Your video made me realise that the games I've played have conditioned me to actively avoid systems like this. The desire for a perfect outcome is often overwhelming, and I feel like any game like Baldur's Gate II requires me to fully understand every option available to me before playing, which makes it pretty unwelcoming. However, that's not the game's fault; it's my own, for the expectations I have going in, and assuming that every moment would be fine-tuned for my enjoyment. This was really interesting.
Super necro but folding ideas has a video called why it's rude to suck at world of warcraft. It's about how there's been a shift in focus in gaming from exploration to playing optimally. Even though it's about wow specifically, I find it resonates with the wider gaming world as well. Just think of how frothy the comments get on lets plays when the game isn't being played "optimally"
@@stephenchurch1784 That's just MMOs, novelty wore off, now cookie clicker with online chat has become competition for who's more autistic and less employed... Singleplayer games don't have this problem as you compete only against your own boredom.
Doesn't work in the original games (for whatever reason), they added it in the EE version (and a good thing they did, as it makes perfect sense). In the original, you had to actually cast a charm spell on Glaicus (like Dire Charm) - furthermore, it was bugged, and didn't work unless you had an unofficial fixpack installed... :(
@Felipe Henrique Yeah, that would work too. I don't know if it's scripted or the spell actually has to connect (that is, he has to actually fail a saving throw). If it's the latter, then Dire Charm is better.
Man, that was deeply insightful and reminded me why games need to strike a balance between player convenience and making a realistic world for the players to lose themselves in. I think I need to go back and replay the BG trilogy now.
Such a great video. A lot of work in fiction whether it's games, movies or anything has to do with so called "willing suspension of disbelief" by player/viewer/reader. Such details as city feeling real and inaccessible, fictional characters acting as real people acting on their motivations and not only on what plot requires them to do - all that really adds up to the immersion and experience of the world feeling real. I wish more people would pay attention to details like this.
One more thing that immersed me greatly into the world was how you had to buy or scavenge arrows,bolts etc.This was an annoyance to me yet when I played POE it was the first thing I felt lacking.The annoyance of having to shop and scavenge to make sure your team was outfitted for the next mission drew me in by making it feel just a bit more believable.
TH-cam's getting dangerously close to being oversaturated with video-essays. I hope people take the time to discover your channel and content, because it's so much better than the obsolete videos that are being pumped out by people that want to be another Nerdwriter1. Keep doing what you're doing, I love your content!
This game was the gem of my youth and to see you revisit and embrace it with such passion really brightened up my day. Thank you for this high-quiality video and for your great mindset.
Fantastic video! You've really gotten me thinking with this analysis. I also appreciate that you went through the effort of watching the blind players to observe how they handled the quest.
It's something I plan to keep doing in future where appropriate. Even if I don't put it in the video, it's a good way of fact checking and self-correction.
Ha! I'm just playing Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time, and just finished this quest. I didn't kill or punch the Aunt, I did try to argue with her though. And while I also had loads of dispel magic spells (Since I have Keldorn), I didn't know that would've worked, so I just used the Ring of Human Influence on the charmed guard instead, as soon as Nalia said he was charmed. Also, I easily got past the Hulks and never bothered with the dog-thing, because I just shot a cloud-kill in the room and all but one died, and we quickly dealt with it. It's maybe because my character is the same character that I imported over from BG1, a sorceress, so I have loads of spells that make things easier.
It's cool you uncharmed the guard, seems most people missed it. Yeah cloudkill is the way to go on those umber hulks. Two of the three let's players used cloudkill to finally get past them, it just took them longer to figure it out :P But anyway, you get much more XP for avoiding the fight than for actually doing it.
Yep, that was one thing I wanted to point out to Wendel, you can counter-charm as well instead of relying only on dispel. Widens the scope a little, since rangers can cast Charm Personal or Animal and priests can cast Domination.
Baldur's gate 2 has one of the best opening dungeons ever designed. It tells the story of your opponent Irenicus (voiced by the outstanding David Warner) and exciting the dungeon you see how powerfull he actually is.
I'm learning so much about game design and story from your videos, mostly respect for the content and the player , and enjoying every second of it so thank you for taking the time to make your thoughts known and share the experiences.
No worries! Take my design ideas with a grain of salt, however ... a lot of my ideas boil down to "bad game design is actually good". This video included. I mean I stand by my opinions here, but if I were to make a game myself, I'm not sure I'd follow these ideas, even though I appreciate them as a player.
I've been saying this forever. Inconvenience is the thing that's missing from modern games. Inconvenience is realistic; it's what makes it believable. Cardboard party members who always go along with your will anti-immersive. I'm afraid we'll never get another game like this. RPGs have been getting more dumbed down year by year.
I've beaten this series (and Icewind Dale, but much less) at least once a year and usually two or three times every year since it's release. It's for these reasons, combined with fun combat and great NPC characterization, that made me fall in love with it back in the day. Sadly, even TTRPGs are infected with the attitude of 'success or nothing!', with 5e being practically IMPOSSIBLE to die in outside of spiteful GMs or a series of really, really bad rolls and everything in general being heavily weighted towards the players. That dispel thing I did figure out even as a kid, but it requires a certain level to succeed that you may not be by the time you get there if I recall, so it didn't always work. That, and some sequences could be more than a little buggy...
I'm not a game developer or anything, but I feel like designing a game with free-thinking NPC's and less-than-obvious solutions would be really hard to develop. I don't even know how they did it in BG2!
Though dispel works fine (and is just a good spell to have on hand anyway), you can also use your OWN charm spell (the lvl 1 version or dire charm, I believe) and achieve the same result with Glacius. Also, I've never had him not give me his flail head. I'm thinking that's either a bug OR he didn't give it to you because you'd already completed clearing out the keep. The dialogue in which he gives it to you mentions something about saving Lord De'Arnise, so it makes sense he wouldn't bring it up if the Lord is already confirmed dead...
Yep charm works too. Actually I've been told dispel only works in the enhanced edition. Yeah i didn't get the flail because I already finished the rest of the keep.
This video basically describes everything wrong with modern gaming because this experience is everything a modern gaming experience is not. Nowadays, every part of the gaming experience has to be ultra-accessible and therefore every part of the gaming experience becomes predictable and formulaic. Accessibility is the key to profits, but if you're a consumer looking for an experience that is more than just a skinner box, you're basically out of luck. This rule applies to the new Fallouts, the new Farcrys, the new Witcher, the new Elder Scrolls, etc. The only real, genuine, and interesting parts of these experiences happen in the first several hours before the patterns of gameplay become obvious and you realize the game is reducible to actions a bot could be programmed to perform.
Fantastic stuff as ever. Keep up the good work! Edit: oops, I just realised I may have taken the title of this video (as mentioned in your what should I make next video) and used it as a line in my last video, I'll leave a card linking to this video.
You seem like someone that has no problem with old clunky games. I would love to hear your opinions about the old games Gothic 1 and 2. They have in my opinion arguably the best player progression of their time.
I tried Gothic 1 way back in the day, bounced off because of the combat, never really got to experience everything else it had to offer. I regret that because of that I never tried Gothic 2 - it could have been the game that did it for me. I recommend RagnarRox's video on the gothic series - sound's exactly what you're looking for: th-cam.com/video/hVYrALStucs/w-d-xo.html
Anders I really enjoyed Gothic 3, so I got a copy of Gothic 2 on GoG since everyone was saying the older games were much better. Sadly, I found it frustratingly janky (well, mainly the before-3D-controls-got-good janky controls put me off), so I never played very far. If I had a wish, I’d have 1 & 2 remade with updated graphics and modern controls/camera. But.. maybe eventually I’ll manage to put the jankyness aside and play it. I think I’ll make a point to doing so sometime soon.
@@guywithknife Give it another try. Once you get use to and get past how clunky the game is, it becomes it's own reward. Both Gothic's, especially the second one are amazing. The third one was good too but it seriously lacked the soul the first two had. You have to play the first two to really understand what I mean.
Andrew Vincent I’m planning to, its just hard to get over the mental hurdle. Early 3D didn’t age well (both visually and in terms of controls) sadly. But I loved G3 and love everything I heard about G1 and G2, so I definitely will give it another try soon.
I played through that quest so many times back in the day and never once thought to dispel that guard. I grabbed the enhanced edition a while back meaning to play it, so it's nice to know there are still things I've missed in the game.
Another thing that was so annoying was ammo management that overall in the end actually added to the feel of the world being real.The BG devs strived to put D&D into a players home PC and D&D had lots of gear management.Nowadays RPG's like Pillars and Pathfinder Kingmaker do away with any idea of ammo management to streamline the experience.Its small touches like this that make a game better overall.Look at WOW classic and how they re-released recently and players are loving how hard everything is.Plus finding the bows that had unlimited magic ammo was a huge moment in the BG series!
this is my first time seeing gameplay of baldur's gate, and i'm surprised by how much i love the atmosphere. the footsteps, the ambience, the responsive npcs
I agree with your part with how the game handles human interaction and how game can introduce sense of discovery by providing a variety of choices. Characters need to join and leave under certain circumstances even if they will come back eventually. But I disagree with other points you made. I think many Americans have a misconception that realism is good, while it actually is just one of the way to improve immersion. If any realism stands in the way of enjoyment, it needs to be get rid of. The way of playing the game with save/load already is immersion-breaking for many people (like my wife and sister), and I would argue that's sign of bad design. Remember you do not come back to life after you are dead. Not to mention most people would not have an idea about what is real or not about certain game elements. Actually, I would even say having dead ends is extremely unrealistic if you observe the real world. You are just finding ways to justify why you love a game that you already liked. Perhaps this is the reason why American films and video games are increasingly bland over the past few years, and there's a massive comeback of Asian games. In 2017 it was basically a Nintendo year where stylish, clever lies trumped over realism. In 2018 we have an ultra realistic game Red Dead Redemption 2 which is defeated by not so realistic but cinematic God of War 2.
