180 réponses à ce sujet

[Fast Jimmy]

^

Yet the thing about Planescape is that the combat system is lacking. Awkward back a decade ago, it feels absolutely broken by today's standards. That's one of the biggest blockades for me, personally, in going back and doing replays.

[CybAnt1]

The only Enhanced Edition I'm interested in replaying is BG2. Don't really feel like going back to BG1. As always, YMMV. I get why Sylvius preferred BG1, I don't.

I will concur, if you are deep into story and agency and companions with flavor, Planescape Torment is probably the best of the era, over BG2. But Bioware couldn't really claim to spiritually succeed it, as while it used Bio's Infinity Engine, it was done by Black Isle Studios.

EDIT: but yes, its combat was nothing to write home about, seems nobody can hit that sweet spot. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 27 janvier 2014 - 04:35 .

[Jaulen]

Ieldra2 wrote...

*snip*

You are a minority. Those who are frequent visitors of GOG are a minority. Big enough that the site can make profit from them, given that the old games cost almost nothing and need almost no resources to store and run compared to modern games, but still a minority. Also, we older gamers tend to be influenced by nostalgia. If you actively try to disregard the nostalgia factor, things become much murkier.

I have no doubt that a story like that of the BG series would be very well received today. However, gameplay is overcomplicated without necessity (probably due to the D&D license) and the presentation is outdated. Roleplaying in dialogue is actually more limited than you might recall, and not overall better than the better modern examples (say, DAO).

Don't misunderstand me: I do want those spiritual successors, to the point that I have significantly invested in Pillars of Eternity. However, they will not be great without evolving some elements beyond those of the old games significantly, and not just in graphics. 

My first 'real' RPG (other than things like Baulders Gate and Champions of Norath on the PS2) was DAO.
Then Witcher. (which I never finished, the camera work made me motion sick)
Then DA2
Then I played the ME series (didn't start playing ME or ME2 until Jan of 2011)
After that I picked up Jade Empire
Then SW:ToR
Then KOTOR and KOTOR2 (which was my fav of the 2).

Somewhere in there I picked up Baulder's Gate Enhanced Edition on Steam to play.
Ugh.
Will someday slog through it. But I hate the feeling of having to have a manual next to me to recall all the rules (at least on tabletop I only had my own character to keep track of). Too cumbersome (for me) with the implementation of the D&D rules in video game format, too much micromanaging.

I'd rather play Dreamfall than BG.

[CybAnt1]

I do agree familiarity with the D & D ruleset helps in these games.

Granted, of course, you'd have to know the 2E ruleset. NWN used 3E, and uhhh, well, other than the Neverwinter 2013 MMO, nobody's using 4E, but 4E is what all the books are now, well unless you're a hardcore retrenched and still using Pathfinder.

It's not incomprehensibly hard to figure out what's going on even if you don't know the ruleset. Deep down, it's not THAT much more byzantine than the ruleset of Dragon Age, which you just can't see as much, unless you want to look at the combat log.

You roll to hit. That chance is based on the opponent's AC (armor class) and your skill. You roll a number for damage. It's based on your strength and weapon and magic bonuses.
You cast spells, opponents get something called a saving throw to avoid, as well as sometimes magic resistance.
You get saving throws to avoid traps, poison, and stuff. Sometimes a saving throw means half damage, sometimes no damage.
There is no mana. You do need to pick what spells to memorize from your spellbook, as that is what you'll get to cast until your next rest. If you want to cast magic missile twice, you need to learn it twice. (It's called "Vancian.")

I mean, crap, that's 90% of what you need to know.

I guess I can't come at it from the perspective of someone who never played D & D, as I had.

Going back and replaying it, I guess I am now reliving the one thing that truly annoyed me: spell and ability icons with squiggly abstract graphics, but no names, well not at least until the tooltip comes up. 

Which squiggly is magic missile? Which squiggly is cure serious wounds? Uggggh. C'mon, Enhanced guys, this is where you should have Enhanced. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 27 janvier 2014 - 04:51 .

