OMG! Banters!

ScotGaymer

So was playing BGEE last night...

And Khalid and Jaheira actually bantered, BG2 style, in their own voices.

They were talking about Khalid stuttering, and Jaheira being stern. And so on. And it was kinda awesome, it made me lol.

Obviously it is something that was in the original BG1 but honestly I have never come across it (party members bantering like that) before in the many times I played BG1. So I fot it was really neat.

I wonder if it was cut content or something...

lunar

Those small banters have always been in bg1, but they fire very rarely. I think Jaheira and Khalid have two different but similiar banters. If you have Jaheira&Khalid and Xar&Montaron at some point they may banter and call on each other and fight to the death. IIRC somethin similiar can happen between other NPCs too, but they are very rare. And Imoen has no dialogue or banter, zilch. She was a last minute decision NPC thrown together. Funny how popular and important she becomes in the next game.

ScotGaymer

Ive lost count of the amount of times I have played BG1. And I have never experienced these banters. Never.

I just fot it was kinda fun. Hehe.

nietzschelives

The banters were in BG1, but the game wouldn't cut to the dialogue window; instead, the characters would just start talking while your party was walking along, making them very easy to miss.

BelgarathMTH

Also, I think Tutu and BGT somehow disabled a lot of the banter scripts from proccing. Last summer, I played a vanilla gog.com BG1 run after years of doing Tutu and BGT runs, and I was very surprised when all these banters started to proc all of a sudden. I had not heard them since BG1 was first released, and I had totally forgotten about them.

They're all comedy gems, completely voice-acted. It's worth playing with lots of different party combos just to see which ones you can get to proc that you've never heard before. Every npc has at least one or two of them with some other npc.

BTW - I'm currently using Branwen and Ajantis. It turns out that Branwen and Ajantis have a flirtatious and cute physical attraction thing going on. Like, you expect them to be hooking up pretty soon. And Ajantis respects Khalid's integrity.

Koson

I never used Xzar and Monty much before so decided to try them out in my avenger game. And got this little exchange today:
Kivan: "Shut up, your chattering might drive us all insane."
Zxar: "I'll not be mocked, thou most slanderous harlot!"
Besides its obvious comical value, it makes one wonder if Zxar knows something about Kivan none of us does / did .

SapphireIce101

@Koson - I've had Xzar say that same Harlot line to Kaigan, and Shar-Teel. I was like "WHOA! Did you just call Kaigan a harlot?"

ScotGaymer

Some of the lines in BG1 are hilarious.

It's defo got more comedy in it than in BG2. Though BG2 is a more serious game, so it may well have felt more out of place there.

rdarken

@belgarathmth Ajantis likes Kivan a lot, too. In fact, I think he uses that same line on Kivan.

Arsene_Lupin

I've hardly heard any banters. At all. And I'm 40 hours into the game, not counting probably 4 or 5 hours of reloads.

Moomintroll

I'm really looking forward to this. I've seen people rave about the character dialogues so much, but I've missed them too, I guess due to having the sound down so as to avoid loud combat dialogue.

lunar

Koson said:

I never used Xzar and Monty much before so decided to try them out in my avenger game. And got this little exchange today:
Kivan: "Shut up, your chattering might drive us all insane."
Zxar: "I'll not be mocked, thou most slanderous harlot!"
Besides its obvious comical value, it makes one wonder if Zxar knows something about Kivan none of us does / did .

Those exchanges are always easy to catch, it does not pause the game, simply one NPC turns to another and makes a comment:either appreciative or belittling, depending on their alignment and character conflictions. Then the talked NPC will say either a thanks or come back of sorts. Done.

But there are rare real banters too, like the whole dialogue screen pops up and game stops and all, just like in BG2. They are very few and rare, though. IIRC Jaheira-Khalid have two such 'real' banters.

Lemernis

If WotC will ever sign off on allowing Beamdog to add banters and interjections for BG:EE nothing could enhance this game more, imho.

I would imagine that this would be DLC, which as an optional component keeps the game in in it's original form (i.e., BG:EE as it currently is with respect to banters). The banter DLC would provide the option to install such a mod.

Such banters should be voice-acted. The whole thing should be professionally done to the existing EE standards.

Mordeus

Arsene_Lupin said:

I've hardly heard any banters. At all. And I'm 40 hours into the game, not counting probably 4 or 5 hours of reloads.

What is your party lineup? Certain combinations of NPCs yield absolutely no banters. The NPC Imoen has no banters at all, she is one of the more talkative NPCs in BG2 but here she has no lines. Even some NPC pairs are quite limited in their banters. Dynaheir and Minsc don't talk that often, I seem to recall they talk more to Edwin than each other.

Sometimes you get NPCs like Kivan, Ajantis and Branwen who get along and still give banters. Whilst you'll have more luck playing with a party that has a great deal of conflict. The NPCs will talk about their hatred of another NPC more often than they will praise someone else. The ratio is somewhere like 5 lines of hate compared to 1 line of complements.

- Kivan and Viconia hate each other and talk about killing each other regularly.
- Shar-Teel, Garrick, Xan and Skie all complain about Eldoth.
- Quayle and Tiax hate each other and won't shut up about why.
- Khalid and Jaheira get into arguements with Montaron and Xzar.
- Jaheira and Faldorn argue alot about being a druid.
- Yeslick and Kagain complain about each other.
- Minsc, Alora, Quayle and Tiax all talk about Garrick's music.

