I ran into an interesting bug...I got the book off of Random Experience Bag #130958710375 in Firkraag's dungeon, read it, got the Silent Swamps location unlocked on my map...but now, after killing Firkraags, the location is gone and buying and reading the book from Galoomp doesn't do anything.
I took VIconia as instructed and she was kidnapped. But when I free her she lost ALL her equipment. She had things like mace of disruption but I can't find it anywhere! I looked on crates, etc but nothing, I can't loose my loot, guys! lol
I have a strange bug where one of my party members got afflicted by the Maze effect. It eventually wore off, but the animation is repeating over and over again. Along with the sound effect.
Hey, I don't think it's a bug. In the villages you were approached by a druid that told you that you need to stab the Queen with a branch of the enchanted tree. He gave you the branch and before you can do anything to her, you need to equip the item and literally stab her with it. Otherwise, she will remain immortal. It was all in the dialogue.
> OK, I will try that. "It was all in the dialogue" I bet it was, but there is a lot of it & I likely skipped it.
I had that too and I think there is some way for insta-death, e. g. explained with some ward. I
think I ran into it when I dropped the item before leaving again or something.
I tend to skip dialogue too, but the item to kill her was quite clear from the dialogue. It's actually
a fairly straightforward mod - just go in and kill them all.
The black queen mini-quest was also hilarious, Viconia was very pissed and the dialogue reflected
that. I guess my only gripe is that the item offered by the demon is too good to pass; it seems to be
the best weapon of its type. No complaints as such but I find it much more useful than the two
scimitars found in the quest too. The extra ability of that item is sooooooo good. It literally
solo-decided some battles, or at the least was a huge help, more so than most other items. I am
not suggesting to nerf it, but just wanted to say that I always head straight for the item, so perhaps
the other rewards could be reviewed - e. g. made a bit better (though not overpowering).
Overall I think this is in lava's top 3 mods; I have not played the recent ravenloft one yet though.
This could have been a great story mod. However, as of v6.93 it's got a number of issues and observations:
Bugs:
"The White Queen" quest journal entry does not seem to get updated after a certain point (probably the initial dialog with the druid). Even though the quest update notification appears multiple times along the playthrough, the journal entry stays the same showing the text "Something strange is happening in the swamps...".
"The White Queen's Palace: A Demon" quest does not get updated or closed (even after the main quest gets completed) if the player decides to kill the demon either by attacking it directly or by making it hostile through the appropriate dialog option. The corresponding dialog with one of the party members saying that it was a good idea to kill the demon does appear though, so it seems some scripting does execute after all after you kill it.
The White Queen has the portrait of White Enchanter.
After the player kills the White Queen, if one lets the druid go away, he just stays there with his dialog resetting to the state where the player could ask him questions about the White Queen, the barrier, etc.
The White Queen's last dialog lines (where the player can ask her if she tried to look for her child, etc.) do not ever appear if the player enters her throne room with any members of the party, except the player themselves. After the dialog cuts on her telling you about her lost child, she just stays there with the neutral marker, while the white golems charge at the party.
Weird scripting / "unfinished" story twists:
Not sure if there should be a quest update after killing the White Queen, but this event seems to be quite important.
When the player enters the queen's room she immediately initiates a dialog. If the player choses a "peaceful" path through the dialog, everything points to that one could take her side by killing the druid and help her end her torment by using the tree somehow. During this dialog at no moment the queen tells the player that she would want them dead regardless. But once the dialog finishes, she is hostile anyway, which almost feels like a bug. A non-hostile way to deal with her would be great, as the story practically brings the player to a choice between the queen and the druid, but then removes it with the queen attacking you without any reason no matter what you say.
The Druid disappears if the player progresses the quest all the way to the queen's room but does not kill her. The druid reappears in front of the castle only and only after the player kills the queen, which is a bit weird, considering that the story practically brings the player to a choice between the queen and the druid (apologies for the repeat), so it would seem logical if one could face him before killing the queen.
After the player kills the druid, Shaneelah the White Hag suddenly appears, throws some informative rhyme and then disappears as abruptly as she appeared ending the quest and leaving us with the "what was that?" expression. IMHO it feels too abrupt and "unfinished". And it's even worse in case the player decides to leave the druid live. Some additional dialog lines there that would make the player understand and feel that the story has been concluded would probably salvage this, at least partially.
