Imoen (MASSIVE SPOILERS) (MASSIVE RANT)
Permidion_Stark
Member Posts: 4,861
There now follows a rant on behalf of the Imoen Fan Club (of which I am Un-elected President for Life)
What have writers got against Imoen? BG2 was bad enough, they turn her into a mage and then lock her in a dungeon for half the game. Then SoD comes along. Imoen is in the game but she won't join your party. She will, however, follow you through the first dungeon. If she can walk through the dungeon why can't she be in the party? It makes no sense and it is absolutely infuriating.
The reason we are given for Imoen not being able to come on the big adventure is that she has to learn magic (though she herself says she doesn't want to help fight Caelar Argent because she wants some peace and quiet - seriously Imoen wants peace and quiet?) but if she is going to be an 8th level mage by the time she is in Irenicus's dungeon she must already have started to do that. I think you can only go up one or two levels in SoD so wouldn't she have been a 6th level mage at the start of it? That would be perfectly adequate for the start of the game. People who like continuity (me) could have dualled Imoen in BG1 at the right point so that it all made sense. (I might have got the actual levels wrong here - I'm in mid rant and can't be bothered to look it up - but you get the point).
Now, in fairness, I knew all of this before I bought SoD. I didn't buy it when it came out because when I discovered Imoen wasn't going to be a joinable NPC I realised that this wasn't going to be the game for me. However, once I had calmed down a bit (it took over a year) I thought I would give the game a go. And at first I was enjoying it. Once I had got over the disappointment of not being able to have Imoen in my party it didn't seem like a bad game.
And then I got to the end. And I changed my mind completely. It is terrible. And it goes on forever. And the worst part is:
At that point I was sitting there with my head in my hands saying please let this end.
Only it didn't end it just kept going on and on and it just kept getting worse.
Here endeth the rant on behalf of the IFC.
What have writers got against Imoen? BG2 was bad enough, they turn her into a mage and then lock her in a dungeon for half the game. Then SoD comes along. Imoen is in the game but she won't join your party. She will, however, follow you through the first dungeon. If she can walk through the dungeon why can't she be in the party? It makes no sense and it is absolutely infuriating.
The reason we are given for Imoen not being able to come on the big adventure is that she has to learn magic (though she herself says she doesn't want to help fight Caelar Argent because she wants some peace and quiet - seriously Imoen wants peace and quiet?) but if she is going to be an 8th level mage by the time she is in Irenicus's dungeon she must already have started to do that. I think you can only go up one or two levels in SoD so wouldn't she have been a 6th level mage at the start of it? That would be perfectly adequate for the start of the game. People who like continuity (me) could have dualled Imoen in BG1 at the right point so that it all made sense. (I might have got the actual levels wrong here - I'm in mid rant and can't be bothered to look it up - but you get the point).
Now, in fairness, I knew all of this before I bought SoD. I didn't buy it when it came out because when I discovered Imoen wasn't going to be a joinable NPC I realised that this wasn't going to be the game for me. However, once I had calmed down a bit (it took over a year) I thought I would give the game a go. And at first I was enjoying it. Once I had got over the disappointment of not being able to have Imoen in my party it didn't seem like a bad game.
And then I got to the end. And I changed my mind completely. It is terrible. And it goes on forever. And the worst part is:
I'm locked in a prison cell and I've lost all my friends. All except Imoen. She still believes in me. And she comes to save me. Except she doesn't. Apparently my incredibly smart Mage/Thief best friend can't find a way past the Flaming Fist guards . But what she can do is hire a thug who can get into the prison and slit the guards' throats.
At that point I was sitting there with my head in my hands saying please let this end.
Only it didn't end it just kept going on and on and it just kept getting worse.
Here endeth the rant on behalf of the IFC.
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Comments
I did the latter because I was too stupid to realise my paladin-20-rep-only-good-deeds PC would have to, so I got that evil-assassin-cut-throats end, as well.
I didn't have so much problem with Imoen going her own way (definitely do not qualify for the Imoen Fan Club, although I like her in BG1 very much and hate her role in BGII), but I was absolutely shocked by this ending for my super-duper paladin heroine. (I even made a bugreport at BeamDog's Redmine. They changed it to "Feature Request" aka "We won't change this.")
(There exists another ending for PCs that qualified by the game engine for a "good" ending, but I didn't know that until later. And it doesn't soothe me - I still think it's total nonsense if a PC like mine has to list the things she did herself, after Belt just said "Our diviners have presented evidence of your deeds since leaving Baldur's Gate, deeds that speak to your character." - Stupid me.)
