Meira

Amber ToB news: The quest needs to be proofread and tested. The flirts are nearly finished. Few more banters are needed; Sarevok is proving to be difficult. On the mother hand Haer'Dalis can't seem to be able to shut up. Talks are not finished, but lets not be dishearten by that. I haven't written a single epilogue, but I do have a general idea what I want for each. I've been putting off coding the interjections, for no other reason that's the part I really dislike. I've started to code the whole thing and even though it's not much it's nice to se Amber initiate the first Tob talk and to be able to call her up with the fate spirit. What I'm maybe a little worried about is that the talks are turning out a bit 'dark' and 'unhappy'. Not that Amber would love Charname/player2/her friend anymore, but the war and constant violence are taking their toll. One thing that I try to change from SoA is how longwinded she can sometimes be. I've noticed that my text blocks tend to be rather long.

Thanks.

Slow but steady, I'm afraid. I got quite bit done during the summer, but it's slower right now.

You should check your journal entries - I think there should be one. In addition, one of your companions (assuming that you had more than Amber) should have given you a hint on what to do next. In case nobody did, here's Anomen's hint: I hope that helped to solve the mystery, but if it didn't please tell.

I'm currently working on the ToB miniquest.

In ToB the Player initiated (love)talks will play a bigger role than in SoA. In SoA there are 4 player initiated lovetalks. All of them are a sort of pickup-talks, where your character can apologise or revert things said or done in a previous talk. (For example if your PC leaves right after a certain lovetalk taking place in an inn - he can still get away with it by saying the right things.) I assume that not many players have seen these talks, since they're more likely to try to choose the "right" answers. However in ToB there will be 'proper' player initiated talks. These dialogue options will appear next to the quest topics in Amber's click-talk menu.

It's been worked on. I rather not give a date (other than Tuesday, of course). My summer holiday starts tomorrow and while I certainly have loads of other things to do, I will make time for Amber in the next two months.

Okay, you guys aren't settling for crumbs off the table. And that's good, I suppose. So, I browesed the Tob material, and the good news is that's there's more material ready than I thought and it's good for most parts. Dark but good. For SoA I threw to the bin so much soap! The bad news is that there is still much to be written Gaps to be filled mostly, but still...

As I was browsing the material I have for Amber's ToB portion an idea occurred to me. Why not release a ToB banter pack, as I already have quite few banters ready*. I've heard the many players have taken Amber from SoA to ToB as a silent companion and this would bring at least a some life to her. Of course I would have to set aside any banters that deal with the relationship between Charname and Amber. Possibly this pack could also contain some of the interjections. * written, not proofread or coded. Anyhow, at this point the ToB main talk track consists of 12 talks, two miniquests (one of them is only for the romance path), a bunch of floating talks and interjections. Like in SoA the player will have click talk options (both on quests and personal matters) and flirts. Both romances should have three epilogues and the friendship path two. Some of this is actually written and some is yet just planned, but I looking forward in getting something done during the summer.

Check the journal entries...

If Amber romances player2 she will not form a friendship with player1. Heh... If she did, she wouldn't shut up ever. Note that there's no romance conflict between the protagonist and player2, Amber has eyes for only one PC at a time.

No, unfortunately that's not possible. The FAQ explains why.

Yes, the Player 2 will have ToB content just like the Protagonist will. Actually, considering the ToB storyline the Player 2 might have a chance for 'happier' romance than the Protagonist.

Yes, the player 2 has the same stat and gender requirements as the Protagonist. I'll see if the readme could be improved so that it more clear on this matter. No, your character must have the required stats when you load a game with Amber mod installed. You can start a new game with lower stats, change them and then install Amber (for the first time). However, note that unistalling and installing Amber again does not help, becase the variables are stored in the savegame. No, unfortunately there is no friendship path for the player 2.

What exactly was/is causing a compatibility problem between RR and Amber? I'd like to resolve this in the upcoming v3.6 if it's still an issue. The previous versions of the RR overwrote the black-market thief's (located in the thieves guild entrance hall) dialogue file. Amber appends that file and if she's installed first her changes are lost and one of her quests won't work. The issue was discussed in this thread. When the issue came up RR seemed to lack current support and that why I didn't contact you then. I haven't yet checked the current version of the RR to see if the issue has been fixed, although the version history mentions that overwriting has been fixed for this version.

