xzar_monty

To be fair, most of the times they don't appear to know it the moment it is done, but the moment you first return to their area. Which can be hours or days later. But word of mouth indeed travels quickly in these RPGs. NPCs can wait for you indefinitely to solve their quest but when you finally do - someone brings the good news to them faster than you can return to them. Maybe they use horses. Good point. I'm not entirely sure how this should be solved, but it definitely is strange. Nothing at all happens independent of you, the whole world will wait for you to do something, and when you do, knowledge of what you did will instantly spread through the game world. I think there was mod for BG2 where they tried to split the reputation system in two: there was reputation, which is pretty much self-explanatory, and then there was virtue (if I remember correctly), which was a more objective measure of how you had actually done. So you could be a complete monster but look saintly, if you pulled the right strings.

I'll try to defend the current system - not because I think it is very good, just providing some counterpoints. Reputation doesn't say that you are a cruel or a benevolent person. It has nothing to do with what kind of person you are. It represents what people have heard about you. Person A has heard that you are cruel because you have killed somebody in the past. Person B has heard that you are benevolent because you have helped someone in the past. Your score of 1x Cruel and 1x Benevolent represents that. Both persons can react to you - depending on what they have heard about you (or what is more important to them). With a single scale you would be zero on that scale (neither benevolent, nor cruel) and as a result reactions based on you being cruel or benevolent won't fire at all. It is kind of funny, though, that even though we are living in a sort-of medieval world, everybody in it will know everything you have done the moment you do it. Even if you do it deep in a dungeon with nobody alive anywhere near you.

Superb comeback from @Gfted1, props for that! Loved it. I think the discussion has been interesting, and I've learned to look at both BG2 and the PoE franchise from a couple of new perspectives. That's pretty good, I would say. (Obviously, though, it's not as good as mindlessly insulting other people.)

"They are dumb". Hope it helped. How so? I don't think that's a very good argument. But then, you were probably joking.

So, you are not bothered by the fact that everything you do is instantly known by everybody in the game world? I found that somewhat hard to take at times, although I do agree that one's "reputation" is a convenient shorthand for knowledge of your deeds eventually spreading around.

Incidentally, speaking of well-written characters: Siege of Dragonspear introduced one extremely well-written character into the BG world. I mean the goblin shaman, M'Khiin. She was simply superb. A very badly treated woman who has retained her dignity and is noticeably perceptive and kind. Boy, that was good. She was a lot better than all the other new characters put together (Voghlin was particularly poor).

I also don't think the PoE characters are in any way better than BG2 characters. Apart from Eder, who is really well written. (I still haven't played Deadfire enough to comment.)

@Madscientist: That was a fairly good analysis. One question, though: would you argue that the characters in PoE are somehow more profound or less superficial than in BG2? If so, why?

I know what you're saying, but given the sales, the ruleset is sort of by definition not unpopular.

I'll wager my playthrough will be quite slow and thorough, once the game looks finished enough (maybe after the second DLC?). But I can't see there ever being another playthrough, so the question is a bit funny, in my view.

I'm not sure what you can tell from that, though. It's not as if we know much about figures.

Why not take it as a good learning experience? If English is not your first language, I don't think there's much room to complain here. The writing is decent and not particularly difficult in any way. Try Gene Wolfe if you want to know what challenging English is like.

No, people must fight. Only one opinion can rise to the top and transcend into the ultimate truth that we shall all abide by. They both are good. And we're talking.

Also, when it comes to sheer brilliance in BG2, I think it's reasonable *not* to consider ToB. ToB was essentially nothing but railroading -- and taking the player for a fool. I mean, I suppose most everyone understands who the baddie is pretty early on, but the game offers you absolutely no way to show this before the final fight. (ToB also sucks partly because it's simply a lot more difficult to come with anything challenging and/or reasonable for a group of characters nearing the power of demi-gods or something. This, in turn, partly explains why it's precisely BG2 that is so good: for much of BG1, you're living in the insta-death levels and meeting monsters who can be undone with a Sleep spell, whereas in ToB you're too strong. For most of BG2, however, you're playing the absolute best levels where there's plenty of challenge but you won't die if someone sneezes too close to you.)

