Some Renewed Hope
marceror
Member Posts: 577
TL;DR - BGEE has had a rocky road, but major obstacles have been overcome and the project continues to improve. Thanks Beamdog, and keep at it!
______________________________________
My opinions about the Enhanced Edition project can best be described as a roller coaster ride. I consider myself to be a massive fan of the Baldur’s Gate series. I have the fondest memories of my first play through of the original Baldur’s Gate shortly after it was released to the public. Actually, my roommate in college bought the game, decided it wasn’t his bag, and gifted it to me. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I don’t exactly think I made it to class much over the next week, nor did I sleep much as I became engrossed in an experience unlike I had ever thought possible on a computer. And just for some perspective, I generally maintained a 3.8+ GPA all through college, so for me to just “check out” for a week – it might have actually been longer – was entirely unheard for me back then.
I’ve since fully replayed BG at least half a dozen times, and BG2 at least a dozen. By fully replayed I mean that I finished the game. Partial replays would make the count much higher. To this day nothing tops this series for me.
When BGEE was announced, I was ecstatic. When mobile versions were announced shortly after, I was rather heartbroken. In a sense I felt “had” that this information had not been divulged as part of the initial announcement. I was gravely worried that the development effort would primarily revolve around perfecting the mobile versions vs. enhancing the “true” version of the game – which is to say, the PC version. Those fears, I would say were largely founded (note that I didn’t say entirely).
While this prevented me from preordering the game, I always knew I would still purchase it. I mean, BGEE was the first official update in over a decade to my favorite gaming series. Anything had to be better than nothing. But I remained guarded, and I’ll admit that I let the nay saying that was so prevalent in the community negatively affect my perceptions. I even conducted an interview with Trent at one point (http://www.sorcerers.net/Main/Articles/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-interview.php
), and sort of had my you-know-what handed to me by the community for not asking tougher questions. I asked the questions that I wanted to ask, so I don’t second guess myself there, but as my relationship with BG is almost on a “spiritual” level at this point, the negativity served to further reduce my already questionable enthusiasm. It shouldn’t have… but it did.
When the game finally was released I initially played a press release copy intending to write a review. I was disheartened more than a little to see the first quest not function properly, and all immersion temporarily was lost as I attempted to “cheat” a scroll of identity into the game to Band-Aid the broken quest. In spite of some of the early bugs, I mostly enjoyed the experience , and particularly loved Dorn in my evil party. Gord Marriott’s voice could not be more perfect for him.
But alas, a job change that took me from working from home to having a hefty commute reduced my limited free time and prevented me from finishing my play-through as well as the review (which was 75 – 80% complete IIRC). I always expected to come back to the game once I was a bit more settled in the job, but the situation only seemed to become more grim with all the legal issues the arose with BGEE. I also discovered Paradox Interactive along the way, getting sucked into games like Crusader Kings 2, Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3, prolonging my break from EE.
Eventually I was bound to come back and see what was going on in EE-land. I was extremely encouraged to see EE back on sale and an impending release of BG2EE on the horizon, not to mention the huge number of bug fixes and improvements that had been turned around. I was encouraged enough to go ahead and finally purchase Enhanced Edition just a few days back.
I do continue to hold onto hope that this project will be ultimately successful. I wish Beamdog godspeed in making it so. And even though I’ll always be a little bent out of shape of the inclusion of the mobile versions (only because they detract from what is personally important to me), I get that their inclusion was likely required to get the suits to sign off on any sort of Enhanced Edition project. So I accept that.
So what is the point of my rambling post? Mainly just to encourage the team at Beamdog to continue fighting the good fight. The road has been rocky in many respects, and to some extent the chips were stacked against you from the beginning what with touching such a classic, BUT… you continue to move the bar forward. Please keep doing that, and know that (for whatever portion of your fanbase I represent) your efforts are not going unnoticed.
Peace.
