235 réponses à ce sujet

[Jestina]

The only really bad reviews i've seen are from clueless people more interested in flashy graphics and fps games. Much like the reviewer that doesn't know what THACO is....clueless. Why someone like that would buy a game like this in the first place...I have no idea. I guess they just like to gripe.

[xAmilli0n]

EntropicAngel wrote...

I may never play BG--the more I hear about it, the less it sounds worth my time. Ploughing through ancillary material to understand how to even play the game means that the payoff has to be *that much* better, and from what I understand it isn't. But we'll see, eventually.

I think this play a definite role in the criticism.  We all know he game won't live up to the hype, so at the end of the day, it's not worth extra effort.

[Il Divo]

EntropicAngel wrote...

I may never play BG--the more I hear about it, the less it sounds worth my time. Ploughing through ancillary material to understand how to even play the game means that the payoff has to be *that much* better, and from what I understand it isn't. But we'll see, eventually.

I'll put it like this: if you're a huge fan of Bioware's companions and interactive narrative, there's a good chance that you'll dislike Baldur's Gate 1, as I did. It has a dedicated focus on exploration + dungeon crawling, which sort of brings many of the gameplay's flaws to the forefront.

For myself, I'd actually rate it as their worst game, despite respecting that it started us down to some of Bioware's best products.

Modifié par Il Divo, 29 novembre 2013 - 05:05 .

[Jestina]

It would require some knowledge of 2nd ed. AD&D, imagination, thinking, and like of classic RPG's. Those things that some trolls(see above me), like to come in and bash on. BG2 starts right after BG from what I recall, so you might be a little lost if you haven't played the first.

Modifié par Jestina, 29 novembre 2013 - 05:09 .

[Il Divo]

Jestina wrote...

It would require some knowledge of 2nd ed. AD&D, imagination, thinking, and like of classic RPG's. Those things that some trolls(see above me), like to come in and bash on.

I see someone gets very butt hurt when it comes to constructive criticism.

[Joy Divison]

addiction21 wrote...

MerinTB wrote...

The bar has just kept being lowered. It's like those picture based, touch screen monitors at fast food restaurants. Sure, it might improve worker performance, but that's by allowing monkeys to be able to fulfill orders.

First any monkey could do fast food work.

My local McDonalds needs to hire more primates considering how often they get my order wrong

I think BG was a great story, had memorable NPCs, allowed for tons of replayability, and had a lot of what was innovative features of RPGs that today are taken for granted...all of that made for a awesome game.

But let's not pretend the games mechanics were anything to write home about.  I've played D&D forever but 2E was awful, the game did have a fairly steep learning curve and even if you knew you were doing you died a lot, and the character screen is perhaps the worst I've ever seen.  I think the criticism of the accessibility of the game and the game's failure to inform players of the rules/mechanics in this thread is a little overblown...it did, afterall, become a classic - perhaps *the* classic - and people 15 years ago did somehow manage to figure it out.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

I started with DnD 3rd ed and I'm quite happy with it. Also my PC hardware theme is black. I used to have baby chickens. And Stanley hates you too.

[Il Divo]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Isichar wrote...

Boy, if the reviewer thought this game was bad I cant imagine how hard of a time he would have with games like The Witcher 2, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and Resident Evil 2 which would just continually keep killing you at the start if you did not know what you were doing.

Personally I like games that force me to actually think and take time to learn the gameplay without it holding my hand, I find it more immersive and in the case of Baldurs Gate I think it adds an absurd amount of replay value.

I don't know about the others, but TW2 is playable. It's fairly...simple. Moderately easy.

It's just twitch gaming, little more than that. What's complex about that?

Agreed. I liked the Witcher 2, but from a mechanics standpoint it's pretty straightforward. Each ability advertises exactly what it does.

Modifié par Il Divo, 29 novembre 2013 - 05:15 .

[Jestina]

Il Divo wrote...
I see someone gets very butt hurt when it comes to constructive criticism.

And I see you just like to troll this thread. Why are you even here if all you are going to do is bash RPG'ers? You've already stated that you don't like this game and don't play...so get the F out already.  You're probably missing out on Call of Duty time.

[Il Divo]

Jestina wrote...

Il Divo wrote...
I see someone gets very butt hurt when it comes to constructive criticism.

And I see you just like to troll this thread. Why are you even here if all you are going to do is bash RPG'ers? You've already stated that you don't like this game and don't play...so get the F out already.  You're probably missing out on Call of Duty time.

