Icewind Dale series compared to the Baldur's Gate series

[Johannes]

I think when it comes to first playthrough, the best one is BG2. Now for replay value, Icewind Dale all the way. If only because creating your whole party instead of picking the "less bad" among a rather poor selection of joinable NPCs. Icewind Dale 2, with its butchering of 3.5 rules, heavily scripted fights and enemies popping out of nowhere, like the missing link between IE games and NWN, is the worst of the lot.

Nothing stops you from full party creation in BG2, though that you have to have a main guy whose death is a gameover is a tad annoying.

Though some of the recruitables are actually really good, too - Viconia with the extra Magic Resistance, Edwin with extra spellslots, Sarevok with the Deathbringer assault thingy.

 

[Excidium]

Icewind Dale has a better and more interesting setting but I couldn't force myself through it like I did with Baldur's Gate. But it was funny when the halfling innkeeper berated about my paladinhood for rummaging through his things to find the old innkeeper's ring.

Also, the portrait art in IWD is awesome.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, let's make a poll for best RPGs evar of the Codex and BG2 will still be in the top 5-6 (as in the last three polls) and IWD will still be nowhere near. The fact some posters are really vocal about certain things they hate/love, doesn't reflect the codex.

Oh, and minsc is great, fuck the haterz.

Irrelevant. I'm not talking about what games we like the most. I'm saying this thread is good for displaying to the world what sort of experiences within an RPG are enjoyed by Codex grognards.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I agree with Wyrmlord that the wiriting in IWD is quite competent, down-to-earth and pleasent to read. I also love the various moments where you see that the writers applied a light-hearted take on the whole setting.
For example in Lower Dorn's Deep when you try to enter Marketh's palace trough the front door, a thief named Seth will ask you who you are. He will mistakenly assume that you're a party of merceneries from some "Kraken society" and ask you something along the lines of "I suppose you were sent by the Kraken society?". You can try to bluff him and answer something like "Uhm...yeah! The Kraken Society, uh great guys...hehe. Me and the Kraken society, we go waaaay back. Ahh...the good old "Kraken days!"


There's a lot of those light-hearted moments in the dialogues and I often get a genuine grin out of them.

 

[sea]

Oh, and minsc is great, fuck the haterz.

He was funny for a bit in the first game. Problem is that he got Flanderized due to the near-legendary status he acquired with fans. In Baldur's Gate 2 he's there as a main companion right from the beginning, and fitting his insane lawful good personality into a grimdark game about death and death just does not work. Even so he has way more lines than before and they basically shove him into every possible conversation for the sake of "humour."

There's something called "tone", and BioWare tend to kind of suck at it... I mean, just the opening of Baldur's Gate 2 has torture, loss of loved ones, and so on, but then it's also got Minsc, Yoshimo the samurai, etc. and once you get out of Irenicus' dungeon, the game suddenly goes back to generic high fantasy Ren faire stuff. Later BioWare games are definitely better with tone, but you always have to be prepared for Minsc to follow you even there with an arbitrary "go for the eyes!' reference.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Nothing stops you from full party creation in BG2, though that you have to have a main guy whose death is a gameover is a tad annoying.

Yes, I know you can, just like you can solo both, but that's neither the way it's meant to be played (you miss a lot of, arguably shitty, content), nor my playing style. I did it once and found it very unsatisfactory. Also, by poor selection I meant both "not very good" and "not many" NPCs.

Viconia with the extra Magic Resistance, Edwin with extra spellslots, Sarevok with the Deathbringer assault thingy.

Viconia has the Strength and Constitution of a squirrel and Sarevok is ToB only IIRC. Edwin is ok, but still, none of them are worth a "made by me" character.

 

[MicoSelva]

I will always like Baldur's Gate more, due to nostalgia filter and the fact You spend much more time in cities there (I always preferred cities to dungeons, give me another Sigil anytime). I am very aware of all the flaws that both BG games have, though and in many ways IWD series was designed better. But still, some of the flaws can actually be advantages to some players. Take Minsc, he's retarded, no arguments here, but I liked him and had him in my party on my first playthrough. Exploring vast, mostly empty areas was kind of boring, but it also made the world look larger and more real. You could say that this exploration was this game's gimmick as much as walls of text were Torment's. If You don't like the gimmick, You won't like the game. BG2 had more emphasis on tactical, or rather trial-and-error, combat and powergaming - acquiring experience and loot. IWD has dungeon crawling mostly, so if You don't like it, you won't like the game (I didn't at first, but it grew on me later).

