huang

Debatable. :D

Did you have to? With few exceptions most people could be exchanged AFAIK, but I didn't like doing it. To this day there are NPCs in that game I never had in my party. Not even once. :D

If that's the case you should just use your own characters, because those hove no text...

That's not true. Jaheira has this awesome quest in which she is cursed/poisoned and will actually die unless you resolve it in time. She also runs into more harpers and... There is more going on with her in this game than just a possible romance.

I guess it all comes down to why one plays this/these game/s. I play it primarily for the stories and characters. That doesn't mean I don't care about the combat etc. at all, just that it's not my main interest. And as that player type I prefer characters made by the devs, not me. I rather have a strange character in my party, than whatever fan-fic character. Icewind Dale wasn't a bad game, but I couldn't enjoy it nearly as much as BG, because it lacked all these deeper characters in my party. Therefore, I'm sure as hell going to use such sidekicks over characters I would have to create myself. I also fully expect them to bring back a ship-mechanic like the stronghold adventures in Pillars 1, which will temporarily "consume" one or more party members - so it's good to have a few people in reserve.

I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. :D As far as I know, Sidekicks only have that 1 quest to get them.

I guess we can all agree that soulbound items should all have some sort of quest.

Well apparently not many people feel that way, but I liked Pallegina and I thought her conflict about, what would serve the republics best, was interesting to me. Maybe she's seen as less important because she's not tied all too much into the main story arc, but at least her ties to the republics made the world feel bigger - it was good to always know, that there were places outside the Dyrwood too. And I liked how she rather became a kind wayfarer than be a douche. :D Even if she's influenced otherwise, at least she was conflicted about it. Also, other than Eder, who was just leaning against a tree or something (who probably just would have kept doing that, if the Watcher hadn't come along), she was busy doing all kinds of stuff. If the Watcher wouldn't have come along, she just would have continued with the next task on her agenda. Furthermore, I think it didn't help identification with her a lot, that she too is only introduced hours into the game. Players who go to Raedric's Hold first, let alone those who start exploring the endless paths first, feel like she's only joining relatively late in the game. If one gets her as early as possible, there's less missed content with her - the same goes for all the other companions, of course.

Totally, couldn't agree more.

Maybe the difference between NPCs in BG and Pillars 1 (and why BG party members are liked more by some) is really that the group of people in BG felt more like your friends. At least some of them. I remember a conversation with Jaheira, I wanted to remove her from the party temporarily, just to get someone in for doing their quest, and Jaheira was like "If you send me away now, this will be the last time we will see each other..." and I absolutely couldn't do it. We had been through so much together at that point (I essentially added her right away after Gorion mentioned her as an ally waiting for me at the friendly arms inn). That's something you just don't have with the companions in Pillars 1, at least not to the same degree. Partially of course because Pillars 1 was a new story, a beginning, but maybe also because some of them felt more like people who came along because they had nothing better to do. I sincerely hope this is going to feel very differently in Pillars 2, especially with some of them being returning characters. I liked all of them (with some of them being favorites of course) and I appreciated their writing and quests, the only negative thing I can say about them, is that it didn't necessarily feel very... personal? Maybe that's exactly what they are trying to address with this new relationship mechanic, it certainly sounds as if it is doing just that. I also think they chose well who will return in Pillars 2. I liked e.g. Sagani, but in my ending she lived a long and happy life with her family. I'm happy for her. No need to drag her away from this. Really can't wait to find out, if getting Pallegina (I think she's great) back is going to feel like continuing to adventure with e.g. Jaheira from BG 1 to 2. Damn is it still 4 weeks?!?

Still waiting what's supposed to be so deep about the mention of a baby. btw: Babies are more likely to end the romance.

Well by that baby-logic Pillars is at least as deep, because there's, as we all know, the orlan baby.

What's deep about dropping a single line of text about a baby in one character's epilogue?

I wouldn't say most, but I definitely say characters like Mazzy, Valygar, Korgan, and a few others would probably fit as sidekicks. Also, someone like the Devil from PoE1 could theoretically fit as a sidekick as well. You could finish her main quest in minutes after recruiting her, but she still had some banters with other characters. I assume the sidekicks will be similar to her when it comes to character interaction and content. Exactly. Don't know where this notion comes from, that every NPC in BG was this deep personality or whatever. I liked the devil actually. At least she had lots of funny remarks and I liked the VO too.

Weren't most "companions" in Baldur's Gate like sidekicks? Even the ones who had own quests, usually had really short ones. At least short and simple in comparison to the much longer and more complex quests of the Pillars 1 companions. Sometimes I think too many people haven't actually played BG in a long long time.

Well, it's only 5 weeks until I can stop reading the forums and play the game instead. btw: I think the sidekick idea is quite unique. Seriously hope Pillars 2 is gonna get some cred for including all this stuff no previous IE-like game ever had. And 7 full companions is A LOT, especially since you can only bring 4 at a time. Honestly curious if they are going to create even more for the DLC, given there is so much already.

I don't think it's strange at all. This game is from Obsidian, which has Chris Avellone as a shareholder (or however it's called these days) and Chris Avellone did writing for a game called FTL (Advanced Edition). Coincidence? I think not! And this ship/crew management stuff is straight out of FTL.

How did you get it then?

AFAIK so far it's not even known if any items will return, so... Also, can't you just load a previous save?

I'm actually looking forward to it. I played FTL for over 100 hours. :D

You just can't please people, can you? :D In Pillars 1 the complaint was that you couldn't do much/not enough with the stronghold Caed Nua, now they tried to expand upon that by adding that whole gameplay for your stronghold/Ship and... :D

That's a great question and I thought about that as well. I honestly have to say that I'll be disappointed, if NOTHING will return. At the very least I expect the more iconic stuff like the blade of the endless paths to show up again (if found and forged of course). To me it doesn't make a lot of sense if everything was gone/destroyed. Eothas destroying Caed Nua doesn't entirely explain that in my view. The other companions left Caed Nua before that and they would have taken/kept all their stuff. They wouldn't throw their soulbound weapons away. Regardless, it wouldn't be too disappointed, if all items were new. I'm too interested in this game to let this bum me out.

They probably didn't want a character which is this powerful. But yeah, the whole concept would allow a lot of interesting character drama. It would probably also help with the "going insane" part. If you could never die and would just end up in the next body instead, with all your memories intact. That should weigh heavily on anybody at some point. Maybe that's what Eothas is kind of in PIllars 2. It appears his soul was just put in the next body after he was "killed".

I never really understand postings like this, I feel like you already answered your own question. If you don't care at all what happens in the game, then why should you play it. The only other miracle here is why you would want to play the second part, which takes place after the first.

It makes sense that you can't import the save then.