Okay I've enjoyed the NPCs themselves and the quests for the most part in this mod, but I would not install the water gardens portion again.
Most of the NPCs there are funny even if sometimes mildly out of place, but the merchants are ridiculous. They sell crazy OP items and custom spells with no descriptions at totally random price points, 10000% out of whack with the baseline balance of the game. This is BAD. Mods should try to fit in the logic of the game's universe, not just do random stuff without any logical explanation. No, I don't want a scroll of "mass pickpocket" for 150K this is not a thing.
Incredibly there are *a few* actually balanced items at acceptable price points with proper descriptions that would be fine on the same damn merchants. But a good cleanup is in order in the future, and by cleanup I mean deleting 90% of their inventories
This nitpick apart... so far enjoying the main components of the mod, it just needs some streamlining/balance. Thankfully the water garden component is optional.
This nitpick apart... so far enjoying the main components of the mod, it just needs some streamlining/balance. Thankfully the water garden component is optional.
Hello! Thank you very much for your feedback! If you could list all those items that, in your opinion, change the balance a lot, I could disable adding them when installing the mod.
That said, the Water Gardens component contains, in addition to the problematic items you mentioned, also a lot of dialogue and mini-episodes in the new area of the city, including the possibility of participating in an auction, a new animal dealer, and much more. In the next version of the mod, it will also get his own icon on the world map. And, of course, I will always welcome any help on how to improve and balance this component!
i mean the kagain store has the same component so it can't be that hard to just do the same for those merchants.
i feel a way to avoid this is modders don't have said items there until chapter 6.
By the way, this is a really good way to solve the problem - I can make these stores become available only in chapter 6. It's easier than checking every item. I'll think about it, thanks!
i mean the kagain store has the same component so it can't be that hard to just do the same for those merchants.
i feel a way to avoid this is modders don't have said items there until chapter 6.
90% of the stuff on those merchants is broken, balance and/or description wise. Tons of things have no descriptions at all, so you dont even know whats going on. Pricing is all out of whack, and there is no way to know without extensive trial or error if something is fair or busted. Would still be terrible in Ch6. Or TOB.
I agree that the water garden area has some nice flavor, but just like for Kagain's store there should be a switch that disables all non-vanilla items on the crazy merchants. Also vanilla items should be capped to standard amounts also. You shouldnt be able to steal endless Potions of Power from the gnome in the Slums, all other merchants only have so many. Ideally, every item should have a full description of what it does precisely, as well, written in the vanilla format.
I'll need a list of the merchants in question (I can find them myself, but it will take longer). And also at least an approximate list of things that need to be removed or disabled. Since among them there are really funny and useful things that you just need to adjust the price and add a detailed description, and I would not like to disable these stores completely.
Hi all! At your request, I've started reworking shops at the merchants in the Water Gardens. I will adjust the prices to match the world of the game, remove inappropriate and completely crazy items.
Unfortunately, I can't write descriptions for items, so those things that do not include descriptions now will remain without them. But, according to Smiling Imp, when creating many items, he deliberately did not make detailed descriptions everywhere so that the players would be interested in studying their action and expect surprises. In fact, this is quite understandable, since the merchant may not know the features of magical items that he got by accident.
However, if any of you guys are willing to write descriptions for some new items, I'm ready to add them!
By descriptions, do you mean purely mechanical ones or the little stories sometimes in item descriptions?
I meant short descriptions of items - they are easy to add, unlike the technical description of the effects. At least to those items that are added only for the atmosphere and have no effects. For example, "This is some kind of golden figurine. Useless, but beautiful."
All of these items are listed in the setup.tra file - the ones that only have names but no descriptions.
ADDED NEW CONTENT (english proofreading and edits - sarevok57):
- Added a new mini-quest given by animal dealer Borivyk from the Water Gardens (text by Alisia)
- Added a mini-romance with the noblewoman Laalia in the Water Gardens (text by Jericho2), Available if the player has a Mirror of Magnificent Charm (bought at an auction from Lady Goldsword) in his inventory or has a charisma above 15. Also included are reactions to this mini-romance from Jaheira, Neera, Aerie, and Viconia if a romance is also active with any of them.
