When I first read the news on the EE my greatest expectations were on new plot content: I was expecting they were going to cover the plot blanks, ofer new choices to finish old quests in different ways and so on... there would be plenty to "enhance" just doing that; there was no need to ADD that much they've added. The new characters, dialogs and quest looks like clichéd new age stuff, designed to amuse teenagers; they menaged to be less deep then the ones in Neverwinter Nights 2 (don't misunderstand me, that one IS a great game, but the screenplay IS kind of silly and superficial, much like a cartoon's, I would say). For instance, all this new "romanceable NPCS"; for me there was enought romance in the original (all competently written), I just missed something else than Anomen for girls, but they would have done better in creating possibilities with existing characters (it would fit incredibly well in Valygar and/or Cerned). And there is SO MUCH "unifinished business" in the source content that was ignored by mods and could have been worked with in a really nice way... so, for me that was the greatest frustration: to see my dear game be changed to fulfill the demands of a generation that worship stuff like WoW, Diablo III and the garbage alike, rather then to be a pleasant experience for veteran players. The only thing that remains to be praised, in the end, are the graphic and interface changes, but I could survive without them, I've played this game for a long enough time without them.
@Brunachos: Setting aside the contractual restrictions preventing Beamdog from doing anything but adding content (it's a crappy deal, but that's on Atari and WotC), I'm at a loss as to how you can argue the EE material is any more superficial/shallow than the original.
The core romances were competently written? Really? Aerie and Viconia are utterly stereotypical as the "madonna/whore" binary - you have to reject intimacy with the former to move forward, and the first time you sleep together she gets pregnant; meanwhile, Viconia is evil and therefore enjoys sex, etc. And Jaheira... yeesh, what a mess.
Really, it sounds like you're letting nostalgic affection color your comparison - the EEs aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they don't fall short by attempting to appeal to "the WoW generation" of all things.
@WebShaman: I called up an old MoW save just to make sure, and someone definitely did their homework when designing Hexxat - if you become a vampire at the end of the Westgate campaign, you get STR +6, DEX +4, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4; immunity to poison and level drain; regeneration; gaseous form; Children of the Night (summons rats, bats or wolves) and Dominate.
Yeap, crappy deal it is. Don't know whom to blame for this, but I am calling him a dumbass right now.
And you say the old romances are steryotipical... in some points they are just as you say, in others don't (Vicky is quite more complex than you state; Aerie exchanging you for Haer Dalis is an undeniable surprise at the first time and jaheira is cool 'cause it makes me feel like cuckolding Khalid; he deserves worse). But that is the point: Romances in games tend to be like that; it is damn hard to avoid, it is a very trickfull land to step in and the writers of EE should be aware of that. I mean, 4 new characters and all of them romanceable? Am I the only one here that finds it an exageration and definitely a distortion of the source material? "to romance" was far from being a priority in interpersonal relationship at SoA; it is rather an implementation to give the world tones of realism. Also, I am not a big fan of romances in games; usually they are, like in novels or poetry, a sad excuse to fulfill writer's blocks and avoid the exploitation of much more and deep themes like treason, drugs abuse, racism, religion... The original game is quite satisfactory in some of these points, that is why I like it so much; for me is cooler to be able to screw up the dream of a man's lifetime and mock him for his failure than to say some bullsheet to a chick to see boobs.
@WebShaman: I called up an old MoW save just to make sure, and someone definitely did their homework when designing Hexxat - if you become a vampire at the end of the Westgate campaign, you get STR +6, DEX +4, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4; immunity to poison and level drain; regeneration; gaseous form; Children of the Night (summons rats, bats or wolves) and Dominate.
I mean, 4 new characters and all of them romanceable? Am I the only one here that finds it an exageration and definitely a distortion of the source material? "to romance" was far from being a priority in interpersonal relationship at SoA; it is rather an implementation to give the world tones of realism.
My guess is that their market research told them that most players like romances, so they made (almost) all the new characters romanceable. Anecdotally, it seems that whenever a new mod NPC is proposed or announced, the first question is "Is the character romanceable?" so I see where they are coming from.
That is my main concern: If these guys bother so much about the market, their main goal is money rather than quality and coherency with the original game. Baldur's Gate is not a simple game: it is a beautiful and well told story, an entirely world depicted with vivid and attractive colors, high fantasy of the best level you can get not in a book; in other words: It is art. You don't hurry art, you don't make art bow to the demands of Mammon, not unless you want it to became trashy.
Oh c'mon; art IS business. It is money that allows dozens of skilled people to spend hundreds of hours developing a quality product. The fact that not every endeavor creates a satisfying result is what separates the art from a science.
