Baldur’s Gate II Shortcomings

Strongholds are the class specific base of operations given to a player as a reward for finishing his class specific sub-quest. Out of all the features that made it into Baldur’s Gate 2, the strongholds were the closest to being cut. There was so much more that we could have done with strongholds, but time considerations didn’t allow for this. The main faults that people found with the strongholds are listed below:

• The strongholds weren’t connected to the main story line.
• The strongholds weren’t integral to gameplay; there was very little reason to return to a stronghold.
• Travelling back to a stronghold was a pain in the ass.

All of these points connected to one major mistake made in the initial game design: the decision to have a stronghold for each class, instead of consolidating the strongholds into four, two or even one single stronghold.

On a discussionary tangent:
Now the last I can see as a fault, but with the first it’s not too hard to see where the team was going initially (and they make good points in the article). They wanted an interesting diversion from the main storyline and made the strongholds this diversion. They wanted every class to be able to have a reward just for playing that class. With regard to the second limitation of the stronghold, the integral to gameplay part can get very deep and I’ll leave that alone. But the no reason to return to a stronghold is indeed a fault if they are there in the first place.