The_Baffled_King

Thanks for the reply; it's appreciated.

16 hours ago, jastey said:

UNSOLVED_JOURNAL works in a dialogue state (I put it usually at the end before the EXIT but it can also be used in different order with the other actions I think).

That first bit I knew, which kinda shows how posting questions seems like a catch-22: questions with any ambiguity can be misunderstood, but removing any ambiguity adds to the word count and makes posts less likely to be read.

It seems that D files for existing dialog always put UNSOLVED_JOURNAL etc at the end, but it gets executed before the transActionString regardless. So that is my answer to (2), which in turn makes (4) irrelevant. I may as well follow convention and also stick it at the end before the EXIT : )

16 hours ago, jastey said:

It does not work in  a CHAIN as a local NPC specific transaction, i.e. if you put a

DO ~transactions~

behind the line of the one NPC talking, so here you'd need to use AddJournalEntry().

Thank you for this; it's precisely the kind of exception that I was wanting to make sure I was aware of.

16 hours ago, jastey said:

UNSOLVED_JOURNAL only adds one/works only for one. If you have mutliple, you need to use AddJournalEntry().

Yup. It was more the case that because AddJournalEntry() works, and works for multiples and in BCS too, that I was wondering what the point was of having journal entries as separate transfeatures at all? Like, the game designers must have had a reason for creating that method of adding journal entries!

I did find a situation in which UNSOLVED_JOURNAL etc can be better - when the transition with a journal entry doesn't end the dialog. If AddJournalEntry() is used, the info entry or quest title appears underneath the SAY text in the state to which the transition was pointing to, which can clutter things up quite a bit.

If there are any other edge cases like that, and like what you mentioned about CHAIN, I would love to hear about them!

This is my third topic in the sub-forum in a short space of time, so I will call it quits after this topic. Anyway.

Is there any realistic amount of states and state triggers (or response triggers, if that matters) that is likely to make a dialog malfunction?

I'm asking for two reasons: (a) testing dialog is far more hassle than testing changes to BCS scripts; and (b) I've written a dialog with a lot of top-level states with multiple state triggers.

As a related question (related in the sense that the answers could reduce the number of top-level states I'm using):

Can a dialog state with non-empty state triggers, which can therefore potentially be chosen as the intial state during a conversation, also be accessed mid-conversation via a transition? If this is possible, do the state triggers for that state still need to be met, or is it enough to aim at the state with a transition? Finally, if the answers to the questions in the previous two questions are "yes", is it enough to set the necessary variables for the state in question in the stateActionString during the transition to that state, or do the necessary variables need to be set before the dialog has begun? If anybody would like to answer, but is slightly unclear about the question asked, then I will be happy to provide an example. Otherwise, it just makes the post longer for no reason.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

I have a few questions that are pretty much explained by the title of the thread.

It's difficult to learn what is best practice when I can see, for example, that the makers of the game have written the same checks in different ways on different occasions.

It's getting to the stage that re-writing my scripts to improve reliability and efficiency will be a massive pain in the arse, so I'd like to make sure what I write in future is up to scratch first time around.

So I would be very grateful if anyone can give me a few pointers.

(1) What is good coding practice for BALDUR.BCS and scripts such as area scripts? Are the below assumptions correct?

(a) Adding large numbers of IF checks is the worst thing one can do;
(b) Single IF checks with multiple conditions are generally better than multiple IF checks;
(c) Long response blocks are better than multiple IF blocks;
(d) Response blocks that are not executed in a script cycle don't affect the processing of other blocks in the script cycle.

(2) At what stage is better to set a variable in a block, and check for that variable in a subsequent block, instead of adding more AND or OR conditions to that first block?

(3) The two 3-line snippets below do the same thing. Which is better, and why?

(4) The below variable is only meant to have values of "0" or "1". Which of the three 1-line code snippets below is better, and why?

(5) The below variable can have a number of different values above "1". Which of the two 1-line code snippets below is better, and why?

(6) At what point does adding redundant checks become unhelpful? The spoilered code is a snippet from AR3300.BCS:

Aren't the lines !Exists("Chloe") and !Dead("Chloe") redundant because SetGlobal("ChloeSpawn","GLOBAL",1) makes sure Chloe is created only once? Some scripts in the vanilla game include these redundant checks. But other scripts check only the specific variable relating to the spawing of that creature (in the same way this block has the "ChloeSpawn" GLOBAL at 0 or 1). So I get that !Exists("Chloe") and !Dead("Chloe") help maybe if the above response block skips over the line SetGlobal("ChloeSpawn","GLOBAL",1). But doesn't the addition of those redundant checks just make it more likely that other code blocks might skip?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

The question is as per the title, albeit that it applies more widely to any type of journal entry rather than just unsolved quest entries.

