For me, the sweet spot of the power curve, where the interaction of PCs to monsters is both engaging and rewarding, is late BG and early BG2 - these are the parts of the game that are most fun to fly around fighting stuff and finding other creative uses of abilities. From that perspective, early BG2 is more accessible than late BG, stones to rate well.
BG2 also rounded out and completed the game mechanics in very satisfying ways. Character kits, weapon skills and styles, more magic to aspire to, keeps (which are a P&P reward too) etc. I believe Monks, Sorcerers and Half Orcs are added to the game at this point too?
The BG2 NPCs are the earliest gaming experience I remember with real characters. The BG2 area artwork is painted on a larger scale, captured at a higher resolution. The locations serve many purposes, rather than the mostly directionless wandering around BG1 sword coast.
And yet I really liked that freedom to wander. I prefer the green forests, and the little villages that populate BG1. For all everyone seems to rave about Irenicus as a villain, he left me cold, the weakest part of the game. Sarevok is a villain I relish taking down at the conclusion, every time. BG1 yields my favorite treasures with the stat tomes, that help me feel all godly.
With the EEs, the mechanical gap closes even more, although I do feel the kits are out of place without a rebalancing of the first game. On balance, I will still edge it to BG2 for just having the more rounded experience, but the most out-and-out fun, as I said, lies on the border between the two (although perhaps not right on the border, Chateau Irenicus does start to drag in the end).
I got the impression that BG1 was more popular because more people seemed to favor it in these discussions. When people would argue over whether BG1 or BG2 was the stronger game, more people would seem to favor the former.
In all honesty, your conclusion regarding the forum.baldursgate.com snapshot is somewhat flawed (I can't speak to Metcritic).
There was only the General Forum for a long time on this site. It wasn't until ~BG2EE (I can't remember the exact timing) was announced that the BGEE forum was created. A lot of the general forum posts pre-BG2EE were BGEE related, a fact which is not communicated by your screenshot.
That is true. Plus the BGEE mods vs BG2EE mods isn't also the most accurate thing given that the section wasn't made until a year after BGEE was released (prior to that it was just called "modding").
In all honesty, your conclusion regarding the forum.baldursgate.com snapshot is somewhat flawed (I can't speak to Metcritic).
I don't Like Metacritic's conduct very much myself.. There are too many corrupted reviewers giving 100/100 to shite-ly games and too many Bull-'carp' 45/100 reviews by a crappy 'critic' whom is just an attention 'Hoe'-'Ore' trying to generate traffic to their (usually crappy and or dying) website. So yes 'Metacritc sucks' -Hard and I use it as a 'tongue in cheek' review source and I rather look intently at the comments and I seek out the actual critics: mostly common people who actually play the 'damn game' vs. the [usually crappy over inflated 'pompous'] 'critics' whom just play a 15 minute beta demo and write a willfully ignorantly, community disservice of a down right Sh-'crappy' review acting like they played 100 hours of the game. I also look at other websites and review 'respectable' videos to gauge a game fully.
BG1 was the REASON I bought my first computer. I was PnP for years, (still have my games and books) and when I saw an advertisement for BG in a combo vhs rental and game rental store in 1997 I was floored. D&D on computer? Oh yes! Must have that! Bought a Dell Pentium 200 with 64 mb RAM the next day. Awaiting BGs' arrival, a friend put me on to Diablo. I went nutbar with that game. When BG came out though, I could tell my wishes had come true, REAL D&D on a computer! And I can play alone or with others every night, all night, fuck work, it's Baldur's Gate!!!! I was enraptured. Truth is, I still am.
When BG2 came out, I new we were in for something grand. I think every pnp geek on planet earth new we were in for something grand. The storyline was staggering, the scope enourmous, the inticacies of the fights mouth watering. It literally blew every concept and idea we had about putting a giganormous world at your fingertips to shreds. Was Bioware /Black Isle done? hell no they were just getting warmed up! Then came Icewind Dale, then Heart of Winter, still hungry? here is Trials of the LureMaster FOR FREE! Not enough? Then we are gonna blow your psyche, here's Planescape - be awed by our majesty. Hmm, still want more eh? Well here's Icewind Dale 2 you heathens!
I literally burned out two computers playing these games.
Is one better than the others? Who cares? To see hundreds if not thousands on a website discussing the intricacies of a resurrected 17 year old game is heartwarming ( and honestly, mind boggling). But we are the true devoted fans that will jump and scream SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY when we see such utter devotion by like minded individuals such as Overhaul and Beamdog for doing what we forever hoped.
I'm now playing BG on a bleeding edge computer on Win 7 Pro on a 24 inch monitor and it looks incredible.
For me, the sweet spot of the power curve, where the interaction of PCs to monsters is both engaging and rewarding, is late BG and early BG2 - these are the parts of the game that are most fun to fly around fighting stuff and finding other creative uses of abilities. From that perspective, early BG2 is more accessible than late BG, stones to rate well.
BG2 also rounded out and completed the game mechanics in very satisfying ways. Character kits, weapon skills and styles, more magic to aspire to, keeps (which are a P&P reward too) etc. I believe Monks, Sorcerers and Half Orcs are added to the game at this point too?
The BG2 NPCs are the earliest gaming experience I remember with real characters. The BG2 area artwork is painted on a larger scale, captured at a higher resolution. The locations serve many purposes, rather than the mostly directionless wandering around BG1 sword coast.
And yet I really liked that freedom to wander. I prefer the green forests, and the little villages that populate BG1. For all everyone seems to rave about Irenicus as a villain, he left me cold, the weakest part of the game. Sarevok is a villain I relish taking down at the conclusion, every time. BG1 yields my favorite treasures with the stat tomes, that help me feel all godly.
With the EEs, the mechanical gap closes even more, although I do feel the kits are out of place without a rebalancing of the first game. On balance, I will still edge it to BG2 for just having the more rounded experience, but the most out-and-out fun, as I said, lies on the border between the two (although perhaps not right on the border, Chateau Irenicus does start to drag in the end).
I like that Level 6 / 7 to Level 12 / 13 experience (also do most Pen and Paper player from what I gather) where your character has a mostly full fleshed ability set and there are more options in combat with them as a result. The all monsters (not just Liches dragons and god-mages) are still relevant (while not super-gear dependent) and all classes have a broad purpose in combat and the power curves are very close together. After which it evolves into a 'clash of the titans' with with oxymoron 'lowly guards' which are gear dependent +3 Weapons and +1 Full Platemail in front of 'super mages'; It makes one think why not just retire and start an adventuring / mercenary subcontracting business? Or start a Kingdom, build a town?
So can you 'lean in on this' @sharguild ? It sounds like you played 'your share' of the Pen and Paper Role Playing Game. What do you think of my points, what did I miss and what did you think was 'bang on'? Where are my errors and where are somethings that you agree on or maybe thought needed more work? I would love to hear your perceptive and to have your Pen and Paper knowledge brought to the 'table' (puns:-P).. I too have have an interesting experience myself with the Original Baldur's Gate: I literally learned how to read for Baldur's Gate.
This is going to ba a long post, so be warned. I have already stated my opinion about both games several times, but I like this thread, so I will try my best to tell my story with Baldur's Gate saga and the reasons, why I love the first game so much.
My road with the game was really bumpy, colorful and I think I made a full circle with it. I do not think I have spend as much time on any game to this day.
It all begun in 1998 when I was a 10 years old kid, who was really fascinated with video games. My journey with computer games so far was not as explored as I would like at that time. I did not own a computer back then, I only had a NES console, which I treated as a cool toy to play with friends and family. I also had Amiga with some good games, like Mortal Kombat II, but still gaming was not such a major part of my life.
My cousin started buying a computer magazine at that time, since he owned a computer. He would let me play some games that he had there e.g. Doom which I really liked and Supaplex, a really hard game, I have never finished it. In this magazine I read some of the software and hardware stuff, but I was mostly interested in the video games section, which was just a few pages per issue.
One of my best friends to this day, had a PC at that time, his older brother was mostly showing us games that he liked. The three games that I was fascinated with at that time were WarCraft II, Transport Tycoon and Anvil of Dawn. This was the point I started to treat games more seriously, I was hooked.
Another thing was that since I did not own a PC back then I was spending most of my time outside. Either with friends walking around and playing in woods, or alone exploring since I always liked the area where I am living (not a very large town lots of woods, lakes, small hills and rivers).
Finally back on the topic of Baldur's Gate. The newest issue of the computer magazine back then featured a new game that was coming out soon. The screenshots looked really promising, adventurers fighting in a forest (I always wanted to be such an adventurer as a kid) and the encounter with a strange, yellow lizard, with one of the characters having their portrait almost all covered in red. The last page was an ad with some armored guy's head and the big title: Baldur's Gate. I was amazed.
I wanted to know more about this game, when walking through the forests I imagined myself as the adventurer of that game. Some time has passed and during the Spring of 1999, my friend told me that his brother has got a brand new and awesome game. He told me it was similar to Diablo, but I did not know much about Diablo at that time (saw some screenshots here and there). He wanted me to come to his house to watch with him as his brother was playing this new game.
I could not believe what I saw, it was that great game from the magazine. It looked even better on the computer screen. I was totally blown away by it, I have never seen such a game before. The graphics of the environment, the music, the portraits, the character's voices (Polish voiceover is better than English imo) it was all just perfect. My friend's brother was inside the Nashkel Mines near the lava river, changing his party. I believe he was switching Jaheira for Branwen. I remember seeing the outside of Nashkel temple as well.
My hunger to play this game was even bigger and some time later my friend was playing the game himself, then he let me play it. I created my character (did not know what I was doing really) and walked around Candlekeep, learning the basics of the gameplay. I saw some NPCs while he was playing, he really liked Xan with his moonblade and so did I. Apart from him he had Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid and Kivan in his party. Later on he was using Gatekeeper when the enemies were too strong. I remember seeing parts of Cloakwood, Ankhegs and the areas of the first 2 chapters: from Candlekeep to Nashkel mines.
Year 2000 arrived and I finally got my first PC. I was suddenly ovewhelmed by the thought that I could play by myself the games I loved. At first I played some other games (WarCraft II and Crmageddon II mostly), since I did not have my copy of Baldur's Gate. I wanted to play it so bad and finally the day had come that I got my own copy of the game. I played it so much that most of the CDs had so many scratches, the game was crashing. My first character was a human chaotic evil (sounded awesome by the time, even though i was not playing as evil actually) cleric. I asked my friend many questions about the game and he said to me that cleric was basically fighter + mage and I thought it sounded awesome.
That char was of course terrible and I used the same party as my friend and found about other NPCs later as I was discovering the game. I remember going north from the Friendly Arm Inn and getting smashed by the Ankhegs, I was afraid of those guys for a long time. I stayed close to the main plot for the most part and in the Bandit Camp I permanently lost a party member and saved anyway, since I tried so many times to win the fight inside Tazok's tent. I asked my friend if there are some other NPCs to join and he recommended a paladin in the area with Ankhegs. I was scared to go there, but I got Ajantis and immediately liked him. My first playthrough ended on the second level of the Cloakwood Mines, where I was unable to beat Harieshan and her lightning bolt. After many tries I gave up.
This is how my journey with Baldur's Gate begun. I loved the outside calm areas, ther reminded me of my own journeys through the woods. The stone interface was simple and clear and fit the atmosphere, I really like the stuff lying in the menu screen (gold, weapons, helmet etc.). The game just looked simple and clear and reminded me of the first Lord of the Rings movie. Slow pace with great atmosphere. Later on I beat the game with my elven Fighter/Thief and more playthroughs came after that. Some months after that I got my copy of Tales of the Sword Coast and really liked the expansion pack overall, even though after finishing it for the first time I only liked the Isle of Balduran, since the rest was just a dungeon crawling.
