@BelgarathMTH Very nice read of your experience! I tend to cheese to beat Sarevok, but should try to go toe-to-toe with him in another run. What I do is give every non-spellcaster Potions of Explosions or Oils of Fiery Burning, and have them all chuck them in unison (after buffing the fighters with Storm Giant Strength) at the altar, outside of visual range. Sneaking on the left edge of the screen feels so scummy but at the same time, strangely satisfying.
I usually bring a strong Archer in parties such as Kivan or Coran, load up with Arrows of Piercing and go to town on focusing Sarevok down, ignoring his lackeys and then it's time to run away from the surviving wizards until the game fades into the ending, then I can import another Bhaalspawn into BG2.
I'll see about finding original copies of the games one of these days, seems like a fun challenge to take up! It reminds me of EverQuest when it was first released and how hardcore the game was.
You died, did you? Go run to your corpse while ungeared to get your equipment back, no matter how far away the zone you died in was.
You had to eat and drink food / water or you'd stifle HP/Mana regeneration. You had to buy all of your spells and they got exponentially expensive. Dungeons were truly punishing if you didn't have a competent party.
The game was fun because you were a singular person in a huge world, made your own friends, forged relationships and went on a huge journey.
In a way, it's pretty similar to BG in that you're thrust into an unexpected journey in an unforgiving land and had to fend for yourself by finding new friends and traveling together.
The only thing I can really remember about playing the game 17 years ago was thinking that the bard was the best class because it could get to level 8 while all the other classes (with the exception of thieves of course) maxed out at 7 (this was before ToTSC).
(Ahh youth. To think that these are the kind of thoughts a young man of 983 has.)
I stumbled my way through the first game dying countless times, but otherwise enthralled and quite happy with a shield and sword unkitted fighter. I remember the first time I cross the bridge to Baldur's Gate, the chanting chorus of music in the background, really setting the tone for the huge city I was about to enter. The majesty of it all... the irony of such an old game feeling so much more developed and in depth than so many games out today.
Sarevok proved to be a major stumbling block, so I put BG1 down and installed BG2. I rolled a Ranger-Archer and spent most of my time swinging a two handed sword. I remember rolling my eyes at yet another dungeon, feeling so couped up and searching for open spaces to let my arrows fly. The Temple Ruins quest in Umar took me over a week to finish, playing a few hours a night.
Eventually I got tired of being killed horribly in BG2, so I went back to the battle with Sarevok and got killed in all sorts of other horrible ways. I was actually close to giving up on the game series at one point, but then I discovered that Imoen made a rather effective aiming sight for the repeating lightning trap on the middle west side of the Bhaal Temple.
So I had her dance over the trap line like Napoleon Dynamite while immune to electricity, and zapped Sarevok and his gang into oblivion. If you do it right, you can have maybe half a dozen lightning bolts flying around at any one time. One hell of a laser light show.
Sarevok wasn't so impressed.
I had the rest of the party rush him when he was near dead as a kind of formality, but in truth that battle was an episode of the Imoen Show.
I would eventually return to Sarevok in another playthrough (the second and most recent time I've finished BG1) as a solo dwarven defender, who spanked him pretty hard. It was somewhat hilarious, actually, that SCS Sarevok didn't feel nearly as hard as the old vanilla Sarevok did, given that I have only fought him twice. Clearly I've developed as a player, and I am now on good terms with the game with a well developed 'angle' on how I play.
A far cry from the gong show that was my first playthrough. Ha!
I got my ass handed to me trying to get Gray Wolf's sword (my favorite 1 handed) but when I got to the tent in Bandit camp I nearly quit in frustration. This was in 1998.
I bought a boxed set of the all three games (I, II, TOB) at some point in twenty twelve. For whatever reason I thought there might still be a website for a fourteen year old game, and simply typed in "baldursgate.com" into the search bar. It brought me to the website for the recently announced BGEE... Since then I've had the pleasure of following an awesome game series with an awesome community. As I strive to live my life as close to Xan as possible, it's been quite a pain!
I strayed too far off the path and a wolf one hit my mage. I quickly learned to just stay on the main road until I get a bigger party. And every battle after that is like this, you better learn or you get killed.
50 yrs ago I fell in love/awe with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and have read the whole series at least 10 times. In the late 1980s I came upon Steve Jackson's series of Choose-your-own-adventure books and was really impressed by the effect that making different choices had on me.
Then in the 1990s in Seattle, because of a wonderful store [Golden Age Collectibles] underneath the famous Pike Place Market which sold comics, gaming supplies, collectibles, etc I became intrigued with RPGs, MagictheGathering, WoTC, etc.~ mostly from the POV of Game Design and enthusiasm about a whole new human culture form. I began writing a hypertext novel.
Finally I purchased a Laptop sometime after 9/11 and turned to BG1 Vanilla as my first ComputerGaming xp. I had gathered that it was kind of a legend in the genre.
Both of my parents were recently deceased so I ~ REALLY,REALLY ~ got at very deep levels, how powerful might have been the emotions, doubts, fears, Anger, mistrust, frustration and VALOR of such a Charname as the unknowable reality of being Baalspawn emerged. [Note: my father, God Rest His Soul, deeply involved with Presbyterian Church was also upper level management for Monsanto....just kidding, maybe.]
For me, the wonder of party-building and RP imaginings was probably deeper than the sort of experience the cartoonish nature of the graphics suggested and I am sure my ego soaked that up. [OMG, I am like Sooooo imaginative!!! LOL!] ~But I also loved the light-hearted nature of the game that was constantly turning up. I mean Xzar and Montaron after Zarevok, Minsc, even the early deadly encounters with Tarnesh and Silke had such wonderfully imagined characters!!
And then the problem of a tendency to submerge my FM Charname's dilemna in the stronger POVs of Jaheira/Khalid and not even thinking about the real problem of an unknowable, hunted Life...very much where I found myself as the RL world seemed to be descending into a maelstrom. By the time we reached Beregost I was totally hooked ~ with a strong confidence that BG was clearly something of genius that fitted me to a T.
Because I did not have an unlimited amount of time, and also because I enjoy research-a bit of a scholar, I knew much more about the game than most first-timers. But without such info I probably never would have played the game.
A fear of putting weeks and weeks into exploring the game and then realizing that I had made some wrong choices early on that made success impossible....and thereupon quitting in frustration with something that was finally kinda stupid...was not something I could put aside.
Approaching 60yrs old I had no wish to be even more disappointed... [A word to the wise~~Once your parents are gone -if you are possessed of a strong imagination- all the rest of your days you will wish you had never consented to their life-long silences. 'Nuff said]
I continue to find the prospect of World-building around the Baldurs Gate, FAI, Candlekeep, Ulcaster and Beregost locations an addictive prospect. Also a novel about the life of Gorion intrigues me as a creative project. ~Cheers
Oh man, I have loved reading this thread. I think I was around 9 when this came out, and my dad had picked it up on the recommendation of a friend. It was the 5 disk one that you had to switch around every couple screens and our computer seemed to take forever to load XD. I remember being absolutely mesmerized by Baldur's Gate. At that point in my life, video games to me were Sonic the Hedgehog and pretty much nothing else. I was completely drawn in by the gate's scope and characters. I used to sit next to my dad and watch him play for hours until I fell asleep in the chair next to him. We would crack ourselves up quoting Xan and Minsc to each other, who never ever left my dad's party. When I played for the first time, ran a paladin with like almost no dex because I didn't think it did anything. I still run Paladin every now and then out of nostaligia, and Minsc has never left my party in all these years.
Bought it when it first came out not too far when I bought my first computer. I began playing it later in the day, had some supper as I was playing it and the next time I looked at the clock it was 5-6 AM the next day. That's how entranced I was with the game. reminded me of the old days of P&P playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. You get so caught up that you don't realize that its morning the next day.
My frist d&d game was iwd2, when it first came out. I loved that game, I had no idea about d&d rules but I loved the game so much, and I have always been a fast learner. I made a party composing of me and my real life friends of then, I was a Silverstar of Selune-I was and still am a fan of everything moon related. my large and strong friend was a half orc barbarian, my friend whose favourite character in diablo2 was a necromancer was a necromancer, my wiry and silent friend was a rogue, etc. I played on the easiest difficulty and still found it too difficult to beat the final battle. Ofcourse I got better fast. Next thing I knew I was acing the final battle in hof difficulty without taking any damage.
I learned about bg2 and how it was the better game. After a long time, got cds from a friend, they were impossible to find in my region. I wanted to create my Silverstar from iwd2 but there was no such kit so I created an elven unkitted cleric. And off I started.
I thought holy smite was the best spell ever, and darts were the best weapons as I was able to throw them so many times. It was an old bg2 build and there was a bug, pure clerics were able to wield normal darts. No proficiency or magical darts though, I guess it was an oversight. Anyway. I quickly discovered bg2 was vastly superiour and more hardcore than iwd2. When I encountered vampires that drained my party's levels, or beholders that were like autamatic rifles, or my first lich that did not give me any chance to fight in one of the most surprising and fantastic spells in a game:timestop! I was hooked.
