So, Baldurs Gate

[Excidium]

I don't know man, I agree that BG1 doesn't scale up well. Stuff like the font, the interface elements, it all looks like shit when stretched up to a big screen. What also doesn't help is that the movespeed is really slow if compared to other IE games, and the pathfinding is a lot, lot worse. Not much reason to play it unless you want the original experience.

 

[TedNugent]

I don't know man, I agree that BG1 doesn't scale up well. Stuff like the font, the interface elements, it all looks like shit when stretched up. What also doesn't help is that the movespeed is really slow if compared to other IE games, and the pathfinding...

Fallout on the other hand looks great scaled up.

The movement speed is what kills me. Everyone shuffles around like they're in a 3 legged race in Baldur's Gate. A run/walk toggle would really have helped.

If you use Weidu and Widescreen mod everything situates properly, and if you use the Bigger Fonts mod you can get everything to situate properly.

I used this guide and mod install order:

http://af.gog.com/news/enhance_the_...ion_of_baldurs_gate_from_gogcom?as=1649904300

Spoiler

1. Fully install Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga
2. Fully install Baldur's Gate II Complete.
3. Download Baldur's Gate II Fixpack (Download links are on the left side) and extract it to your Baldur's Gate II directory.
4. Run the newly extracted setup-bg2fixpack.exe (if not automatically started).
5. It is safe to select yes for all the optional fixes, but if you want to learn about each in detail, consult the readme file that comes with the fixpack.
6. Download BGT-WeiDU and extract it in your Baldur's Gate II directory.
7. Run the newly extracted Setup-BGT.exe and follow the instructions. You may need to run it in administrative mode in Windows Vista/7.
8. Enter Baldur's Gate I's directory when asked (if not already provided)
9. Wait for BGT-WeiDU to finish installing.
10. OPTIONAL: Download and install Baldur's Gate 1 Unfinished Business as well as BG 2 Unfinished Business. These mods restore things that were previously cut from the released product, so while you don't need them, and they do add new content, they're pretty nice to have, especially if this is not your first time.
11. OPTIONAL: Download and install any user-created material (banter packs, expansion mods, new NPCs, etc.)
12. Go to your Baldur's Gate II directory, then find and run the file Setup-BGTMusic.exe and select 'Hybrid Baldur’s Gate/Shadows of Amn/Throne of Bhaal music'. This makes it possible to hear the original Baldur's Gate music when playing Baldur's Gate I.
13. OPTIONAL: (for more experienced users) Download Baldur's Gate II Tweak Pack (if this link doesn't work, please try the emergency mirror site) and apply it in the same way as the fixpack. Consult the readme file for details of each tweak - too many to list here. If you don't know what a tweak does even after consulting the readme, just skip it.
14. OPTIONAL: Download and install the Bigger Fonts for BGII mod if you plan to play in really high-res and don't want to strain your eyes reading tiny text.
15. Download the widescreen mod and apply it in the same manner as the fixpack. This makes it possible to play the game in high resolutions and in widescreen format.
16. Remove the Baldur's Gate I installation if you wish - it's done its job!

BG1 looked pretty gorgeous when everything was played at 1680x1050. The only thing I didn't really like was the hideous paperdolls.

But then again I played Fallout 1 and Planescape at 640x480.

 

[Excidium]

Well, converted to BG2 it looks great even without any resolution patch. We were talking about straight up vanilla BG1.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've been playing cRPG's since the very first Might and Magic, back in 1988 on my HD-less 8086 XT. That doesn't necessarily mean that I scoured every inch of the maps in Baldur's Gate the first time I played it, or the second, or the third.

The implication that every "seasoned" RPG player would have cleared every inch of fog in the gameworld just because, well, that's just what they do is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I was also a pen-and-paper AD&D player of many years - even so, I went through BG1 the first time at a very slow pace, and missed a great deal of content, for no particular reason; I didn't feel the exploration was boring as such, or disincentivized due to some mechanic (or lack thereof), I just wanted to progress the story at certain times and took it at a more leisurely pace at other times. I thought the game was big enough to warrant multiple playthroughs and in fact, my latest one was just a couple of months ago, after many years, with all the modern bells and whistles provided by BGT and such mods, and it was a pretty satisfying experience, even after all this time - and I still found things I hadn't found before. How is that not related to exploration?

