Honest question about mods

rizar123

hmmm, everyone seems to have mods installed and I just read a thread about "ascension" and someone not even playing ToB because it is "bad". Am I missing something totally awesome with "vanilla" SoA/ToB? To be those game are great the way they were and the way they are now.

I always took the mods as cheats. Like adding super strong weapons or OP spells. But now I see many discussion about Mods and I'm getting curious. =P

Can someone just explain me briefly want is going on with mods? Btw, I can see they are a "mod communauty" so, don't take this thread as an insult or anything, like I said it's an honest question from someone who know nothing about it.

(Hell, I played those game so many time and there is so much I still don't know about it haha)

Have a great day!

Shin

This will depend greatly on who you ask, there are players who swear by the vanilla game.

The way I see it after 20+ playthroughs though, mods are like apps on a smartphone or programs on a PC: the stock product itself might be great, but mods are a way to tailor it to do exactly what you want it to do. If you want awesome cheat weapons, you can do that; if you want your character to have multiple romantic/sexual encounters throughout his/her adventure you can do that; and if you want a deeper role-playing experience or increased tactical challenges you can do that as well.

So basically it depends on how you enjoy playing your game and what you'd like to see in it. Mods can refresh your game when you feel you know all the ins and outs of it, and definitely turn it into an overall superior experience.

The downside is that using mods makes your gaming more complex. Browsing through what the various modding communities offer and selecting mods that you think you'll like can take days, not to mention "prepping" your game by installing everything and making sure all the pieces mesh with each other without causing your game to crash or behave strangely. In the vanilla days with the full range of mods available for a BGT install, it wasn't unusual that I'd spend more than a week just browsing and installing mods before I even created my character. Then I could spend another day trying to find a suitable portrait picture.

In short, heavy modding is perhaps slightly more for "connoisseur" gamers (or control freaks) who don't mind spending large amounts of time on getting every playthrough just the way they want them. For people who'd rather jump right in and cut to the chase, vanilla might serve about as well.

Also of course, it's best to start small with a handful of mods you think will have a significant impact on your game, and then branch out from there.

nano

There are mods make the game harder and mods that make it easier. It's only as much of a cheat as you let it be

Once you've seen the original content, mods can put a fresh spin on things and keep your playthroughs exciting. That in my opinion is the real value of modding.

rizar123

@Shin
It's a really good answer, thanks a lot. Maybe I'm just fine with the vanilla game. Like I said, they are so much I still don't know/understand about it. Even with a lot of playthrough, or maybe I'm just too hard with myself with some of the stuff (Like traps, I feel they are almost cheats). Maybe I'll try mods sometime, but now, I still feel fine about the vanilla game.

And when you say (write) about the time you take to find portrait and all that, it throw me back in the days when gaming was really a thing. Not blasting through a game and going to another one right after. I think for my next playthrough I'll sit and try to polish my CHARNAME a bit more, portrait, colors, skill, class for which I feel something...

Thanks for this answer, it filled more than the question I asked =P

rizar123

@Nano
True, may I say that EE is a MOD itself?

velehal

My experience with mods is that many of them aren´t that good (or at least they don´t suit me, e.g. they add too powerful items, make the game easier, their tone is blatantly different from the rest of the game...) but some of them make the game (for me) so much better that I can´t play without them. The return to the vanilla game, after I have experienced them, is not just possible.

iavasechui

I like the ones that bring back BG1 characters for BG2, though I tend to avoid original npc mods since I tend to find their portraits don't match at all with the ones in game, and most of the time I hate the voice acting. I'll admit this is petty nitpicking but it drives me nuts and I really can't do anything about that...

ajwz

Shin said:

This will depend greatly on who you ask, there are players who swear by the vanilla game.

Some of us swear *at* the vanilla game.

Ascension does nothing to help towards fixing the problems in ToB unfortunately.

rizar123

@iavasechui
I can't imagine how aweful it would be if I remake the voice of CHARNAME myself. I think it will drive me way more nuts then the ingame voice hehe.

Hearing myself over and over saying : "Alright", "It must be done" or "Time to die". =P

Tsyrith

That's one way to make an excellent soundset, you are your best critic after all. Unless you're bad. :>

Pibaro

rizar123 said:

I always took the mods as cheats. Like adding super strong weapons or OP spells.

That's exactly what I thought before trying SCS for BGEE.
Everything is going to be different.
Every fight must be prepared and you have to learn how to use every item, spell or ability.
It's a new game and no, definitely it's not cheating!!!!

rizar123

Is there any playthrough or video or documentation about this "SCS" ? Like I said, I'm curious about this. It could be cool to test this out.

Telsia

It's not as complicated as it sounds to handle mods. It won't take weeks although I won't pretend I don't spend hours at times thinking about what party I want when I'm going to play through the game and then choosing whatever mod fits with it.

There's basically only three major modding sites that you need to more or less find everything, except Ascension - what's not working for EE yet anyway, and those are.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/ - More or less the most important in my opinion. Fixback and SCS can be found here.
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/ - Has some of my favorite NPC mods, like Xan and Kelsey.
http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ - Lots of different mods that usually are not to my taste but none the less well done.

Personally I can't even play the game anymore without Dungeon-Be-Gone. Starting dungeons are not exactly Bioware's strongest side and some of them are just awful to go through for the 50th time. Oh and Wheels of Prophecy might be a good alternative for Ascension until it comes out. It has most of it's story elements in it already and tries to improve ToB in a few other ways beyond it as well.

rizar123

Why improving ToB? Is ToB known for being mediocre?

Thanks for all those link @Telsia , I will look at those soon enough (read : while not being at work) hehe

Metalloman

@rizar123:

I think that here:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/bg:ee-mods

and here:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/bgii:ee-mods

you could find something specific about EE compatible mods.

mylegbig

Although I use several mods, including SCS and Rogue Rebalancing, I don't think any of them necessarily make the game "better." SCS is great, but if I wasn't overly familiar with this game I'd find it incredibly frustrating. But as Shin already mentioned, when you've played this game several times over the course of several years like almost everyone here has, you want something a little different. Same reason why a guy sleeping with a model will still eventually want to hook up with someone else, even if the other girl happens to be uglier.

rizar123

wow this example is very... strange... But it's also wrong, becasue everyone know that any guy would sleep with almost any girl anyway =P (joking btw)

I'll have to read about modification those mods do with the games.

Once again, thanks to everyone!

have a great day!