Why Baldur's Gate sucks?

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I didn't say it was good; I said it was better, and good does not equal better. And believe me, I don't have anymore love for the NWNOC than most other Codex posters.

Alright. I had a debate on this very subject with someone else. It also applied to KOTOR as well. The reason I argued Baldur's Gate 1 had better roleplaying was because the choices had more consequences behind them. First off, being evil could get you in seriously dire straits. Messing your reputation up enough could turn all non-quest related NPCs in civilized areas hostile with some respawning Flaming Fist to boot. This pretty much could mean it's over for most, but you could press on. It would just be damn hard.

And dialogue was somewhat better as well. You heard me right. This is where you think I'm off the deep end.....well I am. My point was that the limited dialogue perks of a high charisma actually rewarded that person. Whereas Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR both had a very nasty feature where there was always a dialogue option that did the exact same thing as the [Wisdom], [Intelligence], or [Persuade] option or those things were cosmetic (think evil monk guy in the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights and how with high wisdom or intelligence you could point out his evil for nothing).

For some examples. In Baldur's Gate there were many quests where the reward was based on charisma. If you had say 12 charisma or less you might get nothing, 13 to 16 something decent, and 17+ you got something good. But if you didn't have the charisma, you didn't get the goody. Whereas in Neverwinter Nights, you could almost always get the same results a character skilled in speech could through a different dialogue option.

Then I also went into the whole thing about computer hacking and repair being based on items as opposed to skill and how any character could hack anything with enough items but that's not really required now.

How often was stealth a viable quest solution as opposed to a means to make stabbing more powerful?

Well....there were tons of places where you could get by a lot if enemies by using stealth. Cloakwood mines being a good example.

Likewise, talking was often a prelude to combat(either being to go beat somebody up or villain exposition).

Yes, but there were many times you could talk your way out of combat.

I don't think there's ever been a worse NPC in an RPG than Aerie

Huh, that's funny. If you didn't control her and they slapped a decent set of AI on her, she could have been one of the best ever (nobody beats Dak'kon though) in my view of things. Just like Myron, I seem to like this character but nobody else does. For one thing, it's a damn nice change to have somebody who isn't a hardened killing machine. It's all you get in RPGs for some reason. Where are the everymen, the average joes, the not-so-ultra-heroic types? And maybe it's just because I've been forced to endure years upon years of the American media, but it's nice to see a female character who isn't either a "tough chick", a "slut", or a "tough slut" (which pretty much describes all female characters in the modern American media). Slap on a set of "cowardly AI" and you would have a pretty well done and believable character. Heck, she isn't that bad already. Better than the freaky pseudo-BDSM shit with Viconia.

Mazzy

No argument here. She was boring and one dimensional. Didn't have any interesting flaw like white supremecist paladin man.

Minsc

eh, I saw him as satire on the "hero and his animal companion" archetype. Funny enough if taken as that, at least to me.

and the turnip guy

Ugh....damn....that guy was just bad. Overly forced humor that wasn't funny.

As already stated, absence is preferable to shitty.

I was talking about how the characters actually do stuff and "make decisions" based on what you do.

Examples, please?

Here goes nothing...

Baldur's Gate 1

-Ragefast and the nymph
-Numerous bandit encounters
-Getting into the bandit camp
-Greywolf and crew
-Crazy captain of the guard
-The fishermen and the priestess
-The dead kid
-Druid encounters in the Cloakwood

I'm missing quite a few, but at least there's a few

Baldur's Gate 2

-Faustian bargain
-Ruling the De'Arnise keep
-Stopping the drow woman from making you her bitch
-The fish in the jar
-The gold rope runaround

I'm missing a ton, but it's been a long time since my last runthrough.

After all that nastiness though, I'll say that even though I'm not a huge fan of his work, David Gaider stands out as a pretty stand-up guy

He's a god guy. Nice to see him in a high up postion in working on Dragon Age.

Well, that was some insta-carpal tunnel right there....

 

[Section8]

Seems a little away from that to me. Much of the stuff seems subjective (character issues, combat balance) or inflated (pathfinding).

What's subjective about the combat balance? You either completely steam-roll anything that comes your way, or you cop some unlucky die rolls which result in either instant death, incapacitation or the computer wresting control from the player, followed by certain death.

Most of that is the fault of AD&D, but I don't think Bioware made an effort toward considering their encounters beyond "here's the cannon fodder", "here's the stuff that will kill you". This is of course alleviated as you attain higher levels, but it's still a problem.

Character issues I'll admit is subjective to a degree, in that someone can always say "hey, I liked Minsc" and such, but you couldn't have an intellectual discussion as to the merits of him. Just like someone could say "hey, I like William Hung!" but would find it very hard to debate that he is a competent singer. Scary thing is, you could actually have some kind of discussion about William Hung. Is it satire? Is he allowing himself to be exploited? Is he exploiting the general public's sympathy?

And as for pathfinding being inflated, did we play the same game? If I ever had - O O O - where the three circles represent three characters, the two on the outside would not be able to path around the one in the middle to get to one another. Am I really overstepping the mark to say even that tip of the iceberg is horribly broken?

Not saying there aren't valid points (railroading,pointless NPCs, and lack of consequences), but the general tone and some of the flaws of the analysis just lessens any impact it could have on me. It's got some good points, but I'm inclined to disagree with quite a few things.

