95 réponses à ce sujet

[maxernst]

All of these are good games and each have strengths and weaknesses. As an overall game, I might edge to BG2 and liked Arcanum the least. However, I still feel that strictly from a character development standpoint that DA:O is tops. I find it odd that many people seem to find it a weakness that DA:O has characters that do things based on comprehensible motivations rather than because they're chaotic evil. I have a strong preference for realistic characters and situations--if anything, DA:O is too epic for my taste. I'd probably have liked it better with no blight and just a struggle for power in Ferelden ending at Landsmeet.

[ztemplarz]

This is a very late bump. I am interested in what people have to say, after such a significantly long period of time. I will warn you that the posts are long, but I think the arguments still stand. Won't be devoting as much time responding personally, more interested in seeing other people's responses.

[Rapunzel Theirin]

I haven't played any of those games before, what I like about DA is the romance in the game.Do any of those games have romance in them?

[Ophir147]

ztemplarz wrote...

This is a very late bump. I am interested in what people have to say, after such a significantly long period of time. I will warn you that the posts are long, but I think the arguments still stand. Won't be devoting as much time responding personally, more interested in seeing other people's responses.

I actually remember reading your original post a year or so ago, and you made the games sound really interesting. You made the games sound really interesting, and and before going onto the BSN, I had never really heard of these games anymore. I had the misfortune (or luxury) of being born after the time of Baldur's Gate era cRPGs, and since coming to these forums and reading all about how people are scared that people are forgetting the roots of the genre established by these masterworks of gaming. I took it upon myself to educate myself, and I bought a copy of Fallout 2, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

In the meantime, I played all three of these games, with two playthroughs of Baldur's Gate 2 ( to play as evil, as well as because I liked it a bit more).

I'd have to say that I would agree with AmstradHero on his points. They are all really good games, and I'm glad I pushed myself to complete them (on normal difficulty, btw, no cheezing here), but I can honestly say that I really have no interest in playing the games again, whereas I've played Dragon Age: Origins over 5 times and I'm planning another playthough.

Please don't take offense to my opinion (I most definitely did not to all of yours), but I believe that Fallout 2 and all of the Baldur's Gate series are, as individual games (viewed without an ounce of nostalgia) not as good as Dragon Age Origins. However, I understand how you feel about them, because in about ten years I'll probably be arguing the superiority of Dragon Age: Origins over whatever the modern RPG market is making in 2022, because Dragon Age: Origins was the first RPG that I played that I really loved, and it introduced me to my new favorite type of games.

Hell, Dragon Age II is out, and I'm already nostalgic about DA:O, so I feel your pain. However, I don't understand the desire to project my opinions of the games superiority onto others. Yet. Give me a couple more years to simmer, and if I'm still alive, I'll get back to ya.

EDIT: I realized I didn't put anything about Arcanum in, and I should say this: at that time I didn't know of a place that sold it at a good price, so I watched the entirety of a Let's Play of the game. It was definitely interesting, I'll say that, but I don't plan on buying it, so I can't really attest to the quality of the game. Would you say that it's a lot better than Baldur's Gate to play? If so, I may consider getting it if it goes on sale at GoG

Modifié par Ophir147, 18 août 2012 - 06:44 .

[ztemplarz]

Fair enough. In my original post, it wasn't my intent to imply those were all absolutely flawless games, which I think it came across as. I just feel they better incorporated role-playing into them than DAO did, and had more options for how you could play.

I personally think that Arcanum would be "better", for a variety of reasons. I will freely admit, that part of the other reason Bioware moved away from D&D games (besides wanting to have complete control over their products) is that D&D isn't a "simple" system to learn. There is a lot of complexity that goes into properly understanding it so you can play well (understanding how many rounds there are, what the saving throws are, what your chances to hit are, etc), so the learning curve is steep. I grew up reading Forgotten Realms books (among many others), so I had a vested interest in learning these things, as I wanted to "adventure" in that setting. On the other hand, Arcanum's rules are much easier to learn and understand, so it doesn't take reading over the manual multiple times to figure out which spell is better for what situation, or whether it is better to put 3 points versus 5 in "bastard sword proficiency". It spells things out pretty simply and is easy to learn.

Going into other aspects, Arcanum is a much "deeper" game, where it more thoroughly explores social and theological/philosophical issues, whereas the other games really didn't delve very far into those subjects, if at all.

