While I agree with it being included, I think the "Restored More Morte Mortuary Moments" restoration should not be counted as part of a 'recommended' install (particularly for newcomers).
I'm thinking about turning this component into two subcomponents to choose from: 1. Install everything (conversations and comments), 2. Install only Morte's comment on Dhaal's Book.
"Recommended components" will only include the second option. Thoughts?
I agree that this would be better (though I can't recall the exact comment Morte makes on Dhaal's book - I'm assuming it's not something he or Dhaal repeats in the very next conversation...?)
While I agree with it being included, I think the "Restored More Morte Mortuary Moments" restoration should not be counted as part of a 'recommended' install (particularly for newcomers).
I'm thinking about turning this component into two subcomponents to choose from: 1. Install everything (conversations and comments), 2. Install only Morte's comment on Dhaal's Book.
"Recommended components" will only include the second option. Thoughts?
I agree that this would be better (though I can't recall the exact comment Morte makes on Dhaal's book - I'm assuming it's not something he or Dhaal repeats in the very next conversation...?)
No, it's nothing like that. Morte's just commenting the size of the book. I think it's a good way to draw the player's attention to Dhaal, since he is an important source of information.
Worked around a PST:EE bug regarding area soundtracks that are played back too fast if they use different sample rates. (Fixes Smoldering Corpse Bar night soundtrack from "Restored Party Comments and Banters".)
Restored Candlestick Quest: Resolved a potential dead end if you lost the key for the tomb portal.
Restored Elyce & Company Quest: Elyce should not move too far away from brother or lover when trying to get TNO's attention.
Restored More Morte Mortuary Moments: Turned into two subcomponents: Install "Everything" or "Comments only". The latter option is included in "All Recommended PS:T Unfinished Business Components".
Updated setup executable to WeiDU v243.
It should be safe to update the mod without having to restart the game, except for: - Changes of "Restored Candlestick Quest" may not apply if you already visited the tomb at least once. - Installing second option of "Restored More Morte Mortuary Moments" won't have an effect unless starting a new game.
Restored Candlestick Quest: Resolved a potential dead end if you lost the key for the tomb portal.
Really no one has found this dead end before but me who have made it occur purposely? Maybe I have got a little used to beta testing along the translation projects I joined.
I'm currently playing around with the modron cube on the bughunting playthrough, and I can't seem to replicate the "containers resetting" bug on the pure base game. I've entered the maze and you practically have to reset it at least once to leave, and that didn't reset any containers I checked.
Do you maybe remember exactly how to replicate it, because the case might be that something in the UB mod is causing it.
Also, I haven't been able to replicate my atrea refreshing bug, either, which is rather good, but then it might also be caused by something related to the UB (or the biffing thing).
Important note: The current patch version of PST:EE (v3.1.3) contains a bug that resets content, such as stores or areas, when you enter the Modron Maze. To work around this issue, it is strongly recommended to download and install Generalized Biffing as the final mod in the mod list.
Important note: The current patch version of PST:EE (v3.1.3) contains a bug that resets content, such as stores or areas, when you enter the Modron Maze. To work around this issue, it is strongly recommended to download and install Generalized Biffing as the final mod in the mod list.
The issue has been reported and submitted some time ago. It must be difficult to fix, since it hasn't been included in the last couple of game patches.
The bug occurs only if game resources that can be included in saved games (such as stores or areas) are also found in the override folder of the game. In that case the files from the save are replaced by the files from the override folder.
Without colors is working, but is better with the colors mod...
The majority of dialog lines that are restored by this mod exist already in the base game. From what I've seen by scanning the code of the colors mod, it mainly does a search & replace operation on strings to add the color markers. It should work already if you install it after PST-UB.
Btw, while digging though things with Nearifinity I found the portrait and animations of something called "Ghoul Golem" or something like that, and I don't think I've ever seen that in-game.
Do you think that might be restoreable to the game if it's unfinished content?