Then I discovered Dark Side of the Sword Coast mod and the journey got a lot more colorful and bumpy. Some mods were really unstable and buggy, but I wanted more and more stuff put into the game. Finishing it whole would last for months, but it was fun nonetheless.
I do not remember the exact date (around 2004?) when my sister told me that her friend has Baldur's Gate II and I was shocked, beacuse I did not know that there was a sequel. I could not wait to play it and wanted to know more about it. She only told me that he did not like it as much as the first one, but I thought that it is impossible, a sequel to such a game cannot be bad. Later I got my own copy of BG2 and was really nervous when launching it for the first time, I wanted it to be such a great game as the first one, if not better.
The menu itself caught me by surprise, it had a very different feel to it. It was not a medieval fantasy of the frist game that I loved so much. It was weird and together with the music had a creepy atmoshpere. The art style was not my thing, but I had to give the game a chance, the menu cannot destroy the game for me. I created the character and I have found that I did not like how the weapons categories were split up to individual weapons. The cutscene with Irenicus played out and my thought was "Oh, in the first game the bad guy was a fighter, now it's time for a mage, I do not like mages.".
It actually was not the fact that Irenicus was a mage that took me back, but the fact that I already knew who the villain was. the magic of discovery suddenly disappeared. Then Imoen joined me and I thought that her portrait was terrible and ugly as the rest of those from BG2, why so many piercings and stuff in their hair? Even Keldorn's armor looked like a metal frisbee got stuck in his neck. I was getting more and move convinced that the artstyle was just ugly for me. It did not have the simplicity and clarity of the first game. The plate mail icon from BG2 will always be a turtle shell in my eyes and those silly paperdolls, just plain awful.
Anyhow I did not give up I was exploring the Irenicus's dungeon and I thought that it was not what I exactly imagined sequel to Baldur's Gate look like. I felt that I was playing a mix between a medieval fantasy with sci-fi with weird tubes and clones. The character animations were laughable as well, especially the streching and 2-handed sword knees-to-the-ground swing. I was in denial at first, I could not believe that this was how Baldur's Gate II looked. After many annoying parts I finally was able to exit the dungeon and got what I thought was just a middle finger from the game. Not the fact tha Irenicus took Imoen, or that I could not cast spells in the city, not even annoynig constant screaming from Minsc. It was the city itself. It was just plain ugly and illogical. I thought that the promenade is the worst looking location I have ever seen in a video game. Am I somewhere in Saudi Arabia? Where is the medieval city of Baldur's Gate?
I still gave the game a chance thinking it should get better later on, it is still a Baldur's Gate game. I do not like the games that start you off inside the big city, immediately I get lost and discouraged (Neverwinter Nights still not finished to this day). One thing that I really disliked about Athkatla is that how fake it feels. Almost every building is connect to some kind of quest. This is not a city, it is a quest-web and I felt like people were almost running at me and slaming their quests into my face. Talk about freedom. My first playthrough ended on the Graveyard District, where I saw a giant mural of a Pharaoh on the floor. This was too much for me, the scenery and atmosphere of the game was just not my thing and I did not care for Irenicus and Imoen, so I had no reason to continue.
To me this was not a game worthy of name Baldur's Gate, but some years later I forced myself to finish it with the hack'n'slash expansion, just so I can say my full opinion about it. So, other things I did not like about the game: They killed off my favourite characters from the first game - Montaron, Xzar and Ajantis. NPCs may be batter developed, but did not like most of them, especially constantly screaming Minsc, captain "I wanna be cool brute" obvious Korgan and walking cominc relief Jan Jansen. This left me with not so many NPCs to choose. Another point is magic items, in BG2 they do not feel magical as in "unique", they just have bigger + number. My favourite weapon is flail and I use it quite often even though there is only +1 in BG1.
When playing Baldur's Gate I felt like at home, but BG2 did not felt this way at all. There were almost no calm and beautiful woods to wander, just dungeon after dungeon. I did not like the bias towards magic especially with liches and dragons. The spell chess game got boring pretty fast. I did not feel that the spells were more powerful than the first game, they just had bigger numbers and so did the defensive spells. In the first game one spell could turn the situation around. I do not like dragons in fantasy, I think it just screams "lazy", there are more interesting creatures.
I never liked Irenicus as a villain and even more after I have discovered his motives. He is not a troubled soul, he is an emo kid with ego as big as 20 dragons. The whole game is just not my thing I guess, it was one of the biggest disappointments I had. After finishing it I do not want to play it again, Inifnity Animations gives me hope as it can restore BG1 character animations, this is also the reason why I stopped playing BG:EE and returned to the classic BG.
Now after so many years I still play Baldur's Gate from time to time, not as often as then I was a teenager, but I like going back to it a bit differently. Currently I have installed vanilla Baldur's Gate without TotSC with Baldurdash fixes and a little tweaks - max hp per level and no wear limitations (I could not go back to the restriction after playing pen and paper D&D) and that is all. Playing just like in the old days and having no problem with 64bit windows 7 and black bars to the sides on my monitor. I use normal dice to roll my character, with no overpowered stats and roll for random race/class/alignment/skills/NPCs. This keeps the game fresh after playing so much.
So, this is my story with Baldur's Gate and where my dislike for the sequel came from. This is quite an enormous post, but I have posted several times about my opinion about both games and did not want to repeat myself, now I can just post a link to this post. I think I might have omitted some of the points about both games, my memory may have failed me. I will not try to defend BG1 over BG2, each of us has different story with both games and likes both, just one, or none of them. Anyway, grab a drink, or something to eat and enjoy this long post and have a nice day.
@Tuth, great post! I love reading about other people's "first time" experiences.
I had very similar reactions to yours the first time I played Shadows of Amn, about the darker tone, the uglier portraits, the art, and pretty much everything you mention. In my case, though, it did grow on me, and I came to like it, though never as much as I like Baldur's Gate 1.
It was a lot like my experience with Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. I didn't like Empire that much the first time I saw it, because the tone was so much darker, and the characters were split up from each other, and I hated seeing them get tortured and beat up and frozen in carbonite and all that awful stuff. (I was 12 for New Hope and 14 for Empire). But, on second and third viewings, I started to love Empire as much as every other fan, and to appreciate the intense character development and drama. It was never my favorite Star Wars movie, but I could see why so many fans named it as theirs.
Later, as an adult, I studied Joseph Campbell and "The Hero's Journey", and realized that the structure of Star Wars (and to some extent, the Baldur's Gate trilogy), follows a very specific progression of archetypes that must be present in order for a story to reach the status of myth and become part of a culture's collective consciousness. Then, I could *really* appreciate epic trilogies like Star Wars and Baldur's Gate.
As for Throne of Bhaal, I tried to get into it, but I didn't like it enough to finish it. Epic level D&D play just isn't my thing, and I almost always lose interest in any game as soon as I get to such high level that it feels like there's no more character progression or world exploration left, and nothing else to do but to just slog through battle after battle against godlike epic level enemies until *finally* getting to the end. Bleagh.
I did finish Throne of Bhaal one time, a few summers ago. So, I've only ever fought the final battle of that game one time. I didn't find it fun or exciting at all. I found it tedious and nerve-wracking. I play to relax, not to get an adrenaline rush.
(I just abandoned an Icewind Dale run in Trials of the Luremaster when it started to feel like Throne of Bhaal - no fun for me, and I probably won't play TotL again. I should have finished my Dale run and been done with it. I *hate* scenarios that trap you there, like forever, until you finish its 1001 tedious battles and dungeon levels.)
So, I still play both Baldur's Gate and Shadows of Amn with great regularity, even after all these years, but I spend way more time with Baldur's Gate 1, and I rarely start and even more rarely finish an SoA game before losing interest. BG1 is absolutely my favorite of the series.
@Tuth: "Am I somewhere in Saudi Arabia? Where is the medieval city of Baldur's Gate?"
I see what you mean. Try playing TOB; the characters in Amkethran actually have non-European names. What is this, the Middle East? It's not fantasy if it's set in Calimshan!
In all seriousness, I'm actually quite pleased with the environment of BG2. Not every fantasy story has to be set in a temperate forest with Western European people and customs. That's why people created Calimshan, Kara-tur, and Maztica--to have additional options. I and many others are actually very interested in non-stereotypical fantasy settings. We do not consider it a weakness or a source of confusion that Waukeen's Promenade has dome-shaped structures, just because the Islamic world had more of them than Europe.
I came to Baldur's Gate after playing Morrowind, a game widely known for its great depth and color, and the setting was decidedly not based on medieval Europe (medieval does not mean European, incidentally). After playing Morrowind, Baldur's Gate seemed terribly generic. But then, BG1 was a game of a different time, and I don't consider it a lower-quality game just because of its setting... as you seem to feel about BG2, whose setting is closer to Calimshan.
Saudi Arabia might be a backward country by modern political standards, but there's nothing wrong with playing a game whose setting is inspired by medieval Saudi Arabia. I don't know why you express such surprise by the Promenade's non-European architecture.
@BelgarathMTH That is an excellent comparison and I felt similarly with the Empire Strikes Back and it grew on me as my favourite. Though BG2 did not, I might give it another try. It is not a bad game by any means, it is just not as good as BG1 in my eyes. Apart from the artstyle, I could not invest myself into the story. I like more complex and darker stories, so BG2 should work for me more than simpler BG1 plot. Yet somehow it is the other way round.
Thinking about it, maybe after a such long time I might like it and try seeing it in another light. I think I would appreciate it if it was just a different game, not a sequel to Baldur's Gate. It is the whole reason, why it is not working for me.
Throne of Bhaal was just a busy work to do, I was glad that there was no Irenicus at least. The final battle was trying so hard to be epic, but it took way too long. The godlike levels and the magic equipement was silly, I imagined how it would felt to be there as a level 1 character. Overall The expansion did not bother me as much, it was meh.
I do not like Icewind Dale series as much, it always felt like a huge level grinding and tedious dungeons with like 5 levels. It is great for multiplayer though and I enjoyed the game much more that way.
@semiticgod It is not the setting itself that bothered me, it is the huge differential gap between the two games. It was my expectatins that ruined the experience for me, rather than just the game itself. I have nothing against the Saudi Arabia scenery, I just was not ready for playing a Baldur's Gate game in it.
I love Planescape: Torment as much as BG1 and it has really strange and unusual artstyle, but I knew it would be that way. I can appreciate different styles, not just the European one. I grew too close to BG1 and its setting and felt discontinuity after the change in BG2.
In the same way I would not expect a second book in a series, like Lord of the Rings to drastically change the setting. I know that Forgotten Realms has a wide variety of styles, but maybe it is the lack of transition between the two games that soon should will be filled.
It is time to find out whether BG2 will be better if I will give it one more chance. I know it will not be as good as BG1, but maybe it will not bother me as much anymore.
It depends. I just love love love the story of both games, but I lose interest in the mechanics after level 14 or so. Levels 5-14 are the sweet spot IMO. On the other hand, I do miss the interactions when playing BGEE. But this is easily alleviated with the BG1NPC Project, a mod that I personally feel puts the first game over the top. But only by a hair. Just don't ask me about ToB
This is going to ba a long post, so be warned. I have already stated my opinion about both games several times, but I like this thread, so I will try my best to tell my story with Baldur's Gate saga and the reasons, why I love the first game so much.
My road with the game was really bumpy, colorful and I think I made a full circle with it. I do not think I have spend as much time on any game to this day.
It all begun in 1998 when I was a 10 years old kid, who was really fascinated with video games. My journey with computer games so far was not as explored as I would like at that time. I did not own a computer back then, I only had a NES console, which I treated as a cool toy to play with friends and family. I also had Amiga with some good games, like Mortal Kombat II, but still gaming was not such a major part of my life.
