So, Baldurs Gate

[Johannes]

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.

Preparation is tactics.

 

[funkadelik]

I haven't properly played BG1. I guess I will do that now while I wait for some new oldschool RPGs.

Although I do think a proper turn-based system would have been better, maybe even a phase-based would have worked.

 

[Johannes]

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 situation. 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.

Maybe it is a clusterfuck for you but at least I can make pretty good sense of what's going on and how to best position my guys. If most players did get through the game mostly by abusing the AI, that's because they could, not because the fights weren't enjoyable straight up since a lot of them were.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

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.

So you are blaming the game because 1) you choose to focus on possible exploits (common to all video games pretty much) and choose not to use available options (e.g. damage spells, buff/debuff spells, etc) and 2) it's guilty of the same thing all AD&D cRPG tactical combat is guilty of (ToEE has the same issue of preparation vs tactics, I don't see people knocking that), which has more to do with vancian systems rather than BG. OK.

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

Right. Fallout 1 and 2 and Arcanum had more tactics/depth.

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.

Is there any complex RPG you cannot cheese your way through if that's your intent? This has nothing to do with turn based or real time, games can be exploited, it's up to the player to use cheese or not. I, personally, play BG games without cheese as much as possible, I will wade into the fight full on, instead of pulling people one at a time, and the fights are fun then. But I mean seriously, one of the darlings here, Arcanum, had a game spell that let you one shot anyone in the game except the final boss, without any defense or counter. That, is some serious cheddar.

 

[Horus]

With that horrible ai pathfinding that constantly go bananas in narrow dungeon corridors? I respect your patience.

 

[Glyphwright]

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

It doesn't make any practical difference to the player, as the player moves seamlessly through the world and is able to do actual exploring, rather than walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area". Isometric perspective is another factor which restricts the exploration potential of the game, since you see the world from above, it is reduced to a series of completely flat rectangular maps with the "fog of war" covering unexplored areas, reducing your exploration to a rectangular trajectory around the edges of the map, with a final venture into the unexplored center. In other words, the player moves according to the artificiality of the load-zone, rather than features of the game world, such as landscape, mountain paths, trees, a smoke rising from a forest fire on the horizon, and other details which make the world come alive.

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.

Even when the zones were drawn with attention to the terrain, it still failed to produce a sense of continuity because they were generally populated by points of interest that had nothing to do with each other and groups of enemies that had nothing to do with each other. One area could have giant spiders and ghouls, and the very adjacent one - sirens and gibberlings.

- 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)

The majority of these are outside context points of interest that create the feeling of being in a huge theme park, or museum tour. "And to your left you see a farmer whose son disappeared, to your right is a little boy looking for a puppy who is actually an ogre mage in disguise, oh and watch out for the army of ghouls that come out of nowhere to whack you with their ghoulish ghoulishness". A few of these encounters were organically integrated into the game world, such as a groups of bandits who robbed people at a certain road, where they were known to set their base ahead of time, but for the most part it felt like the creators were simply filling out their quota of 3-5 points of interest per each map.

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

Less is more. The world of PS:T had an incredible sense of continuity between adjacent maps, because each map was filled with encounters that thematically and logically fit into the area they populated. You can take most of the encounters you listed above and switch their places randomly with each other because of how little these encounters have to do with their placement, but you couldn't do the same in PS:T.

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

What BG2 did right was drop a humongous number of mostly empty maps with a few random encounters, and instead built one map per location populated by enemies and points of interest that belong in that location. You're not going to be able to "explore" every square inch of an entire country in a top-down 2D perspective game, as demonstrated by BG1.

 

[Lhynn]

Bullshit, baldurs gate 1 and 2 are tactical for anyone that doesnt know enough about the game to make tactical approach trivial.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I agree that the preparation aspect exceeds the tactical aspect in stuff like mage fights, getting CC'd forever is never fun. However, I wouldn't say that's the majority of BG1, you can get by most fights without prior knowledge and without having to savescum, basic tactics go a long way for the majority of the game.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It doesn't make any practical difference to the player, as the player moves seamlessly through the world and is able to do actual exploring, rather than walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area". Isometric perspective is another factor which restricts the exploration potential of the game, since you see the world from above, it is reduced to a series of completely flat rectangular maps with the "fog of war" covering unexplored areas, reducing your exploration to a rectangular trajectory around the edges of the map, with a final venture into the unexplored center.

How would "walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area"" when you want to move beyond your current zone impact the "actual exploring"? What does it have to do with anything? Obviously with a discrete zone based design, everything to be explored is located inside the zone, so by the time you click next area, you are done exploring the zone. While there are some differences between isometric and non-isometric perspectives when it comes to exploration, the fundamental mechanics are still the same, you scan the area within your viewing range/angle, looking for things of interest, and if something catches your eye, you come closer and check it out. Because of that, I do not see the isometric approach as being inherently handicapped.

In other words, the player moves according to the artificiality of the load-zone, rather than features of the game world, such as landscape, mountain paths, trees, a smoke rising from a forest fire on the horizon, and other details which make the world come alive.

Have you even played Baldur's Gate? Because if you have, surely you recall that when you move around on those isometric maps, you are in fact moving according to the landscapes, since you have to walk around elevations, along narrow hill paths in appropriate zones, around thick clusters of trees, over or around ravines and rivers, and so on. Elevations even block your line of view, similarly to non-isometric perspective. And why couldnt you have stuff that makes the world come alive like smoke and fires in BG or isometric games exactly?

Even when the zones were drawn with attention to the terrain, it still failed to produce a sense of continuity because they were generally populated by points of interest that had nothing to do with each other and groups of enemies that had nothing to do with each other. One area could have giant spiders and ghouls, and the very adjacent one - sirens and gibberlings.

Are you sure about this? Let's examine some examples, shall we:

- in a farm zone near baldur's gate, the farmer's son is lost in an ankheg's lair. In the same zone, there is a ranger who enlists your party to keep the population of ankhegs down as it's their active season. In the city of Baldur's Gate, nearby, there is a dwarf who talks about this ranger.
- the previously mentioned talking chicken apprentice is located in an adjacent zone to the mage who was his master, and holds the key to his salvation
- the artist being hunted is in a zone near Nashkel, the town where you are offered a bounty to capture/kill him
- the female cleric you can save by turning her from stone to flesh at the fairgrounds was polymorphed by Tranzig, a mage connected to the main quest who resides in another town nearby
- in the elven bridge ruins, you meet a bard who reads you a touching poem about a group of knights, and you later meet this group in a somewhat altered form in the dungeon map underneath

Again, these are just some examples off the top of my head, there are many more. BG1, in this sense, was very well done, with a really good sense of cohesion in the game world.