I'm currently working on restoring the Ghoul Stone Golem to Lothar's home. It will guard some minor treasure in his private chambers (where I have also added an originally unused magical item). The restoration will be included in the "Restored Lower Ward Encounters" component.
The original bestiary description of the golem contains only placeholder text, that's why I tried to come up with something on my own. How does the following line sound?
Ghoul Stone Golem description: This powerful stone golem has been shaped into the form of an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and flickering black tongue. It is strong, resilient and utterly obedient to its master. It is said to be the creation of Lothar, master of the Bones of the Night.
Sounds pretty good to me. Still waiting on finalized version of the mod though, also on a side note that Save Nordom tweak posted earlier doesn't work, at least not for me.
The entry you showed me said that the golem handled visitors says this: "This golem stands constant guard over the Master’s library of skulls and his new acquisitions.", which kind of puts him in the skull room.
The reason I'm saying is that if you put the golem in Lothar's chambers folks won't be able to fight him whithout Lothar getting involved, and folks might want to. You know, it's a new monster added to PST, the game notorious for a lack of fights. And speaking as a DM, that golem entry on the Lothar page looks to me like it's purpose is to be included in an adventure which features Lothar, as something for players to fight (so they don't have to fight Lothar who'd just kill them).
You have a point. I haven't considered the containers in Lothar's chamber of skulls, which can also be used as triggers to make the golem hostile. I could add two golems into Lothar's home. One in the skull chamber and another one in his private chambers. (Btw, Lothar's private chambers contains shelves with skulls too, so the description would still fit.)
I'll still add the treasure to Lothar's private chamber though. It's a more appropriate place.
Sure thing, sounds good and I look forward to fight, errr, bugtesting the golem.
Also, I'd like it if there was more than one golem, as you suggest. The reason is that I have a cool quest idea for later down the road which would involve looking for a third one who wondered away.
For some reason Lothar doesn't get mad if you steal from him (his chests). The chests all have a trap script that sets a variable, which indicates that Lothar should get mad. However, it is not checked anywhere in the game. I'm using it now to drive the golems mad at least.
It's gonna look weird (fighting Lothar's golem in front of Lothar), but sure, why not?
As for why the game treats Lothar as special, from a designer perspective:
It seems pretty obvious WHY Lothar has "plot armor" which lets him kill you for real. He's supposed to tell you about Ravel, and also you have to get Morte back. And Morte getting skullnapped is also meant to get you into contact with Lothar and push the story along that way.
But if you've heard about Ravel from Lothar and you got Morte back - there's probably no reason Lothar needs to be unfightable. He sells stuff, so he's not worth killing, but once he's done his "plot is about Ravel now" bit he doesn't need special treatment anymore.
If you could add that fight as an optional part to the pack that'd really be something. You don't have to, ofc, but I thought I'd point it out.
Also, folks have actually rightfully complained about how silly it is for this random dude to just know who took your mortality. He knows it because:
He asked Morte Morte didn't know everything ever, especially not how to reach Ravel, but he probably did know it was her who did it.
Lothar seems to be a canon character of the Planescape universe. He's like Elminster of the Forgotten Realms. I think it would look bad if you can kill him in a regular fight.
Moreover, Lothar's creature animation doesn't even have any useful attack animations. It would look weird one way or the other.
Ratbone doesn't take Cranium rat tails out of your inventory.
The dialogue line which has me bring rat tails to him to start the pendant quest is supposed to remove 5 cranium rat tails from my inventory. It even says so in the dialogue 5X "Removed Item".
But when I look in the inventory different things happen. One time it only removed one cranioum rat tail. The next time it turned my stack of 5 rat tails into 20! I have no idea how.
I think there's something wrong with the game trying to remove multiple stacked items from an inventroy. I think that's why Phineas T. Lort in the office of vermin control can only take tails one by one.
