Oh, but 98% of it isn't. It's a really great little campaign and it was really fun to play up until when the campaign's content was completed.
What SoD lacks imho is that it doesn't fill the gap between BG1 and BGII in an "explanational" way, and therefore - in my opinion - fails to do what "it was supposed to do". What I mean: Before, we ended up in ID to find that Imoen, Dynaheir, Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid were supposed to be in our party, but we didn't know why. Now, we emerge from a prison to find them ready to join us but we still don't know why. Before, something was hinted that the PC left Baldur's Gate under some dark circumstances that didn't change the fact that no-one knew him in Amn. Now, the PC has to leave BG city under circumstances involving the public and everyone including Petrine's cat* that makes the player wonder how the people in Amn could be so ignorant of his identity. Before, the (ungiven) explanation for no-one coming after the PC or no-one recognising him was "because it's so far away, Amn doesn't care about heros in BG city and Irenicus is a powerful mage" and that was alright. Now, I wonder how a whole city in uproar and a father and Duke who believes the PC to be responsible for his child's death would accept the PC to just vanish out of the BG city prison without causing ripples in the space-time continuum**.
*I'm exaggerating. Petrine's cat was probably in a side-alley, minding her own things.
**Just in case someone didn't came over one of my several complaints concerning the SoD ending: In my first runthrough, I got the bad ending. No-one explains anything to the PC (i.e. the player) about the Dukes letting him go because of riots in the city for the bad ending. The PC just sneaks out of prison and runs, leaving dead guards behind.
@lefreut The thing is that I think the choice of NPCs does make sense. The problam is that it's all up to head canon where I wished SoD to give the explanation. Let me quote what I wrote elsewhere:
1. Why Khalid and Jaheira? -It makes sense that it's Khalid and Jaheira waiting for the PC even if shamed out of town. The PC is still Gorion's ward, and they promised to look after him/her. Maybe they also prefer to be at his/her side than having to hear about an evil Bhaal's child's deeds from a distance. 2. Why Dynahier and Minsc? -Dynaheir and Minsc are in the daschemma (sp?) to find a mighty Bhaal spawn at the Sword Coast. Now, with the PC's heritage not only known but also first effects taking place publicly, I could imagine Dynahier deciding to stay at the PC's side for both support and research, even if the PC is evil. 3. Why Imoen -Imoen could still see the PC as her childhood friend she doesn't want to abandon, maybe hoping that evil deeds were a result of the evil god's heritage. 4. Why would the PC go with them - well, maybe they just don't want to leave him/her now that they decided to help. It could still be they rush the PC to get away from the city first. Then, before the PC can argue about what (s)he wants, the ambush takes place.
So, the choice of NPCs BioWare defined the default party makes sense, and it also fits even if in SoD the PC has to escape the city with no dukal backup.
I only wished it would have been explained better. Because while playing it, it felt like an arbitrary group of NPCs forced onto the player because "it's the ones who have to be in ID".
I was so disappointed the first time I played BG2 because I had thought (perhaps rather naively) that it would be a genuine continuation from BG1. I thought I would load my final save and pick up where I left off with the same party and a new quest to set off on. Instead I found myself stuck in someone else's version of the story I had been playing. It was like being told what you did was wrong and this is what you were supposed to have done. It seemed to negate all the choices I had made throughout BG1.
I hated it at the time and it still has the power to annoy the hell out of me almost 20 years on.
But I agree with @lefreut, there is no credible way to explain the start of BG2 so it will work for everyone, and I think the reason SoD came unstuck at the end is because they attempted the impossible.
When you are railroaded into joining an army to fight a campaign the way others have decided that you must fight it? After the freedom that BG offered?
And lets not even start with the attrotious writing of some of the set pieces. Seriously, you had fun running around that big camp finding out who the traitor was. Or training the recruits. Or deciding the guilt/innocence of some utter stranger in the enemy camp. Or fetching the random objects. Or not being able to shake off your minder in BG itself. Or being followed by Imoen and her bunch of soldiers in the first dungeon. Or not being allowed to tell Caelar Argent that she was a deluded b**** and should just eff off. Or having Irenicus turn up everywhere without being able to do anything about it. Or take the crap being handed out by some of the leaders.
And then to cap it all, the nonsense spewed out at the end. I suppose there was some symmetry with that as it matched the nonsense the game started with. "Hi Imoen, nice to see you and I totally accept that now you can't be fighting alongside me as you did less than a few weeks ago". Or "Go upstairs and find some jars so that I can serve you in this shop".
@UnderstandMouseMagic Yes I DID have fun doing all that. I find the writing of SoD to be, at worst, good across the board. And you can tell Caelar that she is crazy. My charname does so throughout the expansion. Its absolutely fine that you don't like it, but a lot of people do, and that is also fine.
I've been avoiding this thread for a while because I knew that whenever I sat down to write my two cents, it would turn into a full-blown rant. Warning for wall of text and BG/SoD/BG2 spoilers.
When I first read that Imoen wouldn't be a joinable NPC in SoD, I decided not to have a knee-jerk reaction and wait to see how that would work out in-game.
With that said, I thought it to be disheartening. Despite starting out as a last-minute NPC put there just because the game lacked a good-aligned Thief you could recruit right away, BG2 promoted Imoen to a plot-critical NPC.
