19 réponses à ce sujet

[DreamwareStudio]

After recently playing the Witcher 1 & 2, Skyrim, a bit of Obilivion, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, I started up a game of Baldur's Gate 2 SOA/TOB for the first time in over five years.  While there are good things about the newer games I've played (except for Dragon Age 2...that was almost total rubbish), I have only this to say about BG 2.

When a game is done really right, almost to the point of perfection, it never grows old.  I'm amazed at how much fun I am having with it...from the roleplaying and quests to the challenging combat and the incredible storyline with all of the interesting NPCs (and here I thought the banter in DA games was good).

It's just astounding to me.

I thought I would be bothered by the outdated look, but other than the models, of course, everything else still looks relatively fresh.  It's just mindboggling this game is over ten years old and puts to shame most of the recent offerings in the way of quality and immersion, especially those games developed by the very company that made BG 2.  I also thought I would be bothered by the lack of audio, but you know what?  Sometimes, less is more.

I think a good way of comparing BG 2 to current games would be books vs. movies.  The movies are good, but the books are almost always better because they are less defined for us while usually better detailed with what the writer provides and the use of our imagination.  Ergo, the books are more personal.

Back to topic...

Dragon Age: Origins I initially thought would appoach BG 2, but then later on, the difficulty just went to pot, even on nightmare with the nightmare plus mod.  I don't get why games today give the playable character DM capabilities.  Terrible balancing, too, in that the opponents never get stronger (except for only some bosses).  The Witcher games has this in common with that as well.  DA 2's ninja drops and waves?  Give me a break, Bioware/EA.  Skyrim and Obliviion...meh, both are decent, but honestly, only the Witcher games come close to the Baldur's Gate series in terms of sheer enjoyment and that's a fairly distant second.

Bioware/EA would be well served if they truly returned to the roots of BG rather than half-ass that approach with Origins (still, a very good game) and then go completely away from it with the likes of DA 2 (about which I have a hard time coming up with ANYTHING redeeming).

Though I'm absolutely starving (I've been playing BG 2 since 5 PM and it's now almost 1:00 AM), I struggle with the idea of eating.  I'm about to enter Spellhold. 

Modifié par google_calasade, 22 janvier 2012 - 07:43 .

[ussnorway]

The difference is that BG was designed to be played by adults were as the contemporary games have to appeal too young children and that respectively limits how hard they can make the game play.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

google_calasade wrote...
Though I'm absolutely starving (I've been playing BG 2 since 5 PM and it's now almost 1:00 AM), I struggle with the idea of eating.

Didn't you get the loading screen warning?

[DreamwareStudio]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

google_calasade wrote...
Though I'm absolutely starving (I've been playing BG 2 since 5 PM and it's now almost 1:00 AM), I struggle with the idea of eating.

Didn't you get the loading screen warning?

Heh, yeah, but I ignored it.  6:20 AM and I'm finally going to bed.

[DreamwareStudio]

ussnorway wrote...

The difference is that BG was designed to be played by adults were as the contemporary games have to appeal too young children and that respectively limits how hard they can make the game play.

Which is ironic and rather foolish of developers because the majority of today's roleplaying gamers are not young children, most being between 25 and 45.  On second that, I would have to argue the young children target because Dragon Age: Origins ant the Witcher games (both suffer from poor balancing later in the games) are geared towards adults with their sexual content, the Witcher games especially given the storylines for those are farily more mature.

I think the easy play is a direct side effect of developers not spending the extra resources and time to balance their games.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Actually I don't think they are geared towards children so much as towards casuals. Never underestimate children and their abilty to conquer games.

[Thunderdwarf]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

Actually I don't think they are geared towards children so much as towards casuals. Never underestimate children and their abilty to conquer games.

Id have to agree, everything gets "dumbed down" especially if you compare DA:Origins and DA2. Sure, its fun for a while but you never return again and again like you do with the BG Saga (and the other Black Isle games too!). It comes down to sales, and a game geared toward casual gamers tend to sell more. Too bad if you ask me. I more or less think of the newer Bioware games as interactive movies, and there is not much wrong with the storytelling, but nothing compares to BG. It could be because Im nostalgic...

[DreamwareStudio]

Thunderdwarf wrote...

It comes down to sales, and a game geared toward casual gamers tend to sell more.

Most, if not all, evidence to the contrary, at least when we are talking flavors of RPG.

