POLL: Is your general sentiment towards POE negative or positive?

[Beowulf]

There is no advantage of buying Enchanced Editions over the originals.

Well, I can play without any problems with my gf playing on her (oh, the abomination) Mac.
I don't think I could do that playing original game.

'Twas the only reason I bought EE in the first place

 

[Grimwulf]

Negative. Could not bring myself to finish the game.

On the other hand, it inspired me to buy Enhanced Editions of BG1, BG2 and IWD1.

Dis is all I ever needed.

Just fucking kill yourself.

But then I won't be able to buy IWD2 EE when it comes out.

Spoiler

Fuck off. Go pledge to some kickstarter popamole or smth.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Complaints/Traits:
1. Liveless cities/towns/villages

2. Boring itemization

3. Lack of Roleplay opportunities

4. Stereotypical encounters

5. A few encounters that stand out

6. Boring sidequests

7. NPCs lack depth

8. Main plot is pigeonholed

Valid for PoE:
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Valid for the IE games:
3, 4, 5 ,6, 7, 8

My conclusion: PoE is definetly not as good as you remember the IE games to be.

^
Go die in a fire fucktard.

P.S., so that people of Seari's capabilities can understand: The biggest difference between PoE and the IE games is in the age at which you played one and the others.

 

[Seari]

^
Go die in a fire fucktard.

 

[Lhynn]

AwesomeButton

I liked BGI plot, was miles more interesting than poes one, i liked how distinct elements of it like the iron crisis and the bandits and the iron throne coming to power and the figure behind it all were connected.
I liked sarevoks motivations, i liked the metods he used, hiring profesional bounty hunters to get your head, i liked how they were always in places where you werent expecting them.
I liked how you naturally took the fight to them and how it all came together at the end.

NPCs didnt need depth in BGI, it wasnt that kind of game. Tbh poe is more enjoyable with a party that shuts the fuck up.
Encounters in BGI were pretty memorable, the capitan that went mad because of the cursed sword, the spirit at the ruins if you took the reliq, centeols fight, the fight at the camp of the bandits, the fight at the iron mine against the other adventuring party, the fight against the mage in the lower level of it, the fight against dritzz, the fight against sarevok, the fights against the ankhegs, the fight against the siren that wants to kiss you, the fight against the dopplegangers that were impersonating elmister and gorion, or the mage that wanted to slave a nymph.

Jesus that game was full of memorable encounters, more for the context than for how enemy was distributed, which attests to good creative writing, even if not strong, quite fun.

BG also had interesting sidequests like finding the pet of a demon (which does sound better than it was, sadly), or how about when you find the talking chicken melicamp, or how about the quest for the helm of balduran which incidentaly leads you to the cloak of balduran. Or the time you got poisoned. There werent that many of them, but there were a few interesting quests that got you involved.

Ive played mostly poe on the last month, and the only fight i can recall is against radreic or whatever his name his, against the witch on the very same castle and against some golems on the night of of the crucible HQs, the later only because they were tanks that would cast one of the most damaging wizard spells in the game. As for sidequests i guess the one where you have to give some mother some placebos, or the one where you have to kill some wizard that is in some house full of junkies.

Its really easy to see the difference in games when you bring up the quests actually, one had you do interesting stuff like rescuing people, experimenting with magic, finding powerful magical items, or really silly things, the other is kind of miserable and boring, go find the cure, the cure is fake, tell the truth or lie, some dude abused his woman until she couldnt take it anymore and left, go there and tell the dude that the girl is done with him, if you are curious try to explore and murder everyone, then try to bring the dealer and the abused girl together again, or not. Go deliver the planes for mass production of incredibly powerful automatons to police people, all automatons fail and go berserk murdering a lot of people, go kill the automatons and tell the dude to keep making them, or not, he will listen to you, he will tell you he doesnt know why hes listening to you, but you know why, you are the main character, thats why.

 

[Ezrite]

Overrall it was a decent game. For being a shitty kickstarter project in a time when this kind of games are "not good" enough for shitty publishers! This was very fun..

