Installing Mods for an amateur

Slytherz

Good afternoon,

I have recently decided to go ahead and mod my BGEE to enhance gameplay and excitement, however I have no idea how to do it. When I use the search option on the forums, I keep finding threads about OS X. Which does not apply to me as I have a silly Windows OS. Anyway, how do I go about installing mods and will the WeiDu thing I keep seeing apply to all mods?

List of mods are:

More Style for Mages, (Primarily most desired mod) - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/18108/item-mod-more-style-for-mages-ranged-wizards-staffs-circlets-robe-visual-tweaks/p1#wsbg1

Deidre and Jooluv NPC's - http://www.baldursgatemods.com/forums/index.php?topic=7815.0

Drizzt Saga

Dark Horizon - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/18833/bg-ee-dark-horizons-released/p1

KaraTur - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/15959/mod-twas-a-slow-boat-from-kara-tur-queststorenew-items-release-90/p1

Wand Case

Armor and Weapons repack (additon/extension) - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13314/mod-teambgs-armor-pack-for-bgee-bgt-tutu/p1
AND
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14154/mod-teambgs-weapon-pack-for-bgee-bgt-tutu/p1
Though I am pretty sure both of these weapon/armor mods are BGEE 2 only?

2 NPCs - (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/34279/bg-ee-mod-caina-fighter-brigand-npc-and-zarra-ranger-archer-npc)


I included the links to several mods for either a brief explanation, or in the event you may be intrigued and wish to partake on a journey of similarity.

At any rate, this seems so very confusing and easily botchable. (Sigh how I miss my nexus MOD Manager )

I do thank anyone willing to take some time to coach me through it, provide a link to a coaching thread, additional information and etc.


Cheers,

Also are all BGEE mods compatible with BGEE 2 and back wards compatible ? I thought the thread (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/15380/bg-ee-mods-and-modding-tutorials-quick-links/p1) explained the anwser to that question as being a yes, though I am unsure.

Shin

Sure, here's some background and general info:

The basic mechanism of modding the BG games is to place edited game files in the override folder inside the main game directory. The game will then read those files rather than the compressed, standard files. The most fundamental way of creating a mod is therefore to modify a game file and put it in the override directory. This works great for just one mod, but when you use several mods in various combinations, very soon they will start containing different versions of the same game files, and if you just put them all in the override directory, whichever file goes in last will overwrite earlier ones and negate those changes.

WeiDU came as a solution to this, and is essentially a program that reads what changes a particular mod (if it's WeiDU-compatible) wants to make to the game files, and then executes those changes without erasing previous changes done. So with WeiDU, you can install a huge amount of mods together, and keep them from overwriting each other.


As for the how-to, almost all mods released nowadays are of the WeiDU variety, which makes installing them quite easy. Essentially you unpack the mod inside your game directory (e.g. \data\00766 for BGEE). A WeiDU mod consists of the mod content (which usually comes in a separate folder with the same name as the mod), a .tp2 file and an .exe file. The exe file is essentially an executable copy of WeiDU, whereas the .tp2 file is a list of instructions that the exe file uses to install that particular mod.

So, to install such a mod, you unpack it as mentioned above, and run the .exe file which will generally be named setup-modname.exe. That will open an installation prompt that will require you to make some choices as the mod installs.


As for the mods on your list they should present no problems with the possible exceptions of the Drizzt Saga that I can't really speak for. When installing several larger mods like Drizzt Saga and Dark Horizons that add a lot of content together it's always wise to read up on compatability and known issues first.

Finally, a BGEE mod isn't by itself compatible with BG2:EE, and the other way around. They will be compatible if they were designed/updated to work with both games. Each mod will contain information about which game it is meant for, though.

Slytherz

Okay, thanks. I'll have to give it a shot after work, maybe start out with the simple compatibility choices like the armor/weapon, mage stuff and 2 NPC before the content mods...

I assume that WeiDu is a program that has to be installed as well correct? Plus most of those I seen exe in the rar files so I'm good on that front.. Thanks again, any mods you recommend for a mage (elf evil enchanter) play through?

Shin

No, WeiDU in itself isn't installed, just executed. You can think of it as an application that installs mods for you. All those setup-modname.exe files contained in the mods are really just renamed copies of WeiDU.exe. WeiDU gets updated now and then, so newer mods tend to have a more up-to-date version included, which makes the .exe slightly bigger.