I think a lot of the reasons given in this thread about BG's exploration being meaningless, or bad, are pretty contrived (no horizon line? Come on), and certain opinions presented as logical corollaries are frankly ridiculous (such as the aforementioned seasoned RPG player = scour every inch of the gameworld by necessity). I respect the opinion that first-person or third-person perspective allow for a different sort of exploration, and to some people more rewarding, because you have to physically negotiate obstacles or whatever the cause might be, but that is not by itself "better" than clicking away at fog of war in an unrevealed portion of a 2d map. In either case you're revealing new information. It might not be difficult to reach all the places in BG1 (indeed, it's pretty trivial), but it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone would automatically do it.

 

[Stokowski]

My bookmarks list has been continually maintained for the best part of 15 years; expanded, trimmed, and tweaked as it migrated from machine to machine and browser to browser, and as my tastes and interests evolved.

WTF has this to do with anything?

Well, y'know where my link to the Codex has been situated all these years? Under the 'BG & Related' section.

It may well be fashionable to nitpick about Baldur's Gate here and now, but (a) you're largely just being a cunt in doing so, and (b) the game was and remains one of the most awesome RPG experiences ever.

 

[TedNugent]

Well, converted to BG2 it looks great even without any resolution patch. We were talking about straight up vanilla BG1.

Yeah, I played up to the Nashkel mines on the baseline engine with the widescreen resolution mod and it looked like ass. I would recommend anybody playing it get Weidu and the widescreen mod.

And due to the close in camera on the default 640x480 resolution it's not very playable without a high resolution patch.

I've been playing cRPG's since the very first Might and Magic, back in 1988 on my HD-less 8086 XT. That doesn't necessarily mean that I scoured every inch of the maps in Baldur's Gate the first time I played it, or the second, or the third.

The implication that every "seasoned" RPG player would have cleared every inch of fog in the gameworld just because, well, that's just what they do is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I was also a pen-and-paper AD&D player of many years - even so, I went through BG1 the first time at a very slow pace, and missed a great deal of content, for no particular reason; I didn't feel the exploration was boring as such, or disincentivized due to some mechanic (or lack thereof), I just wanted to progress the story at certain times and took it at a more leisurely pace at other times. I thought the game was big enough to warrant multiple playthroughs and in fact, my latest one was just a couple of months ago, after many years, with all the modern bells and whistles provided by BGT and such mods, and it was a pretty satisfying experience, even after all this time - and I still found things I hadn't found before. How is that not related to exploration?

I think a lot of the reasons given in this thread about BG's exploration being meaningless, or bad, are pretty contrived (no horizon line? Come on), and certain opinions presented as logical corollaries are frankly ridiculous (such as the aforementioned seasoned RPG player = scour every inch of the gameworld by necessity). I respect the opinion that first-person or third-person perspective allow for a different sort of exploration, and to some people more rewarding, because you have to physically negotiate obstacles or whatever the cause might be, but that is not by itself "better" than clicking away at fog of war in an unrevealed portion of a 2d map. In either case you're revealing new information. It might not be difficult to reach all the places in BG1 (indeed, it's pretty trivial), but it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone would automatically do it.

All right, if you want a reason that isn't contrived why the exploration in BG1 sucks ass, consider the fact that the content itself is not a valuable experience, the random encounters are annoying and pointless, and most of the points of interest are copy-paste bandit fights or random encounters.

BG1 would have been vastly improved if they simply cut out all of the empty random encounter boxes with a few goodies strewn about loosely and left the game revolving tightly around the titular city of Baldur's Gate, Ulgoth's Beard and it's associated dungeons including the Isle of Balduran and the Ice Maze, and Durlag's Tower. Wandering around an empty field killing ghouls simply isn't fun or interesting. It has barely any roleplaying value or any nuance of gameplay. It's boring and trite and if you like it there are other games that do the loot/XP grinding better.

 

[Great Deceiver]

What you're describing is exactly what they did with BG2 - I don't necessarily think it was an "evolution". The more densely packed areas came at the expense of some freedom to move about, and that in itself was valuable.

Anyway, it's funny that you should mention the Isle of Balduran - that's one of the weakest areas of TotSC, in my opinion, and the very definition of filler content, even if it was entirely optional. Durlag's Tower is one of the best cRPG dungeons ever, though.

