So, Baldurs Gate

[Surf Solar]

I usually abandon it after I finished the expansion and arrive in the city. I can't stand Baldurs Gate (the city proper) for some reason.

 

[DraQ]

p sure you could cut down the size of The Elder Turds: Moronwind by 90% without actually losing any content

A personal question, if you don't mind:

How the fuck did you become a staff member if you can't even read?

BG ended up with some unholy hybrid of abstract travel map with points of interest and full world representation - abstract travel map with evenly sampled world representation resulting in evenly spaced points of interest that aren't, but you still have to trudge through them.

The worst of both worlds - from full world representation you lose full world representation and element of exploration, from abstract map you lose focus, reduction of tedium and good bang/buck quotient.

All this thread and the stupid people trying to argue with DraQ over BG did was making me reinstall the game and marvel at the gameplay. Thanks, I guess?

Inb4 abandoned at Beregost

My personal bet is Nashkel mines.

 

[Baron Dupek]

My personal bet is Nashkel mines.

Sounds like my abandoned first playthrough with BG1 (which was also my first contact with games with D&D system).
Those mines... horror, horror. And then Murahey on last level that wipe out my party of meatbags...

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

How the fuck did you become a staff member if you can't even read?

BG ended up with some unholy hybrid of abstract travel map with points of interest and full world representation - abstract travel map with evenly sampled world representation resulting in evenly spaced points of interest that aren't, but you still have to trudge through them.

The worst of both worlds - from full world representation you lose full world representation and element of exploration, from abstract map you lose focus, reduction of tedium and good bang/buck quotient.

For starters, being able to read is apparently not a prerequisite for being on staff, I presume. You should have been able to infer that yourself. Secondly, the part you've quoted sounds to me like retarded gibberish, sorry to say that. (language problem?) I usually ignore such drivel.

 

[Delterius]

Pretty sure staff membership hangs on the submission of a self made module of NwN for appraisal.

 

[DraQ]

For starters, being able to read is apparently not a prerequisite for being on staff, I presume.

Silly me, I thought Codex had higher standards than that.

You should have been able to infer that yourself. Secondly, the part you've quoted sounds to me like retarded gibberish, sorry to say that. (language problem?) I usually ignore such drivel.

Ah, so it's merely lack of reading comprehension.
Good to know.

How about pictures?

This is how FO2 world map would look like if it was designed like BG1 - unlabeled circles representing large, mostly empty wasteland maps, with maybe an item or two, minor landmark (like semi-distinct rock) or some minor encounter, you'd nevertheless have to walk all the way through and exit on opposite side to resume your journey - at least until you reached the next unlabelled circle and had to do the whole thing again.

Luckily, Fallout doesn't try to give us obligatory individual sample of every bit of wasteland, but simply actual points of interest, with travel between them being abstracted away.

Morrowind has different shtick - though scaled down it tries to give us its entire gameworld as continuous chunk. It then makes the best of it by rewarding players paying attention to the environment with loot, sometimes phat.

BG fails at either approach. It doesn't have continuous world - travel between adjacent maps usually takes around 4-8h, with some exceptions like the area directly south of Beregost that is actually adjacent to Beregost and can be traveled to immediately from Beregost. It also doesn't focus on points of interest with most of the maps being pretty much samples of whatever nondescript wilderness happens to fall under the map icon. As a result you pretty much constantly switch between abstract map travel and having to cross small, mostly empty rectangular piece of terrain manually for no reason. It doesn't have continuity as excuse, neither it does have any rewards for player being perceptive when forced to walk - the only way you can "spot" something hidden is by hovering your mouse over it, it won't look any more suspicious or interesting than generic background object sharing the same bitmap.

It's pretty much the worst parts of abstract travel plus the worst parts of having to actually walk around, with none of their upsides.
And they are mixed in completely arbitrary manner.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Silly me, I thought Codex had higher standards than that.

Your continued "you cannot read" shtick is pretty witty. Pretty sure it gained you a few new fans. Thumbs up for originality.

Ah, so it's merely lack of reading comprehension.
Good to know.

