Vlad obviously wasn't concerned with compatability
Well, I was obviously concerned about compatibility, and I don't see any problem in *organisation* or structure of my TP2. I have organised TP2 according to subcomponents in my own way and I think it's needless to mention that the *problems* in TP2 which you have noticed have nothing to do with compatibility issues. The compatibility of NeJ2 and BP has only two issues:
1. Animations.
2. WorldMap.
You should concentrate on these things and not on organisation of my TP2 which can be installed over any mod without any problem. I didn't overwrite any file by the way if you meant this. Every file is checked for existance and appended if necessary. Only animate.ids and anisnd.ids should be reworked. But it's really up to you. Also I don't think that NeJ2 should be hardwired to BP. Please install it as a WeiDU mod with a small addition to TP2 that fixes animations and world map. Actually I am strongly against hardwiring NeJ2 to BP. I worked hard writing all those *frelling* WeiDU files instead of using a few normal GUI editors for many many months just because of compatibility issues, and now you horred told me that I wasn't concerned about compatibility!
First, let me say this: it is obvious to me, without even playing this mod, that you spent a lot of time and put a lot of creative effort into it. I'm truly looking forward to playing it, and I know I'm not alone in that regard.
Be that as it may: If I were to install your mod as-is, into the Great Melting Pot that BP has become; it would screw up everything that we've worked so hard to get working together, I guarantee it. The worldmap
shouldn't be a concern-- I saw just the basic
SoA areas in your .wmp. How are you adding in these other areas (scripting?)--are you using them (the ones listed in your tp2)?These were already on the worldmap here--BP, BP-
BGT, and
CtB--I'm sure you're aware of that. As long as they used the same area codes, there shouldn't be an issue. You did use the same area codes as everybody else, right? Why not just use the bp-
bgt map AND .wmp? You could have hidden the undesired areas via scripting. I fail to see your logic in this. Then again, I haven't played this mod yet, so I speak from ignorance to some degree. Enlighten me...
Maybe this is all just paranoia on my part, maybe not; I have such painful memories from getting TS to work in BP. The 26 revisions... *shudders*. I don't know if you realize how much hell you put me through on that mod, much of it unnecessarily. But I shouldn't hold the past against you, and for that I apologize.
We've set up some standards here in BP, over the years; if all modders would adhere to the guidelines, there would not be any such thing as compatability issues. No, I'm not trying to play god here; I believe that we as modders should work together, not against each other. That is the reason I tried to set up "community standards". Somebody needed to do this, and I was the first to answer the call. I spent a lot of months making a lot of good stuff happen, with painstaking testing and research, to make the lame
IE scripting format as powerful as it could be. (Those who have tried Aurora scripting know what I mean by "lame"). I know of nobody else who has spent as much time testing the scripting language, save maybe Kensai Ryu in the old days. His work was my launching point. That is why I make the claim that others should adhere to what I have set forth. Naturally, we all will have some additions here or there--my goal was to make things work as good as possible for everyone, not to limit creativity.
Just do it in a way that contributes, not conflicts.
Maybe it's partly my fault, for taking such a long break. To be honest, it couldn't be avoided. RL has been a certified bitch--last year was the worst year of my 37 on this rock. Maybe I should have released a package of source files for the ruleset I made (actually, I did--sort of). But here's my question: if I had released such a package, and delivered it to your (virtual) doorstep, would you have followed/adhered to it? My instincts tell me no. You seem to enjoy the lone wolf approach to modding, rather than the community "team effort" approach. The existing evidence, and your track record, clearly suggests this. Though I must say: learning
weidu was
definitely a positive step in the right direction.
I'll give you a couple examples of team effort, and community spirit:
When Charles Bisson made
CtB, he wrote me several emails asking me for my ruleset files. Including, but not limited to: which animation slots I used for what. And in turn, I answered all of his questions. By doing this, and adhering to them, his mod was easily compatible (absolutely compatible with his expressed purpose, working with BP). To make it compatible with BP-
BGT, what did it take? A few area switches, and some minor worldmap alterations--that was IT! And it still works just fine as a standalone package.
SirBillyBob has honored me by making mods
specifically FOR BP. That should stand as testament to what I have set forth. My hard work is obviously appreciated.
Now, I'm working with him to make his mods even better, even more compatible, and as 'user-friendly' as can be.
We already converted your animation sequence over to BP's a long time ago; now you're saying we have to do it again. That is one of the main reasons I want to remove a big chunk of your current
NeJ content (I'm speaking files here, not plot), and make a different package. It doesn't seem fair to us. Why should we have to fix something that was already fixed? And why add identical content twice? That just clogs things up, unnecessarily.
There is no choice but to alter our files, or yours, or both, so that they are on the "same page". Considering there are about 8-10 mods already working side-by-side, using a common format, it would be logical to change yours to fit this format.
