What do you think about BG2?

[dragonfk]

Brilliant game. Infinity Engine at its best (at least for me), great encounter design, lots of interesting content. Its onlly flaw are its recruitable characters. Maybe not entirely cliche, but definitly not PST or MOTB class.

 

[MetalCraze]

M-m-m-mediocre!

 

[nomask7]

I've said it before: MotB was average, almost everything else, however, is complete shite. The analysis of anything is always a caricature in the end, but reducing MotB to a cliched formula without wincing is much more difficult than seeing through BG2. The latter begs for it.

 

[Qwinn]

Um, okay, so that big long post where I lay out all the c&c in BG2 that refutes your claim that BG2 had no c&c elicits a response of.... repeat what you said before using different words, without even acknowledging that your premises are debunked? Did this become a politics board when I wasn't looking?

I've said it before: MotB was average, almost everything else, however, is complete shite.

"Average". You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Qwinn

 

[nomask7]

MotB is average. Its combat is pretty bad, for example. The good games simply haven't been made yet. That doesn't mean I can't imagine them.

 

[Volourn]

"Um, okay, so that big long post where I lay out all the c&c in BG2 that refutes your claim that BG2 had no c&c elicits a response of.... repeat what you said before using different words, without even acknowledging that your premises are debunked? Did this become a politics board when I wasn't looking?"

This is the Codex. Opinions don't get effected by facts. Afterall, Codexian opinion states that turn base combat = TRUE role-playing.

 

[Section8]

From what I've played of it, it's not awful but you really have to like inane and obvious "humour" to get much out of it. Otherwise it just becomes a Scary Movie-esque "parody" of an actual RPG.

 

[nomask7]

"big long post where I lay out all the c&c in BG2

Really? All the c&c in BG2? It didn't sound like all that much to me. Try to understand that it's besides the point to consider a couple of exceptional instances when making a generalization about something. Making the player able to choose a faction or skip an episode is just an easy, cliched way to add replay value to a game. I guess skimpy game publishers prefer adding a few "big" choices instead of a lot of small ones. The devil must be in the details. I'd prefer the details though, the sort of details that have some sort of significance. In The Witcher, I want to be able to act in a way that has some sort of connection with the fact that I no longer trust the witch bitch who wants me to help her. I should be able to at least express my mistrust and preferably also see what happens when I do and make choices based on that, assuming that the character I'm supposedly role playing isn't particularly dumb or a hopeless slave who does whatever he's told to do. But I guess that would spoil the precious plot, I mean, would require the game developers to actually work on something besides the latest shader. I'd also like to tell one of those guild bosses in Morrowind that I couldn't find the goddamn cave, and want some other work. Then he can tell me to fuck off you incompetent fool or, incredibly, give me another quest. In the former case my reputation in some circles would suffer, in others possibly improve. But that's too much to ask, isn't it?

 

[Qwinn]

Dude. That wasn't nearly all the c&c in BG2. That's just what I could think of, easily, off the top of my head, in the course of writing a post in about a minute. And I haven't played the game in 3 years.

One thing I've noticed about some Codexers in my few weeks here. This insistence on repeatedly labeling any established RPG practice, no matter how obvious and common sense it is that there's damn good reasons for it to be that way, as "cliche" or "stale". It's like you live in some fantasy world where a different type of implementation comes with all upside and no downside. Like there's some obvious and better way to do the games that -only you- can imagine that would be better in every conceivable way than existing games do it. Cause it can't be that dozens of people making full salaries ever tried to implement your suggestions and discovered that they come with really major downsides, no, that's not possible, you're too smart and if there were any downside you'd have anticipated it by now. Right.

One example: You decried the dialogue system as:

The dialog was such a crude system at best

It's the -exact same- dialogue system used in PS:T. Exactly. And it was no less robust or sophisticated than the dialogue system in MotB.

And then there's the eternal bitching about multiple choices in a conversation that both essentially lead to the same result. Do you -seriously- think you could write dialogue where -every single state- has multiple responses that lead to -totally unique new states- that themselves branch out another 3 different ways that each themselves lead to another totally different set of unique states? Does the word "exponential" mean anything to you? Of -course- you're going to have multiple responses that lead to the same state. If you think it's even logistically possible to do it any differently throughout the course of an entire dialogue heavy game, you're smoking crack. Or there's the alternative where only one response is available if there's no -actual- branch that dialogue step can take, in which case people bitch about being railroaded and how they don't "even" have the choice of responding in a snarky versus a diplomatic way, "even if" it makes no real difference. Would that be asking too much?

If you have never found a game that you consider "above average" cause you're waiting for that perfect game you've got in your head where every dialogue with every unimportant NPC can result in 3^7th power unique dialogue paths, you are going to be one seriously depressed bitter old man expressing your nerdrage about how no one seems to be able to get it right for the rest of your life.

