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General discussion (archive)GOG loves D&D: The Baldur's Gate series(47 posts)(47 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 15, 2012
GOG loves D&D! Here's why:

<i>While our [url=http://www.gog.com/en/promo/hasbro_stacking_promo]Diamonds of D&amp;D promo is in the works we--the GOG.com staff-- would like to share some very personal memories with you. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? I mean with Baldur's Gate, which might not be the first of the epic open-ended D&D adventures, but it sure as hell started a whole new chapter for the computer role-playing games. Here's a few of our favorite memories and sentiments associated with that milestone of a game.

Baldur's Gate brought a new quality to skipping school, as we played with three of my pals on one computer. It was like the biggest thing ever for us. I even had a hamster I called Imoen. It died after like a week. Today, I think it would live much longer if I didn't try to be original and--like six other guys on my block--just gave it the noble name "Boo".
--Krash, the GOG.com heavy-duty game tester


Since Baldur's Gate was first released there wasn't a year when I wouldn't play it. Somehow I rarely manage to actually finish it, but I enjoy spending time in the Sword Coast so much, that I always have an ongoing game of Baldur's Gate I or Baldur's Gate II on my laptop. I love to know that I have it with me everywhere I go and I can escape to the Forgotten Realms at the push of a button. Just don't tell TET!
--G-Doc, the GOG.com clickity-click guy


Ah, I remember the first time I laid my hands on Baldur's Gate . Stop. That's not true. Actually, I hardly remember anything about the first time I tried to play BG. I didn't know what to do and I hardly understood anything that was going on, probably because of the language barrier and I-have-never-played-RPGs barrier. It was difficult and, I guess, kinda boring because I uninstalled it the next day. I WAS 13 GODDAMIT, OK?

Luckily, there was this daring polish company named CD Projekt (sounds familiar?), that spent bucketloads of money to make Baldur's Gate the first ever major fully localized video game in Poland. Yep, they chose Baldur's Gate: probably the biggest and most difficult game they could pick for translating back then. I mean, 150 hours of dialogs, narration, spells, armors, weird creatures, quests, etc. in a fantasy world almost unknown before then. And they've hired the cream of the crop of polish actors; I mean really BIG names, like you had De Niro, Pacino, and Nicholson in a frickin' video game. What's even more incredible, is that they managed to pull it off.

Baldur's Gate became a tremendous success and everyone wanted to play it. Everyone but me. Because I played the *imported from Russia* 150% legit version few months earlier I was feeling hipsterish and used "Meh, already played it" as an intolerable excuse to justify my ignorance. Only after Tales of the Sword Cast came out I've decided to give the game a second chance and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. So when Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, the second game in the series came along I was ready to embrace it with all the due love and enthusiasm. Once you played Baldur's Gate you're like a "mature gamer" and you can grow a beard, start booking 'gaming time' in your calendar, work for the best digital distributor you could find, and keep rolling high on your d20's--like I do.
--MDyzzle, the GOG.com "do this" man


So, there you have it. Our very own Baldur's Gate series love stories. Care to share one of yours?
Posted September 15, 2012
I was so impatient while waiting for CZ translation of BG2, that I finished it in EN:)

Learned EN pretty much while playing this game:)

Memorable moments: First kill of Drizzt Do'Urden
Heya! It's me, Imoen.
Minsc and miniature giant space hamster Boo
Finishing IWD2 with single character (sorcerer)
Post edited September 15, 2012 by mech13
Posted September 15, 2012
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mech13: I was so impatient while waiting for CZ translation of BG2, that I finished it in EN:)

Learned EN pretty much while playing this game:)
Funny, I was too impatient to wait for the french release, and got my first copy of BG2 from... a czech friend! (the game was available in Prague a few days before it was released in France)

As for you, playing BG2 vastly improved my english. I remember reading Lilarcor's item description for the first time: it took me hours but I finally figured out the jokes and then burst out laughing.
Posted September 15, 2012
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Jaime: You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Przed wyruszeniem w drogę należy zebrać drużynę.
Posted September 15, 2012
I've never played it, how bad should I feel?
Posted September 15, 2012
I thought the first Baldur's Gate was pretty bad. I mean, I don't have any historical context to put it in--maybe it was much better than the competition. But to me, it's a slog, exploration is tedious, the characters aren't interesting, the combat is boring, and as a bonus, it's all tied into the horribly abusive AD&D system.

Feel free to start yelling at me, I guess.
Posted September 15, 2012
Vanilla Baldur's Gate is rather bland and looks ugly on modern, large monitors, but using TuTu or BGT to run it with the BG2 engine, and mods like the BG1 NPC Project (more banter, interjections and quests) and Sword Coast Strategems (much smarter enemies) BG1 is easily one of my all time favourite games.
Post edited September 15, 2012 by PetrusOctavianus
Posted September 15, 2012
Ah, my first memory of Baldur's Gate is how, once i got it home, the 512mb install was so huge it almost took up my entire hdd and made the game itself run like a dying donkey. (my PC was archaic at the time ok?).

On another note when i had to replace it like 2 years later i picked it up in a Baldurs-Fallout2-Planescape triple pack which stands out as the best purchase ever. I'm also looking forward to the enhanced editions which look promising despite the delay.
Posted September 15, 2012
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GOG.com: I didn't know what to do and I hardly understood anything that was going on, probably because of the language barrier and I-have-never-played-RPGs barrier. It was difficult and, I guess, kinda boring because I uninstalled it the next day. I WAS 13 GODDAMIT, OK?
My first experience with BG series was something like that.

