22 replies to this topic

[CBisson]

I've done up three different methods for Candlekeep, and am putting up a quick install to get some feedback.  The link is below.

Take note, I won't be "supporting" this as such, but the feedback I get here will of course help me to make it better for the actual CtB build.  I left voting open for two weeks; I'll leave this open for about two weeks, so maybe by then I'll have it fleshed out pretty well.

Tell me what you think.





http://ctb.spellhold..._Candlekeep.exe

[CBisson]

To clear up some confusion folks have messaged me about:

a) This is a small "mini-mod". If you've CtB installed, it will overwrite the files. If you don't have CtB installed, it won't do a thing. All it's going to overwrite are a few dialogs and scripts. No need to reinstall CtB.

B) In order to get to Candlekeep, obviously you'll have to start a new game, but it won't affect any other saves (except your Auto-Save) and won't mess up the game files. It's more like a "hot fix", but since Candlekeep is in the beginning of the game, you'd need to start the new game.

[CBisson]

Geez, people continue to get frustrated at doing all the chores and beg for it to be changed, so when I do, no one has any feedback?

[Sir BillyBob]

Don't you just love it.

[Chevalier]

CB,

Just do what you want! Keep it the way it is and have fewer people, or shorten it up in some way that you like and more people will play it.

[bpfan]

Ceeb,

I'd be happy to test it, but my install is the new BGT-BP-NeJ-CtB. I'm hesitant to layer anything else on top of this, because since I'm testing, I wouldn't want to potentially break it, or mistake a problem with something else with a problem with this as a platform. I'll gladly do a second run-through with other stuff, to check for compatibility issues, but first things first.

[Tabea]

Me again, this time registered.
Just tried the modded candlekeep on the easiest level.
I did one chore (2xmilk), returned, played with Imoen, learnt from Hull and spoke again with Gorion. He told something about growing up fast... Then he wished me good night. There seems to be some bug. After the final Gorion text (at least I suppose it is the final) there's an error: "No valid answers or links".
I went upstairs, rested, came down again to speak with Gorion. But he continues telling me he is proud, wishes me Good night and so on.
Nothing happens.
How do I get to the normal game (Irenicus DUngeon)?

Oh, maybe it istimportant: there was a parsing error upon installation.

[edit] And maybe anybody could tell me how the mod ist supposed to progress in case it works?

Edited by Tabea, 23 December 2004 - 12:32 PM.

[Tabea]

So, I also tried the Normal mod with 3 chores in one day. Well, after completing the chores Gorin just stands there and has nothing to say. *grrr*
That's it. I'm uninstalling. I would have loved to play through the quests...but not like that.
I wish you luck for finding the bugs,

[Waverley]

I've just downloaded and will give it a go soon - given today's date it won't be immediately. I am only just starting with mods (BP and CTB only, so far, installed for the first time today) and have yet to start using them properly, as I prefer to load a bit, then test, then load some more ..... I have just spent 20 minutes wandering around Candlekeep trying to work out how the library works, and would suggest, with respect, that this particular quest is somewhat untypical of BG2 in general. Maybe other critics of this quest are now far into their games - but will appreciate this change when restarting.

Two minor points, if I may - first, any new piece of software may contain bugs - if this occurs and I cannot complete the quest, will I need to completely reinstall CTB?

Second, can you amend the screens in the CTB core and game files to refer to BGII rather than BG2 when supplying default directories for installation, and amend the cire file install to refer to "checkbod" rather than "check the bodies", please. Its just a little point but after installing BP about 10 times (with self induced errors) I was starting to trust these defaults and by not noticing, had to restart the process more than once. My fault, of course, but I am sure that I am not alone in using my PC purely as a recreational machine and having limited knowledge of its operational aspects. Anything that can make the somewhat daunting installation experience easier for ignorant amateurs such as myself can only be a benefit.

Above is not criticism, just a suggestion - it is marvellous that mods such as CTB are produced and made available to us all and I am looking forward to a much enhaced BGII experience. I will let you know how I get on with v151 in a day or three. Thanks for all your work.

[Waverley]

Follow up to previous post - tried it today.