I beat Firkraag with my elven cleric, I remember crisply it was my holy smite that did him in and it felt very very satisfactory. I think I never finished the game with that char, because by that time I have discovered how amazing mage spells were. I started with a cleric/mage and it was my first character to finish soa, I think. I can't remember the details. I was pissed at the xp limit and how I was never able to utilise lvl 8-9 spells like those liches. In SoA only games even pure mages could not cast 9th lvl! I got my first mod, xp cap raiser and I was happy!
Later I got ToB, and created a dual classed cleric to mage for high lvl mage spells. Time stop, wish, planetars, dragon breaths, those were the spells I loved to play with. I started heavy modding like tactics and the like around then. I was at college by then, able to visit home on weekends and play only on weekends. I looked forward to weekends for bg2. And even later I got my own lap top so I was able to play even in my college dorm. That was fantastic! I got bg1 original by then, played, was neutral to it, then discovered tutu and bgt and bg was the only game I ever played for a long time.
I have been playing a heavily modded bgt game until ee was annouced. Somewhere around the last years I have discovered wild mage and it became my favourite class. I can't play another spell caster class as it feels too restrictive not to be able to try higher lvl casts via nrd. And the surprise and unpredictability is fun for me.
Today I still play a heavily modded and tweaked, personalised bg2 game. On my Ipad. How far I have come since that first start, it is amazing. I had another account name in sorcerers place forums (Silverstar), I now see my 10+ years old comments and threads there, I feel a bit embrassed at how naive and young I was. For the last 10+ years, bg has become a part of my life, a never ending adventure and joy, escapism and a great hobby for me. At age 28 now, I create my real life boyfriend as a mp character travellng with my own character in bg2 and still have tons of fun.
Another thing I can remember is Sarevok. I never actually beat him when I was younger. His stats were quite a bit different pre totsc and since I was dumb I guess it never occurred to me (at such a young age) to use missile weapons against him.
as you can see this is a novel but a guarantee it will be a fun nostalgia trip
ah the bg series, the bg series has had a HUGE impact on my life and the story goes:
it was back in 1999 when i was 12 and we just moved from Ontario to British Columbia, a 4000 km ( 2500 mile) journey ( for those of you who don't know whats going on these are provinces of Canada) and a week or two after the move we were over at our neighbor's house and the one neighbor said hey do you want to try out this computer game called Baldur's gate?
at that time, I was never into computers, I owned a NES and a sega, and I loved video games, video games were my passion, and the only PC experience I had back then was solitare and paint, so I thought, egh, this game is probably going to be garbage because PCs cant do anything cool ( I was so naïve about PCs I thought they had infinite hard drive space)
so anways he told me it was a game where you fought monsters and used swords and wore armor and went on about medieval fantasy and so forth, and after his description I thought wow, this game sounds pretty tight, lets give 'er a try
so we went on to make my character, he gave me the low down, on all the classes/ races and what not and I went with human fighter, and he was saying if I was to be a fighter, make sure to roll a STR of 18/91 or higher, and if im not mistaken I rolled an 18/00 and he was like; wow that is a very good score you have the strength of an ogre, and I said; cool, don't know what an ogre is but sounds awesome, and then for the rest of the ability scores I set them all to 10 and evened out all the rest, so I had 18/00 STR and 12-14 in the rest of my ability scores, so onward
I was in candlekeep and right away, I thought; HOLY, CRAP, this game looks friggin' tight, I was blown away with the graphics, because I was used to nes and sega and their 2d graphics I was in so much awe with BG and the detail of the game, so right away I was stoked, and so off I went, and the only gameplay advice that I remember my neighbor telling me was, always use weapons that you are skilled with and make sure your AC is as low as possible, so I said roger, and the good times started:
the first thing I realized was the weapon called the bastard sword, and I thought to myself; whoa, that's pretty hardcore why is there a swear in this game? intense stuff, so I thought yeah im so gonna buy that, so I did and bought some splint mail a helmet and a large shield, and I thought; hell yeah, my guy looks tight, and I was so excited and ready to go on my way
so I finished the candlekeep area and then left with gorion and then the ambush scene happened, and I was just blown away, I couldn't believe the sur real graphics and how cool the spells looked and how sweet the battle was, and I just fell in love with the persona of sarevok and ever since that day, he has been one of my favourite characters ( hence the name and portrait)
so the ambush was over and imoen joined my team and then I looked at her inventory and I was like; whooooa look at all the cool friggin' goodies, and I loved the want of magic missiles, I thought it was so cool that my fighter could use a wand, I was so stoked, and she had an oil of speed as well, and I thought, man this potion is awesome
so next I collected the goodies at the ambush site and then grabbed motoran and xzar and was blown away with the cool items monty had and I was like; coooool this xzar guy is a wizard and then I laughed at his 4 misely HP) so off we went to the friendly arm inn because the game said that was the place to go, so off I went
and then we met up with our good ol' friend tarnish, that was a rude awakening, I remember him kicking my butt hard the first time, and back then I didn't know anything about quick save or quick load, and I only went from auto saves if my character died and that was it, so next time through I had my guy and possibly monty use the oil of speeds and took him down, and I was like sweet, look at all these awesome spells this guy has, cant wait to give them to xzar, and then I went inside the friendly arm inn and grabbed jaheria and Khalid, and then my neighbor taught me more game mechanics like spell casting and such
so off I went exploring the world of Baldur's gate and just basking in the glory of the game, I feel in love with it so much, but there was a problem, my neighbor's disk 3 was scratched so I could NEVER go into the naskiel mines, but luckily the game world was big enough that I could wonder around and explore all the different areas and I was having a blastio just with that, and then I was having so much fun with game experiences here are some things that I remembered:
eventually I dropped monty and xzar and picked up minsc, and I loved minsc and I thought this guy was the ubber npc of the game, because he was using a two handed sword and just kicking butt
I remember my team mates dieing A LOT, because my neighbor had it set to insane difficulty and I knew nothing about options and difficulty so I thought that was just the way it was, so I spent LOTS and LOTS of money at temples, raising characters back from the dead and even spending money on healing spells from temples, the lols of wasting money on that stuff, so I had a hard time with cash, I was usually never pass the 500 gold piece mark because I was spending SO MUCH gold at temples reviving guys and healing them
I remember seeing 2 items at Bentley's store that I thought would make me invincible and they were the plate mail armor and large shield+1 and I looked at their prices and thought; WOW, 900 gold for the armor and a whooping 3000 gold for the shield, that gear must be friggin' awesome, so what happened was I had my 5 team mates take the dirt nap ( which happened often because everyone no doubt had horrible AC) and I was grinding gibberlings in the area south of the friendly arm inn to make enough money to buy the plate mail armor AND the large shield +1, needless to say, it took what seemed an eternity and I recall growing up 2 levels in doing so ( I think I had 4 or 5 gibberlings coming at a time when I rest spawned them) and then that fateful amount came, I had 3900 gold and I was ready to buy some killer stuff, I bought the 2 items, and then for the first time I saw an AC in the negatives and I thought I was god mode, I thought if your AC went into the negatives that's how much less damage you took, so with my bastard sword +1 I thought I couldn't be stopped, and of coarse I was stopped still, a lot, but that never stopped me, I just kept on loving the game and exploring all the areas having a blast
and I remember my potion usage, which was just flat out terrible, I remember that when I found a potion I would use it on the next set of baddies that I found regardless if it was useful or not, the only potions that I understood were the healing potions and oils of speed, but other than that I had no clue, and then I came upon the potion of invulnerability ( which was from my neighbor's file checking his file out) and I thought; wow, there is a potion that makes you invulnerable? I bet it costs around 1 000 000 GP, I cant wait to see what hardcore boss is holding that powerful potion, and then it took a couple years later to realize that I had way too much hype for it and it wasn't as good as I thought
so after playing this game for about a year or so having never been to the nashkiel mines, the faithful day came were we finally got a PC and I got Baldur's gate for Christmas and I was STOKED, in all its 5 CD glory, I was the happiest teen alive and couldn't wait to start kicking some bg butt at home ( because before this day I had to go to my neighbor's house each time to play BG because we didn't have a PC) so I was ready, so I grew up a few levels and I entered the mines, and the rush of excitement was almost blowing my socks off, even though there was mostly just lowly kobolds in there, it felt so reliving to finally go into the mines and see what it was all about, and then I finally made it to mulahey and a lot of my team didn't make it, but the items of his body in my opinion were epic, my first pair of magic boots, I thought I just died and went to heaven, I could finally put something in my boot slot, and then the ring he was holding, i couldn't BELIEVE how god mode that ring felt back in the day, that extra slot for each spell level, i was the king of the world with that ring, times were good, but then i was stuck, i didn't know where to go after that, and it wasn't until months later ( and a play through or 2 more) that my neighbor told me that i had to go the peldvale and talk to the bandits there and join up with them,
so i finally found the bandits and i was taken to the camp, and the same ruch of excitement poured over me as did going to the naskiel mines another chapter in the bg game and another new area, i was in excitement heaven, i was having a blastio with all the treasures and lock picking of all the goodies in the area, and then i finished up that area and went off into the cloakwood forest, and at this time i was almost peeing myself in excitement, the fabled cloakwood forest that i always heard about but never got to access because there was that empty side off the world map to the left of the friendly arm inn and i was wondering when i was eventually going to go over there, and then the time came, the fun was just amplifying
