kcolssed?
Im starting a playthrough myself in a day or so, so will do!
yep. one of the first wandering NPCs after the intro. You can’t avoid him :)
Don’t forget area loot! I got through about 90% of the game before I figured out what that little button did and it blew my mind.
Wait, WHAT??
I have to try this out asap! Just cleared gnoll stronghold and it was a pain microing my party out of the way to click on each individual loot pile.
Also, is there a way to increase pathfinding threads like it was in the original? My party gets stucks on walls pretty often.
edit: found it.
So the curiosity got the better of me and I tried out BG2EE as well - which I’ve been playing for the last 30h instead of BGEE. I forgot how good and HUGE this game is, absolutely crazy. I’m also using companions which I’ve never used before - PC (sorc), Valygar, Haer’Daelis, Anomen, Mazzy and Jan Jansen. Jan especially is a hoot, I love it when he teases Haer’Daelis who is otherwise the joker in the group.
They really don’t make games like this anymore.
Out of curiosity, did you grab Siege of Dragonspear and fill in the blank between the two games? I ran through it last year, and while it wasn’t up to old standards it still was pretty good. But I agree the degree of detail, depth, and self-awareness in BG2 is fantastic. I need to return to it and stop trying to finish Pillars (I still don’t quite get the main story … am I supposed to read all this stuff? I just wish I had a kidnapped friend and an evil wizard to chase).
Anyone have party suggestions for BGEE (with the BG1NPC Project) that includes Imoen and Edwin? I really want to maximize “banter” using characters that frequently rank highly as fan-favorites, yet keeping Imoen for story purposes.
I’m not really looking for an evil party, but I would like to have Edwin because apparently he’s good for both bg1 and bg2. I’d like to have Minsc as well, but apparently that’s not really an option if Edwin is there.
I know I can go with the standard ‘canon’ party, too. I just want to have the more dynamic (and/or humorous) characters along which doesn’t always seem to be the canon folks.
No, I did not. Honestly I don’t see much point in extending the BG1 campaign beyond what’s already there.
Since you’re enjoying BG so much, you should definitely play it. It’s pretty good.
BG2 EE is the only game I’ve purchased so far in the Steam sale. I held off on the EEs because I already own two copies (CD and GoG) of the original editions of both games. But I grabbed BG2 EE when the sale started and I’m thrilled with the UI improvements, everything you name above. Such a great game, and the sprites also don’t bother me. I love zooming in during the battle. I’m playing on a laptop so the old graphics perhaps work better than if I were on a desktop with a widescreen monitor.
OMG. Thank you so much. I’d clicked on that button but only when there was no loot around, so I didn’t understand it. What a time saver!
Well worth the current $7 sale price for each.
Like it or not area loot will also highlight items hidden on the map, like a +1 ring hidden under a rock.
Are you sure? I don’t get area loot that’s within a container (which is what a rock is, as far as the engine is concerned).
Got this a while ago but didn’t really play it much until this weekend - so, did they alter the graphics somewhat? The game looks a bit brighter, with colors more saturated than I remember - characters pop more which is noticeable in screenshot Scott_Lufkin posted above, especially the characters which have that cell shaded look - but I thought there wouldn’t be any graphical enhancements beyond UI improvements?
In any case, game still looks great and loving the way the new map zooms out and the UI changes. I never did finish BG. Every time I got to the city proper, navigating became a pain but I think I will stick to it this time. Cannot wait to start the BG2 EE, to this day my favorite RPG of all time and one of only a handful of games I’ve finished straight through (without putting it down for a while and without playing anything else).
I used area loot to find the ring outside of the Friendly Arms. And IIRC I also found the gem hidden in the area just south of the Friendly Arms map.
The whole Siege of Dragonspear has some good moments. Ultimately I was unimpressed. Boss fight was fun at the end though, and I am in to my 20 eleven BG 2 game.
This brings to mind why they give you shit and then take it away as you go to the next expansion. Isnt there a wy to figure out how all this balances without always stripping you of stuff?
Not edited cause I think I made sense
Do you mean highlight or actual area loot (the red diamond button)? I hadn’t figured out area loot by the time I visited those places so it’s entirely possible that they’re coded differently than the other containers. Alas, I’m too lazy to fire up BG1 and see for myself :)
Highlight/blue outline to be exact. As I think on it more I may have used “tab” though I don’t recall tab outlining loot in trees or under rocks. But it has been many years since I played BG.
Yeah, I think some containers that shouldn’t have been got added to the highlight function. Those hidden items (completely not hidden if you use TAB) in BG1 you mentioned are pretty good so I don’t think they were intended to be found so easily.
Area loot we’re talking about is different, you get about 8 or so item slots above your combat log that are updated on the fly as you walk around and they allow you to pick up loot from slain monsters without manually walking to each loot node, it’s pretty cool and saves a lot of time.
Phew, playing with an evil party (BG2) is a real challenge. Not because of increased difficulty, in fact my npcs are kicking so much ass I’m afraid I’ll run out of enemies, but it just feels so wrong :(. I feel like I’m playing orcs in a LOTR movie.
That said, Swashbuckler is now one of my new favorite kits.