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[MOD] "BG1 NPCs for SoA & ToB"

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  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,512
    I mentioned what I did since if BG1 NPCs in BG2 is installed after Turnabout, you could prevent the revival from Turnabout via code in your mod.

    Thankee!
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    Endarire wrote: »
    I mentioned what I did since if BG1 NPCs in BG2 is installed after Turnabout, you could prevent the revival from Turnabout via code in your mod.

    Thankee!

    I'll see what I can do about it. If in the Turnabout mod all NPCs are installed without dividing into components, then apparently I really have to add disabling Tiax and Xzar in this case.
  • UlkeshUlkesh Member Posts: 208
    Why would you do this kind of work when the player could actually refrain from clicking these options? It's not like it's a bug.
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    Ulkesh wrote: »
    Why would you do this kind of work when the player could actually refrain from clicking these options? It's not like it's a bug.

    I apologize, I proceeded from what Endarire told me. I haven't played the Turnabout mod and have no idea what it includes. I thought that installing these mods together would lead to some problems, but I'm not sure about it. In any case, I won't be able to test it anytime soon due to lack of time.
  • UlkeshUlkesh Member Posts: 208
    In the final fight against Amelyssan, Turnabout allows summoning people from your past after you click each of the three pools.

    Each pool = one resurrection from people of your past. Each pool gives you a list of people you can resurrect, so you are not exactly obliged to resurrect npc that you are already playing with from BG1 npc for Soa & Tob.
  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,512
    It's better to prevent bugs and awkardness of having, for example, double Xzar or double Tiax. They're insane but not THAT insane!
  • GraionDilachGraionDilach Member Posts: 581
    The fact is, that what this mod needs is a severe code cleanup at this point and not shoveling in more features.

    Like, for example, relying on INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT which is bad and could literally break the whole installation if there are other mods installed between the components of this mod.

    Also, Turnabout is in limbo last I checked and might even be broken on it's own (Think I've seen a report claiming that).

    When it comes to modder talk, always crosscheck what Endarire mumbles, because he never does.
  • Eltharion1979Eltharion1979 Member Posts: 92
    Hello, I would like to make a party with shorties! dwarves and gnomes, but I cant find Kagain...where is Dragon Restaurant? I cant find it...
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited May 2023
    Hello, I would like to make a party with shorties! dwarves and gnomes, but I cant find Kagain...where is Dragon Restaurant? I cant find it...

    Hello! Kagain is standing on the "amphitheater" at the bottom of the Waukeen Promenade screen, with his assistants nearby.
    I also highly recommend Tiax from this mod. He talks a lot, and in very funny phrases, and almost all of his lines are voiced :)
  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,512
    @Austin87
    Regarding what Graion was saying about INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT and this mod needing a code revamp, how true is that and what would be involved?

    Thankee!
  • Eltharion1979Eltharion1979 Member Posts: 92
    Hello again, maybe Im a wee bit lazy now, but how I can convince Kagain, to join me?
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited May 2023
    Endarire wrote: »
    @Austin87
    Regarding what Graion was saying about INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT and this mod needing a code revamp, how true is that and what would be involved?
    As Graion said, this problem is possible if there are other mods installed between the components of this mod. Such a situation has never occurred to anyone before. And in general, there have been no bug reports lately, the mod works successfully.
    Of course, the code can be improved in some fragments, but at the moment there are no problems, In my opinion - except for the imbalance of some battles. For example, I have not yet adjusted the difficulty of the battle in the Shar-Teel component during her mini-quest in ToB.
    Hello again, maybe Im a wee bit lazy now, but how I can convince Kagain, to join me?

    Hello! You have to invite him to join you, then browse his shop, then again invite him to join you, and get the "I sell best things of sword coast" to have a chance to make him join.
  • Eltharion1979Eltharion1979 Member Posts: 92
    Sorry to bother you again, but nothing happens with Kagain unfortunately. When I start speaking to him, I got these options:
    1: Enough to even make a greedy dwarf like you get excited. Show me what you have.
    2: Excuse me I must be on my way
    3: Don't you remember me Kagain?

