39 replies to this topic

[mxtu]

There are some issues I have observed with BGT, that are not present in the original BG.
I made sure to follow the correct install procedure and applied no other mods or just the bg2fixpack core, yet always get the same results. This would make me think these things happen to everyone, though I found no mention of them..

• Upon joining the party, a BG1 character who has the same portrait as you has his/her portrait correctly swapped to alternate on the main screen, but displays the small version of 'man in plate armor' in the character screen. (regardless of sex)
  
• The 'Default' BG1 voice-sets, both male and female, don't appear among the choices when creating a character.
  
• Looking at Phlydia, apparently some voices got changed. She had a sort of gimpish or child-like voice in BG, but has a 'sweet' one now.
  
• Sometimes the random spawns contain creature types that should never be found together and it looks out of place. (this is a regression from the original game)
  Some more striking examples would be: bandit and a gibberling ... skeletons with 2 species of bears, one hostile and one non-hostile .. skeleton, gibberling and hobgoblin ... cave bear, gnoll ... ghoul, ghast, bandit.
  I know it can be fixed by using a different spawn system, but this is what everyone uses by default.

[Ascension64]

Thanks for your comments.

Upon joining the party, a BG1 character who has the same portrait as you has his/her portrait correctly swapped to alternate on the main screen, but displays the small version of 'man in plate armor' in the character screen. (regardless of sex)

I'm not sure where this is in code, but probably in the executable, and something I can't change BGT-wise, unfortunately.

The 'Default' BG1 voice-sets, both male and female, don't appear among the choices when creating a character.

Good catch. Would you happen to also know what files these refer to in BG1?

Looking at Phlydia, apparently some voices got changed. She had a sort of gimpish or child-like voice in BG, but has a 'sweet' one now.

They appear to use the same greeting WAV file (GENFG12) in both BG1 and BG2, which are both identical.

Sometimes the random spawns contain creature types that should never be found together and it looks out of place. (this is a regression from the original game)
Some more striking examples would be: bandit and a gibberling ... skeletons with 2 species of bears, one hostile and one non-hostile .. skeleton, gibberling and hobgoblin ... cave bear, gnoll ... ghoul, ghast, bandit.
I know it can be fixed by using a different spawn system, but this is what everyone uses by default.

I had a big discussion about spawn systems a long time ago, and people voted to keep the inherent BGT one before I converted it to WeiDU. The Tutu spawn system (installable from BGT Tweaks) better approximates BG1. I had prepared and planned to use the EasyTutu spawn system, but I do not have permission.

[Anomaly]

I had prepared and planned to use the EasyTutu spawn system, but I do not have permission

What do you mean by "you do not have permission"? You were forbidden to use it or you didn't recieve an answer yet?

What are the difference between the Tutu v6 spawns and the EasyTutu spawns ?

[mxtu]

Sorry to hear there are no simple solutions. Thanks for looking into it.

Would you happen to also know what files these refer to in BG1?

that would be mainm* and mainf* in chasound.bif

[Ascension64]

I had prepared and planned to use the EasyTutu spawn system, but I do not have permission

What do you mean by "you do not have permission"? You were forbidden to use it or you didn't recieve an answer yet?

What are the difference between the Tutu v6 spawns and the EasyTutu spawns ?

From Macready's site

The default behavior of the new EasyTutu spawn system is to populate every spawn point on your initial visit to an area, and then repopulate each spawn point one game day after it has been cleared.

In Tutu v6, each spawn itself works on different timers. The spawns themselves, I think, are the same.

Macready declined permission for me to add to BGTTweak.

that would be mainm* and mainf* in chasound.bif

Excellent, Smithers! I should be able to put this in.

[Jarno Mikkola]

• Upon joining the party, a BG1 character who has the same portrait as you has his/her portrait correctly swapped to alternate on the main screen, but displays the small version of 'man in plate armor' in the character screen. (regardless of sex)

I'm not sure where this is in code, but probably in the executable, and something I can't change BGT-wise, unfortunately.

