Looks great! One question.

[Guest Adahn]

Hello,

 

This mod looks fantastic. I have one question:

 

The mod features not only romance and friendship tracks for the protagonist, but also a romance track for a second PC in a multiplayer game (Player 2). This feature is also exploitable in a single player game if you want enjoy two concurrent romances without cheating.

 

I'd like a concurrent romance without cheating. How is it exploitable? I've searched through the faq sections but couldn't find anything more specific. Sorry if I missed something important.

[Darios]

Hello,

 

This mod looks fantastic. I have one question:

 

The mod features not only romance and friendship tracks for the protagonist, but also a romance track for a second PC in a multiplayer game (Player 2). This feature is also exploitable in a single player game if you want enjoy two concurrent romances without cheating.

 

I'd like a concurrent romance without cheating. How is it exploitable? I've searched through the faq sections but couldn't find anything more specific. Sorry if I missed something important.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, basically it means that you can start a multiplayer game and create two characters (or however many you want), the first one being your protagonist and the second one the character you want to romance Amber with. (Just make sure that the second character is a male one with a decent charisma and intelligence (>12).) After you start the game, save the game and quit.

 

Now you can copy the save from the MPSave folder to the regular Save folder and continue it as a normal single player game, albeit with two player characters, the first of whom (the protagonist) is free to romance anyone he wants, and the second of whom has a chance with Amber, if the protagonist is either not to Amber's taste or does not show any romantic interest in Amber. There is a dialogue option in Amber's joining dialogue that allows you to "push" Amber towards Player2, provided that he is at least potentially interesting to Amber.

[berelinde]

The way I understand it, you can't have Player 1 (the pc you created) romance Amber and anyone else. So you cannot actually have concurrent romances in that sense of the word.

 

What is meant by "concurrent romances" here is this:

 

When you are starting a new game, you create 2 characters.

 

The first character you create is Player 1, and shows up in the first slot on the load screen and in the default marching order on the right side of the game screen. This character is the Bhaalspawn, and the one all the big nasties are after. This is the one usually referred to as <CHARNAME>.

 

The second character you create is Player 2, and shows up in the second slot on the load screen and in the default marching order on the right side of the game screen. This character is just along for the ride. He/she is not a Bhaalspawn, and no one is seeking his/her death unless he/she is in <CHARNAME>'s company.

 

If Player 1 is female or is a male uninterested in romancing Amber, Amber will initiate a romance with Player 2, provided he is male and has all the other qualities Amber needs in her men.

 

The phrasing of the "concurrent romance" content section might be a little misleading. The use of the word "Exploit" in BG terms has tended to mean that something technically illegal was going on, like taking advantage of an unpatched bug to get experience over and over and over. Here, nothing illegal is taking place. Each pc is only romancing one NPC. However, the player gets to participate in both romances, so it feels like a concurrent romance.

 

I have tried to be as thorough as possible in answering this question, so I have probably explained some things that did not need explaining. I have no idea what your level of BG knowledge is, so please do not be offended if the above went into more detail than you needed.

[Guest Adahn]

My thanks to both of you for extremely satisfying replies. It's too bad the 'concurrent romance' is not actually concurrent for the protagonist. You know how it is: I'd love the best of both worlds. Not very correct of me, I'm afraid.

[Darios]

My thanks to both of you for extremely satisfying replies. It's too bad the 'concurrent romance' is not actually concurrent for the protagonist. You know how it is: I'd love the best of both worlds. Not very correct of me, I'm afraid.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, Amber is neither blind, stupid not quite *that* liberal. I like to think that the way we have gone about it manages to add value for the *player* while preserving in-game plausibility; as a player you get to watch two romances unfold between a total of four people without anyone appearing implausibly blind or stupid.

 

And I have to admit that we do have an agenda in trying to spread the gospel of playing multiplayer games together with your friends or significant others by adding extra perks for multiplayers like ourselves.

 

And thank you Berelinde for explaining it in clearer terms than I managed to. Your explanation was clear and pretty much 100% accurate. I suspected that the wording we used might mislead some people; we might want to think of a better way of putting it.

[Zyraen]

Could you guys run me by the coding used? I might be able to patch all of the existing Bioware romances to apply for all Players... if I can figure out the thing.

