IE Enhanced Editions

[Trodat]

They are not really appealing to me. Original versions function and look great on their own. Not sure about the extra content. I don't even use widescreen mods because IE games look great without them.

Based on youtube vids, haven't tried them myself.

 

[Tigranes]

Beamdog is just another indie outfit that initially bit off more than they could chew, like Harebrained Schemes w/ Dead Man's Switch. I realize the whole "DEFILING MAH CLASSICS" thing is a trigger word, but people should probably give them a break.

Why? It's not even that the EE would be fantastic if only they could deliver on everything they promised. What they promise itself either detracts from the game (fugly UI), is utterly irrelevant to me or is of such minor benefit.

I suppose it depends. If you never played them very intensely, you never really used a lot of mods, you have a pathological reaction to using the widescreen mod, you just thought they were decent games previously and now can't be arsed spending $10 (or $0) and and half an hour setting it up and would rather spend $20 and ten minutes.... sure, be my guest. I'll stick with my trusted mod config and enjoy a superior experience on every aspect, without wasting my money.

Oh, and no, you give us a break with the 'realize'. You don't get to dismiss my opinions airbrushing them with your narrative.

 

[Nevill]

I think it is wrong to bundle all EE releases together, as they have a varying degree of quality.

They did a horrible job with the first game, and people have had high hopes for that one, too. It's too bad, because none of the existing ports of BG1 to BG2 engine do it right - or did it right by then, not sure how it is now. For example, neither TuTu, nor BGT have been able to get the random spawns to work as they did in BG1 because the spawning mechanics have changed between the games. They had an option to do some good here, but instead they have butchered it even worse on release and then patched it up to an acceptable state, yet still different from how it was supposed to be.

Sadly, for the moment there is no way to enjoy BG1 in an updated engine without some drawbacks, which may or may not matter much to different people.

I have heard they have fixed the game to some degree and it is actually playable now, but I have been so terribly burned with it on release (actually, after waiting about a year since release) that I didn't bother to check it since then. BGT allows for a much better moddability, so for now it remains a 'superior' version.

I have also heard they have done a better job with BG2: EE, but that is not a very meaningful statement, as most of the work have been already done by then, and you have to consciously try to make a worse job.

Now I am trying out IWD: EE, and I mostly have positive things to say about it. If any game has benetfitted from a remake, it is IWD. It has quite a few hardcoded bugs in it and a much smaller modding community, so I am glad they got to work on it - if they didn't, no one else would.

Overall, even though I am not happy with what they have done with BG series, I think I can agree with Infiltron that they are improving. IWD:EE differs from BG:EE on release almost as much as Dragonfall differs from DMS.

I appreciate that we can have a choice between the editions now, and I hope we will get to see IWD2 redone in the same manner.

 

[Infinitron]

Beamdog is just another indie outfit that initially bit off more than they could chew, like Harebrained Schemes w/ Dead Man's Switch. I realize the whole "DEFILING MAH CLASSICS" thing is a trigger word, but people should probably give them a break.

Why? It's not even that the EE would be fantastic if only they could deliver on everything they promised. What they promise itself either detracts from the game (fugly UI), is utterly irrelevant to me or is of such minor benefit.

I suppose it depends. If you never played them very intensely, you never really used a lot of mods, you have a pathological reaction to using the widescreen mod, you just thought they were decent games previously and now can't be arsed spending $10 (or $0) and and half an hour setting it up and would rather spend $20 and ten minutes.... sure, be my guest. I'll stick with my trusted mod config and enjoy a superior experience on every aspect, without wasting my money.

Oh, and no, you give us a break with the 'realize'. You don't get to dismiss my opinions airbrushing them with your narrative.

If you think the EEs aren't worth buying, then don't buy them. I'm just not comfortable with how people are still treating a company that is now 95% composed of longtime IE modders as the spawn of satan.

 

[Somberlain]

IWD: EE is pretty good. It has some actually good improvements and it supports some mods (like atweaks and Rogue Rebalancing) that were never compatible with the original game. Still, the prices are a bit high.

 

[Seari]

BG2:EE when released was buggier than vanilla.

 

[A horse of course]

Beamdog is just another indie outfit that initially bit off more than they could chew, like Harebrained Schemes w/ Dead Man's Switch. I realize the whole "DEFILING MAH CLASSICS" thing is a trigger word, but people should probably give them a break.

