Baldur's Gate #BaldurGate: Siege of Dragonspear

[Scroo]

Seems they're not done pissing on DnD:

Spoiler

Illydth Posts: 1,516
5:05AM edited 5:14AM
@Frost I really don't mean to poke my nose in on this, but I guess I am going to anyway.

A story is a story. I appreciate you attempting to bring Table top stats from your Second Edition DMG and your monster manual into Baldur's Gate: SoD written well over 20 years after the release of said DMG/Monster Manual, but unfortunately I can't agree.

I ran a campaign a couple years ago where a character by the name of Skarda (from the module "Skarda's Mirror") was actually a minion of the elemental evils (Introduced in another module I forget the name of, not from the "Temple of Elemental Evils") which was a level 10 module where you actually go into a demi-plane off the negative material plane and defeat the elemental evils.

I also ran a campaign once were I threw an ancient red dragon at a party of 7 over confident level 10's to attempt to kill them and had my ancient red dragon toasted due to some really lucky rolls and great pre-planning by the party. Does that make my campaign unbelievable? Maybe. Was it fun to play in? I think all 7 of my players would have told you hell yes.

Realistic and true to "cannon" is one thing. These games are not supposed to be an accurate representation of your DMG and Monster Manual from 2nd edition. They're a story...and with all good stories, they require you to embrace the world view of the story teller. Maybe you're too young for this, but you sound like the kind of guy that watched the matrix and said "OMG, That's such Bullshit, there's no way Nero could have dodged a bunch of bullets like that!"

OH, and BTW, if it makes you feel any better? The games were Vetted by WotC.

Don't get me wrong, you're more than free to not like the game because Bhelefet wasn't level 17 with an armor class of -10 like his stat block in a book told you it should be. Others are going to enjoy the fact that as a half god of the child of murder you delved into the first level of hell and defeated a greater devil (Demon? I keep forgetting which is which...I think devils are in hell and demons in abyss right?) as one of your accomplishments for the heroism of your character.

I'd argue both are pretty unbelievable since we're in a fantasy setting in a non-existent universe, but I will not deny you the right to your argument that the "realism" of the encounter is broken based upon the levels and skills of the PC's compared to what AD&D says they should have faced.

I personally appreciate the creativity of the story, but I also don't deny the lack of strict adherence to the AD&D manuals.

I'm guessing Drizzt Do'Urden's appearance in BG:EE bugs the living S**T out of you too?

Post edited by Illydth at 5:14AM

TL;DR It's 2016, guys.

"Yeah of course according to the rulebooks the Tarrasque is an unkillable beast that can destroy nations but come on it's all about the story so why shouldn't it live in the cellar of an inn for lvl 1 heroes to kill?!"

 

[Trashos]

Firedorn Saga - SJWs get content removed, GamerGate gets mad.
Mizhena Saga - GamerGate wants content removed?

It's a bit unfair that Obsidian got through it more-or-less completely unscathed while Beamdog might get completely trashed, but life is always harder when you're smaller.

Obsidian are more experienced and handled things much smarter. And despite the fair criticism they received, they also provided some quality for their defenders to shield behind. Further, while I don't agree with some things Sawyer and Fenstermaker say or do, I also have plenty of reasons to respect them as personalities or thinkers.

Beamdog, on the other hand, look like complete hacks in the way they handle everything and disrespect the BG fans. And another important point: BG SoD is not a "spiritual successor" it is an official chapter within the BG franchise. Respecting the BG franchise was mandatory here. Instead, they called BG sexist etc. They are just idiots, and I find no reason whatsoever to respect them.

 

[Infinitron]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

 

[FeelTheRads]

I really don't mean to poke my nose in on this, but I guess I am going to anyway.

I personally appreciate the creativity of the story, but I also don't deny the lack of strict adherence to the AD&D manuals.

I'm guessing Drizzt Do'Urden's appearance in BG:EE bugs the living S**T out of you too?

Great stuff there.

I don't mean to do this, but I will.

I respect your opinion, but I bet it pisses you off, am I right?

 

[Excidium II]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

Did you skip bubbles post with endgame spoilers?

 

[Infinitron]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

Did you skip bubbles post with endgame spoilers?

It is a spoiler so yes. From Ninjerk's post I did manage to catch that it has something to do with the Icewind Dale cross-over that Daigle hinted at, so I guess it's a bit silly?

