I'm at the end of my rope on this one: BG2.

[LoPan]

I have tried playing BG2 several times but I have never been able to get past that appaling opening since but recently. Finally getting past the opening and getting to the point where the game robs me of clemency and tells me to go get 20k instead of finding shit out on my own I ventured off with Korgan to ravage a tomb in search of a book with my party of four evil adventurers only to find myself in a series of reload screens, succumbing to mass buffing, and remembering quite poignantly that not only do I have Albion lying about I also have Betrayal at Krondor, neither of which I have played.

I have long lurked this forum (unless 'creep' or some other unsettling word is the proper one) for some time and I have come to highly respect the ideas expressed herein, but for some reason, and it would be all too convenient to claim it nostalgia, many say that BG2 is quite the RPG. I played BG1 and I liked it; sure, the pause and play combat was a bit wonky, and statistics were concerned with little but combat, but the general concept and the down-to-earth approach to the epic storyline was pleasant and I dare say I found the story, though the execution is a bit worrying, to be one of the better I have known in a video game.

I know well enough the ways to play these baldurs gates and icewind dales, I know the absurd exploit of the ranger/cleric and I know well the mind-angering advantage of the kensai/mage, but I refused to use either because if my memory serves me right Candlekeep is not in Kara-Tur and they only have a chapel of Oghma and one cannot learn the ways of the ranger inside a keep as keeps do not have forests and wildlife inside of them. I did have a party of four though, but even these I kept away from the power-crazy classes as I had heard the game was easy enough as it is, and it was. Easy and ludicrously tedious.

What I am asking you, with the sheer ramble of frustration with this piece of shit being reined back for now, is why anyone could consider this a good game let alone the codex (who/which if it disagrees with me on this must have a good and cruel reason to do so)? Decent, perhaps. Soldier of Fortune is decent, but good? I once read someone, or some people, lauding the encounter design--which was pulled off better in IWD and BG1 than it was in BG2--though the argument of this is really what makes for good encounter design.

To concise: Why is BG2 considered anything but a piece of shit, and why in goodness name would anyone give it a shot past the point entailed?

 

[FatCat]

To concise: Why is BG2 considered anything but a piece of shit

Because "Codex is so hurr durr edgy" , some really dislike it others pretend to do so only to be accepted .
It's a great RPG.

P.S Exmit is a faggot.

 

[LoPan]

To concise: Why is BG2 considered anything but a piece of shit

Because "Codex is so hurr durr edgy" , some really dislike it others pretend to do so only to be accepted .
It's a great RPG.

P.S Exmit is a faggot.

But why? I understand we all have different tastes in these and all matters and that is more than entirely acceptable, but I consider BG2 an intolerable piece of shit; then again, I once enjoyed Oblivion and now I cannot stand it for the life of me so clearly these things are are variable to experience and reason. I cannot find anything redeemable in BG2, and I wonder what people find in it that I do not.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

o hai guise, why is BG2 such a POS?

ps I really liked BG1

Giving 1/10 here would be a huge stretch.

 

[Terpsichore]

I enjoyed BG2, i also enjoyed replaying it after 10 years, so its not exactly retarded nostalgia.

I don't really understand your issue with the game.

 

[FatCat]

To concise: Why is BG2 considered anything but a piece of shit

Because "Codex is so hurr durr edgy" , some really dislike it others pretend to do so only to be accepted .
It's a great RPG.

P.S Exmit is a faggot.

But why? I understand we all have different tastes in these and all matters and that is more than entirely acceptable, but I consider BG2 an intolerable piece of shit; then again, I once enjoyed Oblivion and now I cannot stand it for the life of me so clearly these things are are variable to experience and reason. I cannot find anything redeemable in BG2, and I wonder what people find in it that I do not.

You can't like pizza if you hate cheese.

 

[Baron]

Makes more sense now.

I ventured off with Korgan to ravage a tomb...

