Item duplication in BG/BG2

[DavidW]

2 hours ago, marchitek said:

Maybe ti could be good rule of thumb: what is breaking game -> mandatory fix, what is not breaking but probably developer intention -> optional fix.

To borrow an example from long ago FP discussions: if Irenicus were replaced by an upside-down pink ogre, it would not be game breaking, but it should probably still be fixed.

[marchitek]

15 minutes ago, DavidW said:

To borrow an example from long ago FP discussions: if Irenicus were replaced by an upside-down pink ogre, it would not be game breaking, but it should probably still be fixed.

Ah yeah, for sure "game breaking" requires further clarification. You know, it's impossible to be 100% strict with language that we have. So, I hope you understand what me and others have in mind here and why "item duplication fix" don't exactly fit (for us) into this category. Maybe someone else explain it with better wording.

Edited May 2, 2022 by marchitek

[Greenhorn]

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

To borrow an example from long ago FP discussions: if Irenicus were replaced by an upside-down pink ogre, it would not be game breaking, but it should probably still be fixed.

If Irenicus was replaced by an upside-down pink ogre, it would not be game breaking, but it should definitely  still be fixed. 

If two rings of fire resistance are present in the game from 1998 it is best that this is not CHANGED as opposite to FIXED in something that is called Fixpack which should be mandatory installed mod even if you don't intend to install anything else and intend to play game in it's pure, original form. 

That being said it is normal that not every player/modder will see eye to eye and opinions will differ which is perfectly understandable. So I hope this will not be taken as accusation/reason for personal feud or whatnot. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Greenhorn

[DavidW]

5 hours ago, marchitek said:

. So, I hope you understand what me and others have in mind here and why "item duplication fix" don't exactly fit (for us) into this category.

I don't understand - I'm not just being willfully annoying. I think 'developer intent' is the only* really viable way to define a bug, and there is really good evidence that by that standard, item duplication is clearly a bug: that is: there is really good evidence that the developers did not intend to duplicate items, and indeed that they actively intended to avoid duplication.

BUT item deduplication is very modular and could perfectly well be separated off from the rest of the FP. I'm somewhat inclined to think we should do so, not because I think there's genuine reason to think deduplication does not meet the 'developer intent' standard but simply because it seems to be a bit controversial and so we might serve the community better by making it optional.

 

*Well, 'game-breaking' is probably also definable, but it's much too narrow and virtually none of the bugs we're discussing here are game-breaking in that sense. (There are probably very few remaining game-breaking bugs in the EE games.)

[Awachi]

This is still about just the names/description of these items, and not about moving/removing "duplicates", aye? Keep in mind, lots of Name Brand products become labels for the generic over time:  Kleenex > tissue, Band-Aid > bandage, Google > search, etc. Seems entirely plausible in the ludicrously magic dense Forgotten Realms that rings of 40% fire resistance would be referred to as Bautista's Passport. 

[The_Baffled_King]

2 minutes ago, Awachi said:

Seems entirely plausible in the ludicrously magic dense Forgotten Realms that rings of 40% fire resistance would be referred to as Bautista's Passport. 

40% fire resistance is doubtless a very valuable trait in Vince McMahon's WWE...

[Awachi]

[marchitek]

3 hours ago, DavidW said:

I don't understand - I'm not just being willfully annoying. I think 'developer intent' is the only* really viable way to define a bug,

So, you would be surprised hearing that people write books on this. From my experience bug is usually difference between application behavior and specification or difference between application behavior and expected application behavior (I guess this fits better here since there is no specification to refer to). I have a feeling that QA team was aware of this duplication when game has original realese and this wasn't fixed for purpose. It could be because this wasn't consider a bug (read: it was consider as expected behavior or it was right with specification that was available back then) or...

And here goes the best part. In engineering you don't fix all bugs. You don't rebuild whole thing because of minor flaw. Ofc the question is who should decide about what is worth to fix (usually it is investor). In our case it seems to be "community". And here we go again...

TLDR: I think this is far more complicated then you states.

 

[DavidW]

2 hours ago, marchitek said:

So, you would be surprised hearing that people write books on this.

I am an academic. I promise you that I would not be surprised hearing that people write books on anything.

However, I don't think guessing what QA would do is that salient, because they operate under constraints that don't apply here. Almost by definition, bugs being fixed by a FP released 20 years after the original game and 10 years after its EE version are not going to  be sufficiently serious to have been prioritized in a pre-release bug triage exercise.

