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#61 Sergio

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Posted 30 July 2019 - 01:12 AM

Bg1 mini quests and encounters -> I didn’t enjoy all the components, but I still would recommend anyone to play the mod in its entirety, then choose whatever you enjoyed the mod.

Spoiler


 

Three other components warrant a more extensive review:
 

XIII. Legal Seachart Sources -> try it. I won’t be reinstalling this in next playthroughs

Spoiler

 

 

XIV. Additions to the House of the Lady and the Bitch Queen's Temple -> try it. I won’t reinstall anymore this component.


Spoiler



Bodies for a good cause -> try it, but I won’t reinstall it.
Spoiler

 


Edited by Sergio, 07 December 2020 - 01:15 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#62 Sergio

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Posted 06 August 2019 - 03:32 AM

The lure of Sirine call [BG1]-> try it. I won’t install it anymore

So... I’m really critical of mods that actually touch vanilla content.

Usually, when you meet Sil the sirine she will tell you: “This is not your place. This is the home of Sil’s Tribe. Dirty land folk you shall suffer for your trespass!”. So you are met with plain hostility by sirines, corroborated by the fact that you just killed many of her tribe.
 

But “the lure of the sirine call” adds the possibility to actually ally yourself with Sil, head woman of a small tribe. That’s because near the lighthouse you met a party (of npcs) planning to enter Black alaric cave and they plan/have killed already sirines to do that. So they ask for your help. The quest turns into a:

> help the sirines because they have no culprit for being right in front of Black alaric cave
> join the dark side
> deal with both sides.

So... I guess that’s up to the player if they would like the quest to be changed. I do not, simply because:

> I don’t feel the need for it.  

> you just killed many hostile sirines and the queen tries to explain her reasoning for doing what she does:

Spoiler

A head woman of a tribe of creatures that toy with humans have to explain you what’s going on. After having already slain her friends. Seems a little anticlimatic.
 

If they help you the give also the permission to enter Black alaric cave:

Spoiler

 

I would have given more points to the mod if new dialogues were added for Cordyr’s quest: https://baldursgate....and_the_Sirines

But... they were not.


Edited by Sergio, 06 August 2019 - 05:37 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#63 jastey

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Posted 06 August 2019 - 05:37 AM

6) Drunk near beregost temple: this quest would be a must have quest if what is implied by dialogues happened to be true. You meet a drunkard near the temple and he tells you that if you are not going away, he is going to make you regret poking him. How? Because he is a lich. None of this happens, sadly, he just falls off sleeping.

Just in case this is not clear. The drunk and his "I'm a lich" plus falling asleep is original game content. What bgqe adds is the possibility to either kill him and get reactions from NPCs, or to alert the temple about his presence so that he will be watched out for.
So, basically, you are reviewing the original game content, not the mod quest. ;)
 

 

 

 

9) Slime quest: I seem to remember I liked playing this quest, but (this is all my memory after having played it time ago) it is too taxing for evil characters and I didn't like that. Also I liked the quest, but I didn't enjoy it enough to have it in my game.

Funnily enough, that's the quest I spent most time on to add evil possibilities beside the plain "kill all": betray with a cheap antidote that could have unwanted side effects, jesting with the woman instead of helping her, etcpp. I do agree that finding a real evil quest solution is difficult if the main quest is about helping people, though.


Nevertheless, a lot of work went into making bgqe interesting for evil players. It's sad that it's not working, I could have saved a lot of time.



#64 Fouinto

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Posted 06 August 2019 - 05:52 AM

@jastey : it's just his own opinion (btw an interesting one for me) !

But I have to say that I love your mod as is (always in all my run since i discovered it). I also have to admit that, most of the time, I play the good path in each quest.

 

IMHO: the only bad path that is really to my taste in the whole saga is the cleric quests as Talos cleric (because it's bad and funny).