I'm Australian not American, and actually have lived in Asia for the past 14 years. Anyway it's OK to like different things. For me, making a place feel real is what makes it believable to me. And making it believable is what gets me invested. This is not for all games - this doesn't apply to even other RPGs like Zelda where the focus is on action and challenge. This is my opinion for role playing games with a focus on the world, story and characters.
@@MrWendal Actually that's exactly the thing I wanted to point out, because people still wrongly believe realism is what they are looking for, without understanding what they actually refer to. The "American" here are gamers that bash games using "realism" as a word and some game developers like Rockstar. "Feeling real", aka immersion, is actually more important than actually being real. And sometimes even immersion needs to be compromised for gameplay reason. If you have real world knowledge about castles, Baldur Gate 2's castles and many settlements are extremely unreal in the sense that no such "vortex" patterns in rooms will be made in reality and indeed real castles followed much straighter structural design. But if you based the game on real world architecture, players will storm through everything because in reality many architectural choices are made for convenience in traversal. That's actually the same principle why developers tend to place treasure chest in dead ends. You mentioned breath of the wild. Actually, their designers said explicitly they are looking for an art style that makes people "feel real" while able to tell clever lies (which focus on responsiveness) at the same time. Even games like Zelda needs to provide immersion: The art style needs to be consistent and have somewhat believable animation. When you think about it, in that game when you put food together they automatically "cook themselves" which is very comical and unreal, but if they do not the game will be tedious. And the developer try to abstract away things by covering them with smoke. Breath of the wild and many early European paintings also shows how realism, especially the photo-realism of the American culture, can be bad. If you pay attention to the faraway objects, in paintings lines of trees are almost always blurred away to be aesthetically pleasing (not just for saving drawing time). Contrast this with the chaotic trees in Red Dead Redemption 2.
When I first encountered Glaicus a few days ago, I assumed that Nalia's declaration that he must be charmed was merely wishful thinking from someone who already hadn't exactly been displaying the most awareness of her situation and consideration for other people, so I tried to kill him. Unfortunately, my party composition is based on the characters I like, and all of the fighters in BG2 are bastards (at least the ones I had met thus far who weren't Jaheira (and even she will probably be replaced once I find Viconia (I know she's in the city about to be burned at the stake *somewhere*))). I also generally refuse to rest when I don't think I have to, since I prefer to waste as little in-game time as possible in a nod to the idea that I am in something of a rush to save my adoptive sister and do whatever other quests I've chosen to take on. I am also pretty bad at this game more generally. I was completely obliterated when Glaicus quaffed a potion of speed and started blending his merry way through my party of mostly casters who were down to the dregs of their spell slots and nearly all have positive AC and double-digit THAC0. So I loaded a save and gave a more thorough look at what spells I have at my disposal. I noticed that I had forgotten to take some castings of dispel magic off of Jaheira when I had intended to replace them with more cure medium wounds. I thought I would be fighting more yuan-ti mages in the keep, but there only seemed to have been the one, and I neglected to put as much thought into my spell selection as I usually do on my previous rest. I remember, then, that Nalia thought he was charmed, that the game doesn't really have any other way to signpost that information, and that there is usually a better reward for solving situations peacefully in videogames. So I thought, hey, what the hell, why not give it a go? If nothing else, it'd take the haste off of him, and Hexxat might be able to give him the runaround for long enough to make him fall over from too many papercuts. She has regen, he doesn't, this shouldn't take too long. Even if that fails, I can accept taking a rest before this fight to spam Skull Traps, that usually works. Imagine my surprise when Glaicus actually *is* the stand-up guy Nalia said he was... and then he gave me his flail head? So I don't know why that didn't happen for Mr. Wendal, here. I'm quite enjoying this game, all told.
Now imagine if there was AAA version of Nethack, without these systems completely destroyed and streamlined into a movie with few "choices" that barely change anything...
This is how real RPGs are designed. First and foremost CRPGs used to be simulations of tabletop RPGs that tried to simulate the entire complexity of existence with a fantasy / scifi overlay. World building comes first. The world is self-consistent. It does not exist for the player. The player is just a visitor. Now you finally get what RPGs are all about. Welcome to the real world Neo. Another amazing realization in BG games is that you can actually talk to enemies that you have charmed with magic spells. I player these games for 10+ years and found this out just recently.
From this video, I can tell you are also a huge fan of this game. I'm not certain if you played it after hearing of all its acclaim or when the game initially came out. This is kind of crucial because back in the day ALL games were made like this. In fact, there are notorious examples of games that are outright user-unfriendly as part of their "challenging" mechanic. Hand holding, auto-save, bright markers on the map and exclamation points above NPCs heads. All of that has been a gradual shift as video games sort of "race to the bottom" in order to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible (and with that become the most profitable for the time spent developing it). Hell, I remember that most of the old games you had to read guides just to get through the damn things. As far as the BG series being organic, I don't really know about that either. You go to kill the dragon and his castle is full of dragonslaying paraphernalia? The only place you can find wooden stakes in the game is lairs infested with vampires? This game is great, but don't let the rose tinted lenses change what it actually is/was. That being said, this is one of my favorite games of all time. The effort to create a world that really felt complete and open rather than dragging you along on rails in front of backdrops and cliche storylines to justify some combat, progression, magic, etc. Or the sort of open world filled with generic objects that all tell you a story about taking an arrow to the knee, etc. In fact, I think this era of gaming was an interesting intersection for big budget games being between being challenging as content (before) and games holding your hand (now). Call me jaded or nostalgic or whatever, but I don't think we will ever see games like this again.
I played BG2 maybe in 2005. The game is not perfect, far from it. It fails worldbuilding in so many ways, but it's more interesting to look at where it succeeds. I'm not sure all games were like this back then, even BG1. Extra Credits once did a video on why Durlag's Tower in BG1's 1999 expansion is so great - it had surprises and candy behind every door, no dead ends, multiple reasons for the player to visit every room, puzzles made to be solved. Makes it a fun dungeon for the player but not very believable as a place (although I haven't actually played it, so I can't really judge). Even other parts of BG2 feel like this. Most puzzles in BG2 are silly riddles that have no good reason for existing. The reason I focused on this quest specifically is because it handles worldbuilding much better than other quests, even though it doesn't do it perfectly.
It feels like civilization games in a strange way, like everything is randomized, so you cant control ( assuming it is in the early mid game) the actions that you will face all of the time, so you cant have a perfect game but you can predict some tragedies and wars by foward thinking just like you have to always think about the hidden hints that are present in the game.
Well done review! Really good! I started many years ago with games like these, but . . . sadly, after playing far too many "loot and shoot" dopamine-regulator simulators I had become (unknowingly conditioned) to "dislike" the annoyances of games like this. The old interface makes it a bit . . . 'painful' too. But nonetheless, your points ring true and your message is sound! Must go back and complete the ENTIRE Baldur's Gate saga from beginning to end with the TuTu or Expanded editions one of these days (own and have both installed).
This is my first time playing BG2. After 20+ hours in the initial town, even though I collected the money to reach chapter 3, I was pretty fed up with its environments. I missed the "grand air" BG1 brought us. So when I reallised you could leave the city I went straight to that castle and thrashed my way through monsters, barely red or noticed the hints NPCs gave me. I didn't mind the monsters before Torgal's room, and I've tottaly forgotten Glacus who was just another casualties. I globally like BG1&2 levels design but hate these kind of "pratical jokes" you're depicted : whatever the mcguffin they force you to chase/find/figure out, it'd better be found quick enough. At least for me, since I'm mostly here for the fights because when I want to solve problem I go back to programming and design... In BG1 I had the time of my life in Durlag's Tower : for the challenging fights - that damn final boss ! - and the ambiance. But I couldn't care less of Durlag's poor stories and the occasionnal quizz and riddles !
This was actually really interesting. I can't recall if I noticed any of this when I played it the first time, and, admittedly... I don't often think of much of this, though I am slightly annoyed when areas have empty space between walls. (without being wiring or secret passages or something.) It's just so... odd. EDIT: That said, I think it's best if, if the world isn't built for you, it's at least relatively clear why features exist. A dead-end which is a lookout tower, or storage area, or has defensive positions, or something.
BG1 was far superior in this aspect. If you find a location that looks interersting in its "open world" sword coast, it may not contain anything for you. Because, that's what worlds can be like. In BG2, you don't even discover the locations (which each serve a purpose for you), they're all connected to a quest you must pick up first. Later on, Bioware made fully interactive movie experiences, where everything is but a set piece meant to entertain you. BG2 laid the foundations for that right here.
I still have never played BG1. I have bounced off it every time I try to get into it. But ... I don't really want to go to a whole place and explore just to see what's there. In a DnD game, I want to have a purpose that drives me. (In a Bethesda-style game, i want the opposite.) I like Bioware's later games that are more interactive movie experiences too. In fact I like Mass Effect 1 more than BG2. But I like both for what they are and what they do differently.