 

[Space Insect]

would like to see the drow rewritten. - Drow Matrons must now ask for permission in order to show a more realistic side to BDSM(unless it's a male then you can just rape them XDDD men getting raped is hilarious) - Male Drow are no longer able to be wizards of any kind. - All female clerics of lolth must now wear full, gender neutral plate mail. Full stop. Women only wear sexy outfits to please men, and that doesn't mesh with the underdark. - Driders can still be men that dont like drow society(sexist assholes) but make then really weak and die in a single hit. If they could shout "HASHTAG GAMERGATE" as their death sound effect I think it'd be a good idea. - Drizz't must be given an unremoveable fedora and constantly say he left drow society because he couldn't handle a strong independent womyn. Killing him unlocks an achievement: "Made the world a better place and would go down as being on the right side of history(HINT HINT)" - Drizzt must also ask you to kill the gnolls because they're feminists, and if you do, you get maxed out chaotic evil. In fact, you're so evil that even the evil party members say "holy shit. I may be evil, but I'm still a feminist, wow man, just ugh I mean just wow sigh smh tbh" and then kill the main character. We could bring in the undertale audience by permanently altering your save file so people call you out in a really meta way, and none of the female party members will join you on subsequence playthroughs. - Drow females must weigh around 300 pounds(HEALTHY AT EVERY SIZE PEOPLE) and have blue hair - I would like to change their racial backstory so they aren't corrupted elves. I mean, they're people of color, so maybe the imperialist, racist white elves drove them underground? I mean ugh I just wow it's 2016, people. - - Viconia should not have a few harmless throwaway lines that she's a feminist. I'd like to see a lore more sarcasm in general from all of the female characters, that's how you write a good female character. - - If the companion that tries to kill her does so in Baldur's Gate 2, you should ONLY have the option to call him a racist until he resigns from his position - - I'd like to see a few less monsters in the Underdark in general. Like what is this Heart of Darkness? The evil darkness of africa? I think it'd be more interesting to explore the Underdark as a place of beauty and unique cultures being oppressed by the evil white elves, not a place...full of monsters killing people. - - There needs to be more references to gamergate. I'd like there to be a woman who works as a town crier who talks about local sports games, and then, exactly like real life, a bunch of fedora tipping drow rush up to her and rape her over and over again until she swears to never talk about games ever again. The people in the game should then directly look at the player and say "If you are not a feminist, you are a fucking piece of shit and you should fucking kill yourself. Doubly so if you're white." I think this would actually get a lot of attention and cause a ton of discomfort, which is actually a good thing, because upsetting and angering your consumer base is the best way to get sales. Its not like there is an extremely niche audience that buys these kinds of games. - - Mandatory privilege check on ability scores. If it's a privileged race like white elves or humans, I would think a -2 to all ability scores would subtly influence players into trying out more diverse options. - - I would like to see a "drow lives matter" movement. At least 3 drow that are against said movement, which you get a quest to kill for being "uncle toms" If you're playing as a privileged race though you get killed by flaming fist mercenaries for being an uncle tom. - remove edwin from the game. - make saverok surrender to you in the end if you have a high alignment in a new alignment I call "Feminist" If you're a woman he'll say "Why can't there be a Lady of Murder? Us men gotta step aside." - Lawful feminist will involve getting quests where you convince authority figures to change laws to benefit your idealogy - neutral feminists will be killed upon leaving candlekeep, can't have any of that fence sitting bullshit here - Chaotic Feminists will be given triple XP for killing male characters This are just my suggestions though, I mean, I'm just so happy they're finally bringing the forgotten realms into the 21st century. If you don't follow through with my changes to the letter I am boycotting all future releases and I will make sure all of my cool game journalist buddies know you're a sexist. But I'm just making minor suggestions. Peace! Oh, and I'd like the game to ship broken. I want as many bugs as possible, I want it to crash at least 3 times on character creation, and I'd like there to be a button you press that says "file feedback" but when you click on it, I want the text "WHAT ARE YOU, A GOOBERGATOR??? " to appear on the screen and hardlock your PC. These are reasonable and minor requests. Thank you.

Behold, the Beamdog forums descend into shit.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc.

If they're so obsessed with getting it right, why would they use some or parts of the game to blare out propaganda? And by that coin, if hiring voice actors is a big deal, well Full Control did try the same for Jagged Alliance: Flashback. How'd that work out for them?

 

[Excidium II]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

Did you skip bubbles post with endgame spoilers?

It is a spoiler so yes. From Ninjerk's post I did manage to catch that it has something to do with the Icewind Dale cross-over that Daigle hinted at, so I guess it's a bit silly?

It's not respectful of source material and previous infinity engine games.