and then i got the spide area, and i loved it, the XP was huge, traps everywhere, and the centeol fight in that weird hut type building was just straight up awesome, i remember getting my butt handed to me on a platter in that hut with centeol, and then i finally won, and found spider bane, and i couldn't believe what i came upon, and +2 two handed sword ( which in bg vanilla minus ToTSC is basically the most damaging weapon in the game that doesn't make you go berserk) and i fell in love with it, i remember giving it to minsc and thinking, minsc is now unstoppable and he is going to wreck shop, so on we went and then i came upon the cloakwood mines
and the same excitement i had at the bandit camp and nashkiel mines overflowed with joy with me here, first thing i noticed was the music track, i feel in love with the music right away, infact i loved it so much that i would on purposely start a fight to get the battle music going and pause the game so i could listen to it over and over ( and even to this day its still one of my favourites) and then the group of baddies right at the beginning, was awesome and............ another pair of magical boots, but THESE boots were the fabled boots of speed, and i remember my neighbor telling me they were the best boots in the game, so i thought, now i am truly invincible and its time to start kicking some serious butt, so in i went into the levels of the mines, getting my butt kicked by the mages and lock picking all the cool goodies, and fighting the infinitely spawning hobgoblins, and then i finally made it down to daeverons lair, and from what i recall it was kind of lack luster;
first the 2 battle horrors came to me, so i fought them off and won pretty easily i remember and gaining the huge 4000 XP each, thinking; daaaaaamn that was good experience, and then i saw daeveron and i thought, oh man its potion drinking time, so drank up potions galore and started the epic battle with him, and i saw that he cast summon monster III and i was like; whooooooooooa this guys has level 5 mage spells he must be HARDCORE, but after he cast that spell ( which summoned a handful of ghouls) he just resorted to his melee attack and got taken down without a hitch, and i remember the items he had, the bracers of AC 6 blowing me away because they looked so cool and i gave them to dynaheir because she was wearing knave's robe, and the robe of the evil archmagi thinking; holy crap dude, this is such and epic mage robe, what's this? only evil characters? aw, that's no fair dynaheir cant wear it ( at that time i wasn't aware that there was good and neutral versions) so the next play through i had i brought Edwin along just for the fact so he could wear the robe, but onwards, now it was FINALLY time, to visit the city, the city that has been out of my reach for 2-3 years, the city of Baldur's gate
so finally, after what seemed like eons, i was finally in the big city, and seriously the amount of excitement i had was unphathomable, the city was so HUGE i couldn't wait to see what it was going to offer and what cool and exciting things were going to happen, so the first thing i remember is thinking to myself; okay, this place is going to be huge i need to find a shop keeper that is going to be my go to guy for all my cool goodies and no doubt the shop keepers in this town are going to rock, so the first guy i found was the lucky allo, and i sold all my stuff to him and then finally looked at what he had, and i thought; hmm weird, he only has protection scrolls and they are all unidentified, well, they are cheap might as well buy some, no doubt they will come in handy, so i bought some and started identifying and i got schooled, i thought to myself; wow, really? all this clown has is cursed crap? man this town is garbage why did i even sell my goods to this bum, so trapeizing i went around the first area trying to find another shop keeper, and then i saw a cool looking building that looked magical and such and with the title "sorcerers sundries" ( or something on those lines) so i thought, ah this looks promising
so in i went and i was not disappointed, the magical gear this guy had was out of control and the glee rained down on me, i couldn't believe how much cool crap this guy had, so much sweet stuff, i was a kid in a candy store with infinite money for how happy i was, he had magical weapons and ammo, and +2 ammo, and i thought this is BG heaven, +2 ammo for real? that's so god mode, and then he had a bagillion scrolls and wands, and i was like; whoooooooa look at all these wands, they look so awesome and so many different kinds, but at that time they were so expensive, averaging over 30 000 gold or so, so i wasn't able to get any wands, but i knew that this guy was going to be my go to guy
so i started frolicking through the city doing quests going into random houses, and remembering some of my first encounters, like the house that had the 5 ogre mages in it, that was a rude awakening, and it was one of my favourite houses, i thought; this is so killer, FIVE ogre mages the fight is going to be brutal, and it was almost everyone was dead but i made it out alive,
and then the time if found the gauntlets of weapon skill inside a crate thinking; for friggin' real? just laying around in a crate, what a baller pair of mits laying around, so ever since that encounter i always made sure to put my cursor over every barrel, crate, box, chest, container, anything just in case i would find more sweet gear like that, not knowing that those mits were for a quest
and then i found the "horror house" i called it with the helmed/ battle horrors, holy crap did i ever get destroyed i was not expecting that, and then that house became one of my favourite houses because it was dishing out some serious XP and i remember on the 2nd try minsc kicking some butt with spiders bane
and then i remember the fight in the iron throne, and thinking that this fight was impossible and how was i ever going to beat it, so what i did was; grab some scrolls of protection from magic and have my mage cast/use wands of fireballs, and i won without a hitch, and the lag, the LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG of having more than one character with that orb animation was just destroying my pc, ah good times
and then the opportunity to go back to candlekeep has finally come, but at that point, the excitement wasn't as extreme as nashkiel mines or cloakwood mines, because i had a couple more playthoughs when i reached BG the city before i went to candlekeep so it wasn't as pee pants worthy, but the intrigue was still there
so back to candlekeep we went and i remember killing reiltar and his gang and then getting arrested for the deed and being teleported down to the catacombs, and i loved that dungeon, because there some killer cool items down there that i thought were god mode, like the tomes and the cloak and the ring and the scroll of protection from magic, i was having a hay day, it was great, and then i made it through the catacombs and it was back to Baldur's gate
so luckily when i came back i figured out that i had to go to the undercellars to meet up with some chums and do some stuff there, low and behold when i get there, i found 2 assassins that start getting all up in my grill, so i take them out and start looking at their goodies, and i find a +3 short sword, and almost have a cow, i couldn't believe that there would be a +3 weapon in this game and it said it was the shorts word of backstabbing so i thought if i gave it to imoen and made her backstab with it, she would do some serious damage for how god mode it sounded, so picked up the invitation and the letters and off the the fabled duchal palace
and the first thing i noticed was all the lock pickable containers there were, and i couldn't wait to start picking, and as soon as i did, the flaming fist starting flooding the palace, and i thought; awww that sucks cant steal all the cool goodies, and then i saw sarevok, the first time i saw the armored figure guy with a name and i would start right clicking on him for his voice selections and i just fell in love with the sayings he had, at the time he sounded sooooooo badass i was almost getting a bromance for this guy, anyway, stuff happened swords and claws and spells started flying around and such, and then more stuff happened and belt wanted to teleport me away, and i was like; nah bud, im going to search around for a bit there chap, so off i went and i came down the stairs, and then the little movie played and it showed that there was a huge treasure room down there, and my treasure hunting senses were tingling and i couldn't wait to see what was down there, so as soon as i went down i found some not so friendly flaming fist, so long story short, reputation dropped like a rock and party members weren't to happy about it but i thought, lol buddy, there is sweet spoils down here time to go get some sweet spoils down here so reputation can go take a hike, and then i finally found the treasure room, and to my lols, i couldn't pick the chest, no matter what i did i couldn't get into it, and it was such a huge disappointment and i thought the game was bugged because i couldn't get in, and it felt like i tried absoultely everything in my power to get in but to no avail, and i vowed to myself that one day, i would find a way to get in there and see what goodies it hides ( it wasn't until years later that i figured out that you just need a high lock pick score and in you could go, and although it wasn't knock my socks of amazing, i thought it was pretty cool that there was a pack of 50 arrows +1 in there)
so then on to the last battle with sarevok, i found the thief warrens to be kind of a pain in the ass but i finally found my way through it, and then i battled the baddies on the way to sarevok, thinking how cool all their stuff was when i looted their bodies, and then the battle with sarevok himself, and from what i recall, it was kind of lack luster, i believe i just spammed monster summoning wands like crazy and just hit him from afar and then he finally fell, and then i saw the amount of XP he gave and it blew my mind, a whooping 15 000 XP from an enemy? whooooooooa that is crazy ( because the most i have ever seen an enemy give is 4000 at that point) but i felt very satisfied when the end movie came on, i finally beat bg1 and i continued to play it, loving it every day since that time
every since that fabled day that i went to my neighbor's house and played it for the first time, i became addicted to BG, it was my life, and since that day i guestimate that i have had around 2000-3000 play throughs of that game, and even to this day when i play bg, i do so with no mods, i still love bg and all the glory that comes with it, and i feel that mods take away that magic so that's why i don't install any ( although back in the day i installed they odd mod here and there but not anymore)
so that's my story and now its 2:30am and time for bed, another day i will go over my first bg2 runs, and it probably wont be anywhere near as long as this post hopefully, so thanks for reading and i hoped you enjoyed the journey i took through my beginnings of bg1
I agree the XP thing on Sarevok was daunting when I first saw it. Back den the biggest single XP dished out through the entire game was 10000 by completing the lothander poisoning quest.
