So now that it's been announced, and based on what we know so far (see news section), what are you most hoping to see in the Enhanced Edition games??

Viagra! Or isn't that what you meant in your title?

Doh! You changed the title; now this doesn't make sense any more! :)

I’m pretty happy with a lot of what has already been confirmed, such as additional voice acting, additional game content, and that we are going to see an overall improvement and modernization of the game engine.

In terms of what I’m really hoping will be included:
1. Improved pathfinding (this has always been so painful in the Infinity Engine)
2. A bunch of new companions to join you in the game, in addition to the existing, and among these some that better represent classes that have previously been missing as options (e.g. sorcerer, monk, wildmage).
3. More interactions, romances and a lot more voiced conversations (not just some, but a good amount more).
4. Some high quality, exciting new quests and new game areas to visit.
5. Implementing a bunch of the stuff from the original game that had to be cut before the original release.
6. New loot, and particularly more of the unrepresented weapons to make them more viable.
7. Some nice graphical overhauls to character models.
8. DRASTICALLY Improved helmet models!!!
9. Improved visuals on weapons, particularly magical or flaming weapons.
10. Characters that stow their weapons when not in combat, like in Dragon Age (why are you still carrying your halberd +3 in the inn? Doesn’t that make the guests uneasy?
11. Some nice graphical updates to spell effects
12. Some significant improvements to combat animations.
13. Improvements to the ambient sounds to make them more current and immersive.
14. All the cool stuff that I’m not sophisticated enough to even think about – but I know that the developers are – that can improve the experience of the game. :)

That’s a few things off the top of my head. I’m sure I’ll think of more!

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Viagra! Or isn't that what you meant in your title?

Oh, I see, so more romantic interactions (i.e. sex scenes). Now I see where your head is at! :p

1. Somehow making the game more accessible to beginners while staying true to the spirit. I'm willing to compromise here. Today's gamers are expecting way more hand-holding and a lot less "dying in one hit inexplicably and having to reload". I want this game to be a success with today's generation and it'll have to put on a fresh coat a paint for that. I'm mainly thinking about the way:
- characters can die permanently very easily
- even if they don't die permanently, it's extremely painful/expensive to resurrect them
- if you hit anyone neutral in a city/inn/etc., the whole place turns hostile irreversibly, breaking every quest forever. If you retaliate your reputation drops quickly to the point where you get slaughtered by guards everywhere.

2. Some level of re-balancing low-level mages. Having one spell per day is not fun. Especially when that spell does 1-6 damage, which can be 1. "Weee I did my point of damage of the day, now to pick my nose until night time" - definitely feels underpowered.

3. ...more rebalancing. Some of the BG2 classes were not designed to be used in BG1 and it shows (Berserker, Totemic Druid, etc). They should be usable but not have unfair advantages.

4. More evil things to do and get rewarded for. Baldur's Gate heavily favors Paladins and do-gooders in general - while I can see the realism in that, it definitely makes for a dull evil playthrough.

5. An overhaul of the reputation system. If I slay someone in a dark alley alone with no witnesses, I should not lose reputation. I should not lose more reputation for killing guards than innocents. Not every shopkeeper should care about my reputation - some might even appreciate my low reputation - again, going with the "more evil things to do".

Is there any fear among the BG faithful that the new material isn't going to measure up? I mean that specifically in the context of fidelity as opposed to quality; a lot of times purists are offended by anything that isn't canon, so to speak ... which can potentially be anything new.

e.g., beloved favorite character x for the last 14 years now goes on a quest in BGEE to do something he or she never would have done in regular BG. Would you ragequit?

@Dr_Asik - I'm guessing most of the changes you suggest to make early levels easier for newbies would not fly, since that would take the game further away from the DnD rules. Perhaps setting the game to ship with a lower difficulty setting, or creating a forced decision on where to set it when the game is installed, which explanations of the challenges associated, would help to prepare players better. The ones who really want an easy game, will hopefully be smart enough to pick the easy setting.

Some balancing of kits is probably in order, as is expanded options for evil players. And I certainly like where you're going with the reputation changes.

Another improvement that I forgot to mention is more flexible weapon changes... even just stealing what was done for Icewind Dale 2 would be awesome. I have always hated how if I want to switch for a dual wield set up to a bow, I have unequip my offhand weapon by opening my inventory, then equip the bow. And then to go back to my dual wield set up I'd have to reverse those steps. The IWD2 set up or some other less cumbersome set up would be amazingly appreciated!

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Is there any fear among the BG faithful that the new material isn't going to measure up? I mean that specifically in the context of fidelity as opposed to quality; a lot of times purists are offended by anything that isn't canon, so to speak ... which can potentially be anything new.

e.g., beloved favorite character x for the last 14 years now goes on a quest in BGEE to do something he or she never would have done in regular BG. Would you ragequit?

Not from me, and probably not from most if I guess correctly. Most of the BG faithful have been using loads of mods, and aren't opposed to changes, especially when they improve many of the cumbersome aspects of the original game.

Also, in terms of new material (quests, new locations, even new mechanics, etc) I'm feeling very good about the fact that these changes will be made by many of the folks who created the original game to begin with. They understand exactly what this game is, and I believe, they will have the discretion to make changes that are appropriate to the spirit of the game. That is, unless the upper brass takes an overly controlling role. But somehow, since this isn't going to be a new game, I'm guessing that the developers will have a large degree of freedom to polish and expand the game.

Honestly, this is one of the most favorable scenarios I really could have imagined.

Alot more interaction with party members. Prefferably voiced.

@Dr_Asik - I'm guessing most of the changes you suggest to make early levels easier for newbies would not fly, since that would take the game further away from the DnD rules. Perhaps setting the game to ship with a lower difficulty setting, or creating a forced decision on where to set it when the game is installed, which explanations of the challenges associated, would help to prepare players better. The ones who really want an easy game, will hopefully be smart enough to pick the easy setting.NWN1 and 2 stick pretty close to D&D rules yet they handle death in a much more gamer-friendly way. Making everyone irreversibly hostile in an entire area when you attack an innocent isn't specified by D&D anywhere. And things that were added in BG2 like resting until healed and max HP on level up can be enabled by default - the "hardcore" crowd can disable them if they so please.

So, I think there are ways around these issues that other games have figured out, without clashing too much with D&D rules.

The NWN games are an excellent point. I had forgotten how trivial they had made death in that series. Only a TPK resulted in the need to reload... otherwise dead characters were fine again after a short nap.

This was a feature that I personally hated... but as long as I have a way to turn it off in my game, should something similar ever make its way into BGEE, I wouldn't have too big of an issue with it. I would DEPLORE playing with such a feature in these games though after so many years with death actually meaning something.

If they do choose to dumb some things down, I really hope that they keep it to a bare, bare minimum. I don't want to see my beloved IE "raped" just to bring in more players... that's sort of the whole point, to be successful while preserving the integrity of the original game. My guess is Trent Oster and team aren't overly interested in dumbing things down in BGEE. I think they are mostly interested in making the game more presentable, stable, and fresh for a 2012 release. They will start alienating long time fans very quickly if they start dumbing things down a lot. It's a slippery slope.

Oh, yet another thing I'd like to see if some more flexible multiclassing options. To hell with the 2ED rules on this one. They are overly, and pointlessly restrictive in this area.

It might be a good idea for them to at least include the option for noob mode.

But then again, how many people will buy this that are not long time fans of the series?

What I want to know is whether they will include fixes from either Baldurdash or the Fixpack. Especially Fixpack has a reputation for including fixes that... take some liberties with developers intent. But I suppose since they are the developers, they know what the intent is!

I would like to see higher quality character models and maybe more variation in character models.

That being said, I probably wont buy BGEE because I've always preferred BG2 to a large degree.

I understand that changing rules is a very touchy issue. I feel that there are some improvements that can be made as long as they're obvious improvements. Faster walking speed in BG2 was, as far as I'm aware, universally seen as an improvement. That's the sort of thing I'd like to see.

And death, to me, seems quite clearly broken in BG1. It's something that happens frequently, from the very start of the game, yet your best recourse is usually to reload. Any rule that causes frequent reloading is immediately suspect to me; reloading isn't a gameplay feature, it's not enjoyable, it means an arbitrary amount of progress lost, it breaks the flow, it breaks immersion. Never mind the chore of having to save all the time, and how that breaks immersion even more.

And yet that's the ONLY thing you can do most of the time in BG1, because you have no means of resurrecting your characters. When you can easily spare 1500 gold, then you have the very fun mean of picking up all the equipment, visiting a temple, and re-equiping your character, (and re-memorizing his spells and re-resting) but that doesn't come until much later, and it's so painful that I still, always, reload instead of doing that. Seriously when was the last time you visited a temple to resurrect a character? In my last 2 or 3 playthroughs I didn't use that once.

