247 replies to this topic

[PolarBear]

You will need to make it idiot proof (I mean user proof).   If it is too complicated to work with, users will hound you for making it easier.  This isn't exactly a command-line crowd here.  Nor should they be expected to be.

What you would need is the abilty to tell the player what kits are already installed (kits for the PC, not NPCs).  They would also need the ability to remove kits they don't want.  Also a way to add back in the kits that they now want back.  New kits should still be handled by the Weidu mods the way they are now.  You don't want to get involved in managing every kit mod out there. 

These functions are added, and it works, but I totally forgot how many fighter kits are there in TDD --> this program can't display that many at once, so I'm trying to add a "nextpage" function. It should work, but it doesn't actually . On the other hand, I'd never write such a program for only myself, so it'll be userfriendly enough to use for most ppl.

OFF
Btw, it just came to my mind : do you know what idiot really means? My friend's new gf is a medical student of some sort, she told me that 'idiot' is a proper medical expression. It is used for people with less IQ than 20... Heh, a wooden club +1 is more intelligent than that

[Andyr]

Good work, Horred. I will check TDD out again when it is done... Being in WeiDU format, does this mean people might more actively bugfix and improve the mod?

Also, I have a question about the animations you are using. Does TDD use the full package that the BG-BGT-blah-etc uses?

EDIT: And as a standalone mod, will it have a standalone forum somewhere?

Edited by Andyr, 28 January 2005 - 09:39 AM.

[Sir BillyBob]

Andyr just reminded me of a Tutu advantage over BGT, XP for spells and unlocking doors. Tutu gives much lower XP for those little extras. Is there a way to trim them down in the BP mod also? In BoneHill I have a spellbook that can let a person advance 3-4 levels by learning all the TDD spells. This wouldn't happen in a Tutu mod since you only get 15 or so XP per spell.

[SConrad]

ONE PROBLEM: The uninstall.bat files are NOT deleting the bif's! The "read-only" status prevents deletion!    If anybody knows of either a weidu, or command-line, function to correct this--I'd be grateful.

attrib -R foo

should do it.

You can change the relevant part in the uninstall.bat, as well. I solved this ages ago by:

del foo.bif /F /Q

[horred the plague]

Andyr just reminded me of a Tutu advantage over BGT, XP for spells and unlocking doors.  Tutu gives much lower XP for those little extras.  Is there a way to trim them down in the BP mod also?  In BoneHill I have a spellbook that can let a person advance 3-4 levels by learning all the TDD spells.  This wouldn't happen in a Tutu mod since you only get 15 or so XP per spell.

Errrm....I already did trim them down in bp-bgt. They were 1000XP/level by default. I'm certainly not going below 100XP/spell level, in any case. This will put things more on par with my thieving rewards (which I might drop a little, but not a lot).

BTW--I'm familiar with your spellbook(s). And while we're on the subject....
It is my opinion that if anything needs trimming, it's them. It is highly unbalancing for a spellbook of this power to be laying around in some low-mid level mage's castle. Demogorgon's Lair, perhaps...

A couple low lvl scrolls from the TDD lot, in select places (not stores) would be my suggestion. They should be an easter egg treat, not the commonplace. At least, that was the way TDD itself handled them.

Between that book and the scrolls I stole from Lazurus Librarus (another guy with way too much for that lvl party), I just took Immy from dual-class to 9th level mage! I had to pick up quayle temporarily to help memorize the lot--my casters' books were filled! Not even mentioning the 40 potions of superior healing I have in a potion case, with Sarevok's name on them.

[Gaias]

At any rate--enough work done for one week--time to just play. More will be done when I'm no longer sick of looking at it.

A modder... play??? Does such a thing acutally exist? How can this be...

[AnnabelleRose]

A modder... play??? Does such a thing acutally exist? How can this be...

They never play, they "bug-test".

[horred the plague]

A modder... play??? Does such a thing acutally exist? How can this be... 

Well, it never lasts long--that's why I've never actually completed ToB!

Official word on Ascension/Tactics: These will remain in BP. If I remove either, they will no longer be compatible with BP. I just checked on this. Yes, even Ascension Weidu will break BP. For starters, it overwrites STATS.IDS--which will break the BP detectable stats. NTM--the stats.ids it replaces BP's with is the original, broken "enhanced" one I fixed in the first place! And this was not the only issue, just the singlemost important one.

