180 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

leadintea wrote...

I got into the BG series for the first time a couple of years ago (as well as Planscape) and I really do think it's because of nostalgia that they're praised so much. The first BG was too aged for me to really enjoy; the characters were dull and weren't involved in the story at all, the story itself was rather boring til the last bit, and the gameplay confused the heck outta me (to this day I still do not get DnD gameplay at all). I really had to force myself to finish the game just so I could see what made it so good, which was a waste since I still can't see why people rave about it.

However, I do have to admit that BG2 was very enjoyable from what I played of it. The characters had much more life and input in the story which is something I love about games in general. I remember really enjoying Nalia's and the paladin's (forgot his name) character quests and I really enjoyed how vibrant and pretty the environments were, at least compared to BG1. I never finished it because the gameplay was just too much for me to handle, but I actually really enjoyed it and could see why people praise it. Still not enough to be the best RPG ever, but it was quite enjoyable.

Deeper characters is really what makes BG2 shine over BG1.  Today anyone playing the original Baldur's Gate I'd recommend getting character mods like the NPC Project unless they want a really silent game.

Gameplay-wise, yeah you do have to  be familiar with and like 2nd Edition D&D (which I happen to enjoy).  But I don't consider D&D rules to be part of the "spiritual successor" aspect of the game

As I've said, I'm replaying the BG games right now, so i't not entirely nostalgia

[Realmzmaster]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The freedom to roleplay characters by making decisions on their behalf.

Partly because the narrative was so much less focused than in modern BioWare titles, BG gave the player far more leeway to have his character decide what was important.

This is something BioWare really hasn't done in any other game. Even BG2 hands you a clear objective pretty early on, and then restricts your ability to go anywhere that isn't at least tangentially relevant (and known to the PC to be tangentially relevant) to that objective. KotOR, NWN, Jade Empire, DAO, and Mass Effect all followed that same basic design.

As such, none of them is as good a roleplaying game as Baldur's Gate is.

Your opinion is one I often find interesting, Sylvius, if sometimes a bit unique - and that's not a bad thing. 

I'm just curious: how did you feel about Icewind Dale 1 and 2? 

In theory, one could argue they provide the ultimate freedom to not just headcanon a protagonist, but also all 5 of their party members as well. After all, you're making everybody, including background story and portrait.

I do believe I remember StM saying he liked Icewind Dale 1 and 2 for that very reason . He had complete control over party creation including backstory. 

[Rawgrim]

Plenty of options when creating your character.

Tremendous replay value

Fantastic NPCs

Tactical combat

Belivable combat (within the setting\\rules of the game).

No cartoony nonsense

Isometric view

Epic soundtrack.

Choices that matter.

No unlimited ammo for ranged combat.

Fantastic story.

[Sylvius the Mad]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Your opinion is one I often find interesting, Sylvius, if sometimes a bit unique - and that's not a bad thing. 

I'm just curious: how did you feel about Icewind Dale 1 and 2? 

In theory, one could argue they provide the ultimate freedom to not just headcanon a protagonist, but also all 5 of their party members as well. After all, you're making everybody, including background story and portrait.

We could do that in BG, as well, using the multiplayer controls.

As I understand it, there isn't as much to do in the IWD games.  They're pretty straightforward dungeon crawls, are they not?  While they do grant us the ability to create the entire party, and that's valuable, being able to create all the characters (which, again, you can do in BG if you want) makes less difference if there are fewer options about how to proceed within the game.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

I do believe I remember StM saying he liked Icewind Dale 1 and 2 for that very reason . He had complete control over party creation including backstory.

I have never played them.

[Ieldra]

I would like to comment on the "word count" issue mentioned abovethread:

Did BG2 gave a bigger word count than, say, DA2? Possibly, even if it's only due to the fact that word count isn't such a big issue in games with no fully voiced characters.

However, the effect of that is, in my opinion, much overstated. Or doesn't anyone recall that the complaints about the standard three conversation options (good, neutral, jerk) which didn't make any real difference started with the BG games? I recall that at the time, I found most dialogue in the BG games simplistic, particularly when compared to Planescape:Torment, which had an impressive dialogue density and complexity.

Apart from PST, which was truly exceptional, for dialogue that isn't so formulaic, look to the Fallout games, and to Arcanum. The BG series was good but not great in this aspect. I'm not even convinced DA2 didn't actually have the bigger word count. There is really quite a bit of dialogue in DA2. It's one aspect where DA2 was good. The problem was that the few instances where there was a problem of forced character traits and misleading paraphrases had such a great impact that they color people's perception of the whole.  

