Agreed, gaymer.
Kanisatha - You dont think the BG hero giving in to his greed, utter self-orientation, and destructive impulses to become a living embodiment of murder and terror, after Gorion's hopes and parental guidance, qualify as an evil ending? It is the dark alternative to the hero choosing to help others and the world. He literally becomes the definition of evil. The consequences of that action follow unwritten after the story is concluded, as most dark side endings leave the player. Just because Baldur's Gate doesn't turn into a bastion of villainy before the credits roll disqualifies that ending from being considered the evil one? We are left to imagine what the fallen hero will do with the realm. They will certainly increase its suffering. You are of course free to consider it as you choose, but tis strange indeed to try to make a case for such a claim..
As I said before, The question of consequences is irrelevant to this discussion. we have the EA, so we have a story arc (let's call it the goblin conflict) and you can take one of two sides in it. one side (let's call them "team groovy grove") provides you with compelling reasons to do so, has some somewhat interesting characters and feels generally more real (although still very basic and buggy at this point). The other side (let's call them "team sexy drow") offers some cool atmosphere and side activities, but no real story other than "go kill them". both sides have pretty much the same conclusion - a party and advancement of the main story of the game. but the conclusion is not the issue people are having. the problem is not with the nature of evil in FR, the problem is that even if we put aside alignments for a second, team groovy grove has a much better-written story arc than team sexy drow. And if we consider the fact that even team groovy grove is not some unique and subversive work of storytelling, the fact is that team sexy drow is seriously lacking.
If they didn't want to create team sexy drow route, they shouldn't have created it. want us to just kill goblins? it's fine. expand the inner conflicts inside the groovy grove and make the goblins big bad enemy of the arc. but if you created it, do it well. because this feels like another case of fake choice. you can either experience a decent and complete story or you can have an MMORPG side quest with sexy drow sex as a reward. I feel like once again we have a case of "Larian wants to give us choices but don't really put the effort to make them work."
