The_Baffled_King

@Endarire, nope. Wyrm's Crossing will either be open at the start, or open once Gorion's Ward (GW) gives Officer Vai a document from Tazok's tent (user choice). Scar will begin the game at his spot outside of the Flaming Fist compound, so it will therefore be possible for GW to speak to Scar as early as Chapter 2 (entering BG city will trigger Chapter 2, unless Chapter 2 has been triggered already). What Scar has to say, the missions he is willing to offer, and whether (and when) he goes to Wyrm's Crossing to attract GW's attention will vary. It depends partly on what GW has done, and partly on another user-chosen setting - specifically, how many suspicious letters Scar needs to see before taking GW to meet Duke Eltan.

I'm glad YOU like it, as it's probably what you'll end up with, Mr get-me-to-Baldur's-Gate-as-soon-as-possible! I probably should've written 'Endarire' instead of <CHARNAME> It's one of six states CHARNAME sees if they go causing a commotion in the Iron Throne building without being sent there by Eltan (which means either choosing to have the building unlocked, or finding a wardstone key... somewhere). Scar is progressively nicer depending on how famous CHARNAME is, and whether they've begun working for Scar. Thanks for the tag in that other thread; I'll get to it at some point soon.

What mods are there which are (a) popular; and/or (b) good; and/or (c) new, and which make significant changes to Scar and/or Duke Eltan? I'm concerned only with changes that effect the content in BG:EE Chapters 5-6, or which set variables during these Chapters that effect the content in Chapter 7 or SoD. I don't class as significant any change that does nothing more than add an NPC interjection, provided that the loss of that interjection means the loss of flavour only. So I'm not worried about changes to DELTAN2.CRE, or DELTAN2.DLG, as I'm doing nothing with them.

Having been reassured by the substantial amount of state triggers and whatnot I found lavished on (joinable) NPCs, and by Jastey's helpful comments, I set about writing Scar's dialog happily unburdened by worries about too many triggers. It's fair to say that I haven't enjoyed parts of the process (unlike writing Officer Vai), and it's also fair to say that, as far as Scar is concerned, extending my idea of a flexible plot to include the BG City and Candlekeep portions is slightly more hassle than anticipated. From a conceptual standpoint everything works just fine; it's just that the limitations of the State-Response model of dialog bite a little harder than I'd thought. That said, it seems to be coming together, and I've got to writing a few states that I've enjoyed. While Scar doesn't get to have the kind of snarky, fourth-wall-breaking conversation I wrote for laughs earlier in this thread, he does get to be little blunter with CHARNAME when, far from being the mighty heroes of Nashkel, he/she is some low-level schmuck messing around in BG City doing stuff they shouldn't do. Here we have an example of one of the possible scenarios in which CHARNAME and Scar might meet: (I'm no Hemingway, of course, but if I were then my writing would not benefit from being showcased in DIALOG.TLK).

Okay, thanks for the clarification, Jarno!

Nalin, the priest in the Temple of Helm in Nashkel, has the class 'Cleric'. According to the BG wiki (and the comments about optimising XP in the EEs by taking Brage to Nalin, then killing them both*), Nalin's class was 'Innocent' in BG1. *Yuck, by the way.

Hi Jarno, there's been a misunderstanding. I realise that the 2DA existed in BG1 as well as BG:EE. But there is also a "Reputation Gain/Loss When Killed" stat - ie something specific to a .CRE - that I, and Temnix, were talking about. You can see it on NearInfinity four fields below the fields for the legacy weapon proficiency types. That's what I was wondering about in terms of whether it existed in BG1.

Which is why Phandalyn, along with a fair few others you weren't 'supposed' to kill, were innocents in BG1 ( ie not BG:EE ) so you got the variable decrease in Reputation, taking into account current Reputation. Well, perhaps "Reputation Gain/Loss When Killed" also didn't exist as a stat in BG1, but I only have BG:EE so I can't check.

Well, on the off-chance that you're writing for games other than EE, be aware that the class of several creatures was changed from innocent to what it should be in the EEs. Phandalyn is one. Also some of the clerics selling temple services. This is going off of memory, so I can't give you a full list.

