Indeed ToB is a bit short, very linear and the writing took a turn for the worse compared to SoA, that's true and doubtless. But to be honest I never did and I never will understand the people that praise BG's writing.
It was good enough for a fantasy game, it did its job, it was adequate, it was a serviceable story to move the game forward, with lively characters and not dull statbags, but never the exalted high literature some gits are making it to be.
So when I first played ToB I never even noticed that great downfall. Sure, Mellisan is poorer compared to Joneleth, although you have to take into account David Warner's enthralling performance. Without him Jon would be much less memorable. Sure, there are slightly more derp moments regarding writing, but it wasn't really all that different.
On the other hand I noticed all the things it did right. The magic system was expanded and became even more exciting, the items got more interesting, Watcher's Keep fulfilled the "great dungeon" part admirably and I got my party in a whole lot of fights (the best aspect of BG) up until the end to a satisfactory conclusion.

It was many years later that I learned that I should hate ToB because it was a piece of shit with no redeeming qualities, besmirching the good name of SoA, the shining beacon and high pinnacle of gaming achievement.

Of course I would love to have an expansion as long as the main game, with no regressions in quality, building up to all the aspects of SoA that made it great, but such is life. And what we got is good enough.

TL;DR: ToB's greatest weakness is linearity, otherwise is a worthy expansion to SoA.

Some people, it's true, do over praise BG's writing, which is no better or no worse than any other game's, but in ToB it took a steep tumble for the worse. Here is a ToB sample of the drivel that people are forced to put up with (Remember that the player has just met this (strange) woman, knows zero about her or this place, and note the insipid player response choices):

Melissan:
I know much about you, <CHARNAME>... and your destiny. But I will only reveal it if you help the people of Saradush. Their safety is my responsibility.

First we must deal with General Gromnir - the man who now runs the city of Saradush.

Gromnir is also a Child of Bhaal, and was once a powerful general. I brought him and his loyal men here to protect Saradush and the many Bhaalspawn gathered here seeking sanctuary.

But Gromnir is mad. He has barricaded himself in the castle throne room, and his troops run amok through the town with no regard for the lives and rights of the citizens of Saradush.

Player ("CHARNAME") reply options:
1: Such a betrayal is worthy of death!
2: I should break down the castle walls and slay this Gromnir for his cowardice!
3: I like this Gromnir's style!

Who comes up with this stuff?!

This is typical of the writing all the way through ToB. BG and SoA were nowhere near this level of dross.

there might be a mod with an option to attack her there and get it over with. But, I didn't mind ToB because I thought there were some challenging fights. I don't remember there being too much trash between the bosses either, so if you are going to be on rails and least it was decent ride. Was it ToB that started the whole hero goes from trying to survive to saving the universe trend in bioware games? I didn't get that feeling in BG1/SoA but saw it again in nwn and dragon age and mass effect. kotor maybe?

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Not possible: she's the main antagonist.

It's the same in both KOTOR games and the dialog in those games is just as crappy as the example in Hickory's post. Dark side and light side choices are blatantly obvious but it really gets shoved down your throat in KOTOR2. If you aren't at full light or dark side mastery, you lose your alignment bonus which means if you want to keep it, you're forced to pick the most retarded dialog options. Sucking on your own lightsabre would be preferable to picking some of those dialog options.

Unfortunately the writing in just about any game is truly bad. I've just played through Wasteland 2 again, and some of the writing and lack of continuity made me want to tear out my hair. Perhaps games are trying to mimic Hollywood a tad too much, they often have WTF storylines there too after all.

ToB was a disappointment compared with main BG2, not least due to the "story on rails". I expected to be able to go around more and explore areas, but this was more or less gone. This part was already reduced from BG1 to BG2, but ToB was a whole new standard of railroading.

Perhaps this game/expansion's writing signalled the new turn for worse in BioWare?

That said, I quite liked the first Mass Effect. After that though? Good grief :puke:

Hickory, you are absolutely right! There are many dialogues face palm worthy. My objection with this criticism is that, for some reason, is (usually) only lain on ToB, while SoA suffers from it in a sizable degree. Certainly the writers did try more in the main part of the game, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone knowing the rushed development history of ToB and how many cuts they had to make. So the writing ended up slightly more self-aware of its lightness and it shows.
Or they stopped trying when they realised how easily many people are satisfied, who knows?
Any game developed after BG doesn't help in countering that assertion. :D

This may be off on a limb, but I think the first Mass Effect was similar to BG1/2 in kind of an average joe/jane (john/jane?) discovering something really big going on. And then the "only I can stop it" phase ruins all the fun you had exploring the game world.

You could probably kill her by stat drain somehow. I believe she's immune to the mindflayer's attacks, so you may need to find some other method.

Of course, that will likely lead to a softlock, as it may become impossible for you to continue the game if you do this.

It takes a lot... a LOT... to get me angry, but the Kai Leng/invulnerable assault 'copter episode on Thessia actually made me rage quit; first time ever (that I can recall) in a game. After that spat I had to literally force myself to complete the game -- Mass Effect 3, for anybody who doesn't know.

You may have a point about that, vsommers, at least superficially. There was this whole new and big game universe to explore, and that was great. But importantly, the game mechanics was pretty good too. Later on some abilities were removed and/or simplified, the games became much more railroaded, and the logical holes... man, the logical holes. Plotholes that not even a black hole could snuff out. Quite incredible writing, and not in a positive way.

Thankfully I never bought Mass Effect 3. I had learnt my lesson with the 2nd game, and the trailers and so on about #3 raised more concerns. Seems I made the right decision! :D

I really liked ME2 myself. I'm not saying I liked how it was simplified, but I overall really enjoyed playing it. But I've always loved talking to characters in RPGs, learning their stories, helping them with their stuff etc, so it didn't at all bother me that 80% of ME2 was about "the stories of my teammates".

ME3 on the other hand.... I didn't even poke it with a sick, until I found some mods that "fixed" some plotholes =/ With those mods I could finally enjoy playing.

The thing that really irked me in ME3 is how Ashley kept accusing me of being a Cerberus agent...after slaughtering hordes of Cerberus troops.

From what I recall, the story of Tali was interesting, but other than that it wasn't all that much. And it's pretty messed up when the main story of a game is Recruit Team -> Kill some boss. It was paper thin.

The Invisible Man or whatever the hell they called him did my head in. So stupid. Gah! I get annoyed just thinking about it. Not least because they had such a great base to work with from the first game, and then they completely fucked it up. Throne of Bhaal wasn't great, but holy shit, it's a bloody master piece compared with the trai.. space ship crash that is Mass Effect 2 and 3.

Wouldn't mind playing through the first game again at some point, but beyond that the series lost all interest for me.

As for Ashley, since it was brought up above, I think her main role in the game was to show off her arse. Lowest common denominator and all that, BioWare loves to lap up that crap.

Oooof, I better stop writing before this turns into an angry red-faced and full-blown RANT :D

^^ This... ^^ ... and this.

I mean, Shepard and crew spent the whole of ME1 fighting and eliminating Cerberus, then he/she dies, then they scrape (literally) his/her remains off some zero atmosphere planet and not only bring him/her back to life, but restore ALL of his/her memories and traits! Riiiiight! Then they don't give the option to tell Mr. Illusive what he can do with himself and his organisation. Piss poor story telling. Awful. Nope, you're thinking of Miranda Lawson. Ugh!