Posted by pacek:

''I believe the cinematics would be the movies (Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Gnoll Strollhold etc.) Those 3D fly-throughs with the terrible animation. I guess that screen shot of the Friendly Arm Inn would be what we can expect.''

I hope so. Those animations always make me cringe a bit.
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Posted by Caruga:

''Also have a think about the whole puzzle behind finding the helm of balduran. Not an easter egg, but something that requires hints and deciphering clues to figure out its location (on subsequent playthroughs you can go straight to it, and that's fine). Completely blown up by hitting tab. I'd say that this at the very least requires a "hide from tab" flag on its container.''

Agreed, the helm of Balduran shouldn't be any more obvious since you're supposed to follow the clues. The other hidden items on the other hand have nothing pointing up to them so there should be some clues such as the tavern rumors or some kind of hint from an NPC or else I think it should be a little more obvious to find.

''The only way to fix this would be to draw many, many more portraits and then lock the NPC ones as reserved (or at least put an indicator that it will steal the likeness of an NPC if you pick it). Probably not going to happen...''

That would be neat.
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Posted by Aosaw:

''Jaheira's development is about her getting over Khalid's death, accepting her role as the protagonist's friend, realizing that being a Harper is more than just following orders, and (if you're romancing her) learning to love again. Everything you learn about her makes her more of a real character, teaches you something about who she is and where she came from, and especially why she acts the way she does. More than just set-dressing, Jaheira is actually a complete personality in her own right; you can reasonably plot her story arc through the game, and not all of it is directly related to the main quest; in fact, most of it is only tangentially related (inasmuch as you're there to help).''

I agree, Jaheira is by far the most complete character of all of BG2. She's got the most personal quests and the most dialogues of all the NPC's and her character arc is definitely an interesting one. I always find my parties are missing an element if I don't bring her along. Party strength wise I always decide to bring her along too because even though I don't find druids to be the most useful, without her you can't get that kickass wizard ring so she's worth it just for that. I also like to have her fight Faldorn in the druid grove.
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I hope we see a new soundtrack CD of the improved original music + ToSC music + the new music.

Can anybody here tell me if the original soundtrack CD has everything from Baldur's Gate 1 on it? There are 33 tracks, it came with the original saga release.

Certainly, the writers seem to have spent more time on Jaheira than on the other characters, which is the main reason I resist her since it feels too much like she's being forced on me. As I've said before, I would have liked all the romances expanded to give the same amount of reward and development as Jaheira's, since I don't think it's right to feel penalised for not wanting to romance your mom. Of course, the fact that Jaheira has been around and has a lot of experience behind her makes it easy to come up with stuff for her, wheras Aerie is young and spent a lot of time in a cage. Viconia though should be nearly two hundred years old; she must have had at least some experiences between fleeing the underdark and meeting you.

With Aerie, when you first meet she isn't just waiting around to be rescued even though she's obviously in trouble; she tells you to run away and save yourself, only relenting when it's clear you won't. She's not a typical damsel at all; she obviously is courageous and determined and never that much of a wimp at all; she just need her confidence to grow. I would say her motivations for adventuring is looking to find that confidence, explore and learn about the world, and prevent others from experiencing the same trauma she's had. Whining is just another overused word these days and misused when it comes to Aerie; it means constantly complaining about trivial things. Aerie only talks to the PC in the romance about her wings etc. Other's try to bring it up with her sometimes, but then she effectively just mumbles or talks about something else. She never discusses it with Haer'Dalis, suggesting perhaps she never really trusts him that much (she's obviously surprised when he says he likes her, and then she dumps him later anyway, which I guess at least shows she's not a complete walkover). Besides, there are many, many things I rate more highly on the triviality scale than kidnapping, slavery and amputation. Those are pretty low down for me. Usually, Aerie seems quiet and introspective, although I think if you pick apart her dialogue I think there's quite a lot that can be derived from it that can be built on a lot more.

In Aerie's case, I think more dialogue at the beginning where she talks about things other than her wings (it's unlikely she would trust the PC right away, after all). Maybe hearing the Bhaalspawn talk about his experiences at the hands of Irenicus, being stuck in those little birdcages at the beginning, would be the thing that would trigger her to relive her own experiences. Have her comment more in the copper coronet and slaver quests, and cap it off with a mysterious stranger giving her directions that lead her to the other slavers, perhaps the men and women who broke her originally, and the stranger revealing himself to be the boy she'd rescued all those years ago, and finally Aerie receiving some item or special ability.

