Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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There's no doubt BG2 was an all-time great. I bought it a few years back for replay (hadn't played it since original release). Everything about the story, the setting, the characters, the adventure itself all stood up to the test of time. I had a really, really hard time going back to second edition D&D rules though. I think a large part of that is probably because I regularly play current editions of the game, so if you don't that may not be an issue for you. Anyway, let us know what you think. It would be interesting hearing from a true BG virgin. Not too many left these days.
Harshaw
Throbbing Member
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FYI there were Dragonlance and Dark Sun CRPGs waaaaayyy back in the day. They are on GoG.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun Series
Unleash your imagination into a vast, savage world, sun-scorched and wind-scraped. Thiswww.gog.com
Dungeons & Dragons: Krynn Series
Return to the first fantasy role-playing epic set in the legendary Dragonlance game world
Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft Series
Step into a world of gothic and Egyptian horror and adventure, set in the campaign settin
Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse
As an outcast, betrothed to the caliph's daughter and the son of a sultan whose once migh
They have all the Gold Box series available as well. Remasters of all these would be cool:
Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One
The Forgotten Realms world of Dungeons & Dragons has been home to many a hero and imagin
Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two
The Forgotten Realm Archives - Collection Two brings a healthy mix of “Gold Box” and
Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Three
The Forgotten Realms Archives - Collection Three marks the conclusion of the Archives com
I bought a couple of these out of nostalgia and when I started playing them I just couldn't get back into them. The graphics brah.. the graphics.
Poin Dexter
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Wizards of the Coast has been headed down the SJW path for a while. The hopes of a BG game that doesn't look like the picture below are slim at best.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Yes, if you like RPGs.
Because it uses 2D graphics the game is still visually appealing and has aged well. Especially with the Enhanced Edition allowing you to zoom around.
What hasn't aged well are the loot / spell mechanics that can get a little tiresome. Cheating in a few bags of holding alleviate looting, and not playing on a high difficulty level and not installing mods that make mages OP (like sword cost strategems) alleviates enemy spell casters. Using Sorcerers instead of mages in your own party gives the spell casting a more modern feel. The recent Enhanced Edition adds a loot list that helps looting and there's also mods I haven't tried that add auto-loot.
Personally I would start with BG1, I enjoy it more than BG2.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I think the one thing I get tired of in CRPG design is the pause/unpause style gameplay. I don't mind it and I'm very used to playing it and everything but compared to Original Sin II's turn based it just makes all the fights extremely chaotic. You need to pay attention to their ability timers (in Pathfinder Kingmaker) but BGII didn't even have those. So most players either brute force it and not pause at all, or you pause so you can cast spells mostly. While also fighting the AI being retards constantly.
So I hope Larian does go with their turn based style for this game. I really do.
So I hope Larian does go with their turn based style for this game. I really do.
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The entire system is full of imbalances and archaic elements. D&D hadn't quite gotten itself out of its origins of being based around a tablegames simulation system, where as much focus was put on what made real world sense as it did in the actual mechanics themselves. Games being heavy on mechanics makes it a messy system. The most egregious example is how spelllcasts are weak as fuck for most of the game until they become massively overpowered. This isn't as bad in BG, but it's still there.
Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I can't give you specifics because it's been years since I played 2e, but the mechanics are really awkward and dated compared to modern RPG mechanics. D&D 3.5 and 5e build on the foundation laid out by 3.0. You can move pretty seemlessly between any of them without missing a beat. But 2e was kind of like 4e in that it was a total paradigm shift.
On top of that, 2e doesn't translate well to video game formats (compared to 3.0 and after). The idea of using 2e mechanics in a video game format probably wasn't even on the radar of TSR when they designed the system, and it shows.
Anyway, I'm sure some of the people who have played BG more recently can give you specific issues. Sounds like Tuco was touching on some of them.
Probably the largest issue is that D&D 2e wasn't designed for constant fighting. Originally, the game had been designed around just dungeon diving into what amounted to elaborate treasure vaults. 2e saw things moving to being more about roleplaying than it was the combat, and it was designed more about giving the classes/races "realistic" elements that made sense for bringing them to life. One part of that is just how physically weak mages were, and how limited they were in accessing their spells. So, a game like BG1/2 where it's really mostly about fighting results in an awkward situation where your casters can't quite keep up with the melee. However, their spells are really fucking powerful and encounters are sort of designed around that. But those casters can still easily die to one good hit.