If I understand correctly what you are trying to do, wouldn't it be better to simply not put the golem and the treasure in the same room as Lothar rather than create this illogical behavior where the golem attacks you and Lothar does nothing and then when you kill the golem right in front of Lothar he just talks to you as if nothing had happened? Also this stuff should be optional.
@lujo I think you're right. The script action used in Ratbone's dialog seems to work incorrectly. I'll report it if I can come up with a good repro.
Btw, Phineas uses another script action. I'll see if I can use his method to work around the Ratbone issue.
@stibius Lothar can be found either in the skull room or his private chambers, depending when you enter his home. So either location would cause issues. I think the treasure (which is quite minor btw.) should be found in his nightstand though. I'll see if there is something I can do to provoke a reaction from Lothar if you attack his golems (or they attack you).
Ghoul Stone Golem description: This powerful stone golem has been shaped into the form of an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and flickering black tongue. It is strong, resilient and utterly obedient to its master.
pretty good. here's my take:
Stone golems are magically animated guardians, ordinarily having the form of an austere, bulky statue. A rather morbidly inspired builder gave this one a shape of an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and a flickering black tongue... Signs point to Lothar, master of the Bones of the Night.
Stone golems are magically animated guardians. Their creators usually don't bother with giving them a shape other than the one of an austere, bulky statue. This one has been sculpted to resemble an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and a flickering black tongue... No doubt the work of Lothar, master of the Bones of the Night.
--
Also @argent77 : The Pendant quest is a very easy way for Ilquix to transform. The problem is that when Ilquix does transform, his associated portrait doesn't change. This is visible in-game with the portraits mod. Now, the thing with the regular game was that Ilquix didn't change unless he was attacked, I think, which means he couldn't be talked to. Now he can, and when he's talked to in Glabrezu form he still has the "pudgy short guy" graphics.
Could you please add the proper portrait association to the transformation for Ilquix?
Stone golems are magically animated guardians. Their creators usually don't bother with giving them a shape other than the one of an austere, bulky statue. This one has been sculpted to resemble an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and a flickering black tongue... No doubt the work of Lothar, master of the Bones of the Night.
Also @argent77 : The Pendant quest is a very easy way for Ilquix to transform. The problem is that when Ilquix does transform, his associated portrait doesn't change. This is visible in-game with the portraits mod. Now, the thing with the regular game was that Ilquix didn't change unless he was attacked, I think, which means he couldn't be talked to. Now he can, and when he's talked to in Glabrezu form he still has the "pudgy short guy" graphics.
Could you please add the proper portrait association to the transformation for Ilquix?
This issue has nothing to do with PST-UB. The mod doesn't touch Ilquix or his scripts at all. He can transform even in the base game.
The new purseless exit-dialogue works and is awesome.
The ring description needs a correction: "The ring belonged to" instead of "The ring belongs to".
Now, to make the quest more polished it needs 2 things:
1) The portal needs to be in the catacombs. There is an unused dead end in them close to the Dead Nations, that is the correct place for it. For several reasons:
a) Where it is now keeps triggering every time you enter the buried village. It stabs the eyes and feels ridiculous. b) The way it is now it's a quest which can be very, very quickly completed as soon as you enter the buried village. There's a handy leg bone in one of the heaps (or you can just bring one). It's already bad enough that you can get a huge pile of XP for finding Gris' Necklace without going into the catacombs or being able to speak with the dead (which is why the reward is so huge, it's not meant to be just found immediately). c) There's waaaay too much loot in there for a quest that can be completed in seconds after getting it. It feels like cheating. It wouldn't if it was actually IN the catacombs, where it'd still have rather good loot, but not eye-stabbingly conspicuous. d) It's a fancy tomb. It belongs with the other fancy tombs in the Weeping Stone Catacombs. That's where fancy tombs are. This one just has a strange entrance.
and
2) There's a random ghoul in what's basically a sealed tomb. Just replace it with another Giant Skeleton. Or two to have one in each corner. They are guardians of fancy tombs, Ghouls are scavengers and this one could not have got in without a candlestick, yadda yadda. I suppose that it could be the person entombed but it would have gone mad with hunger and attacked the skeletons. Please, replace it with a giant skeleton, or two more giant skeletons, or even a skeleton priest like Hargrim the bleak, that'd be a cool fight, but do remove the ghoul. Please.
