Bartimaeus

Actually, I thought of a few different ways to illustrate the point, and that was probably the less vile example I could think of. Whether it's for that or something else entirely, finding your own likeness to be used for objectionable purposes is, at the end of the day and no matter your reasons behind it, objectionable, whereas I'm not really finding any particular reason to care or get involved if someone is just doing an impression. Not my likeness, not my problem - so long as it doesn't involve or hurt anyone who shouldn't be, I'll spend nary a thought on the matter. But when you're someone where your face and voice are both already out there, and there's apparently this carte blanche attitude about the use of this kind of technology, well...suffice to say, I wouldn't really want to see what results from it, especially if I were one of the affected people.

It was easier for me to take a stronger (although still not necessarily absolute) stance against it when I started thinking about how I personally could become uncomfortable with my voice being used against my will. I'd really just kind of prefer that other people, willingly and with cognizance to the fullest extent possible, do their own voice performances when it comes to even completely fictional characters going on and on about how hot and bothered they get whenever their eyes meet with the irresistibly attractive dog that they're currently pet-sitting...rather than using manipulated recordings of my voice to accomplish it. And if I feel uncomfortable with even the idea of something like that, I can't imagine how people who have been in the public eye for ages, with many years' worth of video/pictures and voice recordings easily found, would feel about it...especially when you throw in a rabid/unhealthy fan following. I say again: yuck!

I'm sure if we all just get talked at LIKE THIS enough, we'll eventually COME AROUND.

I think there are ethical concerns when we're talking about using someone's exact likeness. When someone draws a picture of someone, nobody gets confused about whether the drawing is actually the person or not, and the drawing can be attributed to the artist; when someone does an audio cut-up where they'll take and re-arrange words that someone says to make something new (typically to the effect of something silly), it's usually pretty obvious because of how unnatural it'll sound/look, even when it's a matter of just cutting out a single word (and also, in the vast majority of cases where this is done, at least some other people will be familiar with the original and know that it was edited and be able to relay that to others who aren't); when someone does a voice impersonation of someone else...well, it's just literally not that person's voice - even if it's really close, there are people who will be able to discern that one person's vocal chords and the unique timbre associated with them (and never mind all their exact little speaking mannerisms, be it word/phrase choice, accents, inflections and cadences, or even just the exact length that they hold or roll their tongue to pronounce certain sounds) simply isn't exactly the same as another person's. And fundamentally, if you can produce it with your own mouth, it can be attributed to you and not anyone else. The difference with this AI crap is that it's not anyone's new unique work because these are just programs that are using the exact likeness of someone else or their work as input in order to output in minutes/hours new content that could pass as being them/theirs, and that likeness can be made to dance to whatever tune the puppeteer likes - without another human being having ever contributed anything new to make it, without being able to attribute the work to anyone else but the person who was used as input. Well, with the exception of generated art taking from so many different sources that it can't be clearly attributed to any one artist, but all those hack "AI artists" effectively stealing work from others and presenting it as their own is a whole other stupid can of worms we don't need to get into. I won't deny that it would be great fun if I could import a recording of someone's voice into a program like Audacity and be able to mess around with some dials and buttons in order to transform that little bit of voice recording to say anything I like, but no matter how I edit or transform it, that voice recording is still of that person's voice and no-one else's. And that's not even to mention the issue of whether of whether the AI makes convincing transformations of someone else's work, which I think is entirely besides the point but certainly adds to the squickiness. I'm not going to go out of my way to get too bent out of shape about it when it comes to examples where its use is obvious and not really harmful/exploitative (for example, if someone takes David Warner's recordings of Jon Irenicus from BG2 to make new and free content involving him that's more or less in line with the character he portrayed - if no money is made off of it, if it's clear it's just a character portrayal set in the appropriate circumstances, if everyone who plays that content is dutifully informed of the use of AI before downloading it), but I won't lie in that there are some very obvious avenues for gross abuse with this technology that give me pause as to whether it should be available to anyone for any purpose. Even within just the sphere of Baldur's Gate...wasn't there an Imoen romance mod around at some point? You could easily use an AI to take recordings of Melissa Disney's portrayal of Imoen to make some VERY sketchy mod content around that idea, with Melissa having no ability to protect her likeness in being used for that purpose. If it were someone else impersonating her, then fine - that person would've agreed to have done it (whether for compensation or because they just wanted to do it because they liked the idea or thought it would be fun or...it doesn't really matter), it would be their voice and not Melissa's, and the work could be fairly attributed to them. But when it's an AI, well, it would literally be Melissa's voice, it can really only be attributed to her, even with the qualifier that it was AI-generated. Yuck! And this technology is still in its infancy, relatively speaking...even if you think it's not always convincing now (and I would say that it certainly can be when skilfully used and in the appropriate circumstances), who can say what the future holds?

