Hmm, not sure, i think v21 is quite a way away, am still tweaking v20 which have not uploaded yet ( despite my optimistic previous post ) My main problem has been fixing item issues in other mods.
I had imported items and spells from other mods expecting everything to work, but to my astonishment there are large mistakes everywhere, missing resources, bad effects etc etc... ESPECIALLY when it comes to spells, it leads me to believe there are other mistakes elsewhere to. I think someone should create a new BP type project with a set of mods all thoroughly checked for mistakes, using near infinity resource checker on each mod is a good place to start, quite a big job but would end up with a BP with no slowdowns that actually worked

Cerest...... eh? ignore what

Hi all VecnaV20 is about finished, will be uploading tonight ( just checking some creature behavior ), Have done a massive "under the hood " revision of all the creatures, all resources now have the AA prefix so should be able to guarantee mod compatibility, All demons are now under P+P rules ( thanks to Avenger for the atweaks code i used ) and behavior is also from P+P( but remember demons on their home plane, or in the outer planes in general, are far harder and you are far more likely to run into Princes and Lords who's abilities and stats are much greater than a normal demon ). Generally the encounters are harder

As you said in one of the posts above, I think it would be nice if one could play Vecna after one decided to become some sort of demi-god at the end of ToB. That doesn't mean that it should become impossible to start Vecna during ToB, but if it is encouraged to start it afterwards, it would be better in ways of storyline. Just my point of view...

And thanks for the new version!

Cool i agree, and if i make that mod an optional component then vacna will still be compatible with the other tob mods such as prophecy. Will start looking at it, expect something around v21

@jube: thank you so much for this mod:) i wish there would be more true high level mods like this one. Although it's a little buggy for me (playing v16 or v17, dunno) and i cant finish it, im definately playing this mod again in my next playthrough.

I cant find all of the three parts of the wardstone that I need to enter the next area. What are the item-codes for them? Is anyone walking on a walkthrough? That would be nice:P Maybe I will do one, when a more final version comes out, this mod deserves it:)

Thanks mate, a few long hours went into it
Yes V19 is the only one where you can play all the way through, and gain the hand/eye at the end, the previous versions had bugs that prevented getting to the final battle. But fairly confident all sorted now, if you have played up to loloths lab complex ( on the astral ) i think you will have to use a saved game BEFORE the complex, since MANY bugs were fixed in the complex, or if you have time play it from the begining since the twised rune complex has some more juicy treasure added ( and some removed ). Also for V19 there is some unique graphics never seen in any other mod ( check out the Android1 encounter !!  ).
Plese yes write a walkthrough and i will add it to Vecna documentation, but remember to play V19+ !!!! ( V20 will have some upgraded fights but all keys, plot items etc... will be identical from v19 onwards, it works now so dont want to mess too much )

Well... dunno how to start, 'cause i got no complains nor bugs to report.

Let's put it that way: You mess with ToB!

A couple of weeks ago I enjoyed v12 of Your mod in a tactics install playing a solo C/M dwarf on insane.
As a member of the german kerzenburg forum I posted a review there, which, stressing by the way Fennek's one month ago post, may be condensed like that: ToB doesn't permit a Vecna Artifacts mod!

In fact, one could say the same thing in a much more polite way: If there had been a version x of Vecna in 2001, nobody would ever have designed ToB.

Vecna Artifacts (for me) is the natural continuation of HC's struggle to godhood: Saving his/her soul and fighting and gaining reputation amongst avatars of different gods until HC proves worthy of having the choice to accept or deny the throne of the god of murder. And obviously slaying yet another halfbreed like Ilasera=Nice Butt or Yaga-Shura=The Dumb or Sendai=The multiple schizophrenic should not be sufficient nor qualifying.

But we do have ToB!

So how can You suppose me to even CARE about some hostile drow in ToB, after that I've killed Orcus, Demorgorgon and Lloth(!) united in the final Vecna battle? A fingertip on there forehead should be sufficient to let them evaporate from the living side of the world. Whatever gelugon or pitfiend comes up to me I should adress: Well, I've already talked to your boss about your life. I'm sorry!

Well... dunno how to end, 'cause i got no complains nor bugs to report.

Just thinkin'....

What can i say, you are perfectly correct!! ( and very well put )
But i suppose same can be said for many Tactics games, where you can get to 30th lv+ before even bothering to sail to spellhold.

My only answer is to keep adding content to vecna, currently there are 50 new areas, when they are all fully populated that should be a LOT of hours of gameplay, maybe over 100, hopefully no one will miss TOB if they embark off-world before.

An obvious problem i have to address, and am really open to suggestions, is how to handle Watchers keep, I have 2 options,

1) Write code to modify watchers keep to reflect having faced demigorgon once before
2) Use another god for the final battle

I quite like the first option, it would tie Vecna more into the TOB plot-line, but then it would be logical to make many more changes to the TOB plot-line, and obviously rewrite the ending, but then we are into partial-conversion territory, and would immediately become incompatible with a lot of BW mods.

I would like to know what the BW community thinks.

