Did Baldur's Gate really have an impact?

[Paula Tormeson IV]

The passive female. Everything has to happen "by itself."

Tsk. That's hardly fair. I had imagined by my tone that I had conveyed my distaste for this kind of gamelength reliance. If I began a singular quest to eliminate it, that wouldn't be brave, it would be quixotic. I do try to make every moment of game time memorable, and ZRPG will be exactly as long as we feel it needs to be to make a fun game, and not because someone's breathing down our necks about it - but shitting in other developer's soups for purposefully making longer games is hardly productive.

The current contention in this matter seems to be one that boils down to a difference of opinion - are these long games good or not, etc. That's never going to be a winnable argument. Entertaining, sure, but winnable, not hardly. I myself was not as much a fan of the flavor of "NO UI! NOT EVER! MORE REALISTIC!" game design that was going around a few years ago, but I understood its allure. I don't think it's hard to imagine that some people really do just want to sink a shitload of time into something they find halfway entertaining, even if a better experience can be found in a shorter game.

But anyhow. Games that are long for longness' sake? BOO. Baldur's Gate 2 making a difference in the game industry? YES. Annie passive? FUCK NO. That's my take on the matter. :twisted:

I didn't remember that you were developing an indie game. Sorry about that. I'm sure you are doing your feminine best.

 

[CapitalistRevolutionary]

Very interesting thread overall (this is my first post here) and I very much miss isometric micromanagement RPG games. I just bought about every one I could find that seemed good at all, they're really the only kind of video game I enjoy except for Paradox' grand strategy games (which are, in some odd ways, quite similar).

A 4-6 person team of adventurers is supposed to kill hundreds/thousands of enemies, including powerful monsters.

This is more of a genre trope than a game thing. If you've ever played a long campaign of D&D or read a lot of Conan, this is pretty standard fare.
Monsters aside, it's actually not that unrealistic - surviving is what's unrealistic. Human beings are easy to kill, easier than they are in Baldurs Gate, so if you add in the element of divine birth and healing magic killing thousands of people is believable. What isn't believable is that the monsters never have any sort of organized battle tactics; because then they'd just shower you with arrows. But the same is true of first-person shooters.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The passive female. Everything has to happen "by itself."

but shitting in other developer's soups for purposefully making longer games is hardly productive.

Ok, that just BEGS a question: when IS it productive to shit in someone else's soup?

I'm guessing dealing with irritating neighbours (Goldilocks style: 'Bear 1: Whose been eating out of MY soup! Bear 2: Whose been eating out of MY soup! Bear 3: Whose been eatin....WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!!!!)

 

[AlaCarcuss]

This article mentions that a QA tester played 2000 hours of dragon age... then blew his fucking brains out.

fixed

 

[DraQ]

How odd, for some reason I haven't replied here. Rectifying now...

end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

It's the exact opposite way around.

What's the exact other way round?

Not enforcing proper tactics 'till the end of the game is extremely poor design.

If the window popping up in the middle of the screen (spontaneously, like no other in game) stopping the gameplay and telling player basically that they are morons and have screwed up is inadequate, then nothing save for the computer tasing them in the balls is.

Personally I've not had a problem with it. I know multiple people have.

Multiple people also have problem with finding Caius Cosades, in spite of receiving step-by-step instructions in both dialogue and written form. Multiple people's problem is that they have been conditioned by gaming industry to switch their brains off and feed them to their cats when playing games. Trying to adapt to this mindset mindlessness only deepens the problem.

Whilst there's always the possibility that they're all dumb, the more likely possibility is that the design is flawed, especially if people get distracted in the middle of a battle.

People get distracted after attacking a plot critical character for no reason whatsoever, and fail to sufficiently cool down after the battle already ends to notice a text window slamming them in the middle of the face? Well, fuck them.
They are obviously too to perform even basic functions without constant assistance of other, inability to play computer games is the least of their concerns.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Yeah man where are all the baldur's gate clones...

 

[Lilura]

and people say the 'Dex has declined...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I thought the gold box games was an inspiration factor in the Baldur’s Gate series. As to romance... it seems it was being forced a bit in the last Krynn gold box as well as the last Savage Frontier (treasures).

I’ve only played a bit of fallout 1&2, Arcanum, and TOEE (never finished any of them). Never touch BG, IWD, or NWN.

Of all those I rather enjoyed Arcanum for the odd thieving, charismatic leaders, mech machine engineering, and odd magic. I created far too many characters. Then I started messing with mods, sounds, and odds and ends.

Now I hear about the Siege of Dragonspear and it’s content. The vids say terrible but some forums/reviews say you can overlook the SJW romance. I think when I first heard of BG there was mention of a bottomless dungeon and that piqued my interest as I was/am a huge fan of Dungeon Hack set to max level depth (wished it went deeper).

 

[Elzair]

Necroing an 8 year old thread (I feel old now) FTW!

