Mr. FrozenCells, there is overall result to consider. And overall result would be pretty much as I said before. Also I prefer being honest to being polite for my own reasons.
I must admit, however that I might be overreacting, but that's not something that I can fairly judge.
Well, I understand why you might consider it selfish, if for example, you loved ToB, but why is "stupid"? Is it not reasonable to request a redo of what is almost universally considered the worst for of the BG series?
It's stupid because you are asking for something that obviously can't be done. It has been said many times that developers can't change already existing content. And no, I'm not ToB lover - I think it has issues, but also some good sides.
Yeah, right, people are whining because there aren't enough NEW things in BGEE, and you want the dev to actually cut 40 hours of gameplay in BG2EE ? I don't really get you people... And I don't agree with it being that bad. It's not as great as the others, true. But it is still pleasurable.
Yeah, right, people are whining because there aren't enough NEW things in BGEE, and you want the dev to actually cut 40 hours of gameplay in BG2EE ? I don't really get you people... And I don't agree with it being that bad. It's not as great as the others, true. But it is still pleasurable.
Okay, I know I might be alone in this regard but, TOB was my favorite of the entire BG series! You got to powerplay with abilities that would make the gods tremble! You got to become a god at the end for god's sake! (Get it, god's sake? Dohohoho!) Sure it has tons of problems, but so does almost everything in existence! I for one cannot disagree with this strongly enough, and I apologize if my opinion on this is unpopular. I think it would be impossible for them NOT to have TOB:EE as it is the completion to the saga, and I would buy it again in a heart beat. (Provided they fixed up all the bugs and such.)
Of the two expansion packs, I would rather see TOTSC go long before TOB. If we are going to complain about expansion packs then I can't see why people would pick on TOB. TOTSC had like four areas with some new items and spells which added up to about 25 hours of gameplay. TOB had Watcher's Keep which outclassed DT and added Serevok, tons of new abilities, items, and spells. Plus it focused on the main story more than the core games did combined. TOTSC didn't even have any story tie in at all and TOB was atleast twice as long as TOTSC with much more variety in terms of art and sound and well, everything.
Heck the new BGEE adds about as much content as TOTSC did. The new BGEE also add's four new areas, 3 new NPC's with banter, a new kit and so far about 18 hours of additionall content. I think no loading times and a zoom option are more useful engine improvements than any implemented during the game series unless you count the jump from BG1 to 2 but that was a whole new engine and game. Maybe the tab funtion beats it, I don't know.
I think the main problem is that people just can't seem to understand that TOB is not Baldur's Gate 3 and it was never meant to be. Once they had our Money from SOA they decided to jump ship and rush on to a new 3D engine in order to conquer the competition. We all know where that got them. Two letters EA. Baldur's Gate 3 may have been the original idea but they abandoned it before TOB was marketed. We got what we got which is alot better than nothing at all. Sure TOB has problems but most complaints are about TOB's inability to be as large and non linear as a core game which is rediculous in my opinion.
ToB is definitely the weakest link, but the series needs an end. Short of some huge adjustments, letting it remain as is seems a necessary evil and certainly preferable to just erasing it.
disagree. bg, the original, was the weakest link. expectations for tob were probable too high once bg2 were released, but story and gameplay of tob were superior to the original game. rose-hued lenses.
Well, a lot of the negative reactions to this seem to be that it can be fixed by big changes to the gameplay, which I think is a fair opinion. However, I said originally that I though it should be rewritten, because the story was horrible too, and nothing can be fixed about that. Does no-one else really feel the same?
Also, LOL at the number of people who have obviously read the title, but not actually the post I wrote. Maybe I should have been clearer
@ajwz I read it, I just actually liked the TOB story line, and know it is physically impossible for them to change it. It would take practically an act of Ao to get that to happen, and even then, they likely wouldn't want to change the story line as much as you're saying. Really, I think you are being overly critical of the power levels, considering you're supposed to be reaching nearly godly levels by the end.
It seems to me that it is too much a matter of opinion for them to go out and scrap... well... any of the old story. While I can agree that you could say the part with Gorion is a bit of a mild plot hole, it still seems quite possible that he was lying to you with the letter. Perhaps he actually did date your mother before he found out she was a psychotic priestess of bhaal, and didn't want you to think too poorly of her?
