Why Baldur's Gate sucks?

[Vault Dweller]

Let's start with the real time with pause thing that completely fucks up most DnD mechanics and rules. While PST and BG2 are obviously better *games*, ToEE is the only game out of the three that can be called a DnD game.

 

[Araanor]

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is better than BG1 and 2 both as a game and as a DnD game.

It is more non-linear than both and offers at least more role-playing than BG1. It has enjoyable, varying and meaningful turn-based combat as opposed to the BG-style RTwP slugfests. Interface is okay. Graphics are neat. It's from 1993.

 

[Relayer71]

But then Oblivion isn't an RPG because... you would lose "Kodex Kool Points" if you said it was?

Lol. I don't care about cool points. If anyone enjoys Oblivion as an RPG then then it's an RPG. I just said that (jokingly) because I hate the game so much - it has nothing to do with my "reputation" (haha) here or anywhere else.

I love console games, I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy games (up until FFIX, haven't played the newer games) and JRPGs in general. Oops, lost more KK points!

Resident Evil 4 was the SHIZNIT!

And I frequent Gamespot, Gamefaqs, Gamespy and whatever other not-cool-to-the-codex-crowd (from my observations) sites there are. Damn, more points loss, in a deficit now!

Who cares? I'm an avid gamer and like to get as much info as I can (and forums are just much more entertaining than games these days) and then sort through the bullshit of which there is as much here as anywhere else. I mean one person's noble cause is another's high horse.

 

[Relayer71]

You apparently haven't played ToEE.

I have I just never gave it enough of a chance - that town bored me to tears so I only played it for a few hours. Those quests were the most boring in any game I've ever played and the characters were numbingly dull.

On the other hand from the limited time I had with it I can say it had THE best combat in any DnD game. I also loved the graphics engine and artwork. But I got bored and got hooked on Wiz 8 right around the same time.

I can't seem to find the install disk anywhere, may have to buy it again and give it a real playthrough.

 

[Relayer71]

Has for DnD RPGs, PS:T is the pinacle.

Damn, you're 100% right PS:T IS the pinnacle.
It's just that I put PS:T in a whole other league as those other DnD games.

PS:T is Gunness, those other games are merely Budweisers, Coors, Heinekens, Coronas, et.,

 

[Naked Ninja]

I've never gotten the crusade against RTwP either. Whats the problem? I've played DnD for years and RTwP didn't bother me in the slightest. Because a DnD round is a couple of seconds in a game like BG (which is accurate according to the Dungeon Masters Guide) I can pause, set up moves, watch them fire off then pause and do it again. In all likelihood I would have set up a characters next move before it got back to that characters turn. Thats why combat in BG, even in real time, seemed somewhat jerky. Because each character does their attack and then waits for their next turn. The combat isn't as fast, but it gives you plenty of time to think.

So what the fuck is the problem?

Also, who is the idiot that said spell sequencers where over powered? You can get only a handful of lower level spells in to those things, when the point comes that you can use them the higher level spells are much more effective anyway. You'd better hope you can sequence off the spells before the enemy mage gets up Globe of Invulnerability or they'll just be absorbed. And you have to then spend time sleeping, rememorising the spells and casting them, then sleeping again. Sure, no problem if you set it up in town, but not a good idea in a dungeon.

At best it gives mages an ace they can play, and helps make some of the lower level spells useful. Overpowered it fucking wasn't. The Symbol spells, the invulnerability spells, time stop, horrid wilting, gate, all of those high level spells trump even the 3 sequenced spells together.

BG2 had, hands down, the best mage battles of any game outside outside of Magic the Gathering. Duking it out with a Lich spell to spell was fantastic. Not like other RPGs where its all about the DPS nuking.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I've never gotten the crusade against RTwP either. Whats the problem? I've played DnD for years and RTwP didn't bother me in the slightest. Because a DnD round is a couple of seconds in a game like BG (which is accurate according to the Dungeon Masters Guide) I can pause, set up moves, watch them fire off then pause and do it again.
...
So what the fuck is the problem?

Do you not understand the concept of TURNS and sequential combat? Have you played ToEE, by any chance? Did combat in both games (ToEE and BG2) was almost the same or did you manage to spot some slight differences?

BG2 had, hands down, the best mage battles of any game outside outside of Magic the Gathering. Duking it out with a Lich spell to spell was fantastic. Not like other RPGs where its all about the DPS nuking.

Agree completely. The mage battles were fantastic.

 

[aboyd]

I've never gotten the crusade against RTwP either. Whats the problem? I've played DnD for years and RTwP didn't bother me in the slightest. Because a DnD round is a couple of seconds in a game like BG (which is accurate according to the Dungeon Masters Guide) I can pause, set up moves, watch them fire off then pause and do it again.
...
So what the fuck is the problem?

Do you not understand the concept of TURNS and sequential combat? Have you played ToEE, by any chance? Did combat in both games (ToEE and BG2) was almost the same or did you manage to spot some slight differences?

I suspect that, like me, he understands the difference and just doesn't care. In ToEE, I go and then wait for the enemy. In BG, I go and the enemy goes and perhaps there's a clash or perhaps they go in a quick succession. Whatever. I usually have the important pause options on anyway, so it's as effective as I need. The ToEE model is the best TB implementation I've seen, but it's overkill for my needs.

 

[Vault Dweller]

People who understand, but "just don't care" shouldn't be asking questions like "what the fuck is the problem?", should they?

 

[Claw]

After reading about two pages of this thread, I an stunned to find that this discussion is even more boring than Baldur's Gate.