@@MrWendal I can understand that. But that's naturally the *definition* of a game world built just for you. It's not a world, it's a stage with actors, well specifically staged for you. A couple years ago I played Kingdom Come Deliverance. Exploring its forests reminded me a lot of BG1. Except that the devs went even further as you may not have any major "action" in many many minutes. As the devs said in the making of: "We risked players saying like: Lots of woods, looks pretty, but boring..." KCD hasn't become a huge game. But for those that played it, it seemed to have been a special experience.
@@snakeplissken111 I am copying-and-pasting the following paragraph from elsewhere. "When you play the original games, you will notice - graphics aside - the difference is night and day. Speaking of which, the developer couldn't swing a true day/night cycle (the original games are about a quarter-century old by this point and even they featured more of a living environment); BG3 carries a degree of artificiality reminding you that the world is - at least in this regard - catering to the player instead of functioning like an independent world. The map design in BG3 is also questionable; people have bellyached about the scope of _Baldur's Gate_ 's maps (yes, I know) in order to justify BG3's comparatively smaller maps more centered around the action, but those areas (in the BioWare games) are not explicitly catering to players in search of adventure/immediate excitement...the substantial gaps packed with emptiness between encounters remind you that The Sword Coast is an environment that exists beyond the Player Character's needs/wants/desires. Finally, I mentioned the romances earlier, but I didn't mention how damn near every NPC wants to screw the main character; in _Baldur's Gate 2_ , only a handful of characters can be courted (three female and one male...certain races, orientations and pursuits are flat-out incompatible), they're not always obvious about their intentions and you have to work a *hell* of a lot harder to make the relationship progress. Again, this is a reminder that BG3 is more about stroking the player's ego and less about depicting an objective universe where *you* need to seek out those gratifying elements."
@@Ragitsu BG3s maps are this compressed, you have to wonder how the goblin leader ever looks for a druid grove that is, on all accounts, but a couple hundred feet away. Yet ironically, BG3 actually brings some of the exploration and spaces back that BG2 got rid of completely. After all, in BG2 you don't find a SINGLE location. The locations find you in the form of a quest giver (the locations also only exist for those quests, which feels real gamey). Meanwhile, in BG3, you find places for yourself again. Some of which even have multiple entrances (the underdark on the first map), not all of which obvious and rather hidden. The maps are also logically connected. You don't jump from place to place a la BG2. Exploration generally is more fun in BG3 than BG2. This is also thanks to the encounter design. The Underdark in BG2 is basically Dungeon Crawl central, with enemies all over. BG3 takes a quantity over quality approach here. But yeah, BG1 it is not.
Not to mention that only 4 players will be attracted to you and only if you fit their standard of attractive. I don't think anyone will romance a player dwarf character. That feels REAL! In the standard game your player character needed to be human, halfling or half elf to be a romance option. Jaheira would also accept Elves, Aerie would also accept Gnomes and Elves, Viconia would accept half Orcs and Anomen would also accept Elves. With the addition of the other characters in EE they still made sense. The monk man is attracted to any woman as long as she was aligned with his beliefs. Being lawful that made sense. The half elf wild mage lady is attracted to any male. Considering her chaotic life, it would make sense that her attraction to people isn't exclusively based on appearance. When wild magic makes reality fluid at a moments notice what's more important, how someone looks or how they make you feel? The half orc character is completely open to any sex and any race. Being an outsider as a half orc that makes sense but also being a power hungry Blackguard he is he's attracted to your character because of their heritage being Bhalspawn. He's attracted to what you represent. Strength, Power and Freedom.
Baldur's Gate has great non-linear game design but from experience I found this can be annoying. In BG2 I got stuck on a boss fight that I needed to complete but couldn't because only +4 weapons could hurt it. I ended up looking up a guide online to see if there was a hidden solution and every guide pretty much said "By this point in the game you should have plenty of +4 weapons so beating this boss shouldn't be too difficult". While it's great the game is open ended, allowing the game to come to such a halt for missing something never mentioned before was frustrating.
Yeah, that's a risk you take. I actually came across the same problem in the endgame, and uh ... I just cheated and put the Enhanced Edition on story mode difficulty. I kinda regret that though, I played through 95% of the game on core rules. What boss was it?
Yeah, I also suspect it was a Balor. Small correction: it needs +3 weapons or higher, not +4. And/or the proper spells. Yeah, this is a flaw that BG2 sometimes suffers from: it requires you to be properly prepared (in terms of equipment and spells), often without giving you hints on what those requirements might be... : (
Ah. I had trouble there too. There are three solutions everyone has access to though, regardless what weapons you have: 1. You need to kill the balor to get a gem you need. You can pickpocket the gem straight of the head deep gnome, and skip the fight. 2. If you're really evil, you can murder him for it. Beware, if you have Jaheria or Minsc in your party they will not only abandon you, they will attack you for this! 3. By that point you will have access to slayer transformation, which will allow you to kill the Balor even at higher difficulties. It will harm your reputation - sometimes things come at a cost! You can also use the mage spell Melf's Minute Meteor's if you have it, it works as a +5 weapon. I think the lesson here is never give up, sometimes you have to sacrifice your morals to get what you want! It's an interesting choice.
Hi mr Wendal, I really enjoyed your video, so much that I would like you to expand on the subject if possible. At 0:48 you mention cities often not being designed at all. As of this moment I'm sitting on the beach in Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria. This tiny city was built from the ground up in order to facilitate tourism and nothing else, due to that reason everything makes a whole lot of sense. How would such a place look like in a well designed RPG such as Baldurs Gate? Thank you again for your wonderful content.
Thanks! Well, instead of being designed for a protagonist it would be designed for tourists. So there may be clear signposts, but they would point to tourist spots and not necessarily to the locations your game character needs to visit. There may be shops around, but not ones selling weapons and offering healing services - how many tourists buy weapons and get into fights? It would make sense as a place but still not be ideal for a party of adventurers. Except for the shops, Mass Effect one's citidel does a good job of this. It's clean, well laid out, signposted, and safe, but sometimes you have to get off the tourist tracks to hit the backalleys and divebars where you see the dirty underside of the city.
This video amazed me, as in, wow, there is a Bioware game that does this? As someone who started out with KOTOR this goes beyond my expectation. They consistently stepped away from these stuffs though, understandable, but still disappointing.
I made it plenty clear that I was going to spoil this sidequest when at 1:06 I said "We'll follow her sidequest from start to finish." If you missed that, I'm sorry I spoiled one tiny part of a 17 year old game.
It was not an attack on you per se, I heard that you were going to play from start to finish, but I did not expect the game to present different solutions to a problem. I don't mind story spoilers as much as spoiled puzzles. But I am presuming there are many more situations as the one shown.
Sorry, I was in a bit of a bad mood yesterday. There are some puzzles with different solutions, but while BG2 is a big game, there aren't as many puzzles like this as you might think just from this video. If there are, I missed them. While this quest is representative of BG2 as a whole it's puzzles really stood out as being better than the others.
Yep, and look at the Skyrim, or even dat Mass Effect Andromeda from BioWare who made BG1/2. What happened to the industry? I had really hard time believing those "modern" worlds. They all looks incredibly shallow and hollow. They have no soul, you know.
oh yea, i've even seen interviews from early devs on Starcraft and BG itself, they'll even admit it's changed. just, seems like more corporate oversight, and short-term decision-making, make stock-holders happy most important, etc.
@@TheBooklyBreakdown lol nope, games just got streamlined for most common denominator. We can't have games inconveniencing people for the same reason why we can't have people knowing basic scientific trivia without automatically blurting out "hurr I'm not a scientist why would I know". "Hurr I'm not a hardcore gamer, why would I think of this". Companies only care how many people give them money, not how high quality of experience they provide... Average player is dumb and so are the games.
you speak in contradictions. on the one hand you enjoy it when the area feels organic, and there are rooms, enemies, and items that feel like they belong there without pandering to the player. on the other hand, you enjoyed the dog puzzle, which is an example of a non-organic puzzle into this organic environment, and praise that too. am I missing something?
No not really. I can see how you'd think it was non-organic. I think it was a organic enough. A game has to strike a balance between a believable organic world and being something the player can enjoy. I think BG2 does this well overall.
BG was one of the first games i ever played and the 1st RPG. Because of this any time i play any other RPG(except for gothic and maybe 1 or 2 more) i feel like "this game is retarded, how cant i attack if it was possible in games from before year 2k" xD
11:36 to me the only character and girl i love and a LOT is Neera. I liked Lady Brenwin in first game and Amanaman (the cleric fighter) second, I also like the dimension traveler Bard, but he needs a party I can add him :D I also like Airi.(the cleric mage ) (everyone else i dislike or flat out hate) Dos not ruin my enjoyment of the game :D all the more reason to generate party's. In fact the "un-sympatic" characters are the reason i Walue Amanaman and Neera so much :D
Oh man, I always wanted that game but didn't know how to get it. I saw a video of it back in 2009 on TH-cam and could never get it out of my mind. Finally found it on GoG.com after taking a look if it was there - it was! And in English! It was the game that made me get back into writing and drawing. I politely recommend it.
Thanks, I will try and experiment with key combinations. I am playing the Enhanced Edition too. I know that it’s a feature in Planescape Torment: EE, did not realise it was in BG2: EE. Ironically, just finished freeing the Keep. Yes I did work out how to use the dog stew, did not realise I could save the captain though.
