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King Crimson · 06-28-2002, 09:40 PM

Greetings fellow fans of the Baldur's Gate series! As you can obviously see by looking at my Avatar I am naught but a newbie to this boards, so I bid you all greetings and hope I could contribute to this community.

I just finished TOB for the second time today, and I couldn't help but feeling that there were a few things in the series that if changed would've made playing it far more rewarding and enjoyable, I was wondering if people here feel the same and thought we could share our grievences and tell how we would've done some things in the game differently.

SPOILER'S WARNING- I believe that warning about spoilers is kind of moot since everyone on this here board propably finished all three games already, but if someone didn't they should be warned that this post and the following replays (I hope there would be some) would propably contain spoilers.

Here's what I'd change:
First and foremost, I wouldn't end the series with some half-assed expansion. Both BG and SOA are grand games of an epic scale and ending the series with a short quite badly made expansion left me craving for a more suitable ending to this great series. TOB was pretty much Deus Ex Machina in it's plot as there were very few clues in SOA or BG that pointed that there were hundreds of Bhaalspawn in Faerun and considering that information BG's plot suddenly becomes quite foolish (Why would Sarevok focus his efforts on you if there are so many Bhaalspawn lying around?).

Second, Increasing the frequency of NPC interactions would be nice. Not only NPC to NPC interactions but also NPC and random charachters interactions. For instance, when dealing with the shadow-thieves you'd expect Edwin to have a lot more to say about their motives, especially during the Mae'var guildhall quest, you mean to tell me Edwin has nothing to say to his former boss as he comes to kill him?

Third, more NPC variety. Now I'm not completly certain about this one, as the quite limited number of NPCs serves as tool to balance Evil and Good parties and handicap (not enough in my opinion) mixed parties. Most good NPCs are quite weak but they are many and you can go around being as good as you please with them not caring while most Evil NPCs are quite powerful but are problematic if in a party with good NPCs and there's simply not enough of them to fill a party (The most evil party I could achieve was Me, Edwin, Viconia, Korgan and Jan who is actually a chaotic neutral. In TOB I added Sarevok). So although it balances the game, I still fill that a few more NPCs wouldn't hurt the game too much and even 2-4 more NPCs would be nice, there's no need for dozens more like in BG.

Fourth, Why is your charachters reputation nothing but a silly number? I mean sure, everyone seems to know you are a Bhaalspawn and some even know about Irenicus and Sarevok, but why does no one ever talk about Firkraag? Yoshimo said Firkraag was quite famous ,you'd expect people to talk about the hero/mercenary who slew a giant red dragon or about the person who released the slaves in Atkhatla. The way the game currently is you don't feel as though you have much of an impact on the gameworld.

Fifth, this is again, mostly a rant about TOB but not only. Why is nothing in the series unique? in SOA there were only two +5 weapons and one of them was a holy sword and the other was a weapon you had to wander all across the world to get the pieces of (Crom faeyr) that was unique and cool, now suddenly in TOB you find dozens of +5 and +6 weapons just lying around, most of them even without a cool description like even +2 equipment had in SOA and BG, that greatly annoyed me. But it doesn't end with equipment, Kangaxx was so powerful that he couldn't be destroyed, he was cursed for over a millenia and his body was guarded by wizards who turned themselves undead so that no one would restore him. THAT is unique. A demi-lich lying around in a crypt inside watchers keep? That is LAME, I guess that just couldn't restrain themselves from putting another demi-lich, bah.

Also, you should be able to screw things up. If you free Kangaxx into his Demi-lich form and then run away like a coward nothing happens, same with the Demogorgon, I want some consequences. Yeah I know this will never happen as it will require making the game too non-linear, but still, this is a wish-list [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Well, I guess I ranted enough. Your turn.

