Starting a new game

[Spider]

Okay, so I've been out of the loop for a long, long spell — time to dust off the 'ol CDS once again. I bought BG1:EE from BeamDog and played with it enough to know I'll stick with the non-enhanced version. And of course now that I want to play the original modded version it won't run. The files are there but 'tis a new computer, new operating system, etc., etc. And hopefully the large screen mod will handle my 1920 pixel screens. Now just wouldn't it be wonderful if it would stretch across my three screens.

 

So where on the forum is the list of mods to install and the best order to do so?

 

BTW, nice to see since my last visit that the gang went with a new CMS system. The new site works like a charm and looks a whole lot better! Nicely done.

 

Cordially,

'Ol Bearded Menace

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, tell us what the original(non-enhanced version) entails and then we cab help you... as if it includes the BGT, that's very good as the BiG World Project and it's installer tool BiG World Setup is made for you. And you'll get a consistent game without ever needing to start another bgmain.exe... or export import the character ever.

The two other options is to either go with this and the EasyTutu and get lost at the BG2 transition as your custom kit etc will be totally screwed unless you are very particular about it as you need to import the saved character or go totally without any BG2 advances in your BG1 game and do the import from there, which is easier as you won't have that much of modded content to start with.

 

Anyways, the advice I have about the OS and all the installing is in my wall of text topic at the SHS.

[Spider]

Well, tell us what the original(non-enhanced version) entails and then we can help you... as if it includes the BGT, that's very good as the BiG World Project and it's installer tool BiG World Setup is made for you. And you'll get a consistent game without ever needing to start another bgmain.exe... or export import the character ever.

Morning Jarno,

I'm going to want both BG1, ToSC, BG2 and ToB. That also includes Ice Wind Dale and its add-ons. From there 'tis open for options. Any added content as to new areas, quest lines, etc. would be preferred. All that being said, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) always applies to me. And acronyms drive me nuts, until I catch on to 'em. Even though I use 'em on occasion. The mod for wide screens is a must, of course.

 

Did they ever come up that load and unload program like they have for Temple of Elemental Evil? But for Baldur's Gate. And of course I can't remember the name of it just now. I do remember it made things sooo simple.

 

Cordially,

'Ol Bearded Menace

[Jarno Mikkola]

Did they ever come up that load and unload program like they have for Temple of Elemental Evil? But for Baldur's Gate. And of course I can't remember the name of it just now. I do remember it made things sooo simple.

The front end program that allows you to activate simple mods... for BG2, no. But the BiG World Setup is the closes thing to that... and no, it's not simple... at all. You'll curse a lot before it will get everything sorted out. But it downloads, extracts and install the mods with fixes and so forth as it sees fit.

 

The Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT) you get to play the BG1(+TotSC) and BG2 in the BG2's engine(ToB's specifically), so that everything you do in BG1 is kept in the records(utilizing the same save game and all)... not that it actually matters much as Imoen can't die etc small things ... as she has min 1 HP belt.

[Aion]

Yeh, in recent years they made it complicated with this Big World thing. Honestly I haven't bothered trying it. Installing a few mods you like works well enough on its own, without a "mega multi mod build" -type install.

 

Allow me to provide a few directions based on your wants (areas, quests, etc).

 

-Tortured Souls

http://vlad.blackwyrmlair.net/

 

-Never Ending Journey

http://vlad.blackwyrmlair.net/

 

-Shadows Over Soubar

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/sos

 

-Check The Bodies

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/ctb

 

-Colours Of Infinity

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/coi

 

-Fishing For Trouble

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/fft

 

-Dark Side Of The Sword Coast

http://www.spellhold...s.net/ie/dsotsc

 

-Epic Endeavours

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/ee

 

-Reign Of Terror

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/rot

 

-Secret Of Bone Hill

http://www.spellhold...net/ie/bonehill

 

-Ding0 Quest Pack

http://www.pocketpla...=128&Itemid=100

 

