Was Baldur's Gate considered popamole at release?

[octavius]

Your spell selection is slightly weird anyway. No farsight? No protection from elements spells(100% immunity for a long duration), but you bother to memorize fireball? Phantom blade? Conjure lesser elemental?

The list was hastily made and I don't remember the excact details of all the spells. The point was that I use a larger portion of the IE spells.
Why should I not memorize Fireballs?
And why memorize Farsight? Isn't that what scouting with stealthy thieves are for?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Why should I not memorize Fireballs?

Because they cap at 10d6 (unlike Flaming Arrow or Skulltrap) and you can have an unlimited amount of those from wands?

And why memorize Farsight? Isn't that what scouting with stealthy thieves are for?

It's a must-have if you like to use Project Image (otherwise the image disappears in the FoW if moved to far away)

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I actually liked BG1 mostly because of low level + those empty maps. Those gave me the feeling they aren't there for me, but because of their place on the Sword Coast, with their set of problems that had nothing to do with you.

I liked the rumors - about Prism, or the guard captain that went berserk - they just said west of Naskhel or east of Beregost, it was up to you to go find them if you wish. For me it really added to the atmosphere and the feeling of a living world (NPC schedules would've helped even more).

This is basically what I like the most about BG as well; that the way the setting was used feels fairly down to earth (disregarding the "you are the son of the murder god" thing, which is more of a main plot, than setting issue).

Same here.

And here. Call it a hiking sim if you must, but it was a damn good hiking sim with RPG elements

Too bad they don't make tabletop hiking sims like that any more. Just fucking LARP simulators like Oblivion and FINO3.
And too bad that BG2 dropped the hiking part, was full of ugly dungeonpunk locations and babushka doll quests with fake choice dialogues.

 

[DraQ]

I actually liked BG1 mostly because of low level + those empty maps. Those gave me the feeling they aren't there for me, but because of their place on the Sword Coast, with their set of problems that had nothing to do with you.

I liked the rumors - about Prism, or the guard captain that went berserk - they just said west of Naskhel or east of Beregost, it was up to you to go find them if you wish. For me it really added to the atmosphere and the feeling of a living world (NPC schedules would've helped even more).

This is basically what I like the most about BG as well; that the way the setting was used feels fairly down to earth (disregarding the "you are the son of the murder god" thing, which is more of a main plot, than setting issue).

Same here.

And here. Call it a hiking sim if you must, but it was a damn good hiking sim with RPG elements

Too bad they don't make tabletop hiking sims like that any more. Just fucking LARP simulators like Oblivion and FINO3.
And too bad that BG2 dropped the hiking part, was full of ugly dungeonpunk locations and babushka doll quests with fake choice dialogues.

I actually find dungeonpunk far more interesting than generic medieval themepark, which isn't quite down to earth either and is fucking inconsistent, as you have ubiquitous magic (you can even find scrolls on some random, low level mobs, so no it's not rare), divine interventions, resurrection, shitload of supposedly sapient, highly aggressive races that seem to only exist to provide adventurers with XPs, and fail to either get exterminated, exterminate others, integrate to at least certain degree or let the area stabilize down as permanent itzistan with all settlements either strongly fortified or ravaged by gnolls forming halberd rape gangs and shit.

From what I've seen of BG2 it's at least somewhat creative in terms of locations.

Another thing, wilderness in BG1 sucked (so did dungeons, but that's another issue). There were some nice and memorable wilderness locations - like exterior of Firewine, and landscapes admittedly looked pretty purdy, but most of the locations were arbitrary in that they were discrete, relatively small and unremarkable chunks of explorable nondescript terrain surrounded by days of walk worth of presumably the same unexplorable terrain. They was no logic to them, they looked as if they were simply thrown in for the sake of having moar locations.
Finding an NPC/location/quest hook was never an issue, because it simply revolved around uncovering one discrete locale, then moving to another until something interesting was found or you ran out of locations. It was completely different from exploring a handcrafted continuous world like Morrowind or even Wizardry 8, or world with discrete landmarks with huge amount of wilderness in between like in Fallout or Daggerfall. It was derp.

