Was it Good? - Baldur's Gate 

😂😂😂😂

Haha! Gold

Haha! That made me chuckle!

Your father sounds like a wise and world-travelled man.

This takes the are ya wining son meme to another level

Or when you get that epic purple flame sword that boss used to butcher you, it's useless, like in Dark Souls. Honestly, the boss weapons really annoy me in the Souls series.

Only if it's a Korean MMO because the developers have no common sense.

that stems from the fact that if the dungeon master gave an NPC a really cool weapon, but refused to drop said weapon when the players defeated the NPC, he would be put on blast by *all* the friends - it happened on a table I was playing (D&D 3.5) with an +5 unholy greataxe, that little drop got my fighter his new set of armor (plus a few important things for the rest of the party)

@@09csr true, in DS3 there is nothing sadder than beating the dancer and realizing her weapons are the worst version of sellsword twinblades, even tho they look much cooler

@@ThanesTito What was the justification for not dropping it? DM just roll on a table for loot and forget the guy had it?

I did the same thing in Dragon Age 2! I named my Hawke Varic and immediately met Varric and I feel like that would only deepen their friendship.

Great minds thinking alike

​@@Velkinazthat's pretty funny. Did you like the video game? 🌈

Similar thing happened to me in BG3. I named my first character Anna and then right after crashing the ship I found a boddy with a note that had my name on it and I was so confused. Turned out the note was about a different Anna

In Shadowrun Returns I created a female elf named "Absinth". After finishing the game I started Shadowrun Dragonfall with an other character. Then I met an other female elf, named "Absinthe". I was also surprised and wondered if they take the past game save for this character 😄

Yeah, nowdays it's just: "We have to find allies all over and assemble a team, we have to stick together, blablabla"-in random settings. Playing Mass Effect 1 the evil way was my last awesome experience with that developer. After that they chose to turn Mass Effect into a political correct cookie cutter formula aswell.

Anthem is the reason I don't pre-order games anymore

I've learned long ago that when a major publisher purchases a dev team that's usually the end of said dev team. They're busy purchasing the brand and the rights to the successful games, as opposed to the good games design sense and the tight-knit coordination of a good studio. The moment the contract is signed, the individual developers are now the publisher's pawns - theirs to fire or reassign as they wish. Old Bioware's been dead for a long, long time - maybe as far back as after Mass Effect 1's release.

@@Kappi__That almost goes without saying. 90% of executives in business are business major graduates who probably have never touched or been directly involved in the majority of their positions of power, they're mostly there to make money. The other 10% consists of the few exceptions to that rule, but in the gaming industry almost all of those exceptions are still rotten to their core. Big names like Randall Pitchford II, Todd Howard, and Bobby Kotick all come to mind - each former members of game development who got corrupted by power and money and pretty much wreck their respective companies while using their image to maintain the illusion of greatness.

​bro what the fuck are you talking about?

Khalid, jaheira, montaron and the mad wizzard we all love and cherish

Fucking Ajantis. Had to get rid of him on my first play through after unknowingly permakilling all the mages and rogues except one evil one of each. Shame because I really liked ajantis, and now he permanently stands in a tent at the carnival.

@@frozztie7511 I left MOntaron and Xzar so they wouldn't end up killing me lmao. One of them was happy when the other died "and the mad wizard falls! saves me the trouble"

@@christophera4527 I always had montaron (Montaron I .. I never loved you!?!) die then removed him from the party 🤪 same with Khalid.

Edwin is too beautiful for this world

New games are more complex though, but in other ways

@@Shrimptjemore complex technically but I don’t see many games with the same variety as bg2

It was one of the biggest games ever at the time - advertised as 90 man-years of development time. But yeah it's like Elite, Ultima VII, Daggerfall, Thief, Deus Ex, etc. in being so far ahead of their time.

@@ce5122 The Pathfinder games are insanely complex - what do you mean by variety? - Have you played BGT back in the day?

baldurs gate 1 was deep in mechanics, lore and alignment systems etc but map and story not that huge. Baldurs gate 2 on the other hand was a beast.

