If you ever wanted to experience a really decent MMORPG version of the good old Baldur's Gate game from 1998, the best choice would be to try Baldur's Gate: The Sword Coast Chronicles. It is the best and most popular persistent world ever created for Neverwinter Nights 2, existing for 3-4 years now and still very much alive and thriving probably for many more years to come. What makes it very alluring to Baldur's Gate fans is that most of the game world has been recreated based on the game maps in Baldur's Gate 1.
I will do my best to describe BG-TSCC. Some information about me first. In the past I have played Baldur's Gate 1, Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights 1 in single player and six years in multiplayer. I discovered BG-TSCC and started playing it a year and a half ago.
I guess it might be best to provide the description in a form of a FAQ.
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Q: What's in there for fans of the good old Baldur's Gate game released in 1998?
A: Developers recreated the world and game maps from the world and maps of the original Baldur's Gate game and the results are quite impressive in my opinion. If you have played the old Baldur's Gate game, you will certainly recognize many places. The world reaches north of Baldur's Gate to Troll Claw Hills and to the south through Friendly Arms Inn, Beregost and Nashkel through Cloudpeak Mountains to Amn, plus there is an entire big world of the Underdark with the city of Sshamath below the surface for players who choose to play as a drow, duergar, svirfneblin or tanarruk. The whole game world consists of at least 120-150 maps. Players and a big dungeon master team have already established a really complex role-play setting with various clans and guilds familiar from the Baldur's Gate game. The world is not static but keeps changing. There have even been some epic and really huge global events such as a war between Baldur's Gate and Amn (described in Forgotten Realms lore) half a year ago, which left Beregost completely razed (rebuilt now).
Q: How is gameplay in BG-TSCC?
A: Gameplay is somewhat similar to gameplay in mainstream MMORPG games. You create a character and explore, hunt monsters, do quests, buy and trade items to NPC shops or between players, join parties or solo some smaller and bigger boss monsters, participate in various events and quests organized by dungeon masters. Your character is stored on the server and remains for many years just like in commercial MMORPGs. An average player might probably remain interested at least for a year playing there but completely new players might stay for as long as five years. The only reason I have become somewhat bored after 15 months of playing a lot there is that I had played NWN 1 online for six years before I joined and many gameplay elements weren't new to me.
Q: How is role-playing in BG-TSCC?
A: One special thing they have is that sometimes characters automatically get RP XP for role-playing. The thing which impressed me most about role-play is that in the Underdark many people actually role-play in the real language of the drow (Siyo, nind telanth ilythiiri xanalress wun Har'oloth gaer). Role-playing between players and interaction between players and NPCS or monsters controlled by dungeon masters can be often quite deep and serious in BG-TSCC. One reason for this is that role-playing can actually bring power or different real consequences to player characters or be reflected in the world. In most online fantasy games role-playing is just empty talk between role-players but it never results or materializes in anything.
Q: Isn't NWN 2 a bad game for multiplayer?
A: As a veteran NWN 1 player I had negative prejudice towards NWN 2 but after I tried it in 2011, BG-TSCC impressed me so much that it was the only computer game I ever played in 2011-2012. I am waiting for BG-EE because Baldur's Gate games are my favourite single player games but BG-TSCC is the place to go for any BG fan who wants to experience Baldur's Gate as an MMORPG. The games sort of complete each other. You can play Baldur's Gate in single player and then you can continue your adventures in the multiplayer environment of BG-TSCC, though with another character and decades after the Bhaal spawn events.
Q: Isn't NWN 2 full of bugs for multiplayer?
A: I tried NWN 2 for the first time in closed beta test in 2005, then bought and played it for a while in 2005-2007. Many years ago NWN 2 was indeed horrible for multiplayer, significantly worse than NWN 1, though I did like the official single player campaign. However, in 2011 when I decided to try the BG-TSCC, I became extremely impressed with the multiplayer aspect of NWN 2. I cannot say for certain whether NWN 2 became so dramatically better due to all the patches between 2005-2009 or because the world of BG-TSCC is optimized really well and bugs removed.
Q: What is so impressive about BG-TSCC from technical viewpoint?
A: I was impressed because it is a world with 150 maps and 90% of them quite decent (knowing how hard it is to make good looking maps in NWN 2). I was also impressed that their server can handle 70 players simultaneously with surprisingly little lag and that during 12 months of playing there I experienced game crashes only 10-15 times in total and got stuck in some spot on a map only two times. All in all, really excellent even by NWN 1 multiplayer standards. It's also impressive that at least for me it runs without problems both on a really old computer built in 2003-2004 (with Windows XP) and on a very modern computer built in 2012 (with Windows 7).
All in all, it feels like a deluxe commercial MMORPG due to the quality of design of the world and enthusiasm of developers and their dungeon master team.
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If somebody is starting from scratch, the whole installation and patching process is much more simple than in NWN 1.
1. Install NWN 2.
2. Install Mask of Betrayer (and Storm of Zehir if you have it).
3. Run NWN2Launcher.exe. Click Update to patch the game to the final version released in 2009.
4. Launch the game. Click "Multiplayer". Type in some account name and some random password.
5. Choose "Role-Playing" and select "Baldur's Gate: The Sword Coast Chronicles".
6. Connect to the server. All necessary files will be downloaded and sorted out in the right folders automatically. This stage can take a few hours even with fast Internet connection when you connect for the first time because there are at least 2-4 gigabytes of BGTSCC files.
7. Create character and play after downloads are finished.
This is not mentioned anywhere on the forums but players who don't have the Storm of Zehir expansion can take only standard base and prestige classes which came with NWN 2 and The Mask of Betrayer. Without The Storm of Zehir add-on It is not possible to take levels in custom prestige classes such as Dread Pirate, Black Flame Zealot, Whirling Dervish or Ghost-Faced Killer, and in certain maps there will be objects with "missing textures". Fortunately, there is still plenty of base and prestige classes to choose from, and 90% of maps do not contain any objects or textures from Storm of Zehir. Otherwise, you can play perfectly fine just with NWN 2 and MoTB without SoZ.
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Some screenshots showing the game world:
http://www.bgtscc1.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=87Some gameplay screenshots:
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/399/nwn2ss011512134456.jpghttp://img840.imageshack.us/img840/1102/nwn2ss011612050421.jpghttp://img593.imageshack.us/img593/1180/nwn2ss011612194420.jpghttp://img542.imageshack.us/img542/8343/nwn2ss011612191049.jpghttp://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6813/nwn2ss011712150827.jpghttp://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6686/nwn2ss011512192213.jpghttp://img805.imageshack.us/img805/965/nwn2ss011712173356.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/Duster47/NWN2/NWN2_SS_011512_213520.jpg
= Instant bfam.
