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The Joys, pah, of Dragon's Eye.

This forum is to be used for all discussions pertaining to Black Isle Studios' Icewind Dale II.
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talyn
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The Joys, pah, of Dragon's Eye.

Post by talyn »

I've just entered Dragon's Eye, joy. I have a two character party, a Sorceress and a Druid, about level 17 or thereabouts. I hate Dragon's Eye immensely so decided to use the walkthrough and get in and out as quickly as possible. However, I've come across two problems.
  • Because I don't have a Rogue I'm unable to pick locks, and apparently a Sorceress with 26 Strength (got items pumping, not cheating) cannot force them. Within these are apparently Rope which I need later and I can't get to them. Does this mean that, unless you have a Rogue or a Hugely strong character, you cannot complete the game?
  • My more pressing problem is that I've given Ghosty his sword back and he showed me the alchemy lab and said he threw the Modified Mandrake Root over the stone, but the Walkthrough said he shows me the Wyvern Cave on the First Level. The Modified Mandrake Root is apparently in neither of these places. Bugger.

Not hugely sure what to do so figured I'd ask you guys as I have no recollection of Dragon's Eye because I had to force it from my mind to stop me going insane. :D
Any help will be greeted with appreciation and possibly a hug if I'm feeling emotive.

Sorry to plague you all with having to remember Dragon's Eye, but I'm stuck.
Ne'er insult an Elf, lest you get perforated.
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Wrath-Of-Egg
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Post by Wrath-Of-Egg »

Well there is spell called knock....(opens locks) for madrake root go to first level there where wywers are...you can see cave there and click it your party should go to there then...
_________

How can you say no to this face? :D

But seriusly.. Party without Bard is not party...

I can understand that SYM forum.. mentally 6 year old people is just running around with scissors on their hand.

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SDMoNoLitH
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Post by SDMoNoLitH »

I used knock with my solo fighter-cleric. Keep Nathaniel's Ring of the Ram (Ice Palace) and you should have no problems.

IMO they really messed up Dragon's Eye in this game. In the original, it was perhaps the best part of the game. In IWD2, they made it so you have to do the quests in an EXACT ORDER or you cannot progress. Very poor design strategy.
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Wrath-Of-Egg
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Post by Wrath-Of-Egg »

yep in IWD1 it was realy fun...
and i thought that it would be fun in IWD2 but it was disapointment...
_________

How can you say no to this face? :D

But seriusly.. Party without Bard is not party...

I can understand that SYM forum.. mentally 6 year old people is just running around with scissors on their hand.

Last edited by Wrath-Of-Egg : Today
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talyn
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Post by talyn »

I hated it the first time 'round, I found it really tedious. I found the Mandrake Root, or rather the modified one. I don't think it was clear which stone he was reputedly throwing it over, I thought he meant throwing it south into the alchemy lab. Sigh. Anywho, I have no idea what to do about this rope, I'll probably just wait 'till I get to where I need the rope and then have to do a DaleKeeper on it, but I find it difficult to believe that lack of a Rogue or the spell Knock means you can't progress.
Ne'er insult an Elf, lest you get perforated.
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SDMoNoLitH
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Post by SDMoNoLitH »

Yeah that was really poorly done. I had to consult the strategy guide to figure out wtf that ghost was talking about. I basically had to follow the guide word for word to get out of there. I tried it myself a few times and kept breaking the scripts because I'd do things out of order (if you go to the second level without speaking to the imprisoned scholar about his estranged companion, you have to reload because the ghost will not appear :mad: )
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talyn
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Post by talyn »

I think what poisoned my thoughts concerning Dragon's Eye was that, in IWD I you fight your way down to Yxonemei (I'm not even going to attempt to correct myself, that's how I pronounced it in my head so that's how it's spelt) and have a big fight in a room full of traps. And you were just waiting for her to cry out in pain as she got her tail caught in a badly positioned bear trap, but no. She doesn't set off her own traps. That annoyed me aswell. But I think they needed to rethink the whole return to Dragon's Eye and, as you say, make it less easy to force you into restarting the whole bloody game because you saved in a position with no way to continue because you went somewhere without talking to someone.
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Post by SDMoNoLitH »

The fight with Yxunomei was the first real test of your characters. If you could stomp her without trouble, you were going to completely own the rest of the game. If she gave you pause, you still had a hard road ahead.

Considering that I defeated her with a solo cleric of level 8 in a no-killing game (that's right, i only did quests that did not involve killing any creatures unless it was essential to continue the game) except Lysan in the Vale of Shadows.) taking her on with a fully tanked party of 6 is quite fun.

I loved Dragon's Eye in IWD1 because it was so big and provided so much experience and loot. The only problem I had with it was that I tended to run out of ammo on level 3 or 4 and had to walk alllllllll the way back to town. And when you finished level 5, there wasn't a nice convienient exit to take you back to town, forcing you to WALK all the way out again. It just amazes me what gets cut out of games in the name of deadlines. :rolleyes:
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Post by talyn »

That was the main problem, it was so big and there was so little variation both in landscape and in creatures to dismember. It wasn't particularly difficult it was just so boring. And I seem to remember resting was almost impossible so I'd spend ages saving and loading because it would take ever so slightly longer to walk all the way back to town. And there were so many traps and I don't usually have a Rogue in my party for some reason so that was fun, getting clerics to cast Find Traps and then make sure everyone walked very carefully around them, ah it was just so boring, so lacking in variation and so annoying, all at the same time.
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Post by SDMoNoLitH »

I'll concede the trouble resting part. If I want to rest to recover spells, I don't want to get interrupted 5 times before I finally get to sleep. I want to do it successfully the first time. It's unrealistic, but I believe games must sacrifice believeability for the sake of playability at times.
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Post by talyn »

Not to come across all Druidic but it's finding the balance between Realism and Playability, for instance you could have a game that's really realistic but you'd need a super-computer and it would take ages for anything to happen, or at least to put in all the information requried to make it realistic. So While it's a potentially brilliant game it's going to be really very boring, and I think this occured in Dragon's Eye as clearly a party of adventurers couldn't possibly rest for 16 hours on a floor in an enemy's fortress without somebody noticing, however it makes it so incredibly tedious having to march everyone right back to the beginning just to catch some shut eye.
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Post by SDMoNoLitH »

Agreed. Although that's not to say a certain amount of embellishment is forbidden; for example, assume one or two party members stand guard, and if they hear approaching monsters, they alert the other party members and they all hide in the shadows or they have a mage cast invisibility. Of course, a solo character can't really use that story. Frankly, I don't care, because I just want to get my spells back so I can keep dungeon crawling. :D
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Wrath-Of-Egg
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Post by Wrath-Of-Egg »

perhaps with ranger in party you would have 50% less change to get alerted by monsters.... could make rangers more enjoyable class
_________

How can you say no to this face? :D

But seriusly.. Party without Bard is not party...

I can understand that SYM forum.. mentally 6 year old people is just running around with scissors on their hand.

Last edited by Wrath-Of-Egg : Today
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