Coran and Montaron portraits? (minor spoilers)

[Pirengle]

I was looking up the character bios at PlanetBaldur'sGate and studied the NPC portraits a little more closely. Everyone knows how, erm, unattractive the Coran portrait is. I took a look at the ears of this portrait. Coran is listed as an elf, and has the elven avatar. Elves have pointy ears. The avatar has pointy ears (if you look closely). The portrait doesn't have pointy ears.

I thought that was just another facet of his appearance until I brought up Montaron's bio and portrait. Ol' Monty's listed as a halfling, has the halfling avatar, yet his portrait has pointy ears. AFAIK, halflings don't have pointy ears.

Hmm.

Could it be that Coran's portrait and Monty's portrait were switched? I switched around the names in my Portraits file so Coran would get Monty's portrait and vice versa, and I honestly thought it looked better. I think the voices match up pretty well, too.

[Myrddin L'argenton]

Originally posted by Pirengle the BNM: I was looking up the character bios at PlanetBaldur'sGate and studied the NPC portraits a little more closely. Everyone knows how, erm, unattractive the Coran portrait is. I took a look at the ears of this portrait. Coran is listed as an elf, and has the elven avatar. Elves have pointy ears. The avatar has pointy ears (if you look closely). The portrait doesn't have pointy ears. I thought that was just another facet of his appearance until I brought up Montaron's bio and portrait. Ol' Monty's listed as a halfling, has the halfling avatar, yet his portrait has pointy ears. AFAIK, halflings don't have pointy ears. Hmm. Could it be that Coran's portrait and Monty's portrait were switched? I switched around the names in my Portraits file so Coran would get Monty's portrait and vice versa, and I honestly thought it looked better. I think the voices match up pretty well, too.

Would it matter?

[Horatio]

Myrddin L'argenton, please do not post negative responses to fellow member's threads. They serve no use other than to put down the other member. Pirengle the BNM was just pointing out something of interest.

[Arledrian]

Montaron's portrait shows him as being a short, stocky, stumpy little fellow. This doesn't quite tie in with Coran's outstanding dexterity, if you ask me. I always picture Coran as being tall, lean, and agile. Montaron's portrait is just a sore refutal of this. I agree that Coran's portrait makes him look like some escaped clown, but I still think that of the two, his original picture suits him best. And Myrddin, that really was uncalled for. Pirengle is only pointing out something far more interesting than the location of the ring of wizardry, for example *insert theatrical yawn here*

By the way, Pirengle, I was wondering... how does one become a beyond naked mage, exactly? I now realize it doesn't involve sitting bare-arsed in front of your computer, but other than that, I am still pretty much clueless.

[ 02-16-2003, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: Arledrian ]

[SixOfSpades]

The game of Diablo I has three major problems: 1) There's only the weakest of storylines holding it up. 2) It's too easy. 3) There are only 3 classes of characters (or 6, if you have Hellfire and enable the 'hidden' 2).

To give their games some variety, Diablo gamers created a variety of "kits," such as the Axe Rogue: Rogues are at their best with a Bow in their hands, but Axe Rogues will use no weapon but an Axe. Another kit is the Beyond Naked Mage, who refuses to wear ANY equipment at all--unless he finds an item with at least 1 curse on it.

Now, about Coran & Monty: While their portraits are indeed similar, I think Monty's is perfect for the little backstabbing prick. Halflings DO indeed have pointy ears, take a look at Alora sometime.

I can't really tell if Coran's pic has pointy ears, as they're obscured by all the hair and they're almost off the edge of the portrait anyway. But that is actually almost irrelevant because [play some spooky conspiritorial music here] my theory is that Coran and Kivan used to be the same person. BioWare wanted to make a Male Elven Ranger, a little low in the CON department but an excellent shot with a Bow. (Implementing the Archer kit in BG1 would have been too difficult, so they simply gave him 3 stars in Bow.) Somewhere down the line, Coran and Kivan became two separate entities, but there was only one picture--so, Kivan, who has only *8* Charisma, got one of the best-looking portraits in the game (which is also the ideal portrait for an Archer), while his alter-ego Coran (who happens to have *16* Charisma, thank you very much) got stuck with a portrait that makes him look like a psychopathic leper.

This confusion is probably one of the reasons why neither of them made it into BG2.

[Lemmy]

Six:
"The game of Diablo I has three major problems: 1) There's only the weakest of storylines holding it up. 2) It's too easy. 3) There are only 3 classes of characters (or 6, if you have Hellfire and enable the 'hidden' 2)."

*shrug* Yay, pointless jabs! Alrighty.
The game of Baldur's Gate I has three major problems: 1) It lacks random items and random dungeons. 2) The plot is altogether too linear. 3) It uses an ostentatious number of game CDs, making it very impractical to play.

