Loren Tyr Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 Yeah they arguably got a slam dunk with appealing to the masses with the the gender and racial diversity. But by introducing these policies to appeal to the masses did they damage there brand? For example the little asian girl Rose in the Force awakens certainly didnt look like someone in real life who would take on evil head to head or engage in a hardened battle to the death. She was introduced because she would help appeal to the wider masses. But I think the cost of introducing her was that it made the movie feel " Less Real" . Even if it it primarily motivated by appealing to a wider audience, how does it damage the brand to increase ethnic and gender diversity? Especially in a franchise like Star Wars, where the range of characters already extends far beyond the "white, male, human" template by the nature of its setting anyway. All that's changed is more of that diversity got pushed into the bigger roles as well (though those remain quite human-centric still). And what does it matter anyway? Skin colour is a detail, it's hardly integral to the story or setting in any way. As for looking likely to engage in battle to the death: the (supposedly) biggest, baddest jedi of them all from the original trilogy was the grammatically impaired love-child of a muppet and a raisin, hardly intimidating. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loren Tyr Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 After reading this thread I personally think alot of you guys are missing the point here. There is a reason that Bg2 is a better game then Deadfire even though it uses technology that is nearly 20 years older. That reason is the story in Bg2 is interesting, the plot is immersive, the narrative is great and the writing is well done. Being able to tap into Forgotten realms lore was also a huge boon. Deadfire absolutely cannot lay claim to being anywhere near as well written. Deadfires narrative is to girly and instead of concentrating on letting the player character build power and influence the world around him/ her it concentrates on a bizare and boring quest line that seems nothing more then a distraction from the more fun things to do in the game like take on bounties or kill dragons and go treasure hunting. To summarize BG2 had an awesome Dungeon Master and Deadfire has a Terrible Dungeon master Just because you prefer BG2 for those reasons, doesn't mean that other people are missing the point. Firstly, the plot and setting of BG2 being better is not by any means an incontrovertible fact; plenty of people (including myself) would disagree with you there. Secondly, how much that matters depends on how much weight is given to such factors in the first place, relative to such things as gameplay and mechanics, graphics and sound design, et cetera. A game can have the greatest setting and story in the world, but if it has godawful gameplay as well I'd consider it a crap game regardless (not that BG2 has either mind you; it's ok on both counts). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
no1fanboy Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 After reading this thread I personally think alot of you guys are missing the point here. There is a reason that Bg2 is a better game then Deadfire even though it uses technology that is nearly 20 years older. That reason is the story in Bg2 is interesting, the plot is immersive, the narrative is great and the writing is well done. Being able to tap into Forgotten realms lore was also a huge boon. Deadfire absolutely cannot lay claim to being anywhere near as well written. Deadfires narrative is to girly and instead of concentrating on letting the player character build power and influence the world around him/ her it concentrates on a bizare and boring quest line that seems nothing more then a distraction from the more fun things to do in the game like take on bounties or kill dragons and go treasure hunting. To summarize BG2 had an awesome Dungeon Master and Deadfire has a Terrible Dungeon master Just because you prefer BG2 for those reasons, doesn't mean that other people are missing the point. Firstly, the plot and setting of BG2 being better is not by any means an incontrovertible fact; plenty of people (including myself) would disagree with you there. Secondly, how much that matters depends on how much weight is given to such factors in the first place, relative to such things as gameplay and mechanics, graphics and sound design, et cetera. A game can have the greatest setting and story in the world, but if it has godawful gameplay as well I'd consider it a crap game regardless (not that BG2 has either mind you; it's ok on both counts). Why dont you start a Poll then and find out. Ask people what game do they think had a better story, plot and narrative and a more immersive story. Either BG2 or Deadfire? Wish you good luck on that one bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loren Tyr Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 (edited) Why dont you start a Poll then and find out. Ask people what game do they think had a better story, plot and narrative and a more immersive story. Either BG2 or Deadfire? Wish you good luck on that one bro. Because I don't care enough to bother with it? And there are actually already several discussions on this forum about