Cleric kits would be awesome, sure. I meant "somehow a cleric". Halfling and dwarf can't be druids for divine spells, but a multi class shorty cleric would do. Jan is also multi class, so no pure mage or thief either, just 2 fighters. Not ideal, but it can work well enough as shorty party.
On quality v. quantity: I get where this argument is coming from, but let's look at the NPCs in BG2 a bit more closely. When you go through the list, most of the characters (at least on the "Good" side of the fence) are pretty annoying or aren't that spectacular stat / class wise.
Personally, I find Aerie, Jaheira, Keldorn, and Minsc very, very annoying. I don't like Cernd, Haer'dalis, or Valygar either because of their kits or their [lack of] a personality. Mazzy and Nalia are borderline (because Nalia starts to get on my nerves pretty quickly and I've never used Mazzy enough to know if I like her). That leaves only seven NPCs (I'm excluding Yoshimo) to choose from: Four of whom are mages, and three of whom are evil.
Frankly, I'm annoyed by (and just don't understand) the number of mages in the game. It's like they looked at BG1 and said "Oh wow, we crammed a ton of thieves in there, better not make THAT mistake again" and then did it with mages instead. They didn't put a SINGLE pure thief in there (that you can keep the whole game). Plus, there's only a single thief you can control the thief levels ups for... and he's a multiclass. There are a lot of fighters in there, too. Especially given that Minsc isn't much of a Ranger and that Haer'dalis isn't much of a Bard. Shoot, with all the fighters, why wouldn't there be a Swashbuckler (<3) or a Fighter / Thief dual class? Or even a pure class we could dual class when we wanted a la Imoen or Shar Teel in BG1.
I don't know, I just think that, with all the classes and kits we had to choose from in BG2, they did a pretty poor job of diversifying the NPC selection. And, while the writing and acting is great, the personalities leave a bit to be desired. I think most people tend to agree with part of my list of "annoying" NPCs above, but would add Anomen and Nalia up there for sure. So, even if Jaheira and Minsc are left alone (because they're kind of polarizing, I think), we've still got four NPCs off the bat that most people hate.
On quality v. quantity: I get where this argument is coming from, but let's look at the NPCs in BG2 a bit more closely. When you go through the list, most of the characters (at least on the "Good" side of the fence) are pretty annoying or aren't that spectacular stat / class wise.
Personally, I find Aerie, Jaheira, Keldorn, and Minsc very, very annoying. I don't like Cernd, Haer'dalis, or Valygar either because of their kits or their [lack of] a personality. Mazzy and Nalia are borderline (because Nalia starts to get on my nerves pretty quickly and I've never used Mazzy enough to know if I like her). That leaves only seven NPCs (I'm excluding Yoshimo) to choose from: Four of whom are mages, and three of whom are evil.
Frankly, I'm annoyed by (and just don't understand) the number of mages in the game. It's like they looked at BG1 and said "Oh wow, we crammed a ton of thieves in there, better not make THAT mistake again" and then did it with mages instead. They didn't put a SINGLE pure thief in there (that you can keep the whole game). Plus, there's only a single thief you can control the thief levels ups for... and he's a multiclass. There are a lot of fighters in there, too. Especially given that Minsc isn't much of a Ranger and that Haer'dalis isn't much of a Bard. Shoot, with all the fighters, why wouldn't there be a Swashbuckler (<3) or a Fighter / Thief dual class? Or even a pure class we could dual class when we wanted a la Imoen or Shar Teel in BG1.
I don't know, I just think that, with all the classes and kits we had to choose from in BG2, they did a pretty poor job of diversifying the NPC selection. And, while the writing and acting is great, the personalities leave a bit to be desired. I think most people tend to agree with part of my list of "annoying" NPCs above, but would add Anomen and Nalia up there for sure. So, even if Jaheira and Minsc are left alone (because they're kind of polarizing, I think), we've still got four NPCs off the bat that most people hate.
WOAH LONG POST.</p>
I was a bit frustrated with the lack of demi-human characters in the game. But also, with the amount of humans that exist as NPCs, there should be at least two or three you can dual class, but IIRC, Sarevok is your only choice for dual-classing into a thief. Read my original post if you want to see my deeper thoughts on this as well.
I like the idea of new, fleshed out characters. The already announced ones are a great start, and I would probably pay for additional NPCs as DLC provided the quality was consistent in terms of sidequests, interactions etc.
