Haha no worries about me really trying to severely cut down writing. I consider myself far more of a writer than a modder (if it wasn't for JohnBob the thing would still be a technical mess lol). The writing of it is the part I enjoy most about modding, so expect that to always be a big focus of anything I do. I do think a good consideration though is to make the 'required text' short and more concise, then open it up with longer optional dialogue for people who prefer the longer prose.
The SOD component has got plenty of writing both in dialogue as well as books and material the player can go through during one section of it, so for people who enjoy it there's still a lot!
As for the comment on AI voicing above, I don't see myself using it. It's a neat gimmick but I've always found it gets distracting (there's just something a little uncanny valley about it to me).
Just as a side note, tomorrow I'm doing a full re-play of both the original content and the new SOD component just to review it and fix some final issues. The v2.0 update will have a bunch of bug fixes for the BG1 stuff too. Plan is to "Release" this weekend, saturday or sunday.
I'm also already working on the next BG2 components, getting new maps together and sketching out a flow for everything!
Black Hearts 2.0 with the SOD expansion quest is updated! The same link in the original post can be used to download it.
This update also comes with some bug fixes and a few changes to the original Black Hearts quest to add more journal entries and some extra clarity regarding some storyline stuff as well as the fact that you can talk to Illasera with npc companions to have banter-style interactions.
Just for clarification. On github, you should select the green button labled "code" and then select "download zip" from the drop down box. The latest release which is version 1.2 is not the fully updated version. Is this correct? I would assume it's not since the latest release does not say version 2.0. I'm just making sure so people don't follow the link and mindlessly download the latest official release of Black Hearts which doesn't appear to be updated.
Congrats on the release! Played a BG1 part about a year ago and it was one of highlights of my modded run. Very nice work!
Completed a SoD part today and really enjoyed it! Writing is on the same high level as Illasera story, new locations are always nice to have and they fit BG style well. The mod nicely expands on villains' backstories and closes some bg1 loose ends, something what SoD should've done but, in my opinion, failed. Combat is a bit on an easy side but I think it's okay as SoD is quite action-heavy already.
Story might have one or two awkward moments, but it doesn't ruin the overall experience.
Like a random ghost giving you a spirit vision without explanation. I think MC is special enough to see visions of another Bhaalspawn in a region tainted by Bhaal by themsevles?
Nerys feels kinda out of place? but I guess she has to be there to introduce Harpers Manor and serve as a connection to BG1 part of the story. I don't mind her personally.
Aside of few typos I had only one serious bug almost at the end of the mod.
In the dialogue with Nerys I said that Tamoko, Winski and Cythandria survived. Met Tamoko at the camp. After that I killed Cythandria in the Bhaal's Temple, which set variable "BHCythanState" at 3. Later in the talk with Tamoko about statue grove location I had NO VALID LINKS OR RESPONSES. Variable "BHCythanState" in that dialogue checks only for 0 or 5. I changed variable to 0, dialogue was fixed but the location has not appeared on the map. I had to change tam5.35 state action from
DO ~SetGlobal("BH2Quest","GLOBAL",5) EscapeArea() RevealAreaOnMap("WIBH15")~ EXIT
to
DO ~SetGlobal("BH2Quest","GLOBAL",5) RevealAreaOnMap("WIBH15") EscapeArea()~ EXIT
as EscapeArea() was overriding RevealArea action.
I highly recommend everyone to play this mod at least once.
P.S. Are you accepting translations at this moment? I might do one if it's ok?
@Arkie
I'm glad you enjoyed! I do agree the spirit thing is a bit awkward, I wasn't comfortable with having the visions just happen without some mechanism to cause them.
We have the issue you reported fixed and I'm going to push as a quick v2.01 release.
I'm absolutely accepting translations! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with that. If you would do a translation, I can make sure it's included in a future release.
Great!
Almost forgot about one small issue - "wibh14.are" infopoints show broken text. Area patch code is using wrong offsets (0x354 and 0x418 instead of 0x244 and 0x308).
Great!
Almost forgot about one small issue - "wibh14.are" infopoints show broken text. Area patch code is using wrong offsets (0x354 and 0x418 instead of 0x244 and 0x308).
