Sergio's reviews

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

Ayden’s project (finished 27/06/2023)

Hello, I’ve played Ayden Project. I will share my thoughts in bullet points.

1) I’m taking a look at two components:

Wands for Thieves: Enable the use of wands for all thief kits (including warlock). (Any)

Thief Proficiencies: Enable mace and spear proficiency for all thief kits. (Any)

Why haven’t you put the warlock class under the bard kit for Ayden, so Ayden can use wand?

And for the thief proficiency, wouldn’t it be easier if you just put these two points from the start on Ayden, rather than touching the kits? Or alternatively, add a weapon that can morph into a mace or a spear that can be used just by Ayden and that becomes stronger with him.

Having a npc mod actually changing the way a class works leaves me a bit conflicted. I could install them safely because I don’t use mods that touch classes or kits (for now).

 

Spoilers incoming, so I would avoid reading them if you wish to try the npc.

 

2) It would be cool to have a dialogue option for <charname> that allows you to threaten the gnome to give the gem.

3) The gnome is a fraud, selling fraud items and you cannot tell him to give you back the money or part of the money after you find him in Gullykin?

4) If you don’t let Ayden join, he goes away calling you “Godchild”. I don’t think this is appropriate, considering that you are probably freeing him at the beginning of the game. He should just ask your name and pronounce your name.

5) If you let Ayden join, a banter will pop up out of the blue, that I don’t think it’s supposed to be here.


6) Ayden starts with the following stats:
13/16/8/13/12/17 (79 total, not exceptional at all).
I fed him some cursed items and he was able to get the following stats:
15/19/10/17/16/21 (98 total, a very bad results)

I think these stats are insane, if you consider that I didn’t feed him all the cursed items. I’ve missed many, such as the Big-Fisted Belt (If I fed this to ayden, he would have gained +3 STR). By giving these items to Ayden he becomes a powerhouse out of the blue; I realize he is a warlock and mental stats are not that important (apart from charisma because your Warlock is based on charisma), but hey, food for thoughts.

7) The shadow walking is a cool feature, but I feel it’s risky in Baldur’s gate. I wouldn’t reinstall it.

After feeding Ayden a lot of cursed items, he proposed me to buy a forge for him. I never accessed the “refuge” (he never even spoke about it) and as such, I was never able to use the forge.

9) Ayden speaks a lot compared to other BG1 npc. He seems to be equivalent to bg2 npc; I think this should be made clearer in the readme. I particularly noticed that, given that this time I have played without BG1npc project and really, the npcs without it are mostly silent - I would go as far as saying they don’t speak at all.

 10) Ayden has really a lot of work put into it. If you expanded Ayden, you could make it a stable inside every baldur’s gate 1 install. I will be more specific on how.

 I’ve taken a look at the features offered by Ayden and the crafting part left me really surprised.

When you speak to Ayden for the first time, you can choose to let him join or not.
Some people may choose to not let him join and that could open a second path with Ayden.
After leaving Ulcaster, he could talk with charname out of the blue when charname leaves Thunderhammer smithy. And he could propose charname a deal: work for him, by bringing him cursed items.

Then he would propose to get the forge/get the forge himself, and then started selling the items proposed by the crafting. This should be reworked and rebalanced too (and I could say you how if you are interested – but if you aren’t, writing would be probably useless). You could even step in and make Ayden available as an Item upgrade mod, hopefully a balanced one compared to Thalantyr item upgrade.

 

Thanks for the mod!!

Edited September 11, 2023 by Sergio - ex SHS member

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

Argent77 mods. --> I will review them all together

I have to make a statement before expressing my ideas about Argent77’s mods. Most of them are amazing and always in my install. Thanks Argent77!!

 

Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs for BG:EE, SoD and BG2:EE --> will install always. This is a great mod. I use the no-equipment-from EE.

