16 replies to this topic

[Wulven Wanderer]

Hello,

I am about to play through the Baldur's Gate series again (I saw the post below, but I think that person is looking for different specs?)and was wondering if I could have some suggestions as to mods/BGT/BWPs to install?

For some notes:

-I'm not sure if I want to play through all of them as one game... primarily because I don't know what that works with. Would I be able to run things like Gatekeeper? Will the play experience somehow be cheapened? I could always just try it and see what happens; but, I also am not very good with this whole modding thing so I would likely fail miserably.

-I generally don't mind if a mod changes up a quest, so long as existing spoken dialogue is not ruined and/or the quest itself is made better and not worse. I would prefer if the integrity of the original experience is not "ruined" I suppose.

-I like difficulty tweaks so long as they don't make the game obnoxiously difficult. I recently played through IceWind Dale again with a ton of mods and ramped up the difficulty... only to find that ten minute long battles against normalish enemies are not as fun as they sound on paper.

-Ease of Use/Bags of Holding tweaks are not necessarily bad. In IWD I did not mind the infinite stacking for arrows/infinite space in bags.

-New NPCs are cool so long as they don't mess up the general playing experience.

I guess basically I want as much possible new play-value without making the original experience a mess. The mod (example) Ascension sounded cool, but in that case I was not so sure how much of the original BG remained?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I tried this on my own a year ago and failed at it because, quite frankly, there are just too many mods to keep up with.

On a slightly unrelated sidenote: Is the Collector's Edition BG2 material located on a different CD? I vaguely remember a different CD slip for it but am not sure...

[Ipsissimus]

Uhm...if you're looking to completely customize your install, as in picking and choosing individual components of mods, the BWS is probably not your friend. You can pick mods, but you can't pick components.

I would not recommend: any mega-mods, such as The Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar, Check the Bodies, Never-Ending Journey, and Tortured Souls. Lots of content, and I found most of it vastly inferior to the original game - overpowered items, horrible NPCs, mostly bad writing, and bugs galore.

I would recommend:
- a few NPCs. Sarah, Angelo, Xan, Auren, Keto, Xulaye, Amber, Ajantis, Ninde, and possibly the Luxley Family.
- for Tutu/BGT, Finch, Gavin, and Indira NPCs.
- Sword Coast Stratems I and II are a lot of fun. They improve AI of enemies, making battles more challenging strategy-wise. I'd also recommend Item and Spell Revisions, which significantly alter existing items and spells, making some less cheesy and others actually worth using - Color Spray for instance.
- Aurora's Shoes and Boots - compatible with BG2, Tutu, and BGT. Store mod featuring a gossipy shopkeeper and a couple tactical encounters.
- PPG banter pack and IEP (interaction expansion project). IEP also has four friendship mods available as separate installs, for Viconia, Mazzy, Yoshimo, and Imoen.
- BG1 NPC Project. An absolute must-have for BG Tutu/BGT.
- Tales of the Deep Gardens - interesting quest mod for BG2.
- Ascension and Turnabout, for extra ToB content
- Wheels of Prophecy, to make ToB less linear
- Quest Pack, for a bunch of encounters and quests in BG2
- BG1 Quests and Encounters, compatible with BG1, Tutu, and BGT.
- Unfinished Business for BG1, and Unfinished Business for BG2.
- Every Mod and Dog - adds several silly encounters to BG2.
- Fading Promises - quest for BG2.
- Tower of Deception - dungeon crawl/quest for BG2.

You probably know this, but you really really need the official Bioware patch, and the G3 BG2 Fixpack too.

I did try BGT once, but I prefer EasyTutu. I didn't like the way BGT bridged the games, and I've never felt the desire to install a ton of mediocre mods. Plus Indira isn't BGT compatible.

All of these can be found on the modlist - just search for the mod you want to find.

[Wulven Wanderer]

Interesting thanks!

So as far as installation goes, I take it that since you listed all of those they are cool to install on top of each other?

