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Sandrah Saga For EET

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  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    edited July 2018

    I though I was the only one not seeing something everyone saw in the mod, and look at that.

    Well, that was the aim of that scheme, I suppose, and I admit I fell for it, too. I hope Roxanne enjoyed it while it lasted, because this certainly turned into a boomerang.

    Just for record: I do know a (real) player who truly enjoyed the Sandrah Saga. So there is fans out there, just not so many.

    @megamike15 EET is a great thing, though. (Remember that it does not auto-include Sandrah Saga and all its additions despite all the effort Roxanne with her alts put into making it seem.)
    With EET you have a continuous game from Candlekeep to Bhaal's Throne, and it's really continuous as NPCs keep their stats, stay dead etc... It's cool.
  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,422
    There's been misconceptions going around over EET in that it included lots of new content. Most of these misconceptions arose from people (quite possibly Roxanne's alts), describing features from EET+Sandrah Saga, and then not actually mentioning that those features were from a mod installed on EET, instead of EET itself.

    Oddly enough, it only caused people to become wary of EET, rather than embracing it. It was put in a light quite different from what kathos has in mind for EET.

    The biggest downside about EET to me is that I have to decide which BG2 mods I want to install at the very start of the campaign, before even starting BG1. I much rather do that when I transition between campaigns.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    Thels said:

    There's been misconceptions going around over EET in that it included lots of new content. Most of these misconceptions arose from people (quite possibly Roxanne's alts), describing features from EET+Sandrah Saga, and then not actually mentioning that those features were from a mod installed on EET, instead of EET itself.

    Oddly enough, it only caused people to become wary of EET, rather than embracing it. It was put in a light quite different from what kathos has in mind for EET.

    Yes, and you can't imagine how sad this made me. EET really deserves better.
    Thels said:

    The biggest downside about EET to me is that I have to decide which BG2 mods I want to install at the very start of the campaign, before even starting BG1. I much rather do that when I transition between campaigns.

    Hm, but I know from player(s) that it is no problem to deinstall EET-end, change some mod configurations, install EET-end again and continue with your save. At least one playtester did this (had to - as my mod needed several updates in the process o:) ) and said it worked fine. So I'd think you should be able to mod the BGII part before the transition, but not necessarily before even starting the whole campaign. Unless you are referring to experiences which would contradict these.
  • MonoCanallaMonoCanalla Member Posts: 291
    Leaving Sandrah out of my party has been a joy. I’m not sure there was a dialog option in which it didn’t end like a teenager breakup. It always ends like my character is a fool and she always says the last word. In one of the options, Imoen (my favorite character in BG1 and heavily moded), insultes my character. Also, leaving the wolf companion behind made me feel so cruel about it. Why need of so much drama?

    A question for those who know better than me? I want the ludicrous Imoen falling in love with the store clerk quest out. Is there any variable I can delete, or just not having Sandrah in my party is enough?
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    My problem with EET is that it doesn't really give you anything for the extra steps in using it. It lets you revisit old areas, but that makes zero sense in universe. Charname is wanted for murder up north and even if you can clear your name, you are going to travel back and forth between different countries while Imoen is captive/you are slowly dying from loss of soul? Really, playing "continuously" doesn't change anything. You trade a couple clicks and a loading screem for... a loading screen. Its not the saga as is isn't already continuous.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    @ThacoBell For me, the thought of the continuity between the campaigns is really intriguing. Of course there are downsides to it, e.g. the knowledge that I could put all my fancy items in a container in Beregost and go'n get them after escaping Irenicus Dungeon is a bit rediculous, indeed. But the time pressure in BGII is there anyway, I felt like not having the time to travel not even to the Windspear Hills when playing first... And BG city is locked after SoD.

    @MonoCanalla As I understood having Sandrah in the party is prerequisite for almost everything of the content so hopefully it will suffice for Imoen's love to be forgotten in your game.
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277

    Leaving Sandrah out of my party has been a joy. I’m not sure there was a dialog option in which it didn’t end like a teenager breakup. It always ends like my character is a fool and she always says the last word. In one of the options, Imoen (my favorite character in BG1 and heavily moded), insultes my character. Also, leaving the wolf companion behind made me feel so cruel about it. Why need of so much drama?