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Hidden gameplay options --> This is a cool mod that I always install, but I dislike the order of the components proposed when you install it. I install only the following three components, that I think can be used by any player (and they are thus the more popular), while the others are more “technical”:
Enable debug mode
Limit ranger/cleric spells
Improved cheat menu
If these three components were to be put first, the mod would be perfect.

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Golem construction for spellcasters  --> this is a cool mod, but I don’t like the way it’s executed. As such, I’m undecided if I will be reinstalling it again. These are my impressions on BG:EE:

1) It would be cooler if it was the player agency that activates the mod, rather than the mod being activated from minute 0. What I mean is that you wouldn’t be finding bones or body parts, until you do a certain thing (wouldn’t finding the manual be a good moment?). Having bodies cluttered with different items is not as elegant as it should be, especially when I’m playing with a CG ranger. Why is my charname so fixated on these?

2) I would add that rather than finding all these items, especially when they are so “common”, an item that just siphons these parts without player input would be way cooler than having the player loot so much stuff and having to click so many buttons.

3) Not only that: knowing that I installed the mod, having all these body parts available and not taking them (I leave these items on the ground) makes regret starts sinking in, because I have never played the mod before, and as such, I don’t know how many of these items I need (and I would like to avoid taking a look at the spoiler manual).
 

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Magic store of vergadain --> cool mod, try it. I will always toss a coin if I have to reinstall it.

 This is a cool mod, but:

- I dislike the limited amount of times you can use it daily (3). You should be able to tweak that.

- it can unbalance the game really fast, because you have temples’ services in the wilderness.
Rather than considering it a limit of the mod (https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/32357-magic-store-of-vergadain-visit-any-store-anywhere-and-anytime/page/2/#comment-323645) I think a good idea would be an optional component that makes building of the artifact and the single parts way more expensive. I would gladly pay 15k to build the “whole” artifact, due to the services that it offers.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Sergio - ex SHS member

[argent77]

18 hours ago, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

Golem construction for spellcasters

1) It would be cooler if it was the player agency that activates the mod, rather than the mod being activated from minute 0. What I mean is that you wouldn’t be finding bones or body parts, until you do a certain thing (wouldn’t finding the manual be a good moment?).

I agree in principle, but that's one of the many limitations of the game engine. Most stuff is added via random treasure tables, and (to my knowledge) it is not possible to selectively disable or enable this mechanism.

 

18 hours ago, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

Magic store of vergadain

- I dislike the limited amount of times you can use it daily (3). You should be able to tweak that.

I'll see what can be done about that.

18 hours ago, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

I think a good idea would be an optional component that makes building of the artifact and the single parts way more expensive. I would gladly pay 15k to build the “whole” artifact, due to the services that it offers.

I don't think that a higher price would make a real difference. It's the challenge of collecting the source materials and finding the right person(s) to create the artifact that should have a greater impact on the general experience.

[Skye]

Hey, Sergio. Thank you so much for trying out the Ayden Project. We've put a lot of work into it over the years and it's always nice to get some feedback.

One of the members relayed your review to Ken and he wrote up a reply for you. In the future, if it's not too much trouble, please tag me in the message or post things in the mod thread, so that we get a notification. We would have completely missed this otherwise.

Spoiler

I'll address your points here and, if you want, we can talk about it some more.

1) I've spent a lot of time considering which class to base my Warlock kit on in the beginning. Bard and thief were the prime candidates and they both had their pros and cons. I eventually settled on thief because I felt it made more sense and required less effort at the time. That said, I have been considering making another version of it with the bard class as a base instead.

As far as the two features are concerned, I felt that all thieves should be able to use wands, so I added that as an option. This stems more from my love of 3E than anything else, where rogues more commonly use wands and scrolls with skills. I also wanted this to be optional for anyone who felt that this would make thief classes too strong.

As for the spears, I just think it's a very underused weapon group and, as the simplest of weapons, thieves shouldn't have any issues using them. I figured I would try to steer more people to using them by providing this option for all thieves. I added maces because I also added light mace weapons that are useable by thieves.

