One question- it feels like there are a lot of Mazzy-Evil PC (well, Korgan and Viconia at least) interactions. Does the mod introduce some way of keeping them in the party if you're acting, well, like Mazzy would want you to? (Also, one of your dialogue sets deals with one of those evil NPCs and the Good one who would fight them...interesting).
@masteraleph For Viconia, yes. You'll be able to keep her in your party with Mazzy once you get far enough in their talks and Mazzy should help diffuse her issues with Keldorn too.
The others, not so much. You're better off taking Clara if you want to be that evil. She is totally fine with everything. We freely admit that parts of this mod are totally conflicting and can't be played on the same run-through .
If you need a thief, Clara actually works fairly well with a good party. She's technically evil, but mostly just doesn't care about anyone else. Otherwise Imoen and then Jaheira would be next in terms of # of dialogues.
Haha, yeah. Now the next push is to quickly play through ToB again (last time I played through ToB was shortly after it was originally released over a decade ago) and finish the Mazzy romance up there.
Right now all the repeatable conversations continue into ToB but we haven't yet added the ToB specific content (those spirits, and Saradush talks and whatnot).
The reason this mod's gotten so gigantic is because I get distracted and then drag Ratatoskr into my distractions. For example I dragged Ratatoskr into this mod first just as an editor. Then I created Clara (Human Hexxat) because I was dissatisfied with Mazzy's normal response to the portion of Hexxat's quest where Human Hexxat and Vampire Hexxat meet. So I created Clara NPC and eventually Ratatoskr got attached to her too and now she's written almost as much for Clara as I have.
Then I roped in my ideas for Darkside Anomen (continuing Anomen's path if he takes the most evil options during his quests) by having Clara and Anomen romance with Clara taking the part of the main character. There's stuff for Clara and Anomen if you take Anomen's good path too. Ratatoskr always hated Anomen, but she's come around on that too.
Bodhi I always wanted to side with (I always felt cheated on the evil option in SoA) so creating a Bodhi NPC in ToB was just a test of the early stages of that. Thanks to BG2:EE's Hexxat I had examples of coding to copy for turning her to gas. She can use the cloak of Dragomir too to not burn.
The conversations between Jahaeira/Aerie and Viconia/Aerie are the early part of Aerie regenerating her wings at the end of ToB; the fact that she couldn't always annoyed me.
I have absolutely no explanation for the existence of the Viconia-Serevok, Hexxat-Korgan, or Viconia-Hexxat conversations other than insanity.
So anyways, the next step is to finish up Mazzy for ToB, but there's a few other side projects to tack on once we've finished that. I'm near San Francisco Bay and we're still locked down so I have time. Ratatoskr's in Colorado so she's somewhat back to work, but they're still half-shutdown so she has time too.
One question- it feels like there are a lot of Mazzy-Evil PC (well, Korgan and Viconia at least) interactions. Does the mod introduce some way of keeping them in the party if you're acting, well, like Mazzy would want you to? (Also, one of your dialogue sets deals with one of those evil NPCs and the Good one who would fight them...interesting).
Mostly trying to plot out a party.
Yeah Mazzy's dialogues with Korgan, Edwin, and Viconia all got longer just because their personalities played well with each other, and I needed to work out why Mazzy would even stay in a party with the three of them. Only Viconia comes around to the idea of staying with a party that's doing too many good things, though I suppose based on the writing you could make an argument for Korgan doing so as well. Maybe I'll change that for the next update (having an NPC refuse to leave based on rep is actually super-simple coding). Edwin stays Edwin.
Clara works as a thief and stays in any party. Imoen is also a good thief post-Spellhold and she's got a number of dialogues with Mazzy (Imoen is the only NPC that was originally coded to never leave based on rep).
Keldorn works well since he can help Mazzy become a member of the Order as can Anomen (provided he passes his test). There's a lot of Anomen-Clara dialogues.
I should really write some Minsc ones, he's probably my favorite character, and he and Mazzy already have some banters to set the tone.
Right now all the repeatable conversations continue into ToB but we haven't yet added the ToB specific content (those spirits, and Saradush talks and whatnot).
