137 replies to this topic

[grogerson]

Ascension64, my suggestion for locations of bags/cases/belts around the Sword Coast :

Gem Bag - Friendly Arm Inn
Scroll Case - High Hedge (Thalantir)
Potion Case - Gullykin
Ammo Belt - Durlag's Tower (Erdain)
Bag of Holding - Nashkel or with Mulahey

This scattering makes them harder to acquire early in the game.
Use your own "bagxx" numbers for them.
Make them non-transferable to Athkatla.
They should be a bit pricey, but possible to get when the player reaches them... or shortly thereafter.

This won't interfer with Vlad's idea for transfering items, and will make inventory control a lot easier.

On a side note, with all the fixes you've made to BGT-WeiDU, when will we see an updated version on the mirrors? Or are you updating the mirrors with the fixes as you go?

[Promilus]

Bag of Holding-some of them SHOULD be found at Tazok Tent-because as we know from Davaeorn letters Tazok had some of them to travel fast with iron

[Ascension64]

Ascension64, my suggestion for locations of bags/cases/belts around the Sword Coast :

Gem Bag - Friendly Arm Inn
Scroll Case - High Hedge (Thalantir)
Potion Case - Gullykin
Ammo Belt - Durlag's Tower (Erdain)
Bag of Holding - Nashkel or with Mulahey

This scattering makes them harder to acquire early in the game.
Use your own "bagxx" numbers for them.
Make them non-transferable to Athkatla.
They should be a bit pricey, but possible to get when the player reaches them... or shortly thereafter.

This won't interfer with Vlad's idea for transfering items, and will make inventory control a lot easier.

On a side note, with all the fixes you've made to BGT-WeiDU, when will we see an updated version on the mirrors? Or are you updating the mirrors with the fixes as you go?

Great, sounds cool for the containers, although this is all now spoilt! But don't delete it, because I don't have a record at the moment.
On the fixes note, they aren't up, but a patch won't be ready soon either. There might not be a patch at all...What kind of fix do you really need? The Davaeorn's Key to River Plug fix is there at the moment.

[Vlad]

When you come back from Durlag's Tower to Ulgoth's Beard a group of enemy cultists attack you. At the same time the messenger (BRDBYEND.CRE) standing there runs away because this is written in his script RUNENEMY.BCS. As a result you cannot move to SoA.

[kharan5876]

Messenger running? Wonder if thats a compatability thing cuz it never happened to me in beta 4?

[Ascension64]

When you come back from Durlag's Tower to Ulgoth's Beard a group of enemy cultists attack you. At the same time the messenger (BRDBYEND.CRE) standing there runs away because this is written in his script RUNENEMY.BCS. As a result you cannot move to SoA.

He runs into a house. Search for him in a random house. In ZETA, you don't have to do TotSC anymore, so none of this BRDBYEND junk exists anymore.

...nor is all my clever dialogue!

[Vlad]

I've finished BG1 and smoothly transferred to BG2. First of all I'd like to thank you all who participated and worked on such a wonderful project. I really enjoyed the game with the new settings.

Now I'd like to criticise the transtion from BG1 to BG2.

