Man if I developed this expansion and people raised this much hell about it I would pretend to take feedback and act like the patch was going to address their issues and then I would give them Baldur's Gate: Super Gay Edition. Minsc would come out of the closet. Every line of dialogue you can speak would either have the word "fabulous" in it or have you call someone a big silly. There'd be gay pride parades in Baldur's Gate. You could get a +5 longsword vs cisgenders. And halfway through the game your character would start identifying as the opposite sex and if you were a man then you could only wear a dress, everything else would be highlighted red.
If we were only allowed to click "Like" on one single post in all of these forums, this would be the one.
Can we please be friends?
The antics he coukd get up to with Boo: his not so miniature space hamster....
Man if I developed this expansion and people raised this much hell about it I would pretend to take feedback and act like the patch was going to address their issues and then I would give them Baldur's Gate: Super Gay Edition. Minsc would come out of the closet. Every line of dialogue you can speak would either have the word "fabulous" in it or have you call someone a big silly. There'd be gay pride parades in Baldur's Gate. You could get a +5 longsword vs cisgenders. And halfway through the game your character would start identifying as the opposite sex and if you were a man then you could only wear a dress, everything else would be highlighted red. Man, I never even heard the word cisgender or gamergate before I bought sod and later googled it to see what was going on. The internet is insane.
While I can understand the humor in this, it also brings up my biggest grievance with the internet of late. The concept of taunting people you disagree with, and then rather than just letting both go and have their own beliefs, shoving it down their throats even more. It's a lot like religion in a way. It only serves to stir up the pot of hate that everybody is running on. The world is made up a myriad of different morals, values, customs, and viewpoints. And it is that diversity that makes it so beautiful at times, but people seem hell-bent on making everyone else like them. I just wish people could at least take a moment to understand another's viewpoint, instead of disregarding it as close-mindness or wrongness from the get-go. Even if they come to the same conclusion, the mere attempt at perspective would hopefully leave us off in a better place than before. (Edit: I do see some irony in me wishing that everyone treat these situation the same way, after arguing that diversity is what's key.)
Or, in a less lecturey version, here's a comic that I feel sums up my feeling adequately!
(IMPORTANT NOTE: While, this comic is safe, the rest of the website is **very** NSFW.) [Edit 2: I did notice there is a pair of butt cheeks, and a touch of cursing, if that bothers you.]
My main criticism of the new final fantasy games is that the main character kept getting more effeminate. The guy in X looks like Meg Ryan. I don't want to be Meg Ryan, I want to be Locke or Kain the dragoon.
But whenever I play Skyrim I play as an elf girl.
And I feel bad for Mizhena because it seems like nobody likes her. I've already made up my mind to be her friend when I meet her. (him?)
I chewed on all that for like an hour and I got nowhere.
Just met her. I don't have time on weekdays. At first I thought the encounter was going to be lame. But it wasn't really anything. I mean I guess it felt like one of the creators wanted to put one of their things into the game but "agenda" is way too strong of a word for it. (unless there's more coming that I don't know about, maybe i'm posting too soon.) I mean everything and every character is something the creators wanted to put in there. It just felt like more stuff. I think the game would be worse without it.
I'm liking this game a lot more than bg1 or bg2 but that's mostly due to having beat them a couple of times so I'm bored of them. I think? It's hard to tell.
I'm liking this game a lot more than bg1 or bg2 but that's mostly due to having beat them a couple of times so I'm bored of them. I think? It's hard to tell.
This statement surprises me alot, It seems almost impossible that people like SOD better than BG1 but better then BG2, this I cannot understand.
I really am starting to believe that there can never be another Baldurs Gate game ever. Look at what has tried to succeed it and failed in many different ways.
There just is not the talent or desire to stay true to the Dungeons and Dragons world. I will go so far as to say the games now are not even researched and there is a blatant disregard for lore.
Maybe Ed Greenwood should consult on some of the writing just to keep a real foundation. Creativity is not synonymous with agenda and I have to ask if the Beamdog writers even respect this game franchise.
We have to come to the realization that Baldurs Gate is not going to continue as we knew it and will be changed to what Beamdog wants to express. This is an unfortunate reality for me and I know many fans of this once classic game.
^^When the previous poster talks about "staying true to the Dungeons and Dragons world" they are talking about a world viewed through the lens of 1980s middle-America (where men are men and women have strength capped at 17).
