@sandmanCCL having more choices in any game is redundant when putting it that way. "Why have Branwen when Viconia is there?" Maybe because I would rather use Branwen? in BG1 for instance, you have a choice between Imoen, Skie, or Safana. Aside from either of them being found late or early, they're all pretty much the same character when you take away the personality. Maybe the stats are slightly off, but are those small numbers really making that big of a difference? Part of BG1 that was great that BG2 was lacking, was that essence of being able to choose your party... as opposed to only getting one theif who could actually level up in BG2.
I was speaking purely from a gameplay standpoint. In BG2, the devs went a long way toward making sure each character functionally behaved different than the others. No two guys are remotely alike and there is very little overlap in functionality.
Your examples of Skie, Safana and Imoen is exactly my point. I bet if you gathered gameplay statistics of people and wrote down the average time each NPC spent in the party per playthrough, or even just who was in the party when a particular game took down Sarevok, Safana and Skie would be MAYBE 3% of runs. MAYBE. Imoen would be in like a third. She's simply that much better, and is more functional, and joins from the outset. There are no upsides to taking the others over Imoen, and there are plenty of upsides to taking Imoen over the others.
If they were going to implement her in BG2, I'd like her to be functionally different than the other NPCs. I don't think that's a horrible thing to ask.
Before you even pull the, "But I use them for their personalities" card, making characters functionally different from each other highlights their personalities. Giving players incentive to bring a dude along only solidifies them as a character. Look all the characters in RPGs that withstand the test of time as fan favorites. Typically, they are also the "best" characters from a meta-game standpoint. The best guys are the ones people use and they grow attached to them beyond simply quirky roleplaying snippets.
I mostly play good characters, ‘cause it suits me better, but I do think that BG2 is poorly designed for an evil character role-play. The game feels rather unrewarding for evil doers, mostly in terms of missed opportunities as a result of evil decisions – I tried it and missing all the rewards from being good is really annoying without sufficiently attractive alternatives. I strongly encourage devs to think of improvements in this direction (sorry for getting a bit carried away from the main topic here, ‘tis my first post and all). As suggested by the OP, the BG2 start is far too skewed toward good characters and I believe it must be altered for evil PCs. Given what the developers have told us so far, the most probable solution for an evil PC start (if any is implemented) is likely to be the one that will change the least in terms of game content and balance. Consider this about the original BG2 starting characters:
Imoen: she is such an integral part of the BG2 story that replacing her seems impossible. It will involve a ton of extra work for the devs to replace a character that can already be dumped if the PC decides to. Let’s forget about replacing the PC’s in-game sister, tolerate her at least for her skills at the game start and move on;
Jaheira: her character has a lot of related original content in terms of banter and side-quests. Harper or not, she is of true neutral alignment and can definitely tolerate some bad behavior on behalf of the PC and his party. Since her husband is no longer around, it seems that Jaheira can remain at the BG2 start without being a great nuisance in an evil party, at least until the PC decides to replace her (if he/she ever does);
Minsc: a chaotic good character, Minsc is as unfitting for an evil party as an NPC can be. In addition to this, iirc Minsc does not have any significant BG2 side-quests. If someone is to be replaced with an evil character (and I AM sad to say this), Minsc looks to be the best bet.
Bottom line: let’s suppose only Minsc is replaced at the starting location. It will greatly reduce the effort required by the devs to bring a more tolerable “evil” feel to the BG2 start, while not changing the original game story/content significantly. Still, the devs will be stuck with having to make up BG2 content for the “replacement” NPC. It has already been stated that bringing any more BG1 NPCs into BG2 is unlikely. A good solution to this is to place Dorn in the cell instead of Minsc (for evil PCs only). The devs will likely be making BG2 content for Dorn anyways, so why not start right from the Irenicus dungeon? For good/neutral PCs, Dorn can be found at, say, the Copper Coronet or wherever the devs decide to place him. Of course, implementing such an idea does not mean that Minsc has to be ruled-out completely of BG2. The ranger can, for example, be sent to the Copper Coronet (and be interchangeable with the replacing evil NPC, i.e. if you’re good/neutral Minsc starts with you and the “replacement” evil NPC is still found at the Copper Coronet). I’m curious what you guys think about that?
