Just started, immediately stopping (spoiler?)
boffmoffet
Member Posts: 6
I just played through BGEE again before starting the Dragonspear expansion, had a blast with some of the improvements. Somewhat sad Beamdog hijacked the interface. If you redo a game your not responsible for to update it for modern operating system, taking liberties with something as iconic as the UI art feels like they are trying to take ownership of the original content away from the first devs. Maybe not, just my gut feeling.
But what really gets me is I cant have Imoen in my party. Really? This was a poor design choice for my style of play, and the fact that I did ZERO roleplaying with other party members during the campaign, it makes makes no sense for my CHARNAME. I am sure many thread like this have popped up, but I had to put in my two cents for Beamdogs sake, as well as my own.
Change my iconic game icon to original art by your company, with art so small you cant make out what the icon is anymore? I am somewhat irked, but maybe you earned it with all the work you put in. Change the iconic UI art for the entire experience? I power through. Take my foster sister away with zero warning, I dont even care if it makes sense as the campaign continues. I am out. I wont see your new content. Moving on to BG2EE as if your expansion never happened. Sorry.
But what really gets me is I cant have Imoen in my party. Really? This was a poor design choice for my style of play, and the fact that I did ZERO roleplaying with other party members during the campaign, it makes makes no sense for my CHARNAME. I am sure many thread like this have popped up, but I had to put in my two cents for Beamdogs sake, as well as my own.
Change my iconic game icon to original art by your company, with art so small you cant make out what the icon is anymore? I am somewhat irked, but maybe you earned it with all the work you put in. Change the iconic UI art for the entire experience? I power through. Take my foster sister away with zero warning, I dont even care if it makes sense as the campaign continues. I am out. I wont see your new content. Moving on to BG2EE as if your expansion never happened. Sorry.
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Other than the black dragon scale UI I found I appreciated most of the engine and system upgrades in BGEE, they were well done. As a gamer with a Dachshund named Imeon however, I just cant continue with some stranger named Safana in my party. Saying Imoen cant come because her head hurts from spells doesn't sell me. She was slinging 5th level spells when I killed Sarevok. Maybe I will play through again with a full premade party in a few years to check out the new content, but I doubt it. Just feels like a bad call on a product banking on nostalgia.
"How to approach Imoen in SoD was hotly debated for months. Why she was taken off the board boils down to this:
-Imoen is story critical to BG2. It was decided by folks higher up the chain that she had to be there for the final moments of SoD, at least partly so the BG2 intro would be valid. Therefore:
-Imoen could not be put in a position where she'd be allowed to die in SoD. But:
-At least one higher-up believed very strongly that in a BG game (I think any game, really, but they were very specific that it should def. be the case in BG), players should be allowed to attack and, if they had the power, kill any other character in-game with very few (they would say absolutely no) exceptions.* So:
-Imoen and any other character we wanted or needed to stay alive until a certain point in the game (or BG2) could only interact with Charname via dialogue and cutscenes.** Which, in addition to being a royal pain in the posterior for pretty much everyone from writer to implementer to (I suspect) player, also meant:
-Imoen couldn't be a party member at any point but the very end of SoD, because Charname and everything else couldn't be allowed to kill her.
And that's why Imoen wasn't able to be in-party in the opening dungeon. If it had been allowed there, I can't imagine a scenario in which she wouldn't have also been a joinable NPC for the rest of the game.
*Whether a PC should be allowed to kill a plot-critical NPC or not and what should happen if they did was a debate/argument that was still going on up to the day I left the company.
**Modal dialogue and cutscenes were the guidelines we had during the writing of Siege. I don't know if that was followed 100% in the final design of the game. Off the top of my head, I don't remember if the player was cutscene'd through the whole end of the game starting with when they met Imoen or if there's a brief time they have control of her."
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It's the price to pay for having a medium in which you can impact the story directly, at least to some extent.
"If you've chosen to kill Imoen in BG:EE it will have no effect on SoD. But you should be very, very ashamed of yourself."
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/51614/if-youve-killed-imoen-in-bgee-what-happens-in-sod
That is more of what I would like to see from Beamdog going forward. Most of us on the forum have a special attachment to this series and knowing the thought process is better than, "if you don't like it, too bad."
When appropriate, talk to us about the stuff we can't see. I think it shows great respect to the community and craft. Posts like that are slowly helping me get over all the extracurricular events around SoD.
I just want to believe again.
No really, Imoen is hardly more important than any of them in BG1, there are a select few banters with her and that's about it.
And though there were many criticism on numerous points of SoD, what comes out of the majority was that Beamdog handled the forced dual Imoen gets from BG1 to BG2 (which has no apparent reason in the original games, though it has always been a possibility) quite well, considering the three options they had (either what they did, forcing Imoen's dual as an NPC, or not forcing anything, which would result in discontinuity).
I started this particular game because I had never taken a character all the way through on import, and it was going to be my Pièce De Résistance of BG games. It was exciting because by sheer coincidence followed by bioware design, my ideal canon fit entirely with how the first and second games are presented. Its jaring to be prepared for that and kill Saervok with my well liked party, then immediately be given a chaotic neutral thief that will one day try to murder me in place of my nice foster sister. My Paladin CHARNAME would not be down. It was a unfounded but safe assumption that Imeon would join me in my adventures.
