Baldur's Gate enhanced edition

[BruceVC]

 

But what's done is done...the only reason I'm defending the game at all is because some of the criticism is either ridiculous or patently false. The only reason I will maybe switch over to using BG:EE is because my favorite modders, (DavidW, Ascension64, Erephine, Demivrgvs), might be working with BG(2):EE exclusively from now on. If not, well...like everyone has said before, there's always the original (enhanced by modders).

 

Personally I am glad you are defending the game as I want to purchase it, I never played BG1, and its good to see some positive feedback that is factual.

 

But you never answered my question. You seem to know loads about the game, are you a committed fan or some sort of developer?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I've decided to view BGEE as an expansion (Black pits, 3 NPC's + side quests) and the main game is still in Beta. Maybe they should have sold it as:

 

Nov 2012 – $18 pre-order Early Bird Special with access to The Black Pits and early Beta access to main game.

Mar 2013 – $20 When game is released.

 

I think this may have been better as Beamdog would be able to fix the issues earlier, know all the problems people are facing and given more time to release the game properly. And everyone would've known this game is still in Beta.

[Bartimaeus]

But what's done is done...the only reason I'm defending the game at all is because some of the criticism is either ridiculous or patently false. The only reason I will maybe switch over to using BG:EE is because my favorite modders, (DavidW, Ascension64, Erephine, Demivrgvs), might be working with BG(2):EE exclusively from now on. If not, well...like everyone has said before, there's always the original (enhanced by modders).

 

Personally I am glad you are defending the game as I want to purchase it, I never played BG1, and its good to see some positive feedback that is factual.

 

But you never answered my question. You seem to know loads about the game, are you a committed fan or some sort of developer?

 

I am a fan. I have been playing Baldur's Gate (2) at least once every year, (usually two or three times), since I was five years old. I remember playing Baldur's Gate alongside Age of Empires and Diablo at home when everybody else was at school, (since Kindergarten you only attended every other day - or at least it used to be that way. No idea if it is now...). I was terrible at them back then, of course, but I've learned better since.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

I've decided to view BGEE as an expansion (Black pits, 3 NPC's + side quests) and the main game is still in Beta. Maybe they should have sold it as:

 

Nov 2012 – $18 pre-order Early Bird Special with access to The Black Pits and early Beta access to main game.

Mar 2013 – $20 When game is released.

 

I think this may have been better as Beamdog would be able to fix the issues earlier, know all the problems people are facing and given more time to release the game properly. And everyone would've known this game is still in Beta.

 

I know you were looking forward to playing BG:EE, so I am sorry you were disappointed. But you should be more like me, I never play any game until the first patch is released. That way I am generally happy with the stability of my games. I am not trying to make you feel worse, its just something to consider for next time?

 

 

[

I am an extreme fan. I have been playing Baldur's Gate (2) at least once every year, (usually two or three times), since I was five years old. I remember playing Baldur's Gate alongside Age of Empires and Diablo at home when everybody else was at school, (since Kindergarten you only attended every other day - or at least it used to be that way. No idea if it is now...). I was terrible at them back then, of course, but I've learned better since.

 

" Extreme Fan" , I like it I'll get your input on BG:EE around Mods and relevant changes I need to make for the most stable gaming experience when I purchase this game. But I am going to wait till the first official patch gets released.

[Bartimaeus]

I, uh, actually took out extreme, because it felt condescending, (playing the game a lot doesn't make you more of a fan than somebody else...), but okay.

 

There actually have already been multiple patches released, (three, I think).

 

Here's a post from the official forums regarding current technical issues: http://forum.baldurs...ber-3rd-2012/p1

 

For the past few days I've been busy non-stop within our support ticketing software responding to requests for support. If you emailed support@beamdog.com and received a reply via ZenDesk, that was most likely me on the other end, with Nathan for backup vocals. Here is a picture of my current self-esteem:

 

 

[...]

 

I laughed really hard after seeing that picture coupled with what he said, and then proceeded to feel bad. Also, it would appear that, at least according from that post, they're offering refunds if you want it, particularly if you have Intel HD integrated video chips.

 

For those of you with Intel graphics chipsets, you'll be pleased to know that Cameron has acquired a pile of laptops with graphics chipsets similar to yours and he is currently working on a way to get the game running well on them. Some progress has already been made, and we hope to announce more information soon. If you would prefer not to wait, please contact support@beamdog.com and request a refund.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Bartimaeus

[Nepenthe]

Well, the good thing about using their own platform is that they can deploy patches at will.