To add insult to injury, isometric view is completely shit for exploration, especially combined with relatively small maps with explicit 'unexplored' shroud. You can't get lost, you aren't rewarded for perceptiveness or cunning (there were hidden items in BG but they tended to be just unremarkable hidden hotspots you had to just hit with your cursor to detect - cue sound of furious mouse-swinging), the exploration boiled down to just wiping the black off the map and visiting all edges to limit the amount of manual walking in the future in excatly the same way as it was beneficial to always try and find all the nearby locations in oblivious, so that you could fast-travel without restrictions.


Oh, and then there was the famous BG pathfinding.

 

[curry]

Another thing, wilderness in BG1 sucked (so did dungeons, but that's another issue). There were some nice and memorable wilderness locations - like exterior of Firewine, and landscapes admittedly looked pretty purdy, but most of the locations were arbitrary in that they were discrete, relatively small and unremarkable chunks of explorable nondescript terrain surrounded by days of walk worth of presumably the same unexplorable terrain. They was no logic to them, they looked as if they were simply thrown in for the sake of having moar locations.

You're obviously trolling. Wilderness areas are one of the best things about BG. :shock:

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I actually liked BG1 mostly because of low level + those empty maps. Those gave me the feeling they aren't there for me, but because of their place on the Sword Coast, with their set of problems that had nothing to do with you.

I liked the rumors - about Prism, or the guard captain that went berserk - they just said west of Naskhel or east of Beregost, it was up to you to go find them if you wish. For me it really added to the atmosphere and the feeling of a living world (NPC schedules would've helped even more).

This is basically what I like the most about BG as well; that the way the setting was used feels fairly down to earth (disregarding the "you are the son of the murder god" thing, which is more of a main plot, than setting issue).

Same here.

And here. Call it a hiking sim if you must, but it was a damn good hiking sim with RPG elements

Too bad they don't make tabletop hiking sims like that any more. Just fucking LARP simulators like Oblivion and FINO3.
And too bad that BG2 dropped the hiking part, was full of ugly dungeonpunk locations and babushka doll quests with fake choice dialogues.

I actually find dungeonpunk far more interesting than generic medieval themepark, which isn't quite down to earth either and is fucking inconsistent, as you have ubiquitous magic (you can even find scrolls on some random, low level mobs, so no it's not rare), divine interventions, resurrection, shitload of supposedly sapient, highly aggressive races that seem to only exist to provide adventurers with XPs, and fail to either get exterminated, exterminate others, integrate to at least certain degree or let the area stabilize down as permanent itzistan with all settlements either strongly fortified or ravaged by gnolls forming halberd rape gangs and shit.

From what I've seen of BG2 it's at least somewhat creative in terms of locations.

Another thing, wilderness in BG1 sucked (so did dungeons, but that's another issue). There were some nice and memorable wilderness locations - like exterior of Firewine, and landscapes admittedly looked pretty purdy, but most of the locations were arbitrary in that they were discrete, relatively small and unremarkable chunks of explorable nondescript terrain surrounded by days of walk worth of presumably the same unexplorable terrain. They was no logic to them, they looked as if they were simply thrown in for the sake of having moar locations.
Finding an NPC/location/quest hook was never an issue, because it simply revolved around uncovering one discrete locale, then moving to another until something interesting was found or you ran out of locations. It was completely different from exploring a handcrafted continuous world like Morrowind or even Wizardry 8, or world with discrete landmarks with huge amount of wilderness in between like in Fallout or Daggerfall. It was derp.

To add insult to injury, isometric view is completely shit for exploration, especially combined with relatively small maps with explicit 'unexplored' shroud. You can't get lost, you aren't rewarded for perceptiveness or cunning (there were hidden items in BG but they tended to be just unremarkable hidden hotspots you had to just hit with your cursor to detect - cue sound of furious mouse-swinging), the exploration boiled down to just wiping the black off the map and visiting all edges to limit the amount of manual walking in the future in excatly the same way as it was beneficial to always try and find all the nearby locations in oblivious, so that you could fast-travel without restrictions.


Oh, and then there was the famous BG pathfinding.

I meant mostly the graphical side. Like the coast, the waterfall, the Firewine ruins, the Gnoll Keep, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Beregost, etc. etc.
It just looked nice and sounded nice. As for anything beyond it, it's mediocre-to-average. Somewhat enjoyable, but not good or great.

