yup, but he was manipulated by his sister first, and second wasn't given a fair trial (death). So to my eyes he is pretty well justified.
... Really? This sounds like the whiniest excuse ever to commit mass murder - not that there actually can be any excuse for that. I don't want to be less powerful than my lover, therefore I'm going to attempt a grab at godhood, nevermind that this could result in the exctinction of the entire elven race. Thousands of elves dead? Who cares.
---
it's not about power, it's about being acknowledged.
* So one of the most powerful elven mages to ever live tried to attain Godhood. He did this in a way which threatened to kill all nearby elves, and which nearly did. - You say this is justified because his girlfriend was BFF with the elven gods? He is justified and excused for sacrilege and complete disregard to the safety of others because he had to be in a higher social position than his girlfriend?
I'm sorry, but bullshit. Nobody gets to excuse such behavior because of insecurity.
* You blame ellisime for her exile of him and say you imagine her smirking. - Where do you get that from? All we see from her is that she didn't kill him for crimes deserving death, and wanted him to repent for his crimes so he could come back to the city. Where is the smirking in that? I personally think she was foolish in letting her love for him stay off a proper execution. And that comes from her dialogue towards him.
* You blame Bodhi for egging him on. - So what? He's an adult elf who has lived for hundreds to thousands of years. He should know that casually causing the deaths of the elves around him and threatening their connection to the divine is a BAD thing to do. Regardless of what his sister tells him.
* You say that you can't imagine asking for forgiveness. Let's try this.
Your girlfriend is the Mayor of the city you live in. You are the city's wealthiest business owner. You feel insecure that she is in charge while you are not. So you decide that you are going to be the Governor! That way you can assuage your insecurity, which is egged on by your sister who wants your nepotism. So to become Governor, you hatch a plot where you will take the State's congress hostage and force them to put you in charge. Your plot is incredibly dangerous to everyone in the State Capital. Your plan almost works, but you are arrested and many people die or are injured because of you.
You face the death penalty. But your girlfriend loves you, so she pulls some strings and gets you life in prison. She hopes that if you show good behavior and repent, she can get you paroled .
You now have three options:
(1) Break out of prison. Kidnap and murder two wealthy people for their money. Kidnap your ex-girlfriend and then repeat your plan to take over the Capitol. Only this time you plot with a foreign government who hates your country, and you murder many fleeing civilians while doing so, and watch as foreign fighters occupy/destroy the city.
(2) You show contrition, think long and hard about your insecurities and the harm you did, and ask for forgiveness. If it is accepted, then you get your freedom back. Choose whether you want to live in the city with your girlfriend or leave to start a new life.
(3) If you think that death is better, kill yourself. Do it to escape the sentence. But don't hurt any more innocents.
----
Does that put this in perspective? The example I gave is a direct parallel to the game. I can't see how anyone can not blame the guy either way.
It seems that this argument relies heavily on the premise that Jon Irenicus is the only person in the world who really matters. The calculus for good and bad is determined entirely by whether someone is giving him what he wants. Like any other megalomaniacal psychopath, Jon Irenicus undoubtedly sees the world this way. If we concede that another individual has any intrinsic value, however, it becomes a difficult argument to support.
okay, you think he is a evil man? You treat him as one. And I would be a fool thinking that Ellesime didn't see what he felt\was like. The fact is that I'm not advocating that Irenicus is a good man, I'm advocating that Ellesime didn't treat him as a reasonable human first and queen second.
I can blame Irenicus when he did the whole stuff the first time. And I can tell, damn you fucked up. But I can't blame him for doing it again, because the curse he was set upon was worse than actual death.
okay, you think he is a evil man? You treat him as one. And I would be a fool thinking that Ellesime didn't see what he felt\was like. The fact is that I'm not advocating that Irenicus is a good man, I'm advocating that Ellesime didn't treat him as a reasonable human first and queen second.
I can blame Irenicus when he did the whole stuff the first time. And I can tell, damn you fucked up. But I can't blame him for doing it again, because the curse he was set upon was worse than actual death.
That's because he WASN'T reasonable. He endangered the lives of his entire city for a selfish goal.
No matter what is done to you by the political leaders of a society, if your response includes killing civilians and noncombatants...you are the bad guy and CAN be blamed for your actions.
"My country put me in solitary confinement for my crimes. They kept me there until I would say sorry for the many murders I committed. It was inhumane!"
Arthas: "My god, that is horrible. So what did you do?"
"I broke out, allied with terrorists, and killed lots and lots of innocent civilians!"
Arthas: "I blame you for the first set of murders. But the second? Nope, can't blame you for that."
@Arthas, hopefully just one little off-topic post here: I love your name, since I've been playing WoW lately. The Lich King.
