That's a bit of a misconception there - EET doesn't really do anything besides splice the BG1 and SoD content into the BG2 engine and allowing for large scale mega-mods that span across the entire trilogy. Unfortunately it has the rather steep cost of breaking compatibility with mods that aren't designed for it which means it's not for everyone. As someone who can do this compatibility stuff myself I enjoy EET but I refuse to use mega-mods on principle.
That's a bit of a misconception there - EET doesn't really do anything besides splice the BG1 and SoD content into the BG2 engine and allowing for large scale mega-mods that span across the entire trilogy. Unfortunately it has the rather steep cost of breaking compatibility with mods that aren't designed for it which means it's not for everyone. As someone who can do this compatibility stuff myself I enjoy EET but I refuse to use mega-mods on principle.
I'm not going into Skie with Fallen Light. Sorry.
I feel like there are two camps - those who see EET as a venue for mega-modding and those who see EET as putting the BG trilogy into a single continuous playthough, and treat the modding like it's no different than a typical modding of BG 1 or BG 2. I love it for the latter and am not particularly a fan of the former.
To that end, I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I really appreciate that you make your mods EET compatible @Artemius_I
That's a bit of a misconception there - EET doesn't really do anything besides splice the BG1 and SoD content into the BG2 engine and allowing for large scale mega-mods that span across the entire trilogy. Unfortunately it has the rather steep cost of breaking compatibility with mods that aren't designed for it which means it's not for everyone. As someone who can do this compatibility stuff myself I enjoy EET but I refuse to use mega-mods on principle.
I'm not going into Skie with Fallen Light. Sorry.
I feel like there are two camps - those who see EET as a venue for mega-modding and those who see EET as putting the BG trilogy into a single continuous playthough, and treat the modding like it's no different than a typical modding of BG 1 or BG 2. I love it for the latter and am not particularly a fan of the former.
To that end, I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I really appreciate that you make your mods EET compatible @Artemius_I
The example with Skie is maybe a good example why mod contents for EET may be different from contents for the split game. A *Skie-returns* type of mod makes only sense for those who have played SoD (and maybe BG1) before, it's just pointless for a SoA/ToB game. The same can be said for Caelar mods in later parts. It's meaningless for split games as you can't anticipate that players do the BG1 > SoD > SoA > ToB sequence all the time. Many start just with Irenicus Dungeon.
I don't see the discussion connected with *mega-mods* but rather with *mega-installs* if this is what describes EET games. But mods that make you rescue NPCs in later parts whom you never knew or lost in a part of the game you didn't play would appear odd to me. EET is about continuity, that's why such mods make sense there.
I disagree. if that were the case no one would bother making mods that are intended to go into bg2. the fact of the matter is people that use eet are the minority as alot of mods don't work with it or they just prefer to doing a full series run as two separate games and not want to hassle with it.
having mods made exclusively for eet just alienates players that would have liked to have been able to use said mod. i don't see @Artemius_I now cancelling fallen light just because some players only do bg2 games. thats just silly imo.
The example with Skie is maybe a good example why mod contents for EET may be different from contents for the split game. A *Skie-returns* type of mod makes only sense for those who have played SoD (and maybe BG1) before, it's just pointless for a SoA/ToB game. The same can be said for Caelar mods in later parts. It's meaningless for split games as you can't anticipate that players do the BG1 > SoD > SoA > ToB sequence all the time. Many start just with Irenicus Dungeon.
I don't see the discussion connected with *mega-mods* but rather with *mega-installs* if this is what describes EET games. But mods that make you rescue NPCs in later parts whom you never knew or lost in a part of the game you didn't play would appear odd to me. EET is about continuity, that's why such mods make sense there.
You talk as if people choose to install mods with no idea what they're getting into. If players looking at a mod that adds SoD continuity into BG2 don't use SoD or don't consider it their personal canon then they don't install that particular mod. The fact that people don't play the entire saga is no excuse for making mods EET-exclusive that have no reason to be.
