There is no such way. It's a rather symbolic loss, it's very low, but... yeah, the cost is in the title. If that's too much for you, then you may need to accept she's not going to return.
There is no such way. It's a rather symbolic loss, it's very low, but... yeah, the cost is in the title. If that's too much for you, then you may need to accept she's not going to return.
Thank you for your answer, i think that dear Skie will stay dead
Hi @LavaDelVortel , this is the Chinese translation update for Skie - The Cost of One Girl's Soul v6.3, with revisions and updates completed by @Yoshimo0417.
I am happy to say that I have released a massive update of Skie: The Cost of One Girl's Soul!
I was always somewhat unhappy with the scope of the main quest -- the finale of the Soultaker quest and the rescue of our dear friend, Skie Silvershield. Now, the quest includes new areas, new encounters, new interjections, and new options, and it has this feeling that we are truly doing something important! The quest itself is now longer and a bit more difficult.
The update also comes with some minor fixes and a couple of short scenery talks for Skie herself. English and Chinese language options were already updated; the third translation is still to be updated, but the translators were already informed: when it's ready, the mod shall be updated again.
Special thanks to those who helped me with the update: FallDamage312, the author of two amazing areas; Yoshimo0417, who updated the Simplified Chinese translation; MephistoSatanDevil, who helped to coordinate the Chinese translation; CamDawg, who is always ready to answer my never-ending questions; and Skusha, who is currently helping with the update of the last translation that needs to be adjusted (provided by Ulpian, fufel007, Kirian).
Last time I played Skie it was before the revamp (?). I forgot if there was a revamp or I dreamed it.
Anyway, I'm wondering if the revamp touched Skie's liberation quest:
My issue is that the mod tried to make it pass the quest to free Skie as a "Good" quest while it is at best a neutral evil quest bordering on chaotic evil, where you literally used people that were either depressed or suicidal to sub Skie inside the dagger. I wouldn't mind if the mod painted the thing as evil, but the way it's executed treats everything as a good act rather than a really really questionable act.
Nothing gets sacrificed by Charname, you use other for your means and still it's all fine.
I don't think I ever said it is a good quest and it's in the title: the cost. You are presented with options you should consider, but I never said you need to accept them. The question is if you are willing to pay the price or not -- and PC also pays a price and suffers permanent HP loss during the quest. The quest is exactly that: dependent on your personal feelings.
You are warned a couple of times that it's not exactly ok and some may want to decide to leave that to someone else. At some point, you may resign. And it's not about using people: some of them are literally dying and have a few days of life -- like Pyll, who also says:
Look, I know you mean well, but I've had my dose of fun. These are my last few days, and I should be the one to decide how to spend them. I want to do something significant. Do something... for someone. And not because I will get something in exchange. If... I have to go, I want to go down my way. Doing what I feel is right.
It's up to them to decide if they want to spend that time on stuff or save someone, and in the end, I can imagine people on their deathbed wanting to do something significant that will have meaning, so they could accept death and believe that they can pass that life to someone else by saving them. That's the point: there is no good way out of that situation - just like there are situations in life that always result in someone paying some sort of price. Which is worse? Letting Skie stay inside? Letting Pyll pay the price? Does the fact that she's going to be dead in a tenday make it ok? Or should we let a criminal take Skie's place? Is it even fair that Skie, an innocent girl, became a sacrificial lamb in the SoD plot?
I on purpose decide not to suggest what is good, neutral or evil, because... I don't know myself which one it is. Perhaps none of them are good. But even if they are, does it mean we cannot ponder and decide how much we can do for a friend? (Even if we consider things evil, after Pyll makes up her mind, because yes -- even if she wants to do it, it can still be too much for some) Those hesitations that come with the story are good, and reasonable. And yes, I wanted players to have some doubts, too.
Sure, you may dislike it, because that quest was always supposed to come with a dose of discomfort, because it is supposed to make you ask yourself if that's what a hero would do (if you are roleplaying a hero at all) and if you are still being heroic or something else. Some will say "but that means I won't get Skie": if consequences weren't acute, then the decision wouldn't be important at all.
