I wouldn't go that far - one of the first topics on the GOG forum is a basic list of essential mods and recommended install order, along with brief descriptions of what each one does. It's not exactly rocket science.
Yes defeating Beholders is much harder than installing a BG 2 Fixpack, but defeating Beholders is also much more fun. :P
I usually have more fun installing (or making) mods than fighting Beholders, but I'm weird like that
I'm aware that normal people don't usually behave in this manner
On a serious note, @Heindrich1988, I would agree with you, if the EE were to provide a bugless as well as a hassle free experience, but I fail to understand how waiting more than one year for several patches that didn't even fix all the nasty bugs in the EE is better than spending few minutes (or even hours to exaggerate) to patch/mod the original games until they have almost no bugs whatsoever and in particular no nasty bugs at all.
@Erg : While it indeed took a year to achieve a good state for the EE, its current version is in a pretty good shape bug-wise.
I'll have to take your word for it
I've stopped playing BGEE in February and been playing the original from GOG since then. I just can't play anymore without some of my favourite (and not yet converted) mods.
Edit: However, by simply looking at the Bug section of this Forums, it looks like the situation may be worse than what you are suggesting. Still, I can't speak from direct experience
The bug forum is a mess in large part due to the number of people who post bugs without checking to see if their issue has already been reported. There are some duplicate and triplicate bug threads there that haven't been cleaned up yet, but it's not exactly an accurate depiction of the number of issues that are in the game.
I am perfectly aware of what the limitations were, and there is no excuse for not actually providing new hi rez sprites for the game. not only a missed opportunity, but an abject failure.
With all due respect, you don't seem perfectly aware of said limitations. I would suggest - rather than ignoring people's points and restating your assertions over and over again - that you actually read some of the extensive threads and posts addressing the issue.
How most discourse is conducted:
1. Point 2. Counter-point 3. Rebuttal
How the arguments in this thread have been going:
1. Point 2. "Dont care, [insert mean-spirited jab here], no excuses, my subjective opinions are unequivocal fact."
Absolutism and obstinance are poor replacements for constructive dialogue (I'm no exception; I can be stubborn as hell sometimes too). It might help to look at the facts, put yourself in Beamdog's shoes, do a little number crunching, and see if you could have accomplished everything in your OP with the same team and the same resources while also pleasing fans who wanted new NPCs and new content.
You don't have to believe it, but releasing this game on four vastly different operating systems is a big lift for a company this small. If Bioware had decided to release an Enhanced Edition, I'm sure we would've gotten something quite different - but they didn't, because large developers have completely abandoned any interest in this franchise.
Luckily, a small team of devs who actually love the game decided to pick it back up and breathe new life into it. If you can't see the value in that over - what was it, animated portraits? - then I don't know what to tell you.
The bug forum is a mess in large part due to the number of people who post bugs without checking to see if their issue has already been reported. There are some duplicate and triplicate bug threads there that haven't been cleaned up yet, but it's not exactly an accurate depiction of the number of issues that are in the game.
Can you honestly say that the Enhanced Edition has currently less (or even the same number of) bugs than the GOG version + fixpack ?
Even dividing the number of bug reports by 3 to account for duplicates, even subtracting some of them to account for non issues, they still seem a lot to me.
Most of the bugs fixed by the EE and still present in vanilla, on the other hand, are or very small ones or exploits that the users have to actively trigger.
Granted, the EE has some nice features missing to vanilla and these, together with the under the hood improvements, should be its selling points, but bugwise it's still a mess imho, and mods and foreign languages support is even worse.
@Erg, if you haven't played BG:EE since February, and don't own BG2:EE, then I don't think you do have a good view or knowledge of the current state of the game There's quite a difference between the amount of threads and the real amount of bugs, and BG:EE has a very low amount of bugs currently, none beeing critical. BG2:EE vanilla content also has very few bugs, most of them (even critical ones) are mostly due to the additional content.
I don't know what to tell you about mods. We're not a modding company; making mods work has always been the responsibility of modders. Our language support is done almost entirely by volunteers, too.
I can tell you that the 1.2 patch you haven't yet experienced resolved well over 600 issues. I can tell you that a lot of the "bugs" being reported are either caused by mods, user error, or a misunderstanding of something that's actually working as intended. And then there are a lot of issues that are actually one issue being encountered multiple ways. And then there are issues that are small edge-cases that have been there since 1998 and are only being discovered now because players are looking for them (and those are worth fixing too).