 

[elander_]

So what the fuck is the problem?

ToEE is better. You know exactly who is going to act and in what order and moves happen one at a time. We can see what is going on because our attention isn't split to different places at the same time. It follows the mechanics of a board game.

In BG2 i had some good mage fights where i had to put all my effort into winning but most fights are chaotic and it's very hard to maintain a formation and take advantage of position. The chaos of real time isn't welcome in a thinking game.

BG2 had, hands down, the best mage battles of any game outside outside of Magic the Gathering. Duking it out with a Lich spell to spell was fantastic. Not like other RPGs where its all about the DPS nuking.

Like in a Magic the Gathering session DnD combat is supposed to be strategical. You play in turns and see what your opponent is doing before acting. There's no point on going RTwP. Why would anyone want this? If combat is slow or boring it's because fights aren't challenging enough. When you play with a deck of MtG cards and if the decks are very well balanced it can be very fun and challenging. Players are not concerned if they play by turns or the game is slow. Think about this then tell me why you need real-time in a thinking game.

 

[Section8]

I guess you can boil it all down to that, but can't you do that with just about anything? I mean, simple strategies tend to work, especially against a simple enemy. Plus, there are plenty of other things you can do. [...] Most mages are accompanied by others. You may have had to divert fire from an oncoming threat, like a big guy with an axe, to deal with said mage.

Okay, fair points. Maybe I'm looking at it too narrowly, but these have been my experiences for better or worse. But a couple of things still stand. First of all, the real-time nature of the game encourages you to simply pick an initial tactic and watch it play out. Secondly, I still assert that the random variance is too broad in a game that encourages you to "save often", and that comes from a fairly thoughtless adaptation of AD&D.

Well, ranged combat and melee combat both have their times and places. As does stealth. But you can't expect to get through with just one type of combat skill, unlike Fallout.

Okay, so we'll chalk this one up to personal preference, I'd prefer interesting ways to employ the skills my character has, rather than skill use being dictated by situations. And that's pretty simple. If I want to fight a bear in melee combat, then sure, punish me and tax my healing resources, while ranged combat and such remain as an alternative where I can avoid damage, but use missile resources or combat spells.

But make the results consistent in some way. The fact that I can wade into melee combat and smash the bear without taking damage in one instance, and do exactly the same and be one-shotted is weak, and doesn't really encourage a tactical approach, whereas a more consistent result where the bear smacks me around every time, sometimes killing me would lead me to reconsider a less harmful approach.

I know I can kill the mutants with my sledgehammer without resorting to cowardly tactics like using guns, I just need enough chances so I can get some criticals.

At least the game is fairly consistent in terms of how many chances you'll get in each instance.

The moment you employ save/reload tactics, you throw just about everything out the window. Let's face it, RPG combat is save/reload's bitch. Seeing as most combat sysyems rely on randomized numbers augmented by stats to simulate combat, "luck" does play a role. Save/reload let's you put luck in your favor....eventually.

Certainly, but as soon as you set the precedent of unlikely success, then you're encouraging the player to use the game's systems to their fullest to attain that success, and incentivising player behaviour that just isn't enjoyable. If you illustrate that something is impossible (it doesn't have to be), the player moves on. It's like the common model for lockpicking, where "improbable" just isn't a deterent, and player patience becomes of more value than character skill.

You've got a knight. [...] He can either...

1. Bum rush the bear and likely deal more damage faster, but also place himself in much greater risk.

2. Use the bow and arrow to shoot the bear, and keep out of it's range indefinitely. Very low risk, but slower.

When it comes to anything I can repeat ad nauseum, I hate risk. Well kind of. I think I've pretty much flogged the too broad range of outcomes horse already. If that "greater risk" had a better measure - "Jesus, it's smacking the shit out of me, I can't stand up to this for long" vs "in the unlikely event that it hits me, I'm fucked" - then the tactical difference would become more significant.

Well....sometimes things go bad. If it kills your main character, that's even worse. I can agree at low levels there are a lot of things that can quickly and easily dispatch you, but you have to go and seek those things out in most cases. And anything else can be stopped with some tactics.

More stemming from the same thing. Yes I have to seek them out, but if I know I can beat something, I'll either repeat until I beat it, or eventually lose patience and move on. Especially when there are bucketloads of experience at stake.

For some reason I'd assume designing a game around save/reload would be incredibly difficult and would produce a pretty bad product. Maybe consider it a little more during design, yes, but I don't think there is much of a way to fight save/reload without negatively impacting the game in doing so.

I'm not saying the whole game ought to be designed around save/reload, but it should be considered at length (not just a little more). High risk, high reward endeavours practically beg the player to quicksave and quickload until they succeed. I'd rather see that "risk" translated into an inevitably more difficult challenge, where luck still plays a part, but isn't quite such a determining factor.

Thoughtlessly bringing a P&P system where failures cannot be backtracked into a CRPG where backtracking is an accepted standard is terrible design.

Let's be totally honest, it is pretty "hardcore" in relation to the absolutely wussified RPGs of today. About being a "hardcore RPG", well....when over 60% of the people who consider themselves hardcore RPG players have games like Final Fantasy in a top ten RPG list, then yeah, it is by comparison. And we haven't even hit the Diablo clone action RPGs or RPG lites that everyone defines the genre with. Maybe if you only frequented places with a lot of RPG players, you might see a lot of Shadows of Amn loonies....but just go to someplace like Gamefaqs or such. Baldur's Gate hasn't done shit as far as convincing people what an RPG is.

