Matt Chat Thread

[KazikluBey]

And you are not saving the world (at least not in BG1).

I'd say saving the Sword Coast was close enough. It was nice that they gave your character a personal connection as well, but the story of BG1 would largely have worked even without it as a typical "save the world" fare.

 

[visions]

aka. the story doesn't drive the game, the player does

WAT

It is true to an extent (at least in BG I, never really played the second one). I do not have to go to Nashkel when the game tells me to, I may explore most of the map (excluding areas like Cloakwood, bandit camp and the city of BG itself) while ignoring the main quest, if I wish.

 

[Archibald]

I wonder if some of you have ever played PnP Dungeons & Dragons.

I wouldn`t be surprised if half the "BG is shit" people here haven`t played Baldurs Gate in the first place.

 

[Exmit]

BG > twitcher 2 and 1


that's a fact

 

[deuxhero]

Except in BG, you are the "chosen one". Only you are allowed to save the world because of your dad was your dad.

No, actually you are not the chosen one, because there are a lot of Bhaal spawns in the beginning. And you are not saving the world (at least not in BG1).

OK, your a "Chosen One".

 

[Exmit]

Except in BG, you are the "chosen one". Only you are allowed to save the world because of your dad was your dad.

No, actually you are not the chosen one, because there are a lot of Bhaal spawns in the beginning. And you are not saving the world (at least not in BG1).

OK, your a "Chosen One".

 

[Renegen]

aka. the story doesn't drive the game, the player does

WAT

In some games you feel like the whole world is moving ahead of you, think big invasion of the Blight in Dragon Age, you are just an actor in the bigger picture.

While also true in BG, for the most part you just stroll around the countryside following leads. In fact, it's a complete accident that you are the one to destroy Sarevok's plans. So you are a Bhaal spawn, many are.

BG2 is more epic though.. but with all of its sidequests and different locales it still felt like a series of connected adventure modules.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

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(aka. the story doesn't drive the game, the player does)

It's not true. You have to go through specific points of the story in a specific sequence. It's not a player-driven game (like Fallout where you decide in what sequence you go to places and in what sequence you go through the main points of the game), it's story-driven, to the point that you can't get to some parts of the world through free exploration because it would allow players to bypass parts of the story and Bioware can't allow it to happen.

Everything is exactly like D&D.

D&D encourages creative problem solving. In BG problem solving is almost exclusively killing people/monsters or hitting them until they give up or in rare cases picking the correct dialogue option.

It's a different RPG from "you are the chosen one, go here to save the world" and "you've met a down-on-her luck single mother, would you like to kill her, or give her gold?". It's simply about the adventure.

You are the chosen one as no one else is able to solve the main quest. You are also, the centre of the universe as it exists only so that you could go through the main quest without any time limits.

You meet super-powerful people like Elminster, Drizzit and Cadderly who won't lift a finger to save the Sword Coast because saving the Sword Coast is the special destiny of the protagonist.

While also true in BG, for the most part you just stroll around the countryside following leads. In fact, it's a complete accident that you are the one to destroy Sarevok's plans. So you are a Bhaal spawn, many are.

It's not a complete accident. The linear game story forces you to do it and there's no one else who can do it.

 

[Metro]

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What are you, twelve? No one cares who you add to your ignore list -- shut up.

 

[MMXI]

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You have successfully added Awor Szurkrarz to your ignore list.

Childish brat.

 

[flushfire]

It's not true. You have to go through specific points of the story in a specific sequence. It's not a player-driven game (like Fallout where you decide in what sequence you go to places and in what sequence you go through the main points of the game), it's story-driven, to the point that you can't get to some parts of the world through free exploration because it would allow players to bypass parts of the story and Bioware can't allow it to happen.

Exactly.

 

[Data4]

It's getting harder and harder to distinguish between new troll accounts and honest to goodness new forum members who just happen to be ... naive, to put it nicely.

