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A Book for Baldur's Gate

BoradordinBoradordin Member Posts: 38
in Archive (General Discussion)
Okay, so here goes...

I've been sitting around for quite a few years now waiting patiently for WotC, and every one else, to come out with a truly good game along the same lines as those written using the Infinity Engine, but updated to take into account the newer programmer's skill sets and all that. As I see every morn', it ain't going to happen. And no offense to Dragon Age, Two Worlds, Oblivion, and now, Skyrim; but they just don't satisfy my pen and paper soul. That's why I still play the Infinity Engine games—satisfying my hunger for old school each time I dust them off.

However, I have never seen a book written for those truly into Baldur's Gate. How about a book containing all the cheat codes available that are known? More importantly, a well written book containing some story line, ala Volo style, that would take advantage of all the knowledge on the Internet. Heck, for that matter we could either make it a commercial enterprise with paper printed books or online. The choices are limitless.

I would love to be part of something along these lines. I can offer my desk top publishing and graphical skills. And, if the choice is to go online I also run and operate several CMS web sites.

And the next comment / question is for a moderator. I took the Mastering Melee & Magic and the Sword Coast Survival Guide books that came with Baldur's Gate I: Enhanced Edition and created internal bookmarks for each. I would like to pass them back to the community. I could either host them on my gaming domain or they could be hosted elsewhere

Comments

  • bdeonovicbdeonovic Member Posts: 86
    @Boradordin

    not DnD, and not WotC (thank God) but have you checked out project eternity?

    http://eternity.obsidian.net/

    or Torment: Tides of Numenera?

    http://tormentrpg.tumblr.com/
  • ZanathKariashiZanathKariashi Member Posts: 2,869
    Truth be told, I personally think that guides are the wrong way to approach Baldur's Gate. Back when the game came out, the internet was still pretty young, and not readily available (especially not in our area, even getting patches was 45 minute- hour long process, that was tying up the phone line). When you played the game, it was an adventure. There was no advice, and no guides. You had to actually talk to people, donate at temples, buy rounds of drinks, explore, to find stuff, and the game was much better for it.


    The game is just so much more enjoyable when you don't know anything.....which seems odd..but it's true. Having a guide to check rips out a huge sense of adventure and limits your number of playthroughs (since you already know every secret the game has to give up, it ultimately just comes down to what your new class idea is...which even that gets stale after awhile.....and mods are subject to Sturgeon's Law) while changing your play style.
  • BoradordinBoradordin Member Posts: 38
    Zanath, I agree with you on the ninety percent comment of Sturgeon's Revelation. And that makes my point exactly — what is out there leaves one wanting more. Think of a meal without condiments and wanting to supply those items. The Internet is problematic in that everyone posts game content / spoilers without any qualitative content. But there are those rare instances wherein a site is a good one. Heck, I still use Dudleyville whenever I dust BG off. I would in a heart beat send a donation to him. And that is relativity thing as I am handicapped and thus tight with funding. To me Dudleyville is still the best, even though it is a site out-dated.

    That being said, and I somewhat agree with you on the usage of game guides, I often find myself needing to avail myself of them. I needed to use the Internet to solve the Durlag's Tower Warder's quest the other day. IF it was in a book I would only use it IF I needed to do so. As you, and any serious gamer realized, it is left to the user to either abuse a guide or to explore on their own. As a side note, it would have been a true treasure if the Warder aspect had been written giving clearer clues. I still loved it though and only had to use the Internet to get an overall feel of the quest. I solved the riddles on my own.

    Now to Deonovic's kindly offered response. Thank you, and I am sorry to say I wish I had been there at the outset. Yes, I will spend the time today exploring the Eternity Project site. I will be donating. I wish I had received you reply about twenty-four hours ago. I had the Missus remove my squirreled-away money last evening, leaving me with slightly under the $29.00USD Slacker Backer minimum. She needed it for real-life issues and the remaining funds in my PayPal account are for my various websites maintenance fees.

    I am glad to say that I also immensely enjoy Ice Wind Dale and Temple of Elemental Evil. In essence the Trilogy (BG, IWD, ToEE) and play them when time permits. This is one of those times.

    In the interim I took the time last evening, and part of the wee hours as well, taking Dudleyville's Quest List page and input it into a book design. Sorry I had to attach the PDF, but I've yet to figure out when using this forum just how to supply an Internet link. How did you do it Deonivic?

    My thanks to the both of you for replying.

    Cordially,
    'Ol Bearded Menace
  • KarsusKarsus Member Posts: 11
    edited June 2013
    Boradordin said:

    However, I have never seen a book written for those truly into Baldur's Gate.

    Well there is Baldur's Gate novelization. Whole 3 of them.

    On a slightly more positive note There is also book called: "Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II" http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Volo's_Guide_to_Baldur's_Gate_II
    Then again like Philip Athans creations it doesn't have much in common with game (it is just a rulebook about areas we see in BG2) but it isn't awful for what it is. I wouldn't count on getting anything else as WotC is apparently trying to grow Dune Sandworm with their video game license.
  • AtianAtian Member Posts: 32
    There are NO novelizations of Baldur's Gate. Such blasphemous heresies simply don't exist.
  • ReadingRamboReadingRambo Member Posts: 598
    Have you got the temple of elemental evil mod pack? It adds a ton of fixes and some new content as well. Makes ToEE worth delving into again
  • BoradordinBoradordin Member Posts: 38
    edited June 2013
    I'll reply to each of you in the order of your posting. And thanks for the responses, they're appreciated.

    An insightful reply Karsus and your comment about the books is accurate—there is reading books but no books about the game itself. And that was my thought, to create a book on the subject of game play. It would be left up to the reader whether or not to use its wisdom; either as useful or as toilet paper. I have Athlan's book, somewhere, and probably read it as soon as I bought it. I buy so much when I'm in that mode and have the money that I often don't know just what I have.

    As for your comment Atian, and I had to giggle, blasphemy is what the game is all about. One of WotC's writers might want to delve into writing some books for us devotees of the game. Unlikely assuredly so, with WotC more interested (imo) to their card games than for what brought them to the table, so to speak.

    And yes, I've got ToEE and always wanted more is my thought to you Rambo. I had a pipe dream once upon a time that the Infinity Engine would come into the public domain and some of these über-cool developers would run with it. Imagine, a world where we could pop from one game right into the other (BG, IWD, ToEE, etc.) with perhaps some overlap of quests. Heck, with my other non-gaming activities I seldom have time to work on gaming activities. Let alone developing my gaming site devoted to BG and ToEE. I'd pass along the URL but I've yet to figure out how to do so using this forum. Also, I don't want to step on the toes of anyone, especially the powers-that-be.

    On another note, I've spent some time now working on my concept. I've taken Dudleyville's Quest List and converted it to an Adobe InDesign file. From that I've exported to PDF and converted that to a form. Now a user can either print it our for their use, or have the file open placing check marks as each quest is completed. I leave it to the user to remember to save the file, check marks in place, before they close it down.

    I did, however, notice that Dudleyville's page failed to use chapter separators, other than for Chapter Six. So I had to go somewhere else, The Computer Show's Baldur's Gate Walkthrough, for some clarification. Just how to implement Giovetti's work into Dudleyville's and come to a happy coalescence might be beyond my ability.

    Cordially,
    'Ol Bearded Menace

    P.S. I really, really liked Project Eternity. How to go about contacting them to see if I can, in my own little way with my skill set, contribute is something I would like to know.
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