@warfangle #bgee is coming for #iPad 1,2 and the new iPad. Our screenshots are of the in-dev UI.

The UI isn't in it's final version yet, i guess.

Hello everyone,

I've just signed up to these boards to follow the development of BGEE and contribute my .02.

I've been asking Trent for several times on Twitter whether they'd be restoring the original character paperdolls and animations designed by Daniel Walker (obviously enhanced with dual-wielding support), as they look so much better than those in BG2. He never answered me and I see from those screenshots the BG2 animations are still there in full force :-( Getting rid of them would be just about the greatest possible graphical improvement, imho (of course I would welcome native support for HD widescreen resolutions, dynamic shadows, and whatnot... but seriously, BG2 animations and paperdolls just look bad).

Besides, I've always been very fond of BG1's stony GUI and original font, so I was hoping they wouldn't be getting rid of it...

Heh, just started the original game with TOSC and instantly run into a bug.

Loaded an ancient savefile of the final battle, and brought all characters into the melee except my main PC. Kaigan made short work of Sarevok being buffed to the teeth and having really good gear. But after announcing beating the game, the game remained locked in the greyed-out state. My PC was stunned off screen and it never wore off (perhaps what was preventing the script from continuing). Sarevok and his allies just stood there except Tazok, who very slowly slaughtered everyone while they didn't fight back, except my off-screen PC. Was forced to ALT-F4 the game after that. :)

I've been asking Trent for several times on Twitter whether they'd be restoring the original character paperdolls and animations designed by Daniel Walker (obviously enhanced with dual-wielding support), as they look so much better than those in BG2.

My sentiments too! I didn't know as much as the man who drew it, but I think some artistic elements of BG1 should remain in BG1 rather than "tutu-ising" everything. And sometimes when the art isn't superior, it still fits the original title better as part of the overall theme. BG1 isn't BG2 and shouldn't follow an identical art-style. I also prefer some of the portraits of BG1 (Jaheira is much prettier).

Hi caruga,

Daniel Walker is the man responsible for BG1 artwork, including animations and paperdolls. He died of a congenital disease before BG2 was released, and his death probably had a major role in the graphical changes between the two games*. BG2 was dedicated to him, you can read the dedication at the beginning of your BG2 manual.

* The overall style is completely different, as BG1 had a more "realistic" approach whereas BG2 is more "cartoonish". ToB is the most cartoonish and, imho, the worst looking of the four. BG+TotSC just have a special feel to them, and I'd give anything to have the same art style all the way to the end of ToB.

Daniel Walker is the man responsible for BG1 artwork, including animations and paperdolls. He died of a congenital disease before BG2 was released, and his death probably had a major role in the graphical changes between the two games*. BG2 was dedicated to him, you can read the dedication at the beginning of your BG2 manual.

* The overall style is completely different, as BG1 had a more "realistic" approach whereas BG2 is more "cartoonish". ToB is the most cartoonish and, imho, the worst looking of the four. BG+TotSC just have a special feel to them, and I'd give anything to have the same art style all the way to the end of ToB.

I remember that dedication in the BG2 manual now.

It's a good idea, except there's always the risk that any artist who tries to put their hand to improving a masterpiece creates something we like even less. I'd settle for BG1 containing its own original artwork and not inheriting anything from BG2 (except optionally). The exception being re-rendering the old 3D models maps, and cutscenes, to a higher definition, perhaps retexturing them.

Edit: I think a nice change to the interface would be holding RMB to get tooltips instead of hovering. Regardless of what delay I set on the tooltips I find they irritate me one way or another (have to wait too long for them, or they keep spamming me).

Hmm.

On the one hand game looks good on IPAD and seems like a fairly smart commercial move.

BUT:

1. A lot of fan concern was the project was just BG for IPad. If the gameplay and content enhancements are insufficient/inadequate many will go straight to the conclusion that this was because the real project was just BG for IPAD, and this will bear on point 4 below.

2. We have been told that the EE will add, 'never before seen content including a new adventure and new party member.' What the full scope of this is, is unclear, but on first reading seems disturbingly limited. On the other hand it may mean a new chapter worth of content, but equally 'adventure' can mean anything.

