Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition

[Nepenthe]

 

 

Btw how did they manage to break a game a dozen modders didn't?

 

What's the official excuse

By actually going into the engine and ripping out all legacy win95 stuff and trying to make it take advantage of current tech. They say they had no idea how many oddities were hard-coded there and how many things that shouldn't be connected turn out to be. Simply, bg1 code was a mess that, incredibly, worked and untangling that mess broke a lot of stuff. I have no reason to doubt them, certainly as they demonstrated their ability to fix stuff up until this last episode.

 

 

Honestly, that sounds like bollocks. The people that made a working game made a "mess" but those that "untangled" it broke it.

 

If they got it working later, that basically means Deathdealer is right - they just kicked it out of the door prematurely.

 

 

If I get the itch to play BG again, I might get it - but only on a drastic sale.

 

 

I'm not a coder by profession, but having read their longer explanations of it, it seemed plausible to me based on what I know. I mean, what are the alternatives, they broke **** just for the fun of it?

 

And of course it was released too soon, what isn't.

[Nepenthe]

 

Sorry but that's not true. Its possible to die on occasion but its not that common, unless you wander around a higher level area. A party where everyone has ranged weapons will steamroll most things.

No. There are Dire Wolves in the first area the PC ends up in that can kill Warrior classes on a lucky roll and is almost certain to kill anyone else. They are pretty hard to hit and quite tough too, so unless you get very lucky or have a party of characters who are at least specialized with ranged weapons, they will most likely kill you if you are playing on normal difficulty.

 

Things do flow better after level 3, but levels 1 and 2 are insanely difficult.

 

 

It's compounded by the fact that the power differences between the early levels are massive, ie. level 1 = unkillable, level 2 = doable, level 3 = faceroll.

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

Btw how did they manage to break a game a dozen modders didn't?

 

What's the official excuse

By actually going into the engine and ripping out all legacy win95 stuff and trying to make it take advantage of current tech. They say they had no idea how many oddities were hard-coded there and how many things that shouldn't be connected turn out to be. Simply, bg1 code was a mess that, incredibly, worked and untangling that mess broke a lot of stuff. I have no reason to doubt them, certainly as they demonstrated their ability to fix stuff up until this last episode.

 

 

Honestly, that sounds like bollocks. The people that made a working game made a "mess" but those that "untangled" it broke it.

 

If they got it working later, that basically means Deathdealer is right - they just kicked it out of the door prematurely.

 

 

If I get the itch to play BG again, I might get it - but only on a drastic sale.

 

 

I'm not a coder by profession, but having read their longer explanations of it, it seemed plausible to me based on what I know. I mean, what are the alternatives, they broke **** just for the fun of it?

 

And of course it was released too soon, what isn't.

 

 

There explanation is feasible, I agree with Nep

 

Of course you could also argue that they didn't have Developers who were skilled enough to fix or address the historic issues with the code

 

I am a software consultant and I have seen customers spend money and resources rewriting archaic Mainframe API because there was a need. It can be done but of course the company needs the money and resources.

Edited July 12, 2013 by BruceVC

[Gorth]

Never been particularly interested in this project. If I had unlimited funds, I would probably pursue something a bit in the direction of the Icewind Gate II project, except actually focus on building a *new* engine, that could work with the existing data files and assets (rather than trying to reverse engineer and tweak binaries which is a recipe for disasters and/or chronic headaches).

[BruceVC]

Never been particularly interested in this project. If I had unlimited funds, I would probably pursue something a bit in the direction of the Icewind Gate II project, except actually focus on building a *new* engine, that could work with the existing data files and assets (rather than trying to reverse engineer and tweak binaries which is a recipe for disasters and/or chronic headaches).

 

What !!!! You mean you don't have unlimited funds

 

I found that hard to believe, you are the omnipotent  " Gorthfucius" !!!

 

Money to someone of your statue is never an issue

[Gorth]

What !!!! You mean you don't have unlimited funds

 

Yeah, I wish, but no. Whether sufficient or little money, I still consider "Time" the most valuable currency. Money lost can be replaced. Time lost is lost forever.

