Man...
Google_Calasade
Member Posts: 80
I've loved this game since 2000 when it was originally released. Seventeen years later, BG II: SOA has yet to be topped. The immersion, storyline, romances, characters, plots. Has everything.
Just boggles the mind.
Makes one wonder why AAA game developers focus on everything besides what makes certain games legendary. And why said developers dare to call some games role-playing when those games clearly are not.
*coughs*witcher 3*coughs*
Just boggles the mind.
Makes one wonder why AAA game developers focus on everything besides what makes certain games legendary. And why said developers dare to call some games role-playing when those games clearly are not.
*coughs*witcher 3*coughs*
4
Comments
back in the day when BG 2 was made, games were made with more pride because companies were creating "art" sort of speak, trying to dish out the best they could do, to compete with others, and the best way to beat your competitor back in the day was to make a game fun
now its all about the fancy looking graphics with DLC garbage to drain you as much as possible, fun isnt really necessary if they can make you addicted to it instead
i believe i even heard the phrase years ago from someone that worked at blizzard ( around the year 2005ish ) and that person said something on the lines of: i dont make games to be fun, as long as games are addicting enough people will continue to pay for it
this is probably how mobile games are built as well, more to do with addiction than actually enjoying yourself, for all those micro transactions
After being a Fallout-fan for years I refused myself to buy Fallout 4.
After being a Call of Duty-fan for years I refused myself to buy several games from this franchise (the last was Ghosts).
After being a Pokemon-fan for years I'll probably pass the new Switch game based on the hideous Pokemon Go.
Demand and supply. People buy sh*t, people sell sh*t. That's how AAA companies, drug dealers, lots of musicians and Apple survive.
Fallout 4 is a best game ever made.
And some of the CoD games are too good to not play - play at least once on the veteran difficulty.
Maybe I'm too harsh with CoD because I'm a military myself.
PS: The best game ever made will always be Fallout 2 (despite the unfortunate lack of Full Party Control) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Baldur's Game is a close third place (the enhanced edition, because vanilla's mechanics were a pain).
Now I'm going to close this account, change my name and move to Mexico.
fallout is just 1,2 and nv
bioware is just: bg 1 and 2, nwn, kotor, je, me 1-3, and dao
final fantasy is 4-10
i can go on.
it feels like after 2012 gaming went into a downward spiral with most things besides indies. even obsidian a company i love is not what it used to be now that chris left and pillars 1 may be the last game i play from them for awhile.
Far Cry 5 is released in March this year, quickly becoming a fastest selling game. Were it not for BG2EE I would be playing that.
Just for a comparison, BG2 , not BG1, is widely rated the best of all D&D games. But if you broaden the category, it may still be a best (top 10 or at least top 50) RPG game of all time, but if you keep broadening the category, it will quickly fall out of the top 50 or even top 100 list.
The gaming industry is more thriving than ever before.
Edited: try to be accurate.
It's easy to say "games were better back then" because only the classics have stood the test of time, and all of the utter garbage has been forgotten. We're in the same situation now, but the bad games are harder to overlook because they're fresher in our minds.
BG2 was lightning in a bottle in that sense. Bioware employees have been pretty open about the fact that they were really only able to make the game that massive because it was the final days of sprite-based graphics, so content was cheap and easy to create. Modern Bioware supposedly needed to be bought out by EA just to stay afloat, because the tremendous amount of content their fans had grown accustomed to was simply not viable for an independent studio making modern games.
So I'm contradicting myself a little, I suppose
But there are other good RPGs out there which are amazing as well and I urge people to go and try them out. Who knows maybe there will be one game out there which will top BG2. Just how BG2 topped Mass Effect 2 for me, once people start putting games on a pedestal (whether it's nostalgia goggles or favoritism.) it just ruins the gaming experience, not enhances it.
But I'd have to agree that BG2 does fall in line for one of the best RPGs to exist to this day. It truly is a masterpiece.
Ill agree with Call of Duty though.. Between my Wii and Xbox Ive played them all up to Advanced Warfare which I never finished playing on the XB1. It just got weird, and I wasn't even going to bother with the next one when they went "Space Call of Duty". WW2 looks cool though. Gimme Modern Warfare or another WW2 game and Ill get it.