I think PoE is much darker and grimmer than fucking BG, Baldurs Gate got shit writing and most people just see the nostalgia in it. It is pretty dman crappy after one played Planescape Torment.

 

[Seari]

You can't compare it with PS:T. It's a different kind of game, idiot.

 

[Volrath]

Its really easy to see the difference in games when you bring up the quests actually, one had you do interesting stuff like rescuing people, experimenting with magic, finding powerful magical items, or really silly things, the other is kind of miserable and boring, go find the cure, the cure is fake, tell the truth or lie, some dude abused his woman until she couldnt take it anymore and left, go there and tell the dude that the girl is done with him, if you are curious try to explore and murder everyone, then try to bring the dealer and the abused girl together again, or not. Go deliver the planes for mass production of incredibly powerful automatons to police people, all automatons fail and go berserk murdering a lot of people, go kill the automatons and tell the dude to keep making them, or not, he will listen to you, he will tell you he doesnt know why hes listening to you, but you know why, you are the main character, thats why.

Isn't that just a matter of preference, in the BG games you were the Ch0sun 1ne, the most special snowflake of all special snowflakes. Everything revolved around you... I mean fuck you met Elminster 5 minutes after leaving Candlekeep.
Meanwhile PoE uses you just as another cog in the machine, a victim of circumstance and the quests revolve around that. It's not that they're more grounded, it's that they make more sense.

In the end this all comes back to the FUN/REALISM argument.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I'm doing the bounties at level 7 right now and they are a lot of fun. For the expansion/sequel Obsidian needs to integrate this kind of strong and varied enemy groups and parties into the main quest (and not just make them side content), this would already go a long way to significantly improve the game.

 

[Sensuki]

They ain't gonna do that - badgame and Something Awful and the game journos would complain. Guess where your preferences fit into that order? Behind them!

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Well, I hope you're wrong but who knows. What is this "badgame" forum anyway? First time I hear of them is in the context of the PoE discussion. The name alone makes me want to punch them in the face.

 

[Sensuki]

Josh Sawyer's home forum. He posts nearly every day here and plays Ars Magicka with a bunch of guys from here, so naturally his m8z (from here and other places) are gonna trump anyone elses's gameplay prefs.

http://badgame.net

He also enjoys making games easier to play for people I think, job succeeded here at the cost of my enjoyment.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Isn't that just a matter of preference, in the BG games you were the Ch0sun 1ne, the most special snowflake of all special snowflakes. Everything revolved around you... I mean fuck you met Elminster 5 minutes after leaving Candlekeep.

Not really, in first BG the chosen one aspect doesn't come into play until Chapter 6, you're just a kid with a bounty on his head and some affinity for adventure that ends up investigating local troubles. Elminster was just DnD fanservice (unless put into perspective after beating the whole series) and the party members treat you as anything but a special snowflake, they're liable to leave or even attack you depending on the circumstances (such as dragging out your agreement with them or party reputation) which is something I wish more games featured.

TOB suits your description the most but even then it's more "there can be only one" Highlander-like than chosen one defeats the ancient awakened evil.

Meanwhile PoE uses you just as another cog in the machine, a victim of circumstance and the quests revolve around that. It's not that they're more grounded, it's that they make more sense.

You're a victim of a lot fucking circumstances, your caravan just happens to be in the same place at the same time Thaos is doing his ceremonial stuff, you just happen to survive while everyone dies around you (because strong soul and Watcher) oh and you just happen to have been closely associated with him in your previous life.

That said, other than that, PoE beginning is probably my favourite part of the game (and one of the best ones I've seen in RPG):

-Lots of meaningful stat/skill checks all-around.

-Dungeon that features C&C, kobold diplomacy, puzzle, hidden area and different enemy types. I really hope they use it as a template for expansions/sequel.

-Some interesting lore introduction (Engwithans, Adra, Biawac).

