I grew up playing the Baldurs gate games. I've sank years of my childhood into them. I've played a little bit of the DnD Tablestop stuff, but this is not a DnD Tabletop, it's supposed to be a baldurs gate game. Not a tabletop simulator. I've sank 130+ hours gameplay into the windows steam version, and I will continue to play it and provide as much feedback as I can. I understand glitches and what not. Those are not going to be in this. instead I'm going to review the fundamental differences between what a baldurs gate game is, and what we have here in Early Access. It's a bit ranty, but still makes my points.
Amazing narrator? Nah. You get a 20s something euro chick. She's not a storyteller. She's not a DM.
Real time with pause? Nah. You get turn based bs that only allows you to do 1 action give or take. And then continue to take turns slapping each other.
Fog of war keeping you on your toes? Nah. You can see everything and freely move your camera everywhere. Nothing is mysterious or adventurous. The only fog of war you have is on your minimap/map, but that's pointless and removes the need for a fog of war entirely. Fog of war is meant to remove one of your senses, and to give you a sense of unease as you venture into the unknown. Bring it back.
Select all adventurers? Nope. Single character at a time. The rest follow. You have to pull them out of the group to give individual commands otherwise as soon as you change to the new leader they are all fumbling to move with that one. Makes jumping out doing anything independently a bitch.
Starting the game off right? Nuh Uh. Wishing for a nice relaxing slow pace, such as candlekeep or even a relaxing dungeon escape? Nah. Get the same crappy intro from divinity 2? Yep! I'd have been fine with a crashed ship and laying on the beach as a good starting point. Like in path of exile. But the same bullshit escape from a burning/crashing ship... Come on.
Good Strong Music? The music isn't even reminiscent of baldurs gate. Big Drums, Big Brass. Listen to the into music of both 1 and 2. It immediately takes your soul into adventure mode.
,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_BG1_Intro_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸
,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_BG2_Intro_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸
Or the battle music of the originals, oh my God you felt like you were going to die, adrenaline pumping. Leave it to Michael Hoenig to make a mine full of kolbolds intimidating.
With BG3, I feel like I'm watching a movie, like a pirates of the caribbean movie... Not making life or death decisions in a scary situtation.
Conversation history? Nooope! Even the in-party banter was done better in the originals. How hard is it to make a scrolling chat box with your previous choices and dialogs? Instead I have to open the history box, (that is only available during that dialog), after which it's all gone. You can't read anything from the past.
Anybody Read? The books you read in the originals have pages. The most you'll get here is one page and a sentence on page 2. Which in itself is ridiculous. Cut it to 1 page. It's a kick in the teeth to turn a page just to read a few more words...
Max party? 4? Really? Wtf happened to having 6 active characters in the party?
Sleeping... Why am I running clear back to the same camp site every day? What happened to camping where you are? What happened to getting ambushed and the fear of sleeping in stupid places? Where's the Brothels or Hotels? Where's the night life?
The character / inventory page... How 20 years later can we be at this point? This inventory page is a box of boxes. It's ugly. Disgusting. And with a box full of boxes, there's no sorting options. I want to see a pretty dnd 5e character sheet when looking at my character information. Like they did in the originals. Wizards has a 5e pdf character sheet on their site. Showing it like that would even be better. Additionally, where's the Mage book or Priest Scrolls? The entire UI needs redesigned to look much more baldur's gate.
The Dice... Come on... I never once ever felt the need to save scum the originals. I was content with my choices. They made the impact I wanted to make because of the skill points my character had, Make it stat driven, CHA, INT, STR, Etc based on the choice. There was nothing I could do if I didn't have the stats for it. The choice was in stone because of my characters limitations. This is not the case here. You just roll the dice and RNG everything from walking and talking to fighting and death.
Loot? Yawn... An over abundance of boring meaningless loot. Even the better gear, green or blue are only +1 on stats making them essentially worthless upgrades as the stats for the dice rolls mean nothing anyways. Taking on one of the hardest quests in the entire Early Access to create an ultimate weapon, and you may as well just use a different white weapon with much higher dice rolls. +1/+2/+3 blah blah blah. meaningless stat numbers. Give them something unique and usable. A good DM works the upgrade path by changing the dice, not making math harder on the players. Change the dice roll completely instead of just lumping a +1/2/3 on them. Change the weapon from a 1d4+1 to maybe a 1d6 or a 2d4 depending on the kind of upgrades you want. And where is the auto loot feature that was introduced into the enhanced editions for QoL? I hope larian looks to the past for guidance and plans on adding that as a feature.
Additionally, I run evil characters. I don't give a crap if someone is standing there watching me open a chest or looting a corpse. Why are they talking to me and stopping my actions? I'm going to steal the item, and wait for their response. They can get scared and run away, say nothing, alert the guards or I can threaten them to stay quiet. I want that option. Instead they converse with you and it stops your actions completely. The only way to loot a dead corpse in someones vision is to kill them, which alerts everyone around you for no reason even with a stealth backstab. It's ridiculous.
-----------------------------------------
When looking at the Steam Game Page, there's a reason under "More like this" The original/enhanced baldurs gate games are not listed. This is not a baldurs gate game. Make it more like a baldurs gate game.
Last edited by Dirin Tenshinibo; 17/10/2011:57 AM.