Journal entries can take place during transitions either as part of an action list (the stateActionString) or by having a flag set for the type of entry (as a different transfeature).

(1) Which method is better, and why?

(2) If a transition has both a stateActionString and a journal entry added by another transfeature, which is done first?

(3) Are there circumstances where one method of making a journal entry should be preferred over the other method?

(4) What about in cases where uninterruptible actions are included in the action list (I'm aware of EscapeArea(), although perhaps there are others?)?

(5) What about in cases where multiple journal entries are made and/or erased in the same transition?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Having already invested a fair amount of time in this, I carried on with my little project. It’s still an open question as to whether it ever gets released as a mod, and as to the level of compatibility with some types of other mod. The considerations in respect of this have already been discussed.

Along the way, due in large part to Endarire’s comments, I got to thinking whether the plot can justify doing the Ch.5 Iron Throne quest earlier in the game. And I decided that, yes, it can potentially be justified, as can doing the Ch.6 Candlekeep quest earlier in the game.

I also figured that, by making the changes I already talked about, a fairly substantial part of the work required to let the Ch.5 and Ch6 main quest content be completed early would already be done. So then I thought: why not make it a possibility as well?

I have no interest in, as Endarire suggested, “completing the Iron Guys' BG city tasks to effectively complete the other mines'/chapters' quests”. But if it doesn’t add much hassle to what I’m already doing, then why not allow others that choice?

With all that in mind, I’m working on a game progression that looks like this:

For the purposes of testing my scripts, I have a chat with Phlydia during the Prologue in Candlekeep, and her dialog is a menu of chapters to skip. It’s sweet!

@Endarire, if I do release this as a mod, it will have some of the options it has due to your comments. I would never have added these options at a later date, but so long as I have them in mind from the start, they are totally doable.

8 hours ago, Lauriel said:

Since you show no signs of doing this, I'll add this to my Themed Tweaks mod.  It wouldn't leave my brain. IT. MUST. BE. DONE.  But if you are at all interested in writing it, I'll leave it be.

It's very polite of you to check, but you're literally asking if I mind if you use your own idea! All I said was that the opportunity to do Rasaad's quest early would be one of the benefits of early access to BG city; you came up with the idea of moving the quest. Really, it's all yours

12 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

To be honest, my eyes start to glaze over with too much text and detail.  Short distinct questions get answered very quickly, I've found.  And I've had a ton of them.

Makes a lot of sense, and that's why I split my reply to Temnix's post in my other thread into this thread.

But altering the fundamental order of the game is not something I'd seen done in any other mods, and it raised a lot of questions!

So, my view was, let's try and answer these big questions from the start, because if they can't be answered (ie. it can't be done), then there's no point spending time on any of it.

I didn't want to learn to mod, per se; I wanted to learn to mod for this specific reason. Hope that makes sense!

19 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

I've never used the PartyRested() trigger, but I've put in a ton of scenes (and dreams) that happen during rest.  You just put it into player1d which runs every time the party rests.

This is "the other thread" I mentioned in my previous post:

https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/32558-modding-chapter-transitions-and-dream-sequences-in-bgee-edited/

Nobody clued me in to Player1D, so thank you for being the first! I just put it into the forum search bar, though, and I can see your question about the topic from last year (which, relevantly, contains an answer touching on the reliability of PartyRested() trigger).

In the absence of that information, I ended up combing through the IESDP, and then - when I realised that its section on LUA files didn't have a hyperlink - combing through BGEE.LUA and the CHU files section to find the linkage between the "Rest" button at an inn (on the screen where it asks "are you sure you wish to rest?") and the button that closes a store. It took a long time.

Why? So I could get the Rooms screen to close when the "Rest" button at an inn was pressed, so that the dreams - which I had firing with a PartyRested() trigger - didn't look visually ugly when you woke up to the Rooms screen, and then had the dream text screen. All wasted time if the dreams run from Player1D... So that kinda proves my point about the limits of copying, and the value of answers!

(I recall coming across "bd_dream_timer" myself, and ApplySpellRES("bdrejuve"), but I think by that point I assumed Player1D only did relevant things during SoD, given the value of the CHAPTER Globals used, and the lack of reference to BG1 dreams. Oops)

17 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

These happen their own anyway.  Unless you're changing which dream they at each chapter.  Not sure where that would be.