"Another kit is the Beyond Naked Mage, who refuses to wear ANY equipment at all--unless he finds an item with at least 1 curse on it."

To go off topic: Technically, the item must be completely cursed. An item with a beneficial enchantment and a cursed enchantment is still unusable because of the beneficial enchantment.

Now, to the portraits. I really don't see what's so wrong with Coran's portrait. He's got that weird tattoo/mask thing going on, but so what? Monty, IMO, looks a good deal worse. And Kivan's probably hiding a goiter under that hood of his, hence the 8 CHA.

Faldorn's pic is a far greater offense than Coran's, if you ask me. 15 Charisma and yet STILL she looks like the she-Gremlin in "Gremlin's 2." Those nails. That hideous expression. She probably makes that face so often it got stuck that way. Shar-Teel is almost as ugly, yet her CHA is 4 points lower. (Though it could reasonably go lower still.) And then we've got Viconia with her 14 CHA. Now *her* pic is a crime - especially for an elf! - though they made up for it very nicely in BG2. (Oddly, though, she became the prettiest BG2 female despite some others outclassing her in the CHA department.)

But Charisma isn't all about looks. Coran seems to have quite a bit of personal magnetism - reflected by his background and the people he interacts with. This could (at least partially) explain his 16 CHA. Then we take Kivan's 8 CHA. He strikes me very much as a loner. So it makes sense that, being a loner, he lacks the leadership skills to have high CHA.

I still can't explain Faldorn though, aside from the Druid's prerequisite CHA. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

-Lem

[Vedran]

Spades, Lemmy is right - that was really unnecessary (although I concur with your observation). If someone like the game, let him play it, to each his own.

Lemmy, your arguments are easy to beat nonetheless.
1. That is the biggest problem for any Diablo player, I'm sure (it was for me). Then I realized the game is good even without it (and if it wasn't, you wouldn't play it ). If there were such a thing in BG, it would take a few more disks to hold all the data . And random item generator would almost surely make overpowered items - death for the game.
If there weren't random spawnings in Diablo, would it be still as good for you?

2. Linear!?!? You can say that Fallout is linear! You can play for days without following the plot quests in both games (well, you can in Diablo as well...).
The plot quests must be taken in the fixed order, but I'd call that linear.

3. Then install all of them and just use one to enter the game. I'm sure you have a few GBs free, hard disks tend to be pretty large nowadays.

If you ask me, the biggest problem are interface (it is to large and playing area is too small, relatively said) and graphics (after playing BG2, I miss greater resolution).

About portraits. At least half of portraits in BG1 is u-g-l-y (IMHO). Faldorn, Coran, Dynaheir, Garrick (sissy), Quayle, Shar-Teel (this could pass), Tiax, Xzar, Yeslick. Elf female and both humans. We are doomed without custom portraits...
Why is Viconia's crime? I like it more than BG2 one.

[SixOfSpades]

Actually, I was listing Diablo's weaknesses not to run down the game itself, but to rationalize the desire for Diablo gamers to seek new sources of variety.

Lemmy, you're just plain wrong about BG being "linear," and I wouldn't consider 5 (or 6) CDs "ostentatious." But you're 100% correct about the game's pathetic lack of randomness--I *HATE* entering a new map and knowing exactly where the Traps are, what types of enemies are present, how many of each type of enemy, what unique creatures are there, how to kill each of those creatures, and what each unique creature will drop when I kill it. It's abysmal.

I wish the BG engine would support at least some attempts at chaos, such as moving the Traps around and shuffling certain unique items between different randomized locations and creatures throughout the game. Perhaps some items would be restricted to some location in a current chapter, like the Boots of Speed can only be found in the Cloakwood.

I don't like Viconia's portrait either--it makes her look like some bloodthirty demon. And it's the wrong image: Take Viconia within melee range of any respectable enemy (especially when she's without a shield), and you'll be rewarded with 110 pounds of Viconia meat.

While we're on the subject of Faldorn's fingernails, what's up with Edwin's? Are they supposed to be his last-ditch defense against Gibberlings or something?

Pirengle, you're right about Coran's ears. I looked closely at his BIG portrait, and yes indeed, they ain't pointy. Which, happily, adds even more weight to my theory.

[Lemmy]

Six:
"Lemmy, you're just plain wrong about BG being "linear,""

When I said the plot was "linear" I meant that the main plot only plays out one way. You can't really influence it, and the Enemy makes the same decisions each time. You can murder Nashkel, Beregost, and most of Baldur's Gate, but in the end you've gotta keep alive the key NPCs in order to finish the game. And even then, does the ending change? A simple epilogue would help muchly. For example:

BEREGOST -- (Evil)
The only group of adventurers to come through in ages refused to do the town's FedEx quests. The mail, Lost'n'Found, and even commercial trade screeched to a halt. The economy went to ruin. The town dried up and was reabsorbed into the wasteland.