I wont be happy until everyone recognises that BG is pretty much as mainstream as they come, and it's only "hardcore" in the sense that it possesses many various products of frustratingly bad design that are likely to turn off the casual gamer.

The same people who gave Fallout a score of 7 or 8 and then jerked off to Final Fantasy 7 in the same year giving it 9s and 10s? The same people who hailed Neverwinter Nights as a brilliant RPG masterpiece? The same people who consistently give great reviews and scores to Jap-shit that gameplay-wise doesn't even surpass Wasteland? The same people who gave PoS decent scores and said shit like "it stays pretty true to the Fallout setting"?

Point taken, but there are too many people who actually believe what they read in the gaming media, though that's another fight altogether.

I bolded the ones that I thought did worse. But still, eight RPG lites versus the endless Diablo clones or grindfest MMOs is nothing.

Here's where I take issue. Most people are more than willing to make the distinction between Diablo-likes and "real" RPGs. Likewise, people recognise MMOGs as a very different beast for a different audience. And although there is undeniably an influence into the "core" of the RPG genre, most people are willing to let MMOGs be MMOGs, Diablo be Diablo, and the Japanese be Japanese. However, Baldur's Gate-likes have become the expectation for "traditional" RPGs, even though the bar was set so much higher by Fallout.

And so in the place of solid "traditional" RPGs, we get Baldur's Gate-likes. I think it would be a difficult point to argue that Diablo and MMOGs are significantly responsible for the decline in solid CRPGs. The developers following those trends are following the trail of money, and as such, I'd question their ability to create a worthwhile RPG, and also, they've always been here. Fifteen years ago, they were trying to make the next Wolf3D. Ten years ago, they were all making RTS games in the wake of St/Warcraft, five years ago they were making RTS/RPG hybrids in the wake of Warcraft III.

If anything, logic ought to dictate that their saturation of the mass-market would create biggere opportunities for niche markets, which should result in more "hardcore" RPGs. It's a shame development doesn't seem dictated by logic or opportunity, but rather by "conventional wisdom" and trends.

Oh we would have. Except it would have been successful without another Diablo clone to fight for sales.

Doubtful. Nothing about BOS even gave so much as a glimmer of hope for success. It had failure all over it from the start, and it's a much bigger step from "hardcore turn-based PC RPG" to console action game than it is from "PC action adventure with stats" to console action adventure with stats. BGDA was a modest success because it didn't stray very much from what the core Baldur's Gate audience was already enamoured with.

To be honest, I think without the Infinity Engine it would have been worse. They would have had to spend more time on an engine/ruleset and less time on dialogue and choices/consequences. Not to mention Planescape is a Dungeons and Dragons setting. I doubt it would get divorced from the rules.

Certainly it can't be divorced from the rules, well technically it could, but it wouldn't be a good idea, and working with an existing engine is a great boon for a developer. But that's no reason why the development timeline couldn't have been lengthened to accomodate the extra work rather than cutting down the meat of the game. Wishful thinking on my part, but Interplay was flying high at the time.

Even if Baldur's Gate failed, Diablo still sold a shit-ton. That influenced publishers.

I'm not so sure that it did. Diablo predated Fallout by some time, and I'm willing to assert that the vast majority of people consider Diablo to be more or less an independent sub genre from "actual" RPGs, in much the same way GTA's second generation exists outside of the pure racing genre, or for that matter, Mariokart is another obscenely popular racing game that failed to leave a mark on serious racing sims, because people are willing to accept it as an alternative rather than a replacement.

Baldur's Gate is considered a contemporary of Fallout. Diablo is not. So when developing a game that is intended to be a contemporary of Fallout, Baldur's Gate is relevant. Diablo isn't.

Diablo spawned Dungeon Siege. Heck, they're almost exactly alike. And it real-timed Freedom Force.

Actually, once you take the significant differences into account - the addition of squad based tactics, "N"PC recruits, non-procedural world, emphasis on story, Dungeon Siege starts to look a lot more like Baldur's Gate than Diablo. Same goes for Freedom Force.

Console kiddies. Not Baldur's Gate.

Certainly, there are more developers aiming at multi-platform releases now with all the trappings that come with that, but that's just part of the problem. People are too quick to blame "console kiddies" for everything. If you're developing a PC exclusive hardcore RPG, "console kiddies" are completely irrelevant. Baldur's Gate and it's half dozen unholy spawn became the norm for what people accepted as PC exclusive hardcore RPGs. Bad thing.

That would be Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR's fault. Neverwinter Nights should have bombed...it had all the problems of Baldur's Gate and none of the "good" (although you most certainly won't agree with what I consider good). Heck, it pretty much made the player make the game. Yet people loved it and it fast outsold Baldur's Gate.

Nothing Bioware have ever done has looked like bombing, despite gross incompetence. The first "real" AD&D RPG in over five years? Instant success. CRPG 3rd Ed D&D DIY toolkit? Instant success. The first Star Wars CRPG? Instant success. Funnily enough, all of them are the "evolution" of the core gameplay of Baldur's Gate.

Again...Diablo did far more and had a far greater impact.

Agree to disagree. Nobody considers Diablo to actually be an RPG, and just about anyone willing to consider themselves an "RPG afficionado" would not consider Diablo a substitute for an RPG, even if they think KOTOR or BG are the pinnacle of the RPG genre.