It's frustrating that when playing the whole saga, you could get to spend all of BG1 with Imoen to have her forcibly removed from your group during the interquel only to get her back for one dungeon and then forcibly removed *again* for the majority of the sequel.
But who knows, right? Maybe they had a good reason to do it.
Then the expansion came out and we're told right away that some time has passed between the end of BG1 and the moment you enter Korlasz's family tomb. You and your companions have been hunting down Sarevok's remaining acolytes while Imoen has been training to become a Mage, which is an unavoidable plot point.
However, since the game does not specify how much time has passed, she could very well have become a functional Thief/Mage in the meantime. Some might argue that it'd be too jarring to have her class updated instantly upon transitioning between BG1 and SoD. Personally, I don't think it's any less jarring than having Safana shoved into your group without any explanation.
But even if I'm wrong, after the prologue ends, we get another jump forward in time and we're told that your party has disbanded and you've taken some time to chill out as a guest of honor at the Ducal Palace. This is yet another opportunity to complete Imoen's transition. But then the attack at the Palace happens and she's taken out of action.
After a few months of not understanding why they would go to such lengths to keep Imoen out of the NPC roster, Andrew Foley (one of Beamdog's writers) made this comment in which he relays the thought process behind the decision like 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
I have to say, with all due respect to Mr. Foley and the rest of the team, that not only the rationale here is deeply flawed, but it's also contradicted by how they've handled NPCs in a position similar to Imoen.
While there's no arguing that she was required to be alive by the end of SoD, so is the case with Minsc, Jaheira, Khalid and Dynaheir. All of them are present in BG2's initial dungeon and therefore, all of them must be alive and with you when you get captured by Irenicus. Nevertheless, all of them are recruitable and can be killed for the entirety of the campaign.
However, killing one of these NPCs during the adventure will not prevent them from showing up at SoD's final moments in which the gap between BG1 and BG2 is bridged - which doesn't have to be a plot hole if you take into account Raise Dead and Resurrection spells.
Do you guys understand why Foley's explanation is so infuriating? He lays out the reason why Imoen couldn't be recruited and then conveniently glosses over the fact that this hotly debated and deeply thought-out design decision was outright ignored when it came to every NPC who's not Imoen (and Irenicus, I suppose, but he was never a joinable NPC anyway).
Not to mention it "solves" a potential inconsistency that was already unavoidable - Imoen can be killed at any given point during BG1's original campaign, which won't prevent her from showing up in SoD anyway.
It makes me feel like my intelligence has been insulted. And since I'm being honest, getting that insight into how the developers reach some decisions retroactively makes me question quite a few other aspects of the EEs for which I have given them a pass during the last few years while remaining a staunch supporter - the not-so-seamless implementation of the new NPCs, the replacement of BG1's original movies, the addition of The Black Pits and the removal of the original versions of the games from GOG as standalone products are the most relevant examples. But I won't get into that now as I don't want to shift the focus of this discussion away from the topic.
-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
.
I'm guessing that the "higher-up" is the type of guy who goes round wearing a tee-shirt that says "The one who spoils it for everybody else." However, what really bugs me is that no one was able to come up with a suitable workaround. I mean SoD is a game in which Irenicus can basically go anywhere and do anything. He is also the guy who ultimately is going to take Imoen to Chateau Irenicus so he can perform experiments on her. If she dies in SoD he can turn up, take her corpse, get her raised and get to work.That is a pretty straightforward solution.
However, to me it was always a problem that didn't need fixing. Imoen can die in BG1 so it doesn't make any sense to argue that she can't be allowed to die in SoD because she has to be alive in BG2.
To clarify: @ThacoBell I'm not calling you a liar. I do remember reading around here about this one being on WotC. But as you can see, the official justification on the other forum totally contradicts that.
He is also the guy who ultimately is going to take Imoen to Chateau Irenicus so he can perform experiments on her.
He takes Gorion's Ward to Chateau Irenicus to perform experiments on them. The party members that join you in Chateau Irenicus were captures of opportunity as they were with GW at time of capture.
Imoen was arrested by the Amnish Magical Police Farce for casting magic missile at Irenicus (himself arrested for a public magical frenzy, though only after Imoen's arrest could be used to his benefit), and that was used by Irenicus to lure GW to Spellhold for more experimentations. That she was also Bhaalspawn wasn't really a factor in the original plan, more of an unexpected bonus.
He takes Gorion's Ward to Chateau Irenicus to perform experiments on them. The party members that join you in Chateau Irenicus were captures of opportunity as they were with GW at time of capture.
I thought the capture of Imoen as well as the Charname was intentional because he wanted a soul for himself and one for Bodhi?
Okay, I've just thought of this. Imoen is out of the party for SoD. Fine, whatever the reason, she's gone. Maybe she needs time to herself and uses dual-classing as an excuse, maybe she is scared by the Bhaal stuff at the end of BG1, whatever. Why not just have her show up at the start of BG2, having also been kidnapped but separately?
I mean, it's easy for me to be the armchair quarterback for this years after SoD came out, with no deadline looming and no one worrying about revenues that fund my paycheck. Still, it might have made the overall trilogy plot smoother. It might also have made the SoD plot worse.
