Thanks for the quick reply! So, a bit of a mystery. Something similar happened in my BGEE game (I couldn't access parts of the Sea Tower mod --- and using the console to get into those areas caused crashes). I wonder if there's another mod that I used in both games that's causing this...
Hopefully it's the only weird problem. I really like the mod otherwise (like all your work)!
If that's the case, it's not any specific mod... There are creatures with new animations on these maps. Whenever a new animation is added, a free slot is searched and added to that slot. However, sometimes slots have some properties. I think the usual slot was already taken on your setup and some faulty (or rather one with some strange settings) slot was used instead.
I'll see if I can minimalize the chance of such thing happening, when I have a moment... If that's the problem at all, that is... Or maybe it's unlucky coincidence...
Cheers!
EDIT: I tried to reproduce it and failed... not sure what may be causing it. Maybe it's some random bug after all? It was even reviewed before and the reviewer also had no problems with those areas (btw, if anyone is looking for more information about the mod, here's the link)
I just want to say, after having just finished the complete playthrough of SoA and ToB, that Lava's Dreadful Tales Xzele mod + romance is outstanding and a big recommendation for those who want something different from a standard BG2 NPC mod playthrough, particularly for having to go through the 'transformation' you must choose to do to acquire said romance. While there are a number of newer mods that have gotten me interested in playing through BG2 a bunch more times like I used to do years ago, it was my interest in this mod in particular that really motivated me to start playing again. The spotlight on such a obscure piece of DND Lore (Evening Glory) really made this one fun. I really appreciated the little details, such as the number of times your 'transformation' is acknowledged in the main story by major NPCs and the moral quandaries regarding the nature of undeath. I highly recommend to anyone trying this mod to take along someone along like Keldorn who has beliefs which are a natural foil to Xzele's.
I also did not run into this bug; Lava's mods in general work very well (for me, but also quite possibly for many others).
Sometimes other mods interfere in awkward ways. For instance, I am still not 100% certain why I can not access the tent (with Aerie) but sometimes I can, and sometimes I can only do so conditionally, e. g. after visiting the moneylenders mod; I used to think it had to do with first going to the bank and the guards deny entry (and then, I could suddenly enter the tent), but I also had run-throughs where even that did not work. I suspect there may be some changes done by mods that may not always be easy to spot.
Or, another example, I consistently have an issue where in one room of the Neverwinter Night mod, the game crashes (one of the concubines, but only one, the other "works" fine) - nobody was able to reproduce the issue though.
If you can, in any future run through, or just a test-play, try to see if this issue appears on a vanilla installation and only that mod installed. Usually when there is a game crash, there should be a way to find out what may be causing the issue. (For instance, in the past I also had a game crash with the quest in regards to finding what kills people of the village, where one has to fight shadow fiends - the mayor would try to talk, but never continued, and the game froze; that one was later fixed by an official patch set by beamdog. I think the best that can be tried is to find out what causes the freeze, in particular since that one has not been reported by many, or, even by anyone else yet, I think. Can you list which mods you may have installed right now, just in a condensed manner? Perhaps someone can spot something with that already.)
@fataljasmine - thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the mod so much!
I've always appreciated your willingness to try out-of-the box ideas! From your Colours of Infinity series to your newer offerings in the Dreadful Tales. In a million years I never imagined we'd get BG2 content from the Ravenloft setting or 3.5ed books like Libris Mortis! It makes the game fun again.
Can you list which mods you may have installed right now, just in a condensed manner? Perhaps someone can spot something with that already.
Here's the list of mods I've used for this game (BG2EE):
Weasels!
