Some spells are unchanged, some are changed?

[Ardanis]

That's less problematic than I had feared. I was afraid the main problem was authorial pride and drama, everybody wanting their own name on their own mod, and something to do with the mysterious splintering of the IE modding community over 5+ sites (the specifics of which nobody will talk about). If installing two mods sequentially is perfectly fine, why not just slap them together into one mod and organize the specific changes from both mods thematically together (so all the arcane spell stuff from both mods get asked in the WeiDU command prompt together for example)? Then you could have one readme, and the player wouldn't have to go on forums and check compatibility issues, and etc. I'm not trying to be glib, is there actually a problem with this? Wouldn't this slowly, over months or years, consolidate the best mods together? I mean, I already like the fact that with SCS/II, the fixpacks, and the tweakpacks, all the important original baldurdash and weidu fixes have been consolidated. Would it be possible in a few months or a year or two even more "core"ish mods get consolidated?

It's not impossible, but we'd have to establish a team, which is not always easy when everyone has their own free time schedule.

 

Should I run change-log on all the files in Ascension's \backup folder (i.e., all the files that had at least SR affecting them before ascension), then find the ones that SR also affected, and then revert all of them?

It's... more complicated than that. SCS also creates copies of some spells, and those clones will remain unchanged even if you restore backup files. The latter will also be missing the flags set by Detectable Spells.

 

If it's of any consolation, some of your mods are quite outdated, so a fresh installation will get you updated content. Namely, you may want to update Item Revisions to v3 and SCS to v21.

 

 

It's time to lower your expectations... or just deside that you are better than everyone else and be an ass... you deside.

I don't want to drive your sanity any further away, but...

Selfish jerks do indeed decide they're better than everyone. Competent self-esteemed people know it for a fact.

[DavidW]

If it's of any consolation, some of your mods are quite outdated, so a fresh installation will get you updated content. Namely, you may want to update Item Revisions to v3 and SCS to v21.

 

Or if you wait a few more days, SCS v24 will be out (v23, which is beta, won't play nicely with SR).

[ancalimohtar]

One last thing then: If I do reinstall everything, what things, if any, will I lose by going through the following process:

 

1. Load up the earliest save I have after waking up in Irenicus' dungeon

2. Exporting the CHR file

3. Uninstalling everything

4. Reinstalling everything "correctly" (/cry)

5. Starting a new BG2 game, with the imported CHR file

6. Shadowkeepering down my character level back to ~200k XP, which is what I had when I started the BG2 portion of this playthrough, which will require me to look at tables and figure out if I should lose proficiencies and blah blah.

7. Shadowkeepering Imoen, Jaheira, etc. to be what they were at the end of BG1/TOSC from this current playthrough

8. Going through Irenicus' dungeon and shadowkeepering in the 1-2 items that don't appear because this is a "fresh" BG2 game without the BG1 carry-over items, like the golden pants etc.

 

Will I lose things like global variables or whatever? Are there any variables that carry over in a BGT/BWP install from BG1/TOSC to the BG2 portion? For example, things like Xan's or Angelo's variables with you? If it's really minor characters like Tiax or whatever, I don't care.

 

Also: Isn't there a very new BWS, which should theoretically solve all my problems of manually doing everything? Should I just use that and make a custom install, unchecking everything that's not on my personal "shopping list"? And from that thread it appears that Demivrgvs is very soon going to release IR v4, so shouldn't I wait for that to come out, and then for BWS to maybe stabilize its v12?

[kreso]

Export your character and save him away from BG2 folder. Re-install everything (or restore backup, if you have it).

Use LVL1 NPC project to make Jaheira and Imoen to what you want them to be.

For your character import items, use this.

Global variables don't matter for NPC mods such as Tiax or Angelo, they're "stand-alone". Btw, Tiax NPC is exellent .

There's a new BWP, but not a new BWS. Regardless, just be careful and your install will be fine.

[ancalimohtar]

@kreso: Thank you very much! That mod isn't super important since I can just CLUAConsole in any items I get "cheated" out of, but the knowledge that continuing a BG1 game doesn't give me any game variable continuity over starting a new BG2 game (especially with 3rd party mod NPCs) makes life a whole lot easier. I guess a couple weeks of playing BG2 isn't too much to throw away.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Also: Isn't there a very new BWS...

Unfortunally the BWS suffered a heavy hit as the updater took a leave, while the BWP is still being updated... yes, you can try to use BWS, but there's no quarantees you will be rewarded for your efforts.

 

but the knowledge that continuing a BG1 game doesn't give me any game variable continuity over starting a new BG2 game (especially with 3rd party mod NPCs) makes life a whole lot easier.

Well, erhm, you might have missed kreso's point, it's NPC dependant, meaning that it needs to be examined at the NPC specific level... say Xan can carry over a Global that the BG2 mod can look for(not that I know that it does so, as it's not my mod).

 

RIGHT, a good thing a n00b said that. As if he had been here the last 8 years, s/he wouldn't say that.

I've been here the last 8 years and I'm happy to say it. The absence of any serious resources for rating or reviewing mods is in my view one of the most serious problems with the IE modding community, and has been for years. But it's difficult to work out the logistics of setting it up, particularly with IE modding a relative backwater by now. (I think concerns about community split are overrated: the vast majority of mods written in the last ten years are hosted on G3, PPG or SHS, and all three get on perfectly happily and have done for years.)

Yeah, let's just leave all the others outside and be happy with the sight we behold in our eyes.

As in, you do like maintaining threads like these and much worse of deriviations of them ? Case and point:

Just for comparison, think about the IE modding community four years ago: everybody was four years younger, and there were far more flame wars than now (and far more people and big-name modders got involved in them).

Ouh, my bad you have never done so and haven't taken much a part on them, ouh well... (ps, that's not a bad thing !!!)

[DavidW]

 

RIGHT, a good thing a n00b said that. As if he had been here the last 8 years, s/he wouldn't say that.

I've been here the last 8 years and I'm happy to say it. The absence of any serious resources for rating or reviewing mods is in my view one of the most serious problems with the IE modding community, and has been for years. But it's difficult to work out the logistics of setting it up, particularly with IE modding a relative backwater by now. (I think concerns about community split are overrated: the vast majority of mods written in the last ten years are hosted on G3, PPG or SHS, and all three get on perfectly happily and have done for years.)

Yeah, let's just leave all the others outside and be happy with the sight we behold in our eyes.

Works for me. (But in any case, I was discussing the potential risk of community split, not defending the current structure of mod hosting.)

 

As in, you do like maintaining threads like these and much worse of deriviations of them ?

It's currently fairly harmless, actually - but in any case, I don't particularly think the idiosyncracies of Improved Anvil's author are likely to be affected one way or another by better mod rating/reviewing.

 

Case and point:

Just for comparison, think about the IE modding community four years ago: everybody was four years younger, and there were far more flame wars than now (and far more people and big-name modders got involved in them).

Ouh, my bad you have never done so and haven't taken much a part on them, ouh well... (ps, that's not a bad thing !!!)

Yeah, I think that's mostly right (life's too short). To be fair, even when I started posting (c. 2006) it had got pretty quiet. These celebrated "modder wars" are pretty antediluvian, really - going back to the early 2000s, and ancient history now.