Baldurs Gate 2: Capstone to the Golden Era of crpg's?

[Jaime Lannister]

You also need to undestand what golden age means" Even if arcanum were the best game ever made it woudl still not be a capstone because it doesn't represent most of the golden era games: (i.e. classical fantasy).

Arcanum was steampunk with fantasy elements.

Are you kidding? It's the same basic plot as every "golden age" game (ancient evil awakening, you are the chosen one to stop it) but it does that plot so well and has so many great twists that it's hard not to consider it the capstone.

 

[Xi]

The 90's defines good game-play while the 2000's define technological advances at the price of game-play. That is all... Hopefully the upcoming 10's will define both simultaneously.(Game-play and Technology)

I wouldn't define this decade as "technology vs game play". I think that it has been more "console vs PC", "spoonfeed vs learning curve" and "mainstream vs old-school". When I look at a game like Invisible War, I don't see a game that sacrificed gameplay for graphics. It was a game that sacrificed gameplay so that it could be easier for newbies. This is the trend for pretty much the entire genre except for the first two Gothic games and The Witcher.

I believe some games become a factor of all three. Interesting that you raise that point because it definitely has merit. There's certainly a struggle between quality of gameplay, technology(AI, Sound, Graphics, Physics, Middleware, etc), and mainstream appeal(dumbing down). Still, I wouldn't rule out technology because technology costs far more to develop then game-play and in my mind is an obvious deterrent to spending more time polishing game-play features and game flow. It's certainly all related, and depending on the game is a factor of some or all of those things. Because development has cost, the more expensive something is to add, the less development time/funding you have for other things. So, it's all connected.

 

[Ratty]

Baldur's Gate II is no more a capstone of CRPGs than Escape from Monkey Island is a capstone of adventure games. Games that are merely good or above average and followed by a long draught of anything that could be considered worthwhile in their respective genres are capstones of nothing.

The golden age of CRPGs began with Ultima IV and ended with Ultima VIII. In this period CRPG production was most prolific, many of the greatest, most influential CRPGs of all time were produced and majority of mechanics still predominantly used in CRPGs were introduced and refined. The rushed release of the poorly designed Pagan can be regarded as the moment when CRPG genre lost its soul and ceased to stand on its own two feet. The genre that once stood for creativity and evolution became a mockery of its former self. Rather than drive the entire games industry forward with prolific production and bold innovation, CRPGs would be ineptly shoehorned into other design paradigms. CRPG designers no longer asked themselves "How do I make a better game?". Rather, the question of the day was "How do I make a game that appeals to FPS fans more?".

CRPGs entered a decadent state that lasts to this day. The process of evolution of the CRPG slowed after 1994 and would soon stop altogether and become replaced by hybridization, streamlining and even outright deterioration. If you take, for example, Fallout or Daggerfall as representative of two distinct styles of roleplaying games and compare them with more or less any CRPG that came after them, you will realize that there is no way general design of these later games could be qualified as more advanced. To make matter worse, other games consistently <i>fail</i> to live up to standards set by the likes of Fallout and Daggerfall ten or more years ago. But the most depressing fact by far is that no-one relevant really questions this paradox, as if the entirety of game designers and media have been collectively brainwashed by forces unknown. How else should one explain the fact that absolutely no-one takes issue when CRPG gravekeepers BioWare and Bethesda tout their weak and irrelevant binary or ternary choices in FO3 and Mass Effect as innovation, when CRPGs of old often did more, and better?