I agree with @Artemius_I - players look for certain content and if they do not know SoD and SoD characters, they just don't download those mods because they are aware they would get lost there. Players / mod-users don't have to babysitted. They are sane and can decide on their own what they want.
Another thing: there is a chance that some players played BG1+SoD before and they had to reinstall the game or format computer or/and have lost savegames. Or maybe that was 2 years ago and now they just want to continue BG2 plot with mods like Sirene for BG2EE. They may remember more-or-less what Sirene BG1EE+SoD was about and they just want to continue BG2EE plot with the mod and continue the adventure. Making them install BG1EE and SoD to install EET would be... really pointless and probably even rude, in a way. Especially if they don't have resources to do that (available place, time, energy) and they just want to finish the adventure they have started.
Making mods work on both (for example) BG1EE and EET is possible. Yes, it also takes a moment to code additional stuff, but thanks to that sacrefice we also help players. We let them decide how they may play, instead of forcing our playstyle on them. I am not going to play EET myself, it's not how I want to play, yet even if I am unable to code stuff needed for EET and test it, I ask for help. For example I ask Swit / K4thos. We implement stuff, check it... sometimes it does into v2, as it needs additional testing and that kind of stuff. Anyway, that way we do not only make our mods better but we also let players experience our work on both BG1EE/SoD/BG2EE (pick one) and EET.
@Artemius_I and @PaulaMigrate Hey, I think you two mix things up. I just yesterday had the EET Skie encounter playing. The reason to have it is not about Skie at all. It's about not be able to enter again the town that searches you for murder. The Sandrah mod has scenes leading back to that city, so it must be somehow be made open again. That's the whole issue here. It's just a tweak to make that mod plot continue. There isn't any Skie story in SoA in the EET game yet.
for example. i'm glad the sod banter mod that makes them more like bg1 and 2 is now usable for non eet players. there was no reason for that to be eet exclusive in the first place.
for example. i'm glad the sod banter mod that makes them more like bg1 and 2 is now usable for non eet players. there was no reason for that to be eet exclusive in the first place.
This is not a good example because what you say is actually false. The BGEE/SoD mod does not work on EET and vice versa. Reason is that the technical implementation of Banters in both games is a different one. Vanilla SoD has no banter dialogue files. The two mods are different technical solutions to come to similar results but are in fact different in core. That's what both modmakers have discussed and I'm sure those two must know best of all.
I understand why say DavidW didn't supported megainstalls and I understand why say Sandara Saga author doesn't even make her mods compatible with singular/individual games. We have only one live after all and our time is limited.
I don't have a problem with the particular installations or mods. I have a problem with the Throne of Bhaal. ToB is such a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) drop in quality in every aspect of the game that is almost painful. Shitty main villain, crappy story even with Ascension, crappy locations (maybe exept Yaga Shura temple), ridiculous teleport (the moment they implemented this, Bioware started to decline), laughable side-quests, no new npc's, none, not even a single one, just a rushed crap. just teleport from one slaughter to another - the end. Well, the studio (it was not EA) gave developers like 8 months to finish the game. /facepalm/ There are only three redeeming factors imo. One of course is Watchers Keep, next is the somewhat unique, ancient middle-east summerian/babylonian atmosphere in some parts of the game, the last and kinda debatable are the HLAs, crazy stuff but actually fun to play.
I love BG1 and Shadows of Amn. In ToB I would play Watchers Keep and the Ritual from Tactics, thats it.
In my opinion SoD is better than ToB. Quests, story (yep!), locations, everything is better. Final villain is actually pretty cool, from a different game but still waaay better than that underdeveloped, oversized slut. Not to mention you can romance gnomes and milfs and grab clerics by mizhenas.
I can imagine a mod for ToB totally replacing Mel with Cealar for example. For BG2EE only or EET exclusive - irrelevant.
