Opportunity to fix importing from BG1 to BG2
ajwz
Member Posts: 4,122
I think a bridging adventure between bg1 and bg2 creates the perfect opportunity to allow a more complete character and item importing between the games.
Part of the major draw of playing the series is to play one character and your party from start to finish in one epic adventure.
however, the way importing between games 1 and 2 is handled is very poor as it currently stands.
All items your character has collected from the first game disappear, even the ones on charname.
Secondly, npcs that you encounter in the first game (that are still alive) suddenly forget their spell selections, dual class selection, stat boosts, bios, and so on.
Since a lot of enhanced edition improvements have focus on quality of life improvements, I think this area of the game would benefit greatly from that.
A bridging adventure between 1 and 2 is going to further complicate importing/exporting, and it would suck if things stayed as they are at the moment, and you risk losing a lot of character development on 2 separate occasions in the storylines.
In no way would any of the changes you make or items you receive in thirst game significantly affect the balance of the second game, so I can see know downsides to this
TL;DR: Better importing options, keep all equipment and character changes between games
Part of the major draw of playing the series is to play one character and your party from start to finish in one epic adventure.
however, the way importing between games 1 and 2 is handled is very poor as it currently stands.
All items your character has collected from the first game disappear, even the ones on charname.
Secondly, npcs that you encounter in the first game (that are still alive) suddenly forget their spell selections, dual class selection, stat boosts, bios, and so on.
Since a lot of enhanced edition improvements have focus on quality of life improvements, I think this area of the game would benefit greatly from that.
A bridging adventure between 1 and 2 is going to further complicate importing/exporting, and it would suck if things stayed as they are at the moment, and you risk losing a lot of character development on 2 separate occasions in the storylines.
In no way would any of the changes you make or items you receive in thirst game significantly affect the balance of the second game, so I can see know downsides to this
TL;DR: Better importing options, keep all equipment and character changes between games
1
Comments
no need to get fancy, some items where already in there anyway.
it's also not the only time in the saga where the players are captured and get their equipment back relatively quickly
You are mostly pennyless in the beginning and only few good item can be found in the starting area.
It would however be intresting if the items you have with you would appear in vendor shops..
Iirc Imoen tells that some of our stuff got pawned off (thoug she was guessing), so it would be
awesome if your equipment (and only that) would be ported over and put into different stores, maybe
give some the Shadow thieves since they where trying to get into that and may found some stuff..
Also, Bodhi could have some items..
But I fear working on the import system could be a nightmare to code, so I don't really think it is actually
worth it.
(Not that I would mind it ;-) )
I don't think the gold is important so much as the items anyway
Irenicus already puts you in cages with a room full of weapons and armour right next door. it might as well be your own weapons and armour
first off, it doesn't affect new players at all, only if the player has played through the entire of bg1. An experienced player is not going to have any problems with the starting dungeon regardless of what level loot they have. Also the dungeon isn't supposed to be particularly challenging anyway, that's why its' the starter dungeon.
Finally, if you want to use that logic, then why create a new adventure which gives you a couple of levels worth of xp at all?
that's going to have more effect on difficulty than a few +2/+3 magic items, most of which get obsoleted the first time you step into athkatla
(Consider this: the imported items you can find as it is are never more than one order of magnitude better than the default item from the list.)
This also doesn't account for the fact that Imoen explicitly says "I don't think it's our gear" in reference to the stuff in that room: lore trumps mechanics, but it is important to understand why mechanically it wouldn't be appropriate either.
first off, levels have less effect than equipment and secondly... you get many magic items but not THAT
much. I *still* belief it takes from the atmosphere, but hten again, I never got 10k gold through that dungeon, even if i *would* sell all of it.
You don't need them and the game balance is moddeled after not having them.
Also.. it still would make no sense, why *wouldn't* they be sold off?
Irenicus duergar make the non-magical weapons, the few magical weapons are in special spots.
Why would Irenicus keep even more useless junk (at least to him) around as he already does?
He wouldn't. He would break them up or sell them to get components for his experiments and spells.
Another thing.. it forces you to try new stuff instead of the old +2 & +3 weapons that are only obsolete
in the underdark and ToB. And a breath of change never hurts..
Last thing, I'm preeetty sure losing your items is not a mistake but on purpose. What makes me think that?
Because in the original your items actually GET imported and then deleted, if BW thought you should have
them, you *would* have them. So no, Beamdog wants to improve the originals and not change them,
giving us our items would be a pretty hefty change.
This is a fix for lore issues!
There are already lore issues with how your class choices are totally discarded at the start of bg2, that's part of why I'm arguing for this
As it stands at the moment, there're just two important items from BG1 not already present in BG2:
-Cloak of Balduran - It would become THE cloak of choice in BG2 if it were available. Heck, my protagonist would wear it even if it didn't offer magic resistance. Just stackable AC and saves would be quite powerful. BTW, with EE my protagonist can't even wear the Cloak of High Forest and Cloak of the Sewers is so tacky!
-Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity - For Edwin to either soothe his troubled mind during the latter part of his quest or to annoy him forever after!