 

[Lhynn]

Its really easy to see the difference in games when you bring up the quests actually, one had you do interesting stuff like rescuing people, experimenting with magic, finding powerful magical items, or really silly things, the other is kind of miserable and boring, go find the cure, the cure is fake, tell the truth or lie, some dude abused his woman until she couldnt take it anymore and left, go there and tell the dude that the girl is done with him, if you are curious try to explore and murder everyone, then try to bring the dealer and the abused girl together again, or not. Go deliver the planes for mass production of incredibly powerful automatons to police people, all automatons fail and go berserk murdering a lot of people, go kill the automatons and tell the dude to keep making them, or not, he will listen to you, he will tell you he doesnt know why hes listening to you, but you know why, you are the main character, thats why.

Isn't that just a matter of preference, in the BG games you were the Ch0sun 1ne, the most special snowflake of all special snowflakes. Everything revolved around you... I mean fuck you met Elminster 5 minutes after leaving Candlekeep.
Meanwhile PoE uses you just as another cog in the machine, a victim of circumstance and the quests revolve around that. It's not that they're more grounded, it's that they make more sense.

In the end this all comes back to the FUN/REALISM argument.

Wut? in the first BG nothing revolved around you, you were just some poor idiot that happened to have a known foster father. It was up to you what you did, a lot of your companions had shit to do in the south, but you were free to do whatever the fuck. Elminster KNEW who you actually where, he never did much but say hi tho, because thats how that cunt does, he shows his ugly face everywhere just to be able to say "i was fucking there". shit character from a shit setting.

In BGII nothing revolves around you either, everything revolves around Irenicus, HE is the center of everything, you were just his latest victim.
Its in ToB where you actually are one of the chosen ones, the select group of sons of murder, one of the possible candidates for ascension, and its a good thing that it is, because the series is ats its end, you are one of the strongest mortals to walk toril, because everything will be defined in that small region, its you against a group of equally chosen ones for the biggest prize of them all. Its cool mate, when i was 16 i loved that shit, when i was 18 i loved that shit, to this day i love that shit, because you played it since the you only had 1 magic missile per day, or 1 cure light wounds, or you had like a 60% to do ONE thing right as a thief, or you had one attack per round, you were there since the beginning. While not a very good expansion, it could have been much, much worse, and for what its worth, i enjoyed playing tru it a couple times.

As for PoE, it feels aimless, and its p. linear, its really strange. also it features one of the most contrived starts in any rpg ever.
There are a few things i like about the game for sure, and is ive said before, its not a bad game, its a competently made game for casuals that heard about BG2.

 

[Ezrite]

You can't compare it with PS:T. It's a different kind of game, idiot.

You what mate? I think I can compare it. Infinity engine games all of them, RPG genre. Isometric, DnD or inspired by it. You always act like this? Calling people idiots?

As I said, BG writing is a joke after playing Planescape, you see how I compared them? Their writing.

 

[Seari]

You can't compare it with PS:T. It's a different kind of game, idiot.

You what mate? I think I can compare it. Infinity engine games all of them, RPG genre. Isometric, DnD or inspired by it. You always act like this? Calling people idiots?

As I said, BG writing is a joke after playing Planescape, you see how I compared them? Their writing.

Yes.

While PS:T is a better game and I don't even like vanilla BG1, comparing them is stupid. The first one's focus is on story while the other's is combat and exploration. Just because you're a storyfag doesn't mean others find BG1 good only due to nostalgia.

 

[Nael]

PoE is Hollowborn.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I liked BGI plot, was miles more interesting than poes one, i liked how distinct elements of it like the iron crisis and the bandits and the iron throne coming to power and the figure behind it all were connected.
I liked sarevoks motivations, i liked the metods he used, hiring profesional bounty hunters to get your head, i liked how they were always in places where you werent expecting them.
I liked how you naturally took the fight to them and how it all came together at the end.

I find the both games' plots to be of equal quality, but that's just me. Rating plots is way too subjective, and it's not my goal. I'm just quoting other people's comments.

NPCs didnt need depth in BGI, it wasnt that kind of game. Tbh poe is more enjoyable with a party that shuts the fuck up.
Encounters in BGI were pretty memorable, the capitan that went mad because of the cursed sword, the spirit at the ruins if you took the reliq, centeols fight, the fight at the camp of the bandits, the fight at the iron mine against the other adventuring party, the fight against the mage in the lower level of it, the fight against dritzz, the fight against sarevok, the fights against the ankhegs, the fight against the siren that wants to kiss you, the fight against the dopplegangers that were impersonating elmister and gorion, or the mage that wanted to slave a nymph.

