Should I bother with Baldur's Gate?

[The Madman]

Alright, I've installed the mod, exported my character, and then imported him into a new save. When will I first notice the changes in dialogue? Just so I can verify that the mod is actually working properly, before I start playing that file in earnest.

Easy, right after you leave Candlekeep Imoen will have some new dialogue where you and her bury Gorion if you go to the place where he died.

Have fun!

 

[Nex Vesica]

If you're looking for a sci-fi equivalent and enjoy Star Wars, I'd recommend at least the first Knights of the Old Republic. The writing is pretty solid, the system is a pretty basic and easy to pick up d20 system, and the gameplay is alright, nothing too special but still enjoyable. The second game in the series is a bit harder of a sell. It was a rushed Christmas release, so there's a lot of stuff that got cut, especially in the later parts of the game, so the story really suffers, and it was pretty buggy. Fortunately, there are some major restoration mods/game fixes which do a lot to clean it up.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Alright, I've installed the mod, exported my character, and then imported him into a new save. When will I first notice the changes in dialogue? Just so I can verify that the mod is actually working properly, before I start playing that file in earnest.

Easy, right after you leave Candlekeep Imoen will have some new dialogue where you and her bury Gorion if you go to the place where he died.

Have fun!

Hmm, I don't seem to have gotten the dialogue. Is there anything I have to do to initiate it?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the problem and fixed it. Thank you so much for the suggestion. I've only just gotten to the Friendly Arm inn, and already the cast feels far more alive than they did un-modded.

 

[briankoontz]

I can't imagine anyone playing the greatest cRPG of all time. Don't even bother. Play Soulbringer instead and ironically "enjoy" how terrible it is.

 

[kingthrall]

Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite games of all time. Looking for another game similar to it, I discovered that it's the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and now I'm curious about it. I was wondering, do you think I'd like Baldur's Gate if I liked Dragon Age? I've also heard that the second game is considerably better than the first. Should I even play the first, or just skip to the second?

EDIT: Also, if anybody knows of any other games similar to Dragon Age, feel free to list them.

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses and recommendations. I've decided to try a few games, as they're all quite cheap right now. I've gotten Neverwinter Nights 2, and both Baldur's Gates (I'm currently installing the Tutu mod).

Baldurs gate 1 is great to learn the reasons why Baldurs gate 2 is so good. Its like the plot for the second feels even more juicy when you have played the first one, regardless of gameplay.

The characters are much deeper explained in comparison to dragon age, the music also is a hundred times better than the namby pamby oo llaa laa stuff.

Baldurs gate 1 + 2 are far cheaper and take hours of game time to play, you will get your monies worth and not spend a Inquisition which is going to be another disappointment inclusive of Origin trojan software on your computer.

I say just play them, the more hours you play the first the more you will get into it and forget about its age and get used to the gameplay. I know I did, especially coming out of a newer game its an adjustment worth doing.

 

[Unspoken_Request]

Coincidentally, I'm also a fighter / mage (multi-class) and my alignment is Neutral Good. As for my party members, is it possible to find members I denied entrance into my party the first time I met them? Just in case I want to change my party later. I ask because I recently met Garruk, but didn't really want him in my party, and I have no idea if he's even still available to me.

I know you got an answer for Garrik, but the more general answer is some remain available (Khalid, Jaheira), while others are lost forever (Xan and Garrick).

Also bear in mind that you can lose party members if you do not act according to their moral tenets or if you wait to long to complete a quest they are associated with.

Please, give us some of your impressions as you go through the game.

Incidentally it's no spoiler to say the 'canonical' group is Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir.

Of course, it's no major spoiler or anything, but, if I were playing the game for the first time, I would not like to learn in the middle of my first playthrough that the way I am playing the game is not the best from a narrative point of view.
I would feel like I am losing a bit of my freedom of playing the game the way I want.

 

[Scars Unseen]

By the way if you're playing the original BG and not the enhanced edition, I very highly recommend the BG1 NPC Project mod. It's good enough I'd even say it's worth restarting for, since what it does is it makes all your companions on BG1 much more interesting with more expansive dialogue (which remains true to the developers intentions) and makes BG1 tie in better with BG2. The mod requires tutu to be installed, but since it seems you've done that already all you'd need to do is download and run the mod and it'll install just fine.

