Why did developers choose BG1 instead of BG2ToB as the baseline code for developing BG1EE and SoD?

fewerlaws

I'm wondering why the BG1 engine was used as the baseline for BG1EE rather than the complete BG2ToB engine. I'm also wondering why the BG1 engine was used as the baseline for SoD, especially when SoD was developed over a decade after BG2ToB!

Because of this (poor) decision, all the higher level abilities and some higher level spells are unavailable in BG1EE if you remove the experience cap of 161,000 points. This limits options for solo players who want to keep all the experience for the protagonist (rather than other party members) and who want to let it exceed 161,000 points.

The choice to use BG1 instead of BG2 for the baseline of SoD means that SoD characters can't transfer as nicely into BG2. For example, none of the BG2 specific items are available in SoD, although the BG1 ones are. It also means that not all BG2 high level spells, and no HLA are available inside SoD. The BG2 developers were smart enough to retain all the BG1 items even when the BG2 characters were meant to start with no items! So why couldn't the SoD developers anticipate/forsee that players (especially modders), might want an easy way to access all items and abilities from both BG1 and BG2? Had the SoD development team used BG2 engine/code as the basis for SoD, then SoD would have had all the items, spells, and character abilities from all the games! That would have made all the Enhanced Editions so much better and more fun for modders, and a lot more fun for people who play Legacy of Bhaal difficulty in the earlier games like BG1 and SoD.

I just wish that BG1EE, BG2EE, and SoD could all benefit from all the features (items, spells, high level abilities) of all the games. Instead, when you add an imported character into your multiplayer party, some of their items will go missing (all containers), and some items (that share the same item codes between the various games) won't transfer as the same item.

Example 1: The item code for Wand of Wonder, "WAND12", in BG2 is the same as the item code for a different wand in SoD.
Example 2: The Reaching Ring in BG2, "RING08", isn't the same as the RING08, Evermemory, from BG1.

I really wish that when Beamdog developed the Enhanced Editions, as well as SoD, that they cleaned up all this mess by merging all the items, all the spells, and all the high level character abilities into the same engine which could be used for all the games in the entire Baldur's gate series. It would have been easier to do had they used BG2 as the basis for SoD. They could have also removed all unused item references, or copies of certain items. What is the point of retaining in the code multiple copies (some of which are broken/buggy!), of items like the Throwing Axe +2, or Ring of Free Action, or Boots of Speed? They should have just used the most complete engine (i.e. BG2ToB) for all future development of expansions like SoD. This would have prevented problems with item/creature code clashes when you wanted to import items from SoD into BG2 or BG1. The developers could have even written code to modify the codebase so that all this this item/creature code remapping could have happened automatically (rather than manually), so it could have been done with minimal effort and minimal chance of introducing bugs.

Thoughts?

GraionDilach

Game assets have nothing to do with the engine and despite what you claim, BGEE is based on BG2ToB engine (quite obvious if one looks at the opcode or the trigger orders). The code's biggest backport I'm aware is to ensure that the first 40 soundslots are actually used what they were used in BG1 and not changed to BG2 usecase (in other words: restoring the 4 funny responses when you click on an NPC multiple times into instead of having those slots for additional regular action responses, like what BG2 did).

As for the assets - yes, the assets are BG1 with only a bit of the BG2 stuff sprinkled on top, as it should be. HLAs are not part of BG1, can't even be reached, there why should the tables be included? They would be unused bloat and size restrictions are a thing on mobile.

SoD is a continuation of BG1, why should have been added to BG2? That's illogical.

EET exists as a modder-made platform to satisfy your issues. It is a mod as it should be.

Maurvir

To add on to an excellent post, there is also the fact that you did NOT retain everything you had in BG1 in stock BG2. You got to keep a small handful of items that were in your inventory - and that was intentionally done to make the start of SoA difficult. Otherwise, if you had completed ToSC, you would have at least a few +2/+3 weapons, and some pretty solid armor choices. A far cry from the basic crap you otherwise find in ID.

I will grant that using the same item code for Everymemory and the Reaching Ring was a bit silly, but you weren't suppose to get Evermemory back. Having 2x the number of magic missiles available at higher levels makes a mage pretty OP. I won't do the math, but even capping out at level 9 would mean a mage high enough to have the robe of Vecna and greater alacrity would be able to sweep the field of any enemies without magic resistance - and you can (in theory) buy the robe of Vecna very early on in SoA.

However HLAs? In BG1? Even if you somehow did every single quest in BG1 and ToSC, you are still likely to be below the levels required to get HLAs - even if you solo the game. Apparently it is possible for certain classes to get a (singular) HLA if you solo through SoD without an XP cap, which means you would start SoA as a pretty high-level character, but that isn't the norm.

All of this is solved if you run an EET build with an XP cap remover, as the mod literally takes all of BG1 and SoD and adds it to BG2 as an enormous mod. With a bit of proper planning, you can get around most of the limitations you refer to.

jastey

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that all BG1 ressources would be in BGII, they are not. There are only traces, and as you already said yourself there is even ressources that have the same name in BG1 and BGII (but are different items or characters).
And unifying it into one game - what for? Modders would rejoice? No, modders wouldn't have rejoiced because they would have had to adjust and rename ressources in all BG1 mods, thanksverymuch.
And yes, what the other posters said.