Deciding to come back, how is EE?

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Venach
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Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Venach » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:40 am

Hey, I'm planning on coming back to the game soon, I'm curious how EE is going.

Have there been a lot of changes to the game? I logged in and didn't see any haks, but I'm not sure how to download them if they exist. I think someone said they are supposed to be where the server is accessed or from the Beamdog client somewhere?

I haven't really played any more than 3-4 hours since EE dropped, but I'm kind of excited to see how Arelith has changed since I last played in January.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing you all again!

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Jagel
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Jagel » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:57 am

No haks yet. So far EE doesn’t feel too different from the GOG version and originals.

Arelith is great as ever with a lot of tweaks and neat systems

Dr_Hazard89
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Dr_Hazard89 » Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:24 am

Jagel wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:57 am
No haks yet. So far EE doesn’t feel too different from the GOG version and originals.

Arelith is great as ever with a lot of tweaks and neat systems
Yuuup.

Still waiting on all the cool new shiny things. Horns for my tiefling so I can stop awkwardly emoting them/asking people to read her description. Maybe more clothes. Stuff in general seems the same from the player perspective but I'm sure the devs got many new tools.
Characters: Xun'sali (ACTIVE), Tianae Tymeaneldth (Rolled), Sylali (Rolled), Magpie (Rolled), Ker'uanna Tymeaneldth (Rolled), Lepota Poklona (Rolled), Andariel Bloodletter (Shelved), Tahl'tril Cyredrretyn (Rolled), L'omithiel (Shelved).

TimeAdept
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by TimeAdept » Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:56 pm

It's 3 steps back in functionality. Bluff characters and stealth characters suffer a lot. Pathfinding is wonky. Intel users are currently in an existential crisis.

End of the day, it's still Arelith, and if you enjoyed it before, you'll still enjoy it. It's just been Enhanced.

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Hunter548
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Hunter548 » Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:59 pm

Still a sizable downgrade from 1.69. Decent amount of Arelith stuff doesn't work on EE yet because of lack of NWNX. No sign that any of the changes they mentioned as possible are actually going to happen thus far.

So, avoid it unless you really want to come back to Arelith. It hasn't really changed aside from server transitions being unreliable and the semi-frequent crashes user-side.
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Baron Saturday
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Baron Saturday » Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:16 pm

It's not all gloom and doom. You can portal between servers now!

Also rogues got buffed and Sencliff has quests for pirates. Devs have been busy!
Rolled: Helene d'Arque, Sara Lyonall
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Ork
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Ork » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:28 pm

Yeah but nothing's Enhanced.

PinataPlethora
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by PinataPlethora » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:41 pm

The enhancement is on the back end, and won't become apparent until modders take advantage of it in order to make new content...

If they ever do.

Tourmaline
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Tourmaline » Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:04 am

Hunter548 wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:59 pm
Still a sizable downgrade from 1.69. Decent amount of Arelith stuff doesn't work on EE yet because of lack of NWNX. No sign that any of the changes they mentioned as possible are actually going to happen thus far.

So, avoid it unless you really want to come back to Arelith. It hasn't really changed aside from server transitions being unreliable and the semi-frequent crashes user-side.

Disguise doesn't work (and I'd avoid starting characters who rely on it) but what else is broken? I can't think of anything offhand, not that it doesn't exist. I think the game is perfectly playable if you avoid building a character around stuff that's been broken since the EE changeover (and having a list of exactly what those things are would be nice)

The population is two or three times what it was pre-EE and people are still playing, some of them seemingly 20 hours a day so it is clearly working well enough for most people. I'm not saying it's working perfectly of course but it's completely playable.

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Cortex
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Cortex » Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:18 am

A handful of AoE effects or SFX murders the FPS (the death area and shadow plane are unplayable), more frequent crashes(for different reasons), more unstable connections. Those are the ones I can think of on the spot.
:)

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Peppermint
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Peppermint » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:48 am

EE is pretty much a direct downgrade.

Arelith keeps getting better, though.

Brandon Steel
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Brandon Steel » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:56 am

Might be easier for the DM’s but it’s horrid player side. Arelith is the same, but this “enhanced” edition is garbage right now.

Tourmaline
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Tourmaline » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:58 am

Crashes and transitions are annoying, though the servers seem to say up for 10+ hours easy. FX must depend on the system. Turning most things low or off seems to work for me, I have absolutely no trouble in shadow plane or death and I'm on a computer with integrated graphics not a dedicated card.. but I don't doubt other people have problems and I see how turning up the eye candy mucks things up.

EE has a lot of bugs and we lost some features so all of that is annoying but the game is still quite stable.. 141 people are playing right now which is easily twice what you'd see this time last year. I have to assume most of them are able to play the game without getting booted or crippling lag or anything. Just saying, it's not perfect, but we shouldn't scare people away from playing or returning by making it sound like the game is completely broken. It's playable and it's busier than ever, which in my mind is almost everything.

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Cortex
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Cortex » Sun Jul 08, 2018 2:24 am

It already easily stayed up for +24 hours, FPS drop is common even in high end computers (I know it does on mine, and of friends' as well), and 140 is certainly not double, being very generous the population increased by a max of 1.5x.

