Surprising observation about the quality of writing in BG2:EE - anyone feel the same?
xzar_monty
Member Posts: 631
I recently started yet another playthrough of this game, which remains my all-time favorite, head and shoulders above anything else. And it turned out to be a surprise.
When I first played BG2:EE, most of the new stuff seemed very interesting, delightful even, because it brought new life into an old favorite.
But this time, it wasn't quite the same. I let Clara/Hexxat join my party, and her anguish was so clear and obvious that I went with her to the graveyard district, entered the tomb and eventually met the real Hexxat. At which point I lost my interest in that character completely. Do I want a bossy, arrogant vampire in my party? No.
At the bridge district, I met Neera, and I helped her help that girl escape. Then I got the coordinates to her wild wood, and I thought, do I have any interest in letting that stereotypically girly girl into my group? Do I want to hear her clumsy jokes? Do I want to get involved in quests where I'm chasing cats around? No, no and no. So that was the end of Neera for me.
In Trademeet, I noticed Rasaad fighting with some other monks. We talked. He told me his story concerning some figures I'd never even heard of, and it was articulated badly enough to leave me somewhat unsure as to what had really been going on - but hey, at least I was able to make a snarky comment at every opportunity! (Which I didn't do, by the way.) My interest in getting involved in Rasaad's travails was... negligible. So I didn't take him with me.
Then there was Dorn. I didn't even initiate dialogue. I have played his SoA path all the way through once, just to see what it's like, but it's not interesting. So, no thanks.
I ended up pretty surprised: each of the new characters has dated a lot quicker than any of the old ones excluding Minsc (whose comic relief style got old very quickly but was fun once). In fact, I think both Isra and Kelsey, the two mods, are better than any of the EE characters.
Don't take this too strongly, though: on their first playthrough, three of the four EE characters did impress me, and having them along was definitely worth the money I paid for EE, so absolutely no complaints from me. But boy have they got old quickly.
Any thoughts on this?
When I first played BG2:EE, most of the new stuff seemed very interesting, delightful even, because it brought new life into an old favorite.
But this time, it wasn't quite the same. I let Clara/Hexxat join my party, and her anguish was so clear and obvious that I went with her to the graveyard district, entered the tomb and eventually met the real Hexxat. At which point I lost my interest in that character completely. Do I want a bossy, arrogant vampire in my party? No.
At the bridge district, I met Neera, and I helped her help that girl escape. Then I got the coordinates to her wild wood, and I thought, do I have any interest in letting that stereotypically girly girl into my group? Do I want to hear her clumsy jokes? Do I want to get involved in quests where I'm chasing cats around? No, no and no. So that was the end of Neera for me.
In Trademeet, I noticed Rasaad fighting with some other monks. We talked. He told me his story concerning some figures I'd never even heard of, and it was articulated badly enough to leave me somewhat unsure as to what had really been going on - but hey, at least I was able to make a snarky comment at every opportunity! (Which I didn't do, by the way.) My interest in getting involved in Rasaad's travails was... negligible. So I didn't take him with me.
Then there was Dorn. I didn't even initiate dialogue. I have played his SoA path all the way through once, just to see what it's like, but it's not interesting. So, no thanks.
I ended up pretty surprised: each of the new characters has dated a lot quicker than any of the old ones excluding Minsc (whose comic relief style got old very quickly but was fun once). In fact, I think both Isra and Kelsey, the two mods, are better than any of the EE characters.
Don't take this too strongly, though: on their first playthrough, three of the four EE characters did impress me, and having them along was definitely worth the money I paid for EE, so absolutely no complaints from me. But boy have they got old quickly.
Any thoughts on this?
6
Comments
Dorn feels weird because he comes across as a 90's cartoon villain to me. His writing doesn't seem particularly odd, its just not something I could get into (in BG2 at least, BG1 Dorn was more interesting).
Neera is a female half elven Jan Jansen. She is clearly the comedy NPC of the selection. She stands out from the serious NPCs, but fits right in with the likes of Jan, Minsc, and Edwin (ironically she cannot party with Edwin).
Rasaad is basically perfect. His tone and demenor fit so well with the rest of the good cast, I probably wouldn't have picked him out as new if I hadn't played the original game. His writing quality is also top notch, and probably some of my favorite in the whole series.
Should I comment on SoD NPCs in spoilers? Or is this thread focusing on BG2 exclusively?
