#i'd kill for nwn2 extended edition

[the-great-elwisty]

Day 29: How your adventure(s) should have really ended

A/N: Here's a bit of meta which, despite the claim in the first sentence, I've been writing in fragments over a few months. It's quite appropriate for today. Please join in with your own ideas!

Over the last couple of days, I’ve found myself wondering at what point Rocks Fall Everyone Dies became the plan for the end of Neverwinter Nights 2. Was that always what Obsidian were working towards? Or was it something that happened as they were struggling to get the last Act done in time for Atari’s deadline?

Here are a few different ideas for an alternative finale, some of which segue into Mask of the Betrayer, some of which would be more suited to the earlier, abandoned idea of a Planar adventure involving the githzerai/githyanki. (No source for that; it’s something I vaguely remember reading about fourteen – aaaaargh!!! – years ago.)

After the final battle, rocks do not fall. It turns out that the ancient architects of the final dungeon really knew what they were doing when they put in the foundations. Instead, the PC and companions are victorious and return to the surface. Big reception a la Dragon Age in Crossroad Keep. Dialogue with the companion you have the highest influence with. “So what will you do if you survive?” “I’m going to look for another adventure/stay in Crossroad Keep/restore West Harbour etc.” End game, role the epilogues. XP1 could start with a new character, or have the old one being kidnapped from their chosen life. Would this have been too vanilla for Obsidian devs? Probably. It’s much more of a Bioware-style ending. I think I could have been happy with it though.

The King of Shadows is dead; rocks are starting to come down. Zhjaeve or Ammon approaches with a desperate escape plan depending on who has the highest influence. They open a portal, the PC and companions go through to Limbo (Zhjaeve) or Stygia/somewhere really nasty (Ammon), and doubtless end up scattered all over the place, giving the devs a chance to introduce a new set of characters in XP1 without killing all the old ones. Regardless of your starting point, you would ultimately visit Limbo/the Hells as part of the campaign, thus not wasting a location on just half of all PCs.

The final battle changes – it’s not just about defeating the King of Shadows, but about freeing him from the Shadow Weave. This scenario could end with the person-who-became-the-Guardian restored, like Akachi, to his former identity, and the PC taking on the mantle of Illefarn Guardian, perhaps in a ceremonial or more real capacity: the spirit of the Guardian-that-was refuses to depart until the PC in some measure accepts the burden. If the PC doesn’t want it, a high-influence companion could accept it in their stead. (Grobnar as supernatural protector of the Sword Coast along with his Wendersnaven assistants??) Actually, I could see anyone except Zhjaeve (too extra-planar) and Sand/Qara (too self-interested) in the role. A chastened Bishop might do it if he could be persuaded back after his betrayal. The downside of this scenario is that most of the OC appears to be saying that lone heroes are a bad idea. The Guardian was not a good plan; no society should allow one person to turn themselves into a sacrificial lamb for their benefit – and those that do (like the Illefarn) will find it has unpleasant consequences. Also: do not be like Casavir. Do not be like Ammon Jerro. (And maybe with foresight: do not be like Akachi.) The PC wins by relying on their companions, their connections, and the apparatus of the Neverwinter state. So a campaign that ends with a single character taking on the job of Guardian would be more of a tragic ending than anything else – it’s just a matter of time until they make a big mistake and fuck up. Unless we are meant to believe that the person who inherits the mantle is just super special and can do what they like, as many politicians seem to believe of themselves with alarming ease. As you might guess, I don’t like that idea.

A final fun idea, again stealing from Dragon Age (I’m thinking of the escape from Fort Drakon sequence). Again, we use companion influence to determine the ending. This time, your companion with the most influence will take the lead and successfully work out a way for you to get out. Precisely how they do this will vary in line with characterisation. (Elanee’s druidic instincts lead her to the correct exit; Sand conjures magical protection; Khelgar uses his dwarven knowledge of how underground structures work/encourages the PC not to give up/Qara blasts through pile of rocks blocking a passage/Grobnar…summons the Wendersnaven to our aid…?) Maybe they all cooperate. Who knows? Rather than end with That Cutscene, you get to play through an extra escape level before stumbling out into sunshine and party-time on the surface.

But I have also asked myself – do I really want the ending changed? Perhaps the sudden collapse of the final dungeon is the natural end point for a game that can’t quite bring itself to be a complete heroic fantasy.

And then I answer my own bloody stupid rhetorical question. Of course I want the sodding ending changed. After sixty hours of play, my protagonist deserves more than some stills and a droning narrator, all assembled on a ha’penny budget at speed, in the moment that they’ve won the final battle and should be having some sort of catharsis.

If the rocks have got to fall, I want my PC sitting with their companions in a hidden refuge waiting for rescue. It’d be Waiting For Godot if Vladimir and Estragon were a ten-person collective of bad temper, irony and curious fashion choices. Bishop is allowed to join the squat-in if he walked away from the final battle.

PC: Well, shall we go?

Casavir: Yes, let us go.

[They do not move]

[the-great-elwisty]

NWN2 cut content: Kendrick Savis

#4

Tiny cut content that no one’s ever bothered to talk about because it’s so tiny. In the finished game, Zhjaeve tells you the location of Arvahn. In dialog.tlk:

Know that there is one in your citadel of Neverwinter, a lorekeeper named Kendrick Savis, who should be able to aid us in locating the Illefarn sites where the ritual must be performed.

Once the player has spoken to Savis:

The places Savis spoke of - their names are unfamiliar to me...If my memory holds them true, then we seek the city of Arvahn in the Wood of Neverwinter, the Tower of Sight within the receding ocean of Dead Men Mere, the Court of Tides along the coast - and the unknown ruins near your birth village, West Harbor.

Okay, so maybe this cut content wasn’t so tiny after all. It looks like this is a hangover from a stage of development when Arvahn wasn’t the only Illefarn location you had to visit (to complete the Ritual of Purification, if the writers had come up with the Ritual's title at this stage). I’m sorry we didn’t get to visit the Court of Tides or Tower of Sight – I’m not sure what kind of dungeon design we would have got, but they have undeniably cool names.

The Tower of Sight, btw, was where a council of mages met and decided to create the Guardian as a defence against Netheril. Another location is mentioned in the dialog.tlk called Tide’s Reach, which might be another version of the Court of Tides.

The unknown ruins near West Harbour aren’t that unknown, since according to Tarmas’s cut content, they would have belonged to an Illefarn port city that once stood near West Harbour.

I don't recognise the concept art that accompanies this piece as being an extant location in the game — does anyone else? It could be a candidate for the Court of Tides.