Should BG2:EE include the "Ascension" mod by David Gaider?

Zeckul

Following different discussions we've had on this forum*, I wanted to get an idea of how people feel about the "Ascension" mod. As a quick reminder, the Ascension mod includes:
- New Slayer forms
- New dialogue with Imoen and Sarevok
- Re-worked epilogues for some of the companions
- A grandiose final battle adding a lot of tactical and role-playing depth
- More difficult and interesting versions of most major battles
- Quality translations in various languages

See http://weidu.org/ascension/Ascension-WeiDU.txt for the full description.

To be perfectly clear, I'm talking about the full Weidu-Ascension mod including all the improved battles.

* for instance http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2154/ascension-the-ending-tob-deserves/p1

Zeckul

I'll start off: I think the Ascension mod greatly improves an otherwise lackluster ToB with battles worthy of your power as a demigod and savoury role-playing aspects. Furthermore, if any mod can be considered near-official then Ascension is it, since it was written shortly after the game's release by David Gaider himself. However, even at the "Normal" setting the battles might prove too much for the average player, so I believe a balance revision is in order. More challenging versions of the battle could remain available simply by adjusting the difficulty slider, as Ascension already does in a few places.

There are not many content mods I'd see included in BG2:EE, much less BG:EE, but Ascension is more than just good fan-made content. It is, despite Gaider's protests, what Throne of Bhaal should have been, given a more relaxed schedule and a keen focus on tactical gameplay. As I see it, an Enhanced Edition should have no "must-have" mods: if a mod is truly a must-have for everyone, then it should be part of the game for everyone in the first place. Ascension is such a mod.

Roller12

1.They can not modify existing game plot.
2.install the mod separately.

Dee

@Roller12 I think the poll is making the hypothesis that if there is sufficient demand for the mod to be included, David Gaider could be contacted and the third parties involved could be convinced that this near-official content ought to be included.

I voted for everything but the "improved" battles, for the reasons @Zeckul stated.

Roller12

id rather bet on a lottery win. I also remember them stating valid (for them) reasons for not including parts of this.

Ward

No mods should be added even slightly. It destroys customization. If you want ascension, mod the game yourself, it's not fair to impose it on everyone else.

Hence why I don't want 1PP in BG:EE. The only things that should come with BG:EE are the bug fixpacks.

sarevok57

amen @Ward

Dee

Ordinarily, @Ward, I would agree--but in the case of Ascension, the content being created is content that was apparently supposed to be there to begin with but got cut due to budget constraints. It's largely written by someone who helped create the content for ToB, so it follows the spirit of the game more closely than most mods, and the content that it replaces (in terms of the battles, at least) is content that was not handled very effectively in the vanilla release.

sarevok57

i remember those tougher battles, the only problem is, if your team didnt start in SoA there is no way in hell you are going to win those battles with a fresh ToB team, ah the abizigal fight, good/bad times

Lemernis

I understand that the poll is asking players what they think should be. But best I can tell, what definitely will be is that they aren't incorporating mods (other than 1PP to improve graphical appearance in the GUI).

Fair question, though, in that here it is content from a lead developer that arguably almost amounts to a patch.

Zafiro

And add more healing potions!

Troodon80

Due to contractual obligations, one can't really expect Overhaul to modify the original game; as in, changing the difficulty and allowing certain characters to join (although I do approve of not having to fight Balthazar), since it goes against what is already set in the story. I would say they should be allowed to include the bits that Gaider marked as being "planned" for the original, but got cut due to time constraints (rather than cut for balance reasons - although, Demogorgon did seem rather weak compared to what it was made out to be).

Basically just the epilogues:

Some new epilogues: not all of the epilogues have changed, but some of them have been lengthened to what they had been originally written as. A couple have changed completely, and a few new ones have been added.

I would also say this for any poll regarding the Unfinished Business mod(s). As much as I do like this mod, anything over and above what was originally planned (or now drastically alters the game-play) should only be included as a mod.

O_Bruce

For God's sake, how many freaking times contract limitations have to be mentioned in order to people understand, that some things can't be changed?