I didn't add either of these options to Ayden specifically, because I don't think he needs the ability to use either. He's plenty strong as it is.

Neither of these components are necessary for the mod to function and are completely skippable. They simply exist because I thought they were cool.

2) I can add a CHA-based option to threaten the halfling. That sounds pretty good.

3) Originally, he just ran away, so you could never find him again to extort your money back. Since the end result of the quest is a pretty good reward (either Ayden or just the bag of holding), I didn't expect anyone to care. It's something I can consider adding though.

4) Ayden can discern Charname's divine nature, hence he will allude to it in conversations, even prior to the the PC finding out what they are. It might be a good idea to make these more subtle though. I will go through the dialogue and see if I can't make the references less overt.

5) I think that piece of dialogue is in response to you freeing the petrified woman in the basilisk garden. I'll look into that. The triggers might be wrong for that.

6) Ayden's stats get pretty crazy if you let him consume all the cursed items, but they don't really affect much overall. They enable him to be a front-line character in late game, if you really wanted him to, but they only have very minor effect on him otherwise. It's all the other abilities he gets from curse eating that make him a powerhouse.

7) I've used it everywhere and haven't encountered any issues. That's not to say there's no potential for issues by teleporting around the game, but I've yet to receive a single report of it breaking anything. Make of that what you will.

8 ) Did you ever initiate dialogue with him directly? It's not something he shares with you on his own. You have to actually talk to him by yourself.

9) I agree. Standard companions are mostly quiet in BG1, but that would be boring. I'll note in the README that he's chatty and that one should talk to him directly from time to time to get the most out of him.

10) That sounds like a lot of fun. Feel free to share your ideas with me. I didn't give much thought to using Ayden if the player decides not to recruit him.

We've already opened up several issues in our project tracker and the changes are due to be included in v2.7. Some of the bigger changes (like having Ayden stick around if you reject him at the beginning) probably won't make it into that one though.

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

On 9/15/2023 at 3:51 PM, Skye said:

Hey, Sergio. Thank you so much for trying out the Ayden Project. We've put a lot of work into it over the years and it's always nice to get some feedback.

One of the members relayed your review to Ken and he wrote up a reply for you. In the future, if it's not too much trouble, please tag me in the message or post things in the mod thread, so that we get a notification. We would have completely missed this otherwise.

  Hide contents

I'll address your points here and, if you want, we can talk about it some more.

1) I've spent a lot of time considering which class to base my Warlock kit on in the beginning. Bard and thief were the prime candidates and they both had their pros and cons. I eventually settled on thief because I felt it made more sense and required less effort at the time. That said, I have been considering making another version of it with the bard class as a base instead.

As far as the two features are concerned, I felt that all thieves should be able to use wands, so I added that as an option. This stems more from my love of 3E than anything else, where rogues more commonly use wands and scrolls with skills. I also wanted this to be optional for anyone who felt that this would make thief classes too strong.

As for the spears, I just think it's a very underused weapon group and, as the simplest of weapons, thieves shouldn't have any issues using them. I figured I would try to steer more people to using them by providing this option for all thieves. I added maces because I also added light mace weapons that are useable by thieves.

I didn't add either of these options to Ayden specifically, because I don't think he needs the ability to use either. He's plenty strong as it is.

Neither of these components are necessary for the mod to function and are completely skippable. They simply exist because I thought they were cool.

2) I can add a CHA-based option to threaten the halfling. That sounds pretty good.

3) Originally, he just ran away, so you could never find him again to extort your money back. Since the end result of the quest is a pretty good reward (either Ayden or just the bag of holding), I didn't expect anyone to care. It's something I can consider adding though.

4) Ayden can discern Charname's divine nature, hence he will allude to it in conversations, even prior to the the PC finding out what they are. It might be a good idea to make these more subtle though. I will go through the dialogue and see if I can't make the references less overt.

5) I think that piece of dialogue is in response to you freeing the petrified woman in the basilisk garden. I'll look into that. The triggers might be wrong for that.

