Icewind Dale series compared to the Baldur's Gate series

[Mikko Moilanen]

Because fuck balance that's why (and i'm playing a game not reading a book).

Right. Balance and linearity are for those who are fed by a spoon. They used to have an artefact called television they stared at, drooling like hell in the same time. Now they still have that television but they have an artefact in their hands called console controller, and an awesome button on it. So, now they bash that button and keep drooling. Thus nothing much has changed.

 

[Surf Solar]

You are trying way too hard.

 

[SCO]

The actual answer is that i like avoiding things i don't want to do, use alternatives, do them out of order, do them in unusual ways, trying to break the quests etc. It's not that i think a linear game shit - let's take a absolutely linear Bloodlines - but on there i can do many 'different' things, go at them on 'my' order (possibly fucking up or OCD'ing on exp) and the main hubs are large enough that i can ignore the main quest missions being rigid.
For me, if they had managed to structure Bloodlines story and it's exp curve so that it makes sense to start with all hubs open it would probably be even better (at the cost of level scaling exp rewards? Bleh).

Bloodlines got my heart when i discovered i could avoid going into the basement on the haunted hotel.

 

[piydek]

For me it's IWD > IWD2 > BG2 > BG.

The thing that's rarely mentioned is that IWD2 has pretty amazing combat encounters. Way better than IWD, which is quite full of meaningless hordes of weak enemies. But IWD has absolutely amazing art and atmosphere, so that's why i put it in the first place anyway.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

As someone who finds IE combat a bit of a chore 90% of the time, have always sort-of had a soft spot for BG2 (my first real CRPG) but usually get bored of it before finishing it, and had a blast playing through the Baldur's Gate saga with a fully custom party last year even though I found BG1 to become an exasperatingly boring empty-screen-wiping simulator most of the time, I was hoping this thread would help make up my mind as to whether to finally play IWD or not. It hasn't

 

[Stokowski]

Sigh, what is it that makes people perceive a disagreement and, instead of stating their thoughts in a manner that clarifies, make the most outlandish strawman fallacy possible?

This is the internet.

 

[octavius]

For me it's IWD > IWD2 > BG2 > BG.

The thing that's rarely mentioned is that IWD2 has pretty amazing combat encounters. Way better than IWD, which is quite full of meaningless hordes of weak enemies.

It's obvious that the IWD2 designers tried to use the terrain and obstacles to make the battles more tatcical. Unfortunately IWD2 suffered from not having a grid or zone of control and some enemies would just squeeze past invisible (to me) cracks in the shield wall and head straight for the mages, making it more chaotic and making me feel less in control than in the other IE games.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Not sure what you mean, but have you installed the expansion(s)? Heart of Winter gives you higher resolutions. And there's no point to not install them.

What I mean is the backgrounds look great but the characters look like shit (aliased as all heck). Yes, the expansions installed along with the game and I messed with the settings in the "config" but to no great help. Now they're smaller and aliased. Not a deal-breaker of course, just that I can't think of a game where character sprites were that shit.

 

[piydek]

For me it's IWD > IWD2 > BG2 > BG.

The thing that's rarely mentioned is that IWD2 has pretty amazing combat encounters. Way better than IWD, which is quite full of meaningless hordes of weak enemies.

It's obvious that the IWD2 designers tried to use the terrain and obstacles to make the battles more tatcical. Unfortunately IWD2 suffered from not having a grid or zone of control and some enemies would just squeeze past invisible (to me) cracks in the shield wall and head straight for the mages, making it more chaotic and making me feel less in control than in the other IE games.

Yeah, terrain, but also the way that game was throwing enemies at you was vastly different from IWD. IWD was always pretty much a constant stream of bullshit salamanders, skeletons and stuff like that. IWD2 never felt like a stream of enemies to me, more like sequential groups of enemies that were consistent within themselves and distinct one from another. There were many cases where there were pretty much parties of enemies that i was up against, consisting of thought through connections of mages, clerics and tanks etc. And each party had its own balance, its strengths and weaknesses which required you to modify your approach. That was very fun for me and i thought that's a great way to handle combat encounters. I remember that i didn't (and couldn't) play IWD2 with some rinse & repeat tactic (which was completely feasible in IWD).

The thing that bothers me the most about that game is that it doesn't feel consistent at all. It has no fluent progress and different areas of the game feel quite separate one from another.