Why? It's not even that the EE would be fantastic if only they could deliver on everything they promised. What they promise itself either detracts from the game (fugly UI), is utterly irrelevant to me or is of such minor benefit.

I suppose it depends. If you never played them very intensely, you never really used a lot of mods, you have a pathological reaction to using the widescreen mod, you just thought they were decent games previously and now can't be arsed spending $10 (or $0) and and half an hour setting it up and would rather spend $20 and ten minutes.... sure, be my guest. I'll stick with my trusted mod config and enjoy a superior experience on every aspect, without wasting my money.

Oh, and no, you give us a break with the 'realize'. You don't get to dismiss my opinions airbrushing them with your narrative.

If you think the EEs aren't worth buying, then don't buy them. I'm just not comfortable with how people are still treating a company that is now 95% composed of longtime IE modders as the spawn of satan.

So you don't have an actual counter-argument to the numerous legitimate criticisms of EE, it just makes you "uncomfortable" to witness attacks on the people you dream of schmoozing with at expensive cocktail parties - a voluptuous, wide-eyed call girl snaked around one arm, and the shoulder of a soviet naval attache trembling beneath the other.

I forgot what I was talking about.

 

[Nevill]

I checked the games out on youtube but the "new" interface design looks horrid. If they fix that on PC and keep the patches flowing I might consider buying them.

It is moddable.

Which is a funny thing, considering that not having to mod the game was one of the selling points for BG:EE, but nonetheless there are plenty of UI mods out there.

BG2:EE when released was buggier than vanilla.

Depends. Modded vanilla, or patched vanilla?

BG2Fixpack - which is a mod - fixes about several thousands of bugs. People seem to forget just how buggy the vanilla game is.

They had to rewrite the code somewhat to make it work on mobile devices, and that apparently caused at least some of those. That's no excuse, of course, but at least I can understand why it is the way it is.

I have not played it after the BG:EE fiasco, so I can't really comment on the matter.

I find it pretty hilarious and sad, however, that people are calling their work cash grabs and still fault them for not patching fast enough in the same sentence. The very definition of a cash grab suggests that little effort went into the project in order to make quick money. How you can say that about a company that still supports their products 2 years after release when it no longer affects the sales all that much baffles me. You can blame them for doing a poor job (and that would be true), for being talentless and whatnot, but from what I've seen, a lot of effort went into the games. They really wanted to make their BG editions the definitive ones, they just went way over their heads and failed horribly at it.

They are slowly getting there, though.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

IWD: EE is pretty good. It has some actually good improvements and it supports some mods (like atweaks and Rogue Rebalancing) that were never compatible with the original game. Still, the prices are a bit high.

What did they actually add/improve outside of importing character kits from BG2? Steam says it has "quest content cut from the original game, now finished and restored", but I can't find any details anywhere. I'm thinking about getting it on sale eventually, but I don't want to pay just for BG2 kits and some bugfixes.

 

[Nevill]

They have integrated at least a part of this mod, I believe:
http://www.gibberlings3.net/ub_iwd/

Not sure it would be worth it to you as you can get it for free (is CamDawg working for Beamdog now? I think he is).

 

[Seari]

Infinitron seems to always disagree with the masses for some reason.

BG2:EE when released was buggier than vanilla.

Depends. Modded vanilla, or patched vanilla?

BG2Fixpack - which is a mod - fixes about several thousands of bugs. People seem to forget just how buggy the vanilla game is.

They had to rewrite the code somewhat to make it work on mobile devices, and that apparently caused at least some of those. That's no excuse, of course, but at least I can understand why it is the way it is.

I have not played it after the BG:EE fiasco, so I can't really comment on the matter.

I find it pretty hilarious and sad, however, that people are calling their work cash grabs and still fault them for not patching fast enough in the same sentence. The very definition of a cash grab suggests that very little effort went into the project in order to make quick money. How you can say that about a company that still supports their products 2 years after release when it no longer affects the sales all that much baffles me. You can blame them for doing a poor job (and that would be true), for being talentless and whatnot, but from what I've seen, a lot of effort went into the games. They really wanted to make their BG editions the definitive ones, they just went way over their heads and failed horribly at it.

They are slowly getting there, though.

I am not 100% sure, but I think vanilla was at least finishable. BG2:EE had gamebreaking bugs.

 

[Nevill]

Pre-patch BG2 had an 'NPC is too busy to talk" bug, which is pretty gamebreaking.

I am not even talking about scripts not triggering if you apply damage too fast, causing some of the bosses to get stuck in a Near Death status. This is still an issue even in a patched game.

