What is it about these games that keeps you coming back?
Satrhan
Member Posts: 78
I bought the original Baldur’s Gate bundled with Tales of the Sword Coast close to when it was released, so I must have been about 16 at the time. Got BG2, ToB, and PS:T soon after, still have the discs lying around somewhere. Played all games several times, know the stories backwards and forwards. These games are now about 20 years old. I’ve played dozens of other (good) games since then. I have a backlog of good games that I have yet to play or finish, and more will surely be released. With my gaming time becoming more scarce I should really become more selective in what I play. And yet every two or three years, out of the blue, this thought pops up in my head:
via Imgflip Meme Generator
I should play Baldur’s Gate again.
I don’t know what it is about these games that keep drawing me back. It might just be nostalgia, but then again I’ve played other games that I liked and don’t really feel like revisiting. Not as much at least.
Could be the writing, which is excellent for the most part. But like I said, I know the story backwards and forwards. So there’s nothing really new to discover left.
Maybe I’m a completionist. I’ve mostly played as a mage, good, and with the canon party. Tried other classes, and I always intend to try new party members, but usually I settle on a group that is mostly the same. Maybe one member changes, depending on what class I’m playing. So maybe it’s that, getting an idea like ‘I could play a paladin this time. That way I don’t need to bring Keldorn, and give that spot to, say, Mazzy, hardly ever played with her. Ooh, and for the first game I could bring Coran, I’ve never played with him around. Or Kivan. Damn, why can I only bring 5’.
I guess I just like starting off with some bloke that barely knows how to swing a stick, finding some friends that aren’t much better, and bringing them to the near godlike beings that they will end up as. I know the journey, I know how it will end, still I’m having a good time gathering my party, and venturing forth.
What is it for you that keeps bringing you back? The story, the gameplay, the challenge of finishing the game solo with some class you haven’t tried before, trying the game with some mod that just sounds so good, something else?
via Imgflip Meme GeneratorI should play Baldur’s Gate again.
I don’t know what it is about these games that keep drawing me back. It might just be nostalgia, but then again I’ve played other games that I liked and don’t really feel like revisiting. Not as much at least.
Could be the writing, which is excellent for the most part. But like I said, I know the story backwards and forwards. So there’s nothing really new to discover left.
Maybe I’m a completionist. I’ve mostly played as a mage, good, and with the canon party. Tried other classes, and I always intend to try new party members, but usually I settle on a group that is mostly the same. Maybe one member changes, depending on what class I’m playing. So maybe it’s that, getting an idea like ‘I could play a paladin this time. That way I don’t need to bring Keldorn, and give that spot to, say, Mazzy, hardly ever played with her. Ooh, and for the first game I could bring Coran, I’ve never played with him around. Or Kivan. Damn, why can I only bring 5’.
I guess I just like starting off with some bloke that barely knows how to swing a stick, finding some friends that aren’t much better, and bringing them to the near godlike beings that they will end up as. I know the journey, I know how it will end, still I’m having a good time gathering my party, and venturing forth.
What is it for you that keeps bringing you back? The story, the gameplay, the challenge of finishing the game solo with some class you haven’t tried before, trying the game with some mod that just sounds so good, something else?
10
Comments
- rolling for stats and the many options on character creation (classes, kits, races, magic schools) mean that no playthrough is the same
- a big number of party members with different alignments mean that party compositions, party banter, romances and even Good/Evil approach to solving quests change from game to game
- the game is challenging, especially if you use difficulty-enhancing mods; it's a great challenge to play the game with minimum or no reloads
- the crazy amount of details/tactics which are still being discovered and shared by players
- excellent voice-acting and music
- I like how the sprites/backgrounds/item descriptions look
Also the Art work of the maps is still very impressive for me, and the little ambient things like a squirrel running around.
There is also no other game that allows six characters, which allows you to really mix in a whole of personalities and classes.
There are many reasons, a mix of them even, that kept me playing for more than 20 years.
I think those reasons have changed along the years:
- I think that for the first few years, it was the story, immersion, different party compositions that kept me playing, each run different than the other;
- Afterwards (before the EEs), it was the mods that kept me around, dabbling at new stories, new NPCs, new items, and new classes too
- After a while, I became addicted to solo play, or very specific custom parties with a definite playstyle in mind, it brought strategizing to a whole new level
- When EE came out, I focused on the iPad version, never installing any mod. At first because I couldn't, then because it seemed a bit of a hassle, and after some time, because it also prevents me from tweaking it too much, I ended up adding too many OP abilities to my characters via ShadowKeeper in the old days ;
- With EE, new content, classes, NPCs gave a bit of replayability (especially when SoD came out), but it was mostly a kind of nostalgia feeling that hooked me back
- Then LoB difficulty came, and it changed completely any old strategy I relied on, had to adapt, learn how to use underused spells (or at least, stop using overused spells like Sleep, Fireball/Skull Trap, and favouring instead spells like Blindness and Slow), different strategies, items, etc.