The code is somewhere where it determines the used files for the portraits... to use the ***m.bam for the medium size, ***s.bam for the small, and in BG2 the ***l.bam for the large(epilogue). So it's an issue you Ascension64 don't want to correct, unless with a TobEx hack that's going to be ugly for sure, as it needs a .2da update at the end of the install, or in-build feature in WeiDu.exe...

If I were you mxtu, I would go to my game directory, then the "override" directory there, and then look for the .bam files, and making sure you have the correct ***s and ***m one for the one you like.... so when you find the wrong file, copy it's name to somewhere safe. And then delete the file, and the issue should be fixed.
If you cannot find the file in the override folder, as it might be packaged in a .bif file, you need to open the game files with NearInfinity v1.33 beta 20, or some other tool, find the corresponding .bam file and find the file you want to replace the wrong one with and extract the replacement, and name it as the file you want to replace it to.

[Anomaly]

Well, the differences between Tutuv6 and EasyTutu seem to be slim, it shouldn't be a big loss.

Can someone tells me how vanilla BG1 spawns are working? Are they dependent of party level as well? I have the feeling they're not, so vanilla BGT-WeiDU spawns by default seem a good choice.

[Sasha Al'Therin]

Well, the differences between Tutuv6 and EasyTutu seem to be slim, it shouldn't be a big loss.

Can someone tells me how vanilla BG1 spawns are working? Are they dependent of party level as well? I have the feeling they're not, so vanilla BGT-WeiDU spawns by default seem a good choice.

BG:ToTSC spawns seem to be once per visit to the map and/or once per game day if remaining on the map. Also the # of creatures in the spawn do seem to be dependent upon the # of party members. But these are just casual observations rather than detailed study.... could be wrong

[Ascension64]

For your info, the old poll thread is at http://www.shsforums...-spawn-systems/

[mxtu]

Can someone tells me how vanilla BG1 spawns are working? Are they dependent of party level as well? I have the feeling they're not, so vanilla BGT-WeiDU spawns by default seem a good choice.

They are very close to what you get with tutu spawns.

BGT spawns

• spawns have fixed strength
  
• many spawns mix creature types
  
• repopulated after 1 day

tutu spawns

• spawns have strength based on party size and levels
  
• spawns are of single creature type
  
• repopulated after 1 day

easytutu spawns

• same as tutu
  
• same as tutu
  
• Allows to set a % of the spawn points to be randomly picked and disabled. Allows to set time in days until the spawn points get repopulated or disable respawning altogether.

I had a big discussion about spawn systems a long time ago, and people voted to keep the inherent BGT one before I converted it to WeiDU. The Tutu spawn system (installable from BGT Tweaks) better approximates BG1. I had prepared and planned to use the EasyTutu spawn system, but I do not have permission.

In my humble opinion, the spawns you get by default should be as close to BG1 as possible, since BGT is described as BG1 using BG2 engine and otherwise tries to remain faithful to BG1 unless doing so would require changing BG2 part of the game.
The tutu spawns are closer to the original game both by being party-scaled and by being of a single creature type. Furthermore, bgt spawn creature mixing currently creates some monster combinations that are unrealistic and bothering some people. (also voiced in the thread linked above)

You are of course the one who decides, even though you alluded to a popular vote deciding this matter.
Tutu spawns got less votes than BGT spawns, but then the majority of people might use some components from BGT tweaks yet they remain separate from BGT.
Furthermore the poll was titled "What spawn system do you use for BGT?" and there was no word of its result being binding to what system will be the default one.

A system I'd personally like to use would be tutu spawns compounded with BGT spawns' strong point of occasionally mixed creatures, but only where it makes perfect sense (spiders & ettercaps, hobgoblins & hobgoblin elite..)

[Jarno Mikkola]

...

Had you read the whole conversation, it was the start point from where the BGSpawns mod was created from...