BEREGOST -- (Good)
The only group of adventurers to come through in ages happily accepted the town's FedEx quests and accepted payment in exp. Paying in EXP saved the town so much money they were able to build a brothel for the town's courtesans. Now Beregost's prostitution industry, run by a mysterious "Safana," rivals even that of Baldur's Gate.

Neither can you take over the You-Know-What and start running things yourself. The main plot is as much centered around killing You-Know-Who as Diablo's is. There's more story (certainly!), a bigger world, hundreds of little diversions, and far more character development; but it ultimately comes down to killing You-Know-Who at a specific place.

"...and I wouldn't consider 5 (or 6) CDs "ostentatious." "



"But you're 100% correct about the game's pathetic lack of randomness--I *HATE* entering a new map and knowing exactly where the Traps are, what types of enemies are present..."

Hell yes. And even *worse* when, even after months away from the game, you can still remember the locations of most things.

"I wish the BG engine would support at least some attempts at chaos, such as moving the Traps around and shuffling certain unique items between different randomized locations and creatures throughout the game."

*nod* Good randomness should create a sort of "Make do with what you have" style of play. I even find IWD's attempt at "randomness" to be extremely lacking.

"Take Viconia within melee range of any respectable enemy (especially when she's without a shield), and you'll be rewarded with 110 pounds of Viconia meat."

Damn straight. The first time I saw that pic I thought, "Wow, she's about to impale somebody." When I saw it on Viconia I thought, "This is an elven cleric with 9 strength; she has WHAT business in melee?"

"While we're on the subject of Faldorn's fingernails, what's up with Edwin's? Are they supposed to be his last-ditch defense against Gibberlings or something?"

Magely undergarments ride up. The nails make it easier to dig out "incursions" through the thick fabric of mage robes.

-Lem

[Pirengle]

Oh my, what a can of worms I cracked open...

Would it matter?

I just found it interesting, that's all. I agree with Arledrian here: it's better than the 7000th post on how to find the Ring of Wizardry (or in original Diablo speak, how to kill the Butcher/King Leoric).

Montaron's portrait shows him as being a short, stocky, stumpy little fellow. This doesn't quite tie in with Coran's outstanding dexterity, if you ask me. I always picture Coran as being tall, lean, and agile. Montaron's portrait is just a sore refutal of this. I agree that Coran's portrait makes him look like some escaped clown, but I still think that of the two, his original picture suits him best.

I dunno, I think both of their portraits make them look hacked off at the knees. Then again, I kinda resemble a halfling myself.

Coran's picture doesn't fit him, that much is true. Monty's picture does a better job, but switching Kivan's pic for Coran's is another idea. It's just that all the other NPC pictures (IMO) fit the character's attitude. Maybe not their stats (as Six and Lemmy pointed out with Viconia, for example), but their lines/voices/party reactions.

By the way, Pirengle, I was wondering... how does one become a beyond naked mage, exactly? I now realize it doesn't involve sitting bare-arsed in front of your computer, but other than that, I am still pretty much clueless.

It's my sig, so maybe I should give you my spin on it...

A beyond naked mage is a variant character in the original Diablo series. Variants are Diablo characters that have roleplaying restrictions on how they're played. It's similar to fiddling with a character via Gatekeeper if you wanted to roleplay, say, Gandalf.

The beyond naked mage is a sorcerer character who only equips cursed items. Cursed items are ones that decrease statistics or cause undesireable side effects (like a monster-attracting high light radius). I like playing beyond naked mages in D1 because it presents a challenge that isn't present when playing a sorcerer character that equips "normal" gear.

The quote itself comes from the founder of the beyond naked movement, Woody, and is taken from the official guide to the BNM, which can be found here: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/diablo/vbn.html The rules for it's close cousin, the naked mage, can be found here: http://geocities.com/lemmingofglory/nm.html

(Notice the author of the last website. Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, we have SixofSpades, legendary BG guru, and in this corner, we have LemmingofGlory, legendary D1 variant guru. What am I, the ring girl? Let's get ready to rumble!)

(BTW Six, nice D1 summary.)

Halflings DO indeed have pointy ears, take a look at Alora sometime.

Indeed I did. Those pointy ears are MASSIVE. When did halflings get pointy ears? Or am I thinking of the original halfling source material, hobbits?