- Then it was some LoB + solo craziness. Intense and interesting at first, although I tended to rely on cheese or work around the limitations of the engine to bring me forward
- Recently, still playing mostly solo (the way I prefer it), but now trying no-reload (surprising I never tried in 20 years), I didn't think it would be that different, but you don't walk around the maps with the same "matter-of-fact" way, focus more, plan ahead and strategize even more. Although to be honest, this no-reload is first and foremost just an excuse for restartitis
So, right now, I'd say that what keeps me here mostly is the strategies (still discovering new stuff after so many runs, this shows the level of profundity of the game).
But what made all of this possible, is that I simply love the gameplay (RPG game, level ups, classes and all of that).
EDIT: two factors I forgot to take into account:
- my brother plays this game too, we love to compare notes
- this forum. Oh, how many new ideas of a run/challenge I've wanted to try by reading others experiences !
Interesting thought. I guess there is something to the 'video games are a form of art' argument. I mean, we're not surprised if some other piece of art moves us significantly. Agreed, I love the art style. I think only Pillars of Eternity really approached the same level for me, in recent years.
So true. For my last run I had decided to finally do a proper evil run, and not bring her along. But as soon as she greeted me I had to sigh and thought 'Fine, of course you can come, we'll make it work somehow'. It's nice how this game can evolve for you, and give different things to different people. I can't imagine doing a solo run ever, the party is half the charm of the game for me. But who knows, maybe some day.
I do agree having others to talk to about the game is great, both in real life or indeed on a forum like this.
when it comes to true DnD or what DnD was truly envisioned as, the BG games were that vision; you had fighters who would stand at the front of the line, rogues doing all the snooping and sneaking, and helping you get through dungeon obstacles, and wizards were in the back chucking spells and wielding staves
to me, when 3rd edition came out, i felt as if DnD was losing its charm with the; anything pretty much goes, and the way on how you could level dip made it so no class was special anymore
in the BG series, every class had a specific role, even fighters/paladins/rangers who at their core are similar, they still had distinct roles, but when 3rd edition came out it kind of felt not so much. I loved the fact that mages could only use staffs, darts, slings and daggers, and could only wear robes, it helped keep the character in its role, and when you would imagine a mage, that is what it would look like, then when 3rd edition came out, you could easily have a mage using a bastard sword no sweat and doen't even need to class it up with any fighter class and it really made it feel like the lore of what DnD was all about was going away
next, with the BG series, the love that was put into those games, you can see it, the amount of crazy detail put into the BG series is insane, you can definitely tell the BG games are a project of passion, and i like to think that games that are made that way kind of rub off on players, they can feel that passion, they can appreciate that passion, almost makes playing the BG games the therapeutic
another thing great about BG is that, no matter how strong you become there is always something stronger than you somewhere and you never get to a point where you become so powerful, all you have to do is just unpause the game when enemy sighted and let lose your team. This is the problem i have with 3rd edition, in 3rd edition you eventually become so strong that you start to steam roll any encounter and then the rest of the game just becomes a chore at this point, one pointless encounter after another, but in the BG games, even with the best equipment and best team combo, if you are not careful you can still get chunked from ignorance which is great, there is always that fact at the back of your mind, that you are never truly unstoppable in every situation
and then we have just the setting; the music; the prerendered maps, i remember the first time i ever played bg1 in 99 i thought the game just looked outright gorgeous with its 640x480 res prerendered backgrounds, even compared to N64 at the time, N64 had no chance in looking this good, and even to this day, i still think the prerendered areas look just as good even at higher RES, and the music, oh man the music in the BG series is just beautiful, in BG 1 the music was so artfully done, the thing i love about the music in BG 1 is that it felt you were in that true DnD world, every track, in every place, was right on point, and 2 of my favourites for bg1 is the cloakwood mines and the final battles tracks, absolutely gorgeous, and then bg2, somehow cranking up the music another notch, fitting so perfectly with its setting, just beautiful