This was never an engine limitation. It was choice laziness by the developers of BG2. It is quicker and easier to just make a single canon party than multiple canon parties. And what really annoys me is that they would have only needed to add content for FOUR new companions. (Two neutral and two evil.)
Imoen could have remained as is and just had 2 extra dialogue options all ending with her letting you out of the cage.
Charname: I thought I killed your whiney annoying hide a while back? Imoen: I was close to death when you left me battered but luckily for me a stranger calling himself "The Surgeon" saved me and healed me"
or for those who never killed her but never played with her either...
Charname: Imoen I have not seen you since we departed ways long time back. Why are you here? Imoen: I made my way back to Beregost where I heard all about your exploits when one night I was abducted!
I mean Imoen could remain the same after that no changes whatsoever. Minimal work!
Only work would have been intergrating 2 evil characters or 2 neutral characters into the game instead of Jaheira and Minsc. Both Jaheira and Minsc could have still been available just at different places, with slightly different joining dialogues and a few other dialogue changes.
This is one of the biggest things that put me off BG2 was the forced good aligned party and the presumption you were good as well.
You're all missing the point of storytelling ;-/ but be that as it may, playing an evil party is a choice, but the story doesn't revolve around an evil party, but "good guys" which is why you have the cannon group as it is. Playing evil is your choice but it's not the story.
As to rewriting the start to make it evil-minded, you'd have to rewrite practically 1/2 the story itself which is a TON of work. think about it....if it took 2 yrs(just an example) for a game to be finished and you wanted to add all that evil side stuff, you'd have to almost write 2 games worth of dialogue and that makes no sense from a programming point of view, a timeframe point of view or a business one either. Don't misunderstand, i'm not questioning anyone's choice of play styles as an evil party, more power to you, it's your game so play it as you like. My train of thought just derailed though i had more to add...i hates being old lol. cheers.
Technically, Jaheira could be part of any party; she's not a good-aligned character as it is. Minsc is there because he's funny. All three starting characters are unavoidable; you have to actively avoid Imoen, and you must visit Nashkel where Minsc is found. Your very first quest mentions Khalid and Jaheira by name.
Other obvious characters: Edwin, Yeslick, Garrick, Coran, Ajantis, Quayle, Tiax.
This is unlike Branwen, Dynaheir, Kagain, Skie, Kivan or Shar-Teel, whom you may never meet unless you crawl around every map and poke in every corner.
Nevertheless, it's unlikely you'll get an evil- or neutral-aligned beginning. Start thinking of ways to write the mod yourself, as I doubt the contract will allow such major surgery.
@sandmanCCL no wonder there's an entire group of people that say they like BG1 better than BG2. IF these games were only made from a "gameplay standpoint" then they would not stand the test of time. Yet, they did, therefore, I'm pretty sure that the developers had more on their minds than just gameplay. I understand your point, and to an extent, I agree with you; however, the amount of roleplayers that play this game is staggering, and only having 3 evil NPCs there to choose from removes any choices within the game. How are you going to use Edwin when you have 20 reputation?
@Cuan I love your idea with the dialogues with Imoen, because no matter what happened during BG1, you still grew up with her, and she still left Candlekeep. The change of you not traveling with her at the time of your kidnapping doesn't matter, because Irenicus STILL needed her anyways for her soul as well, so there's no real retconning required to enter that into the story.
@Aldrec I agree and disagree with your post at the same time, but not because I think it's a bad idea, I actually think it's a really good one (Not that my opinion really matters anyways ;P). I just think that there are people that wish they could bring in more NPCs from BG1, and Trent already confirmed that the three new NPCs will in fact make it to BG2; although how has not yet been revealed. I'm seriously hoping that Rasaad is Lawful Neutral and replaces Minsc as the canon fighter type for neutral parties (although his alignment seems more Lawful Good) and that Montaron could possibly replace that fighter type for Evil parties.
