I couldn’t handle Icewind Dale solo for that very reason. It was just too many things. But then I played it with two friends on a LAN. We played the game together, and with the combination of our 3 characters, and me only having to make decisions for one character while coordinating with the other two made it much more manageable and more importantly much more fun.
But yeah, I buy solo Icewind Dale being an RTS.
I think you’re confused by the interface/perspective/control mechanisms here. That is too much of a stretch.
It’s a top down view of 6 units that you can develop and control with point and click. It’s really not all that much different from Warcraft 3.
Just more involved.
Like any good RTS campaign, you don’t really have my control over the story. You just complete objectives and move on to the next area.
Sorry. You won’t be convincing me Icewind Dale is an RTS. Not happening. It is closer to Baldur’s Gate. Dialogue trees. Itemization. Levels. Dungeons and Dragons.
Isn’t Icewind Dale exactly like Baldur’s Gate? Like it’s just the same game, but in a snowy setting?
I never got around to playing it, as I never finished BG! Did it not have the same real-time-with-pause system?
Today I learned some people consider an RPG like Icewind Dale to be an RTS, which is just poppycock.
We’re reaching Chick levels of RTS semantics.
I remember in the late 90s playing the demos of a couple of Russian games that were specifically trying to market themselves as RPG/RTS hybrid, I remember playing one of those demos and thinking it was pretty similar to Baldur’s Gate/Icewind Dale.
Spellforce maybe?
I think it was Rage of Mages.
Ohhhh good one.
It shares the same engine as Baldur’s Gate, but unlike most RPGs, your characters have almost no impact on the plot.
Want to throw an Evil Wizard, a Druid and Paladin together on the same team? No problem, because the game doesn’t care. There are no choices that will change the outcome of the game.
Much like you Commandos, or Company of Heroes, you have set objects of killing this or killing that, and that’s all the game revolves around. In real time. It’s just combat, with the added feature of having your 6 troops level up, or equip new items. And troops leveling up isn’t really new to RTS games.
Warlords Battlecry has both heroes and troops level up.
Warwind features equiping and upgrading troops as a staple of it’s game play.
Games like Cannon Fodder, Commandos, Myth, And Ground Control all featured set units without the ability to produce more.
There is nothing in Icewind Dale that is unique and isn’t featured already in other real time strategy games and it lacks some of the key elementals of more classic Party Based RPGs, such as Baldur’s Gate, Pathfinder Kingmaker or KOTOR, such as having compelling characters, or the ability to effect the story in a significant way.
As I said, BG comes with a Host of NPCs to recruit each with story lines, and reactions to events (if somewhat minor) while Icewind Dale, you create all 6 of your characters, and the only impact any of them have how you fight battles.
Which is why, when Party Based RPGs blend the concept of RPG and RTS together, Icewind Dale falls more into the the RTS category.
It really doesn’t. RTSs are about turning resources into units, map control, mirco/macro management, usually on a single self contained battlefield (map).
Icewind Dale is like any other dungeon crawler. Playing Icewind Dale is exactly like Baldur’s Gate except you make all the characters.
Crazy talk.
Iceeind Dale is a SPOBA.
Da fuck did you just say?
Actually, since it has a series of locations, it’s more like a SoSPOBAs. Pretty catchy! Tencent, are you listening?
You’re a SoSPOBA.
It’s similarities to BG start and end with using the same ruleset and engine. Baldur’s Gate is about the story, while Icewind Dale is simple moving from one region on the next.
But, to poke holes in your very limited definition of an RTS.
Icewind Dale has self contained Battlefields (maps) that you must complete before heading to the next one.
Icewind Dale has both Micro and Macro Management (resting, leveling up, selecting spells could all be considered Macro, while positioning and moving your units around is Micro).
Icewind Dale has resources, though, like some older RTS games, such as Commandos, Ground Control, Cannon Fodder and Myth, you don’t turn them into units (except summoning spells). Those resources are Spells, ammo, gold, weapons, armor and XP.
The only thing you don’t have in Icewind Dale is Base Building, but honestly, although its a big part of some RTS games, it isn’t a component of all of them.
Icewind Dale also has a few other features that it lacks as an RTS.
Icewind Dale does a Linear Storyline that you progress through (a Campaign if you will)
Icewind Dale lacks almost all Role Playing Elements you traditional see in RPGs (such as Baldur’s Gate)
Icewind Dale is 100% focused on Battles and skirmishes.
Also, something to keep in mind is that the Icewind Dale is pretty much a return to the Roots of Dungeons and Dragons, which is a game derived from Table Top Battles. Where D&D started by taking a Strategy Game and adding features to it and narrowing it down to single characters, Icewind Dale takes that single character and gives you 6 instead, and stripes away RPG elementals moving it closer to the Strategy Games that started it all.
Icewind Dale Review - GameSpot
The game’s isometric perspective is identical to that in Baldur’s Gate, but the view angle isn’t as close to the characters as in the more recent Planescape: Torment, which also used BioWare’s Infinity engine. Like both previous Infinity engine games, exploration in Icewind Dale uses an interface that seems better suited to real-time strategy games: You just select your characters and click where you want them to move. Each area in the game lies shrouded in a fog of war until you pass your characters through, revealing the terrain beneath. Icewind Dale doesn’t let you play at a resolution higher than the default 640x480, and though the game has an unsupported 3D-accelerated mode, all it seems to do is make the fog of war look a little smoother on the edges.
Nope. Like I said, it ain’t happening. Post another giant paragraph. It won’t matter.
Icewind Dale is a party based CRPG focused on combat with conventions informed by other CRPGs.
Calling it an RTS opens a huge can of worms. Genre names should have meaning and you are fucking it up.
We might have to disagree on this bit. Some of my favourite RTS games don’t really feature resources, or even the ability to make more units!
However, there’s quite a distinction between RTT and RTS these days, so I’m happy to concede that RTS games differ in that you build bases, harverst resources, and churn out units. I guess I’m happy to be labelled an RTx player.