1) The portal needs to be in the catacombs. For several reasons: ...
I agree with your points, but this change would also mean to rewrite some of the game's dialog lines. I'll add it to my to-do list and look into it more closely when the mod is stable enough.
2) There's a random ghoul in what's basically a sealed tomb. Just replace it with another Giant Skeleton. Or two to have one in each corner.
That's easier to change. The game doesn't provide many kinds of undead, so it will probably be just another skeleton. (A mummy would have been nice though.)
Oh, and please change the name of the place from "Mausoleum" to "Ancient Tomb" or something. There's allready a "Mausoleum" in the game. And there's an "Open Tomb" which looks suspiciously like this one, but if you style this one "Ancient Tomb" it will make the player feel smart for noticing instead of stupid. And you get an MtG refferrence on top of it.
"Mausoleum" is indeed the wrong name, since it's never called like that in any related dialogs. "Ancient Tomb" wouldn't really fit either though.
Both Sheryl's and Ulthera's dialogs refer to it as a crypt, so how about calling it simply "Crypt"? In that case there would be no need to have it translated into the various languages supported by the mod.
Keep in mind, though, that the other crypts in the catacombs have names (Shattered Crypt, for example, Crypt of Dismemberment). If you called it, and this is just a suggestion, Ancient Crypt, it'd fit in with the way the others are called. If you call it just "Crypt" it'll look weird.
Comments
New beta: PST-UB Reloaded v1.0-beta5
Changelog:It should be safe to update the mod without having to restart the game, except for:
- Changes of "Restored Candlestick Quest" may not apply if you already visited the tomb at least once.
- Installing second option of "Restored More Morte Mortuary Moments" won't have an effect unless starting a new game.
Do you maybe remember exactly how to replicate it, because the case might be that something in the UB mod is causing it.
Also, I haven't been able to replicate my atrea refreshing bug, either, which is rather good, but then it might also be caused by something related to the UB (or the biffing thing).
Might be worth raising officially.
http://mirandir.baldursgateworld.fr/pst-correcfr/
Without colors is working, but is better with the colors mod...
The bug occurs only if game resources that can be included in saved games (such as stores or areas) are also found in the override folder of the game. In that case the files from the save are replaced by the files from the override folder.
The original bestiary description of the golem contains only placeholder text, that's why I tried to come up with something on my own. How does the following line sound?
This powerful stone golem has been shaped into the form of an enormous ghoul, complete with sharp claws and flickering black tongue. It is strong, resilient and utterly obedient to its master. It is said to be the creation of Lothar, master of the Bones of the Night.
The entry you showed me said that the golem handled visitors says this: "This golem stands constant guard over the Master’s library of skulls and his new acquisitions.", which kind of puts him in the skull room.
The reason I'm saying is that if you put the golem in Lothar's chambers folks won't be able to fight him whithout Lothar getting involved, and folks might want to. You know, it's a new monster added to PST, the game notorious for a lack of fights. And speaking as a DM, that golem entry on the Lothar page looks to me like it's purpose is to be included in an adventure which features Lothar, as something for players to fight (so they don't have to fight Lothar who'd just kill them).
Just saying.
I'll still add the treasure to Lothar's private chamber though. It's a more appropriate place.
Also, I'd like it if there was more than one golem, as you suggest. The reason is that I have a cool quest idea for later down the road which would involve looking for a third one who wondered away.
As for why the game treats Lothar as special, from a designer perspective:
But if you've heard about Ravel from Lothar and you got Morte back - there's probably no reason Lothar needs to be unfightable. He sells stuff, so he's not worth killing, but once he's done his "plot is about Ravel now" bit he doesn't need special treatment anymore.