To date, Arcanum is the only game I have played that had a "beauty" characteristic, which actually made a difference. Let's put it this way: if you had high beauty, but low charisma and intelligence, people would still generally act more friendly to you than if you were ugly. If, on the other hand, you had low beauty (say 2-4), but high charisma, people would initially act somewhat hostilely to you, but then get "won over", by your charisma. You could be extremely charismatic, but if you weren't particularly intelligent, you just wouldn't be able to say the right things to smart people to get more information or convince them you were smart- though you might be able to appeal to their emotions to get the same information.

Also, Arcanum isn't nearly as long, so it's easier to replay it. I know I looked it up just out of curiosity, and saw I could get it for $11 with Amazon prime, so it shouldn't be an issue now.

On a separate note, Dishonored is coming out, and it is steampunk. Whether it is an actual RPG, or more, "Thief with supernatural powers", remains to be seen. But it does look interesting.

[BomimoDK]

I regret that i'm way too exhausted to type out a response that addresses this in the way i probably should. But i too miss the days when an RPG was more than talk and fight. They just seemed way broader and even today, games that i in no way CAN nostalgia over simply because i didn't play them, seem to have a broader and deeper reach than DA does today. I played all the Infinity Engine games cept Torment, so i can add that to my list without it being declared "void bcus nostalgia".

I Miss that. I miss the illusion that you're not just manipulating mathematical/logical systems in order to win a game. DA:O and 2 felt very much like that. BG, even with the highly mathematical rule-set, really sold me my PC and NPC's as people. The closest i ever got to feeling the same in DA:O was my first run with Morrigan and Wynne and the combat system never came to feel... natural.

It's difficult to pinpoint, but in BG/IWD/PS:T, even with the goddamn ruleset "you just rolled 2d6 for 7 and missed" scrolling down there, it still felt like people swung their swords to inflict damage. DA feels MORE like some ruleset... Not deciding wether the sword even hits, but just deciding if he gets randomly damaged... and what's worse is that there isn't any real feedback outlining the mathematics, so i constantly gotta run to the damn wiki to figure it out.

It's definitely done with less focus on player understanding, that's for sure. I miss that.

[ztemplarz]

Yeah, I can say that I liked how DAO handled the party NPCs generally, but I still didn't like how it was essentially restricted to the "camp" and didn't like the "bribery" mechanism. I think that if it had less overall impact on the overall shift of their attitude towards you, that would be okay, but they essentially made it an mini-game. I did like how they would chime in during interactions with other characters, but didn't like how you had so little ability to change their mind after they "judged" you for your interactions. There were times when I wanted to say, "Look, don't be angry about this- the reason I told them this was because __", in which case I think they would have taken it differently.

I really don't like how Bioware has gone to that concept for their party system now, where you can just freely select from 5-8 options at will, and they all auto-level. I think it makes you value them less, because then they just become a tool to be used for certain missions, and you don't really have an incentive to only stick to a set "team" (like you did in the other games). Plus, it just doesn't make sense to me. If your charisma governed how many people you could "hold together", then fine, that is your max party size. But to say, you can have 8 people "follow" you, but you can only operate in a 3-person team, just doesn't make sense. Why can't I take them all? In Arcanum or Fallout, you could. In BG, you couldn't, but you had up to 6 people in your party.

I can say, in all my playthroughs of any of those games, I very rarely switched out anyone, and I tried very hard to ensure they didn't die (until the later levels of BG made that less important, what with the high magic). In the new Bioware games, I don't care if they "die", because they "don't". They just get knocked unconscious.

[TMZuk]

Yeah, I mostly agree.

In Fallout 2, I recall an assassination mission. I simply was unable to figure out how to get into the guys house without being blasted to pieces by his shotgun, or how to get him to leave his house so I could take him out at range.

The solution was both simple and gut-wrenchingly evil: There was a bunch of kids playing outside. Call one of them over, tell him to bring a message to the guy, and then slip an armed handgrenade into the kids pocket..... yeah. Uhm. So I reloaded and admitted to failure. But the guts Interplay had, to make this a possibility!

Now, any major developer plays it safe, safe, safe. Scaling, Handholding and Political Correctnes rules the virtual worlds and games are perhaps looking great, but ultimately they are poor compared to what came out a decade ago.

Fallout: New Vegas and to some degree the Witcher are the only games I have played since Planescape: Torment that had some of that feel to them. DA:O was entertaining. I liked it enough for two or perhaps three playthroughs, and then that was it. In my opinion, it won't stand as a lasting classic. Mediocre DLC, a poor expansion and a terrible sequel isn't helping any either.

