MUCH praise and minor feedback

[Qwinn]

I had to come on here and say this...

 

This is my first time running through BG in an altered state, and what I've run with this time is pretty "basic"... EasyTutu, BG1UB and BG1NPC. And I have to say... you guys seriously rock. Playing with the BG2 engine is cool all by itself, but the truly amazing thing is all the party banter you guys have added. I'm only up to Nashkel now, and I feel like I've already had more banters and interjections than I get in an average run through BG2, and that's saying something! Awesome stuff. I particularly like all the personality you've given Imoen, she's a total sweetheart and tons of fun. Seriously, it's like playing a totally new game. Best fan based mod I've ever seen so far, and I haven't even gotten to the romances yet!

 

Phew. I can't praise much more than that, heh

 

So here I'm going to add some minor observations cause if I don't now, I'll forget them. I'll add to this thread if I find any more along the way. Sorry if these have already been reported, I scanned through the first few pages and didn't find references.

 

1) Imoen no longer says anything when your reputation goes up (at least, she hasn't from rep 12 to 15. Odd considering how chatty she usually is.

 

2) An inconsistency between some party banters and the force-talk mod. When you force-talk Khalid and ask him how he and Jaheira met, he talks about how he was in some battle, and she helped him recuperate, he fell for her and she resisted because she thought it was just gratitude, etc. But in a party banter (I got it in the Friendly Arm Inn) where Jaheira asks you if you want to know anything about forest lore, you can ask Jaheira about how she and Khalid met and she says they met at a ball, she saw him standing alone and awkward and she felt bad and talked to him and they fell in love from there, etc.

 

3) I've already gotten Harper-related banters (such as Imoen nagging Khalid to tell him about his involvement with the Harpers) before actually ever being told that they -are- Harpers. At least, not that I noticed. Well, I did get references to it from the force-talk mod, but I get the feeling they're not related, especially since you can install the banters without installing the force pack mod (and I could easily not have talked to them about it this early in the game even with it installed). Anyways, since there seem to be quite a few references in banters to their being Harpers, this is probably best resolved just by making an explicit acknowledgment of their being Harpers (along with a brief but enigmatic explanation of what that is) when you first meet them that happens regardless of which conversation branch you take. Actually, I think there's room for a pretty excellent 4-way conversation between you, Imoen, Jaheira and Khalid there, if you want to be detailed about it rather than just resolving the issue. For example, Jaheira makes a reference to how she and Khalid "...investigate local concerns", and Charname could put two and two together at this point and pry it out of them, or something...

 

Minor things, but thought you might want to know. *hurries back to the game* Oh, and Kulyok, if you read this, I can't wait for your IWD NPC project -Great- idea!

 

Qwinn

 

EDIT: Oh, version 14, btw.

[Kulyok]

Minor things, but thought you might want to know. *hurries back to the game* Oh, and Kulyok, if you read this, I can't wait for your IWD NPC project -Great- idea!

 

Thanks. You can try Domi's IWD2 NPC Project in the meanwhile, too.

 

 

P.S. If you are playing a male PC, I recommend Dynaheir romance over Branwen's, but in case you'd like to try Branwen: her romance is currently glitching; to fix it, you'll have to set

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("X#BrFriendTalk","GLOBAL",2)

via console and continue playing. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Qwinn]

Minor things, but thought you might want to know. *hurries back to the game* Oh, and Kulyok, if you read this, I can't wait for your IWD NPC project -Great- idea!

 

Thanks. You can try Domi's IWD2 NPC Project in the meanwhile, too.

 

 

P.S. If you are playing a male PC, I recommend Dynaheir romance over Branwen's, but in case you'd like to try Branwen: her romance is currently glitching; to fix it, you'll have to set

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("X#BrFriendTalk","GLOBAL",2)

via console and continue playing. Sorry for the inconvenience!

 

Thank you -very- much for that, I had picked up that there was a bug for it and was figuring I'd have to search to get the actual command to fix it.

 

And yep, I plan on doing both actually. I'm planning on playing through twice... on my current run, it's a cavalier that will romance Dynaheir in BG and Tashia in BG2... then a neutral good berzerker mage that will romance Branwen in BG and... well, I -was- planning on romancing Jaheira in BG2, but playing through BG again is reminding me why I really don't like her, heh... though that's due to her original content and all her bitching ("These cities are a blight on the landscape!", ugh) not the new content, which actually helps. But I've romanced Aerie -every- other time I've played BG2, too, and really want something else. Any recommendations for a BG2 romance for a good character that has content into TOB? Not that many that I can see, sadly.

 

Qwinn

[Kulyok]

Not many, yeah. Tashia at Studios(I prefer her without the remix component, but I'm Russian, so I'm biased towards other Russian authors ), and... and... Bioware three, and that's all with ToB content.

 

I like Nalia at PPG a great deal, though she's SoA-only for the time being. If you haven't tried her yet, she's worth it. Keto is good even without a romance(but then again, she's no ToB content yet, either).

