@Ulb : Thank you very much for the kind words - especially coming from someone whose own modding work I appreciate very much. I’ll see if I can come up with some kind of workaround for the transformation issue in a future update.
@dunehunter : Thank you for the positive feedback and the suggestion! I’ll see if I can adjust the trousers in a way similar to what you proposed. It might be a little tricky to implement properly within the engine, but I honestly like the idea quite a lot.
@Acifer
Thank you!
Coming from you, that is very high praise. To be honest, looking at the stuff I've put out there - especially what little writing I did - not all of it has aged well, and the rest is 'serviceable' at best.
But I'm happy some of it is still appreciated.
Regarding the Wererat change:
I regret mentioning it and I don't think you should change it.
I've since played through it again (of course I abandoned my last run in ToB) and it's really not that bad. It is how the vanilla game does it and would have done it and I think changing it might make the mod feel more like mod-added content, which would be a shame. Right now, the only thing that makes your mods stand out from the vanilla game is that they are arguably higher quality and have more detail.
Honestly, your mods are the best add-ons ever released for the BG series, and that includes TotSC and (ignoring its function as an end for the saga) ToB.
Some more praise I forgot to mention last time: I really appreciate the visual storytelling in your areas, especially in Throne of the Mad God. I've spent quite a bit of time just looking at the areas and the amazing details you've put in. You really captured what I like about dwarves in fantasy and put it into those environments.
Also, the way you handled the riddles; allowing players to fumble a bit and just 'punishing' wrong answers with a little fight but still getting the unlock, is just great game design. It makes repeated playthroughs much smoother and relaxing.
...oh, and while I'm at it: The Fomorian Cheese quest is just adorable. It reminded me of a children's book I had as a kid about giants and that whimsical, wondrous adventure feeling.
Anyway, thanks again, I'm looking forward to your other projects!
@Ulb: Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the environmental storytelling, as that's something I always try to put extra effort into.
There is no intended order, so you can play them in whichever sequence you like. Personally, I'd recommend playing Throne of the Mad God first and Call of the Lost Goddess afterwards, but it's entirely up to you. Hope you enjoy them!
There is no intended order, so you can play them in whichever sequence you like. Personally, I'd recommend playing Throne of the Mad God first and Call of the Lost Goddess afterwards, but it's entirely up to you. Hope you enjoy them!
Fantastic, I'll start today.
Any issue content-wise if I plan to play it solo?
Players have successfully completed the mods solo. That said, the mods were generally designed with a full party in mind, so depending on your class and setup, you may find certain encounters and quests a bit more challenging and you'll probably have a harder time if you don't have access to detect and disarm traps.
Good luck and enjoy!
Players have successfully completed the mods solo. That said, the mods were generally designed with a full party in mind, so depending on your class and setup, you may find certain encounters and quests a bit more challenging and you'll probably have a harder time if you don't have access to detect and disarm traps.
Good luck and enjoy!
I'm all up for the challenge! I meant if I was gonna miss on some content by not having party members
Thanks again!
I decided to register on this site to come and thank you for your work. I find this mod incredible both for level design and for story telling. I have done it with a party of 4 PGs 11-13 level and it was not harsh ( which for me it's not bad).
You have inserted one of my favourite creatures of Faerun ( the "little ones") which I always add to my PnP campaigns.
The dwarven fortress reminded me the Severed Hand+dwarven dungeon of IWD feeling, that are probably my favourite dungeons in all the Infinite engine games.
Thank you, I am waiting for Silver realms and Skyforge now.
BTW, if you managed to create some stand alones adventures independently from Bhaal spawn story it would be awesome.
Alright, here we go. Granted, I played it solo with a 1.2 mil xp F/M/T on Insane (double damage) and SCS installed and it was a nice challenge.
Where should I start? Congratulations!
You really concocted something unique.
For someone like me, who played D&D from the 2nd edition (when I was but a kid), reading these names and "walking" those halls was nothing short of incredible.
I LOVED the introduction, the cinematics, the music and sounds in general, the encounters, how much attention and effort you put to into details and the quality of the maps along with their level design, and last but not least... The way the story was told!
I was captivated from the start till the very end.
10/10.
If I may, some suggestions & questions:
- Glouris Mristifos didn't comment on his familiar dying when I killed it (like Sorcerous Amon with Pooky).
- Does the statue/altar where the Manticore fight takes place have any purpose?
- I spent quite some time to figure out what could kill a Snow Troll (not the Ice one). I tried everything, since apparently fire and acid didn't work. Poison did the trick. Is it intentional?