Modifié par TMZuk, 22 août 2012 - 08:36 .

[ztemplarz]

Hah! See, I was actually inclined to add Fallout: New Vegas to the list, except it is a new game. If Bioware could make game like that, but with better party interaction (and a party based system altogether), then I would be very happy. I have VERY few complaints regarding F:NV. In fact, it is the only RPG I have recently replayed NUMEROUS times [4-5]. I did enjoy the ME games, but not so much as "RPGs", but as "action adventure" games, where I could at least make my character look how I wanted.

[Jerrybnsn]

Different games compared to Dragon Age: Origins. Origins is in a class all by itself and; unfortunatly, there will never be another game like it.

[TMZuk]

Jerrybnsn wrote...

Different games compared to Dragon Age: Origins. Origins is in a class all by itself and; unfortunatly, there will never be another game like it.

Aside from the fact  that there's ten years between them, I don't see how the "Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" cannot be compared to Baldur's gate?

[BomimoDK]

TMZuk wrote...

Jerrybnsn wrote...

Different games compared to Dragon Age: Origins. Origins is in a class all by itself and; unfortunatly, there will never be another game like it.

Aside from the fact  that there's ten years between them, I don't see how the "Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" cannot be compared to Baldur's gate?

Well first off, it's nothing at all like Baldur's Gate. It's got inferior mechanics everywhere. It's like a sorry-ass attempt at emulating a success ten years earlier by totally different people and not doing any of it better.

The ruleset is worse and less tested and as revealed by DA2, doesn't stay consistent and isn't reiterated upon, but entirely replaced between games.

The lore is less grand since it's locked down to only Gaider's team where Forgotten Realms has had more authors over 30+ years. (fun fact: baldur's Gate serves as a sequel to a series of novels set in Forgotten Realms released in 1989 concerning the fall of the gods, which is when Bhaal conceived his children by random rape.) Therefore more accessible.

The gameplay relies on more aspects than just combat. You can pickpocked (properly i might add, since every character had specific items and it wasn't just autogenerated!). You could actually talk your way out of it and unlike Origins, it felt like a conversation where what you'd want to say appeared.


Shadows had relevance to stealth, you didn't just disappear. Day and night cycles were relevant to your awareness of the surroundings as in Field of view restriction, Citizens would go to damn bed if it was night and shops closed. If you stayed up for more than 24 or 36 hours, your character would get tired and you'd become a liability to the party. You could murder anyone and anything, but ****'d be on you because everyone would spread gossip... unless they even called the guards, leaving you banned from town for damn good. Pickpocketing resulted in equal consequences.

The sense of the world being actually there is just generally much greater in BG1 since it doesn't go all in your face with it's presence, neither leave the world emptly. It's simply there. DA:O? not so much. It's always day in Denerim and Habren is somehow never going to be done sorting her meagre chest of jewelry... Well that's static. What i'm trying to underline here is, it doesn't break the 4th wall by asking us to accept that it's always day in Denerim and always night at the circle. It doesn't ask us to accept that We never need to rest or we never die. It also doesn't tout them as features as some dull simulation game. It's just there, helping immersion, not really getting in the way.

So i'll say that Baldur's Gate is nothing like Origins when you actually dip into it. Don't get me wrong. Origins is good. But it's no step forward at all. It's a violent step backwards from even NWN. Origins world, characters and gameplay is static. Nothing changes and everything is obviously systematized.

Baldur's Gate has systems too, sure. But they at least pull at all available smokes and mirrors to make you thinkeverything is dynamic. It's old, but it's very obvious that it did what it attempted very well. But to really underline my point that Origins is nothing like Baldur's Gate, Just take a look at the feature list and then think... what games came out in 2011 where these systems actually all appeared and evolved or at least were adapted? It starts with W and ends with Itcher 2 and i bet you're tired as **** of hearing its name.

But really. Baldur's Gate, apart from differences in Party based versus alone, is much closer to Witcher 2 than it ever will be to origins. The only real common ground Origins and baldur share is Party based and fantasy.

I don't mean to be harsh or rude, i just wanted to clear this up. Two common points out of many doesn't make them the same.

Modifié par BomimoDK, 27 août 2012 - 03:37 .

[TMZuk]

Heh.

I didn't say it compared favourebly. In my opinion, DA:O has one area where it supercedes it's predeccesors, and that is the companions. Everything else is, I agree, a huge step backwards.