I was playing a paladin as well and I tried to only do good stuff all the way through (I lost Viconia for the umpteenth time just before the end because my rep was too high, so I went into Hell without a cleric) . I did poison the food but I argued for the poison that just made the crusaders sick (and I would love to hear an argument that says that is worse than blowing them to kingdom come).
And I didn't really try to defend myself because by the time of the trial I was so annoyed with the game that I just wanted it to be over. I hated the 'plot twist' involving Skie and I felt I was being railroaded in a particularly stupid way. At this point the game couldn't end quick enough for me and it just seemed to go on forever.
I actually agree with you about Imoen in BG2. I love her in BG1 and hated what they did with her in BG2 (it's not a game I play much. I usually lose interest before I get to Spellhold to get her back). That's why I initially had high hopes for SoD. I thought I'd be able to go adventuring with the real Imoen, the happy-go-lucky one who hadn't been subjected to torture. No such luck.
"I was actually surprised to hear Safana had replaced Imoen in-party in the opening dungeon. I guess it makes sense from a game balance perspective, but I had assumed players would (unfortunately) start one NPC down if they finished BGEE with Imoen along.
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."
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/808056#Comment_808056
If you kill Imoen (or Imoen is killed during the adventure and you don't resurrect her) then Jon Irenicus turns up takes her body and brings her back to life so he can torment her in his dungeon. Problem solved. Everyone is happy.
Anyway, he didn't show up at the end of the game, though for some reason Safana, who got fried in Hell, was still showing up as a dead character in my party. (She was with me as a dead character in my prison cell as well, which seemed a bit odd)
I don't know what the right decisions would have been here; in fact, maybe there wasn't a good set of decisions, just a least bad set. (I have done enough software development and parenting to know that "least bad" is often the best you can do.)
Still I do plan to get the game once the OS X/iOS updates come through. Partly because I want to support Beamdog's efforts, partly because I'm a completionist, and partly because it's new BG adventures! Yay!
During the trial, The judge will ask you to identify things you've done to prove your case that you couldn't (or wouldn't) have killed Skie. The player will have dialog options that appear based upon various global variable settings (See below). If the global is set, the dialog option appears, selecting that dialog option gives he either "Heroic" or "Villain" points. To trigger the Exile ending you must have (I think) 3 Hero or Villain points out of slightly more than that options to get them...meaning the choices the player makes throughout the game must be mostly consistent to obtain Exile.
If you have done either consistent good *OR* consistent evil acts, you have enough evidence to prove your innocence. In the case of playing "Good" you convince them that you aren't the kind of person who'd have killed Skie. In the case of playing evil, you convince them that had you wanted Skie to be dead, you'd have killed her without remorse and without question...that the circumstances surrounding Skie's death are too shrouded for your obviously clear evil acts to have made it you who did it.
To get technical, the "Escape" ending is triggered when you cannot or do not trigger the exile ending...it is the "default". Remember that players MUST not only accomplish the events to obtain the right global settings, but must ALSO identify those choices within the dialog of the Trial to obtain the ending. As an example, in the Cyric Temple you can attempt to reform a previous priestess of Bhaal. If you took the dialog option to tell her to repent for her crimes, you get the following you can say at the trial: "When I met a former servant of Bhaal, I instructed her to atone for her crimes and do good in the world. I am not a slave to my father's will." If you choose to select this option at the trial, the "Hero" counter will increment by a point.
This gives players the option to NOT choose these dialog responses (And force the Escape Path) or to choose the options and potentially take the Exile path.
Technically speaking, the conditions that get you hero / villain points are as follows:
HERO:
* If players attack the crusade and save bridgefort. (Note this does NOT include surrendering Bridgefort)
* If the player told Madele to Repent in Cyric's Temple
* If the player flatly denied Torsin de Lancie's Request to poison the crusaders.
* If the players cured the soldiers in the quest "The Uncommon Cold" in the Allied Siege Camp
* If the PC Tells Thrix in Avernus he'll play for his own soul instead of that of one of his companions.
* If CHARNAME's class is "Paladin" or one of the good Paladin Sub-Classes
* If the player ends SoD with a reputation > 17
VILLAIN:
* If players betray bridgefort by lowering the drawbridge (NOTE: This is NOT surrendering, this is betrayal, a different case).