Thanks mate, you seem to know what you are doing so am adding your setup.tra to V20 without checking, its pointless to repeat work
Yes take your point about a lot of lore ( i will call it plot ) but all of it is essential, at the moment its all in item descriptions and books, but most of it will get repeated in text screens and the journal.
I am working very hard on making knowledge of the planes pretty much compulsory when traveling off-world, and knowledge of the overall plot compulsory for completing the adventures ( if you don't Know who Hastur is chances are you are not going to give the right responses when talking to him, thus miss a key plot item et.....).
Yes there is a lot but remember it will be spread over 100+ hours of play time when this thing is finally finished, i have only populated 50% of the areas so far.
By the way think you have talked yourself into a job

Hi all Vecna V19 is uploaded and ready for DL.

Thats about it for the core adventure, have checked all keys and subquests are there, everything needed to get to the final battle is correct. I think i can now, with some confidence, say we are out of alpha and into beta1.

Hi all Vecna V19 is uploaded and ready for DL.

Thats about it for the core adventure, have checked all keys and subquests are there, everything needed to get to the final battle is correct. I think i can now, with some confidence, say we are out of alpha and into beta1.


Cerest.......... will put your revisions into V20, will look at them tonight
      .......... Um yes am aware of the planar sphere mod and the "shade of vecna" and at the moment have chosen to ignore it , if you read through this thread you will soon see that vecna is not only a god but one of the key players in the AD+D universe, In my mod you are facing cosmic powers, and unbelievable creatures, defiantly the hardest array of creatures ever seen in a BG2 mod yet Vecna never makes an appearance, why ?
Simply if Vecna appears in person ( being one of the rare group of gods and elders who do not use avatars ) everyone else will be dead, in the most ugly manner imaginable, 120 seconds later! Not much of an adventure
Vecna IS painful death , so defeating him, or any of his schemes, in the planar sphere is a bit rubbish.
As for the countless "xxxxxx   of Vecna " from other mods, i would say they are all fakes made by ordinary mages mainly for profit. This will be painfully obvious when you get your hands on the real deal


Mike........... Yes you are totally safe with vecna, the quest is totally separate from BG2/TOB plot lines and any other mod plot line V19 is good to play since V20 will have a few harder fights.


edit......... cant open your zip file Cerest, either corupt or winrar does not like it, can you re-upload in rar format please. also careful with the setup file not to accidentally delete any formatting, also careful not to add or delete any CR's ( carrage return ), the text looks very different in game from that you see on a text editor

You know you are a weirdo when you F5 every 5 hours waiting for an update so you can reinstall BWP...

Hey Jube, there seems to be some typos and improper English usage in the .tra files... would you be willing to accept revisions? I'm waiting for V19 to come out since I'm assuming you have fixed some stuff too.

I would like to see Vecna 'done' soon, and I can help with some of the proofreading. It is taking me forever to get to ToB content since I reinstall every time I find a bug @_@

I can upload a word .docx file with tracked revisions along with the edited .tra file when v19 comes out if you would like.

YES PLEASE anything you find just feel free to revise, then post the tra files and i will integrate to next update. V19 is very nearly there, it is taking a long time to play each room for checking and i really want the whole thing to work for V19. I think should be good to go late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Once your playing V19 please take mental notes as you go along, i will be taking all suggestions and integrating them to v20

Hi all, am just about to release vecnaV19 , i was checking things in a BW tactics setup when noticed a fairly serious slowdown on my admittedly underpowered umpc, after much investigation i found it was due to many mods writing reams of code to BALDUR.BCS, CTB being the worst offender. Vecna no longer writes anything to BALDUR but would love to for encounters in the rest of bg2 as result of owning the hand/eye. But with all the other crap in BALDUR dont think it is a good idea, so got thinking cap on as to applying encounters without BALDUR, going to script creatures in various areas with behavior scripts to find players as soon as they are on screen.

An update on this, although ctb does write  reams of code to BAULDER i dont think its the main culprit here, is there any other scripts scanned automatically apart from player script, BALDUR and BALDUR25?

Ok used Jarno's LStest code, no scripts are firing continuously so not a script thing, ok now puzzled!!!!!

Have no time to take this further must get back to vecna

Oww now thats quite a load of game playing to get to vecna levels , i had a similar thing for the past 2 days the little Win tablet i do BG2 stuff on picked up a nasty virus/trojan/worm, had to reformat and reinstall, win,drivers etc etc etc, so put me back a bit. Just finishing up now and getting back to v19 which i hope is not far away, scripting is a pain!!!

Hi all V18 is up for download, the only things not checked now are Android1 encounter and final fight, all other reported bugs should be done with this version.

Thanks

Ps Hand and eye must be equiped/activated again to apply fixes

Hi all V18 is up for download, the only things not checked now are Android1 encounter and final fight, all other reported bugs should be done with this version.