It is my assertion that you could have done this, in the first place, with very little additional effort on your part. All that was needed was cooperation, and communication. There are others that could have answered any questions, even in my absence. To do all this compatting 'post-release', it is an immensely bigger task--on my part, and on hlidskialf's--and anyone else we can sucker into helping us. And again, I will acknowledge here that learning
weidu and using it was a positive step in the right direction. So why did you stop there? This could've been a true "plug and play".
Okay, you don't want
NeJ 'hardwired'...What exactly do you mean by 'hardwire'? This clumbsy approach was abandoned ages ago, after the only 3 major mods of the era were merged. The tools of the time did not allow the 'soft merge' that is possible today. The first few releases of BP were in the buggy IAP format, and caused more problems than were solved. That was the original reason for the combined dialog.tlk file.
I'm asking, not smirking: Do you have something against biff files? We do everybody else's mod into biffs
except yours. Well, when they are near-finished (almost bug-free)--we will. Not one modder I know has a problem with this; do you? I guarantee they will be biffed on my pc. I can guarantee that many others will want this, as well. And I will be happy to share my proggie, to facilitate this for them. I would be more than happy to write a couple batch files that would accomplish this , both for BP and for your standalone version. The same files will work for both. I like maximum performance, fast area/screen loading, and toolset efficiency. Eight thousand CRE files in biffs load into an editor extremely quicker than 8000 in the override (e.g). Biffed areas load about 3-4 times as quick as override areas. Almost everybody agrees with me on this; and majority rules, where I come from. That's what community spirit is all about.
Without biffing (if that's what you mean by 'hardwiring') we will have an override of about half-a-gigobyte. Not including any small 'add-on' mods. Your mod has ~4200 files in it--not including the files that are altered in the tp2. That certainly does not fall into the category of 'small add-in'--the only sort of mods that should be left in the override after installation.
If I had known back then, that this was such an issue for you, (or would cause these complications and arguments) I would have somehow put all of your
NeJ content into seperate biffs--rather than as part of a 'bp-
bgt-
nej'. The technology was new to me at the time.
Weidu biffing didn't even work right, until Avenger and I collaborated with Wes Weimer--about 2 months after bp-
bgt (-
nej)'s release. If I ever get to do this over again (if I can somehow find the time, between my past mods-to-fix, my current projects --in an entirely different game-- and my plans to make my own mod or series of mods for
BG2, plus RL (what's left of it)) I will do precisely this. I will auto-biff BP-
BGT before any
NeJ content whatsoever is added. Hindsight is always 20/20. For now, I'll have to 'make do'. I neither have the time, nor the HD space, to fool around with pet projects such as this. What's done is done, and I'm trying to live with it and move on as best as I can.
I also can guarantee I'm not adding your Dead(Object) to the trigger.ids. As I said over two years ago, it will break any other in-game script that uses the Dead(Name) format. Did you rewrite every script in-game using this trigger to reflect this change? No, you did not. I, on the other hand, did. I converted EVERY ONE I found to the HPLT(1,Object) check, in EVERY Bioware script. I wish it would work properly--I wish Bioware had expressed the Action this way, in the first place(it's far more logical, and practical)--but they didn't. It simply does not work without mass revision, in a nutshell. I tested this, in game--as I said, I tried this over 2 years ago. Almost destroyed my entire project before I could release it, doing exactly that. Scripts that used to work suddenly did not. And they were just as garbled as the Dead(yself"") crap you see all over Bioware's work, when decompiled. O:Object is a direct referrence to Object.ids--which not only contains no proper death variable names, but a lot of broken "objects". I will have to go through all your scripts, and change it to the safest available check: HPLT(1,<the object>).
Your spells were pretty close to my lineup--I think only two or three are conflicting. Did you look at the BP spell.ids prior, or was this merely fortunate coincidence? Keep in mind that the BP spell.ids is a
conglomeration of several modders' custom content. In most cases, we actually worked together to insure compatability. The same as many of us did with animate, and anisnd, IDS files.
You said no overwrites: how about this one:
COPY ~NeJ2/are/AR9800.are~ ~override/AR9800.are~
SAY 0x1124 ~Ulcaster Academy~
SAY 0x11e8 ~Ulcaster Academy~
Same goes for AR9801...
You also overwrite the area's script. It is indeed fortunate that one did not exist, prior. You did check, right?
Since this coincides with
BGT's Ulcaster, I'm taking a guess that you used
BGT as the base, right? This is a question, not a snide comment. What is different, anything? Something that couldn't be accomplished from the script file? And how will your changes affect a
BGT game? Or was it merely added to be there for the sake of an
SoA-based game? Why would this be necessary, as you're using BPBGTMAP? If it is indeed the latter, you should have a ACTION_IF NOT FILE_EXISTS check preceding it. Both for override and biff. The bif is BP-ARE, in case you are interested.
Well, I've been typing this for three hours, and it is nigh time to draw to a close. I hope I have sufficiently explained my viewpoint on this matter. We have a small, but tight-knit community of modders here, unlike any I've seen in any other game, EVAR! It really feels like a family. Let's work together better in the future, with communication, cooperation, and collaboration. Together, we can make this great thing we have accomplished even greater!