 

[DraQ]

Another thing, wilderness in BG1 sucked (so did dungeons, but that's another issue). There were some nice and memorable wilderness locations - like exterior of Firewine, and landscapes admittedly looked pretty purdy, but most of the locations were arbitrary in that they were discrete, relatively small and unremarkable chunks of explorable nondescript terrain surrounded by days of walk worth of presumably the same unexplorable terrain. They was no logic to them, they looked as if they were simply thrown in for the sake of having moar locations.

You're obviously trolling.

Nope.

Wilderness areas are one of the best things about BG. :shock:

Possibly. I've already said that they were pretty purdy, haven't I?

Also, while it was still annoying as fuck outdoors, the pathfinding only revealed its true potential for retardation in dungeons so I guess wilderness has an edge here too.

I meant mostly the graphical side. Like the coast, the waterfall, the Firewine ruins, the Gnoll Keep, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Beregost, etc. etc.
It just looked nice and sounded nice. As for anything beyond it, it's mediocre-to-average. Somewhat enjoyable, but not good or great.

Well, if you put it this way BG1 can be enjoyed if you grab a beer or two, switch off most of your brain and just sit back listening to the narrator and prancing around killing monsters. Then again, so does oblivious, although BG1 has some definite edge here having enjoyable (if camp) VOs, more engaging story and being playable unmodded.


Hmmm...
"Napiłbym się piwa."

 

[hoverdog]

Mów mi tak dalej, a napcham ci gębę końskim łajnem.

 

[jiujitsu]

Baldur's Gate was my first RPG, really. I played around in Betrayal at Krondor a bit and played the Fallout demo first, but BG was my introduction. I loved it. I still replay it. I even like the combat.

The best parts of all of those IE games, for me, was the IE engine itself. The background on every area was like a painting. Area's in games now are far to blocky and symmetrical to properly immerse me. It's all too neat; too perfect. The IE backgrounds had flaws and irregularities that really fed my imagination. It made it more real than any 3D environment has been able to achieve until Fallout 3 and FN:V. And they still failed from time to time. That's the limit of a 3D engine. They just can't customize every inch. They reuse over and over and over. Models. Textures. Whatever.

The second best part, for me, is the Forgotten Realms and DnD. The Forgotten Realms is a very interesting and fun setting. Exploring the world and discovering all the different aspects of it was great. Regarding DnD, it was my first RPG experience, really. So, I'm probably biased saying I like it a lot. I like the spell book and the stat system and all the little numbers and such that it takes a little while to figure out what they all mean and how they affect your playing experience.

I think that BG brought a lot of popularity to the RPG genre and in that saved it, but also damned it. Since they realized they could make lots of money off of RPGs it has been a constant race to sell more and more units which have inevitably turned the genre into a bunch of action games with stats. It will only get worse as time goes on. The RPG as we knew it was a byproduct of limited technology. They didn't have much to work with visually, so they made the most of the rest of the game's aspects. Now it's all about "getting right into the game." "I played Call of Duty 1000 times. That should be all the learning I need to play any game" That's what publishers talk about. How to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd because that's where the money is. The guys fronting the cash don't care about RPGs or games for that matter. They just want a reasonable return on their investment.

The developers are all we have as always. Unfortunately, they can't make games without publishers and that means creating a game according to someone else's rules. Hats off to the cats that throw us a bone once in a while. I believe Bioware did try and give us a little love with DA:O. As far as DA2 is concerned, they didn't really think of us old school cats too much when making it. It reeks of console simplicity for those gamers that are too lazy to learn how to play the game. They just want to pop it in their xbox and start smashing things along a story path that's laid out for them.

The most infuriating thing about it is the fact that they are moving on from making games that we like to play and are dragging the title of RPG along with them. Those of us that know the true meaning of RPG tend to just be brushed aside and designated as 'hardcore.' We aren't hardcore, we're just trying to keep everyone honest.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I meant mostly the graphical side. Like the coast, the waterfall, the Firewine ruins, the Gnoll Keep, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Beregost, etc. etc.
It just looked nice and sounded nice. As for anything beyond it, it's mediocre-to-average. Somewhat enjoyable, but not good or great.

Well, if you put it this way BG1 can be enjoyed if you grab a beer or two, switch off most of your brain and just sit back listening to the narrator and prancing around killing monsters. Then again, so does oblivious, although BG1 has some definite edge here having enjoyable (if camp) VOs, more engaging story and being playable unmodded.