My cousin started buying a computer magazine at that time, since he owned a computer. He would let me play some games that he had there e.g. Doom which I really liked and Supaplex, a really hard game, I have never finished it. In this magazine I read some of the software and hardware stuff, but I was mostly interested in the video games section, which was just a few pages per issue.
One of my best friends to this day, had a PC at that time, his older brother was mostly showing us games that he liked. The three games that I was fascinated with at that time were WarCraft II, Transport Tycoon and Anvil of Dawn. This was the point I started to treat games more seriously, I was hooked.
Another thing was that since I did not own a PC back then I was spending most of my time outside. Either with friends walking around and playing in woods, or alone exploring since I always liked the area where I am living (not a very large town lots of woods, lakes, small hills and rivers).
Finally back on the topic of Baldur's Gate. The newest issue of the computer magazine back then featured a new game that was coming out soon. The screenshots looked really promising, adventurers fighting in a forest (I always wanted to be such an adventurer as a kid) and the encounter with a strange, yellow lizard, with one of the characters having their portrait almost all covered in red. The last page was an ad with some armored guy's head and the big title: Baldur's Gate. I was amazed.
I wanted to know more about this game, when walking through the forests I imagined myself as the adventurer of that game. Some time has passed and during the Spring of 1999, my friend told me that his brother has got a brand new and awesome game. He told me it was similar to Diablo, but I did not know much about Diablo at that time (saw some screenshots here and there). He wanted me to come to his house to watch with him as his brother was playing this new game.
I could not believe what I saw, it was that great game from the magazine. It looked even better on the computer screen. I was totally blown away by it, I have never seen such a game before. The graphics of the environment, the music, the portraits, the character's voices (Polish voiceover is better than English imo) it was all just perfect. My friend's brother was inside the Nashkel Mines near the lava river, changing his party. I believe he was switching Jaheira for Branwen. I remember seeing the outside of Nashkel temple as well.
My hunger to play this game was even bigger and some time later my friend was playing the game himself, then he let me play it. I created my character (did not know what I was doing really) and walked around Candlekeep, learning the basics of the gameplay. I saw some NPCs while he was playing, he really liked Xan with his moonblade and so did I. Apart from him he had Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid and Kivan in his party. Later on he was using Gatekeeper when the enemies were too strong. I remember seeing parts of Cloakwood, Ankhegs and the areas of the first 2 chapters: from Candlekeep to Nashkel mines.
Year 2000 arrived and I finally got my first PC. I was suddenly ovewhelmed by the thought that I could play by myself the games I loved. At first I played some other games (WarCraft II and Crmageddon II mostly), since I did not have my copy of Baldur's Gate. I wanted to play it so bad and finally the day had come that I got my own copy of the game. I played it so much that most of the CDs had so many scratches, the game was crashing. My first character was a human chaotic evil (sounded awesome by the time, even though i was not playing as evil actually) cleric. I asked my friend many questions about the game and he said to me that cleric was basically fighter + mage and I thought it sounded awesome.
That char was of course terrible and I used the same party as my friend and found about other NPCs later as I was discovering the game. I remember going north from the Friendly Arm Inn and getting smashed by the Ankhegs, I was afraid of those guys for a long time. I stayed close to the main plot for the most part and in the Bandit Camp I permanently lost a party member and saved anyway, since I tried so many times to win the fight inside Tazok's tent. I asked my friend if there are some other NPCs to join and he recommended a paladin in the area with Ankhegs. I was scared to go there, but I got Ajantis and immediately liked him. My first playthrough ended on the second level of the Cloakwood Mines, where I was unable to beat Harieshan and her lightning bolt. After many tries I gave up.
This is how my journey with Baldur's Gate begun. I loved the outside calm areas, ther reminded me of my own journeys through the woods. The stone interface was simple and clear and fit the atmosphere, I really like the stuff lying in the menu screen (gold, weapons, helmet etc.). The game just looked simple and clear and reminded me of the first Lord of the Rings movie. Slow pace with great atmosphere. Later on I beat the game with my elven Fighter/Thief and more playthroughs came after that. Some months after that I got my copy of Tales of the Sword Coast and really liked the expansion pack overall, even though after finishing it for the first time I only liked the Isle of Balduran, since the rest was just a dungeon crawling.
Then I discovered Dark Side of the Sword Coast mod and the journey got a lot more colorful and bumpy. Some mods were really unstable and buggy, but I wanted more and more stuff put into the game. Finishing it whole would last for months, but it was fun nonetheless.
I do not remember the exact date (around 2004?) when my sister told me that her friend has Baldur's Gate II and I was shocked, beacuse I did not know that there was a sequel. I could not wait to play it and wanted to know more about it. She only told me that he did not like it as much as the first one, but I thought that it is impossible, a sequel to such a game cannot be bad. Later I got my own copy of BG2 and was really nervous when launching it for the first time, I wanted it to be such a great game as the first one, if not better.
The menu itself caught me by surprise, it had a very different feel to it. It was not a medieval fantasy of the frist game that I loved so much. It was weird and together with the music had a creepy atmoshpere. The art style was not my thing, but I had to give the game a chance, the menu cannot destroy the game for me. I created the character and I have found that I did not like how the weapons categories were split up to individual weapons. The cutscene with Irenicus played out and my thought was "Oh, in the first game the bad guy was a fighter, now it's time for a mage, I do not like mages.".
It actually was not the fact that Irenicus was a mage that took me back, but the fact that I already knew who the villain was. the magic of discovery suddenly disappeared. Then Imoen joined me and I thought that her portrait was terrible and ugly as the rest of those from BG2, why so many piercings and stuff in their hair? Even Keldorn's armor looked like a metal frisbee got stuck in his neck. I was getting more and move convinced that the artstyle was just ugly for me. It did not have the simplicity and clarity of the first game. The plate mail icon from BG2 will always be a turtle shell in my eyes and those silly paperdolls, just plain awful.
Anyhow I did not give up I was exploring the Irenicus's dungeon and I thought that it was not what I exactly imagined sequel to Baldur's Gate look like. I felt that I was playing a mix between a medieval fantasy with sci-fi with weird tubes and clones. The character animations were laughable as well, especially the streching and 2-handed sword knees-to-the-ground swing. I was in denial at first, I could not believe that this was how Baldur's Gate II looked. After many annoying parts I finally was able to exit the dungeon and got what I thought was just a middle finger from the game. Not the fact tha Irenicus took Imoen, or that I could not cast spells in the city, not even annoynig constant screaming from Minsc. It was the city itself. It was just plain ugly and illogical. I thought that the promenade is the worst looking location I have ever seen in a video game. Am I somewhere in Saudi Arabia? Where is the medieval city of Baldur's Gate?
I still gave the game a chance thinking it should get better later on, it is still a Baldur's Gate game. I do not like the games that start you off inside the big city, immediately I get lost and discouraged (Neverwinter Nights still not finished to this day). One thing that I really disliked about Athkatla is that how fake it feels. Almost every building is connect to some kind of quest. This is not a city, it is a quest-web and I felt like people were almost running at me and slaming their quests into my face. Talk about freedom. My first playthrough ended on the Graveyard District, where I saw a giant mural of a Pharaoh on the floor. This was too much for me, the scenery and atmosphere of the game was just not my thing and I did not care for Irenicus and Imoen, so I had no reason to continue.
To me this was not a game worthy of name Baldur's Gate, but some years later I forced myself to finish it with the hack'n'slash expansion, just so I can say my full opinion about it. So, other things I did not like about the game: They killed off my favourite characters from the first game - Montaron, Xzar and Ajantis. NPCs may be batter developed, but did not like most of them, especially constantly screaming Minsc, captain "I wanna be cool brute" obvious Korgan and walking cominc relief Jan Jansen. This left me with not so many NPCs to choose. Another point is magic items, in BG2 they do not feel magical as in "unique", they just have bigger + number. My favourite weapon is flail and I use it quite often even though there is only +1 in BG1.
When playing Baldur's Gate I felt like at home, but BG2 did not felt this way at all. There were almost no calm and beautiful woods to wander, just dungeon after dungeon. I did not like the bias towards magic especially with liches and dragons. The spell chess game got boring pretty fast. I did not feel that the spells were more powerful than the first game, they just had bigger numbers and so did the defensive spells. In the first game one spell could turn the situation around. I do not like dragons in fantasy, I think it just screams "lazy", there are more interesting creatures.
I never liked Irenicus as a villain and even more after I have discovered his motives. He is not a troubled soul, he is an emo kid with ego as big as 20 dragons. The whole game is just not my thing I guess, it was one of the biggest disappointments I had. After finishing it I do not want to play it again, Inifnity Animations gives me hope as it can restore BG1 character animations, this is also the reason why I stopped playing BG:EE and returned to the classic BG.
Now after so many years I still play Baldur's Gate from time to time, not as often as then I was a teenager, but I like going back to it a bit differently. Currently I have installed vanilla Baldur's Gate without TotSC with Baldurdash fixes and a little tweaks - max hp per level and no wear limitations (I could not go back to the restriction after playing pen and paper D&D) and that is all. Playing just like in the old days and having no problem with 64bit windows 7 and black bars to the sides on my monitor. I use normal dice to roll my character, with no overpowered stats and roll for random race/class/alignment/skills/NPCs. This keeps the game fresh after playing so much.
So, this is my story with Baldur's Gate and where my dislike for the sequel came from. This is quite an enormous post, but I have posted several times about my opinion about both games and did not want to repeat myself, now I can just post a link to this post. I think I might have omitted some of the points about both games, my memory may have failed me. I will not try to defend BG1 over BG2, each of us has different story with both games and likes both, just one, or none of them. Anyway, grab a drink, or something to eat and enjoy this long post and have a nice day.
"My only regret is that I have but one 'like' to give for this post."
I'm very thankful that you did take the (quite a bit of) time to post this, because you've articulated some of the things that I've had trouble putting into words in the past.
I especially like the part about the "fake" feel of Athkatla. I remember during my very first playthrough of BG2, looking over Athkatla and thinking that it was a vast improvement over Baldur's city; but once I had explored it, I realized that it was very shallow, even somewhat lazy beneath the surface. As you said, every structure in the city is quest-oriented - be it a temple, a store, or a place that's directly tied to a quest. By contrast, BG1 cities like Baldur's and Beregost are interspersed with simple townsfolk's houses that have no direct ties to any quests, which gives the game a more immersive/"open world"-type feel. In fact, most of the shops in Waukeen's gives you a message that says, "This place has nothing of real value," and then won't even let you enter - that's some very rushed and/or lazy game-design IMO. I know that there are people who enjoy the more direct, streamlined approach of BG2 and they will likely approve of the removal of "superfluous" houses; but I would've preferred that BG2 stayed more true to the style of its predecessor and retained more of the core RP aspects of the game to which it sequeled.
Like you, I also hate the artwork in BG2, although I was willing to look past it if the game had been more fundamentally to my liking.
Like you, I also don't like dragons as enemies, or even monsters in general for that matter. BG1 had a whole slew of very memorable and colorful enemies - i.e: the seductive bard Silke, the fiendish assassin Nimbul, the deeply deranged Bassilus, the murderous, yet redeemable Brage, Zal, "the fastest dart thrower in the west," etc. By contrast, the standout enemies in BG2 are often things like dragons, "troll kings," "shade lords," "demogorgons," liches/demiliches, beholders, etc. - in other words, creatures that are certainly more elaborate on the surface, but lack an identifiable personality or persona, which actually makes them less memorable/iconic than BG1 enemies IMO.
