Icewind Dale 2 Didn't Deserve to be Forgotten | Dungeons & Dragons | Musings of an Idiot #14
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- The frigid north calls once again.
LINKS
Enhanced Edition - forums.beamdog.com/discussion...
Ddraw Fix - github.com/FunkyFr3sh/cnc-ddr...
Cool Josh Sawyer Video - • icewind dale 2 in retr...
GRAPHICAL SETTINGS
Install cnc-ddraw config (Extract to your game directory)
- Fullscreen (Maintain Aspect Ratio, Adjust Mouse Sensitivity, Lock Cursor to Window / Screen)
- NOTE: DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING IN THE DDRAW.DLL EXCEPT UNLOCKING THE FULL LIST OF RESOLUTIONS. THE ENHANCED EDITION WILL HANDLE STRETCHING AND STUFF.
- I noticed no difference between Fullscreen and Fullscreen Upscaled from a visual standpoint (could just be my own eyes). When running in Upscaled, the game would often stutter whenever loading anything it hadn't already seen in the session. However, it seems to work just fine for other people, so play around a bit.
- OpenGL Renderer (catmull-rom-bilinear.glsl)
No Game Speed Limit (Fix Broken Alt + Tab)
(In Base Game Config)
Graphic Settings: All Max
Cache Size: 850 MB
Install IWD2EE
- Apply IEx Fog of War Flickering Fix (in options)
Additionally, make sure that the IWD2EE application (which is different from the base game) is set to run off your computers best hardware/global settings.
Run as Administrator.
Twitter (is it dead yet?) - / fandraxx
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Bard Story: / i-hate-bards-but-that-...
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Table of Contents
Intro - 0:00
History - 0:39
Combat & Systems - 4:13
Ruleset - 7:40
Story, Soundtrack & Stylings - 10:16
Difficulty - 11:54
Abandoned & Issues - 13:02
Enhanced Edition - 16:58
Closing - 19:24 - Ігри
![ОРБАН приехал к ПУТИНУ и "отчитался" о поездке в Киев 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0ukDovOWq8/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for 1000 subscribers!
I had originally wanted this video to be a bit bigger -- somewhere in the 30-minute range -- but life had other plans.
Thank you to everyone that watches and I can't wait to make more!
Congrats on 1K! Great content as usual. I've yet to play the sequel, so this was a cool breakdown, thanks!
I'm sure that I'll get around to making a video that's at least an hour at some point, but, generally, I prefer to keep them shorter. I just like the more self-contained nature of this format.
Never say never, though!
IWD2 was such a great game. One aspect I loved about it was the little "hubs" if you will... Wandering Village, Raven Monastery, Under dark Caravan etc... nice place to enjoy some dialogue and shop/rest. Loved it
I never played the game due to the lack of an EE but will definitely try the mod, after I finish my current playthrough of the BG series. Great video, your channel is a hidden gem!
One little secret about IWD2: it is better to make a 5 char party than a full 6 char, because of the total XP of the game. With 6 people, you can't reach 20th level or 9th level spells in base game.
Of course you can also do the very fun and famous Sorcerer Solo Run (or the Solo Druid Run that I tried myself), but that's very specific =P
I am re-playing this now. I couldn't really remember much from the first time because it was a long time ago. However, I think I am enjoying it more than I did. I am finding "the second half of the game" much better than the first. Some of the early combat was so hard and tedious that I seriously thought about putting it in story mode. Some of the game balance was a bit off too, I fought my way through an ice palace with several bosses and then got killed by a few dire wolves in the forest!
Back in ye olden days, when PCs were a familial thing at best and Diablo II was the most RPG me and my friends had ever experienced, Icewind Dale II blew our minds. We had never even heard of or played the first game, but this game was amazing to us - full party building, dialogue trees, the ability to have Evil characters?! Blew our minds as kids/early teenagers. Sure the story is thin as crackers, but compare that to the aRPG fare we were used to! God, we loved that game.
Same bro. ICWD2 was my first CRPG. Love it to this day.
It truly is a forgotten realm.
Ah I'm so glad you covered this! I think your first IWD video was the first one I watched of this channel
I was shocked when I discovered IWD2 existed when I looked into the DnD games that existed. I had completed the first, and when I saw that IWD2 uses 3rd edition rules, I knew I had to give it a try
Of course, getting there wasn't easy! I can confirm that getting this game to run through its digital version on GoG is beyond frustrating. I think after an hour of attempts I finally managed, and I am glad I persevered: this game is better in every way than the first game imo. Especially enemies - the first game had a problem of throwing so many undead creatures at you
Also I disagree there was no standout track. "Skeleton of a Town" is a fantastic piece that perfectly sets the tone of a ravaged Targos desperately trying to resist destruction
Thank you for bringing the Enhanced Edition mod to my attention! Definitely gonna give that a look when I get chance!
"Skeleton of a Town" is definitely the best track in the bunch, no argument there. Still, nothing will top the Kuldahar theme from the first game, IMO.