SoD is actually far more faithful to the Forgotten Realms sourcebooks than any of the other Baldur's Gate games. Rather than having lore stuffed away in books, it is reflected in everything from the beliefs of the clerics to geography and travel time. There is quite a lot of content which will only be meaningful to players well versed in the campaign setting.
As for politics, well it is true that, like most stories, there is a message of sorts. That message is, as someone says in the game "you can be righteous and wrong", or, proverbially "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
Except for the Chaotic Neutral priests of Helm, and the Lawful Evil priests of Talos. Those weren't very true at all. SoD actually changed this (all Helmites must be LG, LN, or LE; All Talons must be CE, NE or CN-which is nice if you want the Talos Priest abilities but also don't want to be a sociopath).
@Fardragon Proverbially? I'm pretty sure those good intentions lead quite literally to hell.
I was fortunate enough to not be around for all the controversy. I just heard the new expansion was out, saw some mention of some sort of controversy happening, but being that I've been playing BioWare games for a long time I'm used to fanbases losing their collective poop over little things, didn't really pay attention to what the big whoop was and downloaded the game.
The game is great and I enjoyed playing it. It felt like I was playing a new Baldur's Gate game. I was really excited when I recognized most of the voices for the returning characters as well. That was really awesome they got the majority of them to come back. I was hooked on the story and finished it as soon as I could. There are some things I didn't particularly care for, such as some of the limited dialogue choices, but over all I really enjoyed the game. The controversy, much like a controversial BioWare romance, is something you have to actively seek out to get so *shrug*
Overall, I really hope they update BG2 to account for all the new things they did with SoD.
The railroading is the biggest problem, really. None of my friends enjoy that in rpgs. I doubt any of them would even bat an eyelash at Mizhena being in it. Transgendered people aren't even an issue where I am from.
The railroading is the biggest problem, really. None of my friends enjoy that in rpgs. I doubt any of them would even bat an eyelash at Mizhena being in it. Transgendered people aren't even an issue where I am from.
Trent Oster and Phillip Daigle recently did an interview with twitch streamer ArvanEleron where they go into how it was originally a big sprawler of a game more akin to BG1 in concept but they had to limit the scope before starting, so it was narrowed down to a short, 5 hour link between games.
They then expanded that link to the massive 25+ hours it is now, went overbudget in a few places (such as voice acting! which I'm really happy they did!!) and I have to say that considering it's a 20+ hour content swell on a 5 hour link, I totally get why it's as linear as it is.
My hope is that they focus that "sprawling multiple map linking exploration" itch that they still desperately want to scratch in a Baldur's Gate III in a new engine built from all the lessons they learned working with the Infinity Engine for so long. They love their modding community, so I imagine any new engine'll be way more modding friendly than IE is as well, and I think the 5e rules feel like a streamlined callback to 1e and 2e rulesets with lessons learned about what to do right from 3e (and lessons learned about what not to do from 4e lmao) so honestly I think 5e'll lend itself better to building an engine from scratch to support a ruleset than any previous edition has, which has me excited both on the level of a full release AND on the level of ease of modification.
I'm just crossing my fingers that we're not hearing much about it outside the hints dropped in that interview because they're keeping their lips zipped right now about working on BG III (or some proof-of-engine original 5e Forgotten Realms game before BG III tbh, I'd play the heck out of an original Beamdog FR tale).
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
Except for the Chaotic Neutral priests of Helm, and the Lawful Evil priests of Talos. Those weren't very true at all. SoD actually changed this (all Helmites must be LG, LN, or LE; All Talons must be CE, NE or CN-which is nice if you want the Talos Priest abilities but also don't want to be a sociopath)...
As a lawful evil cleric of Talos, I was a bit miffed with that change but ok fine.
Speaking of Mizhena, I found the conversation with her to be quite endearing; hurling threats towards the other that got progressively worse. A find case of religious debate.
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
Yeah, and Bhaal's back too, with a super old Abdel Adrian somehow still alive in the adventure that makes it happen. Minsc is alive, and about the age as the end of ToB, because he got turned into stone and turned back in the current FR era. They couldn't do that with everyone, but elves and dwarves and gnomes could all still be alive and it's canon that Minsc is alive and well and not much older than you last saw him lmao (and it'd be awesome if you could get Branwen in BG III the same way you did in BG1, and have comedic party banter between Minsc and Branwen about their differing perspectives about being frozen in stone and revived lol)
but that stuff aside, 2 points on this:
1) they could possibly set it shortly after ToB and just be using the mechanics to play a game in that era (same as you could use the mechanics of any edition to play in any era if your DM really wanted to do it) and although other editions make certain eras harder to represent in their mechanics it's not impossible with any combo of ruleset to era, but MUCH easier in 3.5 and 5e than other editions to represent nearly any era with the mechanics of that edition, so we could still potentially see a story told right after.
