Baldur's Gate 2 is dead (for me)

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It's official...I've come to the conclusion that I will probably never play this game again.

I've installed and uninstalled this game 3 times in the last few months alone, every time getting just past the circus in the promenade before I become disinterested and uninstall the game. I start off on the right note: enthusiastically install the game, with TOB, full patches and a few of my favorite mods (EoU, Kelsey, Unfinished Business, Quest Pack, etc.) and then pow...nothing. Once I invest about 15 minutes into the game, the thought of spending the next 20 hours in a monotonous haze of complete deja vu totally saps my will to play, causing me to subsequently uninstall the game and kick myself for the wasted time.

I've played this game so many times, attempted every strategy and style of interest to me, discussed it at such length (with you yahoos, no less ), and repeatedly discovered every secret to the point where the game holds absolutely no joy for me anymore. It literally seems like a huge chore to drudge through the game anymore. Questing for loot and completing quests has essentially turned into a big shopping list, a far cry from the adventure it once was. I rush through each dialogue and quest because I know how they end, and I know what I'll get from it.

I think I'll pull a time capsule...bury the game at the bottom of my game box and reinstall it in a year or two, when my jones for the STILL unreleased Baldur's Gate 3 should reach fever pitch...and give it another go. I predict this same empty feeling, but who knows.

Call it Faerun Fatigue, call it Athkatla Apathy, call it Shadows of Yawn...whatever you wanna call it. Stick a fork in good ol' DR, he's done here.

Anyone else nearing this point? We can say goodbye Irish wake style...

 

I've got several games sitting there on my harddrive. But, yes, I get very yawny around chapter 3, even with new NPCs to play with. I'm keeping it installed for when the 'Net goes down and I have a choice between BG2 and Minesweeper.

(I've gotten new high scores for MS. )

 

Far from being humble, every "good" and "intelligent" player has been trough this point on every game they´ve played.No need to say that it´s still a great game(like Doom,Diablo,Fallout,Warcraft,Starcraft and the like) but in some points of our ludic lives...we have to move on.
The horizon shines with THE GAME, that you ever dreamed on, the one it never gonna bore you till dead, the one that is not only available for your crippled economy,but also runs in your actual PC system and most important,it hasmore than 20 different final solutions/bosses/movies, due to that, you entire next year of amussement is assured!!!!
But in the meantime, you can always play something else (far)less than perfect.

 

If you've got enough good games, you can rotate between them and never be bored. *gestures toward the stack of game cartridges in his room* Anyway, trying to play one game forever is doomed to failure, unless you actually enjoy playing something you can practically recite from memory. *discretely points at self* And even then, new games with their newness can lure you away with their siren song of newosity. *coughMorrowindcough*

I do hope that eventually I'll be able to pull myself away from other games and return to my first love, Baldur's Gate. But seeing as I haven't finished my first run through Morrowind after at least a month, and I've already thought up 3 or 4 more, I don't imagine that's happening too soon.

[ September 08, 2006, 06:53: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

I layed down baldurs gate a year and a half ago and startet to play WoW. Dude, that game ate my soul and I played way too much for way too long.

When i quite I felt almost like junkie (as I imagine they feel) letting go of drugs. It was then i picked up bg2 again in a desperate attempt to stop my powergaming, you can stop anytime when playing singleplayer, right. Bg2 swollowed my soul again but my powergaming stoped, for good I hope.

Anyway good luck with finding a new game that will swallow your soul.

edit: typo

[ September 08, 2006, 11:23: Message edited by: Stardust ]

 

Other than the BG saga and Icewind Dale saga (bith still unmodded) on my PC I have installed Warcraft III, Civ 2, Civ 3 Conquests, Call to Power 2, Darkstar One, X2, Starcraft, Command & Conquer - First Decade, Sacred, Galactic Civ 2, Wizardy 8, Lemmings, Oh no more Lemmings, Colonization, Planescape, Soulbringer, X3, Spellforce, Age of Mythology, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Might and magic 6, Might and magic 8. I think that's all so I can easily switch to another game when I get bored.

But good luck with your search for something new and fulfilling.

 

well despite a 5 year gap with my last installement i still feel somewhat bored going through this way too linear journey again, so i ended it

and i dont even have any other game to play with as im not a gamer anymore since long

the last game i tried was oblivion but its such a stinker i uninstalled it after a 3 day trial

 

Hmmh, I must admit, I got a little bored the last autumn too, having played it 40 times trough (latest time being with C/M, the first with Sorcerer). Perhaps it will take a few years, but there's bound to be a time I start wondering: "What should I play now? All these games seem boring", and then I reach out to dig trough my old games, and there it is.
"Baldur's Gate? Yay!"