Well the tone isn't meant to be overly serious. I could make a dry, scientific analysis of why Baldur's Gate is a piece of shit, but who is going to read it?

And I'm sorry, but this memorable characters bullshit is just that. Utter bullshit. Memorable characters are in no way indicitive of great character design. Sure that helps, in some cases. But honestly, most of it is shit luck. Look at Ian and Dogmeat. How much character development was put into both of those characters? Probably around the same amount as the "average" Baldur's Gate NPC. But you kinow what? Every Fallout fan fondly remembers these two. Hell, characters like Brotherhood doorman what's his name, Vree, Laura, and Jane had talking heads. Infinitely more development than the followers who were just there to hurt people, yet nowhere near as memorable as a dog who bit stuff or a guy who would often shoot you in the back because of shitty AI.

It's not luck. In Ian's case, he's not a memorable character. Being shot in the back by the AI is a memorable event, that is in no way limited to Ian. However, since you can recruit him very early on in the piece, he's the most likely offender.

Dogmeat on the other hand is memorable for a few reasons. First of all, projected association. Since he's primarily a Mad Max reference, and also has ties to other sources like A Boy and His Dog, the fond memories people have of those dogs is projected onto Dogmeat. Same goes for people projecting the fond memories of their own pets onto Dogmeat.

Secondly, he shows considerable value to the player. He's not just a cute pet that becomes a liability every time combat breaks out, he's fucking savage. During my last Fallout playthrough, Ian just couldn't quite stand up to the Skulz. Dogmeat tore them apart. He has functional worth. It may seem shallow, but demonstrating value to another person will improve their disposition toward you. Contrast that against say, Miria in Fallout 2. She's fucking useless, and it becomes an annoyance trying to babysit her in every fight you get into.

Thirdly, he doesn't seem shallow. He's a dog. He does dog things in a fairly plausible manner. He's loyal, bites things that aren't you, barks, sratches himself. In that respect, he's a pretty good facsimile of a dog, and holds sway over a lot of (human) NPCs since they have a tendency to run out of things to say, and/or repeat themselves.

Lastly, he's tough enough to stand at your side for a long time, so you grow fond of him, but he'll never be tough enough to survive late-game encounters. Maybe you can buff him up with a fistful of drugs, but for most players, Dogmeat's death is inevitable, ensuring a tragic and memorable end to his tale.

Whether it was intentional or not, Dogmeat was always going to be a well-loved and memorable character.

Plus, when you are enjoying something, you're more likely to remember points about it. And seeing as Planescape is one of the most liked games on the Codex, it's not surprising just about everyone can name details about it around here. And seeing as not too many people here seem to have enjoyed Baldur's Gate, it's not too surprising people didn't remember much from it. Now if I go to a place on the internet with a lot of Baldur's Gate fans, I'm sure they'll talk a ton about "nobody" NPCs like Mad Arcand, Dradeel, and The Surgeon.

Actually I think people are more likely to remember either something enjoyable, or something difficult to enjoy, as opposed to something middle of the road. I have no real memories of KOTOR, because while it wasn't really great fun, it wasn't terrible like Baldur's Gate.

The biggest problem I see with Baldur's Gate NPCs is that they're basically cut from the same mould. If you don't like one because you think they're a retarded, poorly-written pantomime character, then you're probably going to have the same opinion of the rest, "nobody" NPCs included.

And just to reiterate, characters who evoke a negative response from the player because they're poorly implemented is entirely different to characters who evoke a negative response as a result of their personality. For instance, Baldur's Gates Minsc, who is a childish, pissweak attempt at humour, versus Jagged Alliance's Mickey, who is lying, cheating scumbag and fraudster, albeit a somewhat necessary evil. He gets under your skin, and makes you want to throttle him. Minsc makes me want to throttle the hack who created him.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Ok. That's great. Too bad I'm talking about BG2.

They were there too.

We should forgive shitty games their suckage because all games make mistakes?

Ugh....I really just want to give you a Pretty Princess style response, but that wouldn't really be very nice of me. I'll try my best to keep this a good response to you.

It's pretty obvious we've got, at least slightly, different tastes. I guess my standards just aren't as high as yours. Sure, Baldur's Gate isn't the greatest RPG, but it beats at least 90% of the shit out there in terms of RPG mechanics. That's good enough for me.

Now I'm pretty confident in my assumption you dislike Baldur's Gate. That's wonderful. I happen to loathe a certain game. A lot of people here love it on the Codex. In fact, I think I'm the only person who doesn't like it. That game is Darklands. I don't go around and go wild on it any time it's mentioned, very much what many people do here when Baldur's Gate is mentioned. Not because I fear peer pressure, or I think my argument is weak, because there isn't much of a point. There's plenty of stuff to discuss that's relevant and interesting. Just the other day there was a thread about inventory management and a new take on it. And a ot of aspiring developers come for ideas here. That seems productive. We need to know the flaws of Baldur's Gate as much as we need to know Oblivion sucks.

And even in games you don't necessarily like, you can find good features. Like in Darklands, I thought the character development system was very well-thought out, the age/skill relation was interesting, and the trade-offs were complex and interesting. Not to mention the dial-a-quest system found in it was very good. The quests had choices. It was far ahead of Daggerfall, and it's randomly generated quests were better than most (all in Oblivion's case) of the "handmade" ones in Morrowind and Oblivion.