    I pick 3.
    And just who are you?
    1: It's me character name, Don't you remember our adventures in Baldur's Gate.
    2: I'm sorry I mistook you for someone else
    I pick 1.
    Then
    1: Goods from the planes? How did you manage to get your hands on such treasure?
    2: Well it's nice to see you Kagain, I must go, etc
    3: I'm glad to see that you are doing well, Kagain
    4: I didn't know that your last name was Dragonaxe
    5: Best of luck
    I pick 1
    After that
    1: Have you ever thought of getting back into adventuring?
    2: Actually there were some items I was hoping to sell
    3: Let me see what you have
    4: OK, see you later.
    I pick 1 and he refuse
    And after that what ever I choose or do I end up with these three options
    1: Actually there were some items I was hoping to sell
    2: Let me see what you have
    3: No thank you.

    I don't get it, maybe I'm doing something wrong or because I use many mods something is going wrong. What do you mean with:

    "get the "I sell best things of sword coast" to have a chance to make him join."

    Sorry for the trouble, take care.


  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited June 2023
    Sorry to bother you again, but nothing happens with Kagain unfortunately.
    Sorry for the trouble, take care.
    Hello! You need to start a conversation with him several times and offer to join. When he refuses for the first time and offers to see his goods, choose one of the following answer options:
    "Let me see what you have."
    OR
    "No thank you."

    After that, when you once again start a dialogue with him, he will start the conversation a little differently:
    "Take a look at my goods, I've got the finest quality stuff on the Sword Coast."

    AGAIN offer to join, and then select one of these response options again:
    "Let me see what you have."
    OR
    "No thank you."

    And then the third time the same thing.

    And the fourth time, if you continue to convince him and offer, he will finally "give up" and admit that he is actually ready to go with you :)

    P.S. In fact, the whole difficulty here arises only because the variable required for joining increases only when choosing these two answer options, which I indicated. And other options do not increase it. This is not a critical problem and not a bug, but I think the author of the mod did not do it on purpose, and here you can simplify the process of persuasion. I think I will fix it in the next version.

  • Eltharion1979Eltharion1979 Member Posts: 92
    Thank you a lot for your help and time. I will try again today, take care.
  • DazzuDazzu Member Posts: 950
    edited June 2023
    The fact is, that what this mod needs is a severe code cleanup at this point and not shoveling in more features.

    Like, for example, relying on INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT which is bad and could literally break the whole installation if there are other mods installed between the components of this mod.

    Also, Turnabout is in limbo last I checked and might even be broken on it's own (Think I've seen a report claiming that).

    When it comes to modder talk, always crosscheck what Endarire mumbles, because he never does.

    I must agree. The coding is a nightmare and you’re focusing on 20+ half-baked npcs on top of extraneous content that is barey rven completeWho will use your Kivan, Ajantis, Skie, Yeslick, Xan, Coran, Tiax or Quayle with their own dedicated mods that have not only a lot of care put into their individual character but tend to not have buggy items and interactions and full quests. Even the Alora mod feels more organic.

    My suggestion other than Garion’s code purge is to pull back thr absolute scope of the mod. You have a romance for Montaron and Sharteel in the works? GREAT! FOCUS ON THEM!

    Another BIG yet more easily correctable issue is the tone of the writing: it feels like an edgy teenager who thinks they know how villainous people talk but just throw in R rated swear words in a game where none of the badguys talk like that at all. Everyone feels a bit like a caricature It’s more jarring than Saerileth levels of bad writing.

    At the end of the day it is your mod but I thought Id give my thoughts as I crave some respect for Monty.
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited June 2023
    Dazzu wrote: »

    At the end of the day it is your mod but I thought Id give my thoughts as I crave some respect for Monty.
    Hello! Thank you for your opinion! As a response to criticism, I will say the following.

    In fact, there is no supposedly "nightmare" code and technical problems that interfere with the game. The mod works well and is constantly being improved, many people play it, but there are almost no bug reports anymore. We fix small problems promptly. If you find any problem, you can always write here and we will solve it.

