Interval Between SoA and ToB

[Roxanne]

Has anyone ever tried to convert Commandos series maps to BG format? This one could be used for TDD Riatavin:

http://www.commandosserie.be/dossier/maps/mocmis09.jpg

Even if it would require upscaling (not sure what is the resolution of Commandos map source files) it would probably still look decent.

With respect to the map - it is a bit more in this specific mod episode than to replace the map (and doing all those house entries/exits, NPC placements etc). This map is used in its original status for Riativin as well as in a duplicate when overrun by demons. A lot of scripted actions and cutscenes take place here, i.e. you not only have to change the map and all locations but you also need to analyse and re-write a large amount of contents (scripts) for the new environment.

The same may then be applied to Eshpurta - it looks like Friendly Arm Inn outdoors with the indoor taken from the Athkatla Temple...

[Vlan]

 

Don't really care about TDD, but I really would love to see a nice litte transition between SoA and ToB as well.

TDDz by shadowlich has converted the former TDD episode to EET, reduced the overpowered items and encounters, solved the Ellesime final dialogue problem (conflict with other mods using Ellesime) etc. It is not yet in its final state but I tested it in my EET playthrough - and until something better is developped it provides a better transition from BG2 to ToB than just being transferred there from Irenicus in Hell via Ellesime to the Talking Heads in one endless scene (as happens without TDDz).

 

Shadowlich's is a positive attempt to improve the new game and does not deserve this type of unreflected condemnation from people not even having given it a chance.

 

My main problem with TDD were the lifeless NPC's, the countless new spells, most of them being little atlerations to old ones, and some really weird atmospheric bloopers in some quests and in general. The mod adds just way too much content to the game than I prefer.

 

The DsotSC of BG2 so to say.

[subtledoctor]

but again you can critisize this approach like any other saying it *prescribes* your way through the game. As long as EET still tries to tell some story instead of providing a playground to battle around and throw spells just for fun while travelling over a worldmap without real cause, we always end up at the same point - some will like it, some not - while leaving everything up to players choices makes any attempt to tell a story in the game obsolete.

Your assertion is absurd. Leaving things up to player's choice does NOT make attempts to tell a story obsolete. BGT left things up to player's choice, and people still made mods for it. YOU made a huge mod for it, that told a huge story.

 

My concern is that elminster has been working for a long time on a mod that occurs at the end of SoA, and if EET makes it *structurally* impossible to use elminster's mod, then that will be a damn shame. Not to mention any other future mod that uses that part of the game that could be wonderful. Whereas, if EET stays away from any particular story, then players can use TDDz and Sandrah, and get a big story mod that way, and they can uninstall them and use elminster's mod and have a different story that way. Why is are you so against players having that choice?

 

Look, if k4thos and White Agnus and the other EET devs want it to be a story-focused mod instead of something like BGT, that's perfectly fine - they're spending the time on it, they can make editorial decisions. But they should let us know that they don't want to make a successor to BGT, they just want to make another megamod.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Well, the problem is that no mod ever sought to simply convert the BG party to BG2. All attempts, including BGT, pushed a brand new, often terribly written, narrative.

[bob_veng]

Well, the problem is that no mod ever sought to simply convert the BG party to BG2. All attempts, including BGT, pushed a brand new, often terribly written, narrative.

 

I don't understand what you're getting at - what does that have to do with the SoA to ToB transition

 

do you perhaps mean that first an organic BG1>SoA transition would have to exist (it seems that it now actually will with SoD, however limiting it might be), and only then an organic, continuous SoA>ToB transition could be considered?

[Roxanne]

 

Well, the problem is that no mod ever sought to simply convert the BG party to BG2. All attempts, including BGT, pushed a brand new, often terribly written, narrative.

 

I don't understand what you're getting at - what does that have to do with the SoA to ToB transition

 

do you perhaps mean that first an organic BG1>SoA transition would have to exist (it seems that it now actually will with SoD, however limiting it might be), and only then an organic, continuous SoA>ToB transition could be considered?

 

Currently EET already has *no-frills* transitions for the whole trilogy, as follows:

- You kill Sarevok >>> you get transferred to Irenicus Dungeon (fullstop).

- You kill Irenicus >>> you get thank you and amulet from Ellesime >>> you get transferred to Talking Heads in ToB (fullstop).