You may not like Baldur's Gate, but it did a few things right. The characters were probably some of the most alive yet. With tweaking, they could have gone far. The interactions were interesting and such. The slayer was an intersting idea, and could have been great if fleshed out a bit more. And the spell system with the protections and dispelling was nifty, it could go somewhere if improved upon.

I've really been rambling. Point is, you may not like it, but at least give some credit for what they did right. Sometimes "bad" games have good ideas.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Awww shit. Alright....here goes...

What's subjective about the combat balance? You either completely steam-roll anything that comes your way, or you cop some unlucky die rolls which result in either instant death, incapacitation or the computer wresting control from the player, followed by certain death.

Moreso how you interpret combat balance. I didn't see things in the same way you did. I don't really think freak dice accidents were really controlling combat. I died when I went in unprepared or made a lousy tactical decision or two. Sure, there were a few "freak accidents" where somebody got taken out by an enemy critical, but that happens in almost every game with critical hits. You can't tell me you've never been demolishing some mutants and one of them score a very lucky critical and end your character's life.

Most of that is the fault of AD&D, but I don't think Bioware made an effort toward considering their encounters beyond "here's the cannon fodder", "here's the stuff that will kill you". This is of course alleviated as you attain higher levels, but it's still a problem.

I don't think it's so much bad encounter design as what is between them, so to say. Encounters tax your resources. Resources you typically use as a "buffer" between baddies and you. Those fodder might have more impact if their damages weren't solved by a quick "Rest for 8 hours" button. Of course there are monster attacks when you rest...but still. Resting does have too much rejuvenation power.

Character issues I'll admit is subjective to a degree, in that someone can always say "hey, I liked Minsc" and such, but you couldn't have an intellectual discussion as to the merits of him.

Well....depending on your definition of "intellectual" you could. One could discuss whether he was satire on the "hero and his animal companion" archetype or slapstick humor, whether he was truly insane or just retarded, and other topics like that. I mean people have had quite large discussions on topics with far less depth.

And as for pathfinding being inflated, did we play the same game? If I ever had - O O O - where the three circles represent three characters, the two on the outside would not be able to path around the one in the middle to get to one another. Am I really overstepping the mark to say even that tip of the iceberg is horribly broken?

Inflated by the fact it never seemed to hamper my gameplay in any way. Sure, it was kind of annoying sometimes in cities if I wanted to just set a point and have my party go there and instead I was forced to utilize smaller intervals, but it wasn't game-breaking or even a constant nuisance.

Well the tone isn't meant to be overly serious. I could make a dry, scientific analysis of why Baldur's Gate is a piece of shit, but who is going to read it?

Point taken. It's just you've got a lot of malice towards the game. Although it just wouldn't be Codex enough without it I suppose.

It's not luck. In Ian's case, he's not a memorable character. Being shot in the back by the AI is a memorable event, that is in no way limited to Ian. However, since you can recruit him very early on in the piece, he's the most likely offender.

Isn't that "luck", though? By chance Ian was the earliest NPC and he happened to be the one to be associated with said AI malfunction, seems totally by a stroke of chance, no? It obviously wasn't intentional and supports my claim that memorable characters aren't necesarily developed ones.

First of all, projected association. Since he's primarily a Mad Max reference, and also has ties to other sources like A Boy and His Dog, the fond memories people have of those dogs is projected onto Dogmeat. Same goes for people projecting the fond memories of their own pets onto Dogmeat.

Secondly, he shows considerable value to the player. He's not just a cute pet that becomes a liability every time combat breaks out, he's fucking savage. During my last Fallout playthrough, Ian just couldn't quite stand up to the Skulz. Dogmeat tore them apart. He has functional worth. It may seem shallow, but demonstrating value to another person will improve their disposition toward you.

I can't argue with this. Value does most definitely enhance memorability. One always remembers the most useful characters and tools.

Contrast that against say, Miria in Fallout 2. She's fucking useless, and it becomes an annoyance trying to babysit her in every fight you get into.

Yes, but that's exactly the reason people remember her. There's some old saying about loving people for their flaws. I think that's quite applicable here.

Thirdly, he doesn't seem shallow. He's a dog. He does dog things in a fairly plausible manner.

If you say so. When he took down two super mutants carrying heavy weaponry alone he seemed less "dog" and more "killing machine". But aside from that, I see your point. But I don't really think the "dog immersion" contributed as much to his popularity as the flipping out and mutilating enemies part did. So it wasn't the intended that helped, it was the (sort-of?) unintended.

Lastly, he's tough enough to stand at your side for a long time, so you grow fond of him, but he'll never be tough enough to survive late-game encounters. Maybe you can buff him up with a fistful of drugs, but for most players, Dogmeat's death is inevitable, ensuring a tragic and memorable end to his tale.

I guess. But that also really wasn't intentional. It's just one of the many things that just happened to make Dogmeat the lovable canine killing machine we all fondly remember.

Actually I think people are more likely to remember either something enjoyable, or something difficult to enjoy, as opposed to something middle of the road. I have no real memories of KOTOR, because while it wasn't really great fun, it wasn't terrible like Baldur's Gate.

