what do you think of baldurs gate?

[Traianvs]

the BG series are great games, and you should get the expansions as well, especially Throne of Bhaal for BGII as more good storyline is unfolded there, and the battles get really really really really tough, and the innovations and new additions are truly mighty, and simply great fun!

Anyway lotm, you're going for BG1... you should get Tales of the sword coast as well in any case, as it fixes some bugs, and adds some elements that make the game less frustrating (like wizards have 2 weapon slots.. so you can give xan his moonblade and a sling, without having to switch to the inventory in order to change weapons, which is a nasty thing as in BG1 the game isn't paused when you're browsing your inventory)... stuff like that. The actual expansion is not so big, but worthwhile anyway, especially durlag's tower is a great challenge.


BG1 is not too easy, but the game is really easy in the beginning... with a lot of tips and so on... If you want, you can do ****ty quests that yield 5 gold pieces or so to get the hang of the game
I found the start a bit too easy though..
The real action starts later! Btw I noticed someone complaining he didn't know what to do... After you clear out the Nashkell mines, you better go adventuring in the direct neighbourhood of Nashkell, there are some good locations to pillage.

Basically what you need to do is stop the bandit activity, you can do this in several ways, but first you need to find out where the bandit camp is... (you might have noticed you get attacked by bandits sometimes when travelling between locations).. I can tell you how to find out if you want, but that would be too easy

Always be sure to read scrolls and letters etc.. Talk to everyone that's not a commoner... maybe you don't like that, but hey that's BG1, otherwise you better play Icewind Dale!


PS: be sure to do the Prism quest (Nashkell), you will gain something that will be very very powerful and very good that will remain so till the end of the game.. good thing you can get it pretty early in the game, but it's not easy to get it... though opponent, even tough you are a majority

[St Leo]

PS: be sure to do the Prism quest (Nashkell), you will gain something that will be very very powerful and very good that will remain so till the end of the game.. good thing you can get it pretty early in the game, but it's not easy to get it... though opponent, even tough you are a majority

Prism quest? Is that the Captain of the Guard thing or something else?

[lord of the mark]

to confirm

local EB games has BG1, including xpack, for $20 US. Has fallout2 for $10. I'm inclined to BG, id rather a Tolkienesque world than post nuclear.

So thats probably my next game purchase.

[Traianvs]

No, Prism is the local sculptor that has gone missing (in fact he's been working on a piece of art..) with a few precious "stones". You are asked to return these to Nashkell..

If you find him, you can choose to threaten him or not... I suggest you don't, and protect him as well you'll get the best item in the game in my opinion
On top of that the quest is very good moneywise... don't return the stones to Nashkell, sell them in Beregost in the huge tavern there (forgot the name), you'll get 1500 GP each there, instead of the 500 in Nashkell, if i remember correctly of course


The captain of the guard quest is a tough one as well... and again you get the choice to save him and turn him over the the Naskell temple instead of killing him..

That's what I like about the game... you have various choices in these quests, and they don't have the same rewards... depends on how you are aligned too btw...
If yoy play Evil aligned, you better not get a 20 reputation or your evil party members will leave/attack you

In fact that's a negative thing about BG1... Earning reputation is too easy. You can only lose rep by stealing, and getting caught, or killing flaming fist soldiers etc, but you lose an insane amount of rep if that happens...also, the flaming fist keep coming and coming, they never stop coming! On top of that you're never safe anymore, if you keep killing them you'll lose more rep.. A vicious circle. In the end you end up reloading your game.

[HolyWarrior]

Well, since you asked...

I think Baldur's Gate was a highly overrated hackfest dragged down by absolutely tedious combat. They should've stuck to making games like Planescape: Torment.

[Dis]

heretic!!

Planescape is pretty cool, but it just doesn't have the draw BG2 has for me. BG is the perfect mix of story and combat

[J Bytheway]

I like BG2 enough to have completed it 4 times, under increasingly excessive restrictions - in the end I just had to delete it because I was wasting so much time playing!

For anyone playing BG or BG2 I strongly recommend that you visit http://www.baldurdash.org/ where you can get many more bugfixes on top of those which the patches provide.

[St Leo]

If you find him, you can choose to threaten him or not... I suggest you don't, and protect him as well you'll get the best item in the game in my opinion

Are you talking about the +2 Long Sword?

BTW, is it okay for my armour to be negative? It's currently at -6 on my main character.

I've just entered Baldur's Gate for the first time.

[Dis]

yep, the lower the armour class the better.

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


so how about icewind dale (which should run) vs Baldurs gate?

In my opinion, Icewind dale is more challenging and better overall. In baldurs you're stuck with meeting your party along the way, IIRC, but in icewind you create your whole party from the get-go. A lot more hack-and-slash too, which I like better.

I have a lot of respect for this genre of games because they adhere to the ADandD rules so well- the spellbooks look like their lifted right from the Player's Handbook .

[Imran Siddiqui]

Baldur's Gate is good stuff! I loved the second game! There is some speculation floating around that a BG3 is being worked on. How true that is, though, no one really knows... except Black Isle .

[NeOmega]

Ive played BG I twice, II and both expansions once. I would play again excpet when restarting you realize how far you went to finish.

I love the non-linear quality of the games.

BTW... get some more RAM if you want to play, because the first time I played I played on a Pentium 233 w/ 322 MB of RAM, and it was pretty buggy. The second time i had an Athlon 650 with 64 megs, and it ran much nicer.

But AFAIK, your extra 16 MB of RAM (past 32) will not do you any good.

The reason I played BG twice is becasue after I beat it, I thought it was weak, but 6 months later I was having lots of flashbacks to the game.... you know what I mean, and it made me want to play again.

[Jamski]

Man, I have to get this game soon. Anyone want to sell/send me a LEGAL copy?

-Jam

[thinkingamer]

In my experience, anyone who likes Civ2, SMAC, and HoMM series, but hates to play adventure games like Myst (you know, the games that eventualy will get stuck sometime during the middle game), will hate BG. Im one of those people. For those people i strongly suggest to play IWD. In other hand, if you also like adventure games, BG can a great game.

[Dis]

well I think BG2 is the perfect balance between combat and story.

Icewind Dale games are OK. They have great combat, and a decent story.

The biggest things I miss is the NPC's. Sure it's nice designing your own party, but the interaction between the NPC's does make the game seem more "full"