BG2 is not really in an urgency (spoilers)
_Connacht_
Member Posts: 169
It is common opinion that chapter 2 in BG2 puts CHARNAME into an urgency to save Imoen, because while you are roaming Amn doing quests, she gets mind-raped by Irenicus. Thus, it could be seen as a weak point of the plot because either you go doing all the quests, letting time pass while Imoen suffers and gets her soul stolen, or you hurry for Spellhold, leaving a lot of quests behind.
Actually this in my opinion is not totally true or at least not so much significant.
Cutscenes between chapters show that:
- at the beginning of chapter 2, Imoen and Irenicus are convicted to Spellhold.
- at the beginning of chapter 3, two crowled wizards talk about the possibility of practicing enchantment spells on Imoen. It is not told if this was already done and to what extent. They comment on the cuteness of "the girl they brought in", which means she was just noticed. For what we know, they didn't do anything yet but they would like to do some sexual harassment. Soon after their chat, Irenicus breaks free and goes to a rampage. Then he goes to a still sane Imoen (who replies back), anticipating all the mind-rape that she will from this point suffer.
- at the beginning of chapter 4, we actually see that after Irenicus sized Spellhold, he installed all his machineries and tanks in a large room, filled with captive thieves in order to steal souls with his spells, and then he proceed to steal Imoen's soul (who asks for mercy ---> she had suffered at this point his experiments and torture).
That means that meanwhile, during chapter 2, she is not actually being tortured, but she is simply imprisoned.
CHARNAME doesn't know what's going on, he only knows that he needs 20k gold to seek help. All the major quests could be done, especially because a good character still wants to help people, a neutral character might seek to leave not unbalance behind and an evil character is all for the prize and treasures scattered around. Of course, minor quests like the gong easter egg could be perceived as a waste of time while more important matters are around.
Then consider this thing: how much time is required to transport all the materials and prisoners, build and set up that facility in Spellhold, and then steal Imoen's soul? I think that this takes time, especially because later your travel by sea takes many days. Even if we imagine that Bodhi sent materials during chapter 2 in anticipation of Irenicus' rampage, so that he would find everything he needs in order to start work as soon as possible, hurrying chapter 2 and 3 would mean that Irenicus set up his plan in a snapping of fingers. Thus I think that it is more believable if time is passing while CHARNAME is doing some important quests, rather if quests are left behind and CHARNAME is hurrying to spellhold.
It is chapter 6 that actually puts the player in a hurry because CHARNAME and Imoen both lack a soul and are slowly decaying.
Actually this in my opinion is not totally true or at least not so much significant.
Cutscenes between chapters show that:
- at the beginning of chapter 2, Imoen and Irenicus are convicted to Spellhold.
- at the beginning of chapter 3, two crowled wizards talk about the possibility of practicing enchantment spells on Imoen. It is not told if this was already done and to what extent. They comment on the cuteness of "the girl they brought in", which means she was just noticed. For what we know, they didn't do anything yet but they would like to do some sexual harassment. Soon after their chat, Irenicus breaks free and goes to a rampage. Then he goes to a still sane Imoen (who replies back), anticipating all the mind-rape that she will from this point suffer.
- at the beginning of chapter 4, we actually see that after Irenicus sized Spellhold, he installed all his machineries and tanks in a large room, filled with captive thieves in order to steal souls with his spells, and then he proceed to steal Imoen's soul (who asks for mercy ---> she had suffered at this point his experiments and torture).
That means that meanwhile, during chapter 2, she is not actually being tortured, but she is simply imprisoned.
CHARNAME doesn't know what's going on, he only knows that he needs 20k gold to seek help. All the major quests could be done, especially because a good character still wants to help people, a neutral character might seek to leave not unbalance behind and an evil character is all for the prize and treasures scattered around. Of course, minor quests like the gong easter egg could be perceived as a waste of time while more important matters are around.
