Should I look for help with this mod idea?
chimeric
Member Posts: 1,163
Tell me what you think, my good strangers. I have an idea of a mod for the first Baldur's Gate. To an experienced modder, it would probably be quite easy. But for me there's a huge learning curve ahead. You see, it's been years since I even played the Infinity Engine games, and while I did fool around with tools, wrote some scripts back then, it's all in a fog now. On the other hand, if I do say so myself, I'm quite good at writing dialogues and memorable NPC - I could certainly do better than most of what I've seen in the bulk of the mods for BGEE. I say that with respect, but ideas of that sort jump quickly into my head and mesh well together. So the choice for me is:
A ) Do it all alone, learn all of the tools, file formats and think hard on scripting and implementation so I could be the one proud author of the mod.
B ) Ask for help, and leave for myself what I can master reasonably quickly - dialogues, some scripts, maybe a bit of drawing.
What to do? More and greener laurels I may never get with A, or only collective participation with B?
I will advertise the idea here and listen to what people have to say.
It is a quest and role-playing mod, not an NPC or a kit mod, and rather modest in scope. It does have a graphics component, though, which I'm willing to take on as much as I can, and generally pull my load.
IT WAS A MESS IN BEREGOST
Beregost has always seemed rather postcard-pretty to me... Too much so for a lived-in town, and certainly for a medieval town - even a pseudo-medieval one.
1) As you know, when the party arrives to Beregost for the first time, a local called Golin Vend walks up to greet them and answer basic questions about local inns, where to buy weapons and so on. His dialogue will now be edited to include a question about why the town is such a mess. And it will be a mess. The area file for Beregost, the ground specifically, needs to be redrawn somewhat in basic ways: trails of dirt, stains, cart tracks on the streets, pools of unclean water here and there. I don't expect this to take very much painting skill, just enough to make the place look badly cared-for. If we can get a few planks thrown about and possibly some scattered hay, empty cages, perhaps a broken wheel, along with regular crates and barrels the game already has, we can spread them about. We could change the weather to a depressing drizzle as well.
2) We also need several pigs. Pigs are a must. I hear there are boars in Dragonspear, we could shrink them, recolor them and make them wander about. Historically pigs were a constant nuisance at best, menace at worst in just about every European city and town. Swine eat anything, including babies if they come upon them, they break into houses and, of course, they thrive on garbage. Bills were issued against them, mayors tried to eradicate the swine menace, even hired swine hunters. Our swine will be neutral and wander around widely.
3) To the question about the cause of all this Golin Vend will respond that the mess is the result of the Alderman's years of mismanagement and direct you to his house for a chance at a job. The Alderman is in one of the houses with his wife, and both are rather sly. He, or rather they, are at the head of the town council, which also includes important characters like governor Kelddath Ormlyr, but they are above actually running the place. The couple will deny all responsibility for the state of things, blaming it on a "previous administration," and offer the characters to help out for what, they promise, will be a grand and distinguished reward.
4) There are three problems, and the party will be able to deal with them in any order. All of the tasks will be interesting and challenging enough for adventurers. The first problem is the mess on the streets it would take serious menial labour to sort out. The Alderman has actually paid a band of drifters to clean it all up (in anticipation of the generous southwards traffic they expect when the war with Amn breaks out), but the hoodlums were carried away by the excitement of the Nashkel Fair. The party can travel there and try to talk them into getting back to work. This is mostly a conversational option, with some trickery and a couple of stats checks. Alternatively they can head west to High Hedge and ask Thalantyr (who is Beregost-born, although now retired and secluded) to lend one of his golems. The wizard will consent but ask for payment, and getting the golem to obey will actually be rather dangerous. This option, however, yields more XP. When the workers or the golem come to Beregost, they will start going about and through the motions of cleaning up.
5) The second problem is the pigs. The Alderman pays 4 gp per snout to a swine exterminator (famous from Waterdeep to Calimshan) but the fellow has either had a change of heart about his profession or something has happened to him. Unless Kagain is in the party already, the characters may go to the warehouse whence he runs his escort business and ask whether he has seen the man leave. Kagain will respond that he hasn't and tell them about a secret door he suspects in the hunter's house - or they may go there directly and, with luck, detect it themselves. The hunter is there, downstairs, where this line of inquiry will end with a shocking revelation (well, for a PG game). The other way for dealing with the pigs is just kill them off, but the pigs are neutral, and some of the locals apparently want to claim them. So in order not to turn the whole town red, the characters will have to follow the wandering swine away from sight and finish them off there. If we position clever waypoints, this should become a fun challenge.
6) Problem number three are the troublemakers. There is a child who simply won't go home, a disgruntled farmer making a bonfire out of crates and a courtesan from Baldur's Gate who is just too popular and protected by a Flaming Fist captain. They all prevent the town from becoming the sort of sleepy and pristine place the Alderman and his wife sigh about. The party can catch the girl or give her an item to coax her into going indoors; the farmer can be bullied or provoked to a fight; and the courtesan paid off or her lover made to turn against her (a hasty party could just dispatch them both, but Reputation would suffer, of course).
With the three problems solved, the party will receive their unique and, from the medieval point of view, better-than-money reward. When they visit Beregost again, after a timer has run, they will find the place transformed, clean, sunny and relaxed just as we are used to seeing it. In addition to the incredible bestowal from the Alderman the party stands to gain 2000-3000 XP, I think this should be sufficient for an early-level quest.