It's not so much about changing the dream, as ensuring that the player still gets the correct dreams and powers if they're allowed to complete the Chapters out of order. So, assuming the CHAPTER Global has to be used, you either have to be able to control the existing dreams, or disable them and replace them with your own. You'll see what I mean on the other thread.

7 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

It's not what you know, it's who you copy. LOL

Oh, for sure. I've been poking around in the innards of mods I've installed, and I've downloaded a couple for precisely that reason. I'm not saying I've reached the limit of what I can do, rather that I have an idea of the amount of time I'll have to invest to carry on like this, and it's just too much. And I have no faith that if I do reach the limit of what I can do, anyone will be willing to clarify for me whatever it is that I'm not understanding.

The discussion in this thread has been interesting, but the sole reason I made the thread was so any responses along the lines of "have you considered xyz about the plot" could be diverted away from the other thread, where I was hoping to clarify more fundamentally important issues such as whether, having used a PartyRested() trigger to handle to Chapter-related dreams, it has been/can be coded well enough to ensure that it reliably fires. And I still don't know the answer to that.

2 hours ago, Lauriel said:

Writing the dialogue is what I enjoy most when it comes to modding.  I really think you'd enjoy it.  It's a fun hobby.

Maybe I should make them all talk a bit like Scar... An entire world of long-suffering NPCs who know that their whole world warps around the PC, and who are aware that they cannot prevent their own actions being towards that end, but who have sufficient free will to grouse about it in their dialogue (I'm not serious about this, of course).

6 hours ago, Lauriel said:

That would be easy enough to do.  Not the early access to BG, per se, but allow Rasaad's quest to be done early.  You just need to move the events in BG to Nashkel and perhaps, Beregost.  Not very complicated, and maybe a nice little mod to get your feet wet.

I had to think about where I'd made that comment about Rasaad! To clarify, for me, early access to Rasaad's quest is only one of the many attractions to granting access to BG city early; I mentioned it specifically because Endarire had asked about NPCs. What most attracts me to the idea is the fact that it would give the player another option from the very beginning of the game. Aside from that, if granting access to Rasaad early was something I was very interested in, I completely agree with you.

6 hours ago, Lauriel said:

We need more story modders.  Come!  Join us on the dark side!

Thanks for the encouragement, honestly. I'll think about it, but I doubt it. I've been looking into this on and off in the three weeks since I first posted here and on the Beamdog forums asking a few technical questions. At various points I've run into difficulties and thought "oh, I should post a query on the forums", but then I've thought "yes, but that hasn't gotten much of a response" (zero replies on the Beamdog forum), so I've tried to clarify the issue for myself. This cycle has repeated itself a few times, and I've reached the stage where I know enough about Weidu to know that I'm not prepared to invest the time required to drag myself the entirety of the way to making the mod.

3 hours ago, Lauriel said:

This is hilarious and SPOT ON! 

Thank you

Even if all the rest of the typing ends up as a waste of time, I enjoyed creating that little dialogue...

2 hours ago, Endarire said:

Scar wants you to be prepared!

Ha! I'm sure he does. Watching that actually made me think Sarevok, rather than BG Scar...

1 hour ago, Lauriel said:

You could write a series of tweaks (I'd be delighted to include them in my Themed Tweaks mod if you didn't want to publish your own mod) that fixes a lot of the stuff you were talking about.

That is very kind of you, and I'll have to think about it. But please feel free to send any further replies to my thread, or to a message, so that this thread is (rightfully) used to discuss the work that you've done on Chapter 6

13 hours ago, Lauriel said:

If not, please excuse the intrusion.

Ha! No need whatsoever to apologise, @Lauriel. Firstly, it's undeniably relevant to the topic of this thread; secondly, it's nice to have another person other than me post in here.

I had two (non-complimentary) ideas for changes to Chapter 6, as I think that the return to Candlekeep is a total mess. On the one hand, it continues the theme of Gorion's Ward chasing down the masterminds behind the Iron Crisis (or at least it purports to do so until the plot switch, which it therefore serves to conceal). It provides access to Gorion's letter, and it is in general a very good location in which to pivot the story away from the Iron Throne and towards the heritage of Gorion's Ward. It removes Gorion's Ward from Baldur's Gate so that the changes required for Chapter 7 can take place in their absence. As a narrative device, it emphasises how much Gorion's Ward has grown over the course of the game. And I love the atmosphere created by the doppelgangers' twisted re-imagining of the lines spoken to Gorion's Ward during Chapter 0. Lastly, while the introduction of the Knights of the Shield and the meeting in Candlekeep is obviously a contrivance to achieve all of the above, it's not so nonsensical that it strains credulity. All of this is good stuff.

