I bought an Icewind Dale Big Box
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Black Elk
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That's the box I remember! And probably at the same price point from Best Buy hehe.
I like how it it's all branded up too... "Forgotten Realms" a "A Baldur's Gate Engine Adventure" and "Dungeons & Dragons" with the Black Isle logo deadcenter at the bottom. Rated T for Teen cause I was 19. I mean it had everything one could want. No major overhauls or massive departures from the BG thing that had just hit so hard, but new tiles and new portraits, cool art direction and Giants!
It's impossible for me to separate it from what had immediately proceeded it, so much so that I consider IWD to be the actual sequel to BG1 and Tales of the Sword Coast. The UI and sprites followed. It had basically a 1 to 1 identity as far as I was concerned at the time. I mean as opposed to BG2 where the UI was overhauled and the movement towards a 3rd edition was already in the marrow. I would even go so far as to say that the portraits in IWD worked pretty well for every BG1 NPC as a more hard edged alt.
Example, Elf Female Mage 1 could easily be Jaheira when she decides to let her hair down, fancy green dress repping the quarterstaff. Whereas Half-Elf Female Fighter 1 or Human Female Fighter 1, could easily work for her fully armored up version. Khalid made all extra dashing as Elf Male Fighter 1 hehe. It was pretty well integrated in that way. I used IWD Human Male Mage 1 for my Charname in BG1 and BG2 on occasion, had a Gorion-esque vibe. Looks like Android to me now, like probably was lol. Then you got IWD Human Male Mage 2, who's basically Edwin or at least had sufficient red in the robes to pull it off. Little touches like that made it feel like the one thing was serviceable for multiple things. Icewind Dale had that promise like a continuing adventure series which is what I thought NWN would be. Just that, done over and up to the nines. The IWD story made sense as a follow up templet, since by the time it came out I was mostly just trying to make custom parties anyway using LAN antics. I think the only issue it had was because there were no NPC companions it's harder to remember who was who. BG1 I can rattle off all their names, but IWD I'm drawing blanks about who all was there among my hall of heroes, just that they all looked really cool and probably had 3 portraits each! It will be fun to watch and recall!
I like how it it's all branded up too... "Forgotten Realms" a "A Baldur's Gate Engine Adventure" and "Dungeons & Dragons" with the Black Isle logo deadcenter at the bottom. Rated T for Teen cause I was 19. I mean it had everything one could want. No major overhauls or massive departures from the BG thing that had just hit so hard, but new tiles and new portraits, cool art direction and Giants!
It's impossible for me to separate it from what had immediately proceeded it, so much so that I consider IWD to be the actual sequel to BG1 and Tales of the Sword Coast. The UI and sprites followed. It had basically a 1 to 1 identity as far as I was concerned at the time. I mean as opposed to BG2 where the UI was overhauled and the movement towards a 3rd edition was already in the marrow. I would even go so far as to say that the portraits in IWD worked pretty well for every BG1 NPC as a more hard edged alt.
Example, Elf Female Mage 1 could easily be Jaheira when she decides to let her hair down, fancy green dress repping the quarterstaff. Whereas Half-Elf Female Fighter 1 or Human Female Fighter 1, could easily work for her fully armored up version. Khalid made all extra dashing as Elf Male Fighter 1 hehe. It was pretty well integrated in that way. I used IWD Human Male Mage 1 for my Charname in BG1 and BG2 on occasion, had a Gorion-esque vibe. Looks like Android to me now, like probably was lol. Then you got IWD Human Male Mage 2, who's basically Edwin or at least had sufficient red in the robes to pull it off. Little touches like that made it feel like the one thing was serviceable for multiple things. Icewind Dale had that promise like a continuing adventure series which is what I thought NWN would be. Just that, done over and up to the nines. The IWD story made sense as a follow up templet, since by the time it came out I was mostly just trying to make custom parties anyway using LAN antics. I think the only issue it had was because there were no NPC companions it's harder to remember who was who. BG1 I can rattle off all their names, but IWD I'm drawing blanks about who all was there among my hall of heroes, just that they all looked really cool and probably had 3 portraits each! It will be fun to watch and recall!
Fandraxx
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The price point practically floored me. 20 bucks for the game and all it came with? Take me back!
And I love all the blatant BG association. Although, seeing it referred to as the Baldur's Gate engine as opposed to the Infinity Engine will always mess with my brain.
Black Elk
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Watching now
I'm instantly all transfixed by the Partha Balrog! Such a standout silhouette, even at the tactical high angle. The dude with the serrated sword and the whip! That guy was totally my fav! Alas the sword on mine snapped off and he was lost at some point, probably right around the time IWD came out. Clutch creature feature there! hehe
I'm instantly all transfixed by the Partha Balrog! Such a standout silhouette, even at the tactical high angle. The dude with the serrated sword and the whip! That guy was totally my fav! Alas the sword on mine snapped off and he was lost at some point, probably right around the time IWD came out. Clutch creature feature there! hehe
Fandraxx
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Those are actually made to be painted! The dea of making a video doing so has crossed the mind, but I'm far from anything to write home about when it comes to a brushWatching now
I'm instantly all transfixed by the Partha Balrog! Such a standout silhouette, even at the tactical high angle. The dude with the serrated sword and the whip! That guy was totally my fav! Alas the sword on mine snapped off and he was lost at some point, probably right around the time IWD came out. Clutch creature feature there! hehe
Black Elk
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Ah the joys of painting!
