Baldurs gate

[fist13]

I have played Baldurs Gate 2 many times and loved that game . What i want to know is I want to by the first baldurs gate wich version is the best the orginal or the enhanced version I have heard both good and bad about both versions as far as bugs concernd .

Edited February 9, 2017 by fist13

[Heijoushin]

While there were some controversies surrounding the enhanced version, surely more content is always better? And I imagine they've squashed the worst of the bugs by now. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The original if you can, I think GoG sells the Enhanced only but for some reason I vaguely recall the original+expansion being in there. I mean Enhanced may be fine if you don't like modding, but you can do a BGT with the originals and a lot of older mods don't work with the EEs last I checked. And the new content from BGEE is pretty bad tbh.

[Ganrich]

The original if you can, I think GoG sells the Enhanced only but for some reason I vaguely recall the original+expansion being in there. I mean Enhanced may be fine if you don't like modding, but you can do a BGT with the originals and a lot of older mods don't work with the EEs last I checked. And the new content from BGEE is pretty bad tbh.

They took the regular off of GoG a while back, iirc. It's Enhanced only from here on out. Which is sad. If you already purchased the original then you still have it of course.

[Bartimaeus]

The new content from the EEs are pretty bad, so I personally opt for the originals. However, in general, the EEs will look better and be easier to play if you don't want to mod, so if you combine that with not minding overpaying for the EEs, then they're O.K. Personally, they're not for me whatsoever, though, and I'd rather just mod out any issues I have personally rather than accepting Beamdog's hamfisted "enhanced" version of the game.

[fist13]

OK and many thanks Then I`ll buy the original with the expansion on dvd here in Sweden

[Mamoulian War]

If you buy Enhanced Edition on GOG you get both versions with one purchase.

[Bartimaeus]

That's pretty sweet, actually!

[Fenixp]

Yup, get it on GOG, try both, decide for yourself.

[fist13]

I`ll see wich one to buy,here in Sweden I`ll get both Baldurs Gate games with expansions for half the price of 1 Baldurs Gate game enhanced editions on Gog

Edited February 12, 2017 by fist13

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

The original if you can, I think GoG sells the Enhanced only but for some reason I vaguely recall the original+expansion being in there. I mean Enhanced may be fine if you don't like modding, but you can do a BGT with the originals and a lot of older mods don't work with the EEs last I checked. And the new content from BGEE is pretty bad tbh.

They took the regular off of GoG a while back, iirc. It's Enhanced only from here on out. Which is sad. If you already purchased the original then you still have it of course.

 

If you buy Enhanced Edition on GOG you get both versions with one purchase.

Kinda **** you have to pay for both if you only want one.

I`ll see wich one to buy,here in Sweden I`ll get both Baldurs Gate games with expansions for half the price of 1 Baldurs Gate game enhanced editions on Gog

GOG baldur's gate comes with expansion. I doubt they changed it.

[Bartimaeus]

...although Tales of the Sword Coast is easily the worst and most broken bit of the BG series and really not worth playing outside of MAYBE Durlag's Tower...

[Ganrich]

...although Tales of the Sword Coast is easily the worst and most broken bit of the BG series and really not worth playing outside of MAYBE Durlag's Tower...

Although, I don't disagree. During's Tower is worth it to me. It's a great dungeon.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Level cap an durlags is worth it imo. Other than that there's that ice prison and the werewolf island? Not fond of those myself.

[213374U]

With all the hate for the EEs around here I figured I'd crawl out of the woodwork and say something nice about them.

 

While it's true that some older mods don't work, most do, from what I remember. They have also done a ton of bugfixing and they are currently in a more polished state than the originals. They've also introduced some sweet optional exe changes (concentration checks!) and incorporated most ToBEX functions.

 

The additional content is hit and miss. Some of it is pretty bad, and some is actually pretty good (Dorn's ToB quest was awesome) so... in line with the originals, I guess. The UI has also been changed, I personally barely noticed.

 

And of course if you want to play Siege of Dragonspear, you need the EEs.

 

It was a **** move on their part to remove the originals from GOG as standalones, but since I got them for free as an EE owner when they were bundled, I can't complain too much.

Edited February 12, 2017 by 213374U

[Bartimaeus]

 

...although Tales of the Sword Coast is easily the worst and most broken bit of the BG series and really not worth playing outside of MAYBE Durlag's Tower...

Although, I don't disagree. During's Tower is worth it to me. It's a great dungeon.

