Baldur's Gate enhanced edition

[Jaesun]

I'd prefer if they farmed it out to Obsidian if they did decide to go with a third game. But maybe that's just me.

 

I feel the same way. IF a 3rd BG was going to happen I would be FAR more excited about it if Obsidian were doing it personally.

[Aedelric]

It would be good, but it might be a conflict of interests as Obsidian now has their own competing isometric rpg brand.

[Tauron]

Except some new content, I am bit dissapointed. All mentioned enhancment has been already done in form of mods. I really hoped for something more. After that I stopped following forums. I will stil buy it, beinga geek that I am. But mostly becouse I cant wait to see how community might further enhance it.

[Jaesun]

It would be good, but it might be a conflict of interests as Obsidian now has their own competing isometric rpg brand.

 

The ironic thing is, BECAUSE of the success of this specific KS, it actually may help BD get publisher funding for a BG III. And there there is the whole dealing with WotC/Hasbro thing as well. I do wish them luck on it, but I don't have much interest in it.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It would be good, but it might be a conflict of interests as Obsidian now has their own competing isometric rpg brand.

 

Given that the market they're trying to reach would likely buy both games, plus the fact that they're using involvement in Baldur's Gate and other classics as a selling point in the Kickstarter campaign, I wouldn't be worried about a conflict. If they made a good product they'd not only be making money from it but also expanding the number of people who would have played an Obsidian title and might want to find, if they've not already, other games by the same developer.

[Zeckul]

I'm on the beta test team for BG:EE so I can offer some more accurate insight (nothing that isn't already public though).

 

What buying BG:EE will get you:

- Your wallet is 18$ lighter if you pre-order, 20$ otherwise

- You encourage professional developers including BG's original lead designer, to improve this game, its sequel, and potentially a brand new sequel in the future (BG3?)

- You can buy it for Android and iOS tablets, for Mac and Windows

- You don't need to spend an hour installing mods just to get it working to a decent level and in the ToB engine

- You retain the ability to use any mods you want, although some will be obsoleted obviously (technical tweaks and bug fixes mainly)

- Not only does it include all the bugfixes you would have got with unofficial patches before, but it also fixes dozens of issues that could never properly be fixed before, so it'll be (eventually) the most bug-free and up-to-date version of Baldur's Gate

- It gracefully supports any resolution out of the box

- You can zoom in and out dynamically as you wish

- The UI scales gracefully with resolution and adds some functional improvements (I can't talk too much about this but you'll see)

- A new class, the Blackguard

- Three new voice-acted characters (Dorn in particular sounds awesome) with their own quests and romances, written by Dave Gross and Phillip Daigle

- New areas to explore in the Sword Coast

- New crisp-looking chapter/dream art and cinematics by Nat Jones

- New music by Sam Hulick

- A new high resolution world map

- New voice sets for characters

- A separate mini-campaign set in the Underdark, The Black Pits

- Working multiplayer between all platforms

- Post-ship DLC, both free and paid

- Engine improvements that will enable the creation of higher quality content, both official and unofficial: 24-bit color area art, flipbook animation transparency, true alpha blending

 

What BG:EE doesn't get you:

- Higher resolution renders of the original models, because Bioware lost them

- Anything more than small scale text changes to existing NPCs

 

Here's a link to the forum thread with all this info in case I missed anything: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2041/bgee-please-read-list-of-things-that-have-been-announced/p1

 

Now I've seen the UI mentionned a few times as looking bad. Please keep in mind any screenshots of the UI you've seen were preliminary and that the UI is currently moving very fast towards something properly polished. If you look at alpha screenshots of BG1 or 2 or other games you will also notice ugly-looking icons, alignment issues and the like. These things take time to finalize. The UI will look better and be more user-friendly than the original BG1 UI once it hits the shelves; most importantly, it'll scale natively to any resolution you want, something mods could never do (the widescreen mod expanded it but it didn't scale).

Edited October 8, 2012 by Zeckul

[Deadly_Nightshade]

- Working multiplayer between all platforms

 

I did not know that, suddenly I'm much more likely to buy it both on Android and for the PC.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Deadly_Nightshade

[dlux]

What BG:EE doesn't get you:

- Higher resolution renders of the original models, because Bioware lost them

Do it right or don't do it at all.

[Sensuki]

I preordered

 

but the only thing I'm sad about is not being able to get the BG1 paperdolls (>>> better than BG2) due to the lack of dual wield animation.

 

Also I do prefer the BG1 grey UI, but whatever. Wish the new one had grey stone.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Do it right or don't do it at all.

 

The same can be said for mods.

[Tigranes]

What buying BG:EE will get you:

- Your wallet is 18$ lighter if you pre-order, 20$ otherwise

- You encourage professional developers including BG's original lead designer, to improve this game, its sequel, and potentially a brand new sequel in the future (BG3?)

