lazy Beamdog - EE content woes

Ygramul

So, we chase a necromancer friend of Dorn's, Kryll, who when cornered begins animating dead & casting spells, including *Mirror Image* -- wait that shouldn't happen since her opposing school is Illusion.

Anyway, we traipse around to the ominuously names "Adoy's Enclave" for Neera, and the whole region -- I mean the entire bloody region -- is empty, no significant content, nothing to do, no useful dialog, not even the obligatory "wild magic zone" spell fight. Only some stoopid Moose & Bullwinkle joke, prior to a final fight.


Does this ever get better in BG2EE? I'm sure there are mere mods with greater depth than this?

elminster

Well on that map there is Magreb but yea that's it.

Outside of the major towns/cities most maps in BG1/BGEE only have 2 or 3 quests to do in them (especially the smaller ones).

Ygramul

Are BG2EE contents show better depth than BG1EE ones?

Oxva

Yes. Simply yes.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Loub

Shandyr said:

What a provocative thread title.

There should be enough enhancement in BG1:EE in comparison to BG vanilla to show that the devs were not "lazy". But I doubt that you can make any conclusion on how "lazy" devs are in general anyway as most of the time I think there are different problems, like time constraints, too small team, bad organization whatever (these are just my general assumptions of difficulties any dev team might face).

I rather think they tried to stay in accordance with BG1 vanilla here, just like @elminster hinted at.

Luckily for us they did the same (as in "staying in accordance with the vanilla version") in BG2:EE which means those new quests and areas there are more elaborated.

Though that doesn't mean the writing is on par with that of Bioware, or even consistent with itself, you can't, for instance, compare the writing of Rasaad (who took even more points in "cliché" since the first game, as well as abandoning his turkish accent for a standard Canadian one most of the time, wtf?) and Viconia for the first situation, or Hexxat and Neera for the second (Neera's writing is on par, if not better, than that present is BW's BG2 (her voice also evolved immensely from BG1 to BG2, unlike Rasaad - I would go as far as to say that she has the best voice acting in the BG2EE, even better than Dorn, IMO), Hexxat suffers from the same thing as the other black characters (Dynaheir, Valygar), that is, a lack of one, oh, and bugs, lots o' bugs).

Metalloman

@Ygramul, follow this thread:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2041/bg-ee-please-read-list-of-things-that-have-been-announced/p1

You can find links to lists of all the implementations, additions, fixes, enhancements in BG:EE and BGII:EE, and it is not the whole thing.

elminster

Metalloman said:

@Ygramul, follow this thread:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2041/bg-ee-please-read-list-of-things-that-have-been-announced/p1

You can find links to lists of all the implementations, additions, fixes, enhancements in BG:EE and BGII:EE, and it is not the whole thing.

I don't think that thread has been updated in a really long time.

Metalloman

@elminster: Sure, but I think it could give a starting idea to Ygramul.

Ygramul

No, no, I get that a lot of work went into the making of the EEs.
I purchased both, after all, and enjoy playing.

I'm just ... not happy with quality & innovation of the new areas & quests in BGEE.
(Yet to play BG2EE though I also own it: when you only play SCS-noreload-trilogy runs it is a nontrivial thing if you ever make it to the BG2...)

lunar

Kryll may not be a necromancer as the kit, she merely plays the role of one, mainly dealing with the dead and creating undead servants. Maybe she lacked the required wisdom (16) so she never could become a proper necromancer. She is just a regular mage, who has a preference to animating dead. And if a mage loves playing with the dead and the undead, most people will call him/her 'necromancer'. Nobody in the game world can look up to a character sheet and say 'hey, you are just an unkitted mage!' Rp wise, I don't think most people know about the barred schools of specialised mages, so seeing a so called necromancer casting an illusion won't bother most people. Except a well learned mage or necromancer himself, ofcourse, he will know since Kryll uses illusions, she is not a proper necromancer, thus she is a bit weaker than she tries to look. (no extra spell per level)

BG2:EE areas and quests are a lot better than bg:ee's. Waaay better, with a lot of characters, mini quests, and tougher battles. There are quite a few epic battles and memorable scenes as well. I agree bg:ee npc quests are a bit lacking, but it fits the style of the first game. BG 1 is a simpler game, more basic, most npcs don't have quests or spesific battles at all.

Metalloman

@Ygramul:
Well, in my opinion, if BD would have added much more content related to the new NPCs (they can't modify the original content by contract) it would have appeared simply out of place and unbalanced for two main reasons (but not only these two):
1- the difference from new NPCs and old ones regarding quests and content: if more should have been added, the gap from new and old NPCs would have been farther, considering that some original NPCs hasn't even a personal quest;
2- the exp cap: how fun could new official content be if your party can't level up and your CHARNAME would be too powerful for Irenicus' dungeon?

I think that the amount of new content in BG:EE is well balanced to let the player not feelthe gap between old and new too much. In BGII:EE you'll see much more content related to the new NPCs, well aligned with the amount of content related to the original BGII NPCs.

EDIT: Ouch! @lunar ninja'd me!

Ygramul

Great. Looking forward to BG2EE then.

