Back for another playthrough

[Caedwyr]

Another small bug, possibly for @CamDawg since I think this is actually something in the base game for BG1:EE or BG2:EE

CMISC52.bam (wyvern head) and CMISC54.BAM have black selected as the transparency colour.  This causes problems in the enhanced editions, which tend to use Green (0,255,0) as their default transparency colour.  Changing the black transparency colour to green fixes the graphical issues.

These are all located in Data\GUIICON.BIF

[Caedwyr]

As for bugs, Sirene and Tenya Thermidor, both installed on BG1 before the EET mod is installed have some issues where their dialogue text for battle cries has gotten mixed up.  There weren't any issues during install, so I'm guessing both are not quite as compatible with EET as the install guides say and that some changes would be needed to get them to work smoothly with EET.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the issue is with either of these mods, EET, or another mod I've installed.  My suspicion is that if Sirene BG1 and Tenya Thermidor were both made natively compatible with EET (install them after the EET conversion), it would clear up issues like this.

[jastey]

10 hours ago, Caedwyr said:

General consensus was that Grey was completely indispensable and the option to pet him was a significant plus.  People were also pleasantly surprised that he could act as a 7th party member when not in the current group.  No one had kicked him out, so I had to tell them about this feature.  He's pretty well liked so far.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad to hear it.

[Endarire]

@Caedwyr
What are the likely ramifications for Sirine & Tenya incompatibilities?  Who should fix these bugs?

Thankee!

[Caedwyr]

I am experiencing some random crashes (sometimes at zone transitions, sometimes when moving characters, sometimes when opening inventory or changing record pages), but after the game is reloaded everything works fine.  They don't seem to be time based either or trigger off anything happening in game.  I'm making sure I save often, so recovering from the crashes is pretty easy.

In the Baldur's Gate portion of the game I also ran into a weird bug where I removed Imoen from the party and then asked her to rejoin.  She gave her line about rejoining, but didn't rejoin the party.  Talking to her again she repeated her line as though I had just removed her from the party.  I tried telling her to go to the Nashkel Inn, and she spawned there, but the bug persisted.  I ended up CTRL+Q her into the party and everything is working fine.  I have no idea which mod might be causing this issue and it hasn't happened for any of the other NPCs.

The huge number of NPCs is actually really nice for bringing the world to life, even if they never join my party.  It gives a bunch of flavour to the world and makes it feel like adventurers are pretty common (which the original game told, but didn't quite show in the same way).

I am in Chapter 2 and I am working on clearing some sidequests before heading into the Nashkell Mines.

My current party, and the party I think I'm going to end up going with is

Minsc
Dynaheir
Drake
Imoen
Sirene
Grey

Minsc is good as always and I'm enjoying the BG1NPC project content as well as the odd dialogue that gets added in from some of the quest mods I have installed.  I am actually probably going to go with a dual wield build for Minsc instead of his classic 2 hander build, since Sirene has the 2-hander build on lockdown and there are not a lot of sword users in my party.

Dynaheir is okay.  I'm not planning on romancing her, but the BG1NPC project dialogues are very much pushing me in that direction.  I'm not 100% sold on the types of responses her dialogues have.  I feel like the mod author is really trying to push one particular characterization of CHARNAME that doesn't really match the type of voices CHARNAME has in their interactions with other NPCs or quests.  This results in it feeling like CHARNAME is putting on fake faces and trying to please everyone.  Still, the content itself isn't bad and there's some good characterization of Dynaheir, just sadly at the cost of pigeonholing CHARNAME.

Drake is good.  I like his background, he's got good interactions with CHARNAME, and is a real bro.  He also is a good contrast to some of the other priests and paladins that show up, especially the NG and LG ones which tend to be holier than thou.  I like the take on what a Neutral Good character can represent, which means that when he speaks up in response to a situation it tends to have more weight than other NPCs that just speak up reflexively because they are on Team Good.  Well done.  I do wish the custom special abilities for his Priest of Tyr kit had portrait icons or some sort of graphical feedback when they were active.

Imoen.  Some of the writing for her in BG1NPC feels like it is trying too hard, but on the whole she's okay.  She can be a bit one note and I'm hoping later content will reveal some more sides to her character as she moves out in the world as an adventurer.

Sirene is pretty good.  I'm probably going to be doing the romance with her.  Right now I can get a good reaction out of all the flirts, but she isn't interested in things developing further, so my guess is that her relationship development is contingent on certain plot events.  I'll fend of Dynaheir a bit longer.

Grey is also good.  There's some decent integration with various quests (Albert, Brage) and it's nice to have a dog friend around.  Having to kick a party member out and reinvite them in order to manipulate Grey's inventory can be a bit annoying, but I don't have to do it too often and the sidequests seem to generally treat Grey as though he were a party member.

[Caedwyr]

I've worked my way north and discovered a few more NPCs.  The additional mod NPCs do a good job of filling in some areas which were largely empty in the original game with a bunch of little mini introductory quests.  Tenya Thermidor fits in well with the base game as far as tone and feel of the little quest and dilemma it presents to the player.

[jastey]

Thanks for feedback and short reviews! It's always nice to read on players' thoughts about mods.