- You can buy it for Android and iOS tablets, for Mac and Windows

- You don't need to spend an hour installing mods just to get it working to a decent level and in the ToB engine

- You retain the ability to use any mods you want, although some will be obsoleted obviously (technical tweaks and bug fixes mainly)

- Not only does it include all the bugfixes you would have got with unofficial patches before, but it also fixes dozens of issues that could never properly be fixed before, so it'll be (eventually) the most bug-free and up-to-date version of Baldur's Gate

- It gracefully supports any resolution out of the box

- You can zoom in and out dynamically as you wish

- The UI scales gracefully with resolution and adds some functional improvements (I can't talk too much about this but you'll see)

- A new class, the Blackguard

- Three new voice-acted characters (Dorn in particular sounds awesome) with their own quests and romances, written by Dave Gross and Phillip Daigle

- New areas to explore in the Sword Coast

- New crisp-looking chapter/dream art and cinematics by Nat Jones

- New music by Sam Hulick

- A new high resolution world map

- New voice sets for characters

- A separate mini-campaign set in the Underdark, The Black Pits

- Working multiplayer between all platforms

- Post-ship DLC, both free and paid

- Engine improvements that will enable the creation of higher quality content, both official and unofficial: 24-bit color area art, flipbook animation transparency, true alpha blending

 

Good information, several things I didn't know about there.

 

All in all sounds like nothing that's worth my money, if I'm already used to modded BG. There aren't many game-breaking or annoying bugs left at this point, the gameplay benefits from mods like Sword Coast Strategems are phenomenal. New areas are nice and so are new characters (since I assume there's more to them than just romance), but for $18? Nah, there's a lot of small things that sound nice but overall I doubt I'll sit there feeling that not only is it different and new enough to be worth $18, it makes up for any mods that become incompatible. I'd have been open to small DLCs for new areas and quests, I guess, but that's not much a business model for them.

 

World map, UI, cutscenes, music - they're all beautiful in the old BG, so if they improve them, good, but it doesn't add to the value proposition for me. I don't know if any of them are finalised yet, but the UI (mockup?) I saw recently looked like a load of crap.

 

Sure there's a lot of crap mods, but I can choose what I want, and they're free. I imagine the whole package adds up for people who can't be bothered with mods or have lost their old versions and are weighing this one up with GOG, maybe.

[Grimlorn]

What happens to all the data and stuff when a project is cancelled? I mean if BG3 was 80% complete then it doesn't sound like it would cost much to finish compared to developing a new game. So would it ever be possible to finish that? I'm guessing Interplay would have the 80% finished game, and you'd have to buy it and the rights to the DnD license to finish that game? Or would the game simply have to be developed from scratch?

[Silver6986]

Already pre-ordered it, in fact I heard about Project Eternity through following Trent Oster's twitter feed, I signed up to Twitter just to follow Trent in the hopes I would get an update on a boxed CE of BG:EE sooner then checking out updates to the webpage for the BE:EE forums or even over at Beamdog. Alas... no CE will be forthcoming.

[Bobby Null]

I'll be playing it. Quite excited about it, actually.

[Silver6986]

What buying BG:EE will get you:

- Your wallet is 18$ lighter if you pre-order, 20$ otherwise

- You encourage professional developers including BG's original lead designer, to improve this game, its sequel, and potentially a brand new sequel in the future (BG3?)

- You can buy it for Android and iOS tablets, for Mac and Windows

- You don't need to spend an hour installing mods just to get it working to a decent level and in the ToB engine

- You retain the ability to use any mods you want, although some will be obsoleted obviously (technical tweaks and bug fixes mainly)

- Not only does it include all the bugfixes you would have got with unofficial patches before, but it also fixes dozens of issues that could never properly be fixed before, so it'll be (eventually) the most bug-free and up-to-date version of Baldur's Gate

- It gracefully supports any resolution out of the box

- You can zoom in and out dynamically as you wish

- The UI scales gracefully with resolution and adds some functional improvements (I can't talk too much about this but you'll see)

- A new class, the Blackguard

- Three new voice-acted characters (Dorn in particular sounds awesome) with their own quests and romances, written by Dave Gross and Phillip Daigle

- New areas to explore in the Sword Coast

- New crisp-looking chapter/dream art and cinematics by Nat Jones

- New music by Sam Hulick

- A new high resolution world map

- New voice sets for characters

- A separate mini-campaign set in the Underdark, The Black Pits

- Working multiplayer between all platforms

- Post-ship DLC, both free and paid

- Engine improvements that will enable the creation of higher quality content, both official and unofficial: 24-bit color area art, flipbook animation transparency, true alpha blending

 

Good information, several things I didn't know about there.

 

All in all sounds like nothing that's worth my money, if I'm already used to modded BG. There aren't many game-breaking or annoying bugs left at this point, the gameplay benefits from mods like Sword Coast Strategems are phenomenal. New areas are nice and so are new characters (since I assume there's more to them than just romance), but for $18? Nah, there's a lot of small things that sound nice but overall I doubt I'll sit there feeling that not only is it different and new enough to be worth $18, it makes up for any mods that become incompatible. I'd have been open to small DLCs for new areas and quests, I guess, but that's not much a business model for them.