Improved Horns of Valhalla
Arcane Treasury
Planescape Items
Of Heirlooms and Classes
Item Upgrade (Weimar)
Darron (Shadow Thieves merchant)
Unfinished Business
Almateria’s Restoration Project
Quest Pack
Southern Edge
Ooze’s Lounge
Tangled Oak
Bridge’s Block
Alabaster Sands
The Journey to Furze Hall (Afu-Zuuvi)
Hidden Adventures
Minotaur and Lilacor for BGII
Dark Tidings
Expanded thief stronghold:
The Bloodied Stings of Barovia
Juniper and the Stone Leech (Juniper)
In Love, Undeath (Xzelë)
Will of the Wisps
Crucible
Khalid
Walahnan
G3 Crossmod Banter Pack
Banter Pack
IEP Extended Banters [45 minutes]
Heroes, Thieves, and Moneylenders [only components 1, 3, 5]
Convenient EE NPCs [Remove all EE companions]
Druid Grove Makeover
EE Cosmetic Item Enhancement
Portraits Portraits Everywhere
Improved Shamanic Dance
Jmerry’s Tweak Collection
D0 Tweaks [goodberries; weapons; ioun stones; drow abilities; sensible lore]
House rules (Artisan) [racial bonuses; proficiencies; backstab; bonus spell slots; plot items; trolls; rep jingle]
Raduziel’s Universal Wizard Spells
Bardic Wonders [item pack, inspirations, armoured casting]
Improved Shadowstep
More style for mages:
Tweaks anthology
SCS
Subtle Doctor’s Random Tweaks
NPCs Enhanced for Everyone (NPC EE)
Hidden game options
Graion’s Soundsets – NWN
I had a similar problem with the "The Bloodied Stings of Barovia" (two areas wouldn't load and using the console to move to them caused the game to crash).
I hope that this is just a weird quirk of this install. I'll delete everything and install a "fresh" game + mods for my next run. Hopefully I won't encounter this problem next time.
Hey Lava, I genuinely love your mods and think they are among the very best that IE modding has to offer... Having said that, one thing that always irks me with your mods is the lack of proper documentation. Your readmes are very concise (to put it mildly), and they lack a lot of information that IMHO is needed to decide whether to include a mod in a new install or not. I understand that you are very sensitive about giving away potential spoilers, but when trying to judge if a mod fits into a heavily modded install (both thematically and technically, especially wrt compatibility), certain information is important to know in advance. Even to find out very basic things like the stats and kit details of the new NPC, one has to go through the mod files with NearInfinity or similar... Or maybe I'm simply spoiled by the extensive documentation that is the norm for most G3/SHS/PPG mods
In general Lava's mods work very well. Not that having more documentation is bad (see Acifer's excellent .pdf files; I don't think I could ever produce such high quality .pdf files myself), but I am not entirely certain they are necessary really. Thematically many mods don't make much sense or contradict one another; or they have other problems. For instance, reign of terror - I always wondered what would happen if Drizzt is in the party but may also appear with his own team in the fight against Bodhi. Or, with regards to Montaron, having three different mods with different storylines about that NPC.
But, perhaps instead of arguing about pros and cons, it may be useful to give a list of things that the README should contain. For instance you mentioned NPC stats. I think that is probably very easy to do (I actually play-tested xzele and was surprised to see she was not a cleric but a paladin, right? I thought I could replace Viconia with her; unfortunately I had no need for a paladin, as the warrior-centric slots in my party were already occupied. Actually I wondered whether to suggest an option for Xzele to be a cleric or change into a cleric lateron, similar to how the Dusk NPC could be modified, but then I thought it may not have been worth the time investment to make Xzele more flexible, so I kind of stick with Vicona these days. Also with the Lichdom option Viconia can become a lich, so that's another option for her. Not sure if Xzele could become a lich due to the undead focus already. As pointed out before some mods explore the same or a similar theme concurrently.)
Similarly could be done for other things that may be included. Ideally we could have a single requirements file, such as a .md file, that specifies all important documentation.
By the way, there is a lack of documentation for MANY mods in general. You can see this on github - some mods have great documentation and a FAQ; others don't even have any info on the main readme; in particular mods that were hosted at the ... shs or sls forum or so lack documentation in general.
For instance, reign of terror - I always wondered what would happen if Drizzt is in the party but may also appear with his own team in the fight against Bodhi.
If Drizzt from RoT is in your party you do not encounter him and his friends upon leaving the Elven camp outside the Underdark exit. You encounter some random trolls instead. So they are not made available to join the fight against Bodhi.
