So, Baldurs Gate

[Delterius]

Magic doesn't explain a ranger who lived his entire life cloistered in a library fortress

Level 1 ranger, bro. You're basically a hippie with a bow.

Yes, the real issue would be druid.

 

[Lhynn]

Yes, the real issue would be druid.

Why?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I know the Codex way is to bash anything that's not turn based and with lots of C&C, but seriously Baldur's Gate games get way too much hate here for two really good games. Not perfect games, of course, like any other RPG ever made, they got flaws and shortcomings, but for people who can enjoy that general type of game (standard fantasy, combat oriented), they are really good. Here's how I feel about them:

Baldur's Gate 1:

- Amazing exploration and open world, in my opinion tied with Gothic 1 and 2 for the best exploration game I've ever played. What makes it so good is the structure of the world, broken down into many large open zones, which are mostly optional and empty (with gorgeous painted terrain), but each one contains a small number of points of interest, which are all unique and refreshing. In most RPGs, all you find are more epic lootz, or more epic fights, or dungeons, but in BG1, you find interesting stuff you haven't seen before, even if most of it is pretty low key and definitely not epic. The way the zone maps come together and display appropriate features (coastal maps have water in the right place, zones along roads actually have roads, the climate changes as you go from west to east and from north to south, mountain zones have snow, etc) really makes the player feel like they are exploring a real region, and not just some arbitrary maps. The world also feels very connected: many things/people you find are related to other stuff in the world, NPCs will talk about current events.
- Fun overall combat. It does have its share of trash mobs and some other issues, but what game doesn't. Overall, though, there are plenty of challenging fights throughout the game, and regardless of how you feel about RTwP, between controlling six people and the sheer variety of spells and abilities available, there is more tactical depth here than in vast majority of cRPGs, especially if you've got a few spellcasters in your party.
- Great atmosphere, as a result of outstanding presentation values (painted 2D graphics that never age, excellent sound effects and music, thematic interface) and intelligent placement of lore into the game (things like lore books and item descriptions).
- Really good progression curves for things like character development and loot. You start extremely weak (especially as a mage), but with every level (which are rare), you definitely feel your power going up, and towards the end, it feels very rewarding to wield powerful spells and abilities. Likewise, where most RPGs throw tons of loot at you until it all feels worthless, even the most basic nonmagical equipment costs a ton of gold here, and magical items are very rare, which adds to the satisfaction when you finally manage to obtain them.
- The writing is very inconsistent. At times, as with the main plot, and the chapter intros and dreams, it's actually quite decent, but many sidequests feature very short bits of pretty crappy dialogue and plotlines. Part of it seems to be the result of them trying to reward AD&D geeks with geek humor, but it doesnt work well.
- There isn't much in the way of C&C, a few quests/dialogue have different options but they are very black/white, and sometimes don't make a difference. Most don't even have that. Regardless of your class, you will have to fight. So it's really a game meant to be played from the typical heroic adventurer perspective, evil diplomats need not apply.
- Shitty quest design. Other than the main quest, and maybe a couple of sidequests, the player is just given a bit of instructions and sent off to kill/find something and come back. There aren't multiple quest steps, or puzzles, or lots of quest backstory. On the positive side, there are a ton of quests, just don't expect anything super involved.
- Annoyingly shitty pathfinding.

Baldur's Gate 2:

- For this one, Bioware completely changed the structure of the gameworld. Instead of having an open world you could explore, they went with a much more rigid hub system, where you go to a quest hub (e.g. Athkatla), get a quest there, and the quest giver marks a location on your world map to which you can now travel. Once there, you'll probably inevitably work your way to an extremely well designed dungeon and through it in order to complete the quest. As a result, exploration definitely suffered, though other parts probably improved.
- Even better combat than in the first game due to less filler content in terms of encounter design, and also even more variety and depth in spells and abilities at higher levels (at least until Timestop + Improved Alacrity ). Probably the best mage duels ever.
- Much better quality of writing. Not Planescape: Torment level, but as good as or better as most other cRPGs. Also much better quest design, with most quests having multiple steps, possibly involving clearing out dungeons, solving puzzles, and featuring lots of backstory.
- This game is much more of a dungeon crawl, but instead of one single huge dungeon, it has lots of smaller dungeons that must be traversed to complete various quests and plotlines. The dungeons are extremely well done, with unique, great looking designs, often containing inventory type puzzles and some kind of story, and filled with tons of magical loot, challenging encounters, traps and obstacles.
- Fixed a lot of interface and usability issues from the first game. Pathfinding is a lot better, as is the journal.