It was until later when I happen to discover Drizzt from my brother and realised WTF is the XP and the items.
The best thing I still feel about BG1 is that the entire progression thing feel very real and solid. You dont become OP all of sudden. And even till the end, you didnt feel like you are OP (Char are lvl 7/8 at most). If only they had add a Dragon optional quest back in TotSC days it would have been perfect!
@sarevok57 Amazing stuff. I was shivering and laughing and almost in tears at how much emotion was coming through your account. Wonderful tribute and memories.
My first experience was watching my big brother playing Baldur's Gate back in early September 1999. I was 9 years old then and I remember his character, he had a Mage, though I don't remember his specialization, with the portrait of Edwin (does anyone nowadays use the default portraits?). I remember his party it was the first 5 you meet (Imoen, Xzar, Monty, Khalid, Jaheira), and he was wandering around killing hobgoblings. I liked the fighters the most, so from his party I preferred Khalid and Montaron (he was short like a kid so I could more easily identify myself with him) they also had cool portraits too, and I imagined that I was one of them and that I accompanied my brother in his journeys. Also I used to make stories in my head about them, about their conversations when they gathered around the fire when they rested.
Soon after, my brother left for studies, but Baldur's Gate was still installed on the computer. So I decided to start my own adventures. English is not my first language and though I could understand some words, my vocabulary was relatively weak. My character was obviously a Fighter with the portrait of Montaron, but for some reason he was not short and I was a bit disappointed because I though that the portrait decided what you are (I had no idea what races were). Since I could not have my shorty I decided to make another Fighter character with the portrait of Ajantis (I really liked his metal bracers). I was the definition of a newbie so his stats were something like 11 STR 12 DEX 15 INT etc., re-roll did not make any sense to me since I did not know the rules.
And so I started playing. I remember the battle between Gorion and Sarevok was the most awesome thing I ever saw on a video game, how Gorion cast magic missile after magic was so impressive...and he almost had him . And there I was in the first area outside of Candlekeep holding a two handed sword that I bought because it looked cooler than the other swords (I don't even remember if I had any specialization on it). But I could not continue to any other area because I did not know how. I thought I had to complete the level to go to the next one, like every other game I played before, and I was stuck killing everything and expecting for something to happen. Nevertheless I was really excited about this game and I was showing it to all of my friends and making new characters with them. One day as we were playing a friend of mine accidentally clicked on the edge of the map when the wheel icon appeared and suddenly we could go to a new area! I was so excited I started going from one area to another, fighting ankhegs at level 1, dying horribly, meeting someone with the name that sounded like Drizzzzzzzzt who was killing a horde of Gnolls. I know when we are young we get more easily excited but damn those were the days . It took me a couple years and some more watching my brother playing when he came home for Christmas until I actually learned how play the game. The furthest I went in the story was the labyrinth under the Thieves guild and then for some reason I stopped and hadn't finished BG1 until BGEE came out years later. But in the meantime I played a lot of BG2 .
I can't remember not having BG on a computer because the first computer we ever had was an old one of my sister's, no internet, so it was used as a game console. Because of reviews, it was the first thing I bought.
I never played pnp D and D, but what I had played was Dungeon Master on our old Amiga. Couple of things about DM, you picked companions, you got points when you hit something, you had to rest (and eat, something BG should have included, anyone remember the rat legs and worm rounds?)it was a very hard game with a big twist at the end. That game was my benchmark for immersive RPG's, nothing came close for me until BG.
So memories about the first playthrough. Like everybody has said, a hard game. I remember first meeting Xzar and Monteron, real people. Real people in a game and you were able to take them with you? Mind blowing.
The stunning graphics, the loving care that had been lavished on the game. Everything "mattered", from the ridiculousness of "deseased" Gibberlings (why deseased, poor sods haven't got much going for them in the first place) to the books you found everywhere that gave you backstory and history.
I played through the game, I'm not a restarter, it was both epic and confusing. So needed to play again and then the computer broke.
So for quite a while, we had no computer. A few house moves and the box set came with us, the booklet got read, the map of BG got studied, but I couldn't play the game. It gained a sort of mythical status for me, I remembered parts of the game as far harder than they were, (Nashkel Mines for instance actually figured in a dream one night and they were scary). If anyone asked what the greatest game ever produced was, the answer was always BG.
Eventually, we replaced the PC, and finally I got to really understand what the Iron Throne was about and to really understand the significance of being a Bhaalspawn. Then the discs wore out/got too scratched/lost (I have four children, it happens).
So a new copy was bought, this time with TofTSC. Joy, new content...................but I got stuck on Werewolf Island, not a living soul left except for party so how the hell do you get back to the mainland? No saves from before we sailed either. We still had no internet.
BG2 was bought and played, but I will never agree it is a better game than BG. BG was like (for my generation) what we had grown up believing computers would do, create worlds for us to dream in, like the best books, but would allow us to become a part of them which books can't do.
I do. Mostly because I'm picky about the portrait being an actual portrait and a schtickler for the original style. Kudos to the added NPC portraits for Neera, Dorn, Rasaad, and Hexxat for nailing the visuals.
I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I saw 5 random discs sitting in one of my dad's disc cases. I thought it must've been a pretty long game if it came with 5 discs. Why not take a look at it? So I installed it, came to the character creation screen, and literally had no idea what I was doing. Necromancer? What's one of those? Ohhhh does that mean skeletons and zombies and stuff? That sounds cool. I'll pick that. Spells...hm. Magic Missile sounds useful, I'll go with that. Let's test it on that cow! Oh, that is good. It's like some DBZ move. OK. Let's go in this hut. An Assassin! This should be interesting. I'll just use that cool spell I used on the cow. Wait? Where is it? It's not there! I'll just have to beat him with this stick. It's not doing anything! Ahhh I just exploded! This is hard
After several attempts at trying to get my head around it, I gave up and CLUAed in a bunch of friendly Drizzts to kick the stuffing out of Gorion for entertainment
I grew up with BG2 and was frustrated by BG1's slow walking speed when I finally did get the original game.
...My experience doesn't sound as good as everyone else's.
yeah, bg1's walking speed was quite slow comparatively, cranking the FPS to 60 helped out a bit in my opinion, although I know that some people aren't a fan of the 60 FPS world, but once I learned what 60 FPS was on SoA the first time I played it on a brand new Pentium 4, I never went back to anything slower than 60 FPS
I was introduced to Baldur's Gate by my older sister Kate (known as @Luridel on this forum) more than 10 years ago. We each learned our own tricks in the game, which we shared with each other. She taught me that not all rolls are created equal, so at character creation I should set all stats to ten and see how many points are remaining. I taught her that she could move items between the characters by selecting the item and clicking on another character's portrait (at first she did it by dropping the item and having another character pick it up).
The first character I created was a fighter. At the very beginning of the game, I had him attack Phyldia. She retaliated with her spells. Game over. I reloaded, went to Gorion, and attacked him. Game over. I reloaded again, talked to Gorion, and left Candlekeep. Later on, a wolf attacked. Game over. Then, of course, there was Tarnesh. Needless to say, I probably died to him a lot.
My game was plagued with serious game-breaking bugs. Entering the Bandit Camp or the southwest section of Baldur's Gate caused the game to crash every time. I don't remember exactly what made these problems go away.
I often used the default party that came with Tales of the Sword Coast. In the non-enhanced edition you could start with a pre-made team with certain NPC companions and a full load of magical items, most of which I had no idea how to get normally. In fact, it was only recently that I discovered how to get the Helmet of Defense (now called the Gift of Peace). For some reason, this team could not go to Durlag's Tower (it wasn't on the map and there was no way to travel to it), and that was disappointing because this was the only party I had that stood a chance in that level at the time.
I got this game in Christmas '98 as a present from my father. I was 14 years old.
It was my first time with a deep RPG and it gave me so much trouble. Took me hours to figure out what to do to get out of Candlekeep.
