Oliluke's Resilient Sphere;

It's not my fix... I just host it for people... the difference between them (so we are on the same page) is that it should always work when self targeted.

Slayer change is mine but I only fixed a spell that was someone elses fix so I can live with that if we did the same thing.

I wouldn't mine chatting about fixpack or code in general but start a new post please or pop into http://forum.bioware.com/forum/170-baldurs-gate-i-ii/ to say hi.

KiNgBrAdLeY7 proves that trolling can be an art :) All this text just to complain that EE standardizes both titles and fixes bugs and exploits...

Who fixes what? BG2EE is FULL of GAMESTOPPING bugs. Some reviewers report like 400. With almost nil support. Nerfing, balancing and watering down is not fixing things (don't fix what is not broken)! Fixing gamestopping bugs is another story. For crying out loud, some people propose seriously, over the official forums, to use console commands and cheats, in order to work around bugs that destroy their game and prevents them from advancing! Bugs that shouldn't even exist in the first place! The EEs introduce more bugs than the humble, elder originals, had inside them themselves, initially!

(beamdog mutt, or steam-ed brain?)

I played the original BG1 and 2 modded (just fixpack, some small tweaks and cut content). So my one and only playthrough of this saga was basically the EE xD The only thing I like about the EE is the GUI. I never liked the GUI in the original BG1, original BG2 was ok. I never finished ToB though since I was exhausted from the marathon that this whole saga is, so I may replay it sometime in the future and then it may be the EE... I still prefer Icewind Dale though ^^u

BG:EE is pretty good. It seems to run fairly smoothly at this point in time, and several major mods (BG1 NPC Project, SCS, Rogue Rebalancing, etc) have been adapted to run for it. It adds a few interface improvements and in particular provides more transparent character sheets, which isn't a big deal if you're familiar with the game or the AD&D ruleset but can be huge for new players.

Actually, for that reason alone, I'd recommend BG:EE to someone who's new to the series. The BG Trilogy is probably my favourite RPG series of all time, but let's be honest, both 2e rules and the games' implementation of those rules can be pretty arcane at times. What's better, a high or low speed factor? Why does my AC go down when I get better armour? What in the name of all that is good and holy is a THAC0? Seem like pretty silly questions to most of us experienced players, but they're gonna be pretty common for newcomers, I think.


The other reason I like BG:EE is from what I've seen, it is perhaps a bit more open in terms of what WEIDU can do, potentially leading to more ambitious and interesting mods than before. This doesn't make a difference now, but it could further down the line.


So if you're new to the series or if you can't be bothered with modding BG1, BG:EE is a decent purchase. A bit overpriced, maybe.


BG2:EE, on the other hand, should be avoided like the plague. Maybe someday it'll get more polished and then it'll be worth playing, but... yeah. Don't get it. If you finished BG:EE and you really can't handle going back to the 2001 interface, like to the point that you'd rather deal with all sorts of gamebreaking bugs, then get BG2:EE.


If none of the above applies to you, then definitely get the classic versions. Cheaper, more reliable, and a heck of a lot more mods available.

Besides which, I'm not sure how quickly the OP finishes his games, but I seem to recall it took me a good year or so to finish my first play of original BG1+TOSC, exploring everywhere, talking to everyone, getting as much XP as possible. So by the time he finishes it, BG2EE might just be ready. ;)

Not tried the EEs myself yet, but I just bought them both. I figure I'll give the devs some money to put towards IWD1EE, because I enjoyed the original of that even more than BG1. Also, yet to play them in my native EVIL; looking forward to BG*EEEVIL . ;P

Right, we fixed those bugs.

Let's go ahead and break this down.

There are currently 483 issues* pending in the v1.3 patch for BGIIEE. Internally we've fixed and confirmed 480 of these; when we get the last three the patch will be released for beta testing.

Within these 483, 43 are not bugs but feature requests. Tickets range from the simple, such as 'make wooden stakes stack', to something complicated--the restoration of import02, allowing you to find a third item in CI (a weapon such as Varsona or Ashideena) from an imported BG game.

Of the remaining 440, 27 are what we label regressions--something that works in vBG2 or worked in a previous version of BGIIEE that we've broken and now need to fix. The slayer bug mentioned by ussnorway is an example of one such regression.

I'm not wading through the remaining 413. In a spot check of 25, though, 10 pertained to EE-specific content or features, and 15 were original game bugs. These bugs in the original game have no fix.

As an example, two gamebreakers I fixed for v1.3--leaving the area while Solaufein is casting his spell to catch the mind flayers and Phaere breaks the entire Ust Natha storyline. A mazed PC breaks Abazigal's final dialogue and makes him irrevocably immortal.



* An issue is something we raise a ticket for, including feature requests or just general to-do items, and can range from 'wrong ground icon' to 'rewrite renderer'. It's not the best measure, but it's the best I have at hand.

Cool, hopefully the patch for BG2EE will be out by the time I get to playing it, though it may be awhile before I get to it anyways with my backlog of doom. The new Sun Soul Monk class you guys added is just too good for me to go back to the original versions.

I'm interested in the answer to that, too. From what I can gather, the Windows versions do not yet (I think?) support the same (any?) touch controls as the iPad and Android versions; they were supposed to be added later in a patch.

Perhaps pcamagna knows if they're still going to implement that? :) I know not the same priority as fixing bugs, but Windows 8 tablets are getting more popular.

(In the meantime, I wonder if setting up your own touch controls with a program like Gameplay might be possible)

Yeah, I asked about this because I didn't know. The Windows version does not have touchscreen support.