Thanks

Ps Hand and eye must be equiped/activated again to apply fixes

ok guys, still more comments & questions
as it comes to lolth laboratory fights - most of them are tough, especially one near the bones of dead dragon (or sth, location from P:T). But still, since I had time stop immunity (reign of virtue), killing fallen planetars in meantime was pure pleasure. Final fights - dissapointing, sorry. especially lolth (demogorgon and lolth's venegances tough, orcus not even making a move) was very weak.
questions - why can't I use robe of mmysteria when I'm a lawful-neutral kensai-mage? and what are requirements for usage of hand & eye? what is more - hand doesn't give innate abilities as it should. eye's ability to dispell all magic works on caster too and also makes all later spell animations weird (breach-like animation). and - why nothing happens after lolt's death? I mean she is dead and that's all. no signal from gods, no way to return and so on.

Hi mate as mentioned final fight not finished yet am just testing v17 which has it finished and all the bugs you mentioned done aswell ( including fixing the items ) will be posting it tonight ( euro time )

quick list of changes for V17

Android0 encounter....done
Observatory room ( AAR050 )... Stat/resistance changing machines and secondary encounter...done
Hastur and Android1 plotline...done
Loloth final fight....done
Hand and eye... done
Treasure item updates... still in progress
AI updates.... still in progress


Thanks lots for the play testing mate

Think the set would become immediately damn unpopular

Good point mate, in a "proper" BW setup there is more than enough xps available to get to around 18-30th lv and launch off into plane travel ( the hunt for the eye and hand being the first of several extraplanar adventures ). And if a character/party has the skill power and balls to complete hand/eye quest and the BALLS to own the said items they would only do TOB for a laugh
I am very wary of changing the game plotline though that would make vecna a mega mod? and i would be getting into a world of pain when it comes to compatibility, so virtually all the vecna content is offworld or places where one recalls or teleports to.
But yes i totally agree with you some change at the end of tob would be good to lead into vecna if not attempted before that. And yes if vecna was completed before that he/she would prob refuse godhood since they are effectively god killers. ( gods are children compared to the forces characters and plots in Vecna )
The current expansions are
Start of the search for the Rod of Seven Parts
"If you own the hand and eye, things are never the same again"

There is an open invite to other modders to write high/extream level adventures in the planes ( vecna curently provides 14 unpopulated, out of 50, areas where other modders can host their adventures, they just have to populate and script ) but as yet have had zero response, so doing it myself, but there is only me so its Slooooooow

Hi all just a quick post to say the Vecna mod is back with release of V16, hopefully all the bugs are now squashed, and i am actively supporting the mod ( expansions are comming and am here to squash future bugs )

Thanks

Jube

hi a0ro thanks a lot for the comments as soon as all the bugs done will add your suggestions.
As you noticed have yet to check all the treasure items took a lot of them from other mods, just assuming they worked. Bad assumption . Will check them all for V16.
The copy machine should work with most scrolls, but not working too well yet

Miloch...
yes now have some time am very keen to finish it of, and am in a hurry, if i get called of to contract again the whole thing might bog down again. There is actually very little left to do on the main adventure. ( although a little worried about early reports of issues in a BW install, hope it gets added back to the BW setup so bugs can get reported back here ) just tweaks here and there.
Still hoping other modders take up the challenge and start writing high level mods for the planes, i have 15 or so empty off world areas just ripe for mini quests etc..

Oh thank you so much !!!! , i have been worried for so long that the fights were impossible, thank F there are experienced players out there !!

Yep use the map FROM THE ASTRAL PLANE otherwise it will be wasted.

Are you playing V16? if not download it and install, the saved games should be totally compatible, and i have sorted out a whole heap of bugs.

At the moment the whole Android1 story is not complete, and that room is still in development but it does not affect the story line at all.

Loloths complex in on the astral plane is a REAL challenge, please post how it goes.

To wet your appetite i have just finished clearing all the bugs on the hand and eye, and in all modesty i have to say they are the most powerful, scary, complex items ever seen in any BG2 mod ( and actually in many ways designed for a wizard mage, since like you i play fighter mage solo )

There are still bugs in the final fight ( and the encounter with android2 ) in V16 but am doing them now and will be sorted for V17 at the weekend

Over the next few months i intend to take the project further, adding the first part of the quest for the Rod Of Seven Parts, and clues as to what actually happened to the travelers.

Oh and if anyone is experiencing difficulties could you please download VecnaV16 and try again, this will save me lots of time setting up the environment to recreate the fault, and playing the game till i get to the fault !

Thanks

Ok from a brief Examination of the thread i can see there is an issue with a possible conflict am looking into that now.
I think! all the in game bugs are done.
V16 is uploaded.
V15 did not copy any 2da files over, so cant be that ( v16 has the lv 50 patch but as an optional component) can only be some of the resources i borrowed from BW and did not rename with the AA prefix, will rename them for v17 which is here soon.
Whatever it is will have it done for the weekend

Also i take everyones point about the lack of docs, doing that to.

I have kept the IA code which i dont see any problem with but will integrate the restores ( which actually threw me first time i set up IA )

Damn found more bugs will upload late tomorrow instead

Hi all am back from a very long contract with no internet communication, but am back with a vengence, Vecna V16 is uploading, no majour differences but a shed load of bug fixes ( jees what was i thinking releasing v 15 lol ) Will go through this thread to check what i have missed later but please enjoy V16