Baldur's Gate is awesome
Joel
I know I am late to the party, but better late than never!
I originally purchased Baldur's Gate from the local Compucentre the
same week it was released. I let it sit on my shelf for many months
before I actually installed it. I was heavily addicted to Heroes of
Might & Magic III at the time.
Anyway, I've played through Baldur's Gate and most of Tales of the
Sword Coast now, and I must say this is one major achievement for
computer gaming. The game is so engrossing. I'm getting carried away
with its depth. Just yesterday I went to every map and saved the
screenshot to the Windows Clipboard. Then I opened Visio, created a
huge page and pasted all the screenshots like tiles to form the huge,
detailed map of the whole game. The file is 24 MB large! There are
50 above-ground area maps, not including Tales of the Sword Coast.
I can't remember the last time I had so much fun with a game. I am in
the process of authoring my own very detailed walkthrough as I go
through the game once again taking notes on everything. You begin to
appreciate the creative effort that went into developing this game.
I'm also thinking of composing a FAQ, and trivia questions, or other
random facts about the game, all of which will be available on my
personal web page.
Kudos to those whacky Canadians at Bioware!
- Joel
(to reply, remove embedded 'x' in email address)
Jace R. Croox
-Paladin in Training
-Practicioner of Martial Arts
-Watcher of Anime
-Seeker of Knowledge
-And All Around Nice Guy
Kaiosh aka Raik
Chris
>Greetings, all!
>I know I am late to the party, but better late than never!
Hi Joel and welcome to the BG newsgroup,
It's comforting to see another player whose enthusiasm for the game
also borders on the slightly nuttily obsessive! Like you, I collected
all the screenshots and stuck them together - although in my case I
downloaded the shots off one of the many excellent BG sites and pasted
them into a word processor. I printed them out on four A4 sheets which
join together to give me a ready reference for where I am currently
floundering about....
This also revealed what I think is one of the few flaws in the game -
the road from the Friendly Arm Inn to the city of Baldur's Gate. On
the main navigation map you see the road winding up from the FAI to BG
with the farm area to the left and the Bandit Camp to the right.
However, if you follow the road up past the camp (in the game) you hit
a dead end and the road just stops at the top of the map. The only way
to access the bridge outside the city for the first time is to walk
through the open country north of the FAI and go off the top of the
map to the farm area. When you get there the road mysteriously appears
at the bottom left hand corner again (despite there being no
corresponding exit from the FAI map). You can then follow the road to
the next map (with the bridge on.) Of course once you've been to the
bridge once it can be accessed from other parts of the main nav map -
but you must do it that rather odd way first time through.
In all other instances the maps fit together neatly when you join
them together and all the roads, rivers etc join up as they should.
Did you discover this when you assembled your shots to make one big
map?? Or did you do what I did and stick the farm map above the
bandit camp one (in which case the road appears to join up).
This is the only case I've found where the screen maps, the overall
buff coloured navigation map, and the actual gameplay logic don't
match up properly. Oh, and of course the fact that you can walk
across a map in a few minutes, but when you cross onto the next map
you get a message saying "your journey took four hours, or eight
hours" or whatever - when the screenshots show your journey was
actually one step!
Have you been to Desslock's amazing guide? You can buy the guide or
simply read it all online (and save the bits you want free). It has an
incredible amount of useful information including all the stats about
the various enemies you'll meet; location and features of all the
items, NPCs etc. It's at http://www.gameguides.com/guides/baldurs/
There everything you need, about BG and TOTSC
Desslock seems to be quite an authority on it all - and apparently
well known for his guides. There's also a guy called Rich C Velay who
occasionally posts on the Alt.games.baldur's-gate who is clearly a
fine obsessive of the first class! He's the sort of guy who will step
in with answers like "No, you're wrong there - dwarves actually have
12 armpit hairs - it's goblins that have 10... unless of course they
are wearing the cloak of hairiness, in which case they can assign
extra hairs to beards or armpits using the following formula......
Naturally, if they are already under the influence of a chin baldness
spell, then for up to seven rounds they will.... etc etc..."! I lift
my hat in awe at the complexity of these guys' knowledge..
Anyway, already far too long for a post - sorry people... enjoy your
time on this NG Joel
Chris.
(p.s. I like the maxgpie tag. I live in West Australia surrounded by
a big family of magpies)
Chris
>Greetings, all!
>I know I am late to the party, but better late than never!
>I originally purchased Baldur's Gate from the local Compucentre the
>same week it was released. I let it sit on my shelf for many months
>before I actually installed it. I was heavily addicted to Heroes of
>Might & Magic III at the time.
How does the M&M series - either Heroes I to III or the M&M I to VII
compare with BG??? I'm looking for something to play after BG, but
don't want to take a step backwards after enjoying BG immensely.
How do you think they stand up to each other - I know very little
about M&M???
Thanks.
Chris.
My life is one long quest from the Realms of the Totally Confused to
the Lands of the Merely Perplexed.....
