@fvmedeiros you can highlight everything with a button on the right bar. Names should be displayed aswell.
@Heindrich1988 BG and BG2 is no complex game at all if you understand the rules. I play it almost every evening ~1-2h on my ipad mini and it works pretty well :-). I play shooter, actual solo rpgs or pvp games on my pc.
Diablo 3 is no RPG. Diablo was always Hack&Slay Grind.
Current RPG's (Skyrim) don't have their advantages only in graphics. They use everything together (graphics, controls, mechanics) to involve the player very fast. The game is fast now. You want a story? You get your story! It's more interactive and immersive.
I would never ever value BG/BG2 with such games because its another usage and there are years of development between. BG/BG2 is fine as it is and i am really thankfull that Beamdog brought it to an ipad.
Okay so the first thing you did wrong was you started off at BG2 instead of BG. Would you read book 3 in a series or start at the beginning? If you had already played BG, then the big city of Athkatla won't overwhelm you because you'll have a better idea of how to operate.
Secondly, There's a very easy progression here. After you get to the surface, go to the slums (it's the only area initially you can go to). Talk to Gaelen Bayle, and he'll tell you to get $20,000 gold. Once you get that quest, he also points you to the Copper Coronet, where about 5 different people have quests for you. Talk to Nalia (she actually comes up to you and you can't NOT talk to her) and she tells you her family's castle is invaded by trolls. Then you go to the gates and through the gates to her keep where you'll battle about 4 levels of monsters, it'll take you like a whole day to clear it. So...go !
Talk to Nalia (she actually comes up to you and you can't NOT talk to her) and she tells you her family's castle is invaded by trolls. Then you go to the gates and through the gates to her keep where you'll battle about 4 levels of monsters, it'll take you like a whole day to clear it. So...go !
it is a good direction... i ignored Nalia the first time because she wanted to party with me and i was playing solo... but i will give her a shot
@Heindeich1988 I was talking about the BG2:EE new content, specially Neera's content :P, I know it is RP wise, but they notice the attack too fast and the fighters are too clumsy if compared with the mages there. The brutal early game ambushes have only been slightly edited so they have reduced chances (I think). And I found the Diamond in BG1 vanilla (the diamond in the tree in Candlekeep Coastway), I always play in Core Rules (unless in level up so I gain max HP) so that does not bother me and yeah, I know that Sarevok was toned down in TotSC, the only thing I do not remeber is having problems with the Inventory (mainly because I did not use the inventory much, but when I discovered it I only use it twice before finding Majesty, so....).
Comparing BG2 to a game like Skyrim I quite honestly think there's a world of difference when it comes to the writing. I'm not calling Skyrim bad, but the dialogue system in particular feels very basic.
Things don't always move in the right direction in the gaming industry. Take as an example Dragon Age 2 and its infamous Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel. Rather than letting you choose what you are going to say, they assume that gamers are so dumb they can't read it anyway. Instead, you get to choose "I want to be nice", "I want to be snarky" or "I want to be mean".
That's not to say I hate all modern games. Far from it. I just think there are certain things I see as very refreshing when I return to a game like BG2, and dialogue is one of them.
My favorite "recent" RPG is Fallout: New Vegas, but I play newer games as well.
i think the world need a new, fresh and new-generation game of forgotten realms... one that we could play solo, with 800 hours, tons of customizations and not as much dialogs as BG2, please! Just a little bit...
And there is the crux of the issue, BG is not a solo game. To get by far the best experience you need to play with a party - especially on your first playthrough.
All the games you listed previously are geared towards solo play, even NWN had a somewhat odd NPC system. You need to rethink your gaming experience and embrace something new.
OP: For someone who likes RPGs so much, you don't realize that Diablo can hardly be called an RPG, even thought halfwits from gaming industry may claim otherwise.
RPG is now just a catchall term for something in a fantasy world with character development. Honestly I'd really not class the modern Elder Scrolls games as roleplaying ones, or as in the same genre as say... mass effect or suchlike.
RPG is now just a catchall term for something in a fantasy world with character development.
This is right... and i see a lot of action games with such descriptions "action with rpg elements" refering to a skill upgrading system, or class selection. The game industry labeled character progression games as RPG, because the player will be "role playing" that character.
Even knowing that the first rpgs were more than that, more to a story driven, i embrace this new label, or genre. Some games will have more dialogs than others, some will have more customization than others, some will have more lore than others and some will have more freedom than others, but are all in the rpg genre. It is my opinion...
Elder scrolls i.e. have everything that a game need to deserve the "RPG" title, it have just more action, and less lines of dialog. But you have a world, that has a extense lore, where you play a role of a character, wich you can build, upgrade and progress, choose paths and live in that world. The same with wow (warcraft have even more lore, altough less than D&D), and the same with a lot of games that people say its not RPG because dont have so many dialogs, please...
