ok, last night I spent ages going through IEES, and found the codes for Xan, Branwen - who was turned to stone like you find her in the first game.. creepy -, Tiax, Zxar and Kivan, and put them into a new game with my wonderful paladin. Now.. is that cheating? or just exploiting the game so you can pretend you are playing BG1?

I think it is considered cheating, else the creators made that option possible without special codes and things like that.

I would say it's cheating, but who cares. So what if you cheat, it's your game, and if you have fun with, why shouldn't you summon those NPC's?

at least you didn't use that.. *shudders* SK util, yuk!

[This message has been edited by Lokken (edited September 10, 2001).]

I don't believe that it is cheating as it does not afford you a particular advantage. If anything, you did it the hard way.

You could just as easily make these characters in a multi-player game, giving them the appropriate names and stats, and playing that way. Nobody (with one possible exception) would accuse you of cheating if you did this.

Alot of people are too hung up on cheating here. If you bought the game and want to play it a different way, then do it.

The only exception to this is using utilities to cheat and then coming to the board and complaining that things don't work and asking for help. This can be frustrating for the people (Extremist, et. al.) here who put in a lot of time trying to help people deal with real bugs and other issues.

1. It is definetly cheating.

2. Actually I have a suggestion. Why don't you start a new thread with codes for all those NPCs and with explanation on how to get them in the party. Then we could discuss who is better than who, who is better than BG1 version, etc... OK?
Hmmmm, we... No, not we, I meant you who will enjoy it. I'll just skip the thread when I see name of i.e. Kivan - who is not a part of BG2 nor have "intelligent" dialogs.

I don't think that's cheating per se. No different than making extra NPCs via multiplayer. But it'll be pretty boring, because they won't have anything to say, nor any subplots. You'll be depriving yourself of one of the biggest assets of BG2, in my opinion.

[edit]

Oh, just looked at your roster of who you're including. Yeah, it's cheating to include Tiax and Xzar, since they're >in< BG2 already and aren't supposed to be in your party.

[This message has been edited by tjekanefir (edited September 10, 2001).]

well chances are if you're asking "is this cheating" then its most probably cheating :) In any case, it's your game and it isn't something that'll spoil your game fun. I really miss kivan. In BG, kivan & viconia had really cool dialogues and were almost at each others throats. Luckily i finished the game before they could kill eachother. Kivan the archer.. sounds good to me :)

Changing the game= cheat. So adding those NPCs is cheat. But it is not powergaming. Except for Tiax. Cause Tiax Rules ALL, you are but grease to his mighty wheels. :p

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited September 11, 2001).]

Duuuuuh it's cheating. If you don't play by the rules it's cheap but making old characters come back to life is cheating.

In a very technical (and slightly anal way) you could consider it cheating. But forget about the codes for a minute and lets say (as some have mentioned) you created these characters in Multiplayer, giving them same stats as in BG or even handicap their stats if you want. How can this be cheating, it's not, it's roleplaying. The only thing it contradicts, and (depending on the character, how bad it contradicts) is the story. How is this any different from the embellishments we add to the story in our games? For example, notice the uprising of story threads where we tell about our games and embellish the story a bit to enjoy it even more, practicing a little roleplaying. You would dare call this cheating????

So bottom line...
with codes >>> technically it's cheating (anal view)
with multiplayer >>> not cheating at all
(acceptable view)

Take your pick!

In my opinion, if somebody asks a question like "Hi, is this cheating," he's practically begging people to have a nit-picking philosophical debate about the nature of cheating, so it's kinda silly to complain when one ensues. (-:

My own take on it: it's cheating to hack the game or intentionally exploit bugs or loopholes in the programming so as to subvert the intent of the game. It's cheating to use a loophole to bring your drow weapons to the surface; they're supposed to crumble in sunlight. It's cheating to use the console to give your whole party universal Carsomyrs; it's supposed to be a unique weapon and usable only by paladins. It's cheating to hack the game to make Aerie and Viconia peacefully co-exist as your two girlfriends; they're both supposed to be possessive and have repeated lines that they would dump you if they caught you with the other.

By this definition, it would be cheating to put Tiax in your party, since he is in Spellhold during BG2, has a role there, and dies there. It wouldn't be cheating to put Kivan in because Kivan is irrelevant to BG2 and the game doesn't care if he's there or not.

YMMV. (-:

[This message has been edited by tjekanefir (edited September 11, 2001).]

It is definately NOT cheating IMHO :) I agree with the post above. You're not creating yourself any unfair advantages...so you are not cheating. If you want to play the game that way, do it. Although you will be missing out on some of the great conversations between NPCs.

Minsc (sp) > Boo! Where are you Boo!?
Jan > hehe..missing something Mincsy?
:):):)

Its probably defined as cheating, but why should you care about other peoples views on it.
You should be playing the game to have fun and if you think it would be fun, go ahead with it!!

I used to cheat a bit (O.K., a lot) in my old game, but in my new game I havent yet cheated (bar a find familiar scroll) but I still exploit bugs :D

In the end, just do what you feel like, It isn't giving you an unfair advantage over the game, infact its giving you a handicap.

Now this is major thread resurrection. Check the dates.

handicap or advantage - it is still cheating and the creature files are most likely left over from BG1.

Jeez!
Is this an example of spam :) ) I dont think any one would wait from Sep'01 till July'03 for a reply. :D :D :D

[Yes, your post is an example of spam, so don't post if you have nothing to contribute. :toofar: ] -Tal

[ July 26, 2003, 10:27: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

Have you beaten the game? if not, well it is cheating in a basic manner, but my thoughts on this matter are simply... Does it matter?
I cheat, hell I don't just cheat, I mutilate the damn game, I don't give a rats arse, I've beaten the game and now I play through it to see what I've missed the first time around, eh?

I certainly don't consider it cheating. I see it this way: The way the game starts, it assumes that you finished BGI with the group of characters consisting of: Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and your PC. That's a pretty realistic scenario, since that would represent a well-balanced party, and as most people play good characters, it would just make sense that it was a very common party from BGI.

But think of it this way: What if those weren't the members of your party? What if you played evil? Would it really be cheating if say, you had Shar-Teel or Kaigan instead of Minsc in the cage? Or what if you had Kivan in your party? Heck, as long as it isn't a playable NPC that already in BG2, it's fine. I see no problem creating characters like Coran, Xzar or Montoron in multiplayer, and then playing them in the game (although I don't think you could create Coran - he had a 20 in dexterity - without using SK). Sure they appear in the game, but as non-playable NPC's.

If there's one fault I see in BG2, it's the lack of overall NPC's, that reduces the replayability. If creating those characters (even though they don't have soundsets like they did in BGI) adds to your enjoyment factor in the game - and let's face it, it would be cool to go from the very beginning to the very end with the same group of 6 characters - then why wouldn't you do it?

Oh, and it's kind of creepy that a lot of the posts here are from September 11, 2001. Didn't people have more important things on their minds than BG2? Also kind of creepy that the thread stopped on that date and was not revived until last week.

I doesn't seem like cheating to me, either, since you could create something similar in multi-player.

@ Aldeth - actually, there is only 1 post from Sept 11, and that was only about 25 minutes after the first attack. The default clock on SP is E.S.T. + 6 hours (I think), but you can change it to your local time in your profile.

do you mind bringing up old posts i thought for a second everyone had suddenly come back to activity!!!

[Please DO NOT REPLY if you have nothing on-topic to add!] -Tal

[ August 01, 2003, 15:29: Message edited by: Taluntain ]