I know, i have played many of them and enjoy them a lot. But every time i have to go through the modfiles in advance to check which quests there are and what they are called, which items are introduced by the mod, etc. My point/feedback was simply that such things should ideally be part of the readme (maybe in a Spoilers section). In case of an NPC, information such as stats and custom kit details; if there is a romance: how to start it, is there a Bodhi abduction like for vanilla romances, is friendship path also included?; potential conflicts with other NPCs?; crossmod content?; starting weapon profs especially if they include an illegal 3p like for Xzele, etc.
Hell no. I don't think you are aware of what you are asking for. This is a screenshot from my website's panel showing the number of my released mods:
Every 2 days I think about retirement, because I spend on this hobby ~2-3 hours a day and that is way too much already. There are days when I receive a bundle of 6-8 translations with a request to update. So there are times when I spend half of my Saturday/Sunday updating mods, replying to posts at the forums, and writing new content. If you expect me to update readmes for 67 mods now, then the answer is just no.
This is not my work, I am not being paid by anyone to write all these mods and expecting me to list -- let me read that again: kits (with description), romances, romance triggers, how the romance proceeds (for example the existence of the Bodhi abduction), information about friendship, conflicts, crossmods, weapon proficiencies, list of items introduced by the mods, quest lists... SotSC ALONE has 176 .itm files. Yes, SotSC is one of the biggest ones, but it's 67 mods. G3, SHS, and other sites like that are COMMUNITIES. Everything released at WM is written and released by just one author. AND I also have mods at G3, SHS and I help with mods written by other modders.
In other words: I would rather retire than now update these mods so they had all these things listed. I've been releasing stuff since 2009 (as that's the date of my first English mod).
Now, that made me realize I've been working for free for 15 years now. Makes one want to rethink some stuff.
(...) I actually play-tested xzele and was surprised to see she was not a cleric but a paladin, right? I thought I could replace Viconia with her; (...)
And from the readme AND the website of the mod:
The mod also adds a new companion, Xzelë Melaenitt, the paladin of Evening Glory (...)
Sure, that is totally understandable. From your previous comments i was under the impression that your main reason for being concise in the readmes is to not give away spoilers and let the players find out details about the mod themselves (in-game), and not so much the effort. But the sheer numbers put that in perspective a bit
In some instances, it would also be a spoiler, but just in some (like the Bodhi abduction and properties of all the items; as for the romance requirements, for example, such information is there). But it's not all that one reason. And if you have doubts about balance, then just open .tra file and read the item statistics. It's all there. In the translation folder.
Hi @LavaDelVortel! Once again, thank you for an amazing mod - I am loving this one as I do all your work.
I am having one problem though. I had a party do almost all athkatla quests, and have only recently picked up Xzele to join the party.
I had picked up the special skulls previously, and wasn't aware of their significance. I've either dropped them or sold them somewhere - I've searched almost all merchants across the map but have only found one.
Could you please give me the item/cluaconsole code so I can generate one to progress Xzeles quest?
Also, is Xzeles dialogue with Haer'dalis meant to be a romance, or just friends? Wondering whether I need to get rid of HD to romance Xzele!
As for the banter: no, there is no romance between Xzelë and any NPC.
Also remember that if you wan to romance her, you need to go through a change introduced by this mod. To do so, you will need items from an encounter with petrified aggressive someone. I was asked about it here, recently: https://www.weaselmods.net/showthread.php?tid=2105&pid=3745#pid3745
Can we recruit Ohm after finishing all the quests? E. g. as a NPC, for melee
combat, say special abilities or innate abilities of his claws/hands, with
poison and/or paralyse and/or disease touch. Drawback would naturally
be slow movement of undead etc...
I am actually not asking for Lava to invest his spare time as such; it would
be nice if we would kind of have some tutorials in general how to do so
automatically. At the end of the day we need to have target instructions
to do so, right? These are most likely at one point text-instructions (which
can be generated via a programming language); and I think weidu or
whatever it is, may turn things into more correct in-game translations (at
the least this is how I understand it ... I understand why too little about
how weidu really works, but I recall having read a few things on the
gibberlings mod website, which is a fairly good resource but not quite a
how-to tutorial).
I finally finished the series with Xzelë in SoA and ToB (I took a break of about 5 months halfway through ToB due to "real life" distractions).