I'm still going to buy it, mind you. I've gotten to prefer Safana and Alora as non-evil thieves, mostly so I can dual Imoen to mage at level 2. But maybe there have been enough lessons learned that new products will have more attention paid to plot and development.
He is also the guy who ultimately is going to take Imoen to Chateau Irenicus so he can perform experiments on her.
He takes Gorion's Ward to Chateau Irenicus to perform experiments on them. The party members that join you in Chateau Irenicus were captures of opportunity as they were with GW at time of capture.
Imoen was arrested by the Amnish Magical Police Farce for casting magic missile at Irenicus (himself arrested for a public magical frenzy, though only after Imoen's arrest could be used to his benefit), and that was used by Irenicus to lure GW to Spellhold for more experimentations. That she was also Bhaalspawn wasn't really a factor in the original plan, more of an unexpected bonus.
This leaves even more plot holes.
OK, we all know Imoen being a Bhaalspawn was a late invention. But why keep pushing that idea onto the game at every opportunity?
The only way they got away with that massive re engineering of the plot (re Imoen Bhaalspawn) in the first place was because it was so plausible that another adopted orphan of roughly the same age ending up in Candlekeep would be a Bhaalspawn. It actually makes more sense that she was, rather than the original premis that she was some randomer.
Irenicus is portrayed as this massively powerful and intelligent protaginist yet we are expected to believe he couldn't have put 2 and 2 together?
It's also made quite clear in CI that Irenicus has been investigating Imoen's potential and that he was aware of it.
We don't know how long they're in CI, and Irenicus gives Imoen's soul to Bodhi as a reward for her help. I haven't paid close attention to the beginning of BG2 (and have only seen SoD through the eyes of others) but it's reasonable to assume that his investigation of Imoen didn't really start until after her capture. Up until he got a good look at her soul, she was just another body for experiments.
From another angle: Don't you think he would have kept Bodhi on-hand (moreso than just in the same city, I mean) if he thought he had a candidate for both his and her soul replacements? Him holing up at Spellhold was an attack of opportunity, not a calculated migration, yet he saw fit to make sure she was there.
To clarify: @ThacoBell I'm not calling you a liar. I do remember reading around here about this one being on WotC. But as you can see, the official justification on the other forum totally contradicts that.
We don't know how long they're in CI, and Irenicus gives Imoen's soul to Bodhi as a reward for her help. I haven't paid close attention to the beginning of BG2 (and have only seen SoD through the eyes of others) but it's reasonable to assume that his investigation of Imoen didn't really start until after her capture. Up until he got a good look at her soul, she was just another body for experiments.
From another angle: Don't you think he would have kept Bodhi on-hand (moreso than just in the same city, I mean) if he thought he had a candidate for both his and her soul replacements? Him holing up at Spellhold was an attack of opportunity, not a calculated migration, yet he saw fit to make sure she was there.
But Irenicus doesn't "experiment" on any of the NPC other than charname/Imoen. Khalid and Dynaheir are killed to affect charname/Imoen. He made Imoen watch him disecting Khalid (and of course it's left to interpretation whether Imoen actually helped him).
My point is that there was an existing plausible reason for Irenicus to attack charname/Imoen. Not complicated, very logical, he found out that both were Bhaalspawn. Not hard to do, plenty of clues lying around, unknown parentage, both adopted, both roughly the same age, Harper involvement and brought up in secret (or guarded) in Candlekeep
SOD has come along and added complications that were never needed. With a bunch of bollox that Irenicus was testing which Bhaalspawn/asimar was the strongest.
So lets say Caelar Argent had the "strongest" divinity, where does that leave him still needing a soul for Bodhi?
It's reasonable to assume that he can't use a soul that's assigned to hell, or any non-mortal plane, for this (this is my current understanding of Caelar's fate and so may be faulty). Otherwise why not just raise a recently deceased villain whose name rhymes with "Marevok" and use that soul to cover Bodhi? It certainly would have stretched farther than Imoen's would have in terms of raw power, and likely wouldn't have brought along nearly as much baggage.
With that said... I'll admit that he probably did plan to capture both Gorion's Ward and Imoen. It's not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Imoen is a Bhaalspawn from her sisterly association with GW.
And lets not even start with the attrotious writing of some of the set pieces. Seriously, you had fun running around that big camp finding out who the traitor was. Or training the recruits. Or deciding the guilt/innocence of some utter stranger in the enemy camp. Or fetching the random objects. Or not being able to shake off your minder in BG itself. Or being followed by Imoen and her bunch of soldiers in the first dungeon. Or not being allowed to tell Caelar Argent that she was a deluded b**** and should just eff off. Or having Irenicus turn up everywhere without being able to do anything about it. Or take the crap being handed out by some of the leaders.
It's funny, but I think my annoyance with the ending helped me to block all this out. But now you mention it it all comes flooding back. I did think the section at the start in Baldur's Gate was very weak and felt like it had been done in a rush. The fetching and carrying quests seemed pretty dumb and the whole refugee crisis storyline made me feel uncomfortable and totally broke my immersion in the game. I felt it introduced a serious real world problem and then dealt with it in a tokenistic and rather ham-fisted way.
The good thing about it is that you don't actually need to do any of it. You can pretty much walk straight out the door and then get on with the next part of the story. I think Minsc and Dynaheir will still turn up at the camp whether you have bothered to go and recruit them or not.
