Excuse me for interrupting this all, but how is it relevant to the topic of this thread - the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack DLC?
Allegedly, their legal issue with Beamdog was Atari selling the game on other distribution channels, something Beamdog didn’t agree too. That was worked out after the 3 months, hence Trent’s post.
That's not what happened. It was Atari who had Beamdog remove BG:EE from digital stores. The specific reasons were not made public but it's reasonable to assume it had to do with their filing for bankruptcy which happened around the same time.
Atari’s very public legal fight with WotC probably had more to do with the announced released dates than anything else.
Atari's legal fight with Wizards had nothing to do with Baldur's Gate. It happened between 2009 and 2011 (almost a year before BG:EE was even announced), and it actually started with Wizards/Hasbro suing Atari over licensing the D&D IP to Namco-Bandai, which they claimed it was a breach of contract. Atari lost, by the way.
It can still be said that Beamdog has more stable releases under their belt than unstable. And Atari (and time) is the common denominator I can count.
You would still have to explain how Atari keeps compromising these games after five years of being completely out of the picture as Beamdog is since then fully in charge of distributing the EEs. Is five years not enough time to fix the issues? Is Atari also responsible for the problems introduced by patches 2.0, 2.3 and 2.5?
That and them keeping their mouth completely shut on what they working on to prevent a chorus of “what about now?” Noobsrs flooding and second guessing their approach on said release.
Are you saying that people second guessing their approach on internet forums affects the quality of their releases? How does that work exactly? Do they feel demotivated and don't put in as much effort when people criticize them? Do mean comments make the development team so distraught that they lose concentration and screw up the code?
So you are becoming more and more hostile with each passing post, so this is the last time I am going to respond to you.
BG&BG2 have been stable for years. But go ahead and point to some mundane issue you’ve had since it’s release to justify your position, I do not care. Steam and Apple reviews claim otherwise. One or two people yelling how horrible Beamdog is doesn’t make it true.
Priorities (such as making SoD working on mobile) has been pushing back the last patch. That had to be stable and tested before everything else had to be stable and tested.
And second guessing their approach was the reason why we have long ass patch cycles for the IE games. IIRC it was Trent who asked on the forums what the community preferred, quick patches that fixed one or two issues at a time or large patches that fixed a bunch of things and made things stable. People chose option B. Guess what, the same people who asked for it were the same people who were wondering why patches were taking so long. People are going to be negative regardless of what they do, why give them more ammunition to play with?
Their patches for NWN have been more frequent though, so it’s looking promising, however, they need to get it on GoG ASAP, and they know that.
And If Atari’s legal fight (which I know they lost) was over before the games were even released, please tell me how they were the distributor? I’ll let you go review the timeline again. Wikipedia is a great place to start, but there is a reason why the games had a release date before any work was put into them.
Excuse me for interrupting this all, but how is it relevant to the topic of this thread - the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack DLC?
Excuse me for interrupting this all, but how is it relevant to the topic of this thread - the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack DLC?
Back on topic, then. Any word what the VO will include? Just PC character sounds, or maybe some interDCA banter? IWD plot commentary for joinable NPCs?
PS - Not really expecting the last one, but some banter would be cool.
Excuse me for interrupting this all, but how is it relevant to the topic of this thread - the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack DLC?
True enough, but I hope that's not merely cover to shut down critical posts. I would hope the divergent discussion (which for me is by far the more valuable and useful discussion) can be moved to an appropriate separate thread.
And second guessing their approach was the reason why we have long ass patch cycles for the IE games. IIRC it was Trent who asked on the forums what the community preferred, quick patches that fixed one or two issues at a time or large patches that fixed a bunch of things and made things stable. People chose option B. Guess what, the same people who asked for it were the same people who were wondering why patches were taking so long. People are going to be negative regardless of what they do, why give them more ammunition to play with?
I don't think that anyone was expecting a patch cycle that takes that long when they picked option B.
In my head, it was like
"Hey guys, do you prefer to be punched or get the flu?"
"Flu!"
"Ok, swine flu to everyone!"
I wasn't around the community, so I can't really say how it worked.
This just in. The Infinity Engine series are not games.