And in BG2 you'd think the situation is slightly better because at least you have to option to make your priests memorize resurrection spells, and assuming they don't die, they can resurrect others; but it's actually worse because death breaks romances, silently. Of course that bug could be fixed, but until then death in BG2 more often than not = reload even though resurrection spells are available.

There are different possibilities for BGEE:
- Implement death à la NWN - makes a lot more sense to me from a gameplay perspective, but maybe it's too drastic of a change, I'm not sure
- Keep permanent death in, but make save-and-reload much more seamless: the game should save continuously and allow me to go back in time at will. As is, I find myself hitting the quicksave WAY too often: before resting, after resting, every time I take a step in a dungeon, every container I try to open before detecting traps, every time I speak to an NPC, etc. When I think "I need to save", I'm thinking about a meta-gaming element - it breaks immersion. Find a way - through better UI, automatic saves - that I never need to think about saving and reloading again. I'm not sure that's even feasible, but perhaps.
- Give the player much more accessible means of resurrecting their characters: cheap scrolls of resurrection, resurrecting priests everywhere, I don't know. That might actually break the game more than anything else.
- ????

The most coherent and feasible solution seems NWN-style death. If you're going to give the player easy means of resurrecting their characters, then it merely becomes an annoyance to actually use the scrolls or whatever the means consists of: you might as well "resurrect" the characters automatically. As for a "better save and reload mechanic", the best I've seen is auto-save every x minutes; I don't see how it could be much better than that. The games that deal best with death are those who managed to do away with reloading completely: Planescape Torment (you're just teleport back to the mortuary), Diablo 2 (there's no "save", just "save and exit"), NWN1/2 as discussed.

I really wouldn't see that as "dumbing down". There's nothing "smart" about save and reload: it's not a gameplay feature at all! If anything, forcing the player to save and reload is the dumbest solution to a design problem.

More banters between party members
A return of previous voice actors - plus a few more for good measure.
Character customisation of appearance (alterable paperdoll/avatar)
Personally I'd like a keep of the portraits, though I feel this is less likely to be honest, especially if the note above occurs
Higher detail in areas.
The Tab key to highlight containers :lol:
Better pathfinding, of course
A more stable continuation to BG2 (I know, this was a bit of a bugbear putting this here as Khalid and Dynaheir dying is such a big part of BG2 - but also a bit twitchy if you already killed Minsc in Nashkel for example. Dialogue options explaining their presence or small alterations if you never travelled with them or encountered them in dialogues. This will also probably include a necessary bridge between the two games where either NPCs travel with you from Baldurs' Gate and are also captured or leave your presence.)
More open modding capabilities
Possibly a toolset :good:
Beregost to no longer have ALL the womenfolk come out after dark as er... ladies of the night.
Bigger Baldurs' Gate city itself.
Updated journal, obviously. Possibly with the ability to export your journal to a text file.
More cleric options for deities... In fact maybe have something like NWN where you enter your deity even if you're not a cleric.
A detailed and non-compulsory tutorial, possibly set up as some of your lessons as a student at Candlekeep. This may mean altering Candlekeep to start with to add more personas and little quests to afford travelling kit - I'm also tempted to add a timer in Candlekeep where if you take longer than 2 days Gorion forces you to come with him whether you're ready or not, this is an emergancy situation after all!
Subraces with limited palettes for colour like IWD2

Most have been mentioned. I'm particularly fond of 8people's numbers 2, 14, 3, 7, and 1 (in that order)

With 14, the clerical stuff, I would also hope that interactions are more "fine-tuned" to your deity as well. They tried it in IWD2, but not enough.

For me: More Kits,
Subraces,
Better AI for Mages and Clerics,
and Improved party scripts.

More interaction with the NPC cast like BG2.

But I do not want them to cater to newer gamers. BG is at heart a D&D game. D&D is at heart a PnP rule system. It is why I bought it when it was first released. If your NPC dies, I like the fact that it costs a TON of GPs to resurrect them. It makes you really appreciate the NPCs and take more care. For me, BG is not a hack n slash, it's the same as a PnP gaming night with friends. Or as close to it as you are going to get on a PC. That is what I look for in an RPG. And it's why I didn't care for NWN games as much as the BG series games.

@Dr_Asik

In my opinion your missing option is the "old school" option of "don't die so much!" :p

I can put your post into context somewhat as I know you like to play on insane difficulty. Why would someone who hates to save, save, save, save, reload play on insane difficulty? It's called insane for a reason. So in your case, maybe lowering the difficulty a notch is a good way to prevent many of those deaths/reloads that you don't care for. Pumping up the difficulty really high and then removing the consequences of doing so seems a little pointless to me. To each their own, of course.

Something that is important to a lot of die hard BG fans is the idea of a no reload game, and the NWN approach to death/resurrection really invalidates this playstyle for the most part... as there's no need to reload anyway.

The game is actually a lot more intense when the death of a character may mean losing that character forever. This causes you to weigh every battle, every decision a lot more carefully and actually CREATES immersion in a major, major way. Death isn't merely an annoyance... it's quite probably... the end, just as it is in reality. Avoid it at all costs!

Once you become reasonably comfortable with the interface (which isn't going to take most gamers long at all these days) there is really no reason that reloading should be needed very often at all IF you're playing at a reasonable difficulty setting.

I can put your post into context somewhat as I know you like to play on insane difficulty. Why would someone who hates to save, save, save, save, reload play on insane difficulty? It's called insane for a reason. So in your case, maybe lowering the difficulty a notch is a good way to prevent many of those deaths/reloads that you don't care for.I'm not talking about myself. I'm a veteran of the game, I know what areas I can do at my level, I know what can kill me and what can't. Besides I don't use insane difficulty outside of my LP. The only reason I use it in my LP is so that I do die a few times and it doesn't feel like a complete cakewalk throughout. It's for my viewers enjoyment not mine. Besides when I started I didn't know about SCS, I'd probably use that now instead of insane difficulty.

I think like me, most people who visit these forums are veterans of the game, and for them if it wasn't for permanent death there wouldn't be much challenge. If we want more challenge there are better ways to achieve that (as SCS shows), but mostly we have to realize we're not that many people and if BG1EE wants to succeed it'll have to appeal to a larger audience, and one accustomed to today's RPGs.

The option should definitely be there to have vanilla-style death, but what I'm arguing is that it shouldn't be the default.

In my opinion your missing option is the "old school" option of "don't die so much!" Have you played Dark Souls? You die ALL the time, and dying means game over... yet, you never have to save and you almost never have to reload. The game does that for you - it's constantly saving. It's basically what my suggestion #2 consisted in: keep permanent death in, but get rid of save and reload through better design.

Save and reload isn't "old school", it's bad design. There are plenty of old-school games that deal with death more smartly than with save and reload - heck even Super Mario World 3 has a better system.

The game is actually a lot more intense when the death of a character may mean losing that character forever. This causes you to weigh every battle, every decision a lot more carefully and actually CREATES immersion in a major, major way. Death isn't merely an annoyance... it's quite probably... the end, just as it is in reality. Avoid it at all costs!Consider that while it does create tension as you say, it also means that as soon as a character die, you stop trying and immediately reload. In NWN2 you'd continue fighting to the last, and that can also be really cool. I've sometimes won battles with 1 character left with a few hp: that's what I call close! In BG, the system is so unforgiving that either I massively outsmart/outpower my opponents so I don't lose any party member, or I reload. It makes for way more one-sided battles.

With NWN-style death you can have a harder game that's still fun to play - that's a win-win.

Once you become reasonably comfortable with the interface (which isn't going to take most gamers long at all these days) there is really no reason that reloading should be needed very often at all IF you're playing at a reasonable difficulty setting.Oh, I couldn't disagree more. Unless you know where you're going and exactly how strong different monsters are, you're going to get slain big time. It's an open world with no level scaling. In the area you start in, you can meet dire wolves, which kill any party member quickly and reliably. And black bears. And even wolves for that matter, especially if you made the unfortunate decision of starting out as a mage or rogue (or druid, or even warrior without good dex or splint mail). If you wander into High Hedge (which is the closest area), everything there will kill you very quickly. You cannot deal with skeletons, spiders, gnolls, at that level. Even if you follow the vaguely designated path to Friendly Arm Inn it's incredibly easy to have, say, Xzar killed - he has 4hp! Anything can do 4 damage in one hit. So you reload. After 20 reloads your average gamer is going to shelf the game and post a bad review on Metacritic.