It's not exactly a glowing recommendation of SoD, but once you have played it once and have worked out which bits to avoid I think there are enough good bits to make the rest of it worth playing again.
SOD IMO does the opposite of a succesful restaurant. Which is to make sure the desserts are really nice so that you somewhat forget the slop served as starter and main course.
I reckon it must be a psychological thing, make the ending so bad it wipes out the memory of all that has gone before. Perhaps that was the plan? Though the "bad" ending was possibly the most satisfying for me. I was able to kill Corwin, that's got to be a plus.
That said, I was pleased and still am to support Beamdog. I will buy any future products even if it ends up like SOD that I won't play it anymore.
I think we're missing something here. The original reason SoD was made was not to cover up any kind of plot hole in between BG1 and SoA. It was made to give players more BG content. New dungeons, new areas, new quests, and new characters. In a word, new stuff to do.
At which point the question becomes, where do you put it?
Well, you can't put it before the events of BG1. Charname just spent 20 years inside Candlekeep's walls; they didn't go anywhere until BG1 began.
You can't put it in between SoA and ToB because the existing transition made it clear that only a small amount of time passed in between the two games--and that Charname spent all of that time within Suldannessellar itself.
If you tried to put it after ToB, then we're saddled with the problem of whether you chose godhood or mortality, which would mean two entirely different plotlines--and therefore two entirely different games. That's a tall order for a project that was supposed to be more limited in scope. Even if you just picked one, that still causes problems:
1. If you chose godhood, the adventure would be that of a god, and there's not much drama when the main character is immortal and already far more powerful than practically everything else. And fighting Cyric would introduce some continuity problems, canon-wise. 2. If you chose mortality... well, you're not a Bhaalspawn anymore. You're just an adventurer like any other. The whole basis of the BG storyline, the drama over your parentage, would be gone. 3. Whichever you picked, you'd be ignoring the players who picked the other option.
Nor could you make this new game into an expansion, because the original games already have more than enough side quests. Between Balduran's Isle, Durlag's Tower, Watcher's Keep, and all of the Chapter 2 quests in Shadows of Amn, there's not much more to expand upon.
To provide that new game in the old BG storyline, Beamdog needed to find a time gap they could fill. And with no legal ability to change anything in BG1 or anything in BG2, they had to force the plot of SoD to fit in with the other games.
And for every part SoD that seems a little "off" to me, I can't actually think of a specific alternative that would work better.
I think we're missing something here. The original reason SoD was made was not to cover up any kind of plot hole in between BG1 and SoA. It was made to give players more BG content. New dungeons, new areas, new quests, and new characters. In a word, new stuff to do.
Was it? Because I do remember big emphasis on "breaching the gap" and a promise to explain how did we end up in Irenicus dungeon with that particular companions. It was the main selling point.
Now, I do not say my memory is absolute, but I am willing to dig up old posts to find out if that was the case, if that obvious to me fact is in question.
Nor could you make this new game into an expansion, because the original games already have more than enough side quests. Between Balduran's Isle, Durlag's Tower, Watcher's Keep, and all of the Chapter 2 quests in Shadows of Amn, there's not much more to expand upon. that would work better.
I would have been pretty happy with a More Tales of the Sword Coast kind of expansion. Something you could do after killing Sarevok and before you arrive in Amn. That way you could have spent a bit more time with the original BG1 NPCs. For that matter Siege of Dragonspear could have served that function if the ongoing plot elements had been left out.
Nor could you make this new game into an expansion, because the original games already have more than enough side quests. Between Balduran's Isle, Durlag's Tower, Watcher's Keep, and all of the Chapter 2 quests in Shadows of Amn, there's not much more to expand upon. that would work better.
I would have been pretty happy with a More Tales of the Sword Coast kind of expansion. Something you could do after killing Sarevok and before you arrive in Amn. That way you could have spent a bit more time with the original BG1 NPCs. For that matter Siege of Dragonspear could have served that function if the ongoing plot elements had been left out.
It's what I was hoping for as well. Or having an adventure away from the Sword Coast/Amn perhaps.
Sea voyages work pretty well in game. Would have been nice to visit other parts of Faerun with a straightforward stand alone adventure. Lots of possibilities for new creatures/societies.
I've mentioned it before but there's even the opening for that in BG because you meet the sailor and he talks about a "New World". BG is in a bit of an uproar after Sarevok, you are a Bhaalspawn and that could cause problems. It would make perfect sense for the Dukes to comission you to undertake a mission to the "New World" for them while things settled down.
It's reasonable to assume that he can't use a soul that's assigned to hell, or any non-mortal plane, for this (this is my current understanding of Caelar's fate and so may be faulty). Otherwise why not just raise a recently deceased villain whose name rhymes with "Marevok" and use that soul to cover Bodhi? It certainly would have stretched farther than Imoen's would have in terms of raw power, and likely wouldn't have brought along nearly as much baggage.
With that said... I'll admit that he probably did plan to capture both Gorion's Ward and Imoen. It's not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Imoen is a Bhaalspawn from her sisterly association with GW.
If memory serves, the reason why Sarevok and other deceased Bhaalspawn cannot be used is down to how the Lord of Murder planned his resurrection; it was always designed to be a 'zero-sum' game. When a Bhaalspawn dies their tainted godly essence (the additional component which distinguishes them from ordinary mortals*) returns to the Throne/source. Their father, knowing well the self-destructive nature of murder pretty much built his plans on the participants dying. Afterwards, possess the victor.
