The_Rock

By the way, fellas (sorry to hijack IWD-in-EET) if any of you are unhappy with the way BG3 plays right now a petition has been recently launched to make our voices heard (as far as the combat mode): http://chng.it/dBJ58ZVP

I know there are other issues that could be pointed out but I believe combat in its current state will gain traction the fastest. Please share it with your buddies on as many platforms as you can think of.

On 12/31/2019 at 12:29 AM, K4thos said:

we're in contact, don't worry about it. Patience, please.

edit: in fact the feature released today is one of the things I've requested

edit2: and another one 

@K4thos hey dude, I hope things are going great for you. Any updates on the mod? I was pretty bummed out about the BG3 that was recently revealed so I figured your mod would be the closest thing I'd ever get to an authentic sequel. Are you still working on it?

Thanks for keeping us up to date, @K4thos! Haven't been on in a while because I've been busy squaring things off in real life. I absolutely love those screenshots you shared earlier (bump: https://imgur.com/a/teitafp)! They gave me an urge to replay the series almost instantaneously. Here's a health to all your hard work and may your coding efforts continue hassle-free! 

27 minutes ago, Lightbringer said:

Dude, that sounds like a lot of fun. I don't know how feasible it is to turn BG et al into that idea, but I'd sure play a new game like that.

Well that's how I think of Chapter II of Shadows of Amn. You embark on a bunch of quests but some linger in your journal until just before Suldanessellar.

I take my time raising funds for Imoen's rescue. In fact, I have over 37 hours of gameplay logged in BG2 and tomorrow is the day that I finally set sail for Brynnlaw lol.

9 hours ago, Lightbringer said:

I think I understand your point now better than I did at first.

By reducing global gain, the experience you gain from the Vale of Shadows would NOT be enough to ready you for the Temple of the Forgotten God or Dragon's Eye. You would have to return to the Sword Coast and do other things, then return to IWD later, with greater levels.  Is that what you intended?

I think some amount of that may be achieved by normalizing the (ridiculous) quest xp in vanilla IWD. It was designed to artificially propel you up the XP charts. Without that, you will likely have a different leveling experience, though perhaps not to the full extent of a Metroidvania-esque unlocking of areas. Personally I'm a big fan of Metroidvania elements in gameplay, as part of your reward for accomplishing tasks is a new tool to find more cool things -- or access the things you've been seeing the whole time. Tougher to do in traditional RPGs. It's more of an action-adventure-RPG type of thing, by default -- like Legend of Zelda.

Yes, mate, that's exactly what I had in mind! Imagine a game with several main quest lines that can be begun by a low-level party. The more headway you make in one line the tougher things get while the experience gain has very little to show for it. In that case you choose the next one you'd like to tackle and switch quests over and over again until you have all the quest branches resolved with incremental returns as far as story elements and narration. There's potential to make terrific non-linear experiences with high replay value that way just like BG1 and Shadows of Amn.

I'm playing through Icewind Dale 2 right now so it's got me thinking how EET ought to balance experience gain across the board. It's no groundbreaking idea, I know, but reducing the gain globally so that players can't finish IWD or IWD2 in one go but are encouraged to change campaign settings on the fly seems best to me. It would also make EET more Metroidvania-esque as the world would slowly open up to the player like a tree branching out. 

3 hours ago, Guest Retracted said:

Upon scouring the forums I found this project was still in active development as of several days ago. So I wait patiently. Please keep up the good work, I know there is a lot to do and I hope we all remember to be grateful for the amazing effort.

Yeah, I've just begun playing the GOG version of IWD2. Although the interface hasn't aged well and setting higher resolutions doesn't take much strain off your eyes (even with the widescreen mod which I've disabled for fear of game-breaking bugs), it feels like a classic IE game nonetheless. This mod could be a game-changer even though we haven't got much in the way of screenshots or gameplay yet.

Well met, friends!