Okay, now I really want to play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2... the question is this however: Should I get the originals from GOG or should I get the remakes on Steam?
Thanks Wendal! Oh, and I am not one to shy away from the price of a game if it's good enough. Both games together are pretty cheap as it. Though would you recommend me getting both or just the second game?
I would recommend just the second game * cough* which I do in detail in my review over on patreon *cough*. The second is definitely the more popular one too, but lots of people love both, so up to you.
Are there any mechanical differences in how the two games work, or are they essentially the same games with different stories and settings? Because if I were to play the second game and then decide to play the first one later where it's missing some quality of life game mechanic then it would feel more like slog.
I don't think there are any QoL differences between the two games, at least not with the enhanced editions. Even the original version of the first game was updated with new combat rules when the second came out, I think. Apparently the second game has faster movement speed and more character animations. The main difference for me is the setting and characters. Bear in mind I haven't actually played the first game for more than 30 minutes.
"This is not for all games, but it’s what I look for in RPGs where I want to be immersed in the world." You should play Daggerfall, pal. Although at this point I'd wait for the Unity version of the game to be finished.
I think so. I played it in 2005 for the first time, five years late, and still loved it. I've never played the first, so yeah you can start with 2. If you're not sure pick it up in a sale, the Enhanced Edition goes for five bucks. It's not the most user-friendly experience, mainly understanding the RPG system and spells takes a while and it isn't introduced gradually or really explained at all. If you want to know more I have a detailed 2017 perspective review on my patreon, for patrons only sorry.
I just don't understand why they tried to imitate something caused by technical limitations in mid '90s games. Most of the EE changes are really strange.
"Never inconvenience the player, never have a mind of your own, never be a person" - this is EXACTLY why I prefer to play Baldur's Gate with 6 custom-created characters. The party needs to be a well-rounded, min-maxed walking device of dice-based mass destruction. No time for personal feelings.
She doesn’t need rescuing, she needs your assistance helping her family. She's a capable fighter, but she can't do it alone. Everyone hates Nalia, I kind of do too, but perhaps you're supposed to hate her. She is a poor little rich girl who seems care for the less fortunate but still treats them all as being below her, as if her help makes her better than everyone else. She's naive and has a lot of maturing to do - Jaheria comments as such. It's interesting to have her in your party because even though you may not like her as a person, that's what makes her an interesting character. It's a pity she wasn't given more of an arc by maturing towards the end of the game.
Then I know I didn't miss out by never taking her on my team. I don't hate her as I never picked her, I hate the stereotype, which in fact does occur in this situation. She's looking for help in a tavern... in slums... damn, talking about being desperate. Taking in consideration I like characters with strong beliefs that define them and nowadays usually evil characters to that. Edwin though, my all time favorite. More people should run Korgan/Mazzy too, Korgan is brilliant. That's something that I really miss in RPGs, sociable killers in team. I've played through Torment Tides of Numenera 3x times through lately and the game feels like a demo in comparison to BG2. I love the setting of Numenera (also as pen and paper) but it seems to be hard to write something truly original in it, although it's so bizarre and strange. Deepness of characters doesn't only rely on brilliance of the writer. It's how much you actually can relate to it. Your own experiences are the igniter for the Role Playing experience, when you do something, because you feel like you would be doing it. I digress. Played Torment: Numenera?
Actually she was in the tavern because it's where she goes to help people usually, and so it's also where she goes to get help when she needs it. It's the same reason I went there - to get help because I couldn't do everything myself. My character is no damsel, Nalia doesn't feel like one to me either. Numanera is next on my list to play ... well, it's either that, ME Andromeda, or Scribblenauts Unlimited.
Ah yes, now that you mention that part, it strikes some sense into your standing. Did not remember that she was also helping ppl in there, what she did "underline" roughly. Maybe that's why I wasn't interested. Played original Torment (what a strange question to ask)?
While giving out all this praise for believability, you didn't seem to ask a question, what were those two lizardmen doing in a dead end behind a locked door. Not too believable, that.
Read the description: “This quest isn’t perfect either, far from it … The enemies are not varied enough and are in odd places, standing there doing nothing all day, they have no sense of purpose … So I understand if you hate this quest, but looking at how it fails is kinda boring. What really inspires me to make videos is when a game succeeds at doing things most other games don’t even attempt.”
Another thing that was so annoying was ammo management that overall in the end actually added to the feel of the world being real.The BG devs strived to put D&D into a players home PC and D&D had lots of gear management.Nowadays RPG's like Pillars and Pathfinder Kingmaker do away with any idea of ammo management to streamline the experience.Its small touches like this that make a game better overall.Look at WOW classic and how they re-released recently and players are loving how hard everything is.Plus finding the bows that had unlimited magic ammo was a huge moment in the BG series!
I kinda disagree on that one. The ammo didn't feel realistic - it was cheap to buy pages of ammo and a single character could carry enough for an army. It is basically unlimited ammo with micro-management - the worst of both worlds. If they had restricted the amount you could carry to the point where you were using it sparingly or trying to loot arrows mid-fight, it would have been interesting.
IMO making ammo so abundant and cheap was excellent design.This allowed just the annoyance of ammo management to be felt by player.If ammo was expensive or restricted in amount you could carry that would be 3 strikes against ammo management and players would of revolted.But just making sure players purchased ammo at vendors or looted ammo from fallen and then had to organize in inventory and make sure quills were full etc was perfect!
And it was restricted in amount you can carry as inventory was limited to just what each character could carry....loved that! Something about party stash that just feels wrong to me.
Your video made me realise that the games I've played have conditioned me to actively avoid systems like this. The desire for a perfect outcome is often overwhelming, and I feel like any game like Baldur's Gate II requires me to fully understand every option available to me before playing, which makes it pretty unwelcoming. However, that's not the game's fault; it's my own, for the expectations I have going in, and assuming that every moment would be fine-tuned for my enjoyment.
This was really interesting.
Thanks！
Super necro but folding ideas has a video called why it's rude to suck at world of warcraft. It's about how there's been a shift in focus in gaming from exploration to playing optimally. Even though it's about wow specifically, I find it resonates with the wider gaming world as well. Just think of how frothy the comments get on lets plays when the game isn't being played "optimally"
@@stephenchurch1784 That's just MMOs, novelty wore off, now cookie clicker with online chat has become competition for who's more autistic and less employed... Singleplayer games don't have this problem as you compete only against your own boredom.
I... ill be 300% honest. I never EVER tried to dispel the dude. Played the game a lot of times, every time aced him. I feel so stupid now.
Doesn't work in the original games (for whatever reason), they added it in the EE version (and a good thing they did, as it makes perfect sense).
In the original, you had to actually cast a charm spell on Glaicus (like Dire Charm) - furthermore, it was bugged, and didn't work unless you had an unofficial fixpack installed... :(
@@JustGrowingUp84 j
@Felipe Henrique Yeah, that would work too. I don't know if it's scripted or the spell actually has to connect (that is, he has to actually fail a saving throw). If it's the latter, then Dire Charm is better.
Man, that was deeply insightful and reminded me why games need to strike a balance between player convenience and making a realistic world for the players to lose themselves in. I think I need to go back and replay the BG trilogy now.
Thanks! Tell Jaheira I said hi
Such a great video.
A lot of work in fiction whether it's games, movies or anything has to do with so called "willing suspension of disbelief" by player/viewer/reader. Such details as city feeling real and inaccessible, fictional characters acting as real people acting on their motivations and not only on what plot requires them to do - all that really adds up to the immersion and experience of the world feeling real.
I wish more people would pay attention to details like this.
Thanks!
One more thing that immersed me greatly into the world was how you had to buy or scavenge arrows,bolts etc.This was an annoyance to me yet when I played POE it was the first thing I felt lacking.The annoyance of having to shop and scavenge to make sure your team was outfitted for the next mission drew me in by making it feel just a bit more believable.
good point
I loved this game so much. My friends never understood why I liked it more than diablo 2 at the time. You seem to get it
TH-cam's getting dangerously close to being oversaturated with video-essays. I hope people take the time to discover your channel and content, because it's so much better than the obsolete videos that are being pumped out by people that want to be another Nerdwriter1.
Keep doing what you're doing, I love your content!
Thanks!
I probably like a lot of those videos. Anyway there can never be too many if you ask me, good stuff will rise to the top.
This game was the gem of my youth and to see you revisit and embrace it with such passion really brightened up my day. Thank you for this high-quiality video and for your great mindset.
Thank you! You brightened up my day with this comment.
This is one of the best videos I've seen about one of my favourite games of all times.
I think I should play it again, starting today.
Thanks a lot!
No worries. Thank you!
Still one of my favorite videos about gaming. Ever.
I'm always showing this video to friends to tell them why I love this game so much. Thank you for putting my love into words.
Fantastic video! You've really gotten me thinking with this analysis. I also appreciate that you went through the effort of watching the blind players to observe how they handled the quest.
It's something I plan to keep doing in future where appropriate. Even if I don't put it in the video, it's a good way of fact checking and self-correction.
Superb analysis. I'm gonna show it to some of my friends who don't understand why I prefer BG2 to newer RPG's
Thanks!
This is one of the reasons why I still think BG2 is one of the best written/designed games ever made. I miss old non-shit Bioware & Black Isle games.
