Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[GarfunkeL]

From the little bits of info you get in the game, it seems that only the power-hungry would side with Bodhi.

 

[Lilura]

Lead writer of Baldur's Gate answers a few Qs.

(NWN would later include a text entry system for user input of riddle answers and passcodes, but the feature was never employed in official NWN content by BioWare; only user-made modules).

 

[GarfunkeL]

Redid my BG installation on my new pc as the old one I did on a hurry was messed up. Figured I'll start a new playthrough once again and go with SUPER RACE PARTY, ie all elves. Problem - BG1 does not have 5 recruitable elves! So I have to take half-elf Jaheira. Of course, this will be an even bigger problem in BG2 since there are only 2 elves (Aerie and Viconia) and 1 half-ef (Jaheira) but that's a problem for later. In BG1, without modifying the NPCs, I think I'm lacking melee power though:

Kivan, Coran, Viconia, Xan, Jaheira and CHARNAME. That gives two archers, one mage and two mediocre melee/buffers. So I'm thinking to go with the classic fighter/mage elf, so that there are 2 arcane casters and additional melee power, especially since Viconia with her low STR and CON is pretty risky to use in melee at lower levels. Might actually have everyone else use ranged/throwing weapons.

 

[bloodlover]

GarfunkeL Maybe make a custom party? Since I assume it's not your first time playing, you already did the NPC quests before so you won't be missing on much.

 

[Baardhaas]

What bloodlover said; create a custom party. It also saves you the hassle of managing opposing alignments in your party.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Nah, I did that the last time - a fully min/maxed party where everyone was dual-classed. I haven't tried a elf-only party yet.

EDIT: weird, I cannot save at all. This is a new bug that I haven't encountered before.

 

[Xor]

If you aren't allergic to mods you can use level1npcs to change characters' classes around. I'm pretty sure you can change races with shadow keeper, too, if you want to maintain racial purity.

 

[GarfunkeL]

In case someone else has the same problem that BGT cannot make saves, check whether you have the "temp" folder or not. Apparently BWS can bug out and create an empty file named "temp." instead of a directory/folder called "temp". Deleting the file and creating the directory allows the game run normally.

Xor, good point but then I might as well install additional companion mods. I'd like to keep this close to vanilla.

 

[Lilura]

I'd like to keep this close to vanilla.

What a fucking joke this is. You're already playing BG in the BG2 engine...

Mmm... I could have sworn Fields of the Dead was available for vanilla BG at one stage. Not the Codex's idea of vanilla, but actual vanilla. Maybe I was misremembering, though.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Which is why I said "close to vanilla" not "exactly vanilla". Pull the stick out of your ass and update your blog.

 

[Lilura]

I was thinking about updating my blog, but I've been feelin' a lil' lazy of late.

Since Fields of the Dead is for faggots only, I was thinking of reinstalling an old version of DSotSC, and giving it another whirl (the non-faggot version).

Wish me luck! I will post something about it soon.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I've never bothered with any of the mega-mods for BG1. Take one for the team and slog through them.

 

[agris]

They're shit. Overpowered items, spells, shit dialogue and map art and everything else. Avoid like the plague.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I've installed them before (Darkside/Northern Tales/That Other One) but I usually get pretty bored with BG1 and just move on before finishing them.

I would appreciate it if someone (Lilura) would just go and show me what happens.

 

[Xor]

On my last BG2 install I went ahead and installed a bunch of BG1 quest mods, but I got bored with the game before I could get to any of them.

 

[Melcar]

I usually get bored after I finish installing all my mods.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I usually get bored after I finish installing all my mods.

That's the goddamn truth. The idea of the game is often better than the execution. Have the same problem with Skyrim which I have yet to finish despite an embarrassing amount of hours over 4 attempts.

 

[Dux]

I just remembered some disturbing shit about BG2 which needs to be addressed, if it hasn't already. It's been a while since I played it so I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

So, you knock up Aerie, right, and she gives birth sometime way down the line. Okay, that's fine, I get it. You don't wear a rubber and you pay for it. It's all about C&C. Then, what does she do? What is her adult and sensible decision upon delivering this little adorable tyke into the shitstain they call a world? Why, she stuffs it into her backpack and continues adventuring, like it's all fine and dandy. Yeah, that's great parenting right there. Battling horrible monsters from the very Abyss itself - wielding a fucking staff in one hand and an infant in the other.

 

[pippin]

I just remembered some disturbing shit about BG2 which needs to be addressed, if it hasn't already. It's been a while since I played it so I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

So, you knock up Aerie, right, and she gives birth sometime way down the line. Okay, that's fine, I get it. You don't wear a rubber and you pay for it. It's all about C&C. Then, what does she do? What is her adult and sensible decision upon delivering this little adorable tyke into the shitstain they call a world? Why, she stuffs it into her backpack and continues adventuring, like it's all fine and dandy. Yeah, that's great parenting right there. Battling horrible monsters from the very Abyss itself - wielding a fucking staff in one hand and an infant in the other.