 

[sea]

IWD2 sucks. Not because it's 'combat focused' but because it's a linear grind without even the illusion of agency like BG. It's even more linear than the underdark/sharktown/asylum part of BG2 or ToB and that is universally panned by BG2 fans.
There is also some rather pathetic quests there (IWD2). Dead cats, tower of Hanoi and ghoul making potions vs 3 way vampire-romance resurrection which is better and why durr

IWD 2 had the seed of a good game before Dragon's Eye, on the village where the twins lived and where the evil party was buried. Pity they couldn't make the game more of that instead of boring Bane plot 3256 to take over the world and getting lost on randomized forests.

I partially agree. I do feel that Icewind Dale 2 was unnecessary - the setting had been explored enough already and the combat wasn't really any better (and in some cases was actually worse). I did like some parts of it quite a bit though. The Ice Temple had a good mix of combat and puzzles, Targos was a great little RPG town with a lot of stuff to find and people to talk to, the Fell Woods and River Caves had some cool enemies to fight, the Monastery was a nice change of pace, the Drider Lair was as good a dungeon crawl as any, and the battle for Kuldahar was fun as well. The good parts outweighed the boring and bad, but the beginnings and endings did not do the game any favours.

I think the big problem with it is that it never really visited Icewind Dale's more interesting locations (Wyrm's Tooth, Dorn's Deep etc.) and didn't really have anything new that was as memorable. I did appreciate the slightly greater story focus and more interesting side-quests and objectives, but a lot of parts were overlong (the Goblin Fortress especially) and it really lost steam at the end with the return to the Severed Hand. The end to your epic awesome adventure and it's... in a dungeon we've already visited before? Just felt cheap and uninspired to me, like either they ran out of ideas or had to reuse old levels to meet the release date.

Also, the first Icewind Dale had Heart of Winter, which I really liked. The dungeons themselves were not nearly as complex or "D&D like", but Lonelywood was really nice and I loved the atmosphere even more than the main game. I also feel that Trials of the Luremaster is severely underrated, I think it's just as good as Durlag's Tower, though some of the combat was stupidly hard and I doubt I will ever want to play it again. Icewind Dale II feels much smaller and shorter in comparison due to the lack of expansions.

 

[SCO]

Which ice temple


Even more in-your-face than Thief 2.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Targos "great little RPG town"? It was a chore... Tons of fetch quests, none of them interesting. NPCs that offer no interesting dialogue worth reading past the "essential" bits. There was one fun quest I think (destroy archery target to piss of the captain) but really it was pretty bad overall.

It had nice music, tho.

Really all of IWD2 was pretty crap in the "storyfag" department. I think the 2 main villians were sort of interesting (from what I remember, they were just misguided from the start, and then the brother tried to avenge his sister), but it was otherwise pretty crappy.

Oh yes, last area I enjoyed as well. I thought it was well done and felt properly "endgame".

 

[kmonster]

I played the Baldur's Gate games first but the Icewind Dales are superior.

The Icewind Dales are solid, balanced and honest games while especially Baldur's Gate 2 feels like as it was made for marketing instead of playing.

 

[kmonster]

...

 

[Murk]

Targos "great little RPG town"? It was a chore... Tons of fetch quests, none of them interesting. NPCs that offer no interesting dialogue worth reading past the "essential" bits. There was one fun quest I think (destroy archery target to piss of the captain) but really it was pretty bad overall.

.

I disagree with this. There were plenty of side quests to do that, while simple, used a bit of forethought. There were multiple ways of doing some of the quests that would use your own characters' stats, classes, or skills, and you could actually feel the tension building up to the invasion.

I'm thinking things like... translating the dead goblin's words, figuring out that Phen (the mage with the Iron Collar band) is actually a traitor and a saboteur, blessing or training the troops in the palisade, convincing that stubborn ass fucking captain to use a goddamn hammer for you (I think that's the only fetch quest that I was just plain furious at... and only because the fucking guy wouldn't take the damn thing [admittedly, he never even asks for it but still]). They devs saw the tediousness of running so they gave you that courier kid who would take you to the places quickly enough. Anyway, drunks, stealing shields, shooting the shit with pantomime characters, and dealing with Hedrick's mother.

There was a lot to do and see if you felt like it. And of course, the ghost in the wailing widow inn.

As someone who finds IE combat a bit of a chore 90% of the time, have always sort-of had a soft spot for BG2 (my first real CRPG) but usually get bored of it before finishing it, and had a blast playing through the Baldur's Gate saga with a fully custom party last year even though I found BG1 to become an exasperatingly boring empty-screen-wiping simulator most of the time, I was hoping this thread would help make up my mind as to whether to finally play IWD or not. It hasn't

Of the IE games it has the best art and music, and second best atmosphere. It has more unconventional weapons, spells, and enemies than either of the BG games, and it has better encounters and areas to fight.