Copied download to my S o A root directory, (BP and CTB installed - nothing else), clicked on the download, changed file name defaults a previous post, and eventually got this:

[C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BGII - SoA\Setup-CheckTheBodies Modded Candlekeep
151.exe] WeiDU version 153
{Setup-BP_s_and_h_Patch.exe} Queried (pid = 136) version = 165 query done.
Newest WeiDU is version 165, updating!
WeiDU files in version order:
[Setup-CheckTheBodies v150.exe] version 165
[Setup-BP_s_and_h_Patch.exe] version 165
[Setup-CheckTheBodies Modded Candlekeep v151.exe] version 153
Copying [Setup-CheckTheBodies v150.exe] -> [Setup-CheckTheBodies Modded
Candlekeep v151.exe]: false
[Setup-CheckTheBodies] WeiDU version 165
Auto-Updating on behalf of [Setup-CheckTheBodies Modded Candlekeep v151.exe]
ERROR: error loading [Setup-CheckTheBodies]
Unknown argument: [v150.exe]

WeiDU (version 165: "compton visit")

usage: WeiDU [options] BAF,BCS,D,DLG,TRA,TP,TP2-files

General Input Options:

--game X set main game directory to X
--nogame do not load any default game files
--search X look in X for input files (cumulative)
--tlkin X use X as DIALOG.TLK
--ftlkin X use X as DIALOGF.TLK
--tlkmerge X merge X into loaded DIALOG.TLK
--yes answer all TP2 questions with 'Yes'
--uninstall answer all TP2 questions with 'Uninstall'
--noautoupdate do not auto-update WeiDU setup files
--update-all auto-update all WeiDU setup files


--- followed by a lot more option requests.


What do I do now, please? It doesn't appear to work. Looks like I will have to do all the chores after all as its time to start installing my other mods and then get going.

Thanks for trying.


Edited an hour later

Went back to my backup of BP +CtB and tried installing Chloe and got the same message. So its obviously not the patch that's the problem. Think I should have started a new thread as well (I'm a beginner in this area of using mods (and forums) which may be obvious so sorry, if necessary). Looks like I will be re-installing from scratch yet again.

Edited by Waverley, 25 December 2004 - 11:51 AM.

[Ascension64]

CBisson, have you 'fleshed out' this party of the mod yet? I have started a detailed look at this modded test, which may take at least a week. Will post results as I go. You do have some fairly major dialogue bugs which do include the previous posts on this topic. I'm fixing them as I go, will post some soon.

[Ascension64]

Crikey, these bugs are game-breaking!!!
It is worthwhile to check these in both this mini-mod AS WELL as the original v150 install, as some bugs reported here are definitely in both. I am currently an NI user only, so these references refer to the file opened in NI.

Gorion Dialogue Errors (CBGORCLD.DLG)

State Trigger 3 - Global("CbCandlekeepDifficulty","GLOBAL",2) - should be 3
State Trigger 4 - Global("CbCandlekeepDifficulty","GLOBAL",2) - should be 3
Response Trigger 29 - needs OR(4)
Response Trigger 95 - needs OR(4)
Action 5 - needs SetGlobal("CbPlayerOneDoesCandleKeepChores","GLOBAL",-1)
Action 6 - needs SetGlobal("CbPlayerOneDoesCandleKeepChores","GLOBAL",-1)

Gorion Teaching Dialogue Errors (CBGORTCH.DLG)

StrRef All - totally incorrect (on my dialog.tlk starts 123892 - add 47769 to all StrRefs) - this one took me one whole hour to find the correct dialogues and to manually fix each StrRef one by one

Clarissa Dialogue Errors (CBMILKMD.DLG)

Action 1 - needs IncrementGlobal("CbPlayerOneDoesCandleKeepChores","GLOBAL",1)
Action 3 - needs IncrementGlobal("CbPlayerOneDoesCandleKeepChores","GLOBAL",1)

Edited by Ascension64, 07 January 2005 - 07:14 PM.

[Ascension64]

Fixing those bugs, which may have turned off a lot of people from testing your modded test CBisson, I was successfully able to play through EASIEST/EASY. The lesson with Phlydia really made me laugh, well done on that.

I do have several suggestions:

- Any way to make milking the cow stop when you are too far away? Or quicker? (advancing the time by script perhaps)
- Have every area explored already to save walking just to explore which is a little annoying(Explore() on OnCreation() block in each script)
- Sticky pins on the map for important characters or at least a journal entry to notify the player of where they are
- Remove Clarissa's chores from quests section of journal when completed, or scrap them totally, seems very useless to use journal at all, when the player can just add User notes
- Sometimes the BGI flashback cutscenes are extremely dark even when I have maxed my monitor, is there any way you can 'turn up the contrast'? This does not always happen for some reason

UPDATE: Completed on CORE RULES/NORMAL. Both the easy and this version are quit short and good. Just another suggestion as I have yet to have a look at all the teaching lessons:

- Tehtoril in the alchemy section is not very clear with his description of what the player must do with the powders. It took me 10 minutes to work out that there were TWO stands not just one, and another 10 minutes to work out that there were info points for what potions were being made in the first place. I would suggest to fix up his dialogue to be a little more comprehensive as to the task that needs to be done.

