Announcing Love Conquers All (LCA) – Corwin Romance Mod for EET

[LCAMod]

Update: v1.0 is released! See the link below.

This EET mod gives the player the ability to add Captain Corwin to their party in SoA. She can be added once the player recovers the Soultaker dagger from the Djinn in Irenicus’ stronghold. After recovering the dagger, the player can send it, along with a letter, to Baldur’s Gate. Doing so will initiate a series of events that culminates in Corwin’s arrival in Athkatla, to assist the player in the hunt for Irenicus. Players can continue the romance with Corwin through the events of SoA and ToB, or they can initiate the romance during the events of SoA.

Features

-          Adds Corwin as a playable character to SoA and ToB, and Caelar as a playable character in ToB

-          Over 200 new dialogs with SoA / ToB characters

-          Dozens of new items, quests, cutscenes and more

Major Storyline Changes

1.       The addition of Captain Corwin to SoA / ToB.

2.       Modifications to key BG1 & SoD dialogues that help facilitate Corwin’s return in SoA.

3.       If Corwin is in your party at the end of SoA, you will return to Baldur’s Gate (instead of proceeding immediately to ToB). This initiates a mini-quest involving Illasera and Rohma that leads in to the events of ToB. There are a handful of other side quests you can do while in Baldur’s Gate.

a.       Slaver Conspiracy

b.       Tianna’s Problem

c.       Engagement Ring (if the player is in a romance with Corwin)

d.       Saving the Elfsong

e.       Returning the Farseer

4.       ToB includes an additional quest to rescue Caelar from Avernus.

Enjoy!

Current Release: Releases · LCA-EET/LCA (github.com)

GitHub Project Page: Love Conquers All (LCA) Mod for Baldur’s Gate Extended Edition Trilogy (EET) | LCA (lca-eet.github.io)

Edited September 30, 2023 by LCAMod

[jmerry]

Checking the code ... I see that most of the files you're copying in have filenames beginning with "LC". That modder prefix is taken. By @Galactygon.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of modder prefixes, it's what this community uses to avoid namespace collisions - you don't want one modder's work blindly overwriting another's because they happen to use the same filenames. Two characters (not case-sensitive) at the beginning of new filenames, unique to a particular modder - mine is J8, for example. For anything outside that prefix, you have to be very careful. There are some circumstances in which it might be appropriate to use the base game's namespace - I have one component in my tweak mod that externalizes the effect of the wand of polymorphing (WAND09.ITM) to a new spell WAND09.SPL - but it takes some very specific circumstances. Random cutscene creatures like your "CorCut1.CRE" or the like are not a good place to do that.

The current modder prefix list is here: http://www.blackwyrmlair.net/prefixes/

You can register a prefix for yourself at this forum thread: http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showtopic=113

[jastey]

firstly, congratulations on the release! This seems to be a huge project, and at least for me it popped out of nowhere!

I took a peek at the files and unfortunately, with regard to compatibility, this mod needs to be improved. @jmerry already mentioned the missing modder prefix, which should be included into names of all files that go into the game (bgs, dlg, cre, spl, etc.) but also variables and creature script names.

For adding NPC comments and setting variables in existing dialogues, there is good syntax like I_C_T, ADD_TRANS_ACTION. etc. which makes it possible to add own additions without breaking the original dialogue flow (and bypassing other mods' additions). Looking at LCAMISC.D I see unfortunate syntax e.g. tagging all existing reply options with a variable and adding a new transition with EXTEND_BOTTOM, without a following COPY_TRANS - this "eats" any mod added other reply options/transactions including setting of variables they might have added. Other example would be replacing Eltan's dialogue states of DELTAN2.dlg with new states just so he can mention Corwin in his line - there is better ways to do this, for example if you just want to change the line he is saying you could use STRING_SET to change the string directly without adding new states no other mod can patch.

As it is this mod is surely a great addition to a game and offers a lot of content, but it shouldn't be installed to a greater mod setup blindly, as it has high potential to break other mods' content.

 

EDIT: Just a heads up: the GitHub repo contains files in the backup folder.

[Endarire]

LCA, thanks for finally announcing this project on G3!  Alleluia!

I trust that others with more experience in Infinity Engine mod making will guide you correctly.

[megrimlock]

This looks pretty exciting, I'd be interested to test. Beyond the comments above, the specific compatibility issue which would be nice to resolve is whether this mod can be made to play nice with Lava del Vortel's The Cost of One Girl's Soul, which also uses the Soultaker Dagger in Irenicus Dungeon to kickstart its quest.

