I don’t know, it gets exhausting. I’m one of those people who want to do everything, and get conflicted if there are too many options. I’m worried that if I go too far down one quest line, then maybe they will lock me out of another quest line. Or if I talk to this guy, then this other guy will hate me. If I do a quest for one faction, then I will never get the quest from the other faction to raid the first faction, I never would have even recieved the 2nd factions quest, because they are located on the other side of the city.
SO, to counter-act that I have to gather every single quest first. Go into every house and talk to every possible person who could effect every possible solution. There were like 8 different zones, including the sewers, and/or prison, and/or castle, and/or mystical wizard/alternate realm of reality. Once I have talked to EVERYBODY, then I will have recieved every possible solution to a single quest line, THEN I can choose what is my best option. BUT WAIT, what if one solution is better than the other? Then I have to do every quest line from every possible angle, a dozen or so different save files that I have to remember the variations of. Multiply this effect by however many quest lines there are in these damn cities. Oh, and the quest journal is horrible. Rarely will the game tell you where the quest was. I remember I had to un-stonify this group of adventurers in a house somewhere. The quest reminder was like “I have to find scrolls to save these adventurers…”. Wait, I’ve been running circles around this city. I don’t remember which generic house these adventurers were in. I vaguely remember the location, so I have to enter every house again to locate them.
Okay, then there are the little things. One house has an unopenable chest. I want what is inside this chest. Sure, it probably has 3 pairs of peasant shoes in it (LIKE THEY ALL DO), but wait…what if they’re not peasant shoes, what if they’re MAGIC peasant shoes? I’ll have to come back when I level up my lockpicking skill. There may be a dozen of these around the city. Oh wait, but the mapping feature sucks in BG1 and all the houses look the same, so I have to remember where everything is. Oh also, you can’t change the map angle, some houses/doors are only openable from the side hidden by the art asset, and have to pixel hunt to try and find the outline of the door.
It’s paralyzing really. Again, I like the content. I love content, it’s fun and interesting. But, when tons of content hits you like a ton of bricks within a certain area it gets confusing. Especially with a map feature and journal feature that were useless in Baldurs Gate’s time. It’s much more fun in the outdoor zones in which content is in manageable portions. Like in BG2, just outside the city, there was the castle that was overrun in which you can eventually make your own. There are a ton of quests there, but everything is contained within that one zone. I can complete an entire area, and then move on to the next one without regrets.
