I myself have never paid more than €19,- for a game, as I hardly ever buy games when they're new. Hardly ever as in, only once, with BGEE. I preordered the game and while I don't regret that decision, I'm still waiting to play, because I like to start playing it with the vanilla npc's not being silent among eachother (and I was waiting for Hard Times, but apparently that's in vain, I haven't heard anything about MacReady updating it, he seems lukewarm to BGEE, or maybe he's not active anymore>?). I won't complain about the price of $24,95 as a lot of time has been put into the game, which need to be payed for, but just like with all-but-one games I bought, I'll buy BG2EE when the price drops, i.e. in the first Beamdog sale I spot (I wouldn't like my BG to be held hostage by Steam, made into a game that will survive only as long as Steam survives, or my internet connection survives). Probably by now it won't be long till Kaeloree has NPC project ready, but then there's still a long time before I'll have finished BGEE. Most campaigns take me over a year, as I'll play several at once (still haven't finished three BG campaigns I started before BGEE came out).
*sorry if my story's boring, there's always the TLDR>Skip option.
You have two versions of the same game. One is $10 and includes massive content, tweaks, fixes, balance and difficulty changes.
No, it doesn't. Tweaks, fixes etc are provided by MODs, which are available for free but separately (with some implications).
~ Captain Obvious
Which is irrelevant. The content is available, it is included in the price, there is no additional cost. I'd be willing to be the number of players who use the GOG version without modifications is minimal, especially considering the GOG website itself promotes a guide to installing some of the most fundamental.
If you think your average GOG customer looking for a digital download for BG isn't factoring mods into their consideration you're in denial. And that's what this thread is about.
The price is WAY too steep, as it was in the original. You can buy the original on GOG for $10. Basically, all you're getting is a couple of fan-made characters with a new arena-type area and a new GUI. All the bug fixes, etc. are readily available and free of charge. I don't see how anyone who doesn't have rose-colored glasses can call this a bargain. These new characters would have to be some of the deepest seen in an RPG to justify a $15 dollar increase.
GUI is awesome. I wanna try it personally. And about the characters... Well I've already paid 200(I think) gold pieces to the dwarf for Neera, so I have no problems paying additional 15 bucks again.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
In a matter of fact, with the possibility of BG2:EE come with an high promotional price in the future by Steam, i don't even understand why people are still complaining with Beamdog's price. want the game so badly that you have to get it on the release date? Then the game is worth $25. the person whom pre-order or get the game in the release date is saying the game is worth with his/her own deeds of brougth the game.
Not worth $25? Wait for Steam, and complain about prices in steam forum also, Beamdog don't control the prices there.
Well said. If Atari get's BG2EE to Steam near(ish) the release date here, I can guarantee you that it will be on sale for at least 50% off during the Steam holiday sale already. And as kamuizin said, if you can't wait for that long then it's worth 25 dollars to you.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
Well, it depends where the 350,000 words are going( which we still don't know). I really like the idea of an entire novel being added to the game and hopefully the bugs you mentioned all get fixed; we'll see though.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
Well, it depends where the 350,000 words are going( which we still don't know). I really like the idea of an entire novel being added to the game and hopefully the bugs you mentioned all get fixed; we'll see though.
They are going to content for new NPCs since we know they are not allowed to touch the original game. That is why it is not worth +15$. If they were able to really add to original content it might be a different story.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
Well, it depends where the 350,000 words are going( which we still don't know). I really like the idea of an entire novel being added to the game and hopefully the bugs you mentioned all get fixed; we'll see though.
They are going to content for new NPCs since we know they are not allowed to touch the original game. That is why it is not worth +15$. If they were able to really add to original content it might be a different story.
It could easily be in new content unrelated to the EE NPCs. Not being able to alter the original game just means that the 350,000 words aren't Irenicus dialogue, etc.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
Disregard everything I said: I just remembered the 350,000+ word addition. Ahem, carry on.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
Well, it depends where the 350,000 words are going( which we still don't know). I really like the idea of an entire novel being added to the game and hopefully the bugs you mentioned all get fixed; we'll see though.
