I don't care about Imoen
Wisterias
Member Posts: 108
Hello. I have like a big problem with this game... The main thing you have to do from the start is 'to save Imoen' and free her from Irenicus. What if I couldn't care less about Imoen?
I mean, I played BG1 a lot of times and I think I never had Imoen with me... I don't like a pure thief in my party and I don't like to dual class.
So if the main reason to start moving in SoA is to 'rescue Imoen', get the money to go there, and I don't really care about her... my motivation is gone xD
I played the game before ignoring that but now I can't... What you think?
I mean, I played BG1 a lot of times and I think I never had Imoen with me... I don't like a pure thief in my party and I don't like to dual class.
So if the main reason to start moving in SoA is to 'rescue Imoen', get the money to go there, and I don't really care about her... my motivation is gone xD
I played the game before ignoring that but now I can't... What you think?
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Comments
Well, you did ask
Well, if you mean Dynaheir and Khalid... they weren't my favorites in BG1; I played with other companions instead. Or with characters made by me. I don't really like Jaheira or Minsc either.
But yes... what you said is what I did when I played before. But... those times I did not even care what I was doing tbh. I used to free her, kick her out of the group and continue, because I had Nalia already or something. Maybe the 'kidnapped you, tortured you' part motivates me more, but...
Actually, if Irenicus had to wait for me to go after Imoen to hunt me down again, he would have to wait forever or come after me himself xD He hasn't taken the best hostage to motivate me to go where he wants...
Well, my chaotic neutral main character maybe will just do it for fun, because he feels curious or something. I think I will play solo or with a custom party, I can't stand all the companions whinings and troubles they want me to solve for them 🙃.
Also at various stages of the game in Chapters 1-4 you can either tell various npcs at certain dialogue points either that you want to rescue her, or don’t care about her and just want to punish Irenicus for torturing you or even you just want to catch up with him to gain power. Again you don’t need to rescue Imoen in Spellhold.
So actually looking at it you don’t need to express concern or care for Imoen, or travel with her at all, at any point of the game, if you don’t want to. You don’t need to do this for any joinable npc if you prefer. You could say it’s coincidental that Irenicus has abducted Imoen, and the real ultimate purpose of the game is defeating the evil mage, either for retribution or personal power, depending on your viewpoint.
Even if you don’t adventure with this crew, you have undoubtedly encountered/met them all and they would likely count as friendly acquaintances unless you’re playing psycho evil. The fact Irenicus is ready to torture/kill innocent people who had done him no harm indicates the depth of danger and evil he represents. If nothing else, he’s a risk to you.
It seems pretty rich in motivation to me. If nothing else, that’s the story of the game. Play it or don’t.
Yes I remember you had those dialogue options... good point.
I think my problem is bigger, it's Irenicus itself who does not motivate me
On my first few playthroughs though, Shadows of Amn is my favorite part. The combo of a very well done city and an interesting villain were great. Added bonus that the sequel hits you with a bit of twist, not pitting you against another spawn as you'd expect, but still tying the villain to that stuff. It's not really something you see in a ton of RPG's. Deserves praise.
Again, to each their own. There's so many of these games out now that, I agree. If you don't like it, plenty of other options.
For instance Amelyssan stokes up tensions between Saradush and the Marching Mountains resulting in genocide and the annihilation of a city crammed with innocents unable to leave. All for ego and personal power and gain. Irenicus has a sick view of progress and immortality involving torturing individuals physically and mentally for years, or simply destroying them. And Sarevok wants to bring ruin to the entire Sword Coast, manipulating big business into twisting the perceptions of the inhabitants of Baldur’s Gate and Amn.
In all these villains’ cases innocent lives are just collateral damage in the quest for personal gain and self delusion. If all that isn’t horrific I don’t know what is…And of course an evil Bhaalspawn can simply defeat them to gain THEIR power, if they want
Of course it all comes to the same thing in the end. This isn’t a sandbox, but it is a very well written story.
Not to mention that development teams were much smaller back then. BG2 could never have the kind of investment you see in BG3 or Cyberpunk.
A big consequence of that is somewhat limited RP choices, especially in the voice-acted parts of the game. It was still a huge step up from its predecessors, where often the only RP option was a good alignment playthrough.
I'm playing the original Icewind Dale 2 now, I love Isair & Madae as final bosses... I don't know why but BG saga was my favourite when I was younger, but now it's not anymore, maybe I prefer the originals over the EE's. I even got SoD when it was released, and never played it because... 0 motivation O_o.
I had a great time beating IWD1-EE, but in the case of BG games... I prefer the originals for some weird reason.
Well... Athkatla is crazy; I mean, how can this city even exist resting on top of mind flayers, beholder colonies, vampire lairs in the cemetery...?
Thanks for answers.
In bg1EE the first thing you do is to tell here to F*** off.
Then she comes again, and you steal here wand and potions and tell here to F*** off again.
Then suddenly she rescue you from irenicus cage, and if you did not start out as thief u have here open locks and disarm trap in the next door room and then tell here to F*** off again.
I kinda don't see the issue xD
I dont play with NPC's, so either i tell them all to F*** off after stealing their stuff, or I kill them for their stuff.
I agree that the storyline is a bit too linear in general, in particular in ToB. I usually play BG2 because of SoA being fairly open and ready to explore. It's the main story as far as I am concerned, in particular if you have many mods installed - like Call of the lost godess. That's a mini-story in its own right.
Would be cool if we could get the engine to allow a total free form gameplay. And open ended too, though I guess this is a lot of work in general.
"They all do extremely nasty things that justify pursuing them either for revenge or to prevent them from continuing their crimes. I was convinced by all of them."
That depends: a true evil character may want to exact revenge, but perhaps may not care about Imoen at all. I don't think you can unify ALL point of views towards a singular "all must want to rescue Imoen" or "all must kill Irenicus". Perhaps someone wants to replace Irenicus only; or even work as scholar. The storyline is simply picking one option, understandably so (they did not want to have 100 different storylines evidently). For an open-ended game, I think more options would be great though.
Does anyone have any access to the original game's source code? Would be fun to add some of the good mods and also extend the options here, with the goal of making it a bit less linear and more open-ended in nature.
Irenicus has very little to do with your destiny anyways. You could always just ignore him. (Of course, if he tried to do this in canon, Irenicus would have almost certainly forced a confrontation for his own reasons, but let's just ignore that...)