I've finally finished Siege of Dragonspear....

BGLover

I finally finished the game today (I'm slow, I know!), and thought I'd share my immeadiate thoughts.

I enjoyed it. Alot.

Is it the best game ever made? No.

Is it the worst game ever made? No.

Could it have been better? Of course it could.

Did I have a great time playing it? Yes.

Over the last few weeks, have I looked foward to those times when I could load the game and gather my party and venture forth? Absolutely!

Did it recapture (for me) some of those same feelings and excitement of playing BG and BG2 for the very first time? Definitely.

So in summary, for me, it was a few pounds very well spent.

And here's hoping I get to spend a few more pounds with Beamdog in the not too distant future.

Thanks Beamdog!

mylegbig

I'm slowly working towards finishing it as well, and overall, I'm definitely having a good time with it. I didn't have the highest expectations since I didn't care for the new content in the EE games, but I was pleasantly surprised with this. The developers have definitely learned a few things since the beginning. Yes, there are a couple annoying parts that generated controversy, but despite how much attention it got, it's an incredibly small part of the game.

karf

Well...
I finished too and it was a mixed bag for me as an oldschoolfan from day one.

Overall, I want to thank beamdog for bringing my all time favorites back to live and even add new content.
I won't say enhance, because yeah....

Most of the gameplay features are quite useful and really came in handy but some things...
For example, why change the classic menuscreen? The new one isn't extremely bad but still way less charming.
But for the expansion itself...

Pro:
- good old stuff that I still like (engine, ruleset, even some voice actors
- some really interesting writing (the dwarven lich was my favorite)
- Hp bars seemed odd but midwise the core game I started to enjoy them as a neat new (optional) feature
- group battles are really fun

Con:
- some incredible bad writing, I mean seriously bad... the level of writing differs extreme from quest to quest and that shouldn't be tolerable at all
- new class is nice over all, but doesn't fit in the old balancing very well... now there is no sense at all to choose a normal druid, shaman overpowers him easy in every damn way (oh and he is too powerfull if you ask me... thats not a failure by design but the druidbooks are filled with extremely potent offensive spells. to balance this most of them were specialised to particular circumstainces... now I can choose whatever I want to cancel this mali completely and thats just not right for me)
- strange bugs; I didn't encounter many crashes or usual bugs but rather strange ones in high quantity... for example 2 companions were completely missing (goblin shaman and neera neither appeared in my game, not even after I read about the hows...), I needed to attack the besieged fortress alone because the flaming fist dudes just didn't want
- incredible gruelsome design choices, to list two really gamebreakers:
1) change of core characters (unwanted and unneeded but there was enough bout that)
2) loss of items... I read that after the first adventure everyone will throw the equip into my chest... but nope... that wasn't the case. thanks to my pretty funny partycomposition I nearly lost all the gear on this point. nothing a loading can't prevent but guys, thats something you should see while testing...
- strange balancing issues; while most of the new content was ok in terms of difficulty, the last battle was not. it reminded me of the unpatched icewind dale bossbattle without the addons... until there everything is more or less a walk in the park.... aaaand baaam.... only hittable by weapons +5 or sth like that.... and no chance of turning back... I still beat i but only with an incredible ammount of laming and thaats not fun


Hm, it might look like I really disliked the game but thats not the case at all.
Still were mistakes that I wont tolerate as a customer much more (many of them were done before in the EE versions nearly the same way). I hope your next product will adress these issues more clever.

Sincerely, a foreign cutomer

Kaliesto

A Dwarven Lich?....that should not be possible...now I'm wondering what is the next DnD Rule to break since the first edition?

Doubledimas

karf said:

- incredible gruelsome design choices, to list two really gamebreakers:
2) loss of items... I read that after the first adventure everyone will throw the equip into my chest... but nope... that wasn't the case. thanks to my pretty funny partycomposition I nearly lost all the gear on this point. nothing a loading can't prevent but guys, thats something you should see while testing...

edit: My bad, mistakenly thought gear from NPC's also was removed and added to the chest.

Fardragon

The gear in their inventory goes in the chest, but NPCs keep the gear they have equipped.

karf

Yes, I learned that the hard way... A little hint in game or just prevention would have been a nice thing

Avenger_teambg

Kaliesto said:

A Dwarven Lich?....that should not be possible...now I'm wondering what is the next DnD Rule to break since the first edition?

Probably you say this because dwarves couldn't be wizards?
Let me remind you, clerics could also become lich.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Lich

AndrewFoley

Avenger_teambg said:

Kaliesto said:

A Dwarven Lich?....that should not be possible...now I'm wondering what is the next DnD Rule to break since the first edition?

Probably you say this because dwarves couldn't be wizards?
Let me remind you, clerics could also become lich.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Lich

There was a *lot* of back-and-forth between us and WotC on the lich/dwarf/wizard thing, but ultimately we found a class/race arrangement they were satisfied could accommodate the lore's requirements. For awhile it looked like we were going to have to do a mummy instead, which I really wanted to avoid because we had one in the game's opening dungeon and it wouldn't carry the same impact as a lich.

xzar_monty

@AndrewFoley: Could you spell out that class/race arrangement? I'm not questioning anything, I'm simply curious. I'm also presuming that the specs you refer to are or at least should be in the public domain, so to speak. Personally, I thought the lich was a delightful (ahem) idea, so kudos for that.

elminster

AndrewFoley said:

Avenger_teambg said:

Kaliesto said:

A Dwarven Lich?....that should not be possible...now I'm wondering what is the next DnD Rule to break since the first edition?

Probably you say this because dwarves couldn't be wizards?
Let me remind you, clerics could also become lich.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Lich

There was a *lot* of back-and-forth between us and WotC on the lich/dwarf/wizard thing, but ultimately we found a class/race arrangement they were satisfied could accommodate the lore's requirements. For awhile it looked like we were going to have to do a mummy instead, which I really wanted to avoid because we had one in the game's opening dungeon and it wouldn't carry the same impact as a lich.

Its also worth noting that this isn't the first time there has been a dwarf mage in a BG game. There is a duergar mage in the first level of Irenicus's lair.

rapsam2003

Kaliesto said:

A Dwarven Lich?....that should not be possible...now I'm wondering what is the next DnD Rule to break since the first edition?

In theory, there's nothing saying it shouldn't be possible. (It's just not possible for a PC.) And since WotC blessed it, who are you to poo-poo it?!

mylegbig

The thing with the items is definitely annoying. The problem is with NPCs that are technically in the game but cannot join you later, such as Coran. He disappeared with all of his hard-earned equipment.

Jarrakul

Regarding the dwarven lich, I don't know the justification, but I should point out that there is a canonical dwarven druid in the Realms, during 2nd edition continuity. So, you know, I wouldn't expect canon to adhere too strongly to the rules.

ojthesimpson

my Aunts a Dwarven Lich

Juris

There was a conversation with WotC over the Dwarven Liche? That is awesome lol. What was the "class/race arrangement" WotC agreed to? A Derro, he had to be a Derro.