 

 

What I hate most about TotSC is just how arbitrarily unbalanced all of it is. Why can you find like 3 Rings of Freedom on the ice island (...and then there's another sitting on a gnome that you can pickpocket in Ulgoth's Beard)? Why can you find like 3 Full Plate Mail +1s in a single fight in Durlag's Tower, in the chess board room? Why is there an additional...what was it, Kondar (Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters) sitting in a random house in Ulgoth's Beard? Just weird, bad design like that is annoying to me. Not to mention that pretty much all of TotSC is just laughably written...

[Bartimaeus]

With all the hate for the EEs around here I figured I'd crawl out of the woodwork and say something nice about them.

 

While it's true that some older mods don't work, most do, from what I remember. They have also done a ton of bugfixing and they are currently in a more polished state than the originals. They've also introduced some sweet optional exe changes (concentration checks!) and incorporated most ToBEX functions.

 

They would've fostered much more good will from me if they provided the same buying options as was given to tablet users.

 

What DO the EEs have that makes a functional difference for users that isn't covered by modding? I remember mucking around with BG1:EE and thinking the biggest difference was that quicksaves and quickloads were super fast...and that there was a broken zoom function that they would probably eventually fix. And...they added a little extra content in the form of the new NPCs (obviously) and a few items (some of which they didn't have the good sense to not make worth less than like 12k gold at the time of release...but which I presume they also eventually fixed). The concentration check and other .exe changes are covered by ToBEx, the graphic changes are almost entirely covered (outside of the UI) by 1pp and a couple of other mods, bugfixes and minor feature changes are covered by Fixpack and Tweakpack, etc. So what do the EEs actually have to offer that makes them actually worth it, outside of if you don't particularly care to muck around with mods (which I understand, even if it's not true for me)?

[213374U]

So what do the EEs actually have to offer that makes them actually worth it, outside of if you don't particularly care to muck around with mods (which I understand, even if it's not true for me)?

It is in fact if you enjoy playing around with mods that the EEs should appeal more to you. Off the top of my head, they have retooled a lot of stuff and changed things that were hardcoded into ini or 2da toggles and parameters, plus changed how certain effects were handled to make them more mod-friendly (i.e. contingency). Most, if not all, mod development is now done with the EEs in mind.

 

The bugfixing goes beyond what the Fixpack and Tweakpack did, at this point.

 

If you want a comprehensive list of changes, take a look here.

 

The widescreen/high res options are better IMO than what the Widescreen mod managed.

 

Not trying to sell you on the game, but the bad rep it earned because of the state it was released in is, at this point, unwarranted. At least from a technical standpoint.

 

And if mods are of no interest to you, the game offers quicker loading times, support for high resolutions and bugfixing without resorting to third-party content.

Edited February 12, 2017 by 213374U

[Hurlshort]

I played the original BG's when they came out, and last year played through the EE versions. The game ran well, looked decent on my modern computer, and had very little differences in content. I was happy. I wish more games got the EE treatment.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Hurlshot

[Bartimaeus]

 

So what do the EEs actually have to offer that makes them actually worth it, outside of if you don't particularly care to muck around with mods (which I understand, even if it's not true for me)?

It is in fact if you enjoy playing around with mods that the EEs should appeal more to you. Off the top of my head, they have retooled a lot of stuff and changed things that were hardcoded into ini or 2da toggles and parameters, plus changed how certain effects were handled to make them more mod-friendly (i.e. contingency). Most, if not all, mod development is now done with the EEs in mind.

 

The bugfixing goes beyond what the Fixpack and Tweakpack did, at this point.

 

If you want a comprehensive list of changes, take a look here.

 

The widescreen/high res options are better IMO than what the Widescreen mod managed.

 

Not trying to sell you on the game, but the bad rep it earned because of the state it was released in is, at this point, unwarranted. At least from a technical standpoint.

 

And if mods are of no interest to you, the game offers quicker loading times, support for high resolutions and bugfixing without resorting to third-party content.

 

 

Thanks for the doc...although I think this is actually only for the latest few patches, not all changes over the course of the games' life, so some patch notes are, I presume, missing...but I could be wrong. Some interesting stuff in here that is making me consider trying a BG1/2:EE build, to give it a better (and more recent) shake. Hopefully the UI isn't that ridiculous MSPaint blue still...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it is, gosh dangit you guys.

 

Fast quicksaves/loads: I mentioned those in my previous post, . Widescreen/resolution options: yeah, fair point, I've never much liked the mod widescreen implementation, and have always played on an extra 4:3 LCD monitor I'm lucky to have, so you got me there.

 

In regards to modding...uh, what modding? The IE modding scene is virtually dead at this point. It's nice that they put all these modding features in the games, but if there aren't really any mods to take advantage of them... Although there are still a couple of interesting things that I could mess around with myself, yes...

