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Just thought of another VERY nonlinear aspect, and it was very disappointing. It's a possible spoiler, but very early game...

When you see Nines at the Malkavian elder's house, your ONLY option is to turn him in to LaCroix. There is NO option to not bring it up or deny having seen him. Hell, LaCroix doesn't even ask you if you saw Nines there - you WILLINGLY bring it up with no other option.

[QUOTE=Ruds]Just thought of another VERY nonlinear aspect, and it was very disappointing. It's a possible spoiler, but very early game...

When you see Nines at the Malkavian elder's house, your ONLY option is to turn him in to LaCroix. There is NO option to not bring it up or deny having seen him. Hell, LaCroix doesn't even ask you if you saw Nines there - you WILLINGLY bring it up with no other option.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that one bugged the hell out of me as well. I mean, the guy just saved your posterior. My natural reaction was to cover for him until I had all the facts. Unfortunately that was not an option. It was a very heavy handed way of moving the plot along.

[QUOTE=matthew13]Yeah, that one bugged the hell out of me as well. I mean, the guy just saved your posterior. My natural reaction was to cover for him until I had all the facts. Unfortunately that was not an option. It was a very heavy handed way of moving the plot along.[/QUOTE]

It struck me as odd. I had to wonder whether the developers intended the storyline to branch at that point, at least for a bit, but never got back to it before the game went gold. As one of the founders of Bioware once said, game development is 75/25: 75% of what you want to put in gets done, and the last 25% is a mad scramble to add whatever is possible at the end. There are quite a few "quest stumps" left in BG2 which were never fleshed out, though mod teams have since resuscitated and finished many of them.

In Case I Sound Too Critical

Just had an experience that put things into perspective.

I just purchased a new sound card, and along with the card came five free games. One of them was Splinter Cell. Now I don't care for Shooters (unless filled with alcoholic beverages), but I figured, what the hell, it's free so I might as well try it.

Bad decision.

If I ever implied (or said outright) that Bloodlines leads you by the nose. . .I take it all back. Spllinter Cell was so linear that it might as well have been a math equation. One set of weapons. One way of doing a mission. One path you had to follow. Christ! The only other Shooter I've played was Chrome, and it, at least, gave you a few options.

And unrealistic. I mean, really. If you are some stealthy commando type are you really going to go into a mission with only a single spare clip of ammo, no knife, and no first aid kit. Give me a break!

In any case, by comparison Bloodlines is an icon to non-linearity, immersion, and atmosphere. Any comments I make in this thread are meant to improve an already great game, not to imply that it isn't a great game.

So keep on, keeping on.

SPOLIER SPOILER SPOILER













On the bright side, you know by the end of the game, if you HADN'T told the prince about Nines, he would have killed you MUCH sooner, seeing as he helped set the whole thing up. Phew.