Requesting Permission

[Evil.Iguana]

What is the Spell Revisions team's policy on the use of their work (credited, obviously) in other people's mods? I ask because I'm working on an IWD:EE mod to satisfy my own desires and I might want to include some of the changes made in Spell Revisions. If I included your work as part of my mod I would require permission if I were to ever release it publicly. Do you allow the credited use of your work?

[Jarno Mikkola]

It might help if you give an example... and do you want the code or the spells or everything and make a small tweaks ... aka how substantial is the mod content besides the SR's changes ?

Just thinking this cause the IWDEE compatibility could be a possible goal after the next release.

[kreso]

It's already compatible.

[subtledoctor]

Yeah why not just use SR (v4)?

 

On the other hand sometimes you just want to use some (limited) resources in ways that differ from SR. E.g. Demi was very generous in letting me use certain resources from the SRv3 Summon Shadow spell with my Nightrunner of Mask kit.

 

I would make the request via PM, and be fairly specific about how you want to use it.

[kreso]

Yeah why not just use SR (v4)?

Oh no. You should modify .tp2 to acknowledge IWDEE as viable platform before. Other than that, it does indeed work.

Interesting enough, IWDEE ini file is called baldur.ini.

[CrevsDaak]

 

Yeah why not just use SR (v4)?

Oh no. You should modify .tp2 to acknowledge IWDEE as viable platform before. Other than that, it does indeed work.

Interesting enough, IWDEE ini file is called baldur.ini.

 

IwD:EE uses BG2:ToB's engine enhanced by Beamdog, so it needs several things to be named like in BG2. I think the baldur.ini is referenced several times in the game's executable, that's probably why they didn't change it's name.

[subtledoctor]

Oh no. You should modify .tp2 to acknowledge IWDEE as viable platform before. Other than that, it does indeed work.

Ah. Are they ultimately targeting IWDEE compatibility with v4? Or just the BGs?

[kreso]

I don't think SR was (?) ever considered to be an IWD mod, no.

The thing is, IWDEE isn't really any different from EEs, which aren't much different from old BG2.

It's virtually the same game. Sure, it's snowy and cold and you get some new spells and opcodes to play around with, but take away all the shiny IWD stuff and what you have is BG-in-IWD. Or viceversa, whatever.

I played a little of IWD with SR/IR (armor/weapons tweaks - probably base could be installed as well, but items are much different in IWD)/KR - making them compatible took around 5 minutes total.

[Evil.Iguana]

It might help if you give an example... and do you want the code or the spells or everything and make a small tweaks ... aka how substantial is the mod content besides the SR's changes ?

Just thinking this cause the IWDEE compatibility could be a possible goal after the next release.

Basically, my goal is to fix imbalances that bother me and make some things more logical. In many cases this means making it more 3rd edition-y. For example, the first thing I changed was to make every class use the same xp progression because I find the 2nd edition system confusing and arbitrary. Better to balance the classes around equal levels for a given xp amount. I also hate randomness in character level up so I altered the hp tables to use flat numbers that end up being exactly the average dice roll give or take 1 hp over the life of the character. I figure that's more balanced than just using the "roll max each time" option that ultimately ends up making constitution a weaker stat than it should be.

 

As for why I want to use some of your spells: I really like the implementation of some of the changes you guys made and it is a lot simpler to subcontract, so to speak, than to try to come up with my own equal but sufficiently different version. It seems like a waste to redo things from scratch when there is a perfectly viable existing framework that could be adapted for my purposes, assuming the creators are willing to give permission. One area of interest in this regard: creature summons. The default BGII spell list is full of many nearly useless summoning spells. Balancing them from scratch would be a lot of work. Heck I haven't even modified my first creature yet. Call it laziness if you want to, or a desire to get to the good part (playing the game) quickly.

 

So that's my motivation. I will note that it's not clear to me how viable direct porting would be. I don't know if IWD:EE has all of the spellcasting and creature graphics carried over from BG for one thing. For another a lot of IWD:EE spells have new, unidentified opcode effects. What is the purpose is of the first eleven unknown effects in cure serious wounds? Hell if I know.

