r/baldursgate • u/Salem1690s • 2d ago
The art design is so beautiful. All those rich greens, yellows, reds, oranges
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u/niagara-nature 2d ago
No game I’ve played has quite matched the wilderness exploration of Baldur’s Gste 1. Oblivion was close, but it wasn’t D&D.
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u/Anthraxus 2d ago
Oblivion was a novelty for many who had never played a 3D open world RPG like that before, but the more you played the worse and worse it got, as all the cracks started to reveal themselves...the awful level scaling, copy/pasted areas, the quest compass leading you around, etc...
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u/Contagious_Cure 2d ago
80% of my playtime in Oblivion was modding it for this exact reason. Especially mods like Unique Landscapes and mods that made the dungeons more unique.
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u/AnOnlineHandle 1d ago
Oblivion was a novelty for many who had never played a 3D open world RPG like that before
In fairness Oblivion was a major technical breakthrough in terms of things like being able to actually see distant terrain and having detailed trees. I found Oblivion disappointing after loving Morrowind, but in Morrowind you were running around in a short circle of fog everywhere you went and the technical leap in Oblivion was definitely real.
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u/hexhex 1d ago
I'd say Morrowind is even closer than Oblivion, but there the wilderness is much more alien.
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u/Ar_Azrubel_ 1d ago
Look, I adore Morrowind, it is one of my favorite games of all time, but I do fear that the colour palette consists mostly of brown, lol.
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u/hexhex 1d ago
Maybe it’s been too long since I played it without mods, but i remember the southern part of it being quite lush and relatively green
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u/Ar_Azrubel_ 1d ago
Fair, there are parts which are more lush like the Ascadian Isles region and mods will enhance that.
Still, vanilla Morrowind is very brown in terms of color palette. Not always, but it is absolutely noticeable.
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u/MakingMoves2022 1d ago
What about Witcher 3? I haven't played (lol), but it looks like it has gorgeous wilderness.
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u/niagara-nature 1d ago
I played it a bit. With the remaster I don’t think I can play it. My pc doesn’t support win 11.
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u/Professional-Eye-540 23h ago
If you play on PC and Steam, you can just right-click on the game property tab and navigate to game versions and betas where you can choose the version you want
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u/Connacht_89 8h ago
The world is amazing, but exploration is directed (you have tons of icons on the map that tell you "there is something here to see"). The strong point in TW3 is the storytelling of the quests you do meanwhile, rather than simply wandering around.
I found Kingdom Come: Deliverance to be more satisfying in that sense.
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u/nedelll 1d ago
I think a lot of games do it better, because there is so much empty space in BG1
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u/MakingMoves2022 1d ago
But the 'empty space' is exactly what gives the 'wilderness exploration' vibe
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u/Affentitten 2d ago
Wylcoh;s Armory has some great videos on crafting terrain in the style of OG BG. eg. How to make trees in the style of baldur's gate
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u/saervok065 2d ago edited 1d ago
BG1 truly felt open world and the weather really made it lifelike too. As I looked at the beautiful art I was then drawn to Viconias line. It really does go to show BG1 was the groundwork for the characters and BG2 was when personalities were truly defined though Viconia may just be relieved to hear the odd bit of kindness or a compliment in her own way after all shes had to put up with though something tells me she'd probably be more cynical and dismissive in BG2 with her properly defined personality but then again by the time of BG2 she was about to be burned at the stake so theres that. BG1 was an incredibly ambitious game for the time.
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u/padapadapampam 1d ago
Funny how you (and the developers writing Viconia’s lines) interpret his words as kindness, or in her case: flattering.
It just seems obnoxious and sexist to me.
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u/AspiringBrujo CEO of Candlekeep People's Revolutionary Front 2d ago
The trees move.
Do you not see it?
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u/gustavpezka 2d ago
Again you disturb me!
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u/AspiringBrujo CEO of Candlekeep People's Revolutionary Front 2d ago
Damn forest. Always reminds me of pansy elves
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u/rlvysxby 1d ago
Yeah I just want more Baldur’s gate 1 to explore! I miss that feeling of uncovering the map and wondering what’s around the corner.
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u/Contagious_Cure 2d ago
You should see the map art for Icewind Dale. Most are honestly screensaver worthy.
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u/RoosterShield 2d ago
GemRB is an open-source implementation of the Infinity Engine that can be used to build new games (or to play the classic games).
If you know any aspiring game developers, maybe encourage them to build games of this style so we can keep this genre alive and kicking for years to come.
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u/KaleNich55 2d ago
The environment sounds and calm music combined with these visuals are just top notch.
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u/Jack_Nohbdy 1d ago
Coming back to Baldur's Gate after playing Arcanum is whiplash. Arcanum has a better story, but the color selection and art for Baldur's Gate is hard to top.
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u/Ar_Azrubel_ 1d ago
The olden days, before the color-devouring demon Pazuzu ate all the reds and greens.
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u/Optimetrist 2d ago
speaking of which, how come you use those ugly models? :)
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u/Ok-Dog-1660 2d ago
I'm pretty sure they're just the enhanced edition models.
