Editorial Baldur's Gate is Game Developers' All-time Favorite

[Awor Szurkrarz]

It looks like this:
1. DM decides what NPCs will do.
2. Players declare what their characters will do.
3. Initiative is rolled.
4. Actions are executed in sequence based on initiative.

I think that Wasteland is the closest to this.

What?

 

[Flatlander]

Well they like Baldur's Gate which for all its creakiness actually is a RPG based on ancient PnP rules, so why don't they make more like it with obvious improvements of course.

Because Baldur's Gate's old fashioned gameplay is way too difficult and slow paced for most gamers.

GOG is what got me the original Fallout, and I'm having trouble getting into the slower gameplay and menu screen interactions. Any tips to help with immersion? I've loved the 3D Fallout games and really want to see what made the early ones as well loved as they were.

I'm still pretty new to RPGs and trying to play the classics. I was pretty intimidated by BG so I kind of defeated the point of them by using an insanely detailed guide the whole way, otherwise I never would have even known where to start.

Yeah, the learning curve is basically a sheer cliff face for people that don't know D&D (particularly D&D 2, as opposed to 3.5). Also, dear God can it be hard at times.

Are you kidding? BG1 does absolutely NO hand-holding in my experience. It just says, "Hello, here's the game, go to Beregost! Oh, and you're level 1 so the first X number of battles are basically all chance whether you live or die. Have fun!"
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game, but holy crap is it difficult at the beginning without quicksaving every 5 minutes (at the most).

Agreed. No idea why you got downvoted, because even as somebody who had plenty of Infinity Engine experience going in, I was steamrolled immediately and had no idea where to go.

http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/m62t9/what_games_do_you_feel_like_you_missed_out_on/

 

[hoopy]

FUCK VIDEO GAMES

 

[Varn]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

Candlekeep, The Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel, the Bandit Camp, Baldur's Gate, The Catacombs.

Golden Pantaloons. Pixel hunting for the ring of wizardry. The fastest dart thrower in the west.

The battle at the Iron Throne HQ. Mirror Image. Drizzt D'Urden.


The list goes on and on. Brilliant game.

 

[SCO]

It looks like this:
1. DM decides what NPCs will do.
2. Players declare what their characters will do.
3. Initiative is rolled.
4. Actions are executed in sequence based on initiative.

I think that Wasteland is the closest to this.

What?

They're probably imagining what would happen if the algorithms didn't update the calculations.

'm going to hit that guy, opss, he moved over there.

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

Candlekeep, The Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel, the Bandit Camp, Baldur's Gate, The Catacombs.

Golden Pantaloons. Pixel hunting for the ring of wizardry. The fastest dart thrower in the west.

The battle at the Iron Throne HQ. Mirror Image. Drizzt D'Urden.


The list goes on and on. Brilliant game.

Durlag's Tower bro.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/m62t9/what_games_do_you_feel_like_you_missed_out_on/

once again the spoonfed divide between dos command prompt and winxp era generation shows itself

why explore or work things out when you're used to having things and solutions come to you?

 

[Daemongar]

Re: Baldur's Gate is Game Developers' All-time Favorite

Also, I was around when BG came out, but maybe I missed something: what was that other rpg with better combat and character development in '98?

Might and Magic 6 was the best RPG of 1998.

Not to piss on MM6, MM6 is a fun game, but ... better combat? Better character development?

 

[Black]

BG and character development?

 

[Daemongar]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

Candlekeep, The Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel, the Bandit Camp, Baldur's Gate, The Catacombs.

Golden Pantaloons. Pixel hunting for the ring of wizardry. The fastest dart thrower in the west.

The battle at the Iron Throne HQ. Mirror Image. Drizzt D'Urden.


The list goes on and on. Brilliant game.

Durlag's Tower bro.

"Get me out of this HELL hole" in a miserable voice always comes back to me. Also, Cloakwood. That was when poison meant business, not this candy ass poison games use nowadays.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

1998:

M&M VI
BG
Fallout 2
Quest for Glory V
Return to Krondor

 

[MMXI]

It looks like this:
1. DM decides what NPCs will do.
2. Players declare what their characters will do.
3. Initiative is rolled.
4. Actions are executed in sequence based on initiative.

I think that Wasteland is the closest to this.