 

[Metatron]

Where would we be whitout our freedom to move into areas with absolutely nothing to do in it whatsoever and even when there's something to do it's usually limited nonsense vastly inferior to every other IE game eh?

Baldurs Gate 1 nostalgics are the worst.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

It may well be fashionable to nitpick about Baldur's Gate here and now, but (a) you're largely just being a cunt in doing so, and (b) the game was and remains one of the most awesome RPG experiences ever.

(a) No.
(b) No.

And no, no "nitpicking". And no, it has nothing to do with any kind of "fashion".

Coming from the background of Ultima VII, ADOM and Fallout, when I have bought BG1 on release I have found it hugely disappointing.

Let's start:
1. Combat.
a. BG1 had some glitched spells, including enemy spells getting interrupted by pausing the game.
The most important being one of the most ubiquitous spells - Mirror Image was implemented in a such way that it gave total immunity to damage to the caster while there were images left.
It wasn't possible to accidentally hit the mage, to hit him with area damage spell. To make things worse, non-damage effects went through on mage, so it was possible to paralyse, poison, etc. the mage by hitting one of the images!
-Animate dead working as a normal summoning spell.
-No spell components and casting cost.
-Ridiculously powerful and cheap resurrection spell.
b. Melee is fucking pathetic. Just two persons standing immobile and swinging in each other's vague direction. No defensive-aggressive fighting, no wrestling (already present in basic 2nd ed manuals), no implementation of rules from Player's Option: Combat and Tactics which are much more suitable for a computer game.
c. self-guided arrows, darts and throwing knifes.
d. Fucking 10x speeding up of game time.
2. Character development:
No non-weapon proficiencies (already present in basic 2nd ed manuals), no talents (2nd ed equivalent of Perks). Pathetic in comparison to most of cRPGs.
3. Dialogues - PC is clueless no matter how high his/her CHA, WIS and INT is.
4. Limited freedom of movement, no ability to find important places by oneself, no possibility of entering Baldur's Gate before the specific chapter.
5. Level scaling of NPCs. Old adventurers get the same level as the kid that just left Candlekeep.
6. Weirdo inventory that doesn't represent anything and weightless gold. Also, gold being the only currency.

 

[Glyphwright]

My bookmarks list has been continually maintained for the best part of 15 years; expanded, trimmed, and tweaked as it migrated from machine to machine and browser to browser, and as my tastes and interests evolved.

WTF has this to do with anything?

Well, y'know where my link to the Codex has been situated all these years? Under the 'BG & Related' section.

It may well be fashionable to nitpick about Baldur's Gate here and now, but (a) you're largely just being a cunt in doing so, and (b) the game was and remains one of the most awesome RPG experiences ever.

I played Baldur's Gate when I was younger, grass was greener, water was wetter, boobs were bigger, and cocks hit ass and leg better! Don't you DARE use objective analysis to point out the game's flaws compared to its contemporary and future competitors, logic and reason have no power in the land of NERDTASTIC NOSTALGIA.

The implication that every "seasoned" RPG player would have cleared every inch of fog in the gameworld just because, well, that's just what they do is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I was also a pen-and-paper AD&D player of many years - even so, I went through BG1 the first time at a very slow pace, and missed a great deal of content, for no particular reason; I didn't feel the exploration was boring as such, or disincentivized due to some mechanic (or lack thereof), I just wanted to progress the story at certain times and took it at a more leisurely pace at other times. I thought the game was big enough to warrant multiple playthroughs and in fact, my latest one was just a couple of months ago, after many years, with all the modern bells and whistles provided by BGT and such mods, and it was a pretty satisfying experience, even after all this time - and I still found things I hadn't found before. How is that not related to exploration?

Once again, this is logic relies on a scenario where the player can only derive exploration value by intentionally limiting his ventures into optional areas and rushing through the story. In other words, the only way to enjoy the "exploration" of BG1 is to be piss-poor at exploration. I don't know you managed to miss things on your first playthrough, but one thing is passing through an area and not realizing that it hides some sort of secret, and another thing is simply not visiting the area because you want to "progress the story". Not that progressing the story has anything to do with visiting optional areas, because you can take a break from the main quest whenever you wish and spend as much time as needed clearing fog of war from n+ piece of generic forest/mountain/coast.

