Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition

… Is out today!

I’m pre-loading and counting the friggin minutes at work until I get home.

Here’s a comprehensive list of what’s new in this version of the game, from this thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/13n3ti/baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition_gameplay_trailer_133/c75hqf1

Engine
Rewritten over half of the engine, fixing a number of issues and improving performance. This includes: rebuilding the threading model, and rebuilding the renderer and porting it to OpenGL (the graphics are now 100% hardware accelerated).

Fixed bugs that have been found over the years (by the devs, community, and modders). This not only includes the bugs that currently require mods to fix, but also the bugs that require access to the source code.

Making it multi-platform. PC, Mac, Ipad, Android. With a possible Linux version in the future.

Fixed the multiplayer and added matchmaking. The multiplayer also supports cross-platform play.

Visuals
Native support for high resolutions.

Shader-based upscaling of artwork. Art can be displayed at much higher resolutions than the original game.

A generously customisable / moddable high-res GUI.

Ability to zoom in or out of the battlefield.

Replaced the old CG movies with high-res hand painted cinematics.

Audio
Audio engine has been ported to OpenAL (which brings back environmental audio support for newer OSs).

High-quality original soundtrack (16 bit, 44.1 Khz OGG Vorbis files encoded directly from the OST CD).

New content will have music by Sam Hulick (Mass Effect 3).

New Content
1 new kit.

3 new joinable NPCs.

1 new adventure.

Several new items.

New portraits.

New voice sets for the player character.

With more to come in the future as (mostly) free DLC.
Official website: http://www.baldursgate.com/
Anyone else picking this one up? I’ve avoided replaying the game for many years, even with available mods, there were still bugs, and the interface was never truly redone like this before: for modern, high resolution monitors, and with modern aesthetics and usability in mind.

So I think it is finally the time, to replay through this genre defining game once more!

Go for the eyes Boo! Go for the eyes!!!

Very Interesting

I didn’t realize this was out already. I will definitely get it. Maybe ask for it for Christmas. I also like that they made New characters to use some fo the unusual kits/classes. I never really felt like making my main character one of those, so it’s nice to be able to play around with them without playing one the whole game.

Stopping on my way home tonight to pick up another iTunes gift card so that I can buy this for my iPad. Been waiting rather impatiently for it to come out.

Will be interesting to see how it plays on the iPad. On my bus ride…

Huh, I also didn’t know this was out this soon. Looks like the iPad/Android versions may be delayed a bit? (link) That’s the one I’ll be after, assuming the reviews don’t completely savage the touch interface or something similar. Either way I’m pretty excited to replay this after so long.

Website says iPad version will be available in November. There’s still just under 61 hours left.

ETA: I see from Kiros that it will be a little later after all.

I have had it pre-ordered for months. Last week, I got the notice that I can now pre-download it in preparation for the official release. My understanding was that this kind of thing was meant to avoid undercutting retailers of physical copies. Since this is entirely digital distribution, apparently the delay is simply because fuck me. Well, I suppose it’s probably also useful to assure a lighter load on their servers, which seemed already taxed on the 22nd just for the pre-download. But I still suspect the real reason is because shut up.

Of course, there is absolutely no need for me to fire up the game the minute the official trigger is pulled. I mean, it could take me up to an hour of just hitting ‘reroll’ before I’m even ready to start adventuring. And I’ll have all the time in the world to play the game as if for the first time. Still, I keep looking at the clock.

AAAAAHHHH!!! FUCK!!

Apple approval delayed by a crash bug. Won’t be out until next week.

“iOS build had a game-stopper bug,” Oster explained on Twitter. “With current estimate for App Store approval, that puts us into next week. We’re doing all we can.”

Hmmm, I’ll consider getting it for android as well, assuming reviews don’t pan the interface.

I’m not really convinced on touch screen devices for running these kinds of games. The mouse is fast and accurate. A touchscreen is neither. I assume lots of pausing… but at the same time, lots of pausing in these types of games is fine, so who knows? I just don’t want to be frustrated because I can’t pick up the sword on the ground, or can’t select a character cause he’s standing too close to another character, etc.

So, this is BG 1, right? But with the look of BG2, like you downloaded Tutu or the other one whose name escapes me at the moment? So, if BG1 only, then my next question (whether they’d incorporated the storylines and mods from e.g., Unfinished Business) is irrelevant, as that’s BG2 only.

Does it look like the Tales of the Sword Coast stuff will come in too? I wonder if one of the new NPCs is Kelsey?

Looks like a definite Christmas goodie, all the same. Thanks for the heads-up, Kinthalis.

Looks like it supports soundset mods. Time to dig up the old Bruce Campbell Army of Darkness/Evil Dead one I used to have :smiley:

They’re using a modified (fully openGL renderer they built themselves) BG2 engine. They also entirely re-worked the UI. It is no longer the original sprite based UI, it’s vector graphics, I believe, and they fully scale/support high resolution monitors/displays.

It does contain all of Tales of the Sword Coast content.

It looks like this version is even more mod friendly thank the original game. They went out of their way to structure the UI and other engine components for easy tweaking by modders.

Question is: will the modding community brings their mods to this version?

I hope so! And as you mentioned, some mods will work right out of the box with this version.

Pre-ordered, preloaded over the weekend (and the second portion yesterday), and can’t wait to get home. :smiley: I’m looking forward to the iPad release as well, and IIRC an interview correctly, they talked about allowing mods in the mobile versions via an internal DLC feature.

What I’d really like to see is a party management system along the lines of Dragon Age/Mass Effect where I can switch between henchmen without breaking quests, ending a romance, or trudging halfway around the world. Le sigh.

Some of that is possible, and some is not.

The first is quite practical, but not reall the way BG was designed. The ridiculous number of characters is definitely awkward. Not impossible, just not what it was set up for.

Second, PC’s in the original Baldur’s Gate didn’t really have lengthy character interactions or romances, so I doubt there’s much of the kind in this specific game anyway. I don’t think there’s much in this game that would stop your suggestion, and that may be enabled for the character interactions already. IIRC, the original had that issue by choice, not by accident; you can alter how only four variables are handled and it’s fixed. Lots of modders did just that.

I hope so, and I hope this will fix so many of the issues in the mods that existed. Even with some of the automated download tools, it was a massive pain to try and get this game running with multiple mods. And it simply was not designed for it at all.

Oddly enough, despite being made with no support for mods and a huge array of design choices whichy make mods extremely difficult, I’ve seen more mods for BG and BG2 than any other game not made by Bethesda (i.e., Morrowond/Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout 3).

I would recommend that anyone hoping to access their PDFs of the manual while designing their character go ahead and set it to Windowed mode before starting. It doesn’t let you get to anything through alt-tab. You can change this anytime during actual play, but not during character generation. Of course, if you can still remember your 2nd Edition stat mod charts…

Oooh, yeah good point. Gotta check those out.

Also, the new intro: KICKS @SS!

IGN’s quick look:

Didn’t get too far last night because of a long day at work and the need to get up early again, but I am full of squee over seeing this improved version. BTW, Trent Oster (@TrentOster) of Overhaul Games retweeted a comment last night that you can indeed import a character from an old BG save game instead of creating a new one! (Pity none of my old saves made it to this computer.)

I’m still partway through a game on the old, unmodded version of BG1, so I’m not in a rush to get the new one.