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u/Optimetrist 2d ago
yes, they are
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u/siriondil_pl 2d ago
Are there any mods which changes this?
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 2d ago
I played a bit of 3 and it made sense, but when I tried 1&2 I couldn't get the combat to make sense for me.
If I play more of 3 will 1&2 make sense when I go back to them?
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u/thomasboleyn 1d ago
Combat is completely different in 1&2. You need to make regular use of pause throughout combat to give you time to direct your characters.
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u/randylush 1d ago
3 auto-pauses for you and lets you plan every move. 1&2 rely on you managing time and pausing to give directives.
But I wouldn’t say combat is completely different. Other than turn taking, both have the same melee mechanics. Both have mages with a finite set of spells to use in between rests. Both have buff spells and attack spells.
I played BG3 before BG1 and I would say it definitely helped me learn how to play BG1
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u/AnOnlineHandle 1d ago
The games are essentially unrelated other than existing in the same D&D universe, with different types of games, creators, stories, characters, etc. Even the worlds don't really feel the same, BG 1 & 2 was a more grounded take whereas BG3 is like living in a comedic zoo of everything being over the top everywhere every single moment.
The name and some clunky cameos were just slapped onto Larian's game for marketing reasons, just finding the name of the most popular D&D storyline which the head of Larian and the lead designer of BG3 admitted to not even having played or having finding them boring.
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u/BelgarathMTH 1d ago
I agree with your point, and as an interesting aside about an overlapping interest of mine, you just described perfectly in your first paragraph the difference between classic World or Warcraft and modern ("retail") World of Warcraft, and why I prefer classic.
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u/snowitch90 1d ago
Even the worlds don't really feel the same, BG 1 & 2 was a more grounded take whereas BG3 is like living in a comedic zoo of everything being over the top everywhere every single moment.
Fits in well with the rest of current D&D. The Forgotten Realms stopped being the Forgotten Realms with the release of 4th edition almost 20 years ago.
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u/AnOnlineHandle 1d ago
When I tried other D&D games I soon realized I never cared about D&D, I cared about Bioware's writing, game design, world design, voice acting, sound design, music, atmosphere, etc.
So to me Baldur's Gate is good because of the golden age Bioware aspects which can also be found in games like Dragon Age: Origins and Knights of the Old Republic. D&D itself is pretty lame. Bioware's take was on a completely different level and is why out of all the D&D games they had to go back 20 years to find the one beloved classic to mine the name of to slap on their unrelated game, because D&D itself isn't interesting, Bioware's take on D&D was interesting. Some of that take made it into BG3 in terms of the party scenes seemingly more inspired by Dragon Age: Origins, and I get the impression that's the thing that people like about BG3 as well, the second hand fumes of Bioware with expensive presentation.
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u/I-mmoral_I-mmortal 1d ago
True, but BG3 story is actually worse than Beamdog content of the EE games.
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u/Sad_Tax8185 1d ago
Turn the autopause end of turn on, and turn on the option to see the math for the hit rolls. Then read what THAC0 means if you haven’t done all that already, that should help explain what’s going on.
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u/I-mmoral_I-mmortal 1d ago
Lol "combat only makes sense when it is slow and I can think and not worry about having to be hit cause everything is turn based."
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 1d ago
It had nothing to do with the old controls or lack of explanation, nah.
You know what they say about assuming, right? Ass.
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u/I-mmoral_I-mmortal 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well it was easy enough for me as a middle school child to figure out.
Make sense... it's quite easy.
Use your abilities and kill whatever is trying to kill you.
I'll assume you're just absolutely paralyzed due to having to think too quickly. Cause it's absolutely not confusing at all.
RTwP is just utterly overwhelming for most players cause they're dripping with adrenaline and can't remember spacebar pauses the game.
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 1d ago
So you played it back in middle school but still haven't developed empathy?
That's far more devastating than not understanding a video games' mechanics.
Good luck with that. 🖖 May your life be as pleasant as you are
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u/I-mmoral_I-mmortal 1d ago
I got plenty of empathy, not pity though.
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 1d ago
K. Keep telling yourself that. You certainly didn't display it in this thread, and actions speak louder than words.
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u/I-mmoral_I-mmortal 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's a reason why you think empathy only works 1 way.
Imagine liking a challenge and the lore to a game to get it dumbed down for whiney players who get confused that the sword icon is the attack and the spell Icon is for casting spells and that you can hit spacebar to issue commands. Nothing in BG3 makes any fucking sense. All due to pitying pathetic players who can't follow lore. Leave it to the masses to ruin anything refined.
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u/RecognitionSea1531 1d ago
And then you play with this god awful atrocious SoD UI and the ugly black sprite outlines...
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u/MakingMoves2022 1d ago
I swear people will hate SoD for any reason. The UI is not ugly, it's fine.
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u/Connacht_89 7h ago
You can bet your monthly wage that had this UI been present 25 years ago, they would love it, and bash on the original if it were introduced with SoD.
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u/CastleofPizza 2d ago
I honestly still really enjoy the charm and look of the Infinity Engine.
I wish that more games were made with it.