And one you start exploring the world, unless you follow a guide, the only way you can learn not to wander in certain caves/areas is trial and error - save and reload. Farmland area - basilisks. Lighthouse - sirines, flesh golems, ogre mage. Beregost Temple - there are 2 vampiric wolves there. Mutamin's Garden - you get slain. As veterans we know all that and we take a safe path through the game according to our level, but someone discovering the game for himself does not know. He gets routinely punished with "you just lost an arbitrary amount of progress, now you can choose to continue from the last time you thought about saving your game". That's just bad.

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But I do not want them to cater to newer gamers. BG is at heart a D&D game. D&D is at heart a PnP rule system. It is why I bought it when it was first released. If your NPC dies, I like the fact that it costs a TON of GPs to resurrect them. It makes you really appreciate the NPCs and take more care. For me, BG is not a hack n slash, it's the same as a PnP gaming night with friends. When I play PnP, the DM generally ensures death is a highly unlikely occurence - because it sucks big time to lose your character. In BG, there's no friendly DM and there are wolves in the area you start in. There are friggin dread wolves in the next area, and that's assuming you're on the right path, because you could just as well wander off in some other direction and get pathetically slain elsewhere. If you remove the friendly DM who explains the game and caters the encounters to your level, you have to compensate somehow. And if trial-and-error is the only way you let the gamer figure out what he can and can't do, then you must not punish him too hard for his errors.

I'm not talking about myself. I'm a veteran of the game, I know what areas I can do at my level, I know what can kill me and what can't. Besides I don't use insane difficulty outside of my LP. The only reason I use it in my LP is so that I do die a few times and it doesn't feel like a complete cakewalk throughout. It's for my viewers enjoyment not mine. Besides when I started I didn't know about SCS, I'd probably use that now instead of insane difficulty.

Well, you did give a lot of examples of how this bothers you personally in your game, so at least to some extent you were talking about yourself, and that's what I was reacting to. My bigger point is that lower difficulty levels can help you, me, anyone and everyone to reduce the chance of death/need to reload.


I think like me, most people who visit these forums are veterans of the game, and for them if it wasn't for permanent death there wouldn't be much challenge. If we want more challenge there are better ways to achieve that (as SCS shows), but mostly we have to realize we're not that many people and if BG1EE wants to succeed it'll have to appeal to a larger audience, and one accustomed to today's RPGs.

The option should definitely be there to have vanilla-style death, but what I'm arguing is that it shouldn't be the default.

Have you played Dark Souls? You die ALL the time, and dying means game over... yet, you never have to save and you almost never have to reload. The game does that for you - it's constantly saving. It's basically what my suggestion #2 consisted in: keep permanent death in, but get rid of save and reload through better design.

I'm not saying that there aren't better ways to handle death in the game, or games in general. I really am not a fan on NWN/Dragon Age style death personally. I think it's highly unlikely that we'll see any drastic differences to how BGEE game handles automatic saving and the like, and I rather hope we won't see a NWN2 style death scenario (personal preference), but if we do, as I said previously, as long as I can turn it off it's not that big of a deal to me.

Save and reload isn't "old school", it's bad design. There are plenty of old-school games that deal with death more smartly than with save and reload - heck even Super Mario World 3 has a better system.
I never said save and reload was the old school approach. I said don't die so much! It's a challenge to see players improve their playing skills in the game, rather than to take away the challenge as is so common these days. The "old school" approach challenges the player to rise up to the level of the game rather than forcing the maker of the game dumb things down to appease the player. If you don't die, you don't need to save and reload, and therefore (not dying) is an old school way to minimize the issue. ;)

Consider that while it does create tension as you say, it also means that as soon as a character die, you stop trying and immediately reload. In NWN2 you'd continue fighting to the last, and that can also be really cool. I've sometimes won battles with 1 character left with a few hp: that's what I call close! In BG, the system is so unforgiving that either I massively outsmart/outpower my opponents so I don't lose any party member, or I reload. It makes for way more one-sided battles.

Wait a second, I think you glossed over the fact that the tension I was discussing was that which is created in a no reload game. So no, you most certainly do not reload as soon as a character dies in a no reload game. You fight it out until the end, and unless you have the means to resurrect the fallen comrade, that team member is laid to rest. Context is everything, and you took me completely out of context right there. :p

Oh, I couldn't disagree more. Unless you know where you're going and exactly how strong different monsters are, you're going to get slain big time. It's an open world with no level scaling. In the area you start in, you can meet dire wolves, which kill any party member quickly and reliably. And black bears. And even wolves for that matter, especially if you made the unfortunate decision of starting out as a mage or rogue (or druid, or even warrior without good dex or splint mail). If you wander into High Hedge (which is the closest area), everything there will kill you very quickly. You cannot deal with skeletons, spiders, gnolls, at that level. Even if you follow the vaguely designated path to Friendly Arm Inn it's incredibly easy to have, say, Xzar killed - he has 4hp! Anything can do 4 damage in one hit. So you reload. After 20 reloads your average gamer is going to shelf the game and post a bad review on Metacritic.

I will give you that there are many exceptions to this idea, and particularly the first couple of levels can be a real challenge. Arguably though, those first few levels is where the character is still getting the hang of things, so by the time they've leveled up and gotten the hang of things, things generally get a lot easier. Again, there are certain battles and situations that will certainly throw any new player for a loop. Your point is taken here.

Max hp on level-up.

but mostly we have to realize we're not that many people and if BG1EE wants to succeed it'll have to appeal to a larger audience, and one accustomed to today's RPGs.
Bear in mind that existing fans apparently crashed the BGEE website server, twice. Somehow I don't think they'll be short on buyers. I kind of suspect that sales will be perfectly acceptable, based on what their aspirations seem to be, if the target audience of return players responds appropriately.

Considerations of a BG3 notwithstanding, BGEE seems to be primarily an appeal to old fans. The fact that it's (remarkably) still 2nd Edition and that not all that much is really changing seems to support that notion. Also many of the other factors mentioned - not console, not 3D, etc.

Wait a second, I think you glossed over the fact that the tension I was discussing was that which is created in a no reload game. So no, you most certainly do not reload as soon as a character dies in a no reload game. You fight it out until the end, and unless you have the means to resurrect the fallen comrade, that team member is laid to rest. Context is everything, and you took me completely out of context right there.
Agreed. I think an assumption that all or most players reload upon death is fundamentally flawed. There are a lot of RP purists out there to whom death - and every other twist and turn - means just that.

I'm actually wondering if the Ascension battle at the end of TOB will be put in this time. I know that originally they meant to have that as the final battle, but it was taken out because it might be too tough for some players. I personally think that the ascension mod should be put in this time. It really makes TOB much better towards the end. Aside from that I would really like to see new subraces and kits. Playing the game as a warlock sounds like it would be really fun.

Bear in mind that existing fans apparently crashed the BGEE website server, twice. Somehow I don't think they'll be short on buyers. I kind of suspect that sales will be perfectly acceptable, based on what their aspirations seem to be, if the target audience of return players responds appropriately.

Considerations of a BG3 notwithstanding, BGEE seems to be primarily an appeal to old fans. The fact that it's (remarkably) still 2nd Edition and that not all that much is really changing seems to support that notion. Also many of the other factors mentioned - not console, not 3D, etc.Yes that's probably who they're targeting and it's certainly who's going to buy and enjoy the game most. They might very well miss the opportunity to adapt an old game for a new generation a gamers - a pity, IMO, but if that's what it is, so be it. One can always dream, right?


Agreed. I think an assumption that all or most players reload upon death is fundamentally flawed. There are a lot of RP purists out there to whom death - and every other twist and turn - means just that.For one thing, you're forced to reload on the main character's death. And while you may choose to let your party members go, there are only 24 of them in the game, a large portion of which might be of an opposite alignment to you, and several are also not recruitable until very late in the story. Nevermind that if you're a mage and you exhausted every available fighter you're basically screwed, and it's not hard to think of scenarios where you simply cannot afford to lose a party member. You're talking about a barely applicable, essentially aesthetic choice that some die-hard veterans may choose for the sake of change; the problem is still there in its entirety for the vast majority of gamers.

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I never said save and reload was the old school approach. I said don't die so much! It's a challenge to see players improve their playing skills in the game, rather than to take away the challenge as is so common these days. The "old school" approach challenges the player to rise up to the level of the game rather than forcing the maker of the game dumb things down to appease the player. If you don't die, you don't need to save and reload, and therefore (not dying) is an old school way to minimize the issue. ;)Taking away the challenge... what challenge? Permanent death doesn't make things challenging, it just makes it so you visit the load screen more often. It's a frustration, not a challenge. I call challenge something that I can overcome with the proper strategy; there's no way to overcome death in BG, except through either a loading screen, gobs of cash, or finding replacement NPCs, which is hardly viable.