DA 2 was geared towards casuals.  It sold less than half of Origins and around the same amount as Baldur's Gate 2.  When you consider Baldur's Gate 2 was made in 2001 when computer gaming was not at today's levels and isolated to one platform because console gaming as we know it today was just a speck on the horizon, the sales for DA 2 are more than bad.

The Witcher games are another example.  They are not made for casuals and have had more than respectable numbers although they have been limited to one platform thus far.  Let us hope that CD Projekt follows through on their word that adding consoles to the Witcher games will not dumb them down.  Thus far, I like what they are doing, which is doing the PC version first and then downgrading where necessary to adjust for the consoles.

Skyrim -- while it features less roleplaying than Oblivion -- isn't what I would necessarily consider dumbed down nor geared towards the casuals, and look what it did in terms of sales virtually blowing every prior RPG out of the water.

Modifié par google_calasade, 22 janvier 2012 - 10:11 .

[BelgarathMTH]

I agree absolutely with the sentiment of the OP - BG is the greatest rpg ever, the crowning achievement of the "golden age" of rpg's from roughly 1980 to 1995, including but not limited to titles like Might and Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, Wizardry, and the complete line of Infinity engine games. I have started many threads in the distant archives of the old forums where I expressed marvel at how good BG is, and how I expect to still be playing it in 2040 or so on my nursing home room computer.
 
As far as to the debate which seems to be forming about WHY the game seems so good to us as compared to offerings since 2000, I think it has to do with basic marketing and entertainment functions. We are all familiar with the "me, too" phenomenon in television and movie production. Once there is a success, for example, the "Survivor" series on CBS in the early 2000's, or the "American Idol" series as another example, every network and entertainment producer immediately comes out with its own variation of it. Other examples would include various sitcom and drama formulae - as soon as one network "hits it big" with a show ("Friends", "Lost", "Gossip Girl", any supernatural drama), all the other networks immediately come out with their own copies.

Over time, we see the "copy of a copy" effect, where quality of reproduction gets poorer and poorer until we are left with a mere shadow of what was originally created. New generations who missed the originals begin to have their standard of perception of quality lowered to that of the copies. Thus, we get the old geezer's "IN MY DAY, we had.... yada, yada, yada.... everything BETTER. It was all BETTER in the GOOD OLD DAYS!" Everybody knows that the "IN MY DAY..." speech is a timeless classic of intergenerational interaction.

There is also more than likely a heavy nostalgic effect associated with remembered youth. For example, I had some of my best times in high school and made my best friends through tabletop D&D. And when I first played Dark Wizard (Sega Genesis HOMM-style strategy game), Heroes of Might and Magic, Might and Magic, and then Baldur's Gate 1, I was in my twenties and having a blast going out to nightclubs and such enjoying being young. Life had infinite potential, and I associate playing cRPG's with an evening of fun at home before either going out for a run or a workout, or something to look forward to after the workout, or going out to the nightclub, getting drunk , and just generally being a "young fool". 

So, people over 40 years old like me are probably hopelessly biased in comparing "good old games" with more contemporary offerings. LIke the OP, I very much enjoy contemporary games like Dragon Age. But none of it compares with the thrill of revisiting the games of my youth. 

I would be very interested in hearing from a twenty-something person, or better yet a teenager, who thinks that the Baldur's Gate series is qualitatively superior to contemporary games. That person would have some completely unbiased insight that the rest of us "old fogies" would probably enjoy. I know I would.

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 23 janvier 2012 - 12:14 .

[DreamwareStudio]

BelgarathMTH wrote...

I agree absolutely with the sentiment of the OP - BG is the greatest rpg ever, the crowning achievement of the "golden age" of rpg's from roughly 1980 to 1995, including but not limited to titles like Might and Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, Wizardry, and the complete line of Infinity engine games. I have started many threads in the distant archives of the old forums where I expressed marvel at how good BG is, and how I expect to still be playing it in 2040 or so on my nursing home room computer.
 
As far as to the debate which seems to be forming about WHY the game seems so good to us as compared to offerings since 2000, I think it has to do with basic marketing and entertainment functions. We are all familiar with the "me, too" phenomenon in television and movie production. Once there is a success, for example, the "Survivor" series on CBS in the early 2000's, or the "American Idol" series as another example, every network and entertainment producer immediately comes out with its own variation of it. Other examples would include various sitcom and drama formulae - as soon as one network "hits it big" with a show ("Friends", "Lost", "Gossip Girl", any supernatural drama), all the other networks immediately come out with their own copies.