Temnix is not talking about HIS Paladin. He's talking about Phandalyn, the NPC Paladin in generic tavern/inn AR1109 in BG city who attacks parties containing an Evil character. PHANDA.CRE has a Reputation of 0 and, just as Temnix says, a value of -30 in the Reputation Gain/Loss When Killed field. @temnix, perhaps you have already seen REPUTATI.2DA? If not, that is the table that Jarno is talking about in the rest of his post. He's right about the figures in that table being divided by 10. It must also apply to the stat you asked about.

Cheers for your answer; much appreciated. Everything noted, even if not commented on below (some stuff I've seen before). Awesome. So the minor points about differing language for the same checks are effectively irrelevant as far as performance issues are concerned. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I was looking for. Thank you. I've read that scripts are processed top-down, but I've not seen descriptions of what happens within a block after the IF is detected. After all, in dialog, state triggers are checked top-down, but transitions are evaluated bottom-up, so I figured who knows what happens after the IF?! To extrapolate from your answer, it is correct, then, that long response blocks that are not activated don't register with the compiler? I found the Switch trigger exceptionally useful for managing chapter change with my flexible plot (where what happens depend on the value of the current chapter), but it does lead to relatively long response blocks. I understand the necessity of putting some blocks in BALDUR.BCS, and the reasons to avoid it if possible. Equally, the utility of invisi-creatures with scripts ending in DestroySelf() or a change to a low-maintenance script is fairly obvious. What I'm less clear on is when one decides that an area script is the best home for a particular block. I have the suspicion that OnCreation() in an area script would serve to process script quickest, but I feel that I shouldn't put my trust in that because (if I understand correctly) I'm depending on everyone who uses EXTEND_TOP after me to end their blocks with Continue(). Won't happen in the vanilla game. She's the little girl who directs GW to Officer Vai in the Jovial Juggler for the Vai's Bounty Upon Bandits quest, and she's only ever in Beregost. I guess it's worth bearing in mind for mod-conflicts though. It's just weird to see these checks applied unevenly to vanilla content that is only ever spawned in the same place. Officer Vai doesn't even have her own "VaiSpawn" variable; the block that creates her checks only for !Exists and !Dead (well, and Chapter 3).

It doesn't. But you're overstating the importance and/or complexity of the issue. For the most part, there are no great unknowns here. I've given you a reasonable run-down of how the game manages the advancement of the main plot, and I'm not going to add to that explanation, but's totally fine to not feel confident with variables. My earlier posts emphasised that, as far as unmodded content in BG city is concerned, you need only worry about talking to Eltan after you enter the Iron Throne building, which is a VERY BAD THING, and will stop you finishing the game unless you reset the Chapter variable with the cheat console. At least until you install my mod, that is : ) Then, there is modded content. What you have to ask yourself is this: do I know what my mods do? This can come from using NearInfinity, but to a large extent it can come from playing the mod. If you know what a mod does, you're in a better position to judge if going to BG city early will have any effect. I don't know what your mods do (I'm not asking). I'm not willing to make generalisations because if you have a mod that falls outside of the scope of my generalisation, we run the risk of arriving at a conversation that begins like this: "The_Baffled_King told me this would be fine, but now this mod quest I like isn't working properly, and I'm 40 hours into my game". And that is not a good place to be. What do you consider a bug? If we're talking about things that make your game crash when you enter an area or talk to an NPC, these kinds of thing tend to be introduced when mods don't install properly or have mistakes in their script, not when you travel to an area early. I am however not an expert on everything that might cause the game to crash. If you go to BG city early, you'll get journal entries for quests earlier than you normally would. This in itself makes no difference. Journal entries are added to the current Chapter. There is no flag which says "This is a Chapter 5 quest", so the game is not going to say "This a Chapter 5 quest, but it is not Chapter 5 - DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!!!!!!". Similarly, when a journal entry is erased, the action erases that entry regardless of the Chapter in which it was made.