Loved the video! Well, everything except for having to look at Manley's face again, but that's only for 'never meet your heroes' type reasons. I think it's safe to say something like 'disgraced concept artist' at this point, or maybe lead headhunter and CEO of massive grift. Like what ever happened to all our CA.org art anyway? I don't think we ever got an answer to that one. Did dude cash out and sell all that data to Skynet to become a millionaire? Burning all his friends and students to steal their life force like Szass Tam? But then I don't want to encourage libels hehe. Everyone else is fine, and probably more responsible for the overall ambiance or look and feel of the game than that individual. I mean I'm salty, clearly, but dude just hovers over the legacy like a vulture. Maybe if we'd ever heard a mea culpa, but never did, so screw it right. I'll just dish the dirt. Dude couldn't paint his way out of a wet paper bag, and his portraits are the weakest in the IWD set. But then it's like my mom would put it, 'if you don't have anything nice to say, there might be a reason for that.' lol
Great work!
Loved the video! Well, everything except for having to look at Manley's face again, but that's only for 'never meet your heroes' type reasons. I think it's safe to say something like 'disgraced concept artist' at this point, or maybe lead headhunter and CEO of massive grift. Like what ever happened to all our CA.org art anyway? I don't think we ever got an answer to that one. Did dude cash out and sell all that data to Skynet to become a millionaire? Burning all his friends and students to steal their life force like Szass Tam? But then I don't want to encourage libels hehe. Everyone else is fine, and probably more responsible for the overall ambiance or look and feel of the game than that individual. I mean I'm salty, clearly, but dude just hovers over the legacy like a vulture. Maybe if we'd ever heard a mea culpa, but never did, so screw it right. I'll just dish the dirt. Dude couldn't paint his way out of a wet paper bag, and his portraits are the weakest in the IWD set. But then it's like my mom would put it, 'if you don't have anything nice to say, there might be a reason for that.' lol
Great work!
Black Elk
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ps. at like 24:30 or thereabouts, that's such an excellent thought, like what if IWD had been the game to showcase all the new engine stuff that dropped in BG2 a few months later? I just imagine how much more interested I'd probably have been in playing as Sorcerer or Barbarian or any of those special Class kits in IWD as opposed to BG2, where I immediately felt like my Charname would somehow be detached from the BG1 Charname. IWD didn't have any of the baggage and would have been sorta the optimal setting to introduce a class like Barbarian or a race like Half-Orc.
Also if it had had the new weapons and spells, there was more meat on the bones in IWD to custom spec, esp if using the BG2 scheme, to create a fully custom party with all those extra weapons and skill proficiencies. Or stuff like setting traps for the rogues or whatever else was added in for the main BG2 engine package that followed so hot on the IWD heels.
Also there are some sprites where I actually still really prefer the BG1 engine visualization. For example the chainmail armor on humans and the shields with the regular round, kites, or tower shields, (I just always though everything in BG2 was a bit spiky, like even the bucklers? hehe) but then for the most part the BG2 sprites and higher res was just sorta undeniably better, and pretty impressive by comparison, which made it harder in the afterlife I think once BG2 had already come out. To me the Goblins that I associate so much with BG2 are really IWD gobs, so there's little things like where BG2 gets all the credit, even though IWD really should. Also BG2 was able to leverage the fact that the IWD portraits and stuff like audio barksets were more or less totally compatible and ready to plugin to BG2, meaning if you had the IWD game, pretty easy to switch those in and have at least a couple dozen more options for BG2 portraits ready to rock. The dilemma I always found was that it was a little hard to combine say half the party using the Sass BG2 portraits and the other half using IWD portraits. For me I always had to go sorta all or none, but to me the IWD portraits were just so much cooler looking. At least for the time, it was best in class. I mean that was whole set was pretty next level, and then when they brought Sweet on board for the sequel to do all the Drow and such, that was pretty badass! But if BG2 hadn't had the benefit of all those IWD assets already existing, I think it might have seemed slightly less epic. Mainly since all the infinity engine games had that angle like, import your own if you want. I think that was what set them apart from other similar games. Import/export
Also if it had had the new weapons and spells, there was more meat on the bones in IWD to custom spec, esp if using the BG2 scheme, to create a fully custom party with all those extra weapons and skill proficiencies. Or stuff like setting traps for the rogues or whatever else was added in for the main BG2 engine package that followed so hot on the IWD heels.
Also there are some sprites where I actually still really prefer the BG1 engine visualization. For example the chainmail armor on humans and the shields with the regular round, kites, or tower shields, (I just always though everything in BG2 was a bit spiky, like even the bucklers? hehe) but then for the most part the BG2 sprites and higher res was just sorta undeniably better, and pretty impressive by comparison, which made it harder in the afterlife I think once BG2 had already come out. To me the Goblins that I associate so much with BG2 are really IWD gobs, so there's little things like where BG2 gets all the credit, even though IWD really should. Also BG2 was able to leverage the fact that the IWD portraits and stuff like audio barksets were more or less totally compatible and ready to plugin to BG2, meaning if you had the IWD game, pretty easy to switch those in and have at least a couple dozen more options for BG2 portraits ready to rock. The dilemma I always found was that it was a little hard to combine say half the party using the Sass BG2 portraits and the other half using IWD portraits. For me I always had to go sorta all or none, but to me the IWD portraits were just so much cooler looking. At least for the time, it was best in class. I mean that was whole set was pretty next level, and then when they brought Sweet on board for the sequel to do all the Drow and such, that was pretty badass! But if BG2 hadn't had the benefit of all those IWD assets already existing, I think it might have seemed slightly less epic. Mainly since all the infinity engine games had that angle like, import your own if you want. I think that was what set them apart from other similar games. Import/export