I have never tried the Oblivion. Mainly because I don't like LARP simulators and because I can't afford collecting stuff that I collect and buying a new computer at the same time. Actually a mere thought of spending money on a computer instead of buying let's say, a full boxed copy of Ultima VII makes me angry.

BG1 didn't have level scaling, Radiant AI, bloom and stuff like that, though, so it still wasn't bad.

 

[Storyfag]

Hmmm...
"Napiłbym się piwa."

Mów mi tak dalej, a napcham ci gębę końskim łajnem.

I to dużo lepsze niż w oryginale

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I think that BG brought a lot of popularity to the RPG genre and in that saved it, but also damned it.

Yes, BG has damned RPGs. They didn't need saving, though. I don't know why some people seem to live in some alternative reality where RPGs were a dead genre and needed to be resurrected.

Fallout came out before Baldur's Gate and sold enough to warrant an instant sequel. I suspect that if BG wouldn't come out and BI wouldn't move to IE engine, they could simply re-use the Fallout engine by increasing the colour depth and resolution and hype it like they did with Baldur's Gate. Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva was released in 1997, the same for Betrayal in Antara, Might & Magic VI came out in the same year as BG and two other M&M games were released in next two years, Jagged Alliance 2 came out in april 1999, so it was in production before long before BG was released, Ultima IX (still isometric) was in production.
RPGs weren't dead and weren't in trouble. There was a continuous stream of cRPGs coming out between 1995 and 1998. What BG did was disrupting the RPG market with massive hype and the idea of "continuous turn-based" combat which has damaged the marketing potential of both the RT and TB combat.

 

[DraQ]

The best parts of all of those IE games, for me, was the IE engine itself. The background on every area was like a painting. Area's in games now are far to blocky and symmetrical to properly immerse me. It's all too neat; too perfect. The IE backgrounds had flaws and irregularities that really fed my imagination. It made it more real than any 3D environment has been able to achieve until Fallout 3 and FN:V. And they still failed from time to time. That's the limit of a 3D engine. They just can't customize every inch. They reuse over and over and over. Models. Textures. Whatever.

As much as I hate saying this kind of thing, knowing how often it gets used by complete retards for dismissing our preference for Fallout over Oblivious, I'm afraid your rose-tinted glasses are blinding you here.

BG reused and copypasted shit all over the place. Trees, objects everything. It wasn't in even a slightest bit more unique than pretty much any random Morrowind landscape, and about any Random Morrowind location has advantage of player being able to interact with all the container rather than few arbitrarily chosen ones and hidden items being actually possible to notice rather than only findable through blind luck or furiously waving your cursor around.

The second best part, for me, is the Forgotten Realms and DnD. The Forgotten Realms is a very interesting and fun setting.

Again, not really. It has always been a generic fantasy kitchensink. Want an interesting setting? See pre-derp TES. Want an interesting generic setting? See Witcher. Want an interesting D&D setting? See Planescape.

I think that BG brought a lot of popularity to the RPG genre and in that saved it, but also damned it.

Word.

It will only get worse as time goes on.

Not necessarily. I'm pretty sure that the gaming market is going to crash and starting anew will mean a lot more niche titles.

The RPG as we knew it was a byproduct of limited technology.

That was one of its failings, not one of its graces. RPGs failed to adapt so they were supplanted.

No, not adapt to retards or graphics whores, but there are many awesome things that can be done with an RPG, mechanics and a lot of computing power, if you aren't bound by the desire to emulate PnP as closely as possible. RPGs will always need stats and builds and player actions affecting the game, but highly abstract, simplistic representation of the mechanics should remain a domain of PnP with GMs who can put it in the context of the gameworld. Computers cannot and will not understand such thing as context unless you either develop a true AI or express this fuzzy context in hard terms of the mechanics.

Similar thing happened to spasim genre, except instead of getting directly supplanted by something else, spasims had core part of their fanbase drift away in disinterest and the rest get drained by FPS genre.
The reason was simple - spasims were becoming more and more packed with visuals (often pointless and even nonsensical), but their sim mechanics didn't really advance much beyond fucking Elite. And flying around like a simplified aeroplane going pew-pew with lasers won't really stand a chance to beheading someone with a shotgun.