That said, the big update came with a 4th, secret option that would probably work for you better, but I am not going to spoil it. It wouldn't be a secret. It also comes with some doubts, but it does not include the 3 characters you know from the original version of the quest, so yes, there is a new option... if you are ready to make a strange kind of deal. But I'm not saying anything more about that.
I played through the initial release of this mod two times. On my current run of the game I played through the latest "expanded" version of the mod. I'd like to leave a small review.
Spoilers below.
Beamdog left some unresolved cliffhangers in SOD involving Skie Silvershield. Nothing was ever officially announced that I am aware of but it seems likely that Beamdog planned to release a BG2EE content drop that would resolve these story related issues. Once Beamdog lost the rights to make Baldur's Gate content, it became clear that this gapping hole in the writing was never going to be officially fixed. Many players looked to the mod community to provide some closure and a few mod authors replied.
A mod by the name of "Another Fine Hell" offered an optional ending for SOD and has a planned BG2 module that would add closure to the Skie Silvershield content during SOA. As of writing this, it has not been released yet.
Another mod "Love Conquers All", is a romance mod for the NPC Corwin from SOD. This mod allows players to continue their SOD romance with Corwin during the SOA game and happens to wrap up the Skie Silvershield plot while it's at it.
And Finally, We have Lava's mod, "Skie-The Cost Of One Girl's Soul." Since "Love Conquers All" requires a romance with Corwin it seems likely that Lava's mod is the main solution for this problem currently. People who are using "Love Conquers All" can still experience Lava's resolution thanks to a nice compatibility effort between the two mod authors.
"The Cost Of One Girl's Soul" is a content mod that expands the main plot of SOD during SOA. This mod adds new NPC's, Quests, Combat, some role playing, new areas to visit, items and a resolution to Skie's story.
Story 4/5 -Good- The story is already established by Beamdog and this mod picks up where Beamdog left off. You have to find the Soul Taker Dagger and find a way to release Skie's Soul so that it can return to her body for a proper resurrection. Finding the dagger is much easier than releasing Skie's Soul and you will have to make some difficult decisions, fight battles and possibly make personal sacrifices to get her back. There are 3 possible end outcomes depending on what you install.
ART 3/5 -Above Average- This mod includes a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. It looks nice and serves it's purpose of providing a new location where some battles must play out. These new areas are not very interesting from an exploration stand point but they are not meant to be, they serve as an arena for multiple battles and little else. This is a step up from mods that re-use previous areas from the game and repurpose them. The narrative would be limited if we couldn't travel to new places and these new maps manage to do it while matching the base game artistically. It's not as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind but it's a cut above the norm.
Quest Design 4.5/5-Very Good- This mod stays focused on a single quest that naturally extends the base game content from SOD while allowing you to meet new people, make some role playing decisions, travel to a new location and fight some battles. It's a small mod that fits right into the early SOA content and has good pacing. Branching dialogues feel natural.
Gameplay 4/5 -Good- Some Decisions need to be made. The combat varies from basic to challenging for an early SOA party. There is a good variety of enemies that form a gauntlet of battles that can test your endurance a bit. The final battles felt satisfying in terms of difficulty.
Items 5/5-Great-There is only one item that you receive if you manage to save Skie. It's a nice item and it doesn't cause any balance issues. It will make one of your mages a little more consistent and useful in the rare times when they are not casting spells.
XP Balance 5/5-Great- This is a small quest and the XP rewards are fair while not causing any change to the power balance of the party.
Economic Balance 5/5-Great- There is no gold rewards in this quest, in fact you have to pay others to help you.
Bugs- I didn't experience any quest bugs or crashes. The English translation was solid.
In the end, I would give this mod a "B+" rating. It's not ground breaking in any single area but it provides a consistently good experience in all areas while maintaining balance and delivering a stable experience. It takes a below average part of the original game and makes it good. I would recommend this mod to anyone who plays SOD. I plan to continue using this mod in the future.
On a side note: It would be cool if this mod had a little cross mod support for "Call Of The Lost Goddess" Where you could purchase a soul in the abyss and use it in the soultaker plot. I would think a soul would rather rest in a calm pocket plane within the soul taker than be eaten by a demon in hell.
