[MOD] Xan's friendship for BG:EE is available

kulyok

Thanks to Kaeloree's gracious efforts, we now have a BG:EE compatible copy of XanBG1Friendship.

I have tested it myself on BG:EE, and I believe the English version works perfectly.

(I consider it still in beta, because it uses a beta version of Weidu installer, just like Neera Expansion and Margarita NPC and Helarine NPC and other mods do. But it shouldn't detract from your enjoyment of the game).

The link is here: http://mods.pocketplane.net/kulyok/XanBG1Friend_v7.zip

Unpack the mod into your BG:EE directory, and run bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat to install, reinstall or uninstall it.

To install the mod in French, German or Russian, open "bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat" with a text editing program, and replace all instances of "en_US" with your language (de_DE, fr_FR). Save and run the .bat as above.

I recommend backuping override and lang directories, your baldur.exe and your chitin.key before installing ANY mods. It's good practice for all IE games.

If you're in trouble, please check CamDawg's instructions for making your game BG:EE ready:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6950/player-how-to-getting-mods-to-work-on-bgee/

Or ask questions here or on the mod's forum: http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,24286.0.html

FrozenCells

@kulyok would it be possible at some point to have the option to make Xan a Fighter/Mage, Sorcerer, etc. in XanBG1Friendship to match up with XanBG2? I always use your Xan mods and quite like him as a F/M (he'd be even more depressed!). Thanks for the update.

kulyok

I would recommend you to wait (maybe a month or so, given the way the discussion and coding of new Weidu is going), or, better yet, pester Miloch&Co at Gibberlings3.net and ask for an amazing, wonderful and absolutely essential mod called Level1NPCs to be made available for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition whenever the authors have the time.

Because Level1NPCs does what I could never do: it allows you to choose any class, any kit, any weapon proficiency and any stat combination for your vanilla and mod NPCs, including thief skills(for a level 1 character, and then you manually level him/her up later in game).

I don't trust myself to mess with Xan's BG cre files, because it requires some fine-tuning: in BG2, Xan's mod files were "mine" and I could just overwrite Xan's .cre with a mage-fighter .cre file. In BG:EE, though, it's a vanilla game file used by several other mods(starting with the soon-to-be-available-in-beta BG1 NPC Project), and requires Level1NPCs-level style of patching to retain compatibility with other mods, if it makes any sense.

FrozenCells

Cool, I can wait for that. Cheers.

kulyok

Version 8 adds an Italian translation for all users. Huge thanks to our hard-working translator, totuccio5, and an equally tireless proofreader, Aedan!

Non-Italian users do not need to update or to reinstall. You can get the mod from its website: http://www.pocketplane.net/tutumods

totuccio5

Thank you a lot @Kulyok
You are really gentle...

Iecerint

Level1NPCs is indeed fantastic, though it makes Coran even more ridiculously broken. XD

Erg

Iecerint said:

Level1NPCs is indeed fantastic, though it makes Coran even more ridiculously broken. XD

@Iecerint

Do you mean like this ?

Coran: chaotic good elf fighter/thief
(Current attributes: Str=14 Dex=20 Con=12 Int=14 Wis=9 Cha=16)
[Long Bow=3, Long Sword=2]

Select a class from the list below. Enter the class's number and press "Enter".
0  Wait, I've changed my mind - don't install this component!
1  Mage                           11 Druid
2  Fighter (includes Barbarian)   12 Ranger
3  Cleric                         13 Mage/Thief
4  Thief                          14 Cleric/Mage
5  Bard                           15 Cleric/Thief
6  Paladin                        16 Fighter/Druid
7  Fighter/Mage                   17 Fighter/Mage/Cleric
8  Fighter/Cleric                 18 Cleric/Ranger
9  Fighter/Thief                  19 Sorcerer
10 Fighter/Mage/Thief             20 Monk
User answer: "2"

Select a kit from the list below, or enter 0 if you prefer No Kit/True Class.

0 None of these things interest me. 1 Berserker 2 Wizard Slayer 3 Kensai
User answer: "2"

Iecerint

@Erg - I just meant that his normal "negative" (poorly-spent thief ability points due to late recruitment) is rectified upon being able to put his points into traps/locks.

At first I thought that GUI let you assign kits to multi-class, which was pretty cool and I didn't remember.

Sojourner

Iecerint said:

@Erg - I just meant that his normal "negative" (poorly-spent thief ability points due to late recruitment) is rectified upon being able to put his points into traps/locks.

At first I thought that GUI let you assign kits to multi-class, which was pretty cool and I didn't remember.

Can you fix that - the poorly spent thief ability points - with EE Keeper? I'm told that you reset him to L0 (or L1, whatever the low level fresh start is) and then reapportion everything in EE Keeper. There's something about having to remove "extra XP points" that I'm not sure about, but apparently people do this all the time for various NPCs with EE Keeper. Asking on the forums would probably clear that one issue up.

My solution to messed up leveling by the game for NPCs you don't normally meet til mid-to-late game has been either to just make a run for it and pick them up, or if I can't get there at game start, to CLUA console the NPC I want in in the early game. Then I get to level them up as I go.

With Alora, at least, the fact that you aren't really doing her quest doesn't seem to make any difference - she just runs off and goes through the motions AS IF you were doing her quest, then joins the group. Much better/more useful thief than Imoen.

