Here comes trouble!

[SimDing0]

So today, I once again delved into the world of BG1NPC. I was surprised to find many things the pleased me. However, also some miscellaneous thoughts from a brief play around.

 

I still believe there needs to be consistency in the use of action text vs. speech vs. player thought. Asterisks seem to be the mode of choice for indicating action. However, these look to disappear completely in the click-to-talk dialog and Coran romance material. The click-to-talk dialog especially I found confusing at first because of the lack of distinction.

 

"* You hear random giggling from the rest of the party *" also appears in the Coran romance material, regardless of whether there ARE any other party members aside from Coran and Minsc. I also think "random giggling" could use some rephrasing.

 

The Coran romance material seems to have spaces preceding text in many places. This is going to look odd ingame, I imagine.

 

Click to talk gives me a ton of "You ask Imoen lots of personal questions" type responses... wouldn't it be better to actually ask her the questions? Overall, I was very disappointed at the opportunities available here. Click-to-talk is something that's definitely worthy of expansion. At the moment, it feels like a wasted effort.

 

I'm distinctly Not Too Keen on Imoen recognising Elminster straight off. She should at least have to think about it a bit... maybe she's trying to recall something she read, if she recognises him at all. Part of the idea is that you don't know who he is at this stage. His CRE's even called "Old Man" rather than "Elminster".

 

Unless I accidentally clicked the "Rest" button twice, I had at least two banters which ended in automatic resting. Uh. Why not just make them resting dialogues triggered from Player1D instead? (Perhaps they are, in which case they need to be excluded from the normal banter rotation.)

 

When Imoen asked me how I was doing, why I was quiet and stuff, I noted very little reference to the fairly significant fact that my foster father just got killed by a guy in giant armour with some ogres. All my options were assuring her that I was fine and still the same guy, which is really quite limited in terms of choice. Some shaken ones would go a long way.

 

When Imoen starts her dialog in Beregost, one of my options is "seen one town, seen them all"-- I'm not sure that's appropriate. Isn't the player meant to have spent their entire life in Candlekeep? When have they seen towns before? That should probably be an available response, at least, if not a replacement.

 

"Uh, Imoen, ALL your tunics are pink [...]" Except if you've changed her major colour.

 

Imoen closes a banter with Jaheira by saying "Later, when we get to an Inn." ...standing right in the middle of Feldepost's Inn.

 

Jaheira's dialog has a few weird double spaces inbetween words which are reminiscent of word wrap going wrong and stuff. I'm fairly sure there were a couple in the discussion with Imoen about hating cities, for reference.

 

After killing Marl, I got a dialog with Montaron. I forget what exactly, but it ended in him saying "Bullocks!" Suffice to say that I really didn't understand what he was talking about at all. Some contextual clues might be worthwhile here-- I suspect it's a reaction to Marl's death, but I can't be sure.

[Hendryk]

Don't know about the rest of it but Montaron saying "Bullocks" is the result of a proofreader's spell checker not containing "ballocks".

[SimDing0]

It's possible that I misread that line, since I'm equally unsure of what "ballocks" are meant to be. "Bollocks" probably isn't actually that far removed from the dialect people in BG1 use.

[SimDing0]

It appears that BG1NPC dumps a ton of files with invalid filenames like X#MONTARON.DLG (10 characters) into the override. Don't do that.

[Bri]

Bollocks simply means to make a mess of, destroy, or ruin, though the origins of it is much earthier.

 

To confuse the issue, there is the word bollix which means to throw into confusion, botch or bungle. It is assumed that is an alteration of ballock (meaning testicles) and is drived from Middle English balloks which is descended from Old English beallucas

 

Bullocks actually could work, since it does refer to a castrated bull or a young bull (and people often say "Bull" when refuting another's argument...though there is the assumption it also is shortened from Bullshit...or Bully)

 

So as far just using whichever word, any of them are appropriate...

[SimDing0]

Bollocks simply means to make a mess of, destroy, or ruin. 

There are... other connotations.

[Domi]

Sim, are you a mind reader? I was making a list of 'good to haves' and the first items I have on it are:

 

- Imoen's interjections and grammar recheck

 

- Expansions to PC-initiated dialogues for all NPCs.

 

PC-inits is my favorite subproject and I really want to see it grow. Right now, the idea is that the responce you pick allows you to fish out personal info that used to be in the Charmed dialogues easier if you use the path connected to your highest stat. But yes, adding mini-conversations will be nice.

