Author Topic: Soulafein Monologues  (Read 13510 times)

domi

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #25 on: November 19, 2002, 08:20:57 PM »
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In general, there seem to be a lot of "I"s and "me"s in his, can you say  "monologues", which, as I might ask a bit provocatingly, moves his character between infamous boasting Anomen and self-pity whining Aerie...
At least you can tell Anomen to "shut up" when he starts his boasts, and Aerie does not radiate a "Look at me, I really have a hard time, but I am so cool and have everything under control" attitude.
                   I tend to agree that the mod way too often leaves PC with the single option: to gape in amazement on infamous Solaufein and does not give anough intelligent/educated choices to the Gorion's ward (yes, I am only on 7-8 th talk but the vampiric scene counts for 20 regular game interactions). BTW, does the amount of choices depend on wis/intel/char score? Sometimes I expect that his next dialogue will start with "You can close your mouth, Do, I am going to speak..." And Do's options would be:

1) mmmmgh, uh-huh
2) *her eyes went wide open and her nerveous fingers run over her almost perfect as is hairdo and she looked at the mirror. Lipstick! Bhaal's soul is on sale for a lipstick! How can I look like some orphaned badger when Solaufein is going to speak? Cause obviously looking good is the only way I contribute to the conversations...*

On the other hand his attitude is explainable, cause for him PC is a babe knowing not the life. He is what? 300? 400? He is a weapon master and he is capable of making descisions. Drow are arrogant. He has to talk to someone, I doubt that the boy had much audience in Ust Natha. So he has plenty of reasons to act the way he act.

What was that about Drizzt? Does Solaufein suppose to interject? I had time of my life there: Cattie turned red and attacked us so we could kill her in the honest way, while the rest of the Drizzt's party walked hapilly away.

Can you really do a PC's response comparable to the NPC's remark? A response both short (unless your list of three choices would close your game screen) and reflecting what the button-pusher is thinking s/he should have said? I dunno. I have not seen in the original game. I have not seen it in the two wooping mods I am playing.

P.S. If you want a sweet understanding male fond of your leadership - load Kelsey, lol.  


                   

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #26 on: November 19, 2002, 08:32:04 PM »
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This is...interesting, because what I know as a player is that pausing to speak to the fanatics before rescuing her can confirm that she has committed no crime except simply to be a Drow.

I couldn't say.  The one time I tried to talk to everybody they torched her before I finished.  But yes, the few I did talk to said she was "guilty" of being a Drow.                    

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #27 on: November 19, 2002, 08:39:37 PM »
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2) *her eyes went wide open and her nerveous fingers run over her almost perfect as is hairdo and she looked at the mirror. Lipstick! Bhaal's soul is on sale for a lipstick! How can I look like some orphaned badger when Solaufein is going to speak? Cause obviously looking good is the only way I contribute to the conversations...*

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!   :lol:



(Uh... Sorry Wes.  But that was really funny.)                    

domi

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #28 on: November 19, 2002, 09:34:38 PM »
Well, that was not intended as an offense, really. It's because Solaufein is a good talker and says something different and interesting that you'd wish your PC could show off as well. While say with Anomen all your desires are geared towards finding the most intricate and interesting way to direct him to the Nine Hells.                    

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #29 on: November 19, 2002, 09:42:42 PM »
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Well, that was not intended as an offense, really. It's because Solaufein is a good talker and says something different and interesting that you'd wish your PC could show off as well.

Oh, I know!  I'm a big Sola fan, but I still thought that bit was funny.   :D

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While say with Anomen all your desires are geared towards finding the most intricate and interesting way to direct him to the Nine Hells.

A pity you can't just beat the hell out of him.  B)                    



[!--EDIT|L_Jonté|Nov 20 2002, 05:42 AM--]

Offline jcompton

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #30 on: November 19, 2002, 10:26:45 PM »
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While say with Anomen all your desires are geared towards finding the most intricate and interesting way to direct him to the Nine Hells.

