I thought I would start a thread for people to share opinions of the game so far, I want to hear other people's experiences also. (The beta/headstart is available for play now if pre-ordering the game from Beamdog).

Stability/Performance:
Probably this is the best and most important feature of the enhancement. The game runs straight away without hassle or any kind of prior tweaking. I was having serious problems with framerate drops and stuttering dating back to the Windows creator update - all gone. Invisible cloaks? no problems here. And it runs fast as it should on a modern system and with all the graphic features turned on.

Video Options
ie the new shaders. There are three - "High Contrast" is kind of meh. "Depth of field" is an effect that I normally like but at the moment it doesn't focus on the PC as it should, so the PC looks blurred. "Vibrancy" is like a bloom effect, I'm using it with the nwncq textures and the result is pretty nice. Overall I could take or leave the shaders, hopefully they will improve them and/or add some extra ones. Also I can't seem to find the antialiasing and gamma options that used to be there, where are they gone?

Mods/Compatibility:
The mod folders are now located externally in the Documents folder like in nwn2, instead of installing mods in the game folder itself, which is a much welcome improvement. I've copied over my favorite textures and things without encountering any problems, and I was able to copy over a custome module savegame that I was in the middle of and just carry on with it within the new version. The only thing I can't use is nwnshader which I was using to turn the fog off. I didn't really expect it to work but I'd really like a new ingame option to reduce fog or something as I find the default viewdistance to be very low.

Patch:
Elements of shadoow's community patch have apparently been incorporated into the new release. This consists of the bug and crash fixes but graphical things from the cpp like the enhanced hands and colored icons aren't there.

Overall:
I think even just the increased performance/compatibility and bugfixes are worth the entry fee, especially as I never dreamed nwn would ever again receive any kind of update. But I'd like to see them take it further and give people some of the stuff that they've wanted over the years and really revolutionize the game. Overall, pretty exciting times for nwn fans.

Sounds good so far. I have been taking a peek on their official forums too and it looks as if quite a bit has already been done.

There were a few module builders that said everything ran fine with their mods etc.

Definitely worth keeping an eye on - and from what I hear it's the "tip of the iceberg" - they plan on doing much more.


With regards to your mention of "fog"/ draw distance - that's actually a really good idea. If you haven't mentioned it on their forums yet, I would, as it sounds like something I would like to see.