Thanks for watching!
@@fandraxx Another track which I think might be better than the Targos theme is the Kuldahar Pass theme, once you defeat Hiepherus and the undead.
I have been playing the original CD version, and have had no issues at all running it on a modern system. I installed the game and latest patch, and I do have my computer set up to run games in 4:3 aspect ratio instead of stretching them to fit. My mouse does run a little fast but I have a button to change the mouse speed so for my older games I set it to the low setting. The hardest part was I had to edit most of my custom pics I use for my characters to run within the game, as the older game is more picky about how the portraits are formatted...if you use the in game pics that is not going to be an issue. I made a party of all male Dwarves so needed a few pics, at least.
The game is hard though, you got that right. I play on normal settings, and find myself swarmed much more than the other titles. But I really like the way the do the 3rd edition system. I'd love it is there was a mod made, to turn the BG games and IWD 1 into 3rd edition games. Things like my Dwarven Paladin, Ranger, and cross bow wielding cleric just don't work in the other games. But as you said here it still offers some limitations that many 3rd edition games do not, that makes it still feel constrained a bit.
I must say, by all the research I did, you are in a very fortunate minority, my friend. Glad it's working for you without any issue.
Ironically, in the case of the older games in 3rd edition, I seem to remember that they had been converted into fan-made modules for Neverwinter Nights 2. I haven't played them myself, but I believe they've been well-regarded.
I've always liked the Infinity Engine. I love how the assets and characters look in it. It just makes the world you travel in feel huge, like so many things are happening in it that don't revolve around you or your party.
I came expecting to see bunch of comments to say weapon finesse only gets you substitute dex for hit, not damage, and can’t believe no one has nit picked. This is part of the reason I don’t understand dex builds in 3e.
Other than that, I love iwd2 even more than iwd1. I wouldn’t say it’s harder. I level squatted around lv3-4 for 95% of the game since you can make super overpowered builds with a deep gnome monk. By the time I got to the end I wanted to see how much xp I accumulated and was able to level up to 27. Anyway, not a fan of the 3e challenge rating thing where the xp you get is proportion to your level, hence it encourages not leveling up. That’s my only gripe with the game.
I love 3.5, but only if the computer is doing all the calculations for me, not in person
Ironically, this is largely what I think 3.5 attempted to fix from 3rd. Opinions of whether or not it succeeded are still kinda mixed.
An (fellow) bard hater! High five!
Just finished this game today. Never did so in childhood/teenage so now I finally done it. My last Infinity Engine game. Lot of nostalgia and sentimentality of the last Infinity Engine game and the last of the games in the engine I had to finish.
EDIT: Source codes being thrown away with the bathwater hurts my soul. I have studied in a field all about "restoration" and "Preservation" which hurts the soul when I hear stuff just get lost like that over...well nothing really.
I thought this back then and I feel the same way now. The IE games both look and play better than NWN.
This one had the best party creation in any game, ever.
Thanks for the video! I'm currently finishing up my first playthrough of bg2 after finishing the first one and was curious on whether or not I should check out IWD. I'll definitely be picking IWD1 & 2 after watching your vids!
Awesome! Glad you enjoyed the video!
IWD2 is my favourite game of all time.
I play it on a Microsoft Surface pro
Really
@@tariqramadan1521 yeah, really. 🤣
The sad truth about source code is that it has been lost for several video games, it happened often. But the game could still be remade without it. It's just not worth the money because it's way longer and more tedious without the source. Source code doesn't give you high definition original assets, unless Beamdog include that in their definition of "source". Assets are still here waiting to be extracted from the game, and possibly upscaled with the help of AI. The engine is already here, waiting to be tweaked to include the game's rule set and spells. That is, I assume, what Red Chimera has done.
Found it on GOG and started playing it recently, my old cds skipped whenever the goblins attacked targos, never got past that point
played these games like 20 years ago, was so disappointed back then they where not story driven epic like BG1/2 , started replaying them a few years ago. think it´s time to give them another shot.
Using narzoul DDrawCompat v0.3.1 and using 1360x768 resolution ( dont go higher) fixes any fog related problems. Also this wrapper gives best mouse response.
Funny because as a 4e player I feel its the other way around because magic is five kinds of busted in older editions and martial characters do exactly three things, hitting things, getting hit and eating shit whenever a high level caster so much as glances at them.
VERY uncommon opinion. From what I hear, nearly everyone seems to hate 4e.
Honestly, IWD2 is a bit rough around the edges, but considering the super rushed development cycle it's actually pretty amazing the game turned out as good as it is.
The game is technically supported by GemRB, but it is unfortunately not in a very good state yet, and I think it's going to need quite a bit of work to get it fully functioning and polished.
Hi!
