temnix

I once worked a mod called "The Demon and the Dragon" about the shadow dragon under Umar Hills and the demon lord in Ust Natha. This is the part of that aborted mod that works completely, and it deals only with the dragon. It is now possible to negotiate with him, and there are different approaches depending on the strength of the party (which means how soon the player comes on this quest): weaker than the dragon, more or less the same and stronger. Being or appearing weaker is not unintelligent here and may let the party skip the fight, which, by the way, is more difficult than before and includes a few surprises and improved effects. There is a new merchant in the Bridge district of Athkatla, a gnome, who will sell the party something that helps take off the edge. If the party is stronger than the dragon, he will try to bribe them with a new and useful magic item, one that can also be picked up from his body. Plus the dragon no longer detects the characters everywhere in the area, and it is now possible to bypass him even without the wardstone by staying near the wall and heading downstairs for the Shade Lord. Something to remember about shadow dragons, however, is that they are Chaotic Evil with Genius Intelligence and don't stick up for failed masters. The Enhanced Edition is required. Download

I forgot to mention that Morgoth has processed many of the dragon animation files. He deserves credit for that.

By this logic, subtledoctor, items shouldn't exist at all. Or anything else. Too much trouble. This is the sort of streamlining that has eroded the interactive dimension of these games and many others, and players' imaginations alongside. What we need is more original items and more buttons, dialogues and ways of using items. To the OP: as the others said, it is possible to make items disappear on their own, if you create them by an application of a spell with a temporary Create inventory item effect, but only if they are in the inventory at the time they are supposed to vanish. If the player drops them on the ground before the X hour, he can pick them up later. You want them to be gone or converted on rest? Add a simple check to the top of BALDUR.BCS and BALDUR25.BCS, followed by Continue().

You are right: the circle, or rather something about the character of the animations, has made stealing impossible. I'm putting up an update that decreases dragons' personal space, but that has to be done with an effect that exists only in the Enhanced Edition. It can't be done by changing animations' INI files. Stealing from dragons will be possible, then, only for EE players. Adalon will still drop scales and Cromwell will still make the armor for "classic" engine's players. As for Morentherene, the thing that would make the most sense is to check not for invisibility but for a certain level of Move Silently. That's my tip. You are on your own for everything else.

Updated Silver dragons in BG2 are more like pewter dragons. This gives them a shining look and a more or less matching appearance to the armor made from their scales. The graphical replacements will go into any game, but specially in BG2 Adalon and all of the other silver dragons will drop silver scales. In EE games dragon scales of all types have been made stealable, too. It is a tall order to sneak up on a dragon to pluck some scales off him, and thievery on this epic scale calls for some very high points in Pick Pockets. How scales from other dragons have been obtained, by stealth or cut from their dead bodies, makes no practical difference, but in the case of silver dragon scales it does: the armor from peacefully taken scales can be worn by characters of good alignment. Cespenar the imp can make both types of armor, but Cromwell in Athkatla can also be persuaded to forge a suit from either type. This requires high personal charisma and high reputation. P. S. I won't object if someone with Siege of Dragonspear makes a change to the script of Morentherene, the sleeping green dragon, so that she does not wake to the approach of characters in stealth. Stealing scales from a dormant dragon should make for an interesting adventure. Download

You are the only one wondering, so the answer is no. I'm about to delete all of the files, actually. But in this topic there is an early version of the Animate mechanic. And you've played the shadow dragon part of the other one, haven't you?

One of my spells is supposed to give 5 experience points to its caster, if the target is a monster with 1 HD or level. It should give 10 for a 2 HD monster and so on. Now, I can write the lot of these effects, running to 20 HD, let's say, and put the maximum-minimum HD in the effects' fields, but how do I target them? I would like to just direct them at Original caster, but then the max-mins will also be his sizes. Do I really have to make 20 subspells and make each of the effects here a Cast spell, Preset target, and then the subspell will have an Original caster-targeted XP bonus?