I for some reason, disagree with removing Jaheira from her cell and replacing her with a different healer type, but only because of her involvement with you from the get go of BG1. Many people don't like her, this might be true, but HER being the canon only makes sense, and the fact that she's True neutral, makes it so that it doesn't matter if you're evil, there's at least a reason that you took her along in the first place.
One other descrepency I've noticed is Khalid's alignment. I am probably wrong about this and if I am, someone correct me, but isn't Khalid a Harper as well? Aren't Harpers True Neutral?
@Xavioria The Harpers are a semi-secret organization dedicated to promoting good, preserving history (including art and music of old) and maintaining a balance between civilization and nature by keeping kingdoms small and the destruction of plant life to a minimum. Most members are either good/neutral-aligned rangers or bards, though many wizards and druids are also their willing allies. In 1371DR- The Year of the Unstrung Harp (1 year previously to the start of the 3rd edition campaign)- there has been growing divisions between the Harpers who wished to further the cause of Balance (neutral-aligned) and those who wished to combat evil (good-aligned). A schism happened after the Harper Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun made a deal with Fzoul Chembryl, leader of the Zhentarim. He was expelled from the Harpers, and, with his wife Laeral Silverhand of the Seven Sisters, he went on to form the Harper splinter organization known as the Moonstars.
@neleothesze Kivan is CG, not neutral. Safana is already present in BG2 and her cameo would be totally pointless and extremely odd were she to be with you from the start of the game. No matter how many tomes of wisdom Xan has read, he can't ever dual-class to cleric since he's an elf, not a human.
@sandmanCCL no wonder there's an entire group of people that say they like BG1 better than BG2. IF these games were only made from a "gameplay standpoint" then they would not stand the test of time. Yet, they did, therefore, I'm pretty sure that the developers had more on their minds than just gameplay. I understand your point, and to an extent, I agree with you; however, the amount of roleplayers that play this game is staggering, and only having 3 evil NPCs there to choose from removes any choices within the game. How are you going to use Edwin when you have 20 reputation?
Go figure. I know way more people that like BG2 better than the first one in my circle of experience.
My argument NPCs need to be functionally different from each other benefits people who are in it to roleplay. The way it is now, there are an extremely small number of people who use Safana, Skie and Alora. Why? Because from a gameplay perspective, there is no incentive to pick them up.
I always felt BG1 was a weak RP experience to begin with, personally. When people are all, "I love this guy~~~" I just think it's funny that person's 5 lines of dialogue is all it took. There really isn't a whole lot of NPC interaction in BG1.
I agree the lack of evil-aligned NPCs was a detriment to BG2 and never quite understood why they put in so few. Then again, the NPCs that are in BG2 are extremely fleshed out and actually, you know... force you to interact instead of simply having a body who occasionally complains about being tired.
@neleothesze Kivan is CG, not neutral. Safana is already present in BG2 and her cameo would be totally pointless and extremely odd were she to be with you from the start of the game. No matter how many tomes of wisdom Xan has read, he can't ever dual-class to cleric since he's an elf, not a human.
@Koson I see how my previous post could be misread since at evil I had listed Xzar (who duals to a second class). I clarified what I meant: Xan would have obviously become a Cleric/Mage [if exceptions could be made for Aerie they could be made for Xan] (since the developers gave Viconia, Edwin, etc different stats in BG2 I showed that it was reasonable for him to "gain wisdom" between games. - Of course with some many characters with illegally low stats another cleric with 'just' 14 wisdom wouldn't surprise anyone) I think he'd make a good Cleric of Kelemvor [not that the game engine permits multiclass kits but his personality fits perfectly! Him going on about the inevitability of death and how we should accept it fits with the doctrine ] Of course that would make Aerie redundant. Ah, well. The Safana / Coran thing completely slipped my mind.
Montaron could possibly replace that fighter type for Evil parties.
I for some reason, disagree with removing Jaheira from her cell and replacing her with a different healer type, but only because of her involvement with you from the get go of BG1. Many people don't like her, this might be true, but HER being the canon only makes sense, and the fact that she's True neutral, makes it so that it doesn't matter if you're evil, there's at least a reason that you took her along in the first place.
