The BEAMBLOG

Showing posts with label Enhanced Edition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enhanced Edition. Show all posts

Friday, October 19, 2018

October 19 Livestream Recap

With NWSync coming to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, players will be able to join persistent worlds without this error!
During today’s stream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Producer Luke Rideout shared the latest studio news and updates on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions. They called Technical Director on the NWN:EE core team, Bernhard Stöckner (@niv), who showed off a very early version of NWSync, a much-anticipated feature for NWN:EE! They then announced NWSync will be shipped in today’s Development Build.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

  • Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition on Android and iOS is nearly 80% off this week! Start adventuring in this legendary RPG on mobile for just $1.99!
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is available on GOG! NWN:EE and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Digital Deluxe have both been in GOG’s top 5 “Popular” titles since launch!
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Digital Deluxe on Beamdog.com has been split into individual DLCs. All owners of the the Digital Deluxe were provisioned with the appropriate DLCs. If you still don’t own them, and planning on purchasing, you can still get a -10% bundle discount if you buy the base game and all the DLCs at once!
  • If you’re looking for a new adventure, get in touch! We just added a new posting for an in-office Quality Assurance Tester to help with currently released and upcoming games.
“If you want to have Trent screaming in your Baldur’s Gate party, you totally will be able to!” ~ Luke
  • The 2.6 patch for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is on the way, but not ready just yet. Among other things, it will include a lot of spell data and code fixes. The 2.6 patch will also add support for DLC portraits and voicesets in Multiplayer.
  • The Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack is on track! Trent and a few Beamdog crew members also recorded new player soundsets for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. The packs for each of the games will be separate because of different file formats and compatibility issues.
  • The Faces of Good and Evil portrait pack will come to Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. The Heroes of Neverwinter portrait pack will in turn come to Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. We expect they will be rolled out for all the games on the same date.
NWSync will allow for much easier joining servers in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition!
  • A surprise announcement during the stream is that the much-anticipated feature for NWN:EE, NWSync, will be shipped in a new Development Build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition today. We would like server admins of NWN:EE persistent worlds to take a look and share feedback on NWSync in the forums!
  • See the full patch notes for Development Build 8182 here.
  • We have prepared a detailed user manual about NWSync. Check it out, we’d love your feedback!
  • The Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Roadmap Trello board will soon be updated! Once we finish working on the mobile version of NWN:EE, expect movement on many of the short-term active features.

“NWSync will lower the barriers to join persistent worlds!” ~ Luke
  • Beamdog COO Cameron is poking in the NWN:EE renderer to see if support for open face helmets is possible.
  • Making all head mdls loading on character creation, or making it a 2da sounds like a fix we can do, but we’d have to look at it a bit first. Like with all feature requests, share your suggestion on the forums, so that it could appear on the Input Trello board.
  • The UI refactor for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition can be separated into two components: short-term and long-term. Rescaling of the UI and the True Type Font support will be ported to NWN:EE on PC from the mobile version. A full rewrite of the UI, however, is our long-term goal, and work on it is still being evaluated.

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

Friday, October 12, 2018

October 12 Livestream Recap

Trent, Sarah, and other Beamdog team members have been busy in the V/O booth creating new player soundsets for BG:EE, BGII:EE, IWD:EE, and NWN:EE.
Today Beamdog Producer Luke Rideout and Community Manager Sarah Dawson shared the latest studio news and updates. They talked about Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition finally coming to GOG, the latest development progress on NWN:EE for Android, and an upcoming voice pack.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

  • Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition on Android and iOS is 80% off this week! Hurry up, and get it for only $1.99!
  • During the next 2 days grab Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition Official Soundtrack for 50% off at Beamdog.com! The soundtrack now includes music from Heart of Winter.
  • We’re still hiring! If you’re a developer, programmer, or technical artist, come and wort at Beamdog! Keep an eye on our jobs page!
  • Don’t miss out on Beamdog sales, updates, contests, and more! Sign up for our newsletter for the latest.
“Working at Beamdog has been the most rewarding job I’ve had in years!” ~ Luke
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is now available on GOG! Don’t miss these awesome launch discounts: 25% off NWN:EE, and 35% off the Digital Deluxe Edition which includes several adventure modules, the game's Soundtrack and the Heroes of Neverwinter pack! For a limited time, owners of the Diamond Edition get an additional 25% off when purchasing Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Digital Deluxe on GOG.
“Future patches for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will be released on all platforms (Beamdog, GOG, Steam) at the same time.” ~ Luke
  • Trent, Sarah, Dan, Andrew, and Elyse have been recording new player soundsets for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. You’ll want to hear that Trent yelling as a chaotic barbarian!
  • In addition to directing the Beamdog crew, Mark Meer has also been recording new lines as drow sorcerer Baeloth Barrityl and that most major of the modern minor mages, Alveus Malcanter!
  • Alveus Malcanter is coming to BG:EE, BGII:EE, IWD:EE, and NWN:EE as a magic item merchant with special wares for Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack owners. More news on that soon!
  • Everyone loves Baeloth. Everyone wants to be Baeloth. Soon you’ll be able to assign special soundsets of Alveus and Baeloth to your party characters! Again, more news soon™.
  • We generally contract V/O artists for projects. If you have a portfolio and want to work with us, send it to contact@beamdog.com, and we'll pass it on to our creative team.
“NWN is a great platform for new stories!” ~ Luke
  • The core UI pass for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Android is nearly done. On Monday we’ll be moving to the final bug gauntlet. Stay tuned for future public beta news!
  • The way NWN:EE on Android will handle hak content is very similar to installing haks on PC. The file system on Android is quite open and allows having override and mod folders.We're considering “NWSync” for this in the future, but for the immediate future, “NWSync” is a tool to help with connecting to servers.
  • Players on Android will be able to play NWN:EE on PW servers with custom content thanks to “NWSync”. Mobile players will be able to connect to multiplayer games similarly to PC, and multiplayer will be cross-platform. Modules can be installed through the file system. You’ll need to have some extra space on your mobile device, though, to download custom content, so it could be potentially space-intensive.
  • Minimal spes for NWN:EE on Android are still TBD, but we recommend devices that came out in the last 3 years at least.
  • In-between UI size is already possible for NWN:EE on Android. For example, players will be able to resize UI to 1.7., or 1.9, or whatever fits the screen. This feature, along with the True Type Font support, will be ported to the PC version.
  • Achievements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition are progressing. We have created a list of achievements, as well as the ability to track and award them. One of Luke’s favorite achievements is “Don’t believe his lies!” - which you will get by succeeding a hard bluff check.

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

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The 2.5 patches come to the Mac App Store!

The long-awaited 2.5 patches come to the Mac App Store!
[Read it in Sarevok’s voice] The 2.5 patches for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition are live in the Mac App Store! Flesh and blood and bone! They are alive! Ha-ha! We swore the patches would scratch and crawl their way back into the Mac App Store... and we have done it!

The 2.5 updates for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition are coming your way. Now you can play your favourite games fully updated to the 2.5 version, with over 1 600 bug fixes and new features! If updates aren’t immediately available, please be patient as the patches are populating through the Mac App Store.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

PAX West Panel and August 31 Livestream Recap

Trent, Alyssa, John and Sarah were joined by Holly Conrad and Jared Knabenbauer for our PAX West panel!
During a special announcement panel at PAX West on September, 1 Beamdog CEO Trent Oster, Art Director Alyssa Duguay, Community Manager Sarah Dawson and Wizards of the Coast, Senior Producer, Digital Licensing John Feil talked about the history of Beamdog and Neverwinter Nights, and showed footage of NWN:EE on mobile. Special guests Holly Conrad and Jared Knabenbauer announced the Dice, Camera, Action! Portrait & Voice pack DLC for the Beamdog Enhanced Edition Family of games.

A day earlier, Beamdog Producer Luke Rideout and QA lead on Infinity Engine games Kristin Warren shared the latest gaming updates and plans for the Enhanced Editions.