I can understand this request: Ascension basically makes ToB a lot better. But, also a LOT harder. I don't know about BG2:EE being only for hardcore BG players - as a matter for fact, in spite playing BG since I was brat I still can't beat Ascension. So how new players are expected to do that?

Developers aren't allowed to change already existing quest and plot content, so sorry, Ascension will not happen as a official part of BG2:EE. Wishing only for certain components or making improved battles less difficult will not solve the problem.

Shin

Imo it should easily be the baseline. For all I've been able to gather, ascension approximates what ToB was intended to be to a much closer degree than the vanilla release. Including it would be a lot more akin to a fix than a mod.

As for the difficulty, if you've played through the previous games and taken your time building your party, you will at this point in time have six extremely capable and versatile characters. If you started out from scratch in ToB or skipped content and switched your party members around a lot it will be significantly harder - but still doable.
In my opinion, this is just fine. It means choices/preparations made and outcomes of battles in the first two games to a certain extent affect your playing environment in ToB, and this is as it should be. It serves to connect the trilogy and to make the character in ToB a result of his/her actions in BG and BG2. I see no reason to adapt the baseline difficulty for the worst possible starting point for the protagonist. If you choose to play it that way, then it should be difficult - but obviously not impossible.

On a personal level, I wouldn't mind if you simply couldn't start BG2 without having played BG, nor ToB if you didn't play BG+BG2. But that's just me, and I see why that would be a poor implementation.

mister_ennui

Ascension is about the only mod where I can see an argument for its inclusion in BG2:EE at release. It is about as close to an official mod as you can get. However, if it were to be included the battles may need toning down somewhat though (at least on lower difficulty levels).

Actually, it would be ideal if there was an option to have the various Ascension options activated or deactivated for a particular run through (i.e. you could play ToB unmodded, add only the Ascension RP elements, add only the tougher battles or add both). That way all players could be satisfied.

In reality, I do not expect Ascension to be included in BG2: EE for reasons identified by other posters above. The best we can hope for is that the Ascension Mod is compatible with BG2:EE or made so by the modding community. It would be interesting to know whether anyone is already planning to work on this and if they have approached David Gaider for permission to rework his mod for BG2:EE.

*Edited to correct typo.*

ajwz

I agree @ward, except that I consider 1pp to be an anti-mod, restoring the original content lost when bg is converted to the bg2 engine, so I am happy it is included.

This was the argument I posted before:

If 50% of people want to play with ascension and 50% don't, then if it is left out, 100% of people will be happy, where as if it is put in, only 50% will.
They will have to wait for someone to create a mod which removes Ascension

Roller12

The reason Ascension isnt in the game because devs thought all the extra abilities are too confusing for the player. This info was on g3 forum somewhere. And battles too difficult. And the first bhaalspawn encounter is indeed too difficult for the starter tob party. The rest, less so. But i have seen here people who seriously think Magic Missile is a good spell in ToB(or anywhere else). Imagine these guys meeting improved ToB endgame battle. Or improved Demogorgon. It just will frustrate them.

UnseeyingEye

I would actually like it to be included but only it was able to be toggled on or off. Of course whether or not this is actually legally possible because of there contract or whether it would be too difficult to program in I don't know.

Metal_Hurlant

I voted no. The player should have a choice to install the mod. Not impose the mod on them.

Amardarial

@Roller12 but Magic Missle is good in ToB if used right, say in Lesser Sequencr, shooting 2-3 of them at once isn't bad, granted this is mostly to nail mages mid cast, usually taking them out but *Shrugs*

AndreaColombo

I would certainly want the roleplaying aspects of Ascension to be implemented.

The Improved Battles should also be implemented if the rest of the game's AI was also improved; otherwise, the difference in difficulty between those battles and the rest of the game would be too glaring for them to be viable canon content.

Hence, I won't cast my vote yet: It depends on whether vanilla AI is improved upon.