Questionable balancing:
Example: White golems are waaay more difficult compared to the rest of the enemies. Especially in the White Queen's room, where there are two of them and you cannot lure them out, making it nearly impossible to kill/survive if you're in the mid levels (10-12), unless you seriously specialize your entire party to counter them with specific spells, expensive potions and high tier magical gear.
Hi,
so, to confirm things, I just replayed the whole mod to make sure how things work. Let me address things one by one:
"The White Queen" quest journal entry does not seem to get updated after a certain point (probably the initial dialog with the druid). Even though the quest update notification appears multiple times along the playthrough, the journal entry stays the same showing the text "Something strange is happening in the swamps...".
The journal updates properly, but in my older mods when your quest entry is updated, the first one is erased and a new one, longer is added. So there is always just one entry at a time and becomes longer and longer. I checked and everything updated properly, and once I finished the quest, it was marked as solved.
"The White Queen's Palace: A Demon" quest does not get updated or closed (even after the main quest gets completed) if the player decides to kill the demon either by attacking it directly or by making it hostile through the appropriate dialog option. The corresponding dialog with one of the party members saying that it was a good idea to kill the demon does appear though, so it seems some scripting does execute after all after you kill it.
If you first got the entry, by - for example - accepting the demon and THEN killed him, you would end up with unerasable entry, yes. The journal would be erased / marked as solved only if you brought him the head. It is fixed in v7.0.
The White Queen has the portrait of White Enchanter.
Ah, someone's playing with some mod that adds portraits to the game, as White Enchanter does not have a portrait at all, it is added by a different mod. Furthermore, I think the other mod messes the portraits, because what they mark as Enchanter's portrait, is the White Queen's portrait, and what they mark as White Queen's portrait is White Beastmaster's portrait. So that's actually not this mod's fault.
After the player kills the White Queen, if one lets the druid go away, he just stays there with his dialog resetting to the state where the player could ask him questions about the White Queen, the barrier, etc.
That's fixed in v7.0.
The White Queen's last dialog lines (where the player can ask her if she tried to look for her child, etc.) do not ever appear if the player enters her throne room with any members of the party, except the player themselves. After the dialog cuts on her telling you about her lost child, she just stays there with the neutral marker, while the white golems charge at the party.
Not sure if I ever saw that and I don't think anyone ever reported it. I'm not sure what happened in your game, but I added additional checks for the party members (or rather interjections) so perhaps that's going to help with this one. The checks are present in v7.0.
Not sure if there should be a quest update after killing the White Queen, but this event seems to be quite important.
That happens if you finish the dialogue. Everything get's updated and all. Not sure if you killed her without finishing the dialogue or what, but that surely messes up the variables.
When the player enters the queen's room she immediately initiates a dialog. If the player choses a "peaceful" path through the dialog, everything points to that one could take her side by killing the druid and help her end her torment by using the tree somehow. During this dialog at no moment the queen tells the player that she would want them dead regardless. But once the dialog finishes, she is hostile anyway, which almost feels like a bug. A non-hostile way to deal with her would be great, as the story practically brings the player to a choice between the queen and the druid, but then removes it with the queen attacking you without any reason no matter what you say.
She wants to die. She doesn't want any of this to continue. She mentioned that in the dialogue. @58 = ~I want this death, without you this war may never end, but please, don't let him go. Defeat the druid. Do the same with the hag if you find her. I beg you.~
The Druid disappears if the player progresses the quest all the way to the queen's room but does not kill her. The druid reappears in front of the castle only and only after the player kills the queen, which is a bit weird, considering that the story practically brings the player to a choice between the queen and the druid (apologies for the repeat), so it would seem logical if one could face him before killing the queen.
There is no option to progress without killing the queen, this is the only way and the real choice is the final talk with the druid. Again, Queen wants it to end and her life is prolonged already, with necromancer's magic. She becomes hostile, because she is taking the choice form you, she is deciding for herself to throw herself into the battle for the last time. So it's as intended. To progress, you must become her end.
After the player kills the druid, Shaneelah the White Hag suddenly appears, throws some informative rhyme and then disappears as abruptly as she appeared ending the quest and leaving us with the "what was that?" expression. IMHO it feels too abrupt and "unfinished". And it's even worse in case the player decides to leave the druid live. Some additional dialog lines there that would make the player understand and feel that the story has been concluded would probably salvage this, at least partially.
