Want to start again, what do I need?

[Toad]

I own BG1, BG2, ToB, IWD, NWN, and so on and used to play them a lot. Life interrupted, but I have the time now and want to get into it again.

What I would like to know is what do I need to get the broadest collection of content with the least amount of trouble. Once I play through it again, I may be interested in TC stuff, but right now I'd like to go through the BG Trilogy plus as many compatible mods as possible. But where do I start? WEIDU? Big World? BGT1.21?

Could someone sell me a clue? It's been a long time.

(I actually worked with Sarkyn on his gSeries scripts. I made my own set and we shared ideas, but I didn't even try to include spells. Reading about the Detectable Spells mod, I think I made the right choice. Anyway, I do know the game, at least the way it was 15 years ago. I just don't know where to start.)

[Greenhorn]

Well, if I understood you correctly you are interested in classic, no EE games at the moment? If so these two links can set you off in right direction:

http://www.shsforums.net/forum/193-mega-mod-help/

http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/534-big-world-english/

 

[In_A_Graveyard]

I would recommend eet and a handful of mods off it's compatibility list.

eet_mods

I feel it makes for a better experience than stand alone.

[Toad]

I really appreciate both replies above.

What I was hoping was that someone would say, "Load up BG2:SoA and then the SuperMegaModPack which will install the trilogy plus the most complete set of extensions and you will get the maximum amount of new content while still playing the original game."

EET ... Expanded Editions? I like the idea I have read about, of updating the content of all games to use the best engine, which I assume to be the BG2 engine.

Greenhorn, thanks, I'll definitely look into those links while I look for a way to add as much new content as possible to the original game.

Graveyard, thanks also. The link you gave reinforces my concern. It looks to me like there are multiple packages, each incompatible with the others, for example the message regarding the disagreement between Aurelinus and Sir Billy Bob. I don't know enough to choose between their viewpoints. I respect the work people are doing, but I just want to play the game, not get involved in religious wars or fighting over who is right.

I'd be interested if there is information on which development projects are no longer actively worked on. At least I could trim down the paths I'm not interested in following. Meanwhile I think I'll take Greenhorn's recommendation and see what Big World offers.

Thanks again, both of you, for pointing me in a direction.

[subtledoctor]

58 minutes ago, Toad said:

for example the message regarding the disagreement between Aurelinus and Sir Billy Bob. I don't know enough to choose between their viewpoints. I respect the work people are doing, but I just want to play the game, not get involved in religious wars or fighting over who is right.

I suggest then that you worry less about having the "most complete" install (<-- means "most buggy") and instead just pick a bunch of stuff that sounds fun, and play. Will you have everything? No. Will you have a lot of fun extra content? Yes, and it will shave days off the process of trying to make the install work.

[Greenhorn]

You are welcome of course and here are couple more little pointers: 

Quote

What I was hoping was that someone would say, "Load up BG2:SoA and then the SuperMegaModPack which will install the trilogy plus the most complete set of extensions and you will get the maximum amount of new content while still playing the original game."

Indeed there was one SMMP which I still remember fondly as BG golden time:

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/56670-big-world-setup-an-attempt-to-update-the-program/

You can even try to download it and use strictly for reference and sort of guideline to see which mods are available for old classic BGT, how to install them and from where to download those mods. BUT DO NOT TRY TO INSTALL MODS VIA THIS TOOL as it is hopelessly outdated and obsolete.

As for EET  that is strictly for Enhanced Edition games ( BGT for EE game engine)  which you ( still ) don't have I presume?

There is one more option (maybe as I'm not sure does it support old engine still ) :

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74335/project-infinity-mod-manager-for-baldurs-gate-icewind-dale-planescape-torment-and-eet

Sretno! 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Greenhorn

[Toad]

45 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I suggest then that you worry less about having the "most complete" install (<-- means "most buggy") and instead just pick a bunch of stuff that sounds fun, and play. Will you have everything? No. Will you have a lot of fun extra content? Yes, and it will shave days off the process of trying to make the install work.

Appreciate the input, but that's what I was hoping for above, when I mentioned wanting the SuperMegaModPack, which I assumed would be a collection of mods tested and known to work together.

Greenhorn seems to be saying that such a pack does not exist, except for attempts that failed.

Would I be correct that EET is a new thing that has to be purchased separately? I don't mind paying. After all, I bought everything that Bioware produced initially. But I won't allow Steam on my computers. No one gets in my Ring0. (I know, I'm paranoid, but I've haven't had a virus infection since 1986. I practice Safe Hex, perhaps to the point of fanaticism.)