To stay with the topic (sort of): I fear that I might show this reaction with SoD at some point, with all the drama especially at the end.
See we can still do de'arnise / umar / planar prison quests without having nalia or mazzy or haerdalis with us...
@ThacoBell: SoD comments are perfectly fine with me. I loved M'Khiin, she is by far the best new NPC in the series. The others were OK, except for Voghlin, who was frankly poor. Corwin was good as a character, but I was slightly annoyed by the fact that the archer kit is so overpowered. No fault of the content writers, though.
I like Rasaad as a character, but I don't think I could play the romance because of the limited reply options. My PC is as lawful, as socially incompetent and earnest as Rasaad - but all she is allowed to is make fun of him (sometimes in a patronizing way), which is completely out of character for my PC.
But his character gels really well with me, and I find him quite believable. The great performance of the actor doesn't hurt either.
The new ee NPC read, to me, like competition entries for getting a job at a bigger, more famous game developer.
I see,
no affection for BG,
no respect for BG,
an arrogant disrespect of what the original writers created
in virtually all of the EE written content.
(not talking about engine technicalities, engine overhaul, making the game work better, just the writing)
I'm sorry that this seems harsh, but that's the impression that I've picked up.
And it is a reasonable question to ask why this happened to my perspective of the writing.
Some examples,
Dorn quest to murder the wedding party in the RH. Laughably disrespectful to what was trying to be created by the original writers when they came up with the concept of the RH. It's place in society, it's importance in Athkatla mean nothing because they needed to have Dorn playing the big "look how evil I am".
It's reduced to a hotel wedding venue.
Neera quest has a Red Wizard Enclave shoved into Athkatla.
The same Athkatla that has mages teleporting around cracking down on the unsanctioned use of magic.
The same Athkatla that has an original character residing that has to hide from RW.
Don't they visit the cafe next door? Wander around in red robes?
Hexaat quest kills a party member and player has to accept it and then to add insult to injury, actually has the gall to turn around and say, "here you go, this is your new NPC."
Rasaad quest, overlong, too important, broken. But it's not the writing for that, it's the concept.
And again, Viconia follows Shar.
Was it beyond them to widen the net a bit and have an EENPC who wasn't treading on the toes of an existing character?
We are not children, you don't get to escape critisism because you threw in a teddybear.
Damn that was a rant, sorry, the EE written content is poor and it's so unecessary that it had to turn out like that.
I hadn't thought of that (embarrassingly enough, I have to say), but you are correct.
Rhaella's Adrian alone beats every EE NPC in terms of writing, and quests.
Meanwhile, I can't separate Neera, Rasaad, or Dorn from their classes. It seems like the writers started with the class, and formed personalities around them, instead of assigning a class to a personality, if that makes any sense. Voghlin, Baeloth, and Corwin are better here, and M'khiin seems to be in the middle of the two. Which is funny, since M'khiin is easily my favorite NPC of the lot as of now.
It's the headquarters of an organisation.
An organisation that is portrayed in game as well respected, influential and INHABITED by the knights/paladins.
It's the equivalent of somebody hiring the main hall at West Point (that's the famous US college isn't it, in the UK it would be Sandhurst), a massacre takes place and two days later it's as if nothing happened.
Incredibly immersion breaking and so clumsy.
It wasn't Valygar I was thinking of, Edwin is hiding from the RW.
And he'd stick around with a well staffed enclave down the block?
Sashaying around in his red dress?
The whole Neera insertion in the game shows a dreadful laziness.
She's a "wild mage", good, new class.
But nobody could come up with an alternative "wizard organisation" that might take an interest, in the whole of Faerun?
Setting up a base, an organisation, in the capital city of magic averse Amn, is slightly different.
It's not as if they are discreet.
And how does it fit with the Thief Guild existing quest which causes you to kill a CW because he's taking too much interest in, yep, you guessed it, a RW.
Some of the above looks like drawing up explanations to fit a dislike rather than the other way round. For instance:
- complaining about the use of the RH as a wedding venue. The building was clearly constructed with ceremonial purposes in mind, rather than being purely administrative. As such it would seem like an entirely obvious choice of venue for someone connected to the RH.
- for Hexaat I can certainly understand your annoyance about an NPC being forced on you - all these years later I'm still aggrieved that BG2 starts by adding Imoen to your party (and regularly console myself by killing BG1 Imoen before she has a chance to join). However, this is a problem (as far as I'm concerned) with the game design rather than the writing. Your opinion of Hexaat is shared by many, but I've also seen quite a bit of support for her on these Forums.