My wife is a talented painter. But she's not a master. So her work really doesn't sell for much. If she had to support herself as a painter she'd be a "starving artist". So she doesn't, she designs office buildings full time, and paints when she can find time on the weekend. No matter how much she loves painting, she would need someone to foot the bill if she wanted to devote herself to it. And that's where it becomes a business. In order to devote hundreds of hours to a project, SOMEONE has to pay the bills. A big project like BG (or EE) needs business, technical and creative talents. If we call it art, money is required. If we call it product, money is required. Whatever we call it, someone better be paying attention to the business aspects or it all come to a stop as soon as bills stop getting paid.
Yeah, and I am asking no one to give for free the only thing they have to support their lives; even Van Gogh complained on the low profit he was getting with his canvas. But there is a difference betwen art that is also a job and "art" that is produced merely for money; the difference, let us say, between Cormac Maccarthy and Sidney Sheldon...
That is my main concern: If these guys bother so much about the market, their main goal is money rather than quality and coherency with the original game. Baldur's Gate is not a simple game: it is a beautiful and well told story, an entirely world depicted with vivid and attractive colors, high fantasy of the best level you can get not in a book; in other words: It is art. You don't hurry art, you don't make art bow to the demands of Mammon, not unless you want it to became trashy.
I think you are being exceedingly generous towards the story of BG1/BG2 and the series coherency (including its impact on roleplaying) as a whole. There are plenty of plot holes in either game and situations where the game provides you with taking only 1 option in order to move forward (at the sacrifice of story quality and roleplaying). Also the original games were left with a lot of inconsistencies and bugs and bioware stopped patching them not that long after they were released (ToB for instance only received patches until about 5 months after release). I don't really fault them for that. By that point they'd probably made a good chunk of the change they would end up making on the game. But money is a big part in why they made the games.
That is my main concern: If these guys bother so much about the market, their main goal is money rather than quality and coherency with the original game. Baldur's Gate is not a simple game: it is a beautiful and well told story, an entirely world depicted with vivid and attractive colors, high fantasy of the best level you can get not in a book; in other words: It is art. You don't hurry art, you don't make art bow to the demands of Mammon, not unless you want it to became trashy.
@Brunachos - Plenty in the original version was rushed. Especially Throne of Bhaal. If it hadn't been, there wouldn't be tons of loose ends, including abandoned romances (Valygar) you can find coding for if you comb through the game files. It was good, sure, but it really shouldn't be idolized as some flawless masterpiece.
I'm also not sure why you say that romances weren't the priority in interpersonal relationships in SoA, since they were the only way for the PC to have any interpersonal relationship at all. When I first started playing, I didn't realize there even were romances until the Internet told me (always play female, never took Anomen), and I remember being a little bit disgruntled that all the NPCs were talking to each other but nobody ever talked to me. I like romances, but I don't like them being the only relationship a PC can have with an NPC, and that design comes straight from the original.
I think your being very generous to BGs story Brunachos, its good sure but it has many flaws. Equally while it is a great game it still has lots of areas in which it could improve even after the EE some areas are lacking.
As to the romance thing, I personally think new characters should have romances if its suitable for them. they have always been a popular part of the npcs and I think it would hurt the devs not to include them on new characters.
Well Throne of Bhaal is a different matter... I was utterly disappointed with it for all that witch you pointed and some more, and the main reason it disappointed me so much was because of the greatness of its predecessor. One of the few really cool things on ToB is... oh, what a surprise - a non romanceable new NPC!
On the subject of money being their main concern since the beginning: You could call me naive, but I don't think so: A game that uses D&D rules at a purist level is clearly spotting a very specific public, and the walls of text you have to face since the beginning to accomplish each quest aren't very attractive, especially if you think there is a hole market overseas and translation patches weren't released at the time (at least not in my language). I learned English JUST TO PLAY THIS GAME (it is not a joke) but, apparently, was the only one in my country who bothered to do so; all my friends know about Diablo, about Elder Scrolls, about Final Fantasy, but they find my taste for BG totally alien... So, I am pretty sure that some in the crew of the original developers were just carving for perfection: The hand-drawn scenarios as beautiful as any canvas, the touching dialogue lines, the voice acting of shakespearean level... I don't know about you all guys, but that is why I still play it. The old "crappy" one.
