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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Voice Actor ‘Michael Hollick’ won’t be the focus of
@PS3:
I agree with Jonah, it’s the beginning of the end. They didn’t rely on a server to perform DRM tasks, like Valve does, or like Microsoft does. It was an error on the architecture side. There’s one lesson to learn from this: once the user has access to ALL components of a game, the game will be cracked.
Time to pay the price for not realizing this.
@Electronic Arts: We Drained Our Core IPs:
Bwa ha ha ha 😀
The problem is not that they milked their IPs. The issue is that while doing that, they didn’t bother creating new ones.
Granted, Valve didn’t do too much development either, but at least they went out, scouted for talent, and bought teams (see Portal, TF2).
@Bungie’s Next Game an MMOFPS?:
Why not? The MMO aspect has nothing to do with the camera perspective. Plus, if they’re harping on known IPs (like Halo?), then it might turn out nice.
@Question of the Week:
It is very likely. There is a lot of pressure from the other MMOs to move in that direction.
I am impressed you managed to squeeze in my comment; I was away for the week, and I only managed to post it late.
@PS3:
I agree with Jonah, it’s the beginning of the end. They didn’t rely on a server to perform DRM tasks, like Valve does, or like Microsoft does. It was an error on the architecture side. There’s one lesson to learn from this: once the user has access to ALL components of a game, the game will be cracked.
Time to pay the price for not realizing this.
@Electronic Arts: We Drained Our Core IPs:
Bwa ha ha ha 😀
The problem is not that they milked their IPs. The issue is that while doing that, they didn’t bother creating new ones.
Granted, Valve didn’t do too much development either, but at least they went out, scouted for talent, and bought teams (see Portal, TF2).
@Bungie’s Next Game an MMOFPS?:
Why not? The MMO aspect has nothing to do with the camera perspective. Plus, if they’re harping on known IPs (like Halo?), then it might turn out nice.
@Question of the Week:
It is very likely. There is a lot of pressure from the other MMOs to move in that direction.
I am impressed you managed to squeeze in my comment; I was away for the week, and I only managed to post it late.
ahh man I want the show to be longer
ahh man I want the show to be longer
@QOTW I think the games have to be free,i mean I’m not gonna play if I have to pay for it I’m still 13 I don’t have my own money yet
@QOTW I think the games have to be free,i mean I’m not gonna play if I have to pay for it I’m still 13 I don’t have my own money yet