*also a reason why I'm slightly irked by Raasad's romance epilogue-charname was explicitly said to have been purified of the taint and permitted to exist as a mortal being safe from the menace of Bhaal's infernal instinct. So why on earth would her offspring be cursed?
P.S. On the matter of bridging the gap it never really felt like something which needed to be addressed. Alright charname is a hero-in a realm where heroes are pretty populous and calamity strikes on a regular basis. It's my opinion (deserved or not) we as players tend to take a retrospective view on charname as some mighty glorious conqueror when yes, they were pretty strong-but not epically so, nor were they alone in bringing Sarevok down.
Frankly, tis probably commonplace for adventurers-even veterans, to be unfortunate and die in an ignoble fashion. In fact, I seem to recall a lot of random characters, fellow companions etc take a cavalier approach towards death in the game concerning adventurers. We retire quite a number of 'em ourselves. Coupled with it being hardly out of the ordinary for adventurers to habitually wander off elsewhere...why would the Dukes be all in a fluster over charname vanishing one night whilst out and about? I don't know, it just feels far better to deploy a straightforward 'wizard did it' approach than have Irenicus (whose flesh is suffering the vicissitudes of age) erect some plot to er, ensure nobody interferes with plans they realistically wouldn't have an inkling about.
Lastly...I might be misrembering, but wasn't charname's Bhaalspawn heritage not really *known* outside certain groups until after SoA/ToBs debut? Charname certainly had no reason to bandy the information about and disclose their familial connection to Sarevok.
@jastey I played through the game with a cleric PRAYING for a line like, "Guys...I'm a cleric FFS, I can't even pick up the soultaker dagger..." No such luck ;-p
I think it's interesting just how divisive the game ended up being. Personally - I thought it was a good (not great), enjoyable and above all - effective means to bridge the gap between BG1 and BG2.
There's a sort of selective memory applied by most critics who say something along the lines of "I dont like that I didnt get to make X choice!" when those same people love BG2 despite the fact that your peerless, incredible and totally perfect 20 rep Paladin had to either side with Vampires or Shadow Thieves to get Imoen back. Did that totally ruin the game? I suspect 50% of you stopped playing then and there. You probably dont even know what happened after, right? Them's the breaks. It's story telling, and you shouldnt get so attached to demanding complete agency over your character that you are unwilling to let the story be told. Sometimes things happen.
Imoen not being a playable NPC was a game choice. You may love Imoen (or hate her), but the reason gave does essentially fit fine within the context of the game. It's a reasonable ask of the player to say "Hey, we just Dualed Imoen over. Maybe she isnt up to fighting a Crusade". Yes, the game wont object you to dualing your own character over... but that's asking the game to be absolutely perfect. It's fine to want Imoen. You can make an argument that you want any specific NPC to be available. However, when a decent reason is given, accept that it's not bad story telling. It's just not to your preference.
A few other thoughts: You can bemoan the fact that you didnt realize not defending yourself was a mistake to avoid the bad ending. It wasnt terribly clear at that point that you HAD to defend yourself to avoid the bad ending. Nonetheless - it's rather absurd to say this "Ruins the game" in any meaningful way. You can reload. You didnt want the bad ending, and now you know how to avoid it. Now if you're saying "No! I want to good ending AND I dont want to have to defend myself" - sorry. That's wanting your cake and eating it too. Either the ending is important, or the means to the ending are important. Requiring that the game read your mind or create a case-by-case scenario for each class, and each rep value to make sure that player gets the ending they believe their character deserves is waaaaaaaay too much of an ask for any reasonable developer. I know a lot of you guys are into modding. I somehow doubt most (or any) would ever create a mod for an NPC and then write 15+ endings, based on some table of Reputation and class, as well as my deeds throughout the game to come up with the "perfect ending" that suits my character.
Last point - @Permidion_Stark , earlier you suggested Imoen's the one who breaks you out. You even quoted all the salient dialogues to support it. Re-read those dialogues. You noted that Imoen doesnt actually take responsibility for freeing you. She say the equivalent of "Uh, what?" and "Let's deal with this later". It *strongly* suggests that she didnt free you. It's probable that the Shadow Thieves freed you since they're the ones that knock you out after you get away.
Maybe that makes you upset - that Imoen didnt believe in you when no one else did. /shrug. It doesnt mean the developer was wrong for their approach - just that it wasnt to your preference.
The greater point here is: Some people seem to get touchy with their nostalgia. They want a perfect game to compliment the greatness of the BG saga. Just because you do not prefer how something was handled doesnt mean it's bad writing. I'm not a big fan of Jane Austen novels, doesnt mean she isnt an amazing author. Just not what I'm interesting in reading.
Comments
What SoD lacks imho is that it doesn't fill the gap between BG1 and BGII in an "explanational" way, and therefore - in my opinion - fails to do what "it was supposed to do".
