People probably haven't given a shout out to Knights of the Old Republic because it came out almost a decade after Bauldur, but I saw a bunch of people listing their favorite CRPGs and KotOR and KotOR II should be mentioned. (I also like Morrowind and Skyrim)
How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
181–190 of 201 posts
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Admittedly, I've only played Skyrim and a bit of ESO, but I've gotten the impression from Bethesda that their RPGs are always buggy, but, at least with Skryim, the game was so good I was more than willing to forgive them for it. Skyrim remains my favorite single player RPG to date. To respond to the OP, I consider the baldur's gate series to be more of a trend-setter than the other games he listed.
Give Witcher 3 a shot if you haven't. I much prefer it to Skyrim, and felt much more attachment to the world and characters.
Witcher 3 is what I hoped Skyrim would be and despite playing an already existent character and it felt like I had way more freedom in my choices.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did you think about Tides of Numenara? I know there are many reviews out there, but your taste in games seems amazingly close to mine, including finding Skyrim boring, so I'd love to hear your opinion. I've had the game sitting on my computer for a while but haven't started it yet.
I was disappointed in that one. The concept was great and the world was interesting, but I found the characters to be bland and poorly developed. The Bloom was a monotonous slog. I wish you spent less time in the Bloom and more time in other parts of the game (or new areas). The combat was mediocre at best (nothing like Wasteland 2 or Divinity which are great). Finally, the bugs were terrible. I only finished the gam…
Thanks a lot. I guess I won't play it anytime soon—too many other great games to play in too little time. I may very well play through the "enhanced" original though... It's my favorite game of all time but I somehow only played it once more than 10 years ago.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Admittedly, I've only played Skyrim and a bit of ESO, but I've gotten the impression from Bethesda that their RPGs are always buggy, but, at least with Skryim, the game was so good I was more than willing to forgive them for it. Skyrim remains my favorite single player RPG to date. To respond to the OP, I consider the baldur's gate series to be more of a trend-setter than the other games he listed.
I remember reading somewhere that the developers of Skyrim will leave non game-breaking bugs in the code if they are funny ones that don't break quests. Things like mammoths floating in the air in certain cases, for example.
My kids think it’s hilarious to fast travel to a giant camp and see mammoths spawn from the air fall and die.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was disappointed in that one. The concept was great and the world was interesting, but I found the characters to be bland and poorly developed. The Bloom was a monotonous slog. I wish you spent less time in the Bloom and more time in other parts of the game (or new areas). The combat was mediocre at best (nothing like Wasteland 2 or Divinity which are great). Finally, the bugs were terrible. I only finished the gam…
Thanks a lot. I guess I won't play it anytime soon—too many other great games to play in too little time. I may very well play through the "enhanced" original though... It's my favorite game of all time but I somehow only played it once more than 10 years ago.
The original is definitely the better game.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
No Ultima VII? The pinnacle of that series, and still impressive in its scope, IMO.
I agree, Ultima 7 is in my top 3 all time games! I had one or two aborted attempts at replaying it in the past decade, but life intervened. The last time I played through the whole game was well before this era (maybe 15 years ago?).
Ultimate Online was what got me into programming. I used to play on Novus Opiate share and when it died I found out about the emulators so I ended up teaching myself how to program to make things for UO and ended up helping build a shard with like ~300 players. It only lasted like 2 years and then the guy didn’t wanna host it anymore and it died. I miss those days :( when games were fun...
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Admittedly, I've only played Skyrim and a bit of ESO, but I've gotten the impression from Bethesda that their RPGs are always buggy, but, at least with Skryim, the game was so good I was more than willing to forgive them for it. Skyrim remains my favorite single player RPG to date. To respond to the OP, I consider the baldur's gate series to be more of a trend-setter than the other games he listed.
Give Witcher 3 a shot if you haven't. I much prefer it to Skyrim, and felt much more attachment to the world and characters.
Witcher 3 and Skyrim are two totally different games. Witcher 3 is more story focused if you get the gist. Skyrim is kindof pseudo-choose-your-own-adventure, not focused on dialog but exploration. Witcher3 is on the opposite spectrum, focusing more on characters and dialog and world building.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#188I never had a chance to play it as a kid. I just checked GOG, looks like they only have the "Enhanced Edition" which appears to be universally hated. I looked around but finding the original seems to be as hard as finding the unenhanced Star Wars'.
Speaking mostly about my experience with Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, but my impression is it's pretty similar for the other games:
The early EE release was a bit buggy. When you're just re-releasing an old game and charging $20+ for it, if it ends up buggier than the original, it tends to attract the "what are you good for?" sentiment.
But
1. They've ironed out the bugs over the years
2. There's loads of nice interface improvements that makes it a much more polished experience.
3. The new content they add tends to be a notch or two below the original game, but I still find it pretty enjoyable and well above the quality of most fan mods. And the new content isn't intrusive; you can ignore it if you want.
4. Obviously, it's much more convenient than trying to figure out how to install the original from CDRom, and it's nice that I can play it on Mac or on a tablet these days.
5. The modding community has entirely embraced EE and has for years. I was afraid that I would be unable to install some of my favorite mods when I tried the EE version, but it's actually much easier. If you try to go non-EE, then you're probably going to have more problems with installing stuff nobody has paid attention to in 8 years.
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Give Witcher 3 a shot if you haven't. I much prefer it to Skyrim, and felt much more attachment to the world and characters.
Witcher 3 and Skyrim are two totally different games. Witcher 3 is more story focused if you get the gist. Skyrim is kindof pseudo-choose-your-own-adventure, not focused on dialog but exploration. Witcher3 is on the opposite spectrum, focusing more on characters and dialog and world building.
I don't know if I agree fully. Yes they were obviously different games, but it seems like Skyrim and Witcher were very similar in scale. Had Bethesda decided not to not autogenerate many of the side quests, it feels like Skyrim could have been Witcher with a different lore and combat system despite being way earlier. I remember zero Skyrim characters and remember most of the Witcher characters, and while I understand they're different games, I refuse to accept that a company the size of Bethesda could not make an Elder Scrolls story that introduces complex lore like Witcher that could be largely ignored by masses if they so choose (Fallout 4, for example).
Re: How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ma…
This is true from a narrative/plot standpoint and it's good that you mention it, Morrowind's plot was great. But I was talking more from a gameplay/immersion standpoint. It is true that it's ambiguous whether you are a Chosen One or not, but the thing is that in Morrowind you don't have much choice other than following the main quest because there is not much else to do (OK, advancing in the guilds, but the progression is a joke compared to Daggerfall, a small bunch of quests and you are the head honcho). In Daggerfall you can just live your life as one more person in a large, complex world. I know players who have been playing for years without even touching the main quest because the open-world nature of the game is enough to keep them engaged.
Probably "Chosen One" was not the best choice of words. It's more that in Morrowind, the world revolves around you, it's just a device to tell you a story. To take a particular example (among many), in (unmodded) Morrowind, any town or city is a totally unrealistically-sized town with a bunch of houses and a few mostly static NPCs, which spend 24 hours in the same place and are designed to have dialogs useful for you. On the other hand, enter Daggerfall. A town can have hundreds of houses, with hundreds of NPCs that roam the streets and act according to their daily schedules (quite rudimentarily implemented, but still). You can talk to any NPC on the street but just as in real life, they are strangers and don't give a damn about you because you're just another person on the street; so you can ask them for rumors and directions and if you are polite and they are in good mood you can get some information, but not much more. So you really feel that the world doesn't revolve around you. You are so insignificant that if you go to a city at night, the city walls are closed so you can't even enter unless you climb!