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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Wind, you are too cool. Your efforts are much appreciated because this whole thing seems to be generating some interesting discussion. As for the now-public "hit list", some people from your list need to step up and explain what I'm missing here. Cmon people, mDrop needs some allies! 
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Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
Wed Aug 21, 2002 2:27 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I greatly enjoyed the game. So I voted for it. Simple as that. 
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 3:50 am |
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Provis
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 872
Location: Middle of the Forest |
I think its funny that the most popular game, according to us, is "hated" or at least thought that it shouldn't get the top spot, by most of us. 
I didn't vote for it BTW.
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"Yea, so what I didn't like Planescape: Torment, what are you gonna do about it?" - Provis |
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 4:48 am |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
I greatly enjoyed the game. So I voted for it. Simple as that.
Well, clearly you were mistaken...
Seriously though, was there any particular aspect(s) of the game that made it stand out for you? Story, graphics, character development, perspective, party size, interactivity, realism, setting, immersion?
I'm not out to bash BG2 here. I'm curious what pushed it to the top of our list. Looking at the top 10 or 15, I don't really see any "dogs" in there, so I'm curious what caused BG2 be picked over any of the others. Just looking at voting dynamics, I would expect Gothic to do well because our voting pool is skewed toward people that have played and enjoy the game. (this doesn't make Gothic a bad game, or even diminish its ranking) Similarly, I would expect the results to lean toward newer games and ones that received worldwide promotion. What I don't know is the relative influence of voting dynamics versus "true" game quality that makes BG2 better than Gothic and the rest.
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Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 6:58 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
My guess is that BG2 came out in a period of a big vacuum of other CRPG's, and people were just happy to get any serious CRPG game for a long long time. It was the first CRPG besides BG1 to revive the CRPG's again, after a long period with only very few attemps on the CRPG front, and my guess is that people remember BG2 with pleasure for filling this vacuum.
First of all, I don't hate BG2. Putting a statement that not puts BG2 on my top 10 list, is not the same as I hate it. BG2 would probably be in my top 30 list from over 100 played CRPG games.
I surely have a long history of played CRPG's before BG2, and my top 10 is also marked a lot by elder games, eventhough a few very newer ones made it into my top 10. It could be interesting to see how many BG2 voters have a CRPG playing history before 1996-97.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 8:17 am |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
I agree with Michael C.
i know many young gamers, who started playing crpgs with the Baldurs Gate series - and the first games you play in your life gets always a "bonus".
If you would make a top 10 for rpg veterans Baldurs Gate would have a hard time.
But it is a good crpg for sure and together with Fallout it revived the crpg genre.
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Last edited by HiddenX on Wed Aug 21, 2002 10:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 10:13 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
Actually, my CRPG playing history is before 1996-97. I rather enjoyed the Ultimas. I voted for some of them. Just thinking about them makes me want to dig out my old computer and start them up again. Hmm... perhaps I'll be able to get that copy of Ultima Underworld to finally run...
Anyway, I rather liked the story (although some people didn't) I thought the Throne of Bhaal expansion helped tie up the entire Bhaal saga and give it a worthy finish. I loved the NPCs! They were the best part! Jan Jansen might have been a little worthless as far as being a mage and thief but he certainly made up for it with those stories.  I liked how they all had their own little quests and personalities. The way they interacted, especially the evil mixed with good characters, was great. I like how they seemed to develop with my character, how their lives were changed by me. The ending scene in ToB really brought that home (Along with the little story about each of them at the end). I liked the stronghold quests as well. The romances were a nice touch (although I could have done without Anomen). Plus, there have been several mods released that were fun to play around with. The Solaufein Romance Mod Pack had one scene that literally had me rolling on the ground laughing so hard that I was crying.
Me: "You know, this has been tried before."
Redael: "Yes, but not by us! Did you check out our cool color-coordinated uniforms? Don't you wish your group looked this imposing? (Reffus, could you start humming our dramatic theme song?)"
That whole conversation was hilarious! 
I suppose I should post my screenshots some time.
This game was my first introduction into DnD rules. I thought there were plenty of options, especially with the expansion pack.
Plus, the game is big. Frankly, I like to get my money's worth. I got it here.
I liked the combat. I liked all the spells and figuring out what they do.
Graphics have never been a high priority for me. For example, I played a little game called Avernum 2 this year and loved it. It was the first game that had kept me up until 6am in morning in a long time. It's graphics are on par with the early Ultimas.
As I said earlier, I cut my CRPG teeth on the Ultimas so I have no problem with a isometric view. I don't have to be on an eye-level to enjoy my surroundings. I can be just as immersed in an isometric view as I am in 3rd person or 1st person. I enjoyed the settings, especially the war-torn city of Saradush. The game gave me a nice tour and introduction to the forgotten realms. This probably helped me enjoy the story more than others who are very familiar with this setting. I've read no books on the forgotten realms and as I said, this was my introduction to DnD rules, so everything was new and interesting for me. The world seemed pretty alive to me with the normal day/night cycles etc. I enjoyed reading the books scattered throughout the game that gave some history to the world.
Frankly, I just had a jolly good time playing this game and replaying it with mods.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 10:16 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
Frankly, I just had a jolly good time playing this game and replaying it with mods.
