1. We had the 5-disc set at first when I was little. Then later we got some three disc set, then eventually (like the year before BG:EE released) I got the double DVD/CD pack with both BG1 and 2 and the expansions. We never actually had BG2 until I got that double pack.
2. Why didn't you use the forum poll option?
Non-EE here. My dad got the game when it came out, I was around 8, and I watched him play. Nothing like a 5-disc set and switching disks for what seemed like every major map transition.
Non-EE as well.
I had just turned 40 when BG came out in '98. The only reason I had a PC at home was because my work in R&D required more thinking time than the 8 hour working day allowed so I took my work home on stiffy discs (no internet in those days - at least not in Africa). I had a absolutely no interest in computer games at all.
Then one day, while wandering through a department store (I was probably shopping for clothes at the time), my eyes were caught by the words "Dungeons & Dragons" emblazoned across a poster in the computer section - the game being advertised was BG. Having been playing PnP on and off since school I bought it immediately (all 5 discs) - and the rest is history.
original game for me, and i still use it often as i like to play some mods that are not supported in EE and i don't like some of the changes done in EE that imho are in most cases not real bug fixing, fixing bugs that made impossible to play to those not willing to exploit them, but policing what the players can or can not do in their own gaming.
i also don't like how EE changes the interaction between the bard song and the end of round, it makes almost impossible to have a bard sing and attack in the same round, and as i find the (original game) bard one of the classes i have more fun to play i really prefer to use the original game when i plan to use bards.
i also use EE for the half of the new content i can use ( the other half is too much on the dark side of the force for my taste) and for the better ui and compatibility with new mods.
but having to chose only a version i would probably stick to the original, with the sola mod, the full tactics mod compatibility, the fight vs breudaiael and his party and the beautiful exploits it allows, one of the reasons why i like to play bg games is the research in exploits and not usual tactics, even if often then i repeat the battle in a "fair way" as i don't want to depend on exploits, only have fun in using them.
Original game, not even TotSC, I bought it a bit after it came out, randomly out of a bargain bin at something like a Bestbuy post Christmas in 2000, not even shopping for games at the time. Didn't actually install and launch a game until New Year's eve, but I remember being so hooked that night that I lost track of time and missed the midnight festivities.
I discovered Baldurs Gate, Planescape Torment, and Neverwinter Nights over ten years ago when I was a kid on one of those old platforms where you paid for access to multiple games. Forgot what it was called exactly. Fueled my interest in DnD and I started buying source books.
Grew up with the originals, they basically taught me English (alongside other classics such as the Might & Magic games). Never realized the connection to DnD until much later, even though I made sure to replay at least once a year throughout my teenage years. I have probably owned six or seven physical copies of BG2, and when the EE's were teased, I knew I'd spend even more money on the franchise.
Original generation here. I don't remember where I first heard of Baldur's Gate (maybe in Dragon Magazine? Or in a computer gaming magazine? Or just on the grapevine on the internet? 1998 was when the internet still felt a bit like the Wild West. XD), but regardless I knew the moment I heard of it that I HAD to have it. It was my first experience with Bioware as a company too, and I continued to follow them through KotOR and Jade Empire and Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
Many years later, I was on GoG when I happened to spot a sale for the EEs. The title and screenshots brought back a wave of nostalgia, so I decided to grab them, and that purchase eventually led me here.
Year 2000 while shopping at a Best Buy in Phoenix, I noticed a D&D computer game in a discount bin, Baldurs Gate and also TOTSC. Having grown up playing AD&D, the attraction was immediate and I grabbed it as I was about to move abroad in a few months and wanted something new for entertainment. I still remember popping in the first disc. I still have all of the original discs and boxes.
I rotated through all the series and later IWD many times before moving on to NWN in about 2004. I came back to BG in 2011 and tremendously appreciate the EEs.
I grew up in an Asian developing country where there was never even a question of owning a computer. I came to the US to go to college as an international student in 1986, and that's when I first began playing computer games, although only on my friends' computers. This was primarily wargames, like Harpoon for example. No cRPGs. On to very many years of grad school thereafter, but still couldn't afford my own computer. Then in 1998, a close grad school friend (with whom I now play D&D on Roll20) bought BG as soon as it came out. I house-sat for him and his wife when they went home for the holidays, and I started playing this new game on his computer just out of curiosity. I started playing around 7 pm, and the next time I checked the clock it was 6 am!! I was so hooked, drawn-in and fascinated by this game, and knew I had to have my own copy. So, even though I was still quite poor, and living entirely off of my research assistant stipend, I scrounged every penny until I could afford one of those cheap E-Machines computers and my own copy of BG.
BG was my first cRPG, and the first video game I ever owned.
My mother got Baldur's Gate 2 for herself, along with Icewind Dale 2. Eventually I gave both sometime after. her attempts, though I never finished Icewind Dale 2.
I never played BG1 until the EE's, and I still haven't played or purchased Icewind Dale 1.
zur312
Member Posts: 1,366
Comments
2. Why didn't you use the forum poll option?
I had just turned 40 when BG came out in '98. The only reason I had a PC at home was because my work in R&D required more thinking time than the 8 hour working day allowed so I took my work home on stiffy discs (no internet in those days - at least not in Africa). I had a absolutely no interest in computer games at all.
Then one day, while wandering through a department store (I was probably shopping for clothes at the time), my eyes were caught by the words "Dungeons & Dragons" emblazoned across a poster in the computer section - the game being advertised was BG. Having been playing PnP on and off since school I bought it immediately (all 5 discs) - and the rest is history.
i also don't like how EE changes the interaction between the bard song and the end of round, it makes almost impossible to have a bard sing and attack in the same round, and as i find the (original game) bard one of the classes i have more fun to play i really prefer to use the original game when i plan to use bards.
i also use EE for the half of the new content i can use ( the other half is too much on the dark side of the force for my taste) and for the better ui and compatibility with new mods.
but having to chose only a version i would probably stick to the original, with the sola mod, the full tactics mod compatibility, the fight vs breudaiael and his party and the beautiful exploits it allows, one of the reasons why i like to play bg games is the research in exploits and not usual tactics, even if often then i repeat the battle in a "fair way" as i don't want to depend on exploits, only have fun in using them.
Many years later, I was on GoG when I happened to spot a sale for the EEs. The title and screenshots brought back a wave of nostalgia, so I decided to grab them, and that purchase eventually led me here.
I rotated through all the series and later IWD many times before moving on to NWN in about 2004. I came back to BG in 2011 and tremendously appreciate the EEs.
I grew up in an Asian developing country where there was never even a question of owning a computer. I came to the US to go to college as an international student in 1986, and that's when I first began playing computer games, although only on my friends' computers. This was primarily wargames, like Harpoon for example. No cRPGs. On to very many years of grad school thereafter, but still couldn't afford my own computer. Then in 1998, a close grad school friend (with whom I now play D&D on Roll20) bought BG as soon as it came out. I house-sat for him and his wife when they went home for the holidays, and I started playing this new game on his computer just out of curiosity. I started playing around 7 pm, and the next time I checked the clock it was 6 am!! I was so hooked, drawn-in and fascinated by this game, and knew I had to have my own copy. So, even though I was still quite poor, and living entirely off of my research assistant stipend, I scrounged every penny until I could afford one of those cheap E-Machines computers and my own copy of BG.
BG was my first cRPG, and the first video game I ever owned.
I never played BG1 until the EE's, and I still haven't played or purchased Icewind Dale 1.