A pity you can't just beat the hell out of him.  B)
                   Where's that free will? Of course you can!                    
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #31 on: November 19, 2002, 11:03:24 PM »
Not when I'm running a Paladin I can't.  Damned guilty conscience...                    

domi

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #32 on: November 19, 2002, 11:34:49 PM »
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While say with Anomen all your desires are geared towards finding the most intricate and interesting way to direct him to the Nine Hells.

A pity you can't just beat the hell out of him.  B)
Where's that free will? Of course you can!
                   Or make Kelsey to exersise his free will... *Sighs* I am going to see it one day.... :D                    

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #33 on: November 20, 2002, 06:17:34 AM »
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On the note of Aerie's past, I realized that the time between Baldur's gate was a couple of months. Aerie's attachment to Quayle seems like he's been helping her for years. Quayle was a snot in BGI! I could never see him taking time to rasie an elf in a couple of months.
                   ***OT***
I agree an that. IMO, Aerie is in general rather uncoherent.
- her past (Quayle),
- her rather high level (IMO she should start at lvl 1/1 because she really hadn´t any adventuring XP, at least her dialogues are like that)
- the fact that the 5th lvl cleric regeneration spell - which states expressively that it can regrow lost limbs (to an usable state, of course)- doesn´t work on her wings

She is insufferable when you play a male pc, agreeable when playing female pc, a very nice girl friend when playing female pc and the imoen-patch.

well.... back to Soulafein, I guess  :rolleyes:                    

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #34 on: November 20, 2002, 07:01:05 AM »
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Thanks for taking the time to share your opinions. Although I am by no means surrounded by sycophants and yes-men,  the occasional almost-bitter rejoinder from Jason is about as close as we get to Sola-negativity around here, so your comments make for a pleasant change.

You did pick a very "demanding" character for your mod, expectations are high!  :)

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Yes. I'm almost tempted to publish an essay on the subject since it comes up so often. Suffice it to say that I long for the tabletop gaming of yore when all of the party members actually contributed. I believe that Bioware was lax in making all of their NPCs merely reactive.

Do you agree that a game where you would in total have to passively browse 5/6 of all dialogues (because the other 5 persons make their decisions by themselves) would be boring? BG´s designed to let the player handle the story interactively as far as possible...

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However, you bring up a good point.

Imagine that I changed Solaufein so that he would only banter with party members after he had been with the group for, say, two days of game time or two hours of real-time, whichever came first? Would this seem more realistic to people?

No... that would be more boring, in fact. I suggest that there should open up a sort of "opportunity" for Soula to state his opinions. They must, to a certain extend, be asked for.
Example the mentioned Aerie-monologue: You could insert this dialogue at a moment, when Aerie does one of those insufferable whining dialogues (mostly the romance dialogues) and give the player an oppourtunity afterwards to say "Hey, thanks Soula." or "I believe Soula is basically right, Aerie, but do not forget you have friends[me]" --- voilà, now it´s a DIAlogue.
 :)

This example also applies for your statements about if or how the PC/player should have leadership over the group: Give the player/PC an opportunity to participate when others do banter.

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However, your point is a good one -- I will add an "I already know about Eilistraee" option to that dialogue.

Well, I sorta wrote a bit too polemic there... I just wanted to suggest that Soula explains why and when and how *he* became involved with her: Was it when Paere was tortured him hearing the screams, or was it when she returned brainwashed, did Eilistrae appear to him then... and so on; it maybe in the dialogues later, though, I am not throu yet. Explaining a bit about Eilistrae is ok, but it should be in relation with some personal talk, so that the final phrase of Soulafein ("thanks for listening" or such) makes actually sense.

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It may be a quote, but it's a quote out of context.

I think the context is irrelevant insofar that no IC would ever talk about "Baldurs Gate I", but about "earlier adventures in the north, near the city of Baldurs Gate".

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Even if the PC just said "She is a priestess of Shar", that would probably be enough to dissuade Solaufein.

Good idea, but it´s not in the dialogues yet...  ;)

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There is a difference between not being sure made the right decision (common for Solaufein) and asking that others pity you because something bad has befallen you (in my memory, non-existant for Solaufein).