Still to this day I play BG2 once a year and still, when making my character, I spam reroll to get that 92 at least. Finger gets into the pattern of clicking so much, that my eyes see the 92 on the screen when it pops up, but my brain doesn't quite kick into gear fast enough to stop my finger from making that fateful click and that 92 disappears into the void, never to be seen again for that particular session.

@@wrangarXXXX and then you adjust to a slower pace but brisk enough so that you don't get bored and and then you get bored of that as well and start clicking faster and 96 and gone.. back where you started xD

Haha when you accidentally roll right over a near perfect one

Or when you reroll on 18/00 strength.

@@MMDelta9 Oh yeah, that other tooth-grinding AD&D irritation. Total roll of 93, if you're okay with your Fighter rocking an 18/06 Strength.

All content is main monitor for me... cuz I only have one monitor.

Å

@SlingingLily57 Awesome!

i only use my main monitor when i leave your moms bedroom

I too found myself turning up the volume and moving the window to my main

Where exactly is this item?

So..?

Good to know, because without physical media and my internet, I'll never be able to play it for myself.

Eh, not so much. Having played it and then going back to BG1 there's some serious differences. Bhaalspawn have less control in the new game, the first game actually has most of your party members be practically nobodies, and the gameplay is massively different even beyond the edition change. Notably Larian's insistence on sticking with a four man party really throws a spanner into doubling up on any role. Like, it's clearly a continuation of BG1 and 2, but it's also very, very obviously a Divinity successor, and I'd argue the latter is the stronger influence. It's hard to see because BG2 is still the template for every single fantasy isometric RPG mage, even the ones trying to copy Planescape: Torment. I'd argue Pillars of Eternity is a more 'pure' successor, but it's also VERY Oblivion (you know them, they're the guys who used to come along and make superior sequels to RPGs).

Same bro, same. God bless them for not making it a money grab, and actually paying due respect to the original material.

What are you on about?? That game is not BG at all :(. Writing is shit.

Has it, though? They completely threw out personality and motivation for Viconia, spat on the development of Sarevok from BG2, completely disregarded what Boo actually is in the most anticlimactic kill-off of an iconic character, and fucked over the lore of one important characters to the point where even the wiki can only offer as an explanation "uuuh well SOME THINGS happened, we guess, and then SOMEHOW this happened, and now somehow, we're here". Larian's Big Game 3 is a good game. It's just not really a good Baldur's Gate 3. It would have made far more sense to have them name it "Bladur's Gate: Mindflayer Pani Or Some Other Witty Subtitle Here" instead, because it doesn't even really tie into the original duology's stories at all aside for a near afterthought and being set in the same realm.

They/them issues

Me and my 9 personalities

the dark urge

why

Main plot of the 2d is actually too short if you prio on it :(

I was born in the same year and think the same thing, coincidence? I doubt it:)

100% agreed. And Throne of Bhaal is the best expansion pack ever released in my opinion.

@@SLCclimber Well, imo Throne of Bhaal is a bit boring in terms of plot. It has some cool fights though.

Using saves isn't save scumming. Save scumming is, for instance, reloading until you get the desired number of HP on level up. Also Baldur's Gate isn't a roguelike like ADOM or Nethack, so the idea of applying the term to it is a bit odd.

@@Humanophage no save scumming does apply with rpg like bg. it usually more about hitting save every chance they get so they can load back when something went wrong. especially before and after every combat encounter.

​@@fartyfat6539 That is not save scumming. It is normal in an RPG with difficult combat. Most traditional games encourage "saving often". Although this stance outwardly looks like it is "hardcore", what it does in practice is you get easy combat where you never die, it never challenges you, and you breeze through the game without ever losing. Ironman mode is intended for games with procedural content, not games where restarting is boring.