* If the Player admitted to being a Bhaalspawn when leaving Baldur's Gate at the end of the Prolog
* If the player told Madele to go off and Murder in Cyric's Temple
* If the player Poisoned either the Food or Water in Dragonspear Castle's Basement.
* If the player killed the wrong person in "The Traitor" quest in the Allied Siege Camp
* If the player barters one of his companions souls to Thrix and loses.
* If CHARNAME's class is "Blackguard"
* If the player ends SoD with a reputation < 5
If you select any 3 of these options, you progress on to the Exile Path, if you choose not to, or cannot due to the options not being available, you progress to the Escape ending.
But then again like Permidion said I think I would have preferred to just have it end after you leave Avernus, the rest drags on a bit imo.
And why making the "Villain" ending the default? For some PCs it's absolutely not justified. It leads to experiences like I had, which spoiled the whole game to me very much. I am all with @Permidion_Stark with this one. The game starting with the last rest after returning from hell dimension were a great WTF in cutscene style. Well, I'm just one player so I understand that my opinion doesn't count. I still don't get why my opinion on this trial-evidence counting is wiped away as irrelevant as it is done. Making the "villain" ending default really doesn't fit nor makes sense for some PCs.
Maybe it's me being ESL, but after Eltan stating "Our diviners have presented evidence of your deeds since leaving Baldur's Gate, deeds that speak to your character.", I really thought I get a fair trial without my PC having to gloat about her deeds. Next thing my paladin PC had to walk by was dead guards with their throats cut. I let her stand in her cell for like 5 min thinking "Is this it? I am supposed to leave now? My PC doesn't want to leave. She trusts in the justice the Dukes will bestow on her." I guess she'd sit there, still, if I hadn't given in to the game design. I did so, grinding my teeth. It's a real pity, after I enjoyed SoD up until then very much.
I hope you do enjoy it when you get it. There are good things about it. There's some fun dungeon crawling, for instance. I too was happy to support Beamdog, and hope their future is bright.
We know Beamdog isn't a big company, and it's known that they were under a tight deadline. From what we've heard, there was disagreement about how to link BG1 and BG2. Maybe, given all that, SoD is a pretty darn good game.
That was actually the only reason I discovered that there was an "evil" way to escape Baldur's Gate.
PC: ~Imoen, why can't you train your mage skills while travelling with me, a way that is alright for all the other NPCs?~
Imoen: ~Well, it's because, ummmmmm... oh look - a squirrel!~
Don't get me wrong - I accepted this design choice when playing SoD. It still feels a bit forced.
Not having her in SoD but keeping her out of danger for that campaign and granting her the well deserved rest, did not feel odd to me at all. For me it was a new opportunity. For the first time ever, I took Safana for more than a day into my party. I did not regret it. I don't really like any of the new SoD NPCs except Corwin but Safana was a nice discovery, someone I always neglected, probably because of when and where she appears in BG1. Maybe someone else will have a similar experience with another NPC who was overlooked a bit in the past?
Is it really so hard to do a little side step out of the old down-trodden path?
My reason to play this game again and again after so many years and so many playthroughs is to always discover something new and do things differently from the last time.
I'm a paladin. I can cast first level priest spells. I can't teleport objects and hide them from high level mages. The only way I could have got Soultaker out of the room would have been to hide it up my butt.
Which is to say, by this point I wanted to tell the court (and the game as a whole) exactly where they could stick it.
The cutscene feeling and the impression, that the result of that trial is pre-defined anyhow, may make you think that nothing really matters much what you may say to defend yourself. Only if you played several options (or read in some forum about it), you will become aware that there are different outcomes.
There are several other occasions where your decisions have large impact in SoD. But you will only become aware of it when you tried the options. Most people who are fast to condemn SoD around here, obviously have not even found the options. They only find their proof of why they hate SoD.
The biggest reason and argument against an automated method of stepping forward to identify your deads is that you, the player, cannot make the choices you WANT to make.
Assume you RP a lawful good player who's too shy to admit his good deeds? Imagine playing an evil character who decides he WANTS to take credit for Skie's death?
The reason for the trial at the end of the game was to give players a way to control their own destiny. I don't know about anyone else, but I get annoyed at games that require me to re-play the entire game to get a different ending.
While something like Witcher 3 takes care of this by making the important choices in the last few hours of game play (the rest of the 200+ hours of game play literally does not matter at all to the story as a whole), we didn't feel that did SoD Justice...your choices THROUGHOUT the game should matter...and that meant that without the trial or with some method by which your deeds are automatically revealed, the only way to experience all endings was to replay the entire game in a different way.