No. I tend to skip over your walls of text not because I'm incapable to comprehend, although your miniscule grasp of the english language can make it hard sometimes, I skip over them because I know reading it isn't worth my time. You see, I'm 38 y o, tend to be quite busy and just don't have the time to go over every piece of bullshit you excrete into these forums. There are posters who have the habit to post walls of text which I will read, because I expect to read something insightful, but - no offense - you're not one of them.

Again, what I said

p sure you could cut down the size of The Elder Turds: Moronwind by 90% without actually losing any content

I said in response to your "omg look at these images - 60% of the map doesn't have content!!!111!" post, as if this matters in the slightest. For once, it's hypocritical, because your beloved Morrowind is even worse in that regard, and secondly I'll tell you what's the difference: in BG it takes me a few minutes to uncover the no-content area, whereas in an Elder Scrolls game I can spend dozens of hours on this crap. Great you find that "rewarding" though.

 

[DraQ]

You see, I'm 38 y o

That's some early onset dementia.

For once, it's hypocritical, because your beloved Morrowind is even worse in that regard

I can appreciate different games for setting out to achieve - and achieving - different design goals, imagine that.
BG1 looks like it tried to achieve a number of design goals but failed just because they were mutually contradictory.

Other than that it's certainly hypocritical to try arguing with someone on the points you didn't even bother to read, so is arguing while claiming that you don't have time for it.
But by all means, do keep making a try-hard imbecile out of yourself - it's entertaining.

Sounds like my abandoned first playthrough with BG1 (which was also my first contact with games with D&D system).
Those mines... horror, horror. And then Murahey on last level that wipe out my party of meatbags...

I think I actually beat the Mulahey back then - he was difficult, but refreshing after drawn out maze of twisting corridors all alike filled by respawning kobolds.

Too bad I was already so worn out by the tedium, that after emerging in the middle of yet another nondescript wilderness map a good way from Nashkel, with exit (predictably) collapsing behind me (and people think Skyrim's dungeons are bad), I just ragequit.

 

[Delterius]

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.

Actually, I just got off about a 4 month stint of World of Warcraft. I have the Loremaster achieve and the World Explorer achieves.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/nazgrel/Dokarm/achievement#96

I don't have any more time for shitty exploration and bad writing. I've had about all the shitty exploration I can take. I want a real RPG now with C&C, character development, and a good story.

How's this for a 20' linear corridor: http://mapwow.com/

Man, just saw this post and it brings back memories. Well, what caused me to flip was the Ambasssador achievement. You'll feel better in a year.

 

[Rake]

inb4 excidium declares gold box games shit because of quest design

One bad aspect =! whole game is bad. Unless someone judge RPGs strictly from their quest design. (and i know some people here do so).
It's funny that from the 2 sides, Draq is the one that has arguments about his stance, while i have yet to see a convincing argument that BG1's filler areas had any value or that the game wouldn't be infinitely better if half of the wilderness areas were concentrated together. It's all just "Well, Morrowind was even worse"(compairing BG to a TES game is insulting by itself in my eyes), or " BG was a good game despite that, because exploration wasn't an important part of it" (as if anyone said something different).
Take this quote for example:

I'll tell you what's the difference: in BG it takes me a few minutes to uncover the no-content area, whereas in an Elder Scrolls game I can spend dozens of hours on this crap.

So BG no content areas were indeed crap, it's just that TES is even worse? I agree, but i don't see how it's a defense for BG

As for Glyphwright posts where he compaired BG with PS:T or BG2 in terms of exploration, the defense was "BG did it better because exploration is traveling in mostly empty maps"


tl;dr So far the defence is more "DUMBFUCK TAG" and "LOL LOL Morrowind" instead of...you know....prove them wrong.
And no, " But I liked it braah" isn't cutting it.

 

[Glyphwright]

I said in response to your "omg look at these images - 60% of the map doesn't have content!!!111!" post, as if this matters in the slightest. For once, it's hypocritical, because your beloved Morrowind is even worse in that regard, and secondly I'll tell you what's the difference: in BG it takes me a few minutes to uncover the no-content area, whereas in an Elder Scrolls game I can spend dozens of hours on this crap. Great you find that "rewarding" though.