[Iakus]

CybAnt1 wrote...

I do agree familiarity with the D & D ruleset helps in these games.

Granted, of course, you'd have to know the 2E ruleset. NWN used 3E, and uhhh, well, other than the Neverwinter 2013 MMO, nobody's using 4E, but 4E is what all the books are now, well unless you're a hardcore retrenched and still using Pathfinder.

It's not incomprehensibly hard to figure out what's going on even if you don't know the ruleset. Deep down, it's not THAT much more byzantine than the ruleset of Dragon Age, which you just can't see as much, unless you want to look at the combat log.

You roll to hit. You roll a number for damage. It's based on your strength and weapon and magic bonuses.
You cast spells, opponents get something called a saving throw to avoid, as well as sometimes magic resistance.
You get saving throws to avoid traps, poison, and stuff. Sometimes a saving throw means half damage, sometimes no damage.

I mean, crap, that's 90% of what you need to know.

I guess I can't come at it from the perspective of someone who never played D & D, as I had.

Agreed.  Once you're familiar with the system it's not all that complicated (compared to other systems).  Just...unforgiving.  Especially on the higher difficulties where permadeath is entirely possible.

[Realmzmaster]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

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.

You have never played Icewind Dale 1 & 2. Interesting, I thought full partry control would be your cup of tea. You are right that both games are more on rails than BG1.

[Sylvius the Mad]

CybAnt1 wrote...

I do agree familiarity with the D & D ruleset helps in these games.

Granted, of course, you'd have to know the 2E ruleset. NWN used 3E, and uhhh, well, other than the Neverwinter 2013 MMO, nobody's using 4E, but 4E is what all the books are now, well unless you're a hardcore retrenched and still using Pathfinder.

WotC did release reprints of the 2nd edition core rulebooks last year.

[Realmzmaster]

CybAnt1 wrote...

I do agree familiarity with the D & D ruleset helps in these games.

Actually the manual covered a great deal of what the gamer needed to know especially the differences between the rules and the gameplay. The manuals for Pool of Radiance: Myth Drannor and Temple of Elemental Evil were also good at explaining D & D 3.0 and 3.5 respectively. 

I never found any of the games tough to pick up, but then I had agreat deal of fun with the GoldBox games, Wizardry, Ultima and Might & Magic all of which had fun manuals to read. The manuals actually bothered to expalin the mechanics of the game unlike many of the manuals now which I find totally lacking in describing the mechanics..

BG1 and 2 came with good manuals and reference cards

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Actually the manual covered a great deal of what the gamer needed to know especially the differences between the rules and the gameplay.

That might be the important difference.  Modern gamers don't seem to expect to have to read manuals.  They just jump right into the game.

BG, though, really did need you to read the manual first.  For players who want (or expect) the game to be accessible right away, without having to read the manual, I'm not surprised they find BG disappointing.

[Brodoteau]

The BG Series remains some of my favourite games (BG2 was an improvement over BG). I played and replayed those games probably too much when they came out and they have bascially become the standard by which I compare RPGs. Maybe that is nostalgia. Or maybe there are things that they did that were really good. Maybe it was because of the storyline was a great blend of the "hero saves the universe" and the "personal story". Or the companions which were believable and fun with developed backstories and reasons to actually help you as a player (Minsc remains my favourite NPC). And the balance between combat and dialogue was a rarity (especially when nowadays you have to kill everything and you can't run away). I dunno.

It is hard to put a finger on what makes something enjoyable. But I think, ultimately, Bioware was not trying to create something "good" as much as they were trying to make a "fun adventure." BG is the equivalent of you hanging around your friends and playing PnP. That's the tone of the games and that was makes it fun. It didn't have to make complete sense. It was made before the Internet became hypercritical and destroyed even the things it likes.

In my opinion, the reason why BG is still remember so fondly is partly Bioware's fault. I think that Bioware has never stopped trying to remake this game. KOTOR, DA, ME they all have elements of the BG series in them (e.g. KOTOR's big reveal is less surprising if you had already played BG1). That is not a bad thing, mind you, they should take the best element of BG and use them. But the fact that they do this causes people to remember (with nostalgia) the "original" source material.

