I think it's a lot better with the Ascension Mod...so I will want an approximate of that when it's BG2EE is released. But I also (now after trying it out) prefer BGEE with the SCS mod improving difficulty.
To address the argument that ToB should not be regarded a game of its own when it is just an expansion, I would argue that it indeed should be. An expansion should, by definition, expand the game world. Not replace it. ToB replaced the entire setting of the game, and concluded the storyline of the protagonist. By all intents and purposes, it is a game of its own in the BG series.
I think people don't like it because they want to continue adventuring, be part of intrigues, complete small quests and task and travel.
Aha, but you're justifying it being bad at those things. Story, nonlinearity, and exploration need not be discarded even when you design a game set in an "epic" setting. There are countless ways ToB could have been improved as an RPG and still preserve its epic feel.
I'd say the problem is one of expectations. SoA raised them so high that nothing would be a worthy conclusion in most people's eyes. I personally had no problem with ToB, other than parts of it felt rushed (especially at the initial release). And there were some excessively modernistic jokes that I felt took me out of the story.
But I certainly don't think it should be excised from the whole, or ignored as an unworthy conclusion. As far as people saying they like low-level adventures goes, I'm 'meh' to that argument. I don't see a 'challenge' to being able to be 1-hit killed. That's just bad luck. Besides, I like the idea of actually progressing to the conclusion of a story.
To me, it's good, but flawed. And I think the premise of this thread is vastly overstated. By nature on the internet, the majority of people who post are motivated to do so by negative feelings. If things are going well and you're engrossed in the game, you're probably gamelocked.
Aha, but you're justifying it being bad at those things. Story, nonlinearity, and exploration need not be discarded even when you design a game set in an "epic" setting. There are countless ways ToB could have been improved as an RPG and still preserve its epic feel.
Do you think it realistic that you'd go off exploring the Sunken Temple of XYZ while there's a war raging that you are significantly involved in, not to mention those siblings of yours preparing to resurrect your dead father? I think I'd be pretty single-minded in that situation...
The only distractions I could live with would be the ones I encounter on my way anyway - and that is what ToB does with its side quests, pretty much.
I think it's not as much about being "epic" as it is about being urgent. It's the culmination of a conflict that started in the Time of Troubles, and it's had a lot of time to gather momentum; now there's no stopping it rolling, all you can do is ride it until the end.
That being said, ToB certainly wasn't entirely finished. There are a lot of things that could have been explored more deeply. But adding random areas and dungeons for exploration, well, that doesn't really fit well with the overarching theme.
Granted, they did add WK - but they kind of had to. A big, epic dungeon is simply expected of such an expansion, for gameplay reasons. If you go by "canon", it would probably have been visited between SoA and ToB or something like that.
If they had added more side quests/areas, they would have taken all the sense of urgency and impending doom out of the Bhaalspawn War. I think that would also have hurt the game, in other ways, and people would still be making these kinds of threads on the forums... just for different reasons :P
I preferred SoA, but that's no reason to say I hated ToB.
I suspect the OP fell victim to the usual problem of reading stuff on the internet: the loudest and most persistent voices are those of people who hate things (in general or in specific).
@Lord_Tansheron I don't think urgency is a good reason for a game to lack detail, either. In BG1 your foster father gets murdered by a dude who, at the same time, is poisoning the iron supplies in the region in order to start a war between two nations. I'd say that matter is just as urgent as the one we're introduced to in Throne of Bhaal. In Shadows of Amn, an evil wizard has kidnapped and is torturing your sister and fighting comrade, and later steals your soul, condemning to a slow and agonizing death, while wiping out an elven town inhabited by innocents. I think urgency is a keyword throughout the entire story there.
Still, both games allowed you to go off on your own, minding whatever business you pleased to at the time - not because that was a realistic course of action for the protagonist (if anything it made your character kind of an asshole when you think about it), but because the developers understood how a good RPG was made and had enough time and resources to make a decent game, unlike what happened with ToB.
Like most repondents to this thread, I quite liked ToB. Finding out what my characters could do with epic-level abilities was very engaging, and the way it decisively concluded the Bhaalspawn story was fairly satisfying in principle.