The plot is nothing special in both series. BG is more character driven, to the point that Shadows of Amn is more about about Irenicus than Your character (with Throne of Bhaal switching focus to the bhaalspawn again). Both IWDs are very linear, with the first game centering around the "your quest giver is evil" twist, while the second part has somewhat convoluted plot which is much more complicated than needed in this kind of game.

 

[Krash]

IWD had better combat encounters than BG2? What are people smoking?

 

[Johannes]

Nothing stops you from full party creation in BG2, though that you have to have a main guy whose death is a gameover is a tad annoying.

Yes, I know you can, just like you can solo both, but that's neither the way it's meant to be played (you miss a lot of, arguably shitty, content), nor my playing style. I did it once and found it very unsatisfactory.

I don't see how creating a full party in BG is a different playing style, to doing same in IWD? It's not like the game's short on content when you cut out the NPC quests.

 

[Infinitron]

IWD had better combat encounters than BG2? What are people smoking?

There are people who prefer tense low level encounters over crazy magical duels.

 

[MMXI]

Yes, I know you can, just like you can solo both, but that's neither the way it's meant to be played (you miss a lot of, arguably shitty, content), nor my playing style.

Meant to be played? Says who? The fact of the matter is that the game can be played that way, and when all you're looking for in a video game is fun then who gives a fuck what the developers intended? And I don't understand what you mean by it not being your play style. Surely if creating a whole party and playing through a game with it isn't your play style then you'd hate Icewind Dale.

And are people really saying Icewind Dale is better because of the story, writing and characters? Who plays party-based combat centric RPGs for the dialogue anyway? At least when people were trying to argue that the Icewind Dale games have better combat encounters than Baldur's Gate 2 they were arguing on the right track.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Sorry for not seeing things your way, I played BG2 with a full hand made party and didn't like it much. Yet I liked ID. I'm not wall of texting why but basically because ID is just a dungeon crawler, not BG2.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Guys...I never played IWD because I always thought it looked generic and lame. But it's only tree-fiddy on GOG so should I? I've never been a combatfag so I'm a bit hesitant.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

If you think it looks generic and lame and are not a combatfag, I'd say no, beautiful landscapes and combat being the main points that make ID a good game a far as I'm concerned.

 

[octavius]

Frist off let's me say I absolutely love both BG1, BG2 and Icewind Dale. Vanilla BG1 is rather bland and the game requires some modding to be loveable, though.

I think Icewind Dale is more even in quality, but it's also more limited in scope than the BG games.

The BG games are obviously more ambitious and have more strings to play on, with more diverse environs.
The Icewind Dales are about dungeon crawling and that's about it, while the BG games also (try) to have a more engaging story and party members that are not just a bunch of numbers. Mostly I think the BG games succeed. The annoying romances can easily be avoided, there are more fun than annoying companions, and the banter and interjections add fun to the game. But all the dream sequences and psycho babbel involving Irenicus and Imoen gets tiring, and as others have pointed out your motivation in BG2 supposes you actually like Imoen. I liked her in BG1, but in BG2 I find her exceedingly annoying, so my party has exhausted all alternatives when they grudgingly set out to rescue her.

The writing in Icewind Dale may be more mature and objectively better, but the BG games still have all the memorable quotes.

The BG games are more nonlinear than IWD, especially on the strategic level. But also the inidividual maps in the BG games tend to be more open. And despite being very linear IWD has some balancing issues, with for example the Burial Isle being very difficult and then the next area is far too easy with Trolls and other relatively weak enemies.

When it comes to combat and encounter design, the BG games easily reach far higher heights than IWD. Sure, there are lots of trash mobs in BG1, but they can usually be avoided if you scout the area. The BG games are unsupassed when it comes to good encounter design. In which other games do you fight against multiple enemy parties? Which other games have mage duels like BG2? Which other games make Liches and Dragons so dangerous and detailed as in BG2? In the Gold Box games you usually roflstomped liches and armies of dragons, in BG 2 even one of them are deadly to a high level party.
Where IWD shines is in the large battles where you face armies of Undead, and shadowed Elfs and Orcs. BG battles are usually smaller, but often with more resourceful enemies.
What's good about all the IE games is that enemy AI can actually be modded, and we get mods like the brilliant Sword Coast Strategems that turn a mediocre BG1 into one of my absolute favourite games.