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 janvier 2014 - 08:38 .

[Sviken]

The story mostly, but also the characters. And it's not nostalgia either, since I played both games 1 year ago. The characters, especially the villains, were perfect.

Sarevok was simply outstanding piece of work - menacing, brutal, cold, calculating, resourceful, intimidating and strong enough to pose a challenge. Nowadays villains like Sarevok come off as simple brutes with no intelligence.

Irenicus was still quite good, but he was a little bit too cliché for me.

The story in both games is perhaps the best I have ever seen in a video game.

[Firky]

I think, with the dialogue in BG2, at least, you certainly had to be paying attention or there were moments where you'd annoy companions or create conflicts. Or, they'd warn you and, suddenly, would be trying (and succeeding) to kill each other.

There was a bit in Origins where you had to yell at Sten or he would leave (and fight?) you. Reminded me of BG2, anyways.

On IWD. I played 2 just a year or so ago and spent, like, an hour and a half just making my party. I absolutely love your Jaheira's and such, but gee creating an entire party is fun, too. (IMO.)

[xkg]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I would like to comment on the "word count" issue mentioned abovethread:

Did BG2 gave a bigger word count than, say, DA2? Possibly, even if it's only due to the fact that word count isn't such a big issue in games with no fully voiced characters.

Yeah it did, three Times as much

DA2 300 000
BG2 1 200 000

Looks like DAO with its 900k ~ 1M is the second biggest BW's game when it comes to words count.

Interesting data:

Games before DAO
http://www.kotaku.co...-in-dragon-age/

DAO and DA2
http://www.vgchartz....more-cinematic/

[Ieldra]

xkg wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I would like to comment on the "word count" issue mentioned abovethread:

Did BG2 gave a bigger word count than, say, DA2? Possibly, even if it's only due to the fact that word count isn't such a big issue in games with no fully voiced characters.

Yeah it did, three Times as much

DA2 300 000
BG2 1 200 000

Looks like DAO with its 900k ~ 1M is the second biggest BW's game when it comes to words count.

Interesting data:

Games before DAO
http://www.kotaku.co...-in-dragon-age/

DAO and DA2
http://www.vgchartz....more-cinematic/

That's interesting. BG2 sure didn't feel like three times as much text as DA2. DAO, on the other hand, did feel like the 900k words it had. I would've bet that DAO has significantly more than BG2. BTW, DA2's count is given as 400k, not 300. Still a shocking change. Also the number of spoken lines decreased between DAO and DA2 in spite of the fact that in DAO, the protagonist didn't have any. It didn't decrease as much as the word counts, which means that DA2's lines were shorter than DAO's.

Thanks for the data. Nice to debate on solid ground, even if it means I've been wrong.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 janvier 2014 - 08:59 .

[Firky]

Great links. I love those kinds of stats.

[HiroVoid]

Ieldra2 wrote...

xkg wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I would like to comment on the "word count" issue mentioned abovethread:

Did BG2 gave a bigger word count than, say, DA2? Possibly, even if it's only due to the fact that word count isn't such a big issue in games with no fully voiced characters.

Yeah it did, three Times as much

DA2 300 000
BG2 1 200 000

Looks like DAO with its 900k ~ 1M is the second biggest BW's game when it comes to words count.

Interesting data:

Games before DAO
http://www.kotaku.co...-in-dragon-age/

DAO and DA2
http://www.vgchartz....more-cinematic/

That's interesting. BG2 sure didn't feel like three times as much text as DA2. DAO, on the other hand, did feel like the 900k words it had. I would've bet that DAO has significantly more than BG2. BTW, DA2's count is given as 400k, not 300. Still a shocking change. Also the number of spoken lines decreased between DAO and DA2 in spite of the fact that in DAO, the protagonist didn't have any. It didn't decrease as much as the word counts, which means that DA2's lines were shorter than DAO's.

Thanks for the data. Nice to debate on solid ground, even if it means I've been wrong.

Don't know how much it affects, but another thing to keep in mind is that Dragon Age II doesn't have item descriptions which I would usually think contributes to the word count.

[Ieldra]

HiroVoid wrote...
Don't know how much it affects, but another thing to keep in mind is that Dragon Age II doesn't have item descriptions which I would usually think contributes to the word count.

Yes. It's not so easy to come up with a valid dialogue amount comparison. According to David Gaider, dialogue with your party members accounts for a third of DAO's word count. How much is dialogue with other NPCs? Codex entries? Item descriptions? BG's readable books? We'd need all those data for all the relevant games to make a valid comparison.

