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Did you play it as a kid?

When I was a kid and my English was way worse, I had no idea what it was I was actually taking when it came to bandit scalps. Felt kinda weird to play the game years later and see it was peoples skin and hair.

I never understood what the attributes did so I kept re-rolling forever to get them as high as possible no matter what class I tried playing, it pissed my uncle off, like it was a pet peeve of his. He'd be like "Ugh stop that, those points were good!" and I'd be like "No, they're not high enough!"
I mostly played as a fighter though, because it was the only class I could comprehend I realized. I'm still not good with using spells.

Jewelry like silver rings, etc. I thought it was good for Something, so I kept wearing them.

I got Tales of the Sword Coast later and the werewolves scared me so much I had to cheat and ctrl+Y them. I learned cheats from a game magazine cd.

I was horribly confused why the game ended after the main character died, but none of the other characters.

Khalid, if I remember correctly, I didn't know why he talked the way he did, with the stuttering I mean.
Always took him with me because of that.

Remember doing a lot of CD swaps. Guess there was no full install.

I put my own voices into the game, I'm surprised I figured that out even.. probably didn't sound very good either, since I was 12 years old, I think.

Last thing I can remember at the moment.. my favorite pastime was collecting every kind of gem and only sell the duplicates.
WolkCallmee_JohnCalmarMedullaOblongataekster

Comments

  • WolkWolk Member Posts: 279
    edited November 2012
    I played it as a kid, I'm 17 now and played it like 10 years ago, i always duplicated my gems using the exploit and went to equip myself at beregost smithy, i got killed almost everytime by the mage at the friendly arms inn, i never ever entered the naskel mines, the gnoll fortress or others, i didn't explore a lot, i just restarted with a whole new caracter and did the same thing over and over again. then i lost cd2 cried and didn't play BG for a couple of years, i then instaled BG2, and totally fell in love with the game, restarting many times of course, i only went pass spellhold once, with a completely badass, and dumbass ( 3 int ) cavalier who ended up turned neutral evil in hell, i wasn't fallen however. iirc i even took the place as god of murder.

    Edit: I even left Imoen in spellhold with that caracter, and killed Aerie the ogre XD I tried to romance jaheira, but she was such a b**** i dumped her for sarevok in TOB
    ethoden
  • SecriaSecria Member Posts: 85
    @Wolk
    That duplicating gems thing seems so familiar, but it was so long ago. I thought I just remembered it wrong.

    That Friendly Arm mage killed me a lot too, I thought he was difficult. I think it was okay if I started attacking him as soon as I saw him.

    I lost cd 3 somewhere but my neighbor also had a copy of the game so I had to keep borrowing his.
  • WolkWolk Member Posts: 279
    How to duplicate gems by Wolk):

    1) find gem (no s*** sherlock)
    2) put it in the quickslots
    3) go on the game screen
    4) use gem in quickslots ( or just click on the empty space apearing instead)
    5) go in inventory, there will be no number beside your gem ( number of gems you had)
    6) go back in game screen and use gem once again
    7) congratulation, you now have something like 4000 gems
    8) sell all except one
    9) start over ;)

    (this may be false, but it was like 9 years since i lost my cd, so i dont quite remember, i also played without mods or patches, althrough i did get BG1 TotSC and BG2 in the same box so it might have been patched
  • HeinrichHeinrich Member Posts: 188
    Yep, I think I was around 13 when I first completed BG2 with a Half-Orc Barbarian and most of what I did was wrong. Yeah, I was a little tard back then and was dependent on walkthroughs to beat the game correctly afterwards...

    Here's a few that I did...

    -BG2: While doing the quest with the Cult of the Eyeless I just simply walked in, started fighting in the main compound and completed the quest like that. It took me a read from a walkthrough to realize that I there was much more to the quest.

    -BG2: When meeting Keldorn for the first time, I provoked him to fight and killed him. I though, "Heh, good experience!" at the time.

    -BG1: When arriving at the city of Baldur's Gate, I met up with two guys who poisoned my party and through skimming I thought that I had to go into the Iron Throne HQ and find Sarevok for the antidote. I really was on a race against time even though I had no idea who to find.

    -BG2: With my Barbarian, I managed to get the stronghold quest at the De'Arnise hold. Later while playing as a Paladin I did the troll quest but did not get the fighter stronghold. I was so puzzled back then until I found out that there are strongholds for certain classes.

