Discussion on modding BG:EE so that the main plot is more flexible

[The_Baffled_King]

2 hours ago, Lauriel said:

Writing the dialogue is what I enjoy most when it comes to modding.  I really think you'd enjoy it.  It's a fun hobby.

Maybe I should make them all talk a bit like Scar... An entire world of long-suffering NPCs who know that their whole world warps around the PC, and who are aware that they cannot prevent their own actions being towards that end, but who have sufficient free will to grouse about it in their dialogue (I'm not serious about this, of course).

6 hours ago, Lauriel said:

That would be easy enough to do.  Not the early access to BG, per se, but allow Rasaad's quest to be done early.  You just need to move the events in BG to Nashkel and perhaps, Beregost.  Not very complicated, and maybe a nice little mod to get your feet wet.

I had to think about where I'd made that comment about Rasaad! To clarify, for me, early access to Rasaad's quest is only one of the many attractions to granting access to BG city early; I mentioned it specifically because Endarire had asked about NPCs. What most attracts me to the idea is the fact that it would give the player another option from the very beginning of the game. Aside from that, if granting access to Rasaad early was something I was very interested in, I completely agree with you.

6 hours ago, Lauriel said:

We need more story modders.  Come!  Join us on the dark side!

Thanks for the encouragement, honestly. I'll think about it, but I doubt it. I've been looking into this on and off in the three weeks since I first posted here and on the Beamdog forums asking a few technical questions. At various points I've run into difficulties and thought "oh, I should post a query on the forums", but then I've thought "yes, but that hasn't gotten much of a response" (zero replies on the Beamdog forum), so I've tried to clarify the issue for myself. This cycle has repeated itself a few times, and I've reached the stage where I know enough about Weidu to know that I'm not prepared to invest the time required to drag myself the entirety of the way to making the mod.

Edited April 16, 2021 by The_Baffled_King

[Lauriel]

2 minutes ago, The_Baffled_King said:

I know enough about Weidu to know that I'm not prepared to invest the amount of time required to drag myself the entirety of the way to making the mod.

It's not what you know, it's who you copy. LOL

[The_Baffled_King]

7 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

It's not what you know, it's who you copy. LOL

Oh, for sure. I've been poking around in the innards of mods I've installed, and I've downloaded a couple for precisely that reason. I'm not saying I've reached the limit of what I can do, rather that I have an idea of the amount of time I'll have to invest to carry on like this, and it's just too much. And I have no faith that if I do reach the limit of what I can do, anyone will be willing to clarify for me whatever it is that I'm not understanding.

The discussion in this thread has been interesting, but the sole reason I made the thread was so any responses along the lines of "have you considered xyz about the plot" could be diverted away from the other thread, where I was hoping to clarify more fundamentally important issues such as whether, having used a PartyRested() trigger to handle to Chapter-related dreams, it has been/can be coded well enough to ensure that it reliably fires. And I still don't know the answer to that.

[Lauriel]

I've never used the PartyRested() trigger, but I've put in a ton of scenes (and dreams) that happen during rest.  You just put it into player1d which runs every time the party rests.

[Lauriel]

5 minutes ago, The_Baffled_King said:

to handle to Chapter-related dreams,

These happen their own anyway.  Unless you're changing which dream they at each chapter.  Not sure where that would be.

[The_Baffled_King]

19 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

I've never used the PartyRested() trigger, but I've put in a ton of scenes (and dreams) that happen during rest.  You just put it into player1d which runs every time the party rests.

This is "the other thread" I mentioned in my previous post:

https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/32558-modding-chapter-transitions-and-dream-sequences-in-bgee-edited/

Nobody clued me in to Player1D, so thank you for being the first! I just put it into the forum search bar, though, and I can see your question about the topic from last year (which, relevantly, contains an answer touching on the reliability of PartyRested() trigger).