AndreaColombo

I would also specify that Ascension is what ToB was always supposed to be but couldn't due to time constraints. It was put together by ToB's lead designer David Gaider using the remainders of what had been scrapped while the game was in development. It is not just another mod as in "fan created custom content": It's semi-official material that should've made it in since day one, much like Unfinished Business (in fact, one may consider Ascension some sort of ToB Unfinished Business).

ajwz

AndreaColombo said:

I would also specify that Ascension is what ToB was always supposed to be but couldn't due to time constraints. It was put together by ToB's lead designer David Gaider using the remainders of what had been scrapped while the game was in development. It is not just another mod as in "fan created custom content": It's semi-official material that should've made it in since day one, much like Unfinished Business (in fact, one may consider Ascension some sort of ToB Unfinished Business).

Are you sure about unfinished business? I always kind of had my doubts about some components of it. Just because certain things exist as artifacts in the source code, It doesn't necessarily mean that they were meant to be in the game or that the reason they were cut out was due to time. Some of them could have been cut out due to executive decision. - from my perspective, I could see why certain parts never made it into the game.

Has anyone from the original teams of either BG1 or 2 ever commented on the unfinished business mods?

CamDawg

AndreaColombo said:

I would also specify that Ascension is what ToB was always supposed to be but couldn't due to time constraints.

ToB's ending was never planned this way, time constraints or no--Gaider said the ideas for Ascension came from players.

CamDawg

ajwz said:

Has anyone from the original teams of either BG1 or 2 ever commented on the unfinished business mods?

I don't know about BG/BG2, but JE Sawyer was pretty awesome about answering my questions for IWD UB and was very supportive of the idea.

sarevok57

i love that harder demogorgon patch/mod for me nowadays he is still balls easy with it, i couldnt imagine how easy he is going to be without it now, that would be nice if they at least kept demogorgon hard, you dont HAVE to kill him, so if newbies cant, better luck next time i suppose

shawne

If "Throne of Bhaal" had been a recent release, "Ascension" would probably have been packaged as DLC. Given that, I most certainly think it should be incorporated into BG2:EE, if only because - new characters aside - the enhancements made to BG1 are exclusively mechanical/graphical. Story-related improvements would go a long way in getting more attention, particularly if it's a "restored" ending sequence that original players never got to experience. (See: the recent publicity for KOTOR 2 following the finalization of the Restored Content Mod.)

I would, however, prefer if the difficulty upgrades weren't included or were optional - some of us had more than enough trouble with the AI as is.

shawne

CamDawg said:

ToB's ending was never planned this way, time constraints or no--Gaider said the ideas for Ascension came from players.

Gaider's readme for Ascension disputes that - for example, he explicitly refers to Sarevok/Imoen dialogues that weren't supposed to be randomized.

shawne

ajwz said:

Are you sure about unfinished business? I always kind of had my doubts about some components of it. Just because certain things exist as artifacts in the source code, It doesn't necessarily mean that they were meant to be in the game or that the reason they were cut out was due to time. Some of them could have been cut out due to executive decision. - from my perspective, I could see why certain parts never made it into the game.

According to the documentation, there are at least a handful of components that were in the game but couldn't be triggered in a regular playthrough due to scripting errors or damaged files. I suppose it's debatable whether broken content the developers never bothered to patch should be considered mandatory, but... well. This is supposed to be the Enhanced version, isn't it?

CamDawg

shawne said:

Gaider's readme for Ascension disputes that - for example, he explicitly refers to Sarevok/Imoen dialogues that weren't supposed to be randomized.

Err, no. Quoth the Gaider:

In ToB these were completely random...but since their stories
come up in the Ascension, I thought it was important that these be seen.

You also apparently skipped the section where he mentioned the Balthazar stuff was the idea of Kevin Dorner, and the additions to the final battle were from another forum poster.

Anduine

Let the game be itself and let mods be themselves. Not to say that I have no respect for modders, but the only content I want in the "base" game is "official" content made by sufficiently qualified and authorized individuals who have the permission of the original development team/corporation. I do not play or install mods made by random individuals who's authorization and/or credentials are alien to me, regardless of their content.