I updated the list of mods that might cause problems in Amber (or other way around).

You can discuss the German translation here.

I'm glad to hear that you like the mod. *Spoilers* The lovetalk where she says the magic words, 'I love you' is the last one on the romance-talk track. However since there are several talks that are 'floating', I'd make sure that I at least rest once, during night-time, on a non-city water location. (Windspear hills, for example.) That's how you get the 'bath' lovetalk if you haven't already.. If you haven't already got the 'I love you' -talk you should click talk her and ask how she's doing. If there is a talk with special conditions coming up next, she'll give you a hint on how to meet those requirements.

If everything goes well, new version of Amber with German translation will be out soon. The translation was made by Fey and the proofreaders were Erian and Lilith. As a special treat we will offer a German soundset for Amber by Ines. I'd like to thank Fey for taking time for both translating and coordinating the soundset recording. Big thanks for Erian, Lilith and Ines too; your work is much appreciated.

Yes, with player 2 Amber will not get abducted. Originally I toyed with an idea of player2 getting abducted if he was romancing Amber. That would have made sense since the romance assumes that player2 is the faithful sidekick of the protagonist. However I think it would have been too complicated to script. (Because plaer2 is a PC and does not a have a death variable.)

No, there won't be any drastic effects. Rushing to Brynnlaw will mean that you miss one Underdark specific lovetalk, the player initiated Underdark flirts (5 topics) and obviously some of the slayer interjections require the romance to be 'serious'. However there's nothing that'll stop the romance from being complete. In fact if you wish, Amber could be picked up in chapter 6 and you could still complete the romance (or friendship) track.

The mysterious "tilesets not unpacking" -issue. At this point I don't know why this is happening for some (at least for three) users. If the game crashes after you use 'the map' in Amber's third quest, it indicates that the area graphics (tilesets) were not unpacked during the installation. Becaeuse the unpacking has to be handled via a separate .bat file instead of in WeiDU the installation won't stop even if there's an error. If you come across this issue any information you can provide would be very helpful: During gameplay, can you hear the Amber's voicing? During gameplay, can you hear Amber's custom music playing during Amber's talks? (So that I know if it's just the tilesets or audio as well that's refusing to unpack.) Is there a file called tisunpack.exe in your override folder? Is there a file called m#ar01.tiz or m#ar01.tis in your override folder? What version of widows you're running? What firewall and/or antivirus program you have? (I ask because I suspect that it's possible that a overzealous safety program or setting might prevent unknown .bat files from prompting programs, like tisunpack.exe. Though, that didn't seem to be the cause in SkyWolfs case.) Can I have a copy of Amber's debugfile (setup-amber.debug)? You can send it to <amber@welho.neti>. Can I have a copy of weidu.log? (I don't think that this is a conflict issue, but since I have no clue what's causing this it's better to look for even to unlikely suspects.) In some cases simply uninstalling and then installing Amber again has solved the issue (Ie. the tilesets failing to unpack has been simply a very, very annoying hiccup.) If you do uninstall and install again, can you please take a look on the text displayed in the command prompt window, before WeiDU asks if you want to install the multiplayer friendly flirting? If you see a long list that indicates what tile number has been converted and below the list a text that informs that so and so many tiles has been converted with method 0, so and so with method 1 etc. the tilesets have been successfully converted. If and when there's an error or warning text can you tell me what it says? (Unfortunately the .bat file that prompts the unpacking of the audio and area graphics can't be made to create an debug log of itself like WeiDU does.) ------------------ As recent development this issue has now been reported to pester a (one) Mac user as well. (I realise that above text is directed to Windows users, but it was written before Mac version was released.)

Since at least one person has expressed interest in it, you can download Amber's musical theme here. The music is composed, arranged, programmed and performed by Darios.

Yes, and it worked like a charm. Current version of Amber features .tra files; I just forgot to put an update here. (I still wish that would-be translators contact me before starting.)

How does she know what happens to a bhaalspawn when they die? Does it come up in an earlier talk?