What I mean: Before, we ended up in ID to find that Imoen, Dynaheir, Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid were supposed to be in our party, but we didn't know why. Now, we emerge from a prison to find them ready to join us but we still don't know why. Before, something was hinted that the PC left Baldur's Gate under some dark circumstances that didn't change the fact that no-one knew him in Amn. Now, the PC has to leave BG city under circumstances involving the public and everyone including Petrine's cat* that makes the player wonder how the people in Amn could be so ignorant of his identity. Before, the (ungiven) explanation for no-one coming after the PC or no-one recognising him was "because it's so far away, Amn doesn't care about heros in BG city and Irenicus is a powerful mage" and that was alright. Now, I wonder how a whole city in uproar and a father and Duke who believes the PC to be responsible for his child's death would accept the PC to just vanish out of the BG city prison without causing ripples in the space-time continuum**.
*I'm exaggerating. Petrine's cat was probably in a side-alley, minding her own things.
**Just in case someone didn't came over one of my several complaints concerning the SoD ending: In my first runthrough, I got the bad ending. No-one explains anything to the PC (i.e. the player) about the Dukes letting him go because of riots in the city for the bad ending. The PC just sneaks out of prison and runs, leaving dead guards behind.
I hated it at the time and it still has the power to annoy the hell out of me almost 20 years on.
But I agree with @lefreut, there is no credible way to explain the start of BG2 so it will work for everyone, and I think the reason SoD came unstuck at the end is because they attempted the impossible.
You say 98% of the writing isn't poor?
When you are railroaded into joining an army to fight a campaign the way others have decided that you must fight it?
After the freedom that BG offered?
And lets not even start with the attrotious writing of some of the set pieces.
Seriously, you had fun running around that big camp finding out who the traitor was. Or training the recruits. Or deciding the guilt/innocence of some utter stranger in the enemy camp. Or fetching the random objects. Or not being able to shake off your minder in BG itself. Or being followed by Imoen and her bunch of soldiers in the first dungeon. Or not being allowed to tell Caelar Argent that she was a deluded b**** and should just eff off. Or having Irenicus turn up everywhere without being able to do anything about it. Or take the crap being handed out by some of the leaders.
And then to cap it all, the nonsense spewed out at the end. I suppose there was some symmetry with that as it matched the nonsense the game started with. "Hi Imoen, nice to see you and I totally accept that now you can't be fighting alongside me as you did less than a few weeks ago". Or "Go upstairs and find some jars so that I can serve you in this shop".
When I first read that Imoen wouldn't be a joinable NPC in SoD, I decided not to have a knee-jerk reaction and wait to see how that would work out in-game.
With that said, I thought it to be disheartening. Despite starting out as a last-minute NPC put there just because the game lacked a good-aligned Thief you could recruit right away, BG2 promoted Imoen to a plot-critical NPC.
It's frustrating that when playing the whole saga, you could get to spend all of BG1 with Imoen to have her forcibly removed from your group during the interquel only to get her back for one dungeon and then forcibly removed *again* for the majority of the sequel.
But who knows, right? Maybe they had a good reason to do it.
Then the expansion came out and we're told right away that some time has passed between the end of BG1 and the moment you enter Korlasz's family tomb. You and your companions have been hunting down Sarevok's remaining acolytes while Imoen has been training to become a Mage, which is an unavoidable plot point.
However, since the game does not specify how much time has passed, she could very well have become a functional Thief/Mage in the meantime. Some might argue that it'd be too jarring to have her class updated instantly upon transitioning between BG1 and SoD. Personally, I don't think it's any less jarring than having Safana shoved into your group without any explanation.
But even if I'm wrong, after the prologue ends, we get another jump forward in time and we're told that your party has disbanded and you've taken some time to chill out as a guest of honor at the Ducal Palace. This is yet another opportunity to complete Imoen's transition. But then the attack at the Palace happens and she's taken out of action.
After a few months of not understanding why they would go to such lengths to keep Imoen out of the NPC roster, Andrew Foley (one of Beamdog's writers) made this comment in which he relays the thought process behind the decision like this: I have to say, with all due respect to Mr. Foley and the rest of the team, that not only the rationale here is deeply flawed, but it's also contradicted by how they've handled NPCs in a position similar to Imoen.
While there's no arguing that she was required to be alive by the end of SoD, so is the case with Minsc, Jaheira, Khalid and Dynaheir. All of them are present in BG2's initial dungeon and therefore, all of them must be alive and with you when you get captured by Irenicus. Nevertheless, all of them are recruitable and can be killed for the entirety of the campaign.
However, killing one of these NPCs during the adventure will not prevent them from showing up at SoD's final moments in which the gap between BG1 and BG2 is bridged - which doesn't have to be a plot hole if you take into account Raise Dead and Resurrection spells.
Do you guys understand why Foley's explanation is so infuriating? He lays out the reason why Imoen couldn't be recruited and then conveniently glosses over the fact that this hotly debated and deeply thought-out design decision was outright ignored when it came to every NPC who's not Imoen (and Irenicus, I suppose, but he was never a joinable NPC anyway).
Not to mention it "solves" a potential inconsistency that was already unavoidable - Imoen can be killed at any given point during BG1's original campaign, which won't prevent her from showing up in SoD anyway.
It makes me feel like my intelligence has been insulted. And since I'm being honest, getting that insight into how the developers reach some decisions retroactively makes me question quite a few other aspects of the EEs for which I have given them a pass during the last few years while remaining a staunch supporter - the not-so-seamless implementation of the new NPCs, the replacement of BG1's original movies, the addition of The Black Pits and the removal of the original versions of the games from GOG as standalone products are the most relevant examples. But I won't get into that now as I don't want to shift the focus of this discussion away from the topic.