Hey now, we have some TOB content. I'm proud of those damn epilogues. All 6 million of them. But yes, this nonsense is 100% your fault
That said, I'm gonna go code some more Clara banters. Because I can.
@megamike15 Yes, you should be fine to install the mod there. BCaesar and I tend to just install AllThingsMazzy on top of everything else because we're testing so often and I haven't had any issues so far.
For the flirt pack, it's safest to install that after any other mods with dialogues because of the way the code works. Otherwise it will break anything that isn't weighted properly. However, our mod shouldn't cause any problems so you can install it before AllThingsMazzy if that's easier.
And yeah, we should probably rename this AllThingsMazzy&Clara if nothing else . It's gotten completely out of hand.
I'd love to romance a actual evil Anomen alas we got what we have in game so I'll have my PC live through Clara I guess :P
That said props to you guys actually making me despise Viconia. XD I never liked her much to begin with but now I actively want to shove an axe in her skull. (Never bothered using Korgan or Hexxat long despite how useful they could be because my PC just doesn't gell with them at all and I play LE characters and having those liabilities around won't help his rep. I finally understand Kivan and Keldorn's kill the drow perspective :P ).
I do wonder how Mazzy would get along with my LE PC though. I kind of hate the game because so many evil options are mustache twirling stupidity that when I play LE properly he makes like 90% of the same choices my CG character does but for different reasoning and I can't even give said reasoning. -_-
@Ryz009 We actually plan to get there someday. Clara prefers evil Anomen and we'll probably adapt that code for CHARNAME too at some point. It wouldn't be that hard. The ending of Anomen's romance quest is one of the things that always made me mad.
@Ratatoskr yes! That ending is so rage inducing. I can appreciate a good the only winning move is not to play quest but that was so poorly done and asinine it was painful. Early BW tended to screw over ladies that romanced DS males (looking at you Carth and Sky especially sky because his CF m/m version of his romance doesn't even have the downer epilogue BS!)
And then we finally get an evil male romance with Dorn and...well his romance is a mess in general. Shame too because he started so good in BG1.
Yeah, it was the Schrodinger's Cat of screw-you quests. If you do, then he isn't. If you don't, then he is. I just wanted to solve his sister's murder, damn it!
And coding this, we've been noticing how skewed the game is towards being good. It's actually fairly difficult to play a truly evil character.
And coding this, we've been noticing how skewed the game is towards being good. It's actually fairly difficult to play a truly evil character.
It's funny, I have the opposite reaction. With so much media where everyone is terrible and good choices never have any effect, I find it refreshing to play an RPG where I can actually play a Big Damn Hero! Like, absent some thief quests, you can actually be a Paladin that sticks to her guns- you're fighting beholders, and illithids, and nests of vampires, and so on. It's only the lack of a LG option to get to Brynnlaw that holds you back from that at all.
It is extremely slanted towards good. You get less xp as evil, you randomly kill people that are useful (because in BG evil = moron), you have less rep so you get heavily armored idiots chasing you down that lower your rep even more, prices become sky high it's not even worth it.
My LE PC should be LN because the evil options are so bleh.
You can even still recruit all the evil NPCs as a good protagonist! And while at least 2 evil companions can be turned good/gooder the most you get in the reverse is Anomen. Which. Anomen. And he doesn't even go completely evil. Even Dorn's BG2 quest only gives you 2 rep hit. (You just have to be make sure not to kill the Cook in the second one.) And if you're playing good a 2 rep hit is *nothing*
My LE PC has to take the good option because the evil option is stupid and counterproductive so many times and lowers your reward because screw you in others. (Like in BG1 you're fighting a war against Sarevok who's well liked. Why yes it makes so much sense to have your reputation in the gutter and justify him being against you. *Brilliance*) Meanwhile the few times you *can* blackmail someone your Rep still goes down and they decide to find a spine they didn't have against their last blackmailer for you? Like I love BG but it is so heavily slanted towards good it's sad.
And even if you want to play the rebel you're still pushed towards good :P After all what way to ultimately thumb your nose at fate then to be super good after such a horrid start.