 

[Infinitron]

Lead writer of Baldur's Gate answers a few Qs.

You should have advertised this more heavily.

Lead Writer of Baldur's Gate - Lukas Kristjanson

D u r l a g ' s T o w e r & R i d d l e c r a f t



You may have read my in-depth retrospective on the original incarnation of Baldur's Gate, in which I deem Durlag's Tower to be the greatest dungeon crawl in cRPG history. Well, to my delight the Lead Writer of Baldur's Gate, Lukas Kristjanson, was recently kind enough to answer my questions on Durlag's Tower, and also offer insights into riddlecraft and the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion, in general.

I asked him: Who conceived the idea of the Tower, Who wrote it (the riddles & rhymes, the allegory on Fear), and Who did the dungeon design? His memory was a lil' fuzzy on the specifics (understandably!) but the response was quite enlightening, regardless!

Wow, a long time since I thought out those days.

It was our first crack at an expansion, and we wanted something that could plug in and be engaged at almost any point. And since it's Dungeons and Dragons, we wanted to try our hand at a traditional crawl. A real adventure just for the sake of it. And like so many other things, we went back to the tabletop source.

I really liked the extended lore of things like the Dragon Mountain module, and we all have nightmares from the Temple of Elemental Evil. So we went for something established in Forgotten Realms, but not so detailed that fans would nitpick what we did as "not accurate". I don't remember who suggested it, but Durlag's Tower is mentioned in Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast by Ed Greenwood. So it was "legendary" but not a focal point, and that gave us room for interpretation. More or less the same tactic we would later employ with KotOR, by setting that game thousands of years before the movies. Still recognizable to fans, but lots of room to do your own thing.

I wrote a lot of the expansion and the tower. And while it's hard to remember specifics, I do recall being a jerk about the riddles. Because some players would reload after a wrong answer, so I built in redundant riddles, and made the game pull them randomly on load. So if you got the wrong answer and reloaded, there was a good chance to got a different riddle. That wasn't a fix, by any means. We always knew that multiple choice was a weak way to present a riddle. We briefly toyed with a text entry system in BG1, but realized that it was out of scope. Not just due to coding for the interface and GUI art, but also maintaining it across the different language translations of the game. But riddles are very AD&D, so we still wanted them. I tried to integrate them as much as possible, and sometimes had fun with them. Like having Minsc jump in to give wrong answers to some quizzing Guardian in BG2.

Personally, riddles were always (and still are) a pain in the butt, because there's a very small window for them to be satisfying. If you don't know it, it's impossible. If you do know it, it's obvious. Riddles that allow the player to consider and solve are rare, and made all the more challenging by multi-language releases. That's why you keep seeing physical puzzles repeat in many games. Those at least can be manipulated and give you time to "get it." Translation isn't a factor, and even if you know how to do it, there's still a process to solving it, instead of just "answer, move on." Like the Towers of Hanoi, or the "Towers of Annoy" as they came to be known.

Honestly I can't remember who all was involved in the dungeon design. All of us, to some extent, and I'd only leave someone out if I started trying to go through them all. You'll have to run through the credits. The Level Art team drove a lot of it, because we wanted the environment to be interesting. Plus their time was at a premium. Text was cheap back then, so it was easier to react to what Art could deliver. And we stretched ourselves pretty thin in places. Not so much in the tower itself, I'm thinking more of that mage-trap island cave that we crammed in. I believe we ended up using the same layout as the Ankheg caves, just mirrored, altered slightly, and recoloured.

That's some stuff off the top of my head.

Lukas Kristjanson​

Thanks Lukas! I'm sure all veterans of Baldur's Gate appreciate your brilliant writing.

(Lukas went on to write for Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, KotOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 2 & Dragon Age Inquisition).

 

[The Decline]

I wanted to try the trilogy mod for the first time yesterday, but fucking g3 and spellholdstudios are down and the mods aren't backed up anywhere else.

 

[veskoandroid]

I wanted to try the trilogy mod for the first time yesterday, but fucking g3 and spellholdstudios are down and the mods aren't backed up anywhere else.

Im soon finishing pillars of shitternity, and am thinking of replaying bg after. Is there any major sight for compiling ee's amd sod into trilogy, with compatible modlist?

Sent from my Xperia ZR using Tapatalk

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, uninstall EE and SOD and get a refund.

 

[pippin]

play toee instead (with temple plus ofc)

 

[GarfunkeL]

Windows Defender goes nuts, finding the trojan Spursint.A!cl in the exe file.