I wonder how many people here get it?
Arthas, at least at one point thought was he was doing what right/necessary. Irenicus was never on a path f for righteousness, it was revenge all the way baby.
Now you've got me thinking about how cool a World of Baldur's Gate would be.
But you've always been able to kill Imoen in BG1, or have her die in combat and not ressurected, and she'll still be there in BG2. Same with Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir. Players have been creating their own head canons to deal with the possible story conflicts for years. What does SoD do if Imoen (or any of the others) die during BG1 and then the player's party exports directly into SoD?
"It works the same as BG2 did in its original day. You might have killed a NPC off but they keep coming back."
"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."
Right, but it's a logic behind the decision to keep Imoen out of the action for SoD seems rather questionable when
every other starting BG2 party option is a recruitable NPC in SoD. A player can murder Jaheria, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir in SoD and the game will still assume they back up the PC after Skie's murder and help the PC get away from Baldur's Gate, but we can't have the same treatment for Imoen?
Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage, but it would have been better, IMHO, if SoD had accounted for an Imoen that was already as magically skilled (potentially) as the PC.
Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage, but it would have been better, IMHO, if SoD had accounted for an Imoen that was already as magically skilled (potentially) as the PC.
Sure, it'd have made for smoother continuity if SoD could have treated Imoen as it currently does both in new games (i.e. started in SoD) and if she were imported from BG1ee as a single-class Thief, yet would instead have allowed her to continue in the party if she were imported from BG1ee as already dual-classed into Mage.
However, the additional option for continuing in the party would have knocked out chunks of the SoD story in the prologue - the attack in the palace, and so on. They'd have had to write and code some alternate treatment, which would nevertheless have brought us to the same point when we set out, in order to fit the rest of the story. Obviously that would have been a non-trivial chunk of extra time and effort, when they were already busting a gut to get it done. I guess they decided it was just too much to do.
On the other hand, now that SoD is part of the saga, I'm thinking that I may change the way I play Imoen in BG1ee to suit the new story. In the past, it's been my usual habit to dual-class Imoen to Mage from level 7 Thief, for consistency with BG2ee. Now, perhaps it's more natural to keep her single-classed throughout BG1ee, and let SoD take care of dual-classing her "behind the scenes".
My runs through SoD thus far (bar one) have been parties which I had parked at the end of BG1ee before SoD came out, waiting for SoD before proceeding to BG2ee, and in all of those Imoen (if included at all) was already dual-classed, and I've still got some more of those parties waiting to complete their runs.
For new parties starting from Candlekeep, however, I may henceforth plan for Imoen to remain single-classed during BG1ee. I haven't quite decided yet, but it seems to me to make more sense of SoD this way.
That route then creates a new discrepancy, since Imoen will now be a level 10 Thief level by the end of BG1ee, immediately before dualling, whereas the start of BG2ee will still show her as having somehow regressed to be only a level 7 Thief when she dualled. For that, I guess we'll just have to resort to the old hand-waving about "Irenicus's tortures caused it". Oh well.
What parts of the SOD story would have been knocked out in the prologue if Imoen had been allowed to be recruitable? How would it have affected the attack in the palace?
Caelar/whatsisname needed Charname's blood, how is that affected whether Imoen is part of your party or not?
What parts of the SOD story would have been knocked out in the prologue if Imoen had been allowed to be recruitable? How would it have affected the attack in the palace?
Caelar/whatsisname needed Charname's blood, how is that affected whether Imoen is part of your party or not?
All that business with Imoen being poisoned and unconscious etc., and you have to leave her there and go do other things, that'd have to go. Those dialogues with Liia Jannath about Imoen staying behind and training etc., that'd have to be replaced too.
What parts of the SOD story would have been knocked out in the prologue if Imoen had been allowed to be recruitable? How would it have affected the attack in the palace?
Caelar/whatsisname needed Charname's blood, how is that affected whether Imoen is part of your party or not?
All that business with Imoen being poisoned and unconscious etc., and you have to leave her there and go do other things, that'd have to go. Those dialogues with Liia Jannath about Imoen staying behind and training etc., that'd have to be replaced too.
Seems to me there was no problem, a storyline was decided on that caused problems. Now the problems that were unecessarily created are being used as an excuse for why there can be no alternative.
You are very understanding by saying you will change the way you play Imoen to fit in with the SOD storyline.
There was no need for any of this and the writers of SOD would have been better off doing a little more market research. I find it difficult to understand the thinking behind the decision. As I said earlier, Imoen is popular and a common lament is that her character is undeveloped BG2 because of initial changes when that game was originally produced. SOD could have been a good opportunity to rectify that.
