/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4391301]

Why do people think Baldur's Gate is a masterpiece?

its a fucking great game, up there with the best, but its way too flawed to be called a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.4391315]

Are we going to have BG shitposting threads on a weekly basis now?

[Anonymous No.4391351]

Because it came after a long lull of few and mostly mediocre cRPGs and ended up being good enough that it forged the golden era of D&D titles (Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape, etc)

[Anonymous No.4391353]

>up there with the best, but not a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.4391360]

>>4391301

By the time I've finish rolling stats and creating my character i could have finished Quake. Too slow and boring for my tastes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie8ZmVTkReQ

[Anonymous No.4391373]

>>4391360
Or you could just pick a premade character and get going.

[Anonymous No.4391386]

>>4391373

In a game like BG i cant do it. I just have to create the ultimate hero.

[Anonymous No.4391404]

>>4391351
This.

The market was saturated with really, really bad PC RPGs at the time. When it came out, it WAS a masterpiece in comparison to everything else up to that point.

It hasn't aged as well as some other games from that era, but it absolutely began a franchise of domination and consistently great games from Black Isle/Obsidian/Bioware.

[Anonymous No.4391416]

>>4391301
It was a very passable D&D simulator, which led into more and more complex builds. And then WotC bought out TSR and made 3rd edition and it throws 2nd edition's clunky foibles into sharp relief.

[Anonymous No.4391816]

>>4391301
It is a masterpiece, what are these flaws you speak of? By the way, before you post, just remember. You disliking the realtime / pause / turn-based mechanics does not equate to a flaw.

[Anonymous No.4391836]

>>4391351
>it came after a long lull of few and mostly mediocre cRPGs
It came out shortly after games like
>Fallout
>Fallout 2
>Diablo
>Might and Magic VI
>Stonekeep
>Daggerfall
All those games are all times classics far better than anything released in the last 15 years.

[Anonymous No.4391838]

>>4391301
Because:
>it was sure fucking better than Descent to Undermountain
>it was a really goddamn pretty game with beautiful handcrafted graphics
>it was really fucking well marketed and is a very accessible game compared to more "janky" classics, and it came out at a good time - Final Fantasy VII just recently became a big thing and that one is marketed as a really good RPG; games like BG, Fallout and FF7 show the populace that RPGs are cool
>it gathered huge niche followings due to localization and other virtues; Poland has one of the biggest modding scenes of Baldur's Gate in the world solely because of that game, and it's also the reason why CD Projekt got enough money to expand and open a gaming studio; conversely, Baldur's Gate led to The Witcher
>very, very memorable voice cast carries the weak portions of the writing so that you will still adore and remember Sarevok and Irenicus even if their plots are weaksauce in hindsight
>long story short, the game was cutting edge, accessible, and scored some really huge opportunities with the gaming world at large, even if it was RtWP popamole decline schwarzeneggerian epic with weak yodelling

The real question you wanted to ask is
>Why not have a seventh Baldur's Gate thread this month about how I personally think it's shit
and I suppose you have to live with the fact that people in general like it, Scorpia.

[Anonymous No.4391886]

>>4391836
DELETE THIS

[Anonymous No.4391921]

>>4391836
Here's a fun fact: Monte Cook, a designer for D&D, used a great deal of his indexed ideas for a possible 3rd Edition in the making of Fallout. That's why it's hex-based (he loved hexes) and maximum hit percentages cap at 95% (eg can only fail by rolling a 1 on a d20.)

Some of those concepts were used, such as skill checks, (though D&D used ranks instead of percentages) and perks (feats in D&D.)

Fallout predates 3rd Edition by several years but the similarities are neat to consider.

[Anonymous No.4392090]

>>4391816
Not him but I can name a few flaws:
The story isn't really all that great. It's your typical revenge story with a cookie cutter villain. Irenicus is a much better villain than Sarevok not least because of his awesome VA I liked his German VA even better but his motivation is even more boring.
It's really easy to cheese/break the game. Mages are utterly defenseless if you know a few cheap tricks.
Your class has no impact whatsoever on the game in 1. In 2 you get the stronghold quests but apart from that there is only 1 moment as far as I remember where your class is even mentioned and that's only if you're mage during a dialog with Valygar. For an RPG which is so class-centered as this it's pretty annoying. Also, romances were a mistake.

I have to say that both games are my favorites and I even consider BG2 as one of the best games of all times. The story might be your typical fantasy fare but it's staged really well. The world is vibrant and lively. Talking with town folks doesn't feel like a chore which you skip after a few dialogues. Both games are fucking huge full of smaller quests, secrets and items you'll most likely miss the first couple of your playthroughs. They're far from flawless though.