Elder Scrolls have no character development other than mechanical development. You are just a lump of numbers with swords. There is no sense of personality development which is endemic of solo based games.
To be fair BG2 is the same if played solo, however solo play goes against the spirit of the game. AD&D is a party based system and should be played as such.
Skyrim has a lot of character development and there is alot of personality. It is one of the games that atleast try to make the progression realistic and it is one of a very few games that is not based so much on numbers so you can focus on the plot.
However, there are alot of possibilitys to make an RPG. BG/BG2 is a great example that a good story is worth alot :-).
If you are soloing this game on your first play-through, I think you are doing it very wrong. I highly recommend getting at least 4 members in your party for your first time through. It makes the game much more fun, and you actually get more content. If you are looking for an alternative to WoW or Diablo you are probably coming to the wrong place. Also I'd recommend not playing it on the ipad.
Skyrim has a lot of character development and there is alot of personality. It is one of the games that atleast try to make the progression realistic and it is one of a very few games that is not based so much on numbers so you can focus on the plot.
However, there are alot of possibilitys to make an RPG. BG/BG2 is a great example that a good story is worth alot :-).
I completely disagree. When I'm the head of the mages guild in Skyrim people are still saying to me "Hey you look like a mage maybe you should stop by the mages guild". Just as a tiny example of how the world doesn't change or progress. Each story in skyrim is completely and utterly seperate from the others - and the same goes for all of the newer TES games. An equivalent would be if you go and help at the Umar Hills but the kid in the Government district is still there, asking for help.
It's a weird thing to me that Borderlands 2 goes as "Action" when it comes to genre and Skyrim is "RPG" when they're essentially the same sort of game.
The OP does have a bit of a point and it seems to me that some of the commenters above have taken the post kind of badly. Please note that I am a big fan, played vanilla BG and BG2 in the day, but I can see how Athkatla, and by extension SoA, especially for a beginner, is a bit much (especially if you haven't played BG1 first).
I must admit that during the first EE run I started last month I had forgotten much since I last played some 10+ years ago, and spent way too much time just checking things out and talking to everyone and before I knew it a better part of a day had passed and I hadn't done anything, game wise. I suddenly found myself wondering where all the quests were and what to do next. And then I started again, and took it step by step and before I knew it the problem wasn't the lack of quests, but which quest to tackle first/next.
Frustration is not a good way to start a game, or play it, for that matter. I do hope the original poster gives this game another chance, and perhaps does a bit of reading/checking up on the game's inner workings before deciding the game is not for him/her. The game does have its flaws, but the fun of it almost always outweighs the bad.
In Baldurs Gate i can invite Rasaad into my group as a Dark Moon Monk. I got my reputation to 1 and can still walk through the city do quests for the flaming fist. Do i mark it as bad development of personality?
Every game has some flaws in logic and there is always something not well executed (no time for development is almost always the case). In the end it doesn't matter that much if the story is good.
Borderlands 2 is more "Action" then "Story". Till now i didn't got the story... i had no interest in it, i just wanted to play through and have some fun *pew pew*. Skyrim impressed me from the first second and i wanted to "know" more. I think this is the big difference between Action and RPG.
No, that's entirely your interpretation. Borderlands 2 has just as much story as Skyrim, it's just how you decide to consume it that is different.
And yes - it is a bad development because for the most part there's alternative paths that you can do if you've alienated factions. In fact I'm pretty sure there's another way to do it if you've got the flaming fist hunting you, which is exactly what happens if you've got reputation 1.
i see where your point, you simply prefere more action based RPGs, like diablo (not an RPG IMHO i call it hack and slash or blizzard click fest) WoW which is pressing buttons in a certain order to win, and NWN which is a giant combat system. your just not into the more tactical RPG where you have to pause after every round so you can keep on top of a very chaotic combat. but i will point out some things:
1. there is a lot of dialogue because the game couldn't afford disk space for a lot of voice acting, if i had to read everything in Skyrim I'd cry (granted i have spent alot of time reading various books in the game) but then again i really like reading, but as i said before you prefer action which isn't a bad thing. I would not recommend baldur's gate to someone with say, little spare time to play games, I'd say diablo 2 (in my opinion the best in the series) but i digress....