so with that being said, i think another reason why people keep coming back is because when they think of DnD and want a DnD setting, the BG just can't be beat, better than any other game out there, the BG series just checks off all the right boxes for what a DnD experience should be, now thats not to say that other IE games or other 3rd edition games are bad, but they just can't compare to the experience that the BG series was
also now that i think of it, i think another thing that helps the bg series, is the sequel bg 2, the bg series is one of the those rare times where the first game was great, and the 2nd game made everything better in every way possible, without alienating the player and fixing things that were broken and things that weren't broken they didn't touch, it is such a seemless transition, the only caveat being that perhaps back in the day if you started with bg2 as apposed to b1, it might have been a bit rough going ( although it did come with a tutorial ) but if you started with bg1, and imported your character to bg2, everything is making sense and you can continue on without needed to relearn how to play the game
in my opinion, nothing will every surpass the BG series, in terms of overall quality, perhaps some games might look better, some games might have more preferred UIs, some games might have better stories, but with those things, they usually lack in other ways, the BG series was and still is a master piece, and no matter how hard new developers try, i dont think they will ever be able to surpass the quality that is the BG series, i consider myself lucky that i grew up in the days when the BG series was still fresh and new and can appreciate the art and the passion the master piece that is the BG series ( younger people these days, or people who just follow main stream gaming might unfortunately over look the BG series because its not "mainstream" enough or - oh the graphics look old, so this game is bad bleh - sort of mind set ) which makes me sad, the BG series is now a hidden gem among a world of mediocre mildew ( or at least that is how i feel ) of games, and i think in the end, that is why we keep going back, whether it be for the nostalgia, the music, the characters, the setting, the gameplay, the play throughs that are never truly the same
I'd also take the somewhat controversial position that IWD falls short in each and every one of these areas (though I can also see how people who mainly like the idea of a "D&D sandbox" would nevertheless see IWD as a replay-friendly game for them).
I'm a would-be writer myself, so all the way through I'd be thinking 'what made them think of this?' Etc. My favorite section altogether was the seemingly boring and uneventful Bridge District until it shifted me into a different plane of existence because I accidentally had a rogue stone in my pocket.
I've played BG2ee four times in five years. BG1 twice, Siege twice, Icewind twice. I'm on my fourth run of BG2 right now. The first time I played, I wasn't even reading the maps right. My players kept hassling me to get them places and I couldn't! Who knew I had to exit the map in the right place to get to another? Or that you could turn that blue highlighter on? I played through BG1 and BG2 BOTH before realizing I could turn on AI or that strip of items across my toolbar was not an annoyance but was showing me all the dropped items in the area. I actually won BG1 and have no idea how I stumbled through it - it was HARD! I lost BG2 my first time. Got all the way to the end but was so underpowered. It took me months to finish it because of all the reloads. Don't ever pick a Wild Mage pc if you're a newbie. Thank God for Keldorn.
So I wasn't just learning and being challenged by the world and situations, but by the mechanics of the interface and then devising strategies. Or just getting a sense of the game. I mean who would down a health potion from a bloody goblet if it spelled you with fear every time...unless there was a way to offset that, like a helmet that protects from fear? Or, because the goblet had limited doses, maybe it worked like wands and you could sell it and buy it back fully charged? I did not, btw, figure out either of these two things until my third run through.
This last run through, my fourth, of BG2 has taken just a week. I'm an overpowered DD sorceror with Anomen, Jaheira, Minsc, Korgan, and Jan.. The Twisted Rune fight took 30 seconds, and the fourth level of Watchers Keep not much longer. Demogorgon was a lamb for the slaughter and Sendai, who I just killed, took no reloads and left me wondering why I ever found her a bother.
I will not make things harder by playing Insane. For me, that just makes things really annoying.
I will therefore not play again for another year. By that time, with luck, I will have forgotten much of the game (a pleasant symptom of ageing) and will rejoin my favorite gnome mage/thief to go adventuring again!
even tho i have gone though the game 4 or so times since i got the ee in 2015. it always feels different due to the party banter and romances.
that tends to be my issue with alot of modern crpg trying to be like bg no one has been able to recapture the magic of why it was so good [ altho new vegas may have come closest in terms of replay value] that i''d rather just replay it again.
Yes, video games can be art. "Art" does not have to be hanging in a museum or permanently installed outside a building to be art.