3. Graphics so far don't seem to have added anything that BGT didn't already.

4. If full use isn't made of this opportunity then not only will you have toyed with the hearts of BG fans (for cruel amusement), but personally I will be a lot more hesitant to commit anything to BG3 kickstarter. Brian Fargo showed us what he was about with W2 kickstarter because of his extremely heartfelt and genuine appeal, and thus the success of it. Overhaul's genuine appeal will be BG:EE and BG2:EE, those will show us how genuine you are.

The original game has off-puttingly dated graphics. As good as they were during their time they must be redone if the game is going to be released now. The characters could look great in a comic book style graphics. Maybe they could be 2d vector based or whatever so they can look good in higher-res. I would really love for you to remake the backdrops, but I don't know if that's a possibility. If not, then at least they should be polished a bit and photoshopped so they can be higher-res. The CGI cut-scenes must definitely be redone! They're terribly low-res and dated very badly. Just look at Trine 2 for inspiration as how good a 2d (2.5d in that case) can look! That's what we want!

You can create more character portraits, but the originals should be kept. They're excellent! The GUI is horrible. It can be much more streamlined and look much more polished. The fonts must be changed! Look at Dragon Age - Origins and see how it could be, but make it better (the inventory management is not that good).

The music really doesn't need anything. it's great as it is. Maybe more ambient sound effects could be added. Hopefully all languages will be included. I would love for the game to become a full talkie, but that's surely not a possibility.

So far it's not looking very "enhanced" to me, especially if the PC version will look like that. If the final product is like that, then everyone will keep their original modded Baldur's Gate...

Just being sincere. Sorry if some comments may sound harsh, but I'm really excited about this project and want it to be a success!

I think its great that they also use other platforms then pc, but I hate it when ported games makes pc version dumbed down!
I might just be paranoid, since the base of users is pc, however I have seen many bad ported game to the pc.
However they said they will stay true to BG1, so perhaps im just overreacting.

Hi criskywalker,

I know what you mean about the graphics being outdated, but I'm so fond of that style I would never give it up :-) I'm all for higher resolutions for everything ingame, including the GUI, character animations and paperdolls; as well as full 32bit BAMs (as opposed to 256 color BAMs as in the original game), and dynamic lighting/shadows - but I wouldn't like a complete graphic overhaul. It would feel like betraying the spirit and atmosphere of the original game.

Music and sound fx could and should be delivered in full 16/44 quality - anything less than that would be ridiculous in 2012, imo.

Something else that would be nice would be somewhere in the interface where you can see your end damage and THAC0, after weapon, bonuses from attributes, profiences, other equipment, ammunition and so on have been counted in.

Hello Andrea C.

Maybe they can do something similar to Monkey Island 2 - Le Chuck's Revenge Special Edition. I loved how you could switch between the original and updated. I think that's a perfect example of how a special enhanced edition should be made. The updated graphics are so polished and respect the original's spirit. They even have better animations! Something similar with BG would be amazing!

Maybe they can do something similar to Monkey Island 2 - Le Chuck's Revenge Special Edition. I loved how you could switch between the original and updated. I think that's a perfect example of how a special enhanced edition should be made. The updated graphics are so polished and respect the original's spirit. They even have better animations! Something similar with BG would be amazing!

Good idea in principle but think of how much disk space it will start to take... what's the storage capacity of an ipad, does anyone know?

Hi caruga,

a quick glance at Apple's website reveals a 16Gb storage capacity, though I'm quite confident I've heard of a 32Gb version too...

I don't think the IPad version will lead to any kind of dumbing down. Baldur's Gate is a very old game, and seeing that there is not going to be any fundamental change it should be able to run perfectly on an iPad without any kind of reduction or hit.

My concern as I've stated above, is whether this iPad version will be used an excuse, or a factor at least in reducing the amount of new content that is provided.

Also I agree with above comments about showing end damage, and statistics after all bonsues have been applied.

