Baldur's Gate Smaug and Lilura argue about Baldur's Gate, RTwP vs TB, etc

[Popiel]

I have no reason to play Fallout at all anytime soon.

 

[smaug]

I have no reason to play Fallout at all anytime soon.

Because unlike you I actually having a lot of fun going through older RPGs and seeing how they were designed. No reason not to respect history.

I will obviously play Fallout just not anytime soon.

 

[Lilura]

BG1 is basically Fellowship of the Ring Faerun edition. You are an inexperienced young person who has now been cast out of a quiet and sheltered existence and flung into a world full of danger and uncertainty. A big chunk of the game is "empty" for a reason. The game is basically an open world adventure that's mostly about exploration and sight seeing until you hit Baldur's Gate. I don't have an issue with that set up and i can see why people prefer BG1 over BG2, since the latter threw all that out of the window. The problem with both of those games is the often childish writing and facile pandering. I mean i had no ideas who Elminster or Drizzt were when i first played the game but now that i do it's kinda cringy that they put those encounters in there. The whole Bhaalspawn shit was also pretty gratuitous. Saverok's political machinations were far more interesting.

I mean they are both good games but the Bioware retardation was always there from the start. Comparing them with something like Icewind Dale it becomes a toss up between choosing something that's much more ambitious and large scale but has a lot of retardation in it and something that is more pedestrian in scope but is mostly free of cringe inducing childishness. All the IE engines games have similar "trade offs", you have to take them or leave them.

How was the Bhaal-lore "gratuitous"?

And yes, BG's map-contiguity is underrated by theme-park loving BG2 fags. First-phase contiguity:

 

[Shadenuat]

I mean i had no ideas who Elminster or Drizzt were when i first played the game but now that i do it's kinda cringy that they put those encounters in there

Young hero meets mysterious old wise mentor who gives em some sage advice. Seems to me as traditional as it gets. +it would be obvious Elminster be interested in something as important as Bhaal prophecy.

Drizzt was sorta pandering I guess tho.

And yes, BG's map-contiguity is underrated by theme-park loving BG2 fags. First-phase contiguity:

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Curratum]

If you aren't tickled by opening the fog of war on those freeroam BG1 maps, if you don't feel a tingle of anticipation as you open up the map, then I have no idea why you're playing RPGs at all.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It was only with the advent of 3.x that levels went crazy and 4th made it even crazier with 30 levels pre-Epic (or functional equivalent).

Is high levels actually a thing in third edition table top games?

The reason why second edition topped at low levels is because of how long it took to reach really high levels in real life playing. Only in video games one would expect to get to epic levels, i can't imagine third edition would be any different from second edition in that respect, but then i don't play pnp so i don't know.

 

[smaug]

If you aren't tickled by opening the fog of war on those freeroam BG1 maps, if you don't feel a tingle of anticipation as you open up the map, then I have no idea why you're playing RPGs at all.

I prefer blobber exploration with
Skills and magic tied to mapping and exploring. (Wizardry and probably M&M)

 

[Lilura]

Drizzt was sorta pandering I guess tho.

Who cares? It's one tiny encounter.

 

[Lutte]

And yes, BG's map-contiguity is underrated by theme-park loving BG2 fags. First-phase contiguity:

BG2 certainly had a theme park vibe to it because of the great variety of very different locales you explored. Yet, they had substantially more thought given to them than the empty wildlands of bg1, and the contiguity of the map is nice but not a particularly game changing gameplay feature other than just "look, the game world is superficially complete" sort of thing.
The variety of ways you can handle the infiltration into the drow city is to this day the most memorable experience I've had in any IE game. And contributed more to making the world feel real than being able to explore places that, IRL, I wouldn't care about in my own country to begin with.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, there's a lot of "tiny" things like that, so they sort of pile up after a while. I almost got the impression Bioware didn't really take this stuff seriously. Like the good old doctors were self-conscious or something that they were doing some nerdy game so they all tried to save face by playing it for laughs.

I mean, compared to what Bioware has done afterwards Baldur's Gate is of Shakespearan proportions, but still, flaws are flaws. It all depends on how much you think they can ruin the game for you.

 

[Lyric Suite]

And yes, BG's map-contiguity is underrated by theme-park loving BG2 fags. First-phase contiguity:

BG2 certainly had a theme park vibe to it because of the great variety of very different locales you explored. Yet, they had substantially more thought given to them than the empty wildlands of bg1, and the contiguity of the map is nice but not a particularly game changing gameplay feature other than just "look, the game world is superficially complete" sort of thing.
The variety of ways you can handle the infiltration into the drow city is to this day the most memorable experience I've had in any IE game.

