BG is linear in one sense in that you have a linear story progression but its open in that you have lots of distractions and such you can freely do in any order to take a break from the main story. That gives the illusion of greater freedom and less linearity because you can chooae to do a, b or c before moving to plot point 2 or after. SoD doesnt have as much of that obv since its an expansion (though much more than ToB did), the lack of backtracking makes it feel slightly worse.
In BG2 you can't go back to Brynnlaw, the sahaugin city, the underdark after you finish them, and once you start you have to complete them.
BG is linear in one sense in that you have a linear story progression but its open in that you have lots of distractions and such you can freely do in any order to take a break from the main story. That gives the illusion of greater freedom and less linearity because you can chooae to do a, b or c before moving to plot point 2 or after. SoD doesnt have as much of that obv since its an expansion (though much more than ToB did), the lack of backtracking makes it feel slightly worse.
In BG2 you can't go back to Brynnlaw, the sahaugin city, the underdark after you finish them, and once you start you have to complete them.
That sequence is quite a long one, but on the whole BG 1 and 2 are fairly open and expansive. You can choose how early you want to tackle that sequence, you can skip portions and the underdark is almost a mini hub in itself with lots of optional content. I dont consider BG open world, more large pockets of optional content with freedom of order then interspersed with tunnels of semi linear minir branching story. That structure is my favourite in an RPG. Later Bioware games turned that into a sort of circuit of compulsory content you could do in any order, but I preferred BG2/BG1 structure.
Ohh my mistake, then theres no need to change anything. The world is round again!
Metascore has only a few reviews. This thread is compiling multiple reviews from different places and therefore much more representative of all customer opinions. Brovo to Beamdog on that.
But if you satisfied with a 78 then great. Why aim higher. which has been my only point.
Besides I wouldnt rely too much on metascore because the user rating is only 38.
I'm just glad someone has the courage to speak truth to power and take bold stances like that 71 is less good than 100. If we compliment Beamdog for doing something good, we're basically telling them that they should repeat all their mistakes and probably make more. The only way to move forward is to make a lot of scolding comments about how disappointed we are in them for reasons that have nothing to do with any kind of prejudice. Then, and only then, will they wake up and realize that they should try to make great games.
I think in general actual metacritic scores get more attention than a thread like this.
The user score is due to people review-bombing the game because they didn't like the existence of a particular NPC as well as comments made about Jaheira and Safana in an interview. I wouldn't take the user score seriously if you paid me.
Anyway, I am not making a comment about whether or not Beamdog should try to do better. I am more saying that you are overstating things to make the situation look dire when it is not really all that dire at all.
Ohh my mistake, then theres no need to change anything. The world is round again!
Metascore has only a few reviews. This thread is compiling multiple reviews from different places and therefore much more representative of all customer opinions. Brovo to Beamdog on that.
But if you satisfied with a 78 then great. Why aim higher. which has been my only point.
Besides I wouldnt rely too much on metascore because the user rating is only 38.
I already explained to you how meta review scores work.
You can spin all you want but you have to remember, you can't please everyone. There will always be reviews thay drag a score down due to personal tastes.
@deltago You seem to suggest there is nothing actually wrong with SoD, but rather subject to one's tastes. Do you think SoD deserves 100 % if your taste happens to align with it?
I think part of the problem is that a lot of the bigger sites likely to be more objective haven't reviewed SoD actually. On the otherhand (alongside the review bombing) I also think that the SoD scores have been marked down for some stuff that is objectively impossible to change. Some of the criticism is about the dated ruleset, accessibility, engine limitations, story criticism based on incorrect remembering of story details by geriatric reviewers or ones that never played the games etc.. Now I can't see what Beamdog could do about that in a manner which wouldn't upset long-term fans (like me and most forum posters here). I'm nearing the end and basically my feeling is that if you like BG then I think this game is an 8.5/9 out of 10, I'd consider it essential to play through when you want to go through the saga. On the otherhand if you're new to BG and don't understand DnD 2nd edition then this probably is a 7/10 and isn't the game that will draw you into it, but no expansion is going to do that (BG2 is that game). Given that the game is targetted at the BG enthusiast I think the 7/10's really don't matter one bit.
deltago You seem to suggest there is nothing actually wrong with SoD, but rather subject to one's tastes. Do you think SoD deserves 100 % if your taste happens to align with it?
