Hey everyone,

Apologies in advance as I'm sure this question has been asked a few times already. So the other day I finally decided to give Baldur's Gate I & II a try. After my purchase I didn't realize that there was an enhanced edition (I really should of done a bit more research). I did a bit of a browse through the forums to see the differences, and from what I could gather a recent update has caused a bit of a stir with a mess of bugs and terrible UI. So my question is should I refund my two games to grab the enhance editions? Are the extra features in the EE worth the upgrade? Also, how is the multiplayer population for the two version? I can't say I'm a huge multiplayer guy, but if I feel the urge to give it a try I'd prefer it to be more populated.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Rozza

EDIT: Also while I have you, I got a totally unrelated question. Looking to try out a different class than what I normally play in RPGs (usually mage or rogue). Settled on bard or monk, thoughts?

Right now, if you own the Original Saga, you get an 85% discount on the Enhanced Editions.

Also, the games were not really designed with multiplayer in mind.

Ooo nice, so you would recommend doing that? Yeah can't say that I was ever gonna play the multiplayer, but if it was something like vampire the masquerade redemption or neverwinter nights I thought I could give it a try.

I think it is necessary to use the pause function while giving commands during combat – this can get annoying in multiplayer, especially if you are not sitting next to each other.

I've tried to play it a long time ago with someone who wanted to loot every container in every house. That lead to a lot of reloading and not much fun.

I believe you will find something like a 50/50 divide in terms of what people think which version is better.

Suffice to say, even though it doesn't really help any decision you are to make, that you can't go wrong playing either version.

One curve ball would be if you are interested in the new expansion, Siege of Dragonspear. However, despite whatever political conflagaration is accompanying it's release, it simply has a number of bugs and problems that need to be addressed before it has a the recommendation of the community majority.

Missing that expansion, sticking with the originals, has a different curve ball. Namely that there are numerous mods/community-made-adventures that are arguably better than the new expansion. The old versions also have a widescreen mod that is beyond easy to install (30 seconds and good to go).

My opinion:
If you are fanatically into the games, keep the originals and use the 85% discount to get the new versions during this sale and play the heck out of everything. If you are not and hope to get one, maybe two playthroughs of each title, keep the originals. Do not feel like you are missing out on anything because you are not. Also of note, from what I've read which i think is true (correct me if I'm wrong), but IWD2 and PT will not see enhanced editions due to engine issues. So for completeness sake, if you are somewhat obsessive compulsive, only the original versions can feature a full collection.

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I've heard some pretty bad things about SoD (excluding all the political stuff), so I am probably going to avoid it in general. I am leaning towards doing my first play through with the EE versions just for the sake of stability as I am unfortunately running Windows 10 and anything pre-XP inevitably screws up royally on my system. Aside from the graphics and UI changes, how are the new additions to the EE? From a few negative reviews I've read they seem to feel it 'ruins' the original feel of BG. Probably a bit of an overstatement, but did they reduce your overall enjoyment of the game vs the original?

If I may takes this…

The new additions are very easy to spot, because the dialogs have full voice acting. When I played the game for the first time, I found it irritating that only some lines are voiced, but it became natural really fast. Now I prefer the partly voiced dialoges, because I read a lot faster than the voice actors speak. If the new additions weren't fully voiced, they would not stick out that much, but I assume that many people would have complained about the lazyness of the developers. Obviously you can't please everyone in this situation.

I'm playing BGEE for the first time, I've just started the third chapter and so far, I've encountered real two additions and one minor (one NPC mentioned one of the new companions).

One of the encounters was interesting (although I didn't recruit the companion, because I'm happy with my party) and the other one was mildly annoying. This isn't a bad thing, because the original game features some annpying persons as well.

But there are two great additions that make me prefer the EE:
1. The zoom function. Some call it a gimick, but I use it all the time and it makes playing the game(s) more fun. The original low resolution is much too close, but if I use the widescreen mod to switch to my monitors native resolution everything is too small. Obviously there is possible to choose a resolution between both extremes as a compromise, but you are stuck with it. It is really great to change the zoom level on the fly to account for the current situation.
2. The native linux version. In the past I've had lots of problems with infinity engine mods and wine. Worst example: I've got completely stuck in Planescape Torment close to the end of the game.

I would be happy if the made an EE of PST too, but they claim that it is too much effort, because PST and IWD2 use heavily modified versions of the infinity engine. Too bad.

The story changes (new NPCs really) are really easy to avoid. Just read up on who the new NPCs are and don't recruit them.

The reasons to avoid the EE (and Tutu) are mostly to have a more authentic experience to the original. Which is fair, but remember that Baldur's Gate 1 is a very old game that's missing a lot of conveniences that you will miss.

There's a reason that before the EE almost everyone played Tutu, which was a mod to run Baldur's Gate 1 in the Baldur's Gate 2 engine, which also resulted in pretty huge gameplay changes.

Thank god...

Thank all gods from all pantheons in existence!

Yes. Absolutely. Thank the gods that something optional isn't available. Giving people a choice would be really bad!

I've had a horrible experience on Linux (even without the widescreen mod which seems to make it worse) with the fixpack using wine.

Let's just wait a few years until GemRB is ready… Note: this is not an attack on the people working on GemRB. I'm very happy about their work, but I've tested the PST support two days ago and there is still a lot of work left.