- Added reactions of various citizens (for both male and female PCs) if the player has a Mirror of Magnificent Charm in the inventory (text by Jericho2)
- Added the ability to interact with a cat that can be purchased for the player's apartment in the Water Gardens
- Added two new banters between Minsc and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Wilson and Deekin (text by Alisia)
- Added a new dialogue between the PC and Ajantis (now between them there are 4 dialogues with the male PC and 5 with the female PC) (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Yoshimo and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added two new banters between Anomen and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Keldorn and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Aerie and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added a new Tiax’s interjection to the player dialogue with Neera (text by Austin)
- Added many additional voice files to Tiax, as well as added subtitles to each of his audio lines
- Added a journal entry after the episode with Silke (component "Garrick")
- Added small dialog to Coran if he equips heavy armor (text by Scheele)
IMPROVED:
- The Water Gardens area now has its own icon on the world map and has become a full-fledged part of the city! Thanks tipun!
- Adjusted prices in Water Garden stores, removed some items from stores that violate the balance and lore of the game. Now the installation of these items has been moved to a separate subcomponent, installed at the request of the player.
- In Garrick's quest, after he is kidnapped, all of his items will be given to the party instead of disappearing
- Improved the balance of the battle in the quest from the «Coran and Safana» component - now instead of two dragons there will be only one. This fits better with the lore of the game, where dragons were rare monsters and lived alone.
- Improved the balance of the fight with Silke (component "Garrick"), now it will not be extremely difficult
- To complete the quest with the airship (Tiax&Quayle component) now you need less money, previously the amount was very high
- Now Matilda in the Water Gardens will talk to every male NPC in the party if there is one (the phrases were written by the Smiling Imp, but did not work as intended)
FIXED:
- Fixed several errors and bugs in the dialogues of various NPCs (Garrick, Shar-Teel, Safana etc.)
- Fixed effect of Tiax's spell "Summon Ghast"
- Fixed the cost of some items
- Fixed a crash when talking to the butler in the Water Gardens
- Fixed an issue where Garrick's dialogue in his quest could loop if Nalia was in the party but there was no active romance between them
- Now Yeslick will not mention Skie in the first dialogue if the SoD story was completed earlier
Thanks to Alicia, Sarevok57 and you Austin for the continued support on this. Thanks to Scheele and Jericho too.
A shoutout to Tipun too for the addition of the water garden area.
By the way, are there any npcs you would recommend taking for Throne of Bhaal?
Impressive update all around! Water Gardens gaining a map icon is a great improvement, and credit to Alisia for so much writing. Thanks for sticking with this mod Austin.
By the way, are there any npcs you would recommend taking for Throne of Bhaal?
For the ToB part, most of the content is written for Shar-Teel, Tiax, Xzar, and Montaron. Tiax has a lot of funny interjections, just like in SoA. I always take Tiax to the group and can recommend him.
If there is Montaron in the party, then as the ToB story progresses, it will become clear why he began to travel with the player and what his true goal was.
As for Eldoth, he does not have much text, but in the ending before the battle with Melissan, he will make an unexpected (or expected, given his nature) decision and the player will be in for a surprise
All NPCs have epilogues (except for Eldoth, since he does not require him, given the events in the ending)
I have another question: I like to use Argent77 Skip Chateau Irenicus: https://argent77.github.io/A7-SkipChateauIrenicus/index.html
Do you know if there are any npcs inside Irenicus dungeon I should be getting? Or I can use the mod above safely?
I have another question: I like to use Argent77 Skip Chateau Irenicus: https://argent77.github.io/A7-SkipChateauIrenicus/index.html
Do you know if there are any npcs inside Irenicus dungeon I should be getting? Or I can use the mod above safely?
