Newbie BG1 player questions!

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Hey there, never imagined I will be opening up a topic in BG1 forum, but here we are...

That's right. You know (or are about to learn anyway) that I own and play BG2+ToB, plus IWD+HoW+ToTLM, and IWD2, but so far, I never had a chance to play BG1....such a shame, right? Considering the fact that most people say it is even better than the second one! I wanted it sooo badly!

Well, I live in Turkey, so I had no luck finding BG1 anywhere, Amazon.com does not ship stuff to us, and all... This sucks, I know...

But, I recently discovered that a friend in college had BG1 CDs! Wow! Right infront of my nose and I failed to notice it for 3 years!

I begged begged and begged to him and he (being a very kind guy and all) happily said he could lend me his CDs. To my suprise I discovered he was a RPG game freak too, having BG1, 2, IWDs, NWNs, and other games I never heard!

His CDs are in his home town so he can bring me them next week.

COOL! Can you believe it! I gotta play BG1! This is like an impossible dream comng true! Yipee! I am so happy!

Ofcourse I have a few questions.

I wil only have BG1, no full saga, or expansions like Tales of Sword Coast, or was it named Dark Side of Sword Coast? Forgive my ignorance. I should get the patch, then, righto?

I want to try TuTu everybody is talking about, so....do you reccomend Easy TuTu or the old TuTu? Trouble is, my BG2 is VERY heavily modded, so can this cause troubles? Bugs?

Or, which mods do you reccomend in general, I heard some mods working only with TuTu. Now, I may be quite knowledgable about BG2 mods, but I know absolutely nothing about BG1 mods. So I need your help!

Ofcourse...I may just play once without mods. A pure, unmodded but patched BG1 game...now even this is my wettes deam, as I had zero experience regarding to BG1. I can stand the awkward graphics, do not worry. Do you reccomend me playing without mods once? YES! Only...my friend said it had trouble working under Windows XP, or was it its expansion? Kinda confused here.

Can you help me a little here, I will be eternally grateful!

See you all around! Have fun! Oh, may this week pass by SUPER FAST!

 

Really, simple ansver: Play BG1 no tutu, no mods, only patch.

The only thing i would might have considered would have been EOU, just to get higher stacks of missles and higher stacks of missles in shops. anything else you can do just well without.

 

TotSC is the expansion, and DSotSC is a mod that was originally tremendously buggy (not sure how it is now). And patches are ALWAYS a good idea (except maybe in this case, if you want the Ring of Wizardry hidden outside the FAI).

Given the sheer number, I'd say almost certainly. Besides, you'll want to try an unmodded install at least once for the comparison.

Given your penchant for difficulty, I'd recommend BlackWyrmLair's Grey Clan, Episode 1: [something] in Twilight. I've tested it myself, and it's pretty good. Sadly, there really aren't a whole lot of mods for vanilla BG1, but you can always check SP or PPG's modlist.

As I said above, playing at least once without mods is always worth it, in this case also for comparison, but in many cases just to extend replay value (getting the most out of adding mods). I've played many times on XP (Home), but I had the expansion by then so it might be unexpanded that had trouble adapting to a new OS. However it works out, you can always get help here or in the Techno forum. Good luck.

EDIT:
Oh, and raptor's right about EoU. It's so much of a neccessity I tend to forget about it not being part of the original game.

 

I endorse EasyTutu as the latest Tutu release--unless you have a foreign language installation, there's no reason you should play the older Tutu.

Playing EasyTutu, you'll want SCS, which is the resident AI/encounter improvement mod and quite a bit better than most stuff out there: http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/

 

Thank you for your time!

OK then I will get the patch, and EoU for this maiden game. I will not bother with TuTu, as Felinoid kindly pointed out, given my sheer number of mods it can cause more headache than it is worth.

SimDingo, I really really loved the sound of SCS, you know I enjoy the harder-battle mods. But this will be my very first game and all, so I am not planning for it this very time. Though, it also requires the TuTu, or expansion, or both? Oh well....

Umm, I heard too that patch eliminates the Ring of Wizardry. Considering I am planning to play as mage (or a conjurer, to be more precise) as mage is my all-time favourite class, I may find a ring of wizardry quite useful! Does the patch fix really troubled bugs as well, I mean, is it a great neccesity? Just curious, you know? Does EuO need it beforehand?

Can someone confirm if the vanilla game works properly on Windows XP? Or what is needed to make it work with minimum problems? Just curious!

 

Silverstar, I had a few troubles at first with XP and BG1. See the sticky in this forum. It seems to work fine with a lot of users, but needs a slight modification with others.

 

Oh thanks! Forgive me, I did not notice the sticky thread in my excitement; besides, I am new to this forums, eh?

So...I pray that it will work without problems for me. If not, well, I will heed the advices in the sticky, if it does not solve again, well...it seems I will be here asking questions again!

 

Heh, no problem, there's plenty of folk here who can help. You *should* be OK with it though, fingers crossed.

 

Given EasyTutu's installation method, I don't think a large number of BG2 mods would affect it, unless you have BIFed your installation (you will not have done this). But I'm not going to put money down on that--ask Macready if it becomes important.
SCS requires Tutu, yes. I'm not aware of anything similar for vanilla BG1.

Since you've settled on not using Tutu, however, I can safely go ahead and plug the freshly released BG1UB v4, which I'd recommend even for first-time players: http://www.pocketplane.net/bg1ub

 

Looks very nice, SimDing0, thank you so much!

So I will get EoU, Unfinished Bussiness. Should I get the patch beforehand? My modding insticts tell me yes, but losing the mighty ring of wizardry sucks!

Any other non-TuTu mods you reccomend for a first time player? I heard somewhere about a NPC mod, which added a lot of romances/interactions etc. but was it strictly TuTu? I also heard that without the mod BG1 NPCs are rather...silent, not like I am used to in BG2. Is this true? I know there are no original romances but what about banters and interjections?

 

You're thinking of the BG1 NPC Project, which yes, is unfortunately Tutu-only.

Without it, BG1 does have banters, but expect to be able to count the number you see on one hand.

 

Why do you want mods when you're playing for the first time? Play with no mods first...

 

Thanks SimDing0, you have been more than kind and helpful!

Barmy Army, you are absolutely right, but I can still have the EoU and UB for my first run, eh?

 

For ethics, you should buy the game from your friend, even if it's old now. But of course, he won't sell...

 

There's still a RoW in the game. You just don't get a second one.

It works fine with XP.

It's obvious you aren't going to play a non-modded game, so just load up with TuTu mods and see what happens.

(I think this should be moved to BG2 ToB forum because of all the TuTu talk.)

 

Oops, sorry, I will not talk about TuTu anymore, no!

And, Kuemper, I may be a mod freak, but even I know the value of a first pure, unmodded play. Well, mostly anyway. EoU and UB are different however, they are more like neccesity than luxury.

 

^I see your point. Well. UB adds a few nice stuff, extended quests, banters, more items etc. eh? So do you think I should save it for future plays? I will most certainly play more than once, ofcourse!

 

Look at it this way: if you play once with just the vanilla game, you'll get what folks are complaining about.

 

Trust me Silverstar, BG is a game you will want to play again once you've beaten it. Then you can add other things to spice up, so you don't have exactly the same experience again. I'd play 'vanilla' first though