The mod now also works with BGEE(and it worked with BGT as well, so tutu isn't required at all). I will agree that it is a must have mod for the game.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Coincidentally, I'm also a fighter / mage (multi-class) and my alignment is Neutral Good. As for my party members, is it possible to find members I denied entrance into my party the first time I met them? Just in case I want to change my party later. I ask because I recently met Garruk, but didn't really want him in my party, and I have no idea if he's even still available to me.

I know you got an answer for Garrik, but the more general answer is some remain available (Khalid, Jaheira), while others are lost forever (Xan and Garrick).

Also bear in mind that you can lose party members if you do not act according to their moral tenets or if you wait to long to complete a quest they are associated with.

Please, give us some of your impressions as you go through the game.

Incidentally it's no spoiler to say the 'canonical' group is Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir.

Of course, it's no major spoiler or anything, but, if I were playing the game for the first time, I would not like to learn in the middle of my first playthrough that the way I am playing the game is not the best from a narrative point of view.
I would feel like I am losing a bit of my freedom of playing the game the way I want.

I'll post some impressions. I've been a little busy, so today is the first day I'll have to really be able to play the game in earnest.

 

[RandV80]

Th thing I always thought was interesting with Balders Gate is it's not a game where you end up being an epic badass by the end. It's basically a AD&D levels 1-6 campaign, and something like a +2 long sword may be the best weapon in the game.

Is that a good or bad thing? Depends on the person I guess, but considering the rarity it's certainly a novel idea. I've always liked it because it's a very rare experience in RPG's. And Balders Gate 2 takes care of the 'epic' part, as it's a level 6-15+ campaign and has a wide variety of powerful loot to find.

 

[Unspoken_Request]

A heretical opinion amongst proper RPG connoisseurs but I found Dragon Age legions better than Baldur's Gate I or II.

Yes BG's combat is arguably better but outside of that there's little to offer. The setting lacks any kind of cohesion and reeks of your standard D&D smorgasbord fantasy where they simply throw every fantasy trope at you and see what sticks. I suppose if you like DA:O's character interactions you might get a kick out of BG2's cast but I found them not particularly noteworthy.

BG is D&D transfered to video games. The story takes place in the Forgotten realms, which is more or less the standard D&D fantasy world. As such, criticizing BG's world for including D&D tropes is pretty unfair. It is a bit like criticizing a Star Wars video game for having Jedis, Wookies, Droids, hyperspace or any other SW/Scifi trope. By definition, appreciation of Baldur's Gate 1&2 is dependant on whether someone likes D&D's take on fantasy/tolkienite worlds.

On cohesiveness, I tend to agree with you, but with nuances. The Forgotten Realms world is so huge compared to the standard video game world that it can indeed easily appear less cohesive compared to most video game worlds. This being said, how realistic is it to have one-note worlds where almost every important event, character, monster or vilain revolves around one single theme or narrative?

Due to its size, the FRealms always had many stories going on simultaneously, which in turns leads to a very rich - albeit diversified - lore.
On a sidenote: BG1&2 are probably some of the only games that can be compared to the Elder Scrolls in terms of the amount of lore that is crammed into the game.


Finally, I disagree that BG has little to offer outside of the combat. Irrespective of what you think of the world, the story is very good and there are some great characters. BG2's main vilain is great! And Minsc remains awesome to this very day.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite games of all time. Looking for another game similar to it, I discovered that it's the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and now I'm curious about it. I was wondering, do you think I'd like Baldur's Gate if I liked Dragon Age? I've also heard that the second game is considerably better than the first. Should I even play the first, or just skip to the second?

EDIT: Also, if anybody knows of any other games similar to Dragon Age, feel free to list them.

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses and recommendations. I've decided to try a few games, as they're all quite cheap right now. I've gotten Neverwinter Nights 2, and both Baldur's Gates (I'm currently installing the Tutu mod).