So you don't contest the fact that BG1 had crap "exploration". Good to know.

"DUMBFAG TAG"

Sorry, that's trademarked by Jaesun.

 

[Longshanks]

Fallout: BG maps - a scary thought .

I'm surprised anyone's seriously trying to defend BG's exploration. The lack of any real argument is not a surprise.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

I like BG, but there's not much to argue about. Pretty much most aspects of BG are too simplistic to have any meaningful arguments about, and that in my books comes down to the very basic use of the engine.

As for exploration, BG2, PS:T and IWD2 at least had a lot of points of interest that could be clicked on and a little bit of text description would appear. It's not much... If only they had done more with that.

 

[Grunker]

Draq is the one that has arguements about his stance

What a load of bullshit. This thread is filled to the brim with people arguing against DraQ. The fact that the last 5 pages have been spent ridiculing the motherfucker for being a complete aspie does not invalidate the pages before that argued against him. You even brofisted one of my posts in opposition to his during the start of the argument.

Here's the bullet-point of my version:

1) You can't have exploration without places where your attempts at discovery yields no results, because otherwise it's just discovery, not search, and you can't have pacing if every step yields the same outcome. Only on the fucking Codex do you get people who blindside themselves to such a baffling extend that binary fucking idiocy like games being either EMPTY or FULL is the only legitimate stances to take in an argument. I am frankly deeply fucking surprised you'd hop on that band-wagon. From the PoE-thread I kindda gathered you as a nuanced fellow who wouldn't jump on an obvious crap-tastic debate like this one. You're not one of the people I usually just block out because they aren't able to accept that designs aren't either SHIT or PERFECT and may actually be combinations of both depending on the context.

2) Nobody has argued that BG exploration was perfect. Hell, no one has even argued that there wasn't too much empty space in Baldur's Gate (I just read the last seven pages because I got pissed off to aspie-levels by your statement). The entire fucking argument here is whether BG sucks because its exploration sucks, and the few level-headed entries simply claim that the problem is way, WAY the fuck smaller than DraQ makes it out to be. Take this post by the tron a few pages back:

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.

The fucking sense of discovery in any fucking situation with exploration comes from you covering empty space and then after a while finding something cool. Pacing ties into exploration in this way by making sure there's enough "empty" space between discoveries for you to be excited when you do discover something. Was BG pacing perfect here? No it fucking wasn't, but then, nobody has claimed that. DraQ's crusade in this topic has been toppling windmills in an asperger-induced frenzy against BG which is based on the fact that the game sucks because all it is, is, allegedly, empty maps. That is flat-out, fucking bullshit. BG does, at most, have a problem with pacing, and this is what Codex-logic blows into a discussion of EITHER IT IS SHIT BECAUSE OF EMPTY MAPS, OR IT IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH CONTENT AND A BEAUTIFUL SNOWFLAKE. Fortunately, for once, nobody has jumped to claim the latter - reinforcing the truth that DraQ's crusade is indeed directed against medieval Spanish windmills the size of Quixote's elephantine testicles.

The point I was trying to make in one of my serious responses to this thread was that in practice, all of DraQ's bullshit becomes moot. One of the logical conclusions of his argument was that people would always exhaust all content in BG because they were driven to it by design, and he backed that conclusion in his own words, but of course that completely falls apart when you looks at anyone playing the fucking game in practice.

3) In light of the above, it is no less than completely understandable that people like VentilatorOfDoom decides it is a more proper course of action to take the piss out of DraQ due to his love for another empty game, Morrowind, than to invest time and effort into disproving DraQ's bullshit. See, Morrowind isn't actually shit (though it has its own problems), because it, like any fucking game in existance, is a game with empty space between it's unique and interesting discoveries. You know why I hate Morrowind? BECAUSE I FUCKING DETEST SINGLE-CHARACTER, FIRST PERSON RPGs. You know why DraQ hates Baldur's Gate? BECAUSE HE FUCKING DETESTS MULTI-CHARACTER ISOMETRIC RPGs.