    -BG1/BG2: Probably my biggest mistake back then was just NOT reading the dialogue and just picked responses that would I thought would get me somewhere. Now each time I play it I actually read and got myself immersed with the story.
    Wolkethoden
  • LadyEibhilinRhettLadyEibhilinRhett Member Posts: 1,078
    Nope. I first played BG in my mid-teens. When I was a kid I played Icewind Dale and hadn't even heard of Baldur's Gate. Then when I went to an anime convention for the first time when I was like 13, 14 or so, I ended up gravitating toward the game room and for the first time I met D&D nerds who weren't members of my own family and one of them told me about BG. I kind of filed it at the back of my mind until a few years later when I was searching for artwork of tieflings and a picture of Haer'Dalis popped up, and I clicked it and ended up on a page describing BGII. I was like, oh, this is the game they were talking about, and I went out and bought it. Before finishing BGII I realized oh wait this is Baldur's Gate TWO that means there's a first one, so then I went and tracked down BG1.
  • Oxford_GuyOxford_Guy Member Posts: 3,729
    I think I was 28 or 29 when BG1 came out...
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,345
    I was around 19, so had been gaming for a long time already. Easy to recognize BG as something special though.
  • Excalibur_2102Excalibur_2102 Member Posts: 351
    "I think I was 28 or 29 when BG1 came out... "

    @Oxford_Guy Does the "..." at the end of your post just symbolise how old this topic has made you feel? :P
  • Callmee_JohnCallmee_John Member Posts: 23
    the first time i played BG I... I was 13 or 14 and with a very bad english... so i used to press 1 to "good" dialogues and 2 or 3 to make something bad... lol
    I used to play with no party using a fighter/mage and i allways killed Drizzit right in the beginning of the game with some nasty charmed animals to lvl up quickly...
    Then i use to kill some sirenes and search for some tome in a cave to raise some attribute that i don't remember anymore...
  • Aasimar069Aasimar069 Member Posts: 803
    edited November 2012
    I was 14 (and almost 15) when i first played this game.

    Since I had never played an AD&D game (and had not read the manual THAT much), I was not aware that my first character - a Paladin with 13/12/13/11/13/17 was not going to go very far through the game.

    (Today I think I would manage to finish the game with it, but sorry to p'n'p purists, but I'm not masochist enough to do that).

    I just kept dying and reloading my game, finishing the game by using cheats, until I finally met people from my High school who explained me the 2nd rules (and the interest of having 18 in fighting stats).


    Then, on my subsequents playthrough (and in fact, a long time after Baldur's Gate II release), I was able to finish both games without cheat, with legit strategies (though I must admit that a Cavalier with Carsomyr doesn't need that much strategy to win. ;-)
    Post edited by Aasimar069 on
  • drsahldrsahl Member Posts: 65
    edited November 2012
    Well it depends what you define as a kid.. I would rather say I was a Teen. I knew exactly what I was doing when it came to attributes etc (although like you I did max more than I had too).
    I didnt have a problem with English at all... I was forced since I was quite young to read and write english (my parents are not good at english, so when I had to load games on c64 etc. I had to learn the words myself) the same with understanding quest/objectives in games!

    The thing that was hardest to fully comprehend for me was all expects of the story and I didnt explore enough tbh!

    Luckily for me I replayed them alot and with age I began to understand twist of the story and plot that I didnt understand in my young teens..
    Post edited by drsahl on
  • CalmarCalmar Member Posts: 688
    I was 15 or 16 when I first played Baldur's Gate. I had no Idea you'd get a random amount of ability points at character generation, so my first character was pretty crappy. :(

    I then restarted the game and rolled for more than an hour until I got a 90+ number of ability points. :)
  • ARKdeEREHARKdeEREH Member Posts: 531
    edited November 2012
    I was about 11, I think, when I first started to play BG1. I played as a fighter in my first playthrough, which I never completed. I didn't finish because in the level where Gorion dies I accidentally killed that fat peasant that come up to you, while I was just learning how to use the controls. I also didn't know that anyone would know about it or that it would cause any problems. The Flaming Fist were waiting for me when I arrived in Beregost and pursued me relentlessly for the rest of the game. I survived for a while by staying away from cities, but grew increasingly frustrated with the situation. I didn't, at the time, know why they were after me and thought that the Flaming Fist might actually be the primary antagonists of the series.

    I eventually quit that game because I realized that my fighter wasn't powerful enough to do anything against them. Varec, my next character after that was a Fighter/Mage/Thief, whom I designed and played with the explicit understanding that when he became powerful enough he would fight the Flaming Fist, whom at the time I still thought were the main villains of Baldur's Gate. I later figured out why they were after me and kept on their good side until Varec was stronger, but my primary focus was always on killing the Flaming Fist, and not on going after the Iron Throne, because for my much of my first two playthroughs I thought the Flaming Fist were worse. After all, they attacked me and the Irone Throne didn't. Keep in mind that I was 11, at the time, and hadn't played very far into the main quest line.

