Modlist Discussion: A Prelude to Sigil

[cdds]

43 minutes ago, Cahir said:

I plan to revisit my EET installation at some point, but it would definitely be more modest. I put far too many gameplay changes there. For someone who played the game so long ago that barely remembers the details, I tried to steer away from vanilla feeling way too much. I also tend to install too many kit mods. I need to decide which kit I want to play and install just the necessary mods. But sometimes I can't help myself.

I know it's a bit offtopic for this thread, but any specific reason why you have the UI mod so late in your order? I was under the impression that any UI mods (lefreut's, Dragonspear++, etc) should come very early (before quests) in the install order so that changes of UI elements by other mods don't get overridden

Edited September 17, 2021 by cdds

[Cahir]

9 minutes ago, cdds said:

I know it's a bit offtopic for this thread, but any specific reason why you have the UI mod so late in your order? I was under the impression that any UI mods (lefreut's, Dragonspear++, etc) should come very early (before quests) in the install order so that changes of UI elements by other mods don't get overridden

Uh, honestly I don't remember, but you're the second person asking me about it. I would need to re-read the entire thread of mine to remind myself about my reasoning. But there is probably a reason I've done that. 

[DavidW]

41 minutes ago, Cahir said:

Uh, honestly I don't remember, but you're the second person asking me about it. I would need to re-read the entire thread of mine to remind myself about my reasoning. But there is probably a reason I've done that. 

Doing this will break SCS's difficulty system, for instance.

[Graion Dilach]

47 minutes ago, Cahir said:

Uh, honestly I don't remember, but you're the second person asking me about it. I would need to re-read the entire thread of mine to remind myself about my reasoning. But there is probably a reason I've done that. 

BWS suggested to install UI mods late. It was already wrong there but that could be the source.

[jastey]

15 minutes ago, DavidW said:

Doing this

Doing what, installing the UI late? Also if it's still before SCS?

[Cahir]

28 minutes ago, DavidW said:

Doing this will break SCS's difficulty system, for instance.

I would definitely not install UI mod before SCS. I know very well, SCS comes late, like really late 

But I remember at least testing the UI in game, and it was working fine. I even reported some issues to lefreut and Subtledoctor (regarding I think Identify spell from TnB) which were fixed. Kill me, but I don't remember now what was the reason behind putting it late.

[Graion Dilach]

23 minutes ago, jastey said:

Doing what, installing the UI late? Also if it's still before SCS?

@subtledoctor's Arcanist kit also installs an UI tweak. At this point I'd really go with UIs coming really early, because that can't go wrong if everything's coded right.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Graion Dilach

[jastey]

Just now, Graion Dilach said:

At this point I'd really go with UIs coming really early, because that can't go wrong.

That's definitely a good thing to know. I did not use UI mods so far and didn't know what to look out for with regard to install order.

[Cahir]

1 minute ago, Graion Dilach said:

@subtledoctor's Arcanist kit also installs an UI tweak. At this point I'd really go with UIs coming really early, because that can't go wrong if everything's coded right.

I put this in my notes, thanks. Next install, I'll probably go with DragonspearUI++ since it's maintained by other modder now, while Pecca is working on the next version. 

But now that I think of it, my brain would probably tell me to put UI late in the install order, so it's possible that was entirely my bright idea. 

[Graion Dilach]

Beware with DragonspearUI++ because it might not enable the Beamdog NPCs. I've read two reports about it on Reddit in the last ~10 days but I haven't got there to confirm and tunnel the issue to meowdog and neither person came back to actually confirming if they had the issue with Pecca's version or his one despite I asked them to reporting it there.

[DavidW]

13 minutes ago, jastey said:

That's definitely a good thing to know. I did not use UI mods so far and didn't know what to look out for with regard to install order.

It's basically the same issue as with normal modding: overwrites need to come before patches. Most self-described 'UI mods' replace the whole UI. Mods with UI tweaks normally do it with REPLACE_TEXTUALLY.

[cdds]

33 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

Beware with DragonspearUI++ because it might not enable the Beamdog NPCs. I've read two reports about it on Reddit in the last ~10 days but I haven't got there to confirm and tunnel the issue to meowdog and neither person came back to actually confirming if they had the issue with Pecca's version or his one despite I asked them to reporting it there.

It would definitely be good to know if this is actually happening with the current 21.09.0 release or only when using an outdated Pecca version. Still strange how a UI mod could cause a bug like that

[jastey]

8 hours ago, DavidW said:

It's basically the same issue as with normal modding: overwrites need to come before patches. Most self-described 'UI mods' replace the whole UI. Mods with UI tweaks normally do it with REPLACE_TEXTUALLY.

That makes a lot of sense. UI tweaks could be installed early though, too?