Like Infinitron says, this ain't fucking rocket science. People do not want to waste their fucking time replying in full seriousness to some internet-junkie who goes off on a subjective, thought-stream-pulled, multi-post rant* about how a problem with a '98-game's pacing makes it complete shit, especially not when the person who goes on that rant loves what is basically that game's first person pacing-equivalent except with the infinitely worse Cliff Racers.

Don't ask why I spent time doing this write-up anyway. Maybe it's because I love you Rake. No homo







* trust me, I get the irony

 

[Excidium]

What a load of crock.

 

[TedNugent]

 

[Glyphwright]

3) In light of the above, it is no less than completely understandable that people like VentilatorOfDoom decides it is a more proper course of action to take the piss out of DraQ due to his love for another empty game, Morrowind, than to invest time and effort into disproving DraQ's bullshit. See, Morrowind isn't actually shit (though it has its own problems), because it, like any fucking game in existance, is a game with empty space between it's unique and interesting discoveries. You know why I hate Morrowind? BECAUSE I FUCKING DETEST SINGLE-CHARACTER, FIRST PERSON RPGs. You why DraQ hates Baldur's Gate? BECAUSE HE FUCKING DETESTS MULTI-CHARACTER ISOMETRIC RPGs.

I love both single-character first-person RPGs and multi-character isometric RPGs, which means I am the only objective authority on the matter.

The fucking sense of discovery in any fucking situation with exploration comes from you covering empty space and then after a while finding something cool. Pacing ties into exploration in this way by making sure there's enough "empty" space between discoveries for you to be excited when you do discover something. Was BG pacing perfect here? No it fucking wasn't, but then, nobody has claimed that. DraQ's crusade in this topic has been toppling windmills in an asperger-induced frenzy against BG which is based on the fact that the game sucks because all it is, is, allegedly, empty maps. That is flat-out, fucking bullshit. BG does, at most, have a slight problem with pacing, and this is what Codex-logic blows into a discussion of EITHER IT IS SHIT BECAUSE OF EMPTY MAPS, OR IT IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH CONTENT AND A BEAUTIFUL SNOWFLAKE. Fortunately, for once, nobody has jumped to claim the latter - reinforcing the truth that DraQ's crusade is indeed directed against medieval Spanish windmills the size of Quixote's elephantine testicles.

You are teh dumb. BG1 non-exploration sucks because it has too much empty space and too few encounters, and of those already too few encounters a good 90% are generic two-bit fedex quests or qirky pop-culture parodies. BG1 is not merely imperfect, it is downright primitive in most aspects that are crucial in an RPG.

Like Infinitron says, this ain't fucking rocket science. People do not want to waste their fucking time replying in full seriousness to some internet-junkie who goes off on a subjective, thought-stream-pulled, multi-post rant* about how a problem with a '98-game's pacing makes it complete shit, especially not when the person who goes on that rant loves what is basically that game's first person pacing-equivalent except with the infinitely worse Cliff Racers.

You can't really compare a minor annoyance like Cliff Racers with numerous critical failures of BG1 to live up to RPG standards established by Black Isle, Troika, and even the game's own sequel.


Seriously, everything on the matter has already been said and BG butthurt nostalgics are simply going on the third circle of ignoring valid arguments/evidence and trying to shoot down arbitrary points through demagogue and the same old failed tactics. Hoping to wear out their opponents or something? This is why internet debates need to come with an unbiased, qualified and objective arbiter - one who declares the argument over as soon as either side establishes its position's validity over their opponents. Otherwise idiots like Gunker will just keep reiterating the same old bullshit that was disproven ten times in a row.

 

[Mrowak]

Ja pierdolę. Seriously.

 

[Rake]

Here's the bullet-point of my version:

1) You can't have exploration without places where your attempts at discovery yields no results, because otherwise it's just discovery, not search, and you can't have pacing if every step yields the same outcome. Only on the fucking Codex do you get people who blindside themselves to such a baffling extend that binary fucking idiocy like games being either EMPTY or FULL is the only legitimate stances to take in an argument.