And my slumbering addiction will take over again...
Now, seeing I grew bored of it, I've tried a range of games, from Black&White to Fable.
Nothing's been as good as the old BG, but I'm just too bored to BG to play it again and again and again...

 

Well, I would suggest extremely hard-core mods which make the game super-tough:like tactics, improved battles, oversight, ascension. These battles are always hard and challenging, so no matter how many times I play, I still have fun as I HAVE to struggle a lot each time to survive. If you haven't tried, then well, go and try! Install Tactics, Improved Battles, Ascension, Oversight (all components from all mods) and restart a game:finishing the first, once easy, boring, tutorial like dungeon will take more than a day thanks to Improved Ilych component, and you will have immense thrill and fun if you can actually do it! (If you need hints&tips, just ask)

 

I think this can explain why you constantly face problems in your games, Silverstar!

Tactics and Improved Battles have incompatible components, though you won't see any reference to those incompatibilities in their readme files.

The mods you mentioned also have incompatible components with Improved Anvil (which has the largest tactical content among all mods). I have mentioned all cases of incompatibilities in IA's readme.

 

"Huh?"

 

I'm with ya Death Rabbit. Baldur's Gate's pretty much dead for me as well. I haven't the time for entertainment in general, but the interest towards Baldur's Gate is also declining. Otherwise I'd have harder time without playing it, but now I don't even have to try.

The sad thing is that I haven't even tried out every possible combination that I'd like and I will probably never have enough time or inclination for that either. I might play it during my rare holidays, but I'll probably try to get a burnout and/or a gastric ulcer from studying even then.

 

With the exception of Improved Battles (tactics takes care of that), I've done all of them. I've also done The Darkest Day (horribly slapdash as it was) and a few other large-scale mods. I've played on every difficulty level with just about every class. Believe me - it's not as if I haven't tried to spice things up. I'm an absolute mod whore.

 

Well it's no shame DR, there's lots of good games around. Try World in Flames.

I had a break with the BG series for more than three years when I rediscovered the series. Who knows with you in three years??

 

Never got tired of it and never will.

 

I'm with you DR. The only time I can play BG anymore is when a new NPC mod sparks my interest - as Sarelith recently has. Even here though, I find myself in Chapter 4 (I rushed) and have a hard time putting the game back in the CD drive.

I still game almost daily, it's just that my runs through BG2 are becoming increasingly rare. Like you said, I click through every conversation, because I know exactly what they are going to say, and how they are going to end. I've tried every single class and strategy that I had any interest in playing (I think beastmaster and jester are the two I've never tried), so there isn't much left to do.

I love games with high replay ability, and even though I've played this game through dozens of times, in truth, it's not a game designed for a lot of play throughs. By being able to take along 5 NPCs, it's not like you have to create a PC for every single class to experience what every class has to offer. I don't have to make an Inquisitor, Stalker, Blade or Berserker if I want to include one, as the NPCs are right there to try out.

Recently, I have found myself going back to games that truly have high replay ability - because they are different every time you go through. Recently, I've been playing Civ IV: Warlords (the new expansion for Civ IV). This truly does have a lot of replay ability, because in addition to 24 different civilizations, the opponents and world map are randomized for every game.

I've even stuck in Sid Meier's Pirates again. The replay ability here isn't as high, because the main quest of the game is always to rescue your family and defeat Marquis de la Montalban, regardless of the nationality or era you play in, but because of differences in era and nationality, the rest of the game, and how you go about your primary quest DOES change with each new game.

That doesn't work in BG. While the ORDER in which you do things changes, what you have to do to complete quests always stays the same. There are usually no more than two ways to complete a quest (and in many cases only one way to do so), so it cannot help but become repetitive after a while.

 

I feel the same, excpet I've never played ToB. But I want to start with my party from SoA, so I keep trying to finish it, but I always get bored... I even stopped my mod because I got bored with the game.

Me too, DR.

 

For me EasyTutu also helped a lot. BG on BG2 engine gave me a new kick.

 

I know where you’re coming from, DR. I was getting pretty tired if the game myself, but part of that was due to the fact that I always resorted to a melee approach. Even with my favorite character (Blade), I’d go melee, and use magic only when melee didn’t work (which wasn’t often).

So I decided to take drastic measures to force myself to use magic, and am soloing a Sorcerer. It’s made the game fun again, and yet I can see where even that will lose its appeal because, in some respects, I still feel like I’m just going through the motions.

Maybe, eventually, I’ll pull my head out of the sand and fully realize that there is life beyond BG2, and that it's just a game meant for fun, not a religion to be followed until I can’t stand it anymore.

 

I'm getting a lot of recommondations for Final Fantasy 7... ever play that one?