I do appreciate the feedback, and hearing some of the reasoning behind the decision, but I still dont agree with it. It just means the expansion wont be part of my grand play through.
As for the reasons given, how is Imoen any diffrent from the other 4 canon companions in regards to having to make sure she is kept alive. Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir are all in the EXACT same position as Imeon canonically, so why was she the only one kicked out of the party? I read the reasons up top and I will admit I have a brain injury so my critical thinking can take awhile to catch on, but logically, I dont see how she is different from the others in any way, beyond gaining some mage levels, which Bioware recognized 17 years ago most of us did already. It almost feels like they took one of the canon companions out to encourage players to check out new companions and showcase their new work. Entirely their call as devs, but a little to DM fiat for a mid campaign prequel.
The thing that would grind my gears as an Imoen fan would be the way they have taken the agency away from players of dualing her to mage.
All that time spent dualing her, and judging by posts here about how that progresses it's very doable, popular and she reaches a very reasonable level, and then you are told she is at the stage of such a novice she has to practise concentrating?
You actually get a cut scene where she behaves as if she has never even cast a spell.
It completely messes up so many peoples head cannon, far more I reckon than those who simply kill/abandon her and have to deal with her immortality (I fall into that catagory).
Imoen is a cross we all have to bear, however we've had 15 years of practise and having Imoen in our faces in SOD isn't going to upset us that much (compared to having to rescue the annoying bint).
Something about SOD makes my spider senses tingle.
I get the constant feeling that there was a real attitude problem with people who have and are still playing BG/BG2, a certain resentment about their fandom.
Too many things that are garenteed to rub them up the wrong way, for no reason that even makes sense.
I guess that unique place in Bioware companion history has always fascinated me. No matter how well written or deep you make a character, it can be just as powerful to leave some space in the storytelling for readers/players to fill in their own expectations. This is the first time those reins were taken from me within this story, which became my favorite video game tale of all time, and I found that jarring. I look forward to Beamdogs future, but I just cant add this narrative to MY BG tale.
For those who play evil characters, I now sympathize. It took 17 years for me to sit at this table with you. Sup.
I think Imoen definitely fell into that category - since she was basically thrown in at the last minute as a rehash of 2 different NPC ideas - because Good players wouldn't have access to a non-PC rogue until BG (which is funny because that means Alora was meant to be a special late-game NPC). But, since she's the first NPC you meet, and happens to fill a very important niche, oodles of players take her - it's a shame we can't get a new player base to look at achievements like they do in Mass Effect to see how many players took xyz companions - because I'd wager the number of people who finished their first BG playthrough with Imoen in the party was astronomically high.
Imoen's fit into SoD didn't bother me however for the record, mainly because the revamped Safana and Glint were both lots of fun to play with (and it makes Safana's appearance in BG2 more sad). I was pretty sad about Tiax though
(major spoilers ahead) All of this applies to Minsc, Jaheira, Dynaheir and Khalid, yet they can still be recruited and killed.
It makes no difference in the end because prior to the final area/cutscene, every NPC will be removed from the party while you are in jail, so the window is there for any dead characters to return. I fail to see why Imoen can't have the same treatment.
Specially considering that she (and other NPCs) could be killed at any point of BG1 and it still won't prevent them from showing in SoD. Well yes, that's how it's always worked in the BG series. Aside from a handful of plot-critical NPCs, no one else is safe. Again: Minsc, Jaheira, Dynaheir and Khalid are captured with you. Two of them die in Irenicus' dungeon. This is canon. You need all four of them alive and present at the end of SoD but you can still recruit and/or kill them before that.
I still see no justification for treating Imoen differently. Why in the nine hells not? She can be killed in BG1 and will still show up at the start of SoD. Why couldn't she be killed during most of SoD and then show up to greet you once you come out of the cave? It works like that for all other four characters who absolutely have to be there.
Look, I know I'm repeating myself, but you folks may have noticed by now that Foley's explanation keeps making the same point over and over again: you can't kill a character that has to be alive by the end of SoD.
However, Imoen is the one and only character to which this restriction is applied, which is completely ignored by his argument. I can. There are 29 NPCs in BG:EE and only 11 are available in SoD. That means there are 18 NPCs which will leave your party right after the initial dungeon, most of them never to be seen again.
Having Imoen leave the party then to study magic would make just as much sense as leaving it before and it's certainly way less jarring than swapping her out with Safana. But of course, my point is that she didn't have to be removed at all.
I am seriously baffled that *this* is what's being passed around as an official and satisfactory explanation for removing her from the game because it doesn't make any sense.
What's more infuriating is that you had Melissa Disney right there recording new lines for the character. One new soundset and you'd have absolutely all you need. You guys even went through the trouble of getting her a new portrait!
P.S.: before someone brings up her mandatory dual-class for the sake of BG2's plot, that was also a non-issue. An unspecified amount of time passes between the final battle with Sarevok and entering Korlasz's tomb. Why not have her become a Thief/Mage in the meantime? Make her unavailable in the first dungeon if you must and then let her join you before you leave the city.
Exactly like the BG2 intro, some NPCs are shoved down your throat, some others are arbitrary banned and that's it.
You'd also need to test to make sure you can still talk to her when she is in your group. To be sure that the player still has the option of learning from what she has to say.
You'd need to update scripts so that she is properly removed from your party (and potentially prevent Safana from being added to it at the beginning).