-Unfinished Business (BG2)

http://www.pocketpla...d=101&Itemid=80

 

-Unfinished Business (BG1)

http://www.pocketpla...=161&Itemid=114

 

-Assassinations

http://www.pocketpla...=177&Itemid=121

 

-CoM Encounters

http://www.baldursga...amn6&board=22.0

 

-Dark Horizons

http://www.baldursga...mn6&board=101.0

 

-The Undying

http://www.baldursga...amn6&board=36.0

 

-Alternatives

http://www.gibberlin...t/alternatives/

 

-BG1 Mini Quests and Encounters

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bgqe/

 

-Tower Of Deception

http://www.blackwyrmlair.net/~valiant/

 

The Grey Clan, Episode 1: In Candlelight

http://www.blackwyrm...ds/incandle.php

 

-The Drizzt Saga

http://www.blackwyrm.../drizztsaga.php

 

-BG2 Tweaks

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

 

-BG1 Tweaks

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg1tweaks/

[Jarno Mikkola]

Yeh, in recent years they made it complicated with this Big World thing. Honestly I haven't bothered trying it. Installing a few mods you like works well enough on its own, without a "mega multi mod build" -type install.

Allow me to provide a few directions based on your wants (areas, quests, etc).

 

-Tortured Souls

http://vlad.blackwyrmlair.net/

 

-Never Ending Journey

http://vlad.blackwyrmlair.net/

 

-Shadows Over Soubar

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/sos

 

-Check The Bodies

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/ctb

I would yeah, but you forget to tell that none of these work together without the BiG World fixes, the worldmap mod etc.. Yeah...

[Kulyok]

You'll probably be safe if you stick to a proven workable setup. This means:

 

- install Baldur's Gate , Baldur's Gate 2 and all other games to any other folder than Program Files, and use your admin account.

- Use EasyTutu or BGT to play BG1 in BG2 engine. I would recommend EasyTutu for the sake of having two separate modding installations, hence the smaller size of your override folder. It means reduced risk of crashing/mod-related issues.

 

- I wouldn't install huge mods from the link above if you can help it, particularly all of them together, for the reasons above(and, yep, quality).

- Simple mods may be BG1 NPC for EasyTutu, Level1NPCs and BG2Tweaks for both games, BG2Fixpack for BG2, Banter Packs, Flirt Packs, some smaller quest mods and NPCs, depending on your taste.

- Don't use betas if you can help it. For example, Sword Coast Stratagems has a beta version and a stable, non-beta one - choose the latter.

 

- For IWD installation, I recommend Cam's IWD mods here at G3. For IWD2 NPC installation, Domi's great IWD2 NPC mod; I've done something similar for the first IWD game, but only if you have Heart of Winter.

- If you want to play IWD in BG2 engine, try DavidW's conversion - it works and it's rather stable, I played it a few times myself.

 

Good luck. Search this forum, shsforums.net and forums.pocketplane.net for more stuff. I recommend de'Arnise romance and Ninde in particular.

[Spider]

Thanks one and all for your suggestions. I am documenting, for both myself and for others, the steps I'm following. I'll post it to my site here as I go along. Any help and suggestions would be appreciated. It is primarily for my use, though hopefully it will aid others as well. Generally I want it for a vanilla install, with no new in-game adventures. In other words, an install routine just to fix and patch the games.

 

I'm going to have to come up with some rhyme and reason explaining the possible adventuring add-ons.

 

As for Kulyok's thought to search the G3 forum, I did. I got so many hits it became an exercise in futility scrollin thru 'em. I remembr a couple of years ago a posting I think I made, either here or over on Spellhold, with a similar theme.

 

Hopefully someone can clarfy something in my mind. Let's say I want to play Secret of Bone Hill; I still love the old ones. Would a player install the mod, start a new game and head down the path playing the normal game up to the point where the mod comes into effect? Or, could a player install a series of mods, start a new game and play them right along with the main story line. I'm inferring from reading I've done that each mod is a standalone game. See, I confused even myself.