 

[Delterius]

They're a story...and with all good stories, they require you to embrace the world view of the story teller.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Secondary_world

I am not particularly surprised that a writer is somewhat ignorant of game storytelling. Internal consistency across the Beastiary is one of those things that make D&D adaptations so unique and believable in the world of CRPGs. To write for games and fail to grasp that sounds like a bleak existance indeed.

But as with the transperson earlier on the thread, this isn't really a comment on the quality of the game itself, rather on how people tend to handle criticism. In that way Beamdog's adaptation of Baldur's Gate to a modern audience -- what would be the outcome of modern BioWare going back to BG and making an interquel? Complete inability to handle criticism properly is part of the package.

 

[Infinitron]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc.

If they're so obsessed with getting it right, why would they use some or parts of the game to blare out propaganda? And by that coin, if hiring voice actors is a big deal, well Full Control did try the same for Jagged Alliance: Flashback. How'd that work out for them?

Like Roguey said, they fucked up. Poor judgement. Still, I think this game was a genuine effort (just look how much time they spent on it). It's one thing to laugh at the foibles of indie hipster walking simulators but it's sad to me to see a real game get sunk by this stuff. Ah well.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

They should have taken a hint from the Ghostbusters debacle. Dont fuck up a classic franchise with sjw garbage. Focus on getting a quality product, not on pushing your agenda. It is all so basic that i wonder about the level of intelligence at the Beamdog offices. Do these guys want to run a business or a political campaign? Someone with even the most basic knowledge of marketing could have stopped them from going down the cliff. I wonder how happy the other Beamdog employees are with "Too Bad" Amber. Especially when their paycheck is late. And if you must have SJW endorsed products in your portfolio, again, dont fuck up an established franchise, but use it to finance your hobby projects (which nobody will buy, but thats another matter).

 

[TigerKnee]

Behold, the Beamdog forums descend into shit.

Was that always posted as one gigantic unreadable block of text or did copy-pasting fuck up the formatting?

 

[Jarpie]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

Their main(?) writer did shit on it by calling it sexist and said that they'll be fixing it (or did fix it), which is fucking retarded thing to do when you know that BG fans fucking loves that game and that they're very passionate. In business world YOU JUST DON'T DO THAT SHIT! Especially if you are making direct successor for the fucking game/product.

Not only that, their handling of the situation is equally fucking retarded by banning people from the steam forum, closing down the threads and flagging/removing the reviews etc, which will just make it worse, especially the way how the internet works nowdays. When running a company and conducting anykind of PR, you either ignore the obvious trolls, retards etc or you'll always take the higher road, and especially you don't try to pull up "We're teh poor victims!"-card and start spouting shit that you're being targetted by the harassment campaigns or some group of people are targetting your company/product.

Attacking the criticism or the complainers will work only in VERY specific kind of situations where you are fucking sure that your customer base will respond to it the way you want, like for example Protein World and how the sjws attacked their company/products.

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc.

If they're so obsessed with getting it right, why would they use some or parts of the game to blare out propaganda? And by that coin, if hiring voice actors is a big deal, well Full Control did try the same for Jagged Alliance: Flashback. How'd that work out for them?

Like Roguey said, they fucked up. Poor judgement. Still, I think this game was a genuine effort (just look how much time they spent on it). It's one thing to laugh at the foibles of indie hipster walking simulators but it's sad to me to see a real game get sunk by this stuff. Ah well.

When you make a fucking shit game/product, like BG:SoD seems to be, it doesn't matter how much time and effort you put into it. It is still a shit even if you sit on the toilet for eternity shitting it out.

 

[Excidium II]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc.

If they're so obsessed with getting it right, why would they use some or parts of the game to blare out propaganda? And by that coin, if hiring voice actors is a big deal, well Full Control did try the same for Jagged Alliance: Flashback. How'd that work out for them?

Like Roguey said, they fucked up. Poor judgement. Still, I think this game was a genuine effort (just look how much time they spent on it). It's one thing to laugh at the foibles of indie hipster walking simulators but it's sad to me to see a real game get sunk by this stuff. Ah well.

Well it brings me great pleasure to see these usurpers getting their dues, even if it's for a tangential reason.

