How to download, install, and playtest

[DavidW]

A: Warning

 

IWD-in-BG2 is currently in open beta testing. What I mean by this is that

 

(a) anyone can test it; but

 

(b) you need to realise that you're testing an unstable beta version of the mod, which is likely to have quite a lot of bugs and instabilities.

 

I'm stressing this because some G3 mods (including some of mine) get released as "beta" just to acknowledge the fact that they're not really guaranteed to be stable and solid, but they're still in fact perfectly playable. I'm not guaranteeing this with IWD-in-BG2. I hope that most of the most serious bugs are now known, but I could easily be wrong.

 

If you do try it, please take the time to report any bugs you find. There's a thread on this board about how best to do that - basically, be as specific as possible.

 

 

EDIT as of 3/10/2010: At this point, I really don't recommend installing v4. I don't really need any more bug reports from it (v5 is fairly advanced) and it's too unstable to be at all enjoyable to play.

 

EDIT as of 19/12/2010: Version 5 is now released, so I'm unpinning this.

[DavidW]

B: Downloading

 

First, make sure that you have:

 

a) a Windows system (the mod isn't OSX-compatible just yet)

b) A full, unmodded install of IWD, Heart of Winter, and Trials of the Luremaster (the free download expansion to Heart of Winter). At the moment, the path to your IWD install needs to be SPACE-FREE. So C:\games\iwd is good. c:\program files\iwd or c:\games\icewind dale isn't. (It's NOT fine just to rename the folder temporarily, and change it back again later.)

c) An install of BG2 (preferably full; ideally clean; hopefully it doesn't matter though)

d) A few GB of space on your hard drive (5 is plenty)

 

Then download IWD-in-BG2 from this url:

 

www.gibberlings3.net/downloads/iwd_in_bg2-v4.exe

 

It's ~18 MB, so be prepared for it to take a while.

[DavidW]

C: Installing

 

EDITED 1st May

 

This is hopefully very much simpler now.

 

1) Run the download (it'll probably run itself once it's finished downloading). Choose a new directory name (it'll create it for you) - the default is C:\Program Files\iceTUTU, but you can choose anything you like. It's probably a good idea to choose the same hard drive that your IWD and BG2 installs live on, though. I'll call this folder the "conversion home folder".

 

NOTE for VISTA users: It's important that you avoid run-ins with User Account Control when installing the mod. The easiest way to do this (other than turning off UAC altogether) is to make sure you choose the conversion home folder to be somewhere other than the C:\Program Files directory.

 

 

2) The download will prompt you for the path to your BG2 installation; two minutes later, it'll prompt you for the path to your IWD installation. It will then whir away happily for a while (about fifteen minutes on my machine). It should then automatically run some WEIDU for about another thirty minutes.

 

3) Run setup-ice_tutu_tweaks.exe in the conversion home folder. It's up to you which components you install, but I strongly recommend the "smarter calls for help" component, as the vanilla help calls don't work nearly as well on the BG2 engine as on the IWD engine. Also, if you want to play with a party you'll need to install the NPCs.

 

4) Install any other mods you want to use. I strongly suggest that you go easy on this. But the BG2 Tweakpack should work fine, and I strongly recommend One Pixel Productions.

 

5) OPTIONAL: once the mod is installed, it doesn't make any further use of your BG2 or IWD installs. Feel free to mod - or delete - either or both of them: IWD-in-BG2 won't care.

[DavidW]

D: Playing

 

This is easy. To configure the game (graphics options, resolutions, etc) just run BGconfig.exe in the conversion home folder. To play the game, run BGmain.exe in the conversion home folder.

[DavidW]

E: Uninstalling

 

There is no automated uninstall. If you want to uninstall the mod, just delete the entire conversion home folder.