@masteraleph I actually have no complaints about all the good options. I usually played a mostly good character, which is why I never noticed the skewing before I was looking at the code itself.
It's just that there usually aren't evil options to balance them out. I want to be able to be a big damn hero and a big damn villain if I so choose. But Ryz009 is right. You really do get fewer rewards unless you decide to take the good path. And don't even get me started on trying to be neutral.
My complaints about the Anomen romance was more that he got screwed in either direction. I had nothing against not murdering Saerk, but I wanted to be able to solve Moira's murder. Not just be told, "Sorry, there's no evidence."
Yeah I tend to play evil in games so I always notice the disparities. But I tend to make up for it by playing evil but charismatic and well liked protags that can justify taking most of the good options for less good reasons.
It's just really annoying because in BG it feels like you're being penalized for being evil which would be fine if you *ever* got punished for being stupid good but you don't.
I mean there's that weird paladin quest that requires you to remember that Know Alignment is a spell, and you can't get the silver pantaloons unless you're evil. But I think that's about it.
I'm playing a Lawful Neutral guy in my test game right now and I keep having to lean good instead. Because the other option is to be a total asshole.
I mean there's that weird paladin quest that requires you to remember that Know Alignment is a spell, and you can't get the silver pantaloons unless you're evil. But I think that's about it.
I'm playing a Lawful Neutral guy in my test game right now and I keep having to lean good instead. Because the other option is to be a total asshole.
Can't you get the silver pantaloons just by pick pocketing the dude and then releasing her? That's how I did it because the rep hit wasn't worth it lol. (On my CN character lol). She's upset but not as upset as the other option :P
@Ryz009 Oh right, I forgot about pickpocketing the pantaloons. I suppose that would have worked. But anyway, we've been adding little evil options here and there. Where you can essentially still do the same things, but the evil way instead.
And CN/evil Anomen is definitely on our to-do list. It wouldn't even be that hard to code, just an EXTEND BOTTOM on the choices in the final Cor confrontation and maybe some more talks afterward.
alot of rpgs are geared twords being the hero with the evil run being an after thought or making no logical sense in the story.
Oh I perfectly understand why. In most games the good path is chosen an overwhelming amount. I just wish when we did get evil choices they weren't so half baked or the typical muwahaha *kicks puppies with no rhyme or reason*. (or not baked at all most of the time.) So many evil choices fall into being greedy for the sake of it (and being punished for said greed while the good guy gets showered with loot) or being vile to the point that it hurts their own cause. I appreciate games that actually have the good options be painful and have you lose things instead of getting more despite it making 0 sense.
And @Ratatoskr I can't wait to have my LE gal with evil anomen. I wanted for so long ;_;
(Also I love your Edwin. After playing SoD I find myself actually like the little snake. That dungeon line and laugh were perfect. )
And sorry about the wall. I get...passionate about my evil options in games lol
Edwin is mostly BCaesar, but I'm glad you like our version
And yeah, I play a lot of actual D&D and even my evil characters have a rule about screwing over their own party. Because that would get them killed. Lawful Evil doesn't mean "murder the world", it means act within your own best interests and follow the law whether it's right or not. Also, even evil people know the value of a good reputation. Look at Sarevok in BG1. That is how you "evil" properly.
My Lawful Evil paladin will still risk her life to save her "retainers". She'll just also drive her carriage across a bridge made of damned souls without an ounce of sympathy. Because they probably deserve their punishments.
Hey guys, remember when we promised y'all a Mazzy romance about three years ago? Happy Memorial Day. Let's have some fireworks.
For anyone who doesn't feel like checking the ReadMe, here's the changelog for the latest post. As promised it is enormous:
Changes:
A. Main Mod: Mazzy
1. Mazzy Initiated Friendship Talks at set times/locations during the game
2. Mazzy Romance: Quest to start the romance in SOA (starts after the Underdark)
Some romance talks at set times during the game, talks w/ Mazzy's family TOB epilogues.