 

[Crichton]

Except the combat system isn't as faithful to D&D as a turn-based setup is (and there are far better games in this respect)

This is a pet peeve of mine. Now I can easily see how the error arises for people who didn't play pen and paper AD&D (2nd edition) but ...

2nd Edition D&D was phase-based, not turn-based. You chose an action and then rolled for initiative. The best way of representing this is exactly how BG (and BG2, IWD and PS:T) handles it. The game pauses at the start of the round, you choose actions for everyone, the game rolls for initiative to see how long everyone's actions take and they get executed in order.

You don't have to like it, maybe lots of people didn't and that's why they changed it in 3rd edition. I don't know. The point is that the IE games are as close to PnP 2nd edition as we're ever going to get (even though all the cleric spheres are messed up).

 

[JrK]

It's getting harder and harder to distinguish between new troll accounts and honest to goodness new forum members who just happen to be ... naive, to put it nicely.

Yeah wtf. At first I thought "are these people really defending BG as a pinnacle of dnd emulation?" then I noticed the registration dates... It's clear what the dividing line is. Lulz@2011 member accusing someone of being a "childish brat".



These people clearly have not constructed any pylons in their life.

 

[Archibald]

D&D encourages creative problem solving. In BG problem solving is almost exclusively killing people/monsters or hitting them until they give up or in rare cases picking the correct dialogue option.

I don`t know, maybe it`s different elswhere but in my country and from what i read on some international rpg forums and sites D&D was always about killing stuff in dungeons and getting loot. If players wanted something else besides killing stuff they`d pick another system.

 

[villain of the story]

Watching the review and, he calls translation awful and "translated literally word for word without regard for context". There are numerous awkward translations and many completely omitted but generally it is far from what he claims. That's sad, for him.

Baldur's Gate IS the creme de la creme in the sense that it is the best example of how to make an cRPG out of an RPG. ToEE comes close in the combat kind of way but BG just managed to do what no other modern cRPG did.

Teehee... Who the fuck is this guy?

I'm not a fan of TW's combat but at least sword combat is not the soulless and bland autopilot of IE games.

 

[curry]

BG > twitcher 2 and 1


that's a fact

This. Anyone who disagrees is either potato or pseudopotato

 

[RK47]

Who could forget the Bioware classic branching adventure path and multiple monster contract hunts in the forests of Sword Coast?

Baldur's Gate is probably an evergreen classic, featuring a branching storyline where you take sides and fight factions like the Flaming Fist or Iron Throne for domination in the Sword Coast even before Pete Molyneux could fathom what makes RPG and there is an actual difference between good and evil.

A myriad of entirely optional content greets the players as he visits Dryad forests, Wyvern Caves and old forgotten tombs, with evil so ancient, you swore it was just like when you rolled your first dice on 6th grade.

Can a son of a god rise and avenge the loss of his foster father as he led his band of young witchers to foil a conspiracy that threatens the stability of the Sword Coast itself?

*Cries for a remake*

 

[Ulminati]

BG > twitcher 2 and 1


that's a fact

This. Anyone who disagrees is either potato or pseudopotato

I'll say this for the Twitcher series: It's a surefire way to detect potato. If someone confesses they like Twitcher, hold on to your wallet 'cause their gypsy friends are about to try and rob you blind.

 

[Saark]

Baldur's Gate IS the creme de la creme in the sense that it is the best example of how to make an cRPG out of an RPG. ToEE comes close in the combat kind of way but BG just managed to do what no other modern cRPG did.

Teehee... Who the fuck is this guy?

I'm not a fan of TW's combat but at least sword combat is not the soulless and bland autopilot of IE games.

And what exactly has that to do with my statement? Pretty much nothing. I'm not saying BG/BG2 is the pinnacle of cRPGs. All I'm saying is, BG/BG2 are as close as we are probably going to get when it comes to emulating an RPG featuring most or all aspects of it, be it Dungeons and Dragons, The Dark Eye or whatever floats your boat. KotC or ToEE are great combat emulations, worlds better than BG2. But taking that aside there is not much more interesting stuff to do in these games. And seeing how no big studio is even remotely interested in producing them any more, since they have their own franchises now, it'll probably stay that way. I'd still love to see an IE Dark Heresy cRPG...

