Your quest in Baldur's Gate, begins by choosing a gender and a face... then roll the dices and choose a multitude of other attributes!
Gorion is not to be seen for more than a few minutes. He is your foster parent, and he will die while you run for your life...
Nashkel is the first city where you'll really find sub-quests.
The heaviest quest @ Nashkel is "cleaning" the mines. Everyone is dying there, and ore is contaminated. Swords are not as they used to be: wear them to much, and they'll break! The problem must be solved!
Baldur's Gate [BG] was completed in 1998 and started selling in January 1999, exactly one year ago. Most people might remember it because of its 5 CDROMs, but a select few gamers actually ventured into the Dungeons & Dragons ambiance [D&D], extremely well captured by the developers.
I am very ignorant in what comes to D&D on paper, and I definitely never completed a RPG title, for the exception of the old Lands of Lore. To be honest, the fact that BG requires 5 CDs, made me think that it was one those games which are no more than video files, compiled and accessible from a linear interface. How wrong I was!
Only now I found time to try BG! While it might seem late, the truth is that this is one of those games which won't be very much affected by the years! It is said that Baldur's Gate requires an average of 110 days to be completed, when played by an average player!, and despite me not being in a position to confirm such immense lastability, the facts are that I am completely on my knees, facing one of the BEST RPGs, ever!!
Just the thought that BG remained on a box for 12 months, closing inside itself 25 personages, hundreds of square miles of Tolkienesque scenarios, and the true possibility of turning me into a complete RPG addict, makes me wonder how many other ABSOLUTELY superb titles I've been missing.
Baldur's Gate is LIFE! The game is so VAST, so beautiful, so wide open on every single occasion, that IF you try to embrace every sub-quest that presents to your party, you'll need more than 110 hours of gaming, and you'll probably become too separate from the "real world". Beware! :)
I am playing with the human female on the upper left corner, which is a "fighter", of just moderate intelligence, but considerable strength, despite a low charisma. Of course that being an ignorant on D&D, I didn't guess that I could insist on different attributes for my girl, just by throwing "the dices" again. However, don't you think that, after the dices, there will be more random situations, à la Final Fantasy... there will NOT! Once you gather a party, do your best to adjust your people to your quests, and do so in a very rational way, or you won't last long.
It all starts with you - "not a true daughter of Gorion" - facing some terrible life threats, that you can't understand at all... Plus, Gorion is looking of you, and you feel pressed to go meet him, but there are so many buildings to explore, so many small adventures to be tried, that it becomes stressing to enter chapter one of your great defy.
Unfortunately, a few minutes latter, Gorion is dead, killed while protecting you from the most powerful creature you have yet seen!... and then it all really starts...
I now run a party of 6 people, mostly female. One of the females is a "neutral good" druid, and another is an "evil" dark elf... yeah, you guessed it: they are giving me some trouble to conciliate :)
However my current BG difficulties are #1) related to magic; and #2) related to the Nashkel mines.
#1) my main fighter can't cast spells, and I don't know if that is normal at all... That would be tolerable for the time being, as other party members can do it, but there is an even stranger fact: when I first reached the experience points enough, for her to go up a level, there was nothing to allocate to any skill, and my personage remained as it was, except for the fact that it is became labeled"level 2"...
#2) the Nashkel mines are full of contaminated ore and nasty creatures. I've raided the mines twice now, cleaning levels 1 and 2. I still didn't go down to underground level 3, because I fear my equipment won't be a life saver there.
My chronicles will continue, very soon...
Jaheira is one of the very few druids that may join your party. She is of a "neutral good" alignment, and that may bring you problems, when going for some "not so bright" killings.
A castle... The world is full of them, but few come close to the superb architectures you'll @ Baldur's Gate.
A pretty building... But you should see the trees! They don't look good on a 110 pixels wide JPG, so you might not know how beautiful everything is!
Ogres down! Ogres are BIG, but they lack magical powers, so they won't be as hard to erase, as you might think.