I don't think BG2 straight-up needs new NPCs though. But having them is a nice cherry on top of an existing pile of goodness.
@rdarken I strongly disgree with your list of NPCs "that most people hate". Jaheira's actually a very compelling, complex and conflicted character once your get past the initial setup of her being a bit of a bitch. While some folks find Minsc grating he's got a lot of fans and Keldorn is routinely described on these boards as everything from "a Paladin who isn't a self-righteous tool" to "a father figure".
I'd say the only really universally 'hated' BG2 NPCs are Anomen (who many still find useful enough from the gameplay perspective) and Cernd (boring and useless).
Aerie (whiny/adorable), Jaheira (bitchy/strong), Jan (annoying/funny) and Nalia (Imoen rip off?) are 'controversial', but I'd say their fans and haters are pretty balanced.
Frankly, I'm annoyed by (and just don't understand) the number of mages in the game. It's like they looked at BG1 and said "Oh wow, we crammed a ton of thieves in there, better not make THAT mistake again" and then did it with mages instead. They didn't put a SINGLE pure thief in there (that you can keep the whole game). Plus, there's only a single thief you can control the thief levels ups for... and he's a multiclass.
While slightly more thieving might have been better (which is presumably why BG2:EE adds a full thief), they hardly went all out with the mages. There are 5, 2 of which are multiclass, that seems quite a reasonable number. Especially given the much greater dominance of mages in BG2, even a PC mage/sorcerer does well to pick up at least one NPC mage in my view. Whereas thieves are not as crucial, slapping some gear on Nalia goes a long way in meeting the minimum thieving needs.
Yes this was actually the point I was going to make. I think the stories of the NPCs and their banter should somehow connect instead of being isolated. Like Anomen's quest to become a Paladin, that doesn't last very long; it would be nice to see a large, few-hour long NPC quest that involved a few of the NPCs.
The problem with large multi-NPC quests is that it is hard to justify the investment of resources. Either the quest requires you having all relevant NPCs, which means fewer people would be able to do the quest. This applies to NPC interactions and conditional content in general: the more, and more stringent, the conditions needed to get to that content, the fewer players will encounter it. As such, the 'return on investment' is (much) lower than content that is not (as) conditional.
Alternatively, the quest is available with just one of those NPCs but takes different paths depending on which of the relevant NPCs you have. But that requires writing/implementing/testing all those separate paths, further adding to the investment of resources. Although I can certainly agree that more interactive NPCs (both with each other and the environment) are to be preferred, there are practical limitations that make it difficult to do so.
Korgan (Dwarven), mazzy (Halfling) and Jan (Gnome), Dorn (Half-orc), all the others are elvens, humans or half-elvens. The new evil female thief lesbian/bissexual character will ALSO be from the human, elven, half-elven club. What i would like, if in the future Beamdog add more races is to add more representatives of the small races. With romance for them also if possible, cos you all know, gnomes love too!
But what i would like, REALLY LIKE, would be more NPC restrictions.
Dorn MUST have conflict banters (that should end in battle) with Keldorn and a LG Anomen. He can just despise Aerie as Korgan do without attacking her, after all she's no threat. About Jaheira i see them surprising behaving well with each other as Jaheira is now into a quest of vengeance for her dead husband. Mazzy is another Dorn should come to clashes but then, all this stuff isn't for me to decide.
I somehow watched in disbelief that Rasaad get along well with Viconia in BG:EE that was a lot surreal.
Vaylgar and Neera should probally have some issues, but who knows.
@Corvino I did not say "most people hate" Jaheira - I said I don't like her. I said she and Minsc are polarizing. I said most people find Aerie, Anomen, Keldorn, and Nalia annoying. Keldorn may be another one who is polarizing, but I feel like most of the posts I read about the other three are hate posts - some people like them, for sure, but I believe they are in the minority. I could be wrong, of course. Anyway, sorry if I was unclear!
@Morte50 I don't necessarily have a problem with there being five mages - I have a problem with there being five mages when there are only 15 total NPCs (excluding TOB) and only one multiclass thief. A third of the NPCs are mages!