If Baldur's Gate had tanked hard it's likely we would be swamped with Diablo clones, The Elder Scrolls (Bethesda is it's own publisher after all), and Jap-shit. I doubt Sierra would have given Arcanum the green light. I doubt Atari would have given Temple of Elemental Evil a go eiither. We wouldn't even have Bioware's RPG-lites. We'd have Jeff Vogel though....

Since it's purely hypothetical, it's hard to say. In any case, I'd rather a yawning gap waiting to be filled with RPGs, rather than having that gap filled with RPG-lites marketed as "hardcore". People might just be saying - isn't it time we had another classic in the vein of Fallout? Instead, we're all eagerly awaiting Jack Bauer's first adventure into space.

If you say so. Still...Ian made it into Fallout 2 both in person, and in the Vault Dweller's memoirs...so he was doing something right....or wrong.

Dogmeat has his own wikipedia entry. I don't recall Ian in Fallout 2 at all - not saying he wasn't there - but I still insist he's not really memorable.

But they don't always prove to work. Like the "Dogmeat clone" in Arcanum, or the animal companion in Neverwinter Nights.

If you analyse both cases, you'd certainly find shortcomings in how they were implemented. I won't go into detail, but for one - "clone of iconic character" is a pretty good mould for a less than iconic character. Those who find Minsc charming and memorable would likely be less enthused by a character featured in a later game who was a barbarian with a pet space-gerbil.

No. Final Fantasy and Diablo were however.

Just like how Mariokart (or even Blizzard's fantastic Rock n Roll racing) spelled doom for serious racing sims, Goldeneye killed PC FPS games, or Wii Sports killed EA Sports. We're talking about polar extremes within a broad genre boundaries. Diablo clones exist to be Diablo clones, and if it wasn't Diablo, they'd be aping something else with mainstream appeal. Nobody setting out to make a deep RPG would use Diablo as a template.

 

[Section8]

And now you are lying or being stupid. Like I said, all the quest dialogues give you the option to not give one shit about Imoen, to be hunting Irenicus because he tortured you like a dog in a cage, then later because he tears your soul out (Evil guys wouldn't find that motive?).You can specifically insult and degrade Imoen in most if not all of the dialogues. OH NO, I CAN'T PLAY EVIL, WHY BIOWARE DO YOU FORCE THIS ON ME!

Can't say I've ever played more than a little bit of the starting dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2.

Your character has a relationship and a connection to Imoen/Irenicus. Whether it's a love or hate relationship. Far better than Arcanums shite. So you can throw away the ring, can you ignore it and the main quest completely? No. All RPGs require you to in some way swallow the plot hook set forth, to compromise for the sake of playing the fucking game.

There was plenty to do in both Arcanum and Baldur's Gate without swallowing the plot hook. At least in Arcanum there were ways to step into the plot from an unrelated hook, whereas Baldur's Gate required you to jump through all the right hoops.

And again, because you seem to have missed it - In Arcanum, the ring is forced upon you by a dying character. In Baldur's Gate, the premise that you're supposed to care about your annoying childhood buddy and your father figure are forced on you by the developers.

 

[aboyd]

And again, because you seem to have missed it - In Arcanum, the ring is forced upon you by a dying character. In Baldur's Gate, the premise that you're supposed to care about your annoying childhood buddy and your father figure are forced on you by the developers.

Hmm. Why did the game force you to care about your annoying childhood buddy and your father figure? The game didn't do that to me. In BG1, I was able to dump Imoen and not give another thought to my dead almost-dad. In BG2, while I had to pursue the villain, I was able to select my own motivation -- saving Imoen, revenge, or some third choice that I think I never selected.

 

[hotdognights]

To be honest, in Baldur's Gate I you could be wondering around doing what you do out of a desire to figure out what happened to your stepfather-or it could be because you can't go anywhere without being attacked by bounty hunters. Likewise, in Baldur's Gate II you were given throw-away responses that indicated whether you were looking for Imoen or chasing the evil wizard who tortured you.

Arcanum does have a somewhat similar general plot structure to Baldur's Gate, but the divergences are dramatic. The assassins hunting you aren't mindless thugs or mercenary bounty hunters, but a deceived religious cult that you can eventually enlighten you. You're told that you're the chosen one with a divine connection, but by a novice initiate of fairly who's interepeting a highly metaphorical, half-remembered prophecy. And the eventual plot twist surrounding that plot conceit blows the big reveal of Baldur's Gate-and KOTOR, for all its dramatic cut scenes-out of the water.

Baldur's Gate didn't have an ancient evil, but Arcanum turns that little cliche on its head to, as it turns out the supposedly ancient evil is actually a broken, and repentant, old man.

Similarities in the basic structure and plot of each game can be seen, and Arcanum has some pretty serious flaws that extend beyond the combat system, but the radically different approaches to story-telling and game design adopted by Bio and Troika is readily apparent as well.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

First of all, the real-time nature of the game encourages you to simply pick an initial tactic and watch it play out.

I can't honestly understand the logic in this. If anything real-time would encourage you to pause more to get a grip on the situation and get more time to make choices and enact them.

Secondly, I still assert that the random variance is too broad in a game that encourages you to "save often", and that comes from a fairly thoughtless adaptation of AD&D.

I'll admit the random variance is huge early on, but mostly due to some design issues. Most especially the fact that a warrior can get a very low armor class way too early and far too easily. Just out of Candlekeep it's not at all difficult to have an armor class of negative one as a warrior. That would make it so those bears right outside wouldn't hit you too often, but when they would it would be devastating. Thing is, a first level character shouldn't have access to the third best vanilla suit of armor that early. Now if said first level character only had access to the lowest tiers of armor, the fight might go very differently. That bear would hit far more often and it would have less variance as you would die against it....a lot.

