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[Kaeloree]

For the second part of day 10 of 12, we're happy to present an interview with Feuille and Miss Sakaki, mod makers extraordinaire, who have been very busy with their latest NPC, Faren!

They are probably best known for Nathaniel, the male-romanceable kensai from Baldur's Gate, and the Luxleys, Sebastian and Andrei - two cousins with a dark familial secret.

You can read more about them below!



- K'aeloree/Liam

[Kaeloree]

Interview with Feuille & Miss Sakaki

When did you first join the IE Modding community?

Miss Sakaki: Early 2005-ish. I’d played BG1 a while before, and Feuille and I had got into BGII in the summer of 2004. I was a lurker for a long time, and wrote some fanfic (probably the less said about that the better...!) before getting more involved on the boards.

Feuille: Around the third week of April 2005: when the mod idea thread for Nathaniel was in its infancy.

What inspired you to get into modding?

Miss Sakaki: Is it really lame to say I don’t remember?

Feuille: I don’t either... At a stretch, though, I’d say enjoying other people’s mods!

Nathaniel, as I recall, was your first mod – what inspired you to create him?

Miss Sakaki: Well...

Feuille: We wanted to do an NPC mod, and Nathaniel already existed in a story of mine. He has issues with vampires in the story, and it tickled us to transfer him into the BGII setting.

Miss Sakaki: In his original incarnation he’s a lot more kickass. We’re not sure when the wimpification occurred, but however it happened he became a character in his own right.

What is your favourite aspect of modding?

Miss Sakaki: There’s a great sense of achievement in teaching yourself a skill, and although I’ve still got a lot to learn I get a glow of satisfaction when the code does just what I want it to. And it’s fun to write a character, even a minor character, and develop them to the point of knowing a lot about them that isn’t actually in the mod.

Feuille: Making the portraits! Though it can take an awfully long time, it’s more than rewarding enough to see it in the game. I also have a great deal of fun writing huge masses of varying player-initiated dialogues and flirts – especially so in Andrei and Sebastian’s cases.

For those who don’t know Nathaniel, could you tell us a little about him? What’s been added in the new version?

Miss Sakaki: Nathaniel’s a former guard from Baldur’s Gate who is on the lookout for his ex-boyfriend who left after they had an argument. He’s only been living outside the structure of the guards for a short time, and finds it quite troubling to cope with the moral ambiguities of the real world.

Feuille: He sees the PC as a source of guidance and support, particularly in times when he feels under pressure, even if he’s not after the PC in a romantic way. So far as the new version is concerned, we’ve revamped (pardon the pun!) the coding and scripting for his love- and friend- talks, for more stability. We also put a talk back in that appeared in early versions where he explicitly tells you that he’s gay, so the PC could talk to him more about it if they wish.

Miss Sakaki: And there’s Throne of Bhaal, in which Nathaniel has found his feet. In the friendship, he’s willing to stay at your side no matter what. In the romance, he is more comfortable with the PC. The Shadows of Amn portion is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for him, and in Throne of Bhaal we wanted him to be more secure and generally happier, to show the good influence a nice PC can have – not to mention how he behaves when things aren’t going wrong at every turn!

Feuille: Except for when the wraith spirit shows up, of course...

Your second project, the Luxley Family, is extremely close to release – who are they?

Feuille: Andrei and Sebastian are an odd pair – apparent from the get-go, though we’ve been careful to keep the details quiet – but highly entertaining. We’ve been working on them for over two years, now, and we’re hoping they’ll be worth the wait: they’re wonderfully three-dimensional characters that have been growing and changing in our heads for all that time, and with luck, their depth will be one of the great things about the mod.

Miss Sakaki: One of the interesting things about Sebastian and Andrei is the self-sufficiency which comes from their travelling together. Partly because of having each other for company, they don’t have a PC-centred approach to life – they’re very much their own people. Their friendship is at the core of the mod. The curse and the various bits of skulduggery takes second place to the fact that they both want to do what’s right for their family in their different ways.

And now a third project – Faren – is in the works. Tell us a little about him!

Feuille: Ah, Faren of Trademeet – we first conceptualised him to meet a very specific need of mine (a fighter/thief that I wouldn’t have to be careful with), but very quickly he’s become one of our favourites to work with. He’s got a sense of humour; he’s self-sufficient without being a loner, and he’s kind-hearted but neutrally aligned: a pleasure to write!

