Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition Revealed

This is likely going to kill GemRB, though.

Not necessarily. Part of GemRB's allure is the ability to play on platforms that its unlikely will ever be officially supported.

This is much much better than I expected!

I haven't played the BGs for ages so certainly and without a doubt in for this…

This is actually starting to sound good. Consider me interested!

It's kind of a sad thing that they have run out of ideas and have to remake the old RPGs, but I'm still thrilled about the remake(s?). But I guess we still have to wait for Baldur's Gate 3…

I enjoyed a lot Monkey Island remakes, so I have high hopes for this. Hopefully the new content is minimal (<5%) and only for polishing the experience, which I believe is the case.

It seems they are making two games: "Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition™ will feature a re-forged version of the Infinity Engine with a variety of modern improvements.", but they really should have combined them into a one huge experience since the game has continuation through the series (BG1, TOSC, BG2 and TOB).

I'm sure they're going to make remakes of Icewind Dales as well, if the sales goes high enough and hopefully Planescape Torment too!

You know as good as this is I'm kind of peeved, I just rebought Baldurs gate from GOG like 2 weeks ago on the recent sale. (which i already owned) I've effectively chucked that money away as I haven't even downloaded it and I'll obviously want to get this enhanced edition instead…

I find it somewhat supsicious that GOG and Gmers gate had a sale JUST before this announcement, I suspect they had inside information and decided to make a last chuck of cash out of fans while they could.

I feel somewhat ripped off now…

Daniel.

Why feel ripped off? You just bought one of the best video games ever made. I bought a huge D&D boxset with BG, ICWD, TOEE etc just for the sake of having it. Plus the dragon on the cover looked cool

Because I already owned it, I only bought the GOG version to make it easier to install next time I play, now I've heard about this enhanced edition in all likelyhood I will never download and use this version.

Ah well supporting GOG isn't a terrible thing.

Daniel.

I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of positivity and I just can't see any justification, that won't include the words 'sell' and 'out', in attempting to improve a game when its solid design and its dedicated modding community have ensured that it has no noteworthy flaws or shortcomings. Maybe they will change all the swords to walkie-talkies? Or I guess it might be just marketing research to see if it's worth making a sequel. In which case I expect that by supporting it you do increase the chances of finally resurrecting this series. With all the zombification of old games that goes on I'm surprised they haven't touched this one until now.

Wow this is great. An updated Baldur's Gate sounds like fun, with modern technology upgrades and screen resolutions. This will be a must buy for me. And as was already noted, perhaps if this is a success it could lead to new games developed with the updated infinity engine. It sure does seem we are entering a rpg renaissance of sorts with the Wasteland 2 successful launch and now this along with the thriving indie rpg scene.

Originally Posted by darklord
You know as good as this is I'm kind of peeved, I just rebought Baldurs gate from GOG like 2 weeks ago on the recent sale. (which i already owned) I've effectively chucked that money away as I haven't even downloaded it and I'll obviously want to get this enhanced edition instead…

I find it somewhat supsicious that GOG and Gmers gate had a sale JUST before this announcement, I suspect they had inside information and decided to make a last chuck of cash out of fans while they could.

I feel somewhat ripped off now…

Daniel.

It's not like GOG and gamersgate had a backstock they needed to clear out… They don't exactly keep quantities of these games in stock they would need to liquidate before they became worthless. So that really doesn't make much sense to be suspicious - they probably had about as much of a heads up this was coming as the rest of us.

Well they are less likely to sell the old version now, so will make less money from it in future, selling it when they did was the perfect timing. I certainly would not have bought it had I known a new enhanced version was coming.

Both company's suddenly sell the games for the best prices they ever have, just before the product becomes far less valuable. I find this as at least a little suspicious.

Daniel.

Originally Posted by darklord
Both company's suddenly sell the games for the best prices they ever have, just before the product becomes far less valuable. I find this as at least a little suspicious.

That's common practise.

