one thing I feel Beamdog did extremely right with the Enhanced Edition stuff and Siege of Dragonspear was keep the spirit alive of the random weirdos in the woods and other oddballs that assail you with their problems and personal defects
the dialog choices make me feel like CHARNAME 2.0 isn't gonna snap quite like the "Elminster AND his hat" monologue if you get what I'm saying and tonally that feels... off
se•quel sē′kwəl
n. Something that follows as a continuation, especially a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
n. A result or consequence.
n. That which follows and forms a continuation; a succeeding part: as, the sequel of a man's adventures or history.
Gotta say I disagree with one of the previous comments saying that Baldur’s Gate is not a very interesting city. I found it very interesting and am very much looking forward to seeing it again in Baldur’s Gate 3. This sequel setting up to be very interesting.
So that this thread wouldn't get into semantics, I'd like to remind this part from the AMA:
The events of those [ original ] games are part of the history of the city, and the wider world. They’re very important to our [ BG3 ] story.
We really don’t want to spoil anything but we wouldn’t call it Baldur’s Gate 3 if there wouldn’t be a link [to original games ]. Let me just say that we touch upon the story of BG 1 & 2 in meaningful ways, there are returning characters and what happened in BG 1/2/tob leads to what happens into BG3. You won’t necessarily see that at the start of the adventure but you will quickly understand once you get further into the game.
Gotta say I disagree with one of the previous comments saying that Baldur’s Gate is not a very interesting city. I found it very interesting and am very much looking forward to seeing it again in Baldur’s Gate 3. This sequel setting up to be very interesting.
i disagree. i felt Sigil and Athkatla were better developed cities especially the former.
I feel BG (the city) is pretty much a generic mercantile medieval city. With new lore also a grimdark oligarchic dystopia with no social mobility and rampant crime.
Each to their own I guess @megamike15. I also loved Athkatla so I’m not going to argue with you on that one. I have no frame of reference for Sigil as I have never played Planescape as it just didn’t appeal to me. The setting (from what I’ve seen) and the way the characters look don’t do much for me.
Each to their own I guess @megamike15. I also loved Athkatla so I’m not going to argue with you on that one. I have no frame of reference for Sigil as I have never played Planescape as it just didn’t appeal to me. The setting (from what I’ve seen) and the way the characters look don’t do much for me.
thats fine pst isnt for everyone. but for me i felt like i got to know the city and it's inter workings by the time i had to leave it during the last 3rd of the game.
the city of baldurs gate to me just feels kinda there. it does not have anything that stands out about it compared to those other two. it just feels like a bigger town with sections.
While I wouldn't necessarily criticize BG as a setting, I definitely have to say Bioware did a great job with Athkatla/Amn in my opinion. Just enough of a Mediterranean influence to distinguish it from a stereotypical high fantasy city, without being too outlandish. Of course it obviously helps that they had learned some lessons from the first game, i.e. don't have to put the whole city literally in the game.
In my opinion Athkatla is over the top unbelievable. Almost every city area has a pick of the most dangerous creatures and gateways to some magical place with more of those creatures.
Interesting quests yes, but the density of the supernatural is just waaaaay too much. They should have spread it out over some wilderness areas.
In my opinion Athkatla is over the top unbelievable. Almost every city area has a pick of the most dangerous creatures and gateways to some magical place with more of those creatures.
Interesting quests yes, but the density of the supernatural is just waaaaay too much. They should have spread it out over some wilderness areas.
Well Athkatla is a huge city and they kind of compress it for the plot. They could have spread it out a bit more, or fleshed out the city more than they did, but I actually think Baldur's Gate in the first game is a huge bore. It's probably due to being Chapter 5 rather than Chapter 2 though, more than it being truly boring per se. Would you rather have 5000 more generic houses to break into before you find that one that has Kangaxx?
5000 is a nice exaggeration. There is a balance to everything.
It all depends on how you want to see it.
Baldurs gate has low level opponents because it is a low level game. There are only a handful of strange creatures about. The rest are hardened warriors and mages that may or may not have quests. I find this very befitting to the game. I would like to keep it that format rather than spraying several kangaxxes and illithid around. I hope bg3 treats the city the same way.
Athkatla has almost no homes for citizens that give no quest. It is just insane that everyone needs the help of our protagonist. I mean, come in, what do you have all the guards for? Where do people live?
In my opinion Athkatla is over the top unbelievable. Almost every city area has a pick of the most dangerous creatures and gateways to some magical place with more of those creatures.
Interesting quests yes, but the density of the supernatural is just waaaaay too much. They should have spread it out over some wilderness areas.