Thank you for the report! Must have changed when I made another edit to the area file. I'll have it fixed and updated on the repo momentarily.
Great news!
Do you think the SoD part will be compatible with Jastey's Road to Discovery and Another Fine Hell mods?
I am not familiar with their mods yet, but so long as it doesn't significantly change the player going to the Troll Claw Woods, then to the Bhaal Temple, and finally to the Coalition Camp, I think it should be compatible. Everything else in the mod is very self contained.
Glad to see that a new version of this mod is available -- and with SoD content!
I think the issue of the "Endless BG" mod came up earlier in this thread. Is this version of the mod compatible with it? (No worries either way.)
There should be no incompatibilities with Endless bg. The deliberation was just whether to make the sod content playable through Endless bg as an alternative to playing through sod for it. I decided it would be nice to have another sod specific mod out there, so have limited it to only be playable in the sod campaign
I am not familiar with their mods yet, but so long as it doesn't significantly change the player going to the Troll Claw Woods, then to the Bhaal Temple, and finally to the Coalition Camp, I think it should be compatible. Everything else in the mod is very self contained.
Compatibility should not be a problem, then. Road to Discovery adds reply options and some adapted reactions of the camp officers, but does not change the order of events (or the outcome). Another fine Hell starts after the PC uses the portal in the cellar of the Dragonspear Castle. I'm all for compatibility, so if any questions arise, give me a shout.
I am not familiar with their mods yet, but so long as it doesn't significantly change the player going to the Troll Claw Woods, then to the Bhaal Temple, and finally to the Coalition Camp, I think it should be compatible. Everything else in the mod is very self contained.
Compatibility should not be a problem, then. Road to Discovery adds reply options and some adapted reactions of the camp officers, but does not change the order of events (or the outcome). Another fine Hell starts after the PC uses the portal in the cellar of the Dragonspear Castle. I'm all for compatibility, so if any questions arise, give me a shout.
Hyped to see quest content for SoD, btw!
Thank you for clarifying! Yeah in that case I can see no problem with compatibility.
I assume that Black Hearts is compatible with the Loretakers mod? I've played both but not in the same game.
I ask because both mods have dungeons accessed via the sewers under Baldur's Gate. I'm pretty sure that they use different parts of the sewers to access their new areas, but I can't remember.
I am not familiar with their mods yet, but so long as it doesn't significantly change the player going to the Troll Claw Woods, then to the Bhaal Temple, and finally to the Coalition Camp, I think it should be compatible. Everything else in the mod is very self contained.
Compatibility should not be a problem, then. Road to Discovery adds reply options and some adapted reactions of the camp officers, but does not change the order of events (or the outcome). Another fine Hell starts after the PC uses the portal in the cellar of the Dragonspear Castle. I'm all for compatibility, so if any questions arise, give me a shout.
Hyped to see quest content for SoD, btw!
Thank you for clarifying! Yeah in that case I can see no problem with compatibility.
I assume that Black Hearts is compatible with the Loretakers mod? I've played both but not in the same game.
I ask because both mods have dungeons accessed via the sewers under Baldur's Gate. I'm pretty sure that they use different parts of the sewers to access their new areas, but I can't remember.
Bug report: The latest version of the mod seems to be messing with cleric and druid spell lists. Their first level spells have a blank "spell", and a spell called "Charisma increase" which does nothing when cast. This happens with no other mods installed.
I've got almost the same bug in my megamod installs: an empty spell and "Draw Upon Holy Might" icon lvl1 spell with random text from the game instead of spell name.
Thank you for the reports! Will be fixed shortly. I'll probably push another minor version update with this one since I had a few small additional changes I wanted to make with it.
Thank you for the reports! Will be fixed shortly. I'll probably push another minor version update with this one since I had a few small additional changes I wanted to make with it.
- Chinese translation for SOD by Lzw104522773
- Add different BG game icons to SoDMap for Black-Hearts areas.
- Fix to issue causing added spells to appear in divine spell book
- Tiny change to one of the quests to fix something small bugging me.
A little mistake on my part. Release should be 2.03 *not* 2.1. I've corrected it on github. The previous uploaded files were still correct, just mismatched the version numbering (I'm still a big dummy when it comes to using github XD)
Comments
The SOD component has got plenty of writing both in dialogue as well as books and material the player can go through during one section of it, so for people who enjoy it there's still a lot!
