If we can get all the angry cats together in a room again, and get them to agree it will amazing.
If we can make a box copy happen, it will likely only be for a limited-run collectors edition. I'll push as hard as I can to make it awesome.

-Trent

Sounds great Trent, hoping for the best.

What else (Besides the map) would be a possibility to add in the collectors edition if it happens?

That's great. Hopefully you can make it happen.

As for Heart of Fury mode, I have mixed feelings about (which may stem from me not having played much of it).

The thing I disliked about HoF is that when you ramp up the HP of mobs most of your damage dealing capabilities seem to be crap (melee damage, direct spell damage) and I disliked how your best tactic was using summons (and maybe death spells) to actually kill stuff.

But like I said, I never played much of Heart of Fury mode so my views may not reflect how it really worked.

Trent O...
If we can get all the angry cats together in a room again, and get them to agree it will amazing.

I resent this remark. RRAAuur. Hssss hssss.

I'm not a fan of HoF mode simply because it would be an import from IWD- not BG-native... and I don't even know what HoF entails. More applicable would be placing its specific game changes (if worth doing so) in an options settings area rather than introducing "heart of fury" as such.

Hexuss...
I would suggest to use USB-stick instead of CD. It is more convenient and a lot of modern notebooks do not have CD-drive at all.

Actually I like this idea a lot. Making it all on multiple CDs is almost like re-releasing a Stones album on cassette. Not sure how feasible a USB stick is though- and is there any game release ever that came out on USB stick?

Bhryaen, Heart of fury was a mode which let you replay Icewind Dale 2 with your high level characters after youve finnished the game, with harder monsters and some updated treasures.

@Infinitygames Ah, OK. Well, you can already import your char into BG, so it would just be a matter of implementing options that alter foe HP and maybe treasure scripts... But knowing what it is I'm even less inclined to support it, and besides, it sounds like it would require a total XP cap removal which seems off the table.

Well the whole point is to have maxed out characters (Level capped) and meet difficult monsters with better items.

well, was atleast worth a mention, i saw that someone wrote earlier about higher difficulty so this would be a great way to add that, and at the same time adding some replayability to the game with old characters.
Its not only as Tanthalas describe that the monsters HPs are maxed.

What time do they usually update the website?

Seeing as there is some resistance to HoF, I think better would be options to customise a higher difficulty. Seeing as Trent mentioned possibility implementing some of the stuff from Sword Coast Strategies, I think it would be nice to see some of these options avaiable in an 'advanced difficulty' sub-menu.

The first question to ask is how higher difficulty should be implemented, should it be a new difficulty notch added to the slider? or should it be a sub-menu in some advanced options allowing players to customise it? or both?

The second question to ask is what exactly 'higher difficulty' should entail. Seeing as 'higher difficulty' has been thrown around a lot, I've suggested some of the options that might include:

1. Enemies pre-buff (select either off, partial or fully, i.e. enemy groups cast all their buff spells automatically as you approach)

2. Higher enemy HP (at varying levels, possibly also option for 'max hp' for monsters, so all enemies have the equivalent of max hp on level).

3. Dangerous Wizards (enemy spellcasters have access to higher level spells than usual)

4. Higher damage (higher than the extra already offered by 'insane'

5. Better AI (I'm loathe to put this here as there is no reason for ai not be better at any level of the game, but you never know...)

6. Enhanced monsters (provides some of the SCS buffs to monsters, e.g. faster bears)

7. Expensive world (all shop prices are increased by an amount, and sale values reduced, e.g. slight, medium and massive increase 15%, 50% and 100% or something like that)

8. A tougher experience (experience values from enemies are reduced by a % depending on the level selected)

9. Harder resting: resting is more dangerous, with higher chances of being attacked and more enemies attacking depending on the level selected

10. Any other options you can think of...

I would reiterate that my preference would be for difficulty options, so that you can pick and choose.