[subtledoctor]

Well if you just want to pick and choose stuff from various mods to apply to your own game, then have at it. That's why they are published. (Incidentally you might want to check out my Scales of Balance mod, linked in my sig, which among other things addresses XP tables, HP tables, and the like. It's compatible with IWDEE.)

 

Taking stuff from other mods and publishing it yourself is a whole different question. And probably one you need not/should not worry about. Adapting SR for compatibility with IWDEE should be pretty simple - especially if kreso shares his alterations, and kreso is generally very gracious in helping out modders around here. So

I assume SRv4 will be officially compatible with IWDEE in the not-too-distant future.

[Evil.Iguana]

Well if you just want to pick and choose stuff from various mods to apply to your own game, then have at it. That's why they are published. (Incidentally you might want to check out my Scales of Balance mod, linked in my sig, which among other things addresses XP tables, HP tables, and the like. It's compatible with IWDEE.)

 

Taking stuff from other mods and publishing it yourself is a whole different question. And probably one you need not/should not worry about. Adapting SR for compatibility with IWDEE should be pretty simple - especially if kreso shares his alterations, and kreso is generally very gracious in helping out modders around here. So

I assume SRv4 will be officially compatible with IWDEE in the not-too-distant future.

 

Well the point of asking is that I may someday want to package up my tweaks and make them available for people who have my rather specific tastes. It'd be nice to have that option. On the subject of your mod: Thanks for sharing that. You actually seem to think very much along the same lines that I do. I also modified the str, con, and dex tables to spread the bonuses out a bit more and try to make each point do something. And we seem to have the same opinion on fealty to the pen-n-paper rulesets.

[Mike1072]

If the goal is just to port some SR spells to IWDEE, that's better accomplished by making SR compatible with IWDEE than copying its spells into a separate mod and making that mod compatible.

 

I don't know if SR will ever have what we would consider full IWDEE compatibility - looking at IWD as a whole and adjusting all its spells - but getting SR to install the spells that are shared between BG2 and IWD would be fairly straightforward. If you wanted to assist in that effort, you could provide a list of such spells.

[Demivrgvs]

Sooner or later SR will be compatible to IWDEE but I don't know if we'll have the time and will to make it fully designed for it.

 

When it comes to using SR stuff for your own use:

- I obviously have no problems with players editing any Revision mod for personal use

- I have no problems with modders using ideas (be it concept or spell structure/code) from it, if they credit us

- I would hate to see any Revision mod tweaked and re-released with a different name

[Evil.Iguana]

Sooner or later SR will be compatible to IWDEE but I don't know if we'll have the time and will to make it fully designed for it.

 

When it comes to using SR stuff for your own use:

- I obviously have no problems with players editing any Revision mod for personal use

- I have no problems with modders using ideas (be it concept or spell structure/code) from it, if they credit us

- I would hate to see any Revision mod tweaked and re-released with a different name

 

The second bullet point there is what I was planning. Using ideas, looking at code to understand how it works, maybe borrowing names cause I suck at thinking up good alternatives. Truth be told, however, as I get deeper into this stuff it's becoming quite obvious that IWD:EE's spells are already significantly different than BGII's and I've been adjusting my plans somewhat. For example, I really liked what you did with Remove Curse in SR3, making it into Break Enchantment. That was one of the ideas I wanted to copy. However, IWD:EE already has a 3rd level priest spell called Exaltation that has a very similar effect to your Break Enchantment spell, as well as the almost never used remove curse spell. If I were to implement break enchantment I'd now be stepping on Exaltation's toes, and if I do nothing I'm still left with a spell I will likely never use. Bottom line is that the differences in the spell systems are forcing me to rethink my modding strategies.

[Ardanis]

As far as installation goes, partial IWD EE compatibility should be pretty straightforward to implement with the ADD_SPELL code update.

Content wise, I am less confident there won't be accidental conflicts due to slightly different engines, because IWD EE is a sort of Enhanced EE or EE+, if you will. E.g. I recall some of the "vanilla" spells uses newest engine features for better effect.