Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

The Black Isle Studios message boards are back up, although the problem with blank pages doesn't seem to have been resolved. Anyway, here are a few comments from the game developers.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

Kevin Martens, Lead Designer:

Jan Jansen's story line: People of all alignments fall in love. Even a chaotic evil person could easily do everything in his power to save the woman he loved and her daughter. Love transcends alignment. Of course, once he was with her, that doesn't necessarily mean that a CE person would make a better husband than the person he saved her from.

In Jan's case, Lissa is his lifelong love and definitely the biggest regret of his life. Though this isn't necessarily made clear in the game, she is the reason that he left home and began his adventures in the first place. Also, though I think I made it too subtle, Jaella could be his daughter. He was with Lissa before Vaelag took her away and the girl could be his.

To make a long story short, I would consider a youth in a game like this to be unformed as far as alignment goes and it is the experiences that he/she goes through in early life that forms their alignment. Lissa leaving him is one of the reasons that Jan is CN, if not the main reason. If she had stayed with him, I suspect he would have been neutral or neutral good. The Jansen family pull might have kept the good part out of the equation however.

BTW: regarding this plot, originally, the plot was going to take you to the Library of Athkatla, where Jan would stumble upon a book that opened a portal into the realm of the Hidden. The Hidden's realm was going to be full of intellectual puzzles and riddles and one would have to prove one's intellect in order to gain audience with the Hidden.

As far as the Hidden goes, he has ties with the illithids and with an Illumnati-style organization that recruits in secret throughout Amn. The Hidden himself is being tracked by githyanki bounty hunters, although I never clarified exactly why this was for the player.

(It was cut) simply because it was far too complicated and big for a quest that only people who took Jan would have access to. Plus, I kept using all of puzzle ideas in other dungeons. I liked the fact that the current implementation of the Hidden made so many people wonder what's going on. It just makes the world seem richer with an undercurrent of intrigue.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Weapons changing hands (animations): This is done for a reason. The animations for characters are only rendered for the left facings, and are mirrored for the right facings (or is it the other way around? - ah, whatever). There are already something like 300,000 frames of animations for your characters. If we rendered for both ways, that number would double, which would take a lot more cd space, and a lot more RAM when running the game.

I'm not an animator, I don't really know any more details on it than that - so don't ask me!