6) Ayden's stats get pretty crazy if you let him consume all the cursed items, but they don't really affect much overall. They enable him to be a front-line character in late game, if you really wanted him to, but they only have very minor effect on him otherwise. It's all the other abilities he gets from curse eating that make him a powerhouse.

7) I've used it everywhere and haven't encountered any issues. That's not to say there's no potential for issues by teleporting around the game, but I've yet to receive a single report of it breaking anything. Make of that what you will.

8 ) Did you ever initiate dialogue with him directly? It's not something he shares with you on his own. You have to actually talk to him by yourself.

9) I agree. Standard companions are mostly quiet in BG1, but that would be boring. I'll note in the README that he's chatty and that one should talk to him directly from time to time to get the most out of him.

10) That sounds like a lot of fun. Feel free to share your ideas with me. I didn't give much thought to using Ayden if the player decides not to recruit him.

We've already opened up several issues in our project tracker and the changes are due to be included in v2.7. Some of the bigger changes (like having Ayden stick around if you reject him at the beginning) probably won't make it into that one though.

First of all, thanks for the extensive reply.

1) I didn't realize you are able to skip these components. But I have to add that the reference on these components to the warlock class seems to imply they are supposed to be installed to have the optimal warlock experience (This component will change the configuration so that all thieves and thief kits can gain (at least) 1 point in spear or mace proficiency, like warlock; This simple component will enable the use of wands for all thief kits (including warlocks) if they meet the ability requirements).

2-3-4-5) Nice, thank you. 

6) I guess.

8 ) Yes, I did explore all dialogue options. I'm wondering, what's the specific dialogue option I should be receiving?

10) I had my notes somewhere (can't find them right now), but basically:
- if Ayden doesn't join you, he could become an item dealer (you choose when he will make his offer, it could even be when you first meet him)
- the items he deals are the one you've already made a recipe for, but the recipes are not unlocked when he makes you the proposal; he is still too weak.
- By providing him cursed items he unlocks more recipes.
- No searching around for the "common items" you've put in the shops; I don't know if they are respawnable (doubt it), but I would rather pay more and let Ayden find these "items" himself, if these items are added by the mod just for the recipes. 
- Ayden could become an alternative to Thalantyr Item upgrades; some recipes there make sense, while others don't. 
 

 

[Skye]

On 10/5/2023 at 8:27 PM, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

First of all, thanks for the extensive reply.

1) I didn't realize you are able to skip these components. But I have to add that the reference on these components to the warlock class seems to imply they are supposed to be installed to have the optimal warlock experience (This component will change the configuration so that all thieves and thief kits can gain (at least) 1 point in spear or mace proficiency, like warlock; This simple component will enable the use of wands for all thief kits (including warlocks) if they meet the ability requirements).

2-3-4-5) Nice, thank you. 

6) I guess.

8 ) Yes, I did explore all dialogue options. I'm wondering, what's the specific dialogue option I should be receiving?

10) I had my notes somewhere (can't find them right now), but basically:
- if Ayden doesn't join you, he could become an item dealer (you choose when he will make his offer, it could even be when you first meet him)
- the items he deals are the one you've already made a recipe for, but the recipes are not unlocked when he makes you the proposal; he is still too weak.
- By providing him cursed items he unlocks more recipes.
- No searching around for the "common items" you've put in the shops; I don't know if they are respawnable (doubt it), but I would rather pay more and let Ayden find these "items" himself, if these items are added by the mod just for the recipes. 
- Ayden could become an alternative to Thalantyr Item upgrades; some recipes there make sense, while others don't. 
 

 

1) Yeah, warlocks actually get spear and mace proficiency by default. We figured if warlocks get to use them, all thieves might as well. They fall in the simple weapon category in 3E anyway. They don't get to use wands by default but, as mentioned, we consider that to be part of the standard rogue package, so that's why the component exists. But yeah, they're both optional. I don't really find myself using the wands much with thief characters but YMMV, obviously.

