I continue to play the original IE games unmodded and have been doing so since they've been released.
I've tried out mods like DSotSC and Auril's Bane for IWD when they were released but found they had too much OP stuff and in the end it turned me off mods. Every time I see some mod, I just see out of balance stuff. I know it's different for other people, but that's just me.
I'm only going to play BGEE for Siege of Dragonspear. I did try to play BGEE when it was released and found it too unbalancing with a lot of OP items. It's the main reason why I never finished it and went back to the original games. While some people may see SoD as a 'mod' in of itself, a modification of an old game, I'm willing to try this out again but I'll be avoiding any BG2 classes, items and spells that aren't in the original BG game as I find this quite unbalancing, and only use those things that are in BG1.
With high level items and spells in SoD, I'm going to try avoid anything which I think would be too OP compared to vanilla BG1 if it had a second expansion. It might be something like which items and spells have a natural progression from BG/TotSC to SoD, there may be items/spells which have too much of a big jump in power and I'll avoid those things.
I REALLY liked the fact that there was no summoning limit in the original. You could make a team of six clerics and summon a skeleton army! There would be so many skeletons that you'd have a hard time moving your characters around them!
I also like the original animations and spell incantations, but that's probably only because by this point I'm much more used to the newer animations and incantations than the older ones.
I've tried out mods like DSotSC and Auril's Bane for IWD when they were released but found they had too much OP stuff and in the end it turned me off mods.
If I had a nickel for every time I've read this (or the TDD version)...
Much as I dislike what I've seen of 2.0, I have to admit that with Ascension, BG1NPC, the Tweak Pack and both UBs now EE-compatible, it's hard for me to find a convincing reason to go back.
Much as I dislike what I've seen of 2.0, I have to admit that with Ascension, BG1NPC, the Tweak Pack and both UBs now EE-compatible, it's hard for me to find a convincing reason to go back.
Yes, there are quite a lot of things in new GUI that I dislike (1.3 UI was really perfect for me), that's why I hope this UI moddability Beamdog so proudly advertising would result with UI mods popping up fast (@Pecca, @Soulmarine I'm pointing at you).
Once I was convinced that I will be getting back to first base non-modded BG1 for nostalgic reasons. Boy, I was so wrong. Currently I have zero reasons to play vanilla BG1 when I have BG:EE. And Siege of Dragonspear is just around the corner.
As someone with less than zero technical nous, I suspect I wouldn't even be able to get my original BG games working on my current computer. I certainly wouldn't know where to start. And before people suggest mods are my friend, I have never used a mod in a game*, and have no real appetite to start now.
And for me, that is the real gift of the Enhanced Editions. It allows me to revist the games and play them again, and for that I am eternally grateful to beamdog.
(*I'm not counting the removal of the level cap in BGEE, which someone on these forums very kindly explained how to do.)
I originally planned to start with EE after I lost a big amount of my private BGT edits, but then I decided not to and started modding BGT again, since I still had an older setup which was working absolutely fine and had some mods in it which still have not been converted to EE. Plus BGT modding is pretty much completed and I don't have to worry about installing critical updates / hotfixes (aka reinstalling everything), whereas BGEE is in a hot phase atm, especially now that SoD is on the verge of getting released (way too risky to do an EE mega mod installation).
I will be waiting a "little" bit longer for my first EET playthrough so that when I finally decide to create an EE setup, everything hopefully will be on hand then, mod-wise.
Well it's true. If I had a nickel for every time a modder was defensive over mods I wouldn't have to work. Actually, I don't have to work.
That's not defensiveness--the first gen mods for the games were just as bad as you describe. That's my lament that a lot of folks based their opinions of all mods off that initial, crappy experience and miss out on a whole lot of good content that was produced later.
(Not to say that there isn't crap being produced now, but there's still a lot of good stuff.)
I originally planned to start with EE after I lost a big amount of my private BGT edits, but then I decided not to and started modding BGT again, since I still had an older setup which was working absolutely fine and had some mods in it which still have not been converted to EE. Plus BGT modding is pretty much completed and I don't have to worry about installing critical updates / hotfixes (aka reinstalling everything), whereas BGEE is in a hot phase atm, especially now that SoD is on the verge of getting released (way too risky to do an EE mega mod installation).
I will be waiting a "little" bit longer for my first EET playthrough so that when I finally decide to create an EE setup, everything hopefully will be on hand then, mod-wise.
Man, did BGT spoil me.
No, I mean straight vanilla - right out of the box. 1998 edition. Latest patch and that's it. No mods, no tweaks, just the original bioware product.
"That's not defensiveness--the first gen mods for the games were just as bad as you describe. That's my lament that a lot of folks based their opinions of all mods off that initial, crappy experience and miss out on a whole lot of good content that was produced later."
As I said, defensive. I'm not only talking about first gen mods. Looks like you missed this part of my original quote: Every time I see some mod, I just see out of balance stuff. I know it's different for other people, but that's just me.
Comments
I've tried out mods like DSotSC and Auril's Bane for IWD when they were released but found they had too much OP stuff and in the end it turned me off mods. Every time I see some mod, I just see out of balance stuff. I know it's different for other people, but that's just me.
I'm only going to play BGEE for Siege of Dragonspear. I did try to play BGEE when it was released and found it too unbalancing with a lot of OP items. It's the main reason why I never finished it and went back to the original games. While some people may see SoD as a 'mod' in of itself, a modification of an old game, I'm willing to try this out again but I'll be avoiding any BG2 classes, items and spells that aren't in the original BG game as I find this quite unbalancing, and only use those things that are in BG1.
With high level items and spells in SoD, I'm going to try avoid anything which I think would be too OP compared to vanilla BG1 if it had a second expansion. It might be something like which items and spells have a natural progression from BG/TotSC to SoD, there may be items/spells which have too much of a big jump in power and I'll avoid those things.
I also like the original animations and spell incantations, but that's probably only because by this point I'm much more used to the newer animations and incantations than the older ones.
And for me, that is the real gift of the Enhanced Editions. It allows me to revist the games and play them again, and for that I am eternally grateful to beamdog.
(*I'm not counting the removal of the level cap in BGEE, which someone on these forums very kindly explained how to do.)
I originally planned to start with EE after I lost a big amount of my private BGT edits, but then I decided not to and started modding BGT again, since I still had an older setup which was working absolutely fine and had some mods in it which still have not been converted to EE. Plus BGT modding is pretty much completed and I don't have to worry about installing critical updates / hotfixes (aka reinstalling everything), whereas BGEE is in a hot phase atm, especially now that SoD is on the verge of getting released (way too risky to do an EE mega mod installation).
I will be waiting a "little" bit longer for my first EET playthrough so that when I finally decide to create an EE setup, everything hopefully will be on hand then, mod-wise.
Man, did BGT spoil me.
(Not to say that there isn't crap being produced now, but there's still a lot of good stuff.)
As I said, defensive. I'm not only talking about first gen mods. Looks like you missed this part of my original quote: Every time I see some mod, I just see out of balance stuff. I know it's different for other people, but that's just me.