The best one if you ask me. Fallout 2 roams near behind.
I rather replay Baldurs gate 2 again than the newest mass effect or dragon age :)
Agreed, they've gone kind of backwards ever since, mostly recently though.
Bioware rpgs have never been shit. Some more flawed than others, but still good and enjoyable.
Ha! I'm just playing Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time, and just finished this quest. I didn't kill or punch the Aunt, I did try to argue with her though. And while I also had loads of dispel magic spells (Since I have Keldorn), I didn't know that would've worked, so I just used the Ring of Human Influence on the charmed guard instead, as soon as Nalia said he was charmed.
Also, I easily got past the Hulks and never bothered with the dog-thing, because I just shot a cloud-kill in the room and all but one died, and we quickly dealt with it. It's maybe because my character is the same character that I imported over from BG1, a sorceress, so I have loads of spells that make things easier.
It's cool you uncharmed the guard, seems most people missed it. Yeah cloudkill is the way to go on those umber hulks. Two of the three let's players used cloudkill to finally get past them, it just took them longer to figure it out :P But anyway, you get much more XP for avoiding the fight than for actually doing it.
Yep, that was one thing I wanted to point out to Wendel, you can counter-charm as well instead of relying only on dispel. Widens the scope a little, since rangers can cast Charm Personal or Animal and priests can cast Domination.
So it looks like I need to play Baldur's Gate 2. Your content is inspiring me to install this game :-)
Well, just beware it is old so you might bounce off it. But good luck!
I've got no problem with old. I'll keep you updated :-)
Baldur's gate 2 has one of the best opening dungeons ever designed. It tells the story of your opponent Irenicus (voiced by the outstanding David Warner) and exciting the dungeon you see how powerfull he actually is.
it's still one of the best WRPG's ever made (with planescape:torment and I really liked the first icewind dale)
I kind of think it's sacrilegious to play BG2 without having gone through BG1
I'm learning so much about game design and story from your videos, mostly respect for the content and the player , and enjoying every second of it so thank you for taking the time to make your thoughts known and share the experiences.
No worries! Take my design ideas with a grain of salt, however ... a lot of my ideas boil down to "bad game design is actually good". This video included.
I mean I stand by my opinions here, but if I were to make a game myself, I'm not sure I'd follow these ideas, even though I appreciate them as a player.
Wonderful content, very chill too. I've never played BG2 and now feel like I should.
Thanks!
I've been saying this forever. Inconvenience is the thing that's missing from modern games. Inconvenience is realistic; it's what makes it believable. Cardboard party members who always go along with your will anti-immersive.
I'm afraid we'll never get another game like this. RPGs have been getting more dumbed down year by year.
I've beaten this series (and Icewind Dale, but much less) at least once a year and usually two or three times every year since it's release. It's for these reasons, combined with fun combat and great NPC characterization, that made me fall in love with it back in the day. Sadly, even TTRPGs are infected with the attitude of 'success or nothing!', with 5e being practically IMPOSSIBLE to die in outside of spiteful GMs or a series of really, really bad rolls and everything in general being heavily weighted towards the players. That dispel thing I did figure out even as a kid, but it requires a certain level to succeed that you may not be by the time you get there if I recall, so it didn't always work. That, and some sequences could be more than a little buggy...
Very insightful video with great examples. I also want more game with world and stand on their own, where not everything is just build for me.
Thanks!
You did a good job at selling BG2 to me. One of your best videos in awhile!
Thanks!
I miss this guy. He needs to post more videos
OK, I promise much more videos, just have to quit work and abandon my family first brb
Mr Wendal on games and I miss that sarcasm! :)
I'm not a game developer or anything, but I feel like designing a game with free-thinking NPC's and less-than-obvious solutions would be really hard to develop. I don't even know how they did it in BG2!
Low fidelity helped. There's no way you could do this with a big budget RPG today, not with character animation and voice acting etc.
so true, great point Wendal
Though dispel works fine (and is just a good spell to have on hand anyway), you can also use your OWN charm spell (the lvl 1 version or dire charm, I believe) and achieve the same result with Glacius.
Also, I've never had him not give me his flail head. I'm thinking that's either a bug OR he didn't give it to you because you'd already completed clearing out the keep. The dialogue in which he gives it to you mentions something about saving Lord De'Arnise, so it makes sense he wouldn't bring it up if the Lord is already confirmed dead...
hmm, good points
Yep charm works too. Actually I've been told dispel only works in the enhanced edition. Yeah i didn't get the flail because I already finished the rest of the keep.
This video basically describes everything wrong with modern gaming because this experience is everything a modern gaming experience is not. Nowadays, every part of the gaming experience has to be ultra-accessible and therefore every part of the gaming experience becomes predictable and formulaic. Accessibility is the key to profits, but if you're a consumer looking for an experience that is more than just a skinner box, you're basically out of luck. This rule applies to the new Fallouts, the new Farcrys, the new Witcher, the new Elder Scrolls, etc. The only real, genuine, and interesting parts of these experiences happen in the first several hours before the patterns of gameplay become obvious and you realize the game is reducible to actions a bot could be programmed to perform.
h
To be fair, a bot was programmed to neat nethack, amd that shit aint easy.
Fantastic stuff as ever. Keep up the good work!
Edit: oops, I just realised I may have taken the title of this video (as mentioned in your what should I make next video) and used it as a line in my last video, I'll leave a card linking to this video.
This is a lovely exploration of this incredible game.
Thanks!
You seem like someone that has no problem with old clunky games. I would love to hear your opinions about the old games Gothic 1 and 2. They have in my opinion arguably the best player progression of their time.
I tried Gothic 1 way back in the day, bounced off because of the combat, never really got to experience everything else it had to offer. I regret that because of that I never tried Gothic 2 - it could have been the game that did it for me. I recommend RagnarRox's video on the gothic series - sound's exactly what you're looking for: th-cam.com/video/hVYrALStucs/w-d-xo.html
Anders I really enjoyed Gothic 3, so I got a copy of Gothic 2 on GoG since everyone was saying the older games were much better. Sadly, I found it frustratingly janky (well, mainly the before-3D-controls-got-good janky controls put me off), so I never played very far. If I had a wish, I’d have 1 & 2 remade with updated graphics and modern controls/camera. But.. maybe eventually I’ll manage to put the jankyness aside and play it. I think I’ll make a point to doing so sometime soon.
@@guywithknife Give it another try. Once you get use to and get past how clunky the game is, it becomes it's own reward. Both Gothic's, especially the second one are amazing. The third one was good too but it seriously lacked the soul the first two had. You have to play the first two to really understand what I mean.
Andrew Vincent I’m planning to, its just hard to get over the mental hurdle. Early 3D didn’t age well (both visually and in terms of controls) sadly. But I loved G3 and love everything I heard about G1 and G2, so I definitely will give it another try soon.
I played through that quest so many times back in the day and never once thought to dispel that guard. I grabbed the enhanced edition a while back meaning to play it, so it's nice to know there are still things I've missed in the game.
I could replay the first baldur’s gate games over and over and keep discovering new things
The term for this is Verisimilitude.
After your analysis, I want to replay the game and look for other design choices that made me why I loved this game in the first place.
Excellent points, great video.
lmao I've played this game for 20 years and I never knew you could dispel him.
Another thing that was so annoying was ammo management that overall in the end actually added to the feel of the world being real.The BG devs strived to put D&D into a players home PC and D&D had lots of gear management.Nowadays RPG's like Pillars and Pathfinder Kingmaker do away with any idea of ammo management to streamline the experience.Its small touches like this that make a game better overall.Look at WOW classic and how they re-released recently and players are loving how hard everything is.Plus finding the bows that had unlimited magic ammo was a huge moment in the BG series!
Baldur's Gate 2 still is one of the best RPG's ever made.
this is my first time seeing gameplay of baldur's gate, and i'm surprised by how much i love the atmosphere. the footsteps, the ambience, the responsive npcs
I agree with your part with how the game handles human interaction and how game can introduce sense of discovery by providing a variety of choices. Characters need to join and leave under certain circumstances even if they will come back eventually.
But I disagree with other points you made. I think many Americans have a misconception that realism is good, while it actually is just one of the way to improve immersion. If any realism stands in the way of enjoyment, it needs to be get rid of. The way of playing the game with save/load already is immersion-breaking for many people (like my wife and sister), and I would argue that's sign of bad design. Remember you do not come back to life after you are dead. Not to mention most people would not have an idea about what is real or not about certain game elements. Actually, I would even say having dead ends is extremely unrealistic if you observe the real world. You are just finding ways to justify why you love a game that you already liked.
Perhaps this is the reason why American films and video games are increasingly bland over the past few years, and there's a massive comeback of Asian games. In 2017 it was basically a Nintendo year where stylish, clever lies trumped over realism. In 2018 we have an ultra realistic game Red Dead Redemption 2 which is defeated by not so realistic but cinematic God of War 2.
I'm Australian not American, and actually have lived in Asia for the past 14 years. Anyway it's OK to like different things. For me, making a place feel real is what makes it believable to me. And making it believable is what gets me invested. This is not for all games - this doesn't apply to even other RPGs like Zelda where the focus is on action and challenge. This is my opinion for role playing games with a focus on the world, story and characters.