A simple line of dialog from Imoen expressing her desire to study magic would have sufficed to cover the start of BG2. Which would then give agency to the player, keep her and manage her dualing, or let her go and study elsewhere.
NPC's have their demands, that has never been a game breaker before. Don't rescue Dynaheir, Minsc attacks, don't attack the bandit camp quick enough, Kivan leaves, ect.
Seems to me there was no problem, a storyline was decided on that caused problems. Now the problems that were unecessarily created are being used as an excuse for why there can be no alternative.
It was you who said "Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage", so I thought you wanted to keep the current storyline in those cases, whilst still having an option to retain Imoen in the party for those who had already dual-classed her.
I was merely pointing out that this would mean having to have two parallel versions of the story for part of the prologue, and therefore significant extra dev work.
You are very understanding by saying you will change the way you play Imoen to fit in with the SOD storyline.
We are where we are, the story is now what it is. In particular, it is now canonical that Imoen doesn't dual until SoD, so when I'm playing her canonically, that's what I'll now do (instead of the formerly-canonical level 7 dual, which has been retconned).
Pardon me for saying so, but you seem contradictory. You previously said that you like what SoD does with Imoen for those cases in which she wasn't dualled in BG1. Now you seem not to like it. Yet you also seem to be objecting to my pointing out that two different versions of what happens to her in SoD (depending on whether or not she was previously dualled) would require two different versions of the story and cutscenes and dialogue during the prologue (and come to think of it, might also require some smaller two-versions-in-parallel changes at the very end as well, if she might have been in the party).
So it's not at all clear to me what you actually want. But anyway, they're not going to make major changes now.
A simple line of dialog from Imoen expressing her desire to study magic would have sufficed to cover the start of BG2. Which would then give agency to the player, keep her and manage her dualing, or let her go and study elsewhere.
It's much more complicated than "a simple line". Let's consider this in more detail, to illustrate the difficulties that game devs have to consider.
Firstly, if Imoen was in the imported party and already dualled from BG1, then she could have expressed a desire to concentrate on her studies, and the player could have chosen to let her leave (to study with Liia Jannath) or keep her in the party.
Secondly, if Imoen was in the imported party but not already dualled, then Imoen would have had to express a definite determination to change career and compulsorily dualled herself (outside the player's control), in order to ensure that she does indeed dual (to fit the start of BG2). Furthermore, you'd be looking at an Imoen who was (presumably) a level 10 Thief after completing BG1 ... which means she wouldn't get her Thief levels back within the SoD xp cap, so she'd be a somewhat nerfed character throughout SoD if she were allowed in the party, and newbie players (specifically including game reviewers!) wouldn't get the point and would grumble like heck, not to mention that newbie players would also struggle to keep a level 1 Mage alive in the SoD battles, and would grumble about that too. So probably better in this case if it's compulsory for her to leave and study, allowing no option to keep her in the party. (And when we reach BG2 from this case and find that Imoen has been reduced to only 7 Thief levels, we just wave our hands and blame the reduction on Irenicus.)
Thirdly, if Imoen was not in the imported party, then we'd have to meet her if we want her to be playable, and it'd be simplest if she's already compulsorily T7/M8 (rather than T10/M1), as if she'd completed BG1 in (what used to be) the canonical way, even though that might contradict how we actually left her in BG1 (if we had her for a lot of BG1 but switched her out late - no, players don't usually do that, but it's possible), which is something the devs were specifically trying to avoid so far as possible (for continuity) for the other continuing NPCs. Then she can either join us, or leave to study, but that wouldn't be the same dialogue as an existing companion talking about leaving to study.
Fourthly, what about new games started in SoD? It'd be simplest if we meet Imoen only as a pupil of Liia Jannath and never get a chance to recruit her, but if we really want her playable in a newly-started game, then again she'd have to be compulsorily dualled before we meet her, again presumably as T7/M8. Again she can either join us or will leave to study if we decline her, although it'd need yet another different dialogue (this time with added background for strangers) to make sense.
Note that in all four cases, if the outcome is that Imoen leaves to study, then that's a permanent leave, unlike most other situations in SoD where disbanded characters remain available in camp.
Also in all four cases, in order for the game to know how to handle what happens in the palace, the decision point must be before we reach the palace, i.e. in Korlasz's Tomb. Thus if we didn't include Imoen in our imported party or if it's a new start, then we have to meet her hanging around around somewhere in the Tomb. On the other hand, if Imoen was one of our imports, and if the outcome is that she leaves (as I suggest it needs to be in the single-classed case), then our team is one short. So if Imoen was imported, then instead of meeting Imoen hanging around in the Tomb, we need to meet Safana (and be able to recruit her, so we need dialogues for that too), because various things in the Tomb call for a Thief in the party. But hang on, what if Safana was actually imported as well as Imoen? (Again an unusual choice, but devs have to allow for the possibility.) Obviously we can't meet (and don't need!) a second Safana, so scripts have to cause an extra Safana not to spawn in that case.
