Fallout 2 also had a really bad compulsory dungeon at the start of the game, must of been an Interplay thing

Maybe at that time, they thought that a transition from Turn Based to Real Time was needed in the industry? I don't know... I love Infinity Engine, although i believe that if the combat was Turn Based (well, in fact it is TB in the background since the computer rolls the dices etc, but it is "masked" as Real Time for the gamer), it would be better and less chaotic as you say and definitely more inviting to new players.

edit: Oh, and something else; why the OP got low-rated? Just because he expressed his opinion or am i missing something?

The temple? or that huge mine with the rats? The temple is pretty bad, but if you have the patience you can get through it without taking damage, by kicking each scorpion once, and running away, over and over and over again.

The temple, the worst part about it is that it tricks the new player into thinking the game isn't going to be open-world, you need to trawl through this long catacomb just to get out into the world. A bit like Privateer's Hold in Daggerfall.

Never heard of a BG 2 Enchanted Edition...But if you mean Enhanced Edition...Also i never realized that Heroes of Might and Magic was an RPG. I thought that the Might and Magic was a separated RPG series with a spinoff Turn Based Strategy series called Heroes of Might and Magic. Shows how much i know about gaming....

Now being serious. I love the micromanagement aspect of the Infinity Engine games. But i can understand why younger people are put off by it. Plus the rulesets are changing (AD&D, D&D third edition, 3.5 Edition). Most of the old RPG's are hard for the newcomers. The only things i can say: grab a FAQ, try to understand how the game works, give a chance for the story to unfold and then you might actually end up enjoying it. If i can come to terms with some of the modern RPG's, i expect from the younger people to at least try to understand the older RPG games.

P.S.: stop derepping the OP for sharing its opinion on your beloved games. He has the same rights as you do. Just think how it will be when the same thing will happen to you: someone derepping you because you express your opinion and people disagreed with you.

I really don't think it's a case of a young person not trying to give older games a chance. After all, he did say he enjoyed Fallout games and the Ultima series.

I think the infinity engine games are particularly unfriendly to newcomers, in fact I think they are just rather awkward and unwieldy in general. They feel to me like a very blunt-force trauma attempt to convert D&D manuals into a game, with most of the fun of it lost in translation.

At least in Daggerfall, you could press Alt-F11 (IIRC) immediately after starting a new game to warp to the dungeon exit.

that sounds like a rather good explanantion why i dont like them
im not keen on the micro managment of your party members either i expect them to follow me and do something

probably why i like dungeon siege more

I really should grab IWD EE and BG1/2 EE in a sale. Really curious of how different they are of the originals. The OP is playing BG2 EE, so things might be a bit different from the orginal BG2

not much apparently.

i haven't played the EE's though.

I didn’t know there were problems with BG2 multiplayer on Linux. Are you playing through WINE or GemRB?
Anyway I’m going to have a look at this, and should I find anything to get it to work I’ll keep you tuned.

That is a general issue with the D&D 3rd edition rules, not the RPG though. At low levels mages are really underpowered and fighters are good. After level 8 or 9 then it starts to swap over and later (> 15 or so) mages really come into their own.

*spolier*
I first time played a mage all the way through, beat sarevok by using loads of summon monster to block the path to me, and then magic missling him.
*end*

Normally I would start fighter throughout the first one, then as soon as start BG2 dual out to Thief so that after only a few hours both classes are active and I can go on upgrading Thief with some basic fighter bits. 7 levels of fighter means you can still reach 39 in thief!

"Enhanced" edition is thus: EE has a widescreen mod applied, EE has some additional minor content attached (couple of npcs, EE has a huge price, EE doesn't support much of the huge wealth of mods already in existence, EE is the only supported platform for the new content.
In my view its nothing more than a money grab by Beamdog, and to top it all locking new content to the Enhanced edition for no other reason than to force people (like me who have 6 or so various versions of the game already) to buy a new version.

I was playing through WINE. Haven't managed to run it through GemRB enough to try "multiplayer".

Edit: Past tense

Playing it through WINE too here. Even if it’s playable through GemRB, for some reason it doesn’t *feel* like my good old BG2…
Anyway, I’m going to work on this in the next couple days.