Let's make a Xzar BG2 mod! [voice inside]

slick_liquid

Hi friends,

I recently recorded an alternate voice set for the wonderful BG2 Xan mod (you can hear some of that here and download it in the description)

And bored this afternoon while mucking about in my studio I thought I'd have a go at an impersonation of my second favourite oddball Baldur's Gate 1 wizard!



I had a browse around but couldn't find anything on a Xzar companion mod for Baldur's Gate 2. Does anyone know if one exists? If not ... who'd be up for teaming up with me to make one? He's such a delightfully wicked freak, and BG2 is severely lacking when it comes to evil parties.

Thank you! Let me know what you think!

Joe

Queegon

Seeing how he dies soon after you leave Irenicus' dungeon in a scripted interaction, a Xzar mod is truly something outside the box.

I really like your voicesets, both of them. Big thumbs up.

slick_liquid

Thank you Queegon!

Yeah, Xzar gets a bit of a bad go at it in BG2!

I'm not sure how it could go, but there's a few ways. Maybe he could join as a companion with the player averting his demise at the hands of the Harpers, and then working together to exact revenge. Maybe after his near death experience he needs a hand setting up a proper Zhentarim base in Amn. Hey, maybe the player could lead him to Irenicus's dungeon for it to be repurposed for Xzar & co's dastardly needs? Hmm!

fluke13

You could mod it so that if your kill all the harpers in the building, then talk with him, he'll join your party.

megamike15

Queegon said:

Seeing how he dies soon after you leave Irenicus' dungeon in a scripted interaction, a Xzar mod is truly something outside the box.

I really like your voicesets, both of them. Big thumbs up.

just do what they did with tiax and just have him not die. it will cause conficlts with the quest pack but the person could just make a dialogue line warning xzar.

fluke13

Or better yet, let him die, spawn a body to take to the temple and hey presto

Raduziel

Oh my god, that some good work you have here! I'm quite impressed!

Zaghoul

Hehheh. Yes, more Xzar. With Xzar being a necromancer I can see it as in his character to have some experimental or otherwise unknown ways of coming back from the dead, more than once. I had a play through once in BG quite a while back, where I had trouble getting rid of him due to keeping his body in the party too long. He got raised by my shaman when I forgot I had spell AI on. After that, he then got killed right before the neriad, then she raised him. Then again he was raised deliberately when he got killed too soon and I forget I wanted to test another of his BGNPC project quest lines when I first used that mod.
After all that, I just let him go on his way, as the dude was just getting too lucky at not staying dead for long, and it just seemed fate wanted him to continue on for some reason or other. I just had to appreciate all that.B)

In BG2 he is working on some experiments in the dock area, so maybe he did come up with some eldritch like discovery to help in case of death. Perhaps a distant relative could have been interested in Xzar's whereabouts, feeling drawn to find him and recite some old spell Xzar discovered that would then allow Xzar to take over his relatives body after the spell was read (An HPLovecraft Charles Dexter Ward kinda thing) It could also be that one of his apprentices was out during the party's visit to his 'house'. They could come along after the harpers and help his master out, from being dead, that is.
"Poor Masta, Igor always helps Masta. Igor finds masta's brain he cloned and kept alive, hidden from everyone else. I dropped it once but thinks you should still be 'yourself'. I members the right things to do now, I think." Maybe a little party involvement with the hunt for the last few things, or even a bit of bhaalspawn essence added to the mix.
Anyway, a most interesting idea and one that could use all sorts of macabre ideas for the ol evil dude to return.

slick_liquid

Thanks guys for the ideas and kind words! I've teamed up with someone I found over on the /r/baldursgate subreddit and hopefully will soon be able to make this a reality!

Mantis37

There is a Xzar npc for BG2 in the mod "bg1 npcs for soa", which is fun but I don't think works properly with the EEs.

Raduziel

Mantis37 said:

There is a Xzar npc for BG2 in the mod "bg1 npcs for soa", which is fun but I don't think works properly with the EEs.

This mod never worked for me.

slick_liquid

Hey guys, we're plotting out potential Xzar quests and branches and getting started on dialogue at the moment, but please leave any suggestions or ideas here in this thread! It'd be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Hubal

I have one idea. Maybe Jaheira could resurrect Xzar with her Harper's Call spell in spite of the Harpers?
Knowing her she would disapprove their ways ( scheme to kill Monty to get to Xzar)

Btw. I really liked your voice over, but original is also great. Impressive anyway

Mantis37

Raduziel said:

Mantis37 said:

There is a Xzar npc for BG2 in the mod "bg1 npcs for soa", which is fun but I don't think works properly with the EEs.

This mod never worked for me.

Worked fine on Vanilla for me through BWS. A bit whimsical but quite creative & unique.

Raduziel

Hubal said:

I have one idea. Maybe Jaheira could resurrect Xzar with her Harper's Call spell in spite of the Harpers?
Knowing her she would disapprove their ways ( scheme to kill Monty to get to Xzar)

Btw. I really liked your voice over, but original is also great. Impressive anyway

There's a necromancy spell called Magic Jar.