______________________________________
My opinions about the Enhanced Edition project can best be described as a roller coaster ride. I consider myself to be a massive fan of the Baldur’s Gate series. I have the fondest memories of my first play through of the original Baldur’s Gate shortly after it was released to the public. Actually, my roommate in college bought the game, decided it wasn’t his bag, and gifted it to me. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I don’t exactly think I made it to class much over the next week, nor did I sleep much as I became engrossed in an experience unlike I had ever thought possible on a computer. And just for some perspective, I generally maintained a 3.8+ GPA all through college, so for me to just “check out” for a week – it might have actually been longer – was entirely unheard for me back then.
I’ve since fully replayed BG at least half a dozen times, and BG2 at least a dozen. By fully replayed I mean that I finished the game. Partial replays would make the count much higher. To this day nothing tops this series for me.
When BGEE was announced, I was ecstatic. When mobile versions were announced shortly after, I was rather heartbroken. In a sense I felt “had” that this information had not been divulged as part of the initial announcement. I was gravely worried that the development effort would primarily revolve around perfecting the mobile versions vs. enhancing the “true” version of the game – which is to say, the PC version. Those fears, I would say were largely founded (note that I didn’t say entirely).
While this prevented me from preordering the game, I always knew I would still purchase it. I mean, BGEE was the first official update in over a decade to my favorite gaming series. Anything had to be better than nothing. But I remained guarded, and I’ll admit that I let the nay saying that was so prevalent in the community negatively affect my perceptions. I even conducted an interview with Trent at one point (http://www.sorcerers.net/Main/Articles/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-interview.php
), and sort of had my you-know-what handed to me by the community for not asking tougher questions. I asked the questions that I wanted to ask, so I don’t second guess myself there, but as my relationship with BG is almost on a “spiritual” level at this point, the negativity served to further reduce my already questionable enthusiasm. It shouldn’t have… but it did.
When the game finally was released I initially played a press release copy intending to write a review. I was disheartened more than a little to see the first quest not function properly, and all immersion temporarily was lost as I attempted to “cheat” a scroll of identity into the game to Band-Aid the broken quest. In spite of some of the early bugs, I mostly enjoyed the experience , and particularly loved Dorn in my evil party. Gord Marriott’s voice could not be more perfect for him.
But alas, a job change that took me from working from home to having a hefty commute reduced my limited free time and prevented me from finishing my play-through as well as the review (which was 75 – 80% complete IIRC). I always expected to come back to the game once I was a bit more settled in the job, but the situation only seemed to become more grim with all the legal issues the arose with BGEE. I also discovered Paradox Interactive along the way, getting sucked into games like Crusader Kings 2, Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3, prolonging my break from EE.
Eventually I was bound to come back and see what was going on in EE-land. I was extremely encouraged to see EE back on sale and an impending release of BG2EE on the horizon, not to mention the huge number of bug fixes and improvements that had been turned around. I was encouraged enough to go ahead and finally purchase Enhanced Edition just a few days back.
I do continue to hold onto hope that this project will be ultimately successful. I wish Beamdog godspeed in making it so. And even though I’ll always be a little bent out of shape of the inclusion of the mobile versions (only because they detract from what is personally important to me), I get that their inclusion was likely required to get the suits to sign off on any sort of Enhanced Edition project. So I accept that.
So what is the point of my rambling post? Mainly just to encourage the team at Beamdog to continue fighting the good fight. The road has been rocky in many respects, and to some extent the chips were stacked against you from the beginning what with touching such a classic, BUT… you continue to move the bar forward. Please keep doing that, and know that (for whatever portion of your fanbase I represent) your efforts are not going unnoticed.
Peace.
3
Comments
Gorion would be proud of their actions.
Lots of words you've got there. Pretty clever of you.
I was just trying to be funny. :-)I have had my fair share of über-long posts. (And in my case just using a bunch of words to say nothing at all. I'm good at that. All your words meant something. Kudos.)