#65 Isewein

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Posted 06 August 2019 - 07:40 AM

I for one think that the more selfish/callous paths were fleshed out really well in BGQE, relative to the base game content. People have different understandings of how they play an "evil" character, and it's hard to please everyone. 



#66 Sergio

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 03:34 AM

6) Drunk near beregost temple: this quest would be a must have quest if what is implied by dialogues happened to be true. You meet a drunkard near the temple and he tells you that if you are not going away, he is going to make you regret poking him. How? Because he is a lich. None of this happens, sadly, he just falls off sleeping.

Just in case this is not clear. The drunk and his "I'm a lich" plus falling asleep is original game content. What bgqe adds is the possibility to either kill him and get reactions from NPCs, or to alert the temple about his presence so that he will be watched out for.
So, basically, you are reviewing the original game content, not the mod quest. ;)
 

 

 

 

9) Slime quest: I seem to remember I liked playing this quest, but (this is all my memory after having played it time ago) it is too taxing for evil characters and I didn't like that. Also I liked the quest, but I didn't enjoy it enough to have it in my game.

Funnily enough, that's the quest I spent most time on to add evil possibilities beside the plain "kill all": betray with a cheap antidote that could have unwanted side effects, jesting with the woman instead of helping her, etcpp. I do agree that finding a real evil quest solution is difficult if the main quest is about helping people, though.


Nevertheless, a lot of work went into making bgqe interesting for evil players. It's sad that it's not working, I could have saved a lot of time.

 

6) You are totally right. I guess I should have been more extensive in my review, given that I missed half of the content of the review, ahaha.

The options are the one you explained. I just said that I would love a daring approach: I made a reference to him turning into a lich because that would have been something it would have been funny to see: a "twist" I would have appreciated within the mod that would have totally subverted any player expectations... to the point of being cheesy. But even in that case I still doubt I would have added the component to any game.

And why would a temple care about a drunkard?


By the way, who are these npcs that would care about killing the drunkard? The party?

12) Given that I wanted to explain the point further, I tried to actually go once again for the evil route, only to meet a bug. The potion seller doesn't give me any fake antidote. I'm playing BG:EE (not EE:T) -> http://www.filedropp...00000023-tulbor


Edited by Sergio, 07 August 2019 - 03:48 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#67 jastey

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 07:08 AM

Which version of bgqe are you playing? The potion seller not giving any potions is fixed (should be) in current v19.

 

 

By the way, who are these npcs that would care about killing the drunkard? The party?

Yes, party NPC reactions was what I was referring to.



#68 Sergio

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 09:21 AM

Should be version 19: http://www.filedropper.com/bgqe-v19

 


Edited by Sergio, 07 August 2019 - 09:24 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#69 jastey

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 11:17 AM

There is nothing missing in the code, but appearently, it's another one of the problems the EE engine has with GiveItem[Create] in the midle of a dialogue - it doesn't get executed for god knows why.

Thanks for the report, I'll need to make this fail-proof using the area script as it seems.

The item code is "C#Q01004" for the cheap alternative.



#70 Sergio

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 01:05 PM

Thanks. So I've played the quest once again and ... some thoughts:

 

1) it's better than I remembered and I would add it amongst the ones that have to be played. I'll rectify the review. I also liked the evil content... I played the quest around 6-8 times (Was it because I played it in EE 1.3?) and I had never seen the

Spoiler
path. 

2) I think that the fake antidote has a chance a little too high too work, or was I extremely lucky? In 10 times, I think only three times the fake antidote didn't work. I'm trying and trying again and I save him almost always. I think the ratio amongst 100 times should be:
20 (good ending)
40 (neutral ending) 
40 (evil ending)

3) If you save eldoth, option 2) and 3) give you the same "reward" and turn into the same "scenario". Your rudeness is not calculated at all.

Said this, thanks for making me play the mod once again :)



 


Edited by Sergio, 07 August 2019 - 01:14 PM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#71 jastey

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Posted 07 August 2019 - 02:02 PM

Thank you for the kind words! I'll think about reducing the chances of the cheap antidote.

