I have a possible solution to this problem: it's an old thing called "doublethink" (feel free to look it up if you are unfamiliar). Please allow me to demonstrate:
4th Edition never happened. WotC thought of it. They released illustrations and playtests. They did some marketing. However, in response to popular feedback, they never actually went through with making an official 4th edition. It doesn't exist. It never existed. It never will exist. Any mention otherwise originates from misconceptions, conspiracies, and lies. Don't be fooled.
Here's another comforting example:
Star Wars eps 1 & 2 never happened. Episode 1 never came out of the idea phase. It was mentioned and the plot was posted but the movie was never made. It doesn't exist. They made some good clips concerning Episode 2 but they never bothered to cobble them together into a movie. Force providing bacteria is an insidious rumor; instead, the Force really is the mystical and mysterious thing that we've always marveled about. Episode 3 was made but only as a tribute to the original movies. Any mention otherwise originates from misconceptions, conspiracies, and lies. Don't be fooled.
Before you reject the methodology of "doublethink," please consider the following:
Life with doublethink --> No 4th Ed. or Eps 1 & 2 --> Doubleplusgood Life without doublethink --> 4th Ed. terrorizes your fantasy stomping grounds and JarJar Binks invades your Star Wars --> DoubleplusUNgood
Choose whichever life you like; I'll respect your choice. Though, of course, certain responses may never have happened...
Just because the above examples weren't popular to the majority doesn't mean you can't just believe they didn't exist. Mass Effect 3 had a horrible ending for me and it pissed me off that BioWare had an amazing story end like that, but I can't just cover my ears and close my eyes and believe it'll all be ok.
Learn from your mistakes and don't make them happen again if possible. It's called being human. (Except for Tiax, he is never wrong!!)
It also just occurred to me, it's a pity Samus was banned; if ever there was a time for "To end... LIKE THIS?!" it would be now.
Samus was banned? But why?
According to Jalily
"Samus was banned for the following reasons: 1. Creating multiple accounts to give themselves positive reaction votes. 2. Abusing the flagging system by marking harmless posts made by users who had marked them in the past. 3. Disrespecting staff members and attempting to undermine their decisions when Samus didn't get what they wanted.
The spam after the final warning was just the last straw." (the spam was a white rabbit thing he put up which really was pretty spamish imo)
Samus actually emailed me about having a zip file containing "rather damning evidence against a certain individual" and also said that he/she wouldn't be returning. So umm...take that as you will.
At least it makes me feel comfortable and fuzzy knowing that if Irenicus succeeded in his plan, he would have died a couple of decades later anyway
I think his plan was to become a god, so he would've been safe from the effects. Possibly even used the Spellplague to take his revenge on the other gods as well.
The Spellplague caused the death of some gods (Azuth for example), and forced the rest of the gods to unite with their other aspects in order to survive (Talos + Gruumsh, Sune + this elven godess, and many more).
In other words, the FR cosmology was to complex for this childish and idiotic edtion of the game, so they decided to remove half the gods. Not to mantion that they removed Mulhorand.. what a joke...
Interesting point on the Faerun pantheon... The gods were pretty much borrowed from real world polytheistic faiths (erm, lathandar is supposed to be jesusish, amaunator is Yahweh, not polytheistic), and they did often reuse a given god... Talos and gruumsh are both versions of Odin. The whole Orc pantheon is Viking inspired btw, baghtru being the more accurate idiot Thor of myths. Similarly, sune and the elven love goddess are both Aphrodite versions.
The more interesting ones are gods goddess' from more obscure mythologies, like Loviatar. Nifty! Bhaal though is actually dissimilar to Baal... But the name was reused due to judeochristian tradition of Baal being evil. Most people have little trouble noticing the more heavy handed Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons, but the consolidations are not really baseless. Talos and gruumsh in particular are basically the same being anyways... Bah!
This btw is another reason I liked cyric. And Helm. *grumble*
Many of the deities from the FR and any fictional setting with a pantheon of gods will obviously draw paralells to real world deities but I don't think they are as pronounced in FR as you are claiming. Certain ones are nearly carbon copies such as the mulhorandi pantheon, untheric pantheon, Oghma, Tyr etc. Others share some qualities but aren't quite the same and others still may share the same portfolios such as Aphrodite and Sune (both being goddesses of love) but are otherwise not very similar at all. The need for an eliminiation, dumbing down of or combining deities simply wasn't there if you ask me.