Minsc is one dimensional, since he's essentially a comic relief character. Giving him too much screen time always carries the risk of him turning into an annoying 'wacky' character out of a sitcom.

I like that idea about Aerie having a more substantial subplot. It would make her a more appealing character to romance, which would also be good because, of the three of them, she's probably the most useful character to have in your party.

I also agree that Minsc is just fine being set dressing. But I wanted to draw the distinction between Minsc and Jaheira - because there's a huge character gap between them.

I suggest one carefully pays attention to the Viconia romance before implying that she does not relate any of her experiences from before/after her time in the Underdark or that she has no character development over the course of the latter two games.

As I said, I haven't given her much of a look, so I couldn't speak to Viconia's romance.

From what I understand, though, Viconia doesn't have even remotely the same level of character development as Jaheira.

Viconia does relate some of her experience, but since she is one of the eldest NPC's there's always room to add more history to her. I've always been curious about how exactly she fell in with the Sharrans (who introduced her etc). Also, since Shar doesn't reward her followers for doing charity work, Viccy must have done some things that actually warrant some people wanting her roasted; maybe not the Beshabans, but other people. OTOH, Sharrans are supposed to keep their identities a secret... Viccy may just be the worst Sharran ever. :)

Bear in mind that they aren't planning to tinker with old content/npcs so this discussion may not have the desired end result.

I also think you should bear in mind that the characters will naturally be talking at other times. You tend to rest for 8 hours a million times in the game, presumably they're doing some talking then.

I've actually not experienced any of the BG2 romances. Wonder if I'm missing out on much...

Bear in mind that they aren't planning to tinker with old content/npcs so this discussion may not have the desired end result.

I think it needs to be clarified as to whether they're not touching old npcs or old content altogether. Trent's last statement on the matter suggested the former.

I wouldn't want to change any original content either, but it would be nice to see some expansion and building on things around the original content. It's a shame, since the NPC's are really what make the game as memorable as it is, yet there are certainly things about them that could do with a little enhancement.

As for whether you're missing anything with the romances, well, only Jaheira's really gives you anything in terms of... I don't know, monetary gain? You can get a couple of items you wouldn't get otherwise. Otherwise, it's just another level of immersion. Personally, I have to say I'm not really a big fan of them even though I like all the characters; I just find Jaheira is too momsy, Aerie too much of a little sister type like Imoen (more polite and better behaved though), and Viccy just too much of a... word that rhymes with witch, but isn't a witch.

Snitch?

:)

Well, one thing they are adding for sure are new NPCs... and ostensibly there's nothing stopping them from making the BG1 NPCs be "findable" in BG2. This has potential... even has romance potential. And for that there would be no original content to touch and get an electric shock like in the game Operation. This would seem to me like a perfect opportunity to make an NPC that a female character could romance. Guys have what, three to choose from? One very extensive one and two pretty good ones, no? I've never done those either, but it's content for male characters to enjoy. Female ones get... Anomen... nearly universally disliked for his arrogance. Prince Charm-breaker. "Love me, witches! I'm alllll you get!" Maybe a new romanceable NPC for girls might be nice? Girls do like the whole romance thingy in cRPGs, mind you, as I've discovered from perusing the DAO fan base, all game mechanics aside. I want to try the BG ones myself at some point, but it would be just as new an experience in BG for me as it would be for a girl to get a worthy romance choice.

Now I've read in one OsterTweet that one of the new NPCs is "romantically challenged." That's fine. Make at least one really good romanceable one- more meaningful and powerful than DAO's wishy washy Alistair or the "ain't murder neat?" Zevran. Let him start out small in BG1 like all the other NPCs, but in BG2 give him loads of dialogue like Jaheira got- and a couple nice little items from it like Coutelier mentioned in Jaheira's romance. Now there's balance... and fantastic new hidden dialogue and content and storyline and BG2ness. Come on, if Gaider actually wrote romance dialogue for Jan that got cut from the final BG2 product, surely there can be some ravishing half-elf sorcerer from Neverwinter or a rogue shadow thief or a wandering Harpell or Purple Dragon or some other Forgotten Realms variant (Dave Gross might have some ideas) who might fall in love with the lovely Bhaalspawn girl he happens upon and travels with... Oh, come on!
>:-)

caruga...
btw, I've not really engaged in the reddit community yet, and held off once I heard a new and better forum is in the pipeline. Have I really missed anything? I was originally intending to contribute by ensuring that every idea in this thread was transferred over, but it is probably many times more work than the original thread summary I wrote (which took four hours), and I was further put out by hearing about glitches/design flaws in the reddit voting system.