Well Athkatla is a huge city and they kind of compress it for the plot. They could have spread it out a bit more, or fleshed out the city more than they did, but I actually think Baldur's Gate in the first game is a huge bore. It's probably due to being Chapter 5 rather than Chapter 2 though, more than it being truly boring per se. Would you rather have 5000 more generic houses to break into before you find that one that has Kangaxx?
Nah, you're correct. The repeated empty houses sort of works in Beregost because there's not that many of them. But it's a crazy amount of filler content in the Gate. It's also just awkward moving around the city, blocks and buildings cut into pieces by the map limits. Not saying every house has to be filled with a quest-giver, but some more color would have been nice. Obviously though at the time, it was cutting so much new ground this could be ignored.
And yeah Athkatla seems dense on extraordinary stuff, but you have to engage your imagination a bit imo, you're only seeing a part of the city in the game itself -- the most interesting part.
The problem with Baldur's Gate (the city) was the in the structure of Baldur's Gate the game. I remember thinking how incredibly cool/interesting BG would be when I *finally* got there... and it was okay-ish. Not bad per se, but it definitely didnt really live up to my expectations. You spend a limited amount of time there, and then the end of the game sends you underground.
Now, those expectations were my own fault - but still. Considering how enjoyable Athkatla was, you would think BG would be nearly on that level... but no. It felt like a small part of a big game.
No other RPG city can match the splendor and wonders of Planescape: Torment's little ol' Sigil.
Baldur's Gate as a "city" was more of a big town. Too few things to do in there if I have to be honest. While some things do stand out for me (such as Ragefast Tower), it's otherwise a pretty unremarkable and overall forgettable location inside the game.
Athkatla was a nice try, but as @lroumen has already mentioned: there are way too many hazardous zones with unbelieveable encounters. The whole city lacks believability imho. Remember all those vampires, mind flayers, beholders, liches and whatnot? I don't suppose they all got a permit to cast spells left and right from the Cowled Wizards. One would expect scrying the city for magical energies day in and day out would make them aware of their more... supernatural citizens.
se•quel sē′kwəl
n. Something that follows as a continuation, especially a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
n. A result or consequence.
n. That which follows and forms a continuation; a succeeding part: as, the sequel of a man's adventures or history.
Wow look at that.
ironically, I can put aside the Divinity gameplay coming from a series that's Infinity Engine gameplay, it's just that the TONE of everything is all wrong and the D&D personality is so homogenized. the cutscene looks like literally Game of Thrones and by now everybody has already gotten over how bad that tv show turned out. why is the gith not hideous? she looks like a Star Trek alien. It seems like they're putting more thought into it than what Bioware had in mind for The Black Hound, but the sameness of everything I'm seeing is seriously off-putting. I haven't been following any of this. like, if there aren't fine looking strumpets on the street corners repeatedly informing you as such, something's up.
@Dorcus I recommend studying the AMA answers they provided as well as a few previews. At this point, I can't agree with your claims, sorry. It seems to me you'd need a bit more research into the subject you're discussing. The Black Hound wasn't developed by Bioware.
I read the AMA. I'm not concerned with Larian's characterization, gameplay, story or the existence of Drow Beards. I'm sure that'll be just fine. I don't understand what the AMA has to do with the look, feel, tone, sound, personality and character design being an entirely different thing.
I personally love Baldur's Gate (the city), it's still one of the only RPG cities that actually feels like a proper in-game city to me where I can explore the entire thing, enter (almost) any house I see, and I'm not limited to only parts of it. (The only other example I can think of that comes close is Vivec city from Morrowind. Maybe Neverwinter from NWN too, but I'm not into the whole every-district-a-crisis thing. Edit: I've just remembered Sacred had some really cool fully explorable cities too. Want to give credit where it's due.)
I love the style too, it has a sort of anachronistic quality to it (complete with the 70's style sofas you see in most interiors) that to me works in the game's favor, because I think a theme of the game is the juxtaposition of the simpleness and innocence of rural societies with the majesty and inherent corruption of cosmopolitan societies, and the modern urban layout and appearance of the city not only help illustrate that, but also give the city character.
And I think the city has more content than most people probably remember. I'd wager over half of all the buildings you can enter has something strange to find, something to fight, a store where you can buy stuff, or is involved in a quest. If you want to do all the adventuring content in the city you'll be busy for at least several hours, even if you know exactly where to go and what to do. Trust me, I may have done it an embarrassing number of times.
Here's a quest map of the city that I made probably when I was 13 or 14 (what can I say, there was no BG Wiki back then):
And we can expand the comparision to all the areas of both games : in BG1 there are plenty of areas which are nearly empty contrary to BG2.
And I prefer BG1 for this reason ! It feels much more realistic, like we are in a real, alive, world.
One game has more explorable areas with quests in them, the other has more quest areas with exploration in them. Not saying either approach is superior, but the BG1 approach is certainly closer to my heart.