Not only is Baldur's Gate II not a capstone of the genre, but Baldur's Gate series can be blamed with inaugurating a CRPG dark age. Baldur's Gate games are superior to their predecessors in nothing but graphics. These spiritual successors to antiquated Gold Box titles are in some ways, like combat, a step back even from the games they sought to supplant. But though they are heavily flawed, most of their flaws, like engine quirks, clumsy interface and unentertaining combat, are forgivable. After all, Baldur's Gate I and II were BioWare's second and fourth game, respectively, and only their first CRPGs. By standards of the genre, BioWare were verifiable newbies. Yet tragedy of Baldur's Gate lies in the fact that BioWare failed to significantly improve upon its design and narrative in their later games, instead taking the route of streamlining and mass appeal, and ushering in a period of creative holocaust the end of which is still nowhere on the horizon. After Mass Effect even a few of the less timid game journalists have cautiously begun to raise complaints with BioWare's brand of uninspired writing and deficient design the company so stubbornly insists upon, but now that BioWare is about to become another insignificant department in Electronic Arts factory of unimaginative dreck, we can truly look forward to EA executives putting the 'mass' in Mass Effect and milking the franchise (as well as any others BioWare may have in store at the moment) for all its worth with an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs.

If you ask me, CRPG genre doesn't even have a capstone. Roleplaying games have so many facets - more than, say, first person shooters - that no one title is the best in everything. Moreover, different styles of CRPG tend to be mutually antithetical (for example, a massive go-anywhere-do-anything sandbox can't, in practice, have truly fleshed-out characters and writing of more story-driven CRPGs), so which game is a capstone of the CRPG genre is a subjective choice dependent upon personal affinities towards one style of CRPG or another.

PS: Anyone who belittles Fallout's writing and simultaneously exalts BioWare's fanfiction-quality efforts in Baldur's Gate probably failed to understand the former's story. Just sayin'.

 

[Raapys]

Uh, I'd say the Infinity engine games are pretty much a gigantic step upwards compared to the Goldbox games. The UI and playability is not even comparable, likewise with the atmosphere created by the music, sound effects and graphics. There's also more interesting spells, more classes, better character development, etc., etc. Combat isn't a problem either, once you get into it.

 

[roshan]

Personally, I consider the golden age of CRPGs to have begun with Fallout and ended with TOEE. The sad thing is that it ended with a whimper, when it never should have ended at all. Black Hound and Fallout 3 seemed to show great promise. So did Troikas PA RPG and TOEE sequel.

I would consider the capstone to be Planescape Torment. It was basically the peak of the period, its greatest masterpiece.

 

[Section8]

Uh, I'd say the Infinity engine games are pretty much a gigantic step upwards compared to the Goldbox games. The UI

Stop there. One of very few things the Infinity Engine can hold over the Gold Box series is the interface, and that's basically achieved by default - the Gold Box games were largely designed for systems lacking mouse control. I know my experience with the games was on a C64, where a joystick with 4 directional switches and a single button was your primary input device.

If you added mouse support to a Gold Box game and automated actions as much as Baldur's Gate, you'd have a very comparable system.

The other big one is the graphical limitations of the Gold Box games. The ultra-low res and low color depth greatly limited the play area, and from memory, most of combat was spent scrolling the viewing area.

The Gold Box games have plenty of excuses for their primitive interface, and they were more than passable for their day. The achieved a lot using very little. The Infinity Engine is exactly the opposite.

and playability is not even comparable,

That's debatable, given that you hardly play Baldur's Gate at all. Most of the time you're sitting back and watching, and occasionally shouting at the screen, pausing and trying to correct a critical pathfinding error. I'll freely admit that the Gold Box gameplay can be cumbersome, but even now it's more involving.

likewise with the atmosphere created by the music, sound effects and graphics.

Between the universally irritating and mostly bad voice acting, the completely forgettable soundtrack and the "too clean" fisher price look of the graphics, Baldur's Gate was inferior to its contemporaries, and couldn't even match Diablo, a game a couple of years old for quality. The only thing it had going for it by comparison was diversity, because it wasn't using the same tiles over and over.

There's also more interesting spells, more classes, better character development, etc., etc.

Okay, I'd agree that's a step up, but the Infinity Engine again can't match its contemporaries. The Fallouts were superior in every field (spells excluded for obvious reasons), as was Diablo. Ultima Underworld some five years earlier blows Baldur's Gate out of the water in terms of character and magic systems. Likewise the whole Wizardry series, or the Might and Magic series. Hell, even Heroes of Might and Magic managed to have better character development and magic, despite being a strategy game.