Over time, we see the "copy of a copy" effect, where quality of reproduction gets poorer and poorer until we are left with a mere shadow of what was originally created. New generations who missed the originals begin to have their standard of perception of quality lowered to that of the copies. Thus, we get the old geezer's "IN MY DAY, we had.... yada, yada, yada.... everything BETTER. It was all BETTER in the GOOD OLD DAYS!" Everybody knows that the "IN MY DAY..." speech is a timeless classic of intergenerational interaction.

There is also more than likely a heavy nostalgic effect associated with remembered youth. For example, I had some of my best times in high school and made my best friends through tabletop D&D. And when I first played Dark Wizard (Sega Genesis HOMM-style strategy game), Heroes of Might and Magic, Might and Magic, and then Baldur's Gate 1, I was in my twenties and having a blast going out to nightclubs and such enjoying being young. Life had infinite potential, and I associate playing cRPG's with an evening of fun at home before either going out for a run or a workout, or something to look forward to after the workout, or going out to the nightclub, getting drunk , and just generally being a "young fool". 

So, people over 40 years old like me are probably hopelessly biased in comparing "good old games" with more contemporary offerings. LIke the OP, I very much enjoy contemporary games like Dragon Age. But none of it compares with the thrill of revisiting the games of my youth. 

I would be very interested in hearing from a twenty-something person, or better yet a teenager, who thinks that the Baldur's Gate series is qualitatively superior to contemporary games. That person would have some completely unbiased insight that the rest of us "old fogies" would probably enjoy. I know I would.

Who you callin' an old fogie? LOL

I'll disagree with the bias argument.  Quality is quality.  What I found in BG 2 had really nothing to do with nostaglia as I expected to be disappointed upon returning to it.  I guess you can say I remembered BG 2, but I did not yearn for the "good old days."

My main reason for firing it up was because of the threads I've seen here, the comparisons between the DA games and others, to see what might be beneficial from days of yore, as it were.

As said, I rather expected to be disappointed with BG 2.  I was thinking nothing is ever as good as how it's remembered.  I asked myself I would really enjoy the reading rather than almost full audio.  I thought I would miss the movie effects, the cutscenes, etc.  I knew for sure I would miss WASD keys and probably find the one camera view limiting.  I was completely taken by surprise when I was not disappointed.  Simply put, I had forgotten what fun roleplaying could be, that the 3D, the full audio, the WASD, the different camera views, the movie effects...all that stuff is really just bells and whistles, nice shiny things and what really matters are the underneath layers, the guts, the ROLEPLAYING.

Modifié par google_calasade, 23 janvier 2012 - 02:16 .

[Bhryaen]

Despite all I've ranted against DA:O I've now actually just tried it. *sheepish grin*

It's turning out better than I thought in terms of story and voices, but it's also turning out even more like Dungeon Siege than I anticipated. Whoever suggested DA:O is the "spiritual successor" of BG is way off. It's truly the "spiritual successor" of Dungeon Siege- the same overcontrolled, claustrophobic world travel littered with nasties in the way; same fantastical creatures which nevertheless don't really challenge anyone once one becomes familiar with the advantages of the pause button; same player auto-regeneration at level 1 without even having to cast a spell or find a Ring of Regeneration (a high level item in NWN) or getting to Constitution 20 like in BG; the same completely controlled linear story presentation; same reduction of classes and races to a scant few; same skill and attribute progression along linear "tracks;" same spellcasting appearance, options, and emphasis on elemental magic;... and even "mana." It's just so totally Dungeon Siege (unless DS got those same traits from some other game), albeit with far better graphics and interface. It's not D&D in the least, and it's not even trying to approximate BG's environs. The story setting isn't so bad, mind you, so if they'd have worked D&D (or a game rule system as complex) into it, it might've been profoundly more interesting and replayable- and then, yes- like BG. But, like DS, DA:O is ok to play... just not comparable to BG- apples and oranges (or movies to books as Calasade would have it)...

Witcher1 I also just picked up but haven't gotten far with- also a DS-like game engine with a combat system that does nearly everything for you just by clicking the red guys... Not a good idea in BG combat... Oblivion is another case altogether...

H_T is probably right: the developers aren't gearing the easy gameplay to gaming kids; they're gearing it for the gaming illiterate and lazy (perhaps "casual" is the nicer term), hoping to win the potentially untapped market of such gamers just getting computer access, cynically forgoing appealing to them with the high-tactics, extensive-player-options approach of a BG or NWN in favor of the graphics-based fast-immersion, gameplay-frustration-reduced approach... with nifty movies and cutscenes... where the player is mostly just along for the ride...