[ztemplarz]

Yeah, one thing I also thought of, was the presence of taverns. I like how you could pretty much find one in every village/city, and that was always an extremely valid way of learning about local events/quests. I like you could actually get your character intoxicated. I liked that there might be some random group of mercenaries/soldiers/citizens there that you could potentially fight. To some extent, DAO did this, it just didn't seem as effective/authentic.

[BomimoDK]

I would also like to add that in no way was my above rant meant to detract from the fantastic work of Bioware's Writers, Ruleset inventors, gameplay directors, engine programmers, system designers, scenario designers or any of the leads at all. I absolutely love their work and i might have worded my comparison a bit to angrily.

I'm by no means unhappy with their job, only the marketing as BG successor. But this is a point already addressed earlier by the leads, so that's going to be fine.

I just wish they'd stop looking into what can be done and just do it. Having to manage a company's assets is bleeding hard, even harder making milestones. But sometimes, deadlines just have to become secondary to quality and effort. We're seeing a lot of passion to progress from these guys. then by all means do so. We won't hold a grudge and neither will their publisher after the reviews and numbers come in.

ztemplarz wrote...

Yeah, one thing I also thought of, was the presence of taverns. I like how you could pretty much find one in every village/city, and that was always an extremely valid way of learning about local events/quests. I like you could actually get your character intoxicated. I liked that there might be some random group of mercenaries/soldiers/citizens there that you could potentially fight. To some extent, DAO did this, it just didn't seem as effective/authentic.

But no matter what you did, the consequences were always on your head. Which was awesome about BG. They flaunted this everywhere as a feature for DA:O. but what it ended up being was only having consequences when it was scripted into dialogue or plot. 

There wasn't even the faintest glimmer of direct consequences to direct actions. Mostly because direct actions were impossible. You coudn't walk up to a guard and start swinging your sword at him, or intimidate a whole tavern with spells. Sure. you could cast spells in the tavern, but no one would **** a give. Neither would there be legal action for pickpocketing.

It's much like the whole Blood Mage complaint with DA2. It's an issue of the world ignoring what you're doing while you're doing it and just responding statically 20 minutes later. When considering that all of the leads worked on BG2, this is pretty bad really. I don't know if they don't see the issue or not. But what i remember of their responses to this issue (and my memory is ****), they would only work on this issue if it didn't impede on other aspects. But this is the aspect that will influence all other aspects. How can you have a multi-game, multi-protagonist series without proper actor response within the game world, not just the ending slides or chapter milestones.

I realize this is tough **** to accomplish. But it was done before and by the sounds of BeamDog's progress with BG1, it was done in the toughest way possible by Lua script something-magic i don't know about. Wouldn't it be easier to achieve if it was made a part of the engine?

Really? how about at least a day/night cycle in real-time?

Modifié par BomimoDK, 29 août 2012 - 03:45 .

[Fisto The Sexbot]

Filler combat, mostly weak sidequests, lack of exploration, less opportunities to resolve situations through non-combat means, more streamlined character building system and generally less roleplaying options is what I'd say.

[ztemplarz]

On a separate, but very closely related note, did everyone see that Black Isle is supposed re-constituted?? This could be EXCELLENT news, as they made the majority of the games that I mentioned and loved...

http://www.blackisle.com/

[TMZuk]

It's only the name. Most of the old Black Isle staff works for Obsidian, and a few works for inExile. Black Isle was/is a division of Interplay, and Interplay is nothing of what it was back in the late nineties. I very much doubt that Feargus Urquhart will shut down Obsidian to go back to the company that already shut him down once.

[ztemplarz]

Hmm. This might be true, but one could optimistically hope that they will attract people that want to make games of similar scope and style. While Bioware, Bethesda, & Obsidian are all essentially RPG makers, they definitely have very different emphasis in their design. And from what I can see, they are all "branching out" a bit, in trying to make games other than strict RPGs. It would be nice if there was an RPG-exclusive company. I'm not making bets this will happen, just hoping it will.

[TMZuk]

Here's to hoping. That ~would~ be great.

[Hulevia]

Hm i played with some rpg from list. and They are good, but DA:O was completely other. So you prefer pure evil and pure good? its a choice. But i really like the morality in DA:O where doesnt be everything so simple good or simple evil. It was a great story with great enviroment. One of last truly rpg so that this word mean. Ah no ok there was a lasts than Fallout New Vegas and in my aspect Witcher2. But in my aspect the first on list is Dragon Age: origins. And now? you can enjoy Skyrim than  award winner rpg.

Modifié par Hulevia, 10 septembre 2012 - 09:00 .