Are old computer RPGs worth playing? I remember trying to play Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate years ago, but didn't understand D&D playrules so I quit.
Recently I've started playing D&D and got the basics of the rules, so I was wondering if it would be worth giving these games another try, as I always see Sup Forums praising them so much.
If so, which is the best game to start with? And how should I learn to play the game correctly?
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absolutely not
ignore this.
remember when old RPGs used to mean games like early Ultima and Wizardry, not Icewind Dale and other really accessible modern games?
>how does time work
how the hell are IWD and similar really accessible/
Baldur's Gate 2 is definitely worth playing. Still has one of the most immersive and dark worlds full of fleshed-out characters around and some incredibly high-stakes combat to boot.
The first Baldur's Gate is great too, but feel free to skip it if low level d&d is too boring for your tastes (you go from roughly L1-10 in the first game, L7-15 in the second, ultra high level stuff is all in the ToB expansion).
If you play it then ideally you'll want to play the original games with mods, but the 'Enhanced Edition' isn't the worst imaginable substitute for it. The main downside of EE is that you can't use the wide variety of custom mods available because they were all designed for the original games. My favourite is BGT + tweakpacks + banterpacks + unfinishedbusiness + a few custom NPCs.
Don't play SoD. Just don't.
What of these games is the easiest and best for a beginner?
They fully support mouse, for starters.
They are all easy if you play on normal difficulty.
My first d&d game was NWN, where you control just one character, so it's probably the best for beginner.
BG is really easy. you can defeat the end boss without ever seeing him.
Baldur's Gate 2.
BG1 has a difficulty curve that's all over the place At first it's insanely easy to die from bad dice rolls alone, and the final boss is insanely hard compared to the rest of the game - and all magic using classes take far too long to come online, and IWD requires you to make your entire party immediately which can be daunting for a beginner. BG2 eases you into the game with what's essentially a tutorial level (but unlike BG1 one that actually resembles the rest of the game) and gives you a handful of top-tier NPCs to work with almost immediately.
What's wrong with sod, haven't played it.
Don't ask.
Is there anything positive about the Enhanced Edition? What does it change?
how?
The pre SoD patch is alright.
The new writing is terrible, but the bugfixes and modern resolution updates are nice. Don't have to fuck around with mods for those now.
But Beamdog seriously fucked up with SoD.
Turns out that the people who are willing to spend 20 bucks on an expansion to a 15 year old CRPG don't enjoy it when you have the fan favorite characters spout GG references and make one of the previous romances into a raging bitch.
Not even kidding, they might go out of fucking business.
Torment.
Planescape is safe from Beamdog, right?
>What's wrong with sod
It's broken, has problems with corrupting save files, multiplayer doesn't work, the writing is straight out of tumblr, and it never needed to exist in the first place.
When I say the writing is bad it's not just that it fails to hold up to the great standards of the original: it's on par with the worst of the fanmade NPC mods. It's like the author of the Chloe NPC mod was hired as the lead writer.
The main upside is that it doesn't require hours of fiddling around with mods to install properly and has a nice graphics overhaul. The new characters in BG1/2 ee aren't offensively bad or anything but they're no better than the best cutom NPCs that were already available for the original games.
For now.
>BG1/2 ee aren't offensively bad or anything
Neera is pretty bad m7.
But are there actual differences between EE and vanilla BG aside from mod support?
A few menu changes and some setting stuff.
A few new characters with associated quests.
>Are old computer RPGs worth playing?
No, it's the most retarded approach to rpgs.
Basically a computer is already a place where you can live your adventures in a videogame without having to roll dice, yet these pieces of shit done whitout any imagination or intellect insist on simulating dice rolls for anything instead of allocating their efforts in simulating the narration of the adventure like a rpg should do.
Avoid
Oh, I forgot the new patch.
The game also now looks like complete garbage and the character models are fucked.
>But are there actual differences between EE and vanilla BG aside from mod support?
EE is the equivalent of vanilla with a specific visual overhaul, bugfix patch, and a handful of specific NPC mods attached.
Basically it looks different, and a handful of characters exist in EE that aren't in the original games.
Just play the games man, it's not too hard to understand
Low AC and THAC0 = good
Don't play a pure mage your first time through, they're fucking useless at early levels if you don't know what you're doing
Spell system is sort of like a more complicated FF1. Bascically each spellcasting class gets "spell slots" for their spells (Think of it like a gun with magical bullets). After each rest, your mage reloads his gun with bullets, ready to fire them off until his next long rest.