 

The dream forcing dialogues is the part of the never-ending problem with weights that I am trying to resolve atm by unweighting all our dialogues and stopping Bio's from repeating.

 

I'll try to go over the rest of thinggies while I will be preparing the final (o, scary word) version for release.

[Black Elk]

First of all, I’d just like to say that you guys have done an excellent job with v8. Really superb.

 

That said, I was wondering if it would be possible for me to get a complete text file for all the BG1NPC v8 interjections, banters etc?

 

I've noticed a number of spelling and grammar errors (about 25-30) in my first run through with v8. Most of them are minor (a missing word, indefinite articles for definite ones, verb tense... things of that nature, and some other common errors that spell checkers usually don't catch.)

 

My wife and I have edited for Doubleday and Rutledge, as well as several academic journals, so I'm fairly used to the grunt work involved. I really think I could be of some use to you guys here and I'd love to help, but it would be much more expedient if I could get my hands on a complete text… rather than jotting down notes while playing. Please let me know if you guys are still looking for assistance in this area.

 

jasonwclark@gmail.com

 

On a side note, I have to agree with Sims suggestions: particularly the ones concerning Elminster and Imoen. Perhaps a bard well versed in the lore of the land might put two and two together but somehow it just didn’t feel right with Imoen.

 

--------------------------------

 

"Eye halve a spelling chequer,

It came whit my pea sea.

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

 

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight fore it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write.

It shows me strait a weigh.

 

As soon as a mist ache is maid,

It nose bee four to long,

And eye can put the error rite.

Its rare lea ever wrong.

 

Eye have run this poem threw it.

I am shore your pleased too no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh;

My chequer tolled me sew."

 

Thought you might dig that. Take care all, and keep up the great work.

[SimDing0]

PC-inits is my favorite subproject and I really want to see it grow. Right now, the idea is that the responce you pick allows you to fish out personal info that used to be in the Charmed dialogues easier if you use the path connected to your highest stat. But yes, adding mini-conversations will be nice.

There's a foundation for expansion in the existing click-to-talk material. I'd suggest a quick journey over to PST to see the sort of things that might be worth asking NPCs: "what do you think we should do now?", "what do you think of me/other party members?"

 

The dream forcing dialogues is the part of the never-ending problem with weights that I am trying to resolve atm by unweighting all our dialogues and stopping Bio's from repeating.

I'm guessing you have the resting banters in the B****.DLG files, which means that unless they have conditions, they can potentially come up during the regular banter rotation. You can fix this by adding a variable check which is set only in player1d.bcs. You can then safely weight the resting banters to come up first (so you don't rest and get a regular banter), or even move them to the ****J.DLGs.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the problem.

 

Some other things I noted were:

 

- I'm not terribly excited by Jaheira playing the role of "somebody who's played D&D longer than me". I found "As this is your first dungeon" particularly jarring. Since when are the Nashkell mines a dungeon, except in the out-of-game D&D context? (Setting aside the question of why she's so certain we're going all the way down the mines at that stage anyway. The whole thing has an air of OOCness.)

- There were a couple of spelling/grammar errors in Minsc's very first banter. I didn't note them down, since I tried triggering a few more to see if the problem was persistent.

- I don't know why there are sometimes spaces before/after asterisks, and sometimes not. And still, I'm finding the use of asterisks for both emphasis AND action text to be awkward.

 

 

Shall I wait for the new version before examining anything else? (I can probably offer some casual skills of dialogue perusal, although no way am I committing to doing anything. )

[Domi]

This Imoen thing: Are you sure guys you are not exaggerating a tad ? The text is:

 

I_C_T2 ~_ELMIN1~ 0 ImoenElmin1

== ~_IMOEN2~ IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("imoen")~ THEN ~Heh, I... or do I need ta say "Ti"? I mean if "you" is "thou"... or was it "thee"? Uhm... in any case I'm not desperate and not deranged. I'm excited! I am going to be a famous adventurer, like Elminster!~

== ~_ELMIN1~ IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("imoen")~ THEN ~*Smiles from behind his moustaches* Thou art a spirited girl, Imoen. Now what of thy companion?~

== ~_IMOEN2~ IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("imoen")~ THEN ~Wait, wait! How do'ya know my name?~

== ~_ELMIN1~ IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("imoen")~ THEN ~One can aquire such knowledge in more ways than one, child. But let the quiet one speak.~

END

 

Ie Imoen actually does NOT recognise Elminster, she just uses his name as the big-hot-shot name in teh realms and it pleases him.