Talos and Gruumsh are a good example of why both should have remained independant gods and not combined into one, for no real reason. Gruumsh is the patron god of Orcs, Talos is a human centric god, so right off the hop the need for both is clear, why would all of the Orcs worship a primarily human deity when they already had their own pantheon? Also, they both had vastly different dogma's meaning that worshippers of Talos and worshippers of Gruumsh acted in many different and sometimes opposed ways.
Talos' clergy is all about proving that the natural disasters of the world are the only true source of power and that they are to be feared and only through the worship of Talos will you be saved from his fury. Talos wants his clergy to display his power in flashy ways to inspire fear and awe to increase his following.
Gruumsh, on the other hand, believe in the strength of the Orcs and their savage ways. He supports war in the interest of spreading the influence and strength of the Orc species. Additionally he speaks of destroying any weakness amongst the ranks of his followers by culling the weakest of Orcs. He wants to gain power by diminishing the power of his enemies, and asks that his followers kill Elves and Dwarves and destroy their homes.
Each has a very different outlook on how to increase their following and each uses very different methods to do so.
(I posted a shorter version of this as a reply earlier this week, but I felt it deserved to be a topic.)
I was on the Forgotten Realms Wiki the other day and realized something rather depressing, namely that the Spellplague, the massive cataclysm WotC used to justify the change from 3.5 to 4e in-universe, hit only 26 years after the events of Throne of Bhaal. Now, on the face of it, this seems to be nothing but a bit of trivia, until you think about the consequences. Any and all of the happy endings, or the less-than-totally-depressing endings at the end of Throne of Bhaal are null and void. The Spellplague caused a "ripple" in the Weave that is known to have either killed or driven irreparably mad most of the spell casters in the realms. Further, the very face of the planet was changed, with parts of the overworld collapsing into the Underdark, and various areas actually teleporting to different spots on the globe, not to mention terrible storms and earthquakes.
Now consider the fact that even Human NPCs would likely still be alive after 26 years (CHARNAME and Imoen would be 47 or 48, for example) to say nothing of the elves and dwarves. That means that they would have to go through the Spellplague. As a result, we can assume that all of the spell casters (Imoen, Aerie, Jan, etc.) would have either been killed outright or driven stark raving mad. Even if they weren't, they'd be left powerless and vulnerable in a VERY hostile world. Any heroic NPCs that survived that and the various other cataclysms would presumably end their days trying to help people through more than 100 years of chaos, likely never seeing the end of it themselves. Meanwhile, even our beloved Evil NPCs would still find themselves in a new, highly hostile world, again assuming they didn't have a mountain or something warp in on their heads.
Hell, the only endings that was not rewritten by 4e were Cernd's and Keldorn's, and that's only because they had the good sense to die before the Spellplague hit. So, no happy ending for CHARNAME and company, just more death, madness, and pain.
And now one of the people who own the rights to Baldur's Gate have decided to cancel the EEs to boot! @#$% the lot of them, may they all burn in the Abyss.
Games are not canon part of Forgotten Realms, novels are. You don't have to worry about NPCs ending as in novels none of them survived to the end. Abdel did but nobody likes him anyway. If you still worry about that then take in account that at end of games you have 6 30+level characters most of which are going to be at least semi-competent, unlike in books where you had Abdel walking alone naked. In 15 years between ToB ending and Spellplague they would cause a lot of butterflies.
Games are not canon part of Forgotten Realms, novels are. You don't have to worry about NPCs ending as in novels none of them survived to the end. Abdel did but nobody likes him anyway. If you still worry about that then take in account that at end of games you have 6 30+level characters most of which are going to be at least semi-competent, unlike in books where you had Abdel walking alone naked. In 15 years between ToB ending and Spellplague they would cause a lot of butterflies.
Please, don't mention the name "Abdel" anymore... the main character of my BG fanfic has more personality than he does.
I could have sworn that I heard Ed Greenwood was writing a source book that basically takes Forgotten Realms history and ignores that the Spellplague and all of 4th edition ever happened. Possibly as the start of a new direction for the Forgotten Realms.