These, and the two dialogs from horred's lair, will be the only ones in BPv170. If the other dialogs need fixing, we'll address that in the respective mods.

As it stands now, in the early development stages--BPv170 is roughly 42MB, UNPACKED! Probably 25MB packaged. There are still > 6000 files, almost half of them CRE's (remember, I lowered the XP awards on 1/2 the CRE files in the game).

Other components (such as my enemy AI) will remain part of the straight install (not optional) There is simply too much work, and overlapping files, to seperate these components. Remember, the added challenge's expressed intent was to balance all of the extra game content (and thus, XP gained).

Edited by horred the plague, 28 January 2005 - 11:18 PM.

[AnnabelleRose]

Who is this man, this Horred of Plaguezone? Pray tell, where does he get these strange powers?

[PolarBear]

Well, here it is, but don't expect anything extraordinary . Since nobody has tested it except myself, this is considered a beta. It'd be great if some could test it out, any bugs, comments, suggestions are welcome and should be sent to lacos@hungary.org .

(you'll have to rename the file of course)

BTW, I don't know how many times I tried to post this. The forum as it is now is driving me mad...

[Sir BillyBob]

BTW, I don't know how many times I tried to post this. The forum as it is now is driving me mad...

Welcome to our world.

Horred,

I had already mentioned that the TDD spell book was being pulled out of the next version. My original plan was for Lazarus to sell it for 1/2 mill or so. I was then going to add the individual spells to his for sale list. Either way, I hit a snag with the Tutu version since they don't have TDD items.

Now that I have two seperate versions of the game, I was going back to the idea of him selling some of the spells. By the way, did you steal those spells or buy them? His stealable rate should be 200. Nope, just checked. Damn, it is only 105. Hmm, I stepped that down and I don't know why. Anyway, the plan was that you would need to drink about 8 master thief potions to be able to even attempt to steal from him. Now it seems that I broke that. Fixed now. It should be harder to access those items.

Edited by Sir BillyBob, 29 January 2005 - 01:19 PM.

[Ascension64]

Now that I have two seperate versions of the game, I was going back to the idea of him selling some of the spells.  By the way, did you steal those spells or buy them?  His stealable rate should be 200.  Nope, just checked.  Damn, it is only 105.  Hmm, I stepped that down and I don't know why.  Anyway, the plan was that you would need to drink about 8 master thief potions to be able to even attempt to steal from him.  Now it seems that I broke that.  Fixed now.  It should be harder to access those items.

SirBillyBob, do you think that this spellbook should survive into BGII? I think you are talking about the X spellbook, which contains some extremely high level spells that one could use once (since I don't think anyone would be able to get access to level 9 spells throughout BGI). I believe that it would be good to *port* the spellbook, if attained, into somewhere secret in BGII, because it really is in BGII that it becomes more useful (I pretty much did not touch the X spellbook in BGI because there weren't any 'impossible' encounters)

[horred the plague]

By the way, did you steal those spells or buy them?  His stealable rate should be 200.  Nope, just checked.  Damn, it is only 105.  Hmm, I stepped that down and I don't know why. 

My minstrel bard had a 130% pick pockets, w/o potions. To be safe, I drank 2 potions, giving him a 210% pick pockets. BTW--I stole the master thieving potions I used on Lazarus "from Lazurus" too ...

SirBillyBob (the NPC) gave me a special staff of the magi, and a ring of gaxx.If I were you, I'd give him a REALLY high level, or not-so-good items. I basically pickpocketted every major NPC in the Bone Hill section (just for kicks). Sarevok better run and hide somewhere, this game. He doesn't stand a chance!

[NiGHTMARE]

Could the new version of BP include a temple of Horred, so we can all have some place to go to worship the ground you walk on?

[hlidskialf]

There already is a place to do that in BP. However, Horred doesn't exactly "welcome" guests there now does he?

[AnnabelleRose]

There already is a place to do that in BP. However, Horred doesn't exactly "welcome" guests there now does he?

I never managed to find it. I wanted my fireball!

[Andyr]

So... Is TDD-WeiDU available yet?

[horred the plague]

So... Is TDD-WeiDU available yet?