Nope. that is not what I am saying at all. What I am saying is you can't just judge a game by its meta score and people should not twist a company's or game's success of failure based on an average number.
I think in general actual metacritic scores get more attention than a thread like this.
Maybe. But the purpose of this thread was to try and gather as much as possible around the net about SoD reviews. Maybe the Metacritic score indeed will mean more to the company when evaluating the success of their game. This thread, however, covers more reviews, especially written in other languages other than English. So that anyone in the company could open the OP here and find all available information on SoD, in one place.
I wasn't criticizing your basis for the thread, but rather the attempt to use the average in this thread to promote the idea that SoD is a mediocre addition to Baldur's Gate.
I wasn't criticizing your basis for the thread, but rather the attempt to use the average in this thread to promote the idea that SoD is a mediocre addition to Baldur's Gate.
Actually this threads rating far more accurately rates SOD based off of a much broader test sample and other games should be judged this way. I agree with Yulaw9460 that this is a average to above average Baldur's Gate addition. Granted the bar is high for this beloved franchise.
I think the rating is going to go up as the faster patch release schedule will take all of those reasons out of play, and the modders dig in and do things Beamdog may not be able to do due to WotC. Like update BG2 to more closely tie in SoD characters. We have two different themes where most of the UI screens have been replaced to choose from now in the UI Modding forum, there will be more.
For BG fans its a 9/10. For a newcomer 7/10. This is not a game to get you into BG (thats not even BG1) but id say its essential for fans of the series and between BG1 and BG2 in quality. And yes patches will fix and mods will enhance.
So I've been living in a cave the last few months, is this game good to play now? Is it stable/patched etc?
Its better than release but you will have to still contend with journal and map bugs galore and the UI will probably be constantly changing because most do not like the new one, so don't fall in love with any features yet.
However there shouldn't be any game breaking situations, just some immersion interruptions and mediocre NPC development. Hopefully Beamdog speeds up some of these new updates and writing improvements so that we can start looking to fine tune the game individually.
For BG fans its a 9/10. For a newcomer 7/10. This is not a game to get you into BG (thats not even BG1) but id say its essential for fans of the series and between BG1 and BG2 in quality. And yes patches will fix and mods will enhance.
I think maybe this is backwards, since I have also been playing BG1 from the original release, classic BG fans would more likely rate SOD at 7/10 and the newcomers maybe 9/10, but hard to justify that.
I think maybe this is backwards, since I have also been playing BG1 from the original release, classic BG fans would more likely rate SOD at 7/10 and the newcomers maybe 9/10, but hard to justify that.
Comments
Tagging @Cahir to give a general overview
I think we can all agree that Beamdog will need to aim higher next time.
Then maybe we customers can aim higher in our forum conduct, right......ehh probably not.
Metascore has only a few reviews. This thread is compiling multiple reviews from different places and therefore much more representative of all customer opinions. Brovo to Beamdog on that.
But if you satisfied with a 78 then great. Why aim higher. which has been my only point.
Besides I wouldnt rely too much on metascore because the user rating is only 38.
The user score is due to people review-bombing the game because they didn't like the existence of a particular NPC as well as comments made about Jaheira and Safana in an interview. I wouldn't take the user score seriously if you paid me.
Anyway, I am not making a comment about whether or not Beamdog should try to do better. I am more saying that you are overstating things to make the situation look dire when it is not really all that dire at all.
Is Beamdog happy with what they created? and they should be. It is a good game. Nobody expects perfect.
Does Beambog feel they have only a few improvements and tweaks to make and then they will be satisfied ?
Or do they feel they can do significantly better next time and aim really high ?
Honestly there is no dire situation, however whats the expectations.
You can spin all you want but you have to remember, you can't please everyone. There will always be reviews thay drag a score down due to personal tastes.
This review score is exactly how we can judge the game and the only way, because obviously the people here agree with their reviews.
Saying we cant do anything is whats wrong, and why that has no value in this discussion.
Short answer: YES
However there shouldn't be any game breaking situations, just some immersion interruptions and mediocre NPC development. Hopefully Beamdog speeds up some of these new updates and writing improvements so that we can start looking to fine tune the game individually. I think maybe this is backwards, since I have also been playing BG1 from the original release, classic BG fans would more likely rate SOD at 7/10 and the newcomers maybe 9/10, but hard to justify that.