 

There's Fade at Studios, who is SoA-only, and many find Amber(again, SoA-only) here at G3 solid.

 

My personal advice would be Nalia or Fade, Tashia a close second. And I'm sure you'll enjoy Dynaheir.

[Kaeloree]

Nathaniel goes throughout SoA and ToB, but he's only romanceable by males, so it's not for everybody. It's a well-written romance, though, if you're willing to give it a go.

[Qwinn]

What's the deal with the remix component, and is it still available without it?

 

It -seemed- to me like it was voiced before the remix, and then the voice was removed for the remix because they couldn't voice the new content? Is that part of the deal?

 

And thanks for the Nathaniel suggestion, but I am indeed a straight male

 

Qwinn

[Kulyok]

Tashia Remix is just additional dialogue/flirts/remake by another author. It's a separate component of the mod. The voicing situation is still the same: there's only the soundset.

[Qwinn]

I think I'll go with my berserker mage, and Fade Well, I have until I finish my paladin run which won't be for a while yet (just started), so plenty of time to decide, and maybe some mod out there will finish their TOB material

 

Anyway, since I mentioned I'd update as I found stuff:

 

Lake Poet Rob, the Naskhel bard that will lower your reputation for a fee (and that's an AWESOME idea, I think it should be done for BG2 as well!), there's a conversation path where he says "Would you care to sieze the opportunity before it passes by?" "Sieze" is misspelled, the proper spelling is "seize" Yeah, that "I before E except after C" bit seems to have more exceptions than the "rule". I mean sheesh. Seize, weird, weigh, neighbor, feint, rein, stein, feign, reign, being, deign, height, lei, veil, geiger... but I guess they couldn't make a good rhyme out of "I before E except after B, C, D, F, G, H, L, N, R, S, V and W".

 

Qwinn

[Nythrun]

i before e

except after c

or when sounding like "a"

like in neighbor or weigh

unless it's weird

[Domi]

The content in the module was developed over a long period of time, and to maintain the commitment to the authors, the project does not do the additions nowadays for the characters.

 

An inconsistency between some party banters and the force-talk mod. When you force-talk Khalid and ask him how he and Jaheira met, he talks about how he was in some battle, and she helped him recuperate, he fell for her and she resisted because she thought it was just gratitude, etc. But in a party banter (I got it in the Friendly Arm Inn) where Jaheira asks you if you want to know anything about forest lore, you can ask Jaheira about how she and Khalid met and she says they met at a ball, she saw him standing alone and awkward and she felt bad and talked to him and they fell in love from there, etc.

 

This is a known thing; Jaheira and Khalid met first at the ball, but he truly fell for her after he was nursed to health by her.

 

There was never any descison reached on exactly who knows and who doesn't about Jaheira and Khalid being Harpers, but seeing that amusingly it's a part of the common knowledge in BG2, it was decided that it is kind of an open secret so any NPC that has a reason to be interested in the Harper's connection could talk to J+K about it, and PC presumably learns about it from Gorion while they travel off-screen.

 

While a banter like this might make sense in your particular party configuration it does not change or improve things for the multitude of other party configurations, and with the move NPC components they are going to be very, very variable pretty much right away.

[Amaurea]

Lake Poet Rob, the Naskhel bard that will lower your reputation for a fee (and that's an AWESOME idea, I think it should be done for BG2 as well!),

 

Oh, oh, oh... Kulyok!!! BG2 reputation-lowering stuff. Hmmm.....

[Kulyok]

It's been berelinde's idea and implementation, along with other folks, so I'd rather leave it to them.

[Amaurea]

It's been berelinde's idea and implementation, along with other folks, so I'd rather leave it to them.

 

Ah, that wasn't quite what I meant Just a certain something will be useful for keeping a rep from getting to high, in addition to being awesome...

[Kulyok]

Heheheheh.

[cmorgan]

Lake Poet Rob, the Naskhel bard that will lower your reputation for a fee (and that's an AWESOME idea, I think it should be done for BG2 as well!), there's a conversation path where he says "Would you care to sieze the opportunity before it passes by?" "Sieze" is misspelled, the proper spelling is "seize"

 

Got it - repaired in master files.

 

Being a straight male too, I am partial to Taisha, Qwinn, with the Remix version installed; and when not "on duty" so to speak for testing, I have a paladin run with Dynaheir's Romance and then Taisha for the rest of the game. But the cool thing about BG1NPC is it is practically infinitely replayable. So many authors have put so many things into this over the years, every time I go through the code I see another pathway that provides a very different experience. Just for fun, do a "throw away" game, starting in Candlekeep, and try being a "bad boy" to your little sister. It will give you a sample of what I mean - a completely different (and interesting) set of interactions.

 

As for the other points, please keep posting your reactions - even the stuff we can't fix will give feedback to the authors, a kind of reward for spending their time! And some stuff we *can* fix up, if it turns out to be a bug/typo.

 

Happy playing!