 

[Delterius]

Yes, the real issue would be druid.

Why?

Well, a level 1 Ranger isn't very special. From what I remember, most of the things that make Rangers special (and more specifically tied to the wilds) come later on. So you don't have to change the whole 'cloistered life' in order to make them work. After all, spell levels and charm animal can and will be learned later on, as charname travels through the wilds of the Sword Coast. The Druid OTOH doesn't have that luxury.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yes, the real issue would be druid.

Why?

Well, a level 1 Ranger isn't very special. From what I remember, most of the things that make Rangers special (and more specifically tied to the wilds) come later on. So you don't have to change the whole 'cloistered life' in order to make them work. After all, spell levels and charm animal can and will be learned later on, as charname travels through the wilds of the Sword Coast. The Druid OTOH doesn't have that luxury.

The obvious problem with a druid would be her/him seeing all the books at Candlekeep, grabbing their head in their hands and running around, screaming, "Oh the trees, the fucking trees!"

 

[Lhynn]

Well, a level 1 Ranger isn't very special. From what I remember, most of the things that make Rangers special (and more specifically tied to the wilds) come later on. So you don't have to change the whole 'cloistered life' in order to make them work. After all, spell levels and charm animal can and will be learned later on, as charname travels through the wilds of the Sword Coast. The Druid OTOH doesn't have that luxury.

All of that can be explained away. You are a natural, like merlin, your connection to the land is strong, even if you are too young and cloistered to notice how special it truly is. You have been taught by books, by visitors, etc. You are the son of a god, with a latent talent that would put any mortal to shame. Even aging can be explained away like that, youve reached maturity in a short period of time because godly magic that puts necromancy to shame.

Not even remotely close to the most contrived shit that happens on forgotten realms, in fact this could be considered run of the mill stuff that can happen easily and often.

 

[Delterius]

All of that can be explained away.

Never disagreed with that. Just pointing out that Rangers may not be contrived at all.

 

[Excidium]

I know the Codex way is to bash anything that's not turn based and with lots of C&C, but seriously Baldur's Gate games get way too much hate here for two really good games. Not perfect games, of course, like any other RPG ever made, they got flaws and shortcomings, but for people who can enjoy that general type of game (standard fantasy, combat oriented), they are really good. Here's how I feel about them:

Baldur's Gate 1:

- Amazing exploration and open world, in my opinion tied with Gothic 1 and 2 for the best exploration game I've ever played. What makes it so good is the structure of the world, broken down into many large open zones, which are mostly optional and empty (with gorgeous painted terrain), but each one contains a small number of points of interest, which are all unique and refreshing. In most RPGs, all you find are more epic lootz, or more epic fights, or dungeons, but in BG1, you find interesting stuff you haven't seen before, even if most of it is pretty low key and definitely not epic. The way the zone maps come together and display appropriate features (coastal maps have water in the right place, zones along roads actually have roads, the climate changes as you go from west to east and from north to south, mountain zones have snow, etc) really makes the player feel like they are exploring a real region, and not just some arbitrary maps. The world also feels very connected: many things/people you find are related to other stuff in the world, NPCs will talk about current events.
- Fun overall combat. It does have its share of trash mobs and some other issues, but what game doesn't. Overall, though, there are plenty of challenging fights throughout the game, and regardless of how you feel about RTwP, between controlling six people and the sheer variety of spells and abilities available, there is more tactical depth here than in vast majority of cRPGs, especially if you've got a few spellcasters in your party.
- Great atmosphere, as a result of outstanding presentation values (painted 2D graphics that never age, excellent sound effects and music, thematic interface) and intelligent placement of lore into the game (things like lore books and item descriptions).
- Really good progression curves for things like character development and loot. You start extremely weak (especially as a mage), but with every level (which are rare), you definitely feel your power going up, and towards the end, it feels very rewarding to wield powerful spells and abilities. Likewise, where most RPGs throw tons of loot at you until it all feels worthless, even the most basic nonmagical equipment costs a ton of gold here, and magical items are very rare, which adds to the satisfaction when you finally manage to obtain them.
- The writing is very inconsistent. At times, as with the main plot, and the chapter intros and dreams, it's actually quite decent, but many sidequests feature very short bits of pretty crappy dialogue and plotlines. Part of it seems to be the result of them trying to reward AD&D geeks with geek humor, but it doesnt work well.
- There isn't much in the way of C&C, a few quests/dialogue have different options but they are very black/white, and sometimes don't make a difference. Most don't even have that. Regardless of your class, you will have to fight. So it's really a game meant to be played from the typical heroic adventurer perspective, evil diplomats need not apply.
- Shitty quest design. Other than the main quest, and maybe a couple of sidequests, the player is just given a bit of instructions and sent off to kill/find something and come back. There aren't multiple quest steps, or puzzles, or lots of quest backstory. On the positive side, there are a ton of quests, just don't expect anything super involved.
- Annoyingly shitty pathfinding.

