Playing through IWD 1, and Arundel shows this game railroads you harder than a train on a track.
Sorry it's just, after playing BG1 and Planescape it's...where did the core team go, on vacation?

I thought the story was just fine.
But it is a completely linear dungeon tactics game. A whole different approach from the mentioned actual RPG's.
Much like Fallout Tactics is to Fallout 1&2.

Story is great. Characters you meet are great.

In PST you don't even get to create your own character and the combat is very easy, give me IWD 1 or 2 any day over that game.

In BG the story is no better than IWD. Been able to explore optional areas does not make the main story non-linear.

No story ever told is non-linear; it is the gameplay, the adventure in BG that is non-linear. IWD is little less than player participated narration.

IWD technically offers more freedom gameplay wise. Sure BG allows you to walk around the map but after the first playthrough the exploration is done with and any future playthrough will tend to follow a more planned route. IWD gives a lot more freedom gameplay wise to overcome enemies and encounters as you can create the party of your choice and play through the entire game with that party, BG is more limiting as you are restricted to the pre-determined NPC's to recruit and can only be accessed in certain areas at certain times in the game.

The adventure in BG is no less linear than IWD, in BG you can visit different side locations on the way, but will eventually have to go the same route as everyone else, In IWD you can take a different route through each area, you may go down the left path first, me the right, this is no different to BG. You go left I go right, but we end up on the same path in the end. It is presented differently in each game but is essentially the same.

Both BG and IWD are great games.

What are you smoking? So this is why people keep coming back to BG, time and time again, because once played that's it? You're living in cloud cuckoo land. Nonsense. You can, and I have done many times, create a party of your choice in all of the BG games. This is fan speak. You really need to take those blinkers off. That is the only thing you've said that makes any sense.

I do think it's a valid criticism that the Icewind Dale series makes no attempt to hide the rails of its linear storyline. An NPC literally tells you where to go next, often suggesting a course of action so circuitous it makes little sense to actually follow it if we weren't aware that this is in fact a mission being thrust upon us.

I mean, really, take this example from Icewind Dale 2: trek through an impossibly thick haunted forest so you can reach the territory of an aggressive barbarian tribe so you can fight through a dragon's nest so you can get to the hidden dwarven ruins beneath filled with countless monstrous horrors so you can emerge top-side near a monastery of uncooperative monks so you can use their secret passage to the underdark (ie, one of the most dangerous and unforgiving places in Faerun) which you can then use to gain access to a Mind Flayer citadel which has a surface exit near where you want to go. Seriously, a random merchant you've just met for the first time exposition dumps all that on top of you. Now those are some impressive rails!

Re-read the post I said exploration is done with as you've seen it all by that point. Not that the game has no replayability.

Nope, not fan speak.

How do you progress the game in BG? The same way you progress the game in IWD.

Sure you can go left or right but you always end up on the same path in the same place. It isn't anymore non-linear than IWD. In IWD I can take different paths to the objective just like in BG but eventually the path narrows and we are in the same place in each playthrough.

Have you got any examples where this isn't the case?

Yes, fan speak. You are clueless.

<snip> Sure:

Icewind Dale (you >> MUST >> take >> this >> path, >> no >> matter >> what):
Easthaven >> Kuldahar >> Vale of Shadows >> Temple of Forgotten God >> Dragon's Eye >> Severed Hand >> Dorn's Deep (upper) >> Worm's Tooth >> Dorn's Deep (lower) >> Easthaven

Baldur's Gate:
Candlekeep >> ANYWHERE except Cloakwood and Baldur's Gate city. There are more than 30 distinct map areas, all with their own unique dungeons and side quests. You do not need to go to Nashkel Mines except at your own leisure.
At your leisure, Nashkel Mines, which opens up the bandit camp and Cloakwood, which then opens the city itself. At all times after this, you are free to go anywhere... do anything... or not.

Can you complete BG without visiting the exact same places in each playthrough? Forget about the optional side areas that don't progress the game, they are no different than rooms in a dungeon, or houses in a town, you can go in them all, or skip them, but do you have to take the same path through the game to complete it? Yes, this is the same for both games.

Nothing you've posted so far counters this.

In both games you do things at your leisure or not at all, the game doesn't force you to do anything, you can stand still in either game and don nothing.

Yes.

Nope.

Candlekeep > Nashkel mines > Bandits Camp > Cloakwood > Baldurs Gate > Candlekeep > Undercity.

Of course these areas are all optional, don't need to go to these.

Look... you have tried to compare doors in rooms with completely new and independent world areas... maps, in your desperation to try to prove that IWD is no more linear than BG. You have failed miserably, and to not know that you can complete BG without going to the exact same areas every time just shows your complete ignorance of the game, and further proves your 'fan speak'. So I'll just leave you to continue on in your bliss...

:)

Think both are great games, but to say BG is as restrictive in exploration as IWD is pretty preposterous. Just because some of the pit stops are the same in each playthrough, doesn't make them equal. That should be obvious with minimum thought or analysis.

Two people go to Rome. I take a direct plane. He tours Europe for two years first, exploring the sights and the culture.

Same destination; very different paths.