2) I would personally prefer to see them place a lot of distance from the events of the originals...I don't know about a few hundred years necessarily, since I'd love to see your choices have impacts and meet the child of Gorion's Ward potentially, but at least a couple decades since the end of Throne of Bhaal, with some way in #3 to set major details in stone.
I envision a selection of major choices and romances and so on at the start of BG III in the style of Serpent in the Staglands, where you choose the broad strokes of what went before you as someone reads you excerpts from the tale of The Bhaalspawn Wars, or like with the Bioware sequels of late where you select the major options in a menu beforehand (but the SitS way is more fun and harkens back to Ultima style chargen stuff, which I like). Whether or not you ascended in ToB would be a major one, for example, or who you romanced to set the NPC race/class/etc details of the "child of Gorion's Ward" that you encounter.
But if it has to be set in the timeline as it stands currently post-Sundering with even a half-elf child of Gorion's Ward long-since dead (although one child option, along with their mother, would still be alive and kicking for sure), I'd hope that you could at least meet the "(great)grandchild of Gorion's Ward" if you select that they were a half-orc female who romanced Dorn or an elven male who romanced everyone's favourite wingless avariel (or even maybe the grandchild of the adopted child of other combos of romance you could pick, so we could see halfling and gnome "grandchildren" of Gorion's Ward and so on).
I thought Minsc's appearance in the comics was the result of a wild magic surge, not being restored from a petrified state (in other words, a wild surge transforms an ordinary statue of Minsc into Minsc himself)? Did I miss something in a later issue?
I thought Minsc's appearance in the comics was the result of a wild magic surge, not being restored from a petrified state (in other words, a wild surge transforms an ordinary statue of Minsc into Minsc himself)? Did I miss something in a later issue?
I thought it was that the statue itself was actually Minsc having been turned to stone, but you may be right since it was definitely a wild magic surge that restored him. I just thought it restored a statue that was actually Minsc.
I thought he had been turned to stone, and the wild magic freed him.
Given that ToB ends with you becoming a god, that is a good enough ending really. I'd rather see a brand new story with a brand new protagonist if there is a new game in the series coming up. With some of the old cast being involved here and there.
I thought Minsc's appearance in the comics was the result of a wild magic surge, not being restored from a petrified state (in other words, a wild surge transforms an ordinary statue of Minsc into Minsc himself)? Did I miss something in a later issue?
I thought it was that the statue itself was actually Minsc having been turned to stone, but you may be right since it was definitely a wild magic surge that restored him. I just thought it restored a statue that was actually Minsc.
That's fair; I may be predisposed to what I got from the transformation, since I've played at least one character who was "resurrected" by a fellow party member casting a particularly creative version of Polymorph Any Object.
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
Honestly, having a "BG3 game" in 5E wouldn't be so bad...They could even use a modern game engine, like the Frostbite Engine or Unreal Engine 3 or Unity Engine.That would be really badass, actually. And provided they actually stuck to the 5E ruleset (unlike Sword Coast Legends), then it would be a great game. To me, Beamdog has proven they are capable of writing and creating a game with a compelling story. BG3...all new game features, the ease of the 5E ruleset, new classes, etc., etc. What's not to like?!
@rapsam2003 I kinda hope they make their own engine, and I kinda hope it's more akin to Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin's engines than Sword Coast Legends' engine.
edit: just noticed you were lambasting SCL, misunderstood on first blush there lol I gotcha now tho (and yeah, boo to SCL all around)
@rapsam2003 I kinda hope they make their own engine, and I kinda hope it's more akin to Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin's engines than Sword Coast Legends' engine.
Sword Coast Legends used their own engine. Pillars of Eternity used Unity. Divinity: Original Sin appears to use its own engine. An engine like Unity really wouldn't be too hard to develop BG3 on.
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
Elves could still be alive: Xan for example.
Absolutely. Aerie and Viconia as well. I guess if their epilogue doesn't state that they croaked, of course. The BG2 epilogue, I mean.
