I personally think expansions should focus on BG2 and not BG1 because...

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain

because... low-level AD&D characters were not as interesting as high level ones.

Enilwyn

There's something so great about early level simplicity though! Unfortunately classes like monks and mages aren't that exciting early on.

I have a feeling the Bhaalspawn Saga is over. It will be interesting to find out what the new project is.

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain

I generally play as some type of spellcaster. I played a monk once.

Doing spells for battles makes them elaborate and detailed. Like slay a dragon, you must time a timestop, improved alicary, and recast both when they expire while casting lower resist, then greater malison, and finally finger of death. It's like something out of Burn Notice when Adam Weston defeats people using elaborate stuff like power tools engineering something.

Fighting with swords itself is a very difficult and detailed practice, but games usually just make it like chop-chop-chop.

semiticgoddess

Normally, you'd expand the sections most in need of development, and BG2 is already far more developed than BG1 or ToB.

If you based it on player levels, then SoD is actually just about the right fit, much like early BG2 (which is also widely considered the best part of the saga). Most people seem to think that D&D gets interesting around level 7, and stops being interesting around level 15. That's when you get the most interesting spells. Low-level spells aren't as cool, and high-level spells tend to just be stronger versions of Fireball and the like.

Before 7, you're basically just a commoner. After level 15, you're basically just a god.

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain

The best BG2 place is basically something like a Watcher's Keep style area where you can do it before or after you defeat the first part of the game. The Throne of Bhaal besides Watcher's keep isn't as replayable as the main BG2 before that so that's where to spice things up.

lunar

A bg2 expansion seems unlikely.
Maybe they can squeeze it righ between soa's end and tob's beginning, telling your adventures in restored Suldenesselar and the aftermath of SoA, but ultimately, it would have a very limited scope. Cramming another epic like SoD there would not work and seem silly.

But I really had high hopes for future bg2 dlcs for new npcs and quests. Dragon age:origins had it and it was nice, if you wanted more gameplay you could get it for a price.

Well, I wouldn't mind to pay a few bucks for an official new npc (complete with quests/areas/romance) for bg2 for a dlc. Especially if it is a male, non-evil, male romanceable npc with a charming portrait.

Similiarly, a big dungeon like Watcher's Keep may be worth it, too. But sprouting new, big and epic dungeon is harder work, and it has to make sense in the bg2 universe. Afterall, WK has the epitome of epicness and evilness. How can you top that?

Luckily, the mod scene offers some very good npcs and quest mods. For free. Still, I would have loved official new content as dlcs from Beamdog.

bob_veng

BG2EE is already an expansion to classic SoA and ToB if you look at all the added content and locations

it's just a shame that the additions are so fragmental, tied to certain followers but if you add it up together it's a lot of stuff

deltago

I'd love a BG2 expansion, but with a new character that takes place prior to Gorion's Ward escaping Chateaux Irenicus.

Or low level adventures in Athkatla expanding on the backstory of the minor npc characters there.

bob_veng

only legitimate BG2 expansion for me would be:
- meaningful evil paths for all quests
- additional, handcrafted non-violent solutions for the whole of the main campaign and some of the bigger sidequests
- integrated UB
- Legacy of Bhaal mode (the real thing like in SoD)
- xp rebalancing (because of all the additions)
- some large open areas (doesn't have to be that much in them)

CrevsDaak

bob_veng said:

only legitimate BG2 expansion for me would be:
- meaningful evil paths for all quests
- additional, handcrafted non-violent solutions for the whole of the main campaign and some of the bigger sidequests
- integrated UB
- Legacy of Bhaal mode
- xp rebalancing (because of all the additions)
- some large open areas (doesn't have to be that much in them)

You've forgotten:
- Enhanced graphics as faithful as possible to the original game's.
- PvP multiplayer.
- Softcoded AoE projectiles.
- Expanded party size limit.
- Good pathfinding.

bob_veng

pvp multiplayer would be great. i see a lot of possibilities. especially something like a MOBA, and a black pits adaptation for mp

TheArtisan

God no to PvP multiplayer. People would actually start complaining about game balance.

bob_veng

it wouldn't matter so much in PvP ironically, everyone would use the same exploits

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain

bob_veng said:

only legitimate BG2 expansion for me would be:
- meaningful evil paths for all quests

I'd rather have morally ambiguous options. Like you slay a dragon causing trouble for humans and then all his kin think you're a monster.

bob_veng

that's neither likely, nor morally ambiguous in the relevant setting

Kamigoroshi

I personally think expansions should focus on the Icewind Dale franchise. Especially IWDII for that matter, because a joinable Legion of the Chimera was something direly missed. And oozes... can't forget about them oozes!

SirBatince

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain said:

because... low-level AD&D characters were not as interesting as high level ones.

as opposed to ToB where every random joe is level 40 and AC/THACO becomes completely irrelevant?

semiticgoddess

How about an expansion to Planescape: Torment is in order. A slight expansion, maybe just an extra 10% of dialogue, would probably be sufficient. All it would take is another 40 million pages of writing.

megamike15

planescape is fine the way it is.