The writing is very poorly done. The dialogue options for CHARNAME during EE quests are completely discordant with the original game and often incomprehensible; the typical options for CHARNAME in EE-content dialogue are 1.) say something completely idiotic that has nothing to do with the question asked or situation presented 2.) drop an unfunny sarcastic line 3.) say something only a complete douche would say. I have repeatedly found myself in situations where not a single dialogue option is presented that I would consider saying. The writing is so bad that sometimes I'm not sure who I'm even talking to (i.e. Rasaad and the Two-fold enthusiast at the Amphitheater). If you look at the original SoA writing it actually had some subtlety and humor to it (e.g. "Yet another corpse in my wake nothing odd about that", "You there, Unwashed One, I'd have a word with you!", etc.)
...
... (newsflash: alliterations are annoying and unfunny)
Well to that I can only think of one response - namely, that the dialogue for the game was obviously not designed with you - and only you - in mind. I don't know what sort of things you or your charname of the moment would say, but they might not be the things I would say, for example. Basically, they seem to have taken an approach that standardised the lines as 1. Friendly 2. Witty/Sarcastic 3. Unfriendly, much like in DA2. They were never going to pull off lines that pleased everyone, that's for sure.
As for the writing being "discordant" (I learned a new word)... You were expecting otherwise? The first Baldur's Gate game was released in 1998, and the second in 2000. The Enhanced Editions came out in 2012 and 2013, respectively - or so I'm told - and an entirely new team of writers from a different company entirely was brought in to create the new content. Even if the same people from BioWare were brought in to create/revise the things that went down, do you really think their workstyle and ideas would be just the same as they were since the timeskip? I know first-hand that writing is a thing shaped by time and experience, and some of the things I wrote when I was younger, I would have wrote very differently today. Likewise, I doubt those original romances as they currently exist would fly in today's world like they did then. And while there is subtlety and humour to be found in the writing of SoA, you've chosen two very poor lines to illustrate it; neither is subtle, and only one of them is humorous.
And if you can't tell who you're talking to, just check their name in the top left-hand corner of the dialogue box. That'll do the trick.
Finally... alliterations are annoying and unfunny to you. Yes, they get annoying if overdone, but the same is true of everything.
As for the OP, I would to a large extent agree. Hexxat is a dreadful character in my opinion, with nothing to redeem her (because, sadly, her SoA sidequests were essentially palette swaps of the same quest). Both she and Dorn are incredibly jarring characters, because although they are evil, they are aggressively incompatible with - between both of them - at least one quarter of the other NPCs in the game. This does not promise versatility in replayability if you plan to reuse them (not that there is much temptation to do that anyway). I agree with the promotion of evil characters, however there is a collossal difference in the scale and credibility of the evil acts enacted by both new characters that makes them utterly polarising. I still respect the work that Overhaul put in, and can never have hoped it would be as artful as the original, but there are certain aspects of it that are disappointing beyond defense. I believe Overhaul may do better if they are allowed to make their own game: at least then the comparison of quality won't be so immediate as it is between BG content and EE content.
It is a pity that so many 'innovative' thinkers don't see the beauty and opportunity in normalcy.
Okay, you know what? When I asked around about D&D games that actually let me be evil, I think this is exactly the kind of mindset I was griping about. The "evil-but-not-too-evil" mindset. The mindset that seems to hold evil as occurring on two separate levels: the real deal evil, the do-wrong-and-put-your-back-into-it kind, and a kind of thing we call evil, which doesn't actually involve being evil so much as griping when good deeds are done in your presence, saying a few rude things to the good guys and rejoicing at the application of minor acts of ineffectual villainy.
Dorn and Hexxat are evil and commit evil deeds on a semi-regular basis? Good. There are only 3 evil companions available in Vanilla SoA, and 1 extra in ToB. There's 6 more who only appear in the first game. And as evil teammates go, none of the Vanillas are evil in a meaningful way.
And people, don't talk to me about the fact they have "Evil" in their alignment. That's a few keystrokes. The push of a button. It's meaningless. What do any of them actually do that's evil?
You can dress a donkey in a pelt and call him a lion. And you can hang a sign around his neck that says, LION on it. And you can play a tape behind him that makes growling noises. And you can stick signs in the ground around him that say, "Beware! This lion is dangerous! If you get too close, he'll bite your hand off!" But for all that window dressing, he'll still be just a donkey. The LE, NE and CE signs around the necks of these alleged "evil" characters are no different.