To be fair to @kanisatha, the point he made is valid. It isn't that these aren't games. It's that these aren't Beamdog's games (originally). They aren't starting games from scratch, so to say Beamdog has made 5.5 games since 2009 isn't remotely accurate.
On the flip side, it is also inaccurate to discount the work they are doing on remakes. The IE games and NWN are complex games, and in many ways, dealing with old code that isn't yours is a monumental task for one game let alone five. I find it silly to criticize BD for not doing original games. They are doing great at what they do, even if they fall short in a few ways (such as content being behind on various platforms).
Back on topic, I do think it is realistic to express dissatisfaction with DLC for a niche audience that is tangentially related because it also happens to be about D&D. Discussions like this help BD know what we want and don't want. I would much rather have new content be relevant to the majority of Beamdog's audience: new expansions, new games, or at least content featuring what we already know and love about the games.
The work that had to be put in to work with and upgrade the IE like they have is monumental. Not to mention the complexity of NWN. They absolutely deserve to be credited as full games.
The work that had to be put in to work with and upgrade the IE like they have is monumental. Not to mention the complexity of NWN. They absolutely deserve to be credited as full games.
Honestly, I think you and we are more aligned than how I'm coming across. It is more work to do what they are doing. I think that is why they fall behind on getting every platform up to speed. I think it is to Beamdog's credit that they have taken on all these monumental tasks. You can't really compare what they do to other companies because nobody else is taking huge complex RPGs and bringing them into the the new century and it's tech.
But I also think it is why everyone is scratching their heads. There is so much to be done. Why spend resources on this tangent? Truth be told if I toss audience aside, I think like others have, "How cool would it be to be put in BG and IWD?" However, bringing it back to the players, most of us aren't interested in this YouTube series. And many of us don't want new characters added without some good reason--like expanded story.
So you are becoming more and more hostile with each passing post, so this is the last time I am going to respond to you.
If the tone of my posts has offended you, I apologize.
I do not apologize, however, for pointing out that your arguments are hopelessly flawed.
You keep insisting that correlation (post-Atari involvement BD games are more stable) implies causation with no proof of any kind. And you make claims about Atari's involvement with Beamdog that are either completely innacurate or pulled out of thin air (e.g. saying Beamdog started the 2013 ruckus when it was the other way around, saying the vs. Hasbro legal contest was related to the dates of release, then saying those release dates had been set by Atari before development began).
BG&BG2 have been stable for years. But go ahead and point to some mundane issue you’ve had since it’s release to justify your position, I do not care.
I believe it's more accurate to say that BG&BG2 have been stable for a limited period (more specifically, after patch 1.3 and right before patch 2.0. The latter was a backport of the major tweaking their version of the IE went through during SoD's development. For all the improvements it's brought, it's also introduced a myriad of new issues. 1600 of which they claim to have been fixed by Patch 2.5.
Here are some "mundane issues" the games currently have: new pathfinding problems (remember how Dee Pennyway used to brag about how pathfinding was leaps and bounds better than in the originals? I do), freezing upon saving on Intel integrated graphics (only the most common video card in the market), severe lag and crashing caused by the Area Map zoom out effect (which they didn't bother to make toggleable), black outlines around several BAMs (not to be confused with sprite outlines), several UI issues and that's just from the top of my head.
These are not some "Kensai is missing a proficiency point when reaching level 34" obscure kind of bugs. It's not nitpicking over some delusional notion that the game ought to be flawless. These are glaring issues that can often make the game unplayable or turn away players due to making it look unpolished and amateurish.
Not to mention things that aren't necessarily bugs, but were changed for no good reason or to accomodate some new feature no one asked for in detriment of the game overall, such as the blurriness of the game (regardless of zoom level, caused by changing the upscaling algorithm only so sprite outlines would work) and the UI changes that made UX inconsistent and often less intuitive and newbie-friendly - if you think it's just me and a couple of modders, go look at how many negative reviews make sure to specifically complain about the new UI.
Speaking of reviews, if you bother to read some of them (which I did), criticism to EE-specific features are abundant, even in positive reviews. Most of the praise is not directed to the EE itself, but to the original content and experience.
