Liella's themes are finished and integrated into the mod.

 

Voice acting left - and we're moving forward . Just a quick little update before we're off to work!

The first theme for Liella is finished. Our composer has expressed interest in altering the theme as well, to conform to the concept of multiple endings and a widely different storyline depending on choices in SoA. As a result, Liella will feature two themes - one for each conversation branch in the expansion with one staying the same from SoA. We're very pleased with this development, and are currently in the process of picking a new voice actress for Liella .

 

Look forward to future updates!

Another piece of truly awesome news .

 

Aside from having a number of applicants for the role of Liella - which we'll close on New years or so, and then elect one of the candidates, we've just secured the services of a professional composer for the soundtrack!

 

We've been a fan of this guys work for years ( We already own all of his CD's) - he started off as a pianist, classically trained, who slowly started working into digital music with VSTi's and now uses a professional plethora of highly qualitative instruments - the same used in Hollywood movies and AAA games. We contacted him, and were thrilled when he expressed interest! He sent us a concept from the description we gave him and we're absolutely tickled with the result. After we've given the rest of the team a chance to weigh in, we'll send this back and give him the green light to add more instruments, polish and revise it to perfection. We don't want to link his name at this stage, but he'll be prominently featured in the credits, that's for certain.

 

If you haven't thrown your hat into the ring for voice-acting Liella and would like to, please do so in a timely manner - and don't be afraid either! Ambition and love for the craft is really more important than professional voice acting experience in a venture like this.

Hey Eric - we definitely may take you up on that. Our current voice actors all have amateur-professional or downright professional grade recording equipment, so there's zero audible static or disturbance, but we'll have to see if splitting and formatting hurts the quality. If we have any trouble, we'll shoot you an email.

 

It's hard to promise that the wait will be worth the end product - really depends on what the player is looking for, but i think Liella will shape up to be quite a lovely and involving addition to the modding community. 

 

Peace out!

Some good news and some bad news.

 

 

The good first - we've found the perfect voice actress for one of the roles. The voice is suitable enough to have me giddy with joy when listening to it. I *so* look forward to putting the files in the game, and most of the characters dialogue lines are recorded and formatted. Also, we're very happy with how the mod is looking and working.

 

 

The bad - due to RL circumstances of the part of the voice actress, we lost our talent for Liella about 2 weeks ago. About 20% of the content had been recorded, but it means we'll have to start over (unless we hear back from her soon, which we doubt). At this stage, we've elected to open up recruitment publically. If you know of anyone who would fit the bill, or if you are someone who thinks herself capable, please head over to  http://www.behindthe...-Voice-actress/ and submit your audition. If you prefer to do so in private, you can submit your files using email and file them to LiellaMod@Gmail.com - We look forward to any submission!

 

Why don't we just release it unvoiced?

 

For the same reason we wrote SoA and ToB content at the same time instead of releasing them separately. For the same reason we want to flesh out the mod as much as we can. We want the player experience to be all it can be, and it's much akin to releasing a book or a visual production - we want to be happy with the product, though we deeply apologize to everyone for the delay. We've been toying around with the idea of hiring a voice actress through a paid gig - and we still may. The problem is, we currently don't have the money for that. 

 

Still - work goes on, and we're very much still invested in the development and finishing of Liella .

 

Hope you all have a pleasant day!

 

--Jasmine

Another month indeed.

 

We're busy recording - quite an undertaking, but very pleased with our prospects. At the same time, the writing is being revised where needed. We're very pleased with how it's looking! When we have time, we're doing some writing on the character as well, in the form of a separate story. Quite entertaining!

 

For the time being you'll have better luck catching us via email if you have questions!

 

--Sebastian

Update:

 

The search for a voice actress goes on. Had a couple of candidates but no one who really "fits" as of yet.

 

In the meantime, we're having the entire mod looked over by a close friend who professionally edits and is also a great author/writer in her own right. This will increase the quality of the mod in general and we'll probably end up editing some of the content as well as a result of her feedback.

 

Peace out!

1. Potentially - we'll see what sort of luck we'll end up getting with the voice acting.

 

2. Not as of yet - this'll take waaay secondary priority to getting the mod up to a state where we feel comfortable releasing it. After that, we can see about adding extras or revising it into different versions .