Hello! This is not a problem, since all the NPCs from the mod will meet you after the starting dungeon)
Can anyone help with proofreading future mod texts? Unfortunately, Sarevok57 will no longer be able to proofread the English translation of our new texts, which is a big problem for our team. I do not speak English and I translate new texts through an online translator, resulting in English versions of the text containing errors. So I'm afraid I'll have to make updates in the future with worse quality texts if we don't find someone willing to proofread the texts.
I'd be interested but I'd really see the mod uploaded to GH first. The scope of that mod is huge to just throw files around in PMs.
Hello! OK, I'll try to upload the mod to Github, but I'll need to figure out how to upload the entire folder instead of separate files. I'm still bad at how to use Github. When I uploaded the HTaM mod to Github, I uploaded each file individually, and it was very difficult
GitHub Desktop is horrible. Atleast it was horrible half a decade ago. I ran user support in a different modding community back then (2015-2018), with everyone trying to use GH Desktop at first for migration. After we realized even I can't make out what GH Desktop wants, everyone migrated to GitExtensions back then and that alone saved the scene.
For the record, I'm using GitExtensions since 2011 (sans a short break on git-cola between 2017-2018, when my primary system was a Linux).
EDIT : I take a quick look and Git-2.37.1 is required, it's fine but I am not experienced enough for make my choice through install options, so I will look further but not at the moment...
Hello ! I had a bit of trouble to start my Garrick-Nalia romance after freeing the castle. I had to use the console to try to jump start it. I don't know if the "NaliaKeepPlot" at 0 required to move on in the romance is normal ? Thanks !
Hello ! I had a bit of trouble to start my Garrick-Nalia romance after freeing the castle. I had to use the console to try to jump start it. I don't know if the "NaliaKeepPlot" at 0 required to move on in the romance is normal ? Thanks !
Hello! The new dialogues of Garrick and Nalia in her castle and immediately after the defeat of the trolls do not relate to the romance and will take place in any case. One of the conditions for starting the romance is the completion of Nalia's quest, that is, the "NaliaKeepPlot" variable must be greater than 0. After that, after some time, four "pre-romance" banters will occur between them (in this case, the "GarrNalia" variable will gradually increase from 0 to 4) , after which the "GarrickNaliaRomance" variable will be activated and will increase up to 2. With an active romance, there will be about 10 dialogues between Garrick and Nalia, some of which will take place in Spellhold, Underdark and after leaving it. Also, one dialogue will take place after the completion of Garrick's quest.
But I draw your attention to the fact that the banters between them do not depend on timers and the romance will expand as the game launches banters between these NPCs. The game engine starts banters randomly, and therefore, before the dialogues of Garrick and Nalia, there may be banters of other NPCs. Thus, their romance can "grow" slowly and gradually.
P.S. All texts of Garrick-Nalia romance written by Alisia
Branwen and I have thoroughly searched the sewers for Tranzig, but he's nowhere to be found. Are there certain conditions required for him to spawn?
Hello! Tranzig appears in the sewers (AR0701) if two conditions are met:
Global("TranzigE","GLOBAL",1)
InParty("7XBRAN")
In other words, Branwen must be in the party and Global("TranzigE","GLOBAL",1) is 1. It becomes 1 when Branwen joins. Check the value of the variable through the console, please.
Comments
Most of the NPCs there are funny even if sometimes mildly out of place, but the merchants are ridiculous. They sell crazy OP items and custom spells with no descriptions at totally random price points, 10000% out of whack with the baseline balance of the game. This is BAD. Mods should try to fit in the logic of the game's universe, not just do random stuff without any logical explanation. No, I don't want a scroll of "mass pickpocket" for 150K this is not a thing.
Incredibly there are *a few* actually balanced items at acceptable price points with proper descriptions that would be fine on the same damn merchants. But a good cleanup is in order in the future, and by cleanup I mean deleting 90% of their inventories
This nitpick apart... so far enjoying the main components of the mod, it just needs some streamlining/balance. Thankfully the water garden component is optional.
That said, the Water Gardens component contains, in addition to the problematic items you mentioned, also a lot of dialogue and mini-episodes in the new area of the city, including the possibility of participating in an auction, a new animal dealer, and much more. In the next version of the mod, it will also get his own icon on the world map. And, of course, I will always welcome any help on how to improve and balance this component!
i feel a way to avoid this is modders don't have said items there until chapter 6.