[grodrigues]

12 hours ago, Caedwyr said:

In the Baldur's Gate portion of the game I also ran into a weird bug where I removed Imoen from the party and then asked her to rejoin.  She gave her line about rejoining, but didn't rejoin the party.  Talking to her again she repeated her line as though I had just removed her from the party.  I tried telling her to go to the Nashkel Inn, and she spawned there, but the bug persisted.

I also have the same problem throughout the entire game. I read a post (forgot which exactly) that traced this problem to BG1NPC when installed *after* EET. If installed before, the problem went away. I have not tested this myself.

[jastey]

4 minutes ago, grodrigues said:

I read a post (forgot which exactly) that traced this problem to BG1NPC when installed *after* EET. If installed before, the problem went away.

Interesting. I'll put this down on my list, thanks for the reminder.

[Caedwyr]

A few more comments on mods that I have some experience with so far in my playthrough.

Verr'sza - An evil Rakshasa NPC you can gain as a party member.  Definitely an evil NPC party member that is well written and voice acted.  I only had him around for his intro quest which rewards a couple good items, but not overpowered.  I'd like to do a longer playthrough with this NPC, especially a CHARNAME that embraces their heritage.

BGEEClassic Movies - Does what it says.  I had it add the missing movies and chapter and dream screens.  No real issues there and the playdoughy video graphics don't stand out too much compared to the rest of the game, plus add a bit more flavour in for different locales.

BGQE - This adds a bunch more small mini-quests similar to many of the ones in the base game, and the quality and consistency in style makes it hard to tell where one ends and the other starts.  So far I've played the Beregost Family Quest, Babysitting Quest, Undying Love Quest, Drunk near Beregost Quest, Many Little Paws, Warm Place for Noober, and Brage's Sword.  This mod is a must-install for me for games of BG1.

BG1 Romantic Encounters - Adds a bunch of romantic encounters and situations to the game.  Some of these are obvious insertions, but others are nice subtle additions.  I liked the Childhood Friend, Girdle of Gender Reactions, and Camryn and Tamah encounters that I've played so far.  I don't mind having the options available, but a number of the more romantic encounters could probably do with a bit more lead time before immediately jumping to the romantic dialogue options.  Still, no regrets so far for having installed this.  It doesn't take over the game and adds a bit more texture to the game world and its denizens.

Ascalon's Questpack.  Another staple quest mod for BG1.  So far I've played A Job Well-Paid, A feast for the Gnolls, Of Wolves and Men.  These integrate well into the base game and should be included in pretty much all installs.

[Caedwyr]

General comments.  AionZ, @Skitia and @Lava do some really good mod work.  I am really enjoying all of their NPCs.  Skitia's characters I'm actually saving to have in the party seriously for my next playthrough when I'll be able to include the BG2 versions that continue the NPC's journeys.

[Guest Fan]

Hello,

How is your playthough going?

[Caedwyr]

We're supposed to have completed Chapter 2 (Nashkell Mines) by this weekend.  There's been lots of sidequesting and I've been impressed at how well the various mod NPCs and mini sidequests have blended into the original game.  The ones that have stood out the most have been the BeamDog NPCs.  They haven't stood out as a net negative, but they do come across a bit more like some of the other older mod NPCs that the author really wanted you to notice their hard work and use their NPC.

[Caedwyr]

I've done the bandit camp and almost all the sidequests available to me prior to doing Cloakwood.  I have still to do the Isle of Balduran sidequests and there's a few bits of Northern Tales of the Sword Coast to tidy up, but everything but the main story is almost done now.

A couple of random thoughts on NPCs you encounter that could be expanded one day.

 

1. Note as an aside for why Gorion can't be raised, to be consistent with the lore of D&D and the Forgotten Realms it just needs to be clear that the corpse is too badly mangled to support life after Raise Dead is cast.  Resurrection is something that could be viable if the PC carried around pieces of Gorion's remains, however turning the body into some form of undead creature (Tamoko could raise Gorion as a skeleton) or trapping the soul would work to prevent this.  There's probably room for a mod out there to add a long term quest to the BG1 game where you are trying to get Gorion brought back, but won't be able to do it until the skeleton that gets raised (during the cutscene, or mentioned via dialog later).  Since it requires a level 7 cleric spell to do this and costs about 10,000 gold I can see this being something that you are rewarded with at the end of the game.  You could actually allow Gorion to rejoin the party at the end of BG1 and he'd be about the right level for SoD (he's a level 9 mage).  Then you can kill him off in the transition to BG2 or have him trying to track the PC down and meet up again during that portion of the game, should you feel like writing a whole NPC mod for him.
2. Tamah from Romantic Encounters seems like an NPC that could become a party member.  I'm not sure if she's bugged in my game, since she is now sitting in the Feldpost Inn and my journal says that she is interested in any messages from Camryn, but she doesn't react to any of the "thicker than normal" books I've found during my adventures.
3. Bjornin the paladin.
4. Greywolf, an interesting alternative to siding with Prism (and Isra) if you can convince Greywolf to join you in delving into the Nashkel mines for a share of the treasure.
5. Dalton from Durlag's tower if you free him.

 

[Zutroy]

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Edited October 18, 2023 by Zutroy