Are you a BG Missionary?!
Kulm
Member Posts: 19
Do you hate it when you get to talking about your personal favourite games growing up or currently, and the person your talking to as never heard of the Baldurs Gate saga? let alone played it!?? T_T
I tend to take this as a challenge to educate them on what they have been missing out on; 'Preaching it to them' to say the least... :P
Sometimes it works, and boy do they thank me... hell why do so many not know about it?!? I'm only 21.
I see it as a cruelty they carry out their existence playing today's lame ass RPG's and never experiencing the challenge and the awesomeness that is the Baldur's Gate series or even the IWD spin offs. So many good memories butt kicking for goodness!
Kivan, glad I always gave you my expensive arrows... bloody life saver.
But what better time then now for it I ask you with BG:EE looming!?.
Am I the only one Boo? ...
If I'm not! then...
-How do you go about converting the non believers, noobs or the blissfully ignorant into trying it?
*seeking creativeness!*
-Are you successful?
-Plus, whats the weirdest/ best thing that's happened to you from meeting someone new just like you who also loved BG with timeless passion?
But... That awesome moment when you meet someone new and ask them; "Whats your favorite game of all time?" no pause - "Baldurs Gate!"
= Instant bfam.
I tend to take this as a challenge to educate them on what they have been missing out on; 'Preaching it to them' to say the least... :P
Sometimes it works, and boy do they thank me... hell why do so many not know about it?!? I'm only 21.
I see it as a cruelty they carry out their existence playing today's lame ass RPG's and never experiencing the challenge and the awesomeness that is the Baldur's Gate series or even the IWD spin offs. So many good memories butt kicking for goodness!
Kivan, glad I always gave you my expensive arrows... bloody life saver.
But what better time then now for it I ask you with BG:EE looming!?.
Am I the only one Boo? ...
If I'm not! then...
-How do you go about converting the non believers, noobs or the blissfully ignorant into trying it?
*seeking creativeness!*
-Are you successful?
-Plus, whats the weirdest/ best thing that's happened to you from meeting someone new just like you who also loved BG with timeless passion?
But... That awesome moment when you meet someone new and ask them; "Whats your favorite game of all time?" no pause - "Baldurs Gate!"
= Instant bfam. 5
Comments
OT:
The only good cRPG, that I recently played was Fallout New Vegas. For many years there was no such a good game... And it still isn't close to first Fallouts or to BG saga.
It was good, because some of the old FO team was working on it.
Bethesda can't do good quests or story for sh*t... Skyrim was good looking, but quests were total crap. Oh, and incentory screen is terrible on all their games, lol.
Our numbers are not few, but neither were they many.
Though, I haven't had much actual success. One friend who I got to install the trilogy and Tutu up after much ado got out of Candlekeep, ran into a wolf, died 4-5 times in a row, and uninstalled. It just isn't a series for everyone. But nor should it be.
I've been trying to convince my brother to play for the past 9 years... not given up yet :P
It seems the main people I know that love the BG saga, already loved it before I knew them... So I guess you may have a strong point there Zafiro. We can give them the tools to find the path, but they must walk it and reach the other side on their own.
It really isn't a game for those who have a short attention span or hot temper because It takes patience, awareness and planning to do well usually. As well as an interest in the genre of game. e.g. no good trying to convince a Fif13 addict to give it a shot :P
I remember when I first ever played BG. I was 9 and It was the first PC game I owned, actually inherited from my grandad... Talk about throwing myself in the deep end. It chewed me up and spat my little brain out. I think It took me a year or two to mature up before I took a proper bite out of it myself. Even then, its a game that takes intelligence and wisdom. Something too many games seem to lack the need for these days sadly.
Never give up though
I even have a Hamster (boo) stuffed little thing on the top of my monitor. It's BOO.
I introduce all my friends to BG.
More than half of them are diehard fans now.
Games shouldn't just be about pretty moving pictures. They should be about the story and they should demand some intelligence from the user. Right?
This is just one type of game that caters to the elite, so who cares if the sheep dont want to play. Generally I only introduce it to people I know have the capacity to understand and enjoy it given the time it takes do so.
Trouble is, many gamers of today have grown fat and lazy on force fed cheap plot and dialogie and, have gotten too used to following the pointy arrow till endgame. I just hope we're not a dying breed. I know
my kids will be playing them
You need to make mistakes in a game and over come them using thought to really love any game like this I believe. Wouldn't you agree?
1) Clunky interface. There's no other way to put it. After the 100's of hours of playing, we can manipulate with ease, but that doesn't change the basic fact.
2) Obscure rules. Before waves of magic missiles and Agonizer's Scorcher come to kill the troll, I'm not saying this is bad. Just that things are obscure. If you build a character that sucks, you won't know until you've put a lot of time into it, which is frustrating. Fortunately, there are forums like this that help people find solutions and give ideas to try new things, but my point stands.
3) Micromanagement of the characters. Over time, this is what I like about the game, but it's daunting.
4) 2nd ED D&D is long gone. People don't have the external understanding of the rule set that a lot of us had in the 90's.
5) Arbitrary randomness. This is based on the D&D perspective that life isn't fair, or that bad stuff happens to good characters. In other words, you did everything right and that gibberling still crit-killed your paladin stud. While important to the genre, this is frustrating (especially saving throws) for some gamers.