I think a lot of the reasons given in this thread about BG's exploration being meaningless, or bad, are pretty contrived (no horizon line? Come on), and certain opinions presented as logical corollaries are frankly ridiculous (such as the aforementioned seasoned RPG player = scour every inch of the gameworld by necessity). I respect the opinion that first-person or third-person perspective allow for a different sort of exploration, and to some people more rewarding, because you have to physically negotiate obstacles or whatever the cause might be, but that is not by itself "better" than clicking away at fog of war in an unrevealed portion of a 2d map. In either case you're revealing new information. It might not be difficult to reach all the places in BG1 (indeed, it's pretty trivial), but it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone would automatically do it.

The fact that in either case you're revealing new information is not the point. The point is, that in case of BG1, the manner in which you reveal new information is trivial and purely mechanic, preventing you from being invested in the gameworld as much as in case of 3D exploration. Does this mean that isometric games are inherently less atmospheric than 3D games? Absolutely not, but isometric games need much tighter, better integrated, and more saturated storytelling in order to keep its world alive. A 3D game can, to a certain extent, captivate your interest by letting your player roam free through the open world, creating a feeling that you are actually in some wondrous fantasy land battling monsters, but an isometric game is better suited for telling stories and providing information about its world. This is why the best isometric RPG is also the one with the most amounts of text and dialogue - PST can't get away with throwing the player into its world as is due to the restrictions of the game engine and the isometric perspective, so it compensates for that with rich, flowing descriptions, interesting dialogues, and encounters which flesh out the identity and atmosphere of the game world, rather than being there just for the sake of filling out a quota. A little girl asking you to find her cat is trivial and generic - she could be part of any fictional world that has humans in it. A scraggly and mentally unstable woman who is afraid of stepping through any doorway or arc for fear of being transported to some far-away location, which is how she ended up in the slum she inhabits with no way to go back home which she accidentally left when she was a little girl, is something that provides a lot of memorable and unique information about the features and peculiarities of this world, which differentiate it from any other fictional world and give it its unique identity.

 

[Abelian]

Wandering around an empty field killing ghouls simply isn't fun or interesting. It has barely any roleplaying value or any nuance of gameplay. It's boring and trite and if you like it there are other games that do the loot/XP grinding better.

Some may dismiss this as a nostalgia glasses argument, but as someone whose first bona-fide RPG was BG1, I liked the fact that there was no hand-holding and the characters were vulnerable during the first few levels. I feel that those loading screen with the wizard, dwarf, ranger and three other characters journeying through the wilderness captured the atmosphere of the game. I even enjoyed the random encounters, since I had to do a fight or flight assessment. The characters' weakness was part of the reason I didn't go exploring everywhere in my first play-through. Imagine my surprise at health potions that cost 100 gp, replenished 9 HP and could only be used once per round or mages who could only cast three spells per day, as opposed to the potion-chugging and spell-spamming in Diablo.

I've just started playing Might & Magic 1 a couple of days ago and I love the fact that my party is exploring and hand-mapping mazes filled with random encounters. Of course, one could argue that the entire reason it excels at exploration is the FPP and the lack of an auto-map, but I feel that knowledge that the next random encounter might be the last before a TPK adds to the fun.

 

[TedNugent]

Wandering around an empty field killing ghouls simply isn't fun or interesting. It has barely any roleplaying value or any nuance of gameplay. It's boring and trite and if you like it there are other games that do the loot/XP grinding better.

Some may dismiss this as a nostalgia glasses argument, but as someone whose first bona-fide RPG was BG1, I liked the fact that there was no hand-holding and the characters were vulnerable during the first few levels. I feel that those loading screen with the wizard, dwarf, ranger and three other characters journeying through the wilderness captured the atmosphere of the game. I even enjoyed the random encounters, since I had to do a fight or flight assessment. The characters' weakness was part of the reason I didn't go exploring everywhere in my first play-through. Imagine my surprise at health potions that cost 100 gp, replenished 9 HP and could only be used once per round or mages who could only cast three spells per day, as opposed to the potion-chugging and spell-spamming in Diablo.

The random encounters weren't anywhere near as difficult as any of the major encounters. The most challenging encounters in the game were the tanar'ri, Sarevok, any big party battle with a mage, and the chessboard.

And when you were level 1, wolves were pretty scary.