 

@Black Elk - there is no such thing as 'complete texts' untill the project is done. This one single thing which makes proofreading so difficult. I cannot simply give you a coded file and then replace it over in my D - because by that time I might have changed codes. A number of people, last of the Thomas did proofing on files and then I replaced on line-per-line basis. So we have two options: we wait till the final is done and you do the full proofread. Or you submit the line per line corrections to D-files found in the D or Dialogues folders in the BG1NPC folder in your install and I add them as I go. You can also be proactive and help me with proofreading the new materials that need to be proofread.

 

@Sim - yes, that's exactly the nature of the problem with the dream scripts - the rest dialogues come up instead of non-rest and vice-versa. If you could give me a fool-proof solution I will be eternaly greatful; so as far as I understood you, I need to do the following:

1) Add a Player1d.bcs to the PDIALOG.2DA

2) in that BCS file I need to set conditions - and here you lost me - do you mean something like setting GLOBAL if two NPC are present in the party and firing the banter from there? How will taht be different from firing the talk from NPC's individual dream scripts? Or do you mean something else? In any case, if you could elaborate, that would be great

3) I will move them to J, if you think it will help the matters.

 

I still do not intend to edit texts w/o the writer's agreement. If you do not like things Jaheira says, Sim, I suggest that you talk to Theodur and you work on the different versions of texts together, then send me the final. You can reach him via Attic, I am sure.

 

Spaces and asterisks - I will keep asterisks. Initially they came from editing and reediting texts. MS Word reads them as capitalization so there were spaces introduced not all of which were taken out. I correct spaces every time I notice them. If anyone is willing to make a list of all ccurences quoting the file name and line # or at least in which dialogue they occure (between which NPCs and who has the first line) that will make things so much more easier.

 

Cheers

[SimDing0]

@Sim - yes, that's exactly the nature of the problem with the dream scripts - the rest dialogues come up instead of non-rest and vice-versa. If you could give me a fool-proof solution I will be eternaly greatful; so as far as I understood you, I need to do the following:

1) Add a Player1d.bcs to the PDIALOG.2DA

2) in that BCS file I need to set conditions - and here you lost me - do you mean something like setting GLOBAL if two NPC are present in the party and firing the banter from there? How will taht be different from firing the talk from NPC's individual dream scripts? Or do you mean something else? In any case, if you could elaborate, that would be great

3) I will move them to J, if you think it will help the matters.

Okay, I have to say, looking at the coding, I'm not entirely sure what's causing it. However, moving them to the J will definitely prevent them from coming up in the regular banter rotation (and prevent regular banter coming up when resting), so that's probably a fairly easy way to fix it without having to play with weighting.

 

I still do not intend to edit texts w/o the writer's agreement. If you do not like things Jaheira says, Sim, I suggest that you talk to Theodur and you work on the different versions of texts together, then send me the final. You can reach him via Attic, I am sure.

So what you're saying is, the writing quality isn't your problem? Check. No, I'm not gonna fuck around trying to track down every BG1NPC author whenever there's something I find that could use changing.

I would strongly urge you to seek blanket permission from the writers to edit their texts.

 

Spaces and asterisks - I will keep asterisks. Initially they came from editing and reediting texts. MS Word reads them as capitalization so there were spaces introduced not all of which were taken out. I correct spaces every time I notice them. If anyone is willing to make a list of all ccurences quoting the file name and line # or at least in which dialogue they occure (between which NPCs and who has the first line) that will make things so much more easier.

Why not do a mass find/replace to change "* " and " *" to "*"? I don't imagine there are any places where you'd actually want spaces with asterisks.

[Domi]

So what you're saying is, the writing quality isn't your problem? Check. No, I'm not gonna fuck around trying to track down every BG1NPC author whenever there's something I find that could use changing.

I would strongly urge you to seek blanket permission from the writers to edit their texts.

 

I did; I do not have such an authrization from Theodur.

[Domi]

Okay, I have to say, looking at the coding, I'm not entirely sure what's causing it. However, moving them to the J will definitely prevent them from coming up in the regular banter rotation (and prevent regular banter coming up when resting), so that's probably a fairly easy way to fix it without having to play with weighting.

 

I will do that and I hope it will solve this issue once and for all.

[SimDing0]

So he's abandoned it but we're not allowed to change anything?

[Domi]

He has not abandoned it. As I said - you are very welcome to talk to him about the particular changes you propose if they are not of grammatical/spelling nature Grammar and spelling I of course will fix on spot.