And... I liked the opportunity to redeem Sarevok. I mean this may be a very unpopular concept, but I actually sort of sympathize with him. He watched his father kill his mother in front of his eyes when he was very young. That kind of thing can easily scar the most hardy of children, especially if you must live with the killer, and are haunted by the blood of a dead god of murder. It seemed to me like turning to embrace his bhaal essence was the only path he felt truly was open to him. I don't condone what he did... but in some respects I can understand it, and how he came to be what he was. It always made me sad that his girlfriend also was trying to save him and couldn't, and I like the chance to save him from himself.
At least adding Ascension and Wheels of Prophecy did add some slight improvement to the story but only at the end of ToB. Im sure it was all the time constraints Bioware had back in the day that cost them in fully telling how ToB was going to play out. Thats the biggest reason why ToB had such a small story to it.
i think one of the problems of ToB is that importing your bg ii team into ToB makes the game way easier, because of all those awesome items you find in bg ii , so now i just start with teams in ToB to make the game much more difficult, just recently i made a team of 6 fighters and then dual classed the last 3 fighters into a cleric, thief and mage, now that made the game tough as hell, and made it fun, one thing that burns my butt about ToB is that half the new items in the game are garbage because your SoA gear could be better, but when you start complete vanilla in ToB with nothing, it makes those items that you would have just thrown away all the better, all in all, i think ToB just needs to be played differently for people to get more enjoyment out of it, because everytime i import my bg ii team to ToB im always usually around 3.8 million xp and that already makes it balls easy when my fighters are around -13/ -14 ac at the start of the expansion, but maybe thats just my opinion
ToB was not perfect for sure, but say that it's a disaster? Dude with all due respect, you're crazy to ask ToB to be removed. I found the werewolf island a much more crap expansion than ToB, for example.
If we have to list ToB problems i will do, and believe when i say it's a, an exhaustive list and not a illustrative list:
- For every goblin we kill the a set of +3 items dropped. - ToB was too short, so few quests to do until the end. - Game difficult was easy (just as SoA in fact, the only difference was that in soa the distance of levels you could reach was far more striking in the game than in ToB, as kill a lich on level 9 or 18 has a huge difference and to do it in lvl 25 or 30 has near no difference).
What would help in ToB, would be a way to lost items, or gave them or do something that at least randomly vanish some of the party equipment.
My suggestion is a maintenance of player class stronghold betwen SoA and ToB (even if indirect, using someone as a regent for warriors, or link for druids as example). And part of have a stronghold would be equip their members (each stronghold would ask for an item list for some of the things we found through the game).
Anyway anything that solve the 3 problems above will do the trick.
well, tob was improvised on many levels. i have to admit i finished it 3 times, started it- many more. i simply have no will to be like "oooooh, reaaaaalyyyy?" when mellisan shows. at least wheels put an option in to tell her to go choke on rocks.
i think SOA needs little to moderate improvement and work will be cut down quite a bit after all the engine alterations made now for the bg:ee. i would love if the developers would focus on adding at least one of the new adventures in Tob part (to expand on storyline) and negotiate with atari and wotsc to at least expand some dialogue options for canon tob, to put the "RP" back into "RPG" as far as tob goes.
as for deletion- it is like asking to remove gnomes from FR, because they look funny. it can't be done, but we can ask for a gnome with smaller nose or less turnip obsession. or maybe even more of these... :P
I see a lot of hatred levelled against ToB, but I'm not sure it's entirely justified. I remember feeling much the same way as everyone else at this point in the saga, but I am also somewhat suffering from fatigue at that point. I do tend to play games fairly compulsively until I get to the end (which is my fault and not the devs), and my complete playthrough I'd just done Baldur's Gate I + Tales of the Sword Coast, then Shadows of Amn, by the point of Throne of Bhaal I was basically just rushing through to get to the end.
I get the same with movie marathons sometimes, if I'm watching classic Star Wars I tend to flag by the beginning of RotJ. I'll be pacing myself a bit more with these enhanced edition, and maybe taking a break of a month or two between SoA and ToB to see if that helps.
@trinit Sorry, the noses are part of the race. I'm not joking, either. "The Complete Book of Gnomes" says that they are actually proud of their noses. And not that they shouldn't be!
this request on deleting ToB from enhanced edition is most foolish I have ever heard... Baldur's Gate is a trilogy, do you still remember that? And I don't imagine whole Baldur's Gate saga without such epic ending. Seriously the climat there was specific too. Maybe there weren't as many side quests but the main plot remained being surprising and interesting. What I like most in Baldur's Gate saga is that on the very beginning of the game you don't really know what will be your goal in the future. Pathetic dragon's age - from the beginning it's clear you'll have to defeat the dragon at the end. Nothing surprising. But I don't say dragon's age was bad, the main plot was just too obvious and I don't like games where gay romance is available... It's sick and any respecting itself RPG shouldn't contain it. Anyway ToB wasn't that expanded but was great as all other parts of saga. Some changes improving whole part would be nice but deleting it is unacceptable to me...