@Xavioria I would be very happy to see Montaron in an evil PC BG2 party. However, if we stick to what we heard from the dev team, he won't be making a return as a playable NPC in BG2: EE. Even if he does, it probably would not be at the character start location, as he and Xzar are already in the original BG2 (docks; harper quest follow up). As for Jaheira, I never suggested that she is removed/replaced at the starting dungeon. On the contrary, I think that she must stay there for the very same reasons you state. I only mentioned that if someone doesn't like her - she can always be replaced at a later point.
Again, my suggestion is just to place Dorn in the cage of Minsc for an evil NPC and move Minsc to some tavern, so you can still recruit him later in the game if you want to (for good/neutral players it can be vice versa with Minsc at the start and Dorn at the tavern). Being a half-orc, Dorn could probably be "released" from the cell in a manner similar to Minsc (though it will be much more impressive, as Dorn would be lacking a giant space hamster to help him out).
If this idea is implemented, your evil starting party will have 2 evil, 2 neutral chars and (the story-wise unavoidable) Imoen, who is taken away from you upon walking out of the dungeon. Also, balance-wise a good ranger will be replaced by an evil paladin, so it shouldn't be a great change to the original starting party composition. It just seems as the most efficient way to address the starting party alignment issue without breaking the original game.
Well I didn't mean to state that anyone's ideas were incorrect, and you are quite right about Xzar and Montaron; and what I said was more wishful thinking than an actual real idea...
As for a very small amount of people using Safana/Alora/Skie, I can't agree or disagree with that, because that has not quite been my personal experience. You're definitely right about Skie... almost no one uses her whatsoever. I've heard that plenty of people use Alora or Safana (or some other thief) because many people like to play the canon, which means Dualing Imoen to a mage. Keeping Imoen, seems to me anyways, is a result of BG2 BEING the canon, and I've already seen dozens of posts of people saying that they like to end the game with the Canon... so I blame plenty of Imoen usage on that...
I agree that NPCs should be fundamentally different, but Branwen vs. Viconia (using this as an example) have differing alignments, and that should be difference enough, if it isn't for you, then fine, but you're not the only one that plays this game, several thousand others do as well. I use Safana in almost all of my playthroughs, that doesn't mean everyone else does...
This game is more than just gameplay, granted your argument for gameplay is more than valid. The only issue is that when it comes down to BG, that same argument starts to crumble because it's alot more than gameplay that this game requires to be as legendary as it is.
Now that I think about it, Branwen would be redundant. One of the things they wanted to do with BG2's NPCs is each guy was drastically different from each other. Despite both being rangers, Valygar and Minsc play extremely different for example.
Branwen would just be outclassed. Without significant changes to her stats, extra ability or something, she'd be fourth tier cleric. I know people dislike Anomen from a character standpoint but he's an amazing NPC in combat. Viconia would be a better raw cleric. Jaheira is pretty amazing with a sling and functions quite well in that fighter/druid role. And then Aerie is simply amazing as is any cleric/mage multi-class.
I don't agree that Branwen would necessarily be "outclassed" or "redundant" in BG2. Anomen may be a better fighter, but Branwen is a much better cleric (16 wisd vs. Ano's 12). By contrast, Branwen is sturdier and probably better in physical combat than Aerie or Viconia. She's a pure cleric, which means she can level up in that class faster than Aerie, and she would fit in better with an "evil" party than Aerie would. Likewise, she would also fit in better with a "good" party than Viconia, who can cause friction among certain good NPCs.
Besides, why wouldn't her stats be improved for BG2 as well? Almost every other returning NPC was.
Now that I think about it, Branwen would be redundant. One of the things they wanted to do with BG2's NPCs is each guy was drastically different from each other. Despite both being rangers, Valygar and Minsc play extremely different for example.
Branwen would just be outclassed. Without significant changes to her stats, extra ability or something, she'd be fourth tier cleric. I know people dislike Anomen from a character standpoint but he's an amazing NPC in combat. Viconia would be a better raw cleric. Jaheira is pretty amazing with a sling and functions quite well in that fighter/druid role. And then Aerie is simply amazing as is any cleric/mage multi-class.
