I'm at the end of my rope on this one: BG2.

[octavius]

BG2 was made to be played as a good character, hell you even missed out on content and quests.

That was to me the most negative thing about the BG games - if you want to role play you have to role play a good character.

 

[waywardOne]

Fighter Pilot +25

 

[Max Heap]

Spells and Dialogue-System.

And let's not forget the Underdark quest (sidequests in general), Irenicus, the story (which was far more interesting then the story in BG1) and so on.

Also most of the stuff Zed said.

 

[Korgan]

I ventured off with Korgan to ravage a tomb

I'd ravage your tomb, if you know what I mean.

 

[almondblight]

Can anyone explain to me why the character portraits in BG2 were so ugly, and why half of them are already used for characters in the game?

 

[sea]

Baldur's Gate is one of those game series that I think is probably better in concept than in practice, or rather, has some good bits but some very glaring weaknesses too. The first one has its high points (big world with lots of encounters, hidden dungeons, etc., huge city with tons of stuff in it), but is let down by its crummy and exploitable combat, which became extremely easy if you learned how to take advantage of certain spells and classes. The second began the rise of the BioWare Formula, with greater emphasis on storytelling and characters (and nympho elf sex), the "four main towns/dungeons" approach reared its head, and, while it had a lot less filler than the first one, generally failed to provide any actual improvements to the gameplay... as such, combat is just as clunky and exploitable, non-combat skills are still an afterthought, etc. Although I really like the combat in theory, in practice it's just tedious... I feel like snapping the game to a grid and going turn-based would have done wonders for it, and would help avoid the annoying pathfinding and positioning problems that lead to so many unfortunate deaths.

However, Baldur's Gate II is one of the few D&D games I've played that really had an interesting game world. Yes, sure, it's still Sword Coast, but when you bring in the Drow and Underdark, the more interesting locations that have more sense of uniqueness to them, the strongholds you can get, etc., I think all those are easy to like and leave a strong impression. The story, though still predictable, is fairly well-told and has a likeable villain, it's got (mostly) well-written dialogue, and the design of the side-quests is a lot less conventional and interesting than you'd think, and features some delayed choice and consequence, and unexpected turns (like the Beholder cult). The open-ended nature of the game also makes a bit more sense when you realise your goal is to make money, find information, etc. early on, rather than "go to the Beregost Mine... but if you decide to spend a literal year adventuring, don't worry, the game will wait for you".

So yeah, although it's not perfect or anything, I think Baldur's Gate II does a lot of things right as far as providing an actual narrative and world is concerned, even if the gameplay itself is not fantastic. If you're an RPG player who primarily enjoys that sort of thing and is willing to overlook the deficiencies in other areas, I think it compares very well to other games of its era.

 

[Merlutz]

the "four main towns/dungeons" approach reared its head

What?

 

[sea]

the "four main towns/dungeons" approach reared its head

What?

Exaggerating. The BioWare Formula is not as distinct as what we ended up seeing later on in KotOR and other BioWare games, of course, but the structure of the game is very different from the original Baldur's Gate, primarily centering around several key locations to explore, rather than a huge open-ended world with a straight-arrow storyline down the middle.

EDIT: And yes, sorry to not be clear, but I've always played the game plus its expansion as one package using various mods. The BioWare Formula becomes a lot more obvious in the expansion pack, but even then the original game definitely moves in that direction. Call it the turning point/transition stage.

 

[catfood]

the "four main towns/dungeons" approach reared its head

What?

Yes, the four main towns/areas/starmaps/planets/bhaalspawn/mcguffins first started in Throne of Bhaal, not Shadows of Amn. Which is one of the main reason why everyone who plays through ToB except for Watcher's Keep and the few interface improvements is completely off their rocker. Bioware has been milking the same formula ever since.

 

[Merlutz]

the "four main towns/dungeons" approach reared its head

What?

Exaggerating. The BioWare Formula is not as distinct as what we ended up seeing later on in KotOR and other BioWare games, of course, but the structure of the game is very different from the original Baldur's Gate, primarily centering around several key locations to explore, rather than a huge open-ended world with a straight-arrow storyline down the middle.

It's not like they'd set much of a predecent with BG, a single game, and one where you could arbitrarily not enter the town until you'd got to story point #6. But SoA's second/third chapters were just as open as BG (if a little less free in terms of exploration). Fourth-sixth I remember being a bit of a slog but ehh.

To be honest I'd removed ToB from my memory, yes, that was the first to introduce the wonderful freedom of being able to take on bosses in whichever order you might choose!

 

[Crispy]

Interesting take on the whole thing, LoPan. You're clearly a storyfag, but we'll forgive you.

It's refreshing to see a newbie with a well though-out and eloquent opinion on something as stale as BG2, so whatever you decide to do and however it turns out, let us know.

Welcome to Codex. Assimilation complete.

 

[MMXI]

...but the structure of the game is very different from the original Baldur's Gate, primarily centering around several key locations to explore, rather than a huge open-ended world with a straight-arrow storyline down the middle.

That's kind of funny. Isn't that what the Gold Box games did after Pool of Radiance in terms of the world map?

