So, I'm pretty much trying to clear my GOG backlog. My first WRPG that I ever played was Baldur's Gate with a character that sucked because I was such a newbie to Dungeons and Dragons. However my second and more carefully planned playthrough was one of the best gaming experiences that I ever had. Sadly, I could never take that second character through Baldur's Gate 2, which I would've loved. So I was thinking of playing through the whole Enhanced Editions including Siege of Dragonspear, which I've yet to buy. But I've heard that these games are extremely buggy and I haven't the slightest clue how to apply the patches that come with the games. Am I set for disappointment or is it worth it? Can anyone shed light on this?

Thanks in advance!

Buy Siege of Dragonspear if you enjoy bugs, massive plot-holes, railroaded gameplay, and lectures on modern feminism and how sexism is bad. It plays like it was written by a 15 year old trying her hand at activism, and destroying a franchise in the process.

I'm enjoying them. I got them for wide-screen support (the originals have a wide screen mod but it can mess up saves when you change resolution), cloud saves, zoom, and ui. The additions haven't been terrible, but there is a very different quality between the old bioware stuff and the list beamdog stuff.

I'm playing through them now and enjoying it, though.

However, I've played them before with black bars on the originals and they were great. So the embalmed works are certainly not required, but there are some positives.

The bugs are mostly corrected by now. The EEs worked with no problems for me and I've played them multiple times. If you play with mods though, there have been a few glitches. And I'm playing them on a PC that is only about a year old.

As far as Siege of Dragonspear, while its not as good as either BG1 or BG2:Shadows of Amn, I personally enjoyed it. Its better than BG2:Throne of Bhaal. There are a few cool dungeons and I really like the NPC M'Khiin. The ending is not the greatest, as its almost a 20 minute scene without much player interactivity, but if you can live with that, SoD is not as bad as many of the people here say it is and I did enjoy it overall. I include it in my playthroughs now, and while it was buggy at release, its much better now.

You're asking for biased opinions from biased players -- they are *all* biased. Beamdog has a *very* polarizing effect on people (that should tell you something all by itself): you have the people with common sense and integrity who see the game and company for what they are and you have the Beamdog apologists desperately trying to convince you that they (Beamdog) did a good job and the game is in a good state at this time. Seriously, there is absolutely no way you are going to get a satisfactory answer except if it's the answer you *want* to hear. The *only* way to determine if you will be disappointed is to bite the bullet, buy the game/s and play them.

Obviously everyone is biased based on whether they enjoy a game or not. But the OP wanted opinions, so I gave mine. I am not Beamdog apologist. They should not have bundled the games together. That is WRONG, you should be able to buy only the original if that's what you want and they should absolutely not have tried to blame it on Wizards of the Coast and GOG, which is what they did. If you want to say I was naive for believing their claims that it was Wizards decisions on Beamdog's forum, that's fair. And they handled the Collector's Editions terribly for Siege of Dragonspear, taking over a year to mail them out after taking people's money. But Beamdog is not the worst company that's ever existed either.

But I can say that I enjoyed playing SoD and that I didn't have any bugs until I modded it with EETrilogy and many, many other mods, because that is TRUE. Have you played the EEs since patch 2.3 came out? Just because I have a different opinion than you do doesn't mean I'm wrong. That's your bias showing. And yes, I would still purchase more content from Beamdog for the BG:EEs if they made it. That does not mean I condone everything they've done.

Yes, you are ultimately set for disappointment. No, it is not worth it, compared with playing the originals, optionally modded/fixpacked/tweaked as you deem appropriate. I prefer 800x600, but the wide screen mod can be used for higher resolutions. And, the mod "BGT/Baldur's Gate Trilogy" creates a seamless, excellently written experience between BG1 and BG2. BGT requires that you have both of the original games. I am playing BGT now, after playing both originals in 800x600 last year, and after playing BGEE and BG2EE for about 3 years, but eventually reverting back to the superior originals. They have better graphics (the EE's are darker which shows less detail; or they are more blurred - BGEE), do not have over-the-top items or the crappy new NPC's, and are all-in-all what the designers intended BG to be. Keep in mind, I have only played EE 1.3, which is quite close to the originals, unlike the newest (2.3) versions of EE; v. 2.3 is an outright turn-off.

Somebody *cough, cough* needs to step back and examine their guilty conscience. I never pointed to any names, but *my* name was included in there when I said all opinions are biased. I wasn't pointing fingers, I was making a point; you, as usual, completely missed it.

I wonder why I assumed your response was a response to me, when there were only two posts above yours (including mine) that disagreed with you.

I freely admit I feel guilty for defending Beamdog because I was duped and really believed it was Wizard's decision to bundle the games. I still enjoyed the EEs and Siege of Dragonspear though. In the end, its just a few games, no matter how much I or anyone else likes or dislikes the games. If you think Beamdog is the only corporation to lie to increase their profits, you're delusional. If you think Beamdog is the only corporation to earn money off of someone else work, you're delusional. If your mission is to get Beamdog to go belly-up, you need to realize that there are many more important things in life than a couple of computer games. As much as I don't like being deceived, I still don't understand the level of hate directed at Beamdog, because almost everyone on this board acts like Beamdog murdered everyone they ever cared about.

