I think that was a compromise. $19.99 for a tablet app is never going to fly. Even $9.99 is really at the high end. If they gave the same game on tablets at $9.99 while charging PC users $19.99, people were going to go nuts (rightfully IMO). This way, they can charge $9.99, but to get the same thing as the PC, you have to end up paying full price.

Hard to say. Depends if they change the structure of the save games. I don't think they are, but there might still be some minor glitches in transferring.

As a beta tester, I'll just go ahead and let you know that this is incorrect.

Whether or not you feel $20 is a good value for BGEE is, of course, a different question.

Well, as a beta tester you could let us know what are the improvements and why szablev's claim is incorrect.

Truly, so far, apart from out of the box widescreen support, code clean-up and better compatibility with modern OS, I can't see anything to justify throwing away $20 for a game I play for more than 10 years already.
Most of the worthy new content (bugfixes, animations, exe improvements etc) is taken straight from mods, with the modders actually doing even more work on the BG:EE itself (I remember at least two of the ToBex guys discussing code cleanups and improvements on the private forums, 1PPv4 included in its entirety in the game etc), while whatever glimpse we've got from the actually new content is sub par compared to original BG(2) and reeks of modern trends and conventions (what nowdays Bioware calls "emotional engagement").
On top of that, customers are saddled with yet another DRM platform that tries to squeeze itself in the scene, using the good name of a much respected game to gain leverage.

So please illuminate us whether the above perception is skewed and wrong, I would love to get the opinion of a hands-on insider.

I doubt that my little one man anti-marketing campaing would affect their sales in any way, not to mention that the game has been available for pre-order for months. And yes, I have experienced what it is like to have my work bad mouthed. Was it justified? From some perspective, it might have been. Such is life, you cannot expect everyone to be in awe of what you do, especially if you boast about it with a marketing that Beamdog did for this project.

Listen, I respect your opinion that to you it`s worth 20$ to play BG on a Tablet. I still think this was a haphazard project for the reasons stated above, and that the added content does not live up to the hype. I am sorry if you`ve taken my opinion as fact and was offended by it, but I cannot begin every single sentence with the phrase "in my opinion". I presume that since my username is next to my post, people assume it is my opinion. The only reason I continued the arguement was because I found your tone patronising for not sharing your view about BG EE, and I found that offensive.

Anyway, from my side I consider this arguement closed. No offence to you, and none taken.

Access to the source allows BGEE to fix many outstanding issues with the Infinity Engine that Asc64 couldn't address with TobEx and that I couldn't reach with the Fixpack. The softcoding of several aspects of the engine--animations are one striking example--will allow modders more opportunity to add content. There are other, smaller enhancements such as ogg support for music that are also quite welcome. The claim that these changes are within the realm of modders--much less that such mods currently exist--is false.

On the other content--additional NPCs, areas, and quests--the claim is indeed true. I think six new NPCs were released since I started this post.

There's some truth here, but I think you're taking the wrong lesson from it. I decided to work with BGEE because it was a chance to see the promise of Fixpack fulfilled--an actual bugfree game, or at least something closer than the mess of BG2. I can't speak for the motivations of others. (Especially someone like Avenger--GemRB is the closest we have to something like BGEE's new engine, something that can run IE games on a mess of platforms. Yet there he is, contributing just as much and adding DLTCEP support for the new game.) Many of us mod the game *despite* the Infinity Engine, not because of it, and I suspect there's a great deal of interest into making it an even better, more mod-friendly platform.

From my point of view, the enhancements are very welcome and exciting. But I'm also someone who made his modding bones in the guts of the engine, so I'm not the main marketing target--hence the emphasis on "New adventures! New NPCs!" and not "Opcode 1 isn't borked! Animations aren't hardcoded!"

As I mentioned in my first post whether that's worth $20 to you is, of course, a different question. Personally I've decided not to purchase BGEE because of the DRM.

(Seriously GOG, no preview? Get with the 1990s!)

I really wasn't trying to be flippant in my OP, it's just that I see this repeated often. There are many legitimate reasons to not purchase or not like BGEE; this simply isn't one of them.

And it's not just a matter of exe fixes being more efficient--there are a lot of legitimate bugfixes and improvements that can't be implemented otherwise, TobEx or no. I gave up trying to maintain an "unfixable" bug list for the Fixpack many years ago.

