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Did you know?

So this is just a thread for interesting things that people have picked up over the years. While most of the information has been freely available for some time, the game is big enough that you might find something you missed. If not, it's still fun to see just how much detail the developers put in.

Did you know that if you are playing an elf named Drizzt, and your reputation is under 12, Drizzt will attack you? Did you also know that if you kill the three mages guarding the skyship devices in Baldur's Gate, then Shandalar skips the 'asking' part of sending you to the Ice Island? Not surprising, given that they were his daughters. Guy is probably a bit angry at you.
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Comments

  • BigfishBigfish Member Posts: 367
    Skaffen said:

    Did you know: If you paid people for the time spent playing since the release of the saga you'd have to shell out more than 30,000,000,000 USD?

    I'd say your wage calculation is a bit off. Median wage in the US is ~13$ an hour, and given that video games are a leisure activity, that should really cut that in half. That would shift your number down to 3.6$ billion. But that's not lost productivity, more just a general guideline for the private value of entertainment.
  • SkaffenSkaffen Member Posts: 709
    @Eudaemonium Call me snobbish but let's assume it means "play it decently" and from a complexity and mental requirement point of view this is more demanding than cleaning litter or something and should command a bit higher wage. This is not a mindless ego shooter we'Re talking about. Also keep in mind that hourly rates is not the same as salary -> your typical employed engineer or plumber will earn much less than what is charged for their service (at least I know in my case... ;) ). Even internal costs are usually 2x salary if you take health insurance etc. into account.

    As for number of hours per copy: yes, that's the biggest unknown / most flexible assumption, but even someone finishing it just once will have spent >200 hours so already covering for a completely idle copy sold. Hardcore players will cover 10 or more copies in 15 years since release. So overall it's a pretty realistic assumption I think.

    In the end it doesn't really matter what the actual number is: it's a hell of a lot no matter how you cut it (true for all successfull video games of course). ;)
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,344
    Archaos said:

    Did you know:

    Kath Soucie is the voice of Aerie. She also did the voice of Lola Bunny in Space Jam, the voice of undead females in WoW, Amanda Evert in Tomb Raider Legend/Underworld along others?

    And Maureen in Full Throttle.. got to like her.

  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    Archaos said:


    Kath Soucie is the voice of Aerie. She also did the voice of Lola Bunny in Space Jam, the voice of undead females in WoW, Amanda Evert in Tomb Raider Legend/Underworld along others?

    Also Phil & Lil in Rugrats, Laura/The Master in Fallout 1, Cubert in Futurama... she's done lots and lots of stuff. Also was the narrator in Icewind Dale 2.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    Tresset said:

    When you meet Viekang (the teleporting Bhaalspawn that appears in trademeet) in Saradush you can cure him of his inability to randomly teleport by casting various fear inducing spells on him, such as horror. You will get a small amount of quest experience and the satisfaction of knowing that you saved another Bhaalspawn from Melissan's treachery.

    I remember having my PC with 5 Spook and 7 Horror spells loaded for that, it was very funny to do!
  • DragonspearDragonspear Member Posts: 1,838
    Jim cummings is also the voice of lorewalker cho in mists of pandaria
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    edited January 2014

    I dunno. I think $50/hour is pretty excessive payment. Comparing the hourly wage for an on-call engineer and someone playing a video game is pretty silly. If anything you should go with something close to the minimum wage, which in the Uk would probably be the equivalent of about $10-12. Its also making the fallacious assumption that everyone who bought the game actually completed it or even played that far, which is very unlikely. I'd say that probably *at least* 50% of the people who have bought BG never got passed Chapter 2/3.

    Considering the number of replays and how rabid the fans of the game are, I think calculating an 'Average' play through at 100 hours across all players, is probably being quite conservative. Sure maybe only 10% play multiple times, but I'd say that within that 10%, you'd find a much higher play through time and multiple play throughs in the double digits easily. So considering averages, again 100 hours is probably light. so maybe 80% have a playthrough of 80 hours. The remaining players might have an average play through (all in) in the thousands. Net/net it is going to average above 100.
    Bigfish said:


    I'd say your wage calculation is a bit off. Median wage in the US is ~13$ an hour, and given that video games are a leisure activity, that should really cut that in half. That would shift your number down to 3.6$ billion. But that's not lost productivity, more just a general guideline for the private value of entertainment.

    Given that PC gaming is more an upper middle class past time anyway, I don't think you can start off with Median wage which includes low income numbers in it. Which isn't to say that low incomes don't play, merely that the bulk of players fall into the middle income and higher. Thus the 'Median' needs to be adjusted for a significant portion of the population having a higher average income.

    Then go with that the average PC gamer comes with a level of computer experience, that shifts the average IQ up a bit. Add to that RPG gamers and it goes up a bit more. considering that there is a direct correlation between IQ and wage, comparing to the "Median" wage makes even less sense. How about comparing to the median IT wage? Then you are talking closer to $50 or higher.

    Then add to the fact that fans of the game tend to be rabid fans, calling it Leisure time, and therefore less value add than work time seems a bit capricious. My free time is at a premium and I wouldn't under-cut it on my work time.
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