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Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

Modron

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Jesus fuck, the autists and the edgy hipsters attack again!

The thief maze takes less than 5 minutes to go through.

2 minutes more than firewine.
:troll:

Wasn't saying it was any worse/much longer than firewine (well I take that back, was even blander and somewhat lulzier), just remarking about the lack of people complaining about it and why developers even included another shitty, not really a maze, area populated by trash mobs with varying resistance 1 or 2 at a time often behind traps.

I mean you've already been doing several quests in BG upon returning to the city after Sarevok attempts to take it over so why is the place even necessary? Furthermore, it was pretty lulzy lorewise "none of us thieves have made it to the end yet we try all the time and put traps in it for shits and giggles". I mean they could have cut it entirely and the game would be better for it.

Or they could have just placed a selection of Sarevok's men there and gave you a decent encounter instead of a trash maze with trash mobs leading to an empty ruin with trash mobs in it. Hell they even have kind of a setup for it, they could have had Sarevok's mentor leading the band and have his dialogs there instead of "lol you found me this is why I did it, bye".

TL/DR Thief maze is empty and unnecessary filler, yet people complain more vehemently about smaller optional Firewine Bridge leaving me to believe most people didn't bother to finish game or have blocked it from memory.

When there are whole areas that have absolutely nothing interesting in them, then the game is boring and empty, like BG1. If you are able to enjoy something like that, that's cool, you can probably enjoy a lot more games than I can.

Yeah the one thing BG really had going for it was exploration but yeah several areas could have used more fleshing out but at least most were optional/blessedly short.
 

DraQ

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Like, really? You found anything in Dragon Commander funny or witty? I mean, I don't think I'd defend any line in BG, either, but it's more a question of which one had more lines that make you embarrassed the game is on your hard drive.
A lot of the stuff in DC made me at least smile:
  • The fact the undead adviser was named Yorick
  • Quite a few of Edmund's lines
  • A lot of impish stuff
  • General Roguey
  • etc.
The game wasn't serious, it was purposefully overdrawn and it worked in this regard.
I don't think it ever made me go
:hmmm:
the way Minsc alone in BG did.

If you said D:OS instead of DC, then yeah, I'd probably pick BG when it came to writing, but D:OS at the very least had great combat and actual exploration, so thankfully I wouldn't have to choose between those based on which one had less weak dialogue or storytelling.
As for Divinity 2 it literally had me roaring with laughter more than once so no contest (was p. fun to play too and definitely more interesting and less repetitive than BG1).
 

ArchAngel

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When there are whole areas that have absolutely nothing interesting in them, then the game is boring and empty, like BG1. If you are able to enjoy something like that, that's cool, you can probably enjoy a lot more games than I can.
While I agree that couple of maps were pretty terrible, most of them had more interesting things to find than crap games like F3 or New Vegas
 
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When there are whole areas that have absolutely nothing interesting in them, then the game is boring and empty, like BG1. If you are able to enjoy something like that, that's cool, you can probably enjoy a lot more games than I can.

Which areas have "absolutely nothing interesting" in them? I guess it will depend on what you find interesting, but BG1 seems to have a decent amount of stuff going on in most areas.
 

Lhynn

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People give shit to minsc like you couldnt kill his mentally challenged ass. You had plenty of warriors that could take his place easily too.
 

Somberlain

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When there are whole areas that have absolutely nothing interesting in them, then the game is boring and empty, like BG1. If you are able to enjoy something like that, that's cool, you can probably enjoy a lot more games than I can.

Which areas have "absolutely nothing interesting" in them? I guess it will depend on what you find interesting, but BG1 seems to have a decent amount of stuff going on in most areas.

Some examples:

AR0400 has nothing but a bunch of identical zombies and a farmer that asks you to kill them. AR2700 serves as a scene where Gorion dies, otherwise there's Xzar and Montaron standing next to the road and some pointless NPC with few lines of dialogue. 90% of the area is empty, save for a few wolves. AR2800 has Elminster greet you when you enter, then there's the Ogre with the tranny belt and some bandits. Otherwise it's just generic wolves and other wildlife dotted around. AR3000 has a wizard encounter, spider encounter and an NPC with a generic fetch quest, otherwise it's just trash mobs here and there. AR3800 has a Flaming Fist Mercenary that mistakes you for a bandit, otherwise it's just trash mobs.