Finally, a comment on the "open-world" aspect of BG1 and games in general. I like the ability to explore but I always find it hard to reconcile this idea with the fact that I am "wasting time." If the plot is urgent (as in BG1 where the war conviently waits for you or in BG2 where your sister is trapped in a mage's jail but you feel compelled (and have the time) to go fight a red dragon or even in DAO where you have all the time in the world to recruit the armies) then I think you need to limit the amount of time a player can "explore."

[nihiliste]

BG2 was great for a number of reasons and nostalgia isn't one of them as I outgrew the vast majority of other games I played at that time. There's honestly way too much to talk about but I'll touch on some of the keys for me.

1) SCOPE - this is the most important one
- BG2 is HUGE. There's so much to do - the subquests in Chapter 2 feel can take hours and take you to all kinds of crazy locations where you encounter all kinds of bizarre characters, settings, and items. Think about the Unseeing Eye quest, and then compare it to the stupid fetch quests in DA2. There's just no comparison. Or travelling into the depths of Firkraag's layer to discover that he's a red dragon and has Carsomyr in his horde. Or traveling to Nalia's keep and freeing it from occupation. Or the Planar Prison. Each subquest was like its own D&D module. After that, even though the plot railroaded you, the game carried you across the Forgotten Realms to Spellhold, through the Underdark, into the Sahaguin city, into Suldanesselar. The only really cool and mysterious location DA:O took us to was Haven, with the Dragon Cult and the Urn of Sacred Ashes. The encounter with Branka and the Broodmother was pretty cool too.

2) Combat
It's interesting, it's tactical, your party members have distinct roles, and the most important thing is that your enemies play by the same rules you do. Enemy mages have the same abilities you do for example, and use them regularly. Then there's the variety of enemies - instead of just casually hacking the same hurlocks to death or killing trash bandits in the street, you face all kinds of strange and bizarre enemies which have their own unique talents, skills, and immunities. And some of them could really hurt you until you learned how to counter them.

3) Character creation - the D&D ruleset went a long way here. Being able to create a character of any race and any class and beyond that any specialization you wanted was fantastic, and adds so much to the replay value. I've don a ton of replays of BG2 just purely to try our different race and class options and to see how that will affect my gameplay.

4) Jon Irenicus was a truly epic villain whose motivations were understandable and who was actually powerful enough to be a challenge for the main character. The threat of the Blight was a great backdroup but it was Loghain that was the truly motivating villain of DA:O. DA2 just presented you with hordes of crazy blood mages and an equally crazy Meredith. The Arishok was the only interesting antagonist in that game from a story point of view and it wasn't enough to redeem the overall story.

Modifié par nihiliste, 27 janvier 2014 - 05:45 .

[nihiliste]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^

Yet the thing about Planescape is that the combat system is lacking. Awkward back a decade ago, it feels absolutely broken by today's standards. That's one of the biggest blockades for me, personally, in going back and doing replays.

Planescape's combat was definitely broken but it's still the standard for story in this genre of western RPG in my opinion. I thought the stories for BG2 and Kotor were fantastic, and DA:O was pretty good, but just not quite to the level of Torment.  Mask of the Betrayer was the closest thing I think but then it suffered from being built on NWN2 mechanically and clearly they didn't have enough of a budget to make the endgame as epic as it should have been from a gameplay point of view.

[Spaghetti_Ninja]

The thing that made Baldur's Gate great was the lack of any competition.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

Actually the manual covered a great deal of what the gamer needed to know especially the differences between the rules and the gameplay.

That might be the important difference.  Modern gamers don't seem to expect to have to read manuals.  They just jump right into the game.

BG, though, really did need you to read the manual first.  For players who want (or expect) the game to be accessible right away, without having to read the manual, I'm not surprised they find BG disappointing.