Then consider this thing: how much time is required to transport all the materials and prisoners, build and set up that facility in Spellhold, and then steal Imoen's soul? I think that this takes time, especially because later your travel by sea takes many days. Even if we imagine that Bodhi sent materials during chapter 2 in anticipation of Irenicus' rampage, so that he would find everything he needs in order to start work as soon as possible, hurrying chapter 2 and 3 would mean that Irenicus set up his plan in a snapping of fingers. Thus I think that it is more believable if time is passing while CHARNAME is doing some important quests, rather if quests are left behind and CHARNAME is hurrying to spellhold.
It is chapter 6 that actually puts the player in a hurry because CHARNAME and Imoen both lack a soul and are slowly decaying.
9
Comments
The *adventuring chapter* in BG2 is designed like the early chapters in BG1 - it is a wide open landscape to explore and solve quests. Take your time. Most mods that add contents to BG2 do it for this part.
Once you leave for Spellhold, the plot narrows down. You have but one way which is to go forward. Once you lost your soul - just like you pointed out - you get a new task to persue Irenicus and get yours and Imoen's souls back. Even if you technically could do some further quests when returning from the Underdark, the emphasis is on getting the Lathorn, help/enter Suldarnessalar and finally face Irenicus to restore yourself. Even if no real time limit is set here, the situation of the city under siege and your soul stolen are to imply some urgency in this part, more than in the early chapters.
But: It's only a solution on a double meta level (and it doesn't work for me). First meta level is that the cutscenes are info to the players, not the PC. And double, because the cutscene telling the player that Imoen was "safe" so far plays at the end of the chapter. The player wasn't supposed to know this while playing chapter 2. While in chapter 2, all the PC knows is that Imoen was taken by hooded figures who are threatening and intend to punish her of some sort, and that the evil over-foe who tortured you two is with them.
So, a PC caring for Imoen is under a lot of pressure which is so high it even makes it hard to justify that it actually makes sense to proceed slowly and to prepare well before going after these two unknown foes. (I had a hard time explaining myself why I am going monster hunting in the Umar Hills while Imoen is abducted. It felt wrong and spoiled the gaming experience.)
Fo me, the whole thing is a design flaw - especially after BG1 where you are chased and threatened by an unknown foe as well, but never have this urgency to rush to a certain point - except maybe at the end to go to the Duchal Palace in time.
Knowing that Imoen was supposed to die in Spellhold, I see her abduction as a mere "drama!!!111" element I wished the devs would not have introduced. (Especially not after the hints of sexual abuse in ID. I mean, seriously - we don't need this kind of drama to make a game interesting, I hope.)
In my opinion, letting her abduction in and just letting her live was the wrong solution to testers complaining about the plot. They should have taken the whole abduction out. No abducted Imoen - but still an evil over-foe threatening the PC, making it necessary to eventually follow him. This would have been the spirit of BG1. Instead, we get this feeling of high time pressure that goes along with the (bad) feeling of having it done wrong no matter whether the PC rushed to Imoen's rescue fast or took time to prepare.
By this time Imoen has advanced (matured may not be the right word for her) to a capable NPC (mage after SoD). She is strong, she is a bhaalspawn. (Irenicus revelation of that fact comes late, too late for one who plays the game with open eyes, you know that long already.) Agreed that her situation is not extremely pleasant but by what you learn about Spellhold, people are not killed there right away.
Agree with @jastey that some may feel that impulse to rescue the damsel but the cautious approach is as well justified. One mod that spoils it for me to some extend is Imoen Romance, the scenes here twist that chapter into this direction, it emphasises her suffering, something that is not in the original game.
One other thing - people have different impressions of Imoen and not every player establishes such a close link to her. I saw some even despise her deeply and never even take her into the party in the earlier game or during the dungeon part. For some others she is the most important persona next to the protagonist. The urgency you feel may well be based on what relationship you establish with her and maybe also how caring a person you even are in real life.