I still need a tester or several. This mod is going to be my last or at most second to last, or real this time, and it's big. Overall I have tried to give people something to do besides killin' thangs. A lot of the mod has to do with magic, and I used up about every unusual application of the engine for the new spells and effects; the rest was left in my other mods. Here I have priest and wizard spells that bring spiders from the sky, give people perfect bodies for money, lay out fields of poppy by day and nightshade by night, throw lightning on the end of arrows, rewind time, build mirror labyrinths, lead pursuers to snake pits, grow phantom trees that drop fruit, discover secrets, sacrifice innocents and more. Besides this I have Jump, Alarm, Blink and other staples from the AD&D Player's Handbook. There are also some special abilities: wizards can cast any spell from the book without memorizing it with a very, very long casting time, bards can spot and learn spells, skills and monster abilities used around them - and teach each other, if the player takes the time. I improved the effects and sounds of Entangle, Web and Grease and designed more tactically convenient "patch-based" versions of them. I will also try to incorporate my Animate Dead revamps from the unfinished "Animate Dead Now," where the dead can be raised as zombies or resurrected outside the party, and corpses on the ground rot, stink and infect the characters near them with a variety of diseases. These changes and additions will work in any Enhanced Edition game, IWDEE included, but there are quest elements specifically for the first BG, too. The party can crack and use up Dradeel's and Ulcaster's books as well as the book of Yago, whose quest with Brielbara and Coran, and his backstory, have been written out in full. New people will appear at the Nashkel fair, and to be made are a couple of proper new quests of my own. I'll give a few screenshots. But the tester needs to be committed to helping me with this and not bolt for the slightest reason out there or drop out because he no longer feels like it.

Magic: the Gathering is not a fitting example here, even if you mean the computer version. Of course when a game is made specially to win, people will try to do just that. Even so the amount of brain-wracking over mechanics that started going into playing MtG and balancing its cards in the early 2000s was incomparable to the early sets. It had not been considered a problem if you won on turn three with Channel or something like that. If that happened too often, your group would just decide to ban a few of the cards. Powerful was thought fine, simple, big-brush mechanics were thought fine. Playing simply for fun at the local level. Enjoying the beautiful and original art. And then all those complex tournaments started to kick off, money prizes came in, plus the sliding Legacy format. Card rarity began to matter, a market formed, it was a snowball. Today... well, today MtG is so depleted that I wonder anyone plays it at all, but let's say ten years ago when it was still hot, it was already a labyrinthine field of tricks and know-how. AD&D's Player Handbook stated upfront, though, that AD&D is not a game played to win. Diablo, the first one actually, pioneered this growth of complexity in computer RPGs. Its multiplayer was unique. The craze about set collecting didn't start with Diablo 2, oh no. But multiplayer Diablo was really something else, a game in itself, and the most original part of it, I think. A protuberance thrown out to the future. What is curious is that these attempts to shoot for the future were always in the same direction: complexity of interchangeable details, crowd mechanics and some kind of market. It is as if the game developers were imitating the globalizing, virtualizing economy around while still on the surface being epigones of Tolkien - or gothic fantasy in Diablo's case. Well, maybe they did grow tired of repeating the same patterns, having done simple hack and slash since the 1970s. But that's an outside perspective. Looking inside, I don't think it's possible to get bored of being a strong, young hero in a mysterious land with beautiful women and inhuman and superhuman forces. What is supposed to be the maturation from there - becoming an old guy, cynical, ironic and with two slots in Non-Fungible Tokens? Or an escapist born into escapism, as with the people who are 15 or 25 today? But this is a difficult topic, one that philosophers have written books about. I've said enough to make my point. Before was different from after, and after did not necessarily follow from before, and I like before much better, even though before will have no future except after. What I feel is like I've been sewn into a straitjacket of the only possible time line - a tight brown straitjacket with short sleeves...