Okay, so we'll chalk this one up to personal preference, I'd prefer interesting ways to employ the skills my character has, rather than skill use being dictated by situations. And that's pretty simple. If I want to fight a bear in melee combat, then sure, punish me and tax my healing resources, while ranged combat and such remain as an alternative where I can avoid damage, but use missile resources or combat spells.

But shouldn't the situation always partially dictate at least how you use your skills, if not which skills to utilize? Sometimes your skill of choice just won't work. Especially when it is a specialized combat skill. You wouldn't try to use your swimming skills in a desert, so why would one use their melee skills against a stronger melee combatant that can easily dispatch you with one blow? And especially when there is an easily viable alternative.

Certainly, but as soon as you set the precedent of unlikely success, then you're encouraging the player to use the game's systems to their fullest to attain that success,

That's a slippery slope you're walking down with that. Calling save/reload a "game mechanic" opens up a lot of questions and could set nasty precedents. So if save/reload is a game mechanic....would opening the console and using the cheat keys be one as well? It is after all using the game's systems to their fullest to achieve victory.

My line of thinking is that save/reload isn't a game mechanic as much as a meta-game one. The player is free to use/abuse it at their leisure. And seeing as a game's primary point is fun, many people might not find it too enjoyable to save compulsively and would police themselves.

If you illustrate that something is impossible (it doesn't have to be), the player moves on.

Define "impossible". Because I can see a lot of people might see it in different ways. For some one death might just be a sign to turn around and get some more experience and resources. For others a few tactics swaps or going all out with their resources might be enough "impossible" for them. And some might just find the cost of victory too high to not save/reload and fight another day.

High risk, high reward endeavours practically beg the player to quicksave and quickload until they succeed.

Not always. Only a metagaming player would do so. Others may simply avoid the challenge or save it for later when the risk is lessened.

I'd rather see that "risk" translated into an inevitably more difficult challenge, where luck still plays a part, but isn't quite such a determining factor.

Fair enough.

Thoughtlessly bringing a P&P system where failures cannot be backtracked into a CRPG where backtracking is an accepted standard is terrible design.

I wont be happy until everyone recognises that BG is pretty much as mainstream as they come, and it's only "hardcore" in the sense that it possesses many various products of frustratingly bad design that are likely to turn off the casual gamer.

Again, "hardcoreness" is in the eye of the beholder. While I'm sure everyone here thinks games like Wizardry 4 and Realms of Arkania are pretty "hardcore", there are (or at least were) people who feel RPGs with any graphical representation are too mainstream and not for the true "hardcore RPG player". Some people think grinding away for hours in a Final Fantasy game to fight some huge bonus monster for 3 hours of hitpoint erosion is hardcore. Some people think it's hardcore to run through KOTOR with no armor.

Point taken, but there are too many people who actually believe what they read in the gaming media, though that's another fight altogether.

Still....saying something like "Baldur's Gate revived the RPG genre" is a far cry from promoting utter genre stagnation or outright lies. I mean...the Infinity Engine helped things out and helped make a lot of RPGs quickly, like the Gold Box.

Here's where I take issue. Most people are more than willing to make the distinction between Diablo-likes and "real" RPGs.

I can't disagree with you more. Most people have never played a "real" RPG. Just go to GameFAQs, IGN, or some other generalized videogame site with forums and look around. It's pretty evident that most of the people there haven't ever played a game that wasn't on a console. And seeing as consoles only have "action-RPGs" and "jRPGs" that is what those people see as an RPG. Heck...a lot of people think The Legend of Zelda is an RPG.

Likewise, people recognise MMOGs as a very different beast for a different audience.

I guess. But producers might say why make an "RPG" when you can make it an MMORPG? Look at that Two Worlds game. They delayed the American release to add a massive multiplayer component to it. Producers fund the projects they see as profitable, and MMORPGs can be quite so. More so than regular RPGs often are.

However, Baldur's Gate-likes have become the expectation for "traditional" RPGs, even though the bar was set so much higher by Fallout.

Among who? All the people who's first "real" RPG was KOTOR or Jade Empire on the Xbox? A lot of the Shadows of Amn fanbase coincides with the Fallout fanbase in the "'hardcore' RPG crowd", and a good deal of the Baldur's Gate fans aren't too pleased with Bioware's direction. Think along the lines of Dagerfall fans outlook towards the Elder Scrolls series.....though Oblivion has yet to come for Bioware....maybe Mass Effect will be it...I've heard they're adding in level scaling.

And so in the place of solid "traditional" RPGs, we get Baldur's Gate-likes.

Honestly here, who exactly did Baldur's Gate really influence? Sure Bioware made more in the same vein, but isn't that to be expected? Companies typically "do what they do best" and continue to do so as long as there is money in it. Id with first person shooters, Rockstar with free-roaming games, Troika with CRPGs, video game companies typically specialize in a genre that they are successful in.

The only company to truly make a "Bioware style RPG" that wasn't Bioware was Obsidian. They made KOTOR 2. That's really about it. Heck, Neverwinter Nights 2 was co-developed by Bioware, so I really don't see Baldur's Gate's corrupting tendrils making their way into other companies soil.

I think it would be a difficult point to argue that Diablo and MMOGs are significantly responsible for the decline in solid CRPGs.

Not really. You're just going to have to assume two things for me. That Baldur's Gate (at least the second one) isn't an utter sack of shit and is at least something more like "My first CRPG" if not a decent one. Second, that "people" have no damn idea what an RPG really is. Simple enough? Here goes.

