SimonG: And more thing about Baldur's Gate. I was there when it was released. I followed the development and I even went out of my way to get the pre-release Demo. BG was the CoD: MW of its time. It was, compared to the RPGs before, dumbed down, too easy, focused on graphics, had a predictable and boring story and mostly lame, borderline obnoxius characters (although there are some really awesome). It spawned, just like CoD, countless mediocore clones that we all have rightfully forgotten.
See the effect memories, personal predilictions and opinion have?
I was there at the begininng to, and as far as
I remember, most of what you wrote simply isn't true,
BG certainy wasn't the day's COD.. COD is tremendously popular, BG was NEVER popular at all, and even less so overall than it is today, the complicated RPG system with numbers made it even less accessable. Although I certainly admit it was opening a door.
As far as BG spawning clones... I think you have things a little crooked, everyone was still reeling from Diablo's release . that game had the largest effect on RPG's.. people were crying out for more complexity or at least a product which lived up to earlier games, this is where the 'dumbing' down arguement, in general, first raised it's head but not from previously complex games rather from the precieved dumbness of Diablo and it's clones a lot was being said about SSI, Arena and Daggerfall but the major concerns were of what kind of influence button mashing would have on the D&D franchise, as it turned out unfounded, it was well received by those who knew what to expect.
Predictability and boring story, again I don't remember that being the case, maybe I spent too much time on the forums and my views were slanted by that. There were obviously the detractors as with all games , but pretty much from the start, and certainly in most of the mags of the time, it was being hailed as hard to get in to but original and the interaction with party NPC was seen as fresh, new and innovative, obviously you can look back in hindsight and say that other rpg's were doing the same thing, although I can't think of any that offered such a range of NPC's that actually interacted so completely with game and character, but there was never any 'predictability' arguement, because at the time it
was fresh. The graphics were considered great, yes, but lot of people still wanted the open world of Arena and Daggerfall or the '3D' of Diablo, so in general they were either loved, recognised for what they were, 2D painted backdrops with '3D' chars or slated, again pretty usual, iirc most people were commenting on the useage of the paperdolls, and the changing pixel avatars that was a big draw but I certainly don't remember too much emphasis on graphics over substance.
I guess it all really boils down to the side of the fence one was on, as to their rememberances of the release time.. and I'm sure that other's have different recollections.
..and yep, I think Bioware suck now too.