ART 3/5 -Above Average- This mod includes a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. [...] These new areas are not very interesting from an exploration stand point... [...] It's not as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind but it's a cut above the norm.
Just so you know, it seems like you played an old version of the mod. As Lava commented above you, the quest was expanded with fully custom-made artwork and additional sequences. There are images of said areas if you scroll up.
@jastey , thanks I noticed it after I wrote the review but didn't bother to update it since it's still in beta.
@Llewren , I played the latest version and the pictures provided by lava look accurate to what I played. I've seen some of these assets in the game before however maybe some of them were from previous Lava mods? Either way, I think the areas are more of a backdrop for fighting rather than exploration. They are just rock formations and there is nothing to really explore. I think they are above average but not up there with the best of the custom backdrops that I have seen.
I always try not to intervene when someone wants to share their opinions, because it's all right to have those, share them, etc. However, I feel inclined to react when someone's leaving untrue information, while it was clearly stated - both in the post Llewren mentioned and in the readme - that this is a new area, and it's not me who made it, but a different area artist FallDamage312. If anyone wanted proof for that, it is in the area itself, but I need to mark it a spoiler:
It is in the shape of the Soultaker itself:
The round arena you see next is also new, and reflects the gem of the dagger you enter, when you delve deeper into the world of the Soultaker.
That surprises me, because wanting to leave a "review" is one thing, but reviews require more accurate information than an impression, and I am writing this not because I feal like being mean, but because there are people behind these project - FallDamage312 spent his time, and put a lot of effort to create something I could not do myself (the mentioned shape, which is in the spoilers) and to make the area reflect what's actually happening in the mod.
Please, let's respect the work people put into something, and I'm not saying it because of what I invested in this, but there are also others who did, because they were nice enough to do so.
ART 3/5 -Above Average- This mod includes a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. It looks nice and serves it's purpose of providing a new location where some battles must play out. These new areas are not very interesting from an exploration stand point but they are not meant to be, they serve as an arena for multiple battles and little else. This is a step up from mods that re-use previous areas from the game and repurpose them. The narrative would be limited if we couldn't travel to new places and these new maps manage to do it while matching the base game artistically. It's not as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind but it's a cut above the norm.
I fail to see what the problem is. I clearly stated that this is a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. If all of the texture work is custom, then my bad but either way, I said it was a new area that is above average and did a good job of allowing the narrative to go where it needed to. I don't think it's as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind. This one clearly was not as it serves as a backdrop for a series of fights and nothing else. It's a bunch of rock formations with the purpose of providing a place to fight for Skie's soul. No offense was intended. I even mentioned that it matched the base game artistically, I just didn't find it all that interesting to walk around in.
If you had re-used areas from the base game then I would have given it a 1/5.
Photo shop work would have gotten you a 2/5
Custom Backdrop got you a 3/5
Custom Backdrop that is fun to explore would get you a 4/5
Custom Backdrop that is fun to explore and has artful flourish that goes beyond the base game would get you a 5/5.
For example, Beautiful villa's or a neat architecture on buildings. Paintings and textures that make you want to oogle over the image and distract you from playing the game, intense special effects that go beyond the base game ect.
Does this new area look more artful than Trademeet? Is it more fun to explore than Durlog's Tower? I have to compare what you include in your mods to what is already available which includes other mods that are pushing the envelope even harder than Bioware did.
I said the story was good, the art was above average and the quest design was very good with good gameplay. Overall I gave your mod a B+ which = very good in my eyes. I can count the number of content mods that I have given "A" grades to on a single hand. I would have given this mod a C+ before the updated version was released. Now the combat is much better, the role playing is polished up a little more and the art is a step up from where it was before which pushed this mod up an entire letter grade from where it was before.
I'm just an average gamer and I will include assumptions and impressions in my comments since I don't know the in's and out's of any mod or mod development team's inner development cycle. (Outside of the ones I've worked on of course.) I left you my honest opinions in the form of a small review. Use it to improve your craft or ignore it. If you disagree with my opinions then that is ok but there is nothing I can do about it. I use Blender to model 3d guns and animate them for first person shooters. I work with much more complicated 3d model work than this and fully animate it 60 to 120 times a second. I can respect the work that was done here but it's not more advanced than anything from BG2 from 20 years ago.