And like you, I also hate the "magical chess match" combat style of BG2. I suppose that its makers thought that by restricting the variety of strategies that could win battles, it would make those battles more challenging; in actuality, it often makes them more boring and repetitive as you stated, because every battle becomes either impossibly hard (until you've found the "correct" strategy) or ridiculously easy (once you do). Trying to make the game more challenging also undermines the RP aspect of the game, since it gives you less freedom to choose character classes and party compositions based on your own personal preferences.
On the whole, I would say that my general problem with BG2 is that it emphasizes novelty and shock value over depth. For example, the first time that I ever stepped into the Circus Tent in Waukeen's, I exclaimed, "Holy crap, where am I???"; but underneath the initial novelty, the quest just feels like a lineal, repetitive routine that I have to go through every time that I've finally escaped Irenicus' dungeon. I also have mixed feelings about Irenicus as a villain - although I do enjoy David Warner's voice acting, I feel that the game just tries way too hard to portray him as the epitome of evil (i.e: giving vague, quasi-philosophical speeches about "seeing through the pain," or Imoen repeatedly telling you flat out, "This guy is sooooo evil" during the escape from his dungeon). One of my favorite aspects of BG1 is feeling the hatred for Sarevok build subtly and gradually over the course of the game, until it finally explodes in the final confrontation; by contrast, BG2 basically gets in your face and instructs you right from the beginning that you have to hate Irenicus. His "master plan" is also extremely convoluted and results in plotholes and conflicts with the storyline of the original game - it's as if the makers devised the characters and scenarios of BG2 first, and then tried to weave a storyline through it.
And like you, I also enjoy just sitting back and appreciating the lush green landscapes and chirping bird sound effects of the wooded areas of BG1.
I'm curious because despite how much I love the game, I find the ending to BG1 to be among the worst I've ever played. If you happen to find Sarevok to be the biggest threat in the fight (I know I do) and take him out first, the battle is inexplicably and abruptly ended. It remains very jarring to this day to me. After that a very strange, anticlimactic cut scene takes place and you are kicked back to the main menu??? The endings to SoA and ToB are FAR better imo and am curious to hear your thoughts.
Also, I find the enemies far more interesting and iconic in BG2, but that is a matter of opinion. For example, and since you mentioned it, the demogorgon encounter has a moral complexity that BG1 never comes close to approximating.
Finally, I find that BG1 is in fact more limiting in the classes that are successful, especially in the beginning. By the time you reach higher levels, every class is feasible, not the other way around.
I enjoy reading everyone's opinions here and have found them insightful and, even if I don't agree with all of them, I am thankful to you all for sharing such thoughtful posts.
I agree with you on the ending.. I have the same problem with the expansion pack and the conclusion of Durlags Tower and dealing with Aec'Letec. It was a challenging, strenuous and fun battle for sure, but I didn't really feel anything after I was done talking to the dwarf.
I'm curious because despite how much I love the game, I find the ending to BG1 to be among the worst I've ever played. If you happen to find Sarevok to be the biggest threat in the fight (I know I do) and take him out first, the battle is inexplicably and abruptly ended. It remains very jarring to this day to me. After that a very strange, anticlimactic cut scene takes place and you are kicked back to the main menu???
As much as I adore BG1, I won't pretend that it's perfect. The manner in which the game ends so abruptly, without any explanation as to what the future holds for you and your newly-acquired powers, is one of the standout weaknesses of the game IMO.
The endings to SoA and ToB are FAR better imo and am curious to hear your thoughts.
SoA ends with a cliffhanger that implies that there will be a coming showdown between you and the Cowld Wizards, which is then completely ignored in ToB, which seemed to be thrown together hastily to give an ending to the saga before Black Isle disbanded.
ToB gives the most fleshed-out ending of the three, but by that time the game had departed so far from both the style and storyline of the original game that I really didn't care that much anymore.
Finally, I find that BG1 is in fact more limiting in the classes that are successful, especially in the beginning. By the time you reach higher levels, every class is feasible, not the other way around.
BG1 can be difficult for virtually any class at the starting level(s), but IMO, all classes come to improve and distinguish themselves at fairly equal rates over the course of the game. The only possible exception is the monk IMO, and that's a class that was specifically designed for BG2.
By contrast, single class thieves are badly nerfed in BG2, and will often feel like dead weight outside of the isolated moments when you need a trap disarmed or a lock picked. In BG1, thieves like Imoen, Alora, and even Skie can still distinguish themselves as decent backup archers.
I've found equal success at BG1 using completely contrasting combat styles - sometimes playing as a ranged/sharpshooting party augmented by invoker (fireball, cloudkill) spells, other times playing as a melee-oriented party backed up by sleep/command spells. Neither of these approaches are particularly effective for much of BG2, because both missile/piercing weapons and many lower-level spells are badly nerfed in BG2.
Single-classed thieves are terribly weak if you don't manage them. I used to just have my thieves equip the Tuigan Bow and spend every battle firing arrows. But if you make the most of their abilities, they're absolutely murderous. Their backstabs can be instant kills on many enemies, and they get a +4 THAC0 bonus when attacking from invisibility or when hidden. The damage multiplication and THAC0 bonus make a thief nearly as good as a fighter in combat. With Belm and proper maneuvering, you can backstab twice per round, without even needing Haste.
Traps also add a lot to battles, and not just by laying down 7 traps where a Lich is about to spawn. A single extra trap can cut short an enemy's life by a round or two, and on higher levels the traps do lingering damage that can continually interrupt spells. Plus, pickpocket can add many nice resources to the party overall, disarming traps and lockpicking add to party XP, and Detect Illusions can obviate the need for True Seeing.
The overpowered thief HLAs are well-known, but I don't think it's much appreciated how useful thieves are in the early- and midgame as well.
One thing I always found weird is this item appearing in BG2 http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Harbringer in the underdark of all places. There are probably several items you can say that about, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb. At least to me.
I always thought this item seemed perfect for BG1..Although one might say it's too powerful for BG1, it would have certainly been fun imo.
One thing I always found weird is this item appearing in BG2 http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Harbringer in the underdark of all places. There are probably several items you can say that about, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb. At least to me.
I always thought this item seemed perfect for BG1..Although one might say it's too powerful for BG1, it would have certainly been fun imo.
Hey.. I'm working on Baldur's Gate II items for the Orginal Baldur's Gate Standard (No crappy blurry paint 'rush' jobs, all 3D modeled and practical in real life combat).
Current 'Finished' Armour From Baldur's Gate II roughly concieved / prototyped / 'alpha-ed' for the Original Baldur's Gate.
I recommend everyone to watch this video, the designers are trying to hard to create "unique" feel to thier games. So much stuff pointing out of the weapons is just distracting and not fun.
One thing I wanted to add to my rant about BG2 is my problem with romances. I never liked them. In fact, I finished the game without romanceable NPCs. To me it felt forced and unecessary and I am glad there will be no romances in Pillars of Eternity. Maybe it is just me, but when I think about adventure I do not associate it with flirting, relationships etc.
I used to joke about mods that added NPCs and of course they have to be romanceable, are gamers that horny these days? Having all party able to romance, I can just imagine the sexual tensions within the group. To me a romance does not make a character interesting. I want to like NPCs, not get turned on by them.
Again, example from Lord of the Rings. The popular joke is that Frodo and Sam had something going on between them. Whereas Tolkien wanted to show the power of friendship. It may be the fault of the movie adaptation, I personally would not think for a second that there could be a romance between the two hobbits.
Planescape: Torment did it so much better with Anna and Fall-from-Grace. The first one had a very subtle romance and the second was an example of a strong friendship. Fall-from-Grace even tells that she will find The Nameless One no matter what and I do not think she meant to confess her love to him by that. I know that there were complains about Anna and that her romance was "just a kiss". Well, that was enough for me. Paradoxically, I felt the stronger bond that way.
Morte's story has more impact in my eyes than both females in Planescape: Torment. I love Anna and Fall-from-Grace as much as any other NPC in this game (pun intended). So, romances are a kind of big "no no" for me in games, I can give a pass to subtle ones. I will however, try to avoid romanceable NPCs.
I always try to look at BG1 and BG2 as at one long and exciting game, starting from Candlekeep and going into ToB.
Yes, I like the feeling I get at the first levels, when every other encounter with a pack of wolves can end your run. I like the feeling I get when I think about characters' development: which proficiencies should I take, which companions should I choose, in which order should I explore locations and complete quests.
But in the same time I like the feeling I get when I have to think about breaking enemy mages's defences. I like the feeling I get when Cromwell makes those artifacts for me. I like the feeling I get when going through Jaheira's romance and watch her changing.
I'm just so glad we can play both games so that the journey of Charname takes not 100+ hours but 200+ (and even more) of play.
Whilst there have been threads like this before, this one has really got me thinking about the 'how and the why' of our development as players - given that as we gain experience with each playthrough we hone our tactics and strategies just as our characters become more proficient in their skills and find their own optimum roles.
With that in mind, I have become more of a role player (due very much I think to the lack of a DM to instil vibrancy into the game) so it is important for me to be able to take ownership of the character and put his 'head' on when I sit down to play a session. For this reason I only play BG2 with characters that I've imported from BG1 - and therein lies the rub:
For obvious commercial reasons BG2 has to be a stand alone game that can be (and often is) played without having played BG1 first, yet it is also trying to be a sequel and this where I think it falls between two stools. I think the transition between the two games hasn't been handled as well as it could have been for existing players and that is why we talk about them as two different games rather than one long saga.
When TotSC came out as an expansion pack you had the option to import your entire party from BG1 and then return to Baldur's Gate for a much tougher (retrofitted) final battle. With the situation we have now, in BG2 you are not only forced to start the game with NPCs that quite possibly weren't in your BG1 party but you can also meet NPCs that died in BG1! Also, I don't like the feeling of being sent back to kindergarten every time I start BG2 - how did my very experienced BG1 veteran manage to do something so monumentally stupid as to get imprisoned with no apparent reason or warning?
For me the whole discussion about which game is better is in itself a problem. If the start of BG2 had been thought through more thoroughly and written differently this question wouldn't keep on cropping up.
Hmmn, *A long minute of Silence* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You know I was going to say something rather mundane as to respond to @dunbar and @bengoshi 's 'brother from another mother' thread 'point out', but I just don't feel like it. I feel as to do something more in depth. I want to tell a story that is somewhat more of a 'release of emotion' than a reply and or a 'related statement'. *Eh hem -clears throat* ("One who clears throat".. what a name that would be.. anyway)
You know, I never really liked being poor in spirit. I never really understood why hardship can be a good thing when I was very, very young. I never really fancied myself as a person to stay in place and stop 'moving on' both in mind and location; and I have 'mostly' lived my short life as such - always progressing within hardship.
I have always known that I and many others can do amazing things and feats of accomplishment that no 'absurd' science fiction story nor wildest fever-dream could concoct nor match in protest. Although sadly many of the people who could change our imaginative landscapes within our lives never do. We give up and stop fighting. We mostly give in to the obstacles of pain and failure and begrudgingly and numbly accept the world as a place to live, to simply exist and not to thrive within, engaging in all of our combined senses; we are mostly gray and struggle within silence.
I once found that pain was something to be.. Always destructive; until I listened to the flowers that grew from within my own scared mental landscape. I looked around and found many people around myself living within a haze of blank emotions and a rut of human abstinence of existence; missing of true feeling and not hitting one's emotional boundaries. I realized that growing within life is not living comfortably nor always feeling successful. No, only arrogance can and will eventually come from those continued emotions for one never feels defeat and with it humility and humblity.
You see a hero or a regular human being or even a general character is not judged based on their successes after successes but rather their ability to deal and choose their path based on how they cope, deal and create success from debilitating failure; failure of peace, harmony and or freedom of themselves and perhaps others.
