Well, most games are in development for a couple years on average, as opposed to Doom which was pumped out in a couple months. Comparing the original Baldur's Gate with other concurrent titles of that year is a little unfair, you sort of have to compare it what was released previously. For its time it was pretty remarkable, especially compared to previous DnD efforts like The Temple of Elemental Evil (all of which were way before my time, I am not even 40 yet) because of how well and how often it reacted to the player. I mean, first real mission with the kobold mines, when you get into the second area a miner runs out and gets shot. The action is scripted, but not the results. Its not an auto kill. The kobolds can miss or if the party manages to get ahead of him and gets targeted or takes out the kobolds, he will live and thank you for saving him and give you like a dagger or something. There are a lot of little unnamed NPCs you can save who will show up further a long in the game, and those moments were incredibly meaningful at the time. The sheer possibility those things inspired in the player left you with a sense of wonder through the whole game -when it came out. You simply never knew what was possible but always had hope that things could be -and often were rewarded for that hope. As a video game it wasn't an impressive title, as a role playing game that responded to player action it did a lot of things few games had even attempted previously and which few games since have attempted since.
As opposed to BG 3 where so much is scripted. I have NPCs I have saved showing up as corpses the next time I see them because they don't need to be killed, they just have a triggered state. Eventually the bugs will iron out and it will be less obvious but it still won't be quite the same.
True, good point. i did go back to 1997 to see what I was playing, but maybe a bit earlier. Again I was playing games of that time frame so comparing the games that were released "with" it should be a fair wag at how it chalks up to other games, but I do understand your point.
To my point, and I run into this a lot. I have been playing a lot of video games over the years. I have seen these mechanics that people find amazing in earlier games and they do not have the same wow factor on me as they do on other players. I remember when oblivion was being released my co-worker was going off on how the npcs have day/night schedules and are "smart" AI that can go get items and interact with the world....Ultima 6 from 1990 did all of that and npcs would pick up items and eat food or what have you. Oblivion was released in 2006. Way better graphics (oblivion graphics were horrible but better than 1990 game and 3d vs isometric pixel graphics) but the idea was not new to me so I just shrugged it off as something to be expected.
The only game in recent history that wow'ed me with how they told a narrative was the first witcher. I bought it while I was on a month long business trip just because I saw a big shiny red box in best buy and figured, why not I'm bored in the hotel, I'll pick this up. At the time all the rpg games let you play as a good guy or you could try to do the evil path and be a big mean bad guy. Like KOTR was renown for that....the problem was the good and evil choices were SOOOOO transparent and obvious it was just weak in my opinion. Now comes me playing The Witcher with no knowledge of the game (I think this was after I played NWN because I ...THINK? it used the aurora engine?).
Good and evil were not clear cut, it was very mature in it's story telling and just a gritty world. I was amazed and inspired. I think that is how you felt about the miner escaping the mines and you were wow'ed by that. I always have played games to see if a death is scripted or if I can same the npc, so while I wouldn't be wow'ed by that, I give any developer credit for letting me affect the story.
In bg3 in the goblin camp, I made it a point to try to save the hostage that gets knocked into the spider pit and dies. Very ineffective scripting, but the npc does thank you and then disappears. Don't think that impacts anything else later on, but cool they let me do that and acknowledge that action.