Fair enough. EXTREME (I had to....) distaste for something would possibly transfer memories quite well, but I don't think it would as well as the good memories. For instance I'm sure you don't happen to remember Minsc's lines, whereas I'm sure someone who enjoyed Baldur's Gate very much might in fact reference "going for the eyes" or "swords for everyone!" often.

The biggest problem I see with Baldur's Gate NPCs is that they're basically cut from the same mould. If you don't like one because you think they're a retarded, poorly-written pantomime character, then you're probably going to have the same opinion of the rest, "nobody" NPCs included.

I guess it really is how you see all of them. I personally saw most of the NPCs as satirical takes on certain fantasy archetypes. It was amusing enough as that, at least to me. Throw in a few references, some stolen one-liners, campy dialogue, and you've got something...interesting and sure to create some mixed opinions.

And just to reiterate, characters who evoke a negative response from the player because they're poorly implemented is entirely different to characters who evoke a negative response as a result of their personality.

Of course it is. But implementation becomes subjective as well. Let's take the Modron Maze in Torment. If you go in and interpret it as a serious dungeon, you're probably going to be disappointed, as it really wasn't meant to be one. If you see it as a comedy bonus area, you will be amused a little. If you see it as satire on dungeon crawls, you're going to be laughing quite a lot. It all depends on how you interpret implementation.

 

[Sodomy]

They were there too.

Really? Strange. I remember a game where I could verbally sodomize my NPC followers whenever they said anything to me with no real reaction out of them. I remember a game where if I tried to get some dude to testify about the insurrection in the thieves guild, he had some paper-thin excuse about why he couldn't, and thus had to be killed. I remember a game where I could generally be a dickhead to everyone I met without anyone calling me on it. The closest I ever got was when basically telling Jaheria to fuck off when she apologized to me for something-or-other in the first dungeon; even that only affected one response in one conversation. It was a great oppertunity that was completely squandered by Bioware.

Sure, Baldur's Gate isn't the greatest RPG, but it beats at least 90% of the shit out there in terms of RPG mechanics.

Depends on what you mean by "mechanics". Combat mechanics? Well, it does beat a lot of shit in that respect, true. In terms of "mechanics" as in the way the world works, reacts to your actions, etc., it's pretty bad no matter how you look at it.

You may not like Baldur's Gate, but it did a few things right. The characters were probably some of the most alive yet. With tweaking, they could have gone far. The interactions were interesting and such. The slayer was an intersting idea, and could have been great if fleshed out a bit more. And the spell system with the protections and dispelling was nifty, it could go somewhere if improved upon.

How on earth were the characters alive? They were all completely one-dimensional, and didn't care how much you abused them (I remember when that chick you recruit at the Fighter's stronghold who gets kidnapped didn't react at all even though I repeatedly bitched about how much of a pain in the ass it was to deal with all of their problems). Minsc and Amoen (I think that was his name? The Fighter/Cleric dude who gets made a paladin) didn't seem to care much that they were following an evil leader who was frequently engaging in shady behaviors.

The spell system was one of the things I really fucking HATED about the game, actually. It didn't make things more strategic. It just meant that you had to true sight -> breach -> dispell when fighting any mage. And, it meant that you HAD to save before attempting to copy breach, as if you failed to copy, you were completely fucked, as you wouldn't be able to hurt enemy mages. Contingency/Sequencer was an absolutely terrible idea. Counterspelling is one thing, but come on, is it really a good idea to let a mage launch a thousand spells uninterrupted and out of turn?

The one thing I can say that BG2 did right was that sometimes stuff out of your control would occasionally happen to your party. Unfortunately, BG2 took this to an absolutely stupid extreme. An occasional event happening to your party causing you to be side-tracked for a bit while you solve it is cool; getting "Fighter Stronghold Chick" kidnapped, Jaheria cursed, having Yoshimo threatened by the thieves guild, and Amoen made a paladin in the course of about a day is just absurd. I guess that the 20,000 gold idea in the second chapter as an excuse to get the player to do some side-quests wasn't a bad idea; unfortunately, 20,000 really only covered 1 or 2 sidequests, maybe even 0 if the character was playing a theif. Since you obviously needed to do far more than that in order to level up enough, you would up with the whole "lol, I'm supposedly in a rush, but I'm going to do millions of pointless quests" phenomenon (although, admittedly, BG2 isn't the only game that suffers from this problem).

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

"romances"

I hate it how once a possible romance was nothing more than a neat idea, a means to further enhance character interaction of a game, while nowadays it's getting touted as a goddamn cookie cuttter FEATURE that's friggin' everywhere. Ugh.

That said Baldur's Gate is one of the three D&D games I'd rank in my "best PC games of all time (so far!)" list. Or something. It's also the first D&D game that kicked real butt, oops, forgot about "Eye Of The Beholder". Anyhoo, the first game impressed me a little more than part II, actually, I actually skipped school during my last year for playing it. Far too regularly. Still got my degree though, heh.

I liked the greater degree of openness and the idea of traveling to places myself instead of clicking on a random spot on a map and COWABUNGAH, I'm there. "Baldur's Gate" did magic and turned the entire Sword Coast into something that was somehow running inside my crappy computer for me to visit at any time. And boy, I did. Still, in terms of quality content, the sequel with its utter absence of fetch or filler quest hasn't been surpassed in my book in these regards. Even quests that looked like something out of generic fetch'o'rama were guaranteed to lead you onto an adventure of far more spicier proportions than that.