You see what I mean? There are lots of aspects to consider, and several variations of dialogue to write, and various scripts to handle different variations, and these are only the complications which have occurred to me while writing this, no doubt there are other details which didn't occur to me.
So it's not just "a simple dialogue", it takes some serious thinking through. To do it all properly, involving changing cutscenes depending upon whether Imoen was in or out, several alternate-dialogue sets, consequent changes for the handling and dialogues of other characters (e.g. Safana), and so on, it's all going to add up to significantly more work than just writing a line.
I'm sure it'd all have been do-able, but they evidently decided against doing it. A pity, because I'll agree with you that it'd have been better, but I guess Beamdog had to make hard choices with limited resources.
First off I didn't post this, "Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage".
This is my position. I don't play with Imoen, not ever, can't stand her as she is in BG. I was posting in this thread because I believe the OP has a valid point.
As far as I am concerned, it makes enough sense to be serviceable that Irenicus teaches Imoen magic if you played with her in BG and kept her as a thief. Not perfect but OK. If you did dual her in BG, it fits anyway so no problem, it doesn't even need to be mentioned.
That is a liveable situation that could exist before the release of SOD.
SOD is where it gets tricky. For some reason it was not acceptable for Imoen to learn magic from Irenicus if she hadn't been dualed. Eventhough, as I pointed out earlier in the thread, there is space/room/the possibility/reasons for that happening, including him realising she a Bhaalspawn which could be an excuse for why she learns fast. It's a grey area and can be used however people want, I think BG2 deliberately left some ambiguity about what happened in CI and how long they were there.
The developers gave themselves the problem (unecessarily) and solved it badly IMO. Especially for players who have played the game for many years and were hoping for an expansion to characters they were fond of.
And Imoen, because of the cack handed way she was treated in BG2 with the late decision not to kill her off and the consequential lack of development, would be a prime candidate. Especially as she is so central to the plot of BG2.
You have correctly pointed out the difficulties in more detail than I have thought about. But many of the problems should never have existed. All that crap in the first dungeon with imoen as "your conscience and your guide" a la Jimminy Cricket. Just why?
Keep the grey areas, use them as "poetic license" that has been accepted since BG2 released and "I see dead people" in CI when it comes to Jaheira/Khalid/Imoen/Dynaheir/Minsc (few of them survive my attentions in BG).
However, the additional option for continuing in the party would have knocked out chunks of the SoD story in the prologue - the attack in the palace, and so on.
What do you base this on? The attack on the palace would have happened because you're there, not because Imoen was learning magic at the time.
They'd have had to write and code some alternate treatment, which would nevertheless have brought us to the same point when we set out, in order to fit the rest of the story. Obviously that would have been a non-trivial chunk of extra time and effort, when they were already busting a gut to get it done. I guess they decided it was just too much to do.
I can sympathize, but at a certain point that's not a great explanation. At the very least they could have woven her not being available into
her poisoning during the attack on the palace. Other than bit of extra personal motivation for the PC, there was no further story effect at that point than to act as an additional deus ex for why Imoen couldn't join you.
Allowing her to be a part of the intro dungeon and having some alternate lines would have served the story better.
On the other hand, now that SoD is part of the saga, I'm thinking that I may change the way I play Imoen in BG1ee to suit the new story. In the past, it's been my usual habit to dual-class Imoen to Mage from level 7 Thief, for consistency with BG2ee. Now, perhaps it's more natural to keep her single-classed throughout BG1ee, and let SoD take care of dual-classing her "behind the scenes".
Removing features from a game to keep it on the rails is generally a poor design decision, IMHO. All that's needed a plausible explanation to account for player actions, which takes extra coding, but that's part of the deal in developing such a game. Not that I don't appreciate the developers work -- I bought the expansion and enjoyed it -- but it goes hand in hand with the job.
That route then creates a new discrepancy, since Imoen will now be a level 10 Thief level by the end of BG1ee, immediately before dualling, whereas the start of BG2ee will still show her as having somehow regressed to be only a level 7 Thief when she dualled. For that, I guess we'll just have to resort to the old hand-waving about "Irenicus's tortures caused it". Oh well.
Imoen can always be edited in EE Keeper to fit a particular story's progression better.
It would be great if Wizards/Hasbro should allow the developers to make reasonable continuity changes, but that's not in the cards. My only real issue with the treatment that
Irenicus received in SoD is that it jumps the rails when you transfer over to BG2. My character knows who he his and what he's done, with a strong personal motive to stop his villainy, which doesn't fit the vague, relatively obscured captor that is presented at the start of BG2.