One thing I think IWD does better is loot randomization.

But they are all great games.

 

[Krash]

There are people who prefer tense low level encounters over crazy magical duels.

Yeah sure, thought that's only tangentially related to encounter design. Both games did have some nice fights, but BG2 in my opinion wins out for the nice enemy party action and that trash mobs were easier to get rid of, rather than the IWD "hope for good rolls" fights which were annoying. Also, BG2 had some really awesome boss fights like the dragons, demon lords, etc etc while in IWD they were very hit and miss. Another bonus is that the enemies encountered in BG2 felt more like they were actually there for their own reasons, rather than having been artificially peppered through the levels with the sole purpose of being cut down by the pc and his posse.

And low level DnD sucks so fucking much, almost as much as high level DnD. The meaty part's in the middle.

 

[Surf Solar]

You don't spend that much time in absolute low levels in IWD. You can easily get to level 2-3 doing all quests in Easthaven and the Ork cave. Levels go up much faster than in BG1 - which I find is something superior. It took too fucking long in BG1 to level, IMO.

 

[Roguey]

And are people really saying Icewind Dale is better because of the story, writing and characters?

Art too, don't forget art. Bioware sucks at art direction.

 

[Mikko Moilanen]

These are all good points. Icewind Dale is just more tightly designed overall. It doesn't have a pointlessly epic, overwrought story where you play the Chosen One that takes itself more seriously than it has a right to. It doesn't have annoying "hey look at me!" characters who are based on personality gimmicks (i.e. Minsc). It doesn't have tons and tons of filler and pointlessly long dungeons with nothing but traps and trash mobs. It doesn't have huge expanses of landscape to roam with almost nothing of interest to do in them.

I completely disagree with you. You sound like an arcade fag -_- Or are you just trolling around?

The main char in BG was not "chosen one" but one of the hundreds of siblings of the lord of murder, as the end animation implies. That little detail in the end made the game more epic than anything before or later up to this day. You fought the shit out of everything, met your brother and beated him and his fanatical cult followers with your cult followers, and then saw that fuck, this was not even the beginning. The beginning was Lord of Murder know when and there are hundreds like you. Not chosen. Just a small part of evolution.

Regarding lenght of dungeons - GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LAWN. WoW "heroic" coffee shit instances are that way ------------->

If you infiltrate kobold caves you should expect to run on many traps those cowardly things plant around - especially if their now new cave was just a while ago a mine. If you infiltrate a kobold lair you should expect to face at worst hundreds of kobolds trying to beat you by sheer numbers. Anything less is jut lame arcade coffee faggot shit.

I hate you. You whine about Deep Roads in Dragon Age, which managed to make impression of epic dwarven culture, and as a result we get so very shit arcade coffee fag games designed for asshole ADHDs.

Really. Do you faggot wow instance 1000 times more and never touch single player RPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

Joined: Aug 29, 2012
Posts: 6

 

[Roguey]

Mikko, explain the coffee thing to me please I don't understand how that's a pejorative.

 

[Mikko Moilanen]

Joined: Aug 29, 2012
Posts: 6

Hell yeah! Now I don't have to anymore pretend to be a mr. nice guy :D

 

[Infinitron]

Mikko, explain the coffee thing to me please I don't understand how that's a pejorative.

REMOVE COFFEE FROM PREMISES

 

[Mikko Moilanen]

Mikko, explain the coffee thing to me please I don't understand how that's a pejorative.

Ahh, you have brains to ask if you don't understand something. Me likes. I also liked I had to dict.org that word, pejorative, to confirm the question you asked. Learned a new word!

I am a big fan of good coffee for coffee is one of the small enchancements and pleasures in life on several situations. Man, how I wish I would have some new interesting beans to try out now. So enough about coffee or I shall go nuts rather sooner than later.

The word "coffee" was used to express the time frame of the scenario. It meant that the scenario should last as long as it takes to drink a big cup of coffee. Anything longer and the ADHD arcade gag fags gets bored.

 

[Gozma]

I have played IWD yet have almost no recollection of it, same with 2. Pretty sure I never finished them, while I did finish BG and BG2. I have played similarly pure grindy combat and loot games like some of the Gold Boxes but doing it in Rtw/P so I can watch icons wave swords around for 30 second stretches before I can click on all the loot and the next mob spawn just has no attraction.