Three is something I'm still debating, but it would be for a bard PC. Or, rather, a like-minded bard PC who has similar ideals/desires. A kindred spirits type of thing. Which one of these tracks the PC takes could be determined by the first dozen LTs (early stage) and how she reacts to HD's questioning, etc.

You might consider extending this to all non-lawful rogues, not just bards - I can see Haer'Dalis in a similar situation with a swashbuckler, for instance...

A thought. Haer'Dalis is apparently accustomed to seducing women he fancies into one night stands; perhaps giving the PC an option to put him on the receiving end of that sort of treatment would be one angle for developing the romance - the role reversal would be something he would have to come to terms with and would probably intrigue him.

Personally, I'm not likely to use this, but this looks like a useful utility in principle.

Since my husband is on vacation for the next week and will be entertaining the kids, I might actually be able to do some heavy duty plotting...

wow how lucky u are! i know this is out of the topic but any ideas to suggesr me to do the same wiht my bf? a week all alone... is heaven!

Have you tried detailed descriptions of what he'll be coming home to? If done right, that certainly might work on me...

I want to throw this out there and see what people think of it. I'm absolutely not saying this is what I intend to do - I'm just seeing what the response is to it. What would you all think if bringing Yoshimo to Spellhold was required? I'm not going to elaborate beyond that, but something popped into my head and I kind of like it, but I'm flexible and I'd rather see what people think before developing it father than "random idea" status. I'm not fond of requirements personally, but this particular one just seems very convenient.

How are you going to make it clear to people who don't necessarily read readmes that they'll need to do that? Or do you care about them? (Bluntly).

well, the general idea was that while Karnitia herself is unable to interfere ( why, that won't be a fight just a 'god blew you to smitherens on will' ) so she sends her "minions" who are as powerful as lesser gods but shouldn't quality as truly divine beings. Not to mention, why the hell would Karnitia know or care about Ao's command not to interfere.

Because Ao's role in the story of the Forgotten Realms, basically, seems to be "fighting fire with fire" as far as characters becoming Munchkins, and he's pretty much omnipotent as far as anyone in the FR can tell.

PS: Scripts aren't that difficult.  Areas are a bitch.

PSS: If you seriously want to do something like this, I suggest the Elder Evils sourcebook for ideas on how to incorporate a plot like this into the FR setting.  The link should take you to the Amazon page; there are probably other sources worth checking too.

I have a job too and while I have quite a bit free-time to put into things like this, I really don't have the patience to work half a year on such a thing.

Half a year would be excessively optimistic for a substantial mod.  I conceived of Arkalian in November 2005 and she's still well over a year away from completion, my life having flirted with the rails but repeatedly run off over the intervening time.

From what I can see, he is a strong but not superhuman and careful fighter, but is definitely intelligent as well, quite far above the norm (which is either 9 or 12, either way it is a lot) and fairly pretty, as well.

Charisma is more about people skills and personal magnetism than physical appearance.

I think it would have to be something else to trigger his downward slope into fallendom, something maybe more subtle and on a personal level. Anomen's sister was killed, and depending on the player's actions, you could seek vengeance (making him Chaotic) or simply let the perpetrator go (making him Good). Perhaps something similar could happen to dear old Kelly?

Just calling him "Kelly" to his face might be enough

This is interesting. Another angle you might try: a way of fooling him into believing that his superior in the order is corrupt, like Anarg, getting him cast out when he tries to "bring him to justice".

What about Ulgoth's Beard for the bad guys' headquarters? Is there an unused house there?

I don't think so, for most plausible interpretations of "unused." Maybe the sea tower? Reuse an existing map for a small area accessible from the base?

First of, I apologize for..uh... necroposting, is it called?... earlier.

No need.

Second, does anyone know if the mod "Cassandra" was ever finished?
It was supposed to allow the party to 'adopt' the escaping clone of Ellisime instead of killing her.

Near as I can tell, no.  Have you tried contacting the mod authors from the post on CoM?

I always thought it was bloody unfair I had to kill the poor girl, and several times I even pretended I didn't notice the door to the cloning room, and left the dungeon without killing her. So a mod that would allow me not only save her but also shape her character and abilities would make me a very happy player indeed.

You could do so yourself, you know.  Either offer to "resurrect" the mod (see the "mod resurrections" forum on SHS for more detail), create a new NPC mod (with a different name?), or make a smaller mod that would allow you to talk her down from the confrontation and escape without joining her party, which would at least prevent the whole having-to-kill-her thing (and would be pretty trivial to accomplish).

1. What type of area artwork are you requesting: Indoor or Outdoor?

Outdoor.

2. Specifically what type of area - city, dungeon, forest, something else?

A small village in a streamside and roadside clearing in an otherwise hilly/rocky forested area.

3. Size of area artwork requested? (Remember that the game has size limitations.)

Large, probably full-size or nearly so (79x59 tiles = 5040x3776 pixels).