Secondly, the implementation of the D&D rules was done to perfectly generate replayability. Depending on who you make as your main character, you will frequently have a very different tactically-optimal crew of NPC's to choose. And this never feels just like flavor, but consequential decisions that seriously effect your combat. The solid mix of dual classing, multiclassing, gear limitations and the like mean I'm often spending a fair amount of time having to sit and plan out some aspects of my party, a strategic level that I simply do not find with other RPG's.
I used to heavily mod the difficulty, but no longer am a fan of that. I think its challenge on core rules, so long as you don't save scum, is perfect. It never feels like grinding and deaths almost always feel preventable. My experience is the best way to play is limiting your reloads to only inns. Sticking hard and fast to that rule will force you to do certain things that actually cut down on the tedium you would otherwise encounter. You won't stockpile as much gold, because dying is consequential and gearing up, even minorly, is key. You won't stockpile as many consumables and so inventory management becomes easier. You will actually roleplay the game's danger, such as going shopping before a big dangerous trip, and loading up healing potions. Adding this playstyle has injected a lot more life into the series, for me.
What I meant by my comment is that I hadn't considered that part of the argument why games can be art before.
I first discovered D&D when I was 17. I had just changed cities to live with my father instead of my mother, and was going to a new high school in my senior year. (That in itself is a very long, personal story that I won't go into.) I had no friends there at first, until a group of freshmen three years younger than I was befriended me and took me into their group.
They were heavily into D&D. That was our group's main thing besides school, band, and church. We mostly didn't do anything else but those four things. So, naturally, I started playing D&D with them.
Those hours and days around the table in our parents' basements were some of the happiest times of my life. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. It wasn't only the real life relationships I developed with those friends, it was also the magical world of D&D that was like a second life to us. That ability to escape into a magical world of imagination has always been very important to me. It's the only way I stay sane.
Flash forward to adulthood. College is finished, I'm trying to find my way in the world of work, I'm trying to meet new people via dating and going to parties. There's no time for games any more. I don't know any other adults who play D&D.
I got to age 32ish, and I was becoming a bit jaded and cynical about life. Now it was 1998, and I started reflecting nostalgically on how much I used to enjoy D&D, and video games. So, on a whim, I bought a Sega CD. I found one game on it that absolutely began to remind me how good it felt to play D&D and get lost in it - It was called "Dark Wizard".
Computers were a new-ish thing, and many homes didn't even have one, including mine. I finally got one and started learning about business software to help me get new jobs and the like. After I played Dark Wizard to death, I noticed there were some games available for the new-fangled computer I had. So I looked for one like Dark Wizard. It was "Heroes of Might and Magic", the first one.
From that I went to Might and Magic 6, and then Baldur's Gate was released.
Both MM6 and BG were almost miraculous to me in how they simulated the same experience I had had with my friends back in high school and college. I had forgotten how wonderful it felt to just get lost in a magical fantasy world, and to feel like I had friends there. Now, I could do it without having to find anybody else from real life to play with me. Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir became my friends. Later, Anomen and Yoshimo joined the party. It was like having access to a Star Trek holodeck of my own.
I remember being angry at the BG2 writers that I was given no way to help Yoshimo, which I absolutely would have done. I had almost the same emotional reaction to that story I would have had if he had been a real friend.
TLDR: My number one reason to continually come back to and replay BG is nostalgia for my youth, and the desire to revisit old friends. Playing BG is like coming home.
I went through a period of experimenting with quite a lot of mods, but the majority of my gaming now just uses the unmodded game. I also mainly play solo and that provides me the opportunity to really dig into some of the game mechanics. It's amazing how detailed those are and how they're still being discovered all these years later. Solo play provides an opportunity to get to grips with things like weapon speed, initiative and the way APR works. Those have a big influence on the game, though the impact is generally hidden if you're playing in a party. One of the big advantages of the real-time nature of the computer game is the opportunity to leverage those factors in a way not possible in the original turn based game.
I should also give a nod to multi-player as a reason for playing the game. @Gate70 might be able to remember how many years it is since we started playing, but I would guess something like 7 or 8 and we've had well over 200 attempts at no-reload in that time. MP does give quite a different feel to the game and the mechanics of it are also rather different to my normal game (for instance minimal use of pause, when I do that a lot in single player and playing at 30 fps rather than the 60 I use on my own). The constraints are different as well and I could easily imagine things like lag and indeterminate positioning (as a result of the asynchronous nature of the game on 2 computers) being very off-putting to new players. After a while though allowing for that becomes normal and just leaves you with a game that offers a slightly different experience to single player, but is just as enjoyable in its own way.