Arguing that these games deserved better treatment is not something done by a scant few oddballs. It's the opinion of a substantial group of players. To get that perspective, you have to check out grounds less biased than these forums, which by the way holds a reputation of being an echo chamber where criticism is invariably met with attacks by Beamdog fanatics protected by moderators way more eager to point out rule violations from detractors than supporters. It is, of course, a hyperbolic definition, but also not entirely untrue. Get a little too vocal about Beamdog's blunders and watch as certain regulars come out of the woodwork to quickly derail or shut down the conversation.
The latest example, which you can see a few posts up, is people saying that updating the Infinity Engine is a task so monumental that we should hold Beamdog in a higher regard than if they were just making their own games. Sorry guys, but I'm not drinking the kool aid. I'd rather stick to constructive criticism. If feedback by itself can affect a game (and I'm not sure it can), it's the endless, sycophantic praise that hurts the game by reassuring the devs that everything is perfect, not the constructive criticism (even if its too sardonic at times).
You want to see a properly done EE? Go check out PST:EE. That is what BG(2):EE should have been. And the negative reviews are mostly from people who think there's too much reading (ugh) or that it's too expensive or that the game itself didn't age well.
And just so I'm not completely off-topic this time: I think surrounding in mystery the announcement of a cross-promoting portrait/soundset while calling it "an exciting addition to the Infinity Engine family of games" was a gross mishandling of people's expectations. And it ignores the fact that portrait DLCs are not usually well-received. Just look at Tyranny's portrait pack and Beamdog's own Faces of Good and Evil. What I'm saying is, this announcement should have been way more low-key. People wouldn't be pissed off otherwise.
The work that had to be put in to work with and upgrade the IE like they have is monumental. Not to mention the complexity of NWN. They absolutely deserve to be credited as full games.
The following six paragraphs are from me as a moderator here.
@Kilivitz As you can see we encourage feedback, criticism included, and have been listening to everything that has been shared in this thread and in the PAX Panel thread.
Moreover, as you can see from these 2 discussions (more than 7 pages combined), there're no symbols that the conversation is derailed by "Beamdog fanatics" or is being shut down.
You refer to "grounds less biased than these forums", and we're very well aware of what has been or even is being discussed there right now.
And while you would call those grounds balanced, I say that this forum is the only place where the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack is being discussed in such detail and with so much criticism. Not the GOG forum, not the Steam forum, not the Codex, not Reddit.
The ideas that moderators here are "way more eager to point out rule violations from detractors than supporters" and this forum is "an echo chamber where criticism is invariably met with attacks by Beamdog fanatics protected by moderators" are a false narrative coming from several individuals whom I can count on the fingers of one hand, and their reaction to our warnings and bans towards them on this forum. What you're saying in this part is not constructive criticism.
If a user is violating the Site Rules, the moderation team is issuing a warning. It doesn't matter if this user supports or doesn't support Beamdog. It doesn't matter if this user prefers the original games or the EEs, the 1.3 version or the 2.x version.
The last paragraph here is from me as a Beamdog representative.
New pathfinding problems are one bug. It's already in the works and will be fixed. Pathfinding in EEs, except for this new bug, is indeed better than in the original games. Freezing upon saving on Intel integrated graphic is a bug which is being worked on. And it has a working workaround. Severe lags and crashing on certain Android devices caused by the Area Map zoom out effect are in the works as well. Black outlines around several BAMs can be visible only under one Renderer (from 2), and this is also a known issue. UI - the team are looking at the UI feedback in detail. "1600 of which they claim to have been fixed by Patch 2.5." - these fixes are not only for EE-related bugs. Please check out the patch notes, - there're lots of fixes for original bugs among the 2.5 fixes.
New pathfinding problems are one bug. It's already in the works and will be fixed. Pathfinding in EEs, except for this new bug, is indeed better than in the original games. Freezing upon saving on Intel integrated graphic is a bug which is being worked on. And it has a working workaround.
I loathed to bring this up since Beamdog has an unreliable history but when you say "will be fixed" it doesn't say when. Does "release patches more often" equate to a year instead of 2-3? Or can we expect some sort of reasonable timeframe?
Despite being a long time vocal supporter of Beamdog, I can personally say that the mods here have no qualms whatsoever with cracking down on EVERYONE who breaks the site rules.