WarChiefZeke

planescape is one of those masterpieces i would absolutely love to be remade, but i really can not insist enough that they only hire only the very best of writers and have Avellone look at the whole thing. that's a franchise with a very particular, very unique, very easy to mangle feel.

CrevsDaak

WarChiefZeke said:

planescape is one of those masterpieces i would absolutely love to be remade, but i really can not insist enough that they only hire only the very best of writers and have Avellone look at the whole thing. that's a franchise with a very particular, very unique, very easy to mangle feel.

I would change the combat a bit so it's not that bad. I wouldn't even dream of touching anything on the game's writing aspects.

semiticgoddess

Mostly I just mentioned PST to joke about how massive the game text is, saying a 10% expansion would be 40 million pages.

Fardragon

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain said:

because... low-level AD&D characters were not as interesting as high level ones.

Disagree completly. High level gamesplay is boring and broken. 1st and 2nd edition are only really designed for characters up to around level 9, and the games work best up to that point.

DJKajuru

I would appreciate another expansion for bg2, one that fills the gap between leaving suldabesselar and the starting events of ToB.

megamike15

there is nothing to add. you left and went to speak with the heads thats it.

Grum

DJKajuru said:

I would appreciate another expansion for bg2, one that fills the gap between leaving suldabesselar and the starting events of ToB.

It's either as megamike said or watcher's keep.

CrevsDaak

Grum said:

DJKajuru said:

I would appreciate another expansion for bg2, one that fills the gap between leaving suldabesselar and the starting events of ToB.

It's either as megamike said or watcher's keep.

Watcher's Keep is a plot derailment IMO. There's no involvement of it in any way inside any part of SoA nor ToB's questlines. If you compare it to Durlag's Tower, for example, you get a quest (recover tha dagga fer tha dwarven lad) and you have a reason to go there (Ike's tour, which maybe it isn't the best, but it does it's job I guess).

What I mean is, there's no connection from WK to the rest of the game. It's there, you clear it and that's it, you got your items and your XP and that's all folks. Durlag's Tower, in the other hand, has two quests (the dagger and the lost adventurer) and one of them culminates in an epic battle following the completion of said quest.

Also, WK can even be completed in more than a single way... And it changes almost nothing! WK is like a campaign on it's own.

/WK rant

Fardragon

Watcher's Keep is kind of a riff on a remark that I thing was in the 1st edition DMG. It was something about "getting to level 7 and fighting demogorgon" refering to a cliched dungeon. (Also referenced in Stranger Things.)

But I agree, the protagonist has no good reason to go there, unlike Durlag's Tower, which I usually play whilst the protagonist is on the run from the Flaming Fist.

The resources spent on WK would have been better spent on improving ToB. And it inspired that other great waste of resources, the Endless Paths in PoE.

qwalt

Why not have expansions for both? I think pwrsonally like the lower levels better because spells are more effective and there is more strategy needed in my experience. Higher levels you have more spells and better items but it seems more straightforward strategy wise unless you've purposely gimped your character

But I like both they both give different experiences so I think both would be the best way.

I honestly think starting at level 1 again in a different campaign would but gaining experience very fast so you have hlas by the end of i would be the coolest experience

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain

WarChiefZeke said:

planescape is one of those masterpieces i would absolutely love to be remade, but i really can not insist enough that they only hire only the very best of writers and have Avellone look at the whole thing. that's a franchise with a very particular, very unique, very easy to mangle feel.

I've played Planescape:Torment over and over tons of times. Really we just need a bunch of games in that setting.

Of course we need good writing. Not just tons of combat with no plot.

Also sometimes people criticize certain types of these games for being anachronistic. That is, it was it brought in too much culture from the time it was written. Like if you look at the history of cultures in Europe, 2000 years was the start of the Roman Empire and that seems long. But what if we go back 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 years. They had totally different cultures than anything we think of. They generally worshiped an earth-related mother goddess of fertility and shamanism was the main religion, but they had all kinds of changes in art over the time. These fantasy games should be from a completely non-modern perspective were you see how people in a totally different setting viewed everything. Like if you read old folk tales passed down from thousands of years, people had a completely different view of the world. So that's what I mean by good writing, where you see how everyone had a completely different perspective than the world you're from.

The planescape setting is really good and could use some games. Also there's a non-AD&D game system, White Wolf's Old World of Darkness. They made Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines but didn't make anymore. Not many games in this setting were made but the tabletop games were popular.

And for graphics, no first person stuff that gives motion sickness.

Dev6

The BG saga is done and finished IMO.
I'm really glad they made SoD, I love that game, but there's nothing more to expand. There's no expansion possible between BG1 and SoD, SoD and SoA, SoA and ToB, and an expansion post-ToB would be utterly nonsensical.
They could make an in-game expansion á-lá TotSC, sure, but that would throw the balance of the games right out the window, and they're already big enough as it is.

And IWD expansion though... I'm more than down for that.
Or a Black Pits 3 for IWD, that'd be nice too.

MakeAthkatlaGrtAgain said:

Also there's a non-AD&D game system, White Wolf's Old World of Darkness. They made Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines but didn't make anymore. Not many games in this setting were made but the tabletop games were popular.

There's also Vampire The Masquerade Redemption, but that game is crap.
Bloodlines is great though.