I'd die so often it was ugly. I was playing it on a Pentium 200 and each reload would take around 30 seconds, adding to the frustration. But somehow I was hooked. The battles were so difficult that I would never use my wands and potions, thinking it would be better to save them for tougher enemies. The less I used them, the more difficult the battles were. And the more difficult the battles were, the more I wanted to save my stuff for the future.
I still have nostalgia for that "you never know what's around the corner" feeling. Any new inn was suspicious. "Who'll be trying to kill me when I get in there?"
The final battle was so hardcore. I reloaded around 30 times to beat Sarevok for the first time. My inventory was full of great stuff I still wouldn't use, hoping to save it for a sequel, LOL.
I never ever stopped playing BG. I have this sort of ritual where every year during Christmas holidays I roll a new character and go for another playthrough. Playing the EE on a computer with a SSD with instant save/reload, I can't believe I went through this game swapping CDs. Those were the days...
The final battle was so hardcore. I reloaded around 30 times to beat Sarevok for the first time. My inventory was full of great stuff I still wouldn't use, hoping to save it for a sequel, LOL.
@Cloutier The whole thing with potions is Sooo bothersome. That nagging feeling that I really ought to have some sort of efficient plan for using these things which turn up everywhere is really frustrating.
What I want to have is a detailed itinerary for the whole game such that I know specifically ahead of time who is going to drink what potions at such and such precise spot. And we are going to sell this lot ASAP. And these we are going to hold in reserve for unforseeable developments. Definitely a Montgomery-type rather than a George Patton ~ [apologizing for the implied Anglo-Americanism]
I usually prepare a PnP hardcopy of my potion Inventory [with prices, restrictions, effects, duration, etc.] after completing the Cloakwoods and getting seriously drunk in Beregost for a few days before tackling Baldur's Gate itself.
I bought it in a store with that paper money stuff we use to use. It came in a big box and sat on a thing called a shelf. Inside was this ancient tome of knowledge called a "Game Manual" and there were these things called 'discs' inside too. I think they ripped those off from tron though and had to stop using them due to losing some kind of legal battle.
BG1 was my very first game on PC, the DVD version.
I did a warrior (you know when you are 7-8 years old, you just want to be a warrior), Chaotic Evil (yeah I was thug), and here we go.... Of course, I tried to kill the first NPC you meet, it was Phlydia. Got killed without knowing what happened.
But then after 4 ou 5 tries, I started reading what people said to Charname, and the greatest adventure began....
I love this thread. Thanks for sharing your stories, everybody.
I can't remember my first BG character. I had and still have the original discs for the entire series. And I tell you, it was a major upgrade over the days I spent as a child using the random dungeon generator in the AD&D DM guide to roll my own adventures.
I loved the interplay with the characters the best, and eventually did three separate run-throughs with all evil, all good, and all neutral lineups so I could try out as many NPCs as possible. Evil was a human female cleric->Priestess of Talos (fun but I didn't need Viconia... oops). Good was a halfling male fighter->I forget if I kitted him in SoA. Neutral was an elf plain mage->wild mage.
I ran across the original discs in a box a month or so ago. Thus, I have returned. My next goal: finding a multiplayer group!
Comments
I usually bring a strong Archer in parties such as Kivan or Coran, load up with Arrows of Piercing and go to town on focusing Sarevok down, ignoring his lackeys and then it's time to run away from the surviving wizards until the game fades into the ending, then I can import another Bhaalspawn into BG2.
I'll see about finding original copies of the games one of these days, seems like a fun challenge to take up! It reminds me of EverQuest when it was first released and how hardcore the game was.
You died, did you?
Go run to your corpse while ungeared to get your equipment back, no matter how far away the zone you died in was.
You had to eat and drink food / water or you'd stifle HP/Mana regeneration.
You had to buy all of your spells and they got exponentially expensive.
Dungeons were truly punishing if you didn't have a competent party.
The game was fun because you were a singular person in a huge world, made your own friends, forged relationships and went on a huge journey.
In a way, it's pretty similar to BG in that you're thrust into an unexpected journey in an unforgiving land and had to fend for yourself by finding new friends and traveling together.
Nostalgia is a great feeling, agreed!
(Ahh youth. To think that these are the kind of thoughts a young man of 983 has.)
Sarevok proved to be a major stumbling block, so I put BG1 down and installed BG2. I rolled a Ranger-Archer and spent most of my time swinging a two handed sword. I remember rolling my eyes at yet another dungeon, feeling so couped up and searching for open spaces to let my arrows fly. The Temple Ruins quest in Umar took me over a week to finish, playing a few hours a night.
Eventually I got tired of being killed horribly in BG2, so I went back to the battle with Sarevok and got killed in all sorts of other horrible ways. I was actually close to giving up on the game series at one point, but then I discovered that Imoen made a rather effective aiming sight for the repeating lightning trap on the middle west side of the Bhaal Temple.
So I had her dance over the trap line like Napoleon Dynamite while immune to electricity, and zapped Sarevok and his gang into oblivion. If you do it right, you can have maybe half a dozen lightning bolts flying around at any one time. One hell of a laser light show.
Sarevok wasn't so impressed.
I had the rest of the party rush him when he was near dead as a kind of formality, but in truth that battle was an episode of the Imoen Show.
I would eventually return to Sarevok in another playthrough (the second and most recent time I've finished BG1) as a solo dwarven defender, who spanked him pretty hard. It was somewhat hilarious, actually, that SCS Sarevok didn't feel nearly as hard as the old vanilla Sarevok did, given that I have only fought him twice. Clearly I've developed as a player, and I am now on good terms with the game with a well developed 'angle' on how I play.
A far cry from the gong show that was my first playthrough. Ha!
Then in the 1990s in Seattle, because of a wonderful store [Golden Age Collectibles] underneath the famous Pike Place Market which sold comics, gaming supplies, collectibles, etc I became intrigued with RPGs, MagictheGathering, WoTC, etc.~ mostly from the POV of Game Design and enthusiasm about a whole new human culture form. I began writing a hypertext novel.
Finally I purchased a Laptop sometime after 9/11 and turned to BG1 Vanilla as my first ComputerGaming xp. I had gathered that it was kind of a legend in the genre.
Both of my parents were recently deceased so I ~ REALLY,REALLY ~ got at very deep levels, how powerful might have been the emotions, doubts, fears, Anger, mistrust, frustration and VALOR of such a Charname as the unknowable reality of being Baalspawn emerged. [Note: my father, God Rest His Soul, deeply involved with Presbyterian Church was also upper level management for Monsanto....just kidding, maybe.]
For me, the wonder of party-building and RP imaginings was probably deeper than the sort of experience the cartoonish nature of the graphics suggested and I am sure my ego soaked that up. [OMG, I am like Sooooo imaginative!!! LOL!] ~But I also loved the light-hearted nature of the game that was constantly turning up. I mean Xzar and Montaron after Zarevok, Minsc, even the early deadly encounters with Tarnesh and Silke had such wonderfully imagined characters!!
And then the problem of a tendency to submerge my FM Charname's dilemna in the stronger POVs of Jaheira/Khalid and not even thinking about the real problem of an unknowable, hunted Life...very much where I found myself as the RL world seemed to be descending into a maelstrom. By the time we reached Beregost I was totally hooked ~ with a strong confidence that BG was clearly something of genius that fitted me to a T.
Because I did not have an unlimited amount of time, and also because I enjoy research-a bit of a scholar, I knew much more about the game than most first-timers. But without such info I probably never would have played the game.
A fear of putting weeks and weeks into exploring the game and then realizing that I had made some wrong choices early on that made success impossible....and thereupon quitting in frustration with something that was finally kinda stupid...was not something I could put aside.
Approaching 60yrs old I had no wish to be even more disappointed... [A word to the wise~~Once your parents are gone -if you are possessed of a strong imagination- all the rest of your days you will wish you had never consented to their life-long silences. 'Nuff said]
I continue to find the prospect of World-building around the Baldurs Gate, FAI, Candlekeep, Ulcaster
and Beregost locations an addictive prospect. Also a novel about the life of Gorion intrigues me as a creative project. ~Cheers
I remember being absolutely mesmerized by Baldur's Gate. At that point in my life, video games to me were Sonic the Hedgehog and pretty much nothing else. I was completely drawn in by the gate's scope and characters. I used to sit next to my dad and watch him play for hours until I fell asleep in the chair next to him. We would crack ourselves up quoting Xan and Minsc to each other, who never ever left my dad's party.
When I played for the first time, ran a paladin with like almost no dex because I didn't think it did anything. I still run Paladin every now and then out of nostaligia, and Minsc has never left my party in all these years.
I learned about bg2 and how it was the better game. After a long time, got cds from a friend, they were impossible to find in my region. I wanted to create my Silverstar from iwd2 but there was no such kit so I created an elven unkitted cleric. And off I started.