On the other hand (as you recognise in your mod and in your comments), there are some very obvious problems with the execution of the return to Candlekeep, and the meeting with Rieltar is just about as unsatisfying as it can possibly be. I was going to post about my idea for fixing this but, on second thoughts, I've done enough typing already. In any case, you've already put some effort into fixing Chapter 6, and that is where the discussion should be.

10 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

Thank you!  For me, the motivation to go was ... I'm not very diplomatic ... it was dumb!  What outcome did Duke Eltan expect when he sent mercenaries to Candlekeep with no written authorization, no back up? They were just going to hand over the incriminating documents? We were supposed to pickpocket them (which there are none to pickpocket, I tried)? The guards were just going to lock up high ranking merchants on the word of a mercenary?  It was just inane, to me. [Emphasis added]

Once again, 1000% this! And, focusing specifically on the bit I've emphasised, this is what gets me when people say or think that one has to be careful about modifying the plot because one might introduce inconsistencies: in places, the plot is already inconsistent and dumb as hell! Far from being an area where one must tread carefully so as not to ruin a masterpiece, making the main plot more flexible actually also provides an opportunity to fix the plot.

If the ridiculousness of parts of the plot is something that gets to you, take a look at my *ahem* re-imagining of Scar's conversation with Gorion's Ward (second page, third post, in the spoilers at the bottom of the post). It's written for laughs and to hang a lampshade over all the plot-related inconsistencies...

Obviously I am not suggesting that the plot is bad overall; were that the case, I wouldn't be here posting about Baldur's Gate in the first place.

Amazing idea! In addition to making the mod, bravo also for thinking differently about the game in the first place.

I peeked inside the .D file and (spoilers so as not to ruin anything for anyone who downloads the mod):

1000% Yes! Because, let's be honest, it's utterly ridiculous that this doesn't happen in vanilla Chapter 6, isn't it?

In my view, Chapter 6 manages simultaneously to be both very good and very bad, and it's great to see that you appear to have fixed one of the issues that makes it very bad. I have a few more things to say but, out of respect for your mod, I'll do so on my own thread

I've taken another look at this, and I still think there's no compelling reason why this can't be done. Aside from the dreams, which I *think* have in principle been replaced satisfactorily, it seems that all of the types of changes that would need to be made to create a flexible plot have been successfully made by other mods. With all the effort and ingenuity that has been lavished on Baldur's Gate by modders over the years, I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been done already. But from reading https://weidu.org/~thebigg/README-WeiDU.html, it seems that, from the very beginning, the focus of many modders was very much on NPCs.

Either way, "there's no compelling reason why this can't be done" is not the same as "I will try to get this done"; I've reached the point where I know enough to know that I'm unwilling to invest the time required. If I already had the Weidu skills of some modders out there, it would probably be another matter entirely. I tip my hat to everyone who took the time to comment on this thread (and Kjeron, in my other thread). This is, as Subtledoctor so pithily put it, a thread about vapourware

On 3/17/2021 at 11:04 AM, marcnivar said:

I found that there is actually quite limited information on how good a mod is when I'm doing own research to find which mod I should try. Is the npc/ quest mod good? Is there many interjection? How is the writing? How is the area art? I have all questions but sometime the answers are nowhere. Those mod that I can find many reviews / opinions are basically either too bad or too impressive.

I wholeheartedly endorse everything you've said. People have different tastes, and hearing "this is amazing" without much else is not that helpful.

In fact, I would go one step further and say that on occasion mod authors post stuff in the readmes for their mods that is just obviously untrue or misleading. It's maddening, and it's all the more reason for there to be reviews out there for mod users.

I should add that I'm not taking aim at writers for quest mods who have made the effort to write an attractive-sounding blurb for their mini-quests without too many spoilers; that is totally okay (and in fact it's appreciated). And I should add, too, that I don't recall having this problem with any of the mods hosted on G3 that I've downloaded.

On 3/17/2021 at 11:04 AM, marcnivar said:

==Bad English warning before starting==

Your English is absolutely fine. And I am willing to bet that your language skills overall, taking into account other languages, are far superior to a very substantial majority of native English speakers, most of whom know English and nothing more. It's the native English speakers who should feel lucky that you've put the effort in so they can understand you!