So Subtledoctor, do you have a list of stuff you would recommend? Otherwise, and given that I don't have the EE stuff, is Greenhorn's suggestion regarding Big World the way to go?

Anybody have an opinion on WEIDU?

Thanks!

[subtledoctor]

7 minutes ago, Toad said:

that's what I was hoping for above, when I mentioned wanting the SuperMegaModPack, which I assumed would be a collection of mods tested and known to work together.

Greenhorn seems to be saying that such a pack does not exist

Yeah basically. There’s no one recognized working set of mods. Some people play with A+B+C; some with A+C+E; and some with B+D+E. But trying for A+B+C+D+E can result in conflicts or just interminable difficulty getting them installed. (Except instead of n=5, here n=400. Choosing ‘only’ 200 or 300 out of the greater set of 400 can still give you a very satisfying, very modded game.)

11 minutes ago, Toad said:

do you have a list of stuff you would recommend?

I focus on EE games these days, since I learned to make mods and learned what can be done in the EE engine. My latest install is described here... but it is very EE-dependent. 

[Quester]

Just to be clear:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate:_Enhanced_Edition

I am not sure if Toad is even aware of the Enhanced Editions of these games, let alone EET, if he's been away from the scene for 15 years as stated. So, that might be a starting point.

[Toad]

Thanks, Quester, I am now. I thought EE was what I had previously heard of as Unfinished Business, mods available for each of the games.

I gather that EE is the way to go, although I haven't heard anyone state why any of the other threads (Big World, BGT, WEIDU) are deprecated. Still I'd rather go where new stuff is being created. I may remember enough about coding to help with some of the new projects.

[subtledoctor]

If I can describe it very briefly, the Enhanced Editions are BG1, BG2, and IWD translated into a version of the BG2 engine that incorporates a portion of the old ToBEx engine modification. The EE games have then been updated several times at an engine level, both to eliminate bugs and to add features to account for the various  games' eccentricities - IWD in particular had a distinct way of doing certain things, and incorporating its engine features into this new BG2 engine resulted in some very nice capabilities for modders. Then they made a new game that fits between BG1 and BG2, which, say what you will about the content (I think it's fine), introduced some more interesting engine features with then got incorporated into the other three games' engines. Beamdog also greatly changed the way the UI works, opening it up to customization by players and, in turn, manipulation by modders. The EE games are fast, efficient, available on all sorts of platforms (even Nintendo!), and offer lots of interesting modding capabilities. But they do look and feel somewhat different from the originals, and some people quite reasonably feel the UI has changed too much, too arbitrarily, possibly without enough thought put into some decisions.

If you are a purist or nostalgic and want to experience the games as they were, the games and lots of mods for them are still in very good shape. I believe there was a new BWP guide for modding them published quite recently! OTOH if you care less about that and you want to play newer, faster, more moddable versions of the games, then I recommend picking up the enhanced editions when they go on sale, which happens periodically.

[Toad]

Thanks Subtledoctor for the explanation. I see from reading the docs that everyone has posted above that WEIDU is used by the EE project, and that most everything else is either implemented or out of date.

I'm not a purist. I'm looking for the fun I had when they first came out, and extra content helps make the remembered content feel fresher. New content is much more important to me than more NPCs, more weapons, more spells, i.e. minutiae.

I do hope to get them running under Linux, using Wine or Virtualbox, but first I have to get them to work. I built a Windows machine for that purpose, and when I'm satisfied with how it works, I can experiment on moving everything to Linux Mint. I don't understand all the Windows stuff like .Net Framework, and I hope that after I have an install working, I can pick it up and drop it into similar folders on Wine. (Fat chance, but if you don't try, you have no way of knowing.)

Obviously I was hoping for the SuperMegaModPack, but I see from the PI control panel that swapping out old and in new mods is pretty easy. Presumably I can come up with various sets of content mods, so I wind up with multiple different games featuring the same basic characters and game engine.

[jastey]

*starts crying because NPC mods were excluded from the definition of "new content" mods*

^^

[In_A_Graveyard]

When you get to your Linux installations I recommend this:

Linux User's Guide

I use a similar arrangement for numerous installations and mod load outs and haven't had any problems w/ a casefolded ext4 partition.

[Toad]

Jastey, I figure you are kidding, but regardless, I never meant to disparage anyone's contribution. Some people like massive conversations and NPC interaction. I prefer campaigns, puzzles, and quests.

Graveyard, thanks for the information. 15 years ago, if you said you wanted to play on Linux, people cried like Jastey above, because you dissed Micro$loth.