After replaying BG2 with "fresh eyes".

[Volourn]

"A starting dungeon is a good idea, if it's done right.

 

Bad example: BG2"

 

I disagree. BG2 has one of the best introductions to any game. Except for giving you a few more role-playing moments, it offers everything you should get. Story,a tmosphere, interetsing encounters, some phat loot. Coolio beanio.

[Osvir]

My own input: Stats don't matter, but gear. Level up makes you stronger (more resistant, better saving rolls, better hit chance and better armor class, more spells). The only resource you get to spend is the "Every now and then" proficiency in a weapon or weapon style.

The old AD&D game rules didn't allow much in the way of customization. I haven't seen that be much of a problem in more recent RPGs.

 

I don't (presently) see it as a problem in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. I've just finished my full exploration of Baldur's Gate: TotSC with 20 GB's worth of mods (most of these are BGII associated I believe, so I've barely scratched the surface of all the content I can explore). My point is that statistics being too important can degenerate the world. I'd rather have it the other way if I got to choose. My point is that the characters personal statistics should be left untouched. Skill customization is something else.

 

I'm trying to envision my Baldur's Gate complete playthrough with skill customization and, I'm having difficulty of thinking of a good implementation.

 

I'm thinking more philosophically in the ways of: In which format do I enjoy to read a story the most?

[Death Machine Miyagi]

But other than that, I probably skipped half of the content because the plot pointed one way (in urgent manner) and random wandering didn't seem like the right or sensible course of action. I think I got the Sphere as my headquarters or something, but never visited it after the first time. Didn't see any reason to.

 

If there is one thing I hate about BG2, its this. The game never has a moment where you aren't urgently being pushed towards a main plotline goal. There is never a time when you can just relax and explore without feeling like you're dropping the ball on some greater issue, be it your little sister being tortured in Spellhold or

an elven city being laid waste to while you wither away from the lack of a soul.

 

 

Give me a little peace in the plot to do my random questing, you douchebags.

[Monte Carlo]

^ The developers accept that this was a major design fault with BG2. It needed better pacing, definitely. But the open world / quest aspect was still cool.

[Sacred_Path]

interetsing encounters

 

lol. Examples plz?

[Rink]

I think it is hard to balance out the urgency of a main plot and the feeling of exploring. For example in morrowind I found myself not knowing what to do other than just exploring and getting bored of that and stopped playing. I think there needs to be *some* urgency of a plot or you will have no reason to go on at all and just get bored. Of course the exploration feeling is very nice too, but I personally get that everytime if the main story brings me somewhere or if I have to go through an area to get to the next main plot area anyway.

 

Had nothing against the dungeon. It is linear, but has lots of different ideas in them, stuff you can find, story-lines you can pick up and you get to travel with your "best friend" until she gets taken, what adds a lot to the motivation to go and search for her, if you don't know her from BG1. I think it is well done and can't give a lot of examples that made a better job. Every starting/tutorial level is linear, because you have to build up knowledge of the game.

 

Damn you guys, now I want to play that game again.

[Rajaat the Warbringer]

I think it is hard to balance out the urgency of a main plot and the feeling of exploring. For example in morrowind I found myself not knowing what to do other than just exploring and getting bored of that and stopped playing. I think there needs to be *some* urgency of a plot or you will have no reason to go on at all and just get bored. Of course the exploration feeling is very nice too, but I personally get that everytime if the main story brings me somewhere or if I have to go through an area to get to the next main plot area anyway.

 

Had nothing against the dungeon. It is linear, but has lots of different ideas in them, stuff you can find, story-lines you can pick up and you get to travel with your "best friend" until she gets taken, what adds a lot to the motivation to go and search for her, if you don't know her from BG1. I think it is well done and can't give a lot of examples that made a better job. Every starting/tutorial level is linear, because you have to build up knowledge of the game.

 

Damn you guys, now I want to play that game again.

 

Morrowind always made it pretty clear where you needed to go and what you needed to do. Just because so many of us have ADD and go wandering off freeing slaves and picking berries the second the leash is removed isn't really an indicator of poor pacing. If they forced time limits on main missions, people would complain about not having time for side quests.

