Modlist Discussion: A Prelude to Sigil

[UMNiK]

I'm willing to take on faith that the BWS was a state of grace that is now out of reach, as much as it pains me. What I'm wondering is why the next step down from it is "go crawl these multiple forums for every mod ever released". I did come across both Roxanne's effort and your list from a year ago, @Cahir. They both seem like a lot of work done by individuals (perhaps a bit too individualised in Roxanne's case) going it alone with occasional help from the original mod authors. Why not create a shared version that the modders themselves can contribute to in a hassle-free way (i.e. they decide how their mod is described and what version is the correct one) - which game your mod is for, what category it falls under, is it intended for novices or experts (whether due to having a lot of potential conflicts that will need manual resolution or just by its nature), and whether it runs on EET. I'm not asking for a complete no-conflict automatic setup of all them, just a way to see what is even available. I can recall NPCProject and SCS off the top of the dome, but for smaller stuff?.. Especially since there are still separate communities making mods for the same games, having access to all mods in the same place seems like a necessity for anyone wanting to create a giga-install of new content.

My hope was that limiting the scope to mods that are EET-compatible would make for a relatively easy starting point, both for this proposed documentation endeavour and for someone completely new to modding wanting to get an improved, but still close to vanilla experience using up-to-date mods.

Please understand that as someone recently wanting to start a modding playthrough and trying to get a grip on the current state of the scene, I have become a lot more versed in inter-modder relationships than I ever wanted to be and am a lot farther from character generation than I expected to be. This guide is, as far as I can tell, missing one thing only to be considered the ideal first stop: how to actually find and choose which mods to install and play.

[The Artisan]

4 hours ago, UMNiK said:

This guide is, as far as I can tell, missing one thing only to be considered the ideal first stop: how to actually find and choose which mods to install and play.

Ask.

It’s actually just that simple. The community isn’t dead yet (actually I suspect it might even be growing slightly) and the word on good mods tend to get spread.

You don’t need to know the existence of every mod out there especially if you’re just starting over again.

[suy]

5 hours ago, UMNiK said:

This guide is, as far as I can tell, missing one thing only to be considered the ideal first stop: how to actually find and choose which mods to install and play.

I understand your frustration, but note that this is like asking where to find and choose which applications to install and use.

Sure, some users are now able to use application stores as a centralized means, and Linux users have been using repositories and the like even before. But the stores exist because there is an incentive on both the store owner and the application maker to maintain the service/publish the app in the service. And public package repositories of open source projects can exist because the author of an open source project allows redistribution and modification (it would not be open source otherwise). Modders rarely even slap a license on ther mods, not even a Creative Commons one that disallows commercial use and modifications.

Resources to publicize mods exist (e.g. the modding news forum here on G3 which is linkable to other news channels, e.g. on the Infinity Engine discord), and not all mod developers do so, because they don't have the time or the interest.

The only way to have a list of mods for one to acknowledge their existence, is to follow every place where such a thing can be made public. Cahir's list is the closest thing I've seen so far, and of course it's not complete.

[Cahir]

1 hour ago, suy said:

interest.

The only way to have a list of mods for one to acknowledge their existence, is to follow every place where such a thing can be made public. Cahir's list is the closest thing I've seen so far, and of course it's not complete.

Actually, there is something. I'm mantaining the list of BGEE and BG2EE mods on the Polish site, Children of Bhaal. 

BGEE + SoD modlist

BG2EE modlist

The site is in Polish, but it should be fairly easy to follow. Protip - mods colored Gold are EET compatible. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Cahir

[suy]

Indeed, that's the list I was mentioning.

[Cahir]

Just now, suy said:

Indeed, that's the list I was mentioning.

Ah, sorry I thought you mean my install order list in one of the topics here at G3. 

Just to be clear, you won't find any of Roxanne's mod on those lists, for obvious reasons. 

[DavidW]

Honestly, I'm not sure the task of finding Baldur's Gate mods is so very different from the task of finding content generally - say, finding something to watch.

• This site (G3) and Pocket Plane Groups (PPG) each have a reasonably-carefully curated, though relatively small, collection of mods. You can browse G3 and find a fairly organized mod collection with quite a lot of information on them, and you can assume G3 has vetted them at least at a basic level for code competence and writing quality. So insofar as you trust G3's judgement, that tells you something - though far from everything - about G3 mods. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on Disney +.
• Spellhold Studios has (had, really) a much more laissez-faire attitude to hosting. Their pages give you organized lists of mods (many more than G3 or PPG) with quite a lot of information about them, and you can have a modicum of confidence in their code at least being functional, but there's much less uniformity, for better or for worse. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on Amazon Video.
• There are lots of mods advertised in the general mod thread here and on Beamdog, but you have very little idea what you're going to get - except insofar as you can work it out from user comments and the reputation of the author. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on YouTube.

[Guest Morgoth]

Or just download the BWP guide, in that one you can find a tons of mods.

