Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

A few more WIP NPC heads:

 

 

Aerie

http://i.imgur.com/1OTntKK.png

 

Viconia

http://i.imgur.com/XQmhTQC.png

 

I should also have some new screenshots of the Athkatla Docks in the upcoming weeks

 

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070311221242/forgottenrealms/images/c/cb/Aerie.jpg

The ears are a bit tough; if they're too big, they won't fit under helmets and hair, so I was playing it a bit safe. I can maybe look into altering them a bit, though I'm a bit worried already about their size. Hopefully the ears still come across as pretty elven though.

 

Dann-J, on 25 Sept 2014 - 7:33 PM, said:

You could make the ears part of the hair model, instead of part of the head. That way they'll disappear if she wears a helmet that completely eclipses the hair.

That's a really good idea; thanks!

 

kamal_, on 25 Sept 2014 - 7:45 PM, said:

Her eyes need more of an angle and the top of her head is too large I think. Also, I think her face is flatter in the drawing.

 

If you straighten out the drawing, her eyes aren't at the same angle either. But with texture mapping and such I'm not sure asymmetrical like that is doable.

 

Her alien eyes are a bit weird in the portrait and they're terribly asymmetrical (which would make her look pretty horrific in 3D). Of course, I'm treating it as a concept and working from there, so not everything is 1:1, which is part intention and part limitation of my skills There's also helmets, hair, etc. to keep in mind, which means that the head shapes of all the NPCs have to be fairly uniform.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

SOAR is programmed to end at 22, 23 and TOB at 30.

 

For Vampiric feast thanks for the tips, if it 's really too strong I might nerf it on boss encounters for game difficulties set above normal.

 

But for SOA, and TOB reloaded the combats won't be made as in BGR where they were alomost carbon copy of the original.

 

The easy difficulty will be very easy, like a story mode with only the key NPC and ennemy.

 

The normal Difficulty will be based on the original game, a carbon copy.

 

Above normal difficulty, "majors encounters" are completed and complexified to offer a challenge for powerfull 3ed DnD eddition rules characters. Vampiric feast might not be overpowered in those difficulties.

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

(The following commentary is regarding BG:R and BG:R - TotSC, not BG2:R - SoA and BG2:R - ToB)

 

the lvl 10 cap was put for 3 reasons :

 

1 to not trivialise the game. If you out lvl to much the content it removes the challenge and the fun.

2 to be sure all character would end at the lvl cap. Without a lvl cap there is absolutly no point in ECL characters which is bad, beceause most of them are super cool.

3 to ensure continuity with the next mod, if you start at lvl 15 in SOAR, it doesn 't leave much room for improvment of your character while the game is bigger than BGR.

 

originally I wanted 10BGR 20SOAR 30TOBR but when you look at the content, the big chunk of content is in SOAR. SO we have decided to go to lvl 22-23 at the end of SOAR if you do everything, there won' t be a lvl cap, we have designed the xp reward so we can adjust a lever on the XP earned by the player very easily.

 

If VF has no save it could be a problem, I' ll check on it, it' s actually super fast and easy to put a save on the spell (could put limitations similar as wave of the Banshee or weird for exemple).

 

It 's true that Aerie real class is a mystic theurg, and since the beginning it 's a class I' d really like to have in game, but at the moment I'm working on one exterior area not even scripting it and it's super challenging and time consumming. My aim, is to do a playable module, not a playable custom class.

 

At the moment the Mystic theurg is out of scope, the fully scripted lvl up GUI is also out of scope, I started to work on it on BGR, to have only the availlable class of each NPC showing in the UI while lvling up, and I made it ! But after I saw that everything was hard coded, I couldn 't replug it to the rest of the lvling GUI. So I opted for the class selection in conversations.

 

Which mean in order for it to work, I have to redo all the lvling screens and all the control and rules assossiated with them, and not only the class selections screens, It 's perfectly possible and know how to do it, but it 's a really big work, and I put a line on it. BGR had to be finished. If Drew and I did everything we wanted in BGR, it probably wouldn 't be finished yet.

 

It was really funny to see all the fuss about the chicken becomming a pig when it has absolutly 0 gameplay impact, and is so much minor in front of all the rest which was done.

 

If I were to do custom contents for characters it would be "spells", to put more 3nd spells in game. It' s super easy to do next to the mystic theurg, and I could do one for each module of the campaign. But I haven' t even looked at the list of 3 ed spell that could make a nice addition to the game. (2 or 3 hours of work for the script, and 2 or 3 hours of work for the VFX).

.

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

In TOB reloaded the difficulty scalling is in the difficulty slider.

 

 

Easy = super easy.

Normal = like the original game, probably harder than anything in NWN2 official stuff except maybe the end of the OC, should be similar to it.

