I always work on the basis that neither my character nor Imoen is going to take the blindest bit of notice of what Gorion or anyone else tells them to do so we just wander off where we want and do things when we feel like it. We haven't got the remotest interest in solving the iron crisis, we're just glad to be out of stuffy old Candlekeep.
I can't stand games with deadlines and timed quests. Majora's mask is the only such game that I actually like. Real life punishes me all the time for getting distracted, so it's nice with games that just go like "yeah, sure, go check out that gnoll stronghold! There's no rush, this is a game after all!"
Unpopular opinion: the original Baldur's Gate doesn't stand the test of time. It's too clunky, unbalanced, primitive, and immersion-breaking to stand up to more recent titles.
Do you really hold that opinion or is it just because of the thread you are posting in? This is getting confusing.
I understand this thread is about opinions that people have the right to hold without being deemed "wrong". But the reason I'm asking this is because of this point "immersion-breaking".
Of all the things that can be said about BG, the opinion that it doesn't pull you into the world completely I find very strange.
BG2 you can see and feel the "game", it's been created to pull in a bigger audience and there are things that simply don't work from any angle. Too many quests set within shouting distance from each other, too many conveniences, too much driven narrative, too many set pieces. You have to really suspend your sense of disbelief for a lot of the game and invent a lot of head cannon.
BG on the other hand just evolves IMO. You can lose yourself in the setting.
Welp almost made it without a complete ban, oh well.
Honestly, its the open worldness combined with the type of story that causes bg1 to fall into the same trap bg 2 did for me. It's one of those " time is of the importance" yet hey look we can go to this big open world and explore it before doing anything that actually matters with no real repercussions for our lollygagging. I mean i am a fan of open worlds, heck i like exploring but with certain types of you have to suspend your disbelief
BG gives you the option of avoiding a lot of the "must do this now" stuff if you avoid the NPC who say that.
I never take Zxar/Monty or Jaheira/Khalid so why would I meet any pressure to investigate the mines at the start of the game? I don't hit Nashkel before having done a lot of maps, all in my own time.
I always work on the basis that neither my character nor Imoen is going to take the blindest bit of notice of what Gorion or anyone else tells them to do so we just wander off where we want and do things when we feel like it. We haven't got the remotest interest in solving the iron crisis, we're just glad to be out of stuffy old Candlekeep.
Same here. Why would you trust Gorion after he has led you into an ambush after not telling you anything?
Where we differ is that you take insufferable Imoen. I feel this is where you are making your big mistake.....
Edited to add.
And just think how much more fun charname would have in Athkatla if they had already got rid of her instead of the "oh noes, got to raise cash to save her".....not forgetting Irenicus could go whistle for your soul had you not had to try and rescue the annoyance.
Actually re the above post ^^^^ this is an unpopular opinion.
I despise and resent Imoen in the game.
It's like when you want to go and hang with your mates and your Mother tells you you have to babysit or take your little sister/brother with you.
(Which to be honest, at my age, is an utterly indefensible position to take, nonetheless it is what it is).
And when years after you have decided this when playing the game, you find out that's exactly the equivalent of what the game writers did, it's even worse. Who is she this non character?
So, so lazy of them hanging the plot of BG2 on such a contrived scenario using the NPC who was only created as a convenience. And then they try to make her more relevant by saying "oh she's a Bhaalspawn to"...purleeze. Rather than actually write a character or any dialogue that might make you at all interested in them.
Actually re the above post ^^^^ this is an unpopular opinion.
I despise and resent Imoen in the game.
It's like when you want to go and hang with your mates and your Mother tells you you have to babysit or take your little sister/brother with you.
(Which to be honest, at my age, is an utterly indefensible position to take, nonetheless it is what it is).
And when years after you have decided this when playing the game, you find out that's exactly the equivalent of what the game writers did, it's even worse. Who is she this non character?
So, so lazy of them hanging the plot of BG2 on such a contrived scenario using the NPC who was only created as a convenience. And then they try to make her more relevant by saying "oh she's a Bhaalspawn to"...purleeze. Rather than actually write a character or any dialogue that might make you at all interested in them.
Rant over, unpopular though it maybe.
This is definitely one of those occasions where I need the "I-wholeheartedly-almost-agree-with-this" button because I totally agree with you about the plot of BG2. The way Imoen was used just turns her into a non-character and a plot device (same with SoD). But I love Imoen in BG1. I mean how can you hate someone who whines: "Do ya wanna tell me a story 'bout trollops and plug tails? Pleeeeease?" and then follows it up petulantly with: "Back home, Puff-Guts would always tell me a story."
Maybe the fact that I never had an annoying little sister makes me think it is fun to have one around. And I like having someone to care about while I am slaughtering everything in sight (plus she pickpockets a Ring of Free Action for my Paladin, who is too trusting to ask where she got it from).
