185 réponses à ce sujet

[EnurElrune]

It was fantastic to forget about the main story and go exploring the world that took up half my HD. Especially in the beginning when you could hardly beat a Wild Dog.



Best RPG ever.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Edit: People who haven't played through the BG series may regard some things I have written as spoilers. Then again, perhaps not.

dark-lauron wrote...
Don't tell me you [don't] find some similarities in Dragon Age and Mass Effect :

It's not that there are no similarities, but on the level you are comparing, I can just as easily say that the base is the same as the one of the BG series.
Your mentor is killed off by the hero of the people (who is actually evil), who is currently starting a major war, and you are left alone to save everything, because nobody believes you. Well, you succeed and actually turn the tables around; the war is nearly over and finally, just before the end, you can meet this so called "hero" again and this time your power impresses him enough that you can actually talk him into abandoning his evil ways and helping you save the day.
Which of the three games was I talking about?

Here is a hint. You can gain levels in the game.

Modifié par Humanoid_Taifun, 15 juillet 2010 - 12:52 .

[Ponce de Leon]

Dragon Age.
Because : Sarevok is not a hero (who the hell would think that?! )
And because : Saren is even less a hero. He's a spectre. Although I defined him wrongly before, I give you that.
And majorly because : The only one of the three to actually help you in the end of the GAME (not GAMES) is Loghain. Sarevok helps you, true, but not in the GAME...
Saren hardly helps you by putting a bullet in his head

Edit : actually now that I think. None of the three games is it. Mentor is killed by Sarevok and Saren... but certainly not by Loghain. 
You tricky trick... trickster!  

Modifié par dark-lauron, 15 juillet 2010 - 01:06 .

[BomimoDK]

dark-lauron wrote...

Dragon Age.
Because : Sarevok is not a hero (who the hell would think that?! )
And because : Saren is even less a hero. He's a spectre. Although I defined him wrongly before, I give you that.
And majorly because : The only one of the three to actually help you in the end of the GAME (not GAMES) is Loghain. Sarevok helps you, true, but not in the GAME...
Saren hardly helps you by putting a bullet in his head

Edit : actually now that I think. None of the three games is it. Mentor is killed by Sarevok and Saren... but certainly not by Loghain. 
You tricky trick... trickster!  

Loghain is just some cute crook. i forgot about him. when you said MAIN VILLAIN i thought you meant the Demon... i had no bad blood with that thing, it just had to go down... hard.

I hate you! now you're made me reinstall BGT! do you know how long time it takes to set all those mods up? expect a no-reload from me soon though.

Modifié par BomimoDK, 15 juillet 2010 - 02:24 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

dark-lauron wrote...
Dragon Age.
Because : Sarevok is not a hero (who the hell would think that?! )

He is a hero to the people of Baldur's Gate?
Sure his father had a lot of political weight too, but that alone wouldn't have sufficed for Sarevok's plans.

And because : Saren is even less a hero.

Are you sure about that?
I got the impression that he was pretty popular.

Sarevok helps you, true, but not in the GAME...

Sorry, I have BGT installed. What were you saying?

Saren hardly helps you by putting a bullet in his head

I guess this is up to interpretation.

Mentor is killed by Sarevok and Saren... but certainly not by Loghain.

Abandoning somebody in need is legally murder.
Try it and you'll be tried, I promise.

[Ponce de Leon]

He is a hero to the people of Baldur's Gate?

Sure his father had a lot of political weight too, but that alone wouldn't have sufficed for Sarevok's plans.

Assassinations of the current dukes of the city, of possibly his foster father, of sending his nation to death and sending it again to war is hardly a heroic feet. Now, if it was to the eyes of the people, that's a different situation.

Are you sure about that?

I got the impression that he was pretty popular.

Popular as a ruthless but effective human hater. Nice hero, especially to the humanity.

Sorry, I have BGT installed. What were you saying?

Rrrgh /John Casey

I guess this is up to interpretation.

He still leaves you the final battle in your hands... Loghain actually can help against the Archdemon.

Abandoning somebody in need is legally murder.

Try it and you'll be tried, I promise.

Wait, so you are actually saying that if a stranger calls you in the middle of the night begging for your help, otherwise he dies, and if you refuse you are a murderer? Huh... I guess I'll have to help people next time. And on a side note, isn't a law in the US that if actually you see someone dying on the street, it's legally not necessary to help him? I know in my country that isn't true, but in the US, it is.