I also hope something gets added to BG2 to tie up what happened with Skie and the Soultaker Dagger.
This is one among many poor design decisions in SoD. Of course, changing it now would be too difficult. However, designing Imoen to fit better from the beginning would have not been difficult.
@Objulen As soon as I solve some RL issues and finish my kits mods, I'll start to work in some closure for Soultaker Dagger. I have the story already, but will need to learn a lot of new and non-intuitive things to make it happen.
In any business, most things are better than upsetting the customer base.
If I may summarise your argument, what you're saying is "keep grey areas for players to head-canon around the continuity issues between BG1 and BG2". However, as soon as a developer makes any attempt to write a connecting story to fill in the gaps, a lot of grey areas are bound to be coloured in, and thereby some previous head-canons are inevitably going to be disrupted, and that's always likely to upset those customers whose own cherished assumptions are affected. Thus the implication of your argument is that SoD should never have been produced at all (nor any other attempt to fill the gaps).
Now that's not an unreasonable position to take, it's a sensible conservative caution. Nevertheless, in return for having substantial new BG content to play, I'm willing to accept the price of invalidating some previous head-canon (and yes, including some of my own former assumptions, else I'd merely be giving away other people's currency). I don't find the way they've done it in SoD exacts an unacceptably high price overall (although obviously YMMV), even though some aspects (mostly dialogue-writing, IMO) could fairly easily have been done a little better.
In any business, most things are better than upsetting the customer base.
If I may summarise your argument, what you're saying is "keep grey areas for players to head-canon around the continuity issues between BG1 and BG2". However, as soon as a developer makes any attempt to write a connecting story to fill in the gaps, a lot of grey areas are bound to be coloured in, and thereby some previous head-canons are inevitably going to be disrupted, and that's always likely to upset those customers whose own cherished assumptions are affected. Thus the implication of your argument is that SoD should never have been produced at all (nor any other attempt to fill the gaps).
Now that's not an unreasonable position to take, it's a sensible conservative caution. Nevertheless, in return for having substantial new BG content to play, I'm willing to accept the price of invalidating some previous head-canon (and yes, including some of my own former assumptions, else I'd merely be giving away other people's currency). I don't find the way they've done it in SoD exacts an unacceptably high price overall (although obviously YMMV), even though some aspects (mostly dialogue-writing, IMO) could fairly easily have been done a little better.
Apology accepted, its easy to get mixed up.
I don't think you have summerised my argument, sorry to say, you've errected something of a strawman there.
The first question that should be answered is "what did the customers want?" I'd say overwhelmingly the answer would be "more Baldurs Gate" Whatever form that takes cannot be justified by the answer "more BG" which is what you are trying to do.
SOD is good in parts. Where it falls down (and in my view badly) is where it has gone overboard on the whole "we must connect everything and always have BG2 at the centre of what we are doing". In other words, where we are going, not where we came from or where we are now. In SOD that translates to heavy handed unecessary shadowing of future events and disregard for "the story so far".
In some ways it's negatively affected both BG and BG2. BG makes less sense because there is this huge crusade happening at the same time yet it's never mentioned. Companions from BG have been changed and inconsistances introduced.
BG2 no longer stands as this mystery you have to solve, who is the man who captured you and what does he want. BG2 is quite deliberate in the way it delivers you in the middle of a crisis (imprisonment by a madman) with no understanding of why, in order to build the narrative from a start point. That's intelligent storytelling.
BG2 was the more succesful product, no question. But a commercial decision to cash in on it's success rather than an artistic one to expand BG1 and the world that produced BG2 was a missed opportunity IMO.
Comments
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Really? This sounds like the whiniest excuse ever to commit mass murder - not that there actually can be any excuse for that. I don't want to be less powerful than my lover, therefore I'm going to attempt a grab at godhood, nevermind that this could result in the exctinction of the entire elven race. Thousands of elves dead? Who cares.
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it's not about power, it's about being acknowledged.
* So one of the most powerful elven mages to ever live tried to attain Godhood. He did this in a way which threatened to kill all nearby elves, and which nearly did.
- You say this is justified because his girlfriend was BFF with the elven gods? He is justified and excused for sacrilege and complete disregard to the safety of others because he had to be in a higher social position than his girlfriend?
I'm sorry, but bullshit. Nobody gets to excuse such behavior because of insecurity.
* You blame ellisime for her exile of him and say you imagine her smirking.
- Where do you get that from? All we see from her is that she didn't kill him for crimes deserving death, and wanted him to repent for his crimes so he could come back to the city. Where is the smirking in that? I personally think she was foolish in letting her love for him stay off a proper execution. And that comes from her dialogue towards him.