AR4200 has Drizzt fighting gnolls and an ok bandit encounter, otherwise it's just trash mobs. AR4300 has nothing but trash mobs and a joke NPC promoting the upcoming NWN game. AR4700 has a con merchant, two bears and the rest is just trash mobs. Gnoll Fortress has Dynaheir and the two ogres guarding the bridge, otherwise it's just generic gnolls and xvarts.
 

ArchAngel

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When there are whole areas that have absolutely nothing interesting in them, then the game is boring and empty, like BG1. If you are able to enjoy something like that, that's cool, you can probably enjoy a lot more games than I can.

Which areas have "absolutely nothing interesting" in them? I guess it will depend on what you find interesting, but BG1 seems to have a decent amount of stuff going on in most areas.

Some examples:

AR0400 has nothing but a bunch of identical zombies and a farmer that asks you to kill them. AR2700 serves as a scene where Gorion dies, otherwise there's Xzar and Montaron standing next to the road and some pointless NPC with few lines of dialogue. 90% of the area is empty, save for a few wolves. AR2800 has Elminster greet you when you enter, then there's the Ogre with the tranny belt and some bandits. Otherwise it's just generic wolves and other wildlife dotted around. AR3000 has a wizard encounter, spider encounter and an NPC with a generic fetch quest, otherwise it's just trash mobs here and there. AR3800 has a Flaming Fist Mercenary that mistakes you for a bandit, otherwise it's just trash mobs.

AR4200 has Drizzt fighting gnolls and an ok bandit encounter, otherwise it's just trash mobs. AR4300 has nothing but trash mobs and a joke NPC promoting the upcoming NWN game. AR4700 has a con merchant, two bears and the rest is just trash mobs. Gnoll Fortress has Dynaheir and the two ogres guarding the bridge, otherwise it's just generic gnolls and xvarts.
If you describe things like this, most other games will sound worse.
 

Somberlain

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You really think that a huge area with 0-2 good things is good? A lot of those areas have one or two notable encounters etc., and 90% of the area is empty or filled with generic gnolls/wolves/kobolds.

ar4300.jpg
 
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Somberlain you do have a point, but I don't think it's really all that bad. Most maps seem to have multiple combat encounters as well as a non-combat encounter or two and maybe one or more small quest/tasks (if not a big quest or tie-in to a big quest). The farmer and zombies area has always stood out to me as pretty barren for sure.
 

Tigranes

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Like, really? You found anything in Dragon Commander funny or witty? I mean, I don't think I'd defend any line in BG, either, but it's more a question of which one had more lines that make you embarrassed the game is on your hard drive.
A lot of the stuff in DC made me at least smile:
  • The fact the undead adviser was named Yorick
  • Quite a few of Edmund's lines
  • A lot of impish stuff
  • General Roguey
  • etc.
The game wasn't serious, it was purposefully overdrawn and it worked in this regard.
I don't think it ever made me go
:hmmm:
the way Minsc alone in BG did.

If you said D:OS instead of DC, then yeah, I'd probably pick BG when it came to writing, but D:OS at the very least had great combat and actual exploration, so thankfully I wouldn't have to choose between those based on which one had less weak dialogue or storytelling.
As for Divinity 2 it literally had me roaring with laughter more than once so no contest (was p. fun to play too and definitely more interesting and less repetitive than BG1).

Yeah, overdoing it on purpose doesn't always mean it works. There was no satire a lot of the time because nothing was sharp enough. It was basically a reprint of the worst things about fantasy, right down to the Gandalf-y mage (who keeps appearing in every fucking game), the jock elf who talks on and on and on like a jock who's trying to pretend to be articulate, the bikini elf queen who looks like a reject Barbie...

D:OS was bad, too, but yeah, if anybody read any of its writing after a while then the joke is on them, I could easily enjoy the game if the dialogue was in Russian. Of course, we're just talking about the writing, so I don't know what you're doing moving the goalposts.
 

Somberlain

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Somberlain you do have a point, but I don't think it's really all that bad. Most maps seem to have multiple combat encounters as well as a non-combat encounter or two and maybe one or more small quest/tasks (if not a big quest or tie-in to a big quest). The farmer and zombies area has always stood out to me as pretty barren for sure.

There are interesting areas in BG1, even some excellent ones, like Durlag's Tower. However, most of the areas are still boring and mostly empty, aside from the worthless trash mobs.
 