I thought holy smite was the best spell ever, and darts were the best weapons as I was able to throw them so many times. It was an old bg2 build and there was a bug, pure clerics were able to wield normal darts. No proficiency or magical darts though, I guess it was an oversight. Anyway. I quickly discovered bg2 was vastly superiour and more hardcore than iwd2. When I encountered vampires that drained my party's levels, or beholders that were like autamatic rifles, or my first lich that did not give me any chance to fight in one of the most surprising and fantastic spells in a game:timestop! I was hooked.
I beat Firkraag with my elven cleric, I remember crisply it was my holy smite that did him in and it felt very very satisfactory. I think I never finished the game with that char, because by that time I have discovered how amazing mage spells were. I started with a cleric/mage and it was my first character to finish soa, I think. I can't remember the details. I was pissed at the xp limit and how I was never able to utilise lvl 8-9 spells like those liches. In SoA only games even pure mages could not cast 9th lvl! I got my first mod, xp cap raiser and I was happy!
Later I got ToB, and created a dual classed cleric to mage for high lvl mage spells. Time stop, wish, planetars, dragon breaths, those were the spells I loved to play with. I started heavy modding like tactics and the like around then. I was at college by then, able to visit home on weekends and play only on weekends. I looked forward to weekends for bg2. And even later I got my own lap top so I was able to play even in my college dorm. That was fantastic! I got bg1 original by then, played, was neutral to it, then discovered tutu and bgt and bg was the only game I ever played for a long time.
I have been playing a heavily modded bgt game until ee was annouced. Somewhere around the last years I have discovered wild mage and it became my favourite class. I can't play another spell caster class as it feels too restrictive not to be able to try higher lvl casts via nrd. And the surprise and unpredictability is fun for me.
Today I still play a heavily modded and tweaked, personalised bg2 game. On my Ipad. How far I have come since that first start, it is amazing. I had another account name in sorcerers place forums (Silverstar), I now see my 10+ years old comments and threads there, I feel a bit embrassed at how naive and young I was. For the last 10+ years, bg has become a part of my life, a never ending adventure and joy, escapism and a great hobby for me. At age 28 now, I create my real life boyfriend as a mp character travellng with my own character in bg2 and still have tons of fun.
ah the bg series, the bg series has had a HUGE impact on my life and the story goes:
it was back in 1999 when i was 12 and we just moved from Ontario to British Columbia, a 4000 km ( 2500 mile) journey ( for those of you who don't know whats going on these are provinces of Canada) and a week or two after the move we were over at our neighbor's house and the one neighbor said hey do you want to try out this computer game called Baldur's gate?
at that time, I was never into computers, I owned a NES and a sega, and I loved video games, video games were my passion, and the only PC experience I had back then was solitare and paint, so I thought, egh, this game is probably going to be garbage because PCs cant do anything cool ( I was so naïve about PCs I thought they had infinite hard drive space)
so anways he told me it was a game where you fought monsters and used swords and wore armor and went on about medieval fantasy and so forth, and after his description I thought wow, this game sounds pretty tight, lets give 'er a try
so we went on to make my character, he gave me the low down, on all the classes/ races and what not and I went with human fighter, and he was saying if I was to be a fighter, make sure to roll a STR of 18/91 or higher, and if im not mistaken I rolled an 18/00 and he was like; wow that is a very good score you have the strength of an ogre, and I said; cool, don't know what an ogre is but sounds awesome, and then for the rest of the ability scores I set them all to 10 and evened out all the rest, so I had 18/00 STR and 12-14 in the rest of my ability scores, so onward
I was in candlekeep and right away, I thought; HOLY, CRAP, this game looks friggin' tight, I was blown away with the graphics, because I was used to nes and sega and their 2d graphics I was in so much awe with BG and the detail of the game, so right away I was stoked, and so off I went, and the only gameplay advice that I remember my neighbor telling me was, always use weapons that you are skilled with and make sure your AC is as low as possible, so I said roger, and the good times started:
the first thing I realized was the weapon called the bastard sword, and I thought to myself; whoa, that's pretty hardcore why is there a swear in this game? intense stuff, so I thought yeah im so gonna buy that, so I did and bought some splint mail a helmet and a large shield, and I thought; hell yeah, my guy looks tight, and I was so excited and ready to go on my way
so I finished the candlekeep area and then left with gorion and then the ambush scene happened, and I was just blown away, I couldn't believe the sur real graphics and how cool the spells looked and how sweet the battle was, and I just fell in love with the persona of sarevok and ever since that day, he has been one of my favourite characters ( hence the name and portrait)
so the ambush was over and imoen joined my team and then I looked at her inventory and I was like; whooooa look at all the cool friggin' goodies, and I loved the want of magic missiles, I thought it was so cool that my fighter could use a wand, I was so stoked, and she had an oil of speed as well, and I thought, man this potion is awesome
so next I collected the goodies at the ambush site and then grabbed motoran and xzar and was blown away with the cool items monty had and I was like; coooool this xzar guy is a wizard and then I laughed at his 4 misely HP) so off we went to the friendly arm inn because the game said that was the place to go, so off I went
and then we met up with our good ol' friend tarnish, that was a rude awakening, I remember him kicking my butt hard the first time, and back then I didn't know anything about quick save or quick load, and I only went from auto saves if my character died and that was it, so next time through I had my guy and possibly monty use the oil of speeds and took him down, and I was like sweet, look at all these awesome spells this guy has, cant wait to give them to xzar, and then I went inside the friendly arm inn and grabbed jaheria and Khalid, and then my neighbor taught me more game mechanics like spell casting and such
so off I went exploring the world of Baldur's gate and just basking in the glory of the game, I feel in love with it so much, but there was a problem, my neighbor's disk 3 was scratched so I could NEVER go into the naskiel mines, but luckily the game world was big enough that I could wonder around and explore all the different areas and I was having a blastio just with that, and then I was having so much fun with game experiences here are some things that I remembered:
eventually I dropped monty and xzar and picked up minsc, and I loved minsc and I thought this guy was the ubber npc of the game, because he was using a two handed sword and just kicking butt
I remember my team mates dieing A LOT, because my neighbor had it set to insane difficulty and I knew nothing about options and difficulty so I thought that was just the way it was, so I spent LOTS and LOTS of money at temples, raising characters back from the dead and even spending money on healing spells from temples, the lols of wasting money on that stuff, so I had a hard time with cash, I was usually never pass the 500 gold piece mark because I was spending SO MUCH gold at temples reviving guys and healing them
I remember seeing 2 items at Bentley's store that I thought would make me invincible and they were the plate mail armor and large shield+1 and I looked at their prices and thought; WOW, 900 gold for the armor and a whooping 3000 gold for the shield, that gear must be friggin' awesome, so what happened was I had my 5 team mates take the dirt nap ( which happened often because everyone no doubt had horrible AC) and I was grinding gibberlings in the area south of the friendly arm inn to make enough money to buy the plate mail armor AND the large shield +1, needless to say, it took what seemed an eternity and I recall growing up 2 levels in doing so ( I think I had 4 or 5 gibberlings coming at a time when I rest spawned them) and then that fateful amount came, I had 3900 gold and I was ready to buy some killer stuff, I bought the 2 items, and then for the first time I saw an AC in the negatives and I thought I was god mode, I thought if your AC went into the negatives that's how much less damage you took, so with my bastard sword +1 I thought I couldn't be stopped, and of coarse I was stopped still, a lot, but that never stopped me, I just kept on loving the game and exploring all the areas having a blast
and I remember my potion usage, which was just flat out terrible, I remember that when I found a potion I would use it on the next set of baddies that I found regardless if it was useful or not, the only potions that I understood were the healing potions and oils of speed, but other than that I had no clue, and then I came upon the potion of invulnerability ( which was from my neighbor's file checking his file out) and I thought; wow, there is a potion that makes you invulnerable? I bet it costs around 1 000 000 GP, I cant wait to see what hardcore boss is holding that powerful potion, and then it took a couple years later to realize that I had way too much hype for it and it wasn't as good as I thought
so after playing this game for about a year or so having never been to the nashkiel mines, the faithful day came were we finally got a PC and I got Baldur's gate for Christmas and I was STOKED, in all its 5 CD glory, I was the happiest teen alive and couldn't wait to start kicking some bg butt at home ( because before this day I had to go to my neighbor's house each time to play BG because we didn't have a PC) so I was ready, so I grew up a few levels and I entered the mines, and the rush of excitement was almost blowing my socks off, even though there was mostly just lowly kobolds in there, it felt so reliving to finally go into the mines and see what it was all about, and then I finally made it to mulahey and a lot of my team didn't make it, but the items of his body in my opinion were epic, my first pair of magic boots, I thought I just died and went to heaven, I could finally put something in my boot slot, and then the ring he was holding, i couldn't BELIEVE how god mode that ring felt back in the day, that extra slot for each spell level, i was the king of the world with that ring, times were good, but then i was stuck, i didn't know where to go after that, and it wasn't until months later ( and a play through or 2 more) that my neighbor told me that i had to go the peldvale and talk to the bandits there and join up with them,
so i finally found the bandits and i was taken to the camp, and the same ruch of excitement poured over me as did going to the naskiel mines another chapter in the bg game and another new area, i was in excitement heaven, i was having a blastio with all the treasures and lock picking of all the goodies in the area, and then i finished up that area and went off into the cloakwood forest, and at this time i was almost peeing myself in excitement, the fabled cloakwood forest that i always heard about but never got to access because there was that empty side off the world map to the left of the friendly arm inn and i was wondering when i was eventually going to go over there, and then the time came, the fun was just amplifying