Tutu sounds preferable in my case, I vaguely remember reading something about how BGT adds some tutorial quest at the beginning?

What is the BG2 Fixpack?

Also, is Dark Side of the Sword Coast meh?

I'll definitely look into installing all of those... and look into Wheels of Prophecy. I felt as though the linearity to TOB was intended though, with the big fight with the monk monastery being the climax.

Thanks alot!

[Ipsissimus]

So as far as installation goes, I take it that since you listed all of those they are cool to install on top of each other?

I'm not entirely sure. I tend to reinstall mods for every major game I intend to play. But you should make sure that you install them in approximately this order:
Fixpack
Ascension + Turnabout
Banter Pack
Quest Pack
[all NPCs]
IEP
Tales of the Deep Gardens
Every Mod and Dog
Wheels of Prophecy
Tower of Deception
Fading Promises
Unfinished Business
Spell Revisions
Item Revisions
Aurora
Sword Coast Strategems II

And for Tutu:
BG1 NPC
any NPCs
Unfinished Business
Aurora
Quests and Encounters
Item Revisions
Spell Revisions
Sword Coast Strategems

I vaguely remember reading something about how BGT adds some tutorial quest at the beginning?

I know Check the Bodies adds a mandatory quest to the beginning of BG2, but I'm not so sure about what you mention. What irritated me more was missing out on the final cutscene of the BG1 NPC Dynaheir romance, as it's conceptually and chronologically incompatible with BGT.

What is the BG2 Fixpack?

Link Compilation of fixes not covered by the latest Bioware patch.

Also, is Dark Side of the Sword Coast meh?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's Tutu-compatible. I don't recall having played it though.

I felt as though the linearity to TOB was intended though, with the big fight with the monk monastery being the climax.

Oh, I dunno, kicking Melissan around the Throne was pretty fun.

Oh, forgot one - One Pixel Productions. Makes inventory icons look prettier.

[Wulven Wanderer]

Thanks alot! Have finally finished installing and now will try... I had trouble with the Spellcasting for Tutu, but it looked like there was some in SCS?

Here goes...

[Jarno Mikkola]

And for Tutu:
BG1 NPC
any NPCs
Unfinished Business
Aurora
Quests and Encounters
Item Revisions
Spell Revisions
Sword Coast Strategems

Not to put a dent on the shield, but when were you going to install the EasyTutu_SoA or Easy_Tutu_ToB or the BG1Tutu_v4 ?
And the Unfinished Business is of course the BG1UB, not the regular UB... as the Tutu doesn't have any BG2 content.
For these reasons alone, one really should really recommend the latest install order threads, for Tutu's, for BGT the latest is the BWS beta that can install mod components, so you don't forget to put in things that make huge difference, things like that the Ascension mod actually overwrites everything before it and needs to be installed before the BGIIFixpack... but that's just my opinion.

On a slightly unrelated sidenote: Is the Collector's Edition BG2 material located on a different CD? I vaguely remember a different CD slip for it but am not sure...

Well, the Collector's Edition BG2 CD does indeed exist, but it's mainly art, and a small addition to the original game, the game already has everything in it, the CD just enables the actual content, by overwriting somethings... so you can actually just Console the two creatures that the CD enables... if you don't install a mod that already does that... The exact console codes that put the two bonus merchants to anywhere you wish are:

Bonus Merchant #1	CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("wmart1")
Bonus Merchant #2	CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("wmart2")

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 08 August 2010 - 11:16 PM.

[Wulven Wanderer]

Oh snap! I did EasyTutuToB because the description seemed alot more user friendly... same with Bg1UB.

But I installed the fixpack before Ascension. Whoops.

I just started a new mage in BGTutu so I have no clue what kinds of problems I'll run into in BG2.

I notice I have the green water problem (something I need to download the fix for)... but does this Beregost crash that I see still apply?

Also yeah I managed to get a hold of the Collector's Edition CD before I installed ToB so it's all good.