@Criskywalker: dont expect any significant improvement on what you've seen, release is only a few months away, there isn't a chance of a completely redone graphics style. Personally I am happy with the graphics as they are, as long as there is SOME improvement (maybe more/better spellcasting graphics?)

What do you think Trent meant by more chapters? Is it actually more chapters in BG1 or is it referring to BG3?

On the subject of story elements that could be expanded upon, some plot holes and inconsistencies between BG1 and 2:

Maybe Tazok was resurrected but the resurrection somehow adversely affected his intelligence?

Then there's Aerie and Uncle Quayle; clearly not nearly enough time will have passed between the end of BG1 and BG2 for all that's supposed to have happened between them to have happened, or for Aerie to have even recovered from her ordeal and gotten so far along in studying magic and healing. That's if it is indeed the same Quayle; most seem to accept that it is supposed to be (what are the chances that you'd run into two eccentric with the same name, eh? And the same portrait). My feeling is that Aerie had her wings chopped quite some time before the start of BG1, and at the time the bhaalspawn is dealing with the iron crisis she's in the midst of studying. Quayle may have had to visit Baldur's Gate on business, or just to see someone he knew, then felt his old wanderlust again and decided to have one last adventure (I know some people would find it tempting and obvious to say he just wanted to get away from her whining, but... its just not true; the PC is the only character she ever confides in. I doubt she would want to worry the old man, who she owes so much to already). In the meantime, Aerie could be staying in the circus with someone else, like Bentha; it could be Aerie who runs to get help when the old witch is in trouble, then hangs around vaguely commenting about things she's heard while working and doing chores.

Not really an inconsistency, but many fans seem to believe that it was Jon Irenicus who cursed Centeol to being the spider queen... I looked it up in infinity explorer, and the name she shouts is Jon Icarus. Maybe not the same person at all, or maybe Icarus was his name before he became the shattered one/Irenicus?

I'm going to look and see if I can find anything else.

Another thing they need to do is transport Drizzt's "being hit" sound effect from BG1 to BG2. In BG1 it was a visceral grunt; in BG2 he sounded like a cat hacking up some sick. Don't know what happened there.

Another thing, a fix to the weapon slots so they affect the off hand too. So that I in the first can have a one handed weapon and a shield or off hand weapon, then in the second slot can have a two handed weapon and so on.

Hi Palpy,

I second that. It has always bothered me that I couldn't equip a ranged weapon as well as sword/shield, or a two-handed weapon simultaneously. That kind of feature would be highly appreciated.

Oh, and I would like to state that digital download that can be burnt to DVD and played offline would be awesome too. Mainly cause my gaming PC is a in a room with no internet (I don't do multiplayer), so if I had to connect to play BGEE that would be a deal breaker for me :-(

I would third that; it always annoyed me that I had to go to the inventory screen to change between a sword/shield and bow... it seemed to me to defeat the point of having weapon slots in the first place. Digital downloads are a convenient way of shopping, but I think many people still enjoy the added security of being able to create a 'hard' copy for themselves.

I liked it the way it was done in NWN, you could drag and drop multiple weapons/shields/items to a quickslot and equip them with one mouse press.

Another thing I hope they fix with BG is the limited amount of quickslots, as it was a real pain to find the right spell in such a long list as a cleric/mage (e.g. Aerie), again I would like to say I really like how much you could customize your quickslots in NWN.

And some more info from Trent on the screenshots we saw in the Ipad announcement:

@viceversarohan I can verify the #bgee iPad screens do not show all the graphical enhancements.

@JonIrenicus3 The UI for #bgee will change for all platforms. We have a lot of resolutions/ aspect ratios to support.

Funny, it's been a while since I've thought about Dan. He was so jazzed to be working on BG and his enthusiasm shone through in his work. I still remember coming into work and Ray told me he had died. His family was very positive about his time at Bioware and talked at his funeral about the impact we had on his life.
Thanks for kicking my memory back for a bit.

We're still working on the graphical enhancement stuff and we don't have anything to show. We are more limited by the hours in the day than anything else in terms of improvements we can make. The PC is still our lead development platform and will remain so.