Natural content gating by non-scaled NPCs is fine, what I was impartial towards was the fact that random encounters were so boring. If you're worried about nostalgia, I encourage you and anyone else that feels that way to go download the game and try to replay it. I think you'll be shocked by how much ass it is. Durlag's Tower, Baldur's Gate, and Ice Maze were standouts. Everything else was so generic and meh that it was just an uphill chore to get to Ulgoth's Beard.

 

[Abelian]

The last time I played it was using my GOG.com version with EasyTutu (Trilogy was much more unstable then), probably around two years ago, and I enjoyed it, especially with the higher resolution and BG2 kits. My comment about nostalgia meant that I might be partial to BG1 since it expanded my horizon beyond hack & slash, not that I may be misremembering it (in my earlier posts, I was able to list a lot of the optional content off the top of my head).

 

[TedNugent]

The last time I played it was using my GOG.com version with EasyTutu (Trilogy was much more unstable then), probably around two years ago, and I enjoyed it, especially with the higher resolution and BG2 kits. My comment about nostalgia meant that I might be partial to BG1 since it expanded my horizon beyond hack & slash, not that I may be misremembering it (in my earlier posts, I was able to list a lot of the optional content off the top of my head).

That's probably a fair point, since I just finished PS:T just prior to playing BG:1. I may be the one whose perspective is hazy.

I don't know, man, my first RPG was Final Fantasy VII, back when I was just a kid. That game had fight or flight encounters and crazy exploration elements (Ruby Weapon). Everybody seems to hate random encounters now. I think they would have been more interesting if they threw in an odd mage into a random encounter since they're the ones that have all the control elements. The actual melee combat was a little straightforward.

I just think that when the game really shone, it was because Bioware was handcrafting a bunch of really intricate elements. No, not those stupid cereal box mazes -- take the spider zones, for instance. They'd set the traps just so, so that you'd trip over them on your way to an encounter. Or on the chess board, just to throw you off. That's what really blew me out, all the handcrafted stuff, because that's what's a dying art in my experience.

I just don't think you can compare "SW road to Nashkel" to Durlag's or Ice Maze. When I heard the narrator say "You've been waylaid by enemies," I groaned. I can get randomly generated trash content in any tenpenny iso dungeon crawler/loot farm. I have literally never seen a dungeon like Durlag's in my life. I hope there's more in the other IE games, then I'd really enjoy playing them.

 

[J_C]

ITT there is proof that Glyphwright is a lonely basement dweller, who has time and patiance for writing walls of text upon walls of text about a game he doesn't like, just to prove a stupid point about exploration.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I just don't think you can compare "SW road to Nashkel" to Durlag's or Ice Maze. When I heard the narrator say "You've been waylaid by enemies," I groaned. I can get randomly generated trash content in any tenpenny iso dungeon crawler/loot farm. I have literally never seen a dungeon like Durlag's in my life. I hope there's more in the other IE games, then I'd really enjoy playing them.

Watchers Keep and Spellhold are pretty interesting in BG2, if dungeons like Durlag's are you thing. Heck, there are dozens of better areas than the ice maze in BG2 as well.

 

[DraQ]

The more densely packed areas came at the expense of some freedom to move about, and that in itself was valuable.

Except BG didn't do anything with freedom to move around so good fucking riddance.

About 90% of wilderness in BG is copypasted generic grass/trees, 5% is rocks and water bodies used as generic impassable terrain, while the remaining 5% is actual unique content, including rocks/water in interesting shapes.

It would lose absolutely nothing if you cut out and condensed content into small hotspot maps and used Fallout-esque travel map to abstract the rest away.

the only way to enjoy the "exploration" of BG1 is to be piss-poor at exploration.

This. This is pretty much the best, most concise summary of the entire BG exploration discussion possible.

Some may dismiss this as a nostalgia glasses argument, but as someone whose first bona-fide RPG was BG1

Well, it is nostalgia glasses argument, and nostalgics are horrible - they don't accept criticism when on the opposing side and drown out legitimate criticism when on the same side as you.

My first ever cRPG (discounting Diablo 1 and feeble attempt at FO1 that was dead on arrival due to DraQ not being able into English) was BG1 and even then I recognized it as mostly trite.