Pick any area in the city of Athkatla and it looks more interesting and fun to explore than this one. Making the area look like a dagger when it's zoomed out is cool but that doesn't change the fact that the area is a rock formation floating in space that has a rock texture that is very similar to the one from BG2 that I have been looking at for decades. There is nothing else to it other than a few portals that look very similar to the portals in SOTSC, clustered in the center of the map. I could explore the entire thing in less than 2 minutes.
Your mod is going up against mods that add new 3d spell effects, a multitude of enemy sprites that are fully animated that bring lumbering two headed trolls to life with lots of custom items and have over 40 backdrops with animated pools and lava streams with super high resolution textures that change in each room with different lighting ect. I think my Art score was fair. I think a B+ for this mod was generous. I gave Throne of the mad God an A- and it required a lot more work than this one did. I don't need to be a part of the development team to tell you that.
This is a very good mod but if you want to improve your art score than look at Irenicus dungeon and the nice variety of lighting and textures it has. It blurs an incredible amount of environments and art styles into a single dungeon that is fun to explore. I think FallDammage312 did a fine job here for a first backdrop but it was designed to be a backdrop for a fight rather than an interesting dungeon to explore and that's ok, it doesn't have to be anything more than what it is, but it's not going to impress people and make them rate it above other areas of the game that were more involved. Don't expect high art scores from critics if your art design is intentionally simple. A small mod is not going to win high praise for large detailed quests ect. If you make a text based quest with no combat then that is fine but don't expect good gameplay scores if there is no gameplay. Sometimes the design of the mod limits what it is capable of vs other mods, many of which require much more work to achieve what they do.
@LavaDelVortel I just today finished the new version of Skie: Cost of One Girl's Soul and I love the way you've enhanced it. Facing various aspects of her psyche was an inspired choice. And I love new graphic being atmospheric of "inside the blade". Very cool.
I also appreciate keeping the whole flow of it pretty simple, I think the point of it is righting a wrong, not another grand adventure. We need to get to the important stuff like [charname] having someone to eat chocolate with.
> We need to get to the important stuff like [charname] having someone to eat chocolate with.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable design approach. One issue that I think the BG series has is
that it is, by default, focused more on an epic central storyline, e. g. the legacy of Bhaal, losing
the abilities when tortured lateron and so forth. It would be kind of nice if, assuming we have
more mod authors in the future, the focus may be a bit less on the raw epicness in general,
but also specifically less on the Bhaal storyline. With that I mean, as one example, take the
Dusk NPC mod (now called Autumns Twilight and including more than one NPC.) It would kind
of make sense for Dusk to, after the storyline is kind of over with Throne of Bhaal, to train
new and young recruits with similar abilities as Dusk had (though perhaps a bit different),
for future threats and what not. Naturally this would require a post-BG2-storyline part, perhaps
more generic; and this is probably just wishful thinking as we may not have enough mod
authors for this in general. But just think how many more stories could happen in the whole
worldmap mod, numerous cities could be explored, new adventurers rising. If you take the
huge storyline in the Aura NPC mod, that is somewhat decoupled from Irenicus. Now imagine
if we'd have 20 mod authors doing the same; that would be almost like a new other game.
I know this is not realistic, because most mods will, even if not focusing on Irenicus as a
central component of the storyline, always want to "slay the huge dragon" and "get overpowered
items xyz", so epicness is easier to do than a storyline-centric approach. But some mod authors
kind of focus on storyline-first or with a heavy focus, even if not on a epic-powers (e. g.
I think Skitia NPCs are storyline-first, as one example). Lava kind of has several NPCs that
go that way too, e. g. Dwaradime is not about raw epic powers; on the other hand a few
NPCs seem to be with a stronger focus of that, like that Hephasteus or what was the name
of that guy-from-the-depths-of-hell or so. Or Sarevok, which I actually never liked, whereas
Dork, I mean, Dorn was actually fun to have, even if a bit annoying. Or Wilson! If only we were
to have more epic furry storylines. You could definitely eat chocolate with Wilson. Or probably
honey cake. And he could bromance in Acifer's mod where some bears train rabbits and what
not.