6) Class/kit imbalance. Wizard Slayer sucks, period. No class should be that gimped. I'm fine with, say, Kensai - a good class that needs more care than others to excel, especially with a 'not recommended for new players' hint. Arguable which ones are harder, but I'd put Druid, Kensai and Bard in there. Anyway, this is something that is not apparent from the character generation screen.
7) Text interface. Reading long dialogue doesn't really interest me. I get the jist and hit next next next and get through to the next 'thing to do'. I imagine many players are the same.
Anyway, this is not meant as a criticism of a great game. Think of it more as a petition against the elitist notion that BG players are superior to other gamers or other such fiddle-faddle.
To me, a basic requirement of such a game is that it's something akin to a project, that you can really dive into, devote your attention and focus to, spend a lot of time with, and get rewarded for doing so rather than finding that you hit your head on the bottom right away. It may not always be easy at first, but it generally tends to be very rewarding once you start getting the hang of things.
Having said that, obviously not everyone wants to approach a computer game the way they might approach learning a new language or trying to get better at mathematics. Some people just want a fun game that they can play when they don't have anything else to do. But for the people who once got into the habit of playing advanced games and enjoy when they are designed to have depth and complexity, the notion that this trend is going in the opposite direction can seem kind of scary.. it's illustrated relatively well in this brief article about AC3: http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/06/assassins-creed-3-the-one-button-power-trip/ - it focuses on the requirement of mechanical skill rather than insight/understanding, but it deals with the same principle.
I agree with your later points on how the game was lacking and was frustrating in many ways to say the least. However, despite all those flaws or annoyances, we are still here talking about it. And that's the main point I was trying to make, Sure if they didn't have the time to spend playing it, or they just weren't interested in the fantasy genre. But its those that just flat out say its shit because it looks dated; the people who just gave up then and give up now; usually come from what I'd call, a different gaming stock.
Largely I think that's down to today's society and the convenience mentality, not many people have the patience for games like these any more, because they require you to be *creative* as a way of putting it. Some mainstream gamers might argue that BG and the old D&D rules give you TOO much choice. But that's just their mentality limiting themselves over time by the games that spoon fed them the "Best" choices. I see the choices as freedom, and can that ever be a bad thing? who cares if some of the classes were just plain bad in comparison to others, just roll a new character! People are born with different genetic traits! The runts of the litter will always exist. I would argue its more realistic that way. Unless of course your big into the role play playing your "wizard Slayer" simply isn't even a viable option to work through the game, but bad ass on paper.
Of course there is mainstream and there is the niche market of hardcore gamers. One is vastly bigger than the other and really there isn't much to be done about that. The gaming industry as a whole is fast becoming totally corrupt in terms of their deviance from what their founding companies stood for when they set out to make a good game, and where they are now. Its all about milking the franchises that hit gold in the 80's, 90's and so on till there is nothing left, and they have pretty much got done doing that. But as whats happened recently in the last few years, Indie game companies are arising and reinstating those values that the founders themselves loved about the games they grew up playing.
To change the direction the Computer games industry is heading, is part of the reasons I'm aiming to work in it. Right now I'm fortunate enough and worked hard enough to be doing a Degree in the UK on the only Industry skillset accredited course in England for Game Art Design. With what I learn from that, I hope to take my own personal experiences and and new idea's with me to a company, or maybe start my own and share my influence on the future of what fuels our hobby... wish me luck, ain't gonna be easy. :P
Then you work through the Candlekeep stuff. If something goes wrong, you ask, "Do we have any tricks to make that better." Could be items, could be skills and could be 'come back to this area later - let's see what we find here...'
Mine were 8/10 (2 kids at the time) and they 'helped' me as we went. Sometimes picked the dialogue for me and stuff like that. Being exposed leads to understanding.
Make watching fun. Pop some pop corn and let them be part of it. Good luck to you!
I do want to see quality games, and I realize that quality is a nebulous thing. I'm surprised at how good Drakensang is as a game - the game engine and way skills works is very well thought-out. Not as polished as some games, but it is a good one.
Rather than change the direction games are heading, I'd recommend that you work to make the best game you can. Smaller developers making great games gave us Minecraft (don't play myself, but my family loves it) and others.
The annoyances of Baldur's Gate are things I also overcame and, now, I love the game. I illustrate them because some people don't or won't get over those.
Baldur's gate, It's toasted.
I started it up this weekend where we just made it through the Candlekeep prelims. All the boring basics in the keep were very useful as far as getting my son a sense of the mechanics. I can tell there are going to be some interesting issues.
We went upstairs in the inn and I showed him that there are a variety of objects with which you can interact and to therefore keep an eye open for chests and the like. When he clicked on the first one and there were some GPs, he said, "but isn't that person in the room's money?" and looked at me like I was insane for pointing it out. Needless to say, I don't think points in pick pocketing are going to be a useful investment.
The hard part is 'but the character is a Paladin. You said they always did good.'
I am thinking we won't be getting all the neat cloaks in the game.
But besides those two I don't know any people that like computer-games but some people who are into Spider Solitaire, like my parent's play daily. But a cardgame-player doesn't make a potional CRPG-gamer.
Gamers are rare around me, maybe I'm just too old. People who do like games, like my brother and brother-in-law, don't game no more as they're too busy with kids, wife and work. They've got too much responsibilities to be able to afford locking themself up the whole evening with Medieval Total War (my brother) or Pharaoh or Age of Empires (my brother-in-law).
@AHF: I like your son: "but isn't that person in the room's money?". That's true spirit!
I don't agree. You don't have to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy BG. I've introduced it to plenty of casuals who absolutely love it.