Baldur's Gate #BaldurGate: Siege of Dragonspear

[Ezrite]

To be fair you interact with her during the game a lot.
But yes, it feels in many ways just like BG2 where they take Imoen from you and that's your bait, and you can't do anything about that.
But they did't really have much of a choice. In the end some harsh railroading with cutscenes was bound to happen because of what happens in BG2.

It just could have been more elegant. Personally, I would focus events between BG1 and BG2 more on what personally happens with Bhaalchild, his companions, politics on Baldut's Gate city itself (city adventure maybe?), learning more about Bhaalchild history, Gorion (meeting old Gorion party members even?), Harpers, Bhaal legacy, and then last parts of the game running from persecution and Exile.

Okay I need to put another post for this, lol.

Well, a bit of a twist would have been...let you play the antagonist in the expansion. Let you cause the capture of the Bhaalspawn. Let this Radiant Lady be the one to fuck up the Bhaalspawn or "Abdel". And you did it. That be more "wtf did just happen" then "Ima put you in jail for something stupid". Or playing other Bhaalspawns. Your idea sounds interesting to. As far as I know, there is in information what so ever about Baldurs Gate and what happens. Gorions old allies and friends sounds awesome too. The creators of Baldurs Gate often seem to forget all the factions in Faerun. Saravok and his Iron Throne would probably get fisticuffed by any of the other 89297497262 evil factions or 38228973797237 good factions. But yes, it could been more elegant, I probably buy it myself, to justify what I say later on and write a shitty steam review or something. I bet it is still better than Dragon Age, that is a lost cause.

 

[Shadenuat]

Btw, I wonder if inspiration (or rather, they just remade the character in new clothes) for Shining Lady was Aribeth from NWN. They have a lot in common especially if you remember Aribeth's story and motivations in HoU.

 

[Thonius]

Bought it to show support for proper D&D. Looks nice actually.

 

[Ezrite]

Btw, I wonder if inspiration (or rather, they just remade the character in new clothes) for Shining Lady was Aribeth from NWN. They have a lot in common especially if you remember Aribeth's story and motivations in HoU.

I bet it was. I should stop being irritated at myself when my players laugh at my plotline and think I "Stole" everything from the Witcher and Game of Thrones settings in my pnp. Especially since a company can do it, then I can to. lol.

Also

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...c-salute-is-asinine-and-wrecks-game-immersion

IF that character is so unimportant. Why do she have a voice actor?

 

[Shadenuat]

IF that character is so unimportant. Why do she have a voice actor?

Oh yes that. There's A LOT of voice acting in SoD, even for unimportant characters. Very inneficient resource spending if you ask me.
Especially concidering that these actors (like Minsc's actor) probably are not cheap at all.

 

[Athelas]

Oh yes that. There's A LOT of voice acting in SoD, even for unimportant characters. Very inneficient resource spending if you ask me.
Especially concidering that these actors (like Minsc's actor) probably are not cheap at all.

Judging by the 'OMG David Warner day 1 purchase' reactions even in this cynical place, I'm not sure about that.

I mean, why not return to Candlekeep, burry Gorion's remains at least

The time to bury Gorion would have been immediately after the cutscene where he gets killed, not after months of traveling the Sword Coast.

 

[Johannes]

Some of the UI change are nice actually. Where it shows you more clearly what things are modifying your AC, thac0 and weapon dmg. Or how you can have a shield or weapon in the off-hand slot and don't have to remove it to use a 2-hander (you won't get its benefit then ofc). But they fucked up a lot of stuff (mostly, but not entirely, minor stuff).

 

[Ezrite]

Oh yes that. There's A LOT of voice acting in SoD, even for unimportant characters. Very inneficient resource spending if you ask me.
Especially concidering that these actors (like Minsc's actor) probably are not cheap at all.

Well that is a suprise! To bad they ddin't spend the money on a better writer it seems, but on AMBER SCOTT : - )

 

[Gay-Lussac]

PSA: Sword Coast Stratagems does indeed break the game if you install the expansion. Messes with NPC lines and screws up random items. Thankfully all I had to do was uninstall the expansion and it all went back to normal, no permanent harm done.

No bugs if you apply the hotfixed mod on just the vanilla game with patch 2.0, though.

 

[Ezrite]

Peopel are hillarious on beamdogs forum

Then I saw videos on youtube of people attacking and chunking her after talking to her. Wow. Such virtual hatred. Ofcourse she is just a minor convenience npc in a video game, but if people react to such a minor npc that gravely, I wonder what they would do in real life, if one of their acquantances, a friend or family member would turn out to become a transgendered individual. So sad.

How come people think like this? If you kill someone in a game, you just got to be 10 times worse. Really? I better hide away from my friends, they got to be proper killers cause they are so good at it in games!

 

[Shadenuat]

The time to bury Gorion would have been immediately after the cutscene where he gets killed, not after months of traveling the Sword Coast.

Reconcilment, feasting and meeting his old friends visiting Candlekeep could have happened at any time after the war.

Judging by the 'OMG David Warner day 1 purchase' reactions even in this cynical place, I'm not sure about that.

It's not about Warner, it's about random NPCs with cheap fetch quests also being VOed (or even without any quests).

 

[ArchAngel]

Oh yes that. There's A LOT of voice acting in SoD, even for unimportant characters. Very inneficient resource spending if you ask me.
Especially concidering that these actors (like Minsc's actor) probably are not cheap at all.