I do think you're missing out if you chose not to install Class Revisions or Spell Revisions. Those two components are a huge part of the Enhanced Edition mod. Not installing those components also made your commentary on the Enhanced Edition somewhat misleading. Since you didn't install Class Revisions, you didn't actually experience most of the changes to classes; the class descriptions you show at 17:42 are just the vanilla class descriptions, which make no mention of the new class abilities added by Class Revisions. And although you mention that there are new spells, you didn't actually add any of the new spells to the game since you didn't install Spell Revisions. The list of spells you show at 18:09 is just vanilla spells; Spell Revisions adds scrolls for some of the new spells to that store.
The dialogue option you show at 17:22 was actually in the original game, it wasn't one of the dialogue options added by the Enhanced Edition.
Also, when you criticise the original IWD2 for being too difficult, keep in mind that you weren't playing the original IWD2. You were playing the Enhanced Edition with Creature Revisions installed. That component makes a lot of enemies tougher to make up for the new spells, feats, abilities and items added by Class Revisions, Spell Revisions and Item Revisions.
Hey Olvyn, thanks for watching!
Just to sort-of generally address everything, I did do a playthrough back in early spring of 2021 with all of the revisions and stuff, so I did get the chance to experience that stuff, just not on the specific playthrough done for this video. Originally, I wanted to do a playthrough both of full-EE stuff and one vanilla (maybe one solo), but there just wasn't enough time. So, while it may not have shown up in some of the footage, I don't believe my commentary was misleading in respect to how I felt about them, which did very much draw on my experience from that prior playthrough. (I actually went to see if I could dig up the save files and was disappointed to discover that I couldn't find them.)
I've done a vanilla playthrough as well, before the EE was even a thing. And, even then, I thought the game was a fair bit more difficult then the other IE games.
As for the dialogue option, you've got me. I sincerely don't remember seeing that one in the vanilla game, so I just assumed it was added by the mod. Maybe I fought that guy previously before killing the Elder Brain or something like that? Not sure.
Hope that clears things up! Thanks again!
Good video, but I wish you had done a little less about combat and character building and said a bit more about dungeon and scenario design in IWD2, because for me, it became a total deal-breaker. The game has a strong start, and I enjoyed it very much, but as soon as I got to the Ice Palace last time, I was done. The game turns into puzzle after puzzle, with long tedious labyrinths that must be traversed back and forth to get to levers and puzzle rooms that are on opposite sides of the dungeon, sometimes with respawning trash mobs between.
The first time I played back when it was released, I somehow made it past the Ice Palace, and a few more scenarios, until I cleared a very hard dungeon, which then told me I had to go back in time and clear it again. I was also missing a key that would set the time back, and had no idea where to find it. This was in the days before the internet was much of a thing, (we had dial up, AoL, and bulletin boards) so no googling the answer. I promptly said "nope" and closed down the game, not to return until about 15 years later. That time, I said "nope" at the Ice Palace.
If you don't like solving puzzle dungeons, you are unlikely to like IWD 2 past the first act, in my opinion. I can't recommend it as anything other than a historical or nostalgic curiosity.
I had thought about making a comment about some of level design, but, ultimately, I found that the only one I earnestly disliked was the Black Raven Monastery. Even then, that dislike was more born from the fact that it felt like there should've been some sort of way to avoid the trials as a good party.
Ultimately, just didn't feel worth it to bring up to complain about one level I didn't enjoy. I certainly see why it can be off-putting for some, however.
From a pure gameplay perspective Icewind Dale 2 is as good as the infinity engine ever got. Even from the perspective of a modern gamer who never played these when they were new I would say this is the easiest one to go back to and enjoy. Ironically as a game it is also far superior to neverwinter nights, what made neverwinter nights great was purely the community created content.
Also yes, the D20 system (aka DnD 3.0/3.5) is a system created for min maxer munchkins, which also is the worst subset of actual table top players. So it is not a particularly great system for people who don't want the whole game to be about number crunching and twink builds.
😊
I wasn't very engrossed by Icewind Dale 1, but I would've enjoyed it if not for breaking my game with an accidental save at the worst time. 😅This is making me much more interested in Icewind Dale 2 though. Oh well, I'm finishing Baldur's Gate 1 at the moment, I have plenty of Infinity Engine to experience yet.
I'm sorry to hear about that.
Baldur's Gate is probably the best place to start for any of the Infinity Engine games. No doubt you'll be well-prepared for the others!
No, it did not. It was decent, not the best, but it was good. Also Bard is about buffs and the right music for the right fight. There is a reason Skald is best in the Enhanced Edition. And do NOT overlook that 3.PF is broken worse than 4th and 5th editions. And your multiclassing bit is wrong, Paladin of Helm + Fighter is optimal.
IWD2EE is near to be released. Stay tuned.
such a shame, i rly wana play id2 enhanced edition
😥 p̶r̶o̶m̶o̶s̶m̶
Its because they lost the source code so no enhanced edition. The originals had terrible ui and were so clunky.
I don't think Mid-twenty-tens is a thing, pal.