Compatibility With Keeping Yoshimo

And what happens when he leaves? What sort of picture does it paint for Yoshi? Of the final conversation, what happens?

If it differs to the mod, I will say it will not be conceptually compatible, as you will notice the difference.

PM me if you don't want spoilers on one of the first of the forum.

Icen

The best way to find out is simply to read the .d--it's very clearly marked out. We don't change anything, and we don't alter his final conversation, so there should be no technical incompatibilities.

I don't touch his final conversation either. I skip it entirely, he leaves before spellhold, which is the cleanest way of doing it. If it leaves it at a huge cliffhanger, which I will soon find out, I will say no to KY-YF.

Icen

That'd be a "no," you're right. In fact, that does present a technical problem, because his last dialogue triggers in Spellhold--so if someone installed KY and Yoshimo Friendship, they wouldn't be able to get the last dialogue.

And, I have just hacked up a version which makes the spellhold trigger in Galvena's Festhall (AR1611) if KY is installed. From having that dialogue in front of me, it doesn't really matter where it is, as long as it seems close to end, and this fits with KY quite nicely as well, as Yoshi does think he will die now.

Attached.

Icen

Edited by Icendoan, 01 January 2009 - 06:35 PM.

I guess for Keeping Yoshimo, in light of this friendship mod we may want to reconsider our plans for adding more a lot more content. We had thought to eventually expand Keeping Yoshimo with some intra-party discussion about the question of how much Yoshimo can be trusted. Basic questions about his character. This content would include an explanation of why in our mod some mages were hunting Yoshi down (i.e., what he did to piss them off). That dovetails into the failure of trust from Yoshimo working covertly, albeit under duress, for Irenicus. And all of this in turn opens up some broader issues of trust among adventurers in general. Basically, the PC and each NPC would weigh in on which is the stonger motivator for each of them individually: pure self-interest versus the need for teamwork, i.e., confidence that someone else 'has your back'. We have also considered having Yoshi relate the backstory of his life in Kara-Tur.

Anyway, I'm thinking that all this risks a lot of disjunction with a friendship mod!

That's why I personally tend to view the two mods as conceptually incompatible; the writing styles are very different, as are the interpretations of Yoshimo. It would be easier just to say "these mods look at different sides of the character of Yoshimo, and we recommend you do not install them together due to conceptual incompatibilities."

Well, honestly, I'm not sure if I'll ever actually get the time to do all that we once hoped to accomplish for the mod. Our main objective was simply to allow players to keep Yoshimo for the entire saga, and that has been met. Personally, I'm satisfied with that much.

Yoshimo hiding out in Brynnlaw is simply our workaround to avoid the scripting that fires when Irenicus encounters him in Spellhold. We just elaborated it a bit to try to make it more satisfiing story-wise. We don't really have to add all that other stuff I mentioned above.

I think at this point, given my time constraints for this hobby, about all we can realistically expect to add is an explanation of why the mages were after Yoshi in our mod. If that's all we add, do you think it will feel too disjointed for players to use our mod together with yours?

It seems a shame that players should be forced to pick one or the other. Ideally, I would prefer that players be able to keep Yoshimo through till the end via our mod and use your Friendship mod. Then, if you wish, your team you could even expand your friendship mod with more content all the way to the end of the saga. If you think you might want to do that, then in the interest of encouraging players to use both mods I would prefer not to add more content to our mod. (Unless you're convinced that's a lost cause already.)

At least for me, it's not crucial that Keeping Yoshimo includes Yoshi telling of the story of why the mages were hunting him down in our mod, although it would be nice to close that loop within our mod. I should be able to write it in a way that shouldn't clash with anything you have. Of necesiity (due to limited hobby time) I'd have keep it pretty short and sweet.

Icen might want to add a small humorous quest at some point, but I'm sure that shouldn't be a dealbreaker.

As the two mods currently stand, it is mainly a clash of how each mod respectively 'voices' the character? And in broader terms of basic personality? Are they that different?

Anyway, let us know if you think the stylistic compatability gap is bridgable. I won't be having any time in the immediate furture to test both mods together. But if you could even PM the dialog files you have that would give me a clearer picture. I mean, I'll trust your judgment implicitly if, based on what you already see, you think the two mods are fundamnetally incompatible. But fact is, we don't actually have all that much content in ours, so we could keep it lean and mean.