Just about every time a "big-name" CRPG came out since 1997, a different game overshadowed it that was also labled, at least roughly, as an RPG. Fallout came out in 1997. It sold about half a million units. Diablo also came out that year and it sold in the millions. And Final Fantasy 7 also came out and sold in the millions. And when Shadows of Amn was released in the year 2000, Diablo 2 overshadowed it by far.

Point is, the other games labled RPG always have seemed to trump the CRPG in sales, causing a lot of damage to it's momentum. Producers are more willing to give the green light to action-RPGs, as opposed to CRPGs. And when they do support a CRPG product, it will be rushed and not given the time it needs (look at Troika and Obsidian).

The developers following those trends are following the trail of money, and as such, I'd question their ability to create a worthwhile RPG, and also, they've always been here.

If anything, logic ought to dictate that their saturation of the mass-market would create biggere opportunities for niche markets, which should result in more "hardcore" RPGs. It's a shame development doesn't seem dictated by logic or opportunity, but rather by "conventional wisdom" and trends.

Look at the Codex news. Many of the indie games are action-RPGs in the vein of Diablo. Even indies want to make Diablo clones. It's that powerful. If it can do that...why can't it influence the RPG genre?

Doubtful. Nothing about BOS even gave so much as a glimmer of hope for success. It had failure all over it from the start,

I was merely thinking that without the competition of Dark Alliance, it might have sold much better.

and it's a much bigger step from "hardcore turn-based PC RPG" to console action game than it is from "PC action adventure with stats" to console action adventure with stats. BGDA was a modest success because it didn't stray very much from what the core Baldur's Gate audience was already enamoured with.

I doubt that is the case. Most fans of the PC Baldur's Gate regard the console games as trash, much like Fallout fans loathe PoS....though the Baldur's Gate fans just don't have the moxie.

But that's no reason why the development timeline couldn't have been lengthened to accomodate the extra work rather than cutting down the meat of the game. Wishful thinking on my part, but Interplay was flying high at the time.

Well...from what I know Torment was already rushed to begin with and some stuff was cut and slightly unfinished. Icewind Dale was actually delayed however, to polish. I'm going to guess a higher-up saw more potential in Icewind Dale as it was more "action-y".

I'm not so sure that it did. Diablo predated Fallout by some time, and I'm willing to assert that the vast majority of people consider Diablo to be more or less an independent sub genre from "actual" RPGs, in much the same way GTA's second generation exists outside of the pure racing genre, or for that matter, Mariokart is another obscenely popular racing game that failed to leave a mark on serious racing sims, because people are willing to accept it as an alternative rather than a replacement.

This is where I have to disagree again. People know what a serious racing game is and what a cartoony one is. They can point one out in a crowd. There is a rigid definition for each in place. But for RPGs, it's the opposite. There is no rigid defintion. Most people have never played a "true" CRPG. So games like Diablo, Final Fantasy, and Oblivion are what people think of when they think RPG.

Baldur's Gate is considered a contemporary of Fallout. Diablo is not. So when developing a game that is intended to be a contemporary of Fallout, Baldur's Gate is relevant. Diablo isn't.

Again, most people who know of Diablo don't know of Fallout or Baldur's Gate and thus assume Diablo is a good RPG. It's this ignorance that hurts the RPG genre more than some RPG which wasn't as good as Fallout being somewhat successful.

Actually, once you take the significant differences into account - the addition of squad based tactics, "N"PC recruits, non-procedural world, emphasis on story, Dungeon Siege starts to look a lot more like Baldur's Gate than Diablo. Same goes for Freedom Force.

You aren't going to like this answer, but I'm still going to give it. Diablo's premise is to fight stuff and get stuff. Baldur's Gate's premise is to be a character, make choices, and fight stuff to reach a conclusion. Plus Baldur's Gate (at least Shadows of Amn) had a good deal of dialogue and interaction. I'd say both Dungeon Siege and Freedom Force fall more into the fight stuff and grab stuff catagory, and hence were more influenced by Diablo.

Certainly, there are more developers aiming at multi-platform releases now with all the trappings that come with that, but that's just part of the problem. People are too quick to blame "console kiddies" for everything. If you're developing a PC exclusive hardcore RPG, "console kiddies" are completely irrelevant. Baldur's Gate and it's half dozen unholy spawn became the norm for what people accepted as PC exclusive hardcore RPGs. Bad thing.

Yeah, but when some developer makes a highly successful game with gameplay inferior to a game made in 1988 and can continue to make said game with graphics improvements over the years on a console and still be successful, doesn't the incentive to make a deep CRPG on the PC drop very much?

Agree to disagree. Nobody considers Diablo to actually be an RPG

Oh really?

Since it's purely hypothetical, it's hard to say. In any case, I'd rather a yawning gap waiting to be filled with RPGs, rather than having that gap filled with RPG-lites marketed as "hardcore".

People might just be saying - isn't it time we had another classic in the vein of Fallout? Instead, we're all eagerly awaiting Jack Bauer's first adventure into space.

People do want another great RPG like Fallout. Go look at the Bethesda Fallout 3 forum. There are a lot of angry, die-hards who want a damn Fallout sequel. And people want Dragon Age to be something good too. Heck, people wanted Oblivion to have the depth of Daggerfall. Problem is, the masses drown them out. The same masses whose only "RPG" experience is on a console or is limited to stuff like Diablo, Dungeon Siege, or Sacred.