If they go with 5ed, the game will have to be set a few hundred years after BG2. Most of the cast will be dead. The changes in the magic system is heavily tied to the lore, and it happens during certain events. About half of the gods are gone too, come to think of it.
Honestly, having a "BG3 game" in 5E wouldn't be so bad...They could even use a modern game engine, like the Frostbite Engine or Unreal Engine 3 or Unity Engine.That would be really badass, actually. And provided they actually stuck to the 5E ruleset (unlike Sword Coast Legends), then it would be a great game. To me, Beamdog has proven they are capable of writing and creating a game with a compelling story. BG3...all new game features, the ease of the 5E ruleset, new classes, etc., etc. What's not to like?!
I am not sold at all on the writing in SoD. Subjective, of course. But with Gaider on board things will improve greatly.
Not sure if they need a new engine, though. The name BG3 would sell the game anyway. And moving away from an isometric view for a BG game...Not so sure about that one.
I'd actually want a brand new game instead of BG3. Completely new adventure sett in the Forgotten Realms. Maybe in a different area too. Cormyr or the Dalelands. Too many FR games are set along the Sword Coast and the North.
@Rawgrim I both agree with your point that an entirely new game should happen and be set literally anywhere but the Sword Coast or the North (unless it's in the North-East, like Damara or Impiltur North-East) and disagree (subjectively, of course) that SoD's writing isn't a good sign for BG III as well as with the notion that I'd want a new game instead of BG III. It's a coin-toss for me which I'd want to see first, but I don't think I want to see either of them "instead of" the other one.
And Trent Oster has basically said they're not going to use the Infinity Engine for BG III, but that doesn't mean they're going to abandon the top-down view and feel of the originals when making the new engine. I have a feeling they're going to stick with real-time with pause party-of-six based gameplay, which pretty much means you need that top-down view.
And Trent Oster has basically said they're not going to use the Infinity Engine for BG III, but that doesn't mean they're going to abandon the top-down view and feel of the originals when making the new engine.
If you ever played Pillars of Eternity, it's still essentially top-down. A lot of the game's UI can easily be pointed to as influenced by the BG/IWD games or the NWN series. PoE has that "early Bioware" feel all over it.
Comments
Or, in a less lecturey version, here's a comic that I feel sums up my feeling adequately!
(IMPORTANT NOTE: While, this comic is safe, the rest of the website is **very** NSFW.)
[Edit 2: I did notice there is a pair of butt cheeks, and a touch of cursing, if that bothers you.]
Source: Oglaf
In short, Be Respectful.
But whenever I play Skyrim I play as an elf girl.
And I feel bad for Mizhena because it seems like nobody likes her. I've already made up my mind to be her friend when I meet her. (him?)
I chewed on all that for like an hour and I got nowhere.
I'm liking this game a lot more than bg1 or bg2 but that's mostly due to having beat them a couple of times so I'm bored of them. I think? It's hard to tell.
This statement surprises me alot, It seems almost impossible that people like SOD better than BG1 but better then BG2, this I cannot understand.
I really am starting to believe that there can never be another Baldurs Gate game ever. Look at what has tried to succeed it and failed in many different ways.
There just is not the talent or desire to stay true to the Dungeons and Dragons world. I will go so far as to say the games now are not even researched and there is a blatant disregard for lore.
Maybe Ed Greenwood should consult on some of the writing just to keep a real foundation. Creativity is not synonymous with agenda and I have to ask if the Beamdog writers even respect this game franchise.
We have to come to the realization that Baldurs Gate is not going to continue as we knew it and will be changed to what Beamdog wants to express. This is an unfortunate reality for me and I know many fans of this once classic game.
SoD is actually far more faithful to the Forgotten Realms sourcebooks than any of the other Baldur's Gate games. Rather than having lore stuffed away in books, it is reflected in everything from the beliefs of the clerics to geography and travel time. There is quite a lot of content which will only be meaningful to players well versed in the campaign setting.
As for politics, well it is true that, like most stories, there is a message of sorts. That message is, as someone says in the game "you can be righteous and wrong", or, proverbially "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
@Fardragon Proverbially? I'm pretty sure those good intentions lead quite literally to hell.