-Trent

Trent are you willing or able to delay release if necessary, to ensure the release is as good as you want it to be?

I, and I am sure many other people here are more interested in the end product than in how long we have to wait for it.

Funny, it's been a while since I've thought about Dan. He was so jazzed to be working on BG and his enthusiasm shone through in his work. I still remember coming into work and Ray told me he had died. His family was very positive about his time at Bioware and talked at his funeral about the impact we had on his life.
Thanks for kicking my memory back for a bit.

We're still working on the graphical enhancement stuff and we don't have anything to show. We are more limited by the hours in the day than anything else in terms of improvements we can make. The PC is still our lead development platform and will remain so.

While Dan is irreplacable, I look forward to seeing what your new team does with the graphics.

I just signed up to give my two cents as well.

First of all, thank you for doing this. I'm very excited about the coming releases, and have very high hopes. I hope you complete and put the quests in that werent finished by release of BG1 and therefore didn't make it into the official game.

Next I would like to express my point of view regarding some of the comments made in this long thread: Generally, I think that you should be careful about what you do choose to change in the enhanced edition, despite the many different wishes from fans.

For instance, I really don't wish XP or monsters to scale according to player level, that was one of the realistic things about the BG series that other RPGs did worse (fx Elder Scrolls: Oblivion).
If you are lucky or good enough to kill a high level NPC or monster early on, then good on you, you deserve the reward.

Also, I really don't want there to be an easier way to handle a party-members death - the way it was/is, you have to collect all of his gear, and micromanage your entire party to be able to do so, before carrying him/her to a priest and pay dearly for a raise dead (if you're low level as in the beginning of BG), but this is realistic - and it's an effort you have to suffer when a party member dies - death of a party member should be a serious event with according consequences.
In NWN2, if any of your party members died during battle, they would lie unconscious until the end of battle, where they would simply get back up as if nothing had happened - this might be good not to scare away casual gamers, but for the hardcore RPG fans (such as those that like the BG series) it sucks.

And apart from the most serious and game-breaking exploits - if people want to exploit, let them - it's impossible to fix all exploits, and as I mentioned earlier, if you are able to kill Firebeard early on then you deserve the reward/XP. Yes of course it would be nice if there were repercussions because of this, e.g. the innkeep not wanting to talk to you any longer etc., but we have to keep in mind that this takes time for the developers to do, time which they probably want to prioritize to other areas, like the improved GUI.

The fog of war exploit has also been discussed (making it possible to kill Firekraag this way), but remember that many people actually think that it is fun to find different ways like this to beat the game, even though they could be considered exploits. I personally think it is fun to stay just outside the "sight" of a pack of beholders and then throw fireballs into the dark and watch the damage done.

And regarding the opinion stated that: "Anything one person likes and another doesn't, should be an option. I think it's noncontroversial to say that that's something we can all agree on. :)"
- then everything you can think of would have to be an option, which is really only possible to do in user mods.

I second that a must-have improvement would be queing of actions, like in the NWN-series. Especially if you play single player, it is a pain that you have to control every single action in every turn, for every party member. Queing would enable a better flow of combat.

Regards.

For instance, I really don't wish XP or monsters to scale according to player level, that was one of the realistic things about the BG series that other RPGs did worse (fx Elder Scrolls: Oblivion).

Not sure if you were thinking of me when saying this, but I noticed several other people say "I don't like level scaling" after I put in an idea... but the idea was never level scaling, it was downscaling of exp gains from partcular repeatedly-slain enemies on particular soil, to prevent farming exploits.

Incidentally parts of BG, or at least BG2, do scale, but rather than scale the enemy levels they simply replace the encounters with tougher enemies. I know the second level of Watchers Keep had this, for sure (trolls or fire giants).

And apart from the most serious and game-breaking exploits - if people want to exploit, let them

It seems the original bg devs didn't share your attitude. Why else would they bother to prevent pickpocketing Drizzt's gear post-patch, for example?