[mxtu]

...

Had you read the whole conversation, it was the start point from where the BGSpawns mod was created from...

Does that somehow invalidate my post? I didn't mention the BGSpawn system because it's very different from the orginal BG. It drastically changes the creature types created and even introduces creatures from BG2.

[Ascension64]

Tutu spawns got less votes than BGT spawns, but then the majority of people might use some components from BGT tweaks yet they remain separate from BGT.
Furthermore the poll was titled "What spawn system do you use for BGT?" and there was no word of its result being binding to what system will be the default one.

Yes, the poll was titled in that manner. However, if you read my first post in that topic, the intent of the poll was to assess the popularity of using a BG1-faithful spawn system for BGT by default. The poll decided otherwise. It is also 3 years old.

Edited by Ascension64, 15 November 2011 - 08:43 PM.

[Ithildur]

... In my humble opinion, the spawns you get by default should be as close to BG1 as possible, since BGT is described as BG1 using BG2 engine and otherwise tries to remain faithful to BG1 unless doing so would require changing BG2 part of the game.
The tutu spawns are closer to the original game both by being party-scaled and by being of a single creature type. Furthermore, bgt spawn creature mixing currently creates some monster combinations that are unrealistic and bothering some people. (also voiced in the thread linked above)

... A system I'd personally like to use would be tutu spawns compounded with BGT spawns' strong point of occasionally mixed creatures, but only where it makes perfect sense (spiders & ettercaps, hobgoblins & hobgoblin elite..)

Would strongly agree with the first assessment, and possibly with the second as well. The first time I saw BGT's default spawns (I think it was skeletons and bears) I thought 'that's got to be a bug of some sort...'

Pity Macready would not give permission; I've tried tutu's spawn system, the BGTTweaks component that's intented to be similiar, and BGSpawn as well, and found tutu's system to be the most sensible and in line with the original game. BGSpawn was somewhat interesting initially but the loot ended up being out of control (lvl 7-9 scroll drops and tons of healing potions/scrolls).

Edited by Ithildur, 29 November 2011 - 09:04 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

BGSpawn was somewhat interesting initially but the loot ended up being out of control (lvl 7-9 scroll drops and tons of healing potions/scrolls).

Those can be fixed with proper mods like the Aurora mod and others...

[mxtu]

BGSpawn was somewhat interesting initially but the loot ended up being out of control (lvl 7-9 scroll drops and tons of healing potions/scrolls).

Those can be fixed with proper mods like the Aurora mod and others...

How about making BGSpawn the default then?

This is my main point. Some people just won't know they are supposed to install certain additional mod component(s) to get proper spawns.
If you don't care about those people, you might still want to use the tutu system for the sake of moving the BG1 portion of the game closer to what it's described as: a BG1 game played on BG2 engine.

[Jarno Mikkola]

How about making BGSpawn the default then?

ell, because the mod is made and maintained by different modder than A64... And you might be surprised but the system the BGT has is pretty close what the original is coded to be, the difference of behavior comes from different games not having actually identical engines. As the BGII always spawns the randomized creatures when you save the game.

[mxtu]

How about making BGSpawn the default then?

ell, because the mod is made and maintained by different modder than A64...

It was a rhetorical question. (allow me use this opportunity to disagree though, I don't think it would be unfeasible to include it with BGT.)

And you might be surprised but the system the BGT has is pretty close what the original is coded to be

I don't think anyone contested that.

[Ascension64]

How about making BGSpawn the default then?

ell, because the mod is made and maintained by different modder than A64...

It was a rhetorical question. (allow me use this opportunity to disagree though, I don't think it would be unfeasible to include it with BGT.)

I am against including BGSpawn in BGT because it is still a developing mod and it will mean I will have to take part in maintaining it with mm75. mm75 already does a fantastic job maintaining it as a separate mod, and I think it is better that he keep 'ownership' of said mod. BGT was supposedly finalised ages ago and I don't plan on adding anything new.