The sheer amount of energy of prevalent Pain and Suffering can either destroy you as a being or one can 'Pull a Yoda' and absorb and re-channel the 'negative force lightning' for the mediums and intentions of good. Unfortunately the people whom seem to create the best tales of adversity, adventure and overcoming huge epic obstacles are the people whom have or currently face adversity with or within their past of present lives. Although that is just it: progression and advancement comes from adversity. Although for most 'Could be William Shakespeares' of a field never get to accomplish their potential for they become scared and or mundane and or are too 'emotionally broken inside' to pursue their dreams; content on living a mostly trivial, un-influential, comfortable, and numbingly mundane life with no fight to grasp at their dreams nor willingness to face and overcome devastating hardships.
You see I know what I want to do and I have faced much pain and hardship in my life where others have not. I feel that If I live I will still be pursuing my dreams for I know how important it is to 'live life for dreams', and not 'the dream of living life'. I have hit 'absolute rock bottom' before and have had my 'close circle' crumble and implode around myself; "but I kept writing the next cipher". I was broken emotionally from emotional trauma and a slave to many burdens emotional and physical; but I did not break where many do and or did before. I believed in myself and 'stuck around above ground' where ours now fertilize the 'daisy mound'.
You see all of these / those 'doubts' of never being able to do the things that you want to do within your very, very, very short and delicate life are no more than challenges waiting to be just that: Challenged. You know, have you ever been in a competition where you know you will lose but try anyway? Death, we all die in some shape or another and I feel the importance of life from that very graphic realization: Life is here, thus LIVE IT. In the last glimpse of your life, what are the things that you do not want to regret never having done when you could have or would have done if you just tried a bit harder?
I want to die feeling accomplished and even exhausted from living my life to the fullest rather than feeling that deep down I lived comfortably when I and many others could have thrived. I do not want to live by the 'idea of action' nor by toothless words, hopes, dreams and love. I want to never regret believing in myself enough to fight, not compromise and to progressively evolve myself and others for my dreams and theirs, win or lose; do you not agree?
It's tough to choose. I do enjoy the low levels and all the roaming about finding adventure in BG1, as opposed to it coming to you most of the time in BG2. OTOH, BG2 does have better and more fleshed out characters. By the end of SoA I do start to feel a little bored - I think that's because it starts to be all about the main plot, which is the least interesting and original part of the game. And then ToB always feels just a little rushed.
If I could, what I would do is just add several new areas to explore in BG2. Like TotSC, you would just find new areas, characters and quests which don't really impact the rest of the game at all, except in terms of items and experience.
"- You weren't around for Baldur's Gate 1, but since you worked on the sequel, you must have been familiar with it. BG1 was structurally a very different game from its sequel, with its wide open wilderness areas, its very large number of "disposable" companion NPCs, and a relatively low key, non-"epic" plot involving a mercantile crisis and regional politics. It was old-fashioned - some would say a bit similar to SSI's Gold Box games, which were the original inspiration for the Baldur's Gate series.
Brent Knowles: I think some of Baldur's Gate simplicity simply manifested from necessity. Those first few handfuls of employees at BioWare were brand new to the industry. They were learning as they were going, and the engine was being built, as design content was being created. So they probably tried to be as conservative as feasible.
The SSI Gold Box games probably did have some influence, but I think the team had concrete ideas of where they wanted to take things and this paired with the realities of their working situation, made a perfect storm of sorts. They needed disposable companions because that's all that could really be made in the time frame. A low key plot was the plot that they could build, given their resources. And so on.
Baldur's Gate 2 was much closer to the game they had originally set out to make, I think.
- Anyway, in Baldur's Gate 2, things changed. The open wilderness was replaced with dense city hubs, the companions became fewer and more detailed, and the plot began to take on a more familiar BioWarian "Chosen One" motif, becoming at once both more personal and more epic. This design trend would continue for the rest of the company's existence (although BioWare now seems intent on reversing it with regard to area design, as seen in Dragon Age: Inquisition). Can you explain the factors behind the beginning of this evolution in BG2?
Brent Knowles: I came on about halfway through BG2 and I never really had any influence on high level things. I suspect what happened was that, when reviewing feedback for the first title, the leads looked at what fans seemed to enjoy most. This would certainly influence which aspects the team focused on for the next game. Additionally there were probably things they had wanted to do in the first game that they couldn't (because of time and manpower constraints) and so they took the opportunity with the sequel to attempt them.
Over time there definitely was a push towards satisfying player-fulfillment with ever-grander plots and memorable story situations.
- Baldur's Gate 2 was an amazing game. Its puzzle-like encounter design, its rich assortment of magical items that were so much more than just plusses and minuses, and its epic mage duels are all unparalleled to this day. 14 years later, people still talk about character builds and party compositions, and share strategies on how to defeat iconic foes like the Twisted Rune, Firkraag, and Kangaxx. No other game has ever been as successful in delivering that essence of high level Dungeons & Dragons gameplay. What we'd like to know is - who was responsible? Who pushed for this stuff? And how did he (or they) manage to do such an incredible job?
Brent Knowles: James Ohlen and Kevin Martens… the lead and co-lead respectively, had a huge influence on this. They were very focused on the high-level details and spent a lot of time testing the content everybody was creating.
BG2, like HOTU, was also a fun project to work on. BG2 had a functional game engine (as opposed to an engine-in-development) and (many of) the designers were more experienced with it, so they knew what worked and what to avoid. Even brand new designers like myself were given areas to "flesh out". We were able to take characters from our old pen and paper campaigns and create little plots for them and it was very creative and organic. And certainly we made a mess of things at times, some of the plots, especially the Drow ones were horribly complicated and hard to troubleshoot!
But all of us were given semi-free reign to take things as far as we thought we could. I had a lot of fun working with the combat system, for example, and tried to pull in all the tricks I remember that had been used while playing pen and paper during high school. And all the team members were doing this, within their own areas of responsibilities.
As well, because the game content did not have to be locked down too early (for voice over and cinematics), we actually had more development time. With AAA titles nowadays, it becomes harder to tweak content in the late stages of development.
- Unfortunately, it seems like outside of hardcore fan forums like ours, those elements have gone underappreciated in the public consciousness. There are some who claim that there was a loud segment of the fanbase that made it seem like BG2's primary attraction was its companion dialogues and romances, and that BioWare was taken in by this. Would you say there's any truth to that? Did it feel back then like people didn't really care about all that cool high level AD&D stuff you guys spent so much effort on implementing?
Brent Knowles: I think the dialog and story is what got the attention ultimately and whether it was what high level folk at the company also found interesting, or they decided they found it interesting, because it was popular, I don't know. The combat was spoken of favorably, internally, but nobody outside a small handful of designers, really liked the complexity of the AD&D rules. They were a pain, to be honest, and it was felt that a comparable combat experience could be crafted with a simpler system.
But over the years I think it is fair to say that the positive attention directed towards the companions and romances did overshadow many other elements of what made BG2 popular. That's not to say that individuals on various teams didn't try to replicate that -- there are a few combat designers who worked on the NWN expansion packs and transitioned to the Dragon Age franchise that certainly tried to bring a measure of BG2-esque combat into their work."
It's funny how the thing we like about BG1 more - wide open wilderness areas - became possible because of the necessity and the resources the developer had at the start.
@bengoshi Thank you very much for your most recent post, I greatly enjoyed it and I was extremely impressed with the commentator asking the questions. Thank you very much and it was a literal gem to read. I wish I had more 'insightfuls' to give you friend. Bravo!
I find the open wilderness areas of BG1 a chore to explore - I have to grit my teeth at times to get through them all. By contrast I much prefer the more detailed and focused areas of BG2.
I find the open wilderness areas of BG1 a chore to explore - I have to grit my teeth at times to get through them all. By contrast I much prefer the more detailed and focused areas of BG2.
To each their own. If that is what you like in an R.P.G. who can say that is incorrect? Good Luck and Take Care Friend.
I consider BG2 the better game in terms of challenging combat and NPC banter, but prefer BG1 in many other respects. It's to do with points already mentioned, such as BG1's open, explorable world, its more medieval atmosphere (as opposed to BG2's almost sci-fi feel), more NPCs, Charname's naiveté with which I identify easier than their BG2-superstardom, magic being useful but limited rather than limitless in its power.
All character classes and item types are quite viable in BG2, but in BG1, the best strategies are fairly narrow.
Hmm, I find that in the second game the contrast between classes/kits like Shapeshifter, Wizard Slayer or Beastmaster on the one hand, and Sorcerer, Inquisitor, Berserker, Mage etc on the other is as stark if not starker than the contrast between BG1's stronger and weaker classes/kits. And in BG2 the best strategies seem quite narrow to me as well (namely: use arcane magic to buff, debuff and destroy).
I've recently found that I get the most fun from BG2 if I through the storyline out of the window, which goes against all of my roleplaying instincts - and therein lies the big difference for me between the two games: BG2 is not a roleplaying game.
The very premise that you start the game in a predicament that you have no idea how you got into is absurd but could be explained away by inventing an excuse such as being drugged or bashed over the head in a random act of violence, but total amnesia? So from the very start you, as the player, are denied any chance of building a credible backstory for your character, because by definition he can't remember what he's been doing. Then the game pulls you through a heavily-scripted series of events like a performing seal (unlike BG1 which pushes you out into the world in order to discover yourself). If you stray (i.e. by doing side quests which are thrown at you left right and centre) you are essentially denying the driving imperative of the game from a roleplaying point of view, and therefore not roleplaying.
Comments
BG2 also rounded out and completed the game mechanics in very satisfying ways. Character kits, weapon skills and styles, more magic to aspire to, keeps (which are a P&P reward too) etc. I believe Monks, Sorcerers and Half Orcs are added to the game at this point too?
The BG2 NPCs are the earliest gaming experience I remember with real characters. The BG2 area artwork is painted on a larger scale, captured at a higher resolution. The locations serve many purposes, rather than the mostly directionless wandering around BG1 sword coast.
And yet I really liked that freedom to wander. I prefer the green forests, and the little villages that populate BG1. For all everyone seems to rave about Irenicus as a villain, he left me cold, the weakest part of the game. Sarevok is a villain I relish taking down at the conclusion, every time. BG1 yields my favorite treasures with the stat tomes, that help me feel all godly.
With the EEs, the mechanical gap closes even more, although I do feel the kits are out of place without a rebalancing of the first game. On balance, I will still edge it to BG2 for just having the more rounded experience, but the most out-and-out fun, as I said, lies on the border between the two (although perhaps not right on the border, Chateau Irenicus does start to drag in the end).
What'd you think?
BG1 was the REASON I bought my first computer.
I was PnP for years, (still have my games and books) and when I saw an advertisement for BG in a combo vhs rental and game rental store in 1997 I was floored.
D&D on computer? Oh yes! Must have that!
Bought a Dell Pentium 200 with 64 mb RAM the next day.
Awaiting BGs' arrival, a friend put me on to Diablo.
I went nutbar with that game.
When BG came out though, I could tell my wishes had come true,
REAL D&D on a computer!
And I can play alone or with others every night, all night, fuck work, it's Baldur's Gate!!!!
I was enraptured. Truth is, I still am.
When BG2 came out, I new we were in for something grand. I think every pnp geek on planet earth new we were in for something grand.
The storyline was staggering, the scope enourmous, the inticacies of the fights mouth watering. It literally blew every concept and idea we had about putting a giganormous world at your fingertips to shreds.
Was Bioware /Black Isle done? hell no they were just getting warmed up!
Then came Icewind Dale, then Heart of Winter, still hungry? here is Trials of the LureMaster FOR FREE!