I think you should try the first game at least until you meet Kresselack (first major boss) and see what you think when you hear the wall shattering voice of Tony Jay say "If it is evil you have come looking for, then look no further..."

 

[DemonKing]

The Ice Temple had a good mix of combat and puzzles, Targos was a great little RPG town with a lot of stuff to find and people to talk to, the Fell Woods and River Caves had some cool enemies to fight, the Monastery was a nice change of pace, the Drider Lair was as good a dungeon crawl as any, and the battle for Kuldahar was fun as well. The good parts outweighed the boring and bad, but the beginnings and endings did not do the game any favours.

The Ice Temple was terribly bland to explore though graphically (I think the glare from all that ice hurt my eyes) and the Fell Woods was let down by the dumb puzzle elements that got in the way of the core gameplay and required constant backtracking. I didn't like the unnecessary sidetrip to the Jungles of Chult and the endgame was underwhelming with that buggy time-travel puzzle and then the forgetable return to the Severed Hand (my favourite Dungeon from the original). Even the main storyline about two demon kiddies who just wanted to be loved but after being rejected decided to raise an army and kick the living hell out of civilization seemed trite and out of step with the conclusion of the original where it seemed like the Fozzle would eventually escape again to wreak havok upon the world.

Don't get me wrong - it's a decent game but it doesn't hold a candle to the original, for mine.

Also, the first Icewind Dale had Heart of Winter, which I really liked. The dungeons themselves were not nearly as complex or "D&D like", but Lonelywood was really nice and I loved the atmosphere even more than the main game. I also feel that Trials of the Luremaster is severely underrated, I think it's just as good as Durlag's Tower, though some of the combat was stupidly hard and I doubt I will ever want to play it again. Icewind Dale II feels much smaller and shorter in comparison due to the lack of expansions.

For me the best thing about Heart of Winter where the resolution upgrades and interface improvements - the actual content itself was poor with short and very linear dungeons and Lonelywood felt pretty sparse. Trails of the Luremaster was a great addition though (particularly being free) albeit of high difficulty.

 

[sea]

Targos "great little RPG town"? It was a chore... Tons of fetch quests, none of them interesting. NPCs that offer no interesting dialogue worth reading past the "essential" bits. There was one fun quest I think (destroy archery target to piss of the captain) but really it was pretty bad overall.

The quests weren't great but I liked the cast of characters and the setting. Its defense was pretty cool, I liked the war camp and preparing the troops. They could have done more with it but considering the game kind of moves on after that it'd be hard to go back in any justifiable way.

Don't get me wrong - it's a decent game but it doesn't hold a candle to the original, for mine.

I don't think it's nearly as good a game, either, if not so much for tone and atmosphere (i.e. storyfag) than for consistency. I didn't mind the jungles, even if it was a cheap excuse to add some visual variety, and the dragon fight there was pretty brutal (but fun). It has its moments for sure, it's just kind of bland and uninspired next to the original game. A lot of that probably comes down to the greater focus on story... the plot demanded visiting environments that made sense in the context of the war etc., instead of the first game's "hay here's a really awesome dungeon to explore, who cares where it came from, it's cool" approach.

For me the best thing about Heart of Winter where the resolution upgrades and interface improvements - the actual content itself was poor with short and very linear dungeons and Lonelywood felt pretty sparse. Trails of the Luremaster was a great addition though (particularly being free) albeit of high difficulty.

I liked the storyfag side of things in Heart of Winter and the barbarian angle was something I hadn't seen in a game before (and felt very unexplored by the original). Got a much better sense of the politics of the area, the conflict between cultures, etc. I agree that the dungeons etc. were far shorter and more linear, but it didn't really bother me due to those other aspects of it. The final boss area was pretty well done too - even if it was yet another dragon.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

People, please stop repeating that IWD games have better combat encounters - you're embarrassing yourselves.

I also think that HoW was the best thing to come out from the whole IWD franchise, running through it on the impossible difficulty was a decently memorable challenge.

 

[Johannes]

Are there any good AI/challenge mods for IWD?

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Targos "great little RPG town"? It was a chore... Tons of fetch quests, none of them interesting. NPCs that offer no interesting dialogue worth reading past the "essential" bits. There was one fun quest I think (destroy archery target to piss of the captain) but really it was pretty bad overall.

.

I disagree with this. There were plenty of side quests to do that, while simple, used a bit of forethought. There were multiple ways of doing some of the quests that would use your own characters' stats, classes, or skills, and you could actually feel the tension building up to the invasion.