baldur's gate (and most if not all bioware games) main features are its writing and its story, thats what made bioware one of the biggest and best RPG making companies ever (overhaul are making their way up there with the stories for the new NPCs) if you prefere actionRPGs then thats fine, thats your preference and Baldur's gate just isnt for you, we aren't going to hate you (ill admit im plotting you mur- i mean....im wishing you happiness and sunshine! >_> <_< >_>)
but if you like more action games i suggest playing through again as a wild mage, you dont need to do the roleplaying you could just hammer the 1 key until dialogue stops and then check your journal. but a wild mage will make you laugh your ass off and provide you with alot of entertainment, i suggest keep at it but every say 6 months or so, give it a go or give BG2 a go and if you still dont like it, fine but at least you tried, go and enjoy diablo 3 (i guess someone has to like that waste of space blizzard called a game XD) serious "not that good" is a massive compliment to the game XD
Or how about this: do one of the major quests before giving up. If you still don't like it at that point, it's not for your. The circus tent does not count as a major quest, by the way
@decado: Hmm, that picture illustrates *exactly* what I was talking about. It's really quite sad to see them side by side. The funny thing is that DA:O did a much better job, they just seemingly decided that everything needed more flash and less substance in the sequel. And more backflips. The game just didn't have enough backflips!
I'm not really a BioWare-hater though. I think I have actually played all of their games. I just wish they would get back on track. Anyway, the point is that BG2 strikes a good balance between the story and the action - there's plenty of both as there really should be in a CRPG.
It isn't all about BioWare though. I'm really hoping for the best with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Project Eternity. Wasteland 2 too, and it's out on Early Access, but I don't really care what it is, I'm not paying full price to betatest a game.
How about just getting a strategy guide, going with the quests and skipping the puzzles? Set the difficulty up to insane and you can just play it as a icewind dale type. At this point that's kinda the way I go about it... Then again I also sometimes say I want to win this fight a certain way and reload until that happens, or I'll win but someone dies from a fluke save and I'll reload because I'm too lazy to redo their spell book and loot their gear...
Comments
@Heindrich1988 BG and BG2 is no complex game at all if you understand the rules. I play it almost every evening ~1-2h on my ipad mini and it works pretty well :-). I play shooter, actual solo rpgs or pvp games on my pc.
Diablo 3 is no RPG. Diablo was always Hack&Slay Grind.
Current RPG's (Skyrim) don't have their advantages only in graphics. They use everything together (graphics, controls, mechanics) to involve the player very fast. The game is fast now. You want a story? You get your story! It's more interactive and immersive.
I would never ever value BG/BG2 with such games because its another usage and there are years of development between. BG/BG2 is fine as it is and i am really thankfull that Beamdog brought it to an ipad.
Secondly, There's a very easy progression here. After you get to the surface, go to the slums (it's the only area initially you can go to). Talk to Gaelen Bayle, and he'll tell you to get $20,000 gold. Once you get that quest, he also points you to the Copper Coronet, where about 5 different people have quests for you. Talk to Nalia (she actually comes up to you and you can't NOT talk to her) and she tells you her family's castle is invaded by trolls. Then you go to the gates and through the gates to her keep where you'll battle about 4 levels of monsters, it'll take you like a whole day to clear it. So...go !
The brutal early game ambushes have only been slightly edited so they have reduced chances (I think).
And I found the Diamond in BG1 vanilla (the diamond in the tree in Candlekeep Coastway), I always play in Core Rules (unless in level up so I gain max HP) so that does not bother me and yeah, I know that Sarevok was toned down in TotSC, the only thing I do not remeber is having problems with the Inventory (mainly because I did not use the inventory much, but when I discovered it I only use it twice before finding Majesty, so....).
Things don't always move in the right direction in the gaming industry. Take as an example Dragon Age 2 and its infamous Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel. Rather than letting you choose what you are going to say, they assume that gamers are so dumb they can't read it anyway. Instead, you get to choose "I want to be nice", "I want to be snarky" or "I want to be mean".
That's not to say I hate all modern games. Far from it. I just think there are certain things I see as very refreshing when I return to a game like BG2, and dialogue is one of them.
My favorite "recent" RPG is Fallout: New Vegas, but I play newer games as well.
Wow created a lot of mechanics and concepts that will be always good, im glad that it existed... but is already a old game... 2 generations back.
All the games you listed previously are geared towards solo play, even NWN had a somewhat odd NPC system. You need to rethink your gaming experience and embrace something new.
Well fvmedeiros its pretty clear that you need a New rpg and not an old school game enhanced!
I think you can be interested in: - Pillars of Eternity, Torment of Numenera or if you want give a second chance to Blizzard Reaper of the souls
For someone who likes RPGs so much, you don't realize that Diablo can hardly be called an RPG, even thought halfwits from gaming industry may claim otherwise.
Even knowing that the first rpgs were more than that, more to a story driven, i embrace this new label, or genre. Some games will have more dialogs than others, some will have more customization than others, some will have more lore than others and some will have more freedom than others, but are all in the rpg genre. It is my opinion...
