Is EET worth the effort?

Contemplative_Hamster

Hello,
with today's release of BGee:SOD 2.5, I was thinking about installing EET for a combined BGee+SOD+BG2ee game so I don't have to install like 25+ mods twice, and to facilitate easy transfer (via the console) of NPCs into campaigns where they don't belong (must get my Tiax on! And M'khiin really deserves a room of her own in my ToB Abyssal pocket plane).

I have read much criticism over the years of EET, and recently especially of Roxanne, but did not expressly seek out such things, so what I know may not be representative. So, questions:

1) How difficult is EET to install? I'm fairly practiced at installing mods, and did once play a BGT game.
2) Does EET in and of itself make any radical changes to the story line, or is that the province of Roxanne's own work and the mods she appropriated without consent?

ThacoBell

Despite my newness at the time, I managed to instal the old BGTrilogy as my first mod. Apparently, EET is MUCH easier to work with and keep stable. As for what it offers, thats up to you. I don't care for megamods, and I can install all my mods in about 20 min. So for me, its not really worth it.

lefreut

Contemplative_Hamster said:

I have read much criticism over the years of EET, and recently especially of Roxanne, but did not expressly seek out such things, so what I know may not be representative.

EET is made and maintained by K4thos, it has nothing to do with Roxanne. Roxanne (and her various alts) gives the false impression that you must use Sandrah and a mega-install to play the game but it's false.

EET only merge BG1EE/SoD with BG2EE. And as far as I know, it does not alter the story in any way.

Contemplative_Hamster

Thank you. I will try an EET install as soon as time permits.

bob_veng

Contemplative_Hamster said:

Hello,
with today's release of BGee:SOD 2.5, I was thinking about installing EET for a combined BGee+SOD+BG2ee game so I don't have to install like 25+ mods twice, and to facilitate easy transfer (via the console) of NPCs into campaigns where they don't belong (must get my Tiax on! And M'khiin really deserves a room of her own in my ToB Abyssal pocket plane).

I have read much criticism over the years of EET, and recently especially of Roxanne, but did not expressly seek out such things, so what I know may not be representative. So, questions:

1) How difficult is EET to install? I'm fairly practiced at installing mods, and did once play a BGT game.
2) Does EET in and of itself make any radical changes to the story line, or is that the province of Roxanne's own work and the mods she appropriated without consent?

a well intentioned criticism:

your post is a disaster. it's so misinformed it actually looks like some kind of a cruel joke. please, before posting, try to responsibly inform yourself on the internet, at relevant places, such as readme files, relevant threads, actual sites of projects etc.

if i was you, i would edit out this post because it's harmful to the stature of that very serious and respectable project

- - -
btw. EET does not alter the story but it includes important cut content in one place:

the originally developed, but later cut, in-game kidnapping sequence in the last SoD area is actually included by default in EET

Contemplative_Hamster

Or, having done all that and still being confused, I could pose my question in a forum dedicated to such matters, and recieve, in a matter of minutes, two informed replies that will remain in place for others to benefit from later. The widespread conflation of EET and of Roxanne's work (Sandrah saga especially) is not of my making. See e.g. the 8-page thread on the subject in the BG2 modding subforum. Now here's a thread stating that they are distinct. How does that hurt EET?

jastey

@bob_veng On the contrary, realizing there is so much confusion about what EET is and does, and how Roxanne's Sandrah Saga does (or, rather: does not) come into play therein, made and makes me very sad. I appreciate and welcome any player who seeks the truth and comes foreward and poses his/her questions as @Contemplative_Hamster did, instead of not doing so and rather giving in to rumors and with this, depriving him/herself of this great project and the playing experience EET provides.

bob_veng

Contemplative_Hamster said:

Or, having done all that and still being confused, I could pose my question in a forum dedicated to such matters, and recieve, in a matter of minutes, two informed replies that will remain in place for others to benefit from later. The widespread conflation of EET and of Roxanne's work (Sandrah saga especially) is not of my making. See e.g. the 8-page thread on the subject in the BG2 modding subforum. Now here's a thread stating that they are distinct. How does that hurt EET?

i'd remove roxanne's name from op (by the way how it's used it looks like she's the author), and "I have read much criticism over the years of EET", because, objectively, much criticism over the years of EET does not exist so that part is misleading.

i won't push this further, just my opinion. friendly regards to you. glad you've got your answers.

edit: and sorry but you're wrong about there being a need to spend minutes to get the required answers - it takes seconds: if you type "eet mod" in google, you will get the answer you were looking for

also, to find the official EET readme with FAQ it takes maybe 30 seconds https://rawgit.com/K4thos/EET/master/EET/readme-EET.html

AstroBryGuy

@bob_veng - No mod is above criticism. There are those who don't like EET or don't feel it necessary, since the BG1 content is now natively in the latest engine (and actually, now in a later version of the engine than BG2EE). Playing the EE games as separate games or as one connected game is a user choice. Your implication that EET cannot be questioned or criticized is ridiculous.