Point taken. But I still have the feeling that there is a contradiction in the mentioned Aerie dialogue ... (I have to replay that one once more since I only read it twice)

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If you dislike Solaufein, you may find Kelsey perfect for your tastes. I cannot say enough good things about him.

I´ll sure get to that guy once I fixed the compability propblem(v. other topic). I´ll sure try to give some constructive critcism there, too!
** OT (I´ll come to that later in the proper forum, but, ah,... I can´t hold it back right now...)**
I did one first dialogue with Kelsey, I was nearly jolted out of my shoes when Kelsey asked whether Imoen had a "boy-friend" (yep another partial but sufficant quote).
 :blink:
Phu-lease chance that into something more adequate to the medieval setting, everything, but not "boy-friend", jeeez, thats by far too modern a language!!! As I read somewhere about Kelsey: All of a sudden, in my group amongst scarred rangers, mighty mages, grim fighters, there´s a college student...
!!! "admirer"... "love®" ... "partner" ... "in love with someone" BUT NOT "boy-friend" (*whine*...)
 :(                    



[!--EDIT|Kaylord|Nov 20 2002, 03:08 PM--]

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #35 on: November 20, 2002, 07:06:30 AM »
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The line, "Why did I let him/her go?" comes to mind.

*choke*  That line just killed me.
                   Ahm... could you please give me the context? I can´t remember that line. :(                    

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #36 on: November 20, 2002, 07:17:10 AM »
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I tend to agree that the mod way too often leaves PC with the single option: to gape in amazement on infamous Solaufein and does not give anough intelligent/educated choices to the Gorion's ward

[snip]

Can you really do a PC's response comparable to the NPC's remark? A response both short (unless your list of three choices would close your game screen) and reflecting what the button-pusher is thinking s/he should have said?
                   That is exactly my point! The pc/player=button-pusher should be able to at least participate, the pc needs not to be "leader" or be the "center of" his comrades at all time.

Perhaps we could try to do some suggestions, so that some MONO-logues actually become DIAlogues in that sense?
(Without disturbing the notion of "free-will" in Soulas character, which the author places emphasiz on)                    

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #37 on: November 20, 2002, 10:36:15 AM »
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I think the context is irrelevant insofar that no IC would ever talk about "Baldurs Gate I", but about "earlier adventures in the north, near the city of Baldurs Gate".

Woah there, this seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding.  

Sola is not saying, "From what I heard of you in Baldur's Gate one, think..."

He is saying, "From what I heard of you in Baldur's Gate, I think..."

He is speaking of the town, "Baldur's Gate" and saying, "I think..."

 :)                    

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #38 on: November 20, 2002, 10:42:21 AM »
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Ahm... could you please give me the context? I can´t remember that line.  

Unless you have finished Throne of Bhaal you won't have seen it yet.  And even then, to see the line you have to finish ToB, have a romance going with Sola AND choose to leave him to become a god.  Then you get the line at the very end of Sola's epilogue.  :)                    

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #39 on: November 20, 2002, 11:56:08 AM »
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Woah there, this seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding.  

Sola is not saying, "From what I heard of you in Baldur's Gate one, think..."

He is saying, "From what I heard of you in Baldur's Gate, I think..."

He is speaking of the town, "Baldur's Gate" and saying, "I think..."
                   Uhhaaaa  ...

*doessomeseriousdobbywhackingprocedure*
*WHACK*
*WHACK*

That comes from playing BG2 late at night/early in the morning during the week... burningovertiredeyespossiblydidnotevenreadtextproperly....didIreally ...
shhhiii...mille excuses...

*mumblingturnsbrighlyredanddissappearsinsomedarkdeepholenevercomingoutagain*                    

Doewen

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #40 on: November 20, 2002, 06:18:58 PM »
The context for the line "Why did I let him/her go"

This is from one of his epilogues.  The PC ascends to the status of god, and he cries out in the last moments of his life.  That REALLY got me.                      