 

That said I probably spent probably 40 hours in Morrowind exploring and doing side quests before ever talking to Caius Cosades. Loved every second of it.

[mstark]

@Rink, I agree that Morrowind is almost too extreme in it's open world approach. Like you, the first time I played it, I just ran around, explored, and got bored. It was probably half a year later that I picked it up, and actually decided to follow the loose clues I was given at the start to go find a random person I didn't give a flying **** about. Once I did that, the game opened up possibilities for exciting adventures in a million ways . Adventures with a purpose, rather than feeling like I was running around a world that was incredibly hostile, without me having any idea why, or ever having a real purpose behind being somewhere. (I loved Morrowind, but only after I actually bothered to find quests, and eventually follow the main plot line)

 

For the story of BG2 I also can't see any other option than to include the dungeon, a brilliant way of introducing a complex antagonist, and giving you an opportunity to learn to care for Imoen before she gets kidnapped, if you don't already know her from the first game. My point is that I hope PE will open up at the start by placing you in a location that forces you to explore, with a clear indication of where you should go in order to find answers, but not taking you through a few hours of linear dungeon before you're free to do as you want.

 

(yes, you can get through Irenicus' dungeon a lot faster than "a few hours", but the way I prefer to play, exploring everything, it takes some time).

Edited November 2, 2012 by mstark

[Rink]

Morrowind always made it pretty clear where you needed to go and what you needed to do. Just because so many of us have ADD and go wandering off freeing slaves and picking berries the second the leash is removed isn't really an indicator of poor pacing.

 

To me it really didn't.. but maybe I need a shorter leash than others to be motivated enough to go after main storyline. It surely is a good game, but for me a middle-path between urgency and exploration is the best. Without timelimit (hated that in fallout - and so you can go exploring as much as you want) but with urgency in story, so you are motivated to go save something from certain doom.

 

@mstark yea you are right. If you have an indication of where you should go and the people that play it aren't some new gamers that will die to random encounters without having a tutorial of how to attack, then you can also make a more open tutorial of course. But you should still make a good introduction then (before u are free to go), that also motivates you to go where you should go, so you receive the beginning of the storyline and you start caring for the goals you should care for, I guess...

[Sacred_Path]

Had nothing against the dungeon. It is linear, but has lots of different ideas in them, stuff you can find, story-lines you can pick up and you get to travel with your "best friend" until she gets taken, what adds a lot to the motivation to go and search for her, if you don't know her from BG1. I think it is well done and can't give a lot of examples that made a better job.

 

Apart from the already mentioned Wizardry 8:

 

- TES: Arena. At least that starting dungeon was mercifully short, but filled with more excitement since resting wasn't as easy as in Irenicus' dungeon, you started out naked and alone. Introduction to the story came via (short) dream sequences. I haven't played any TES past Morrowind, so I can't comment on those.

 

- Ultima 7/ Part1: Backstory was told in just one small dialogue, done. Then you had an entire town to explore.

 

- Ultima 6: told all the story you needed in a few cutscenes, then dropped you in medias res.

 

- Dark Sun/ Shattered Lands: the introduction was probably the best part about this. Challenging combat, puzzle solving, a bit of urgency (if you wanted to get some EXP before the really tough monsters came).

 

And that's just what I can remember from the top of my head. While there are worse things on Earth than Irenicus' dungeon, I wouldn't want PE to mimick that part of BG2.

 

Oh, and how could I forget PS:T. Best place to wake up in ever.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Sacred_Path

[mstark]

@Rink, I'm hoping any kind of tutorial won't be part of the main game. In IE games (maybe not all of them, but the ones I remember), the tutorial is a separate option in the game menu. A sandbox where you can learn the mechanics. Completely optional, and actually quite fun, if you only have to go through it once, and at your leisure.

 

I don't even know how this whole idea of making the first sequence of every single game the tutorial started. Consoles. Sigh.