- For the Prismatic Scimitar (AC#MGSCI) I'd use a different palette rather than black to represent its shimmering blade (Head/blade minor), for example Index 35 looks very cool.
- Grullak Runeweaver (Verbeeg Druid) gives no xp, nor does the Verbeeg Shaman (very similar).
- Pity that answering correctly to all the questions of the trial grants 8500 xp less the fighting your way through it (but that's ok, if there is something I enjoy more than fights is the lore )
- I would have expected the cranium rats to give a reward for collecting/selling all 4 Ancient Dwarven Books since they specifically asked for them
- I kept crashing in the map where you collect the cities' stones (ACIL1K), no idea why. I had to save in the previous map (ACIL15), go in, kill some enemies, go back to the previous map to re-save (if I didn't already crash in the attempt). No issue after I cleared it.
- Dokuriingor kept spamming scripted spells like Mantle and True Sight. I like the challenge, but this was borderline cheating
- In the final fight, I moved away from Diinkarazan, waiting for his PfMW and possibly Spell Trap to drop. At this point he started to cast off-screen spells like Summon Black Troll and Summon Servant on himself, resulting in Spell Ineffective.
- The quests create a Finished copy upon completion:
Vanilla quests, for comparison:
Now I'm so looking forward to Call of the Lost Goddess!
Thank you for this jewel, really!
@R_A :Thank you very much for the kind words! I hope you'll enjoy Silverrealms and Skyfire as well once they're ready. Thank you for taking the time to register and leave a comment.
@SpaceInvader : Thank you for such an encouraging review! I'm especially happy to hear that the Forgotten Realms lore and the atmosphere resonated with you. And thank you for your detailed suggestions as well. I'll be happy to implement these improvements where possible.
As for the issues: Sadly, most of these issues appear to be caused by interactions with other mods and are therefore outside my control, as they do not occur in a vanilla installation with only my mod installed. For example, the Snow Troll issue is a known incompatibility with another mod that would need to be addressed on the other mod's side. Likewise, the duplicated journal entries and the crash are not issues that have been reported by other players so far.
Unfortunately, tracking down the exact source of such conflicts is difficult, especially in heavily modded installations.
Could you please post your WeiDU.log? That would help me narrow down the list of possible mods involved and perhaps identify the source of the conflicts.
PS. I just started Call of the Lost Goddess.
It starts in front of a Waukeen temple, shortly after I find a book called The Time of Troubles...
My mind: Hooooly s***, it's happening!!!
The mod has been updated to v2.2 and includes several important bug fixes.
Changelog v2.2:
- Fixed the worldmap position and icon index of The Wailing Dwarf area, by @Roberciiik
- Fixed several grammar issues; thanks to @roshan
- Vargouilles no longer use their kiss ability from a distance.
- Faerzress Trolls now correctly dispel magic with every successful hit.
Changelog: v2.1
- Fixed an error where most text for non-English languages was installed in English due to some WeiDU issue, thanks @ShaiHulud
So I finally progressed a little bit. This time I found both parts required for
a key; and I realised that one room changed (this one puzzled me in the
past, but it became eventually clear; though perhaps the message could
be made more clear, e. g. "You hear a rumbling in the distance." or
something like that, when things begin to flow). I also fought the
... local population deep below, and eventually met the guy everyone
blames for things falling apart. So I reached an altar thingy and one
weapon was there; a helpful message says that a second weapon
could be put down. But I am not sure which weapon. I assume it may
be some axe or hammer, but I don't know which one or how to get
it, perhaps it is in another area. Not quite sure. And two more locked
doors or portals. I am glad I managed to progress this far though, in
prior game-play run-throughs I already was stopped before that point.
By the way, the cheese idea was pretty great. For some reason those
who wanted the cheese, did not talk back once I got it. Not sure why.
I ended up brute forcing my way through (for some reason the
giant thingies aggregate in one place, and also then spam-repeated
one sentence, which made not a lot of sense, e. g. the "goodbye"
sentence. It almost looks as if there is some trigger for them saying
that, but oddly enough they all use the same phrase, which is
strange, since it more sounds as if their leader should say it, but
even then the context appeared to be missing. I should say that
I obtained the cheese in invisible-haste form, so perhaps that
caused some issue. I don't remember whether the main character was
still invisible when talking to the group that likes cheese though.)
From the artwork this may be Acifer's best mod. Playability-wise I
still prefer Lost Goddess, but the dwarven city is quite epic. Korgan
also got the tank of ale or beer or whatever is inside.