I have to admit I may very well be biased about Baldur's Gate and its emulating an RPG though, since my first time playing it was with my DnD PnP group via LAN

 

[Tycn]

I'm not a fan of TW's combat but at least sword combat is not the soulless and bland autopilot of IE games.

Wait, what?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Baldur's Gate IS the creme de la creme in the sense that it is the best example of how to make an cRPG out of an RPG. ToEE comes close in the combat kind of way but BG just managed to do what no other modern cRPG did.

Teehee... Who the fuck is this guy?

I'm not a fan of TW's combat but at least sword combat is not the soulless and bland autopilot of IE games.

And what exactly has that to do with my statement? Pretty much nothing. I'm not saying BG/BG2 is the pinnacle of cRPGs. All I'm saying is, BG/BG2 are as close as we are probably going to get when it comes to emulating an RPG featuring most or all aspects of it, be it Dungeons and Dragons, The Dark Eye or whatever floats your boat.

Fallout was much better at emulating the tabletop RPGs, Wasteland probably even better as it had more situations where you got to decide to use various stuff and stats and skills on other stuff to solve various problems.
Baldur's Gate lacked decent narration (like in descriptions of surroundings, descriptions of characters, descriptions of actions, etc.) and wasn't interactive enough.

If your PnP RPG sessions were anything like BG then you had a pretty bad GM.

It's getting harder and harder to distinguish between new troll accounts and honest to goodness new forum members who just happen to be ... naive, to put it nicely.

He sounds genuine. And most of trolls have easily recognizable Drog's speech patterns anyway.

I'm not a fan of TW's combat but at least sword combat is not the soulless and bland autopilot of IE games.

Wait, what?

Here.

Except the combat system isn't as faithful to D&D as a turn-based setup is (and there are far better games in this respect)

This is a pet peeve of mine. Now I can easily see how the error arises for people who didn't play pen and paper AD&D (2nd edition) but ...

2nd Edition D&D was phase-based, not turn-based. You chose an action and then rolled for initiative. The best way of representing this is exactly how BG (and BG2, IWD and PS:T) handles it. The game pauses at the start of the round, you choose actions for everyone, the game rolls for initiative to see how long everyone's actions take and they get executed in order.

Except that it's not how BG handles it. BG has individual initiative rounds, so there isn't one end of the round for everyone where you can decide actions for everyone and then watch what happens - also, you have constant input in BG unlike in phase based games. What you're describing sounds like how combat works in Wasteland.
Anyway, that's pretty interesting. I always thought that AD&D is turn-based but with more complicated initiative rules.

 

[Exmit]

Baldur's Gate lacked decent narration (like in descriptions of surroundings, descriptions of characters, descriptions of actions, etc.) and wasn't interactive enough.

:haahahahowow:




Awor with this post proves he needs his dumbfuck tag.

 

[sea]

By interactive I assume he means there isn't much to do beyond opening containers and doors. Rarely do you have to solve some sort of environmental puzzle, there are no skills like repair/tech/etc. which could be used to manipulate and change the world in some way, that sort of thing. Character movement is also very fixed, there's no jumping, climbing, vaulting down cliffs, sliding down slopes, etc. These aren't necessarily for an RPG but I could definitely see someone feeling that the standard "kill something/loot something" dynamic is a bit limited.

 

[Exmit]

By interactive I assume he means there isn't much to do beyond opening containers and doors. Rarely do you have to solve some sort of environmental puzzle, there are no skills like repair/tech/etc. which could be used to manipulate and change the world in some way, that sort of thing. Character movement is also very fixed, there's no jumping, climbing, vaulting down cliffs, sliding down slopes, etc. These aren't necessarily for an RPG but I could definitely see someone feeling that the standard "kill something/loot something" dynamic is a bit limited.

Master of decline, you should be hired by treyarch , i'm sure you'd bring great RPG elements to call of duty.