How Multiplayer Friendly is Baldurs Gate?

Majoca

I was scanning through the forums and I can’t remember who had posted the comment but they mentioned about the multiplayer being unfriendly, which now that I think about it, the game can be.

Due to some players running off and getting into conversations which pauses it for everyone, there is always one person or friend who likes the loot more than anything and gets to the chests and drops faster than you, I always found the Inn system annoying with other players and the more players the less strategy because your not in control of everyone, I liked controlling 6 party members and its okay with a second person when you have three each, but what happens if there’s 6, 5, 4 people? It almost becomes a solo mission but you have people with you, now with players who know what they are doing it is good, because the players react to what is happening.

I have had some good multiplayer moments, but how do you make the multiplayer in Baldurs Gate friendlier?
Now I’m not asking for changes in game, I was wondering how to get players or friends to enrich the games story and dungeon crawling experience for everyone. I found one way is making interesting characters with the editable biographies, I feel that sometimes that can make the game enjoyable because people are being creative.

Is it an issue? I don’t know but I hope the multiplayer experience is fun and I can imagine Player versus player being interesting if that is included.

raywind

the best way to multiplay BG is to sit next to the guy you are playing with or else its just a mess, ofc you can use some voice communication via different program to make it a bit easier but its still hard.
And my guestion about that matchmaking is that if there are 6lvl 3rangers trying to get in some online game is it going to be party of 6rangers or does the matchmaking arrange you a party with a bit of each class.

Majoca

Yeah I was thinking along the lines of voice communication or just using LAN so you can be in the same room as your friend(S)

@raywind

you make a good point matchmaking would be important, you see how many mages in a party is too many? I have 2 minimum and 3 maximum if I had too.

I tend to be a illusionist/theif to balance out to many mages so I have use of finding and disabling traps and sneak for scouting.

Thels

If you talk about "getting to the chest first and going for the loot", then honestly, you're not playing the game as it should be.

In something for MMO's and other games with continuous characters such as Diablo, you play together with a few others for a brief while, and then all leave in your own direction. Naturally, you're trying to upgrade your own character, so any loot that you can get your hands on will help you in the long run.

BG doesn't work like that. At all.

You're a party of 6 characters working together, be it controlled by 1, 2 or 3 players (anything above 3 is kind of silly for this game, anyhow). There's really no point in "hogging" all the loot, because you benefit just as much if your ally's characters are getting an upgrade as when you get one yourself. It's not like you can trade your old stuff off with other players.

The multiplayer improvements from what I understand are mostly stability issues. The old version is pretty unstable on the network connections, especially if you try to run it under Vista/7. I don't think there are any additional improvements, and especially something like a matchmaking system doesn't work for this kind of game.

It would be nice if visiting a shop or entering a dialog wouldn't always freeze the game up for the other players, but there are just too many situations where this would cause quite a problem.

Bjjorick

@Thels

Me and my wife played bgt together online lan, and not sure if it was mods or what, but when i was in the shop, her game wasn't paused, and vice versa. Drove me crazy honestly. If i'm in shop selling stuff, like stacks (i always used CC for bags of holding to make it easier to loot), and she did something like go to different screen, go to inventory, level up, talk to shop keeper, etc, would boot me out of the shop. After clicking on all those stacks and setting the number high (just think of gem bag and selling 20 gems at once....)

So i would love if game paused in multi for certain things. i need what hair i have left.

Spartacus

I remember trying to play a multiplayer game of Baldur's Gate 2 way back in the day. Two friends and I were all together with our laptops, connected with TCP/IP, and created 2 custom characters each. It started out fairly well (Irenicus' dungeon isn't too bad) but once we got out into the world, it felt a little flat for me.

Only controlling two characters was weird, and the game seemed to drag on and on when some of us would have to pause to issue orders, or organize inventory... Playing the game solo I can take as much time as I want on the pause screen, but multiplayer it can get a little dry. I can't wait to try out the new multiplayer in BG:EE, but I just don't think the game was ever designed to be a multiplayer game.

I'm not advocating any changes to the game, mind you. I absolutely love the game as it is. I think it is a stellar single player game - and I can't wait to try out the multiplayer again and see what I think.

Majoca

@Thels

I might have explained the getting stuff in chests first wrong, I have played this game many times through my life, what I mean is lets say, there three fighters in your party, and theres one plate mail +1, who gets the plate? the person who picks it up first?

same with scrolls for mages, and who learns what spell, who gets the first fireball, now I know its silly its a team game and that, when I play with my friends we work things through logically but it all depends on who your playing with. It was just a thought :P

Thels

when I play with my friends we work things through logically but it all depends on who your playing with. It was just a thought :P

I really think the multiplayer is only intended to play with friends, and not with random people.