Yay for Baldurs Gate 3 =)

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Morkonan wrote:

At that point, I would certainly say that it was a game designed around streaming and not for the greater good of the game.

And at this exact point of your eloquent rhetoric, you managed to capture the essence of my deepest skepticism, regarding the project Baldur's Gate 3. I don't want it designed around streaming. But I know I'm biased, and it's a sentimental bias, an old flame, the worse kind possible. I wouldn't mind that much if the game was called Waterdeep's Portal, or The Hosttower of Luskan.

It looks like a decent addition to the Larian library, but $90AUD for one probably buggy act so far when I haven't even finished D:OS 1 or 2 is far beyond my 2020 budget.

That and I haven't really cared much for the Realms since the Godswar/Time of Troubles. I'm content to replay the original NWN now and then for that old-timey Faerun-set D&D feel.

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Phrazz wrote:

I'm having my DnD turned-based urges put out by the PC version of Gloomhaven these days.

Gloohaven: you've played the board game simulating a computer game, now play the computer game simulating the board game simulating a computer game. We've been tempted to try it through Boardgame Simulator given current logistics issues, but the actual PC version strikes me a a wee bit...I dunno, extrapolated maybe? And given Gloomhaven's price tag to begin with, I can't really justify a double-dip. Do you own/have you played the board game or is this your first foray?

Yes, this Baldur´s Gate likely is and looks great, and will probably win prizes and everything for LOTS of stuff.
And I not just liked it, but loved Baldur´s Gate 1 & 2.

And you all know what?? I won´t even play Baldur´s Gate 3 AT ALL. I won´t even spend a single dime on it. It will JUST be another game I will never ever play. And I can say for sure that it will please me to not play it, and it will make me very happy to not play it, in fact.
Not just interesting any longer. I already have a couple other titles in this genre, and the fact is, they are never ever gonna be played. They just sit there, installed on the disk, and never ever get´s played. And they just sat there for now since ´16/´17 or so now and still untouched.
Just check up on some of the most praised titles in this genre released within the last 5 yrs, and you will probably know some of the titles already. And yes, they´re awesome.

But hey, if you are among the younger audience getting into this genre these days, you are most likely in for a treat, and you are very likely just as excited as I was back in the days of Baldur´s Gate 1 & 2.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

It looks like a decent addition to the Larian library, but $90AUD for one probably buggy act so far when I haven't even finished D:OS 1 or 2 is far beyond my 2020 budget.

That and I haven't really cared much for the Realms since the Godswar/Time of Troubles. I'm content to replay the original NWN now and then for that old-timey Faerun-set D&D feel.

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Phrazz wrote:

I'm having my DnD turned-based urges put out by the PC version of Gloomhaven these days.

Gloohaven: you've played the board game simulating a computer game, now play the computer game simulating the board game simulating a computer game. We've been tempted to try it through Boardgame Simulator given current logistics issues, but the actual PC version strikes me a a wee bit...I dunno, extrapolated maybe? And given Gloomhaven's price tag to begin with, I can't really justify a double-dip. Do you own/have you played the board game or is this your first foray?

I recently went further back and started playing through the old SSI Gold Box games again. Just finished up Secret of the Silver Blades a couple days ago, and will probably start up Pools of Darkness this weekend. It's been quite a while, and I've really enjoyed revisiting them.

Christ, that's dredging up some serious EGA memories.

I have to admit, as much as I liked the old SSI games, I felt that Eye of the Beholder was a point of no return in terms of the 'computerisation' of Dungeons and Dragons. It was the first official D&D game that felt like something you couldn't do with pen and paper in its immersion. Well that or the simply magnificent dragon flight simulator (!!!) Dragonstrike. What a revelation that game was for a Dragonlance uberfan in the early 90s. And it was one of the first in full VGA too.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Do you own/have you played the board game or is this your first foray?

I do/have not, but I'm playing with a friend who has. He has only good things to say about it. Didn't even know about the price tag of the board game; just looked it up. Damn.

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Phrazz wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Do you own/have you played the board game or is this your first foray?

I do/have not, but I'm playing with a friend who has. He has only good things to say about it. Didn't even know about the price tag of the board game; just looked it up. Damn.

It was a mixture of pricetag and availability. All the first wave copies went to backers. I had to schlep a box from the city on a 30 minute train ride -- I took a wheeled suitcase for the job, heh.

It's a pretty great game but the writing is godawful for the most part. Still, we love its feeling of 'everything': rpg, deckbuilder, tactics game, city builder...it's all in there.