And finally, this is AD&D 2e motherfucker, not your pussy ass 4e/5e. Combat at early levels is dangerous, save often and be goddamned careful. A couple of bad rolls and your down
Have fun!
How is combat at early levels no dangerous in 4e/5e? Characters still have very low HP there
>not your pussy ass 4e/5e
>being a gen warrior about D&D.
Dungeons and Dragons is objectively the most scrub system of all time.
>simulating dice rolls for anything instead of allocating their efforts in simulating the narration of the adventure
>because you have to pick one or the other
>because simulating a d&d engine is at all hard to do
One of the best things about CRPGs is that because the whole D&D system has already been established and balanced, the focus could be put on good characterisation and storywriting instead of designing a new balanced system from the ground up.
Oh, also play the enhanced editions. I knoe that beamdog is a huge piece of shit, but (atleast for the first BG) The original UI is a clunky piece of shit.
>Low AC and THAC0 = good
Also, low saving throws = good. That threw me for a while.
How about you deal with it, like us non-tard dealth with it.
We don't need to roll dice that contradict what's on the screen happening, you know?
>The original UI is a clunky piece of shit.
Worth it for Imoen romance mod
Did you know that CDPR localized Planescape?
>roll dice that contradict what's on the screen happening
What do you mean by that?
I shouldn't say that combat is NOT deadly in 4e/5e, it's just not AS deadly. I was using a bit of hyperbole admittedly. Anyways, theres a couple of things. If you're talking 4e, even 1st level characters have a decent array of powers. Second winds, unlimited at will powers, the whole shebang. Not to mention its a lot harder to die. 5e is better at it admittedly, but some classes ceartinly have a lot more of an advantage than 2e. Wizard cantrips are f'in ridiculous, and each class has many more oppurtunities to heal themselves with the new spell system being a lot more lax with prepared spells. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not, I personally love 5e. But it's a matter of opinion
Localize?
You mean the GOG version?
I did deal with it, that's why I'm telling other not to touch it with a 10 yard pole. Why make it harder for yourself?
To not support Beamdog. If you wanna pirate then i got no complaint.
So, is it better to play the original Baldur's Gate or the Enhanced Edition?
No. "Old computer RPGs" either mean the first generation wizardry dungeon crawlers which inspired the much more enjoyable mainline SMT games or the significantly more modern D&D games like baldur's gate which are absolutely not fun.
Original souped up with mods > EE > Original with no mods
When I say souped up with mods I mean along the lines of tamrielfoundry.com
Fuck this modern shit, boot up DOSbox and play some golden box games
>What do you mean by that?
>Fuckhuge fireball explodes in the face of silly useless enemy that's also weak to fire and is drenched in oil
>Does 1 damage because that's how dice roll
No really, there are better ways to illustrate things that depending on dice when you have a computer there.
I mean when it came out.
They did the official polish version.
EE uses the BG2 engine instead of the original. This leads to some serious changes especially in the case of BG1's balance, since they haven't touched the content of the game otherwise.
You can use the kits that were only meant for the epic-level sequel, so they are ridiculously broken in 1.
Thieves work like in BG2, have access to traps (broken as fuck), their skills are a bit more complex.
Mages use the BG2 spell library instead of 1's. This mainly means more spells, especially defensive spells, but BG1 enemies have zero counter to those since again, this was not how the game was designed. Some spells disappear, like teleport gate, some work differently, like summon, some work differently outside combat, like charm losing its non-combat use. Mages can now have familiars from day one, which have surprisingly good defenses, since again, they were meant for BG2 where you start at a higher level.
Other originally intended challenges are also missing, like opening the inventory, which now pauses the game. BG1 loading screens flat out tell you that it's part of the challenge to not be able to move around valuable resources like ammo or healing items mid-combat, but BG2 scrapped this, and thus so did the EE.
This just from the top of my head.
Follow that guide for the most part but leave out:
bgt graphics overhaul
bgspawn system
sword coast stratagems
female edwina from the bg2 tweaks (pure autism)
one pixel productions
Don't go crazy with mods until your second playthrough. use the big world project for that
>Fuckhuge fireball explodes in the face of silly useless enemy that's also weak to fire and is drenched in oil
>Does 1 damage because that's how dice roll
Drenched in oil? Since when was that a thing in the game? Sounds like you're just being salty about an unlucky fireball that happened one time.