    Also, the mod is specially divided into components, and no one forces the player to use those NPCs that he considers inappropriate.
    By the way, there are only 3-4 "half-baked" NPCs here, not 20 at all, and they are marked during installation. For example, the Coran, Safana are quite well developed here, they have many dialogues and interjections, epilogues, etc. Not to mention the carefully written hundreds and thousands of lines of text by Garrick, Shar-Teel, Safana, Xzar (these are NPCs that are not found anywhere else in other mods, so they received a lot of attention here). Ajantis is now also a full component and contains good texts and quests - not as many as in Jastey's version, of course, but they are quite worthy of attention for those who have already played Jastey's mod and want something new.

    And, most importantly!! Oh my god, I don't understand why Tiax is on this list of yours? He is absolutely not a "half-baked" character here. On the contrary - both in terms of the amount of content written for him, and in terms of its quality (the level of humor, voice acting, the degree of participation in quests, a line of friendship with Neera) Tiax from this mod surpasses that contained in the "Tiax in BG2" mod (with all respect to Kulyok's work, her Tiax is an NPC created in one day, and his texts there are much less funny than here). This is not only my opinion, but the opinion of many users with whom I spoke and who compared these mods. So you've completely mistakenly mentioned Tiax here. On the contrary, I can’t imagine my passage of BG2 without Tiax from Smiling Imp for a long time. This is the great NPC! In addition, only here you can get it already at the beginning of the game (unlike the parallel mod, where it is only available starting from Spellhold).

    Regarding Montaron, most of his texts were created by Smiling Imp, we only expanded them and wrote new ones to make this character a little deeper and better as much as we could (for example, we added mentions of his special mission in ToB, which gave more sense to his actions). If you are ready to write additional texts for it and improve the existing ones, we will gladly add it! We will be grateful for your help.

  • GraionDilachGraionDilach Member Posts: 581
    The mod does have technical issues. There's no point denying that. INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT, lousy IWD spell duplicates, mixing of oBG2 and BG2EE item description styles, creature voiceset issues do exist, just the top of from my head.

    I have accepted it by now that I need to sit down to fix these up, and sorry that I haven't found the time doing it. But please, don''t start denying these issues, just because noone reported it yet.

    That being said, there's no need to pull back the scope of this mod or drop content out from it either. One of the ideas within this codebase which I never intended to criticize, because it works well is the fact that this mod allows other NPC mods take precedence if they're already installed. The content-awareness against NPC mods work already. When I talked about "more features", I did meant additional features akin to the proposed Turnabout checks and handling. Extending or polishing an already-included NPC isn't an additional feature to me in this.
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited June 2023
    The mod does have technical issues. There's no point denying that. INSTALL_BY_DEFAULT, lousy IWD spell duplicates, mixing of oBG2 and BG2EE item description styles, creature voiceset issues do exist, just the top of from my head.

    I have accepted it by now that I need to sit down to fix these up, and sorry that I haven't found the time doing it. But please, don''t start denying these issues, just because noone reported it yet.

    That being said, there's no need to pull back the scope of this mod or drop content out from it either. One of the ideas within this codebase which I never intended to criticize, because it works well is the fact that this mod allows other NPC mods take precedence if they're already installed. The content-awareness against NPC mods work already. When I talked about "more features", I did meant additional features akin to the proposed Turnabout checks and handling. Extending or polishing an already-included NPC isn't an additional feature to me in this.

    Hello! I understand, thanks for the clarification. I did not deny that there are some problems. It's not about the absence of problems (they are in almost any such a huge mod), but in their "scale". What I meant now is that there are no problems that interfere with the game. That is, none of the problems you or I named are critical and prevent playing. There were such problems in older versions, but our team did a long and serious job of fixing bugs, crashes and looping dialogs. At the moment, almost everything that the players reported and what we discovered ourselves has been fixed. The remaining problems are not critical (such as incomplete item descriptions, adjustment of the balance of fights or incorrectly working new spells, which are, however, not mandatory for passing the game), or are not related to the mod itself, but to its compatibility with other mods - for example, with SCS due to the use of spells from the IWD. But, of course, these things also need to be improved, I do not deny this.