However, to me it was always a problem that didn't need fixing. Imoen can die in BG1 so it doesn't make any sense to argue that she can't be allowed to die in SoD because she has to be alive in BG2.
To be fair to Beamdog, this one wasn't their decision. That was all WoTC.
To clarify: @ThacoBell I'm not calling you a liar. I do remember reading around here about this one being on WotC. But as you can see, the official justification on the other forum totally contradicts that.
Imoen was arrested by the Amnish Magical Police Farce for casting magic missile at Irenicus (himself arrested for a public magical frenzy, though only after Imoen's arrest could be used to his benefit), and that was used by Irenicus to lure GW to Spellhold for more experimentations. That she was also Bhaalspawn wasn't really a factor in the original plan, more of an unexpected bonus.
I mean, it's easy for me to be the armchair quarterback for this years after SoD came out, with no deadline looming and no one worrying about revenues that fund my paycheck. Still, it might have made the overall trilogy plot smoother. It might also have made the SoD plot worse.
I'm still going to buy it, mind you. I've gotten to prefer Safana and Alora as non-evil thieves, mostly so I can dual Imoen to mage at level 2. But maybe there have been enough lessons learned that new products will have more attention paid to plot and development.
OK, we all know Imoen being a Bhaalspawn was a late invention. But why keep pushing that idea onto the game at every opportunity?
The only way they got away with that massive re engineering of the plot (re Imoen Bhaalspawn) in the first place was because it was so plausible that another adopted orphan of roughly the same age ending up in Candlekeep would be a Bhaalspawn.
It actually makes more sense that she was, rather than the original premis that she was some randomer.
Irenicus is portrayed as this massively powerful and intelligent protaginist yet we are expected to believe he couldn't have put 2 and 2 together?
It's also made quite clear in CI that Irenicus has been investigating Imoen's potential and that he was aware of it.
From another angle: Don't you think he would have kept Bodhi on-hand (moreso than just in the same city, I mean) if he thought he had a candidate for both his and her soul replacements? Him holing up at Spellhold was an attack of opportunity, not a calculated migration, yet he saw fit to make sure she was there.
Khalid and Dynaheir are killed to affect charname/Imoen.
He made Imoen watch him disecting Khalid (and of course it's left to interpretation whether Imoen actually helped him).
My point is that there was an existing plausible reason for Irenicus to attack charname/Imoen. Not complicated, very logical, he found out that both were Bhaalspawn. Not hard to do, plenty of clues lying around, unknown parentage, both adopted, both roughly the same age, Harper involvement and brought up in secret (or guarded) in Candlekeep
SOD has come along and added complications that were never needed. With a bunch of bollox that Irenicus was testing which Bhaalspawn/asimar was the strongest.
So lets say Caelar Argent had the "strongest" divinity, where does that leave him still needing a soul for Bodhi?
With that said... I'll admit that he probably did plan to capture both Gorion's Ward and Imoen. It's not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Imoen is a Bhaalspawn from her sisterly association with GW.
The good thing about it is that you don't actually need to do any of it. You can pretty much walk straight out the door and then get on with the next part of the story. I think Minsc and Dynaheir will still turn up at the camp whether you have bothered to go and recruit them or not.
It's not exactly a glowing recommendation of SoD, but once you have played it once and have worked out which bits to avoid I think there are enough good bits to make the rest of it worth playing again.
SOD IMO does the opposite of a succesful restaurant.
Which is to make sure the desserts are really nice so that you somewhat forget the slop served as starter and main course.
I reckon it must be a psychological thing, make the ending so bad it wipes out the memory of all that has gone before. Perhaps that was the plan?
Though the "bad" ending was possibly the most satisfying for me. I was able to kill Corwin, that's got to be a plus.
That said, I was pleased and still am to support Beamdog. I will buy any future products even if it ends up like SOD that I won't play it anymore.
At which point the question becomes, where do you put it?
Well, you can't put it before the events of BG1. Charname just spent 20 years inside Candlekeep's walls; they didn't go anywhere until BG1 began.
You can't put it in between SoA and ToB because the existing transition made it clear that only a small amount of time passed in between the two games--and that Charname spent all of that time within Suldannessellar itself.
If you tried to put it after ToB, then we're saddled with the problem of whether you chose godhood or mortality, which would mean two entirely different plotlines--and therefore two entirely different games. That's a tall order for a project that was supposed to be more limited in scope. Even if you just picked one, that still causes problems:
1. If you chose godhood, the adventure would be that of a god, and there's not much drama when the main character is immortal and already far more powerful than practically everything else. And fighting Cyric would introduce some continuity problems, canon-wise.
2. If you chose mortality... well, you're not a Bhaalspawn anymore. You're just an adventurer like any other. The whole basis of the BG storyline, the drama over your parentage, would be gone.
3. Whichever you picked, you'd be ignoring the players who picked the other option.
Nor could you make this new game into an expansion, because the original games already have more than enough side quests. Between Balduran's Isle, Durlag's Tower, Watcher's Keep, and all of the Chapter 2 quests in Shadows of Amn, there's not much more to expand upon.