- the use of Shar seems entirely reasonable. I can easily imagine that if they had used a deity not previously referred to in the games, Beamdog would have been criticized for adding new things for the sake of it.
I remember when I was playing through BG1 and I finally reached Dorn and Neera early in the game. (which I didn't know they were EE NPCs.) And I remember my first reaction to them is that they felt really off in terms of the original NPCs which actually kinda put them out of place. Like the voice acting didn't fit well in terms of tone in the game. When I realized they were EE NPCs it did kinda make sense but it didn't stop there...
I felt that they were always shoved on you... like they always had some mission or event that they wanted you to complete in order to take them in your party. And it got annoying too. Like Neera's forced comedy (doesn't help she sounds like a modern late 20 year old woman as well.) Dorn I dumped instantly after the waylaid event because he's a walking cliche (Same with Bayoleth too) Rasaad is just boring and uninteresting, like I felt no emotion when I found out the spoiler in his quest... And that's the main issue, because they feel so out of place (doesn't seem to be apart of the BG universe) I didn't invest in them as I did with the OG NPCs.
And BG2:EE screwed this up by not fixing the main issues of the EE NPCs but screwed it up even more by adding even LONGER missions which were dragging on and held no value to the story. And worst of all... when I thought the quest line feels unfinished. I was massively upset that their quest line continues in Throne of Bhaal... if I found that out sooner, I wouldn't have bothered to do their initial quest in the first place.
And just remember this is only my opinion... The class kits are good... but the personalities and writing just ruin the character for me, which ends up being wasted potential in the end.
Considering their goal is to hunt the wilds, it's not like anything they do is decreasing the magical order in the city, quite the contrary. So why would CWs object to that - as far as they're concerned, it's a load off their shoulders. Edwin is a rogue individual, Lanneth is on official business.
Could you specify the ways in which the original NPCs are "SUPER" annoying?
To me, their failures would include the following:
- Apart from comic relief, Minsc has nothing. After having him in the party once, there's never any need to have him come along again.
- Aerie is contradictory in the sense that her wisdom is pretty high but she's clearly both naive and severely traumatized. The contradiction is not really resolved.
I find Anomen quite irritating, as a person, Jaheira too bossy and Edwin annoying to the point that I won't take him with me despite the fact he's a great option. But this, to me, indicates good writing rather than bad.
Aerie really grinds some people's gears with her personality. I don't mind her, but the invective I've seen here shows the writers hit a nerve.
Ditto Jan.
Anomen is a real wanker. He's well-written, he has an interesting quest and an interesting character development, but he is annoying.
Haer d'Alise is a pompous, pretentious tw*t who uses women.
Edwin is as punchable as a preacher's kid.
You save Viconia twice, and she still treats you like that smug, entitled grade school teacher that all guys loathe. She is the "1%er ex-wife" of the BG series.
Personality-wise, the characters that appeal to me the most are Valygar, Yoshimo, Mazzy and Jan. (And M'Khiin, if you include SoD.)
In BG1, Quayle is pretentious and annoying, Imoen and Alora are overly cheerful characters in such a world and they feel out of place. Xan is depressing.
In BG2, I personnally like Aerie but I can understand why many find her annoying. I can't stand Anomen, Cernd is so shallow it gets on my nerves.
But I think most of us here do not separate the writing quality and the "annoyingness" of a character.
The writing quality is what makes the character a credible addition to the game. Of all the new Beamdog characters, the only one I find to be a forced addition in the way she is written is Hexxat. I find her personnality to be forced because it is shallow, her questline as well because it lacks choices. Concept-wise, is she viable? I would say yes, but the execution is, in my opinion, not so great, especially the SoA part. I like the ToB part of both her quest and romance however.
Neera may feel out of place, but she's meant to be exactly that. She doesn't feel more so than Jan, for instance. And I tend to really like Neera because when you romance her, you realise that beyond the first appearances is a much deeper personality. She is really well-written in that respect, and shows more depth than Imoen, for instance.
Now every character may be annoying or pleasant to someone regardless of writing quality. In real life, there are people with whom you'll naturally get along, and some with whom it'd be impossible. Well, same here, I find Anomen to be a jerk and I really, really dislike him and will hardly ever grab him along. Still I think he is a well-written and certainly not out-of-place character.