(IF I ever get there... @$#%^@# noreload SCS...)

elminster

lunar said:

Kryll may not be a necromancer as the kit, she merely plays the role of one, mainly dealing with the dead and creating undead servants. Maybe she lacked the required wisdom (16) so she never could become a proper necromancer. She is just a regular mage, who has a preference to animating dead. And if a mage loves playing with the dead and the undead, most people will call him/her 'necromancer'. Nobody in the game world can look up to a character sheet and say 'hey, you are just an unkitted mage!' Rp wise, I don't think most people know about the barred schools of specialised mages, so seeing a so called necromancer casting an illusion won't bother most people. Except a well learned mage or necromancer himself, ofcourse, he will know since Kryll uses illusions, she is not a proper necromancer, thus she is a bit weaker than she tries to look. (no extra spell per level)

BG2:EE areas and quests are a lot better than bg:ee's. Waaay better, with a lot of characters, mini quests, and tougher battles. There are quite a few epic battles and memorable scenes as well. I agree bg:ee npc quests are a bit lacking, but it fits the style of the first game. BG 1 is a simpler game, more basic, most npcs don't have quests or spesific battles at all.

Actually if you check out Kryll in Near Infinity it shows that she is a necromancer kit wise. Her casting Mirror Image is a known issue. #6295

the_spyder

elminster said:

Actually if you check out Kryll in Near Infinity it shows that she is a necromancer kit wise. Her casting Mirror Image is a known issue. #6295

Maybe it isn't a spell, but a special ability?

All in fun.

Dee

Or maybe it's not illusions, but incorporeal ghosts that look like Kryll.

Spoooooky bug.

shawne

Going back through the forum archives, I'm kind of surprised at how many opportunities were missed with BG2:EE specifically - there was talk of subraces, integrated story content from Ascension, character packs (there was even a hypothetical poll on whether players would be willing to pay extra for that, with the general consensus being "yes"), strongholds for blackguards and monks, there was supposed to be an option during Hexxat's romance to become a vampire yourself... Clearly the ideas are there, they're just not happening.

Ygramul

Perhaps, Ascension etc. can be bundled in a DLC/expansion.
The sales of BGEE/BG2EE should show that we are willing to pay for quality content.

the_spyder

shawne said:

Going back through the forum archives, I'm kind of surprised at how many opportunities were missed with BG2:EE specifically - there was talk of subraces, integrated story content from Ascension, character packs (there was even a hypothetical poll on whether players would be willing to pay extra for that, with the general consensus being "yes"), strongholds for blackguards and monks, there was supposed to be an option during Hexxat's romance to become a vampire yourself... Clearly the ideas are there, they're just not happening.

I kind of want to ask how much of that was community driven and in no part anything involving the DEV team? Or how much of it was brainstorming to see what the community would like prior to scaling it down based on actual money/manpower.

Basically, just because someone had an idea that it might be nice, doesn't guarantee that anything could or would be done about it. Particularly if that was driven by someone other than an official representative of BD.

It's OK to be disappointed when expectations are not met from a product. It happens all the time. If you weren't happy with what came out? that's fair. Same with the OP. Even the DEVS have stated that they wished they could have done more or better.

I think that BG:EE was a good first outing (personal opinion), and a far cry better than a lot of stuff that has come out lately. Personally, I haven't been as thrilled with anything that has come out in the last year as much as I was with BG:EE. If you feel differently, constructive feedback is important. Anything else? less so.

shawne

@Ygramul: Setting aside the dubious ethics of charging for content that's available for free elsewhere (and the not-unreasonable notion that if Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut had been priced, BioWare HQ would have been burned to the ground), any game developer will tell you that DLC/expansion packs have to come out within a reasonable span of time in the post-launch cycle - the one-year mark is usually the upper limit. It takes Beamdog that long just to get the core games working properly.

@the_spyder: To be perfectly clear, I'm not saying the devs committed to anything - these were just things that they openly discussed as possibilities. Most of these things didn't happen.

element

I must admit after being extremely happy with bg1EE, I was somewhat disappointed with the second title. It really offered me a lot less in terms of improvements compared to its counterpart.

the_spyder

@shawne - this is more off topic than I'm comfortable with, but the implication of your statement was that the DEVS failed to deliver because they didn't provide these open discussed possibilities. That's like saying the folks at JPL (Jet propulsion labs)has failed because we don't all have personal jet packs yet. It's a nice idea, but not necessarily one that they or anyone committed too. So bringing it up as a failing seems somewhat less than constructive, or even fair.

Nuff said as this isn't an attack. Just trying to keep things on a positive and constructive keel.

shawne

@the_spyder: To reiterate, then: many things were discussed in this forum as possible content for the EEs; very few of these things materialized. By definition, these constitute missed opportunities - whether that's to be considered success, failure, good, bad, understandable or whatnot, I leave for further discussion.

Ygramul

Actually, jet packs are a brilliant idea!
Perhaps, it can be introduced in a DLC as a Gnomish Tinkerer subclass; or as a sustainable sorcerer spell.
(Tenser's Jeopardizing Jetpack)

elminster

the_spyder said:

elminster said:

Actually if you check out Kryll in Near Infinity it shows that she is a necromancer kit wise. Her casting Mirror Image is a known issue. #6295

Maybe it isn't a spell, but a special ability?

All in fun.

Technically I think its just mirror images being scripted to cast by her after the initial conversation.

the_spyder

@elminster, or is it? Maybe it's a fig-neuton of our imagination and she doesn't actually have that effect at all? Maybe it's a mass delusion? or maybe we are all kanuttzo!

elminster

I'm not even sure what kanuttzo means.

the_spyder

It's like nutz, only worse.

Quartz

The new content ranges from mediocre to bad. I play the EEs for the improvements to the original game, not the new content.

SCARY_WIZARD

Dee said:

Or maybe it's not illusions, but incorporeal ghosts that look like Kryll.

Spoooooky bug.

Nice save! ;D! Or she could be a 3rd Edition Necromancer, with other restricted schools. :U

shawne

SCARY_WIZARD said:

Nice save! ;D! Or she could be a 3rd Edition Necromancer, with other restricted schools. :U

Or she's been augmented by Simmeon's patron...