DraQ

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Not a big loss.
Of course! It's not like D&D created your hobby or anything. :M
apollo11separationa-o.gif

:smug:


Serious question: you ever played pen-and-paper AD&D? I ask this because PS:T differs immensely from traditional AD&D, both in terms of setting and rules.
PS is a DnD setting.
Your question is made deeply ironic by you not knowing this basic fact.
I will, however, point out that PS:T had awful combat
So did BG.
+M

About economics: you believe "someone would have sifted through the rubble and resurrected" because we are witnessing a cRPG revival right now. You would NEVER say something like that if we were in 2011.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...popamole-at-release.56380/page-7#post-1554528
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/my-impressions-of-torment.27867/page-3#post-639025
I would.
I have.
+M
Had the cRPG genre died in the late 90', it would've stayed dead. Because development costs were steadily increasing and game companies small and big were no longer able to finance big projects without investor support. Said investors don't give money out of the kindness of their hearts: they wanna see results aka profits. Risks are only worth it if the investor truly believes the market will go for it. Now, imagine a guy pitching his ideas to the board: "hey guys, remember that whole genre that crashed and burned? I wanna make a new game on that genre, but THIS TIME IT WILL WORK, TRUST ME!". The only reason why cRPGs are being produced again is because it worked in the past. Look at last year KS releases: do you really consider ANY of those games to be ground-breaking innovation?
  1. You seem to harbor a misguided opinion that cRPGs are some one-of-a-kind esoteric genre that could have arose in only one way - namely by aping PnP RPGs. Quite the contrary. cRPGs are an obvious result of applying commonsensical concept of quantified character stats and abilities to gameplay revolving around single protagonist or small group of protagonists. Obvious concepts are bound to recur - even if forgotten and that wouldn't be likely. Actually, wiping the slate clean might help get rid of many misguided attributes of the genre that were the result of porting from PnP and cargo-cult design.
  2. Trends change and what was a bad investment once doesn't necessarily remain so.
  3. In any case, empty niches tend not to stay empty over time.
  4. I don't know if I could have predicted KS, but I certainly predicted increased viability and penetration of niche titles coinciding with the beginning of the new "golden age" as the natural consequence of inevitable technological trends. :obviously:
  5. At least one of recently completed big KS project is a direct result of copying IE games that are credited with non- un-death ( :smug: ) of the genre. I'm not sure KS is to blame for lack of innovation there.
  6. Another such big and commercially successful project, although not quite good enough in many areas did in fact innovate successfully in areas coinciding with the best aspects of its gameplay.

On RTwP: tons of threads on the matter already, so I'll just say this: RTwP is a superior choice when you have to deal with several low odds dice rolls (or ANY sort of constant dice rolling) that involve little-to-no-choice. Best example being two low level fighters attacking each other on AD&D rules. "Choice" is a simple "stab, stab again, stab again, yep, stab". If you wanna roll dices in TB for 10 attacks with some 20-30% CTH, be my guest. TB is superior when several options are available, but when you add too many people taking turns it leads to boredom. Therefore, TB is also more suited for smaller scale combat. I love X-Com, JA2, D:OS and others I forgot to mention so I don't need any convincing that TB is good. I just think that RTwP is also a functional choice.
Interesting perspective, but still unconvincing. Lack of hassle from having to manually skip turns doesn't compensate for additional hassle of frequent manual pausing and I haven't yet seen sufficiently good implementation of RTwP in a cRPG. Certainly not in an IE game.

I think you could make case for an RT game with adjustable time flow you could just slo-mo for particularly hectic sections instead of rapidly pausing and unpausing it in a quick succession which is just awkward and clunky - I don't see any advantages conventional RTWP would have over such system.

You could also make case for a sort of phase based game that would internally work as RTWP except active pause in combat would only be called by the game itself based on individual characters' interrupts (from finishing tasks or from significant events) and issuing combat orders outside of active pause would be disabled.

On IE games "failing": I sincerely believe that, when it comes to games, music and art, time is the gold standard.
Even if it is, an entire generation of people who happened to play given games when they were kids are going to skew the results.
Those games stay popular now or experience resurgence now because they were popular then. Nothing less, nothing more.
 