Baldur's Gate 2:

- For this one, Bioware completely changed the structure of the gameworld. Instead of having an open world you could explore, they went with a much more rigid hub system, where you go to a quest hub (e.g. Athkatla), get a quest there, and the quest giver marks a location on your world map to which you can now travel. Once there, you'll probably inevitably work your way to an extremely well designed dungeon and through it in order to complete the quest. As a result, exploration definitely suffered, though other parts probably improved.
- Even better combat than in the first game due to less filler content in terms of encounter design, and also even more variety and depth in spells and abilities at higher levels (at least until Timestop + Improved Alacrity ). Probably the best mage duels ever.
- Much better quality of writing. Not Planescape: Torment level, but as good as or better as most other cRPGs. Also much better quest design, with most quests having multiple steps, possibly involving clearing out dungeons, solving puzzles, and featuring lots of backstory.
- This game is much more of a dungeon crawl, but instead of one single huge dungeon, it has lots of smaller dungeons that must be traversed to complete various quests and plotlines. The dungeons are extremely well done, with unique, great looking designs, often containing inventory type puzzles and some kind of story, and filled with tons of magical loot, challenging encounters, traps and obstacles.
- Fixed a lot of interface and usability issues from the first game. Pathfinding is a lot better, as is the journal.

This is why I open the codex every day when I wake up. To read baseless bullshit like this and get pissed.

 

[hoverdog]

- Amazing exploration and open world, in my opinion tied with Gothic 1 and 2 for the best exploration game I've ever played. What makes it so good is the structure of the world, broken down into many large open zones, which are mostly optional and empty (with gorgeous painted terrain), but each one contains a small number of points of interest, which are all unique and refreshing. In most RPGs, all you find are more epic lootz, or more epic fights, or dungeons, but in BG1, you find interesting stuff you haven't seen before, even if most of it is pretty low key and definitely not epic. The way the zone maps come together and display appropriate features (coastal maps have water in the right place, zones along roads actually have roads, the climate changes as you go from west to east and from north to south, mountain zones have snow, etc) really makes the player feel like they are exploring a real region, and not just some arbitrary maps. The world also feels very connected: many things/people you find are related to other stuff in the world, NPCs will talk about current events.

DraQ exploding in long-winded butthurt in 3...2...1...

 

[Glyphwright]

- Amazing exploration and open world, in my opinion tied with Gothic 1 and 2 for the best exploration game I've ever played. What makes it so good is the structure of the world, broken down into many large open zones, which are mostly optional and empty (with gorgeous painted terrain), but each one contains a small number of points of interest, which are all unique and refreshing. In most RPGs, all you find are more epic lootz, or more epic fights, or dungeons, but in BG1, you find interesting stuff you haven't seen before, even if most of it is pretty low key and definitely not epic. The way the zone maps come together and display appropriate features (coastal maps have water in the right place, zones along roads actually have roads, the climate changes as you go from west to east and from north to south, mountain zones have snow, etc) really makes the player feel like they are exploring a real region, and not just some arbitrary maps. The world also feels very connected: many things/people you find are related to other stuff in the world, NPCs will talk about current events.

Whut? Baldur's Gate 1 wasn't open world like Gothic, it was a collection of rectangular load-zones which, despite being adjacent to each other, had little continuity or overlapping climate/terrain. One zone could be a temperate forest, and the very next one - a rocky plateau, with no signs of the receding forest. They kept the coastline pretty consistent in areas with sea access, but no more than that. And... and you actually liked that 90% of those zones were empty, save for a bunch of generic combat encounters and 3-4 points of interest scattered randomly across the terrain, more often than not being some sort of useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere? Wat? You actually liked the shittiest part about BG1 that they thankfully fixed in BG2?

- Great atmosphere, as a result of outstanding presentation values (painted 2D graphics that never age, excellent sound effects and music, thematic interface) and intelligent placement of lore into the game (things like lore books and item descriptions).

Unfortunately, the game was set in retarded DnD Forgotten Realms which gave it the plausibility and atmosphere of Pokemon or WoW, rather than a real medieval fantasy world.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

90% of those zones were empty save for (...) 3-4 points of interest

That makes no sense.

more often than not being some sort of useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references

And that is not true.

