Kuldahar's cold yet warm ambience

[CerebroDragon]

Whilst moving my weary party around Kuldahar after some heavy raids and tours of some of the various parts of Wyrms Tooth, a few random thoughts came to me on the atmosphere of Kuldahar's homeliness.

1) There's a sense of familiarity about it after awhile, a kind of sweet sanctuary I always look forward to returning to with full backpacks. Our most recent adventure brought us a massive coffer which I'm stil yet to spend. I'm going to save some of it for HoW and hopefully any new arsenals of items found in TotL.

2) The Kuldahar theme strangely reminds me at times of one of the Celine Dion tracks from Titanic! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Not all the time, its mostly during the flute or pan pipe crescendoes where my eyebrows narrowed and a connection was made.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it just came to me all of a sudden.

3) Listening closely to the various wildlife sounds, I could have sworn to have heard the evil crackling throat of a Predator(TM). Has anyone else noticed this similarity? It repeats fairly regularly too.
Thankfully though, "if it bleeds, we can kill it". [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

4)The name Gerth could well be a name homage/referrence to Garth and his Emporium from the classic Bard's Tale games. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hmmm, think that'll do for now. My sleep deprived brain is pulling me back to Faerun! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Cheers,
Cerebrodragon

[Otto]

Originally posted by CerebroDragon: Whilst moving my weary party around Kuldahar after some heavy raids and tours of some of the various parts of Wyrms Tooth, a few random thoughts came to me on the atmosphere of Kuldahar's homeliness. 1) There's a sense of familiarity about it after awhile, a kind of sweet sanctuary I always look forward to returning to with full backpacks. Our most recent adventure brought us a massive coffer which I'm stil yet to spend. I'm going to save some of it for HoW and hopefully any new arsenals of items found in TotL. 2) The Kuldahar theme strangely reminds me at times of one of the Celine Dion tracks from Titanic! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Not all the time, its mostly during the flute or pan pipe crescendoes where my eyebrows narrowed and a connection was made. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it just came to me all of a sudden. 3) Listening closely to the various wildlife sounds, I could have sworn to have heard the evil crackling throat of a Predator(TM). Has anyone else noticed this similarity? It repeats fairly regularly too. Thankfully though, "if it bleeds, we can kill it". [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] 4)The name Gerth could well be a name homage/referrence to Garth and his Emporium from the classic Bard's Tale games. [img]smile.gif[/img] Cheers, Cerebrodragon

1) While I like Kuldahar, the town, at least the playable part, is very small in scale compared with those found in the BG series. Even Beregost and Nashkel were larger. I think there should have been more Kuldahar subquests, like those in Amn or the City of Baldur's Gate, or at least more areas to explore, more stores, homes, etc.

2) No comment...

3) If you have a druid use "Call Lightning" in Kuldahar when you first fight the Yetis before entering the Vale of Shadows, after the Yetis are dead, lighting will continue to strike the off-screen neo-orogs that don't appear until much later. Maybe the "predator" sounds are the neo-orogs hiding in the bushes.

4) Maybe. A lot of the names and themes used in IWD seem to be derived from other sources.

[CerebroDragon]

1) I agree about the size and quest factor when it comes to Kuldahar, although the game was made distinctly to be more combat intensive than dialogue based, which could explain the quest deficiency particularly as compared to the BG series.

Hoever, it is quite logical for Kuldahar to be as it is size wise due to not only its much more remote location (compared to Beregost/Nashkel which are more like city suburbs) but also as Arundel describes, the spiritual fusion by which it was created. Natural phenomena in IWD is a real feast for the eyes, which is part of the ambience I was originally trying to describe.

2) Haha, you can't hear the similarity eh?
Oh well.

3) Yes the Call Lightning effect is quite amusing. Frightened the life out of me the first time I experienced it. Speaking of storms...I hear one belching forth above here right now...nice!

I doubt the predator sounds are for the Orogs, as I always imagined them to be more bestial and less gutturally crackling if that's the correct phrasing for it. Also, once you remove the Orog threat, the sound persists....
So the mystery remains for me.

4) I wonder if there is a thread about name derivations for IWD here...if not, there probably should be! I know I tried to get one going on the IWD2 forum about the genealogy of the name Nickodemus and its many fantasy spawnings, but otherwise, it didn't go much further. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Otto]

Originally posted by CerebroDragon: 1) I agree about the size and quest factor when it comes to Kuldahar, although the game was made distinctly to be more combat intensive than dialogue based, which could explain the quest deficiency particularly as compared to the BG series... ...4) I wonder if there is a thread about name derivations for IWD here...if not, there probably should be! I know I tried to get one going on the IWD2 forum about the genealogy of the name Nickodemus and its many fantasy spawnings, but otherwise, it didn't go much further. [img]smile.gif[/img]

1) There could still be quests like in parts of Amn, either of the FedEx type, or where you have to go somewhere, kill somebody or something, and return. What I enjoyed about BG/BG2 was that the NPCs, and associated quests, often represented a wide variety of competing values, and the player had to choose a side, which was sometimes just the lesser of two evils.

4) O.k., let's kick off a genealogy thread. I'll start:

The first NPC you meet is Hrothgar, which is archaic for Roger. This was the name of the Danish king in the English poem, "Beowulf", the earliest written work that mentions the name Hrothgar. According to the storyline, Beowulf aids Hrothgar and the Danes by slaying the monster, Grendel, and its mother.

You go with the next NPC in the Easthaven bar... We'll see how many get done.