Above = it' s made to really challenge the player.

 

Mystic theurg need a custom lvling GUI process in order to work correctly, the GUI doesn 't allow access to spell selection if you put a dual spellcasting progression. it's possible to do it, but it ' s out of scope at the moment. So aerie won 't be a mystic theurge.

 

I don' t want a crappy half baked solution. I want something fully functionnal, and for now it 's out of scope.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

(Replies to a few commenters who were very insistent on the game incorporating a specific class despite it not being within the project scope):

 

 

The evil modder isn 't against the Mystic Theurge class, it 's just that the Mystic theurge class doesn 't exist correctly in NWN2, and the requirements to have it work correctly are out of scope, many poeple made attempt at the Mystic theurge class since NWN2 was released, no one made it correctly for now.

 

If in 8 years many poeple tried but none succeed, it 's not beceause they are "evil modder" or beceause they don' t want to give you the mystic theurge....

 

It 's beceause there is a pretty big wall to overcomme in order for it to work correctly, that wall can be bypassed, but it's a monster work and for now I' d rather focus on making the area and events.

 

Also if we decide a class on a NPC will give stats which make the NPC not completly broke....

 

That class isn 't disabled and hidden in the NWN2 files. In the NWN2 files there is only an embryo of the 2DA required for that class to exist. But that's not even 5% of the work required.

[Tchos]

Here is Shallina's forum profile on this site, as opposed to the one on the soon-to-be-gone Bioware forum.

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

I haven't been here in a while, so I apologize for the prolonged silence. As some of you know, my PC died (it was six years old, so it was time to get a new one anyway), so I had to order parts and build a new one. The good news is that I absolutely love my new rig. The bad news is that I have no idea if areas in SOAR perform poorly any more

 

Regarding the EE companions or content, we won't be adding any of that to BGR or SOAR. If you want that content, you'll need to play the EEs

 

Regarding the release date, we have purposefully not communicated or really set one yet, though I will say we'd love to get it out before NWN2's 10th birthday. That being said, we're not going to release without a long beta period where we only focus on bug-fixes and not adding new content (like we did in BGR which wasn't great). If you'd like to help us speed-up this release date, please consider joining our team!

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

Just for your viewing pleasure here are the second and third levels of the skindancers in the bridge district. I'm doing all the interiors for AR05**

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/skindancerlevel2_zps6ba7f3f1.jpg

 

Level II

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/skindancerlevel3_zps551fdb7e.jpg

 

Level III

 

The last area is how I imagined it to be i.e. a loading dock in one of the bridge tunnels. A bit more work needed on the lighting now I look at it again.

 

PJ

 

PS: Thanks to Rjshae for doing the walkmesh for the level 3 area, saved me a whole lot of baking fuss

 

It is BCK it's one of the stair options in the basic pack.

 

It's very nice but some banisters would be good. The stone ones are too big even for stone banisters

 

PJ

 

rjshae, on 21 Dec 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

Very nice work, PJ. The overall lighting level looks good, as do the brownish-red hues. It all looks quite plausible as a setting.

 

The areas I'd imagine are going to be a nightmare to create are the Beholder caves, what with the fibrous, organic shapes all over the walls and floor. Not sure how the team is going to pull that off easily. Perhaps a reskin of the caves tileset with some tendon placeables?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

I think you're right an new tile set would be in order but that's a lot of work. There's been a re-texture of the caves has there not. I thought you did that one?

 

PJ

Edited August 7, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

PJ156

Iveforgotmypassword, on 21 Dec 2014 - 8:37 PM, said:

When you look at the shots from NWN2 and the caves from Baldurs Gate you can see why it needed a remake. Amazing really that what people once thought was incredible looks really basic compared to what you can get on a phone !

 

I can't wait to see what we'll be looking at and playing in another twenty years. Roll on the 3D virtual reality wii style hack and slash madness with video helmets and sword controllers.. And I wouldn't mind a computer that you just tell what to do too.

 

I will need to be virtual in 20 years. I would have the energy to pick up the sword

 

Pj

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

I have some new screenshots from the Athkatla Docks! It's still a work-in-progress, but it's getting close to final. As I think I mentioned before, the idea was to take a single, difficult exterior area and take it all the way through block-out to deco'd so I could properly gauge how much time it will take to deliver all the areas at "SOAR quality". While not entirely representative of the original, I think it still maintains a similar theme and style (hopefully!).

 

http://i.imgur.com/VKmiqgS.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/iKsNOD8.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/1i39Vvt.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/0HQ1riW.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/kIP3RH9.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/pLzKRaq.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/prXAH2T.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/e8NTSe4.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/KXDr8h6.png

 

Original game docks:

 

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130816075834/baldursgategame/images/5/5c/Athkatla_Docks.jpg