Is there a way to do open world exploration and not have empty areas though? I kinda feel one is missing the point if you expected every area in BG1 to be filled with interesting shit to the brim.

I mean, the game is trying to be Fellowship of the Ring, and it's not like Frodo and company ran into shit every ten feet or something.

 

[Tacgnol]

It was only with the advent of 3.x that levels went crazy and 4th made it even crazier with 30 levels pre-Epic (or functional equivalent).

Is high levels actually a thing in third edition table top games?

The reason why second edition topped at low levels is because of how long it took to reach really high levels in real life playing. Only in video games one would expect to get to epic levels, i can't imagine third edition would be any different from second edition in that respect, but then i don't play pnp so i don't know.

Some people run epic level campaigns where you start high level, but it's pretty rare in most regular campaigns to hit ultra high levels.

In Pathfinder Adventure Paths (which are usually 6 book campaigns), you usually hit level 17 by the end. 17 is pretty high, but that 1-17 can take years depending on pace of play.

 

[Lutte]

Is there a way to do open world exploration and not have empty areas though? I kinda feel one is missing the point if you expected every area in BG1 to be filled with interesting shit to the brim.

I do miss the point in that I've never enjoyed any open world game to begin with. I only ended up playing Morrowind by pressure of a friend, who kept insisting that there was something to it, so I forced myself for a decent amount of time before I did find something to like (I really like the setting and game world) but the gameplay made me want to uninstall many times during the run. I prefer Fallout, Arcanum, BG2 style abstract world maps over open world contingiuous travelling through empty swathes.
I get why some may like this stuff, but it's not for me.

 

[Lilura]

The maps are not empty, you 'tards. They all have content, and also an aura of mystery that BG2 lacks. Plus, height-mapped terrain. BG2 almost has no height-mapped terrain in its wilderness areas. Also, almost none of BG2's wilderness maps are barren:

 

[Roguey]

Actually SoU > HotU > OC. Of course HotU is larger/longer but it's a garbled mess, SoU at least is consistent and cleanly executed

This is the opposite of a decade+ long consensus.

I hated the opening of SoU, but I also hated the opening of HotU, so fine, I will give it another shot.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Why even play Goldbox Games in a world where Tyranny exists? It's still RtwP but now it has cooldowns. Also neat looking.

 

[smaug]

Why even play Goldbox Games in a world where Tyranny exists? It's still RtwP but now it has cooldowns. Also neat looking.

 

[Lilura]

I hated the opening of SoU

It picks up. Trust me. Great li'l campaign.

 

[Lutte]

Height mapping just makes me die at the lack of climbing skills in those games. Just don't do this. Walking through maps in IE games is sluggish enough as it is.

 

[smaug]

Height mapping just makes me die at the lack of climbing skills in those games.

Would have been nice. To have some skills tied to exploration, would have made exploring generic terrain somewhat interesting.

 

[Lilura]

Height mapping just makes me die at the lack of climbing skills in those games. Just don't do this. Walking through maps in IE games is sluggish enough as it is.

Height-mapping facilitates terrain-based tactics. If you want to climb, go and play Jagged Alliance 2.

 

[Lyric Suite]

How was the Bhaal-lore "gratuitous"?

I don't know, it felt cheesy and out of place in the low level setting of the game.

 

[Curratum]

I brofisted a Lilura post and Lilura tagged one of mine with Agree. Next thing you know, hell will freeze over.

 

[smaug]

Turn-based is slow and outdated, it takes you out of the moment and every combat takes half an hour. Rtwp, while often annoying in clusterfucky fights, sacrifices precision for what is decidedly a more realistic presentation, because that lizardman archer definitely isn't going to stop and wait for your archer to poke him first just because you rolled better initiative.

I can understand people liking the precision and planning of TB, what bothers me is that the same people are usually retarded enough to NOT be able to grasp why other people actually like rtwp.

Just as a reminder.

 

[Lutte]

Height mapping just makes me die at the lack of climbing skills in those games. Just don't do this. Walking through maps in IE games is sluggish enough as it is.

Height-mapping facilitates terrain-based tactics. If you want to climb, go and play Jagged Alliance 2.

I did and I love it. It's not really a fix for that RPG craving though, as good as it is, it's a very focused tactics combat game.