And besides, I think the game writers as well as fans all know that even if Loghain flanked the darkspawn, they'd still lose. I always say that Cailen is the idiot in the situation.



PS : we can go arguing for the whole life (and I actually like it, if you do?), but I don't believe neither of us will throw away his ideas, no?

[BomimoDK]

dark-lauron wrote...

He is a hero to the people of Baldur's Gate?
Sure his father had a lot of political weight too, but that alone wouldn't have sufficed for Sarevok's plans.

Assassinations of the current dukes of the city, of possibly his foster father, of sending his nation to death and sending it again to war is hardly a heroic feet. Now, if it was to the eyes of the people, that's a different situation.

Are you sure about that?
I got the impression that he was pretty popular.

Popular as a ruthless but effective human hater. Nice hero, especially to the humanity.

Sorry, I have BGT installed. What were you saying?

Rrrgh /John Casey

I guess this is up to interpretation.

He still leaves you the final battle in your hands... Loghain actually can help against the Archdemon.

Abandoning somebody in need is legally murder.
Try it and you'll be tried, I promise.

Wait, so you are actually saying that if a stranger calls you in the middle of the night begging for your help, otherwise he dies, and if you refuse you are a murderer? Huh... I guess I'll have to help people next time. And on a side note, isn't a law in the US that if actually you see someone dying on the street, it's legally not necessary to help him? I know in my country that isn't true, but in the US, it is.
And besides, I think the game writers as well as fans all know that even if Loghain flanked the darkspawn, they'd still lose. I always say that Cailen is the idiot in the situation.

PS : we can go arguing for the whole life (and I actually like it, if you do?), but I don't believe neither of us will throw away his ideas, no?

It's True that both Saren and Sarevok were heroes in the eyes of the people. but they got exposed mid-game and lost it.

I always revere Cailan to spite Loghain. I know that Loghain "betrays" us no matter what, but i like pretending that my adoration for Cailan had an influence in his spite towards Grey Wardens.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

dark-lauron wrote...

He is a hero to the people of Baldur's Gate?
Sure his father had a lot of political weight too, but that alone wouldn't have sufficed for Sarevok's plans.

Assassinations of the current dukes of the city, of possibly his foster father, of sending his nation to death and sending it again to war is hardly a heroic feet. Now, if it was to the eyes of the people, that's a different situation.

Are you sure about that?
I got the impression that he was pretty popular.

Popular as a ruthless but effective human hater. Nice hero, especially to the humanity.

What they actually were does not change how the people saw them, ie as heroes.

Wait, so you are actually saying that if a stranger calls you in the middle of the night begging for your help, otherwise he dies, and if you refuse you are a murderer? Huh... I guess I'll have to help people next time. And on a side note, isn't a law in the US that if actually you see someone dying on the street, it's legally not necessary to help him? I know in my country that isn't true, but in the US, it is.

Sorry, I went with the wrong law in any case, since he is not just abandoning somebody, he is abandoning his post that was assigned to him by his military superior. Desertion is a pretty bad offence, and not taken lightly.

PS : we can go arguing for the whole life (and I actually like it, if you do?), but I don't believe neither of us will throw away his ideas, no?

As long as we can maintain a civil tone, why not? 

[Ponce de Leon]

Sorry, I went with the wrong law in any case, since he is not just abandoning somebody, he is abandoning his post that was assigned to him by his military superior. Desertion is a pretty bad offence, and not taken lightly.

Superior? Actually it's Loghain the supreme commander of Ferelden's armies. The king has higher authorities, but Loghain can give the orders to the men. And again, the battle was a suicide, one way or another. Return To Ostagar explains it with very much detail. Cailen was a fool. And while it goes against the game's "rules", I believe I'd do the same thing as Loghain... although I wouldn't lie to the king.

And besides, Cailen is king because of Loghain's tactics. And if Maric was king, then the blight would have ended more cautiously and without desertion, if you wish to call it that way.

[Son of Imoen]

About the difficulty: a lot depends on knowledge. I played AD&D 2nd Edition as a teenager and though 3rd Edition (I don't know the 4th Edition) is perhaps more streamlined, too me it just isn't the real thing. So: I had knowledge of AD&D.

Being very afraid this would be a game I would give up on right after starting for being frustratingly difficult, what with all it's potential I've read about, but also reading about it's difficulty, I decided on using Dan Simpson's walkthrough for my first run. The game for the first time I played it became way too easy by the time I got to the city of Baldur's Gate and my main character was way overpowered. I started again for the second time, needing Hard Times and Sword Coast Stratagems to make the game harder and more enjoyable.