1. Xzar talks about Monty being in party in his leaving dialogue in the end of BG1 though Monty has been dead for a long time. To add check if Monty is Dead or not.
2. The same is about Jaheira mentioning Khalid who is dead.
3. In the cut scene in the forest there shouldn't be NPCs whom you've never met. I didn't meet Minsc and left him standing in Nashkel, and I didn't join Dyna. I think that your specific NPCs should be moved to that forest area, and only your NPCs. I wouldn't hurry to separate the group in the Duchal's Palace, but instead I'll move the whole group to the forest, and then your cut scene with MaeVar and Shadow Theives becomes very well balanced and logic. You may of course add a wide interjection dialogue when Belt suggests you to infiltrate into Athkatla, and each NPC has its own mind. In NeJ2 all NPCs normally have their own mind and frequently inteject, so I see no reason not to add interjections in BG1, particularly at the cruical points of the game. They may actively discuss the upcoming quest of Belt, some of them will agree to go with PC, but some of them will leave. In party I'd definitely choose Viconia and Xzar to go with me to Athkatla, and they have no reason not to follow PC on his quest (Viconia just likes my PC and hides from *surface dwellers*, and Xzar's supervisors will gladly send him to assist PC and continue spying for Zhents). Then of course you may join them both in Athkatla. However, whereas Viconia is joinable, Xzar will be killed by Harpers. I'd change a bit his dialogue near Harper's base in Athkatla depending on whether Monty is dead or not. If Monty is dead Xzar may suggest another similiar quest for retrieving his another friend.
4. I'd also prefer to place Shar-Teel instead of *stranger* (for my PC) Minsc in that cell in Irenicus dungeon and to develop her character a bit in NeJ2 and BG2. Shar-Teel romantics would be nice addition to the game BUT she doesn't like men unfortunately. At least I can ask Jan to add her replies to all NeJ2 and BG2 interjections we have, maybe a several more banters about her dead father slain by PC (by the way she killed her father and didn't react at all).
5. All other NPCs also can be transferred smoothly to BG2, this dependent on people who can and wish to write their dialogues, interjections and develop their characters. Ideally each NPC would be able to follow PC and find him/herself imprisoned in place of Jaheira and Minsc.
6. The very important moment: YOU SHOULDN'T USE EscapeAreaMove. Please use MoveGlobals instead to transfer your NPCs smoothly without destroying them and recreating their copy different from the original ones. MoveGlobals function preserves all the NPCs stats, items (though items are destroyed) and local variables (very important!) he/she has accumulated during the game.
7. As it was suggested I'm placing bags into one of the chests in Irenicus living room. As bags are store arrays, destroying inventories of PC and NPCs upon transition doesn't destroy the items in that bags. It means if you CreateItem (any arbitrary bag) a new, all the items previously put and stored inside will be there.

That's all for the moment. I'll check Imoen and release my patch/tweak pack soon.

Edited by Vlad, 05 January 2006 - 03:29 AM.

[ronin]

4. I'd also prefer to put Shar-Teel instead of *stranger* (for my PC) Minsc in that cell in Irenicus dungeon and to develop her character a bit in NeJ2 and BG2. Shar-Teel romantics would be nice addition to the game BUT she doesn't like men unfortunately. At least I can ask Jan to add her replies to all NeJ2 and BG2 interjections we have, maybe a several more banters about her dead father slain by PC (by the way she killed her father and didn't react at all).

I fully agree, I am probably not the only one that never uses Minsc (annoying as hell) or Jaheria (also annoying) and would rather see 2 other people in the cages besides them (Shar-Teel and Kivan for example). Would be nice to be able to pick the two NPC's that are imprisoned with you or just imprison the whole party from BG1.

ronin

[Ascension64]

First of all, thanks for taking your time to enjoy the mod and test in the midst of it. The help is greatly appreciated.

1. Xzar talks about Monty being in party in his leaving dialogue in the end of BG1 though Monty has been dead for a long time. To add check if Monty is Dead or not.
2. The same is about Jaheira mentioning Khalid who is dead.

None of this leaving dialogue thing occurs in ZETA anymore, so that's good.

3. In the cut scene in the forest there shouldn't be NPCs whom you've never met. I didn't meet Minsc and left him standing in Nashkel, and I didn't join Dyna. I think that your specific NPCs should be moved to that forest area, and only your NPCs. I wouldn't hurry to separate the group in the Duchal's Palace, but instead I'll move the whole group to the forest, and then your cut scene with MaeVar and Shadow Theives becomes very well balanced and logic.

Fair enough, the transition always has been rather ludicrous, and as such I am working on a new 'Mequel' mod that fills in the BG1-BG2 transition gaps. All the consistency and time-gap issues between what the NPCs do between when you finish in BG1 and when you start BG2 will be solved by this mod. Ideas are always welcome, and you have some here.

You may of course add a wide interjection dialogue when Belt suggests you to infiltrate into Athkatla, and each NPC has its own mind. In NeJ2 all NPCs normally have their own mind and frequently inteject, so I see no reason not to add interjections in BG1, particularly at the cruical points of the game. They may actively discuss the upcoming quest of Belt, some of them will agree to go with PC, but some of them will leave. In party I'd definitely choose Viconia and Xzar to go with me to Athkatla, and they have no reason not to follow PC on his quest (Viconia just likes my PC and hides from *surface dwellers*, and Xzar's supervisors will gladly send him to assist PC and continue spying for Zhents). Then of course you may join them both in Athkatla. However, whereas Viconia is joinable, Xzar will be killed by Harpers. I'd change a bit his dialogue near Harper's base in Athkatla depending on whether Monty is dead or not. If Monty is dead Xzar may suggest another similiar quest for retrieving his another friend.

