And IWD's faults even harder to overlook. Look, it's all down to personal preference, and that's why these kind of threads "X vs Y" are ultimately pointless.

Things do indeed come down to personal preference at some point; however, in my experience, that point generally arises some time after trying to explain why one has certain criteria that one judges a game by, not when trying to articulate what those criteria are or explaining how the game measures up to those criteria, and the discussion of these points informs one's understanding of what one looks for in a game and whether their opinion as to what constitutes a good game is likely to indicate that you will share their opinion upon playing it.

For example, you seem to prefer open ended gameplay over any kind of linear restriction; I can appreciate not being forced down a glorified hallway, but sometimes a degree of linearity is required to have some sort of narrative cohesion, which makes me enjoy a game far more than a completely open ended game with so little structure that the narrative can't grow. This indicates to me that the premises you use to judge games (or at the very least, RPGs) are not compatible with mine, therefore leading me to the conclusion that any game you tend to review favorably is more likely to be one that will not be fun to me.

Admittedly, I could be wrong about my assessment of your priorities, but I have little to go on; if I am incorrect, I would appreciate you rectifying any errors regarding my perceptions on this matter. Either way, I think that discussion on why you have those preferences would be interesting, but judging by your posts thus far, I'm not sure that you are all that keen on discussing it.

Only when you overanalyse things; it's a game, nothing more. Don't lose sight of that fact.

Firstly, I take issue with the insinuation that attempting to exercise critical thought in an attempt to understand the criteria by which people judge something constitutes overanalyzing; then again, that's an unfortunate constant with culture these days, it seems. Secondly, the fact that the subject at issue is a game is irrelevant; games are an art form, and analysis of the art form's constituents hardly seems unwarranted, as similar depths of analysis and discussion are engaged in with regards to film and literature.

Take issue all you like, but it sounds like overanalysing to me. It's a game. Either you like it, or you don't. You don't, that's apparent.

Play both.

Depends on the purpose of the thread. Some people like to compare X and Y to have an idea which one they might like more. Sometimes they might want to know what others think in case they missed something themselves. Sometimes people are just curious what others think and sometimes people start such threads for the sake of starting a thread. However, if the thread ends up being a debate argued with personal preferences trying to change the others thinking, yeah you're absolutely right, it's pointless. I was never trying to start a debate here, the post I was replying to didn't quite make sense to me so I was hoping the poster would go into a little more detail what they meant.


Ahhhh, the caves in the wilderness with the locked chests inside of them. I'm pretty sure there's a reason they only existed in BG1 ;) Then there's a random idiots in the wilderness like that dart thrower guy and some mercenary groups. My favorite was the lone idiot north east of the Firewine bridge who approaches my party of 6 and says something to the affect of "I'm the best swordsman in the world, nothing can beat me because I'm wearing these shiny gauntlets of expertise. I bet your not strong enough to kill me and take them from me". How can anyone not facepalm at that? I certainly hope this isn't what Gromuhl meant by wandering cos these encounters were just tedious, I'll take the linear dungeon crawl for my loot thanks ;)

Personally, I didn't think BG1 was that bad in regards to the optional dungeons because even if you didn't do them, you weren't that behind in XP and could still kill Seravok with the gear you found following the main quest. My first BG1 playthrough was without the TOTSC expansion and in the vanilla game, most of the available melee weapons didn't have anything higher than +1. I know I skipped quite a few areas cos I was fed up of the tedious romping back and fourth in the wilderness areas and just wanted to get back to the main game. BG2 is a different ball game though. While you can skip the side quests, you would lose out on the XP and gear required to stay alive later in the game. Barring thieving skills and scroll scribing, the only other legit way to get XP is random encounters. Considering you got loads of XP from the side quests but barely anything for kills, random encounters is a very crappy way to make up for the XP shortfall.

I do remember that post actually. At that time though, I hadn't played my way through the GoG version of BG2 yet and didn't remember seeing the items you mentioned in my CD version. When I did get round to it and finally saw the items you were referring to, I did stare at my screen stupified wondering if my eyes were decieving me. Yeah, it was the stupid to add those items in the game but it was fairly easy to deal with. My response was "I didn't see that, the PS:T characters are fine, Deirdre is just selling replicas as a marketing gimmick and Rybald shouldn't be letting frauds like her operating in the Adventure Mart. When I start my 4th playthrough of BG2, she simply won't exist, problem solved.

Yeah, I played through BG once while doing nothing but a few starting quests then focusing solely on the main plot. We routinely got flattened by the fight outside the place where Sarevok was hiding, and the Sarevok fight itself was impossible due to everyone being underleveled from not doing all of the sidequests, to say nothing of under-equipped. I did invest in some gear, but without tromping through the wilderness aimlessly, I missed out on things like the sword that granted permanent Free Action, which made Web far less useful than it should have been, and various other things.

Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of treating that nonsense as canon, and I certainly had no plans of buying the gear, let alone acknowledging its existence in character. It's just that to me, it was indicative of everything screwed up about the BG series' priorities, and that irritated that ever loving shit out of me, especially considering all the praise it gets for being one of the best RPGs in existence. Then again, that also seems to sum up the way that BG approached the Planes throughout the rest of the game; every time that the party went Planes-hopping, it was painfully obvious that the game had less interest in their high concept nature and that the game's hack of a DM had just thought that it would be cool to have a contrived excuse to throw planar creatures at the party.

All this critique aside, though, I've never had more fun with any RPGs to come after them than I did with BG1 and BG2. I think both are fantastic games. PST is even better, but again, that depends on a player's preference. All that dialogue will probably bore the FPS crowd to tears.

There is loot coming out of our ears, but I actually had the same experience in PST, though that was more with useable items rather than typical loot.

It's been a long time since my first playthrough but I do have an idea of what I cleared and i didn't skip as much as I might have accidentally implied in my last post. The sword that granted perm free action was a 2 handed great sword found in an area in cloakwood right? Cloakwood is an area you have to pass through to deal with the main quest and all those areas I did clear. I remember not clearing the carnival area because my game crashed whenever I got close to one of the firepits there. I skipped all 3 areas east of the carnival and south of the firewine bridge too. I cleared outside the firewine bridge but didn't finish the interior (pathfinding AI got to me). Ulcaster was the one optional dungeon I DID clear completely. The two areas north of Gullykin I didn't visit. The gnoll stronghold and most of the surrounding areas where cleared but I might have missed 1 or 2 areas, i know I cleared most though. The XP cap without the expansion is 89000 (i think) not 161000 but I can't remember if I hit the XP cap or not. I do know I finished the game without exploring all wilderness areas and the firewine bridge interior though it was enough to finish the game.

Edit: Geez, what the hell is with this forum? I lost my edited post 2 times now >:(

Depends on the purpose of the thread. Sometimes people ask such questions to see if they will prefer X over Y, I know I do this when comparing a sequel to it's predecessor. Sometimes people want to know what the differences are between X and Y incase they missed something themselves. Other times people are just curious what others think and then there's those that start such threads for the sake of starting a thread. However, the the point of the thread was a start a debate using personal preferences on which game is better, yeah, I totally agree with you that that would be pointless. That isn't what I was trying to do though. The post I replied to mentioned a few things which didn't make much sense to me and I was just hoping the original poster would go into a bit of detail on what they meant.


Edit: Finally let me post after another 3 tries

Looks like I did way less than you. After clearing out the mines, I avoided anything that even remotely smelled like a sidequest or optional dungeon like the plague; doing countless menial tasks for generic villagers who I couldn't have cared less about and slowly mowing the fog of war in the hopes of getting shit had lost the little appeal it had at the start, and I was just keen to see how the story played out and be done with it. As a result, I did go through Cloakwood, but I didn't clear the entire area and go into the cave, and Ulcaster was right out.

The hell of it was that by the end, I could see some of the good that's kicking and screaming to be released from the mess of problems the game has. The idea of a fantasy game being set in an urban setting is something that I can appreciate, and the game did eventually manage to focus on the personal stakes of the player character; sadly, it waited way too late to do either.

There's no question in my mind which is the better game, Baldur's Gate stands above Icewind Dale in every way to me. That being said, it is a silly comparison, those games aren't comparable.

Baldur's Gate is a roleplaying game on a grand scale, with a story arc and characters and the intangible spark of vitality that new developers put in their first major project.

Icewind Dale is a game that uses the same engine. That's it. It's a different idea, a different project, one that underwhelmed me because it seemed to be made for people who get a kick out of seeing sprites hack and slash on a computer monitor under various circumstances.

Whatever floats your boat. Icewind Dale had one thing going for it, the best narrator of the Black Isle AD&D games.

But in the end, comparing the two is missing the point.

Baldur's Gate II vs. Baldur's Gate, that's a worthy comparison.

(answer, again Baldur's Gate, because the sequel was a serious let down)

I agree they are very different games, but I think the story in IWD is underrated. Typically the game is seen as just a linear hack n slash with no story to speak of, but I think there is a lot more to the game than just that. For starters, the scenery is the best of all these classic games, and the music too. Stepping into The Hand and venturing around there for the first time was downright scary, and it had a wonderful and unique atmosphere.

Overall I think it's a very well-made game, but it's true there is less emphasis on story and roleyplaying, and more emphasis on combat.