BG 1 and 2 were definitely on top of the game when they came out. Theres a reason those of us who loved them when they came out bought the EEs too (I bought 1 and 2 for both PC and Mac and yep bought the EE's yet again). I hold them both very high, in my personal top 10 for sure, but there have been some pretty cool ones that have come out since. BG 1/2 is like the old Ultima series for me. Those to me are the best ones, but its because of personal attachments I have to them (seriously you could argue Ultima 4 or 5, maybe even 7/7 Pt 2 are the best ever because of what they did at the time). That doesnt mean Ill just skip everything else until I see another BG clone come out or something. Those are just the 'standard' I hold them too as far as the fun factor goes when playing an RPG. Icewind Dale wasn't an RPG like BG was, but it was still fun as hell and damn right I bought the EE version of that too just because. Same with Neverwinter Nights. Nothing like BG, but they were still great games. Hopefully I can finally finish NVN 1 with the EE. I made it all the way to the end battle of Hordes of the Underdark (after finishing the original and Shadows of Undrentide) and lost my save game I had before I reattempted it, and I cant even install my old one on an Intel Mac if I had the save still.
"BG2 was lightning in a bottle in that sense. Bioware employees have been pretty open about the fact that they were really only able to make the game that massive because it was the final days of sprite-based graphics, so content was cheap and easy to create. "
I didn't know this so thanks for that info.
But it underlines something that never seems to be taken into consideration.
The cheapest, most efficient method ever created to engage a consumer is books. Books and reading. Nothing's changed, the print is still the same, you open at the first page and off you go.
It's not "nostalgia" why people still read books, nobody ever suggests that if the print doesn't have brilliant "graphics", or perhaps does a conga across the page accompanied by a full symphony orchestra, people won't read them.
So why don't game developers have that same confidence?
The greatest thing a game like BG does over books is to allow the player to become a part of the story.
That's it, beyond that it's all hype.
That is what people looked forward to, long before computer games were even possible to make. You wanted, as a reader (and that's a lot of people), to become part of the story, to be "in" the story.
And that's really the root cause of why D&D became a thing.
Now it's possible that people have changed a lot? That they have become so "spoon fed" by being bombarded with visual entertainment that they have forgotten how to use their imaginations?
But then, books are still being sold, I think nowadays more than ever. And you can't enjoy a book without an imagnation.
Perhaps the emphasis of game developers needs to change?
Push the idea that games can be a way of becoming a part of a story.
Keep controls simple, but gameplay needing strategy and thought.
And get away from constantly appealing to children/teens and therefore always needing speed/graphics ect. because long term, you are going to hit a brick wall. The cost of providing the "flash/bang/wallop" is going to outweigh what you can make selling it.
And a few people here have pointed that out.
Really concentrate on story and world building and promote your product as a way of being part of a story, a book.
Hell, even take some of the wonderful stories and create a game where you can interact with the characters.
I remember a really old game, Discworld Noir. It was bloody brilliant being able to become part of Terry Pratchet's discworld.
And it was simple and cheap
Perhaps the emphasis of game developers needs to change
(Apologies for only quoting one line of your well-written post. I just wanted to address this particular sentiment.)
It is changing, to an extent. Your comments assume that all modern games are AAA efforts focusing 100% on graphics and spectacle, and while that's certainly true for the heavily marketed, major studio releases, it's certainly not true for the games I mentioned, or for any of the countless indie efforts that small teams are pumping out in record numbers nowadays.
Whether they're targeting the nostalgia market, operating under economic restraints, or deliberately trying to focus on story like you suggested, there are a lot of modern games - some of them extremely successful - that don't try to simply overwhelm the senses.
This type of video game discussion mirrors the same convos about music, to a certain extent. People say that music is bad, not like the good old days, and they're unfailingly comparing pop music to some time-tested, genre-defining artist. The fact is, pop music has always been shallow, because that's what people want, but there's quality stuff below the surface if you're willing to dig. Likewise, game devs have always focused on pushing the envelope graphically, often at the expense of other qualities, because that's what markets well and impresses people... but there are always going to be a handful of gems that either defy that trend or somehow manage to meet their era's technical expectations while still making something with a soul.
Ultimately, we're living in a golden era of video games right now, with a literally overwhelming selection of games for every genre, art style, platform, etc. The big-name releases can be a mess at times, but if you're willing to dig a little, there's a lot of wonderful stuff to play out there.
So while it is possible for games with good writing to be made, the major game companies are going to need big titles with proven concepts to make sure they recoup their investments. You get the same thing with movie studios, record labels, television, sports, etc. That is the reality, and at least we have options. No bigger than this city is, I can easily get to three jazz clubs with great food, two blues clubs where I'm unlikely to get in a fight, etc etc etc. I don't care that Country Schlock or PreTeen Pop or whatever sell out the NBA arena and the Corporate Outdoor Music Center. (Unless it screws up traffic, at which point I become Angry Old Guy.) I wish more people appreciated the games, music, books, etc, that I do, but we live in a world where enough people do so I can enjoy them and the artists, programmers, authors, etc, can make a living.