Edited June 20, 2023 by megrimlock

[Incrementis]

Congratulations on your release!

I'm new myself and it makes me happy and motivated to see the community growing.

A warm welcome from me to you :D!

[Endarire]

For clarity, this is Skie: The Cost of One Girl's Soul, a generally well-received mod for BG2EE & EET.  (Its author made another Skie for BGII mod that Cost of One Girl's Soul replaced.)

LCA, I would prefer if the Corwin from this mod is a continuous NPC on EET.  This means whatever class, items, and stats/tomes she has stays between games (SoD & SoA in this case).

Thankee!

Edited June 20, 2023 by Endarire

[LCAMod]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll come up with a new prefix and update the code accordingly. I'll do my best to incorporate compatibility with The Cost of One Girl's Soul, but I can't promise that it will be ready in time for the first release.

[LCAMod]

Quote

18 hours ago, jastey said:

firstly, congratulations on the release! This seems to be a huge project, and at least for me it popped out of nowhere!

I took a peek at the files and unfortunately, with regard to compatibility, this mod needs to be improved. @jmerry already mentioned the missing modder prefix, which should be included into names of all files that go into the game (bgs, dlg, cre, spl, etc.) but also variables and creature script names.

For adding NPC comments and setting variables in existing dialogues, there is good syntax like I_C_T, ADD_TRANS_ACTION. etc. which makes it possible to add own additions without breaking the original dialogue flow (and bypassing other mods' additions). Looking at LCAMISC.D I see unfortunate syntax e.g. tagging all existing reply options with a variable and adding a new transition with EXTEND_BOTTOM, without a following COPY_TRANS - this "eats" any mod added other reply options/transactions including setting of variables they might have added. Other example would be replacing Eltan's dialogue states of DELTAN2.dlg with new states just so he can mention Corwin in his line - there is better ways to do this, for example if you just want to change the line he is saying you could use STRING_SET to change the string directly without adding new states no other mod can patch.

As it is this mod is surely a great addition to a game and offers a lot of content, but it shouldn't be installed to a greater mod setup blindly, as it has high potential to break other mods' content.

 

EDIT: Just a heads up: the GitHub repo contains files in the backup folder.

 

Thanks so much this is great feedback. Will reserve the prefix today & update accordingly.

Edited June 20, 2023 by LCAMod

[Endarire]

Is Corwin continuous wih your mod?

 

[LCAMod]

4 hours ago, Endarire said:

Is Corwin continuous wih your mod?

 

There are some challenges to that concerning the dialogs. But, I plan to address them before release. I don't think it makes sense for her items to carry over, however. She gets upgraded items to help her hunt for Irenicus, after all.

[Graion Dilach]

I'd put continuity the least of your problems tbh.

What I'd bring up as a problem longterm is that you use a lot of separate folder cases and pathes, mixing FULLCAPS, CamelCase and lowercaps. Linux doesn't casefold by default and that's why GitHub orders them inconsistently. (Also, using the drag-n-drop browser-based commiting functionaility can lead to duplicate files introduced wiithin the repo as Skitia had a few times).

I'd suggest to clean this up  and standardize during the prefix refactor.

[LCAMod]

9 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

I'd put continuity the least of your problems tbh.

What I'd bring up as a problem longterm is that you use a lot of separate folder cases and pathes, mixing FULLCAPS, CamelCase and lowercaps. Linux doesn't casefold by default and that's why GitHub orders them inconsistently. (Also, using the drag-n-drop browser-based commiting functionaility can lead to duplicate files introduced wiithin the repo as Skitia had a few times).

I'd suggest to clean this up  and standardize during the prefix refactor.

Good catch, thanks. Out of curiosity, do you know which most modders use (all caps, camel, lower)? I can refactor to use whatever the standard convention is.

[Graion Dilach]

Most people go with lowercase. Prior to casefolding, the convention on Linux was also to use tolower on everything (this broke on EEs, because Beamdog used FULLCAPS for a few resources).

[LCAMod]

7 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

Most people go with lowercase. Prior to casefolding, the convention on Linux was also to use tolower on everything (this broke on EEs, because Beamdog used FULLCAPS for a few resources).

Thanks! So lowercase for file paths & folders. What about variables? I like the use of CamelCase there just for readability purposes. Weidu doesn't care one way or the other right, so long as I'm consistent.

I updated the prefixes last night, I'll work on this tonight if time permits. Thanks again.