Having played the original, the trilogy mod and the Enhanced Edition I recommend simply starting to play the Enhanced Edition, as an unbiased first time player you'll have the most fun this way.

The negativity comes from a small group of very vocal people who somehow are obsessed about Beamdog and the enhanced editions of the Infinity Engine games. In threads about Beamdog or the enhanced editions you will read the same things over and over again, i.e. something about political agendas, conspiracy theories, discrimination, insults, hate speech, etc. After the release of the Siege of Dragonspear add-on there was a shitstorm in the review sections of GOG and Steam. Some of the Beamdog workers even received death threats. The deletion of posts with discrimination, hate speech, insults, etc. is described as censorship by this group. I suggest to entirely ignore them and not to try to "discuss" with them. It is a waste of time. I think I gave enough hints to quickly identify people of this minority.

The people who actually bought the enhanced editions including the Siege of Dragonspear add-on have overall a different view on these games. I and some of my friends (who don't read these forums) played both the classical and enhanced editions. We agree that with patch 2.5 the enhanced editions are the best way to play the Infinity Engine games on modern systems. Yes. These games have some flaws. But overall these flaws are minor in comparison to the whole rest which these games offer. From what I've read there is a patch 2.6 for the Infinity Engine games in the works. I think this is remarkable that Beamdog are still working on these games. This shows some commitment despite all the backlashes in the past.

Nothing screams "I don't have an agenda!" like creating a new profile purely for this discussion thread alone and announcing that everyone on the opposing side of the discussion are all monstrous baby-eating bigots and that Beamdog literally did nothing wrong.

That's not possible. The user you replied to made his or her account in May, which is at minimum 7 days before this thread was created.

You Literally have no idea what you are talking about. I'll assume the best and simply think that you are not really a TROLL but a simple person ignorant about the subject.

I supported Beamdog in their early years. Bought 10 copies of BG:EE, BG2:EE and IWD:EE on GOG just to show my support. And what did they do?

1. They played with the evidence. BG:EE still has over 1000 BUGs, there are still not resolved in the 2.5 patch. Blank Journal entries, un-finishable quests, corrupt save games, corrupt items are just a few that comes to my mind. I opened tickets on their system TWICE. And they deleted (buried) those TWICE. There are over 1000 unresolved bugs 3 years ago. Now there are none? And there are NO resolved bugs in the last 3 years? How is that possible?

2. They openly lied to people here and on Steam about why original games disappeared from the store. There is literally a sticky apology topic opened by them that shows their lies. What is funny is their representative who said those lies still tell the same lies to people on Steam. He can't come here anymore. At least I haven't seen him/her.

There are lots of other reasons why people dislike Beamdog like a plague. Companies can make bad games. Black Isle and Obsidian made bad games. But nobody HATES them, at least not like Beamdog.

If you want more information, I can try to find my old topics about the subject where there are at least 12, up to 18 reasons why I personally disliked Beamdog.

EDIT: Note that the 1000 bugs that BG:EE currently has are not present in the classic BG as far as I know.
EDIT2: Added the apology link.

You're just another apologist who knows absolutely nothing and has not even done the homework. Go spout your tripe somewhere else.

You are putting words into my mouth, e.g. I haven't said "that Beamdog literally did nothing wrong". I simply haven't mentioned their mistakes. Why should I belaber their past mistakes? It happened. They apologized. That's it.


I simply don't have an entirely negative bias.

I've skimmed through their bug tracker. I cannot reconstruct what you're saying. There are bugs listed, they fixed bugs in the past 3 years and they are still looking at newly reported problems. However their bug tracking system is a bit complicated for "normal" users. I don't think they deleted bug reports to "play with the evidence". I assume that they most likely made a backup just for themselves. It is valuable data after all. I've read the thread with apologies of Beamdog and their community manager... If the community manager doesn't come here anymore then I am not surprised by this.

Hate? Why such a strong emotion for ... um... games or a game company? I will never understand this. I think it is immature.


Thanks for the ad hominem argument. If the cap fits, wear it.

Then put the damn thing on.

The technical stuff, UI, zoom etc. is much better than Vanilla, and that is reason enough to use it. However it is also a disappointment considering how much they could have done - e.g. IWD2 had reprogrammable button - EE do not.

I worked as an IT manager for 15 years and used Mantis (the system they are using) as my support tracker almost everywhere I worked. So I know a few things about the subject. I entered around 10-12 bug reports TWICE and they are GONE TWICE. Try to search my username engerek01 and see if you'll find them. They had only left 1 if my memory serves me correct. Why would anyone backup unresolved BUGs anyways?

EDIT: It Looks like they moved from Mantis to Redmine. My username no longer works and there are no results for my reports.