Also it is pretty realistic that fireballs can potentially do very little damage because that's what happens in real life when you have brief fiery explosions with no projectiles: due to the way they dissipate in air (or someone managing to duck close to the ground) it's possible that it'll not heat up someone's face/throat/organs too badly.
Also you should use Skull Trap instead of fireball anyway.
>Drenched in oil? Since when was that a thing in the game?
I'm not talking about any particular game, I'm talking about the limitations of this kind of approach in a theoretical way.
Also fuck mages, rogue forever
>but leave out [list]
That's almost every mod I happened to leave out from my own install anyway!
>Don't go crazy with mods until your second playthrough.
Agreed on that much. There's plenty of fun to be had doing a good and an evil playthrough, and potentially even a solo one. Only then I'd start potentially running parties with things like custom npcs and extra items.
>TPB down
>Kickasstorrents down
>no way to dl BG now
tfw
Alright fuckers.
Did any of you notice that Disk 2 and 3 of BG2 were weirdly fragile?
I must have had Disk 2 break like 3 times over the years.
Because you use them the most, obviously
>I'm not talking about any particular game, I'm talking about the limitations of this kind of approach in a theoretical way.
I can't speak for every CRPG, but as far as BG goes I've never experienced any sort of immersion-breaking experience in that regard. There might be theoretical boundaries, but if they're never experienced, it's no problem
>Also fuck mages, rogue forever
mfw
>He doesn't like being a scoundrel that somehow saves the day by way of being a dick
It's worse than that. Even some of the mods such as the BG1 NPC Project and BG2 tweaks pack are now gone.
Reminder to always do Rasaads questline in BGII so you can be a cheeky little shit to every single NPC.
>Skull Traps on a bard
>rogue
How much I fucking hate this word. Why did they even stop calling them thieves or thief classes?
Which campaign should I start with on Baldur's Gate? I started with Throne of Baal because I heard that was the best one but I feel like I'm missing shit that happened in a previous campaign. Is there an order to play them in?
>but didn't understand D&D
Don't worry, nobody understands thac0.
>I started with Throne of Baal
>Why did they even stop calling them thieves or thief classes?
To place in there a very varied type of subclasses
The magic system of BGII is very poorly explained. You'll basically need a guide to understand how the fuck to breach the defenses of enemy mages and liches. They can be OP as fuck.
the gold box rpgs are awesome
You mean to allow everyone to be Drizzt Do'Urden.
Early BG is such bullshit. I spent an hour getting my fucking ass handed to me by Nimbul in Nashkel, they shouldn't put you up against someone that has unlimited magic missile volleys when you're level 1. Then finally, randomly my party killed him before he even used his duplicate power. Luck plays way too much a part of it in early game.
I've literally never played the game before. Cut me some slack.
No they aren't, gibberlings are back up.
Fireballs and other AoE spells into the fog where he's located.
Is it good? I've never tried it. Is it hot? Will I get a boner? Please respond.
Starting with Throne of Baal is like watching Return of the King first. You're not gonna make heads or tails of the story. Play them in order or at least start with 2 since 1 is pretty skippable.
Even if you put romatic content aside, it's probably the most in-character dialogue pack out there.
There is dwarf rape though.
>I started with the expansion to the second game but I feel like I'm missing shit
Shocking.
Start with BGI then BGII:SoA then move on to ToB like it was intended.
BGI can be a little slow and frustrating as some other anons have already mentioned but you should still give it a go.
>Level 1 in Nashkel
GEE BILL I WONDER WHAT YOU DID WRONG
>since 1 is pretty skippable
Except you know, that ToB is more of a sequel to 1 than to 2, which feels almost like a very long filler arc. But ToB sucks balls so whatever.
>said 'rogue' not 'thief'
I actually haven't tried playing one in a long time. Maybe I'll try an evil thief party when I've finished my current Archer run. I haven't used Edwin or Viconia in too long. How are the different thief kits, by the way? I've only really tried Bounty Hunter and standard.
>Not understanding thac0
Nigga, subtract the number to AC. Negative + negative = positive
Assassin is alright, but it relies on the backstabby gameplay that gets micro heavy.
Swashbuckler is "man I really wish I picked F/T instead"
Shadowdancer is hilariously overpowered at what it does, but has to sacrifice all thief skills for hide/move silently to do it well.
I was a mage, needed 2500xp to get to level 2, cleared Nashkel and everything on the path, had 1300xp.