Edited November 2, 2012 by mstark

[Rink]

@Rink, I'm hoping any kind of tutorial won't be part of the main game. In IE games (maybe not all of them, but the ones I remember), the tutorial is a separate option in the game menu. A sandbox where you can learn the mechanics. Completely optional, and actually quite fun, if you only have to go through it once, and at your leisure.

 

It is an option as well of course. But story-driven RPGs often tend to include the tutorial in the main game and want to explain the story in it (if they can't afford 12 minutes of video before the game starts :D). Also I think it is nice if in the tutorial you also have the motivation to explore the area and find stuff you can take to the main game, so it doesn't seem like a waste of time to go there, if after you are there, you realise that you already know all the mechanics. I would like the tutorial to be part of the main game and just have an option to show tipps you need to play the game or not do that. I guess that is how most games did it anway.

 

I don't think that consoles are to "blame". I think developers just realised that nobody reads the handbook and it is more fun to include the most important informations directly in the game and save the cost of 200 pages of handbook. And to be honest I am grateful if the game explains crucial things to me instead of laughing in my face if I can't figure them out. I wish DA:O had told me that I need to collect backpacks to get more inventory-space and that they only very rarely will be sold at all.

 

@Sacred_Path thanks. I will now put ash on my head and go watch those tutorials, because although I always thought I played quite a lot of games in my days I haven't played a single one of them and thus cannot really compare my experiences to them..

Edited November 2, 2012 by Rink

[Osvir]

I think it is hard to balance out the urgency of a main plot and the feeling of exploring. For example in morrowind I found myself not knowing what to do other than just exploring and getting bored of that and stopped playing. I think there needs to be *some* urgency of a plot or you will have no reason to go on at all and just get bored. Of course the exploration feeling is very nice too, but I personally get that everytime if the main story brings me somewhere or if I have to go through an area to get to the next main plot area anyway.

 

Had nothing against the dungeon. It is linear, but has lots of different ideas in them, stuff you can find, story-lines you can pick up and you get to travel with your "best friend" until she gets taken, what adds a lot to the motivation to go and search for her, if you don't know her from BG1. I think it is well done and can't give a lot of examples that made a better job. Every starting/tutorial level is linear, because you have to build up knowledge of the game.

 

Damn you guys, now I want to play that game again.

 

I'm having a feeling Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition will be nice in a couple of weeks

 

But I do feel that Baldur's Gate with lots of mods will still hold much much more content than EE will (unless you can directly mod EE with the same tools/ways like you do with vanilla BG).

[Water Rabbit]

The problem with Irenicus' dungeon (and all starting dungeon's for that matter) is replayability. The dungeon is interesting the first time, but after a couple of times just becomes repetitive. Fallout New Vegas had a short an sweet intro. It would have been even better if Obsidian had done something (not exactly) like the alternative start module. One of the strengths of DA:O was the different starting options. Even ToEE had different starting setups. I would prefer to see something more along those lines then the same linear starting dungeon that one has memorized by the third replay.

[Rink]

The problem with Irenicus' dungeon (and all starting dungeon's for that matter) is replayability. The dungeon is interesting the first time, but after a couple of times just becomes repetitive.

 

But isn't that the same to all dungeons that are linear? I mean not only the starting dungeons are linear, there are also a lot of other linear dungeons in many RPGs. Of course if you start a lot of games and never finish them the starting dungeons are played a lot more than others, that I would understand, but why would people only play the first two acts and then start over without finishing the game so often that they get sick of those starting parts?

Edited November 2, 2012 by Rink

[Godwin]

I think for anyone who doesn't really like BG2 that much then this probably isn't the game for you, I'm not sure what you are expecting from PE? Out of all the RPG's I've played BG2 was the best for me and should be a benchmark for PE. I liked PS quite a lot to but that game had a lot things wrong with it which people seem to ignore, I wonder if it's becuase it's going against the grain to dislike BG2?

[Sacred_Path]

I think for anyone who doesn't really like BG2 that much then this probably isn't the game for you, I'm not sure what you are expecting from PE? Out of all the RPG's I've played BG2 was the best for me and should be a benchmark for PE. I liked PS quite a lot to but that game had a lot things wrong with it which people seem to ignore, I wonder if it's becuase it's going against the grain to dislike BG2?