So... if you want to cover yourself, you could always say that you're not a native English speaker. Or whatever - you do you. But I always hate the thought that people who have made the effort to communicate in my native language genuinely feel bad about, or feel they have to apologise for, any mistakes they might make.

Just posting a proof of concept for the wording of the alternative start-of-chapter text-screens, for the flexible transitions through chapters 2-3-4-5.

The creative part of the ideas for this - more or less all of them - do exist already; it was the technical queries that led me to make a post on G3 in the first place.

Path 0 (the existing text-screens for Chapters 1-7, for comparative purposes):

Rather than posting 6 copies of the whole sequence, I'll briefly specify the changes (or lack thereof) to Chapters 1-2 and Chapters 6-7. The final two sentences for Chapter 1 will be removed, to lessen the push to meet Khalid and Jaheira at the Friendly Arm and then go to Nashkel for the 1000th time. The final sentence of Chapter 2 may be removed, mostly because I re-use the phrases elsewhere (but I'm not wedded to that). More importantly, the images for Chapters 2 and 3 are swapped round - by which I mean that you always get the Friendly Arm Inn image with the Chapter 2 screen, and the Nashkel image in the screen for whenever you complete the Nashkel Mines - which makes more sense in general, but particularly helps if Chapters 1-2 and 2-3 are not about Nashkel every game. The text for Chapters 6-7 will not be changed.

In may be easier to view the 3 alternative Chapter 3 texts together; the 6 alternative Chapter 4 texts together; and the 3 alternative Chapter 5 texts togther. So I've posted that in the spoiler below, and the 6 spoilers afterwards show the same texts in the order they would viewed in the 6 pathways through Chapters 2-3-4-5.

Path 1: Nashkel Mines - Bandit Camp - Cloakwood

Path 2: Nashkel Mines - Cloakwood - Bandit Camp

Path 3: Bandit Camp - Nashkel Mines - Cloakwood

Path 4: Bandit Camp - Cloakwood - Nashkel Mines

Path 5: Cloakwood - Nashkel Mines - Bandit Camp

Path 6: Cloakwood - Bandit Camp - Nashkel Mines

Not precisely what I would have written from scratch, or if I wasn't trying to fit the text to the existing audio. And it was frustrating that neither the Cloakwood Mines nor Davaeorn were mentioned in either the chapter text screen or the dream text screens! But the voice-overs are very much a part of BG, and it would be a shame to lose them, so I'm pleased with the result. The tweaks to the text-screens will be mirrored in the far less-specific letters Gorion's Ward will find as they complete Chapters 2-3-4.

I have other things to do before editing the existing audio to provide the voice-overs, but I'm cautiously optimistic that it will turn out well. As one can see from comparing the new text to the existing text, the intonation and cadence of the existing spoken words should mostly remain a good fit as, for the most part, I'm mixing and matching whole clauses (ie. matching the first half of a sentence from one text-screen with the second half of a sentence from another text-screen). Most word-substitutions will I think sound okay because they are mostly like-for-like changes (ie. replacing one proper noun with another).

There are a couple of places where I have a Frankenstein's monster of a word group, with two adjacent words from different sources sort of stitched into a sentence, but there are multiple instances of those words to try, and also few alternative sentence constructions to try (ie. a "While" at the beginning of a sentence replacing a "but" in the middle) if what I have in those places sounds bad, so... as I said, cautious optimism.

Thoughts are welcomed.

@GrimJim, +1

Thanks!

I still have v33.4 installed, so I was following this with interest.

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about BG city being fully open from the very start; I've said my piece about that.

4 hours ago, Endarire said:

What if Scar is one person who would commission someone to investigate these disturbances if they haven't done so already?

Yes, this is exactly what would need to happen, but it's only part of the solution

Allowing GW into BG city early seems to me to be possible only subject to either of these two circumstances (and I hate the first idea):

(1) With the Iron Throne building accessible on arrival:

The world becomes as open as possible. The only way I see this functioning from a plot/coding perspective is for the end-game (Chapter 6) to begin when the player completes 4 tasks: locates 3 different pieces of evidence against the Iron Throne (one each in Nashkel Mines, Bandit Camp, Cloakwood Mines), and finds where Rieltar is (by going to the Iron Throne building). So, if you find where Rieltar is early on, you can't get to him because he's already in Candlekeep. Duke Eltan has the only book in existence that will get you into Candlekeep, but you have to build the case against Rieltar with all 3 pieces of evidence before Duke Eltan will be convinced to send you to Candlekeep.

