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[BFEL]

So just saw this on the Steam store and thought I would share.
Apparently we have 4 days till this hits us. Discuss in meantime.

[Wiles]

It should come with a 5 cd installation simulator. Otherwise you aren't getting the authentic experience!

[Stworca]

I still question the reasoning behind this project (other than bling blings). What can they do, that the mods didn't already? You have your widescreens, your voiced NPC mods, your SCSII's.

[BigD145]

My cd's still work and mods are still hosted somewhere. I think I'm good.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

The enhanced edition does introduce some good features. The new UI beautiful and scales great, with zoom features for the map. There is a ton of bug fixing such as the removal of infamous "Beregost crash". Some of the new npcs are decent, the new areas fit in the art style. Not a fan of the new kits apart from the Dwarven Defender but I guess it's nice to have more.
Unfortunately they were forced to sign a stupid contract which forbid them to change any original content of the game. This means that you'll still have to rely on modding to get the really good additional content and the modding community didn't pick up and embrace BG1:EE as fast as I thought it would. BG1:EE still doesn't have unfinished business or the npc project.

The UI and bug fixes make it extremely hard to go back to the old vanilla version where all of the best mods and further content lay. It's really quite annoying having to pick between one or the other. Apparently the devs have stated some of the bigger and more renown mods will be available at release which is nice, I personally can't play BG2 without ascension. They are however asking $25 for a game with mild improvements which may or may not have the modding community that made BG so great. I would personally wait a few months, see the state of the game and what mods have been released before investing.

As for the small amount of content they added it was okay but far from groundbreaking.
The Black Pits was my prefered addition as it took time to take the game in a different direction and it was completely separate from the base game, it was however overly short.
The new characters they added didn't impress me. Dorn was a good addition although his whole revenge story was a bit generic. Neera is annoying with a cringe worthy voice set but she does have a comical class kit which does make playthroughs more interesting. There's some monk which I forget the name of, he has a really bad and forced pseudo-middle eastern accent and whoever had the bright idea of adding a monk in BG1 should be slapped in the face. There is also a bonus easter-egg character and, without wanting to spoil anything, he is by far the best in the game.

So yeah. I've had very mixed feelings with BG1:EE. There's no doubt that EE does improve but is it enough to warrant a purchase over the standard edition + a ton of mods? Debatable. 

EDIT: Apparently BG2:EE will add a pure class thief to the game. Yuck. I can only hope shes human and can be dual'd to something interesting.

[Stworca]

Well, i can see how BG1:EE was a good thing. BG1 isn't a game you can access and have fun with, not anymore.
BG2 however, was a leap forward from the first game, and still has an insanely wide modding community even today.

Remember that BG1 had little to no mods, and those that were there, changed minor things / required the second game to work. Hence why i find BG1:EE a good thing. Tutu was somewhat meh.

BG2 had and has mods that doubled/ tripled the content of the game, added fully voiced characters, incredible amount of detail, writing and new areas.
BG2:EE will have to work its ass off to be anything other than a laughable money sink.
Edit : and due to the agreement not to change too much, they won't be able to bring much to the table.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Oh man can't we have a D&D game without Dwarven Defenders and Arcane Archers? This game was from the sunset years of 2nd Edition, can we at least keep the trappings of 2E?

They're probably gonna create an XBONE game called Original Dungeons and Dragons 1974: From Gygax's Pen and it'll feature Half-Halfling Quarter-Dragon Quarter-Quickling^TM Arcane Soliloquist^TM Shadowbane^TM Knights fighting Flamekissed^TM White Chocolate Orc Graveslayers^TM in grimdark cataclysm-of-the-day Forgotten Realms^TM.

The only constant is that Elminster is a douche.

(I like D&D, honest. I just don't like what they've done with it)

[nenjin]

Oh man can't we have a D&D game without Dwarven Defenders and Arcane Archers? This game was from the sunset years of 2nd Edition, can we at least keep the trappings of 2E?

They're probably gonna create an XBONE game called Original Dungeons and Dragons 1974: From Gygax's Pen and it'll feature Half-Halfling Quarter-Dragon Quarter-QuicklingTM Arcane SoliloquistTM ShadowbaneTM Knights fighting FlamekissedTM White Chocolate Orc GraveslayersTM in grimdark cataclysm-of-the-day Forgotten RealmsTM.

You pretty much summed up why D&D, either P&P or video games, died for me after 2.5e. It all started to seem modeled on some bad video game than imagination and self-definition.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Nenjin, do you still play tabletop? Because you know you can always get old editions, or free retro-clones. Those games are still as good (or bad! depending on your perspective!) as they ever were.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

For the record the added kits are:
Black Guard
Dwarven Defender
Dragon Disciple
Shadowdancer
Dark Moon Monk
Sun Soul Monk

I, and a lot of others, did not like the idea of adding third edition prestige classes to the game, particularly so generic and common ones. The Dwarven Defender only gets a slide from me since it filled the lack of tank niche, before the berserker would have to fill the role which felt odd. The Black Guard is a bit interesting and it's nice to see a divine fighter that isn't some horrid lawful good paladin but they'll always be called Anti-paladins by me. 

