Are there any RPG games like Baldur?s Gate on the market?

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
18,161
7
0
Despite the fact that it is ancient and has only 2d graphics I still think Baldur?s Gate 2 is the best RPG experience I have ever had.

I like being part of a party and like the way the characters interact with each other. Even though it is a single player game you feel like you are part of a group.

Sadly though I have not been able to find anything similar on the market.

Dungeon Siege was pretty and had a party but all you did was run around killing things, no real party interaction or choices.

Neverwinter Nights also looks pretty, but it is just you and one person you can ?hire? to go along with you.

Is there anything on the market similar to Baldur?s Gate but with updated graphics etc.

BTW Knights of the Old Republican was nice, but I want something set in a 'high' fantasy setting.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
32,621
11,737
136
nothing quite like BG2. NWN2 is BG2ish, but definitely nowhere near the epic-ness
 

Borealis7

Platinum Member
Oct 19, 2006
2,901
205
106
silly question...have you tried Icewind Dale 1 or 2?

the oldschool Might & Magic series (not "Heroes of...") is a first person, party based RPG.
you can fight in real time, or pause the game and go turn based.

It has flying! fly around an open world! above dragons and titans! and shower meteors on them!! hahaha!!

when i said old i meant old! very old!. graphics will be a pain if youre not used to it (no 3DFX upto 7 which is the 2nd best of the series).

as a beginner, i would go for M&M 7, and if you like it and feel brave, then go for 6 which is right up there in the list of greatest RPGs with BG2.

whatever you do: avoid 9! 9 is full of bugs. as for 8...well i used to be so hardcore M&M player so i got it too and it was "ok", nothing more.

now if you REALLY wanna go oldschool :) look for M&Ms 5 or below i think they are abandonware already.

i played 6,7,8 and started 9 until it got too buggy to be playable.

R.I.P New World Computing.
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
Some of the modules for NWN2 might be up your alley. Since NWN2 has full party control, many mods have taken advantage of this and added considerable party interaction.
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
I hear the NWN2 expansion pack is actually more like BG2 than the OC. I haven't played it yet to confirm though.... it's in my queue.
 

Pocatello

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
9,754
2
76
I haven't found any RPG game that equals BG2 either. Now that I think about it, BG2 is my fav game of all time.
 

rstrohkirch

Platinum Member
May 31, 2005
2,434
367
126
Arcanum would probably be my favorite computer rpg, though a lot of people hate it =]
I think it did a better job than even BG2 in integrating party member's history/background into the game story.
 

Borealis7

Platinum Member
Oct 19, 2006
2,901
205
106
I think it is widely acceptable that BGII is the best RPG of all time (in fact, 1999 was the best year for computer games ever with so many games becoming instant classics).

the only glimmer of hope for RPG fans is to wait for Dragon Age which is in development for over 4 years now and should be out maybe in early 2009 (unless EA cancels it first), Bathesda's Fallout 3 should be exciting, and runaway hits like The Witcher that might show up.

Also i enjoy playing Turn Based Strategy with RPG elements (like Heroes of Might and Magic series, Age of Wonders 2, the recently released Fantasy Wars which was good)

pure RPGs are really a niche these days with FPSs and MMOs dominating the market and subsequently have most developing effort put into them. I think a futuristic First Person RPG with fast paced action, nice guns and storyline would appeal to most gamers, but it would really have to be done correctly, or not done at all.

now excuse me while i go cast Abi-Dnizim's Horrid Wilting on all of you :evil:
 

jandrews

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2007
1,313
0
0
Baldurs gate 2 is my favorite as well, you will never find another as good.

Anyway

Icewind Dale 1/2 are the same engine but not as good by far, not many sidequests
Neverwinter Nights IMO sucks horribly
Planescape Torment is about as good as it gets compared to baldurs gate


Thats really the list, Fallout is good too using a similar engine but everyone is so focused on 3d now that they dont care about these type of 2d games.
 

jandrews

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2007
1,313
0
0
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Originally posted by: jandrews
Neverwinter Nights IMO sucks horribly
That is why one should never play the OC of NeverWinter Nights and instead play some of the far superior free community made games.

a lot of people including me dont like mods, I dont want to play some made up storyline by some random guy or group of people. I like to play the created storyline so I know when I get to sequels that story line is continued and it doesnt rely on some person to decide if he wants to make a mod or not. Its like star wars nerds not wanting to read books because the movies might be different and the movie plot points can over rule entire books, just a personal opinion.

I do like mods that add a bit to main storylines like some of the ones done for baldurs gate that add some quests.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,080
136
Planescape Torment and Temple of Elemental Evil come close, but not quite.
Icewind Dale 1 and 2 have the same engine and basically the same action, but there isnt much actual Role-Playing, especially between the PC's.

Might and Magic has a really good group feel and a huge world to explore, but again is more action oriented and the story, quests, and NPC's are relatively dry.

NWN1 sucks. I have no more to say on that.

NWN2 was a huge step in the right direction, but you need a buttload of patches to make it somewhat similar to BG style of play. You may also wish to look at the many GUI mods.
Even after all that its not quite the same thing, but its good. The expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, seems to be pretty darn good so far. I havent beat it yet, but they improved the story and characters a great deal.

