EGM scores. Some pretty big games.

[A Black Falcon]

This basically sums up everything about your opinion on the matter. I'm glad I finally got you to answer it.

You think this would be entertaining, when nobody in their right mind would think so. You can only compare it to Charlie Rose, yet even that has people actually talking! Try removing the talking in Charlie Rose, all hints of emotion and animation from the people talking, and replace everything with text. I doubt even you would find that entertaining. Or maybe you would, all things considered...

That is what Baldur's Gate is.

That pretty much does sum it up, yes... we have diametrically opposed views on what we like in these games.

Look, I do not have to be trained in filmmaking or creative writing to know when I like a story. I have read enough books and played enough games to know when I like a story and how a game presents it and when I do not. I am also sure that I have a much better grasp on this than most people given how I HAVE read a lot of books and played many games. A big part of your problem is that you aren't trying to undertstand me past my not complete knowledge of your terms. So instead of saying (on this particular issue, not necessarially on all of the ones we have raised in this thread) "we disagree", you say "I understand better than you and I am right". Which is silly, given that the subject is something as subjective as storytelling! Why can't you accept that people can have a difference of opinion without trying to force your opinion on everyone else?

But it really does sum up our differences on the issue. You state there that you would say that BG is about as interesting as Charlie Rose in a foreign language with subtitles. Now, would that be intresting? Sometimes, but it'd get boring fast that I must admit... that we agree on. Where I disagree is when it comes to games. I have never felt that way about Baldur's Gate because of anything relating to storytelling. I have not thought "this is boring because I cannot see their face". I'd never even really thought of it until you mentioned it because ... it's hard to explain really, but BG is, to me, engrossing. A game I can lose myself in for hours. And between the writing and the graphics (to show what kind of a character the person is) and the short bits of speech the important characters get, I feel that it provides plenty of information to the players for them to feel like they are part of the world if they want to try to feel that way.

Because you see, Baldur's Gate is a game about trying to make a game of Dungeons and Dragons into a computer game. You don't really like D&D, so it doesn't surprise me that you dislike a game based off of it... but when compared to a D&D module, or even a freeform D&D world, Baldur's Gate does as well as can be expected. D&D doesn't always have the best character descriptions or the most complex stories (or storytelling or descriptions about the world you are in). In the real thing this is okay because it's a group and you get the roleplaying experience off of eachother. In a game this doesn't work, of course, so the game is necessarially different. However, it's as close as it can be within the limits of having fun... so it really does have the flavor of a D&D game. Except, I'd say, that BGII has a better story than a lot of D&D games... that's one of the things it probably has to do to try to make up for the fact that the game is not as freeform or as group-oriented (as in multiple people) as a game of tabletop D&D. It's got to change in some ways and the main ways it does is by becoming more a game of grand strategy -- that is, controlling a party and not a character, but with less choice about what you can do with each character than a real game of D&D -- and by making the world and the story more complex and interesting. Baldur's Gate achieves these goals and becomes a truly great game for anyone who enjoys games which attempt to do their best at translating tabletop gaming onto a computer screen.

If this isn't a style of game you like, then don't blame me. It also doesn't mean that you are a horrible person or something, of course, it just means we disagree, but don't blame me for not having a clue about good game/story design when I most certainly can express an opinion about many things relating to the subject or including the subject. You don't learn about what you LIKE in stories or from games from a book, after all, you learn it from experience... you learn the details of the facts and the definitions from such sources, to help you make a better case for what you like.