But imagine a new difficulty option on the slider 'Legend of the Coast' or even 'Oster' if you wanted something comparable to a 'Sid' level of difficulty as in Civilization. This difficulty could pick an optimum selection of features from those listed above and others, to make the game more terrifying for those returning and looking for a real challenge.

I'd like to see higher ruleset-abiding difficulty first and foremost (as opposed to monsters that cheat--there were a lot of these in BG1, not so much BG2), and at the top of that list would be improved, logical AI. Things like enemies not forgetting you easily, varying their attack patterns and formations, scouting you out, and finding you and waking you if you rest near them, or somesuch.

@Tanthalas Overboard on the box? There wasn't a proper CE version of BG1, iirc. I want to set a ce version of it next to my CE BG2. =] With a brooding Sarevok poised in front.

"I will be the Last. And you will go First." - Sarevok-

Where did you get your Sarevok avatar, Wonderboy? It's pretty neat!

I second what caruga said about the need for better AI. Monsters and enemies that have to cheat in order to be a match for you are symptomatic of something wrong with the game.

The mod Sword Coast Stratagems has already demonstrated what better AI can do in terms of making the game more challenging without resorting to cheats. I believe aTWEAKS provides an even better solution in terms of "rules-abiding": its every P&P component also features an AI upgrade so that monsters behave accordingly to their new P&P abilities and their P&P description. Most encounters become significantly more challenging with these changes.

aTWEAKS is one of my mandatory installs every time I play BG.

@Bhryaen I think it would be on one DVD, not all the CDs, but yes, I stand beside the idea of USB. Even though CD got it's glamour I think everything should be made in USB, games, music, movies, it is compact and every radio or TV has USB port nowadays.

Posted by Andrea C.

''I second what caruga said about the need for better AI. Monsters and enemies that have to cheat in order to be a match for you are symptomatic of something wrong with the game. ''

Me third. The biggest thing for me is the fact that you can kill the most powerful ennemies in the game by simply staying in the distance and throwing fireballs without them even turning hostile. The one I have in mind right now is the fight on act 4 before you get into the mines, because it's where I'm at on my... 1 billionth game? Anyway, the fight against the guy with the boots of speed, the axe thrower and the two mages. I used to kill them that way as a kid because I thought that the fight was really hard. I stopped using those cheap tactics a long time ago of course but I think that just having the knowledge that I can do it if I want lessens the game experience for me.

A solution for that could be to have ennemies patrolling. That way you can't always know where to expect them. Or there could be a trigger in which (If I'm taking the pre-mine fight as an example) Once you've crossed the bridge the two cronies have alerted them and so they buff up, turn hostile, and maybe come meet your group head on. The mages could even start casting AOEs before you can even see them. I think that some monsters should be walking around randomly through maps as well.

Oh I just remembered something that I've been wanting for as long as I can remember. I'd love it if monsters and enemy humanoids were hostile against one another. I know it doesn't happen really often but say you're running away from some kobolds and you stumble upon a group of evil humans, I'd want for the kobold to attack the humans as well as your group, whoever is closest. The game would feel so much more realistic that way. Most monsters should also attack eachother especially the brainless ones against the humanoids like bassilick vs. kobolds.

The fact that none of your enemies ever attack each other give a sort of stiffling you vs. the world feeling which I never like in games. If you made some monsters patrolling randomly, it would be really cool to stumble upon a group of humanoids, who would later turn hostile, fight against a group of wandering kobolds.

Oh also! I want to see enemies who you stumble on on the map look like they're actually doing something. I want to see humanoids next to a campire with a couple of tents close by or something. I want to see them firing arrows or practicing their spells on a target or practicing swordfighting together or something, you could hear them in the distance and know that you would need to prepare for a fight. Same thing for monsters, I want to hear some distant growns and growls if they're close by and I want to see the monsters doing something like feeding on a corpse or whatever monsters do in their spare time.