A lawful character might run straight to the Government district and try to make their voice heard before realizing that the Cowled wizards aren't exactly your standard law enforcement (with magic). And then grudgingly accept the help of Gaelan. Not because there's a rush, but because no one else seem to care at all.
- @JoenSo points to the fact that Imoen was taken by the authorities. Depending on how you progress, the insight into Amn's notion of law or justice may come later or sooner.
- We need to *free* ourself from the knowledge we all seem to have after playing the game several times. How did it feel when you were at that point in your first playthrough? I remember that I had Jaheira in my party who told me not to rush blindly after Imoen. Afterwards, there was so much to explore and so many quests offered to me that I felt the rescue project was some long term goal.
- In the unmodded game I think it takes more than 1.5 quests to get the money considering that you need to equip your party as well and bribe the cowls to use magic and have other expenses. In modded games it is recommended to use a tweak that increases the price accordingly.
Do all the quests, Imoen suffers.
And it doesn't matter what Irenicus does at that point, Imoen is locked up in an institution that is used as a warning, a deterent, it has a reputation and not that of a holiday camp.
Don't do all the quests, running around souless as if it doesn't have any effect whilst Sudenesselar gets burned to the ground.
Doesn't matter if you like Imoen or have had nothing to do with her since Candlekeep, still you can't RP the actions you take.
Imoen should have been killed in the promenade fight.
In the same way as BG kills Gorion to launch the story.
It felt like the rescue was urgent, but I'd had a glimpse of how powerful Irenicus was and assumed that the rescue would involve confronting him, so (like you) I listened to Jaheira's advice that we needed to be well-prepared in order to succeed. I therefore took a long time questing in Chapter 2, to improve my levels and equipment.
These days, I tend to go to Spellhold earlier than I first did.
Get the money quick, (and to be quick you wouldn't leave Athkatla and waste days travelling here there and everywhere) struggle through S/H and UD, (avoiding Saemon's offer of course), deliver the lantern, liberate Suldenesselar, kill Irenicus, game over.
I wonder if anybody did that when it first came out always thinking there would be time made in game for playing most of it?
With all the challenges put out for people (solo/LOB ect.) this would be a good one.
Play the whole game doing nothing but the minimum to follow the story. Taking the first people you meet willing to help.
So I'd think slaver quest, shadow thieves quest cause you'd have Yoshimo. That would get you the money, obviously turn down all stronghold offers.
Brynlaw, straight to S/H, no messing around saving Clair, get yourself incarcerated.
S/H, take Imoen and as linear a path as possible, so no delivering stones to portals, no 12 riddles, do you have to do the Golem room?
UD, straight to Ust Nathar after getting the light gem.
UN, no fighting pits, no Quilue's brain, no Jaraxle, only one component for the portal.
Back to Athkatla, straight to Bodhi, pick up the lantern, no reviving love interest, back to the Elves.
Suldenesselar then Irenicus.
Crap armour, crap weapons, crap spells, crap XP.
It would be carnage lol.
Mechanically, they succeeded pretty well. However, the wider-open you leave the players' options, the more difficult it inevitably becomes to keep the plotline coherent. They came up with a solution which broadly hangs together, avoiding gross contradictions, whatever sequence of events you choose ... but yes, if you focus on details then it's quite easy to see some weaknesses. The balance between urgency in Chapter 2/3 and urgency in Chapter 6/7 is a clear example, as already alluded to by others above.
Nevertheless, if they had written it in such a way that there was a clear window of non-urgency when your party would have plenty of time to go side-questing, then that would have imposed more of a "natural sequence" on player choices, which (IMO) they were trying to avoid doing.
Thus, Bioware had set themselves a writing task with multiple objectives which were quite difficult to reconcile, and (in spite of the weaknesses) I reckon they actually made a fairly decent job of it.
In an interview about BG2 I read it was said that chapter two got out of hand, that there was no overall vision(?) about where the story was going or how chapter 2 fitted until late in the day.
