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How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

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Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#161

OK, so in 1995 there were few computer RPGs. True. In fact I distinctly remember myself at that time, as a huge CRPG fan, thinking that they were bad times for PC RPGs, and hoping for better times. But 1996 was the year of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, one of the best RPGs of all time (IMO, way better than Baldur's) that would later continue into a saga that is still top notch today. In 1997, Fallout came out. I'…

I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by PC Games magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time. I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind. Baldur's Gate…

I'll speak only for me, here, but Fallout 1 is the game that impressed me the most among these, during those times. It had to do with this idea that you could go anywhere you wanted and you weren't forced into a linear plot (somewhat a precursor of current day's openworld games).

Granted, I didn't know d&d back then, I guess if it happened now after playing d&d, Baldur's Gate would impress me more.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by PC Games magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time. I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind. Baldur's Gate…

Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already creating various mods for it. (obligatory link: https://www.dfworkshop.net/ ). Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite d…

It's fairly simple. Any person's favorite Elder Scrolls game is usually the first one they played. The games have become less Elder with every installment.

Morrowind's art, though... that beat the tar out of the releases before it. It was the best balance of big exploration and visual world-building.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#165
post #4

If you want to play a modern game that takes you back to Balder’s Gate, definitely check out Divinity Original Sin 2. I never played the first, and I was skeptical about it living up to BG 1 and 2, but after the first couple hours I was hooked. It is very much worthy of the comparison.

Modern CRPG's are pretty great, I enjoyed all of the following: - Divinity OS 1/2 - Underrail - Age of Decadence - Bastard Bonds - Serpent in the Staglands - Tyranny - Torment: Tides of Numenera However, I did not care for Pillars of Eternity at all.

Having played BG, Neverwinter, and after a long hiatus Pillars (but none of the above) can you elaborate a little? I liked the health/encounter system in Pillars. Spamming rests was no longer an option but having per encounter powers and health kept the game fun and balenced.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#166

Oh to be a kid again. I've tried a dozen or so RPGs since my childhood and I can't get into any. It's hard to sink deep enough into a world when I have responsibilities. As a kid, the Christmas break or summer break was this magical time where I could do this. My hope is that when I retire I can become re acquainted with crpgs

>> My hope is that when I retire I can become re acquainted with crpgs

Eh, I don't know. I see where you're coming from and I don't mean to offend you, but whenever I find the time to indulge into my gaming obsessions (for me it's CCGs) I feel terribly guilty afterwards, for not spending that time on something productive, like reading up on my PhD bibliography, or just coding up my research. I don't even have a family. I'm just kind of fed up playing games all day long.

Sign I'm growing old I guess. I'll go get my hot water bottle and a cat.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#167
post #39

Oh to be a kid again. I've tried a dozen or so RPGs since my childhood and I can't get into any. It's hard to sink deep enough into a world when I have responsibilities. As a kid, the Christmas break or summer break was this magical time where I could do this. My hope is that when I retire I can become re acquainted with crpgs

I highly recommend Divinity, I've discovered it only recently and it is absolutely amazing, I think this is the best game I've ever played in my life. I've been looking for something like this ever since I played fallout 2 and thought "there should be a modern version of this". This is everything I wish Fallout3/Skyrim was, such a perfect, beautiful, fun, engaging game. And I'm talking about Divinity 1, people say Di…

You're in luck, Divinity 2 runs perfectly for me on linux with Proton (with a little bit of work). Check protondb.com.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by PC Games magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time. I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind. Baldur's Gate…

Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already creating various mods for it. (obligatory link: https://www.dfworkshop.net/ ). Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite d…

> You were now "the Chosen One" (in Daggerfall you were just a random person, except for being a friend of the emperor, living their life and trying to make fortune)

It should be noted that in Morrowind, that is very much ambiguous.

WARNING: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS!

The only thing that is really special about your character in Morrowind is that you're born "on a certain day to an uncertain parents", which technically makes you a viable candidate for the local prophesy about a reincarnation of a long-dead hero of the past. But, of course, plenty of people would also qualify based on something so vague.