ArchAngel

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You really think that a huge area with 0-2 good things is good? A lot of those areas have one or two notable encounters etc., and 90% of the area is empty or filled with generic gnolls/wolves/kobolds.

ar4300.jpg
If all maps were filled with same monster it would be a problem. But since you get many different types of enemies, maps look nice (green is a calming color) and sounds are nice while exploring the whole package is good. Some maps need a bit more (and gnoll fortress would have been cool with an inside parts that have some cool quests)
 

Rake

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Messages
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Doesn't stop me from being smug about D:OS being superior game overall, though, due to much superior combat.
At least BG is still a superior game overall to Morrowind, due to much superior combat.
:troll:
 

ZagorTeNej

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Messages
1,980
I haven't yet seen sufficiently good implementation of RTwP in a cRPG. Certainly not in an IE game.

RPG as a genre doesn't really excel in combat and encounter design on the whole which makes vanilla BG2 certainly one of the better ones in that regard. With mods however, it turns into one of the best. SCSII combined with Ascension (which was made by Gaider*) made the ToB end battle one of the most tense and challenging encounters I ever faced in any game regardless of the genre.

*I repeat this often but while I find his writing cringeworthy for the most part, he's a very good designer, the main reason why it's a shame Bioware went the popamole romance simulators route.
 

DraQ

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Bullshit. Plus, I would bet money that all the people complaining about pathfinding are mouthbreathing retards who never opened the config menu and thus never increased the number of search nodes. The path finding isn't perfect but it's certainly not some abomination.
No amount of nodes will stop the AI from getting confused when someone else (party member or enemy) gets in their way for a moment.

BG1 is, in some aspects, better than BG2. I know it hurts your brain to actually think but compare open world to a linear tunnel - which is better and why?
BG1 is apparently so open that all the content fell out.
+M
A well executed linear tunnel is always going to be better than an open world as shoddily executed as BG1.

Besides, it's not that BG1 is actually truly open. Want to go in that direction? Sorry, but that's Cloakwood and you can't go this way because story.

A well designed game is fundamentally consistent in its approach. If it's open world, then it lets player go anywhere they please unless it can physically stop them.

Too bad BG is merely a linear storyfag slog hoping conceal its linearity by distracting player with a dozen or two empty maps.
It's openness is even more worthless than Oblivion's where it merely meant that you got to switch between a bunch of linear questlines at will.

Actually, even dragon age inquisition is way better than bg1.
bg1=oblivion of its time at best, one of the biggest harbinger of decline at worst.
Oh hey, another super edgy poster looking for his KKKredits. Perhaps go back to the playpen and keep playing with your My Little Pony dolls?
:butthurt:


Three words: respawning kobold commandos, lots and lots of them.
Or, if you spread your party out, the way you should do in a tight little dungeon, you won't have to suffer respawns because they only happen under Fog-of-war. So if you play sensibly, keeping most of your party back, while a thief scouts around, you won't have to deal with them more than once or twice.

But that's actually using your brain, something that is way too difficult to the Bioware crowd, of whom there are multiple examples in this very thread.
Sorry, but I prefer using brain for other purposes than dealing with glaringly artificial breakage.
Doubly so if it involves broken pathfinding trying to back the retarded lemmings party members into the newly respawned kobolds. Repeatedly.

The dungeon is awfully designed, boring, repetitive, pointless (mazes are pointless in an iso game), clashes with game's own pathfinding mechanics to the point and is filled with boring constantly respawning filler.
I don't remember worse dungeon in any game from any genre. Yes, Skyrim's linear slogs are still immeasurably better than this shit, so is Oblivion's copypasta.
There are two (not necessarily mutually exclusive) schools of dungeon design, one involves trying to make them like real places with clear sense of purpose and internal logic, the other involves making them interesting with puzzles, teleporters and interesting traps.
Firewine disregards both and is just repetitive filler for filler's sake, with neither interesting stuff, nor logic.
Granted, this is kind of running theme with vanilla BG1 dungeons as pretty much all are just repetitive filler for filler's sake but Firewine is special in how it makes BG's pathfinding algorithm perform even worse than no pathfinding algorithm at all and it's also on the lower end of the scale when it comes to both any sort of unique content accompanying the filler and internal logic.

And no, if you want to make Tucker's Kobolds, you'll have to do them the hard way, not by respawning the same shitty mobs over and over whenever player looks the other way.

Oh dear, a wilderness area that actually has some empty spaces? CAN'T HAVE THAT! AWESOME BUTTON TO THE RESCUE.
How about you don't put shit in if you can't make content for it?