[Bartimaeus]

Point me in its direction, then, since all the old mainstays (Gibberlings 3, Spellhold Studios, Pocket Plane Group, Black Wyrm Lair, ..?) that I know of are dead or virtually so. That leaves...what, the Enhanced Edition forums? Let's see...a little more active, but still pretty stagnant. So, uh...yeah, help me out here. I remember before the EEs were announced, plenty of significant mods (ToBEx, SCS, the Revisions mods, 1pp, etc.) were still being worked on...and then BG1:EE was announced, and it seemed like everyone had this "wait and see" mentality, and the community never really seemed to recover after that.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Tigranes]

For everyone else, since Bart has already made his decision; get the original, hands. down.

 

It takes 10 minutes to learn how to apply a WeiDu mod, and then it's totally up to you whether you just use the widescreen & widescreen UI mods, or you go with 7 or 70 different mods. If you like customising your experience you have the total collection of available modifications, and if you just like playing the original experience then this is the original experience - with ten years of bugfixes and modern resolutions. 

 

Alternatively you could pay twice the money for an 'Enhanced' edition which comes packaged with an uglier UI and a few pieces of poor quality content - added by a combination of a few actual veteran devs/mods and others who had nothing to do with making BG a good game in the first place. And then you will not be guaranteed as extensive mod compatibility. Now, it's not a broken game, or a game that they butchered all over the place. Once you ignore their stupid new UI, and a few other limitations, it's much the same experience as the original games. Which raises the question: why does this exist? Why do you need to pay double price for it? Why bother? 

 

(I'm not as familiar with how the modders are adapting to the new EE environment and whether there are actually quality mods that take advantage of the stuff numbers mentions, so maybe when that actually delivers, EE becomes a worthwhile purchase. We'll see if it happens. I'm pretty OK with what the last 10 years of modding achieved.)

 

---

 

It's a separate discussion re. Beamdog's business strategy - I wouldn't say don't buy a product that is good value for the player just because the company is dislikeable. In fact, they're not even dislikeable, I just find their existence pointless. Years in business, all they've done is rake in far more money than their work deserves because they got to score a great game to 'remaster', while the actual work they've done with these games is either 'meh' or 'awful'. The "Enhanced" editions aren't enhanced - they don't sport anything near a general across-the-board set of improvements that benefit all users. They are nice for people who want to play on tablets without fuss, or people who for some mysterious reason refuse to spend 10 minutes installing a simple mod, or, I don't know, people who think the ability to zoom in blurrily on painted backgrounds is so great they'll pay for it. For everyone else, it's not a 'bad' product (at least, not after they fixed all the bugs they relaunched a 10 year old game with) - it's a pointless product by a pointless company.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Tigranes

[Hurlshort]

Tigranes, that sounds confusing. That is the appeal of EE. It makes a classic accessible. It also opens it up to a much younger audience. That makes plenty of sense as a business model and probably helps the rpg genre as a whole.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Point me in its direction, then, since all the old mainstays (Gibberlings 3, Spellhold Studios, Pocket Plane Group, Black Wyrm Lair, ..?) that I know of are dead or virtually so. That leaves...what, the Enhanced Edition forums? Let's see...a little more active, but still pretty stagnant. So, uh...yeah, help me out here. I remember before the EEs were announced, plenty of significant mods (ToBEx, SCS, the Revisions mods, 1pp, etc.) were still being worked on...and then BG1:EE was announced, and it seemed like everyone had this "wait and see" mentality, and the community never really seemed to recover after that.

Yeah, there's a few older mods being worked on(or abadoned as IR seems to be last i checked) but I can't think of anything relatively new besides Sandrah, which seems to be a kitchen sink sort of mod. I'll check beamdog forums later, but it's an older niche game so I doubt much has been made for it.

 

Anyways last I checked you can't install Ascension for the EEs besides the BP version and that's the only way I'd bother with ToB. Assuming I don't burn out anyways and play something else.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, you might've seen that I was contributing to Item Revisions a few months ago when I submitted literally about 50 different bugs and inconsistencies for them to fix that I found as I was making my "IR Revisions" mod (for personal use only, sadly, since it's based directly on modifying the IR installer itself, so I can't really redistribute it without running into intellectual property problems), and I also provided a large text revision. I think they implemented much of the text revision, but I'm unsure about the bugs and inconsistencies.

 

Really, if they could just make IR fully compatible with 1pp, I think IR would be mostly good as is (outside of some items which never got around to being revised, like the Moon Dog Figurine, or the Golem summoning tomes...which I ended up handling myself in my IR Revisions mod). It's something I've been working on my own on and off, and I think I've fixed most of the incompatibilities myself in my IRR mod...which is unfortunate, because again, it means I can't let anyone else use it since it would be unauthorized redistribution of their work.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Bartimaeus