They are going to content for new NPCs since we know they are not allowed to touch the original game. That is why it is not worth +15$. If they were able to really add to original content it might be a different story.
It could easily be in new content unrelated to the EE NPCs. Not being able to alter the original game just means that the 350,000 words aren't Irenicus dialogue, etc.
Well if it is new areas that you can access through the game and that are not connected with new NPCs then that would be great. And of course, if they are done better then what we got in BGEE. Those extra areas were not of good quality, graphically or with story.
Still not worth +15$. BG2 does not need any of that, it is large enough already. It needs serious engine fixes/improvements, and solving pathfinding problem Infinity engine has. If they added more content for Strongholds and made ToB more interesting then it would be worth +15$. As it is, BG2 by itself is good enough. BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
You bring up a good point. People tend to forget that BG:EE is actually a very different game from vanilla BG. Sure, it's basically, Tutu, but Tutu is a pain in the ass to install. With BG:EE, you're basically paying for convenience, which I was fine with. BG 2 doesn't have the same problems as the original though; it's perfectly playable as is with just the widescreen mod.
Yes, and I really hope that they expanded the strongholds (if they were allowed to) or at least added them to ToB.
The only flaw i see in the enhanced versions is the lack of a friendly interface to mod, what has nothing to do with the game value (half off-topic only) ! But well... life goes on ! However i would pay for a World editor with a friendly face for modding BG:EE and BG2:EE, just saying !
LOL. If you don't think it worth the price, don't buy. Perhaps, over time, the devs will lower the price to your liking. Otherwise, do something else with your time. I don't understand what the point of whining about the price is, other than to have more people explain that pricing is what it is. I guess I should recommend Economics 101 at any university to help this...
...All the bug fixes, etc. are readily available and free of charge.
Of all the arguments against BG:EE and BG2:EE's existence, this one is probably the one that annoys me the most. Try as you might, mods can't fix engine bugs. While many fixpacks and mods are udpated semi-regurlarly, nothing beats the full support of a full team, with a bunch of experienced modders and die hard fans on the both the dev team and beta testing team (and on forums, because devs and beta testers do read those).
I'm the guy that made Weapons and Armor fixes for Skyrim, which covered something like 3000+ item fixes. I've build similar lists (probably containing upwards a thousand issues) for BG:EE, and Beamdog, to their credit, were like "damn, you're right, that should be fixed." and they fixed all of them within the week (I think it was in version 2011, but I can't remember for sure). And keep in mind that BG:EE used the fixpacks from the start, which supposedly contained 'all the bug fixes'.
I don't care how much of BG-EE , BG2-EE actually ,
If the art asset didn't lose , i can pay more money for HD version, if beamdog can give me better UI , water , weather , spell effects , stable multi-play , more story ,quests, features , i can pay more and more bucks for expansion pack,
I pay the money and find the fun from the game , the main concern for me is " how amazing " features beamdong can bring to us in the near future ? Do they have enough capabilities and resources to take the money from us ?
Of all the new stuff I am perhaps most looking forward to the 30+ new areas. I do believe that's more than TotSC had, and it was sold as an expansion pack. Completely new, high quality areas have always been difficult for modders to add, considering how stunning the backgrounds look in BG2. I'd be willing to pay that amount just to get so much (basically an expanion's worth) of extra high quality gameplay content to what is maybe my favorite game of all time.
THEN we can consider the 4 new NPC's complete with quests and voice acting, the 350k words, numerous fixes and improvements to the engine, the Black Pits, even better looking areas, new portraits/voices and so on...
Yeah, 20€ sounds like one hell of a bargain to me, no matter how I look at it. Preordered as soon as I saw the news.
I'll just wait until it goes on sale for like 10 bucks. I've waited like 16 years for this, I think I can wait another 6 months or whatever. A lot of the bugs should be ironed out by then too.
@ crawek Yeah, we found the original 24 bit renders, the color depth is much better than the 256 color compressed stuff BGII shipped with.-Trent Oster @ TrentOster 6h
@ crawek That is correct, all BGII background areas and our new areas look a lot better.