I know thieves aren't as crucial in BG2 / TOB, but they were my first favorite class. A swashbuckler would have been an amazing addition: Since you have another NPC who can cover the back stabbing stuff, a swashbuckler could have easily replaced one of the other melee NPCs and filled a better gap. Plus, a "piratey" character could easily be neutral and like good deeds, but also not hate evil ones. Thief HLAs are just too good!
@rdarken There's 16 NPCs, actually. And again, while I can agree that there could have been more thieves, but that is a problem with there being (arguably) too few thieves, rather than too many mages. There are 5 divine casters as well. And 7 NPCs with a melee-class. I see no evidence that they overcompensated with mages here.
15, excluding TOB's NPC and the NPC you can't keep.
Sure. Except that you just excluded the TOB NPC, so your original 15 is still wrong. And my main point still stands, that mages did not get special treatment. But then, your silence on that point suggests that you are forced to agree with that after all.
Uh... I don't know why you're being terse here... If you want to be flippant, I'm not going to continue conversing here... Not to mention the fact that I called out the huge number of fighters in my original post (and I included Minsc and Haer'Dalis in there, since they're both more fighters than their base class), so it's kind of silly that you're saying I'm forced to agree with a point I made myself...
Anyway, on your "divine caster" point - sure, I guess you're right. But I wouldn't really lump all divine casters together, as druids and clerics do get some different spells and it's not a bad idea to have both in your party. So, really, there are 3 clerics (20% of NPCs) and 2 druids (13%). Unless you include Minsc (lol).
How is a count of 15 wrong, when excluding TOB and the NPC you can't keep? Who am I missing?
@rdarken Your count of 15 was wrong because you originally never excluded Yoshimo. Direct quote: "there are only 15 total NPCs (excluding TOB)". You only added that in your later posted, after I pointed out the error.
As for "it's kind of silly that you're saying I'm forced to agree with a point I made myself...", what on earth are you talking about? You have been claiming that there is an inordinate number of mages in BG2, my point was that there aren't. Since in your reply you didn't provide any counter-argument and only commented on the rather parenthetical question of the number of NPCs, it was reasonable to conclude that in fact you had found your earlier claim to be incorrect.
As for the divine casters, though they don't have the same spell selection they do fulfill quite similar roles, and as such it makes sense to lump them together in this context. Which again leads to the conclusion that in terms of class balance among NPCs the problem isn't an excess in the number of mages like you claim, but merely a relative shortage of thieves.
I would rather see quality over quantity when it comes to NPC characters that can join the party.
Personally, I'd like to see an NPC human whose stats are decent enough to dual into multiple classes, thus giving us an NPC that could fulfill multiple roles for the party (maybe a fighter with a 17 Str, Dex, Int, and Wis, but an 8 or less Con and Cha) or an NPC who is one of the triple dual-classes (Fighter/Thief/Mage or Fighter/Cleric/Mage). Tactically these could be interesting characters to bring along.
The BG games have the npc's that they have. The collections look to me as though they were created by the devs with an eye toward allowing the player character to be any class at all, since, really, any five npc's can carry the game from start to finish, no matter what the player is playing.
I would agree that thievery is somewhat under represented in BG2. It looks to me like the intention by the original devs was "Yoshimo>Imoen", and they even adjusted the DC of locks and traps with that in mind, if I can believe what I've read. (I've only ever played through ToB once, and I used a custom npc modded thief named "Faren".)
But, since magery becomes so critical to being able to finish BG2 all the way through ToB, the abundance of both good and evil mages also makes a lot of sense.
And, the original devs included the Neutral Jan, complete with thief-skill boosting magical equipment, to provide the role function for "evil" parties.
Anything that Beamdog can add as far as new npc's, seems to me to be icing on the cake. And, they've apparently created an evil female thief, for those who want that. And, for the good, there's still Yoshimo>Imoen (for whom the entire locks/traps in ToB is balanced), and/or the superpowerful Jan.
And, as every assertion I just made is highly arguable, couldn't we please argue with kindness and respect?
The difficulty with adding NPCs is that they're relatively expensive to make. I know we would absolutely love to add new NPCs, though, so:
Would you be willing to put your money where your mouth is? If we made new NPCs addons, would you be willing to pay for them to fund their creation?
It's probally the point in making an EE version @Kaeloree, new npcs are almost all that Beamdog can bring as new content, anything else that's done is improvment on code performance and that doesn't deatach for people that are not programmers, so by a matter of facts, many ppl got BG:EE just in reason of Dorn, Rasaad and Neera.
