My thoughts on SoD (The good, the bugs, and the sjw)
Dev6
Member Posts: 721
Hey guys, first time posting here so consider this my introduction. 
Let me start by saying that the first time I played BG in my life was barely over a month ago, so my opinions aren't necessarily on par with those of you who might have been playing it for 18 years.
I had heard about BG pretty much since it was first release but had never gotten round to actually playing it. I started a month ago and learned that 1) there was an Enhanced Edition (which I got) and 2) there was soon to be a new expansion released. Honestly I got addicted to BG within the first five minutes of gameplay. Played all through BG with the 1.3 patch, and afterwards got SoD, which I haven't finished yet. I'm currently in the cave with the underground river, so please try not to spoil anything beyond that point.
So here are my thoughts so far:
2.0 GUI is a huge improvement apart from the following:
-> BG GUI is now black instead of blue. I'm sure you guys can easily fix this, having the blue UI for BG, and the black one for SoD.
-> How come there's so many items that look completely different in-game? I realise this has been the case since the first BG, but couldn't this be fixed somehow? For example, I have this really cool-looking shield with a Griphin's head on it (Large Shield +2 I think), but it looks completely bland when I actually wear it. Same for lots of weapons.
The bugs:
-> Game refused to work the first time I installed it. Had to do a complete reinstall and then it worked ok. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
-> It's a good thing I dislike the new black-border on the sprites because my game crashes when I use it. I'm okay with this because, again, I do prefer the normal looking sprites, but I have a feeling I should report it anyway.
-> (semi-spoiler) The Green Dragon in the cave. AWESOME FIGHT GUYS, GREAT JOB!!! But I read somewhere around here that it's supposed to drop Green Scales? Mine didn't drop anything. Mind you, it got 'fragged' when I killed it so I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour.
-> In the map where you can access the cave with the underground river, there's a group of goblin raiders. If I attack them with M’Khiin in my party, after killing them all she'll start saying "I smell Goblin. Dead Goblin, the best kind." over and over and over again... I tried reloading and attacking them again, and same thing happened. Tried resting, leaving the map, etc, always the same. Ended up having to kill them with her far away and never letting her come near the corpses.
-> Inside the cave there's a group of infected/poisoned people. As soon as I came near them, the quest auto-solved itself. I literally didn't do anything. Tried reloading, same thing happened.
-> If there's two "groups" of the same item inside a bag, it won't let you pick just one. EX: I have two groups of 20 potions each inside a potion bag. I wanna take just ONE potion out. Impossible. It'll take one from each group, thus two. This happens with everything inside a potion or ammunition bag. Didn't test with the gem bag of bag of holding.
-> M’Khiin's paperdoll always looks the same no matter what I equip. I understand WHY it happens, but is there anyway you could change this behaviour in a future patch?
The SJW:
-> I'm gonna be honest here. I'm Anti-SJW (take that as you wish), and when I started seeing people complaining about SoD I was afraid... As it is, I can now see that people really are taking things out of proportion. Still, while I don't have a problema with Mizhena, you probably could've written her character a bit better, eh? Good job including a trans person in the game though.
-> I'm playing a female paladin. I never got a 'lesbian romance' option in BG, but I've had tons of them in SoD. I'm not complaining at all, merely pointing it out. Does it happen in BG2 too? Because if it does I'm totally gonna romance Imoen hehe.
The good:
-> The game feels EPIC. I can't explain why, it just does. Battles against 20 foes? Amazing. Some of the maps are huge. Everything looks awesome. I really have to say you guys did a great job here.
-> The story. I reckon I'm about halfway-through the game and I'm loving it. I might be enjoying it as much as I did BG1 (mind you I haven't played 2 yet).
-> The new NPCs. I'm LOVING M’Khiin and Glint! Corwin is pretty cool too. I didn't want Voghiln in my party so can't comment there. Please, PLEASE, bring them all to BG2 if you can.
Overall, good work guys. 8/10. If you fix the bugs you can really have a winner here. Keep it up.
Let me start by saying that the first time I played BG in my life was barely over a month ago, so my opinions aren't necessarily on par with those of you who might have been playing it for 18 years.