As for the comment on AI voicing above, I don't see myself using it. It's a neat gimmick but I've always found it gets distracting (there's just something a little uncanny valley about it to me).
Just as a side note, tomorrow I'm doing a full re-play of both the original content and the new SOD component just to review it and fix some final issues. The v2.0 update will have a bunch of bug fixes for the BG1 stuff too. Plan is to "Release" this weekend, saturday or sunday.
I'm also already working on the next BG2 components, getting new maps together and sketching out a flow for everything!
This update also comes with some bug fixes and a few changes to the original Black Hearts quest to add more journal entries and some extra clarity regarding some storyline stuff as well as the fact that you can talk to Illasera with npc companions to have banter-style interactions.
I hope people enjoy!
Completed a SoD part today and really enjoyed it! Writing is on the same high level as Illasera story, new locations are always nice to have and they fit BG style well. The mod nicely expands on villains' backstories and closes some bg1 loose ends, something what SoD should've done but, in my opinion, failed. Combat is a bit on an easy side but I think it's okay as SoD is quite action-heavy already.
Story might have one or two awkward moments, but it doesn't ruin the overall experience.
Nerys feels kinda out of place? but I guess she has to be there to introduce Harpers Manor and serve as a connection to BG1 part of the story. I don't mind her personally.
Aside of few typos I had only one serious bug almost at the end of the mod.
DO ~SetGlobal("BH2Quest","GLOBAL",5) EscapeArea() RevealAreaOnMap("WIBH15")~ EXITtoDO ~SetGlobal("BH2Quest","GLOBAL",5) RevealAreaOnMap("WIBH15") EscapeArea()~ EXITas EscapeArea() was overriding RevealArea action.I highly recommend everyone to play this mod at least once.
P.S. Are you accepting translations at this moment? I might do one if it's ok?
I'm glad you enjoyed! I do agree the spirit thing is a bit awkward, I wasn't comfortable with having the visions just happen without some mechanism to cause them.
We have the issue you reported fixed and I'm going to push as a quick v2.01 release.
I'm absolutely accepting translations! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with that. If you would do a translation, I can make sure it's included in a future release.
Almost forgot about one small issue - "wibh14.are" infopoints show broken text. Area patch code is using wrong offsets (0x354 and 0x418 instead of 0x244 and 0x308).
Do you think the SoD part will be compatible with Jastey's Road to Discovery and Another Fine Hell mods?
I think the issue of the "Endless BG" mod came up earlier in this thread. Is this version of the mod compatible with it? (No worries either way.)
Thank you for the report! Must have changed when I made another edit to the area file. I'll have it fixed and updated on the repo momentarily.
I am not familiar with their mods yet, but so long as it doesn't significantly change the player going to the Troll Claw Woods, then to the Bhaal Temple, and finally to the Coalition Camp, I think it should be compatible. Everything else in the mod is very self contained.
There should be no incompatibilities with Endless bg. The deliberation was just whether to make the sod content playable through Endless bg as an alternative to playing through sod for it. I decided it would be nice to have another sod specific mod out there, so have limited it to only be playable in the sod campaign
Hyped to see quest content for SoD, btw!
Thank you for clarifying! Yeah in that case I can see no problem with compatibility.
I ask because both mods have dungeons accessed via the sewers under Baldur's Gate. I'm pretty sure that they use different parts of the sewers to access their new areas, but I can't remember.
Good to know -- thanks!
1) would you kindly allow evil players to have some cool artifact? :P
It's a shame you
2)
1. I haven't really thought about doing alignment limited artifacts. Good and evil are kinda boring to me... now law and chaos tho... hmm...
2. There may be a secret on the landmass there. It's pretty well hidden tho...
Fully compatible. It was tested on EE, EE+SOD, and EET.
Waiting for it before going in.
- Chinese translation for SOD by Lzw104522773
- Add different BG game icons to SoDMap for Black-Hearts areas.
- Fix to issue causing added spells to appear in divine spell book
- Tiny change to one of the quests to fix something small bugging me.