So I reached an altar thingy and one
weapon was there; a helpful message says that a second weapon
could be put down. But I am not sure which weapon. I assume it may
be some axe or hammer, but I don't know which one or how to get
it, perhaps it is in another area. Not quite sure. And two more locked
doors or portals.
Having trouble getting it started on this run- I give the bard either of the first two answers, get "Step closer-it's about to begin!...daring with a tragic end" and then the dialogue cuts off. I'm assuming that there may have been a bad install, but is there anything I could possibly do to fix it?
Note- I do have the G3 anniversary mod installed and that did have a dialogue with characters in that back corner; it's possible that it interfered in some way.
Thanks for reporting! In rare cases, the engine does not spawn the listeners, so the dialogue stops after the first lines. I have no idea why this is happening. Maybe some interference with another mod, I don’t know.
The workaround to start the sequence anew is described here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1221182/#Comment_1221182
Awesome, that helped! I did end up spawning all of them in.
Like I said, not sure but G3 Anniversary does put another character in that corner and may autostart dialogue in the inn, so it's possible that breaks something
Comments
@dunehunter : Thank you for the positive feedback and the suggestion! I’ll see if I can adjust the trousers in a way similar to what you proposed. It might be a little tricky to implement properly within the engine, but I honestly like the idea quite a lot.
@shevy123456 : thanks for the heads-up!
Thank you!
Coming from you, that is very high praise. To be honest, looking at the stuff I've put out there - especially what little writing I did - not all of it has aged well, and the rest is 'serviceable' at best.
But I'm happy some of it is still appreciated.
Regarding the Wererat change:
I regret mentioning it and I don't think you should change it.
I've since played through it again (of course I abandoned my last run in ToB) and it's really not that bad. It is how the vanilla game does it and would have done it and I think changing it might make the mod feel more like mod-added content, which would be a shame. Right now, the only thing that makes your mods stand out from the vanilla game is that they are arguably higher quality and have more detail.
Honestly, your mods are the best add-ons ever released for the BG series, and that includes TotSC and (ignoring its function as an end for the saga) ToB.
Some more praise I forgot to mention last time: I really appreciate the visual storytelling in your areas, especially in Throne of the Mad God. I've spent quite a bit of time just looking at the areas and the amazing details you've put in. You really captured what I like about dwarves in fantasy and put it into those environments.
Also, the way you handled the riddles; allowing players to fumble a bit and just 'punishing' wrong answers with a little fight but still getting the unlock, is just great game design. It makes repeated playthroughs much smoother and relaxing.
...oh, and while I'm at it: The Fomorian Cheese quest is just adorable. It reminded me of a children's book I had as a kid about giants and that whimsical, wondrous adventure feeling.
Anyway, thanks again, I'm looking forward to your other projects!
Cheers!
Fantastic, I'll start today.
Any issue content-wise if I plan to play it solo?
Good luck and enjoy!
I'm all up for the challenge! I meant if I was gonna miss on some content by not having party members
Thanks again!
Soon I'll follow up with a proper message.
You have inserted one of my favourite creatures of Faerun ( the "little ones") which I always add to my PnP campaigns.
The dwarven fortress reminded me the Severed Hand+dwarven dungeon of IWD feeling, that are probably my favourite dungeons in all the Infinite engine games.
Thank you, I am waiting for Silver realms and Skyforge now.
BTW, if you managed to create some stand alones adventures independently from Bhaal spawn story it would be awesome.
Alright, here we go. Granted, I played it solo with a 1.2 mil xp F/M/T on Insane (double damage) and SCS installed and it was a nice challenge.
Where should I start? Congratulations!
You really concocted something unique.
For someone like me, who played D&D from the 2nd edition (when I was but a kid), reading these names and "walking" those halls was nothing short of incredible.
I LOVED the introduction, the cinematics, the music and sounds in general, the encounters, how much attention and effort you put to into details and the quality of the maps along with their level design, and last but not least... The way the story was told!
I was captivated from the start till the very end.
10/10.
- Glouris Mristifos didn't comment on his familiar dying when I killed it (like Sorcerous Amon with Pooky).
- Does the statue/altar where the Manticore fight takes place have any purpose?
- I spent quite some time to figure out what could kill a Snow Troll (not the Ice one). I tried everything, since apparently fire and acid didn't work. Poison did the trick. Is it intentional?