If you really want a solid party for banters then pick up Shar-Teel, Garrick, Xan, Skie and Eldoth. There's about 27 lines of banters in total. You can ditch Xan from the group since he only provides 4 of those lines, but the others are fairly essential. I think I might make a thread about all the combinations.

Koson

Besides the combos mentioned by Mordeus, I've experienced the following:
- Safana bosses Garrick around, asking him to massage her feet and whatnot;
- Coran flirts shamelessly with Safana at every oportunity;
- Alora and Edwin like and befriend each other;
- Branwen and Shar-Teel get along really well.

Sed

The more charisma you have, the less they will banter and complain. So if you want some fires burning, mix good and evil chars and have a low charisma :-D

LadyEibhilinRhett

I have always found that putting Edwin, Xan, and Alora on the same team is fun. Edwin and Alora actually get along, and it is adorable. Alora will often try to cheer Xan up, or comment on his pessimism. Xan never responds well to this. Sometimes he will outright insult Alora. Even though I cannot confirm 100% that Alora's lines in this case ONLY apply to Xan, I have had her in some pretty varied parties in the past and I've never heard her use them on anyone else, so I think some of them may be Xan-specific. Also, almost everyone I have ever had in my party complains about Quayle, but Tiax is the best of these, since there's some mutual character-specific banter there.

Another great one is how Xan and Ajantis REALLY do not get along at all.

Moomintroll

This has got to be the first thread that has ever made me want to play some of these characters, first time ever, even. Hurry up, mac release!

Release the Macken!

ScotGaymer

Considering I didn't even know these banters existed I am tickled pink.

Hehe.

The only stuff I have ever heard was when you click on the characters and they mouth off at you.

"Stop TOUCHING me!" - Xzar
"Yes, oh omnipresent authority figure?" - Jaheira

rdarken

It kind of stinks because some of the best banters happen with characters that are hard to keep together (ie. good & evil) or are pretty worthless (ex. Eldoth). I have always wanted to hear Garrick and Eldoth arguing, but who the heck would use both of them (or even really one of them)?

Come to think of it, the complexity of the NPCs in this game is quite impressive. Especially given how little they actually speak, that none of them really have side quests (in vanilla), and the age of the game. I mean, take Eldoth & Skie alone and you've got some bold material right there.

Lemernis

(Oops never mind)

escagirluk

My Kagain and Xzar are always going at each other. Kagain keeps calling him a moron and Xzar keeps calling Kagain a slanderous harlot.
And then I just got this, somewhat new response to Kagain's insults:
Kagain: Are you some kind of a moron, what do ya think you was doing?!
Xzar: Oh speak no more, lest ye gorge my sweet tooth!

I also had Garrick in my party for a short while. I immediately clicked on his bard song icon... and had Xzar complain: Wouldst thou stop that inscessant noise! There is such pain behind mine eyes!

Dazzu

Branwen and Tiax also don't get along and may fight each other.

MERLANCE

Lets see, off the top of my head, the in party fights are Branwen vs Tiax, Quayle vs Tiax, Kivan vs Viconia, SharTeel vs Eldoth, Xzar and Montaron vs Khalid and Jaheira, Minsc and Dynaheir vs Edwin, and Kagain vs Yeslick

rdarken

Ajantis will attack Eldoth (possibly other evil-aligned characters), but not in the "Leave the party and fight" kind of way; Ajantis just attacks him and you can stop it.

Otherwise, you got them all, I believe. At least all the ones I could find.

BaldursCat

I love the Khalid / Jaheira banters. I wish I could remember exactly what Khalid says in a little aside to the PC about Jaheira, it made me laugh and I was quite surprised the first time I heard it, pretty sure it was something to do with her nagging him. IIRC it fires when you click him. If I could wish for one mod or one option for BGII it's

Spoiler

that you get the chance to play it with Khalid as the survivor. (& yes it'd be interesting to have a romance option too... )

<- just in case.

<blockquote class="UserQuote">

Sed said:

The more charisma you have, the less they will banter and complain. So if you want some fires burning, mix good and evil chars and have a low charisma :-D

Oh, really, damn that 18 Charisma!

WebShaman

I had some interesting banter between Dorn(a) (because he is now a she...hehe - gonna get some shiggy going!) and Neera, after I answered Dorn's question about not trusting someone in the party...

He choose Neera, and she protested!

Now, I also have Viconia in the party...right. An evil Drow Priestess of Shar is completely trustworthy. Gotcha, Dorna!

rdarken

Khalid has some great banter. They're sort of sad because he's so meek, but they're kind of adorable. Jaheira will say something about it being impossible to "untie [his] tongue" and he can't manage much of a response:
"Please! Jaheira! You needn't be so so... uh."
"Insufferable?"
"Yes, that's definitely it!"

When they start fighting with Xzar and Montaron, they will (I believe Montaron in particular) pick on Khalid. He can't really respond here, either, but Jaheira will step in and defend him.
Montaron: "Keep yer distance ye goodie goodie. I no like the smell of charity."
Khalid: "You ... must you continually....?"

I'm not sure what Jaheira's response is, though, but she definitely can interject.

BaldursCat

@rdarken, Now, I think that's it actually, it made me laugh because it's so unexpected.

rdarken

I love Khalid. I wish he survived BG2, as well.

I actually hate that about BG2: That soooo many of our companions die... Khalid, Montaron, Xzar, Ajantis, Dynaheir, Safana.

Off the top of my head, I know Viconia, Coran, Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, Garrick, and Quayle make it out okay. Not sure about the others. Presumably Branwen and Xan because they're in the tutorial. It really bugs me that we had a whole new cast, most of whom I didn't like that much.