Then there are things like the fact that many of DA2's Codex entries were copies of DAO's, which is no problem as such - the world remains the same after all - but reduces the amount of work which has gone into it so we can't estimate which resources were spent on it.

On the positive side, cinematic scenes often don't need as much spoken dialogue since some things can be expressed by on-screen actions rather than spoken dialogue. Things are not simple.

[fchopin]

I wouldn’t know what is great about Baldur’s Gate as i have never played the game.

[Rawgrim]

fchopin wrote...

I wouldn’t know what is great about Baldur’s Gate as i have never played the game.

Run and buy the new editions of both games. Immediatly.

[fchopin]

Rawgrim wrote...

fchopin wrote...

I wouldn’t know what is great about Baldur’s Gate as i have never played the game.

Run and buy the new editions of both games. Immediatly.

I will think on it, i don’t like playing the old games any more.

[Maiden Crowe]

Il Divo wrote...

Baldur's Gate 1? Absolutely nothing, at least having played it after every other Bioware game (starting from NwN up through ME2 sequentially).

It may have been considered innovative for its time, but many elements are mediocre looking back. Characterization was non-existent amongst your party members. Dialogue was laughably bad and artificial (and at times very limited). And the main plot is treated as an after thought, consisting of a scavenger hunt across the Sword Coast for various letters detailing the BBEG's plans.

Toss on top of that DnD 2.0, vancian casting, and exploration at a snail's pace, and I'd say it's probably Bioware's worst game.

Compared even to other top down games of its time (like Planescape: Torment), there's really no comparison.

Tis a shame you feel that way though not altogether unpredictable, however Baldur's Gate 1 is but the first installment of the series and would you judge a game like the Witcher 2 based on the quality of the first? Of course many did and thus missed out on what would have to be the best RPG released in quite a while which is quite a shame.

[Maiden Crowe]

 

addiction21 wrote...

My problem is with "Its not BG so its wrong" If it does not recreate BG in every and any way its bad or a lesser game because of that.

They say with age comes wisdom, but then again so too comes dementia which runs a little contradictory to that point however considering you are the first to raise such a vital point I am inclined to go with wisdom.

In truth I am not saying that Bioware has to try to replcate the Baldur's Gate series in order for their games nor am I saying they should, in fact I would much rather see Bioware create a game that stands on its own 2 feet rather than cling to the shadow of greatness left by the company's previous work.

You know what else is a great game? The Witcher 2 and I am sure we can all agree that it most certainly isnt Baldur's Gate, but do you know why it is great? Because it is the Witcher 2, it doesnt seek to replicate other games, it stands on its own 2 feet and the developers have a clear vision of what they want to create. A game doesn't have to be Baldur's Gate to be great and trying to re-create greatness is not the path to greatness itself.

[CybAnt1]

As I understand it, there isn't as much to do in the IWD games.  They're pretty straightforward dungeon crawls, are they not?  While they do grant us the ability to create the entire party, and that's valuable, being able to create all the characters (which, again, you can do in BG if you want) makes less difference if there are fewer options about how to proceed within the game.

There are moments where you have to make choices, you can designate any one of your six to be the primary leader/interlocutor and he does all the talking (there's no VA for your party, but I mean he's handling dialogue).

But, there's not really that many choices, it usually comes down to telling the folks in town you'll accept their quest or not, or tell the ice giants they're douchebags, or not. And everything more or less happens the same regardless of how you parley. There's some story - but you're just moving through it. 

Still, I can see a way to make such a game closer to a full RPG, with perhaps the game presenting choices and dilemmas, without having to make any assumptions for the party leader, who could be any one of the six characters at any point. IWD series wasn't that, but it's doable. It is true that IWD was closer to a dungeon crawler/Diablo. 

The interesting thing about using the BG2 multiplayer to create your own party for a SP game is that it was a hack. It worked, but it was an unintended, workable hack. You can swap out your "build your owns" for the NPCs like Aerie or Jaheira when you meet them, but weird things start to happen. 

[CybAnt1]

M
A game doesn't have to be Baldur's Gate to be great and trying to re-create greatness is not the path to greatness itself.

Oh, but that's just it. I think even us nostalgiacs don't want that. Trust me, I can remember when there were rumors of BG3 being made, constantly. 

I don't think there's any way in which I want to go back to it. Couldn't if we wanted to. Any new D & D based game would have to be 4E, and there's all kinds of licensing battle crap going on between WoTC and developers. I am very happy Bio made the decision to go with their own IP and own ruleset, because freedom. 