I came up with this today. How to make it so that Turn Undead not only works against the undead but also against fiends, as it should by the Player's Handbook's rules? The easiest possibility is to patch all creatures of the DEMONIC race with the PALADIN class, and then they will be routed with a yellow panic circle and the "Turned Paladin" message when the turning attempt succeeds. The text strings, this one and the usual, could be changed to read "Turn Unholy." That's simple, but evil paladins never get destroyed or controlled, and the panic looks different from the usual turning. A more natural way would be to do a different patching: convert DEMONIC creatures to the UNDEAD General first, give the ZOMBIE default race (for instance) to those whose race is NONE or NO_RACE unless they use one of the ghost animations, in which case make them WRAITH (or SPECTRAL_UNDEAD or SPECTRE, there is no practical difference). Where it is important to keep the creature's race, class can be changed. I went through all of the suspicious creatures in BG1 and BG2, and here are all of the ones that need to be specially changed by name: "Ulcaster" -> wraith 134, undead DAITEL.CRE -> undead (it can't hurt to convert anything with "ghost" in the name to the UNDEAD general, actually) "Ghost Knight" -> undead "Death Tyrant" -> zombie 148 "Eye of the Dead" -> undead "Spectral Troll" - > undead, equip somewhere immune1, ring95, wraith 134, class wolf_dread 148 (to keep the troll race for the ranger bonus) "Helmite Ghost" - > wraith 134, undead "Ghostly Monk" - > wraith 134, undead "Ghostly Priest" - > wraith 134, undead "Badon's Ghost" - > wraith 134 "Dettseh's Ghost" - > wraith 134 "Ghostly Apparition" - > wraith 134, undead "Wraith Sarevok" - > wraith 134, undead, WRITE_BYTE 0x234 20 (increase level to 20 for his fight not to be easy) "Slave Wraith" - > class 148, undead "Demon Wraith" - > class 148, undead These are all of them. The other undead have the right races or classes. There may be a few special cases to look up in the Icewind Dales. Those who know this stuff well already understand how to proceed, but I'll lay it down for the others. When after this clean-up all of the demons have been converted to the UNDEAD General, you would go on to step two: alter the UNDEAD-targeting effects of spells and items to target or ignore those races instead. There is about half a dozen of undead races to go around and a couple of classes. You would clone the effects and delete the originals, like this for effect 318 with the criterion "GENERAL = UNDEAD" (line 2 of SPLPROT): LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 155 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 108 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 150 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 132 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 115 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 175 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 125 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 126 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 148 parameter2 = 104 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 147 parameter2 = 105 END LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 318 match_parameter2 = 1 parameter1 = 148 parameter2 = 105 END This covers all of the races and the exceptional case of the dread and vampiric wolves. (The WIGHT class is not important, because there is no WIGHT race.) Then you would insert DELETE_EFFECT for the original. After this you would need to do a similar replacement for line 3 of SPLPROT, "GENERAL != UNDEAD," but here you would need to write a composite condition: NOT race ZOMBIE and NOT race GHOUL and NOT race SPECTRE and NOT class WOLF_DREAD... All of them are on the list above. Here is where I stopped, because here it stops being fun for me. But I know there are people out here who enjoy writing things like that. So this is why I'm putting up this idea and the info on the exceptions. After covering lines 1 and 2 of SPLPROT for effects with opcode 318 you would need to do the same for opcode 326, and then take care of possible versions of both that use the "GENERAL = specified value" down the list to target UNDEAD or NOT UNDEAD instead. That is easy enough and will also cover opcode 177. Simply run this code: LPF ALTER_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode = 177 match_parameter1 = 4 match_parameter2 = 3 parameter1 = 134 parameter2 = 104 END This will replace UNDEAD targeting in 177s with targeting the WRAITH race. You would need to repeat this for the other combinations, and then the same for 178 and 179 ("THAC0 vs. Type" and "Damage vs. Type") and 318 and 326. You would also need to replace the "Golem or undead" condition in SPLPROT (line 31) with another extension of your long race-class condition, and do a reverse for line 32, "Not golem or undead." With these replacements in place for SPL and ITM files the undead-affecting powers and weapons would still home in on their targets while clerics and paladins would get a cool new power. It's all long but straightforward secretarial work. I don't enjoy that, but some modders embark on these things for the good of the community and whatnot.

The games themselves lack prefixes. Or they did until Beamdog came along. And even then their Spirit Lion creature is SPIRLION. One of many examples. These prefixes are only a moderate protection against duplicated and overwritten file names. Mostly this doesn't happen because the possibility of an exact name overlap is just remote. Lets orderly modders sleep easier at night, not much more. But about items and slots: to my knowledge, item-equipping flags don't get removed if an item that Weidu would put in a quick slot gets moved to the backpack because the quickies are full. They end up in the backpack still as UNDROPPABLE. But Weidu doesn't come into this for default items anyhow. The key was Bioware's, they just plunked it in the CRE somewhere (items don't have to lie in their proper places in CREs, you can have a suit of armor with an AC bonus in the belt slot etc., and it will work), then clicked the UNDROPPABLE flag, along with UNSTEALABLE, and that was enough. I don't know how any mod could destroy the key without an outright REPLACE_CRE_ITEM for that slot and that item, which is vandalism. And not something Sword Coast Stratagems is likely to be guilty of.