It should be worth noting that games have advanced to allow better tutorials in their games themselves, instead of the need to include it in a manual. The problem with many games is a complete lack of such tutorial system, however (DA/, I'm looking at you). 

I think a game doesn't require a deep manual, but should work to have all kinds of technical information in some kind of help system or resource within the game itself. Many developers don't do this because consoles are usually adverse to complex instructions in game, but that would be the ideal setup for my own perspective - something light on details for most, something really meaty and technical if you dig deep enough. 

Having the the internet be where someone has to go to understand how your game works like, again, DA2, is a real problem. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 27 janvier 2014 - 06:09 .

[Rixatrix]

Has anyone mentioned the character classes? One thing I liked about Baldur's Gate was that it was a D&D-based game. Building my character was such an important part, that I agonized over it for days before actually starting a playthrough because I wanted my character to go just right and planned it out.

Dragon Age's simplified D&D is a bore. I get why they did it, so the casuals could get into it more easily, but I would've LOVED the variety of D&D (especially like some of the expanded classes mods out there).

EDIT:
Ah yes, pretty much this:

nihiliste wrote...
3) Character creation - the D&D ruleset went a long way here. Being able to create a character of any race and any class and beyond that any specialization you wanted was fantastic, and adds so much to the replay value. I've don a ton of replays of BG2 just purely to try our different race and class options and to see how that will affect my gameplay.

Modifié par BlueMoonSeraphim, 27 janvier 2014 - 06:15 .

[Realmzmaster]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

Actually the manual covered a great deal of what the gamer needed to know especially the differences between the rules and the gameplay.

That might be the important difference.  Modern gamers don't seem to expect to have to read manuals.  They just jump right into the game.

BG, though, really did need you to read the manual first.  For players who want (or expect) the game to be accessible right away, without having to read the manual, I'm not surprised they find BG disappointing.

It should be worth noting that games have advanced to allow better tutorials in their games themselves, instead of the need to include it in a manual. The problem with many games is a complete lack of such tutorial system, however (DA/, I'm looking at you). 

I think a game doesn't require a deep manual, but should work to have all kinds of technical information in some kind of help system or resource within the game itself. Many developers don't do this because consoles are usually adverse to complex instructions in game, but that would be the ideal setup for my own perspective - something light on details for most, something really meaty and technical if you dig deep enough. 

Having the the internet be where someone has to go to understand how your game works like, again, DA2, is a real problem. 

I agree that an in-game tutorial could go a long way to solving some of the problem. For example how to use the tactics screen in both DAO and DA2. The DAO and DA2 manuals have less than one page on how to use the tactics screen. I understand the tactics screen having some programming knowledge, but where in all the documentation is there a good tutorial on it or information provided by the developer that I can study outside of the game at my leisure.

[esper]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

Actually the manual covered a great deal of what the gamer needed to know especially the differences between the rules and the gameplay.

That might be the important difference.  Modern gamers don't seem to expect to have to read manuals.  They just jump right into the game.

BG, though, really did need you to read the manual first.  For players who want (or expect) the game to be accessible right away, without having to read the manual, I'm not surprised they find BG disappointing.

It should be worth noting that games have advanced to allow better tutorials in their games themselves, instead of the need to include it in a manual. The problem with many games is a complete lack of such tutorial system, however (DA/, I'm looking at you). 

I think a game doesn't require a deep manual, but should work to have all kinds of technical information in some kind of help system or resource within the game itself. Many developers don't do this because consoles are usually adverse to complex instructions in game, but that would be the ideal setup for my own perspective - something light on details for most, something really meaty and technical if you dig deep enough. 

Having the the internet be where someone has to go to understand how your game works like, again, DA2, is a real problem. 

I agree with you 100 percent here. Da:I is going to run into problem if bioware doesn't have the rules out in the open. Espically where it differs from da:o and da2. They cover combat vaguely in both da:o and da2, but that is not enough, they need to explain things such as the dialog icons, the approval system, the keeps and agents (by god I hope they explain that), the non combat skills etc. etc.

