The writing in this game is average

[Lhynn]

How did it work? The most fun stuff in BG2 is the content in Athkatla, in other words: deliberately ignoring the main quest and by extension Irenicus (and Imoen, but who the hell cares about her).

Lol no, it was fun, sure, but you were doing all of that to gather funds and allies to chase after him, you never deliberately ignore anything, theres no urgency and you are bidding your time and preparing to tackle an opponent that can destroy you with a mere thought.
Plus arguably the underdark is about as fun, and there isnt that much stuff that isnt fun in BGII to start with, thats why its so easy to replay.

When i said he is good as a target of hate i said a lot more thay flew over your head, in the story he tortures you and those closest to you,

Hundreds of other characters in this game try to murder you.

None of them both make it personal, while you find yourself hopelessly outmatched by him. Plus nothing personal about murder, bussiness as usual, torture and mind rape on the other hand?

he feels justified in his actions

So do plenty of psychos (see above).

I meant his smug attitude, you dont matter to him, you are a tool, until he comes to respect you as felipepe said. The dynamic of the relationship between you and irenicus, the personal stakes, etc. it all makes him a good enemy.

a thing that adds wood to the fire, you want to get back, you cant help but admire his power, he says he can unlock your power, etc.

This sounds...pretty weird (as in: weirdly erotic), even coming from you.

Dude, i was playing a wizard at the time on PnP, and i came to understand his motives, plus if you are interested in power his promises of more of it sound tempting. If all you can see is dicks, then im not the one with the problem

So many reasons to go after him, all of them emerging from the narrative

Ah yes, who could forget the riveting drama of answering a dozen of conversations with one of the following two options:

1. I intend to visit revenge on Irenicus, a mage who has done me harm and who is currently held captive by the Cowled Wizards.
2. I intend to rescue Imoen, my friend who's being held captive by the Cowled Wizards.

I remember saying more than once that i was after the power he mentioned, but you are free to tell me what other reason you would have to chase him other than revenge, hate, brotherly love, loyalty, greed, righteous indignation. because those sound like plenty for all.

There is a pressing reason to pursue him much later (when he steals your soul) but I wouldn't exactly call a basic desire for self-preservation a compelling narrative.

I would, especially if it was foreshadowed the way it was. But you forget the betrayal that came with it, that made the whole thing all the more bitter.

It was well written.


Brayko How is imoen even remotely bitchy? she may not be a good character but i never found him exasperating, i could just tell her to fuck off or kill her if i was inclined to do so. She may have been a bit annoying with her optimism (we do get some insight into the reason shes like that) but that is all.

felipepepe you are not being fair, there are swords in BGII with more personality than most of the important characters in PoE.

 

[hiver]

snip

Nice verbal diarrhea, moron.

That would be what you are shitting all over, actually.
Idiotic empty proclamations of a stupid shithead that you cannot support by anything and that have no actual meaning whatsoever.

It's a funny thing indeed that when you look a the medieval era and renaissance, and just about any pre modern era there are almost no female fighters. Like ever. Then even in the modern quota infested military you argue about, females and frontline fighting doesn't rhyme.

You mean to say that there isnt any of YOU in any military or front line at all. While there is enough women.
And imagine that, you are "a man" right?
Why are you not in military while all those women are?

But it's ok if the setting is about an alien race like those blue giants or the little furballs. That isn't the case, though. It's about humans, with cliche dialogues, so nothing different from all the dozens shitty fictions involving humans. So that means, whatever made males the exclusive fighters in all of history could be there. But it isn't.

How many times do we have to repeat the same thing you are incapable of understanding, you cheap shit feeding cretin?

At least they're wearing real armors. Not plate swimsuits. Unfortunately the intention behind that wasn't realism, on their side.

-
stupidity just by default due to considering and thinking in overblown global extremes, for starters, let alone any of the specific laughable stuff.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

1. Whatever you say asshole.


2. It's a setting where masculine and feminine archetypes are present in dialogues, yet this reality isn't reflected in the game world. Because a cretin never pays attention to coherence. Just what his cheap whims tell him to do.


3. That's not funny.

 

[Lhynn]

Since when did hiver become a SJW?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Tags tend to radicalise people.

 

[Irenaeus]

Tags tend to radicalise people.