[DreamwareStudio]

Bhryaen wrote...

Despite all I've ranted against DA:O I've now actually just tried it. *sheepish grin*

What?  Shame on you.  Never rant until you've tried something.  Then rant your ass off where you feel it's deserved. 

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Bhryaen wrote...
It's truly the "spiritual successor" of Dungeon Siege-

I believe DA:O has a few major advantages in terms of story over DS. Mind you, I never finished DS, but what I saw (or what I remember at least) was just a huge slaughterfest. Compared with that, the story of DA:O is impressive.
The controls and make-up are of course copypasta from WoW, as it is the case with every game nowadays. (and what isn't from WoW usually sucks, like the camera in Drakensang)

DA:O is nice to play, but it lacks replay value.

Oh and btw: I don't like the D&D system. I don't mind it being replaced with something else if it's not for example a senseless and endless raising of strength per level etc where the actual stats lose all meaning (looking at you, DA:O) but, after all, D&D has such things too (250HP and I got an axe with godlike strength against the head - it's itching a bit).

[Bhryaen]

Oh, DA:O definitely has a much more elaborate storyline and presentation than DS- and it has been much less hack-and-slash than I've seen in YouTube playthroughs somehow. (I'm having to eat my words more and more on DA:O while playing it given how well done it is for what it is...) Successors are generally supposed to be an improvement anyway, no? But the game engine itself is incontrovertibly DS's format, not anything like BG's. You can increase stats in BG only so far and only with magic tomes in BG1- and only significantly toward the end of the game (later in BG2). NWN1 has a level-based stat increase system also- from DnD 3E- but it's one point every four levels, not DA:O's 5 points every level.

I think DA:O does have replay value. (I want to play again as a rogue so I can actually open those bloody chests...) DS did also. But it doesn't last long. I think that's part of the marketing strategy anyway: make a game that people really want to play that has an easier and duplicable interface system but which players will tire of sooner. Then release the next one or another with the same system, and rake in more. It may be so that BG2 brought in more than DA2, but DA:O, DA2, plus expansion and other paraphernalia probably netted quite a lot more than the BG series, even considering the wider gaming base of today (which is partly due to the "dumbing down" of cRPGs anyway). People still play BG this many yrs after, but there's little to no profit to Black Isle any longer. So the DA:O, Oblivion, etc. approach isn't just a gaming style preference as much as it is a preference for revenue...

[HoonDing]

DA2 is almost an exact clone of DS2, combat-wise. Endless hordes of monsters that are obliterated by activating powers that are on cooldown.

Only in DS2 monsters don't fall out of the sky or appear out of thin air.

[Grimwald the Wise]

I'm thinking that if Black Isle had produced all the mods that others have made, they could have raked in a lot more out of the BG series.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

If they had created all the mods, people would be furious with the lack of compability.

[morbidest2]

Grimwald the Wise wrote...

I'm thinking that if Black Isle had produced all the mods that others have made, they could have raked in a lot more out of the BG series.

When you say Black Isle, do you really mean BioWare? I thought BW actually "made" the games,while Black Isle just marketed them. Remember all those guys in the Neshkel graveyard who died from exhaustion from working on BG1? Fortunately the  BW shop still exists, while BI disappeared several years ago.

Perhaps another measure of how good a game is, is how many people have enjoyed them enough to put the time into Modding them. The BG saga has spawned at least 2 dozen mods.  It might be mildly interesting to do a Mod count on the various games we keep comparing. For instance, I was greatly disappointed in NWN and its two official add-ons when they came out, but Modders have still worked out a number of spinoffs.  

[Humanoid_Taifun]

morbidest2 wrote...
The BG saga has spawned at least 2 dozen mods.

I know you're joking here, but have you ever taken a look at the Big World Project readme?

[morbidest2]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

morbidest2 wrote...
The BG saga has spawned at least 2 dozen mods.

I know you're joking here, but have you ever taken a look at the Big World Project readme?

OK, I'll very happily change "at least 2 dozen mods" to "many hundreds of Mods"
I rarely play BG1 because I like the muscle/magic balance in SoA better. But I take your point that with choosing the right BWP NPCs you can have a better balanced group in BG1 too, I'll give it a shot the next time around.
Many thanks.