Like I said, both games have some memorable encounters, and both games have filler encounters. I'm 60 hours into PoE and I can list only 4-5 memorable encounters though, and I consider this to be a problem. BGI seems to have had more memorable encounters, but if we take it into account that the same people were far less experienced when they played BGI than they were when playing PoE, it wouldn't surprise me if present-day new players find PoE to have loads of memorable encounters.

BG also had interesting sidequests like finding the pet of a demon (which does sound better than it was, sadly), or how about when you find the talking chicken melicamp, or how about the quest for the helm of balduran which incidentaly leads you to the cloak of balduran. Or the time you got poisoned. There werent that many of them, but there were a few interesting quests that got you involved.

I would reply to this in the same lines as I did about the encounters. Maybe we need to take a person who has played neither the IE games nor PoE and have him play both one after the other. I think so because 10+ years of time distance mean a lot. I only recently played BGI to the end and honestly it seemed far less memorable, if not outright boring, compared to BGII which had the advantage of me playing it for the first time when it was new, in 2001.

Its really easy to see the difference in games when you bring up the quests actually, one had you do interesting stuff like rescuing people, experimenting with magic, finding powerful magical items, or really silly things, the other is kind of miserable and boring, go find the cure, the cure is fake, tell the truth or lie, some dude abused his woman until she couldnt take it anymore and left, go there and tell the dude that the girl is done with him, if you are curious try to explore and murder everyone, then try to bring the dealer and the abused girl together again, or not. Go deliver the planes for mass production of incredibly powerful automatons to police people, all automatons fail and go berserk murdering a lot of people, go kill the automatons and tell the dude to keep making them, or not, he will listen to you, he will tell you he doesnt know why hes listening to you, but you know why, you are the main character, thats why.

Again, if you are the same person with the same interests, and you can be emotionally involved in a short story in the same way when you could in your teens, either you are quite the exception among people in general, or you have somehow stopped yourself from maturing in the last 14 years. I bet if the games were swapped, if it was PoE that went out in 1999 and BGI in 2015, the reaction would have been analogous and people would be longing for the days of entertaining and involving sidequests that featured collecting pieces from a boat wreckage, or clearing out a haunted light tower.

 

[Lhynn]

I find the both games' plots to be of equal quality, but that's just me. Rating plots is way too subjective, and it's not my goal. I'm just quoting other people's comments.

I find that one makes me want to adventure, the other makes me want to kill myself. Dont know what this says about either plots quality, but thats that.

Like I said, both games have some memorable encounters, and both games have filler encounters. I'm 60 hours into PoE and I can list only 4-5 memorable encounters though, and I consider this to be a problem. BGI seems to have had more memorable encounters, but if we take it into account that the same people were far less experienced when they played BGI than they were when playing PoE, it wouldn't surprise me if present-day new players find PoE to have loads of memorable encounters.

Na, BG1 memorable encounters arised from context, not challenge for the most part, so i cant see how this would be true when PoEs quests are so dry and uninteresting.

I would reply to this in the same lines as I did about the encounters. Maybe we need to take a person who has played neither the IE games nor PoE and have him play both one after the other. I think so because 10+ years of time distance mean a lot. I only recently played BGI to the end and honestly it seemed far less memorable, if not outright boring, compared to BGII which had the advantage of me playing it for the first time when it was new, in 2001.

This is too true, BG1 doesnt even come close to BG2 in terms of p. much everything, just using BG1 as a point of comparison because its simply more comparable in terms of quality i guess.

Again, if you are the same person with the same interests, and you can be emotionally involved in a short story in the same way when you could in your teens, either you are quite the exception among people in general, or you have somehow stopped yourself from maturing in the last 14 years. I bet if the games were swapped, if it was PoE that went out in 1999 and BGI in 2015, the reaction would have been analogous and people would be longing for the days of entertaining and involving sidequests that featured collecting pieces from a boat wreckage, or clearing out a haunted light tower.