 

The party characters (all you had before any transition - including ones who got themselve killed) are continuous for all the parts (who's dead is dead). You can meet survivors in Amn (those with a BG1 AND BG2 part either appear as continued from BG1, if you had them there, or start as BG2, if you ignored them in BG1) or call them via Fate Spirit (provided you ever recruited them before AND they are not dead) if they are not in the dungeon/pocket plane respectively.

 

So the discussion is actually about fleshing these bare bones out a bit.

- Having SoD between Sarevok's death and Irenicus Dungeon for the first case. (Here SoD may be expected to become the *standard*)

- Having EpisodeTTT between Irenicus Death and ToB start. (Here a potential *standard*, if any at all, is currently open issue).

 

Any of those being optional (? maybe SoD is not optional?), per EET default just having the current transfer(?).

[K4thos]

EET doesn't touch BG2->ToB transition - it works as in BG2:EE. The only changes in ToB are:
- Fate Spirit summoning dialogue that now summons NPCs existing in BG2 to Pocket Plane instead of creating new creatures,
- different chapter numbers (BG2 chapters are appended on top of BG1 ones)
- a way to travel to old areas after leaving Saradush.

No additional story content for migration and I don't think this will change in future. Current implementation can work with either TDDz or Elminster's upcoming mod.

[subtledoctor]

Currently EET already has *no-frills* transitions for the whole trilogy, as follows:

- You kill Sarevok >>> you get transferred to Irenicus Dungeon (fullstop).

- You kill Irenicus >>> you get thank you and amulet from Ellesime >>> you get transferred to Talking Heads in ToB (fullstop).

...

So the discussion is actually about fleshing these bare bones out a bit.

- Having SoD between Sarevok's death and Irenicus Dungeon for the first case. (Here SoD may be expected to become the *standard*)

- Having EpisodeTTT between Irenicus Death and ToB start. (Here a potential *standard*, if any at all, is currently open issue).

I'm suggesting, I think having a "standard" is not a good idea. For instance, SoD costs $20, it would be quite unfair to make it a required purchase to play EET.

 

Having no-frills transitions exactly mirrors the way the games already are. Which is fine IMHO. And leaving it as-is encourages more modders to unleash their creativity. Maybe someone will adapt the BGT transition from Sarevok-->Elhan-->ambush-->Chateau Itenicus. That was pretty minimal... but I actually liked it. Other people can buy SoD, and maybe someone else will come up with a radically different idea. Maybe a meta-mod for IWD-in-EET will position an adventure in the north as the transition. Who knows? Any and all of that could be fun.

 

And ditto for SoA-->TOB. If EET adopts one particular mod as the standard, it would be telling every other modder out there, "you're not allowed to touch this, it's off-limits." Which would be incredibly selfish.

[bob_veng]

to have a standard option doesn't mean to exclude anything. it might mean: to check and ensure that there is an option that is a *really* good one, to recommend it to people (among other good alternatives), to extend support to it if it's author moves on, maybe even to help the author improve it etc.

 

in that case modders could treat it as an integral part of the game and, for example, write banters for their NPCs in that area (they could do that for other options too, but this would always be a safe investment), they could easily add their modules to the transition in order to extend it (they'll know that someone will play them), players wouldn't lose sleep over which mod to install and there'd be an overall aura of ... completeness

 

it's just better than nothing i think. i don't think that's being exclusivist towards anything or anyone.

[Roxanne]

to have a standard option doesn't mean to exclude anything. it might mean: to check and ensure that there is an option that is a *really* good one, to recommend it to people (among other good alternatives), to extend support to it if it's author moves on, maybe even to help the author improve it etc.

 

in that case modders could treat it as an integral part of the game and, for example, write banters for their NPCs in that area (they could do that for other options too, but this would always be a safe investment), they could easily add their modules to the transition in order to extend it (they'll know that someone will play them), players wouldn't lose sleep over which mod to install and there'd be an overall aura of ... completeness

 

it's just better than nothing i think. i don't think that's being exclusivist towards anything or anyone.

This has been a really helpful discussion.

 

To summarise - there is no standard addition to any of the transitions foreseen in EET.

