Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Delterius]

Content density: anything more than the occasional pretty tree is for ADD kiddies.

Content quality: anything more than the occasional Xvart village is popamole shit.

 

[Rake]

Never heard of the "your game is shit because it has too much optional side content"

No, it's more "your game is shit because it has too much boring content".
Or in BG wilderness areas case, not enough content.

 

[Lhynn]

Never heard of the "your game is shit because it has too much optional side content"

No, it's more "your game is shit because it has too much boring content".
Or in BG wilderness areas case, not enough content.

The content density on those areas is fine, it doesnt feel cluttered and it feels like you are actually travelling around. It could use more quality content, sure, but the density was ok. Even without it i rather have those areas existing, even if they are rarely explored.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The content density in BG1 was perfect. There are just people who need to run into EPIC TM shit every 2 steps, and for those people there is BG2 and modern games, but some people enjoy low key approach to world design. BG1 encounters could've used a bit more depth in some cases, but overall they were very unique and fun.

 

[Dreaad]

Never heard of the "your game is shit because it has too much optional side content"

No, it's more "your game is shit because it has too much boring content".
Or in BG wilderness areas case, not enough content.

Maybe, but they were completely optional and the main locations you have to go through had more than enough content in themselves. It could have been done better I agree, remove all random spawn enemies and actually make each area have relatively unique monsters like the lighthouse with it's sirens.

Overall though, exploring a wilderness map takes 30 minutes at most, nice bite sized chunks. With each map having one or two rewards worth finding whether a high level scroll or a unique item you can only get in that area. That by itself makes exploration kinda interesting. This is without even mentioning how you never know what you are going to find. The first time you are wandering around in a desert canyon and some 4 assassins including a priest and wizard come out of nowhere etc. Not much replay value in terms of sandboxy immergent situations but that first time it's a lot of fun.

 

[Nikaido]

and modern games

Hahaha. Except that Fallout 1 got low key right, BG1 didn't. It's not just "modern guhmhzrz hwadwrp" who don't like BG1. Those wilderness areas really were a pointless bore. Fallout 1 was low key but it didn't have an exaggerated amount of shitty content.

 

[Lhynn]

Fallout wasnt low key. You could murder an entire bandit camp at like lvl 3, solo.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Hahaha. Except that Fallout 1 got low key right, BG1 didn't. It's not just "modern guhmhzrz hwadwrp" who don't like BG1. Those wilderness areas really were a pointless bore. Fallout 1 was low key but it didn't have an exaggerated amount of shitty content.

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion. You basically find locations of interest by talking with NPCs, or by passing near them on the world map, and then go there, and the locations themselves are condensed, like say a settlement or a cave or whatever. So it's really not the same thing as being able to roam around within the world and explore.

And again, I don't think BG1 had shitty content as a whole, and judging by where it ended up on the top 70 list, lots of people agree, albeit they might not be in the vocal minority. There is a difference between low-key and shitty: if you run into a farmer who has cows being attacked by low level monsters and that's it, there are no long quests involving dragons at the end of it, or if you just run into Drizzt and he doesn't have any tasks for you to save the world, that's not necessarily shitty.

 

[Nikaido]

Fallout wasnt low key. You could murder an entire bandit camp at like lvl 3, solo.

As opposed to the game that allows you to summon a legion of monsters through spells and wand?

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion.

You explored things that actually were interesting, like the glow, which also required some preparation beforehand. There's hardly anything memorable about the locations in BG1. I don't play games to get walking simulators, I do enough walking in real life.

 

[Lhynn]

Fallout wasnt low key. You could murder an entire bandit camp at like lvl 3, solo.

As opposed to the game that allows you to summon a legion of monsters through spells and wand?

Context may help you a bit mate, you see, BG1 takes place in a high fantasy setting, fallout takes place in an alternate post apoc earth with a twist.

Im not saying fallout was bad, just saying that its not even close to low key.

 

[Dreaad]

Fallout wasnt low key. You could murder an entire bandit camp at like lvl 3, solo.

As opposed to the game that allows you to summon a legion of monsters through spells and wand?

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion.

You explored things that actually were interesting, like the glow, which also required some preparation beforehand. There's hardly anything memorable about the locations in BG1. I don't play games to get walking simulators, I do enough walking in real life.

