I remember a crazy combination of east and west cultures in bg 2 that had no role in a main concept, they just added wakisashi, ki, scimitar, tiefling and planetar in the same place with no real connection to the storyline.
Atkathla is supposed to be a Middle-east Recreation explaining the Scimitars. Kara-Tur (where Yoshimo hails from) while not playing a part in the story is part of the world outside the BG game itself.
Skyrim is to me like a saltless $10 soup. Visuals are amazing, unmatched, but your character has no purpose, no goals or brave deeds. He doesn't preserve the tree of Kuldahar, stops the evil Sarevok from his twisted plans, or save the hobbits of the shire.
I don't know about no purpose since the Dovakiin can decide the fate of a civil war, and has to investigate the reimergance of the dragons then stop Alduin the worldeater. Seems like purpose to me.
@levelworm I'm on a Mac actually. The new intel-based ones don't support PowerPC applications. There are some (fairly) complex ways to get it running, but I never quite figured one out.
Oh I see. I'm not a Mac expert, but maybe you can try WINE?
4. (Could due to BGT) Sometime you quit a door, the enemy follows to the outside, you kill them, enter the door and find another copy of the enemy.
I have probably done over a dozen complete playthroughs of both 1 and 2 and never once experienced this. i guarantee you it is a result of BGT or one of the mods you're running.
I would suggest you actually have some evidence before blindly putting a bug down to BGT. If we assume the bug exists, it is more likely a result of an engine issue than a mod issue.
Well I used the word "could", but yes, I have no solid evidence.
4. (Could due to BGT) Sometime you quit a door, the enemy follows to the outside, you kill them, enter the door and find another copy of the enemy.
I have probably done over a dozen complete playthroughs of both 1 and 2 and never once experienced this. i guarantee you it is a result of BGT or one of the mods you're running. I would suggest you actually have some evidence before blindly putting a bug down to BGT. If we assume the bug exists, it is more likely a result of an engine issue than a mod issue.
Lol! This happened to me once as i remeber as well. That was on 1 of my first playthough, and didn't have internet back then, so i could not update it, if it matters. I can confirm that it can ocur,but i will hardly call it an problem ;-)
1) Pathfinding would be one of the primary concerns with BG1
2) IWD2 offered to customize the command bar. Such a feature would have been good for BG1&2 as well.
3) Hitpoint increase on level up. Sometimes a character would not get any hitpoint increase on level up or even a negative one. This happened sometimes with characters with a constitution score of below 7. Multi-class characters with a constitution score between 7 and 14 would sometimes not get any hit point increase as well. This was rather one of the concerns I had with IWD1 because I started to play the game with hopeless characters (low stats) for a challenge. But that brings me to the general question of how exactly the hit point increase would have been calculated according to D&D rules. I rememeber reading somewhere that no matter the circucmstances you'd at least get 1 hp on level up. The exception being dual class characters which get a 0 hp increase after dual-classing until their 2nd class outlevels their 1st (initial) class.
4) The reputation system. I know it's better than to have nothing but this is just too simplistic. Especially keeping a low reputation without killing some nameless NPC was hard.
+ You create YOUR own character! + Immersive gameplay and plot (100% of it) + Rich variety of excellent characters (of all classes and alignments) + Well-paced and solid plot (compared to ToB) + Graphically more pleasing (see Paperdolls, Items, Journal, Spellbook and Priest Scroll backgrounds) + Great ending + Great colors + Great music + More emphasis on dialogs (compared to ToB) + Baldur's Gate city design - Pathfinding - Gullykin/Firewine bridge dungeon (too narrow, see Pathfinding) - Can't dual wield - Final battle feels too easy sometimes
BG2 - SoA
+ More immersive plot (especially from Chapter 4 till the end) + Magic duels (especially when you have to find the exact enemy protection piercing spells and use Lower Magic Resistance) + Dragons! + Dual wield + Banters and romance (but too much emphasis on Jaheira) + Improved Pathfinding + Collector's Edition (especially Adventurer's Marts items) + Ust-Natha and Suldanesselar cities design + Even better ending - Can't keep my BG1 party like I planned - Less NPCs than BG1 (also because of above) - Chapter 2 (and part of Chapter 3) - Unfair for non-thief PCs (I'm lucky here, though, but I feel your pain) - Less colorful than BG1 - Athkatla city design in general
BG2 - ToB
+ Epic level abilities + Grand Finale! - Too fast-paced - Must ditch a long-kept NPC for Sarevok - Feels more like an EP than a 'final chapter' - Linear dialog sequence - Chapter 8 (too hack-n-slash) - Plot holes
Would always like the option to skip dream scenes when going through BG2 the second/third/fourth time through. Please!
I suppose the option would be nice, but for me, I hang on the edge of my seat for every word that comes out of Irenicus's mouth, even though I have all of his dialog memorized. David Warner has the perfect voice for the character.
worst part of the games were that in order to wield a bow you needed to remove shield. this was made 100% better in iwd2.