To provide that new game in the old BG storyline, Beamdog needed to find a time gap they could fill. And with no legal ability to change anything in BG1 or anything in BG2, they had to force the plot of SoD to fit in with the other games.
And for every part SoD that seems a little "off" to me, I can't actually think of a specific alternative that would work better.
Now, I do not say my memory is absolute, but I am willing to dig up old posts to find out if that was the case, if that obvious to me fact is in question.
Or having an adventure away from the Sword Coast/Amn perhaps.
Sea voyages work pretty well in game. Would have been nice to visit other parts of Faerun with a straightforward stand alone adventure. Lots of possibilities for new creatures/societies.
I've mentioned it before but there's even the opening for that in BG because you meet the sailor and he talks about a "New World". BG is in a bit of an uproar after Sarevok, you are a Bhaalspawn and that could cause problems. It would make perfect sense for the Dukes to comission you to undertake a mission to the "New World" for them while things settled down.
*also a reason why I'm slightly irked by Raasad's romance epilogue-charname was explicitly said to have been purified of the taint and permitted to exist as a mortal being safe from the menace of Bhaal's infernal instinct. So why on earth would her offspring be cursed?
P.S. On the matter of bridging the gap it never really felt like something which needed to be addressed. Alright charname is a hero-in a realm where heroes are pretty populous and calamity strikes on a regular basis. It's my opinion (deserved or not) we as players tend to take a retrospective view on charname as some mighty glorious conqueror when yes, they were pretty strong-but not epically so, nor were they alone in bringing Sarevok down.
Frankly, tis probably commonplace for adventurers-even veterans, to be unfortunate and die in an ignoble fashion. In fact, I seem to recall a lot of random characters, fellow companions etc take a cavalier approach towards death in the game concerning adventurers. We retire quite a number of 'em ourselves. Coupled with it being hardly out of the ordinary for adventurers to habitually wander off elsewhere...why would the Dukes be all in a fluster over charname vanishing one night whilst out and about? I don't know, it just feels far better to deploy a straightforward 'wizard did it' approach than have Irenicus (whose flesh is suffering the vicissitudes of age) erect some plot to er, ensure nobody interferes with plans they realistically wouldn't have an inkling about.
Lastly...I might be misrembering, but wasn't charname's Bhaalspawn heritage not really *known* outside certain groups until after SoA/ToBs debut? Charname certainly had no reason to bandy the information about and disclose their familial connection to Sarevok.
There's a sort of selective memory applied by most critics who say something along the lines of "I dont like that I didnt get to make X choice!" when those same people love BG2 despite the fact that your peerless, incredible and totally perfect 20 rep Paladin had to either side with Vampires or Shadow Thieves to get Imoen back. Did that totally ruin the game? I suspect 50% of you stopped playing then and there. You probably dont even know what happened after, right? Them's the breaks. It's story telling, and you shouldnt get so attached to demanding complete agency over your character that you are unwilling to let the story be told. Sometimes things happen.
Imoen not being a playable NPC was a game choice. You may love Imoen (or hate her), but the reason gave does essentially fit fine within the context of the game. It's a reasonable ask of the player to say "Hey, we just Dualed Imoen over. Maybe she isnt up to fighting a Crusade". Yes, the game wont object you to dualing your own character over... but that's asking the game to be absolutely perfect. It's fine to want Imoen. You can make an argument that you want any specific NPC to be available. However, when a decent reason is given, accept that it's not bad story telling. It's just not to your preference.
A few other thoughts: You can bemoan the fact that you didnt realize not defending yourself was a mistake to avoid the bad ending. It wasnt terribly clear at that point that you HAD to defend yourself to avoid the bad ending. Nonetheless - it's rather absurd to say this "Ruins the game" in any meaningful way. You can reload. You didnt want the bad ending, and now you know how to avoid it. Now if you're saying "No! I want to good ending AND I dont want to have to defend myself" - sorry. That's wanting your cake and eating it too. Either the ending is important, or the means to the ending are important. Requiring that the game read your mind or create a case-by-case scenario for each class, and each rep value to make sure that player gets the ending they believe their character deserves is waaaaaaaay too much of an ask for any reasonable developer. I know a lot of you guys are into modding. I somehow doubt most (or any) would ever create a mod for an NPC and then write 15+ endings, based on some table of Reputation and class, as well as my deeds throughout the game to come up with the "perfect ending" that suits my character.
Last point - @Permidion_Stark , earlier you suggested Imoen's the one who breaks you out. You even quoted all the salient dialogues to support it. Re-read those dialogues. You noted that Imoen doesnt actually take responsibility for freeing you. She say the equivalent of "Uh, what?" and "Let's deal with this later". It *strongly* suggests that she didnt free you. It's probable that the Shadow Thieves freed you since they're the ones that knock you out after you get away.
Maybe that makes you upset - that Imoen didnt believe in you when no one else did. /shrug. It doesnt mean the developer was wrong for their approach - just that it wasnt to your preference.
The greater point here is: Some people seem to get touchy with their nostalgia. They want a perfect game to compliment the greatness of the BG saga. Just because you do not prefer how something was handled doesnt mean it's bad writing. I'm not a big fan of Jane Austen novels, doesnt mean she isnt an amazing author. Just not what I'm interesting in reading.