I tried both BG1 and the original NWN and never got too far into them, honestly. The difficulty of BG1 can be unforgiving (ugh, dat first miniboss outside the inn and the random ogre in the wilderness...) but I imagine it's good if you have the patience. The original NWN was just a bit too hacky/slashy. Neither game holds your hand much.

If you liked the story aspect of DA:O, I would agree with what others and said and recommend Planescape: Torment. Fuck, I'd recommend that game to anyone. It's a masterpiece.

If you enjoyed the combat aspect more then have a look at Dragon's Dogma. Not an amazing game - like BG1, it can be harsh and unforgiving - but it plays similarly to DA:O at times.

For some reason it tickles my chuckle gland that you call the assassin at the inn a mini boss.

What a strange concept.

 

[The Madman]

The mod now also works with BGEE(and it worked with BGT as well, so tutu isn't required at all). I will agree that it is a must have mod for the game.

Does it? Last time I checked the mod was still in the beta phase with a few part-time enthusiasts working on it when they could and having just barely gotten it partially functional with the Enhanced Edition.

I've been wanting to replay the BG series and want to give the Enhanced Edition a try, but all the same I'm not replaying the original BG without the NPC mod so I've been waiting all this time for it to be made fully compatible. If it means waiting a few months more for a proper release of the mod to be finished, I'm willing to wait.

All I recall is a black/white world, soap opera romances and annoying Bioware style humour.

That's not really a fair comparison to make given that Baldur's Gate was made over fifteen years ago and that there is literally not a single person still working for Bioware today that worked on the Baldur's Gate back then. Even the two founding doctors of Bioware have since left. The Bioware that exists today and has existed for many years now is a completely different one from the Bioware that made Baldur's Gate all those years ago.

I'd also argue that your complaint about cohesion makes it sound more like you were hoping for Baldur's Gate to be something is is not rather than a valid complaint with the actual game and setting, as BG is nothing if not consistent with its source material. Sounds to me like you were hoping for something more darker in tone ala Game of Thrones or The Witcher as opposed to the traditional Heroic Fantasy that defines setting such as Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance and by extension Baldur's Gate.

 

[The Madman]

Off hand I can think of David Gaider and Lukas Kristjanson who are both still senior writers at Bioware so that is incorrect.

Hah, you're right actually. For some reason I thought Gaider had left Bioware a few years ago, seems I was wrong. Never heard of the other one, but googling his name reveals you're right again. My mistake.

Just because the source material lacks any meaningful cohesion that does not render complaints against BG's lack of meaningful cohesion null... Indeed, those are two settings I have enjoyed far more and believe have inspired far greater games then BG.

Here I continue to disagree. The way you initially phrased your comment was trying to make it sound like Baldur's Gate is a tonally inconsistent mess, which it isn't. It simply isn't the tone that you happen to have wanted it to have, in which case that's as valid a complaint as me saying I dislike Game of Thrones because there aren't enough wizard duels or griffins in it or The Witcher for having too many sexy times.

Fair enough from my own perspective but also not really a valid complaint either, since it's a personal preference as opposed to a problem with the product itself. In any case I obviously love Baldur's Gate, corny fantasy soap opera story and all, and you don't. Shame, but then that's life for ya.

OP's already got the game now and I guess all we can do is wait and see what he thinks.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The mod now also works with BGEE(and it worked with BGT as well, so tutu isn't required at all). I will agree that it is a must have mod for the game.

Does it? Last time I checked the mod was still in the beta phase with a few part-time enthusiasts working on it when they could and having just barely gotten it partially functional with the Enhanced Edition.

I've been wanting to replay the BG series and want to give the Enhanced Edition a try, but all the same I'm not replaying the original BG without the NPC mod so I've been waiting all this time for it to be made fully compatible. If it means waiting a few months more for a proper release of the mod to be finished, I'm willing to wait.

It's technically in a pre-release state, though the only two known problems are with BGEE itself(and those will be fixed with the upcoming 1.3 patch). The problems are fairly minor(saving and reloading while a party member is dead may cause their dialogue to reset, and player initiated dialogue with Montaron will cause him to leave the party if your rep is over 12), and as I said, they aren't really problems with the mod itself anyway.