If they don't want pop-up in game, they could have a tutorial in the codex which clearly explain it. And then have a pop-up that makes player aware it exists.

[L. Han]

Admittedly I never finished Baldur's Gate. But I have played it enough to get an idea of what I liked about it.

Starting off is the ability to pretty much travel any direction. Gives a feeling of freedom and exploration. As well as being able to shuffle around the priorities to a certain extent.

Another cool, but slightly tedious aspect is the party management aspect. You had to constantly buy ammunition for your archers and bowmen, get new weapons and armor if they break, etc. While tedious, it does add some sense of ownership.

Lastly, what made Baldur's Gate quite unique to me is also the fact that your party members can permanently die. Give some sense of urgency and tension in combat.

In all honestly though, I enjoyed KOTOR waaaaaay more than Baldur's Gate. For me, KOTOR has aged far better and is arguably more appealing.

[leadintea]

Honestly, I never got the hype for P:T's story. I played it to completion after hearing how many people praised it's story but after I played it, I felt like I just wasted my time. I mean, the plot doesn't kick in til halfway through the game and when it did, I felt like the story was pretty much comprised of plot twist after plot twist without having any real interesting moments outside those. I also felt that apart from Morte, no other party member was really involved in the plot as much as I would've liked. I dunno. I just really don't see why the story is supposedly the "best story in any video game ever!"

[HiroVoid]

leadintea wrote...

Honestly, I never got the hype for P:T's story. I played it to completion after hearing how many people praised it's story but after I played it, I felt like I just wasted my time. I mean, the plot doesn't kick in til halfway through the game and when it did, I felt like the story was pretty much comprised of plot twist after plot twist without having any real interesting moments outside those. I also felt that apart from Morte, no other party member was really involved in the plot as much as I would've liked. I dunno. I just really don't see why the story is supposedly the "best story in any video game ever!"

Everyone has their own opinion on a story.  Nobody should be assaulted for not liking the Godfather for example.  I admit I don't really get your complaint about the other members not being as involved in the story though.  Of course, the party members' connections to the story are mainly a result of each member's connection to the Nameless One and possibly a connection to him in a previous life.

[Brodoteau]

Planescape Torment is a video game for people who don't like the contrivances of video games. In fact, I think Planescape doesn't really even want to be a game. It is an interactive book with, as previously mentioned, a very broken combat system tacked on. Planescape actively sets out to subvert video games (e.g. dying actually advances the plot of the game whereas in most games dying would be a bad thing). This is where the critical regard comes from and, in this regard, the game does many things very well and should be praised. As such, a lot of people like the game nowadays not because the actually like it but because, like a book from classical literature, it is "good for you."

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

It should be worth noting that games have advanced to allow better tutorials in their games themselves, instead of the need to include it in a manual. The problem with many games is a complete lack of such tutorial system, however (DA/, I'm looking at you).

The level of mechanical detail I would want in a manual is far greater than I think would work in a tutorial.

Though I do think things like damage calculations could appear in tooltips (there was a mod for this in DAO - Fireball did 30+0.3*SP damage).

I'm not sure how you could create a tutorial that would give enough information for a player to be able to navigate character creation in a game like NWN or BG.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Brodoteau wrote...

In fact, I think Planescape doesn't really even want to be a game.

No roleplaying game should.

[LinksOcarina]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^

Yet the thing about Planescape is that the combat system is lacking. Awkward back a decade ago, it feels absolutely broken by today's standards. That's one of the biggest blockades for me, personally, in going back and doing replays.

I fair point, but honestly, baldur's gate system is just as poor, just as big of a roadblock if you break it down to bare mechanics being extremely cumbersome. 

None of the games aged well, but I woul contend that Torment is a better game overall if were really going to go down this route.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'm not certain Torment's combat is any worse than BG's combat. It's possible that Torment's combat simply isn't traditional AD&D combat, so people who were familiar with AD&D combat found BG accessing and Torment not.

Torment was then, to them, what both games were to everyone else.