[Nepenthe]

 

 

 

 

Btw how did they manage to break a game a dozen modders didn't?

 

What's the official excuse

By actually going into the engine and ripping out all legacy win95 stuff and trying to make it take advantage of current tech. They say they had no idea how many oddities were hard-coded there and how many things that shouldn't be connected turn out to be. Simply, bg1 code was a mess that, incredibly, worked and untangling that mess broke a lot of stuff. I have no reason to doubt them, certainly as they demonstrated their ability to fix stuff up until this last episode.

 

 

Honestly, that sounds like bollocks. The people that made a working game made a "mess" but those that "untangled" it broke it.

 

If they got it working later, that basically means Deathdealer is right - they just kicked it out of the door prematurely.

 

 

If I get the itch to play BG again, I might get it - but only on a drastic sale.

 

 

I'm not a coder by profession, but having read their longer explanations of it, it seemed plausible to me based on what I know. I mean, what are the alternatives, they broke **** just for the fun of it?

 

And of course it was released too soon, what isn't.

 

 

There explanation is feasible, I agree with Nep

 

Of course you could also argue that they didn't have Developers who were skilled enough to fix or address the historic issues with the code

 

I am a software consultant and I have seen customers spend money and resources rewriting archaic Mainframe API because there was a need. It can be done but of course the company needs the money and resources.

 

 

Actually, I think it was mostly a question of time/budget than coding skill, they had no idea of the state the code was in before they started and their one (1) engine guy was swamped. Again, just shows that this wasn't exactly a shining example of preproduction/budgeting (original plan was to make an HD version, contracts were designed on that basis, only then it's discovered that original assets have disappeared), more than anything else.

[alanschu]

I remember hearing that they got hit with surprises with a lot of source assets simply not existing anymore.

[Nepenthe]

I remember hearing that they got hit with surprises with a lot of source assets simply not existing anymore.

 

Yeah. I'd have checked their availability before I started, or certainly at the very first possible stage of negotiations.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Nepenthe

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

Sorry but that's not true. Its possible to die on occasion but its not that common, unless you wander around a higher level area. A party where everyone has ranged weapons will steamroll most things.

No. There are Dire Wolves in the first area the PC ends up in that can kill Warrior classes on a lucky roll and is almost certain to kill anyone else. They are pretty hard to hit and quite tough too, so unless you get very lucky or have a party of characters who are at least specialized with ranged weapons, they will most likely kill you if you are playing on normal difficulty.

 

Things do flow better after level 3, but levels 1 and 2 are insanely difficult.

 

 

It's compounded by the fact that the power differences between the early levels are massive, ie. level 1 = unkillable, level 2 = doable, level 3 = faceroll.

 

Yeah, 2E levels do have a large difference early game, then sort of blend together level 17+.

 

Thinking about it more, I would love to see a BG-style game in a new engine, using the Pathfinder ruleset, and with a prologue that gets the player to level 3. I wonder if a videogame with Pathfinder ruleset is legally possible?

Edited July 12, 2013 by KaineParker

[Nepenthe]

 

Thinking about it more, I would love to see a BG-style game in a new engine, using the Pathfinder ruleset, and with a prologue that gets the player to level 3. I wonder if a videogame with Pathfinder ruleset is legally possible?

 

 

I have no idea. The OGL assumes products in a written form.

[rjshae]

 

 

Thinking about it more, I would love to see a BG-style game in a new engine, using the Pathfinder ruleset, and with a prologue that gets the player to level 3. I wonder if a videogame with Pathfinder ruleset is legally possible?

 

I have no idea. The OGL assumes products in a written form.

 

The license appears to allow for multiple forms of distribution and use, including broadcast. A potential licensing hangup could  be in the use of any product identity material belonging to Paizo.

 

http://paizo.com/PRD/openGameLicense.html

[BruceVC]

http://baldursgateii.com/buy.html

 

So we have a release date for BG2 EE from Beamdog?

 

Anyone mildly interested?

[Azure79]

4 new npcs and 30 new areas sounds good. Looks like they had the original artwork for this one, so new renders of existing environments. 