That's gay.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Tags tend to radicalise people.

That's gay.

No gay or gay romance or in fact any romances in this game so far and thanks for the tip The GM and Durance are best Companions; kicked crazy eskimo dorf feminist out and went far from bitten track to recruit her.

 

[Rake]

While working on Planescape: Torment, Avellone was simultaneously working on Fallout 2.[23] In an interview from 2007, he says that Fallout 2 helped him rethink the possibilities of dialogue in Planescape: Torment

Well, i like Fallout 2 more than Fallout 1 as well, so...

 

[Jasede]

As someone who worked as an editor for many years: the writing is "competent, yet at times baroque".

I won't talk about the content of said writing, though. That's a matter of taste.


Why, why don't we get an RPG that was written 100% by MCA, auteur style. Nobody else. Just him. The follow-up to KOTOR 2 and PS:T. Fund it. That's the only game I would ever help kickstart. (Oh and Chrono Trigger 2...)

Edit: Also Imoen is OP, roleplayer or rollplayer, there's no reason not to take a mage who can also attend all your thief needs. A secondary mage is very useful in BG 2 to complement Edwin.

 

[Irenaeus]

 

[Ninjerk]

rekt

 

[Rostere]

Indeed. What is MCA up to and why didn't he write PoE alone, and why shouldn't he have complete writing control over future expansions and sequels? Obsidian is sitting on the most esteemed writer in all of CRPG history and what exactly is he doing?

 

[Jasede]

rekt

What do you mean? I meant to use baroque. It means "misshapen pearl" and can be used to mean "overwrought; overly elaborate".

 

[Ninjerk]

Indeed. What is MCA up to and why didn't he write PoE alone, and why shouldn't he have complete writing control over future expansions and sequels? Obsidian is sitting on the most esteemed writer in all of CRPG history and what exactly is he doing?

During PoE development time hasn't he worked on nuTorment, Faster Than Light, aaaaand something else that escapes me?

 

[Ninjerk]

rekt

What do you mean? I meant to use baroque. It means "misshapen pearl" and can be used to mean "overwrought; overly elaborate".

Irenaeus has been running around being contrarian-troll about PoE. I was impressed by his GIF finding.

 

[Jasede]

We don't give a shit; we want a 100% Avellone game. Kind of how Japanese video game directors get to write the game exactly as they want it. See: Kojima, Suda 51, Swery 65

Now that I think about it, having more than 1 writer on an RPG, even though it's a lot of text, is kind of a travesty. Imagine reading a Choose your Own Adventure book, only the pages were written by different guys. Sure, they were all trying to go for the same general style but it'll still come off as weird. Frankenstein's novella.

 

[hiver]

I was just going to say that nobody should really blame just Eric Festermarker for all their perceived or real inadequacies in the story or any particular part since its a group effort anyway, and some parts that are not as good or seem blatantly wrong are probably product of all kinds of vidya games cuts and fixes and whatnot thats unavoidable in a production such as this. There`s probably much more of such examples that we wont ever see in the game anyway.

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

All I wanted to do in BG2 was romance Imoen.

 

[Rostere]

Indeed. What is MCA up to and why didn't he write PoE alone, and why shouldn't he have complete writing control over future expansions and sequels? Obsidian is sitting on the most esteemed writer in all of CRPG history and what exactly is he doing?

During PoE development time hasn't he worked on nuTorment, Faster Than Light, aaaaand something else that escapes me?

So right now, his excuse is essentially that he is working on TToN. Well, it better be bloody good if this means we will not see a sequel/expansion 100% under Chris' direction with regards to writing.

 

[Athelas]

Uh, he's writing like one companion for TToN.

Presumably he's too busy traveling to cons all over the world while staving off the lecherous advances of desperate Mass Effect cosplayers.

 

[Shadenuat]

All I wanted to do in BG2 was romance Imoen.

There's a great mod for that.

 

[Rostere]

Uh, he's writing like one companion for TToN.

Presumably he's too busy traveling to cons all over the world while staving off the lecherous advances of desperate Mass Effect cosplayers.

Okay. So then what is he doing now exactly? Sounds like a leisurely schedule (TBH I thought he worked more closely with InXile on TToN), to be honest. He should be chained to a writer's fauteuil in a dungeon somewhere and forced to write these PoE expansions we keep hearing about.