Xzelë is one of my favourite mod companions yet -- very unique, with a compelling story and romance. I was a bit sceptical at first (an undead romantic partner?) but it developed in a brilliant and memorable way.
Comments
Hopefully it's the only weird problem. I really like the mod otherwise (like all your work)!
I'll see if I can minimalize the chance of such thing happening, when I have a moment... If that's the problem at all, that is... Or maybe it's unlucky coincidence...
Cheers!
EDIT: I tried to reproduce it and failed... not sure what may be causing it. Maybe it's some random bug after all? It was even reviewed before and the reviewer also had no problems with those areas (btw, if anyone is looking for more information about the mod, here's the link)
Cheers
Sometimes other mods interfere in awkward ways. For instance, I am still not 100% certain why I can not access the tent (with Aerie) but sometimes I can, and sometimes I can only do so conditionally, e. g. after visiting the moneylenders mod; I used to think it had to do with first going to the bank and the guards deny entry (and then, I could suddenly enter the tent), but I also had run-throughs where even that did not work. I suspect there may be some changes done by mods that may not always be easy to spot.
Or, another example, I consistently have an issue where in one room of the Neverwinter Night mod, the game crashes (one of the concubines, but only one, the other "works" fine) - nobody was able to reproduce the issue though.
If you can, in any future run through, or just a test-play, try to see if this issue appears on a vanilla installation and only that mod installed. Usually when there is a game crash, there should be a way to find out what may be causing the issue. (For instance, in the past I also had a game crash with the quest in regards to finding what kills people of the village, where one has to fight shadow fiends - the mayor would try to talk, but never continued, and the game froze; that one was later fixed by an official patch set by beamdog. I think the best that can be tried is to find out what causes the freeze, in particular since that one has not been reported by many, or, even by anyone else yet, I think. Can you list which mods you may have installed right now, just in a condensed manner? Perhaps someone can spot something with that already.)
I've always appreciated your willingness to try out-of-the box ideas! From your Colours of Infinity series to your newer offerings in the Dreadful Tales. In a million years I never imagined we'd get BG2 content from the Ravenloft setting or 3.5ed books like Libris Mortis! It makes the game fun again.
Here's the list of mods I've used for this game (BG2EE):
Improved Horns of Valhalla
Arcane Treasury
Planescape Items
Of Heirlooms and Classes
Item Upgrade (Weimar)
Darron (Shadow Thieves merchant)
Unfinished Business
Almateria’s Restoration Project
Quest Pack
Southern Edge
Ooze’s Lounge
Tangled Oak
Bridge’s Block
Alabaster Sands
The Journey to Furze Hall (Afu-Zuuvi)
Hidden Adventures
Minotaur and Lilacor for BGII
Dark Tidings
Expanded thief stronghold:
The Bloodied Stings of Barovia
Juniper and the Stone Leech (Juniper)
In Love, Undeath (Xzelë)
Will of the Wisps
Crucible
Khalid
Walahnan
G3 Crossmod Banter Pack
Banter Pack
IEP Extended Banters [45 minutes]
Heroes, Thieves, and Moneylenders [only components 1, 3, 5]
Convenient EE NPCs [Remove all EE companions]
Druid Grove Makeover
EE Cosmetic Item Enhancement
Portraits Portraits Everywhere
Improved Shamanic Dance
Jmerry’s Tweak Collection
D0 Tweaks [goodberries; weapons; ioun stones; drow abilities; sensible lore]
House rules (Artisan) [racial bonuses; proficiencies; backstab; bonus spell slots; plot items; trolls; rep jingle]
Raduziel’s Universal Wizard Spells
Bardic Wonders [item pack, inspirations, armoured casting]
Improved Shadowstep
More style for mages:
Tweaks anthology
SCS
Subtle Doctor’s Random Tweaks
NPCs Enhanced for Everyone (NPC EE)
Hidden game options
Graion’s Soundsets – NWN
I had a similar problem with the "The Bloodied Stings of Barovia" (two areas wouldn't load and using the console to move to them caused the game to crash).
I hope that this is just a weird quirk of this install. I'll delete everything and install a "fresh" game + mods for my next run. Hopefully I won't encounter this problem next time.
But, perhaps instead of arguing about pros and cons, it may be useful to give a list of things that the README should contain. For instance you mentioned NPC stats. I think that is probably very easy to do (I actually play-tested xzele and was surprised to see she was not a cleric but a paladin, right? I thought I could replace Viconia with her; unfortunately I had no need for a paladin, as the warrior-centric slots in my party were already occupied. Actually I wondered whether to suggest an option for Xzele to be a cleric or change into a cleric lateron, similar to how the Dusk NPC could be modified, but then I thought it may not have been worth the time investment to make Xzele more flexible, so I kind of stick with Vicona these days. Also with the Lichdom option Viconia can become a lich, so that's another option for her. Not sure if Xzele could become a lich due to the undead focus already. As pointed out before some mods explore the same or a similar theme concurrently.)
Similarly could be done for other things that may be included. Ideally we could have a single requirements file, such as a .md file, that specifies all important documentation.
By the way, there is a lack of documentation for MANY mods in general. You can see this on github - some mods have great documentation and a FAQ; others don't even have any info on the main readme; in particular mods that were hosted at the ... shs or sls forum or so lack documentation in general.
If Drizzt from RoT is in your party you do not encounter him and his friends upon leaving the Elven camp outside the Underdark exit. You encounter some random trolls instead. So they are not made available to join the fight against Bodhi.
Every 2 days I think about retirement, because I spend on this hobby ~2-3 hours a day and that is way too much already. There are days when I receive a bundle of 6-8 translations with a request to update. So there are times when I spend half of my Saturday/Sunday updating mods, replying to posts at the forums, and writing new content. If you expect me to update readmes for 67 mods now, then the answer is just no.
This is not my work, I am not being paid by anyone to write all these mods and expecting me to list -- let me read that again: kits (with description), romances, romance triggers, how the romance proceeds (for example the existence of the Bodhi abduction), information about friendship, conflicts, crossmods, weapon proficiencies, list of items introduced by the mods, quest lists... SotSC ALONE has 176 .itm files. Yes, SotSC is one of the biggest ones, but it's 67 mods. G3, SHS, and other sites like that are COMMUNITIES. Everything released at WM is written and released by just one author. AND I also have mods at G3, SHS and I help with mods written by other modders.
In other words: I would rather retire than now update these mods so they had all these things listed. I've been releasing stuff since 2009 (as that's the date of my first English mod).
Now, that made me realize I've been working for free for 15 years now. Makes one want to rethink some stuff.
EDIT:
Oh, and one more thing:
And from the readme AND the website of the mod:
Ironic, isn't it?
I am having one problem though. I had a party do almost all athkatla quests, and have only recently picked up Xzele to join the party.
I had picked up the special skulls previously, and wasn't aware of their significance. I've either dropped them or sold them somewhere - I've searched almost all merchants across the map but have only found one.
Could you please give me the item/cluaconsole code so I can generate one to progress Xzeles quest?
Also, is Xzeles dialogue with Haer'dalis meant to be a romance, or just friends? Wondering whether I need to get rid of HD to romance Xzele!
The codes:
L#XZESK1
L#XZESK2
As for the banter: no, there is no romance between Xzelë and any NPC.
combat, say special abilities or innate abilities of his claws/hands, with
poison and/or paralyse and/or disease touch. Drawback would naturally
be slow movement of undead etc...
I am actually not asking for Lava to invest his spare time as such; it would
be nice if we would kind of have some tutorials in general how to do so
automatically. At the end of the day we need to have target instructions
to do so, right? These are most likely at one point text-instructions (which
can be generated via a programming language); and I think weidu or
whatever it is, may turn things into more correct in-game translations (at
the least this is how I understand it ... I understand why too little about
how weidu really works, but I recall having read a few things on the
gibberlings mod website, which is a fairly good resource but not quite a
how-to tutorial).
Xzelë is one of my favourite mod companions yet -- very unique, with a compelling story and romance. I was a bit sceptical at first (an undead romantic partner?) but it developed in a brilliant and memorable way.
Thanks for this excellent mod and companion!