I bought this game the other day and I must say I'm not enjoying it near as much as I thought I would. I did some research, I read all reviews here, watched a little "Lets Play" on U-Tube, read the Wiki. After all that it really looked like my kind of game, but it has a few issues I just can't get past. The party creation has a lot going for it, but it's not near as robust as many here lead on. Two examples: 1. The Lord class has two weapon fighting as it's primary skill and there is nothing you can do to change that. I wanted my Lord to be my party leader, spokesman, and probably go with a two hander or sword and board, not be a swashbuckler/warrior priest. True, you can go against the grain and ignore the one skill the Lord gets a significant bonus in, but why can't you select your preferred skills at character creation? Even if selecting "cross class" skills means they start and advance at a significant penalty, let me create MY party. Can't get past it. 2. The Locks and Traps skill is only learnable by 4 of the 15 classes, and of course, I had no desire to have any one of those classes in my party. I wanted my Ranger to be my locks and traps guy (with the aid of spells that deal with locks/traps), even if it was at a significant penalty compared to a specialist, I was willing to deal. But of course, Ranger can't pick up even a single point of locks and traps, so boned again. The fact that enemies respawn constantly is not much of an issue for me, but the rate at which they do very much is. I play these games in my virgin playthrough at a slow pace. I breath everything in, check all the rooms for items, books, lore, hidden trap doors, etc... Well in this game you have about 7.9 seconds to check your surroundings after a hard won battle before another group of monsters comes at you from noware and holds you up with another (at times) tedious fight before you can get back to what you were doing. This just totally saps my enthusiasm...
I see the price is now at $5.99. I must have got lucky and noticed it when it was on sale for $1.99. I can honestly say with no exaggeration, that I have never got more for 2 bucks in my life. This game is truly epic. Well worth $5.99 and then some. As many have probably said, they just don't make them like this anymore. The main quest line is so long, it can take years of game time to complete. This just adds to the best part of the game IMO, The advancement of your party. I have never played a game were it felt more natural and satisfying to develop your party and watch them grow in power. If you're new to this series I highly recommend you take your time at party creation and roll 4 characters that you really like and will identify with. It makes the game even better than it already is. You will also want to include at least one Thief, Archer, or Ranger in your party or trapped chests in the early game will destroy you...not fun. However, I can see the graphics being a deal breaker for some, especially younger gamers. I played this game back when it was first released, and the graphics were sub-par by 1999 standards. I remember this very clearly as I was also playing Everquest, Asheron's Call, Baulder's Gate and others at the time and I remember how awful it looked compared to it's contemporaries. The outdoor environments are especially dreadful, the draw distance will give you a very good laugh. It's the ONLY reason I can't give the game 5 out of 5. All that said, these games are not about graphics, and the game shines in all other respects. A good imagination (seems harder to find one these days...) will help mitigate how much the poor graphics can detract from immersion at times. As a final note, I am well over 100 hours in and the game has run almost flawlessly on my Win 7 machine. I had one CTD when starting a game of "Arcomage", but other than that ZERO problems. Just make sure you save outside the inn before playing "Arcomage" and you should be fine.