In the absence of that information, I ended up combing through the IESDP, and then - when I realised that its section on LUA files didn't have a hyperlink - combing through BGEE.LUA and the CHU files section to find the linkage between the "Rest" button at an inn (on the screen where it asks "are you sure you wish to rest?") and the button that closes a store. It took a long time.

Why? So I could get the Rooms screen to close when the "Rest" button at an inn was pressed, so that the dreams - which I had firing with a PartyRested() trigger - didn't look visually ugly when you woke up to the Rooms screen, and then had the dream text screen. All wasted time if the dreams run from Player1D... So that kinda proves my point about the limits of copying, and the value of answers!

(I recall coming across "bd_dream_timer" myself, and ApplySpellRES("bdrejuve"), but I think by that point I assumed Player1D only did relevant things during SoD, given the value of the CHAPTER Globals used, and the lack of reference to BG1 dreams. Oops)

17 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

These happen their own anyway.  Unless you're changing which dream they at each chapter.  Not sure where that would be.

It's not so much about changing the dream, as ensuring that the player still gets the correct dreams and powers if they're allowed to complete the Chapters out of order. So, assuming the CHAPTER Global has to be used, you either have to be able to control the existing dreams, or disable them and replace them with your own. You'll see what I mean on the other thread.

[Lauriel]

To be honest, my eyes start to glaze over with too much text and detail.  Short distinct questions get answered very quickly, I've found.  And I've had a ton of them.

[The_Baffled_King]

12 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

To be honest, my eyes start to glaze over with too much text and detail.  Short distinct questions get answered very quickly, I've found.  And I've had a ton of them.

Makes a lot of sense, and that's why I split my reply to Temnix's post in my other thread into this thread.

But altering the fundamental order of the game is not something I'd seen done in any other mods, and it raised a lot of questions!

So, my view was, let's try and answer these big questions from the start, because if they can't be answered (ie. it can't be done), then there's no point spending time on any of it.

I didn't want to learn to mod, per se; I wanted to learn to mod for this specific reason. Hope that makes sense!

Edited April 16, 2021 by The_Baffled_King

[Lauriel]

On 4/15/2021 at 9:47 AM, Lauriel said:

On 4/6/2021 at 10:53 AM, The_Baffled_King said:

One of the attractions of early access to BG city for me is opening up Rasaad's quest earlier (as it's far too easy in Chapter 5)

That would be easy enough to do.  Not the early access to BG, per se, but allow Rasaad's quest to be done early.  You just need to move the events in BG to Nashkel and perhaps, Beregost.  Not very complicated, and maybe a nice little mod to get your feet wet.  We need more story modders.  Come!  Join us on the dark side!

Since you show no signs of doing this, I'll add this to my Themed Tweaks mod.  It wouldn't leave my brain. IT. MUST. BE. DONE.  But if you are at all interested in writing it, I'll leave it be.

[The_Baffled_King]

8 hours ago, Lauriel said:

Since you show no signs of doing this, I'll add this to my Themed Tweaks mod.  It wouldn't leave my brain. IT. MUST. BE. DONE.  But if you are at all interested in writing it, I'll leave it be.

It's very polite of you to check, but you're literally asking if I mind if you use your own idea! All I said was that the opportunity to do Rasaad's quest early would be one of the benefits of early access to BG city; you came up with the idea of moving the quest. Really, it's all yours

[The_Baffled_King]

Having already invested a fair amount of time in this, I carried on with my little project. It’s still an open question as to whether it ever gets released as a mod, and as to the level of compatibility with some types of other mod. The considerations in respect of this have already been discussed.

Along the way, due in large part to Endarire’s comments, I got to thinking whether the plot can justify doing the Ch.5 Iron Throne quest earlier in the game. And I decided that, yes, it can potentially be justified, as can doing the Ch.6 Candlekeep quest earlier in the game.

I also figured that, by making the changes I already talked about, a fairly substantial part of the work required to let the Ch.5 and Ch6 main quest content be completed early would already be done. So then I thought: why not make it a possibility as well?