I want to believe that the purpose of these enemies and more particularly NPC enemies wasn't to stay out in the desert until they encountered me. Just make it look like they're actually doing something out there and it will be enough. Now that we know that character interactions can't be improved, this is the biggest change I'm hoping comes out of BGEE.

I'll add more suggestions related to this later... It's getting late

Oh also! I want to see enemies who you stumble on on the map look like they're actually doing something

Unfortunately that would mean rendering new sprites. It would be a lot cheaper and easier to do with 3D models.

Incidentally, I don't know if anyone ever commented on my suggestion of replacing the sprites with 3D models (but keeping the backgrounds as bitmaps). They'd look just as realistic, and they'd be able to turn a true 360 degrees, and they'd occupy less disk space and there would be more flexibility on what the devs (and modders) could do with them. Back in 1998 they would have looked crappy (think Quake) but today they can easily rival pre-rendered graphics, especially as the figures will appear quite small on-screen.

I can understand why traditionalists would want to retain the isometric (tile-based) bitmap graphics for the backgrounds, but for figures, you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between 3d models and sprites if you saw a still picture of them and so there's no reason to object that I can see, I only see advantages.

Unfortunately, despite the cheaper overhead compared to drawing entirely new sprites (as far as I know at least, I'm not in the business) I figure they've assessed and dismissed this option as well. Maybe working 3D support into the engine is the real sticking point, rather than constructing the actual models...

I used to kill them that way as a kid because I thought that the fight was really hard. I stopped using those cheap tactics a long time ago of course but I think that just having the knowledge that I can do it if I want lessens the game experience for me.

I'm glad someone knows how I feel when I hear the argument "you don't have to [partake in that aspect of the game]". It's when it's hard not to cheapen the game even accidentally (as I wrote in a much earlier post, sometimes you can take advantage of glitches/abuses without even intending to, or you only realise they were cheap after committing them). I want a game that wins my respect and makes me WORK to overcome obstacles. If it allows me to maul it to death through some loophole, you bet i'm going to do it. I don't want to have to 'hold back' in any way; I want to find the most BS tactics I can think of and have the developers still be one step ahead of me and ready for me, if not with an outright nullification of the strategy then at least taking it into account when designing.

Devs really need to keep emergent gameplay in mind, and think outside the box when setting up challenges, think as a crafty player would. I don't want to manage the difficulty for myself, I want the game to lay down the rules and school me; I want to match my best against its best.

Also speaking of the 'game cheating' again, despite my love of challenge, I actually have never played the game in anything higher than 'core rules' (nor less than for that matter), because of damage-scaling. To upscale the damage is 'cheating difficulty', it's not a part of the ruleset. It's a quick and dirty solution for the developers as a way of increasing difficulty, but not very creative or analogous to making a smarter Dungeon Master (the cpu). And core rules enemies do plenty of damage anyway, lack of damage is not the problem, outsmarting them too easily is the problem.

I guess it might be a quirk with me though... since Dragon Age didn't follow an established ruleset, I was happy to play that game in Nightmare mode even though that too relied a lot on upscaling damage and HP, because I could easily regard the Nightmare mode itself as a part of the 'Dragon Age ruleset' (and because the difficulty and damage output from enemies felt about right to me on that setting). But in AD&D there's no such thing as 'nightmare mode' and so I threw it out...

I think everyone would want better AI to be to the long and short of extra difficulty but you have to be realistic. A challeging AI is notoriously difficult to make, at least based on the tremedous number of games with awful AI. If they can make the AI better then that's great, but in any case that shouldn't be a part of difficulty, it should be an intrinsic part of the game (unless you think lower difficulties should be easier because the AI behaves stupidly).

Difficulty is an intrinsically artificial concept. On easy you should still face just as clever an opponent as you do on insane, otherwise you are depriving players of coming up against an intelligent opposition -a part of the game. AI should be how the computer plays and what it does. Difficulty should reflect how effective it as at doing that.