Lethality, limited funds (on low levels), and relatively powerful ranged attacks were actually the parts I enjoyed, but the content was so horribly diluted and insubstantial that I don't think I even beat Nashkel mines on my first attempt, and I recognized it as such despite not having any experience with better, meatier cRPGs - which says something.

spin-off digreshun

Actually, my first take on Morrowind was coloured by BG1, in addition to gems like Fallout:
From BG1 I tookl obsessive need to equip myself with a ranged weapon "just in case" nevermind that I had no skill put into it and knew that I would probably not be able to actually hit anything with it, from FO I took focus on CHA ('Personality' in TES), outside of actual class specialization (starting with Lady birthsign), which actually served me pretty well, although not entirely in a way I expected. Unfortunately this limited my Argonian spellsword to mostly melee combat in the long run (no magicka multiplier), but as they say "win some, lose some".

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I will make an attempt to distill what they are saying down into normal-people speak.

So, for most people exploration is much like sightseeing. Did I go there? Yes. Did I see something there? Yes. Check. Good, job done.

But in terms of Game Exploration, instead of just the sightseeing tour, exploration involves three steps: Search, Discovery, and Reward. (And for the real explorrfags, Discovery is its own reward, so the last of those is actually optional.) BG1 has Search covered in spades, where you uncover the fog of war across each of the maps. But it bags discovery and goes straight to giving reward. You uncover the map, and you immediately get all the rewards as soon as the fog of war is opened.

Discovery: that sense that you are right now seeing something that no one else has ever seen before few playing this game will ever see. The sense of: "I found this special place". The sense that you are gazing upon vistas that only the true explorers will ever see, because only an explorer can find them.

A small 2.5d map with a simple implementation of fog of war is something that doesn't lend itself well to Discovery. Which doesn't mean that a designer can't add Discovery to it, by doing something clever and offbeat - such as by adding in secret rooms with missable quests. But, BG1 didn't do much of that. In BG1, as soon as you decide to 'explore', you are immediately rewarded with everything the area has to offer. Thus, BG1 lacks Discovery. And without Discovery, it is missing a vital element of Game Exploration.

We get what they are saying, we just happen to disagree with it. The way you say "You uncover the map, and you immediately get all the rewards" implies that as soon as you make the decision to explore, your character is buried underneath an avalanche of lootz and encounters. In reality, the player actually has to invest a significant amount of time to explore the zones, on the order of tens of hours, in order to experience the reward of uncovering encounters. This provides more than enough "cost" to the player, in order for the benefit to feel well earned and satisfying.

Ironically, if a game did implement the discover step as you outlined it, in particular "that no one else has ever seen before few playing this game will ever see", wouldn't that mean that most players would miss the stuff to be discovered, and thus the game would contain only the search step for everyone besides you and DraQ? On the other hand, if the level of skill/effort was lowered to the point it was easy enough that mere plebs could manage it, wouldn't it start approaching Baldur's Gate? Just wondering.

 

[Telengard]

Many games use Discovery. They hide secret items, messages, vistas, encounters, collectables, quests, sometimes even whole secret levels in out-of-the-way spots that few people will ever see. They do it as a reward for explorerfags. Some of those games even have had a guy say Secret when you find one.

Such hidden content has been part of game design since the very old days. BG1 simply chose not to make use of those tools. Not every game designer does use them.

The trick of it isn't an 'avalanche' of content, it's that everywhere in BG1 you choose to go, everything is pre-discovered. You might miss part of the game by willfully choosing to not go there. But once you have chosen to go to a place, you will automatically have all content of that place revealed to you, and so automatically get handed all the rewards of that place. Thus, in BG1, people see as much of the game as they want to see, and they are fully rewarded everywhere they go. And since the majority of people are sightseers, they are perfectly fine with that.

The explorerfag is a little different, though. The explorerfag wants to go out on a ship and discover the New World. It's one of the reasons we used to say: you Search an area, you Explore the New World.

 

[Infinitron]

FFS, why don't you tards stop throwing the word "exploration" around and realize that people just like big games where they can wander around and do shit

Content is fun. Content is usually better than the lack of content. Which is why when I played BG2, left Athkatla and was deposited onto a world map UI instead of a huge green field with trees, rivers, and chirping birds, I was disappointed.

It's not rocket science.

 

[imweasel]

the only way to enjoy the "exploration" of BG1 is to be piss-poor at exploration.