Tiax and Xzar are raving lunatics all right, but their totally unhinged mental state is played for comedy, Montaron and Korgan are bloodthirsty sociopaths - a good case for being evil, except that they don't actually do anything evil unless directed to do it by the player, Shar-Teel may be a raging misandrist but she's the tame kind of CE, the sort who care about the ability to be evil more than actually doing it, Kagain is a greedy moneygrubber but he's more "unpleasant and lower end of the principles scale" LN than LE, Edwin is just a villainous butt monkey who fails at being successfully evil forever and wouldn't know real successful evil if it came up and bit him, and Viconia is little more than a clichéd bully with racism against surfacers piled on. They may not be good people, but they are not evil. They're just a bunch of jerks. Good guys can also be crazy (*cough* Minsc), racially prejudiced (I'm talking to you, Keldorn) or irrationally murderous (looking in your direction, CN Anomen).
Sarevok is as close to the legitimate evil I mentioned above as Vanilla companions get, and most of that is due to his past actions rather than anything he does while working for us. Eldoth comes close, on account he's a womising jackass who's cruel to his current girlfriend and has made a career of seducing women rich in money but poor in sense, which we see happen in real-time, but given how he's totally useless gameplay-wise, there's no real point in bringing him along.
People seem to think evil party member means "Excellent stats for a single-class character, bad attitude, kind of a jerk and doesn't get along with the good guys." It doesn't. To explain what evil is and isn't, here's a quote from a triumphant example of a well-written evil character:
It's not just about raw power, it's also about how far you're willing to debase yourself before feeling bad. And me? I ripped off my own living flesh so that I wouldn't have to admit weakness. You're strictly little league compared to that. That right there? That's the difference between bonafide true Evil with a capital E and your whiny "evil, but for a good cause," crap. One gets to be the butch, and one gets to be the bitch — Bitch. --Xykon, The Order of The Stick: Start of Darkness
In my opinion, and that's all I lay claim to, good guys get to act like good guys, so bad guys should get to act like bad guys. BG and its sequel seem to despise the idea of choosing to be evil. You can choose it, but the game will make you suffer for it. Dorn and Hexxat have Neutral Evil on the label. It would be a big turn-off for me if they weren't earning that label. And if people aren't compatible with them because of their alignment? That makes sense. It happened often enough in the original game. I'm fairly certain Edwin could drive both Minsc and Valygar to attack him by not shutting his big mouth, somehow managed to become horrified by Keldorn and driving him to violence, Keldorn would leave the party over Viconia because she was a drow, CN Anomen would lash out at both Keldorn and Aerie, Korgan could drive Aerie to leave, and all those incompatible personalities from the first game too.
You're going to have to explain the "beauty and opportunity in normalcy" thing to me, by the way. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
And as a parting thought... if you can't stomach evil characters doing evil things (as in, proper evil, not saying a few bad words about someone's dead loved ones), why are you even looking to bring them along?
For Kagain, what is the first thing you see him do? He says that people under his care died, and that he wouldn't give a rats arse about them if one of them hadn't been important. He then absconds with Charname, to hide out until the heat dies down. That's...a pretty evil mindset.
For Sharteel, she challenges men to duels saying that she will work for them if they win. That sounds like a 'honor duel' to me. But if she is winning, she happily kills the poor guy. Straight up murders him. Thats really, really evil.
Viconia? It's hard to say. She is redeemable, but she may or may not have murdered a family of farmers. She also urges Charname in BG2 to do less than moral things, even if her quests don't make her do what is evil.
Edwin is pretty evil, really. BG1 he murders a woman without knowing who she is or what she wants to do. In BG2 he has you murder a cowled wizard and urges you to go and kill a merchant for his documents. He then meets a liche who is trying to hide a dangerous artifacts, and rather than reason with it he blows it up. He does acts which are evil.
Eldoth...you are being unfair when you are saying that he doesn't count because he isn't as useful as other characters in a fight. His actions and dialogue are without a doubt on the E end of the spectrum.
We also get Baeloth. Who is a cowardly little evil psycopath.
You can certainly play an evil character if you want in BG1. The game even rewards you for being evil with some really good items.
(1) Algernoons Cloak. Only gained through theft of an innocent with no gray edges to rationalize with. (2) The mace of overpowerdness that you can only get by stealing it from a random innocent. (3) Helm of Glory. Only gained by breaking into a house and killing everyone inside.
You can also, with Sharteel, avoid getting a character killed when captured by the Flaming Fist.
It can also be argued that there are two Stat tomes, which can only be gained by breaking into and looting the most holy of places that Charname grew up in...even after Tethtoril asks Charname to not defile Candlekeep by doing that. If you want those stat tomes, you've got to be pretty greedy.
The only issue is that the game doesn't punish good characters for taking evil actions, when it does punish characters for taking evil actions. But if you are being honest with yourself, it is quite easy to play a 'smart evil' character who values keeping a good public persona.