Also remember that what we're talking about here is higher difficulty OPTIONS for people who want an extra challenge. Ruling them out based on the fact that they're not 'realistic' or not D&D seems to be a bit closed-minded to me. This is already in light of the fact that the insane difficulty option mentioned above does the classic 'increased enemy damage'. If people want to make the experience artificially more challenging, then you should have option of doing so. Otherwise you end up in the position where you say, I understand you find the game too easy, but I can't find a D&D compliant method of making the experience more challenging so you'll have to make do.

Finally in respect of the long range fireball tactic above, I agree that it is a cheap strategy, but it is nevertheless a way of playing. Completely shutting it off, or prohibiting players from doing it is essentially forcing them to play the game they way you want them to play it. That contradicts some of the finest elements of BG, the ideas of choice, strategy and planning. The computer should of course react to these things properly in any case.

Completely shutting it off, or prohibiting players from doing it is essentially forcing them to play the game they way you want them to play it

Well nobody is advocating that--there should just be ways for the enemy to counter it.

Wonderboy2402...
There wasn't a proper CE version of BG1

With as many times as BG1 has senselessly killed me, it must be a proper CE version! (jk)

HeroicSpur...
I think it would be nice to see some of these options avaiable in an 'advanced difficulty' sub-menu.

The way I imagine it would be having an extra button on the Character Creation screen- either available at any time during CC or after the character is finally finished. Click it and it goes to the Advanced Options screen where there are two primary buttons- DEFAULT SETTINGS- which would restore all to vanilla BGEE- and RETURN TO CC- which would return to the CC screen (without zeroing out whatever CC building had been done already).

Did I go over this once in detail? If so, it was too long ago... On the AO screen there would be sliders for stuff like:

* Prices: cheaper - normal - more expensive until iron shortage resolved - more expensive
* Rest risk: undisturbed - normal - more likelihood of disturbance if in hostile area - more likelihood of disturbance generally
* Rest locations: anywhere except in city streets - normal - only at inns
* Enemy mage spells: normal (no pre-buffing & no BG2 spells) - pre-buffing but no BG2 spells - no pre-buffing but BG2 spells - pre-buffing and BG2 spells
* Fog of war (euphemism for clunkyville black world pixellization): full removal - removal for town/ city areas only - normal (everybloodywhere)
* Party HP at level up: maxed - random within upper half of range (NWN1-like) - normal
* Enemy HP: normal - random within upper half of range - maxed - illegally high (meh)
* Trap/ Lock XP: (introduced into BG1 by ToB engine) normal - half the amount - removed entirely
* Multiple Protection Items: can be worn together, all bonuses stack - can be worn together, only highest bonus counts - normal (can't even wear two Protection bonus items at once... big annoying inconvenience of having to switch items out in inventory constantly)
* Weapon use class-restriction: all open - all open but penalty for non-class use except for clerics (for whom blunt weapon restrictions don't make sense) - all open but penalty for non-class use - normal
* Spellcasting in armor: Possible without restrictions - possible with chance of failure based on armor heaviness (95% with full plate) - normal
* Item randomization: normal - randomize major items but not tomes - randomize major items and tomes separately - randomize all together
* Charm effects: Charmed creatures don't go hostile after charm wears off, possible to converse with them as if not hostile - charmed creatures don't go hostile after charm wears off but not possible to converse with them - charmed creatures go hostile after charm wears off, possible to converse with them as if not hostile - normal (charmed creatures go hostile, can't converse)

And toggle boxes for stuff like:

* Mage harder AI (target selection, spell selection, no more casting fireballs at their own feet to heroically sacrifice themselves just to kill party members, etc.)
* Archer harder AI (target selection, running away for a bit if too near melee attacker, etc.)
* Monster harder AI (bassilisk target selection and varying between firing shots at distant targets and melee)
* General AI (firing on one triggers all in "cry for help" distance, enemies recognize if their attack isn't working (due to immunity or something))
* Etc. AI
* All-of-the-above AI (toggles all on or off)
* Remove XP cap
* More monster wandering (can't really apply everywhere, but still)
* Harder monsters (some kobolds with poison daggers, web-slinging spiders, harder end monster in Ulcaster, etc.)
* Nerf major game items (like easter eggs, Cloak of Balduran (to have only 5 charges and reduce duration of Charm effect), Boots of Speed (only 1/day temporary Haste) etc., similar to the unsupported (doesn't work well with other mods) mod Hard Times, though then they'd be off the item randomization list)
* Randomize trap locations (would apply in golem caves, Candlekeep crypt, Firewine ruins, Durlag's, Maze)
* Faster wild animals (trying not to name bears specifically, but that's all I can think of that ought to run faster... other than maybe spiders and bassilisks)
* Force dialogue to pause game

And then there would be another screen listing all the NPCs just for changing NPC class, attribute points, and weapon proficiency focus, as like with the very buggy and inconvenient (forces you to reinstall for every change) mod Level1NPCs. I prefer keeping the NPCs' original attribute point total constant and just shifting available points to make a new class more workable, but the ability to max points would be available. There's an alternate method which would make it an in-game experience that occurs when you recruit the NPC, but I'm not sure if that's more feasible or less, implementation-wise. In that case though it would just involve a single toggle option of "Level Up Game NPCs on Recruitment" rather than a whole selection screen in the Advanced Options, and actually that might make integration with NPC mods a lot easier.

It's surely not feasible to do all of that- and some of it more than others clearly introduces the "risk of bugs" Trent was mentioning- but format-wise it seems fairly basic. Plus replayability is aflame with those sorts of options to play around with for every game... and without full game reinstalls each time as is presently the case with them being only modded options...

Of all those selections though, probably the best strictly difficulty enhancement would be the AI tweaks, as several have said. SCS is by far my favorite mod (not the least reason being its exceptional documentation, remaining updated, and lack of bugginess). It seems it may already be getting implemented, however:

From the OsterTweets:
Just got my butt handed to me in Adventure X of #bgee. Damn AI is tough. I really hate bouncing lightning bolts

Or maybe that's just the thing you encounter with Silke who blasts everyone including herself at short range with the ricochet lightning effect.

For notability reasons... SCS AI bugs:
1. Last year there was an issue with the mod where if you were stealthed or Inviso enemies would nevertheless come right up to your character and follow them around indefinitely, probably because they were on a script of "walk to PC, in-sight attack" since they'd never get the "in-sight" part. But it would also happen if you would run around a corner and stealth since they'd follow rather than stop and- presumably- look around. I believe that was fixed, but still a potential implementation bug.

2. Another thing that was happening was that- if the enemy had already gone hostile- creeping in stealthily or in Inviso would trigger them to run outside a building or around a corner or far across the area to attack the rest of the party... which they couldn't even know was there. It's probably connected to an "if target not sighted, target another party member" type of script that lacked an "if in-sight" provision. Not sure if that was fixed.

@Andrea C: I skipped the aTweaks AI changes in favor of SCS's, but they may be more worthwhile to examine for all I know. Or are they compatible changes?

caruga...
I'm glad someone knows how I feel when I hear the argument "you don't have to [partake in that aspect of the game]"

We probably disagree only on TAB, so... *shrugs* I even agree about how off-putting it would be to have an artificial HP or DAM increase for enemies and would prefer for myself exclusively DnD-based changes. (Actually I disagree on DAO's "Nightmare" feelings about right: all it does is prolong battles, not make them more tactically challenging. I do exactly the same thing on Nightmare, just for a longer period... meh.)

But as HeroicSpur pointed out. even AI enhancements should still be optional (i.e., one isn't forced to play the game you want them to). There are many, many BG players who thoroughly enjoy BG just the way it is and would go on just the same without any AI enhancements... My first couple BG1 games would've probably pretty miserable with SCS-like AI, so I'm glad I got to see both. But now, balking at the cheesiness of unrealistic enemy AI, I'd be so bored with BG without enhanced enemy AI that I likely simply wouldn't even play it.