I had heard about BG pretty much since it was first release but had never gotten round to actually playing it. I started a month ago and learned that 1) there was an Enhanced Edition (which I got) and 2) there was soon to be a new expansion released. Honestly I got addicted to BG within the first five minutes of gameplay. Played all through BG with the 1.3 patch, and afterwards got SoD, which I haven't finished yet. I'm currently in the cave with the underground river, so please try not to spoil anything beyond that point.
So here are my thoughts so far:
2.0 GUI is a huge improvement apart from the following:
-> BG GUI is now black instead of blue. I'm sure you guys can easily fix this, having the blue UI for BG, and the black one for SoD.
-> How come there's so many items that look completely different in-game? I realise this has been the case since the first BG, but couldn't this be fixed somehow? For example, I have this really cool-looking shield with a Griphin's head on it (Large Shield +2 I think), but it looks completely bland when I actually wear it. Same for lots of weapons.
The bugs:
-> Game refused to work the first time I installed it. Had to do a complete reinstall and then it worked ok. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
-> It's a good thing I dislike the new black-border on the sprites because my game crashes when I use it. I'm okay with this because, again, I do prefer the normal looking sprites, but I have a feeling I should report it anyway.
-> (semi-spoiler) The Green Dragon in the cave. AWESOME FIGHT GUYS, GREAT JOB!!! But I read somewhere around here that it's supposed to drop Green Scales? Mine didn't drop anything. Mind you, it got 'fragged' when I killed it so I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour.
-> In the map where you can access the cave with the underground river, there's a group of goblin raiders. If I attack them with M’Khiin in my party, after killing them all she'll start saying "I smell Goblin. Dead Goblin, the best kind." over and over and over again... I tried reloading and attacking them again, and same thing happened. Tried resting, leaving the map, etc, always the same. Ended up having to kill them with her far away and never letting her come near the corpses.
-> Inside the cave there's a group of infected/poisoned people. As soon as I came near them, the quest auto-solved itself. I literally didn't do anything. Tried reloading, same thing happened.
-> If there's two "groups" of the same item inside a bag, it won't let you pick just one. EX: I have two groups of 20 potions each inside a potion bag. I wanna take just ONE potion out. Impossible. It'll take one from each group, thus two. This happens with everything inside a potion or ammunition bag. Didn't test with the gem bag of bag of holding.
-> M’Khiin's paperdoll always looks the same no matter what I equip. I understand WHY it happens, but is there anyway you could change this behaviour in a future patch?
The SJW:
-> I'm gonna be honest here. I'm Anti-SJW (take that as you wish), and when I started seeing people complaining about SoD I was afraid... As it is, I can now see that people really are taking things out of proportion. Still, while I don't have a problema with Mizhena, you probably could've written her character a bit better, eh? Good job including a trans person in the game though.
-> I'm playing a female paladin. I never got a 'lesbian romance' option in BG, but I've had tons of them in SoD. I'm not complaining at all, merely pointing it out. Does it happen in BG2 too? Because if it does I'm totally gonna romance Imoen hehe.
The good:
-> The game feels EPIC. I can't explain why, it just does. Battles against 20 foes? Amazing. Some of the maps are huge. Everything looks awesome. I really have to say you guys did a great job here.
-> The story. I reckon I'm about halfway-through the game and I'm loving it. I might be enjoying it as much as I did BG1 (mind you I haven't played 2 yet).
-> The new NPCs. I'm LOVING M’Khiin and Glint! Corwin is pretty cool too. I didn't want Voghiln in my party so can't comment there. Please, PLEASE, bring them all to BG2 if you can.
Overall, good work guys. 8/10. If you fix the bugs you can really have a winner here. Keep it up.
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Comments
@namelesstwo I've heard good things about it
Romances in it self was a brand new thing for rpgs to implement. So they were pretty much placing the tracks infront of their train as it traveled along. I think I read about this in an interview with David Gaider. Don't take my word for it, though. I could be remembering it wrong.
Now adays romances are a lot more common, and female gamers have increased a whole lot. More and more romance options are getting added to games, as they have now gotten almost mandatory, where before they were just a little extra optional content.
SoD counts as "now a days" so I think that is why a more varied romance option has gotten added. I don't think there is anything "SJW" about that bit. There are other bits in the game that are very "SJW", though.
Tip: be super careful around these forums. Most people assume that we've all played the games and will drop massive spoilers for BGII very casually and in high volume. Just a head's up.