Personally, my favorite evil characters are the ones which are not full blown evil. Ones like Korgan. Is he a murderer? Yes. Does he enjoy killing way, way too much? Yes. But at the same time he has his own code of ethics. For one, who is angered at the slavers for what they do to women and children. His entire outlook, when relevealed with his Mazzy dialogue, makes him believable. Much more so than characters who would twirl their mustaches and laugh as they butcher a village for no reason.
Well to that I can only think of one response - namely, that the dialogue for the game was obviously not designed with you - and only you - in mind. I don't know what sort of things you or your charname of the moment would say, but they might not be the things I would say, for example. Basically, they seem to have taken an approach that standardised the lines as 1. Friendly 2. Witty/Sarcastic 3. Unfriendly, much like in DA2. They were never going to pull off lines that pleased everyone, that's for sure.
As for the writing being "discordant" (I learned a new word)... You were expecting otherwise? The first Baldur's Gate game was released in 1998, and the second in 2000. The Enhanced Editions came out in 2012 and 2013, respectively - or so I'm told - and an entirely new team of writers from a different company entirely was brought in to create the new content. Even if the same people from BioWare were brought in to create/revise the things that went down, do you really think their workstyle and ideas would be just the same as they were since the timeskip? I know first-hand that writing is a thing shaped by time and experience, and some of the things I wrote when I was younger, I would have wrote very differently today. Likewise, I doubt those original romances as they currently exist would fly in today's world like they did then. And while there is subtlety and humour to be found in the writing of SoA, you've chosen two very poor lines to illustrate it; neither is subtle, and only one of them is humorous.
And if you can't tell who you're talking to, just check their name in the top left-hand corner of the dialogue box. That'll do the trick.
Finally... alliterations are annoying and unfunny to you. Yes, they get annoying if overdone, but the same is true of everything.
I'm not going to qualify every statement I make as pertaining "to me" only. I made the rather safe assumption that the people reading my post would understand I was posting my opinion and not speaking for the rest of human civilization. Next time, if you feel confused, feel free to look at the top left-hand corner of the forum post and you'll know whose opinions the post refers to. That'll do the trick.
I wrote my original post a long time ago, and I have to say, time as has only strengthened my negative view of the new content (which I now completely skip over in my files). Perhaps my standards are too high, but, yes, the writing of the original game and enhanced edition content should be of comparable style and quality; since, you know, I'm paying money for the content. Unfortunately, what we got was an update that failed to build on the artistry of the original, and instead we were left a Mona Lisa with a crudely drawn mustache.
Oh, and I'm glad I could help you out with your vocabulary.
The writing is very poorly done. The dialogue options for CHARNAME during EE quests are completely discordant with the original game and often incomprehensible; the typical options for CHARNAME in EE-content dialogue are 1.) say something completely idiotic that has nothing to do with the question asked or situation presented 2.) drop an unfunny sarcastic line 3.) say something only a complete douche would say. I have repeatedly found myself in situations where not a single dialogue option is presented that I would consider saying. The writing is so bad that sometimes I'm not sure who I'm even talking to (i.e. Rasaad and the Two-fold enthusiast at the Amphitheater). If you look at the original SoA writing it actually had some subtlety and humor to it (e.g. "Yet another corpse in my wake nothing odd about that", "You there, Unwashed One, I'd have a word with you!", etc.)
...
... (newsflash: alliterations are annoying and unfunny)
Well to that I can only think of one response - namely, that the dialogue for the game was obviously not designed with you - and only you - in mind. I don't know what sort of things you or your charname of the moment would say, but they might not be the things I would say, for example. Basically, they seem to have taken an approach that standardised the lines as 1. Friendly 2. Witty/Sarcastic 3. Unfriendly, much like in DA2. They were never going to pull off lines that pleased everyone, that's for sure.
Nah. A lot of the time it was 1. "Witty" comment 2. Kick this person's puppy
I went into length about the first conversation you have with Dorn in the BG2:EE in another thread. There is literally no way for a good, heroic character with even average intelligence to play out that exchange.
There are other examples where your character is forced into "snarky" dialogue options. Where every option is sarcastic of some sort. The only other time that this happened in the original game is with Melicamp... clearly an exceptional circumstance, and obviously intentional on the part of the developers. I don't have the time to dig up examples, but there are numerous that I've alluded to on other threads.
Dialogue options are the number one problem with the EEs, imho.
I sure hope I'm not committing thread necromancy...
As for the writing being "discordant" (I learned a new word)...
