First impressions :-)

[Sprotte]

Got 0.2.9 running on Linux, and tried it with stock installation of BG2.

 

After doing the full install, putting the right paths in the config etc it works nicely.

 

- The movies play

- Sound works

- Character creation works

- Intro runs with some sound problems (echoes)

- I could do some actual playing (dialogue, using containers, inventory etc.)

- Saving and loading works (after manually creating ~/.bg2/save)

- Menus, item and spell descriptions work

- I could cast spells (some slight GUI bugs sometimes)

- I could attack monsters

 

I have to say, this is quite an achievement. Congrats to the developers.

 

It's also quite impressive when compared to BG2 under wine. ^^ Movement on the game screen is much faster, sound works better, just the menus are a tad slower.

 

Now for the inevitable, the things that I found missing/incomplete.

 

- Monsters don't want to fight :-D (the guys just sit there) (the first mephite, goblins; the summoned ogre apparently DID want to fight though)

- PCs don't notice when a monster is dead (they keep bashing it)

- Choosing formations

- Reordering party members (swapping places)

- There was a slight bug where the "spells" button sometimes only worked once

- After stealing/unlocking, the cursor didn't switch back to normal/hand

(had to select another party member first, normally done by right-clicking?)

- Leaving the spells/special ability gui (i.e. abandoning, normally achieved by right-clicking?) didn't work

- After killing Imoen, she turned grey but remained standing and even accepted commands (walking dead Imoen, hehe)

- The mephite spawning machine didn't spawn mephites (but could be turned off)

- Game crashed once when I just started fighting the ogre that is gated in by Aataqah(sp?)

 

Here's the error message:

 

Displaying string on: imoen

[KEYImporter]: Searching for imoen27.wav...[FOUND]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for spin117.spl...[FOUND]

Playing Next Music: Last Size was 2992

Playing: /usr/share/games/bg2/music/MX0602/MX0602a.acm

Queuing New Music

Added 1104 SamplesDisplaying string on: aataqahogre

[KEYImporter]: Searching for mogm.2da...[FOUND]

[2DAImporter]: Bad signature!

[KEYImporter]: Searching for 0.wav...[ERROR]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for cgenchan.vvc...[NOT FOUND]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for cginvoca.vvc...[NOT FOUND]

Displaying string on: minsc

[KEYImporter]: Searching for minsc10.wav...[FOUND]

Loading BD1.MUS

Playing: /usr/share/games/bg2/music/BD1/BD1A.acm

Music in INITIAL State. AutoStarting

[KEYImporter]: Searching for cgaltera.vvc...[NOT FOUND]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for cefb1ca.bam...[FOUND]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for .wav...[ERROR]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for .bam...[ERROR]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for spcomstt.vvc...[FOUND]

[KEYImporter]: Searching for spcomend.vvc...[FOUND]

LR Animation: unhandled stance: mogm 16

 

That was that...

 

- I had a hard time figuring out how to free Jaheira, shouldn't she normally join when the cell door is opened? Or am I not remembering it right?

- When selecting an item in the inventory, the button sound is played in addition to the item sound. This is irritating.

- Just the same, when a spell or attack is targetted at a party member, he/she will react by giving the select sound. Irritating, too.

- The sounds for selecting and placing items (at least weapons) in inventory are reversed, but again I might remember this one wrong... I'm pretty certain though.

- No spell casting sound, animations worked though (not yet implemented?)

- Mouse cursor would not get "caught" by window (when using mousescroll, the pointer would just leave the window)

 

This is just off the top of my head, after three or four tests.

 

In general it's pretty impressive, though. Appears rather stable, apart from the one crash.

 

Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see combat working.

[Sprotte]

After doing two more test runs, the monsters suddenly _do_ attack. Very strange. I swear that sometimes they would just sit and let themselves get smacked.

 

This leads to the next two issues:

 

- Apparently I can't switch off the AI. They just attack anything that comes their way. There's no visual feedback about this (the lantern normally has a colored border if it is ON.)

 

- Sprites overlap; because of this, it's hard to tell those goblins apart. After some seconds of fighting, they'll all be standing in the same spot and nobody knows who's hitting who. Also party members' sprites will totally overlap sometimes (two people standing/walking in the same spot.) It's a bit irritating. Targetting in fights becomes guesswork.

 

The two buttons down right (AI/select all) will sometimes vanish, but are still clickable...

 

I didn't see monster death messages ("Goblin: Death") just "The party gets X experience."

 

Along with the monster attacking, the mephite spawning kicked in properly, so that's working, too (for now.)

 

Targetting with healing spells was slightly problematic because you can't target the portraits and sometimes I wouldn't get tooltips and would have to guess - which is also problematic because of the sprites overlapping issue.

 

Selecting alternative formations does seem to work, too (right click), just not on the leftmost formation button. Some of the formations seem to be ineffective (not followed properly, or not in the same way as in the original, for example when ordering the "two lines of three, but offset" formation they would just assume a straight line instead.)

 

During pause, the destination points for movement orders aren't drawn so I didn't know if my orders actually got through.