8 ) I'll admit, we did hide that more than we probably should have. When selecting where you want to shadow walk, you have to ask Ayden to take you "somewhere special". After that, he'll transport you to the Refuge. It should at least be hinted at how to get there in the readme. The reasoning was that everyone would be curious enough to see where that option leads. Then again, the refuge used to be a very small island with a chest on it and now it's a full-blown stronghold area. He should probably take you there on his own if you don't ask him for a while. I'll open an issue for that.

10) It's an interesting idea. I'll pass that along.

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

On 10/7/2023 at 4:51 PM, Skye said:

cut

Thanks for your answer. Hope to see more from you.

Extra expanded enhanced encounters -> not a bad mod. Try it. Doubt I will reinstall.

You can find the mod here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/73749/extra-expanded-enhanced-encounters-module-download/p1

This mod add new encounters. Some are well written, but of course, it’s all subjective.

I will just write about what I didn’t enjoy.

- The gnoll fortress component is cool, but after facing so many gnolls, it is sad not to find a stash or something valuable. Sadly enough, I doubt that gnoll would stash gold coins or jewels inside their own fortress. So I doubt this can be “fixed”.

- The Undercity Magma Bulwark Encounter kinda took me out of the game, because they are skeletons and they all have “human” names. That way, they feel more of an ester-egg added by a mod.

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

The dreadful tales – try it. I won’t reinstall it. (19/11/2023)

This is the mod I like the most by Lava.

On my eyes, it shows the growth of him as a mod author: areas are cool and interlinked without feeling “overabundant”, the dialogue is not bad, the story is not bad either.

But even with these good qualities, the mod shows what I think it’s the limit in every Lava’s mod – talking, moving around, is just a way to experience the content without having an impact. If you are going to play the mod 2 times, the content will always be the same, because the mod is pretty linear and the choices available for you do not have any meaningful impact.

Every mod I’ve played ends always on you killing the bad guy that is too desperate to be reasoned with or too keen in his evil way – I wouldn’t mind, if there were some real options available for the player.

In this case, there is a way to end the affliction of the land, but what if I didn’t want to end it and actually make it worse? What if I wanted to study what the girl did or have my Charname acquire something more useful than the simple thought of having done a good action?  

Also, the re-use of some ideas feel redundant (for example, the kids following you and getting a useless power reminds me of the dream npc in another mod that can’t be enslaved) or the blacksmith not remembering his past and you having to talk with him).

I mean, I enjoyed the mod, but it’s not like I would say “reinstall it”. It’s Lava’s best mod, but it’s still not something I would reinstall in my every playthrough, because it simply shows the limit I always find hard to bear when I wish to replay something.

Thanks for the mod.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sergio - ex SHS member

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

On 10/7/2023 at 4:51 PM, Skye said:

1) Yeah, warlocks actually get spear and mace proficiency by default. We figured if warlocks get to use them, all thieves might as well. They fall in the simple weapon category in 3E anyway. They don't get to use wands by default but, as mentioned, we consider that to be part of the standard rogue package, so that's why the component exists. But yeah, they're both optional. I don't really find myself using the wands much with thief characters but YMMV, obviously.

8 ) I'll admit, we did hide that more than we probably should have. When selecting where you want to shadow walk, you have to ask Ayden to take you "somewhere special". After that, he'll transport you to the Refuge. It should at least be hinted at how to get there in the readme. The reasoning was that everyone would be curious enough to see where that option leads. Then again, the refuge used to be a very small island with a chest on it and now it's a full-blown stronghold area. He should probably take you there on his own if you don't ask him for a while. I'll open an issue for that.

10) It's an interesting idea. I'll pass that along.

@SkyeI've been playing your mod another bit. Some more thoughts (note that these are my thoughts and as such they are subjective):

I've found the scroll in Ragefast's house. I didn't have Ayden, but as soon as I reached the area where Ayden lies, Ayden talked about being able to use the scroll even if he wasn't in my party and was out of my vision. The bug is similar to the one I already reported about dialogues being "fired" out of context.