I can't stand games with deadlines and timed quests. Majora's mask is the only such game that I actually like. Real life punishes me all the time for getting distracted, so it's nice with games that just go like "yeah, sure, go check out that gnoll stronghold! There's no rush, this is a game after all!"
That isn't an unpopular opinion!!
I guess the unpopular part is that I really like when a game screams that something is urgent, only to pull you aside and whisper that, no, it isn’t urgent at all and we didn’t stress you out just now, did we? And would you like some more cookies and overpowered weapons as we emphasize how non-urgent this urgent situation is?
Actually re the above post ^^^^ this is an unpopular opinion.
I despise and resent Imoen in the game.
It's like when you want to go and hang with your mates and your Mother tells you you have to babysit or take your little sister/brother with you.
(Which to be honest, at my age, is an utterly indefensible position to take, nonetheless it is what it is).
And when years after you have decided this when playing the game, you find out that's exactly the equivalent of what the game writers did, it's even worse. Who is she this non character?
So, so lazy of them hanging the plot of BG2 on such a contrived scenario using the NPC who was only created as a convenience. And then they try to make her more relevant by saying "oh she's a Bhaalspawn to"...purleeze. Rather than actually write a character or any dialogue that might make you at all interested in them.
Rant over, unpopular though it maybe.
This is definitely one of those occasions where I need the "I-wholeheartedly-almost-agree-with-this" button because I totally agree with you about the plot of BG2. The way Imoen was used just turns her into a non-character and a plot device (same with SoD). But I love Imoen in BG1. I mean how can you hate someone who whines: "Do ya wanna tell me a story 'bout trollops and plug tails? Pleeeeease?" and then follows it up petulantly with: "Back home, Puff-Guts would always tell me a story."
Maybe the fact that I never had an annoying little sister makes me think it is fun to have one around. And I like having someone to care about while I am slaughtering everything in sight (plus she pickpockets a Ring of Free Action for my Paladin, who is too trusting to ask where she got it from).
It's very strange that the decision to sideline Imoen yet again in SOD was taken.
I've read the justifications for that here, and I can understand the why (weak though it is with the sudden concern she mustn't get killed). But it's a dreadful misjudgement of the fan base.
You would have thought somebody in the development team was aware enough of complaints from players about how Imoen has hardly any dialogue or character development in BG or post Spellhold to grab the opportunity to rectify that.
Instead they decided to go along with something that's always been unpopular.
(Unless of course, the writers dislike her as much as me. That would explain a lot.)
@Permidion_Stark "Maybe the fact that I never had an annoying little sister makes me think it is fun to have one around. And I like having someone to care about while I am slaughtering everything in sight (plus she pickpockets a Ring of Free Action for my Paladin, who is too trusting to ask where she got it from)."
As someone who has an irl annoying little sister, Imoen doesn't qualify. She has your back no matter what, that would be extremely nice to have.
At least Imoen has the most character development of any NPC - from non-existing to "Oops we need a thief" emergency solution to plot device to Bhaalspawn.
Maybe it's because I'm the youngest in my family, but it never really occurred to me that Imoen was an annoying little sister. I mean, she was the one sniping gibberlings while my very first character ran around trying to find a weapon that wouldn't break.
Even when the game shouted in my face that, yes, she actually is your annoying little sister, I interpreted it more as a twins kind of relationship.
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
I don't hate Neera, but I can't really envision her as a romantic interest and I would probably have some reservations about having her as a friend.
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
Me. I've never played her after that first time. Her voice acting is painful and I couldn't stand more than a few lines before I had to boot her. Problem is that even if I mute the sound I can still hear that voice in my head if I tried to use her more times afterwards. In BG1 I tend to pick her up after some time and then go into EEkeeper and change her time in party trigger so that her quest triggers ASAP for the handy stoneskin scroll. Then do Adoy and boot her seconds afterwards.
Unpopular opinion: Not everything that speeds up play actually improves your playing experience.
Only a couple of days ago I learned that by hitting escape or the space bar you can skip the cut scenes. Great, I thought I'm sick of watching those campfires in the wilderness or those spiders slowly descending in the dungeon. But now that my character doesn't have to take a break I don't take a break either and the game starts to feel relentless.
Of course I don't have to skip the cut scenes but now that I know that I can . . .
^- This is so true. I almost always play with a constant ctrl-j approach nowadays, pushing fast forward to the point I want to reach (maybe a maxed out level to test out a char concept or to rush through BG1/SoD to reach BG2 or whatever) and I usually ends up stop playing since it's not enjoyable to me. I keep thinking "Oh man it will be SO GREAT once I reach level X, game Y or chapter Z!" but I rarely do since I end the run before that due to boredom.
