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MUCH praise and minor feedback


Qwinn

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Funny, I rather expected something like that to get a mention in the walkthroughs, and this isn't, which is why I thought it must be a mod.

You'd be amazed at how many XP/gold/item exploits there are in an unmodified game. The Fixpack gets most of the worst offenders, but there are some that just can't be fixed. Assuming that this one *is* original content, which I suspect it is, and not some strange thing added by a mod, sure, it's possible to close this exploit, but is it worth the effort?

 

If you're playing EasyTutu, Macready might want to hear about it. If you're on BGT, Ascension64 might.

 

(Shuffles feet and tries hard not to think about the infinite XP exploit introduced by Homeward Bound where a player could send/recall NPCs all day for 2K XP every retrieval. But really, when you're in ToB, there has to be a more entertaining way to earn 2K XP.)

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@Qwinn - got 'em! I am trying to piece together a test tonight, while I recheck 15E vs the worklogs and make sure everything made it into the master copy. I hope to have soem answers for you (and me :) ) sometime this evening.

By the way, in your working 15a .tp2 anyway, the Jelly.cre gets copied to ~override/jelly.cre.cre~ that creates after various manipulations by diferent mods (jasteyBG1 in particular) a critter in your override called jelly..cre, and thus you get a bunch of script errors when running a script check after install.

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By the way, in your working 15a .tp2 anyway, the Jelly.cre gets copied to ~override/jelly.cre.cre~ that creates after various manipulations by diferent mods (jasteyBG1 in particular) a critter in your override called jelly..cre, and thus you get a bunch of script errors when running a script check after install.
What are you referring to? BGQE does not modify, or even copy a "jelly.cre", but provides all needed creatures as custom creatures.
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@Qwinn - got 'em! I am trying to piece together a test tonight, while I recheck 15E vs the worklogs and make sure everything made it into the master copy. I hope to have soem answers for you (and me :) ) sometime this evening.

By the way, in your working 15a .tp2 anyway, the Jelly.cre gets copied to ~override/jelly.cre.cre~ that creates after various manipulations by diferent mods (jasteyBG1 in particular) a critter in your override called jelly..cre, and thus you get a bunch of script errors when running a script check after install.

 

 

That one I fixed on the internal - ran a check for any more oddities like that while I was at it. I hate copy/paste errors. I am trying to get an installable 15 E internal packaged up for testing now -

 

I found that both SharTeel and Dynaheir had replicated StartDialogueNoSet() calls for the Dream script talks that are having oddities. The DreamScript advanced the global and initiated dialogue, but the regualr script did as well. New internal has these fixes. Qwinn, if you want a copy to try out, just PM me and I will send you the link (this evening - it isn't quite ready yet).

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By the way, in your working 15a .tp2 anyway, the Jelly.cre gets copied to ~override/jelly.cre.cre~ that creates after various manipulations by diferent mods (jasteyBG1 in particular) a critter in your override called jelly..cre, and thus you get a bunch of script errors when running a script check after install.
What are you referring to? BGQE does not modify, or even copy a "jelly.cre", but provides all needed creatures as custom creatures.

That's not what I meant. Sorry for the confusion. As a matter of fact, it's not ev the Slime Quest scripts that were affected. What was happening was the jelly.cre in my override directory was called jelly..cre so when I ran a script check any script that referenced jelly.cre took a hit as calling for a resource that didn't exist. Unfortunately there isn't any way to save your hitlist, so I can't even recall now what scripts those jelly.cre references were in.
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Quick question:

 

I'm still working my way through doing all the quests in the Baldur's Gate city before moving on to Candlekeep. In the process, I'm running into a fair number of quests with what appear to be broken journal entries. Examples are Rinnie's quest to find a copy of the Unicorn Run book and the Brielbara's Baby quest, which I've completed but they leave themselves as "open" quests forever. I doubt these are BG1NPC issues, probably in vanilla, but is there any place to report them? Is anyone still concerned with cleaning up issues like this? The EasyTutu forum, maybe? I have no idea.

 

If those things are considered too minor to risk a new release of whatever or something, I totally understand, just wondering if there's anyone who would -want- reports on stuff like that is all.

 

Qwinn

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*nod* Thanks kindly, that'd be the TuTu forums over on PPG then.

