Hey CamDawg, you're the best person to ask this: what's the current state of both enhanced games? Are they finally done with patching? I've read the 1.3 changelog for BG1 and despite my Beamdog hate it sounds impressive. Since GOG release, I think I'll finally buy them but only if they're done with patching.

So in other words, you don't have a problem with gay people so long as they pretend like they don't exist while on the internet? You really don't seem to understand just how offensive you are coming across, do you?

If you are instead talking about discussing any given particular sexual exploit, then I must confess that while I shake my head at the way society treats sex as somehow taboo, I can at least understand that it's something that is likely going to be off topic, and I can respect not wanting to talk about it unless it furthers the conversation. That said, that's a standard that I would hope applies to everyone, including straight people; otherwise, if by "different" you are referring to non-heterosexual activity, it's a crappy double standard that serves no purpose aside from sending the message that I interpreted in the above paragraph, and my reaction would be the same.

Cut the gay offtopic already, ever heard of personal messages?

I just imported my character from BG:EE to BG2:EE (on steam). I have the original BG2 on GOG also but since I've played the Enhanced Edition already, I'm not sure if I'd like to play the game without the UI-improvements and most importantly; the quicklootbar.

Also, is it possible to play a multiplayer game between Steam/GOG versions of the game?
I have a couple of friends who are interested in the game(s) and are waiting for a decent sale. No crossplatform (STEAM/GOG) multiplayer would be a major dealbreaker though.

Will GOG's Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced support new translations if they would be available on Beamdog?

Because the initial homophobia should be left on full display, while attempts to point it out should be kept private. Good to know.

I'm always reluctant to answer questions like this because it's so personal. The most important bug that needs to be fixed in any game is the one that you experience. There are lots of people that will happily attest that BGEE/BGIIEE/BG/BG2 are perfectly bugfree, either because they don't notice or don't encounter bugs in their playthroughs.

Waffling aside, first, full disclosure: I'm a paid contractor for Beamdog on the EE series of games, mainly because I've been modding IE games for over a decade. To put that in perspective, of the seven mods that GoG recommended in their Enhance your BG Game post, I'm an author on three and contributed to two others. The most relevant to this discussion is that I am the leader of the BG2 Fixpack project.

Second, no game is ever bug free. It's the goal that I work towards as both a modder and a professional, but simple pragmatism says you'll never totally reach a bugfree state. If you're going to wait for the end of patching, you'll never play anything. :)

Both BGEE and BGIIEE were rough at their respective launches, and we've rightfully taken a lot of abuse for it. Both were rushed to release a bit, and while I can't comment a lot as to the why, I can say that BD is now in a much better place where we can develop and release when we feel things are ready. We've also learned quite a bit from our previous mistakes and revamped a lot of our internal QA processes to address problems. The feedback we've received from BGEE 1.3 and the ongoing IWDEE beta supports this as well, with the major complaint being about the wait.

BGEE in particular is in a very good place with the 1.3 patch. BG has never been held to the same scrutiny that BG2 has; that's a product of being a little less popular and never having the same concerted bugfixing push that something like BG2 Fixpack provided. Most of the bug fixes available for original are in the form of the ancient Baldurdash or Dudleyville fixes which, personally, I don't hold in terribly high esteem. Ironically, probably the best collection of fixes for BG content is from the BGT team, which have never really been ported back to BG from BGT.

The pending 1.3. patch for BGIIE should also get it to a pretty good place. The comparison most people use is BGIIEE vs. BG2 + BG2 Fixpack. As a modder BG2 Fixpack is, without a doubt, the project that brings me the most pride. It brought together phenomenal modding talent that did an incredible job on truly thankless work. That being said, there's nothing like a couple thousand players and a dedicated QA staff to show how much further we had to go. I know I've personally fixed a number of A-level issues (A is our internal label for gamebreakers or crashes) that remain unaddressed in vBG2. I used to try and keep a running log of stuff we needed to fix in future BG2 Fixpack releases until the list grew exponentially. The catch is that 1.3 isn't out yet, and while I still think 1.2 is better than the originals in terms of bugginess, 1.3 will be the same huge step forward that it was for BGEE. Just don't ask me for a release date. :)

I had the same question posed a few months ago, so I sat down with the current progress on the BGEE 1.3 patch. While it's a bit dated, at the time we had about 300 issues on the patch list. Of those, 55 were what we labeled as regressions--something that worked in the original game or previous iterations of BGEE itself and needed to be fixed. Of those 55, 40 were directly related to the Android-specific port, leaving us without about 15 self-inflicted bugs against ~250 bugs from the original game and content. This is not intended to try and shift blame for bugs to the originals--we certainly have our share of bugs and I'm personally not satisfied with where we are, but I also think that the number of original bugs fixed in the EEs is not really appreciated.

Whoa, watch out with that textwall, you could hurt somebody ;)

But in all seriousness, thanks for the exhausting answer.

Judging from the perspective of time, BD got a lot of hate at launch because people though the clearly bug infested first release was just a quick cash grab. They thought (me included) that BD would release a patch to fix only the gamebreaking issues and then move on, leaving EE in a limbo. Now I see their biggest sin was releasing the game too soon. After looking at the up to date patch notes, they now clearly deserve as much praise as they earlier got hate.

While they get to that point at a snail pace, the bugfixes/additions list is really impressive. Enhanced editions are now clearly the definitive BG editions and even if you're a diehard fan of the classics, it's hard to seriously argue about that after checking the changelog. The 100% drm free GOG release (and 50% discount while it lasts) is a cherry on top.

Also about the 1.3 BG1 patch, since it was released some months ago, are there any plans for 1.4? I couldn't find any info on the Beamdog forums.

As for BG1 bugfixing being less appreciated, it's probably because BG2 focuses most of the player base. BG1 is also a smaller game so it has less bugs. I think they're also less apparent for the player because I honestly don't remember encountering many bugs during my playthroughts.

Pointing fingers and screaming and shouting about it is just as offensive to most people. Please don't reply to this; drop it.

First, thanks for the kind words.
Yes. The patch process at this point is best described as continuous; it's really a matter of what's getting focus at the moment. And even then priority can be misleading--being as there's one codebase for BGEE/BGIIEE/IWDEE, a fix on one is typically a fix for all of them.

And where was I screaming or shouting? All I did was point out how it seemed that the poster's comments were coming across as homophobic, but that I could be wrong as to my interpretation, and if so then I will gladly eat a heaping bowl of crow with crow garnish. It's harder to imagine tackling the issue in any more of a polite manner, unless you are suggesting that even that even trying to civilly address possible bigotry is impermissible; if that's the case, I trust you will forgive me if I don't share in that conclusion.

Baldurs Gate enhanced, anyone? the actual topic? please?

Bugs, bugs and more bugs--- pretty though.

p.s. most the bugs are easy to fix with shaowkeeper/ infinity... if you find one that really well bugs you then just ask on one of the bg forums--- odds are some one has already fixed it for themselves and will post the fix if asked nicely.