You don't (necessarily) receive an email telling you that you've been given beta access. Just log in to your account on beamdog.com and check whether the BG2:EE Private Beta appears under My Games. If it's there, you have access, and you should start the Beamdog Client to download the Beta.
So why does this patch have a release date when the others did not have one? Is the beta over? Are all the regressions fixed?
This patch has a release date as we used our testing staff to confirm all the fixes. The open beta began when all of the BGII:EE known issues had been fixed and confirmed. We would wanted to let everyone try out the beta for longer however the holiday break is forcing our hand.
With slightly less than 24 hours left before the patch is released, I thought I would give you all a glimpse of the issues that will be resolved in the final patch that aren't noted in the release notes:
- Hexxat responds correctly when the player tells her that she's finally free - Dorn and Rasaad each speak the correct lines when they banter - Anomen now speaks the correct lines in his banter with Dorn - Importing a character from BG:EE now carries the portrait over, if it was one of the new Jason Manley ones* - Theyeredahl no longer gets stuck in a dialogue loop with the player - Hexxat and Keldorn now say the correct lines when they banter with each other - Malaaq should now only appear once, and only after the lamp has been activated - Imported characters now possess the correct number of hit points - The portal when leaving Sendai's Enclave no longer displays a black border - Imported characters no longer show erroneous weapons in the quick weapon slots at the start of Shadows of Amn - Gender, Race, and Alignment text fields now display at the correct font size on the Record screen - Identified items no longer display the blue "unidentified" tint when seen in the Quick Loot bar - Off-hand weapons no longer change the color of main-hand weapons - The Show Subtitles option has been removed from the Language screen** - The Web spell now displays the correct web animations throughout its radius while in effect - Warrior classes now get the correct APR bonuses from their class levels when wielding non-proficient weapons, even after dual-classing - Dual-class characters can once again put weapon proficiencies into weapons that are allowed by either of their active classes once their first class's abilities are restored***
* These portraits are unavailable for selection during character creation, but will carry over for imported characters that already use them. Sound sets still do not import; we are looking at the best way to make these things available; for now, enjoy the portraits on your imported characters.
** If you had already set this option, you'll need to modify your baldur.ini file to disable subtitles once the patch is released. The line to edit is: 'Program Options', 'Show Subtitles', '0',
*** Dual-classed clerics and druids are still limited to weapons allowed by those classes, since clerics and druids are restricted for philosophical reasons.
- Bows and crossbows of infinite ammunition no longer deal double damage with twice the THAC0 bonus - The Rod of Resurrection's spell animation is now properly transparencied
In case people haven't been obsessively refreshing the baldursgateii.com website throughout today, there's now a countdown timer to the patch's release: http://baldursgateii.com/
Be sure to join us starting at (around) 10am MST tomorrow morning for a live twitch stream. Phil and Amber (aka the BeamBard) will be hosting, giving away prizes, and trying to survive a session of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition.
Thanks for all your feedback, everyone; I know you've been waiting a long time for this patch, and we can't wait to give it the official release it deserves.
If your game is unmodded, you can load it in 1.3 with no problems. There may be some cases where a bug that was fixed won't be fixed in your save, if the bug was already affecting your game. If your game is modded heavily you'll need to (at the very least) reapply your mods before loading that save, or you'll encounter some oddities.
At this point we're finished with testing; in fact I'm pretty sure everybody else is at home and either sleeping or enjoying a few hours' reprieve before tomorrow's release. In any case, we don't need saved games for testing.
@Dee is there a quick fix for the issue with melf's meteors and energy blades? If I want to cast those spells I have to accept the wizard with 9 APR forever.
Your save should be fine with the official patch. I like to start my games fresh whenever there's an update, but I'm also well aware that this isn't necessarily "normal" behavior (and my wife makes fun of me every time I do it).
@Dee are these additional fixes regarding regressions or are these just more regular fixes? If the latter, do you plan to put it into patch release notes doc later, or the WotC approval proccess is too much of a hassle to bother? It would be cool to have *all* patch notes in one place.
A couple of them are old bugs that we were able to fix, but most of them are regressions. Modifying the release notes document at this stage would be a poor use of time, but that's not to say we can't change them after the patch is released.
At this point we're finished with testing; in fact I'm pretty sure everybody else is at home and either sleeping or enjoying a few hours' reprieve before tomorrow's release.
Comments
- Hexxat responds correctly when the player tells her that she's finally free
- Dorn and Rasaad each speak the correct lines when they banter
- Anomen now speaks the correct lines in his banter with Dorn
- Importing a character from BG:EE now carries the portrait over, if it was one of the new Jason Manley ones*
- Theyeredahl no longer gets stuck in a dialogue loop with the player
- Hexxat and Keldorn now say the correct lines when they banter with each other
- Malaaq should now only appear once, and only after the lamp has been activated
- Imported characters now possess the correct number of hit points
- The portal when leaving Sendai's Enclave no longer displays a black border
- Imported characters no longer show erroneous weapons in the quick weapon slots at the start of Shadows of Amn
- Gender, Race, and Alignment text fields now display at the correct font size on the Record screen
- Identified items no longer display the blue "unidentified" tint when seen in the Quick Loot bar
- Off-hand weapons no longer change the color of main-hand weapons
- The Show Subtitles option has been removed from the Language screen**
- The Web spell now displays the correct web animations throughout its radius while in effect
- Warrior classes now get the correct APR bonuses from their class levels when wielding non-proficient weapons, even after dual-classing
- Dual-class characters can once again put weapon proficiencies into weapons that are allowed by either of their active classes once their first class's abilities are restored***
* These portraits are unavailable for selection during character creation, but will carry over for imported characters that already use them. Sound sets still do not import; we are looking at the best way to make these things available; for now, enjoy the portraits on your imported characters.
** If you had already set this option, you'll need to modify your baldur.ini file to disable subtitles once the patch is released. The line to edit is: 'Program Options', 'Show Subtitles', '0',
*** Dual-classed clerics and druids are still limited to weapons allowed by those classes, since clerics and druids are restricted for philosophical reasons.
- Bows and crossbows of infinite ammunition no longer deal double damage with twice the THAC0 bonus
- The Rod of Resurrection's spell animation is now properly transparencied
Be sure to join us starting at (around) 10am MST tomorrow morning for a live twitch stream. Phil and Amber (aka the BeamBard) will be hosting, giving away prizes, and trying to survive a session of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition.
Thanks for all your feedback, everyone; I know you've been waiting a long time for this patch, and we can't wait to give it the official release it deserves.
1° - It's dangerous to pass a 1.2 game to 1.3? Specially if it's heavly modded?
2° - Does Beamdog have any interest in games passed from 1.2 to 1.3 to test bugs and does modded games count for this?
yaaaaay
At this point we're finished with testing; in fact I'm pretty sure everybody else is at home and either sleeping or enjoying a few hours' reprieve before tomorrow's release. In any case, we don't need saved games for testing.
Is the official patch going to effect my saved game or should I just download the the patch tomorrow and start the game over?