EET v13.4 released

[subtledoctor]

If you're talking about a Windows executable launcher program, and it has anything mission-critical in it, then congratulations, you would successfully make sure I and AstroBryGuy and anyone else like us could never play EET. Not to mention players on iOS and Android (which, realistically, at some point they will be the majority of players).

 

Please no.

 

If it's just a few extra options or whatever, then who cares.

 

But the UI itself is moddable now, including the game's campaign-picking launch screen. Why not just modify that screen to include more options? There are several interface options in the game that tell the player "you must restart the game for this to take effect" ... couldn't a UI switcher work the same way?

 

As far as official patches messing stuff up: my prediction is that there won't be too many more of those. I don't think there's another SoD on the horizon; I think Beamdog just showed WotC that they have the chops to do a project like that. (Say what you will about the writing/controversy/whatever in SoD... but there is pretty universal agreement that no other game comes close to these ones when it comes to respecting the AD&D ruleset and translating it to computers.) The next project is going to be a 5e game in a new engine.

 

My hope is that Beamdog is incorporating fixes to stuff currently posted on Redmine into the upcoming iOS/Android release, which will be 2.4; and then that will quickly filter back to the Win/Mac/Linux games, and to IWDEE. And probably 2.4 will be the last update to the Infinity Engine.

[K4thos]

If you're talking about a Windows executable launcher program, and it has anything mission-critical in it, then congratulations, you would successfully make sure I and AstroBryGuy and anyone else like us could never play EET. Not to mention players on iOS and Android (which, realistically, at some point they will be the majority of players).

 

Please no.

 

If it's just a few extra options or whatever, then who cares.

 

don't worry, we're not interested in Windows only option. And it's indeed just extra options or whatever.

 

My hope is that Beamdog is incorporating fixes to stuff currently posted on Redmine into the upcoming iOS/Android release, which will be 2.4; and then that will quickly filter back to the Win/Mac/Linux games, and to IWDEE. And probably 2.4 will be the last update to the Infinity Engine.

 

I'm wondering - does iOS/Android releases support mods? Can you for example install EET on PC and somehow make it work on portable devices bought on Google Play Store and iOS store? Where are TLK files? What about biff files and Override folder?

 

But the UI itself is moddable now, including the game's campaign-picking launch screen. Why not just modify that screen to include more options? There are several interface options in the game that tell the player "you must restart the game for this to take effect" ... couldn't a UI switcher work the same way?

 

The GUI is sandboxed, there are no commands that can be used to access anything outside game via LUA code (other than Baldur.lua within documents directory).

Edited August 17, 2016 by K4thos

[argent77]

I'm a Windows user, but I'm not too fond of the Launcher idea either. Launchers are always the first thing I deactivate or delete since they're just another layer of inconvenience between me and the game.

 

My hope is that Beamdog is incorporating fixes to stuff currently posted on Redmine into the upcoming iOS/Android release, which will be 2.4; and then that will quickly filter back to the Win/Mac/Linux games, and to IWDEE. And probably 2.4 will be the last update to the Infinity Engine.

I'm wondering - does iOS/Android releases support mods? Can you for example install EET on PC and somehow make it work on portable devices? Where are TLK files? What about biff files and Override folder?

 

You can use my DlcBuilder to create a distributable version of fully modded games. Afaik, the DLC model has been chosen in the first place because it was already implemented in a similar fashion in the mobile versions of the games.

I don't know the game folder structure on mobile devices, but the desktop versions of the games support DLC locations in the game installation folder as well as in the documents folder. I would imagine the mobile versions also support locations that are freely accessible by the user.

[K4thos]

You can use my DlcBuilder to create a distributable version of fully modded games. Afaik, the DLC model has been chosen in the first place because it was already implemented in a similar fashion in the mobile versions of the games.

Intersting and great little tool. Once the iOS and Android versions are updated to patch 2.x (from what I read SoD is not yet available there and they still use patch 1.3) I hope someone will try it out with EET and share results here. Information how to convert EET installation for those platforms could be added to the EET readme file.

[argent77]

One issue to consider is that some mobile devices require different texture encoding formats for PVRZ files. A work-around would probably be to convert PVRZ-based tilesets back into the original palette-based format (which is apparently supported by all devices).

[subtledoctor]

I'm wondering - does iOS/Android releases support mods? Can you for example install EET on PC and somehow make it work on portable devices bought on Google Play Store and iOS store? Where are TLK files? What about biff files and Override folder?

If you jailbreak and can get access to the app files in the filesystem, then you can more or less simply copy over the /override folder and the dialog.tlk folder from a modded desktop version of the game, and it will play just fine on an iPad. I'm playing a heavily-modded IWDEE game right now, it's fantastic. The caveat is that the mobile versions cannot handle certain file formats - including the texture encoding in PVRZ files, as mentioned above, and some audio files that are used by several soundset mods.