I've been setting up my very first run of IWD2, plagued as it may be by bugs and glitches. I've got nearly all of them out of the way except one: the fog of war. I'm not sure if it's a software renderer or hardware acceleration issue but the fog begins to flicker as soon as I move the mouse or scroll the map with my arrow keys. I don't know how this is meant to be resolved on a Windows 10 system but I'm starting to lose hope as none of the fixes seem to work for me. Is there any way I could edit out certain aspects of the fog so I can salvage my GOG purchase? I've fiddled with some of the game config files and settings to no avail. 

Icewind Dale 2 Sound Format						Baldur's Gate II Sound Format (non-EE)
xxxxx03.wav	: Battle Cry 1						XXXXXXXa.wav     : Battle Cry
xxxxx04.wav	: Battle Cry 2						XXXXXXX8.wav     : Battle Cry 2
xxxxx05.wav	: Battle Cry 3						XXXXXXX9.wav     : Battle Cry 3
xxxxx08.wav	: Becoming Leader 1					XXXXXXXb.wav     : Becoming Leader
xxxxx10.wav	: Tired 1						XXXXXXXc.wav     : Tired
xxxxx12.wav	: Bored 1						XXXXXXXd.wav     : Bored
xxxxx14.wav	: Hurt 1						XXXXXXXe.wav     : Badly Wounded
xxxxx16.wav	: Selected Common 1					XXXXXXXf.wav     : Selected 1
xxxxx17.wav	: Selected Common 2					XXXXXXXg.wav     : Selected 2
xxxxx18.wav	: Selected Common 3					XXXXXXXh.wav     : Selected 3
xxxxx21.wav	: Selected Common 6					XXXXXXX0.wav     : Selected 6
xxxxx23.wav	: Selected Action 1					XXXXXXXi.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 1
xxxxx24.wav	: Selected Action 2					XXXXXXXj.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 2
xxxxx25.wav	: Selected Action 3					XXXXXXXk.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 3
xxxxx26.wav	: Selected Action 4					XXXXXXXs.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 4
xxxxx27.wav	: Selected Action 5					XXXXXXXt.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 5
xxxxx28.wav	: Selected Action 6					XXXXXXXu.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 6
xxxxx29.wav	: Selected Action 7					XXXXXXXv.wav     : Action Acknowledgement 7
xxxxx30.wav	: Selected Rare 1					XXXXXXXx.wav     : Rare Select 1
xxxxx31.wav	: Selected Rare 2					XXXXXXXy.wav     : Rare Select 2
xxxxx34.wav	: Being hit 1						XXXXXXXl.wav     : Being Hit
xxxxx37.wav	: Dying 1						XXXXXXXm.wav     : Dying
xxxxx39.wav	: Reaction to partymember dying 1			XXXXXXXw.wav     : Reaction to Party Member Death
xxxxx41.wav 	: Critical hit 1 (Optional)				XXXXXXXz.wav     : Critical Hit Given

Also, before I go, I suppose the community could use the table above for future reference. I think I've got all the sound file matches so much of the sound set is luckily reusable!

@Caillean YES, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much! Now I can get on with my IWD2 playthrough. Anyway, I owe you a cookie. I'll work out the shipping details later. I'm off to rename my sound files.

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to import a few custom sound sets into Icewind Dale 2. Unfortunately, I'm having a really hard time getting it done mostly because there are no references for the original Baldur's Gate 2 sound sets so I can't tell how I should rename my files to be compatible with IWD2's sound list. Apparently IWD2 has an extra few sound files compared to BG2 but from what I understand the conversion should still work albeit with slightly less variety in my party members' interjections. Some help would be tremendously appreciated! Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the voice packs I've downloaded have approximately 36 sound files per character while IWD2 supports up to 43. BG2:EE's sound list is not much use as that game uses a lot fewer files (a grand total of 23) for your character's voice unless I'm mistaken.

If anyone still has the old BG2 installed on their computer, all you need to do is paste the sound list for me. I will buy you a cookie! Of course, I'm making the assumption that there is such a file. If there isn't, never mind.