[Anonymous No.4392097]

>>4391921
>That's why it's hex-based (he loved hexes)
>what is GURPS lol

Fallout started as a licensed GURPS game. GURPS already had all of that shit

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_13:_A_GURPS_Post-Nuclear_Adventure

[Anonymous No.4392124]

>>4391921
>Monte Cook worked on Fallout
[citation needed]

[Jibwib Simmerstim, Esq. No.4392181]

I didn't like how it came with 5 CDs that constantly needed to be swapped around when entering new areas.

Also the early game is challenging for someone new to the game.

[Anonymous No.4392232]

>>4391301
What do you think 'masterpiece' means? It just means something that is one of the best in its medium. It doesn't mean perfect because perfect art doesn't exist - we can strive for perfection, but never achieve it.

Since you admitted "Baldur's Gate" is 'up there with the best', you actually admit its masterpiece.

[Anonymous No.4392415]

>>4392181
>not making a full install

Your fault. Even my trusty old 8GB HD PC always had a full installation of BG.

[Anonymous No.4392425]

The Baldur's Gate saga is my favorite video game of all time. There isn't a single thing I do not like about it, other than that there isn't more.

And no, it wasn't my first RPG, and no, it didn't start the PC RPG Renaissance. Arguably Fallout did. However, Fallout, amazing it may be, is a 6 hour long game with shallow combat. Baldur's Gate is a 100 hour long epic with so many combat strategies I've yet to get bored.

[Anonymous No.4393035]

>>4391301
It did kickstart an RPG renaissance on the PC and in western RPGs in general. It's arguable weather the shifts in style that followed in its wake were good overall, but I think we generally got a positive result.

[Anonymous No.4393045]

>>4391301


Baldur's Gate poisoned the whole genre and it wasn't long before shit like dialogue wheels and romance sub-plots started to be considered as 'rpg elements'.
It undermines RPGs as a whole. Consider how linear it is compared to a true RPG like Ultima IV or V. There is no challenge or enjoyment in following a linear plot thread and levelling up at almost predetermined points along the way. You might as well be playing pac-man: going down straight corridors, being fed the exact prescribed amount of experience, and going to the next level in time for the next set of corridors.
How can anyone say that Baldur's Gate is among the best Role-playing games? You are stuck with a set list of pre-determined, pre-written party members in a pre-written plot having a pre-arranged 'experience'. It's hideous compared to what RPGs could have and should have been had it not come along and had filth like you not suckled at its teat for twenty fucking years intil your so spoiled by its milk that you can't get nourishment from anything else.
If I met you irl I would hit you with a bat, i swear. OP, you are a complete shithead and a fucking cancer on this race for liking Baldur's Gate. You, YOU, activity contribute to the ruin of a beautiful genre, please fuck off.

[Anonymous No.4393062]

>>4393045
Hot bait but you raise an interesting point.
Ultima is grand, but what about other RPGs of the era? I wonder about the linearity and pre-determined nature of something like Eye of the Beholder. Sure you make your characters but the adventure you go in is a lineal experience. It's hart to exclude it from RPG canon, though, so what RPG elements does Eye of the Beholder possess?
Does it boil down to increasing numbers and item gathering, which is fairly linear in itself?

[Anonymous No.4393065]

>>4391301
>Why do people think Baldur's Gate is a masterpiece?
never heard anyone call it that. a piece of shit? sure. boring? most definitely. but masterpiece? ahahaha. no fucking way ever.

[Anonymous No.4393070]

Is mage/warrior multiclass viable in this game? What the strategy would be?

[Anonymous No.4393090]

>>4393070
Multiclassing as a whole is kind of bad in BG1 due to limited experience caps and low-level combat being absolutely dire.

If you go mage/fighter, you'll end up playing as a fighter for the first four levels, then only use your spells as self-buffs before putting your armor back on and running back into the frontline.

[Anonymous No.4393138]

>>4393065
>a piece of shit? sure. boring? most definitely.
funny that you think so. Any reasons to back up that opinion?

[Anonymous No.4393141]

>>4393045
>this pasta again

[Anonymous No.4393174]

>>4393062
You don't even need to talk about Eye of the Beholder, Wizardry could be the same.

I always found weird that people talked about WRPG being non linear and all about choices and consequences, it's like they don't know about the genre before 1997 or something.

[Anonymous No.4393286]

>>4393174
Choices and consequences in most RPGs are painfully shallow, anyway, and that includes those that market themselves as having very life-like reactionary worlds.