And if you can't tell who you're talking to, just check their name in the top left-hand corner of the dialogue box. That'll do the trick.
Finally... alliterations are annoying and unfunny to you. You're going to have to explain the "beauty and opportunity in normalcy" thing to me, by the way. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Next time, if you feel confused, feel free to look at the top left-hand corner of the forum post and you'll know whose opinions the post refers to. That'll do the trick.
Oh, and I'm glad I could help you out with your vocabulary.
Personal semi-attacks that have a danger to become full attacks and a necromancery to a thread from a year ago while the OP moved on from it are not the most optimal things. In order to seize any danger of losing this thread in a mess, I close it.
Comments
I never tried to finish Westgate...it was sooooo lame!
Not as good as Danger at Daggerford for NWN!
They are busy porting the game to android so you can play inside the bathroom or during your math class.
The new characters, dialogs and quest looks like clichéd new age stuff, designed to amuse teenagers; they menaged to be less deep then the ones in Neverwinter Nights 2 (don't misunderstand me, that one IS a great game, but the screenplay IS kind of silly and superficial, much like a cartoon's, I would say).
For instance, all this new "romanceable NPCS"; for me there was enought romance in the original (all competently written), I just missed something else than Anomen for girls, but they would have done better in creating possibilities with existing characters (it would fit incredibly well in Valygar and/or Cerned). And there is SO MUCH "unifinished business" in the source content that was ignored by mods and could have been worked with in a really nice way... so, for me that was the greatest frustration: to see my dear game be changed to fulfill the demands of a generation that worship stuff like WoW, Diablo III and the garbage alike, rather then to be a pleasant experience for veteran players.
The only thing that remains to be praised, in the end, are the graphic and interface changes, but I could survive without them, I've played this game for a long enough time without them.
The core romances were competently written? Really? Aerie and Viconia are utterly stereotypical as the "madonna/whore" binary - you have to reject intimacy with the former to move forward, and the first time you sleep together she gets pregnant; meanwhile, Viconia is evil and therefore enjoys sex, etc. And Jaheira... yeesh, what a mess.
Really, it sounds like you're letting nostalgic affection color your comparison - the EEs aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they don't fall short by attempting to appeal to "the WoW generation" of all things.
And you say the old romances are steryotipical... in some points they are just as you say, in others don't (Vicky is quite more complex than you state; Aerie exchanging you for Haer Dalis is an undeniable surprise at the first time and jaheira is cool 'cause it makes me feel like cuckolding Khalid; he deserves worse). But that is the point: Romances in games tend to be like that; it is damn hard to avoid, it is a very trickfull land to step in and the writers of EE should be aware of that.
I mean, 4 new characters and all of them romanceable? Am I the only one here that finds it an exageration and definitely a distortion of the source material? "to romance" was far from being a priority in interpersonal relationship at SoA; it is rather an implementation to give the world tones of realism. Also, I am not a big fan of romances in games; usually they are, like in novels or poetry, a sad excuse to fulfill writer's blocks and avoid the exploitation of much more and deep themes like treason, drugs abuse, racism, religion... The original game is quite satisfactory in some of these points, that is why I like it so much; for me is cooler to be able to screw up the dream of a man's lifetime and mock him for his failure than to say some bullsheet to a chick to see boobs.
Anyway, the team has delivered good patches to BG:EE (super slow there as well) so I'm not too concerned and keep waiting patiently.
*groan*
Ok, ok, somebody had to post it!
My wife is a talented painter. But she's not a master. So her work really doesn't sell for much. If she had to support herself as a painter she'd be a "starving artist". So she doesn't, she designs office buildings full time, and paints when she can find time on the weekend. No matter how much she loves painting, she would need someone to foot the bill if she wanted to devote herself to it. And that's where it becomes a business. In order to devote hundreds of hours to a project, SOMEONE has to pay the bills.
A big project like BG (or EE) needs business, technical and creative talents. If we call it art, money is required. If we call it product, money is required. Whatever we call it, someone better be paying attention to the business aspects or it all come to a stop as soon as bills stop getting paid.
I'm also not sure why you say that romances weren't the priority in interpersonal relationships in SoA, since they were the only way for the PC to have any interpersonal relationship at all. When I first started playing, I didn't realize there even were romances until the Internet told me (always play female, never took Anomen), and I remember being a little bit disgruntled that all the NPCs were talking to each other but nobody ever talked to me. I like romances, but I don't like them being the only relationship a PC can have with an NPC, and that design comes straight from the original.
As to the romance thing, I personally think new characters should have romances if its suitable for them. they have always been a popular part of the npcs and I think it would hurt the devs not to include them on new characters.