It makes sense to me (as somebody who plays at archery as a hobby)... realistically a shield would be an unpleasant encumbrance when trying to use a bow. Not necessarily so much with a light buckler, but a medium shield or bigger just wouldn't work. If they allowed bow/shield combos it would have to come with a serious (-4 or worse) to-hit penalty.
What was frustrating for me along these lines was that you couldn't put a two-handed weapon in a quickslot if you had your off-hand equipped. If they could make it possible to automatically unequip the offhand if selecting a 2H weapon from a quickslot I would be very happy.
That's what raywind meant. In IWD2 you also can't equip a shield and a bow at the same time. What happens in IWD2 is that weapon quickslots included both your main hand and off hand, instead of just your main hand like in BG.
The first thing that comes to mind is the battle music. Both in BG1 and BG2, the more bombastic it's supposed to be, the more annoying it is. And it always seems to linger for quite some time after combat finishes. Nowadays I usually just remove it first thing after finishing the install, so much nicer.
I definitely agree with @raywind - the IWD2 interface is much nicer. Having weapon and/or shield configurations was very nice and having the quickslots configurable was great too.
I may be one of the few who also liked the IWD2 engine, but lets not get into that =P
I find the path finding in BG2 to be quite poor. I'm doing a vanilla (no mods or tweaks) BG2 run-through now and every time one of my party members can't pass another one they end up wandering off into the wilderness =/
Comments
I would suggest you actually have some evidence before blindly putting a bug down to BGT.
If we assume the bug exists, it is more likely a result of an engine issue than a mod issue.
Lol! This happened to me once as i remeber as well. That was on 1 of my first playthough, and didn't have internet back then, so i could not update it, if it matters. I can confirm that it can ocur,but i will hardly call it an problem ;-)
2) IWD2 offered to customize the command bar. Such a feature would have been good for BG1&2 as well.
3) Hitpoint increase on level up. Sometimes a character would not get any hitpoint increase on level up or even a negative one. This happened sometimes with characters with a constitution score of below 7. Multi-class characters with a constitution score between 7 and 14 would sometimes not get any hit point increase as well. This was rather one of the concerns I had with IWD1 because I started to play the game with hopeless characters (low stats) for a challenge.
But that brings me to the general question of how exactly the hit point increase would have been calculated according to D&D rules. I rememeber reading somewhere that no matter the circucmstances you'd at least get 1 hp on level up. The exception being dual class characters which get a 0 hp increase after dual-classing until their 2nd class outlevels their 1st (initial) class.
4) The reputation system. I know it's better than to have nothing but this is just too simplistic. Especially keeping a low reputation without killing some nameless NPC was hard.
ESPECIALLY that squiggly looking circle that looks like it was hand-drawn. Needs to be replaced with a crisp one lol.
BG1 - TotSC
+ You create YOUR own character!
+ Immersive gameplay and plot (100% of it)
+ Rich variety of excellent characters (of all classes and alignments)
+ Well-paced and solid plot (compared to ToB)
+ Graphically more pleasing (see Paperdolls, Items, Journal, Spellbook and Priest Scroll backgrounds)
+ Great ending
+ Great colors
+ Great music
+ More emphasis on dialogs (compared to ToB)
+ Baldur's Gate city design
- Pathfinding
- Gullykin/Firewine bridge dungeon (too narrow, see Pathfinding)
- Can't dual wield
- Final battle feels too easy sometimes
BG2 - SoA
+ More immersive plot (especially from Chapter 4 till the end)
+ Magic duels (especially when you have to find the exact enemy protection piercing spells and use Lower Magic Resistance)
+ Dragons!
+ Dual wield
+ Banters and romance (but too much emphasis on Jaheira)
+ Improved Pathfinding
+ Collector's Edition (especially Adventurer's Marts items)
+ Ust-Natha and Suldanesselar cities design
+ Even better ending
- Can't keep my BG1 party like I planned
- Less NPCs than BG1 (also because of above)
- Chapter 2 (and part of Chapter 3)
- Unfair for non-thief PCs (I'm lucky here, though, but I feel your pain)
- Less colorful than BG1
- Athkatla city design in general
BG2 - ToB
+ Epic level abilities
+ Grand Finale!
- Too fast-paced
- Must ditch a long-kept NPC for Sarevok
- Feels more like an EP than a 'final chapter'
- Linear dialog sequence
- Chapter 8 (too hack-n-slash)
- Plot holes
What was frustrating for me along these lines was that you couldn't put a two-handed weapon in a quickslot if you had your off-hand equipped. If they could make it possible to automatically unequip the offhand if selecting a 2H weapon from a quickslot I would be very happy.
That's what raywind meant. In IWD2 you also can't equip a shield and a bow at the same time. What happens in IWD2 is that weapon quickslots included both your main hand and off hand, instead of just your main hand like in BG.
I may be one of the few who also liked the IWD2 engine, but lets not get into that =P