    Obviously because Sandrah is the real protagonist of the story here and your silly player avatar is way out of his/her head (fun fact: iirc the dialogue written in the mod treats the PC as though they were male, even if they’re not) to cut her out on her story, come on! /s *rollseyes*
  • StefanOStefanO Member Posts: 346
    edited July 2018
    EET means BG1, SoD, and BG2 bundled in one installation. Same as BGT for the old games. If you liked BGT EET is the way to go.

    EET suffers from a missing project leader. Kathos is absent since august 2017.

    Sandrah means EET plus every EE-mod known to mankind plus Sandrah. Too much all you can eat for my taste. And of cause Sandrah isn't balanced. How could it possibly be?

    BTW, Roxanne and Paula (sic!) now have their own forum named "Baldur's Extended World".
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited July 2018
    StefanO said:

    BTW, Roxanne and Paula (sic!) now have their own forum named "Baldur's Extended World".

    A site within which 80-90% of the hosted mods do not belong to her and she has no right to distribute them. She uses the excuse of EET-compatibility to justify messing with the mods but the only reason they're there instead of within their respective SHS/G3 boards is because of the fallout after her alts were exposed.

    Then again, this is nothing new if you look at all the unapproved crossmod in Sandrah Saga (most of which is more glorifying of the mod, surprise surprise). Banters with my NPCs are still there, and I was never even informed that they existed.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781

    they're there instead of within their respective SHS/G3 boards is because of the fallout after her alts were exposed.

    Roxanne never made updates that were supposed for the official download sites since they provided EET compatibility only. Had she provided real mod updates I am sure we would have put them onto the official download sites. But yes, everything is a bit different now.

    unapproved crossmod in Sandrah Saga (most of which is more glorifying of the mod, surprise surprise).

    I hear you. :'(

    Fair's fair: When asked to remove (unauthorized) crossmod content Roxanne complied without arguments.

  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    jastey said:

    Fair's fair: When asked to remove (unauthorized) crossmod content Roxanne complied without arguments.

    I mean, that's the bare minimum of what's expected, so... props to her, I guess, but it's not much. I don't want to sound vindictive. I understand how frustrating it is to be denied the chance to write crossmod for your favorite works because the respective modder is no longer around. But when people like myself and @LavaDelVortel are clearly active and very willing to communicate, and not even an effort's being made to extend to us the courtesy of even looking at what's being written... well, I could go into exactly what I think about that, but I won't.
  • lefreutlefreut Member Posts: 1,462
    edited July 2018
    StefanO said:

    EET means BG1, SoD, and BG2 bundled in one installation. Same as BGT for the old games. If you liked BGT EET is the way to go.

    I used to play BGT because it let you play BG1 with the BG2 engine and with the new classes/kits. Now with the Enhanced Edition, I feel that a "trilogy" mod is less useful.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    edited July 2018

    are clearly active and very willing to communicate, and not even an effort's being made to extend to us the courtesy of even looking at what's being written...

    We are on the same page. And yes, removing that crossmod was the least that can be expected if there is any courtesy left for the other author's work.
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    jastey said:

    We are on the same page. And yes, removing that crossmod was the least that can be expected if there is any courtesy left for the other author's work.

    I mean, if it were me I would've made an apology then tried communicating with the other author to make a collaborative work that would make both of us happy, but you know... when you just take the content off altogether because you don't want the backlash that would ensue if you didn't, it just seems like a "there, are you happy now?" reaction.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    I see what you mean, but in all honesty, there was absolutely no base for a crossmod collaboration starting from what Roxanne had included so I was glad it ended like this.
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    edited July 2018



    A site within which 80-90% of the hosted mods do not belong to her and she has no right to distribute them. She uses the excuse of EET-compatibility to justify messing with the mods but the only reason they're there instead of within their respective SHS/G3 boards is because of the fallout after her alts were exposed.


    @Artemius_I - can you help me understand this point a little better? I was under the impression that she took BWS, which was someone else's project that she had been helping to maintain, and "copied" it to focus entirely on EET use (I had imagined so she wouldnt have to worry about keeping the non EET mod list up to date).

    Has she changed the mods themselves in a particular way? - Is she hosting them on her own site now?

    If someone (You, for example) gave permission for BWS proper to be used in mod distribution, do you think she needs to get permission from you (or anyone else) if it's just an offshoot of BWS that was okay'd by the other maintainers of BWS? (Is it more than that?)

    Those are all legitimate questions, I'm not trying to argue/defend anything. I was kind of assuming everything was on the up and up with all this - do you guys see it otherwise?