The talk is short, but it is as it is. The had is supposed to provide the feeling of slight confusion and suggest it was all messed up, because... well, it was. I am not going to add new content to this after 13 years from the release. The mod is already translated into 8 more languages and that would provide new lines for all the options. Plus, I am happy with the content as it is.
Example: White golems are waaay more difficult compared to the rest of the enemies. Especially in the White Queen's room, where there are two of them and you cannot lure them out, making it nearly impossible to kill/survive if you're in the mid levels (10-12), unless you seriously specialize your entire party to counter them with specific spells, expensive potions and high tier magical gear.
Huh, I more often hear that my mods are too easy, not that they are too difficult. Anyway, they are meant to be difficult so I will keep them as they are. If they are too difficult, just return to the quest later, when you level up or get some more items.
Anyway, these were a couple things that could get a bit improved, I mentioned them above and v7.0 of the mod is now available on my website.
It's becoming almost a daily routine to check all of your mods for new updates and they often happen to magically be there! Thanks for the continous, decennal, support!
One of my favorites from the Colors series. A simple dungeon crawl executed well. I like the environments, music and (mostly) the progression of enemies. My feedback:
White. White. White. I Shall Never Forget exercised some restraint, and Tales of the Deep Gardens had the good sense to use many colors. The White Queen harps on like a broken record to its detriment.
There is a great progression of enemies: first the swamp creatures, then we switch to undead for reasons explained later, then a human servant of the queen with undead, then several other human servants, then animal servants and golems, and for the finale the queen herself with...two golems. A missed opportunity here, in my opinion, not taking advantage of the breadth of enemies already introduced.
It has been my experience that the golems tend to kill the enchanter and the queen herself with their cone of cold. I think any enemy accompanied by the golems should have a lot of cold resistance.
So I just finished this mod for the first time. This is a review and spoilers will be included so skip to the end if you haven't played this mod yet.
I like how it's set up to buy a book and then read it to get the location on the map. The narration when traveling to the swamp for the first time felt out of place to me. Most narration is done by the voice actor for Serevok throughout the series and I didn't like this one. It sounds like the same person who did the voice for the necromancer and I liked the voice acting there, I think this would be better with some music and text or just transport the characters to the map with nothing in between since we already read the setup for the quest in the book that we bought at the promenade.
In terms of art I would say there are two camps. On one hand when this was released there was no Icewind dale in EET mod so the buildings and interiors would be unique to this mod and serve as high quality set pieces. However, if you use Icewind Dale in EET like I do then you will be seeing some of these buildings for the second time and it will feel like the developers ran out of money and started using the same assets in multiple areas or it will feel like a mod. To be fair this is a mod but great mods don't feel like mods but rather, an extension of the original game. The first map uses assets from BG2 and it looks like an original map that fits the world and art design of BG2 perfectly. The druid hideout, White Queens palace and interior stand out as problematic for my particular setup. Character portraits don't match the BG2 aesthatic and are low resolution, blurry and sometimes aliased.
Music is great. I enjoyed all of the music and the battle music for the white queen really stood out.
The characters were interesting and so was the story. I was interested in what happened to the village and what part the protagonists played in it.
The Gameplay was pretty fun. I was level 11 and use SCS with triple hitpoints for enemies via difficulty tweak. The elemental summon component from SCS made the ice gollums extreme and all of the enemies felt more tanky than the usual BG2 quests. Perhaps a little more difficult than the quests I had been doing up to this point but it could be saved for later if it became problematic. I like difficulty but I do feel that the number of enemy casters is a bit annoying because I simply didn't have enough secret word, spell thrust, and breach spells to bring down their defenses. Perhaps this wouldn't have been as bad if I didn't use SCS but I found that I needed to rest like 5 times during this quest because I needed to replenish my spells. If you don't bring their defense down quickly you get hit with tons of AOE spells like silence, slow, gas clouds that do mass damage ect. The ice gollums were so nasty I had to chug health potions constantly with my tank to hold it off while the rest of my party used fire arrows from a distance. This felt like a nonstop boss fight after boss fight once you enter the white queens palace. All in all I would say that the gameplay was fun but a bit unbalanced. Also, if you hug the top of the map as you are heading toward the palace you will miss the druid and die without knowing why which feels like a design oversight. Following the river will cause you to see the druid and bypass the instant death problem.