Careful not to cut yourself on some edges while you do all that 'walking'.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

You explored things that actually were interesting, like the glow, which also required some preparation beforehand. There's hardly anything memorable about the locations in BG1. I don't play games to get walking simulators, I do enough walking in real life.

Well, that's what I am talking about. The Glow is a dungeon or post apocalyptic take on a dungeon. So you get the Glow on your world map (usually from an NPC), and you go there, and then you are inside a dungeon, doing dungeon-type things, i.e. fighting, finding cards, progressing to deeper levels. While technically you might be exploring rooms, floors, etc, this is not the kind of exploration explorefags long for, it's dungeon crawling. Fallout does a great job of giving the player these interesting locations, but it does not really scratch the exploration itch, where people want to have large spaces to roam in and find cool stuff.

And while each individual encounter in BG1 may not be epic enough to be memorable, they combine to flesh out the world and give the player a nice sense of the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms. Much more believable than BG2 where every cave contains a dragon or space ship or some other uber-epic rarity. The way content is spread out in BG1 may not be your thing, but people like me enjoy it.

 

[DeepOcean]

BG 1 wilderness areas allow a sense of discovery, that was at least I think the intent was. Discovering shit feel better when you feel you did a journey to get in there and that I give to BG 1 fanboys but the problem is, if I gonna waste alot of time to get in some places, sometimes passing by random encounters on the way, I expect the pay off gonna be good and many times it wasn't. Finding Drizzt and he giving you the location of Tazok because he was walking on the region and saw the camp, helping a thief raid a dangerous tomb, killing a crazy priest were cool but they were the exception, most of the things you find aren't worthy the effort.

Sure, you have the illusion of exploring the whole Sword Coast but the lack of content/low quality of content (jesus, Firewine bridge, the gnoll stronghold and the Ulcaster school with respawning mobs when you just look to the other side, Nesshkel mines four levels of the same trash mobs and the forced travel on all maps of boringwood forest can kill you.) start wearing you down and by the time when you reach the ancient dwarven mines and the game start improving your will to keep playing is at a really low level. When I played BG 1 fpr the first time, I remember stopping at the ancient dwarven mines and leaving the game for months before having the will to finish it.

 

[Dreaad]

Heh fair enough. I honestly left Morrowind for years because I couldn't be fucked getting to Balmora or figuring out what a silt strider was. The combat against a mudcrab was so shit I uninstalled.

 

[Somberlain]

The combat against a mudcrab was so shit I uninstalled.

Horrible creatures, you should avoid them whenever you can.

 

[ArchAngel]

You explored things that actually were interesting, like the glow, which also required some preparation beforehand. There's hardly anything memorable about the locations in BG1. I don't play games to get walking simulators, I do enough walking in real life.

Well, that's what I am talking about. The Glow is a dungeon or post apocalyptic take on a dungeon. So you get the Glow on your world map (usually from an NPC), and you go there, and then you are inside a dungeon, doing dungeon-type things, i.e. fighting, finding cards, progressing to deeper levels. While technically you might be exploring rooms, floors, etc, this is not the kind of exploration explorefags long for, it's dungeon crawling. Fallout does a great job of giving the player these interesting locations, but it does not really scratch the exploration itch, where people want to have large spaces to roam in and find cool stuff.

And while each individual encounter in BG1 may not be epic enough to be memorable, they combine to flesh out the world and give the player a nice sense of the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms. Much more believable than BG2 where every cave contains a dragon or space ship or some other uber-epic rarity. The way content is spread out in BG1 may not be your thing, but people like me enjoy it.

What I am when I enjoyed BG1 exploration but not F3, FNV or Elder Scroll games exploration?
I also enjoyed NWN2: SoZ exploration although it could have been done so much better.

 

[Athelas]

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion. You basically find locations of interest by talking with NPCs, or by passing near them on the world map, and then go there

Fallout has better exploration than Baldur's Gate for a number of reasons:

-every location in the world can be accessed from the very start, unlike Baldur's Gate, which plot-gates big chunks of its areas, most notably the titular city of Baldur's Gate;
-there are time limits for the water chip quest and the mutant invasion, which, while still lenient, make the player at least think somewhat about what locations to go to;
-Fallout abstracts it world into a world map which makes it possible to stumble into areas purely by accident and makes the player at least pay some attention to what direction to head to. Exploration in Baldur's Gate is a simpler process of methodically exiting a map from different directions to unlock the next areas;
-hidden/special encounters while traveling - Baldur's Gate doesn't have these;
-exploration of the world allows the player to better deal with the antagonist (for example the Brotherhood's holodisk that reveals the Super Mutant's sterility).

