Looking for some specifics about EE's character transfer. *mild spoilers*

Rayvolution

Hey everyone, I'm a long time BG lover, been playing it off and on since it's original release forever ago. I even still have the original 5-CD version somewhere!

Well, I now own BG:EE and plan to buy BG2:EE once I complete BG. I was curious how character transfers work in EE.

I love creating my own 6 characters, and playing "mock" multiplayer, basically I would just play by myself with 6 custom characters, then when I made it to BG2 I would just transfer all 6 into BG2 and keep playing. Sadly though, by doing this I sacrificed all those awesome side-storylines you pickup from the story-characters.

The reason I did this was I didn't like the character break between 1 and 2, it really was a bit of a downer to play BG1 all the way to the end with your 1 custom character and 5 computer-created characters, then when you got to BG2 it would basically just give you 5 new versions of your old characters. For me, that wasn't good enough. I wanted *my* characters with all the stats I earned and all the dual classing/specializing/tomb reading/etc I gained in BG1.

So the question i have, is has the system changed? If I purposely pickup the same exact party in BG1 that I will start in BG2 with will it transfer my *actual* characters over, or does it still make mock-up fakes?

Akihiko

It hasn't changed. I may be wrong, but I believe they said it's something they can't do because of the programming. *EDIT for clarity* Er, but I'm not wrong about it not having changed. Non-player characters do not carry over.

Rayvolution

Well thats a shame, it really sucks to work hard on building up a set of characters only to be allowed to bring 1 with you unless you go the multiplayer import route. But the multiplayer route kills off so many great side-stories

Lord_Tansheron

I'm not so sure what you mean by the "side-stories" and how multiplayer "kills them off". If you go with 6 custom characters, you don't get any character-based quests; but you don't get those in BG1 either? What exactly do you mean?

If it's just about transferring your entire BG1 custom party into BG2 singleplayer, that is entirely possible. Simply create your multiplayer party in BG2 and import each character one at a time from BG1. Then save the game, and manually transfer the savegame file from the "mpsave" folder to the "save" folder. Now you can load that same (multiplayer) game in single player, to continue playing with 6 all custom characters in single player mode.

At least that's how it worked in BG2, but it should work in BG2:EE as well.

Rayvolution

Lord_Tansheron said:

I'm not so sure what you mean by the "side-stories" and how multiplayer "kills them off". If you go with 6 custom characters, you don't get any character-based quests; but you don't get those in BG1 either? What exactly do you mean?

If it's just about transferring your entire BG1 custom party into BG2 singleplayer, that is entirely possible. Simply create your multiplayer party in BG2 and import each character one at a time from BG1. Then save the game, and manually transfer the savegame file from the "mpsave" folder to the "save" folder. Now you can load that same (multiplayer) game in single player, to continue playing with 6 all custom characters in single player mode.

At least that's how it worked in BG2, but it should work in BG2:EE as well.

There's a ton of character-specific quests, banter, and general just storyline material you miss out on if you use 6 custom characters in BG2. You miss out on *some* of it in BG1, but they're not as interesting. Most of it is really quick small side quests that are quickly forgotten, and really do kinda just feel like "side quests". But in BG2 they are much more involved and interesting.

By bringing in 6 custom characters instead of picking up the you get very early in the game, you miss out on the chance to listen to all that banter, and to do all those quests/content that come with them.

Like I said, it's not as big of an impact in BG1, but in BG2, that side-stuff is a pretty big chunk'o'content. The main reason I played with 6 custom characters in the past was to bring them all into BG2 instead of just my main, because I didn't like how your NPCs you get re-given to you early in BG2 are basically just new characters with the same name. All the work you did to level them or any special dual-classing you may of done is lost.

But, the reason I'm asking is, if it's still how it used to be, I may just play with 6 custom characters again. If not, I'd like to actually play BG1 and purposely pickup those specific-5 BG1 characters you meet very, very early in BG2.

EDIT: there's also a very important, specific little thief that really *should* remain in your party that I've always missed out on having due to using custom characters. :P

Lord_Tansheron

Oh, I understand now. It's easy to fix that! Grab those NPCs you want in BG2, then use Shadowkeeper (for vanilla BG2) or EEKeeper (for BG2:EE) to edit your savegame and change the NPCs to be exactly what they were at the end of BG1, dual-classed, stat-changed, everything. You can also use this "trick" to basically make a custom party that still has banter/romance/quests/etc. by simply editing the NPCs to whatever you want to play. That's actually how I've been playing for basically as long as Shadowkeeper has been around ¬_¬

Rayvolution

Hmm, I might give that a shot. I usually try to avoid using save editors, but I've only played BG2 once with all the banter/romance/etc stuff because I always wanted to use custom characters (due to the above stated, inability to transfer NPCs)

Shame we can't transfer them, it seems a pretty simple method. Just have those specific character's stats saved in the BG1:EE save, then BG2:EE detects them and swaps them out when you import a save file.