Items in this mod are a mixture of good and bad. I think it's a bit fourth wall breaking to find the Claw of Kazgorath in some random swamp out in the middle of nowhere when you had it on you a few weeks earlier when you were captured. Some of the items are a bit OP in my opinion and I probably gained 25,000 gold after selling off everything I didn't want from this quest.
How good this mod is depends on weather or not you use Icewind Dale in EET. It depends on what level you are when you play it and what kind of rewards you like which all plays into how many mods you have installed with this one. For me personally, I don't regret playing this mod. I had fun and enjoyed the story and music as well as the gameplay for the most part but unfortunately it doesn't fit my game setup. I would give this mod a "C" rating and probably won't install it for future playthroughs. This is mainly because of the reused art assets from Icewind Dale but also because some of the items and gameplay balance issues keeps this one down and some quality issues with the character portraits and narration. The roleplaying options feel limited, It seems like you are going to get funneled into a fight regardless of what you say. I can see why some players might rate this as a good mod and if I played it without Icewind Dale in EET I would probably give it a "B-" with a higher possibility of installing it in the future. This mod has a bunch of grammar problems in English but it didn't stop me from understanding what was going on or ruin the experience. If I play through this one again at some point I may write down the issues and report them through private message. Thanks for sharing this mod with the community, it was worth playing.
So, I am doing a quick speed run, to test the new release of Dusk NPC mod,
but also do a play-through of Shadows over Soubar (never completed it),
as well a few more things.
I found something interesting in regards to the White Queen mod, possibly a small bug,
or, if the word bug is too drastic, a little oversight. That mod is almost 10
years old, so naturally not every condition may have been tested for.
Situation: I hasted my party to speed-run through. Before entering the
main building, Paina was doing pixie dust. I never tried that before in
regards to this mod; I only did it because I am speed-running through
right now.
Interestingly none of the enemies, who usually turn hostile, turned
hostile. (Main actor and Fall NPC also were hiding in addition to that.)
I got to the big nasty evil thing in the middle, accepted his mission and
decided to fight the main other evil guy in the first area upon entering. I
am a bit vague here to not give too many spoilers.)
I actually attacked him right away, where normally he gives a speech,
but my attack seems to bypass the triggered speech. Also, normally
the black queen (she is in my team, as I love the scene where the
white queen interacts with the black queen) would be gone, but
since she was invisible, she remains with the team.
Ok, so I kill everyone and satisfy the demand of that evil thing in
the middle. The next two NPCs give their usual speech. Now I am
at the final area and the white queen does not give her usual
speech. I decide to quickly engage her guardians in combat and
then something hilarious happens: because the guardians are
now red (hostile), the white queen joins the fight - AND HELPS
ME WHACK DOWN THE GUARDIANS.
I found this part especially amusing - she kills her own bodyguards.
Anyway, I am pretty certain that this outcome was not what Lava
had in his mind.
There are a couple of ways I think how to solve this or mitigate
it; or perhaps make it harder. The obvious one would be to
have some dispel spells ready, at the least at the entrance. This
could perhaps be a triggered True Sight spell or a trap that
triggers it right upon entering. Of course some other alternatives
exist, e. g. some NPC triggering a speech because of some foul
or sweet spell upon entering, or anything like this.
In the final area, upon a fight starting (e. g. the guardians turning
hostile, the speech could be automatically triggered and/or a
dispel/reveal be auto-casted or triggered too, but I think the
main issue is that the white queen initially did not turn hostile
and remained in speech mode, which was then the culprit of
turning against her own guardians). Anyway, this is a minor thing,
I guess most people will do the slow approach, enter, and then
trigger reactions. Invisibility is pretty powerful overall, although
I think hiding and sneak could also work to some extent. (I
am thinking here of a party where all members can hide and
sneak. Anyone ever done a full-rogue-only party? I dislike
the rogue since I feel the thief class is underpowered, but that
would be a fun-attempt.) Anyway, just reporting this.
Edit: Oops, I killed everyone in the big house, but on my way
out, the black queen was teleported away, with the speech
of the white queen saying she is hers now. But at that time
everyone inside the house was already dead, so there is indeed
a bug (as the one doing that speech is dead), e. g. a missing check
here, in pseudo code "if black queen is still alive, continue" (or,
whoever the NPC is; the portrait got me confused right now, looked
almost as if both are black queens hehe - or it may be my eyesight
getting worse and worse). I understand that this check is normally
never done, because nobody is usually invisible, but still I think it
should be checked whether she is alive or not at that point regardless.