and then i got the spide area, and i loved it, the XP was huge, traps everywhere, and the centeol fight in that weird hut type building was just straight up awesome, i remember getting my butt handed to me on a platter in that hut with centeol, and then i finally won, and found spider bane, and i couldn't believe what i came upon, and +2 two handed sword ( which in bg vanilla minus ToTSC is basically the most damaging weapon in the game that doesn't make you go berserk) and i fell in love with it, i remember giving it to minsc and thinking, minsc is now unstoppable and he is going to wreck shop, so on we went and then i came upon the cloakwood mines
and the same excitement i had at the bandit camp and nashkiel mines overflowed with joy with me here, first thing i noticed was the music track, i feel in love with the music right away, infact i loved it so much that i would on purposely start a fight to get the battle music going and pause the game so i could listen to it over and over ( and even to this day its still one of my favourites) and then the group of baddies right at the beginning, was awesome and............ another pair of magical boots, but THESE boots were the fabled boots of speed, and i remember my neighbor telling me they were the best boots in the game, so i thought, now i am truly invincible and its time to start kicking some serious butt, so in i went into the levels of the mines, getting my butt kicked by the mages and lock picking all the cool goodies, and fighting the infinitely spawning hobgoblins, and then i finally made it down to daeverons lair, and from what i recall it was kind of lack luster;
first the 2 battle horrors came to me, so i fought them off and won pretty easily i remember and gaining the huge 4000 XP each, thinking; daaaaaamn that was good experience, and then i saw daeveron and i thought, oh man its potion drinking time, so drank up potions galore and started the epic battle with him, and i saw that he cast summon monster III and i was like; whooooooooooa this guys has level 5 mage spells he must be HARDCORE, but after he cast that spell ( which summoned a handful of ghouls) he just resorted to his melee attack and got taken down without a hitch, and i remember the items he had, the bracers of AC 6 blowing me away because they looked so cool and i gave them to dynaheir because she was wearing knave's robe, and the robe of the evil archmagi thinking; holy crap dude, this is such and epic mage robe, what's this? only evil characters? aw, that's no fair dynaheir cant wear it ( at that time i wasn't aware that there was good and neutral versions) so the next play through i had i brought Edwin along just for the fact so he could wear the robe, but onwards, now it was FINALLY time, to visit the city, the city that has been out of my reach for 2-3 years, the city of Baldur's gate
so finally, after what seemed like eons, i was finally in the big city, and seriously the amount of excitement i had was unphathomable, the city was so HUGE i couldn't wait to see what it was going to offer and what cool and exciting things were going to happen, so the first thing i remember is thinking to myself; okay, this place is going to be huge i need to find a shop keeper that is going to be my go to guy for all my cool goodies and no doubt the shop keepers in this town are going to rock, so the first guy i found was the lucky allo, and i sold all my stuff to him and then finally looked at what he had, and i thought; hmm weird, he only has protection scrolls and they are all unidentified, well, they are cheap might as well buy some, no doubt they will come in handy, so i bought some and started identifying and i got schooled, i thought to myself; wow, really? all this clown has is cursed crap? man this town is garbage why did i even sell my goods to this bum, so trapeizing i went around the first area trying to find another shop keeper, and then i saw a cool looking building that looked magical and such and with the title "sorcerers sundries" ( or something on those lines) so i thought, ah this looks promising
so in i went and i was not disappointed, the magical gear this guy had was out of control and the glee rained down on me, i couldn't believe how much cool crap this guy had, so much sweet stuff, i was a kid in a candy store with infinite money for how happy i was, he had magical weapons and ammo, and +2 ammo, and i thought this is BG heaven, +2 ammo for real? that's so god mode, and then he had a bagillion scrolls and wands, and i was like; whoooooooa look at all these wands, they look so awesome and so many different kinds, but at that time they were so expensive, averaging over 30 000 gold or so, so i wasn't able to get any wands, but i knew that this guy was going to be my go to guy
so i started frolicking through the city doing quests going into random houses, and remembering some of my first encounters, like the house that had the 5 ogre mages in it, that was a rude awakening, and it was one of my favourite houses, i thought; this is so killer, FIVE ogre mages the fight is going to be brutal, and it was almost everyone was dead but i made it out alive,
and then the time if found the gauntlets of weapon skill inside a crate thinking; for friggin' real? just laying around in a crate, what a baller pair of mits laying around, so ever since that encounter i always made sure to put my cursor over every barrel, crate, box, chest, container, anything just in case i would find more sweet gear like that, not knowing that those mits were for a quest
and then i found the "horror house" i called it with the helmed/ battle horrors, holy crap did i ever get destroyed i was not expecting that, and then that house became one of my favourite houses because it was dishing out some serious XP and i remember on the 2nd try minsc kicking some butt with spiders bane
and then i remember the fight in the iron throne, and thinking that this fight was impossible and how was i ever going to beat it, so what i did was; grab some scrolls of protection from magic and have my mage cast/use wands of fireballs, and i won without a hitch, and the lag, the LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG of having more than one character with that orb animation was just destroying my pc, ah good times
and then the opportunity to go back to candlekeep has finally come, but at that point, the excitement wasn't as extreme as nashkiel mines or cloakwood mines, because i had a couple more playthoughs when i reached BG the city before i went to candlekeep so it wasn't as pee pants worthy, but the intrigue was still there
so back to candlekeep we went and i remember killing reiltar and his gang and then getting arrested for the deed and being teleported down to the catacombs, and i loved that dungeon, because there some killer cool items down there that i thought were god mode, like the tomes and the cloak and the ring and the scroll of protection from magic, i was having a hay day, it was great, and then i made it through the catacombs and it was back to Baldur's gate
so luckily when i came back i figured out that i had to go to the undercellars to meet up with some chums and do some stuff there, low and behold when i get there, i found 2 assassins that start getting all up in my grill, so i take them out and start looking at their goodies, and i find a +3 short sword, and almost have a cow, i couldn't believe that there would be a +3 weapon in this game and it said it was the shorts word of backstabbing so i thought if i gave it to imoen and made her backstab with it, she would do some serious damage for how god mode it sounded, so picked up the invitation and the letters and off the the fabled duchal palace
and the first thing i noticed was all the lock pickable containers there were, and i couldn't wait to start picking, and as soon as i did, the flaming fist starting flooding the palace, and i thought; awww that sucks cant steal all the cool goodies, and then i saw sarevok, the first time i saw the armored figure guy with a name and i would start right clicking on him for his voice selections and i just fell in love with the sayings he had, at the time he sounded sooooooo badass i was almost getting a bromance for this guy, anyway, stuff happened swords and claws and spells started flying around and such, and then more stuff happened and belt wanted to teleport me away, and i was like; nah bud, im going to search around for a bit there chap, so off i went and i came down the stairs, and then the little movie played and it showed that there was a huge treasure room down there, and my treasure hunting senses were tingling and i couldn't wait to see what was down there, so as soon as i went down i found some not so friendly flaming fist, so long story short, reputation dropped like a rock and party members weren't to happy about it but i thought, lol buddy, there is sweet spoils down here time to go get some sweet spoils down here so reputation can go take a hike, and then i finally found the treasure room, and to my lols, i couldn't pick the chest, no matter what i did i couldn't get into it, and it was such a huge disappointment and i thought the game was bugged because i couldn't get in, and it felt like i tried absoultely everything in my power to get in but to no avail, and i vowed to myself that one day, i would find a way to get in there and see what goodies it hides ( it wasn't until years later that i figured out that you just need a high lock pick score and in you could go, and although it wasn't knock my socks of amazing, i thought it was pretty cool that there was a pack of 50 arrows +1 in there)
so then on to the last battle with sarevok, i found the thief warrens to be kind of a pain in the ass but i finally found my way through it, and then i battled the baddies on the way to sarevok, thinking how cool all their stuff was when i looted their bodies, and then the battle with sarevok himself, and from what i recall, it was kind of lack luster, i believe i just spammed monster summoning wands like crazy and just hit him from afar and then he finally fell, and then i saw the amount of XP he gave and it blew my mind, a whooping 15 000 XP from an enemy? whooooooooa that is crazy ( because the most i have ever seen an enemy give is 4000 at that point) but i felt very satisfied when the end movie came on, i finally beat bg1 and i continued to play it, loving it every day since that time
every since that fabled day that i went to my neighbor's house and played it for the first time, i became addicted to BG, it was my life, and since that day i guestimate that i have had around 2000-3000 play throughs of that game, and even to this day when i play bg, i do so with no mods, i still love bg and all the glory that comes with it, and i feel that mods take away that magic so that's why i don't install any ( although back in the day i installed they odd mod here and there but not anymore)
so that's my story and now its 2:30am and time for bed, another day i will go over my first bg2 runs, and it probably wont be anywhere near as long as this post hopefully, so thanks for reading and i hoped you enjoyed the journey i took through my beginnings of bg1
It was until later when I happen to discover Drizzt from my brother and realised WTF is the XP and the items.