I don't have a problem with the particular installations or mods. I have a problem with the Throne of Bhaal. ToB is such a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) drop in quality in every aspect of the game that is almost painful. ... crappy locations (maybe exept Yaga Shura temple), laughable side-quests, no new npc's, none, not even a single one,
I can imagine a mod for ToB totally replacing Mel with Cealar for example. For BG2EE only or EET exclusive - irrelevant.
Your ToB is really very different from mine:
My ToB party - Jon Irenicus (from Longer Road - much additional contents adding) - Ilyos (monk recruitable in Saradush) - Jen'lig (githyanki planewalker with whatever thieving skills you need in ToB - adding areas and content) - Sandrah (kept her since BG1 and she adds numerous side quests during ToB, apart from the extended ending of the trilogy you can have) - Chloe (NPC extended into ToB for EE games with an extra quest) - Sarevok, I had him until I met Ilyos
New areas I visited (with extra content) - revisited BG1 + 2 areas with new content, - found the old temple below the beholder lair in the sewers near the forgotten god worshippers - Undermountain areas accessible from Waterdeep - Extra levels of WK - revisit the grove of talking heads
Also - the extra contents added by the djinni companion to Amkethran - the extended variations from Wheels of Prophesy letting me have Balthazar as my ally - the hidden bhaalspawn mage(priestess of Eillestrae who becomes my ally in the final battle after I found her in Undermountain - the githyanki - Tiamat pact quest with the captured dragon in Abazigal's lair related to Jen'lig - etc, etc
I can imagine a mod for ToB totally replacing Mel with Cealar for example. For BG2EE only or EET exclusive - irrelevant
I can't imagine that but I saw the idea from the scraped Caelar mod where you saved the fallen paladin but if you failed to bring her back on the right track, she finally could side with Melissan with the false idea that she would stop all bhaalspawns that way. Anyway, that mod idea was given up since some other modder advertised a Caelar mod meanwhile.
I can't imagine that but I saw the idea from the scraped Caelar mod where you saved the fallen paladin but if you failed to bring her back on the right track, she finally could side with Melissan with the false idea that she would stop all bhaalspawns that way.
What? When on earth does that just suddenly become her motivation? That has nothing to do with Caelar or what she wants/wanted!
My ToB party - Jon Irenicus (from Longer Road - much additional contents adding) - Ilyos (monk recruitable in Saradush) - Jen'lig (githyanki planewalker with whatever thieving skills you need in ToB - adding areas and content) - Sandrah (kept her since BG1 and she adds numerous side quests during ToB, apart from the extended ending of the trilogy you can have) - Chloe (NPC extended into ToB for EE games with an extra quest) - Sarevok, I had him until I met Ilyos
New areas I visited (with extra content) - revisited BG1 + 2 areas with new content, - found the old temple below the beholder lair in the sewers near the forgotten god worshippers - Undermountain areas accessible from Waterdeep - Extra levels of WK - revisit the grove of talking heads
Also - the extra contents added by the djinni companion to Amkethran - the extended variations from Wheels of Prophesy letting me have Balthazar as my ally - the hidden bhaalspawn mage(priestess of Eillestrae who becomes my ally in the final battle after I found her in Undermountain - the githyanki - Tiamat pact quest with the captured dragon in Abazigal's lair related to Jen'lig - etc, etc
Just what I remember right away...
Jen'lig is from the Sandrah Saga, right? Or does she get an NPC mod now? When I played Sandrah Saga last time Jen'lig died before the SOA part.
And the Undermountain area accessible from Waterdeep along with the hidden bhaalspawn mage from what mod it is?
Jen'lig is from the Sandrah Saga, right? Or does she get an NPC mod now? When I played Sandrah Saga last time Jen'lig died before the SOA part.
And the Undermountain area accessible from Waterdeep along with the hidden bhaalspawn mage from what mod it is?
- Jen'lig returns in ToB only if her BG1/SoD was finished,
i.e. she returns to her home plane to deliver the sword and face her queen. She has to flee afterwards and escapes to the protagonist's bhaal pocket plane by following Sarevok's trace.