I edited in a little more for that paragraph to give more context for that statement: for me, it can be both a blessing and a curse, especially as characters I'm fond of lose their voices. A number of my favorite characters from longer-running games and animated series lost much of their charm for me when they decided to replace the original voice actors/actresses...I just went through this with literally Mario and Luigi of all things with the latest Super Mario game, Super Mario Wonder, when I watched the trailer and I was like "...was Charles Martinet sick while he was recording for this game, what's up with their voices?". Nope, after voicing them for literally 30 years straight, Nintendo finally replaced him. Now I fear the day they replace Princess Daisy...the lady that has played her for the last 20 years straight up made that character for me with the absolute loony-bin way she performs the voice, and I don't think any replacement is going to be able to equal her...but I just know it's going to happen eventually. There are certain lines from characters I'm particular to that ring out in my head randomly, even years or decades since last hearing them. So I guess you could say that voices are pretty important to me, .

I was with you until this (note: also not endorsing a specific position here either). I'm only picking a bone here because of you saying "obviously trying to sound like Richardson": I don't think Kevin Michael Richardson and John H. Mayer...really sound even remotely alike, not in how their base voices sound or the particular voices/style that they chose (or were directed) to use for the roles - and never mind the writing of the narration as well, which is also quite different. It'd be hard for me to believe that John H. Mayer would even be asked to try to imitate Kevin Michael Richardson, as I always assumed the rather drastic departure in narration was intended to represent a change of setting as well as the tonal shift between games. It would be especially odd given that Kevin Michael Richardson literally recorded lines for Shadows of Amn, so if they wanted him or somebody that sounded like him to narrate, well...they already had him in the recording studio. Richardson's narration has a generally neutral delivery and feels rather calming (perhaps even encouraging?) in comparison to Mayer's more old-timey fantastical flair for the dramatic, not to mention all the intrigue/danger/suspense that he suggests awaits the player as you're about to visit the new locations hinted at in his narration. However, it should be noted that I am extremely sensitive to voice changes (to the point where it's immediately obvious and bothersome to me pretty much any time a character changes voice, and I almost always recognize when someone with a distinctive voice like Kevin Michael Richardson appears in something, even for a moment...the amount of things I've seen with him where I immediately went "oh hello Sarevok" after hearing just one sentence from him is way too high), so maybe my take is in the minority.

IR (not IRR) does change Carsomyr to be +4 and the upgraded version to be +5. No +6 items exist in IR, AFAIK. That was kind of the impetus for making the component in the first place - for SoA to have another +5 weapon, as I believe Staff of the Magi is IR's only other +5 SoA weapon. IRR does add one more, but it's a very late one in the form of Blackrazor - somewhat because of IR nerfing the vanilla insanity of this weapon, somewhat because of the fact that the player is "supposed" to throw it away if they're a good/neutral character, and somewhat for lore reasons. Blackrazor was originally a legendary First Edition weapon that the player was never really supposed to be able to obtain, and to see it be demoted to complete irrelevancy and a very easy choice to just throw away when it's only +3 is a rather sad fate. Also, several people had asked for it to be +5, and I was eventually swayed once I really started to think about it. I'll work on making that Carsomyr component have two subcomponents, one for 10% (my own preference) and one for 20% (which works both as IR's original value for the unupgraded version as well as IRR's value for the upgraded version, so I'm O.K. with it).

I don't know, what's Carsomyr's upgraded stats in your game before installing it? The component does exactly what it says it does: If your upgraded Carsomyr already gave only 10% magic resistance, then yes. If it doesn't, then no. I'm pretty sure Carsomyr +4 in IR starts out with 20%, which is double what it starts out with in IRR (i.e. 10%), and then I think it moves to either 25% or 30% for the upgraded version (whereas IRR's Carsomyr +5 moves to 20%). I'm not a fan of the ludicrous glut of MR for Carsomyr given how strong it is outside of that as it is (ignoring that it's 50% in vanilla...), so that's the compromise for making it +5 throughout SoA. It would be easy to make a version that's 20% instead if somebody wanted that.

I think maybe, possibly SCS could make duplicates of Lightning for use with the sequencers (and contingencies?) that it makes for AI? Not a hundred percent sure, but it would mean that if Lightning Bolts are fired off that way, they'd be the old...or, uh, rather the new/non-bouncy animation. Even if that's the case, you'd still get most of the functionality if you install the tweak at the end of your install.

I mean, I did just say a post or two ago that I'd be including it in my tweak pack. If you really need/want it ASAP, just let me know. Or is this because it's difficult to include random mods like my tweaks in an automated installer?

