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Will SoD choices change results in BG2 in any way?

What i mean is: In Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Witcher and other games, what you do in the previous game is recorded on the save used to import on the sequel, this allow people to face consequences on the following games of their previous actions.

I would love to have this for BG to BG2, but it was never done besides the initial weapon with the genie. Will this be changed for BG - BG:SoD and BG:SoD -BG2?
SpaceInvader

Comments

  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    No, that's not quite the only thing remembered from BG1, although I agree that it'd be an enhancement if more continuity data could be carried forward into BG2.

    There have always been other importable items - one armour (default being the Mail of the Dead) and one miscellaneous item (default being the Helm of Balduran), plus the Golden Pantaloons. In EE, there's now one importable weapon as well, which wasn't done in the original games.

    IIRC, the game has also always remembered whether you murdered Drizzt in BG1, so that you get different dialogue when you meet him again in BG2. (Although I rarely murder him, so I'm not certain whether I'm remembering this correctly.)

    With the next patch (i.e. the release of SoD), romance status with the EE characters will also (unfortunately) be carried forward into BG2. (I say "unfortunately" because the BG1ee "romances" are such insubstantial preliminary flirtations that I don't think anyone can tell for sure what their romance status actually is at the end of BG1ee, except by manually checking the variables with EEkeeper or the cheat console, so carrying this forward will probably lead to more confusion and disappointment than enjoyment for players.)

    The primary difficulty, of course, is that Beamdog can't change the original content of BG2, so most events and dialogues in BG2 aren't allowed to be modified to take account of BG1 events. The secondary difficulty is that having alternative versions of dialogue and events would obviously require a heap of additional development and testing work, which is expensive.
    ThacoBell
  • FaydarkFaydark Member Posts: 279
    @Gallowglass afaik, BG2 doesn't have any method to import variables from BG1. I vaguely recall that Beamdog was working on changing this for some reason, but it hasn't happened yet.

    If I recall, the Drizzt detection code checks if you have any BG1 Drizzt items in your parties inventory to determine if you had killed him in BG1.

    Also, I for one would enjoy continuing my Neera romance dialogue on my character that I made for that. =D
  • kamuizinkamuizin Member Posts: 3,704

    No, that's not quite the only thing remembered from BG1, although I agree that it'd be an enhancement if more continuity data could be carried forward into BG2.

    There have always been other importable items - one armour (default being the Mail of the Dead) and one miscellaneous item (default being the Helm of Balduran), plus the Golden Pantaloons. In EE, there's now one importable weapon as well, which wasn't done in the original games.

    IIRC, the game has also always remembered whether you murdered Drizzt in BG1, so that you get different dialogue when you meet him again in BG2. (Although I rarely murder him, so I'm not certain whether I'm remembering this correctly.)

    With the next patch (i.e. the release of SoD), romance status with the EE characters will also (unfortunately) be carried forward into BG2. (I say "unfortunately" because the BG1ee "romances" are such insubstantial preliminary flirtations that I don't think anyone can tell for sure what their romance status actually is at the end of BG1ee, except by manually checking the variables with EEkeeper or the cheat console, so carrying this forward will probably lead to more confusion and disappointment than enjoyment for players.)

    The primary difficulty, of course, is that Beamdog can't change the original content of BG2, so most events and dialogues in BG2 aren't allowed to be modified to take account of BG1 events. The secondary difficulty is that having alternative versions of dialogue and events would obviously require a heap of additional development and testing work, which is expensive.

    It isn't act memory but more item memory.

    if you have any of the import items on your save game import or character import, the game will recognise it. If you give to drizzt the "didn't i killed you answer" even if you never played BG:EE with that char, the reaction will be the same (also has an easter egg with having an evil elf with drizzt name that trigger an special dialogue).

    The change original content isn't an issue, i don't want to change original content, but BG:EE and BG2:EE both added a lot of new content, and those can be changed. Anyway, i don't see increase as change (as long you keep the old, you're not changing), but let's not enter this old debate again, this issue has been long discussed before the release of BG:EE.
    JustLeftThacoBell
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Faydark said:

    Also, I for one would enjoy continuing my Neera romance dialogue on my character that I made for that. =D

    I'm not sure what you're expecting, but you might well be disappointed. I've played a character through the full saga, romancing Neera in both games, and it works okay as it currently is.

    The Neera "romance" in BG1ee is just a couple of mildly flirty banters (maybe three, IIRC) and it's all over, it's pretty misleading to have called it a romance at all. I understand that the one for Rasaad is similar (although I haven't tried that one yet), and the one for Dorn is so low-key that it's very easy not even to realise that the dialogue you just had with him is meant to have been "romance" at all. It's not obvious whether you've "succeeded" or "failed" (unless you check the variables in 'keeper), so lots of players will go into BG2ee not knowing what their romance status is, or not realising (pretty likely in Dorn's case) that they were even in a "romance" at all.

    Then in BG2ee, you get a chance to play a much more substantial romance storyline ... currently without it carrying forward the status from end-BG1ee. Now unless they're actually going to change the existing romance dialogues in BG2ee, exactly what differences can it make if BG2ee will now know about the end-BG1ee status? Either:-

    1) they can completely ignore the continuity data (in which case it may seem pointless - but see below); or

    2a) they can say "if you ended BG1ee with the romance status failed, then you won't be allowed to play that romance in BG2ee" (which will cause uproar from players who didn't even know that they had "failed" in BG1ee); and/or

    2b) they can say "if you ended BG1ee with the romance status succeeded, then you automatically omit the first few romance dialogues in BG2ee and start at a later point in the sequence" (which will disappoint players who wanted to see the whole story).

    Locking out a romance or skipping part of it doesn't seem to me to be an attractive way to use the continuity data, and it would give players who intend to pursue a particular romance in BG2ee a perverse incentive not to take that NPC with them in BG1ee, so as to avoid loss of content in BG2ee.

    However, anything more complex than these simplistic options would surely require changing existing dialogue trees (including voiced dialogue, which is expensive), so I'll be surprised if they go to the trouble of implementing that, because it's unlikely to make commercial sense.

    I therefore have a suspicion that the facility to carry forward the romance status may be more for the convenience of those who write romance mods, rather than for Beamdog to use it themselves. Perhaps they'll just ignore it in their in-house work, and leave it to modders to find a good use for it.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    edited November 2015
    Faydark said:

    @Gallowglass afaik, BG2 doesn't have any method to import variables from BG1. I vaguely recall that Beamdog was working on changing this for some reason, but it hasn't happened yet.

    You are mistaken. As of patch 1.3 you can add the variables you want to import into VARIMPRT.2DA.

    That said Drizzt's variable is actually determined by the area script in the first part of Irenicus's dungeon. So you are correct there. If you have either one of his scimitars or the mithral chain in your inventory then you are considered to have killed him (you can't pickpocket him so he must have been killed).
    Post edited by elminster on
    FaydarkJuliusBorisovGemHound
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    I would like to add that with the latest patch, the romances with EE NPCs do import to BG2EE.
  • MonoCanallaMonoCanalla Member Posts: 291
    elminster said:

    Faydark said:

    @Gallowglass afaik, BG2 doesn't have any method to import variables from BG1. I vaguely recall that Beamdog was working on changing this for some reason, but it hasn't happened yet.

    You are mistaken. As of patch 1.3 you can add the variables you want to import into VARIMPRT.2DA.
    I’m interested in this. The possibility of playing SoD and SoA with two different characters yet to be able to import variables. Forgive me, I don’t quite follow how do you import that. You mind to explain for dummies?

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