This is a banter in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
pkmn
Member Posts: 22
Neera: Here you go.
Anomen: What is this?!
Neera: I was resistant at first, I'll admit, but once you brought it up, I couldn't stop fantasizing.
Anomen: You...! But I...
Neera: Do you want me to tell you what I imagined first? Shortbread biscuits with strawberry preserves! I know, I know. Not creative... but so delicious! Then I thought about glazed pears, mincemeat pies, puddings, gingerbread... but this sack! It's...
Anomen: Yes! A pound of sugar from Waukeen's promenade, as promised. Get cooking!
Mazzy: I would be no halfing if I didn't like cakes of all sorts. Bake me a seed cake, ANomen, and I swear I will be your stalwart sister-in-arms.
Jaheira: Anomen! I am almost embarrassed to request marzipan; it is so excessively sweet. But I do like it.
People actually defend this as good writing.
Anomen: What is this?!
Neera: I was resistant at first, I'll admit, but once you brought it up, I couldn't stop fantasizing.
Anomen: You...! But I...
Neera: Do you want me to tell you what I imagined first? Shortbread biscuits with strawberry preserves! I know, I know. Not creative... but so delicious! Then I thought about glazed pears, mincemeat pies, puddings, gingerbread... but this sack! It's...
Anomen: Yes! A pound of sugar from Waukeen's promenade, as promised. Get cooking!
Mazzy: I would be no halfing if I didn't like cakes of all sorts. Bake me a seed cake, ANomen, and I swear I will be your stalwart sister-in-arms.
Jaheira: Anomen! I am almost embarrassed to request marzipan; it is so excessively sweet. But I do like it.
People actually defend this as good writing.
3
Comments
The good funny/silly conversations in BG2 were always when either a funny character played off of a serious character (Jan + Anyone, Minsc + Anyone, Edwin + Anyone) or when clashing personalities interacted (Mazzy + Korgan). Not just "lol spork is a funny word" humor.
The problem is the writing of Anomen, Jaheira, and Mazzy. It's fan mod level, and totally not in the character of any of them.
but I do agree, the writing quality is not in a style that fits with the rest of the game, which sucks.
One of the things I admire about how the BGI NPC project handled this is it always leaves me feeling like the individual authors who extended the content for each character felt a real connection to those characters, respected them, and in general, respected the other characters they were creating banter with. Even if I don’t always agree with their take on them, I can see how they got there. It’s not hard to accept their interpretation of them.
With the dialogue that was created between Neera and Anomen, I get this overwhelming sense that the author did not personally like the Anomen character and so felt free to poke at him with their new character. After all, few people do like him, so why not? The problem is, it takes him so far out of character for me that it makes me wince. It just starts to feel silly.
To me, the Neera character feels too modern for the setting in general, but many people love her. That’s a good thing. For the most part, I can just avoid using her in my parties. If this was a mod it wouldn’t matter in the least. But I do wish sometimes that as an NPC who is integrated into the original game, with a sizeable amount of content that I would like to experience, she didn’t leave me feeling so jarred out of the game setting when I want to experience that content. But again, that’s just me. She’s a very welcome addition for many people.
NEERA: Okay.
*SUGAR*
NEERA: Get to it. I like cinnamon rolls.
There. I fixed it.
I STILL DON'T LIKE IT
EDIT:
See?!
Also BRB, I think I just got a date.
Anomen must know what is being handed to him. He must recognise the whatever it is he is being given. This tells the reader what is going on. If Anomen says "What is this?!" then the reader is confused, too. Hell, it would even be better to start on Neera's line rather than include the 'What is this?!'
He could say 'Ah! My bag of sugar, you remembered!' (or whatever, I don't actually know the circumstance)
Then in the next part, he must enhance the joke, 'before I wanted to join the order, I would spend many hours helping my sweet, darling sister Moira in the kitchen, dreaming of running my own cakery!' ...OR whatever. It doesn't really matter so long as it:
1) Stays in character. Or expands upon while containing THE character.
