How would you improve ANY BG game?

[madjim]

my two cents: I think its to easy to raise your rep.

As one guy said the magic weapons are to plentiful.

I would like to have had some more script choices for the characters brought in by the player. What I mean is that if you want to use your own folks they have no personality - they just stand around like mindless drones.

Make mo' boards to wander!

[Gabrielles blades]

Tob lacked side quests so it was far too linear.

SoA was near perfect, the only major things it lacked i think was that it forced you to have jaheira/imoen/minsc as a starting party; i think it should have been able to randomize it a bit and take 2 ebil characters to go instead of jaheira & minsc and to alter imoens alignment to match yours or atleast be neutral. Some other nice things would be more full fledged rogues available to any alighnment and more romances for the girls (anomen sucks!).

[IronDragon]

Repair reputation. Evil characters would want a high reputation even more than good characters, not only do you get a nice discount when shopping (and who doesn’t like that) but if you have a great reputation it is so much easier to dupe and manipulate other people. I also think it is far to easy to raise your reputation and far to difficult to lower it. If you want a high reputation you should be willing to work long and hard for it.

Better and more varied responses for evil deeds but citizens and governmental officials. Engaging in mass slaughter of innocents in the street should produce a swift and game long response where the characters are hunted by authorities and the authorities don’t stop coming after you. On this note why don’t people care that you’re invading their homes and rummaging through their things and steeling money and items from their homes? This is not something any good aligned character would do.

Make high powered magical items a rarity not something every Orc and her kid sister has just laying around.

Identifying a cursed item will reveal its magical nature but not necessarily the fact that the item is cursed. The only way to find out is to try the thing. Randomize where the cursed items are so you can’t just know never to use the +2 longsword. Don’t put cursed potions in different bottles than the non-cursed variety; that’s just stupid.

Randomize trap locations so you really do need to go around hunting for the wretched things all the time.

Setting traps in front of people (future enemies or otherwise) should make them go hostile.

Summoning undead warriors in public should upset the average citizen.

Selectable initial party members in SoA. Say you went through BG1 with Xan, Ajantis, Yeslick, and Kivan. Two of them should be in the cages instead of Jaheiar and Minsc. Or randomize it so any BG1 character could be there. It would change the complexion of the game as one is never sure just who the computer will pick to put in those cages. Imagine finding Garrick and Edwin in the cages and you get to work from there.

Tone down the project image spell, it is just too powerful and unbalances the game. Soloing as a spell caster should be next to impossible not one of the easiest ways to solo.

More NPC’s and of a wider variety of classes/kits to choose from.

Better strongholds with more flexibility in using them.

Better paper doll figures on inventory screen, the elf is just plain ugly.

Why can I wear only two rings? My characters all have 10 fingers.

Armor that has some size restrictions. A set of plate mail armor can fit any character from halflings to half-orcs with no problems. At the very least to trade armor you should have to go to a smith to get it sized properly.

[Shadowbane]

There are some very good suggestions here, but I'd have to agree with those that didn't like the map-traversing in BG1. That's the main reason I never completed that game because I was extremely bored throughout. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. [img]smile.gif[/img] Here's what I'd like to see (I may be repeating some):

- more portraits made by the developers. There wasn't much of a selection.
- an option that allows you to memorize all scrolls and have max HP's regardless of difficulty level. (I'd like to try Hard level and have those options available without having to constantly switch them around in the Options screen and then forgetting to switch back).
- bigger and better strongholds (they should have a customizable house/keep like in the Sims. The ability to purchase items and services, hire servants, actually sleep there etc. could make things quite interesting).
- increase the rarity of magical items (regular items are also too plentiful and don't break so merchants aren't utilized very much).
- of course, more of everything that made BGII so great (NPC's, romances, maps, quests, cities, etc.) [img]smile.gif[/img]