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Was Baldur's Gate considered popamole at release?

Stabwound

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I wasn't a member of any of the CRPG forums around the time BG1 was released, so I'm not sure how it was received. These days, it's more or less considered a good game, but it obviously has its detractors. I definitely remember people and bitching about Icewind Dale, and masturbating over BG2, though.

Did the original Baldur's Gate get the same treatment Dragon Age and its sequel are getting around these parts? Reading a few posts around the net, some people are saying that BG was considered the death of CRPGs at release, being bitched about the same way Dragon Age is now. Is that true? I'm imagining BG being to the Goldbox games what Dragon Age is to BG. The Infinity Engine combat is definitely the shittiest part about it... kind of reminds me of a certain Bioware game about to be released.

Maybe 10 years from now we'll be crying about the dumbing down of Dragon Age 1 and 2. :smug:
 

SkepticsClaw

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More importantly, since when did popamole stop meaning 'cover based shooter' and start meaning 'random stupid word for dumbed down crap'?
 

J_C

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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Can I put a whole topic on ignore? Codex will bash the living shit out of BG, it will break my heart. :(
 

Rogue

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If you dumbed down DA2 more, it wouldn't even be a game.
 

ironyuri

Guest
UndetectedButthurt said:
Bro, Baldur's Gate saved the cRPG genre from dying. Don't you know?

We're so lucky we had Bioware to single-handedly save the cRPG genre from its inevitable death.
.........


Excuse me, I need to vomit having said that.
 

ksjav

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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014
ironyuri said:
UndetectedButthurt said:
Bro, Baldur's Gate saved the cRPG genre from dying. Don't you know?

We're so lucky we had Bioware to single-handedly save the cRPG genre from its inevitable death.
.........


Excuse me, I need to vomit having said that.

edgy01.jpg


On topic. I believe it was. Didn't really pay attention myself at the time, but remember watching some dude's youtube video where he was praising BG as his favourite game EVAR and claiming he bitched about it being stupid dumbed down shit on some forum before release not unlike people bitch about unreleased games here. Must have been a codexer.
 

Elzair

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Seriously, where did the myth that Bioware "saved" the RPG genre come from?
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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The same place the myth that 'BIO killed the RPG' came from - the internet.
 

GarfunkeL

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From gaming magazines. As BG sold like hot cakes - or that was the impression - magazines started lauding Bioware for saving CRPGs and their games as the second coming of the messiah.

Of course, it's not true at all unless one is ignorant enough to not know about all the other games, though the view might be somewhat justified if one only takes sales figures as an authority.
 

octavius

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I remember Baldur's Gate being insanely hyped when it was in development. The comp.sys.*.rpg newshroup was full of fanboys long before the game was even released and Doctor Ray himself was very active answering questions.
But unlike Oblivion later, Baldur's Gate actually lived up to most of its hype.
I don't remember anyone claiming BG was the death of CRPG. On the contrary, it was considered the resurrection of CRPGs.

The main critisism was about the combat system and the pathfining. I can't imagine controlling six characters in real time, but the paused pseudo turn based system works well enough and in time I've come to prefer the IE games' combat to that of the Gold Box, because the IE games had more varied enemies, spells and items. In the GB games Firkraag and the various named liches would have been generic dragons and liches with pumped up HPs and none of their special abilities, for example.
 

Volourn

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"I don't remember anyone claiming BG was the death of CRPG"

FFS You are on the Codex yet do not read anything here>? WTF
 

octavius

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Volourn said:
"I don't remember anyone claiming BG was the death of CRPG"

FFS You are on the Codex yet do not read everything here>? WTF


Fixed.

Look at my join date. How many years after BG was that?
 

Volourn

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Ignorance is not an excuse. Eitehr does being a 'newbie'.

Did you not fuckin' read the siite tagline: RPG Codex - DOES NOT SCALE TO YOUR FUCKIN' LEVEL NEWFAGZ!
 

ironyuri

Guest
I have a pc gaming mag from 1998-99 with a preview of Age of Empires II and a 5 page review of Baldur's Gate which lauds it the return of the cRPG.

At the time, BG was, I believe, overwhelmingly viewed as a reboot of the traditional fantasy cRPG. Emphasis on fantasy.