So I've got a really dumb question, first time ever!
I just recruited Skie into my BG2 party. In my head canon, Skie was not a thief. The first time I meat her, she was a new recruit in Fists. So Fighter. I say Skie was a only ever a fighter from some basic Flaming Fist training.
I changed her class via SCS. But then it wants to give her like 890k experience or something bonkers. I'm thinking she should have like 3k, a little experience from SoD and that's it!
Seriously its not a big deal to game play, she'll rocket up levels fast.
But everytime I edit it with EEKeeper to 3k, it shows up as 890k when I load the game. Obviously something is doing a match level check or something. Is there a way to shut this off?
Or maybe I don't use the SCS function at all and do it all in EEKeeper?
Apologies for a dumb question! I know, I'm probably the only player ever who doesn't want free experience.
Most vanilla and mod NPCs have this script that set their XP upon joining to more-or-less match player1, but it is triggered only once. However, there are mods that also chance stuff like that so... I don't really know. I would say that once she is in the party and you edit her then, it should be the way you edited her. If it doesn't work, then sorry, but I have no idea why it wouldn't change.
Yeah I'm completely stumped, it just won't let me apply anything lower. I tried to run it a ways and see if I could edit it after we'd all gained a little experience together, no luck. I tried removing a local variable that said something about level matching, also seemed to make no difference. Very odd. I've actually done this with her before, all in EEKeeper. But I didn't have the customize NPCs selected in SCS. It must be tied into that?
Anyway, I'll just let it rip. Over the course of the game, it won't make a huge difference.
Comments
Thank you!
Thank you for your answer, i think that dear Skie will stay dead
I was always somewhat unhappy with the scope of the main quest -- the finale of the Soultaker quest and the rescue of our dear friend, Skie Silvershield. Now, the quest includes new areas, new encounters, new interjections, and new options, and it has this feeling that we are truly doing something important! The quest itself is now longer and a bit more difficult.
The update also comes with some minor fixes and a couple of short scenery talks for Skie herself. English and Chinese language options were already updated; the third translation is still to be updated, but the translators were already informed: when it's ready, the mod shall be updated again.
Special thanks to those who helped me with the update: FallDamage312, the author of two amazing areas; Yoshimo0417, who updated the Simplified Chinese translation; MephistoSatanDevil, who helped to coordinate the Chinese translation; CamDawg, who is always ready to answer my never-ending questions; and Skusha, who is currently helping with the update of the last translation that needs to be adjusted (provided by Ulpian, fufel007, Kirian).
Enjoy, everyone!
Anyway, I'm wondering if the revamp touched Skie's liberation quest:
Nothing gets sacrificed by Charname, you use other for your means and still it's all fine.
You are warned a couple of times that it's not exactly ok and some may want to decide to leave that to someone else. At some point, you may resign. And it's not about using people: some of them are literally dying and have a few days of life -- like Pyll, who also says:
It's up to them to decide if they want to spend that time on stuff or save someone, and in the end, I can imagine people on their deathbed wanting to do something significant that will have meaning, so they could accept death and believe that they can pass that life to someone else by saving them. That's the point: there is no good way out of that situation - just like there are situations in life that always result in someone paying some sort of price. Which is worse? Letting Skie stay inside? Letting Pyll pay the price? Does the fact that she's going to be dead in a tenday make it ok? Or should we let a criminal take Skie's place? Is it even fair that Skie, an innocent girl, became a sacrificial lamb in the SoD plot?
I on purpose decide not to suggest what is good, neutral or evil, because... I don't know myself which one it is. Perhaps none of them are good. But even if they are, does it mean we cannot ponder and decide how much we can do for a friend? (Even if we consider things evil, after Pyll makes up her mind, because yes -- even if she wants to do it, it can still be too much for some) Those hesitations that come with the story are good, and reasonable. And yes, I wanted players to have some doubts, too.