I was not aware of the ALTER_SPELL_HEADER patching function, thanks! Feels a bit cruel that I actually make this neat little patching function that hex-reads the number of headers for any given spell so that it can automatically patch any arbitrary number of headers, and then it turns out there's a quick and easy patching function that accomplishes the same thing without any of the rigmarole. It can be cleaned up to just this... ACTION_IF original_lightning_bolt=1 BEGIN ACTION_FOR_EACH resource IN ~spcl722~ // Priest of Talos Lightning Bolt ~spdr301~ // Avenger Lightning Bolt ~spwi308~ // Lightning Bolt ~wand07~ // Wand of Lightning ~dvlight~ ~dvlightb~ BEGIN ACTION_IF (FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME ~%resource%.spl~) BEGIN COPY_EXISTING ~%resource%.spl~ ~override\%resource%.spl~ PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 0x71) BEGIN LPF ALTER_SPELL_HEADER INT_VAR projectile=40 END END BUT_ONLY END END END ...and it still sets all headers of each spell to projectile 40. Well, it is what it is. Tested and applied to the latest repository version. As for the tweak pack: 1. Iif you're an SRR or IRR user and you like its text format for creature summoning and/or shapeshifting, I'd recommend the SCS shapeshifting tokens component, I'm fairly certain that whatever I did was pretty minor and it's pretty close to being just a textual consistency thing. It's been forever since I played with a druid in my party in the first place, so I just can't imagine that I would've made any significant changes. If you're using SR or IR, then the text format won't be quite the same as those, but it'll at least be a lot closer and certainly familiar enough. 2. atweaks completely overwrites a number of spells with its own, so those components are really just about getting some basic spell properties like duration and casting range in line with how SR/R does them, and then also getting their descriptions (including exact creature stats) written to the SR/R style. I should really group those components: components 1-2 are basically just cheats, components 7-11 are solving some compatibility inconsistencies between mods, components 12-16 are some rule changes in the vein of CD Tweaks, and components 3-6 are...uh, miscellanea. Basically, I'd say anything you want installed is going to be right at the end of your install order, unless it's one of the rule changes, which should be installed right after CD Tweaks and before SCS. Sorry, I'm not really familiar with any of the automated installers at this point, so I'm really not certain what the process for adding arbitrary mods to your install would be there.

You're in luck, because earlier this December: I'm also going to throw it into my little junky tweak pack at some point, since I coded it in a mildly clever and install-agnostic manner, so no reason not to have it available for someone who's playing on normal SR as well. ...I didn't bother to check my own preferred install type? Dearie me. The EEs also have LIGHTBLT, but it looks the (previously hard-coded?) reference to it was replaced with LIGHTB. Anyways, it's now been fixed in the latest repository version, thank you!

No, this kind of "false adding" a projectile that I know the game already has is my incredibly lazy way of getting weidu to go fetch its ID in projectl.ids for me (as when weidu tries to add a projectile, it first goes and checks to see if it's already in there or not...and if it is, then it skips adding it but helpfully remembers its ID for you so that it can be used for the rest of the installation for anywhere it might be referenced). What game type are you installing SRR to that it doesn't already have lightb.pro? I guess I figured every game type SRR could be installed to would already have lightb.pro, but I must've overlooked something. I pray that nobody has ever learned anything about weidu from following my example: all my work is duct tape and bubblegum, hodgepodge and quackery learned from two seconds of looking at how someone else did something similar-ish once upon a time and spending nary a thought on it further once it works.

Presumably, the issue there is that SRR's Polymorph Self has a sixth form, while SR's only has five. SR's forms: Mustard Jelly, Ogre, Sword Spider, Flind, Winter Wolf SRR's forms: Mustard Jelly, Ogre Mage, Sword Spider, Salamander, Troll, Winter Wolf ToF's forms: Ogre Mage, Spider, Hell Hound, Hill Giant Barbarian, Rat I'm not certain of the best way to amend this yet. If I had to remove a form to make it so that the component at least didn't error out (assuming that it fixed the issue), it'd probably be Mustard Jelly (as I can't imagine it's a well-used form even after I buffed it up, and especially because it's covered by Cloak of the Sewers anyways...also, if someone does use the Mustard Jelly form in BG1, the Protection from Normal Weapons property of the form can be highly exploitative as well, which is not great).

If I'm not mistaken, Ashideena is the only better than +1 war hammer throughout BG1 and even TotSC, so I don't think it'd be entirely amiss to place Rift Hammer somewhere...either pretty close to the end on a named character, or maybe in Durlag's Tower. I've put it on the list, though I'm open to suggestions as well.