@K4thos I've been thinking about what others have put forth as suggestions on how we ought to be able to access IWD1 content. Instead of having the genie send you back in time as a one-time affair perhaps he could open a two-way portal to Kuldahar that would allow you to go back and forth between present-day Faerun and erstwhile Icewind Dale? I'm not sure how this would jibe with DnD lore but it would certainly keep players from getting burned out midway through the campaign. It may be easier to balance IWD this way as you wouldn't be expected to finish it all in one go. Of course, the jackass genie would tamper with the portal and send you to Easthaven requiring you to reach Kuldahar before being able to return. Maybe this would be more in keeping with the original aim of EET: promoting continuity instead of restricting the player's world map destinations.

On ‎8‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 6:19 PM, jastey said:

Not sure that's clear. In SoD, Minsc and Dynaheir are alive. But, if they die in your EET game during the BG:EE part, they will stay dead because of EET's continuity. The only NPCs reappearing are Imoen and Edwin because of their role as quest givers in BGII afaik.

Ah, OP meant the mod. I'm terribly sorry, my reading comprehension was at an all-time low on that day.

9 hours ago, Istfemer said:

Are there any technical limitations that are as of yet insurmountable?

As far as I know, PST's IE variant is very different from all other IE variants. The arrival of EEs probably made PST not as starkly different from BG2 as its non-EE predecessor used to be, but I bet PST:EE still differs from BG2:EE significantly. Also I'm not sure EEex in its present state can handle PST:EE content in BG2:EE properly.

 

How much of the story would have to be rewritten in order for the protagonists of both games to coexist in the same timeline?

Vanilla BG2EE) does offer a plausible hook that could allow CHARNAME to visit Sigil. Thus, assuming that Sigil can wait until BG2, BG2's story probably wouldn't require many major alterations. PST's story? A great deal of it would have to be changed and some of it would have to be discarded altogether, I'm afraid.

 

Do you think it's a vision worth pursuing?

I'm going to say: Yes! How anyone can resist a quest of such awesomeness? Seriously though, PST content would probably make a fine addition to ToB. ToB needs more extraplanar adventures! CHARNAME's first visit to Sigil needs to occur in SoA though, otherwise we'd be hard pressed to justify introducing the city itself so late in the Bhaalspawn Saga.

Ah, you must mean the Planar Sphere! The original developers had extraordinary foresight or perhaps it's just a lucky coincidence (a team mate's nod to a video game being developed concurrently in the same studio I presume). I am in favor of a minimum interference approach as regards PST's story. Do you reckon the Bhaalspawn could be modded into the setting as someone who does the fighting and dungeon-crawling for the Nameless One? Maybe that would entail the least amount of additional writing and/or rewriting. No idea if the engine would support such a thing.

5 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Kevmo probably killed Dyn+Minsc at BG1 part, so they are still dead.

Is that the "official" canon? No wonder I can't stand it.

What do you mean, Minsc is dead in SOD? I wasn't aware of this fact. I thought only Dynaheir died at the end of BG1. Is he resurrected prior to Shadows of Amn?

4 minutes ago, Istfemer said:

I *knew* this question would come up eventually. Even thought about asking it myself.

I wonder... Were EET to include PST:EE,  would it necessitate a change of name on part of the former? From EE Trilogy to EE Tetralogy... or possibly even beyond. EE Cycle?

Oh yes, great minds think alike, don't they? Rofl, just kidding. I don't think that highly of myself. I thought this might be the final frontier for this mod, that's all. Popular opinion has it that PST has some of the best writing in video game history but I have yet to play it. It's bound to be a treat for a newcomer such as myself, right?

