Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear Pre-Release Thread

[Makabb]

Dis game gun b gud.

Infinity engine means we already know the mechanics are top notch, and Beamdog already show they can make decent assets. If the story will be on par it will be a 9/10 game.

 

[ArchAngel]

Hate to put a dampener on all the Beamdog love here but you do know that it will have RTwP combat right? You know the shit one that PoE had?

IE rtwp is fun and good unlike PoE version.

Read up on the forums. I think you'll find that Codexers deride IE combat as spammy clusterfuck more often than not.

I have, most of those that enjoy RTwP still think IE games are better

 

[Kem0sabe]

Dunno why their art continues to look muddy when compared to the originals.

 

[Makabb]

My favourite combat system is that of x-com 1 and fallout 1-2, but i rate Infinity engine combat for the fun factor on the same level as those turn based ones.

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

My favourite combat system is that fallout 1-2

 

[Naraya]

I like what I see and I'm even more happy that I bought EE versions of BGs.

 

[RK47]

yeah kind of crazy.. now if you look back at 2008 or 2009 compared to this...

The night is darker just before the dawn

Shadows fall

And hope has fled.

Steel your heart

The dawn will come.

______________________

CHORUS:

The night is long

And the path is dark

Look to the sky

For one day soon

The dawn will come.

______________________

The shepard's lost

And his home is far

Keep to the stars

The dawn will come

______________________

(Chorus)

______________________

Bare your blade

And raise it high

Stand your ground

The dawn will come

______________________

(Chorus)

 

[ArchAngel]

I am just watching that twitch recording and this is soo cool! I am very excited and happy about this game! I want it to be good! Please be good!

 

[Neanderthal]

I didn't buy any of these enhanced editions because i'm not paying for the BG's for a fourth time, however I might have a goosey at these now as I assume they are mandatory to play this, my question is though: What do the EE's bring to the table that a fully modded version does not? I assume they've fixed pathfinding, made better character models like the first games and added a few more animations for those models as those were the obvious faults, but what else is enhanced?

 

[ArchAngel]

From what people said, this will be a standalone expansion for BGEE so you don't need BGEE.

 

[Infinitron]

From what people said, this will be a standalone expansion for BGEE so you don't need BGEE.

No, you do need it. By standalone they meant you can run it directly from the main menu of the game like ToB.

 

[ArchAngel]

Inventory screen (I took it not from source quality of the stream, it will look better in full game):

Spoiler

 

[UglyBastard]

Hm, I almost forgot about this, but it doesn't look too bad.

I dislike the fact, that you need the (probably rightfully) viled EEs to play it. The need to shell out another 30 bucks for stuff you already own to play this is a huge turnoff.
Also, as I read here, the additional content of the EEs is quite poor and does not hold up at all against the original content, which is a bad sign.

The previews look decent enough though.

I'm mildly interested but still sceptical.

Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?
They seem to have Chris Avellone as a story consultant, so maybe they can get Sawyer as a balance consultant to solve this problem. That would be glorious!

 

[Infinitron]

Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?

They mentioned it. They say they don't care.

 

[hoverdog]

Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?

They mentioned it. They say they don't care.

How typical.

fuck beamdog.

 

[aVENGER]

Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?

They mentioned it. They say they don't care.

We do care, and we're taking measures to ensure that the game will remain balanced for characters that are imported from Siege of Dragonspear. As Trent has already said, BGII:EE will be patched around the same time that Siege of Dragonspear is released to ensure a smooth transition. We had extensive design discussions about the XP cap for Siege of Dragonspear and I think the end result will reflect that.

Lastly, as a reminder, in Baldur's Gate 2 (and of course BGII:EE as well), most quests in Chapter 2 and later already scale to a certain extent in order to account for higher character levels. As an example, you get more trolls and also some tougher troll varieties in De'Arnise Hold if you go there with a character who is above a certain XP threshold.

 

[Infinitron]

Did they mention how they want to address the problem of all the experience and stuff that you gather in this adventure and how it affects the balance of BG2?

They mentioned it. They say they don't care.

We do care, and we're taking measures to ensure that the game will remain balanced for characters that are imported from Siege of Dragonspear. As Trent has already said, BGII:EE will be patched around the same time that Siege of Dragonspear is released to ensure a smooth transition. We had extensive design discussions about the XP cap for Siege of Dragonspear and I think the end result will reflect that.

Lastly, as a reminder, in Baldur's Gate 2 (and of course BGII:EE as well), most quests in Chapter 2 and later already scale to a certain extent in order to account for higher character levels. As an example, you get more trolls and also some tougher troll varieties in De'Arnise Hold if you go there with a character who is above a certain XP threshold.

I see. It's just the impression I got from reading this:

But if a player goes out of their way to overlevel, squeezing every last drop of XP out of their enemies before porting over their character, nobody’s going to stop them (“I think that’s one of those things that Baldur’s Gate fans have enjoyed”).

 

[aVENGER]

I see. It's just the impression I got from reading this:

But if a player goes out of their way to overlevel, squeezing every last drop of XP out of their enemies before porting over their character, nobody’s going to stop them (“I think that’s one of those things that Baldur’s Gate fans have enjoyed”).

What that means is: you need to work hard in order to reach the XP cap in Siege of Dragonspear. We do not hand out XP awards easily.

But if you do manage to complete every single quest and kill every single opponent, you should feel a bit more powerful at the start of BGII:EE.

 

[CptMace]

Does xp really matter in the end, considering that BG2 is all about rock-paper-scissors ? It'll just mean you'll have your rocks, papers and scissors earlier. Beside the need for hard-counters and hard-support spells, there has never been a single moment I felt like I was too low/high level.

 

[MicoSelva]

How much XP will you get in Dragonspear? 100K for each character? In BG2 terms that is pennies. In BG2+ToB terms it is even less. I would not worry about balancing too much, especially that many BG2 encounters are level-scaled anyway.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Reposting some stuff I said a while back:

Beamdog is just another indie outfit that initially bit off more than they could chew, like Harebrained Schemes w/ Dead Man's Switch. I realize the whole "DEFILING MAH CLASSICS" thing is a trigger word, but people should probably give them a break.

Bad first impressions kill. BG:EE came out half-baked and now, over two years later, people on this forum still won't let it go.

Of course, that hasn't stopped Harebrained Schemes from miraculously becoming one of the Codex's most beloved developers (wait for the GOTY results...)

I guess HBS' rehabilitation is good news for Beamdog, though. If they can make a game like Dragonfall (ie, well-designed, but it doesn't have to be boundary-breaking or have an epic scope) then maybe people will give them a break.

Will Infinitron turn out to be right? Stay tuned.

Hang on, from the PoE threads I gathered that these mechanics "have no place in the 21st century"

 

[DalekFlay]

Someone gifted me the EE on Steam a while back (which was weird). Never played it because Codex said it was worse. That doesn't give me much faith, but hey, who knows. Weirder things have been a success, like Might and Magic X.

 

[Infinitron]

Hang on, from the PoE threads I gathered that these mechanics "have no place in the 21st century"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Take what you can get.

 

[Somberlain]

Someone gifted me the EE on Steam a while back (which was weird). Never played it because Codex said it was worse.

It's not worse.

Yes, you could say that it's a cash-in or unnecessary or whatever but there is really no reason not to play it over the original if you already have the EE. If you don't like the new companions, you can ignore them just like the original companions. At the time of release EE was really buggy so back then you could legitimately have said that it's worse but that is no longer the case.

 

[Jimmious]

Hmmm am I ready to spend 300 hours of my life to do a complete BG run from beginning to end, new expansion included? Sure why the hell no :p