* You blame Bodhi for egging him on.
- So what? He's an adult elf who has lived for hundreds to thousands of years. He should know that casually causing the deaths of the elves around him and threatening their connection to the divine is a BAD thing to do. Regardless of what his sister tells him.
* You say that you can't imagine asking for forgiveness. Let's try this.
Your girlfriend is the Mayor of the city you live in. You are the city's wealthiest business owner. You feel insecure that she is in charge while you are not. So you decide that you are going to be the Governor! That way you can assuage your insecurity, which is egged on by your sister who wants your nepotism. So to become Governor, you hatch a plot where you will take the State's congress hostage and force them to put you in charge. Your plot is incredibly dangerous to everyone in the State Capital. Your plan almost works, but you are arrested and many people die or are injured because of you.
You face the death penalty. But your girlfriend loves you, so she pulls some strings and gets you life in prison. She hopes that if you show good behavior and repent, she can get you paroled .
You now have three options:
(1) Break out of prison. Kidnap and murder two wealthy people for their money. Kidnap your ex-girlfriend and then repeat your plan to take over the Capitol. Only this time you plot with a foreign government who hates your country, and you murder many fleeing civilians while doing so, and watch as foreign fighters occupy/destroy the city.
(2) You show contrition, think long and hard about your insecurities and the harm you did, and ask for forgiveness. If it is accepted, then you get your freedom back. Choose whether you want to live in the city with your girlfriend or leave to start a new life.
(3) If you think that death is better, kill yourself. Do it to escape the sentence. But don't hurt any more innocents.
----
Does that put this in perspective? The example I gave is a direct parallel to the game. I can't see how anyone can not blame the guy either way.
I can blame Irenicus when he did the whole stuff the first time. And I can tell, damn you fucked up. But I can't blame him for doing it again, because the curse he was set upon was worse than actual death.
"My country put me in solitary confinement for my crimes. They kept me there until I would say sorry for the many murders I committed. It was inhumane!"
Arthas: "My god, that is horrible. So what did you do?"
"I broke out, allied with terrorists, and killed lots and lots of innocent civilians!"
Arthas: "I blame you for the first set of murders. But the second? Nope, can't blame you for that."
I wonder how many people here get it?
Now you've got me thinking about how cool a World of Baldur's Gate would be.
Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage, but it would have been better, IMHO, if SoD had accounted for an Imoen that was already as magically skilled (potentially) as the PC.
However, the additional option for continuing in the party would have knocked out chunks of the SoD story in the prologue - the attack in the palace, and so on. They'd have had to write and code some alternate treatment, which would nevertheless have brought us to the same point when we set out, in order to fit the rest of the story. Obviously that would have been a non-trivial chunk of extra time and effort, when they were already busting a gut to get it done. I guess they decided it was just too much to do.
On the other hand, now that SoD is part of the saga, I'm thinking that I may change the way I play Imoen in BG1ee to suit the new story. In the past, it's been my usual habit to dual-class Imoen to Mage from level 7 Thief, for consistency with BG2ee. Now, perhaps it's more natural to keep her single-classed throughout BG1ee, and let SoD take care of dual-classing her "behind the scenes".
My runs through SoD thus far (bar one) have been parties which I had parked at the end of BG1ee before SoD came out, waiting for SoD before proceeding to BG2ee, and in all of those Imoen (if included at all) was already dual-classed, and I've still got some more of those parties waiting to complete their runs.
For new parties starting from Candlekeep, however, I may henceforth plan for Imoen to remain single-classed during BG1ee. I haven't quite decided yet, but it seems to me to make more sense of SoD this way.
That route then creates a new discrepancy, since Imoen will now be a level 10 Thief level by the end of BG1ee, immediately before dualling, whereas the start of BG2ee will still show her as having somehow regressed to be only a level 7 Thief when she dualled. For that, I guess we'll just have to resort to the old hand-waving about "Irenicus's tortures caused it". Oh well.
Honest question.
What parts of the SOD story would have been knocked out in the prologue if Imoen had been allowed to be recruitable?
How would it have affected the attack in the palace?
Caelar/whatsisname needed Charname's blood, how is that affected whether Imoen is part of your party or not?
Now the problems that were unecessarily created are being used as an excuse for why there can be no alternative.
You are very understanding by saying you will change the way you play Imoen to fit in with the SOD storyline.
There was no need for any of this and the writers of SOD would have been better off doing a little more market research.
I find it difficult to understand the thinking behind the decision.
As I said earlier, Imoen is popular and a common lament is that her character is undeveloped BG2 because of initial changes when that game was originally produced.
SOD could have been a good opportunity to rectify that.
