252 replies to this topic

[The Imp]

Another question: Every time the BAT tried to install a mod i got a wardning bei WeiDU that the version I was using is unstable and that i should revert to an older one, unless I knew what i was doing (which I don't). Should I just ignore the warning?

Yeah, technically you are using a beta build of the installation program, but there's a few mods that might reguire it. So you are better off just ignoring the warning.

Also, if i only have a subset of the recommended mods and some of the standard mods, can I still use the BAT? What option should I pick? Still Standard?

Well the fact is, you can choose the Tactics option too, it add more components to be installed in the process, but it will probably make the game harder... But do not use the eXpert mode, as that's bug rigged like an ant hill.

@TDD etc: Why exactly? I thought old mods would be well tested and more stable.

Kulyok's tries to warn you that the quest lines and so forth are not the very best of the BG2 moding has... but my oppinion is that you never know what they are like unless you try them. PS, you can actually avoid a great deal of the content if you wish... dah.

Edited by The Imp, 30 August 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Kulyok]

Some of these mods were made even before we had the first versions of Weidu, so they use some old coding, compatibility-wise it's not the best decision - even after all these years, they don't "play nice" seamlessly. Ascension suffers from that, too, that's why it's installed even before the Fixpack, and gods know we need a new version with some of the more annoying bugs fixed. But it's not the main issue. It's a matter of quality(dialogue's lacking, new NPCs are completely silent) and game balance(new spells are completely overpowered, items are crude and out of place). Ascension at least was written by David Gaider, lead ToB designer, and that's why people install it so often, and many enjoy it.

 

Anyway, it's late where I am, but whatever you choose, I hope you get through with it and enjoy your playthrough.

[The Imp]

Ascension suffers from that, too, that's why it's installed even before the Fixpac

Actually you are wrong... we don't use the Ascension mod at all(we use the BP's component of it ! ), and we recode the Tactics mod to not overwrite... welcome to the year 2013 of megamoding !

Yeah, you can use the Ascension mod... but the megamod based on the BWP does not !

Edited by The Imp, 30 August 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[Lollorian]

Essential stuff IMHO:

Spoiler

BG2Fixpack

ToBEx

BG2Tweakpack

BGT

BGTTweakPack

BG Graphics Overhaul

1PP

InfinityAnimations

BG1NPC

BG1UB

(BG2)UB

PPG Banterpack

IEP Banterpack

Widescreen

Generalized Biffing

 

[The Imp]

Essential stuff IMHO:

Ouh, but why would you even post that ? As it's not in the correct install order... and it has not any of the BWP tools in it. Yeah, one can make a good install from that without them ... but, it's not a megamod ... much.

Yes, I am cranky today, friend.

Edited by The Imp, 30 August 2013 - 10:29 AM.

[HiPhish]

Well, thanks guys. I have reduced my selection to less than 50 mods now, consisting of the essentials posted by people and some quest mods that sounded nice. This looks much better than the monstrosity I had before and hopefully it will also install much faster. Before I go about installing, how do i clean up the existign Windows install? Is it enough if I just uninstall the games (I'm using the GoG version) and then trash the folders? Is it enough if I only do it to Baldur's gate 2 and not BG 1? As far as i understand the Trilogy didn't change anything about BG 1, it just copied the needed files over.

EDIT: I'm still trying to figure out what Infinity Animation does; at first i thought it just added some extra animations from IWD, but apparently it can add animations from Neverwinter Nights or Diablo 2. What kind of sense does that make, especially with NWN being a 3D game? is it worth getting or will it cause more problems than it solves?

Edited by HiPhish, 30 August 2013 - 02:13 PM.

[The Imp]

Well, thanks guys. I have reduced my selection to less than 50 mods now, consisting of the essentials posted by people and some quest mods that sounded nice. This looks much better than the monstrosity I had before and hopefully it will also install much faster. Before I go about installing, how do i clean up the existign Windows install? Is it enough if I just uninstall the games (I'm using the GoG version) and then trash the folders? Is it enough if I only do it to Baldur's gate 2 and not BG 1? As far as i understand the Trilogy didn't change anything about BG 1, it just copied the needed files over.

Yes, it's enought to uninstall and then clean the BG2 folder, the BG1 is only used to copy data from to the BG2 folder...

EDIT: I'm still trying to figure out what Infinity Animation does; at first i thought it just added some extra animations from IWD, but apparently it can add animations from Neverwinter Nights or Diablo 2. What kind of sense does that make, especially with NWN being a 3D game? is it worth getting or will it cause more problems than it solves?

