Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Gathers Party, Ventures Forth

[Knight Templar]

This is so exciting, I am so excited!
I absolutely love Baldurs Gate and this is sounding like everything I could want.

Also Il-Khan? As in Gromnir Il-Khan? And the wild Mage somehow reminds me of Hannelore from Questionable Content.

 

[Caffiene]

Hmm... Now Im not sure how I feel.

Im excited for the game, but the new portraits IMO look too cartoony (especially the wild mage), and if those look too cartoony im suddenly very worried for the new animated cut scenes.

 

[Whytewulf]

I may have to check this out.. I am tempted to get an IPAD type device soon. I am amazed at all you people that keep your games forever.. maybe I should have.. but moving so much, it's tough to move two boxes and growing of games.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

Awesome great price point, cool features (old and new) this should sell extremely well.

"...the game will be available exlusively via beamdog."

Aaaaaaaand there goes a few thousand sales right there... Unfortunate. I'm not saying beamdog is bad, but it isn't popular. A Steam release would have secured thousands of sales from not just fans of the original Baldur's Gate, but also from some of the millions of people who see the steam store page every day. That page is ridiculously good advertising and a $20 game attracts attention.

Honestly if it wasn't Baldur's Gate I wouldn't bother with beamdog myself.

 

[Rack]

I think I got about two hours in before every path I had left to choose ended in instant death to hilariously overpowered giant ass monsters that would one or two shot everyone in my party.

It's really not that easy to get lost, so I'm not sure what happens. The start of the game directs you very directly to the Friendly Arm Inn, and then down to Nashkel. If you don't veer too far from this then it's difficult but not ridiculously so. I wouldn't hold it against anyone who found the start too aggravating to use Gatekeeper to give their party a couple of levels to start the game off, D&D does not work well as a game system at level 1-3. If you don't like that idea then use bows and prepare for a little grief early on.

If it accepts the old mods then great, if not then that's a lot to pay for a substantially worse version of Baldurs Gate.

 

[Zaik]

I think I got about two hours in before every path I had left to choose ended in instant death to hilariously overpowered giant ass monsters that would one or two shot everyone in my party.

It's really not that easy to get lost, so I'm not sure what happens. The start of the game directs you very directly to the Friendly Arm Inn, and then down to Nashkel. If you don't veer too far from this then it's difficult but not ridiculously so. I wouldn't hold it against anyone who found the start too aggravating to use Gatekeeper to give their party a couple of levels to start the game off, D&D does not work well as a game system at level 1-3. If you don't like that idea then use bows and prepare for a little grief early on.

If it accepts the old mods then great, if not then that's a lot to pay for a substantially worse version of Baldurs Gate.

That's where I was at. I had picked up whats her face that wakes up with you in BG2 and her soon to be dead husband, and we were supposed to go to Nashkel, supposedly to the south? I just kept going south until I ran into some stuff that dropped my party in about 7 seconds flat. Then I tried going in all the other side paths thinking I needed to grind or something, with equally disappointing results.

Two other guys were with us, and they wanted to go somewhere else(I think?), but every time I looked in that direction something ran over and killed everyone. So they got mad, and left. I think. I'm not really clear on why any of that happened, I'm just guessing.

 

[mrhateful]

Oh yes! The happyness I feel cannot be described in words!

 

[Rack]

I think I got about two hours in before every path I had left to choose ended in instant death to hilariously overpowered giant ass monsters that would one or two shot everyone in my party.

It's really not that easy to get lost, so I'm not sure what happens. The start of the game directs you very directly to the Friendly Arm Inn, and then down to Nashkel. If you don't veer too far from this then it's difficult but not ridiculously so. I wouldn't hold it against anyone who found the start too aggravating to use Gatekeeper to give their party a couple of levels to start the game off, D&D does not work well as a game system at level 1-3. If you don't like that idea then use bows and prepare for a little grief early on.

