I love Candlekeep... but!

[Osvir]

Do I need say more?

 

The prologue area was rather lengthy and tedious when replaying.

 

I loved it, but it haunted me.

 

"I want to play Baldur's Gate! :D"

*starts Baldur's Gate*

"Oh right.. Candlekeep mumble mumble"

*glad there is mods and starts anyways*

 

But there was a time before the mods!

 

Thoughts? How many times have you played Candlekeep?

 

I understand that Candlekeep is a tutorial area, and I liked it to a start... but after making my 14th Character or so~, still trying to learn the game and the Classes and the Magic and the system and the rules (I was such a noob, still am in a sense)... I kind of tired of it eventually.

 

One magical mod let me skip Candlekeep entirely and get the same rewards from doing everything (with a small penalty I believe, I didn't get all the gold I would've gotten if I would've done all the quests. I liked that). Being able to skip the prologue at a penalty.

 

Could this be a potential feature?

Edited October 6, 2012 by Osvir

[LadyCrimson]

BG1's starter stuff did get old ... as it does in many games.

 

I think if you want the rewards/extra boost at the start, you should still have to do those things. So my feeling is, as long as it's similar in P.E., where you can shorten the time by skipping all the little bits, I'm fine. Don't need a skip+get rewards option, imo.

[Zed]

Simply have an introduction phase that doesn't really reward you with anything other than, well, an introduction. Make it possible to skip it.

 

As for tutorials, I prefer to have as much of it as possible kept in the manual. "Click x to y" messages in-game is for lazy players.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Zed

[PsychoBlonde]

Remember Kotor2's "tutorial" where you play as the droids? They could very easily take a page from that book and let you play as another character for the tutorial if you decide you want to play it, and if you go ahead and do the tutorial maybe you get a couple extra trivial bonus items like a few bits of extra ammo/health pots/mana pots/a couple gold in your starting gear. Or nothing at all, since you can freely decide to skip it.

 

If they do a "tutorial" that's more like Peragus IV AFTER the droid section, though, I will NEVER get tired of it. That whole section of the game was awesome beyond belief.

[Volourn]

"The prologue area was rather lengthy and tedious when replaying."

 

It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes if you've done it more than once.

 

Any starting place in a game is gonna be a bore about multiple times.

 

The best way to beat these is to have multiple 'origins', prologues, or beginnings. That way one can have a new start each time you play. Problem solved.

[Ieo]

In-game tutorial thread.

 

I thought it was easy to skip most of Candlekeep to get out into the world? But it's been a long while since I've played BG1. BG2's starter area (dungeon) was far more annoying after the first few times.

 

My suggestion somewhere was a small, open racial training camp on the border of whatever racial "starting area" (omg, not DA:O's thing) with minimal quests intended to allow players to practice class skills and get used to the UI. Immersive but very optional. There would be only one quest to "send" the character out to whatever major plot starter event Obsidian had in mind.

[Osvir]

I agree

 

Let me explain though, the modders made this feature in Baldur's Gate to function from a roleplaying perspective kind of. A guard comes up to you and asks you if you want to go to Gorion directly and he'll escort you. He'll give you some money and a potion, and a lynx eye gem that you can sell to Winthrop.

 

Then you go into the Inn, buy and sell all you need, leave the inn and the Guard comes up to you again. At this point you can tell him to sod off (basically, in a kinder gentler way) and do all the quests anyways, or you can ask him to escort you to Gorion (which proceeds with the game). You can also talk to him again, without entering the Inn, to trigger this conversation.

 

I don't know, it's just a nice way of skipping the tutorial (whilst being in the in-game interface).

[Ieo]

I agree

 

Let me explain though, the modders made this feature in Baldur's Gate to function from a roleplaying perspective kind of. A guard comes up to you and asks you if you want to go to Gorion directly and he'll escort you. He'll give you some money and a potion, and a lynx eye gem that you can sell to Winthrop.

 

Then you go into the Inn, buy and sell all you need, leave the inn and the Guard comes up to you again. At this point you can tell him to sod off (basically, in a kinder gentler way) and do all the quests anyways, or you can ask him to escort you to Gorion (which proceeds with the game). You can also talk to him again, without entering the Inn, to trigger this conversation.

 

I don't know, it's just a nice way of skipping the tutorial (whilst being in the in-game interface).

 

Oh, I didn't know there's a mod for "chateau de Candlekeep" too. It's been a long enough time that I wouldn't mind going through it again at this point, but that's good to know. That sounds better and more, uh, immersive than the "Chateau d'Irenicus" mod, which uses a bunch of planar mumbo jumbo and porting--I'm not sure the modders could have done much better with the linear dungeon starter area, though.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Ieo

[Piccolo]

Candlekeep didn't take very long to get through, if I recall.

