Geoff the Barbarian

First, thanks to SimDing0 for taking the time to write the tutorial for creating a store item!

Second, I hope I am posting this in the right place...

I would love to write a full-blown mod but doubt that I have the time or attention span. But I am sick of BG2 inventory management. So I want to make a few limitless bag items and have them be available in the Adventurers Mart.

This is my first attempt at screwing around with the IE. I have some ideas for some other things I'd like to try but first I have to at least be able to make an item!

There are a couple of things I am not clear about from the tutorial.

When using the IDU to create the DLG file, the tutorial refers to adding text for the "second level". This is adding an Option, right? Also, when I use IDU to analyze my saved DLG file, it tells me that I have Option 0 and am executing Action 0.

I looked at some other DLG files for stores and they have the action string as StartStore("STOBELTP",LastTalkedToBy) but the tutorial has it as StartStoreStartStore("STOBELTP",LastTalkedToBy()). I tried it with and without the doubled-up StartStore and also with and without the function parentheses on LastTalkedToBy, but I still can't create a DLG file that has an action other than 0.

Maybe this refers to a zero-offset array or collection and is perfectly fine - but it seems odd. Are these supposed to be zero-offset?

My biggest problem is with the ITEMDIAL.2DA file. I don't have one. Nor can I find one using WinBif. Nor do I have any file anywhere in my BG2 folder system that contains both "label" and "file". I tried making one from scratch but it made BG2 throw an unhandled error and bomb. I tried a couple of other versions, BG2 no longer bombs, but I am only guessing what is supposed to go in what column, the string values in the tutorial are run together on the web page - I cannot tell where the padding spaces are supposed to be between columns. I am guessing that "LABEL" is the header for the second column and "FILE" for the third but this is just a guess, and I may have them in the wrong character position even if I have them in the right order.

My item works, kind of. I can create it with CLUAConsole, and it appears in my inventory. If I double click it, it is indeed an item container, and I can put things in and take them out without issue (so far anyway). The labels on the item container store page are all correct. I can drag-and-drop stuff in and it goes in. All good.

But if I right-click the item, I get the correct image and text but the button that is supposed to say "Open Container" instead says "Enough of this. It is time for you to D" and pressing the button does not open the container. Since I don't have it working correctly I am concerned that I will corrupt my game files if I continue using it. And I don't want to "D" even if it is my time.

I deleted the DLG and 2DA files and got the same results. I assume that my bad 2DA file is keeping BG2 from finding my DLG file.

BTW - the files BAG02.ITM and BAG02.STO will not exist as separate files for people who have not already been mucking about in them. I eventually found Winbif on the TeamBG site and figured out that I needed to use it to extract BAG02.itm and BAG02.sto from the main BIF files. Not particularly difficult, but you might want to mention this in the Tutorial.

Thanks in advance, just for the tutorial. Bonus thanks to whomever takes the time to read this and reply too!