Wings v1.05
Skitia
Member Posts: 1,062
Wings v1.05
There shall be wings! If the accomplishment be not for me, 'tis for some other. The spirit cannot die; and man, who shall know all and shall have wings...
- Leonardo da Vinci
Latest Release
This is the most recent version of Wings. I don't want people to download old versions from page one on the original WIngs thread, so it was time for its own thread.
This includes all of the content of the original version of Wings, plus a main quest for Aerie and a mini-quest for Minsc after a banter with Aerie. Current version is v1.02, which has the russian translation caught up.
The Main Quest content will begin after some time has passed after Hendak has taken control of the Copper Coronet. You don't have to complete the freeing of the slave compound, though you will eventually be directed to do so. Lengthwise, The Main Quest is a bit longer than the Baldur's Gate 2 companion NPC quests, but shorter than the Beamdog NPCs.
The Minsc Mini-Quest begins after a new random banter between Minsc and Aerie.
Original Description:
This mod adds quite a bit of extra content for everyone's favourite wingless wonder, Aerie.
BG2EEWings091b.rar.
Russian Translation: BG2EEWings091b+RUS.rar.
What's added so far:
- A few small, minor character encounters, such as a new NPC in the circus tent (after beating Kalah) that Aerie can interact with.
- Aerie now has a chance to acquire her own familiar to do her bidding!
- A friendship path for Aerie. PC's not eligible to romance her may still pursue a friendship, learning all sorts about her past. PC's who are eligible to romance her will receive three new banters before the usual romance starts, but if they end the romance at any time will still have the option of pursuing a friendship instead.
- Quite a few new banters between Aerie and other NPC's in your party. She gets along especially well with Imoen.
- OPTIONAL: Restore missing banters. There are a few banters already present in Aerie's banter file that never appear in gameplay as they lack a set of trigger conditions. This just changes that.
- OPTIONAL: Remove the Hexxat conflict. It doesn't really seem in character for Aerie to start a fight, even in ToB, and especially not without talking about it with the party leader first. Even then, she'd have to be 100% certain the other person was up to no good. Which admittedly she is because of a much earlier dialogue in SoA... but that just leaves you wondering why if Aerie knows, lots of characters apparently don't (Imoen, Nalia, Jaheira, Cernd, even Minsc). So this just removes the banter in SoA and slightly alters the banter in ToB so that there's no more fight.
- There are some cosmetic changes to Aerie as well. I just changed her skin and hair color back to how it was originally. When Beamdog recolored a lot of the NPC's based off their portraits, I feel that due to the lighting in Aerie's case, they simply got it wrong. She's referred to as fair and pale a few times in the game's text, so better that she look the part. Also better to have slightly more variety in how NPC's look. (Okay, you'd probably have to look quite closely to really notice that is any difference). While it wasn't strictly necessary, I did change the lighting in her portrait as well from sunset to mid-day.
image
Still to come/being worked on:
A mini-quest for both Minsc and Aerie. She is his witch, after all, so they need to have more interaction.
A main personal quest for Aerie. This will involve Aerie facing off against the slavers who first captured and broke her before selling her on to circus. It will hopefully be a chance to actually see her grow as a hero adventurer.
Post edited by Skitia on
6
Comments
I couldn't tell based on the documentation provided, but is this version EET compatible?
Thankee!
If it's at 6, I'm guessing the questgiver spawned somewhere but never had a chance to talk to you due to transitioning too fast. In that case, just create CreateCreature("X3WTrent") or whatever the creature console command is and then force dialogue them.
"Quite a few new banters between Aerie and other NPC's in your party. She gets along especially well with Imoen."
Would this mod still be compatible with other banter mods, particularly the ones related to Imoen like Imoen4Ever and the romance mod?
The Praxis fight was a reasonable challenge, and I liked that he killed the hostage if the player delayed too long. Reusing the slaver ship felt a bit unimaginative, but I think Wings justified it better than some other mods, like Amber. Laravyl escaping no matter what while Praxis fights to the death seemed gamey, but I must admit bg2 does that a lot.
My first impression of the writing is that it falls into that broad range of 'good enough'. Better than bad, not good enough to be called great. I would also say the same of the vast majority of mods, and those outside this tend to fall on the bad side. Granted, I used a lot of mod npcs and did not use Minsc, so there is a decent amount of writing that I did not see. I will say that I think Aerie was written very in-character.
Giving Aerie a familiar, in and of itself, was superfluous but acceptable. Giving her a phoenix familiar toed the line of being too special.
The final fight with Laravyl was a bit anticlimactic because she starts alone, exposed, and defenseless against a tob-level party. She just dies. I would consider moving her and her slavers east a bit, together with the yaga shura enemies, for a single significant encounter. Take away a few of the slavers if that ends up being too difficult.
In terms of rewards, I found Wings to be very restrained. The slaver grunts were worth very little exp and had nearly worthless gear. Praxis himself has a decent sword, good for filling out its class but in all likelihood outclassed by several weapons the player already has. The symbol stun rod is quite nasty for how early you can get it, but Wings has the good sense to use it against the player before they get to use it. Laravyls bow looks really strong, but it's competing with the much earlier Gesen and unlike Gesen requires the player to provide their own +3 arrows to hit many tob enemies. I would consider changing it from a shortbow to a longbow. This would give it a bit extra range, which would help Laravyl at the end a tad, and would make it more usable as a backup weapon for the npcs that come with longbow proficiencies, namely Minsc who is encouraged to be used with Aerie in Wings anyway.
I'll consider moving Laravyl or more likely just adjusting the encounter difficulty. The main concern was the immersion of the sudden meeting with the Avariel again if it was around a place with enemies. I'll also consider tweaking her a bow. I'm keen on keeping it a shortbow as a long bow is more popular, so I'll have to make it more competitive with Gesen.
I may touch up Praxis's weapon too.
Thanks again!
This was using version 0.99 originally, unfortunately - I attempted to reinstall 1.02 and re-spawn Trent but no change. Am I out of luck, or is there a way to force the next step of the quest to trigger?
If it's anything but zero, try doing C:SetGlobal("X3WAmbushSpawn","AR0022",0). Will also need to make sure the quest global is C:SetGlobal("X3WingsQuest","GLOBAL",16)
I didn't try the mean lines because I don't want to break the friendship.
I can't update Midgame, so I will try the less gentle answer just in case.
I just did Minsc's quest, it was funny and interesting. 🙂
I was wondering about Aerie's quest :
Though the actual text is to stop them and find him in the Crooked Crane in the bridge district, IIRC.
The quest is now going fine. :-)
Note that your first post download links to 1.02 but 1.03 is on GitHub. Directly linking to your releases page lets users choose the version they want and dynamically includes the newest version at the top of the list. Enjoy!