1123 replies to this topic

[Almateria]

The "updated graphics" amount to a slight gaussian blur softening the edges of everything in the background and on the character's textures but leaving the actual pixel count alone.
OSTER
HOW DO YOU MESS THIS UP
ANSWER MEEE

The iPad version will be 10$ and IAP purchases for all the new additions. Beamdog - inventing new ways to rip you off since 2010

Edited by Almateria, 26 July 2012 - 11:43 AM.

[KIrving]

Well they have, apparently, dropped the DRM on it and have tweeted about releasing on android which is a positive sign. I'm not sure it will bomb as there seems to be a lot of interest and enthusiasm, even at that price, at a number of other gaming sites that I lurk around.
I suppose time will tell and good luck to them.

Apparently some of the character write ups are incomplete though,

Spoiler

Mr Oster tweeted, when asked, that all the new characters are romanceable. Perhaps the two male characters have sparse romances and only the half-elf, magic user, female (sounds awfully familiar, at least she isn't a cleric) has an 'engaging romantic adventure'. )

Edited by KIrving, 26 July 2012 - 09:48 PM.

[Andrea C.]

You may want to refer to this thread for a list of things that have been announced for BG:EE.

[Yovaneth]

Is it just me or does Neera look like Kate Winslett?

-Y-

[Aranthys]

DAMN.
I'm hyped. I'm totally hyped. On the verge of pre-ordering.
And what will be painfull is to think that I'll have to wait years for BG2 / TOB EE.

Regarding the mods they recovered, and included, is there a definitive list somewhere ?
Do we know if they overhauled the AI to something "kinda" like SCS ? (easier, less intelligent, but an AI that is less stupid than vanilla nonetheless)

[Andrea C.]

Aranthys, all that has been announced so far for BG:EE is in the link I posted above. There is no list of the mods that have been "recovered" and "included"; in fact, I believe the only mod that will be officially included is 1PP because Erephine gave them permission. Every other mod will remain property of the modding community, although several of them (especially fixpacks) will be superseded as the bugs will already be fixed in BG:EE. There are no plans to enhance the AI that I know of, but you can still use SCS for that purpose ;-)

On the bright side, you'll only have to wait one year for BG2:EE, as it is scheduled for 2013.

Edited by Andrea C., 27 July 2012 - 03:25 AM.

[Aranthys]

Aww, damn, sorry, I should have "RTFM"
I still fear how will SCS and BGEE interact with each other, due to the way SCS alters several spells / files, relies on ToBEx, and some resources might have changed / have been renamed & so on.

But I guess time will tell, and I can only hope for the best, everything will work out in the end

[Archmage Silver]

I'm not really sold on this thing... I'll wait for some reviews before deciding, although presently I'd be inclined to vote with my wallet and skip this one. I just don't see much going for the EE right now - there are plenty of NPC and content mods already. Also:

The Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate has been given an extensive overhaul. The original source code has been cleaned up and improved, sped up, and now has support for modern platforms. Over 400 issues from the original game have been found and fixed.

Fixed or changed? Notice how they say issues, not bugs. I'd like some more info about these "fixes".

All of the Baldur's Gate cinematics have been replaced with beautifully hand painted animated cinematics, directed by Nat Jones.

Say what?! The original ones were fairly well done... and wasn't this supposed to be the Enhanced Edition, as in add or improve stuff, not replace it?

[Wisp]

All of the Baldur's Gate cinematics have been replaced with beautifully hand painted animated cinematics, directed by Nat Jones.

Say what?! The original ones were fairly well done... and wasn't this supposed to be the Enhanced Edition, as in add or improve stuff, not replace it?

Replacing those awkward, extremely dated 3D cinematics sounds like an enhancement to me.

[theacefes]

All of the Baldur's Gate cinematics have been replaced with beautifully hand painted animated cinematics, directed by Nat Jones.

Say what?! The original ones were fairly well done... and wasn't this supposed to be the Enhanced Edition, as in add or improve stuff, not replace it?

Replacing those awkward, extremely dated 3D cinematics sounds like an enhancement to me.

Pfft. The guard from the intro? His face had wonderful detail as he bled out after being thrown off a tower.

Edited by theacefes, 27 July 2012 - 11:43 PM.

[Andrea C.]

Archmage Silver,

you should really hang out on the official BG:EE boards more: lots of informative stuff that not only answers your questions, but even anticipates them What the devs mean by "400+ issues fixed" is "400+ bugs fixed", and I can guarantee that to you 100%. They are actively trying to not alter the game resources, unless it is absolutely necessary to achieve a determined goal. Even then, they are committed to the maximum transparency as to what is being changed and how. So far, no game resources have been altered: CamDawg, who is a member of the beta testing team together with several other modders, said he saw nothing to worry him and the devs have been very responsive to modders' concerns.

You can refer to this link for an evergrowing list of bugfixes that will be in BG:EE (bugfixes get disclosed gradually, and there's a long list of bugs that have already been fixed that is still under NDA; as time goes by, more will be added to that list).

[Archmage Silver]

All of the Baldur's Gate cinematics have been replaced with beautifully hand painted animated cinematics, directed by Nat Jones.

Say what?! The original ones were fairly well done... and wasn't this supposed to be the Enhanced Edition, as in add or improve stuff, not replace it?

Replacing those awkward, extremely dated 3D cinematics sounds like an enhancement to me.

Pfft. The guard from the intro? His face had wonderful detail as he bled out after being thrown off a tower.