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #41 on: November 20, 2002, 11:00:11 PM »
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Uhhaaaa  ...

*doessomeseriousdobbywhackingprocedure*
*WHACK*
*WHACK*

That comes from playing BG2 late at night/early in the morning during the week... burningovertiredeyespossiblydidnotevenreadtextproperly....didIreally ...
shhhiii...mille excuses...

*mumblingturnsbrighlyredanddissappearsinsomedarkdeepholenevercomingoutagain*
Jeez!  Don't damage yourself over a little language mishap!  Silly.   :rolleyes:                    

Kaylord

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #42 on: November 21, 2002, 02:55:04 AM »
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Jeez!  Don't damage yourself over a little language mishap!  Silly.   :rolleyes:
                   *peeksoutofthedeepdarkhole*
have a chocolate bar? anyone?
 :ph34r:

I am looking forward to continue Soula. I got stopped by a compability-bug last weekend.
I dropped Minsc and Aerie after the underdark in order to let Soulafein and Kelsey in. The witch and her ranger now do live a quite and happy life in a cabin in the umar hills (sort of a forsest gump plot...), taking a leave after those dreadful underdark experiences.

I hope Kelsey and Soula are going to get along at least in terms of game mechanics after I installed the newest patches...                    

FlatulentOne

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #43 on: November 21, 2002, 03:07:37 AM »
Personally, I like the way Sola jumps in the middle of things. I too miss tabletop gaming. Things were a lot more fun when out of the blue the reserved Elf would jump in and take the decision away from the party's nominal leader. For me, Sola's assertive personality assuages the bitterness of being the omnipotent leader-guy. The way the other NPC's follow the pc like sheep is so irritating. Occasionally he does irritate me, but I try to keep in mind the fact that the author of Sola is not paid for what he does except in praise. I know you don't need me to defend you Wes, but really I am amazed that a full time college student made an NPC with this level of interactivity and complexity in his spare time.

Wes, I salute you and your efforts.                    

Tsuru

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #44 on: November 21, 2002, 03:19:47 AM »
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Personally, I like the way Sola jumps in the middle of things. I too miss tabletop gaming. Things were a lot more fun when out of the blue the reserved Elf would jump in and take the decision away from the party's nominal leader. For me, Sola's assertive personality assuages the bitterness of being the omnipotent leader-guy. The way the other NPC's follow the pc like sheep is so irritating. Occasionally he does irritate me, but I try to keep in mind the fact that the author of Sola is not paid for what he does except in praise. I know you don't need me to defend you Wes, but really I am amazed that a full time college student made an NPC with this level of interactivity and complexity in his spare time.

Yanno, I know just what you mean. As I mentioned elsewhere, I started RP'ing online, in freeform inns.  Then later I moved to actually DM'ing myself on GEnie for TSR. We often had onlookers in my games, not players, just people watching, and their comments often made for a lot of fun in the game. I was once told by an onlooker that I gave them nightmares for a week ::chuckle:: I know it doesn't sound the same as face to face gaming, but to me it was just as fulfilling in that we also often made out of character comments in parens, which sounds like it would disrupt game flow, but it didn't really.

Ok, it's late, I don't make much sense at this hour :) But I would like more commentary by other NPC's on things that go on, especially the romances. I can't see Immy passing up the chance to tease big sister/brother, can you? I cracked up at her converations with Sola. Just like her to tease him about hitting on the PC :)

                   

L_Jonté

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #45 on: November 21, 2002, 11:10:24 AM »
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I know it doesn't sound the same as face to face gaming, but to me it was just as fulfilling in that we also often made out of character comments in parens, which sounds like it would disrupt game flow, but it didn't really.

Strangely, aside from tabletop games I also miss a good email campaign.  Rules lite and roleplay heavy.  The best posts were the long and involved scenes, like snippits from a good novel.  GMing those games was a blast!                    