Dogmeat has his own wikipedia entry. I don't recall Ian in Fallout 2 at all - not saying he wasn't there - but I still insist he's not really memorable.

I'm going to have to disagree on the part about him not being memorable, but I will at least partially agree it wasn't exactly "himself" that was memorable.

If you analyse both cases, you'd certainly find shortcomings in how they were implemented. I won't go into detail, but for one - "clone of iconic character" is a pretty good mould for a less than iconic character.

Point taken.

Those who find Minsc charming and memorable would likely be less enthused by a character featured in a later game who was a barbarian with a pet space-gerbil.

Funny you mention Bioware and rehashing character in the same sentence...

Just like how Mariokart (or even Blizzard's fantastic Rock n Roll racing) spelled doom for serious racing sims,

Again, the general public knows the difference and isn't ignorant of what each is.

Goldeneye killed PC FPS games,

You look at all the people who think it was the first FPS and the fact that ever since it came out more and more FPS have been designed with a console port in mind and it makes you think.

We're talking about polar extremes within a broad genre boundaries.

Are you sure about that?

Nobody setting out to make a deep RPG would use Diablo as a template.

Whose "deep RPG" are we talking about here? To someone who knows nothing of the RPGs the Codex loves, that souped up Diablo clone could be marketed as the epic, next-gen, RPG masterpiece.

 

[Naked Ninja]

And again, because you seem to have missed it - In Arcanum, the ring is forced upon you by a dying character. In Baldur's Gate, the premise that you're supposed to care about your annoying childhood buddy and your father figure are forced on you by the developers.

No, you seem to have missed it friend. That isn't the premise. I have just stated that you didn't have to care about either of them. At all. You can tell Imoen to fuck off and simply be chasing Irenicus for revenge. And I believe, even though my memory is fuzzy, in BG1 you were given a second "evil uncaring" option as well. You are propogating a falsehood mate.

Do you not understand the concept of TURNS and sequential combat? Have you played ToEE, by any chance? Did combat in both games (ToEE and BG2) was almost the same or did you manage to spot some slight differences?

Yes, I do understand turns. Having played PnP for about a decade, I have a fairly good grasp of the concept, thanks. However, I also know that the overwhelming majority of the time spent in pnp DnD is on admin. Rolling dice, looking up rules, calculating hit points, making saving rolls, etc. The bit where the player makes a choice of what to do next is almost always the fastest part of the process. A computer can do the "slow part" blindingly fast, there is no need for the kind of slow turn based mechanism you refer to. The fact that, under the hood in the engine, BG2 operates in 6 second slices for rounds means that you, as a human being, have enough time to weigh up whether you need to pause for more significant planning, or just let the fighters try to hit the troll with their swords again.

Played ToEE demo, combat was fine, didn't strike me as being particularly better or worse than RTwP, but the premise of the story didn't appeal to me enough to buy the game.

Thats the point I'm trying to make. Sure, you can prefer one system over the other, thats your personal preference, but don't make out like it breaks the system and rules. It doesn't.

 

[Crichton]

Let's start with the real time with pause thing that completely fucks up most DnD mechanics and rules. While PST and BG2 are obviously better *games*, ToEE is the only game out of the three that can be called a DnD game.

I thought you were older than that. In AD&D 2nd edition, you choose your action before initiative is rolled, so you don't know what the turn sequence will be when you take your action. This is much better represented by the RTwP of the IE games than the TB of Darksun: Shattered Lands or Pools of Radiance or Ultimate Adventures or whatnot. I still prefer Darksun, but it's nowhere near as accurate a representation of AD&D. ToEE is almost certainly a better representation of D&D 3.0/3.5 than BG is of AD&D 2nd, but that's they say in the old country, a horse of a different cow.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I can't disagree with you more. Most people have never played a "real" RPG. Just go to GameFAQs, IGN, or some other generalized videogame site with forums and look around. It's pretty evident that most of the people there haven't ever played a game that wasn't on a console. And seeing as consoles only have "action-RPGs" and "jRPGs" that is what those people see as an RPG. Heck...a lot of people think The Legend of Zelda is an RPG.

Aww, they've stolen our word! Once RPgaming meant happy days, now it's all about having bottom sex.

This is where I have to disagree again. People know what a serious racing game is and what a cartoony one is.

Well, at least realize that term "RPG™" as the made-up label it is, is about as non-descriptive as they come on top of that. One possible solution to your "dilemma" would be to come up with a dozen more terms, I'd stronlgy suggest to just let it go though. Really. The first approach is an argument to rush around not only re-enforcing walls around ideas, but frantically partitioning these little cell into dozens more. The more names you throw, the more restricted you'll become. Meaning that: Next time you see something as a True CRPG™, give yourself a slap.

I must be daft to hope that anybody would ever think anything different than "Blasphemy!" when reading this. Not in right wing community hive minds like this. And certainly not in The Codex™. Of all places... I must be mad. Just consider that:

First, those anciently evil publishers will fund what they want to fund, and peeplz will buy what they buy regardless. And second, contrary to the twisted logic that people employ who perceive themselves as being under threat (THEY TOOK OUR WORD AND GAMES AWAY!!!1), and similar, none of the ideas represented in those beloved, quality games like these will ever go away. Games like Bloodlines and Arcanum are a testament of that. The cult following that the original Fallout has is another. Imagine: A decade old game that makes random people turn heads when another installment is announced who have never actually played a Fallout game before!

