Beamdog, please...
Grum
Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
...find a way for us to mod games on our Iphones. No idea how it'd work, but it'd be worth paying for a platform which gives us access to player made mods.
6
Comments
> be beamdog
> just once in the company's lifetime listen to your audience
> pick a handful of most-voted-for and best-rated mods
> make sure they're bug free or Apple Quality Control will reject them
> introduce them as DLC for the game
> also everyone has to download it because DLC in the app store can't be downloadable separately
> put it up for free
> hope it fits under the 4GB limit
And speaking as a lawyer...if someone *asks* and you say no, and they don't put your free mod on their download list...there is nothing more to do. Any lawyer you hire at that point is just laughing as he bills you for nothing.
Also, I can't agree that Beamdog listens to the audience only once in lifetime.
I think the best one could hope for would be the ability to load a modified dialog.tlk file into the override folder (or another user-accessible folder in the app) so that a modded-install could be transferred from the desktop EE game to the iOS/Android versions. This would also allow users to load any mod they wish, rather than just a list of a few mods picked by a poll.
You need a base bg2:ee installation on pc to mod on pc. You may have the pc version of the game and mod directly there, or copy the whole bg2 app. folder of your Ipad to your pc desktop and mod there.
Mod as usual on pc. Use mods compatible with ee so they edit the dialog.tlk as usual.
Modding will create a lot of files in your override folder on pc, and also edit the dialog.tlk in lang folder.
With Ifunbox, access bg app folder, UNDER the library folder, create an override folder or portraits folder.
Copy every file in the override folder of your modded pc game into your ipad override folder. I had thousands of files in my mega mod installation, so it can take a while.
Now, the game is modded on ipad BUT you need to have the edited dialog.tlk put into your Ipad as well. Otherwise, new mod content will have garbage text, or empty dialogue choices, etc.
This is a bit more tricky, but actually VERY simple if you follow my steps.
Download this exe file, it was put here by the user ScottB and it works to convert the dialog.tlk on your pc to a file that can be seen on Ipad. Download the .rar file here, and unzip it onto your pc desktop. Don't worry it is not a virus. You need to have the centralfix exe file on your desktop for the next steps.
Follow the steps exactly:
On your pc, You find the mod-editted dialog.under lang folder, en_US.
On your desktop, create an empty folder named 'lang'
Inside the empty lang folder, create another folder named 'en_US'
Copy the mod-editted dialog.tlk and paste it here under 'en_US'
Simple, eh?
Now, zip the main folder 'lang', BUT like how:
Right click on lang folder, choose 'add archive' for options. In the options, choose 'ZIP' AND 'store' as methods, DO THIS EXACTLY LIKE I SAID otherwise it does not work.
You now have a lang.zip file.
You have the ScottB's centralfix.exe file, right?
Drag and Drop the lang.zip file into this exe file. It will work its magic in a second.
Now this zip has become special, when you put it under the library folder on your Ipad, where baldur.ini is, the game will recognise this as a valid path to the modified dialog.tlk inside.
In other words, when you look into your library folder via Ifunbox you must see the override folder and the lang.zip file near the usual Baldur.ini in there.
And it works.
EDIT:Edited dialog.tlk works with this method, so any mod that adds new text, dialogue, changes to spells and items need this method. Scs's changes to spells, new enemy names, dialogues etc as well as my own custom spell descriptions work well. I haven't tested with bg1 npc mod, however. It SHOULD work. If something is wrong, delete the override folder and lang.zip file on your Ipad, it will reset it back to unmodded state.
So I don't have a PC copy, but I can just copy my BG app from Ifunbox to my computer for it to work, right?
Once modding is finished, copy the newly created override folder to its mirror place in Ipad app folder
Find the edited dialog.tlk on the pc, process it like I mentioned above (first zip exactly lke I said and then drop the lang.zip on the exe file to make it special) then you copy the finalised, processed, very special lang.zip file directly into your library folder on Ipad.
It should take 10 minutes tops for bg1 npc. Ofcourse, larger mods like scs take a lot longer to mod on pc and then to copy into Ipad.
Seriously though, it's an inherent problem. Can't discuss one without the other.