 

[Sceptic]

Necroing an 8 year old thread (I feel old now) FTW!

You're alive!

 

[Kruno]

It impacted my grades in high school.

 

[DraQ]

The most impact BG had was, sadly:

• convincing the feebleminded that RTWP is a valid solution to party based combat
• convincing a fucking lot of people that Bioware is great at writing and well constructed stories

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

The most impact BG had was, sadly:

Convincing every casual gamer around the world that RPGs were really their thing. Massive decline ensued.

 

[octavius]

Baldur's Gate had a hurtful impact on lots of butts.

 

[DraQ]

Oh, one more thing:

• Convincing a lot of people (I honestly don't know how) that Bioware can into humour.

 

[laclongquan]

Convince a lots of game dev excutives that Romanceable characters is a good idea. Back in the day it's a dry affair. It's the fanbois of BG2 romance that make the great big wave over that. Which start with Jade Empire's experiment and total confirmed at Mass Effect 1.

 

[Curratum]

What sort of autist must you be to even come up with topics like that?

 

[DraQ]

At least it didn't convince anyone that Biowaste is any good at Sci-Fi, like ass-defect did later - Assari and human derper anyone? - so some credit is due.

 

[Lilura]

The most impact BG had was, sadly

Why are you using the past tense? BG has had, is having now, and will continue to have impact.

According to my blog stats, BG is huge. I get 1,000 views per day on my prime BG write-up. That's one of 70 write-ups. BG is responsible for my 1 mil views per year.

I am commentating on a 20 year old game and I'm getting that kind of readership. Long after PoE is forgotten, BG will still be played.

From your PoV, it's the turd that won't ever flush.

 

[DraQ]

From your PoV, it's the turd that won't ever flush.

Must you remind me that?

 

[Kruno]

Some people love the smell of turds. Why flush a delicous turd when you can smell it decades past its use-by date?

 

[Theldaran]

Original BG was a quality game for its time, but that is already 20 years ago; no point on milking it forever, eh, Beamdog? Today it doesn't quite hold up as well as back then.

It was a good success in sales, which cemented Bioware's position, and established their formula that a lot of people, even from this forum, have been buying from (though now it's anathema to admit).

BG clones are hard to come by because the effort put in those games is excruciating and most companies aren't willing to put themselves through it, even with modern tech. Also, in 1998 BG was pretty much a Triple A and in the eye of the storm of the whole market; nowadays Triple A companies aren't interested in making such a game. BG1 was pretty much open world for its time, and today that is done many times over, but with a different approach, so there you have BG's grandsons today. Of course they are different, but they all got ideas from BG.

 

[DraQ]

Some people love the smell of turds. Why flush a delicous turd when you can smell it decades past its use-by date?

It's funny how your post was immediately followed by Theldaran 's as if to confirm it.

Anyway:

Original BG was a quality game for its time

No it wasn't. It was always of rather mediocre quality, but earned inexplicable amount of praise from the masses that continued to cum over themselves for decades whenever it's mentioned - does it not remind you of something more recent (and, to be fair, much crappier)?

BG1 was pretty much open world for its time, and today that is done many times over, but with a different approach, so there you have BG's grandsons today. Of course they are different, but they all got ideas from BG.

No, it was not.

Early TES shat on it from stratospheric heights in this regards. A whole bunch of older RPGs did as well.
Hell, even Fallouts match the open world template much better than BG.

Besides, BG1 was anything but open world with locations being gated-off for no tangible in-universe reason (fucking cloakwood) just because you haven't progressed far enough through the main story.
It has always been a linear story-based game, with a lot of ultimately spurious wilderness thrown in.

 

[Theldaran]

It's not open world, it's an imitation of open world in a time when true open world wasn't established.

It still had extraordinary amounts of content for the time (hell, 5 CDs) and you could do a lot of side quests even if they were simple.

Yes the main quest is linear but what do you expect?, BG1 wasn't a story-driven game, but exploration was one of its strong suits (POE tries but isn't quite there). Given the shitty stories we tend to have in this kind of game, I really prefer exploration.

"Spurious" wilderness is a way to see it, I see it as a good backdrop to adventuring, the core of the D&D experience. BG was a good D&D experience. Each time you found a magical weapon in a dusty cave after killing some wolves was great.

It was a quality game for its time.

 

[Makabb]

t's not open world, it's an imitation of open world in a time when true open world wasn't established.

Esentialy, it is a open world game, it has many different 'areas' which serve as an open world, you are free to explore the whole area (which just is smaller in scope) like in any open world game.

For example Witcher 3 has 3-4 bigger areas, and it is considered open world, so Baldur's Gate 1 can be also, with 20 smaller areas.


Baldur's Gate 1 did everything right, i cannot complain about anything about BG 1, it was amazing adventure played for the first time.


BG 1 is surely among the best top 10 of RPGs of all time.