I've used EE Keeper to turn Imoen into a Bard. Makes better sense to me than having her be either a thief or a mage, or any combination thereof. I actually don't much like Imoen but I feel too guilty to leave her totally behind.

Minsc I've turned into a Berserker, switched the dual wielding proficiency for 2-hand weapon proficiency and other changes that make more sense given his fighting style. Sometimes I leave him as a ranger and just switch the proficiencies around to make more sense for that (basically I think that's get rid of the proficiency in 2 handed weapons in favor of either long swords or bastard swords, and just go with him as a dual-weapon wielder). The mish-mosh they made of Minsc never made sense to me.

Anyway, if I can't go get them at the beginning, I CLUA console them in. The one thing I was interested in from Sword Coast Strategems was the feature that lets you find the late-game NPCs earlier, and that's the one thing that hasn't made it into the beta EE version, LOL!

I can get to Viconia OK early game for sure (Minsc CHUNKS that mercenary) and I'm about to try for Coran (assuming I can survive the Wyvern hunting at this level) so I just go pick them up before I level the first time, but Alora is in BG city and her I just CLUA console in instead. If the wyverns are too much for me at this point I'll probably just CLUA console him in too.

kamuizin

I never liked xan, his simple presence annoy me, if he really start with his bullshit in friendly banters i would probally kill him.

Princess_Sarah

first up @kulyok‌ thanks for making this and sharing it - I love Xan his constant pessimism amuses me to no end

Unfortunately I am having a bit of a problem with the install and would appreciate any help if anyone knows how to solve my problem.

I am running BGEE and BG2EE on Mac OS X (so yes I did download the mac OS X mod version!) the trouble is every time I try to run set-up I get a message in the terminal - permission denied. I think what is happening is that my mac wants me to change my permissions to open downloads from anywhere but obviously I am reluctant to go and change these security settings unless I'm sure this is the cause (just in case I forget to set it all back as soon as I'm done!). does anyone know if this is the problem? or what else it might be?

thanks for any help - greatly appreciated.

Vreejack

There is a bug in the Xan friendship install script. It calls iconv.exe from the bg1npc folder instead of from the local .\iconv.exe

wilsonpr

@kulyok
I tried installing Xan's friendship v9 on BGEE for OSX. I get an error message as follows

ERROR Installing [Xan's friendship path for BG1], rolling back to previous state
Will uninstall 1 files for [XANBG1FRIEND/SETUP-XANBG1FRIEND.TP2] component 0.
Uninstalled 1 files for [XANBG1FRIEND/SETUP-XANBG1FRIEND.TP2] component 0.
ERROR: Unix.Unix_error(Unix.ENOENT, "stat", "xanbg1friend/English/utf8/o#xanbg1.tra")

Please help

Thanks,

Isaya

@wilsonpr I see two potential issues on OSX: the script converting to UTF-8 didn't run, or the resulting file name doesn't match what is expected by the mod.

Did you get messages looking like:
Linux and Mac conversion with CP1252 Copying 1 file ... loading 1 tra file re-loaded <your language> TRA files
Did you get any additional message after "Linux and Mac conversion"?
It may be that the conversion script didn't run due to missing execution rights.

Please check the content of the xanbg1friend/English folder when you run the mod installer and it fails. Does a folder utf8 exist ?
Is there a file in it? Is it named O#XanBG1.tra (with uppercase and lowercase as written)?
I read that the Mac file system is by default not case sensitive. After conversion, the mod installer tries to read o#xanbg1.tra (without uppercase letter), this may fail if the file system has been set to case sensitive.

As a workaround, you could try the updated tp2 file attached, which relies on a new function now integrated in WeiDU to convert files to UTF-8 for Enhanced Edition games.

Download the latest version of WeiDU here.
Extract the content of the archive and copy the weidu file to the game directory, then from there, rename it as setup-xanbg1friend (replace the existing file)
Download that attached file, extract the content and copy the Setup-XanBG1Friend.tp2 file to the XanBG1Friend subfolder of the game folder (replace the existing file)

Using the WeiDU function may help in case of script execution rights issue or file name sensitivity.

Wise_Grimwald

kulyok said:

Thanks to Kaeloree's gracious efforts, we now have a BG:EE compatible copy of XanBG1Friendship.

I have tested it myself on BG:EE, and I believe the English version works perfectly.

(I consider it still in beta, because it uses a beta version of Weidu installer, just like Neera Expansion and Margarita NPC and Helarine NPC and other mods do. But it shouldn't detract from your enjoyment of the game).

The link is here: http://mods.pocketplane.net/kulyok/XanBG1Friend_v7.zip

Unpack the mod into your BG:EE directory, and run bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat to install, reinstall or uninstall it.

To install the mod in French, German or Russian, open "bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat" with a text editing program, and replace all instances of "en_US" with your language (de_DE, fr_FR). Save and run the .bat as above.

I recommend backuping override and lang directories, your baldur.exe and your chitin.key before installing ANY mods. It's good practice for all IE games.

If you're in trouble, please check CamDawg's instructions for making your game BG:EE ready:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6950/player-how-to-getting-mods-to-work-on-bgee/

Or ask questions here or on the mod's forum: http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,24286.0.html

The link for Xan's friendship mod should be here:
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=134&Itemid=94

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