(Heh, and all this time as I'm writing this I'm assuming that your mod doesn't also keep Yoshimo through to the end. If it does, then there's no really need at all for an attempt at compatibility!)

Edited by Lemernis, 19 March 2009 - 08:20 AM.

Heh, he hides out because I don't want to break things.

Conceptually incompatible is fine, and I think striving to make them not so will destroy both of them.

Writing styles are different, very different, as are views of Yoshimo. So, you would definitely notice a clash between the texts.

Again, forcing two mods to work when they are fine as they are makes them likely to break. My mini-hack endeavours to bridge the only technical incompatibility, but don't try it if you want the optimum experience of either.

Icen

Okay, sounds like they're a poor mix then.

Our device to keep Yoshimo from going to Spellhold is a substantial departure from Bioware Yoshi who is scripted to die. If this friendship mod fundamentally sticks to the concept of vanilla Yoshi then the two mods really won't mesh, that's true.

Edited by Lemernis, 20 March 2009 - 02:56 AM.

So how much writing is actually in KY? It doesn't sound like a great deal, so will the clash in styles really be that big? It'd be great to keep Yoshimo for the whole game, but it'd be even greater if he also had a decent amount of content to go along with him.

If the two mods can't work together, that's fair enough. I can only hope that KY adds additional content for him somewhere down the line.

Unfortunately the whole friendship sequence is written with Yoshimo's death in mind; it's supposed to make it that much more poignant, and being a part of IEP, is as close to the original Bioware version of Yoshimo as possible. Obviously I'm not the authority on this part of IEP--that would be the lovely Shadowhawke--but my feeling is that we're probably not going to write any dialogues after Spellhold. (I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get, anyway!) Players could install both mods and with Icendoan's modifications it could work fine, but it won't be nearly as emotionally poignant or interesting, I would imagine...

Having read KY's dialogues, I'm going to agree with Icendoan; they are two different ways of writing him. The easiest way to check out the friendship is simply to download it and browse the .d file--all the dialogue is in easily readable format.

I used the Yoshimo friendship on my last runthrough and enjoyed it very much. I'd have to agree it shouldn't be used in conjunction with a mod that allows you to keep him (although I was planning on bringing him back at the end via Turnabout - but my old PC decided to bluescreen a lot during the game and I have up on the ToB part).
I am looking forward to Keeping Yoshimo, however!

FYI, if Yoshimo Friendship is striving to be as faithful as possible to Bioware's conception of the character, and you ever wanted to go all the way with it, here's what David Gaider had to say about Yoshimo:

"Did I ever mention that we were THIS close to bringing Yoshimo back to life (sort of) in ToB? Actually, he would have been undead, kinda...but Ilmater would have restored him to semi-life to repay his debt of guilt for betraying the PC (if that had happened...and, of course, if Yoshimo's heart had been surrendered to Ilmater). People would have gotten their full thief back (with some cool new abilities), and he would strike a tragic pose as someone who was waiting to die again...but wanted to die in peace."

He also mentioned that he would have liked to have seen a Yoshimo quest regarding Sarevok, because Yoshimo had had a relationship of some kind with Tamiko back in Kara-Tur (although AFAIK David didn't artculate the exact nature of that relationship, i.e., sibling? lover? comrade? mentor? enemy? etc.).

Keeping Yoshimo has already ruled out realizing David's idea to make Yoshi a ghost. The purpose of our mod is to give players the option to keep Yoshimo as we already know and love him.

I'm thinking that if Yoshimo Friendship opts to realize David Gaider's ideas, and can ever figure out a way to have Yoshimo die as per the vanilla game but then have a priest of Ilmater resurrect him via his heart... and make him 'semi-undead', with new special abilities, longing to fully pass over to the afterlife, and include a Sarevok quest for him with a Tamiko tie-in, etc... then players would have two completely 'apple and orange' Yoshimo mods to choose from that keep Yoshi till the end.

If Yoshimo Friendship does that, Keeping Yoshimo might eventually add the content that we had once thought to include, that I mentioned above. We have considered adding a quest that ties in with Yoshi's relationship to Tamiko (it would be sibling in our mod) and his past in Kara-Tur. (Not decided yet. We'll see.) But no doubt that would bear no resemblance to whatever Yoshimo Friendship might invent up by way of a quest.

Edited by Lemernis, 21 March 2009 - 03:32 AM.