Gothic has a living and breathing world where NPCs have day/night cycles and every single piece of equipment or monster plopped in a cave is handcrafted, yet NPCs will get stuck in the same conversation options even way after you've already progressed past certain points.

Fallout is supposedly chock-full of C&C and characters are apparently not ever homogenous, but the C&C in those games is often just "oh hey, you get a different ending screen" at the end of the game with little to no actual consequence on the gaming world. The way Fallout 2 does consequences - oh wow, I murdered a child and bounty hunters are after my ass - can be seen just the same in Baldur's Gate, where fireballing a playground will cause a lot of butthurt guards and your vilified reputation to preclude you in every town.

That, and the C&C in most games suffers when you realize that
>"Good" options are *always* superior to the "neutral" or "bad" options
You become a Slaver for a ridiculously paltry reward, no interesting quest chains, the best companions no longer like you and you are vilified in civilization. Yay!
You ask Moore for a reward for hauling his stupid orange briefcase to New Reno and he inserts a card that tells the recipient to kill you on sight. Yay!
You refuse a reward for delivering a plow to a farmer and he gives you a reward that's even better (worth more in barter) than what he normally would offer you!
Same shit in Baldur's Gate.
>My kitty fell from the waterfall!
>Good: I'll do it! (Reward: powerful magical scroll out of the girl's ass because it's kay that her cat's dead, her dad's a necromancer)
>Neutral: What do I get out of it? (a couple gold pieces, you fuck)
>Evil: bwahahahah lol I murdered the kitty (you get jack shit and the girl's corpse or pickpocket inventory doesn't even carry the scroll).

[Anonymous No.4393334]

>>4393286
Well, I still appreciate Fallout 2 for what it does and games like Alpha Protocol or New Vegas can have really impressive C&C, but my point was how the whole genre was always more about killing monsters in dungeons than anything else.
Baldur's Gate didn't change anything.

[Anonymous No.4393413]

>>4393334
>Baldur's Gate didn't change anything

No shit, you're responding to a troll. It is just a top tier RPG series. It felt like an evolution of Shattered Lands when I played it. It had a similar interface and inventory but was now in real time with better graphics.

[Anonymous No.4393415]

>>4391386
But you then never even play the game so how's that working out for you?

[Anonymous No.4393514]

>>4393334
>Baldur's Gate didn't change anything.
Considering that people attribute the shift to very strong bonds with fleshed out companions that often have their own opinions on stuff and can even steer the party on a different quest outcome (to some small extent) and that it's the most well known and arguably well implemented RtWP game, I'd say it could be said it changed depending on point of view.

And then again, it didn't have to change anything. Fallout didn't change shit either if you assume Wasteland was first. BG is just a very good game that is representative of its genre.

[Anonymous No.4393623]

>>4392090
>Irenicus is a much better villain
>muh soul
Irenicus has amazing voice, but he is remembered almost exclusively
because of the dreams, which is Bhaal and not Jon

[Anonymous No.4393628]

>>4393286
AH SERVE THE FLAMING FIST

[Anonymous No.4393632]

>>4393334
man, i love AP

[Anonymous No.4393968]

>>4393514
I'm sorry I didn't get myself clear. What I mean is there wasn't a genre full of non linear games before, it didn't disrupt anything or made things worse. I was indirectly answering that pasta I guess.

[Anonymous No.4393978]

>>4393415

No one here plays games, they pick internet fights and small flaws in other posters because they don't enjoy games anymore and because they were bullied in real life, and this is the only sense of power they will ever get. I described you by the way.

[Anonymous No.4393983]

>>4391836
Might and Magic VI is the only game I think is good on that list.

[Anonymous No.4394007]

>>4393983

[Anonymous No.4394021]

IMO the game suffers because you have to rest after every minor battle (specially if you're a mage-kind character) and because you can easily die over the most silly stuff, having to reload every 10 seconds.

I don't think a game is supposed to be played saving and reloading every 10 secs.

[Anonymous No.4394031]

>>4394021
>I don't think a game is supposed to be played saving and reloading every 10 secs.

It isn't. It can be beaten without even saving.

There's a ton of newbie traps though. One of the most insidious is throwing loads of NPCs at you early, which slows your xp gain to a crawl if you recruit them all.

[Anonymous No.4394037]

>>4394021
If you have to rest after each battle you're overusing your mages way too much. They're used for certain situations, not in every encounter.

And if you die so often that you have to reload after every battle you have to git gud. Seriously, it only happens if you're new to the game and aren't good yet.

[Anonymous No.4394348]

>>4393983

[Anonymous No.4395291]

How's the Ascension mod? Good, or the bloated kind of difficulty?