[subtledoctor]

18 hours ago, UMNiK said:

having access to all mods in the same place seems like a necessity for anyone wanting to create a giga-install of new content

This is your mistake. This is always the mistake. "I'm going to play BG2, and I need to have all teh mods!" If you are frustrated that trying to do that involves a fair amount of work, it is mostly because that is a bad idea in the first place. And btw it was also a bad idea back in your imagined halcyon days of BWS supremacy.

[Guest Cdds]

Kudos Cahir for those mod lists! Thanks to your lists i just discovered Magnus' Tweaks and Tricks mod, which looks amazing and was completely unknown to me

[Cahir]

Just now, Guest Cdds said:

Kudos Cahir for those mod lists! Thanks to your lists i just discovered Magnus' Tweaks and Tricks mod, which looks amazing and was completely unknown to me

There is an idea of adding English version of those lists, but for that I would need a help of some volunteer, because I'd have no time to maintain all 4 lists. The site maintainer is ready to give all support needed. The basic change would be to add all available languages (instead of only Polish) along with info regarding the authors of each translation. If anyone is interested to help mantaining English version on the lists, ping me vis PM here, or on the Discord. 

[Guest Cdds]

1 hour ago, Cahir said:

There is an idea of adding English version of those lists, but for that I would need a help of some volunteer, because I'd have no time to maintain all 4 lists. The site maintainer is ready to give all support needed. The basic change would be to add all available languages (instead of only Polish) along with info regarding the authors of each translation. If anyone is interested to help mantaining English version on the lists, ping me vis PM here, or on the Discord. 

I dont think its necessary to create an english version tbh. The polish list is very easy to navigate, since the mod names are in english anyway and since there are only (max) 2 links available per mod, Forum and "Strona", it is self-exlanatory that "Strona" must be something along the lines of modpage or download.

[Cahir]

35 minutes ago, Guest Cdds said:

I dont think its necessary to create an english version tbh. The polish list is very easy to navigate, since the mod names are in english anyway and since there are only (max) 2 links available per mod, Forum and "Strona", it is self-exlanatory that "Strona" must be something along the lines of modpage or download.

Basically it's translate like this:

* Pobierz - direct download link (in some cases (i.e SHS or Weasel) you need to actually click Download again on the download page. In case of other sites, it should be direct download link. Github links download always the latest release or master, if there are no releases. 

* PL - it tells if mod was translated to Polish or not

* Strona - it leads to mod site. 

* Forum - self explanatory

As for the color coding:

* Gold - Mod is compatible with EET (either natively or by installing it prior to EET). 

* White - mod is compatible with BGEE and SoD (for BGEE modlist) or BG2EE (for BG2EE modlist), but not with EET. 

* Brown - mod is compatible only with BGEE (but not with SoD or EET).

And that's all that needs to be known. 

 

[UMNiK]

I appreciate that each community has its distinct charms (and languages), but ultimately, don't they all have a shared interest in mods for the same games?

 Perhaps some concrete suggestions with examples might help here.

• What I think is an absolute necessity is a simple shared list akin to any Awesome list - meaningful categories (game and within that what the mod does (NPC or script or fix etc.)) that are easy to add to by just editing the .md and creating a pull request. The additions are links to mod pages on the mod author's preferred site (and possibly to mod repo), the pull request authors are modders themselves or anyone they trust to add their mods on their behalf, e.g. community site admins. The mod descriptions should be completely neutral and terse to avoid bloat  - this is not an installation order, but a list of what is installable (unlike awesome lists, there is no barrier for entry). Link to the OP should be added at the top. Ideally it will be kept in sync with the EET compatibility list (copying and categorising which might be a good starting point for this master list). If it's not too corny and PST-centric, I propose to call this list "Sigil" to mirror its nature as a central hub and have a snappy name to throw around.
• What would be nice every once in a while is for some brave soul to post their successful install order of a load of mods, including conflict resolution, like a STEP guide, without the obligation to maintain it (as Cahir did a little while ago). Since these guides will be per game and per user, they may be posted in whatever place the author prefers (though ideally in as many places as possible, like the OP). Perhaps a few recent ones could be linked to in Sigil.
• If the stars ever align again as they did a few years back when the BWS was popping, Project Infinity could be developed to a semi-automatic state (I do believe there are some simple dependencies being experimented with). It doesn't have to resolve every conflict, since that has proven to be too ambitious, but it would be nice to be able to get individual mods easily installed alongside a set of "safe" defaults like bugfixes for vanilla, graphical stuff etc. I'm afraid I have to go outside of RPGs to my other love, arcade space sims, for an example - Knossos.

I see no reason why a modding community comprising multiple active forums couldn't work towards the common goal of making things as easy as possible for newcomers. As a bonus, having a shared neutral ground is both a safety from individual bad actors taking things into their own hands and a screen between the mods themselves and their colourful development histories (I can only imagine how much time it takes to closely follow some of the beefs all across the Internet). Who knows, this, continued efforts of EET and upcoming BG3 may just lead to an infusion of new blood and a mod renaissance (not to say it's not nice to see the same people still around after all these years).

[The Artisan]

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.