Biography bugs/issues (IWD:EE, Black Pits)

[Dan_P]

IWDEE has a few reproducible bugs with biographies. These happen on the party creation screen or during import. I don't know the proper ways to fix these (I do have a fix for one of the bugs below). I'm just posting what I've observed for reference. There might be other issues or maybe fixes already exist for these that I don't know about. This is for both v2.5 and v2.6.

Background info:
As you probably know, when you export a character, you get a .chr and a .bio file in the characters folder. The BIO file is just a text file with a different extension and has the biography text. The CHR is a CRE file with an additional header. Note that the CHR file also has an offset for a biography, but by default it's set to an invalid string number -> 15728908 (it reads "Thief", despite not being in dialog.tlk).

So when you import a character with a BIO file, the biography will be the text in the BIO file. When you import a character without a BIO file, the biography will be the text written into the biography offset in the CHR. This is how it's supposed to work, presumably.

BUG
This is assuming all characters have a BIO file. If you import a single character in the party, it will have the text from the BIO file. If you then import a 2nd character, the 2nd character will have the text from their BIO file. The first character's biography is changed to the BG2 biography. If you import a 3rd character, the 3rd character has the text from their BIO file. The previous characters all have the BG2 biography. It continues like this. If you import 6 characters, only the 6th character will have the correct biography.

Method to fix:
- I have a fix for this in the Premade Party Adder mod, but it's a bit messy so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for the EE fixpack, or especially for an official fix.
- What I do is I copy the text from the BIO file, write it directly into the CHR file at the biography offset, then delete the BIO file from the characters folder. The bug mentioned above doesn't happen if the character doesn't have a BIO file in the folder. So when you import 6 characters, all 6 will have the correct biographies (i.e. the text in the bio offsets).

 

There are a couple other reproducible bugs, even if using my fix. I don't know fixes for these ones:

1. If you view the biography of Player1 (first character in order), then import more characters, then start the game, Player1 will have the BG2 biography.
2. If you view the biographies of any character other than Player1, then start the game, Player1 will have the same biography as the last character viewed.

These are both avoidable simply by not opening the biography screens while on the party creation screen. The character Record screens are fine. Once you're in the game, you can view any screens without issues.

Black Pits 1/2
This isn't really a bug, but I'm just noting that importing or creating a new character for Black Pits will always give characters the BG story-related biographies. This seems to be intentional, as the BIO file and the biography offset in the CHR don't seem to do anything in the BGEE games.

Of course, you can edit the bio right away in the game if you want, but seems like it would be better if the characters were given a more generic biography by default. Beamdog actually wrote one already, the biography for the premade characters in Black Pits 2. I don't see a game design reason for created/imported characters in Black Pits to be using the story biography, especially when a generic one already exists.

I'll also mention that premade parties can have custom biographies if written into the CRE file (the premade parties use CRE format, not CHR). It's only importing or creating new characters that will always give the story biographies. With the Premade Party Adder mod, for example, custom premade parties will get custom biographies, while importing CHRs of the same characters will give the BG story biographies, even if a custom bio is written directly into the CHR file.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Dan_P