I think a new thread is needed to talk about Beamdog development and disappointment. I don't think anyone here has a problem with the actual DLC itself. I like to think im fairly objective, I love how Beamdog has brought these games back in the limelight, SOD and the combination of fixes/ modding resources are both impressive. I was disappointed we didn't get a big reveal or new game announcement. Like others have said, Beamdog are moving into new offices and continue hiring, so there's really no doubt big things are on the horizon... but next time, please surprise us, without months of hype.
@JuliusBorisov is doing a great job, very quick responding to all comments on the forum and not easy to both moderate and respond when discussions get heated. There's a line not to cross and I hope people try to support Beamdog while voicing any constructive criticism...and I hope Beamdog remember some of us are a little vocal, because we love these games so much and the potential for more in future.
I'll check out the new portraits and voices and if I like it, I might look into who these waffle crew people are. Cheers
It took BioWare two years (maybe three if you consider the Infinity Battleground prototype engine they pitched to Interplay) to develop Baldur's Gate and release it. Three years later, they had TotSC, BG2 and ToB under their belt. Fully patched, by the way.
I'd like to address this point to put it into a bit of context, specifically the 'fully patched' Throne of Bhaal since I happen to have the most familiarity with it through the BG2 Fixpack. I hope you'll forgive me for cherry-picking this point--the rest of the discussion is a mix of issues above my paygrade, facts I simply don't know, and some entirely valid criticism with which I agree to a varying degree.
To start with a broad example, a patched ToB game has 3,807 scripts, ranging from a simple approach-and-initiate-dialogue to something like Sendai's combat scripting. In those 3,807 scripts there are 1,578 errors in simple syntax, 98 more errors referencing a non-existent symbolic reference, and 11 are simply corrupted and unreadable. This count does not include the hundreds of additional errors where the scripting is syntactically correct and still buggy due to using the wrong variable name or other error. For example, three major areas in SoA (Slums, Graveyard, Copper Coronet) could have events in their areas cease outright because of a scripting loop.
There are 82 creature files for the joinable NPCs. Two are correct. The other 80 have errors including Aerie coming equipped with leather armor in her quickslot and Cernd not having any scripting assigned.
A couple of my favorite smaller issues: At the finale of SoA, having been drug into hell and finally getting a chance to end him, Irenicus--level 30, 18 INT elven archmage that he is--wades into combat with a fearsome and entirely appropriate battle cry of "Me will crush you, crush you to goo!" Also, not one but two of the common enemy mage scripts cast lightning bolts. Not on their enemies, mind you, on themselves.
It's hard to remember, but original SoA and ToB, even patched, are still massive piles of bugs. For most of their 20 years we've had fan-made patches--Baldurdash, then the BG2 Fixpack--in place to mitigate a lot of it. Version 12 of the BG2 Fixpack--which draws most of its fixes from the 2.5 patch--is going to be the single largest expansion of fixes in its release history, and it's not even close.
This is not meant to hand-wave away the current bugs still in the EEs. I'm not happy about it, nor are the other members of the team, but we're not done yet.
A couple of my favorite smaller issues: At the finale of SoA, having been drug into hell and finally getting a chance to end him, Irenicus--level 30, 18 INT elven archmage that he is--wades into combat with a fearsome and entirely appropriate battle cry of "Me will crush you, crush you to goo!"
I haven't spilled soda through my nose due to laughing in a long time. That made my day.
A couple of my favorite smaller issues: At the finale of SoA, having been drug into hell and finally getting a chance to end him, Irenicus--level 30, 18 INT elven archmage that he is--wades into combat with a fearsome and entirely appropriate battle cry of "Me will crush you, crush you to goo!"
I haven't spilled soda through my nose due to laughing in a long time. That made my day.
Oh no, the really funny part of that bug was the guy who turned up the forums to earnestly contest that the ogre soundset was intended.
A couple of my favorite smaller issues: At the finale of SoA, having been drug into hell and finally getting a chance to end him, Irenicus--level 30, 18 INT elven archmage that he is--wades into combat with a fearsome and entirely appropriate battle cry of "Me will crush you, crush you to goo!"