I would hate to dissapoint you but I heard that one of the new NPC characters in BGEE is bisexual and can be romanced by either man or woman. Just what I heard dude.
alright, if they're going to continue whole sick game fashion (casual main plot, quests like in MMO, gay romance etc) then I don't really know if I want them to create Baldur's Gate 3. The best in Baldur's Gate saga was the fact that it has finished really exceptionally, that it's quite hard to make third part of Baldur's Gate. If they're going to create it without disgracing whole saga, better they do it without all modern crap features (known from Dragon's age for example)
@savali You don't have to play a gay romance unless you want to. You don't even have to have a romance at all. It's not going to affect you simply by being there. It's content you can experience if you want, no more, no less. Like Thomas Jefferson said, "If my neighbor believes in twenty gods or one god, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
well I'm 100% sure it's not something that can attract people to play. So why even bother to do it? In original baldur's gate nothing like this had place and I'm sure it wouldn't have so many fans otherwise. This just doesn't make any sense and makes my generall impression worst.
I like ToB, but I agree that BG2EE would be a great opportunity to make it even better. Here are some changes I would like to see:
- Ascension incorporated into the core game
- Make it a little more difficult to obtain high level items from Watchers Keep. I never liked that you could just pop by and buy +4 weapons and maybe collect some quivers of plenty and other treats from the highest level, fairly early on in SoA.
- More side-quests. I understand that suitable high level quests should be more sparse, and it doesn't make sense to have über-goblins carrying +3 weapons around every corner, but ToB could really benefit from a more open world.
It's been awhile since I went through ToB, so my details are a little fuzzy, but one thing I really liked was Cyric's involvement as the acting god of murder -- perhaps this could be fleshed out more as a recurring conflict with followers of other deities trying to prevent the rise of a new lord of murder. Cyric would make for a formidable villain.
There is no need to cut TOB. Honestly, I had a lot of fun with TOB. I can understand the gripes about TOB but it's part of the BG series and should not be removed because some people don't like it. Any improvements that can be made to enhance it should be made as this is the "enhanced edition" of the series. They should not remove things because some people aren't fond of it. Really, if you don't like it that much then why should you play it? The game doesn't force you to play TOB. It is what it is, they are not going to rewrite the thing or make massive changes to the ending. In the "things we can't do" thread it details that changes like this just cannot be made.
@Savall it's there because of inclusiveness. There are more than just men who like women and women who like men. These people already play the game- it's giving them something to appeal to them. Just as women like me asked for more male characters to romance (because Anomen is, frankly, awful when it comes to romance), they decided to upgrade more options. There are people already playing same-sex romances with mods and modded characters, so they know the market is there, and there are people who want it. Why not cater to those people as well?
I just hope we get to see appropriate endings for all these new characters (and hey, look, a ToB related comment! ) I'll be interested to see what both the romantic and non-romantic ToB endings are for the new guys and gal.
As far as the romances in the game goes, personally I think there should just be an equal amount of romance options for all of the possibilities. MM, MF, FF why not have all of them in there? There really is no good reason why those romance options should not be in there. Honestly, I wish there was a "harem" romance option. Should I play the bard with a 20+ charisma, I want to be roaming around with a small army of hot babes! Or of course what ever your gender choice would be
Comments
I must admit, however that I might be overreacting, but that's not something that I can fairly judge. It's stupid because you are asking for something that obviously can't be done. It has been said many times that developers can't change already existing content. And no, I'm not ToB lover - I think it has issues, but also some good sides.
Heck the new BGEE adds about as much content as TOTSC did. The new BGEE also add's four new areas, 3 new NPC's with banter, a new kit and so far about 18 hours of additionall content. I think no loading times and a zoom option are more useful engine improvements than any implemented during the game series unless you count the jump from BG1 to 2 but that was a whole new engine and game. Maybe the tab funtion beats it, I don't know.
