Some Questions Concerning

So I recently watched the quick look for Pillars of Eternity and after hearing Rorie go on and on with questions and comparisons to this game I decided that I had to know what he was talking about. So I went on to GOG to see if the game was available and formed some questions I really want answered before I go into this:

1.How does this game hold up? I don't mean graphics, I mean is it still a functional fun to play game? How's the story? Will it run on a Win7 machine?

2.How much do I need to know about D&D going in? I've never played only watched other people play here on GB and friends.

3.Should I get the sequel? There seems to be a lot of hate out there for it and it makes me a little hesitant to play them.

Much thanks!

@gaminghooligan: I actually never played IWD1, only IWD2. I love it! The story isn't as incredible as BG2, but then, BG2 has one of the best stories in any game, ever. It's more combat-heavy than BG2 was, which I know a lot of people like.

As far as D&D knowledge goes, these are fairly complicated games if you don't know the underlying rules and how everything interacts. If you've played KOTOR, you'll probably have some idea as to how things work, but there's a ton of stuff that's changed since the DND rules of that era. (It's worth noting that IWD2 uses DND Third Edition, while IWD uses DND 2nd Edition, so even if you play them both, there'll still be a bunch of differences between the rules.) Character building might be a little rough if you're going in with no background, but you can always make a character, play for a bit, and then re-roll when you get the hang of it. IWD2 has pre-made parties, as well, so you can always use one of those if you don't want to roll your own characters.

Honestly I'd probably start with Baldur's Gate 2 if you haven't played an Infinity Engine game before, but IWD2 is pretty great, as well. Recommended.

@rorie: Wow couldn't have asked for a better answer there. Thanks Rorie!

If you've never played one of the Infinity Engine games before (i.e. Icewind Dale 1& 2, Baldur's Gate 1&2, or Planescape Torment), but want to try out that old style of RPG, I would recommend instead playing Divinity: Original Sin or just waiting for Pillars of Eternity. They keep much of the good stuff from the old RPGs, such as deep character building, challenging tactical combat, expansive worlds filled with things to discover, and lots of writing that's fun to read. They also modernize the interfaces and rework/remove some of the weaker parts of the design of old D&D RPGs, like reliance on pre-buffing (casting tons of buff spells before fights), fighters with no skills to use in combat, and other stuff.

Although I've now played and finished all of the IE games, myself, I wasn't able to really get into and enjoy them until I had a pretty good understanding of the D&D rules. All of the games use the 2nd Edition ruleset, with Icewind Dale 2 incorporating some parts of 3rd Edition and Planescape Torment mixing in some new rules of its own.

@savage: I actually have been playing a little Divinity, although I'm having a hard time getting into Divinity's setting, my hope with something like IE or BG was that the traditional D&D worlds would be more my style.

They are set in the Forgotten Realms which are pretty weird unto themselves. Especially when you get into Drows and their society.

When you say weird is that in a bizarre and strange way or in a quirky funny kind of way?

What exactly are you looking for that Divinity isn't giving you? If it has anything to do with the fantasy setting, you're probably SOL. If you're looking for something more serious in tone, those old games have their jokes for sure (mostly in references a la names or snippets of dialogue) but generally are less jokey and nonsensical than Divinity's.

Both? It's kind of hard to describe. Most of it has been adapted by the Elder Scrolls games so I doubt you would find it that strange.

^That exactly. I tend to lean more towards serious/dark fantasy. I don't mind a joke here and there but Divinity can be a little silly at times for me, don't get me wrong it's a good game and I plan on continuing it, I'm just having a hard time connecting to it. There's also this part of me that's always wished I had a good D&D group to join up with.

@gaminghooligan: The game will run fine on a Win 7 machine if you buy it from GOG.

As for the sequel, I think it's a pretty amazing game. The development history of the game is pretty insane; they had to make it under extreme pressure (lot of people laid off before development, the developer struggled financially) so they completed the game in 9 months or something insane like that. But it's still a fantastic game.

I think both games hold up very well. But have you played Baldur's Gate 2? It's my all time favourite game, and it's a game everyone with love for RPGs should play.

PS: I don't know much about D&D, never played more than a few games of it with friends. But I never had trouble with understanding the rules of the Infinity Engine games. I'd recommend you to read up on the character stats and character building (a Wiki will do) before making a character though, and read up on the magic system and how that works. Outside of that, I think you'll figure it out by yourself.

The Icewind Dale games are more combat focused than most of the Infinity Engine games. The combat to story ratio is a lot higher there than most of the games of that era.

Icewind Dale is a great game, but it is probably not the one to introduce a newcomer to the infinity engine. It's pretty hard and isn't much for story. Baldur's Gate or its sequel might be a better place to start , though be warned that 2nd edition D&D is not exactly the most intuitive ruleset out there.

Speaking as someone who has tried out several of these DnD games, Baldur's Gate 2 is the one that finally got me to play for more than an hour. These games are made for people who know at least the basics of DnD going in and they're not going to go easy on you just because you've never played DnD before.

That said, we're not talking Crusader Kings 2 or Dwarf Fortress levels of impenetrability. With some time and dedication (and a web browser nearby), you can definitely figure it out and play it.

As far as running it on a modern machine, I had no issue getting Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate 2 running on my PC, though you may want to find mods for higher resolutions and bigger text. I've tried to run Infinity Engine games on both Windows 7 and 8.

Yep I went ahead and grabbed the first IWD off GOG and it's running just fine, there's actually a great list of fixes for the game on modern machines here such as higher resolutions and bugs.