EE so far has just been a downgrade, but it's worthwhile sacrifice if you want to play Arelith.
:)

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Twily
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Twily » Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:08 am

As others have said, EE has definitely brought some downsides with it.
More crashes(especially on intel), some other minor bugs, some broken features due to a missing NWNX element(disguising, slave tags, etc)

It's brought a few good things with it though
Borderless Windowed mode is my personal favorite- it allows for easy use of third party note keeping software, so the IG journal isn't needed for me anymore.
Alt-Tab crash fixed
Whirlwind Attack bug either is fixed or will be soon
Other misc. things in that sort of category
Supposedly it's more open ended for the modding/development community, although to the extent that goes is unknown to me, but as always it'll take a while for these sorts of things to start showing up

Overall I'd say it's a trade off, but it has the potential to be much better than before if Beamdog continues to work on it and releases updates and bug-fixes as they've said they would.
Make sure to report any bugs and crash reports you find to Beamdog here so that it has the best chance of being fixed.

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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Dragonovith » Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:03 am

Twily wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:08 am
As others have said, EE has definitely brought some downsides with it.
More crashes(especially on intel), some other minor bugs, some broken features due to a missing NWNX element(disguising, slave tags, etc)

It's brought a few good things with it though
Borderless Windowed mode is my personal favorite- it allows for easy use of third party note keeping software, so the IG journal isn't needed for me anymore.
Alt-Tab crash fixed
Whirlwind Attack bug either is fixed or will be soon
Other misc. things in that sort of category
Supposedly it's more open ended for the modding/development community, although to the extent that goes is unknown to me, but as always it'll take a while for these sorts of things to start showing up

Overall I'd say it's a trade off, but it has the potential to be much better than before if Beamdog continues to work on it and releases updates and bug-fixes as they've said they would.
Make sure to report any bugs and crash reports you find to Beamdog here so that it has the best chance of being fixed.
Just a brief comment about "Whirlwind Attack bug either is fixed or will be soon". I use that ability constantly and since the update I haven't run on that glitch anymore.

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Red Ropes
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Red Ropes » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:23 am

Hey Venach,

It's gucci. Come back in. We'll kiss.

love,
ya boi
🤡

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In A Motionless Scene
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by In A Motionless Scene » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:29 am

EE is awesome in that you don’t have to worry about rolling back essential parts of your hardware drivers, or wonder what the hell changed that you can’t run the game with the same compatibility settings as before. You don’t have to figure out which workaround might let you play, or what next month‘s OE or driver update might mess up for you.

Install. Run. Good to go.

That’s enough reason for me to tolerate the
occasional fps drop, especially considering that I literally couldn’t play at all because auf compatibility issues for a few months before EE was published.
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Ingen rörelse.
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Opustus
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Opustus » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:45 am

The most awful thing is that now NWN is closer to our true identities via Steam. I changed my settings to private as soon as I bought the game to hide my dirty secret.
Characters: all poor babies suffering from neglect

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MissEvelyn
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by MissEvelyn » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:16 pm

The container bug is fixed.
No more bugged shops or storages.

Windowed mode without borders.

Being able to alt-tab without crashing every 20 minutes.

Not sure about others, but the game runs smoother for me than old nwn did.

Oh and Steam workshop <3


Ramza
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Ramza » Mon Jul 09, 2018 12:00 pm

Don't forget the downgrade to the network. With the inability to properly change your client port (Which was a very useful tool if you were having connection issues before) without it changing back to 0 any time you try and log into a server.

whoisthisis
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by whoisthisis » Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:33 pm

Somehow I get the feeling that Beamdog didn't get the most current source code. I know that in in a couple articles in searching for Icewind Dale II that Bioware/Atari/ETC had some lacking source code storage. Some of the code they were using was off old backups and old hard drives.

And it feels and acts like maybe 1.55 or so. Particularly some of the monster AI I see. It really feels like they took an older source code and added the features from there, and are working up.

The pathing is a little wonky like in the earlier version. But that never bothered me, as I use the "drive mode" keys to move my character around. (WASD). For those complaining about the pathing. Learn to use the drive mode keys, you will find it extremely liberating. There is also an alternate method of clicking and holding next to your character where the pointer turns into an arrow. This is harder to do.

I never ever notice an FPS drop, but then again I play on a PC that handles the most modern games. NWN never ever chalenges it.

Sab1
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Sab1 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:54 pm

EE has gotten rid of the main NWN error that use to crash me and replaced it with a bunch of other bugs that crash me. I also notice when logging on it takes more attempts. I get a lot of can't translate address messages.

Ironsoul
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by Ironsoul » Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:57 pm

It’s been an improvement for me in nearly every area I appreciate the game. The old NWN was an exercise in frustration getting it to run. Sometimes it would take me 2-5 minutes to get the game to boot without crashing every time I wanted to log in to Arelith...

I’m definitely appreciating that headache going away.

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ebonith
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Re: Deciding to come back, how is EE?

Post by ebonith » Tue Jul 10, 2018 7:12 pm

It's not dramatic, but I do appreciate the graphics upgrade big time. I can actually make out details now, which is great. :)
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