Miss Sakaki: Faren is a result of our enjoying writing Sebastian and Andrei, who are both quite self-reliant, and wanting to write another romance. He’s far less high-maintenance than Nathaniel whether you’re romancing him or befriending him! Faren is laid-back in his approach to, well, most things, which can make him seem a little lazy or uncommitted at times. Earnest he ain’t. But generally he has a good heart.

I know you have several other projects in various stages of planning and writing as well; which ones are you looking forward to the most?

Feuille: It sounds corny but I do look forward to all of our projects. I almost can’t wait, though, for the point when we’ve released Faren and a female NPC project of ours: then, I can play through BGII with a party full of our own mods!

Miss Sakaki: I’ll be pleased to have the Luxleys through Throne of Bhaal. In their Shadows of Amn quest there are two distinct paths you can take, and the repercussions of your choice are quite dramatic, carrying through to ToB. In our ToB writing we’ve essentially been writing another half-mod to account for both paths.

The two of you are both writers – has modding helped you gain a better grasp of character development and writing in general?

Feuille: For me, writing mod material and original fiction have benefited each other; I’ve certainly seen my skills in both areas change in tandem. I always used to have a problem with dialogue in fiction, but since writing almost all the Luxley talks I managed to work through that block, and now I can balance narrative and dialogue nicely. Seeing Miss Sakaki take my original talks and mould them into the edited, improved versions you’ll see in the mod was probably just as beneficial, though: I’ve recognised what I did badly and made my writing simply better.

Miss Sakaki: I’ve really honed my editing skills through modding. Combing through dialogue and mercilessly picking out what needs to be weeded out is a lot more fun than it sounds!

What advice would you give first-time modders?

Feuille: Areas, once you get the hang of them, aren’t as frightening as they seem (though the bugs they can randomly and arbitrarily develop can get very annoying). Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but try to do the mod yourself – otherwise it’ll be a lot harder to learn everything. And thirdly, making a mod is a large undertaking, larger than it may seem at first, so take things slowly and steadily.

Miss Sakaki: Don’t be afraid of coding, and don’t be afraid to give your code an overhaul if it needs it. The best way to work is to test as you go and code as you write, making sure the simple things work before getting onto the more complicated stuff.

What are your plans for the future?

Feuille: Besides Luxley ToB, Faren SoA and ToB, and ironing out all those irritating Nathaniel bugs for good? There’s a female human wild mage we’ve got in the works, and I’m sure we’ll think of more to overload ourselves with in the meantime!

Miss Sakaki: What she said!

Short-answer questions:
Favourite canon BG/BGII Character?

Feuille: For BGI, it’s a tie between Garrick and Ajantis. For BGII, well, since the moment I met him for the first time: Anomen. Yay for conflicted, interesting characters – when he’s being both chivalrous and horribly rude.

Miss Sakaki: For BG, my shortlist is Kivan, Jaheira and Khalid. For BGII it’s Mazzy, Valygar, Haer’dalis and Yoshimo. And I always feel bad if I leave Jaheira behind. As you can tell, it’s hard for me to choose!

Favourite Mod Character?

Feuille: It’s probably a tie between Sebastian Luxley and Faren. Sarah I like, and I’m proud of Nathaniel, but I don’t play him as much as I would otherwise because he’s voiced by my brother and it creeps me out further along the romance...

Miss Sakaki: I guess it’s cheating a little to say Faren, since mine and Feuille’s mods are tailor-made for what we want! I like several others, but Finch is my favourite.

Irenicus or Bodhi?

Feuille: Irenicus kicks Bodhi’s ass, hands down!

Miss Sakaki: They’re both pretty fun villains, if a bit too fond of turning up and leaving once you’ve got them to 1 hit point.

Vanilla or Modded BGII?

Feuille: Lightly modded BGII. I went through a phase of playing the hardest setting with lots of overpowered item mods, but I’ve gone off that now and prefer a small selection of NPC and quest mods.

Miss Sakaki: Modded all the way.

Favourite Class?

Feuille: I don’t really have one (though for P&P, it’s a whole different story) – though I am fond of cleric/mages. I also like the Kensai class, almost purely because I like to look at the stupidly high kill counts chapter-by-chapter.

Miss Sakaki: Druids – Creeping Doom rocks! I like playing beserkers, too.