Will these mods make for a good game?:

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I agree with you, ister. What I wanted to express is that Alignment changes are generally subjective. It means that in details, the specific changes does not have to be subjective. They can be, but not necessarily. So the "Additional Components" I recommend could contain fixes that might contain "subjective" changes, but not everything is subjective in them. However, I will welcome any other solution gladly, as long as it solves the current big problem with Fixpack, now commented by many players in lots of posts above.

You just keep repeating the same, so let's finish this. Three categories will definitely make several people happier, and I'm sure it's evident to everyone that if we have "Core Fixes"+"Any Other Additions (such as the modder pack, text update)", it's FAR from satisfying those people who want to see certain "fixes" in a separate component. On the other hand, "Core Fixes"+"Additional Fixes"+"Any Other Additions" gives choice to the latter group of people, while those who want all fixes can still decide to install all three categories of components. And it's obviously not more time in technical respect to maintain more components (or one more component), because the fixes are just divided between two components, and it doesn't mean their structure & content must be altered in any way just because they're in different components.

It's another question whether you will undertake the effort and time you will need to listen to and realise what players actually want. I welcome the fact that you are reacting Felinoid's (and other players') questions here. However, there is still much work, and reorganization, to do with Fixpack. I hope you guys will undertake it, as it will result in better quality. "[..] the smaller number means we can produce new releases on a faster time line" (from the above quote) is not the way to go: it's not just the frequency of releases which is important, but rather the quality content of releases themselves. Remember, the shortest path is often not the best path, when we're trying to reach a goal.

 

On the arrows, I don't have any +3s. Like I said, it'd make a lot more sense if it were that rather than a duplicate. Now, I would just make them myself, but there's the uncertainty of what images to give them, which is why I'm asking for the file. Or you could just tell me which ones and I can do it myself. (I don't really care about the item description so long as I know what it is by looking at it and it behaves properly. It's certainly not worth a Cromwell's Smithy tweak.)

That's not quite convincing enough for me. But digging up the fact that it only costs 250 gold...there's no way you could get the kind of enchantment I was thinking of with only 250 gold worth of ingredients.

Possibly. But for an aesthetic change (and one that isn't nearly as yargh-inducing as the moon dog), what's the point?

EDIT: Damn. I hate it when I answer my own questions. The point is absence of confusion. A player sees this other Flamestrike animation, and (providing they don't just recognize it from BG1, which they may not even have played) wonders what new spell this is. Whether it's more powerful than the normal Flamestrike. Of course, questions like this could bring new members (possibly even permanent ones) to our boards, but...meh. Nevermind.

Cool, that's a nice compromise. Objection withdrawn.

 

The inventory bam file is IAROW15, the description one is PAROW15. However, I suspect that these bam files either don't exist in your game or they designate wrong animations. But if they happen to designate the right animations for +3 arrows, then you can use them to create the item file. The other solution would be a clean installation afresh.

 

I especially like the italics. When you subject anything to the degree of scrutiny we've invited for Fixpack, it's going to get a large number of 'I don't like this and that'. To somehow extrapolate that there's a 'big problem' that's been commented upon by 'many players in lots of posts' is, I think, a stretch. I invite anyone to put their fixpack-of-choice under the same scrutiny and see what you find--I'll guarantee unconditionally that there are no new quests in BG2 Fixpack.

I'm afraid it's time to get a bit puckish: you'll find that I trust your "obvious" technical speculation much less than my own knowledge of how the Fixpack is organized/maintained and my own practical experience of maintaining large scale, multi-component projects. When I say that a process foo will take bar to accomplish, it's because I know the Fixpack, I've done process foo before with other projects, and know that it will, indeed, require bar to accomplish.

If you're suggesting that you want some of the alignments moved to a new OBC, that's a reasonable suggestion. If you're saying players are clamoring for a new category beside OBC, please put me in contact with this heretofore unknown pool of players.

 

@CamDawg

As far as alignments are concerned, the only people who agreed with you here were your own folk from G3 site. All independent players who posted here agreed with us on the pirates' issue. Hence, if you really care for players' feedback, you have enough evidence here to know that your fixpack needs to be amended.

 

Good thing we've already started a review of them, then.

 

I don't see any reason non-modder feedback should be weighted over modder feedback (I make this distinction rather than "player" because I consider myself both a player and a modder), or the feedback of someone who's never even touched the game. The strength of the argument is what counts to me, not the source. Sure, someone who's never seen BG2 is at a disadvantage here, but nonetheless...