I think the fact that there is no representation in BG2 of Suldenesselar or Elvish society and then you end up having to save the city/society kind of illustrates that the right hand wasn't too aware what the left hand was doing.
Chapter 2 is the crowning achievement of BG2 because it very much followed the ethos of BG, freedom and involvement. But then that involvement is somewhat lost when you have to deal with a situation which hasn't had any bearing on what you've done so far. "Raising money" is not a good enough reason to tie in the two.
Rather than impose a pre set story on top of what was created organically (make characters you meet, make quests for them, have Charname grow in power) they should have gone along with what they had and built from that. Incorporate the created NPC's into the Irenicus story, as they did in BG (Kivan/Dynaheir/Yeslick/Shar Teel, Harpers, Zhents, the FF ect.).
More difficult I agree.
I see your point but still find it hard to reconcile not going to SH, or at least to the area where it is, as soon as possible. Perhaps you wouldn't storm SH, but would have thought you would get to the vicinity ASAP. You know, so you could visit, put pressure on the CW, petition them, try and bribe them, let Imoen know she hasn't been abandoned.
Where does it state in game that you can't do all the gathering equipment, XP farming and general preparedness using Brynlaw as a base?
That's pretty much what people do in RL no?
Person arrested, OK you don't set up a jailbreak, but you do make sure you are in contact, visit, do what you can for them. And that was even more important in times gone by when corruption was rife.
Not that I ever do, BTW, always do every quest in chapter 2. One thing worse than RPing that everything is hunky dory while I mess around in Amn is pretending everything is hunky dory when I've lost my soul and Sudenesselar is being beseiged.
It's not pretending everything's good but the feeling that one must tread carefully and traps and traitors are everywhere. The cowls and the shadowthieves did not make much difference, just the one were in power and the other illegal. The obvious strategy was to keep hidden, I could not help Imoen right away and I could help her even less by getting myself caught as well. When we received the Umar quest and some NPCs were suggesting that getting out of town was a good thing to do, I agreed. Once that dam was broken, there came quest after quest and somehow I had the feeling that taking *the long road* was the best way to Spellhold. (These are my recollections of my first playthrough of BG2 part, meanwhile I have also done games where I went to Spellhold as fast as I could, but that was more because I wanted to get to the later chapters quickly rather than because of Imoen and those races always appeared more artificial to me, like I was betraying the rest of the game by leaving it out).
We have an in-game precedent for this, after all. When Baron Ployer curses Jahiera to "slowly decay", we *see the decay*. Her physical stats continually decline until she eventually dies from stat drain. That creates a definite sense of urgency. And the lack of that when it comes to my own decay suggests to me much less urgency. Restoring my soul is *important*, but it is not *urgent*; I have some time to figure it out.
Also, unlike the trip to Spellhold, where I didn't know what awaited me, I know *EXACTLY* what is waiting for me in Suldenessar, which is all the more reason to take my time and prepare before confronting it.
In the end it comes pretty much down to your own interpretation in both parts. The above discussion seems to indicate that players can interpret it one way or another. The fact that you are free to see it one way or another in both cases may be one among the factors why the game is still so successful, neither view is really enforced on you.
I expressed my feeling about it in ealier post but I also admit that it is quite subjective. I can well accept the arguments of anyone who has a different feeling. The game obviously allows for both and that is fine. As such it feels slightly disturbing if mods are created to shift this in one or another direction. But then again, everyone is free to use them or not.
BTW I found a mod that delayed the arrival of Brus/Valen/Alternatives until I had a far larger sum of gold a nice solution, I mentioned it here https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/883013#Comment_883013. What felt bad was to have the 20.000, have the option to go to Spellhold and still delay it. As long as you still need to get the money the choice is not yours.)
If we're pretending we're Charname with no metaknowledge, we have no idea where these additional allies might come from. We stumble into Drizzt and Co. just wandering around in the woods, after all. Perhaps if we help with their little problem, Raelis Shai and her troupe will lend aid. Perhaps if we assist Tolgerias with his mission he'll dispatch a contingent of Cowled Wizards to aid our siege of Bhodi's lair.