I'm using it in my current playthrough, and I haven't run into any problems yet.

 

[Unspoken_Request]

I'd also argue that your complaint about cohesion makes it sound more like you were hoping for Baldur's Gate to be something is is not rather than a valid complaint with the actual game and setting, as BG is nothing if not consistent with its source material.

And evidently I dislike its source material.

Just because the source material lacks any meaningful cohesion that does not render complaints against BG's lack of meaningful cohesion null.

Sounds to me like you were hoping for something more darker in tone ala Game of Thrones or The Witcher.

Indeed, those are two settings I have enjoyed far more and believe have inspired far greater games then BG.

That is what you should have said from the start.
You do not like the standard D&D high fantasy setting. Not gritty enough for you. It is a perfectly honest opinion, but my initial comment on your post stands: the way you initially phrased your comment was very much like faulting KOTOR for being too "starwarsy".

As Madman said, BG is very close to its source material. Yet, you were faulting the game for having too many D&D/standard fantasy tropes, without recognizing that the issue is your distate of the source material.

All I recall is a black/white world, soap opera romances.

While I agree that it is a video game set in fantasy world and that you should not be expecting Marcel Proust, I think your memory is mostly at fault here. There are some cliches in the story (it is a high fantasy setting after all!), but it is far less cliche than many other video game of the genre (Skyrim for instance).

A few examples to support my point:

Spoiler

First, one of the main story driver of the first Baldur's Gate is an iron shortage that is disrupting trade along the Sword Coast and resulting in diplomatic tensions between the Country of Amn and the city-state of Baldur's Gate. I fail to see how this is cliche fantasy world stuff. This is a also pretty cohesive plot.

Second, contrary to MANY video games, you are not "the one destined to save the world". You are special in a way, but there are many many others in your situation. By the end of BG2 Throne of Bhaal, you have not saved the world. You have only chosen a path for yourself (and contributed in ending a war in the process).

Finally, the story is NOT about good versus evil. Your character can be as evil or as good as he wants (or something in-between). Irenicus (BG2's main vilain) is not a purely evil guy either (he has his motivations and you learn more about them in the game). To be honest, I find that the choice of actions and dialogue are often more sophisticated than Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system

 

[Unspoken_Request]

That is what you should have said from the start.

You do not like the standard D&D high fantasy setting. Not gritty enough for you.

I never said I took issue with the lack of "grittiness".

Unless you believe a cohesive setting correlates to grittiness.

True, but it is easy to infer from your taste in gaming thatyou think grittiness = cohesive. Sorry if I am wrong, but that is what I assumed given that you have not provided any specific examples of what you consider cohesive or non-cohesive. It would be helpful for you to provide a specific example of what you dont like, I am not even sure why in your view BG is less cohesive than Dragon Age.

As Madman said, BG is very close to its source material. Yet, you were faulting the game for having too many D&D/standard fantasy tropes, without recognizing that the issue is your distate of the source material.

Being close to Forgotten Realms source material doesn't excuse it from being a shitty smorgasbord setting that lacks cohesiveness.

BG is capturing perfetly what the Forgotten Realms is. What I think you need to understand is that the "shitty smorgasbord setting" that you do not like IS the standard Forgoten Realms/D&D setting, not BG particularly.

You cannot fault BG for this without faulting the Forgotten Realms and D&D. You might as well be saying: "I wish that this game was not set in the Forgotten Realms."

This is a perfectly fine opinion, but it is no different than saying that you wished KOTOR did not take place in the Star Wars universe.

 

[Rack]

I love Baldurs Gate but struggle a bit to recommend it because you need to get au fait with D&D rules, mod it up with TuTu and the interesting npcs mod and endure some awkward times at level 1. Since you've done all that though you should be up for a great tactical RPG.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Being close to Forgotten Realms source material doesn't excuse it from being a shitty smorgasbord setting that lacks cohesiveness.

Forgotten Realms is plenty cohesive as a setting, but a lot of that was lost in translation to Baldur's Gate.
Well, that's not entirely accurate either...the flavor and nuanced references to the setting are everywhere for folks who know them, but to anyone unfamiliar with the setting, it's going to wiz right by.