It's just a frustrating system to deal with in a video game which is amplified a lot by a really aged UI that doesn't give you access/easy access to the information you need to know what the fuck is really going on. You benefit more from finding out how to exploit the systems than you do working within them.
It's just a frustrating system to deal with in a video game which is amplified a lot by a really aged UI that doesn't give you access/easy access to the information you need to know what the fuck is really going on. You benefit more from finding out how to exploit the systems than you do working within them.
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Randin
Trakanon Raider
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The early game as a mage in BG1 really was a pain in the ass. "Here's your *one* magic missile for the day. Make it count, fucker."
And as much as I enjoyed playing a mage, the whole 'dump 50 buffs on your party pre-fight, then spend the fight stripping 50 buffs off the enemy' paradigm (which was especially prevalent in BG2) wasn't one I liked.
And as much as I enjoyed playing a mage, the whole 'dump 50 buffs on your party pre-fight, then spend the fight stripping 50 buffs off the enemy' paradigm (which was especially prevalent in BG2) wasn't one I liked.
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Poin Dexter
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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BG3 will be 5e. WotC wants to showcase their current iteration of D&D in a computer game format. Sadly, I believe it won't be much better than 2nd edition for CRPG, the rules are too simplified.
If BG3 doesn't have the depth of character customization or replayability, it will fail.
There is room for a dozen awesome CRPGs in the forgotten realms setting alone, but WotC just doesn't want to invest into it.
I want more BG games, we don't need the godling to do it, I am just not sure I trust WotC not to woke it up... Speaking of which, has anyone modded Siege of Dragonspear into a decent game?
If BG3 doesn't have the depth of character customization or replayability, it will fail.
There is room for a dozen awesome CRPGs in the forgotten realms setting alone, but WotC just doesn't want to invest into it.
I want more BG games, we don't need the godling to do it, I am just not sure I trust WotC not to woke it up... Speaking of which, has anyone modded Siege of Dragonspear into a decent game?
reavor
I'm With HER ♀
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overall, the storyline and setting in BG1 is superior to BG2, but the expanded gameplay mechanics and scope of BG2 makes it more replayable. BG2 just had a elven mage and elven problems come out of left field and take the focus with some god-related issues on the side, while BG1 and BG2: TOB focused on the actual bhaalspawn story. BG1 has the feeling of playing a pnp game and going out into the wilderness meeting random weird shit.
I have to say the introduction of pause-and-play mechanics in BG was I believe a stroke of genius, allowing for action while at the same time allowing for the player to control the pace. I think it's simply combining the best of real time and turn-based. If you know how to handle it, it's easy to control the chaos going on in fights, while at the same time allowing for low-level fights to not take too much time.
I have to say the introduction of pause-and-play mechanics in BG was I believe a stroke of genius, allowing for action while at the same time allowing for the player to control the pace. I think it's simply combining the best of real time and turn-based. If you know how to handle it, it's easy to control the chaos going on in fights, while at the same time allowing for low-level fights to not take too much time.
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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This is true, actually. 5e will definitely be better than 2e for a BG game, but it will still be seriously lacking in video game format. Tbh, no D&D iteration yet has translated really well to video game format (except maybe 4th edition, which is ironic, considering how bad it was as a pnp RPG).
One of the things that made the Divinity games so fun is that the RPG system they used was built from the ground up in video game format. As great a studio as Larian is, I'm not sure that the people who loved Divinity will love their version of a D&D game- just due to the limitations of the D&D 5e system itself.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yes. Like the age old trick of killing the BGII red Dragon when you first encounter him by using a few wands of cloudkill from outside his aggro range. That and running away from boss fights to go rest at the inn so all their buffs wear off and then going back in and killing them instantly. Like the Planar Sphere guy... lol.
Nah, they're very different systems. Diku (which EQ was based on) borrowed heavily from it, but the mechanics and core systems are quite different. So far, the best implementation I've experienced is Pathfinder Kingmaker which is based off of Pathfinder (and thus D&D 3.5) Other implementations were good for things other than the actual D&D elements
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