A few questions for those playing the original BG and Trilogy

[temnix]

I play Enhanced Edition, and it's hard to tell now just which interface strings (messages) Beamdog has kept since Bioware's days and which it has replaced. I'm not going to install the old games just to find out, and I'd like to know for an upcoming mod, for broader compatibility. So, those of you who play either the old BG or Trilogy, please tell me whether the following messages already appear there, exactly as I write them (character case doesn't matter), or do those versions say something else instead:

Trap Detected

Trap Disarmed

You have successfully forced the door open!

LOCKED (for containers and doors)*

You may not rest when your party is scattered.

Destination Unreachable (that's probably a rare one)

Monsters awaken you from your rest.

You cannot save at this time... Monsters are about.

You cannot rest; there are monsters nearby.

You cannot save at this time.

Broken Weapon

Broken Armor

Broken Miscellaneous (upon these items breaking)

* I would appreciate it if you started Near Infinity and looked for this string. In EE there are two strings that say LOCKED in the game, but the second reads "LOCKED[Container]". All of this information will be used to restore and upgrade some of the sounds, but I can only get there through strings, so I need to know what they read. I'll give you credit in the mod.

P.S. Are BG1 and Trilogy compatible with coloring strings in the TRA file with ^ tags? ^0x7aE1C09This is blue and such. With attaching [SOUNDS]?

P.P.S. By the way, what are the VOICE files in the WAV directory of BG and who is VOICE.CRE? Seems to be a quest of some sort, with references to the Claw and Horn of Kazgaroth, I suspect. Something that didn't make it into the final game?

Edited April 22, 2019 by temnix

[ABlake]

Here's what I know:

- Those strings do exist in the original BG1, except Destination Unreachable which is only in BG2. Exactly as you wrote them.

- You cannot save at this time... Monsters are about: the space after the ellipsis is an EE feature. Back in the old games they didn't have the habit of putting spaces after ellipses... This drove me nuts sometimes.

- Trap Detected exists in BG1's .tlk, but never actually appears in game. Trap Disarmed does, though.

Those VOICE files are an interesting find. I've never run into them despite having messing around with these games for years. They even have their strings in both games' .tlk file (#5198 and #5200 - #5219). This seems to be intended at some point to be the "voice" of the Bhaal essence within you. Apparently didn't make it to release; they are not referenced by anything.

As for the coloring string thing, I have no clue.

Edited April 23, 2019 by ABlake

[temnix]

Thanks a lot, @ABlake I recall now, I think, that in BG1 a detected trap would be just outlined in red, without a message. Is that right? About coloring tags: can you try it with Near Infinity? Just open some string for editing and preface it with ^0x7aE1C09. There is no need for the closing ^. And see if that string appears colored. Can you do that?

[lynx]

I didn't test, but judging from the fact that no string in any game uses it: no.

[ABlake]

9 hours ago, temnix said:

...in BG1 a detected trap would be just outlined in red, without a message. Is that right?

That's right.

The coloring prefix doesn't work. That feature would have been nice.

[temnix]

@ABlakeAha. Thanks for finding out. Now I know that I'm going to need two sets of string replacers. But wait, do the tags not show at all in game or do they show as the gibberish they are?

Edited April 24, 2019 by temnix

[ABlake]

They will show ingame exactly as you write them in the .tlk.

[temnix]

9 hours ago, ABlake said:

They will show ingame exactly as you write them in the .tlk.

But sounds can still be attached with [ ]?

[ABlake]

2 hours ago, temnix said:

But sounds can still be attached with [ ]?

I believe so. Like this line "[SAREVOK 12] Face me!  Face the new LORD OF MURDER!" is attached to SAREV12.WAV. The "[SAREVOK 12]" bit doesn't show ingame.

[temnix]

@ABlake Yeah, that's how they look after compiling too, though this is a different pair of brackets. Weidu has this syntax for custom strings in the TRA file: you write, for example, SAY BATTLE_CRY @1 in the tp2 file, and then in the TRA: @1 = ~[BOGEYMAN_BATTLE] Come here and die!~ [BOGEY]. The first brackets aren't obligatory, they are just for game designers' eyes, and the second contain the assigned sound file, if any. This syntax probably works for BG1, but I don't know. Can I get you to test my mod? It's almost ready. I'm restoring some of the narrator's voice-overs for BG:EE, this part would be somewhat redundant for the original, but also rewriting and remixing a bunch of strings and their sounds. "Save successful" will instead read "Recording your progress..." with a custom sound, and so on. I'd like to know if they appear and play properly in BG1. 

Edited April 24, 2019 by temnix

[ABlake]

13 hours ago, temnix said:

Can I get you to test my mod?

Sure. I'll playtest it for you. Just let me know what I'm supposed to pay attention to.

[temnix]

@ABlake I don't know if this part of the mod is going to work, actually. And it was half of the mod, so the other half won't be worth releasing without it. I want to bring back the narrator voice-overs for a number of in-game events, for the Enhanced Edition, but Beamdog squashed the sound there in some way that may be permanent. I remixed and improved some of those voice-overs so they would even be a step up for the classic games, but if I can't get them to play in EE, the idea falls apart. I'm waiting for some feedback from a knowledgeable guy on why the "You may not rest here. Either find an inn or rest outside." message and others don't speak there (string 16499) and whether I can bypass that by using a different string or in some other way. If not, I'm going to drop this whole attempt.