- Waterdeep is from Sandrah.
There are few dedicated ToB mods besides the classic ones I mentioned - Ascencion, Wheels of Prophesy and Longer Road, Ilyos NPC. Sandrah is about the only new mod from the last 6 years that is EE compatible and adds excessive new contents to ToB. Beside that, most that has been done were NPC mods that were extending banters/romance into ToB.
Does anyone know if there is a guide for making an Npc mod for BG2EE from SOD Npcs?
I want to try making a mod to be able to use Voghiln in BG2. I have no experience in modding, but I can extract resources from Near Infinity and copy paste some things from other Npc mods.
If there is a guide or something similar, that would make things more manageable for me. I'm not planning to add any party banters or such, just want to import him in a simple way.
@Ludwig_II Check out the detailed instructions by @LavaDelVortel in the first few issues of Wild Surge (called "Modding Tutorial"): The Villain issue, The Thieves issue, The Third issue, The Dwarf issue. (tagging also @deltago )
Comments
Let’s just say that my personal opinion on Sandrah Saga is not positive at all.
what if i don't use eet and have no plans to. all this does is splinter players as there is no non eet content that does the same thing.
edit: at this point @Artemius_I should just add a skie related quest to fallen light.
That's a bit of a misconception there - EET doesn't really do anything besides splice the BG1 and SoD content into the BG2 engine and allowing for large scale mega-mods that span across the entire trilogy. Unfortunately it has the rather steep cost of breaking compatibility with mods that aren't designed for it which means it's not for everyone. As someone who can do this compatibility stuff myself I enjoy EET but I refuse to use mega-mods on principle.
I'm not going into Skie with Fallen Light. Sorry.
I feel like there are two camps - those who see EET as a venue for mega-modding and those who see EET as putting the BG trilogy into a single continuous playthough, and treat the modding like it's no different than a typical modding of BG 1 or BG 2. I love it for the latter and am not particularly a fan of the former.
To that end, I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I really appreciate that you make your mods EET compatible @Artemius_I
I don't see the discussion connected with *mega-mods* but rather with *mega-installs* if this is what describes EET games. But mods that make you rescue NPCs in later parts whom you never knew or lost in a part of the game you didn't play would appear odd to me. EET is about continuity, that's why such mods make sense there.
having mods made exclusively for eet just alienates players that would have liked to have been able to use said mod. i don't see @Artemius_I now cancelling fallen light just because some players only do bg2 games. thats just silly imo.
Another thing: there is a chance that some players played BG1+SoD before and they had to reinstall the game or format computer or/and have lost savegames. Or maybe that was 2 years ago and now they just want to continue BG2 plot with mods like Sirene for BG2EE. They may remember more-or-less what Sirene BG1EE+SoD was about and they just want to continue BG2EE plot with the mod and continue the adventure. Making them install BG1EE and SoD to install EET would be... really pointless and probably even rude, in a way. Especially if they don't have resources to do that (available place, time, energy) and they just want to finish the adventure they have started.
Making mods work on both (for example) BG1EE and EET is possible. Yes, it also takes a moment to code additional stuff, but thanks to that sacrefice we also help players. We let them decide how they may play, instead of forcing our playstyle on them. I am not going to play EET myself, it's not how I want to play, yet even if I am unable to code stuff needed for EET and test it, I ask for help. For example I ask Swit / K4thos. We implement stuff, check it... sometimes it does into v2, as it needs additional testing and that kind of stuff. Anyway, that way we do not only make our mods better but we also let players experience our work on both BG1EE/SoD/BG2EE (pick one) and EET.
Hey, I think you two mix things up. I just yesterday had the EET Skie encounter playing. The reason to have it is not about Skie at all. It's about not be able to enter again the town that searches you for murder. The Sandrah mod has scenes leading back to that city, so it must be somehow be made open again. That's the whole issue here. It's just a tweak to make that mod plot continue. There isn't any Skie story in SoA in the EET game yet.