The animals were similar, for the most part they were logically placed throughout the world, sirens on the coasts, winter wolves in the southern mountains, spiders and ettercaps in Cloakwood, bandits along roads and in the woods where their base was located.

The majority of these are outside context points of interest that create the feeling of being in a huge theme park, or museum tour. "And to your left you see a farmer whose son disappeared, to your right is a little boy looking for a puppy who is actually an ogre mage in disguise, oh and watch out for the army of ghouls that come out of nowhere to whack you with their ghoulish ghoulishness". A few of these encounters were organically integrated into the game world, such as a groups of bandits who robbed people at a certain road, where they were known to set their base ahead of time, but for the most part it felt like the creators were simply filling out their quota of 3-5 points of interest per each map.

See my response above.

Less is more. The world of PS:T had an incredible sense of continuity between adjacent maps, because each map was filled with encounters that thematically and logically fit into the area they populated. You can take most of the encounters you listed above and switch their places randomly with each other because of how little these encounters have to do with their placement, but you couldn't do the same in PS:T.

I already outlined above as to why that's not true, but also, it just sounds like you are reaching. You first made the inaccurate argument that there is no spatial continuity, and when that was refuted, you are now nitpicking about the continuity of PS:T encounters across adjacent maps? Huh? I mean of all the great things about PS:T, that's the one that really impressed you? OK.

 

[Glyphwright]

How would "walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area"" when you want to move beyond your current zone impact the "actual exploring"? What does it have to do with anything? Obviously with a discrete zone based design, everything to be explored is located inside the zone, so by the time you click next area, you are done exploring the zone. While there are some differences between isometric and non-isometric perspectives when it comes to exploration, the fundamental mechanics are still the same, you scan the area within your viewing range/angle, looking for things of interest, and if something catches your eye, you come closer and check it out. Because of that, I do not see the isometric approach as being inherently handicapped.

Read the line you quoted again, until it reaches your understanding.

It doesn't make any practical difference to the player, as the player moves seamlessly through the world and is able to do actual exploring, rather than walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area". Isometric perspective is another factor which restricts the exploration potential of the game, since you see the world from above, it is reduced to a series of completely flat rectangular maps with the "fog of war" covering unexplored areas, reducing your exploration to a rectangular trajectory around the edges of the map, with a final venture into the unexplored center.

Have you even played Baldur's Gate? Because if you have, surely you recall that when you move around on those isometric maps, you are in fact moving according to the landscapes, since you have to walk around elevations, along narrow hill paths in appropriate zones, around thick clusters of trees, over or around ravines and rivers, and so on. Elevations even block your line of view, similarly to non-isometric perspective. And why couldnt you have stuff that makes the world come alive like smoke and fires in BG or isometric games exactly?

You are moving across a flat map with certain zones made inaccessible because of water/mountains. You can't have smoke and fire at the edge of the horizon in BG because there is no horizon in an isometric perspective - you never see the sky. You would only see smoke and fire once your zone of visibility cleared out the fog of war, giving it a completely different impact. Yes, I played Baldur's Gate. Have you?

Are you sure about this? Let's examine some examples, shall we:

Stop. Just... just stop. There are hundreds of random encounters in BG, and of these it is easy to pick five that are convenient to you. I even said as much in the beginning - there are a few encounters that are integrated into the world, but most of them are not. Most encounters are of the sort: paladin wants you to kill gibberlings - can be placed anywhere, kid is looking for berries - can be placed anywhere, random guy is killed for boots - can be placed anywhere, ogre mage from Baator in disguise - can be placed anywhere, nobleman asks for helps against bear - can be placed anywhere, farmer asks to kill a bunch of zombies - can be placed anywhere, stargazer mumbles a bunch of nods towards the upcoming Neverwinter Nights game - can be placed anywhere, prophet realizes that you are child of Bhaal and runs away - can be placed anywhere, merchant tries to sell you cursed items - can be placed anywhere, a group of kobolds give you autographs - can be placed anywhere, woman asks you to save her wounded lover - can be placed anywhere. Basically, this is 90% of the encounters in BG - writers straining their minds to fill the quota of encounter per map.

The animals were similar, for the most part they were logically placed throughout the world, sirens on the coasts, winter wolves in the southern mountains, spiders and ettercaps in Cloakwood, bandits along roads and in the woods where their base was located.

Really? Is there any logic to the allocation of gibberlings, xvarts, hobgoblins, kobolds, basilisks, ghouls, zombies, skeletons, carrion crawlers, and a bunch of other monsters?

I already outlined above as to why that's not true, but also, it just sounds like you are reaching. You first made the inaccurate argument that there is no spatial continuity, and when that was refuted, you are now nitpicking about the continuity of PS:T encounters across adjacent maps?

Are you not following me? There is a stark contrast between an isometric game with a game world done right (PST) and one where the game world was done wrong (BG1). 90% of the encounters in BG1 exist in vacuum, out of context, and are unconnected to the location in which they are placed. 90% of encounters in PST are logical extensions of their respective area and cannot be transplanted somewhere else. This is because BG1 had too many faceless optional areas - generic woods, generic coastline, generic mountains with no significance, and not enough ideas which could bring these areas to life.

Huh? I mean of all the great things about PS:T, that's the one that really impressed you? OK.

Nobody gives a shit about your huffy-puffy rhetorics. Either provide rational arguments, or don't argue.

 

[hoverdog]

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

No, it isn't.


Vanilla BG (especially 1) is on the easy side, true enough. However, its strength lies in diversity of --interesting-- encounters. Spiders, basilisks, mages, enemy parties, undead. They all require different approaches. And, of course, SCS makes it a hundred times better, and tougher.

I prefer TB to RTwP, but seriously. Besides ToEE and KotC (and Temple had really uninspiring encounter design, at least without Circle of Eight modpack), what turn-based cRPG had combat that was at the same time challenging, tactical and fun to play?




also, Glyphwright is a moron, that much we know already.