Agree with both the previous posts. And it's so obvious that of course it will diminish the game.
There's an arrogance around that seems to consider what the game makers did was because they had no choice but to do those things. Rather than consider they were well aware of how the game played and delibrately made choices to slow things down, make things a bit awkward, frustrate the player sometimes, ect.
I feel Beamdog falls into this thinking a lot. Too many ease of use changes that in the long run diminish the game for the player.
I still have the "quick loot" thing that makes you walk around picking things up rather than them magically appearing in inventury. Of course it's silly. But when playing SOD that has the updated version, who cares after a while what has been dropped. It becomes yet another "non event".
And don't even talk about the "highlight" function of every chest and every hidden cache. Way to ruin and break immersion.
Agree with both the previous posts. And it's so obvious that of course it will diminish the game.
There's an arrogance around that seems to consider what the game makers did was because they had no choice but to do those things. Rather than consider they were well aware of how the game played and delibrately made choices to slow things down, make things a bit awkward, frustrate the player sometimes, ect.
I feel Beamdog falls into this thinking a lot. Too many ease of use changes that in the long run diminish the game for the player.
I still have the "quick loot" thing that makes you walk around picking things up rather than them magically appearing in inventury. Of course it's silly. But when playing SOD that has the updated version, who cares after a while what has been dropped. It becomes yet another "non event".
And don't even talk about the "highlight" function of every chest and every hidden cache. Way to ruin and break immersion.
On the other hand, in PnP if the players kill 10 goblins and there is no magical loot available the DM is more likely to say "you find bows and arrows on their corpses" rather than have a player check one by one , pretty much like the auto-loot feature.
Unpopular opinion: Not everything that speeds up play actually improves your playing experience.
Only a couple of days ago I learned that by hitting escape or the space bar you can skip the cut scenes. Great, I thought I'm sick of watching those campfires in the wilderness or those spiders slowly descending in the dungeon. But now that my character doesn't have to take a break I don't take a break either and the game starts to feel relentless.
Of course I don't have to skip the cut scenes but now that I know that I can . . .
whoa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they still play the campfire scene when you rest in the wilderness? i swear i have not seen that in ages, i recall the dungeon one because ( at least the bg2 one where is shows a clip of the inside of firkraag's dungeon ) and i think i've seen the beamdog one for bg1, i think its a black widow that comes down? can't remember, my bg runs only take about 16 hours to complete, and that is doing every quest, uncovering every bit of fog of war, and doing gold piece runs hitting around 660 000 with out gold exploits
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
Me. I've never played her after that first time. Her voice acting is painful and I couldn't stand more than a few lines before I had to boot her. Problem is that even if I mute the sound I can still hear that voice in my head if I tried to use her more times afterwards. In BG1 I tend to pick her up after some time and then go into EEkeeper and change her time in party trigger so that her quest triggers ASAP for the handy stoneskin scroll. Then do Adoy and boot her seconds afterwards.
You can boot Neera before going to see Adoy. As long as the area has appeared on your map, you don't need her in the party anymore.
my bg runs only take about 16 hours to complete, and that is doing every quest, uncovering every bit of fog of war, and doing gold piece runs hitting around 660 000 with out gold exploits
Seriously, 16 hours? I've spent longer than that rolling a character.
my bg runs only take about 16 hours to complete, and that is doing every quest, uncovering every bit of fog of war, and doing gold piece runs hitting around 660 000 with out gold exploits
Seriously, 16 hours? I've spent longer than that rolling a character.
hahahaha, playing at 60 fps helps, and plus the fact that i could play this game in my sleep, in fact, i have a custom made party that needs to continue on it's adventure, before i get home saturday and never play this file again.....
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
Me. I've never played her after that first time. Her voice acting is painful and I couldn't stand more than a few lines before I had to boot her. Problem is that even if I mute the sound I can still hear that voice in my head if I tried to use her more times afterwards. In BG1 I tend to pick her up after some time and then go into EEkeeper and change her time in party trigger so that her quest triggers ASAP for the handy stoneskin scroll. Then do Adoy and boot her seconds afterwards.
You can boot Neera before going to see Adoy. As long as the area has appeared on your map, you don't need her in the party anymore.
Yeah, but even though I am a douche, I still have to fake-RP that I am doing her quest for her, and not just for the lootz. I know it's hypocrisy, but hey I'm only fooling myself so what does it matter :P
You know what? I actually don't dislike any of the recruitable NPCs. I like Neera, I like Khalid, I like Anomen, I...am stoically tolerant of Hexxat. I genuinely feel that even the most two-dimensional party members have enough characterisation to warrant some degree of sympathy.
Who in their right mind could hate Neera? She is second only to Viccy!