[BruceVC]

I, uh, actually took out extreme, because it felt condescending, (playing the game a lot doesn't make you more of a fan than somebody else...), but okay.

 

Here's a post from the official forums regarding current technical issues: http://forum.baldurs...ber-3rd-2012/p1

 

Don't worry I know the context you meant when you used the word extreme.

 

That photo is probably apt, its looks like its a picture from the First World War and shows the utter devastation from battle in no-mans land which was the disputed territory between the Germans and the English\French trench lines. I am sure that is how he is feeling

 

Those forums have some cute cat pictures, I like the "cat playing BG:EE"

[Tigranes]

No need to invent things that are wrong with BG:EE, there's plenty wrong with it as it is.

[alanschu]

For the past few days I've been busy non-stop within our support ticketing software responding to requests for support. If you emailed support@beamdog.com and received a reply via ZenDesk, that was most likely me on the other end, with Nathan for backup vocals. Here is a picture of my current self-esteem:

 

 

This is why I'm not a big fan of the term lazy (a term I've seen applied to the Beamdog guys too) because there's issues or things aren't the way someone wants. I know Nathan on the team and I know they've been working their asses off, even if it seems they just went and ****ed it all up for no reason according to some.

[Nepenthe]

No need to invent things that are wrong with BG:EE, there's plenty wrong with it as it is.

Aww, look who's all morally affronted by it.

[BruceVC]

For the past few days I've been busy non-stop within our support ticketing software responding to requests for support. If you emailed support@beamdog.com and received a reply via ZenDesk, that was most likely me on the other end, with Nathan for backup vocals. Here is a picture of my current self-esteem:

 

 

This is why I'm not a big fan of the term lazy (a term I've seen applied to the Beamdog guys too) because there's issues or things aren't the way someone wants. I know Nathan on the team and I know they've been working their asses off, even if it seems they just went and ****ed it all up for no reason according to some.

I agree there is no doubt they are working as hard as they can to resolve issues.

 

They also tested as much as they could through Q&A. I suppose some would argue " they never tested enough" . But what is enough?

Edited December 4, 2012 by BruceVC

[Tigranes]

No need to invent things that are wrong with BG:EE, there's plenty wrong with it as it is.

Aww, look who's all morally affronted by it.

 

I do reserve a particular dislike here, because when someone makes a bad game, at least they were trying to make a good game, and perhaps could have. This was a largely pointless endeavour that's resulted in an all too predictably poor product that never needed to be made. Modded BG - even if one restricts oneself to easy to install mods - provide an amazing experience and this is just a bunch of dudes who are making $ on something decidedly inferior.

[Gfted1]

What interests me about this project is the eventual tablet version.

[Volourn]

This whole project is ridiculously trashy. Total garbage. How cna any real BG fan support such a horrid undertaking? They did not improve the game at and even made it WORSE in palces. WTF? Giving these punks 420 is your chocie but it is a foolish one. I'd rather buy more ES games and I LOATHE the ES. L0LZ

[Nepenthe]

No need to invent things that are wrong with BG:EE, there's plenty wrong with it as it is.

Aww, look who's all morally affronted by it.

 

I do reserve a particular dislike here, because when someone makes a bad game, at least they were trying to make a good game, and perhaps could have. This was a largely pointless endeavour that's resulted in an all too predictably poor product that never needed to be made. Modded BG - even if one restricts oneself to easy to install mods - provide an amazing experience and this is just a bunch of dudes who are making $ on something decidedly inferior.

Not even the fact that you're 100 % agreeing with Volourn makes you question your opinion? I mean, it's often done that to me.

[Nepenthe]

What interests me about this project is the eventual tablet version.

Yeah, if I had a perfectly functional Mac OS version of BG, my enthusiasm would probably be significantly lower, too.

 

CBA to edit this time, sorry.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This whole project is ridiculously trashy. Total garbage. How cna any real BG fan support such a horrid undertaking? They did not improve the game at and even made it WORSE in palces. WTF? Giving these punks 420 is your chocie but it is a foolish one. I'd rather buy more ES games and I LOATHE the ES. L0LZ

 

A lot of people including myself pre-ordered not actually seeing the end result until it was released. And also thinking we were getting a more poilished modded version of BG without having to install mods (yes, I'm lazy) since Beamdog has been working with those modders. Basically the definitive modded version of the game with new extra content. How wrong we were.