 

The journal actually functions adequately up until you have nothing left to do before chapter 5, almost everything you can do before then updates properly (and that includes all the outdoor areas). It's only in the city itself that you start running into lots and lots of quests that don't update properly when you complete them. (The quest to get Algernon's cloak is another one I just ran into)

 

I'll drop a note over there after I'm done with the city, so I can tell him about all of them in a single shot.

 

Qwinn

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Qwinn, what you are describing is *all* Tutu v4, EasyTutu, and BG1NPC's fault.

 

Tutu v4 Journal entries are completely messed up. There is an older patch to fix them somewhere, but it is not usually used, since it may or may not do what you want depending on what dialog.tlk you are using (baldurdash GTU, non-Baldudrdash, ciustom, etc.)

 

On EasyTutu_SoA and _ToB, Macready has fixed up through Chapter 5, but after that the old messed up stuff is still in play, and due to the horrifically boring, inane, fruitless, unthanked, and generally worse-than-cleaning-out-the-stables nature of fixing this he has concentrated on the BG2 spell system integration and heavier fixes to content. But eventually, it will get done.

 

BG1NPC has fixed a number of JOURNAL misbehaviors by the "Big I_C_T2 Migration of 2008", currently undergoing testing now. Some journal entry changes we accidentally blocked will now follow through and update. BUT...

 

even in v15 due out soon, there are going to be a whole bunch of approaches used by different authors.

 

a. JOURNAL ~taext~ where an entry goes into the "everyday writing" and does not ever get erased, usually followed by a second JOURNAL entry later on talking about the end of the quest.

 

b. Complete ignoring of JOURNAL, SOLVED/UNSOLVED, or any kind of text recognition of quests or easter-eggs.

 

c. Use of EraseJournalEntry(@###) that fails because someone's update to the GTU no longer matches the expected entry exactly (a missing space or added word, a word fixed from misspelling, etc.) - and of course the possibility that someone else's mod has altered the string in a more radical eway.

 

d. Correct use of JOURNAL, SOLVED-JOURNAL, ,QUEST), etc., but not linking back to the original files (i.e. Dynaheir is attacked by the party, Kivan and Ajantis take exception and leave the party and support Dynaheir and/or Minsc against the PC, but all relevant "journal" and "unsolved journal" entries are left on the books without an entry that removes them, saying "ok, like, they attacked me and I wasted 'em, so this quest is off the books now".

 

e. probably another variation I haven't thought of :)

 

The only thing we have consistently fixed when found are entries not having a "title", fixed by adding hard returns to the .tra entries.

 

@ = ~Journal Entry Title

 

Hi there, I am a spurious Journal Entry.~

 

 

Perhaps when Macready has finished his full rebuild of Journal behavior, we can revisit this for folks who like the Journal entries, but even then we won't be able to help Tutu v4 people (and we probably will be fighting a losing battle on BGT mega installs, as there are too many variations to account for). If it realy bugs you, you could seriously help any future efforts by documenting when the journal entries don't work correctly for you, so the folks doing that can get a good start.

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Minor typo:

 

In Dynaheir's love talk 25, there's a misspelling:

 

"Leaving his wife, the Lady Yara, to rule in his stead, he road across the realm, gathering troops."

 

In that sentence, "road" should be "rode".

 

EDIT: Ack, didn't see your post, cmorgan. *nod* Gotcha. Makes sense. Actually, since I'm looking into getting into modding, it sounds like a good newbie project, doesn't it? Won't be that tedious to me, as I won't have done it before, heh. I'd volunteer to work on that (meaning actually providing fixes), if someone could stipulate for me -how- it should be done. Would probably be a good learning experience for me.

 

Note that I'm not that bothered by odd situations such as you killing off your own party members meaning quests can't be completed (and I'd think there's not that many of those)... I'd be happy to at least clean up the journal entries provided the quests are done how they -should- be done.

 

Any interest in that? And yes, either way, I'll provide a comprehensive list of which journal entries didn't close out for me with my install soon.

 

(Incidentally, so far I've found two entries without titles, I'm assuming those two are the ones you say you've already got fixed in v15 :)

 

Qwinn

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Quick question... I realize it's probably a TuTu thing, but maybe someone here knows offhand. If not I'll ask over there when I do my journal post over at PPG.

 

In Dan Simpson's walkthrough, it says this:

 

"Note: Once all the Tales of the Sword Coast quests are done, you get a little message (similar to the End of Chapter messages) telling you that you are done with it."

