Exploit's that had anything to do with Drizzt, or Firekraag specifically, I would call major. Drizzt was one of the most powerful NPCs in the entire game and his gear included some of the most powerful items in BG1. That is probably why they fixed these things. But regarding stealing from Drizzt: I don't know if I consider it an exploit that a skilled thief is able to steal items from Drizzt - Shouldn't the success depend on how skilled the thief actually is, when you take all things into consideration?

That you are able to kill Firebeard in itself is not the exploit I meant, but people had to exploit the game to be able to kill him at 1st level.

"Do you actually have anything against the idea? " No, I wrote that: "Yes of course it would be nice...". But I am convinced that the devs don't have time for these kinds of things, there's probably an infinite amount of changes like these that could be put in.

I agree that these bugs/exploits can break the immersion, but for some people, like me, some of these exploits can also be a part of what makes the game fun.

As long as exploding ogres are still around I think this EE version could work...

A tip for anyone interested in seeing a bit more of how the infinity engine works under the hood is to use Infinity explorer and have a look at the games, and thereby be able to give suggestions better.

http://infexp.sourceforge.net/

Anybody have any guesses as to what class this new npc will be?

Well, if it's a character that is limited to BG1, it could really be any class since BG1 has a vast array of NPCs from which to select and no void to fill that I can remember. BG2, on the other hand, had a lack of single class clerics (unless you were evil and wanted to recruit Viconia) and thieves (Yoshimo doesn't count since you're forced to part with him halfway through the game)... so it would make sense to make them one of these two classes, imho. A monk NPC is something many people would have liked too, from what I gathered around the boards (though maybe not as useful as a single class cleric or thief).

I too would guess a monk as there are none, and also with the option to keep Imoen single class thief for those who want that. And as for Viconia and cleric, she can be converted from evil, still could be nice with being able to do so sooner.

The way the world is now.... Probably an NPC to give a same-sex romance option lol.

Monk idea sounds really good though - give people a chance to play with the class.

Wondering where they will fit it in - will the NPC only be available for the extra chapter that's been mentioned (and leave the world after that), will they be found along the road out of Candlekeep and have banter the whole way through BG1/2?

More importantly - if they turn out to be a dud - what gear will they have that we can pilfer before letting them go? Bag of holding, gem bag and scroll case would be nice ;)

Seeing as it's only 1 NPC, I expect them to have quite a bit to say. And seeing as they're designed in the aftermath of BG2 and Planescape which featured superb character interaction, I expect a lot more to happen with them. Trent has already mentioned on his twitter that you'll have to do a quest for him before he'll join you.

Trent has already mentioned on his twitter that you'll have to do a quest for him before he'll join you.

Thus implying that it's going to be a male character...

I think I remember a bug in the engine and the spell books slots. They where limited to 12 as there where no scrolling, fix that. I may be misremembering though..

From Reddit - Not Me:
==================================================
-BGEE cloud saves and other devices.

I emailed overhaul@beamdog.com and asked about BGEE, and was replied to with

-"Hi Tyler, we will be supporting cloud saves and adding more platforms to play Baldur's Gate on. -cam"

Hope I can play BGEE on my Android tablet :)

Andrea, it is almost certainly a male character, Trent wouldn't have used a male pronoun twice otherwise.

Trent Oster's on his twitter:

'The #iPad announcement mentions one new character. He is able to join your party, but, you may have to help him on a quest.'

Just signed up to show my support. Looking forward to this quite a bit. A few things on my wishlist:

-ToEE quality graphics.
-Keep the multi-player exploit that lets players create additional party members.
-Less crazy effects such as with the cloak of mirroring and certain spells.
-Ability to hide helmets.

And, just for fun, one of my favorite BG scenes:

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/8801/francis.gif

I don't think the multiplayer 'exploit' is really an exploit at all. In the loading screen info it says something like:
'you can play with a party made entirely by yourself, just go into multiplayer and assign control of all players to yourself'
I think this was an intentional feature, and I agree it should stay.

Here is a list of things that could be improved in my opinion:

-make icons and character portraits bigger, if you play baldur's gate with high resolution or widescreen mod it makes everything so small, things are hard to read. I would like to play baldur's gate on my 15,6 inch laptop same way i used to play it long time ago in 800x600 resolution.

-Add some new portraits and voices.

-Change spell animations,graphical effects and icons of spells. The spell icons have only 3 colors and are kind of monotonous, they should be more distinguishable (like in IWD), pretty much same goes for the animations.

-interesting new content plz :D

A wider selection of character portraits and voices would indeed be a welcome addition to the series.

Oh also something I do NOT want to see, in Icewind Dale 1-2 there where random drops for important loot in containers and on certain special NPCs (it could be 1 of 4 random magic objects at random, it was very annoying.) I am aware that there are some random drops for unimportant loot (where you can get gold, one of various gems, or maybe if lucky a scroll) that part is ok, but not for important stuff (identify requiring objects)

What about female dwarves and gnomes without a beard in their animation and paperdoll? There's a mod that does it already (though if memory serves that's not even needed with BG1 paperdolls and animations) :-)

Thought of another feature I'd like to see: aggression lines (not sure if that's the right term), like in Final Fantasy 12. If an enemy locks onto one of your party members an 'imaginary' line zips between they and the party member for a second or two then dissapears. Would help me in deciding what commands to issue if I know who my enemy is going for.