Thanks alot for the help! I'm really hoping it doesn't explode in my face... thus far I really like the EasyTutu setup. It adds the BG2 features while at the same time keeping it true to BG.The main problem was trying to install Sword Coast Rules (whatever it was called SCS). I had to skip the spelladding component for some reason.

[Wisp]

the Ascension mod actually overwrites everything before it and needs to be installed before the BGIIFixpack... but that's just my opinion.

Fixpack breaks the upgraded Slayer changes if it's installed after Ascension.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Fixpack breaks the upgraded Slayer changes if it's installed after Ascension.

That's counting, 1 bug, let's see what it does with your way, link. And as it's said here...

So it ends up broken either way, unless you use the BWP's Fixpack, but that only really works with the BWS... Hih, and by the way, the BP-v180 has the Ascension too, so one probably might want to use that.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 09 August 2010 - 03:40 AM.

[Wisp]

So it ends up broken either way

I agree.

[Wulven Wanderer]

I tried to avoid fixes that looked the same... for instance, if I installed something that talked about Yaga-Shura, I avoided any components that mentioned Yaga-Shura.

Yet somehow I imagine that that is not enough?

Will it kill the game?

Also, (not that I can do anything about it now but...) does the DeGreenifier for EasyTutu kill the game? (probably only loosely relevant to the whole mod sequence for this)

[altofeux]

And the Unfinished Business is of course the BG1UB, not the regular UB... as the Tutu doesn't have any BG2 content.

I'm wondering where & when to install BG1 UB with BG trilogy : as far as I understand I must install it in my BG 1 folder, after the installation of BGT. But I was thinking that BGT copied all the needed data from BG1 directory and thus modifying BG1 would be useless ??

[Jarno Mikkola]

I'm wondering where & when to install BG1 UB with BG trilogy : as far as I understand I must install it in my BG 1 folder

No, NO, NO. You either install it into the BG1 folder and then play it in the BG1 game... or... you install the BGT into the BG2 folder while you have totally clean, patched and Custom installed BG1 game somewhere so you can use it's info to read from, then install the BG1UB on top of that BG2 game.

As the BG1UB is made to have multiple install options, one of them being the BG1, another being either of the Tutu's and yet another being the BGT, you just don't see it, as it's programmed into the installer itself, so it can identify which version it's going to install the modifications onto.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 14 August 2010 - 01:30 PM.

[altofeux]

No, NO, NO. You either install it into the BG1 folder and then play it in the BG1 game... or... you install the BGT into the BG2 folder

Thanks ! I actually tried to install it in the BG2 directory after installing BGT but it was not working. Probably beacause I'm doing that on linux, with an international version of BG1&2... I'll try again tomorrow.

Edited by altofeux, 14 August 2010 - 02:36 PM.

[smoky tune]

Uhm...if you're looking to completely customize your install, as in picking and choosing individual components of mods, the BWS is probably not your friend. You can pick mods, but you can't pick components.

Actually one CAN pick components. For this you'll have to edit install.bat, which needs some time to learn how to.
You can find an instruction in "BiG World Installpack read me ENGLISH.txt" under "How to edit the install.bat?" line. It's not that difficult as may seem after first reading.
I thus customized SCS I & II, RR, BGT Tweaks, BG2 Tweack Pack, aTweaks and some other mods within my BWP install. It took me much less time that I'd spend installing all 70 mods manually (if it is possible at all).
BWS takes care of downloading, unpacking, fixing for BWP compatibility, installation order, initial incompatibility of some mods, and all that is automated. This is an invaluable tool for megamod assembly. So I think it worth spendind some time on learning how to customize your mods with it.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, right here or through pm.

[Miloch]

Actually one CAN pick components. For this you'll have to edit install.bat, which needs some time to learn how to.
You can find an instruction in "BiG World Installpack read me ENGLISH.txt" under "How to edit the install.bat?" line.

Actually, one can choose components right from the latest BWS GUI, without editing batch files.

[Wulven Wanderer]

Just finished the series using those suggestions, thanks alot guys!

The final battles were fairly epic.