The 'Mequel' mod will implement something like this, although I don't even know the particulars yet. With time, this should be sorted out nicely.

4. I'd also prefer to place Shar-Teel instead of *stranger* (for my PC) Minsc in that cell in Irenicus dungeon and to develop her character a bit in NeJ2 and BG2. Shar-Teel romantics would be nice addition to the game BUT she doesn't like men unfortunately. At least I can ask Jan to add her replies to all NeJ2 and BG2 interjections we have, maybe a several more banters about her dead father slain by PC (by the way she killed her father and didn't react at all).

I think the different character in the cages idea is a major feature of the Mod for the Wicked by MajorTomSawyer. Of course, this kind of thing can still be done for the 'Mequel' project. With the Shar-teel banters, maybe it is not such a good idea to put it into NeJ2 or BG2 because it simply makes it harder for me to retain consistency with the 'Mequel' project when people use multiple mods. Don't let me stop you though if you want to go ahead with the idea. I certainly consider such things in the 'Mequel' project, and might run into consistency problems later if I see new banters during BG2 involving BG1 NPCs. Grr!

5. All other NPCs also can be transferred smoothly to BG2, this dependent on people who can and wish to write their dialogues, interjections and develop their characters. Ideally each NPC would be able to follow PC and find him/herself imprisoned in place of Jaheira and Minsc.

Again, the Mod for the Wicked deals with some of this, but the 'Mequel' project could certainly incorporate this with ease. However, each NPC will have a much more developed plotline and character over the transition, so the circumstances of their 'transferring' may be different, or even non-existent!

6. The very important moment: YOU SHOULDN'T USE EscapeAreaMove. Please use MoveGlobals instead to transfer your NPCs smoothly without destroying them and recreating their copy different from the original ones. MoveGlobals function preserves all the NPCs stats, items (though items are destroyed) and local variables (very important!) he/she has accumulated during the game.

OK. MoveBetweenAreas is also fine, I hope?

7. As it was suggested I'm placing bags into one of the chests in Irenicus living room. As bags are store arrays, destroying inventories of PC and NPCs upon transition doesn't destroy the items in that bags. It means if you CreateItem (any arbitrary bag) a new, all the items previously put and stored inside will be there.

OK.

That's all for the moment. I'll check Imoen and release my patch/tweak pack soon.

And OK...

Thanks again.

Edited by Ascension64, 05 January 2006 - 03:56 AM.

[Vlad]

MoveBetweenAreas is also fine, I hope?

No, it's not so. Only MoveGlobals moves the character and all his/her variables and re-creates him/her in the area file of choice. I've expereimented a lot with this problem in TS. I needed to remove Kachiko from the party and then bring her back. The problem I met was loosing all her local variables affected undropable items as well. Did you ever try to send Nalia to another area and then re-join her there? She will be there and will wear all her items except her undroppable signet ring. She will lack all her global variables as well as any other NPC who MovedBetweenAreas. It also means the love talk interrupts, and the local banters won't pop up at the planned intervalls of time etc. MoveGlobals means exactly what it's called.

[Ascension64]

MoveBetweenAreas is also fine, I hope?

No, it's not so. Only MoveGlobals moves the character and all his/her variables and re-creates him/her in the area file of choice. I've expereimented a lot with this problem in TS. I needed to remove Kachiko from the party and then bring her back. The problem I met was loosing all her local variables affected undropable items as well. Did you ever try to send Nalia to another area and then re-join her there? She will be there and will wear all her items except her undroppable signet ring. She will lack all her global variables as well as any other NPC who MovedBetweenAreas. It also means the love talk interrupts, and the local banters won't pop up at the planned intervalls of time etc. MoveGlobals means exactly what it's called.

Well, given the lackluster, or even misleading, IESDP information:

225 MoveBetweenAreas(S:Area*,P:Location*,I:Face*)
This, although not often seen, is an extremely useful effect. It will allow an actor to move himself from one area to another, keeping his HP, effects, vital statistics, etc. This is the ideal action to move non-party NPC's from area to area.

...what is actually transferred then?

MoveGlobal doesn't accept a I:Face* either, so what Face is given by default? I know I would have to set this manually.

EDIT: Just tested the transition of Imoen, and she kept her effects, locals, and HP. Not sure about everything else though. It seems like MoveGlobal really only means "Move a Global character", i.e. one that is saved in the saved game, an explicit version of MoveBetweenAreas with different parameters. Well, that's what I glean from the little testing I have done on it.