I think both approaches are fine, and I think the way the original trilogy is set up it perfectly captures a typical long-running D&D group:
At low levels adventure is around every corner & the characters are not well known. Lots of random traveling for minor adventuerer's and discovering Xvart villages works great. --> BG 1
At higher levels your character start to get known, and there are little challenges for them to stumble across randomly. Instead they seek out and are sought by specific challenging adventurer. Look like all of the 8 stronghold quests in BG 2 might make a fine D&D module. You could add free exploration of Amn, but what interest do you have in Xvart villages by then? And you can't realistically populate everything with dragons. --> BG 2
At epic levels true challenges are rare and typically the characters are drawn inexorably to their destiny and the final challenges before retiring. -> ToB.
I would say that Baldur's Gate 1 is very sandbox, while BG 2 does not present the parts that would not be challenging anymore, but is still a sandbox otherwise.
EDIT: I forgot to bring it back to the city design: I think the sandbox portion of Baldur's Gate is pretty much over by the time you reach the actual city. The city is already more theme park to me, as it is much clearer that the quests are pretty obviously tailored to your current level and the quest density is already unrealistically high.
If you restrict it to the cities I think Athkatla feels more like a sandbox since the encounters at least cover a much wider level range, where you can easily stumble over a lich early on.
@Ammar To your point I do agree with you that Athkatla itself still follows a rather sandboxy design approach, which is why it's my favorite part of BG2. It's the rest of the game that takes on more of a focused, theme parky design in my eyes, where the main point of most areas is to funnel you towards the resolution of your quest rather than to provide grounds for nonlinear exploration. Surface-level Athkatla is the hub area, while the rest of the game is divided into separate quest zones.
I also agree with you that the way the games progress through sandbox and theme park designs works well for the types of adventures a D&D adventurer of the associated level range might naturally encounter, although to me the design goes waaaaaay too far into linear territory once you get to Throne of Bhaal.
Regardless, I associate the BG1-sandbox-to-BG2-theme-park transition less with a conscious choice on the game designers' parts, and more with how BioWare changed in those days. If you look at their later games, they all follow the BG2 floor plan much more closely than the BG1 floor plan.
(Their writing has similarly changed focus in those years, which I've always attributed to a change in their writing staff in my BioWare head-canon, but I have no idea.)
If you read the thoughts on the designer on BG2 it is pretty clear that they put a very strong focus on the Strongholds. I think this is the main reason we got 8 large independent quest modules for them. So I actually think in that sense it was a conscious choice and later Bioware games followed that pattern due to how successful BG 2 was.
Comments
lacking personality like big blue rocks or puffy golden hands ui
the dialog choices make me feel like CHARNAME 2.0 isn't gonna snap quite like the "Elminster AND his hat" monologue if you get what I'm saying and tonally that feels... off
n. Something that follows as a continuation, especially a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
n. A result or consequence.
n. That which follows and forms a continuation; a succeeding part: as, the sequel of a man's adventures or history.
Wow look at that.
The events of those [ original ] games are part of the history of the city, and the wider world. They’re very important to our [ BG3 ] story.
We really don’t want to spoil anything but we wouldn’t call it Baldur’s Gate 3 if there wouldn’t be a link [to original games ]. Let me just say that we touch upon the story of BG 1 & 2 in meaningful ways, there are returning characters and what happened in BG 1/2/tob leads to what happens into BG3. You won’t necessarily see that at the start of the adventure but you will quickly understand once you get further into the game.
i disagree. i felt Sigil and Athkatla were better developed cities especially the former.
https://www.vg247.com/2020/03/06/baldurs-gate-2-athkatla-best-rpg-city/
thats fine pst isnt for everyone. but for me i felt like i got to know the city and it's inter workings by the time i had to leave it during the last 3rd of the game.
the city of baldurs gate to me just feels kinda there. it does not have anything that stands out about it compared to those other two. it just feels like a bigger town with sections.
Interesting quests yes, but the density of the supernatural is just waaaaay too much. They should have spread it out over some wilderness areas.
Well Athkatla is a huge city and they kind of compress it for the plot. They could have spread it out a bit more, or fleshed out the city more than they did, but I actually think Baldur's Gate in the first game is a huge bore. It's probably due to being Chapter 5 rather than Chapter 2 though, more than it being truly boring per se. Would you rather have 5000 more generic houses to break into before you find that one that has Kangaxx?
It all depends on how you want to see it.
Baldurs gate has low level opponents because it is a low level game. There are only a handful of strange creatures about. The rest are hardened warriors and mages that may or may not have quests. I find this very befitting to the game. I would like to keep it that format rather than spraying several kangaxxes and illithid around. I hope bg3 treats the city the same way.
Athkatla has almost no homes for citizens that give no quest. It is just insane that everyone needs the help of our protagonist. I mean, come in, what do you have all the guards for? Where do people live?