I don't know how many people share my feelings, but as I already said, I tend to be good at finding exploits, but only realise they took out some of the fun of the game after the fact of using them to beat the game.

Some are also hard to not do... sometimes you might even defeat an enemy party not releasing one was standing idle behind the fog of war. So even if I decided not to use the exploit, sometimes I unintentionally take advantage of it.

There are still ways to exercise creaticvity and ingenuity to topple foes without having to resort to things that are arguably bugs--bugs which you are arguing should remain in the game.

Iirc, didn't the cloudkill-fiirkrag exploit also get fixed in a BG2 patch? If so then once again, the developers didn't seem to share your view.

- it's impossible to fix all exploits, and as I mentioned earlier, if you are able to kill Firebeard early on then you deserve the reward/XP.

This isn't really an exploit, more of an oversight of the developers to take care of certain contingencies. Well, perhaps my method was... I'd go to the tutorial section where you'd get a party--all their gear destructs when you leave the area, but not if you drink it *wink* So I'd down the potion of speed one of them was carrying, run back to the pub and pincushion Firebead with darts.

Yes of course it would be nice if there were repercussions because of this, e.g. the innkeep not wanting to talk to you any longer etc., but we have to keep in mind that this takes time for the developers to do, time which they probably want to prioritize to other areas, like the improved GUI.

Do you actually have anything against the idea? I think the devs themselves can decide whether they have time for given changes. I'm not going to pull any punches when suggesting _anything_ I can think of that would be an improvement. I'd say ont he scale of things this sort of idea is one of the easier ones to implement, though maybe not if a hundred of them piled up...

The fog of war exploit has also been discussed (making it possible to kill Firekraag this way), but remember that many people actually think that it is fun to find different ways like this to beat the game, even though they could be considered exploits. I personally think it is fun to stay just outside the "sight" of a pack of beholders and then throw fireballs into the dark and watch the damage done.

Sometimes it's silly and immersion breaking though. As I said, I could rest during mid-battle with Sendai, in a frigging battle-arena. I'd rather see SMARTER opponents, ones that don't seem to suddenly forget you when a certain distance is put between you and they.

They already partly corrected this from BG1 to BG2--in BG1 you could draw out enemies one at a time much more often--in the latest patched BG2 they'll move toward a comrade of theirs who gets attacked until they see you.

- then everything you can think of would have to be an option, which is really only possible to do in user mods.

I'm thinking in cases where a particular idea is introduced--you can toggle it back to how it used to be. I.e. one implementation already exists and doesn't have to be made anew. Like the smarter AI I suggested above.

Anyone got ideas on the interface? A lot of newer gamers find the interface 'clunky' but I'm not seeing it, except for a few small glitches like tooltips only displaying part of the text or button-clicks not registering. It could be more elegant but that can be said of almost any UI.

Along with the interactive help and +/-zoom idea I suggested, I would like it be possible to see as much of the panorama as can be (like with using the H key--the game looked much nicer when using it but it wasn't practical). Perhaps semi-transparent windows would help for this. Also modern widescreen resolutions can't hurt. Get rid of the sidebars(sideburns) or have them "tear off", moveable about the screen and resizable. The more flexibility the better.

I agree largely with what Caruga says. On second thought I also agree that limiting farming in a very strict sense may be a good idea, i'm reminded particularly of the lighthouse cave which spawned 2 fleshgolems each time you rested, 2,500xp each... The best way might be to have it if you kill 'x' monsters in 'y' time, then xp goes down for each by 'z%'. This should also reset after say, 24 hours game-time.

I think you also need to draw a distinction between different kinds of exploit. Some exploits are just really clever moves which weren't perceived by the developers, these are fair enough and fit into your definition Kaksi.

However there are other exploits (like the Firkraag bug), which are plainly down to poor AI. Simply put it works because the AI is not responding to it, when it should. As far as I'm concerned that's no different to having a broken script, or a bug.

Also I'm not sure what exactly the option would be to reflect this, good ai, on or off?, monsters dont react to what they don't see? I can't see it as anything other than a plain flaw in the game that needs to be corrected.