Their work has such a terrible quality at every level, but they still sell millions copies. So sorry~

 

[Doktor Best]

From what I've seen I think Beamdog have been pretty respectful - getting original voice actors, obsessing over getting the lore and the feel right, etc. They just stepped on a hot button issue, and are also handling it poorly (they should shut the fuck up and not be offering up these quotable copy-pastes for folks like Immortal)

They should have taken a hint from the Ghostbusters debacle. Dont fuck up a classic franchise with sjw garbage. Focus on getting a quality product, not on pushing your agenda. It is all so basic that i wonder about the level of intelligence at the Beamdog offices. Do these guys want to run a business or a political campaign? Someone with even the most basic knowledge of marketing could have stopped them from going down the cliff. I wonder how happy the other Beamdog employees are with "Too Bad" Amber. Especially when their paycheck is late. And if you must have SJW endorsed products in your portfolio, again, dont fuck up an established franchise, but use it to finance your hobby projects (which nobody will buy, but thats another matter).

Its kinda obvious that they fucked up, the question im sharing with Infinitron is wether it justifies the complete bombardement of their game and sealing their fate as gamedeveloper, who appearently brought us a decent adnd game apart from those 3 stupid moments.

I dont know man...

 

[Excidium II]

Assuming it's decent. What I've seen so far is nothing special.

And yes, Beamdog deserves everything. On what planet do you people live?

 

[pippin]

"Yeah of course according to the rulebooks the Tarrasque is an unkillable beast that can destroy nations but come on it's all about the story so why shouldn't it live in the cellar of an inn for lvl 1 heroes to kill?!"

This is the same shit that brought SLC down, by the way.

 

[Ezrite]

So. CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME. How Safana and Jaheira is marked as sexist character tropes?

But the "I give no fucks about that lords son" Kagain, the little lazy fucker, Minsc the dumbass ranger who berserk when he do not get things his way, Wimpy Khalid, Pessimistic Xan the elf and so on is not also reall one dimensional and dull character in a way? But those SEEMINGLY have no fucking problems or been marked for "becoming deeper". How is Safana deeper? Is she suddenly a emotional emo who is all fake and worries about anything? Way to go making her MORE of the women in dramatic situation. Hell Montaron and Xzar are two creepy maniacs.

 

[Gauldur's Bait]

I didn't really pick those options since I play a Good character in my play through but if we go by D&D alignment and definitions of Good and Evil, any other response would not fit a D&D world.
Also these refugees have nothing to do with real life, only in minds of edgelords. There is even no religious struggle between refugees and people that live in BG. The whole time it just focuses on personal sacrifice to help others in need which is D&D Good.

You are right about D&D Evil, especially in video games, is not usually very sophisticated. I will refrain from touching more upon the refugee issue though, as that could seriously derail the thread (even more). I wanted to highlight the complexity of the issue and the moralizing over simplification I see in the writing but it seems I got branded edgelord instead, which is a very good example of why the whole topic is so darn difficult to treat - anywhere. This difficulty could have been addressed in the game, and it would have been really great if it had been done in a more in-depth and balanced fashion.

 

[Immortal]

Nobody on this site from what I can tell is doing anything to Beamdog except

• Stating a (in some cases very harsh) opinion on the game
• Refunding if applicable
• Leaving a Review that reflects their feelings
• Enjoying the spectacle

There's no lynch mob of codexers chasing down the devs.
When did voting with your wallet and expressing your distaste become so taboo? Stop cucking up the thread Infinitron

 

[Delterius]

So. CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME. How Safana and Jaheira is marked as sexist character tropes?

BG1 characters like Safana and to a lesser Jaheira (who lived through some character development in BG2) are, in the end, simplistic caricatures supported by a special style of voice acting and the character portraits. That sort of characterization tends to be hit and miss with people. Lots of people love Minsc, I fucking hate him. I actually like Dynaheir, even though there's not a lot about her at all.

Going by BG1 alone, Safana is iittle more than a femme fatale and Jaheira is the 'nagging wife'. The later one may sound like it doesn't fit, but it is construed as a negative stereotype in a number of cultures, though not all.

 

[Excidium II]

Going by BG1 alone, Safana is iittle more than a femme fatale and Jaheira is the 'nagging wife'. The later one may sound like it doesn't fit, but it is construed as a negative stereotype in a number of cultures, though not all.

I don't remember if that quality time line was in BG1 so I guess that's how they fixed her.

 

[pippin]

What confuses me is how they define Safana as a sex object when she was the one constantly flirting with the male crew. She's an assassin, a thief, a trickster and a tease. She was never supposed to be a good girl.

 

[Tacgnol]

Going by BG1 alone, Safana is iittle more than a femme fatale and Jaheira is the 'nagging wife'. The later one may sound like it doesn't fit, but it is construed as a negative stereotype in a number of cultures, though not all.

I don't remember if that quality time line was in BG1 so I guess that's how they fixed her.

I thought most of the "naggy" Jaheria was in the BG1 NPC mod. Not the base game.