Joel
(Chris) wrote:
>This also revealed what I think is one of the few flaws in the game -
>the road from the Friendly Arm Inn to the city of Baldur's Gate.
You are absolutely right, my friend. I had to rearrange the maps
around the Friendly Arm Inn (FAI) in order for them to make some sense
but it still does not fit properly. Also, I noticed that there are no
area maps two maps east of FAI and two maps east of the farm area
north of the FAI.
Starting from and including the Candlekeep map there are five area
maps travelling east and six area maps travelling south. This whole
section of the Sword Coast covers 30 maps and they all fit together
nicely.
The city of Baldur's Gate (above-ground) is composed of 9 area maps
which are about 400 x 300 pixels as opposed to all other area maps
which are 480 x 360. In order to make Baldur's Gate fit with the main
map you need to do some overlapping.
>... and of course the fact that you can walk
>across a map in a few minutes, but when you cross onto the next map
>you get a message saying "your journey took four hours, or eight
>hours" or whatever - when the screenshots show your journey was
>actually one step!
Yeah, not very realistic when you consider the entire game area as a
whole, but I guess it's necessary to create the need to rest.
>Have you been to Desslock's amazing guide?
Yes, in fact I went over it carefully and there are spotted some
errors! Some maps are not linked properly, some are missing
altogether. Otherwise it is an excellent, thorough walkthrough/guide.
>Desslock seems to be quite an authority on it all - and apparently
>well known for his guides.
Is he on the development team or close to it? How could ANYONE have
found the Ring of Wizardry outside FAI, or the Ankheg Armor in the
farmer's ploughed fields?
>(p.s. I like the maxgpie tag. I live in West Australia surrounded by
>a big family of magpies)
I got the magpie idea from the lyrics of a song by a progressive rock
band called Marillion, whose name was inspired by Tolkein's
"Silmarillion".
I'm starting to get too obsessed with all this AD&D stuff. I just
recently purchased all the TSR games, handbooks, manuals, some
expansion campaigns, and I'm starting a collection of Forgotten Realms
novels. I'm anxious to join a group of people to play some AD&D!
Joel
(Chris) wrote:
>How does the M&M series - either Heroes I to III or the M&M I to VII
>compare with BG??? I'm looking for something to play after BG, but
>don't want to take a step backwards after enjoying BG immensely.
>How do you think they stand up to each other - I know very little
>about M&M???
Heroes is strictly turn-based. When I first heard of such a thing for
computer games I thought to myself "how lame". Then I picked up
Heroes I for peanuts at the store, installed it two years later,
started to play it and suddenly realized I was hooked bad.
Naturally Heroes II and III were quickly purchased after that and I
can confidently say that turn-based games can be just as fun as
real-time or a hybrid of the two (i.e. Baldur's Gate). I hear
Warlords is just as gripping.
I haven't tried Might & Magic, although I purchased the boxed
collection of the first five games in that series. One day I'll get
around to trying them out, unless Baldur's Gate 2 is released!!!
Gert-Jan Spoel
Joel <max...@total.net> wrote in message
news:379ed560...@news.total.net...
> On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:19:40 GMT, vcaud...@cygnus.uwa.edu.au
> (Chris) wrote:
>
> >How does the M&M series - either Heroes I to III or the M&M I to VII
> >compare with BG??? I'm looking for something to play after BG, but
> >don't want to take a step backwards after enjoying BG immensely.
> >How do you think they stand up to each other - I know very little
> >about M&M???
>
> Heroes is strictly turn-based. When I first heard of such a thing for
> computer games I thought to myself "how lame". Then I picked up
> Heroes I for peanuts at the store, installed it two years later,
> started to play it and suddenly realized I was hooked bad.
>
There is Heroes of Might and Magic and there is Might and Magic.
The underlying stories are sequels but they are not the same type game.
HOMM (Heroes of Might & Magic version 1/2/3) is a turn based strategic game
like Warcraft, building cities raising armies and finishing off other
armies/monsters.
M&M (version 1 upto 6, 7 coming out soon or just published) is more like
Baldur's Gate, a group of adventures.
Baldur's gate versus M&M
In bg you start on your own, m&m you start with a group of four. Both start
weak and chars get better during play.
In m&m you CAN start as a magic-user with a bow and improve like you do in
bg on weaponskills (basic/master/grand master) in bg you are restricted to
weapon types available for your char class.
In bg you improve by level; in m&m you also need to find the teacher and pay
him. No teacher is no skill improvement.
In bg you get potions, in m&m you get ingredients.
In bg you get color coded circles telling you who is your opponent, in m&m
your opponents are not human.
In bg you can learn only a few skills (thieving, magical, weapons) in m&m
you NEED to learn the skills for diplomacy, weapon repair, trading and such.
They difference between them both is like a flight simulator and a game in
which you fly planes. One has a lot more things to learn in the first one
but it can be fun none the less. Unless you don't like (flight) simulators
like me.