As to the original rant, I have my own opinions and I actually agree that there's as much reason for not allowing Jaheria, Khalid, Minsc or Dynahear to be party member companions as there was Imoen. That said, Andrew has/had the reasoning behind the original decision down.
While we may agree or disagree with the original design call, please keep in mind that this game was designed and implemented over the course of over a year. Decisions that make sense at the beginning of a project can make less so by the end...and while that may or may not be the case here (I wasn't around for the original discussion/decision) I do know a LOT of things about SoD Changed in the time between concept and release.
And while I do agree with the OP's rant, the original call made to "preserve" Imoen for the sake of game consistency is not exactly a BAD call either...while the game carries on if there's no Jaheria or Minsc, if Imoen doesn't make it to BG2...there simply is no BG2.
Lastly as to the ending of SoD...
It rubbed me the wrong way also...throughout almost the ENTIRETY of my testing/QA of the project I HATED the SoD Ending...absolutely, without question, and with a passion I've rarely felt for video game endings.
But (to get a little philosophical with everyone) I think that was intended and what was actually needed. After all, the whole REASON for SoD's existence is that ending BG1 on the high note of Saravok bleeding out and everyone going "Whew, glad that's over", and then starting BG2 locked in a cage being tortured really has some major consistency problems...it's that gut check "Wait? What?" Imagine your favorite family sit com where at the end of one episode everyone sits down to a dinner table laughing and having a great time and next week half the family has been brutally murdered from a breakin / homicide and in the opening scene you watch the other half of the now broken family being maltreated by the intruders...this is essentially where Baldur's Gate to Baldur's Gate 2 left us.
SoD exists as a way to take the characters from the High of Killing Saravok to the low of being Irencus's prisoner...and not just his prisoner, but CHARNAME and his entire party being left for dead with no one caring a wit that it's happened. That pretty much necessitates a "bad ending" for the players. After all, how does a highly respected hero who's saved a major city and a major power in the entire region...and is a well known hero of half a continent...end up trapped in a cage in Amn without Baldur's Gate and Amn at complete war over it? Why aren't soldiers from Baldur's gate marching to war to rescue CHARNAME?
The child of Bhaal HAD to fall from grace...and to that end, I think the grating ending of SoD actually provides that feel pretty well. If everyone played the game and had no problems with the ending, I think Beamdog would actually have failed to provide the needed reason for BG2's opening.
And in this way, I actually think the ending to SoD is brilliant.
It's railroading, no question about it, it's definitely one sided and may even be arguably a bit contrived...but that visceral reaction you get when you watch your player fall from his pedestal is, I think, the only real way for the beginning of BG2 to have been believable. And to get there, the player almost has to be railroaded to it...after all, the ending to SoD cannot be avoided...you really can't be making choices as a player since the outcome of all of those choices HAS to be the same.
While I'd be happy to debate the game play aspect of the ending, I absolutely believe that the feel of the ending is EXACTLY the tone that needed to be set for BG2's opening to make sense...and I think once you look at it from the perspective of how the story has to end, I don't think, no matter how much gameplay you put around it, you get there in any better a way than the writers for SoD told it.
As always, the above is my personal opinion and not necessarily the opinions of those Beamdog or others associated with Beamdog.
And no one cares.
No one comes after him. No one asks about him. No one shows up to his rescue or even sends a couple of special forces thieves to track him down.
NOTHING. Its as if CHARNAME never existed to Baldur's Gate. You don't get there with ANY happy ending. You don't get there with ANY ending by which CHARNAME is still considered a hero in Baldur's Gate.
So how do you write an ending to a game whereby Baldur's Gate still remains standing, it's resources and structure intact, and yet you've invalidated 200+ hours of game play through two major missions including a trip literally into Hell to save the city and end the major character up in a dungeon hundreds of miles away with no one giving a care?
Now, you see the challenge of SoD.
Among the very few sci if/fantasy books I liked was the Thomas Covenant series, which I read in high school. One of Covenant's acts in the first book, Lord Foul's Bane, made me so mad I nearly threw the book across the room. It's a great book and I highly recommend it, but damn did that one thing really piss me off. So I can certainly appreciate a non-happy ending, and your explanation of how things had to tie in to CHARNAME in Irenicus' dungeon clears up a lot.