1997 saw the release of Fallout, but Fallout was not classic cRPG material. BG was a return to traditional fantasy themes in the D&D/Forgotten Realms setting. In some ways, it was the resurrection of the fantasy RPG and without BG we would not have had a game like Planescape: Torment, so while it is, in itself a somewhat mediocre game, it did make it possible for PS:T to exist as it renewed / sparked interest in the fantasy RPG setting for a much wider audience.
 

GarfunkeL

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octavius said:
In the GB games Firkraag and the various named liches would have been generic dragons and liches with pumped up HPs and none of their special abilities, for example.

What? No. GB has named enemies and special abilities, thought not always strictly following P&P-rules but neither was BG following them that strictly.

But yeah, the hype for BG was quite something, it even reached Finland which was quite an achievement back then.
 

Rpgsaurus

Novice
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Jan 28, 2011
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95
Stabwound said:
I wasn't a member of any of the CRPG forums around the time BG1 was released, so I'm not sure how it was received. These days, it's more or less considered a good game, but it obviously has its detractors. I definitely remember people and bitching about Icewind Dale, and masturbating over BG2, though.

Did the original Baldur's Gate get the same treatment Dragon Age and its sequel are getting around these parts? Reading a few posts around the net, some people are saying that BG was considered the death of CRPGs at release, being bitched about the same way Dragon Age is now. Is that true? I'm imagining BG being to the Goldbox games what Dragon Age is to BG. The Infinity Engine combat is definitely the shittiest part about it... kind of reminds me of a certain Bioware game about to be released.

Maybe 10 years from now we'll be crying about the dumbing down of Dragon Age 1 and 2. :smug:

Bitching about Bioware dumbing down your RPGs is similar to blaming fast food industries for ruining your food. Let me elaborate:

DA1 and 2 fit into the "new wave" of big-studio video games marketed for mass audiences who may have never played an RPG before. They've got saucy bits, action bits, sort of a like B-movie with some interactivity added on top. They are also nigh unplayable for experienced RPG gamers looking for "something a bit more" like non-clichéd characters/story, challenging combat etc. Gold Box games, by contrast, were hardcore games made for hardcore gamers. They were a niche market, aimed for a niche audience.

BG1+2 were somewhere in between.

Now, you're arguing we might see even more simplified, "dumbed-down" games in the future. However, it may well be the other way round: as "gaming" becomes more and more mainstream, we may well see a greater demand for more sophisticated gameplay. I remember myself as a kid playing FF7 for the first time and thinking it was "the best game ever"; now, I can barely look at this shit. Same thing might happen to large chunks of the general audience, who knows.
 

octavius

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Volourn said:
Ignorance is not an excuse. Eitehr does being a 'newbie'.

Did you not fuckin' read the siite tagline: RPG Codex - DOES NOT SCALE TO YOUR FUCKIN' LEVEL NEWFAGZ!

Maybe you should read the opening post again? It is not about the Codex, but about how BG was considered at the time of it's release.
 

DraQ

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Stabwound said:
I wasn't a member of any of the CRPG forums around the time BG1 was released, so I'm not sure how it was received. These days, it's more or less considered a good game, but it obviously has its detractors. I definitely remember people and bitching about Icewind Dale, and masturbating over BG2, though.

Did the original Baldur's Gate get the same treatment Dragon Age and its sequel are getting around these parts?
Apart from these parts not existing back then, I have found BG deeply disappointing back when it was released. It was pretty much the Oblivion of its times, receiving a lot of praise, but boring, generic, railroaded and featuring derp combat, as well as derp exploration.
The difference is that BG can be played in vanilla state as long as you just grab a beer and let things roll, so it's by far a superior game to oblivious.

SkepticsClaw said:
More importantly, since when did popamole stop meaning 'cover based shooter' and start meaning 'random stupid word for dumbed down crap'?
Since the :decline: of the :rpgcodex: .

J_C said:
Can I put a whole topic on ignore? Codex will bash the living shit out of BG, it will break my heart. :(
Endure.
In enduring grow strong.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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And, i replied to that originally, and now you cry because my answer hurt your feelings.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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Someone need a nap at 2pm in the afternoon? WOW. Are you 4? Or 80?
 

octavius

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Volourn said:
Someone need a nap at 2pm in the afternoon? WOW. Are you 4? Or 80?

2 PM? :smug:
The Codex is not place centric.
 

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