The imp addition is cool, but it's not interesting. For the player, there is no real reason on giving money to the imp himself; why would charname choose to do so? You are basically risking giving your money to an extraplanar entity in a realm you can't reach if Ayden is not with you/Ayden doesn't want to help you/Ayden died permanently. Too much risk. I will add that the imp should probably offer better services and actually ask Ayden to find something he values around.

The Refuge starting from 0 and being expanded is really cool.

I hope you won't give up on this

Thanks for the mod.

[Sergio - ex SHS member]

Gorgon’s eye --> This review refers to the old Gorgon Eye, before TotalMilk90 remade it. I post it simply and only for historical purpose. 

The mod adds a thief guild in Beregost.

The writing is not bad; there are a lot of quests available:
- pickpocketing stuff
- delivering illegal goods
- blackmail;
- investigating.

On top of that, there is also a bounty hunter npc, giving you bounties that you can claim. For each one, you can decide to do the right thing or claim the bounty, no matter how evil the request is.

The dialogue with man with blue hairs is quirky and well done. I liked it.
 

 

My only regret is that you cannot claim the artifact in its entirety

 Thanks for the mod.

Edited January 17 by Sergio - ex SHS member

[AWizardDidIt]

On 9/8/2023 at 8:22 AM, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

Black hearts (finished 26/06/2023) --> according to me, this is currently the best quest mod available for BG1. Install and play it. I even think that it could be a stable additions in my install all the times I will be playing BG.
 

You can find informations about the mod here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/82484/released-black-hearts-bg1/p1

Given that the post above highlights what the mod adds, I will simply write my thoughts.

 - If you told me this mod was a mini-dlc, I would have fallen for it. In my eyes, the mod matches a mini-dlc in quality and it is masterfully executed.

 - Illasera is a captivating character and you enjoy talking with her; so much that I kinda loathed when the mod ended. I wanted more.

- The dialogues added by the mod are meaningful, provide enough choices for any character, and when the party members chime in to banter, their banters are on point. Well done on Imoen, especially.

- The quests given by Illasera are funny and provide RP choices. The RP choices do not punish you for going evil. That’s a fresh breath of air for me, considering that I play only evil <charnames>.

 - The new sceneries are well done. Did you make them @AWizardDidIt?

 - I liked the surprise you left with the

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Yagashura emissary

. The dialogue there was good too.

 - You won’t believe it, but I liked that you respected the player’s agency. I will give you an example. Other mods (such as Assassination) do not respect player agency by forcing the player to read everything the modders themselves have written. In this one, in the end fight, you can simply click the first dialogue option, and the “bad” guy won’t speak or tell your motives. You go straight to business. That’s a bold choice. I enjoyed it a lot.

Some things to report (I played this mod in BG:EE)

1) I had some difficulties in the quest concerning the mirror. I didn’t expect that the “solution” was supposed to be provided with dialogue. I used Tiax and he has nothing to say for what is happening. I know it’s probably hard to write for him. Anyway, either get Branwen or Ajantis to proceed.
Also, a cleric <charname> should be able to do the exorcism himself.

2) It’s not easy to find the “northern gorge”; you’ve decided to make the way out only in the middle of Farmlands, and by doing so, I had some difficulties finding it. I was able to by using CTRL+4 after clicking “explore” in the map.
 

3) I met a bug inside the new sewer area. When you meet the girl mage and his second in command, she flees because she tells you that another area is currently under attack.
The issue is that when you enter the area (see 00:02 in the video I will be publishing a bit below), there is only 1 Cherise and Malachi, but they get duplicated instantly. And after finishing the first talk with Cherise, you get a second talk, that you are supposed to see only when you’ve finished the quest mod (in the Sanctum area).