The game is great and I enjoyed playing it. It felt like I was playing a new Baldur's Gate game. I was really excited when I recognized most of the voices for the returning characters as well. That was really awesome they got the majority of them to come back. I was hooked on the story and finished it as soon as I could. There are some things I didn't particularly care for, such as some of the limited dialogue choices, but over all I really enjoyed the game. The controversy, much like a controversial BioWare romance, is something you have to actively seek out to get so *shrug*
Overall, I really hope they update BG2 to account for all the new things they did with SoD.
They then expanded that link to the massive 25+ hours it is now, went overbudget in a few places (such as voice acting! which I'm really happy they did!!) and I have to say that considering it's a 20+ hour content swell on a 5 hour link, I totally get why it's as linear as it is.
My hope is that they focus that "sprawling multiple map linking exploration" itch that they still desperately want to scratch in a Baldur's Gate III in a new engine built from all the lessons they learned working with the Infinity Engine for so long. They love their modding community, so I imagine any new engine'll be way more modding friendly than IE is as well, and I think the 5e rules feel like a streamlined callback to 1e and 2e rulesets with lessons learned about what to do right from 3e (and lessons learned about what not to do from 4e lmao) so honestly I think 5e'll lend itself better to building an engine from scratch to support a ruleset than any previous edition has, which has me excited both on the level of a full release AND on the level of ease of modification.
I'm just crossing my fingers that we're not hearing much about it outside the hints dropped in that interview because they're keeping their lips zipped right now about working on BG III (or some proof-of-engine original 5e Forgotten Realms game before BG III tbh, I'd play the heck out of an original Beamdog FR tale).
Speaking of Mizhena, I found the conversation with her to be quite endearing; hurling threats towards the other that got progressively worse. A find case of religious debate.
but that stuff aside, 2 points on this:
1) they could possibly set it shortly after ToB and just be using the mechanics to play a game in that era (same as you could use the mechanics of any edition to play in any era if your DM really wanted to do it) and although other editions make certain eras harder to represent in their mechanics it's not impossible with any combo of ruleset to era, but MUCH easier in 3.5 and 5e than other editions to represent nearly any era with the mechanics of that edition, so we could still potentially see a story told right after.
2) I would personally prefer to see them place a lot of distance from the events of the originals...I don't know about a few hundred years necessarily, since I'd love to see your choices have impacts and meet the child of Gorion's Ward potentially, but at least a couple decades since the end of Throne of Bhaal, with some way in #3 to set major details in stone.
I envision a selection of major choices and romances and so on at the start of BG III in the style of Serpent in the Staglands, where you choose the broad strokes of what went before you as someone reads you excerpts from the tale of The Bhaalspawn Wars, or like with the Bioware sequels of late where you select the major options in a menu beforehand (but the SitS way is more fun and harkens back to Ultima style chargen stuff, which I like). Whether or not you ascended in ToB would be a major one, for example, or who you romanced to set the NPC race/class/etc details of the "child of Gorion's Ward" that you encounter.
But if it has to be set in the timeline as it stands currently post-Sundering with even a half-elf child of Gorion's Ward long-since dead (although one child option, along with their mother, would still be alive and kicking for sure), I'd hope that you could at least meet the "(great)grandchild of Gorion's Ward" if you select that they were a half-orc female who romanced Dorn or an elven male who romanced everyone's favourite wingless avariel (or even maybe the grandchild of the adopted child of other combos of romance you could pick, so we could see halfling and gnome "grandchildren" of Gorion's Ward and so on).
Just my 2 copper on that, anyway.
Given that ToB ends with you becoming a god, that is a good enough ending really. I'd rather see a brand new story with a brand new protagonist if there is a new game in the series coming up. With some of the old cast being involved here and there.
All the best things in life are controversial.
edit: just noticed you were lambasting SCL, misunderstood on first blush there lol I gotcha now tho (and yeah, boo to SCL all around)
Not sure if they need a new engine, though. The name BG3 would sell the game anyway. And moving away from an isometric view for a BG game...Not so sure about that one.
I'd actually want a brand new game instead of BG3. Completely new adventure sett in the Forgotten Realms. Maybe in a different area too. Cormyr or the Dalelands. Too many FR games are set along the Sword Coast and the North.
And Trent Oster has basically said they're not going to use the Infinity Engine for BG III, but that doesn't mean they're going to abandon the top-down view and feel of the originals when making the new engine. I have a feeling they're going to stick with real-time with pause party-of-six based gameplay, which pretty much means you need that top-down view.