For sure you're missing stuff, just not sure how significant it is. Devs do look at it and occasionally do comment in the threads made by each request/ bugfix, but... Pretty sure not everything from your list is over there. When I first got access I actually was going down your list item by item, but the discussions you'd outlined weren't so transferable to reddit requests.

Actually one I was going to try was to make a general suggestion to clean up story inconsistencies which Coutelier seems to know about, but I eventually figured that my posting it would be fruitless without specific references that Coutelier would really be the one to mention. They're probably not difficult fixes to implement- journal entry rewrites, dialogue edits- though perhaps story-based inconsistencies aren't considered bugs and thus are part of the original content we're not supposed to touch... 'cause the original is perfect... and the groundhog went back in its hole, so 10 more months of BG development without affecting original content.

Otherwise there are lots of discussions about topics there. You could even make a request to get rid of that pesky TAB button that forces people to use it to instantly win the game with. Then the discussion could continue there even and would remain in its own thread. Even if no one votes for it, hell, that's better than at least 3 of my requests which died the insta-death of getting an early down vote.. requests which I still fully support, mind you.

As it is recently there was a dry spell followed by a couple of request barrages. This latest barrage has included requests to add "Hey, I've got a quest over here!" statements to NPC "quest-givers" like in Dungeon Siege (not sure if that's better or worse than the request a month ago to change the BGEE logo from that mean, nasty, bad skull to something more friendly and pleasant and not BG) as well as a few repeat requests indicating that the poster hadn't read any of the earlier requests. *sigh*

Maybe you're right though. Maybe the new BGEE forum will make the reddit forum obsolete. At least then there will be no idea insta-death.

I wouldn't want to change any original content either, but it would be nice to see some expansion and building on things around the original content

Then I think it needs to be further clarified as to what it means to alter the original content that is out of bounds.

For instance, placing an entirely new character on one of the older and rather empty maps, or a new encounter--that is both altering the original and adding new.

All I've seen is one statement on the twitter and one on the forum that contradict each other on the issue, so i think it needs further clarification.

One thing I noticed though. With all the discussion here and requests on reddit, the latest enhancement to learn about was the rework of the old cutscene movies. Though I may have just missed it, as far as I've seen, no one has even mentioned the clunky cutscene movies, much less requested an enhancement of them on reddit or even in all 24 pages of this thread- not even in the 15 page Bioware thread on the BGEE subject.

It's a great idea though- even essential, despite us having overlooked it- so it shows the Beamdog team's vision is kind of already there, but it again makes me wonder at the impact we ever have... Just a musing really...

My understanding of it is that they can't alter the dialogue and plot that has already been written. So they couldn't modify the existing NPC interactions, or change events in the plot. That's flat-out "not allowed".

Any additions to content (expanding an NPC's subplot, adding NPC-specific quests, etc) might be possible, but it has to go through the pipeline because it wasn't part of the initial agreement - and considering that the initial agreement took two years to sort out, that doesn't bode well for giving Aerie a "find her wings" quest.

The new content that they are creating, I would assume, has already been approved and accepted as part of the initial agreement, which is why they're able to do it.

In other words, I wouldn't hold out for any sweeping changes to the existing NPCs or content - at least, none that they weren't already planning for.

EDIT: What this really means, ultimately, is that our impact on the game as a community will be more noticeable if we relegate our requests and demands to things that pertain to the "player experience" - UI changes, game mechanics (such as the proficiency system), Tab utility, spell effects, even character portraits.

Anything beyond that is a shot in the dark, and I'd hate for us to get our hopes up.

Most people I know would consider Aerie finding her wings to be something that actually undermines her character. What I think would be good would be additional dialogue and quests set around the existing material that just give more depth to them, but nothing that would really alter the characters development at all. Naturally, the same applies to any other NPC. But for now it maybe is just sensible to concentrate on getting the rest of the game right anyway; maybe I'll actually try some mod making when the games released anyhow. :)

Well, I think no one thought about the cutscene movies because we spent like 10 minutes tops seeing them in a game that lasts for hours.

Though I think that the BG2 movies are still fine by today's standards.

It's the downside of CGI. As soon as the technology of the industry takes a step forward, everything that came before instantly looks like crap. ;)

Cameron Tofer interview here:

http://tabtimes.com/feature/music-entertainment/2012/05/04/baldurs-gate-ipad-how-do-you-remake-classic-pc-game-ipad

Lol, its kind of annoying that we still don't get to see any of the new stuff. Was really surprised that they want to support so many languages with the game.

And Cameron actually does look like Garrick...

And Cameron actually does look like Garrick...