It's also worth noting that the category's thread-count includes the threads from any subcategories; so you're seeing a count of 2.9K, but 1.9K of that is issues that have already been moved to either "Fixed" or "Not an Issue" already. The remaining 1000 are being cleaned up and looked at, but--again--not all of those issues are real "bugs", not all of them are unique, and not all of them are new.
Setting all of that aside, there are still some issues that need to be looked at, and they are being looked at. I just don't want you thinking that the game is buggy just because there's a lot of bug threads. If you want to know how stable the game is, play it for yourself; you'll see the difference.
Having played through BGEE multiple times recently I'd say it is now at pretty similar level to vBG1 + Fixpack. BG2EE is unfortunately more buggier than BG2 + Fixpack though. However I have no doubt that one day they will get BG2EE fixed too. There's already been one patch, and it was never nearly as buggy BGEE was at release to start with. I really doubt it will take a year this time to fix most of the glitches.
Also as Dee pointed out many of the bug reports are reporting the same issue. This was especially true with the memory leak as it could manifest itself in almost countless ways.
As for backgrounds, I wasnt wanting them changed in any way, but smart localized post effects could add more realistic water effects, or better/smoother foliage animations for example. At no point should the hand drawn art be changed or replaced, as that would be no different than content replacement and would alter the feel too much.
Its all opinion though. I am VERY happy that Overhaul was not allowed to alter the core game, as that would detract from the experience. BG and BGII should not have new content put in by anyone other than the original creators, its akin to someone grabbing a classic novel and inserting additional fanfic chapters. Just no.
Well, with how legal issues go with wording, when they're not allowed to change the core game, that may or may not include chaging/adding effects on the already existing backgrounds. They may have not been allowed to do these improvements you are suggesting, I don't know, has it ever been stated what exactly they can do to the existing stuff? But these limitations made so that the content already there stays the way it is, entirely, from what I can tell...
And I mostly what I wanted changed in the core games was integrating the new NPCs more so that their existance is atleast properly acknowledged by the world...
Sure, I'll do that once all my favourite mods are made compatible with the EE (or equivalent new ones have been released). I know that it isn't your responsibility to convert mods, but still I simply can't play without anymore.
By then, hopefully, even more bugs will have been fixed and, if I like what I see, I may even buy BG2:EE
I don't know what to tell you about mods. We're not a modding company; making mods work has always been the responsibility of modders. Our language support is done almost entirely by volunteers, too.
I'm not assigning blame here. I know it isn't your fault, and besides you were always transparent from the start on this topic, but this doesn't change the fact that mods and foreign languages support is almost nonexistent. For the latter (i.e. foreign languages) is even worse because the original games had official support for it.
Sure, I'll do that once all my favourite mods are made compatible with the EE (or equivalent new ones have been released). I know that it isn't your responsibility to convert mods, but still I simply can't play without anymore.
By then, hopefully, even more bugs will have been fixed and, if I like what I see, I may even buy BG2:EE
I'm not even sure what to say to this. I assumed that people complaining about bugs had played the game and run into a ton of issues. If you haven't even played the game, then you have absolutely no way to judge the playing experience. I've played through BG2EE twice, and I've run into maybe 3 or 4 bugs that actually affected play; all of them had very simple workarounds and didn't impact my second playthrough at all.
As of this posting, there are 59 mods listed as compatible with BG2EE. Maybe the specific one you want isn't yet updated, but that's a far cry from saying that mods are almost nonexistent. Acting like someone owes you a mod update is just absurd. Mods are unofficial, created by the gaming community. If a mod is so important to you, then learn how to update it yourself instead of blaming the game developer.
I assumed that people complaining about bugs had played the game and run into a ton of issues. If you haven't even played the game, then you have absolutely no way to judge the playing experience.
I did play BG1:EE (until February) and I did run into a ton of issues. Besides, after February, while not really playing, I kept testing the game, making mods for it, reproducing bugs, etc. So, I'm really not as clueless as you think I am ;-)
I've played through BG2EE twice, and I've run into maybe 3 or 4 bugs that actually affected play; all of them had very simple workarounds and didn't impact my second playthrough at all.