 

These are minor issues of course, compared to the work that was already done. I just wanted to point out those issues that seem immediate to the player. You guys are probably aware of all this, though.

[Avenger]

I'm aware of some of these issues, and some others are simply missing features.

 

echoing sound: it is because the sound is played twice in quick succession (i'm sure we didn't implement reverb yet), so this is truly a bug

Monsters don't want to fight: some script bug inactivates them

Jaheira not joining is a buggy trigger which once worked

Portrait targeting/switching is not implemented yet (it is probably easy now).

Formations: heh, probably got bugged, it was working earlier, though not completely flawless. This also applies to overlapping sprites, if i understood you correctly, the problem is that the personal spaces are not honoured.

Imoen: heh, weird, most likely her trigger didn't kicked in, or minhp1 doesn't work.

Slow menus: hmm, then we need to apply more caches. Which menus are slow? I hope not ALL of them You also should be aware that the menus are written in a scripting language, which makes them slower but more moddable.

The whole GUI is completely moddable without engine modifications.

Stealing/lockpicking: did it work aside of the wrong cursor? These are new features not even tested

Selecting sprites seems to be also impacted by the feature where you can click on anywhere of the avatar, not just the feet circle, maybe i should remove that.

Party AI: yeah, this isn't implemented at all, it should be easy, just disabling some scripts when the AI is off.

Crash on ogre: doh, this is a trivial bug in CharAnimations, i thought we killed all of these.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[Avenger]

follow up on Party AI: i've implemented this, but i ran into another problem.

AI scripts are named .bs an not .bcs

 

But, i'm fairly sure in some cases the ai script slot is filled with resrefs without a .bs file. How would this work?

[Avenger]

Ok i think i've implemented party ai correctly.

The engine is really weird about this.

[devSin]

Ok i think i've implemented party ai correctly.

The engine is really weird about this.

Details, please.

 

I assumed the engine would ignore FIGHTER2 if there was no FIGHTER2.bs (even if there is FIGHTER2.bcs) for instance...

[Avenger]

Ok i think i've implemented party ai correctly.

The engine is really weird about this.

Details, please.

 

I assumed the engine would ignore FIGHTER2 if there was no FIGHTER2.bs (even if there is FIGHTER2.bcs) for instance...

 

As long as the actor is in team, and the script is in script slot 4 (the AI script slot), the engine uses *.bs

If the actor leaves team, the script slot is cleared, but if i set it back, it will use *.bcs

 

There is also some quirky thing in chitin.key, but i couldn't figure it out yet.

I don't know if there is a filetype marker for *.bs files, in GemRB i use a fake one.

 

[edit]

So yeah, your assumption is correct. But the rules when to ignore *.bcs and use *.bs instead, is a bit tricky. Even if you got an NPC not in party (so the npc is stored in the saved game), the npc will use *.bcs

[devSin]

That makes sense (I can't imagine any reason they would have ever wanted .bs scripts to run on an NPC). All kinds of stupid would happen if you ever ran party scripts on an NPC.

 

Probably the .bs files aren't indexed? I don't think there'd ever be a reason to look for them outside scripts/ (the game has to figure out what's there at runtime for swapping scripts and adding custom ones), so they could have just hardcoded the lookup separately (cool to see if a BIFFed BS would even work; I suspect not).

[Avenger]

I know the following for sure:

The game doesn't care if a *.bs file is in override/, or a *.bcs file is in the scripts/

 

unsure:

*.bs files are indexed in chitin.key (using the normal *.bcs marker), but not biffed. They are pointed at a fake biff (iirc).

But, i doubt the engine would find a biffed *.bs file.

 

I cannot tell more without peeking into the actual code (and this part i've never tried to look at before).

[Sprotte]

I'm aware of some of these issues, and some others are simply missing features.

 

I thought so. I didn't mean to sound like I was nitpicking, rather I was so impressed with the performance that I wanted to comment ;-)

 

echoing sound: it is because the sound is played twice in quick succession (i'm sure we didn't implement reverb yet), so this is truly a bug

 

It's like this: Irenicus' lines (and the golem's) are repeated after some seconds, but in different places in the stereo spectrum. Don't know about the other sounds, it's at least not apparent there. After the intro, this problem is gone (Imoen's speech etc. are OK.)

 

Monsters don't want to fight: some script bug inactivates them

 

Ah. I thought it might have to do with saving, because sometimes during battle, the save screen would flicker back/forth but only where the panels are, not in the game screen. This only happened after saving. However today I encountered the pacifist monsters again, without ever saving. So it can't be that.

 

Formations: heh, probably got bugged, it was working earlier, though not completely flawless. This also applies to overlapping sprites, if i understood you correctly, the problem is that the personal spaces are not honoured.

 

Exactly, that's what I meant.

 

Slow menus: hmm, then we need to apply more caches. Which menus are slow? I hope not ALL of them You also should be aware that the menus are written in a scripting language, which makes them slower but more moddable.

 

Yup, I'm aware of that. I'm not complaining :-) I will do some more testing. But I can say that the menus are more responsive in BG1 (almost no delay.) If I understood everything correctly, this should not be the case. Perhaps different caching there? Swapping items in the inventory is most noticeable.