So again, we're left with the Gold Box being a product of their era and its limitations, while the Infinity Engine games had archaic game design for their era.

Combat isn't a problem either, once you get into it.

read: "once you can tolerate it." It still continues to be a problem, because you have a game that consists of 95% combat, and most of that combat is barely tolerable, and seldom compelling. On top of that, it's fraught with terrible pathfinding, and poorly designed environments that do nothing but exacerbate its shortcomings. You have a whole bunch of P&P mechanics integrated with no consideration to the context of a CRPG.

All in all, Baldur's Gate was a steaming turd wearing a mask that is part marketing and part "production values". Being Bioware's sophomore effort and first RPG, it could have been forgivable. But the fact that they're still rehashing the same shitty game design ten years later and "inspiring" others to do the same makes it deplorable for its role in inaugurating and justifying the shallow, gameplay-free, mindless and glitzy "epic" "action" RPG model.

Fuck the Infinity Engine. Fuck it in its stupid arse.

 

[cardtrick]

capstone? more like crapstone amirite

 

[Binary]

I find amusing the opinions of some of you, that never played the really golden RPGs (Ultimas, Might & Magic, Magic Candle, Goldbox, Wizardries, Bard's Tales...) when they came out.

The golden generation of cRPGs ended in early/mid 90s when everyone and everyone else decided that cRPGs had to be in 3D - so many flops were made in those days and the genre seemed to "die"

The second generation of cRPGs (starting with Fallout, BG, etc) came in the late 90s and brought back a genre with interesting titles, but nothing that could ever compare to the golden days.

PST is no Ultima, Fallout is no Wasteland, Baldur's Gate is no Magic Candle. They do fill our time nicely, but they're games that are now remembered by those that were "born" to RPGs with them. To the rest, they're just another cRPG until the next one comes along.

 

[Hory]

Everyone has a personal Golden Age that may not correspond to the objective one, but let's not define the latter by your personal nostalgia.
I'm not sure what Golden Ages are determined by. If, in this case, it's gameplay quality - then it doesn't get any better than Fallout -> Arcanum.

 

[Volourn]

"I find amusing the opinions of some of you, that never played the really golden RPGs (Ultimas, Might & Magic, Magic Candle, Goldbox, Wizardries, Bard's Tales...) when they came out."

I played all of those except Magic Candle. Outside of Ultima, they are nothing more than mere dungeon (or world) crawls. They're fun party creators, and combat simulators. That's it.

 

[Imbecile]

"I find amusing the opinions of some of you, that never played the really golden RPGs (Ultimas, Might & Magic, Magic Candle, Goldbox, Wizardries, Bard's Tales...) when they came out."

I played all of those except Magic Candle. Outside of Ultima, they are nothing more than mere dungeon (or world) crawls. They're fun party creators, and combat simulators. That's it.

Golden dungeon crawls!

I wonder if we did a correlation of Golden Age of RPGs by the age of each person, there would be some sort of link?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

If you added mouse support to a Gold Box game and automated actions as much as Baldur's Gate, you'd have a very comparable system.

Systemwise, yes. Gamewise, I doubt it. Nostalgia would have to be hanging quite high over your head to consider the Gold Box better in the design department than the Infinity Engine games.

The Gold Box games have plenty of excuses for their primitive interface, and they were more than passable for their day.

Not really. They, like their Infinity Engine counterparts were bested by loads of other games, namely Ultima, Wizardry,

The achieved a lot using very little. The Infinity Engine is exactly the opposite.

Now that's just bullshit. Both the Gold Box and the Infinity Engine were pretty much meeting the par in most areas for their times and failing in a few.