I never commented about BG2:EE and I will never do until I have it. However, this kind of arguments are not new to me. I read the same comments one year ago when I was literally drowning in BG1:EE bugs. Some people just don't see the bugs, or, if they do, they aren't bothered by them, but that doesn't mean that the bugs aren't there. I think the devs are currently working on fixing more than the 3-4 bugs you have experienced
As of this posting, there are 59 mods listed as compatible with BG2EE. Maybe the specific one you want isn't yet updated, but that's a far cry from saying that mods are almost nonexistent. Acting like someone owes you a mod update is just absurd. Mods are unofficial, created by the gaming community. If a mod is so important to you, then learn how to update it yourself instead of blaming the game developer.
Again, I was speaking about the mods for BG1:EE as I don't have BG2:EE.
@Erg: 3. You could just as easily argue that Keldorn is a better option than Dorn too - not only does he have higher CON and can wield Carsomyr, but his Dispel Magic abilities are far more useful in BG2 than Dorn's Aura of Despair.
You can't compare Dorn to Keldorn without mentioning Dorn's poison weapon ability. It is in my opinion the strongest mechanic throughout the entire series. Dispel magic is nice and all but poison allows you to completely nullify many mages in BG2 and you can immediately turn your partys attention to other threats while he has crippling spell failure. And let's not forget his Absorb Health ability either.
In my opinion Dorn is more useful than Keldorn until he gets Carsomyr, then Keldorn takes the cake
The bug forum is a mess in large part due to the number of people who post bugs without checking to see if their issue has already been reported. There are some duplicate and triplicate bug threads there that haven't been cleaned up yet, but it's not exactly an accurate depiction of the number of issues that are in the game.
To be fair though does the bugs part of the forum now work with the forum search? At one point it didn't. I'm not sure in this case you can really blame people too much for posting duplicate bug threads when you can only expect the average person to do so much searching.
Anyways, I imagine a lot of the older bugs on the forums bug list may have also been fixed a long time ago.
I don't know if you are referring to me here, but most likely you are and if this is really the case I must work on my communication skills as this isn't even close to what I meant to say
On the one hand it's gratifying as a modder to see BG2 Fixpack get the love it richly deserves. It really was a great group of modders that came together, put aside their own projects, and contribute to a major but generally thankless undertaking.
That being said BGII:EE vs. vBG2+Fixpack feels like a natural comparison, but it's a little more complex than it seems.
The bug issues for BGII:EE seem high because it's receiving a lot more scrutiny than vBG2 or Fixpack ever received. Some stuff thought fixed by Fixpack turned out to be incomplete or flat-out wrong when we've released stuff to testers; we've also found a lot of really glaringly obvious bugs that left me wondering why no one spotted them in the decade+ that the game's been out. In terms of manpower Fixpack is a couple of guys with flashlights looking for bugs; the beta testing team and the players are a few thousand spotlights.
Another problem is that it's rare to have a vBG2+Fixpack install without mods on top of it. It's difficult to discern the true source of a bug when it's BG2+Fixpack+5, 10, 20+ mods. Players, when encountering a bug in this situation, are likely to blame mods (or mods clashing) for the bug when it may actually be an original game bug.
Does EE have bugs? Are there bugs that are regressions from vBG2? As a commercial product should EE be held to a higher standard? Yes, on all counts, and the work is constant to address these. My post is not meant to excuse EE, merely to provide some perspective on the scope of these issues from someone who's somewhat familiar with both.
Im not here to bash and I am certainly not anti EE in any way contrary to what some people claim (there is a huge difference between critiquing and bashing) . Apart from the Pits and I have no real issue with whats been done to the game, only what wasn't done. Personally I feel that forgoing the NPCs and the Pits and focusing 100% of the effort on enhancing existing content and bug fixing would should have been the course taken.
Yes, I FULLY understand the complexities of game creation seeing as I work in the industry, and am a commentator and reviewer in addition to this.
The split focus imo lead to a product that was far less than it should have been. The only reason I play EE over modded vanilla is because of the zoom functionality. The mods I use are only Fix packs, and tweaks that in no way alter the core mechanics or content of the game.