Taking this in fact, probally people would pay for new NPCs as DLCs, just need to make the firsts very good to avoid people become untrust of the new NPC content.
In fact Beamdog need to make accessory content to survive, the game sales aren't going to support the team by themselfs i think.
I'd pay a small amount for an extra NPC with a worked through story and quest. If they also bring in extra areas, items and even kits, all the better.
And do people think of Haer'Dalis as a fighter class? I know he dual weilds, but he plays much more like a mage who melees, rather than a true fighter/mage, who tends to be a fighter who casts.
Man, I don't know if you're intentionally misquoting me or what. Here's the last bit I'm going to say to you on this topic, then you can declare yourself the winner all you want: In my original post, I said I was excluding Yoshimo. I forgot to reiterate that in my reply to you, but I did say it. In that very same post, I devoted a chunk of the text to talking about how many fighters there are in the game. So, while all you may have taken away from my post was "There are too many mages," my complaint was with the diversification of NPC classes in vanilla BG2. In fact, I said just that.
I know it was a long post and people (myself included!) tend to skim forum posts, but if you are going to attack me for the content of my posts, you could at least do me the service of reading it. Or, at least, when I apologized for being unclear, left it at that instead of talking down to me.
The difficulty with adding NPCs is that they're relatively expensive to make. I know we would absolutely love to add new NPCs, though, so:
Would you be willing to put your money where your mouth is? If we made new NPCs addons, would you be willing to pay for them to fund their creation?
I would, depending on the price. I'm not going to drop $10 on a character, but if $10 got me 2-3, I probably would. I'd love to see the number of NPCs in BG2 reach the number in BG1 to make for diverse replays! But, then again, I'd love to see a lot of the BG1 NPCs as recruitable, with more fully-fleshed out personalities and storylines a la Viconia, Jaheira, Minsc, and Imoen (and, I guess, Edwin, though he didn't get much growth). Yes, this includes resurrecting the ones who die over the course of BG2 (except, I guess, the ones at the start). And, yes, I know that this is not possible currently, but a guy can hope!
Man, I don't know if you're intentionally misquoting me or what. Here's the last bit I'm going to say to you on this topic, then you can declare yourself the winner all you want: In my original post, I said I was excluding Yoshimo. I forgot to reiterate that in my reply to you, but I did say it. In that very same post, I devoted a chunk of the text to talking about how many fighters there are in the game. So, while all you may have taken away from my post was "There are too many mages," my complaint was with the diversification of NPC classes in vanilla BG2. In fact, I said just that.
I know it was a long post and people (myself included!) tend to skim forum posts, but if you are going to attack me for the content of my posts, you could at least do me the service of reading it. Or, at least, when I apologized for being unclear, left it at that instead of talking down to me.
Since I literally copy-pasted that from your post, I don't see how I could possibly be misquoting you. Nor is it taken out of context. As for your original post, by the time you got to excluding Yoshimo you were already down to 7 NPCs, so if we are to take that post as clarifying your intent, your later '15' is yet again wrong. To be honest it is beyond me why you are trying to defend this utterly insignificant point. Or claim that you apologised for being unclear. Though in the category 'talking down', you did call me/my post flippant and silly and threatened to leave the conversation.
The fact remains that you made a specific point about there being relatively a lot of mages in the game, and you not understanding why this would be the case. That's what I explicitly responded to, since as far as I can see this isn't the case: the class-types are largely balanced, except that they are a bit light on thieves. Hence also my comment that there are as many divine casters as there are mages. Apparently though, you weren't interested in further arguing your claim, which is a pity.
At any rate, since you won't be responding this (assuming you have the resolve to stick to that claim), it'll be left at that. And for future reference, don't project your own forum behaviour on others. Perhaps you skim posts and argue 'to win', but please don't assume that others do so as well. It's impolite.
Comments
Personally, I find Aerie, Jaheira, Keldorn, and Minsc very, very annoying. I don't like Cernd, Haer'dalis, or Valygar either because of their kits or their [lack of] a personality. Mazzy and Nalia are borderline (because Nalia starts to get on my nerves pretty quickly and I've never used Mazzy enough to know if I like her). That leaves only seven NPCs (I'm excluding Yoshimo) to choose from: Four of whom are mages, and three of whom are evil.