Judging by the 'OMG David Warner day 1 purchase' reactions even in this cynical place, I'm not sure about that.

I mean, why not return to Candlekeep, burry Gorion's remains at least

The time to bury Gorion would have been immediately after the cutscene where he gets killed, not after months of traveling the Sword Coast.

To be fair he does sound awesome in SoD.
I could listen to him playing Jon Irenicus all day.

 

[ArchAngel]

Oh yes that. There's A LOT of voice acting in SoD, even for unimportant characters. Very inneficient resource spending if you ask me.
Especially concidering that these actors (like Minsc's actor) probably are not cheap at all.

Well that is a suprise! To bad they ddin't spend the money on a better writer it seems, but on AMBER SCOTT : - )

I don't think she wrote much for SoD except few quests and some Jaheira lines.

Her tasks on SoD is mostly marketing. And she called it a promotion from writing. You know what is done with people you want to stop: you either fire them or promote them

 

[Unkillable Cat]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/0/371918937268976921/

For the record, the first commenter in that thread is not me. Unlike him I can spell, wouldn't dream of playing X-Com 2 and I don't live in the UK.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

Well I got a free Steam Key so I'm checking this out. I was also curious about these achievements.

Seriously? We're now playing a Marriage Counsellor Sim.

And here we find a use for Infravision in the game.

 

[Ezrite]

I don't think she wrote much for SoD except few quests and some Jaheira lines.

Her tasks on SoD is mostly marketing. And she called it a promotion from writing. You know what is done with people you want to stop: you either fire them or promote them

Haha! I didn't know that one, promote em! Marketing and her? I do not think a angry feminist SJW is fiting for that either but now she cannot ruin as much I guess!

 

[Infinitron]

I think ArchAngel is wrong and Amber did plenty of writing for SoD. It's what she was hired for and she was only recently promoted to marketing.

That's what I don't like about writing anyway, which turns mediocre fairly quickly (just the fact that Bhaalchild follows orders and goes yessir all the time is boring).
Soldier boying and catapults like IWD2 act 1, meh
The whole soldiers und catapults make your running around seem like you don't matter at all. Wrong scale for 6 adventurers party.

I appreciate the fact that you're the only person who has bothered to finish the game and share impressions about it at length, but this argument seems kind of pointlessly subjective. You wish they'd written a different story? Whatever man, talk more about the story they did write.

Also, did you get the term "soldier boying" from Letho in TWitcher 2?

 

[boobio]

Has anyone heard this new gem in the game yet:

http://webm.land/media/tmp/53223f64-efd8-4463-89ce-7521ec0b5766.webm

Because I like to leave the real world behind when I play games. ideally

 

[Infinitron]

Has anyone heard this new gem in the game yet: http://webm.land/media/tmp/53223f64-efd8-4463-89ce-7521ec0b5766.webm
Because I like to leave the real world behind when I play games. ideally

Is that actually used in the game?

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Why is it developers cant leave shit alone. For fucks sake why are you trying to start a fight with not only GG's but every one else.

 

[Ezrite]

Why is it developers cant leave shit alone. For fucks sake why are you trying to start a fight with not only GG's but every one else.

Social Justice Points I guess. People who barely play anyway. A very stupid investment.

 

[Somberlain]

PSA: Sword Coast Stratagems does indeed break the game if you install the expansion. Messes with NPC lines and screws up random items. Thankfully all I had to do was uninstall the expansion and it all went back to normal, no permanent harm done.

No bugs if you apply the hotfixed mod on just the vanilla game with patch 2.0, though.

Are you sure you did everything right? Or maybe there is some conflict with the new SoD scripts and they don't work with SCS until the latter is updated. Maybe aVENGER knows?

I'm not sure if I'll buy this until SCS works. Not that I buy any games until the first patches are out anyway.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Duuuuuuuude, that's modern gaming. If you don't push some kind of agenda down everyone's throat you fail at game design. They did say the originals are not right for a modern audience, didn't they? They're enhancing everything, including the level of political correctness.

People who barely play anyway. A very stupid investment.

Yeah, you have to wonder.. they obviously do this for that supposed extra cash... does it really help?

 

[Lacrymas]

Achievements in general are gross 99% of the time. Behind all the verbal diarrhea of the mouth breathers at 4chan is a grain of truth. They just can't articulate themselves properly through the drool. Like I mentioned, the problem is that they cram popular things without any thought or reason behind it other than it's popular. It's always sterilized and neutered as fuck and that's what gives it away. If they wanted it to matter and actually make a statement they should ramp these topics to 11 and not hide behind "optional and throw-away side characters", if they don't want to make these statements they should leave popular things in the dust. That's the whole problem here, it really does detract from games because it's an outside influence and doesn't fit well with the overarching narrative. It should be woven within the whole and built-up properly. Exactly like anything else regardless of topic matter.

 

[Roguey]

Diablo 1 looks better than Divinity Original Sin after 20 years

Nah. To its credit, it does look better than Diablo 2.

They have some good artists working there.

Quite a lot of those artists were contracted from China or unpaid interns. Mike McCain is a great art director, makes Wasteland 2's look like a total amateur.

How many people here are actually playing the game? Seems like if it's not a Kickstarter where the entire Codex hops on board and gets the game simultaneously, there's a problem getting a decent sample size of impressions.

This also has an uphill battle of being a Beamdog product that requires an additional Beamdog product. I'm just here to rubberneck.