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ. When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies. Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try. Losing a fight does not mean it requires meta knowledge. That is called difficulty. You don't lose to Kangaxx because of difficulty, though. You lose because he has enormously specific instant death abilities that you need to know about before he casts them which can only be countered with very specific things. It's not actually hard to cast Protection from Abjuration and Death Ward or Berserk and Death Ward and hit him with a +4 weapon, you just have no reasonable way of knowing you need to do that unless you've died to it or you've read a wallkthrough. That is meta knowledge. I agree that this can be seen as a problem. But it's not as if PoE doesn't have the same kind of things, at least to a certain extent. For example, my first encounter with the Alpine Dragon (which turned out to be by far the most difficult enemy for me) left me extremely disappointed with the makers of the game. We met. We talked. I tried to persuade him to let things progress peacefully but failed (I have subsequently learned that it is also possible to succeed in this). So, a fight began. And that's when the game suddenly cheated, big time. A moment earlier, I was in a cave with a dragon. But all of a sudden, the place was also full of various spirits. Who summoned them? Not the dragon. How did they end up there? How could they know when to arrive? There's no rationale to any of this, it was just blatant cheating from the game makers, and I was disappointed.

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ. When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies. Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try. But it's not an example at all. Kangaxx is supposed to be bloody difficult, we're talking about a demi-lich after all. In realistic (ha!) terms, there are not that many things in the Forgotten Realms that are more difficult than a demi-lich. And in a classic table-top RPG, if the GM is doing his job properly, essentially nobody is ever going to beat a demi-lich (especially in DD 3.0 and onwards, I'm not so sure about AD&D 2.0). If by metaknowledge you mean that you have had to lose to the baddie first before you can think of a way of beating it, you do have an argument. However, I think that's more interesting than what happens in PoE1, for instance. I walked into the lair of Cail the Silent, the red dragon I mean, fairly low on resources, and I just hacked him to death. There was no need for any thinking on my part. I really liked the fact that Firkraag was difficult in BG2 and I had to retreat and level up before taking him on.

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ. When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies.

In strictly mathematical terms, probability-wise, the fact is that if something has already been around for a number of years, it is very likely indeed that it will continue to be around. Conversely, the chances that anything new will make more than a splash are infinitesimally small. To illustrate: practically every canonical literary classic from, say, the 19th century, will maintain its status for the next 100 years, while very little from the past 50 years will be remembered, and absolutely everything from the year 2018 will almost certainly be forgotten. (So if you're interested in good stories, start from the Greeks and the Romans and work your way up to the Renaissance, after which you might, if so inclined, check out some newer stuff.) Since you brought up films, that's a lost industry. There's practically nothing there anymore, particularly in mainstream. Incidentally, one somewhat amusing thing that most North Americans don't realize (and I'm not saying they should) is that they are no longer the target audience for North American movies. The Far East is: the market is simply so much bigger there. So if you've ever felt that mainstream films are less subtle (ha!) than they used to be, there's a very clear cultural reason for that.

Fair enough. I don't think it's like that, but we'll just agree to disagree on this.

Also (and I could be completely wrong with this), you cannot really escape from combat in PoE. Once combat starts, you can't run away. (Again, I haven't played PoE2 that much and I certainly haven't tried this.) I was also completely baffled by the fact that there are things you can do either in combat or outside combat, but not both. Very strange. Add to this the fact that you can pick up absolutely everything into your infinite stash (but you cannot actually drop anything, ever!) and your suspension of disbelief if severely tested, especially because you can only carry two or four camping supplies. Like... wtf? I think the enchanting system does away with most of the uniqueness of the unique items in PoE. It's a shame.

Ok, there's nothing wrong with that. But, can you tell me in which way is the writing and characterization in PoE better? I'd really like some concrete examples. Personally, I don't think it is, but I'm always happy to be proven wrong. If we take Mazzy from BG2, just as an example, we can quite easily compare her to Sagani, and I don't think there's much difference in the quality of writing between the two. Sagani has more material, quantitatively, so in that she's more "whole" than Mazzy, but as characters they're quite close (there's a bit more ambiguity in Sagani).