Aren't we the impatient one....

Here I come to tell you good news; after a lot of hard work, some good advice, massive tp2 research, and a lot of frustration, I have successfully made....

TDD-weidu!

This baby is 100% weidu (just 2 .bat files, like everybody else's)
No Nullsoft installer. It bif's, and it uninstalls, beautifully.

I also have the SoS and TS weidu set up the same way; just need to run them and see what happens. For TS, you will use Vlad's package, with my tp2 and bat files (I'll make sure that BPv170 overwrites his in your game folder).

I might release TDD in a couple days, o' impatient one...

Maybe SoS as well. TS 'my way' will have to wait on BPv170. A standalone TS player wouldn't 'need' this file anyways (though it would not hurt them in the least, and could even help by leaving them with a clean override folder ).

BPv170 is under way; there are still a lot of files (mainly .baf's) to check through. The CRE files, and the SPL files, I'll treat as carte-blanc. 1) Saves 4500 files to check through, and 2) most of these were simply converted for my XP system, and my detectable stats system for enemy AI. The BPv170 folder I'm working out of is currently 42.7MB, and getting smaller as I go. This is raw, unpacked size!

[Gaias]

So... Is TDD-WeiDU available yet?

Aren't we the impatient one....

Here I come to tell you good news; after a lot of hard work, some good advice, massive tp2 research, and a lot of frustration, I have successfully made....

TDD-weidu!

This baby is 100% weidu (just 2 .bat files, like everybody else's)
No Nullsoft installer. It bif's, and it uninstalls, beautifully.

I also have the SoS and TS weidu set up the same way; just need to run them and see what happens. For TS, you will use Vlad's package, with my tp2 and bat files (I'll make sure that BPv170 overwrites his in your game folder).

I might release TDD in a couple days, o' impatient one...

Maybe SoS as well. TS 'my way' will have to wait on BPv170. A standalone TS player wouldn't 'need' this file anyways (though it would not hurt them in the least, and could even help by leaving them with a clean override folder ).

BPv170 is under way; there are still a lot of files (mainly .baf's) to check through. The CRE files, and the SPL files, I'll treat as carte-blanc. 1) Saves 4500 files to check through, and 2) most of these were simply converted for my XP system, and my detectable stats system for enemy AI. The BPv170 folder I'm working out of is currently 42.7MB, and getting smaller as I go. This is raw, unpacked size!

It has been strangely quite in this forum since you have posted this thread Horred... too quite... ... much to quite...

[horred the plague]

SoS-weidu and my revised biffing TSv60 are operational--both have just passed the tests! :thumb:
Installers and uninstallers! Biff's added, biff's removed. Key/Tlk/override replaced in entirety (perfect reversion upon uninstall). May be some issues with uninstalling 'parts' of the mods; in particular I mean TS--but this is unsubstantiated.

I'm pretty sure there will be more details to work out, and there may be some new problems in-game--old bugs may resurface, etc. But in this weidu format, fixes and updated versions will be infinitely easier to work on. And after all; BP will still follow these three mods, acting as a 'safety net'.

If I can pull it off, I 'might' make it so that only two of the three mods need be installed, and BP will still back them up in it usual fashion. This gives the users more choices; if they don't care for a certain of the 3 big mods, perhaps they will not need to include it. This is tentative at this time, so don't get your hopes up too much. I still have a lot of work to get even BPv170 "as-is" operational!

While bp-bgt may remain as a package deal, NeJ will no longer be so. NeJ2 will be a standalone mod; I will offer a revised .tp2 file, and some support (Ulcaster BG2 on my worldmaps)--but that is as far as it goes. This is by expessed wishes of the authors, who barely even let me do this much--so don't bug or press the issue. They want their work to be a standalone, to emphasize their plot, and "do not recommend" adding it to the collage of mods. Just so you all know---they will not support any bugs you find in a big mix version, so don't bug them with your woes. If they choose to respond to posts over here, that is their choice and consider it as a favor! Enough said on this, I hope...

NeJ1 is already included in the NeJ2 package, and the previous bp-nej version 1.4 will be retired. This will be for the best, in the long run--trust me on this! It won't take a lot of file-twisting to get this compatible anyways; nothing that a new tp2, and some .bat files that biff, won't take care of.