WTF was Viconia Evil in BG3

[Takamori]

Both Minsc and Viconia I still have no idea what the fuck they were doing in the game besides a retarded camo for nostalgia retards? Sarevok his fight encounter was a damn insult like oh yeah ignore everything in the arena and just send your buff hasten meatheads to slap his shit.
Jaheira at least was integrated in the story.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Some of the BG2 endgame powers you get from evil choices are really fucking good.

BG2 was not restricted by TSR's Code of Ethics because they had been acquired by Wizards of the Coast in the interim and abandoned it. Torment wasn't restricted either. BG just had the unfortunate luck of being released in 1998.

TSR entered a financial crisis before the end of 1996 and was acquired by WotC in mid-1997. Surprised that the Code of Ethics was still affecting licensees after that point, though seemingly not for long.

 

[Arbiter]

My reaction when they didnt make fixing her with muh dick canon

But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, who only has to make love to a woman and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and immediately returns to the side of right and virtue. But not this one.

 

[skaraher]

In a sea of retarded posts this OP somehow build an island of retardation.

There is a canon version about the Bhaalspawn Saga. Larian sticks to said canon. That canon does not care about how you treated drowbitch some 20 years ago in your cumstained basement.

You do know nobody care about your canon and what will be important for most player is how much the shared storyline and characters of all 3 games stays cohesive ?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This is why I don’t play sequels (and never intend to write sequels). If you screw up the continuity and fan expectations then you do your customers a disservice. So I only ever play (or write) standalone stories or anthologies. It’s slightly harder to fuck up a single script compared to fucking up more than one script.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

In a sea of retarded posts this OP somehow build an island of retardation.

There is a canon version about the Bhaalspawn Saga. Larian sticks to said canon. That canon does not care about how you treated drowbitch some 20 years ago in your cumstained basement.

You do know nobody care about your canon and what will be important for most player is how much the shared storyline and characters of all 3 games stays cohesive ?

Bioware did make a canon. The party you start with in 2 was the one that defeated Sarevok in 1. Dynaheir and Khalid died. etc etc etc... Importing your character had less to do with decisions and cohesion and more with simply using your old character. The Charname who completed 1, or even a new Charname for 2, met and spent time with all companions from 1, though.

I don't know which romance would be canon. It seems that Jaheira's isn't. Vicky dies if you romance her so that can't be it. Maybe Larian should've let us meet the kid of Charname and Aerie...

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

This is why I don’t play sequels (and never intend to write sequels). If you screw up the continuity and fan expectations then you do your customers a disservice. So I only ever play (or write) standalone stories or anthologies. It’s slightly harder to fuck up a single script compared to fucking up more than one script.

As I was saying, the link between BG 1 and 2 is feeble at best.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

In a sea of retarded posts this OP somehow build an island of retardation.

There is a canon version about the Bhaalspawn Saga. Larian sticks to said canon. That canon does not care about how you treated drowbitch some 20 years ago in your cumstained basement.

You do know nobody care about your canon and what will be important for most player is how much the shared storyline and characters of all 3 games stays cohesive ?

Bioware did make a canon. The party you start with in 2 was the one that defeated Sarevok in 1. Dynaheir and Khalid died. etc etc etc... Importing your character had less to do with decisions and cohesion and more with simply using your old character. The Charname who completed 1, or even a new Charname for 2, met and spent time with all companions from 1, though.

I don't know which romance would be canon. It seems that Jaheira's isn't. Vicky dies if you romance her so that can't be it. Maybe Larian should've let us meet the kid of Charname and Aerie...

This is why I don’t play sequels (and never intend to write sequels). If you screw up the continuity and fan expectations then you do your customers a disservice. So I only ever play (or write) standalone stories or anthologies. It’s slightly harder to fuck up a single script compared to fucking up more than one script.

As I was saying, the link between BG 1 and 2 is feeble at best.

And that canon was invalidated by the shitty novels WotC arbitrarily declared true canon.

Also, fascinating to see how much Bioware grew from "we arbitrarily decided your party and morals" between BG1 and BG2 to "we took your decisions into account, only to flip a massive fuck you at the end of it" in the Mass Effect games.

Sequels can eat shit and die in a fire.

 

[skaraher]

In a sea of retarded posts this OP somehow build an island of retardation.

There is a canon version about the Bhaalspawn Saga. Larian sticks to said canon. That canon does not care about how you treated drowbitch some 20 years ago in your cumstained basement.