And that's ofcourse the most important thing about a game!
For the BG2 Characters you find along with your Main character, I fully agree that they got a lot of personality, not seen in many other CRPg's.
I never bought the expansion ToB, and never tried mods, so my judgement is only for the BG2 basic game. I was familiar with the forgotten realms world before BG2, so I guess I didn't have this "new world feeling" like you describe, and the story in BG2 basic was in it self very limited, if we look apart from the interesting NPC characters you could hire. I got bored following this mad Magician through one realm after another. I finished BG2, but more out of stubbernness than enjoyment! My characters had played their role in the conversations, and they were maxed out in exp., but I still had 40+ hours of gaming until the end.
Regarding battles: My experience with the mage and Priest spellbook in the AD&D universe was quite good when I got BG2, and only a few spells was tweeked in power according to what I was used to, so I didn't had to read the spellbook that carefull. My biggest issue about the battles, was the way they went everytime in the mid and end game when you meet the more powerfull spellcasting bad guys. Cast protection spell on your characters, and cast remove protection spells on your opponents. The first one who lost his protection was the loser. The nonemagic users was often only spectators until the magic battles was ended and leaving the losing mages unprotected for the non-magic users to finish off. I found it very repetetive and boring in the long run.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 11:22 am |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
The following is a group of votes for BG2 based on lead integer of vote (ie 8.5 goes in the 8 bucket)
code:
10 4
9 3
8 1
7 5
6 6
5 4
4 2
3 5
2 2
1
0 29
For 7 people it was the best or second best game ever. For the majority of the voters it gets the middle of the pack .... an average great game ... and then there is the mode at 2. I would guess these are the people who thought it belonged on the list for a bunch of borderline reasons, and so tacked it on as an after thought.
In any case over half the voters (33 of 62) voted for it.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 1:23 pm |
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Vilgefortz the mage
Noble Knight
Joined: 24 Jul 2002
Posts: 203
Location: Khorinis Mage Guild |
I put it on the 2nd place because I had another great RPG already on the 1st (namely - Gothic).
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 1:37 pm |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
I didn't play BG II at all despite so many people (yoohoo, Val :  )recommended it... so I couldn't vote for it.
After the BG series was recommended to me I got myself BG I. I installed it, I made a char, I started to play... and just as with DS my interest in the game died after the second day of playing. I was bored. So I uninstalled it. And I decided not to play the sequel, either.
After my parallel playing of so many longish and a bit tedious RPGs for several months/ weeks now (Morrowind and NWN among them) I didn't even know how much I had missed some quick and dirty non-fantasy action...
...until I finally played DoD again last weekend  .
To sum it up: I'm afraid BG just isn't my thing. Which doesn't mean that IMO it's not a good game... it's just not exactly a game for me.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 7:23 pm |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
...
To sum it up: I'm afraid BG just isn't my thing. Which doesn't mean that IMO it's not a good game... it's just not exactly a game for me.
This is an important point! I do not, as a rule, enjoy sweet white wines. But a friend insisted that I try a <fill in a german name that means harvested after a quick frost> wine he had gotten very lucky to find.
I tried it. It was very good ... for a sweet white wine. I was happy for my friend's enjoyment of the wine and could see where some one could really like it - but I did not. If I could recall the bloody name I would even recommend it, but I would not buy it for myself.
I feel this way about BG, and through extension BG2. I haven't the time to spend on an epic that I would not enjoy that much ... even though it might be a fantastic incarnation of its breed.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 7:49 pm |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
...Eiswein? Or do you mean a Beerenauslese?
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Jaz |
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 8:01 pm |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
...Eiswein? Or do you mean a Beerenauslese?
I *think* it was Eiswein, because it sounds like ice-wine which would make sense in english as well. Why? What is a Beerenauslese?
EDIT - I forgot to add that at the time I remember thinking the name sounded like it made sense ... but then, we where trying a lot of different wines that day....
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 8:06 pm |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
Okay, I didn't vote. Me=bad. My top ten RPGS:
Darklands
Fallout
Ultima IV
Ultima VII
Wizardry VII
Diablo II
Wizardry
Bard's Tale
Ultima V
BG2
I thought that I hated games where you control parties; in fact, what I hated were games where you didn't give a rat's ass about your party and the interface was pretty but clumsy (BG1). I invested about 15 hours each in BG1/ToSC and BG2/ToB, and considering that for those games I paid a total of fifty dollars used, it was a steal. But the quests were fairly tedious, and the graphics of BG1 wore on me. My very first RPG was Wizardry. It was tough, but fun.
Darklands is my favorite, even though character development is nil and the battle graphics are lousy. I poured over a year's worth of free time into this one. Winning the main three part quest was the greatest feeling (especially since it involved killing Templars, a big plus for me personally). I loved the watercolors, the whole system was phenomenal. It had the best combat system of its day, and that system survived into BG1, BG2, and various RTSes.
You could be good or evil and it didn't affect your chances of successfully completing the game. You had priests that could ask for holy aid, alchemists pursuing the philosopher's stone and alchemical formulas. Your adventurers grew old and died, and you could recruit new ones. I loved it, and still do.
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Wed Aug 21, 2002 8:50 pm |
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