On the other hand, I also agree with those who're saying it was too linear. Yes, I take the point that too many irrelevant sidequests and sideareas would conflict with the urgency of the main plot, but I'd have preferred to find out for myself what to do next and where to go next, by more exploration and investigation in a more open-access map (such as we had in BG1 and BG2:SoA). That would have given credibility to the inclusion of a few off-plot sidequests and sideareas as "blind alleys" and "red herrings" in your investigation. As it is, the Solar pretty much leads you by the hand through what you have to do and where you have to go. I realise that making it so linear enabled Bioware to get a product out of the door under severe time and budget constraints, but I'm sure they'd have built a much more explorable game if they hadn't been under such pressure at the time.
I don't suppose Overhaul can now make major changes, but I hope they'll expand the map a little and try to offer a little more choice in the sequence of events.
I love ToB...with Ascension installed. Correctly, that is. I once installed Ascension with other compatible mods in the wrong order, which made the final boss invincible.
Linear/bad story aside, the primary reason may have been unnoticed by many, but entered minds at a subconscious level. It is something that affects the entire feel of the game in general. It is the terrible writing.
Also, gaining ultimate power is never as fun as being a weakling level 1 character and finding your first long sword +1, etc.
Looking back at Baldurs Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal, I would have to say I flat out hated BG2 and never completed Throne of Bhaal. Just the fighting of vampires in bg2 is flat of craziness. They have everything against you and the first time I beat BG2, the only reason I was able to complete it was because I was playing as an undead hunter. Every other character class is screwed as they lose their levels. I even used level drain protection and it didn't even work.
Put it simply, I will likely not play Bg2 again once enhanced edition comes out. I liked the fact that Sarevok can pummel me into the ground because there are ways around that. But there are no ways of getting rid of the tedious and unbalanced level drain in the 2nd game.
The 1st Baldurs Gate has everything against Baldurs Gate 2 in my opinion. Besides, the 3rd game will still have a chance of really doing something cool
I wouldn't exactly use the word "hate" to describe my feelings (nor most others) for ToB. When I first completed ToB, I just felt really underwhelmed and a bit disappointed - especially after how awesome BG1 and BG2 was. However, I've grown to appreciate it more as the years gone by - especially after the Ascension mod. On the other hand, I still usually stop my playthroughs at the end of SoA (with Watcher's Keep).
One of the reasons I think most people were disappointed with ToB, besides the linearity, is the forgettable antagonist. Or to be more precise, there wasn't really one. The first and second games both have very strong villains that drives you - they both were out for you and wronged you on a personal level. One murders your foster father and actively sends assassins to kill you. The other kidnaps you, tortures you, kills you two of your friends, abducts your childhood friend/sister, and then steals your soul. Then there's the bonus points for being utterly bad-ass...
ToB has Melissan and the Five. Melissan was more of the big reveal/twist, so she wasn't very much of an antagonist for most of the game. Sure she manipulates you, but you don't really realize that until much later. Stopping the Five felt more like a necessity than a personal vendetta. They ultimately wanted you dead, but they haven't really done anything to you yet. Stopping them was more to save Tethyr and to prevent them from coming for you, as opposed to you chasing them down to get back at them for what they did to you. None of them were particularly fleshed out well, and your quest to stop them ultimately felt kind of shallow. Doesn't help that they weren't very likable or memorable either.
Then there's the gameplay aspect. I absolutely love Watcher's Keep (I'm sure most people do), but the rest of the game was too linear like the others have mentioned. It was really lacking in side-quests, explorable areas, characters, etc. that its predecessors had.
I think @ajwz nailed it with his comment about 2e and high levels as well. Leveling and playing at those god levels just wasn't as fun as the journey from 1-20. Some of those high level spells/abilities are amazingly fun/cool (i.e. UAI and Timestop), but for the most part, leveling didn't feel as engaging compared to BG1 and BG2's levels. Level progression became linear, and you don't really unlock anything amazing at certain milestones. You don't have classes/builds that really come into their own at that level (with the exception of probably Mage/Clerics... they're awesome at those epic levels). Instead, it feels as if you're just getting a padded boost in stats each time you level up.