I would not recommend EE to anyone over the GOG edition unless that person was completely new to the franchise and completely opposed to taking 30mins to apply a few mods. There is just nothing in the EE that makes it significantly superior to the GOG version. That the tragedy here, and why I feel the team has failed in many respects. Its also why when people ask me for my advice of which to get I almost always direct them to GOG rather than Beamdog.
There is a lot to recommend with the EE but taken as a whole its not worth the 150% price premium they're asking, and certainly not worth picking up if you already own the game.
On the one hand it's gratifying as a modder to see BG2 Fixpack get the love it richly deserves. It really was a great group of modders that came together, put aside their own projects, and contribute to a major but generally thankless undertaking.
That being said BGII:EE vs. vBG2+Fixpack feels like a natural comparison, but it's a little more complex than it seems.
The bug issues for BGII:EE seem high because it's receiving a lot more scrutiny than vBG2 or Fixpack ever received. Some stuff thought fixed by Fixpack turned out to be incomplete or flat-out wrong when we've released stuff to testers; we've also found a lot of really glaringly obvious bugs that left me wondering why no one spotted them in the decade+ that the game's been out. In terms of manpower Fixpack is a couple of guys with flashlights looking for bugs; the beta testing team and the players are a few thousand spotlights.
Another problem is that it's rare to have a vBG2+Fixpack install without mods on top of it. It's difficult to discern the true source of a bug when it's BG2+Fixpack+5, 10, 20+ mods. Players, when encountering a bug in this situation, are likely to blame mods (or mods clashing) for the bug when it may actually be an original game bug.
Does EE have bugs? Are there bugs that are regressions from vBG2? As a commercial product should EE be held to a higher standard? Yes, on all counts, and the work is constant to address these. My post is not meant to excuse EE, merely to provide some perspective on the scope of these issues from someone who's somewhat familiar with both.
Im not here to bash and I am certainly not anti EE in any way contrary to what some people claim (there is a huge difference between critiquing and bashing)
Sorry dude, but even though you're entitled to your opinion, flat-out calling the whole project "a failure", dismissing new content you don't like as "worthless", among other hyperbole, qualifies as bashing - at least in my book.
Opening a thread with the primary purpose to dismiss the "enhanced" in "Enhanced Edition" with a condescending tone and calling it mere critique is insulting to everyone who's been able to provide sensible, level-headed, objective criticism. It's the equivalent of every "I'm not racist, but..." argument.
Apart from the Pits and I have no real issue with whats been done to the game, only what wasn't done. Personally I feel that forgoing the NPCs and the Pits and focusing 100% of the effort on enhancing existing content and bug fixing would should have been the course taken.
Now that's pertinent criticism, too bad it's completely different in tone from the majority of what you say.
Yes, I FULLY understand the complexities of game creation seeing as I work in the industry, and am a commentator and reviewer in addition to this.
Do you, now? Because I've seen at least 3 or 4 posts linking to old threads who explain why things haven't turned out the way you feel they ought to have, which apparently have been ignored.
And what's with the vague credential waving? You "work in the industry", that's great. For whom? Doing what? The cleaning staff at Beamdog's offices could also claim they "work in the industry" and it doesn't give them any more insight on game developing than me or anyone else here.
A commentator. Is that a title now? Because I guess everyone who has posted anything in these forums or on any other website, ever, could also be considered a "commentator".
Reviewer? Where? For what website? I really think that if you are a reputed/experienced reviewer, you ought to have better spelling. Even if English isn't your primary language.
There is a lot to recommend with the EE but taken as a whole its not worth the 150% price premium they're asking, and certainly not worth picking up if you already own the game.
The 150% difference isn't a "premium" when the other product has a low price for being practically abandonware. The price difference doesn't only go towards the game itself, it goes toward the very structure (Beamdog) that keeps all recent development cycles and continued support going on. I'm not an industry insider and I can figure that out. Why can't you?
1. Point 2. "Dont care, [insert mean-spirited jab here], no excuses, my subjective opinions are unequivocal fact."
This is basically how ALL anti-EE threads go, which is why I didn't bother with a point-by-point refutation. I knew it would be ignored.
I just wanna say something. In mho, stuff like this is one of the most annoying things about internet discussions.