Edit2: Interestingly, when I exited the main house, normally there is another final
battle, but this one also did not trigger. It seems the storyarc requires a
linear progression here. I killed the druid in his hideout though,
since I knew he was evil too. :P (It's kind of fun to test for unforeseen things.)
Upon re-evaluation, and also noticing more problems similar to the one
reported here, I begin to believe that this may be coming from another
mod, e. g. some "improved AI in combat" or something like that, as I did not
have that issue in earlier games (e. g. where the enemy boss suddenly attacks
his own allies, because they are suddenly red aka hostile). I am not sure which
mod may have caused that change in AI behaviour though. For instance,
I just noticed almost the same problem in Fall's mod, where one big
lizard man suddenly also helps me and attacks his buddy, who turned
red (aka hostile) a moment before. (The invis-sneak-through issue bypassing
the progression of the quest may still be a real issue, though minor, as one can
avoid this by not being invisible anyway. So these may be unrelated issues
actually.)
Comments
I took VIconia as instructed and she was kidnapped. But when I free her she lost ALL her equipment. She had things like mace of disruption but I can't find it anywhere! I looked on crates, etc but nothing, I can't loose my loot, guys! lol
Any helps is apreciated!
Cheers!
Thanks
I had that too and I think there is some way for insta-death, e. g. explained with some ward. I
think I ran into it when I dropped the item before leaving again or something.
I tend to skip dialogue too, but the item to kill her was quite clear from the dialogue. It's actually
a fairly straightforward mod - just go in and kill them all.
The black queen mini-quest was also hilarious, Viconia was very pissed and the dialogue reflected
that. I guess my only gripe is that the item offered by the demon is too good to pass; it seems to be
the best weapon of its type. No complaints as such but I find it much more useful than the two
scimitars found in the quest too. The extra ability of that item is sooooooo good. It literally
solo-decided some battles, or at the least was a huge help, more so than most other items. I am
not suggesting to nerf it, but just wanted to say that I always head straight for the item, so perhaps
the other rewards could be reviewed - e. g. made a bit better (though not overpowering).
Overall I think this is in lava's top 3 mods; I have not played the recent ravenloft one yet though.
Bugs:
Weird scripting / "unfinished" story twists:
Questionable balancing:
so, to confirm things, I just replayed the whole mod to make sure how things work. Let me address things one by one: The journal updates properly, but in my older mods when your quest entry is updated, the first one is erased and a new one, longer is added. So there is always just one entry at a time and becomes longer and longer. I checked and everything updated properly, and once I finished the quest, it was marked as solved. If you first got the entry, by - for example - accepting the demon and THEN killed him, you would end up with unerasable entry, yes. The journal would be erased / marked as solved only if you brought him the head. It is fixed in v7.0. Ah, someone's playing with some mod that adds portraits to the game, as White Enchanter does not have a portrait at all, it is added by a different mod. Furthermore, I think the other mod messes the portraits, because what they mark as Enchanter's portrait, is the White Queen's portrait, and what they mark as White Queen's portrait is White Beastmaster's portrait. So that's actually not this mod's fault. That's fixed in v7.0. Not sure if I ever saw that and I don't think anyone ever reported it. I'm not sure what happened in your game, but I added additional checks for the party members (or rather interjections) so perhaps that's going to help with this one. The checks are present in v7.0. That happens if you finish the dialogue. Everything get's updated and all. Not sure if you killed her without finishing the dialogue or what, but that surely messes up the variables. She wants to die. She doesn't want any of this to continue. She mentioned that in the dialogue.
@58 = ~I want this death, without you this war may never end, but please, don't let him go. Defeat the druid. Do the same with the hag if you find her. I beg you.~ There is no option to progress without killing the queen, this is the only way and the real choice is the final talk with the druid. Again, Queen wants it to end and her life is prolonged already, with necromancer's magic. She becomes hostile, because she is taking the choice form you, she is deciding for herself to throw herself into the battle for the last time. So it's as intended. To progress, you must become her end. The talk is short, but it is as it is. The had is supposed to provide the feeling of slight confusion and suggest it was all messed up, because... well, it was. I am not going to add new content to this after 13 years from the release. The mod is already translated into 8 more languages and that would provide new lines for all the options. Plus, I am happy with the content as it is. Huh, I more often hear that my mods are too easy, not that they are too difficult. Anyway, they are meant to be difficult so I will keep them as they are. If they are too difficult, just return to the quest later, when you level up or get some more items.