this, clearly it's hardly a unanimous verdict. Moreover, it's irrelevant. My point is that a) whether BG2 has the better/more immersive story is a matter of opinion, not of empirical fact. Even if there was a vast majority of people who agreed with you on this, the people who don't are hardly 'missing the point', they just have a different view of it. And b) how much the quality of the story matters when deciding how good a game is, is again dependent on individual preference. Clearly, given that this particular thread has gone on for nineteen pages indicates that there are a fair number of people here who don't think BG2 is the superior game, which means that they either disagree with you on either or both of points a) and b). Your dismissing other people's opinions as 'missing the point' doesn't change that fact; all that does is signal that you are not open to the possibility of different perspectives on this. 'Bro'. Edited July 21, 2018 by Loren Tyr 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
no1fanboy Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 (edited) No. Why are you attempting to deflect away from what you started? You cant just change a subject when you are about to be proven wrong. So im going to give one more chance to retract your statement and admit you where wrong before i embarrass you with what will be very one sided poll results. Do you want to start the poll or do you want me to start if for you? Edited July 21, 2018 by no1fanboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dryden Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 The only one missing "the point" here is nr1fanboy 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loren Tyr Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 No. Why are you attempting to deflect away from what you started? You cant just change a subject when you are about to be proven wrong. So im going to give one more chance to retract your statement and admit you where wrong before i embarrass you with what will be very one sided poll results. Do you want to start the poll or do you want me to start if for you? I'm not deflecting anything. I'm repeating essentially the same points I made before (and shall do so yet again) because you appear to not understand it: whether BG2 has a better story or not is a matter of individual perspective; and how important story quality is for the overall quality of a game is also a matter of individual perspective. You can hold all the polls in the world, but those fundamental points aren't going to change. If you hold a poll on this, you may well find that a majority of people participating in said poll prefer the story and setting of BG2 to that of PoE 1/2. Equally, if you hold a poll on ice cream flavour, you might find that the majority of people polled prefer vanilla over chocolate. In neither case would you be demonstrating anything more than a majority preference, and in neither case would you find anything contradicting the points I made. So sure, hold a poll if you want. Although I don't see how that will embarrass me, given that it is not relevant to my arguments and I don't remotely care about the result. But it would be a good testament to quite how sad you are, starting a poll for the specific (though futile) purpose of trying to embarrass someone. Admittedly, 'threatening' to do so if someone doesn't agree with you is probably even more pathetic, so it wouldn't be out of character. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 Someone's argument just lost credibility the moment they claimed something was "girly" implying that this was somehow a bad thing. Wake up. Of course, if there's a reasonable explanation for both "girly" and why it's bad, we may have a discussion again. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerekKruger Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 No. Why are you attempting to deflect away from what you started? You cant just change a subject when you are about to be proven wrong. So im going to give one more chance to retract your statement and admit you where wrong before i embarrass you with what will be very one sided poll results. Do you want to start the poll or do you want me to start if for you? Whilst you're at it you should start a poll on which is better: "Harry Potter or War and Peace". Because mass appeal is always the best way to measure quality. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aqeelus Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 There seems to be a lot of fanboyism and bias here. People are bashing Thaos for certain things while praising Irenicus for them, eg. the reason for the chase. While I was joking about ToB being wiped from existence, no one has given a real reason why Throne of Bhaal was a good expansion other than the companion stuff which I mentioned. I know it's based on opinion but "BG2 has a better story" is not really a good argument. Seriously, one of the countless Blizzard cliched good guy turned bad guy is better than our good old Karapan Thaos? The more I think about it the better Thaos becomes, honestly. Faerun isn't special in anyway, it's comparable to Tamriel and Azeroth. Eora's Engwithans are special though. Also, guys go fight Draconis and then the Alpine Dragon then tell me which one is the better boss. Better yet, let someone who never played these games do it. I guarantee you they will choose Alpine/Adra over Drag-on-is and Llengrath over Amelyssan. On the other hand, Kangaxx vs Concelhaut1 is a closer match. But in general the BG bosses can be cheesed thus giving 0 satisfaction or just a chore. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Althernai Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 There seems to be a lot of fanboyism and bias here. People are bashing Thaos for certain things while praising Irenicus for them, eg. the reason for the chase. While I was joking about ToB being wiped from existence, no one has given a real reason why Throne of Bhaal was a good expansion other than the companion stuff which I mentioned. I know it's based on opinion but "BG2 has a better story" is not really a good argument. Seriously, one of the countless Blizzard cliched good guy turned bad guy is better than our good old Karapan Thaos? The more I think about it the better Thaos becomes, honestly. Faerun isn't special in anyway, it's comparable to Tamriel and Azeroth. Eora's Engwithans are special though. Also, guys go fight Draconis and then the Alpine Dragon then tell me which one is the better boss. Better yet, let someone who never played these games do it. I guarantee you they will choose Alpine/Adra over Drag-on-is and Llengrath over Amelyssan. On the other hand, Kangaxx vs Concelhaut1 is a closer match. But in general the BG bosses can be cheesed thus giving 0 satisfaction or just a chore. I don't think the issue is that BG2 had a better story, but rather that it did not take itself seriously. It made no secret of the fact that it was an archetypal heroic adventure and its characters were cliches with a few humanizing twists here and there. In fact, a lot of its humor came from lampshading this and making fun of itself and the conventions of the genre (sometimes even breaking the fourth wall in the process). Later games (Pillars of Eternity, but also, say, Dragon Age) do not do this or at least no nearly to the same extent and, for the most part, their stories and characters are not good enough to work without it. Regarding bosses and cheese: there is a heavy bit of irony here. BG2 cheese is plentiful and famous mostly because a significant number of people played BG2 many times. Except for the kind of person who thoroughly spoils a game before playing, the first time one played BG2, the cheese employed was fairly minimal -- a given person might find a few tricks, but not that many. It's only when replaying it and going to the forums (of which BG2 had many) that one would discover the full range of available cheese and the more people played, the more was discovered. Why is this ironic? Well, PoE was undoubtedly designed to be more cheese resistant and generally more replayable... but it doesn't matter because far fewer people want to play it even twice. It's pretty bizarre, really: PoE was made with replayability in mind and BG2 was not, but I played BG2 at least a dozen times (probably closer to twenty) whereas my second playthrough of PoE didn't get past the first chapter. Thus far, Deadfire is roughly as appealing as its predecessor (I haven't even finished it yet because I'm waiting for Obsidian to decide on what rules they want to use before I get too far in). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hilfazer Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 The only one missing "the point" here is nr1fanboy He's no1fanboy. No one's fanboy. Vancian =/= per rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheisEjsing Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 The only one missing "the point" here is nr1fanboy He's no1fanboy. No one's fanboy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
no1fanboy Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 someone please like the above comment for that guy so he can get the attention he is craving Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
try2handing Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 (edited) Guys... this has been a fun and engaging discussion. If you no longer have anything pleasant or constructive to say, it's best that you don't say anything. If you can't see things from another's perspective, just agree to disagree and move on. Especially when it starts to become more and more a matter of taste. Geez. Edited July 22, 2018 by try2handing 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PizzaSHARK Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 No. Why are you attempting to deflect away from what you started? You cant just change a subject when you are about to be proven wrong. So im going to give one more chance to retract your statement and admit you where wrong before i embarrass you with what will be very one sided poll results. Do you want to start the poll or do you want me to start if for you? Whilst you're at it you should start a poll on which is better: "Harry Potter or War and Peace". Because mass appeal is always the best way to measure quality. War and Peace sucks, and Harry Potter is a fun, easy read. Fight me. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredward Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 I've been hearing the hype about BG2 for as long as I've been gaming and when I finally got around to it I was (probably inevitably) let down. Some things were good, the city and the Underdark come to mind. But Irenicus covers the basics in terms of character motivation and personality, the fact that it makes him a standout says more about how games often treat their villains (ie 2 dimensional motivating obstacles) then him being some incredibly nuanced masterpiece. The companions also aren't up to snuff when contrasted with some more contemporary examples. You can't compete with nostalgia. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 I've been hearing the hype about BG2 for as long as I've been gaming and when I finally got around to it I was (probably inevitably) let down. Some things were good, the city and the Underdark come to mind. But Irenicus covers the basics in terms of character motivation and personality, the fact that it makes him a standout says more about how games often treat their villains (ie 2 dimensional motivating obstacles) then him being some incredibly nuanced masterpiece. The companions also aren't up to snuff when contrasted with some more contemporary examples. You can't compete with nostalgia. Companions aren't up to snuff when contrasted to whom, specifically? I'm honestly curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredward Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 I've been hearing the hype about BG2 for as long as I've been gaming and when I finally got around to it I was (probably inevitably) let down. Some things were good, the city and the Underdark come to mind. But Irenicus covers the basics in terms of character motivation and personality, the fact that it makes him a standout says more about how games often treat their villains (ie 2 dimensional motivating obstacles) then him being some incredibly nuanced masterpiece. The companions also aren't up to snuff when contrasted with some more contemporary examples. You can't compete with nostalgia. Companions aren't up to snuff when contrasted to whom, specifically? I'm honestly curious. Bioware's more recent offerings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheisEjsing Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 (edited) someone please like the above comment for that guy so he can get the attention he is craving The only thing I crave here, is for you to stop being a condescending, and arrogant ****, who think his own opinion is gospel truth. Edited July 22, 2018 by TheisEjsing 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 I've been hearing the hype about BG2 for as long as I've been gaming and when I finally got around to it I was (probably inevitably) let down. Some things were good, the city and the Underdark come to mind. But Irenicus covers the basics in terms of character motivation and personality, the fact that it makes him a standout says more about how games often treat their villains (ie 2 dimensional motivating obstacles) then him being some incredibly nuanced masterpiece. The companions also aren't up to snuff when contrasted with some more contemporary examples. You can't compete with nostalgia. Companions aren't up to snuff when contrasted to whom, specifically? I'm honestly curious. Bioware's more recent offerings. That's not very specific. A couple of names, perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredward Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 That's not very specific. A couple of names, perhaps? - Oghren - Leliana (factoring her appearance in the subsequent games) - Morrigan (same as Leliana) - Alistair, kinda but only if you make him king. - Isabella, especially with Aveline - Aveline, especially with Isabella - Anders - Solas - Iron Bull - Vivienne - Sera - Mordin - Morinth (soft spot for her) - Tali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheisEjsing Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 That's not very specific. A couple of names, perhaps? - Oghren - Leliana (factoring her appearance in the subsequent games) - Morrigan (same as Leliana) - Alistair, kinda but only if you make him king. - Isabella, especially with Aveline - Aveline, especially with Isabella - Anders - Solas - Iron Bull - Vivienne - Sera - Mordin - Morinth (soft spot for her) - Tali You forgot best boy! ^_^ 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verde Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 BG2 has a tingly epic feel...whereas Deadfire has a lighthearted, shallow feel. Sure it might have better gameplay and combat but everything else feels sacrificed for a shining coat of paint and VOs. The Gods are a joke and appear written by 20-somethings. You can't have serious convos with your companions. Eothos is great but you have whatnot, three interactions with him? Overall Deadfire is a fun game, but in 5 years no one will care about it. BG2 is still one of the RPG flag bearers to this day. THAT is the difference. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 That's not very specific. A couple of names, perhaps? - Oghren - Leliana (factoring her appearance in the subsequent games) - Morrigan (same as Leliana) - Alistair, kinda but only if you make him king. - Isabella, especially with Aveline - Aveline, especially with Isabella - Anders - Solas - Iron Bull - Vivienne - Sera - Mordin - Morinth (soft spot for her) - Tali Ok, thanks. Can't comment on any of this. Never heard of any of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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