This is coming from an EE fan: Yeah there are a lot of threads here and there bashing the EEs with people being abrasive, illogical and obstinate, but honestly, the two main EE detractors here have not been like that at all. I dislike people dismissing someone's arguments because "some other jerkface I didn't like made similar points in a jerkface way on another thread".
In my opinion, these kind of responses add nothing of value to the conversation, and are rarely, if ever, funny. I think its a very nonconstructive way to make your point and just makes any discussion about what is/is not good about the EEs turn into a personal grudge match where people are FORCED to be obstinate in their views so to avoid ridicule from the people arguing with/poking fun at them if they ever concede a point or two. In other words, it defeats the purpose of even having these conversations
Sorry for my interjection and my possible naivete when it comes to internet discourse (usually just like to say silly shit and make/comment on memes) but I just felt it needed to be said. Let's all get along and follow our favorite halfling pickpocket's advice and "be happy".
There is just nothing in the EE that makes it significantly superior to the GOG version. That the tragedy here, and why I feel the team has failed in many respects.
You're repeating yourself so i'm just going to focus on this one line and list a couple:
*New Kits *The New interface *Zoom function *No loading screens *Other platform compatibility *Better tech support (it is still being actively worked on by both the developers and modders) *Better modding capabilities
and even if you don't agree and it is all a matter of opinion: *New NPCs *New Items *New Areas *New Campaign
If the $25 seems to steep, I'd just tell them to wait for a sale and purchase it then. BG:EE could of been had for 75% off just awhile ago so, in time (probably after xmas) bgII:ee will be knocked down as well.
It was partly at you, but almost entirely directed towards other posters in other threads I've read this past while. The hypocrisy of a group of people who are inaccurately identified by me as people who think 'this team has no right to modify the game' at the same time as 'the [non-original team] modded game is better than EE' stings my eyes.
Why are modders good yet Overhaul is bad? To my mind, they're both good (more bugs fixed! more features coming!). I'm also glad to see some of the long-time modders getting paid for their time on BG.
Again I apologise. Got a little upset there and let myself out of hand. -_- I am going to head from this thread and back to the testing now. n.n'
Just to clarify even more my position on the points you raised:
1) I don't think that the original game is better than the EE (for instance the EE engine is clearly superior), but for a series of reasons (the ones in this thread are only some of them) I currently prefer to play the original games. It isn't about objective truth, like @Schneidend seems to think, but rather about feelings and likes and dislikes. This is also likely due to change as the EE improve even further. I will definitely switch to the EE when I will feel it appropriate.
2) I don't think that the new content is worse than the original, even though it feels a bit different, and I don't deny some nostalgic attachment to the original content and that's why I would like the possibility to selectively disable some (or all) of the new content just to experience (at least once) the vanilla content with all the enhancement of the improved EE engine.
Im not here to bash and I am certainly not anti EE in any way contrary to what some people claim (there is a huge difference between critiquing and bashing) .
I'm not here to bash you as a forumite. Contrary to what you might think, I am not trolling you. I appreciate that you log on to your account and comment on things...
But I think everything you say is worthless garbage because I don't like what you say.
I don't care about any positive contributions you may or may not have made to the forum, I have made my mind up about you and I will ignore and dismiss all evidence to the contrary. I am a commentator you see, and a reviewer, so what I say is sacrosanct and cannot be denied.
I am not bashing you, I am just 'critiquing', there is a difference you know.
Seriously, if I made a thread attacking an individual in the way you have attacked Beamdog, I think I'd get banned for trolling.
People like you abuse Freedom of Speech and think it's freedom to say whatever I like with no regard for factual accuracy, logic or reasoning.
Critique is welcome in these forums, but most complaints (I'd give it about a 99%) tend to end up being opinions and "They didn't do what I wanted them to do, game is bad!"
If you fully feel that mods can do everything the Enhanced Edition does, then go for that, if not, then you're going to have to pay for the game, and 20$ or 25$ is not that bad for a recent release (or re-release in this case really)... They could be charging the full game price of 60 for it...
Just to clarify even more my position on the points you raised:
1) I don't think that the original game is better than the EE (for instance the EE engine is clearly superior), but for a series of reasons (the ones in this thread are only some of them) I currently prefer to play the original games. It isn't about objective truth, like @Schneidend seems to think, but rather about feelings and likes and dislikes. This is also likely due to change as the EE improve even further. I will definitely switch to the EE when I will feel it appropriate.