​@@HumanophageSo what you are saying is that in any game with difficult combat you should be reloading at every opportunity to make sure you don't get into a bad situation because of the difficult combat? Yea sure, party wipe means you have to restart, but a suboptimal outcome still lets you keep playing

@@domaxltv You should be reloading multiple times because you die. For instance, you take the wrong turn, pick a fight that is too tough, and you die. The cultivation of the idea that reloading is "savescumming", as if a game like Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment is a game like ADOM or Nethack, leads to the degeneration of difficulty in games. Combat will be made artificially easy so as to avoid "savescumming". Worse still, games will get railroaded so that you don't accidentally stumble into stronger enemies. One alternative to that could be having more potential companions like in Jagged Alliance 2 or Temple of Elemental Evil, so you can afford losing some. However, we are unlikely to see that. On top of it, there is typically no retreat mechanic in RPGs, so the defeat is often artificial.

*Minsc

It's interesting how Baldur's Gate 3 differs from this in companions. Yes they still all have their own story that they prioritize over you, but now you're all bonded with a common cause of removing the tadpoles.

​@coranbaker6401 or empowering them. I think it's really cool you can go the complete opposite direction. And convince your companions to do the same

Honestly I love any baldur's gate esque crpg that does that. i think the first pillars of eternity game did it well to where most of the plot was just you figuring at what was happening to your character and then trying to find a way to make your character stop going insane from their visions. You could even complete the big bads plan after you kill him with nothing in it for you just because you might agree with his plan and only want to kill him to get closure on a couple things.

@@NaNoRarh 30 hours in and bg3 is amazing and i just left act 1 lol

@@digbeckshow9898 My first playthrough is 100 hours. Got 176 hours in.

@@8015908 wow thats awesome, definitely plan on replaying a few times with friends to try different builds/stuff i miss

You should play BG3 with your brother and dad.

Check out pillars of eternity once you're done with BG3

Jeez, I'ved played through BG 1& 2 for almost 25 years and still find out hidden tidbits like this all the time.

@@axinite2545 Keep going higher into the Keep and you can go up to the top and Tethtoril's quarters. This is difficult though - once you advance to the floor above Gorion's room, you will be arrested because if you don't kill Reiltar, Sarevok has dopplegangers that look like you kill Reiltar and puts the blame on you. To get to the top you have to use sneakiness or invisibility, but looting Tethtoril's quarters gives a TON of cash if you still need it by that point.

Koveras is the one who triggers the arrest, no?

The whole Candlekeep sequence in BG1 was truly masterfully done. Most RPGs train you to gloss over quest text, but I remember reading Gorion's letter and feeling profoundly affected by it, and suddenly extremely vulnerable. It's kind of amazing to have your game's plot suddenly turn on a single letter that you could very easily miss.

@@saturninus8389 Well said, the writing was so exquisite and realistic that I almost had ptsd after all the gaslighting done by the replicants in the cripts. I was ten back then. The detail of their eyes switching colour, told by a seemingly paranoid merchant running down the stairs in the Iron Throne tower, came to mind. Ahh, lovely, cruel memories.

Have to choose that option at least once!

@@keiyangoshin3650 MANDATORY

What about the Dialoge where you tell that woman how her husband's skin just exploded off of his skeleton. Don't have the exact quote in mind but that one always makes me laugh out loud

@@TTCnoobyProductions there's a lot of gems in these games lol

Baldur's Gate has a lot of fun dialogue options, but it does come at the expense of not really being able to play a coherent character because every encounter has a bespoke set of options making your character feel a bit random.

Sword Saint of British Isles

Shanks!

Shank you.

One of the guys who tried to kill you at Candlekeep was named Shank. Is that who taught you?

Larian games are actually unplayable IMO. But hey have fun.

​@@mojebi3804 it's obviously a highly "playable" game formula from their critical and commercial success across multiple games

@@mojebi3804 what

@@nicholas1894 You don't have to take offense, you're free to play and enjoy them. I personally I don't understand it though. Their games are a chore to play, doing the most simple things is painful (moving, opening stuff).

​@@mojebi3804 I'm confused. What do you find painful about clicking an area to move there?

You killed him? I only stole his weapons :p Thiefss... precious...

@@Ruffster right? Nicking his scimmies is just the greatest. It's a shame they theft-locked the items on Drizzt in the enhanced editions :( so you have to kill him now. Unless they patched it by now.

