Baldur's Gate - whole series for ten quid

[LadyCrimson]

My own view was that I was just choosing six characters for myself. That's just bananas. Maybe I should play it again.

I found IWD a lot of fun - IIRC it even had a few random items generated here and there. The limiting factor to me was it felt a lot more forced in terms of route/maps so I didn't want to replay it much.

[Gorth]

One thing I don't understand about the various IWD releases is, why they never include Trials of the Luremaster on a cd?

 

I've bought IWD, Heart of Winter,and the IWD The "Ultimate" Collection. I put Ultimate in quotation marks because, while it included everything from sound track cd's to strategy guides in pdf format on cd, it did not include Trials of the Luremaster. Is that expansion some kind of pariah or...?

 

just a rant. I love my IWD boxed set, since it gave me all the other goodies, including IWD2 which I didn't have before.

 

Similar weird that they couldn't figure out how to put a cd with the most recent patches available into the IWD and Baldurs Gate boxed sets. You still have to hunt around on the internet for them (unless you are an old gamer who already have them lying around somewhere).

[Spider]

Not much hunting required for the BG patches though. Bioware still hosts them on their website afaik. IWD is a bit worse.

[Dark_Raven]

"I can make whatever party combination I want and go out and kill things."

 

As you can in the BG series if you wish.

You could but it would be pointless since you already have some great npcs in the game.

[Dark_Raven]

One thing I don't understand about the various IWD releases is, why they never include Trials of the Luremaster on a cd?

 

I've bought IWD, Heart of Winter,and the IWD The "Ultimate" Collection. I put Ultimate in quotation marks because, while it included everything from sound track cd's to strategy guides in pdf format on cd, it did not include Trials of the Luremaster. Is that expansion some kind of pariah or...?

 

just a rant. I love my IWD boxed set, since it gave me all the other goodies, including IWD2 which I didn't have before.

 

Similar weird that they couldn't figure out how to put a cd with the most recent patches available into the IWD and Baldurs Gate boxed sets. You still have to hunt around on the internet for them (unless you are an old gamer who already have them lying around somewhere).

It doesn't make sense that Trials is not on those special editions. I have my copy burned on a CD so I don't have to download it again.

[Diamond]

About BG1... can anyone recommend it?

Would I like it if I liked BG2 but hate IWD with a passion?

[Big Bottom]

About BG1... can anyone recommend it?

Would I like it if I liked BG2 but hate IWD with a passion?

 

What did you like about BG2 and hate about IWD? BG is more like BG2 obviously, but contains a lot of wandering around large maps and is more focused on lower levels. In BG when you level up it's a BIG deal, something that all the other D&D games (maybe not IWD) I've played don't have.

Edited February 18, 2007 by Big Bottom

[Walsingham]

Make no mistake, BG is not as complex or varied in classes and monsters as BG2. But BG and its expansion gives you some fantastic characters, and interesting tales. The bad guy is definitely inferior.

[Volourn]

The whole game is definitely inferior; but still a very fun game... 10 years ago...

[Wistrik]

One thing I don't understand about the various IWD releases is, why they never include Trials of the Luremaster on a cd?

 

I've bought IWD, Heart of Winter,and the IWD The "Ultimate" Collection. I put Ultimate in quotation marks because, while it included everything from sound track cd's to strategy guides in pdf format on cd, it did not include Trials of the Luremaster. Is that expansion some kind of pariah or...?

 

just a rant. I love my IWD boxed set, since it gave me all the other goodies, including IWD2 which I didn't have before.

 

Similar weird that they couldn't figure out how to put a cd with the most recent patches available into the IWD and Baldurs Gate boxed sets. You still have to hunt around on the internet for them (unless you are an old gamer who already have them lying around somewhere).

It doesn't make sense that Trials is not on those special editions. I have my copy burned on a CD so I don't have to download it again.

I agree, having re-installed it last night in the form of the Ultimate Collection. By the way, Planet Baldur's Gate still carries all patches and info for IE games, though you'll have to put up with Fileplanet for downloading (get the patches for Bioware's games from Bioware instead.) Planet Baldur's Gate says you don't need to patch the games if you have the Ultimate Collections. That's incorrect; only Baldur's Gate Original Saga ships with the latest version. (I can't speak for the super collections available from the UK site.) Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn isn't shipped fully patched, and neither is Throne of Bhaal (the latest patch is on the ToB CD, however). The same applies to IWD (IWD is fully patched, but HoW isn't) and IWD2.

 

You can only get Heart of Winter updated to version 1.41 using patches. You have to install Trials of the Luremaster if you want to get patched to version 1.42; the patch was bundled with the additional content. Here's what's fixed in 1.42:

VERSION 1.42 - HEART OF WINTER Patch / TRIALS OF THE LUREMASTER

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL

- Fixed a bug with fighter/druids being fatigued after acquiring "Timeless Body".

- Fixed a crash problem with some wyvern death animations when played on a Matrox G400. (Old video card! )

- Dual-classed characters should now be able to achieve 30th level in their second class.