Missed the streams? Check out the Twitch video from our Panel (starts at 03:03:10)! Watch the August 31 Livestream here (sorry about the sound quality, we’ll make sure to fix audio-related issues this week)! Below is a quick summary of the highlights:

  • The Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack DLC is coming to the Beamdog Enhanced Edition Family of games later this year! Waffle Crew cast members Holly Conrad, Jared Knabenbauer, Anna Prosser Robinson, and Nathan Sharp are recording player character voice-over for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. Portraits and voices of Strix, Diath Woodrow, Paultin Seppa, Evelyn Marthain, and a special portrait for DM Chris Perkins will be available as DLC on Steam, Beamdog, GOG, Google Play, and App Store.
  • If you’re local to Edmonton, we’ll see you at Edmonton Expo (September, 21 - 23)!
  • We’re hiring! If you’re a programmer, technical artist, web developer, or human resources generalist - apply!
  • We’ve seen requests to update Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition to the 2.5.17 build (to make the version in line with other games), and are working on it.
  • The 2.5 builds for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for the Mac App Store are with QA.
  • A colossal amount of work has been put into the 2.5 patches, but we’re interested in making continued improvements for our Infinity Engine games. If you run into bugs, please use the public bug tracker - we have people checking them on a daily basis.
  • We’re sorting out last steps on Rich Presence support for the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition GOG build. It’ll let players click and join friends, render your friends list in the in-game view, and get information about what server they’re playing on. We also need to make a change to our builds to deploy multi-language on GOG, since they support custom per-language installers.
  • We’re working on a variety of visual improvements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. We’re cautious about how we’ll be implementing new models into the game, considering old machines and mobile devices.
  • During our PAX West panel we showed footage of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Android (it’s still Work in Progress). A lot of work is being put into UI and supporting different aspect ratios.
  • We’re actively looking into improving the maximum number of bones per skinmesh. Some progress has been made, but we don’t have any specific ETA for this feature.
  • If you’re interested in seeing scripting functions that add DoMeleeAttack / DoRangedAttack functions, share your suggestions about how you want them implemented on our forums.
  • We’ll be bringing people from the community to talk to during our livestreams. Stay tuned!

Excited for what’s next? Have questions about the Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack DLC and NWN:EE on mobile? Come and join the next livestream this Friday!

Friday, June 15, 2018

June 15 Livestream Recap

PAX West! Beamdog will be off to the west coast for a special announcement panel.
Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle shared the latest news and updates on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and Infinity Engine patches. During the livestream Phil and Trent answered fan questions and did a tour around the Beamdog studio.

Missed the stream (done via Phil’s phone due to a sudden Windows update)? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

Phil and Trent walked around the Beamdog office.
  • We’re going to do a panel at PAX West (August 31 - September 3, 2018) and preparing to make a wide variety of announcements there! Phil says some of them might be “outside of our usual playbox”. More news soon!
  • We have a lot of very, very exciting plans that we’re hiring up to achieve. Hop over to our jobs page, and apply!
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition development build 8177 is available on Steam and in the Beamdog Client. It focuses on stability, bug fixing, and also adds a few new features. Check out the full notes here!
“We’ll take the look of Neverwinter Nights content to another level” ~ Trent
  • The end of the 2.5 patch cycle for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Siege of Dragonspear and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is in sight. Thanks a lot to all our amazing beta testers! We plan to release the 2.5 patch for Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition next week.
  • We’ll push one additional update to Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, which will introduce a new feature (fully toggleable). Phil promises that it’ll make casting a spell like Fireball, and not hitting your party, a lot easier.
  • The work on character model improvements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is progressing, so stay tuned!
  • If you’re interested in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Collector’s Edition, share your thoughts on our forum, and let us know what would you like to see in it.
  • Next week we’ll be sitting down with Bernhard Stöckner (niv), the technical director on the NWN core team at Beamdog, to talk about technical challenges of working on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