 

[Shadenuat]

Remember Chris also writes comics and shit.

 

[Rostere]

Remember Chris also writes comics and shit.

wat

Someone call Feargus immediately. Chris' talents can be put to better use elsewhere, inside Obsidian. TToN should be the only legitimate excuse for him leaving the OE building until we get another game written by him.

 

[Angthoron]

No, I mean having things written out with letters,

Telling can only be used as an additional element if there is already enough showing, to enhance what was shown.

Show, don't tell is a dogma for beginners.

No, its a "dogma" for beginners who are not competent or capable and therefore produce shitty ideas and then complain about "dogmas" that besmirch their creative spirits.

A competent writer

Which you are not.

What I am or am not is none of your concern. Your first point falls flat on the face already, I'm afraid, as you clearly have no idea on the topic besides wikipedia expertise. The second... Do I need to own a winery to be able to tell I got a bad bottle of wine? You do know how criticism works, right? Do you need to make a blockbuster to criticize Transformers? Write a musical masterpiece to stand the test of time to criticize Kesha? Or does it work in a different way?

You are not showing anything then your character waking up from a dream cutscene.

Your character wakes up without a clear memory of spending the night staring at companions' souls.

The concept of "without a clear memory of spending the night" does not exist in the game in any way.

You may tell the player thats what happened but thats just another vacuous statement - telling something.

It's as much show/tell as everything else that can be done in this particular case

How the fuck is that "show/tell"? and how the fuck does that sentence have any meaning except the one you imagine it to have?

- and if you think about it, it's pretty sinister.

Because you told me my character is staring at my companions?

You seem to be some sort of a dense person. What medium does this game use to describe your experiences? Was it text? Wow, so it was! Does this text at various parts of the game describe how your character feels? Huh, it does! I guess you're being told everything, then, this game is pure shit by your special logic. Although after reading what you wrote, I think you have problems with contextualizing and possibly reading comprehension, so I suppose it's okay.

You shouldn't know what your character doesn't know in cases like that.

So how the fuck is something neither i or my character know... going to affect me?

You're left to deal with the aftermath. You woke up, or were woken up from a trance. After staring blankly at someone for fuck knows how long. Your party might be a little concerned. Someone might voice a desire to leave. Your character's resistance to the "problem" is waning, and this is shown through this exposition. In any case, this was an example off the top of my head, thought up in a space of three seconds. I'm glad it caught your attention and inspired so much effort. I like to inspire.

Nobody said anything about timers, btw.
But without creating content nothing can be done in game dev.

Felipepepe and others were discussing MotB curse mechanics and its reception among the casuals. My example was aimed at them, mostly to show that if the project cannot house mechanics like that, there are simpler ways available. I'm not paid to actually write the whole concept around it, however, so it's a shallow, quick example. In general though, if you've read my posts, you'll see how my preference would've been to drop the whole subplot of sanity loss completely, as it adds nothing.

If you dont want to create content then you have nothing to do in design of games and you should go and just write fiction somewhere, in some other medium.

Are you familiar with terms "budget" and "schedule"? My concept of "skipping content creation" refers to those. Use existing assets and mechanics, fill them with content that is easier and less costly/time-consuming to create. Not to "not creating content at all".

i was addressing the issue as a problem of narrative being decoupled from actual gameplay. Being a superficial cheap layer of telling - over and despite of what the game is showing.
Cheap excuses for actionz and shootan in various AAA mass market shit games is the simplest example of that.
Falling out of teh skies liek teh fucking falling STAAARRR in new Numenera game is another.

And yes, it gained "prominence" in that distorted way, which is completely wrong.

Nothing in your post indicated this. Also, not sure what's wrong with falling out from the sky like a fucking falling star, but I haven't followed Torment, so maybe it's something really triggering.

and you would want to "read the story in included txt"?

Hyperbole, friend.

im afraid you are loosing me completely, even with the best of will and effort spent.

What effort? Also, pls to treat my questions as hypothetical, I'm not actually inviting a DISCUSS!!!!ion.

Anyway, what's this about? The last few pages look p.swell, looks like Codex is returning to normal.