Unfortunately, the game was set in retarded DnD Forgotten Realms which gave it the plausibility and atmosphere of Pokemon or WoW

And that is highly subjective.

 

[Glyphwright]

That makes no sense.

Your mom makes no sense. Empty means just that - a ball-droppingly vast empty non-interactible flat terrain that needs to be meticulously scoured in search for those points of interest, while generic enemies serve as an annoying distraction.

And that is not true.

Your mom isn't true. Feel free to examine this shit: http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgate/walkthrough/fullmap.php

The only difference is that sometimes the out-of-context quirky character ends up fighting you instead of leaving.

And that is highly subjective.

Your mom is highly subjective. It's a simple question of taste and restraint - Forgotten Realms is a theme park filled with EVERYTHING they could possibly cram into the setting, a set of derivative elements that do not interact with each other in any meaningful way. You enjoy this crap? Congrats, you're a dumbfuck.

 

[octavius]

@Glyphwright
Dumbfuck!

You certainly have strong feelings about Baldur's Gate.

 

[Delterius]

To be fair, those also seem very fitting to the guy who thinks that BG1's optional content is 'low key' rather than amazingly boring.

 

[octavius]

Baldur's Gate is like the Israel of CRPGs. Even if there are hundreds of CRPGs that are shittier, somehow they escape the extreme scrutiny of Baldur's Gate.

 

[Delterius]

Why, naturally. Baldur's Gate is as far back as mainstream players and press go. Until very recently it was the precurssor of the bestest fantasy franchise ever (which is now in the shitter); but it still remains, in the minds of mainstream speakers, the game that single handely saved the 'traditional' RPGs in the late nineties. Meanwhile, anyone who doesn't like RTwP has Baldur's Gate to thank for a lot of butthurt. In some ways, I think its much like the party based equivalent to Diablo. It 'ruined everything' after it came out.

 

[Glyphwright]

Glyphwright
Dumbfuck!

This is the desperate last resort people grasp when they have no arguments to the contrary.

You certainly have strong feelings about Baldur's Gate.

I don't have strong feelings about Baldur's Gate. It was a pretty fun game for its time, but it is also filled with immense amounts of tedium and boredom, interspersed with isolated random encounters that were mostly little more than nerdy gags or parts of fetch quests (kill angry guy, bring boots to dwarf in town, kill angry guy, bring necklace to woman in town, kill angry guy rinse and repeat).

Baldur's Gate is like the Israel of CRPGs. Even if there are hundreds of CRPGs that are shittier, somehow they escape the extreme scrutiny of Baldur's Gate.

Shitty games are less fun to scrutinize. Stop being butthurt whenever someone says BG is less than a holy bundle of flawless heaven on Earth?

 

[Horus]

To be fair, those also seem very fitting to the guy who thinks that BG1's optional content is 'low key' rather than amazingly boring.

Well, it was less boring than BG2 at least. Not to mention lower level D&D is more fun to play(high level D&D sucks)

Goddamn both of them sucks actually. Really boring fantasy setting. Horrible character and dialogue(At least for the good characters. Evil side seemed more promising)

I don't know why the hell did i bother with this series in the first place... Oh wait, i remember why, it's on our best 10 RPG list.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Whut? Baldur's Gate 1 wasn't open world like Gothic, it was a collection of rectangular load-zones which, despite being adjacent to each other, had little continuity or overlapping climate/terrain. One zone could be a temperate forest, and the very next one - a rocky plateau, with no signs of the receding forest. They kept the coastline pretty consistent in areas with sea access, but no more than that.

Not sure how you define open world, but for me, it means the game world is continuous and allows nonlinear exploration, that is the player has freedom as to where to go next, which is true of both Baldur's Gate 1 and Gothic games. Gothic games (and 3D first/third person games in general) actually also consist of load zones, when a player moves, adjacent zones/chunks are loaded into memory in the background. In Gothic games, these zones were adjacent to each other, and the transition happened in the background as you moved, whereas in BG, there could be some short travel time between them and the transition had to involve the world map and abstract travel. However, because the BG zones were large and represented geographically adjacent regions, the world felt very continuous, so as far as I am concerned, it is definitely an example of an open world game.