    During Varec's third playthrough I finished the game up until all I had left to do was fight Sarevok, and then I went back outside instead, after defeating Tomoko, and waged a crusade against the Flaming Fist for a longer time than the rest of the playthrough combined. I found doing so much more interesting and satisfying than fighting Sarevok who I saw killing as more of a chore than anything else and not really relevant to the game.
    ShinWolk
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,345
    @ARKdeEREH Funny first impression you got there. 8)
  • FateAscendsFateAscends Member Posts: 63
    edited November 2012
    Hah! at 11 years old when Baldur's Gate first came out I had only played Diablo, but I already knew medieval fantasy was my thing. Knowing nothing of the system, and my cruel or clueless parents let me roll a terrible ranger, whome I equipped with swords at the earliest moment as I assumed he melee fought since he was so buff. Gibberling was my racial enemy, the reasoning behind that I remember easily, it was the longest name, so it had to be strongest, right?! Needless to say, I died shortly after meeting elminster, cut down by a pack of Gibberlings in melee, of all things. I cried, and my parents didn't let me play Baldur's Gate again for a week. After that I was hooked, and the rest is history.

    Though funny moment, I remember my parties ALWAYS sucked, since I knew they could die and I could still play, so when it came down to it my main character got the best of EVERYTHING. He could kill all 5 friends of his several times over, and I remember plenty of times being the only one alive after some hard combat.

    Also, my dad refused to believe that everyone on "Werewolf Island" was a werewolf, just because of the name... I *knew* it though I had no proof, and when he called me out on it, I had to find a way to prove it, so I attacked the nearest NPC, and lo and behold, the entire island starts freakin' exploding. What amazed him more is how my entire party of healers, wizards, 5 people total, went down to the werewolves in seconds, and my main character spent the next 30 minutes clearing the island and gathering loot >.<

    EDIT: Also, I say cruel or clueless parents, because they had played AD&D *several* times... They should have at least told me to put points in long bow, and equip one -_-;
    ARKdeEREH
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited November 2012
    I had my first playthrough when I was 11 , and I absolutely loved paladins and mages.

    What's also funny is the fact that I'd tell my mom what had happened in each chapter! I also remember having everyone in the party wear the same color, as if they were a team or something xD
  • sepottersepotter Member Posts: 367
    I was 7 the first time I played, needless to say I required quite a bit of help with some things (particularly dialog), even so, thinking back I think I did rather well, all things considered.
  • saffon69saffon69 Member Posts: 58
    was 29 when BG came out , had been a serious D&D player in my early teens , failed exams as I was always reading and playing , retook and done better , met women,beer and more beer then started playing Warhammer/and 40k , blood bowl , have played BG,BG II,IWD,IWD II,NWN,NWN II, but BG holds a special place for me , with this and Blood Bowl online I will never get any sleep
  • Aegir_FellwoodAegir_Fellwood Member Posts: 81
    I don't remember what year it was released, but I was probably in my mid 20's. I didn't know the D&D rules and maybe that's why I was sure that a strenght of 18/00 was the lowest of the possible 18's. A friend tried to explain it to me, but I was so sure he was wrong lol
    Oxford_GuyWolk
  • SharnSharn Member Posts: 188
    The game wasn't around when I was a kid, though atari and some early computers like the apple 2 became available when I was still quite young.
  • MedullaOblongataMedullaOblongata Member Posts: 434
    I was raised in extremely strict religious environment, so I didn't play Baldur's Gate until this year (I am 28). :(

    It's so buggy that it's always crashing. So I'm excited about the EE!

    I was never allowed to watch movies, play games, or read books that had "occult themes", violence, etc. I didn't see Star Wars until I was 17, because the Force was the "work of the devil". Nevermind the strong moral themes of working together against a common evil, the virtues of diversity, and right vs. wrong... Oh nooooo, the Force is the same as magic so the whole series is bad. Ugh.

    I had to hide a lot of books and games from my dad. I played Planescape only because I was able to hide it on my computer, and I was a lot more computer savvy than he was.

