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All you wanted to know about Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear ("Adventure Y" previously)

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  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    Dee said:

    bob_veng said:

    shawne said:

    bob_veng said:

    or be captured with you and brought to chateau irenicus. hypothetically. i mean, why not? wouldn't it be ideal?

    Why not? Because the whole point of the opening sequence is that you're not supposed to come bursting out of the first dungeon with a full party. Same reason you don't start BG:EE outside Candlekeep with Jaheira, Khalid, Imoen, Minsc and Dynaheir.
    but there are already four available characters and the dungeon is a pushover. it's a negligible difference, to have one more.
    Actually, the difference it makes is pretty significant, though not in that opening dungeon.

    If you come out of the dungeon with a full party, you have no incentive to recruit anyone else. The game right now gives you three allies by default, which means you have two unoccupied slots that can be filled with any of the game's companions without eliminating anyone from your "starting" party. If it gives you five, most players will look at their party as "complete" and never even think about recruiting anyone else for the rest of the game.

    The impact is felt less on combat balance and more on the overall crafted experience of the game. Like @shawne says, there's a reason you don't start the first game with the full canon party: the game wants you to explore and consider taking other characters with you each time you play. If it gives you a party right off the bat, that consideration never happens.
    This was one of the only reasons I ever did a side quest my very first playthrough. I was very focused on the main plot and didn't want to deal with other people's problems, but starting with a short party was the reason I did the ones that I did.
    And if your wondering, yes,I was short on XP, and yes, I had to reload a save and do some dungeons in order to beat the end.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    @Dee we can always boot or not recruit people. Players have been wanting their BG1 companions to transition with them to BG2 with them for forever! And, rightfully so.
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    billbisco said:

    @Dee we can always boot or not recruit people. Players have been wanting their BG1 companions to transition with them to BG2 with them for forever! And, rightfully so.

    The point is players new to bg2(which a lot of people starts on) will feel attached to their starting party, and have no real motivation to change anything. That's what some people love about bg2, the lack of a real 'canon' party. Besides impending and yoshimo, really.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    I had plenty of motivation to kick out 3 good leaning underpowered NPCs that were never in my BG1 party!
  • ZarugalZarugal Member Posts: 51
    billbisco said:

    I had plenty of motivation to kick out 3 good leaning underpowered NPCs that were never in my BG1 party!

    No Minsc?!

    *Gasps*
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    edited August 2015
    Dee said:

    Actually, the difference it makes is pretty significant, though not in that opening dungeon.

    If you come out of the dungeon with a full party, you have no incentive to recruit anyone else. The game right now gives you three allies by default, which means you have two unoccupied slots that can be filled with any of the game's companions without eliminating anyone from your "starting" party. If it gives you five, most players will look at their party as "complete" and never even think about recruiting anyone else for the rest of the game.

    The impact is felt less on combat balance and more on the overall crafted experience of the game. Like @shawne says, there's a reason you don't start the first game with the full canon party: the game wants you to explore and consider taking other characters with you each time you play. If it gives you a party right off the bat, that consideration never happens.

    i agree with that - on the condition that you're presuming that all bg2:ee new games would have additions to the chateau

    but if only players that import should start like this, i have two reasons why i don't agree that there will be a problem:
    1. if you played the previous installation with certain characters you might as well continue with (some of) them; if such a player wants an all-bg2 experience he can start a new game without even importing because it doesn't do anything really significant
    2. if you've played the previous installation you have probably learned that occasionally switching characters is a good thing because they might have a quest and, simply, you'll be able to experience them, along with banters (that actually work well in bg:ee)

    to conclude: no player that has already finished bg:ee will have the exploration aspect degraded for them, because they'll already know how important it is to the overall experience. those that want to ditch old characters and seek the great SoA ones will do so and those that want to stay together with the character/s they already grew fond of will also do so - and even then, they may try different npcs to do their quests etc.

    edit: but then, that also a good option for a dlc, imho
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    I mean, hell, you don't have to look very far for examples of inertia in sequential RPGs - most people who play "Shadows of Undrentide" will keep Deekin with them all the way to the end of "Hordes of the Underdark", even when there are more powerful companions available. Almost no one turns down the option to re-recruit the Virmire Survivor in "Mass Effect 3", even if you're not romancing them.

