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• General
• Fixed a problem with invisible stalkers attacking the party if the difficulty is set to Insane in Lower Dorn’s Deep.
• Made some minor adjustments to the fight with Malavon in Lower Dorn’s Deep.
• Already-fatigued druids that hit 15th level and acquire “Timeless Body” should now correctly be rid of their fatigue.
• Fixed a problem where monsters that were damaged by a thief’s sneak attack could gain a +20 damage adjustment.
• Characters now receive the new class changes added in Heart of Winter when the game is loaded so it is not necessary to level up first in order to get them.
• Fixed a graphic bug with the final Heart of Winter battle when using 24-bit color in 2D.
• Some users reported a cutscene mode hang after completing the final Heart of Winter battle, which has been fixed.
• Permissions set in multiplayer games were carrying over into the single player game, which has been fixed.
• Druids who shapechange will not lose the assigned spells in their Quickspell slots when reverting back to “human” form.
• Incorrect feedback for luck bonuses/penalties has now been removed.
• Effects that grant a bonus to a character’s casting time now work correctly. The item Kossuth’s Blood is one example that now works.
• The journal entry for Vexing Thoughts incorrectly reported that he wanted nine people slain instead of one.
• Summoned creatures in Heart of Fury mode have had their hit points and to hit adjustments reduced somewhat.
• Fixed a problem with bags automatically identifying unidentified items.
• Some problems with multiplayer permissions carrying over into Single Player after playing in a multiplayer game have been fixed.
• Some lizard men in Dragon’s Eye were marked as friendly, and this has been corrected.
• Innate spell-like special abilities (like the druid shapechange) can no longer be interrupted by damage.
• Items
• The Blur Deck can no longer be used before being identified.
• The Girdle of Beautification now correctly grants its Bless bonus.
• The Lucky Scimitar now properly grants its equipped luck bonus.
• “The Robe of the Watcher” now correctly grants a 10% bonus to magic resistance.
• The tooltip text for the Sceptre of Tyranny’s daily magical uses now displays the correct effect, instead of the name of the item.
• The tooltip text for the Singing Blade of Aihonen’s daily magical uses now displays the correct effect, instead of the name of the item.
• Throwing Daggers may now be purchased in multiple quantities.
• Multiplayer
• Fixed a potential problem in the final Heart of Winter scene where the game could be stuck in cutscene mode in multiplayer.
• Increased network packet efficiency by reducing size and frequency of some packets containing potentially redundant information. This should help decrease lag in all multiplayer games.
• Spells
• Effects that grant strength bonuses in conjunction with effects that set strength are now correctly evaluated after area transitions and loading saved games.
• In some cases, Blood Rage would leave a PC with a Strength of 3. This has been corrected.
• Chant and Prayer now properly adjust THAC0, saving throws, and damage bonus instead of luck.
• Fixed a bug with Chant, Prayer, and Recitation incorrectly factoring in a creature’s magic resistance when the beneficial effects were applied.
• Fixed a bug with Barkskin not appropriately modifying your AC at higher levels.
• Improved the speed of Cone of Cold effects and it’s derivatives.
• Spell effects based on Confusion now consistantly display the icon in the Character Record screen.
• Fixed problem with Decastave crashing the game if a shield is equipped when it is cast.
• Dispel Magic now correctly removes the special abilities granted by Seven Eyes.
• Power Word Silence is now correctly recognized as a conjuration/summoning spell, not an invocation spell
• Prayer now correctly modifies THAC0, damage, and saving throws instead of luck.
• Static Charge now works correctly in multiplayer when someone other than the host casts it.
• Fixed a bug where Wall of Moonlight would not appear or work properly when a game is loaded or quick-loaded if it was in effect before the load.
• Fixed a minor targeting problem with Whirlwind.
• Fixed a problem with Whirlwind displaying different movement patterns between clients on multiplayer games.
• The spell progression table for Wizards above level 20 has been corrected. Please see the section regarding Manual Corrections above for the new table.
• Shield of Lathander’s duration dropped from 3 rounds to 2 rounds.
• Druids no longer have access to Slay Living.

Pool of Radiance – The one that started it all – the first of the “Gold Box” games. SSI’s Pool of Radiance was the first full-fledged AD&D game for the personal computer. Originally available for 8-bit machines such as the Commodore 64, the PC version ran under DOS 3 and required 384 KB of RAM. You controlled a party of six characters created using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, and adventuring was a mix of first-person stepped 3D movement on grid-based maps, and top-down third-person 2D tactical combat reminiscent of a miniatures wargame. A genuine classic.

Most of the art for the new areas has been completed. We’ve only have one or two more levels to do, plus some 2D touchup. The story and individual level designs have been pretty much nailed down. Right now, we’re cranking away at full steam, populating areas and implementing items, spells, and scripts. If all goes well, I’d say we should be ready to release the expansion sometime in early June.

Hey everyone,

It’s been awhile since our last web update regarding the Downloadable Dungeon set, so we wanted to let you know about a couple of things. After some debating, we have finally come up with a name for our Downloadable Dungeon Set, Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster. Also, we want to remind everyone that to play Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster, you must have Heart of Winter installed. We are putting the finishing touches on it right now, and everything is looking great. It looks like it will be in QA later this week, so you can look for it this month. For now here are some new screenshots for you to check out.

Also, both RPGVault and Planet Baldur’s Gate have posted interviews with designer Steve Bokkes.

Team Icewind

As for the environment, we pretty much let people do what they want, when they want. Unless people are screaming at the top of their lungs when playing Quake in the middle of the day, we don’t care. However, if they are playing Quake in the middle of the day and their last four tasks weren’t done on time, that’s a different conversation. That’s not to say that people can come and go completely at will. We do need to have a certain number of hours during the day that the entire team is there – depending on the stage the project is in, we enforce this to greater or lesser degrees.

Q: How much input have you had in developing such games as Icewind Dale? As a gamer, what does it feel like to have people playing in worlds you dreamt up?

A: None, and that’s been particularly frustrating. Eventually the game design community will come to understand that the other element to the game could be the story, and perhaps then they will start asking the proven novelists of the genre to join in the creation process. Until then, it’s their ballpark, not ours.

I’m always thrilled to see a character with one of my novel names running around Norrath, or to get an e-mail from a guy apologizing because he killed Drizzt in Baldur’s Gate to get his stuff. It’s a fun perk to the business.