Homosexual code

 

[Black]

Both BG1 and 2 are pieces of shit in the rpg department.

 

[LoPan]

To concise: Why is BG2 considered anything but a piece of shit

Because "Codex is so hurr durr edgy" , some really dislike it others pretend to do so only to be accepted .
It's a great RPG.

P.S Exmit is a faggot.

But why? I understand we all have different tastes in these and all matters and that is more than entirely acceptable, but I consider BG2 an intolerable piece of shit; then again, I once enjoyed Oblivion and now I cannot stand it for the life of me so clearly these things are are variable to experience and reason. I cannot find anything redeemable in BG2, and I wonder what people find in it that I do not.

You can't like pizza if you hate cheese.

But I like the cheese, or the pizza, whatever part of this metaphor or simile is which and what I enjoy the IE engine and the rulseset, even the combat with its many strange flaws and exploits; however, in BG2 combat ends up being either against trash-mobs or hard fights resolved by a nigh mandatory reload followed by mass-buffing. It his mainly a dungeon crawl, which I am not averse to, that chiefly involves buffing which, with the lenient resting system, quickly turns tedious. So what is in this game that makes people like it or recall their time with it fondly, for I see nothing in it what so ever; poor combat, terrible story. Though the story part is hardly fair, really, I have not played through it, but what I have heard and experienced (fuck you, Imoen, fuck you.) the game is hardly promising. BG1 had a slow start but BG2 is just ludicrous, at this point surely there should be something to catch my interest in the story but all it has supplied me is several reasons to fuck off and do something else.

 

[Zed]

Stop spamming bullshit in RPG Discussion Exmit. Fuck off to GD where you belong, shittiest poster on the codex motherfucker. Reported your spam and I hope you get permabanned.

As for BG2, the strengths are
1) NPCs and NPC interaction.
2) Some pretty epics battles (dragons, liches etc. "lol they r ez" well if you figure them out of course they are, nerd).
3) Class specializations, the amount of NPCs and two pretty distinct ways to play through a pretty big portion of the game gives good re-playability.
4) Some really nice side-quests and NPC quests.
5) Music and voice acting.

The story is so-so but better than the average DnD story I suppose. Some dungeons have tedious design, some are better.

Overall my favorite RPG.

 

[Varn]

The OP LoPan is a fucken' Neckbeard faggot.

Having said that, I liked BG1 way better than BG2. I think that's because I played BG1 like 12 times before BG2 came out, eagerly awaiting BG2 and expecting way too much from it. ToB was boring too.

Dunno what it was about the game, just wasn't quite as good as the original. The music, the plot, the paper dolls and character portraits, all of it was just a bit off.

I think it really comes down to the fact that high level D & D is just boring for some reason. Every second there's a +4 weapon flying around or a +3 prot ring, etc. The whole RPG aspect becomes shit when your characters are gods.

 

[Terpsichore]

ToB was fucking garbage and felt like an action rpg, specially when you unlocked shit like improved whirlwind and smite.

 

[LoPan]

Stop spamming bullshit in RPG Discussion Exmit. Fuck off to GD where you belong, shittiest poster on the codex motherfucker. Reported your spam and I hope you get permabanned.

As for BG2, the strengths are
1) NPCs and NPC interaction.
2) Some pretty epics battles (dragons, liches etc. "lol they r ez" well if you figure them out of course they are, nerd).
3) Class specializations, the amount of NPCs and two pretty distinct ways to play through a pretty big portion of the game gives good re-playability.
4) Some really nice side-quests and NPC quests.
5) Music and voice acting.

The story is so-so but better than the average DnD story I suppose. Some dungeons have tedious design, some are better.

Overall my favorite RPG.