 

Stealing/lockpicking: did it work aside of the wrong cursor? These are new features not even tested

 

Lockpicking definitely works (locked safe behind picture in the weapon room.) It's just that the cursor doesn't go back to normal (and the lockpicking sound isn't played.) Nothing big. I will test pickpocketing ASAP.

 

Selecting sprites seems to be also impacted by the feature where you can click on anywhere of the avatar, not just the feet circle, maybe i should remove that.

 

I think in the original you must click the foot circle.

 

Some other things that came up today:

 

- The text in the message window doesn't scroll (irritating during battle)

- From the HC's character screen: "Number of attacks: 121 1/4". The other party members all have "number of attacks: 1".

 

From testing BG1 yesterday:

 

- The guy with whom you can practice combat (Jondalar?) doesn't return to friendly. I had to cowardly run away :-)

- Two out of three times, the game hard-locked X (mouse, keyboard) when trying to leave Candlekeep. Had to reboot. I could hear Gorion's speech ("hurry up child" or what it is) and the background sounds of the Candlekeep Coastway level though, just the map wasn't displayed (it still showed the Candlekeep exit) and then it hung. It worked once though, even past the Sarevok encounter. I can do more testing there and post a log if you want. I understand BG1 isn't the preferred game though.

- Dialog wavs weren't played.

 

Couldn't test party AI yet - pacifist monsters again - but I will.

 

Linux-related observations:

 

Sound seems to be better with Alsa OSS emulation (enable in the kernel, install alsa-oss-utils) and it runs more fluidly when directing the message output to /dev/null, starting gemrb like this:

 

aoss gemrb &>/dev/null

 

Again, your work is outstanding. You guys must be obsessed :-D

[Avenger]

Sound is impacted by the OpenAL implementation. On Windows, dialog sound stops playing, on Linux i had no such problems. I also hear loud clicks sometimes, but i think it is more audible on Windows.

 

Insane number of attacks: this is only for generated characters. The script never sets the number of attacks.

[Sprotte]

Hey.

 

It appears that pickpocketting does not work. Imoen doesn't have that skill (is that normal?) so I created a new Thief. I tried about 50 or 60 times to steal some healing potions from Minsc/Imoen/Jaheira, but no success. It *looks* like she's trying to pickpocket (reacts to the command; approaches the target) but she doesn't manage to steal. I had put all points in pickpocket skill.

 

I also noticed that upon loading a game, the Dex/Con attributes will get swapped with the Int/Wis ones. In bg2, this happened when loading; in IWD, it happened immediately after starting the game.

 

Party AI: I'm not sure... I can't see a difference. I do use the svn version with the change made. When switching off AI, Minsc/Jaheira will still attack anything that comes into sight, regardless if they're actually attacked or not. Imoen does not.

 

I don't know, I would think they should just *do nothing* when the AI is off. At most, they should be allowed to defend themselves if they're directly attacked. But that was not the case when testing; the main char was being attacked. I toggled the button a few times, but it didn't seem to work (apart from the colored border, which is nice - visual feedback.)

 

If I may say so, I'd think restoring the "personal space" would be pretty important, since it's impossible to fight six goblins that are all standing in the same spot, or selecting party members that do the same.

 

Slow menus, it's OK I find when I switch off the message output. All the messages that are written to the console seem to impact the performance. Perhaps a config option "verbose" to toggle the messages?

[Avenger]

I never noticed the abilities swapping.

I don't even understand how could you check them during loading

Either they are loaded correctly or not.

But i see nothing wrong with them. The same values are displayed in every game.

 

[edit]

Ah, yes, you should have said that the character generator is wrong

 

You can fix it in your copy easily.

Look in chargen9.py, a part should look like this:

 

	GemRB.SetPlayerStat (MyChar, IE_DEX, GemRB.GetVar ("Ability 1"))
GemRB.SetPlayerStat (MyChar, IE_CON, GemRB.GetVar ("Ability 2"))
GemRB.SetPlayerStat (MyChar, IE_INT, GemRB.GetVar ("Ability 3"))
GemRB.SetPlayerStat (MyChar, IE_WIS, GemRB.GetVar ("Ability 4"))
GemRB.SetPlayerStat (MyChar, IE_CHR, GemRB.GetVar ("Ability 5"))

[Avenger]

All games were wrong, but they are easily fixed in the appropriate gui script.

The code is slightly different, but it should be trivial to swap the stats.

I didn't notice this because i rarely generate a new character, i usually just load a save of an original game.

[Avenger]

Make sure your original game's .ini (for example baldur.ini) has an entry:

Volume Voices=100

 

I noticed that textscreens don't play the narrator sound, but this is also fixable via guiscript.

In all games there is a file TextScreen.py

 

Look for a line which says something like:

 

GemRB.TextAreaAppend (TextScreen, TextArea, Value, -1)

 

replace it with:

 

GemRB.TextAreaAppend (TextScreen, TextArea, Value, -1, 7)

 

In some games the original line misses even the -1.