I don't hate them. But if someone

lies to you,
cheats on you,
gives promises that they never intent to keep,
openly insult the game and its original writing saying it was immature and they claim to FIX it with their horrible writing,
they remove the originals from the store just to be able to sell their own for double money,
they BAN hundreds of people in their official forum just for mentioning that there are still unresolved BUGs in the game,
you report a bug about the final BOSS not activating and their reply is "this is a problem about your system, not the game",
I show them that I encountered the same BUG both on STEAM and GOG version in 2 different computers with 2 different operating systems (linux and Windows) and the remove the subject entirely without responding.. etc etc...
...I can empathize with the community who hate them now, instead of dislike.

I am not trying to fuel the heat. But we need to warn to customers AND the companies so they'll not do those again. They are living on our money and we deserve to be treated better. At Least fair. Beamdog had a 1 in a life time chance to be a great gaming company. They ruined it spectacularly.

Beamdog uses Redmine, not Mantis.

Something I just feel like mentioning as some things are easy to overlook or go under appreciated.

I wouldn't call that archaic GUI design, or archaic as in obsolete or bad. That was a deliberate game mechanic decision to mimic simulating not being able to dig through your backpacks in the middle of combat. Personal preferences aside it's easy to argue that it adds to the game in regards to the simulation / immersion. It's also something that directly affects other game mechanics, such as quick slots and weapon slots.

Without the game un-pausing in the inventory the mechanics of those quick slots become useless, which is to limit what the player has access to during combat without going through the backpacks in real time. In regards to the weapon quick slots, not un-pausing, has an added affect in that only Fighters would get access to more weapon slots so it effectively removes deliberate benefits some characters/classes have.

This is somewhat comparable to not being able to change armour during combat, the same simulation/immersion logic.

Just wanted to point out this isn't some archaic interface design, or obsolete limitation due to not being thought out and matured, quite the contrary.

In this regard the GUI is simply a suitable representation of well thought out game mechanics. Unlike for example being unable to purchase multiple stacks of items which is an example of the GUI being archaic, along with the negative connotations.

Here's my thoughts on this:

To me, quick slots feel more like a user interface shortcut, not a gameplay mechanic meant to limit what a character can do. From this standpoint, it feels like the relative advantage that fighters get due to having more slots is not a deliberate gameplay mechanic, but rather a limitation due to limited screen space, especially when it comes to multi-class characters. It also has one other issue, in that it makes the game more of an action game and less of an RPG. It's also inconsistent iwth the way the game's pause otherwise works, and is the exact opposite of what many players expect (I can cite the Zelda series as one popular series where the game pauses when you go into the menu to switch equipment).

Also, allowing the game to not be paused in the inventory menu allows more opportunity for bugs to exist. I can, in particular, cite the scroll underflow glitch (where you hold the scroll with the mouse while the character is busy casting the spell, which can allow you to end up with negative (or, equivalently, a large number of) scrolls as an example of this sort of bug.

(With that said, there is one advantage to being able to open the menu without pausing the game; in a speedrun (or if you're in a hurry otherwise), you can give your party a move order, then manage your inventory while the move order is in progress; works fine as long as you don't try to traide items, in which case you might run into one of the game's other annoying rules.)

The inability to change armor during combat falls into the category of game mechanics that are intended to be realistic, but make the game less fun to play. One problem here is that, because battles take place on the main screen (instead of on a separate battlefield), the game's notion of whether you're in combat is sometimes inaccurate (this is also an issue when trying to rest or save sometimes). Also, it's possible to unequip a character's armor during battle by killing and reviving that character, and the inability to re-equip the armor is especially obnoxious here (I find that even having the character's inventory dropped on death is enough to make me want to reload instead of continuing after a death, and I feel that's bad game design). I could classify this annoyance in the same category of range limits on inventory trading (having to go out of the inventory, move the offending character (which requires dealing with the game's poor pathfinding, as again the developers didn't include any free non-cheat way to move without relying on it), as well as area transitions that require the entire party to be nearby to activate ("you must gather your party before venturing forth"). This may be realistic, but it does not lead to fun gameplay.

Just to clarify: you can change armour during fight in the original BG1.

I also see the game unpausing as a deliberate machanics choice. This is similar to Fallout, where opening your inventory during combat costs action points. This adds a risk of managing you inventory when in combat. I don't see it as an action game element here, rather adding a sense of danger.

Didn't know that. (You can also change armor during combat in Icewind Dale 2.)

By the way, does the game itself spell "armor" with or without that 'u'?

I think a better approach would have been to mimic Fallout (or Wizardry 8, where you have to give the character a certain command during their turn), and make it so that the game remains paused when inventory is accessed, but on any inventory change, the character can't attack or use spell-equivalent actions for 6 seconds or so. That way, there would be a trun cost to equipment changing, but it wouldn't cause the game to turn into an action game while doing so.