Heart of Wnter release

[Lord of Alcohol]

Does anyone know when Heart of winter is going out? I've heard Jan 18 but then I read Fed 21. I pre-ordered but they dont tel you shit. I need to plan when I will be useless at work, anyone heard the real date?

Heh. It should be out today if that's the case. Probably pushed back. It sounds like there will only be six new zones. That is only about the size of one or one and a half chapters. How on earth can you get 1 million exp per party member at that rate?

I just called my local retailer, and they told me that the stores will have them on Feb. 21st. He went on to mention that the manufacturer is limiting the amount shipped to the different locations, and that they are taking no-obligation reservations, so that they know how many to order one week before. If I choose not to purchase, that will be one added to the shelves for someone else.

[Lord of Alcohol]

Well that sucks

[omegadawn]

Interplay doesn't give any sort of hard "streetdate" according to their website. Retailers are given approximate dates with no gaurantee that the product will be on-time according to the manager at EBX(when directly questioned).
For example Baldurs gate 2 shipped here in Boston, MA, USA a full week earlier than the date I was quoted for a reservation. Two days later I walked into the store to put down my deposit and there it was, A week early. Later that evening right after I played it for the first time I saw a website offering pre-ordering quoting a date TWO weeks later. I reserved Heart of winter a few days ago and asked the clerk if they would call me if it arrived early and he said yes. So who knows when it'll show. I just know it will.

Also the Ironworks preview mentions 20-30 hrs added game play on two discs, not to mention improvements to the original game like bags of holding and others. Im excited!!!

[Lord of Alcohol]

I read one disc. But either way I'm impatient!

Surely '6 zones' would mean 6 map areas?

Ie. 'the temple of the forgotten God being a small one and Lower Dorns being a big one?

I heard two discs as well. I assume one will be mostly movies. 20-30 hours. That might be two chapters worth, maybe three, what do you think? I bet if you used a walkthrough it would be more like 6 hours. One thing that is sort of disappointing is Joril is going to be the big bad guy. It ought to be the barbarian ghost in the Vale chapter. You know, somehow killing the barmaid lets him run loose or something.

[Leafy]

I hope this HoW release is an upgrade to the BG2 engine. It seems pretty plain to me that Icewind was created from BG and that BG2 seems to be an upgrade to them both. I hope HoW gives us all the cool classes and weapon slots that BG2 did. If it's some gay "add-on" like Swords Coast was, i'm going to riot. I'm torn between the fun and fast playability of IWD and the cool character generation in BG2. Let's hope they bring the two together in HoW.

I think you will be rioting then. I doubt they are going to change the weapon prof's to include weapon styles. They probably won't nerf master proficiencies in BGII either (which they should, so that rangers and paladins are useful). Nor have I read anything about kit creation.
I hope they do let rangers dual wield two weapons however.