On your own reasoning of being willing to take advantage of any game exploit "loophole," would you take advantage of the fact that you don't have to click the AI enhancements in the Advanced Options? Or would you check that box and stick yourself with it? Denying yourself exploits doesn't require denying it to others. (And TAB being an exploit is, well, your opinion.) I would click the AI enhancement box every game, including my first BGEE game, eager to gain that challenge. And at the same time, others may have such trouble with BGEE's vanilla version that they'd be quite challenged enough without the AI enhancement. Or are those less "capable" players not worth respect either? I'd say leave it the way it is.

Keep in mind also that this is BGEE, not BG3. For BG3 all your recommendations about formulating challenges should certainly be taken into account, and I'd urge the BGEE team to take it under advisement if and when they get to it.

Hi Bhryaren,

@Andrea C: I skipped the aTweaks AI changes in favor of SCS's, but they may be more worthwhile to examine for all I know. Or are they compatible changes?

I know aVENGER tries hard to maintain compatibility between aTWEAKS and SCS, but for some components you must choose which AI tweak you prefer as they work in a completely different way. I've never played SCS because I'm a rules-lawyer and would rather go for tweaks that are slavishly based on P&P manuals :-) I'm sure the aTWEAKS readme says something about SCS compatibility.

AzL0n...
Oh I just remembered something that I've been wanting for as long as I can remember. I'd love it if monsters and enemy humanoids were hostile against one another.

I actually made a reddit request for this a week or so ago because of how ridiculous (and game-detracting) it feels that anything hostile to you will gang up with absolutely anything else- wyverns and wolves, spiders and bandits, bassilisks and xvarts (yes, that's happened to me)... though I'm seeing complications with factionalizing all monsters (besides the mere quantity of different monsters and monster variations in BG):

1. The travel spawn scriping would have to be completely overhauled. No more random selection, or rather the random selection would have to be kept in groups (or "factions," as I put it according to NWN1 terminology): bandits, Black Talons, kobolds, gnolls, hobgobs, xvarts in one group (but since when do xvarts band up with anyone else?); ogres and ogrillons in their own group; spiders and ettercaps in their own group, bassilisks in their own group; wolves and dogs in their own group; etc.

(Come to think of it, why aren't there some neutral (amusing, informative) or even friendly travel spawn encounters? Harrumph.)

2. The wandering scripting you mention- which I also support- nevertheless makes such mixed encounters far more likely... Just think how close the spiders are to the bandits in Peldvale... (Why? Are they herding them?) And with the xvarts having their own pet Cave Bear, it becomes that much more incongruous to the gameworld that you could lure a Black Bear up into their midst to maul them all to death- or that it might actually wander there. But then again, maybe xvarts and bears should be on their own faction group. In any case you'd have the game tracking creatures everywhere both wandering and (with some regularity) attacking each other, and unless the territorial wandering is containable (no idea in BG), you'd constantly stumble on already-dead creatures. That actually already happened to me in the Nashkell mines when new modded creatures (poison-dagger kobolds) with a new faction attacked guards, and despite the attack rolls going by in the text window, by the time I got there all I did was watch one kobold dying of poisoning somehow. (lol)

3. It would definitely cause a completely new tactical advantage to a player to be able to simply sic one creature type on another. It would also potentially cause an XP loss for the party since all creatures that kill each other off rather than a party member would be "stealing" the kill shot... So I suppose that XP loss would be a disadvantage to the player as well, but it remains something to consider in implementing it.

But, yes, it would look a lot more realistic if there were such factions. Why, after all, do the mercs in the Candlekeep crypts not get attacked by the same phase spiders that you trigger off against yourself? Does merc blood taste bad? And really whenever I see different creatures attacking each other in game I get a flashback feeling to when the elves, humans, and dwarves fought each other at the end of the Hobbit, now suddently enemies to each other.