 

[Bubbles]

Just so I get this straight, are we now treating regular unmodded BG2 as a "hard" or "challenging" game?

 

[Delterius]

Regular unmodded BG2 isn't hard. But it is challenging enough provided no metagaming knowledge.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

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.

The number of possible points of interests is appropriate for the size of the maps. Porky pointed that out and I notice that you choose to not react to his argument with regard to that at all.

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

Dude, you came up with a highly questionable declarative statement without a single fact to back it up. The onus is on you to provide sufficient evidence. I am surely not going to collect the handful of “quirky encounters” for you.

You said it yourself:

There are hundreds of random encounters in BG, and of these it is easy to pick five that are convenient to you.

Well, I suggest you try that yourself then. List all those quirky encounters. Porky at least came up with a few examples. Can you?

Or you could simply admit that you can't because there aren't that many to begin with. Your attempt to shift the burden of proof lets me assume that you are fully aware that your initial statement was grossly exaggerating at best.

Either provide rational arguments, or don't argue.

Make these words your mantra.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Read the line you quoted again, until it reaches your understanding.

Ok, I accept your lack of an argument.

You are moving across a flat map with certain zones made inaccessible because of water/mountains. You can't have smoke and fire at the edge of the horizon in BG because there is no horizon in an isometric perspective - you never see the sky. You would only see smoke and fire once your zone of visibility cleared out the fog of war, giving it a completely different impact.

How can a map be flat if it has mountains that influence player behavior? Seems to me, from the perspective of the player, the map is not flat at all.

Considering the context of your comments in the thread, is your argument something like: exploration in BG must be inferior because the player cannot scan the horizon? And if so, does that clarified form of it demonstrate how silly such broad statements are?

Stop. Just... just stop. There are hundreds of random encounters in BG, and of these it is easy to pick five that are convenient to you. I even said as much in the beginning - there are a few encounters that are integrated into the world, but most of them are not. Most encounters are of the sort: paladin wants you to kill gibberlings - can be placed anywhere, kid is looking for berries - can be placed anywhere, random guy is killed for boots - can be placed anywhere, ogre mage from Baator in disguise - can be placed anywhere, nobleman asks for helps against bear - can be placed anywhere, farmer asks to kill a bunch of zombies - can be placed anywhere, stargazer mumbles a bunch of nods towards the upcoming Neverwinter Nights game - can be placed anywhere, prophet realizes that you are child of Bhaal and runs away - can be placed anywhere, merchant tries to sell you cursed items - can be placed anywhere, a group of kobolds give you autographs - can be placed anywhere, woman asks you to save her wounded lover - can be placed anywhere. Basically, this is 90% of the encounters in BG - writers straining their minds to fill the quota of encounter per map.

Oh, there's way more than just five (not sure where you are pulling the 90% from, but I will assume the same place as most internet statistics originate), but rather than get into a listing contest, let me point out the logical fallacy and disingenuousness of your argument:
- I stated that BG has great exploration
- you claimed that it doesnt and gave as reasons that it doesn't have physical continuity and that most points of interest were "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere"
- both of these were then debunked by using concrete in-game examples
- at this point, you abandoned your earlier claims, and changed your argument from lack of physical continuity and quirky pointless characters to one where most encounters aren't related enough to their zone or adjacent zones, and gave PS:T as your counter-example

This last point is a strawman, because the argument is about exploration, and you are bringing up a game that is very much story driven and has minimal exploration, to make points about an open world game that is not nearly as story driven and to a large degree revolves around exploration. This isn't an argument about the strengths of PS:T, or which approach is better. I am a big fan of PS:T but it is very different in its structure from BG1. Because it's story driven and features minimal exploration, it has a much tighter approach, with fewer zones filled to the brim with content, and you may validly state that you prefer this type of approach to BG1, but this isn't about exploration, since PS:T doesn't have much in the way of it. If you walk across a zone filled with NPCs and quests and objects of interest to the point that every two steps you run into something, this is not what I consider exploration.

For obvious reasons, if you have fewer zones, you can write more extensive dialogue for the NPCs with the same amount of resources (I even mentioned crappy dialogue and quest structure as my cons of BG1 in the original post), and since there will be more NPCs placed into every zone, then of course they will be more related to each other and to the zone than in a game that has to spread them out over a much larger world. But as stated, this approach does not lend itself well to exploration, and thus is not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is about the quality of exploration of BG1, and not its general design approach vs other games such as PS:T. Other games that have great exploration in my opinion, such as the Gothics, have a similar approach to BG1, because it's not very realistic to expect devs with limited resources to be able to stuff a sizeable open world with the kind of content you have in much tighter, less exploration dependent games.

 

[Glyphwright]

The number of possible points of interests is appropriate for the size of the maps

The number of possible points of interests is inappropriate for the size of the maps. You know why? Because of the immense boredom and tedium associated with map exploration in BG1, that I did not experience anywhere in BG2 or Gothic. Feel free to call this purely subjective, but if I had no problems enjoying the exploration of BG2, then there must be something the sequel did right that the original did wrong. Namely, a bunch of generic uninteresting maps filled with 3-5 random encounters that float in vacuum.

Dude, you came up with a highly questionable declarative statement without a single fact to back it up. The onus is on you to provide sufficient evidence. I am surely not going to collect the handful of “quirky encounters” for you.

If you read my line about "hundreds of encounters", then you also read all the examples off the top of my head I provided, which means that you are lying when you say I haven't provided a single fact to back it up. I may not have provided any in the line you quoted because I felt that anyone who played BG1 would find this observation a self-evident truth, but I had provided numerous examples in the posts that followed, and since you obviously read those posts, you also read all of those examples. So stop lying. I provided about a dozen facts (ogre mage from Baator, kobolds giving autographs, etc.) and could provide a hundred more if I had nothing better to do. Stop lying.

Well, I suggest you try that yourself then. List all those quirky encounters. Porky at least came up with a few examples. Can you?

Stop lying. I listed a number of those quirky encounters. You quoted two random lines from my posts which were not addressed to you, which means you also read all of those quirky encounters I listed.

Or you could simply admit that you can't because there aren't that many to begin with

Stop being a liar.

Ok, I accept your lack of an argument.

Your inability to understand my argument is not my problem.