If I'm not totally crazy that would be the way to for a BG3. Forget that 4th Edition ever happened and don't support it.
I bet the spell plague didnt affect Jan the mighty at all! Either that or it actually had the reverse effect and made him sane...
Jan isn't insane, he's merely annoying. Tiax is insane.
Potatoe / Potaaatoe. six of one, half a dozen of the other. They are both crazy, just in different ways. For that matter, throw Minsc in there with them both.
For my money, I'd say that Charname and Imoen are both immune to the Spellplague by virtue of their birth. Even if Imoen no longer has the 'Taint', there has to be some benefit for having a Daddy who was a god and a Brother who is (or could have been) one.
I'd say that Jan, Tiax and Minsc would all be immune.
Aerie might be effected, unless she had a child by Charname. Either way it isn't much of a loss.
I'd say that Edwin would be the most significant loss, but he might have survived because of his Towering intellect.
Haer'Dalis could have skipped dimensions for all we know.
That should cover most of the Arcane casters. Were Divine casters impacted? I don't keep up on FR lore these days.
Aerie is always very keen on travelling, and talks with Haer'Dalis about journeying to other planes and dimensions, so there's a good chance she might have done that and escaped. So that's some good news, at least. Bad news is that Haer'Dalis might survive the same way.
@the_spyder Whole point of mortal ending was that you didn't have divine essence anymore, also being merely a deity didn't make one safe from spellplague. Only greater deities were supposedly immune and even then they died as plot demanded. As everyone else btw.
4th ed and spell plague is like highlander 2, it JUST doesn't exist in the series despite having a highlander 3
I don't like all the changes in 4E FR, but the Spell Plague is actually pretty cool, and 4E in general is my favorite Edition. Don't assume you speak for all the fans.
Mass Effect 3 had a horrible ending for me and it pissed me off that BioWare had an amazing story end like that, but I can't just cover my ears and close my eyes and believe it'll all be ok.
Learn from your mistakes and don't make them happen again if possible. It's called being human. (Except for Tiax, he is never wrong!!)
Actually The Mass Effect 3 Ending was soo disapointing to soo many People that the developers made the only right thing and tryed to "fix it" with a Patch. It may not be Perfect after the Patch but it was a hell of a lot better then before and at least they tried.
Now WotC didnt try to fix the horrible 4th ed but instead just go to 5th ed. Meaning that the Dissapointed People can feel free to just ignore the 4ed if they want. And in the end,should not everyone make his own decision on that?
Now WotC didnt try to fix the horrible 4th ed but instead just go to 5th ed. Meaning that the Dissapointed People can feel free to just ignore the 4ed if they want. And in the end,should not everyone make his own decision on that?
I think the mistake here is the assumption that ME3 or 4E need "fixing." ME3's ending was disappointing, but I love the other 99% of the game. 4E hasn't disappointed me at all.
@Schneidend. About 4ed: yeah but if you will be so free as to take a look at the other postings here you will surely see that you kind of a 5% here and clearly a miniority.As for ME3 Take a look around the internet and you can clearly see that 95% thing that it needed an ending change badly.So please i understand that you want to voice your opinion but you a properly do it for a lost cause.
Also i didn't said that the game -need- fixing ,i said WotC didn't try to do it and instead moved on. What i will say is this: That they moved on so quickly and started making 5th Edtion so shortly after make it looks like they themselve did see that it didn't worked out as planned since so many fans hate 4ed and a now trying make a better thing.
Edit: oh yeah.also i -liked- the new ending of ME3 so i vote "Yes" for fixing things.
Comments
4th Edition never happened.
WotC thought of it. They released illustrations and playtests. They did some marketing. However, in response to popular feedback, they never actually went through with making an official 4th edition. It doesn't exist. It never existed. It never will exist. Any mention otherwise originates from misconceptions, conspiracies, and lies. Don't be fooled.
Here's another comforting example:
Star Wars eps 1 & 2 never happened.
Episode 1 never came out of the idea phase. It was mentioned and the plot was posted but the movie was never made. It doesn't exist.
They made some good clips concerning Episode 2 but they never bothered to cobble them together into a movie.
Force providing bacteria is an insidious rumor; instead, the Force really is the mystical and mysterious thing that we've always marveled about.
Episode 3 was made but only as a tribute to the original movies.