 

Cordially,

'Ol Bearded Menace

 

P.S. Sorry for the delay in responding. I've yet to find the spot on the forum to have me notified via e-mail when there's a reply to a posting I'm following.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Hopefully someone can clarfy something in my mind. Let's say I want to play Secret of Bone Hill; I still love the old ones. Would a player install the mod, start a new game and head down the path playing the normal game up to the point where the mod comes into effect? Or, could a player install a series of mods, start a new game and play them right along with the main story line.

It depends on the mod...

Well, the SoBH is a BGT or Tutu excursive mod, so you install either, then if you install the mod to those game folders. (with any and all the mods you wish)

Then when you play the BG1 portion of the game, during your main quest you may meet a specific person that allows you to transport to the Bone Hill area, you do a few quests there and return back to the BG1's areas and continue until you do most of the main quest in the regular game() and then return to the character that can transports you back to Bone Hill and continue that until you get the rest of this portion done. So there's the option to never to enter the Bone Hill area at all.

[Spider]

Thanks for the response Jarno. I'm going to have to stop exploring this thread of thought. I can't even get BG1 + TotSC to run, other than in 640x480 and with no voices. I'm going to start a new thread in the hopes someone can help

[Spider]

You'll probably be safe if you stick to a proven workable setup. This means:

 

- install Baldur's Gate , Baldur's Gate 2 and all other games to any other folder than Program Files, and use your admin account.

- Use EasyTutu or BGT to play BG1 in BG2 engine. I would recommend EasyTutu for the sake of having two separate modding installations, hence the smaller size of your override folder. It means reduced risk of crashing/mod-related issues.

 

- I wouldn't install huge mods from the link above if you can help it, particularly all of them together, for the reasons above(and, yep, quality).

- Simple mods may be BG1 NPC for EasyTutu, Level1NPCs and BG2Tweaks for both games, BG2Fixpack for BG2, Banter Packs, Flirt Packs, some smaller quest mods and NPCs, depending on your taste.

- Don't use betas if you can help it. For example, Sword Coast Stratagems has a beta version and a stable, non-beta one - choose the latter.

 

- For IWD installation, I recommend Cam's IWD mods here at G3. For IWD2 NPC installation, Domi's great IWD2 NPC mod; I've done something similar for the first IWD game, but only if you have Heart of Winter.

- If you want to play IWD in BG2 engine, try DavidW's conversion - it works and it's rather stable, I played it a few times myself.

 

Good luck. Search this forum, shsforums.net and forums.pocketplane.net for more stuff. I recommend de'Arnise romance and Ninde in particular.

Okay, here it is several days later and I finally got BG1 + TotSC to install and run on my Win 7 64-bit Pro thanks to Jarno. A foamy mug of mead definitively apples.

 

Getting back to what mods to install I need some clarification. And as Jarno can attest to, I'm dangerous when it comes to setting things up so KISS applies. So Tutu, Big World, BGT, etc. has me mystified. I;m leaning towards EasyTutu though as per Kulyok's suggestions. All I want is any non-adventuring enhancements and bug fixes to install. That would include any additional portrait and voice packs.

 

All that being said if I can safely, and I can't stress that enough, installing adventuring mods and having them work seamlessly with the main quest line, I'd be open to that option. And another donation-to-the-cause to support the web site is on its way. The order in which to play them would be interesting to know. I'm going to document everything to make it easier on my when I enter my dotage.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, if you still have the not moded BG1 game, then install the BG2 game(SoA&ToB) with the official patch(not the beta ...99 patch) etc so it works... that you test, and don't see any black boxes where there's items in the ground etc. odd things, and then if you have 15-20GB's free space at least, you can do all of these:

 

1) Then you'll do this: Download the EasyTutu_ToB ... install that, the setup will give option to make a whole new game in a selected folder or use the BG2 folder, select the former and set that folder to be: F:\Games\Black Isle\EasyTUTU ... *

2) After that's done, copy the BG2 folder's content and paste it into a new folder you call F:\Games\Black Isle\IWDinBG2 ... Then you can open the baldur.ini file in this directory and edit the [Alias] -headers to direct to this folder, like you had done to the BG1 erroneously. Will return to this*

3) And you can then make a "Classic Adventure" folder for kicks, where you copy the original data ... in case you wish to install this mod too.