 

I do. Players are often not so biased like we modders. To those who didn't read the part in one of my previous posts about "game-centric" development, I recommend reading it (I wouldn't like to repeat it, neither I have the time). Modders often view things too technically (oh no file has invalid value at offset 0xZZZZ), and this can become a limit to creative thinking (e.g. in case of the Pirate issue), and will also result in meaningless "fixes". Players who are not "infected" by knowing the game files and structure, often make wiser remarks -- because they view it from the player's view. And eventually, the fixpack (except it's superhappy modder pack) is intended for players, not modders, right?

Are there modders who are not players?

If they have dependencies, content change may be required, sure, but you've told this only about BG2 Tweak pack yet. Are there many examples in BG2 fixpack to components/fixes that are not concurrent? As one of the authors, you obviously know it better than me. The fixes I can think of, such as Alignments and most of the fixes I know, are not dependent to each other. (To those who don't get it: e.g. (1) in case of components: the Hostile Dogs in Arnise Keep fix does not depend on the Alignment fix; (2) inside a component: how the Irenicus alignment is fixed, does not depend on how the Pirate alignments are fixed.)

Yeah, I see that from yesterday, the G3 Fixpack forum also has a relevant topic about Alignment, and this SP topic is quite hot too. So 'Baronius following Fixpack around chanting "tweak, tweak, tweak."' didn't have such evil intent after all, did he?

[ October 14, 2006, 23:27: Message edited by: Baronius ]

 

I don't know if you think its relevant, but here is my 2 cents:

I am just a simple player. Don't use mods because unlike a lot of you cool guys here, I haven't been through SoA and ToB as much as you have.

I still just enjoy the original game.

What I do like is bugs being fixed.

Alignment: Well...

Irenicus alignment is obviously a bug. I don't care. I don't use Detect Evil, Smite Evil. Protection from Evil or Holy Smite and those kind of spells against him. Breach, pierce magic, insect plague and so on is another matter and I still beat the snot out of him since he is pretty easy in Suldanesselar. Hell is another case though...

Otyughs: Don't care. I beat the snot out of them.

The pirates: Don't care. I beat the snot out them.

The dogs in De'Arnise keep: Don't care. I beat the snot out of them if they attack or if I want to feed the Umber Hulks.

Long story short: I don't care about alignments, if they attack, I beat the snot out of them.

Infinite items: Well, it's nice that it's corrected and especially those more or less unique magic items which only should be one of. But to be honest, doesn't affect my game play. If it is unique or rare, I only have one of it. Although two Amulets of Power would be nice.

Spell animations: Don't really care. Doesn't affect my game play.

But what I do care about, is bugs like spells, weapons, armors and items not behaving like they are described, proficiency points not assigned, crashes who could be avoided, exploits which could be used as cheese, dialogues being garbled, the possibility of a quest or the game not continuing. Well you know what I mean.

As I stated in the start: I am just a simple player and a simple guy too. In my opinion if it works, don't fix. Even if it looks wrong.

But I do understand that some of those fixes you are discussing is nice to have in some of the mods. Fair enough.

But I really think the suggestion of "Core Fixes" + " Additional Fixes" + "Any Other Additions" or "Optional but Cool" is not so bad an idea.

By the way I have questions to two of the core fixes:

As you know Viconia can change alignment in ToB, which means she can´t use her evil Holy Symbol any more since she is now True Neutral. If she dies, she wil get a new Holy Symbol, according to alignment, when resurrected. Is that out of the question now with the fix?

The Selfish test is fixed. I have experienced in my games that usually Imoen or Nalia get snatched away from me. I have made sure they have a contingency which cast dispel when they are helpless which means they can open the three doors without penalties for the PC. In my opinion not an exploit but creative thinking. Is that out of the question now?

Thanks guys and sorry for my misuse of the english language.

 

@Bar
It's worth noting that once Felinoid and Sikret posted some concrete examples (compare and contrast to "we all know it's tweaks") changes started happening. I think someone may have suggested this previously.

To be honest, the exploit acting as a legitimate correction here never occurred to us--we'll need to account for this in the next version. You may also want to check the OBC component Ghreyfain's Holy Symbol Fixes that grants Viconia a symbol of Shar instead.

The Hell Selfish test fixes close that exploit as well.