Quick update before bed.

 

polishing, polishing and polishing. We've started looking for voice actresses as well, in a small scale, and will do so more actively in 1-3 weeks. Mod has been tested in 3 complete playthroughs, no major errors.

 

Anyway, still moving forward  .

 

//Sebastian & Jasmine

Revisions, revisions and more revisions.

 

Added a few more cutscenes to increase immersion during certain episodes. Added more interjections in ToB. The official "To do list" currently only has a few items left on it - apart from revisions. We're mostly looking at polishing the NPC joining episode as well as adding more unlockable PID's as a result of certain talk responses (I.e if you say X, you unlock PID/Flirt Y).

 

But really, the majority of the work left that i can see at this stage is polishing the dialogue, banters and PID's as much as possible. Everything else and everything technical seems to work flawlessly.

 

Oh. One bug. Her items are forcibly moved to the PC during the Bodhi-abduction, and since they (like Boo) can't be moved by anyone, it results in the PC carrying two unmoveable items. If anyone knows how to fix this, i'd be mighty grateful. By fixing, i mean if it's possible to have her NOT move the items when she is abducted.

 

Beyond this...i'll start looking into a voice actress once we feel the dialogue is sufficiently polished, and into a small musical score (which i can start looking for now).

 

Cheers!

Hi!

I've been following the progress of this mod, and for all that I'm reading... it sound marvelous! It's the kind of mod I'd enjoy very much to play 
I love interaction-heavy characters; because I think the relationship with the NPCs, and theirs with the world, it's one of the things that really brings life to this game. Ok, if I were playing Baldur's Gate for first time, I'd probably find her... with a little too much protagonism. But I've been replaying this game for years, so now, what I'm looking in mods it's something that brings a lot of narrative, text, interaction, passion... life. I love when a character brings a well-written, interesting, and big story in her back. Because it brings enough change, new emotions and perspectives to make me feel I'm playing a somewhat different tale.

Soooo... thanks for making this!
Keep the good work, and I'm hoping we can see her soon 

 

A very good point. In fact, i would go out of my way to recommend to any first-timer to NOT play the first few playthroughs with any extensive NPC mods, Liella included. They would probably end up interfering with the main storyline to too great a degree. Once a player has been through the game a few times, that's when a few new NPC's can be fun.

 

The difference to some very verbose and extensive NPC mods is that Liella's storyline isn't really in the scope of "Divine", "Overarching" or in some way taking precedence over the PC's story (I.E the Bhaalspawn legacy), which we believe to be of greatest import. By inserting some overpowered, godmodded NPC who brings along some divine storyline or background, you risk contaminating the game's storyline. Instead of trying to take center stage or the role of the protagonist, Liella will (through us) make an effort at being a good supporting actress  .

Think of Liella like a couple of potential stories - much like say, Viconia. Viconia has a different romance for good-aligned characters and for evil, and the way she turns out depends upon the PC. Neither is better or worse, simply different. Being good doesn't chase her away, being somewhat evil doesn't chase her away.

 

Liella is the same. The difference is that the storylines are much more extensive and entirely separate from one another - at least in ToB. A Liella relegated to a good-aligned storyline has different banters, lovetalks, comments and even flirts than a Liella relegated to the evil side. The differences between these versions is what creates the replay value, in our humble opinion. The PC is, as such, free to leave the marks of his morals upon her - to some degree. Unlike other NPC's, Liella's personality doesn't allow for a complete 180. She's  not a blank page, even if she can be influenced but much like in real life, how she turns out depends on what sort of values, opinions and people she's exposed to.

While Liella's alignment is evil and she inherently will get along better with a PC and character who have a certain moral freedom, her alignment is in no way indicative of where she is most "suitable". 

 

A "good" and an "evil" path exists, and this becomes much more readily apparent during ToB when the path splits entirely, offering a drastically different ToB storyline and character for good/evil respectively. Where you end up will depend on certain choices during SoA. In that way, the mod is malleable to a very high degree and, at least i would argue, has great replay value at least once. It features 8 different epilogues - 4 per ToB storyline, all with different outcomes - unless your tale with Liella ends much earlier than that, which is also possible in more than one spot during SoA and ToB.