Yes, thanks.

At what level does a cleric receive any chance to blast or dominate a skeleton? I'm making a spell that will turn the power back on the caster and maybe blow up or dominate him, but reward him with experience for the risk. It should not be available until there is such a chance. So I hesitate between level 3 and 4, that is, 5th and 7th level caster.

Why check if you've missed anything if all you are going to get is what they drop? And there are many items that are either equipped with the Undroppable flag set or as not Droppable in item properties. Especially rings, which give immunities. Davaeorn probably has some special protections. Real, droppable rings start with RING, that one is simply a copy hastily made and retaining the name. But there is also, for example, HELMNOAN, which is the invisible helmet that undead, elementals, golems and so on wear to be protected from critical hits. And their natural weapons - claws and so on. Bandits and ogres fight with different weapons than they leave behind. I don't know how many items can be carried at most, but some NPC carry more than one of a type. That gnome running from kobolds on the Nashkel Mine map has a bunch of equipment on him but not worn and so not dropped, including a robe of fire resistance and a chain mail he could not even put on. But I think you simply missed Davaeorn's key. He always drops it.

I'll try to return the favor when I get old. If I remember. By old games I mean the ones before the advent of the technological connectedness paradigm, which happened around 2005. The virtual disappearance of the real single player experience began around then. It has been resurrected since then, but very specifically in response to a need for some privacy from the social networks and everything plugged into them. But 2005 or around is the year I would draw a jagged line. Some games still came a little later with the previous mindset of one man vs. nature or one man vs. other men (and it WAS men by default, too); the second game type you could have seen in early multiplayer games, Ultima Online, let's say. They were not homey. Today - well, World of Warcraft is actually quite old, too, but as something that tries to be hip it makes a good example: people did not use to walk around with a cute bird on their heads. This did not used to be a thing. So it's quite possible that you really haven't seen the pre-new-age games to be able to tell the difference. Although, if one was to go farther into the past, where *I* haven't been, or not much (I have played Lords of Midnight and a few others), there would be discovered still other distinctions and earlier steps on the ladder rising from the gloom. All of those steps that know about, though, confirm the direction of the change: from lonely mystery to crowds. In response to Awachi: come on, the broad wild areas of Baldur's Gate were certainly a choice. And not an exceptional case either. The best example of a thirst for solitude I know of are the random encounter maps of the first Fallouts, those small patches of nowhere... Sapienti sat. And I have seen milling NPC on town streets too, before then, in Might&Magic VI, in Daggerfall, too... not very old games, but I did not have a computer until around 1996-1997. Yes, but those towns and NPC were a drop in the ocean of wilderness. The deserts and snows and oceans of Might&Magic VI I'll never forget, and nostalgia has nothing to do with it. To miss what you can't get anymore is not nostalgic any more than being hungry is nostalgia for food. The experience and the essential meaning of that experience simply aren't there. The first Diablo sent you down, down, down into Hell; the second sent you across scenic locations. There is a difference. If you were to dig into the minute changes out here, on the industry and society level, that were to go into this unbearable coddling that's normal today, it would be many things, all revolving around companies' newfound obsession with "customer retention." Let the manager ring his clients once a month and ask they are doing, in case they forget the company name. Here you have constant tiny updates, newsletters, FORUMS, pre-post-semi-closed-alpha releases, feature packs, promotional campaigns, plush toys and paperback lines and social media pages and all of the other noise. But let a videogame historian write a book about media conglomerates. I said enough. Edit: Looking Glass! They were the people who made Thief, didn't they? Well, that's a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. Garrett and the world of shadows. Some parts of the first Thief shouldn't be prattled about, though. But since I had a mind to be profound, I should acknowledge that I understand that these changes all marked changes in civilization itself, its relation to technology, space - outer space, too, technology. The first Terminator movie was made in a culturally different place than the second, that is why they are different, not because special effects caught up. I understand there is no turning back the clock on perception, however, this is not about the clock. If I want an ocean, it's irrelevant to me whether humanity has decided to crawl over them in gigantic canisters and forget about caravels under sail. That might be a development, but then there is something wrong with the idea of development.