Not enough? Then we are gonna blow your psyche, here's Planescape - be awed by our majesty.
Hmm, still want more eh? Well here's Icewind Dale 2 you heathens!
I literally burned out two computers playing these games.
Is one better than the others? Who cares? To see hundreds if not thousands on a website discussing the intricacies of a resurrected 17 year old game is heartwarming ( and honestly, mind boggling).
But we are the true devoted fans that will jump and scream SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY when we see such utter devotion by like minded individuals such as Overhaul and Beamdog for doing what we forever hoped.
I'm now playing BG on a bleeding edge computer on Win 7 Pro on a 24 inch monitor and it looks incredible.
God must love me.
So can you 'lean in on this' @sharguild ? It sounds like you played 'your share' of the Pen and Paper Role Playing Game. What do you think of my points, what did I miss and what did you think was 'bang on'? Where are my errors and where are somethings that you agree on or maybe thought needed more work? I would love to hear your perceptive and to have your Pen and Paper knowledge brought to the 'table' (puns:-P).. I too have have an interesting experience myself with the Original Baldur's Gate: I literally learned how to read for Baldur's Gate.
My road with the game was really bumpy, colorful and I think I made a full circle with it. I do not think I have spend as much time on any game to this day.
It all begun in 1998 when I was a 10 years old kid, who was really fascinated with video games. My journey with computer games so far was not as explored as I would like at that time. I did not own a computer back then, I only had a NES console, which I treated as a cool toy to play with friends and family. I also had Amiga with some good games, like Mortal Kombat II, but still gaming was not such a major part of my life.
My cousin started buying a computer magazine at that time, since he owned a computer. He would let me play some games that he had there e.g. Doom which I really liked and Supaplex, a really hard game, I have never finished it. In this magazine I read some of the software and hardware stuff, but I was mostly interested in the video games section, which was just a few pages per issue.
One of my best friends to this day, had a PC at that time, his older brother was mostly showing us games that he liked. The three games that I was fascinated with at that time were WarCraft II, Transport Tycoon and Anvil of Dawn. This was the point I started to treat games more seriously, I was hooked.
Another thing was that since I did not own a PC back then I was spending most of my time outside. Either with friends walking around and playing in woods, or alone exploring since I always liked the area where I am living (not a very large town lots of woods, lakes, small hills and rivers).
Finally back on the topic of Baldur's Gate. The newest issue of the computer magazine back then featured a new game that was coming out soon. The screenshots looked really promising, adventurers fighting in a forest (I always wanted to be such an adventurer as a kid) and the encounter with a strange, yellow lizard, with one of the characters having their portrait almost all covered in red. The last page was an ad with some armored guy's head and the big title: Baldur's Gate. I was amazed.
I wanted to know more about this game, when walking through the forests I imagined myself as the adventurer of that game. Some time has passed and during the Spring of 1999, my friend told me that his brother has got a brand new and awesome game. He told me it was similar to Diablo, but I did not know much about Diablo at that time (saw some screenshots here and there). He wanted me to come to his house to watch with him as his brother was playing this new game.
I could not believe what I saw, it was that great game from the magazine. It looked even better on the computer screen. I was totally blown away by it, I have never seen such a game before. The graphics of the environment, the music, the portraits, the character's voices (Polish voiceover is better than English imo) it was all just perfect. My friend's brother was inside the Nashkel Mines near the lava river, changing his party. I believe he was switching Jaheira for Branwen. I remember seeing the outside of Nashkel temple as well.
My hunger to play this game was even bigger and some time later my friend was playing the game himself, then he let me play it. I created my character (did not know what I was doing really) and walked around Candlekeep, learning the basics of the gameplay. I saw some NPCs while he was playing, he really liked Xan with his moonblade and so did I. Apart from him he had Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid and Kivan in his party. Later on he was using Gatekeeper when the enemies were too strong. I remember seeing parts of Cloakwood, Ankhegs and the areas of the first 2 chapters: from Candlekeep to Nashkel mines.
Year 2000 arrived and I finally got my first PC. I was suddenly ovewhelmed by the thought that I could play by myself the games I loved. At first I played some other games (WarCraft II and Crmageddon II mostly), since I did not have my copy of Baldur's Gate. I wanted to play it so bad and finally the day had come that I got my own copy of the game. I played it so much that most of the CDs had so many scratches, the game was crashing. My first character was a human chaotic evil (sounded awesome by the time, even though i was not playing as evil actually) cleric. I asked my friend many questions about the game and he said to me that cleric was basically fighter + mage and I thought it sounded awesome.
That char was of course terrible and I used the same party as my friend and found about other NPCs later as I was discovering the game. I remember going north from the Friendly Arm Inn and getting smashed by the Ankhegs, I was afraid of those guys for a long time. I stayed close to the main plot for the most part and in the Bandit Camp I permanently lost a party member and saved anyway, since I tried so many times to win the fight inside Tazok's tent. I asked my friend if there are some other NPCs to join and he recommended a paladin in the area with Ankhegs. I was scared to go there, but I got Ajantis and immediately liked him. My first playthrough ended on the second level of the Cloakwood Mines, where I was unable to beat Harieshan and her lightning bolt. After many tries I gave up.
This is how my journey with Baldur's Gate begun. I loved the outside calm areas, ther reminded me of my own journeys through the woods. The stone interface was simple and clear and fit the atmosphere, I really like the stuff lying in the menu screen (gold, weapons, helmet etc.). The game just looked simple and clear and reminded me of the first Lord of the Rings movie. Slow pace with great atmosphere. Later on I beat the game with my elven Fighter/Thief and more playthroughs came after that. Some months after that I got my copy of Tales of the Sword Coast and really liked the expansion pack overall, even though after finishing it for the first time I only liked the Isle of Balduran, since the rest was just a dungeon crawling.
Then I discovered Dark Side of the Sword Coast mod and the journey got a lot more colorful and bumpy. Some mods were really unstable and buggy, but I wanted more and more stuff put into the game. Finishing it whole would last for months, but it was fun nonetheless.
I do not remember the exact date (around 2004?) when my sister told me that her friend has Baldur's Gate II and I was shocked, beacuse I did not know that there was a sequel. I could not wait to play it and wanted to know more about it. She only told me that he did not like it as much as the first one, but I thought that it is impossible, a sequel to such a game cannot be bad. Later I got my own copy of BG2 and was really nervous when launching it for the first time, I wanted it to be such a great game as the first one, if not better.
The menu itself caught me by surprise, it had a very different feel to it. It was not a medieval fantasy of the frist game that I loved so much. It was weird and together with the music had a creepy atmoshpere. The art style was not my thing, but I had to give the game a chance, the menu cannot destroy the game for me. I created the character and I have found that I did not like how the weapons categories were split up to individual weapons. The cutscene with Irenicus played out and my thought was "Oh, in the first game the bad guy was a fighter, now it's time for a mage, I do not like mages.".
It actually was not the fact that Irenicus was a mage that took me back, but the fact that I already knew who the villain was. the magic of discovery suddenly disappeared. Then Imoen joined me and I thought that her portrait was terrible and ugly as the rest of those from BG2, why so many piercings and stuff in their hair? Even Keldorn's armor looked like a metal frisbee got stuck in his neck. I was getting more and move convinced that the artstyle was just ugly for me. It did not have the simplicity and clarity of the first game. The plate mail icon from BG2 will always be a turtle shell in my eyes and those silly paperdolls, just plain awful.
Anyhow I did not give up I was exploring the Irenicus's dungeon and I thought that it was not what I exactly imagined sequel to Baldur's Gate look like. I felt that I was playing a mix between a medieval fantasy with sci-fi with weird tubes and clones. The character animations were laughable as well, especially the streching and 2-handed sword knees-to-the-ground swing. I was in denial at first, I could not believe that this was how Baldur's Gate II looked. After many annoying parts I finally was able to exit the dungeon and got what I thought was just a middle finger from the game. Not the fact tha Irenicus took Imoen, or that I could not cast spells in the city, not even annoynig constant screaming from Minsc. It was the city itself. It was just plain ugly and illogical. I thought that the promenade is the worst looking location I have ever seen in a video game. Am I somewhere in Saudi Arabia? Where is the medieval city of Baldur's Gate?
I still gave the game a chance thinking it should get better later on, it is still a Baldur's Gate game. I do not like the games that start you off inside the big city, immediately I get lost and discouraged (Neverwinter Nights still not finished to this day). One thing that I really disliked about Athkatla is that how fake it feels. Almost every building is connect to some kind of quest. This is not a city, it is a quest-web and I felt like people were almost running at me and slaming their quests into my face. Talk about freedom. My first playthrough ended on the Graveyard District, where I saw a giant mural of a Pharaoh on the floor. This was too much for me, the scenery and atmosphere of the game was just not my thing and I did not care for Irenicus and Imoen, so I had no reason to continue.
To me this was not a game worthy of name Baldur's Gate, but some years later I forced myself to finish it with the hack'n'slash expansion, just so I can say my full opinion about it. So, other things I did not like about the game: They killed off my favourite characters from the first game - Montaron, Xzar and Ajantis. NPCs may be batter developed, but did not like most of them, especially constantly screaming Minsc, captain "I wanna be cool brute" obvious Korgan and walking cominc relief Jan Jansen. This left me with not so many NPCs to choose. Another point is magic items, in BG2 they do not feel magical as in "unique", they just have bigger + number. My favourite weapon is flail and I use it quite often even though there is only +1 in BG1.
When playing Baldur's Gate I felt like at home, but BG2 did not felt this way at all. There were almost no calm and beautiful woods to wander, just dungeon after dungeon. I did not like the bias towards magic especially with liches and dragons. The spell chess game got boring pretty fast. I did not feel that the spells were more powerful than the first game, they just had bigger numbers and so did the defensive spells. In the first game one spell could turn the situation around. I do not like dragons in fantasy, I think it just screams "lazy", there are more interesting creatures.
I never liked Irenicus as a villain and even more after I have discovered his motives. He is not a troubled soul, he is an emo kid with ego as big as 20 dragons. The whole game is just not my thing I guess, it was one of the biggest disappointments I had. After finishing it I do not want to play it again, Inifnity Animations gives me hope as it can restore BG1 character animations, this is also the reason why I stopped playing BG:EE and returned to the classic BG.
Now after so many years I still play Baldur's Gate from time to time, not as often as then I was a teenager, but I like going back to it a bit differently. Currently I have installed vanilla Baldur's Gate without TotSC with Baldurdash fixes and a little tweaks - max hp per level and no wear limitations (I could not go back to the restriction after playing pen and paper D&D) and that is all. Playing just like in the old days and having no problem with 64bit windows 7 and black bars to the sides on my monitor. I use normal dice to roll my character, with no overpowered stats and roll for random race/class/alignment/skills/NPCs. This keeps the game fresh after playing so much.
So, this is my story with Baldur's Gate and where my dislike for the sequel came from. This is quite an enormous post, but I have posted several times about my opinion about both games and did not want to repeat myself, now I can just post a link to this post. I think I might have omitted some of the points about both games, my memory may have failed me. I will not try to defend BG1 over BG2, each of us has different story with both games and likes both, just one, or none of them. Anyway, grab a drink, or something to eat and enjoy this long post and have a nice day.
I had very similar reactions to yours the first time I played Shadows of Amn, about the darker tone, the uglier portraits, the art, and pretty much everything you mention. In my case, though, it did grow on me, and I came to like it, though never as much as I like Baldur's Gate 1.