[Anonymous No.4395530]

>>4391836
How did this list contradict what was said in any way? Fallout 2, M&M6, maybe Daggerfall. The rest were either not RPGs (Diablo) or largely mediocre (Stonekeep). And even still, none of them had the depth of Baldur's Gate.

inb4 Daggerfall's massive random maps or Fallout 2's explicit skill checks somehow being better than the alignment / racial / ability / reputation checks.

[Anonymous No.4395562]

>>4394037
How do you play this right?
I'm playing a Mage sleeping everything while my archers and other characters beat the enemies up.

Rinsing and repeating for EVERY ENCOUNTER in the game so far.

To answer your statement, well, my mages HAVE to use magic because they aren't killing anything physically.

[Anonymous No.4395593]

>>4393978
>small flaws in other posters
Don't you mean "posts"?

[Anonymous No.4395604]

>>4395562
thats kinda the point, as the Mage start is really gritty and they get sequentially better and better
whats your current party?
my last playthrough of TuTu from the start may have been as a Bersk 13 -> Cleric with an evil party, but having 2 mages in both Xzar and Edwin have made me barrage enemies when necessary, while Montaron at the same time helped a lot with the ability to take on full plate, plus Kagain is an allround powerhouse

[Anonymous No.4395610]

>>4395530
Diablo is an RPG. Just because it's simple doesn't make it not one you ELITIST CUUUUUUUUUNT!

[Anonymous No.4395618]

>>4393978
>No one here plays games
Speak for yourself I just got done playing Wasteland for the last six hours.

[Anonymous No.4395671]

>>4395604
Jaheira, Minsc, Kivan, Safana and Viconia.

[Anonymous No.4395680]

>>4393090
my elf fighter/mage/thief did fine

the trick to multiclasses is to use your slots for utility shit like identify and friends, until you get to the higher levels, while wearing the best armor you can get. Once you're up there, you can switch to the archmagi robe or ghost armor spell. You'll mostly be using a bow anyway. For really tough fights, you can add full-plate after buffing, but you generally don't need it.

>>4393623
>because of the dreams, which is Bhaal and not Jon
wait wut

>>4394021
that only happens because you're a pleb
I pretty much only rest when I get back to town; the trick is to give everyone a ranged weapon and a ton of ammo, and to only use your spells when you need to, and to only let your heaviest tank engage in melee

>>4393286
>"Good" options are *always* superior to the "neutral" or "bad" options
the creators were moral fags, which I'm okay with, because their ability to give a shit bled through and made the game awesome. The alternative is shit like Pillars of Eternity which was made by SJW hacks, who, while actually making quests where choices matter, have shitty minds and made a bad bland game with stupid mechanics.

I always play good anyway, so I didn't mind.

As a D&D DM, I can tell you that it's extremely difficult to make a solid adventure that caters to all alignments and playstyles.

[Anonymous No.4395689]

>>4395680
>I pretty much only rest when I get back to town; the trick is to give everyone a ranged weapon and a ton of ammo, and to only use your spells when you need to, and to only let your heaviest tank engage in melee

While that sounds good and viable, it all seems arbitrary and like "the only way to play this because we didn't fix the other options" which really says something about the game and not the players.

[Anonymous No.4395707]

>>4395689
more like because thats the only time I actually need to; I rarely use up all my spells or get low on hp before I'm done with an adventure

[Anonymous No.4395729]

>>4395680
>wait wut
all that scenes you get interacting with Irenicus while you rest about your untapped power and the farmer woman whose all family died but she persevered is Bhaal talking through the form of Irenicus

[Anonymous No.4395732]

>>4391301
BG1 is a good game but it's 8/10 at best, BG2 is truly a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.4395740]

>>4395729
yes I gathered that
but how do you know?

[Anonymous No.4395837]

>>4395680
>As a D&D DM
Because Baldur's Gate isn't an adventure made by a D&D DM.

If I were a D&D DM and I was making an adventure with a plot that goes "evil protagonist loses his mentor to an evil fag and is being hunted by assassins and he hires a group of evil but reliable people to journey on with him", I'd make it certain that:
>my players can have an angle to doing everything out of greed and lust and not because it's "the right thing to do"
>the quest rewards do predict an "evil" option instead of people being like "oh you just saved my ass? Well fuck you"
>my players get quest hooks that are evil-oriented; every single character that ruined their life and attempted to kill them will be sought down for vengeance, the bandit camp will have the opportunity to be utterly razed and sacked
>there is no inane expectation from the DM that us doing things that bring us recognition from the people around is somehow the wrong way to play Evil; yes, we solved the Nashkel Mines crisis because there was money in it. Yes, we're fixing all of FR's problems because they happen to be in the way of our need to get to the bottom of our quest for revenge. We don't kill a random civilian on the road to make sure everyone knows we are evil and to keep up inane "street cred"; we connect the assassins and thieves and other shady types to make sure they're on our side and we no longer have an incident with another Nimbul-type person. We murder the guy wearing nice magical boots running away from a bear because he has something we covet and he is running around looking and acting like a noble without having any escort. But we do not just kill random passersby because the DM is bitching that "we're not really roleplaying evil properly."

