Interview BG2 nostalgia Q&A at GameBanshee

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

<a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">GameBanshee</a> has <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/bg2fiveyearanniversary.php">an interview</a> marking the five year anniversary of <A href="http://www.bioware.com/games/shadows_amn/">Baldur's Gate 2</b> with the <a href="http://www.bioware.com/">BioWare</a> guys who developed the super duper blockbuster title. Here's a sample:
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<blockquote><b>GB: Which RPGs would you list as your all-time favorites and how did such titles influence or inspire you during the creation of Baldur’s Gate II?
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Kevin:</b> Personally, Ultima IV, Fallout, Bard’s Tale, and a number of the earlier AD&D games like Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager or Eye of the Beholder. All of these games had things to teach us, such as Ultima IV’s moral system and world exploration or some of the very clever GUI and interface changes of the two Dark Sun games, but I still think the biggest influences on the Baldur’s Gate series are the pen-and-paper games that we all played as kids. <u>Everything we learned as Dungeon Masters for our friends when we were young made us good designers for Baldur’s Gate.</u></blockquote>
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The question of whether or not the game was designed as though a 12 year old Dungeon Master was running the show has finally been answered.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[Psilon]

Oh, Saint, that's cold. I commend you, sir.

 

[Ryuken]

GB: Given today's sales-oriented RPG market, do you think a game like Baldur's Gate II with 200+ hours of gameplay is still feasible? Why or why not?

James: I’d like to echo my answer from the fond memories question above: It’s possible, but it requires a healthy mix of luck and a ludicrous amount of work. The work can be done; the luck is out of our hands.

So the 'luck' has been out of their hands since Throne of Bhaal then. Hopefully it returns soon enough if they want DA to be a real spiritual followup.

BG series were great games, some design flaws yes, but these are games I try to replay every two years or so and they still don't bore me. I would have liked to know what they thought about Atari doing their own BGIII now.

 

[Stephen Amber]

David Warner had the ultimate crpg role in that game.... truly I've not heard better voice acting in a game(of course he was also morpheus in Fallout . Infinity engine combat left much to be disired. But the art and voice acting were supurb.

And that's it so arm wrestle me if you have balls.

 

[Atrokkus]

One of the best CRPGs ever. Period.

Great story, nonlinear sub-plots, even illusionary-nonlinear main plot, plus great atmosphere, characters (Jon Irenicus, Minsk, Korgan, Edwin etc etc).
Fucking amazing art. DS2 is shit compared to this beauty. Of course, character models are ugly... but hey, who cares about charmodels when you have such amazing backgrounds!
Music is superb, especially the main theme.
Voice acting... what can i say? Professional work.
Btw, who VO'd Irenicus? Great voice.

It was such a pleasure for me to play the game. Along with Fallout, this is the game that really inspired and astounded me, and made me crave for more.
But, alas, my hopes were shattered when I installed Throne of Bhaal... I actually didn't believe it was of BG series... it was just so fucking lame, the story and all that munchkinism made me vomit.

 

[Visbhume]

GB: Given today's sales-oriented RPG market, do you think a game like Baldur's Gate II with 200+ hours of gameplay is still feasible? Why or why not?

James: I’d like to echo my answer from the fond memories question above: It’s possible, but it requires a healthy mix of luck and a ludicrous amount of work. The work can be done; the luck is out of our hands.

Would episodic content work with a single player CRPG ? Maybe that's the way to go.

 

[Hazelnut]

One of the best CRPGs ever. Period.

{snip}

It was such a pleasure for me to play the game. Along with Fallout, this is the game that really inspired and astounded me, and made me crave for more.
But, alas, my hopes were shattered when I installed Throne of Bhaal... I actually didn't believe it was of BG series... it was just so fucking lame, the story and all that munchkinism made me vomit.

It wasn't just you either. I also made the unfortunate mistake of buying the ToB expansion before I'd finished BG2 and before reading the PCGamer (UK) review. I really had enjoyed BG2, wheras BG1 & IWD1&2 all left me cold, so I thought more would be good.

I played maybe 10% (estimate - not very much anyway) of the expansion. It was boring as hell - just combat after combat. Hard combat yes, to challenge the high level munchkins, but unfortunately my bard & party found it boring and hard - the unltimate turn off in a game surely..?