I haven't spilled soda through my nose due to laughing in a long time. That made my day.
Oh no, the really funny part of that bug was the guy who turned up the forums to earnestly contest that the ogre soundset was intended.
Somebody should release a mod with ridiculous voice sets.
@JuliusBorisov the inevitable Mac App Store question - is the plan for the pending App Store release to have the pathfinding bug fix, or to wait for our next patch after that? I'm nervous that with a patch release cycle averaging a patch every couple of years if we are lucky, it could be a long wait if we don't get that first time around, but equally nervous about deferring those patches any further, so not sure which answer I would prefer!
Little things like new portraits and new soundsets give me new ideas for characters and vastly increase replayability for me. I like the way these look, so i'll probably get them.
If this will also get fans of these youtubers (I think that's what they are) interested in BD games, all the better.
I'd like to address this point to put it into a bit of context, specifically the 'fully patched' Throne of Bhaal since I happen to have the most familiarity with it through the BG2 Fixpack. I hope you'll forgive me for cherry-picking this point--the rest of the discussion is a mix of issues above my paygrade, facts I simply don't know, and some entirely valid criticism with which I agree to a varying degree...
Thank you Camdawg for explaining this so elegantly. In all of the arguments I've been involved in about the merits of the EE vs the originals, I've seen lots of misinformation being spread around about the original games being "bug free", which is completely bogus. In the vanilla BG2 for instance, the Carsomyr only does 1d10 damage instead of 1d12 as advertised, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. While the unofficial fixpacks corrected this and numerous others, they are still limited by the engine, and installing mods in the wrong order can easily break the game. IIRC, back in the day the PST widescreen mod required you to restart the game to make it work properly. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, because of the age of the game and how the modding scene is so integrated into it, people forgot that the vanilla games launched with numerous bugs, not all of which were squashed by the official Bioware patches.
Excuse me for interrupting this all, but how is it relevant to the topic of this thread - the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack DLC?
Back on topic, then. Any word what the VO will include? Just PC character sounds, or maybe some interDCA banter? IWD plot commentary for joinable NPCs?
PS - Not really expecting the last one, but some banter would be cool.
Comments
BG&BG2 have been stable for years. But go ahead and point to some mundane issue you’ve had since it’s release to justify your position, I do not care. Steam and Apple reviews claim otherwise. One or two people yelling how horrible Beamdog is doesn’t make it true.
Priorities (such as making SoD working on mobile) has been pushing back the last patch. That had to be stable and tested before everything else had to be stable and tested.
And second guessing their approach was the reason why we have long ass patch cycles for the IE games. IIRC it was Trent who asked on the forums what the community preferred, quick patches that fixed one or two issues at a time or large patches that fixed a bunch of things and made things stable. People chose option B. Guess what, the same people who asked for it were the same people who were wondering why patches were taking so long. People are going to be negative regardless of what they do, why give them more ammunition to play with?
Their patches for NWN have been more frequent though, so it’s looking promising, however, they need to get it on GoG ASAP, and they know that.
And If Atari’s legal fight (which I know they lost) was over before the games were even released, please tell me how they were the distributor? I’ll let you go review the timeline again. Wikipedia is a great place to start, but there is a reason why the games had a release date before any work was put into them.
PS - Not really expecting the last one, but some banter would be cool.
In my head, it was like
"Hey guys, do you prefer to be punched or get the flu?"
"Flu!"
"Ok, swine flu to everyone!"
I wasn't around the community, so I can't really say how it worked.
Did the voice actors have any creative input on the lines they delivered or were they written by Beamdog?
Is there Banter was also asked, but it being asked again doesn’t hurt.
On the flip side, it is also inaccurate to discount the work they are doing on remakes. The IE games and NWN are complex games, and in many ways, dealing with old code that isn't yours is a monumental task for one game let alone five. I find it silly to criticize BD for not doing original games. They are doing great at what they do, even if they fall short in a few ways (such as content being behind on various platforms).
Back on topic, I do think it is realistic to express dissatisfaction with DLC for a niche audience that is tangentially related because it also happens to be about D&D. Discussions like this help BD know what we want and don't want. I would much rather have new content be relevant to the majority of Beamdog's audience: new expansions, new games, or at least content featuring what we already know and love about the games.