Ah, cool. I won't ask for any more details, in part because I got sidetracked from finishing it by looking into my nonsense for BG1 (I mean, I kinda know what happens in SoD, but not to the same extent I know what happens in BG1, so any discussion of SoD has the possibility of containing spoilers for me).

Thanks Out of curiosity, is what you're doing for BG1, SoD, or BG2?

Well, the one part of my reply that's still valid is that tracking knowledge gained is a pretty cool idea. From my perspective, it's all good; as I said, I'd already seen what tricks are used when a cutscene is broken, but I've still learned a few extra things from reading this thread. But sorry again for muddying the waters!

No, I think you got what I said entirely right : ) As I said, from my reading of your example with "KnowsLocation", it seemed like part of the situation you were describing was a lot more straightforward than it sounded in your second post (and in your most recent post). And obviously if you're modding existing dialog rather than creating new dialog then that also changes things. Sorry to have muddied the water; I did think that the position was probably more complicated than it sounded from reading your example!

I came here to see what answers had been given regarding the capabilities of the EE engine, but I suppose there's no reason not to contribute. I've seen the scripting that Argent77 is talking about for when cutscenes are broken, but I'm not sure if using that resolves all of the issues you were wondering about? This is awesome. I was thinking of doing this exact same thing as an (optional) method of tracking the parties' knowledge of the Iron Throne's activities, in order to determine the point at which Scar (or perhaps Eltan) says: 'Right then, you've got me convinced: off you go to the Iron Throne building to investigate them. Here's the key.'. Your example sounds simpler than your earlier posts, so maybe this won't be of any help, but I'll try anyway. Your situation seems very similar to the position in the vanilla game where it has to ensure that journal updates for the main quest in a chapter are not given once that chapter has finished. For that, it just uses a response trigger. The dialog ends up, or can end up, at a state with no reply text. The topmost transition updates the journal. The lower transition has a response trigger GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",X) and, if chosen, you don't get the journal update. Obviously if you need replytext then you just use mutually exclusive response triggers.

It's good to be cautious! You could consider installing a second copy of Baldur's Gate and using that to try out mods without worrying about the stability of your main installation. The same thing can be said for NearInfinity; ie only use NearInfinity to look at the second copy of Baldur's Gate if you're worried about messing something up with your main installation. I have several copies of the game installed at the moment, including both 2.5 and 2.6. I doubt I'm going to change your mind about NearInfinity if you have over 600 posts on here and haven't installed it yet, but it's very useful and very straightforward (in some respects its just like using a web browser, or a word processor; you're working with a graphical user interface, unlike with Weidu). The only other thing I'll do is show you exactly how straightforward it is to change the script so that Wyrm's Crossing is open from the start. This is the block of script that lowers the drawbridge in Wyrm's Crossing in Chapter 5: IF Global("Chapter","GLOBAL",5) Global("Drawbridge","GLOBAL",0) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetGlobal("Drawbridge","GLOBAL",1) CloseDoor("DoorDraw") END And this is what that block of script would look like with the drawbridge open from when you leave Candlekeep: IF GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",0) Global("Drawbridge","GLOBAL",0) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetGlobal("Drawbridge","GLOBAL",1) CloseDoor("DoorDraw") END All I've done is change a 5 to a 0, and type "GT" (which stands for 'greater than') at the end of the word 'Global' on that same line. Another way of doing it would be to delete that second line (the one after the 'IF') entirely. I would have to click my mouse button 3 times to get to that stage, then it's 2 more clicks to compile and to save. Job done. You're welcome!