Out of curiosity, what kind of gamebreaking bugs BG2:EE had?

 

[Seari]

I honestly don't remember anymore, I'm sure there are some old threads about it on their forums. I'm trying to delete the EE playthrough from memory.

 

[DragoFireheart]

If you think the EEs aren't worth buying, then don't buy them. I'm just not comfortable with how people are still treating a company that is now 95% composed of longtime IE modders as the spawn of satan.

Oh give me a fucking break. So because they are "loyal and dear" modders we're suppose to give them a break?

They have access to the source code. They had the ability to do much more, but instead they basically squandered such an opportunity with poor design choices. We shouldn't developers/publishers a break because of "network ties": we should expect to treat them like professionals and criticize them as such when they deliver a sub-par product. Giving them a break and/or special treatment is the same as Kotaku giving Revolution 60 special treatment because it was made by a woman/tranny.

 

[Sykar]

Pre-patch BG2 had an 'NPC is too busy to talk" bug, which is pretty gamebreaking.

I am not even talking about scripts not triggering if you apply damage too fast, causing some of the bosses to get stuck in a Near Death status. This is still an issue even in a patched game.

Out of curiosity, what kind of gamebreaking bugs BG2:EE had?

Iirc you could reload and the issue was resolved.

 

[Seari]

If you scouted enemies and then saved, they would be gone upon reload(I think they never fixed this).

 

[Nevill]

You might argue which one is worse - that, or adding more enemies like BG1 did.

But no, they did fix this. Apparently. Don't want to go back to BG:EE and check. *shudders*

https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/24852/bgii-ee-1-2-2030-11-20-2013

#4605: Creature spawns no longer disappear when loading a saved game.

 

[Xor]

The originals were good enough for me 14 years ago and they're good enough for me now.

 

[naossano]

I would prefer the term "remastered" than "enhanced". Enhanced is supposed to mean better, but it is not always the case.

On a general basis, i would have to have the original vanilla version and a the remastered version bundled together at a cheap price. (price can increase after the re-release but not to the extend of an entirelly new game)

You don't buy a new game, but a new version of that same game. I find normal to always have the choice of version rather than buying separate version of the fucking same product.
Some games do that. Surprisingly, Bethesda currently does by, by letting you choose if you want to use the improvement, everytime you start the game. InXile does that too, with Wasteland.

I don't see a problem with having new optionnal improvements. I am more bothered if they add mod without the modders consents (paying them would be better, but at least ask them permission. They did a work for something you sell. You gain money from their work). Although, as a customer, i would also be bothered if the paid improved version has less improvements than the free modded version.

But, not all the mods are easy to install/use. I tried a modded version & a remastered version of BG1. Call me a moron, but even while reading the instruction, installing the mods in the order that was given, choosing the recommended option for every steps, i ended up with a version that partially screwed the interface and didn't corrected all the issues i had. On the other hand, i just clicked once on the remastered version installation and i automatically a widescreen version with zoom and faster characters. (it could be a chore to wait them moving on the maps)
I am more likely to finish the remastered version than the modded version.

But in the end, as player, i am ok with modded or remastered version, while only preferring the remastered version if the modded version is a hell to install and parameter.

For, iso games, i am more than eager to have a bigger line of sight (more of the map, more of the characters without screen scrolling) and cut content put back ingame.

 

[Outlander]

I think they got a handle on it now.

I think you missed Trent's memo, there already is a Beamdog plant in this forum.

 

[Seari]

I would prefer the term "remastered" than "enhanced". Enhanced is supposed to mean better, but it is not always the case.

BG2:EE = DBZ Kai

 

[Melcar]

Having fun with IWD:EE at the moment. The fact that I don't have to spend extra time installing all the mods in the right order is worth it for me at this point. The GUI and the fonts are turds, the spell books are horrible, and the default zoom value is shit (it's annoying to have to zoom out every fucking time I'm in a new map) but not everything is perfect. There are a few bugs at least in the Linux version (spell triggers and contingencies causing a hard lock on the game) and game balance is totally broken. And yeah, $20 USD was too much.
The EE for the BGs are horrible though. Fuck those guys.

 

[Shevek]

Of all the EEs, IWDEE is probably the most worth it. They all cost too much though.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Cashgrabs. By talentless hacks for tasteless fucks.

That. A hundred times that.

 

[Melcar]

IWD2:EE please. But only if you add proper 3d acceleration.