BG: Siege of Dragonspear release date, screenshots and more

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It's a video game about a make believe world where there is magic and dragons and any other thing you can possibly conceive. It's not about us people! Get over yourselves.

 

Except in this case they do and it's becoming more common. I have nothing against social commentary in games, but when you pollute your franchise with this self-righteous garbage, you don't get to throw a hissy fit when the community response is negative. Especially when it's a franchise like this, which is near and dear to people's hearts, and you have these devs using it as an outlet for their socio-political views and then insulting everyone who dare criticize anything.

 

That was the assertion in my first sentence.

 

That I wasn't aware of....Fair enough I guess. I will try research dev comments to elevate above the rank of uninformed.

Is the entire expansion this way or is it just about the character? I was thinking about uploading and playing this weekend. If the writing utterly sucks or is an obvious attempt to have me assimilated I would prefer to not purchase it but that would be a shame as I consider myself as big a fan as any when it comes to BG/IWD CRPGs. Only been waiting 20 yrs for another game....

 

The writing is bad.
And I'm talking generally.
It was called fan-fiction level writing by many people and I would like to agree with them.
Well if it wasn't for the fact that I have read FR fan-fiction that was leagues better than this.
Self-insertion or whatchamacallit i think is the genre Miss Scott does. Some of the writing is downright bratty at times.

As for the re-imagined characters like Safana...well this one takes the cake. Because most of it reads so weird and pushy.

On the RPG-Codex, there is a really nice review about his. It mentions that there exists already a fan-perception of these character. Introduced tru those banter-packs or the famous BGNPC project that build and expanded the characters over the decade making us it impossible for us to look at them another way. Which is a solid point.

People who fall into the apologist crowd accuse the other of nostalgia. But how can it be nostalgia when we play it all the time fresh anew.

 

I would say that the writing is on average... well, average. There are some good parts, some bad parts, and some truly cringeworthy parts. It's easy to point fingers at the girl and her ill perceived notions of reality, both in-game and in the real world, but it's hardly the only reason the game is failing. The glaring lack of quality assurance for the games they've released so far shows a level of general incompetence and poor project management within the team. Everything from bad UI design, instability, low quality of writing, to horrible marketing schemes.

I know for a fact that they have good people on the team because I know some of them personally and they've done a great job exposing their work to the community and allowing everyone to clearly interact with them and report outstanding issues, but whether they're just out of their depth or being dragged down by everyone else is anyone's guess. I do hope that someone in that studio is scratching their head and asking themselves where they've gone wrong instead of blaming their failures on all those "transphobic bigots", otherwise the future seems bleak indeed.

I say let them work out the technical kinks in the coming months and take it for what it is: a free engine upgrade. You were doing just fine without the missing chapter for over 17 years, you sure as hell don't need it now, and since these aren't the original writers, it's just glorified fanfic anyway. Do like so many others and simply forget it exists or wait until you can get it for the price of a beer and use it as an example of how to kill a game franchise and alienate your customers.

 

Sure enough, but then, why bother with the EEs at all. You were doing just fine without the extra fluff and extra technical difficulties for over 17 years, after all.

 

Well, you might have been, but I sure wasn't. EEs have afforded me a lot more freedom in my modding endeavors. Before that, my only hope were TobEx and GemRB and there's only so far those could have gone. Not to mention that GemRB would first had to have become the mainstream way of running IE games before making mods that use its features would have made any sense. The engine upgrade is the sole reason I've switched to EE. Everything else is completely irrelevant.

 

That use-case is fairly atypical, I'd say.

 

Maybe. IE modding community has always been fairly large, so I'm probably not alone in that. But there other benefits to engine upgrades besides modding support.

 

Meanwhile, on the internet...

 

Modding for sh*ts and giggles.

 

For some reason that whole dialog with mizhena reminds me of this greentext :

 

I've known quite a few gay/lesbian people throughout my life so far and never have any of them tried to pressure me in any way.
I haven't played this SoD yet but from what I'm reading it is going to be quite a ride indeed.
I myself am a straight male with no problems with any of the sexes or sexual orientation. If that's you I'm happy for you. Just don't try and cram it down my throat and hit on me. One thing I have learned is that they don't "force it down your throat". At least my friends didn't. The best part about it was that none of them, a couple dozen, ever "threw themselves at me". They just let it be know that they were (in case I got interested) and everyone went on to live happily ever after.
They're nothing to be afraid of. Just make it known that your not, if your not, and everything will be fine.
As for this game? I'm waiting for a patch or 2 til I get it and see just how "bad" it is.
Are they npcs in your party or are they npcs you just talk to?