YMMV, but I don't think that's a fair characterization either. My mods rely heavily on the knowledge and tools from others before me, just as modders after me have learned from my contributions. I'm not going to begrudge Beamdog the same courtesy. Remember that some of the Beamdog folks were team members on the original BG/BG2, too.

Beamdog has also been filling in a lot of the last unknowns in the engine by digging through the source for us. These will directly help modding for the original IE games and GemRB, the only mod project that's somewhat comparable to BGEE. So even if you decide to hate Beamdog and/or BGEE, at least thank them for their IESDP contributions. :)

You know, that sentence made me realize that I was coming off a bit more aggressive than I actually feel. I certainly don't hate Beamdog or BGEE, I was happy when the enhancement was announced. At the very least it will revive the interest of the community for the original again, how can this be a bad thing? :)
So, no I don't wish them to crash and burn in a miserable failure, I just think in their deal with the modders they get the better part.
One thing I fear though, in case BGEE is successful, is that new GUI becoming the standard look of the BG series. I mean, come on, either of the old ones are far better than this blue nightmare!

Could not agree more. The new GUI looks gruesome and takes up much more focus than it should. The old was perfect. Well, on bigger resolutions it could do with bigger buttons here and there, which is being addressed now, but the look and feel of it was much better than this new version.

Since I don't like to play with a ton of mods and thus installing some isn't a problem, the ONE thing I wonder if will be improved in BGEE is the grotesquely bad pathfinding, especially that people bump into each other and instantly run off in a different direction, which can - and often is - lethal in dungeons. Can you say anything about this?

The game can also grind to a halt for example when many magic missiles are flying about, but this is a minor problem. The big one for me, that might even tempt me to buy the EE, is a vastly improved pathfinding system.

Apparently the question isn't addressed to me, but I seem to vaguely recall a comment for a minor improvement on pathfinding, which is disappointing.

I really hope I'm wrong though.

The GUi didn't look great to me either, but the only one I've seen didn't look like it was a final release.

They are using the engine from BG2, which had much better pathfinding than the original IE engine, so it will at least be improved over original BG.

I think "much better" is a slight exaggeration. And by slight I mean humongous. And by exaggeration I mean hyperbole of the millennia.

And self-judging my just written drivel I guess what I really mean is this: The pathfinding is essentially the same. The difference is the new ability to half-walk through other NPCs so the party indulges their wanderlust only every second time I send them through a narrow passage or a door.

All I know is that in BG1, the Firewine ruins are basically impossible due to the path finding, using BGTuTu, not a problem. That's enough of an improvement for me to say much better.

This. Every bloody day THIS.

I've never played the original BG1, I've always played through Tutu (because I came late to the games), and I've lost count the times I've wanted to throw the computer out the window because the knuckle draggers on screen can't get from point A to B without wandering off into the wild, or can't move half an inch further forward so 4-5 people can hurl arrows or bullets at a target at the same time, without the two people standing at the back suddenly going off to who knows where.

If nothing is done about this, honestly, I see no reason to buy BGEE. Nothing of the new content or NPCs interest me, it's actually a downside. The new GUI is worse, overall. And mods I can get anyway. But if there are genuine improvements in how the game behaves, where pathfinding is without comparison the biggest problem, then I might be tempted to give it a shot - provided it gets the stamp of approval from the userbase in a way that satisfies me (like I always do with games, I never pre-order or stuff like that, I find it irrational).

Just a note here, but making good pathfinding is actually incredibly difficult, especially when multiple things are in motion. It's one of the things that humans can do very easily but computers have lots of trouble with. Traversing a net is one thing, but simulating the "best" (not necessarily the shortest) path on a plane is a lot worse.

If you've ever played a pet class in an MMO, you'll realize how rare good pathfinding actually is. There's a reason Bioware abandoned pathfinding entirely with the Aurora engine. In KotoR or the Witcher, you can just pass through most NPCs, and your party members are similarly incorporeal except in combat.

BG2 does have improved pathfinding (for certain values of "improved") and it also has the ability to nudge other characters out of their spaces, which prevents your party members from getting stuck so much on the corners of each other's sprites. If you've wanted to demolish your computer on the BG2 engine, you cannot IMAGINE the horror of BG1.

My suggestion is to issue commands individually, issue group commands multiple times a few seconds apart, or use smaller parties.