When wandering Umar Hills, we stumble across a journal of an experienced adventurer who went to investigate the temple ruins; perhaps she and her companions would be willing to assist us against the Vampires if we first assisted her against the Shade Lord?
Garren in Windspear seems well connected with the Order of the Radiant Heart; maybe if we help rescue his child he'll be able to put in a good word for us. Trademeet is a rich town that could perhaps spare some mercenaries or, barring that, perhaps the druids in the grove could send a representative of two.
Hendak and the slaves in the Copper Coronet are proven gladiators who have survived plenty of combat. Nalia has a Keep and plenty of men-at-arms. The various temples surely have a stake in cleaning out a nest of vampires, (pun very much intended), so perhaps they'd devote some high-level members of their order to the cause if we just took care of this pesky cult for them.
As a player with metaknowledge, we know exactly where to go for additional support against Bodhi and the vampires. As a character in the game, though, pretty much every quest could plausibly result in powerful allies. Even something as silly as the Gong quest is given to us by Dennis and his experienced band of mercenaries.
(There are some exceptions, of course. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a justification for solving the Skinner murders or the feuding families in Trademeet, and commissioning a sculpture for the temples would be low on my priority list if destroying an entire beholder cult wasn't already enough to enlist their aid.)
From this standpoint, sidequesting in Chapter 6 could be viewed as making a sincere attempt to honor the elves' own suggestion that we gather allies before coming to their aid.
(I'm not really disagreeing with you, just further demonstrating how a sense of "urgency" can vary from player to player in their own personal headcanons. Personally, I've always felt serious guilt for every delay in Chapter 2, but considered delays in Chapter 6 to be plain-old good sense based solely on in-game knowledge available to charname. He's not wasting away, he's tasked by the elves with recruiting allies before mounting a rescue, and he knows what he's up against and would be compelled to grow more powerful before facing it.)
It leads me to think that perhaps the way you felt when you first played the game somehow defines for any subsequent playthrough, even if you change your protagonist's gender, race, alignment class and all. Your arguments are just as valid when considering them from the point of view of someone who has never played through it before.
Yes, why should a powerful elven city rely on a single bhaalspawn and his handful of comrads to solve their problem? A problem they created in the first place and are even reluctant to admit. In this game the protagonist is used and used again by everyone to solve their problems. Why risk it once again for some uncooperate arrogant elves? Your sole interest may as well be your soul (+ Imoen's maybe) and a good preparation makes sure you will get it. You have seen Irenicus abilities and you probably only have a single chance. Ellesime is just another manipulator trying to make you her puppet. You are a hero you MUST run to the rescue! Must you?
Use Charm/Dispel to save Glaicas in the De'Arnise Keep? He lends his sword to your cause. Save the Druid grove? Master Verthan sends an emissary from the grove to aid you. Destroy the Slavers? Hendak comes out of retirement.
The Planar Sphere could go several ways. If you turned Valygar in to Tolgerias or you took it as your mage stronghold, the Cowled Wizards could help you out. If you cleared it but were not a mage, you could recruit the Knights of Solamnia. Solve the Skinner murders? Maybe Aegisfield leaves his post to help you out. Clear out the temple ruins? Maybe Amauna has enough left in her for one last appearance. And so on, and so forth.
The actual vampire lair would probably be too crowded to pull it off, but that'd be a pretty awesome conclusion to the narrative, bringing everything you did through the course of the game back full circle again.
I've always been grateful for NPC mods- e.g. Adrian I think - which urge you to be cautious and gather powerful magic before pursuing Irenicus. After all the voices of those around the player help to define what is possible in a fantasy world. Even in the absence of a Archmage bashing McGuffin like the rod used to take down the Unseeing Eye there is at least some justification for gathering resources.