If it accepts the old mods then great, if not then that's a lot to pay for a substantially worse version of Baldurs Gate.

That's where I was at. I had picked up whats her face that wakes up with you in BG2 and her soon to be dead husband, and we were supposed to go to Nashkel, supposedly to the south? I just kept going south until I ran into some stuff that dropped my party in about 7 seconds flat. Then I tried going in all the other side paths thinking I needed to grind or something, with equally disappointing results.

Two other guys were with us, and they wanted to go somewhere else(I think?), but every time I looked in that direction something ran over and killed everyone. So they got mad, and left. I think. I'm not really clear on why any of that happened, I'm just guessing.

Yes Nashkel is to the south, I'm not sure if you can have got lost between the Friendly Arm Inn and Nashkel, there's a road that takes you pretty much straight there, if you don't veer off it you should get there fine. However first level AD&D characters are pretty easy to kill in 7 seconds so you may have just fallen foul of that games brutal difficulty curve. With bows and a little luck you can get through but you don't have nearly as many options as BG2. I'm afraid grinding isn't really an option.

I've attached the map below, if you know where you hit trouble then I can work out if you got lost or ran afoul of Baldurs Gate 1s brutal start.

Spoiler: Here's the map

 

[Deadyawn]

Ugh, I'm SO freakin glad I bought this off GoG not all that long ago. *Headesk*
I really do want to like this game but everytime I try to play it I get through the tutorial and then get torn to pieces by wolves in the forest only to realize I haadn't actually saved the game yet. Sigh.

I might get this but it can wait.

 

[Nantucket_v1legacy]

This is fantastic news!
I am pre-ordering this and looking forward to reliving those adventures. I wish they would make more RPGs like this - they cannot cost too much to make and once you've become engrossed you ignore the graphics and the mountains of text you have to read.

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

Hmm. Well, Neera will probably have interesting interactions with Edwin, and Dorn sounds like he'd be a solid addition to an Evil party (especially since Shar-Teel and Kagain, the other Evil fighters, are powerful but relatively plain). But...

Okay, pet peeve: I realize Baldur's Gate originates in the pre-Xena D&D era, but it's 2012 - why are the new guys fighters while the new girl is a mage? Would it be so awful to have a female Orc warrior in your party? I mean, BioWare did get better at this: Grey Warden ladies are treated with equality and respect, and FemShep is pretty much the contemporary SF female hero. But if you're making the effort to add new characters to a classic, you could at least try to break the moldy-old-mold.

Anyway, now that I've vented, another thought: if Dorn is indeed connected to Gromnir il-Khan, I wonder if the new NPCs will be carried over to BG2/ToB...

 

[Denamic]

The lower price for the smartphone versions are probably because the game's format doesn't lend itself well to grubby sausage fingers, forcing the game to be either very zoomed in, limiting the field of view, or suffer tremendous accuracy issues.

 

[surg3n]

Looking forward to this, a decent RPG adventure for the iPad, an actual adventure as well - not just an excuse for one .

Now, we just need a decent grid based Dungeon Master game for the iPad and I'll be all set.

 

[Zaik]

I think I got about two hours in before every path I had left to choose ended in instant death to hilariously overpowered giant ass monsters that would one or two shot everyone in my party.

It's really not that easy to get lost, so I'm not sure what happens. The start of the game directs you very directly to the Friendly Arm Inn, and then down to Nashkel. If you don't veer too far from this then it's difficult but not ridiculously so. I wouldn't hold it against anyone who found the start too aggravating to use Gatekeeper to give their party a couple of levels to start the game off, D&D does not work well as a game system at level 1-3. If you don't like that idea then use bows and prepare for a little grief early on.

If it accepts the old mods then great, if not then that's a lot to pay for a substantially worse version of Baldurs Gate.