 

You might want to watch the pitch video, the name dropping there involved a bit more than just BG.

[Grand_Commander13]

I think for anyone who doesn't really like BG2 that much then this probably isn't the game for you, I'm not sure what you are expecting from PE? Out of all the RPG's I've played BG2 was the best for me and should be a benchmark for PE. I liked PS quite a lot to but that game had a lot things wrong with it which people seem to ignore, I wonder if it's becuase it's going against the grain to dislike BG2?

You'll note that almost as many people want the game to mirror PS:T as want it to mirror BG2. If Fallout or Arcanum were on that list they'd take a lot of votes too.

[Osvir]

The problem with Irenicus' dungeon (and all starting dungeon's for that matter) is replayability. The dungeon is interesting the first time, but after a couple of times just becomes repetitive.

 

But isn't that the same to all dungeons that are linear? I mean not only the starting dungeons are linear, there are also a lot of other linear dungeons in many RPGs. Of course if you start a lot of games and never finish them the starting dungeons are played a lot more than others, that I would understand, but why would people only play the first two acts and then start over without finishing the game so often that they get sick of those starting parts?

 

Sometimes for Dragon Age 2. Sometimes you leave the game for so long that you forget what you did and you start in the middle of a quest and you have no real idea what you are supposed to do. You've got to re-learn everything you did right before a boss, or remember the entire story you just played.

 

EDIT:

@Jarmo: What stats and class/race did your main character have and how would you define your main character generally in placement of the story~attitude/personality? (non-spoiling)

Edited November 2, 2012 by Osvir

[Marceror]

To the OP:

 

Your comments are all fair. I will say that it is best if you decide who you want your companions to be early, and stick with them. It's usually not a good idea to couple a lawful good paladin like Keldorn with an evil priestess like Viconia. You should try to stick with folks whose alignments are compatible.

 

I do all of my side questing in chapter 2, because yeah, once you return to Athkatla in chapter 6 doing anything other than the main plot just feels wrong.

[Attero]

Wait ... did you just H&S BG2? coz all i can see "fight there and there fight there...". Combat in BG2 was awesome but obiously new productions are more engaging (easy to pickup, cool effects , you dont need to think much...).

 

I absolutly loved every puzzle in the game, lore told by random bits , story and combat that actualy required some thinking beforehand. Obviously you can find some holes here and then but its best crpg to date.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Attero

[Monte Carlo]

I think for anyone who doesn't really like BG2 that much then this probably isn't the game for you, I'm not sure what you are expecting from PE? Out of all the RPG's I've played BG2 was the best for me and should be a benchmark for PE. I liked PS quite a lot to but that game had a lot things wrong with it which people seem to ignore, I wonder if it's becuase it's going against the grain to dislike BG2?

You'll note that almost as many people want the game to mirror PS:T as want it to mirror BG2. If Fallout or Arcanum were on that list they'd take a lot of votes too.

 

I refer you to my earlier answer.

[Osvir]

To the OP:

 

Your comments are all fair. I will say that it is best if you decide who you want your companions to be early, and stick with them. It's usually not a good idea to couple a lawful good paladin like Keldorn with an evil priestess like Viconia. You should try to stick with folks whose alignments are compatible.

 

I do all of my side questing in chapter 2, because yeah, once you return to Athkatla in chapter 6 doing anything other than the main plot just feels wrong.

 

What if we could make Viconia good, or make Keldorn evil?

[Brannart]

What if we could make Viconia good, or make Keldorn evil?

 

Then they would lose their abilities since Good is not allowed for Shar worshippers and Evil is not allowed for Torm worshippers. Then I would boot them from my party for being useless.

[Osvir]

What if we could make Viconia good, or make Keldorn evil?

 

Then they would lose their abilities since Good is not allowed for Shar worshippers and Evil is not allowed for Torm worshippers. Then I would boot them from my party for being useless.

 

Shar worshippers becoming Torm worshippers might get a mixed ability?