[UMNiK]

I'll assume opening extra threads is not a priority and continue updating the progress on a sustainable simple shared list here (though I nave no issues copy-pasting my last post and this one into a new combined OP if need be). As a reminder, the reason for starting it here was finding a way to augment the only lacking part of the guide in the OP - where and how to get the mods.

While I must admire the tenacity of naysaying even in the face of copious evidence from multiple other communities successfully using this approach (as well as my personal assurance from experience that it really doesn't hurt that much to be an occasional contributor rather than the full-time owner and operator), I have to wonder whether that time could be better spent either helping or living your life. If the community was too dead to handle this, there would not be multiple active forums. If there were no demand for this, there would not be multiple self-starter efforts. If the past approaches of trying to build this around a single central figure were successful, I'd be out of Nashkel by now. To me, the obvious solution is to start small and together using better tools and a bit more cooperation from the outset, taking what can be salvaged from the past without relitigating it or setting up for another failure.

The current scope is not to surpass or recreate BWS, it is to do better than an alphabetised list and to avoid anyone ever having to manually crawl every forum for individual mods from scratch again (big ups to the people who did that). The worst possible outcome is always having a slightly outdated starting point (that may be trivially updated by forking or copying even if all the authors drop off), the best is having a central piece of documentation to use in any and all future efforts (that may or may not include install orders). In my estimation, this is well within the time and energy resources on display: after all, it takes a couple minutes to add a mod link and a couple dozen to come up with a new excuse not to create an easy place to add it to.

 

Additions to relevant current or recent efforts are  documented EET mod install by 4udr4n and BG2EE documented mod install by subtledoctor . Apparently, there is also a relevant thread by Caedwyr, though I'm not sure where to find it.

Question 1 looks to be a no.

Question 2 seems to be either confused with asking for an install order or for containing every individual mod from the outset. Here are the salient categories that I'm aware of, combining the OP, PI groups plus what I can recall from BWS. I see no reason not to add the same mod to multiple categories if it fits - after all, these are meant for choosing what to install, not as a drag-and-drop preset for automatic installation. Anything obvious missing?

• Big Mods - contain multitudes, conflict lots
• NPCs - anything that adds a new companion or modifies existing ones
• Quests
• Kits
• Items
• Spells
• Tactical - SCS and similar, purely combat-focused
• Bugfixes - specifically emendations rather than changes, though there will obviously be overlap with..
• Tweaks - anything that modifies existing content, be it from vanilla or other mods. Possibly including all graphical and sound stuff? Or should those be separate?
• AI scripts
• Portraits
• Sound sets
• UI - skins and changes for the user interface, possibly need a more descriptive name?
• Localisation - this may have to be filled in by the people running the national fansites

Question 3 some names dropped without links - EndlessBG1/Transitions. To be clear as to the impetus for asking: old mods can be categorised the way they were by BWS if in doubt, new mods are apparently only sorted by their first letter at the moment.

Question 4 again some communication issues here, so I'll just assume that it is the best extant list that also incorporates the EET Compatibility list

Question 5 I can see the desire for install orders is especially strong here, but we should still be after the regular list first - not much point creating giga-installs using a small subset of mods from one or two places. Assuming eventual current complete list as the starting point, how to make sure all new mods get added to it in addition to their original upload location? Some modders follow their creations around, while some do not. Will anyone object to a link to their mod (with no modification) getting added by a user without their consent?

Question 6 one vote for GitHub, a lot of votes for abandoning this modding community business altogether and letting each mod, modder and user fend for themselves in their separate threads on whichever forum they prefer. I reckon wait a few other votes, then I'll make the repo. Is there a need for a technical contributing guide? It's basically click README.md, click edit, write in the modname, link to mod page, write in the mod description, name and create pull request. Is that clear enough or should I add some pictures of the above steps?

 

Still would like to hear back from CamDawg on how his posting to different places went - should his steps be retraced with the link to the repo or is there no point posting to some of them? Would also be nice to get some pre-formatted responses (Question 1 is considered answered) to make them a bit easier to collate. I'll tentatively assign to myself - and A from Cahir's BG1EESoD list to be categorised as the first contents of the repo or sheet. Any takers for other letters to avoid overlap? Along the same lines, any prospective collaborators at this stage, assuming GitHub is settled on? Obviously, if anyone wants to be the owner and invite me, that's also fine (I'll probably create a cutout for this to easily shutter and transfer if needed).

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, jastey said:

That makes a lot of sense. UI tweaks could be installed early though, too?

Big UI overhauls tend to overwrite everything (for good reason). Other mods that install small UI changes as a means of letting the mod function might be installed anywhere - it might be an spell mod, or a kit mod, or a rule tweak. 

If you install the big UI overhauls very early, then it doesn't matter when other UI tweaks go in; other, normal install order considerations can govern.