And i believe BG is on the EMPTY side. Plus most of Glyphts points are spot on.

I am frankly deeply fucking surprised you'd hop on that band-wagon. From the PoE-thread I kindda gathered you as a nuanced fellow who wouldn't jump on an obvious crap-tastic debate like this one. You're not one of the people I usually just block out because they aren't able to accept that designs aren't either SHIT or PERFECT and may actually be combinations of both depending on the context.

The debate about "true exploration" was indeed crap-tastic. And in this whole thread i found myself agreeing and disagreeing with both sides. Also i never spoke about BG as a whole, just it's filler areas.

2) Nobody has argued that BG exploration was perfect. Hell, no one has even argued that there wasn't too much empty space in Baldur's Gate (I just read the last seven pages because I got pissed off to aspie-levels by your statement).

Then we agree

The entire fucking argument here is whether BG sucks because its exploration sucks, and the few level-headed entries simply claim that the problem is way, WAY the fuck smaller than DraQ makes it out to be.

This argument is indeed craptastic and i never jumped on that one.

Take this post by the tron a few pages back:

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.

Annd i disagree with him. I played BG2 before BG, and when i saw the World map in BG i was indeed "cool" But whan i traveled, i realized that it was half empty generic area after half empty generic area.

The fucking sense of discovery in any fucking situation with exploration comes from you covering empty space and then after a while finding something cool. Pacing ties into exploration in this way by making sure there's enough "empty" space between discoveries for you to be excited when you do discover something. Was BG pacing perfect here? No it fucking wasn't, but then, nobody has claimed that. DraQ's crusade in this topic has been toppling windmills in an asperger-induced frenzy against BG which is based on the fact that the game sucks because all it is, is, allegedly, empty maps. That is flat-out, fucking bullshit. BG does, at most, have a problem with pacing, and this is what Codex-logic blows into a discussion of EITHER IT IS SHIT BECAUSE OF EMPTY MAPS, OR IT IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH CONTENT AND A BEAUTIFUL SNOWFLAKE. Fortunately, for once, nobody has jumped to claim the latter - reinforcing the truth that DraQ's crusade is indeed directed against medieval Spanish windmills the size of Quixote's elephantine testicles.

As i said above, i never spoke about BG as a whole, just it's filler areas.

Don't ask why I spent time doing this write-up anyway. Maybe it's because I love you Rake. No homo

The reason i quoted you was because i was interested in your answer more than some other random poster, so

EDIT: I didn't wanted to post in this thread because i don't give two shits about exploration in games, so i'm not the right person to comment about it. That's one of the reasons i never liked any of the TES games (which amusingly have very similar flaws with BG filler areas. Their only defense is that the whole series is based around that shit, so saying that a TES game would be improved by removing the "filler" content is like saying that the games shouldn't be released at all. Not that it would be a bad thing mind you. But it's not the same as saying that BG wouldn't be better if it was closer to BG2 model, with fewer filler areas that where better designed and with better content ). But i will never be convised that BG wilderness areas were good design.

 

[Grunker]

BG wilderness areas were good design.

New sig for me?

 

[Rake]

BG wilderness areas were good design.

New sig for me?

Spoiler

BG exploration was perfect

 

[octavius]

You can't really compare a minor annoyance like Cliff Racers with numerous critical failures of BG1 to live up to RPG standards established by Black Isle, Troika, and even the game's own sequel.

It's interesting how very different one can perceive games...

To me the Cliff Racers were one of many critical failures in Morrowind, along with all kinds of possible abuse (stealing, enchanting, alchemy, unlimited potions in combat) and the utterly static game world revolving solely around the player character.
In my first game I gained high skills in Athletics, Swords and Blocking just from fending off thousands of Cliff Racers. I was lvl 20 in short time, at which point the game was no challenge, even if I refrained from any of the above mentioned abuse.
Morrowind is like an Idiot Savant of CRPGs - it's does some things brilliantly (like setting and story), but other things are downright retarded. You have to handicap your own character and/or mod it in order to get any challenge out of it. And without challenge, where is the reward?

