Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn - Development

Development

Baldur's Gate II was developed by BioWare and published by Black Isle Studios. It used, as Baldur's Gate had done, the Infinity Engine; and was released for Windows in September 2000. BioWare dedicated the game to Daniel Walker, who was their second employee, and who passed away in 1999.

Baldur's Gate had been the first role-playing game that BioWare had made; and what they learned in making it was applied to Baldur's Gate II. They also felt that, in developing the first game, they did not have enough time to reach their design goals: they had been developing both the content of the game and the Infinity Engine at the same time. In Baldur's Gate II, it was determined that the designers should be allowed "adequate time to allow the game to reach its full potential." Throughout its development, they focused "on ensuring that Baldur's Gate II is significantly better than Baldur's Gate in every way possible, and to make it appeal not only to fans of the original game but also to make it accessible to new fans who never played the original game."

Development of Baldur's Gate II began in January 1999. From the suggestions of fans on message boards and newsgroups, reviews of Baldur's Gate, and internal suggestion lists, a list of constructive criticism was compiled; from this list, a slightly shorter one of features to be added to the game was made. Some of the items on this list were support for higher resolutions, such as 800x600 and higher; 3D support; non-pausing dialogue in multiplayer; drop off panels in the interface; character kits; dual-wielding of weapons; a streamlined journal, and an annotatable map; deathmatch; and inclusion of all the famous AD&D monsters, such as the dragon. Not many features had to be cut; and they tried to keep as many as they could. Because of the engine's maturity, most were fairly easy to add. Ben Smedstad, the producer of the game, said, "The engine was up and running since day one, which is a huge morale booster. When a monster is complete, we put it into the 'override' directory and it appears in the game! This is a huge change from working on the original." Late in the project, deathmatch was removed; while non-pausing dialogue, which proved "the most problematic feature," was removed early on, but in early 2000 was reintroduced.

To avoid some of the design mistakes made in Baldur's Gate, guidelines were drawn up: one set for each department, the level design ones being the longest. These were, however, a work-in-progress and evolved as the development progressed. Many early design decisions were made that did not follow the guidelines; for they were not in their final form until the end of the project. Chapter II is to be noted under this head. Programming constraints were not always followed by other departments, such as design and art, leading to slowdowns in some parts of the game that were difficult, or impossible, to fix.

The process for creating levels had eight stages: (1) an area is mapped out and described by designers; (2) an isometric concept of the level is drawn by a concept artist; (3) the level's models are made; (4) models are placed in the level and are then textured; (5) smaller objects are placed in the level, its lighting is done, and any final tweaks are completed; (6) the level being given to the designers, the clipping, luminosity, height, and search map are done; (7) creatures, items, traps, and triggers are added to it; and (8) its scripting is completed. They found it quite difficult to keep track of changes made to levels; and there were sometimes communication problems between different parts of the team, such as the artists and the designers, resulting in inconsistencies between their work. Ray Muzyka, the co-executive producer, wrote, "We learned to make sure all elements of the team are talking to each other and working as a group, rather than as a bunch of individuals!" However, they felt they had done a good job automating the level creation process; for levels were rapidly designed. "A designer," wrote Muzyka, "might submit a level description and receive it, art complete, a month later ready for scripting, but missing some key features (almost always a door). We would then have to determine whether the omission was important enough to have the art piece redone, or whether we could simply tweak the design of the level to fit the finished art."

During the game's development, a quality assurance department was added to BioWare; and the game's publishers also lent their assistance in testing. Muzyka said that "because of its immense size, Baldur's Gate II was a tester's nightmare," and, "this was compounded by the fact that we didn't do enough testing as areas were being developed." The game contained about 290 quests, each of which had to be tested in both single player and multiplayer. BioWare used a method, introduced to them by Feargus Urquhart, Douglas Avery, and Chris Parker of Black Isle Studios, in which the game's quests were listed on white-boards, with a cross placed beside each quest. Pairs consisting of a developer and a tester were allotted each a quest, and upon their believing the quest to be stable, its cross was deleted.

Muzyka wrote:

In the final days of working on BG2 there was a strangely serene feeling in the office. We didn't experience the headlong panic that is sometimes prevalent while finishing a game, but we certainly did experience considerable stress as we built 21 final candidates in 3 days. After a few long nights with the whole team playing the game over and over again, we reached a point where we built a good final candidate. Then it was sent to the duplicators!