@@MrWendal Actually that's exactly the thing I wanted to point out, because people still wrongly believe realism is what they are looking for, without understanding what they actually refer to. The "American" here are gamers that bash games using "realism" as a word and some game developers like Rockstar. "Feeling real", aka immersion, is actually more important than actually being real. And sometimes even immersion needs to be compromised for gameplay reason.
If you have real world knowledge about castles, Baldur Gate 2's castles and many settlements are extremely unreal in the sense that no such "vortex" patterns in rooms will be made in reality and indeed real castles followed much straighter structural design. But if you based the game on real world architecture, players will storm through everything because in reality many architectural choices are made for convenience in traversal. That's actually the same principle why developers tend to place treasure chest in dead ends.
You mentioned breath of the wild. Actually, their designers said explicitly they are looking for an art style that makes people "feel real" while able to tell clever lies (which focus on responsiveness) at the same time. Even games like Zelda needs to provide immersion: The art style needs to be consistent and have somewhat believable animation. When you think about it, in that game when you put food together they automatically "cook themselves" which is very comical and unreal, but if they do not the game will be tedious. And the developer try to abstract away things by covering them with smoke.
Breath of the wild and many early European paintings also shows how realism, especially the photo-realism of the American culture, can be bad. If you pay attention to the faraway objects, in paintings lines of trees are almost always blurred away to be aesthetically pleasing (not just for saving drawing time). Contrast this with the chaotic trees in Red Dead Redemption 2.
This video convinced me to pick up the enhanced edition from steam. Can't wait to try the game.
what did you end up thinking???? XD
Your videos are so good!
Thanks!
When I first encountered Glaicus a few days ago, I assumed that Nalia's declaration that he must be charmed was merely wishful thinking from someone who already hadn't exactly been displaying the most awareness of her situation and consideration for other people, so I tried to kill him.
Unfortunately, my party composition is based on the characters I like, and all of the fighters in BG2 are bastards (at least the ones I had met thus far who weren't Jaheira (and even she will probably be replaced once I find Viconia (I know she's in the city about to be burned at the stake *somewhere*))). I also generally refuse to rest when I don't think I have to, since I prefer to waste as little in-game time as possible in a nod to the idea that I am in something of a rush to save my adoptive sister and do whatever other quests I've chosen to take on. I am also pretty bad at this game more generally.
I was completely obliterated when Glaicus quaffed a potion of speed and started blending his merry way through my party of mostly casters who were down to the dregs of their spell slots and nearly all have positive AC and double-digit THAC0.
So I loaded a save and gave a more thorough look at what spells I have at my disposal. I noticed that I had forgotten to take some castings of dispel magic off of Jaheira when I had intended to replace them with more cure medium wounds. I thought I would be fighting more yuan-ti mages in the keep, but there only seemed to have been the one, and I neglected to put as much thought into my spell selection as I usually do on my previous rest.
I remember, then, that Nalia thought he was charmed, that the game doesn't really have any other way to signpost that information, and that there is usually a better reward for solving situations peacefully in videogames.
So I thought, hey, what the hell, why not give it a go? If nothing else, it'd take the haste off of him, and Hexxat might be able to give him the runaround for long enough to make him fall over from too many papercuts. She has regen, he doesn't, this shouldn't take too long. Even if that fails, I can accept taking a rest before this fight to spam Skull Traps, that usually works.
Imagine my surprise when Glaicus actually *is* the stand-up guy Nalia said he was... and then he gave me his flail head? So I don't know why that didn't happen for Mr. Wendal, here.
I'm quite enjoying this game, all told.
Now imagine if there was AAA version of Nethack, without these systems completely destroyed and streamlined into a movie with few "choices" that barely change anything...
High quality video 10/10
Thanks!
This vid alone convinced me to buy BG 1 & 2 :)
This is how real RPGs are designed. First and foremost CRPGs used to be simulations of tabletop RPGs that tried to simulate the entire complexity of existence with a fantasy / scifi overlay. World building comes first. The world is self-consistent. It does not exist for the player. The player is just a visitor.
Now you finally get what RPGs are all about. Welcome to the real world Neo.
Another amazing realization in BG games is that you can actually talk to enemies that you have charmed with magic spells. I player these games for 10+ years and found this out just recently.
Brilliant video.
Thanks!
From this video, I can tell you are also a huge fan of this game. I'm not certain if you played it after hearing of all its acclaim or when the game initially came out. This is kind of crucial because back in the day ALL games were made like this. In fact, there are notorious examples of games that are outright user-unfriendly as part of their "challenging" mechanic. Hand holding, auto-save, bright markers on the map and exclamation points above NPCs heads. All of that has been a gradual shift as video games sort of "race to the bottom" in order to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible (and with that become the most profitable for the time spent developing it). Hell, I remember that most of the old games you had to read guides just to get through the damn things.
As far as the BG series being organic, I don't really know about that either. You go to kill the dragon and his castle is full of dragonslaying paraphernalia? The only place you can find wooden stakes in the game is lairs infested with vampires? This game is great, but don't let the rose tinted lenses change what it actually is/was.
That being said, this is one of my favorite games of all time. The effort to create a world that really felt complete and open rather than dragging you along on rails in front of backdrops and cliche storylines to justify some combat, progression, magic, etc. Or the sort of open world filled with generic objects that all tell you a story about taking an arrow to the knee, etc. In fact, I think this era of gaming was an interesting intersection for big budget games being between being challenging as content (before) and games holding your hand (now). Call me jaded or nostalgic or whatever, but I don't think we will ever see games like this again.
I played BG2 maybe in 2005. The game is not perfect, far from it. It fails worldbuilding in so many ways, but it's more interesting to look at where it succeeds.
I'm not sure all games were like this back then, even BG1. Extra Credits once did a video on why Durlag's Tower in BG1's 1999 expansion is so great - it had surprises and candy behind every door, no dead ends, multiple reasons for the player to visit every room, puzzles made to be solved. Makes it a fun dungeon for the player but not very believable as a place (although I haven't actually played it, so I can't really judge). Even other parts of BG2 feel like this. Most puzzles in BG2 are silly riddles that have no good reason for existing. The reason I focused on this quest specifically is because it handles worldbuilding much better than other quests, even though it doesn't do it perfectly.
If you go to the de'arnise stronghold and then leave again she stops pestering you
*sigh* The only thing keep me from this game is the beginning, im so confused at what is going.
With Glaicus the "Friends" spell works as well.
It feels like civilization games in a strange way, like everything is randomized, so you cant control ( assuming it is in the early mid game) the actions that you will face all of the time, so you cant have a perfect game but you can predict some tragedies and wars by foward thinking just like you have to always think about the hidden hints that are present in the game.
Gothic and Baldur's Gate are the best cRPGs ever made
The beginning of the video sums up my thoughts or Kingdom of Amalur.
Dude you deserve way more subs, but not too much so that the community doesnt become cancerous.
Thanks!
Well done review! Really good!
I started many years ago with games like these, but . . . sadly, after playing far too many "loot and shoot" dopamine-regulator simulators I had become (unknowingly conditioned) to "dislike" the annoyances of games like this. The old interface makes it a bit . . . 'painful' too.
But nonetheless, your points ring true and your message is sound!
Must go back and complete the ENTIRE Baldur's Gate saga from beginning to end with the TuTu or Expanded editions one of these days (own and have both installed).
Thanks!
so? did you complete it, 3 years later?
Even in this type of freedom game, I'll probably still be a boring fuck.
This is fantastic.
Thanks!
11:23 thanks for reminding me!
Dat thumbnail...
Well played Mr Wendal, well played.
This is my first time playing BG2. After 20+ hours in the initial town, even though I collected the money to reach chapter 3, I was pretty fed up with its environments. I missed the "grand air" BG1 brought us. So when I reallised you could leave the city I went straight to that castle and thrashed my way through monsters, barely red or noticed the hints NPCs gave me. I didn't mind the monsters before Torgal's room, and I've tottaly forgotten Glacus who was just another casualties. I globally like BG1&2 levels design but hate these kind of "pratical jokes" you're depicted : whatever the mcguffin they force you to chase/find/figure out, it'd better be found quick enough. At least for me, since I'm mostly here for the fights because when I want to solve problem I go back to programming and design... In BG1 I had the time of my life in Durlag's Tower : for the challenging fights - that damn final boss ! - and the ambiance. But I couldn't care less of Durlag's poor stories and the occasionnal quizz and riddles !
Larian needs to watch this video.
Still true.
Oh mah gerd! I never dispelled the guy...in 9 playthroughs...not once...I wasn't even aware of this...I was only always happy to get the boots!
Them shoes are pretty sweet though. You could dispel him and then roll him for his boots.
This was actually really interesting. I can't recall if I noticed any of this when I played it the first time, and, admittedly... I don't often think of much of this, though I am slightly annoyed when areas have empty space between walls. (without being wiring or secret passages or something.) It's just so... odd.
EDIT: That said, I think it's best if, if the world isn't built for you, it's at least relatively clear why features exist. A dead-end which is a lookout tower, or storage area, or has defensive positions, or something.
BG1 was far superior in this aspect. If you find a location that looks interersting in its "open world" sword coast, it may not contain anything for you. Because, that's what worlds can be like.
In BG2, you don't even discover the locations (which each serve a purpose for you), they're all connected to a quest you must pick up first.
Later on, Bioware made fully interactive movie experiences, where everything is but a set piece meant to entertain you. BG2 laid the foundations for that right here.