By the way, this is a really good way to solve the problem - I can make these stores become available only in chapter 6. It's easier than checking every item. I'll think about it, thanks!
90% of the stuff on those merchants is broken, balance and/or description wise. Tons of things have no descriptions at all, so you dont even know whats going on. Pricing is all out of whack, and there is no way to know without extensive trial or error if something is fair or busted. Would still be terrible in Ch6. Or TOB.
I agree that the water garden area has some nice flavor, but just like for Kagain's store there should be a switch that disables all non-vanilla items on the crazy merchants. Also vanilla items should be capped to standard amounts also. You shouldnt be able to steal endless Potions of Power from the gnome in the Slums, all other merchants only have so many. Ideally, every item should have a full description of what it does precisely, as well, written in the vanilla format.
Also, please clarify which merchants offer unbalanced items in the Water Gardens?
Unfortunately, I can't write descriptions for items, so those things that do not include descriptions now will remain without them. But, according to Smiling Imp, when creating many items, he deliberately did not make detailed descriptions everywhere so that the players would be interested in studying their action and expect surprises. In fact, this is quite understandable, since the merchant may not know the features of magical items that he got by accident.
However, if any of you guys are willing to write descriptions for some new items, I'm ready to add them!
I meant short descriptions of items - they are easy to add, unlike the technical description of the effects. At least to those items that are added only for the atmosphere and have no effects. For example, "This is some kind of golden figurine. Useless, but beautiful."
All of these items are listed in the setup.tra file - the ones that only have names but no descriptions.
New version - 14!
Download:
http://downloads.chosenofmystra.net/bg2/BG1NPC%20SoAToB_v14.rar
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhmfzixjak2ehqd/BG1NPC%20SoAToB_v14.rar?dl=0
ADDED NEW CONTENT (english proofreading and edits - sarevok57):
- Added a new mini-quest given by animal dealer Borivyk from the Water Gardens (text by Alisia)
- Added a mini-romance with the noblewoman Laalia in the Water Gardens (text by Jericho2), Available if the player has a Mirror of Magnificent Charm (bought at an auction from Lady Goldsword) in his inventory or has a charisma above 15. Also included are reactions to this mini-romance from Jaheira, Neera, Aerie, and Viconia if a romance is also active with any of them.
- Added reactions of various citizens (for both male and female PCs) if the player has a Mirror of Magnificent Charm in the inventory (text by Jericho2)
- Added the ability to interact with a cat that can be purchased for the player's apartment in the Water Gardens
- Added two new banters between Minsc and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Wilson and Deekin (text by Alisia)
- Added a new dialogue between the PC and Ajantis (now between them there are 4 dialogues with the male PC and 5 with the female PC) (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Yoshimo and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added two new banters between Anomen and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Keldorn and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added new banter between Aerie and Ajantis (text by Alisia)
- Added a new Tiax’s interjection to the player dialogue with Neera (text by Austin)
- Added many additional voice files to Tiax, as well as added subtitles to each of his audio lines
- Added a journal entry after the episode with Silke (component "Garrick")
- Added small dialog to Coran if he equips heavy armor (text by Scheele)
IMPROVED:
- The Water Gardens area now has its own icon on the world map and has become a full-fledged part of the city! Thanks tipun!
- Adjusted prices in Water Garden stores, removed some items from stores that violate the balance and lore of the game. Now the installation of these items has been moved to a separate subcomponent, installed at the request of the player.
- In Garrick's quest, after he is kidnapped, all of his items will be given to the party instead of disappearing
- Improved the balance of the battle in the quest from the «Coran and Safana» component - now instead of two dragons there will be only one. This fits better with the lore of the game, where dragons were rare monsters and lived alone.
