First Impressions?

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Lawful doesn't necessarily mean following the law. Lawful refers more to a person that follows a strict code. The mob boss for example would be lawful evil.

I'm finding more and more bugs as I continue, but so far they haven't been a serious issue. Although things like quests that aren't showing as complete in my journal don't disappear and thus far I'm missing two encounters I wouldn't have expected to be removed.

Spoiler

The random mage assassin in Nashkel you fight just outside the Inn/Shop and Edwin never shows up to fight after I rescue Dynaheir (SP)

My gold seems to randomly vanish and return doubled as well. It's odd.

 

I like it actually. They've added a few 'modern' touches (like a game launcher for patching - new patch today actually, actual native widescreen, sharper graphics) but kept the old feel (such as the voice actors falling right in with the existing ones, at least for me). Overall, I think it feels a professional job, as opposed to just feeling like a mod. Not run into any huge technical glitches yet, thank god.

 

After about 8 hours of running FLAWLESSLY, I saw my first faux pas. Going directly from the Gnoll Stronghold to Nashkell, I had a CTD. It just stopped playing for about 10 - 15 seconds and then I was on my desktop. The next day, I did the trip again and I was in Nashkell. I think it was just a little hiccup that occassionally happens in a fair amount of games.

All in all, I'm extremely impressed!!! It looks more like BGII than BG. Plays like it too. If BGEE is like this, I can't wait for BG2EE!!!

Then there's IWDEE and IWD2EE...

 

Are they in the process of patching already? That's good. Hopefully it'll be all right in a couple of weeks. I wouldn't mind encounters missing, but crucial things like characters not triggering seems almost like a game-breaking thing.

Thanks for clearing up the 'lawful' affair. It's kinda confusing, as your reputation is better when you're being lawful because chaotic tends to be unpredictable (joker-esque) and therefore more dangerous (hell, look at Minsc, or is he neutral?).

 

Really liking the new map markers. Since the old game didn't have a bunch of these things marked I never saw them so I never say... had Kagain in my party (never knew he existed). Lots of improvements like this.


A complaint though; They've changed some dialogue here and there and "modernized" it. One or two of Minsc's have been completely ruined. A lot of the newer dialogue is good though.

 

Well...mixed feelings here:

I started with the Pit's (since, like most here, I'm very familiar with BG) and encountered my first game stopper bug. (The occasional chopped sound or spoken line not to mention.)

After the Djinn makes his leave I left hanging.
Apparently a script didn't fire and left me and my party of pre-made noobs stranded with a GUI-less screen, not being able to do squat. All I could do was terminating the application via higher-force (TaskManager).

So much for that. After another attempt I finally managed to get past this point and went ahead and won a few triers.
In the course of those fights I came to see the crappy (as ever) path-finding of my crew of useless Tavern-Dvellers. Since most of them seemed to find the arena pillars far more magnetic than the Enemy.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-

After saving my progress I went and started a BG game. Curious what they did.
All things seemed the same at first. Sure the overall smoothness of loading and the menus and GUI were instantly eye-catching.
The graphical touch-ups are nice but far and few IMO and the paper-dolls have quite the charm to them. Love the lady Dwarves. The helmets too.
And the GUI deserves a another special prise. I wish it came as a mod for BWS, TUTU
or Vanilla BG.

The zoom function is a nice touch...but becomes uninteresting fairly fast.
Since I prefer the bigger overview over the zoomed-in one. But no matter. It's nice to have the option.

The new rings under the PC's are distracting; a bit, but in the long run I can see the merit. And same applies to the weapons and spell info on the portraits. A bit big, but still nice and has its uses.

The classes and Kits from BG2 are there.
And have already been if you come from one of the TUTU or BW crowd.
There are a few minor changes in description, attributes and such; Or the GUI is bugged an lists those as such...but I didn't look that close. Some people here have posted those things already.

So...
After a few well known quest (book, sword and antidote) we go on and meet Gorion.
After the Ambush at Gorion's Rest; which has been beefed up and looks quite epic, compared to the vanilla encounter waaaay back.
Gorion dishes out some flashy spells this time and is even nicely countered by one of the 'Lackeys'. But in the end, the result is the same.

My PC runs and awaits next morning.

Enter Imoen:
My Undead Hunter and her visit Gorion's Rest together and for the first time since I started BG:EE i realize how long ago it was since I played vanilla...meaning Immy is silent as a mouse.
I realize suddenly that all the cool banters, dialogs and comments that Immy uses to spout when we are on the road; or her sad comments at seeing dead Gorion are not there and won't be.
It's a mod...for an altogether different BG. And it took me some time to realize that.

Seems I will be missing many other things that I got so used to, things- bits and pieces -that I stopped seeing as a part of a mod...and attributed them to be part of MY 'vanilla' BG experience.
Oh well, I should have thought about that beforehand.