A simple line of dialog from Imoen expressing her desire to study magic would have sufficed to cover the start of BG2. Which would then give agency to the player, keep her and manage her dualing, or let her go and study elsewhere.
NPC's have their demands, that has never been a game breaker before. Don't rescue Dynaheir, Minsc attacks, don't attack the bandit camp quick enough, Kivan leaves, ect.
I was merely pointing out that this would mean having to have two parallel versions of the story for part of the prologue, and therefore significant extra dev work. We are where we are, the story is now what it is. In particular, it is now canonical that Imoen doesn't dual until SoD, so when I'm playing her canonically, that's what I'll now do (instead of the formerly-canonical level 7 dual, which has been retconned). Pardon me for saying so, but you seem contradictory. You previously said that you like what SoD does with Imoen for those cases in which she wasn't dualled in BG1. Now you seem not to like it. Yet you also seem to be objecting to my pointing out that two different versions of what happens to her in SoD (depending on whether or not she was previously dualled) would require two different versions of the story and cutscenes and dialogue during the prologue (and come to think of it, might also require some smaller two-versions-in-parallel changes at the very end as well, if she might have been in the party).
So it's not at all clear to me what you actually want. But anyway, they're not going to make major changes now. It's much more complicated than "a simple line". Let's consider this in more detail, to illustrate the difficulties that game devs have to consider.
Firstly, if Imoen was in the imported party and already dualled from BG1, then she could have expressed a desire to concentrate on her studies, and the player could have chosen to let her leave (to study with Liia Jannath) or keep her in the party.
Secondly, if Imoen was in the imported party but not already dualled, then Imoen would have had to express a definite determination to change career and compulsorily dualled herself (outside the player's control), in order to ensure that she does indeed dual (to fit the start of BG2). Furthermore, you'd be looking at an Imoen who was (presumably) a level 10 Thief after completing BG1 ... which means she wouldn't get her Thief levels back within the SoD xp cap, so she'd be a somewhat nerfed character throughout SoD if she were allowed in the party, and newbie players (specifically including game reviewers!) wouldn't get the point and would grumble like heck, not to mention that newbie players would also struggle to keep a level 1 Mage alive in the SoD battles, and would grumble about that too. So probably better in this case if it's compulsory for her to leave and study, allowing no option to keep her in the party. (And when we reach BG2 from this case and find that Imoen has been reduced to only 7 Thief levels, we just wave our hands and blame the reduction on Irenicus.)
Thirdly, if Imoen was not in the imported party, then we'd have to meet her if we want her to be playable, and it'd be simplest if she's already compulsorily T7/M8 (rather than T10/M1), as if she'd completed BG1 in (what used to be) the canonical way, even though that might contradict how we actually left her in BG1 (if we had her for a lot of BG1 but switched her out late - no, players don't usually do that, but it's possible), which is something the devs were specifically trying to avoid so far as possible (for continuity) for the other continuing NPCs. Then she can either join us, or leave to study, but that wouldn't be the same dialogue as an existing companion talking about leaving to study.
Fourthly, what about new games started in SoD? It'd be simplest if we meet Imoen only as a pupil of Liia Jannath and never get a chance to recruit her, but if we really want her playable in a newly-started game, then again she'd have to be compulsorily dualled before we meet her, again presumably as T7/M8. Again she can either join us or will leave to study if we decline her, although it'd need yet another different dialogue (this time with added background for strangers) to make sense.
Note that in all four cases, if the outcome is that Imoen leaves to study, then that's a permanent leave, unlike most other situations in SoD where disbanded characters remain available in camp.
Also in all four cases, in order for the game to know how to handle what happens in the palace, the decision point must be before we reach the palace, i.e. in Korlasz's Tomb. Thus if we didn't include Imoen in our imported party or if it's a new start, then we have to meet her hanging around around somewhere in the Tomb. On the other hand, if Imoen was one of our imports, and if the outcome is that she leaves (as I suggest it needs to be in the single-classed case), then our team is one short. So if Imoen was imported, then instead of meeting Imoen hanging around in the Tomb, we need to meet Safana (and be able to recruit her, so we need dialogues for that too), because various things in the Tomb call for a Thief in the party. But hang on, what if Safana was actually imported as well as Imoen? (Again an unusual choice, but devs have to allow for the possibility.) Obviously we can't meet (and don't need!) a second Safana, so scripts have to cause an extra Safana not to spawn in that case.
You see what I mean? There are lots of aspects to consider, and several variations of dialogue to write, and various scripts to handle different variations, and these are only the complications which have occurred to me while writing this, no doubt there are other details which didn't occur to me.