I don't agree that Branwen would necessarily be "outclassed" or "redundant" in BG2. Anomen may be a better fighter, but Branwen is a much better cleric (16 wisd vs. Ano's 12). By contrast, Branwen is sturdier and probably better in physical combat than Aerie or Viconia. She's a pure cleric, which means she can level up in that class faster than Aerie, and she would fit in better with an "evil" party than Aerie would. Likewise, she would also fit in better with a "good" party than Viconia, who can cause friction among certain good NPCs.
Besides, why wouldn't her stats be improved for BG2 as well? Almost every other returning NPC was.
Anomen may as well be a Lawful Good character because people who bring him along finish his quest the good way, which then boosts his Wisdom to 18.
Also saying she'd be more durable than Viconia is not really true. Due to how constitution works, Branwen at 15 CON would only have 9 more HP even though Vicky only has 8 constitution.
The reason I brought up Anomen is because she'd basically be the same character but without the fighter levels and therefore better thac0/hp/proficiency in weapons. I think that's why the devs left her out of it.
She was one of my favorite NPCs in BG1. Just saying, she'd be redundant unless they overhauled her somehow.
Anomen may as well be a Lawful Good character because people who bring him along finish his quest the good way, which then boosts his Wisdom to 18.
Except that that quest can take a long time, and in the meanwhile you're struck with a deficient cleric and probably require a second cleric in your party anyway (and incidentally, I think it boosts his wisd to 16, not 18). With Branwen you'd be getting a quality neutral cleric (at least 16 wisd, maybe 18 if the makers boost her like they did Viconia) right from the start.
You're right, it's just 16 WIS. Still, it's pretty good.
I still mantain wisdom is vastly overrated, especially in BG2. It's just a bunch of extra level 1 and level 2 spells, obviously way more helpful at the beginning of the saga when you don't have many total spells you can cast.
It'd be interesting if they did bring back Branwen to give her a boost in dexterity. She could be your single-class thief if they did.
Comments
Your examples of Skie, Safana and Imoen is exactly my point. I bet if you gathered gameplay statistics of people and wrote down the average time each NPC spent in the party per playthrough, or even just who was in the party when a particular game took down Sarevok, Safana and Skie would be MAYBE 3% of runs. MAYBE. Imoen would be in like a third. She's simply that much better, and is more functional, and joins from the outset. There are no upsides to taking the others over Imoen, and there are plenty of upsides to taking Imoen over the others.
If they were going to implement her in BG2, I'd like her to be functionally different than the other NPCs. I don't think that's a horrible thing to ask.
Before you even pull the, "But I use them for their personalities" card, making characters functionally different from each other highlights their personalities. Giving players incentive to bring a dude along only solidifies them as a character. Look all the characters in RPGs that withstand the test of time as fan favorites. Typically, they are also the "best" characters from a meta-game standpoint. The best guys are the ones people use and they grow attached to them beyond simply quirky roleplaying snippets.
As suggested by the OP, the BG2 start is far too skewed toward good characters and I believe it must be altered for evil PCs. Given what the developers have told us so far, the most probable solution for an evil PC start (if any is implemented) is likely to be the one that will change the least in terms of game content and balance. Consider this about the original BG2 starting characters:
Imoen: she is such an integral part of the BG2 story that replacing her seems impossible. It will involve a ton of extra work for the devs to replace a character that can already be dumped if the PC decides to. Let’s forget about replacing the PC’s in-game sister, tolerate her at least for her skills at the game start and move on;
Jaheira: her character has a lot of related original content in terms of banter and side-quests. Harper or not, she is of true neutral alignment and can definitely tolerate some bad behavior on behalf of the PC and his party. Since her husband is no longer around, it seems that Jaheira can remain at the BG2 start without being a great nuisance in an evil party, at least until the PC decides to replace her (if he/she ever does);
Minsc: a chaotic good character, Minsc is as unfitting for an evil party as an NPC can be. In addition to this, iirc Minsc does not have any significant BG2 side-quests. If someone is to be replaced with an evil character (and I AM sad to say this), Minsc looks to be the best bet.