It was a lot like my experience with Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. I didn't like Empire that much the first time I saw it, because the tone was so much darker, and the characters were split up from each other, and I hated seeing them get tortured and beat up and frozen in carbonite and all that awful stuff. (I was 12 for New Hope and 14 for Empire). But, on second and third viewings, I started to love Empire as much as every other fan, and to appreciate the intense character development and drama. It was never my favorite Star Wars movie, but I could see why so many fans named it as theirs.
Later, as an adult, I studied Joseph Campbell and "The Hero's Journey", and realized that the structure of Star Wars (and to some extent, the Baldur's Gate trilogy), follows a very specific progression of archetypes that must be present in order for a story to reach the status of myth and become part of a culture's collective consciousness. Then, I could *really* appreciate epic trilogies like Star Wars and Baldur's Gate.
As for Throne of Bhaal, I tried to get into it, but I didn't like it enough to finish it. Epic level D&D play just isn't my thing, and I almost always lose interest in any game as soon as I get to such high level that it feels like there's no more character progression or world exploration left, and nothing else to do but to just slog through battle after battle against godlike epic level enemies until *finally* getting to the end. Bleagh.
I did finish Throne of Bhaal one time, a few summers ago. So, I've only ever fought the final battle of that game one time. I didn't find it fun or exciting at all. I found it tedious and nerve-wracking. I play to relax, not to get an adrenaline rush.
(I just abandoned an Icewind Dale run in Trials of the Luremaster when it started to feel like Throne of Bhaal - no fun for me, and I probably won't play TotL again. I should have finished my Dale run and been done with it. I *hate* scenarios that trap you there, like forever, until you finish its 1001 tedious battles and dungeon levels.)
So, I still play both Baldur's Gate and Shadows of Amn with great regularity, even after all these years, but I spend way more time with Baldur's Gate 1, and I rarely start and even more rarely finish an SoA game before losing interest. BG1 is absolutely my favorite of the series.
I see what you mean. Try playing TOB; the characters in Amkethran actually have non-European names. What is this, the Middle East? It's not fantasy if it's set in Calimshan!
In all seriousness, I'm actually quite pleased with the environment of BG2. Not every fantasy story has to be set in a temperate forest with Western European people and customs. That's why people created Calimshan, Kara-tur, and Maztica--to have additional options. I and many others are actually very interested in non-stereotypical fantasy settings. We do not consider it a weakness or a source of confusion that Waukeen's Promenade has dome-shaped structures, just because the Islamic world had more of them than Europe.
I came to Baldur's Gate after playing Morrowind, a game widely known for its great depth and color, and the setting was decidedly not based on medieval Europe (medieval does not mean European, incidentally). After playing Morrowind, Baldur's Gate seemed terribly generic. But then, BG1 was a game of a different time, and I don't consider it a lower-quality game just because of its setting... as you seem to feel about BG2, whose setting is closer to Calimshan.
Saudi Arabia might be a backward country by modern political standards, but there's nothing wrong with playing a game whose setting is inspired by medieval Saudi Arabia. I don't know why you express such surprise by the Promenade's non-European architecture.
Thinking about it, maybe after a such long time I might like it and try seeing it in another light. I think I would appreciate it if it was just a different game, not a sequel to Baldur's Gate. It is the whole reason, why it is not working for me.
Throne of Bhaal was just a busy work to do, I was glad that there was no Irenicus at least. The final battle was trying so hard to be epic, but it took way too long. The godlike levels and the magic equipement was silly, I imagined how it would felt to be there as a level 1 character. Overall The expansion did not bother me as much, it was meh.
I do not like Icewind Dale series as much, it always felt like a huge level grinding and tedious dungeons with like 5 levels. It is great for multiplayer though and I enjoyed the game much more that way.
@semiticgod It is not the setting itself that bothered me, it is the huge differential gap between the two games. It was my expectatins that ruined the experience for me, rather than just the game itself. I have nothing against the Saudi Arabia scenery, I just was not ready for playing a Baldur's Gate game in it.
I love Planescape: Torment as much as BG1 and it has really strange and unusual artstyle, but I knew it would be that way. I can appreciate different styles, not just the European one. I grew too close to BG1 and its setting and felt discontinuity after the change in BG2.
In the same way I would not expect a second book in a series, like Lord of the Rings to drastically change the setting. I know that Forgotten Realms has a wide variety of styles, but maybe it is the lack of transition between the two games that soon should will be filled.
It is time to find out whether BG2 will be better if I will give it one more chance. I know it will not be as good as BG1, but maybe it will not bother me as much anymore.
It makes sense. We fall in love with a game and then it changes.
I'm very thankful that you did take the (quite a bit of) time to post this, because you've articulated some of the things that I've had trouble putting into words in the past.
I especially like the part about the "fake" feel of Athkatla. I remember during my very first playthrough of BG2, looking over Athkatla and thinking that it was a vast improvement over Baldur's city; but once I had explored it, I realized that it was very shallow, even somewhat lazy beneath the surface. As you said, every structure in the city is quest-oriented - be it a temple, a store, or a place that's directly tied to a quest. By contrast, BG1 cities like Baldur's and Beregost are interspersed with simple townsfolk's houses that have no direct ties to any quests, which gives the game a more immersive/"open world"-type feel. In fact, most of the shops in Waukeen's gives you a message that says, "This place has nothing of real value," and then won't even let you enter - that's some very rushed and/or lazy game-design IMO. I know that there are people who enjoy the more direct, streamlined approach of BG2 and they will likely approve of the removal of "superfluous" houses; but I would've preferred that BG2 stayed more true to the style of its predecessor and retained more of the core RP aspects of the game to which it sequeled.
Like you, I also hate the artwork in BG2, although I was willing to look past it if the game had been more fundamentally to my liking.
Like you, I also don't like dragons as enemies, or even monsters in general for that matter. BG1 had a whole slew of very memorable and colorful enemies - i.e: the seductive bard Silke, the fiendish assassin Nimbul, the deeply deranged Bassilus, the murderous, yet redeemable Brage, Zal, "the fastest dart thrower in the west," etc. By contrast, the standout enemies in BG2 are often things like dragons, "troll kings," "shade lords," "demogorgons," liches/demiliches, beholders, etc. - in other words, creatures that are certainly more elaborate on the surface, but lack an identifiable personality or persona, which actually makes them less memorable/iconic than BG1 enemies IMO.
And like you, I also hate the "magical chess match" combat style of BG2. I suppose that its makers thought that by restricting the variety of strategies that could win battles, it would make those battles more challenging; in actuality, it often makes them more boring and repetitive as you stated, because every battle becomes either impossibly hard (until you've found the "correct" strategy) or ridiculously easy (once you do). Trying to make the game more challenging also undermines the RP aspect of the game, since it gives you less freedom to choose character classes and party compositions based on your own personal preferences.
On the whole, I would say that my general problem with BG2 is that it emphasizes novelty and shock value over depth. For example, the first time that I ever stepped into the Circus Tent in Waukeen's, I exclaimed, "Holy crap, where am I???"; but underneath the initial novelty, the quest just feels like a lineal, repetitive routine that I have to go through every time that I've finally escaped Irenicus' dungeon. I also have mixed feelings about Irenicus as a villain - although I do enjoy David Warner's voice acting, I feel that the game just tries way too hard to portray him as the epitome of evil (i.e: giving vague, quasi-philosophical speeches about "seeing through the pain," or Imoen repeatedly telling you flat out, "This guy is sooooo evil" during the escape from his dungeon). One of my favorite aspects of BG1 is feeling the hatred for Sarevok build subtly and gradually over the course of the game, until it finally explodes in the final confrontation; by contrast, BG2 basically gets in your face and instructs you right from the beginning that you have to hate Irenicus. His "master plan" is also extremely convoluted and results in plotholes and conflicts with the storyline of the original game - it's as if the makers devised the characters and scenarios of BG2 first, and then tried to weave a storyline through it.
And like you, I also enjoy just sitting back and appreciating the lush green landscapes and chirping bird sound effects of the wooded areas of BG1.
I'm curious because despite how much I love the game, I find the ending to BG1 to be among the worst I've ever played. If you happen to find Sarevok to be the biggest threat in the fight (I know I do) and take him out first, the battle is inexplicably and abruptly ended. It remains very jarring to this day to me. After that a very strange, anticlimactic cut scene takes place and you are kicked back to the main menu??? The endings to SoA and ToB are FAR better imo and am curious to hear your thoughts.
Also, I find the enemies far more interesting and iconic in BG2, but that is a matter of opinion. For example, and since you mentioned it, the demogorgon encounter has a moral complexity that BG1 never comes close to approximating.
Finally, I find that BG1 is in fact more limiting in the classes that are successful, especially in the beginning. By the time you reach higher levels, every class is feasible, not the other way around.
I enjoy reading everyone's opinions here and have found them insightful and, even if I don't agree with all of them, I am thankful to you all for sharing such thoughtful posts.
ToB gives the most fleshed-out ending of the three, but by that time the game had departed so far from both the style and storyline of the original game that I really didn't care that much anymore.
BG1 can be difficult for virtually any class at the starting level(s), but IMO, all classes come to improve and distinguish themselves at fairly equal rates over the course of the game. The only possible exception is the monk IMO, and that's a class that was specifically designed for BG2.
By contrast, single class thieves are badly nerfed in BG2, and will often feel like dead weight outside of the isolated moments when you need a trap disarmed or a lock picked. In BG1, thieves like Imoen, Alora, and even Skie can still distinguish themselves as decent backup archers.
I've found equal success at BG1 using completely contrasting combat styles - sometimes playing as a ranged/sharpshooting party augmented by invoker (fireball, cloudkill) spells, other times playing as a melee-oriented party backed up by sleep/command spells. Neither of these approaches are particularly effective for much of BG2, because both missile/piercing weapons and many lower-level spells are badly nerfed in BG2.
Traps also add a lot to battles, and not just by laying down 7 traps where a Lich is about to spawn. A single extra trap can cut short an enemy's life by a round or two, and on higher levels the traps do lingering damage that can continually interrupt spells. Plus, pickpocket can add many nice resources to the party overall, disarming traps and lockpicking add to party XP, and Detect Illusions can obviate the need for True Seeing.
The overpowered thief HLAs are well-known, but I don't think it's much appreciated how useful thieves are in the early- and midgame as well.
in the underdark of all places. There are probably several items you can say that about, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb. At least to me.
I always thought this item seemed perfect for BG1..Although one might say it's too powerful for BG1, it would have certainly been fun imo.
Current 'Finished' Armour From Baldur's Gate II roughly concieved / prototyped / 'alpha-ed' for the Original Baldur's Gate.
Also I watch this YouTube Channel on mostly practical knowledge of historic personal weapons:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SkallagrimNilsson
Here is an example weapon video:
Take Care Everyone; please speak freely!
One thing I wanted to add to my rant about BG2 is my problem with romances. I never liked them. In fact, I finished the game without romanceable NPCs. To me it felt forced and unecessary and I am glad there will be no romances in Pillars of Eternity. Maybe it is just me, but when I think about adventure I do not associate it with flirting, relationships etc.
I used to joke about mods that added NPCs and of course they have to be romanceable, are gamers that horny these days? Having all party able to romance, I can just imagine the sexual tensions within the group. To me a romance does not make a character interesting. I want to like NPCs, not get turned on by them.
Again, example from Lord of the Rings. The popular joke is that Frodo and Sam had something going on between them. Whereas Tolkien wanted to show the power of friendship. It may be the fault of the movie adaptation, I personally would not think for a second that there could be a romance between the two hobbits.
Planescape: Torment did it so much better with Anna and Fall-from-Grace. The first one had a very subtle romance and the second was an example of a strong friendship. Fall-from-Grace even tells that she will find The Nameless One no matter what and I do not think she meant to confess her love to him by that. I know that there were complains about Anna and that her romance was "just a kiss". Well, that was enough for me. Paradoxically, I felt the stronger bond that way.