On the subject of money being their main concern since the beginning: You could call me naive, but I don't think so: A game that uses D&D rules at a purist level is clearly spotting a very specific public, and the walls of text you have to face since the beginning to accomplish each quest aren't very attractive, especially if you think there is a hole market overseas and translation patches weren't released at the time (at least not in my language). I learned English JUST TO PLAY THIS GAME (it is not a joke) but, apparently, was the only one in my country who bothered to do so; all my friends know about Diablo, about Elder Scrolls, about Final Fantasy, but they find my taste for BG totally alien... So, I am pretty sure that some in the crew of the original developers were just carving for perfection: The hand-drawn scenarios as beautiful as any canvas, the touching dialogue lines, the voice acting of shakespearean level... I don't know about you all guys, but that is why I still play it. The old "crappy" one.
As for the writing being "discordant" (I learned a new word)... You were expecting otherwise? The first Baldur's Gate game was released in 1998, and the second in 2000. The Enhanced Editions came out in 2012 and 2013, respectively - or so I'm told - and an entirely new team of writers from a different company entirely was brought in to create the new content. Even if the same people from BioWare were brought in to create/revise the things that went down, do you really think their workstyle and ideas would be just the same as they were since the timeskip? I know first-hand that writing is a thing shaped by time and experience, and some of the things I wrote when I was younger, I would have wrote very differently today. Likewise, I doubt those original romances as they currently exist would fly in today's world like they did then. And while there is subtlety and humour to be found in the writing of SoA, you've chosen two very poor lines to illustrate it; neither is subtle, and only one of them is humorous.
And if you can't tell who you're talking to, just check their name in the top left-hand corner of the dialogue box. That'll do the trick.
Finally... alliterations are annoying and unfunny to you. Yes, they get annoying if overdone, but the same is true of everything. Okay, you know what? When I asked around about D&D games that actually let me be evil, I think this is exactly the kind of mindset I was griping about. The "evil-but-not-too-evil" mindset. The mindset that seems to hold evil as occurring on two separate levels: the real deal evil, the do-wrong-and-put-your-back-into-it kind, and a kind of thing we call evil, which doesn't actually involve being evil so much as griping when good deeds are done in your presence, saying a few rude things to the good guys and rejoicing at the application of minor acts of ineffectual villainy.
Dorn and Hexxat are evil and commit evil deeds on a semi-regular basis? Good. There are only 3 evil companions available in Vanilla SoA, and 1 extra in ToB. There's 6 more who only appear in the first game. And as evil teammates go, none of the Vanillas are evil in a meaningful way.
And people, don't talk to me about the fact they have "Evil" in their alignment. That's a few keystrokes. The push of a button. It's meaningless. What do any of them actually do that's evil?
You can dress a donkey in a pelt and call him a lion. And you can hang a sign around his neck that says, LION on it. And you can play a tape behind him that makes growling noises. And you can stick signs in the ground around him that say, "Beware! This lion is dangerous! If you get too close, he'll bite your hand off!" But for all that window dressing, he'll still be just a donkey. The LE, NE and CE signs around the necks of these alleged "evil" characters are no different.
Tiax and Xzar are raving lunatics all right, but their totally unhinged mental state is played for comedy, Montaron and Korgan are bloodthirsty sociopaths - a good case for being evil, except that they don't actually do anything evil unless directed to do it by the player, Shar-Teel may be a raging misandrist but she's the tame kind of CE, the sort who care about the ability to be evil more than actually doing it, Kagain is a greedy moneygrubber but he's more "unpleasant and lower end of the principles scale" LN than LE, Edwin is just a villainous butt monkey who fails at being successfully evil forever and wouldn't know real successful evil if it came up and bit him, and Viconia is little more than a clichéd bully with racism against surfacers piled on. They may not be good people, but they are not evil. They're just a bunch of jerks. Good guys can also be crazy (*cough* Minsc), racially prejudiced (I'm talking to you, Keldorn) or irrationally murderous (looking in your direction, CN Anomen).
Sarevok is as close to the legitimate evil I mentioned above as Vanilla companions get, and most of that is due to his past actions rather than anything he does while working for us. Eldoth comes close, on account he's a womising jackass who's cruel to his current girlfriend and has made a career of seducing women rich in money but poor in sense, which we see happen in real-time, but given how he's totally useless gameplay-wise, there's no real point in bringing him along.