Edited by Ascension64, 05 January 2006 - 05:04 AM.

[Vlad]

This is the ideal action to move non-party NPC's from area to area.

Non-party, well, it's okay. If you don't care about getting back exactly the same NPC which left you with all his variables then there is no problem. Even BioWare didn't care much about this. If you resurrect Nalia after death you'll have never been able to equip her signet ring back but who cares. If you're not looking for continuity of your NPCs you may use even EscapeAreaMove. I just merely suggested a way to preserve this continuity.

[Ascension64]

Sorry, I must have edited my last post when you were posting. The only thing I don't care about is items, so undroppable stuff isn't a problem. So I guess I would be very interested in what MoveBetweenAreas doesn't do that MoveGlobal does.

EDIT: Minsc doesn't keep his Boo, so items seem to be one of the differences...or maybe it is because I performed a DestroyAllEquipment() on Minsc before hand. Will check...
UPDATE: Heh, without DestroyAllEquipment() and using MoveBetweenAreas, Minsc appeared in Irenicus' dungeon with some nice armour on, a two-handed sword, and Boo in his quick item slot. So MBA does items as well. Could the only difference really be the way that the NPCs are handled? (i.e. MG saves the information as a Global NPC in the BALDUR.GAM, MBA saves the information in BALDUR.SAV in the respective area? But MBA somehow must also check Global as well or the joinable NPC will be duplicated. I'll check this tomorrow)

Edited by Ascension64, 05 January 2006 - 05:26 AM.

[Vlad]

We are talking about local variables. Please check whether them are preserved or not.

[Ascension64]

We are talking about local variables. Please check whether them are preserved or not.

Yes they are. The 'IWasKickedOut' local variable was preserved on both Imoen and Minsc when they transferred using MBA. This local variable is only created when you first kick an NPC out of the party. I basically, kicked them out of the party outside the Duchal Palace, picked them up again, then went ahead with the transition. Their local variables were preserved on their savegame CREs.

[Ascension64]

To clarify fully, I made a local variable "TransferMe" on Minsc just before he was subject to MoveBetweenAreas(). He keeps the variable and value on his BALDUR.GAM CRE entry after the MBA().

[Vlad]

Now I recall what was the problem with MBA when I couldn't use it. I needed to remove Kachiko from party, move her to a certain location just to *store* her there (exactly AR0086), and then after some time being in another area to move her back to desired location near PC. MBA didn't work in this case. But for simple ONE-WAY transition it seems okay.

[grogerson]

Ascension64, BGT-WeiDU is fine just as it is. And a fine "Thank you" for doing it (coke for me though...). My previous post and comment about and update/patch was just curiosity, nothing more.

Anything changing the basic game as it stands, adding containers, changing who ends up in Irenicus' dungeon, and other such things, rightly belong in the "Tweaks/Mods" catagory. The transition was yours to begin with, and as such is open to your modification. It may be a bit thin (I always use Minsc and Dynaheir, but never Jaheira and Khalid), but tweaking the transition can fix that (just remember, the PC may be the most notable hero of the Sword Coast, but not the only notable hero...) .

What's wrong with Minsc anyway? Sure, he's a few bricks shy of a load (brain damaged - and talks to a miniature giant space hampster), and maybe a bit too focused on kicking evil's backside, but I can forgive him his quirks since he's one of the best fighters in the game, IMO... (searches for salt shaker to give out grains where necessary).

[Ascension64]

@Vlad: Thanks for the clarification. Moving NPCs in areas that aren't currently loaded I agree should always use MoveGlobal(), since I am sure MBA() wouldn't work at all [because MBA() doesn't contain an Object parameter!].

@grogerson: I remember back in the SoA only days when Minsc used to get his butt kicked instead of the other way around. The power of characters seem to have more weight on what items they have/can use rather than their base statistics if you compare similar classes (e.g. Minsc vs. Keldorn vs. Anomen). The problem with Minsc at the moment is that he doesn't have Boo upon transition! This is fixed for the next version, of course.

I don't think there was anything wrong with Minsc, except that he is Neutral Good. He hates the smell of stinking evil and if the party happens to be full of it, I think he would choke to death. But before that happens, he would probably attack the party rather than join it.

As for the transition, I don't think I'll work on the BGT-WeiDU version any more except for bugfixes. I am currently working on the 'Mequel' project, which boths extends and expands the transition into at least a new chapter of adventuring. More information in this futile thread http://www.shsforums...showtopic=18559.