From there, the Empire takes you - a prisoner - releases you, and drops you into Morrowind to work for its spy agency, on the basis that this background would allow you to infiltrate the local Houses. You also get a mysterious vision related to said prophecy, but there's a catch that becomes obvious later. Your spy handler then actively encourages you to perform actions that would be seen as fulfillment of various other conditions of that prophecy. At some point, the very goddess that issued that prophesy in the first place intervenes and takes over, and goads you further along the same track (this is especially ironic since she is, among other things, a goddess of fate and prophesy). She was also the source of that original vision that you had.

Of course, this invites the question: if you deliberately do things that the prophecy says a certain person will do, because you're forced by others to do so specifically for the sake of fulfilling it, does that really count? What if you're guided by the one who made the prophesy in the first place? Is it really fate?

This is a question that the game asks again and again. If you study the background of the prophesy (by e.g. reading in-game books), you quickly find out that there have been several people before you who were also candidates, and who have claimed to be a reincarnation, trying to fulfill the prophesy in various ways - and all of them have ultimately failed and died. It gets better still - in the second part of the main quest, you find a cave with the spirits of those past claimants, and they tell you their stories. Every one of them sincerely believed to be the reincarnation - and moreover, they also had visions telling them that they really are, just as you did at the beginning of the game.

To the very end, it remains an open question: are you really the reincarnation, and those others weren't? Or maybe all of you were, but you only stay one so long as you succeed? Or perhaps the whole thing is a lie, and the prophecy is no prophecy at all, and is "fulfilled" simply by forcing people to try to do it until someone finally succeeds? It's never really answered - right before the final boss battle, the Bad Guy (who slayed the original hero you're supposedly the reincarnation of) straight up asks you if you really are his old enemy. You can give various answers to that - including "I don't know" - but in the end, that's still just your character's opinion; there's no incontrovertible proof either way, other than you fulfilling the prophesy in terms of performing the actions you were supposed to. To everybody else, that is enough, and you're celebrated as the reincarnation. But is it enough for you?

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#169

OK, so in 1995 there were few computer RPGs. True. In fact I distinctly remember myself at that time, as a huge CRPG fan, thinking that they were bad times for PC RPGs, and hoping for better times. But 1996 was the year of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, one of the best RPGs of all time (IMO, way better than Baldur's) that would later continue into a saga that is still top notch today. In 1997, Fallout came out. I'…

The Wikipedia page for Elder Scrolls II [0] indicates that the game world was absolutely massive: > the actual size of the map is 161,600 km² (62,394 mi²). The game world features over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons for the player's character to explore. Was that scale part of the magic and fun back then? How varied were the various quests? Did it get repetitive, or was it fun to explore? [0] https://en…

Of course, it was procedurally generated.

Later, Arcanum would try to do something similar, at least with a global map. It had premade towns and cities (and nowhere near as many of them, of course); but the landscape between them was done to proper scale, and it was all generated.

So, when you reached the outskirts of a town, you could fast travel, or you could just keep walking - and the distance (and time!) you'd have to spend to walk to the next town like that would accurately reflect the size of the game map. And even during fast travel, if you had an encounter (e.g. wild animals, robbers) that dropped you into the detailed map, you'd end up in the correct spot on the generated part of it.

Coincidentally, that made it possible to skip large parts of the game simply by heading to locations in advance that you're not supposed to find out about until some NPC tells you. And the game was actually designed to gracefully handle that, despite having a fairly convoluted main storyline.

Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG

#170

OK, so in 1995 there were few computer RPGs. True. In fact I distinctly remember myself at that time, as a huge CRPG fan, thinking that they were bad times for PC RPGs, and hoping for better times. But 1996 was the year of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, one of the best RPGs of all time (IMO, way better than Baldur's) that would later continue into a saga that is still top notch today. In 1997, Fallout came out. I'…

Everyone forgetting 1995 saw a huge is release that influenced release dates of dozen titles that ended up postponed for testing. The rpg genre itself was doing strong in 1995, heck just check SNES releases, Chrono trigger, dragon quest, finally fantasy... It was just a transitional period for the platform https://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/2012/12/06/a-visual-hi...

I would argue that console JRPGs constituted a separate genre from PC CRPGs at the time. I remember that there was little intersection between the fan bases, and even some hostility.
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