Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.
It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.
The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.
The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).
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I could have sworn you did 720 Degrees a few months ago – because I suggested it.
The reason Sony is doing $70/yr for “free games” is that their PSN games have not been selling at all. Sales have been dreadful, and they may as well charge $70/yr because the average PS3 using is buying far less than that in PSN games per year anyway.
I could have sworn you did 720 Degrees a few months ago – because I suggested it.
The reason Sony is doing $70/yr for “free games” is that their PSN games have not been selling at all. Sales have been dreadful, and they may as well charge $70/yr because the average PS3 using is buying far less than that in PSN games per year anyway.
Using = user. Can’t edit anymore.
Using = user. Can’t edit anymore.
When it’s not mainstream it is bleeding edge 😛
@WoW Remote Auction house:
LOL, microtransactions on a payed MMO?
I mean I thought that microtransactions were invented to get some money in the “free” MMOs …
I guess that can work, although I just can’t see myself mixing microtnasactions with a monthly fee …
@Fallout New Vegas getting big changes and mixed reactions:
Mixed reactions are good. If you want to make a game that is playable by your entire player base, then you can’t take sides. You have to add features that some will hate, others will love, and features that some will love, others will hate.
If the game is good enough, then people will develop their own individual style of play, to avoid unpleasant features.
@ used game sales:
Jennifer’s right, it is double dipping. They get money for the same individual product, again and again.
And yes, Derrick is also right :D. Digital distribution will make this a moot point.
As for Gamestop as a new type of Steam? Well, Steam was already brought in by Valve 😛
@PSN premium:
lol!
I have Steam and Desura clients installed for free. And I pay only for the games I download.
And as for the free game, well, it’s one game from a list of games Sony selects. And no, you won’t get any of those $ back if you don’t download a game that month …
So, read this with me: FAIL!
@Portal, and Carmack open sourcing his engines:
It’s more than marketing. I mean, in this case, even if you don’t buy the new product, you still get value, by getting a game, or a game engine.
@Question of the week:
It will fail. There are plenty of networks that are free. None for playstations, that is true, but still.
To me it looks a lot like what’s happening in my country: the government is trying to raise money by increasing taxes. They did that last year and the amount of money they got was even smaller, because a lot of small companies went bankrupt.
I foresee a similar future for PSN: less cash coming in, because fewer people could afford it.
When it’s not mainstream it is bleeding edge 😛
@WoW Remote Auction house:
LOL, microtransactions on a payed MMO?
I mean I thought that microtransactions were invented to get some money in the “free” MMOs …
I guess that can work, although I just can’t see myself mixing microtnasactions with a monthly fee …
@Fallout New Vegas getting big changes and mixed reactions:
Mixed reactions are good. If you want to make a game that is playable by your entire player base, then you can’t take sides. You have to add features that some will hate, others will love, and features that some will love, others will hate.
If the game is good enough, then people will develop their own individual style of play, to avoid unpleasant features.
@ used game sales:
Jennifer’s right, it is double dipping. They get money for the same individual product, again and again.
And yes, Derrick is also right :D. Digital distribution will make this a moot point.
As for Gamestop as a new type of Steam? Well, Steam was already brought in by Valve 😛
@PSN premium:
lol!
I have Steam and Desura clients installed for free. And I pay only for the games I download.
And as for the free game, well, it’s one game from a list of games Sony selects. And no, you won’t get any of those $ back if you don’t download a game that month …
So, read this with me: FAIL!
@Portal, and Carmack open sourcing his engines:
It’s more than marketing. I mean, in this case, even if you don’t buy the new product, you still get value, by getting a game, or a game engine.
@Question of the week:
It will fail. There are plenty of networks that are free. None for playstations, that is true, but still.
To me it looks a lot like what’s happening in my country: the government is trying to raise money by increasing taxes. They did that last year and the amount of money they got was even smaller, because a lot of small companies went bankrupt.
I foresee a similar future for PSN: less cash coming in, because fewer people could afford it.
Going back to EA charging $10 for used game owners to play online.
I just remembered that EA shut down tons of servers for older games, so you can’t even play online for games that people DID buy new, and just didn’t buy the new edition.
It’s penalizing LEGIT BUYERS for buying Madden 09 and deciding they didn’t want to waste money on Madden 10.
This is an outrage no one’s really brought up yet.
Now you know why Microsoft charges $4/mo for server use – I can find players on really old games if I want, like the first Rainbow Six for the Xbox 360.
Going back to EA charging $10 for used game owners to play online.
I just remembered that EA shut down tons of servers for older games, so you can’t even play online for games that people DID buy new, and just didn’t buy the new edition.
It’s penalizing LEGIT BUYERS for buying Madden 09 and deciding they didn’t want to waste money on Madden 10.
This is an outrage no one’s really brought up yet.
Now you know why Microsoft charges $4/mo for server use – I can find players on really old games if I want, like the first Rainbow Six for the Xbox 360.
The reason why “no one’s really brought up yet” the Madded outrage is that very few people play Madden. They’re a minority. And in all democracies the minority endures the dictatorship of majority.
While my personal feeling is that this is seriously wrong, there’s very little that can be done.
What makes me feel a hell of a lot better is the fact that in the case of my favorite game (AvP2) things turned out better: a community-made master server patch. So, while AvP2’s online component was disabled by the publisher, we managed to bring it back. Now people can play the game for as long as they want.
The reason why “no one’s really brought up yet” the Madded outrage is that very few people play Madden. They’re a minority. And in all democracies the minority endures the dictatorship of majority.
While my personal feeling is that this is seriously wrong, there’s very little that can be done.
What makes me feel a hell of a lot better is the fact that in the case of my favorite game (AvP2) things turned out better: a community-made master server patch. So, while AvP2’s online component was disabled by the publisher, we managed to bring it back. Now people can play the game for as long as they want.