Second to that, it would be nice to have all the equipment you had in BG:EE imported, but not neccessarily available in the first dungeon area ( for keeping with the story reasons). If I recall, mention is made of some of it being sold off. Theoretically some could have been stolen, "held for safe keeping" etc by the Shadow Thieves and so is distributed around the city area on various vendors, stashed in the belongings of some encounters etc.
Bg1 gear is quite good for the first few chapters of bg2. Keeping it would ruin the beginning of the game quite thoroughly. That's not even accounting for whatever loot we find in SoD (a small portion of which I'm sure will carry through to bg2).
http://www.shsforums.net/files/category/38-bgt-weidu/ https://github.com/K4thos/EET http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/the-ultimate-baldurs-gate-experience/ http://kerzenburg.baldurs-gate.eu/downloads.php?do=downloadlatest&id=53 http://www.shsforums.net/files/category/72-big-world-project/ https://bitbucket.org/BigWorldSetup
ummm suggestions for this ....
1. great items from Siege simply have to be scattered into bg2. I always found it fun and immersible? (spell check made me do it) to see what iranicus did with our groups items. I would hate having all my magic items in bg2 aside from the fact the game would become ridiculously easy, I like starting fresh with my items in a new game.
2. All characters should carry over into bg 2 with spell selections, dual classing, and for the love of god the slightest idea if we had met or not. Whats with rassad and dorn not knowing we'd been homeboys. Is that so much scripting to have that info transfer over with yer character ? you just select a save game u want to import into the game. the global effects and triggers and whatever that I've seen in shadowkeeper could be used t o set your relationship status with each character. After that it's just writing TEXT and putting it into the game. People dont need voice over for everything.
and I still think that this work would be better spend elsewhere.
Remember: This may change Edwins spellbook (can easily handwaved with, he deleted spells he doesn't use =P) and.. Imoen. Imoen needs to be a mage for lore reasons, but the amount of thief levels can vary, her
spellbook is, again, easy to handwave - blame Irenicus knifes for that.
Being able to find BG & SoD weapons in the game would be nice (like I said before =P), but I'll put my trust
in Beamdog there, since they have said that some SoD weapons do in fact carry over (iirc)
Also @ValamirCleaver ...Why do you insert BGT into EVERY of your posts? I'm pretty sure most
of hte forum goers know about this mod oO
If you want to keep imoen as she is for plot reasons, that's one specific issue, but there is absolutely no reason why other characters have to suffer the same fate
Anyways, about the characters, I forgot Neera (wild surged her spellbook? =P) somehow (how to you forgot
one of your fav. characters? oO) but still.. it is the spellbook of 3 characters that would be affected and
Edwin & Neera *have* most usefull spells and Imoen is lost for most of the game. The losses of a couple
of spells is easy to handwave, nothing important is lost and you get XP from regiving them the spells
anyways...
Unless a dev comes out and says it could be done in a short amount of time, I don't think resources should
be spend on this.
But I admit, I prefer playing the games sooner instead of fixing some minor inconvinience we learned to live
with 15 years ago.
1. They said that at least some items of SoD will be carried over (but they ver rather vague).
I *think* it was in the stream.. or in the discussion thread.. not sure, sorry
2. Dual-classing only applies to Imoen and she has to be a mage for lore reasons.
Spells are a minor inconvinience.. But the thing about the BG:EE npcs.. I thought they included a value
in BG:EE so that romance & stuff you do in 1 can be carried over? I *think* I saw a mention of that multiple
times.. check the bugfixes
The problem with the old chars is that I don't know if they are allowed to change their text since their
original contract forbade altering everythign that was not related to their new stuff ^^.
(havn't played BG2EE for a long time, since I'm waiting for SoD since its anouncement =/ )
I would like little quests to get back the nice equipment. So in my head... Starting BG2...
Gold will have gone.
Your simple weapons will have been sold and gone as well.
But would Bodhi and Irannickerless sell your most powerful possessions? No.
He would give them to his troops or studied them.
I would love to see a vampire appearing and stunning a group of shadow thieves with a mace cackling about her power... Before you step in.
Hell... Give the cloak of Baldur's to a shadow thieve who defeated a vamp... Really confuse the side issue.
As for proceeding in SoD , I think it will cause more heartache as I know of a certain hat that many will wish to be worn further along the story...
You've read every post that I made on this forum previous to your's that I just quoted that you're 100% certain that I've mentioned BGT in all of them? I didn't realize I was breaking unwritten forum protocol by not seeking your pre-approval before making any mention of BGT in any thread you might happen to read. Should I expect the forum mods to discipline me now because I did not obtain your permission first?...
Personally I hate how it deletes items. I feel that all of them should be spread around the BG2 areas somehow but never flat-out deleted.
Personally I use the Infinity Engine Savegame Editor to change Imoen's race to half-elf & multiclass her to Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Thief which also avoids any canon continuity errors, though I still appreciate the ability to keep the BG1 class progressions of Imoen & the other NPCs in addition to everything else added to my personal BWS BWP/BGT installs.
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/IESE.php
You made me remember the cat x_x