It's a video game. The choice in those is very often biased towards one side, or so blanket that it doesn't matter, you just get Nice Savior of World or Ruthless Savior of World.

[Anonymous No.4395859]

>>4395530
>Fallout 2's explicit skill checks somehow being better than the alignment / racial / ability / reputation checks.
Baldur's Gate 1's "ability" checks mean that a Fighter with Intelligence 3 is capable of having te exact same dialogue choices as a mage with intelligence 18 or bard with average int and high Charisma. The only thing that these affect is few quest rewards, and there's a cap on the reaction you get from NPCs, so if you max out Reputation, at some point having high Charisma doesn't even give you anything.

Reputation checks are fucking retarded, because they encourage a playstyle where all the beneficial quests also give you massive reputation rewards, but those push away your Evil members for no reason (why would you leave if your reputation allows you to be affluent, pay for items at a much lower price and people give you more opportunities to do shit?) other than BioWare thinking that this is balance (i.e. evil party members are designed to be more powerful but you have to forfeit high reputation to have them; this doesn't work because evil party members aren't actually inherently superior to good party members. They're still good, but from a pure powergaming standpoint, not worth having to fuck around with reputation issues).

Fallout has those; your NPC reaction is based on your Charisma and Karma. NPC reaction, just like in Baldur's Gate, only offers paltry rewards and isn't worth bothering with, but unlike Baldur's Gate having high mental stats and a huge Speech skill unlocks stuff.

>Racial checks
I can count like three, and they're very inconsequential to the gameplay.
>Ability checks
Aside from shit like bashing locks with your Strength score, only Baldur's Gate 2 has those, to my knowledge, and they're so tiny that you might entirely miss them. They're mostly related to trying to get out of having to sleep with Phaere in Ust'Natha.
>alignment
Baldur's Gate never checks for it unless it's for cleric spells.

[Anonymous No.4396151]

>>4395593

Shut the fuck up.

[Anonymous No.4396398]

>>4395837
my point was that it IS a video game, and not a more specific adventure for a particular player, and so it's impossible to cater to everyone

If the DM didn't know what or how you were going to play, he wouldn't be able to do it

[Anonymous No.4396535]

>>4391301
>its a fucking great game

Well, let's not jump to conclusions there. It's based on D&D an already flawed gaming system. It's not even done well for it in that respect. The interface is clunky, the story is meh. So basically the gameplay isn't good, the interface and interacting with the game isn't good, the story isn't good. The music isn't anything special.

What makes it a great game again?

[Anonymous No.4396539]

>>4391836
Diablo isn't a cRPG it's an ARPG.
It's an RPG in the same way that Warcraft III is an RPG.

[Anonymous No.4396540]

>>4396539
cRPG doesn't include ARPG?

[Anonymous No.4396542]

>>4396540
That would be correct.

[Anonymous No.4396554]

>>4396540
In most cases it doesn't. CRPG is Computer Role Playing Game. It's a straight genre for computerized role playing games. An ARPG COULD be a CRPG - daggerfall/Oblivion styled games are FPARPG CRPGs. Where that style of game mixes basically roleplaying with live action gameplay about equal parts with actual roleplaying, meaning you're actually playing roleplaying.

Hack and Slash, ARPGs are generally a different beast. Their emphasis on hack and slash action gameplay, not roleplaying which is actually almost none of usually beyond getting NPCs to point you in the right direction. They're action games with roleplaying elements (IE stat based growth).

That's why there's often a bit of dislike for JRPGs in that in most cases they're barely actually RPGs, they're often RPGs in all the ways except for the actual roleplaying itself.

[Anonymous No.4396560]

>>4396554
There's no "roleplaying" in 99% of all WRPG's ever made.

[Anonymous No.4396597]

>>4396560
Why singling out WRPGs? It's even worse with JRPGs.

[Anonymous No.4397032]

>>4396398
>If the DM didn't know what or how you were going to play, he wouldn't be able to do it
OK, let's somehow assume that the DM doesn't have some sort of insight into the character creation process, doesn't do a talk beforehand of expectations. What then?

