Dark Sun vs Baldurs Gate

[Micormic]

Like I said, if I had played POR in 1988 I probably would of liked it but all they did was re release the same game 10+ times and make it more linear and shitty every time. These aren't hard games, they're repetitive, and DND combat fucking blows so why do I care about simulating it?

Sorry, man. I didn't know you were this bad off. I guess I won't kick you when you're down. I'll just leave you alone to wallow in your misery.

If you enjoy them I don't care, to each their own. Essentially though the gold box games are the early 90's version of icewind dale ie fucking boring games I didn't waste my life on.

 

[Strange Fellow]

GB games do have their share of repetitiveness in the encounter departement. Of the ones I've played I'd say Secret of the Silver Blades and the first Savage Frontier game have too much "trash" combat, and world map encounter frequency could be slashed across the board. It all depends on how much you like GB gameplay and how high your tolerance is for non-stop fighting. After all, that's what you play them for.

 

[Jacob]

I told you guys, if we allow this "Crusader" to voice her opinion, it's going to be the end of an age. Welcome to the Liluran age, folks, it's now inevitable.

 

[octavius]

In between Dark sun/Bak in 93 and when I got fallout in 98(we got fallout 1 and 2 at the same time for christmas so it had to of been 98) and soon after when we got BG1. In that 5ish year period the only RPG that came out that I didn't think was complete shit was like....Diablo 1? Which is a game I really don't have good feelings about lol. I don't remember if I had mm6 before fallout 1/BG1.



Either way the point I'm trying to make is for a period of like 5 years, for myself an I'm sure some other Dark Sun was as good as it got. Nothing else was coming out until Fallout and later BG1 opened the floodgates

The best CRPGs in that period were shareware games like Nahlakh and The Aethra Chronicles, and if you don't insist on them being Strategy games: Xcom and Jagged Alliance.

 

[JarlFrank]

Now, Dark Sun vs BG2 would be a more interesting discussion because BG2 is actually a good game.
BG1 loses by default because of how bland, boring and generic it is.

 

[Micormic]

In between Dark sun/Bak in 93 and when I got fallout in 98(we got fallout 1 and 2 at the same time for christmas so it had to of been 98) and soon after when we got BG1. In that 5ish year period the only RPG that came out that I didn't think was complete shit was like....Diablo 1? Which is a game I really don't have good feelings about lol. I don't remember if I had mm6 before fallout 1/BG1.



Either way the point I'm trying to make is for a period of like 5 years, for myself an I'm sure some other Dark Sun was as good as it got. Nothing else was coming out until Fallout and later BG1 opened the floodgates

The best CRPGs in that period were shareware games like Nahlakh and The Aethra Chronicles, and if you don't insist on them being Strategy games: Xcom and Jagged Alliance.

I never played the first two you mentioned, Xcom I completely forgot about and JA1 I sadly only played later on, but yeah good call on x and ja1. Both slipped my mind.

 

[Micormic]

GB games do have their share of repetitiveness in the encounter departement. Of the ones I've played I'd say Secret of the Silver Blades and the first Savage Frontier game have too much "trash" combat, and world map encounter frequency could be slashed across the board. It all depends on how much you like GB gameplay and how high your tolerance is for non-stop fighting. After all, that's what you play them for.

The ones I owned and played as a kid were the first 3 in the main series (POR, COTAB(?), and SOTSB), I had one of the buck rogers game which I hardly played(don't remember which). I also owned gateway to the savage frontier and I think I had one of the dragonlance games but again I don't remember.



POR was easily the best in terms of non linearity and encounter design, second was COTAB(?) which was the 2nd one they made. After that I remember all of them sucking, especially Buck Rogers(I'm pretty sure it was countdown to doomsday I owned).

 

[octavius]

The only weak to mediocre Gold Box games were Gateway, Secret and the second Buck Rogers games. The rest were good to great, and they had combat and encounter design only to be rivaled by Disciples of Steel IMO.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Speaking of Buck Rogers, does anyone know how to save if I'm playing it on DosBox? When I try to create a character it tells me to insert a floppy disk to save. I'm sure there's a way to make a virtual floppy or something, but I have no idea how to do it.