Edited by Ascension64, 07 January 2005 - 07:51 PM.

[kellyber]

I tried this in normal mode (3 chores), as i seemed to be getting nowhere with 150. I like the chores, except for waiting for the scrolls. I would suggest dropping the time by a little bit on the wait for those.. but again, it was not a big deal for me.

However, i get the same problem as TABEA. After completing all the chores, Gorion just stands there with nothing to say.

Is there a SPECIFIC order to do the everything in that people know will work so i can test this? I hope its my install, i have SoS and other weidu mods... but it's tough to verify without a "baseline".

SUGGESTION:
Have the quests appear in the quest log as you find out about them. Only the "milk the cows" appears for me and never gets moved to the "done" side. This provides continuity to the game experience.

[Ascension64]

After completing all the chores, Gorion just stands there with nothing to say.

An extremely unofficial quick fix for this is to CLUAConsole the following:

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("CbCandlekeepDifficulty","GLOBAL",2)

There is a small bug in the dialogue file for Gorion that foubars him totally. A cannot post the dialogue file because the dialog.tlk references will be totally wrong. Note that this should only work for the NORMAL/CORE_RULES difficulty, and will definitely NOT work for EASY/EASIEST difficulties (unsure about HARD/HARDEST). Let me know if this works out.

Also note that as posted by me a little upwards of here, the lesson dialogues are also totally wrong. So just be prepared for that (and hope you know what you need to do in each lesson).

Edited by Ascension64, 10 January 2005 - 07:39 PM.

[Ascension64]

Finally finished Candlekeep chores on HARD/HARDEST difficulty and found these bugs on my run:

Day One: Clarissa let me get away with not doing up all the beds in AR3504 (I didn't intentionally do it, but rather didn't spot the beds in one row of rooms)

Day Two: After the lesson with Hull at midnight, I saw Imoen outside the barracks and decided to speak to her, of which I had the option to play with Imoen, saying I have finished the chores when I haven't spoken to Gorion yet (I had not rested at that time)

Day Three: The tag cutscene stalled at the very end because for some weird reason, Imoen got stuck! Very annoying because that cutscene goes for about 3 minutes! [seems to be very rare but reloading did the trick]

Day Four: Same as the end of Day Two, talking to Imoen at midnight gives you the option to play with her (this seems to occur any midnight)

Gorion Dialogue Error (CBORIGOR.DLG) - Response trigger 55 - needs OR(4)
[this one is a game breaking error]

Second Milk Cow Dialogue Error (CBMILKC2.DLG) - State 6 - incorrect StrRef, should be one number less than what it currently is (currently, saying that one needs to get closer to the cow to check its udder really confuses, so if it is not actually a bug, I would suggest changing this StrRef to match the other cow)

Note: don't forget to check my other post on EASIEST/EASY/NORMAL difficulty bugs as well as the suggestions there.

I also have a couple of final suggestions to make:

- The tag cutscene with Imoen gets extremely boring after the first look. Also, it works OK, but Imoen takes a long time to get to the player for the last tag. Happy to live with it, but would it be possible to only show the cutscene on the first day and just FadeToColor and FadeFromColor for all the other days instead of watching the tag cutscene such that Imoen initiates the hide and seek dialogue after FadeFromColor?
- The final hide and seek where Imoen cannot be found could probably be a cutscene that fades just like the tag stated above because someone could get really frustrated because they do not know what to do due to the fact that they could not find Imoen and can't
- After each lesson, force the player to rest from midnight for the 8 hours. This is handy in fixing the talking to Imoen bug stated above. Also, I know that there is no support for mod compatibility issues, but with BGT installed and NPCs in the party, it is impossible to rest because the party is scattered. Forcing rest may also fix this. I'm sure it won't be difficult to add the RestParty() action. Finally, in terms of what Clarissa, Thalantyr, Brother Dewey, and Gorion say, the player should not be able to do chores at midnight, which was what I was stuck with because I could not rest
- In my opinion, and stated before but won't hurt to state it again, is that milking the cows should probably act as a 'fast forward'. This would fix technical aspects so you don't milk the cow 200 metres away from it (!!!) and you don't have to dawdle for an hour just to wait for the cows udder to fill up again. I think this would save a lot of time doing the chores, not just for the cows, but also uses up time for scribing scrolls
- The cutscene with Hull where the player learns Offensive/Defensive skill is very bad because when the child (the player) is attacking, there is no animation, which means Hull and the player just stand there for a whole minute -- very boring!!