Not gonna work, I hated every Call of Duty I ever played, except Modern Warfare 1.

It's just a damn shame that someone who thinks themselves so intelligent can't possibly separate the ideas that someone can hate DnD 2.0 and still have a brain.

[Iakus]

Replaying BG2 right now. Still one of the greatest RPGs I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Even BG1 is a fine game with a mod or two. Just be careful in those early combats

[Cyonan]

Jestina wrote...

It would require some knowledge of 2nd ed. AD&D, imagination, thinking, and like of classic RPG's. Those things that some trolls(see above me), like to come in and bash on. BG2 starts right after BG from what I recall, so you might be a little lost if you haven't played the first.

So not agreeing with you now makes us all trolls?

I'm sorry, but if you can't handle people criticizing something you like then you shouldn't be on internet forums, or you should stick to ones that are strictly for talking about how awesome and flawless you think Baldur's Gate is.

Hell, I've not even called it a bad game or any quality of game. I said that it should explain some of the mechanics and all of the sudden people are screaming "HAND HOLDING!!!".

How does me getting information about what THAC0 is in-game instead of from 30 seconds of Googling it take away from your experience with a game? Somebody in this very thread already did the thing I was saying the game should do.

I'm not asking for it to be removed or even renamed.

[Savber100]

I loved Baldur's Gate II but hated the first.

And I'm totally cool with people disagreeing... I PREFER games that don't handhold but I don't bash people who do.

I love cRPG like Fallout 2 and BG2 but unfortunately couldn't really get into Planescape. I love Witcher 2 (read KoP's analysis to death while had 5-6 different playthroughs) and Mass Effect 3 (even the ending).

I love games. I don't need to judge people based on them. After all, if we can't even accept a person based on the games they play... How can we tolerate them on actual important issues?

[Sigma Tauri]

Baldur's Gate's not intuitive. Much of the cumbersome aspects of the game isn't hard to understand like THAC0/AC system. But, I admit it's not easy trying to find answers when I first played the game years ago. You do eventually learn when you give it a try, and it really is made for people with the mindset, time, and patience for these types of games. An unexpected side-effect is that you eventually learn to like these games because it's an accomplishment to learn the mechanics. You appreciate it. But, as I said, if you don't have the time, you shouldn't be judged for not knowing how to play. It's a bit of a learning curve.

[IllusiveManJr]

Entertaining thread.

[Gatt9]

monkeycamoran wrote...

Baldur's Gate's not intuitive. Much of the cumbersome aspects of the game isn't hard to understand like THAC0/AC system. But, I admit it's not easy trying to find answers when I first played the game years ago. You do eventually learn when you give it a try, and it really is made for people with the mindset, time, and patience for these types of games. An unexpected side-effect is that you eventually learn to like these games because it's an accomplishment to learn the mechanics. You appreciate it. But, as I said, if you don't have the time, you shouldn't be judged for not knowing how to play. It's a bit of a learning curve.

Actually,  at the time it was made,  understanding of it's concepts were fairly common.  It's only the disaster of 4th edition D&D and modern companies slapping the RPG acronym of shooters and action-adventure that makes it so "Difficult".  Not counting THAC0 of course,  because that never really made sense,  it was just something everyone learned and lived with.

[Fast Jimmy]

RPGs have never been good, either in PnP format or video game, in describing their rules in easy-to-digest segments. A tutorial section for a FPS shooter, which just needs to show you how to shoot, duck and throw a grenade still wind up taking a few minutes in most games. Can you imagine the tutorial to describe Hit%/THAC0 calculations? Or the costs/benefit analysis of multiclassing under AD&D rules?

Today, we see most of these rules thrown out for the much more simple "highest DPS wins" models made polular by MMORPGs now in even most single player RPGs, simply because they are intuively simple to understand. I'd say the industry is doomed to continue using simple design principles (or, even worse... ACTION ELEMENTS) until they can find a way to better teach more advanced concepts via an in-game tutorial in a way that is effective and not intrusive to the game experience.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

The tangent is interesting and something I may tackle another time, but the reviewer in question had trouble starting the Shadow of Amn campaign because it was not in the middle of the screen on the main menu. Furthermore, he actually felt that it was a legitimate criticism of the game. 

So I feel perfectly justified in saying that he is an idiot.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 29 novembre 2013 - 12:06 .