In the meantime, v20 is up which also should now really fix the potion buying problem. It also restores the Russian translation.



#72 Sergio

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Posted 29 September 2019 - 06:25 AM

The white Queen  --> ok quest mod. Play it and see if it suits you. I won't reinstall it again

[Story Recap for myself in case I forget about this mod one day]

Spoiler


So... why I won’t be installing it again?

1) There is no true way to roleplay in this mod. In fact it felt to me the mod seems to constantly tease you about what you’re going to do with the queen, only to meet the reality that no matter how much you try to de-escalate the stuff, you are going to kill her no matter what. The final will always be the same.

2) What my Charname said sometimes did not reflect at all what he thought. Example:

Spoiler

 

As you can see, my charname seems to be out for blood. Debatable, because it should be the player actually choosing what charname thinks. There is no “he left me no other choice”, or whatever.

But then, 10 seconds later, in another encounter:

Spoiler


3) It’s not clear why the druid has actually offered the child to the hag. I mean, it escalated in the death of everyone, but what did the druid get from it?

4) You will finally meet the hag in the ending, but you won’t be able to “actually” talk with her. She will make her appearance, you have one line of dialogue, the she goes away. You don’t want to make her explain? Fine, she is a hag after all. But letting her say her dialogues then getting out it’s not the best solution, especially because I doubt she would actually try to endanger herself by meeting a child of Bhaal that has just killed everyone just to explain that the swamp is now doomed.

5) The hags talks as if she was a poet.
Spoiler

 

6) There is no real closure about the child. Queen’s words:

Spoiler


I would say that the dialogue is a bit conflicting, because first it tells you that they found him dead, then they say you that all they found was a silver chain.
Then you meet the hag, she tells you the child is alive, and you are left puzzled wondering what is the child going through. You know Hag are usually evil creatures: if you got a good charname I doubt very much he will leave the child to an evil creature.  Whatever.

 

Bugs:
1) When talking with the demon, if you choose the option “I want to have more knowledge of the spheres” nothing at all happens.
2) When the hag appears, she has the voiceover that automatically tells “you look like a good enough sort”
3) Text error: “chlid” -> child                              File: WQXN.tra
4) Text error: tranquility -> tranquillity                File: WXQWQ.tra
5) Text error: ~Are going to kill her, then?~       FILE WQX2T.Tra. Missing a “you”


Note: the mod also has a fetch quest that I don’t care about.
Note number 2: the mod adds a chance to free a demon in exchange for a boon, but in my party, none reacted to my "evil" deed, not even Keldorn (I had in my party Ariena, Jaheira, Jan, Keldorn). I think Keldorn should heavily object to charname behaviour.


Edited by Sergio, 30 September 2019 - 07:42 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#73 Almateria

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Posted 29 September 2019 - 07:47 AM

Hags talking in rhyme are extremely good. Please refer to Banjo & Kazooie

#74 Sergio

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Posted 29 September 2019 - 11:46 PM

I shall never forget --> ok quest mod.  Try it and see if it’s worth adding for you. Doubt I will be reinstalling it again though.

Story:

Spoiler



 

                                                                                                         What I liked the most

At a certain point, you enter the void to find Selene. The void is inhabitated by memories. You are suggested by an unknown force to actually go with the flow and tell the words that come to your mind as soon as these “memories” talk to you. By doing that, you explore the relationship between Orion and Selene. That is well done.



                                                                                                     Why I won’t be installing the mod anymore:

 

1) The mod is very linear. Once you played it, you experienced all what he has to offer.  

2) By being linear, you have no actual way to influence the ending in any meaningful hammer. This seems to be a strict “rule” of these mods: https://forums.beamd...#Comment_901938
But it’s not only the ending: in the middle of the mod, you meet an undead that seems to have still a little bit of rationality. But no matter how much you try, which options you choose, the ending of the encounter will always be the same. This leaves me a bit conflicted.