If someone really annoys you that much, chances are the character is well written. (But obviously it's not necessarily so. Minsc is annoying because he's so poorly written.) To me, Edwin is so annoying that I would not have him in my party, but that's definitely good writing, although a bit one-dimensional. But, given his nature, Edwin is one-dimensional as a person.

Minsc - He's mentally handicapped and has a hamster. That is his entire characterization, the sole extent of his dialog, and his connection to the story Korgon - Chaotic Evil, likes murder. That's it Aerie - Complains about wings. If romanced, she complains about it more Keldorn - Cliched Lawful Good Paladin. That's it Mazzy - Same as above, but a hobbit Cernd - Damn dirty hippie (on the rare chance someone actually uses him) Jan - Grobnar 1.0 I actually like BG2's characters, and they do sometimes get a little development in personal quests, but they are usually one-note and static. IMO, even poor characters in PoE, like Sagani, are better developed. To say nothing of great ones like Durance. Honestly, NWN2's cast are all better than those in BG2, except for Grobnar. All of the character romances are cringeworthy as such things nearly always are, but all of the characters show substantial character growth - Anomen perhaps more than anyone else. Jaheira's is the only one that doesn't make much sense to me, and that's only because I feel like it'd take a long time to get over seeing your husband having been flayed alive and tortured to death (well past the point that Raise Dead could help, although I'm pretty sure Resurrection would've worked fine, or maybe Wish) and while I don't see anything wrong with her relying on Gorion's ward for emotional support, the fact that she's rather receptive to CHARNAME blatantly hitting on her (by buying a necklace for her, for example) in a matter of in-universe days is kind of disturbing, especially when Jaheira and Khalid were kind of like adoptive parents to CHARNAME. Yeah, this is the suspicious part. There should have been a timer of let's say at least a week on the Jaheira romance. It's not realistic the way it appears now. It doesn't even work as a rebound kind of thing. And if it was a question "oh god I'm bereaved and I can't stand my loneliness I've got to find someone instantly", then Jaheira's dialogues should look much more desperate, which they don't. I agree the romances are cringeworthy, but the fact is, much of lovetalk is cringeworthy to someone who isn't emotionally involved (i.e. all outsiders), and I seriously hope no gamer is seriously involved in the lovetalk of a game. Anomen is a very good character in the end, really well written. The way he comes across as a complete oaf that really gets on your nerves is great, especially when you consider how things change. I must also give special mention to the Aerie -- CHARNAME -- Haer'dalis love triangle, which is really nice. There's the cynical Haer'dalis, then there's the overtly naive and traumatized Aerie, and then there's you, what are you going to do?

Minsc - He's mentally handicapped and has a hamster. That is his entire characterization, the sole extent of his dialog, and his connection to the story Korgon - Chaotic Evil, likes murder. That's it Aerie - Complains about wings. If romanced, she complains about it more Keldorn - Cliched Lawful Good Paladin. That's it Mazzy - Same as above, but a hobbit Cernd - Damn dirty hippie (on the rare chance someone actually uses him) Jan - Grobnar 1.0 I've said all along that Minsc is terrible. Keldorn and Cernd have a reasonable story arc that shows how pretty good character depth which is definitely not restricted to what you just said there. Keldorn's family problems make him anything but a cliche. Having Korgan and (I think) Mazzy in the party shows some pretty good non-cliched character interaction. Aerie is severely traumatized and works pretty well (which is not to say that I like that kind of behaviour, mind you). If I were to resort to that kind of characterizations, I would say that only Eder really shines in PoE. Durance, the Devil of Caroc and the Grieving Mother are particularly poor (the Grieving Mother hints at superb stuff but doesn't deliver). I can't say about PoE2 yet. Character interaction in PoE was also a bit strange, because Eder, in particular, appeared to have a long-lasting dislike to Durance from the moment the two met. Eder commented as if there was a backstory, although there was none. There was never any "I wonder what kind of guy you are, but you sure seem suspicious" from Eder, it was instantly into "bloody hell priest, I hate you". That was a bit WTF, in terms of writing.

I would really like to hear concrete examples of BG2's "silly/comical NPCs, extreme/one-dimensional companions", particularly in contrast to the PoE franchise, where the writing is supposedly superior. (And I only mean BG2. BG1 writing is bad.)