Someone who knows nothing of the RPGs the Codex loves

Amongst the vastly different, varied games that all focussed on different things in more than two decades of some more, some less wonderful computer role-playing, of happily toying around with dozens of ideas and doing magic, there appear to be only like a handful that seem to fit the bill. Well, too bad. Oh, and if anybody ever feels like putting blame on anyone: Put it on publishers and/or developers who release games llike Bloodlines and Gothic3 in the condition they were released in. Seriously.

Also: I opted for installing IWD2 isntead of SOA. I was stuck in chapter5 the last time I booted that up. Gonna play now!

 

[Hory]

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is better than BG1 and 2 both as a game and as a DnD game.

It is more non-linear than both and offers at least more role-playing than BG1. It has enjoyable, varying and meaningful turn-based combat as opposed to the BG-style RTwP slugfests. Interface is okay. Graphics are neat. It's from 1993.

I agree. I've just finished Dark Sun 2, and it's just as good, and just as overrrated. It doesn't have the tensionate atmosphere of DS1 but it has other strong points. BG1 gets a lot more praise than it should. BG2 is a lot better, tho.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I thought you were older than that.

Almost 37. Old enough?

In AD&D 2nd edition, you choose your action before initiative is rolled, so you don't know what the turn sequence will be when you take your action.

And? Did I claim that knowing when your time to act is the core of turn-based gameplay? I said "sequential combat", so unless you are going to claim that 2E wasn't turn-based, we have nothing to argue about.

This is much better represented by the RTwP of the IE games...

I fail to see how games that completely change the nature of a certain game system can represent this system well.

 

[Section8]

No, you seem to have missed it friend. That isn't the premise. I have just stated that you didn't have to care about either of them. At all. You can tell Imoen to fuck off and simply be chasing Irenicus for revenge. And I believe, even though my memory is fuzzy, in BG1 you were given a second "evil uncaring" option as well. You are propogating a falsehood mate.

Is Irenicus even in Baldur's Gate? I've already clearly stated that I've played very little of the sequel, though I'll freely concede it does get a couple of "get out of jail free cards" for being a sequel. Was I happy that my "starting party" consists of all the annoying retards I hated from the first game? No. But I'm not going to make a fuss out of it, because sequels generally have to enforce certain "truths" as canon due to the variable nature of their predecessors.

Did I have anything to do with Imoen in my half-hour of Baldur's Gate 2? Not really. She got smacked by a mephit and despawned from the dungeon. Maybe I should try and do the same thing and save myself the hassle of actually escaping.

So let's go back to the discussion at hand, and throw in a similar viewpoint:

Why did the game force you to care about your annoying childhood buddy and your father figure? The game didn't do that to me. In BG1, I was able to dump Imoen and not give another thought to my dead almost-dad.

You could do that, but in doing so, you contradict the established story. The game tells you that you care about Gorion and Imoen and yet you don't. That disparity doesn't strike you as a failure somewhere along the line? Either you're failing the story, or it's failing you.

Now let's compare to Arcanum, where the game expects you to be curious about the ring, but doesn't have a decade or two of backstory connecting you to the ring, just waiting to be invalidated the second you decide the established facts within the game aren't relevant to you.

a lot

I'll get back to you soon.

 

[Delirious Nomad]

It didn't suck in the time of its release (it was a dry period for new rpgs) . It only sucks today, because we have better alternatives to replay.

 

[elander_]

Yes, I do understand turns. Having played PnP for about a decade, I have a fairly good grasp of the concept, thanks. However, I also know that the overwhelming majority of the time spent in pnp DnD is on admin. Rolling dice, looking up rules, calculating hit points, making saving rolls, etc. The bit where the player makes a choice of what to do next is almost always the fastest part of the process. A computer can do the "slow part" blindingly fast, there is no need for the kind of slow turn based mechanism you refer to. The fact that, under the hood in the engine, BG2 operates in 6 second slices for rounds means that you, as a human being, have enough time to weigh up whether you need to pause for more significant planning, or just let the fighters try to hit the troll with their swords again.

Played ToEE demo, combat was fine, didn't strike me as being particularly better or worse than RTwP, but the premise of the story didn't appeal to me enough to buy the game.

Thats the point I'm trying to make. Sure, you can prefer one system over the other, thats your personal preference, but don't make out like it breaks the system and rules. It doesn't.

Naked Ninja you should try playing TB games like XCom or the more modern version from the same author Laser Squad Nemesis to see why TB is so important.

You get bored and think TB is slow because you don't have to think much to win battles. DnD can be fun the first time we play it but it's wining strategy is rather trivial.

Sure that in small battles, for example, an Elemental Lich against your team of heroes the 6 secs round is almost like TB but when we have dozens of foes crowded in the same place it's impossible to control the situation as if you were playing a TB game.

Just the fact that we have this kind of battles that are won by grinding and brute force instead of an intelligent and balanced choice of opponents shows that RTwP is not meant for intelligent fights were strategic thinking is more important than being able to watch dozens of foes in a short period of time.

If you like the chaos and trill of action combat then play action rpgs but don't say that TB can be replaced by RTwP.

Aww, they've stolen our word! Once RPgaming meant happy days, now it's all about having bottom sex.

It's not just rpgs. It's also strategy games, adventure games that used to be most puzzle gameplay and other genres. Every kind of niche gameplay is being taken away from games and being replaced by gameplay mechanincs preferred by mainstream and casual players.

 

[Sodomy]

care to elaborate on those liberties? apart from a few spells i'm not aware of too much source-fudging...

Being able to increase stats as you level up and being able to change classes at will. Plus, the tattoos.