However, judging from several post mortem articles, it was sort of a lucky shot. An already existing engine and a team churning out all kinds of mostly cool stuff at breakneck speed. Magic went a bit ridiculous there. Especially the numbers of essentially redundant spells, and don't get me started on the fact that every fight turned into a cast/break magic protection *sigh*fest around every corner. Also: Balancing sucks, quickload solves, alright...

 

[Naked Ninja]

Ugh, I can't see how the Codex can rip off BG2 yet slaver over Fallout. Played F1 for the first time a few months ago and was vastly dissapointed. The dialogue is very sparse, the majority of the NPCs are lifeless and personality-less, turn based combat between you and 12 mutant preying mantises is just tedious even on max speed settings....and in the end you fight an evil mutant overlord who wants to turn everyone else into evil mutants! Oh the originality of the end villain! So superior to Irenicus!

You guys need to lay off the crack. That mission where the mayor of the one town wants you to wipe out the biker gang but you find out they are blameless kids? I wanted to take the video-disk proof back to the mayor and have some kind of dialogue-based resolution? No, it won't let me. I must go fetch guns from the weapon maker guys to arm the bikers. Past the deathclaw things. I haven't built a combat char, so I sneak past them. The gun guys will give me weapons BUT only if I kill the deathclaws. So I am forced with my high charisma/intelligence scientist guy to solve the quest via combat so that I can solve the other quest via combat?!? Oh wow, awesome, exactly what you complain about it Bio RPGs!

Yes, whoever asked, BG2 was heaven.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Oh fuck.....

Really? Strange. I remember a game where I could verbally sodomize my NPC followers whenever they said anything to me with no real reaction out of them.

Huh...funny. Aerie ditched my party when I abused her enough.

I remember a game where I could generally be a dickhead to everyone I met without anyone calling me on it.

Really now? And what game can't one basically do that in? Plenty of people do it in reality, unfortunately. It's not a crime to be a jerk. And if you're a big, strong jerk (read: child of a god) not too many people are going to call you on it.

In terms of "mechanics" as in the way the world works, reacts to your actions, etc., it's pretty bad no matter how you look at it.

No matter how you look at it, huh?

-Morrowind
-Oblivion
-Arena
-Diablo series
-Dungeon Siege
-PoS
-Dark Alliance
-Fable
-Icewind Dale
-A metric fuckton of jap-shit and I mean a metric fuckton

It does it better than all those games which happen to be labled RPGs by the general populace. Shitty argument? Sure. But all I need is one thing to invalidate your asinine absolute claim.

How on earth were the characters alive?

Let's see....they did stuff and reacted somewhat to stuff done to them better than pretty much any game I can think of when it comes to companions. There was group infighting sometimes. Some events would turn party members against you. They weren't fully fleshed out human beings, but for a game Bioware didn't do half bad.

Minsc and Amoen (I think that was his name? The Fighter/Cleric dude who gets made a paladin) didn't seem to care much that they were following an evil leader who was frequently engaging in shady behaviors.

Well, not to mention the fact they're both utter dumbfucks, I'm damn sure you can do some things they won't agree with but aren't willing to run you through for.

And, it meant that you HAD to save before attempting to copy breach, as if you failed to copy, you were completely fucked, as you wouldn't be able to hurt enemy mages.

Tough noogies and bullshit. Secret word, remove magic, and dispell magic all work well enough and magic missiles for the stoneskins/mirror images. And good old fashioned protection magic can soak up the enemy magic and let your fighters wear down the mage's defenses.

Contingency/Sequencer was an absolutely terrible idea. Counterspelling is one thing, but come on, is it really a good idea to let a mage launch a thousand spells uninterrupted and out of turn?

A thousand? You could have one minor sequencer with two spells, one major with three, and a spell trigger with three. Add in one contingency spell and a chain contingency and you've got twelve extra spells. And seeing as the sequencers were limited by level (2 and 5 I believe), and the trigger was only up to level 7, it wasn't that bad. Contingency and chain contingency were pretty high level spells, so they should be good. Plus you couldn't fire them at enemies. And you did have to prepare these. I guess preparation shouldn't be rewarded (Look! I can straw man too!).

getting "Fighter Stronghold Chick" kidnapped, Jaheria cursed, having Yoshimo threatened by the thieves guild, and Amoen made a paladin in the course of about a day is just absurd.

Shit happens. Makes sense to strike when the party is weakened. Plus you would have to be one unlucky motherfucker to have all that happen the way events run on a mix between game-time and real-time.

EDIT: Just saw the last two posts. It's likely this thread will hit 7 pages by the time I'm back. Maybe longer.

 

[Lumpy]

You didn't just say that. This is going to be as fun as the time someone said role-playing in Oblivion was better than in Baldur's Gate.

Yes, it was. Because Oblivion had little role-playing, while Baldur's Gate had no roleplaying. That's the difference between the two crappy games.

Welcome to the land of subjectiveness. And I think Shadows of Amn broke the whole generic fantasy stuff with the clones and all that jazz.

That's why the starting dungeon was awesomesauce, PST material, and then it all went downhill.

 

[Sodomy]

Huh...funny. Aerie ditched my party when I abused her enough.

Never had Aerie in my party, but I was plenty abusive to both Jaheira and Nalia, and neither of them ever left (aside from the latter getting kidnapped).

