BG:EE – The Friendly Arm Inn

Beamdog sent over a patch to the PC version of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition tonight. Unfortunately the client doesn’t give you much info, but over in the forums are some patch notes. Looks like it’s almost all bug fixes, but while I was there I noticed a warning: Intel Integrated Graphics are NOT supported in BG:EE. That’s going to be a bummer for a lot of laptop users and I hope they can find a way to make them work.

As for me, firing up the game for Day 2 was quite enjoyable now that the initial learning curve is behind me, and I am already used to the graphics. Mind you I’m still learning things but tonight was more playing and less figuring stuff out, if you know what I mean.

Our Hero, Traellan of Edgewood, and his childhood friend Imoen were en route to the Friendly Arm Inn when I realized there was a lot of unexplored area that I was leaving behind. “I always explored the whole map.” Angela noted and me, ever curious, had to concur that this made good sense.

It made good sense until we encountered a hungry Dire Wolf, anyway. Thrice the foul beast slaughtered our merry, but much too small, band. I’m still getting the knack of things. Imoen has a wand of magic missile but using it tended to draw the wolf’s attention and she’s a slight thing that can’t take much punishment (Thief – she has 8 hit points!) Even though Traellan wears the badge of a Fighter he’s still not all that tough either.

After the Gods of Reload brought our heroes back for a third time, I decided to leave exploration for later, and we pressed on, sticking to the relative safety of the roads.

Although we met a few odd individuals along the way, the trip was more or less uneventful, though Trae’s head was spinning with fatigue by the time they staggered through the gates leading to the Inn. Inside were a motley bunch of revelers and it didn’t take us long to decide that the skulking half-orc Dorn was best avoided, and that the Druid and Fighter who were old friends of Traellan’s father made for better traveling companions. With introductions made, Traellan rented Merchant’s Rooms so that he and Imoen could get some much-needed rest before setting out in the morning.

And thus ended tonight’s session.

More than this happened, but I’m trying to leave out certain surprises for now, in case others like me who haven’t played wind up reading this. I actually think I’m already farther than I’ve ever gotten in the game in the past!

Also apologies in advance for switching from “he” to “I” and back again. I do that kind of “internal role play” thing when I play a game like this, so in my mind, I am Traellan and vice versa.

6 thoughts on “BG:EE – The Friendly Arm Inn

  1. “Also apologies in advance for switching from �he� to �I� and back again. I do that kind of �internal role play� thing when I play a game like this, so in my mind, I am Traellan and vice versa.”

    Dude I so do that as well when I’m writing about the adventures of one of my characters, or in the case of RPG’s that allow a party, the party. 🙂

    Though I haven’t played Baldur’s Gate myself in YEARS, I read a review of the EE recently, and the reviewer even mentioned that exact same Dire Wolf, iirc! He also said the first initial dungeon and opening parts of the game are terribly balanced, and very punishing, but it does get into a bit more even flow (and less deadly) rhythm further in. So hopefully it gets better.

    I personally am waiting for the iOS version, which is a complete difference from just about everything I do related to gaming (I always prefer the PC version of everything), but I really want to see if this has the potential to be *the* game that brings what I consider a classic PC gaming experience to the iOS version that makes me want to play for more than 10 minutes. We’ll see!

  2. Yeah, Angela is really excited about the iOS version as well. And I’m interested to see how well it plays.

  3. I remember the first time I tried Baldur’s Gate and how I didn’t like it much and then giving it another try and a couple hundred hours later it seemed and I was finished. Turned out to be one of my favorite games, so I’m looking forward to picking up the EE.

  4. So far I’m enjoying myself and trying to remember what I didn’t like about it back in the day. I think it may have just intimidated me. I *think* it came out while I was at Strategy Plus which would’ve meant there was always a pile of games waiting to be p/reviewed.

    My plan this time is to treat the game kind of like a TV series. Instead of just trying to rush through it, I’ll play for an hour or so a couple times a week and plan to be finished with it sometime in Spring. Well, you know me, at some point I’ll get distracted. But at least if I know I won’t be done for months, I won’t wind up trying to rush through it and get frustrated.

  5. I’m glad you are enjoying it this time around, and I’d love to read more posts like this detailing your adventure. I’ve always been a huge fan of BG. I’ll tell you what though, I forgot just how hard the game was. I have it on core rules, but even that brings a new meaning to the word auto-save.

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