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Baldur's Gate: More, Faster, Better  (August 2013)
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Baldurs Gate is not a walking simulator, is it?  And why so stingy on the the voice
and portrait selections??  This mod adds faster walking speeds, new portraits and 
new voice sound sets.  

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For Use With:
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Baldur's Gate 
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast
Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition ????

Compatible with Everything  :D

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Features:
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This mod offers 3 possible variations of almost all boots so that they modify 
movement speed when worn.  It also changes a single style of Buckler to a pair of 
Worn Boots so a basic pair of boots can be purchased.  Worn Boots cost 1 gold.  
The only pair of boots not affected is the Paws of the Cheetah (boots of speed).  
In each version, the boots of speed remained untouched, so they will remain a 
significant item to find and use.

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Boots:
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Walk Speed 7 will increase movement just slightly; barely noticeable (for purists). 
Walk Speed 8 will increase movement yet a bit more; becomes a bit more noticeable.
Walk Speed 9 will increase movement significantly; on par w/ BG 2 speeds, I believe.

Note:  Boots of speed have default movement speed of 11 (I made no changes to them), 
so they are still much faster than what I've done to the other boots.

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Sounds:
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98 new sound sets!!!  Included are complete (a-w, as per BG standard) NPC character 
sound sets constructed from the NPC sound sets from IWD 1&2, BG1&2, and PST.
This raises the total number of available voice sets to choose from 6 to 104. You 
can also use these sounds in BG2, though you should delete the Sounds folder in 
the BG2 directory first before replacing it with this package or you may experience
mixed voice sets.

Note:  This was ALOT of work.  The IWD1&2 soundets are much bigger and offer more 
variety, so it was a big process of elimination.  The IWD1&2 soundsets also use a
completely different naming convention.  Soundsets were broken up and renamed to be 
useable in BG (we're talking THOUSANDS of files - renamed, sometimes many times).  
Then, I loaded every soundset, ran BG, and listened to every sample 
- taking studious notes on what file it was and what was said.  I then picked the 
best, most appropriate lines, to suit the selected sound slot and deleted the rest.
 
The PST and BG1&2 soundsets were a different monster altogether. I had to extract 
all the sound files from their BIFs and sort through them.  Much of the work I did
never made it into this mod.  I tried making soundsets of certain unique characters 
(Irenicus, The Transcendent One, Ravel,...), but if I couldn't fill a needed sound 
slot with an appropriate sample, then I scrapped it. Very tedious work.  I used an 
entire writing composition book taking notes.  Worth it in the end, I think.

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Portraits:
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93 new portraits are included.  The bulk of them are official BG2 and NWN portraits.
The BG2 portraits were an easy extract, copy, rename and paste affair.  The other 
portraits, however, required ALOT of work.  Scaling, touching up, and formatting.  
You can also use these portraits in BG2, though the portraits beginning with x are 
(mostly) already selectable in the game.  Exceptions: xMinsc*.bmp (Booless version) 
,xSuna*.bmp, xSarevk*.bmp, and xJon*.bmp.

Note: All of the portraits were carefully chosen to make sure they had the same 
milieu, or feeling, as the default originals - there are no 3d rendered, no anime,
no IWD painterly-style, or any other differenty-style portraits. 

Also, Many of the portraits were redone, sometimes several times, in order to get 
just the right proportion so as to match well with the default original. 

I really wanted to make the portraits selectable like the default originals are, I
even made the requisite "giant" portraits for that, but unfortunately it is
hard-coded and beyond my ken to alter.  If anyone figures it out, drop me a line. 
I've backed up my work files.

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xtras:
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The plain Girdle (belt) and the plain Bracers now add +1 max hp when worn.  I never
understood why these items even existed because they had zero functional value. So,
now they add a minor benefit to illustrate the obvious usefulness such items would 
add to the survival of an adventurer. I consider this a fair bump to the items when
all the other non-cursed items of these two types are still more advantageous to 
have than these.

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What I did:
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I simply added a movement modifier to the necessary boot items.  I then took the
modified Worn Boots item and replaced one style of buckler with them, so they can 
now be bought in stores, there are still two other styles of bucklers available.

I used a few community tools to extract the necessary wav and bmp files.
I used GIMP (Ubuntu user here) to edit, resize, reformat and export the bmp files.

Programs used:
GIMP
DLTCEP
NWNExplorer

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Installation:
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This mod alters no strings and is therefore a plug-n-play mod.  Just copy and paste
the files of the version you want into the Override directory, overwriting all.  It
will work in both fixed/modded and unfixed/unmodded games

Portraits and Sounds go in their respective directories (not the override).

xtras go in the override directory.

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Inspiration:
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Many years ago I created bloated little mods called Faster BG and Firewalker, born 
of the same fundamental idea to offer faster movement speeds.  Unfortunately, I 
made them with the buggy editors of the time with their arcane file formats.  That, 
coupled with the delusions of modding grandeur I had, lead me to create something 
unlikely to be used by many due to the then rising prevalence of the now common 
Weidu format.  My creation was antiquated by the time I was done, and I had worn 
myself out and lost any desire to continue.  

The desire has returned now, because I find myself trying to play BG, but unable to 
enjoy it due to the slow movement speed.  I thought over the years, with all the 
fixes and tweakpacks, that surely someone with greater knowledge and talent than I 
would fix this one lasting flaw of this game, I was wrong.  Those who would suggest 
I install Tutu or Trilogy, clearly have no clue why this was made.

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Contact info:
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By Jason H.
eirinjas@gmail.com

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