1) Where? Who? So far all NPC's have been either generic or perturbing.
2) Coo! Having played BG1 I do doubt any battle will find me finding it epic in due to lack of challenge, but fair enough, here for the story after all and sometimes there is story in a battle.
3)I have no idea what this means, class specializations in the NPC's, in me? I know there is a cavalier out there (or was it an inquisitor?) which is pretty specific, in either case I do not see how this matters as statistics have nothing to do outside combat and meticulous trap detection.
4)The only one I've heard of as universally appreciated is this Firkraag fellow, or however it was spelled.
5)Music is the standard fantasy fare and voice acting is irrelevant in any game that features it in minority, in minority voice acting is little but flare which is nice but ultimately as useless as fancying up the graphics from BG1.

I do feel overly critical, what am I going on here besides hearsay? I'll go on with the game however reluctantly, I have not been supplied with a reason for this game being anything but tedium and drag so I suppose I'll have to investigate much further. Though I see no reason why in this our glorious 21th century no one has yet to give me their explicit reasons for liking the game, we live in the age of deconstruction for goodness sake (though I dare omit Terpsichore and Varn from this outcry).

 

[pipka]

The only point to BG2 was to be the predecessor of DAO. DAO made improvements on everything: graphics, title logo, romances, fedex quests, walking animation, main menu buttons.
People stuck in the past or stuck with old PC are those who insist that it is a good game.

@OP: Otherwise, repost your topic here : http://www.sorcerers.net/. They can answer your questions more accurately.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I consider BG2 an intolerable piece of shit ... I once enjoyed Oblivion

It sounds like you started playing games with Xbox and man, that was awesome, but now you're 18 and have to criticize everything to be grown up and cool. Why else could you have liked Oblivion at any point in time but be so hard on BG2, a much superior game in all regards?

That aside, BG2 simply isn't as good as BG1. It's not shit considering the general level of all RPG's but I don't find it so enjoyable to play that I'd bother finishing it, it's too much stuffed with boring crap.

 

[Gord]

I remember being very frustrated with BG2 combat until I got the hang of it. After that it became fun enough.
Of course, buffing your party up the yin yang and/or spamming your wands is important. It also had a lot of nice battles with enemy spell casters.

There's also some class-specific stuff, which even if rudimentary is already much more than almost all the other games have.

Also, get Jan Jansen.

Well, if you don't like it no matter what, stop playing it.

 

[saenz]

The only point to BG2 was to be the predecessor of DAO.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Yeah, casters set to disable various protections + fighters go kill him x2000.

Though it is funny to backstab them for massive damage and watch their cheats fly off on their scattered body parts. When you're not interrupted by some BS cutscene or some such thing.

 

[zool]

Along with what Zed posted, the reason I still sometimes replay BG2 is its nostalgia value.

 

[skuphundaku]

Stop spamming bullshit in RPG Discussion Exmit. Fuck off to GD where you belong, shittiest poster on the codex motherfucker. Reported your spam and I hope you get permabanned.

As for BG2, the strengths are
1) NPCs and NPC interaction.
2) Some pretty epics battles (dragons, liches etc. "lol they r ez" well if you figure them out of course they are, nerd).
3) Class specializations, the amount of NPCs and two pretty distinct ways to play through a pretty big portion of the game gives good re-playability.
4) Some really nice side-quests and NPC quests.
5) Music and voice acting.

The story is so-so but better than the average DnD story I suppose. Some dungeons have tedious design, some are better.

Overall my favorite RPG.

1) Where? Who? So far all NPC's have been either generic or perturbing.
2) Coo! Having played BG1 I do doubt any battle will find me finding it epic in due to lack of challenge, but fair enough, here for the story after all and sometimes there is story in a battle.
3)I have no idea what this means, class specializations in the NPC's, in me? I know there is a cavalier out there (or was it an inquisitor?) which is pretty specific, in either case I do not see how this matters as statistics have nothing to do outside combat and meticulous trap detection.
4)The only one I've heard of as universally appreciated is this Firkraag fellow, or however it was spelled.
5)Music is the standard fantasy fare and voice acting is irrelevant in any game that features it in minority, in minority voice acting is little but flare which is nice but ultimately as useless as fancying up the graphics from BG1.