And I don't play Baldur's Gate for nostalgia to Baldur's Gate, I was an absolutely newbie 2 years ago. I do feel a lot of nostalgia for 2nd Edition AD&D though.

Modifié par Son of Imoen, 15 juillet 2010 - 08:36 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

dark-lauron wrote...
Superior? [...] The king has higher authorities,

That's what superior means, yes.
I don't know much about the details of the battle, but breaking rank before the battle is decided was punished by death in the Middle Ages (I don't know how it's handled today, but it's probably not a trivial offense).
And that's not even what Mr L did.
I have no idea how the military calls it when a high ranking officer leaves his superiors to die at the ends of the enemy in order to gain control of the country, but it is probably not regarded a trivial offense either.

However the military handles it however, the fact remains that he tried neither to stop the king from engaging the enemy nor to rescue the king from the then apparently lost battlefield, so a purely tactically reached decision to stay out of the battle is not very likely - and a murder (as I've called it) is the likely scenario.

[Ponce de Leon]

He didn't do it for power. He did it for reason. Duncan saw this, Eamon saw this, the grey wardens saw this as well as Loghain did. What Cailen did, or better, what Loghain did to him wasn't murder. It was Cailen's suicide.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Hm. I probably don't know enough about DA:O to argue any longer with that. You win.

[Ponce de Leon]

YESSSSSS! ( joking of course)

Joking aside (and aside from the fact that we SUPER derailed this thread and will probably get banned... or haunted in our dreams), I believe I am one of the lucky ones to say "I played Dragon Age to death"... 8 times completed, 16 times mid-game. Twice on the nightmare. Give or take, that's what makes Dragon Age worse than Baldur's Gate. After 8 runs of Baldur's Gate, I cannot say "I had enough of it!"... after 8 runs of Dragon age, I can and I am saying so... not counting on the fact that I am currently replaying it (the character I am making is supposed to get imported as choices in Dragon Age 2... it's the choices I'd do if I were living it).

[G_Admiral_Thrawn]

my biggest gripe about DA:O is that (and I got blasted on the GF forums for saying this, but reading these post, it might seem to be better)DA:O is cliche. A lot of people compare it to Mass Effect (haven't played it). I compare it to FFX (and that's what I get blasted for) . Here are the reasons:
You have this big bad villian, but it's more a force of nature than an intelligent bad guy (Archdemon/Sin)
You have a group of people who are the only ones to be able to fight it sucessfully and win (Grey Wardens/Summoners). Oh, and you don't find about the "problem" of what happens until like 3 quarters of the way through the game.
You have this good guy turned bad guy (Logan/Seymor). Oh, and what Logan did at Ostragar was TREASON, punishable (up to about 50 years ago then these anti-death penalty fanatics argued it was "cruel and unusual" punisment) by death, usually the most painful death imaiginable (burning at the stake, stoning, improperly done hanging, things like that).
And in both versions, the final battle is anticlimatic than fighting the traitor. Although the Archdemon battle is FAR tougher than the Sin battle. Any of them.
Even the characters are similar. Morrigan-Lulu, Leliana-Yuna with a little Rikku thrown in, Allistair is a more talkative version of Auron, and Sten-Kimahri.

Whereas BG might be cliche, but BG CREATED the cliche.

Modifié par G_Admiral_Thrawn, 16 juillet 2010 - 06:20 .

[Luke Bioware]

Don't derail my thread and talk about Dragon Age spoilers. I'm finishing Awakening right now D:.

[FlintlockJazz]

When the hell did these forums pop up? Bloody hell I never noticed them before, why doesn't anyone tell me about these things? Where was my damn memo people! Sheesh, what am I paying you all for?

On topic, sorry Bioware, but you still haven't topped your gem that is Baldur's Gate series, sorry. Not to say their other works are not awesome, but they kinda set their own benchmark with BG that everyone that played it will measure all their work up against it. While it may not hold a light to newer games in technical matters, and it had no more real 'choice' or consequence as any other Bioware game, the story and the sidequests (oh the sidequests, that were fully fleshed stories in their own rights and had their own dungeons and events, and not just "while you're doing this main mission could you pick this up on the way?" that we get now, I still remember stumbling upon the, oh wait no spoilers, bugger, well nevermind ).

And G_Admiral_Thrawn, I completely understand what you are trying to get at, hell even Yahtzee points out in his review that DA:O was as cliched as they come (and he classed it as a good thing). The Arch Demon lacked the personal touch, while faceless evil can work (early Borg before they buggered them up too much), they need to be present and actually make themselves felt beyond "ooh dream!".  BG had villains that were individual and personal, you really got to know them and they made an emotional impact.