That's debatable, given that you hardly play Baldur's Gate at all. Most of the time you're sitting back and watching

I guess the game didn't click with you then or you likely have never actually given them much of a chance, because this is most certainly not the case in any challenging or dangerous battle, of which there can be many. There's a lot of micro-management involved. Of course that doesn't happen if you never pick up a party and just run around with a couple of guys with swords.

pausing and trying to correct a critical pathfinding error.

I still don't understand why people yammer on about this and blow it out of proportion when both the manual and the readme file described how to fix this by turning up the search nodes.

I'll freely admit that the Gold Box gameplay can be cumbersome, but even now it's more involving.

Involving is an interesting choice of description. Your complaint would lead me to believe that you find in very non-interactive, because you have a certain detachment of control over your character. Funny enough this exists in pretty much any RPG with a solid basis in stats. Take Fallout for example (ignoring called shots). I tell my character to shoot, and watch him do it. Same thing with an archer in the Infinity Engine games. The only advantage Fallout may have is the instant gratification and tactile sensation of your character shooting when you press the button. Surely something petty and insignificant like that wouldn't be the reason you deem the combat terrible...

Between the universally irritating and mostly bad voice acting

Did we play the same games? The voice acting was very well done in all the Infinity Engine games. Though I'm going to assume it was he activation and command sounds given by the characters that irritated you. Funny enough, there was an option to turn them off in the sound options menu, so it's not really much of a flaw.

the completely forgettable soundtrack

Baldur's Gate....I could agree. It wasn't the best. But the other ones delivered in spades.

and the "too clean" fisher price look of the graphics

It's not Fallout, it's not some grim or gritty setting. They were fantasy romps to kill monsters. Does everything need to be Frank Millerized?

Baldur's Gate was inferior to its contemporaries, and couldn't even match Diablo, a game a couple of years old for quality

What in the blue hells have you been smoking? First off, they were only a year apart, and second, you've got to be kidding.

You don't need to be a graphics freak to easily point out which one is better. Now making a complaint about the graphics oriented development of the game would be a legitimate complaint, because that one year made a hell of a difference between the two games, which means a lot of time invested in graphics and not so much in gameplay.

The only thing it had going for it by comparison was diversity, because it wasn't using the same tiles over and over.

Actually....Baldur's Gate 1 used a lot of the same assets over and over in a lot of places. Just saying.

Okay, I'd agree that's a step up, but the Infinity Engine again can't match its contemporaries.

Uhhh....what contemporaries? Fallout was in a league of it's own so to say. Diablo was totally different. Ultima....was a corpseraped zombie. Daggerfall was very different.

The Fallouts were superior in every field (spells excluded for obvious reasons)

Character diversity....definitely in Fallout 1, not so much in the combat oriented sequel. Character development of course goes to Fallout. But then again, Fallout was one of, if not, the best. That's not saying much.

as was Diablo.

Three classes beats seven? What? And Diablo's character development was almost as bad as the Dungeons and Dragons leveling as you were gently forced into putting your points into certain places.

Ultima Underworld some five years earlier blows Baldur's Gate out of the water in terms of character and magic systems.

Yeah, no argument here.

Likewise the whole Wizardry series

Class based with possibility of variation between characters depending on race, ability, and some aspects left to choice by the player, almost exactly like the Infinity Engine. Sure, it got deeper as time went on, but that tends to happen after, you know, seven or so sequels.

or the Might and Magic series

Weren't they also almost exactly the same with class based leveling and a rather linear progression?

Hell, even Heroes of Might and Magic managed to have better character development and magic, despite being a strategy game.

Wow....come on. Stop the hyperbole. That's just a lie.

because you have a game that consists of 95% combat

While I'd have to be senile or imbecilic to deny the overabundance of combat, it wasn't that much. Try around 65-80% depending on the game (not including Torment) with the remaining gameplay devoted to NPC interaction, exploration, and Bioware's unfortunate love of stupid puzzles that you couldn't just have your mage with 18 intelligence insta-solve.

and most of that combat is barely tolerable, and seldom compelling.