[MerinTB]

To be up front, I've never finished Baldur's Gate. Never even got that far into it. I didn't particularly like it, in the end. And I bought it way back when it first came out.

I come from a different generation of gamers, where you often had games without manuals and had to experiment with them just to figure out what you were supposed to do and how you were supposed to do it. So that may influence a bit of my views as well.

Games being 'harder' or even 'requiring more effort to learn how to play', from a 'allow as many people as possible to be able to enjoy them' end goal, does seem bad.

However, consider how different a story being told can be. You can have a children's book, where the plot and characters are very simple and stylized, and the few important details are upfront and repetitiously hammered home. You can have a young adult book, where you get some more complex characters and more involved plots, but the narrative is still fairly straightforward and holds your hand so you understand everything that is going on (save the 'twist' that some stories have, but that 'twist' will be explained in excruciating detail a la 'scene of flashbacks from The Illusionist.')

And you can then move up and up until you get to some intellectual classics, say like Notes from the Underground, The Portrait of Dorian Gray or The Killers. These are clearly not for everyone, and especially if you dive at Dostoevsky expecting Harry Potter you are going to be quite confused.

Some people (not the majority) prefer more effort to their games, and more complexity. Some players do not appreciate the game, every step of the way, point which way they should go, who they need to talk to, which items in an area they can use. It is a matter of preference - but you'll notice a lot of gamers who played prior to 2000 or who were never console gamers will be more attuned to having to put more effort, up front before they click start game even, to enjoy a game than those who started playing post 2000 or are primarily console gamers. And that's not a dig at console gamers, just a note that some people like to play Sorry and some people like to play Backgammon.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I think your dig at console gamers is a bit unjustified. Old school console games were just as difficult and brutal as old school PC games. There's a reason the term "Nintendo Hard" exists... because beating Contra without using Konami's infamous cheat is pretty much an act of insanity that makes solving a Rubix cube blindfolded look like a cake walk.

I agree with the sentiment of pre-and-post-2000 games, but I think that has to do with the overall "lowest common denominator" approach to game making that would result in higher sales, not a PC vs. console discussion. Consoles were simply the most economical venue for game distribution (again, appealing to the widest audience), so it saw the larger share of measures designed to appeal to the masses.


A little more back on topic - I'd say working to develop complex mechanics in a game, but not HIDING THEM might be a worthwhile goal for developers to look at. After all, most people understand the rules of Monopoly - the concepts of dice rolling, the results of Jail, rent, placing houses, rolling doubkes, making trades - but detailed explanation of those rules in instructions included with the game doesn't hurt enjoyment.

I agree that hand holding in games should be avoided (or, at least, optional) but I also think an approach that works to explain the overall system to the player (especially if they are looking to spending 40+ hours invested into that system) shouldn't be something that is frowned upon

[Fishy]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

I'll never understand why people think that games being difficult to learn or have minimalist explanation of their mechanics makes them good games. Then again, I see games as a way to unwind after a long day. Not as a way to strategize or build the perfect character.

Honestly, it just seems like elitism. "I figured it out so any gamer who can't or won't is obviously the type of noob destroying the game industry."

In reality, most people don't want to be frustrated by games. That's why these games are part of a niche market in the first place. If games weren't so expensive to make, then you'd see more niche games. As it is, you just have to deal with what most people would buy.

Nothing about this game seems satisfying to me. Not the combat system, not the gameplay, not the "satisfaction" of knowing that I'm part of some kind of higher form of gamer. I'll stick to my Dragon Ages, Call of Dutys and Bayonettas.

Sight..

It's not elitism. You're molding stuff to fit your own prejudice over people that enjoy different thing than you. Sound like insecurity at time. There's also a difference between a broken game mechanic and a game made for different type of gamers. Not ''betters'' but different.

Oh and Game like BG aren't made for the more intelligent. It's made for people who want to play one game rather than five in the next 6 month. Because eh ! some Gamers love that. Some gamers love practicing for hours in the lab and THEY ENJOY IT. Figure. yes I do think there's mindless entertainment. I also enjoy mindless entertainment, but I also love my dose of Street Fighter and BG once in a while. I am also happy to know that subgenre of music exist and not only mainstream even if I love both. SOme game require more effort to learn, but like you said. You will never understand. So why argue if your opinion is made in stone ?

Modifié par Suprez30, 29 novembre 2013 - 02:27 .