Really now? And what game can't one basically do that in? Plenty of people do it in reality, unfortunately. It's not a crime to be a jerk. And if you're a big, strong jerk (read: child of a god) not too many people are going to call you on it.

Arcanum, Fallout, and PS:T all had situations where if you were enough of an ass to someone, they'd attack you. Simple, but more than the 3 chapters I played of BG2 had.

No matter how you look at it, huh?

-Morrowind
-Oblivion
-Arena
-Diablo series
-Dungeon Siege
-PoS
-Dark Alliance
-Fable
-Icewind Dale
-A metric fuckton of jap-shit and I mean a metric fuckton

It does it better than all those games which happen to be labled RPGs by the general populace. Shitty argument? Sure. But all I need is one thing to invalidate your asinine absolute claim.

One could be better than all of those and still be "pretty bad", which is what my claim was.

Let's see....they did stuff and reacted somewhat to stuff done to them better than pretty much any game I can think of when it comes to companions. There was group infighting sometimes. Some events would turn party members against you. They weren't fully fleshed out human beings, but for a game Bioware didn't do half bad.

PS:T and Arcanum both succeeded in that respect better than BG2.

Well, not to mention the fact they're both utter dumbfucks, I'm damn sure you can do some things they won't agree with but aren't willing to run you through for.

You'd think that they'd do something like refuse to go on quests that violate their "moral codes" or whatever. Hell, the paladins even told Anomen he could follow me, even though I was a lawful evil character, with Edwin in my party, was a member of the thieves guild, had done many "shady" quests, etc.

Tough noogies and bullshit. Secret word, remove magic, and dispell magic all work well enough and magic missiles for the stoneskins/mirror images. And good old fashioned protection magic can soak up the enemy magic and let your fighters wear down the mage's defenses.

Only one of those that's available in the early game as far as I know is dispell magic. And, dispell magic isn't enough for those vampire mages at the end of chapter 3.

A thousand? You could have one minor sequencer with two spells, one major with three, and a spell trigger with three. Add in one contingency spell and a chain contingency and you've got twelve extra spells. And seeing as the sequencers were limited by level (2 and 5 I believe), and the trigger was only up to level 7, it wasn't that bad. Contingency and chain contingency were pretty high level spells, so they should be good. Plus you couldn't fire them at enemies. And you did have to prepare these. I guess preparation shouldn't be rewarded (Look! I can straw man too!).

12 extra spells. Out of turn, and uninterruptable. That's not a stupid fucking idea? Right...

Shit happens. Makes sense to strike when the party is weakened. Plus you would have to be one unlucky motherfucker to have all that happen the way events run on a mix between game-time and real-time.

All of those events happening in such a short period of time is absurd, no matter how you try to crack it up. Hell, why does every fucking member of my party have to have some sort of crisis? Does everyone in this world have these sorts of fucking problems? One, maybe two members, it would be one thing... but four?

 

[Micmu]

You didn't just say that. This is going to be as fun as the time someone said role-playing in Oblivion was better than in Baldur's Gate.

Yes, it was. Because Oblivion had little role-playing, while Baldur's Gate had no roleplaying. That's the difference between the two crappy games.

I'd love to hear your shit-ass definition of role-playing.

 

[Lumpy]

You didn't just say that. This is going to be as fun as the time someone said role-playing in Oblivion was better than in Baldur's Gate.

Yes, it was. Because Oblivion had little role-playing, while Baldur's Gate had no roleplaying. That's the difference between the two crappy games.

I'd love to hear your shit-ass definition of role-playing.

Choosing a role and playing it.
In Oblivion I can choose the role of an assassin, choose assassin skills at the beginning, and then successfully play one by joining the Dark Brotherhood and doing quests.
In Planescape I can choose the role of a manipulative liar, by lying to people for my own benefit.
In Baldur's Gate I can choose an assassin, or a manipulative liar, but I'll do the exact same thing as with noble paladin, a lawful evil mage, or any other character.

 

[Micmu]

In Oblivion I can choose the role of an assassin, choose assassin skills at the beginning, and then successfully play one by joining the Dark Brotherhood and doing quests.
In Planescape I can choose the role of a manipulative liar, by lying to people for my own benefit.
In Baldur's Gate I can choose an assassin, or a manipulative liar, but I'll do the exact same thing as with noble paladin, a lawful evil mage, or any other character.

So Baldur's Gate is a linear, tightly story-based cRPG. Big deal.
Notice the RPG rules being used in BG games and complete absence of them in Oblivion, which in combat plays just like any hack&slash action game, while all non-combat skills were either dump stats or replaced by arcadish hacks like mini games.

 

[Lumpy]

In Oblivion I can choose the role of an assassin, choose assassin skills at the beginning, and then successfully play one by joining the Dark Brotherhood and doing quests.
In Planescape I can choose the role of a manipulative liar, by lying to people for my own benefit.
In Baldur's Gate I can choose an assassin, or a manipulative liar, but I'll do the exact same thing as with noble paladin, a lawful evil mage, or any other character.

So Baldur's Gate is a linear, tightly story-based cRPG. Big deal.
Notice the RPG rules being used in BG games and complete absence of them in Oblivion, which in combat plays just like any hack&slash action game, while all non-combat skills were either dump stats or replaced by arcadish hacks like mini games.

