ScottP480 Posted February 21, 2022 Posted February 21, 2022 Hey all! I just joined the forums to post this question. Disclaimer before reading the rest of this: I started looking into NearInfinity over the weekend to start compiling this information on my own. I'm posting here just in case anyone else on here has already done the painstaking work of looking into all the DLG and BCS files already. Anyway, on to what I'm trying to do... I'm currently working on documenting/re-documenting a lot of my games into notebooks, and quests are something I'm interested in taking note of. There are a lot of quests that are given to the player with one quest title, that then changes when the quest is resolved/completed. It can be very confusing, especially for documentation purposes. Initially my thought was "I'm just going to document the original quest that's given to me, and not worry about the morphing titles" especially since the documentation on the wiki appears to be missing some quests (I recently commented over there with some of the missing/misnamed quests that I found in my own quest log, and I'll probably just edit the wiki myself eventually). But the more I think of it, I don't know if I want to ignore those morphed quests in my documentation. I had a conversation with a friend that made me think, "I should dive into the code of the game (if possible) and see if they have a list of all quests and their potential outcomes/morphed titles". I'm a software developer so I'd feel comfortable sifting through the code, I just don't know where to navigate to be able to look at it all. That could give me some solid, reliable information that I'd feel comfortable noting down, and I'd be happy to contribute those findings to the wiki as well. I also plan on eventually making a Steam guide with my documentation as well for anyone else who would want to use it -- I plan on making it a checkbox-style guide so that players can check things off as they play. With that in mind, does anyone know where to look if I want to sift through the code and find the names of all available quests/quest titles? Thanks a ton for any help!! I'm currently going off of an answer from a reddit user u/Vakieh from this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/s9nqek/a_quick_taste_of_nearinfinity/hxjlfoe/?context=3) on how I'm managing this so far, but I'd appreciate any other insight! Thanks! Quote
Sam. Posted February 21, 2022 Posted February 21, 2022 You can check in e.g. BGEE.LUA for the buildQuestsTable() function and the "quests_old" section, and you could also search all DLG files for "AddJournalEntry" and "SetQuestDone", but all of this will only give you the "official" quests, not the "hidden" ones (those that do not come with a journal entry). Quote
Awachi Posted February 21, 2022 Posted February 21, 2022 Could you also search for "Addexperience" (and the other XP actions) in DLGs and BCSs? Quote
CamDawg Posted February 21, 2022 Posted February 21, 2022 Yeah, I was going to come and suggest the quest entries but I see @Sam. beat me to it. The problem you're going to find is that the quests were implemented by different people, each with their own approach--some have one 'master variable' from which you can derive anything about the current state of the quest, whereas others will use a mishmash of timers and one-off variables, so each quest is going to need (at least to some degree) a unique search. Honestly, you might be better served checking out some of the more comprehensive walkthroughs, compiling a list of quests, and then working backwards into the game files looking for the hooks. Quote
ScottP480 Posted February 22, 2022 Author Posted February 22, 2022 (edited) I really apprecite the advice so far! I have a pretty comprehensive list so far. I started with the list on the wiki and cross-referenced a bunch of mine that I had in a pretty thorough playthrough. My thought is that I only want to document the ones that are actually listed as quests in the quest log. Some of the ones on the wiki are ones that don't actually show up in the quest log, and some quests are completely missing. @Sam. I looked at BGEE.LUA and it's very helpful looking through that buildQuestsTable() function, but the comments for the quest titles stop at G'axir the Seer with no easy way to tell what the rest of the quests are. It's still very helpful for the quests up to that point, and I'll certainly follow the rest of the advice to fill in the gaps. Also, I can't find where the quests_old section is that you mentioned. @Awachi Thanks for the suggestion, I will try that too! @CamDawg I think I see what you mean about quests needing their own unique search. I'm finding that's been the case for a good portion of this task. The good thing is I can cross off a good bit that I already know of for sure. The difficult thing will be making sure I'm not missing any, and also making sure that I know of every quest that has different morphing titles. So far I know of A Rogue Ogre, Melicamp the Chicken, The Tale of Captain Brage, and Tomes of Magic. It's been a good bit of work but I don't mind it, it's been a nice learning experience. And as someone with only a couple years of software development, it's also been super fun diving into the editor of a game that I've loved for a very long time. Edited February 22, 2022 by ScottP480 Quote
Sam. Posted February 22, 2022 Posted February 22, 2022 10 hours ago, ScottP480 said: @Sam. I looked at BGEE.LUA and it's very helpful looking through that buildQuestsTable() function, but the comments for the quest titles stop at G'axir the Seer with no easy way to tell what the rest of the quests are. It's still very helpful for the quests up to that point, and I'll certainly follow the rest of the advice to fill in the gaps. Also, I can't find where the quests_old section is that you mentioned. Look up the associated StrRef listed in the LUA file for each quest? And when the title StrRef changes for the same quest ID, you know you have a morphing name. Quote
ScottP480 Posted February 22, 2022 Author Posted February 22, 2022 27 minutes ago, Sam. said: Look up the associated StrRef listed in the LUA file for each quest? And when the title StrRef changes for the same quest ID, you know you have a morphing name. Thanks @Sam.! I will do this. Another question I had while trying to find these. I noticed that "journal entries" that go into your quest log seem to be able to be separated from the ones that don't go into your quest log based on the extra "unsolved" or "solved" that comes before "journal entry" as can be found in the response. However, I can't for the life of me find any way of searching for "Solved journal entry" or "Unsolved journal entry". I can search for the name of the quest but not that particular part of the response. Is it possible to search for that phrase? And if so, how? Showing these compared to "Rising Tensions with Amn" which enters into your journal but not as an official "quest", and doesn't have the "unsolved" or "solved" label. Quote
ScottP480 Posted February 22, 2022 Author Posted February 22, 2022 I think I solved that previous question on my own, I just tried using the advanced search function, switched to DLG resource type, and have been able to properly search for "unsolved" across all DLG files! Strangely I noticed that "Rising Tensions with Amn" is a quest that can show up with "unsolved journal entry" so I'll have to figure out what condition makes it an actual quest instead of just a journal entry. Now I'm going to cross-compare this data set with "solved journal entry" to double check everything. I know this doesn't get me the "hidden" quests but I don't think I'm worried about tracking those. We'll see if I change my mind about that in the near future... Quote
ScottP480 Posted February 24, 2022 Author Posted February 24, 2022 @Sam. and @CamDawg One thing that I am not understanding is the very specific quest "Kagain's Quest" / "Entar's Son". All entries in NearInfinity are leading me to believe that the quest is called "Entar's Son" but it is logged in the game as "Kagain's Quest". Any ideas what's happening here? I can't find any examples of "Unsolved journal entry: Kagain's Quest" which seems very odd. Where in the code is this changing of titles happening? Is this the case with any other quests that you know of? Quote
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