Fallout 2 and Arcanum are both very good games and similar enough to BG2 that you may find happiness there. I highly recommend both, but finding them now may be a pain.


I honestly think the only way they could do it right is if all the original people got ahold of each other, (WITHOUT Atari's knowing about it) and made another game in their basements during their free time.
Which isnt going to happen.
Representatives repeatedly stated that BG2 was almost too big of a project. Yes it has a buttload of really excellent quests, but those take time to make. The quests in Oblivion and Morrowind are much simpler and take less time to script.
They made Icewind Dale 1 and 2 to get further use out of the engine because, quite frankly, they didnt get their money worth out of BG1. It took a long time and a lot of money to put out and even though it sold well, they still wanted to squeeze more life from it.

If they did it in 2D, and only updated the original engine slightly, (just to make it more compatible with WinXP and Vista) they could save a lot of work right there. Just like they used the same engine and game system with KOTOR 2. It saved them a lot of work.

Then they would have to put an insane amount of effort into story, setting, world depth and characters (which did not happen with KOTOR 2, they were looking for an easy profit from the franchise and pushed production). They would probably do well to get a bunch of the Wizards Of The Coast people who regularily work on D&D, especially the Forgotten Realms writers.
Heck, maybe they should even hire Gygax himself. He could make sure the game is about story and not action or graphics.

Using AD&D 2nd or D&D 3rd rules would be fine. So long as they make an effort to maintain balance it wouldnt matter either way. Having people get to level 40 or so by the end of BG2 was not smart. They should not have given 75,000 XP for getting cats out of trees and such.

Thats it. Thats all they'd have to do.

Think it will happen? ;)
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
Torment, of course. NWN2 and expansion. BG1 with the BG1NPC mod. IWD2 with the IWD2NPC mod.

Originally posted by: jandrews

a lot of people including me dont like mods, I dont want to play some made up storyline by some random guy or group of people.

The official devs are just another "group of people" who happen to work at the same place where the tools and resources are produced. In fact, a bunch of people get hired from the mod community. Is their work after they join Bio or Obsidian magically better or different than their unofficial work? Absolutely not. Not only that, some of the official devs do modding as well (there are NWN2 mods in progress by David Gaider and Josh Sawyer -- lead designers of Dragon Age and NWN2 respectively). Is this unofficial work magically crappier than their official stuff? Absolutely not.

The best NWN1 campaigns -- including the 3 official ones -- are those by Kevin Chan and Valine. They're among the best RPGs out there, period.

Personal Attack removed, please be more careful in the future.
-Schadenfroh
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
Originally posted by: Borealis7
I think a futuristic First Person RPG with fast paced action, nice guns and storyline would appeal to most gamers
You mean Fallout 3? :evil: Don't let the purists hear you...
 

Ultralight

Senior member
Jul 11, 2004
990
1
76
Where I disagree with shortylickins is the NWN1 community offerings (though I understand his sentiment on the original game; a lot of people didn't like it thought the expamsions were better).

There are NWN1 community modules that are outstanding. The only thing with NWN is that it isn't party based like the BG and Icewind Dales series.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
Originally posted by: jandrews
Baldurs gate 2 is my favorite as well, you will never find another as good.

Anyway

Icewind Dale 1/2 are the same engine but not as good by far, not many sidequests
Neverwinter Nights IMO sucks horribly
Planescape Torment is about as good as it gets compared to baldurs gate


Thats really the list, Fallout is good too using a similar engine but everyone is so focused on 3d now that they dont care about these type of 2d games.

I love those 2D games. The devs should have thought ahead and let you pick any resolution. I have no desire to play BG in 640x480 or IWD at 1024x768. Those resolutions are just too small on my monitor unless I scale. There's a mod to run those games at any res but it has problems.
 

jandrews

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2007
1,313
0
0
Originally posted by: s44
Torment, of course. NWN2 and expansion. BG1 with the BG1NPC mod. IWD2 with the IWD2NPC mod.

Originally posted by: jandrews

a lot of people including me dont like mods, I dont want to play some made up storyline by some random guy or group of people.

You're a dope. The official devs are just another "group of people" who happen to work at the same place where the tools and resources are produced. In fact, a bunch of people get hired from the mod community. Is their work after they join Bio or Obsidian magically better or different than their unofficial work? Absolutely not. Not only that, some of the official devs do modding as well (there are NWN2 mods in progress by David Gaider and Josh Sawyer -- lead designers of Dragon Age and NWN2 respectively). Is this unofficial work magically crappier than their official stuff? Absolutely not.

The best NWN1 campaigns -- including the 3 official ones -- are those by Kevin Chan and Valine. They're among the best RPGs out there, period.
I dont like what you like so I am stupid. Yep, I'm the dumb one, just get over someone having a different opinion than you. Its like reading a novel and reading fan fiction. I like to follow official storylines, not just some made up side story that will never be recognized by the official creators and owners, no thanks. Also, dont add 'period' to your statements. Just because you believe something is the end all be all surely doesnt make it so, your mother may have told you that you were very important and special but your opinion is just as meaningless as everyone else'
 

jandrews

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2007
1,313
0
0
Originally posted by: shortylickens
Planescape Torment and Temple of Elemental Evil come close, but not quite.
Icewind Dale 1 and 2 have the same engine and basically the same action, but there isnt much actual Role-Playing, especially between the PC's.