Qwinn

 

[almondblight]

Some people here just like being contrarian. Look at how Saint and Rex (and others, probably) called Hellgate a roguelike. Yeah, so there you have it. Hellgate is a real RPG, just a roguelike. BG2 is just an adventure game with isometric combat, choices and consequences, stats, and character growth.

Anyway, the combat system could have been pretty decent prob if they just abandoned some of the D&D stuff, and changed some of the other stuff. Freedom Froce did real time combat well, and it was more fun there than in Fallout (where at the end it's just headshottign everyone).

From what I played BG2 seemed like an OK game that was needlessly cocked up in some places (combat, jokes, randomly meeting tons of people from the first game in your first 10 minutes, needing to do TC/IP to make your own party, etc.). Still, it looked like there was a ton of interesting things, which is cool.

 

[nomask7]

Did you notice that MotB was much less cliched than the original campaign of NWN2? The same was true of Hordes of the Underdark as well (another expansion pack). I guess that might be a coincidence, but my bet is that game developers are either afraid, or are not allowed, to make new titles that aren't cliche fests designed for the dimwits who make up the majority of humans and need cliches to make up their entertainment as well as environment or else they start feeling terribly confused. It's an unfortunate fact that trying to appreciate or understand anything unfamiliar is a huge effort for people with IQs of 100 or even 115. I despise postmodernists, so you don't have to lecture me about the positive sides of tradition, but you're a starry eyed lunatic yourself if you think that's what it's about with shit fests like BG2.

It's also funny how you take things literally when it suits you, while indulging in caricature where ever convenient for your "argument". I get it already: you liked BG2 and are basically happy with games as they are. Now go away.

 

[Qwinn]

Aaah, when all your specific charges have been debunked, work your way down to totally vague and unsupported bitching, throw in a few ad hominems, and claim victory. You've argued on the internets before!

But just for shits and giggles, let's review all the ways in which BG2 took the comfortable, cliche, easy way out.

1. Your character, the protagonist, is a child of the dead God of Murder, who was condemned to walk the earth in mortal form during a cataclysmic era known as the Time of Troubles. Now, seriously, what game hasn't done -that- tired old comfy cliche before the BG series?

2. One of your main companions is an addled berzerking ranger who has mistaken his normal hamster companion for the Giant Space variety. The list of games that did something like that before the BG series goes around my house at least six times.

3. Spend a crapload of development in creating a stronghold, each with a significant quest chain, for each and every class in the game, thus making absolutely certain that players would only experience a tiny fraction of what (when taken all together) amounts to a really huge chunk of development energy in any single playthrough. Every game company I know, both before and after BG2, has been entirely comfortable with decisions like that.

4. Actually full developed romances, to the point where you can even have -children- with an available romance option, and where you can have as many as three or four dozen romance-specific dialogues with up to three female characters (and a male one). This is totally unoriginal, of course. The "romances" in HotU and MotB, which generally numbered four dialogues or less, show how simple and easy that all is.

5. Your protagonist's peculiar constitution actually allows you to access some intrinsic, and horribly evil, powers that make you amazingly powerful, but if you use them too much, can have permanent delibitating effects. I mean really, how cliche was that whole Spirit Eater thing anyw... o wait. No, that was MotB. BG2 did that idea 8 years earlier. Having trouble thinking of the dozen or so games that made that idea "cliche" before BG2 came out, but I'm sure it'll come to me.

6. Crafting NPC's that allow you to bring them components acquired from various places around the game, which they forge into really powerful items. Cliche! Everyone's done that! Well, everyone -since- BG2 has done that, but does the order really matter? If it's cliche -now-, then it was cliche even the first time somebody did it.

I can think of about 10 more ways in which BG2 introduced real innovations into the world of RPG's (the pocket plane, the Hell tests, the infiltration of the Drow city, the planetar advisor, the option to end the game by ascending into Godhood, etc. etc. etc.), but it is kinda pointless. Let me save you the trouble of responding. Your bitching about the game will just get even vaguer, your ad hominems will get a bit more strident, and then you'll tell me to go away again.

Qwinn

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

 

[Tigranes]

Wait a few minutes, somebody will come and re-word every single point in a way that makes them all cliche.

BATTLEFIELD: LOGIC

 

[Andrej]

BG2 feels more like an adventure game in the end, but he sheer amount of content lets me admire it - but it's nowhere near PS:T or MotB in terms of quality. Personally, the C&C of The Witcher makes me prefer it over BG2.

 

[hiver]

prety good.

very fond memories, very, very, very.

