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Forum upgrade complete!

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:07:35 +0000

Hi everyone!

Thanks for your patience. It's been a tough couple of days to get everything ready to go, and we might be missing some bits and pieces, but for the most part everything seems to be up and working. First thing's first, though: a big round of applause for SConrad and khayman for their (literally) tireless efforts to ensure we were down for as short a time possible!

In the past two days we have: migrated to a new server, upgraded the forum software, updated the skin (thanks to khayman), reorganised the forums and done a bunch of behind-the-scenes work to make sure everything runs smoothly. I won't go into details about every change, as there have been a lot of them, but if you have any questions ask away.

One quick note about the Download Manager: uploads are not working, so you won't be able to upload or update any mods for the time being. Full functionality will be restored ASAP.

If you can't see the website, check back in a few hours. It may take a while for the new DNS settings to propagate.

Let us know what you think so far, and please post any errors or problems you encounter!

Cheers,
Liam

SHS Suggestions and Problems Thread

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:17:48 +0000

I know there are a few people out there with some suggestions for SHS, and I'm sure every now and then there'll be a problem with the website or forums. If you experience a problem or are struck by a brilliant idea, please post here!

Guest posting (no longer) disabled

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:52:12 +0000

Sorry guests, but I've had to temporarily disable guest posting for the night until I have the time to implement some anti-spam measures. Guest posting should be functional again within 24 hours.

Edit: guest posting has now been restored.

Downtime, Avatars and Technical Hitches

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:18:34 +0000

Hey ya'll!

Sorry for the downtime yesterday; as a part of our upgrade process something went awfully wrong, and almost our entire members database was deleted, sending me and SConrad (let's be honest, mostly SConrad) into a frenzy of fixing.

He has managed to restore most things to what they were before the deletion, but you will notice some oddities. Post-counts may be slightly different, last-posted-by in various forums may be wrong, any PMs from the last week have been deleted, and most unfortunately, almost any avatar and personal photo added or changed within the last two years is permanently gone.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. SC has done an amazing job to get us back on track, so big props to him!

Thanks everyone.

P.S. Hopefully any remaining problems will be ironed out when we do our forum upgrade/overhaul sometime next week.

Heads Up -- More Downtime Incoming

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:35:14 +0000

Hey all!

We have decided to move forward our forum overhaul, upgrade the software and move hosts to tomorrow. Over the next few days uptime may be patchy, but we'll do our best to complete the upgrades, overhaul and move as swiftly as possible so as to prevent too much more downtime.

The forums will go offline tomorrow (23 January 2012) at 6pm GMT +9.5 (Adelaide time). To find out what time this will be in your timezone, head here.

I'm sorry for the short notice, but the sooner we get this done the better! Thanks in advance for your patience.

P.S. During this time, any @spellholdstudios.net email accounts will no longer function. With this in mind, if there are any queries, please send them to liam.esler@gmail.com.

BGT v1.13 Released

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:56:41 +0000

This major release overhauls the installation process to minimise dependence on fallible shell scripts and enables installation on Linux systems out of the box. Updates have been made to multiple translations, and the Czech translation has been added. A few new features have been added, including default Baldur's Gate soundsets, the end of Tales of the Sword Coast screen, and subtitles for the Baldur's Gate introduction movie. Quite a number of bugs have been fixed.

Important for mega-mod installers: the installation has an extra prompts whether to biff all files or just some. The recommended command line command for auto-installation is now

Setup-BGT.exe --force-install 0 --skip-at-view --language  --args-list osp

Note the added 'o' in --arg-list, in order to skip the extra prompt.

Saved games are not compatible with 1.12 and thus a new game is highly recommended.

Related links:

Day 12 of 12: Enkida's Portrait Mod Released

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:53:04 +0000

And to round off our releases this 12 Days, we have a new mod from Enkida!

This will upgrade various BioWare and player-made NPCs so they have a somewhat "standardized" look - similar head sizes, color range, and an attempt to be semi-faithful to the original BioWare artwork "look." You can see all included portrait upgrades in this thread!

Related links

Day 12 of 12: Yeslick NPC Released!

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:28:45 +0000

A new NPC by Pixel Kaiser (also known as Tameon the Dragoon) has been released for BGII: SoA!

This mod brings Yeslick from Baldur's Gate to BGII: SoA, with an extensive variety of banters and interjections, a new kit (Alaghor of Clangeddin) as well as a number of PC dialogues throughout the game. Yeslick is an older dwarf, a devotee of Vergadain, dwarven god of wealth and luck and Clangeddin, dwarven god of war and battle.

He tends to model himself as the father-figure of the group, and can often be found trying to help the party to reach their potential... to mixed results. He has a kind heart and a steady hand, and is loyal to the PC to the end.