I think gamers love challenging games, and it's possible to make a game very challenging (much more than BG!) without forcing to player to reload, I've already given examples. As I've argued, I think NWN-style death allows for more challenging combat than BG1-style death, so I completely disagree with the idea that it would somehow "dumb down" or "take away the challenge" from the game.

Wait a second, I think you glossed over the fact that the tension I was discussing was that which is created in a no reload game. So no, you most certainly do not reload as soon as a character dies in a no reload game. You fight it out until the end, and unless you have the means to resurrect the fallen comrade, that team member is laid to rest. Context is everything, and you took me completely out of context right there. :pPoint taken. Still, "no reload" games are akin to hardcore characters in Diablo 2, it's a minority of highly experienced players - those who already love the game! - who do that, you can't really use that to defend design choices.

As someone who enjoys no reload games, I most certainly can defend my personal taste as a design choice! ;)

And the challenge I speak of is not overcoming death... but avoiding it altogether!

As someone who enjoys no reload games, I most certainly can defend my personal taste as a design choice! ;)Sure...

And the challenge I speak of is not overcoming death... but avoiding it altogether!But that's entirely irrelevant then! The fact that death takes you back to the loading screeb or just disables your character for the duration of the fight doesn't change how difficult it is to avoid it. It changes the consequence - one that takes you out the game for one that keeps you in the game with a temporary disadvantage - not the condition.

I find it extremely relevant for my enjoyment of the game. Watching people die, and then conveniently undie a few moments later completely breaks immersion for me.

I want to live in fear of death, and avoid it at all costs. Death should have a heavy penalty. It currently does in Baldur's Gate, and my hope is that it will stay that way. Again, to each their own. We're not making design choices in this thread... we're just sharing what we'd like to see in BGEE. I can appreciate that this is what you want, even if it isn't what I want. :)

When I play PnP, the DM generally ensures death is a highly unlikely occurence - because it sucks big time to lose your character. In BG, there's no friendly DM and there are wolves in the area you start in. There are friggin dread wolves in the next area, and that's assuming you're on the right path, because you could just as well wander off in some other direction and get pathetically slain elsewhere. If you remove the friendly DM who explains the game and caters the encounters to your level, you have to compensate somehow. And if trial-and-error is the only way you let the gamer figure out what he can and can't do, then you must not punish him too hard for his errors.

Of course, that would depend on your group's playstyle. I understand where your coming from. Going back to my younger days, the DMs of the groups I gamed with didn't ensure your PCs safety. Which to me was the way to go, though if others have different game session styles, to each their own. I enjoyed playing in a game where my PC could bite it at any moment, to me that enhanced the experience.

I probably should state that I don't mind if they cater to the style of others who have differnet play-style preferences than my own, as long as there are options for others with different wants as well. But that is probably asking for alot, I know, purely wishful thinking on my part.

Our DM, way back, was a right bastard.
He made sure that every player's character had a 'relative or family member' of sorts who then would be able to jump in, in case of the originals characters demise.

I hated dying. Both in P&P and BG.
But it made all the achievements, all victories and level-up's something great.
If they keep their wits about them, we have nothing to fear.

BGEE + Wasteland 2 will make sure we oldie gamers have damn fine year.

I want bards to be able to sing/chant and make physical attacks at the same time. Allow me to be a bard and be effective in combat (plus it is very thematic especially for skald like bards).

For one thing, you're forced to reload on the main character's death. And while you may choose to let your party members go, there are only 24 of them in the game, a large portion of which might be of an opposite alignment to you, and several are also not recruitable until very late in the story. Nevermind that if you're a mage and you exhausted every available fighter you're basically screwed, and it's not hard to think of scenarios where you simply cannot afford to lose a party member. You're talking about a barely applicable, essentially aesthetic choice that some die-hard veterans may choose for the sake of change; the problem is still there in its entirety for the vast majority of gamers.
My point is that I'm not sure you're correct about the "vast majority of gamers" part. What is that claim based on?

I don't think die-hard veterans alone play that way for the sake of change; I think many D&D purists play that way simply because the possibility of death is intrinsic to D&D.

My point is that I'm not sure you're correct about the "vast majority of gamers" part. What is that claim based on?
Because people don't pay a high price when they can pay a low price. Losing a character is a very high price: people are attached to them, the characters are super useful, they carry items, they provide tactical possibilities, they basically make up much of what goes on in a play session of Baldur's Gate. Losing characters is a huge deal in this game.

Reloading, on the other hand, is merely an annoyance, allows you to try out another strategy, and continue without losing characters. It's just very obviously the most profitable option in the face of death. Unless they're as you mention D&D purists or some experienced players looking for a change, which the vast majority isn't, they're going to reload when a character dies.

I want to live in fear of death, and avoid it at all costs. Death should have a heavy penalty. It currently does in Baldur's Gate, and my hope is that it will stay that way.But you don't live in fear of death in BG, because you can simply save before each battle and reload if anything goes awry. The only time death is going to be a heavy penalty is if you forgot to save for a while, then you lose progress. Sure you could self-impose the penalty by not reloading, but then that's your own rule, not the game's rule.

However you put it, a save and reload death mechanic is inherently broken.

I completely disagree with Dr.Asik's suggestion's for a different system of saving. With most modern games, I find myself wanting a more BG-like system of saving. I especially dislike games that auto-save where you can't pick the time you save yourself. What I like about BG is you can pick the times you like to save yourself and be able to make complete sentences as the name of save-games. I want save-games to be named by myself in a way that's meaningful: if I want to reload to a certain point, be it for starting over from that point or for checking some facts about my current campaign, I want the save-game telling me what it's about, by the name I chose for myself.

As to game-immersion: a character dying and waking up after a short nap, like Dragon-Age or NWN, is a lot more immersion breaking then having to reload. Death should be meaningful, should be the end. The only thing I dislike about resurrection, is picking up all the gear and having to re-equip, but I'm not even sure I want to change that. It would be strange if a character dies, you can leave his stuff lying on the ground and it magically re-appears when you resurrect him in the temple. A resurrection is something like a rebirth - you do it naked.

First post here, this is the best news I've had for a long time. I'm the biggest Baldur's gate fan there is, I've played the first one ever since it came out and I'm still playing it up to this day. I've stopped counting how many playthroughs I've made of BG 1, tales, SOA and TOB. Baldur's gate is just like my favorite novel which I like to play over and over and that has always a somewhat different income to keep it fresh. I really really hope they're not gonna let me down on this one. Games these days are such craps Baldur's gates is the best thing that has ever been made. I have faith they'll do a great job though since this is the original Baldur's gate team making it. These guys know how to make a frickin' game and they're not in it just for the money.

So I don't know about you guys but the thing I love the most about baldur's gates, the second one especially is the NPC's and character's interactions. I love the fact that there's an infinite possiblity of NPC combinations and so many possible interactions. Baldur's gate 1 lacked severely in character interactions however so I hope they'll be working on that. Of course the main thing they need to do is to make a smooth passage from Baldur's gate 1 to Baldur's gate 2. I've been waiting for the two games to be bridged for so long and I would be devastated if they didn't do it now since it would mean never.

Now if they want to bridge the two games it will be important to be able to carry on with the same NPC's you had at the end of Baldur's gate 1 and these NPC's need to be more interesting and 3 dimensional than they were in BG1. For this to happen I think they would need to severely cut down on the number of Baldur's gate 1 NPC's otherwise it would just be way too much work to bring the 25 BG1 NPC's into BG 2 with each of them having their individual quests and interesting storylines. I don't see any other way to be able to do this well. It wasn't easy since I love most of those NPC's and I thought about it for a long time and decided on the 10 or 11 NPC's they should keep into BG1 and through BG2. Here's the NPC's I would want them to keep and the ones I don't think they should keep and why:

Ajantis- keep: He could be a sort of Anomen but less annoying with a possiblity to turn him into a fallen paladin. He could have a romance with the PC or with Imoen if the PC is a male and could grow into a darker character when Imoen gets abducted. In BG2 he would turn really badass and could make Anomen and Keldorn obselete. Don't get me wrong I loved Keldorn but he was just sort of a textbook Paladin, Ajantis could be greyer and more interesting.

Alora- discard: Useless, you encounter her way too late... just plain boring.

Coran- discard: he was too over powered, I always wanted to replace Khalid or Kivan with him when you met him in Cloakwood. Now I know you need a womanizer character but that role will be filled by Eldoth.