Micormic how about we say under 30 then?

 

[Strange Fellow]

Speaking of Buck Rogers, does anyone know how to save if I'm playing it on DosBox? When I try to create a character it tells me to insert a floppy disk to save. I'm sure there's a way to make a virtual floppy or something, but I have no idea how to do it.

I've never encountered that in a GB game before (using abandonware versions). I fired it up just now to test, and I can create characters and save the game just fine. Which version are you using? I'm assuming you're talking about Countdown to Doomsday.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Speaking of Buck Rogers, does anyone know how to save if I'm playing it on DosBox? When I try to create a character it tells me to insert a floppy disk to save. I'm sure there's a way to make a virtual floppy or something, but I have no idea how to do it.

I've never encountered that in a GB game before (using abandonware versions). I fired it up just now to test, and I can create characters and save the game just fine. Which version are you using? I'm assuming you're talking about Countdown to Doomsday.

Yeah, I just used the abandonware version. It might be because I'm playing it on Mac.

update: downloaded it from the other abandonware site and it works fine. not sure I have the patience for this kind of thing anymore, though.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Ah, then I can't help you, I have no idea how Macs work.
Fake edit: I tried the version from Abandonia and I got an error when trying to save a character. Maybe you've got a borked install. The Myabandonware files are good.

 

[M. AQVILA]

If this was DS vs BG2 then it's BG2 all the way. DS vs BG though? Meh. The only thing I liked in DS was the C&C.

 

[Lilura]

I'll just leave this here: BG vs. BG2.

 

[Fairfax]

I'll just leave this here: BG vs. BG2.

Is your IE ranking BG>PST>BG2>IWD2>IWD? I feel like you've said conflicting stuff in Codex posts and retrospectives over the years.

 

[Lilura]

I feel like you've said conflicting stuff in Codex posts and retrospectives over the years.

Such as?

(I don't doubt that I may have to clear the odd thing up.)

(PS:T is definitely the worst IE game because its combat sucks ass and swallows, and its dialogue is torrential and overrated.)

 

[Roguey]

HP rolls should never be random, that's just thoughtless and pointlessly punitive.

 

[Micormic]

I feel like you've said conflicting stuff in Codex posts and retrospectives over the years.

Such as?

(I don't doubt that I may have to clear the odd thing up.)

(PS:T is definitely the worst IE game because its combat sucks ass and swallows, and its dialogue is torrential and overrated.)

Aww someone has trouble reading ;'(



I don't see how any sane person wouldn't have IWD 2 as the worst IE game. I'm not as crazy about PST as some people( I still liked it) but IWD 2 was actual dogshit.

 

[Fairfax]

I feel like you've said conflicting stuff in Codex posts and retrospectives over the years.

Such as?

(I don't doubt that I may have to clear the odd thing up.)

(PS:T is definitely the worst IE game because its combat sucks ass and swallows, and its dialogue is torrential and overrated.)

Such as this:

PS:T came out too early in the Infinity Engine's life-cycle. It was too ambitious and fell short in combat (as a result of abysmal encounter design and several other design decisions that made the combat abysmal). In IWD2's spot it might have been GOAT but, as it stands, it's only ARGUABLE that it deserves the sort of reverence that it gets on the Codex.

Considering it was voted #1 CRPG of all time by the Codex, saying it's "arguable" that it deserves such reverence implies that you find it good enough to be in the discussion.

It also used to be in your top 3 RPGs:

Where you felt you got the complete experience and while everything can be improved to infinity by adding and adding stuff and patches, which games you thought were just amazingly complete for what they were?

Mmm... imo nothing is above Super Metroid.

But since this is the Codex, that answer probably won't suffice. So I'll go with Fallout 1, Planescape: Torment and Jagged Alliance 2. More modern games somewhat below this tier might be Dark Souls and Warband, maybe.