I still have never played BG1. I have bounced off it every time I try to get into it. But ... I don't really want to go to a whole place and explore just to see what's there. In a DnD game, I want to have a purpose that drives me. (In a Bethesda-style game, i want the opposite.)
I like Bioware's later games that are more interactive movie experiences too. In fact I like Mass Effect 1 more than BG2. But I like both for what they are and what they do differently.
@@MrWendal I can understand that. But that's naturally the *definition* of a game world built just for you. It's not a world, it's a stage with actors, well specifically staged for you.
A couple years ago I played Kingdom Come Deliverance. Exploring its forests reminded me a lot of BG1. Except that the devs went even further as you may not have any major "action" in many many minutes.
As the devs said in the making of: "We risked players saying like: Lots of woods, looks pretty, but boring..."
KCD hasn't become a huge game. But for those that played it, it seemed to have been a special experience.
@@snakeplissken111 I am copying-and-pasting the following paragraph from elsewhere.
"When you play the original games, you will notice - graphics aside - the difference is night and day. Speaking of which, the developer couldn't swing a true day/night cycle (the original games are about a quarter-century old by this point and even they featured more of a living environment); BG3 carries a degree of artificiality reminding you that the world is - at least in this regard - catering to the player instead of functioning like an independent world. The map design in BG3 is also questionable; people have bellyached about the scope of _Baldur's Gate_ 's maps (yes, I know) in order to justify BG3's comparatively smaller maps more centered around the action, but those areas (in the BioWare games) are not explicitly catering to players in search of adventure/immediate excitement...the substantial gaps packed with emptiness between encounters remind you that The Sword Coast is an environment that exists beyond the Player Character's needs/wants/desires. Finally, I mentioned the romances earlier, but I didn't mention how damn near every NPC wants to screw the main character; in _Baldur's Gate 2_ , only a handful of characters can be courted (three female and one male...certain races, orientations and pursuits are flat-out incompatible), they're not always obvious about their intentions and you have to work a *hell* of a lot harder to make the relationship progress. Again, this is a reminder that BG3 is more about stroking the player's ego and less about depicting an objective universe where *you* need to seek out those gratifying elements."
@@Ragitsu BG3s maps are this compressed, you have to wonder how the goblin leader ever looks for a druid grove that is, on all accounts, but a couple hundred feet away.
Yet ironically, BG3 actually brings some of the exploration and spaces back that BG2 got rid of completely. After all, in BG2 you don't find a SINGLE location. The locations find you in the form of a quest giver (the locations also only exist for those quests, which feels real gamey).
Meanwhile, in BG3, you find places for yourself again. Some of which even have multiple entrances (the underdark on the first map), not all of which obvious and rather hidden. The maps are also logically connected. You don't jump from place to place a la BG2. Exploration generally is more fun in BG3 than BG2. This is also thanks to the encounter design. The Underdark in BG2 is basically Dungeon Crawl central, with enemies all over. BG3 takes a quantity over quality approach here.
But yeah, BG1 it is not.
@@snakeplissken111I was shocked to find out there was no day/night cycle. They couldn't manage this with fancy-schmancy 2020s programming?
Not to mention that only 4 players will be attracted to you and only if you fit their standard of attractive. I don't think anyone will romance a player dwarf character. That feels REAL! In the standard game your player character needed to be human, halfling or half elf to be a romance option. Jaheira would also accept Elves, Aerie would also accept Gnomes and Elves, Viconia would accept half Orcs and Anomen would also accept Elves. With the addition of the other characters in EE they still made sense. The monk man is attracted to any woman as long as she was aligned with his beliefs. Being lawful that made sense. The half elf wild mage lady is attracted to any male. Considering her chaotic life, it would make sense that her attraction to people isn't exclusively based on appearance. When wild magic makes reality fluid at a moments notice what's more important, how someone looks or how they make you feel? The half orc character is completely open to any sex and any race. Being an outsider as a half orc that makes sense but also being a power hungry Blackguard he is he's attracted to your character because of their heritage being Bhalspawn. He's attracted to what you represent. Strength, Power and Freedom.
great analysis thanks a lot!
Thanks!
Baldur's Gate has great non-linear game design but from experience I found this can be annoying. In BG2 I got stuck on a boss fight that I needed to complete but couldn't because only +4 weapons could hurt it. I ended up looking up a guide online to see if there was a hidden solution and every guide pretty much said "By this point in the game you should have plenty of +4 weapons so beating this boss shouldn't be too difficult".
While it's great the game is open ended, allowing the game to come to such a halt for missing something never mentioned before was frustrating.
Yeah, that's a risk you take. I actually came across the same problem in the endgame, and uh ... I just cheated and put the Enhanced Edition on story mode difficulty. I kinda regret that though, I played through 95% of the game on core rules. What boss was it?
Kangaxx?
That's the only enemy which requires +4 or better weapons (that I can think of, at least in the Shadows of Amn part)...
The Balor. Or was it a Pitfiend? It was the boss in the Deep Gnome village in the underdark.
Yeah, I also suspect it was a Balor.
Small correction: it needs +3 weapons or higher, not +4. And/or the proper spells.
Yeah, this is a flaw that BG2 sometimes suffers from: it requires you to be properly prepared (in terms of equipment and spells), often without giving you hints on what those requirements might be...
: (
Ah. I had trouble there too. There are three solutions everyone has access to though, regardless what weapons you have:
1. You need to kill the balor to get a gem you need. You can pickpocket the gem straight of the head deep gnome, and skip the fight.
2. If you're really evil, you can murder him for it. Beware, if you have Jaheria or Minsc in your party they will not only abandon you, they will attack you for this!
3. By that point you will have access to slayer transformation, which will allow you to kill the Balor even at higher difficulties. It will harm your reputation - sometimes things come at a cost!
You can also use the mage spell Melf's Minute Meteor's if you have it, it works as a +5 weapon. I think the lesson here is never give up, sometimes you have to sacrifice your morals to get what you want! It's an interesting choice.
Loved this vid :)
Hi mr Wendal,
I really enjoyed your video, so much that I would like you to expand on the subject if possible. At 0:48 you mention cities often not being designed at all. As of this moment I'm sitting on the beach in Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria.
This tiny city was built from the ground up in order to facilitate tourism and nothing else, due to that reason everything makes a whole lot of sense. How would such a place look like in a well designed RPG such as Baldurs Gate?
Thank you again for your wonderful content.
Thanks! Well, instead of being designed for a protagonist it would be designed for tourists. So there may be clear signposts, but they would point to tourist spots and not necessarily to the locations your game character needs to visit. There may be shops around, but not ones selling weapons and offering healing services - how many tourists buy weapons and get into fights? It would make sense as a place but still not be ideal for a party of adventurers. Except for the shops, Mass Effect one's citidel does a good job of this. It's clean, well laid out, signposted, and safe, but sometimes you have to get off the tourist tracks to hit the backalleys and divebars where you see the dirty underside of the city.
Thank you.
This video amazed me, as in, wow, there is a Bioware game that does this? As someone who started out with KOTOR this goes beyond my expectation. They consistently stepped away from these stuffs though, understandable, but still disappointing.
This is part of why Stalker is so great too
Fuck...all the time I fought and killed those 'under the spell' NPC and "there's nothing we can do about it other than kill him"-ming the quest NPC.
well now if I play this game I will not feel like the smart hero who saved the guy. But like the tired old wizard who has the answer already.
I made it plenty clear that I was going to spoil this sidequest when at 1:06 I said "We'll follow her sidequest from start to finish." If you missed that, I'm sorry I spoiled one tiny part of a 17 year old game.
It was not an attack on you per se, I heard that you were going to play from start to finish, but I did not expect the game to present different solutions to a problem. I don't mind story spoilers as much as spoiled puzzles. But I am presuming there are many more situations as the one shown.
Sorry, I was in a bit of a bad mood yesterday. There are some puzzles with different solutions, but while BG2 is a big game, there aren't as many puzzles like this as you might think just from this video. If there are, I missed them. While this quest is representative of BG2 as a whole it's puzzles really stood out as being better than the others.
No harm done, just started bg ee yesterday, so I can export that character to bg2 ee. Maybe I'll forget it.
soo good!
Thanks!
Hopefully newer RPGs actually will feel like an RPG. (*cough* TES *cough*)
Personally I have never killed the dogs to feed the umber hulks because I like dogs and I enjoy killing monsters.
Yep, and look at the Skyrim, or even dat Mass Effect Andromeda from BioWare who made BG1/2. What happened to the industry? I had really hard time believing those "modern" worlds. They all looks incredibly shallow and hollow. They have no soul, you know.
oh yea, i've even seen interviews from early devs on Starcraft and BG itself, they'll even admit it's changed. just, seems like more corporate oversight, and short-term decision-making, make stock-holders happy most important, etc.
@@TheBooklyBreakdown lol nope, games just got streamlined for most common denominator.
We can't have games inconveniencing people for the same reason why we can't have people knowing basic scientific trivia without automatically blurting out "hurr I'm not a scientist why would I know".
"Hurr I'm not a hardcore gamer, why would I think of this". Companies only care how many people give them money, not how high quality of experience they provide... Average player is dumb and so are the games.
The game is beautiful and amazing of course in the ORIGINAL version... the new screen graphic filter is ugly!
you speak in contradictions.
on the one hand you enjoy it when the area feels organic, and there are rooms, enemies, and items that feel like they belong there without pandering to the player.
on the other hand, you enjoyed the dog puzzle, which is an example of a non-organic puzzle into this organic environment, and praise that too.
am I missing something?