Subjective and uninformed opinions passed off as fact are always great. There were plenty of well designed and challenging encounters that took strategy spread throughout the Infinity Engine games.

On top of that, it's fraught with terrible pathfinding

Which could be easily fixed with the search nodes being turned up via the config file. Or just a little bit of extra effort. It's not like the pathfinding would trap your character in a narrow spot and force you to reload often if you had a party.....

and poorly designed environments that do nothing but exacerbate its shortcomings

Baldurs Gate 1....yes. Any of the dungeons like the Firewine Bridge and the Ulcaster school were pretty awfully done.

You have a whole bunch of P&P mechanics integrated with no consideration to the context of a CRPG.

I'm not exactly getting this one. In fact I'd say it's the opposite. Not enough mechanics were integrated to provide for further depth. Example being non-weapon proficiency, certain non-combat spells, and the like.

Being Bioware's sophomore effort and first RPG, it could have been forgivable. But the fact that they're still rehashing the same shitty game design ten years later

And by rehashing you mean constantly dumbing down.

and "inspiring" others

Who? There are no Bioware-alikes. Bethesda follows their own beat, Diablo clones are far more pervasive, and jRPGs just refuse to die. Not one non-Bioware RPG has embraced their ideals.

justifying the shallow, gameplay-free, mindless and glitzy "epic" "action" RPG model.

None of which can be attributed to the Infinity Engine. Go blame Diablo and jRPGs. Or the Gold Box for spawning the idea that a game with AD&D on the box will sell despite being inferior to most of the games on the market.

Fuck the Infinity Engine. Fuck it in its stupid arse.

Okay, what did the Infinity Engine or Bioware do to piss you off so much. Whenever it's mentioned you click into rage mode and go from incredibly well informed type of fellow to guy throwing around a ton of muck, much of which is baseless and ill-informed with some good points in between. Sure, there were a lot of problems, like the huge amount of variability in early game combat like you pointed out awhile ago, sure Bioware really screwed up by placing tons of relatively boring nonsense and saving the good stuff for later in the first BG. Sure, it wasn't Fallout. Sure, the tone of the writing was absolutely schizophrenic in many places and the writing was often...B-movie quality. But it's not that bad if only via the fact that it is a much better RPG than 95% of crap out there.

 

[dagorkan]

OK guys, you say that BG2 is good (a 'capstone' of the 90s) because it's 'polished'?

Well I agree that it's polished but let me ask you this: what is the point in polishing a turd?

Polish is good for a gem, or lacking that, a semi-precious ore. Polish is good if you already have good gameplay and a good story, which neither of the BGs do.

I started playing RPGs in 1997 with no other game but Fallout. I did play other quasi-RPGs in the past but I would not consider myself an RPG gamer back then. I do share your view about the golden era, though my golden era did not start till mid 90's. I would approximate it to around 1995 - 2002. Fallout, Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, Arcanum are the pinnacle games of that era. After playing those games I delved even further into RPGs and gave a try to some of the older games like Ultima 6 and 7, ES: Arena, Daggerfall, and Wizardry 7. In all honesty I could not get myself to like those games and saw them as much inferior to the golden era games I mentioned previously. Not to start an fight but a game BG totally kills Wizardry 7 or 8 being that they are the most comparable in terms of gameplay. I do see though how someone can like such games for nostalgic reasons and if they have played those games prior to the games of mid-90's. However, I just could not bring myself to go back that far. I might give Ultima 7 another shot in the near future though.

I don't know if that's why we disagree but without being into RPGs in general the first games I played in the early/mid 90s (and up into the 2000s) were the Gold Box games and Arkania. I never played BG or any of the 'modern' / 'gold era' RPGs until very recently, and I found only a handful of those games that are an actual improvements on the early 90s best. Arcanum and Fallout are obviously the leading two in gameplay, Planescape in writing/story design. NWN is important but only in concept and because of what it offered the fan/mod community which has produced some useful stuff.