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

Friday, June 8, 2018

June 8 Livestream Recap

A VERY early look at Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on an Nvidia Shield tablet, shown by the Hand of Dan
During today’s livestream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster was joined by Mark Meer, voice of Commander Shepard, Rasaad yn Bashir, Baeloth the Entertainer, Alveus Malcanter, and many other characters. Trent and Mark shared Stream of Many Eyes stories and the latest news on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on tablets is in the works! There’s still some work to do to make it possible, so stay tuned for more news! We’re looking into ways to have a list of the best mods available for download. Sign up for our newsletter to get all the information about NWN:EE on tablets first!
  • Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford is out on Steam and will come to Beamdog.com in the future! Learn about all the fantastic improvements put into Darkness over Daggerford by Ossian Studios here. We support Ossian Studios and want them to do well as they never got to make money from Darkness over Daggerford originally.
  • We’re working to support downloadable content on Beamdog.com. Hopefully it’ll happen fairly soon.
The Stream of Many Eyes. “A phenomenal, amazing environment to be in” ~ Trent
  • Last week Minsc (Trent), Rasaad (Phil), Biff the Understudy (Lee), and Alveus Malcanter (Mark) took part in the Stream of Many Eyes. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast and all the people who came there, the event was truly epic! Check our Facebook and Twitter for all the photos from the stream.
The Yawning portal is my favourite tavern in Waterdeep ~ Mark
  • We’re working on the next development build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition which will address many of the issues on 1.75, including area transition colours and DM interactivity issues with them, door highlights interfering with easily walking through them, chat panels not remembering their positioning, Premium Module crashing and working oddly in Multiplayer. We’re targeting next week as the build is not ready yet.
  • Linux players, if the 2x UI scaling results in clicks not aligning with your cursor, open the nwn.ini file and enable Hardware Mouse to fix this issue.
  • We urge players to submit bugs they encounter on our bug-tracking site. The better repro steps and more detail you can provide in your bug report (especially about Multiplayer bugs), the better chances to fix the appropriate bug will be.
  • We plan to add the remaining official translations of Neverwinter Nights into NWN:EE. The best way to get a translation of NWN:EE into a new language is to volunteer as a translator here!

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

Friday, February 23, 2018

February 23 Livestream Recap

It took a while, but Siege of Dragonspear is coming to tablets!
Beamdog Studio Director Phillip Daigle and QA Lead Kristin Warren shared recent Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition updates and gave an early peek at Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on Android and iOS.

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

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

  • We’re looking for testers of Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on mobile devices. If you have a tablet or a phone and want to share your feedback, sign up for the beta on our forums.
  • Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear for Android and iOS will include a lot of features from Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition to make playing on small devices as smooth as possible, including dialogue selection buttons and a "Take all" button on containers. The game will be friendlier for mobile players via a tutorial popup and clearer explanations of buttons on the game screen.
  • Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on mobile devices will see a Brazilian/Portuguese translation when we release the full 2.5 update. Volunteers have done an amazing work on this translation!
  • We’re adding the Priest of Tempus kit and all other fixes/features that have gone into the 2.5 patch for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition into Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear.
  • The PC version of Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear update will be released along with the 2.5 patch for these Enhanced Editions.
  • Regarding BG:EE, BGII:EE and IWD:EE - the 2.5 patch is going to be in the beta for a bit longer. We’ll be updating it with new languages, localized V/O, features, and bug fixes soon. We’re giving the translation teams a little bit more time to get their updates into the games. Expect to see a new build in early March.
  • Nearly 500 bugs have already been fixed in the 2.5 patch.
  • System requirements for Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on mobile devices have been raised a bit compared to our Infinity Engine products for Android and iOS. More details will be available closer to the full release.
Take a tour of the Steam Workshop for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition!
  • There’s no new build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Head Start this week. You can check all the development news on the Roadmap Trello board and vote for features you would like to be added to NWN:EE on the Input Trello board. If you have ideas of what you want to see in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, let us know on the forums.
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will be released this year.
  • It’s been a fantastic week in the NWN:EE Steam Workshop. The game is not even released on Steam fully, and yet there is a lot of custom content already available.
  • Find a guide on how to upload your content to the Steam Workshop here.
The plan with the 2.5 patch is to bring people back playing Multiplayer in Infinity Engine games.
  • We are hiring! We are looking for all kinds of developers, designers, and producers! Check out the full list here and apply.
  • We are always happy to participate in Edmonton events and meet with local fans. Last year our programmers and designers took part in Global Game Jam 2017 and created two games, Water Wizard and The Queen’s Wave. Check out those Game Jam titles here.

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

Friday, February 16, 2018

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!