2) I don't think that the new content is worse than the original, even though it feels a bit different, and I don't deny some nostalgic attachment to the original content and that's why I would like the possibility to selectively disable some (or all) of the new content just to experience (at least once) the vanilla content with all the enhancement of the improved EE engine.
I'm fine with likes and dislikes, but when people allow their feelings to override basic courtesy or logic, problems arise. I know you don't play EE out of preference, Erg, I get that EE's new content doesn't jive with your sensibilities. That's fine, whatever. But, at least you recognize lists of EE's virtues as something of merit, that work has been done and continues to be done. Among EE's critics, that level of awareness makes you UNIQUE, however, which frustrates me to no end. @cryocore is not like you.
Comments
I'm aware that normal people don't usually behave in this manner
On a serious note, @Heindrich1988, I would agree with you, if the EE were to provide a bugless as well as a hassle free experience, but I fail to understand how waiting more than one year for several patches that didn't even fix all the nasty bugs in the EE is better than spending few minutes (or even hours to exaggerate) to patch/mod the original games until they have almost no bugs whatsoever and in particular no nasty bugs at all.
I've stopped playing BGEE in February and been playing the original from GOG since then. I just can't play anymore without some of my favourite (and not yet converted) mods.
Edit: However, by simply looking at the Bug section of this Forums, it looks like the situation may be worse than what you are suggesting. Still, I can't speak from direct experience
How most discourse is conducted:
1. Point
2. Counter-point
3. Rebuttal
How the arguments in this thread have been going:
1. Point
2. "Dont care, [insert mean-spirited jab here], no excuses, my subjective opinions are unequivocal fact."
Absolutism and obstinance are poor replacements for constructive dialogue (I'm no exception; I can be stubborn as hell sometimes too). It might help to look at the facts, put yourself in Beamdog's shoes, do a little number crunching, and see if you could have accomplished everything in your OP with the same team and the same resources while also pleasing fans who wanted new NPCs and new content.
You don't have to believe it, but releasing this game on four vastly different operating systems is a big lift for a company this small. If Bioware had decided to release an Enhanced Edition, I'm sure we would've gotten something quite different - but they didn't, because large developers have completely abandoned any interest in this franchise.
Luckily, a small team of devs who actually love the game decided to pick it back up and breathe new life into it. If you can't see the value in that over - what was it, animated portraits? - then I don't know what to tell you.
Can you honestly say that the Enhanced Edition has currently less (or even the same number of) bugs than the GOG version + fixpack ?
Even dividing the number of bug reports by 3 to account for duplicates, even subtracting some of them to account for non issues, they still seem a lot to me.
Most of the bugs fixed by the EE and still present in vanilla, on the other hand, are or very small ones or exploits that the users have to actively trigger.
Granted, the EE has some nice features missing to vanilla and these, together with the under the hood improvements, should be its selling points, but bugwise it's still a mess imho, and mods and foreign languages support is even worse.
There's quite a difference between the amount of threads and the real amount of bugs, and BG:EE has a very low amount of bugs currently, none beeing critical.
BG2:EE vanilla content also has very few bugs, most of them (even critical ones) are mostly due to the additional content.
I can tell you that the 1.2 patch you haven't yet experienced resolved well over 600 issues. I can tell you that a lot of the "bugs" being reported are either caused by mods, user error, or a misunderstanding of something that's actually working as intended. And then there are a lot of issues that are actually one issue being encountered multiple ways. And then there are issues that are small edge-cases that have been there since 1998 and are only being discovered now because players are looking for them (and those are worth fixing too).
It's also worth noting that the category's thread-count includes the threads from any subcategories; so you're seeing a count of 2.9K, but 1.9K of that is issues that have already been moved to either "Fixed" or "Not an Issue" already. The remaining 1000 are being cleaned up and looked at, but--again--not all of those issues are real "bugs", not all of them are unique, and not all of them are new.
Setting all of that aside, there are still some issues that need to be looked at, and they are being looked at. I just don't want you thinking that the game is buggy just because there's a lot of bug threads. If you want to know how stable the game is, play it for yourself; you'll see the difference.
Also as Dee pointed out many of the bug reports are reporting the same issue. This was especially true with the memory leak as it could manifest itself in almost countless ways.