 

[Dreaad]

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion. You basically find locations of interest by talking with NPCs, or by passing near them on the world map, and then go there

Fallout has better exploration than Baldur's Gate for a number of reasons:

-every location in the world can be accessed from the very start, unlike Baldur's Gate, which plot-gates big chunks of its areas, most notably the titular city of Baldur's Gate;
-there are time limits for the water chip quest and the mutant invasion, which, while still lenient, make the player at least think somewhat about what locations to go to;
-Fallout abstracts it world into a world map which makes it possible to stumble into areas purely by accident and makes the player at least pay some attention to what direction to head to. Exploration in Baldur's Gate is a simpler process of methodically exiting a map from different directions to unlock the next areas;
-hidden/special encounters while traveling - Baldur's Gate doesn't have these;
-exploration of the world allows the player to better deal with the antagonist (for example the Brotherhood's holodisk that reveals the Super Mutant's sterility).

You completely ignored what he said and just went off in a random tangent again. He just pointed out to you there is more than one type of exploration and fallout one doesn't feel like exploration at all. Even if you take out the lack of unique enemies or items. Is it so hard to grasp that the two are not related in what they offer?

 

[Athelas]

Fallout 1 is a great game, but the way it's structured (with the world map travel) it doesn't really lend itself well to exploration, in my opinion. You basically find locations of interest by talking with NPCs, or by passing near them on the world map, and then go there

Fallout has better exploration than Baldur's Gate for a number of reasons:

-every location in the world can be accessed from the very start, unlike Baldur's Gate, which plot-gates big chunks of its areas, most notably the titular city of Baldur's Gate;
-there are time limits for the water chip quest and the mutant invasion, which, while still lenient, make the player at least think somewhat about what locations to go to;
-Fallout abstracts it world into a world map which makes it possible to stumble into areas purely by accident and makes the player at least pay some attention to what direction to head to. Exploration in Baldur's Gate is a simpler process of methodically exiting a map from different directions to unlock the next areas;
-hidden/special encounters while traveling - Baldur's Gate doesn't have these;
-exploration of the world allows the player to better deal with the antagonist (for example the Brotherhood's holodisk that reveals the Super Mutant's sterility).

You completely ignored what he said and just went off in a random tangent again. He just pointed out to you there is more than one type of exploration and fallout one doesn't feel like exploration at all. Even if you take out the lack of unique enemies or items. Is it so hard to grasp that the two are not related in what they offer?

How did I ignore what he said? He said Fallout's structure (with the world map travel) was a detriment to exploration, I argued the opposite, listing a number of arguments. You seem to be the one ignoring what I said.

lack of unique enemies or items

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fallout_unique_weapons

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Deathclaw_(Fallout)#Mother_deathclaw
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Set
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lieutenant

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

What I am when I enjoyed BG1 exploration but not F3, FNV or Elder Scroll games exploration?
I also enjoyed NWN2: SoZ exploration although it could have been done so much better.

I am somewhat similar, although I did enjoy exploration in F3 and NV more than in ES games. Something about Bethesda games and/or games using their game engines that makes every location of interest feel the same after a while.

Fallout has better exploration than Baldur's Gate for a number of reasons:

-every location in the world can be accessed from the very start, unlike Baldur's Gate, which plot-gates big chunks of its areas, most notably the titular city of Baldur's Gate;
-there are time limits for the water chip quest and the mutant invasion, which, while still lenient, make the player at least think somewhat about what locations to go to;
-Fallout abstracts it world into a world map which makes it possible to stumble into areas purely by accident and makes the player at least pay some attention to what direction to head to. Exploration in Baldur's Gate is a simpler process of methodically exiting a map from different directions to unlock the next areas;
-hidden/special encounters while traveling - Baldur's Gate doesn't have these;
-exploration of the world allows the player to better deal with the antagonist (for example the Brotherhood's holodisk that reveals the Super Mutant's sterility).

