Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I thought I remember you saying the only difference between the CD version and the digital versions was the missing music and the lack of support for larger resolutions. (and the bugs of course).

Did you say that?? And if so,are you sure?? I swear things feel different this time, and was wondering if they did any adjustments to gameplay at all.

For example, at level 8, I used to get killed by zombies QUICK. I used to have to use the "kite" method, and this was true in all of my playthroughs using Gog and/or Steam. I just found my first zombie (on the west side of the creek, which is also a first for me) and I killed the little sucker immediately.

And I swear the maps seem a little different, but I admit that may be my memory fail again. Could you search a little and see if in fact any gameplay changes were made from the CD version to the GOG/Steam digital versions??

Thanks for any info. Just really very curious. And I am LOVING all this new music.

Oh, and I also saw a different charm from any of my games using Steam or Gog. It was a "weak" level, and it was green IIRC. I never got one of those in my playthroughs before (except maybe my playthrough 10 years ago which I can't remember much of.)

I said the main differences between disk and download versions was music and higher resolution support. There are a bunch of minor differences, in terms of bugs or things added or changed in the disk patches and lost in the download version, or just changed in the download version.

In the updated disk version Finnigan is a decent merchant, and you can return the lockpicks to him to complete the quest he gives you, and then buy them back. In the download version, you can not buy them back (so it is better to leave the quest unfinished), and he has little to nothing in his inventory.
Finnigan's magic lockpicks will disappear in the download version if dropped directly on the ground, though given their agility boost when in your inventory, I don't know why anyone would want to drop them (that is fixable, anyway).

The disk version patches added protection for more quest related NPCs (so Marcus may be safe from thugs; not sure he was unprotected in the original disk release, or still suppose to be protected in the download version).

As for zombies, I don't specifically recall fighting any on the on the west side of the creek (only had trouble with a couple heavy orcs, anyway, and an orc drummer who couldn't hurt me but I couldn't do damage fast enough to kill until I bought a better sword). Any zombies there are likely weaker than the ones on the east side.
A higher agility or poison resistance would help (though not necessarily as dramatically as you described), as would the Spell Shield spell.

There were no changes to the maps.

Weak charms are very rare; I don't know if they are rarer in the download version, but it wouldn't be surprising not to find any in a game. At the end of my first game in the disk version, I had only 1 weak charm (probably bought from the seer you meet once in a cutscene). Other than the seer, I only bough silver and gold charms, though kept any lesser charms I found (totals below).

66 gold / very large charms
59 silver / large charms
24 red / medium charms
19 blue / minor charms
1 green / weak charm

Wow, EXCELLENT information. Thank you very much. Learned a lot reading that.

Do you know why they didn't just "fix" the digital version to match the patched disk version with expanded resolutions?? I can't imagine they no longer have access to the disk version, so I'm a bit befuddled as to why they wouldn't just fix "redo" the change to digital and get it right this time, using a set of original disks to start from if they have to.

The extra music makes more of a difference then some may think, as it really does make the game less monotonous (not that it suffered from that anyway, but all games get a little tedious at times). And the bugs I was experiencing in the digital version are ..... I dunno, like I said I am befuddled as to why they went to the trouble of making a digital version for Gog and Steam but are unwilling to go to the trouble of making it right.

The original programming and QA for the GOG download version was pretty much all done by one person. When Larian went back to check for compatibility issues, they had multiple problems with their backups from that time (see Hatching the Anthology), so they based the update on the best available source code.

The deficiency in QA for the second download version may have been due to lack of resources (having to redo higher resolution support rather than just clean up a bit of code, all while continuing to work on other projects) and assumptions made about the source code they were working off, so they only tested what they changed.

Why would the programming for the digital version need to be vastly different?

What do you mean?

Well I would think preparing the online version would be the equivalent of adding a no-cd crack to the programming.

I said equivalent which means =/=. Blizzard managed to do the same, you just put the MPQ files into the folder after applying the patch.

In addition to getting rid of the requirement for the disk (for a couple cutscene videos), the download version added support for higher resolutions and widescreen aspect ratios (so required changes to some of the artwork and UI, etc)

There were also likely issues getting the code to compile properly. Even if they stuck with the same brand of compiler and programming tools, just having a version 10 years newer could mean changes to some of the compiler specific commands or options.

Do you mean to say that the industry creating programming tools is insane?! This is madness!

I was just curious. Is there a "trick" of some sort regarding the seer?? Because you meet her so early in the game, I don't understand how ANYONE could afford ANY of the charms she sells because you usually don't have much gold at that point. Is she available later in the game maybe?? Or is there a "trick" where you get them for less gold somehow?

I had a recent save when I first encountered the seer, so just reloaded, put a flag on the map and avoided that relatively small area until I had enough loot to buy a bunch of charms from her. Actually, I may have been able to afforded much of her inventory right away if I went back to Aleroth and got all the axes, etc, I looted in the catacombs, but I was hoping if I waited until I was a higher level she might have higher quality charms (which she didn't, AFAIR).

There is also a cheat to get essentially unlimited gold.

Well, I've really REALLY gotta say, this music is AMAZING. The difference in the gameplay experience is, OMG, I NEVER would've thought this much. But the music is realy, really good, and Larian did an excellent job of matching the music to locations.

This music is so good this is one soundtrack I would love to turn on after smoking a joint, and just veg out listening to it. Aham, I mean, err, IF I smoke joints, which of course I don't since they're ILLEGAl. I'm just going by what I heard that this music would probably be good with a joint cause obviously I couldn't know since it's ILLEGAL. Stupid fucking country...

With the disk version of DD I used a music extractor to get the soundtrack from the sound file, removed the two tavern tracks, added a few from the website of the composer, Kirill Pokrovsky, and burned it to a couple audio CDs.