Is it critical? I mean, I finished BG2 before BG1 and I already understood the second without playing the first. But I know that with IWD, it's different. You have different characters and it is not the same storyline. Is it at all based on the original besides the location?

It's no big deal. I don't think not finishing IWD before IWD II is going to matter that much. How far are you in IWD? IWD II isn't out yet.

There's a couple of areas that you "revisit", but nothing where you have to play through the first one to catch onto the second. Even BG2 was like this; Jaheria will explain all you *need* to know at the opening scene. IwD2 is sure to be like this.

"A party of would-be heroes found the missing divination stone, used it to discover the evil in the mountains, and whacked the evil demon before he could use a dimension gate to pull in creatures from the lower planes and wipe out the entire Icewind Dale. They killed everything that slithered or scurryed along the way, including some shadow orcs and that Son-of-a-***** Nym who wasn't able to escape in the v1.06 patch, but was allowed to disappear in the HoW patch due to developers realization that he would come in handy as a plot element in the Second Game; however, some really intreped BG2 players managed to import in a Ranged-Killsword and seriously gibb that SoB before his Dimension Door spell trigger activated, thus causing the developers much pain and anguish during the production of the Second Game."

Most likely, whatever town elder is in the port where you start the game will give you a 25 second rant quite nearly like this...

ejsmith, no. There are references to IWD1 and some funny stuff people who played IWD1 will chuckle at in dialogue and some areas, but that's it. You play a totally different group of heroes which has nothing to do with the one who slayed Belhifet.

There are some books which look exactly like IWD1 box though, and in them a lot of the events that happened in IWD1 are explained, and in a similar way as you put it here. It's a blast reading those, reading about heroes you played! :)

Guess you didn't check out all the shots in my preview...

http://www.sorcerers.net/Articles/image.php?image=IWD2/SP_iwd2_pr_032.jpg

http://www.sorcerers.net/Articles/image.php?image=IWD2/SP_iwd2_pr_033.jpg

Thanks for the information. I am confused though, is it out this month (within the next 8 days) or next month? I read it was due in September but I read somewhere in a forum that it was August 23 or something of the sort. For IWD, I am not far. I am in the place with a whole bunch of killer beetles.

The reviewers are already posting stuff, so yeah. I bet those Collector's Edition's are showing up in the states by Sep. 1st. I just looked through the reviews and screenshots the rest of the way. I guess there's several books that give you the background info. Semantics, semantics.

Anyway, you're in Dragon's Eye?

Keep playing until you get to Larrel in the Severed Hand, and watch the movie. After that, you're fairly good (70%) as far as the story goes. You're not too far from that point, as little as 4 hours and at the most, 10. You do have one *very tough* battle ahead of you before then, so grab every single piece of +3/+4 gear you can find. Even if it's just a dagger; you're going to need it soon...

Somehow, I doubt it will be a nessessity to have played it, as the designers did state that explicitly. I'm playing it through because it's the only IE game I haven't beaten yet.

Thanks for the tips; BG was a breeze compared to this monster game. Anyway, does anyone know when, exactly, the non-collector edition hits stores?

By the end of the month, or beginning of next. It's gone gold already, so it's just a matter of time. Keep checking the front page of SP, we'll post when it hits the stores.