Vanilla Baldur's Gate is a much more well rounded game, IMO. It's doesn't really do anything brilliant, but neither does it have any critical failures (closest is the lack of monsters' call for helps).
If you think the exploration and the setting is bland and boring, that's a valid opinion, but in the end that is just a matter of taste.

 

[Glyphwright]

To me the Cliff Racers were one of many critical failures in Morrowind

It's just a pterosaur with an annoying sound that attacks you sometimes. There's a literally 4 kb mod out there that corrects animal behavior, making them non-aggressive unless they are diseased/attacked first. Cliffracers will never bother you again.

all kinds of possible abuse (stealing, enchanting, alchemy, unlimited potions in combat)

Lol that's the fun part. For one thing, all these things, though out-of-balance, are purely optional. It's not Oblivion where balance is broken no matter what you do. Second, this power abuse actually requires a bit of thought and effort put into it. You gotta figure out which effects are worth putting in a potion, level your alchemy skill, find the right ingredients, find high quality alchemic apparati, get a potion that raises your intelligence, and finally start brewing... writing all this made me want to start playing the game again.

In my first game I gained high skills in Athletics, Swords and Blocking just from fending off thousands of Cliff Racers. I was lvl 20 in short time, at which point the game was no challenge, even if I refrained from any of the above mentioned abuse.

So?

Morrowind is like an Idiot Savant of CRPGs - it's does some things brilliantly (like setting and story), but other things are downright retarded. You have to handicap your own character and/or mod it in order to get any challenge out of it. And without challenge, where is the reward?

Que? Brilliant story and setting in BG1? What... what about the setting did you like, its complete and total facelessness? And the story, while certainly not as cliched and awful as Biowhore's later games, wasn't anything special either. Morrowind had a much better story that both Baldur's Gates combined.

Vanilla Baldur's Gate is a much more well rounded game, IMO. It's doesn't really do anything brilliant, but neither does it have any critical failures (closest is the lack of monsters' call for helps).
If you think theeexploration and the setting is bland and boring, that's a valid opinion, but in the end it's just a matter of taste.

Yeah, because in Baldur's Gate the world is totally dynamic and NPCs do all sorts of stuff that doesn't revolve around you. See, you're already applying much higher standards to Morrowind than BG, because it immerses you into the world and has you expecting a much greater degree of realism.

 

[octavius]

Lol that's the fun part. For one thing, all these things, though out-of-balance, are purely optional.

Just like exploring those empty wilderness areas in BG1 is (mostly) optional.

It's not Oblivion where balance is broken no matter what you do

Huh? Balance was one of only two things Oblivion did better than Morrowind. No matter how much I modded MW, my character was invincible at lvl 20. In modded Oblivion the difficulty was more even (and no, not because of level scaling, for that was modded out).

So?

So challenge and reward and that kind of stuff.

Que? Brilliant story and setting in BG1? What... what about the setting did you like, its complete and total facelessness? And the story, while certainly not as cliched and awful as Biowhore's later games, wasn't anything special either. Morrowind had a much better story that both Baldur's Gates combined.

Someone mentioned reading comprehension earlier in this thread...

Yeah, because in Baldur's Gate the world is totally dynamic and NPCs do all sorts of stuff that doesn't revolve around you. See, you're already applying much higher standards to Morrowind than BG, because it immerses you into the world and has you expecting a much greater degree of realism.

You actually got a point there.

 

[Newfag-er]

I think this is a information thing, how much the player doesn't know is what separates a good and bad exploration. IT's not that the finds aren't good, or the places and puzzles they hand-place aren't refined enough. It basically boils down to how the character is begin controlled. Where as in one perspective you are sending your characters to explore, in anther perspective you/your character are the one that is exploring (I'm pretty sure this is the reason bioware slowly changed their ways in BG2/DA:O)

With that begin said, I personally think you guys taking what the other side said a little bit too seriously. (surprised they didn't mentioned the Diablo series though, which is a exploration/sense of terror discovery done fairly right. Though power gaming is what drives that second game, it's still done reasonably well there. The third game is, well...)