We can say that Xzar stored himself inside a gem when the Harper killed him. Picking up the gem starts a dialogue saying something like "It was part of a plan, now the Harpers will let me in peace for a while. Take me to the location X, I left a spare body there so I can restore myself".

Doesn't touch a thing in the original quest, fits Xzar personality and class, and sounds nicely evil to me.

This is the script I was saving for making a Xzar-in-BG2 mod myself, but I don't have the time or patience or knowledge to make a quest/NPC mod.

Ludwig_II

Raduziel said:

There's a necromancy spell called Magic Jar.

We can say that Xzar stored himself inside a gem when the Harper killed him. Picking up the gem starts a dialogue saying something like "It was part of a plan, now the Harpers will let me in peace for a while. Take me to the location X, I left a spare body there so I can restore myself".

Doesn't touch a thing in the original quest, fits Xzar personality and class, and sounds nicely evil to me.

This sounds like a great script to me. I think it could fit in the story nicely.

I also want to say that I love the voice over. Really hope this mod could work out. I would love to have the madness of Xzar in my party in BG2. He's my favourite NPC from BG1

Vasculio

slick_liquid said:

Hi friends,

I recently recorded an alternate voice set for the wonderful BG2 Xan mod (you can hear some of that here and download it in the description)

And bored this afternoon while mucking about in my studio I thought I'd have a go at an impersonation of my second favourite oddball Baldur's Gate 1 wizard!



I had a browse around but couldn't find anything on a Xzar companion mod for Baldur's Gate 2. Does anyone know if one exists? If not ... who'd be up for teaming up with me to make one? He's such a delightfully wicked freak, and BG2 is severely lacking when it comes to evil parties.

Thank you! Let me know what you think!

Joe

Your voice and tone alone is not bad... but i feel like you are out of sync for Xzar. It feels like your not trying to sell me Xzar. I understand this is your first draft. But you have ways to go before i could accept your version. Now before you get offended i can't match Xzar's voice either. But i wouldn't discourage you from doing more drafts down the line. Make more samples and get input from the community on which ones work best. Watch this video to see where i am coming from https://youtube.com/watch?v=4Gr_Wc4H5fk

slick_liquid

Vasculio said:

slick_liquid said:

Hi friends,

I recently recorded an alternate voice set for the wonderful BG2 Xan mod (you can hear some of that here and download it in the description)

And bored this afternoon while mucking about in my studio I thought I'd have a go at an impersonation of my second favourite oddball Baldur's Gate 1 wizard!



I had a browse around but couldn't find anything on a Xzar companion mod for Baldur's Gate 2. Does anyone know if one exists? If not ... who'd be up for teaming up with me to make one? He's such a delightfully wicked freak, and BG2 is severely lacking when it comes to evil parties.

Thank you! Let me know what you think!

Joe

Your voice and tone alone is not bad... but i feel like you are out of sync for Xzar. It feels like your not trying to sell me Xzar. I understand this is your first draft. But you have ways to go before i could accept your version. Now before you get offended i can't match Xzar's voice either. But i wouldn't discourage you from doing more drafts down the line. Make more samples and get input from the community on which ones work best. Watch this video to see where i am coming from https://youtube.com/watch?v=4Gr_Wc4H5fk

Thanks! No, it's OK, I'm not offended — I posted here for opinions!

But I have to point out that in the video you linked, Ritchie Valens has a director working with him to get his delivery right. I've got no such thing here. It's just me in a booth with only myself to bounce ideas and deliveries off of.

That said, do you think you could provide some feedback with a bit more depth? I'm ready and more than willing to try different things, and all I'm doing at the moment is a loose imitation of Frank Welker's brilliant performance. I'd agree that I'm not quite hitting it. But self-assessment for this kind of thing is quite tough. You can end up beating your head against a wall trying to find a different way to do a read, but alternatives might be obvious to a second pair of ears. So I'd appreciate meaningful criticism or observations on what you think is lacking

DJKajuru

I'd like to make a request. I know that somme members have suggested destroying the harper base as a plot, but I fear that it might end up the same as Dorn's or Hexatt's BG2 plot , that is,it might be so evil that players who prefer good and neutral aligned characters would simply pass it up. I know that Xzar is chaotic evil , but I also appreciate the fact that all evil BG2 NPCs are treated as being bad guys who for some reason need or want to work with you. Xzar is really smart *and* funny ,so a flexible plot would make him one of our favorite npc mods.

slick_liquid

DJKajuru said:

I'd like to make a request. I know that somme members have suggested destroying the harper base as a plot, but I fear that it might end up the same as Dorn's or Hexatt's BG2 plot , that is,it might be so evil that players who prefer good and neutral aligned characters would simply pass it up. I know that Xzar is chaotic evil , but I also appreciate the fact that all evil BG2 NPCs are treated as being bad guys who for some reason need or want to work with you. Xzar is really smart *and* funny ,so a flexible plot would make him one of our favorite npc mods.

That's a really good point. Would he even be interested in petty revenge, or would he be glad to be rid of Montaron and be onto the next Zhentarim mission?

Arthas

are you actually making a Xzar mod ?

slick_liquid

Arthas said:

are you actually making a Xzar mod ?

Not yet. I've had a couple of people express interest in partnering up to make one but nothing that's gone anywhere so far!