Elder scrolls i.e. have everything that a game need to deserve the "RPG" title, it have just more action, and less lines of dialog. But you have a world, that has a extense lore, where you play a role of a character, wich you can build, upgrade and progress, choose paths and live in that world. The same with wow (warcraft have even more lore, altough less than D&D), and the same with a lot of games that people say its not RPG because dont have so many dialogs, please...
To be fair BG2 is the same if played solo, however solo play goes against the spirit of the game. AD&D is a party based system and should be played as such.
I don't agree with your first point.
Skyrim has a lot of character development and there is alot of personality. It is one of the games that atleast try to make the progression realistic and it is one of a very few games that is not based so much on numbers so you can focus on the plot.
However, there are alot of possibilitys to make an RPG. BG/BG2 is a great example that a good story is worth alot :-).
I highly recommend getting at least 4 members in your party for your first time through. It makes the game much more fun, and you actually get more content.
If you are looking for an alternative to WoW or Diablo you are probably coming to the wrong place. Also I'd recommend not playing it on the ipad.
An equivalent would be if you go and help at the Umar Hills but the kid in the Government district is still there, asking for help.
It's a weird thing to me that Borderlands 2 goes as "Action" when it comes to genre and Skyrim is "RPG" when they're essentially the same sort of game.
I must admit that during the first EE run I started last month I had forgotten much since I last played some 10+ years ago, and spent way too much time just checking things out and talking to everyone and before I knew it a better part of a day had passed and I hadn't done anything, game wise. I suddenly found myself wondering where all the quests were and what to do next. And then I started again, and took it step by step and before I knew it the problem wasn't the lack of quests, but which quest to tackle first/next.
Frustration is not a good way to start a game, or play it, for that matter. I do hope the original poster gives this game another chance, and perhaps does a bit of reading/checking up on the game's inner workings before deciding the game is not for him/her. The game does have its flaws, but the fun of it almost always outweighs the bad.
In Baldurs Gate i can invite Rasaad into my group as a Dark Moon Monk. I got my reputation to 1 and can still walk through the city do quests for the flaming fist. Do i mark it as bad development of personality?
Every game has some flaws in logic and there is always something not well executed (no time for development is almost always the case). In the end it doesn't matter that much if the story is good.
Borderlands 2 is more "Action" then "Story". Till now i didn't got the story... i had no interest in it, i just wanted to play through and have some fun *pew pew*. Skyrim impressed me from the first second and i wanted to "know" more. I think this is the big difference between Action and RPG.
And yes - it is a bad development because for the most part there's alternative paths that you can do if you've alienated factions. In fact I'm pretty sure there's another way to do it if you've got the flaming fist hunting you, which is exactly what happens if you've got reputation 1.
1. there is a lot of dialogue because the game couldn't afford disk space for a lot of voice acting, if i had to read everything in Skyrim I'd cry (granted i have spent alot of time reading various books in the game) but then again i really like reading, but as i said before you prefer action which isn't a bad thing. I would not recommend baldur's gate to someone with say, little spare time to play games, I'd say diablo 2 (in my opinion the best in the series) but i digress....
baldur's gate (and most if not all bioware games) main features are its writing and its story, thats what made bioware one of the biggest and best RPG making companies ever (overhaul are making their way up there with the stories for the new NPCs) if you prefere actionRPGs then thats fine, thats your preference and Baldur's gate just isnt for you, we aren't going to hate you (ill admit im plotting you mur- i mean....im wishing you happiness and sunshine! >_> <_< >_>)
but if you like more action games i suggest playing through again as a wild mage, you dont need to do the roleplaying you could just hammer the 1 key until dialogue stops and then check your journal. but a wild mage will make you laugh your ass off and provide you with alot of entertainment, i suggest keep at it but every say 6 months or so, give it a go or give BG2 a go and if you still dont like it, fine but at least you tried, go and enjoy diablo 3 (i guess someone has to like that waste of space blizzard called a game XD) serious "not that good" is a massive compliment to the game XD
@decado: Hmm, that picture illustrates *exactly* what I was talking about. It's really quite sad to see them side by side. The funny thing is that DA:O did a much better job, they just seemingly decided that everything needed more flash and less substance in the sequel. And more backflips. The game just didn't have enough backflips!
I'm not really a BioWare-hater though. I think I have actually played all of their games. I just wish they would get back on track. Anyway, the point is that BG2 strikes a good balance between the story and the action - there's plenty of both as there really should be in a CRPG.
It isn't all about BioWare though. I'm really hoping for the best with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Project Eternity. Wasteland 2 too, and it's out on Early Access, but I don't really care what it is, I'm not paying full price to betatest a game.