I have no interest in, as Endarire suggested, “completing the Iron Guys' BG city tasks to effectively complete the other mines'/chapters' quests”. But if it doesn’t add much hassle to what I’m already doing, then why not allow others that choice?

With all that in mind, I’m working on a game progression that looks like this:

Spoiler

Chapter 0:
Vanilla

Chapter 0-1 transition:
Vanilla

Chapter 1-2 transition:
Arrival in one of several different areas, in some cases only after a timer expires.
With a cheat variable, dialog with Kolssed in Lion’s Way can start Chapter 2 immediately.

Chapters 2-6:
Absolutely any order you want!
Variables set on installation but changeable in-game govern early access to BG City, the Iron Throne building, and Candlekeep. Some are a cheat. Most are handled by the plot.
With a cheat variable, dialog with Scar can skip any of Chapters 2-6 bar the transition to Chapter 7.

Chapter 6-7 transition:
Bring Rieltar’s incriminating letter to Eltan. Get sent to deal with Rieltar outside of BG City. Hilarity ensues. Rieltar dies, you get framed and imprisoned, you escape.

Chapter 7:
Vanilla

For the purposes of testing my scripts, I have a chat with Phlydia during the Prologue in Candlekeep, and her dialog is a menu of chapters to skip. It’s sweet!

@Endarire, if I do release this as a mod, it will have some of the options it has due to your comments. I would never have added these options at a later date, but so long as I have them in mind from the start, they are totally doable.

Edited May 25, 2021 by The_Baffled_King

[Endarire]

Thankee!  I eagerly await updates and releases for this mod!

[The_Baffled_King]

Cheers @Endarire

I just finished Officer Vai's dialog, and in theory I'm pretty pleased with it. In practice, I'm hoping to get some feedback about the reliability of dialog with lots of state triggers.

Because it's all well and good to give people options to have Wyrm's Crossing open from the start; open only from Chapter 5; or opened by a conversation with Officer Vai after the Bandit Camp. But it's less good if Vai's dialog skips and someone can't actually get into BG City without setting variables with the console.

Edited May 28, 2021 by The_Baffled_King

[The_Baffled_King]

Having been reassured by the substantial amount of state triggers and whatnot I found lavished on (joinable) NPCs, and by Jastey's helpful comments, I set about writing Scar's dialog happily unburdened by worries about too many triggers.

It's fair to say that I haven't enjoyed parts of the process (unlike writing Officer Vai), and it's also fair to say that, as far as Scar is concerned, extending my idea of a flexible plot to include the BG City and Candlekeep portions is slightly more hassle than anticipated. From a conceptual standpoint everything works just fine; it's just that the limitations of the State-Response model of dialog bite a little harder than I'd thought.

That said, it seems to be coming together, and I've got to writing a few states that I've enjoyed. While Scar doesn't get to have the kind of snarky, fourth-wall-breaking conversation I wrote for laughs earlier in this thread, he does get to be little blunter with CHARNAME when, far from being the mighty heroes of Nashkel, he/she is some low-level schmuck messing around in BG City doing stuff they shouldn't do. Here we have an example of one of the possible scenarios in which CHARNAME and Scar might meet:

Spoiler

Greetings. First off, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Scar, second-in-command of the
Flaming Fist. Your name is <CHARNAME>, is it not? Be not surprised that I know your
name. You are in my city, after all. Yet you need not worry. I'm sure it didn't escape your
notice that Caedmon did his best to bring you here without arresting you, though your
activities in the Iron Throne estate would likely have justified arrest.

Fortunately for you, Grand Duke Eltan shares your interest in the Iron Throne, and he
would speak with you about your dealings with them. Heed me well, though: the Flaming
Fist does not often tolerate lawbreakers, much less work with them. Already you have
been given a second chance—do not make the mistake of thinking that there might be a
third. Now, come with me, for the Grand Duke awaits your presence.

(I'm no Hemingway, of course, but if I were then my writing would not benefit from being showcased in DIALOG.TLK).

[Endarire]

This Scar dialog works.