I would strongly disagree that there was little continuity between the zones. Aside from the coast example I've given earlier, there are plenty of others. Zones that lie along a major road not only have that road within them, but it's actually placed in the corresponding part of the zone, relative to adjacent zones. So for example, if in the top zone, the road curves to the left, it will start on the left of the bottom zone as well. Zones that lie within forests (e.g. Cloakwood or Wood of Sharp Teeth) have similar greenery as their adjacent zones (forest type trees). Zones on the bottom, that lie in the Cloudpeak mountain range all have snow falling and similar type of trees. Zone on the east of the map typically have more desert and steppe type of terrain, with cactuses and dry land.

Your point about the transition from forest to rocks seems like nitpicking, considering how many liberties video games take in regards to realism and details, but even that could be explained by the fact that certain zones weren't completely adjacent and required a couple of hours of travel from one to the next.

And... and you actually liked that 90% of those zones were empty, save for a bunch of generic combat encounters and 3-4 points of interest scattered randomly across the terrain, more often than not being some sort of useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere? Wat? You actually liked the shittiest part about BG1 that they thankfully fixed in BG2?

First of all, the random encounters were way more than that. Sure, there were some quirky characters with quirky dialogue, but there were also a ton of other things. Some examples from memory:

- the stone garden created by a gnome mage and his pet basilisks
- the artist being pursued by a bounty hunter while he worked on the statue of his beloved
- the boy who lost his dog, and they both turn out to be demons and leave for some outer plane
- the talking chicken who turned out to be the mage's inept apprentice
- running into Davaeorn's brother on the coast
- the farmer whose son disappeared
- running into a secret ritual of the wizards of thay
- running into opposing parties of adventurers/bounty hunters who are after you on multiple optional maps
- encountering potential companions on many optional maps and related tangents (e.g. dueling the female warrior, turning the female cleric from a statue back to flesh)

These are just a small number of examples of random encounters, not even going into larger stuff like the Gnoll Stronghold or that dungeon under the halfling village.. Most zones have 3-4 of these. And the fact that the zones were large and mostly empty contributed to the excellent sense of exploration. If they were stuffed full of stuff, where every two steps you run into something of interest, it wouldnt really be exploration anymore, you would just be walking from one thing to another, but finding these little needles in a haystack of beautiful terrain provides the contrast needed to appreciate them.

Now look, I never said BG had the most perfect exploration possible, and certainly it would've been nice if every NPC you found in the optional zones had a backstory out of Planescape: Torment and stood in front of a massive dungeon out of Shadows of Amn. But that is not exactly very feasible/realistic, is it? To enable its rich storytelling, PS:T had a relatively small world, and to allow for its highly content-dense dungeons and tighter story-telling, BG2 had to sacrifice the exploration aspect to a large degree. It's not an accident that some other great exploration games like Gothic 1 and 2 also have very low-key approach to it. Exploration doesn't have to involve some uber epic stuff to be interesting, the things in BG were certainly interesting enough for me. I mentioned in the original post that BG2 did indeed improve on a lot of things from BG1, but my claim was simply that in my opinion, BG1 has great exploration when compared to other cRPGs, and not to some lofty ideal (the same goes for combat btw, everyone here always criticizes BG combat like it's the worst thing ever, while any objective analysis will show that BG combat is deeper/more tactical than about 90% of all cRPGs out there).

 

[Excidium]

any objective analysis will show that BG combat is deeper/more tactical than about 90% of all cRPGs out there

Again with this shit? There's nothing tactical about BG combat other than LoSing ranged attacks and using some CC spells. Most serious fights are completely decided by preparation and actual tactics play a very small part.

 

[octavius]

any objective analysis will show that BG combat is deeper/more tactical than about 90% of all cRPGs out there

Again with this shit? There's nothing tactical about BG combat other than LoSing ranged attacks and using some CC spells. Most serious fights are completely decided by preparation and actual tactics play a very small part.

It is still deeper/more tactical than about 90% of all cRPGs out there.

 

[Horus]

And it's still worse than even the shittiest turn based cRPG out there.

 

[octavius]

And it's still worse than even the shittiest turn based cRPG out there.

Now you are just being irrational.

 

[Excidium]

Indeed, but still, it's only tactical in the most basic sense.

 

[Horus]

Real time combat really hurt the game. With no sense of positioning and lots of spell effects going at the same time, combat turned into clusterfuck in most cases. Most players rather cheesed their way through the game by pulling the monsters one by one instead of fighting groups because of that.

There was no real time tactics or adapting to situations in battle. You would save before hard encounter. Go in, get decimated. Load up to before the encounter and buff your party accordingly with your cleric.

Don't get me wrong, system had potential and it's by no means a popamole action game but, gameplay was hurt really badly by real time combat.