I do feel overly critical, what am I going on here besides hearsay? I'll go on with the game however reluctantly, I have not been supplied with a reason for this game being anything but tedium and drag so I suppose I'll have to investigate much further. Though I see no reason why in this our glorious 21th century no one has yet to give me their explicit reasons for liking the game, we live in the age of deconstruction for goodness sake (though I dare omit Terpsichore and Varn from this outcry).

For me, one of the most important things needed in order to be able to call a game "good" is being able to finish the game while missing a lot (if not most) of the content. What that means is that if you want to run through it at 500mph, fine, if you want to go obsessive-compulsive and discover and do as much as you can, fine again, as long as you get to make this decision. What BG2 has is quite a lot of content that you might miss altogether(as opposed to the present day so called RPGs). Mind you, it's not on the same level as Fallout 2, but it's still pretty good.

I'm not a D&D veteran, having discovered D&D by playing BG1, so all the problems that come from the D&D ruleset or from the implementation of the D&D ruleset mean nothing to me. As long as the D&D implementation works well enough to not be distracting, then it's good enough. I, pretty much, despise dungeon crawlers, this being the reason I couldn't bring myself to play more than a couple of days of Icewind Dale, and even though there is some dungeon crawling involved, it never felt tedious to me because the game always throws something new and interesting at you. If that something kills you and your party in 2 seconds, reload. I never had and, probably, never will have a problem with that. If you can't get past, go do something else and come back later. There's enough to do without having to grind in order to progress.

 

[felipepepe]

BG II has the most memmorable encounters & boss battles in any RPG: Kangaxx, the Dragons (except the boring one in elven city), the Mindflayers, The Drow City, that crazy mage in the Sphere...

The NPCs are very well done too, having Edwin in your party makes it 10x more fun, and the way they interact between thenselves and with the player are way more advanced than any DA 2 or Mass Effect.

Even loot-wise it is a very nice game, there are some great itens like the talking sword. And gathering itens for crafting legendary weapons really felt like exploring the lore & doing something "special", not just filling the "(0/1)" of the quest log the game throwed in your face.

Even if you don't like BG II, you gotta admit it is a far more complex & well-done game that any modern RPG.

 

[Black]

BG II has the most memmorable encounters & boss battles in any RPG: Kangaxx, the Dragons (except the boring one in elven city), the Mindflayers, The Drow City, that crazy mage in the Sphere...

Good to know, guess that's why when I think of "memorable battles" stuff like Nessie from Wiz 8 pops into my head, not bg2.

Even if you don't like BG II, you gotta admit it is a far more complex & well-done game that any modern RPG.

Define modern RPG.

 

[Delirius]

but I refused to use either because if my memory serves me right Candlekeep is not in Kara-Tur and they only have a chapel of Oghma and one cannot learn the ways of the ranger inside a keep as keeps do not have forests and wildlife inside of them

 

[LoPan]

but I refused to use either because if my memory serves me right Candlekeep is not in Kara-Tur and they only have a chapel of Oghma and one cannot learn the ways of the ranger inside a keep as keeps do not have forests and wildlife inside of them

Correct.

And to felipepepe,
Of course BG2 is far better than any modern RPG, but that is hardly saying much because I suppose that is comparing it to all Bioware games past BG2, all Bethesda games since Morrowind and so on, 'Define modern RPG' as Mr. Black said; however, comparing BG2 to all RPG's, not just the 'modern' ones, has it rate a near disaster. Compare BG2 to Fallout (even Fallout 2), the work of Troika, Pools of Radiance or even its predecessor, and it is hard to find it anything but a poor game.

 

[felipepepe]

Even if you don't like BG II, you gotta admit it is a far more complex & well-done game that any modern RPG.

Define modern RPG.

I'm speaking chronologically, so let's say, games released in the last 10-15 years. I'm yet to see a game with so much content as this one, with the possible exception of MMO's.