You do know nobody care about your canon and what will be important for most player is how much the shared storyline and characters of all 3 games stays cohesive ?

Bioware did make a canon. The party you start with in 2 was the one that defeated Sarevok in 1. Dynaheir and Khalid died. etc etc etc... Importing your character had less to do with decisions and cohesion and more with simply using your old character. The Charname who completed 1, or even a new Charname for 2, met and spent time with all companions from 1, though.

I don't know which romance would be canon. It seems that Jaheira's isn't. Vicky dies if you romance her so that can't be it. Maybe Larian should've let us meet the kid of Charname and Aerie...

I wasnt speaking about BG1/BG2 canon but the broader WOTC canon developped in novels and adventures that directly contradict what happen inngame.

 

[Serus]

Viconia has EVIL as alignment in character screen in the game. Her turning NEUTRAL is not canon that Larian had obligation to follow. Ergo she can be EVIL/evil in BG3 no matter how some try to twist it - because she is their waifu or whatever. Everything in BG2 that doesn't portrays her as evil is just bad or superfluous writing disconnected from the game itself. If they wanted her not to be evil, they should have made her not-EVIL. The way she turned out is a nonsensical character. But evil nonetheless. The rules and the lore of the universe in which the action takes place are very clear about that. EVIL = evil. You can't shit on all the other lore about good, evil and morality in the universe just to pretend she makes sense as character in this world. The fact that some fanfic level writers had to create a "romance" with an "evil-but-not-really-Drow" - to sell more copies of the game - and failed because she ends schizophrenic (not in a literally sense*), is no argument. Making her actually evil again is just making her more consistent.
Having said that i didn't play BG3, she probably sucks there, in BG2 she was just cheesy but since other characters were cheesy as well, she didn't stand out. Still, less fun that some.


*

Spoiler

However her being seriously mentally ill - for real - would actually be interesting. Way above the level of writing of BG though and probably not fitting BG franchise. On the other hand in something like P:T a schizo Drow (an EVIL race) who thinks he/she isn't evil because of actual mental illness would be nice and fitting the "lol-deep" themes of that game.

 

[Serus]

Some of the BG2 endgame powers you get from evil choices are really fucking good.

BG2 was not restricted by TSR's Code of Ethics because they had been acquired by Wizards of the Coast in the interim and abandoned it. Torment wasn't restricted either. BG just had the unfortunate luck of being released in 1998.

Why unfortunate? Because back then it was used less for things that it should have never been used? Things like teenager-deep questions of morality? Or romances? You have many other RPG systems for that. Tons of them in fact. Why would anyone want to explore them in D&D is beyond my limited understanding. Other than Goodkind's wizard's first rule: people are stupid.

Opps, perhaps you meant: in 1998, times of the hegemony of Real-Time. Then I agree 100%. Very unfortunate.

 

[Roguey]

Why unfortunate? Because back then it was used less for things that it should have never been used? Things like teenager-deep questions of morality? Or romances? You have many other RPG systems for that. Tons of them in fact. Why would anyone want to explore them in D&D is beyond my limited understanding. Other than Goodkind's wizard's first rule: people are stupid.

Opps, perhaps you meant: in 1998, times of the hegemony of Real-Time. Then I agree 100%. Very unfortunate.

I don't think games should punish you for being evil other than logical outcomes (commit murder or theft in front of witnesses then yeah the law should go after you). But if you can be evil in sneaky underhanded ways, yeah that should be more rewarding than being an honorable person. That's why people do evil things.

Though Bioware going into morally grey territory in BG2 led to nonsense like a lawful good paladin player character agreeing to work with a murdering, torturous thieves' guild on the "good" path and being punished/blocked for not smiting them all on sight. They never were expert writers.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This is why I don’t play sequels (and never intend to write sequels). If you screw up the continuity and fan expectations then you do your customers a disservice. So I only ever play (or write) standalone stories or anthologies. It’s slightly harder to fuck up a single script compared to fucking up more than one script.

I guess that it's a matter of mindset, but personally I don't mind bad sequels. If I enjoy a game (or a book, film or TV show) whose continuation I dislike, I just ignore it. Even if it's canon and it might retroactively ruin some things about the original, why would I care about the official canon established by a sequel that disappointed me? I just treat it as nonexistent and keep enjoying the original as its own self-contained thing. No reason to miss out on a possibly good sequel for something that you've enjoyed just because there are a shitload of bad ones out there.