 

Still, I like playing with at least SCS now. I would buy if they had options for increased AI in enemies and such. 

[Bester]

Having BG always on my pc, I decided to check. No new rendering of old locations, it's exactly the same, except that those JPGs are of low quality.

[BruceVC]

Having BG always on my pc, I decided to check. No new rendering of old locations, it's exactly the same, except that those JPGs are of low quality.

 

Just to clarify we are talking about BG2, are you saying that BG2 EE won't have additional areas to explore?

[Nepenthe]

http://baldursgateii.com/buy.html

 

So we have a release date for BG2 EE from Beamdog?

 

Anyone mildly interested?

 

Very, as it doesn't work on modern macs. Won't preorder though, will grab from the app store when it gets there. Waiting for the big bg1 patch that was delayed due to the Atari mixup before I have a go at that. Been over ten years since I've last run a character through both. Looking forward to it, now that the crunch at work seems to be abating a bit as I have to spend less thinking about what the **** I'm supposed to do.

[HoonDing]

I also still have both Baulder's Gates on my PC. Time to do something about that.

[Bester]

 

Having BG always on my pc, I decided to check. No new rendering of old locations, it's exactly the same, except that those JPGs are of low quality.

 

Just to clarify we are talking about BG2, are you saying that BG2 EE won't have additional areas to explore?

 

It's not what I said, no. Azure said that old areas have been re-rendered in a different way. That's not the case.

[Gfted1]

Definite purchase for me when it hits iOS.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

They're really close to releasing patch 1.2 for BG:EE which will introduce quite a few things, most notably a new UI that allows you to scale it up to as high a res as you want and takes less space that the old one. Here's some pics:

 

PicOne. This shows the see-through chatlog.

PicTwo. High res UI-

PicThree. New loot window.

PicFour. Inventory, character screen etc now open in windows like this.

 

They've also done some work on some spell effects and such to make them look a bit nicer and other stuff.

 

You can follow the patches progress here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/the-road-to-v1-2

 

Probably sounds like heresy to some of you, but I kind of like it.

Edited October 4, 2013 by Lord of Lost Socks

[Nepenthe]

They're really close to releasing patch 1.2 for BG:EE which will introduce quite a few things, most notably a new UI that allows you to scale it up to as high a res as you want and takes less space that the old one. Here's some pics:

 

PicOne. This shows the see-through chatlog.

PicTwo. High res UI-

PicThree. New loot window.

PicFour. Inventory, character screen etc now open in windows like this.

 

They've also done some work on some spell effects and such to make them look a bit nicer and other stuff.

 

You can follow the patches progress here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/the-road-to-v1-2

 

Probably sounds like heresy to some of you, but I kind of like it.

 

I'm lovin' it.

[Serrano]

No word on the multiplayer matchmaking being fixed yet?

[BruceVC]

They're really close to releasing patch 1.2 for BG:EE which will introduce quite a few things, most notably a new UI that allows you to scale it up to as high a res as you want and takes less space that the old one. Here's some pics:

 

PicOne. This shows the see-through chatlog.

PicTwo. High res UI-

PicThree. New loot window.

PicFour. Inventory, character screen etc now open in windows like this.

 

They've also done some work on some spell effects and such to make them look a bit nicer and other stuff.

 

You can follow the patches progress here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/the-road-to-v1-2

 

Probably sounds like heresy to some of you, but I kind of like it.

 

 

 

They're really close to releasing patch 1.2 for BG:EE which will introduce quite a few things, most notably a new UI that allows you to scale it up to as high a res as you want and takes less space that the old one. Here's some pics:

 

PicOne. This shows the see-through chatlog.

PicTwo. High res UI-

PicThree. New loot window.

PicFour. Inventory, character screen etc now open in windows like this.

 

They've also done some work on some spell effects and such to make them look a bit nicer and other stuff.

 

You can follow the patches progress here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/the-road-to-v1-2

 

Probably sounds like heresy to some of you, but I kind of like it.

 

I'm lovin' it.

 

 

Yeah I think its stupendous as well

[Lord of Lost Socks]

This is also pretty cool.