Dynaheir- keep: Iconic character. I think she still would have to die however comes SOB to make the transition simpler. Meanwhile give her a lot more interactions in BG1 however. Makes it so everyone will be really sad when Dynaheir dies.

Imoen- keep, obviously: This will be one of the best thing about the enhanced edition, fixing imoen. In BG1 Imoen had absolutely no character interactions and she was completely different, she had sort of a psychopatic vibe about her too. That's because she was actually a late addition to the game as we all know and the creators decided to make her main NPC in BG2. Now they will be able to make her an interesting character from beginning to end with tons of character interactions and could have a romance with Ajantis or Eldoth if the PC is a male. It won't be necessary to have her along for the story however. Should the player decide to drop Imoen Irenicus could capture Jaheira or Viconia. If the PC was a female then Irenicus could take whoever the PC is having a romance with. If a player were to solo the game or have an all male cast then Irenicus could throw a curse on the PC or such so that the PC has to hunt him down, just an idea.

Khalid-keep: same as Dynaheir. Also make him a little less pussified and stuttering.

Kivan- discard: Okay so I loved Kivan but I was thinking that he's a very dark character. BG1 should have a bit of a lighter feel before everything turns to sh*t. I think BG1 should have lighter characters that turn darker as the game goes on such as Jaheira and Ajantis.

Minsc- keep: Not much to change here, awesome character, great comic relief. Give him more character interactions, especially with Dynaheir. Also explore the Minsc and Aerie relationship some more comes SOA.

Yeslick- discard: Boring old dwarf, comes too late into the story. I never liked feeling obligated to take him along since he was a prisoner.

Branwen- discard: She was never interesting to me.

Faldorn- discard: She already appears in BG2 as the shadow druid leader.

Garrick- discard: he's kind of awkward. Replace him with Eldoth, BG only needs one bard and Eldoth is far cooler.

Jaheira- keep: Iconic character, just give her more lines and such. Have the romance with her start after Khalid's death just as it is.

Quayle- discard: Jan Jansen is funnier, he'll stay Aerie's foster father.

Safana- discard: There'll be too many thieves, the ****ty character will be Viconia.

Skie- discard: Most useless character in BG, as if there wasn't enough female thieves already. She will appear as a non playable NPC who Eldoth will want to abduct for money.

Xan- Not sure: They could make him really interesting. I'd like to find out what's under his doom and gloom persona. He could have a romance with the PC if female. That would fit with the one good , one neutral , one evil character romances for male characters in BG2.

Edwin- discard: Discard from BG1 that is. He's an awesome character and the smartest of all but I'd rather keep Xzart for BG1. I think you should still be able to recruit him in MaeVar's attic or else the Edwin turns woman storyline could be given to Xzart.

Eldoth- keep: Badass character, he should be met in Beregost instead of Garrick. He would want to get to Baldur's Gate to abduct Ski but there would be a possiblity as a female PC to make him change his mind and to have a romance with him. If the PC is male there could be a Imoen / Eldoth romance and an Imoen/Eldoth/Ajantis triangle where the two guys could fight to death. If they haven't fought to death comes SOA then they could develop a friendship once Imoen is abducted and they'd decide to put their differences aside to find her.

Kagain- discard: One-dimensional character, gold gold gold. Can't have two materialistic NPC's leave alone both being in Beregost.

Montaron- keep: Iconic character. He would probably die comes SOA which would actually affect Xzart quite a bit. I guess the Montaron turned into bird storyline could still be in there with a possiblity of Xzart dying at the end of the quest if done wrong.

Shar-Teel- discard: One dimensional character, male hater, again Viconia is here for that. She was too far off in the map. Why would she just hang out at the ankheg zone waiting for male travelers to fight with? You'd think she would have more important things to worry about. I thought that the whole Angelo's daughter thing was sort of interesting but I never cared enough about her to actually care about her back story. This plot point could be delegated to another character or just dropped altogether.

Tiax- keep: Very funny character. He would be the only NPC you could recruit in the city of BG. I don't know if he should still be in spellhold. Maybe they should keep that in it was hilarious. He could have a quest in BG2 where his crazy self end ends up pissing off the cowled wizards somehow and ends up there. Then maybe a quest later on to cure his mental ilness and make him become an old wise gnome again with different lines and such.

Viconia- keep: Iconic character and one of the most fascinating, keep the romance in, have it start when you recruit her. They could have the thing where she's about to get burned on the fire in BG1 instead of SOA since it was very cool. And it was kind of weird that this flaming fist guy was chasing her alone with his full plate on far deep into the woods.

Xzart- keep: Wicked NPC, Xzart and Montaron make an hilarious team, I think their strange relationship should be explored more until Monty's demise. There are many ways his character could be developed comes SOA.

Now I could get on about what I would want out of SOA's NPC's but I'll leave that for later.

I hope that they'll make so that players get all the stuff back that they had in BG1 back in SOA.

Comes the beginning of TOB you could summon any of the NPC's of BG1 or 2 assuming that they haven't died and that you've actually met the characters.
If you've wronged the characters in any way they might try to kill you after you summon them especially if they're of evil alignment.

Of course all of this is assuming that they really do want to bridge the two games together which I really hope they would or I don't care for this enhanced edition. New quests? There's enough quests already. I want the story that's already there to be tighter and more interesting and for the quests that they do add to be about the NPC's.

So if they do decide to bridge the two games and make them more interesting instead of just packing in more quests and better graphics how would you guys want it to be as far as story goes?

I completely disagree with Dr.Asik's suggestion's for a different system of saving. (...) I want save-games to be named by myself in a way that's meaningful: if I want to reload to a certain point, be it for starting over from that point or for checking some facts about my current campaign, I want the save-game telling me what it's about, by the name I chose for myself.I agree that the player should be able to save the game when he chooses and give the saves meaningful names. What I'm concerned with is BG's heavy reliance on save-and-reload to get through any significantly difficult battle. It's possible that not much can realistically be done in BGEE in that regard, but I felt like discussing it anyway. :P

As to game-immersion: a character dying and waking up after a short nap, like Dragon-Age or NWN, is a lot more immersion breaking then having to reload. Death should be meaningful, should be the end. The only thing I dislike about resurrection, is picking up all the gear and having to re-equip, but I'm not even sure I want to change that. It would be strange if a character dies, you can leave his stuff lying on the ground and it magically re-appears when you resurrect him in the temple. A resurrection is something like a rebirth - you do it naked.It's not realistic either that characters heal any wounds by sleeping, never eat or perform any other activity than walking and fighting, that sellers all have infinite amounts of money, or that you can carry enough gold to buy the Sword Coast on yourself, etc. There's a lot of weird things going on in Infinity Engine games that we basically just filter out of our "realism assessment" of the game. When you play Diablo 2 there's nothing more natural than respawning in town when you die, even though that makes no sense. The only reason BG players feel death should be realistic is because it always was that way and they're accustomed to it.

So, the point I'm getting at is that realism and immersion are two very different things. How realism is important to your immersion depends entirely on your expectations. If you find BG immersive at all, then there are lot of unrealistic things you already ignore: death is simply not on the list.

Reloading, on the other hand, breaks immersion completly for everyone everytime, because it physically takes you out of your gameplay session. Between that and a game crash the only difference is a slightly shorter interruption.

As someone who enjoys no reload games, I most certainly can defend my personal taste as a design choice! ;)

And the challenge I speak of is not overcoming death... but avoiding it altogether!

It often isn't possible to avoid death though. A single arrow can kill you at earlier levels. A few arrows could wipe out several party members. You're forced to reload if the main character dies. Death can often be something that just randomly occurs through no fault of your own and yet the consequences are really severe.

OK, my list including several earlier suggestions:

1. Ease of use stuff included. Stuff like infinte stacking just makes things so much more convenient, even if it is slightly easier. Likewise I'd like either some bags of holding or an increased weight allowance please.
2. Better pathfinding.
3. Tidy up proficiencies. Maybe imitate IWD2 3e rules by giving you a proficiency point in every weapon you can use. The current system is too limiting for the vast array of weapon types.
4. Multiple weapon set-ups like IWD2 so you can change on the fly rather than going through the inventory screen to equip a bow.
5. Again, take spontaneous casting for clerics from IWD2. This will allow them to memorise something other than healing spells.
6. Bards can sing while fighting (meh, still can't imagine I'll use them).
7. Detect Traps to work better. If I'm looking for traps I should be able to find them before I walk over them (assuming I'm skilled enough).
8. Characters not to sod off forever when you kick them out. I like to mix and match and try them out rather than sticking with the same ones all game.
9. More banter.
10. Possibly allow earlier access to NPCs? Definitely put them at level 1 with XP so you can choose how to develop them yourself.
11. More weapons to cover the various types. You should be able to choose any type and have good weapons available to you.