The best thing I still feel about BG1 is that the entire progression thing feel very real and solid. You dont become OP all of sudden. And even till the end, you didnt feel like you are OP (Char are lvl 7/8 at most). If only they had add a Dragon optional quest back in TotSC days it would have been perfect!
Soon after, my brother left for studies, but Baldur's Gate was still installed on the computer. So I decided to start my own adventures. English is not my first language and though I could understand some words, my vocabulary was relatively weak. My character was obviously a Fighter with the portrait of Montaron, but for some reason he was not short and I was a bit disappointed because I though that the portrait decided what you are (I had no idea what races were). Since I could not have my shorty I decided to make another Fighter character with the portrait of Ajantis (I really liked his metal bracers). I was the definition of a newbie so his stats were something like 11 STR 12 DEX 15 INT etc., re-roll did not make any sense to me since I did not know the rules.
And so I started playing. I remember the battle between Gorion and Sarevok was the most awesome thing I ever saw on a video game, how Gorion cast magic missile after magic was so impressive...and he almost had him . And there I was in the first area outside of Candlekeep holding a two handed sword that I bought because it looked cooler than the other swords (I don't even remember if I had any specialization on it). But I could not continue to any other area because I did not know how. I thought I had to complete the level to go to the next one, like every other game I played before, and I was stuck killing everything and expecting for something to happen. Nevertheless I was really excited about this game and I was showing it to all of my friends and making new characters with them. One day as we were playing a friend of mine accidentally clicked on the edge of the map when the wheel icon appeared and suddenly we could go to a new area! I was so excited I started going from one area to another, fighting ankhegs at level 1, dying horribly, meeting someone with the name that sounded like Drizzzzzzzzt who was killing a horde of Gnolls. I know when we are young we get more easily excited but damn those were the days . It took me a couple years and some more watching my brother playing when he came home for Christmas until I actually learned how play the game. The furthest I went in the story was the labyrinth under the Thieves guild and then for some reason I stopped and hadn't finished BG1 until BGEE came out years later. But in the meantime I played a lot of BG2 .
I can't remember not having BG on a computer because the first computer we ever had was an old one of my sister's, no internet, so it was used as a game console.
Because of reviews, it was the first thing I bought.
I never played pnp D and D, but what I had played was Dungeon Master on our old Amiga. Couple of things about DM, you picked companions, you got points when you hit something, you had to rest (and eat, something BG should have included, anyone remember the rat legs and worm rounds?)it was a very hard game with a big twist at the end.
That game was my benchmark for immersive RPG's, nothing came close for me until BG.
So memories about the first playthrough.
Like everybody has said, a hard game. I remember first meeting Xzar and Monteron, real people. Real people in a game and you were able to take them with you?
Mind blowing.
The stunning graphics, the loving care that had been lavished on the game. Everything "mattered", from the ridiculousness of "deseased" Gibberlings (why deseased, poor sods haven't got much going for them in the first place) to the books you found everywhere that gave you backstory and history.
I played through the game, I'm not a restarter, it was both epic and confusing. So needed to play again and then the computer broke.
So for quite a while, we had no computer. A few house moves and the box set came with us, the booklet got read, the map of BG got studied, but I couldn't play the game.
It gained a sort of mythical status for me, I remembered parts of the game as far harder than they were, (Nashkel Mines for instance actually figured in a dream one night and they were scary).
If anyone asked what the greatest game ever produced was, the answer was always BG.
Eventually, we replaced the PC, and finally I got to really understand what the Iron Throne was about and to really understand the significance of being a Bhaalspawn.
Then the discs wore out/got too scratched/lost (I have four children, it happens).
So a new copy was bought, this time with TofTSC.
Joy, new content...................but I got stuck on Werewolf Island, not a living soul left except for party so how the hell do you get back to the mainland?
No saves from before we sailed either.
We still had no internet.
BG2 was bought and played, but I will never agree it is a better game than BG. BG was like (for my generation) what we had grown up believing computers would do, create worlds for us to dream in, like the best books, but would allow us to become a part of them which books can't do.
After several attempts at trying to get my head around it, I gave up and CLUAed in a bunch of friendly Drizzts to kick the stuffing out of Gorion for entertainment
...My experience doesn't sound as good as everyone else's.
I was introduced to Baldur's Gate by my older sister Kate (known as @Luridel on this forum) more than 10 years ago. We each learned our own tricks in the game, which we shared with each other. She taught me that not all rolls are created equal, so at character creation I should set all stats to ten and see how many points are remaining. I taught her that she could move items between the characters by selecting the item and clicking on another character's portrait (at first she did it by dropping the item and having another character pick it up).
The first character I created was a fighter. At the very beginning of the game, I had him attack Phyldia. She retaliated with her spells. Game over. I reloaded, went to Gorion, and attacked him. Game over. I reloaded again, talked to Gorion, and left Candlekeep. Later on, a wolf attacked. Game over. Then, of course, there was Tarnesh. Needless to say, I probably died to him a lot.
My game was plagued with serious game-breaking bugs. Entering the Bandit Camp or the southwest section of Baldur's Gate caused the game to crash every time. I don't remember exactly what made these problems go away.
I often used the default party that came with Tales of the Sword Coast. In the non-enhanced edition you could start with a pre-made team with certain NPC companions and a full load of magical items, most of which I had no idea how to get normally. In fact, it was only recently that I discovered how to get the Helmet of Defense (now called the Gift of Peace). For some reason, this team could not go to Durlag's Tower (it wasn't on the map and there was no way to travel to it), and that was disappointing because this was the only party I had that stood a chance in that level at the time.
It was my first time with a deep RPG and it gave me so much trouble. Took me hours to figure out what to do to get out of Candlekeep.
I'd die so often it was ugly. I was playing it on a Pentium 200 and each reload would take around 30 seconds, adding to the frustration. But somehow I was hooked. The battles were so difficult that I would never use my wands and potions, thinking it would be better to save them for tougher enemies. The less I used them, the more difficult the battles were. And the more difficult the battles were, the more I wanted to save my stuff for the future.
I still have nostalgia for that "you never know what's around the corner" feeling. Any new inn was suspicious. "Who'll be trying to kill me when I get in there?"
The final battle was so hardcore. I reloaded around 30 times to beat Sarevok for the first time. My inventory was full of great stuff I still wouldn't use, hoping to save it for a sequel, LOL.
I never ever stopped playing BG. I have this sort of ritual where every year during Christmas holidays I roll a new character and go for another playthrough. Playing the EE on a computer with a SSD with instant save/reload, I can't believe I went through this game swapping CDs. Those were the days...
What I want to have is a detailed itinerary for the whole game such that I know specifically ahead of time who is going to drink what potions at such and such precise spot. And we are going to sell this lot ASAP. And these we are going to hold in reserve for unforseeable developments. Definitely a Montgomery-type rather than a George Patton ~ [apologizing for the implied Anglo-Americanism]
I usually prepare a PnP hardcopy of my potion Inventory [with prices, restrictions, effects, duration, etc.] after completing the Cloakwoods and getting seriously drunk in Beregost for a few days before tackling Baldur's Gate itself.
It was pretty cool.
I did a warrior (you know when you are 7-8 years old, you just want to be a warrior), Chaotic Evil (yeah I was thug), and here we go.... Of course, I tried to kill the first NPC you meet, it was Phlydia. Got killed without knowing what happened.
But then after 4 ou 5 tries, I started reading what people said to Charname, and the greatest adventure began....
I can't remember my first BG character. I had and still have the original discs for the entire series. And I tell you, it was a major upgrade over the days I spent as a child using the random dungeon generator in the AD&D DM guide to roll my own adventures.
I loved the interplay with the characters the best, and eventually did three separate run-throughs with all evil, all good, and all neutral lineups so I could try out as many NPCs as possible. Evil was a human female cleric->Priestess of Talos (fun but I didn't need Viconia... oops). Good was a halfling male fighter->I forget if I kitted him in SoA. Neutral was an elf plain mage->wild mage.
I ran across the original discs in a box a month or so ago. Thus, I have returned. My next goal: finding a multiplayer group!