NPCs

[Dudette]

anyone think that icewind dale would have been better with npcs? i do...

[Blackthorne TA]

You mean joinable NPCs? Neh, I liked for once to be able to create the whole party myself, to tailor it to my style of play...

[Irenicus]

if the first of the six or watever characters dies is the game end?

[Enagonios]

BTA: Yeah it is nicer to have total control in the making of all your characters, but I miss the character AI, the fact that they may have their own agenda and draw you into it or betray you. Gives me a more... "roleplaying feeling" heh.

[Irenicus] It's not like BG, there is no main hero. You die, when they all die. The order in which they die doesn't particularly matter

[This message has been edited by R'syil (edited April 23, 2001).]

[Bowie]

As I've said before, I like the ability to make your own party in this game. You never have to wonder things like "Now, why did I just have a fighter/cleric join my party with 15 STR and 16 WIS?" (i.e. Yeslick in BG1) If you want an NPC to have 17 or better in their main attributes, then that's how you roll it to start with.

As far as missing out on the characters, I didn't notice it. My each NPC of my first four person party had distinct personality in my mind. The fact that they didn't have romances or talk to vermin that they kept in their pockets (sorry Minsc) didn't bother me in the least. Redline my paladin, was the self-proclaimed leader of the group, and was too much of a goodie-two-shoes and not well liked. Julie Ruin the dwarven Fighter/cleric didn't care about that too much, she just wanted a nice mace in her hand and something to smack it against (spells to her were for healing after a good fight). Mr Klaw, the neutral-evil halfling fighter/thief, was only along for the ride because Redline shamed him into (trying) to do good (plus the paladin had agreed to split the profits...). And Ui, the female half-elf mage/cleric, was beautiful, spoiled and bored. She was along only because one night she had decided it might be fun to go adventuring, and it was too late when she found out she was wrong, so she kept to the back and begrudgingly offered her spells as support when needed.

I guess it's similar to the game The Sims. Some people (like me) see that game as mindlessly making your Sim get to work on time and to the bathroom on time and to bed on time, over and over again. Still others, can play that game and they see relationships strained over the demands of work, marrages breaking up over affairs, the annoying neighbors that only like their sims for their pool and enjoy managing their sims for hours at a time. I guess to some degree, what you get out of playing a game is dependent on what you put into playing that game.

[This message has been edited by Bowie (edited April 23, 2001).]

[Enagonios]

I'm too lazy to be able to imagine that much for no particular reason...
I agree with you on the sims though Mindless drones that you program doing whatever you want them to do. No real adventure... I don't know how people get to enjoy that kinda thing.

[Bowie]

Just so you know, I didn't put all that backstory and thought into my characters while I was rolling them. I just chose the race that I thought was most beneficial to the class, char. portraits that I liked, and the voice sets that I thought sounded both cool and appropriate for each character. That combined with my playing style, created a general idea in my mind of the characters and how they got along with each other that evolved over the time I spent playing the game.

[Orkrist the Cleaver]

I enjoyed making my characters myself. It would be cool to have a few joinable NPCs I guess, but they don't really fit unless the story brings them in or they bring a story of their own. I thought Marchon of Waterdeep and his crew were a good touch. NPCs just shy of joining.

[Dudette]

it is kinda fun making up all that stuff about ur characters...

The fact that you can make and totally control every party member is the reason why I tend to fall back to Icewind Dale when I'm tired of my other games....
That, and in IWD the game is based more on combat than BG2.

Icewind Dale Rules!!