The first one I "played" was BG2 (I was young and stupid and didn't respect numeric orders) and it was hate at first sight: the interface wasn't Fallout-like, the combat wasn't Fallout-like and I had to learn all those crazy D&D rules ("c'mon, there's a dice with 20 sides? TWENTY???"). I even had played (and loved) Planescape, but BG2 didn't strike me right. Those were the pirate years, downloading stuff through dial-up (it may seem a lot but it's only 6~7 years ago). "Good" times.

Years later I already knew a little bit more about the historical importance of the series, but never get around playing it. My first REAL experience is from this year, when I started playing my gog version of the game, with no hope of ending soon thanks to the OCD that makes me reveal 100% of every map and do every quest.
Posted September 15, 2012
Loved the game when it first came out. Enjoyed the size and feel of the game which made it feel somewhat epic to me. Loved the characters as well Minsc and Boo cant have a better hampster and his pet in a fight :).
Posted September 15, 2012
I actually bought bg 2 about 6 weeks before I owned a PC to play it on. I had played some AD&D a few years before and knew all about THACOs and whatnot and I spent those weeks reading through the manual over and over, scarely able to believe that they could put all this stuff in a game. They even had the "wish" spell in there and I didn't have a clue how they could get that to work. It goes without saying I counted the days until my shiny new PC arrived! (I had only experienced console games at this time and had no idea how deep PC games could be)

Anyway, 6 weeks passed very slowly and my PC arrived and I went to install the game-all 4 CD's of it! All went well until the last disc then the install stopped and crashed. I tried again and sgain until I realised that my new PC was buggered and had to be returned and I still hadn't played the game. Talk about frustration!

2 weeks later a replacement PC arrived and the game installed and I finally played it. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely!
Posted September 15, 2012
I was 11 and visiting my uncle who works for Microsoft. I was in his study and he had a deluxe edition or something in his study. When asked about it he said "it was okay" and that he'd "never played it", but everything about it was freakin' huge! And I'm pretty sure Lord of the Rings had just hit theaters and I wanted to destroy a dark evil. I stole it from him, installed it (I had a 1.5 gb hd after OS) hated everything about it and went back to playing Raptor, POD, and Chrono Trigger. 8 years later I played it and enjoyed it (21 now), but that still doesn't develop a respect or appreciation for THAC0 which I shall always hate, with a passion. A dark passion, but I guess that's just how I roll, natural 20's double d12's around the table.
Posted September 15, 2012
It was my first RPG, I went into GAME the day it was released, looking for a FPS and the cashier begged me to buy it, even took out the manual and spell book to explain some stuff to me and it looked like a really daunting experience, but, in the end I bought it....

I never looked back, when I was done, I brought it into work, where we played it on (really crap) PC's, where my colleagues were converted from their consoles and became RPG fans too.

Good memories for me :)
Posted September 16, 2012
Wait a second, De niro and Pacino are Polish? I never knew that
Posted September 16, 2012
Good thinking of GOG to post this while some of us are trying to convince Obsidian to release Project Eternity DRM-free, preferably on GOG. Highlights the interest of both GOG and its customers in having these kinds of games here. I tip my hat and join in the sharing.

Fallout and Baldur's Gate turned me on to PC gaming. Later I discovered PS:T and IWD. Baldur's Gate 2 got me into modding. I excitedly preordered Dragon Age because Bioware billed it as a spiritual successor to BG, and I enjoyed it (while flawed in some ways, it's a good game in my book, unlike its sequel). These games still contribute in large part to the standard by which I judge games. I love 'em. I have every Fallout and D&D game offered here on GOG (in addition to the physical copies I still own of several). I want to pledge to Project Eternity but don't (and won't) use Steam and want a DRM-free version, preferably one provided by GOG. :-)
Post edited September 16, 2012 by ddmuse
Posted September 16, 2012
A Baldur's Gate story? Well BG2 is one of my favorite games EVER - but no other game I've played has ever had such a string of bad luck attached to it:

Firstly, I purchased BG2 as part of the Baldurs Gate collection - the one that had both games and the two expansions (Tales of Sword Coast and Throne of Bhaal). At the time I was really excited to play these as I'd heard a lot about them and wanted to see an update to the D&D system I was familiar with through Pool of Radiance. But I foolishly purchased it online - thus when I finally got the collection itself, it turned out the main games were on DVD. A drive I sorely lacked.

Secondly, I finally got my claws on a DVD drive and burned up many, many hours in both Baldurs Gate and Baldur's Gate 2. Alas, the extensive use of the latter led to the disc getting damaged: A crack appeared along the side of the disc and only got bigger. So, however reluctantly, I had to throw it into the rubbish bin.

Thirdly there was that moment in BG1 where the game crashed at a particular moment but, as game's crashing is nothing new, there isn't much there to dwell upon...

And finally, I did eventually get a replacement disc for Baldur's Gate 2. Again it was a DVD but this time it didn't work: The entire game may be on a DVD but it still keeps demanding another CD-Rom!

Thankfully, I found GOG and downloaded BG2 - why? Because curse or not, no force on Earth is going to stop me from playing such a magnificent game.
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General discussion (archive)GOG loves D&D: The Baldur's Gate series(47 posts)(47 posts)
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