How can a map be flat if it has mountains that influence player behavior? Seems to me, from the perspective of the player, the map is not flat at all.

Because the player views the map from a static isometric top-down perspective which obscures the depth of the terrain and reduces all movement through the terrain to the same point-clicking and waiting for pathfinding to kead the party to the destination. Exactly the same as in case of a completely flat terrain. The terrain is not flat only from the in-universe perspective of the character, but it remains flat from the perspective of the player because moving through a "mountain" provides no difference in terms of view, perception of the game world, or the manner in which the character needs to be navigated through the terrain. Compare this to Gothic or Morrowind where moving through a mountainous terrain requires you to avoid steep edges in order to prevent falling down to your death (impossible in BG), jumping over obstacles (impossible in BG), finding the shortest sloping path through a steep section of the terrain to reduce travelling time (impossible in BG), using magical abilities to fly or glide over ravines (impossible in BG), and most importantly - navigating yourself according to potential points of interest visible in the distance which gradually become more and more detailed as you approach, revealing what they are and how interesting they are to the player - what seemed like a cave entrance or daedric temple from a distance may turn out to be a peculiarly shaped spire up close (impossible in BG).

There's nothing wrong with isometric perspective, but static flat 2D maps viewed from above do not lend themselves to exploration the same way that 3D first-person or third-person (camera fixed behind back), which means they need to be handled differently. More like PS:T or BG2, and less like BG1.

Considering the context of your comments in the thread, is your argument something like: exploration in BG must be inferior because the player cannot scan the horizon? And if so, does that clarified form of it demonstrate how silly such broad statements are?

Considering the context of your comments, you are clearly determined to achieve the "nerdtastic internet argument award" by maliciously misrepresenting your opponents position and using demagogy.

- you claimed that it doesnt and gave as reasons that it doesn't have physical continuity and that most points of interest were "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere"
- both of these were then debunked by using concrete in-game examples
- at this point, you abandoned your earlier claims, and changed your argument from lack of physical continuity and quirky pointless characters to one where most encounters aren't related enough to their zone or adjacent zones, and gave PS:T as your counter-example

The "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere" and the "most encounters aren't related enough to their zone or adjacent zones" are the exact same argument which you never debunked. You do understand that I am perfectly free to slightly exaggerate my feelings towards a game, especially on a forum like the RPGCodex, and that whatever inflated standards of precision you are trying to use in order to analyse my posts are biased and deliberately ignore the context in which the said posts were made? A random ogre mage who appears out on nowhere, gives you a fedex quest, and disappears into nowhere is little better in terms of storytelling quality than three kobolds which are supposed to be a nod towards Bob Newhart show, which allows me to humorously join both types of random encounters under the same description of "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere".

The point about non-continuous terrain was also never "debunked" because it is in fact an objective truth easily evident to anyone who tries to match up adjacent maps from BG1 - most of them do not add up, and even those that do rapidly go from rocky plateau to lush forest to barren mountains in a completely unrealistic manner, much like a theme park that tries to cram everything into its territory.

This last point is a strawman, because the argument is about exploration, and you are bringing up a game that is very much story driven and has minimal exploration, to make points about an open world game that is not nearly as story driven and to a large degree revolves around exploration

The counter-examples I used were PS:T, BG2, and Gothic, not just PS:T. Don't pick those parts of my posts which are convenient for your ad hominem and ignore the rest.

As for being story-driven - regardless of how story-driven PS:T was, it had a great deal of purely optional encounters which did not impact the main storyline and yet remained thematically and logically integrated into their game world, rather than existing in a vacuum like in BG1. If anything, PS:T being more story-driven than BG1 would suggest a lesser focus on optional encounters and a greater focus on the story, and yet both aspects are vastly superior in PS:T compared to BG1. Even if you make the argument that PS:T did not venture outside the city until the last part of the game, whereas BG1 had a great deal of wilderness, it still doesn't save the argument because the encounters found only in the city IN BG1 are just as out-of-context and floating in vacuum as the rest of them. Want more examples, purely from the city? Here you go:

Baldur's Gate Central
http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgate/walkthrough/baldursgatecentral.php
- Dabron Sanshenstar appears if you killed his brother previously. Why does he appear at this particular spot? No reason, he could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.
- Lothander gives you the quest about poison. Why does he appear at this particular spot? No reason, he could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.
- Felonius manor has a party of adventurers turned to stone you can turn back to flesh. Why do they appear at this particular spot? No reason, they could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.
- Poultry story with 20 chickens that attack you (hello, useless out-of-context quirky characters). Why do they appear at this particular spot? No reason, they could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.
- Nadine gives you a fedex quest about her son and an amulet. Why does she appear at this particular spot? No reason, she could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.
- Lady Hannah tells you about evil mage Ragefast. Why does she appear at this particular spot? No reason, she could just as easily turn up in any other part of the city.

Now let's compare it to Sigil's Clerk Ward
http://www.gamebanshee.com/planescapetorment/walkthrough/clerksward.php
- A woman called Diligence and her bodyguard tell you that you are too shabby-looking to be wandering in this location. Why does she appear at this particular spot? Because the Clerk Ward is a place for Sigil's elite, rich people, nobility, and people with money and fine taste, and the Nameless One is a half-naked zombie with dishoveled hair.
- Malmaner gives you a fedex quest to fetch him a costume for a masquerade party he is attending. Why does he appear at this particular spot? Because Because the Clerk Ward is a place for Sigil's elite, rich people, nobility, and people with money and refined taste, and masquerade parties is how rich people often spend their time.
- Civic Festhall Entrance is found here. Why does it appear at this particular spot? Because Clerk Ward is by definition the center of Sigil's bureaucracy and government, and a civil servant building is only too appropriate here.
- Eli Havelock tells you he used to train scouts at the Festhall and can train you as a thief. Why does he appear at this particular spot? Because of the reason I just said.
- Brother of Intellectual Lusts is found here. Why does it appear at this particular spot? Because Because the Clerk Ward is a place for Sigil's elite, rich people, nobility, and people with money and refined taste, and an oddity like a brother which offers intellectual rather than sexual services would only be appropriate in a place filled with bored rich people in search for unique sensations.
- Apothecary is found here. Why does it appear at this particular spot? Because in Sigil common people do not have the luxury of having an apothecary in their neighborhood, restricting it only to the city's elite.