3. Recurring Mazzy friendship/romance talks where you can choose the topic.
4. An additional Mazzy/Jaheira friendship talk
5. Additional Mazzy interjections
6. Additional Viconia-Mazzy Conversations, about 14 more in all (some TOB as well)
7. Additional Mazzy/Jaheira & Mazzy/Viconia talks if you're romancing them with CN
8. Imoen-Mazzy Friendship/Romance w/ or w/o CN (+1 Viconia Talk)
9. 2 more Mazzy-Keldorn Talks about Viconia (SOA & TOB)
10. Should be properly EET compatible now.
AB: Main Mod: Misc
1. A bugfix in the Copper Coronet so that you can actually get into the back with Lehtinan's permission. This allows you to side with the slavers or lie to infiltrate their operations.
2. Bugfix for Minsc actually rejoining your party after being charmed by Irenicus' dryads.
3. 1 Clara-Imoen talk in Chapter 4
4. Additional drow massage options in Ust Natha
5. 4 Viconia-Aerie Talks
6. Clara Banters with Jan, Mazzy, Dorn, Korgan, Nalia, Keldorn, Valygar, HaerDalis, Edwin, Yoshimo, Viconia, and Sarevok (some of these change her stats/abilities so Clara will be slightly different depending on your party)
7. If you don't romance Anomen, Clara will do it for you. However, she has her own agenda and the romance goes down a very different path once he takes his test.
8. Clara Interjections
9. Fix to assign Anomen appropriate sound files if he fails his test
10. Fix if you break the Anomen romance by accident
B. For the Evil: Things get a little dark.
1. An evil player option w/ the dryads in Irenicus' dungeon.
2. A basic TOB Bodhi.
3. Minor evil options w/ Tiiro & Auvala, Am Si, etc.
4. Additional courtesan options in the Bridge District
5. 4 Hexxat/Viconia talks - SOA & TOB
C. For the Good:
1. Minor fixes in Hostile Mazzy & Hexxat's scene.
2. Additional Mazzy interjections
Do you believe in miracles? Now I can die in peace
Anyway the amount of mod content seems gargantuan much respect
@Ryz009 :-) Always a good idea. Though definitely report any other bugs you run across. We did a massive amount of testing but we probably missed something.
@Caszidy No dying until you play it :-). And yeah, I went on something of a coding tear while on lockdown. There were days where that's literally all I did. But it was kinda necessary since we definitely didn't make this easy on ourselves. One of my friendship talks has something like 40 ways it can go between all the different chains.
Yeah, it shouldn't take too long for BCaesar to play through it and we already have some content done actually. We're mostly just missing the Gorion Wraith sequence.
Of course, that's assuming we don't get distracted again....
i mean tob is already extended thanks to all the talks added by imoen's romance. so we will have to see how much longer tob can become with the new mazzy content.
Comments
One question- it feels like there are a lot of Mazzy-Evil PC (well, Korgan and Viconia at least) interactions. Does the mod introduce some way of keeping them in the party if you're acting, well, like Mazzy would want you to? (Also, one of your dialogue sets deals with one of those evil NPCs and the Good one who would fight them...interesting).
Mostly trying to plot out a party.
The others, not so much. You're better off taking Clara if you want to be that evil. She is totally fine with everything. We freely admit that parts of this mod are totally conflicting and can't be played on the same run-through
Sounds like Mazzy, Keldorn, and Viconia is a nice combination with this. Any other suggestions?
Haha, yeah. Now the next push is to quickly play through ToB again (last time I played through ToB was shortly after it was originally released over a decade ago) and finish the Mazzy romance up there.
Right now all the repeatable conversations continue into ToB but we haven't yet added the ToB specific content (those spirits, and Saradush talks and whatnot).
The reason this mod's gotten so gigantic is because I get distracted and then drag Ratatoskr into my distractions. For example I dragged Ratatoskr into this mod first just as an editor. Then I created Clara (Human Hexxat) because I was dissatisfied with Mazzy's normal response to the portion of Hexxat's quest where Human Hexxat and Vampire Hexxat meet. So I created Clara NPC and eventually Ratatoskr got attached to her too and now she's written almost as much for Clara as I have.