But I also think it is why everyone is scratching their heads. There is so much to be done. Why spend resources on this tangent? Truth be told if I toss audience aside, I think like others have, "How cool would it be to be put in BG and IWD?" However, bringing it back to the players, most of us aren't interested in this YouTube series. And many of us don't want new characters added without some good reason--like expanded story.
I do not apologize, however, for pointing out that your arguments are hopelessly flawed.
You keep insisting that correlation (post-Atari involvement BD games are more stable) implies causation with no proof of any kind. And you make claims about Atari's involvement with Beamdog that are either completely innacurate or pulled out of thin air (e.g. saying Beamdog started the 2013 ruckus when it was the other way around, saying the vs. Hasbro legal contest was related to the dates of release, then saying those release dates had been set by Atari before development began). I believe it's more accurate to say that BG&BG2 have been stable for a limited period (more specifically, after patch 1.3 and right before patch 2.0. The latter was a backport of the major tweaking their version of the IE went through during SoD's development. For all the improvements it's brought, it's also introduced a myriad of new issues. 1600 of which they claim to have been fixed by Patch 2.5.
Here are some "mundane issues" the games currently have: new pathfinding problems (remember how Dee Pennyway used to brag about how pathfinding was leaps and bounds better than in the originals? I do), freezing upon saving on Intel integrated graphics (only the most common video card in the market), severe lag and crashing caused by the Area Map zoom out effect (which they didn't bother to make toggleable), black outlines around several BAMs (not to be confused with sprite outlines), several UI issues and that's just from the top of my head.
These are not some "Kensai is missing a proficiency point when reaching level 34" obscure kind of bugs. It's not nitpicking over some delusional notion that the game ought to be flawless. These are glaring issues that can often make the game unplayable or turn away players due to making it look unpolished and amateurish.
Not to mention things that aren't necessarily bugs, but were changed for no good reason or to accomodate some new feature no one asked for in detriment of the game overall, such as the blurriness of the game (regardless of zoom level, caused by changing the upscaling algorithm only so sprite outlines would work) and the UI changes that made UX inconsistent and often less intuitive and newbie-friendly - if you think it's just me and a couple of modders, go look at how many negative reviews make sure to specifically complain about the new UI.
Speaking of reviews, if you bother to read some of them (which I did), criticism to EE-specific features are abundant, even in positive reviews. Most of the praise is not directed to the EE itself, but to the original content and experience.
Arguing that these games deserved better treatment is not something done by a scant few oddballs. It's the opinion of a substantial group of players. To get that perspective, you have to check out grounds less biased than these forums, which by the way holds a reputation of being an echo chamber where criticism is invariably met with attacks by Beamdog fanatics protected by moderators way more eager to point out rule violations from detractors than supporters. It is, of course, a hyperbolic definition, but also not entirely untrue. Get a little too vocal about Beamdog's blunders and watch as certain regulars come out of the woodwork to quickly derail or shut down the conversation.
The latest example, which you can see a few posts up, is people saying that updating the Infinity Engine is a task so monumental that we should hold Beamdog in a higher regard than if they were just making their own games. Sorry guys, but I'm not drinking the kool aid. I'd rather stick to constructive criticism. If feedback by itself can affect a game (and I'm not sure it can), it's the endless, sycophantic praise that hurts the game by reassuring the devs that everything is perfect, not the constructive criticism (even if its too sardonic at times).
You want to see a properly done EE? Go check out PST:EE. That is what BG(2):EE should have been. And the negative reviews are mostly from people who think there's too much reading (ugh) or that it's too expensive or that the game itself didn't age well.
And just so I'm not completely off-topic this time: I think surrounding in mystery the announcement of a cross-promoting portrait/soundset while calling it "an exciting addition to the Infinity Engine family of games" was a gross mishandling of people's expectations. And it ignores the fact that portrait DLCs are not usually well-received. Just look at Tyranny's portrait pack and Beamdog's own Faces of Good and Evil. What I'm saying is, this announcement should have been way more low-key. People wouldn't be pissed off otherwise.
Was there a rights issue? Blink twice for yes, blink once for no!