    (Additionally - I know there was a scandal with the crossmod stuff. I'm more interested in her EET BWS offshoot).
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    if she is trying to pretend the mods she is updateing are hers thats enough to get her site shut down. after all this dramas i'm shocked that sandrath did not get removed from shs at this point.

    as for eet. i find it just to combersome and find it easier to just mod the games my self.

    1. bws is a mess for me to use and some mods i use are either not updated or not there.
    2. the install instructions for eet confused me. you need to install certain bg 1 mods then do bg 2 mods [ which includes bg 1 mods as well.] and i just said screw it.

    thats why i just do it manually. it takes me an hour to get everything installed anyways as i have a habit of reinstalling mods when i get new mods or need to remove something.

  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    edited July 2018

    Roxanne/PaulaM took many projects, "updated them" without talking to original hosting sites / authors. Sometimes she made them work only on EET, as well as she "adjusted" the dialogues and scripts. The problem is that she never talked to anyone about that and now, when modders become active again, they see some weird versions hosted elsewere, with "adjusted" stuff, changed things. What's more, she basically pretend they are her mods. Let's check her update of Ninde NPC:


    That's is beyond insulting.

    Just to make it clear: with those "//" the author tag won't appear upon installation.



    I guess I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing that - but I was able to find this thread that kind of walks away a few of the concerns (maybe? maybe not.) - at least, about Ninde.

    http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28887

    I guess It's not clear in there if she got permission to do more than update to EET, but it's somewhat an open question. It *seems* like she has a lot of concerns about getting permission in the thread. Admittedly, I dont know if she follows through with that or not.


    Totally agree it's shady to display herself as support without also specifically recognizing that she isnt the author.

    Anyways. I dont want to get caught in defending or attacking anyone, since I'm clearly not in possession of all the facts. I'm an avid user of BWS to help with more complex mod installs, and I'm a big fan of EET in general. I am interested in knowing if the new tool is ethical or not from the perspective of modders.
    Post edited by BallpointMan on
  • Fulsom2121Fulsom2121 Member Posts: 25
    edited July 2018
    I think there is an error. There was a weidu update last year to show users whom to contact with install problems. They put the field SUPPORT
    BACKUP ~AC_QUEST/backup~
    //AUTHOR ~address.mail~ 
    SUPPORT ~address.mail~
    
    VERSION ~2.04~ 
    It's used by modders who maintain mods originally authored by others. The // is needed because weidu calls error if you use both.
    Post edited by Tresset on
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    @LavaDelVortel

    Thank you for explaining all of that. I was most certainly not in possession of a lot of facts.
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    yeah her whole ' i'm gonna update this so it only works on eet.' thing just makes her sound elitist.

    oh and thats not even getting into something she said in this thread i think. where you should not have stories in the stand alone games continue into the others as people don't play them back to back. no you can only do that if your using eet.

    to her it's eet or bust. it's no wonder she keeps praising sandrath it's basically her mind set for baldurs gate mods. oh here is a mod that goes through the whole saga. i even made a fan fic to continue because i can't just let the story end.

    again her attitude makes me not want to use eet less and less and it keeps getting shoved into my face. " oh you want skie's story done go play my mod, oh there is already a mod for that in bg2? why play that it's bg 2 only and you should be playing eet like a true bg fan."
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437

    if she is trying to pretend the mods she is updateing are hers thats enough to get her site shut down. after all this dramas i'm shocked that sandrath did not get removed from shs at this point.

    as for eet. i find it just to combersome and find it easier to just mod the games my self.

    1. bws is a mess for me to use and some mods i use are either not updated or not there.
    2. the install instructions for eet confused me. you need to install certain bg 1 mods then do bg 2 mods [ which includes bg 1 mods as well.] and i just said screw it.

    thats why i just do it manually. it takes me an hour to get everything installed anyways as i have a habit of reinstalling mods when i get new mods or need to remove something.

    IIRC, #2 applies for BG1UB and BG1NPC. I've done some work on making them compatible with EET. One problem was that K4thos' automatic mod porting script made the assumption that EET should always go with BGEE for ~GAME_IS~ checks. For BG1NPC, which was built for Tutu and BGT, that's not usually correct. BG1NPC often makes use of BG2 resources, so the ~GAME_IS~ checks are to see if those resources can be assumed to be present (which they would for a Tutu or BGT install, but not BGEE).