Situation isn't as bad, actually, as today's big RPG developers like biowhore still don't get it and the chasm between mechanics and what's on the screen deepens. Maybe it's time for someone creative and talented to get revenge in the rug-snatching game.

Hmmm...
"Napiłbym się piwa."

Mów mi tak dalej, a napcham ci gębę końskim łajnem.

I to dużo lepsze niż w oryginale

*Burp* Pewnie.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Bros, bioturds cannot into BG: http://social.bioware.com/forum/Baldur0 ... 702-1.html

Retard 1: Hurr durr how do I maek a tankz in BG????
Retard 2: Durr Balders Gate haz old systemz, no threat managmentz. Paladenz, Rangerz, Fighterz make good tankz! Lowers yours armer and get big shieldz DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHH

FUCK YOU AND YOUR POPAMOLE WOW THREAT MANAGEMENT SHIT

 

[Volourn]

Dumb. I used tanks in BG all the time to draw enemies away from the mages. And, it worked all the time. R00fles!

 

[GarfunkeL]

Eh, because the AI so dumb that the enemy will 99% of time attack the the closest party member. Which is a good thing because RTwP means that the battle-management is quite difficult.

Playing BGT and KotC side-by-side really highlights all the deficiencies in Baldur's Gate.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Dumb. I used tanks in BG all the time to draw enemies away from the mages. And, it worked all the time. R00fles!

Bullshitz! Why do you lie? Enemies attack those closest or whoever attacks them. There is no WOW-like focus on threat levels as there is in Dragon Turds, bro.

 

[DraQ]

FUCK YOU AND YOUR POPAMOLE WOW THREAT MANAGEMENT SHIT

Fucking this.

I abhor this kind of retarded, asymmetrical bullshit. If you can do something to an enemy, they should be sable to do this to you, so either there is no explicit "threat management", which is the far superior option, and both you and the AI draw each other attention in similar manner - by inflicting damage, moving around or endowing vulnerable party members on the opposite side with several brand new bleeding assholes all over their body; or the enemy can mindtrick your characters in the same way you can mindtrick their - which is a decent idea when it comes to magical means of mind control - charm, dominate, fear and so on (I wanted to hug someone at Larian when my character in Divinity 2 got hit by a fear spell and ran like a sissy - sure that having control taken away in battle is annyoing, but so is dying - the alternatives are far worse), but excessively shitty when given to a tank.

 

[J_C]

Dumb. I used tanks in BG all the time to draw enemies away from the mages. And, it worked all the time. R00fles!

Bullshitz! Why do you lie? Enemies attack those closest or whoever attacks them. There is no WOW-like focus on threat levels as there is in Dragon Turds, bro.

Volly ran out of options that are true a while ago, so now he is just making shit up for the sake of argument.

 

[Volourn]

"Enemies attack those closest or whoever attacks them."

YTup, and 99% of the time that's the warrior. And, the other 1% is the bullshitty when you enter a zone and the game has your party sloppily placed with mages in front. LMFAO

 

[DraQ]

And, the other 1% is the bullshitty when you enter a zone and the game has your party sloppily placed with mages in front. LMFAO

How sloppily of Biowhore. Tsk. Tsk.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Threat management - When you say fuck it and make manipulating the AI into a game mechanic

 

[DraQ]

Threat management - When your players become too derp to actually shield anyone with their tanks.

Fixed.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Another thing, wilderness in BG1 sucked (so did dungeons, but that's another issue). There were some nice and memorable wilderness locations - like exterior of Firewine, and landscapes admittedly looked pretty purdy, but most of the locations were arbitrary in that they were discrete, relatively small and unremarkable chunks of explorable nondescript terrain surrounded by days of walk worth of presumably the same unexplorable terrain. They was no logic to them, they looked as if they were simply thrown in for the sake of having moar locations.

Good fucking god, I just downloaded a location graphic (in bmp format) from one of Baldur's Gate districts to use it as a wallpaper. It aged very very unfavourably - it's basically a rendering with crappy textures and practically no post-processing.
On the other hand I still love Fallout graphics when viewed in high resolution - mainly because they had good 2D artist working on their tiles and stuff that was converted from 3D was also worked on. Or maybe it's just an impression caused by the limited colour palette.