I'm thinking things like... translating the dead goblin's words, figuring out that Phen (the mage with the Iron Collar band) is actually a traitor and a saboteur, blessing or training the troops in the palisade, convincing that stubborn ass fucking captain to use a goddamn hammer for you (I think that's the only fetch quest that I was just plain furious at... and only because the fucking guy wouldn't take the damn thing [admittedly, he never even asks for it but still]). They devs saw the tediousness of running so they gave you that courier kid who would take you to the places quickly enough. Anyway, drunks, stealing shields, shooting the shit with pantomime characters, and dealing with Hedrick's mother.

I guess it could be fun in some way... They weren't straight up bad or cringeworthy, but they didn't stand out for me either and I never felt too sad when quest-relevant people got massacred after the orc invasion (which by itself was kinda "meh, lets kill some orcs" instead of "omg we are fucked"). More like harmless, filler content that distracted from the main purpose of the game: hackin' and slashin'.

Personally, I evaluate the quality of quests based on:

1) Writing, not necessarily the "quality" of writing whatever it means but whether I'm compelled to read all these lines instead of just consulting the journal to see what I need to do next. PS:T had a very wholesome, novel world and I wanted to read these walls of text to learn more about it. BG2, I kind of grew attached to my PC followers and wanted to know more about them, or they were just plain fun to read (party banter) even if they weren't anything special most of the time (unlike PS:T). Divine Divinity had a sort of endearing humour. Most stuff in IWD2? Just fluff, functional writing, easily skippable beyond maybe the last area and two main villains (who were really well done, IMO - including the voice actors).

2) What they add to the game. Quests in Gothic games felt like a natural extension of the gameworld - "bring wolfskins" wasn't a fetchquest as such, it was much more about going in the wilds and learning how to survive vs. pretty tough monster packs. Dakkon's quests in PS:T felt really meaningful especially after you discover that it was a hoax by your Practical Incarnation. They made PCs come to life, and gave direction to the story itself.

3) probably more stuff that I can't rationalize atm.

IWD2 quests felt just... well, tacked-on - like you say, they even added a courier boy to reduce the tedium. Especially considering the 99% of the rest of the game is hack 'n slash and "puzzles".

 

[oscar]

Icewind Dale(s) had solid writers, but they chose not to storyfag it.

Baldur's Gate(s) had fucking terrible writers and they chose to storyfag it.

 

[SCO]

Also IWD2 had no cohesion at all after the bridge fight. Suddenly... Chult!... Ice Temple... Ice Temple invaded by Tannari... A village with a child eating witch! (seriously?)... A evil forest!... A temple of sorceror monks OF DEATH in the middle of the glacier... A idiot wanting to experience being a ghoul... Sexploitation of reptile race mating habits (would you want to go free? This guy didn't)... A time loop in a volcano society!... Bane is behind it... A tragic story (the female is guilty since she doesn't want to be forgiven).

Good writing eh? Allow me to metaphorically urinate on that claim. It's just a simple non-sensical revenge plot padded with a fuckload of cliches that derive from their fucking narrative accessories or just unrelated crap. Forest? -> Evil Forest. Witch? -> Child Eating Witch. Prisoners of Inhuman race? -> Rape (but there were no females, and the guys sorta liked it because of cool lizard ladies hu-hurr). Chult, Salamander's day time loop -> WTF

 

[Murk]

It would seem that we are at an impasse, and while I do not wish to continue repeating myself (and thus prompting you to repeat yourself) about what we like/dislike about the game(s), I think we can just leave our opinions (when properly articulated) to be a guiding compass to those who are on the fence about trying the games out themselves and seeing if they like them or not. IWD and IWD 2 definitely are hack'n'slash, and everything else was just gravy, but I'd say that in the cohesion of the game I'd take them over BG 1 or 2 any day. Obviously, of the 5 IE games Torment is the best, but for me IWD 1 is the second best.

 

[Roguey]

IWD2 had bad writing because Sawyer literally had to come up with an outline in a day, peace.

http://rpgvaultarchive.ign.com/features/interviews/icewindii.shtml
J.E. Sawyer: I don't know when the producers decided to make the game, but I was told that we were making the game when I learned that TORN was being cancelled. That was on a Wednesday afternoon. Feargus asked me to work with Steve Bokkes to create a story and area overview by Thursday afternoon. Steve and I talked about it for the rest of the day. I went home that night and worked on the overviews until the next day. I came in and turned the docs in, and after the Friday division meeting, the project was in development.

 

[SCO]

Extraordinary. Designers/writers get no respect in the game industry.