- Improved the balance of the fight with Silke (component "Garrick"), now it will not be extremely difficult
- To complete the quest with the airship (Tiax&Quayle component) now you need less money, previously the amount was very high
- Now Matilda in the Water Gardens will talk to every male NPC in the party if there is one (the phrases were written by the Smiling Imp, but did not work as intended)
FIXED:
- Fixed several errors and bugs in the dialogues of various NPCs (Garrick, Shar-Teel, Safana etc.)
- Fixed effect of Tiax's spell "Summon Ghast"
- Fixed the cost of some items
- Fixed a crash when talking to the butler in the Water Gardens
- Fixed an issue where Garrick's dialogue in his quest could loop if Nalia was in the party but there was no active romance between them
- Now Yeslick will not mention Skie in the first dialogue if the SoD story was completed earlier
A shoutout to Tipun too for the addition of the water garden area.
By the way, are there any npcs you would recommend taking for Throne of Bhaal?
Forum-wise, note that BaldursGateMods.com has been down for weeks. What about making Gibberlings3 the main forum for this mod?
As for the dragons from Coran's quest, what about making this an install option or 1 or 2 where 2 would be a mated pair or otherwise close family?
Thankee!
For the ToB part, most of the content is written for Shar-Teel, Tiax, Xzar, and Montaron. Tiax has a lot of funny interjections, just like in SoA. I always take Tiax to the group and can recommend him.
If there is Montaron in the party, then as the ToB story progresses, it will become clear why he began to travel with the player and what his true goal was.
As for Eldoth, he does not have much text, but in the ending before the battle with Melissan, he will make an unexpected (or expected, given his nature) decision and the player will be in for a surprise
All NPCs have epilogues (except for Eldoth, since he does not require him, given the events in the ending)
I have another question: I like to use Argent77 Skip Chateau Irenicus: https://argent77.github.io/A7-SkipChateauIrenicus/index.html
Do you know if there are any npcs inside Irenicus dungeon I should be getting? Or I can use the mod above safely?
For the record, I'm using GitExtensions since 2011 (sans a short break on git-cola between 2017-2018, when my primary system was a Linux).
OK, I didn't know about it, I'll go and have a look .....
Github destop don't do much, but for up versions and commits it's good, it took me five minute for upload the mod.
EDIT : I take a quick look and Git-2.37.1 is required, it's fine but I am not experienced enough for make my choice through install options, so I will look further but not at the moment...
Hello! The new dialogues of Garrick and Nalia in her castle and immediately after the defeat of the trolls do not relate to the romance and will take place in any case. One of the conditions for starting the romance is the completion of Nalia's quest, that is, the "NaliaKeepPlot" variable must be greater than 0. After that, after some time, four "pre-romance" banters will occur between them (in this case, the "GarrNalia" variable will gradually increase from 0 to 4) , after which the "GarrickNaliaRomance" variable will be activated and will increase up to 2. With an active romance, there will be about 10 dialogues between Garrick and Nalia, some of which will take place in Spellhold, Underdark and after leaving it. Also, one dialogue will take place after the completion of Garrick's quest.
But I draw your attention to the fact that the banters between them do not depend on timers and the romance will expand as the game launches banters between these NPCs. The game engine starts banters randomly, and therefore, before the dialogues of Garrick and Nalia, there may be banters of other NPCs. Thus, their romance can "grow" slowly and gradually.
P.S. All texts of Garrick-Nalia romance written by Alisia
Branwen and I have thoroughly searched the sewers for Tranzig, but he's nowhere to be found. Are there certain conditions required for him to spawn?
Hello! Tranzig appears in the sewers (AR0701) if two conditions are met:
Global("TranzigE","GLOBAL",1) InParty("7XBRAN")In other words, Branwen must be in the party and Global("TranzigE","GLOBAL",1) is 1. It becomes 1 when Branwen joins. Check the value of the variable through the console, please.So then I checked the script for AR0701, and while I saw a reference to 7XMONT, I didn't see one to 7XBRAN.
So then I thought, "Oh crap, did I even install the Branwen component?"
And then I checked my WeiDU log, and sure enough, I didn't. So, mystery solved. Thanks for the response!