No not really. I can see how you'd think it was non-organic. I think it was a organic enough. A game has to strike a balance between a believable organic world and being something the player can enjoy. I think BG2 does this well overall.
i don't understand why the dog puzzle would be considered inorganic OP, you didn't even offer an explanation
BG was one of the first games i ever played and the 1st RPG. Because of this any time i play any other RPG(except for gothic and maybe 1 or 2 more) i feel like "this game is retarded, how cant i attack if it was possible in games from before year 2k" xD
Oh great, another channel to add to my email notifications because youtube doesn't even try to tell me you have a new video out.
Hit the notification bell?
11:36 to me the only character and girl i love and a LOT is Neera. I liked Lady Brenwin in first game and Amanaman (the cleric fighter) second, I also like the dimension traveler Bard, but he needs a party I can add him :D I also like Airi.(the cleric mage ) (everyone else i dislike or flat out hate) Dos not ruin my enjoyment of the game :D all the more reason to generate party's. In fact the "un-sympatic" characters are the reason i Walue Amanaman and Neera so much :D
She is an obnoxious 2010s modern day coffee shop patron.
Hey Mr. Wendal, have you ever played *The Void*?
No, but I watched Ragnarox' recent video on it.
Oh man, I always wanted that game but didn't know how to get it. I saw a video of it back in 2009 on TH-cam and could never get it out of my mind. Finally found it on GoG.com after taking a look if it was there - it was! And in English!
It was the game that made me get back into writing and drawing. I politely recommend it.
Great video. Subbing!
Thanks!
At 11:42, how did you bring that up? It looks like a useful feature but I don’t know how you do it.
I think it's something like holding tab ... or shift. I was playing the enhanced edition, but i think it works on the original too.
Thanks, I will try and experiment with key combinations. I am playing the Enhanced Edition too. I know that it’s a feature in Planescape Torment: EE, did not realise it was in BG2: EE. Ironically, just finished freeing the Keep. Yes I did work out how to use the dog stew, did not realise I could save the captain though.
Where did you get the old footage of that city at the start of the game? It looks familiar...
From 1939's "The City", I got it from the Prelinger Archives
this was good
Thanks!
Okay, now I really want to play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2... the question is this however:
Should I get the originals from GOG or should I get the remakes on Steam?
The remakes are on GOG too. If you wait for a gog or steam sale the remakes should go for about 5 bucks. Up to you.
Thanks Wendal!
Oh, and I am not one to shy away from the price of a game if it's good enough.
Both games together are pretty cheap as it.
Though would you recommend me getting both or just the second game?
I would recommend just the second game * cough* which I do in detail in my review over on patreon *cough*. The second is definitely the more popular one too, but lots of people love both, so up to you.
Are there any mechanical differences in how the two games work, or are they essentially the same games with different stories and settings?
Because if I were to play the second game and then decide to play the first one later where it's missing some quality of life game mechanic then it would feel more like slog.
I don't think there are any QoL differences between the two games, at least not with the enhanced editions. Even the original version of the first game was updated with new combat rules when the second came out, I think. Apparently the second game has faster movement speed and more character animations. The main difference for me is the setting and characters. Bear in mind I haven't actually played the first game for more than 30 minutes.
Dayum. This is still 19.99 on Steam and isn't on GOG at all.
It's usually five bucks in a sale. It's on gog: www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition
Cool, I'll watch for it. Thanks. I don't know why GOG galaxy search showed nothing.
Killing mean old ladies = BAD
Mugging mean old ladies = GOOD
Wtf Minsc?
"This is not for all games, but it’s what I look for in RPGs where I want to be immersed in the world."
You should play Daggerfall, pal. Although at this point I'd wait for the Unity version of the game to be finished.
Cool video, someone tell nu-bioware, might go back to making good games.
(*watches video... after 5 seconds, cursor hovers to thumbs down...*)
(*continues watching... cursor delightfully moves to thumbs up*)
Same. I hit the thumbs down then saw "and that's why I love it".
I felt like an ass but it was clearly bait-y :D Nice work, Mr. Wendal!
As someone who never played it, is it worth it? And is it possible to start with 2 and not 1?
I think so. I played it in 2005 for the first time, five years late, and still loved it. I've never played the first, so yeah you can start with 2. If you're not sure pick it up in a sale, the Enhanced Edition goes for five bucks. It's not the most user-friendly experience, mainly understanding the RPG system and spells takes a while and it isn't introduced gradually or really explained at all. If you want to know more I have a detailed 2017 perspective review on my patreon, for patrons only sorry.
Ugh, the "enhanced" edition outlines around characters look awful.
You can turn them off in options. Sorry I didn't, it had been years since I played the original so I didn't even notice them.
I just don't understand why they tried to imitate something caused by technical limitations in mid '90s games. Most of the EE changes are really strange.
Isn't pillars of eternity and tyranny similar games pretty much nowadays?
Despite many similarities Pillars doesn't do the things listed in this video, at least from the 25 hours I played of it. I haven't played Tyranny.
"Never inconvenience the player, never have a mind of your own, never be a person" - this is EXACTLY why I prefer to play Baldur's Gate with 6 custom-created characters. The party needs to be a well-rounded, min-maxed walking device of dice-based mass destruction. No time for personal feelings.
You sound like my employer :)
I never took Nalia. I hate damsel in distress stereotype and that's what she was screaming to me.
She doesn’t need rescuing, she needs your assistance helping her family. She's a capable fighter, but she can't do it alone. Everyone hates Nalia, I kind of do too, but perhaps you're supposed to hate her. She is a poor little rich girl who seems care for the less fortunate but still treats them all as being below her, as if her help makes her better than everyone else. She's naive and has a lot of maturing to do - Jaheria comments as such. It's interesting to have her in your party because even though you may not like her as a person, that's what makes her an interesting character. It's a pity she wasn't given more of an arc by maturing towards the end of the game.
Then I know I didn't miss out by never taking her on my team. I don't hate her as I never picked her, I hate the stereotype, which in fact does occur in this situation. She's looking for help in a tavern... in slums... damn, talking about being desperate. Taking in consideration I like characters with strong beliefs that define them and nowadays usually evil characters to that. Edwin though, my all time favorite. More people should run Korgan/Mazzy too, Korgan is brilliant. That's something that I really miss in RPGs, sociable killers in team. I've played through Torment Tides of Numenera 3x times through lately and the game feels like a demo in comparison to BG2. I love the setting of Numenera (also as pen and paper) but it seems to be hard to write something truly original in it, although it's so bizarre and strange. Deepness of characters doesn't only rely on brilliance of the writer. It's how much you actually can relate to it. Your own experiences are the igniter for the Role Playing experience, when you do something, because you feel like you would be doing it. I digress. Played Torment: Numenera?
Actually she was in the tavern because it's where she goes to help people usually, and so it's also where she goes to get help when she needs it. It's the same reason I went there - to get help because I couldn't do everything myself. My character is no damsel, Nalia doesn't feel like one to me either.
Numanera is next on my list to play ... well, it's either that, ME Andromeda, or Scribblenauts Unlimited.
Ah yes, now that you mention that part, it strikes some sense into your standing. Did not remember that she was also helping ppl in there, what she did "underline" roughly. Maybe that's why I wasn't interested. Played original Torment (what a strange question to ask)?
Tried three times over the years but just couldn't get into it.
While giving out all this praise for believability, you didn't seem to ask a question, what were those two lizardmen doing in a dead end behind a locked door. Not too believable, that.
Read the description: “This quest isn’t perfect either, far from it … The enemies are not varied enough and are in odd places, standing there doing nothing all day, they have no sense of purpose … So I understand if you hate this quest, but looking at how it fails is kinda boring. What really inspires me to make videos is when a game succeeds at doing things most other games don’t even attempt.”
Sorry if my earlier message sounded a bit blunt, I didn't mean to be so rude, I was writing replies before work and was short on time.
Uhh, it made more than perfect sense to me. They are serving as watchmen on the tower for any counter-invaders?
Another thing that was so annoying was ammo management that overall in the end actually added to the feel of the world being real.The BG devs strived to put D&D into a players home PC and D&D had lots of gear management.Nowadays RPG's like Pillars and Pathfinder Kingmaker do away with any idea of ammo management to streamline the experience.Its small touches like this that make a game better overall.Look at WOW classic and how they re-released recently and players are loving how hard everything is.Plus finding the bows that had unlimited magic ammo was a huge moment in the BG series!
I kinda disagree on that one. The ammo didn't feel realistic - it was cheap to buy pages of ammo and a single character could carry enough for an army. It is basically unlimited ammo with micro-management - the worst of both worlds. If they had restricted the amount you could carry to the point where you were using it sparingly or trying to loot arrows mid-fight, it would have been interesting.
IMO making ammo so abundant and cheap was excellent design.This allowed just the annoyance of ammo management to be felt by player.If ammo was expensive or restricted in amount you could carry that would be 3 strikes against ammo management and players would of revolted.But just making sure players purchased ammo at vendors or looted ammo from fallen and then had to organize in inventory and make sure quills were full etc was perfect!
And it was restricted in amount you can carry as inventory was limited to just what each character could carry....loved that! Something about party stash that just feels wrong to me.