Anyway, these were a couple things that could get a bit improved, I mentioned them above and v7.0 of the mod is now available on my website.
Cheers!
There is a great progression of enemies: first the swamp creatures, then we switch to undead for reasons explained later, then a human servant of the queen with undead, then several other human servants, then animal servants and golems, and for the finale the queen herself with...two golems. A missed opportunity here, in my opinion, not taking advantage of the breadth of enemies already introduced.
It has been my experience that the golems tend to kill the enchanter and the queen herself with their cone of cold. I think any enemy accompanied by the golems should have a lot of cold resistance.
Cheers!
I like how it's set up to buy a book and then read it to get the location on the map. The narration when traveling to the swamp for the first time felt out of place to me. Most narration is done by the voice actor for Serevok throughout the series and I didn't like this one. It sounds like the same person who did the voice for the necromancer and I liked the voice acting there, I think this would be better with some music and text or just transport the characters to the map with nothing in between since we already read the setup for the quest in the book that we bought at the promenade.
In terms of art I would say there are two camps. On one hand when this was released there was no Icewind dale in EET mod so the buildings and interiors would be unique to this mod and serve as high quality set pieces. However, if you use Icewind Dale in EET like I do then you will be seeing some of these buildings for the second time and it will feel like the developers ran out of money and started using the same assets in multiple areas or it will feel like a mod. To be fair this is a mod but great mods don't feel like mods but rather, an extension of the original game. The first map uses assets from BG2 and it looks like an original map that fits the world and art design of BG2 perfectly. The druid hideout, White Queens palace and interior stand out as problematic for my particular setup. Character portraits don't match the BG2 aesthatic and are low resolution, blurry and sometimes aliased.
Music is great. I enjoyed all of the music and the battle music for the white queen really stood out.
The characters were interesting and so was the story. I was interested in what happened to the village and what part the protagonists played in it.
The Gameplay was pretty fun. I was level 11 and use SCS with triple hitpoints for enemies via difficulty tweak. The elemental summon component from SCS made the ice gollums extreme and all of the enemies felt more tanky than the usual BG2 quests. Perhaps a little more difficult than the quests I had been doing up to this point but it could be saved for later if it became problematic. I like difficulty but I do feel that the number of enemy casters is a bit annoying because I simply didn't have enough secret word, spell thrust, and breach spells to bring down their defenses. Perhaps this wouldn't have been as bad if I didn't use SCS but I found that I needed to rest like 5 times during this quest because I needed to replenish my spells. If you don't bring their defense down quickly you get hit with tons of AOE spells like silence, slow, gas clouds that do mass damage ect. The ice gollums were so nasty I had to chug health potions constantly with my tank to hold it off while the rest of my party used fire arrows from a distance. This felt like a nonstop boss fight after boss fight once you enter the white queens palace. All in all I would say that the gameplay was fun but a bit unbalanced. Also, if you hug the top of the map as you are heading toward the palace you will miss the druid and die without knowing why which feels like a design oversight. Following the river will cause you to see the druid and bypass the instant death problem.
Items in this mod are a mixture of good and bad. I think it's a bit fourth wall breaking to find the Claw of Kazgorath in some random swamp out in the middle of nowhere when you had it on you a few weeks earlier when you were captured. Some of the items are a bit OP in my opinion and I probably gained 25,000 gold after selling off everything I didn't want from this quest.
How good this mod is depends on weather or not you use Icewind Dale in EET. It depends on what level you are when you play it and what kind of rewards you like which all plays into how many mods you have installed with this one. For me personally, I don't regret playing this mod. I had fun and enjoyed the story and music as well as the gameplay for the most part but unfortunately it doesn't fit my game setup. I would give this mod a "C" rating and probably won't install it for future playthroughs. This is mainly because of the reused art assets from Icewind Dale but also because some of the items and gameplay balance issues keeps this one down and some quality issues with the character portraits and narration. The roleplaying options feel limited, It seems like you are going to get funneled into a fight regardless of what you say. I can see why some players might rate this as a good mod and if I played it without Icewind Dale in EET I would probably give it a "B-" with a higher possibility of installing it in the future. This mod has a bunch of grammar problems in English but it didn't stop me from understanding what was going on or ruin the experience. If I play through this one again at some point I may write down the issues and report them through private message. Thanks for sharing this mod with the community, it was worth playing.
but also do a play-through of Shadows over Soubar (never completed it),
as well a few more things.