No matter, we press on.
We meet a 'strange old man' and try to make our way towards the FAI. And once again things seem a bit quiet on the road and there are fewer encounter that I'm used to. Beginning to feel a bit more confident.
This part in vanilla BG or modded was a chore on Lvl 1.
Strangly all we encounter is a lone Tasloi. Immy does him in before my two-hander wielding Paladin-Kit'er gets into weapons range.
The rest is silence.

We reach the FAI and I see another new Vid. I like them, more so than the old ones (which have been seen to death by now...by every member of SP)
I even find them more fitting for the whole artistic direction of the game that the previous ones.

Our next Assassin awaits at the stairs of the Inn
Saved the game after Tarnesh was dispatched by a critical, that made him explode. And now I'm here posting my experience.

I'm not sure how I feel about BG:EE.
The money it costs is hardly a fortune, and to be fair, I think the costs are justified.
The game is lacking in some department, but like said...most likely because my BG experience has been modded for years.

There is much more to see and I have yet to meet the new NPC's. So I will keep playing and posting as we go.

I hope you guys don't mind my review (or rant) so far...

 

Yes, I think they deliberately made the beginning few areas a bit easier. I.e instead of a group of gibberlings, they'll be one. I like this. I always felt staying alive through level 1 was more about lucky attack rolls than anything else, and it was annoying.

 

Well, I have not bought EE. Yet, I have a first impression, and it is not positive
I'll stick to the old good original games for a while.

 

Is that a pun to Beamdog to incite them to release on 'other' platforms?

Furthermore, how long will it take before the old mods are compatible? Or do they have to be converted as well? Tbh I don't really understand what they did exactly with the game. It looks the same, but did they have to convert everything and all?

 

Thanks Darion. I am curious about differences between TUTU and this. Is it worth buying this when you have TUTU? I already get kits, exotic weapons, better GUI and more with TUTU and a few mods.

 

A bit early to say...because I want to be fair and give BG:EE a chance.
I myself come from the BigWorld crowd, which means i tend to be biased.

Anyway...
Will get some playtime later. After my stint to the Sword-Coast I will write my impressions here.

 

I hate how they nerfed the beginning areas. It feels as fake as Illasera claiming to be one of the big 5.

Neera is OK, hated some of the new dialogue options, liked some of the new banters. I like the new UI, but I do not like how they changed the way some spells/abilities worked. The game is a lot easier now - good because it reminds me of BG2, bad because it reminds me of BG2 (and not BG1).

Overall although you know you're playing BG1 the game feels different. It does not give me impression of being a truly "improved" BG1 as far as changes in the game mechanics go. For one thing, the kits are as unbalanced here as they were in BG2 - you'd think some kits would be better in a low level/low magic setting, but changes they made negated that. I like most of the additions though - especially the new NPCs.

 

Nashkel is done, Tranzigis dispatched, next stop is the Bandit Camp. Dorn is awesome with great diaogues and a very good story-line. It's on-going so far as well.

Another thing I noticed... I was pickpocketed by Zhurlong in Beregost. So I whacked his little halfling-ass immediately. NO REP LOSS! NICE!!!! After the Bandit Camp, I will test this by returning to Nashkel to see how much I can enforce my will on the populous and take what is deservedly mine!

 

There's instructions on how to get weidu mods to work with BG:EE. It's approx. 6 steps, pseudo-complicated because you mainly have to be able to follow instructions well. Same deal with Shadowkeeper. Works after you do a few different steps from getting the mods to work.

ATM it's a huge pain in the butt for windows 7, because getting .jar files to run as admin is a massive pain in the arse.

That said the only old mod that would be meaningful to me would be the banter pack. I'm surprised as hell that only the three new NPC"s have BG2 style banter.

 

They couldn't change or expand any existing content for the NPCs - that was in the terms of their contract. So no new banters or comments from Jaheira, Minsc, Monty etc.

That said, the modders who have been on the BGEE boards have said that making a BGEE compatible version of the BG1NPC mod is a priority for them. So it shouldn't be too long until we get back the extra NPC content that we became used to with TUTU.

 

Adding new dialogue lines is not the same as changing or expanding existing content. Otherwise, how do they have any of the New NPCs communicate with the originals?

 

Btw, is it just me who feels there is a lack of monsters?

If you have been to the Xvart-village, the Gnoll Stronghold, or High Hedge area (skeletons) I am wondering if you felt the same as me, that the amount of enemies were way too low.
My level 3 party was just attacked by a single gibberling, something seems off

 

I've been running into what I at least *remember* being a normal amount of monsters. Some of the first areas had single gibberlings instead of 2-3 (still got hit by 2 a few times) or ogres... gibberlings or ogres at level 1-2.

 

From everything I'm reading, the consensus seems to be that Overhaul Games figured out a way to trick people into paying $20 for a modded version of a 12-year-old game, and even then it introduces more bugs than were present in the original game.

I think I'll replay ToEE w/ Co8 while waiting for Project Eternity. Seems like a waste of money to me. If they drop the price to $10, maybe I'll give it a whirl.