Of all the new stuff I am perhaps most looking forward to the 30+ new areas. I do believe that's more than TotSC had, and it was sold as an expansion pack. Completely new, high quality areas have always been difficult for modders to add, considering how stunning the backgrounds look in BG2. I'd be willing to pay that amount just to get so much (basically an expanion's worth) of extra high quality gameplay content to what is maybe my favorite game of all time.
THEN we can consider the 4 new NPC's complete with quests and voice acting, the 350k words, numerous fixes and improvements to the engine, the Black Pits, even better looking areas, new portraits/voices and so on...
Yeah, 20€ sounds like one hell of a bargain to me, no matter how I look at it. Preordered as soon as I saw the news.
What are you talking about? What 30+ new areas?! and 4 new NPCs are 3 from BG1EE and only 1 new one. Ah, I see. 30+ new areas are only for new NPCs. I hate that. That is not a selling point for me.. I don't want to be forced to take new NPCs. And new areas in BG1EE were bad. If these are same, I would rather play without them.
@ crawek Yeah, we found the original 24 bit renders, the color depth is much better than the 256 color compressed stuff BGII shipped with.-Trent Oster @ TrentOster 6h
@ crawek That is correct, all BGII background areas and our new areas look a lot better.
Project Eternity is a new game. New games tend to cost that much, if not more. BG2:EE is a very old game with a few enhancement. And yes, it's a great game, but we know that because we already played the hell out of it and likely already own the old version. As I said, I'll be buying it, but let's not pretend that this is a good deal.
Edit: I could be wrong, but the relatively high price may be to cover up for the losses during the whole legal mess. They probably need to price it at this amount in order to make a decent enough profit, which they would need in order to make updated versions of other IE games. Personally, I'm fine with that.
Um. The price isn't high. Not even relatively. If 24.95 is a "relatively high" price, you've got way bigger financial problems than buying games.
Let's not pretend there's a problem here; there isn't one.
Edit: I get that you're buying it anyway. Let's me be clear; if the price was "relatively" high and a real problem for you, it would be the sort of problem where you couldn't buy it. Not just unhappy with the price, not just unwilling to buy it, but literally could not afford to buy it. So yes, it IS a good deal.
It's relatively high for what you're getting. A new UI and one new character with a couple of added levels isn't worth the $15 dollar increase over the original. The reviews for BGEE were lackluster and the fact that they're making this game even more expensive is something to consider.
It's not one new character, it's 4. Plus thousands of lines of new dialogue, new quests, new locations, and new kits (not to mention the bug fixes, improved rendering, and ui). Most reviews I saw for BG1:EE were positive, and the biggest disappointment most people had was that there couldn't be more content alterations due to contractual issues.
All for the equivalent cost of 3 hours working @ minimum wage (US). Given that the massive scope and length of BG2+TOB makes BG1 look like a short romp in the Cloakwood by comparison, it seems only natural that the price would be a few dollars more.
EDIT: @MonkLover, I just saw that you acknowledged the added dialogue a few posts later; sorry about that.
Of all the new stuff I am perhaps most looking forward to the 30+ new areas. I do believe that's more than TotSC had, and it was sold as an expansion pack. Completely new, high quality areas have always been difficult for modders to add, considering how stunning the backgrounds look in BG2. I'd be willing to pay that amount just to get so much (basically an expanion's worth) of extra high quality gameplay content to what is maybe my favorite game of all time.
THEN we can consider the 4 new NPC's complete with quests and voice acting, the 350k words, numerous fixes and improvements to the engine, the Black Pits, even better looking areas, new portraits/voices and so on...
Yeah, 20€ sounds like one hell of a bargain to me, no matter how I look at it. Preordered as soon as I saw the news.
What are you talking about? What 30+ new areas?! and 4 new NPCs are 3 from BG1EE and only 1 new one. Ah, I see. 30+ new areas are only for new NPCs. I hate that. That is not a selling point for me.. I don't want to be forced to take new NPCs. And new areas in BG1EE were bad. If these are same, I would rather play without them.
It says "over 30 new locations" right there on the announcement page. To my knowledge it also hasn't been stated that you need the new NPCs to gain access to the new areas. My guess is that some of them do, but not all. I would agree that it would be a shame if all of them needed you to have one or more of the new NPCs in your party at the time, even though I will certainly get each of them in my party at least once anyway on one of my playthroughs.