So how much writing is actually in KY? It doesn't sound like a great deal, so will the clash in styles really be that big? It'd be great to keep Yoshimo for the whole game, but it'd be even greater if he also had a decent amount of content to go along with him.

If the two mods can't work together, that's fair enough. I can only hope that KY adds additional content for him somewhere down the line.

There's a fair bit of dialogue related to the reason why the Yoshimo temporarily bails from the party in Brynnlaw. And there's a battle later on with a neat loot drop.

Here's what's still on the drawing board:

* Yoshimo recounts why he was being hunted (this will definitely be added)

and we will hopefully one day add:

* party discussion about how much Yoshimo can be trusted (i.e., b/c he spied on the party for Irenicus, and why a deadly mage duo was dogging his trail)
* more broadly, party discussion about which is ultimately more important to the PC and each NPC: self-interest, first and foremost, versus the bonds/trust formed with one another through adventuring together
* a quest, possibly one that also serves to open up a window onto Yoshimo's past in Kara-Tur

We'll try to add as much of this as possible, but if so it will be over a long period of time.

Edited by Lemernis, 21 March 2009 - 03:09 AM.

Yoshimo friendship doesn't aim to fulfil what Bioware would have liked to have done, but what they did do; I can't speak for Shadowhawke, but I know she's incredibly busy with uni, and I'm very busy with school too. Chances are neither of us are going to be expanding the mod anytime soon, and most probably not in that direction. I think it's great someone is trying to do what was originally planned with him, but at the moment that's not going to be us.

So how much writing is actually in KY? It doesn't sound like a great deal, so will the clash in styles really be that big? It'd be great to keep Yoshimo for the whole game, but it'd be even greater if he also had a decent amount of content to go along with him.

If the two mods can't work together, that's fair enough. I can only hope that KY adds additional content for him somewhere down the line.

There's a fair bit of dialogue related to the reason why the Yoshimo temporarily bails from the party in Brynnlaw. And there's a battle later on with a neat loot drop.

Here's what's still on the drawing board:

* Yoshimo recounts why he was being hunted (this will definitely be added)

and we will hopefully one day add:

* party discussion about how much Yoshimo can be trusted (i.e., b/c he spied on the party for Irenicus, and why a deadly mage duo was dogging his trail)
* more broadly, party discussion about which is ultimately more important to the PC and each NPC: self-interest, first and foremost, versus the bonds/trust formed with one another through adventuring together
* a quest, possibly one that also serves to open up a window onto Yoshimo's past in Kara-Tur

We'll try to add as much of this as possible, but if so it will be over a long period of time.

That sounds very good! Even if content is added slowly and over time, I'd still like to see it. I'm pleased with the idea that I can keep Yoshimo for the whole game, both from a personal perspective and gameplay perspective (I really like having a single-class thief).

I'm not able to try KY at the moment, so can you give me a rough idea of what he says regarding him having to leave the party on a temporary basis? I mean, I've read the Mod Storyboard thread over at G3, but does him saying something like "These are powerful mages and will kill us all" result in some kind of argument from charname? Does charname have the option to say "We've faced powerful foes before, Yoshi. We'll take our chance against them"? Without having tried the mod I obviously don't know what you've done, but this was the only thing I wasn't too sure about when I read the Mod Storyboard thread i.e. is the conversation re Yoshi leaving between him and charname realistic, and is Yoshi suitably persuasive when he says he simply must leave the party?

Please keep the discussion to the Yoshimo friendship here... KY has its own forum.

I'm not able to try KY at the moment, so can you give me a rough idea of what he says regarding him having to leave the party on a temporary basis? I mean, I've read the Mod Storyboard thread over at G3, but does him saying something like "These are powerful mages and will kill us all" result in some kind of argument from charname? Does charname have the option to say "We've faced powerful foes before, Yoshi. We'll take our chance against them"? Without having tried the mod I obviously don't know what you've done, but this was the only thing I wasn't too sure about when I read the Mod Storyboard thread i.e. is the conversation re Yoshi leaving between him and charname realistic, and is Yoshi suitably persuasive when he says he simply must leave the party?

Guest, I can respond to this more in depth at our G3 forum. But I believe it is satisfyingly and convincingly written, yes.

All further discussion of KY please direct to our forum at Giberlings 3, thanks.

Link in my sig, if you can't find it easily.

Icen