[Grim Squeaker]

Could you guys run me by the coding used? I might be able to patch all of the existing Bioware romances to apply for all Players... if I can figure out the thing.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, there's no real magic to it. They just have a romance where the talks are directed at Player2 instead of Player1. The only little trick is they do !Name() checks to make sure that Player2 isn't Anomen, Keldorn, Kelsey etc i.e. they are a player created character not an NPC.

 

The problem with adapting the BioWare romances is that you'll need to write alternate lovetalks to avoid the Bhaalspawn topic and they will be entirely unvoiced.

[Meira]

Grim's right, there's no real magic involved, just a bit of research. I'll post the list of checks that we make to ensure that Amber is romancing Player2 and that Player2 is not an NPC.

 

Global("M#AmberMatch","GLOBAL",3)
!Global("M#AmberRomanceActive","GLOBAL",3)
Gender(Player2,MALE)
CheckStat(Player2,0,MORALEBREAK)	// Bio-NPC, Hubelpot, Kelsey, Solaufein, Kivan of Shilmista, Kova, Willie Bruce, Goo
!HasItemEquiped("belt05",Player2)	// Girdle of sex change 
!Name("SUBRU",Player2) 	 // Bons' Bruce PPG
!Name("JCBruce",Player2)  // Compton's Bruce PPG
!Name("G#CASS",Player2) 	 // Cassius CoM
!Name("FWGHARETH",Player2)  // Ghareth PPG
!Name("CLFHSFNX",Player2)  // Fonick Modlist
!Name("lrirenic",Player2)  // Irenicus (Longer Road) FW
!Name("DKido",Player2) 	 // Kido Modlist
!Name("Kindrek",Player2)  // Kindrek CoM
!Name("NATH",Player2) 	 // Nathaniel CoM
!Name("SK#NEHT",Player2)  // Neh'Taniel Blacksheep
!Name("Therrin",Player2)  // Therrin Modlist
!Name("TSUJATH",Player2)  // Tsujatha CoM
!Name("VANIM",Player2) 	 // Vanim Modlist
!Name("Wikaede",Player2) 	 // Wikaede CoM
!Name("TLXAN",Player2)    // Xan Modlist
!Name("O#Xan",Player2) 	 // Xan (Kulyok's) PPG 
!Name("SDNPC",Player2) 	 // Yikari FW
!Name("Robilard",Player2)  // Robillard (TDD) Modlist  
!Name("Avaunis",Player2)  // Auvanis (TDD) Modlist  
!Name("Adario",Player2) 	 // Adario Kalvaras (TDD) Modlist 	 
!Name("KAGAINdd",Player2)  // Kagain (TDD) Modlist    
!Name("KIVANDD",Player2)  // Kivan (TDD) Modlist    
!Name("montaron",Player2)  // Montaron (TDD) Modlist   	 
!Name("xzardd",Player2) 	 // Xzar (TDD) Modlist    
!Name("yeslicdd",Player2) 	 // Yeslick (TDD) Modlist
!Name("BOLIVAR",Player2) 	 // Bolivar (SoS) FW  
!Name("TOMASTM",Player2) 	 // Tomas (SoS) FW

(Yes, I know that I havent edited the NPCs location to reflect the current state of modding communities...)

 

 

Gender and HasItemEquiped checks are meant to disqualify all females, which makes the list of need Name() checks much shorter. If only all mod NPCs followed the style set by Bioware, that all NPCs had their moralebreak stat set to 5 (instead of 0 like PCs). I admit that it's a detail that might get easily overlooked, though.

 

The multiplayer friendly flirting was a bit more work, actually, because it means that we need to change Amber's dialogue file every time she initiates a Dialogue().

 

But the biggest challenge is, like Grim pointed out, rewriting the romance. Of Bio-romances Aeries is probably easiest because she mainly talks about herself. Viconia for example is much more interested of your bhaalspawn heritage. (Actually, changing Aeries romance for Player2 was the first thing that I attempted in modding, but then I got sidetracked....)

[Meira]

Since the maximum number of characters in the party is 6, going beyond enabling the romances for Players 1, 2 and 3 would be rather pointless,not to mention a *lot* of code. Player 2 was relatively simple, but even enabling the romances for three players would be somewhat more complicated (if not quite exponentially so), since not only does all code have to be in triplicate, there are also quite a number of checks required to keep the romances sorted out. Also the likelihood that the order of characters in the party would get changed (through one of the PCs getting stoned or something) would grow significantly, so that would have to be accounted for.

 

This is not to say it cannot be done (it most definitely can), but just to point out that there's no point going beyond three players, and even then you'll have your hands quite full.