Might and Magic has a really good group feel and a huge world to explore, but again is more action oriented and the story, quests, and NPC's are relatively dry.

NWN1 sucks. I have no more to say on that.

NWN2 was a huge step in the right direction, but you need a buttload of patches to make it somewhat similar to BG style of play. You may also wish to look at the many GUI mods.
Even after all that its not quite the same thing, but its good. The expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, seems to be pretty darn good so far. I havent beat it yet, but they improved the story and characters a great deal.

Fallout 2 and Arcanum are both very good games and similar enough to BG2 that you may find happiness there. I highly recommend both, but finding them now may be a pain.


I honestly think the only way they could do it right is if all the original people got ahold of each other, (WITHOUT Atari's knowing about it) and made another game in their basements during their free time.
Which isnt going to happen.
Representatives repeatedly stated that BG2 was almost too big of a project. Yes it has a buttload of really excellent quests, but those take time to make. The quests in Oblivion and Morrowind are much simpler and take less time to script.
They made Icewind Dale 1 and 2 to get further use out of the engine because, quite frankly, they didnt get their money worth out of BG1. It took a long time and a lot of money to put out and even though it sold well, they still wanted to squeeze more life from it.

If they did it in 2D, and only updated the original engine slightly, (just to make it more compatible with WinXP and Vista) they could save a lot of work right there. Just like they used the same engine and game system with KOTOR 2. It saved them a lot of work.

Then they would have to put an insane amount of effort into story, setting, world depth and characters (which did not happen with KOTOR 2, they were looking for an easy profit from the franchise and pushed production). They would probably do well to get a bunch of the Wizards Of The Coast people who regularily work on D&D, especially the Forgotten Realms writers.
Heck, maybe they should even hire Gygax himself. He could make sure the game is about story and not action or graphics.

Using AD&D 2nd or D&D 3rd rules would be fine. So long as they make an effort to maintain balance it wouldnt matter either way. Having people get to level 40 or so by the end of BG2 was not smart. They should not have given 75,000 XP for getting cats out of trees and such.

Thats it. Thats all they'd have to do.

Think it will happen? ;)
I remember the one comment from the funders of baldurs gate 2 was 'we will never ever make a game this big again, it costs too much!'. A sad thing to see but it had a lot of great content and I was happy to have that great of a game once than never at all.

 

AntiFreze

Golden Member
Oct 23, 2007
1,459
0
0
What you need to do is find a good RPG, then wait for a bunch of expansions to come out. Then just install them all together to make a game bigger than BG2. Genius.
 

9mak9

Senior member
Dec 3, 2007
494
0
76
Yeah BG2 was one of a kind...from gamespots review "It's a definitive role-playing experience, and the only reason it can't be called the best game in its class is because in a sense there's nothing available that compares to it." and that is still true today.

longest game ive ever played...but torment was def 2nd and not to far from BG2 and then 3rd place (i.e. ToEE, NWN, Icewind, etc.) is far away from those 2. I think Torment's emotional connection with the characters is def in its own class and i think both had equally great storylines but BG2 has better gameplay and such...

If you want to try out another rpg start looking into online RPGs. most have free trials and even though they are different then BG2 they are still a very cool experience (i say try guild wars which is no monthly fee)
 

9mak9

Senior member
Dec 3, 2007
494
0
76
also has anyone heard more rumors on bg3? i saw some forum posts and an article about BG3 and NWN2 in the works which was 50% true...i wonder if atari is working on BG3 like blizzard is working on diablo3
 

Scrimmy

Member
Oct 19, 2007
144
0
0
Originally posted by: 9mak9
Yeah BG2 was one of a kind...from gamespots review "It's a definitive role-playing experience, and the only reason it can't be called the best game in its class is because in a sense there's nothing available that compares to it." and that is still true today.

longest game ive ever played...but torment was def 2nd and not to far from BG2 and then 3rd place (i.e. ToEE, NWN, Icewind, etc.) is far away from those 2. I think Torment's emotional connection with the characters is def in its own class and i think both had equally great storylines but BG2 has better gameplay and such...

If you want to try out another rpg start looking into online RPGs. most have free trials and even though they are different then BG2 they are still a very cool experience (i say try guild wars which is no monthly fee)

Yeah, I agree completely. The late 90's really were a renaissance for RPGs. There really hasn't been anything even close to that couple of years when BG1 and BG2, Fallout and Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment all came out, and BG2 was the gem of the bunch. The world design was great, but the characters and voice acting were really what made it so great. You had Irenicus for the bad guy (David Warner is a fantastic villain and also the main villain in Fallout 1) on one hand and Minsc for comic relief on the other, with lots of other genuinely interesting characters that actually grew and changed along the way.

Dammit, I think I'm going to have to go back and play them now, and I have no idea where the CDs are.