But that is actually almost irrelevant because [play some spooky conspiritorial music here] my theory is that Coran and Kivan used to be the same person. BioWare wanted to make a Male Elven Ranger, a little low in the CON department but an excellent shot with a Bow. (Implementing the Archer kit in BG1 would have been too difficult, so they simply gave him 3 stars in Bow.) Somewhere down the line, Coran and Kivan became two separate entities, but there was only one picture--so, Kivan, who has only *8* Charisma, got one of the best-looking portraits in the game (which is also the ideal portrait for an Archer), while his alter-ego Coran (who happens to have *16* Charisma, thank you very much) got stuck with a portrait that makes him look like a psychopathic leper.

To pursue that line of thought, think about where you find them. I'm thinking Kivan was originally in Act 4, but Bioware wanted an archer NPC that was recruitable for the Nashkel mines. But what to do about the hole? Throw in Coran. Also, Kivan has one of the better-developed biographies in the game. Makes me wonder if an Act 4 monster type wasn't originally the baddies mentioned in Kivan's bio...

And if this game is true to AD&D 2nd ed, Charisma has nothing to do with physical. It's not uncommon for DMs to add a 7th stat, often called Attractiveness or Physical. The comparison I got was, Winston Churchill was highly charismatic, while not being highly attractive.

This confusion is probably one of the reasons why neither of them made it into BG2.

Not true...he's there...but trying to keep this spoiler-free as possible.

And Kivan's probably hiding a goiter under that hood of his, hence the 8 CHA.

I think it's male pattern baldness.

But Charisma isn't all about looks. Coran seems to have quite a bit of personal magnetism - reflected by his background and the people he interacts with. This could (at least partially) explain his 16 CHA. Then we take Kivan's 8 CHA. He strikes me very much as a loner. So it makes sense that, being a loner, he lacks the leadership skills to have high CHA.

Right on the button, Lemmy.

I still can't explain Faldorn though, aside from the Druid's prerequisite CHA.

Go to http://www.planetbaldursgate.com and read her bio. Maybe you'll understand why after that.

That is the biggest problem for any Diablo player, I'm sure (it was for me). Then I realized the game is good even without it (and if it wasn't, you wouldn't play it ). If there were such a thing in BG, it would take a few more disks to hold all the data . And random item generator would almost surely make overpowered items - death for the game.

Getting off topic once again, the way items are generated in D1 means that an easy-to-kill character wouldn't be dropping powerful items. It wouldn't be that hard to assign each item in BG a number, and saying that certain monsters can only drop items that are in this number range, and so on.

Six's Larael's Tear Necklace Law is appropriate. By the time you get your first, you don't need it. Maybe having the bosses drop the High Hedge/Thunderhammer eye candy, or making their wares open after a BG city quest or something...

The plot quests must be taken in the fixed order, but I'd call that linear.

Why'd you just refute the argument you tried to disprove? A bit more back-and-forth action in the game would've been helpful, such as solving BG quests outside the city and vice versa. Something to give the game more of a Zelda feel.

About portraits. At least half of portraits in BG1 is u-g-l-y (IMHO). Faldorn, Coran, Dynaheir, Garrick (sissy), Quayle, Shar-Teel (this could pass), Tiax, Xzar, Yeslick. Elf female and both humans. We are doomed without custom portraits...Why is Viconia's crime? I like it more than BG2 one.

They might be unattractive, but they fit the characters. Garrick IS a sissy. He and Khalid crap their pants, turn yellow, and run screaming from my party more often than any other NPC I've ever had in a party.

I do admit, the elven female non-NPC portrait is off. She looks like she's under the influence of nitrous oxide, if not something more powerful.

My favorite NPC portrait has to be Xzar. It fits him so perfectly!

Also switched Kagain and Yeslick's portraits for the same reason I switched Monty and Coran's.

I don't like Viconia's portrait either--it makes her look like some bloodthirty demon. And it's the wrong image: Take Viconia within melee range of any respectable enemy (especially when she's without a shield), and you'll be rewarded with 110 pounds of Viconia meat.

But that's the Stereotypical Drow Image. Can't you just picture her with a sly, evil grin on her face as she tosses another stone in the sling +1 and chucks a stone into the fray?

While we're on the subject of Faldorn's fingernails, what's up with Edwin's? Are they supposed to be his last-ditch defense against Gibberlings or something?

I hope not...if he's not level 5, he'll get chunked by them...

I want to know what's up with the heavy face metal he's packing in BG2. ("Hmm...I've moved to Amn...time to get some holes punched in my nose! And while we're at it, let's connect the hole in my nose to the hole in my ear with a sparkly gold chain!" Yeah, them Red Wizards of Thay have real happ'nin' fashion sense, that they do...) I guess if his spells fail, he can throw back the hood of his cloak and cause his enemies to piss themselves to death laughing.