Not calling you out, by the way. It's just that you've turned on the IE games in the last couple of years, so I was wondering how your list might've changed.

 

[Lilura]

Yeah, I was far too even-handed in that first quote. It doesn't deserve to be in the 'Dex top 10.

The other quote is from four years ago. It's disgusting that I equated PS:T with Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2. I've become much more anti-storyfag and much more pro-combat in the last few years.

Current IE ranking would be: BG > IWD2 > IWD > BG2 > PS:T.

While IWD and IWD2 have better combat encounter design than BG, BG achieved more than any of them (being seminal), its explorative aspect is valued by me, and Durlag's Tower is the best mega-dungeon in RPG history.

 

[Fairfax]

Yeah, I was far too even-handed in that first quote. It doesn't deserve to be in the 'Dex top 10.

The other quote is from four years ago. It's disgusting that I equated PS:T with Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2. I've become much more anti-storyfag and much more pro-combat in the last few years.

Does that mean you'll also turn on MotB and Arcanum?

Current IE ranking would be: BG > IWD2 > IWD > BG2 > PS:T.

While IWD and IWD2 have better combat encounter design than BG, BG achieved more than any of them (being seminal), its explorative aspect is valued by me, and Durlag's Tower is the best mega-dungeon in RPG history.

Are you including expansions? And I know you're a 3E supremacist, but I'm still surprised that you think IWD2>IWD.

By the way, you should fix this in your article about the "Renaissance":

A lot of people are gonna disagree with my view on RTwP, and I just don't care: AD&D is aturn-based game and ToEE showed what you can do with such a combat system.

AD&D is phase-based (the superior format).

 

[Nex]

Me Luglug me smash!

 

[Lilura]

Does that mean you'll also turn on MotB and Arcanum?

I doubt it. They have too much going for them and nowhere near the walls of text of PS:T.

Are you including expansions? And I know you're a 3E supremacist, but I'm still surprised that you think IWD2>IWD.

Way more replayability due to 3.0 builds. Better reactivity. More interesting combat encounter design. More complex area design. Lots of stat checks. Polished engine (turn off direct3d). Pushes the engine to its utmost limits. Best IE UI.

IWD has better pacing, more traditional adventuring, Jeremy Soule OST > Inon Zur, David Ogden Steers narration > "Aerie", harder HoF mode, longer campaign (two expansions, but they're not that good. I stick with 1.06).

AD&D is phase-based (the superior format).

By "turn-based" I mean a general system of combat in which a discrete time scale is employed that allows for deliberative actions based on VISIBLE initiative order, visible and measured movement opportunities, visible durations for buffs/debuffs, spellcasting visual aids, individual as opposed to automated attacks with remaining ApR shown on the cursor, and so on.

 

[Beastro]

Me Luglug me smash!

Nice to see someone else has watched some gamehorder.

Unless that's you, sire?

 

[Fairfax]

Way more replayability due to 3.0 builds. Better reactivity. More interesting combat encounter design. More complex area design. Lots of stat checks. Polished engine (turn off direct3d). Pushes the engine to its utmost limits. Best IE UI.

IWD has better pacing, more traditional adventuring, Jeremy Soule OST > Inon Zur, David Ogden Steers narration > "Aerie", harder HoF mode, longer campaign (two expansions, but they're not that good. I stick with 1.06).

I see. I just thought you'd value IWD's advantages more and find IWD2's low points more objectionable.

By "turn-based" I mean a system of combat in which a discrete time scale is employed that allows for deliberative actions based on VISIBLE initiative order, visible and measured movement opportunities, visible durations for buffs/debuffs, spellcasting visual aids, individual as opposed to automated attacks with ApR shown, and so on, a la ToEE.

"Deliberative actions based on visibile initiative order" would break many of AD&D's mechanics (and go against the game's spirit). Although still not ideal, RtwP can preserve a lot more of AD&D's combat system. I agree that ToEE style is the way to do 3E, though.