2) No mindless exposition surrounding a small joke, but rather, total, conflict revealing action spanning from the life of these characters.
The only way that even a slight bit of sense is obtained from the original passage are if Anomen and Neera are dating, this would mean neither is now romance-able and these flags would have to be set for this sub-story banter to be told (lol, I know, right? never gonna happen).
Anomen, as a character, DOES NOT BLUSTER OR PANIC. He fights off evil, turns undead and doesn't afraid of anything! There is no way in hell, unless he and Neera had a very strong bond or were in the middle of doing the nasty and she pulls out a big brown sack (would shock anyone, I'm sure) would he say "What is this?!"
I could re-download the game and bring into line all of the new dialogue, but I've a play to write and fixing a game I don't even play at the moment for free while I'm literally living on a diet of brown rice and water is not my idea of a worthwhile usage of time.
And what the hell's up with Neera's character? is she intended to make the ONLY 13 year old playing this game get a hard-on?
I'll write for you, Beamdog, I'll write for you!
Sure, I am not the best writer out there, but I'm better than what you're using at the moment and I'm definitely cheaper, too. (I'd work for piece work, varying cost per .DLG file, since some .DLG files are extremely huge and some are extremely small, something on the lines of £5 (10 or under states) £20 (11-30 states) £50 (31-80 states) £120 (80-300+ states) and this would include revisions, proof reading, spell checking up to a month after piece being sent back))
Eh! Get in touch if you'd like a trial bit of work done as the above examples are not polished (mostly due to me not playing the game in over a year and being fairly unfamiliar with the lore/how characters talk, but I would familiarise myself if I were to be asked to write a trial example of work).
What's the worst that can happen on a trial? You get a shoddy bit of work and tell me where to stick it. What's the best that can happen? You can finally fix the shoddy bit of work you have right now, at cheap piece-work rates, and create a more immersive and true gaming experience for everyone.
Well, this counts as a Job application, I suppose, so I'm off to my Job centre appointment to scrounge my benefits!
On the other hand I've been reading some of the banters between the other EE added characters and the originals and I've noticed that most of the banters are absolutely cringeworthy. It's really too bad, because I actually like the idea of Dorn, but because of the constant danger of cringing during the game, I will never have him in my party.
Seriously, what is up with these horrible dialogues? The BG1 NPC Project has far better ones, and that's for free. At this point, I can't understand why people are excited about SoD, when all we have to look forward to is BG original characters getting disrespected.
Also I'm totally ok with taking the piss out of Annoyamen, I really hate that guy.
That said, I still think Neera is a lot more annoying and doesn't fit in near as well as any of the other NPCs (including the other EE ones). Even her VA's accent is out of place (and nearly every single one of her lines are voiced). And I don't even want to remember the romance conversations with her, I actually nearly decided to just kill her and pick up Quayle to be my mage, it was that bad. Not to mention the extremely annoying insistence that she's a half-elf - a very lame running gag, I nearly screamed at my monitor the millionth time I heard it - the stupid "I'm a wild mage, boohoo" questline, and worst of all: you can't possibly avoid her. You're going to watch every single stupid cutscene (and all of them are unnecessarily long), listen to the terrible voice acting, and be forced into a conversation with her. There should have been an option included to select which EE NPCs should load, would make EE a lot more worthwhile.
Immy is great, she adds some much needed light hearted banter to the games. Also the line she says when getting back her soul literally gave me chills for some reason.
Her thief stats are not great, but can be boosted to reasonable levels with items and potions. She is a kickass mage.
Personally I do enjoy the odd silliness here and there. It fits Neera's character as much as the insane tangents of Jan Jansen fit his. One can argue about how well-written it is, but considering some of the other cringe-worthy exchanges in both the original and the EE this one is a minor offender.
BG2 was never too deep or too serious, or even overly immersive (Giant Space Hamster says hi). Certainly it's no PST, but then again, what is. It works for me, and tastes will differ.
Done well, mind you.