Then I roped in my ideas for Darkside Anomen (continuing Anomen's path if he takes the most evil options during his quests) by having Clara and Anomen romance with Clara taking the part of the main character. There's stuff for Clara and Anomen if you take Anomen's good path too. Ratatoskr always hated Anomen, but she's come around on that too.
Bodhi I always wanted to side with (I always felt cheated on the evil option in SoA) so creating a Bodhi NPC in ToB was just a test of the early stages of that. Thanks to BG2:EE's Hexxat I had examples of coding to copy for turning her to gas. She can use the cloak of Dragomir too to not burn.
The conversations between Jahaeira/Aerie and Viconia/Aerie are the early part of Aerie regenerating her wings at the end of ToB; the fact that she couldn't always annoyed me.
I have absolutely no explanation for the existence of the Viconia-Serevok, Hexxat-Korgan, or Viconia-Hexxat conversations other than insanity.
So anyways, the next step is to finish up Mazzy for ToB, but there's a few other side projects to tack on once we've finished that. I'm near San Francisco Bay and we're still locked down so I have time. Ratatoskr's in Colorado so she's somewhat back to work, but they're still half-shutdown so she has time too.
I ask so i won't have to reinstall every single mod when a new version comes out.
as i would just have to uninstall my portrait mods and tweaks. and thats not as much of a hassle as having to reinstall everything.
also the part about the npc flirt pack was not clear so should that be installed before or after all things mazzy?
Yeah Mazzy's dialogues with Korgan, Edwin, and Viconia all got longer just because their personalities played well with each other, and I needed to work out why Mazzy would even stay in a party with the three of them. Only Viconia comes around to the idea of staying with a party that's doing too many good things, though I suppose based on the writing you could make an argument for Korgan doing so as well. Maybe I'll change that for the next update (having an NPC refuse to leave based on rep is actually super-simple coding). Edwin stays Edwin.
Clara works as a thief and stays in any party. Imoen is also a good thief post-Spellhold and she's got a number of dialogues with Mazzy (Imoen is the only NPC that was originally coded to never leave based on rep).
Keldorn works well since he can help Mazzy become a member of the Order as can Anomen (provided he passes his test). There's a lot of Anomen-Clara dialogues.
I should really write some Minsc ones, he's probably my favorite character, and he and Mazzy already have some banters to set the tone.
Hey now, we have some TOB content. I'm proud of those damn epilogues. All 6 million of them. But yes, this nonsense is 100% your fault
That said, I'm gonna go code some more Clara banters. Because I can.
i don't even know what to call it as it's a friendship, romance, npc, quest, bante mod.
For the flirt pack, it's safest to install that after any other mods with dialogues because of the way the code works. Otherwise it will break anything that isn't weighted properly. However, our mod shouldn't cause any problems so you can install it before AllThingsMazzy if that's easier.
And yeah, we should probably rename this AllThingsMazzy&Clara if nothing else
That said props to you guys actually making me despise Viconia. XD I never liked her much to begin with but now I actively want to shove an axe in her skull. (Never bothered using Korgan or Hexxat long despite how useful they could be because my PC just doesn't gell with them at all and I play LE characters and having those liabilities around won't help his rep. I finally understand Kivan and Keldorn's kill the drow perspective :P ).
I do wonder how Mazzy would get along with my LE PC though. I kind of hate the game because so many evil options are mustache twirling stupidity that when I play LE properly he makes like 90% of the same choices my CG character does but for different reasoning and I can't even give said reasoning. -_-
And then we finally get an evil male romance with Dorn and...well his romance is a mess in general. Shame too because he started so good in BG1.
And coding this, we've been noticing how skewed the game is towards being good. It's actually fairly difficult to play a truly evil character.
It's funny, I have the opposite reaction. With so much media where everyone is terrible and good choices never have any effect, I find it refreshing to play an RPG where I can actually play a Big Damn Hero! Like, absent some thief quests, you can actually be a Paladin that sticks to her guns- you're fighting beholders, and illithids, and nests of vampires, and so on. It's only the lack of a LG option to get to Brynnlaw that holds you back from that at all.