 

3) There are some reference to colors, but I guess that unless you played the other mods the player (myself included) would not catch the meanings. Add on top of that that given that the colors are a leitmotif of these mods, there is the risk that charname knows more about colors than the players (why would charname tell out of the blue that white is the color of emptiness?).
Beside, the fact that no other piece of content mention colors (but these mods) kinda gives it away you are playing a mod.

 

4) I’m not exactly sure what’s the void Selene’s soul is inside. Does it have any connection with D&D lore?
 

Spoiler


6) I wasn’t able to find any explanation about what’s the “happy memory” power for. It is a sanctuary spell?

7) There is another little issue for myself: to find this quest you have to enter "uninvited" into the observatory in Government district. I'm not used to do that in my playthroughs.


Edited by Sergio, 30 September 2019 - 01:12 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#75 Sergio

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Posted 01 October 2019 - 08:46 AM

Innershade -> Try it once. In my case I won’t reinstall it.

What I liked: the part with the grandma barbara is well done.

What I didn’t like:

1) The quests got bugged for apparently no reason. I got the quest from the kid, but no father was there.
I got the quest from the lathander priest (the main quest of the village) but no matter what I did inside the mine it didn’t seem to make any difference. Given that I already played the mod in the past with no issues, I thought I thought I was missing something, but after restarting the mod, everything worked perfectly.  (Bugged) Savegame here: http://www.filedropp...ggateporcatroia
Anyway, I tried to replicate the bugs but I wasn’t able to.

For anyone having issues I write the solution:

a) The boy near the well will ask you to go check for his father inside the mine. After having entered the mine, just go bottom-left. The corpse of the father will be here. If it isn’t here, reload.

b) The lathander priest will ask you to check what is going on inside the mine. All you have to do is enter the mine and scout around, then go back to the lathander priest.  No other things are needed.
Then the lathander priest will ask you to rest inside the mines and the “main quest” will begin.

 

2) The grandma Barbara is supposed to give you a stone, at least judging by the dialogues you got with her. But I got a dagger.

3) Fetch quests.

4) Linearity: I mean... I got that you can go into Innershade when you are low level, but for example, it would be cute if you could resurrect the father of the kid. I have a level 30 anomen able to do that.

5) The ending gives you the possibility to solve the issues between the dream entity and the witch that forsake her, but.... I’m not satisfied with the choices you are given. I am evil and I want my adventure to be profitable or satisfying: I’m not evil just for the sake of being evil.
So... what does my evil charname want from the creature? The dream proved to be powerful enough to actually challenge my charname and I would like to use my Pocket plane power to expel the dream entity from myself and anchor it to the pocket plane; or use it as a summon. I want to subdue his will.

 

6) the voice over rustles (Sadly), especially when the dream becomes part of you and use the power “dreaming”.

7) if you go the good ending, you are gifted the necklace of the seldarine. 


Edited by Sergio, 03 October 2019 - 02:56 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#76 Sergio

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Posted 01 October 2019 - 10:15 AM

Eilistraee’s song -> ok quest mod.  See if it’s worth adding for you. Doubt I’ll be reinstalling it again.

Story

Spoiler


Notes:
- The mod is pretty linear.
- Given that you meet Eilistraee followers it’s mostly aimed for good charname(s).
- You can't enter any tent: all you can enter is just the hole in the ground. 

 


Edited by Sergio, 01 October 2019 - 01:36 PM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#77 Sergio

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Posted 01 October 2019 - 11:37 AM

Tales of the deep gardens -> ok quest mod.  See if it’s worth adding for you. Doubt I’ll be reinstalling it again.

Story: The quest begins with you having to fetch some items for a mage in the council district. After bringing these items to the mage you are teleported to the deep gardens. Here you have to find 10 colors to leave the place.

The good: the npcs and the place feel very alien.
The bad: I don’t like the fact that this mod has to begin via a fetch quest.