 

[JaheiraRocks]

Still my favorite CRPG.

Doubt I'll ever see anything like it...

 

[Drakron]

BG1 was very, very good.

BG2 improved some things but as BG1 did not directly contradicted what was on the PnP books, BG2 certainly did ... I also did not liked they simply recycled BG1 artwork for the civilians since Amn was supposed to be diferent.

ToB was a disaster, not only it did a worst job of maintaining consistent with the PnP books but also they could not even maintain it in reguard to its own story, it look more like IWD (except not as good as a dungeon crawler) that a BG2 sequel.

 

[corvax]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies. I uninstalled the game right after I had to fight the spiders to go down the crypts with Korgan only to fight a more ridiculous amout of mosters inside (who sucked out your levels) then when I beat them I had to fight even more monsters further down and finally when I was leaving I had to fight the same spiders (respawn) outside the crypt. Combat, combat, combat everywhere.

The only positives I recall are the story, lore, characters, and the setting. Everything else sucked ass. It didn't help that I'm not a big fan of D&D rules either.

 

[Jinxed]

BG 1 felt like my AD&D beginning, with a touch of great music to boot, that's why I like it.

I've played every IE game there was, but to me, IWD 2 takes the cake when it comes to shit. It's the only one I couldn't finish.

 

[Psilon]

I didn't bother with IWD2. It took me three years to bother finishing IWD1, and I never did anything from the expansion other than use the high-res video modes.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

From Kevin Martens:

"The real-time pause combat system on top of the deep roleplaying game is one of the best things that has ever happened to the RPG genre."

That comment is a crock of horseshit. Real time combat has been the bane of the CRPG since its inception. If they wanted to capture the feel of PnP AD&D so damned bad, why in the hell didn't they use turn based? Oh, I know, Diablo's action combat had already begun to exert its influence on developers and gamers.

That said, I loved both BG 2 and Diablo in spite of the flaws.

 

[Elwro]

I bought the gold edition which contained ToB. I only played a small part of the expansion (due to its crappiness), but at least it gave my chars new high-leveling options already in the main BG2, so it wasn't completely useless.

 

[Ryuken]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies. I uninstalled the game right after I had to fight the spiders to go down the crypts with Korgan only to fight a more ridiculous amout of mosters inside (who sucked out your levels) then when I beat them I had to fight even more monsters further down and finally when I was leaving I had to fight the same spiders (respawn) outside the crypt. Combat, combat, combat everywhere.

Saving, reloading, saving, reloading again is responsible for a lot of the respawns. If you slept in the dungeon there then there is also a possibility that monsters show up again. It was a lot more irritating in the first BG imo. The level drain you are talking about are the mummies. There has got to be something that is frightening/difficult about some of the encounters no? It's a bit tricky to go in those undead dungeons right from the start, you better try to solve other quests first or try to get hold of the amulet that makes you immune to level drains (which together with the few lich encounters are the only real problematic stuff you'll be up against in BGII).

Throne of Bhaal was way too linear idd (the only choice really being which boss you want to take on first or the Sarevok dilemma if you took him in your party) but Watcher's Keep was a nice dungeon and the end battle was far more challenging than the ending of BGII iyam. Just like Tales of the Sword Coast not something for parties that didn't reach the end of the original game.

 

[jiujitsu]

I love this game.

 

[Araanor]

It's ok, even if the lackluster role-playing options, trite story and characters and dreary combat pushed me towards the edge.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Throne of Bhaal was way too linear idd (the only choice really being which boss you want to take on first or the Sarevok dilemma if you took him in your party)

For all its faults, Throne of Bhall had some very important choices than the previous parts of the saga. Sometimes it felt even the lesser ones had more of an impact than the other parts. There was the possibility of converting Sarevok into a good alignment, yes; but there was also a lot of decisions in the main areas of the game (Saradush and Amkethran) that actually influenced the PC's alignment. The endgame decision of what to do with your heritage was also there, along with romance decisions.

It would have more if David Gaider had managed to include them in the official release instead of releasing his third party Ascension modification, though. These included extra conversations thad had the PC handle Imoen's perception of her own Bhaalspawn condition, recruiting Balthazar, and giving the PC powers depending on what choices he made in the Pocket Plane.