Sure, you may dislike it, because that quest was always supposed to come with a dose of discomfort, because it is supposed to make you ask yourself if that's what a hero would do (if you are roleplaying a hero at all) and if you are still being heroic or something else. Some will say "but that means I won't get Skie": if consequences weren't acute, then the decision wouldn't be important at all.
That said, the big update came with a 4th, secret option that would probably work for you better, but I am not going to spoil it. It wouldn't be a secret. It also comes with some doubts, but it does not include the 3 characters you know from the original version of the quest, so yes, there is a new option... if you are ready to make a strange kind of deal. But I'm not saying anything more about that.
Spoilers below.
Beamdog left some unresolved cliffhangers in SOD involving Skie Silvershield. Nothing was ever officially announced that I am aware of but it seems likely that Beamdog planned to release a BG2EE content drop that would resolve these story related issues. Once Beamdog lost the rights to make Baldur's Gate content, it became clear that this gapping hole in the writing was never going to be officially fixed. Many players looked to the mod community to provide some closure and a few mod authors replied.
A mod by the name of "Another Fine Hell" offered an optional ending for SOD and has a planned BG2 module that would add closure to the Skie Silvershield content during SOA. As of writing this, it has not been released yet.
Another mod "Love Conquers All", is a romance mod for the NPC Corwin from SOD. This mod allows players to continue their SOD romance with Corwin during the SOA game and happens to wrap up the Skie Silvershield plot while it's at it.
And Finally, We have Lava's mod, "Skie-The Cost Of One Girl's Soul." Since "Love Conquers All" requires a romance with Corwin it seems likely that Lava's mod is the main solution for this problem currently. People who are using "Love Conquers All" can still experience Lava's resolution thanks to a nice compatibility effort between the two mod authors.
"The Cost Of One Girl's Soul" is a content mod that expands the main plot of SOD during SOA. This mod adds new NPC's, Quests, Combat, some role playing, new areas to visit, items and a resolution to Skie's story.
Story 4/5 -Good- The story is already established by Beamdog and this mod picks up where Beamdog left off. You have to find the Soul Taker Dagger and find a way to release Skie's Soul so that it can return to her body for a proper resurrection. Finding the dagger is much easier than releasing Skie's Soul and you will have to make some difficult decisions, fight battles and possibly make personal sacrifices to get her back. There are 3 possible end outcomes depending on what you install.
ART 3/5 -Above Average- This mod includes a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. It looks nice and serves it's purpose of providing a new location where some battles must play out. These new areas are not very interesting from an exploration stand point but they are not meant to be, they serve as an arena for multiple battles and little else. This is a step up from mods that re-use previous areas from the game and repurpose them. The narrative would be limited if we couldn't travel to new places and these new maps manage to do it while matching the base game artistically. It's not as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind but it's a cut above the norm.
Quest Design 4.5/5-Very Good- This mod stays focused on a single quest that naturally extends the base game content from SOD while allowing you to meet new people, make some role playing decisions, travel to a new location and fight some battles. It's a small mod that fits right into the early SOA content and has good pacing. Branching dialogues feel natural.
Gameplay 4/5 -Good- Some Decisions need to be made. The combat varies from basic to challenging for an early SOA party. There is a good variety of enemies that form a gauntlet of battles that can test your endurance a bit. The final battles felt satisfying in terms of difficulty.
Items 5/5-Great-There is only one item that you receive if you manage to save Skie. It's a nice item and it doesn't cause any balance issues. It will make one of your mages a little more consistent and useful in the rare times when they are not casting spells.
XP Balance 5/5-Great- This is a small quest and the XP rewards are fair while not causing any change to the power balance of the party.
Economic Balance 5/5-Great- There is no gold rewards in this quest, in fact you have to pay others to help you.
Bugs- I didn't experience any quest bugs or crashes. The English translation was solid.
In the end, I would give this mod a "B+" rating. It's not ground breaking in any single area but it provides a consistently good experience in all areas while maintaining balance and delivering a stable experience. It takes a below average part of the original game and makes it good. I would recommend this mod to anyone who plays SOD. I plan to continue using this mod in the future.