On top of all that, you don't really have many different types of foes that can challenge you at that level, and because of that, fights start to become monotonous. Too many enemies became immune to some of your abilities just to keep them challenging. Marginalizing abilities like backstab, reducing the viability of some of the lower level spells (because of saving throws or obsolete effects/damage), etc. makes the game less fun IMO. I felt like ranged weapons (Longbows in particular) felt very underwhelming at this stage, especially because they lacked the ammo to actually hit things.
TL;DR - Forgettable antagonists/NPCs, linearity, monotonous epic/god level gameplay, etc. made ToB kind of a disappointment, but I wouldn't say I "hate" it.
Looking back at Baldurs Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal, I would have to say I flat out hated BG2 and never completed Throne of Bhaal. Just the fighting of vampires in bg2 is flat of craziness. They have everything against you and the first time I beat BG2, the only reason I was able to complete it was because I was playing as an undead hunter. Every other character class is screwed as they lose their levels. I even used level drain protection and it didn't even work.
Put it simply, I will likely not play Bg2 again once enhanced edition comes out. I liked the fact that Sarevok can pummel me into the ground because there are ways around that. But there are no ways of getting rid of the tedious and unbalanced level drain in the 2nd game.
The 1st Baldurs Gate has everything against Baldurs Gate 2 in my opinion. Besides, the 3rd game will still have a chance of really doing something cool
The spells Restoration and Greater Restoration restore lost levels, and Immunity to Level Drain items certainly DOES protect from level drain, it's just that the graphic for it happening will still display if a vampire hits you. Other classes, like the Barbarian and Berserker, can protect themselves with their rage abilities. Arcane spellcasters can prevent hits from even landing with spells like Mirror Image. There is also a divine spell that protects from level drain, though it does not last very long. There you go, your one gripe with BG2 easily dispelled.
Also you can upgrade a Mace of Disruption to + 2 version that will give an Immunity to Level Drain. With this particular item every vampire becomes like a gibberling in a speed he dies - an undead must make a saving throw vs. death (-4 penalty) or be utterly destroyed by this weapon.
That, with what @Schneidend has said, leads the conclusion that vampires are not scary at all.
Baldurs Gate 2 is an amazing game, it has an interesting plot, very appealing characters, beautiful locations, diverse fighting strategies, controversial choices, conquering magic and many, many, many unique dialogs and situations.
You should definitely play the best RPG of all time.
The one thing I actually like about ToB is that it gets back to the Bhaalspawn storyline. Shadows of Amn's references to the original game were pretty sketchy, in some cases pissing on elements of choice in the first game (namely forcing you into giving a shit about Imoen and being told you travelled with a bitchy harper, a wimp, an insane hamster buggerer and a holier-than-thou mage). With little cutting it could quite easily be a different game series altogether. I'll say it...I think SoAs plot is pretty weak and kind of a failure as a sequel to BG1, it just does a good job of hiding it by having engaging villains and interesting gameplay and locations.
ToB by contrast lets you summon the NPCs you want to make it consistent with your playing experience in SoA and moves the plot along for the first time really since BG1s final battle. I think that's primarily what makes it worth playing, learning more about the nature of Bhaalspawn and meeting the Five and getting down to the endtimes of the prophecy...even if this was badly-realised in ToB. The only problem is, none of this was built up in SoA, so ToB has the job of putting all of this together when the character is already very high level, and within the limits of size that an expansion pack has. We end up with a very linear series of unavoidable high level (i.e.slightly ridiculous) fights to quickly usher in the end credits with no time to explore alternate options or have a say in how the situation pans out. Pretty weak, transparent antagonists don't help.
Basically I think they hamstrung themselves with SoA. They apparently wanted to ride the success of BG1 but wanted BG2 to stand alone for a new audience so it ended up being a game that was sort of a sequel, but also its own entity. They pushed the Bhaalspawn plot on the backburner and decided to go with something new but it left them having to cover all this ground in not much time, like cutting the three LOTR movies down into one 100minute movie, it'd lack the necessary depth of detail and drama. Which ToB does, it's a synopsis of which should have been a much longer story with everything from character customization to personalisation of enemies chopped away for time, leading to a product that I personally don't find very interesting as it stands.
Maybe they intended originally for ToB to be its own game so the SoA-sidetracking wouldn't have mattered but as the final product stands, I'm not too impressed.
It's my least favorite of the three legs of the saga. For the reasons already stated above. Mainly, it's just insanely high level for my taste. I do understand that it's epic level play. But I much prefer lower level play.
That said, I do try to wring as much variety as I can out of the BG series. So I do expect to play ToB regularly, although less frequently than compared with the other two games.
Anyway, I'm sure that I will probably play the entire saga again at some point. But at this stage I much prefer playing just BG1 or BG2 separately (in their EE versions; I won't be playing BG2 again until it's EE version is released).
The issue of the alleged urgency of ToB (setting aside the perhaps no-less-urgent nature of BG1/2) is that that urgency, if it exists, is a product of how the game was cut short into an expansion. Think about how different the game would have been, say, if Yaga-Shura's attack on Saradush had occurred much later in a full game and was the climax of a massive build-up of story. What if the game had started BG1 style with a lot of exploring the wilderness, perhaps cut short by Illasera and her party tracking you down. What if you might have formed alliances with other Bhaalspawn like Balthazar (Ascension notwithstanding) or even Gromnir early in the story and that these strategic alliances might have played out over the course of the whole game, culminating in the revelation that everyone was simply being manipulated as pawns in a manner that was far less obvious and ham-fisted than the original.
Basically, the urgency of the plot is partly a product of its brevity, and that a full BGIII:ToB would likely have been built in a very different way where the sidequesting was more easily justified.
Thone Of Bhaal was a big letdown for me I love Baldur's Gate with the Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion The highest level you could attain was level 10 but it was a long immersive process you felt like your character was actually earning those levels with plenty of side quest and areas to explore tthe only thing lacking was very little character development with the NPCs Moving on to Baldur's Gate 2:Shadows of Amn you now have class kits, NPCs with detailed character personalities Stronghold quests based on your class A nteresting demented villian as the antagonist not quite as many but still a good amount of side quests and areas to explore your CHARNAME could now get up to level 23 The Thone of Bhaal expansion comes out and it playsmore like Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction XP very little story line, quests that have little or no interesting storyline just one high level battle after another the HLA were nice but the one thing that that really bothered me about it is that your CHARNAME is now racing up the level ladder like a cruise missle the highest level now is 40 almot double were you left off with the end of BG2:SoA you have lost the great immersive of your CHARNAME slowly progressing in levels it felt fake and rushed I hope that something can be done about it in BG2:EE
I find it very cynically and hypocritically when the evaluation of practically any build includes HLAs but in the same time many people don't like TOB and get boring at that stage of the game.
I see BG2 as the greatest RPG ever and even if TOB is worse than BG2 it's still a great game. I would have given much for a new game that is simular to TOB. But there're none.
The sequel to Viconia's romance worth something, doesn't it?
A lot of people mention "expectations" as a key reason why people hate ToB, but I think that's only half of it. I think games like ToB go from "I'm disappointed in this game" to "I resent this game with the fiery passion of 1,000 dying suns!" when you find out from an official source that they could have and should have been more.
KOTOR2 suffered from the same thing. The ending of that game is far from great. There are certainly some confusing moments. But overall, it was a pretty great game with a mildly disappointing ending... And then we found all the unfinished content. Seeing the complex storytelling that hit the cutting room floor shined a light on every flaw the game had. Suddenly, lots of people felt robbed. Speaking for myself, knowing that a great game had been neutered and shipped in an inferior state in order to meet a deadline killed my enjoyment of it, and I had really liked it to that point.
So ToB is the same thing. If it was just a linear expansion pack that was heavily combat oriented, the worst it could be is unnecessary and forgettable. But as a nerfed BG3 that saw much of its plans get put aside to make a deadline? DEVASTATION!
I think if we'd been told that BG2 was the end of that character's journey, and hadn't expected a BG3, then ToB finishing up the BG1 storyline would have been a welcome surprise. I think if we didn't know that there was a lot more planned from the ToB storyline and world, we would have enjoyed ToB a lot more. I think our knowledge of what might have been is, in many ways, our worst enemy. That's why, in this thread, you see the people who like ToB saying, "It is what it is," while the people who hate it say, "But don't you see what it COULD have been?!?"