 

Hope that answered your question a bit .

No worries. Discuss away! ^^

 

As far as Liella goes, we spent some time discussing just what we wanted to and how we wanted to approach it. In the end, it came down to the question: What do *we* enjoy in a mod?

 

Well, both of us are players who enjoy the conversational, intrigue and character aspects of the Baldur's Gate games. The combat is awesome, the storyline is superb, but what kept us coming back to the game was the characters coupled with the storyline. We enjoy the fact that every character brings their own little mini-story (and sometimes not so small) to the game.

 

As such, we view the game as a great outlet for telling a "story."

 

That's what Liella is/will be. A story. She won't be an overpowered/godmodded NPC who you'll want to bring along because of her amazing combat skills. She'll be able to use swords, sure, but her usefulness in fighting will be secondary. We don't want players going in with the wrong impression or expecting something entirely different out of it. Liella is basically a small novel in NPC form, in length and style. She's embellished to interact with the world we put her in to a very high degree because we want to flesh her out. She interacts with other NPC's and with the PC to a very high degree because we want to make you interested in her - curious to learn more and wonder where things will go. The reason she features such a large amount of lovetalks, commentary, banter and dialogue that in the end may put some people off taking her or playing the mod all serves this purpose - telling the story. That's why some of the things i've had to learn to do to make this mod have been scary - Liella wouldn't be complete without her own - and large number of - cutscenes.

 

When we talked this over, we basically came down to the decision - we can't please everyone, so we'll please ourselves. We hope that some people will end up enjoying Liella and what she has to offer. We feel that it's a pretty interesting little tale and we feel that the character has depth and a sort of charmingly flawed personality without being helpless or annoying. The feedback results of the small excerpts we've allowed friends to read have been encouraging - one of whom asked us to write more of her. We hope you like her, but in the end, we're writing this mod as a project for ourselves. Initially due to a lot of free time - now, because we want to see it done.

 

The length of the mod will be a subject to criticism - how could it not? Some players don't want this size of a mod/character when they replay the game - nothing wrong with that preference. But as someone who makes a living artistically (though not by writing mods ) - writing a mod like this to please others would be doing it for the entirely wrong reasons. We're writing this for us, and we'll share it with you. If you enjoy it - awesome, we'd love to hear from you. Got criticism? Shoot it over - we'd love to hear from you as well! You're not the kind of person who wants this type of comparatively logorrheic NPC in your party? You really should avoid Liella.

 

I'm sorry to say that i doubt a German translation will be done though .

No worries, everyone.

 

Life took a drastic turn for a month or two there. Me and my lovely girlfriend simply had to put everything on the back burner while we moved our lives half the country for a job. It pretty much meant that any non-vital activities came very low on the priority list.

 

Things are looking more stable these days however. You'll be happy to hear that we took a long, 5 hour look into the mods current state tonight. As far as things go, we're very pleased. Very pleased, in fact. The only thing i'm not pleased with is that i seem to have forgotten about half of what i learned of modding while taking this hiatus, not to mention half of the variables in the files no longer make sense to me. I'll have to delve back in and catch up again.

 

What's left on the to-do list?

 

* Embellishments. We want everything flowing smoothly, from point A, to B, to C and so forth. This includes everything from conversation pacing, flirt pacing, banters and so forth. Optimizing this will require time. We also don't want the player to have to wonder "what am i supposed to do now?". It should be clear whether things are okay with the NPC, or aren't okay. It should be clear if she wants you to do something specific, wants you to go somewhere or wants to do something. Most of this for SoA is done, ToB is another matter. I'll have to look into it and see what needs doing.

 

* Dialogue polishing. The mod features, despite content cuts and revisions, a large amount of text. This text needs to be read through, corrected, optimized and fixed about 10-15 more times i expect. It's not deplorable in it's current state, but there's always room for improvement.

 

* Voice acting. Once the dialogue is in a satisfactory state, we'll want to find or hire a voice actress to play Liella. Whether this will be a requirement for the release...we'll see.