On a side note: It would be cool if this mod had a little cross mod support for "Call Of The Lost Goddess" Where you could purchase a soul in the abyss and use it in the soultaker plot. I would think a soul would rather rest in a calm pocket plane within the soul taker than be eaten by a demon in hell.
Just so you know, it seems like you played an old version of the mod. As Lava commented above you, the quest was expanded with fully custom-made artwork and additional sequences. There are images of said areas if you scroll up.
@Llewren , I played the latest version and the pictures provided by lava look accurate to what I played. I've seen some of these assets in the game before however maybe some of them were from previous Lava mods? Either way, I think the areas are more of a backdrop for fighting rather than exploration. They are just rock formations and there is nothing to really explore. I think they are above average but not up there with the best of the custom backdrops that I have seen.
The round arena you see next is also new, and reflects the gem of the dagger you enter, when you delve deeper into the world of the Soultaker.
That surprises me, because wanting to leave a "review" is one thing, but reviews require more accurate information than an impression, and I am writing this not because I feal like being mean, but because there are people behind these project - FallDamage312 spent his time, and put a lot of effort to create something I could not do myself (the mentioned shape, which is in the spoilers) and to make the area reflect what's actually happening in the mod.
Please, let's respect the work people put into something, and I'm not saying it because of what I invested in this, but there are also others who did, because they were nice enough to do so.
I fail to see what the problem is. I clearly stated that this is a new area that uses some art assets from the base game. If all of the texture work is custom, then my bad but either way, I said it was a new area that is above average and did a good job of allowing the narrative to go where it needed to. I don't think it's as exciting as a totally custom backdrop designed with exploration in mind. This one clearly was not as it serves as a backdrop for a series of fights and nothing else. It's a bunch of rock formations with the purpose of providing a place to fight for Skie's soul. No offense was intended. I even mentioned that it matched the base game artistically, I just didn't find it all that interesting to walk around in.
If you had re-used areas from the base game then I would have given it a 1/5.
Photo shop work would have gotten you a 2/5
Custom Backdrop got you a 3/5
Custom Backdrop that is fun to explore would get you a 4/5
Custom Backdrop that is fun to explore and has artful flourish that goes beyond the base game would get you a 5/5.
For example, Beautiful villa's or a neat architecture on buildings. Paintings and textures that make you want to oogle over the image and distract you from playing the game, intense special effects that go beyond the base game ect.
Does this new area look more artful than Trademeet? Is it more fun to explore than Durlog's Tower? I have to compare what you include in your mods to what is already available which includes other mods that are pushing the envelope even harder than Bioware did.
I said the story was good, the art was above average and the quest design was very good with good gameplay. Overall I gave your mod a B+ which = very good in my eyes. I can count the number of content mods that I have given "A" grades to on a single hand. I would have given this mod a C+ before the updated version was released. Now the combat is much better, the role playing is polished up a little more and the art is a step up from where it was before which pushed this mod up an entire letter grade from where it was before.
I'm just an average gamer and I will include assumptions and impressions in my comments since I don't know the in's and out's of any mod or mod development team's inner development cycle. (Outside of the ones I've worked on of course.) I left you my honest opinions in the form of a small review. Use it to improve your craft or ignore it. If you disagree with my opinions then that is ok but there is nothing I can do about it. I use Blender to model 3d guns and animate them for first person shooters. I work with much more complicated 3d model work than this and fully animate it 60 to 120 times a second. I can respect the work that was done here but it's not more advanced than anything from BG2 from 20 years ago.
Pick any area in the city of Athkatla and it looks more interesting and fun to explore than this one. Making the area look like a dagger when it's zoomed out is cool but that doesn't change the fact that the area is a rock formation floating in space that has a rock texture that is very similar to the one from BG2 that I have been looking at for decades. There is nothing else to it other than a few portals that look very similar to the portals in SOTSC, clustered in the center of the map. I could explore the entire thing in less than 2 minutes.