Also, as a total side note... I think ToB would have been helped if the BG1 ending had shown other destroyed statues (and maybe have a couple of them crumble as you were watching the camera pan around). I think that would have been a more compelling ending for BG1 (because it implies that Bhaalspawn are fighting each other everywhere), and would have made it more believable when we got to ToB, and only had a handful of Bhaalspawn left.
Urgency is just really really bad excuse for making ToB linear. Instead of you going against 5 of the strongest bhaalspawns alone, why not turn them against each other? Form alliances with some of them? Betray each other? Gather your own allies to rally against the massive strongholds the other bhaalspawns hold? There are thousands of different ways the game could have had more roleplaying aspect and avoid being linear, while still maintaining sense of urgency.
Hopefully Overhaul can fix some of the issues. Breaking the linearity with some seemingly important side quests, adding depth to the story (Ascension), making the areas seem a bit more alive etc. SoA is already the best part of the series, while no doubt they'll add some more content there too, ToB is in more dire need of extra content and care. I'll just cross my fingers that the devs feel the same way.
Comments
But I certainly don't think it should be excised from the whole, or ignored as an unworthy conclusion. As far as people saying they like low-level adventures goes, I'm 'meh' to that argument. I don't see a 'challenge' to being able to be 1-hit killed. That's just bad luck. Besides, I like the idea of actually progressing to the conclusion of a story.
To me, it's good, but flawed. And I think the premise of this thread is vastly overstated. By nature on the internet, the majority of people who post are motivated to do so by negative feelings. If things are going well and you're engrossed in the game, you're probably gamelocked.
The only distractions I could live with would be the ones I encounter on my way anyway - and that is what ToB does with its side quests, pretty much.
I think it's not as much about being "epic" as it is about being urgent. It's the culmination of a conflict that started in the Time of Troubles, and it's had a lot of time to gather momentum; now there's no stopping it rolling, all you can do is ride it until the end.
That being said, ToB certainly wasn't entirely finished. There are a lot of things that could have been explored more deeply. But adding random areas and dungeons for exploration, well, that doesn't really fit well with the overarching theme.
Granted, they did add WK - but they kind of had to. A big, epic dungeon is simply expected of such an expansion, for gameplay reasons. If you go by "canon", it would probably have been visited between SoA and ToB or something like that.
If they had added more side quests/areas, they would have taken all the sense of urgency and impending doom out of the Bhaalspawn War. I think that would also have hurt the game, in other ways, and people would still be making these kinds of threads on the forums... just for different reasons :P
I preferred SoA, but that's no reason to say I hated ToB.
I suspect the OP fell victim to the usual problem of reading stuff on the internet: the loudest and most persistent voices are those of people who hate things (in general or in specific).
@Lord_Tansheron I don't think urgency is a good reason for a game to lack detail, either. In BG1 your foster father gets murdered by a dude who, at the same time, is poisoning the iron supplies in the region in order to start a war between two nations. I'd say that matter is just as urgent as the one we're introduced to in Throne of Bhaal. In Shadows of Amn, an evil wizard has kidnapped and is torturing your sister and fighting comrade, and later steals your soul, condemning to a slow and agonizing death, while wiping out an elven town inhabited by innocents. I think urgency is a keyword throughout the entire story there.
Still, both games allowed you to go off on your own, minding whatever business you pleased to at the time - not because that was a realistic course of action for the protagonist (if anything it made your character kind of an asshole when you think about it), but because the developers understood how a good RPG was made and had enough time and resources to make a decent game, unlike what happened with ToB.
On the other hand, I also agree with those who're saying it was too linear. Yes, I take the point that too many irrelevant sidequests and sideareas would conflict with the urgency of the main plot, but I'd have preferred to find out for myself what to do next and where to go next, by more exploration and investigation in a more open-access map (such as we had in BG1 and BG2:SoA). That would have given credibility to the inclusion of a few off-plot sidequests and sideareas as "blind alleys" and "red herrings" in your investigation. As it is, the Solar pretty much leads you by the hand through what you have to do and where you have to go. I realise that making it so linear enabled Bioware to get a product out of the door under severe time and budget constraints, but I'm sure they'd have built a much more explorable game if they hadn't been under such pressure at the time.
I don't suppose Overhaul can now make major changes, but I hope they'll expand the map a little and try to offer a little more choice in the sequence of events.