 

[Immortal]

She felt extremely shoehorned in. Why include her at all if you're just going to make her a 0 depth bossfight with nothing to say.

Most of the references to the games and books felt pandering and kinda pointless and weird.

I lost count how many times they reference random nobody-gives-a-fuck drow from Menzoberranzan / RA novels.. completely hamfisted in some weird way that makes no sense.. (finding random notes from those NPC's in random places they would of never possibly been)

It really feels like the writer for this game played BG2 for an hour and read the first 30 pages of Homeland and called it a day.

Actually, at first I felt like they are doing everything right.
The book about the bhaalspawn events is very vague.
Jaheira is very evasive about the past events. And she's a decent character too.
It all seemed like the right low effort way to do it.

Oh, little did I know Larian is only lowering my defences to kick me in the nuts with a full force.

Finding Harper stashes.. books with vague retelling of events.. etc. Were all enjoyable - agreed. If you knew, you knew.

I think it really started falling apart in Underdark, when you are serendipitously finding personal diaries from NPC's in House Do'Urden and shit.. what?

Then when Karlach started UwUing over Jaheira constantly as THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.. I was like "ugh.. ok.. here we go" - all hope was lost.
Karlach really acts like a dnd player who read the books and played the games and is just squeeing excitedly about being in a video game - it's borderline 4th wall breaking..

 

[Roguey]

Karlach really acts like a dnd player who read the books and played the games and is just squeeing excitedly about being in a video game - it's borderline 4th wall breaking..

 

[Jrpgfan]

Though Bioware going into morally grey territory in BG2 led to nonsense like a lawful good paladin player character agreeing to work with a murdering, torturous thieves' guild on the "good" path and being punished/blocked for not smiting them all on sight. They never were expert writers.

Spot on. Writing was never bioware's strongest suit. Nor is/was Larian's.

Idk why people go into their games expecting good writing and then complain when it's shit. It's like buying a beetle and complaining it isn't fast enough.

 

[Serus]

Though Bioware going into morally grey territory in BG2 led to nonsense like a lawful good paladin player character agreeing to work with a murdering, torturous thieves' guild on the "good" path and being punished/blocked for not smiting them all on sight. They never were expert writers.

Spot on. Writing was never bioware's strongest suit. Nor is/was Larian's.

Idk why people go into their games expecting good writing and then complain when it's shit. It's like buying a beetle game and complaining it isn't fast enough a (good) book.

That's better.

 

[MerchantKing]

Incidentally BG3 does in fact acknowledge a banter from Throne of Bhaal:



Viconia: Minsc, I am finding myself unable to deny your effectiveness in battle.
Minsc: Eh... Boo, was that a compliment?
Viconia: Oh, it was, and your response is the reason for my query. Just how old is Boo?
Minsc: Boo? He is young by the standards of his miniature giant cohorts.
Viconia: So he has exceeded the normal lifespan of a normal rodent of his type?
Minsc: I believe he takes offense to the term "rodent."
Viconia: Perhaps he bears examining. Some form of exploratory dissection. It was an art in my homeland.
Minsc: You know, try as he might, Boo just doesn't get your kind of humor.

She wasn't joking. She tried to dissect Boo, had her eyes clawed out, and then ran away, this is canon.

"B-but my epilogue"

Like I said earlier, just because something *can* happen in your play-through doesn't mean it *did*.

Boo would be the perfect pet for a Gnome.

 

[Serus]

Why unfortunate? Because back then it was used less for things that it should have never been used? Things like teenager-deep questions of morality? Or romances? You have many other RPG systems for that. Tons of them in fact. Why would anyone want to explore them in D&D is beyond my limited understanding. Other than Goodkind's wizard's first rule: people are stupid.

Opps, perhaps you meant: in 1998, times of the hegemony of Real-Time. Then I agree 100%. Very unfortunate.

I don't think games should punish you for being evil other than logical outcomes (commit murder or theft in front of witnesses then yeah the law should go after you). But if you can be evil in sneaky underhanded ways, yeah that should be more rewarding than being an honorable person. That's why people do evil things.

Though Bioware going into morally grey territory in BG2 led to nonsense like a lawful good paladin player character agreeing to work with a murdering, torturous thieves' guild on the "good" path and being punished/blocked for not smiting them all on sight. They never were expert writers.