Any mention otherwise originates from misconceptions, conspiracies, and lies. Don't be fooled.
Before you reject the methodology of "doublethink," please consider the following:
Life with doublethink --> No 4th Ed. or Eps 1 & 2 --> Doubleplusgood
Life without doublethink --> 4th Ed. terrorizes your fantasy stomping grounds and JarJar Binks invades your Star Wars --> DoubleplusUNgood
Choose whichever life you like; I'll respect your choice. Though, of course, certain responses may never have happened...
Just because the above examples weren't popular to the majority doesn't mean you can't just believe they didn't exist. Mass Effect 3 had a horrible ending for me and it pissed me off that BioWare had an amazing story end like that, but I can't just cover my ears and close my eyes and believe it'll all be ok.
Learn from your mistakes and don't make them happen again if possible. It's called being human.
(Except for Tiax, he is never wrong!!)
I would only argue that Episode 3 also never existed.
"Samus was banned for the following reasons:
1. Creating multiple accounts to give themselves positive reaction votes.
2. Abusing the flagging system by marking harmless posts made by users who had marked them in the past.
3. Disrespecting staff members and attempting to undermine their decisions when Samus didn't get what they wanted.
The spam after the final warning was just the last straw." (the spam was a white rabbit thing he put up which really was pretty spamish imo)
Samus actually emailed me about having a zip file containing "rather damning evidence against a certain individual" and also said that he/she wouldn't be returning. So umm...take that as you will.
Talos and Gruumsh are a good example of why both should have remained independant gods and not combined into one, for no real reason. Gruumsh is the patron god of Orcs, Talos is a human centric god, so right off the hop the need for both is clear, why would all of the Orcs worship a primarily human deity when they already had their own pantheon? Also, they both had vastly different dogma's meaning that worshippers of Talos and worshippers of Gruumsh acted in many different and sometimes opposed ways.
Talos' clergy is all about proving that the natural disasters of the world are the only true source of power and that they are to be feared and only through the worship of Talos will you be saved from his fury. Talos wants his clergy to display his power in flashy ways to inspire fear and awe to increase his following.
Gruumsh, on the other hand, believe in the strength of the Orcs and their savage ways. He supports war in the interest of spreading the influence and strength of the Orc species. Additionally he speaks of destroying any weakness amongst the ranks of his followers by culling the weakest of Orcs. He wants to gain power by diminishing the power of his enemies, and asks that his followers kill Elves and Dwarves and destroy their homes.
Each has a very different outlook on how to increase their following and each uses very different methods to do so.
*Mob approaches*
But seriously hopefully Imoen at least
If I'm not totally crazy that would be the way to for a BG3. Forget that 4th Edition ever happened and don't support it.
For my money, I'd say that Charname and Imoen are both immune to the Spellplague by virtue of their birth. Even if Imoen no longer has the 'Taint', there has to be some benefit for having a Daddy who was a god and a Brother who is (or could have been) one.
I'd say that Jan, Tiax and Minsc would all be immune.
Aerie might be effected, unless she had a child by Charname. Either way it isn't much of a loss.
I'd say that Edwin would be the most significant loss, but he might have survived because of his Towering intellect.
Haer'Dalis could have skipped dimensions for all we know.
That should cover most of the Arcane casters. Were Divine casters impacted? I don't keep up on FR lore these days.
I am legitimately tired of hearing how much save-or-die enthusiasts hate 4th Edition.
Whole point of mortal ending was that you didn't have divine essence anymore, also being merely a deity didn't make one safe from spellplague. Only greater deities were supposedly immune and even then they died as plot demanded. As everyone else btw.
Now WotC didnt try to fix the horrible 4th ed but instead just go to 5th ed. Meaning that the Dissapointed People can feel free to just ignore the 4ed if they want.
And in the end,should not everyone make his own decision on that?
Also i didn't said that the game -need- fixing ,i said WotC didn't try to do it and instead moved on.
What i will say is this: That they moved on so quickly and started making 5th Edtion so shortly after make it looks like they themselve did see that it didn't worked out as planned since so many fans hate 4ed and a now trying make a better thing.
Edit: oh yeah.also i -liked- the new ending of ME3 so i vote "Yes" for fixing things.
Well, you know what they say, a person can be smart, but people are stupid.