4. Where in the game will this area occur and which areas will it link?

The area location will be approximately as indicated in the attached image and it will serve as a worldmap link and hub area.

5. Should the area artwork have both night and day versions? (The artist will essentially have to create the area twice - think hard if you really need both)

[EDIT]Tentatively no; I want to experiment and see if the game will handle it the way it handles day/night with Umar Hills, Brynnlaw, etc. without needing a separate Night WED and such).[/EDIT]

6. Describe your vision of the area in detail! Give some backstory to the area, the intended use, a sketch of the intended area artwork...

The area is the outside map of Rookswale, a small village which originally grew up around an inn and trading post in northern Amn, in the foothills of the Cloudpeaks, consisting of the inn itself, several houses, a modest sized bunkhouse, and a shrine to Selune.  Although the inn and the shrine are still maintained by their original proprietors and still see some business from occasional travelers, the reduction in traffic along this particular trade route and the strange, subtle sense of unease the location exudes have resulted in Rookswale being largely abandoned.  Aside from the inn and shrine, most of the buildings have fallen into disrepair, though several have subsequently become home to vagabonds and the destitute.  The party arrives shortly after a group of bandits have taken over the town, though they are using the existing buildings.

7. Will the artist have some freedom to compose the area, or should the request parameters be followed to the letter?

The number of functional buildings is fairly inflexible, as are any details given about them, but otherwise the artist's innovation is encouraged.

8. Are there any special features you need? (for example a statue that opens to reveal a secret passageway etc.)

The northern area of the map should be rocky and hilly, with a small cave entrance that is partially obscured by brush and hence not immediately obvious.  A road runs through the area from east to west, at or south of the middle of the map; winding is fine.  Somewhat north of the road there is a good-sized stream which cuts across the map, from about northeast to southwest.  Between the stream and road are a series of buildings, including four houses/cabins, a bunkhouse(larger cabin), an inn, and a shrine.  Cabin graphics should be drawn from those in wilderness areas in BG1 and/or in Nashkel ([EDIT] Ulgoth's Beard wouldn't be a bad source either[/EDIT]) or the like; the interior graphics will re-use some from BG1.  The shrine should comprise a modest cabin adjacent to a small stone circle surrounding a flat stone, ideally with the symbol of Selune imprinted on it, and should have a sign of some sort, ideally with the symbol of Selune as well.  The inn exterior should use the inn from Nashkel in BG1, as the corresponding interior map will be modified slightly for it, and there should be a well fairly close to the inn.  The building should be fairly close together, and the set of buildings should occupy at most about 1/4-1/3 of the map.  In addition to the functional buildings noted, one or two that are too broken down for use would be a nice touch.  The area, aside from the stream and road, should be lightly forested (including the areas between buildings in this is fine), similar to what we see with Imnesvale, but there should be a few good-sized open spaces.

9. Any deadlines?

None.

10. What game and what mod is this for?

Arkalian, BG2/TOB mod.

11. Anything else you'd like to mention?

I will also need one or two modified versions of this map; I will decide exactly how to approach that once I've seen the original.

I suppose actually attaching an image would help:

What's the present consensus on extending the map icons bam files (mapicons.bam and 25mapic.bam) independently of the worldmap mod? Is there a good tutorial on how to go about this properly?

I might be willing to attempt this, but would you mind if it were in SoA's area style, rather than Baldur's Gate I's style?

That's fine with me; the only concern I had with that was the limited number of suitably weathered building graphics in SOA.  I'm not particularly attached to what I had in mind with the inn's interior map if something else works better for you, for instance (then again, there's already precedent for building interiors not perfectly matching the exterior arrangement).  I'm interested to see what you come up with. ^.^

[EDIT]Looking through the maps again, there's probably an adequate supply of cabin-ish buildings among the various ones, so this should be fine, particularly if parts of buildings were mixed and matched.  And the main concern there is the weathered-ness anyway, so...

Wait a few hours; I've just uploaded all the graphics resources I created for Fishing For Trouble including all of the buildings. I'm just waiting a reply from Kae as to the best place to make them available - you may find something useful.

-Y-

Awesome; thanks.

Heya Az

I made this area for Zyraen several years ago and it wasn't used.   It has no night map, but one could probably be made.   Yours if it suits your needs

Cuv

This is good and actually very much in the spirit of what I had in mind, but my first impression is that the details aren't quite what I'm looking for.  I'll have to give it some more thought; it would be helpful if you posted or PM'ed to me the full-size bmp.  Also, if I did decide to use this, would you be okay with modifying it slightly or allowing someone else to do so?  (Or, slightly and then significantly, since I will also eventually need a somewhat modified version of whatever background I do go with for the initial village, for the return later in the game).

Also if you do decide to use Cuv's, which looks really good by the way (I love new areas!), I have a night light filter I use that gives it the slight blue tinge as in Baldur's Gate night maps.