What?

1) D&D doesn't work like that.
2) Why pick Wasteland? And why is it closer to that than Wizardry or The Bard's Tale? The way you wrote it made it seem like Wasteland is the only cRPG of that type you've ever played.

 

[visions]

Yeah, the learning curve is basically a sheer cliff face for people that don't know D&D (particularly D&D 2, as opposed to 3.5).

I was steamrolled immediately and had no idea where to go.

The fuck is wrong with these people?

I was 13 when I first played Bg and had no prior experience with AD&D, yet it wasn't OMG OVERWHELMING. I think this goes for many younger people here, whose first D&D related experience was playing BG.

And not knowing where to go?

Not to piss on MM6, MM6 is a fun game, but ... better combat? Better character development?

Better combat no, but at least you have a decent amount of skills available for all characters unlike BG (better character development).

Levelling up a fighter in MM6 - distribute skill points between weapon, armour or support skills.

Levelling up a fighter in BG - put a proficieny point or two to a weapon type, yay.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

It looks like this:
1. DM decides what NPCs will do.
2. Players declare what their characters will do.
3. Initiative is rolled.
4. Actions are executed in sequence based on initiative.

I think that Wasteland is the closest to this.

What?

1) D&D doesn't work like that.

I'm talking about AD&D 2nd ed, not D&D. I checked it in the PHB. D&D 3rd ed. has a similar system as Fallout.

2) Why pick Wasteland? And why is it closer to that than Wizardry or The Bard's Tale? The way you wrote it made it seem like Wasteland is the only cRPG of that type you've ever played.

I never played Wizardry and Bard's Tale, so I don't know what system they have used.

Yeah, the learning curve is basically a sheer cliff face for people that don't know D&D (particularly D&D 2, as opposed to 3.5).

I was steamrolled immediately and had no idea where to go.

The fuck is wrong with these people?

I was 13 when I first played Bg and had no prior experience with AD&D, yet it wasn't OMG OVERWHELMING. I think this goes for many younger people here, whose first D&D related experience was playing BG.

And not knowing where to go?

That's what happens when you start with the "streamlined" games that save developer's work. You never gain skills for playing anything more complex.

 

[MMXI]

I'm talking about AD&D 2nd ed, not D&D. I checked it in the PHB. D&D 3rd ed. has a similar system as Fallout.

Oh right. Fair enough. I think 3E has a system where initiative is rolled once at the start of a battle for each combatant, and each player determines what to do during each of their turns. AD&D has initiative rolled every combat round, after each character has decided what to do. However, there are numerous optional ways to roll for initiative in 2E, the basic (and quickest) one being a single roll for each side. It's interesting that the death of phase-based combat in cRPGs sort of coincides with the death of AD&D.

I never played Wizardry and Bard's Tale, so I don't know what system they have used.

I thought as much.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I'm talking about AD&D 2nd ed, not D&D. I checked it in the PHB. D&D 3rd ed. has a similar system as Fallout.

Oh right. Fair enough. I think 3E has a system where initiative is rolled once at the start of a battle for each combatant, and each player determines what to do during each of their turns. AD&D has initiative rolled every combat round, after each character has decided what to do. However, there are numerous optional ways to roll for initiative in 2E, the basic (and quickest) one being a single roll for each side. It's interesting that the death of phase-based combat in cRPGs sort of coincides with the death of AD&D.

It looks like Fallout killed phase-based combat in cRPGs, then.

I never played Wizardry and Bard's Tale, so I don't know what system they have used.

I thought as much.

Yeah, I didn't notice that I wrote it in absolute terms instead of referring to my experience.

 

[Volourn]

"1) D&D doesn't work like that. "

Yes, it does. Initiiative cna be handled in multiple ways. That's the cool thing about D&D - you can choose how to play.

 

[shihonage]

While I prefer turn based, I see turn based and real time with pause as two ways of attempting to accomplish the same thing; non action based, tactical combat that gives you as much time as you like to plan your moves.

Real time with pause tends to be a bit irritating when you are trying to pull off complex maneuvers (lots of pause, wait 3 seconds, pause again) and it creates as many problems as it solves, but you're still getting party based tactical combat with the majority of D&D rules intact. Keep in mind, BG is not strictly real time in some ways, but round based, in order to keep things more in line with the rules. Hence they animate a fighter swinging his sword several times, but only give him the one attack that the rules say he deserves.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is AD&D we're talking about, not 3rd edition. The 5 foot step had yet to be invented. This may be controversial, but I'd argue that the classic AD&D RPGs released prior to BG (Gold Box, Dark Sun) were tactical, but not *incredibly* tactical.

The the combat wasn't utterly mindless. It was engaging enough to keep my interest (at least back then). But we're not talking about JA2 level sophistication here, not by a long shot. Generally you'd be spending much of those games on autopilot and only a small number of fights would really require much brain activity.

So I don't think that all that much was lost by converting these 2nd edition games to real time with pause. It introduced a lot of exploits, but you could just not use them. It made certain fights awkward, but it made the trash fights quicker. It was probably a net loss, but not a huge one, especially if you played the game as intended instead of endlessly kiting.

BG1 was pretty mindless for most of the game, but not significantly more so than many of the classic AD&D CRPGs. But BG2 greatly surpassed all other AD&D CRPGs in terms of depth because of how much detail they put into the spellcasting system.

Once 3rd edition came out and the combat system explicitly focused on precisely measuring movement with grids and miniatures, I felt that real time with pause became a lot more inadequate. For this reason I feel IWD2 suffers from doing the third edition rules in RTWP.

But back in 1998? BG had AC, at had THAC0, it had the proper attacks per round, it had the right spells and monsters. It had a full party that you could actually move around. Compared to what we had been getting for the last 4 years? BG1 was pretty solid.

Thank you, this was quite informative

 

[Infinitron]

The fuck is wrong with these people?

I was 13 when I first played Bg and had no prior experience with AD&D, yet it wasn't OMG OVERWHELMING. I think this goes for many younger people here, whose first D&D related experience was playing BG.

And not knowing where to go?

And these people were playing Mario (or whatever) when they were 13. Their brains haven't been trained to play RPGs. It's doubtful if they were ever capable of playing them.

Here's a good rule of thumb: Anybody who plays RPGs, but despises strategy games, is a fake who is playing solely for the CINEMATIC CHARACTER-DRIVEN EXPERIENCE. Strategy games require many of the same mental processes as hardcore RPGs, without the story fluff.

 

[Roguey]

Re: Baldur's Gate is Game Developers' All-time Favorite

Not to piss on MM6, MM6 is a fun game, but ... better combat?

When it comes to killing things, marginally (it's definitely more fun to break). It has far better dungeons.

Better character development?

Yep. It's sadly lacking compared to 3,4, and 5, but I still prefer it to BG because the spells are a lot more fun, there are noncombat skills for non-thieves, and the gold/training requirements to increase.

 

[shihonage]

Here's a good rule of thumb: Anybody who plays RPGs, but despises strategy games, is a fake who is playing solely for the CINEMATIC CHARACTER-DRIVEN EXPERIENCE. Strategy games require many of the same mental processes as hardcore RPGs, without the story fluff.

All sandwiches aren't the same just because your jaws go through the same motions while eating them.

 

[Infinitron]

Here's a good rule of thumb: Anybody who plays RPGs, but despises strategy games, is a fake who is playing solely for the CINEMATIC CHARACTER-DRIVEN EXPERIENCE. Strategy games require many of the same mental processes as hardcore RPGs, without the story fluff.

All sandwiches aren't the same just because your jaws go through the same motions while eating them.

Didn't say you have to like strategy games. Only not be utterly repelled by their mechanics.
It's clear that none of these "BG doesn't tell you where to go" faggots could ever make a single move in Civilization or Total War.

 

[shihonage]

TRU DAT. Such people depress me.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The worst thing is that Baldur's Gate explicitly tells the player where to go.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah but it's only written in that journal thingy you have to manually scroll and then told to you by like two-thirds of the NPCs you encounter and by every recruitable NPC and sure, it's already visible on the map but you can't just click it and
OHMY GAWD IT'S SOOOO DIFFICULT

 

[Wunderpurps]

I'm surprised people are complaining. I expected the top game to be deus ex or sim city with nothing like a proper RPG in the top 20. Monkey Island at number three gives me a large increase in respect for the industry.