And that in fact IS a fault of Bioware in regards to cohesion, though I understand why they didn't include everything.
(in setting, there's a lot more going on within the factions you deal with in BG and BG2; like the Shadow Thieves of Amn and the Harpers for example. The PC's interactions barely scratch the surface.)

For folks like me who got uncomfortably familiar with FR for the sake of running it (I'm not nearly as big a fan of FR as I am some other settings), BG was pretty damn good. I'm especially glad I wasn't buried up to my neck in Salvatore Mary Sue sewage.

 

[Unspoken_Request]

Being close to Forgotten Realms source material doesn't excuse it from being a shitty smorgasbord setting that lacks cohesiveness.

Forgotten Realms is plenty cohesive as a setting, but a lot of that was lost in translation to Baldur's Gate.
Well, that's not entirely accurate either...the flavor and nuanced references to the setting are everywhere for folks who know them, but to anyone unfamiliar with the setting, it's going to wiz right by.

And that in fact IS a fault of Bioware in regards to cohesion, though I understand why they didn't include everything.
(in setting, there's a lot more going on within the factions you deal with in BG and BG2; like the Shadow Thieves of Amn and the Harpers for example. The PC's interactions barely scratch the surface.)

For folks like me who got uncomfortably familiar with FR for the sake of running it (I'm not nearly as big a fan of FR as I am some other settings), BG was pretty damn good. I'm especially glad I wasn't buried up to my neck in Salvatore Mary Sue sewage.

That is interesting. I agree with you on factions and all that,they are not well integrated in the game for those who do not know much about FR. This said, I thought Nil Kafashle was referring to fantasy tropes not being cohesive (i.e. elves, dwarves, creatures not being well integrated in a cohesive manner).


I however do not agree that Forgotten Realms is very cohesive (talking about D&D 2nd edition Forgotten Realms here, as this is what BG is based on). There are just too many factions, gods, races, creatures that it sometimes does not feel like a lived-in world, and more like an adventurer theme park (I am caricaturing here, I liked FR when I was playingD&D and it still has some great underlying narratives). It is often very unclear how ordinary people live within this world, as there seems to be evil creatures/orcs/evil wizards everywhere. Political system inside countries and diplomatic relationships are not always coherent. The most coherent stuff is probably the relationships and conflicts between the gods.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I however do not agree that Forgotten Realms is very cohesive (talking about D&D 2nd edition Forgotten Realms here, as this is what BG is based on). There are just too many factions, gods, races, creatures that it sometimes does not feel like a lived-in world, and more like an adventurer theme park (I am caricaturing here, I liked FR when I was playingD&D and it still has some great underlying narratives). It is often very unclear how ordinary people live within this world, as there seems to be evil creatures/orcs/evil wizards everywhere. Political system inside countries and diplomatic relationships are not always coherent. The most coherent stuff is probably the relationships and conflicts between the gods.

Well, it depends on how much fluff you've read and how you use it. I had a ton of fluff books dumped into my possession at one point explicitly to get me to DM so I had to take in a lot of material at one time to make something cohesive.

As it turned out, I'm quite good at ad-libbing, so maybe I'm exaggerating the cohesion a bit since I tend to fill in the gaps. It's become a thing where a number of my throwaway NPCs become recurring characters (and villains).
And all of that is obviously outside of the canon of the setting.

On the other hand, I do try to retain the theme of the setting at a given period, and this is something Forgotten Realms is especially erratic about. Take for example the seemingly endless war trope.

"Warring orcs (and especially Drow in FR) vs civilization" is fine once in a while, but it doesn't make sense for that to keep occurring repeatedly in the same time period. A few other settings are guilty of "endless war" trope, which completely undermines the fact that without periods of peace and construction, the potential for war diminishes greatly as population and infrastructure is lost.

Forgotten Realms games are COMPLETELY addicted to using that sort of conflict as the basis for their stories, and the "regular, daily life" aspect of the setting tends to get, well, forgotten. (it's nothing short of miraculous that Rashemon and Thay still exist)