So it's not just "a simple dialogue", it takes some serious thinking through. To do it all properly, involving changing cutscenes depending upon whether Imoen was in or out, several alternate-dialogue sets, consequent changes for the handling and dialogues of other characters (e.g. Safana), and so on, it's all going to add up to significantly more work than just writing a line.
I'm sure it'd all have been do-able, but they evidently decided against doing it. A pity, because I'll agree with you that it'd have been better, but I guess Beamdog had to make hard choices with limited resources.
Woah, complicated post.
First off I didn't post this,
"Including Imoen's magical studies in SoD was a great move for games that never dual-classed her into a Mage".
This is my position.
I don't play with Imoen, not ever, can't stand her as she is in BG.
I was posting in this thread because I believe the OP has a valid point.
As far as I am concerned, it makes enough sense to be serviceable that Irenicus teaches Imoen magic if you played with her in BG and kept her as a thief.
Not perfect but OK.
If you did dual her in BG, it fits anyway so no problem, it doesn't even need to be mentioned.
That is a liveable situation that could exist before the release of SOD.
SOD is where it gets tricky.
For some reason it was not acceptable for Imoen to learn magic from Irenicus if she hadn't been dualed. Eventhough, as I pointed out earlier in the thread, there is space/room/the possibility/reasons for that happening, including him realising she a Bhaalspawn which could be an excuse for why she learns fast. It's a grey area and can be used however people want, I think BG2 deliberately left some ambiguity about what happened in CI and how long they were there.
The developers gave themselves the problem (unecessarily) and solved it badly IMO.
Especially for players who have played the game for many years and were hoping for an expansion to characters they were fond of.
And Imoen, because of the cack handed way she was treated in BG2 with the late decision not to kill her off and the consequential lack of development, would be a prime candidate. Especially as she is so central to the plot of BG2.
You have correctly pointed out the difficulties in more detail than I have thought about.
But many of the problems should never have existed. All that crap in the first dungeon with imoen as "your conscience and your guide" a la Jimminy Cricket.
Just why?
Keep the grey areas, use them as "poetic license" that has been accepted since BG2 released and "I see dead people" in CI when it comes to Jaheira/Khalid/Imoen/Dynaheir/Minsc (few of them survive my attentions in BG).
Surely better than upsetting your customer base?
SarkIrenicus to "train her, let her hope for a while, and then blow her away"...Maybe Sorcerer, but never wizard. Of all the classes, never wizard.
It would be great if Wizards/Hasbro should allow the developers to make reasonable continuity changes, but that's not in the cards. My only real issue with the treatment that
I also hope something gets added to BG2 to tie up what happened with Skie and the Soultaker Dagger.
If I may summarise your argument, what you're saying is "keep grey areas for players to head-canon around the continuity issues between BG1 and BG2". However, as soon as a developer makes any attempt to write a connecting story to fill in the gaps, a lot of grey areas are bound to be coloured in, and thereby some previous head-canons are inevitably going to be disrupted, and that's always likely to upset those customers whose own cherished assumptions are affected. Thus the implication of your argument is that SoD should never have been produced at all (nor any other attempt to fill the gaps).
Now that's not an unreasonable position to take, it's a sensible conservative caution. Nevertheless, in return for having substantial new BG content to play, I'm willing to accept the price of invalidating some previous head-canon (and yes, including some of my own former assumptions, else I'd merely be giving away other people's currency). I don't find the way they've done it in SoD exacts an unacceptably high price overall (although obviously YMMV), even though some aspects (mostly dialogue-writing, IMO) could fairly easily have been done a little better.
Apology accepted, its easy to get mixed up.
I don't think you have summerised my argument, sorry to say, you've errected something of a strawman there.
The first question that should be answered is "what did the customers want?"
I'd say overwhelmingly the answer would be "more Baldurs Gate"
Whatever form that takes cannot be justified by the answer "more BG" which is what you are trying to do.
SOD is good in parts. Where it falls down (and in my view badly) is where it has gone overboard on the whole "we must connect everything and always have BG2 at the centre of what we are doing".
In other words, where we are going, not where we came from or where we are now.
In SOD that translates to heavy handed unecessary shadowing of future events and disregard for "the story so far".
In some ways it's negatively affected both BG and BG2.
BG makes less sense because there is this huge crusade happening at the same time yet it's never mentioned.
Companions from BG have been changed and inconsistances introduced.
BG2 no longer stands as this mystery you have to solve, who is the man who captured you and what does he want. BG2 is quite deliberate in the way it delivers you in the middle of a crisis (imprisonment by a madman) with no understanding of why, in order to build the narrative from a start point. That's intelligent storytelling.
BG2 was the more succesful product, no question. But a commercial decision to cash in on it's success rather than an artistic one to expand BG1 and the world that produced BG2 was a missed opportunity IMO.