- For the Prismatic Scimitar (AC#MGSCI) I'd use a different palette rather than black to represent its shimmering blade (Head/blade minor), for example Index 35 looks very cool.
- Grullak Runeweaver (Verbeeg Druid) gives no xp, nor does the Verbeeg Shaman (very similar).
- Pity that answering correctly to all the questions of the trial grants 8500 xp less the fighting your way through it (but that's ok, if there is something I enjoy more than fights is the lore
- I would have expected the cranium rats to give a reward for collecting/selling all 4 Ancient Dwarven Books since they specifically asked for them
- I kept crashing in the map where you collect the cities' stones (ACIL1K), no idea why. I had to save in the previous map (ACIL15), go in, kill some enemies, go back to the previous map to re-save (if I didn't already crash in the attempt). No issue after I cleared it.
- Dokuriingor kept spamming scripted spells like Mantle and True Sight. I like the challenge, but this was borderline cheating
- In the final fight, I moved away from Diinkarazan, waiting for his PfMW and possibly Spell Trap to drop. At this point he started to cast off-screen spells like Summon Black Troll and Summon Servant on himself, resulting in Spell Ineffective.
- The quests create a Finished copy upon completion:
Vanilla quests, for comparison:
Now I'm so looking forward to Call of the Lost Goddess!
Thank you for this jewel, really!
@SpaceInvader : Thank you for such an encouraging review! I'm especially happy to hear that the Forgotten Realms lore and the atmosphere resonated with you. And thank you for your detailed suggestions as well. I'll be happy to implement these improvements where possible.
As for the issues: Sadly, most of these issues appear to be caused by interactions with other mods and are therefore outside my control, as they do not occur in a vanilla installation with only my mod installed. For example, the Snow Troll issue is a known incompatibility with another mod that would need to be addressed on the other mod's side. Likewise, the duplicated journal entries and the crash are not issues that have been reported by other players so far.
Unfortunately, tracking down the exact source of such conflicts is difficult, especially in heavily modded installations.
Could you please post your WeiDU.log? That would help me narrow down the list of possible mods involved and perhaps identify the source of the conflicts.
PS. I just started Call of the Lost Goddess.
It starts in front of a Waukeen temple, shortly after I find a book called The Time of Troubles...
My mind: Hooooly s***, it's happening!!!
Changelog v2.2:
- Fixed the worldmap position and icon index of The Wailing Dwarf area, by @Roberciiik
- Fixed several grammar issues; thanks to @roshan
- Vargouilles no longer use their kiss ability from a distance.
- Faerzress Trolls now correctly dispel magic with every successful hit.
Changelog: v2.1
- Fixed an error where most text for non-English languages was installed in English due to some WeiDU issue, thanks @ShaiHulud
a key; and I realised that one room changed (this one puzzled me in the
past, but it became eventually clear; though perhaps the message could
be made more clear, e. g. "You hear a rumbling in the distance." or
something like that, when things begin to flow). I also fought the
... local population deep below, and eventually met the guy everyone
blames for things falling apart. So I reached an altar thingy and one
weapon was there; a helpful message says that a second weapon
could be put down. But I am not sure which weapon. I assume it may
be some axe or hammer, but I don't know which one or how to get
it, perhaps it is in another area. Not quite sure. And two more locked
doors or portals. I am glad I managed to progress this far though, in
prior game-play run-throughs I already was stopped before that point.
By the way, the cheese idea was pretty great. For some reason those
who wanted the cheese, did not talk back once I got it. Not sure why.
I ended up brute forcing my way through (for some reason the
giant thingies aggregate in one place, and also then spam-repeated
one sentence, which made not a lot of sense, e. g. the "goodbye"
sentence. It almost looks as if there is some trigger for them saying
that, but oddly enough they all use the same phrase, which is
strange, since it more sounds as if their leader should say it, but
even then the context appeared to be missing. I should say that
I obtained the cheese in invisible-haste form, so perhaps that
caused some issue. I don't remember whether the main character was
still invisible when talking to the group that likes cheese though.)
From the artwork this may be Acifer's best mod. Playability-wise I
still prefer Lost Goddess, but the dwarven city is quite epic. Korgan
also got the tank of ale or beer or whatever is inside.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218567/#Comment_1218567
Note- I do have the G3 anniversary mod installed and that did have a dialogue with characters in that back corner; it's possible that it interfered in some way.
The workaround to start the sequence anew is described here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1221182/#Comment_1221182
Like I said, not sure but G3 Anniversary does put another character in that corner and may autostart dialogue in the inn, so it's possible that breaks something