ToB Dorn's Blade gone wrong
biffyclanger
Member Posts: 216
I finished Dorn's questline and got him to stay with Uth Goroth to get the nice Mask but later dismissed him because I wanted Keldorn. Oh and before I dissmissed him I took his blade which does +damage to demons. Lo and behold when I summon him through fate spirit in ToB he came with another Abyssal blade that does extra damage to Devils, which is the opposite choice I made in SoA for him. Am I screwed? Is the his questline going to be messed up? Please no spoilers this is my first time with playing this ToB quest.
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But those who are not in your party at the end of SoA, and whom you summon in ToB, appear to be pre-mage, game versions of those NPCs, and the fact you had them once in your SoA party doesn't matter, The game doesn't remember NPCs you left in SoA and bring you their standard versions.
It won't stop you finishing the quest, it will look silly or strange in places.
Imagine that a charname FT right out from Irenicus's Prison recruits Jan, to take his special thief stuff for when he will have UAI, and immediately dismiss him. Then in ToB he recruits Jan again, whith the gama that remember he will have an early SoA level Jan.....
There are sound reasons why the original developers choosed to use defoult ToB level NPCs for the toons not in the party, and why EE ones followed their steps.
And you are nor screwed at all. You can easily edit proficiences and skills, learn again spells.
For ToB EE NPCs quests you can continue them with the defoult choices of their ToB toons or edit their variables to simulate different SoA choices.
In game engine terms, every npc has a default tob character file and unless they are in the party at the start of tob, they will be summoned in their default tob forms, unless they were permanently killed in soa.
To remember everything for every NPC (proficency choices, banter progression, spells learned, skills, romance, level, lev drain or other effects like blindness not already cured, and on and over) a lot of variables have to be cecked for every NPC.
Not that the modern computers can't handle this, but is quite a bit of human work to implement it. and that, as I told, can lead to negative situations like having the NPCs at early or mid SoA level.
I can't tell if is a developer's choice, if they tink that like now is the better tradeoff between pros and cons, if is just lazyness or they have invested their time in something more usefull, like fixing bugs or developing new features.
But as you can fix everithing in 5 min using EEkeeper I don't see it as a big problem.
In the end, it's just a matter of prioritization. It's not impossible to do, but doing it takes time. Time is a resource in game development that is very finite. Decisions have to be made as to what needs more attention to detail, and what can be written off as a relatively minor suspension of disbelief and immersion. Obviously the game can't be perfectly adherent to all aspects and details of RP, so compromise is the only option.
Maybe obtained with EEkeeper.....
A player is not supposed to steal NPCs equipement. In real life they do it, cheat in equipement that will be availlable a lot later in the game, give to the whole party boots of speed,give charname immunities, illegal or unrealistic stats and more APR. But are developers supposed to deal with this, to change the game to favour such things?
I know, steal NPCs items is not a cheat, and if charname have certain alignments can even have a RP reason.
But from a RP poin of wiew do you think that Dorn would be so happy to give you his sword? At least take it and then kill him in a fair (or unfair) duel, to simulate that you have looted it.
And in ToB "look, there is that nice charname, the one who has stolen my sword. Yes, I am really happy to meet him, and wish he have a place for me in his party".
Dorn??? His very special sword???
I bet he will eat your ears if he meet you again......
If it can be fixed so easily why not do script him to attack you and feed himself with your ears and sacrificate your precious Bhalspawn blood on the altar of his Demon Master. That is the Dorn that everybody know and love (or hate).
This isn't about should it be done or could it be done, it's about how important is it in the grand scheme of things. And the answer was apparently "not important enough".
People tend to underestimate just how much stuff needs to be done during the development of a title. Even things that are fairly minor, such as this issue, take some time to fix. And in the end it was apparently decided it's just not a high enough priority problem. That's all there's to it.
Getting lost trying to fix all the small details is how games end up delayed for shipping, or ship with other problems unfixed. It's just a reality of game design, and (usually) not ill will, negligence, or sloppiness.
There are a lot of other bugs and inconsistencies like the clerics that every time you take them beyond a certain level have a brand new clerical ring if you have taken the previous, I don't know if EE fixed it.
The original developers implemented the calling of NPCs in ToB mainly to give the chance to have a party for people starting a new game there, and optimized them for that purpose. And the EE ones followed that route, because it work well, even with inconsistencies, and had to focus on other things.
Implementing an alternate treatment of dropped NPCs for the ones who continue from SoA, giving a continuity, is a massive work. And there are issues of lack of continuity far more important then the Dorn choice. One over all the level of NPCs, I mentioned other before. Why to give Dorn a special treatment, and only for the quest choice and not other relevant things?
For some unique named items or NPC items there is less risk, but still some testing is involved, a lot of work more then the simple writing few code lines.