It is extremely slanted towards good. You get less xp as evil, you randomly kill people that are useful (because in BG evil = moron), you have less rep so you get heavily armored idiots chasing you down that lower your rep even more, prices become sky high it's not even worth it.
My LE PC should be LN because the evil options are so bleh.
You can even still recruit all the evil NPCs as a good protagonist! And while at least 2 evil companions can be turned good/gooder the most you get in the reverse is Anomen. Which. Anomen. And he doesn't even go completely evil. Even Dorn's BG2 quest only gives you 2 rep hit. (You just have to be make sure not to kill the Cook in the second one.) And if you're playing good a 2 rep hit is *nothing*
My LE PC has to take the good option because the evil option is stupid and counterproductive so many times and lowers your reward because screw you in others. (Like in BG1 you're fighting a war against Sarevok who's well liked. Why yes it makes so much sense to have your reputation in the gutter and justify him being against you. *Brilliance*) Meanwhile the few times you *can* blackmail someone your Rep still goes down and they decide to find a spine they didn't have against their last blackmailer for you? Like I love BG but it is so heavily slanted towards good it's sad.
And even if you want to play the rebel you're still pushed towards good :P After all what way to ultimately thumb your nose at fate then to be super good after such a horrid start.
It's just that there usually aren't evil options to balance them out. I want to be able to be a big damn hero and a big damn villain if I so choose. But Ryz009 is right. You really do get fewer rewards unless you decide to take the good path. And don't even get me started on trying to be neutral.
My complaints about the Anomen romance was more that he got screwed in either direction. I had nothing against not murdering Saerk, but I wanted to be able to solve Moira's murder. Not just be told, "Sorry, there's no evidence."
It's just really annoying because in BG it feels like you're being penalized for being evil which would be fine if you *ever* got punished for being stupid good but you don't.
I'm playing a Lawful Neutral guy in my test game right now and I keep having to lean good instead. Because the other option is to be a total asshole.
Can't you get the silver pantaloons just by pick pocketing the dude and then releasing her? That's how I did it because the rep hit wasn't worth it lol. (On my CN character lol). She's upset but not as upset as the other option :P
Oh yeah that weird paladin quest.
And CN/evil Anomen is definitely on our to-do list. It wouldn't even be that hard to code, just an EXTEND BOTTOM on the choices in the final Cor confrontation and maybe some more talks afterward.
Oh I perfectly understand why. In most games the good path is chosen an overwhelming amount. I just wish when we did get evil choices they weren't so half baked or the typical muwahaha *kicks puppies with no rhyme or reason*. (or not baked at all most of the time.) So many evil choices fall into being greedy for the sake of it (and being punished for said greed while the good guy gets showered with loot) or being vile to the point that it hurts their own cause. I appreciate games that actually have the good options be painful and have you lose things instead of getting more despite it making 0 sense.
And @Ratatoskr
(Also I love your Edwin. After playing SoD I find myself actually like the little snake. That dungeon line and laugh were perfect. )
And sorry about the wall. I get...passionate about my evil options in games lol
And yeah, I play a lot of actual D&D and even my evil characters have a rule about screwing over their own party. Because that would get them killed. Lawful Evil doesn't mean "murder the world", it means act within your own best interests and follow the law whether it's right or not. Also, even evil people know the value of a good reputation. Look at Sarevok in BG1. That is how you "evil" properly.
My Lawful Evil paladin will still risk her life to save her "retainers". She'll just also drive her carriage across a bridge made of damned souls without an ounce of sympathy. Because they probably deserve their punishments.
Edit: This is why I should just go to bed. I was an idiot and installed something I shouldn't have. NVM me :P
Do you believe in miracles? Now I can die in peace
Anyway the amount of mod content seems gargantuan
@Caszidy No dying until you play it :-). And yeah, I went on something of a coding tear while on lockdown. There were days where that's literally all I did. But it was kinda necessary since we definitely didn't make this easy on ourselves. One of my friendship talks has something like 40 ways it can go between all the different chains.
Of course, that's assuming we don't get distracted again....