Frankly, I'm annoyed by (and just don't understand) the number of mages in the game. It's like they looked at BG1 and said "Oh wow, we crammed a ton of thieves in there, better not make THAT mistake again" and then did it with mages instead. They didn't put a SINGLE pure thief in there (that you can keep the whole game). Plus, there's only a single thief you can control the thief levels ups for... and he's a multiclass.
There are a lot of fighters in there, too. Especially given that Minsc isn't much of a Ranger and that Haer'dalis isn't much of a Bard. Shoot, with all the fighters, why wouldn't there be a Swashbuckler (<3) or a Fighter / Thief dual class? Or even a pure class we could dual class when we wanted a la Imoen or Shar Teel in BG1.
I don't know, I just think that, with all the classes and kits we had to choose from in BG2, they did a pretty poor job of diversifying the NPC selection. And, while the writing and acting is great, the personalities leave a bit to be desired. I think most people tend to agree with part of my list of "annoying" NPCs above, but would add Anomen and Nalia up there for sure. So, even if Jaheira and Minsc are left alone (because they're kind of polarizing, I think), we've still got four NPCs off the bat that most people hate.
WOAH LONG POST.
You monster.
I don't think BG2 straight-up needs new NPCs though. But having them is a nice cherry on top of an existing pile of goodness.
@rdarken I strongly disgree with your list of NPCs "that most people hate". Jaheira's actually a very compelling, complex and conflicted character once your get past the initial setup of her being a bit of a bitch. While some folks find Minsc grating he's got a lot of fans and Keldorn is routinely described on these boards as everything from "a Paladin who isn't a self-righteous tool" to "a father figure".
Some people like Aerie too, but meh.
Aerie (whiny/adorable), Jaheira (bitchy/strong), Jan (annoying/funny) and Nalia (Imoen rip off?) are 'controversial', but I'd say their fans and haters are pretty balanced.
Alternatively, the quest is available with just one of those NPCs but takes different paths depending on which of the relevant NPCs you have. But that requires writing/implementing/testing all those separate paths, further adding to the investment of resources. Although I can certainly agree that more interactive NPCs (both with each other and the environment) are to be preferred, there are practical limitations that make it difficult to do so.
But what i would like, REALLY LIKE, would be more NPC restrictions.
Dorn MUST have conflict banters (that should end in battle) with Keldorn and a LG Anomen. He can just despise Aerie as Korgan do without attacking her, after all she's no threat. About Jaheira i see them surprising behaving well with each other as Jaheira is now into a quest of vengeance for her dead husband. Mazzy is another Dorn should come to clashes but then, all this stuff isn't for me to decide.
I somehow watched in disbelief that Rasaad get along well with Viconia in BG:EE that was a lot surreal.
Vaylgar and Neera should probally have some issues, but who knows.
@Morte50 I don't necessarily have a problem with there being five mages - I have a problem with there being five mages when there are only 15 total NPCs (excluding TOB) and only one multiclass thief. A third of the NPCs are mages!
I know thieves aren't as crucial in BG2 / TOB, but they were my first favorite class. A swashbuckler would have been an amazing addition: Since you have another NPC who can cover the back stabbing stuff, a swashbuckler could have easily replaced one of the other melee NPCs and filled a better gap. Plus, a "piratey" character could easily be neutral and like good deeds, but also not hate evil ones.
Thief HLAs are just too good!
There's 16 NPCs, actually. And again, while I can agree that there could have been more thieves, but that is a problem with there being (arguably) too few thieves, rather than too many mages. There are 5 divine casters as well. And 7 NPCs with a melee-class. I see no evidence that they overcompensated with mages here.
Anyway, on your "divine caster" point - sure, I guess you're right. But I wouldn't really lump all divine casters together, as druids and clerics do get some different spells and it's not a bad idea to have both in your party. So, really, there are 3 clerics (20% of NPCs) and 2 druids (13%). Unless you include Minsc (lol).
How is a count of 15 wrong, when excluding TOB and the NPC you can't keep? Who am I missing?
16- Sarevok (TOB)
17- Yoshimo (Can't keep)
Your count of 15 was wrong because you originally never excluded Yoshimo. Direct quote: "there are only 15 total NPCs (excluding TOB)". You only added that in your later posted, after I pointed out the error.
