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How was your first experience with Baldur's Gate?

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  • TwentyTwenty Member Posts: 52
    I strayed too far off the path and a wolf one hit my mage. I quickly learned to just stay on the main road until I get a bigger party. And every battle after that is like this, you better learn or you get killed.
    Adulsarevok57
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    My frist d&d game was iwd2, when it first came out. I loved that game, I had no idea about d&d rules but I loved the game so much, and I have always been a fast learner. I made a party composing of me and my real life friends of then, I was a Silverstar of Selune-I was and still am a fan of everything moon related. my large and strong friend was a half orc barbarian, my friend whose favourite character in diablo2 was a necromancer was a necromancer, my wiry and silent friend was a rogue, etc. I played on the easiest difficulty and still found it too difficult to beat the final battle. Ofcourse I got better fast. Next thing I knew I was acing the final battle in hof difficulty without taking any damage.

    I learned about bg2 and how it was the better game. After a long time, got cds from a friend, they were impossible to find in my region. I wanted to create my Silverstar from iwd2 but there was no such kit so I created an elven unkitted cleric. And off I started.

    I thought holy smite was the best spell ever, and darts were the best weapons as I was able to throw them so many times. It was an old bg2 build and there was a bug, pure clerics were able to wield normal darts. No proficiency or magical darts though, I guess it was an oversight. Anyway. I quickly discovered bg2 was vastly superiour and more hardcore than iwd2. When I encountered vampires that drained my party's levels, or beholders that were like autamatic rifles, or my first lich that did not give me any chance to fight in one of the most surprising and fantastic spells in a game:timestop! I was hooked.

    I beat Firkraag with my elven cleric, I remember crisply it was my holy smite that did him in and it felt very very satisfactory. I think I never finished the game with that char, because by that time I have discovered how amazing mage spells were. I started with a cleric/mage and it was my first character to finish soa, I think. I can't remember the details. I was pissed at the xp limit and how I was never able to utilise lvl 8-9 spells like those liches. In SoA only games even pure mages could not cast 9th lvl! I got my first mod, xp cap raiser and I was happy!

    Later I got ToB, and created a dual classed cleric to mage for high lvl mage spells. Time stop, wish, planetars, dragon breaths, those were the spells I loved to play with. I started heavy modding like tactics and the like around then. I was at college by then, able to visit home on weekends and play only on weekends. I looked forward to weekends for bg2. And even later I got my own lap top so I was able to play even in my college dorm. That was fantastic! I got bg1 original by then, played, was neutral to it, then discovered tutu and bgt and bg was the only game I ever played for a long time.

    I have been playing a heavily modded bgt game until ee was annouced. Somewhere around the last years I have discovered wild mage and it became my favourite class. I can't play another spell caster class as it feels too restrictive not to be able to try higher lvl casts via nrd. And the surprise and unpredictability is fun for me.

    Today I still play a heavily modded and tweaked, personalised bg2 game. On my Ipad. How far I have come since that first start, it is amazing. I had another account name in sorcerers place forums (Silverstar), I now see my 10+ years old comments and threads there, I feel a bit embrassed at how naive and young I was. For the last 10+ years, bg has become a part of my life, a never ending adventure and joy, escapism and a great hobby for me. At age 28 now, I create my real life boyfriend as a mp character travellng with my own character in bg2 and still have tons of fun.
    FinneousPJBelgarathMTHsarevok57JuliusBorisov
  • gattberserkgattberserk Member Posts: 190
    edited February 2016
    I agree the XP thing on Sarevok was daunting when I first saw it. Back den the biggest single XP dished out through the entire game was 10000 by completing the lothander poisoning quest.



    It was until later when I happen to discover Drizzt from my brother and realised WTF is the XP and the items.


    The best thing I still feel about BG1 is that the entire progression thing feel very real and solid. You dont become OP all of sudden. And even till the end, you didnt feel like you are OP (Char are lvl 7/8 at most). If only they had add a Dragon optional quest back in TotSC days it would have been perfect!
    sarevok57Eadwyn_G8keeperJuliusBorisovlolien
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    @Eadwyn_G8keeper why thank you :)
    JuliusBorisovlolien
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    @sarevok57 , you have bought tears to the eyes of an old soldier! Thank you for your story!
    Eadwyn_G8keepersarevok57BelgarathMTHlolien
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    @bengoshi you are very welcome :)
    JuliusBorisovlolien
  • BigfishBigfish Member Posts: 367

    does anyone nowadays use the default portraits?