Well the other games creatures are reanimated to be in the same format as the BG2's, so they look quite much as good as the original BG2 animations. Now the Infinity Animations mod is a little harder to extract to the game folder than the usual mod as the content is in large pieces and it needs to be extracted as instructed in the primary install archives readme says. And there's a sample picture of the animations in the html: -readme that comes in the installer package as well.
You essencially could choose to not utilize any and all components, and the BWP will use the ones you extract correctly. The only problem that you will run into with the IA is the codepage issue 3.2..

Edited by The Imp, 30 August 2013 - 03:05 PM.

[The Imp]

TDD has some compatability issues with several other mods that I like, so I don't load TDD.  TDD was the first (or one of the 1st mods) and even in the latest version does not play well with many other mods.   I have my opinion on other mods,  but would not recommend TDD in a megainstall because of the compatability issues with several other mods.  As a stand alone mode TDD can be fun.

Ahh... yeah, there's a few dialog compatibility interruptions that never return to the original state which make the mods incompatible as a whole... if you wish to look at the small print... the question comes down to do you wish to play a romance for the few mods, or the quest mod that's far bigger.

Edited by The Imp, 30 August 2013 - 04:22 PM.

[Lollorian]

InfinityAnimations has issues yes, but it only happens with a combination of ItemRevisions and 1PP... also one of them was solved a few weeks back (wait for the next BWPFixpack)

 

About 3D animations, what these guys did was capture images of these 3D animations and combine them like an animated GIF so you have 3D animations in your 2D game in the form of 2D animations that are actually 2D images of 3D animations... IN 2D

 

If you're modding BGII for the first time, don't use the megamods like TDD and whatnot - grab the smaller quest mods by the bundle though (they're easier to avoid and you don't miss much if you avoid them )

Megamods - once you start them, they're like this sidequest that never finishes

 

Best course of action:

1) Grab whatever mods you want

2) Extract them to any temporary folder to make sure the inconsistent packaging in some mods is not an issue (every mod has a SETUp-xxx.exe and an XXX folder - there can also be a SETUP-XXX.TP2 but it's usually inside the XXX folder... WeiDU doesn't care if the TP2 is inside or out)

3) Make sure every EXE (and TP2) and folders are directly inside your temporary folder (and not in some subfolder)

4) Extract the BWP tools (installpack, fixpack, trimpack, textpack) to your temporary folder - make sure the BAT files are directly inside the temporary folder

5) Copy the entire contents of your temporary folder to your BGII folder and just run BiG World Install.bat

6) It will install whatever mods are in your BGII folder at the moment and warn you about missing essential mods (which you can download and extract then and there... the install will wait )

7) Sleep for the night

Wake up to a bright new day ... oh and yeah the install should be done.

Edited by Lollorian, 30 August 2013 - 07:54 PM.

[The Imp]

InfinityAnimations has issues yes, but it only happens with a combination of ItemRevisions and 1PP... also one of them was solved a few weeks back (wait for the next BWPFixpack)

 

About 3D animations, what these guys did was capture images of these 3D animations and combine them like an animated GIF so you have 3D animations in your 2D game in the form of 2D animations that are actually 2D images of 3D animations... IN 2D

 

If you're modding BGII for the first time, don't use the megamods like TDD and whatnot - grab the smaller quest mods by the bundle though (they're easier to avoid and you don't miss much if you avoid them )

Megamods - once you start them, they're like this sidequest that never finishes

 

Best course of action:

1) Grab whatever mods you want

2) Extract them to any temporary folder to make sure the inconsistent packaging in some mods is not an issue (every mod has a SETUp-xxx.exe and an XXX folder - there can also be a SETUP-XXX.TP2 but it's usually inside the XXX folder... WeiDU doesn't care if the TP2 is inside or out)

3) Make sure every EXE (and TP2) and folders are directly inside your temporary folder (and not in some subfolder)

4) Extract the BWP tools (installpack, fixpack, trimpack, textpack) to your temporary folder - make sure the BAT files are directly inside the temporary folder

5) Copy the entire contents of your temporary folder to a backup folder, and then to your BGII folder and just run BiG World Install.bat

6) It will install whatever mods are in your BGII folder at the moment and warn you about missing essential mods (which you can download and extract then and there... the install will wait )

7) Sleep for the night

Wake up to a bright new day ... oh and yeah the install should be done.

Fixed that for you...

[jastey]

This is a nitpick: In the pdf, the mod at position 19.20 is named "Parting company v1", but I think it is called Parting Ways by the author. It will be included into the Kerzenburgforum Link List by the author's name.

[HiPhish]

This is driving me crazy. It seems to fine on Windows, but when I play in Wine the game crashes when I'm about to leave Candlekeep. Just about when Gorion finishes talking and before he starts casting. The same thing happens at the start of BG2 when irenicus is about to start casting his spells on me in the cutscene. Does anyone have any idea?