As an assassin, all the following non-combat skills are useful:
Sneak - obviously
Security - you can go the RPG way and choose auto-lockpick every time, which depends on your skills.
Illusion - to enhance your stealth
Mysticism - to see through walls, very useful when sneaking
Alchemy - to create poisons and potions.

 

[psycojester]

Where are the everymen, the average joes, the not-so-ultra-heroic types?

Probably not involved in an ultra-violent career that frequently involves death and destruction on a vast scale.

And maybe it's just because I've been forced to endure years upon years of the American media, but it's nice to see a female character who isn't either a "tough chick", a "slut", or a "tough slut" (which pretty much describes all female characters in the modern American media). Slap on a set of "cowardly AI" and you would have a pretty well done and believable character. Heck, she isn't that bad already. Better than the freaky pseudo-BDSM shit with Viconia.

It seems a tad retarded that a character like Aerie would get involved in adventuring to begin with. The characters stay-at-home wife whom you beat to take out your frustrations i could accept, but i can't see that needy, whiny self-absorbed twit lasting 10 minutes in a life that often involves slaughtering people and seeing your companions cut down (althought the effect of this is probably lessened when you know you can just pop down to the local Baptist church and have them raised to the dead.

 

[hotdognights]

So Baldur's Gate is a linear, tightly story-based cRPG. Big deal.
Notice the RPG rules being used in BG games and complete absence of them in Oblivion, which in combat plays just like any hack&slash action game, while all non-combat skills were either dump stats or replaced by arcadish hacks like mini games.

When the story's crap, yeah, it is a pretty big deal. And when I'm playing an RPG, as opposed to say, an adventure game or Half-Life, yeah I pretty much expect non-linearity, or at least, those magic words, player choice.

Ugh, I can't see how the Codex can rip off BG2 yet slaver over Fallout. Played F1 for the first time a few months ago and was vastly dissapointed. The dialogue is very sparse, the majority of the NPCs are lifeless and personality-less, turn based combat between you and 12 mutant preying mantises is just tedious even on max speed settings....and in the end you fight an evil mutant overlord who wants to turn everyone else into evil mutants! Oh the originality of the end villain! So superior to Irenicus!

Kinda to stupid a point to argue, but it's easy, so hey, here goes:

The Master doesn't want to turn humanity into mutants because he wants to ascend to Godhood, or because he's EVVIIILLLL(insert maniacal laugh here), or even because he wants to rule the world. He wants to turn humanity into mutants because he wants to save the world. THAT'S the brilliance of the character, and why he's more than a typical cRPG cartoon villain.

Fighting hordes of lower level enemies in Fallout could be pretty boring, yes, and Fallout's combat was pretty tactically shallow. It wasn't the heart of the game though, and slaughtering hordes of low level baddies(or even singular high level baddies) wasn't necessary in any way to advance the plot or beat the game.

Regarding the "forced" shootout in the Boneyard:

You just showed a tape in front of a bunch of armed thugs that ruined their lucrative living arrangement. Kinda makes sense they'd tried to shoot you before they'd try to talk to you. Point was, you showed the tape to the mayor, who's not in control, the Regulators are.

Not to mention you don't have to take part in the fight at all, you can just hide somewhere and keep hitting end turn while the Blades and Regulators duke it out.

Edward R. Murrow cited around a dozen cases throughout a series that runs around a hundred hours where you can use dialogue as an alternative solution. Thing is, those are largely in sidequests and few and far between. The dialogue in Fallout may be less verbose than in Baldur's Gate, but not only does it give good/evil (or altruistic/self-interested) choices, but is dependent on character stats in many areas as well. This is a consistent design element of the game, up through the very end when you can FUCKING TALK THE MAIN VILLAIN INTO KILLING HIMSELF rather than engage in a trademark Bio EPIC BATTLE.

Regarding Aerie as an NPC-a party member who's not a trained killer is refreshing in concept, but execution is the killer(pun kinda intended). Aerie was mewling and co-dependent(as much because of voice acting as dialogue). NWN2 was far, FAR from perfect and had the same flaw as Baldur's Gate in featuring a character who's supposed to be a novice but is fairly high level from the get-go, but I thought Shandra Jerro, as written, was an example of an NPC who's not a trained killing machine or experienced adventurer who's also not a helpless female who depends on the (usually male) player character for any kind of validation.

If somebody was a D&D player before playing Baldur's Gate, I guess I can kind of understand the game's appeal. My only exposure to D&D and the Forgotten Realms is through cRPGs, though, and my impression from those is it's not only a generic, boring fantasy setting with elves and hobbits...oops, halfings, and dwarves, but actively bad, as it features monolithic, inherent evil, and monolithic, inherent good. Think a racist Paladin is a unique, ironic, and conflicted character? Not when, in its infinite depth and quality, an entire race of dark-skinned people lives underground is inherently evil. Not Bioware's fault, but certainly shitty of Wizards of the Coast.

 

[aries202]

I must admit that I like BG1 more than BG2. In BG2 I feel like I'm being railroaded to get the ultimate evil wizard who wants your soul for some very superficial reason (something to do with immortaily, I think??)

In BG1, the 'bad' characters are not bad because of their 'evil' character, no they are 'bad' because they don't want to discover the secrets of the faulty ore. (it just happens that while you're discovering the secret behind this, you also
learn something about your origin).