My biggest gripe with DA:O though was the railroading and how the origin didn't really mean much once you got past it, the darkspawn and warden stuff was forced in my opinon, instead I personally would have enjoyed it if they had cut the darkspawn completely and instead focused on Ferelden having a civil war with the PC wandering around like in BG slowly being drawn into it (based around his origin). This is why I think BG is still their best: the main character got to adventure and travel as they please. While you could argue that The Elder Scroll games do that, they lack the detail in their quests (and have no soul in my opinion), as this is a no spoiler forum I can't really go into it but BG struck that perfect balance between freedom and story. Plus the companions were just awesome, who can forget Minsc!

Blimey, this post went on longer than I had planned, I better shut up now about my precious.

Modifié par FlintlockJazz, 16 juillet 2010 - 10:53 .

[VeeVito]

The question itself (Best RPG series ever) is highly subjective simply because the term RPG has become highly subjective. I can understand the desire to streamline certain elements of the BG ruleset. I would even welcome some of it.

But, part of me still hopes that there is enough market space available so that games can be what they are. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't improve things.

I really like DAO and while it partially delivers on the the whole spiritual successor thing, it does fall somewhat short. Mainly in terms of the actual main villain. Kinda devoid of soul, if that makes sense. Even though up until the end the game is superb and engages you wonderfully. No spoilers so that's all i'll say about the story. But at the same time, I liked how some of the more tedious gameplay elements of the D&D rules were gone. Does that make me bad?

Alot of people seem to think that BG had more strategic depth due to having so many damn spells, buffs and status effects and how they all came together for strategy etc. DAO doesn't have a fraction of the spells but I think if they expand on the spell combos that were introduced, the potential strategy elements of the game would be similar to BG without being as confusing.

Meaning, in BG, if you encounter X monster, you prepare with Y or use spell Z. And the number of effects and spells made things confusing. But, let's say on the surface DAO uses only a few spells, but rather than what spells you use, it's how you employ them via combination. So, in DAO it could expand upon the grease > fire effect to more mob specific and even boss specific combo effects to simulate the type of strategy of BG without a spellbook of 100's of spells that make your mind swim. Even magic/melee combos.

I onl say the above to point out that neither method is better or worse, but merely a preferance. I think if DAO expanded on their spell combo gameplay extensively it would be quite interesting....

I'm about to fire up a game of BG2 and I consider it a gold standard for what it tries to do. That doesn't mean that some things about it don't annoy me regarding how the rules play out in the game.

I'm not sure it's a good analogy but depending on the difficulty you play at, BG feels like chess, while DAO feels like checkers.

Both are damn fun and have their place. I just hope that there continues to be a place for both rather than trying to merge them into chesskers.

[Cypher0020]

Ok playing BG1 right now... think I'm gonna make a new character..... uhhh...I can play BG2 w/o playing BG1, right? The sequel sounds like its much better...

[Ponce de Leon]

Cypher0020 wrote...

Ok playing BG1 right now... think I'm gonna make a new character..... uhhh...I can play BG2 w/o playing BG1, right? The sequel sounds like its much better...

You can... although BG1 fill so some story elements you might miss. But really in a perspective of gameplay, whatever you learn in BG2 will even help you for the future tactics of BG1. Same cannot be said viceversa (mages in BG1 don't have such importance as the mages in BG2).

[Son of Imoen]

Cypher0020 wrote...

Ok playing BG1 right now... think I'm gonna make a new character..... uhhh...I can play BG2 w/o playing BG1, right? The sequel sounds like its much better...

That's a matter of opinion, I think. I like BG1 so much, I didn't start a BG2 game for two years since I've had the Box Set. The great fun of BG1 is taking a character into the wild, that knows nothing yet about life in such a dangerous world and learning him to handle it, see him or her grow in experience. The joy when you meet those damn kobolds again some levels later and slay them by dozens. And not having to spend lots of time thinking about your next spells when you rest, as you have only one or two levels of them. The joy when you finally can cast Mirror Image with your mage, or Silence with your cleric. I keep making new campaigns over and over because the beginning of the saga is so much fun.

[FlintlockJazz]

Cypher0020 wrote...

Ok playing BG1 right now... think I'm gonna make a new character..... uhhh...I can play BG2 w/o playing BG1, right? The sequel sounds like its much better...