4) And then install the BG2 Fixpack to the original BG2 folder, and then install the BGT-weidu to there...*

 

*Now then install the Icewind Dale(1) + Hearth of Winter and it's last patch that carries the Tales of the Lorremaster add-on name. And then you'll proceed to install this mod to the "IWDinBG2" folder.

 

Now you have the base principle game setups you can have... this doesn't not include the BiG World Project's base as that's just the BG2 game folder, which will get the BGT-weidu and about 400 potential other mods installed on it... yep it includes the Ascension and Tactics mod as well as all the other above mentioned mods, well except the Epic Endeavours... as that needs another game folder.

 

* Yes, sorry, the BG1 game folder that's used needs to be unmodified.

[Kulyok]

Getting back to what mods to install I need some clarification. And as Jarno can attest to, I'm dangerous when it comes to setting things up so KISS applies. So Tutu, Big World, BGT, etc. has me mystified. I;m leaning towards EasyTutu though as per Kulyok's suggestions. All I want is any non-adventuring enhancements and bug fixes to install. That would include any additional portrait and voice packs.

 

All that being said if I can safely, and I can't stress that enough, installing adventuring mods and having them work seamlessly with the main quest line, I'd be open to that option. And another donation-to-the-cause to support the web site is on its way. The order in which to play them would be interesting to know. I'm going to document everything to make it easier on my when I enter my dotage.

 

Let's see:

 

Jarno's already helped you with IWD installation and told you about IWDinBG2 conversion, that's absolutely great stuff.

 

If you're leaning towards EasyTutu, then all you need is:

- BG1: check that ALL data/movies files from your CD's(if it's a CD install) are in your BG1 directory;

- install BG2;

- Install EasyTutu.

 

That's it - now you have two perfectly playable installations, BG2 and EasyTutu. (You don't need BGT this way).

 

I would recommend the following for EasyTutu(BG1). Please feel free to add your own selection, it won't hurt much:

 

- BG1 NPC with Music Pack and Portrait Pack;

- I would recommend companion mods like Coran's friendship, Xan's friendship, Ajantis's expansion;

- BG1 UB adds the second level to the ice caves in TotSC and some other nifty improvements;

- BG2Tweaks for lots of good improvements(install close to last);

- Level1NPC to change your NPCs classes and such(install after all mods);

- only if you want a harder game(I don't, I play at normal), install SCS;

- There are various Item/Spells/Kits revision mods, and a lot of them. You can install these, just be aware that two mods that modify the same spell or kit would cancel each other, so you need to choose something.

- I played Grey Clan once - battles are overpowered, items are overpowered and obviously "modded", but it didn't crash once and worked, so if you want to try it, I'd say it's safe;

- Jastey's BG small quests from this site should be working fine, too.

 

Overall, portrait packs are all safe.

 

Please check this topic for more BG1 mods: http://forums.gibber...?showtopic=8122

 

(As one of the modders/authors of BG1 NPC, I'm very uncomfortable with donations from the players - our work is non-commercial, after all, and it's a slippery slope. I'd rather nobody had to pay anything. But it's my opinion only).

 

Edit: I'm not sure about Sirine's Call. Finch NPC I can recommend. Also, never played it myself, but Hard Times by MacReady(EasyTutu website) has been praised.

[jastey]

Sirine's Call should work fine for Tutu.

[Spider]

Well, if you still have the not moded BG1 game, then install the BG2 game(SoA&ToB) with the official patch(not the beta ...99 patch) etc so it works... that you test, and don't see any black boxes where there's items in the ground etc. odd things, and then if you have 15-20GB's free space at least, you can do all of these:

Since you didn't specify SoA or SoA + ToB, I went with the ToB 26498 English patch.