The BGEE/SoD mod does not work on EET and vice versa. Reason is that the technical implementation of Banters in both games is a different one. Vanilla SoD has no banter dialogue files. The two mods are different technical solutions to come to similar results but are in fact different in core.
That's what both modmakers have discussed and I'm sure those two must know best of all.
and I understand why say Sandara Saga author doesn't even make her mods compatible with singular/individual games. We have only one live after all and our time is limited.
I don't have a problem with the particular installations or mods. I have a problem with the Throne of Bhaal. ToB is such a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) drop in quality in every aspect of the game that is almost painful. Shitty main villain, crappy story even with Ascension, crappy locations (maybe exept Yaga Shura temple), ridiculous teleport (the moment they implemented this, Bioware started to decline), laughable side-quests, no new npc's, none, not even a single one, just a rushed crap. just teleport from one slaughter to another - the end. Well, the studio (it was not EA) gave developers like 8 months to finish the game. /facepalm/ There are only three redeeming factors imo. One of course is Watchers Keep, next is the somewhat unique, ancient middle-east summerian/babylonian atmosphere in some parts of the game, the last and kinda debatable are the HLAs, crazy stuff but actually fun to play.
I love BG1 and Shadows of Amn. In ToB I would play Watchers Keep and the Ritual from Tactics, thats it.
In my opinion SoD is better than ToB. Quests, story (yep!), locations, everything is better. Final villain is actually pretty cool, from a different game but still waaay better than that underdeveloped, oversized slut. Not to mention you can romance gnomes and milfs and grab clerics by mizhenas.
I can imagine a mod for ToB totally replacing Mel with Cealar for example. For BG2EE only or EET exclusive - irrelevant.
My ToB party
- Jon Irenicus (from Longer Road - much additional contents adding)
- Ilyos (monk recruitable in Saradush)
- Jen'lig (githyanki planewalker with whatever thieving skills you need in ToB - adding areas and content)
- Sandrah (kept her since BG1 and she adds numerous side quests during ToB, apart from the extended ending of the trilogy you can have)
- Chloe (NPC extended into ToB for EE games with an extra quest)
- Sarevok, I had him until I met Ilyos
New areas I visited (with extra content)
- revisited BG1 + 2 areas with new content,
- found the old temple below the beholder lair in the sewers near the forgotten god worshippers
- Undermountain areas accessible from Waterdeep
- Extra levels of WK
- revisit the grove of talking heads
Also
- the extra contents added by the djinni companion to Amkethran
- the extended variations from Wheels of Prophesy letting me have Balthazar as my ally
- the hidden bhaalspawn mage(priestess of Eillestrae who becomes my ally in the final battle after I found her in Undermountain
- the githyanki - Tiamat pact quest with the captured dragon in Abazigal's lair related to Jen'lig
- etc, etc
Just what I remember right away...
I can't imagine that but I saw the idea from the scraped Caelar mod where you saved the fallen paladin but if you failed to bring her back on the right track, she finally could side with Melissan with the false idea that she would stop all bhaalspawns that way.
Anyway, that mod idea was given up since some other modder advertised a Caelar mod meanwhile.
And the Undermountain area accessible from Waterdeep along with the hidden bhaalspawn mage from what mod it is?
- Waterdeep is from Sandrah.
There are few dedicated ToB mods besides the classic ones I mentioned - Ascencion, Wheels of Prophesy and Longer Road, Ilyos NPC.
Sandrah is about the only new mod from the last 6 years that is EE compatible and adds excessive new contents to ToB. Beside that, most that has been done were NPC mods that were extending banters/romance into ToB.
Does anyone know if there is a guide for making an Npc mod for BG2EE from SOD Npcs?
I want to try making a mod to be able to use Voghiln in BG2. I have no experience in modding, but I can extract resources from Near Infinity and copy paste some things from other Npc mods.
If there is a guide or something similar, that would make things more manageable for me. I'm not planning to add any party banters or such, just want to import him in a simple way.
Thanks in advance.
(tagging also @deltago )