 

Hopefully, fingers crossed, once 2.x is released for iOS/Android, there will be no need to jailbreak and Argent77's tool will be all that is needed to apply mods.

 

Once the iOS and Android versions are updated to patch 2.x (from what I read SoD is not yet available there and they still use patch 1.3) I hope someone will try it out with EET and share results here.

I intend to. It sounds like that PVRZ thing is a dealbreaker, so hopefully it is something EET can handle. Aside form that, I just applied the new 9.3.3 jailbreak to my iPad and I'm collecting a bunch of recently-updated mods and I'm starting to sort them into some kind of proper order for the EET install process. I'm going to make a big modded EET game and as soon as they put out 2.x for iOS I'll drop the game onto the iPad and see how it goes.

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone know roughly what the file count it in /override with EET installed? I'm guessing this might be the kind of thing that can bring a tablet to its knees - at least an older one, like my A7 Mini 2 with 1GB RAM...

[K4thos]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know roughly what the file count it in /override with EET installed? I'm guessing this might be the kind of thing that can bring a tablet to its knees - at least an older one, like my A7 Mini 2 with 1GB RAM...

 

all BG:EE and SoD content without any other mods add 2.55 GB to the BG2:EE. All graphic and sound resources are biffed during installation, so the Override directory is about 70 MB only with files that are modifiable by weidu. As for the file count it's 12 415 although I think the size of the files is more important than amount of them. In worst case generalized biffing can get rid of all files from Override.

[argent77]

@subtledoctor: The archives created by the DlcBuilder may already work for current mobile game versions. You might have to rename the included mod.key back to chitin.key to make it work.

[CrevsDaak]

 

A kobold in the Nashkel Mines dropped a Mordekain's Sword scroll which seems a bit too high lvl as random treasure for this area.

Please let me know if you encounter this again.

 

Are you using the same rndtrea*.2da and .itm files for BG1/BG2 in EET? Because this might be causing it. If you want to do this, refactor the ones with BG2 scrolls, and give shitty creatures low tier ones, otherwise you're going to get crazy (you can just copy all the creatures with a blank regexp and look at the XP value/HP/level to determine the rndtrea tier they should get) with this "bug" (personally, I call it "gameplay enhancing feature" ).

Edited August 17, 2016 by CrevsDaak

[subtledoctor]

@subtledoctor: The archives created by the DlcBuilder may already work for current mobile game versions. You might have to rename the included mod.key back to chitin.key to make it work.

Maybe. But EET, and all of the mods that I'm currently working on, require 2.3. And the iOS version is still 1.3. So it's a moot point, for me at least.

[argent77]

In my recent walkthrough with EET RC5 I noticed a number of incorrect strrefs in effect opcodes that are used for displaying strings. For example, the spell of the Unsleeping Guardian in the opening dungeon of SoD should trigger the message "Slowed" if the target fails their save, but instead it displays "Your countenance has the air of dark thoughts and concern, my love. Might I ask what has brought this mood about you?" (including associated sound clip).

So, I've written a small WeiDU routine to list all strrefs from effect opcodes and found a great number of incorrect lines.

 

You can check it out yourself with the following script: setup-ListOpcodeStrings.zip

[K4thos]

In my recent walkthrough with EET RC5 I noticed a number of incorrect strrefs in effect opcodes that are used for displaying strings. For example, the spell of the Unsleeping Guardian in the opening dungeon of SoD should trigger the message "Slowed" if the target fails their save, but instead it displays "Your countenance has the air of dark thoughts and concern, my love. Might I ask what has brought this mood about you?" (including associated sound clip).

 

So, I've written a small WeiDU routine to list all strrefs from effect opcodes and found a great number of incorrect lines.

 

You can check it out yourself with the following script: setup-ListOpcodeStrings.zip

thanks, looks like I've missed some opcode. Will be fixed for next release.

[K4thos]

Indeed opcode 183 was missing for param1 patching (IESDP refers it as 'Undetermined' so probably worth changing it there too). Also opcode 181 for special parameter.

[GrimLefourbe]

I found some too though I thought I had just messed up something and wanted to wait another playtest to confirm. I can make a test on my own install in a day or two as well should it be required.

[K4thos]

I've just checked macros used for this patching and there was a huge bug in there. To be more precise:

this:

PATCH_IF ("%fx_type%" = 267) BEGIN
  PATCH_IF (VARIABLE_IS_SET $EVAL ~%array%~(~%StrRef%~)) BEGIN

should be:

PATCH_IF ("%fx_type%" = 267) AND (VARIABLE_IS_SET $EVAL ~%array%~(~%StrRef%~)) BEGIN

oterwise other opcodes couldn't be updated correctly. Great find, argent77.

Edited August 19, 2016 by K4thos