@@buzzfiend Only played the original 5 disc version. I did save scum a bit before I managed to steal them though. then again I tried to pick pocket just about anyone in the game :p After played all those D&D goldbox games from SSI, Baldurs Gate was likea wet dream when it arrived :p

I'm glad they gave his scimitars their names.

There are other hidden bits in BG1 that effects BG2. For example the Gold pants you take to the drycleaner in BG1. Keep them in your inventory and they will carry over with the gamesave after you kill Sarevok/Koveras into BG2Find the bronze and silver parts in BG2 and get the right smith to forge something truely amazing from them. I will tell no more since that would ruin the hunt

I imagine his torso just flopping around behind you and rolling down hills uncontrollably

I loathe that they limited the number of summons.

@@markusk2289 Yeah they just wanted to ruin our fun. The pricks.

My way of beating Drizzt was to equip the boots of speed then just hit and run

Alternatively, you turned the pathfinding way down and got him stuck on the far side of a lake.

The method i used was to position 4 party members around Drizzt and have them leave my group so Drizzt wouldnt attack them, and then pelt him over and over with arrows or a ranged halberd strike. Drizzt was body blocked by my setup, ez kill.

He said this is called chunking but it's definitely gibbing.

@@jiaan100 gibbing to me was like quake, its definitely chunking for baldurs gate

@@SuperYogSothoth i thought gibbing was tf2

@@sceplecture2382tf2 got it from quake lol

@@jiaan100 It's actually been called chunking in-community for decades. I think it might actually even be called chunking in-engine.

Didn't you know Josh has watched you for the last couple of years? He thinks it's so cute how you hug your pillow at night. And you have great taste in video games, hence this series.

These.

@@onomatopoeia7505 poieia is the correct greek word

It's like he's in our heads

Friend: Did you finish your play-through of Baldurs Gate 1, 2 + Expansions you told me about a month ago? Me: Nope, still not happy with my 91 roll… Also… how cool that you could play one character through the entire Saga… I always wished more games would allow that.

Effing wolves were my pet hate. Quick little buggers.

for me, it was in the warehouse in the area you go to AFTER the bear that always got me. damn goblins with fire arrows.

@@thomasneal9291 Huh? Where was that? Also, there weren't any goblins in the first Baldur's Gate.

@@mr.battle20 in EE they added a whole tribe of the fuckers to at least Neeras side quest.

@@mr.battle20 I think he meant the hobgoblins.

you can also just send a character to the inside of any random house alone and then kick him or her out of the party. The character will not leave the house to complain. He/she will just wait forever inside of the house until/if you decide to come back.

@@agrippa2012 That too! In fact at the end when he was talking about killing Gorion, it reminded me of how I would kill Gorion and then re-export my character, because I was too young to realize I could just use an exp cheat XD. Essentially what you do is get yourself just at the edge of Gorion's vision, and then immediately run away as he starts casting a spell. It's a lot easier to pull off on characters who are next to stairs or other exits so you can quickly run away, like Firebead Elven hair. Because he loses the spell, you keep repeating this process until he runs out of magic, and then attempts to kill you with his dagger. From there it's up to the dice gods for you to win. Have I mentioned I love this game series? Because I freaking love this game series.

@@ValtheJean Another option i forgot to mention is to petrify your companion. In this way they are automatically kicked out of the party without losing their partner (or in the case of BG2, without breaking romance)

@@agrippa2012 This highlights just how great this game and the sequel was. Like god...I have so many fond memories of it. I'm feeling the itch to play through it again, but then my ultimate "altaholic" syndrome kicks in and I can't decide which class build I want to try. These games were a masterpiece...I would kill for a remake of it using a more modern ruleset. As much as I love THAC0 and AD&D, I want all the generations who come after us to love this game.

@@ValtheJean i guess the closest equivalent when it comes to depth is Wrath of The Righteous? I have not played that one yet but from what i have seen the amount of mechanics available to the player is staggering.

Honestly I would have agreed with your statement for about 15 years or so, but thankfully there has been a revival of decent RPG's recently. If you haven't already, try Pillars of Eternity 2 and Pathfinder: Wrath of the righteous. Both incredible and I would argue that when nostalgia is put aside they genuinely do have the depth that games like BG1/2 and Planescape: Torment had.

