The kickstart project definitely deserves an ongoing thread on the new BGEE forums when they arise... Nice to keep the idea afloat and conspicuous... I'd go for it as well. Short of me or some other BG fan else learning how to do IE game animations ourselves, it's the only way to get it...
On Nat's new portraits I thought it was fairly established that he was making a slew of them for the PC to choose from, no?
caruga...
Something I would like to see is working in more opportunities for certain existing recorded dialog to be heard, that few people even know is there: you can only unlock it by repeatedly clicking the right mouse button on a target.. That's several lines of recorded dialog they payed for and then hardly anybody knows it's there!
!!! I think I'm even more a fan of voices than visuals, and BG has such a broad range of very unselfconscious voices to be heard. This would be a very welcome BGEE move! Hm, think I'll add it as another reddit request... If you can think of more specific examples, it might help... I'm wondering though if this has something to do with the Settings options that affect how often voiced lines are heard- i.e., it applies to more than just party members.
caruga...
One other thing: i'm surprised the risk of bugs was cited. I mean you're rewriting the engine, and creating entirely new environments and quests...
I was thinking this as well and holding my tongue for the moment, but to take devil's advocate, a bug in new content is a lot more tolerable than a bug in reworked old content. "Hey! They broke BG! This isn't an enhancement! Sacrilege!" Still, what kind of bugs are we worried about? Obviously the more sweeping the change, the more likelihood, but moving Tamoko to closer to the entrance to Sorcerous Sundries or something to make her more visible? I can't see that as game-breaking.
On Trent's "trying to make mods play nicer-" do or do not: there is no try. lol But actually if they make the modding process easier I will be one grateful BGEE fan. Despite the declaration early on that BGEE would make modding unnecessary (wish I could recall the actual quote), that's simply not going to happen. BG modding is far to large a spectrum to appropriate it all. But if they're doing something to make installing or integrating them easier, I'm all for it.
To return to my initial amazement:
Trent O...
3. Adding new encounters to the old maps
-possible
"Possible" is extremely encouraging. Not quite as encouraging as "likely" or "already happening" or "you'll be pleasantly surprised," but certainly better than "We can't do this." I sooo hope at least a little of this will be done. It's not like Hafiz or Aoln or that ogre-hunter guy to the west of the healing potion cave south of Beregost add the kind of encounter that jeopardizes the game experience. They're just the sort of quirky imaginitive stuff that adds character to the otherwise captivating but dull or hostile wilderness. A couple new Bassilus-sized encounters and a few Surgeon-sized encounters popping up would cause grins on a lot of BG faces. :-)
@HeroicSpur- We're in concurrence... Must compel them!