February 2 Livestream Recap

During today’s livestream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle went through the latest Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition updates and Beamdog news.

They went on to share a few details about the upcoming 2.5 patch for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. They also leaked the theme to a (possible) future module contest for NWN:EE: “Kill Phil.”

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

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

• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Head Start got a new patch today. Check out the NWN:EE Head Start Patch Notes v74.8156 here.
• If you haven’t heard, the Head Start program is an Early Access to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. Pre-order the game today on Beamdog and to get access. This is your chance to try new enhancements, share ideas on the forums about what you think may improve Neverwinter Nights. 
• Don’t forget to vote for the suggestions you like the most on the Input Trello board and follow the development process on theRoadmap Trello board.
• By popular request, the main menu music now defaults to the original Neverwinter Nights theme. In the .ini settings you can now choose between the Original Campaign main theme, the HotU main theme, the Witch's Wake main theme and the Wyvern Crown of Cormyr main theme. Any of the .BMU files may be chosen for your main menu music.
• Support for Normal and Specular Maps has been included in this patch. This is an early version of the feature and we’re continuing to work on it.








The screen space ambient occlusion post process shader has been improved and re-enabled. See the images above with it turned off (the 1st image) and turned on (the 2nd image)

• The v74.8156 build re-introduces screen space ambient occlusion post process shaders into Neverwinter Nights. Now floors, stairs, walls and other objects will look better. It’s a cool feature that we’ll be continuing to work on, but take note that it can feel a bit heavy if you play at a large resolution.
• It’s currently not available for public access, but internally we’re testing the Steam Friends List support. 
• We have plans for additional portraits for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. But getting back original Neverwinter Nights portraits which were available at the release of the vanilla game and later patched out is not possible due to legal reasons. If you want a feature where you can change your portrait in-game, share your suggestion on the forum.
• If you’re interested in a feature highlighting in-game chat text in color or bold/italic styles, let us know in the forums.

A Baldur’s Gate II sword, a gift to Trent from the Bioware team back in the day.

The first smithing experience of Trent, a tomahawk axe. The coloration is natural, temperature-based.


• Going forward, we have plenty to do about the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Toolset. We are currently looking for a few good designers, developers, programmers, and more! On our career page here you can find all the recent job listings.
• We see ourselves as curators of original content. Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is about adding and improving, not reinventing.
• The 2.5 patch for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is actively being worked on right now. Over the holiday break we have got amazing feedback from players and we’re going through it. This patch will restore original German VO for Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition. We need to investigate and turn up what other original VO is available to be included with future patches.

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