That's definitely worth looking at; thanks.

Are you opposed to something smaller than full-sized if it still has the required details?

Not strongly; I just want to make sure there's a fair amount of space. [EDIT]I should amend that.  Full-size isn't critical, but it shouldn't be too small since there should be a reasonable amount of space around the village (the cave mentioned, in particular, should be some distance away from it on the map).

<serious thread hijack going on here>

Fine by the thread author; all this may well become relevant eventually.

RtW isn't a total conversion, as well, and it's not stopped either--just on hold.

These things take time, but that doesn't mean you should write them off.

Same for [Insert catchy title for what I've been referring to simply by it's primary new and only joinable NPC, Arkalian, here], which isn't a partial conversion by any means, but approaches that league in terms of ambition.

Although, it's not really "sandbox" at all.  Personally, I am probably not likely to play such a game because I'm more attracted to the story anyway, but I would suggest that a good model to look to would be Fallout 2, which allows you to continue playing, if you choose, after completing the main storyline (I believe there is a cutoff, after a certain amount of game time, but it's pretty generous - four game years, something like that?).  Unless you're hell-bent on ditching the BG2 plotline altogether, adding some of the open-ended features you describe, some more side quests, and the ability to return to the worldmap and/or travel between worldmaps after beating Melissan, if you choose to remain mortal, would be a useful angle for implementing some of this kind of functionality/feel.

Linky to FFT Resources. Big file - +90Mbs.

-Y-

Thanks.  Unfortunately quite a few of these just pop up messages to the effect that they weren't saved the right way in Photoshop to be viewable in anything else, but I wouldn't anticipate that causing trouble for most of the people who'd be working on the areas.

I've got Adobe Photoshop

That, doubtless, would help. x.x

I have, today, come to the unfortunate realization that I am absolutely clueless about how the game handles the day/night changes in the appearance of a given area.  Can anyone point me to a good tutorial or explanation for that?

http://www.simpilot..../main.htm#night

So, the AR####N tilesets are for night areas, as I suspected...which is confusing because, at least in BG2, several areas that look different at night (such as AR1600) don't have matching AR####N tilesets, at least, that DLTCEP can find. Are the tiles for that somehow embedded in the "normal" tileset, or is it done with color filters somehow, or...?

http://www.simpilot..../main.htm#night

So, the AR####N tilesets are for night areas, as I suspected...which is confusing because, at least in BG2, several areas that look different at night (such as AR1600) don't have matching AR####N tilesets, at least, that DLTCEP can find. Are the tiles for that somehow embedded in the "normal" tileset, or is it done with color filters somehow, or...?

If the flag 'extended night' is set in the .are file, then in addition to the WED specified in the .are at offset 0x08, there will be a <wedname>n.wed file (which will in turn specify the tileset) and in addition to the <arename>lm.bmp, there will be an <arename>ln.bmp. If the extended night flag is set and those files are missing, you're likely to get a crash in-game.

I don't know what the deal is with Brynnlaw - it doesn't use the extended night method and does just look like it's had a dark purple filter stuck on it.

Hmm. Brynnlaw has the Day/Night flag, but not the Extended Night flag, no *n tileset, no night map, no night WED, and I note that it seems to have four color patterns, Day, Night, and also Sunset and Sunrise, and as far as my probing indicates it does not display the "Sunup/sundown" movies that most of, say, the Athkatla areas do. I'll need to take a look at a few more areas with day/night versions but it seems as though the "extended night" function refers to the use of a separate WED and tileset (with the "sundown" and "sunup" movies obscuring the transition), whereas the Day/Night flag may just use a color filter that's applied at specified clock times by the exe...does this sound like a plausible interpretation?

(With some probing I've determined that AR300 also does the color-shift thing at sunrise and sundown, but that AR1600 indeed does not display the movie).

Request updated slightly due to my conclusions about the game handling of time-of-day detailed in this thread

Any area that does not have an extended night gets the lightmap overlaid with a single blue/purple colour after the change to night. During the sunrise/sunset periods, a rose-tinted colour is blended onto the existing day lightmap. Both are hard-coded - at least, I'm pretty sure that's what happens.

That's what I'd concluded as well, though I'm guessing it's the "Day/Night" flag that controls that behavivor since dungeons don't do it (you probably intended that but just skipped over it). I'll have to look at the area scripting to see whether the sunup/sundown movies are run from it or whether that's hard-coded as well.

The day lightmap is not replaced; remember the frustration of trying to keep track of everyone in the rotting forest on your way to the temple north of the Umar Hills? Your party kept vanishing into the lightmap shadows and behind dithered wallgroups.

I don't, but that's consistent with what I've concluded.

You may find that without specific use of extended night that the night period may actually be too light to be convincing. As it happens, the latest version of my DLTCEP tutorial describes a quick and dirty way of adding extended night if you suddenly find that you need it. I did...

Ah, that's the link I wanted. Awesome, thanks.