Video here: https://streamable.com/68l8w6
Savegame here (the archive also contains the video): https://easyupload.io/bp35vb 

4) Second thing to report is inside the Sanctum area: the sanctum portal has an issue with a graphical line (the archive above has everything)

5) Read the following images.

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The statement I’m focusing on is: “leaving one of us dead or stranded behind”.

Are you sure it Is it correct that Illasera uses “one” and not “each”….
“leaving each of us dead or stranded behind…”

 

Also, sanctum text error here:

 

 

Hey I just wanna say I got linked this directly after having sorta thrown myself into self exile from modding and it really made my day.

I really poured my heart into this mod over the course of a few months, but after release I had this sort of extreme imposter syndrome kind of feeling like it was bad, my coding was amateurish, I was overwhelmed by my inability to do certain things, and I got so caught in my own head about not being able to update everything or wanting to go back and trash and redo so much of it that I sort of ran away from modding. 

But yeah, these comments really help. Uh, so if you see this, thank you?

Maybe I'll try and go back and find the bugs people reported and fix it. And probably just add an extra option for the mirror quest, that one's a bit narrow as implemented for the 'good' option. I unfortunately just don't have a ton of time for modding lately. But we'll see.

Edited March 7 by AWizardDidIt

[Delior]

Hey @AWizardDidIt, I'll add my praise to what Sergio said and say that IMO Blackhearts is not only one of the best BG mods I've played, but one of the best mods I've played for any game. It's not perfect, but don't let your doubts cripple your ample creativity.  I'd love to see you do more with it.  

[Trouveur80]

@AWizardDidIt

Black Hearts is one of the few quests mods always installed on my BGEE, and the one I recommend the most to other players.

The dialogs are great and really fit each NPC. Illasera herself is now one of the most interesting antagonist, along Irenicus and Sarevok, and far ahead of Bodhi.

IMHO Black Hearts is in the top four BGEE quests mods. From what I read on the Infinity Engine Discord, many players really enjoy it too.

I'm still intrigued by your planed SoD part.

Thank you very much for this mod.

[Skye]

On 12/2/2023 at 12:50 PM, Sergio - ex SHS member said:

@SkyeI've been playing your mod another bit. Some more thoughts (note that these are my thoughts and as such they are subjective):
 

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I've found the scroll in Ragefast's house. I didn't have Ayden, but as soon as I reached the area where Ayden lies, Ayden talked about being able to use the scroll even if he wasn't in my party and was out of my vision. The bug is similar to the one I already reported about dialogues being "fired" out of context.

 

The imp addition is cool, but it's not interesting. For the player, there is no real reason on giving money to the imp himself; why would charname choose to do so? You are basically risking giving your money to an extraplanar entity in a realm you can't reach if Ayden is not with you/Ayden doesn't want to help you/Ayden died permanently. Too much risk. I will add that the imp should probably offer better services and actually ask Ayden to find something he values around.

The Refuge starting from 0 and being expanded is really cool.

I hope you won't give up on this
 

 

Thanks for the additional playthroughs. I know Ken has been working on making dialogue triggers more natural in cases where Ayden isn't initially in the party, but I'll bring the scroll bit to his attention just to make sure it doesn't slip through.

I appreciate the feedback on the imp. It was initially just supposed to be a simple money stash because Ken got pissed off that he lost his money in SoD and then again SoA and, since you can't really stash the gold manually from your inventory, we decided to make it an NPC and give it a bit of character. The imp does play a somewhat bigger role in BG2 (including calling in the favor that was promised), but we'd love to hear if you have any ideas on how to improve on it in BG1 so that it's a bit more fun.

I'm glad you like the Refuge. Making it grow dynamically has been a big challenge for us and we're very proud that we managed to pull it off.

[Granger77]

Hi @AWizardDidIt,

I need to add my voice as well and say that Black Hearts is incredibly good. I played it for the first time last year, and it will continue to be a staple of all my future installs.

I know impostor syndrome very well, as do others here, I'm sure; it can be downright crippling. Just, take heart in knowing that people have enjoyed what you've created