Contemplative_Hamster

Alright, so you're better at googling than I am. Gold star. Well done. I'll try your approach next time with my students:

bob_veng said:

a well intentioned criticism:

your post is a disaster. it's so misinformed it actually looks like some kind of a cruel joke. please, before posting, try to responsibly inform yourself on the internet, at relevant places, such as readme files, relevant threads, actual sites of projects etc.

if i was you, i would edit out this post because it's harmful to the stature of that very serious and respectable project

And with the conclusion of this pleasant and informative exchange, I believe am ready to seize the remains of the day.

bob_veng

AstroBryGuy said:

@bob_veng - No mod is above criticism. There are those who don't like EET or don't feel it necessary, since the BG1 content is now natively in the latest engine (and actually, now in a later version of the engine than BG2EE). Playing the EE games as separate games or as one connected game is a user choice. Your implication that EET cannot be questioned or criticized is ridiculous.

i didn't make that implication, and what you say, though perfectly relevant and valid in itself does not constitute a criticism of EET - it's just a reasoning behind a choice not to use EET. on the other hand, if one chooses to use EET, he will find that EET works. simple as that.

if you take it so far as to say that EET is useless and that the objectively better choice is to not use it - that would actually be a criticism, but:
1. you haven't said that
2. almost no one has ever said that ("there are those", yeah maybe 2-3 people ever who have expressed an opinion similar to that)

therefore, there has not been much criticism of EET (having in mind all the criticism from other possible venues, of which there was also little to none)

AstroBryGuy

bob_veng said:

AstroBryGuy said:

@bob_veng - No mod is above criticism. There are those who don't like EET or don't feel it necessary, since the BG1 content is now natively in the latest engine (and actually, now in a later version of the engine than BG2EE). Playing the EE games as separate games or as one connected game is a user choice. Your implication that EET cannot be questioned or criticized is ridiculous.

i didn't make that implication, and what you say, though perfectly relevant and valid in itself does not constitute a criticism of EET - it's just a reasoning behind a choice not to use EET. on the other hand, if one chooses to use EET, he will find that EET works. simple as that.

if you take it so far as to say that EET is useless and that the objectively better choice is to not use it - that would actually be a criticism, but:
1. you haven't said that
2. almost no one has ever said that ("there are those", yeah maybe 2-3 people ever who have expressed an opinion similar to that)

therefore, there has not been much criticism of EET (having in mind all the criticism from other possible venues, of which there was also little to none)

You told someone who asked a couple questions about EET under the title "Is EET worth the effort?" that their post was a "disaster" and they should remove it. You're attempting to berate someone into silence over asking if EET is worth installing.

EDIT: And personally, I preferred Tutu to BGT, and I prefer BGEE / BG2EE to EET. I like being able to tweak my mod load between games (particularly mage/priest settings for SCS), and I don't want to have to uninstall and reinstall mods on an active game to do so. I don't install kits (too many are even more OP than the base game kits), I don't care about cheats like dumping a bunch of items in a chest in Beregost so that I can swing back in BG2 to pick up items, and I have no desire to play IWDEE in BG1/BG2.

If others like EET, great. It's user choice and that's a good thing. I'm happy to incorporate fixes into my mods to make them EET-compatible.

bob_veng

a mod is a user choice. much revelation.

edit: bad post. sorry.

semiticgoddess

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semiticgoddess

To answer the OP's questions:

Contemplative_Hamster said:

1) How difficult is EET to install? I'm fairly practiced at installing mods, and did once play a BGT game.
2) Does EET in and of itself make any radical changes to the story line, or is that the province of Roxanne's own work and the mods she appropriated without consent?

I've always installed EET via BWS. BWS is clunkier than normal WeiDU mods, but if you follow the instructions on the BWS thread carefully, you shouldn't run into too much trouble. BWS is pretty streamlined considering the sheer number of mods that it can install with full compatibility.

I don't know about BGT, but I installed BGTutu back in the day, and I'd say using BWS is a little harder than installing BGTutu is.

As for EET and Roxanne, I think the base EET mod only makes one change to the storyline: there's an additional fight scene at the end of SoD. The fight is unwinnable, but it gives the player a chance to at least fight back. BWS will install the Sandrah mod by default last I heard, and I understand that the Sandrah mod changes a lot of things, but you can disable the Sandrah mod when installing BWS.

jastey

semiticgod said:

BWS will install the Sandrah mod by default last I heard

BWS will not install the Sandrah mod per default. EDIT: not in the recommended setting. The preselected EET built Roxanne offers with her EET Setup Tool might, though.

One more comment: The fight scene at the end of SoD is not a fight where the player has control but a cutscene the BeamDog devs wrote but didn't activate, unfinished business one might call it.

Arunsun

EET install is pretty straightforward with BWS, just takes a while.

If I were you I would disable a lot of mods that are included in the default EET build in BWS, as these tend to break the game with insane amounts of XP and broken items. Thinking Sandrah's Saga, Drizzt's Saga, etc... They are worth doing once, maybe, but I would often skip them on my installs due to the sheer amount of cheesiness they bring to the game.

InKal

Well, I like jazz. When I listen some jazz really loud my dog starts howling and my cat wants to kill me.
Pretty sure for them jazz is kinda useless to put it lightly. Thank God they can't operate my PC nor the CD Player. Imagine just "nya nya nya nyaaaaaa" and "wuff wuff" all day long Dog and Cat Union vs. Jazz Radio or something.

Seriously, EET is great (only the map alone is amazing!!), BWS is pretty useful tool, Sandarah is completely optional like any other mod. I am not sure but installation process is not that much longer (if not actually shorter) than installing mods separately on two games. EET is awesome in my humble opinion. But of course it is only useful for player who has serious plans and thoughts about the game and really want to actually play it without skipping dialogs, from Candelkeep to Bhaals Throne.
For someone who want to play the game(s) as purely tactical challenge I wouldn't recommend EET.

Wise_Grimwald

I actually enjoy many of the mods that others clearly do not like. What I have liked about installing mods is that I no longer know what to expect next. The Drizzt Saga does indeed bring in overpowerful weapons, but also has overpowerful monsters that you need them for. That is why I always do the Drizzt Saga towards the end of BG1 (After the Ducal palace) Then there is little game that it affects. Of course nobody is forced to use overpowerful weapons. They can be dropped very easily.