Apparently the justification for adding third edition inspired kits was that's what the fans wanted and were used to (heh) and apparently since BG2 had already added classes/kits inspired by third edition (since they were making the game as that version was being release). Examples are the Barbarian and Sorcerer.

[Lordinquisitor]

I recently acquired the baldurs gate 2 enhanced edition and i`m loving it; Apart from looking better the added content is really nice- The possibility to make an all-evil and well rounded party is awesome; As is Dorn.

But i recently encountered a problem- it slightly laggs, sometimes, which isn`t a big deal. But it also crashes often- Which alsou wouldn`t be a big deal but as of now certain actions ALWAYS crash the game. And these are:

-Entering the bartering screen with ribald barterman (nooo)
-Opening Dragomirs Respite (Noooo, items are stored in there!)
-Leveling up Korgan (Now, that is just mean.)

Are.. Are there any workarounds? I would hate it to restart the game since i have already completed some quests and getting to this point again would be no joy.

I`m using four mods; Dungeon be gone, additional barters, the unfinished business mod and the Baldurs gate 2 tweaks. (Which ought to be compatible with the enhanced version.)

Sooo.. Any ideas on how i could fix those fixed crashes? Any input at all?

[BFEL]

In response to the "is it as good as the standard edition" stuff, I say that hardly matters now, as unfortunately its become nigh impossible to get such editions at a reasonable price, and even if you COULD they wouldn't be downloadable and thus take ages to actually get to you and thus play.

Also, I'll be honest, I'm a munchkin and thus love the new classes (though to me they aren't new, as I started with the EE) and find that the only bad thing about it is I can't make a dwarven defender/dragon disciple

I'm a monster, I know...

Oh, speaking of munchkinry, Catastrophic Lolcats mentioned that the Black Pits were completely separate...well that's not completely true
I quickly found out how to carry a lvl 8 character from the Pits over into the "standard" game, complete with regen rings and all sorts of crazy equips.
As in, STARTING THE GAME, AT LVL 8 (the highest I got in the pits)

Because fuck the slow ass normal xp distribution!

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Seems like the importation from Black Pits is a bug, you're meant to be stripped of all equipment when importing into Shadows of Amn. If you want to be a cheaty cheat you can always import the preset characters from Throne of Bhaal and be massively over leveled. I like to play the long game and import a character from BG1, you get a limited choice of what magical items you want to take with you but more importantly you still have the tome bonuses.

I'm rather torn on the enhanced editions and even more so now that I've played BG2:EE. While they didn't add much what they did add is generally of pretty decent quality, the UI improvements alone almost completely sell the games (which only got better in BG2:EE).
The new characters are decent but I found they seemed a bit out of place. The writing seemed to be channel more of that generic "new Bioware" style of writing where characters are intent to blurt out their life stories and how they're feeling at this exact moment. I found Dorn to remain the strongest edition (although it's hard to screw up stoic antihero). Hexxat which is the new character in BG2:EE is interesting (mechanically) but has this annoying micromanagement addition and there's also this storyline twist that almost works but still falls a bit flat. She also rather one-dimensional and her whole personality is being a lesbian which is seriously the only thing she'll talk about to other party members. She's also a pure class thief you can't dual class, yuck.

I haven't actually bothered to play Throne of Bhaal because, to me, it's pointless to play without Ascension. Annoyingly the reason why I pretty much bought BG:EE on release was that a developer said Ascension and the other major mods would be ready only a few days after release. It's been Ao knows how many months since release and there's still no Ascension or some of the other major mods (like the BG1 NPC project >_>). I know that's not necessarily the fault of the game but for someone who's played the BG series to death and back they're pretty much mandatory to have a fun time. 

I still lean towards it being the best entry to the Baldur's Gate series for a new player but for someone who has played BG before I would still tell them to wait and pray some of those mods are finally ported. I haven't seen any evidence that the developers have any plans to add more content either.

EDIT: What do you mean that you can't find decently price standard version? Last time I checked a bunch of sites sold digital downloads of the standard Infinity Engine games including GOG and Gamer's Gate (both of which generally have pretty decent sales). 

[Neonivek]

It should come with a 5 cd installation simulator. Otherwise you aren't getting the authentic experience!

And yet that STILL isn't the most CDs you could have to go through for a PC game.

Though to admit the most I have experience with is about 7 (4 is the most you usually have to deal with). I am sure there is a game with more CDs.

[BFEL]

When I said importing from Black Pits, I meant importing from Black Pits to BG1, not BG2. You can start at the VERY beginning with a higher level then your mentor probably had
Makes the game hella easy though, seriously fighting things meant for level 1 or 2 characters with fully decked out lvl 8s or Gygax forbid, 10s is just hilarious.
Though playing with the boots of speed is SOOO epic, seriously those bastards are SLOW normally.