First session describes the flight from Candlekeep and gathers the party together (let's say Barty and Cedric are playing Xzar and Montaron, Danny is playing CHARNAME and Anna decided to just join in and follow her boyfriend Danny, but she doesn't know much so she made a cheerful girl thief character and even though she's Neutral Good she will just go with whatever her boyfriend does)
>everyone is evil
>the first session concludes with trash fights against gibberlings, telling Elminster to fuck off and reaching FAI
>GM collects notes
>evil players aren't exactly in mind with the heroic "save the Sword Coast" thing he had, but his notes aren't useless
>keep the NPCs and questgivers as is, but introduce some new ones for a more villainous / revenge fueled approach and tethering at the edge of the law
>story structure is the same but we kill Sarevok because he was a dick to us
>we gain a fuckton of contacts in various thieves guilds and highly important people like us for saving them so we can use their affluence to gain wealth and do our own shit, which is what evil people often covet
>BG2 part of campaign starts
>the cages have no Minsc or Jaheira, they have Kagain and Viconia
>some dick stole everything and tortured us
>over the course of campaign stole our soul
>and we have to collaborate with either thieves or vampires anyway
>hell yeah, evil campaign!

It's really not that hard to alter your notes on the fly for D&D if you haven't written a whole railroady story and just kept everything to notes, blueprints and your players' initative.

[Anonymous No.4398565]

>>4397032
okay, see, you're talking about pleb-tier D&D where the DM makes shit up on the fly, basically, and half of the rules are never touched and the game has little depth
I'm talking about a well polished module or video game where everything is in place before the game even starts

[Anonymous No.4399059]

>>4398565
>pleb-tier D&D where the DM makes shit up on the fly
But that's exactly how you're supposed to play D&D, dude. You have an outline of a general set of events you want to play and mold the ways players get to these events based on their actions. If you just write out a plot and basically do everything short of going "No, you're going this way because I said so", you're a railroading DM and you'd do better writing a book.

>half of the rules are never touched and the game has little depth
You can play the most grognardy game of D&D where everything is played to the letter by Rules As Written, the players run optimized or intricate builds and everyone has deep knowledge of the Monster Manual and you'd still be forced to adapt things based on what your players do.
Even modules encourage the DM to change them up according to what they feel like should be there, have side-blurbs that answer the question of "What happens if the players decide to do [unorthodox action]?" and so forth. In fact, you'd be *forced* to do so because an optimized character is a headache to any DM. "What's that, DM? You made a cool dungeon? It would be a shame if I couldn't just Scry the MacGuffin we need from it, dispel all the illusions on the way, teleport us all inside, fuck the ancient spell mechanism inside in the ass and teleport out to earn everyone a blowjob from Queen Akashi, who needs the MacGuffin to power up her Magical Anal Trombone needed to physically unite the two separated continents of Neex?"

Making shit up on the fly is a staple of good DMing, because even Batman wouldn't be able to prepare for every single dumb shit or stroke of brilliance that his players could potentially come up with.

[Anonymous No.4400346]

How's the Ascension mod? Would you recommend it to a beginner?

[Anonymous No.4400357]

>>4400346
>How's the Ascension mod?
It's the definite way to play ToB.
>Would you recommend it to a beginner?
Yes, on Core Rules difficulty.

[Anonymous No.4400358]

>>4400346
No mods for beginners. Especially not the kind of mods which crank the difficulty into autistic heights.

[Anonymous No.4400419]

>>4400358
>autistic heights.
such as? JRPG insane difficulty hack levels?

[Anonymous No.4400454]

>>4391301
Polefag here and this is how it became an unquestionable classic in Poland. It will get you lynched for just giving it a bad look

The game happend to be released around the time when PCs stopped being a luxury and entered middle class, it happend to be pretty complex and engaging for hours (justifying the price) and most importantly, the Polish publisher, CD Projekt (you might know them nowdays as the people behind GoG and re-starting out the whole Witcher craze) hired entire slew of first grade Polish actors to do the dubbing. Instant classic within few weeks after release. The game simply came out in the right moment with the right elements. Today nostalgia filter is so fucking thick you could use it as reinforced glass for armoured vehicles, so pointing out any flaws, drawbacks or simply acknowledging the game is anything short of miracle is, like I've said, a shortest way to get lynched.
Same applies to sequel. And Planescape. In very quick succession, a handful of titles dealing with "complex" fantasy worlds appread in the market, could run on average PC of the era and engaged you for weeks, since everyone had to figure out everything on their own, as net was barely a thing back then.
On the same wave also HoMM3 became a full-time classic, since it also provided much sought option - multiplayer on single PC. So not entire pack needed to buy a computer worth two monthly pays, but just a single guy and 8 people were crowded around a single PC.
Ironically the last game to had such impact was Fallout, which had bumpy release and didn't hit the market properly until 2002, but the real selling point was a magazine release in 2004, where everyone and their dog were suddenly playing both Fallouts. It gained following so big and so sudden bunch of people even managed to launch a successful TTRPG based on the popularity - Neuroshima. Probably most known for Neuroshima HEX tactical game nowdays.