    And let's face it, that was probably the original dev team's logic behind the decision in the first place: what's the point of creating new characters at all if you're going to let the player just keep going with the same group of characters? Might as well be playing a Gold Box game in that case.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    @Dee People always have an incentive to switch up the party. For variety, quests, banters, the actual classes desired in a party, etc. People play the game multiple times with different 2nd install mod NPCs just to experience

    I hope "shaking things up" was not you all's reason to remove the BG1 Bioware NPCs because many players would prefer to keep their NPCs with them to experience the full 25 hours of content in SoD. ;)

    Imoen, Jaheira, and Minsc were never severely affected dialogue-wise by their imprisonment. Yes, there are a couple of references here and there, but Imoen remains cheerful, Minsc silly, and Jaheira still acts like your mom. There should not be a barrier to having other NPCs start imprisoned. :)

    Starting party continuity has been a request of players for years. It would nice to have your acknowledgement and support on this issue @Dee so that we stand a chance of getting this for a possible Enhanced Edition Trilogy game. ^_^
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    edited August 2015
    billbisco said:

    People always have an incentive to switch up the party.

    billbisco said:

    many players would prefer to keep their NPCs with them

    I mean, come on now.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    @shawne Thosse aren't contradictions.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    @Dee I did pay attention. http://tinyurl.com/nehf6zk

    All of these banters happen post imprisonment from Irenicus twice! Yes, despite dream sequences and torture references she is still cheerful! The new EE dialogues continue that! ^_^

    @Dee If you like your Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir, Imoen party then you can keep your Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir, Imoen party. Most people did not end BG1 with that party and would welcome continuing with them.

    People like a story game where choices matter. The most egregious example is the BG1 to BG2 transition. Suddenly our BG1 choices and actions were completely invalidated, our evil PCs traveled with good NPCs who they would not get along with. Dead NPCs are magically alive with no explanation, etc. That's not fun. That's not coherent. That, is an artistic travesty.

    And no, carelessly killing off beloved companions with no ability to save or influence their fates is hardly "beautiful". Even @AndrewFoley admitted that he wasn't thrilled about Safana's poor treatment in BG2.

    That should be a focus on an Enhanced Edition Trilogy: Making the game truly continuous and having choices matter. That, is beautiful!

    So, when and if it comes time, please don't quash a more coherent and more fun outcome ^_^
  • proccoprocco Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 915
    Just because you can start SoD with BGI npcs doesn't necessarily mean you can finish with them...I'm assuming the writers have given a good explanation why BGII starts with the characters is does (I'll be a little disappointed if they don't). Wait until the game comes out before getting into arguments about its outcome!
  • AedanAedan Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 8,551
    Forcing many NPCs to die in Siege of Dragonspear just to end their stories would be very bad - at my eyes, it would mean lack of good ideas.
    I am confident, however, that they did not end up with something like that. Avellone praised their work; I do not think that he would have left such positive feedback if SoD featured random deaths alà Shonda Rhimes just to get rid of characters.
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156
    The more things that are based on choice the less solid material there is for the writers to put a good story around, open world games allow you to do many things but there's often very little detail regarding the choices made afterwards.

    Making a solid story event will allow the writers to go into depth about how that event affected the character or other characters around them.
  • billbiscobillbisco Member Posts: 361
    @wubble Your post reminds me of the stormwind fallacy: http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2861636

    Yes, you absolutely can write a story that is both good and has choices matter.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    I'm unsure that inertia is such a big deal like you state. Either you're playing it right (exploring) or you aren't. But if you aren't you won't even notice anything strange. In fact the game will probably feel better because there won't be that sense of discontinuity (that even SoD can't remove...i mean it's impossible - so many BG1 npcs make their way to Amn but only your party is nowhere to be seen or even heard of).

    On the other hand, for more experienced players there would be many befefits (also continuity, if only just for story's sake but also more freedom in choosing your party etc.)

    ...anyway, i won't contend with you on this anymore as i suppose you've stated that you've considered this idea enough.
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156
    It takes much more time, effort and inspiration to write detailed choices in, I completely agree that it's possible and fantastic when it happens but without sufficient time and the right mindset to create something excellent these projects can leave some or all of the content either missing in detail or just plain rubbish. I'd far rather beamdog focused on the characters and storylines they have than trying to open out the games by adding characters that don't continue to bg2 and trying to flesh out a story and it's effects throughout the rest of the game.
  • EdvinEdvin Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,244
    edited August 2015
    Aedan said:

    Forcing many NPCs to die in Siege of Dragonspear just to end their stories would be very bad - at my eyes, it would mean lack of good ideas.

    People dying in the war, deal with it.
    I will be very disappointed, if don't kill at least five well known characters.
    Great conflict means big losses.

    Alora, Branwen, Share Teel, Skie Silvershield, Eldoth, Kagain, Kivan, Xan, Yeslick Orothair (+Dynaheir and Khalid).
    We have 11 potential corpses :smiley:

    My favorites are Edwin, Minsc and Viconia and these are safe, so I'm fine. :blush:
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