I never said anything about "punishing" for doing anything. Where did that came from?
I wrote that questions of morality are NOT a theme best suited for a D&D game. At all. I might claim that they are not best suited for any CRPG but if someone really has to do it he should at least use a system better suited than D&D. D&D mechanics make (or made in 2nd and 3rd ediction) such questions much harder to explore. Taking a game system with rigid, very well defined morality system and trying to create themes about ambiguous morality is moronic. Which is the point. D&D was designed for having paladins and clerics and rangers fight evil. Just take any of hundreds RPG systems (or make your own) that can do it better.
They never were expert writers, agreed. However they wouldn't have to be if their games concentrated on what games are best for. Which is not reading but playing them.

 

[Roguey]

I never said anything about "punishing" for doing anything. Where did that came from?
I wrote that questions of morality are NOT a theme best suited for a D&D game. At all. I might claim that they are not best suited for any CRPG but if someone really has to do it he should at least use a system better suited than D&D. D&D mechanics make (or made in 2nd and 3rd ediction) such questions much harder to explore. Taking a game system with rigid, very well defined morality system and trying to create themes about ambiguous morality is moronic. Which is the point. D&D was designed for having paladins and clerics and rangers fight evil. Just take any of hundreds RPG systems (or make your own) that can do it better.
They never were expert writers, agreed. However they wouldn't have to be if their games concentrated on what games are best for. Which is not reading but playing them.

I was saying it's unfortunate that TSR had a code of ethics that didn't allow for evil to be rewarded when the mechanics allow you to play as an evil character and make evil decisions.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I'm much more interested in why they couldn't get Grey DeLisle - who, unlike Jaheira's VO who apparently vanished off the face of the Earth - is very much active still. In fact, could someone with a good Twitter presence ask if she was even approached?

I feel like Grey could've done a lot to improve V's re-appearance but unfortunately we got this instead

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Grey Delisle is in high demand and a higher tier VA. Schedule and budget might've been issues here. Her and a lot of the other VAs in games like Bloodlines were kinda beginners back then, so their rates might have only gone up and up.
A lot of the other VAs have already worked with Larian too so there's a track record. Minthara's VA worked in the DOS games for instance.

Jim Cummings, while active still, is probably too old. Minsc looks 30, 35 tops, Cummings is twice that age. I heard him doing a Winnie The Pooh voice recently and he couldn't hide the raspy old man voice.

 

[Roguey]

Grey Delisle is in high demand and a higher tier VA. Schedule and budget might've been issues here. Her and a lot of the other VAs in games like Bloodlines were kinda beginners back then, so their rates might have only gone up and up.
A lot of the other VAs have already worked with Larian too so there's a track record. Minthara's VA worked in the DOS games for instance.

Jim Cummings, while active still, is probably too old. Minsc looks 30, 35 tops, Cummings is twice that age. I heard him doing a Winnie The Pooh voice recently and he couldn't hide the raspy old man voice.

They hired JK Simmons so I doubt money was an issue, particularly since Viconia only has a small role. Either she was unavailable or her agent turned it down (there are multiple examples of agents doing this without even telling the actor when they would have been perfectly willing) or Larian thought she was too old for the role.

Minsc sounded fine back during SIege of Dragonspear, though it's been a few years since then. David Warner did sound utterly phlegmy in that game.

 

[Arbiter]

David Warner did sound utterly phlegmy in that game.

David Warner passed away last year. RIP.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Grey Delisle is in high demand and a higher tier VA. Schedule and budget might've been issues here. Her and a lot of the other VAs in games like Bloodlines were kinda beginners back then, so their rates might have only gone up and up.
A lot of the other VAs have already worked with Larian too so there's a track record. Minthara's VA worked in the DOS games for instance.

Jim Cummings, while active still, is probably too old. Minsc looks 30, 35 tops, Cummings is twice that age. I heard him doing a Winnie The Pooh voice recently and he couldn't hide the raspy old man voice.

They hired JK Simmons so I doubt money was an issue, particularly since Viconia only has a small role. Either she was unavailable or her agent turned it down (there are multiple examples of agents doing this without even telling the actor when they would have been perfectly willing) or Larian thought she was too old for the role.

Minsc sounded fine back during SIege of Dragonspear, though it's been a few years since then. David Warner did sound utterly phlegmy in that game.

The budget that could've paid DeLisle went for JK Simmons, most likely.