At least several of your points might be used to argue against your overall point:

- the time limit hurts the exploration aspect as it forces the player to stick to the main quest and not explore the world at their own pace
- as already mentioned before, the abstract world map abstracts the exploration out to such a degree (zig zagging your moving dot across it "explores" areas) as to make it a marginal element of the gameplay at best
- special encounters that randomly pop up as a more advanced type of random encounter are also not something that would be used to argue FOR great exploration

But really for me, the second point, i.e. the fact that Fallout's exploration is done via the world map and then you come to these condensed locations pretty much precludes it from being considered a great exploration game.

 

[Athelas]

At least several of your points might be used to argue against your overall point:

- the time limit hurts the exploration aspect as it forces the player to stick to the main quest and not explore the world at their own pace

The time limits are really not that punishing. There is still room for exploration off the beaten path. There is some pressure to pursue the main quest, sure, but that makes the act of exploration meaningful by attaching a potential trade-off to it.

- special encounters that randomly pop up as a more advanced type of random encounter are also not something that would be used to argue FOR great exploration

Only if you assume the player has no control over them. They will happen more often if the player travels a lot, so the player is naturally rewarded for exploration, and they are dependent on your stats, namely the Outdoorsman skill. There are also the encounters that involve dehydration and such, as a consequence for traveling too long without taking a break.

But really for me, the second point, i.e. the fact that Fallout's exploration is done via the world map and then you come to these condensed locations pretty much precludes it from being considered a great exploration game.

BG maps aren't condensed? Okay, they're larger, but they're still a segmented slice of the world. And in some ways, Fallout's maps are less condensed, with the way settlements are handled, having no transition to a different screen for the interiors of houses.

 

[MilesBeyond]

So in some ways I actually kinda prefer vanilla BG1 to Tutu, BGT, or BGEE. Even though the walking speeds make me hate life, there's a few little touches there that never made it into the BG2 engine. Especially the way that everyone has unique dialogue if you cast Charm Person on them. I thought that was awesome. Also I feel like the addition of kits and BG2 spells kinda breaks the game. I mean I know I can technically just not use them, but I am weak and have no willpower. If they are there, I will use them. I can't help myself. Also the BG2 spec system is annoying for a low level game, and means that by late BG1 Warrior classes are punished even more than they are anyway. Plus I think there's a sense that the equipment in BG1 was kind of designed around it. I mean the fact that there's no enchanted Clubs was never a big deal because people would spec in Blunt Weapons, not specifically Clubs. Using BG2 specs kind of means some weapon types never see use because they just aren't that viable. By BG1 specs, every category had at least one powerful weapon (except Spears, IIRC).


Can anyone back me up on this? Or am I blinded by nostalgia?


Also why are people even comparing Fallout 1 to BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I play Fallout 1. When I want to play BG1 I play BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I do not boot up BG1 and then get disappointed because it's not Fallout 1.

 

[Eyestabber]

Also why are people even comparing Fallout 1 to BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I play Fallout 1. When I want to play BG1 I play BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I do not boot up BG1 and then get disappointed because it's not Fallout 1.

People enjoy criticizing a cat for not being a dog and vice-versa. Check all the RT X TB threads for a quick example.

 

[Leitz]

Also why are people even comparing Fallout 1 to BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I play Fallout 1. When I want to play BG1 I play BG1. When I want to play Fallout 1 I do not boot up BG1 and then get disappointed because it's not Fallout 1.

People enjoy criticizing a cat for not being a dog and vice-versa. Check all the RT X TB threads for a quick example.

They're both CRPGs and roughly came out at the same time; of course they're compared here. Crying about discourse on an internet forum indicates that you have no concept of a forum at all.

 

[MilesBeyond]

They're both CRPGs and roughly came out at the same time; of course they're compared here. Crying about discourse on an internet forum indicates that you have no concept of a forum at all.

Yeah but "This game sucks because it's not as good as that game" is a pretty low bar to be setting in terms of discourse, don't you agree? Nothing wrong with pointing out BG1's flaws, and nothing wrong with using Fallout 1 as a reference point to show how those flaws could have been fixed. It's the bickering about which one is the better game that seems pointless to me.


Though, of course, now we're faced with the question of whether bickering about one game being better than the other is more pointless than bickering about bickering about one game being better than the other.