 

Even so though, i'm really not a fan of tutorial areas, and I hate the idea of NPCs being placed inside a fantasy gameworld with no other purpose than to hold the player's hand / explain gameplay.

 

A game manual should really suffice, but if the devs insist on including some kind of tutorial, PLEASE add it as a menu option that's completely separate from the main game.

[Deraldin]

Eh, I was fine with Candlekeep. Yeah you miss out on a bit of loot by not doing any of the quests, but it was such a small amount of stuff that losing out on it isn't that big a deal. It's all of what, 50 gold and a potion or two? Just grab the diamond in the tree and sell that off instead. More than makes up for any lost Candlekeep loot.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Deraldin

[Sensuki]

LENGTHY?

 

It doesn't take that long at all to do the Candlekeep Prologue, you just take a while to do it the first time.

 

The BG2 prologue was a lot longer, hence "Dungeon Be Gone"

 

I have a feeling that the extraordinary event that you're supposed to witness will be the end of the prologue, and then "chapter 1" will begin after that.

 

BG1 prologue doing all quests takes < 10 mins

Edited October 6, 2012 by Sensuki

[Tamerlane]

Remember Kotor2's "tutorial" where you play as the droids? They could very easily take a page from that book and let you play as another character for the tutorial if you decide you want to play it, and if you go ahead and do the tutorial maybe you get a couple extra trivial bonus items like a few bits of extra ammo/health pots/mana pots/a couple gold in your starting gear. Or nothing at all, since you can freely decide to skip it.

 

If they do a "tutorial" that's more like Peragus IV AFTER the droid section, though, I will NEVER get tired of it. That whole section of the game was awesome beyond belief.

Of course, "Skip Peragus" became a very popular mod, anyway.

Oh, I didn't know there's a mod for "chateau d'Candlekeep" too. It's been a long enough time that I wouldn't mind going through it again at this point, but that's good to know. That sounds better and more, uh, immersive than the "Chateau d'Irenicus" mod, which uses a bunch of planar mumbo jumbo and porting--I'm not sure the modders could have done much better with the linear dungeon starter area, though.

"De Candlkeep". You only take the "e" off "de" if a vowel follows it.

 

I bring this up only because I want to make it clear how much "Nalia de'Arnise" annoyed me because of that god damn that was a hell of a minor irritant.

[Ieo]

"De Candlkeep". You only take the "e" off "de" if a vowel follows it.

 

I bring this up only because I want to make it clear how much "Nalia de'Arnise" annoyed me because of that god damn that was a hell of a minor irritant.

 

Noted and changed before the edit window closed.

 

Edit: Uhhh..... spoilery? I dunno, I kinda expect everyone to have played BG1, but that's a dangerous assumption...

 

There's something that occurred to me about the Candlekeep implementation, though, and why I feel uneasy about skipping it--because of BG1's ending chapter. Going through that the first time allows the player to create, however small, memorable linkages with NPC personalities which makes the BG1 ending chapter more meaningful, IMO. Candlekeep really is on a different level than Irenicus' dungeon.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Ieo

[Fluffle]

Candlekeep Tutorial doesnt bother me so much. Does anyone remember NWN1 though?

Going through all that stuff in the academy? That was annoying...

[Bill Gates' Son]

Completing Candlekeep takes 2 minutes tops. All you have to do is meet Gorion, that's it. All the other stuff can be ignored.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Bill Gates' Son

[Ieo]

Completing Candlekeep takes 2 minutes tops. All you have to do is meet Gorion, that's it. All the other stuff can be ignored.

 

That's what I thought I remembered...

Oh, I'll get a good review again soon enough.

[Volourn]

"Candlekeep Tutorial doesnt bother me so much. Does anyone remember NWN1 though?

Going through all that stuff in the academy? That was annoying... "

 

Another one that takes 5 minutes. Also, can be auto skipped after you play it once without the need of any mods.

[Sensuki]

Candlekeep Tutorial doesnt bother me so much. Does anyone remember NWN1 though?

Going through all that stuff in the academy? That was annoying...

 

Hearing that same loop of combat screams was annoying.

[nikolokolus]

Candlekeep Tutorial doesnt bother me so much. Does anyone remember NWN1 though?

Going through all that stuff in the academy? That was annoying...

 

Oh the idiotic "adventurer's academy" was the absolute worst!! I mean the single-player in NWN was pretty awful in general, but that section made my eyes bleed.

 

That has me thinking a bit. I'm having trouble distinctly remembering an introductory sequence in an RPG that I really liked off the top of my head? I guess New Vegas was pretty good. Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't too bad, Mask of the Betrayer OK ... nothing else really stands out.

 

Anybody out there have any that they really, really enjoyed?