 

Notes:

1) killing the skeleton for the beginning fetch quest doesn’t tell you that you actually got the skull in your inventory. I mean, you get the note in the log, but it should be more evident because I was fighting and I missed it. In fact I kept exploring the dungeon because I thought I had not yet found it.

2) This is the list of permanent bonuses, from which Silvertongue lets you choose one for CHARNAME:

Spoiler


3) note about the voiceacting. The fact that this mod has the same voiceacting (See DGDream01, DGDREAM02, etc) as of:
a) The white Queen (initial screen)
b) Innershade (initial screen) + the dreamer voice (ISHxDRE)
c) foundling

takes a bit away from immersion.

4) The voice-acting is ok, but there is a bad rustle for some voices.


Edited by Sergio, 01 October 2019 - 11:55 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#78 Sergio

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Posted 01 October 2019 - 01:05 PM

Xulaye mod -> try it. Doubt I’ll be reinstalling it again

Story: Xulaye asks to join you right after you meet Soulafein and Phaere. She will be a thorn in your side, but she will respect you if you behave as a drow would.

The good:

> Xulaye has on point dialogues; she is a woman drow and will make you respect her. He will also taunt you and test you.

> Xulaye provides you with a new ending to the whole demon summoning

Spoiler


The bad:

> There is a quest added, but in my game it was not clear at all what it was for. A messenger comes for Xulaye and asks you to be brought in front of Mistress Larace, matron mother of house House Kii'Rret.
You go there and you are asked to either pay 20k gold coins to the matron mother or give her an armor that cost 20k gold (sold by Duergars).

The follow up seems to be a second quest about Xulaye's fake eggs, but if you spare Soulafein it seems like a total waste?

Note: This “problem” will be retconnected with the dream scenario I’ll explain later.

> If you use PID (player initiated dialogues on Xulaye) you can ask her this question: “Could you tell me of Benarra”? The problem is that I don’t know who Benerra is and in the following dialogues she even mentions another brother, Tarkiz, but I never meet any of these two during my staying in Ust Nasta.

> The new ending makes it impossible to give the eggs to the demon lord if you are evil. 


Given the quality of the mod, I would like to write a fantasy scenario about Xulaye.

 

Spoiler


 


Edited by Sergio, 03 October 2019 - 04:06 AM.

Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#79 Sergio

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Posted 03 October 2019 - 02:54 AM

Note: the new mod reviewed is above and it's Innershade. I moved it near all the others so one can check my opinion on Lava's mods without having to scroll

Fading promises -> it’s an ok mod. I think it is worth trying and see if you enjoy it. 

Story:

Spoiler


The good: it’s a simple quest mod, with a simple but effective story, with the chance of betraying Aidan.

 

Some notes:

1) The guy speaks with (old or middle?) English language, and I don’t reckon many characters talking like that in BG. In fact, you can ask him why he talks like that (indirectly, by saying him it seems he came out of a chronicle),  but he won’t comment on what you said.

2) You meet him, you tell each other your name then he asks you to come back the next night to narrate you why he is still a ghost.  Given that you are supposed to meet him more than once in different days to hear all of his story, there is even a dialogue where you can ask “can’t you just tell me all of this at once rather than feeding it to me little by little”? His answer is a mere “nay, for our time together is too short for telling”.  
 

3) This is the only playthrough where I was able to finish the quest (even if I started this mod in many different playthroughs).  In the many playthroughs I’ve done, I was never able to finish the quest because I forgot to come back each night to talk with him.




But in the end ... the mod is fine. All in all, it’s a nice mod. 


Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.


#80 Sergio

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Posted 03 October 2019 - 03:52 AM

Now I also played all TDD content. So this is for Subtledoctor
 

Espurta -> I didn’t like this mod and I don’t recommend it at all.


Spoiler












 


Low hung brow, dazed look on your face..... It appears that you are correct, my friend. You are indeed a complete imbecile.