Basically, I can keep going, but you can see for yourself that every single encounter in that location fits thematically with the identity of the Clerk Ward - curiosity shops, sensate establishments, linguists, advocates, etc. And the same holds true for Lower Ward, Hive Ward, Forgotten Village, Curst, and so on. This is the difference between Bioware and Black Isle - filling out a quota with uninspired quirkiness and nerd references vs. intelligently designing an area according to its backstory, thematics and logic. And Torment's main storyline does not in any way depend on there being a well-designed Clerk Ward with integrated encounters - Black Isle could have simply thrown in a few random quirky characters and called it a day.

For obvious reasons, if you have fewer zones, you can write more extensive dialogue for the NPCs with the same amount of resources (I even mentioned crappy dialogue and quest structure as my cons of BG1 in the original post), and since there will be more NPCs placed into every zone, then of course they will be more related to each other and to the zone than in a game that has to spread them out over a much larger world. But as stated, this approach does not lend itself well to exploration, and thus is not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is about the quality of exploration of BG1, and not its general design approach vs other games such as PS:T. Other games that have great exploration in my opinion, such as the Gothics, have a similar approach to BG1, because it's not very realistic to expect devs with limited resources to be able to stuff a sizeable open world with the kind of content you have in much tighter, less exploration dependent games.

Empty excuses. If you lack the resources to properly design a vast world, then properly design a small world. BG1 being filled with tedious, illogical exploration that makes me shudder at the thought of replaying that game cannot be excused. Especially considering that they fixed this problem in BG2 by creating properly designed standalone locations rather than try to simulate the "open world" effect in a perspective which doesn't lend itself to this type of gameplay. Biowhore was capable of learning from its errors back then.

And I am still waiting to hear the logic to the allocation of gibberlings, xvarts, hobgoblins, kobolds, basilisks, ghouls, zombies, skeletons, carrion crawlers, and a bunch of other monsters. What, you had nothing to say and decided to ignore this question? Very convenient.

 

[Athelas]

Have you tried out the exploration in Baldur's Gate Reloaded?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Because the player views the map from a static isometric top-down perspective which obscures the depth of the terrain and reduces all movement through the terrain to the same point-clicking and waiting for pathfinding to kead the party to the destination. Exactly the same as in case of a completely flat terrain. The terrain is not flat only from the in-universe perspective of the character, but it remains flat from the perspective of the player because moving through a "mountain" provides no difference in terms of view, perception of the game world, or the manner in which the character needs to be navigated through the terrain. Compare this to Gothic or Morrowind where moving through a mountainous terrain requires you to avoid steep edges in order to prevent falling down to your death (impossible in BG), jumping over obstacles (impossible in BG), finding the shortest sloping path through a steep section of the terrain to reduce travelling time (impossible in BG), using magical abilities to fly or glide over ravines (impossible in BG), and most importantly - navigating yourself according to potential points of interest visible in the distance which gradually become more and more detailed as you approach, revealing what they are and how interesting they are to the player - what seemed like a cave entrance or daedric temple from a distance may turn out to be a peculiarly shaped spire up close (impossible in BG).

There's nothing wrong with isometric perspective, but static flat 2D maps viewed from above do not lend themselves to exploration the same way that 3D first-person or third-person (camera fixed behind back), which means they need to be handled differently. More like PS:T or BG2, and less like BG1.

Again, faulty logic. You make some points about how 1st/3rd person perspectives has some potential advantages over isometric, which could very well be true, but then you illogically take this to mean that isometric exploration MUST suck and should be avoided. How does one lead to the other? That's like saying if guy A is faster than guy B, then guy B must be slow.

The "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere" and the "most encounters aren't related enough to their zone or adjacent zones" are the exact same argument which you never debunked. You do understand that I am perfectly free to slightly exaggerate my feelings towards a game, especially on a forum like the RPGCodex, and that whatever inflated standards of precision you are trying to use in order to analyse my posts are biased and deliberately ignore the context in which the said posts were made? A random ogre mage who appears out on nowhere, gives you a fedex quest, and disappears into nowhere is little better in terms of storytelling quality than three kobolds which are supposed to be a nod towards Bob Newhart show, which allows me to humorously join both types of random encounters under the same description of "useless out-of-context quirky character who uttered a bunch of pop-culture references and disappeared into nowhere".

The point about non-continuous terrain was also never "debunked" because it is in fact an objective truth easily evident to anyone who tries to match up adjacent maps from BG1 - most of them do not add up, and even those that do rapidly go from rocky plateau to lush forest to barren mountains in a completely unrealistic manner, much like a theme park that tries to cram everything into its territory.

So basically you again entirely changed your position right now to better suit your argument. By quirky characters with pop-culture references you apparently (via a small bit of self-confessed Codex fueled exaggeration) meant low-key one-off type quests without much backstory, which surprise, surprise is exactly how I described BG1's quests in my original post:

"- 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."

You seem to be confusing exploration with writing/quest design. To me, these are separate elements, which is why I gave BG1 a high mark on exploration and a low mark on the latter. As far as I am concerned (and yes, this is somewhat subjective), exploration in cRPGs is the act free movement in wilderness-type areas, and the resulting discovery of points of interest. While it would certainly be nice for those points of interest to be as deep/involved/integrated as possible, with tons of backstory and dialogue and so on, it is not a prerequisite for an enjoyable exploration aspect. As long as the basic mechanism of exploration (e.g. scanning beautiful painted vistas) is enjoyable, and there is a large amount of varied and unique content to find, even if it's not super deep, I, and many others find that that sort of thing to be fun, much as you may disagree. In fact, all of my favorite exploration cRPGs (BG1, Gothic 1, and Gothic 2) have those kinds of low-key points of interest. Think about the Gothic games, most exploration encounters (i.e. those outside of the main settlements) were very down to earth affairs, without much dialogue, backstory, or a massive dungeon. Finding a troll in a clearing, some hidden cave, a merchant giving out a short side-quest, that sort of thing.

... yet another long-winded attempt to bait into the strawman argument of BG1 vs PS:T ...

As I already mentioned, I am not getting into that. I happen to like both games, but for different reasons, so not sure why you keep trying to bring up PS:T while talking about BG1's exploration, considering the former has almost no exploration to speak of. As far BG1's writing, quest design and backstory, I expressed my opinions on those in the original post, which you conveniently disregarded in order to argue against your own positions.