Fun times. But I wish the nostalgia wasn't killing the fun today

[Anonymous No.4400469]

>>4392232
It actually doesn't mean that at all.

[Anonymous No.4400478]

>>4393983
Fallout 1 owns, go play it bro

[Anonymous No.4400480]

>>4395732
Having not played either: what's the difference? What improved so much with the sequel?

[Anonymous No.4400503]

>>4400454
Cool post, thanks anon. Love hearing what PC gaming was like on the other side of the pond

[Anonymous No.4401183]

>>4400454
>successful TTRPG based on the popularity - Neuroshima
>successful
>Neuroshima
Hex! is actually a good board game, but the RPG game system sucks, had low sales and isn't updated anymore because nobody in the world cares.

And yeah, Fallout's release was late (Iwiński said that the piracy-ridden Polish market made Fallout a risky investment because the entire game fits on a single CD, which is easier to pirate; BG was shipped on 6 CDs, and CDP banked at making it certain that you can pay for a 6 CD game at a price only slightly less affordable than the pirate version, but with a fuckton of cool doodads inside and with full knowledge that the game won't be fucking gay.) and also shittily translated with lots of typos (some names were translated from English when they really didn't have to. "Hightower" is a pretty fantastic American surname, so why the hell did they translate it to literally "Towerman"?

>a shortest way to get lynched.
When the BGiF forums were still alive, most of the active posters basically went "Yeah, BG is fun, but it's also actually kinda shit" and we had Arcanum and Fallout generals all the fucking time that kept pointing out just how superior those games were to BG.

Aside from that, yeah, true.

[Anonymous No.4401497]

>>4398565
Polished modules are often the sign of a shit DM. A good D&D game sets the world and let's players play. A bad D&D game is a fucking tourist destination. World building is fine but if your building in a way that players never go outside the bounds, you're being an awful DM. Actual D&D modules are DM training wheels so you can get a feel for the world and mechanics.

[Anonymous No.4401556]

>>4391301
If you're playing for the first time, it's absolutely unintuitive to the point of savescumming, and resting every ten feet, even when you choose easy mode.

[Anonymous No.4401604]

>>4400454
I was always fascinated of how Poland loves RPG's so much. The same happens with Diablo 1 I think.
Do you know why some new kickstarter RPG's have special editions only there of all Europe?

[Anonymous No.4401831]

>>4401556
>resting every ten feet

Just like real D&D :^)
Newly rolled characters aren't supposed to be superheroes who can brute force their way through dozens of encounters unfazed. They're supposed to be weak as shit, then they gradually get better as they gain experience and start leveling up.

Fun fact: Early editions of D&D give level 1 magic-users a trivial number of spells per day with an incredibly limited spell pool. Your mage might be able to fire off a single instance of Sleep or Magic Missile before they run out of spells and have to rest. Forget bringing them into the front line, because their dinky 3 or 4 hit points and virtually no melee skill won't measure up to a band of hungry orcs. In a real tabletop setting, mage characters will almost certainly have to be protected by the rest of the party until they can foster enough experience points to survive even a single blow.

[Anonymous No.4402648]

>>4400419
Assuming you haven't played and beaten the unmodded version, the final boss will summon all the mid bosses and fight you. Also if you're using SCSII the spell casters (which is at least half of them) will fuck you up.

[Anonymous No.4402656]

>>4400454
Uriel?

[Anonymous No.4402661]

>>4401831
Until they become gods taking care of every encounter by themselves.

[Anonymous No.4402716]

I want to try this game out, but does it have loads of micromanagement that slows the game down a lot?

[Anonymous No.4402719]

>>4402716
What do you mean?

The level of micromanagement is incredibly high and is what makes the game good.

[Anonymous No.4402756]

can I make any of the characters whatever class I want or are most of them predefined? I want my character to be a hunter/ranger and shoot arrows in the back while everyone else is in the front

[Anonymous No.4402762]

>>4402756
Most classes can be equipped with a bow.

[Anonymous No.4402778]

>>4401497
>just wing it bro

[Anonymous No.4402789]

Is this game decent despite the Forgotten Realms setting being dogshit?