You can also see at least a few of these new areas in the gameplay trailer and the screenshots, and they look great. Definitely an improvement over the BG1EE ones in my opinion, and up there with the rest of the BG2 areas, some maybe even better. As for BG1EE, I think the mountain/temple areas at least looked nice, even though Neera's quest area could've been better.
Not counting the 3 NPCs that also existed in BG1EE is just silly. It's like saying Minsc and Jaheira don't count as NPCs in BG2 because they were in BG1 as well. They require just as much writing, quest design etc. as characters completely new to the series.
Plus, I'm really optimistic about content revolving around the NPCs introduced in BGEE. All three clearly were set up to have lots of stuff to do around Athkatla and beyond.
Comments
~ Captain Obvious
*sorry if my story's boring, there's always the TLDR>Skip option.
If you think your average GOG customer looking for a digital download for BG isn't factoring mods into their consideration you're in denial. And that's what this thread is about.
BGEE was worth the money, but BG2EE brings nothing important to the table.
'The History of the Dog of Beams'
At least then we could find out what happened with Atari.
You bring up a good point. People tend to forget that BG:EE is actually a very different game from vanilla BG. Sure, it's basically, Tutu, but Tutu is a pain in the ass to install. With BG:EE, you're basically paying for convenience, which I was fine with. BG 2 doesn't have the same problems as the original though; it's perfectly playable as is with just the widescreen mod.
Yes, and I really hope that they expanded the strongholds (if they were allowed to) or at least added them to ToB.
I'm the guy that made Weapons and Armor fixes for Skyrim, which covered something like 3000+ item fixes. I've build similar lists (probably containing upwards a thousand issues) for BG:EE, and Beamdog, to their credit, were like "damn, you're right, that should be fixed." and they fixed all of them within the week (I think it was in version 2011, but I can't remember for sure). And keep in mind that BG:EE used the fixpacks from the start, which supposedly contained 'all the bug fixes'.
If the art asset didn't lose , i can pay more money for HD version, if beamdog can give me better UI , water , weather , spell effects , stable multi-play , more story ,quests, features , i can pay more and more bucks for expansion pack,
I pay the money and find the fun from the game , the main concern for me is " how amazing " features beamdong can bring to us in the near future ? Do they have enough capabilities and resources to take the money from us ?
THEN we can consider the 4 new NPC's complete with quests and voice acting, the 350k words, numerous fixes and improvements to the engine, the Black Pits, even better looking areas, new portraits/voices and so on...
Yeah, 20€ sounds like one hell of a bargain to me, no matter how I look at it. Preordered as soon as I saw the news.
Oh who am I kidding, I'll buy it right now!
-Trent Oster @TrentOster 3 Sep
@ crawek Yeah, we found the original 24 bit renders, the color depth is much better than the 256 color compressed stuff BGII shipped with.-Trent Oster @ TrentOster 6h
@ crawek That is correct, all BGII background areas and our new areas look a lot better.
No mod out there can offer that!
Ah, I see. 30+ new areas are only for new NPCs. I hate that. That is not a selling point for me.. I don't want to be forced to take new NPCs. And new areas in BG1EE were bad. If these are same, I would rather play without them.
All for the equivalent cost of 3 hours working @ minimum wage (US). Given that the massive scope and length of BG2+TOB makes BG1 look like a short romp in the Cloakwood by comparison, it seems only natural that the price would be a few dollars more.
EDIT: @MonkLover, I just saw that you acknowledged the added dialogue a few posts later; sorry about that.
You can also see at least a few of these new areas in the gameplay trailer and the screenshots, and they look great. Definitely an improvement over the BG1EE ones in my opinion, and up there with the rest of the BG2 areas, some maybe even better. As for BG1EE, I think the mountain/temple areas at least looked nice, even though Neera's quest area could've been better.
Not counting the 3 NPCs that also existed in BG1EE is just silly. It's like saying Minsc and Jaheira don't count as NPCs in BG2 because they were in BG1 as well. They require just as much writing, quest design etc. as characters completely new to the series.