And I mostly what I wanted changed in the core games was integrating the new NPCs more so that their existance is atleast properly acknowledged by the world...
Sure, I'll do that once all my favourite mods are made compatible with the EE (or equivalent new ones have been released). I know that it isn't your responsibility to convert mods, but still I simply can't play without anymore.
By then, hopefully, even more bugs will have been fixed and, if I like what I see, I may even buy BG2:EE
Edit: To avoid double post. I'm not assigning blame here. I know it isn't your fault, and besides you were always transparent from the start on this topic, but this doesn't change the fact that mods and foreign languages support is almost nonexistent. For the latter (i.e. foreign languages) is even worse because the original games had official support for it.
As of this posting, there are 59 mods listed as compatible with BG2EE. Maybe the specific one you want isn't yet updated, but that's a far cry from saying that mods are almost nonexistent. Acting like someone owes you a mod update is just absurd. Mods are unofficial, created by the gaming community. If a mod is so important to you, then learn how to update it yourself instead of blaming the game developer.
I did play BG1:EE (until February) and I did run into a ton of issues. Besides, after February, while not really playing, I kept testing the game, making mods for it, reproducing bugs, etc. So, I'm really not as clueless as you think I am ;-) I never commented about BG2:EE and I will never do until I have it. However, this kind of arguments are not new to me. I read the same comments one year ago when I was literally drowning in BG1:EE bugs. Some people just don't see the bugs, or, if they do, they aren't bothered by them, but that doesn't mean that the bugs aren't there. I think the devs are currently working on fixing more than the 3-4 bugs you have experienced
Edit: I'm blaming the developer, really ?
Let's quote myself
In my opinion Dorn is more useful than Keldorn until he gets Carsomyr, then Keldorn takes the cake
Anyways, I imagine a lot of the older bugs on the forums bug list may have also been fixed a long time ago.
I don't know if you are referring to me here, but most likely you are and if this is really the case I must work on my communication skills as this isn't even close to what I meant to say
That being said BGII:EE vs. vBG2+Fixpack feels like a natural comparison, but it's a little more complex than it seems.
The bug issues for BGII:EE seem high because it's receiving a lot more scrutiny than vBG2 or Fixpack ever received. Some stuff thought fixed by Fixpack turned out to be incomplete or flat-out wrong when we've released stuff to testers; we've also found a lot of really glaringly obvious bugs that left me wondering why no one spotted them in the decade+ that the game's been out. In terms of manpower Fixpack is a couple of guys with flashlights looking for bugs; the beta testing team and the players are a few thousand spotlights.
Another problem is that it's rare to have a vBG2+Fixpack install without mods on top of it. It's difficult to discern the true source of a bug when it's BG2+Fixpack+5, 10, 20+ mods. Players, when encountering a bug in this situation, are likely to blame mods (or mods clashing) for the bug when it may actually be an original game bug.
Does EE have bugs? Are there bugs that are regressions from vBG2? As a commercial product should EE be held to a higher standard? Yes, on all counts, and the work is constant to address these. My post is not meant to excuse EE, merely to provide some perspective on the scope of these issues from someone who's somewhat familiar with both.
Yes, I FULLY understand the complexities of game creation seeing as I work in the industry, and am a commentator and reviewer in addition to this.
The split focus imo lead to a product that was far less than it should have been. The only reason I play EE over modded vanilla is because of the zoom functionality. The mods I use are only Fix packs, and tweaks that in no way alter the core mechanics or content of the game.
I would not recommend EE to anyone over the GOG edition unless that person was completely new to the franchise and completely opposed to taking 30mins to apply a few mods. There is just nothing in the EE that makes it significantly superior to the GOG version. That the tragedy here, and why I feel the team has failed in many respects. Its also why when people ask me for my advice of which to get I almost always direct them to GOG rather than Beamdog.
There is a lot to recommend with the EE but taken as a whole its not worth the 150% price premium they're asking, and certainly not worth picking up if you already own the game.