It's hard to say what spirit is in our world, as opposed to the DA gameiverse, where spirits have phantasmal bodies. But I repeat, as difficult as that is to nail down, I felt more of the spirit (not the letter) of BG2 in DA1 than DA2. I see some hint they're going to recapture the spirit in DA3, it's why I'm here. 

I do think what I'd like dialogue to look like is like this. This is a nice screenshot. It actually comes from NWN games.

Here.

It's not exactly word count that matters. It's just having a set of words to choose from. None of which have to carry obvious tonal markers - although I don't disagree there are situations where tone markers (via text or icon, don't care) could be useful. 

Now - I know the wheel is back, but I do think they're reinventing the wheel (literally) for DAI, and so it could at least be closer to that. We wait and see. 

[Celtic Latino]

It's the nostalgia factor more than anything. That and the companions for a lot of people.

Your race/class is rarely acknowledged, no matter what you did in Baldur's Gate 1 everything has an established canon in BG2, plus the game sort of implies you as a human male fighter of some sort (especially BG1).

That's not to say it's a bad series. It's not. But I think it's viewed with rose colored lens more often than not. I think after playing the Dragon Age, KOTOR, Jade Empire and Mass Effect series there have been huge leaps since then.

[Sir JK]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The freedom to roleplay characters by making decisions on their behalf.

Partly because the narrative was so much less focused than in modern BioWare titles, BG gave the player far more leeway to have his character decide what was important.

This is something BioWare really hasn't done in any other game. Even BG2 hands you a clear objective pretty early on, and then restricts your ability to go anywhere that isn't at least tangentially relevant (and known to the PC to be tangentially relevant) to that objective. KotOR, NWN, Jade Empire, DAO, and Mass Effect all followed that same basic design.

As such, none of them is as good a roleplaying game as Baldur's Gate is.

I suspect that it is because, partially anyways, you need to work so much harder to produce a good sandbox than you do to create a good directed story. The latter requires a good cast, an engrossing story and the proper atmosphere (and in a game just the right amound of agency). It's a bit more complicated than that, but if you satisfy those criteria, you're pretty much good to go.
It's okay if the sidequests aren't up to par. It's okay if it's a bit limited. As long as the core narrative is engrossing enough a lot can be tolerated.

The same does not apply to sandboxes. Not only do you need a greater quantity, but the quality must be fairly evenly distributed. You cannot have a few excellent quests and the rest being so-so.
You also need to use story-hooks (tools the player can use to launch their character into the story) frequently to keep the player interested.
The journeys themselves also need to be interesting enough.

Another aspect is that the core mechanical system needs to be fairly robust. It needs to be engrossing on its own that most players would be fine with continuing to play even when there is no active story driving them forward. This is a problem I find most Bioware games, but common in most rpgs. The mechanics themselves are not robust enough. Baldurs gate built heavily on DnD and while it was not perfect it was a very good adaptation of it and thus provided this element.

So all in all.. I suspect that this particular element is not one we'll see again unless they radically change the way they build again. We might see elements. But overall, Sandboxes are much more labour intensive than directed narratives.

[philippe willaume]

I would agree with StM
for me waht made BG and NWN was that:

You could role play and create the companions as you saw fit.
A game system that was consistent with itself
a solid ending solid story and companion that where coherent with themselves.

I though that DA:0 captured a fair bit of that,

[Rawgrim]

Celtic Latino wrote...

It's the nostalgia factor more than anything. That and the companions for a lot of people.

Your race/class is rarely acknowledged, no matter what you did in Baldur's Gate 1 everything has an established canon in BG2, plus the game sort of implies you as a human male fighter of some sort (especially BG1).

That's not to say it's a bad series. It's not. But I think it's viewed with rose colored lens more often than not. I think after playing the Dragon Age, KOTOR, Jade Empire and Mass Effect series there have been huge leaps since then.

The bg series only let you import your stats and level. The game world never got imported.

[LinksOcarina]

Short answer, how expansive it was, there were few games at the time that were as big, only Elder scrolls I believe.

You also had interaction with characters and a pretty mysterious plot, which helped things a lot. Plus Sarevok was a very good villain, he didn't do the mustache-twirling you expect from most antagonist, he plotted, and nearly succeeded, at taking over in the end.

I need to point out though, that Baldurs Gate did not age well. In fact, if we are going to really discuss the game that can stand up against its own design, it is Planescape Torment. Frankly, it did everything Baldur's Gate did, but did it a lot better, including actual immersion and agency, which Baldur's Gate sorely lacked.