It's my responsibility to make sure that SRR is supported just as much as SR is, not anybody else's. I'll have to do some test installs with SR and SRR at some point here and see what I can do.

Latest repository/master version of SRR now has a settings.ini switch called "original_lightning_bolt" that you can set to 1 to restore the original lightning bolt animation, which also affects IRR's Wand of Lightning (if it exists).

See, I don't remember vanilla items so much I didn't even know vanilla Bala's Axe had an activated ability instead of an on-hit effect. Whoops. An activated spell-like ability that you have to cast for a damned axe sure seems kind of silly to me, but them's the breaks with vanilla item design.

Dispelling magic as an on-hit effect by way of e.g. Bala's Axe does not cast the spell "Dispel Magic", it just...dispels magic if the saving throw is failed. In other words, it's not subject to the "what level is the character who cast it and what level is the character who is affected" mechanics. Casting the Dispel Magic spell from an item (e.g. Carsomyr) or the Inquisitor's innate, on the other hand, would be. It's not clear to me whether you're playing with IR or not. If not, then I don't know for sure, as I don't remember how vanilla items handle spell-like abilities...but if you're playing with IR, I would say mostly, though with the caveat that most spell-like abilities do not scale with level and instead are set to always be cast at the same power no matter the circumstances.

If SR is, so should be SRR. But I haven't personally tested SCS's/IWDification's IWD spells with SR or SRR, so I'm kind of relying on the word of others that they apparently at least mostly work. And for that reason, I can't answer the rest of your IWD spells-related questions. Even worse (for you, that is): Item Revisions (as well as IRR, since I didn't change this) makes Wand of Lightning the no-bounce type of lightning bolt regardless of whether you have SR/R installed or not. To be honest, I think the original lightning bolt is a hilarious part of the game, so I'm kind of tempted to make an optional .ini tweak that allows it to be changed back.

No, it's not possible: those price changes are all baked into the .itm files. On a side-note, Demivrgvs balanced IR around BG2, not BG1, which has historically created a few rather unfortunate issues for BG1. You don't sell a lot of full plate mail in BG1, but you sure do in BG2, so it was no doubt the intent to make the economy a little less easy. And on a side-note to the side-note, AD&D's standard price for plate mail was 400 GP, which is actually 100 GP less than IR's 500...but its price for full plate mail is listed as a minimum of 4,000 and as much as 10,000, and IR's is only 1,000. The economy is these games is a bit crude, and the differences in the availability of magical items between BG1 and BG2 makes it even tougher to strike a good balance.

Thanks, fixed locally (will commit to the repository at some point in the near future).

In theory, yes...in practice, probably? I don't think there should be any issues with that, but I wouldn't make any guarantees. I'm fairly certain that the Druid version of the spell, for example, adds its own projectile and .bam icons and thus it isn't reliant on dvfogc.pro or the dvwi106x.bam icons being in the game...but again, no guarantees from me.

It's intended that Wand of the Heavens have both Intelligence and Wisdom requirements. Although...as I did some dumb stuff with wands a while back that I largely reverted, I am wondering why vanilla IR has a requirement of 13 Wisdom while IRR is a lower 10 Wisdom. Then again, max spellcasting level being tied to Wisdom isn't a thing unlike with mages and Intelligence (which is what wands' Intelligence requirements are determined by), so maybe it's appropriate that it's just 10 after all.

Godhood just isn't very interesting to me, and I honestly just don't much care for it as the 'end' of the Bhaalspawn Saga. Well, maybe it could be interesting, but to me, stories should be driven by characters, and SoA's Irenicus and Bodhi are great characters, I love both of them and the game is fundamentally more about them rather than CHARNAME and I am perfectly fine with that (heck, I find it pretty difficult not to cheer for them over Ellesime and all those cruddy elves!), while with ToB...what seemed to be the most interesting character of the whole lot, Gromnir, is done pretty dirty in terms of his relations to the player, not to mention he's killed off quickly. Though not as quickly as...uh, you know, Illasera the Quick - it never occurred to me that that silly moniker was probably a joke by BioWare relating to her immediately showing up and getting killed by the player until just now. Anyways, point is, ToB has always failed to make a convincing case in terms of its story and characters for me, so it's hard to much care about it, especially as the game starts to unravel mechanically as you get such a ridiculous glut of spells and powers that open up way too many broken tactics. I have thus traditionally considered the fight against Irenicus to be the end of the game, with Watcher's Keep as an optional "let's go kill Demogorgon" final challenge. I always think I'm going to really actually go through ToB leading up to Irenicus, but then I axe him and get into the elf grove and pretty much immediately lose all inertia. I don't really know what, if anything, I'd want to 'save' from ToB and put into SoA...there's probably something, but I'm hard-pressed to immediately name what.