And I am still waiting to hear the logic to the allocation of gibberlings, xvarts, hobgoblins, kobolds, basilisks, ghouls, zombies, skeletons, carrion crawlers, and a bunch of other monsters. What, you had nothing to say and decided to ignore this question? Very convenient.

Some of those were logically placed, for example basilisks were mostly in a single region, with the logical exceptions of one being shipped in Baldur's Gate, and a few helping to guard Durlag's Tower. Carrion crawlers also were typically found in caves or in BG sewers. As for the rest, guess what, large open world cRPGs tend to reuse some monsters somewhat, and I see no problem with this logically, since we are talking about the Sword Coast, a relatively small region, not an entire continent or world. Do you really want to start applying this kind of rigor to all cRPGs, or just to those you happen to dislike?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

(…) all the examples off the top of my head I provided (...) I had provided numerous examples in the posts that followed (…) you also read all of those examples.(...) I provided about a dozen facts (…) and could provide a hundred more (...). I listed a number of those quirky encounters.(...) you also read all of those quirky encounters I listed.

I count about three to five, depending on what one might want to count as “quirky”. Considering that by your own admission

it is easy to pick five that are convenient to you

I don't think that counts as sufficient evidence to support your initial statement that all the possible encounters one could have were

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

Particularly considering that – again by your own admission -

There are hundreds of random encounters in BG

In the light of the enormous number of NPCs and possible encounters (though I doubt there are really hundreds?) I think it is safe to say that your original insinuation that BG mainly consists of mildly comical encounters was an over-exaggeration. This aspect of the game neither justifies your level of criticism nor your level of rage.

You do understand that I am perfectly free to slightly exaggerate my feelings towards a game, especially on a forum like the RPGCodex

This was not directed at me but since it touches my point and also completely blew my mind:


Either you want to simply state your personal feelings about a game in case anyone cares or you want to discuss it seriously. If you want to discuss it seriously there are certain rules you have to stick to if you want to ensure quality discussion. Here is an important one: Do not outright declare something as self-evident truth that is demonstrably bullshit.


This is tiring and I've had enough of this now. This shall be my last contribution on the matter.

(edit: two tiny corrections)

 

[octavius]

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.

Sure, it would most probably have been better with turn based combat. But the way I play them they are much closer to turn based than real time anyway.

Still, I find the combat in the BG games superior to that of the turn based Gold Box games for several reasons:
Moddability. This means making combat scripts for monsters that make them smarter and more unpredictable.
Much more diversity in monsters, spells, items, which translates to better encounter design and more combat options.

As for the tactical options, yes the tactics have little to do with formations and conventional tactic, and more with using the right tools at your disposal. This, combined with rather poor path finding, can indeed lead to clusterfucks where you lose control if you don't pay close attention.

But the end product (BG1 with SCS) is still superior to any turn based game I've played.
Since you mention "pulling the monsters one by one instead of fighting groups" it's obvious you have only played the vanilla BG1, which is a very different experience from a game enhanced with SCS.

Instead of raging against BG1, why not turn your anger and mad modding skillz to all those turn based games with limited options and poor encounter design instead?

 

[DraQ]

(...)
At which point you -think- the coast is clear and move forward your party before stumbling into another death trap that causes a party wipe.

(...)

Mages have the ability to mind control your entire party for 30 seconds in one cast (I'm not exaggerating). Basilisks have a ranged attack that paralyzes and permanently kills a character and makes them lose all their items. They can cast this attack roughly every 1 second (again not exaggerating) and the DC class is such that somebody with a 7 save against Paralyzation will likely get one shot as soon as he or she steps into paralyzation range.

Those are weak as they are merely examples of failure to git gud, for example basilisks are foreshadowed nicely, however there are a lot of good points in this post:

1. Pathfinding on anything that isn't reasonably close to an infinite, featureless plane is atrocious and will sometimes get you killed, unless you're proficient enough lemming herder to simultaneously babysit every party member through every single path node.

2. Having to manually check for traps is a chore, and the game isn't helped by the fact that you can't really scout ahead and check for traps. It's one or the other.

3. Single protagonist who cannot be resurrected and coarsely grained, randomly lethal low level D&D don't mix very well.
BG is effectively a solo + followers game that tries to play as actual party game and fails badly because it subjects you to a lot of stuff that wouldn't realistically result in TPK, but can easily enough break the weakest link.

I know the vanilla game isn't very hard.

BG1 isn't hard, but it's often cheap.

Why does BG get so much flak for the story here?

It is told in diverse ways - scripted events, dreams you have, ingame books & letters you can find, conversations you can have, rumors you can pick up in taverns, etc. Many of these things are optional, so a player who plays the game more thoroughly would pick up much more of this stuff, hints and foreshadowing or simply some additional flavor. The story unfolds slowly while the player tries to piece together the all different elements he picks up on his own pace.

I don't mind the story but the pacing is atrocious - player is never thrown anything of interest until nearly the very end.

Prior to that it's repetitive beating n-th villain to get pointer to (n+1)-th.

- 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...

Yawn.

Exploration implies finding stuff. Finding stuff implies skill and/or effort put into it, with possibility of not succeeding, which is not the case with BG.

I 'd Glyphwright's post for saving me a lot of further explanation.

It doesn't make any practical difference to the player, as the player moves seamlessly through the world and is able to do actual exploring, rather than walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area". Isometric perspective is another factor which restricts the exploration potential of the game, since you see the world from above, it is reduced to a series of completely flat rectangular maps with the "fog of war" covering unexplored areas, reducing your exploration to a rectangular trajectory around the edges of the map, with a final venture into the unexplored center.

How would "walking up to the edge of the map and clicking "next area"" when you want to move beyond your current zone impact the "actual exploring"? What does it have to do with anything? Obviously with a discrete zone based design, everything to be explored is located inside the zone, so by the time you click next area, you are done exploring the zone. While there are some differences between isometric and non-isometric perspectives when it comes to exploration, the fundamental mechanics are still the same, you scan the area within your viewing range/angle, looking for things of interest, and if something catches your eye, you come closer and check it out. Because of that, I do not see the isometric approach as being inherently handicapped.