I would even say that the TES series are better than the IE games. Daggerfall is boring to me but it is more traditional than the JRPG shit that today gets called the 'Gold Era'. The only IE game I could get far into was one of the IWD's, can't remember which. Probably because it focusses purely on combat and can be played as a strategy game (which basically it is).

 

[Naked Ninja]

Am I the only one who has yet to play an RPG that isn't mostly combat? Because people keep talking about BGs focus on combat like it is some type of abnormality amongst RPGs in general. Point out this game to me that had a dramatic shift in focus away from combat plz.

It wasn't Fallout, unless that game changed 10 hours in somehow, because I got into fights all over the place from the beginning, every time I tried to move between areas, without trying to. And it turned out I gimped myself by not picking combat skills.

It wasn't Bloodlines, despite the excellent plot and dialog I still spent most of my time laying the vampiric smack down on the foo's.

It wasn't Arcanum the bland, I fought plenty of bland wolves and bland goblin-thingies. The majority of it's skills were all about combat and killing shit, so...

In fact I can't think of one. So someone please indicate this amazing unique RPG to me please so I can see what BG is accused of desecrating.

 

[dagorkan]

Arcanum had a lot of combat but depending on character type you must admit less than most games. The way I played it I would guess 30-40% of the early game, when you're mainly based in Tarrant was combat. That's compared to my estimate of 60-80% in most RPGs including the parts of the BGs I played.

30-40% is still too much for my taste (and a 30-40% which is inferior to TOEE's 80-90%), but there is a difference.

Realms of Arkania I would estimate to have about the same amount of combat or slightly more (40-50%). You had to fight, but I thought the fighting was spread out and most of your time was taken up with other activities - no C&C dialog to speak of, but planning your expedition, journeying decisions, working your way through a dungeon - yes it was a dungeon crawl but more time was spent trying to find hidden walls, avoiding traps, you know the actual business of adventuring rather than the hack and slash part of it.

A significant part was also making decisions such as whether to press on, to rest your injured party (risking attack), or to leave the dungeon and return a month later - which were important decisions since there were no free saves. Or decisions such as who to send first over an unstable rope bridge or into an underwater cavern (depending on skills and expendability). I don't remember ever having to make those decisions in one of your 'Gold Era' games.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Arcanum had a lot of combat but depending on character type you must admit less than most games. The way I played it I would guess 30-40% of the early game,

Those are very loaded statements, "depending on character type", "the way I played it". In ES games if you focus on stealth and practice them a lot before going anywhere you could make a statement like "my character only got into combat 10% of the time!!!".

And I don't really count time spent moving as "gameplay". Walking around is just filler time. I've just started Daggerfall and I'd say 80% of my time is spent walking around. It's still a combat focused game.

 

[dagorkan]

Those are very loaded statements, "depending on character type", "the way I played it". In ES games if you focus on stealth and practice them a lot before going anywhere you could make a statement like "my character only got into combat 10% of the time!!!".

That is true and I don't see your point. TES games do have less combat over all but that doesn't make them better games. Nobody has said that less combat means better gameplay necessarily though it is obvious that lots of bad combat makes a game worse.

And I don't really count time spent moving as "gameplay". Walking around is just filler time. I've just started Daggerfall and I'd say 80% of my time is spent walking around. It's still a combat focused game.

I'm not counting time moving around as gameplay. In fact I think one of the problems of games like Fallout is that too much time is spent clicking your way across maps, though it is still one of the best CRPGs. Arcanum does have that as well but there is a significant proportion of the 60-70% taken up by quest solving and dialog, especially in Tarrant which you actually need to think about.

The fact is that it has less combat of about the same quality as BG and more non-combat gameplay.

As for ROA, very little time is taken up with moving around since you can use the keyboard to zoom across a city in fifteen seconds, and it has the highest density of decision making (gameplay for time spent) of any RPG I've played. Not as high-level or important decisions as later games but decision making none the less.

 

[Hory]

I wonder if we did a correlation of Golden Age of RPGs by the age of each person, there would be some sort of link?