    I think still I have some work to do on the journal entries for EET compatibility, but I'm working on BGEEv2.5 compatibility first. Hopefully, I can have it all done soon after v2.5 is released.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781

    I have some work to do on the journal entries for EET compatibility

    BG1NPC EET compatibility??!1!! (*starts drooling*) You *are* my hero!! (ahem. Sorry OT)

    The SUPPORT tag indeed was introduced to make the difference clear between "this mod was written and is still maintained by" (= AUTHOR) and "this mod was NOT written but is now maintained by" (= SUPPORT). The thing is, "maintained" usually means that the official maintenance of the mod was given to the maintainer, as it was actively done by Ascalon to Kerzenburforum (Fulsom's example above), or inactively as NTotSC went to SHS because authors / former maintainers went inactive. The mods on that "Baldur's BlaBla World" site, though, are more or less pirated EET-only versions because I wouldn't know of any modder or IE modding site giving maintenance to Roxanne. I imagine the reasons nothing was done about that yet are 1. because players do profit (I hope - I don't know what else was changed inside the mods besides bugfixes) and 2. noone has the energy to fight a war with a person who showed a narcistic self-centered false game scheme to promote own mods and also is still doing it.

    I am interested in knowing if the new tool is ethical or not from the perspective of modders.

    The EE(T) Setup Tool was splitted from BWS while Roxanne and @ALIEN maintained it both. So, the split was agreed on by the current maintainer (ALIEN), I think. This was before the self-promotion alt account-scheme was known, though, so I guess the current opinion to this would be that it was unfortunate it happened. Or, to put it more plainly, I would understand if people involved would feel tricked.
    I do not have a problem with the principle of such an install tool forked and maintained for specific games only. But from my very personal perspective the ethical-ness of this tool is questionable because to me it is clear it was created and changed to promote all of Roxanne's mods. I found the traces of that in the original BWS from before the split - all of her new mods were marked green and put into the "recommended" preselection which is usually reserved for well-known and well-received mods with lots of player feedback. Knowing the whole scheme of self-promotion that's one of the things that give me belly-ache if I think about this tool, as it is most definitely not "unbiased".



    @Fulsom2121 Although I do not hide my email address and might have posted at one occasion myself, I would appreciate you would delete or at least rephrase it so it's not drawing more spam bots to my account, thank you.

  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    @jastey I think BWS-EET branch was splitted when @ALIEN found out about Roxanne's multiple alts scheme. I think he didn't want her involved in any works on main BWS branch anymore after the whole co śpiący came out to the public.
  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,422
    Thels said:

    The biggest downside about EET to me is that I have to decide which BG2 mods I want to install at the very start of the campaign, before even starting BG1. I much rather do that when I transition between campaigns.

    jastey said:

    Hm, but I know from player(s) that it is no problem to deinstall EET-end, change some mod configurations, install EET-end again and continue with your save. At least one playtester did this (had to - as my mod needed several updates in the process o:) ) and said it worked fine. So I'd think you should be able to mod the BGII part before the transition, but not necessarily before even starting the whole campaign. Unless you are referring to experiences which would contradict these.

    Updating mods is never without any risks, and especially adding additional mods midgame may ensure that mods won't work exactly as intended. Especially if mods need to be installed in a certain order, and you then want to add mods that come before mods you've already installed, it becomes troublesome.

    I personally don't touch mods once I got a game running (except perhaps UI mod updates). As @lefreut mentioned earlier, there's not THAT much to gain from running BG1 and BG2 in one combined game, as I don't really plan to travel forth and back to begin with. There's of course NPC stats, but except for maybe Neera and Edwin's spell selection, the only NPC build you have any serious impact on is Imoen (thief skill division, if/when to dualclass).

    I think there is an error. There was a weidu update last year to show users whom to contact with install problems. They put the field SUPPORT

    BACKUP ~AC_QUEST/backup~
    //AUTHOR ~w***@***.de~ 
    SUPPORT ~j***@***.de~
    
    VERSION ~2.04~ 
    It's used by modders who maintain mods originally authored by others. The // is needed because weidu calls error if you use both.
    It's VERY bad etiquette to go post email addresses that belong to people other than yourself, without permission from the owners of those email addresses. The more locations that have your full email listed, the more spam you'll receive on said email address. You may want to edit your post and blank them out.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,781
    Thanks!
    Yes, was kind of obvious. Always the same pattern.
  • RVNSRVNS Member Posts: 285
    She just doesn't give up does she?
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