When asked about his past, Yeslick chuckles grimly. "There ain't nothin' there ye be wantin' to know, young 'un. Trust me." From what you have gleaned, Yeslick is peculiar for a dwarf; a follower of Vergadain, the Dwarven god of wealth and luck and Clangeddin, Dwarven god of war, he is an unassuming companion with an aversion to alcohol and the undead. You know little about his history beyond that he grew up in the Dales to the north and that heat makes him extremely irritable.

Related links:

Day 11 of 12: bigg Mod Updates

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:46:22 +0000

The bigg Tweaks
This mod is a collection of different modifications to the game, ranging from most necessary fixes to blatant cheese; most of these are specifically intended to make the game less frustrating. All components are optional; the installer is WeiDU and uses the most recent coding commands and conventions, allowing it to be compatible with virtually all possible mod combinations.

Refinements
The Refinements Mod is somewhat of an arrogant project. We feel that many things in the game are somehow misplaced, not detailed enough, not balanced enough, not cool enough, or... you get the picture. So we've tried to fix them, with the aim to provide a fitting new standard form for the game. It's still an evolving work; you never know how many things you may want to refine, given time. It includes: New HLAs Tables for all classes, SwashImoen (turning Imoen into a Swashbuckler/Mage), Shapeshifting fixes, Universal Lesser Mage robes and the Sword Angel kit.

Related links

Day 11 of 12: BGT Restored Textscreen Music Updated

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:16:17 +0000

This big modification simply restores, and makes more consistent with the text, the music that is heard during the prologue textscreen and the dream textscreens in Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast. Since the music is hard-coded into Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast, this music was remixed into the narration sounds. Effort has been made to ensure the narration follows the text, so that the narrator does not narrate too far ahead of what the text shows.

Some minor updates, but mainly to prepare for next version of BGT-WeiDU. Please note that the language packs have also been updated by lower casing all the files in the archives (allowing for Linux systems). The contents of the files have not actually changed.

Quote

- Fixed a typo that prevented installation in Korean language
- Improved compatiblity on Linux and Macintosh systems
- Updated compatibility for BGT-WeiDU 1.13
- Updated to BiggDU v231

Related links:

Day 10 of 12: BGT Tweak Pack Updated

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:54:37 +0000

Version 10 of Ascension64's BGT Tweak Pack has been released

This modification is the offspring of existing patches in pre-ZETA versions of Baldur's Gate Trilogy-WeiDU 0.99. It was decided that tweaks should be separated from fixes in order to keep BGT-WeiDU more faithful to the original Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast. Therefore, this package was borne to address the issues in the original Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast that were thought to be lacking.

Changes
- Improved compatibility with Linux systems
- Updated translation: Russian
- New component: Reputation Resets at Beginning of BG2 (from BG2 Tweaks)
- Hooded unarmoured mages and thieves: Renamed, removed thieves part and extended mage part since 1PP: Thieves Galore fixes the thieves part better
- Item BG1-ification: Fixed a bug where Scimitars were made unusable by thieves
- More bandit scalps: Prevented issues with bandits having two scalps

Related links:

Day 9 of 12: PS:T UI Mod Updated

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:46:33 +0000

ghostdog has updated his PS:T UI mod, with updated and fully functional Chinese language support, fixed one or two problems and a new feature, full-screen movies!

Ghostdog's PS:T UI Mod is a User Interface modification which in combination with the bigg's Widescreen Mod makes any resolution viable for Planescape: Torment by changing a number of things in the UI.

The Widescreen mod works extremely well in Planescape: Torment, but unfortunately when you change the resolution, almost all of the UI elements and game effects are shown in the top-left area since they were set for the original 640x480 game resolution. What this mod does is center all of these elements and enhance the UI with original game art to fit nicely with other resolutions.

Things fixed for new resolutions include many game screens including the Start menu, character creation screens, the journal, inventory, spells and stores among others, as well as a number of other components including the bottom UI bar which has been optimised, tooltips and in-game messages (which now display correctly), the dialogue box, and the worldmap.

The mod is compatible with both 2CD and 4CD versions of the game as well as Qwinn's PS:T mods.

Related links:

Day 8 of 12: Darian ToB Released

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:56:47 +0000

Darian has been updated to v2, now including brand new ToB content and crossmod with the Sarah NPC!

Darian is one of the Avariel, the enigmatic and almost extinct winged elves. He has come to Athkatla pursuing rumors that one of his kin is imprisoned in the human city, but things are not as he expects. Darian bears the legacy of thousands of years of hostility and distrust towards the grounded races, but those attitudes may not survive first contact with the people whom the Avariel tell stories of to frighten misbehaving children. For all his faults, xenophobia and arrogance prominent among them, Darian's fundamental intentions are good and his heart honorable. Cracking his shell will prove difficult, but it may just prove worthwhile. You can find Darian outside the Copper Coronet in the Athkatla Slums.

This mod includes:

A romance for eligible females.
Player-initiated dialogue and flirting, some restricted to the romantically inclined but some not.
Banters with the Bioware NPCs.
Numerous interjections and reactions to the world of Baldur's Gate II.
An evolving character who is unlikely to leave the Bhaalspawn's company the same man who joined it.
An original portrait drawn by the very talented Ilmatar.