Yes. Alignments aren't dependent on much, but that's not what you're pushing for, is it? In order to not be half-assed about a new category, we would need to re-examine everything and decide where it goes again. While I can certainly see the amount of effort a new category would require, I fail to see the improvement it would bring over the current setup (if it's reasonably developer intent, core fixes, if not, OBC) and the three proposed (if it's reasonably developer intent, it's core fixes, if not, OBC, except for some stuff we'll put into a third category).

[ October 15, 2006, 15:44: Message edited by: CamDawg ]

 

Thanks for your fast answer CamDawg

 

Your decision. In my recommendation, a third category (component) wouldn't require all other fixes to be re-examined in a detailed way, just a quick, vague classifying instead. (In one of my previous posts, I explained why this would still satisfy many players.) So the "subjective" fixes would be moved. Plus there are also many "fixes" which are logical, but cosmetic and practically meaningless in the game. Many players, as you can notice, say "they don't care". Others don't even like these "invisible" changes, no matter that they have no visible result in the game. So the latter group of "fixes" could also be added to that other category. But we've talked about this already, so now that I see that some sort of process has started (and that you've become more open to feedback), I will leave the solution to you and the team, and won't bother you with further suggestions -- I think I've told all general advice I had.

Well, you got what you want: player feedback. I hope it will help you getting closer to understand generally what Sikret and myself tried to clarify. If you do, you will be able to avoid issues in the development phase, so players won't even need to report them.

Good luck!

 

The team's attitude (and mine) has remained the same throughout this process. The difference is that actionable feedback has finally been provided. Thanks for the backhanded compliment anyway.

I'll let you rebut your own recommendation:

 

Yeah, absolutely nothing is actionable on alignments... I think the only reason they bring up the same example over and over is because they don't want to spend hours looking through to see which creature is what, and then time on top of that to consider each of their alignments. Not to mention that with the grouping mindset they have, only one example (a rather clear one IMO) is needed to change the whole thing to tweaks.

Now if I've ever got a whole day to kill I might look into the alignments and pick out other examples on a case-by-case basis, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

CamDawg: when I said that you know it better than me, I meant the technical structure and organization of the package and code. I thought it was quite obvious from the context. You probably misinterpreted it.

It's obvious that the person who makes it knows it the best. However, it doesn't mean that the solutions are always perfect, and that others can't ask questions or tell their doubts, or is that prohibited?

 

For anyone who wants to participate in the alignment discussions, the review has begun with the lawful good alignments.

@Fel, long overdue, but let's tackle those stores:

• Arcana Archives, Shadow Thief Fence, Khan Zahraa - All of these items had a finite quantity set that was being overridden by the infinite flag.
• History of the Fateful Coin is leftover from BG. They wanted to make sure that the Beregost stores always had a copy for Firebeard, and from there it was copied-and-pasted into every other store known to man. It's worth noting that they also have finite quantity set.
• ppstor1 - Darts + 1 have finite quantity.
• Potion of Agility - Of the twenty stores that sell these potions, these three stores are the only places that selll infinite copies. They also have finite quantities listed.
• Ribald's Special Stock - Whoops, our mistake here--I wanted to leave it infinite for just that reason, despite having a finite quntity set.
• Waukeen's Wares - Holy Water is not drinkable, and has a finite quantity of 20 besides.
• shop03 - Finite quantity again.
• shop07 - There is a finite quantity set, but I agree we should probably look closer at this one.
• type2 - Another 'Charge!' moment.
• Harbinger +3 - I have my doubts that multiple heroes named Trueblood all happened to defeat demons named Harbinger, trapping them in identical copies of the a two-handed sword named Deliverance.

 

Guh? Not quite sure what you mean by that.

Oh, and I've accepted your invitation, if you haven't seen already.

 

Heh, sorry. I meant we realized these flags were an issue and starting fixing stores. Afterwards, someone pointed out that, ya know, maybe that store wasn't used.

Also: cheers.

 

Okay. But does that mean you're leaving it in because it doesn't matter, or taking it out because it doesn't matter?

EDIT:
BTW, I've tried to register, but didn't get a confirmation e-mail even after nearly an hour. Anything you can do to help?

EDIT2:
Gah. Further problems caused by looking at the wrong time. What a mess.

EDIT3:
Nevermind about the e-mail. Looks like it's not even necessary.

[ October 16, 2006, 22:33: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

If it's coded, correct, but unused, it tends to get left in. We've been surprised by how many 'unused' resources get picked up by other mods.