[Anonymous No.4402791]

>>4402789
It doesn't feel like forgotten realms. The cities look like Renaissance era cities and the developers went out of their way to include weirder enemies rather than orcs and goblins and other boring shit.

[Anonymous No.4402794]

>>4391921
Here's a fun fact for you. Monte Cook is a fucking faggot and had shit to do with Fallout. Planescape fucking sucks and Jeff Grubb is a Real Man while Monte Cook is a faggit.

[Anonymous No.4402802]

>>4402762
Except clerics, druids, wizards, monks and sorcerers (BG2). Which is about half of all classes.

[Anonymous No.4402806]

>>4402794
man you really love dick, don't you

[Anonymous No.4402812]

>>4402791
I wish they went with Dragonlance instead. Forgotten Realms just happened to be the 'official' DnD setting at the time and killed my interest in official DnD.

[Anonymous No.4402834]

does BG have vampires? I'm desperate to fight some vampires.

[Anonymous No.4402865]

>>4402834
Only BG2, and there's lots of them.

[Anonymous No.4402918]

Does a heavy melee fighter join you in each of the games?

[Anonymous No.4402928]

>>4402918
Not in Mask of the Betrayer.

[Anonymous No.4402935]

>>4402928
damn it I need a big strong guy to protect me

[Anonymous No.4402937]

>>4402834

BG2 has plenty of them. There's also a paladin class that's immune to level drain.

[Anonymous No.4403010]

So just asking this here, are Gold Box Games worth playing today? If so which one offers the best entry point?

[Anonymous No.4403057]

>>4403010
Forgotten Realms is shit

[Anonymous No.4403181]

>>4403010
>are Gold Box Games worth playing today?

Why wouldn't they be? If you haven't played any of them yet, maybe start with the Eye of the Beholder trilogy and the NES port of Pool of Radiance. (Recommended simply because have a controller is my personal preference here)

You might also check out the Bard's Tale series. Very similar in presentation to Eye of the Beholder, although Bard's Tale is a huge grindfest from start to finish.

[Anonymous No.4405558]

>>4391301
Hey guys, sorry for being a retard but is the Enhanced Edition butchered compared to the original? I'd like to play BG1 without any content or classes from 2, and I'd also like to play it multiplayer with my friend. Any help is appreciated.

[Anonymous No.4405590]

>>4405558
wait I just remembered that EE replaced the cutscenes and shit. Okay, so how do I get BG1 up and running and ready for online multiplayer in 2017?

[Anonymous No.4406516]

>>4393514 wow finally someone who thinks the german VA is superiot than the og. I think he is way more menacing but still collected.

[Anonymous No.4406549]

>>4405558
No, its fine.

>>4405590
Install it off the CD, apply the newest patch manually, and then download Hamachi (if its still free, I haven't checked recently) to create a vpn to play multiplayer over.

[Anonymous No.4406570]

>>4405590

If you decide on the EE version, you can get a mod to restore classic cutscenes.

[Anonymous No.4406576]

>>4406570

Oh, seriously? Is there one to disable the content that wouldn't originally be in BG1:TOS as well? Like, the extra classes from 2 and the new OC shit?

[Anonymous No.4406580]

>>4406516
I'm Polish and I played the German version of BG1 and I think that Deutsche Montaron is fucking amazing.

[Anonymous No.4406583]

>>4406576
If you're such a "purist", you shouldn't be playing it all. It runs on the BG 2 engine and all the speeds, proficiencies, and some of the spells are different.

[Anonymous No.4406610]

>>4406576

I don't think so, you can disable the EE characters with another mod though.

[Anonymous No.4406742]

>>4403057
what's your favorite setting?

>>4405558
no, just don't use the kits, new characters, or new items (there's only a few)
it actually fixed some bugs, and I like that it lets you zoom out and pick better colors for your people, also a few other things like equipping shields and two handed weapons at the same time

do make sure to grab neera for her gem bag before dumping her
i think firebeard elvenhair gives you the scroll case in beregost
and the wiz in high hedge sells the potion bag....I think

[Anonymous No.4406759]

>>4391301
Too bad how D&D’s battle system is atrocious. Story and possibilities seemed really great but I really hate that system. That is why I’ve never finished that game (I mean BG2 that the only game in that genre it have).
An action game game would have been funnier and it wouldn’t sucks in multiplayer.

[Anonymous No.4406764]

>>4406742

Not that anon, but Ghostwalk and Dark Sun are my favorites. I wouldn't go as far as to say Forgotten Realms is shit, but it's just another generic fantasy campaign. There was no necessary reason for the series to abandon Greyhawk rather than expand upon it. What does Forgotten Realms do to innovate such a staple setting?