Me. I've never played her after that first time. Her voice acting is painful and I couldn't stand more than a few lines before I had to boot her. Problem is that even if I mute the sound I can still hear that voice in my head if I tried to use her more times afterwards. In BG1 I tend to pick her up after some time and then go into EEkeeper and change her time in party trigger so that her quest triggers ASAP for the handy stoneskin scroll. Then do Adoy and boot her seconds afterwards.
You can boot Neera before going to see Adoy. As long as the area has appeared on your map, you don't need her in the party anymore.
Yeah, but even though I am a douche, I still have to fake-RP that I am doing her quest for her, and not just for the lootz. I know it's hypocrisy, but hey I'm only fooling myself so what does it matter :P
Well, she DOES still show up to interject and then siappear back into the ether. So she is still "there" kinda sorta.
Unpopular opinion: Bards should only be able to use one handed weapons because they should be required to have a lute, a flute or a set of bongos in the other weapon slot.
That makes no sense. You need two hands to play a decent flute. Instead they should only be able to use shafted weapons from which they can fashion a flute in the handle.
I don't know who that is, but I was on my phone and slightly drunk when I saw that image last night, and I thought it was some sort of red-eyed daemon screaming. Was I wrong?
Comments
BG gives you the option of avoiding a lot of the "must do this now" stuff if you avoid the NPC who say that.
I never take Zxar/Monty or Jaheira/Khalid so why would I meet any pressure to investigate the mines at the start of the game?
I don't hit Nashkel before having done a lot of maps, all in my own time.
Why would you trust Gorion after he has led you into an ambush after not telling you anything?
Where we differ is that you take insufferable Imoen.
I feel this is where you are making your big mistake.....
Edited to add.
And just think how much more fun charname would have in Athkatla if they had already got rid of her instead of the "oh noes, got to raise cash to save her".....not forgetting Irenicus could go whistle for your soul had you not had to try and rescue the annoyance.
I despise and resent Imoen in the game.
It's like when you want to go and hang with your mates and your Mother tells you you have to babysit or take your little sister/brother with you.
(Which to be honest, at my age, is an utterly indefensible position to take, nonetheless it is what it is).
And when years after you have decided this when playing the game, you find out that's exactly the equivalent of what the game writers did, it's even worse.
Who is she this non character?
So, so lazy of them hanging the plot of BG2 on such a contrived scenario using the NPC who was only created as a convenience.
And then they try to make her more relevant by saying "oh she's a Bhaalspawn to"...purleeze.
Rather than actually write a character or any dialogue that might make you at all interested in them.
Rant over, unpopular though it maybe.
Maybe the fact that I never had an annoying little sister makes me think it is fun to have one around. And I like having someone to care about while I am slaughtering everything in sight (plus she pickpockets a Ring of Free Action for my Paladin, who is too trusting to ask where she got it from).
It's very strange that the decision to sideline Imoen yet again in SOD was taken.
I've read the justifications for that here, and I can understand the why (weak though it is with the sudden concern she mustn't get killed).
But it's a dreadful misjudgement of the fan base.
You would have thought somebody in the development team was aware enough of complaints from players about how Imoen has hardly any dialogue or character development in BG or post Spellhold to grab the opportunity to rectify that.
Instead they decided to go along with something that's always been unpopular.
(Unless of course, the writers dislike her as much as me. That would explain a lot.)
As someone who has an irl annoying little sister, Imoen doesn't qualify. She has your back no matter what, that would be extremely nice to have.
Even when the game shouted in my face that, yes, she actually is your annoying little sister, I interpreted it more as a twins kind of relationship.
Only a couple of days ago I learned that by hitting escape or the space bar you can skip the cut scenes. Great, I thought I'm sick of watching those campfires in the wilderness or those spiders slowly descending in the dungeon. But now that my character doesn't have to take a break I don't take a break either and the game starts to feel relentless.
Of course I don't have to skip the cut scenes but now that I know that I can . . .
Agree with both the previous posts.
And it's so obvious that of course it will diminish the game.
There's an arrogance around that seems to consider what the game makers did was because they had no choice but to do those things.
Rather than consider they were well aware of how the game played and delibrately made choices to slow things down, make things a bit awkward, frustrate the player sometimes, ect.
I feel Beamdog falls into this thinking a lot.
Too many ease of use changes that in the long run diminish the game for the player.
I still have the "quick loot" thing that makes you walk around picking things up rather than them magically appearing in inventury.
Of course it's silly.
But when playing SOD that has the updated version, who cares after a while what has been dropped. It becomes yet another "non event".
And don't even talk about the "highlight" function of every chest and every hidden cache.
Way to ruin and break immersion.
slightlydrunk when I saw that image last night, and I thought it was some sort of red-eyed daemon screaming. Was I wrong?