Viconia DeVir
anythinggoes
Member Posts: 2
Hello! I have a question about Viconia that bothers me for the longest time, and I failed to find an answer online, so I think this place is the best one to ask.
I played BG2 even before it was republished by Beamdog, and Viconia was a character who had so much hints about her having a personal quest that never happened.
When I first recruited her in Shadows of Amn (I played 2 before 1) I got a lot of expectations. I expected that she will have a quest in Underdark. That we will meet someone who knew her back then. That we will get ambushed by Lolth's worshipers who are hunting Viconia. She tells all about her life in Underdark, her escape and her turning on Lolth so I was absolutely sure that as soon as we are going to Underdark, something will happen. But it never will.
You can find some other DeVir house members in the cage on the second floor of the tavern in Underdark, I was expecting them to have any interaction with Viconia - again, nothing. I tried multiple options of playthrough variations because I thought maybe I need to have a certain level of approval with her to unlock her possible quests - nothing helped. I researched the internet and found nothing as well, so I assume it doesn't exist.
But still, they added these DeVir NPCs for some reason, and all Viconia's stories imply that she could have a quest about her past, her house falling, her escaping Lolth and all that.
So my question is, maybe there was something planned in the original games, that was later cut? That's the only explanation I can think of. Do you guys know anything about that?
I played BG2 even before it was republished by Beamdog, and Viconia was a character who had so much hints about her having a personal quest that never happened.
When I first recruited her in Shadows of Amn (I played 2 before 1) I got a lot of expectations. I expected that she will have a quest in Underdark. That we will meet someone who knew her back then. That we will get ambushed by Lolth's worshipers who are hunting Viconia. She tells all about her life in Underdark, her escape and her turning on Lolth so I was absolutely sure that as soon as we are going to Underdark, something will happen. But it never will.
You can find some other DeVir house members in the cage on the second floor of the tavern in Underdark, I was expecting them to have any interaction with Viconia - again, nothing. I tried multiple options of playthrough variations because I thought maybe I need to have a certain level of approval with her to unlock her possible quests - nothing helped. I researched the internet and found nothing as well, so I assume it doesn't exist.
But still, they added these DeVir NPCs for some reason, and all Viconia's stories imply that she could have a quest about her past, her house falling, her escaping Lolth and all that.
So my question is, maybe there was something planned in the original games, that was later cut? That's the only explanation I can think of. Do you guys know anything about that?
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Comments
I feel like instead of adding new characters like Dorn and the like (EE), who are pretty weak, Beamdog could have delved deeper into those details of the original characters, carefully... but oh well, they preferred to add pompous filler without substance.
Beamdog weren't allowed to touch anything about original characters.
2) Dorn is weak??? Are you out of your mind?? I want some of whatever you're smoking. He's a Blackguard, which means he is immune to level drain. Considering how much of SoA involves fighting Vampires, this is a huge bonus. Now, I understand if you don't want to follow Dorn's personal quest ... it's not for the faint of heart ... but even without the Abyssal Blade and The Visage, Dorn is not to be scoffed at. And if you actually do his quest, with that gear, he's a lean, mean foghting machine who curbstomps Vampires.
Then, why they were allowed to add a romance for Safana in SoD? Or for Viconia? They are original characters.
They added interactions between the new characters and the original ones too...
Weird.
Dorn is fine, but I meant new characters are weak in terms of their stories and such, not in terms of their combat abilities. They're characters without substance or charm.
I don't care much, I recruit them, do their quests and then bye.
I like Baeloth but that's all.
They couldn't touch original characters in the BG1 and BG2 games.
The few additions like Branwen reacting to Tranzig were specifically approved by WotC.
In a way, I actually find this is a lot better than the modern RPG approach, where every companion is given an equal sidequest, romance options, reactivity, etc. The BG2 companions are much more immersive in that they come in different shapes and sizes so to speak. They don't feel as artificial.
So the BG1/BG2 designers just kind of went with whatever they felt like, and, I'm guessing here, whatever they had budgeted for voice-acting. On top of that, they had to cut a fair amount of content to meet their deadline and have a mostly bug-free game. This wasn't the days of easy internet patching via Steam or whatever for many consumers. There's a cut Valygar romance and a cut Minsc sidequest, iirc. AFAIK, there was never an intended Viconia sidequest.
I do think she was given decent reactivity if you take her to the Underdark. She's a helpful companion for navigating that part for first time players imo.
Sad, really, Underdark chapter is probably my favourite, and having a DeVir quest there could be so fun...
But if your primary goal is to have more story in the Underdark, did you consider or already test some of the mods?
I don't recall all those mods offhand, but there are some add-on mods for the Underdark. I like the one where you have to raid a house in the Underdark; and meet Viconia's daughter. These may also not be 100% finished or so, but I think there is quite some content to be had here. Also e. g. the storyline of Dusk and Fall has parts in the Underdark.
Perhaps someone has a list of all quests that can be added to the Underdark via a mod. I always felt the Underdark is great as it is, and the mods extend on that, which is great.
> Sad, really, Underdark chapter is probably my favourite, and having a DeVir quest there could be so fun...
What would be nice is if someone could make some dedicated Underdark 2.0 mod theme. Like, take the existing content, and improve on it. Sometimes this happens. Would be cool if there would be another drow city for instance. Could be smaller and what not. But people often move on eventually - take the Region of Terror mod. I think it is a great mod, even if the storyline is strange. But it was never 100% finished. People polished and improved on it, and it is playable, but has a few bugs too (can be ignored for the most part).
https://github.com/Spellhold-Studios/Region-of-Terror
I don't have a better solution to see more mods being created though. Perhaps AI could help in some parts? Like autogenerating some things or so. Like ... take a NPC. Say I want to make a NPC similar to Aura. But I don't want to micro-design everything. I'd love some tool that could be used to be able to generate a weapon like a bow with a special ability or two. And the AI could perhaps autogenerate the images needed for this. That would already help quite a bit.