Aerie, Haer'Dalis Romance Bug?

[berelinde]

And that would be why I don't use DLTCEP or NI to edit scripts, or dialogue, or anything I don't absolutely have to use them for. Every tool has its purpose, but I'm just not that familiar with DLTCEP, and NI has this nasty habit of corrupting CRE files...

 

I'm hoping that Miloch, or somebody who *does* have experience with using DLTCEP, drops by to help you out, because I have no idea why you can't open those scripts. Compiled or uncompiled, DLTCEP should be able to open them.

 

"Compiling" means running it through WeiDU to get it into a form the game can understand. Mods start out as text documents with funny extensions like .d and .baf. WeiDU does its magic, and those text files get added to game files. The extensions change to .dlg and .bcs respectively, and that's it. Nice and neat.

 

When I want to change a script, I change the .baf (uncompiled script) and use WeiDU to reinstall the mod.

 

As for whether it's possible to see everything in a single run, it is, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of mods to fill up the time while game events are playing out. I don't know how it seems to you, but it always seems like Nalia's father lies in state about six weeks before burial. I always dance with glee when I can finally dump her.

 

I'm not sure if the vanilla BG1 conflicts run properly in Tutu. I know that some are added via the BG1 NPC Project, which you must have installed, if you're getting the Shar-Teel romance, but as for vanilla conflicts, like Ajantis/Shar-Teel or Kivan/Viconia, I've no idea.

 

Have you tried Branwen's romance? If you're running LN, it might be easier to maintain.

 

I do know what you mean about playing an evil party. I had to run one myself, testing Shar-Teel and other evil NPC's interjections, and it really put me off playing BG1 for a while. It just sucked all the life out of it for me. I was running with a male PC, CE, romancing Shar-Teel, and actually role-playing evil, so I didn't much have to worry about reputation, but it just wasn't as much fun as I have running good parties.

[DavidNowlin]

Have you tried Branwen's romance? If you're running LN, it might be easier to maintain.

 

I've done every romance (I can find) in BG1 except Shar-Teel. So far I haven't found a bad one. Coran's was sort of twitchy, I thought, and Ajantis I didn't enjoy much because I just don't like Ajantis and the character I was playing wasn't really looking for the kind of commitment involved... Actually, that was the only time in my last run-through that I saw one of the conflicts play out. Ajantis attacked Viconia and I was pleased as punch to defend her from his fanaticism and drop him from the party, engagement ring or no. I always liked Vicky.

 

I do know what you mean about playing an evil party. ... It just sucked all the life out of it for me.

 

I have two major problems with evil parties. First, I just don't like evil people. I mean, they're great as comic relief and every story needs a good villain, but I don't usually want to roleplay one. Second, it seems like the game really punishes you for being evil. It starts from the minute you take your first steps out into the world (how am I supposed to roleplay someone raised by Gorion, whom he loves like a son/daughter, who's irredeemably evil?) and just gets worse. I don't want to fight my way through hoards of flaming fist spawns in every map. I don't want all my quest NPCs to turn red before I can talk to them. I don't want my party members to attack me. And I don't want to lose out on twenty to thirty percent of the experience, cash and items in the game because it rewards good behavior a lot more than bad. I mean, it's shocking how often giving a middle-of-the-road response like "what's in it for me?" can stop a quest in its tracks. I know there are mods that try to balance that, but for me it's just better to do what I enjoy more anyway.

 

Which brings me to another thing that I think is sort of skewed. I say it rewards good behavior and punishes bad, and I think that's true, in everything except rep rewards. Sure you get a rep boost for saving the town and you take a hit (and a big one at that) for murdering innocent people, but honestly, there's a lot more rep increase than decrease. I mean you save a kitten stuck up a tree (or dropped off a waterfall) and the game calls you a hero, but half the stuff you do that's questionable at best has no penalty. Like refusing to let someone go after they surrender (like Deke, or Tranzig to name just a few off the top of my head), or goading people into a fight when it can be easily avoided (like Sendai of Amn, or Kirian, or Shoal), or stealing something that's quest-required (like the telescope, or the helm and cloak of balduran, or Algernon's cloak)...

 

You can drown a bunch of slaves, join the thieves' guild, kill people to save a tree and pick every pocket on the sword coast and still have a twenty rep. And I'm not saying you don't do more good than harm if you play that game, but come on... Have we learned nothing from Hancock? Eventually people get tired of you if you're an asshole. No matter how many people you save.

 

If the game was a little more balanced, you wouldn't have to murder people indiscriminately to have a low enough rep to romance Shar-Teel.

 

Just my two cents.

[BigRob]

However, to some extent, a person with a good reputation can also shrug off even fairly major challenges to that reputation.

 

I agree though that the BG series in general is way too skewed towards being good, and that being evil either cuts you out of things completely or requires you to be almost mindlessly psychotic to achieve. Unfortunately, you have to do a little roleplaying in your head as to what reasons your apparently monstrous PC might have for acting for the benefit of someone not themselves. Personally, I tend to rationalise it as an evil NPC not wanting to be so hated as to get more bounty hunters than they've already got coming after them.

 

In part, the whole skewing thing may be a requirement of game rating systems, where Black Isle/Bioware could show that there are definite (and very bad) consequences for being an overly violent nasty person.

[Guest Guest]

Bumping this with one more request for the stop-members-leaving-for-reputation-but-still-allow-NPC-interactions crew, if there's ever an updated version. I really like the Haer'Dalis/Aerie romance bit and uninstalled the happy patch for it, but I spent hours trying to get it to work before finding this topic, and hours more playing with variables in Shadowkeeper afterwards. I'm less keen on interparty fights but would prefer that and the HD/Aerie triangle to neither.

If that's not doable as an option then at least a warning on installing that the component disables the HD romance and NPC bickerings? I just don't want to lose party members due to reputation is all.

[Guest persocom01]

Bump because I'll like to see this too. I manually applied berelinde's method of enabling inter party conflicts, because I really wanted to see them. Also, it's possible to keep party members who fight with each other in the party. Simply remove all their items before they start fighting, and get rid of all their memorized offensive spells. This way they can only knock the other guy unconscious, after which if you separate the still conscious guy from the other by some means, (be creative) you can get them both back to the party and they never fight again. I did this with Valygar and Edwin.

[berelinde]

CamDawg and Idobek wrote this mod. Idobek hasn't been heard from in quite a while and CamDawg still visits the forums sometimes, but his real-life responsibilities prevent him from modding. I know that you want this feature, but unless CamDawg actually gives another modder permission to pull this out into a separate component, bumping the topic won't help. Of course the other modder would have to be willing to do it, as well.