A lot of good and interesting features to play around, Minsc (qwinn...boo is really a small giant space hamster)
Edwin and couple of other really good NPCs and a lot of NPCs who you could hate with a passion.

Lots of good fights and the best magic combat system ever made (Lol balthameal i didnt figure that one trick out)

and a lot of limited C&C and excellent villains in both games.

pretty good.

 

[Elric]

The good games simply haven't been made yet. That doesn't mean I can't imagine them.

Um, if you extrapolate into games that haven't been made yet, the "average" moves down, not up. If 5 shit games and 1 good game come out in 2009, the average quality of RPGs is lowered, because the 5 shit games pull down the average more than the 1 good game.

 

[Wyrmlord]

People honestly care about romances in games?

Even dialogue or speech-based quests, I can like.

But romances? There is no challenge nor reward in this endeavour. Just a bunch of flirting lines you go through.

 

[Vibalist]

Aaah, when all your specific charges have been debunked, work your way down to totally vague and unsupported bitching, throw in a few ad hominems, and claim victory. You've argued on the internets before!

But just for shits and giggles, let's review all the ways in which BG2 took the comfortable, cliche, easy way out.

1. Your character, the protagonist, is a child of the dead God of Murder, who was condemned to walk the earth in mortal form during a cataclysmic era known as the Time of Troubles. Now, seriously, what game hasn't done -that- tired old comfy cliche before the BG series?

2. One of your main companions is an addled berzerking ranger who has mistaken his normal hamster companion for the Giant Space variety. The list of games that did something like that before the BG series goes around my house at least six times.

3. Spend a crapload of development in creating a stronghold, each with a significant quest chain, for each and every class in the game, thus making absolutely certain that players would only experience a tiny fraction of what (when taken all together) amounts to a really huge chunk of development energy in any single playthrough. Every game company I know, both before and after BG2, has been entirely comfortable with decisions like that.

4. Actually full developed romances, to the point where you can even have -children- with an available romance option, and where you can have as many as three or four dozen romance-specific dialogues with up to three female characters (and a male one). This is totally unoriginal, of course. The "romances" in HotU and MotB, which generally numbered four dialogues or less, show how simple and easy that all is.

5. Your protagonist's peculiar constitution actually allows you to access some intrinsic, and horribly evil, powers that make you amazingly powerful, but if you use them too much, can have permanent delibitating effects. I mean really, how cliche was that whole Spirit Eater thing anyw... o wait. No, that was MotB. BG2 did that idea 8 years earlier. Having trouble thinking of the dozen or so games that made that idea "cliche" before BG2 came out, but I'm sure it'll come to me.

6. Crafting NPC's that allow you to bring them components acquired from various places around the game, which they forge into really powerful items. Cliche! Everyone's done that! Well, everyone -since- BG2 has done that, but does the order really matter? If it's cliche -now-, then it was cliche even the first time somebody did it.

I can think of about 10 more ways in which BG2 introduced real innovations into the world of RPG's (the pocket plane, the Hell tests, the infiltration of the Drow city, the planetar advisor, the option to end the game by ascending into Godhood, etc. etc. etc.), but it is kinda pointless. Let me save you the trouble of responding. Your bitching about the game will just get even vaguer, your ad hominems will get a bit more strident, and then you'll tell me to go away again.

Qwinn

Go away.

 

[catfood]

I enjoyed the game a lot. The battles were fun, and even though the engine isn't really good for this type of combat, the encounter placements made it highly enjoyable. I'm also in the minority here as one who liked the party conversations; for me it added a lot to the game. I tried playing the game with a party of my own creation but soon quit and started the game normally with the original NPCs.
Now, ToB, now THAT game SUCKED hard. It started Bioware's whole "hey u haev to kill/bring/find 3 things and u can do it in a totally non-linear way the same way". Not to mention the whole +7 crap u can find on every dead rat.

 

[Volourn]

"the whole +7 crap u can find on every dead rat."

Why do you lie?

 

[Pastel]

MotB is average. Its combat is pretty bad, for example. The good games simply haven't been made yet. That doesn't mean I can't imagine them.

I'd have to agree with that regarding RPGs, but it's not true for the other game genres. There have been some excellent FPSs, for example.

Also, when I first picked up BG I thought it was going to be medieval fantasy PS:T, except with even more class choices! Couldn't have been more wrong.

 

[Wyrmlord]

"the whole +7 crap u can find on every dead rat."

Why do you lie?

Hyperbole.

The use of exaggeration to make a more understated and simpler point.

Not the same thing as lying.

 

[Volourn]

When you claim something that you know isn't true, it is lying. Just admit it.

 

[zerotol]

great game, absolutely loved it. Also very good for mp.

God hates the fags that hate the game without a doubt.