 

1) Then you'll do this: Download the EasyTutu_ToB ... install that, the setup will give option to make a whole new game in a selected folder or use the BG2 folder, select the former and set that folder to be: F:\Games\Black Isle\EasyTUTU ...

Done. An oddity is that the install came up with a missing BG1 movie file, even though I told it to do a full install. I copied the file to where it needed to be. I started a new game, exporting my character from BG1 and importing into EasyTutu using Gatekeeper. I'm getting a weird overlay in the Single Player / Multi-Player / Quit Game screen. That was already present with a non-modded SoA + ToB game so I'll worry about it later. It seems not to affect the game though from testing of a non-modded SoA + ToB game. All three renditions of the game, BG + TothSC, SoA + ToB, and EasyTutu have an odd displaying of the hidden, blacked out areas. They are blocky and highly dithered by blocks, but again it seems not to affect the game so I'll leave it be.

 

What do you think of installing the EasyTutu NPC Kit Selection mod? I might as well do it all at one shot. Unless it is covered in the BG2Fixpack. How about BG1Fixpack?

 

How about that mod I saw, wherein BG1 flows seamlessly into BG2? The one where you don't wake up in the prison, but instead Duke Eltan teleports you after BG1 is completed.

 

2) After that's done, copy the BG2 folder's content and paste it into a new folder you call F:\Games\Black Isle\IWDinBG2 ... Then you can open the baldur.ini file in this directory and edit the [Alias] -headers to direct to this folder, like you had done to the BG1 erroneously. Will return to this*

Done.

 

3) And you can then make a "Classic Adventure" folder for kicks, where you copy the original data ... in case you wish to install this mod too.

I'm a great fan of the old stuff, being one myself. I have quite a large collection spanning over 30 years. I even have a TSR picnic / birthday paper table cloth in my collection from '78. As for the CA mod, I've no idea where or how to get it up and running but I'll work on it later. I quickly read the Spellhold forum and got lost. It seems that it runs independent of the normal flow of the BG1 + BG2 game, but uses the BG2 engine.

 

4) And then install the BG2 Fixpack to the original BG2 folder, and then install the BGT-weidu to there...

It went a good way thru the installation and then errored out. I posted as per the recommendation of the Debug file on the BGT forum.

 

*Now then install the Icewind Dale(1) + Hearth of Winter and it's last patch that carries the Tales of the Lorremaster add-on name. And then you'll proceed to install this mod to the "IWDinBG2" folder.

THAT mod is magical!!! It took what was a horrible GUI and turned it into a thing of beauty. And that is not detracting from the better resolution either. The movie is worth viewing again and again. However, as the patch was running there were tons of errors I saw so I hope they don't matter. Since I made a backup of the directory I'm going to copy from one to a new and reinstall the patch again. 'Tis a mess of lines reading: Not enough arguments to [CreateCreature]. Recovering. They are all for DLG files.

 

There are some problems, and it is with the dialogue. In the dialogue window the font for <name> is just a shadow. Almost like the font is missing. Also, I think in the tavern where you start out there is a joinable NPC dwarf. Also, I think, an assassin in the inn. The dialogue window goes blank. By clicking within the dialogue window it would seem that a dialogue is taking place as occasionally I get to a continue button. When I put my mouse over what I believe is a joinable NPC his scroll closes up tight as a drum. The IWD + HoW + ToL patched game is okay when it comes to the fonts and the dialogue..

 

 

Now you have the base principle game setups you can have... this doesn't not include the BiG World Project's base as that's just the BG2 game folder, which will get the BGT-weidu and about 400 potential other mods installed on it... yep it includes the Ascension and Tactics mod as well as all the other above mentioned mods, well except the Epic Endeavours... as that needs another game folder.

In closing, thank you for your assistance yet once again. For the nonce I'm going to start up a TotSC game and get to playin'. I've got a headache that only a frosty mug can heal.