Posted by: Zarakhast
« on: May 10, 2008, 08:10:23 AM »I'm a big fan of both games ; in my estimation, while they're inferior to the BG games and Torment I'd still have to give the Icewind Dale games 90/100 ( the BGs and Torment getting 96) : IE games are the best and so much better than the likes of NWN, Oblivion etc. The IWD games are more hack 'n' slash than the others but the tactical combat in IE games in general is so good I still enjoy them immensely ; plus, the stories, artwork and music are all absolutely top notch. Basically, this is all thanks to : proper AD&D rules ( Gary Gygax ) ; the beautiful, lore-rich world of The Forgotten Realms ; and the wonderful, dedicated and talented people at Bioware and Black Isle Studios.
Looking at your characters I must admit I might have gone for a bit more variation myself (if I was clever enough to mod games !) It's probably true that most people don't play as dwarves, half-orcs, gnomes or halflings and I'm guessing that most people don't usually choose an evil alignment either - I myself almost always stick to LOTR stereotypes, i.e. to mainly human, half-elf or elf races and good or neutral alignment when creating a character for BG or BG2 ( I also never have female warriors ! ) But the great thing about IWDs 1+2 is that you can create six characters and I've always taken advantage of this fact by creating characters I wouldn't have played as myself if I could only have created one. I love the Goth-style portraits in the IWD games and usually create a character based on what I imagine a given portrait to represent. For instance, there are some extremely bewitching looking female portraits suggestive of dark magic so I created an elven, evil-aligned necromancer who I called Makkulka (The Witch) ; alongside her I created a character who I called Orno the Illiterate, a huge human fighter character (starting strength 18/97, starting intelligence 3 ?) using the male soundset which consists entirely of roars and grunts and choosing one of the meanest, most primeval-looking male portraits - he turned out to be one of my most formidable, but also hilarious characters ( well, at least in my imagination !) There are some great halfling and gnome/dwarf portraits in there too : basically the IWD portraits give a lot more scope for the imagination than the BG portraits. I'm sure ( and I hope ) your characters will be great but personally I'd like to see more unusual combinations and scope for conflict. The project's a great idea, btw, and you deserve everyone's support. My ideas are just the idle imaginings of someone who's had a long love-affair with these games and wished many times he could create something similar !
P.S. Has anyone ever created any gay characters ? This is a serious/frivolous question : a gay character (or two) could really complicate things !
Looking at your characters I must admit I might have gone for a bit more variation myself (if I was clever enough to mod games !) It's probably true that most people don't play as dwarves, half-orcs, gnomes or halflings and I'm guessing that most people don't usually choose an evil alignment either - I myself almost always stick to LOTR stereotypes, i.e. to mainly human, half-elf or elf races and good or neutral alignment when creating a character for BG or BG2 ( I also never have female warriors ! ) But the great thing about IWDs 1+2 is that you can create six characters and I've always taken advantage of this fact by creating characters I wouldn't have played as myself if I could only have created one. I love the Goth-style portraits in the IWD games and usually create a character based on what I imagine a given portrait to represent. For instance, there are some extremely bewitching looking female portraits suggestive of dark magic so I created an elven, evil-aligned necromancer who I called Makkulka (The Witch) ; alongside her I created a character who I called Orno the Illiterate, a huge human fighter character (starting strength 18/97, starting intelligence 3 ?) using the male soundset which consists entirely of roars and grunts and choosing one of the meanest, most primeval-looking male portraits - he turned out to be one of my most formidable, but also hilarious characters ( well, at least in my imagination !) There are some great halfling and gnome/dwarf portraits in there too : basically the IWD portraits give a lot more scope for the imagination than the BG portraits. I'm sure ( and I hope ) your characters will be great but personally I'd like to see more unusual combinations and scope for conflict. The project's a great idea, btw, and you deserve everyone's support. My ideas are just the idle imaginings of someone who's had a long love-affair with these games and wished many times he could create something similar !
P.S. Has anyone ever created any gay characters ? This is a serious/frivolous question : a gay character (or two) could really complicate things !