If the problem you're having with BG1 is that its incredibly slow (as in takes an eternity to cross the map) I do suggest using the BG tutu mod, it takes BG1 and runs it in the BG2 engine (which is alot faster, your characters almost hurtle across the screen) though that assumes you have a copy of both.  If its more a case of difficulty then I personally cannot help except to say that it does get easier as you learn the system and your character gets more powerful (I find that once you reach about 3rd or 4th level your survivability shoots up quite a bit, since you no longer get killed in one shot so much).  If it's that you're just not enjoying BG1 at all, as in you don't like the style of game, then try BG2 if you happen to already have it and see if it is just the way BG1 was done, and if so carry on from there, as you can probably find a plot writeup online of BG1, however I do recommend at least persevering with BG1 as it is one of those games that gets better the longer you play it.  Or at least try the tutu mod with it.

VeeVito wrote...

The question itself (Best RPG series ever) is highly subjective simply because the term RPG has become highly
subjective. I can understand the desire to streamline certain elements of the BG ruleset. I would even welcome some of it.

But, part of me still hopes that there is enough market space available so that games can be what they are. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't improve things.

I really like DAO and while it partially delivers on the the whole spiritual successor thing, it does fall somewhat short.  Mainly in terms of the actual main villain. Kinda devoid of soul, if that makes sense. Even though up until the end the game is superb and engages you wonderfully. No spoilers so that's all i'll say about the story. But at the same time, I liked how some of the more tedious gameplay elements of the D&D rules were gone. Does that make me bad?

Alot of people seem to think that BG had more strategic depth due to having so many damn spells, buffs and status effects and how they all came together for strategy etc. DAO doesn't have a fraction of the spells but I think if they expand on the spell combos that were introduced, the potential strategy elements of the game would be similar to BG without being as confusing.

Meaning, in BG, if you encounter X monster, you prepare with Y or use spell Z. And the number of effects and spells made things confusing. But, let's say on the surface DAO uses only a few spells, but rather than what spells you use, it's how you employ them via combination. So, in DAO it could expand upon the grease > fire
effect to more mob specific and even boss specific combo effects to simulate the type of strategy of BG without a spellbook of 100's of spells that make your mind swim. Even magic/melee combos.

I onl say the above to point out that neither method is better or worse, but merely a preferance. I think if DAO expanded on their spell combo gameplay extensively it would be quite interesting....

I'm about to fire up a game of BG2 and I consider it a gold standard for what it tries to do. That doesn't mean that some things about it don't annoy me regarding how the rules play out in the game.

I'm not sure it's a good analogy but depending on the difficulty you play at, BG feels like chess, while DAO feels like checkers.

Both are damn fun and have their place. I just hope that there continues to be a place for both rather than trying to merge them into chesskers.../../../images/forum/emoticons/wondering.png

I agree fully that the concept of RPG is very loose, and that improving a system shouldn't be avoided when it can be done.  Adding in combinations is good, and would have worked better if it worked across classes more as opposed to just the spells, so a thief skill and a warrior skill could have some sort of synergy effect beyond the stun lock by warrior followed by backstab by rogue.

I personally didn't much like the system used in DA:O, particularly how it worked stats.  In BG games, I could look at a character's stat line and know something of that character's personality, as it reflected the character itself, for instance you could see from Minsc's statline that he was incredibly strong but mentally deficient, while Edwin's showed an immense intellect.  DA:O however suffered from one of the things I despise most in a stat system, stat inflation: a 20 strength at level 1 is high, but at level 15 its piddly and should be in its 80s!!  While stat increases can be good, when you are looking at such drastic increases the stats lose meaning, especially when some stats have no meaning for some classes and so you end up with a character that has some stats seriously inflated and others left at level 1 scores.  I also had issues with the way the skills were done, but I digress too much, as the main reason why I prefer BG is not to do with the system as much as it does with the immense detail I felt the sidequests had, compared to the fetch quests nowadays considered to be sidequests in most games.

Modifié par FlintlockJazz, 17 juillet 2010 - 12:35 .

[G_Admiral_Thrawn]

Oh, DA:O has dropped even further. with Patch 1.03, it's not even playable. SOMEONE (at either EA or Bioware didn't do enough bug testing). Check out the Tech support forums of DA:O if you don't believe me. I guess Bioware is too busyu with DA:O 2 to be concerned whether or not the original is playable.

[Bubba McThudd]

BG was the granddad of the RPGs, and in many ways has never been equalled.



"Go for the eyes Boo!"