If I recall correctly, Isaac Asimov said people's Golden Ages are usually in their second decade of life.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Alright then, so if we draw a line, on 1 side we have Arcanum the drab and Realms of Arcania, on the other....every other crpg ever released???

Yes indeed, the BG series is certainly responsible for this horrifying action/combaty trend in RPGs! Bioware you reprehensible villains you!!!

*waves fist angrily*

 

[Gladi]

Am I the only one who has yet to play an RPG that isn't mostly combat? Because people keep talking about BGs focus on combat like it is some type of abnormality amongst RPGs in general. Point out this game to me that had a dramatic shift in focus away from combat plz.

Nope. Lot of people here praised MM series. I have played only from World of Xeen onward, but is pretty much just combat, with at most few puzzles thrown in.

I see Arcanum has been mentioned- well that game has several purely combat zones that are needed to go through. I think there is a psychic vampire in BMC mines, who feeds on my frustration.

Of course, if there was a RPG without a combat, people would just deny it RPGdom and call it adventure game.

 

[Lumpy]

One thing that's plain silly in Arcanum is how my middle to upper class characters walk for months between locations. There was no faster way of transportation in the late 1800s?

 

[Raapys]

Strictly speaking, there wasn't magic in the late 1800s either.

Stop there. One of very few things the Infinity Engine can hold over the Gold Box series is the interface, and that's basically achieved by default - the Gold Box games were largely designed for systems lacking mouse control. I know my experience with the games was on a C64, where a joystick with 4 directional switches and a single button was your primary input device.

If you added mouse support to a Gold Box game and automated actions as much as Baldur's Gate, you'd have a very comparable system.

The other big one is the graphical limitations of the Gold Box games. The ultra-low res and low color depth greatly limited the play area, and from memory, most of combat was spent scrolling the viewing area.

The Gold Box games have plenty of excuses for their primitive interface, and they were more than passable for their day. The achieved a lot using very little. The Infinity Engine is exactly the opposite.

But that's just it; having an excuse doesn't make the games themselves better. I don't disagree, alot of 'good things' about newer RPGs, and in fact all games in general, are achived 'by default' because of computer-related technological ( and trend-related( i.e. FPS games with mouse control ) progress.

That's debatable, given that you hardly play Baldur's Gate at all.

One might argue that that's what RPGs are all about, though. The more you let the player take control the less you leave for the character and, in my opinion, the less of an RPG it is. On one end you have the Infinity Engine/KotOR games where pretty much everything is decided by the character's skill( at least for warriors ), on the other end you have Oblivion, where basically the player's skill is what matters.

 

[Hory]

One thing that's plain silly in Arcanum is how my middle to upper class characters walk for months between locations. There was no faster way of transportation in the late 1800s?

TEH ONE U CRASH WITH LOLZA

 

[hotdognights]

One thing that's plain silly in Arcanum is how my middle to upper class characters walk for months between locations. There was no faster way of transportation in the late 1800s?

Beg your pardon? The game featured both trains and air travel.

 

[elander_]

Very few rpgs ever tried to create quests we could role-play using skills different sets of skills for diplomats and stealt characters, without having to resort to any skills outside that group. Fallout tried to do this and did not fully succeded because diplomat playing is not very forgiving of player mistakes during character creation and many quests have bugged and don't activate all dialog lines and events if you do them differently. Daggerfall also let's you do this but it's a bit lacking in terms of dialog and quests.

These are the only games i know that will let me do this because these games tried to be a dungeon master to the player and give him a chance to role-play other characters besides fighters.

Every D&D game is a role-playing piece of crap focused on combat and thus any implementation of reactions is doomed to fail without any deep choices. Planescape that created awesome character interactions and dialog role-playing has a special status for me. Baldurs Gate 2 was a sort of percursor in that kind of dialog role-playing so i think the game also deserves some credit, but as an rpg is typical D&D hack and slash crap.