Sample of my writing

[Guest Grimo]

Thank you for your frank and helpful answer, Domi! Here's a dialogue sample between Jan and Keldorn.

 

Jan: You know Keldorn, you remind me of my Uncle Bigthumb.

 

Keldorn: I do? Was your Uncle a devotee of Most Holy Torm per chance?

 

Jan: Oh, no. He was a merchant in Baldur's Gate for a time. He had a fierce rivalry with a halfling name Lonthol Geld. Or was it Lonthol Guld? No, wait, I'm quite sure it was Lenthel Gald. Well, regardless, Bigtoe and he hated eachother. They were the only celebrity merchandisers in the Gate, you see.

 

Keldorn: Celebrity merchandisers? I've never heard of such a thing in my life.

 

Jan: Oh, well, they would sell celebrity memorabilia, you know? Uncle Bigtoe sold things like locks of Elminster's hair or coffee-mugs that had belonged to Karsus or Sylvanus' gardening tools, and such.

 

Keldorn: So he was in the forgery business, no doubt? I fail to see how a criminal would remind you of me.

 

Jan: Oh, his rivarly with the halfling became so heated it drove them both out of business. Having lost everything to greed, he decided to repent by becoming a devotee of Most Holy Torm. That's how he reminds me of you.

 

Keldorn: Didn't I ask you that very question at the beginning of our conversation, gnome?

 

Jan: Oh, probably.

[BigRob]

The technical level of your writing is quite good, good punctuation, sentences flow well, and so on (a couple of errors, but you should see me typing).

 

As far as characterisation goes, you've got the basic style of both NPCs, but I think some tweaking is still needed for the full effect. Coming to know an NPC isn't easy, and it takes a lot of reading and mulling things over to see the character behind the banters. Of course, not everyone will have the same opinion about what's in character for an NPC, or about what makes a good mod. As Domi pointed out, mod writing takes a lot of effort and takes a while to do. I think you could do it, given that time.

 

 

Just one thing really glared at me. Coffee is still relatively rare in Faerun, so while a coffee mug may be a common souveneir here (and maybe, just maybe in Amn, which has colonies in Maztica), I doubt they're much known in Baldur's Gate. To me, that was breaking the 4th wall and showing our world. But that's just me.

[Guest Grimo]

Thanks for the tips! As for the coffee-mug deal, I felt it was justified as Jan often manages to slip some anachronistic objects into his ravings, for hilarity's sake. He's one of those characters (like the Joker from Batman, for instance) who's madness reaches into places someone in their world could never even dream of. Some such characters seem to have a strange awareness of the fact that they're fictional characters. Truth be told I don't play BG2 that much - I play BG1 ALOT. I only just got into BG2 again, so I'm not too sharp on any NPC's yet. Still I love to write and I just wanted to see if I could, well, do something here. Probably not, but it's worth a try.

[BigRob]

Some such characters seem to have a strange awareness of the fact that they're fictional characters.

True, this does happen in the game. Some people (like me ) aren't terribly happy with that.

 

 

Truth be told I don't play BG2 that much - I play BG1 ALOT. I only just got into BG2 again, so I'm not too sharp on any NPC's yet. Still I love to write and I just wanted to see if I could, well, do something here. Probably not, but it's worth a try.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely, give it a try. If you feel more comforable with BG1 characters, then by all means, write for them. It has been said that there are woefully few mods available for BG1 and the mods that allow crossover between BG1 and 2.

[Guest Grimo]

I've always been fascinated by a VERY minor BG1 character called Nimbul. He's a fighter/mage/thief that attacks you in BG1, after completing Nashkell Mines. He refers to the PC as 'dead-one' and introduces himself by saying 'I am death come for thee'. I'd love to write a mod that makes the first encounter with him harder, then adds multiple quests and encounters dealing with Nimbul that crossover to BG2. Give him a story and a personality as it were. He might even end up as a joinable NPC with his own interesting kit. But who the heck do I tell all this to?

[icelus]

http://www.pocketplane.net/modlist/index.p...list&cat_id=106

[Guest Guest]

Thanks buddy!

[Guest Grimo]

I get stumped here. I've got Weidu but how do I use it? Do I just use Notepad for a .txt file? Its all greek to me.

[Celissa]

Both PPG and G3 have an excellent set of tutorials on getting started with the whole modding thing. The WeiDU readme itself is also full of information and examples of how things work. Personally, I find reading code written in .d format to be an excellent way to learn. Download some of the many well-done mods and just look through the files to get a feel for it.

[Guest Grimo]

every tutorial I read just tells me all about codes and d files. How do I make d files? Where do I type these codes into?

 

For example:

 

In WeiDU all of your dialog, conditions and actions (more on conditions and actions below) have to be surrounded by either quotes or tildes. (A tilde is that funky character you get by holding SHIFT and pressing the key directly above your TAB key.) In this case, I've used tildes, but you can use whatever you want to use. Secondly, spacing helps a lot when coding out your dialog. You'll notice, for instance that if I have more than 2 conditions/actions (again, more on that below), I do a return spacing and put the second condition below the first one. You would just keep doing this if you had more conditions to add in one block.

 

Dialogs use two types of functions quite frequently. Conditions and actions. I'll give you a real life example of a condition and an action for you non-technical types out there

 

IF ~I'm being attacked by big scary wolves~ THEN BEGIN WOLFATTACK0

SAY ~Holy shit, look at those wolves, I'm out of here!~

IF ~~ THEN DO ~Running away from big scary wolves~ EXIT

END

 

The guy writing the tutorial for people who have NO IDEA about wiedu or modding at all has skipped the part where u put the damn code in! Help please, anyone?

[Thauron]

You start making a d-file just by creating a file with Notepad (or Context or whatever text-editor you prefer). In it you type whatever code and dialog you want - then just save it as [Mymod].D

(where [Mymod] is replaced by whatever you would like the file to name.)

If you want to continue writing on it open it again with your text editor.

 

It's basically very simple - that's why the writers of tutorials will often forget this sort of info. - but it might be annoying for starters.

 

I wish you courage in your attempt to learn modding - it's a long road but worthwhile in the end - and don't be afraid to ask questions on any of the modding forums.

[Andyr]

.D files, .TP2 files and .BAF files are all easily made using any text editor-just Save As the correct file type.

 

Also, ConTEXT > Notepad.