Your mod is going up against mods that add new 3d spell effects, a multitude of enemy sprites that are fully animated that bring lumbering two headed trolls to life with lots of custom items and have over 40 backdrops with animated pools and lava streams with super high resolution textures that change in each room with different lighting ect. I think my Art score was fair. I think a B+ for this mod was generous. I gave Throne of the mad God an A- and it required a lot more work than this one did. I don't need to be a part of the development team to tell you that.
This is a very good mod but if you want to improve your art score than look at Irenicus dungeon and the nice variety of lighting and textures it has. It blurs an incredible amount of environments and art styles into a single dungeon that is fun to explore. I think FallDammage312 did a fine job here for a first backdrop but it was designed to be a backdrop for a fight rather than an interesting dungeon to explore and that's ok, it doesn't have to be anything more than what it is, but it's not going to impress people and make them rate it above other areas of the game that were more involved. Don't expect high art scores from critics if your art design is intentionally simple. A small mod is not going to win high praise for large detailed quests ect. If you make a text based quest with no combat then that is fine but don't expect good gameplay scores if there is no gameplay. Sometimes the design of the mod limits what it is capable of vs other mods, many of which require much more work to achieve what they do.
I also appreciate keeping the whole flow of it pretty simple, I think the point of it is righting a wrong, not another grand adventure. We need to get to the important stuff like [charname] having someone to eat chocolate with.
Thank you for an entertaining update!
I think that is a perfectly reasonable design approach. One issue that I think the BG series has is
that it is, by default, focused more on an epic central storyline, e. g. the legacy of Bhaal, losing
the abilities when tortured lateron and so forth. It would be kind of nice if, assuming we have
more mod authors in the future, the focus may be a bit less on the raw epicness in general,
but also specifically less on the Bhaal storyline. With that I mean, as one example, take the
Dusk NPC mod (now called Autumns Twilight and including more than one NPC.) It would kind
of make sense for Dusk to, after the storyline is kind of over with Throne of Bhaal, to train
new and young recruits with similar abilities as Dusk had (though perhaps a bit different),
for future threats and what not. Naturally this would require a post-BG2-storyline part, perhaps
more generic; and this is probably just wishful thinking as we may not have enough mod
authors for this in general. But just think how many more stories could happen in the whole
worldmap mod, numerous cities could be explored, new adventurers rising. If you take the
huge storyline in the Aura NPC mod, that is somewhat decoupled from Irenicus. Now imagine
if we'd have 20 mod authors doing the same; that would be almost like a new other game.
I know this is not realistic, because most mods will, even if not focusing on Irenicus as a
central component of the storyline, always want to "slay the huge dragon" and "get overpowered
items xyz", so epicness is easier to do than a storyline-centric approach. But some mod authors
kind of focus on storyline-first or with a heavy focus, even if not on a epic-powers (e. g.
I think Skitia NPCs are storyline-first, as one example). Lava kind of has several NPCs that
go that way too, e. g. Dwaradime is not about raw epic powers; on the other hand a few
NPCs seem to be with a stronger focus of that, like that Hephasteus or what was the name
of that guy-from-the-depths-of-hell or so. Or Sarevok, which I actually never liked, whereas
Dork, I mean, Dorn was actually fun to have, even if a bit annoying. Or Wilson! If only we were
to have more epic furry storylines. You could definitely eat chocolate with Wilson. Or probably
honey cake. And he could bromance in Acifer's mod where some bears train rabbits and what
not.
I just recruited Skie into my BG2 party. In my head canon, Skie was not a thief. The first time I meat her, she was a new recruit in Fists. So Fighter. I say Skie was a only ever a fighter from some basic Flaming Fist training.
I changed her class via SCS. But then it wants to give her like 890k experience or something bonkers. I'm thinking she should have like 3k, a little experience from SoD and that's it!
Seriously its not a big deal to game play, she'll rocket up levels fast.
But everytime I edit it with EEKeeper to 3k, it shows up as 890k when I load the game. Obviously something is doing a match level check or something. Is there a way to shut this off?
Or maybe I don't use the SCS function at all and do it all in EEKeeper?
Apologies for a dumb question! I know, I'm probably the only player ever who doesn't want free experience.
Anyway, I'll just let it rip. Over the course of the game, it won't make a huge difference.