 

[thesheeep]

The BG2 story: it's cheap, over-the-top and pretty much like a B-Movie on speed, but hey... you get to kill dragons, liches, demons, (almost) a god...
Basically, you either find that highly ridiculous and dislike it, or you find it absolutely awesome and like it.
There is no way to deny its cheesiness, but to me, this is what makes it fun. I actually want a single dungeon consisting of trolls, bugbears, vampires, ogres, orcs, all lead by a dragon with a two-hander +5 in its ... where does he keep that sword, anyway? hmm.... Anyway, die, you filthy beast, in a cloudkill spell on the edge of the screen! Hehe.
Oh, yeah, I always talk about BG2 + ToB, since I consider only that to be complete

Also, the German synchronisation is almost perfect, adding as much ridiculousness as it adds good atmosphere. "Meine Oide hat mir ganz schön eingeheizt!", "Weitere Eindringlinge im Komplex, Meistaaaaa..." :D Ah, memories...

And it really does suck that you cannot play an evil character. I mean, you can, but that really breaks the whole game, or at least the non-ToB part of it.

 

[waywardOne]

Yes, the four main towns/areas/starmaps/planets/bhaalspawn/mcguffins first started in Throne of Bhaal, not Shadows of Amn. Which is one of the main reason why everyone who plays through ToB except for Watcher's Keep and the few interface improvements is completely off their rocker.

Wild mage is the only reason I still have ToB installed.

 

[Sceptic]

That's kind of funny. Isn't that what the Gold Box games did after Pool of Radiance in terms of the world map?

TBH this is the one point on which I consider Curse to be much inferior to POR. And SB did away with the world map entirely, but that game had so many other problems that it didn't matter as much.

The Savage Frontier games had pretty complex world maps IIRC, though I don't remember if they were as good as POR's, they definitely had more going for them than Curse, POD, COK or DKOK (and probably DQOQ too, but this one I also don't remember much).

 

[octavius]

]TBH this is the one point on which I consider Curse to be much inferior to POR. And SB did away with the world map entirely, but that game had so many other problems that it didn't matter as much.

The Savage Frontier games had pretty complex world maps IIRC, though I don't remember if they were as good as POR's, they definitely had more going for them than Curse, POD, COK or DKOK (and probably DQOQ too, but this one I also don't remember much).

POR had a good overland map and very good encounter design.
The Savage Frontier games also had a good overland map, but absolutely terrrible encounter design. For that reason I rate them after the other GB games, with the possible exception og Secret of the Silver Blades. It's no use having a good overland map as long as you fill it with a very small selection of possible encounters - encounters you face every 6th step with the only options being Attack or Flee. All the other games have Parlay options, a much wider variety of encounters and a much more sensible chance of encounters.

 

[SCO]

Thread "inspired" me to finally install Baldur's Gate Trilogy.

And it's taking forever. I noticed it is taking more time with each mod installed and that it's stalling at dialog.tlk editing and it's just hit me it's recreating the dialog.tlk and adjusting each offset on all the mods with each new installed mod a n^n algorithm WEIDDDDDUUUUUUU!!!

 

[octavius]

Thread "inspired" me to finally install Baldur's Gate Trilogy.

And it's taking forever. I noticed it is taking more time with each mod installed and that it's stalling at dialog.tlk editing and it's just hit me it's recreating the dialog.tlk and adjusting each offset on all the mods with each new installed mod a n^n algorithm WEIDDDDDUUUUUUU!!!

How many mods are you installing?
Not the while Big Picture, I hope.

 

[SCO]

I didn't count them. It's the standard install - the darkest day + SCS + vecna + that thing that allows arcane casters cast cleric spells.

I wanted to try the "mana" like spell refresh mod too, but pussied out since it would require editing the bat file.

 

[Xor]

Yeah, I just played through a BiG world project install. Most of the mods are completely worthless.

Also, weidu makes a backup of dialog.tlk (among other files) so in theory it can restore the backup if you want to uninstall some mods. In practice, uninstalling anything usually just breaks your game.

 

[Grunker]

I didn't count them. It's the standard install - the darkest day + SCS + vecna + that thing that allows arcane casters cast cleric spells.

STOP!

The Darkest Day is horrible, badly written, broken, and more things that suck immense amounts of cock. It has a 3rd level spell that lasts for a turn and does the same that Improved Alacrity does (which is a 10th level spell).

I can post my mod-list when I get to my desktop if you want a list of Fucking Quality Mods instead of that piece of crap.

 

[made]

not only do I have Albion lying about I also have Betrayal at Krondor, neither of which I have played.

BG2 is easily better than Albion. BaK is debatable.

Btw, a general BG/IWD question: Are the GOG versions compatible with all mods and are they portable? I'd like to make one final install of all the Infinity games that will not break upon Windows change.

 

[SCO]

Thanks Grunker, That's Why I Put A Minus Before It (since those idiots include it on the "standard" install of BWSetup).

I can't quite make myself trust a mod that says straight out "130 new spells".

 

[Grunker]

Thanks Grunker, That's Why I Put A Minus Before It (since those idiots include it on the "standard" install of BWSetup).

Oh

I thought it was a hyphen - you now, like that (<--) one.

 

[SCO]

How is dark side of the sword coast by the way? That's the other one i was unsure about but decided to give the benefit of a doubt - and since it is BG 1, it probably will help flesh out things i thought.

(Vecna is the largest mod yet, i just wanted to try it).