As always, your intellectual honesty is much appreciated
Opening a thread with the primary purpose to dismiss the "enhanced" in "Enhanced Edition" with a condescending tone and calling it mere critique is insulting to everyone who's been able to provide sensible, level-headed, objective criticism. It's the equivalent of every "I'm not racist, but..." argument. Now that's pertinent criticism, too bad it's completely different in tone from the majority of what you say. Do you, now? Because I've seen at least 3 or 4 posts linking to old threads who explain why things haven't turned out the way you feel they ought to have, which apparently have been ignored.
And what's with the vague credential waving? You "work in the industry", that's great. For whom? Doing what? The cleaning staff at Beamdog's offices could also claim they "work in the industry" and it doesn't give them any more insight on game developing than me or anyone else here.
A commentator. Is that a title now? Because I guess everyone who has posted anything in these forums or on any other website, ever, could also be considered a "commentator".
Reviewer? Where? For what website? I really think that if you are a reputed/experienced reviewer, you ought to have better spelling. Even if English isn't your primary language. The 150% difference isn't a "premium" when the other product has a low price for being practically abandonware. The price difference doesn't only go towards the game itself, it goes toward the very structure (Beamdog) that keeps all recent development cycles and continued support going on. I'm not an industry insider and I can figure that out. Why can't you?
This is coming from an EE fan:
Yeah there are a lot of threads here and there bashing the EEs with people being abrasive, illogical and obstinate, but honestly, the two main EE detractors here have not been like that at all. I dislike people dismissing someone's arguments because "some other jerkface I didn't like made similar points in a jerkface way on another thread".
In my opinion, these kind of responses add nothing of value to the conversation, and are rarely, if ever, funny. I think its a very nonconstructive way to make your point and just makes any discussion about what is/is not good about the EEs turn into a personal grudge match where people are FORCED to be obstinate in their views so to avoid ridicule from the people arguing with/poking fun at them if they ever concede a point or two. In other words, it defeats the purpose of even having these conversations
Sorry for my interjection and my possible naivete when it comes to internet discourse (usually just like to say silly shit and make/comment on memes) but I just felt it needed to be said. Let's all get along and follow our favorite halfling pickpocket's advice and "be happy".
*New Kits
*The New interface
*Zoom function
*No loading screens
*Other platform compatibility
*Better tech support (it is still being actively worked on by both the developers and modders)
*Better modding capabilities
and even if you don't agree and it is all a matter of opinion:
*New NPCs
*New Items
*New Areas
*New Campaign
AND I am just going to post this right here as well because what you are asking for wasn't feasible from the start:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/1588/bg-ee-please-read-list-of-things-that-can-t-be-done/p1
If the $25 seems to steep, I'd just tell them to wait for a sale and purchase it then. BG:EE could of been had for 75% off just awhile ago so, in time (probably after xmas) bgII:ee will be knocked down as well.
No need to apologise
Just to clarify even more my position on the points you raised:
1) I don't think that the original game is better than the EE (for instance the EE engine is clearly superior), but for a series of reasons (the ones in this thread are only some of them) I currently prefer to play the original games. It isn't about objective truth, like @Schneidend seems to think, but rather about feelings and likes and dislikes. This is also likely due to change as the EE improve even further. I will definitely switch to the EE when I will feel it appropriate.
2) I don't think that the new content is worse than the original, even though it feels a bit different, and I don't deny some nostalgic attachment to the original content and that's why I would like the possibility to selectively disable some (or all) of the new content just to experience (at least once) the vanilla content with all the enhancement of the improved EE engine.
I'm not here to bash you as a forumite. Contrary to what you might think, I am not trolling you. I appreciate that you log on to your account and comment on things...
But I think everything you say is worthless garbage because I don't like what you say.
I don't care about any positive contributions you may or may not have made to the forum, I have made my mind up about you and I will ignore and dismiss all evidence to the contrary. I am a commentator you see, and a reviewer, so what I say is sacrosanct and cannot be denied.
I am not bashing you, I am just 'critiquing', there is a difference you know.
Seriously, if I made a thread attacking an individual in the way you have attacked Beamdog, I think I'd get banned for trolling.
People like you abuse Freedom of Speech and think it's freedom to say whatever I like with no regard for factual accuracy, logic or reasoning.
If you fully feel that mods can do everything the Enhanced Edition does, then go for that, if not, then you're going to have to pay for the game, and 20$ or 25$ is not that bad for a recent release (or re-release in this case really)... They could be charging the full game price of 60 for it...