In other words, the player moves according to the artificiality of the load-zone, rather than features of the game world, such as landscape, mountain paths, trees, a smoke rising from a forest fire on the horizon, and other details which make the world come alive.

Have you even played Baldur's Gate? Because if you have, surely you recall that when you move around on those isometric maps, you are in fact moving according to the landscapes, since you have to walk around elevations, along narrow hill paths in appropriate zones, around thick clusters of trees, over or around ravines and rivers, and so on. Elevations even block your line of view, similarly to non-isometric perspective.

The difference is that traversing the gameworld is trivial in BG, so is handling terrain obstacles.

In a game like BG you'll never wonder:

• if you can get somewhere
• how to get there
• is there anything there
• is it worth getting there

Everything is neatly packed in a rectangular bounding box of the map. Nothing sticks out, places are either reachable or not, and if they are reachable, there is a straightforward path to do so by walking. Nothing is also hidden in a way making it only possible to find upon closed inspection - objects either lie in plain sight (on their own or in obvious container) or they are completely hidden in scenery with nothing to clue you in, but mouseover, which reduces search to mechanically sweeping your mouse all over the screen (unless you're using BG2 engine, then all hotspots are made obvious by holding Alt or whatever). Other maps are accessible by simply reaching corresponding edge of the map.

You'll also never come closer to get a better view, because distance doesn't impact perspective in an iso game.

If BG had been an actual 3D game with free movement, it could have had exploration. It also could have had exploration if it had been a 2D iso game without discrete maps covering relatively small area. Hell, it could have had exploration if it merely used puzzles, triggers, some hiden and some obvious, mixed with red herrings, although it would be less spatial, more textual mode of exploration - I still don't know if there is anything to find in that round tomb with acid trap in PS:T.

And why couldnt you have stuff that makes the world come alive like smoke and fires in BG or isometric games exactly?

Because they limit your sight range and don't diffrentiate between visibility of objects of differing height? Even if those games allowed for different LOS depending on height of object visible, it would still be impractical, as you'd have to scroll around featureless black areas of your map looking for distant landmark as you move around.

Well, duh?

How can a map be flat if it has mountains that influence player behavior? Seems to me, from the perspective of the player, the map is not flat at all.

From mechanical perspective it's flat plane divided into accessible and inaccessible spots.

Considering the context of your comments in the thread, is your argument something like: exploration in BG must be inferior because the player cannot scan the horizon? And if so, does that clarified form of it demonstrate how silly such broad statements are?

If you can't scan the horizon, how can you see anything on it?

3D view allows for natural gradation of detail - far away you might see just a plume of smoke and large terrain features, closer you can see stuff like man-made structures, carrion birds circling and so on, closer still you can see general scene, but you'll need to come very close to see fine detail, footprints, small items or carvings. Meanwhile, isometric, or any overhead view, is strictly binary - either you see something or you don't, everything you see is close by and you always know what you don't see.
If you see everything, or as much as you can, you have also found everything - no actual exploration involved, at least in strict spatial sense.

 

[Lancehead]

Another thing that works well with fpp with regards to exploration is sound. Even if the game doesn't do as much as Thief did with sound propagation modelling, just modelling elevation, distance and direction can have the player looking for ways and means to reach the source.

 

[Glyphwright]

Again, faulty logic. You make some points about how 1st/3rd person perspectives has some potential advantages over isometric, which could very well be true, but then you illogically take this to mean that isometric exploration MUST suck and should be avoided. How does one lead to the other? That's like saying if guy A is faster than guy B, then guy B must be slow.

I don't make "some points", I explain how BG doesn't have the most basic features that exploration consists of. Clicking somewhere and watching your party pathfind its way as the fog of war clears out doesn't leave the impression that you are exploring, because you are not putting any effort into traversing the landscape or making a judgement as to where you are headed next. Every map is a flat rectangular zone that will be fully cleared of the fog of war by the time you are done "exploring", to make sure you aren't missing any point of interest. After 3-4 such maps the process becomes perfectly predictable. This isn't exploration, this is tedium. And you are once again doing your best to desperately misrepresent my position. I did not say isometric exploration must suck and should be avoided - I said it requires a different approach than dividing the world into a large number of adjacent tiles and then throwing 3-5 instances of quirky out-of-context randomness that has nothing to do with anything to fill out a quota. It requires a much greater use of storytelling and interesting locations and encounters that actually add to the realism of the world they inhabit. Because clearing a flat rectangular flat map of the fog of war is never going to be satisfying on its own, it is what's in the map and what it represents as part of the game world that becomes the focus here. Gothic and Morrowind can get away with having mountain ranges or forests that are filled with pretty much nothing but themselves because exploring a beautifully drawn world in 3D is an engaging process in itself. The same cannot be said of BG1. You can't jump in BG. You can't swim. You can't fly. Your perspective doesn't change based on your elevation. New portions of the world aren't discovered seamlessly. You can't steer away from your primary destination because something in the distance caught your eyes. You can't get lost in the game.

So basically you again entirely changed your position right now to better suit your argument. By quirky characters with pop-culture references you apparently (via a small bit of self-confessed Codex fueled exaggeration) meant low-key one-off type quests without much backstory, which surprise, surprise is exactly how I described BG1's quests in my original post:

No, I have not changed my position - this is what my position was from the very beginning, that it is completely illogical to praise a game for its level design when the majority of its locations are generic maps filled with encounters that have no context, no backstory, and no impact on the player. And not all of these encounters are quests - many are simply that, an encounter that requires no further action on the player's behalf. Have you even bothered reading my posts or did you shit your pants and start foaming at the mouth the second someone dared to say that BG1 didn't have a very good level design? This is what I said:

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?

Yeah, learn to read.

You seem to be confusing exploration with writing/quest design. To me, these are separate elements, which is why I gave BG1 a high mark on exploration and a low mark on the latter. As far as I am concerned (and yes, this is somewhat subjective), exploration in cRPGs is the act free movement in wilderness-type areas, and the resulting discovery of points of interest. While it would certainly be nice for those points of interest to be as deep/involved/integrated as possible, with tons of backstory and dialogue and so on, it is not a prerequisite for an enjoyable exploration aspect. As long as the basic mechanism of exploration (e.g. scanning beautiful painted vistas) is enjoyable, and there is a large amount of varied and unique content to find, even if it's not super deep, I, and many others find that that sort of thing to be fun, much as you may disagree. In fact, all of my favorite exploration cRPGs (BG1, Gothic 1, and Gothic 2) have those kinds of low-key points of interest. Think about the Gothic games, most exploration encounters (i.e. those outside of the main settlements) were very down to earth affairs, without much dialogue, backstory, or a massive dungeon. Finding a troll in a clearing, some hidden cave, a merchant giving out a short side-quest, that sort of thing.