I hate this. It thoroughly ruins the difficulty curve and the plot progression. Making the plot more flexible is not cost-free, and I believe that this is point when the costs outweigh the benefits. And it is just very difficult to reconcile this with everything else going on in the world. For me, part of the problem with BG city is that by the time GW arrives, they already have no good reason to do anything other than investigate the Iron Throne. And the bigger problem, as I said in my previous re-imagining of Scar's conversation with Gorion's Ward, is that there is already an open and shut case against the Iron Throne.

(2) With the Iron Throne building inaccessible on arrival:

A reason must be invented to have the building (and the basement) locked until Chapters 1-4 are complete. That's easy. Magic security. But some reason must also be created to allow GW to bypass whatever locks away the Iron Throne building once it's okay to go there. So, yes, you are right that Scar will be the person who says "can you investigate Cloakwood or Nashkel" if not already done. But for this to make sense, it also has to be Scar or Duke Eltan who provides the means to unlock the Iron Throne building! Because, gosh, how unsatisfying is it if they just say "Quests done? I think you should go to the Iron Throne building now. I'm sure it will be open, wink wink, nudge nudge"?

Fortunately, I have the plot hook to allow this to happen: the ill-fated Emissary Tar. Remember her? Negotiating a new iron treaty with the Iron Throne? You can meet her on level 3 but, no matter if you run up the stairs ahead of her, when you get to the top floor she is dead and replaced by a doppleganger. Leaving aside the weirdness of seeing her on level 3, what gets weirder is that GW can't say afterwards to Duke Eltan: "Gee, Duke Eltan, the Iron Throne tried to replace Emissary Tar with a doppelganger. Maybe time to sort them out?" Nope. And just what was she doing in the building in the first place when it is obvious to everybody with a pulse that the Iron Throne are Bad News TM?! And why did GW not collar Thaldorn, and beat him into signing a confession, before summoning the Flaming Fist? And what about Nortuary (level 3 also), who says he is looking for Rieltar, and then disappears? And why does Destus Gurn mistake GW for a fat woman who is simultaneously both one level below, and one level above?

So here is my idea. In this stage/version 1 I talked about, the evidence against the Iron Throne in Chapters 2-3-4 will be severely toned down. The letters will still exist as a plot device (I'm not seriously bashing Bioware for that). But none of the letters will be written by Rieltar. The slave-miners will know nothing about the Iron Throne - they will know only that the mine is run by Blacktalons and Chill. The only person at the Cloakwood who knows about the whole plot will be Davaeorn. You will not learn about the Iron Thone from the flipping Hobgoblin stock boy at the Bandit Camp! You will not get Ender Sai in the Bandit Camp telling you the whole plot (sans Sarevok's involvement)! He will be one of the leads you have to the Iron Throne, but the unsubstantiated accusations made by a thief are of no interest to Scar or Duke Eltan.

Returning to this stage/version 2, this means that the evidence against the Iron Throne is far weaker. The Iron Throne is obviously in the good graces of most of the Grand Dukes, and Entar Silvershield is busy grieving his dead son, but Duke Eltan is no fool. Provided he has the evidence from Nashkel Mines and Cloakwood, as well as the Bandit Camp and the Seven Suns (all of which Scar sends you to get), he will give you responsibility for checking in on Emissary Tar - for whom access to the Iron Throne has been unlocked for negotiations. Duke Eltan would not have sent her there at all if it was up to him alone, but he is not the only Grand Duke. So maybe he has one of his mages sneakily copy the magic ward provided for Emissary Tar. Maybe GW is sent there WITH Emissary Tar. Regardless, in the Iron Throne building, the **** hits the fan.

What do you think?

13 hours ago, Endarire said:

I primarily meant Bioware/Beamdog NPC companion quests, but mod-added companion quests also count.

As far as the Bioware/Beamdog NPC companion quests are concerned, some with timers may have to be adjusted if opening up the plot effectively gives a player less time to do them (it won't literally give less time, but it may have that effect if the vanilla timer assumes that GW has already done X and reached level Y). If early access to certain joinable NPCs may upset the game balance, I will probably make access subject to minor restrictions by checking XPGT(Player1,[value]) - that is, GW’s experience total - which would be another way to solve the timer issue. But the restrictions would be limited and there would likely be an opt-out available on installation.

One of the attractions of early access to BG city for me is opening up Rasaad's quest earlier (as it's far too easy in Chapter 5). On the other hand, if allowing early access to BG city, I also have to look at the conditions that create Dorn's ambushers at the end of his quest line. Checking XPGT(Player1,[value]) is something I plan to do occasionally to restrict content very slightly, as a necessary evil. And I will have to ensure that nothing bizarre happens with the Beamdog romances if chapters are completed out of order.