... That's why... you assumed. You've done nothing *but* assume... wrongly -- I'm not an idiot, and you're treating me like one. Only a pompous ass assumes to that degree. Because you're an apologist?

Count me among those that prefer original. I did play EE but never finished it. At some point while playing I told myself "enough is enough, don't have time for this bullshit." Left the game, immediately installed the classic edition, quickly and played the game how it was supposed to be played.

That was a while ago, I think around patch 1.3. From what I have heard things only went downhill from the regarding UI and the graphics. I'm sure there are still occasional bugs left in EE here and there; this is Beamdog in the end.

Just for comparison, in over dozen of my playthroughs of classic editions of BG1 and BG2 I have never experienced a single bug or crash.

You might want to think about what other ways Beamdog has duped you. They have been lying their ass off about more than the bundling of the classics.

They played the victim card right off the bat when SoD came out. Most complaints about it were about bugs and the extremely poor writing. Beamdog called in all kinds of favors and made sure everyone who didn't like their product got labeled a transphobic bigot all over social media and on gaming sites like Kotaku and so on. This lasted for a very long time, until the CEO kind of backtracked on it a bit, but not before he begged the fanboys to post positive reviews of their game. He then claimed "the loud minority" had silenced out valid complaints. Which is a bloody lie since almost none of the negative reviews even mentioned that trans character. Another one of their employees tried to beg Anita Sarkeesian and her feminist frequency movement to get involved as well. Basically they labeled regular BG fans bigots and all that, for complaining about a mess of plot holes being added to the canon - thereby messing up a perfect story beyond repair.

And then you have this little interview with the writer “If there was something for the original Baldur’s Gate that just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to address that],” said writer Amber Scott. “In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.”

Two female characters, and fan favorites at that, got their personality edited for the expansion pack. Because she found them offensive. They, of course, revert to their original personalities in BG2. Making the while expansion kind of a...uhm....what was that? kind of thing.

She also managed to turn one of the best villains, Irenicus, into an incompetent moron whose actions completely contradicts his main motives in BG2. She also didn't understand that the Irenicus dreams in BG2 is just Bhaal trying to make you accept your legacy. In SoD, Irenicus sends you dreams because she thought it was him doing it in BG2....Fun when a writer doesn't understand the source-material.

The writer then got "promoted" to Marketing Director. It was actually her job to ship the collector's editions of the game. Look what happened to those?

So Beamdog did not murder anyone. They did, however, murder the BG saga and they blamed the fans for it. Hence why they are rather hated.

Most of the BUGS on BG:EEs are NOT corrected.

I was defending EEs from the beginning but after seeing how fraud Beamdog really is, I am now on the opposite side.

I can not believe people who say bugs are mostly fixed. I had entered around 10 bug reports 2 years ago and they were gone. A "Beamdog representative" came to GOG forums and offered help. I entered my beamdog bug center to show my bug reports but they were gone. He claimed I might have entered those bug reports with a different account or simply did not enter at all. I did not have any proof so I did not insist and entered those bugs again. NOW they are GONE again.

WHY is Beamdog deleting BUG reports on their official website?

There were over a thousand bugs for BG:EE, 2 years ago. Last time I checked there were barely 10. BUT (A VERY BIG BUT), there are NONE solved bugs in the last 2 years. What happened to those 1000 bugs?

Also, that Beamdog representative was claiming Beamdog had nothing to do with originals merging with EEs. He wrote that in every topic about BEAMDOG. However, after communities uproar and keep asking GOG who was really responsible, BEAMDOG had to officially announce that they took part in the merging which is a stickied topic in every forum about BEAMDOG games.

Conclusion, Baldur'S Gate EEs (both 1 and 2) are buggy as hell and BEAMDOG is a shady, company. However, I must add that Icewind Dale EE is amazing and although I came up to a few bugs, they were not game breaking or as horrible as bugs in BG:EEs.

"IWD:EE is amazing"

I wouldn't go that far. I encountered a fair few bugs and it removed a key feature of IWD: http://lilura1.blogspot.com/2016/12/Icewind-Dale-Enhanced-Edition-Review.html

That said, it's a solid effort and PS:T is solid, too. I prefer the originals for all these titles, though.

I didn't know they were deleting bug reports. That's terrible too. I was just going off my own experiences with the EEs, never having any problem with bugs until I modded it a lot. And that Amber Scott interview definitely was insulting. There was not anything wrong with Jaheira in BG1. I was never a Safana fan, but that's just because she always seemed so desperate, and I realize that's just my own personal preference, not something wrong with the character.

I still like playing the EEs and Siege of Dragonspear overall, but I understand the complaints a lot more now. I've lost a lot of respect for Beamdog. I still haven't purchased Planescape EE yet, and was not planning on doing so any time soon anyway. I probably would still buy any added content to the BG games, but that's just because I like anything extending BG, be it a Beamdog release or a mod. I probably won't buy anything else though from them anymore, with the other possible exception being IWD2, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon anyways.

I did read lately that their next priority is to "update" IWD:EE to the same patch they used on the BGEEs. So if you want the current version of IWD, I'd download it SOON.