@Kilivitz As you can see we encourage feedback, criticism included, and have been listening to everything that has been shared in this thread and in the PAX Panel thread.
Moreover, as you can see from these 2 discussions (more than 7 pages combined), there're no symbols that the conversation is derailed by "Beamdog fanatics" or is being shut down.
You refer to "grounds less biased than these forums", and we're very well aware of what has been or even is being discussed there right now.
And while you would call those grounds balanced, I say that this forum is the only place where the Dice, Camera, Action! Enhanced Edition voice and portrait pack is being discussed in such detail and with so much criticism. Not the GOG forum, not the Steam forum, not the Codex, not Reddit.
The ideas that moderators here are "way more eager to point out rule violations from detractors than supporters" and this forum is "an echo chamber where criticism is invariably met with attacks by Beamdog fanatics protected by moderators" are a false narrative coming from several individuals whom I can count on the fingers of one hand, and their reaction to our warnings and bans towards them on this forum. What you're saying in this part is not constructive criticism.
If a user is violating the Site Rules, the moderation team is issuing a warning. It doesn't matter if this user supports or doesn't support Beamdog. It doesn't matter if this user prefers the original games or the EEs, the 1.3 version or the 2.x version.
The last paragraph here is from me as a Beamdog representative.
New pathfinding problems are one bug. It's already in the works and will be fixed. Pathfinding in EEs, except for this new bug, is indeed better than in the original games. Freezing upon saving on Intel integrated graphic is a bug which is being worked on. And it has a working workaround. Severe lags and crashing on certain Android devices caused by the Area Map zoom out effect are in the works as well. Black outlines around several BAMs can be visible only under one Renderer (from 2), and this is also a known issue. UI - the team are looking at the UI feedback in detail. "1600 of which they claim to have been fixed by Patch 2.5." - these fixes are not only for EE-related bugs. Please check out the patch notes, - there're lots of fixes for original bugs among the 2.5 fixes.
@JuliusBorisov is doing a great job, very quick responding to all comments on the forum and not easy to both moderate and respond when discussions get heated. There's a line not to cross and I hope people try to support Beamdog while voicing any constructive criticism...and I hope Beamdog remember some of us are a little vocal, because we love these games so much and the potential for more in future.
I'll check out the new portraits and voices and if I like it, I might look into who these waffle crew people are. Cheers
To start with a broad example, a patched ToB game has 3,807 scripts, ranging from a simple approach-and-initiate-dialogue to something like Sendai's combat scripting. In those 3,807 scripts there are 1,578 errors in simple syntax, 98 more errors referencing a non-existent symbolic reference, and 11 are simply corrupted and unreadable. This count does not include the hundreds of additional errors where the scripting is syntactically correct and still buggy due to using the wrong variable name or other error. For example, three major areas in SoA (Slums, Graveyard, Copper Coronet) could have events in their areas cease outright because of a scripting loop.
There are 82 creature files for the joinable NPCs. Two are correct. The other 80 have errors including Aerie coming equipped with leather armor in her quickslot and Cernd not having any scripting assigned.
A couple of my favorite smaller issues: At the finale of SoA, having been drug into hell and finally getting a chance to end him, Irenicus--level 30, 18 INT elven archmage that he is--wades into combat with a fearsome and entirely appropriate battle cry of "Me will crush you, crush you to goo!" Also, not one but two of the common enemy mage scripts cast lightning bolts. Not on their enemies, mind you, on themselves.
It's hard to remember, but original SoA and ToB, even patched, are still massive piles of bugs. For most of their 20 years we've had fan-made patches--Baldurdash, then the BG2 Fixpack--in place to mitigate a lot of it. Version 12 of the BG2 Fixpack--which draws most of its fixes from the 2.5 patch--is going to be the single largest expansion of fixes in its release history, and it's not even close.
This is not meant to hand-wave away the current bugs still in the EEs. I'm not happy about it, nor are the other members of the team, but we're not done yet.
I fixed all these problems by sticking with 1.3 on steam
Imagine Sarevok with Xzar's "STOP TOUCHING ME!!!"
If this will also get fans of these youtubers (I think that's what they are) interested in BD games, all the better.