Tsuru

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #46 on: November 21, 2002, 12:23:33 PM »
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Strangely, aside from tabletop games I also miss a good email campaign.  Rules lite and roleplay heavy.  The best posts were the long and involved scenes, like snippits from a good novel.  GMing those games was a blast!
Oddest thing..the one and only email game I ever played in was a Shadowrun game on QLink.  First and only time I'd ever stepped out of AD&D type gaming, but it was fun :)                    

Kiki

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #47 on: November 21, 2002, 12:52:09 PM »
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Strangely, aside from tabletop games I also miss a good email campaign.  Rules lite and roleplay heavy.
                   My PBEM game has died a second death, and this time it looks permanent. Ah well. I'll never find out what happened to my poor little elf, or why there was a drow finger with a ring in a pouch, or why a beholder captured me in the first place. Too bad, I was really starting to enjoy it.                    

domi

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #48 on: November 24, 2002, 12:45:17 PM »
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Perhaps we could try to do some suggestions, so that some MONO-logues actually become DIAlogues in that sense?
(Without disturbing the notion of "free-will" in Soulas character, which the author places emphasiz on)
                   IMO, it is the way the trees are written, that ultimately transformes dialogues into monologues. See, when doing a banter between NPC's it is easy to go through 6-8 exchanges (a button pusher probably do not want more) which are witty and BOTH NPC's have equal participation. The talk with PC is different.

Every choice you make turns into a separate conversation. Would you rather see what NPC has in mind or you will go through thirty lines of text describing 3 choices given to PC? What if you are agreed only partually with eacjh of them? PC is in the position of Arnold here, whose strategically placed "shit" and "yeay", "nay" with an occasional three-word-joke move the action along. Is it good? In a way - yes, since it allows you to form your own answer. Do you necesseraly have to convey it to JC or to WW and have coded? *shrugs*

WW already tries to cut down on number of available options generally going for 2 choices, not customary in-game 3 (good girl, bad girl, funny girl) or more. As a player you see 1/4 to 1/3 of the full dialogue (unless you are a student of WW/JC and pour over the d-files).

While it is easy for the author to envision what the NPC "have to say" it is almost impossible to predict the reaction of the living person behind the computer.

I am sure WW meant well, inserting the comment about walking under the leaves. He did not mean for me to scream when I saw it for the fifth time in the row and he could not have an option I craved -  to tell Sola to go hung himself on a branch under the leaves.

BTW talking about your earlier remark on Imoen's boy-friend, well, that's another issue about mod-writting. If we were true to medieval setting, than majority of characters would probably make Korgan blush. BG imitates rather Tolkien-Scott-other later romantisized vision of medieval reality, than Middle Ages.

BG and especially mods are written for a broad audience, encompassing people who are ESL and who need to grab Webster if they see "rills rippling" at use. BG-proper does use modernizm such as "check out the girls" etc. As opposite, some "older" language, such as "prove fealty" gives some fits of laughter where laughter was not excpected. If "boyfriend"  irritates you, how come you accept stoically Solaufein's knowledge of poetry written in the last century?

Kelsey is no more of a college student than Cernd, Valygar, Imoen or Jaheira for example, they all use rather "normal" language. Besides, BG2 is the translation from Common tongue anyway...                    

Offline jcompton

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Soulafein Monologues
« Reply #49 on: November 24, 2002, 01:52:04 PM »
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BG-proper does use modernizm such as "check out the girls" etc. As opposite, some "older" language, such as "prove fealty" gives some fits of laughter where laughter was not excpected. If "boyfriend"  irritates you, how come you accept stoically Solaufein's knowledge of poetry written in the last century?

Kelsey is no more of a college student than Cernd, Valygar, Imoen or Jaheira for example, they all use rather "normal" language. Besides, BG2 is the translation from Common tongue anyway...
                   Heh. Well put, Domi. I wasn't quite sure how to defend the use of "boyfriend" there except that I also can't think of a better word for him to be using that still fits Kelsey's dialect, which is NOT really over-modern even for in-game stuff. There are those in the game who use "courtly language" and those who don't.

If Kelsey asked "Does she have an intended?" ... doesn't work.
                   
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

 

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