[MOD WIP] Apocalyptic Overhaul
FateAscends
Member Posts: 66
I can't help but think as I look at the whole map, how fortified Candlekeep, Friendly Arm, and Baldur's Gate itself is. How fun an alternate history BG1 could be. It would be really awesome if something like: Sarevok kicked off an apocalypse of some kind in his bid for power before the game even begins. It might work something like this:
Gorion drags the PC from Candlekeep under the same pretense - find somewhere safer, since Candlekeep is safe, but not enough. Ambush still happens, but different kind of monsters/baddies. PC is alone now. The story still follows the same progression beat, with the same overarching bhaalspawn plotline, just the world is completely changed with this apocalyptic event.
World is changed completely. Overrun with undead, demons, cultists or whatever. Candlekeep is filled with refugees, and FAI is a fortified war zone, holding out. Beregost and Nashkel are overrun completely, and basically outdoor dungeons now. Bandit camp could be redone into a refugee camp in hiding? Baldur's Gate itself is still closed until after chapter 4, but due to the apocalyptic danger, not iron shortage.
All familiar NPCs are around, just in fun new locations to find and stumble into, perhaps tougher than they would be otherwise since they have been surviving in this harsh world so long.(Changed/Higher stats, different class combos. Maybe Xan could be a fighter/mage for example.)
So I come to the mod forum before I do a deep dive into this monumental task to ask if anyone with experience can see any problems with this kind of mod? Any big issues I might run into with such a large overhaul project?
Gorion drags the PC from Candlekeep under the same pretense - find somewhere safer, since Candlekeep is safe, but not enough. Ambush still happens, but different kind of monsters/baddies. PC is alone now. The story still follows the same progression beat, with the same overarching bhaalspawn plotline, just the world is completely changed with this apocalyptic event.
World is changed completely. Overrun with undead, demons, cultists or whatever. Candlekeep is filled with refugees, and FAI is a fortified war zone, holding out. Beregost and Nashkel are overrun completely, and basically outdoor dungeons now. Bandit camp could be redone into a refugee camp in hiding? Baldur's Gate itself is still closed until after chapter 4, but due to the apocalyptic danger, not iron shortage.
All familiar NPCs are around, just in fun new locations to find and stumble into, perhaps tougher than they would be otherwise since they have been surviving in this harsh world so long.(Changed/Higher stats, different class combos. Maybe Xan could be a fighter/mage for example.)
So I come to the mod forum before I do a deep dive into this monumental task to ask if anyone with experience can see any problems with this kind of mod? Any big issues I might run into with such a large overhaul project?
Post edited by FateAscends on
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No but seriously, your idea sounds awesome and I will play it whenever it's done.
Some issues I guess:
- Balancing could be really challenging, just highlighting the start: a wolf is a challenge for the solo-player; a horde of zombies could be impossible; maybe you want the player to start at level 3? And rewriting the prologue to an accompanied undead hunt? To motivate this level?
- I expect especially later on quite some inconsistencies in BG City. You will have to do a lot of overhaul for the "atmospheric" NPC. And of course content-wise (not technically) imcompatibility with most other story mods
- Finally and maybe the most critical point: a lot of NPC/Creatures in the area are hardcoded, so you will to remove them by script. This will cause massively more script-code as usual which might result in performance problems. And for the start of an area (entering for the first time) at least I expect a hefty delay till all the scripts have been running for the first (removing creatures of any kind). And also the sheer amount of script actions which will fire might cause a lot of hick-ups which are hard to track und reproduce so bugfinding could be nightmare. There are mods which provide also a lot of script-code, but this is often conditional actions that don't fire at the same time. And the timing in the engine is quite challenging.
And from the story part: I think you should choose one kind of challengen: Undead? Wild beasts? Minions from hells? Could be anything but a mixture I guess would be hard to motivate/explain.
Once I knew how to convert PNG into workable maps, the height maps, light maps, and all that followed. Years of forum posts/answers along with an arsenal of carefully updated tools developed over a decade have honestly left me with quite the impressive workstation. A lot to learn still, but so far no major roadblocks. If I run into any I'll come asking the forums haha
So with those issues:
-Balancing is to be completely redone. The campaign includes the entire bhaalspawn saga, with an elder evil twist. The campaigns sit alongside each other nicely actually, with motivations lining up convincingly(I think, at least). I'm assuming if the player takes their time in Candlekeep, most classes should be level 2, or almost level 2 by the time they leave. I'm thinking of inventing interesting new rest mechanics, since most of the surface of toril will become increasingly uninhabitable as time(chapters) progress.
-You're correct about BG city- it will be the biggest outside dungeon. Spoilers, but the event started there. Overhauling the entire world to maintain atmosphere is very important to me, not only with preserving the bhaalspawn saga, but conveying the feeling of despair/a world on the brink of being lost. The level cap will be much higher than original BG. I imagine MOST story mods will be completely incompatible, or have some strange behaviour, as this is a "total overhaul". However, I am making sure to follow the community modding practices so minor mods that just add smaller things should still work just fine.
-So far this last point I am thinking of a dual pronged approach- Redo basically everything. All the areas in the game. Cut the NPCs/anything else baked into the areas and code, and then use both WeiDU and Near Infinity to add creatures/quests/items into the game via script/baked right in. Hopefully the system isn't executing too many scripts at once that way, just reading area override and small spawn scripts. I imagine this step will take some tinkering, and cinematics will take a little bit of learning. I do admit I will be hoping that the EE engine+modern machines will just let it all work out. The plan is also to release it incrementally so I can get feedback/bug testing as I go - I'll just kill the area transitions and keep it like the demo disc we got in the 90s for the game.
For the story I've drawn up a rough design document and chosen a specific apocalypse campaign already designed. I had an Elder Evils 5th edition book and I've run a few of them before so I've chosen my favourite one. Now I ask myself the important story questions, the who, what, why, and where of it all. I want to preserve the Baldur's Gate feel but just expand upon it with a fresh campaign to run with, so I am going to make sure that we see all the familiar faces we know(both good and bad), and incorporate the story from the original timeline(the world didn't stop moving just because it was ending).
What the PC will know from the start of the game: Rumours of a dark magic disaster of some kind near Baldur's Gate city. Undead overrun the countryside, spurred by dark riders. Some people get back up as undead shortly after dying. Necromancy is strengthened. After some urging from sages with knowledge on the matter, the readers have allowed refugees from across the coast to occupy the outer cloister of Candlekeep.
After figuring out how to make walkable custom maps I spent many hours cutting out assets that were lost to time and abandoned forums - apparently a lot of the work was done before to make "tiles" out of BG objects(wagons, tents, barrels, even wall types) but its all vanished to dead links. After nearly going blind messing with tiny pixels all day, I decided to grab some game files and whip together a little intro video. Its rough, and will probably be replaced, but it was my "treat" after so much tedious pixel manipulation. Here ya go: