One More Day

Last week I posted “one more week” and now I'm writing “one more day.” What a surreal feeling, to know that tomorrow Siege of Dragonspear will be out and in the hands of the fans. Tomorrow, gamers who have been playing Baldur's Gate for almost 20 years will return to the Sword Coast, reacquaint themselves with Minsc, Edwin, Khalid, and Viconia (among others), and journey north to the ruins of Dragonspear Castle to learn what fresh evil stirs in its halls.

Fresh, well-illustrated evil.

Such a monumental event deserves extra attention, so here in the Beamdog office we've got some special events planned for tomorrow. Our live streamcountdown to Dragonspear begins at 9 am Pacific time, March 31. You can watch us on twitch.tv/beamdog. Phil and Amber will kick off the festivities and demo throughout the day.

Stephanie Wolfe, voice of Safana, will also join us about an hour into the stream to talk about her experience working on Dragonspear. We'll countdown to the game release at noon, with more demos and t-shirt giveaways, and then at 1 pm Pacific Time we'll run an AMA on reddit. Phil and Amber will even run a live AMA segment on the stream!

Tune in tomorrow to watch the countdown to release and stick around for the AMA. But most of all, enjoy Siege of Dragonspear!

One More Week

There's a lot of excitement in the Beamdog office right now as we head into the last week before Dragonspear's release. As you can imagine we're keeping busy making sure that everything's ready for the 31st. We have a few exciting events unrolling this week as well!

On Saturday March 26, Phil and Amber will be guests on Shane Plays. We'll be talking about Dragonspear, naturally, and you can listen live online or listen to the stream at 11:05 am PDT. The show will also go up as a podcast a few days later. Thanks for having Beamdog on the show, Shane!

Thanks for watching everyone!

After the radio piece is done, we'll jump into our last live stream before Dragonspear releases. Tune into our Twitch stream at 12:30 pm PDT on March 26. We'll play through some of the areas we demoed at GDC, but more slowly for the viewers at home. That stream will go up on YouTube a few days later as well.

Finally the Siege of Dragonspear themed issue of the Familiar releases tomorrow! The magazine contains behind-the-scenes info on the art and design of Dragonspear, background on the new Shaman class, and fiction about the goblin shaman M'Khiin by Andrew Foley. Check it out for free on iOS or Android!

And time marches on...

GDC Recap

Wow, the Game Developers Conference this year was a blast! This was our first big press appearance as a company, all for the upcoming launch of Dragonspear. We brought a solid team from Edmonton down to San Francisco, and while Trent and Cam were off having Very Important Business Meetings (TM), the rest of us ran demos for many awesome press folks. This explains why I have no voice today.

On the plane to San Francisco!

We had an Uber race when we arrived. Team Abdullah beat the pants off of Team Hugo as I knew they would. 

Pointing the way to our suite.

No we didn't liberate the tripods from other floors.
I don't know what you're talking about.

Once at the Marriott we set up our demo suite. I gotta say, it was an incredible feeling to see all our professional press material and us in our cool new Beamdog t-shirts for our first big review. 

My midnight text to Trent: I just had a great idea!
Our con team should be called TEAMDOG!

The three days of demoing went by in a dream. We were booked and sometimes double-booked the whole week through. The majority of the press who came through were Baldur's Gate fans and super stoked about Dragonspear. There were gasps, cheers, even a few tears. 

One interviewer told us he was giving the review assignment to another member of his team because a) there was no way he could be objective, and b) he would just play Dragonspear forever and never write anything. That sort of reaction made these years of hard work worthwhile.

It also made us a bit giddy.

Trent's reply text: You are a character.

No, Phil, you can't hide from your responsibilities.

Give it back, Phil.

Give that badge some orange juice. Badges love orange juice.

Not sure what's going on here. Or am I?

I really want to hear their next album.

On our last day at the con, we went out for dinner with John Feil of Wizards of the Coast. It was great to catch up with our partners and hear the praise they had for Dragonspear.

We brought eight people, they brought one. We paid.

Wrapping up the convention with late-night talks.

Thank you so much to all our press contacts who came out for a demo, and to everyone who met with us to talk about Beamdog! 

Less than two weeks to Dragonspear and it's starting to feel really, really real. (Before it only felt mostly real.) Keep an eye on the blog for more news as we approach March 31!

Road to v2.0!

As we get closer to the Siege of Dragonspear release date (March 31, if you hadn't heard), the wheels of this out of control train spin faster and faster. Uh, I mean we're totally in control. Totally.

We do have more cool stuff breaking all the time, though, and today it's the new Road to v2.0 event! Before Dragonspear releases we want to have the v2.0 update available for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. We're inviting fans to join the public beta on our forums. Yes, YOU can contribute to the massive update coming to our games with your precious, precious time!

Besides being an integral part of our testing (and ensuring we hear your opinions and observations), you can also help reach Milestones during the event. As you unlock Milestones, we provide fun rewards to the forum community. Want to see yourself immortalized as a Baldur's Gate portrait? Snag some Siege of Dragonspear wallpaper? Win a copy of our Collector's Edition (limited quantities, pre-order now!) Then sign up for the Road to v2.0!

Last week on our live stream we showed off some of the incredible new features available in the beta and, eventually, in the update (this is your chance to play the new Shaman class!) The stream is up on YouTube now, so check it out.

Pre-orders are still going strong. Visit our store today to snag a copy of Siege of Dragonspear, the Digital Deluxe edition, or the Collector's Edition (while quantities last, don't miss out!)

Announcing Preorders for Dragonspear!

The time is nigh. Soon, the Siege begins!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to finally share this news. Imagine how excited a single person can be and then multiply it by SIX. We’re taking pre-orders on the Siege of Dragonspear site right now for Siege of Dragonspear. Yes, NOW. But that’s not all. Oh, no, there’s much more goodness to be had.

Right now you can pre-order Siege (or Siege plus Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition if you don’t own it on Beamdog already). OR you can pre-order the Siege of Dragonspear Digital Deluxe Edition, which comes with the soundtracks for Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, and Siege of Dragonspear all in mp3 and FLAC format.

Or…

YOU CAN ORDER THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION.

WE HAVE A COLLECTOR’S EDITION.

Ahem. Sorry, got a little carried away there.

The Collector’s Edition includes the Digital Deluxe content and so much more. I mean, look at this thing:

Snazzy dice! Manuals you can hold in your actual human* hands! Collectible coin! Dragonspear amulet! We’re over the moon that we’re able to offer this amazing box set for our fans, and we hope you are too.

Important details: Siege of Dragonspear is a Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition expansion; to play it you must have the base Enhanced Edition game. Our pre-orders are for the version releasing on beamdog.com, so if you don’t have Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition on beamdog.com, you’ll have to purchase it there as well. Your game (and soundtracks, if you pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe or Collector's Edition) will be available to download on March 31, 2016.

Things are picking up speed here at Beamdog Central and the Beamblog’s the place to learn about them! Watch this space for all the Beam-news** that’s fit to print!***

*citation needed

**I’ve been told never to use the phrase “Beam-news” again. So noted.

***Also apparently this blog doesn’t come in a printed format. That’s Beam-news to me!

Streamdog March 4

We've had so much fun with our live streams this year, we're going to do another one! Tune in to twitch.tv/beamdog on Friday, March 4 at 10 am PST (6:00 pm GMT/7:00 PM CET). Infamous* comedy duo Phil & Amber will play Siege of Dragonspear, answer some questions, and give away prizes!

*Infamousness not guaranteed.