(I should also have been clearer: I think 'developer intent' i the only really viable way to define a bug *in a community fixpack for Baldur's Gate*. It wasn't intended as a more systematic thesis.)

[marchitek]

On 5/3/2022 at 2:31 AM, DavidW said:

I am an academic. I promise you that I would not be surprised hearing that people write books on anything.

Small world. I think I saw your profile when I was researching for my master thesis on philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics. And the fact that we have rather different philosophical perspectives put some light on our problem to find common understating. Anyway, I wrote again in this topic just to give small thumb up for idea of optional component (since it seems that change is controversial because of various aspects). Myself I don't have enough modding experience to judge it correctly, so maybe my intrusion was too arrogant.

 

I have one more concern about eventual mod compatibility: I think this change can break Item Randomiser (it seems it removes items by exact resrefs).

[Greenhorn]

On 5/2/2022 at 7:39 PM, DavidW said:

I don't understand - I'm not just being willfully annoying. I think 'developer intent' is the only* really viable way to define a bug, and there is really good evidence that by that standard, item duplication is clearly a bug: that is: there is really good evidence that the developers did not intend to duplicate items, and indeed that they actively intended to avoid duplication.

 

*Well, 'game-breaking' is probably also definable, but it's much too narrow and virtually none of the bugs we're discussing here are game-breaking in that sense. (There are probably very few remaining game-breaking bugs in the EE games.)

Quite a paradox here. In original Baldur's gate and ToB there was only one type of ring of fire resistance, and this is Batalista's passport which you could obtain from more than one source in both games.I think this sheds more light on "developer intent". And with EE edition which ships some generic versions of various magical items this suddenly  became a "bug" which must be "fixed" in Fixpack. That I really don't understand. 

[DavidW]

3 hours ago, Greenhorn said:

Quite a paradox here. In original Baldur's gate and ToB there was only one type of ring of fire resistance, and this is Batalista's passport which you could obtain from more than one source in both games.I think this sheds more light on "developer intent".

As I've explained several times in this thread, there is extremely good in-game evidence that things like this occur because people doing level design were using the item names (which are generic) and not noticing that the descriptions are unique.

 

3 hours ago, Greenhorn said:

And with EE edition which ships some generic versions of various magical items this suddenly  became a "bug" which must be "fixed" in Fixpack. That I really don't understand. 

The developers of the games we're discussing are the EE developers. It's a reasonable default assumption that their intention is to implement the intentions of the original Bioware developers, but that assumption can be overridden where there's clear evidence of EE developer intent.

(e.g. the Bioware designers obviously didn't intend for there to be a joinable wild mage, but Neera does not thereby become a bug.)

[Greenhorn]

14 minutes ago, DavidW said:

(e.g. the Bioware designers obviously didn't intend for there to be a joinable wild mage, but Neera does not thereby become a bug.)

Ahh, for me she is.  But since you are willing to make this optional we are good. 

[subtledoctor]

14 hours ago, marchitek said:

researching for my master thesis on philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics

Talk about times when you need a Ring of Fire Resistance... Vince McMahon and the WWE have got nothing on physicists and philosophers discussing QM

[jmerry]

I just spotted a particularly thorny instance of item duplication - the mace "Ardulia's Fall" (BG2EE). You can get it both from Stormherald Nallabir as a reward for dealing with the Unseeing Eye and from Talon Yarryl as a reward for acquiring either fake illithium or an illithium statue.

The requirements for this?

- Your character meets the requirements for the Talos temple stronghold.

- Your character doesn't take the Talos temple stronghold, because they have another stronghold.

Looking things up, all non-stronghold versions of the Unseeing Eye reward give Ardulia's Fall, and all stronghold versions of the Sarles quest reward give the same three-item choice. However, the three non-stronghold versions of the Sarles quest reward give different items - Periapt of Life Protection for Lathander, Helm of the Noble for Helm, Ardulia's Fall for Talos. And the dialogue refers to what kind of item it is; Yarryl specifically refers to "this mace" when giving it to you.

For those who don't recall, Ardulia's Fall is a +1 mace with a rather powerful on-hit ability - save at +2 or be slowed, on every hit. It is definitely unique, and there's no easy generic counterpart. And this duplication has almost certainly been around for a long time.