Banter is the only one that should take a lot of work to implement.

For this to happen I think they would need to severely cut down on the number of Baldur's gate 1 NPC's

That is unlikely to happen as it was told that the old content remains and there will be added new one.


Alora- discard: Useless, you encounter her way too late... just plain boring.

I like her. Yes, she's available late, but I used her once and liked it.


Coran- discard: he was too over powered, I always wanted to replace Khalid or Kivan with him when you met him in Cloakwood. Now I know you need a womanizer character but that role will be filled by Eldoth.

He's a fan favorite of many. Plus, He isn't way more powerful than Khalid or Kivan as an archer really, if you do the math. As a balance, Kivan has 18 Str and Khalid better HP.
1st) Coran 3*** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 6 [20 Dex, Elf]) -1 THAC0 penalty, because max level Fighter only 7
2nd) Khalid 3*** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 2 [16 Dex])
3rd) Kivan 2** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 4 [17 Dex, Elf])
So Coran is best with only a 3 THAC0 difference compared to Khalid.
Kivan follows as 3rd best but isn't too much off (only by one less damage and even THAC0 compared to Khalid [3*** over 2** in Bows nets you +2 THAC0 and +1 Damage]).


Kivan- discard: Okay so I loved Kivan but I was thinking that he's a very dark character. BG1 should have a bit of a lighter feel before everything turns to sh*t. I think BG1 should have lighter characters that turn darker as the game goes on such as Jaheira and Ajantis.

NO! He's my favorite ;)


Yeslick- discard: Boring old dwarf, comes too late into the story. I never liked feeling obligated to take him along since he was a prisoner.

He's cool ^^


Edwin- discard: Discard from BG1 that is. He's an awesome character and the smartest of all but I'd rather keep Xzart for BG1. I think you should still be able to recruit him in MaeVar's attic or else the Edwin turns woman storyline could be given to Xzart.

Edwin is one of the best written NPCs. Plus he has a very different personality from Xzar. If you had only one choice for an evil NPC mage the game would be too one dimensional.

All in all I'd like a better bridging of both games as well.
But only without cutting content, please :).

Reloading, on the other hand, is merely an annoyance, allows you to try out another strategy, and continue without losing characters. It's just very obviously the most profitable option in the face of death. Unless they're as you mention D&D purists or some experienced players looking for a change, which the vast majority isn't, they're going to reload when a character dies.
You're explaining a rationale that may or may not be held by any given player (and I'm fine with that), but I still don't know what you base the claim on that the majority of them think that way. Just saying that you suppose they will think that way because it 'makes sense' or because that's how you think doesn't really count. People are not necessarily hyper-rational when it comes to games, from what I've seen.

That said, I'm in no way certain that the majority think and play the way I describe either (purists et al), but by far the greatest likelihood, as with most everything, is that there are a wide variety of approaches - the proverbial grey area. Which is why I maintain that's it's a flawed assumption to say that "most" or "all" or even 72.95% of players think this or that. Unless you've conducted extensive studies or something, you can't really say that with authority.

As Marceror pointed out though, we're arguing about good news here so don't take any of that too personally. :)

It's not realistic either that characters heal any wounds by sleeping, never eat or perform any other activity than walking and fighting, that sellers all have infinite amounts of money, or that you can carry enough gold to buy the Sword Coast on yourself, etc.
Don't forget the 'fun factor' here that IMO informs most games: it's not very exciting to focus on mundane activities, hence there is no function for peeing in most CRPGs. Dying however is serious business, and any dev will tell you that when you can manage to get a player into that sweet spot of being uncertain about their survival, i.e. genuine DANGER, you have caught them hook, line, and sinker. That's what every game dev strives for, and you can't really do that IMO without the possibility of death looming, and hence the possibility of its attendant consequences. You don't want it to be cheap, but you don't want it to be non-existent either. It takes a lot of effort to find that middle ground and it's not easily done.

You kind of sound like maybe you're speaking on behalf of the power-gamers of the world - the sort who would follow along with your Let's Plays in order to do everything rather than actually, you know, play the game. ;) That's not a slam on LPs ... I'm generally very appreciative of them, and you and those others who do them well are engaged in a noble endeavor. But they do tend to represent a completionist mindset, which is not particularly conducive to immersion from the point of view of the content-creator.

Yeslick- discard: Boring old dwarf, comes too late into the story. I never liked feeling obligated to take him along since he was a prisoner.
He's cool ^^
This kind of disparity is a good of example of why everyone should just relax and let it happen. :thumb:

That is unlikely to happen as it was told that the old content remains and there will be added new one.

I'm all for that but I really want them to improve the BG1 NPC's and give them more lines and some personal quests, if they could pull that off with all 25 of them which is highly unlikely then I'm all for it. The problem is if they do that then surely not all of them will be able to come along for SOA because THAT would be impossible to pull off. So they would need to choose which NPC's could come along for SOA if any of them would. And personally I would hate not being able to transition to SOA with some NPC's that I like, I'd rather them not be in the story at all just so I wouldn't be dissapointed.

I like her. Yes, she's available late, but I used her once and liked it.

She did have 100% open lock but personality wise you can't say she was that interesting.

He's a fan favorite of many. Plus, He isn't way more powerful than Khalid or Kivan as an archer really, if you do the math. As a balance, Kivan has 18 Str and Khalid better HP.
1st) Coran 3*** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 6 [20 Dex, Elf]) -1 THAC0 penalty, because max level Fighter only 7
2nd) Khalid 3*** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 2 [16 Dex])
3rd) Kivan 2** in Bows (Missile Adjustment 4 [17 Dex, Elf])
So Coran is best with only a 3 THAC0 difference compared to Khalid.
Kivan follows as 3rd best but isn't too much off (only by one less damage and even THAC0 compared to Khalid [3*** over 2** in Bows nets you +2 THAC0 and +1 Damage]).

Thing is Coran was not also on par with Kivan as an archer but he was also the best thief in the game thus making Imoen or any other thief useless which has always made me sad.

NO! He's my favorite ;)

Agreed, He's awesome. He could come along for SOA I guess, they could change him to an archer too.

Edwin is one of the best written NPCs. Plus he has a very different personality from Xzar. If you had only one choice for an evil NPC mage the game would be too one dimensional.

Don't get me wrong I love Edwin, if he was in BG1 though, who would you meet in MaeVar's attic? Unless he left at the end of BG1 but that would be quite sad, he barely remembers or cares about you early SOA which would be really weird if you spent the whole BG1 with him.

All in all I'd like a better bridging of both games as well.
But only without cutting content, please :).

Hell I'd like that as well but only if they made it possible to go into SOA with EVERY of those NPC's and gave them all more lines and personal quests which is basically impossible. So for the sake of being able to play through the whole game with some NPC's from BG1 I'd be willing to sacrifice a few of them, like the ones we loved the least. I think we can almost all agree on a few NPC's we wouldn't mind too much departing with. Did any of you truly care for Ski?

You're explaining a rationale that may or may not be held by any given player (and I'm fine with that), but I still don't know what you base the claim on that the majority of them think that way. Just saying that you suppose they will think that way because it 'makes sense' or because that's how you think doesn't really count. People are not necessarily hyper-rational when it comes to games, from what I've seen.I've given some objective reasons that you don't address at all. You brush it all off as subjective without even explaining why it is subjective.

Of course I don't have studies. :rolleyes:

Don't forget the 'fun factor' here that IMO informs most games: it's not very exciting to focus on mundane activities, hence there is no function for peeing in most CRPGs. Dying however is serious business, and any dev will tell you that when you can manage to get a player into that sweet spot of being uncertain about their survival, i.e. genuine DANGER, you have caught them hook, line, and sinker. That's what every game dev strives for, and you can't really do that IMO without the possibility of death looming, and hence the possibility of its attendant consequences. There's no consequence for death in BG if you reload, except some level of frustration and potentially lost progress. You can choose not to reload, but that's not something the game forces unto you: if don't want the penalty, you just don't take it. I can see how the mechanic allows you to create suspense if you choose to ignore the save-and-reload mechanic; but the fact that it's there means that the game allows you to play without suffering any consequences for death ever.

So, as I said in reply to Marcenor, the way death works in BG fails to create suspense, insofar as any consequences can be ignored through save and reload, and the game heavily encourages you to rely on this as I illustrated. You can create suspense if you choose to: the game doesn't.