I wouldnt call PoE quests entertaining, i would call them mandatory and informative, but not entertaining. About the other thing, its more about willingly getting in the mood, i like fantasy (even if lately its becoming so common that it makes me sick) and BG1 had more than a few of interesting surprises inside. The haunted light tower quest wasnt bad, you get surrounded by ghosts, then you either kill the ghost or help her make her peace, you talked to some npcs, spent some money, etc. Thing is, it has no memorable parts other than getting all your low lvl squishies killed because ghost teleport in.
The most interesting thing ive heard about poe, the idea of going into GMs mind, play it as if it was a level, to help her with her troubles got cut off. It sounds so good, instead we probably got another spawn of lions or something.

 

[Grimwulf]

The best thing about BG1 plot is Elminster. Minor spoiler warning (you will learn it after 15 mins of gameplay, so whatever):

Spoiler

- He sends a letter with warning to Gorion, forcing him to pack up and go SOMEWHERE, DOESN'T MATTER, JUST GO - YOUR WARD IS IN DANGER;
- Gorion immidiately ends up in ambush and dies, but at least Gorion's ward survives;
- Elminster approaches Gorion's ward, asks about the weather, and just goes away.

If he's not the ultimate troll, I don't know who is.

 

[AwesomeButton]

About the other thing, its more about willingly getting in the mood

Totally. And what I'm saying is that suspension of disbelief is a lot harder to pull off after you've played X amount of games like it X amount of times throughout the years. Neither we the players nor the games' authors are the quite the same people that we were at the time of the old games' release.

The most interesting thing ive heard about poe, the idea of going into GMs mind, play it as if it was a level, to help her with her troubles got cut off. It sounds so good, instead we probably got another spawn of lions or something.

It does sound good, but it depends a lot on how it's executed, like with anything else -- I know I didn't have that much fun in "the Fade" in DAO.

The best thing about BG1 plot is Elminster. Minor spoiler warning (you will learn it after 15 mins of gameplay, so whatever):

Spoiler

- He sends a letter with warning to Gorion, forcing him to pack up and go SOMEWHERE, DOESN'T MATTER, JUST GO - YOUR WARD IS IN DANGER;
- Gorion immidiately ends up in ambush and dies, but at least Gorion's ward survives;
- Elminster approaches Gorion's ward, asks about the weather, and just goes away.

If he's not the ultimate troll, I don't know who is.

Well, there you have it. My point the whole time -- we forgive BG things we don't forgive PoE because of nostalgia.

 

[Lhynn]

I never forgave that cunt, if i could i would kill him. Btw, thats not a plot hole, thats just how elminster does, he probably arrived late to help gorion because of stupid reasons, and he was much more interested in watching the PC grow or die trying than help him.
Toril is still miles more interesting than Eora, especially because you have those kind of retards running around.

 

[Ezrite]

Yes.

While PS:T is a better game and I don't even like vanilla BG1, comparing them is stupid. The first one's focus is on story while the other's is combat and exploration. Just because you're a storyfag doesn't mean others find BG1 good only due to nostalgia.

Still, you dont get it. I thought BG was a good game, writtenly before. When I was a kid. Then finished Planescape a few summers ago and noticed how bad BGs writing was compared to this game.

 

[Corvinus]

It's been awhile, Codex. Long time no see, as the indians said.

I recently played some PoE and wanted to like it, but unfortunately, I only got a negative impression. After some tries, I discovered that I would rather play Baldur's Gate than this clone. I agree with most of the issues that have been pointed out already but seeing that the default difficulty setting was "Easy" and that I had to enable "Expert mode" to get rid of the so-called "helpful functionalty" made my heart sink. Even "Path of the Damned mode" wasn't especially hard. How wondrous it is to live in an age where everything is marketed towards idiots.

Spoiler

Pillars of Eternity is probably still among the best CRPGs to come out in quite some time, which is saying something.

 

[Irenaeus]

47.5% of users scammed by the Fraudsidian fraudster trio and happy with it. Disgusting.

47.8%

49.1%