If you could add that fight as an optional part to the pack that'd really be something. You don't have to, ofc, but I thought I'd point it out.
Also, folks have actually rightfully complained about how silly it is for this random dude to just know who took your mortality. He knows it because:
Moreover, Lothar's creature animation doesn't even have any useful attack animations. It would look weird one way or the other.
Pendant of Yemeth quest bug!
The dialogue line which has me bring rat tails to him to start the pendant quest is supposed to remove 5 cranium rat tails from my inventory. It even says so in the dialogue 5X "Removed Item".
But when I look in the inventory different things happen. One time it only removed one cranioum rat tail. The next time it turned my stack of 5 rat tails into 20! I have no idea how.
I think there's something wrong with the game trying to remove multiple stacked items from an inventroy. I think that's why Phineas T. Lort in the office of vermin control can only take tails one by one.
Btw, Phineas uses another script action. I'll see if I can use his method to work around the Ratbone issue.
@stibius Lothar can be found either in the skull room or his private chambers, depending when you enter his home. So either location would cause issues. I think the treasure (which is quite minor btw.) should be found in his nightstand though. I'll see if there is something I can do to provoke a reaction from Lothar if you attack his golems (or they attack you).
maybe @lujo will want to review
--
Also @argent77 : The Pendant quest is a very easy way for Ilquix to transform. The problem is that when Ilquix does transform, his associated portrait doesn't change. This is visible in-game with the portraits mod. Now, the thing with the regular game was that Ilquix didn't change unless he was attacked, I think, which means he couldn't be talked to. Now he can, and when he's talked to in Glabrezu form he still has the "pudgy short guy" graphics.
Could you please add the proper portrait association to the transformation for Ilquix?
This issue has nothing to do with PST-UB. The mod doesn't touch Ilquix or his scripts at all. He can transform even in the base game.
The ring description needs a correction: "The ring belonged to" instead of "The ring belongs to".
Now, to make the quest more polished it needs 2 things:
1) The portal needs to be in the catacombs. There is an unused dead end in them close to the Dead Nations, that is the correct place for it. For several reasons:
a) Where it is now keeps triggering every time you enter the buried village. It stabs the eyes and feels ridiculous.
b) The way it is now it's a quest which can be very, very quickly completed as soon as you enter the buried village. There's a handy leg bone in one of the heaps (or you can just bring one). It's already bad enough that you can get a huge pile of XP for finding Gris' Necklace without going into the catacombs or being able to speak with the dead (which is why the reward is so huge, it's not meant to be just found immediately).
c) There's waaaay too much loot in there for a quest that can be completed in seconds after getting it. It feels like cheating. It wouldn't if it was actually IN the catacombs, where it'd still have rather good loot, but not eye-stabbingly conspicuous.
d) It's a fancy tomb. It belongs with the other fancy tombs in the Weeping Stone Catacombs. That's where fancy tombs are. This one just has a strange entrance.
and
2) There's a random ghoul in what's basically a sealed tomb. Just replace it with another Giant Skeleton. Or two to have one in each corner. They are guardians of fancy tombs, Ghouls are scavengers and this one could not have got in without a candlestick, yadda yadda. I suppose that it could be the person entombed but it would have gone mad with hunger and attacked the skeletons. Please, replace it with a giant skeleton, or two more giant skeletons, or even a skeleton priest like Hargrim the bleak, that'd be a cool fight, but do remove the ghoul. Please.
I agree with your points, but this change would also mean to rewrite some of the game's dialog lines. I'll add it to my to-do list and look into it more closely when the mod is stable enough.
That's easier to change. The game doesn't provide many kinds of undead, so it will probably be just another skeleton. (A mummy would have been nice though.)
Both Sheryl's and Ulthera's dialogs refer to it as a crypt, so how about calling it simply "Crypt"? In that case there would be no need to have it translated into the various languages supported by the mod.