Morte's story has more impact in my eyes than both females in Planescape: Torment. I love Anna and Fall-from-Grace as much as any other NPC in this game (pun intended). So, romances are a kind of big "no no" for me in games, I can give a pass to subtle ones. I will however, try to avoid romanceable NPCs.
Tastes differ and it seems there will be always several opinions on this.
For e.g., check http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/1466/baldurs-gate-1-better-then-baldurs-gate-2 - it's a discussion from the Dawn of the forum (July, 2012).
I always try to look at BG1 and BG2 as at one long and exciting game, starting from Candlekeep and going into ToB.
Yes, I like the feeling I get at the first levels, when every other encounter with a pack of wolves can end your run. I like the feeling I get when I think about characters' development: which proficiencies should I take, which companions should I choose, in which order should I explore locations and complete quests.
But in the same time I like the feeling I get when I have to think about breaking enemy mages's defences. I like the feeling I get when Cromwell makes those artifacts for me. I like the feeling I get when going through Jaheira's romance and watch her changing.
I'm just so glad we can play both games so that the journey of Charname takes not 100+ hours but 200+ (and even more) of play.
With that in mind, I have become more of a role player (due very much I think to the lack of a DM to instil vibrancy into the game) so it is important for me to be able to take ownership of the character and put his 'head' on when I sit down to play a session. For this reason I only play BG2 with characters that I've imported from BG1 - and therein lies the rub:
For obvious commercial reasons BG2 has to be a stand alone game that can be (and often is) played without having played BG1 first, yet it is also trying to be a sequel and this where I think it falls between two stools. I think the transition between the two games hasn't been handled as well as it could have been for existing players and that is why we talk about them as two different games rather than one long saga.
When TotSC came out as an expansion pack you had the option to import your entire party from BG1 and then return to Baldur's Gate for a much tougher (retrofitted) final battle. With the situation we have now, in BG2 you are not only forced to start the game with NPCs that quite possibly weren't in your BG1 party but you can also meet NPCs that died in BG1! Also, I don't like the feeling of being sent back to kindergarten every time I start BG2 - how did my very experienced BG1 veteran manage to do something so monumentally stupid as to get imprisoned with no apparent reason or warning?
For me the whole discussion about which game is better is in itself a problem. If the start of BG2 had been thought through more thoroughly and written differently this question wouldn't keep on cropping up.
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You know I was going to say something rather mundane as to respond to @dunbar and @bengoshi 's 'brother from another mother' thread 'point out', but I just don't feel like it. I feel as to do something more in depth. I want to tell a story that is somewhat more of a 'release of emotion' than a reply and or a 'related statement'. *Eh hem -clears throat* ("One who clears throat".. what a name that would be.. anyway)
You know, I never really liked being poor in spirit. I never really understood why hardship can be a good thing when I was very, very young. I never really fancied myself as a person to stay in place and stop 'moving on' both in mind and location; and I have 'mostly' lived my short life as such - always progressing within hardship.
I have always known that I and many others can do amazing things and feats of accomplishment that no 'absurd' science fiction story nor wildest fever-dream could concoct nor match in protest. Although sadly many of the people who could change our imaginative landscapes within our lives never do. We give up and stop fighting. We mostly give in to the obstacles of pain and failure and begrudgingly and numbly accept the world as a place to live, to simply exist and not to thrive within, engaging in all of our combined senses; we are mostly gray and struggle within silence.
I once found that pain was something to be.. Always destructive; until I listened to the flowers that grew from within my own scared mental landscape. I looked around and found many people around myself living within a haze of blank emotions and a rut of human abstinence of existence; missing of true feeling and not hitting one's emotional boundaries. I realized that growing within life is not living comfortably nor always feeling successful. No, only arrogance can and will eventually come from those continued emotions for one never feels defeat and with it humility and humblity.
You see a hero or a regular human being or even a general character is not judged based on their successes after successes but rather their ability to deal and choose their path based on how they cope, deal and create success from debilitating failure; failure of peace, harmony and or freedom of themselves and perhaps others.
The sheer amount of energy of prevalent Pain and Suffering can either destroy you as a being or one can 'Pull a Yoda' and absorb and re-channel the 'negative force lightning' for the mediums and intentions of good. Unfortunately the people whom seem to create the best tales of adversity, adventure and overcoming huge epic obstacles are the people whom have or currently face adversity with or within their past of present lives. Although that is just it: progression and advancement comes from adversity. Although for most 'Could be William Shakespeares' of a field never get to accomplish their potential for they become scared and or mundane and or are too 'emotionally broken inside' to pursue their dreams; content on living a mostly trivial, un-influential, comfortable, and numbingly mundane life with no fight to grasp at their dreams nor willingness to face and overcome devastating hardships.
You see I know what I want to do and I have faced much pain and hardship in my life where others have not. I feel that If I live I will still be pursuing my dreams for I know how important it is to 'live life for dreams', and not 'the dream of living life'. I have hit 'absolute rock bottom' before and have had my 'close circle' crumble and implode around myself; "but I kept writing the next cipher". I was broken emotionally from emotional trauma and a slave to many burdens emotional and physical; but I did not break where many do and or did before. I believed in myself and 'stuck around above ground' where ours now fertilize the 'daisy mound'.
You see all of these / those 'doubts' of never being able to do the things that you want to do within your very, very, very short and delicate life are no more than challenges waiting to be just that: Challenged. You know, have you ever been in a competition where you know you will lose but try anyway? Death, we all die in some shape or another and I feel the importance of life from that very graphic realization: Life is here, thus LIVE IT. In the last glimpse of your life, what are the things that you do not want to regret never having done when you could have or would have done if you just tried a bit harder?
I want to die feeling accomplished and even exhausted from living my life to the fullest rather than feeling that deep down I lived comfortably when I and many others could have thrived. I do not want to live by the 'idea of action' nor by toothless words, hopes, dreams and love. I want to never regret believing in myself enough to fight, not compromise and to progressively evolve myself and others for my dreams and theirs, win or lose; do you not agree?
If I could, what I would do is just add several new areas to explore in BG2. Like TotSC, you would just find new areas, characters and quests which don't really impact the rest of the game at all, except in terms of items and experience.
He gives an insider's look at BioWare. http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9736
"- You weren't around for Baldur's Gate 1, but since you worked on the sequel, you must have been familiar with it. BG1 was structurally a very different game from its sequel, with its wide open wilderness areas, its very large number of "disposable" companion NPCs, and a relatively low key, non-"epic" plot involving a mercantile crisis and regional politics. It was old-fashioned - some would say a bit similar to SSI's Gold Box games, which were the original inspiration for the Baldur's Gate series.
Brent Knowles: I think some of Baldur's Gate simplicity simply manifested from necessity. Those first few handfuls of employees at BioWare were brand new to the industry. They were learning as they were going, and the engine was being built, as design content was being created. So they probably tried to be as conservative as feasible.
The SSI Gold Box games probably did have some influence, but I think the team had concrete ideas of where they wanted to take things and this paired with the realities of their working situation, made a perfect storm of sorts. They needed disposable companions because that's all that could really be made in the time frame. A low key plot was the plot that they could build, given their resources. And so on.
Baldur's Gate 2 was much closer to the game they had originally set out to make, I think.
- Anyway, in Baldur's Gate 2, things changed. The open wilderness was replaced with dense city hubs, the companions became fewer and more detailed, and the plot began to take on a more familiar BioWarian "Chosen One" motif, becoming at once both more personal and more epic. This design trend would continue for the rest of the company's existence (although BioWare now seems intent on reversing it with regard to area design, as seen in Dragon Age: Inquisition). Can you explain the factors behind the beginning of this evolution in BG2?
Brent Knowles: I came on about halfway through BG2 and I never really had any influence on high level things. I suspect what happened was that, when reviewing feedback for the first title, the leads looked at what fans seemed to enjoy most. This would certainly influence which aspects the team focused on for the next game. Additionally there were probably things they had wanted to do in the first game that they couldn't (because of time and manpower constraints) and so they took the opportunity with the sequel to attempt them.
Over time there definitely was a push towards satisfying player-fulfillment with ever-grander plots and memorable story situations.
- Baldur's Gate 2 was an amazing game. Its puzzle-like encounter design, its rich assortment of magical items that were so much more than just plusses and minuses, and its epic mage duels are all unparalleled to this day. 14 years later, people still talk about character builds and party compositions, and share strategies on how to defeat iconic foes like the Twisted Rune, Firkraag, and Kangaxx. No other game has ever been as successful in delivering that essence of high level Dungeons & Dragons gameplay. What we'd like to know is - who was responsible? Who pushed for this stuff? And how did he (or they) manage to do such an incredible job?
Brent Knowles: James Ohlen and Kevin Martens… the lead and co-lead respectively, had a huge influence on this. They were very focused on the high-level details and spent a lot of time testing the content everybody was creating.
BG2, like HOTU, was also a fun project to work on. BG2 had a functional game engine (as opposed to an engine-in-development) and (many of) the designers were more experienced with it, so they knew what worked and what to avoid. Even brand new designers like myself were given areas to "flesh out". We were able to take characters from our old pen and paper campaigns and create little plots for them and it was very creative and organic. And certainly we made a mess of things at times, some of the plots, especially the Drow ones were horribly complicated and hard to troubleshoot!
But all of us were given semi-free reign to take things as far as we thought we could. I had a lot of fun working with the combat system, for example, and tried to pull in all the tricks I remember that had been used while playing pen and paper during high school. And all the team members were doing this, within their own areas of responsibilities.
As well, because the game content did not have to be locked down too early (for voice over and cinematics), we actually had more development time. With AAA titles nowadays, it becomes harder to tweak content in the late stages of development.
- Unfortunately, it seems like outside of hardcore fan forums like ours, those elements have gone underappreciated in the public consciousness. There are some who claim that there was a loud segment of the fanbase that made it seem like BG2's primary attraction was its companion dialogues and romances, and that BioWare was taken in by this. Would you say there's any truth to that? Did it feel back then like people didn't really care about all that cool high level AD&D stuff you guys spent so much effort on implementing?
Brent Knowles: I think the dialog and story is what got the attention ultimately and whether it was what high level folk at the company also found interesting, or they decided they found it interesting, because it was popular, I don't know. The combat was spoken of favorably, internally, but nobody outside a small handful of designers, really liked the complexity of the AD&D rules. They were a pain, to be honest, and it was felt that a comparable combat experience could be crafted with a simpler system.
But over the years I think it is fair to say that the positive attention directed towards the companions and romances did overshadow many other elements of what made BG2 popular. That's not to say that individuals on various teams didn't try to replicate that -- there are a few combat designers who worked on the NWN expansion packs and transitioned to the Dragon Age franchise that certainly tried to bring a measure of BG2-esque combat into their work."
It's funny how the thing we like about BG1 more - wide open wilderness areas - became possible because of the necessity and the resources the developer had at the start.
I find the open wilderness areas of BG1 a chore to explore - I have to grit my teeth at times to get through them all. By contrast I much prefer the more detailed and focused areas of BG2.
The very premise that you start the game in a predicament that you have no idea how you got into is absurd but could be explained away by inventing an excuse such as being drugged or bashed over the head in a random act of violence, but total amnesia?
So from the very start you, as the player, are denied any chance of building a credible backstory for your character, because by definition he can't remember what he's been doing.
Then the game pulls you through a heavily-scripted series of events like a performing seal (unlike BG1 which pushes you out into the world in order to discover yourself).
If you stray (i.e. by doing side quests which are thrown at you left right and centre) you are essentially denying the driving imperative of the game from a roleplaying point of view, and therefore not roleplaying.