[EDITED to remove profanities, I apologize]

[ 06-28-2002, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: King Crimson ]

06-28-2002, 09:40 PM	#1
King Crimson Elite Waterdeep Guard Join Date: June 28, 2002 Location: Israel Posts: 19	Greetings fellow fans of the Baldur's Gate series! As you can obviously see by looking at my Avatar I am naught but a newbie to this boards, so I bid you all greetings and hope I could contribute to this community. I just finished TOB for the second time today, and I couldn't help but feeling that there were a few things in the series that if changed would've made playing it far more rewarding and enjoyable, I was wondering if people here feel the same and thought we could share our grievences and tell how we would've done some things in the game differently. SPOILER'S WARNING- I believe that warning about spoilers is kind of moot since everyone on this here board propably finished all three games already, but if someone didn't they should be warned that this post and the following replays (I hope there would be some) would propably contain spoilers. Here's what I'd change: First and foremost, I wouldn't end the series with some half-assed expansion. Both BG and SOA are grand games of an epic scale and ending the series with a short quite badly made expansion left me craving for a more suitable ending to this great series. TOB was pretty much Deus Ex Machina in it's plot as there were very few clues in SOA or BG that pointed that there were hundreds of Bhaalspawn in Faerun and considering that information BG's plot suddenly becomes quite foolish (Why would Sarevok focus his efforts on you if there are so many Bhaalspawn lying around?). Second, Increasing the frequency of NPC interactions would be nice. Not only NPC to NPC interactions but also NPC and random charachters interactions. For instance, when dealing with the shadow-thieves you'd expect Edwin to have a lot more to say about their motives, especially during the Mae'var guildhall quest, you mean to tell me Edwin has nothing to say to his former boss as he comes to kill him? Third, more NPC variety. Now I'm not completly certain about this one, as the quite limited number of NPCs serves as tool to balance Evil and Good parties and handicap (not enough in my opinion) mixed parties. Most good NPCs are quite weak but they are many and you can go around being as good as you please with them not caring while most Evil NPCs are quite powerful but are problematic if in a party with good NPCs and there's simply not enough of them to fill a party (The most evil party I could achieve was Me, Edwin, Viconia, Korgan and Jan who is actually a chaotic neutral. In TOB I added Sarevok). So although it balances the game, I still fill that a few more NPCs wouldn't hurt the game too much and even 2-4 more NPCs would be nice, there's no need for dozens more like in BG. Fourth, Why is your charachters reputation nothing but a silly number? I mean sure, everyone seems to know you are a Bhaalspawn and some even know about Irenicus and Sarevok, but why does no one ever talk about Firkraag? Yoshimo said Firkraag was quite famous ,you'd expect people to talk about the hero/mercenary who slew a giant red dragon or about the person who released the slaves in Atkhatla. The way the game currently is you don't feel as though you have much of an impact on the gameworld. Fifth, this is again, mostly a rant about TOB but not only. Why is nothing in the series unique? in SOA there were only two +5 weapons and one of them was a holy sword and the other was a weapon you had to wander all across the world to get the pieces of (Crom faeyr) that was unique and cool, now suddenly in TOB you find dozens of +5 and +6 weapons just lying around, most of them even without a cool description like even +2 equipment had in SOA and BG, that greatly annoyed me. But it doesn't end with equipment, Kangaxx was so powerful that he couldn't be destroyed, he was cursed for over a millenia and his body was guarded by wizards who turned themselves undead so that no one would restore him. THAT is unique. A demi-lich lying around in a crypt inside watchers keep? That is LAME, I guess that just couldn't restrain themselves from putting another demi-lich, bah. Also, you should be able to screw things up. If you free Kangaxx into his Demi-lich form and then run away like a coward nothing happens, same with the Demogorgon, I want some consequences. Yeah I know this will never happen as it will require making the game too non-linear, but still, this is a wish-list [img]smile.gif[/img] . Well, I guess I ranted enough. Your turn. [EDITED to remove profanities, I apologize] [ 06-28-2002, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: King Crimson ]