 

* The character is my girlfriend's brainchild, and she's expressed a desire to split the mod into two different install options, much like certain other mods, where the player can choose between a somewhat "tidied" up version of Liella or the 18+ adult version of the mod and character, which will include foul language, use of curses as well as content that might be considered unsuitable for anyone under 18. We'll see if this is something we'll end up doing. 

 

 

Blah, blah, blah. Does the mod work? Like, right now? Is it complete?

 

Ish, yes. It works, all of the content works. All interjections, banters, lovetalks, commentary and quests work. Epilogues and ToB content works. It's just poorly timed, not sufficiently edited and certain features we'd like are not yet finished. But the mod is currently in version 0.993 Alpha, bordering on beta. I'll re-contact people over at G3 to open up a tester's forum when it's time.

 

My lovely co-author who isn't here right now would also like me to apologize for the numerous female players who in emails over the past months expressed their disappointment that the Liella mod will not be playable by female PC's. Sorry, folks!

 

//Sebastian & Jasmine

I just wish she'd appear for female protagonists.   My gals want a chance to know her, too!
 
Good luck with the modding!

Sorry . About a month ago we actually went so far as to write up something for female protagonists - an alternate storyline but....well

We're pretty harsh critics of our own work. In the end, her entire character *only* makes sense if the protagonist is male.

Everything "necessary" is now done and tested, including scripts, romances, cutscenes, interjections and making sure that everything works somewhat flawlessly on a "clean" install of BG2EE. Just finished scripting the epilogues (8 of them in total) to make sure that they trigger at the correct choices.

Now...it's revisions, extensive testing and fluff. There are a few things that we've added to the to-do-list over the course of our playthroughs that we might add. And once we begin beta-testing we'll of course listen very attentively to the opinions of those who try to add or remove things to/from the mod.

Peace out!

Thank you for your kind words . While i'm still at the stage of finishing and optimizing the code - ToB at the moment, and there's been a lot of unforseen scripting to be done over the course of the mod so far - we *are* constantly revising, optimizing and trying to perfect flow and dialogue. It's a loooong process, but the distance we've come over the past...*eyes calendar* little over a month now, is pretty staggering.

Once all the scripting is done (at least the first phase, prior to optimization, good coding practice, etc) we'll go through all of the written dialogues once or twice more in total before flagging it for beta. Then - possibly while we are beta testing, start looking for a voice actress.

Half of the ToB conversations entered, optimized and adjusted for flow and pacing. Scripted and tested the wraith scene for the Mir temple as well as dreamscripts. So far, so good! Just a quick update to let y'all know that it's still progressing at roughly the same pace.

Peace out!

I think it's an awesome idea. I'd love to see more content for Hexxat, not to mention interaction with Romantic Encounters .

Wish you the best of luck!

In the final coding stretch at the moment (prior to optimization of course) The Bodhi abduction and rescue is coded and works properly after some problems with the script now solved. I've removed 2 of the lovetalks so far (Commented them out for now) for comparative irrelevancy. Maybe i'll work them in at some later point after rewriting them. As far as the SoA portion goes, it's really nearing towards being ready for "shipping" to beta and testing. I'll sit down this week and go through the last conversations to see where flow needs to be improved and test out everything a few more times. Given how much i've learned in the past weeks about scripting, dialogue-writing, cutscene-scripting and structuring, working with the TOB portion will be a lot easier, i expect.

 

Thanks for everyone here - and on G3 as well - who so far has played an active role in helping me solve some of the more technical issues. The only reason i've come this far and the time i've spent is because of the excellent community support and teaching.

 

Peace out!

 Hmm. You could take the at-rest talks out of the main track and script them so that each one will only trigger once the romance has progressed to a certain point. If necessary, you could also script each one to no longer trigger after a specific point, so that they would still be tied loosely to the romance track. If you did it that way, you'd lose some of the continuity, but not all of it. Obviously if you have an at-rest talk which is integral to the dialogue track, you're going to want to leave it in, but for anything less crucial, it's definitely an option. People may miss them, but that may be preferable to stalling the romance indefinitely.