>GOD TIER
Fallout 2
Planescape: Torment
Baldur's Gate 2
>GREAT TIER
Fallout
Arcanum
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
>I LOVE TO CRAWL TIER
Icewind Dale
The Temple of Elemental Evil
>AT LEAST I'M NOT DRAGON AGE 2 TIER
Neverwinter Nights 2
Dragon Age: Origins
Icewind Dale 2
Oh thank fuck. I was honestly worried that they were gone forever.
>Is it hot? Will I get a boner?
Yes and depends on your imagination and how 'in character' you're feeling.
There are some ridiculously cheesy moments, but it's genuinely loads of fun and many people use it in spite of what it is simply because of all the good banter it adds in.
Unironically my favourite mod.
>There is dwarf rape though
To be honest, there was already plenty of rape, it's just that in the original game it was left 'implied'. Remember the concubines, and how there weren't any in spellhold? Remember the cutscene with the mages in spellhold chatting about Imoen?
>On the path
>but it relies on the backstabby gameplay that gets micro heavy.
Not a fan of that. I only really start using backstab a lot when it's with Imoen because/once she has mislead. Then it becomes easy and fun. Until then, I always seem to fail at hiding in shadows.
>Swashbuckler is "man I really wish I picked F/T instead"
I was thinking about F/T as an option too. You're supposed to dual class them from F to T at L13 right?
>Shadowdancer is hilariously overpowered at what it does, but has to sacrifice all thief skills for hide/move silently to do it well.
>has to sacrifice all thief skills for hide/move silently
Well fuck that then.
Baldur's Gate 1 - boring shit
Baldur's Gate 2 - GOTY, full of content, one of the best RPG's ever and THE infinity engine game
I personally replay Betrayal at Krondor every year, gfx are dated but in some respects its a pretty modern RPG and it certainly influenced the genre a great deal.
It's super unsubtle in the beginning as well.
Like when Imoen is talking to the Dryads.
Irenicus raped and tortured the shit out of her. The PC gets off pretty easy compared to her.
Jesus christ
Throne of Baal is supposed to be the icing on the cake where once you finished the main game you go on to being a literal demigod and doing crazy fucking shit
but you really need to know what happened before and there's an ASSTON of stuff to do in BG2 SOA
Its also a bit of a gamey RPG where you get some challenges that aren't really necessary to finish the game but you end up really wanting to do them like liches and some dragons
Its the best port of D&D mechanics ever and just minmaxing that shit out is great fun.
>I was a mage, needed 2500xp to get to level 2, cleared Nashkel and everything on the path, had 1300xp.
mfw
Did you even go to the Friendly Arm Inn like you were told to?
You should consider exploring the areas you're in instead of just racing from one major checkpoint to the next.
>You're supposed to dual class them from F to T at L13 right?
Yeah, but obviously from kensai or berserker. Plain fighter doesn't make much sense for duals.
Or multiclass instead for those sweet shorty bonuses or half-orc 19str. I always kind of preferred multiclassing because dual downtime sucks.
>Baldur's Gate 2
>challenges
All sense of challenge went away when I realized I can defeat all liches by using a single scroll of protection from undead or defeat any dragon by using harm or stacking so much resistance that they heal me. The only way you are going to be challenged is if you purposely limit yourself to shitty characters like wizard slayer, monk or the druid.
>just minmaxing that shit out is great fun.
Definitely!
There's something extremely satisfying about finally reaching that level which gives you access to that spell which finally turns your character from a reasonably strong fighter into what's practically a game-breaking freak.
>Plain fighter doesn't make much sense for duals.
Don't they still get the extra attack per round though? I thought Kensai was one used only to dual into mage too.
>I always kind of preferred multiclassing because dual downtime sucks.
Yeah, dual downtime is disgusting, especially in solo runs.
Is it true you can dual into a kit in BG1EE?
It's definitely not possible in 2.
>It's definitely not possible in 2.
Not without mods...
They all have the same amount of attacks. The only disadvantages is that berserker is worse with bows (oh no!) and kensai has equipment restrictions that hurt less when you're a thief.
Beamdog fucked up so badly with SoD and subsequent forum fallout that their two lead writers are no longer involved with game creation and got relegated to CMs, pending their departure from company I imagine.
Because rogue is a more wider archetype. And you had shit like kits that would specialize your class further, but that got dumped in favor of systems like talents in modern games. I miss when two thieves could be really different thieves and not necessarily even geared towards combat.