All in all, I thought the mod was great in some ways but can do with some changes. Since you are going to keep this in anyway CBisson (which I think is a good idea), it probably would be worthwhile to try to shorten the original chores up and definitely fix the game-breaking (and the not-so-game-breaking, if possible) bugs so that at least it is playable without turning off players from working through this part of CtB without cheating. Otherwise, it is still a great part of the game. Commendations! :thumb:

[Ascension64]

Another critical bug to report, which may also involve the v150 Candlekeep:

IF
!GlobalTimerNotExpired("CbUnselectPlayers","GLOBAL")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
  SetGlobalTimer("CbUnselectPlayers","GLOBAL",1000)
  ActionOverride(Player2,MakeUnselectable(10000))
  ActionOverride(Player3,MakeUnselectable(10000))
  ActionOverride(Player4,MakeUnselectable(10000))
  ActionOverride(Player5,MakeUnselectable(10000))
  ActionOverride(Player6,MakeUnselectable(10000))
END

Despite having finished Candlekeep, some of the area scripts continue running, which contain this block. Thus, any party member newly joined from the SoA game in Irenicus' deungeon will become unselectable when the timer expires, such as when you rest. This could be fixed by adding a global condition in the IF sections of each of these scripts such as Global("FinishedCandlekeep","GLOBAL"0) and when Candlekeep is finished, have in Gorion's dialogue (as an example), SetGlobal("FinishedCandlekeep","GLOBAL",1)

UPDATE: Another not so critical bug I found is that AR0602.BCS (the script for Irenicus' dungeon) fails to destroy all party equipment, but rather only drops Player1's equipment. It should probably destroy all equipment.

Edited by Ascension64, 11 January 2005 - 07:08 PM.

[kellyber]

Brother Dewey not giving me books.

I am using the 151 on HARD as suggested and everything about the first day went perfect. Milked cows, put books away, got scrolls scribbed. Talked to Gorion who told me i could play. The Imoen tag seen went fine then i went back to Gorion as Imoen suggested. As Ascension64 mentioned, ALL Gorions dialogues were fubar. With all the talk about wine, and messed up dialogue, sounded like Gorion had been hittin the sauce all day. However, i stumbled through it all and then rested.

The next day i started with Gorion, told him i would do my chores. Got milk (ha ha) then tried to go to Dewey. Every time his dialogue eneded, i got no books. I tried doing his chores first, seeing him before Gorion, etc. Each time i got NO BOOKS. Obviously i cannot go past this test.

I hope we can get a 1.5.2 or some updated version soon. I am itching to get beyond this mod and test the rest out (and i want to play the game!).

[Talir_Sagar]

on v150
Edit: and v151

1 - The left cow seem to be on invisibility (only on apperance, I see the grass trough it).

2 - it no funny to open a chest (steal) I really enjoy the faq the guard tell to Gorion I was stealling but the penality time is very long too mutch maybe sorten it will make it least frustating.

3 - When stay in the room, after been punished, it will more fun to control the character and even try to flee the punishment and be cacth again be Gorion.

4 - when I open the chest in my room the guard tell me I steal, is MY ROOM and I was punished again

5 - Maybe add Something personnal in the room like a teddy bear in the chest (maybe a hook for a small quest to change the player mind a bite, Like some fairy folk hidden in the wall who on some time steal it )and a personal diary in the librairy (good place to give to the player more infomation on Gorion as foster father, the lifestlyle of candlekeep and its citizen ect)This will support the faq that everything is recorded as diary like style.

6 - making this part of the mod for BP-BGT in the beginning of BG1 will make it more consitant and clear out some bug by the way. because you dont have party so no party scader on rest and the state of you as kid will be more balance as you start level 1. Edit:This will also fix the xp/ability/gold/item added in this part of the mod. (reminding thing and it appear cool I want this power in reality )

I will continue to test it maybe more to come, I hope not as Ascention64 as make a great job :thumb:

Note: tested on core rule level

Edit:7 - Some of the level in candlekeep have error with lighting effect on NPC there appear blue like in darknes.

Edited by Talir_Sagar, 10 March 2005 - 02:33 PM.