I said in the very beginning that this covers dog and wolf companions. Also only party members and familiars set off spawn points. The hounds' usefulness, then, is limited to creatures who are already on the map. I'm uploading an update that makes this ability more reliable and easier to use, plus the hounds will do a few points of damage to hostile creatures they throw themselves on, if those can be hit with normal weapons, and make most neutrals retreat a short ways. This can be useful for getting NPC away from doors, out of sight of shelves where the party is about to rummage and so on. I changed static animations of commoners, boys and so on into ones that move. These things happen only once, though. Plus there is another ability, for protecting characters.

I will just say this: for the amount of effort you are going to put into making some lines read a little differently you can write whole new conversations and quests. Isn't that more worthwhile? Yes, it would be very nice for immersion and be an entirely novel experience if ALL conversations wobbled and varied like this. It would look much more like talking to real people. But then the writers' rocket would never get far from its launch pad, especially if the things said, and therefore to be multiplied by x here, are more profound than "hi" and "hello." Writing is about sacrificing side branches and much complexity for the sake of strength in the direction you want to go. IF ~RandomNum(4,1)~ THEN REPLY ~To be or not to be: that is the question.~ IF ~RandomNum(4,2)~ THEN REPLY ~Yet should I be or should I not be?~ IF ~RandomNum(4,3)~ THEN REPLY ~'Tis being vs. being not, aye, that's the rub.~ IF ~RandomNum(4,4)~ THEN REPLY ~Beep-beep!~ From "The Unpublished Shakespeare." And that's for replies. For states, though, there is no increase in clicks if you diversify the states you would show in any case with RandomNum. Your NPC is going to say SOMETHING, so in addition to his "Greetings, what can I do for you?" you can write a few more, and it won't take any longer to get to same place. However, in both cases you will be forcing the player to peruse the alternative text instead of fast-forwarding to the results, and if your alternates don't provide any real information or lead to another outcome, he will just be wasting his time. I would use these random alternates only if I could both make all of them worth reading, entertaining or informative, whichever of them the player clicks across, as well as obviously tending to the same result - by a scenic route. Familiars' conversations are an example of something that could use a bit of this, and do, I think, only they are just bad. But ultimately, come on, make a new quest instead.

I can't do anything about that. But there are a lot of ready encounters. The wolves east of the Song of the Morning temple? I think they are always there. And does a spawn point react to anyone except party members?

By taking away all current hit points from leveling up? I'll just shrug. Most likely this is simply a flaw in the engine's code, a byte off. But if hit points have something to do with it, it may be possible to test for this by giving Charname an immunity, Permanent, from all effects that might kill or change hit points and looking at the deaders in the party in a saved game.

I was told recently that a spell I made was causing characters to die. It does use the Maze effect. And it worked in the fight with the "amazons" in chapter - what would it be, 2, in Baldur's Gate? But later, I don't know how much later, the casting character started dying. If this is related to chapter count or game time count, and if it doesn't only happen to party members, then my phase spiders are also going to start dying when they are encountered later on. Crap. I've done all of the testing in a saved game in Prologue. Well, it's good that somebody mentioned this. Maze is strange in a lot of ways. It interrupts current effects on the character, for instance, like changed colors. They only come back a second or two after reappearing. And if the character had a Maximum hit points bonus on (While Equipped from a ring in my case, if I'm not mistaken), then he comes back first without the bonus. It catches up then, but without the current hp, so the character ends up wounded. I may have to look into disabling the character instead.