People seem to think evil party member means "Excellent stats for a single-class character, bad attitude, kind of a jerk and doesn't get along with the good guys." It doesn't. To explain what evil is and isn't, here's a quote from a triumphant example of a well-written evil character: In my opinion, and that's all I lay claim to, good guys get to act like good guys, so bad guys should get to act like bad guys. BG and its sequel seem to despise the idea of choosing to be evil. You can choose it, but the game will make you suffer for it. Dorn and Hexxat have Neutral Evil on the label. It would be a big turn-off for me if they weren't earning that label. And if people aren't compatible with them because of their alignment? That makes sense. It happened often enough in the original game. I'm fairly certain Edwin could drive both Minsc and Valygar to attack him by not shutting his big mouth, somehow managed to become horrified by Keldorn and driving him to violence, Keldorn would leave the party over Viconia because she was a drow, CN Anomen would lash out at both Keldorn and Aerie, Korgan could drive Aerie to leave, and all those incompatible personalities from the first game too.
You're going to have to explain the "beauty and opportunity in normalcy" thing to me, by the way. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
And as a parting thought... if you can't stomach evil characters doing evil things (as in, proper evil, not saying a few bad words about someone's dead loved ones), why are you even looking to bring them along?
For Kagain, what is the first thing you see him do? He says that people under his care died, and that he wouldn't give a rats arse about them if one of them hadn't been important. He then absconds with Charname, to hide out until the heat dies down. That's...a pretty evil mindset.
For Sharteel, she challenges men to duels saying that she will work for them if they win. That sounds like a 'honor duel' to me. But if she is winning, she happily kills the poor guy. Straight up murders him. Thats really, really evil.
Viconia? It's hard to say. She is redeemable, but she may or may not have murdered a family of farmers. She also urges Charname in BG2 to do less than moral things, even if her quests don't make her do what is evil.
Edwin is pretty evil, really. BG1 he murders a woman without knowing who she is or what she wants to do. In BG2 he has you murder a cowled wizard and urges you to go and kill a merchant for his documents. He then meets a liche who is trying to hide a dangerous artifacts, and rather than reason with it he blows it up. He does acts which are evil.
Eldoth...you are being unfair when you are saying that he doesn't count because he isn't as useful as other characters in a fight. His actions and dialogue are without a doubt on the E end of the spectrum.
We also get Baeloth. Who is a cowardly little evil psycopath.
You can certainly play an evil character if you want in BG1. The game even rewards you for being evil with some really good items.
(1) Algernoons Cloak. Only gained through theft of an innocent with no gray edges to rationalize with.
(2) The mace of overpowerdness that you can only get by stealing it from a random innocent.
(3) Helm of Glory. Only gained by breaking into a house and killing everyone inside.
You can also, with Sharteel, avoid getting a character killed when captured by the Flaming Fist.
It can also be argued that there are two Stat tomes, which can only be gained by breaking into and looting the most holy of places that Charname grew up in...even after Tethtoril asks Charname to not defile Candlekeep by doing that. If you want those stat tomes, you've got to be pretty greedy.
The only issue is that the game doesn't punish good characters for taking evil actions, when it does punish characters for taking evil actions. But if you are being honest with yourself, it is quite easy to play a 'smart evil' character who values keeping a good public persona.
Personally, my favorite evil characters are the ones which are not full blown evil. Ones like Korgan. Is he a murderer? Yes. Does he enjoy killing way, way too much? Yes. But at the same time he has his own code of ethics. For one, who is angered at the slavers for what they do to women and children. His entire outlook, when relevealed with his Mazzy dialogue, makes him believable. Much more so than characters who would twirl their mustaches and laugh as they butcher a village for no reason.
I wrote my original post a long time ago, and I have to say, time as has only strengthened my negative view of the new content (which I now completely skip over in my files). Perhaps my standards are too high, but, yes, the writing of the original game and enhanced edition content should be of comparable style and quality; since, you know, I'm paying money for the content. Unfortunately, what we got was an update that failed to build on the artistry of the original, and instead we were left a Mona Lisa with a crudely drawn mustache.
Oh, and I'm glad I could help you out with your vocabulary.
1. "Witty" comment
2. Kick this person's puppy
I went into length about the first conversation you have with Dorn in the BG2:EE in another thread. There is literally no way for a good, heroic character with even average intelligence to play out that exchange.
There are other examples where your character is forced into "snarky" dialogue options. Where every option is sarcastic of some sort. The only other time that this happened in the original game is with Melicamp... clearly an exceptional circumstance, and obviously intentional on the part of the developers. I don't have the time to dig up examples, but there are numerous that I've alluded to on other threads.
Dialogue options are the number one problem with the EEs, imho.