 

World map, UI, cutscenes, music - they're all beautiful in the old BG, so if they improve them, good, but it doesn't add to the value proposition for me. I don't know if any of them are finalised yet, but the UI (mockup?) I saw recently looked like a load of crap.

 

Sure there's a lot of crap mods, but I can choose what I want, and they're free. I imagine the whole package adds up for people who can't be bothered with mods or have lost their old versions and are weighing this one up with GOG, maybe.

 

Are you kidding me? I guess it depends on how many mods you add to the game, but I can definitely see value in paying $20.00 for a game that is on par or better then what was on offer regarding the Infinity Engine in ToB. It usually takes me 4+ hours to tweak every mod to my liking in order to play BG nowadays and this is just so I can play the game using BGTutu and other major enhancements that should I make one mistake on install, means I have to redo the whole thing from scratch! This I will never have to bother with again if I play BG:EE.

 

But for my money I am also getting new content that I feel will be of a level that is for the most part not obtainable with many of the mods on offer out there. Really not trying to offend the modders out there obviously, but take for example the MANY many custom NPCs out there added by mods, I have tried a few of them, and I don't ever feel they keep in line with what the original devs did with the BG series and so it ends up breaking my immersion in the game.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Liquid_Silver11

[santanzchild]

If I could get PC+Android combo pack for a reasonable price and cloud saves it would be about right.

[AlphaShard]

I think the biggest incentive here is to show them that we want Isometric RPG games, I would love another Forgotten Realms game and if buy this game helps convince them.

[Ieo]

Are you kidding me? I guess it depends on how many mods you add to the game, but I can definitely see value in paying $20.00 for a game that is on par or better then what was on offer regarding the Infinity Engine in ToB. It usually takes me 4+ hours to tweak every mod to my liking in order to play BG nowadays and this is just so I can play the game using BGTutu and other major enhancements that should I make one mistake on install, means I have to redo the whole thing from scratch! This I will never have to bother with again if I play BG:EE.

 

But for my money I am also getting new content that I feel will be of a level that is for the most part not obtainable with many of the mods on offer out there. Really not trying to offend the modders out there obviously, but take for example the MANY many custom NPCs out there added by mods, I have tried a few of them, and I don't ever feel they keep in line with what the original devs did with the BG series and so it ends up breaking my immersion in the game.

 

Black Pits is supposed to add somewhere around 6 hours of play, and who knows how much the new NPCs will in terms of their side quests. Not much in terms of the entire BG1+TotSC game, sure, but that's a nice enhancement.

 

Also, a new WEIDU editor is being made for BG:EE-compatible mods. I'm sure the old mods will be ported at some point too.

[Leferd]

I may have to try out the PC version too. I wonder how seamless the save files are when switching from iPad and PC.

[Darth Trethon]

I'll certainly get it but not at release....I'll wait for reviews and player feedback to see just how functional it really is. Maybe enhanced means that it now crashes every 5 seconds....

[Zeckul]

There aren't many game-breaking or annoying bugs left at this point, the gameplay benefits from mods like Sword Coast Strategems are phenomenal.

Just so you know, DavidW (SCS) is with us on the beta test team, along with aVENGER (aTweaks, Spell Revisions, Rogue Rebalancing), CamDawg (G3 Tweak Pack, FixPack), Ascension64 (BGT-Weidu, ToBEx), and a few others. We're very aware of the modding scene because we are, in good part, the modding scene (well not me, but them). BG:EE will be the best version of Baldur's Gate for mods and has already sparked renewed development in the community, notably 1ppv4 (integrated directly in BG:EE). Edited October 8, 2012 by Zeckul

[Huskypaw]

Basically already bought the game!

[Grimlorn]

The Codex needs to call an Unholy Truce, like dwarves hugging elves, and join us on this mighty endeavour.

 

Spell cool-downs aren't important enough to stop us advancing together, as one!

 

*faints*

The Codex is currently locked in a war of ideology. There are those who believe in the pureness of RPGs. They will never support cooldowns of any kind. The other side doesn't care if cooldowns and the dnd sorcerer system are chaotically mixed together as long as it creates a strong combat system, and therefore a strong RPG. Those who support PE are currently labeled traitors.

 

This war won't end until Project Eternity is released and judged. It will either be the greatest RPG ever or the worst RPG ever. There is no room for middle ground. Such is the nature of the Codex.

[Aedelric]

What makes or breaks an rpg is not cooldowns, it is story and choice.

[Darth Trethon]

Any ideas about a projected release timeframe for BG2: EE??

 

I am quite excited for both BG: EE and BG2: EE.....given my job and lifestyle I'll likely end up buying an iPad just to play these games.