Bottom line: let’s suppose only Minsc is replaced at the starting location. It will greatly reduce the effort required by the devs to bring a more tolerable “evil” feel to the BG2 start, while not changing the original game story/content significantly. Still, the devs will be stuck with having to make up BG2 content for the “replacement” NPC. It has already been stated that bringing any more BG1 NPCs into BG2 is unlikely.
A good solution to this is to place Dorn in the cell instead of Minsc (for evil PCs only). The devs will likely be making BG2 content for Dorn anyways, so why not start right from the Irenicus dungeon? For good/neutral PCs, Dorn can be found at, say, the Copper Coronet or wherever the devs decide to place him. Of course, implementing such an idea does not mean that Minsc has to be ruled-out completely of BG2. The ranger can, for example, be sent to the Copper Coronet (and be interchangeable with the replacing evil NPC, i.e. if you’re good/neutral Minsc starts with you and the “replacement” evil NPC is still found at the Copper Coronet). I’m curious what you guys think about that?
Imoen could have remained as is and just had 2 extra dialogue options all ending with her letting you out of the cage.
Charname: I thought I killed your whiney annoying hide a while back?
Imoen: I was close to death when you left me battered but luckily for me a stranger calling himself "The Surgeon" saved me and healed me"
or for those who never killed her but never played with her either...
Charname: Imoen I have not seen you since we departed ways long time back. Why are you here?
Imoen: I made my way back to Beregost where I heard all about your exploits when one night I was abducted!
I mean Imoen could remain the same after that no changes whatsoever. Minimal work!
Only work would have been intergrating 2 evil characters or 2 neutral characters into the game instead of Jaheira and Minsc. Both Jaheira and Minsc could have still been available just at different places, with slightly different joining dialogues and a few other dialogue changes.
This is one of the biggest things that put me off BG2 was the forced good aligned party and the presumption you were good as well.
As to rewriting the start to make it evil-minded, you'd have to rewrite practically 1/2 the story itself which is a TON of work. think about it....if it took 2 yrs(just an example) for a game to be finished and you wanted to add all that evil side stuff, you'd have to almost write 2 games worth of dialogue and that makes no sense from a programming point of view, a timeframe point of view or a business one either. Don't misunderstand, i'm not questioning anyone's choice of play styles as an evil party, more power to you, it's your game so play it as you like. My train of thought just derailed though i had more to add...i hates being old lol. cheers.
Other obvious characters: Edwin, Yeslick, Garrick, Coran, Ajantis, Quayle, Tiax.
This is unlike Branwen, Dynaheir, Kagain, Skie, Kivan or Shar-Teel, whom you may never meet unless you crawl around every map and poke in every corner.
Nevertheless, it's unlikely you'll get an evil- or neutral-aligned beginning. Start thinking of ways to write the mod yourself, as I doubt the contract will allow such major surgery.
@Cuan I love your idea with the dialogues with Imoen, because no matter what happened during BG1, you still grew up with her, and she still left Candlekeep. The change of you not traveling with her at the time of your kidnapping doesn't matter, because Irenicus STILL needed her anyways for her soul as well, so there's no real retconning required to enter that into the story.
@Aldrec I agree and disagree with your post at the same time, but not because I think it's a bad idea, I actually think it's a really good one (Not that my opinion really matters anyways ;P). I just think that there are people that wish they could bring in more NPCs from BG1, and Trent already confirmed that the three new NPCs will in fact make it to BG2; although how has not yet been revealed. I'm seriously hoping that Rasaad is Lawful Neutral and replaces Minsc as the canon fighter type for neutral parties (although his alignment seems more Lawful Good) and that Montaron could possibly replace that fighter type for Evil parties.
I for some reason, disagree with removing Jaheira from her cell and replacing her with a different healer type, but only because of her involvement with you from the get go of BG1. Many people don't like her, this might be true, but HER being the canon only makes sense, and the fact that she's True neutral, makes it so that it doesn't matter if you're evil, there's at least a reason that you took her along in the first place.
One other descrepency I've noticed is Khalid's alignment. I am probably wrong about this and if I am, someone correct me, but isn't Khalid a Harper as well? Aren't Harpers True Neutral?
