(New Player) - General Guidance Needed
TheWireLord
Member Posts: 2
The Backstory:
(You can skip this if you want)
I have a love for RPGs. Not just the "Skyrims" and the "WoWs" but even the text adventures and MUDs that are still around today. I have loved these for as long as I can remember, but I always heard of D&D, a tabletop RPG. It always sounded amazing, but I've never had the type of friends that were interested in that sort of thing, so over the past year or so, I have started playing Tabletop D&D at my local game shop and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to find a similar game on the PC to explore the lore further on my own time and, quickly, a name popped into my head from the back of my mind. The name was Baldur's Gate! I vaguely remember the game being mentioned to me when I was a child as it released just a few years after I was born, and after looking into it more, I have realized that this is exactly the type of game I was looking for! Seated in the D&D lore, this was the game that I could see myself spending hours playing!
Now that I have found the game, I am looking for guidance. Not necessarily on gameplay, but on more general topics like What I need to know, Where to start, and Where to look for players. So with that said, here it is.
MY QUESTIONS TO YOU:
1. Where do I start?
Where would I go to find the community for this game (if there still is one). This forum seemed like a good place to start, but are there better options out there?
2. Should I play solo or with players?
For this being my first time ever playing a BG game, should I be focused on player solo first or will it be safe to play with others? Can I play a little solo to get the hang of things or just play through the entire game solo?
3. Does BG1 still have active players?
Will I be able to find players that would be interested in playing this game for a while, or will I be forced to play solo?
4. Should I play all BG games in order?
I would like to eventually be able to play BG3 (the newest one). Should I play BG1 and BG2 first? Are there other games/spinoffs that tie into the story in these games?
5. Are mods required?
I have no problem at all with installing mods (in fact I enjoy it) but with these games do I NEED to, or will the experience be better if I played the game completely vanilla?
6. What is YOUR advice?
Imagine me as a person walking up to you and asking "What is Baldur's Gate?" "Is that a game I should play?" What words would you say to that person? What advice would you give them?
I'm sure this is a lot coming out of nowhere, but I am really interested in getting into the BG games and am just looking for information that will help me better understand the community and the way they feel about the games.
Thanks,
- Wire
(You can skip this if you want)
I have a love for RPGs. Not just the "Skyrims" and the "WoWs" but even the text adventures and MUDs that are still around today. I have loved these for as long as I can remember, but I always heard of D&D, a tabletop RPG. It always sounded amazing, but I've never had the type of friends that were interested in that sort of thing, so over the past year or so, I have started playing Tabletop D&D at my local game shop and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to find a similar game on the PC to explore the lore further on my own time and, quickly, a name popped into my head from the back of my mind. The name was Baldur's Gate! I vaguely remember the game being mentioned to me when I was a child as it released just a few years after I was born, and after looking into it more, I have realized that this is exactly the type of game I was looking for! Seated in the D&D lore, this was the game that I could see myself spending hours playing!
Now that I have found the game, I am looking for guidance. Not necessarily on gameplay, but on more general topics like What I need to know, Where to start, and Where to look for players. So with that said, here it is.
MY QUESTIONS TO YOU:
1. Where do I start?
Where would I go to find the community for this game (if there still is one). This forum seemed like a good place to start, but are there better options out there?
2. Should I play solo or with players?
For this being my first time ever playing a BG game, should I be focused on player solo first or will it be safe to play with others? Can I play a little solo to get the hang of things or just play through the entire game solo?
3. Does BG1 still have active players?
Will I be able to find players that would be interested in playing this game for a while, or will I be forced to play solo?
4. Should I play all BG games in order?
I would like to eventually be able to play BG3 (the newest one). Should I play BG1 and BG2 first? Are there other games/spinoffs that tie into the story in these games?
5. Are mods required?
I have no problem at all with installing mods (in fact I enjoy it) but with these games do I NEED to, or will the experience be better if I played the game completely vanilla?
6. What is YOUR advice?
Imagine me as a person walking up to you and asking "What is Baldur's Gate?" "Is that a game I should play?" What words would you say to that person? What advice would you give them?
I'm sure this is a lot coming out of nowhere, but I am really interested in getting into the BG games and am just looking for information that will help me better understand the community and the way they feel about the games.
Thanks,
- Wire
Post edited by Davide on
1
Comments
Welcome to the forum. I will have a shot at answering your questions.
1. I think this is the most active BG forum on the next (for BG1 and BG2 at least) and so I think this is as good a place to be as any.
2. My impression is that most BG players play solo. I have been playing it since it came out and I have never tried multiplayer.
3. There probably are active BG players out there but the only real way to find out would be to start a thread asking if anyone is interesting in joining a multiplayer game. If multiplayer is important to you then Neverwinter Nights (NWN) might be a better bet. I have never played it as multiplayer but I have friends who started their online gaming experience with NWN and they still talk very fondly of it years after they stopped playing it.
4. in BG1 and BG2 you can play the same character in both games. They combine to form one big saga. So my advice, at least for the first time you play, would be start with BG1 and then move on to BG2. However, it is perfectly possible to play each game in isolation. The two games are slightly different in flavour and a lot of players have a preference for one over the other. I personally prefer BG1 over BG2 but for the majority of people I would say it is the other way round and my impression is that many people only play BG2 and don't bother with BG1 at all.
BG3 is a totally separate game from BG1 and BG2. The gameplay and story are totally different. So you definitely don't need to play BG1 and BG2 before playing BG3.
5. Mods aren't required and personally I wouldn't use them on your first playthrough. However, there are loads of excellent mods out there and once you have experienced the vanilla game you will doubtless want to add some of them.
6. I would definitely say that Baldur's Gate is well worth playing. However, I would also warn that it is incredibly addictive. There are times when I wonder whether I haven't lost years of my life to the game. But that may say more about me than the game itself.
From looking around, it really seems like this is a really nice community and I am really excited to get into the BG series! Thanks again for all of the advice!
2. BG1 and BG2, are, by default, single-player games. You build a party of up to six characters and can control all of them. The first character is the protagonist which you build through the character creation process, and the story is focused on them. They get some extra perks, but their death is a game over. The other characters are usually people you meet along your journey, and you can swap them in and out for others as your needs change. You can also build additional characters to start with; I've never gone past two total myself.
The control scheme - things happen pretty quickly, but you can pause at any time. Some orders like "attack" or "move" can be issued to groups, while spells and the like have to be done individually. There's some fairly decent automation available if you want to take things faster, and options to automatically pause when various things happen if you need time to react.
This all assumes that you're playing the "EE" versions, which have been updated for modern systems. The 20-year-old originals are still out there, but they're clunkier and buggier.
Multiplayer is there, but it's kind of hacked on top of the single-player experience. There's still a protagonist, for one.
5. Mods are absolutely not required. Many people would say they improve the playing experience - but there are so many mods, doing so many different things, that you need some familiarity with the game before you can make an informed choice on what you want to change. I play with mods now, but I played fully through BG1 and BG2 before I did that.