That's where I was at. I had picked up whats her face that wakes up with you in BG2 and her soon to be dead husband, and we were supposed to go to Nashkel, supposedly to the south? I just kept going south until I ran into some stuff that dropped my party in about 7 seconds flat. Then I tried going in all the other side paths thinking I needed to grind or something, with equally disappointing results.

Two other guys were with us, and they wanted to go somewhere else(I think?), but every time I looked in that direction something ran over and killed everyone. So they got mad, and left. I think. I'm not really clear on why any of that happened, I'm just guessing.

Yes Nashkel is to the south, I'm not sure if you can have got lost between the Friendly Arm Inn and Nashkel, there's a road that takes you pretty much straight there, if you don't veer off it you should get there fine. However first level AD&D characters are pretty easy to kill in 7 seconds so you may have just fallen foul of that games brutal difficulty curve. With bows and a little luck you can get through but you don't have nearly as many options as BG2. I'm afraid grinding isn't really an option.

I've attached the map below, if you know where you hit trouble then I can work out if you got lost or ran afoul of Baldurs Gate 1s brutal start.

Spoiler: Here's the map

Alright, thanks. I guess I'll give it another shot.

Edit: Honestly I couldn't really tell you the specific area, if I had to guess I'd say the rocky area, but there might have been trees? I died in a lot of places a lot of times, I just remember not being able to go south any more.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Awesome great price point, cool features (old and new) this should sell extremely well.

"...the game will be available exlusively via beamdog."

Aaaaaaaand there goes a few thousand sales right there... Unfortunate. I'm not saying beamdog is bad, but it isn't popular. A Steam release would have secured thousands of sales from not just fans of the original Baldur's Gate, but also from some of the millions of people who see the steam store page every day. That page is ridiculously good advertising and a $20 game attracts attention.

Honestly if it wasn't Baldur's Gate I wouldn't bother with beamdog myself.

You just need to buy it off the site. There's no client needed.

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

Even though I have the GOG version of both games, even if the specific mods I use won't work anymore, I'm still buying both Enhanced Editions.

Why? Because this could be the start of an Infinity Engine renaissance. Imagine an enhanced version of Planescape Torment or Icewind Dale. Imagine new games based on these properties, outside the corrosive influence of companies like EA. Imagine such games being designed by people like Trent Oster - you may not agree with every decision he's made, but this is someone who says "It will work if you save a game in a DLC area and load on a device that doesn't have DLC. We'd like to get paid, but we don't break games."

This could be what we've been waiting for, people. We just have to make sure it succeeds.

 

[cidbahamut]

So they're basically selling the tutu mod and adding some new content that won't fit with the rest of the game so it looks like they actually did some work.

I don't think I'll be rewarding that with my money.

 

[MammothBlade]

MY BODY IS READY.

But damn, that's at least 2 games in a short space of time. How am I going to cope with Persona 4 Arena AND Baldurs Gate? And with Borderlands 2 as another possibility...

Well, I don't mind downloading directly from Beamdog's site.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

Awesome great price point, cool features (old and new) this should sell extremely well.

"...the game will be available exlusively via beamdog."

Aaaaaaaand there goes a few thousand sales right there... Unfortunate. I'm not saying beamdog is bad, but it isn't popular. A Steam release would have secured thousands of sales from not just fans of the original Baldur's Gate, but also from some of the millions of people who see the steam store page every day. That page is ridiculously good advertising and a $20 game attracts attention.

Honestly if it wasn't Baldur's Gate I wouldn't bother with beamdog myself.

You just need to buy it off the site. There's no client needed.

Regardless, everything I said still stands. You may not need a client, it may actually be easier than steam for all I know, but it's still not as popular and I foresee that they will lose out on several thousand sales. I mean think about it, just about 4 million people online at any given time of day on the steam network, all of them seeing the store page and/or the update window upon launch. That's some damn good advertisement you can't argue that won't secure some sales. Either way they say only on beamdog "for now" so maybe it will see a Steam release eventually.