I found something interesting in regards to the White Queen mod, possibly a small bug,
or, if the word bug is too drastic, a little oversight. That mod is almost 10
years old, so naturally not every condition may have been tested for.
Situation: I hasted my party to speed-run through. Before entering the
main building, Paina was doing pixie dust. I never tried that before in
regards to this mod; I only did it because I am speed-running through
right now.
Interestingly none of the enemies, who usually turn hostile, turned
hostile. (Main actor and Fall NPC also were hiding in addition to that.)
I got to the big nasty evil thing in the middle, accepted his mission and
decided to fight the main other evil guy in the first area upon entering. I
am a bit vague here to not give too many spoilers.)
I actually attacked him right away, where normally he gives a speech,
but my attack seems to bypass the triggered speech. Also, normally
the black queen (she is in my team, as I love the scene where the
white queen interacts with the black queen) would be gone, but
since she was invisible, she remains with the team.
Ok, so I kill everyone and satisfy the demand of that evil thing in
the middle. The next two NPCs give their usual speech. Now I am
at the final area and the white queen does not give her usual
speech. I decide to quickly engage her guardians in combat and
then something hilarious happens: because the guardians are
now red (hostile), the white queen joins the fight - AND HELPS
ME WHACK DOWN THE GUARDIANS.
I found this part especially amusing - she kills her own bodyguards.
Anyway, I am pretty certain that this outcome was not what Lava
had in his mind.
There are a couple of ways I think how to solve this or mitigate
it; or perhaps make it harder. The obvious one would be to
have some dispel spells ready, at the least at the entrance. This
could perhaps be a triggered True Sight spell or a trap that
triggers it right upon entering. Of course some other alternatives
exist, e. g. some NPC triggering a speech because of some foul
or sweet spell upon entering, or anything like this.
In the final area, upon a fight starting (e. g. the guardians turning
hostile, the speech could be automatically triggered and/or a
dispel/reveal be auto-casted or triggered too, but I think the
main issue is that the white queen initially did not turn hostile
and remained in speech mode, which was then the culprit of
turning against her own guardians). Anyway, this is a minor thing,
I guess most people will do the slow approach, enter, and then
trigger reactions. Invisibility is pretty powerful overall, although
I think hiding and sneak could also work to some extent. (I
am thinking here of a party where all members can hide and
sneak. Anyone ever done a full-rogue-only party? I dislike
the rogue since I feel the thief class is underpowered, but that
would be a fun-attempt.) Anyway, just reporting this.
Edit: Oops, I killed everyone in the big house, but on my way
out, the black queen was teleported away, with the speech
of the white queen saying she is hers now. But at that time
everyone inside the house was already dead, so there is indeed
a bug (as the one doing that speech is dead), e. g. a missing check
here, in pseudo code "if black queen is still alive, continue" (or,
whoever the NPC is; the portrait got me confused right now, looked
almost as if both are black queens hehe - or it may be my eyesight
getting worse and worse). I understand that this check is normally
never done, because nobody is usually invisible, but still I think it
should be checked whether she is alive or not at that point regardless.
Edit2: Interestingly, when I exited the main house, normally there is another final
battle, but this one also did not trigger. It seems the storyarc requires a
linear progression here. I killed the druid in his hideout though,
since I knew he was evil too. :P (It's kind of fun to test for unforeseen things.)
reported here, I begin to believe that this may be coming from another
mod, e. g. some "improved AI in combat" or something like that, as I did not
have that issue in earlier games (e. g. where the enemy boss suddenly attacks
his own allies, because they are suddenly red aka hostile). I am not sure which
mod may have caused that change in AI behaviour though. For instance,
I just noticed almost the same problem in Fall's mod, where one big
lizard man suddenly also helps me and attacks his buddy, who turned
red (aka hostile) a moment before. (The invis-sneak-through issue bypassing
the progression of the quest may still be a real issue, though minor, as one can
avoid this by not being invisible anyway. So these may be unrelated issues
actually.)