You kind of sound like maybe you're speaking on behalf of the power-gamers of the world - the sort who would follow along with your Let's Plays in order to do everything rather than actually, you know, play the game. ;) That's not a slam on LPs ... I'm generally very appreciative of them, and you and those others who do them well are engaged in a noble endeavor. But they do tend to represent a completionist mindset, which is not particularly conducive to immersion from the point of view of the content-creator.Yes of course following any sort of guide breaks immersion considerably, but I don't see the connection with what we're talking about?

I've given some objective reasons that you don't address at all. You brush it all off as subjective without even explaining why it is subjective.

Of course I don't have studies. :rolleyes:

There's no consequence for death in BG if you reload, except some level of frustration and potentially lost progress. You can choose not to reload, but that's not something the game forces unto you: if don't want the penalty, you just don't take it. I can see how the mechanic allows you to create suspense if you choose to ignore the save-and-reload mechanic; but the fact that it's there means that the game allows you to play without suffering any consequences for death ever.

So, as I said in reply to Marcenor, the way death works in BG fails to create suspense, insofar as any consequences can be ignored through save and reload, and the game heavily encourages you to rely on this as I illustrated. You can create suspense if you choose to: the game doesn't.

Yes of course following any sort of guide breaks immersion considerably, but I don't see the connection with what we're talking about?

I agree that the option to save at all times does sort of breaks suspense but hey, that's what playing no reload is for isn't it? It's true however that playing no-reload will never feel quite as exciting as playing in a game that doesn't allow you to do this constant saving and reloading. A fix for that would be to allow you to save only in inns or taverns. I would say the same with the sleeping thing also, you shouldn't be able to sleep in dungeons, makes the game for too easy. You should however still be able to camp outside with a possibility of being attacked during the night. I think those are minor details though but I agree they are worth being taken care of. I wouldn't want game mecanics to take center stage in favor of storyline however.

I don't think restricting when a player can save is a good idea. It'll mean more progress lost on reloads and that would just be very frustrating. Also sometimes one doesn't need to go back to town for a very long time; I did the entire Cloakwood + Mines segment without it, the entirety of Durlag's Tower without it, etc. Making saving only allowed in some areas would force the player to travel to these areas just to save which would feel weird and definitely be a source of frustration.

My pov is that if the cost of death wasn't so absurdly high, players would be more willing to take risks and keep playing instead of reloading. In particular for low-level parties at the start of the game, where every party member is extremely susceptible to dying at all times, they're all essential to your survival (strength in numbers!), and you don't have any means of resurrecting them. That's where the current mechanic is especially aggravating.

I don't think restricting when a player can save is a good idea. It'll mean more progress lost on reloads and that would just be very frustrating. Also sometimes one doesn't need to go back to town for a very long time; I did the entire Cloakwood + Mines segment without it, the entirety of Durlag's Tower without it, etc. Making saving only allowed in some areas would force the player to travel to these areas just to save which would feel weird and definitely be a source of frustration.

My pov is that if the cost of death wasn't so absurdly high, players would be more willing to take risks and keep playing instead of reloading. In particular for low-level parties at the start of the game, where every party member is extremely susceptible to dying at all times, they're all essential to your survival (strength in numbers!), and you don't have any means of resurrecting them. That's where the current mechanic is especially aggravating.

So you just want to dumb the game down? The point of the cost of death being high is that you have to be careful and is what makes the game exciting. Also I don't think the cost of death is that high, if it were up to me I would have had ressurected npc's lose one point of constitution everytime such as it is in DnD's second edition rules. I'm sorry but games these days are always so easy and made for kids with the lowest attention span, I wouldn't want that to happen to my BG.

I am fine just as it was. I would not like bringing back con drain because all that would do is make me always reload when somebody dies rather than reloading most of them time (since I rarely used raise dead I would rather do the fight again without dying at all). In a game of reloads having the con drain is just not that effective anyway.

Also I highly doubt that they will make any major changes to how 2e works. I would expect proficiencies to work about the same (though if you are lucky they may decide to bring back bonus proficiencies for high int for warrior classes). I am just hoping that they make some things work better due to it being a real time game hence my desire for "singing" and fighting to work together. You can probably think of other areas as well.

@Dr. Asik, I think our discussion is getting a little too chippy for a non-alleys thread (not to mention one titled "What new features do you hope to see" ;)), so I'm content to leave you with the last word and the hope that we at least agree that BGEE is generally a good thing. :thumb:

Being able to rip the Nether Scrolls out of Edwin's grubby mitts and using them myself.

I have three words for gameplay and saves. Leave them alone. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the BG NPCs making a join-able appearance in BGII. I've always been a little disappointed that Garrick could never join my party in II.

At Azlon: I don't think they should just remove characters. If anything, they should expand on them, especially the characters that don't have much in the way of dialogue.
At Dr.Asik: As a mage in BG, I always do side quests and level up before I progress the main story.

I have three words for gameplay and saves. Leave them alone. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the BG NPCs making a join-able appearance in BGII. I've always been a little disappointed that Garrick could never join my party in II.

At Azlon: I don't think they should just remove characters. If anything, they should expand on them, especially the characters that don't have much in the way of dialogue.
At Dr.Asik: As a mage in BG, I always do side quests and level up before I progress the main story.

Hell I couldn't ask for anything better than them expanding EVERY single NPC's, giving them lines and quests and such but I just don't see it happening. I would LOVE if every voice actors could come back to voice their character's and turn them into more dimensional people because BG1 could seriously use that. Trust me I love every single BG npc's even the ones I call boring and useless if only because they add more diversity to the game. One thing we can agree on though is that NOT all 25 of those NPC's will be transferable to SoA and that if they all are, it would be in an incredibly sloppy fashion. Adding quests and dialogues for all of those BG1 NPC's in SoA is simply impossible, I'm not even sure they'll make any other NPC's besides the canonical ones transferable, hell, we're not even sure that they'll actually bridge the two games together but I would be so terribly dissapointed if they didn't.

Hell I couldn't ask for anything better than them expanding EVERY single NPC's, giving them lines and quests and such but I just don't see it happening. I would LOVE if every voice actors could come back to voice their character's and turn them into more dimensional people because BG1 could seriously use that. Trust me I love every single BG npc's even the ones I call boring and useless if only because they add more diversity to the game. One thing we can agree on though is that NOT all 25 of those NPC's will be transferable to SoA and that if they all are, it would be in an incredibly sloppy fashion. Adding quests and dialogues for all of those BG1 NPC's in SoA is simply impossible, I'm not even sure they'll make any other NPC's besides the canonical ones transferable, hell, we're not even sure that they'll actually bridge the two games together but I would be so terribly dissapointed if they didn't.

I don't think all of the characters should carry into SoA, only that they could make room for the ones that actually make appearances. Just expanding on the banter in SoA would be a nice addition. I don't expect them to come in and voice a bunch of stuff, or add a whole new game worth in content, just adding some quests and banter to make some of them a little more interesting :P. The one thing I couldn't see myself doing is not having Minsc and Keldorn in my party no matter who got added (if they make additions).

If they are to link the games, they would need to offer an epilogue for BG. As for BGIII potential, they would need to do the same with ToB.

Many of the points made by other members I totally support.

Especially these:
- Some animation updates would be stellar.
- Resolution 1920x1080 support (duh)
- Instead of introducing 'new' characters, I'd LOVE to have additional dialogue for the existing ones to make the gaming experience even better. The amount of characters is already pretty high. I realise that there won't be any spoken dialogue for them, but that's only a minor concern for me. But I guess new ones would'nt hurt either. :D
- MORE CONTENT! The most important of all the potential changes. Gimme gimme!! More musical scores would rock (how are you these days Mr. Hoenig/Zur?), new areas seems like an auto-include, etc etc.

As far as the discussion of "dynamic savegames vs JRPG-style save points" goes. Including dynamic saving is strictly better then the alternative. Why limit it in any way? You have the power to limit them yourself. If you choose not to use that possibility and it somehow pissed you off, you need to build some character and push yourself to only save at the end of a dungeon level or something. Besides, people won't always save every 5 minutes. What do you care what other people's gaming experiences are? I do support the claim that video games need to put the player in danger levels sometimes, but it might piss off casual gamers to the extent that they'll slander the game on the internet, equalling bad publicity for you, the game designer.

And as for the engine. Infinity engine is old, but it still rocks my world. What does get old are the graphics. They can obviously improve these a lot. There is NOTHING wrong with 2D gaming, but the gfx of BG2 are outdated - though still playable of course. Look at the newest Rayman. It can still be beautiful. I don't realise how much work it'd cost, but it'd be awesome if they could enchant the game with some extra graphical awesomeness (as gameplay awesomeness is already taken care of).

