So, what's the difference between the communities?

[LiellaMod]

Hey everyone!

 

First of all, not trying to be inflammatory or spark any arguments - i'm asking this out of curiosity.

 

Unfortunately i didn't get into these communities or into modding until a short month ago or so. Up until then, through the golden years of the old Baldur's Gate games, i only came to quickly download the mods and the play them. I noticed the various communities - Chosen of Mystra, Spellhold, Gibberlings and how mod A, B, or C is usually only available in community X and not Y despite the authors being the same and active on all communities (much like myself nowadays!)

 

Is there any reason? Should an author (or upcoming author like myself) choose a specific community for the release of a mod?

 

Cheers, and have a nice day!

 

--Sebastian (and Jasmine)

[Kulyok]

SHS(the community your NPC mod thread is in) is okay, got a lot of NPC-related mods, Kaeloree(current admin/boss/maintainer) did a lot of work for Beamdog with their Enhanced Edition, so if you're requesting a forum there(as I saw in your thread), I think it's a normal choice. G3 is about the same, but I'm not sure who the maintainer currently is, since CamDawg(a great Fixpack/Tweakpack/IWDinBG2/all around contributor who doesn't like me) is not always around. Theacefes is around, though, and she's friendly and nice when you need help with your mods - she's the author of Sarah/Auren and many music tracks for various mods). G3 is usually used for general modding-tech questions and discussions. PPG, naturally, is the best, and it's so good we even went to the heavens offline last night(seriously, we've got some nasty spamming stuff, but I hope we'll . AND our admin is a

!). Chosen of Mystra is centered around NPC mods, mostly - again, lazy traffic, though I've seen new mods arriving not long ago. Quite a few in-progress/unfinished mods, too(then again, G3 has Aklon, SHS has Khadion and Chrysta, and I keep nagging jcompton about Keto and Nalia ToB, so we're all guilty of that). There's also Blackwyrmlair(you'll find the list of prefixes there; they went "paying access to the forums only" for a while, but now posting on the forums is free again) and RPGDungeon(mostly dead, alas - then again, we fortunately got Sarevok friendship and romance on SHS eventually). There were old teambg and new teambg forums, but they are, as far as I know, very dead.

[LiellaMod]

Oh goodness! I didn't even consider PPG even though that's actually the first place i visited years ago.

 

Anyway, thanks for the explanation! I just wanted to make sure and avoid stepping on any toes as i enter the BG2 modding scene. I'll have to register at PPG as well as soon as it's back up .

 

--Sebastian

[Kulyok]

And there's forum.baldursgate.com, too, since(while it's not a modding community per se) it's a hub for all things Enhanced Edition. But you've probably got an account there already.

[LiellaMod]

I do! That's where i wanted to pull the opinions of players who don't necessarily browse the modding communities. I have a few polls and options i want a broad opinion on before i move forward with certain parts of the mod. I've also registered at a variety of voice-acting communities in the effort to start searching for voice actresses - maybe i'll get lucky and find someone suitable. The actual voice acting is of course quite a bit in the future, but i'd still like to see if anyone is out there .

[lynx]

There's no obvious reason for so many sites besides history and human pettiness. Ok, perhaps it's a ploy of hosting and forum providers, so it's easier to milk money out of the admins. >>

 

I would avoid the official forums, since they may end up like the previous ones without notice or chance to get the data out.

[LiellaMod]

There's no obvious reason for so many sites besides history and human pettiness. Ok, perhaps it's a ploy of hosting and forum providers, so it's easier to milk money out of the admins. >>

 

I would avoid the official forums, since they may end up like the previous ones without notice or chance to get the data out.

 

By official forums i assume you mean the official BGEE-forums at forum.baldursgate.com?

[Jarno Mikkola]

By official forums i assume you mean the official BGEE-forums at forum.baldursgate.com?

That and the one BioWare still hosts.

 

The difference... different people prefer different sites... and of course sites have their specialty, SHS has megamod audience, the G3 has the Fixpack audience, PPG has it's offline status :wink: , the Blackwyrmlair has free Improved Anvil, the CoM has a gathering of a lot of old sites and tradition, kerzenburg.baldurs-gate.eu has Germans ... etc.

[jcompton]

There's no obvious reason for so many sites besides history and human pettiness. Ok, perhaps it's a ploy of hosting and forum providers, so it's easier to milk money out of the admins.

 

Heh. There's something to what you're saying, of course. But at the same time, it's like decrying "partisan bickering" in politics until you see that one-party rule, while calmer, is actually not such a great thing, either.

 

There's probably a little more room for consolidation today than there was, say, nine years ago, but my impression is that the different "flavors" have consistently done way more good than harm.

 

As for Kulyok's glowing assessment of PPG and the reality that it was the OP's first forum yet wasn't on the radar, PPG was very personality-driven. I burned out so many people on The Broken Hourglass that we lost many of those personalities (including my own?) making it a lot easier to overlook us these days. C'est la guerre.

[lynx]

But we're adults now and mostly above petty bickering. I understand BWL needed to be separate, but the others appear very similar to each other. It's true though, that at least this way we don't have a single point of failure.

 

TBH is but a bitter sweet memory by now.

[Aion]

Alternatively, create your own modding site/blog/forum for your own projects and post links on the larger modding community forums or place links in your signature on said forums. I know I have. People don't always get along or agree on key things, which is why there are multiple communities, aside from the obvious language-related reasons.

 

In any case, good luck with your mod! A small tip: Don't let anyone get you down, or tell you why you can't succeed at modding.