EDIT: To clarify, I installed and modded everythign in Windows accordint to the instructions. I also installed BG 1 & 2 in Wine and started & saved a new game there as well for the registry entries. The file path are the same as well and everything starts properly, it's just crashing when trying to play spell animations.

EDIT2: Also, the spell animations did work in Wine before I had any mods applied, so it's not like they are broken by default in Wine.

Edited by HiPhish, 31 August 2013 - 11:15 AM.

[joshuar9476]

Do I still need the MTS Crappack Install Component 29 [Install Quest Pack Compatability Patch by Moongaze]?

 

It's the only reason I would need to download MTS, but I still use BP and the Quest Pack. Do they play nice on their own yet?

[HiPhish]

I can't believe it, I found the solution for my crashes. I was just about to give up entirely and shelf the game for the next couple of years, when I started another last desperate Google search and this thread was the very first search result:
http://www.shsforums...ex-21-and-wine/

In case the links breaks at some point in the future, here is the relevant quote:

Hi,

It is good to see that TobEx works well on Wine (mostly). I am unsure what is going on here, as it appears that only a single patch isn't being applied. You can work around this by opening ./TobEx_ini/TobExCore.ini and changing

[Spells]
Casting Fixes=1

such that "Casting Fixes=0

The error code doesn't really help me because the code indicates it can't find the error message, so I'm a bit stumped on this one.

Let me know if this works around things for the time being.

http://www.shsforums...-wine/?p=532979

[Lollorian]

@joshuar9476: MTSCrappack's patches didn't even work before the BWPFixpack started to patch it properly... and that was around 2 years AFTER it became a part of the BWP.

 

So, no they never made a difference and shouldn't if you choose not to install them. I'll try to get these 'compatibility patches' remade in the coming weekend.

[Creepin]

My tests shows that 3rd question (the one about mixed case labels) of 1PP v.4's component 104 shouldn't be ever asked if you chose answer "2" of 2nd question in same component.

 

However, BWP 13 Manual advises to answer "2" on 2nd question and then proceeds to 3rd question as if it's normal for 3rd question to fire even if 2nd one was answered "2" as proposed in manual.

 

So, could anyone please check if you'll still be asked about mixed case labels after giving "2 Keep fonts unchanged" to "Install updated fonts?". That would be really appreciated.

[katiecubed]

Hi all-

So I am having some trouble getting the BiG World Install.bat to run.  I have a clean installation of the GOG versions of BG/BGII, installed to a custom location.  I am running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, UAC is off, and my virus scanner has been set to ignore the entire hard drive.  The Fixpack, Textpack, and Trimpack .bat files all run without problems, and I have no trouble installing Weidu mods manually.  HOWEVER, when I try to run the Install.bat, it successfully copies the six or so initial files into the game directory(such as weidu.exe) and then I am prompted to enter any key twice, which of course I do.  At this point, the window is spammed with the following line: BiG World Installpack\cut: write error  until a window pops up that says: "cut.exe has stopped working". 

 

I am hoping that this is something relatively easy to fix or work around because the idea of having to manually install all of these mods is giving me a headache

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I haven't played these games in many years and I was looking forward to trying out a megamod install...

[Nocat]

Hi all-

So I am having some trouble getting the BiG World Install.bat to run.  I have a clean installation of the GOG versions of BG/BGII, installed to a custom location.  I am running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, UAC is off, and my virus scanner has been set to ignore the entire hard drive.  The Fixpack, Textpack, and Trimpack .bat files all run without problems, and I have no trouble installing Weidu mods manually.  HOWEVER, when I try to run the Install.bat, it successfully copies the six or so initial files into the game directory(such as weidu.exe) and then I am prompted to enter any key twice, which of course I do.  At this point, the window is spammed with the following line: BiG World Installpack\cut: write error  until a window pops up that says: "cut.exe has stopped working". 

 

I am hoping that this is something relatively easy to fix or work around because the idea of having to manually install all of these mods is giving me a headache

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I haven't played these games in many years and I was looking forward to trying out a megamod install...

 

Sounds like a language thing to me.

 

Try setting your system language to English for non-unicode programs.

 

This can happen if you change your system to Japanese if you are the type to play some VN's. I am guessing this off of your avatar.

[katiecubed]

@Nocat-

 

Thanks so much for the tip, it turns out that I had changed my system locale to Japan some time ago and completely forgot to change it back

 

So now the Install.bat seems to be functioning as its supposed to, only now I'm having an issue where it quits abruptly during the install process, right after doing something with Kelsey's audio with the Smoothpack.  I'm thinking it doesn't like something about one or more of the mods I've got, since I tried just the bare minimum install of BWP and that worked fine.  I'll keep poking at it until I either figure it out myself or I end up back here pleading for assistance