Hey. I never played the original D&D games, but i own both BG EE's here and PT:EE on Steam. I really like them and i am glad that a company deemed it fit to work on old classics after so many years, even if only for money. Yet i see people here and on Steam hate on Beamdog, calling them greedy, accusing them of spoiling the game etc. I wonder why? The only thing that feels like an insult is the Faces of Good and Evil DLC. Ridiculous.

People who played the originals, would you explain the hate towards Beamdog to me? And no, i am not being paid by them, nor am i their fanboy.

Most of it seems to stem from people thinking the Enhanced Editions were pointless because you could mod it to that state already. Personally I'm glad I don't have to bother with modding the games every time I want to install them any more.

Then you also have people who whine about SJWs and well it's best to just ignore them.

If you never played the original BG2, then you would have no concept of how the additional content seemed in comparison. *In my opinion* it was mostly poorly conceived and written. Seemed like amatuerish community-mod level stuff. The voice acting was the only part that surpassed user mod stuff. Everything else was stuff you can get for free in mods. The Beamdog hype promised something transformational - and they failed to deliver that.

They charged quite a bit of cash for it, and depended on people who already owned the base game to buy their version. These people had definite opinions of what that amount of money should get you. And what sort of changes would honor the original franchise and what sort of changes would desecrate it. It's the internet, so some people were firm in voicing their opinions.

Also there was some kind of kerfluffle on the Beamdog forums, that I did not witness and do not recall the details of.

On the other hand, I appreciate being able to fire up BG2 without having to go through mod hell to get it to work decently on modern computers. However, if I had paid the original full price for it, I'd be pissed too.

Well, aside that they modded the game in a cheap way, and what nobody wanted, made unbased alterations instead of fixes, at times simply stolen from mod-developers, the ridiculous face-DLC, the lazy written and many times SJW additional content,

as far as I can see, the hate originates from

their insane level of hybris and arrogance, banning their (potential) customers, aka. a significant amount of the games fanbase for lifetime from their forum, which includes the option of support also gets cut, for simply disagreeing with their employees on like which class is stronger or weaker.

Oh, and they produce a ton of (new) bugs. And ban people for complaining.

And they ban even more people.

And even more.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this argument that people need to go through some kind of modding hell to get the originals running - what mods are needed in order for the game to run? None. The user simply has a lot of options in order to tweak the game to their liking. I've never heard of a mod that would improve modern systems compatibility to be honest. GOG versions of the originals were compatible and I'm playing the 6 CD version on Windows 7 at the moment with no mods.

As for my personal distaste with Beamdog I have 3 reasons:
- They insulted the playerbase by calling the originals sexist - trying to put the silly modern politics into a 20 years old game.
- They removed the originals from GOG store and bundled them with EEs, so you are forced to buy EEs, even if you just want the originals.
- When I wrote to them about the reasons for bundling, they lied to me that it was GOG who made the decision. There's even a pinned thread on this forum, where they were forced to tell the truth that it was their decision.

Those are reasons why I despise Beamdog regardless of the quality of EEs. I tried BG:EE and it was pointless in my opinion.

Their fans are also mass downvoting every critical post on this forum.

When BG:EE was released it was riddled with bugs and when the customers complained (loudly) they handled it .... poorly. Most of the bugs have been fixed but the hate lingers. (I bought the game on sale after they fixed the bugs)

The new companions are poorly written and the quality of voice actors is noticebly lower but to be honest many of the original companions were poorly written too if not underpowered.

There are 2 sides of the story. What Beamdog did with EEs, and how they handled it.

1. What's wrong with EEs: I generally like what Beamdog did with the EEs. The qualify of life improvements are great like the enhanced interface, quick loot, easy switch for dual wielders (or shields). They are all great. However, Beamdog also introduced over 1000 NEW bugs to the game which did not exist in the originals. And they lied about it. over and over again and as far as I know, none of those bugs are fixed.

2. How they handled it: I supported Beamdog at first. So much that I bought 10 copies of the initial games (BG1, BG2 and IWD) to support their development. However, Beamdog proved to be a shady company and they kept lying repeatedly.

On GOG, they made the originals disappear from the store, taking the choice from customers. So now, you can no longer buy the originals from the GOG store without buying the EEs. Well, one can argue that this is not so bad, it is a classic business practice. The bad thing is, Beamdog repeatedly claimed that it was GOG's decision. That they NEVER wanted the originals to be removed from the stores. A Beamdog representative openly and shamelessly spread those lies and was confronted by strong resistance. People didn't let it go and there was a riot and finally, Beamdog had to admit that it was their decision and had to make a public apology. That topic "Regarding the removal of the original IE games from sale on GOG" is made a sticky so that everyone could see it.

They also lied and still keep lying about the existing bugs. On their official bug tracker website, there are over 1000 bugs for BG1 only. And then, over a night, that number is reduced to 5 or something like that. But the "solved" number of bugs didn't change. I had reported 12 bugs myself and realized that those were gone as well. I expressed my concern and the same Beamdog representative on GOG insulted me, saying that I probably forgot my username or reported them with a different name. I said fine, and reported them again. And they were GONE AGAIN... I could only find 3 of them and BEAMDOG claimed they were not bugs.

Here are a few examples of what BEAMDOG doesn't think are bugs.

* Items disappearing from bags.
* Items not being able to remove from bags.
* Quest logs showing nothing while they should.
* Quests becoming impossible to finish.
* Map marks filling the entire map and/or being in the wrong position you put them.
* Final boss becoming neutral, not attacking and can not be attacked hence impossible to finish the game.
* Stunned monster still attacking even tho they have the stunned mark on both chat log and over their heads.

These are just a few examples that came to my mind right now. And, somehow, Beamdog claims that BG1:EE is completely bug free now. Everyone makes mistakes, every game has bugs. But trying to hide them by such acts is pure fraud.

Also, allow me to remind that I own all Beamdog games both here and on Steam, and those same bugs persist on both platform in the latest version. They don't always happen, but they do.

I will not get into the added content like new NPCs etc. Even tho I believe they are mostly terrible and beyond understanding and logic, it is a matter of preference. And also Beamdog writer's interview about how original BG games were racist and sexist and they FIXED it.... Again, those are subjective situations. The 2 sides I wrote, on the other hand, are not, and I believe is reasons enough to not like a company.

For a long time the classics were outselling their EE version so they bundled it and had them removed. If someone wants to play them, they still can. All they have to do is buy our EE's. That didn't go down too well with many who were and are perfectly fine with the original version even without mods. It is natural that many accuse BD being greedy because they were adding insult to injury by putting premium price-tags on their inferior product.

I don't care. I still own several physical retail and digital copies of all the original Bioware games plus premium content. Even if it was to have for a fiver would I buy their product. Heck, I wouldn't even buy it if it was offered for free. Sadly others aren't so lucky ... :-)

in bg1 and iwd ee, kits were not "supported", they were just enabled without any regard for the game's playstyle or balance, to the point that it's extremely easy to cheese, particularly in iwd, where the access to a sorcerer completely alters the game and how it's played.

Why not install the originals and see for yourself?

I played the EE versions and then uninstalled them and now I play the originals.