As can be seen, from a design perspective, it means checking the specifics of a whole bunch of stuff, and I will have to look at each NPC individually, which is not something I can do for all of the mod-added NPC quests out there.

13 hours ago, Endarire said:

For BG city, what about disallowing plot progression with Iron Thorne (or Throne, depending on how I read it) until other events are done, or completing the Iron Guys' BG city tasks to effectively complete the other mines'/chapters' quests?

I'll give you a full response to these two suggestions, and then I'll probably just have to write an FAQ

13 hours ago, Endarire said:

For BG city, what about ... completing the Iron Guys' BG city tasks to effectively complete the other mines'/chapters' quests?

I'm not going to do this. From a technical standpoint, it requires far too much work to ensure the game can handle yet another possibility. From a creative standpoint, it requires too many changes to the plot, to the extent that it becomes a different story. It may be theoretically possible to approach the plot in BG city differently in a pen and paper D&D campaign, but this ain't it. For instance, note that Scar is only interested in GW in the first place because GW is known for their exploits in the Nashkel Mines. If all a player is concerned about is getting to BG city early (and I understand the attraction), they can do that already by using EE Keeper to change the CHAPTER global variable.

13 hours ago, Endarire said:

For BG city, what about disallowing plot progression with Iron Thorne (or Throne, depending on how I read it) until other events are done ... ?

This is precisely what I plan to do. But that takes more work, both creative and technical, than just putting a magic lock on the door of the Iron Throne building and changing Scar's dialogue so he says "Come back and speak to me in Chapter 5". The plot in BG city doesn't make much sense, and if I'm tweaking the plot so that the earlier chapters make sense when completed out of order, I'd like to take the opportunity to partly fill in some plot holes and make Chapter 5 more satisfying. Here is some re-written dialogue (not serious dialogue; it demolishes the 4th wall) for the meeting with Scar that addresses how the current Chapter 5 plot should play out, and how ridiculous it currently is:

Well, I got carried away, and now I don't think I'll ever be able to think of Scar any other way.

Anyway. Aside from my own amusement, I guess the point is that plenty happens in Baldur's Gate that doesn't make much sense, and it would be nice to fix it a bit. An unfortunate side effect may be that some mod-added NPC content makes a lot less sense.

Hi @Endarire, thanks for showing an interest! This may end up done only through Near Infinity edits, rather than available for others via Weidu. I have a lot to try to learn, and I might not get there, but if others are interested then it becomes more likely that it will released as a mod. I don't want to give anyone the impression that if they wait a little longer on a playthrough, perhaps this proposed mod will be done soon : )

3 hours ago, Endarire said:

Would this mod let people enter Baldur's Gate city sooner?  If so, when?

The end goal is definitely to allow access to BG city sooner! I'll try to make this happen in stage/version 2; stage/version 1 will only open up the order of Chapters 1-2-3-4. Taking on board some advice I've been given, I decided to make everything I design consistent with the end goal (so I don't have to change much later on), but split the work into self-contained stages that can be released as a "version" once done.

Stage/version 1 will mostly sort out the plot, letters, dialogue, journal, and variables so everything functions and makes sense, with a single change to make Cloakwood Mines a bit easier and Nashkel Mines a bit harder if done out of order. It won't be amazingly satisfying to do Nashkel after Bandit Camp and Cloakwood - that would only change with a later stage/version that redesigns the second half of the Nashkel Mines - but stage/version 1 will make it possible. Stage/version 1 is part of the answer to your question about BG city, as it will get you the bandit groups led by Teven, Raiken, and Deke in Chapter 2 (maybe Tranzig too), and any of them will let you get to the Bandit Camp.

Stage/version 2 is when I hope to allow early access to BG city. It has to wait because it requires work on what happens with Scar and the Chapter 5 Iron Throne quest if the player gets to BG city sooner. Stage/version 1 will help set up stage/version 2, but Chapters 1-2-3-4 will lead to the usual meeting with Scar at the start of Chapter 5. Anyway, stage/version 2 is the other part of the answer, because completing the Bandit Camp mission (by which I mean stealing Tazok's letters, same as normal) and reporting its location to Officer Vai will unlock BG City in what is effectively Chapter 3.

