Hey all! Another weekly thread is here.
This time I am also hoping for some feedback!
If anyone has any ideas for more weekly thread topics you would like to see, go ahead an leave a comment below!
They are absolutely lovely, though undeniably very old school. BG1 is more action-adventurey with a bigger emphasis on exploration, BG2 is very story-heavy. They have aged remarkably well, considering they’re over 20 years old. The handpainted backgrounds still look pretty.
With potential increased interest due to BG3, I wonder if it would be an idea to create a community for the classic Baldur’s Gates 🤔
I’d like that, or a classic CRPG community with a certain timeframe. Two of my favourite games now are the original Fallouts after playing them for the first time only a few years ago. I’d love to see more of the games from that era.
I have actually pondered a “classic gaming” or “old school games” type community for these types of (primarily) PC games from the era up to maybe 2010.
Retro Gaming communities typically focus more on old console and/or arcade type stuff.
I just started Baldur’s Gate recently and beat it minutes ago. It’s not the first D&D game I’ve played before, but I’m far from well-versed in it. I had to Google “THAC0” a couple of times to understand what the game was trying to tell me, as well as understanding certain status effects. There’s a presupposition of knowledge that the game has with its players, but it’s still fairly okay at initiating people to D&D.
THAC0 is… yeah. I guess the systems take some getting used to. And it gets a little more complicated at higher levels with different layers of protective spells and counter-spells.
Are you planning on playing the second as well?
I already started it and bought BG3 as well. I had played Planescape: Torment about 10 years ago, so some of this was familiar, but it and Baldur’s Gate have some different philosophies around things like combat and party size. One thing I’m fairly confident will be a thing of the past when I get to BG3 is trash mobs. BG1 at times feels like it’s being run by an asshole DM who’s out to kill the party with tons of trash mobs between rests rather than providing a good time.
Imagine you’re at the table with your friends, and the DM says, “Then, from the darkness of the dungeon emerges…6 Kobolds!” You beat them, the party is pumped about it, and then the DM says, “As you press further on across the bridge, you come across…7 more Kobolds!” I’m not exactly sure what the thinking was, but between the aforementioned trash mobs and the magic casters who attack you with debilitating adverse affects that do tons of damage and take you out of the fight for like 20 straight turns, BG1 can be cheap as hell, even on easy difficulty. I get the sense that BG3 will still be difficult, but from my brief time with Divinity: Original Sin and what I’ve seen of BG3 footage, I’m expecting them to have more consideration for each combat encounter.
And oh yeah, BG1 also had a few areas with really narrow passageways that the AI pathfinding was not really able to adequately handle, as friendly characters would bump into each other and not be able to figure out how to move.
I’m playing through Baldur’s gate 1 atm as well. I tried it and didn’t enjoy it back in the early 2000s but now I’m digging it. I still don’t like real time with pauses combat, but I can forgive it with the party size. I do wish there were other ways around things than combat most of the time though, but early DnD was primarily a dungeon crawler so that’s fine.
