IWD:EE Android Mods: A Master List
Trasd
Member Posts: 63
NOTE: As there don't seem to be a whole lot of Android compatible IWD:EE mods (and little interest), I decided to write a tutorial on "hacking" game-data on Android itself. Modify ability scores, manipulate inventory items, edit almost any dynamic game data you want. Check out the post!
My first experience with Infinity engine games was on the PS2 (or was it a PS1, who can remember?) and I was truly disappointed. In retrospect, I highly doubt that was an Infinity engine port, they probably just licensed the Baldur's Gate name.
Because of that first experience, I missed out on some truly spectacular RPGing. I thought the PC game was the same as the PS2 and so, I failed to understand the attraction. Fast forward many years, Android comes of age and companies like Beamdog breathe new life into classic RPG games. I discovered BGII via GOG, GemRB, and Android (it took a bit to get it working on my table and it never worked great). I got frustrated with the GemRB system (they should have stuck with the 16bit SDL until the 32bit was ready) and I completely removed it from my tablet.
The next thing I know, Beamdog released BG:EE for Android. I bought it immediately and, I'm hooked. But, most of the RPG games I play now are much more customizable and I've even written a few mods myself. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or data file access needed to mod IWD:EE.
I'm not done with my first play-through of BGI yet, but I wanted a break. It wouldn't make sense to play BGII until I finished BGI at least once, so I bought Icewind Dale instead. Then, I looked for mods that would work on the Android port. I didn't find many. There isn't even a dedicated forum topic, until now!
I'm not the best person to address this particular subject because this is my first IWD play-through, but I am capable of keeping a central list!
So, if you've written a mod that works with the Android port or have tested mods that work (or need someone else to test one for you), post those here with a short description and a link. Be sure to include any necessary installation instructions if they vary from the norm. After a mod is verified to work with IWD:EE on Android, I will add it to the main list.
If you know of a mod that does not work, let me know that too, and I will add it to the does-not-work list, but lets try to keep this list concise and as small as possible (only submit mods that would make sense to try).
For general Android mod installation directions and Android specific mod requirements, see AstroBryGuy's post here. If you're in a hurry though, the main bit of information to take away is "Mods that only require being copied into the override directory should work..."
UNVERIFIED IWD:EE MODS SUBMITTED FOR FURTHER TESTING (feel free to test):
norest.rar Remove certain toon restrictions; Installation: copy everything from the "norest" directory to the "override" directory, ignore the EXE Could not create a Dwarf Pally, can someone install on desktop and see what other files are used?
Steal.zip Enable pickpocketing of more items
RNDTREAS.2DA.zip Add Morningstar of Action +4 to random treasure list
VERIFIED MODS THAT DO NOT WORK WITH IWD:EE ANDROID PORT:
e.g. Profs_Mod.zip Remove proficiency restrictions; Won't work with IWD:EE because of specific references
VERIFIED MODS THAT WORK WITH ANDROID'S IWD:EE PORT:
My first experience with Infinity engine games was on the PS2 (or was it a PS1, who can remember?) and I was truly disappointed. In retrospect, I highly doubt that was an Infinity engine port, they probably just licensed the Baldur's Gate name.
Because of that first experience, I missed out on some truly spectacular RPGing. I thought the PC game was the same as the PS2 and so, I failed to understand the attraction. Fast forward many years, Android comes of age and companies like Beamdog breathe new life into classic RPG games. I discovered BGII via GOG, GemRB, and Android (it took a bit to get it working on my table and it never worked great). I got frustrated with the GemRB system (they should have stuck with the 16bit SDL until the 32bit was ready) and I completely removed it from my tablet.
The next thing I know, Beamdog released BG:EE for Android. I bought it immediately and, I'm hooked. But, most of the RPG games I play now are much more customizable and I've even written a few mods myself. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or data file access needed to mod IWD:EE.
I'm not done with my first play-through of BGI yet, but I wanted a break. It wouldn't make sense to play BGII until I finished BGI at least once, so I bought Icewind Dale instead. Then, I looked for mods that would work on the Android port. I didn't find many. There isn't even a dedicated forum topic, until now!
I'm not the best person to address this particular subject because this is my first IWD play-through, but I am capable of keeping a central list!
So, if you've written a mod that works with the Android port or have tested mods that work (or need someone else to test one for you), post those here with a short description and a link. Be sure to include any necessary installation instructions if they vary from the norm. After a mod is verified to work with IWD:EE on Android, I will add it to the main list.
If you know of a mod that does not work, let me know that too, and I will add it to the does-not-work list, but lets try to keep this list concise and as small as possible (only submit mods that would make sense to try).
For general Android mod installation directions and Android specific mod requirements, see AstroBryGuy's post here. If you're in a hurry though, the main bit of information to take away is "Mods that only require being copied into the override directory should work..."
UNVERIFIED IWD:EE MODS SUBMITTED FOR FURTHER TESTING (feel free to test):
norest.rar Remove certain toon restrictions; Installation: copy everything from the "norest" directory to the "override" directory, ignore the EXE Could not create a Dwarf Pally, can someone install on desktop and see what other files are used?
Steal.zip Enable pickpocketing of more items
RNDTREAS.2DA.zip Add Morningstar of Action +4 to random treasure list
VERIFIED MODS THAT DO NOT WORK WITH IWD:EE ANDROID PORT:
e.g. Profs_Mod.zip Remove proficiency restrictions; Won't work with IWD:EE because of specific references
VERIFIED MODS THAT WORK WITH ANDROID'S IWD:EE PORT:
Post edited by Trasd on
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norest.rar This mod removes class-type restrictions; Installation: copy everything from the "norest" directory to the "override" directory, ignore the EXE Could not create a Dwarf Pally, can someone install on desktop and see what other files are used?