This. This is pretty much the best, most concise summary of the entire BG exploration discussion possible.

Sounds like the summary of Skyrim's exploration actually. The only way to enjoy Skyrim's "exploration" is if you took a Todd Howard to the knee brain.

Spoiler

:dragonwithbucketonhead:

In Baldur's Gate you could find some pretty neat stuff and unique content simply by exploring.

 

[TedNugent]

FFS, why don't you tards stop throwing the word "exploration" around and realize that people just like big games where they can wander around and do shit

Content is fun. Content is usually better than the lack of content. Which is why when I played BG2, left Athkatla and was deposited onto a world map UI instead of a huge green field with trees, rivers, and chirping birds, I was disappointed.

It's not rocket science.

Depends.

Is there content gating? Is the good content gated behind layers and layers of bad/filler content (grinding)?

Is the game experience itself enjoyable? If the mechanics aren't enjoyable, I won't enjoy slogging through more content. Conversely, if the mechanics are enjoyable, chances are that I would enjoy playing through more content just so that I can play the game more.

Does the content include C&C, quality writing, and unique art assets hand placed by level designers? What is the proportion of quality content to poor quality or filler content in the new zones?

 

[Delterius]

We get what they are saying, we just happen to disagree with it.

I wouldn't say so, no. That'd imply we have conflicting standards and we don't, really. As far as this discussion goes, there's one group which asks for more and another which is happy with less.

IMO, there's an obvious distinction to be drawn between games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. But there's yet another distinction to be drawn between games like Baldur's Gate and, say, Dark Souls. Where you can traverse a same place numerous times and yet miss things.

What they are tallking about is that bizarre and alien feeling you get when it seems like you're stretching the borders of the gameworld. Going beyond what was planned for you to easily see. When you find easter eggs; secrets and slightly off the path locations you get one of the ultimate feelings of immersion. The world truly exists independently from the player, the gameworld has truly come alive. Like when you're playing Shadow of the Colossus and discovers that one of the hundreds of identical birds in a given area can carry the player character into a winged adventure all of its own. Or when you're playing through World of Warcraft and makes use of glitches and wall jumping in order to reach a part of the game that the developers never intended for you to see -- something which, by the way, gave rise to some of that game's most favoured zone. Its an extra oomph.

That's not to say there's no merit in a game that 'merely' allows for free form movement throught its terrain. If anything, even this is rare nowadays. Not to mention how a great deal of DraQ's faithful example of Morrowind is absolutely no different at all from a game like Baldur's Gate. The vast majority of Morrowind isn't hard to find at all and doesn't feel different than your average wilderness encounter in BG. Same thing about Morrowind's amount of content, which is a matter of player will instead of competence. What differs is that games like Morrowind and the Souls series often have the aforementioned extra oomph. Just like BG has an extra oomph when compared to absolutely linear games like IWD. Or games that lack an open world like BG2.

But its all like Infinitron said. Words. People call slightly different things the same and then fight over the naming. All the while it wouldn't take much of a stretch to accomodate all these slightly different standards of exploration. One game is merely non linear. Another has 'true' exploration. So be it.

 

[Telengard]

FFS, why don't you tards stop throwing the word "exploration" around and realize that people just like big games where they can wander around and do shit

Content is fun. Content is usually better than the lack of content. Which is why when I played BG2, left Athkatla and was deposited onto a world map UI instead of a huge green field with trees, rivers, and chirping birds, I was disappointed.

It's not rocket science.

For the usual reason, I would imagine, usual around here anyways. Explorerfag content is being stripped from games these days (for various reasons). And a new generation of gamers is rising up who call choosing to traverse a winding 20' alleyway that branches off a linear corridor 'exploration'. But they get a chest at the end, so it's all good.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

BG1 in its vanilla state is probably one of the CRPGs that have aged most badly, mainly due to it having such small resolution (only 640X480, I think), which looks terrible on modern monitors.
But why play vanilla BG1 when you can play with BGT and Widescreen mod? Throw in BG1 NPC Project if you want BG2 style banter and interjections, in addition to more quests. Add Sword Coast Strategems if you want more challenging combat.
Hell, even the Enhanced Edition should be much better than the vanilla version.

Widescreen works for vanilla BG as well, that coupled with a GUI mod makes BG still looks good. Call it nostalgia but I like re-playing BG as it originally was.