I am not confusing anything. The quality of writing entirely determines the quality of exploration in BG due to the reasons stated above. If you don't take the quality of writing into account, then you are merely stuck praising Baldur's Gate for having OOOH LOOK AT THAT PRETTYYYY maps and a good pathfinding system. Because on a purely mechanical level, that's all this is. You click somewhere and wait for the OOOH LOOK AT THAT PRETTYYYY map to unfold as your character moves alongside the flat terrain, sometimes with water-colored or mountain-colored inaccessible zones blocking your way to create the illusion of uneven terrain. Really? This is what captures your interest? Enjoying the pastoral images of hand-drawn 2D maps as they are cleared of the fog of war? This is what roleplaying and exploration means to you? Would you like some mashed carrots to eat as you play your favorite game (staring at pretty maps), grandpa?

As I already mentioned, I am not getting into that. I happen to like both games, but for different reasons, so not sure why you keep trying to bring up PS:T while talking about BG1's exploration, considering the former has almost no exploration to speak of. As far BG1's writing, quest design and backstory, I expressed my opinions on those in the original post, which you conveniently disregarded in order to argue against your own positions.

I do not give a crap what you're not getting into or what you like. If you try to make a point, then either live up to the claims you make or admit your ineptitude and accept defeat. And what the fuck do you mean, you "aren't sure" why I keep bringing up PS:T, haven't you yourself said that I keep bringing it up as a counter-example of isometric perspective exploration done right? Do I need to write it in big flaming letters for it to enter your thick skull?

PLANESCAPE TORMENT HAD INTELLIGENT AND CONSISTENT LEVEL DESIGN WHICH COMBINED BOTH QUALITY WRITING AND PRETTY VISUALS TO CREATE A BELIEVABLE, INTERNALLY CONSISTENT, ATMOSPHERIC WORLD POPULATED BY POINTS OF INTEREST WHICH HAD A LOGICAL REASON FOR BEING IN THE LOCATION IN WHICH THEY ARE PLACED, WHEREAS BALDUR'S GATE 1 CONSISTED OF A GREAT NUMBER OF PERFECTLY GENERIC MAPS FILLED FOR THE MOST PART WITH COMPLETELY OUT-OF-CONTEXT QUIRKY ENCOUNTERS THAT HAD LITTLE BACKSTORY, NO IMPACT, AND NO CONNECTION TO THE AREA IN WHICH THEY WERE PLACED.

For fuck's sake.

Some of those were logically placed, for example basilisks were mostly in a single region, with the logical exceptions of one being shipped in Baldur's Gate, and a few helping to guard Durlag's Tower. Carrion crawlers also were typically found in caves or in BG sewers. As for the rest, guess what, large open world cRPGs tend to reuse some monsters somewhat, and I see no problem with this logically, since we are talking about the Sword Coast, a relatively small region, not an entire continent or world. Do you really want to start applying this kind of rigor to all cRPGs, or just to those you happen to dislike?

Why were they all in a single region? And carrion crawlers were also found outside of caves. In other words, you admit there was no rhyme or reason to the allocation of monsters in BG1. Which means that not only dialogue-based encounters existed in a complete vacuum, but also the combat-based encounters as well. Which really makes me wonder how anyone could enjoy exploring generic maps filled with encounters and combat that have little to no roleplay valu... OOOOH LOOOOK PRETTTYYY MAAPS.

In the light of the enormous number of NPCs and possible encounters (though I doubt there are really hundreds?) I think it is safe to say that your original insinuation that BG mainly consists of mildly comical encounters was an over-exaggeration. This aspect of the game neither justifies your level of criticism nor your level of rage.

What is the difference whether it consists of mildly comical encounters or a mix between mildly comical encounters and other types of encounters that exist in vacuum, have little backstory, little impact, and no roleplaying value of any kind? It's like saying, yes this is shit, but a different kind of shit than you half-humorously implied, this is important!!

Are you really such a pathetic die-hard BG1 fan that you keep harping on the "quirky pop-culture references" line long after I admitted it was a humorous exaggeration which was true in spirit if not necessarily literally? Get over it already, it's like you have nothing of value to say but feel compelled to defend BG1 no matter what.

Either you want to simply state your personal feelings about a game in case anyone cares or you want to discuss it seriously. If you want to discuss it seriously there are certain rules you have to stick to if you want to ensure quality discussion. Here is an important one: Do not outright declare something as self-evident truth that is demonstrably bullshit.

I shit bloody diarrhea on you, your mom, and your "rulezzzzzzzzz" of quality dicksucktion. How's that for discussing it seriously?

Quality discussion consists of people who are able to provide objective arguments in support of their position, analyzing relevant facts, making logical conclusions, drawing comparisons, and understanding your opponent's position. I have been writing walls of text consisting of all that only to have you and your fuckbuddy up there ignore inconvenient parts, and use every sort of ad hominem, demagogy, misrepresentation, hilariously over-pompous chest-beating, and generally every dirty trick from the armchair forum dicksucktion expert's handbook to try and defend something which does not need be defended. Now go clean up.

Oh, and I already established that BG1 being filled with out-of-context encounters as an objective fact, which is indeed self-evident truth to anyone who actually played the game and wasn't too distracted by OOOOOOHH LOOOK AT THOSE MAPS PREEEETYYYY to notice.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

3D view allows for natural gradation of detail - far away you might see just a plume of smoke and large terrain features, closer you can see stuff like man-made structures, carrion birds circling and so on, closer still you can see general scene, but you'll need to come very close to see fine detail, footprints, small items or carvings. Meanwhile, isometric, or any overhead view, is strictly binary - either you see something or you don't, everything you see is close by and you always know what you don't see.

It calls for a better fog of war. One thing that is worse is that IE has only 18m vision radius.

 

[Excidium]

The fog of war in BG is pure shit.