I'm super pumped for this announcement. Some of my best childhood memories were of playing BG 1 & 2 and enjoying the interactions the game offered, that even to this day no game has come close to.

Personally I'd love to see some serious improvements in the graphics department. I was a little disappointed that they weren't at least doing 3D character models on a 2D backdrop, but I can live with highly detailed 2D as long as it fits well with HD resolutions.

New characters would be super, but what I think would reaaaaly enhance the experience was if they included more depth to the already magnificent cast of companions, and add voice overs for all the areas of the game that were purely text based.

Fingers crossed guys. Really hope that this isn't just a glorified repackaging effort to make a quick profit.

Many of the points made by other members I totally support.

Especially these:
- Some animation updates would be stellar.
- Resolution 1920x1080 support (duh)
- Instead of introducing 'new' characters, I'd LOVE to have additional dialogue for the existing ones to make the gaming experience even better. The amount of characters is already pretty high. I realise that there won't be any spoken dialogue for them, but that's only a minor concern for me. But I guess new ones would'nt hurt either. :D
- MORE CONTENT! The most important of all the potential changes. Gimme gimme!! More musical scores would rock (how are you these days Mr. Hoenig/Zur?), new areas seems like an auto-include, etc etc.

As far as the discussion of "dynamic savegames vs JRPG-style save points" goes. Including dynamic saving is strictly better then the alternative. Why limit it in any way? You have the power to limit them yourself. If you choose not to use that possibility and it somehow pissed you off, you need to build some character and push yourself to only save at the end of a dungeon level or something. Besides, people won't always save every 5 minutes. What do you care what other people's gaming experiences are? I do support the claim that video games need to put the player in danger levels sometimes, but it might piss off casual gamers to the extent that they'll slander the game on the internet, equalling bad publicity for you, the game designer.

And as for the engine. Infinity engine is old, but it still rocks my world. What does get old are the graphics. They can obviously improve these a lot. There is NOTHING wrong with 2D gaming, but the gfx of BG2 are outdated - though still playable of course. Look at the newest Rayman. It can still be beautiful. I don't realise how much work it'd cost, but it'd be awesome if they could enchant the game with some extra graphical awesomeness (as gameplay awesomeness is already taken care of).
It would be nice to see weather and environment animations getting an update. I don't think any of the areas themselves need one. I've always thought the save when you want approach is better than constant auto-saving and/or save points.

I'm all for more music for additional content, so long as they get Hoenig.

My pov is that if the cost of death wasn't so absurdly high, players would be more willing to take risks and keep playing instead of reloading. In particular for low-level parties at the start of the game, where every party member is extremely susceptible to dying at all times, they're all essential to your survival (strength in numbers!), and you don't have any means of resurrecting them. That's where the current mechanic is especially aggravating.

Every player has a different approach when they play a RPG. For me, when I started BG, I didn't abuse the save game file, especially on the first playthrough, which is usally the most memorable experience a player will have in a CRPG. I wanted to maximize the experience, which a chane of death certain heightens. It didn't matter to me that I could reload, as it is a Role-Playing Game. Each individual interprets it in his own way as he palys through it. Re-load just gives you another option of playstyle. It is up to the player whether or not they abuse it.

A yes I understand D&D button. Make a game that will sell to the crowd, but has the option to be core D&D.

A good starting level that tells new players what to do and why. Explain the rules. Warn players on the box that it is not fast paced hack and slash to avoid bad online reviews that pull the metacritic down.

I'd like to see choosing a specialist mage class giving some sort of bonus to the school you're a specialist in - maybe conjurers always have 100% chance of learning a conjuration spell etc. Actually are there any mods for that?

You could just set difficulty to easy and then scribe the scrolls then you don't need to add a mod...

I'd like to see choosing a specialist mage class giving some sort of bonus to the school you're a specialist in - maybe conjurers always have 100% chance of learning a conjuration spell etc. Actually are there any mods for that?

Yes, there are mods that will make this change for you. I believe that a number of the tweak packs out there offer this feature. You can grab one from the gibberlings3.net website. I believe their BG2 Tweak pack has this in the Convenience Tweaks category.

An other thing, (and some of you might pick up some stones now and sentence me to death right before I'm finished :p):

I'd like an option for my female dwarves and gnomes to actually look feminine, that is no goateed quasimodo gnomettes or bearded flat-barrel-chested dwarvines.

(I like more options for looks altogether, btw)

Oh, and more voicepacks, but that should be quite easily fixed with some mod, I suppose

NOT on my list: radical interface changes for the i-Pad, while only adding high resolutions and wide screen support and not much else visually for the PC.

Oh darn, that's already been confirmed. Hi-res and widescreen support... have been available due to modding for years.

Enthusiasm level has taken a major plunge.

a version with intact debugging symbols. :)

A few things:

1. Add more content. Don't care what it is. Make already existing mods easy to port over (or just add some of that content as well). Obviously there are addons that I enjoy having in every game.

2. Deaths are already NON-PERMANENT at the default setting, which also reduces enemy damage, gives you max hp, etc. etc. The fact that you actually have to res, makes the res spell useful. In NWN you never ever prepare it because your party just gets back up. If you want to talk about immersion, how about, "Oh, he cut off your head but you just got back up? cool!"...

3. Updated graphics/character motions. I don't want to see my dude attacking 100times/second when he has haste on and only 3 attacks.

4. Explanation of the rules. When I started playing the game I figured it out pretty fast because the better armor had lower numbers. Not everyone gets that.

5. I'd like the game to completely, totally, and utterly... lack consolitis.

Edited:
6. More word of mouth advertising. I went to my local game store, discussed the new Enhanced Editions coming out and turned quite a few heads.

Hmm, I think they definitely should extend existing stuff (more landscape areas - I loved those, too bad that there was only so much stuff happening in each), but without making it feel unnatural (you can't just add 4 quest-triggering NPCs into Gnoll Stronghold or rely on newly spawning encounters in old areas too much). But I think Ulcaster could use more stuff and Firewine Bridge could be expanded with some lairs/caves/etc.

I'd also like them to not rely too much on newly added joinable NPCs, because as BG1 had relatively inferior-stats NPCs compared to BG2, and it is likely that the newly made characters would be at least a bit overpowered, making the old folk obsolete - especially if new quests/stories get tied to the new characters.

(It's not like they have nothing to extend - Shar-Teel had some background that could be used, Kagain had those caravan to investigate, there was that Eldoth-Skie thing...)

Same thing goes for items: if you introduce new superb items to please gamers, you make all those old ones useless, which will harms the overal gameplay. New additions should be made with caution...
OTOH, I think they *should* make Drizzt's stuff unstealable/unlootable, since the scimitars are too good and can be obtained too soon.


I think they really shouldn't remove or alter stuff that was in the original. It should be an expansion, not a remake. While using the interface (and class/abilities extensions - but adding kits to the existing npcs should be *very* conservative) from BG2 is fine, I will miss the original graphics (items etc). Also, I think they really really should stick to the 2nd edition rules present in the original games (hopefully it would be too hard for them to redo it all).

I'd also like them to not rely too much on newly added joinable NPCs, because as BG1 had relatively inferior-stats NPCs compared to BG2, and it is likely that the newly made characters would be at least a bit overpowered, making the old folk obsolete - especially if new quests/stories get tied to the new characters.
I don't think there should be any new NPCs - there's plenty already. I would like to see them banter and have sub-quests though.

I would like some NPC changes in the BGII EE though:
1 - There needs to be at least 1 Neutral or Evil Warrior. Evil players getting just Korgan is harsh. Jaheira doesn't count as she's clearly only Neutral because of class constraints.
2 - There should also be a sorceror, monk and a barbarian as well as a half-orc of some description.
3 - Nalia should be a thief who could be dual-classed to a mage as opposed to a Thief 4/Mage X. This fits better with her background and would give an alternative decent thief to Jan.
4 - Maybe another evil/neutral thief (single or multi-class). Jan is a bit mischievous but he doesn't really fit into an evil party that well. Nor do any of the neutral characters to be honest. Even the jerk version of Anomen. At least BG1 had neutral characters closer to the evil side of things (Safana for instance).

Well, if they are going to redo BG1 with BG2 Racial and Class options, I would like to see some new NPCs that let you utilize the new classes/kits. Otherwise, what's the point of adding the new fetures?

I am hoping for a massive change in dialogue options based on character stats. I want to see some 'placescape' examples! An Intelligent or Wise fighter actually has more options rather then being just a 'fighter'.