@@FM-ge3nf Not even close. Pillars and Pathfinder are horribly inferior. Everything from the nonsensical immature dialogue/plot/ characters to the voice acting is just levels below the Baldurs Gate series.

Divinity series, specifically the second one is phenomenal

Try some SMT

​@@FM-ge3nf The Pathfinder games come close to BG1, but BG2 is still unchallenged.

Shout out to you for the Mortismal plug, he’s fantastic

Another game I'll have to play. Yet I never have the time, meh, one day!

Even games like Outward, where you're meant to be on a level playing field to everyone and "just this person who is helping out" still make the whole game act like you're the only one able to do any of these things. NPCs are all focused on you and how you can help them, it's very... Well, I loved Outward, but that type of dynamic in a game does get very old. Dark Souls games really do glorify you as the chosen one as well, thinking about it.

@@moosecannibal8224 not sekiro. Ashina is going to fall no matter what

You are one of a thousand or so "chosen", so in the end you aren't that special either way you look at it.

I'm so glad someone else knows this 🤣

Aaah...: Now, Jan Jansen`s conversations with Minsc make even more sense than before! ;)

Another fun fact, in Mass Effect, they have a Baldur's Gate easter egg of a miniature giant space hamster. You know, Bioware made them both.

@@scottaltic1678 unfortunately never played that series. Yes I know,I know, I'm missing out lol.

@@scottaltic1678 there’s also Tali screaming « go for the optic… » to her drone when she use that ability. Another reference to Boo.

you summed up my thoughts perfectly. I remember when I was younger trying to tell people about this game and no one in my circle knowing what it was or why I loved it so much. God bless this game and both our nostalgia's for it

Completely with you, just earlier today I told a colleague of mine (23 years old xD) about BG ... a game that was released before he was born ... sure, there are much older ones, without a doubt but just think of it, this is nearly a quarter of a century old and adhered to standards in terms of quality and gameplay, which now, 25 years later, are so rare to be seen, that 'younger gamers' don't even know about them existing.

Aye. I'm turning 39 in a few days, and i've played it when it came out. Don't remember much tbh, so I'm glad to watch a gameplay with commentary. My 1st RPG ever was Exodus Ultima III on 8bit ATARI, and a masterpiece called Alternate Reality-game that did open world RPG back then. Check it out if You're into game history. Regards

My first ever RPG was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. I'm 23 years old, and I remember playing it and hearing form my uncle (A then World of Warcraft beta tester) that there was an RPG in the works that was playable by thousands and I was super excited for it. How time flies, eh?

I had people suggest me Fallout 2 when I was still a kid and it was already old, and now New Vegas, which was at my time, is considered old, while there's kids playing original first Fallout and my head 'splodes!

Nobody would disarm those traps anyways. Those Battle Horrors are worth 2k XP each.

Why disarm it though, the monsters give way more xp and you can trigger the traps 1 at a time making them not that bad.

Davaeron can be brought down rather easily with wands of frost, they just pierce his defenses, interrupt him and eventually he goes down. Disarming the battle horror traps is essential though.

my pc isnt working and I am so addicted to bg3 that I watch bg content to fill that gaping hole 😭

@@ivanwu102play bg 1 on your phone in the meantime lol

Yes!

I'm here because I'm bookmarking this video for later- I've never played a BG game, but everyone around me is playing BG3. It's a bit out of my price range, so I found BG1 for 7 bucks on sale, so now I'm part of the fun in my own way.

@@supremeoverlord0 It’s awesome of you to be financially sensible and go back to try the earlier games first! Not many people have that patience or restraint. Hopefully you can build up to BG3 when it goes on sale or you get a chance, and you’ll be blown away by the progression of the series!

I love that you can join the bandits and battle(in the test to join) Tazok early to gauge the end-game strength. You can also make the bandits and gnolls fight each other and wipe out the victor. Surprised he disn’t try/show that.

I do the same thing. I always have his video playing in the background.

Josh is 2nd Screen Content

Same, but I do game dev while listening.

This is not even second monitor content anymore, its no monitor content

Me too I didn't think it was so popular lol. I listen to RU-vid 10 hours a day at work.