Officer Vai is one of only a few NPCs I plan to substantially change. She'll be in the Jovial Juggler paying 50gp per bandit scalp from the start of the game, but she won't be specifically interested in you until you clear the Nashkel Mines or, in stage/version 2, if you tell her where the Bandit Camp is. Note that she will make noises about how long it will take to muster the Flaming Fist to encircle the Bandit Camp, the difficulty of doing so with the need to garrison Beregost in case of attack from Amn, and how the clanking plate mail of a few hundred soldiers might alert the bandits. She will ask (or have already asked) about the scalps of the leaders, Ardenor and Taurgosz. So, her dialogue will make it clear that BG City will open up, but that the Bandit Camp will still be there for when the player is brave enough to do more than steal letters and run away...

I have another plan to make BG city (partly) available from the very beginning of the game, and arrival there would be another way to start Chapter 2, but it would have to wait until after stage/version 2. If I'm even able to make that happen, you wouldn't get access to much of BG city this way. You would have to unlock the full city through the Bandit Camp and Officer Vai, or an alternative route involving the sewers of BG city. I think this may require alternative areas for part of BG city (like there is with Candlekeep) until the full city is unlocked. It seems like a lot of work for me, if it is even possible.

3 hours ago, Endarire said:

How would Durlag's Tower and Ulgoth's Beard factor into the plot?  What about the Circus, the basilisk garden, and otherwise?

Fortunately this answer is shorter No change to Durlag's Tower or Ulgoth's Beard, and you can get to both of them in Chapter 1 already if you want (seems weird because they are on the other side of the river, but you can get to the Farmlands and Ulgoth's Beard in Chapter 1 by exiting the map edge next to Tenya's home). At least in BG:EE, anyway.

Actually, sorry, there is one important change in stage/version 2: because you can get to BG city, you can get to the Merchant's League Counting House, so you can get the sea charts and get to Werewolf Island in Chapter 3. You'll struggle when you get there, mind, especially with SCS.

No change to Nashkel Carnival or Mutamin's Garden. The mod will have a few more ways of starting Chapter 2, but going to any of the 3 Nashkel areas - Nashkel/Carnival/Mine - will all remain valid ways to start Chapter 2.

3 hours ago, Endarire said:

NPC companion quests?

Do you mean the BG:EE companion quests, or NPCs added by mods?

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

FWIW getting special abilities out of order really doesn’t bother me at all. 

Seems like a worthwhile sacrifice to me too, if it comes to that. At the moment I'm more concerned that stuff can happen that stops the code following the PartyRested() trigger from firing. If that screws up, it seems like a bad thing. Eh, on the plus side, at least it looks nice for now : )

18 hours ago, jastey said:

My EndlessBG1 mod lets the BG1 game remain in the BG1 world (as it was for BGT) for BG:EE. So, I had to go through the game ressources and erase any reference to Sarevok still being alive and a threat for that. BGT already did that to some 98%. It was tideous, I can tell you.

Out of curiosity, roughly how much time do you think you spent on the technical side of the task?

18 hours ago, jastey said:

I do not even dare to imagine how many - big or little - references there are in the game where it is just assumed that things happened in the original order because there was no need to actually check for them.

Again, this is why I hoped to pick the brains of others about the precise workings of the dreams and the journal. It's why I'm leary about using a copy of the existing 2DAs for the dream texts, on the basis that they happen to still recognise Rep and deploy the appropriate string. If I don't know why it works, I don't know what could cause it to stop working!

18 hours ago, jastey said:

And for making all these references consistent your mod will have to change/patch/replace so many ingame dialogue and references that it will probably make a lot of mods incompatible just because of the adjusted dialogues. On top of that any NPC mods will probably be incompatible as they are now because BG1 story events are assumed to follow in a specific order.

But even only implementing this would lead to a bigload full of adjustments you'd need to do - and all NPC mods would need to be adjusted as well - probably. If you'd succeed to make a mod that opens up BG world after the ambush completely, it would probably be incompatible with most other mods out there.

Cross-mod compatibility with interjections and romances is a problem (more than I realise, I expect). And doubtless that has a knock-on effect on the degree of interest in the idea. I was thinking that activity that depends on progress of the CHAPTER and DREAM globals could be addressed with a textual substitution. With what I'm proposing, the central plot elements remain in place, the dreams that follow are the same, and the order of events is still tracked. It should be possible to have a mod react to a dream about the Cloakwood in the same way, for example. The difficulty arises if the mod reaction assumes that the Bandit Camp and Nashkel have already been done, and refers to them.

But it is what it is, I suppose. I don't think there is anything wrong with giving people options, and least so long as no-one is trying to shut another mod down.