Do save games, portraits, and edited items/spells from PC work?

lunar

I plan to get myself an Ipad 2 and buy BG:EE there too. I have my PC version now, and I love to play with custom portraits I make. Also I have a save game in my PC.

There are two threads that explain the proccess of transferring save games/portraits from PC to Ipad:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12295/port-character-with-custom-portrait-from-pc-to-ipad#latest
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/11504/transferring-bgee-saves-to-ipad#latest

Can anyone confirm these steps work? I am a total noob when it comes to Ipad and Apple stuff, and I only plan to get Ipad so I can play BG:EE on the go, everywhere easily. But I would hate to not be able to play with my custom portraits and/or save games from PC. They are very important for immersion and all.

Also, another question, I have some edited item and spell files in my override folder in my PC game. If I copy them into override folder of the Ipad, will the game handle the item changes correctly on Ipad? I mean, are item files sorta universal, or Ipad version has its own funky code or something?

EDIT:Aaand custom soundsets too! Will putting them into sounds folder enable me to choose them in-game? They work well in PC version now.

Any tips/hints/ideas will be very appreciated. Thank you!

Illydth

Lunar: While most of your questions are answered in other threads on this board (you've already linked 2 of them) I'll go ahead and address what you've posted here directly in case someone comes across this well written set of questions to get all of the answers. I'll probably use this thread as a base thread to refer to.

Custom Saves from PC to iPad
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Yes, as far as I know these do work and the thread you link above:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/11504/transferring-bgee-saves-to-ipad

Does, in fact, work. As far as I know these steps have been tested, not by me personally, but by many, and are the "unofficial" definitive way to get a saved game from the PC to the iPad (and I assume visa versa).

The only assumption being made is that you have BG:EE on both the PC and iPad and you're not talking about transferring, say, a Saved Game from another version of Baldur's Gate (say the GoG Version) to the iPad.


Custom Portraits from PC to iPad
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Again, as far as I know the thread you linked above:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12295/port-character-with-custom-portrait-from-pc-to-ipad

Is the unofficial but definitive thread on how to make custom character portraits work. Again, while I have not personally tested these steps, I have heard success using them so I assume they work. As with the Custom Saves from above, please post back TO THOSE THREADS (not this one) any issues or changes you have with the process so the "documentation" can be made better.


Custom Soundsets from PC to iPad
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I do not have a solution for Custom Sound Sets from the PC to the iPad in my hip pocket yet. I'm not even sure, yet, if the downloadable additional soundsets that Beamdog announced would be part of the IAPs (In App Purchases) are in for purchase or not.

Once the additional custom soundsets are there, however, I would expect that a slight modification of the "port-character-with-custom-portrait-from-pc-to-ipad" instructions would work to get custom soundsets installed on the iPad as well. That said, given that custom soundsets are an IAP, this kind of functionality may be denied by Beamdog intentionally. Someone will have to go in and attempt to make this work and then write the documentation on how to do it before we'll know definitively that you CAN in fact make custom soundsets work. If/when a thread pops up with instructions, I"ll make sure to link it here.


Other Customizations (game hacks, addons, modifications, etc.) - Override Folder
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At the moment there have been SEVERAL questions about how to get modified "other stuff" from the PC to the iPad. The semi-official answer from Beamdog about modifying the game through overrides is that this is something they WANT to support but do not currently have the ability to dig into and have not yet worked out.

In other words, there is no support and potentially no ability for users to make custom changes (in an override folder methodology) to the game at this point nor in any announced upcoming patch.

Again, the "port character" solution above MAY provide you the ability to override / change various aspects of the game through uploading modified game files to some kind of override methodology that already exists on the PC version, however this is both Untested and Unsupported either by the developers or the community at this point. Further, I believe several people have tried to modify the game through override and the functionality doesn't exist to do so at this point, but as I've not tried personally the best I can tell you is that this is "untested" and a "not documented" process at this point.

Feel free to give it a try and post your results in a new thread.

Console Cheat Commands
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Q: is the console and it's capabilities (spawning mobs, adding gold, other console base cheats) available in BG:EE for the iPad?

A: The short and long answer to this is "No" and there are no announced plans to support a console in the iPad version of BG:EE. While custom overrides and patches and addons are eventually expected to be supported (See "Other Customizations" above), the functionality of the PC "Console" commands allowing you to hack the game are NOT expected to be supported at any point.

lunar

Wow, I thank you. Yeah, I guess most of the customisation is unsupported and/or experimental in IPad version as of now. I am glad saves (from BG:EE ofcourse, I have the PC version) and custom portraits do work. I will try the custom soundsets and see if they work. I can live with no change to override folder, though. Thanks, that was really encouraging, as saves and portraits are the most important to me. I'll have myself an ipad in 2-3 days, if it goes well, I can't wait to play BG:EE on the go.

Kalalio

I wouldn't. So far I know of one person who has gotten custom ports to work, and like Illydth mentioned, it requires buying two copies of the game. As it stands, the ipad version feels like you're paying money to bug test a beta. I would recommend a stylus, and even then you're gonna have a lot of fun(sarcasm) playing poke the pixel trying to pick stuff up. No idea where the supposed extra sound sets are.
I would say wait until the patch comes out. I hear they're gonna make it easier to find doors. That should make the game somewhat playable.

lunar

I hear İpad reviews are quite bad, and game is impossible to play, etc. But that's BG we are talking about, playing it on a hand-held machine is a dream come true for me. (yeah I always envied gameboy owners, even though back in time SNES and then PS, and even PC were a lot better =D)

Illydth

???

Not quite sure where the reviews are coming from.

The game play is not "bad", it's the same as the game play was in the original pretty much. So long as you don't mind pausing periodically the iPad version is perfectly playable...I'm in Berignost at this point (I don't play often but I do periodically) with no major or even minor problems other than a couple crashes.

Tapping isn't THAT bad and there are only a few doors that are hidden (many of them WELL Documented in other threads on this board).

As to feeling like paying for a beta, I would disagree, but we're both entitled to our opinions. I can tell you that in MY Opinion the game plays MUCH better than the complaints are leading you to believe, but I guess it depends on what your patience level is for perfect software. If you feel everything produced should be well polished and perfectly functioning right off the line, you're going to come into the same conclusions as others...the game is rough.

If you are used to software that isn't perfect and don't mind having to tap a couple extra times on the screen to get your characters to move or attack what you want, you won't find this either hard nor even "challenging" to play...and Impossible CERTAINLY isn't the word I'd use for it.

That said, the thread isn't about how difficult the game is to play, it's about how customizable the game is. Lets return the post to the OP and take discussion of the impossibility to play to one of the numerous many dozens of threads on this forum that already discusses this issue.

lunar

Okay, I got my Pad and the game.

Fun stuff:Save games work. I could not choose my custom portraits when creating a character, but the save game that was using my portrait could display it no problems. That's nice.

Sounds do not work, they are not selectable in customise screen. I put them in Sounds folder under Library AND under Language-english folder Sounds, but that folder was protected or something, fail. Oh well..

Looking good and all. Heh, iPad is such a nice device and the first application I installed is BG:EE, how about that? =D