Just take a look at retail just before new magazines with gamnes come out.

In retail you can then find shops which have a *massive* reduction of a certain game - and, surprise, surprise ! - exactly THIS game is features as afull version on the next magazine's disc !

Originally Posted by Ergonpandilus
It's kind of a sad thing that they have run out of ideas and have to remake the old RPGs, but I'm still thrilled about the remake(s?). But I guess we still have to wait for Baldur's Gate 3…

I enjoyed a lot Monkey Island remakes, so I have high hopes for this. Hopefully the new content is minimal (<5%) and only for polishing the experience, which I believe is the case.

It seems they are making two games: "Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition™ will feature a re-forged version of the Infinity Engine with a variety of modern improvements.", but they really should have combined them into a one huge experience since the game has continuation through the series (BG1, TOSC, BG2 and TOB).

I'm sure they're going to make remakes of Icewind Dales as well, if the sales goes high enough and hopefully Planescape Torment too!

I hope they really build out ToB. It was too short and too linear. One of the developers said that his main regret was not making ToB a full game

Originally Posted by holeraw
I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of positivity and I just can't see any justification, that won't include the words 'sell' and 'out', in attempting to improve a game when its solid design and its dedicated modding community have ensured that it has no noteworthy flaws or shortcomings.

Even with the widescreen mod, the UI isn't great at high resolutions as the buttons, text, etc. are really small. Plus the sprites become tiny. And if you play it full screen at a lower resolution, it doesn't look that great. That's an age flaw that this most likely fixes.

Plus some extra content.

Originally Posted by darklord
Well they are less likely to sell the old version now, so will make less money from it in future, selling it when they did was the perfect timing. I certainly would not have bought it had I known a new enhanced version was coming.

Both company's suddenly sell the games for the best prices they ever have, just before the product becomes far less valuable. I find this as at least a little suspicious.

Daniel.

I'm happy to support GOG. I've bought several old games that I've never even gotten around to playing.

Originally Posted by darklord
Well they are less likely to sell the old version now, so will make less money from it in future, selling it when they did was the perfect timing. I certainly would not have bought it had I known a new enhanced version was coming.

Both company's suddenly sell the games for the best prices they ever have, just before the product becomes far less valuable. I find this as at least a little suspicious.

Daniel.

But they have no vested interest in selling slightly more of them - because they don't have an inventory. For companies like GOG, retaining customer base is more valuable than a slight uptick in sales and they don't need to clear out inventory since they don't have any. This is a case of agenticity and paternicity causing you to see intent and connection where there is none nor does it make sense for there to be any; it also requires ignoring that those 2 games were only a small portion of the games included in that sale.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
This is a case of agenticity and paternicity

Woah I have no idea what either of those words mean, I guess it's time to google and learn something new!

Daniel.

Originally Posted by blatantninja
Even with the widescreen mod, the UI isn't great at high resolutions as the buttons, text, etc. are really small. Plus the sprites become tiny. And if you play it full screen at a lower resolution, it doesn't look that great. That's an age flaw that this most likely fixes.

I was going to say something along these lines. Don't get me wrong, all of the Infinity Engine games are certainly playable and have aged rather well for the most part, but I certainly wouldn't mind some "modernization" to make it playable with a true widescreen, high resolution setup. More detail on the characters would be quite nice as well; they are mostly just colored blobs without a whole lot of detail. Again, certainly not a big deal, but it's an aspect that I certainly would enjoy seeing some improvement.

Originally Posted by darklord
Woah I have no idea what either of those words mean, I guess it's time to google and learn something new!

Daniel.

It's actually kind of a cool little thing about how we all (me too) think that's kind of a leftover from having to survive in the predator filled savannahs and forests of pre-history.

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_she…deception.html

There's a couple of talks about it - I'm not linking to it to make any point really but if you are curious it's pretty damned cool stuff. His other talk is pretty funny too - starts out by introducing the new device used by high schools to find drugs in students' lockers (a dowsing rod.)