 
Many of the wake-up talks are already dependant on certain variables that the preceding dreamscript sets in order to trigger. For instance, unless <CHARNAME> answers with option A or B, option C will be set in effect, advancing the romance beyond the next wake-up-talk. Similarily, if <CHARNAME> has neglected to answer a certain way in the past and the romance track is at a certain standstill, it will skip certain lovetalks entirely.

Taking some of the dreamscripts out of the main track is a very intriguing notion, i have to say. I'll definitely have to see which of them would be suitable for this, but i know there's at least 3 that could work out that way and have them trigger at certain points in the romance progression.

Currently on the first playthrough where i'm testing pacing of the mod. I've already run into a number of issues that i'm currently taking care of - mainly related to conversation flow and pacing. So far the pacing isn't *too* terrible (but not that great either) but there are a number of places where i can imagine players going "So what the hell am i supposed to do now to advance the romance? She's just being silent!". I'm solving this by scripting some indicative dialogues where - unless the player is trudging through the underdark/spellhold - Liella will subtly voice something that'll indicate how to progress the romance.

 
Tsujatha.

Speaking of which, if you haven't already, I would also recommend looking into the more divisive mods (and the criticism about them) to see what doesn't work. Sometimes that's more educational than looking at the ones that are put together well.

Already doing so - though i admit this to be currently limited to the Saerileth mod. I'm not *too* familiar with the ones aimed at female players or some of the more extensive ones that i *haven't* played. I'll start taking a look at the Tsujatha mod as well! Thanks for the suggestion!

Good to hear - i look forward to seeing the option of -not- utilizing the vampire *grin*.

On another note, I would be careful to make sure that the romance isn't so long or complicated that people have trouble getting through it in a reasonable amount of time. You've said you have 9 at rest dialogues--if they're worked into a romance track, I would strongly recommend taking as many as possible out and letting them trigger independently. Players get stuck on those things all the time. If you've already scripted them separately, great. Either way, if you haven't already, I'd suggest taking a look at Aran Whitehand over at G3, since cmorgan has a fascinating way of balancing a vast amount of content.

Anyway. I personally tend to favor a somewhat more minimalistic approach, but if you can write a branching storyline without going crazy, more power to you. I would just be careful to make sure that there isn't more writing than necessary, because if there's a lot of superfluous content, it will show.

My biggest concern at the moment (The romance length/complication) and one i'm spending more time researching now that the triggering scripts for SoA are finished. It's mitigated somewhat by the fact that many of the dreamscripts have their corresponding wake-up-dialogues, making them essentially connected and, as such, cutting down on the "actual" length of the romance in terms of in-game days. I *could* probably remove many of the dreamscripts from the romance and let them trigger regardless of the current LoveTalk-variable but since the storyline is somewhat progressional (even though many of the dreamscript dialogues are more or less independent in character and *could* be independently triggered), i'd prefer having them appear and progress in the way i "intended" for the moment. Currently i'm doing a play-through of the game to see just how things pace in a "real" gaming scenario and where some more of the glaring flaws in the mod are and if certain parts of the romance require some extensive remodeling. Once that's done, i'll see where and if the structure of the romance needs to be reworked. It's only a few weeks ago now that the entire romance was still very much a "story", in much different shape than it is today. I'm sure there will be extensive revisions before getting even close to a RC.

I don't know if you mean that their stories shouldn't supersede the PC's in terms of how "epic" their story is or how many words/dialogues the story has - or something completely different that i am missing.

I do agree that making the NPC an attention whore who's not only always right but has an inflated sense of self-import (in story terms) and seems to feature a ridiculous amount of perfection is annoying - which is why i'm working hard towards making the NPC appear and seem the way i/we want, as a flawed but quite believable character. I most definitely agree that the story of the Bhaalspawn should be the center of the game - not to be superseded by an NPC's supposed "more" epic backstory or motivation.