I think the main problem is that people just can't seem to understand that TOB is not Baldur's Gate 3 and it was never meant to be. Once they had our Money from SOA they decided to jump ship and rush on to a new 3D engine in order to conquer the competition. We all know where that got them. Two letters EA. Baldur's Gate 3 may have been the original idea but they abandoned it before TOB was marketed. We got what we got which is alot better than nothing at all. Sure TOB has problems but most complaints are about TOB's inability to be as large and non linear as a core game which is rediculous in my opinion.
HA! Good Fun!
However, I said originally that I though it should be rewritten, because the story was horrible too, and nothing can be fixed about that. Does no-one else really feel the same?
Also, LOL at the number of people who have obviously read the title, but not actually the post I wrote. Maybe I should have been clearer
I read it, I just actually liked the TOB story line, and know it is physically impossible for them to change it. It would take practically an act of Ao to get that to happen, and even then, they likely wouldn't want to change the story line as much as you're saying. Really, I think you are being overly critical of the power levels, considering you're supposed to be reaching nearly godly levels by the end.
It seems to me that it is too much a matter of opinion for them to go out and scrap... well... any of the old story. While I can agree that you could say the part with Gorion is a bit of a mild plot hole, it still seems quite possible that he was lying to you with the letter. Perhaps he actually did date your mother before he found out she was a psychotic priestess of bhaal, and didn't want you to think too poorly of her?
And... I liked the opportunity to redeem Sarevok. I mean this may be a very unpopular concept, but I actually sort of sympathize with him. He watched his father kill his mother in front of his eyes when he was very young. That kind of thing can easily scar the most hardy of children, especially if you must live with the killer, and are haunted by the blood of a dead god of murder. It seemed to me like turning to embrace his bhaal essence was the only path he felt truly was open to him. I don't condone what he did... but in some respects I can understand it, and how he came to be what he was. It always made me sad that his girlfriend also was trying to save him and couldn't, and I like the chance to save him from himself.
Well, its not like stealth was hard to abuse, but still.
If we have to list ToB problems i will do, and believe when i say it's a, an exhaustive list and not a illustrative list:
- For every goblin we kill the a set of +3 items dropped.
- ToB was too short, so few quests to do until the end.
- Game difficult was easy (just as SoA in fact, the only difference was that in soa the distance of levels you could reach was far more striking in the game than in ToB, as kill a lich on level 9 or 18 has a huge difference and to do it in lvl 25 or 30 has near no difference).
What would help in ToB, would be a way to lost items, or gave them or do something that at least randomly vanish some of the party equipment.
My suggestion is a maintenance of player class stronghold betwen SoA and ToB (even if indirect, using someone as a regent for warriors, or link for druids as example). And part of have a stronghold would be equip their members (each stronghold would ask for an item list for some of the things we found through the game).
Anyway anything that solve the 3 problems above will do the trick.
i think SOA needs little to moderate improvement and work will be cut down quite a bit after all the engine alterations made now for the bg:ee. i would love if the developers would focus on adding at least one of the new adventures in Tob part (to expand on storyline) and negotiate with atari and wotsc to at least expand some dialogue options for canon tob, to put the "RP" back into "RPG" as far as tob goes.
as for deletion- it is like asking to remove gnomes from FR, because they look funny. it can't be done, but we can ask for a gnome with smaller nose or less turnip obsession. or maybe even more of these... :P
I get the same with movie marathons sometimes, if I'm watching classic Star Wars I tend to flag by the beginning of RotJ. I'll be pacing myself a bit more with these enhanced edition, and maybe taking a break of a month or two between SoA and ToB to see if that helps.
Anyway ToB wasn't that expanded but was great as all other parts of saga. Some changes improving whole part would be nice but deleting it is unacceptable to me...
- Ascension incorporated into the core game
- Make it a little more difficult to obtain high level items from Watchers Keep. I never liked that you could just pop by and buy +4 weapons and maybe collect some quivers of plenty and other treats from the highest level, fairly early on in SoA.
- More side-quests. I understand that suitable high level quests should be more sparse, and it doesn't make sense to have über-goblins carrying +3 weapons around every corner, but ToB could really benefit from a more open world.
It's been awhile since I went through ToB, so my details are a little fuzzy, but one thing I really liked was Cyric's involvement as the acting god of murder -- perhaps this could be fleshed out more as a recurring conflict with followers of other deities trying to prevent the rise of a new lord of murder. Cyric would make for a formidable villain.
I just hope we get to see appropriate endings for all these new characters (and hey, look, a ToB related comment!