    I do. Mostly because I'm picky about the portrait being an actual portrait and a schtickler for the original style. Kudos to the added NPC portraits for Neera, Dorn, Rasaad, and Hexxat for nailing the visuals.
    sarevok57
  • wraith5641wraith5641 Member Posts: 500
    I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I saw 5 random discs sitting in one of my dad's disc cases. I thought it must've been a pretty long game if it came with 5 discs. Why not take a look at it? So I installed it, came to the character creation screen, and literally had no idea what I was doing. Necromancer? What's one of those? Ohhhh does that mean skeletons and zombies and stuff? That sounds cool. I'll pick that. Spells...hm. Magic Missile sounds useful, I'll go with that. Let's test it on that cow! Oh, that is good. It's like some DBZ move. OK. Let's go in this hut. An Assassin! This should be interesting. I'll just use that cool spell I used on the cow. Wait? Where is it? It's not there! I'll just have to beat him with this stick. It's not doing anything! Ahhh I just exploded! This is hard :/

    After several attempts at trying to get my head around it, I gave up and CLUAed in a bunch of friendly Drizzts to kick the stuffing out of Gorion for entertainment :)
    sarevok57BelgarathMTHEadwyn_G8keeperJuliusBorisov
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I grew up with BG2 and was frustrated by BG1's slow walking speed when I finally did get the original game.

    ...My experience doesn't sound as good as everyone else's.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975

    I grew up with BG2 and was frustrated by BG1's slow walking speed when I finally did get the original game.

    ...My experience doesn't sound as good as everyone else's.

    yeah, bg1's walking speed was quite slow comparatively, cranking the FPS to 60 helped out a bit in my opinion, although I know that some people aren't a fan of the 60 FPS world, but once I learned what 60 FPS was on SoA the first time I played it on a brand new Pentium 4, I never went back to anything slower than 60 FPS :)
    semiticgoddess
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Cloutier said:



    The final battle was so hardcore. I reloaded around 30 times to beat Sarevok for the first time. My inventory was full of great stuff I still wouldn't use, hoping to save it for a sequel, LOL.

    hahahaha, that was great :)

  • Eadwyn_G8keeperEadwyn_G8keeper Member Posts: 541
    edited February 2016
    @Cloutier The whole thing with potions is Sooo bothersome. That nagging feeling that I really ought to have some sort of efficient plan for using these things which turn up everywhere is really frustrating.

    What I want to have is a detailed itinerary for the whole game such that I know specifically ahead of time who is going to drink what potions at such and such precise spot. And we are going to sell this lot ASAP. And these we are going to hold in reserve for unforseeable developments. Definitely a Montgomery-type rather than a George Patton ~ [apologizing for the implied Anglo-Americanism]

    I usually prepare a PnP hardcopy of my potion Inventory [with prices, restrictions, effects, duration, etc.] after completing the Cloakwoods and getting seriously drunk in Beregost for a few days before tackling Baldur's Gate itself.
    sarevok57Souave_Said
  • MonkeyLungsMonkeyLungs Member Posts: 44
    I bought it in a store with that paper money stuff we use to use. It came in a big box and sat on a thing called a shelf. Inside was this ancient tome of knowledge called a "Game Manual" and there were these things called 'discs' inside too. I think they ripped those off from tron though and had to stop using them due to losing some kind of legal battle.

    It was pretty cool.
    BelgarathMTHsarevok57JuliusBorisovlelag200
  • butteredsoulbutteredsoul Member Posts: 168
    edited March 2016
    I love this thread. Thanks for sharing your stories, everybody.

    I can't remember my first BG character. I had and still have the original discs for the entire series. And I tell you, it was a major upgrade over the days I spent as a child using the random dungeon generator in the AD&D DM guide to roll my own adventures.

    I loved the interplay with the characters the best, and eventually did three separate run-throughs with all evil, all good, and all neutral lineups so I could try out as many NPCs as possible. Evil was a human female cleric->Priestess of Talos (fun but I didn't need Viconia... oops). Good was a halfling male fighter->I forget if I kitted him in SoA. Neutral was an elf plain mage->wild mage.

    I ran across the original discs in a box a month or so ago. Thus, I have returned. My next goal: finding a multiplayer group! :smile:
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTHsarevok57
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