Related links:

Day 7 of 12: BGSpawn Updated

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:25:01 +0000

melkor_morgoth has updated his BGSpawn mod to v1.11!

BGSpawn is a new system that handles the "spawned creatures" appearing in Baldur's Gate's areas. The mod changes the random (but fixed) creatures you can find around the Sword Coast (called spawns) with a completely new and more challenging system. In addition, you can also choose the time between re-spawned creatures and later in the install process the Random Encounters you may find when moving between areas. Optionally, you may also install a new creature "Vampiric Wolf Lord" (based on DavidW's Ulcaster Wolf). BGSpawn is a WeiDU-mod compatible with BGT-WeiDU only.

Related links:

Day 6 of 12: Stivan Beta Released

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:15:52 +0000

Stivan, a minimod that was originally a part of the bigg house, has been revamped by the bigg and Giuseppe with a whole bunch of new content, and a beta has now been uploaded to the Misc Mods category!

Stivan the Hunter is a new joinable NPC for Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and its expansion, Throne of Bhaal, complete with the usual array of banters, friendships, quests and interjections.

Stivan is a Chaotic Neutral Male Halfling Fighter/Thief whom you can find in the Bridge District (a map marker is added to help you find him) and will join any party.

Related links:

Day 5 of 12: Nephele Updated!

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:45:46 +0000

A little bit late but better late than never! Nephele has been updated to v2, with an updated portrait, a new crossmod dialogue with the Haer'Dalis Romance mod, several bugfixes and TRAification!

Adding a touch of humour and hopefully a hint of originality and interest, Nephele is a new NPC for BGII: SoA and ToB--a halfling cleric of Yondalla, mother of seven and a compulsive adventurer. A woman of many stories, she has lived a long and sometimes dangerous life, been married, had children (and grandchildren), and dealt with her demons. Nephele has no earth-shaking quest, no troubling issues and requires no therapy. That's not to say that she won't pipe up with her opinion at every possible juncture, and do her best to make you into the best young man or woman you can be!

Although she's more than a little nosy, and quite often sticks her foot in her mouth, she's a kindhearted woman trying to do good in the world. She has a number of dialogues throughout SoA and ToB on par with some romance mods, and has a large number of interactions with both the NPCs and the game world.

Nephele joins you in Trademeet, and will stay with you throughout SoA and ToB.

Related links:

Day 4 of 12: ToBEx Updated

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:26:59 +0000

TobEx (ToB Extender) is a program written in C++ that modifies the virtual image of the EXE in memory to achieve EXE modifications, which saves hard-coding changes into the EXE file itself. It does this by the DLL injection method.

The advantages of this are that you can modify EXE on the fly, and you do not have to rely on code caves within the EXE to insert new code. Given knowledge of the structures used by the game, it can also help to explore the EXE further, code in new fixes, and introduce new features in the game, such as new effects, script triggers and actions, etc.

This update is TobEx beta 0022, and should be more stable than the previous, updates some translations, removes the need for detoured.dll, and sports one new hack for modders. View a complete list of changes here.

ToBEx is also now on github. You can find the project here.

Related links:

Day 3 of 12: Wizard Slayer Rebalancing released

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:32:03 +0000

This mod was largely inspired by several other Wizard Slayer revision mods which came before it, most notably Gray Acumen's Kit Improvements, Konalan's Tweaks, Ashes of Embers and Kitanya's fixes (by SixOfSpades). This version is a bit more conservative and attempts not to stray too far from the original kit design. In summary, it tries to enhance the Wizard Slayer's inherent strong points while adding some of the best features from the aforementioned mods. This should make the kit a bit more balanced and fun to play while staying mostly true to Bioware's original concept. The mod works on normal Baldur's Gate II games as well as either of the two Baldur's Gate conversion projects: (Easy)Tutu and Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT).

Relevant links:

Day 2 of 12: W_GUI Released!

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:43:18 +0000

After playing the same game for over ten years, it's obvious that some players may be bored with the old brownish interface and the usual menu layout. This is mod for those who are tired of the current layout and who are not afraid to discover a new visual style. It's still the same good old Baldur's Gate 2, but in new shades of blue.

W_GUI is a game modification that aims to completely redo the graphical user interface for Baldur's Gate 2, BGTuTu and BGT. The mod works well with the bigg's Widescreen Mod and includes new game fonts in different sizes, for those who play in high resolutions and think that original font is too small and hard to read. W_GUI also supports tweaks to the game interface made by Ascension64 ToBEx.

The mod is in the beta phase of development but is mostly finished, and even in it's current state replaces most of game's interface seen during singleplayer.

Related links:

Merry Christmas

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:28:14 +0000

I just wanted to say a quick Merry Christmas to everyone here at SHS! We hope you have a wonderful festive break, and a happy new year...