In 1371DR- The Year of the Unstrung Harp (1 year previously to the start of the 3rd edition campaign)- there has been growing divisions between the Harpers who wished to further the cause of Balance (neutral-aligned) and those who wished to combat evil (good-aligned). A schism happened after the Harper Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun made a deal with Fzoul Chembryl, leader of the Zhentarim. He was expelled from the Harpers, and, with his wife Laeral Silverhand of the Seven Sisters, he went on to form the Harper splinter organization known as the Moonstars.
@neleothesze Kivan is CG, not neutral. Safana is already present in BG2 and her cameo would be totally pointless and extremely odd were she to be with you from the start of the game. No matter how many tomes of wisdom Xan has read, he can't ever dual-class to cleric since he's an elf, not a human.
My argument NPCs need to be functionally different from each other benefits people who are in it to roleplay. The way it is now, there are an extremely small number of people who use Safana, Skie and Alora. Why? Because from a gameplay perspective, there is no incentive to pick them up.
I always felt BG1 was a weak RP experience to begin with, personally. When people are all, "I love this guy~~~" I just think it's funny that person's 5 lines of dialogue is all it took. There really isn't a whole lot of NPC interaction in BG1.
I agree the lack of evil-aligned NPCs was a detriment to BG2 and never quite understood why they put in so few. Then again, the NPCs that are in BG2 are extremely fleshed out and actually, you know... force you to interact instead of simply having a body who occasionally complains about being tired.
The Safana / Coran thing completely slipped my mind.
Again, my suggestion is just to place Dorn in the cage of Minsc for an evil NPC and move Minsc to some tavern, so you can still recruit him later in the game if you want to (for good/neutral players it can be vice versa with Minsc at the start and Dorn at the tavern). Being a half-orc, Dorn could probably be "released" from the cell in a manner similar to Minsc (though it will be much more impressive, as Dorn would be lacking a giant space hamster to help him out).
If this idea is implemented, your evil starting party will have 2 evil, 2 neutral chars and (the story-wise unavoidable) Imoen, who is taken away from you upon walking out of the dungeon. Also, balance-wise a good ranger will be replaced by an evil paladin, so it shouldn't be a great change to the original starting party composition. It just seems as the most efficient way to address the starting party alignment issue without breaking the original game.
As for a very small amount of people using Safana/Alora/Skie, I can't agree or disagree with that, because that has not quite been my personal experience. You're definitely right about Skie... almost no one uses her whatsoever. I've heard that plenty of people use Alora or Safana (or some other thief) because many people like to play the canon, which means Dualing Imoen to a mage. Keeping Imoen, seems to me anyways, is a result of BG2 BEING the canon, and I've already seen dozens of posts of people saying that they like to end the game with the Canon... so I blame plenty of Imoen usage on that...
I agree that NPCs should be fundamentally different, but Branwen vs. Viconia (using this as an example) have differing alignments, and that should be difference enough, if it isn't for you, then fine, but you're not the only one that plays this game, several thousand others do as well. I use Safana in almost all of my playthroughs, that doesn't mean everyone else does...
This game is more than just gameplay, granted your argument for gameplay is more than valid. The only issue is that when it comes down to BG, that same argument starts to crumble because it's alot more than gameplay that this game requires to be as legendary as it is.
Besides, why wouldn't her stats be improved for BG2 as well? Almost every other returning NPC was.
Also saying she'd be more durable than Viconia is not really true. Due to how constitution works, Branwen at 15 CON would only have 9 more HP even though Vicky only has 8 constitution.
The reason I brought up Anomen is because she'd basically be the same character but without the fighter levels and therefore better thac0/hp/proficiency in weapons. I think that's why the devs left her out of it.
She was one of my favorite NPCs in BG1. Just saying, she'd be redundant unless they overhauled her somehow.
I still mantain wisdom is vastly overrated, especially in BG2. It's just a bunch of extra level 1 and level 2 spells, obviously way more helpful at the beginning of the saga when you don't have many total spells you can cast.
It'd be interesting if they did bring back Branwen to give her a boost in dexterity. She could be your single-class thief if they did.