As for "it's kind of silly that you're saying I'm forced to agree with a point I made myself...", what on earth are you talking about? You have been claiming that there is an inordinate number of mages in BG2, my point was that there aren't. Since in your reply you didn't provide any counter-argument and only commented on the rather parenthetical question of the number of NPCs, it was reasonable to conclude that in fact you had found your earlier claim to be incorrect.
As for the divine casters, though they don't have the same spell selection they do fulfill quite similar roles, and as such it makes sense to lump them together in this context. Which again leads to the conclusion that in terms of class balance among NPCs the problem isn't an excess in the number of mages like you claim, but merely a relative shortage of thieves.
Personally, I'd like to see an NPC human whose stats are decent enough to dual into multiple classes, thus giving us an NPC that could fulfill multiple roles for the party (maybe a fighter with a 17 Str, Dex, Int, and Wis, but an 8 or less Con and Cha) or an NPC who is one of the triple dual-classes (Fighter/Thief/Mage or Fighter/Cleric/Mage). Tactically these could be interesting characters to bring along.
Would you be willing to put your money where your mouth is? If we made new NPCs addons, would you be willing to pay for them to fund their creation?
The BG games have the npc's that they have. The collections look to me as though they were created by the devs with an eye toward allowing the player character to be any class at all, since, really, any five npc's can carry the game from start to finish, no matter what the player is playing.
I would agree that thievery is somewhat under represented in BG2. It looks to me like the intention by the original devs was "Yoshimo>Imoen", and they even adjusted the DC of locks and traps with that in mind, if I can believe what I've read. (I've only ever played through ToB once, and I used a custom npc modded thief named "Faren".)
But, since magery becomes so critical to being able to finish BG2 all the way through ToB, the abundance of both good and evil mages also makes a lot of sense.
And, the original devs included the Neutral Jan, complete with thief-skill boosting magical equipment, to provide the role function for "evil" parties.
Anything that Beamdog can add as far as new npc's, seems to me to be icing on the cake. And, they've apparently created an evil female thief, for those who want that. And, for the good, there's still Yoshimo>Imoen (for whom the entire locks/traps in ToB is balanced), and/or the superpowerful Jan.
And, as every assertion I just made is highly arguable, couldn't we please argue with kindness and respect?
Taking this in fact, probally people would pay for new NPCs as DLCs, just need to make the firsts very good to avoid people become untrust of the new NPC content.
In fact Beamdog need to make accessory content to survive, the game sales aren't going to support the team by themselfs i think.
And do people think of Haer'Dalis as a fighter class? I know he dual weilds, but he plays much more like a mage who melees, rather than a true fighter/mage, who tends to be a fighter who casts.
In that very same post, I devoted a chunk of the text to talking about how many fighters there are in the game. So, while all you may have taken away from my post was "There are too many mages," my complaint was with the diversification of NPC classes in vanilla BG2. In fact, I said just that.
I know it was a long post and people (myself included!) tend to skim forum posts, but if you are going to attack me for the content of my posts, you could at least do me the service of reading it. Or, at least, when I apologized for being unclear, left it at that instead of talking down to me. I would, depending on the price. I'm not going to drop $10 on a character, but if $10 got me 2-3, I probably would. I'd love to see the number of NPCs in BG2 reach the number in BG1 to make for diverse replays!
But, then again, I'd love to see a lot of the BG1 NPCs as recruitable, with more fully-fleshed out personalities and storylines a la Viconia, Jaheira, Minsc, and Imoen (and, I guess, Edwin, though he didn't get much growth). Yes, this includes resurrecting the ones who die over the course of BG2 (except, I guess, the ones at the start). And, yes, I know that this is not possible currently, but a guy can hope!
The fact remains that you made a specific point about there being relatively a lot of mages in the game, and you not understanding why this would be the case. That's what I explicitly responded to, since as far as I can see this isn't the case: the class-types are largely balanced, except that they are a bit light on thieves. Hence also my comment that there are as many divine casters as there are mages. Apparently though, you weren't interested in further arguing your claim, which is a pity.
At any rate, since you won't be responding this (assuming you have the resolve to stick to that claim), it'll be left at that. And for future reference, don't project your own forum behaviour on others. Perhaps you skim posts and argue 'to win', but please don't assume that others do so as well. It's impolite.
Kivan and Shar-Teel spring to mind amongst others.