how did you find BG?

messy

What got you interested in Baldur's Gate?

For me it was watching a demo video in which Minsc exploded an enemy with a screen-shaking critical hit.


What about you?

jastey

I had to listen to Minsc's battle cry for days while my husband played BG1. Gods, I hated it. ;-)
Then I realized it's a nifty fantasy game. (I'm not a P&P player.)

lroumen

I started university the year it came out and we had this super crappy laptop that weighed as much as a suitcase of bricks. There were a few games that you could play but I had not tried until then,until my friend shows this DnD type game. I loved it so much that you could create your own character and join a party, roam the countryside, do quests, see some interjections between party members...
I went immediately to the store to get it. I skipped the rest of the day playing through to the end of chapter 4 I think.

It grew out to be the game I would play over and over and over. A play through each month, and over the years while I played other games I always did a full playthrough at least twice a year. That includes TotSC (by default), but also BG2 and ToB. I like the last parts a bit less because I am mostly in it for the early levels, and not the magic dispel memory game.

Now that I have kids I do not have as much time, but I try a run each year, and honestly I am still learning new things every time.

atcDave

I was already a long time gamer, I was playing strategy games like "Tactics II" (Avalon Hill) before D&D was even a thing. But I started D&D in High School, partly because it had stolen my gaming buddies! Through college I was mostly a PnP guy. But I do remember playing "Adventure" on the Atari 2600 as my first Fantasy computer game. I was several years out of college, and into my career when "Pool of Radiance" (the first D&D computer game of any sort) came along, and I've played most of them in the years since.

But the sticking point to me was often "real time" games. I came to really hate those ("Eye of the Beholder"). So when BG first came it was non-starter to me. I went several months, looking at the obviously pretty graphics but not remotely tempted (that's what I tell myself!) until a buddy explained how "auto-pause" worked. Suddenly I was very interested. So I bought it (1999 I think?), but I think I was more interested in other things at the time. I believe I was finally finishing it up when BG2 came out; at least I seem to remember working through the finale with Sarevok when I saw some ads for it? Its been a while. But I got pretty seriously hooked on BG2 almost right away; I powered through it with a few weeks of when I got it. Now I'd say I love BG and IWD equal to it; but BG2, in Irenicus' Dungeon was sort of the "Holy Smokes!" moment for me.

Balrog99

I bought it the moment I saw it at the store. All I needed to see was D&D and I was sold. It was the first real D&D type game since the Gold Box games of the late 80's early 90's!

gorgonzola

I used to spend some days 3 or 4 times each year at a friend's home about 5 hours far from mine and I saw him playing BG2, the first time he had his butt kicked many times by a dragon, I suppose the shadow one, but I am not sure. I was not into gaming at all, but that game amazed me and when the next year he was done with the game and gave me the 4 CDs (but not the manual) as a present I was very happy. Only some years later I got my first internet connection as I live in a digital divide place and I discovered the forums and the mods, that changed completely my way of playing. But I will never forget the relief I felt the first time my Charname saw the light coming from the dark starting dungeon or the surprise discovering that one of my trusted companions was a traitor. For me playing BG2 not only was my first PC game, but was living an adventure, the kind of adventure you can live when you read a book like the Lord of the Rings, an adventure where I could actually have an active role.
Funny fact at the beginning of chap.2 I was not worried about those dragons, vampires and other monsters I was going to fight, but about how I could earn that lot of money needed to rescue Imoen, being my first game I completely ignored that quests are actually easy to get and my party would easily earn a lot of money, I was looking at the few I had got selling the loot of Chap.1 and I was thinking: "if I ever will be able to get all that money, thing that I am not sure i will do, it will need me to play for ages"...