I played this game for the first time today, and the line josh mentioned of the original cutscene did actually play for me. They might have added it back in later, either through an update or through the DLC

I can't imagine there not being a mod for it by now. The BG modding community is stupidly active for such an old game.

Baldur's Gate 1 had a hell of a lot less story and quests for companions. They basically just have a couple of canned lines based on your reputation and sometimes one quest and it's often just recruiting them, they didn't chip in on quest decisions etc. (It's quite jarring when they do add those things in for the EE characters because they're way chattier).

@@AshenVictor yeah, they don't fit the classic atmosphere of the first game at all, perhaps better in the second but the original npc's are way better anyway. Pick the new characters if you want extra xp or something

@@maxion5109 Also the implementation of monks in this engine was never designed for low levels so Rasaad is absolutely useless except as a dart dispenser (which he's kinda good at but will burn through your stocks fast so you basically only want him using them when it matters).

@@AshenVictor NPC Project, NPC Project, NPC Project I find it hard now to play BG1 without it. (And how comes modders managed to get the tone right when the EE characters are so awful?)

@@AshenVictor That reminds me of some Archer build i made in BG2 where i had 2 Partymembers carrying their inventory full with Arrows so the Archer did not run out in a dungeon as he shot his bow like a machine gun...

There's 8 hour Morrowind essay, and a 12 hour long Oblivion one.

And the channel TheAlmightyLoli has two 8+ hour long videos about the manga Berserk

@@andret3739 I'm just going to say "Mauler" and leave.

@@doommaker4000 Ah, a fellow Longman fan

@@doommaker4000 Hey I actually watch through the entirety of Maulers video essays of the disney trilogy. Great stuff and funny.

yep.. this was my first rpg as a kid well over 2 decades ago and I played this hundreds upon hundreds of hours..

My party agreed to help Minsc. We went to save Dynaheir and the whole party was slaughtered by Gnolls. So I loaded an earlier save and tried to spend some time building up stats, learning spells, etc., before we went back to the Gnoll Stronghold to try again. Minsc got mad and turned on us, so we killed him and never fought a Gnoll again. Good times.

GO FOR THE EYES, BOO!!!!

Same here i think I played it in 2019 or 2020 as well. I wasn't that interested in Wrpg despite playing mass effect and Dragon age. but Baldur's Gate pretty much solidified my love for isometric and western rpg, and simultaneously runining jrpgs lol.

Only reason I haven't tried them is because I'm broke...

Yeah, so true!

I've tried on several occasions to get into it but the early game is always such a slog I end up getting tired of save scumming before I give up on it. By all metrics I should really love the game - I loved Neverwinter Nights, Tyranny, Dragon Age Origins, KOTOR, ect but for some reason Baldur's Gate just... doesn't do it for me. Strangely I love the old DOS games like Pool of Radiance which also have tactical combat and use the AD&D ruleset, so idk what it is about BG where I can never get more than maybe 5-10 hours in.

I still consider BG2 to be the best CRPG of all time, and BG to be the second.

The sound design was such a huge part of creating the atmosphere in this game I was totally new to Forgotten Realms back in 98. My experience with RPGs was very fantastical games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger - which I loved and are in my top games of all time But Baldurs Gate was different - it had a realism to it. It wasn't "realistic" per se, but it was the most realistic fantasy game I had played

Honestly, this game screams that it was made by people who loved not only the source material but also bringing that source material to a video game format

Ehh, OS2 did just as good a job at that

We live in an incredibly surface level time, because social currency is at a premium and you just have to appear to be doing the right things, rather than actually produce goods

Actually felt these older ones felt more gamey at times, like turn based never felt like an adventure to me

It depends on the developer. Half the things you call "gamifying" are just quality of life improvements so you get to have more of the good experiences while ignoring the parts of a game they couldn't make fun. Abstraction is such an important game design concept that so many developers ignore because "put more stuff in game make be better"

It's true. I'd say about 99% of modern games don't have heart. It's more of, how can we get this game trending? How can we pull microtransaction without angering the fan base? What would appeal to any and all people? Yeah the gaming industry is a business but it loses heart after all that's done to it.