Fixed and updated With this mod dogs of all kinds and wolves receive the ability to follow trails. This is true for wild, summoned or charmed animals of the canine sex and for any doggiedoo companions or NPC, unless they are already in the party. In that case they will have to wait until the next playthrough. Click on the button when not in combat, and the dog or wolf will sprint off in the direction of the nearest neutral or hostile creature (other than those directly around, that is). This is not very useful on crowded streets, where the wolf or dog will just bark up the hosiery of some gentleman of Verona around the corner, but it does show the way to the inhabitants of wild places. Fliers, ghosts and constructs either have no smell or leave no footprints to be found this way, though. If the creature is hiding or invisible, the animal, arriving, will throw it out of that state. This works better in an Enhanced Edition, where the animal will head first for the closest invisible, if there are any, and show him to the world, before the search is made for normal people. Partial invisibility (where the creature can't be targeted by spells) will linger for another round. The SoA engine, however, is very primitive, and all that is possible here is to run to whoever is nearest and, if he happens to be invisible, dispel the cover. Dogs and wolves now also spot invisible creatures at all times. It is no longer possible to send a thief hiding in shadows past a wolf pack, non-detection is also necessary. On your side you can take advantage of this by relying on the AI when fighting invisible enemies: the animals will start to lunge at what looks like empty air. Optional component, EE only: Personal Detect Invisibility Using hounds to reveal invisible creatures makes a bigger difference if the party does not have readily available low-level magic that turns invisibility into a nuisance. Invisibility should be a challenge and a puzzle. I moved priests' Invisibility Purge to level 4, plus this component makes it so that wizards' Detect Invisibility mostly benefits the caster himself. For the duration, which is 3 turns, he can cast spells at partially invisible creatures and attack them without a penalty. With the AI on the caster will attack or cast, depending on his script, even enemies who are completely invisible, just like the dogs, but every 3 seconds invisibles around are brought to the state of partial invisibility that lasts 12 seconds. Allies will have to make do with handicaps, unless they can cast Detect Invisibility on themselves also. The enemy or neutral will remain partially invisible as long as the wizard is around; the caster needs to go away for 12 seconds and let partial invisibility quite expire before the others in the party get relief. This is a bit weird, but it does drive home the point about subjective vision and makes encounters with invisibles harder and fuller of incident. This component should probably be installed only before the party includes priests who can use 3rd level magic. I patched all creature files to know and memorize Invisibility Purge as a 4th level spell, but I can't do anything about priests who already exist knowing it or having it memorized as a 3rd level spell. They may not be able to cast it. It's possible that the spell will sort itself out to the right page of the scroll when the priest levels up, but I can't guarantee it. Update The hounds will chase off neutrals and harm enemies once. The ability is more reliable. And there is another command, to go to and protect s friendly or neutral creature. The hound will be distracted by fighting, but will come back to escorting its charge afterwards, until ordered elsewhere. It is possible to click on a portrait with this ability to send the dog to that character. Download

Here I pick up my custom versions of two monsters from long ago. I have mentioned them before in another thread (in "Animate Dead Now") and attached an archive with files for override for those who might want to try them out, but this time there is a tp2 for a proper installation. The phase spider turns out to have been bugged with a novel glitch, too, a fresh surprise from the game engine. In the end I changed the spider altogether, freeing it from dependency on an Enhanced Edition in the process, and updated the dog. I am going to remove the files in the other place. The two monsters will use original tactics. The dogs will appear in greater numbers in an encounter (in the only encounter where they do appear), as every one has a chance of "gating" in another. Depending on the breaks, there may be a whole horde of them. They gang up on party members, trying to surround and bite the same character from every side, and sometimes "backstab" as low-level thieves. Notwithstanding their high morale they are smart, with solid Intelligence and Wisdom scores, and after enough dogs have been killed the rest will blink out of the area. They have also received their due Neutral Good alignment from the Monstrous Manual. Phase spiders begin on the Ethereal Plane - switched out of the game world. This is not done through invisibility, so they cannot be found by usual means. The spiders will materialize and pounce when the party walks near. They will warp using my recently-made Blink effect only to distant party members and will focus on the weakest and softest (worst Armor Class) characters. When a spider scores a hit, it will always phase out and a short time later reappear at an unpredictable point nearby, usually to tear into the nearest unfortunate. They can pop up anywhere, and I recommend going back-to-back into a closed formation when fighting them. Download

Just what keeps Shadows of Amn with the EE engine from loading games saved in the first BGEE? The engine is the same. I mean, I haven't actually tried putting saves from the first into the folder for the second, so I don't know what would happen if I tried loading them. Maybe they wouldn't show in the menu. Or crash everything on account of missing resources. How about games saved under IWDEE and the BGEEs? What in principle prevents either of those from taking a file of IWDEE, loading its AR-whatever and the actors?

Eh? Why not? Obviously I'm not going to do the same thing the Trilogy already does with this.