Btw the funniest moment I recall from my scant BG2 experience was seeing Carbos and Shank resurrected and going at it. lol

@Andrea C.: I'll check that out- sounds interesting, and I never tried it...

caruga...
Incidentally, I don't know if anyone ever commented on my suggestion of replacing the sprites with 3D models (but keeping the backgrounds as bitmaps). They'd look just as realistic, and they'd be able to turn a true 360 degrees, and they'd occupy less disk space and there would be more flexibility on what the devs (and modders) could do with them. Back in 1998 they would have looked crappy (think Quake) but today they can easily rival pre-rendered graphics, especially as the figures will appear quite small on-screen.

I really don't know what this involves, and if someone could elaborate that would be great, but the main thing for me is, does this mean there's already a great tool available for replacing BG2's inferior animations? Or would even that still require the whole kickstart thingy? It sure sounds good from what caruga is describing

^ Infinity Animations adds some animations from NWN to BG. They were originally 3D models, and still are when ported to BG. Their superior quality compared to sprites is quite obvious, in my opinion. I believe that's what caruga implies, and I'd sure support it (besides, as caruga said, there would be no "sprite mirror" with 3D models and a lot less work involved into making them headed, since they would be natively so).

@Andrea C.: Would it be something conceivable to rework as 3D models the animations of at least the humanoids that are employed at party members? How hard would that be? After all Trent O kinda knows NWN and might have a few insights on constructing a non-NWN but like-NWN 3D modelling platform for them (to avoid legality space invaders). Or is the modelling platform even connected to NWN- i.e., so long as the actual NWN models aren't used, it's not infringement? Or would it be such a striking difference that it would have to be all or nothing: every creature animation in the game or none? I don't think I'd care if there were a difference given how cool it would be! Judging from the IA humanoid models though, they look very similar to BG1. (Or at least the moinesse females do.) And they're so little, I want to say it'd be a cinch for whoever to do, but... what would it be- dwarfX2, elfX2, half-elfX2, humanX2, halflingX2, gnomeX2, so 12 3D models... and then a slew of clothing and animations for behaviors- which may or may not be standardizable (i.e., only have to make it once and just apply it to all 12 with scaling). OK, that might be a bit much... But is it? Damn, I hate not knowing how demanding it is.

@Trent O: How difficult/ reasonable would that be to do, especially given the experience of the BGEE crew (and priority list)? It's really the only thing that native BG1 will ever have over BGEE: superior animations (and paperdolls).

hm

Hi Bhryaen,

honestly, I have no idea how much work it would take to recreate BG1 animations from scratch, or create all-new character animations for BG:EE, as I have no experience whatsoever with 3D modelling and animation. It is something Trent should cast some light on.

Both options would probably require similar amounts of work (it doesn't matter what model you animate: the point is to create the model from scratch and animate it, regardless of its appearance). In fact, BG1 animations were originally 3D models developed with 3DS Max, if memory serves. If the source assets hadn't been lost, they could have probably been put in the game as high-resolution 3D models as per caruga's proposal.

As you know, I'm quite adamant about BG1 animations being superior to BG2's, and I would *love* to see them again to the point I shall probably give up on dual-wielding to use them (although limited to BG:EE - the in-game advantages of dual-wielding in BG2 are too great to let go). I just don't see them working on it as it would imply a huge amount of work for a merely cosmetic change (though, as I said, I can't quite gauge how huge a work it would be).

I wonder if the BG 2 Sprites and area art where lost aswell, Trent could you shed some light on this?
Will the team be updating the sprites?

I think they lost everything. >:( Thing is it's got to still exist somewhere, and that thought makes me itch. Would laugh if the assets turned up after they finish both projects.

Sad to hear that Caruga, i would have loved to have some redone models with maybe nose, eyes and mouth since its zoomable in the game...

-abit off-topic i guess but i was wondering what the original pictures was for the portraits created in BG 2, anyone got any idea on Aerie, Keldorn etc?