New Expansion ideas?
Thalamond
Member Posts: 129
Hi,
I was thinking: Some disliked SoD, some liked it. What I think most people can agree on, though, is that it was kind of a superfluous gap-connector (like really, there wasn't any clear gap between the two games to start with).
Anyway, my point is not to do SoD-bashing, but rather to suggest a few new DLCs based on what SoD has shown. SoD proved that: Beamdog can make a large expansion with beautiful terrain and decent quests.
So, here are my ideas or suggestions:
I would love to do the 50th-or-whatever-number-it-is-now replay, if fresh content was added. The main issue for me with SoD was that it was a separate adventure. Therefore, I would suggest any and all further expansions to be linked directly to our BG1 adventure. It can force you away temporarily like the official Tales of the Sword Coast did - but only to come back again later - not move the main quest definitively forward.
I guess most people believe BGEE is now petrified, but maybe there is a chance of reviving Beamdog DLCs if they start out small and then - if succesful - add something big later. I, for one, would love it in any case.
I was thinking: Some disliked SoD, some liked it. What I think most people can agree on, though, is that it was kind of a superfluous gap-connector (like really, there wasn't any clear gap between the two games to start with).
Anyway, my point is not to do SoD-bashing, but rather to suggest a few new DLCs based on what SoD has shown. SoD proved that: Beamdog can make a large expansion with beautiful terrain and decent quests.
So, here are my ideas or suggestions:
- Small mods: more low-key with a few quest or recruitable NPC mods similar to the brilliant mods already in the game as a must for many players (Shades and Baldur's Gate Mini Quests and Encounters for example). The game is still lacking in evil NPCs and, in any case, it would be great to have more (official) options.
- Larger separate adventure: A real adventure travelling from region to region - like what we all love in old-school RPGs. Going to nearby regions (east?), hitherto not explored in BG1 or BG2. The adventure would disallow travelling back to vanilla areas - at least for parts of the journey. At the end, free travel between vanilla and DLC areas should be possible.
- An expansion requiring both BG1 and Icewind Dale to allow the two in one in an official format instead of the buggy and slightly painful mods doing the same (no offense to the huge amount of work made by these modders - I appreciate their effort and had fun playing some of them). At any realistic point during IWD, the player would then be able to travel between BG and IWD areas as they wanted.
- Major Guild(s): We have a sterling mod in Gorgon's Eye. It would be incredible if the existing Thieves' Guild, Flaming Fist, other existing organisations or even new ones, received longer official quest lines in line with this design. The player would became a full-fledged member - even senior and perhaps leader. Guilds and organisations were never really explored thoroughly in BG.
- Iron crisis expansion: Seeing the actual consequences in the world. Crime, poverty, a visual (instead of just talked about) risk of war. This could also include a new rebel faction (joinable?) with mixed motives and sabotage that anyone from neutral good to chaotic evil would see a reason to join.
I would love to do the 50th-or-whatever-number-it-is-now replay, if fresh content was added. The main issue for me with SoD was that it was a separate adventure. Therefore, I would suggest any and all further expansions to be linked directly to our BG1 adventure. It can force you away temporarily like the official Tales of the Sword Coast did - but only to come back again later - not move the main quest definitively forward.
I guess most people believe BGEE is now petrified, but maybe there is a chance of reviving Beamdog DLCs if they start out small and then - if succesful - add something big later. I, for one, would love it in any case.
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Comments
You don't like it because it's in between two campaigns?
But you are fine leaving an ongoing crisis unresolved to travel to a different country for a few months?
From what I heard, that's actually a semi-common complaint raised about the quests in Shadows of Amn - the fact that you have to tackle them either while Imoen is suffering in prison; or else while you are withering away without your soul.
Also, Icewind Dale cannot be officially included in Baldur's Gate. It canonically plays over 80 years before that. Even if you don't care about such details (or how that would make a complete mess of the plot of SoD), the Wizards of the Coast would never allow it.
And adding “official” content to a complete story will cause wonkiness of some sort or another however you do it.
Maybe then biggest thing though, I think there’s no need for official new content. There are terrific adventure mods out there. Seriously, Throne of the Mad God or Call of the Lost Goddess are almost as long as, and better quality than, SoD. We live in a Golden Age of modding.
Sorry, the mods you mentioned are for BGII, hence irrelevant here - they look cool though! Sad, but you are probably right that there will be nothing new because of the (in my opinion) incompetent Wizards of the Coast.
Read what I wrote again and stop derailing the topic, please. This is not about who likes or dislikes SOD. My whole point was that SOD proved the talent of Beamdog and that they would be fully capable of making more quality content.
But to the point, then I'd add Loretakers as an excellent recent BG mod. Not as long as the others, but professional quality work. There are others, like Black Hearts and classics like Dark Side of the Sword Coast. So much of this user developed content is just brilliant quality. I too am sorry we haven't (and in all probability will not) seen more official content. And yet everyone of the ten or so runs I've done in the last few years has had some sort of new content attached to it. So I feel like we're in a good place.