@Endarire BG:EE manages the progression of the game in two ways: (1) Use of a global variable "Chapter"; and (2) by blocking access to certain areas on the world map. Note that it is the value of the global variable "Chapter" that is checked in AR0900 in the script that opens the bridge to Baldur's Gate city, and the value of the global variable "Chapter" that is checked (once you have Davaeorn's letters to Tazok) in the script that makes the first Cloakwood area accessible. But once you're in Cloakwood, or in BG city, the game mostly just assumes that it is Chapter 4+ or Chapter 5+, and doesn't check the global variable "Chapter". It manages the progression of the plot in much the same way, although there is an additional method it also uses for this, which is to sometimes check various other variables. I'm not going to get into the details, but I'll give you two examples to illustrate this third method: One example is 'Dead("Mulahey")', and that is exactly what it sounds like. If you don't mess around with the game order, then 'Dead("Mulahey")' is effectively the same as 'you are on Chapter 3 or higher, except for corner cases where you didn't collect Mulahey's letters from his body. Another example is the variable 'FLOODED', which is set to 1 when - you've guessed it - you flood the Cloakwood Mines, and is otherwise at 0. This is used for Yeslick's quest timer. Now, about the Chapter global variable. When the ambush with Sarevok is over, the global variable "Chapter" is set to 1. When you arrive in Nashkel (or the Carnival, or the Nashkel mines) WITH the global variable "Chapter" at 1, the global variable "Chapter" is advanced by 1, putting it at 2. When you pick up Mulahey's letter from Tazok WITH the global variable "Chapter" at 2, the global variable "Chapter" is advanced by 1, putting it at 3. And so on. As you can see from the 'WITH' part, the game stops you from advancing Chapters out of order. As I said in my previous post, the progression from Chapter 5 to 6 is different. Once you go to the top floor of the Iron Throne building, AND then speak to Duke Eltan, AND tell him about the meeting in Candlekeep, the global variable "Chapter" is advanced by 1 regardless of what Chapter you are on. This will mean that it's impossible for you to get to Chapter 7 without using the cheat console to change the Chapter variable on at least one occasion. So, just don't do that, I guess! Bear in mind that the blocks of game script that advance the Chapter variable also delete quest entries from your journal, and add completed quest entries. If you advance the Chapter using the cheat console, and then go back to do some of the content relating to that Chapter, you might end up with entries that don't get erased. It's possible to deal with this by going back to the areas where the Chapter is meant to change over, but if you can't figure that out from here it's a bad idea for me to explain how to do it. Bear in mind if you advance the Chapter using the cheat console that you will get dreams about things you haven't done, and Bhaalspawn powers ahead of time. This is because of the global variable "Dream". From Chapter 2 onwards, when the global variable "Dream" is less than the global variable "Chapter", there is a chance of getting a dream. Once you have a dream, the global variable "Dream" is increased by 1. When the global variable "Dream" is at 1, the dream is always about Gorion and the woods. When the global variable "Dream" is at 2, the dream is always about Mulahy and the mines. It is possible to manage the dreams by using the console to set the value of global variable "Dream". If it's not reasonably clear to you how that would work, I strongly advise against doing it. Anyway. I've said all I'm going to say about how the progression of the game is managed. Do you have NearInfinity, and have you backed up your game? If the answer to both of these questions is "yes", I'm happy to show you how to make 3 simple changes that will let you go to Baldur's Gate early in all of your games. But you have to bear in mind that, if you then say to me "this thing that is meant to happen in this mod quest hasn't worked properly", then I'm not going to help you with that. One change is to have the bridge to BG city lowered. One change is to stop the guard from initiating dialog (which summons Scar). And one change is to stop Scar from initiating dialog (as he will appear outside the Flaming Fist compound if you don't speak to the guard at the bridge). That's it.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I realised that I was looking at the wrong kind of DLG files. And yeah, the flexible story doesn't need that kind of dialog. Not close! Most dialog changes are REPLACE_SAY for very minor edits. However, Officer Vai's dialog has grown a fair bit in relative terms - from 9 states (5 top-level), she has now 32 (16 top-level). Scar's dialog will inevitably grow as well. Some additions are because she can be met at various different stages (3 NumTimesTalkedTo(0) dialogs). Some add a third or fourth reply option, with a corresponding state afterwards, because I detest dialog that offers nothing to someone who is neither a paladin/obseqious suck-up or an aggressive sociopath. Some are because she now offers 3 quests. One is due to adding an option for her to open Wyrm's Crossing. And some add 1-off states with reminders governed by 0/1 local variables. I'm not worrying about declaring weight - I'm just relying using the implicit ordering of the state declarations, plus the state triggers. So in the case of Officer Vai: State 0: IF: Chapter 7; DukeThanks 0; THEN: Enemy() It's not likely to come up but, if it does, it should override anything else! Oh, wow, like LITERALLY just a handful of states! That is reassuring then : ) This is what matters! Thank you again for the help. Onto Scar's dialog now!