 

[MarFish]

From Kevin Martens:

"The real-time pause combat system on top of the deep roleplaying game is one of the best things that has ever happened to the RPG genre."

That comment is a crock of horseshit. Real time combat has been the bane of the CRPG since its inception. If they wanted to capture the feel of PnP AD&D so damned bad, why in the hell didn't they use turn based? Oh, I know, Diablo's action combat had already begun to exert its influence on developers and gamers.

.

Muhaha, ToEE shows that it doesn't sell because nobody but the 20 remaining fallout fans want it. Turn based combat is dead. Thankfully. No more ToEEs in this world.

 

[MarFish]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies. I uninstalled the game right after I had to fight the spiders to go down the crypts with Korgan

...

The only positives I recall are the story, lore, characters, and the setting. Everything else sucked ass. It didn't help that I'm not a big fan of D&D rules either.

So you didn't play 1/6th of it and comment on how everything else sucked ass. Lol.

 

[Atrokkus]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies.

That's pretty much the same as flaming the great/archaic graphics in a game.

Yes, the pause system is pretty lame, but the battles are still interesting and challengin. Especially, mage battles: with Kangaxx, Cowled Wizards, etc.

And what the hell did you expect looting the crypt? Fucking talking zombies that could be persuaded into surrendering?

Muhaha, ToEE shows that it doesn't sell because nobody but the 20 remaining fallout fans want it. Turn based combat is dead. Thankfully. No more ToEEs in this world.

WTF are you talking about? ToEE had THE BEST implementation of DnD pricnciples in computer games, that's hard fucking fact. Turn-based is how it's supposed to be. Have you ever played it PnP? Evidently, not.
Anyways, it would be superb if BG2 had ToEE's mechanics. The game would have been just Perfect.

 

[MarFish]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies.

That's pretty much the same as flaming the great/archaic graphics in a game.

Yes, the pause system is pretty lame, but the battles are still interesting and challengin. Especially, mage battles: with Kangaxx, Cowled Wizards, etc.

And what the hell did you expect looting the crypt? Fucking talking zombies that could be persuaded into surrendering?

Muhaha, ToEE shows that it doesn't sell because nobody but the 20 remaining fallout fans want it. Turn based combat is dead. Thankfully. No more ToEEs in this world.

WTF are you talking about? ToEE had THE BEST implementation of DnD pricnciples in computer games, that's hard fucking fact. Turn-based is how it's supposed to be. Have you ever played it PnP? Evidently, not.
Anyways, it would be superb if BG2 had ToEE's mechanics. The game would have been just Perfect.

It doesn't sell. Nobody wants fucking turn based boredome in RPGs these days anymore. It's dead and I hope it stays dead.

 

[Atrokkus]

It doesn't sell.

Who gives a fuck?
Most of gamers are not roleplayers at all, they prefer some mild entertainment and don't want to read and think (not that they're all dumb, but they maybe just don't think games can be used for something other than dumb fun).

Torment also didn't sell well. So what? It is still one of the best RPGs ever made.

turn based boredome in RPGs these days anymore.

Boredom for some, excitement for otehrs.
I'm not going to argue on preferences here, but I'll just tell you that I enjoy both action and TB-games (I was pretty proficient in Quake3 a long while back). IT depends on the game, mainly. Just liek the graphics: BG2 never needed soil erosion to look AWESOME.

 

[EEVIAC]

It doesn't sell. Nobody wants fucking turn based boredome in RPGs these days anymore. It's dead and I hope it stays dead.

And what does that prove exactly? Fable absolutely dick-kicked Jade Empire in sales - it must be a much better game! (To be fair, Fable did have better combat.)

 

[corvax]

Horrendous combat, way too much of it, respawning enemies. I uninstalled the game right after I had to fight the spiders to go down the crypts with Korgan

...

The only positives I recall are the story, lore, characters, and the setting. Everything else sucked ass. It didn't help that I'm not a big fan of D&D rules either.

So you didn't play 1/6th of it and comment on how everything else sucked ass. Lol.

Yes, because I really needed to play the other 5/6 to find out that BG2 is mostly all about crappy combat Maybe you didn't notice but I did also point out the positives.