What will 2.6's release likely mean for mod compatibility?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

With 2.6's beta already available on Steam, we know the 2.6 official release is soon.  Thus, what will likely need to change for new and existing mods to be compatible with 2.6?

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

Who knows? There’s know way to tell until we start seeing things break. 

If you’re interested in a stable modded game, I would avoid upgrading to 2.6 for a while. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Just downloaded the 2.6 beta.  The game doesn't start in MacOS, but I can check out the files with Near Infinity.  A cursory inspection reveals... still no apparent way to modify the OriginalClass value in-game.

Well, that's that - I'm officially not interested in the 2.6 patch.  Wake me up in seven years when 2.7 is on the way.

[Caedwyr]

38 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Just downloaded the 2.6 beta.  The game doesn't start in MacOS, but I can check out the files with Near Infinity.  A cursory inspection reveals... still no apparent way to modify the OriginalClass value in-game.

Well, that's that - I'm officially not interested in the 2.6 patch.  Wake me up in seven years when 2.7 is on the way.

Is OriginalClass used in adding more classes to the game, or is it useful for some other form of modding?

[subtledoctor]

3 minutes ago, Caedwyr said:

Is OriginalClass used in adding more classes to the game, or is it useful for some other form of modding?

It sets which class advances and which doesn’t, for multiclass characters. Multi F/M has no OriginalClass flag set so XP is evenly divided; dual F->M has the fighter flag set so all XP goes to the mage class; and dual M->F has the mage flag set so all XP goes to the fighter class. 

It’s a small dream of mine to be able to set or unset those flags via in-game events (other than actually dual-classing, which is currently the only way to affect them).

[Caedwyr]

I can see how that would be really helpful for custom class creation on another class's chassis.

Have people figured out how to pretty much freely choose what equipment items are allowed/disallowed for all classes separate from what was linked to all the classes in the base game or is that still a meaningful restriction?

[Sam.]

My personal impression of the upcoming patch is that:

a) 2.6 is likely to be the last significant patch for the IE games from Beamdog.  If there's anything you want to be included, this is your last chance to push/beg for it.

b) The very first step of the patch is converting the entire codebase to 64-bit.  As MacOS games don't even boot, we're clearly in the early stages of its development.  I wouldn't expect an official release anytime soon.  Also, just because a particular feature request or bug-fix is not included in the current beta version of the patch doesn't necessarily mean it won't be included at a later date.

c) While there will be significant modifications to the underlying codebase and probably a long list of bug-fixes, I doubt there will be very much top-level content that will break mods.

[Cahir]

I'm curious, what is the benefit for regular PC user by switching to 64-bit? Will the game run smoother or something? Or is it done mainly for the benefit of mobile users?

[Caedwyr]

I think 64-bit allows greater ram usage and may help for situations where the interface hangs during initialization of character creation.   Going forward it is likely for future compatibility on devices which may no longer support 32-bit programs.

[lefreut]

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Just downloaded the 2.6 beta.  The game doesn't start in MacOS, but I can check out the files with Near Infinity.  A cursory inspection reveals... still no apparent way to modify the OriginalClass value in-game.

After all this wait, they finally release a beta for the patch... and it didn't even start on MacOS Good job guys.

10 hours ago, Sam. said:

a) 2.6 is likely to be the last significant patch for the IE games from Beamdog.  If there's anything you want to be included, this is your last chance to push/beg for it.

Considering that they still haven't fixed some regressions that they introduced themselves, I don't know if it's worth your time to beg for new features that they will likely completely ignore.

10 hours ago, Sam. said:

c) While there will be significant modifications to the underlying codebase and probably a long list of bug-fixes, I doubt there will be very much top-level content that will break mods.

Every single patch since 2.0 has changes that breaks UI mods (in addition of new regressions...).

[lynx]

Moving to 64-bit will slightly increase memory use, but that isn't really the motivation — it would be if the games  needed more than 4G at once, which would be a terrible regression (eg. original bg1 required 16M ).

[Angel]

For the game, moving to 64-bit will likely not make much of a difference as @lynx already correctly pointed out.  Now I do not work form Beamsoft so I am not privy to their reasoning, but I know that 32-bit devices are becoming more and more obscure these days and support for it is dwindling rapidly.  For example, Microsoft is currently phasing 32-bit support out of Windows 10, new devices that want to be Microsoft certified need to be 64-bit.

Most 64-bit systems are backwards-compatible with 32-bit code, but since there is no inherent advantage to running in 32-bit mode, running in native 64-bit mode when possible is the logical choice, and probably the most future-proof one.  The only reason not all code is 64-bit yet is that in the past lazy programmers assumed a 32-bit system and put constructions in their code that do not work on 64-bit (like assuming that an integer value is 32 bits in length, for example), these errors have to be fixed first before code can run in native 64-bit.  This can be a lengthy and costly process, as I know from experience.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Angel

[StefanO]

2.5 and 2.3 (at least) are already 64bit applications. They run without problems on MacOS 10.15. Catalina doesn't run any 32 bit apps at all.

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, StefanO said:

2.5 and 2.3 (at least) are already 64bit applications. They run without problems on MacOS 10.15. Catalina doesn't run any 32 bit apps at all.

Not to mention they run on iOS, which stopped running 32-bit apps several years ago.

17 hours ago, Sam. said:

2.6 is likely to be the last significant patch for the IE games from Beamdog.  If there's anything you want to be included, this is your last chance to push/beg for it.

They used to have a 'feature request' forum.  Then they had a different feature request subforum, and nothing was migrated over - if your request was in the old forum, it would thereafter be ignored. Then they started using Redmine and ignored/closed feature requests in the forums. Anything in the forums would now be ignored and only brand new Redmine requests would be considered.  Now they have given up on Redmine and started using a new system.  All the unfulfilled requests are still open in Redmine; would it be so hard to carry that over to the new system?  But no - you have to make a new account in a new system and put your request in again.  And then it will probably be ignored, again. 

I'm tired of this shit.  They want people to make same request over and over and over, even though they don't do it.  They can't think of a better way to register player communication?  They can't do just a little bit of work and migrate over open tickets from the last system?  If anyone wants to go make a feature request about OriginalClass and it happens, I'll make an awesome mod with it.  But I'm done dealing with Beamdog's crappy hamster-wheel systems.

[DavidW]

17 hours ago, Sam. said:

2.6 is likely to be the last significant patch for the IE games from Beamdog.  If there's anything you want to be included, this is your last chance to push/beg for it.

Realistically, if 2.6 is available in beta then it was feature-complete, or virtually so, a while ago, so your last chance passed some while back. (I don't have inside information, this is just based on the general pattern for game releases.)