How will Siege of Dragonspear affect BG:EE?

Simpson1225

With Siege of Dragonspear on it's way, I will certainly be re-playing all the way through all Baldur's Gate games. I'm trying to decide between the following two options though:

1) Run through BG:EE *before* SoD is released, so that I can import the character into SoD on release day.
2) Wait until *after* SoD release day to start from level 1 with BG:EE, so that my run through of BG:EE has any updates included as part of SoD

Which one I choose depends on how much BG:EE will change as a result of SoD being installed. So, questions:

- Will new SoD classes, races, companions be added to BG:EE, or are they only available when playing SoD
- Will the new difficulty levels ('story mode' and 'legacy of Bhaal') be added to BG:EE, so that the full game can be completed on these difficulties?
- Are there any other changes to BG:EE that will come when SoD is installed, that will make it worth waiting until after SoD is released to start BG:EE?

Thanks!

cmk24

I would like to know this as well. As for your questions I *think* the answers are:

- The new class will be added but not the companions (companions are tied to SoD)
- Yes
- New GUI, path finding, and all the other things being updated in the IE

I would like to know if there is any chance BG:EE can get any new things patched in ~2 weeks before the release of SoD so we can have characters ready for release day. If not I will wait for SoD to be out before doing my next play through.

Gallowglass

What the cheesy marketing consultants will advise Beamdog to do is make the BG1ee update first available as an integral component of BG:SoD installation, so that the only way to get the update immediately will be to buy SoD ... then eventually issue the update component as a separate free patch, but not until after initial sales of SoD have tailed off and also not until after the corresponding BG2ee update patch has also been released, so that anyone who doesn't pay up for SoD is left feeling really left-out-in-the-cold for a while. Of course, Beamdog might have the decency to reject such cheesy money-grubbing advice, but I'm darn sure there'll be someone advising them to do it this way, and of course it's easy to understand the temptation of revenue-maximisation.

As for your dilemma, @Simpson1225, surely the answer is to do both: play through BG1ee now so as to have a character ready for SoD immediately, but also start another new character in BG1ee as soon as SoD is out, then have two games going at once. (What do you mean, you "don't have time to play two games at once"? Surely you're not trying to have a Real Life as well as playing BG? )

Paladin

I plan on doing a new run through BG:EE, so that I can jump right into SoD. The only hiccup with this plan would be if you wanted Charname to be a Shaman. In that case, you would need to wait.

cmk24

@Gallowglass I highly doubt Beamdog would make the BG:EE patch a timed exclusive with SoD seeing as that would totally break multiplayer (need to keep the version numbers the same for all players). So far Beamdog have been very good about releasing patches across all the platforms at the same time (up to the mac app store rejecting the patch), so I don't see why the patch that will come along with SoD would only go to a subset of customers.

Gallowglass

cmk24 said:

@Gallowglass I highly doubt Beamdog would make the BG:EE patch a timed exclusive with SoD seeing as that would totally break multiplayer (need to keep the version numbers the same for all players). So far Beamdog have been very good about releasing patches across all the platforms at the same time (up to the mac app store rejecting the patch), so I don't see why the patch that will come along with SoD would only go to a subset of customers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing that they should do any such thing, I'm warning of a danger.