[MOD] The Gorgon’s Eye (Thieves Guild in Beregost)
TotalMilk9
Member Posts: 56
Here is the official release of The Gorgon's Eye mod for BG:EE.
Download from GitHub
Introduction
After violating the terms of his separation from the Shadow Thieves, Baldwin "The Butcher" Glendale, fled north to Beregost, where he formed his own guild, the Gorgon's Eye. He pressed the local pickpockets and began amassing a vast network of contacts and spies. The townspeople have begun to show signs of unrest, however, and are making plans of their own to combat this new threat. On top of that, the impending confrontation with the Shadow Thieves lies near on the horizon. Currently, Baldwin is in active recruitment, seeking adventurers to aid him in the search for a dark and powerful staff called the Kerykeion. If successful, it would grant him unimaginable power, allowing nothing to stand in his way.
Mod Overview
The Gorgon's Eye is a small content mod for BG:EE/SoD and EET that adds an underground thieves den into the town of Beregost. It contains 20 new quests, 2 new areas(reused), dozens of new characters, a new store that buys stolen goods, a few new items and a very small item-upgrade. It can be accessed immediately after leaving Candlekeep and is open to all players, excluding those with a lawful-good alignment.
This is my first mod and I want it to be good, so any feedback or criticism on any aspect of it would be greatly appreciated.
Download from GitHub
Introduction
After violating the terms of his separation from the Shadow Thieves, Baldwin "The Butcher" Glendale, fled north to Beregost, where he formed his own guild, the Gorgon's Eye. He pressed the local pickpockets and began amassing a vast network of contacts and spies. The townspeople have begun to show signs of unrest, however, and are making plans of their own to combat this new threat. On top of that, the impending confrontation with the Shadow Thieves lies near on the horizon. Currently, Baldwin is in active recruitment, seeking adventurers to aid him in the search for a dark and powerful staff called the Kerykeion. If successful, it would grant him unimaginable power, allowing nothing to stand in his way.
Mod Overview
The Gorgon's Eye is a small content mod for BG:EE/SoD and EET that adds an underground thieves den into the town of Beregost. It contains 20 new quests, 2 new areas(reused), dozens of new characters, a new store that buys stolen goods, a few new items and a very small item-upgrade. It can be accessed immediately after leaving Candlekeep and is open to all players, excluding those with a lawful-good alignment.
This is my first mod and I want it to be good, so any feedback or criticism on any aspect of it would be greatly appreciated.
Post edited by TotalMilk9 on
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Comments
Thanks for the interest! It’s definitely going to be pretty small but should be some fun content for people who like playing thieves.
These are some of my requests and concerns regarding this mod, not knowing much about it:
-Please make it EET compatible! I have been known around here for asking mod authors if their mods are EET compatible because that's my preferred way to play modern BG.
-You mentioned a thief guild in Beregost. How does this interact with existing structures? I was concerned because of cross-mod compatibility since other mods may be using the same structures you intend to use for your mod but for different purposes. If it's simply adding NPCs - like to an inn or the outskirts of town at night - then that's likely OK.
-Does this mod add a fence who'll buy stolen goods? I'd greatly like the option for that pre-BG city!
-Adding a vendor to sell containers (gem bags, keyrings, scroll cases, wand cases, etc.) would be very handy!
-Once you have a version ready for the public, I recommend releasing it on Gibberlings3 and GitHub.
Enjoy!
I exclusively play using EET so it’s definitely going to be compatible.
The guild is going to be in its own area that’s accessible from a passageway that is outside in Beregost, so it won’t interfere with any other mods that use any generic homes or anything. At least this is how I have it planned for right now.
There is a fence who buys stolen items and he will also be able to do some item upgrades which I forgot to mention. Mostly from using new items that I’m adding but also from regular items in bgee. I kept the Thalantyr item upgrade in mind too so none of my upgrades will interfere with his.
Thanks for the feedback! I do appreciate it.
I wasn’t planning to because I wanted to keep it on the simpler side. I have absolutely no background in programming or with modding anything before this and I already feel out of my depth at times. I was just going use an existing area layout, but I haven’t looked through them yet to see what would be a good fit.
Lol.
There is no way I'm going to be finished with this by the end of the month. I just keep learning new things and adding to it. I'm thinking about making a joinable NPC now and I may even take a swing at trying to make a custom area. Originally I just wanted to rush out a small mod but now I'm going to take my time and really flesh it out.
I don't really have much of an update yet besides that I finished writing out the ending. The main quests are done and playable but some parts are in rough shape. Most of my time lately has just been working on refining everything section by section. So far though everything has been going pretty smoothly.
I'm not telling you how to write your mod, I'm talking out of experience as someone who saw too many ambitious projects die or never get completed.
I remember waaaaay to many mods which started small but then the author came up with more and more cool features making the mod quite big and said mod exceeding either the modders skills or motivation to see it finished resulting in nothing ever being released.
Especially in the case of when it happened to be the first mod due to not realizing how much work even little stuff can take.
Another piece of advice: Back up all that you have done on another separate HD drive or somewhere else. Otherwise if a malfunction/crash happens...its all over. Often including any remaining motivation.
My plan now is to get the main quest line and the side quests that go along with it to a completed playable state. Then I’ll work on other stuff I want to add separately like an npc, new areas, item upgrades, more quest givers.
Thanks for the reminder it’s been a while since I’ve made a backup for it.
Started as a quest mod, ended with npc being "realized", finished with no release.
I'm actually almost finished with this mod, there is just a lot of small fine tuning that I need to complete. Things like general dialog improvements as well as new item and quest descriptions. I also still need to look into how to recolor a few BAMs and add new music to certain events. There is also a working item upgrade but I need to go back and better tweak the items and ingredients.
Other than that I don't have much to do. I've successfully played through it from start to finish and everything seems to work. You can access the guild through a secret passage behind Feldpost's Inn. Right now it's a total of 18 quests that are all pretty much thief/bounty hunting related. I really tried hard to add a "good" path for all of the quests as well. For instance you might receive a bounty/assassination quest where you can help the person instead of killing them.
At then end of the story you have the option of becoming the guildmaster where you can sort of direct their movements to receive differing amounts of gold every week, similar to the bg2 stronghold. I'm still working on this part though. I've added the dialog choices but haven't worked in the rewards yet or how it will work. I eventually want to add more quests after you take it over but I won't be doing that on the first release.
Honestly, I am losing some steam as I get farther along but I'm still working on it in some capacity almost daily. I don't see how it could take me longer than another month to finish.
Thankee! Our family appreciates the update!
Where it's logical, did you also add nonviolent quest resolutions? You mentioned helping someone instead of killing them as an example, but how widespread is that for your quests? This isn't vital to me, but one of my gaming buddies just loved nonviolent solutions, even if it meant charming and bribing everything to victory.
Yes, most of the side quests have different ways that you can complete them. Some dialog choices will also be dependent on your ability scores as well.
I've also made lots of dialog enhancements, bugfixes and added 2 new quests. They can be started by talking to the Gamesmen and Courtesan officers after progressing through certain points in the mod's story.
For translators, this mod is now fully traified thanks to @JohnBob!