I think I prefer Mage Knight for the 'everything' feel but Gloomhaven's commitment to legacy play despite the price tag is pretty impressive. Haven't looked at Frosthaven yet though. 2020 being what it is and all, we mostly rely on Tabletop Simulator to get our play in, and even then we stick to easier stuff like Thunderstone Advance (which is my absolute *favourite* deck builder; Nightfall close second, even if it's pure pvp and ends friendships on the regular).

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

It was a mixture of pricetag and availability. All the first wave copies went to backers. I had to schlep a box from the city on a 30 minute train ride -- I took a wheeled suitcase for the job, heh.

It's a pretty great game but the writing is godawful for the most part. Still, we love its feeling of 'everything': rpg, deckbuilder, tactics game, city builder...it's all in there.

I think I prefer Mage Knight for the 'everything' feel but Gloomhaven's commitment to legacy play despite the price tag is pretty impressive. Haven't looked at Frosthaven yet though. 2020 being what it is and all, we mostly rely on Tabletop Simulator to get our play in, and even then we stick to easier stuff like Thunderstone Advance (which is my absolute *favourite* deck builder; Nightfall close second, even if it's pure pvp and ends friendships on the regular).

While I played some old school, hand drawn pen and paper D&D 2nd Ed back in the days, I'm very new to all of these more typical "board game" iterations. Especially when it comes to deckbuilding. Card management/efficiency/exhaustion (can't find the right word here) is new and difficult. I've never had much interest in card based games before, and usualy get pretty "put off" when I see cards in game. Gloomhaven, on the other hand, made them quite interesting, even though I don't think they do it much different than other games in the genre.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Do you own/have you played the board game or is this your first foray?

I do/have not, but I'm playing with a friend who has. He has only good things to say about it. Didn't even know about the price tag of the board game; just looked it up. Damn.

It was a mixture of pricetag and availability. All the first wave copies went to backers. I had to schlep a box from the city on a 30 minute train ride -- I took a wheeled suitcase for the job, heh.

It's a pretty great game but the writing is godawful for the most part. Still, we love its feeling of 'everything': rpg, deckbuilder, tactics game, city builder...it's all in there.

I think I prefer Mage Knight for the 'everything' feel but Gloomhaven's commitment to legacy play despite the price tag is pretty impressive. Haven't looked at Frosthaven yet though. 2020 being what it is and all, we mostly rely on Tabletop Simulator to get our play in, and even then we stick to easier stuff like Thunderstone Advance (which is my absolute *favourite* deck builder; Nightfall close second, even if it's pure pvp and ends friendships on the regular).

I play Gloomhaven regularly with friends and I also play the computer version as well.

Even though it is a legacy game you can buy removable stickers to play it more than once, which we are currently doing since we finished the main campaign last month.

The computer version is different, which is expected since it is a computer game, there is campaign mode yet. I find it pretty satisfying to play and play it regularly.

Gloomhaven is not cheap, just to give you an idea the box when shipped is weighing at 50 pounds.

Frosthaven will be a beast, as will probably the price tag. It will contains 100 scenarios which is almost the double of Gloomhaven.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Christ, that's dredging up some serious EGA memories.

I have to admit, as much as I liked the old SSI games, I felt that Eye of the Beholder was a point of no return in terms of the 'computerisation' of Dungeons and Dragons. ...

I was a huge fan of the SSI "Gold Box" games... So very many hours spent with all of those.

I can still hear that "squelchy-hit-crash-whack" sound from the old SSI games that signaled either you hit something or got hit by something... That "almost tactical" sort of party combat, too, with moving around on an invisible grid, blocking enemies, moving out of the way of lightning bolts, getting off that perfect Fireball...

You're not far off the mark with Eye of the Beholder. Though, maybe "Icewind Dale" sort of broke the mold? Baldur's Gate was pretty revolutionary, too. But, interacting directly with things on the screen like in Eye of the Beholder, pushing buttons, picking up stuffs - that was all pretty darn cool.

I think it all started off, of course, with a desire to duplicate that "AD&D Experience." Then, they figured out they were moving in a new direction, beyond that. The constant push for BotC to push out new "Editions" for people to spend money on and devs trying to keep up with those rulesets as a marketing approach ended up wearing thin. When they successfully "broke" out of that with independent titles, that's when all that fantasy RPG-Party-Combat genre changed.

The original "Bard's Tale" still makes me think of that "fine line" between being a simulation of a P&P game and a new genre.

Wasteland, Pool of Radiance, the Dragonlance titles, of course the very heavily rewarding and narrative-driven Planescape:Torment... Great memories.