all, the slash-bash action keep on going no matter what. But then again, you got to agree IWD is a good refreshment to play after BG just for something new yet similar.

[Rolper]

Hi,
I have the same problem with creating my own party... the temptation to create Gods is intense... so what I usually do is either create my main char .. usually a Pal or a fighter, and then import the rest, this gives you party not quite of your choosing but each is at least qualified in thier area (mage, cleric, etc.) ads a little more interest than the "perfect party" and you are right I found BG fun because picking up NPCs and tryng to keep'em happy was a challange ... but that was BG.

Happy Happy!

[Magness]

I suspect that the reason for no NPC's had to do with the fact that I think that adding NPCs would have added a lot more work to the project. Also adding in areas that are not directly a part of the primary storyline would have also added to the scope of the project.

I suppose that it would have been nice if there were some "light" NPC's that could have been added to the party. By "light", I mean NPC's that didn't have any attached quests. Perhaps some witty or grim reparte. Perhaps these NPC's could have been available in Easthaven, Kuldahar, or maybe run across in some of the "adventure" areas.

It might have been nice if there'd been some minor side quests, like perhaps someone in Kuldahar asks you to go somewhere to retrieve something or rescue someone in a completely non-mainline plot area.

(I suppose that Trials of the Luremaster is a really large version of this at a higher level.)

[Micah Foehammer]

When it was first released, BG1 took a lot of heat on the fan forums for all of the Fed-Ex type quests - so I find it ironic that IWD is now getting criticized for the lack of the same. HOW does add a few small quests or side plots but they are much closer to the main game flow. The original IWD had a few side quests as well (the arboretum quest in Severed Hand and the Mythal Book for Orrick come to mind) but again these were more closely related to the linear game flow.

Personally, I was never enthralled with the choice of NPCs available in BG1/TotSC. Not having any npcs to chose from in IWD didn;t bother me in the least. As to whether they were omitted due to time constraints or for some other reason ... who knows? I had a lot of fun running different combinations of parties thru the game as it was designed. However, unlike BG1 and BG2 where you can add on NPCs almost from the get-go, and their inclusion seems more natural, the IWD game was set up so that inclusion of NPCs at the beginning in Easthaven would have seemed VERY artificial.

As for Trials ... well, if you are looking for sidequests, forget it. Trials in itself is one big continuous linear dungeon crawl. Start here .. end there. End of story. But it is an excellent hack and slash!

True, there are things that could have been added to IWD that would have improved it. Kits / Specialty priests / more classes would all have been nice. But that gives them something to add for IWD 2! And if the posts at BIS forums are ANY indication, that is exactly what we will see!

[StarVid]

In some ways, I actually like IWD better than the BG series. One of the things that makes it stand out is that I actually made it to the end of IWD (though I think I put it aside before I acutally beat it). This isn't to say that BG was hard though. I was just a chronic restarter. Part of it (specifically BG2) was right after the prologue, you're taken out of the storyline. Imoen is kidnapped, and now you have to do all these stupid quests that are totally not plot related (Nalia's Keep, Unseeing Eye, etc.) to rack up enough money to get a possible connection to maybe get a lead on to someone that might be able to help you find Imoen. I thought it was a bit of a sloppy way to progress the plot during chapter 2 (which I still haven't got past before getting bored and putting the game aside). It was never like this with PnP D&D. Every adventure centered around the plot. There were no totally unrelated sidequests. I don't know why this is. This isn't an issue of the game engine's limitations (like the whole dual-wield debate with BG1), it's just an issue of the writing. Did TSR actually work on this project or did they just sell the rights?

As for IWD, it has a decent plotline for what it is. It's a dungeon crawl, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some D&Ders get in the mood for that now and again. Roleplaying is fun, but so is treasure. You're right about the got characters. All three of my warriors (Ranger, Paladin, and Fighter/Thief) has maxed strength (at 18/90+). The ranger and Paladin has maxed con. Everyone has max dex. And my mage, cleric, and druid all have maxed prerequisites. I never thought of using any of the premade characters, I might just try that. But I like my bad ass squad I created. This game isn't plot driven, it's about kicking as much ass as you can, and my team is more bad ass than the premades. But that's just my two cents, I think I'll still try some of the premades.

But that's my opinion on the IWD/BG2 debate. Though I thought I heard that NWN is going to be the last one that they're going to make in this whole D&D cRPG thing. That's a bummer, this series had more potential than any other game I've played. It could have been the next Final Fantasy.

[Irongrinder]

I would compare IWD more with Diablo II then with BGII, even though there is also a big difference between DII and IWD. What I want to point out is that even though BGII and IWD use the same engine, there way to play is very different.

[Micah Foehammer]

Starvid - There are lots of rumours about what Interplay and Black Isle have in store for us, excluding the projected Sept 2002 release of NWN. If I was a betting man, I would put my money on a sequel to Icewind Dale and a Fallout 3 game. Although some may dispute this, I would NOT be surprised to see BG3 - although it WON'T be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga - that ended with TOB. There was an old post on either the BIS message board or the now defunct Interplay boards where one of the designers came out and said just that!