It's weird, I can swear I heard someone talk about Final Fantasy XII. I mean I know it's not possible because we're on a Baldur's Gate elite thread, but still...

These are crazy times Kukaracha, with BG:EE, BG2: EE, Wasteland 2, the excitement must be causing you to lose your mind. No sane person would be talking about Final Fantasy.

What actually doesn't belong in the thread is anyone's disdain for final fantasy. That mention was incidental; I'm interested in if people think it's a good idea or not.

Beamdog should make a BG2-2 and make it so Irenicus comes back to life, but he's emo, and has long hair, and you can only control Viconia, and she has a different set of skills for each miniskirt she wears.

I jest, I jest.

I'd personally like to hear what improvements/tweaks/upgrades have been made to the Infinity Engine rather than what everyones wishlist is for with an updated title.

Something that will make it stand out different to say BG1 with TuTu, widescreen mod, fixpack, tweakpack and a few other community mods.

Cloudsaves have been mentioned which (hopefully) would allow one to continue the same game on different devices?

I'd like to hear more about resolution in the game, zooming, updated sprites, multi-player etc that will make BG EE stand above the mods and work that has been possible up til now (both for BG and further I.E. titles)

Hi raband,

I think everyone here (and I can definitely confirm it so far as I'm concerned) would like to hear about the improvements that will make it into BGEE from the mouth of the developers. Yet it seems the developers are on a schedule not only with regards to the development and release of the game, but also to the details they can reveal. As we wait for them to give us more hints, we list our desiderata in hope they are listened to and considered.

In fact, I was planning to write my full wish list on these boards in the next few days...

I think the main problem, considering the relatively short time until release, is whether it's really feasible to implement any substantive changes above and beyond what Overhaul may already have planned. I don't think it is.

I think we might see some minor changes which are requested by the community however.

True. But it is also true that, as Oster said, the success of BGEE will determine whether they can enhance other IE games like Ps:T, and/or work on BG3. Imho, nothing sells like listening to the community and giving them what they explicitly ask for :-)

Honestly, I don't feel particularly inclined to buy another copy of a game I already own if I still have to mod it to death to make it look and work as I want it to. Not saying BGEE will necessarily require tons of mods to look and work as I want; just saying that it may or may not, and I have a list of desiderata to determine that (many of which, I am sure, are shared by most of you).

Feedback is always useful, but obviously designers can't possibly listen to everyone. Even if they did, and tried to incorporate everything every fan wants, they would have to compromise in a lot of places and would just end up with something asinine that satisfies no-one. There's also the risk of having groups of fans who make themselves seem very 'loud', but are not really representative of the majority. Even in this thread, the number of people who have contributed ideas are not even a fraction of those who would consider buying the game (well, a very small fraction). Not that there aren't some very good ideas, or would I discourage anyone making them. Just saying that ultimately, designers have to be firm about having the final say and sticking true to their own vision, while we trust that their experience and 'instinct' in the industry is enough to please most of us... and sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. We shall see.

Don't get me wrong - I'm looking forward to any improvements, additions, fixes, new content, new npc's, chapters etc as the next person.

I'm pretty positive I'll be purchasing at least 1 copy for each PC and iPad on release day - probably 2 copies of each.

Anything after the first purchase though will depend on price and gameplay improvements - even more-so for the titles that come after BG.

Even more-so again for the potential new fans - those who haven't got the nostalgia and draw to the game that us "old-timers" have. Let's face it - the spit and polish given to the front end will be what gives any chance of drawing them in, not the changes to the original game(s).

Hell - for under $10 I got the 5 game pack the other week that included all the I.E. games and TOEE. About half an hour after it had finished downloading I'd chucked in my mods and was off causing havoc in Candlekeep. It did still look and play like a 10 year old game though.

The hand drawn area graphics were still as pretty as they'd ever been. The story, party, quests, etc - basically the underlying game - was still as great as ever.

What made it "old and clunky" so to speak were (from where I can tell) more in the realm of the game engine, controls and UI, rather than anything fundamental about the game itself.

Thus why I'm more interested in hearing about the improvements made to the Infinity Engine itself.

Those are the improvements and enhancements that will carry on through to IWD & PS:T, more than a list of game fixes and mods that we want added to the BG games.

For me - the exact game I have now on my PC (once modded), but with proper screen resolution support (zooming in/out a bit so 1920x1080 isn't like guiding ants round the screen), updated character models that don't look like something from 8-bit days, better scroll wheel usage in inventories/spellbooks etc. Those are the things that would get me excited for not only BG:EE, but the rest of the games as well as the sniff we can get for a BG3 (if it was to be on the same engine).