Also, gaining ultimate power is never as fun as being a weakling level 1 character and finding your first long sword +1, etc.
Put it simply, I will likely not play Bg2 again once enhanced edition comes out. I liked the fact that Sarevok can pummel me into the ground because there are ways around that. But there are no ways of getting rid of the tedious and unbalanced level drain in the 2nd game.
The 1st Baldurs Gate has everything against Baldurs Gate 2 in my opinion. Besides, the 3rd game will still have a chance of really doing something cool
One of the reasons I think most people were disappointed with ToB, besides the linearity, is the forgettable antagonist. Or to be more precise, there wasn't really one. The first and second games both have very strong villains that drives you - they both were out for you and wronged you on a personal level. One murders your foster father and actively sends assassins to kill you. The other kidnaps you, tortures you, kills you two of your friends, abducts your childhood friend/sister, and then steals your soul. Then there's the bonus points for being utterly bad-ass...
ToB has Melissan and the Five. Melissan was more of the big reveal/twist, so she wasn't very much of an antagonist for most of the game. Sure she manipulates you, but you don't really realize that until much later. Stopping the Five felt more like a necessity than a personal vendetta. They ultimately wanted you dead, but they haven't really done anything to you yet. Stopping them was more to save Tethyr and to prevent them from coming for you, as opposed to you chasing them down to get back at them for what they did to you. None of them were particularly fleshed out well, and your quest to stop them ultimately felt kind of shallow. Doesn't help that they weren't very likable or memorable either.
Then there's the gameplay aspect. I absolutely love Watcher's Keep (I'm sure most people do), but the rest of the game was too linear like the others have mentioned. It was really lacking in side-quests, explorable areas, characters, etc. that its predecessors had.
I think @ajwz nailed it with his comment about 2e and high levels as well. Leveling and playing at those god levels just wasn't as fun as the journey from 1-20. Some of those high level spells/abilities are amazingly fun/cool (i.e. UAI and Timestop), but for the most part, leveling didn't feel as engaging compared to BG1 and BG2's levels. Level progression became linear, and you don't really unlock anything amazing at certain milestones. You don't have classes/builds that really come into their own at that level (with the exception of probably Mage/Clerics... they're awesome at those epic levels). Instead, it feels as if you're just getting a padded boost in stats each time you level up.
On top of all that, you don't really have many different types of foes that can challenge you at that level, and because of that, fights start to become monotonous. Too many enemies became immune to some of your abilities just to keep them challenging. Marginalizing abilities like backstab, reducing the viability of some of the lower level spells (because of saving throws or obsolete effects/damage), etc. makes the game less fun IMO. I felt like ranged weapons (Longbows in particular) felt very underwhelming at this stage, especially because they lacked the ammo to actually hit things.
TL;DR - Forgettable antagonists/NPCs, linearity, monotonous epic/god level gameplay, etc. made ToB kind of a disappointment, but I wouldn't say I "hate" it.
Also you can upgrade a Mace of Disruption to + 2 version that will give an Immunity to Level Drain. With this particular item every vampire becomes like a gibberling in a speed he dies - an undead must make a saving throw vs. death (-4 penalty) or be utterly destroyed by this weapon.
That, with what @Schneidend has said, leads the conclusion that vampires are not scary at all.
Baldurs Gate 2 is an amazing game, it has an interesting plot, very appealing characters, beautiful locations, diverse fighting strategies, controversial choices, conquering magic and many, many, many unique dialogs and situations.
You should definitely play the best RPG of all time.
ToB by contrast lets you summon the NPCs you want to make it consistent with your playing experience in SoA and moves the plot along for the first time really since BG1s final battle. I think that's primarily what makes it worth playing, learning more about the nature of Bhaalspawn and meeting the Five and getting down to the endtimes of the prophecy...even if this was badly-realised in ToB. The only problem is, none of this was built up in SoA, so ToB has the job of putting all of this together when the character is already very high level, and within the limits of size that an expansion pack has. We end up with a very linear series of unavoidable high level (i.e.slightly ridiculous) fights to quickly usher in the end credits with no time to explore alternate options or have a say in how the situation pans out. Pretty weak, transparent antagonists don't help.
