"That's life in the big city," as they say. For twenty years I have been hearing people in Austin talk about how scary it is to drive in Houston, but that is understandable: Just driving all the way around the OLD loop (which has been well inside the city limits since I was a kid) takes 2-3 hours, so folks in Houston are used to driving 80+ mph to reach their distant destinations as quickly as possible. Any oblivious Austinite blissfully unaware of the rest of the world is likely be abruptly and forcefully reacquainted with it if he gets in the way. I would have thought you used to that kind of thing though; the entire country is (and several neighboring ones) is a big city where you are, right?

I'm glad you're enjoying it so much, but frankly, lacking the nostalgia, I don't think I've actually even opened the game since around the time (or possibly even before) I started talking about it with you. The game I've been playing instead these past weeks is closely related though: Neverwinter Nights (player-made modules, many of which are much better than the original game).
I can certainly see that, but if it is just the player made stuff drawing you I again suggest the apparently extensive BG modding community. Just a couple days ago I saw a Silmarillion mod that I will probably be forced to check out when I have time (not sure when that will be.) I might get around to trying NWN one of these days, but am told it uses 3rd ed. AD&D rules, and that kills a lot of the attraction for me. Not only am I far less familiar with those rules, but what I do know of them consists of things I did not want removed from AD&D 2nd ed. and things I resent WotC for shamelessly stealing from GURPS (a vastly better system than any of the many AD&D employed over the years.)

What continues to amaze me is the enduring legacy of the games I spent so many hours enjoying during and just after HS, how many of the most popular games are still little more than variations of those classics with improved graphics and functionality. Wolfenstein 3D spawned Doom, which spawned Quake, Civilization is still alive and well, BG led to NWN and even Star Control still has a large global following of people pounding away at each other in Super Melee like I was doing 15 years ago. In many cases, online modding communities have given some truly ancient games a lifespan their developers could never have anticipated (with the possible exception of Doom, whose developers seem to have intended modding from the outset, and ultimately even collected and published many of the results.) PC gaming is not only no longer a nerd niche, it has reached the point that not only gaming but individual games have a deep, rich and ongoing history. It is a strange to realize that after growing up in a world where 90% of people had never heard of Hack.