Brave brave sir Tofer.

It's the downside of CGI. As soon as the technology of the industry takes a step forward, everything that came before instantly looks like crap. ;)

To render me... like THIS? -- Irenicus

I'll stop now. :P

Personally what they've said they'll be doing with cutscenes sounds great to me. I've always felt the best way of doing them is to have moving pictures with a narrator behind it. I think that's how it works in Icewindale 2, but also Witcher 2. It's also the intro style to Age of Wonders 1, and sort of BG2.

The main advantages are that it's cheap(er than creating spectacular looking movies) and is actually more pleasing generally. Spectacular looking movies tend to look the part but rarely do much more than that. In fact I think they're collosal waste of money.

BG2 cutscenes are OK. BG1 cutscenes weren´t that good, except intro and outro movies with Sarevok, I liked those.

Trent O...
We can't go into the reasons for the no new content for old characters in old content. All we can really say is it comes from a very non-obvious source.

Presumably this is a voicing issue (not being able to contract the original actors to narrate dialogue changes) rather than the corporation ev1ln3ss suggested by some.

Caruga...
''Also have a think about the whole puzzle behind finding the helm of balduran...I'd say that this at the very least requires a "hide from tab" flag on its container.''

This should be simple to address without game-engine changes. Just remove the Helm and only have it restored (by script) after the clues have been followed. Ditto for any other overly-accessible quest items. The tab feature has far more positives than negatives in my view.

As for the CGI scenes, I'd favour dropping them, except for the intro/outro. They add little and the tweeness of some of them (Beregost, Nashkell) go poorly with the supposed background of a land in turmoil.

This should be simple to address without game-engine changes. Just remove the Helm and only have it restored (by script) after the clues have been followed. Ditto for any other overly-accessible quest items.

That's a workaround that saves having to improve the engine, but doesn't seem to be in the spirit of how the game world works, where hindsight always gives you an edge. I don't see the advantage . Either the engine should have such a flag or the engine should be data-driven enough that such a flag can be modded in.

Caruga...
That's a workaround that saves having to improve the engine, but doesn't seem to be in the spirit of how the game world works, where hindsight always gives you an edge.

How can it be less in spirit than selectively "breaking" a popular feature? For that matter, why should playing out-of-character (hindsight here meaning using information that you as a player know, but which your PC wouldn't) be rewarded - which is effectively what the "super-hidden container" would result in?

How can it be less in spirit than selectively "breaking" a popular feature? For that matter, why should playing out-of-character (hindsight here meaning using information that you as a player know, but which your PC wouldn't) be rewarded - which is effectively what the "super-hidden container" would result in?

Making the player perform the motions of finding the helm again is merely transitioning from a benign and unavoidable reality of gaming to a much more egregious form of metagame design where the game universe (not the engine or mechanics, but the implicit dungeon master) acknowledges the existence of there being a player controlling the PC, by implementing a mechanism to counter what that player knows in order to forcing him to behave according to a gaming code of honour of always acting like the PC would if the PC was a real person. This has nothing to do with play of any sort, and that's why I say it's against the spirit of the game (and of any video game I can think of).

Your first playthrough is the only one where you can have the same naivety as the PC, and is precious for that reason. After which, you cannot replay the game again and not know more than the PC--even knowing how to swing a sword better than your last PC could have known how to do, never mind anything else. (Funnily enough it more often works in reverse; for instance in God of War, Kratos probably knows how to use his weapons better than I do as the player controlling him).

Sometimes a game should acknowledge that it is a game. Subsequent runs of a videogame campaign are, I think, partly about experimentation and revelrie in the hindsight one has. Who hasn't done a run where they didn't go to the Friendly Arm right away as Gorion instructs, or buffed their PC's outside an encounter they know they are approaching?

I don't understand your opposition to the flagging idea (you haven't explained it--calling it "broken" doesn't make it so).

I don't understand your opposition to the flagging idea (you haven't explained it--calling it "broken" doesn't make it so).

Because it breaks a feature - if Tab can no longer be relied upon to show everything, everyone has to go back to the "wave cursor everywhere in case I missed something approach". Indeed, you may as well ask for Tab highlighting to be done away with completely.

And your suggestion *doesn't* actually address the problem concerned (players being able to pick up the Helm early) - it just makes it a little harder. All a player would have to do is wave their pointer over the picture instead.

Removing the helm (and having it added later by script) would stop early pickup, so is a better solution in my eyes, though I don't honestly see this as a big issue - the Ring of Wizardry at the Friendly Arm is more unbalancing (but addressed by the Item Randomizer mod).