Basically I think they hamstrung themselves with SoA. They apparently wanted to ride the success of BG1 but wanted BG2 to stand alone for a new audience so it ended up being a game that was sort of a sequel, but also its own entity. They pushed the Bhaalspawn plot on the backburner and decided to go with something new but it left them having to cover all this ground in not much time, like cutting the three LOTR movies down into one 100minute movie, it'd lack the necessary depth of detail and drama. Which ToB does, it's a synopsis of which should have been a much longer story with everything from character customization to personalisation of enemies chopped away for time, leading to a product that I personally don't find very interesting as it stands.
Maybe they intended originally for ToB to be its own game so the SoA-sidetracking wouldn't have mattered but as the final product stands, I'm not too impressed.
That said, I do try to wring as much variety as I can out of the BG series. So I do expect to play ToB regularly, although less frequently than compared with the other two games.
Anyway, I'm sure that I will probably play the entire saga again at some point. But at this stage I much prefer playing just BG1 or BG2 separately (in their EE versions; I won't be playing BG2 again until it's EE version is released).
Basically, the urgency of the plot is partly a product of its brevity, and that a full BGIII:ToB would likely have been built in a very different way where the sidequesting was more easily justified.
I love Baldur's Gate with the Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion
The highest level you could attain was level 10
but it was a long immersive process
you felt like your character was actually earning those levels
with plenty of side quest and areas to explore
tthe only thing lacking was very little character development with the NPCs
Moving on to Baldur's Gate 2:Shadows of Amn
you now have class kits, NPCs with detailed character personalities
Stronghold quests based on your class
A nteresting demented villian as the antagonist
not quite as many but still a good amount of side quests and areas to explore
your CHARNAME could now get up to level 23
The Thone of Bhaal expansion comes out and it playsmore like
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction XP
very little story line, quests that have little or no interesting storyline
just one high level battle after another
the HLA were nice
but the one thing that that really bothered me about it
is that your CHARNAME is now racing up the level ladder like a cruise missle
the highest level now is 40
almot double were you left off with the end of BG2:SoA
you have lost the great immersive of your CHARNAME slowly progressing in levels
it felt fake and rushed
I hope that something can be done about it in BG2:EE
I see BG2 as the greatest RPG ever and even if TOB is worse than BG2 it's still a great game. I would have given much for a new game that is simular to TOB. But there're none.
The sequel to Viconia's romance worth something, doesn't it?
This will likely change with BG2EE.
Well, I hope you're right!
KOTOR2 suffered from the same thing. The ending of that game is far from great. There are certainly some confusing moments. But overall, it was a pretty great game with a mildly disappointing ending... And then we found all the unfinished content. Seeing the complex storytelling that hit the cutting room floor shined a light on every flaw the game had. Suddenly, lots of people felt robbed. Speaking for myself, knowing that a great game had been neutered and shipped in an inferior state in order to meet a deadline killed my enjoyment of it, and I had really liked it to that point.
So ToB is the same thing. If it was just a linear expansion pack that was heavily combat oriented, the worst it could be is unnecessary and forgettable. But as a nerfed BG3 that saw much of its plans get put aside to make a deadline? DEVASTATION!
I think if we'd been told that BG2 was the end of that character's journey, and hadn't expected a BG3, then ToB finishing up the BG1 storyline would have been a welcome surprise. I think if we didn't know that there was a lot more planned from the ToB storyline and world, we would have enjoyed ToB a lot more. I think our knowledge of what might have been is, in many ways, our worst enemy. That's why, in this thread, you see the people who like ToB saying, "It is what it is," while the people who hate it say, "But don't you see what it COULD have been?!?"
Also, as a total side note... I think ToB would have been helped if the BG1 ending had shown other destroyed statues (and maybe have a couple of them crumble as you were watching the camera pan around). I think that would have been a more compelling ending for BG1 (because it implies that Bhaalspawn are fighting each other everywhere), and would have made it more believable when we got to ToB, and only had a handful of Bhaalspawn left.
Hopefully Overhaul can fix some of the issues. Breaking the linearity with some seemingly important side quests, adding depth to the story (Ascension), making the areas seem a bit more alive etc. SoA is already the best part of the series, while no doubt they'll add some more content there too, ToB is in more dire need of extra content and care. I'll just cross my fingers that the devs feel the same way.