Yes. Those cinematics were always an integral part of the game for me, so I just don't get this change. It's not like the the rest of the game isn't dated even after the Enhanced Edition (not that it matters) - my point: replacing the cinematics doesn't magically overhaul the general graphical style of the game. There was no logical reason to replace the cinematics in my opinion.

Archmage Silver,

you should really hang out on the official BG:EE boards more: lots of informative stuff that not only answers your questions, but even anticipates them What the devs mean by "400+ issues fixed" is "400+ bugs fixed", and I can guarantee that to you 100%. They are actively trying to not alter the game resources, unless it is absolutely necessary to achieve a determined goal. Even then, they are committed to the maximum transparency as to what is being changed and how. So far, no game resources have been altered: CamDawg, who is a member of the beta testing team together with several other modders, said he saw nothing to worry him and the devs have been very responsive to modders' concerns.

You can refer to this link for an evergrowing list of bugfixes that will be in BG:EE (bugfixes get disclosed gradually, and there's a long list of bugs that have already been fixed that is still under NDA; as time goes by, more will be added to that list).

Thanks for the link, it certainly made it easier to browse the changes. The list of fixes seems ok so far, although I'll still wait for the final list before calling this - I think that's only reasonable, as I'm not a beta tester.

[Almateria]

Yes. Those cinematics were always an integral part of the game for me, so I just don't get this change. It's not like the the rest of the game isn't dated even after the Enhanced Edition (not that it matters) - my point: replacing the cinematics doesn't magically overhaul the general graphical style of the game. There was no logical reason to replace the cinematics in my opinion.

Maybe they couldn't gauss up the cinematics

[Aranthys]

As long as the cinematics have that "Baldur' feel about them, it's OK for me (see BG2/ToB cinematics : they're nothing like BG1, but they scream "Baldur's Gate" to me.)
Edit.: The only thing I'm wondering is : Will they keep the current sound files for these cinematics ? I guess yes. Would love to, the French translation for BG1 (Sounds) is... cheesy, but in a delightful way.

Edited by Aranthys, 30 July 2012 - 03:00 AM.

[Miraz]

I'm not really sold on this thing... I'll wait for some reviews before deciding, although presently I'd be inclined to vote with my wallet and skip this one. I just don't see much going for the EE right now - there are plenty of NPC and content mods already.

The vast majority of which are far and away nowhere close to "retail standard". In fact, the large majority of fan-made content-based mods end up making the game worse. I'm glad we have them, and I know this is a mod community so I'll get flamed for pointing it out ... but the BG mod community in general has a tendancy to treat mods which wouldn't even pass the very basic stages of quality assurance as pure gold. The Flirt Packs ... geez.

This, on the other hand, is a professional job. That has me interested.

[Archmage Silver]

The vast majority of which are far and away nowhere close to "retail standard". In fact, the large majority of fan-made content-based mods end up making the game worse. I'm glad we have them, and I know this is a mod community so I'll get flamed for pointing it out ... but the BG mod community in general has a tendancy to treat mods which wouldn't even pass the very basic stages of quality assurance as pure gold. The Flirt Packs ... geez.

This, on the other hand, is a professional job. That has me interested.

Trolling, astroturfing, or just plain old ignorance? I can't decide...

[Solaufein]

BG modding, by gamers for gamers.

[Galsic]

The vast majority of which are far and away nowhere close to "retail standard". In fact, the large majority of fan-made content-based mods end up making the game worse. I'm glad we have them, and I know this is a mod community so I'll get flamed for pointing it out ... but the BG mod community in general has a tendancy to treat mods which wouldn't even pass the very basic stages of quality assurance as pure gold. The Flirt Packs ... geez.

This, on the other hand, is a professional job. That has me interested.

Trolling, astroturfing, or just plain old ignorance? I can't decide...

Or maybe it's just his/her honest-to-goodness opinion : / ? It's not like Miraz said all mods sucked (I wouldn't bother with the vast majority of mods, either). Even the good ones are limited by how modding un-friendly the Infinity Engine apparently is.

Edited by Galsic, 31 July 2012 - 02:46 PM.

[Aranthys]

Trolling, astroturfing, or just plain old ignorance? I can't decide...

It's actually quite true.
Anyway, the most important thing that BGEE will bring is ton of fixes, improvement in UI, externalization of (part of) the hardcoded shenanigans and some content.
Add to that 3 new NPCs, and a new zone in the underdark, with an arena twist.

I'd gladly pay 20 bucks for that, and for sure, I'd pay for some DLC that keeps on improving the game (retail standard quality is hard to come by, even from dedicated modders, both due to the modding tools available, and the fact that modders do this on their spare time and for free.

That doesn't mean that mods are bad, or that we're not thankful for the modding community and all the things they've provided (they're probably one of the big reason why I'm still loving this game so many years later)

[phordicus]

The shills are emboldened! There's nowhere decent to actually discuss games anymore. The testimonials from dev fluffers are so transparent and never address the real criticisms.

You're right, Silver. This isn't worth $20 unless you absolutely need it on your tablet (I hear GemRB weeping). I've seen no fixes that aren't already implemented elsewhere. I'm meh on the new content since none of them have any pedigree for it (NWN OC was absolute shit, led by Oster) and I don't need more NPCs, especially ones trying to get into my virtual pants (romances in BG? Really?). If they had done something to actually make the game better, I'd be all over it.

Edited by phordicus, 01 August 2012 - 04:59 AM.