 

On the other hand, K4thos has done a great job in the way he has included those two transitions into the game. (it took me less than 5 minutes to move the BG1 to BG2 transition trigger from immediately after Sarevok's death to another point - I chose returning to Belt with the news of Sarevok's defeat. It works just as well due to the generic way K4thos has coded it.) This opens the possibility for any modder to put optional stuff into the gaps without endangering the way the transitions work. Same for the BG2 to SoA transition. (Branch off the default scenario when Irenicus dies - insert your mod contents - when mod done return to original by going to Ellesime - have her talk, plus any additional contents added to her by existing mods - have the transition.). You can fill contents in and there is no danger to break anything in the game as long as you safely provide a way to pick up the original transit trigger.

 

And if modders stick to this pattern, there can be one or more putting their optional stuff into the two interims and a player can make the choice of having one or more of these addons or just rush through...

 

We can hardly ask for a more flexible way of handling it.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

I support EET going raw with the transition. BGT needs to be stripped of its "interpretation."

[AL|EN]

I'm suggesting, I think having a "standard" is not a good idea. For instance, SoD costs $20, it would be quite unfair to make it a required purchase to play EET.

I think that lack of SoD-requirement would be harmful for the EET as a platform because it's an addon for BG1:EE just like TotSC. Modders would be forced to copy SoD/recreate content etc and it would generally lead to the even greater fragmentation of the platform. Besides, If the modder will create mod for EET + SoD, I can beat that the moment after he posted his work, there would be a scream for "non SoD version". I believe that EET should be atleas BG1:EE + SoD + BG2:EE as a minimum core. IWD1:EE and IWD2 could be addons.

[Roxanne]

 

I'm suggesting, I think having a "standard" is not a good idea. For instance, SoD costs $20, it would be quite unfair to make it a required purchase to play EET.

I think that lack of SoD-requirement would be harmful for the EET as a platform because it's an addon for BG1:EE just like TotSC. Modders would be forced to copy SoD/recreate content etc and it would generally lead to the even greater fragmentation of the platform. Besides, If the modder will create mod for EET + SoD, I can beat that the moment after he posted his work, there would be a scream for "non SoD version". I believe that EET should be atleas BG1:EE + SoD + BG2:EE as a minimum core. IWD1:EE and IWD2:EE could be addons.

 

The issue would be the concept of EET providing continuity through the various parts of the game and SoD coming as an addon between twho parts (it is not a sidetrack but - when installed - becomes part of the BG1 plot). Ignoring it would mean there will be a gap in any NPC/Contents related mods for that part of the game. Rather than a scream for non-SoD version there may soon be a demand for *Does it have SoD contents, does it have IWD contents?*

 

From a modder's point of view, it will help a bit if SoD could be considered *canon* for EET. it makes continuity easier. But it is not a hard requirement - you can restrict SoD related stuff to optional contents (not ideal but possible) and same for IWD.

From personal experience I can say this is possible by treating SoD and IWD parts as additional mods - if your own mod finds it, the crossmod contents installs. One may put additional quests/banters/plot information into these parts that give players a deeper insight into the main story and some additional information but provide that you can still play everything without these parts. (It can be done - but like Alien said *would be harmful for the EET as a platform* - harmful= no go).

 

Regardless feasibility - from the EET announcements and concept I had the same impression as Alien on EET scope. SoD was proclaimed to be chapters 8-14 of EET. And generally it is not a very good idea if EET came out in two versions (with/without SoD) right from the beginning, neither fish nor flesh. IWD is a different story as it is not imbedded in the trilogy in the same way as SoD.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I support EET going raw with the transition. BGT needs to be stripped of its "interpretation."

Sorry but how do you mean ? So a second after Sarevok is dead, Irenicus captures you and then experiments with you, taking 2 hit points, that might be your last and can kill you and the game ends right there. Nice job body. Ouh, you missed the whole TotSC, näh it matters a pipsqueak to us, you had a chance to go to the areas when you weren't investigating the main plot of the game. Ouh yeah, never mind that the original TotSC started after the Sarevok is dead. After all you only see that in the 17 year old game, when you load a premade game, from a save game, and the original encounter was heavily downsized in difficulty to allow this.

 

@ALIENQuake: Well the primary version of the EET will cover the SotD too, but it's not yet revealed if it actually REQUIRES the SotD, for the EET to be installed on BG2EE, as there's no official word if the SotD is an add on or a separated game ... just that the BG1EE is required, that might mean other things. And there's no IwD2EE...

[AL|EN]

I admit that there is no IWD2:EE, I just type it habitually.