I have to disagree with you as far as the purpose of NPC's however. Don't get me wrong - this *is* the Bhaalspawn saga and the PC should be the main character. I do however believe there is room to make the NPC more than a tag-along - which in this mod we express by only making her available to a very specific subset of characters fulfilling a rather narrow list of requirements. This is her story - it doesn't come at a greater importance than that of the PC or at the expense of focus on said main story, but it influences it and meshes with it. The Baldur's Gate series is, after all, such a fantastic adventure, offering the possibility of featuring a multitude of interesting and diverse characters in a great setting and adventure - i feel it is a waste to try to make an NPC who's story somehow carries greater weight than that of the PC. There is of course always a very precarious balance to be maintained between an NPC that's merely extensive and one who becomes the focal point of the story - and that's something i'm both aware of and looking for input into.

The way that we write this mod is pretty much how *we* want a mod to be written for BG2 these days. Having experienced what the original game can offer, a new playthrough is usually justified by the addition of a new, interesting NPC. Of course, this may not at all be the same as the reasons that others have for playing through the game again - or how others want NPC's to be.

Thanks for all of the suggestions - this being my first mod (though co-written to some degree), i am *always* looking for input regarding everything about it - the actual "in-game" length of the SoA romance is foremost on my mind at the moment. It may indeed prove to be a real problem and necessitate a cut in content. The ToB part won't have the same problem - it being shorter and more on par with other Mods in terms of number of love-talks and length. I look forward to getting input from testers once the mod is in a state where we feel it is ready to be tested.

Thanks also for the suggestion of the Aran mod - the files look very promising. I'll take a look at how exactly things have been structured to perhaps get some ideas for improvement/s .

I've also removed references to actual word length from the initial post to combat supposition that length is of greater import than quality.

(Just out of curiosity, not being familiar with such colloquial references - who is Saerileth's evil twin?)

Why does size matter? An excellent question!

As i wrote in my initial, now-edited post, there are several types of NPC mods out there. The two i find most easily recognizable are the following:

* The type of mod that aims to provide the player with an additional NPC for finishing the game, adding a few banters, maybe a friendship track and/or a smaller romance track.
* The type of mod that aims to provide the player with an NPC with a very in-depth story, adding not only an NPC but quests and very in-depth stories - a separate dimension to the game play, as it were. There are numerous examples of this already published.

Our ambition is obviously to have Liella be part of the latter. Both of us are avid lovers of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting as well as the Baldur's Gate series. I would further argue that the level of involvement one can reach with an NPC is dependent on two things - the quality of the writing and the length of the romance/friendship, with both having definite importance. Obviously your writing needs to be qualitative to reach your audience - otherwise your NPC becomes stagnant and hardly believable. However - an NPC with too few talks, too few occasions to offer insight into what drives them, their past and their motivations, will fall flat in offering the sort of experience to players that we're looking for. This is not an NPC mod for people looking to plough their way through the game once more as quickly and efficiently as possible - Liella is hardly the most skilled combatant, nor the most prodigious spellcaster out there. Her value in combat - while being able to hold her own - will be limited. Instead, we're catering to those who want to be regaled a story. Furthermore, due to the way we're designing her, she'll have excellent replay-value, like any NPC with multiple possible romance/friendship lines and/or endings.

Our story won't be for everyone. It's doubtful that everyone will like it. Still - that's our thinking with regard the amount of writing quoted. All said and done, it comes down to a matter of preference as to the length of an NPC.

As to quality? What can i say?

Neither of us are native English speakers, but we've been writing for quite some time. Will our writing be free of spelling, grammar and articulation errors? Absolutely - to the best of our ability and the input we get. Will it be engaging and interesting? We'll try our best. Will it appeal to everyone? Probably not.

But to the most important question, and perhaps what you're wondering - are we looking to push something out as soon as possible? No. Absolutely not. The mod will be done when it's done. If certain portions feel half-assed, we'll rewrite them. If lovetalks feel superfluous, we'll remove them. If something is missing, we'll add it. That's the portion where we'll look to our future potential testers to help out.

The initial comment was meant only as an indication to our audience. Many players of the series don't even *like* drawn-out romances or friendships. What they want is a new kick-ass NPC with some fun, humorous banters and a few comments or so. It was meant to clarify who we're trying to appeal to - it was not meant as an indicator as to the amount we plan to spend on revising, correcting or polishing what we write.