As I listen to the Tristram theme by Matt Uelmen, I think back on when I first played Diablo. It didn't have a numeral then, yet... and come to think of it, there is still only one. As I listen to the music, I say, I remember how my character trotted slowly and alone through the gloomy village, with its trees and weeds to the side, and realize that the old games simply had more space in them. Fewer people. Today, if you are not playing something that deliberately puts you on a desert isle, you are surrounded by NPC - walking around, standing about to give quests or just making up the scenery. Everything feels like a megapolis. When there are no people moving, they will try to have some birds regularly flying overhead or bugs buzzing by the feet. But with a 1990s game such as Diablo's surface or Baldur's Gate more and more pleasure comes from simply going around not meeting any crowds beside an occasional monster spawn. In fact, even the first Diablo's dungeons feel less crowded than the second's, even though action may be just as frequent. I don't know what makes up this difference, it was something unconscious in the changed habits and ideas of the developers - millimetres and milliseconds already away. This is an odd reason to want to play old games - to get away from crowds, but it makes sense because games, like everything, reflect their time, and in the 1990s the world's population was around 6 billion, maybe even less. Today it is going on 7.5 - after just 20-odd years. And much of this population, still spread widely before in villages and small towns, has flowed to gigantic urban centers, swelling them beyond any memory of nature, privacy or quiet. It is no wonder that the concept of privacy is being scoffed at today: try keeping any in an anthill. The Internet doesn't even need to enter into this. There is one, two generations now of inner-city children solidly removed from first-hand experience of wild places - other than vacant lots or rooftops. And all this pseudo-medieval hamlet living in old reenacted fantasy, these plump tavernkeepers, smiths banging on things, has taken on a double nostalgic power: today I miss the days when people missed those other days. Videogame mechanics, too, with their new complexity play the role of another crowd. Today's players spend a ridiculous amount of time sorting out fine points of a myriad of abilities and effects. They did not argue about a 1.1 second bonus to cooldowns in 1998. Just by virtue of fewer mechanics to compete with role-playing elements (acting out of one's self and interacting with the world for a greater purpose) stood closer to the fore. Curiously, as younger players, for some reasons of their own, wind their way to games like BG - or maybe instead as the older players change and assimilate new habits, ejecting inconvenient memories - this min-maxing and power-playing has been projected on the oldies. Nobody at all used to obsess about "builds" when these games first came out. It's hard to say when that began... a few years into the millennium, possibly. In the beginning you would just make a fighter-mage, keep rerolling stats until you got everything into the 16-18 range, I did anyway, and then just enjoyed how nice and powerful that was. Rerolling hit points on level-up sometimes, possibly. What else was there to do but put a star or two into long swords? From there you can already see how the future appearance of "kits" had to tilt the picture, and later innocuous-seeming conveniences from Beamdog - health bars, sprite outlines, plastic-looking selection circles. This was the beginning of a busy world, where immersion was never implied. Today, I imagine, if a game is not aggressively a GAME, it feels like there is nothing to do in it to the players. And so for a modder to bring in some elements that are actually traditional and don't involve mechanics, or not obviously, such as dialogues, different approaches, items to buy and try, peaceful resolutions, just reading for any purpose, whether that is an item description, a conversation, a journal entry, all this is a hard sell to people coming from Skyrim or, hell's bells, Dota 2. They are simply not used to this calmer and more spacious experience. And those who have been around to remember probably prefer not to. Just listen to the technobabble around this place. You might think they are building rockets... One of my favorite games from the same period as the Infinity Engine is Faery Tale 2: Halls of the Dead. There one of the greatest delights is exploring the countryside, just running about. Not that it is optional for getting around. A system of coach stations exists to move between different regions quickly, but passage is surprisingly expensive, and, there being no horses to ride, mostly the three brothers who are the heroes of the story lope in long strides through a lush countryside. It's trees after trees after trees. Sometimes they run into goblins, bandits or zombies, sometimes there will be a wild man in rags roaming restlessly in a tiny ruin, who, again surprisingly, is a tinker and can buy the party's staff, but on the whole you find the dungeons and landmarks that there are by running near them. A minimap exists, but it takes a double click to check and it is a peace of paper that you need to take care not to lose. How would that sort of thing go with this generation of players? I think they could adapt, they get to do a lot of adapting in this life, but would they actually enjoy something so formless? Their world is populated with student loans and Ukraine updates. They lack certain vital skills, I think, common habits and mental attitudes that were not passed down. The skills and attitudes that made the wastes of FTA2, Diablo or BG so easy and natural for myself in the 1990s and that make them therapeutic for me today. Their time capsule character is not to be confused with lugubrious nostalgia. Rather they keep alive the scenes, shapes and social distances that are still the norm for the spirits of old-timers. I think it is this that keeps people thronging on the forums and hovering about the games and not so much any great virtues of the games themselves.