Maybe it could be excused if BG was consistent about that and actually made a point of mapping a whole continuous chunk of SC, but no - it's omit 8h of marching through boring empty wilderness, then boring empty wilderness map for no reason, then another 8h of omitted wilderness, etc.
If you go for points of interests surrounded by generic wilderness you don't actually include in game, then you should make them actual PoIs, not generic wilderness maps that are just like the stuff you omit.

Again, a well designed game is consistent in its approach.
BG1 isn't because it's not a well designed game.

Seriously, most of you fucks should be banned and sent back to RPS "Hipster Central" where you obviously belong.
We are not the ones praising shit just because it's old vintage here.
:M

Wasn't saying it was any worse/much longer than firewine (well I take that back, was even blander and somewhat lulzier), just remarking about the lack of people complaining about it and why developers even included another shitty, not really a maze, area populated by trash mobs with varying resistance 1 or 2 at a time often behind traps.
I assume fewer people got this far. The one time I managed to put up with all the bullshit and get to the part the game starts getting marginally interesting my saves got wiped by a HD crash.

TL/DR Thief maze is empty and unnecessary filler, yet people complain more vehemently about smaller optional Firewine Bridge leaving me to believe most people didn't bother to finish game or have blocked it from memory.
Likely.

Yeah the one thing BG really had going for it was exploration
Please, stop misusing this word.

If all maps were filled with same monster it would be a problem. But since you get many different types of enemies, maps look nice (green is a calming color)
You should try Oblivion.
It's intensely calming most of the time.
Coma inducing even.

Doesn't stop me from being smug about D:OS being superior game overall, though, due to much superior combat.
At least BG is still a superior game overall to Morrowind, due to much superior combat.
:troll:
:nocountryforshitposters:
BG has shitty everything AND shitty combat.
Besides, even Morrowind's combat is more fun most of the time than BG's RTWP clusterfuck.

The only encounters in BG that didn't suck were adventuring parties.

RPG as a genre doesn't really excel in combat and encounter design on the whole which makes vanilla BG2 certainly one of the better ones in that regard.
Combat system is near orthogonal to encounter design, though.
 

imweasel

Guest
I've played Baldur's Gate about 5 times because it is a great game.

In before wall of text from DraQ
 

Delterius

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I was playing BG1 once. Trekked through the woods for half and hour or so. Killed bow wearing kobolds, bow wearing bandits and even bow wearing hobgoblins in order to find some hobo with two dialogue options about me being the chosen one.
 
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Doesn't stop me from being smug about D:OS being superior game overall, though, due to much superior combat.
At least BG is still a superior game overall to Morrowind, due to much superior combat.
:troll:
:nocountryforshitposters:
BG has shitty everything AND shitty combat.
Besides, even Morrowind's combat is more fun most of the time than BG's RTWP clusterfuck.

The only encounters in BG that didn't suck were adventuring parties.

RPG as a genre doesn't really excel in combat and encounter design on the whole which makes vanilla BG2 certainly one of the better ones in that regard.
Combat system is near orthogonal to encounter design, though.
Morrowind combat better than anything than fucking cancer :lol:

I know you are fucking sperglord when it comes to fucking TES but those 5 or 7 adventuring parties you fight in BG1 are miles better than any fucking encounter in Morrowind:smug:Also Durlags Tower >>>>>>any fucking dungeon in TES games. Deal with it:happytrollboy:
 

Rake

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Morrowind combat better than anything than fucking cancer :lol:

I know you are fucking sperglord when it comes to fucking TES but those 5 or 7 adventuring parties you fight in BG1 are miles better than any fucking encounter in Morrowind:smug:Also Durlags Tower >>>>>>any fucking dungeon in TES games. Deal with it:happytrollboy:
P. much this.
Though i agree with the rest of Draq's post. BG1 is the weakest IE game, and it would be ten times better if half the wilderness areas were removed and had their content relocated in the remaining areas. Walking around killing shit without purpose is very close to something like Oblivion or Skyrim.
Hiking simulators are shit, be they in isometric view or in first person.
 

Lhynn

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Never heard of the "your game is shit because it has too much optional side content" complain before this, and i gotta say, the first time you read it it kind of makes sense, but then you actually think about it and go "what?".

Theres something to be said about boring side quests, but really, locations where you dont find an encounter every 5 feet are bad now? regardless of quality (which usually wasnt very good), thats 2015 codex?

By far and wide IWD2 is the shittiest IE game, its banal shit boring beyond belief. To a point where my young eager mind could not fucking take it anymore. Im talking shit so boring that i actually quit and i went tru some shitty games back then.
 

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