- Fixed a crash bug that would happen when too many stores/bags were simultaneously open.

- For users who copy their save games from a desktop machine to a laptop via burning a CD, the game will now remove Read Only attributes from several of its directories to allow itself to function properly.

 

ITEMS

- Fixed a problem with the Bitch Queen Envoy shield that was making the user slightly more susceptible to missile attacks.

- Fixed the Wailing of Virgins cloak which should now provide proper immunity to Symbol of Hopelessness.

It's not much, but I like having my games fully patched, so I always install Trials even though I don't always play through the extra content.

Edited February 18, 2007 by Wistrik

[Walsingham]

Thanks for taking the trouble to explain that, Wist.

[Big Bottom]

Make no mistake, BG is not as complex or varied in classes and monsters as BG2. But BG and its expansion gives you some fantastic characters, and interesting tales. The bad guy is definitely inferior.

 

It's worth noting that the big dungeon in BG/TotSC (Durlag's Tower) is a high point of all the IE games combined. Hard as hell but lots of fun.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Durlag's Tower was the best thing about BG1. Excellent dungeon crawl.

[Spider]

@ Diamond:

 

If you've already played BG2 and are thinking about going back to BG1 for the first time, I'd recommend considering playing BG1 with BGtutu. It's a mod that let's you play BG1 with the BG2 engine.

 

The reason for this is that the game engine is improved upon a lot for BG2. Not only with kits and classes, but with things like walking speeds and resolution. BG1 is locked at 640x440 and walking across the maps takes forever. And there is a lot of walking across maps. There are some things that may change the balance a bit (for instance, arrows are not the best path to victory in any given encounter anymore), but for me it's worth it. There are people who think one should experience a game as it was designed before fiddling with mods, and if that applies to you then by all means ignore this post. But personally I do think tutu is worth it (after BG2 was released, there was no way I'd even consider replaying BG1 until tutu was released).

[Dark_Raven]

About BG1... can anyone recommend it?

Would I like it if I liked BG2 but hate IWD with a passion?

Awesome game, just like BG2 but without the character interactions. More places to explore and side quests to do compared to BG2.

[Walsingham]

Definitely lots more side quests. And they weren't all fedex. Durlag's tower is definitely my favourite dungeon crawl ever. Although personally I really regretted not having a thief in the party who could do traps. I used Korgan buffed to constitution 20 and piled high with protection to just trigger traps. I used to imagine him grumbling incesssantly as all these fireballs and bolts spanged off him. On one occasion he totalled a group of attackers simply by leading them down a heavily trapped corridor. I laughed a great deal.

[LadyCrimson]

Durlag's Tower was awesome!

BG1 - it's a lot of fun, just not as sophisticated. I personally liked the "wilderness" exploration aspect. I get tired of cities.

[Azure79]

Durlag's Tower was awesome!

BG1 - it's a lot of fun, just not as sophisticated. I personally liked the "wilderness" exploration aspect. I get tired of cities.

 

That was indeed my favorite part as well.

 

I was very dissapointed that BG2 did not have this aspect. Every map in BG1 had something to discover, from small things to plot driven events and it was always fun to run into them.

[alanschu]

Durlag's is part of TOTSC right?

[Sand]

Yep.

 

BG2's poor attempt to capture the essence of Durlag's Tower in the form of Watcher's Keep was horrible.

[Volourn]

"Hard"

 

?

 

 

"BG2's poor attempt to capture the essence of Durlag's Tower in the form of Watcher's Keep was horrible."

 

It was just a sgood, and the battles wer emore challenging to boot.

 

 

"Definitely lots more side quests. And they weren't all fedex. "

 

Sure, the ,majority of them were. And, BG2's side quests were bigger, more elaborate, and a heck of a lot more interesting than BG1's. It's funny that BG had more places to 'explore'; but BG2 was actually longer.

 

Go figure. *shrug*

Edited February 19, 2007 by Volourn

[Ellester]

I loved BG1 and 2, but I've tried in the last couple of years to resurrect a game, and I just can't do it. It was amazing in it's time, but I just can't play a game on the ie engine anymore (PST and IWD games included). It's sad, because I want to, but it just doesn't hold that excitement anymore for me.

[Pop]

I've just played both too many times to get anything out of them. Same thing with the Fallouts, IWDs, NWNs, Bloodlines, etc. etc. The whole game is so familiar to me that it's more of a chore to play than something fun and exciting, which is unfortunate, because they were great initially. I actually prefer the ie engine to the more modern engines I've seen.

[Walsingham]

I play BG like I read Lord of the Rings. Except without the armchair. *thinks: I need a big armchair*

[CoM_Solaufein]

Yep.

 

BG2's poor attempt to capture the essence of Durlag's Tower in the form of Watcher's Keep was horrible.

In the many times that I have played BG2, I only did Watcher's Keep only twice. I just didn't like it. Durlag's was a blast plus the story it told was great.