Greetings, fellow BG aficionados! Seeing that this mod will, at some point down the road, include nearly every Infinity Engine game out there, I've been wondering how feasible it would be to enmesh Planescape:Torment into the Bhaalspawn saga? What would be the biggest hurdles? How much of the story would have to be rewritten in order for the protagonists of both games to coexist in the same timeline? Are there any technical limitations that are as of yet insurmountable? If this fusion were to be achieved, the community would be able to play all the Infinity Engine games with the same party from start to finish without any continuity issues. Do you think it's a vision worth pursuing? Looking forward to feedback. Would it be possible to turn the Nameless One into an NPC for the duration of the campaign while you do quests for him? I bought PST:EE recently but have yet to play it. I've heard great things about it though.

I guess there's another way to make the campaigns fit into the Bhaalspawn saga as others have pointed out above. You would slowly make progress in both settings (IwD and IwD2) as you leveled up in the main game and be done with them towards the end of ToB. Works for me as well. I guess balancing would only be a matter of reducing XP gain in that case.

Hello, fellow denizens of Faerun!

I've been wondering if there are any story mods that take place after the end of ToB. Since BG1 was all about low-level parties I thought to myself why not look for an unofficial expansion pack of sorts that boils down to high-level encounters from start to finish? Has anyone ever made such a mod before? I know that canon-wise 

but why not set out on another adventure before retiring? *sigh*

Looking forward to your recommendations!

Does it matter if some fights are easy in IwD? I cut down Sarevok in less than thirty seconds with my party at the end of BG1. There are some nice rewards and loot to be had in IwD but the catch is that you have to finish the campaign before taking all that loot home with you.

11 hours ago, Lightbringer said:

Thanks for the update! Seems we're getting closer and closer

@The_Rock -- regarding multiplayer.  I would assume that, like any other modded BG(2):EE game, multiplayer is completely possible. I ran a modded, non-EET, BG1:EE game with 2 other friends and it worked just fine.  The trick is to make sure that you and your friends all have exactly the same game files. Any deviation can cause weird effects in the game text. A BG-EET install produces a standalone folder containing the entire game. The simplest thing is to have one person create that standalone game folder, then share it with the other participants. (I am -- naturally -- assuming all players already have purchased the game client themselves ) 

Now that is good news indeed! Thanks for chiming in with your multiplayer experience.

1 hour ago, K4thos said:

I've been thinking about just using existing Limited Wish and/or Wish scrolls for this purpose and just add another one-time option to the list of existing wishes. The only problem is that those are 7th and 9th level spells, so a bit too high level to make them available in early game (in case someone would like to start the adventure with BG1 party)

The wish you've mentioned indeed sounds like something that could be twisted by a jackass genie  If anyone has more ideas regarding such wishes feel free to post them here.

Oh, darn it! Forgot they were high-level spells. Could you code a scripted encounter with a genie then? The Nashkel Fair would be an appropriate setting in my view. 

6 hours ago, Ser Elryk said:

Uh oh! I really hope someone figures out a clever way to tie IWD1 into the Bhaalspawn campaign alongside everything else!

 

I mean I'm sure the mod will be great no matter what. I'd just really love to eventually see everything get combined into one single epic adventure =D

@K4thos I think a wish scroll that acts as a portal to Icewind Dale 1's timeline is the best way to go due to irresolvable conflicts with Siege of Dragonspear's storyline. In order to make Ulgoth's Beard less bloated as a quest-giving location, I would have a merchant at the Nashkel Fair sell the scroll just like your party is accosted by a guy who sells a stone to flesh scroll when you're passing by. It could be billed as a scroll that gives you the power of a mighty demon (i.e. Belhifet) but the wish is twisted in that you are transported into IwD1 upon invoking its magic and then you obtain his power indirectly by besting him in combat at the end of that timeline. I know I'm confusing wishes with scrolls but I'm pretty sure something along those lines could work. 

@K4thos the update is very much appreciated. Glad to hear it's still being worked on. Just a quickie though: Will the mod have multiplayer support? Seeing that you need a separate folder to install EET, I was wondering if it used the same lobby and client/server functionality as the enhanced editions on Steam do. My guess is that it doesn't but who knows, I'm not very well-versed in network code.