The plot in BG1 is much more political than the plot in BG2, since the plot in BG2 only seems to revolve around getting the evil wizard killed - for some odd reason. During BG1 , we get to know the reasons behind iron shortage, and why they did what they did, the people behind it. In BG2, there's no explanation as to why the bad guy does what he does, ok, in the end we get some kind of (lame) explanation about that he once was a member of a community and wanted to use their power for his own selfish means. Basically, he was just evil.
No reason is given why he wanted the community to change and there's no backstory describing him as well.

I agree with the Codex, though, the Torment is so much better than both BG1 and BG2, mainly because you can do so much and because it matters if you have a INT of 6 or 14...

 

[Naked Ninja]

@ Aries : Incorrect.

Irenicus may have been evil, but he was driven by the tearing of his elvish longeivity from him. A near immortal suddenly facing a human lifespan, facing the frailty of a humans aging body. I dislike elves immensely, but it was a pretty decent motivation to drive a man to the depths of depravity. And he wasn't trying to "conquer the world". He originally was an elven High Mage who tried to syphon off power from a sorta-divine tree. Are you saying power lust is a silly motive? Which planet do you live on exactly? Take a look around at your fellow man.

Then he saw a way to recapture his immortality, to take it from the Bhaalspawn. The destruction he goes on after that, the ravaging of the elven capitol, is just his "Fuck you elves, who's laughing now hey?" thing.

He wasn't trying to conquer the world or destroy it or anything equally lame. And the entire way through it he comes across as cool, calculating, clever. You get to interact with him again and again.

You think a plot where the main villain is mistakenly dooming people while trying to save them is brilliant? Dude, that plots been done dozens of times. Sure it is better than you lowest common denominator fantasy CRPG, but brilliant it ain't.

The combat isn't necessary huh? Oh, thats nice. To know I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. Except I couldn't travel between any two locations without at least one lame and boring random combat encounter. Thank goodness they weren't necessary to advance the plot!

The being able to talk the main villain into killing himself thing IS a cool idea, but not if I have to wade through tedium to get there.

The elves of the underdark being considered evil is stupid? What would the people of the age have called the Mayans, who would regularly hunt and capture slaves from the surrounding civilizations in vast numbers to ritually slaughter? What do you think the african tribes captured and forced into slavery called the Europeans? OH NO, looks like real world history is "unrealistic"!!! Time to complain like a whiny pissant on internet forums!

 

[Lumpy]

The whole poisoning of ore was, IMO, incredibly stupid. Why spend so much time and manpower (koboldpower?) 'poisoning' all the ore from the mine, when you can simply collapse the mine? And besides, everyone inside knew there were tons of kobolds in there, but on the outside it was a mysterious mystery why the ore was haxxored.
And if it was so easy for my level 1 party to kill the creatures, why didn't the town guards, who were more numerous and high level, do it?
Anyway, it's all stupid. Why the fuck did you go to the mine anyhow? How would you know it was related to you in any way?

 

[psycojester]

The elves of the underdark being considered evil is stupid?

Well yeah, given that a lot of Drow culture seems to revolve around being dicks for the sake of being dicks as opposed to any real gain.

And if it was so easy for my level 1 party to kill the creatures, why didn't the town guards, who were more numerous and high level, do it?

Town Guard have a lot of budget restraints and red-tape, this is also the reason why they never try to step in and help you when assassin pop up and attack to commit murder in the main street.

 

[Keldorn]

It does appear, that there are some who truly despise and HATE Baldur's Gate, and possibly anything related to D & D. They simply cringe. Maybe they are envious of the success it has had, or it is possible they are ignorant of what it entails in the scope of it's totality.


I simply cannot compose myself, so make way...



Blatant Baldur-Bashing BLASPHEMY , I must say !!! By a disunanimous miniature chorus of Bull-Brained BULLIES, nonetheless !!!

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

It does appear, that there are some who truly despise and HATE Baldur's Gate

Hey nothing wrong with not liking, heck even hating anything. Not being able to appreciate something because of design interfering with self-defined egghead dogma however is just sad. Ah, and retarded too!

That said, yeah, I liked the Choose Your Own Adventure that was "Planescape:Torment" even more myself. Oh, Day Of The Testicles too while we're at it. Plus The Dark Project. And Pacman. Still gonna install BG2 again tonight. Probably.Not gonna pick up that bloody paladin though.. No, no never!

 

[Vault Dweller]

It does appear, that there are some who truly despise and HATE Baldur's Gate, and possibly anything related to D & D. They simply cringe. Maybe they are envious of the success it has had, or it is possible they are ignorant of what it entails in the scope of it's totality.

Yep. If someone doesn't like a popular game loved by millions, there could be only two reasons for that: ignorance of the game's awesomeness or envy of its amazing success.

Anyway, BG2 was a great action-adventure game with stats, but a god-fucking-awful RPG. The reasons for this phenomenon were stated many times already. The links were given to you.

 

[Lumpy]

It does appear, that there are some who truly despise and HATE Baldur's Gate, and possibly anything related to D & D. They simply cringe. Maybe they are envious of the success it has had

Why would anyone but other developers be envious of BG's success?
No, I'm not envious that it was successful. I am merely disgusted that such a game was.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Anyway, BG2 was a great action-adventure game with stats, but a god-fucking-awful RPG.

Dear Lord...