 

I'm pretty sure I just finished all of the TotSC quests (did Durlag's tower, werewolf isle, ice island) and didn't get any such message. Is this changed now, or did I miss something?

 

About to go finish chapter 5 now, having finished everything else that's absolutely possible that I'm aware of. Game still proceeding quite nicely, and STILL getting banters, holy crap. A very fun experience so far, much more fun than my original playthroughs, thanks to all these great mods :)

 

Qwinn

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Did you go to Ugloth's Beard after retrieving the cool dagger from the demon in Durlag's Tower? And have you dealt with the cultists and their demon?

 

(I'm not sure I've seen that message, either, by the way. Still, that's one more quest you haven't mentioned.)

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Yup, I did that... that demon fight is a bitch, lol, thank God cloudkill wreaks havoc on that guy, but even with it it took a few reloads.

 

I'm now thinking Simpson might've been thinking of the "journey home" narration you get coming home from the werewolf isle when he wrote that, as that's the last thing in his walkthrough. I don't really know though, as this is actually the first time I've ever completed the werewolf isle. (and thus, I've never done it without EasyTuTu)

 

Anyways, I decided to quickly post it for Macready over on the PPG board right away, since it looks like he's just about ready to do another major release, and I figure it'll be a looooong time before the next one, lol. Also asked him if a broken journal buglist from the previous full version would still be useful to him.

 

Qwinn

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c. Use of EraseJournalEntry(@###) that fails because someone's update to the GTU no longer matches the expected entry exactly (a missing space or added word, a word fixed from misspelling, etc.)
This, really, is a non-issue. For BG1NPC, because it sets and clears its own journal entries (or should do that, anyway). What few vanilla entries it may need to clear are trivial. For (Easy)Tutu, because it handles its own GTU, and even if a GTU does at some point come to apply to it, the vanilla StrRefs it clears are hardcoded, so that won't matter.

 

All the journal entries should really be standardized to:

d. Correct use of JOURNAL, SOLVED-JOURNAL, ,QUEST), etc.
But perhaps, as you say, not all at once. It's really just a matter of chipping away at it any time a bug fix or proofread is done for a quest. And a lot of it is probably just tedious monkey work that can be farmed out to willing armies of volunteers who don't need to be code gurus. I wish the same could be said for the (Easy)Tutu journal entries in general, but that doesn't seem likely, not any time soon.
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Actually, Macready responded to my post over on PPG, and basically says flat out that all journal entries are now completely fixed in his development version, so I don't even need to post my buglist for 'em. That version should be released in about a month, he said.

 

Hey, while I'm here... I'm almost done with my game, but ran into one last issue and I'm wondering if it's an issue in vanilla BG:

 

When you go back to the city in Chapter 7, if you go to the E section Huram (drunk thief you meet a couple times in chapter 5) comes up and talks to you. He asks you to meet him near the Blushing Mermaid. Do so, and he's there with a bunch of shadow thieves. He tells you that Amn has nothing to do with BG's troubles, and he knows of a couple assassins in town, Slythe and his wife, down in the Undercellar. I figure, since I'm right there, I'll kill 'em. I check back in with Huram too, and he leaves.

 

Problem is, no one else notices, and you can't tell them about it. Tamoko tells you to kill them, and you don't get the option to say "Already took care of it". Same with Eltan, after you rescue him from his "healer" he charges you to kill them, and all you can say is (paraphrased) "I'll get right on that", even though you've already got the two game-critical notes from their bodies on you.

 

Actually when I talked to Tamoko she tells you to go kill the chick at the top of the Iron Throne building too, and I had already done that as well, and once again I couldn't respond saying I already had (although in that case it's not so bad, as she tells you that one right as she's leaving and you don't get any responses).

 

Still, it seems to me that of the three main things you can do in chapter 7 before going to Sarevok's coronation, namely:

 

1) Rescue Eltan

2) Re-clear Iron Throne building

3) Kill the assassins in the Undercellar

 

...it is "expected" that you do them in that order, and if you don't do them in order (even though it is very easy to do it otherwise and in fact you can easily be nudged toward doing it in a different order) the game doesn't seem to know what to do about it.

 

Is any part of this, like maybe the Huram bit, new to a mod or is this all original content? (I ask because Dan Simpson's walkthrough says nothing about the Huram bit). If it is original, I think I'ma suggest this as a good fix for BG1UB, cause it certainly -feels- very Unfinished if you listen to Huram and do it all in the wrong order.

 

Qwinn

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