This is what picking up Morrowind was like for me. I got good grades so my dad took me to get a reward, I thought the box art was cool, and now it's my favorite RPG.

My pure luck was finding a used copy of Dark Souls at GameStop a decade ago. I had already bought it once a few months before but gave up on it after not being able to beat the tutorial. There was no way for me to know at the time but looking back, that trip to GameStop lit the path towards finding enjoyment in video games and changed what I want and expect out of them. Thousands upon thousands of hours later in From Software games and I can only look back fondly on that $17 purchase I made that day.

Hey boss man what are your top 5 rpg's of all time? Just curious! Mine are fallout 2, bg2, way of the samurai 3, Arcanum, and daggerfall.

Me too, I was 11 and didn't even speak English lmao

@@sentimentalmariner590 mine are BG1, Fallout2, Torment Planescape, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights, I think BG1 is number one because of nostalgia, but Torment is certainly my favorite for story, choices, characters.

Awesome Poland.

It hink their best games are still Bg, and ME where the protagonist story unfolds over a trilogy that feels connected and complete. Unfortunately DA didn't achieve this even though it had a great start. Origins is amazing.

Same bro, I highly recommend the SCS mod and the NPC project for bg1. It makes the AI enemies much more challenging (SCS) in a way that is fun, it simply improves their AI, they’ll start targeting targets who are closer with less AC, using potions, spells that actually do stuff, etc really awesome mod. Then the NPC project adds TONS of dialogue and interactivity to the companions in the game, suuuuper fun change

You've been missing out.

I finally bought it as well. For the third time on my PS5. = ) I've got the originals, and the enhanced editions on PC. I regret nothing.

@@davidfasthands474 think of the console plebs

@@Rigby350 I do not, I evolved past that about 6 years ago when I got my first pc. It’s being serving me swell ever since! Very worthwhile investment

Surely there's a mod to replace them.

To this day I still feel like the stupidest person in the world for having gone into a GameStop in the mid-late 2000's and sold a pile of old games because I heard they'll pay cash for them and I wanted to buy some N64 game. They offered me $0.25 (that's right... TWENTY-FIVE CENTS) for that old 5-disc sleeve. I felt like it was a bad deal, but I also felt bad for, like, hoarding stuff and wasting the guy's time if I didn't go through with it or whatever (I was in middle school and had low confidence and all that jazz), so... I sold it. Bleh. Every once in a while I get the urge to just buy the game again on Ebay to go with the box for BG2 which I still have, but... it just won't be the same one. It just won't hold the same nostalgic value for me. I have a half dozen different digital copies of the game already, including the classic version still available on GOG.com, so it's not like I can't play it anyway. But still, it might be nice to just experience opening up that sleeve again, and remembering how annoying it was to have to change discs every time I forgot to talk to an NPC immediately after I left a town or something.

westwood (who later created the command&conquer series) released their first d&d-based game in 1989, followed by the eye of the beholder series, which was also d&d-based and quite successful. but BG was the first D&D video game that modelled a world on such a large scale with this much detail. d&d rules are just the cherry on top.

trust me even for today ur pfp looks sick

Thanks!

Ah, the guy I always kill to steal his amulet, using a glitch to put it on and gain a permanent spell slot in every level. He's always beautiful.

Hell ya man. Try and learn near infinity with modding. It really fills in a lot of gaps in the game

My demo never got past the candle keep gate

@@richardhicks5031 You're right! That's what I meant by Act 1, but it was really more of a tutorial. I played it over and over again, finding new stuff to do each time. And now I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 and it's incredible!!

