BG1 Classic: Must have mods only (suggestions)

GoForTheEyesBoo

With the Enhanced Editions on hold (hoping for the best-case scenario, Beamdog new IP holders!), I was wondering what is the best way to play BG1 as close to the spirit of the original as possible (not BGT or BG Tutu) but taking advantage of some mods ( ex. BG1NPC) ? Is that possible?

For example: I would like to keep the original stone GUI, but also play in widescreen-is that possible?

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give.

(Edited for clarification)

CamDawg

I think BG1 NPC is more of a break from the spirit of BG than, say, Tutu or BGT, but OK...

Widescreen works for vanilla BG, as does BG1 NPC and Unfinished Business.

Alternatively, the old stone UI is available for Tutu and BGT.

SCARY_WIZARD

For non-Tutu BG I, I suggest The Fields of the Dead. DRACOLISKS ALL OVER YOUR PARTY

sirthaddaeus

I haven't played BG1 NPC just yet, but how is it 'more of a break from the spirit of BG'?
is it due to it adding in the banter, romances, etc.?

ZanathKariashi

Unfinished business. That's about all I've got.

zur312

gray clan episode
and something about rescuing friendly arm inn but i can't remember what this was

NTOTSC would be great if someone could just tone down many imbalanced weapons that are better than BG2 weapons

GoForTheEyesBoo

CamDawg said:

I think BG1 NPC is more of a break from the spirit of BG than, say, Tutu or BGT, but OK...

Widescreen works for vanilla BG, as does BG1 NPC and Unfinished Business.

Alternatively, the old stone UI is available for Tutu and BGT.

Thanks @CamDawg. Anyone have any other suggestions? I am looking for that nostalgic feel...

TJ_Hooker

My must haves would be:
Fixpack
TweakPack
Tutu (combined with 1 Pixel Productions and Stone GUI)
Widescreen
Unfinished Business

If Tutu's not your thing feel free to ignore that. There's probably some components of Tweakpack that some people would say are not in the "spirit" of vanills BG, so maybe exercise a little caution there.

Shin

Without Tutu or BGT your mod selection is going to be rather limited. Like CamDawg points out you can still get BG1 NPC which is arguably one of the most atmospheric mods available, as well as Unfinished Business, but you'll miss out on things like Sword Coast Stratagems and ToBEx (not very atmospheric but allows much more realistic enemy behaviour), Aurora's Shoes and Boots (very atmospheric and roleplayish, but then again has the majority of its content in BG2) and various NPC friendship/romance expansions.

CamDawg

sirthaddaeus said:

I haven't played BG1 NPC just yet, but how is it 'more of a break from the spirit of BG'?
is it due to it adding in the banter, romances, etc.?

Don't get me wrong, I don't play without it, but BG1 NPC is a sneaky amount of content. Chatty NPCs are, to me, a much bigger break from vanilla BG than an upgraded engine, especially since many of them also have quests or romances.

zur312

i think your view of "break from vanilla" is different than others if it "fits" overall gameplay style, stories it doesn't break the game

so romances, unfinnished business, chatting with npcs doesn't break

talking to kermitt the frogg breaks the game

Quartz

zur312 said:

i think your view of "break from vanilla" is different than others if it "fits" overall gameplay style, stories it doesn't break the game

so romances, unfinnished business, chatting with npcs doesn't break

talking to kermitt the frogg breaks the game

Let me try to outline it for you:

Vanilla BG1 Non-Player Characters were very quiet. They said stuff in-game when you clicked them etc., and occasionally would use a one-liner directed at another NPC, which would yield a one-liner response. On rare occasion, NPC combinations such as Eldoth and Shar-Teel, Khalid and Jaheira, Xzar and Montaron, Viconia and Kivan would actually go into a dialog box similar to the ones we see running rampant in BGII and the BG1 NPC mod. Even still, said dialog boxes were still very short and concise. Part of the spirit of BG1 is held in its large number of NPCs with small amounts of dialog. They were pretty flat characters, overall.

Now, nearly everyone will agree that a rounded character is vastly superior to a flat character. That is why the BG1 NPC mod is extremely popular. On the other hand, a few people will legitimately argue that such a mod breaks the spirit of the original game since it seeks to be like BGII rather than BG1 (which are very similar games in terms of gameplay, but extremely different in terms of the mood and flow of the story and ambience), and more importantly, the writing is inferred from the characters. We can never know if the official, original writers had such character traits or stories in mind for said characters that the BG1 NPC mod adds in. In fact, we can pretty well assume that they did not.

SapphireIce101

I didn't think that the BG1NPC Project worked with Vanilla BG1. I mean, I know that the Xan Friendship mod works with Vanilla, and maybe the Coran Friendship, but I don't think the BG1NPC Project does. Yeah, I just looked it up, the BG1NPC Project doesn't work with Vanilla.

http://gibberlings3.net/bg1npc/#

At the top it specifically says that it doesn't work with Vanilla BG1, but it does work with Tutu, Easy Tutu, and BGT.

Otherwise, I recommend Dark Horizons.

CamDawg

Yeah, @Quartz did a much better job explaining it than I did. I still recommend the mod in general, but it's not very spirit-of-BG if that's what you're looking for.

Also, I thought BG1 NPC finally had BG-compatibility, but @SapphireIce101 is correct--it's Tutu/BGT for now.