February 16 Livestream Recap

“The plan for persistent world servers support in NWN:EE is that you don’t have to do a preparation work - hack packs will download automatically.” ~ Phillip Daigle

During today’s livestream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle discussed the latest Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition news and what players can expect during the second part of the 2.5 patch open beta for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. Jacob Burgess, voice of Glint Gardnersonson from Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, joined Phil for a live D&D adventure.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch!

Here's a quick summary of the highlights from the livestream:

• The 2.5 update for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is moving along. The second part of the open beta will come soon with fixes, features, and localization updates. IWD:EE is getting a Shaman class and there may be a new kit coming.
• We need beta testers on tablets! Humans, elves, dwarves, barghests, half-elves, half-orcs, full-orcs, double-orcs, gnomes, and aasimars who are interested in helping us lay siege to our next mobile release - sign up with the form here.
• This week, the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Head Start program has come to Steam. All Head Start players - your Steam keys for NWN:EE are now available on Beamdog.com. If you redeem these keys on Steam you will enter the beta and the game will be added to your Steam library. Help us test Steam features and share your feedback on the forums.
• The new 8159 patch for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition focuses on bug fixing. Check out the full patch notes here.

When on Steam, you can opt in the “development” beta.

• We’re making it easier for those who buy Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and want to upgrade to the Digital Deluxe. Watch out for an update on Beamdog.com.
• We plan to release new builds for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition every two weeks. But you can opt in the “development” beta on Steam which will get updates more frequently. Caution: the “development” beta can be less stable.
• Conceptually, we like how the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition deals with switching between original and improved graphics by clicking one button. We’ll see if something like that is plausible for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.
• We have just started poking into the NWN:EE toolset. It’ll be awhile before we make progress on it, but we’re excited to get to it.
• The new model of Aribeth de Tylmarande was a test character. There will be further graphical updates for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition rolling out for next couple of years. Eventually, we are going to facelift everything (characters/tiles/weapons, etc), but it’s going to take time.

Phil the Paladin and Kraak the Kobold Barbarian acting out scenes suggested by the community.

• Custom shaders for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition are in the active development. As soon as we’re happy with how they work, we’ll document how to use them for modders.
• Software extension adding VOIP to a party or area are something we’ve discussed, but it makes more sense for players to use tools that already works like Discord, allowing us to focus our efforts on other features.
• We’re torn on the subject of extra henchmen functionality for the OC in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and would like to reach out to the community about their suggestions on better ways to execute it. Share your feedback on our forums!
• Recruiting for our open job listings is still going on and we’re continuing to accept applicants. Send us your resume!

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream next Friday!