 

It's not the definitive version, it's just different. I'm still playing it through.

[Volourn]

"Not even the fact that you're 100 % agreeing with Volourn makes you question your opinion? I mean, it's often done that to me."

 

So.. you hate Obsidian? Because to disagree with me would mean you hate Obsidian?.Whya re you posting on their boards if you hate them?

 

 

"A lot of people including myself pre-ordered not actually seeing the end result until it was released. And also thinking we were getting a more poilished modded version of BG without having to install mods (yes, I'm lazy) since Beamdog has been working with those modders. Basically the definitive modded version of the game with new extra content. How wrong we were."

 

When it was first announced, I was gonna be all over it. Afterall, I've been hard on BG lately but do have fun memories of it so naturally I assmued an update.. ENHANCED version would be awesome and I would gladly pay $20 for it. But, I paid attention to the deatils. And,t he details just plain sucked.What's the opposite of 'enhance'? Dehance? I now shall refer this to Baldur's Gate: Dehanced Edition.

[alanschu]

A lot of people including myself pre-ordered not actually seeing the end result until it was released. And also thinking we were getting a more poilished modded version of BG without having to install mods (yes, I'm lazy) since Beamdog has been working with those modders. Basically the definitive modded version of the game with new extra content. How wrong we were.

 

This is in large part why I almost never preorder. In fact, I think the only games I do preorder tend to be Obsidian games.... This probably feeds into why I had no problems contributing to their kickstarter. Wasteland's is a bit more of a risk on my part, but that was the "Ooo this idea is neat" contribution. And it still had Avellone... >.>

[Tigranes]

No need to invent things that are wrong with BG:EE, there's plenty wrong with it as it is.

Aww, look who's all morally affronted by it.

 

I do reserve a particular dislike here, because when someone makes a bad game, at least they were trying to make a good game, and perhaps could have. This was a largely pointless endeavour that's resulted in an all too predictably poor product that never needed to be made. Modded BG - even if one restricts oneself to easy to install mods - provide an amazing experience and this is just a bunch of dudes who are making $ on something decidedly inferior.

Not even the fact that you're 100 % agreeing with Volourn makes you question your opinion? I mean, it's often done that to me.

 

If mad I am, I embrace the mad I am. Oh yes indeed. MAD!

[Gizmo]

~~ But if the plan was, "How do we take this IP we have access to and make it salable to the 'ADD' generation; streamline it, trim down the verbosity, and up the pacing of it...

I was about to call total bull**** on this, but it's true - they did up the pacing. The walk speed is now the same as in BG2, ie. faster than in BG1.

 

Apart from that, it's still bull****, though.

That is [of course] not the kind of pacing I was describing and is unrelated to my post. The rest... I disagree.

 

As for changing the Walk-speed; I did that myself, I would always adjust the frame-rate to 36.

 

re walkspeed: In BG2 (and thus also BG1 running tutu) there was a setting for frames per second. If you cranked that up to 60, it'd have a dramatic effect on movement speeds in the game (and other things like spell animations, which weren't necessarily a good thing). From what I've read, that option is gone in EE, instead it's locked at 30 FPS. Which is why it feels slower than BG2 to many I suppose.

Interesting.

 

I wonder if it's possible to buy the game, and just strip out and incorporate the new assets into the vanilla [patched] game; either from CD or from GoG?

Edited December 4, 2012 by Gizmo

[mute688]

This whole project is ridiculously trashy. Total garbage. How cna any real BG fan support such a horrid undertaking? They did not improve the game at and even made it WORSE in palces. WTF? Giving these punks 420 is your chocie but it is a foolish one. I'd rather buy more ES games and I LOATHE the ES. L0LZ

 

Wow. My choice to give Beamdog my $20 was not foolish. I have the original Baldur's Gate cd's and since I upgraded my system 12 months ago I have been unable to get the game to run. I spent 6 months trying. I even bought the GoG version in the hopes that it would run on my system but no, it wouldn't. The EE version does run on my system. You may not like what Beamdog have done but to call my choice foolish is itself foolish. Beamdog have my sincere thanks for allowing me to continue to replay a game I enjoy.