Anstalis

My dad got me into D&D, we did a family game, and then BG after he got it and played it. My first experience playing it, I was around 7/8 years old and I had to play with my older sister. She controlled the mouse and I got to control the pause button lol. My first time playing by myself, I played a human ranger and I have this memory of being in Baldur's Gate when my whole party just died suddenly. I had no idea what happened and had to beg my dad for help. I hadn't realized that my party had all been poisoned and had only a recent save game, my dad had to rush to get the antidote for me in order for me to continue. I've been hooked on the game since then and have played it through often over the last 24 years.

morpheus562

I got my first computer in middle school, Gateway back when they existed, and it came with a video game bundle including the original Baldur's Gate.

Aerakar

I played AD&D tabletop back in elementary, middle, and high school in the 80s. Many years later in 2000 I saw the BG box at Best Buy (a US electronics chain store) in the bargain bin and picked it up with TOTSC. I was intrigued by the cover, etc. I had never really played many computer games except Tetris and Wolfenstein off and on, but was immediately hooked. IWD was next and then of course BG2.

I still remember the first time I spun up those old discs and started character creation. I recall making a human ranger, and then a mage.

StummvonBordwehr

A friend showed BG2 to me, and I was sold. It must be more than 20 years ago now. Still love the game.

I had played the Eye of the Beholder trilogi almost 10 years before that, so I was used to playing D&D on CPU - if we can call the EOTB trilogy a faithfull adapation of D&D….

jmerry

The process for me:

- Back in college (2000-2002, don't remember exactly when), I saw someone else in my dorm playing BG2. It looked nice, but I didn't get it back then.
- Around 2018, I was interested in some other old games (Master of Orion, specifically) and found I could get it on GoG, in a form that would run on my current computer.
- Then I browsed their listings, saw BG2EE for about $20, and got it. Before long, I added BGEE to that. It took me a few years before picking up SoD, though.

Isewein

Looking for a tabletop fix after moving abroad for college. A friend recommended Ps:T to me, and BG was the logical next step. I had played Age of Empires and Warlords Battlecry with my dad religiously in high school, so the RTwP aspect was familiar. But I never did manage to revocer that sense of wonder I had when first exploring Sigil.

ber5nie5

atcDave wrote: »

I was several years out of college, and into my career when "Pool of Radiance" (the first D&D computer game of any sort) came along, and I've played most of them in the years since.

Wow! Pool of Radiance really takes me back in time!

I can't really remember for sure how I discovered BG since it's been so many years ago. An educated guess would be that I saw BG in the store shortly after it first came out. I have been a huge fan of DnD computer games since way back when I played them on my first "computer", a Commodore 64.

I used to go to the store monthly to see if any new games had come out. The BG series is by far my favorite. Love the story, interactions with the npc's, and the turn based playstyle.

ber5nie5

I would like to add how I found out about BG3. I didn't even know BG3 was coming out. After so many years since BG2, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about BG3 on this website.

atcDave

@ber5nie5 we must be about the same age, C64 was my first computer too! Then went to an Amiga. The Gold Box games were awesome on the Amiga, they all received some graphics improvements. But now, I have GoG versions, which look more like the original PC versions. So sort of a step backwards.

ber5nie5

@atcDave I hate to say it, but I can't believe I'll be 70 this year. My how the years have flown by! lol

Aerakar

Vic 20 for me with a friend of mine was the first, but it was his computer and not mine. And I cannot even remember the game I played that was D&D with him, but we chose responses from a list of 3-4 and it was a dungeon crawl. It was all text based with a few graphics when loading or dying I think.

I played PoR also and enjoyed the turn based play, but BG (and IWD/HoW) is what hooked me to this day. NWN was a great interlude between BG2 and the EEs, with some wonderful mod content.

atcDave

@ber5nie5 oh you have me beat by 10 years! Dang, I thought I was the old fart around here. But no doubt time flies, when I talk about almost 50 years of D&D, I still remember those first games like it was new.

@aerakar I remember a buddy in college had written and sold some software for the Vic 20. When the C64 came out he said "what are we going to do with all that power!" Pretty sure he was mostly kidding.
And yeah I loved the Gold Box games, I thought I'd be happy with them forever. But its funny, I tried to replay PoR last summer and just didn't make it far. It hasn't held up very well. Not like the IE games. Those have a more timeless feel to me.