More NPCs in towns for BG2?

[Vlan]

Hey there,

is there a mod out there which populates the city areas of BG2 a little bit more with townsfolk / merchants or other people? Since walking around the Promenade without seeing almost no townsfolk (in such a populated city) is kinda lame.

[bob_veng]

there isn't, as far as I know.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Yey, let's add 1000 empty rings for the player to walk around, and then give them a random walk, which will inevitably end them into the upper left corner, blocking entrances, and exits. "Fireball, anyone ?"

[Vlan]

2 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Yey, let's add 1000 empty rings for the player to walk around, and then give them a random walk, which will inevitably end them into the upper left corner, blocking entrances, and exits. "Fireball, anyone ?"

It's all about immersion, you know? And you certainly dont have to give every one of them a RandomWalk block.

Also, is there like a hard limit of actors that you can give an area? I guess that if you add like 100 additional ones to an area, the old engine might struggle a bit, won't it?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Have you not have a cleric in BG1, and casted Animate Dead ? Ouh yeah, it only works in the actual non-EE game, where there's no summon cap to limit to 5 minions..   It works well, nothing to it*. And there has been multiple mod bugs that have produced hundreds of the same NPC... the only thing that's bothersome with that is that there's no room ... usually.

*This of course is with a preface that we don't know what happens with 1000 NPCs having been affected by say 1000 effects and the engine not gaining enought resources to math it all out.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Jarno Mikkola

[Vlan]

Well. 1000 is way too much anyway. But since there are no npc mods out there, I am planning to create my own little one, starting maybe with an additional 50-100 in the Promenade. We'll see.

[Angel]

Baldur's Gate at the start of Siege of Dragonspear is pretty crowded with refugees, so the EE engine at least should be able to handle a few dozen people.  Dunno about the old engine though, I think that could run into some unforeseen limits.

[Isewein]

I really like the idea of more populated areas! Count me interested. Athkatla especially always felt a bit too sparsely populated. I would suggest implementing Night/Day differences. It might be as simply as tinkering with the Extracount variable used in many areas for keeping track of no-name NPCs.

[Vlan]

On 6/16/2019 at 8:15 PM, Angel said:

Baldur's Gate at the start of Siege of Dragonspear is pretty crowded with refugees, so the EE engine at least should be able to handle a few dozen people.  Dunno about the old engine though, I think that could run into some unforeseen limits.

200+ Actors doesn't seem to bother the original either.

I gave Waukeens Promenade like 180 extra Actors and it seems to be working fine. Not sure if it might be worse without an i5-i7. I think I will give like 30  Actors their own little patrols, with them jumping all over the place.