All of the above! Just a case of wanting to get it right the first time. I feel like it would be hideous to have to rewrite dialogs for Scar or Vai that are linked to progressing the game. Thanks, that's good to know. I had thought the problem would be where the game decides between a lot of different choices for the first state to load when dialog begins (top-level states). Oh, that's interesting. I just want to check that I understand you right. I think you're saying that: (1) The number of top-level states is not really a problem. (2) The problem didn't come from the number of states at all (ie. going from Top-level state > state > state > state > etc down through a large number of states. (3) The problem came from having a lot of reply options attached to a single state. (4) The problem in particular came from having a lot of reply options with different response triggers attached to one state. Is that accurate?

This doesn't matter at all, does it? I've mostly been looking at unmodded BG1 dialogs, most of which are far less complicated than the above. But then I figured I should check BG2 and BG1 mod-added dialogs for what I expected would be complicated dialog. 149 state triggers in BG1 NPC AJANTJ - including many single triggers with over 10 lines. Puts things in perspective a bit.

Hah! I might just be the person to answer this question... I'll start with the background-related stuff. Background The dialog for commoners and rumors mostly focuses on the Chapter 5 stuff and the Rising Tensions with Amn angle. There are very few comments about the bandits, and some talk as though they are still a problem regardless of the chapter. And it isn't just the generic commoners - for example, the named commoner in the Elfsong, Cauternus, complains about the bandits. There are more comments that refer to Nashkel being done and identify you as being responsible. As far as the named NPCs are concerned, several will talk as if you are familiar with the Iron Throne. You'll get an incongruous conversation with Gorpel Hind in the Helm and Cloak, where you get to tell him tall tales of a hidden mine in the Cloakwood that you never visited. It isn't all that bad, bearing in mind the standards the game itself sets. It's just more of the same as what you experience outside of BG City after Chapter 3, where the game goes all-in on changing dialog in Nashkel and Beregost once Chapter 3 begins, but does little to reflect the fact that the bandits have been dealt with. Variables (Chapter 5 content) You will not be able to do Aldeth's quest in the Merchants' League Estate. And you know what? That is just about it. Unlike most of the chapter transitions, you can even advance the game a chapter by doing the Chapter 5-6 transition (the Iron Throne). Eltan will still send you to Candlekeep, and the Chapter will get a +1. But this WILL introduce problems if you're wanting to go back and do the Nashkel mines or wherever later. See the post below for the explanation. Variables (Chapter 7 content) The Chapter 7 content will entirely fail to function if you go to BG City early and don't manually set the Chapter variable with the cheat console. Actually, I'll clarify though that the Chapter 7 content isn't messed up by going to BG City early. It's just that the content for Chapter 7 won't appear until it is Chapter 7. Mod content Sorry, not something I'm going to try to advise you on.

Cheers @Endarire I just finished Officer Vai's dialog, and in theory I'm pretty pleased with it. In practice, I'm hoping to get some feedback about the reliability of dialog with lots of state triggers. Because it's all well and good to give people options to have Wyrm's Crossing open from the start; open only from Chapter 5; or opened by a conversation with Officer Vai after the Bandit Camp. But it's less good if Vai's dialog skips and someone can't actually get into BG City without setting variables with the console.

Well, for what it's worth, I found the answer to my "related question": a dialog state with state triggers can be accessed mid-dialog via a transition, and there is no need to meet the conditions one would have to meet to access that state as the first state in a dialog. Marvellous. I'll quantify the other part of the question: I have a dialog with 16 top-level states, which between them have 42 lines-worth of state triggers. Should I worry that lines may skip, ruining the structure of the conversation, or this not really a concern on the EEs and with more modern hardware?