    Therefore, I only urge not to give the players the wrong impression of the mod as something very buggy (because it is not, the mod is quite functional), as this can unnecessarily scare the players and prevent them see the Water Gardens or the truly gorgeous and funny Tiax that is featured here :)

    And yes, we would be very grateful for any specific help in improving the mod. Including the one you made to make the Water Gardens icon compatible with the map from the "BGT-Worldmap" mod. By the way, is it possible to accept a pull request already? It is still in pending status. I do not have sufficient rights to accept this request, but I can ask Jastey about it.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @Austin87 I am sorry it took so long, I merged your PR. Don't hesitate to PM me next time. I also set the repository so I'll get notifications automatically from now on. Do you want me to accept all PRs from you in the future right away?
    And I can only apologize the repo lacks the according rights for you. I was hoping the owner would be around to grant them soon(er).
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    jastey wrote: »
    @Austin87 I am sorry it took so long, I merged your PR. Don't hesitate to PM me next time. I also set the repository so I'll get notifications automatically from now on. Do you want me to accept all PRs from you in the future right away?
    And I can only apologize the repo lacks the according rights for you. I was hoping the owner would be around to grant them soon(er).

    Thank you very much! I will try to make pull requests only after enough changes have accumulated for this, so as not to disturb you once again with this. And, of course, it would be great if in the future I could update this mod on GitHub myself, this would simplify the situation. At the moment, since the SHS and TeamBG sites are down, GitHub is the only place where the Smiling Imp's mods is available.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @Austin87 don't hesitate to make PRs and PM me as often as you want to fix something. I can't promise I'll be always there right away but I'll try.
    Yes, we are all awaiting Gwen's return.. Until then, he hopfully enjoys his timeout.
  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,512
    edited July 2023
    I heard this mod includes IWD spells. How does this work with IWDification and SCS? What conflicts should I expect and why?

    Thankee!
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited July 2023
    Endarire wrote: »
    I heard this mod includes IWD spells. How does this work with IWDification and SCS? What conflicts should I expect and why?

    Thankee!

    I don't know. I do not use the IWDification and SCS mods in my walkthroughs and did not install them with this mod. Also, I don't know how to set spells and how they work, all the spells in this mod are made by the original author (Smiling Imp).
  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,512
    Thankee for the update.
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    Mod updated to v.14.3!

    ADDED NEW CONTENT:
    • added new banter Kagain-Jaheira (text by Austin)
    • added two new banters Ajantis-Imoen (text by Alisia)

    FIXED:
    • Fixed a bug due to which the Kagain's store could not open when installing the «lore» store component
    • It is now possible to complete Kalandra's quest in the Water Gardens even if the priest of Talos is dead (though in a shortened version of the quest). Previously, completing the quest in this case was generally impossible.

    IMPROVED:
    • Now all newly joined NPCs will have experience added, as was done in the original game (only in the EE version!)
    • Improved Russian translation
    • Improved display of the Water Gardens icon on the world map when using a map from the "BP-BGT-Worldmap" mod (thanks GraionDilach)

    Download:
    https://github.com/SpellholdStudios/BG1_NPCs_for_SoA_-_ToB/releases
  • TrevimusPrimeTrevimusPrime Member Posts: 28
    New version installed, and mostly working so far. I had hoped that the Water Gardens would now be visible from the map, but no joy on that front (I'm using EET)
  • Austin87Austin87 Member Posts: 280
    edited October 2023
    New version installed, and mostly working so far. I had hoped that the Water Gardens would now be visible from the map, but no joy on that front (I'm using EET)

    Hello! Water Gardens are shown on the world map (at least when I tested the mod it worked). Did you start a new game after installing the mod? Otherwise it won't work.
    If the icon is displayed, but it is inactive, then this is normal - the location will become active after you open it according to the plot, we will talk with a new character in the Slums, who will show you the way to the Gardens.
  • TrevimusPrimeTrevimusPrime Member Posts: 28
    I think I may have installed it whilst I was on my Dragonspear part of the EET run. Will have to have a look next time start a new game
  • scheelescheele Member Posts: 41
    A new portrait of Shar-Teel

    shar-teel-1.png

    The problem with the old portrait was that she was too young and too soft there, and too brunette for that matter (whereas in the original she was blonde, in the game too). Here she's somewhere around 35-38, judging by the expression lines; she's gotten older, washed off the face war-paint, and has gotten prettier)

    (The old portrait, we'll probably keep that too, with an optional selection in setup)
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