[Bartimaeus]

I wonder if it's possible to buy the game, and just strip out and incorporate the new assets into the vanilla [patched] game; either from CD or from GoG?

 

Assuming you don't want to actually incorporate it into a mod via WeiDU, (if you did, you'd obviously have to understand WeiDU, which I don't have a lick of understanding of...), you'd have to manually update any areas to reference new items/characters/rects/etc. You'd also have to recreate the items from scratch, because BG1's items' file structure is very much different from from BG2(:ToB) items. I think BG1 items are actually backwards compatible with BG2, but not the other way around. Unsure about creatures - fairly easy to recreate if broken, though it may be a bit of work. Icons, (items, spells...), you could just import. Sounds, you'd have to down-sample from the new 44.1KHz 16bit .wav format to the old 22.05KHz 16bit .wav format, (fairly easy, even if sucky). Graphics...I would have no idea how to do, so I imagine it's probably fairly hard if you don't know what you're doing, (i.e. me), especially given how relatively little there is in the way of mods that add graphics that are not item/spell icons, (only ones I can think of at the moment are 1PP/Infinity Animations and some GUI mods). Any engine changes, (which, by the way, there are quite a few in BG:EE), would be completely out of the question, of course. Don't know about scripts or spells. Spells would be easy to recreate if their file structure is different, (though, again, potentially a bit of work), but I don't like to touch scripts...at all.

 

All in all, a fair bit amount of work for what's possible...and some of it is just not realistically possible. That was probably more than you wanted to know, though.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Bartimaeus

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I know you were looking forward to playing BG:EE, so I am sorry you were disappointed. But you should be more like me, I never play any game until the first patch is released. That way I am generally happy with the stability of my games. I am not trying to make you feel worse, its just something to consider for next time?

 

 

There was no stability issues when I installed BGEE. It ran perfectly. The same with the original BG1 when I bought it in 1998. I've been fortunate that every game I've bought has always worked out of the box. The concerns and disappointment I have is things like the original cut content being taken out and not replaced. And it's not just the cutscenes. It's also the voice overs in the game itself by different characters that you meet.

 

There's also little things like not being able to ALT-TAB and minimise the game to the Windows Taskbar. The game just sits there while your Windows Taskbar appears. When you open an app, like a browser, it's 'behind the game' and you can't see that app. You can play in Windowed Mode but I prefer Fullscreen. The zoom reset is annoying and the Beta testers on the BG forums said this is a 'feature' and not a bug and working as intended which I find unbelievable. A zoom lock has been requested and no answer if this will be done any time soon. Group Formation isn't saving at times and will change your group formation to a triangle. The spelling errors such as the Help button labelled as Rest. When you tab across things like the Party A.I. on the bottom right of the screen, the scroll doesn't disappear when you move your mouse away and leaves a bit of the scroll showing, and have to hit U to get rid of it. Ranged characters will sometimes charge into battle when they have their longbow equipped. I had Dynaheir charge into battle even though I was having her cast Magic Missile. The spawns of the monsters is bugged and places like the Gnoll Fortress was nearly abandoned. New content added that is bugged eg. Elven Chain mail not dropping during the Dorn encounter at Nashkel. etc

 

To address all the bugs, add new cinematics for all the old ones like they promised and everything else that needs to be fixed, I can't see this being done in the short term. For people like me with the game working, our concerns with bugs will just go to the bottom of the pile while more serious bugs are addressed which is completely understandable. Overall I have mixed feelings with BGEE. There's some good stuff that's been done, but my playing experience has been overshadowed by the obvious small and minor bugs and original cut content in the game.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Bartimaeus]

There's also little things like not being able to ALT-TAB and minimise the game to the Windows Taskbar. The game just sits there while your Windows Taskbar appears. When you open an app, like a browser, it's 'behind the game' and you can't see that app.

 

 

Ranged characters will sometimes charge into battle when they have their longbow equipped. I had Dynaheir charge into battle even though I was having her cast Magic Missile.

 

1. I can alt-tab just fine. Sucks that you can't, though.

2. That sounds like a script problem. So...firstly, is party scripting enabled? If so, have you tried assigning her a mage script? Have not had the problem you've had at all, but I don't use character scripts, so...(soloing with a multiclass Mage/Thief, for the record).

Edited December 5, 2012 by Bartimaeus