I had that demo, too! Took years before I finally got the full version of the game.

i remember writing down plans of team comp and equipment in school xD

Pretty much the same here. Took over the vast majority of my high school life and about 3 different laptops. This game was my first proper experience with D&D, my first major PC game, and my first experience with modding, both using them AND making them. It's almost certainly directly responsible for my current love of 5e tabletop as well. I spent months tracking down all the tomes of ability score improvement, and then importing my character into a multiplayer game, then opening that saved game as a single player in order to retain all the items and equipment, which I would then put on a shelf before importing my character again with the original items, creating an infinite supply of tomes in order to get all 25s in every stat, then figuring out the optimal level progression for dualclassing that would allow me to max my mage levels, but still use that extra bit of wasted XP before the level cap funneled into the fighter levels. Then Baldur's Gate 2 came out and I had to completely turn over the entire meta, because now there are SUBCLASSES. Then I found out about Shadowkeeper/Gatekeeper, and the Baldur's Gate tutu mod, which allowed the original game to run on the BG2 engine. Man this takes me back.

I totally feel ya there. My dad played D&D in college, and his old DM gave him BG1 as a gift back in 2000 saying it was the best game ever. My dad didn't have time to play it though, so he gave it to me. I got _instantly hooked_ and would wake up at 4am, 4 hours before the bus would come (I was in 5th grade), and play it obsessively. Sometime in 6th grade, I was walking through Best Buy with my parents and saw friggin BALDUR'S GATE 2 sitting on a shelf. I picked it up in disbelief and saw the picture inside of the party fighting a DRAGON. I had zero experience with the internet and there was no one else at my school who played these games... I had no idea there was a sequel to my favorite game of all time!! I just _had_ to have this game for Christmas. And Santa graciously agreed. I remember looking on cheat code websites and finding out how to run the CLUAConsole to just... spawn in any item you wanted, spawn any enemy, raise your gold or experience by simply typing a number. It was totally bonkers and opened my eyes to the whole world of modding and programming in general. I never got big enough into modding to actually contribute to the community, but it was really cool diving into the online world and seeing that there were other people who were even bigger fans of these games than I was. Years later in college, I had my own regular tabletop D&D playgroup, and I tried getting them to play the BG games, especially after the Enhanced Editions came out. But nope! They all loved Dragon Age and KOTOR and Mass Effect, just like I did, but none of them wanted to try out the masterpieces that started them all. Oh well. Hopefully now that the world is being gifted the long-awaited Baldur's Gate 3, millions of RPG lovers like my friends will finally appreciate what these two games did for their favorite genre.

Same...

I am probably a good 20 years younger than you, but somehow this comment hit me with melancholy anyway

I am of newer generation and I felt so good coming after school and losing myself in KOTOR, it loaded so slowly on my Celeron I literally practiced guitar scales and riffs during loading screens. And at the time friend shown me that old game called Fallout 2, it was ugly, but as he said, "you'll get used to the graphics"... I did. I still feel Icewind Dale 2 is the prettiest game ever made... Never finished it though. Shame source code was lost and we didn't get enhanced edition, it badly needs exotic drivers or old graphics card for sprites. Fan fix obligatory now... Meanwhile, original Fallout from like 1935 or something plays well in Windows 10 natively.

Ah the old 486's with the big red switches. I also member those days.

man I miss black isle. they got done dirty and I'm still not over it. snow blind studios as well, they did dark alliance on the ps2 as well as the best console d&d inspired games champions of norrath

it wasn't lol

@@arcturus4295 Diablo 3 Leah was almost identical. Diablo went out and knocked up Adria and probably hundreds of other ppl just like Baal. And because she had his blood he was able to resurrect through her. Just like Baal was trying to do with all his children. And blizzard devs are all huge d&d fans. They played baldurs gate. They've even mentioned it in some of their interviews over the years. Hell, metzen went off and started warchief gaming focusing on tabletop games like d&d and warhammer. So did almost all the other developers who left. They all went to start their own gaming companies or join Dreamhaven with Morheim. There's so many things in the blizzard universe that all came from D&D and warhammer (since the original group all worked for gamesworkshop.) Anyone who's ever played either of those games ever will recognize stuff. Heck, the bfa expansion had a terrasque from d&d. Their inspirations are pretty obvious.

@@arcturus4295 Blizzard has made it a career of ripping off dnd and 40K, don't be in denial

@@chillhour6155 All of Blizzards IPs and "ideas" are just stolen concepts that they try to polish and put their own spin on and then repackage to their fans. It's how they do business. Well, and these days they massively pander to China for that sweet sweet Chinese man juice.