Steal.zip Allows the pickpocketing of items previously unattainable; I'm not that far into the game yet and don't know the normal behavior, but it seems to work
RNDTREAS.2DA.zip Add Morningstar of Action +4 to random treasure list
As far as mod installation difficulty for Android, to be honest, I don't fully understand the problems myself (I think Beamdog just hasn't implemented the code, yet). I'm going by what others (that know more about this stuff than I do) have said: here and here, to name a couple. Oh, and if a mod only has to go in the "override" directory, it should work (that's the specific criteria, as a matter of fact).
BTW, "open" for Android just means the source code is open source, not proprietary (like iOS). Anyone can download Android OS source code, even modified source code by OEMs! In theory, no one can do anything to you or your data without your explicit permission (you can view the OS code to make sure nothing sneaky is going on). That's why you have to approve an app's permission request when you install it. iOS (read your TOS) can do anything they want with your data (and collect that data surreptitiously, within the TOS, of course). This is why I try, at every opportunity, to educate people about permissions.
I have written mods (for Skyrim and other, older Bethesda Game Studios' games as well as NWN games - if memory serves), but have not attempted any Infinity Engine mods myself. The main reasons is that I don't have access to PC versions; I've even written No-CD cracks (Morrowind GOTY, for example). However, I did miss out on the original Infinity Engine game invasion and this is my first time playing them, so I need to know the engine better first, anyway.
But, you actually can get to dialog.tlk on an unrooted Android, if you know how (probably a lot of people know this already and I just think I'm good), though I don't know if it can be repacked correctly (since it doesn't work in "override," I would think replacing the original would work, unless Beamdog performs a CRC or something). I am pretty good at figuring this stuff out (LOL, sometimes), so I will explain how to do it here in the hopes that it may help others.
TO GET ACCESS TO DIALOG.TLK ON AN UNROOTED ANDROID, do the following:
- Find the "patch.400.com.beamdog.icewinddale.obb" file (mine is on my internal SD Card at "/sdcard/Android/obb/com.beamdog.icewinddale" - this file name may change with future updates)
- Copy this file to a work directory - MAKE A BACKUP! (the file is currently 1.24GB, so it might take awhile)
- Change the file's extension ("obb") to "zip" (obb files are really just renamed zip files)
- Decompress the file
That's it. You should now have access to the dialog.tlk file (it's in the language subdirectories).In theory, you should be able to copy a modified dialog.tlk file into the directory structure, recompress the directory, then change the zip extension back to obb. Finally, you'd copy the resulting file back to where you got it from (overwriting the original).
I would assume someone has tried this though, but I don't know. I have neither the time nor the ambition to experiment with it myself (or access to a desktop game to mod the dialog.tlk file). Like I said, I haven't really looked into how mods are done with this engine.
If anyone makes this work though, please share (especially if this post helped you)!
I hope this answers some of your questions @subtledoctor and, I hope this helps someone who can mod and only needs access to the dialog.tlk file to make it work for Android!
So that I'm not asked (again) to figure out something about some other game, I'm going to repeat my disclaimer here:
This is a Beamdog forum for their games. I will not discuss the specifics of other games here (within this context) nor will I help anyone edit (hack) those games. Please keep any questions about this post within the scope of the subjects actually covered.
Thanks and good luck in your pursuits.
EDITED
Following the procedure outlined above, I successfully replaced the dialog.tlk in the patch.400.com.beamdog.icewinddale.obb file, but it did NOT work. Apparently, Beamdog does indeed implement some sort of CRC check (probably needed for updates and corruptions). As soon as I started IWD EE, it began redownloading the file.
Until Beamdog decides to support dialog.tlk override for Android (placing a modified dialog.tlk in the override directory), IWD EE mods that need to change the dialog file will not work (as far as I can tell), so back to collecting mods known to work! LOL
It is a bit tricky and you will need a PC, but you do not need the PC game version to make this work.
The direction are here, thanks to @WhiteAgnus and @Isaya.
Also, I want to thank @Kamigoroshi for pointing me in the right direction.
I haven't tested this myself, but it seems everyone who did has had great success.
Android memory location designations are deceptive.
/* is, on my Samsung, the location of "root" memory (I don't have access to most of this because I'm currently not rooted).
/sdcard/* is my Samsung's "internal" RAM - the memory it comes with; built in memory where it stores non-system apps and data. This area can also be designated as /storage/emulated/0/* or a half dozen others, depending on your device. When you buy a tablet or phone with 32Gb, this is the area they are talking about. This is where my .obb file is located.
/storage/extSdCard/* on my Samsung, designates my external SD card (the one I physically insert and remove). I think this is the one you mean and the one I tried to get these games to install their data to. The external SD card's path designation can also vary from system to system.
To make it more fun, these paths are different on each of my four tablets! Luckily, the basic setup is the same.
To be honest, I haven't tried that hard to move the data to the external card, yet. I just copied the .obb file over, but I didn't dig around for ini paths or anything. As I'm running all three games (more than 6Gb of data), I was thinking about looking into it more. But, I'll root as soon as a technique comes out for this system, so it may be moot as this is my last unrooted device.
Once rooted, it's fairly easy to utilize the external SD card for app installations and data.
If I discover a method that works for Beamdog's games (on an unrooted device), I'll post the instructions, but I think the information is probably hard coded.
As I held off buying all the packages at first (because I didn't have 6Gb+ to spare), I think the trade off would be worth the effort (monetarily).
Even with KitKat, data can be written to the external SD card on non-rooted systems (Google set KitKat up so that any app has write permission to its own external SD card home-directory.).