Nah, you're correct. The repeated empty houses sort of works in Beregost because there's not that many of them. But it's a crazy amount of filler content in the Gate. It's also just awkward moving around the city, blocks and buildings cut into pieces by the map limits. Not saying every house has to be filled with a quest-giver, but some more color would have been nice. Obviously though at the time, it was cutting so much new ground this could be ignored.
And yeah Athkatla seems dense on extraordinary stuff, but you have to engage your imagination a bit imo, you're only seeing a part of the city in the game itself -- the most interesting part.
Now, those expectations were my own fault - but still. Considering how enjoyable Athkatla was, you would think BG would be nearly on that level... but no. It felt like a small part of a big game.
I like Candlekeep more.
Baldur's Gate as a "city" was more of a big town. Too few things to do in there if I have to be honest. While some things do stand out for me (such as Ragefast Tower), it's otherwise a pretty unremarkable and overall forgettable location inside the game.
Athkatla was a nice try, but as @lroumen has already mentioned: there are way too many hazardous zones with unbelieveable encounters. The whole city lacks believability imho. Remember all those vampires, mind flayers, beholders, liches and whatnot? I don't suppose they all got a permit to cast spells left and right from the Cowled Wizards. One would expect scrying the city for magical energies day in and day out would make them aware of their more... supernatural citizens.
ironically, I can put aside the Divinity gameplay coming from a series that's Infinity Engine gameplay, it's just that the TONE of everything is all wrong and the D&D personality is so homogenized. the cutscene looks like literally Game of Thrones and by now everybody has already gotten over how bad that tv show turned out. why is the gith not hideous? she looks like a Star Trek alien. It seems like they're putting more thought into it than what Bioware had in mind for The Black Hound, but the sameness of everything I'm seeing is seriously off-putting. I haven't been following any of this. like, if there aren't fine looking strumpets on the street corners repeatedly informing you as such, something's up.
I love the style too, it has a sort of anachronistic quality to it (complete with the 70's style sofas you see in most interiors) that to me works in the game's favor, because I think a theme of the game is the juxtaposition of the simpleness and innocence of rural societies with the majesty and inherent corruption of cosmopolitan societies, and the modern urban layout and appearance of the city not only help illustrate that, but also give the city character.
And I think the city has more content than most people probably remember. I'd wager over half of all the buildings you can enter has something strange to find, something to fight, a store where you can buy stuff, or is involved in a quest. If you want to do all the adventuring content in the city you'll be busy for at least several hours, even if you know exactly where to go and what to do. Trust me, I may have done it an embarrassing number of times.
Here's a quest map of the city that I made probably when I was 13 or 14 (what can I say, there was no BG Wiki back then):
And I prefer BG1 for this reason ! It feels much more realistic, like we are in a real, alive, world.
(I still love BG2 of course)
One game has more explorable areas with quests in them, the other has more quest areas with exploration in them. Not saying either approach is superior, but the BG1 approach is certainly closer to my heart.
At low levels adventure is around every corner & the characters are not well known. Lots of random traveling for minor adventuerer's and discovering Xvart villages works great. --> BG 1
At higher levels your character start to get known, and there are little challenges for them to stumble across randomly. Instead they seek out and are sought by specific challenging adventurer. Look like all of the 8 stronghold quests in BG 2 might make a fine D&D module. You could add free exploration of Amn, but what interest do you have in Xvart villages by then? And you can't realistically populate everything with dragons. --> BG 2
At epic levels true challenges are rare and typically the characters are drawn inexorably to their destiny and the final challenges before retiring. -> ToB.
I would say that Baldur's Gate 1 is very sandbox, while BG 2 does not present the parts that would not be challenging anymore, but is still a sandbox otherwise.
EDIT: I forgot to bring it back to the city design: I think the sandbox portion of Baldur's Gate is pretty much over by the time you reach the actual city. The city is already more theme park to me, as it is much clearer that the quests are pretty obviously tailored to your current level and the quest density is already unrealistically high.
If you restrict it to the cities I think Athkatla feels more like a sandbox since the encounters at least cover a much wider level range, where you can easily stumble over a lich early on.
I also agree with you that the way the games progress through sandbox and theme park designs works well for the types of adventures a D&D adventurer of the associated level range might naturally encounter, although to me the design goes waaaaaay too far into linear territory once you get to Throne of Bhaal.
Regardless, I associate the BG1-sandbox-to-BG2-theme-park transition less with a conscious choice on the game designers' parts, and more with how BioWare changed in those days. If you look at their later games, they all follow the BG2 floor plan much more closely than the BG1 floor plan.
(Their writing has similarly changed focus in those years, which I've always attributed to a change in their writing staff in my BioWare head-canon, but I have no idea.)