So there. I listed what it would take: some drawing-over of the map; a couple of items pictures; the pigs; weather, waypoints and maybe a trigger for the Golem; dialogues and checks. I can handle the conversations, but the rest would take several more people. When we are done, we will be all listed together as authors, of course.
Any takers?
A ) Do it all alone, learn all of the tools, file formats and think hard on scripting and implementation so I could be the one proud author of the mod.
B ) Ask for help, and leave for myself what I can master reasonably quickly - dialogues, some scripts, maybe a bit of drawing.
What to do? More and greener laurels I may never get with A, or only collective participation with B?
I will advertise the idea here and listen to what people have to say.
It is a quest and role-playing mod, not an NPC or a kit mod, and rather modest in scope. It does have a graphics component, though, which I'm willing to take on as much as I can, and generally pull my load.
IT WAS A MESS IN BEREGOST
Beregost has always seemed rather postcard-pretty to me... Too much so for a lived-in town, and certainly for a medieval town - even a pseudo-medieval one.
1) As you know, when the party arrives to Beregost for the first time, a local called Golin Vend walks up to greet them and answer basic questions about local inns, where to buy weapons and so on. His dialogue will now be edited to include a question about why the town is such a mess. And it will be a mess. The area file for Beregost, the ground specifically, needs to be redrawn somewhat in basic ways: trails of dirt, stains, cart tracks on the streets, pools of unclean water here and there. I don't expect this to take very much painting skill, just enough to make the place look badly cared-for. If we can get a few planks thrown about and possibly some scattered hay, empty cages, perhaps a broken wheel, along with regular crates and barrels the game already has, we can spread them about. We could change the weather to a depressing drizzle as well.
2) We also need several pigs. Pigs are a must. I hear there are boars in Dragonspear, we could shrink them, recolor them and make them wander about. Historically pigs were a constant nuisance at best, menace at worst in just about every European city and town. Swine eat anything, including babies if they come upon them, they break into houses and, of course, they thrive on garbage. Bills were issued against them, mayors tried to eradicate the swine menace, even hired swine hunters. Our swine will be neutral and wander around widely.
3) To the question about the cause of all this Golin Vend will respond that the mess is the result of the Alderman's years of mismanagement and direct you to his house for a chance at a job. The Alderman is in one of the houses with his wife, and both are rather sly. He, or rather they, are at the head of the town council, which also includes important characters like governor Kelddath Ormlyr, but they are above actually running the place. The couple will deny all responsibility for the state of things, blaming it on a "previous administration," and offer the characters to help out for what, they promise, will be a grand and distinguished reward.
4) There are three problems, and the party will be able to deal with them in any order. All of the tasks will be interesting and challenging enough for adventurers. The first problem is the mess on the streets it would take serious menial labour to sort out. The Alderman has actually paid a band of drifters to clean it all up (in anticipation of the generous southwards traffic they expect when the war with Amn breaks out), but the hoodlums were carried away by the excitement of the Nashkel Fair. The party can travel there and try to talk them into getting back to work. This is mostly a conversational option, with some trickery and a couple of stats checks. Alternatively they can head west to High Hedge and ask Thalantyr (who is Beregost-born, although now retired and secluded) to lend one of his golems. The wizard will consent but ask for payment, and getting the golem to obey will actually be rather dangerous. This option, however, yields more XP. When the workers or the golem come to Beregost, they will start going about and through the motions of cleaning up.
5) The second problem is the pigs. The Alderman pays 4 gp per snout to a swine exterminator (famous from Waterdeep to Calimshan) but the fellow has either had a change of heart about his profession or something has happened to him. Unless Kagain is in the party already, the characters may go to the warehouse whence he runs his escort business and ask whether he has seen the man leave. Kagain will respond that he hasn't and tell them about a secret door he suspects in the hunter's house - or they may go there directly and, with luck, detect it themselves. The hunter is there, downstairs, where this line of inquiry will end with a shocking revelation (well, for a PG game). The other way for dealing with the pigs is just kill them off, but the pigs are neutral, and some of the locals apparently want to claim them. So in order not to turn the whole town red, the characters will have to follow the wandering swine away from sight and finish them off there. If we position clever waypoints, this should become a fun challenge.
6) Problem number three are the troublemakers. There is a child who simply won't go home, a disgruntled farmer making a bonfire out of crates and a courtesan from Baldur's Gate who is just too popular and protected by a Flaming Fist captain. They all prevent the town from becoming the sort of sleepy and pristine place the Alderman and his wife sigh about. The party can catch the girl or give her an item to coax her into going indoors; the farmer can be bullied or provoked to a fight; and the courtesan paid off or her lover made to turn against her (a hasty party could just dispatch them both, but Reputation would suffer, of course).
With the three problems solved, the party will receive their unique and, from the medieval point of view, better-than-money reward. When they visit Beregost again, after a timer has run, they will find the place transformed, clean, sunny and relaxed just as we are used to seeing it. In addition to the incredible bestowal from the Alderman the party stands to gain 2000-3000 XP, I think this should be sufficient for an early-level quest.
So there. I listed what it would take: some drawing-over of the map; a couple of items pictures; the pigs; weather, waypoints and maybe a trigger for the Golem; dialogues and checks. I can handle the conversations, but the rest would take several more people. When we are done, we will be all listed together as authors, of course.
Any takers?
Post edited by chimeric on
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