    There's still a lot that I haven't been exposed to because of my upbringing, so it's harder for me to socialize and connect with other people :(
    Aegir_FellwoodARKdeEREH
  • DraxAndargDraxAndarg Member Posts: 15
    31. Oh, how time flies...
  • MagykMagyk Member Posts: 11
    The first time I played BG was when I was 13 (5 years ago, my parents wouldn't let me play until then), but the years leading up to that I would watch my dad play his human fighter "Edwardo" (his name in spanish :) ) with the male bhaalspawn 1 portrait. He actually enjoyed my watching as I was good at spotting lootable areas when he would quickly move his mouse around. After that, I couldn't wait for my turn!

    My first character, and a recurring one at that, was an lawful good elven general mage named Xaedon (it just seems elven to me). He ended up recruiting and ending the game with Imoen, Khalid/Jaheira, Branwen, and Xan, which at the time felt very weak, as I was new at AD&D, because having two mages doing miniscule damage to a few enemies or immense damage to everyone around (usually killing both mages) upped the difficulty I felt (and I didn't know I could buy more helpful spells...).

    Through all of that though, killing Sarevok at the end was oh so good!

    In BG:EE, I'm planning on playing through the game the same way, with the same party, to relive what got me hooked onto BG in the first place!
  • HeinrichHeinrich Member Posts: 188


    I was never allowed to watch movies, play games, or read books that had "occult themes", violence, etc. I didn't see Star Wars until I was 17, because the Force was the "work of the devil". Nevermind the strong moral themes of working together against a common evil, the virtues of diversity, and right vs. wrong... Oh nooooo, the Force is the same as magic so the whole series is bad. Ugh.

    Good Gravy, I'm a Christian with a strong belief that Jesus will return soon and even I find that too much. I consider things like Baldur's Gate, Harry Potter and DnD to be acceptable because I know that they are pure fiction made for entertainment. I grew up with games like Warcraft 2 and movies like Lord of the Rings and I didn't turn out to be a Satanist. Why? Because they weren't reality.

    I once knew this person who wasn't allowed to watch Disney films because they contained magic. Talk about missing out on a enjoyable childhood.
    WolkQuartzMedullaOblongata
  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
    Heinrich said:

    Good Gravy, I'm a Christian with a strong belief that Jesus will return soon and even I find that too much. I consider things like Baldur's Gate, Harry Potter and DnD to be acceptable because I know that they are pure fiction made for entertainment. I grew up with games like Warcraft 2 and movies like Lord of the Rings and I didn't turn out to be a Satanist. Why? Because they weren't reality.

    This is me in a nutshell lol. Well said.

    My goodness I was so bad at this game when I was a kid. I played it when I was, like, 5. Your heard me, five. I think I got past Bandit Camp once but Cloakwood was too much for me. I liked to play mages of course, like all nubcakes. That didn't go so well. The only things I seemed to have RIGHT in my head, were that Imoen and Kivan were kickass. Which is a fact.
    DJKajuruMedullaOblongata
  • DeathMachineMiyagiDeathMachineMiyagi Member Posts: 120
    I was 16 when BG1 came out, I think. I played a Paladin as my first character because I thought it seemed very appropriate, given that the main villain was obviously some big evil armored fighter guy. Later, when I found out my character's true heritage, it also added what I felt was a nice touch of irony: the holy warrior whose dad is the Lord of Murder.

    When I found out that the level cap existed so we could import our character from BG1 to BG2, I remember being blown away and having a rather unrealistic view of just how much was going to be 'imported.' So, for example, I made sure my Mage managed to memorize every possible spell scroll in the first game before I finished it. I made sure to travel with the group I was hoping to travel with in BG2 when I imported my character. I basically seemed to think that the whole game would be changed from top to bottom by decisions made in BG1 and had about three different end-game saves made for experiencing all those changes.

    Ha! Silly me. Imagine my surprise when I imported by Chaotic Evil Necromancer who had spent the whole game travelling with the likes of Xzar, Montaron and Viconia only to find Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc waiting for me at the start of the sequel, ready to tell me of all the heroic deeds we had done together. Bah!

  • DeathMachineMiyagiDeathMachineMiyagi Member Posts: 120
    Also, Kobold Commandos with fire arrows? You have no conception of how much I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATED those things. Even over the span of years, well over a decade now, I still remember my hate when I encountered what appeared to be several billion of the things in the Firewine Ruins.
    saffon69
  • AviiAvii Member Posts: 34
    I was about 14ish when I first found the magical games of Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2. Ahh so many memories! So many spells fired, so many restarts, so many late nights adventuring in the countryside. The fact I am still playing these games 8 years later is a testament to their epicness.
    MedullaOblongata
  • hummer010hummer010 Member Posts: 95
    I was in my early twenties. I just remember I was in university, and BG had a detrimental effect on my grades.
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