[Umberlin]

I'm torn. On my first few times through I was in love with it . . . but after awhile . . . it wore on me. It's really hard to sort my feelings on it. I wouldn't ever want to lose that first impression though, it's really stuck over the years.

 

I can understand the want for there being a sort of skip function, for an area like that, unlocked after fully playing through the area with at least one character. Still, I don't know that I'd consider it needed if a good mod community starts up and has some support. Meh, I'll just stick with: "I'm torn on exactly what I think."

[Ieo]

Candlekeep Tutorial doesnt bother me so much. Does anyone remember NWN1 though?

Going through all that stuff in the academy? That was annoying...

 

Oh the idiotic "adventurer's academy" was the absolute worst!! I mean the single-player in NWN was pretty awful in general, but that section made my eyes bleed.

 

That has me thinking a bit. I'm having trouble distinctly remembering an introductory sequence in an RPG that I really liked off the top of my head? I guess New Vegas was pretty good. Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't too bad, Mask of the Betrayer OK ... nothing else really stands out.

 

Anybody out there have any that they really, really enjoyed?

 

Well, I happened to like Candlekeep. The NPCs were written with distinct personalities and the PC dialogue options--though they didn't actually affect anything in the game at that point--had personality too. I remember that senile old lady mage(?), the cow quest, and the cranky Dwarf who sent you in to smack rats (lol)... This could be a measure of nostalgia, though!

 

I don't even remember NWN's starting area. I must've repressed it.

[Adhin]

Yeah, I liked Candlekeep, never felt the need to skip it but it was a place you had ful reign in and going straight to Gorion, as has been mentioned, ended it entirely. BG2, on the otherhand, that dungeon took some damn time even for being short and having to watch the damn forced conversation cutscenes over and over... mind numbing after awhile. It was a great intro first time around but it was just to long and lacked easy-means to skip. Again, Candlekeep could mostly be skipped in a minutes or 2 already so...if you did all the stuff everytime thats on your end not on the games.

 

Other then Candlekeep though, think my favorite intro was probably PST. But then you don't often wake up on a slab in a morge waiting to be processed by zombies and dustmen. Took awhile to get out, though you could speed-run that bit so it wasn't to crazy. Still had a lot more interesting story bits in that intro stage then you had in say BG2. BG2 frontloaded most the intro story, rest was a dungeon crawl.

 

Far as im concerned, every RPG that's come out since BG1 from the 2 sides always seemed to have long intro areas that, even on a speed run took a good bit of time. Candlekeeps literally the only one that I felt let you skip it. Then again, I wasn't counting NWN for some reason, maybe cause i don't view that campain as being valid for comparison on the grounds it kinda sucked donkey nuts.

 

-edit-

Oh and whoever mentioned FO:NV intro... I agree-ish? I think they way they did that in that you could just leave the town, or not, was a nice way to have a tutorial with out it mucking up stuff. The only problem I had with that was the whole tutorial was worth a good bit of XP so skipping it ultimately meant starting the game a level behind. And that was a game very much about areas being certains lvls. Would be nice if you got frontloaded that XP for leaving the town then completing the quests. But yeah, something like New Vegas, only less XP rewardy for doing tutorial mission/quest/whatevers.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Adhin

[Larkaloke]

It's my impression that the beginning area of any game will drag eventually, just because it tends to be the part that changes the least with each new playthrough -- and probably also the part you play the most often, if you (like me) sometimes start characters and don't finish playing them all the way through. Characters tend to be the least different at level one, and there isn't really time to branch out and do different things in the story - or at least, that's been so in all the introductory areas I can recall.

 

I've fairly happily played through both Candlekeep and Irenicus' dungeon every time, as well as the Mortuary and Easthaven (although with all there's usually that brief moment of 'ah, now this again'). Targos tends to really get to me, for some reason, though not so much as the Academy in Neverwinter. West Harbor wore on me the most, but that's probably because NWN 2's camera does not agree well with me, and fighting the camera every step of the way makes everything feel more tedious than it otherwise would. Peragus was pretty okay, too.

 

I like all of the first four I mentioned a fair amount, actually, and none of them feel very tedious to me. I think Candlekeep is the shortest of all of those, though, especially since most of the things you can do in it are entirely optional (I usually wind up doing them anyhow, though not always if it doesn't seem in character that time).

[Osvir]

To respond to several comments:

 

I do enjoy Candlekeep, I do have several saves past Candlekeep with several characters and classes. Candlekeep has a special place in my heart

It doesn't take long to get to Gorion and be off, it doesn't take long to do all the quests.

 

It would just be nice to see a skip function, in whatever way it'll be implemented.

[GhostofAnakin]

This is why I'm a big fan of tutorial levels that you can skip past. Mandatory tutorials/prologues get annoying on multiple play throughs.